TheRPGSite

One of the things that always seems like a good idea in principle but is usually a terrible idea in practice, is Action Points. These are rather than each character having X movement and Y attacks, they just have Z Action Points, and moving a step is 1 AP, drawing a weapon is 2AP, climbing a ladder is 1AP per rung, and so on.

In general it works well in computer games because they can handle all the book-keeping, and computers don't complain if the player sits there indecisively for half an hour while figuring out what to do; gamers are a bit different. So it's difficult to make it work well in a game session.

Liking a challenge, and further along the road of giving players choices, I thought I'd try to make it work. Here's a sketch,

Action Point Split
Each combatant has in each turn Action Points equal to their Attribute + Skill + Speed [same range as in the last post, Attributes 2-12, Skills 0-12, Speed is the average of three Attributes and thus also 2-12, giving an AP total of 4-36, average for decent combatants about 20]. They divide these as they wish between,

• Initiative – whoever has the highest Initiative goes first. A character may wait out their Initiative and act later if they choose.
• Movement – AP set aside for movement may be used at any time during the turn, or reserved for other times.
• 1 AP to draw a one-handed weapon, 2AP to draw a two-handed weapon.
• 1 AP gives 1 step forward
• 2 AP gives 1 step back, which also gives +1 to Defence.
• 1 AP gives 1 change of facing along the six-sided hex.
• 1 AP gives a change of posture, from standing to crouching/kneeling, from crouching/kneeling to prone, or vice versa.
• Attack – whatever AP set aside for this, that's your Attack skill in that round. This may be divided into multiple attacks.
• Defence – whatever AP set aside for this, that's your Defence skill in that round. This may be divided into multiple defences.
• AP unspent at the end of the turn are lost.

Thoughts? Too complicated, or what?

Kyle - I break my vow of silence for this topic. Kudos.

Two things to look at:

First, the Marvel Universe RPG. The Energy Pool in that game is similar to your AP idea.

Here is an example of play I cooked up for that game. (http://cobweb.scarymonsters.net/~corleyj/gaming/tenebrous/hrules/example.html)  

You have a pool of points, they go into Actions, actions resolve, the pool regenerates.  Various modifiers give you free points, more or less regeneration, increases or decreases the cost of various actions, and so on.

Second, what I draw from this when I'm playing, say, Fallout, is that there should be some visual representation of what is happening.

Say every player has on the table in front of them an "action counter" strip of paper like the one used for initiative in Feng Shui, it goes from 1-10.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

My character has 7 AP per round, so I tear or cut off the end of the strip of paper and now it looks like:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Say firing a pistol takes 4 AP. What I have is a strip of paper that says "Fire Pistol" and maybe has my pistol stats and skill on it and such. I lay it down on the counter like so:

( FIRE ) 5 6 7

Then I have a "Move" action strip of paper that costs 2 AP and maybe tells me the rules for moving and such.

( FIRE ) ( MOVE) 7

Or if I wanted to move late, for whatever reason (Billy Bob won't have the door open until then or whatnot), I could push either or both further around.

( FIRE ) 5 ( MOVE)

Everyone lays down their strips before a round begins, you just adjudicate around the table in some order and there you go.

The physical nature of this is important because it does a ton of the work that you correctly state is done by computers in a lot of AP systems.

I didn't know anyone here had a vow of silence, seems sort-of against the whole point of a discussion board ;) In any case, I'm glad you're talking now!

I like your examples. My idea was perhaps to have poker chips or similar. I thought that it might make it feel too "gamey", though. My idea was to put into numbers what players already often describe and imagine in combats, that they have a character who holds back or charges in, who attacks all-out and or defends all-out or whatever.

I'm also coming from GURPS, where there aren't action points, but there are certain actions you can take, and some allow others in combination and some don't. They even have a pdf of "combat cards" which you can print out and use. In play, I've found that while this makes all the combat options clearer for those who don't read or can't remember all the rules, it also makes it feel a bit like a session of some CCG. "I play my Move and Attack", etc.

So I'm thinking that though poker chips or whatever will make things nice and clear for players, they might make it a bit too abstract, too. I want to have options which bring combat alive for players, make them feel like they're there, like their choices matter - rather than options which distance them from things by making it really abstract.

It's just that I was watching King Arthur last night, and thought, "wow, rpg combat is almost never that exciting." And I was thinking that when it'd gone on for ten minutes or so and I was a bit bored with it!

Whoa, I've never had the CCG feeling with the GURPS combat cards. That's like some crazy weird feeling to run away from in designing a system.

Feeling like it was a CCG would only happen if there were two hundred glossy cards to choose from, which I only got a small sampling of during any session, and if I had never made it with a woman.

Well, I'm speaking relatively. It felt relatively more like a CCG than it did without the combat cards. It made things more abstract, we had less player and GM description and imagination going on.

Ohh, I get it.

Maybe in the instructions for the action printed on the strip, it tells you when to describe the action?

It's actually not too different from the air combat in Aces In Spades. The big difference is ther's another pool of points you can access coming from your height. Diving adds points from this altitude pool to your main pool, maneuvers bleed off points from the main pool, and climbing adds points from your main pool to your altitude pool and ends your turn, which otherwise ends when you run out of points.

-clash

Quote from: Kyle AaronLiking a challenge, and further along the road of giving players choices, I thought I'd try to make it work. Here's a sketch,

Action Point Split
Each combatant has in each turn Action Points equal to their Attribute + Skill + Speed [same range as in the last post, Attributes 2-12, Skills 0-12, Speed is the average of three Attributes and thus also 2-12, giving an AP total of 4-36, average for decent combatants about 20]. They divide these as they wish between,

• Initiative – whoever has the highest Initiative goes first. A character may wait out their Initiative and act later if they choose.
• Movement – AP set aside for movement may be used at any time during the turn, or reserved for other times.
• 1 AP to draw a one-handed weapon, 2AP to draw a two-handed weapon.
• 1 AP gives 1 step forward
• 2 AP gives 1 step back, which also gives +1 to Defence.
• 1 AP gives 1 change of facing along the six-sided hex.
• 1 AP gives a change of posture, from standing to crouching/kneeling, from crouching/kneeling to prone, or vice versa.
• Attack – whatever AP set aside for this, that's your Attack skill in that round. This may be divided into multiple attacks.
• Defence – whatever AP set aside for this, that's your Defence skill in that round. This may be divided into multiple defences.
• AP unspent at the end of the turn are lost.

Thoughts? Too complicated, or what?

In theory, I like it, but my take on initiative/action systems is that they are rarely worth the time and effort put into creating/adjudicating them. Still, AP systems are fun to consider. Let's look at some of the issues first.

In this case, it would seem that the system is predicated on having every combatant set aside action points for the various categories (init, move, attack, defense) at the beginning of the combat turn (since init is included in the AP split). This is almost always a problem in that it adds some serious bookkeeping overhead to the GM. A three on three fight wouldn't be an issue, but just this week, I ran 13 on 7. I could not imagine working 13 piles of APs/chips in an efficient fashion.

Of course, a GM could easily give all of his NPCs the same split, which limits the hassle, but also takes away a little of the coolness in the system and leads to a little bit of strangeness like, "Wow! All of the goblins are easy to hit this round!"

Another possible issue is that a system like this is that because movement, attack and defense skill are coupled, the system promotes standing still and hacking away when you can. This exists to some degree in many systems (HERO gives a -1 to hit when you move, D&D takes away the full attack option) and might be desireable, but it promotes a more static, stand and swing style combat.

Along similar lines, because skill/speed are coupled, your fastest runners will always be your best combatants and vice versa. You could avoid this with some limit to each pool based on other stats/skill scores.

Another possible problem is the fact that a character might find himself bereft of move points when he needs them. For instance, I am engaged with an enemy and put all my points into attack/defense, and then get attacked first and knocked down. This could either be a bug or feature depending on your point of view.

There are a couple nice points to what you have laid out here. One is the fact that as AP systems go, this is pretty streamlined, but complete. I could easily see adding other actions like drinking a potion, or using a scroll, etc. This completely describes what you can do in a single turn with a single mechanic and without the action, partial action, half action, move action... of other games.

I like the fact that you do not try to simulate simultaneous movement by tying the order of events to ticking off APs as characters act. Though a neat goal, it is also a nightmare of record keeping.

I also think that spending APs for your attack and defense skill will keep the number of APs in movement down, and thus keep turns from lasting forever as people count and recount APs.

Anyways, thanks for the post,

Those are some interesting points, cmagoun.

I can certainly understanding the book-keeping issue with multiple combatants. In general that's not something I think of much because from years of GURPS I've learned to avoid having big fights ;) In a game group of 3-4 players as I usually have, usually only 2 of them are dedicated warriors of whatever kind, and in most cases they choose when and where to fight, they don't get ambushed and forced to fight. So that keeps the numbers down. But that's definitely a general issue which would apply to other GMs, so it's very relevant in game design!

That's interesting that you say the system promotes standing still. I'd actually imagined it'd promote stepping in or jumping up, swinging or firing, then stepping away out of reach or ducking down. That's because it's something players I've known have always wanted, saying, "howcome we can move 5 paces and then attack, or attack then move 5 paces, but we can't move 2 paces, attack then move 3 paces back?" They've always wanted to be able to strike then move out of range of being struck back ;) So that's something we'd just have to see how it comes out in playtest. Who knows.

I don't think it's a problem that fastest runners will be the best combatants and vice versa. The first thing is that the Speed stat will be an average of Agility/Fitness/Strength, so it'll tend to the average for all stats - with the random stat rolls I was thinking of being 2d6, that'll give us an average of 7. So Speed 7 + Agility 7 + Sword 7, you see that on average Speed will contribute a third of the total. It'll be difficult to get high Speed since you'll need all three stats high for it, but even if you had Speed 12, Agility 12 (as Agility would have to be) + Sword 7, the "fastest runner" part will still be less than half the total overall.

A highly-skilled or agile (or strong or fit) character will have a lot of Move in combat, or a lot of initiative, it's true. But I don't think that's a problem. In the first place, highly-skilled characters, it's more likely (when combined with the Risk Dice in the other thread) they'll want to set aside a lot for Attack/Defence, so they can score a lot of damage. Secondly, If someone highly-skilled or able wants to use their superior skill to literally run rings around lesser-skilled foes, I don't have a problem with that. One way superior fighting skill is depicted in film and books is that the character gets to act more often than their hapless foes, to jab them from the front, run around to behind and jab them in the back, too.

Oh yes, I didn't want to go for simultaneous turns. No way! You spent the points on Initiative? You go first! You didn't spend them? Then wait! :D

Quote from: Kyle AaronThat's interesting that you say the system promotes standing still. I'd actually imagined it'd promote stepping in or jumping up, swinging or firing, then stepping away out of reach or ducking down. That's because it's something players I've known have always wanted, saying, "howcome we can move 5 paces and then attack, or attack then move 5 paces, but we can't move 2 paces, attack then move 3 paces back?" They've always wanted to be able to strike then move out of range of being struck back ;) So that's something we'd just have to see how it comes out in playtest. Who knows.

Hmm... that is a very good point and something I hadn't thought of. I was stuck in the mindset of "sticky engagements". Being able to step out of combat at will is an interesting proposition that would cut the chance of a static situation developing.

What I do think you end up with is a guessing game of "how many movement points will I need?" If stepping in and out of combat becomes the move of choice (and if for one AP, I can possibly avoid attack entirely, why not), then everyone will have to counter that move. You might end up with opponents chasing each other across the battlefield. Interesting... you will have to playtest it.

One possibility I can see is that in small enough engagements, applying points to attack/defense becomes less useful than applying them to movement/initiative. Let's say I am facing off about 3 paces away from an opponent and we both have 20AP. I could try a standard allocation like 4I, 4M, 6A, 6D. Or, I could go 8I, 8M, 4A, 0D because if I can always guarantee to have a higher initiative and more movement than my opponent, I can never be attacked. Now, I am hosed if another opponent comes and cleans my clock while I am being clever with my 0 defense, but in a small engagement, there is bound to be a place to run in most fights.

Another issue could be the fact that it is too easy to run away in such a system. If I can't pin anyone down, and someone who has a mind to flee can pour all of his AP into movement (and initiative for the first couple fleeing rounds), he likely gets away.

One more thing is that if the concept of attack then move becomes a standard tactic, and people start focusing on minimizing the amount of attacks that come against them, it might lead to longer combats as opponents spend more of their AP on movement and more turns chasing each other across the battlefield.

I am not necessarily saying these are bad points, but I do wonder how it would play out in practice.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron\Each combatant has in each turn Action Points equal to their Attribute + Skill + Speed [same range as in the last post, Attributes 2-12, Skills 0-12, Speed is the average of three Attributes and thus also 2-12, giving an AP total of 4-36, average for decent combatants about 20]. They divide these as they wish between,

• [...]
• Attack – whatever AP set aside for this, that's your Attack skill in that round. This may be divided into multiple attacks.
• Defence – whatever AP set aside for this, that's your Defence skill in that round. This may be divided into multiple defences.
• AP unspent at the end of the turn are lost.

Thoughts? Too complicated, or what?

A few potential problems here.  

First is that if a player has 4-36 action points, that's a huge range of values and someone could probably produce some undesirable effects by dumping, say, all 20 (or even 36) points into their Defense every round so they can't possibly be hit or all 20 (or even 36) points into their Attack with a range weapon so they can't possibly miss.  You'll probably need some sort of limit on those values.  Always consider what would happen to the system of someone put the maximum points into X because, inevitably, some player will.

Second, if players lose unspent AP at the end of the round, that can force them to use them.  That may make sense in this system, since the player can just dump them into Attack or Defense by default (and perhaps you should just make Defense the default, instead of losing them), but you should make sure that your mechanics don't force players to do things or add things just to use up points rather than losing them.

Third, if Action Points are going to be very important in the game, you need to be very careful about making it a derived attribute and giving players different values.  In the Hero System, Dexterity and Speed are very important in combat, but the Hero System weighs the cost of each characteristic based on it's utility.  So Dexterity costs 3 points per point, while some other characteristics are 1:1 and Speed is 10 to 1.  Further, combat in the Hero System can get pretty unfun when the characters have Speed characteristics (which determine how many times they can act during a round) that are more than a couple of points different than each other.  In theory, one character can have a Speed of 1 while another has a Speed of 12, but the character with the 1 is going to find combat very unfun.  Even having a character with a Speed of 3 in a combat with another character with a Speed of 6 can be annoying, because it means going half as often.  So consider how much fun a player with only 4 Action Points is going to have in a combat with a bunch of decent characters with 20 Action Points or even 36 Action Points.  Advice?  Consider a narrower range of values that allow everyone do do something useful in combat.

Fourth, if combat effectiveness is also dependent on Action Points (by putting points into Attack or Defense), is a character with sub-optimal Action Points pretty much going to be screwed all around?  When fighting an opponent with many more Action Points, they might not be able to hit, avoid being hit, or do much moving around because their opponent will just have too much of an advantage.  By making so many things dependent on Action Points, they can dominate the power levels in combat.

The bottom line here is that if Action Points give players more choices and more power, then the players will have to optimize their character designs to maximize the number of Action Points.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThat's because it's something players I've known have always wanted, saying, "howcome we can move 5 paces and then attack, or attack then move 5 paces, but we can't move 2 paces, attack then move 3 paces back?"

Because you are simulating simultaneous action with non-simultaneous combat rounds.  If you allow a character to move 2 paces, attack, and then move 3 more paces, you'll then raise the question, "Why couldn't I hit him back while he was hitting me?"  Then we wind up going down the road of things like Attacks of Opportunity and Zones of Control.

Those are interesting points about what'll happen when people dump all the points into one thing.

First up, I think it's unlikely. Suppose you've a total of 36AP. Sure, you can put it all into Attack 36, and then get heaps of damage - but if your foe has even 12AP, they can put all 12 into Defence, roll the 2d6 and parry it.

Defence 36 means they can defend at 12 against 3 attacks, or at 9 against 4. That's pretty good. But their foe can put (say) 12 into Move, run around behind them and stab them in the back - no Defence at all, or defence is much harder.

It's also true they can, if very able overall, just run away. But I don't have a problem with that. And also they'd have to be careful of not suffering a parting shot. The 36 AP guy could put all 36 into Move, but then has nothing for Initiative or Defence, so as he turns to go they act first and stab him, with no defence at all.

Everyone will be bidding blind each turn, so there'll be some back-and-forth and responses to things, I think. If some guy goes Defence 36, then his much weaker Attack 12 foe may just do 6 attacks at 2 - if both are rolling 2d6, then one might get through.

I think most likely is as has been said, fighters chasing each-other around the battlefield. This makes the terrain more important - I think that's a good thing. Quite often it seems to be just two fighters meeting face-to-face on a featureless plain in broad daylight. Using your Move to get behind a pillar or climb up some stairs or duck behind a rock - that could really bring combats t life.

Quote from: Kyle AaronFirst up, I think it's unlikely. Suppose you've a total of 36AP. Sure, you can put it all into Attack 36, and then get heaps of damage - but if your foe has even 12AP, they can put all 12 into Defence, roll the 2d6 and parry it.

Never assume that something will be unlikely or never happen.  When they designed Magic: The Gathering, they couldn't imaging people spending hundreds and thousands of dollars to fill a deck with 60 copies of 1 rare card, yet people did, which is why they instituted the 4 copies of 1 card limit.  Always check the extremes.

Quote from: Kyle AaronEveryone will be bidding blind each turn, so there'll be some back-and-forth and responses to things, I think. If some guy goes Defence 36, then his much weaker Attack 12 foe may just do 6 attacks at 2 - if both are rolling 2d6, then one might get through.

But if the bidding is blind, then it's all a guess and a gamble.  Combat becomes less about reasoned choices and more about luck.  Is that what you really want?

Quote from: Kyle AaronI think most likely is as has been said, fighters chasing each-other around the battlefield. This makes the terrain more important - I think that's a good thing. Quite often it seems to be just two fighters meeting face-to-face on a featureless plain in broad daylight. Using your Move to get behind a pillar or climb up some stairs or duck behind a rock - that could really bring combats t life.

Why should I ever close on another fighter instead of waiting for them to close on me?  That forces them to waste their valuable AP on movement while I save my AP for Attack or Defense.  And to be honest, I'm not sure what you are doing that your combats run like two fighters facing each other on a featureless plain in broad daylight.  The games I play don't run like that.  Not D&D 3.5.  Not Hero System.  Not even Fudge and our homebrews.  If a system allows a half-move before attacking (both Hero and d20, as well as plenty of other systems) and has modifiers for cover and terrain effects, then why wouldn't they also move behind a pillar, climb some stairs, or duck behind a rock?  And if my AP are good for Attack and Defense, why am I wasting them to move around?

If the effect you are looking for is move-attack-move, it's easy enough to do with a conventional full move or half-move and attack system.  Move, attack, then finish moving up to your half-move total (D&D has prestige classes that can do this, for example).  The problem is that move-attack-move sounds like fun until you are on the receiving end.  Then it's, "Hey, why couldn't I hit him while he was standing next to me?"

By the way, I highly recommend reading Brian Gleichman's old Elements of Gaming column on TBP:

http://www.rpg.net/columns/list-column.phtml?colname=elements

In particular, read the the "Elements of Tactics" article and consider some of the mechanics you are considering in light of the section titled "A non-element".

Those are interesting points. Again, I don't think the extremes will be a problem. There are four possibilities, of putting all the Action Points into:

• Initiative - so you go first, but then end up doing nothing. Not a problem.
• Move - so you run away entirely, but because you've nothing in Initiative, can be struck with no Defence before you can actually turn to run; if you survive that blow, you can then flee. I don't have a problem with that, especially bearing in mind that others can actually put all their AP into Move and chase you. Then the most-skilled, highest-attributed, and most speedy person wins the race. I don't feel that's a problem.
• Attack - again, with nothing in Initiative and Defence, you may be struck and injured before you can use that large Attack. If not, then you hit, but go through the same thing next turn. This becomes like All-Out Attacks in other systems - done only by the beserk and suicidal.
• Defence - you're still not untouchable, because others can take their own Attack and split into multiple ones.

None of these extremes are harmful to the game in a munchkiny sense; they're just boring. Now, if it were simply highest of Attack and Defence beats the other, this would be more of a munchkin problem. But I'm thinking it'd be combined with dice rolls, as per the other thread Risk Dice (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7474). So the high Attack guy won't always hit, nor the high Defence guy always parry blows. Dice will level it out somewhat, at least enough to make people choosing the extremes less likely.

The bidding is blind, but it's not random, it's about player choices. And people's choices have patterns. These patterns will show up after a few turns of the combat, and combatants can adjust to their foe's tactics. Which I think is a good thing.

You'd close on another fighter rather than waiting for him to close on you because of the particular circumstances - just as any martial artist would tell you, sometimes you wait for the foe, sometimes you go to get them, it depends on the circumstances. As I said, combats should not take place one-on-one on a flat featureless plain. You may want to defeat your foe quickly, your foe may be already fighting a friend you want to help (this is particularly so in rpg combats which are typically a party of 2-6 vs some others), your foe may be running away but you want to kill or capture them, and so on.

I did not say that combats in my games were two fighters facing each-other on a featureless plain in broad daylight, I said, "quite often it seems to be" that way. I'm speaking of a general experience in rpg combats, rather than any failings of my particular GMing. I think that having a system whch encourages movement will also encourage GMs and players to come up with more terrain and so on. A system which encourages just standing there smacking it out discourages terrain, etc. But again, it's something we'd have to see in a playtest.
 
The problem is that move-attack-move sounds like fun until you are on the receiving end. Then it's, "Hey, why couldn't I hit him while he was standing next to me?"

"Because you were too busy parrying his blow to make a blow of your own, he was moving too quickly - he put a lot of AP in Initiative! But now you can go get him!"

Gleichman's articles I've seen before, and they're interesting. At face value, I don't think AP are a "non-element". Again, it'd have to be seen in play whether this adds to the combat atmosphere, or turns things into bookkeeping with no spirit to them.

Quote from: Kyle AaronNone of these extremes are harmful to the game in a munchkiny sense; they're just boring. Now, if it were simply highest of Attack and Defence beats the other, this would be more of a munchkin problem. But I'm thinking it'd be combined with dice rolls, as per the other thread Risk Dice (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7474). So the high Attack guy won't always hit, nor the high Defence guy always parry blows. Dice will level it out somewhat, at least enough to make people choosing the extremes less likely.

The problem there, which you need to be careful with, is that the more the dice level things out, the less important those choices will be.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThe bidding is blind, but it's not random, it's about player choices. And people's choices have patterns. These patterns will show up after a few turns of the combat, and combatants can adjust to their foe's tactics. Which I think is a good thing.

This was particularly the reason why I wanted you to look at Brian's column because he discusses this sort of mechanic.  There is no guarantee that an opponent will follow a pattern and a lot of incentive not to (if you are random, then your opponent can't anticipate your allocation), so ultimately guessing and trying to read the other play will play a large role here.  And, in my experience, it can be very frustrating to guess wrong.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron"Because you were too busy parrying his blow to make a blow of your own, he was moving too quickly - he put a lot of AP in Initiative! But now you can go get him!"

"But I didn't know he was going to do that so I don't have enough AP in movement to catch him!"

Quote from: Kyle AaronGleichman's articles I've seen before, and they're interesting. At face value, I don't think AP are a "non-element". Again, it'd have to be seen in play whether this adds to the combat atmosphere, or turns things into bookkeeping with no spirit to them.

The AP's aren't a "non-element", but I think the blind bidding is.

I have an idea that's not fully formed but I'm going to toss it out to see if you can do anything with it.

How about selecting AP distribution between those 4 elements infrequently such that a character has a style that is retained from round to round.  At one extreme, they are a part of the character build and thus work like traditional attributes and/or skills (e.g., the character has a fixed movement per round, fixed initiative, fixed attack bonus, and fixed defense bonus).  At the other extreme is having the characters set their AP allocation every round.  But what if the AP allocations change less frequently than every round but more frequently than never?  One option is to set the AP allocation at the beginning of combat.  Another option might be to allow a change every N rounds.  Another option might be to have trigger conditions that let a character change their AP allocation.  The point I'm trying to make here is that one way to make the allocation less tedious and to answer the problem of who allocates first without blind bidding is to make it less frequent and maybe asynchronous.

That's true that as the dice level things out, the choices are less important. That's true of all systems, and as I said, it's something we have to discover in play, unfortunately just looking at things statistically doesn't do it. With regard to this particular approach, the player decides the Risk Dice they'll use, so the player chooses the relative weight of choice and chance. My instinct is that this will balance things out according to individual players' preferences; some will like a lot of chance, others not so much. Again: playtest time.

It can certainly be frustrating to guess wrong, just as it can be frustrating to have a good plan, but the dice fuck you. I don't know if it'll be a different kind of frustration, or about the same, or compounding or what. We'll see.

"But I didn't know he was going to do that so I don't have enough AP in movement to catch him!"
"Yes, it's often the case that a fighter won't know what their foe will do, and their foe will surprise them. Luckily, we have more than one combat turn to resolve these things, so you can try again next turn."

I don't think that the blind bidding is a "non-element" at all. Not knowing exactly what your foe's going to try do is part of the tension and excitement of combat. If you always knew what they'd do you could almost always counter it, and fights would almost all be draws.

At this point, I don't think infrequent AP changes would make it good; if players are frustrated by choosing "wrong", then being unable to change their choices each turn will be more frustrating, no? Whereas I think players will be usually only disappointed at choosing "wrong", but then releived when they realise they can try again next turn. They'd be frustrated if they got stuck with the same choices turn after turn.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI don't think that the blind bidding is a "non-element" at all. Not knowing exactly what your foe's going to try do is part of the tension and excitement of combat. If you always knew what they'd do you could almost always counter it, and fights would almost all be draws.

Correct, but having to allocate resources without knowing what your opponent is going to do makes the allocation of resources a guess.  Brian gives some examples in his article of systems that include deciding combat factors simultaneously with your opponent.  What the Hero System does is make you allocate resources (in the form of power pools and so on) on your turn but you can abort your next action in certain ways in response to what an opponent is doing.  For example, adapted to your approach, if an opponent moves two steps and attacks my character, I could possibly abort and use all of my action points to do one thing like defend, or maybe try a preemptive strike (which would let the character attack first but have no AP left to defend or move).  So this would give the player the option of doing something, if they really want to, but they'd have to pay for the change.  This sort of rule works pretty well in the Hero System, in my opinion.

Quote from: Kyle AaronAt this point, I don't think infrequent AP changes would make it good; if players are frustrated by choosing "wrong", then being unable to change their choices each turn will be more frustrating, no? Whereas I think players will be usually only disappointed at choosing "wrong", but then releived when they realise they can try again next turn. They'd be frustrated if they got stuck with the same choices turn after turn.

Yes, I think you may be correct, but it's really not all that different than building a character with points to have a certain Initiative, Movement, Attack, and Defense and then being stuck with it for every combat.  A solution is to provide a mechanism by which players can switch their AP allocation without necessarily encouraging them to do so every turn.  What I was thinking of was similar to the idea of a snapshot penalty -- if the character sticks with a certain allocation, like taking multiple shots at the same target, they get get into the flow of what they are doing.  But if they keep changing things around, they have to keep adapting to something different and it's like constantly shooting at new targets.  That could be handled with something as simple as assessing an AP penalty to change your AP allocation.  In other words, it costs AP to change what you are doing.

What I was trying to help you avoid here is the thing that makes people accuse APs and similar mechanics of being tedious and hard to manage.  Constantly having to consider and fiddle with point allocations is what slows things down.  If players can set a certain allocation, use it for a few rounds and let it ride, then switch to a different allocation for a few rounds and let it ride, it reduces the amount of fiddling with allocations that players have to do.

By all means playtest what you have so far and see how it works.  I'm just trying to point out what seem like pitfalls to me.

Kyle, thanks for pointing me to this thread.

So I see where the defense aspect comes in, wondering how that will scale and fit into the risk dice approach.  I guees it depends on how granular the combat actions will be, does 10 points of attack equal say 2 seperate attacks or it's resolved as one attack but with better odds and/or better effect.  Just something to think about.

If you base action points on skill, which skill do you use?  What is the default skill?  If it is based on weapon type, can someone switch weapons given enough AP and thus change AP?

Have you thought of decoupling the AP for Move/Initiative from those for Attack/Defense?  This might decrease the complexity of the interaction but retain the tactical richness.

I see you mentioned Fallout, why your division approach instead of the countdown approach?  I think the countdown approach would be more streamlined in there is no pre-division step, and also a single track of points to keep track of.  

Since John has asked a lot of good questions on the PC side, I'll ask on the GM side. How do you see a GM using this for NPCs?  I saw you typically have few opponents in your game, and depending on genre this may be what this system is geared to.   But it looks very difficult for the GM to use when the opponent numbers get into the double digits.  How would I use this system for something like our last fantasy RPG combat involving 6 PCs and 30 orcs, and 3 ogres, with a mix of melee, missile and magical combat?

The idea of stock distributions/tactics may be the way to go, and for less intelligent creatures they may have a hard time changing their tactics, hence players that pay attention will note that goblins always seem to save x for move, are cowardly (more in defense than attack) and not very decisive (lower initiative given saving alot for move).  In contrast the "raiders from the north" rely on initiative and attack, they disdain defense and move just enough to engage you.

In regards to John's comments on different actions, my idea was just to keep it simple as above. PCs may sacrifice 2 Move for 1 Defence when attacked; but at the beginning of the turn it would have been 1 for 1. You're better off planning to have some room to retreat, rather than retreating desperately in the middle of some other action.

I'd like to keep the decision-making at only the beginning of the turn, since having lots of options in the midst of the turn slows things down. By the time you find out if your character is still alive, you no longer care. But because I'm a softie as a GM, I'd let players do a takeback of their actions for defensive purposes, but with a price - the 2 Move --> 1 Defence, as I said. Otherwise, they just have to wear their decisions for the whole combat round.

Now to Xanther's comments: Attack 10 is divided into at least 1 and up to 10 Attacks. So they could have 1 at 10, 2 at 5, or 4, 3, 2, 1, whatever they like. But they have to roll under that number they've chosen each time, and they choose the Risk Dice for each attack, and the Risk Dice is the base damage they do. So they could have 2 at 5, and roll 1d6 - yes, they'd probably hit, but not do much damage. On the other hand they could have 1 at 10, and roll 3d6 - only 50:50 chance of hitting, but good damage.

The AP would be based on whatever skill the PC is using that turn, and the relevant attribute. The PC must use just one skill for the whole turn, but can of course change next turn. That then changes their AP total. So someone with Burglary 10 and Melee 6 is not only a better lockpick than they are a swordsman, they're also potentially faster. Higher skill lets you accomplish things more quickly, as I noted in this post (http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=139397&postcount=10) in the other thread.

The countdown approach is a good one in some ways, but I found a couple of problems with it. The first is that you tend to end up with chump change AP at the end of your turn, and that offends the mini-maxer in me ;) The second is that I wanted AP to be spent for Initiative, and if you had a countdown no-one would spend AP on Initiative. I also wanted it to be there for Defence, but if you've a countdown, then few players will leave any for Defence, "... just one more attack...!" So we'll get a TPK. That's alright in a computer game with savegame files, but not so good in an rpg!

It's also that I don't want people to be constantly asking how many AP for this or that action, having to look things up, with a rifle shot costing more than a pistol shot, etc. Instead we just leave it up to them. "How many AP do you want to spend on that attack, that parry?"

I think that a combat with 6 PCs and 33 NPCs is always going to be cumbersome, regardless of the game system. Even with one roll to resolve the entire turn, that's still 36 rolls per turn.

Perhaps we could have a "fighting as a unit" rule, where one N/PC can help another's action. Simply to have them add all their AP together would be nasty, perhaps it could be "nominate a primary character, add 1/2 the first supporter's AP, 1/4 the second, 1/8 the third. The primary character decides the AP spread for all, decides the Risk Dice, and half the damage received goes to the primary character, the rest being spread evenly about the supporting team." So people could operate in teams of four. The 6 PCs vs30 NPCs would then become 2x PC teams (3 each) and 7x NPC teams (4) + 1x NPC team (2) + 1x NPC team (3). Then you'd have a minimum of 11 rolls in place of 36.

Obviously you'd some rules about what skills can be added, etc. In that mass combat, the ones with similar skills would team up, all the axemen together, all the wizards together, etc.

Otherwise, yes, stock approaches for races, etc, would be the way to go.

Wow, like that explanation of how attack 10 works.  A very nice way of approaching the whole multiple attack idea.  My calibration standards always being scenes from Yojimbo (sp?) and Fist Full of Dollars.

The player choice portion is really coming through.  I think the fundamentals are sounding really good and fun to play, the devil is in the details of making sure the actual numbers don't lead to unintended results.

I agree with your views on countdown appraoches, this has been my exprience with Fallout, Aftermath! and when I tried using a countdown AP approach.  Was interested in seeing how others view it.  I also hated as a GM keeping track, I just slowed combat down too much.

On 6 vs. 33, not so bad really, I have a bunch o' dice with color coding so I can pick 3 red sets for the ogres, 15 blue for orcs, and in 3 throws get all the numbers.  Since success in system I use can be determined immediately (there may be one modifier to use) it breezes by.

So on AP allocation I can see ways to make your system flow as fast as any other, and I think the extra bit of time, if any, is worth the added fun.  If it was me, I'd list orc 1 to 30 on a notepad and then just put a little number string 4-5-6-7 (Move-Initiative-Attack-Defense) beside them or at the top.  Or maybe Defense-Attack-Move-Initiative for the acronym DAMIt. :)  I think I would use some pre-gen strategies for creatures so all the bow wielding orcs would have one set of numbers, those in reserve another, and those in melee another.

Instead of graphical tracks with tokens, players could also just note their allocation by 4-5-6-7, something that should be easy to learn and remember.  Color coded poker chips with numbers could work, or heck even a deck of cards with the four suits.

On Risk Dice for NPCs as GM you can again have like attackers make the same choice, and you could even provide an odds table for reducing six 3D6 rolls to one 3D6 roll.

Looks good, I'd be interested in hearing about play-tests and refinements.

Kyle,

I'll forward you a copy of Shebang later today. It uses a step-combat system. You can see how I did it. It is similar to what you are proposing.

Rich

I've still not looked at Shebang, we've been playtesting this. We're merging Move & Initiative. It's easy to imagine what it physically means to have more or less Defence, Move or Attack, but Initiative?

Separate Initiative also gave us a strange situation - they were chasing a guy with AP20, he put 10 into Init and 10 into Move, so he went first, ran 10 paces, they went second, caught up to him, swung at him, he went first again, etc. It was like a yo-yo.

Quote from: Kyle AaronI've still not looked at Shebang, we've been playtesting this. We're merging Move & Initiative. It's easy to imagine what it physically means to have more or less Defence, Move or Attack, but Initiative?

Separate Initiative also gave us a strange situation - they were chasing a guy with AP20, he put 10 into Init and 10 into Move, so he went first, ran 10 paces, they went second, caught up to him, swung at him, he went first again, etc. It was like a yo-yo.

It's always interesting to see how things play out.  Might never have seen that just from the theory.  So how do you decide who acts first?

Is it by move and an attack just burns up move so you can't get first attack and still have all your movement left?

At this stage, our idea is that whoever has the highest Move goes first, or holds their action, and can interrupt someone else's. We wouldn't have a countdown thing, where the guy with Move 10 runs 6 paces and is then interrupted by the guy with Move 5, that would be more complex than Fallout, and basically unworkable in a game session.

Once it's your character's turn, you do your Attack and Move in whatever amounts you like. So if you've Att10/Mov10, you can do an Attack 6, move 2 steps, do an Attack 4, move 2 steps and then crouch down, retaining move 2 to be able to get up again if knocked down.

So a round would go,

• fighter with highest Move acts, or holds their action until a later time,
• character with second highest Move acts, or holds their action,
• and so on

I suppose what we could do is to allow people to hold their actions indefinitely. So for example if you have Attack 12, you could do one attack at 5, then sometime later in the turn do another at 7. That could get complicated, though. My instinct is to keep the PCs' turns as distinct as possible, the only thing you can do out of your turn is to use your Defence points. Otherwise the combat turn could fizzle out as each waits for the other to become vulnerable when they're out of AP, or the turn ends with everyone moving 1 pace here and there and doing lots of piddling attacks at 2 or something, using up their last AP.

It's probably worth considering, but I think in an alpha test like this what we should do is change just one thing, see how that plays out, and only after that change a second thing. It's sort of like playing with the knobs on a stereo, if you twirl all of them at once you won't be able to figure out what each one actually does ;)

Yes, it's funny how things often don't come as you expected. That's part of the joy of roleplaying, though, let alone of playtesting!

Quote from: Kyle AaronI've still not looked at Shebang, we've been playtesting this.

Mah! I guess it boils down to, free stuff = no read = no play. Hee.:D

Quote from: Kyle Aaron...

I suppose what we could do is to allow people to hold their actions indefinitely. So for example if you have Attack 12, you could do one attack at 5, then sometime later in the turn do another at 7. That could get complicated, though.

My expreince as well with keeping track of countdowns/points used.

QuoteIt's probably worth considering, but I think in an alpha test like this what we should do is change just one thing, see how that plays out, and only after that change a second thing. It's sort of like playing with the knobs on a stereo, if you twirl all of them at once you won't be able to figure out what each one actually does ;)

Exactly, the scientific method, you need to control your variables to understand the data.

QuoteYes, it's funny how things often don't come as you expected. That's part of the joy of roleplaying, though, let alone of playtesting!

Well at least to me as well, I like the surprises. :)

After nine sessions, we have some playtest results. Lessons learned:-


Move and Initiative should be rolled together
We could imagine what "lots of Attack" or "not much Defence" physically meant, and how they were different from each-other, but could not imagine what it mean to have lots of Initiative but not much Move, or vice versa. "Initiative", after all, means "who moves first", so if it's not "Move", then... WTF?

So we rolled Move and Initiative into one trait, Move. Players expressed confusion that this meant that a highly-skilled brawler or shooter could flee from combat, and that a fast character could be a better shot. They were frustrated by this when NPCs did it, but did not complain when the PCs could do it.

You can rationalise it as "a guy with high Fire can move more quickly in a fire combat than someone with low fire, because of his experience", etc. The players were not convinced by this reasoning, but again I note that the complaint didn't appear when the PCs were acting, only the NPCs. So I took it then as the price of abstraction: sometimes the abstraction will favour the PCs, sometimes not.

On balance I think it worked alright.

The abstraction, however, like that of the Risk Dice, led to metagaming talk, which stopped players getting into the game world and their characters much. This is fine for games in which things concentrate on the "action", not so good for more thespy stuff.