What thinkest people of this idea?

I was reading the example of combat from the Far West rpg website. The idea is that pc's have, along with their stats (str, dex, etc), ability pools that are used to take damage in contests. So a drinking contest uses Con (though I'm not sure how me chugging would deplete the opposing pool) while ranged combat uses DEX and punchups use STR. Once someone's pool is depleted they lose and suffer the consequences thereof. The example is here.
Is there any merit in this? or is just hit points/regular damage better? Do other games do something like this?

The Iron Kingdoms RPG does this with a cool looking spiral.  it effects physcal then inital and then spirit.  Its pretty cool that different parts of the character get affected, BUt I don't think I like the whole this combat affects this.

I think I prefer effects that occur as the character is weakened or hurt, even a social failure can make a character worse in combat, I think call it a loss of confidence or some other psyc out.

based on the link it seems more of a narrative resolution system where you do 1 or 2 contests of stunts verses stunts and with the save results determine the outcome and wounds.  Not a bad system persay, But I like a tad more tactical maneuvering in my games.

PDQ uses a variant.  A starter player character might be described with the Qualities "Barroom Brawl" [Expert : +4], "Drunk As A Skunk" [Good : +2], "Underwater Basketweaving" [Good : +2], "Can't Resist a Challenge" [Poor : -2].  Damage can be deflected with a relevant skill, or absorbed by downshifting any skill.  The default system assumes no internal health points beyond those tracks, but GMs are encouraged to add health points under it if they're playing a more combat-heavy, to keep things from being too lethal.

It's... interesting.  The 2D6 emphasis means that rolls often have pretty big disparities and conflict tends to end quickly and in a very obvious manner.  On the flip side, you usually lose in the first couple turns, if not the very first turn.  It also leads to odd situations like failing in an Iron Chef contest reducing your ability to drink alcohol (and, indeed, unless your GM allows very broad Qualities, that's the default tactic).  I haven't played any long-term games in the system, though.

Far West's looks like its less prone to the unstable equilibrium problems in PDQ, which is one advantage, although in turn it seems like it could be pretty lethal.

The FarWest version of it seems like its fairly abstract and doesn't map to real situations terribly well e.g. the you chugging beers to reduce your opponents CON.
I do like systems where there's ability damage, and where physical damage is just one sort of it. I think it does make picking both scale for attributes and setting damage ranges more of a headache though, as well as giving potential fragility problems with PCs if an opponent can somehow target their weak stats.

Quote from: darnest;626914The Iron Kingdoms RPG does this with a cool looking spiral.  it effects physcal then inital and then spirit.  Its pretty cool that different parts of the character get affected, BUt I don't think I like the whole this combat affects this.

I think I prefer effects that occur as the character is weakened or hurt, even a social failure can make a character worse in combat, I think call it a loss of confidence or some other psyc out.

based on the link it seems more of a narrative resolution system where you do 1 or 2 contests of stunts verses stunts and with the save results determine the outcome and wounds.  Not a bad system persay, But I like a tad more tactical maneuvering in my games.

I looked at that spiral and I really didn't understand it.

The Far West idea i'm not entirely clear on: I think you also have a more fundamental health/loss system. That is, ability pools merely exist to determine when someone loses that contest - not their actuall health or whatever. In some cases it won't work at all: contests like races, where contestants aren't actually affecting each other just trying to be the first to accomplish x. Perhaps I misread.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;626925The FarWest version of it seems like its fairly abstract and doesn't map to real situations terribly well e.g. the you chugging beers to reduce your opponents CON.
I do like systems where there's ability damage, and where physical damage is just one sort of it. I think it does make picking both scale for attributes and setting damage ranges more of a headache though, as well as giving potential fragility problems with PCs if an opponent can somehow target their weak stats.

I suppose the CON loss is representative of having to keep up with your opponent and being unable to maintain the pace. IT does seem to struggle at those points. But then I suppose you wouldn't calculate damage in such instances anway, just the first to pass X rolls, or accumulate Y successes, in which case that's a bad example.

TBH it was all a bit unclear.

The drinking contest is sort of better modelled by depleting your own pool, I guess.
 
also ah, I didn't try to answer the 'what other systems do this' part of the question.
 
Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (/Twilight 2000) has a grappling combat system where damage is dealt as 'controlling hits' I think against Strength but without reducing the actual score, just to determine who is grappled. It doesn't have any general systems like this, though.
 
Robin Laws' Dying Earth doesn't have attributes but has skills which are spent in opposed contests. You spend a dice and roll a d6, if you succeed the opponent has to match it with a dice from their pool, and may have to burn more than one if you rolled particularly well.

So how does the life spiral system from Iron Kingdoms work?