The Gaming Den

Elennsar wrote:Problem is, if you have good ranged weapons exist, and it is possible to move faster than an opponent, and the terrain permits - you do the math.

Well, what you'd want to do is pretty much make it difficult to use ranged weapons and move back at the same time, which gives opponents time to get behind full cover and negate your ranged attacks. It shouldn't be so easy to turn and run, then turn back around, take aim and fire. That should slow you down a lot and you shouldn't be able to run very fast that way. And firing while on a horse going at full gallop should be difficult as hell. It's hard enough hitting a target with a bow while you're standing still, now imagine you're on a platform that constantly shakes. Your aim should really suffer. I mean, if you've ever played an FPS game, most people realize that it's much harder to fire when you're shooting from a moving helicopter than it is when you're on the ground, and that's usually firing a machine gun, not a bow. At the very least you'll have to get close enough for opponents to hit you with thrown weapons.

For animals or beasts, they really should have the kind of speed that lets them catch up to their target. It just shouldn't be possible to get super speed that lets you outrun them.

And flight should basically be limited similar to firing an arrow off an unstable platform. Until high levels you just shouldn't have flight that's capable of letting you cast spells or fire with any accuracy, unless you invest a lot of resources in it, such that it's very likely only one party member has the ability. Further flight needs to be more clumsy such that if you're following someone in a forest while flying, you've got a good chance of crashing into a tree branch and toppling to the ground.

(GDF random parties)

Randomly available actions does not inherently create an environment for tactics. Resource juggling is about squeezing efficiency out of the system, and doesn't create tactics inherently unless there's a chance an action may become ineffective.

The wizard dies sequence was funny but ultimately needs a rework. The metaphor doesn't work without all the parts. Here's the revision.

The Dragon has been terrorizing The Village and eating maidens and stealing valuables. He's never had an opponent her couldn't roast into a snack, but along comes The Wizard. The Wizard can take on The Dragon, as they're both the same level, they both have 20hp.

The Dragon has three moves
Firebreath baths the area in flames. Deals 7 damage.
Tail Whip shoots bony spines. Deals 4 damage.
Claws are for slicing. Deals 1 damage.

The Wizard also has three moves.
Poisondega creates a spout of toxic goo. Deals 6 damage.
Great Shard flies out of the wizard's staff. Deals 4 damage.
Ice Shield makes barrier in front of The Wizard and makes the area very cold. Deals 2 damage.

Firebreath beats Great Shard it's made of wood, but is countered by Ice Shield cause that turns flames into harmless steam. Firebreath and Poisondega negate each other like a fire house versus a flame thrower.

Tail Whip can punch right thru a flimsy Ice Shield. but is obliterated all together by the acidity of Poisondega. Shards negates Tail Whip by head on collision.

Claws are faster than the casting time of Poisondega, but are repelled by the Great Shard altogether. Claws break the Ice Shield but not before giving the Wizard time to step out of the way.

So, how is this fight gonna play out? The Dragon opens with Firebreath cause it's the biggest attack he has. Knowing this, the Wizard opens with Ice Shield. Now what?

-------

Fighting games (video games) are (usually) designed around a very simple resource management system; Health and Time, and sometimes a little something else to mix things up a bit. And these are very fun almost all the time. The Fun comes not from the resources, but from the interaction between players and the move sets. Good fighting games force the player into making decisions based on what he knows his opponent is going to do cause moves have different effectiveness depending on the opponent's move's, RPS all the way, over and over again, layering and restarting.

I say fvck making resource management fun. Make it retardedly simple and be done with it. You have a health bar and an experience point gauge, ammo is plentiful and the countdown isn't. GO!

It shouldn't be so easy to turn and run, then turn back around, take aim and fire. That should slow you down a lot and you shouldn't be able to run very fast that way. And firing while on a horse going at full gallop should be difficult as hell. It's hard enough hitting a target with a bow while you're standing still, now imagine you're on a platform that constantly shakes.

No kidding. The problem is, people want to be about to do all sorts of ridiculous stunts in cinematic/high fantasy, so I'd be surprised if all the realistic reasons why horse archery (and its equivalants) are tricky at best is not likely to go over well when the realistic difficulty of something doesn't apply anywhere else - at least if it applies in general you can accept that as part of how things work.

ou have a health bar and an experience point gauge, ammo is plentiful and the countdown isn't. GO!

Somehow, "time runs out" seems a bit too arbitrary for a rpg. It might work for fights that are supposed to be with the clock ticking away, but a bar brawl, duel to the death, fight to cross (or impede the crossing of) a bridge or ford...doesn't feel right at all.

I say fvck making resource management fun.

Bad idea.

We're playing a turn based game that is slow as shit. Lightning reflexes can't be the source of enjoyment the way it is n Street Fighter because the game is run extremely slowly in grueling narrative detail.

We aren't playing Mortal Kombat, we aren't even playing Warcraft. We're playing Civilization.

You'd better get used to liking resource management, because that's the whole game. It literally stands in for all of the button mashing excitement of a fighting game in this metaphor.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

I say fvck making resource management fun.

Bad idea.

We're playing a turn based game that is slow as shit. Lightning reflexes can't be the source of enjoyment the way it is n Street Fighter because the game is run extremely slowly in grueling narrative detail.

We aren't playing Mortal Kombat, we aren't even playing Warcraft. We're playing Civilization.

You'd better get used to liking resource management, because that's the whole game. It literally stands in for all of the button mashing excitement of a fighting game in this metaphor.

-Username17

If Civ is fun with resources then so be it, but I lose all faith in a system if I have to juggle different coloured points around while inebriated and tired. MtG is fun, sure, but I'd rather play Kongai than Magic the Gathering to simulate characters vs characters combat.

I'm sure we can have RPS and turn based together. After all, MtG is like that.

Elennsar wrote:No kidding. The problem is, people want to be about to do all sorts of ridiculous stunts in cinematic/high fantasy, so I'd be surprised if all the realistic reasons why horse archery (and its equivalants) are tricky at best is not likely to go over well when the realistic difficulty of something doesn't apply anywhere else - at least if it applies in general you can accept that as part of how things work.

The game isn't a reality simulator; you just need to be able to justify the rules. If there are arbitrary penalties on archery in certain circumstances, as long as you can justify it (the horse's bouncing makes it harder), and it improves the game (by taking out kiting), then it's fine.

the_taken wrote:I say fvck making resource management fun. Make it retardedly simple and be done with it. You have a health bar and an experience point gauge, ammo is plentiful and the countdown isn't. GO!

What do you mean by a countdown? Does the battle only last a limited number of turns, or do you have a limited amount of time to make your decisions for your turn?

If a battle only lasts a limited number of turns, regardless of who's left standing, then encounter powers actually work well (especially if you have more of them than you have turns, but then you're back to resource management with your limitation being actions). Then you need to define what happens after the end.

IGTN wrote:What do you mean by a countdown?

Read: Adventures may be time sensitive.

Where did all this "force 'heroic' behavior via the rules" come from? Why don't we just make the 'good guys' wear white hats and the 'bad guys' wear black ones? We can enforce that by saying that a hat of the wrong color gives you a -10 penalty to rolls; and we don't need to justify why, because the game "isn't a reality simulator".

Look - for some campaigns, running in through the front gate and punching the guard captain in the face is how things go. And for others, sneaking in inside a grain shipment, then slitting throats in the dead of night is the modus operandi. Given that we're talking about resource management systems in general, and haven't nailed things down to a specific game, much less a specific campaign style, forcing one idea of 'heroic' into the rules makes no sense.

If a dragon is making strafing runs with its breath - do something about it! Shoot its wings, take shelter from the air, harpoon it, ready a barrage for when it returns, whatever. But don't just stand there waving your sword and saying "Waaah! It's supposed to come fight me in melee!".

The game isn't a reality simulator; you just need to be able to justify the rules. If there are arbitrary penalties on archery in certain circumstances, as long as you can justify it (the horse's bouncing makes it harder), and it improves the game (by taking out kiting), then it's fine.

The problem is, if you say that the horse bouncing is a problem, you announce that other things where a bouncing horse could be an issue are also possible problems, and things based on the idea that a bouncing horse is enough of a problem to impair even a skilled archer exist - its kind of hard to take it seriously that you have trouble with a bouncing horse but can shoot blindfolded without any difficulty.

Where did all this "force 'heroic' behavior via the rules" come from?

Apparently, the idea that all players who aren't total idiots will play the most efficient possible option.

If a dragon is making strafing runs with its breath - do something about it! Shoot its wings, take shelter from the air, harpoon it, ready a barrage for when it returns, whatever. But don't just stand there waving your sword and saying "Waaah! It's supposed to come fight me in melee!".

Do we want the dragon strafing whenever it has a chance, or do we want to have it to have more times it could strafe if it had the resources than it has resources for?

Same with any other move - if you don't have any move you want to use regularly, that sounds like all moves are kind of equally meh more than anything else. Maybe you avoid using it too regularly because that makes it predictable etc., but that doesn't limit how often you can use it, just how often it is effective.

Ice9 wrote:Where did all this "force 'heroic' behavior via the rules" come from?

Simple, if you want to write a heroic fantasy game the rules need to force people into acting like a heroic protagonist. If not then they won't do it. Its like Shadowrun forcing stealthy play, its in genre and needs to happen if you want a cyberpunk game.

---

The Dragon is a shit example for yet another reason. The fly off and strafe tactic should be less easy than it is. Retreat/chase mechanics are needed yet again.

Ice9 wrote:If a dragon is making strafing runs with its breath - do something about it! Shoot its wings, take shelter from the air, harpoon it, ready a barrage for when it returns, whatever. But don't just stand there waving your sword and saying "Waaah! It's supposed to come fight me in melee!".

And that's why you need rules to encourage heroic behavior like shooting its wings out or using a harpoon.

Resorting to tea party to get a scene to work is not the game, it's another game called 'tea party'.

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:

Ice9 wrote:If a dragon is making strafing runs with its breath - do something about it! Shoot its wings, take shelter from the air, harpoon it, ready a barrage for when it returns, whatever. But don't just stand there waving your sword and saying "Waaah! It's supposed to come fight me in melee!".

And that's why you need rules to encourage heroic behavior like shooting its wings out or using a harpoon.

Resorting to tea party to get a scene to work is not the game, it's another game called 'tea party'.

-Crissa

Then why don't we focus on making rules to govern the shooting of wings and the harpooning of things?

It is a role-playing game. Part role-playing (tea party), part game. The instant you start to micro-manage the game and have everyone scrambling to their books to look up what penalty or niggling bonus they get it detracts from the excitement of the situation.

The DM is there to moderate the tea party because it is just not possible to have a rule for every situation or tactic that comes up. Sometimes a player comes up with a great idea that is dramatic and fits the situation. I see no problem with hand-waving a creative idea if it fits what is going on and makes for a great moment in the "role-playing game".

If you expect a situation to come up, then you should have a rule for it. If you expect people to try to pull a flying enemy to the ground, you need to make a rule for it. Otherwise you don't have a complete game (exception for deliberately rules-light systems, but that's not what we're talking about here)

I just don't see how you can plan for every situation and not become bogged down with the players or DM sticking their noses in the books to look up what is suppose to happen. Every time someone has to look something up = not fun. It delays the story, it delays the battle, it delays the enjoyment of the role-playing game.

This is like the swinging from chandeliers thing. Everyone wants to do it in games, and yet few people make rules for it. You have special rules for taking special combat actions or targeted attacks against monsters like Hydras and Beholders. Why can't you expand those things into general rules and let players use them against Liches and Oozes when appropriate? Why does a monster need to have 10 eyes or 10 heads before I can target a body part individually? If it becomes common enough, people will learn the rules in the same way that they know how to use their feats and spells.

Addressing the flight thing specifically, I would think that any damage inflicted on a flying creature would have some chance of grounding them. Damage inflicted specifically to the wings by targeted attacks (assuming they have them and are necessary for flight, which should be called out in the creature's description) should have a greater chance of grounding the creature. You should probably include rules for use of nets, including large fantastical ones fired from catapults, and harpoons and projectiles with anchoring ropes. You also need to think about how a creature could free itself from these restraints or injuries and resume flight.

Planning for everything that might come up is impossible. Coming up with a list of everything you can reasonably expect to come up, and having a rule for that, is not. If PCs are expected to try to harpoon dragons, then there should be rules for that; making rules up should be saved for when something unexpected (by the designers) happens.

Saying "sure, this is likely to happen, but we'll just magical tea party it if it does" is bad game design if you're going for anything other than a very rules-light system. If you expect the PCs to use harpoons against strafing dragons, that needs rules. If you expect them to use some other tactic and not even have harpoons, then it doesn't.

You cannot, however, do a game of creative PC problem-solving (i.e., how do we get that strafing dragon to stop and fight us) if it's entirely up to convincing the DM that your solution works; that's a game of arguing, not problem-solving.

IGTN wrote:Planning for everything that might come up is impossible. Coming up with a list of everything you can reasonably expect to come up, and having a rule for that, is not. If PCs are expected to try to harpoon dragons, then there should be rules for that; making rules up should be saved for when something unexpected (by the designers) happens.

Saying "sure, this is likely to happen, but we'll just magical tea party it if it does" is bad game design if you're going for anything other than a very rules-light system. If you expect the PCs to use harpoons against strafing dragons, that needs rules. If you expect them to use some other tactic and not even have harpoons, then it doesn't.

You cannot, however, do a game of creative PC problem-solving (i.e., how do we get that strafing dragon to stop and fight us) if it's entirely up to convincing the DM that your solution works; that's a game of arguing, not problem-solving.

IGTN, I agree with this. But what problems do we begin to run into?

If a PC hits the dragon with the harpoon, the pc could hang onto the rope attached to the harpoon. This is something that can reasonably expected to come up.

Now the dragon is much larger and it is flying so the PC is lifted into the air. Do we have a rule for how much of the dragons movement is affected by this? It'll depend on how heavy the PC is. How long can the PC reasonablly hold onto the rope? What happens when the PC is dragged by the dragon into the grove of trees or slammed into the building?

What if there are multiple harpoons trying to get the dragon down? How many harpoons does it take? How many men?

Shoot the wings of the dragon? How many holes or damage to the wings does it take to successfully make the wing unusable? Wait, this is a young dragon so it probably takes less damage to wings to get it down.

The fact is there is always going to be some part of the game that is not covered in the rules. I see the unexpected happen all the time. The DM does his best to maintain the story, maintain the excitement and yet have some fun with the random dice rolls so everyone has to be thinking on their feet.

And yet, bringing down a flying enemy has got to not be one of those things you have to handwave if you're going to require the players to bring down a flying dragon in order to move the story forward.

If the expected direction of the story isn't covered by the rules, what good are the rules? The fact that we are ultimately going to hve to extemporize against the reality of the unexpected does not absolve the game from handling the basics.

-Username17

That's fine. But what are the basics?

Is it just the amount of damage taken by the flying creature or do we have to make up rules the take into account all possible reasonable outcomes?

Anyway this seems to be getting away from the original thread issue.

Put me on the list of liking the idea behind WoF. I'd be interested in seeing how it works in game.

Now the dragon is much larger and it is flying so the PC is lifted into the air. Do we have a rule for how much of the dragons movement is affected by this? It'll depend on how heavy the PC is. How long can the PC reasonablly hold onto the rope? What happens when the PC is dragged by the dragon into the grove of trees or slammed into the building?

What if there are multiple harpoons trying to get the dragon down? How many harpoons does it take? How many men?

Shoot the wings of the dragon? How many holes or damage to the wings does it take to successfully make the wing unusable? Wait, this is a young dragon so it probably takes less damage to wings to get it down.

You don't need a detailed simulation of how much weight the dragon can carry, or anything like that. In fact, making personal weight relevant to player characters is dumb, for epic storytelling. Going more complicated than you need to is bad design.

Some simple rules for this might look like:
The harpoon is a ranged weapon that does damage. If it hits, it lets you call the wrestling rules via the rope. Maybe bad harpoons have a chance of the rope breaking if you try to use them when one side is too big for them (and magic ones don't), maybe the thrower is assumed to be magic, and the rope only breaks if it's thrown at something far too big. Regardless, if the dragon is at all level-appropriate, the harpoon rope is probably expected not to break arbitrarily.

When you're wrestling the dragon, you can stop its movement, which forces it to land. Or it wins, and it either escapes (either by pulling the rope out of your hands or breaking it) or pulls you up. Or you can climb the rope if you win.

Only the rules for pulling closer (the dragon picks you up, or you climb the rope) and breaking the rope are different from what you should expect from normal rules for grappling (and what 3e already does, albeit badly). This isn't a tacked-on system that makes people look stuff up (as long as grappling isn't), and this isn't magical tea party either, and it covers what most players will expect can happen when they try to stop a dragon with a harpoon.

Shooting arrows into the wings can be handled the same way as putting arrows into everything else: they have an armor class, hit points, and maybe damage reduction. Once they run out of hit points, they can't be used to fly.

If, as a designer, you expect PCs to use harpoons, you need to have rules for them ready. If, as a designer, you expect PCs to shoot the dragon's wings, you need called shot rules that cover it.

Why should characters even have supermoves anyway?

I don't think any character should have generically super moves at all. The idea of a dragon's breath being so awesome that he uses it no matter what the tactical situation is needs to go--THAT'S what leads to dragon strafing runs, not the fact that he can use it whenever he feels like. If his breath weapon was just as good as his claws or his 'tail constrict' or 'evil dragon staredown' move then he wouldn't go on strafing runs.

The idea of a closet troll with only one attack needs to go. I don't like the idea of delayed blast fireball always being better than regular fireball.

Combat should be like a fight between Batman and Green Arrow; they pull out various funky gadgets and manuevers while trying to angle for an edge. The best move is based on situation, not power of the move. Green Arrow doesn't always go for the armor-piercing arrow, sometimes he goes for the boxing glove arrow.

Goku is a boring character to watch fight not because he isn't flashy or competent, but because we know that everything in his arsenal is just filler until he goes for the Kamehameha or Spirit Bomb. Kenshiro is not a boring character to watch fight (outside of filler) because he doesn't have any moves in his arsenal that are just flat out better than the other moves.

Lago wrote:Combat should be like a fight between Batman and Green Arrow; they pull out various funky gadgets and manuevers while trying to angle for an edge. The best move is based on situation, not power of the move. Green Arrow doesn't always go for the armor-piercing arrow, sometimes he goes for the boxing glove arrow.

And honestly, the best way to simulate Green Arrow is to give him a random selection of arrows to choose from each round. Otherwise yes, he'll go for the armor piercing arrow every time.

Characters in comics and movies use a progression of moves because it looks cool. Characters in RPGs will only use a progression of moves if there is a reason why they have to or benefit from doing so. Frankly, Green Arrow would probably be best off with a hard WoF scenario and a wildly discordant list:

1. Boxing Glove Arrow, Flash Arrow, Rope Tied to Arrow, Radio Transmitter Arrow
2. Regular Arrow Arrow, Explosive Arrow, Glitter Arrow, Magnetic Arrow
3. Sneezing Powder Arrow, Double Arrow, Armor Piercing Arrow, Shrieking Arrow
4. Returning Arrow, Oil Slick Arrow, Rocket Arrow, Micro Arrows
5. Caltrop Arrow, Heat Seeking Arrow, Net Arrow, Thermite Arrow
6. Fire Extinguisher Arrow, EMP Arrow, Anti-Magic Arrow, Poison Arrow

Then you'd roll a d6 every round and use an arrow off your weird list for that turn. To aid in player planning, you could have them roll for next turn at the beginning of this turn so that they could figure out what arrow they would use by the beginning of next round.

And then any tactical situation no matter how simple would always see at least 6 different potential arrows in an as-yet undecided order. That is how you model Green Arrow's pretentious bullshit in an actual gaming system.

That or you just free form it like Toon and have it completely not matter at all what kind of arrow he is using on a round by round basis and just ask the player to come up with as surreal shit as he can. Cream Pie Arrow? Sure. I hope that's a pastry to the face and not inserted vaginally...

-Username17

Then you'd roll a d6 every round and use an arrow off your weird list for that turn. To aid in player planning, you could have them roll for next turn at the beginning of this turn so that they could figure out what arrow they would use by the beginning of next round.

And then any tactical situation no matter how simple would always see at least 6 different potential arrows in an as-yet undecided order. That is how you model Green Arrow's pretentious bullshit in an actual gaming system.

That or you just free form it like Toon and have it completely not matter at all what kind of arrow he is using on a round by round basis and just ask the player to come up with as surreal shit as he can. Cream Pie Arrow? Sure. I hope that's a pastry to the face and not inserted vaginally...

What would happen if we used that system in conjunction with a tiny list of boring-put-practical arrows that Green Arrow always has access to, like regular arrows and arrows on a rope?

The trick would be to make his 'always on' arrows always completely inferior to the arrows get gets from WoF. That way, it doesn't break the simulation for Green Arrow to be unable to grapple from building or shoot a gun out of some small-time crook's hand. He's not allowed to specialize in those sets arrows or wring some advantage out of them, they're just there to provide a baseline to his abilities.

It's sort of like the melee basic attack for martial characters. There's no reason why the warlord can't just belt someone in the face ven though he's never going to.

Lago wrote:What would happen if we used that system in conjunction with a tiny list of boring-put-practical arrows that Green Arrow always has access to, like regular arrows and arrows on a rope?

It would be a lot like duplicating "Arrow on a Rope" across every number. You might actually want to make it a little less transparent, where you had a few slots on the chart that were always there and had a broadly defined function but were nonetheless different. So there would be a series of climbing aids and some could be suction cups, while others were grappling hooks and still others were magnets. That sort of thing.

Having actually identical arrows appear on every chart entry seems lazy. Like you couldn't be bothered to think of more than one thing that fulfills a role.

-Username17