Uping the drama in combat

[Ry74]

up till halo came out video games were the realm of children and geeks, and only recently gained mainstream popularity.

And it did that by being a well-crafted, easy to learn game that could be handily picked up and played by a much larger crowd than a number of its predecessors. The prime, default mode of play in tabletop RPGs is "Super Hardcore Ironman Mode." One only needs to take a look between EVE and WoW to see how that can affect the breadth of a player base.

[Morgenstern]

Frankly, though, I see this whole "video game rpgs are doing better then tabletop, so we must copy them" logic all the time. It sounds good, it makes sense that streaming things down, emulating the acessibility and whatnot would make tabletop rpgs more popular and attract new players.

Problem is, it's utterly wrong.

No matter what you do, you will never design a tabletop game, let alone a tabletop rpg that will pull new gamers who you weren't going get anyway.

Thing is I don't care if it attracts new folks. Those folks are having fun. The table top folks like having fun. Is that fun transferable? I think the answer can be 'yes' .

'Learn from' does not equal 'slavishly emulate'. FC's foods = buffs systems is very much a lift from MMO models. I don't see it as a capitulation to MMOZRUL. Its just a good idea worth absorbing.

Same as I tend to think the fight game genre has things to teach about drama in combat.

[Desertpuma]

Here's an idea ... if the PC hits 0 Vitality, they get an AD that can only be used for damage on their next attack. Sort of the Cornered Animal mentality.

I refer to console and computers more about Hand-Eye Gaming that Real Gaming.

[Sletchman]

Bit of cross-threat quoting here, to avoid cluttering up his 4E Conversion thread.

My group discussed this at length last weekend after my Fallout session, and I thought it might be worth reopening this idea a little bit.

It encourages players to stick it out longer that is rationally safe, which I think has some potential for promoting heroic play.

This is the big one for my group - while none of us likes the idea of contractual immortality making the players do stupid stuff, or acting suicidally because they know they'll survive, we do want certain games to be all about playing as Big Damn Heroes.  There's plenty of awesome imagery linked with the sort of scenes this style of play can inspire - the Heroes, massively outnumbered, holding back a raid while the villages escape.  The issue is just finding that balance between being a hero, and acting like a moron because you've got a build in survival clause.

...the only sticking point we had was rules for the heroic last stand (and what happens if you live through a glorious death...).

The intent with the heroic last stand was you might survive it, but you shouldn't expect to survive it. We can pick this up over in that thread if you have specific concerns .

The thing I mentioned to them was something along the lines of "Both you and the GM get an action die a round, you have to make an epic last stand, and they have to kill you."  One of them (who for the last 3 games running has made epic last stands anyway) asked "What happens if you live through it?"  That was where I became unstuck - I have no ideas for what can happen if you live through it.  My gut reaction was something like "Hand that man 1 Heroic Renown, free of charge", but I'm not sure if that's either too big, or not big enough (which could be a sign it's just right).

The other thing is, is an AD/round the right thing for a last stand?  You would without doubt take down a lot of enemies - but it could also guarantee your survival (a straight Soldier could use that to become almost unkillable, as could a Chance-Whore with defence boosting).  In my mind whenever someone activates it that scene should be memorable - no matter how it shakes out.  So whatever mechanics apply to it should support a memorable heroic scene, where death is a likely (but not guaranteed) outcome.  A fine line, indeed, but something that really appeals to the type of fantasy gaming I like.

[Desertpuma]

Make sure it is a dramatic scene too

[Morgenstern]

The pertinent rule ended up in the other thread, btu I'll copy it over for convienience.

If Big Damn Heroes (contractual immortality) is in effect then all player characters gain the following ability.

You Bet Your Life: Once per adventure, immediately gain 2 levels (including all bonuses, skill points, vitality points and class abilities) from the class of your choice for until the end of the scene, respecting requirements but ignoring the 20 Career Level limit. Oh, you can die a real and final death until then too and the GMs must activate all critical hits against you at no cost. Have fun storming the castle! If you survive, your reputation reward for this adventure is halved (round up).


Now, this does actually specify what happens if you live - you PAY a chunk of rep. Not earn. Pay. You invoked a pretty HUGE benefit (stole a 20th level Captain's final power, only better) and got to look like a total bad(pause)ass for reasons of your own choosing, and you pulled it off. Whatever plot objective you chose to secure in this fashion already has awards associated with it.

[Morgenstern]

This is the big one for my group - while none of us likes the idea of contractual immortality making the players do stupid stuff, or acting suicidally because they know they'll survive, we do want certain games to be all about playing as Big Damn Heroes.

One of the slightly nuanced things that'll have to be spelled out in excruciating detail, twice, is that players can always kill themselves. That's the core premise of You Bet Your Life, and it extends to other less thrilling aspects of play. The most obvious example is your basic unsafe span over ye old crack of doom. The contract says "I, the GM, will not sweep you off to your certain death, though you might spend the ENTIRE remainder of the fight hanging from the side if you do go over rather than plummeting as you so richly deserve (i.e. you've been defeated). However, if you choose to jump... you die. You are NOT immune to suicide." Self-inflicted encounters with scenery basically has to remain lethally dangerous or the plausibility of the world implodes.

I would class charging 1,000 orcs as willful suicide, resulting in death. I would class being ambushed by 1,000 orcs with no alternative but to fight as heroic (though odds are good you'll all be defeated... resulting in a cool jail break later )

[Sletchman]

I like the idea of You Bet Your Life, but I'm really not keen on the mechanics behind it.  Gaining 2 levels in a class is amazing (and a suitable benefit - higher level spells, more abilities, better everything) - but the problem is that the game will stop for 10 minutes (minimum) while the player who invokes it does all the changes to their sheet.  Yeah I know the Captain has it, but in my experience the Captain chucks it at someone who gets big gains for the party (a caster in my experience) and then leaves it there - no big breaks in play.

I don't have a better idea (and I know its easy to criticise when you don't have something constructive) - but I'm going to a MC Warhammer session tonight, so I'll discuss it with the group before we start (during chow), and maybe a bit more tomorrow at my GURPS game.

Oh, and I agree totally about suicide being permadeath - leap off an airship because "its quicker then landing and we're immortal" and you get to go splat.  Simple as that.

[The_Grand_User]

I've been reading a blog on the design of roguelikes and came across this article and thought it might be an interesting idea for another path to a character being Defeated.

The idea being of piling on so many conditions that the character can't do anything, while being balanced by it taking about as long as just hacking at them with a sword. in a sense, Fatigue and Shaken already do this, but could it be extended to other kinds of conditions? Say split your typical Hold Person spll into a few different ones with specialised effects, and if you can pile them all on then you've Defeated your opponent.

[paddyfool]

I like the idea of You Bet Your Life, but I'm really not keen on the mechanics behind it.  Gaining 2 levels in a class is amazing (and a suitable benefit - higher level spells, more abilities, better everything) - but the problem is that the game will stop for 10 minutes (minimum) while the player who invokes it does all the changes to their sheet.  Yeah I know the Captain has it, but in my experience the Captain chucks it at someone who gets big gains for the party (a caster in my experience) and then leaves it there - no big breaks in play.

A faster bonus to calculate might be:

"You gain class abilities, BAB, vitality, caster level and spell points as if you had just taken 2 levels in a class of your choice,  +2 ranks in a skill of your choice (ignoring the cap), your starting action dice increase by one size and you gain 2 extra starting action dice."

I deliberately ignored attribute bonuses, saves and defense as necessitating further fiddly calculation (plus, being a bit fragile fits with a death-or-glory moment), cut down any boost to skills to one of the player's choice, and gave a rather larger boost to action dice instead.  Fair, do you think?

[Sletchman]

"You gain class abilities, BAB, vitality, caster level and spell points as if you had just taken 2 levels in a class of your choice,  +2 ranks in a skill of your choice (ignoring the cap), your starting action dice increase by one size and you gain 2 extra starting action dice."

I deliberately ignored attribute bonuses, saves and defense as necessitating further fiddly calculation (plus, being a bit fragile fits with a death-or-glory moment), cut down any boost to skills to one of the player's choice, and gave a rather larger boost to action dice instead.  Fair, do you think?

Seems both quite fair, and much faster (which I approve of).  Perhaps an slightly faster/easier step would be: You gain +2 to attack, defence, caster level and a skill of your choice.  Thoughts?

I'll float the idea past my group tomorrow night - we all hit a wall on the last stand, everything we could come up with was either too complex (15 minutes downtime just to have 5 minutes of dramatic last stand) or too good / not good enough (definite survival / effectively no bonuses) - this might straddle the line of both quick enough and just right power level.

[Morgenstern]

+2 to skills falls far short of the idea of taking two levels of keeper and loading up on some comparitively new skill you desperately need. Addng BAB for two levels is great IF you were taking Soldier, but for some classes skill points are the point, and I'd like this option to have meaning outside of blunt force trauma .

Are people really that adverse to complexity to have some flexibility  ? I thought players LIKED leveling up .

Since Big Damn Heroes is a campaign-level decision, maybe you build 1-2 You Bet Your Life variants as part of leveling up. Then when (and if) you pull the trigger, you just swap to one of those prebuilt monsters. That still leaves you woefully unprepared to react to a skill-based crisis rather than a combat scenario, but its faster...

[Sletchman]

+2 to skills falls far short of the idea of taking two levels of keeper and loading up on some comparitively new skill you desperately need. Addng BAB for two levels is great IF you were taking Soldier, but for some classes skill points are the point, and I'd like this option to have meaning outside of blunt force trauma .

That's a good point - but how many times will gambling your life rest on a PHD in a keeper skill?

Are people really that adverse to complexity to have some flexibility  ? I thought players LIKED leveling up .

Actually, yeah.  Both myself and my group like leveling up - but only outside the session.  Some of the group are so slow (weighing descisions, benefits of each choice and what chocie best supports the concept) that 1 level takes 15 minutes, giving them 2 means you're gonna lose at least a half hour of play time, which is not a small amount of time - especially considering that only one person at the table will likely have the spotlight.  It's the same reason why Virtues of Command generally sits on one character forever in the games I've played in (with more then oen group).


EDIT: Note: I'm not totally against your idea, and the "have a preset path ready" thing might solve the time management problem totally.  Our session tomorrow has been shut down due to a birthday party, so we're probably just gonna play some board games - I'm gonna throw this entire thread at them (since for some crazy reason they don't frequent the boards).

[Mister Andersen]

Are people really that adverse to complexity to have some flexibility  ? I thought players LIKED leveling up .

It's not levelling, it's having leveled

Since Big Damn Heroes is a campaign-level decision, maybe you build 1-2 You Bet Your Life variants as part of leveling up. Then when (and if) you pull the trigger, you just swap to one of those prebuilt monsters. That still leaves you woefully unprepared to react to a skill-based crisis rather than a combat scenario, but its faster...

Ugh. That would be, really, really tedious.

[Morgenstern]

That's a good point - but how many times will gambling your life rest on a PHD in a keeper skill?

I'll be honest and say I feel that whatever that number is, it's directly proportional to the excellence of the GM running that campaign .

Actually, yeah.  Both myself and my group like leveling up - but only outside the session. Some of the group are so slow (weighing descisions, benefits of each choice and what chocie best supports the concept) that 1 level takes 15 minutes, giving them 2 means you're gonna lose at least a half hour of play time, which is not a small amount of time - especially considering that only one person at the table will likely have the spotlight.  It's the same reason why Virtues of Command generally sits on one character forever in the games I've played in (with more then oen group).

Gah. Its a friken test drive! You're gonna have those levels like 20 minutes real time. I know this sort of sit there and stare at it shit happens, but I just am tired of coddling it. I can write "you have 60 seconds to choose the class" into the rules if I have to, but I wish I didn't have too .