How do you do space (ship-to-ship) combat in a way that:

a) doesn't bore everyone else in the party aside from the gunner and the pilot?
b) doesn't just amount to the biggest fucking potential Total Party Kill due to Bad Rolls of any sci-fi game?
c) Isn't boring?
d) actually feels like what starship combats LOOK like in movies like Star Wars or Star Trek?

Virtually every system I've ever seen for this is pathetic at it.  Most of them are ultra-complex, and usually are NOTHING like what they're attempting to emulate.

RPGPundit

For (a), that's the primary reason that I love Traveller d20's space combat system. Engineers, navigators, sensor operators (medics can have sensor operation skill) all contribute to success in the combat.

TPKs are still possible, but that wouldn't be too hard to house rule. Most combats end up disabling your ship before blowing them up, though.

You give everyone their own ship where they are the captain, pilot, and gunner.  It's really that simple.

Since we seem to be talking about simulating Star Trek style big capital ships in play, even if you analyze the source material and try to make it fit in an RPG, everyone except the captain is really just set dressing.  Kirk makes the decisions.  Kirk sets the tactics.  Kirk decides if the ship is going to fire photon torpedoes or turn hard to starboard.  Hell, if that no name over at the Nav console doesn't hurry up, Kirk will get out of his chair and do shit himself.

It's the same as running any specialty character.  Setting up a starship combat scene is the same as setting up a scene dedicated solely to the specialty characters involved.  In D&D, it's like spending an hour while the thief or ranger scouts a target area.  In Cyberpunk/Shadowrun it's when the Netrunner starts their magic.  Every once in a while you give Kirk a scene so he can take his starship out and photorp things to hell.  It isn't supposed to be a whole party thing.  That's just an illusion created by the source material that you're trying to base the game off of.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadMost combats end up disabling your ship before blowing them up, though.

I think this is key. Regardless of how we might speculate space combat would "really" work, or how it does work in the movies, if you have a lot of it in an RPG you probably want a system that allows large ships to be disabled and then either captured or towed, and for people to get on life rafts when neither of those happen.

But I also agree with Gabriel that if you don't have command of your own ship, space combat isn't going to be that interesting. Star Wars is better for this because the PCs can pilot fighters; it's also a good argument in favor of mecha from a pure gameplay perspective.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadFor (a), that's the primary reason that I love Traveller d20's space combat system. Engineers, navigators, sensor operators (medics can have sensor operation skill) all contribute to success in the combat.

TPKs are still possible, but that wouldn't be too hard to house rule. Most combats end up disabling your ship before blowing them up, though.

That's what I did back when I wrote the StarCluster Starship Crew supplement - that combat system eventually moved over to the main book in StarCluster 2E. Everyone in the crew has a job, and every job contributes. I certainly wasn't the first with that notion - I never am. Was it LUG Trek that came up with it first?

-clash

Our space combats put everyone to use.  Whether you're operating sensors to detect threats or ECM/ECCM, gunning down the attackers, piloting the ship, repairing the damage being done, healing up the people getting hurt, tweaking the engines to give you additional output, modifying the computer to execute unusual maneuvers or rearranging the cargo to keep it from blasting out of the hold, guarding the prisoners, etc., etc.

I keep all the players busy.  

Our usual situation is a tramp-freighter/corvette that can't really hold its own against a squadron of fighters or a capital ship, but is enough of a nuisance to accomplish various missions.  

We had a situation once where a ship flew into the cargo/launch bay of a huge capital ship, unloaded all of its ordnance (scoring multiple, multiple successes, critical and otherwise) and then kicked in the boosters to escape the ship's explosion.  Everyone playing had a blast, even the "non-starship" players who were busy running commands back and forth between the cockpit/bridge and the engineers because the internal communications had been blown out.  

The thing is, in Star Wars most fighters will blow up if hit ONCE. And of course, everyone on board will die.  

And in Star Trek (and SW when dealing with bigger ships), its usually a question that anytime there is a "hit" on a ship, there's a lot of shaking around, people go flying, panels blow up, and ship systems are damaged in some way.

But in RPG space combats, this almost never happens; instead you get huge long battles where people are doing points of damage to armour or shields, back and forth, with no one getting significantly harmed.
On the other hand, if you try to make the system more direct, the risk becomes immense that your players will bite off more than they can chew. In a combat in a dungeon, when this sort of thing happens, half the party might die but the other half can always run away screaming like little girls.

But in space, there's no where to run, and no one can hear you scream.

When your ship blows up, that's it, campaign's over.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditThe thing is, in Star Wars most fighters will blow up if hit ONCE. And of course, everyone on board will die.

X-Wings and Y-Wings have shields.  Although in the movies they blow up pretty easily, in the video games this isn't the case.  Unless the PCs are flying TIEs, you're guaranteed a few hits before they go KABOOM!    (And remember Luke, the hero, got hit a couple times and had a stabilizer that kept coming loose that R2 had to fix...)

QuoteAnd in Star Trek (and SW when dealing with bigger ships), its usually a question that anytime there is a "hit" on a ship, there's a lot of shaking around, people go flying, panels blow up, and ship systems are damaged in some way.

Which is the perfect time to have non-gunners/non-pilots go running around to fix things, batten down the hatches and generally "help out."

QuoteBut in RPG space combats, this almost never happens;

Perhaps in your games it almost never happens.  It happens all the time in my games.  In fact, I deliberately add it into the game to keep the non-gunners/non-pilots active and participating.

Quoteinstead you get huge long battles where people are doing points of damage to armour or shields, back and forth, with no one getting significantly harmed.

Wow.  That sounds like you're playing D20 or something.  

I've never had a space combat that was just a bunch of "armor crunch." It's always been a serious situation that required the attention of the whole crew, it involved every skill set used by a team of players.

QuoteOnthe other hand, if you try to make the system more direct, the risk becomes immense that your players will bite off more than they can chew. In a combat in a dungeon, when this sort of thing happens, half the party might die but the other half can always run away screaming like little girls.

But in space, there's no where to run, and no one can hear you scream.

When your ship blows up, that's it, campaign's over.

Wow.  No.  Definitely not.

First of all, there's the fact that every player should be in a space-suit/evironment suit that provides them a little time in the vacuum before they're dead.  

Secondly, you have plenty of time to get to escape pods.

Thirdly, you can seal off sections of the ship so that they can be captured, providing all sorts of fun plot twisting.

Fourthly, ever heard of the "emergency hyperdrive?"  They can go screaming off into the void, they just burn out their hyperdrive in the process and have to spend the next few days/weeks/months/years involved in repairing their ship (depending on the specific needs of the campaign).  I've had PCs stranded on uncharted worlds for so long they forgot about the space campaign and had a blast on the planet where they crashed.

Honestly, Pundit, it sounds like you fell into the "D20 trap" of hack-n-slash with your space campaign and can't see your way out of the box because D20 has locked up your thinking.  Time to reboot and look for a more creative and less closed-system mechanic.

One part of this discussion is extremely easy.  Don't make the goal of every encounter to blow up the bad guys.  There is a lot more money in dissabling, scrapping and salvaging a ship then there is in just blowing it up.

As for the how's.  One system I was toying with is making space combat abstract and breaking it down into parts that come together to make the whole.

Now the number of rolls dependend on how big the ships were.

So a 1 man crew each round pilots would make opposed rolls the winner of the roll gains the advantage.  The extra success (past 1) go into a pool if that pool is possitive you can attack or you can run.   If you are running you move onto the next round and make opposed rolls again extra success keep stacking to your advantage and prevent the other guy from getting a good shot on you.  The person chasing you can still attack but you can use your successes to help cancel out his attack roll - think of it like a dodge/defense action.

If you are attacking you then make an attack roll using the extra success from your position to add to your attack roll.  Once you attack your advantage pool is set back to zero.  If you are on the run and decide to attack then your advantage is also set back to zero but you get to make an unmodified attack roll.


In multi-crewed ships you make multiple rolls that help in the next event that ultimately lead to the run/shot phase.

Quote from: RPGPunditHow do you do space (ship-to-ship) combat in a way that:

a) doesn't bore everyone else in the party aside from the gunner and the pilot?

As has been common in Traveller for some time... have additional posts, like sensors, screens, damage control, etc.

Quoteb) doesn't just amount to the biggest fucking potential Total Party Kill due to Bad Rolls of any sci-fi game?

Give opportunities to run, activating jump drive, asteroid fields, planets. Have the enemies objective not to kill but to capture, hence they target weapons and drive systems.

Quotec) Isn't boring?

Considerably less so than any hacking system in an rpg.

Quoted) actually feels like what starship combats LOOK like in movies like Star Wars or Star Trek?

That's has a lot to do with the GM's discription of the battle.

Quote from: GabrielYou give everyone their own ship where they are the captain, pilot, and gunner.  It's really that simple.

Except it's not since most people aren't playing a pilot/gunner, and probably don't want to have the take the role of an NPC, besides there might only be one PC friendly ship involved.

QuoteSince we seem to be talking about simulating Star Trek style big capital ships in play, even if you analyze the source material and try to make it fit in an RPG, everyone except the captain is really just set dressing.  Kirk makes the decisions.  Kirk sets the tactics.  Kirk decides if the ship is going to fire photon torpedoes or turn hard to starboard.

But Kirk doesn't actually get to make the gunnery or helmsman rolls so at least you get two other players involved then....

QuoteIt's the same as running any specialty character.  Setting up a starship combat scene is the same as setting up a scene dedicated solely to the specialty characters involved. In D&D, it's like spending an hour while the thief or ranger scouts a target area.  In Cyberpunk/Shadowrun it's when the Netrunner starts their magic.  Every once in a while you give Kirk a scene so he can take his starship out and photorp things to hell.  It isn't supposed to be a whole party thing.  That's just an illusion created by the source material that you're trying to base the game off of.

Except it's nothing like that, it is a whole party thing, every time I've played Star Trek it has been.

Captain gives commands, which depending on his leadership can give bonus to certain crew areas. Tactical Officer fires weapons, Helmsman pilots ship, Engineering control power and damage control, Medical treat the wounded, Security repel borders. Every player usually has a role.

Every Star Trek RPG space battle I've been involved in was thrilling and invoked the TV Series and movies, and included every player at the table to some degree. We had a group of eight players, and none were bored, not even the Science officers.

If anything in Star Trek it's easier to involve the whole party than in a system with smaller craft.

Another way of handling this is to make a bigger deal of boarding. Seriously... having hand-to hand combat in ship *while* there's the flying and the shooting and the fixing and the shouting.

Just a thought.

Quote from: BagpussBut Kirk doesn't actually get to make the gunnery or helmsman rolls so at least you get two other players involved then....

I realize I am probably missing something but...getting to roll dice and look at numbers on your character sheet, without actually making any decisions, doesn't seem very enjoyable.

Quote from: BagpussConsiderably less so than any hacking system in an rpg.

I'd agree that hacking is the one thing that I think is the most obvious case where RPGs have fucked up even worse than starship combat.

And this is NOT a D20 issue, Ian. I haven't seen any RPG anywhere that handles starship combat well. Either it is too deadly, or not deadly at all, it fails to involve the pcs, and it fails to emulate the tv/movie feel that one wants.

Of course, when I run a starship battle its not any of these things. But that's because I cheat. Rampantly. I lie, I utterly ignore the rules, I make the dice mean whatever the fuck I want them to mean, so basically there is no "system" I use. I just make it all up as I go along. But really, that sort of sucks that I have to be put in the position where I feel I must do that.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Elliot WilenI realize I am probably missing something but...getting to roll dice and look at numbers on your character sheet, without actually making any decisions, doesn't seem very enjoyable.

Pass I was in Engineering. Generally I think our captain gave targeting choiced to the weapons officer (unless there was a specific requirement), so while the captain picked the target the weapons officer decided on stuff like target weapons or engine, etc.