Re: Combat

From: Graham J Robinson <gjr_at_...>
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 10:44:00 +0100 (BST)


James Turner :

>This may be a stupid question but....

You said it not me :-)

>For those saying that the extended contest rules for combat take too
>long.
>Have you tried increasing the amount you bid?

The problem is that I don't have control over the size of the bids - if someone wants to be a coward and bid small, that's his right. The other problem is that I have not found any benefit during play from APs. Yes, they allow control over the battle, at least on half the dice rolls - "Can I bid five again?" "Nope, the troll wants to bid 40, and its his turn" "But I don't have 40 left" "Tough."
It also can encourage a form of dramatics, if not actual roleplaying, in that the GM may require descriptions of what you are doing before you can bid.
However, the cost is extra complexity, extra terminology, and - in my experience - extra attrition. Typically, players will not bid more than half their remaining APs, unless they are clearly winning the contest. That means that as time goes on their bids get smaller and smaller. This means that either the contests take forever, or the GM has to make big bids. (And for those of us who want the drama side, come up with dozens of variants on "The troll really goes for it.") Of course, your players may vary, but as I've now played this with 15-20 players from all over britain, I think I've got a reasonable feel for how it runs in reality.

I think part of the problem here is that I want combat to be (a) over fast and (b) dangerous. APs allow an apparent degree of control, but are slower and tend to prevent real injuries. I say apparent, because so far I have only seen two potential strategies - If you think you are going to win bid big, or If you think you are going to lose, bid small and hope something happens to save you. Maybe there are others - anyone?

Dropping APs, but keeping trying for bonuses, and allowing people to trade a bonus for a bigger penalty if they fail, keeps the drama, encourages role playing and makes combats faster and simpler. Also, unlike some of the suggestions floating around, this has been playtested and has, so far, got 100% approval from the players.

Graham

-- 
Graham Robinson.			Dept. Computing Science, Glasgow.
gjr_at_...			http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~gjr

Tact, noun:
 The unsaid part of what you are thinking.
	

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