So I was reading through the Zweihander kickstarter pdf, and when I got to the combat chapter, I saw the rules specify a one minute combat turn.

It really deflated my enthusiasm. I mean I know D&D had one minute turns, where the attack roll represented the "one good strike" in a flurry of activity, but then how do you justify parries? Special results, grapples, etc?

What do you all think? Does the one minute turn break verisimilitude?

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919429What do you all think? Does the one minute turn break verisimilitude?

No more than it did in D&D. So, yes. Absolutely.

Does it matter?

The length of a combat turn is relevant in only two respects:

1. fused grenades
2. how much movement you can have in a turn

The former is rarely encountered in games these days as most prefer fantasy. That leaves the latter. We don't want turns to be so short that your character can only do a single step, that is slow and tedious - eg a single "round" of boxing of 3'00" in GURPS would be 180 combat rounds. But we don't want so much movement that a combatant can step in, attack, then flee to a place of safety before their foe can strike back, because then combat will be like a moth on a lampshade, and likewise slow and tedious.

Amount of movement vs number of attacks or other actions is what matters. Otherwise the "real" length of the combat round is irrelevant.

For me, definitely. Way too much can happen in one minute. An awful lot can still happen in six seconds, actually. My own personal preference for most games like D&D is a three-second round. That generally makes things make a lot more sense, especially with their movement rates. A lot of games I've found give characters absolutely glacial speed. The typical athletic adventurer shouldn't be moving slower than an overweight couch potato. Simply cutting down the time a round takes fixes a lot of that.

Firstly, thanks for supporting ZWEIHANDER Aaron! This, along with normalized Damage across all weapons, has generated a lot of great discussions on our forum. Glad to see this talking point land here, too.

A little bit about me:
My roots are old school 80's Warhammer and D&D. We always approached combat in the abstract and never used miniatures, The D20 roll always represented that "one lucky strike" to deal Damage, with everything else happening in the theater of the mind. Every blow was described with flourish; in fact, it was encouraged through a house rule we'd used for nearly two decades. We placed a "Flourish" D6 die in front of the DM screen. When combat began, it started on a face 1 and changed by one face positively every Round, adding more Damage for melee & ranged weapons. This means that with five players, it would start at face 1 and once returning to the first player, it would move to a face 2. It continued to escalate, but only if every player described their attack. If a player missed a beat, it immediately de-escalated back to face 1 and we had to start all over. It was used for two simple reasons: keep players role-playing in the moment, and as a way for melee & ranged weapons to be more useful against casters.

A little bit more on ZWEIHANDER's development:
As a part of the Flourish D6 die, I always lamented not having neat maneuvers with mechanics behind them to affect enemies with shield slams, turning away blows, shoulder-checking foes, flipping them over my shoulder, blinding them with mud, etc... So, when I began to write out how combat in ZWEIHANDER worked, I immediately made the decision to strip out Segments, Rounds and the time they traditionally represented. I dialed it back to square one, and thought about what it meant to roll dice in combat. I needed a term that strongly resonated around the table. The Turn, in this case, made sense. A Turn in-game of structured time carries over at the table as a player's turn. I thought everyone could get behind that, as it's a relatively simple and familiar concept both in tabletop RPGs and real life. Then, I thought about all the cool descriptions of things both myself & players tried to narratively describe leading up to the point where we did Damage. I consolidated these descriptions down to 24 different stunts. They eventually changed into the 7 Perilous Stunts you find in the core book. Coupling this with a defense mechanism through Dodge and Parry, along with  actions like inspiring your allies and intimidating your foes, it all wrapped up nice and neat for a smooth, CRUNCHY tactical experience.

But that left the Turn to be defined in-game as a distinct amount of time. I erred on the side of caution, settling on a minute. Players loved it; it gave them enough wiggle room to describe what their character does in combat. Under this approach, they can narrate that their character rushes into action charging forward (Charge 2 AP), clashing into their enemy's shields (Splinter Shield 1AP) and breaking through with with a massive swing (use Fortune Point for +1AP, Melee Attack). It allowed them to trade feints and blows (Dirty Tricks 1AP), until they found that right moment to make a critical strike (Take Aim 1AP, Melee Attack 1AP). It allowed them to suss out and assess the situation (Use Skill 1AP), before making their move to get out of harm's way (Maneuver 2AP).

In essence, it gave them the opportunity to think more about how to translate distinctly tactical moves into a narrative description that was far more evocative than simply trading blows like they were playing a turn-based video game.

It seems like an odd thing to get hung up on, but here are two easy fixes: 1) a Turn can vary anywhere from 1 second to a minute, or 2) you can simply rule that a Turn is 6 seconds. BOOM, done, house-ruled and fixed. It wouldn't disrupt any major mechanics in the game whatsoever, as long as you adhere to the AP costs for casting spells (thereby ignoring the minute requirement to cast Magick).

As for me? I'm sticking with the one minute Turn. My experience has been that a minute gives more leeway to illustrate from the character's perspective what happens in combat. Your mileage may vary, however.


Cheers~

One minute combat rounds, now and forever!

I tried the other way.  That way lies madness.

I have just one question for you: on average, how many turns do a combat between two competent fighters last in Zweihander?

Quote from: AaronBrown99;919429What do you all think? Does the one minute turn break verisimilitude?

Quote from: Xúc xắc;919435No more than it did in D&D. So, yes. Absolutely.

Pretty much this.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919444One minute combat rounds, now and forever!

I tried the other way.  That way lies madness.

For you.

I ignore how long a turn is supposed to take in real time. I've found that it really doesn't matter as much as actions per turn, or turns to do one action.

Quote from: Brand55;919440For me, definitely. Way too much can happen in one minute. An awful lot can still happen in six seconds, actually.

Ditto. Trying to handle a large chunk of combat via a single abstract roll looks like a good idea on paper, but it pairs poorly with literally anything else that might be happening in the vicinity of the swinging swords. (And it's handled particularly poorly in older editions of D&D where literally none of the secondary mechanics -- movement rates, expenditure of ammunition, etc. -- seem to be designed with the one minute round in mind.)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919444One minute combat rounds, now and forever!

I tried the other way.  That way lies madness.

How many arrows is your archer shooting in that one minute round?

I should clarify that the one minute turn is by no means a deal breaker, it was just unexpected. It's hard to explain but when I think 'gritty, grim, and perilous' my thoughts assume more 'zoomed-in' details, and and the turn length just feels 'abstract.'

Of course as was stated above, in-game the turn length will sort of disappear and we'll just play.

Thanks for the replies!

I don't use combat turns.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;919451I have just one question for you: on average, how many turns do a combat between two competent fighters last in Zweihander?

On a bell curve, without taking under consideration anything but raw Damage using average Primary Attributes for Damage and soak, it would be three Turns for two bog standard Characters - not fighters - to kill one another.

Additional stunts, exploding Damage rolls, Talents, Traits, differences in Primary Attributes, equipment and positioning can change this, either reducing it down to one Turn or many Turns.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;919514On a bell curve, without taking under consideration anything but raw Damage using average Primary Attributes for Damage and soak, it would be three minutes for two bog standard Characters - not fighters - to kill one another.

So that's 3 combat turns?