Sources of Tactical Depth

[TheFlatline]

In Burning Wheel everyone chooses multiple combat actions in secret (corresponding to a round of combat), and those multiple actions are slowly revealed in turn, in order of execution throughout the course of a round.

Its similar to Broadsides and Boarding Parties, if you've ever played that old Milton Bradley game.

Isn't that sort of how AD&D used to work? Everyone would announce their actions from lowest init to highest, and then the actions would fire off high to low.

I could have sworn that was in there.

Also, Wings of War works this way as well, as does a lot of wargames with simultaneous movement.

In Wings of War, you lay down your actions 3 cards at a time, in advance, and you and your opponent reveal them both one at a time. After each set of cards is revealed, you have the option to try to attack if you have a firing position.

It's a cool game but it leads to one issue that I can see: Wings of War and Starfleet Battles and games like that which use secret and imperfect information are dogfights/naval battles/etc etc, where position is paramount to almost anything else.

I can see in D&D if you have shitty yomi (the ability to "read" your opponent's mind) if played in that manner everyone ends up kind of dancing around one another and not in a position to actually fight. It's especially bad for melee fighters.

Still, it's not a bad concept at all.

[Swordslinger]

Incomplete information in an RPG is generally going to be one sided. The PCs aren't going to know all the monsters abilities, but the GM is going to know all the PCs can do, even though the NPCs can't.

This is why it's a good idea to have the majority of the tactical depth on the PC side, and give the monsters only a few options, similar to 4E style monsters. The DM has to run lots of stuff and can't be doing spell points, card decks or WoF or anything similar for monster actions. Monsters need to be as simple as possible.

PCs can do all manner of stuff and have lots of options, because they're just running one character. It's the main reason why I advocate relying primarily on different battles/monsters, with vastly different abilities. Also fun stuff like throwing variant win conditions at your PCs will also be interesting. Maybe they just have to escape the mines in 5 rounds before they collapse, or they just have to protect a wizard before he finishes the binding spell. A lot of the monotony of battles also comes from the fact that the majority of the time the only win condition is "destroy the enemy army."

Once you start using battles that can't be won through brute force and have to be achieved through a different win condition, you'll also see people using different tactics.

[...You Lost Me]

I like the combat style that we have for Pkmn, where everybody picks an ability to use (some pokemon power), and then everyone moves (low initiative to high initiative), and THEN people reveal their cards.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This is why it's a good idea to have the majority of the tactical depth on the PC side, and give the monsters only a few options, similar to 4E style monsters. The DM has to run lots of stuff and can't be doing spell points, card decks or WoF or anything similar for monster actions. Monsters need to be as simple as possible.

4E monsters are simple on paper but they're sure as hell not simple in combat to run. 4E monsters have WoF, spell charges, powers that activate on a change in a tactical situation (such as being bloodied or their target is suffering an effect), and immediate reactions/interrupts.

I mean, I'm not criticizing the game or anything because when I play 4E I prefer to be the DM and the tactical variety of the monsters is one reason why, but if you're looking to make the game easy for the DM on the tactical side 4E is the wrong paradigm. I'm not even sure if I want the tactical side for the DM to be reduced. I mean, I'd rather switch to a unified spell charge + WoF system (i.e. you roll a 1d6 to determine monster powers for the round, the 1 and 6 entries are encounter powers and if you roll them a second time you reroll or use the default entry) personally but I think that the tactical depth of 4E monsters is the right amount as is.

[Username17]

4e Monsters are a pretty good example of what not to do when trying to add tactical depth. There is no rhyme or reason behind the things the monsters do. The things their triggered abilities trigger off of are totally fucking random, and the things that happen when the monster gets bloodied are even more random.

That's like the colored oozes of old. You need to use one type of energy attack, but there is no reason for you to know what that energy attack actually is. Bereft of clues, it falls on the players to just try shit at random until they find something that works. This kind of depthless annoyance is so common in D&D and its variants that I think it should have a name.

Searching? Cycling? Sinking (reference to Kitchen Sinks)? Key Fumbling? Something like that. The idea is that you aren't really making decisions, you're just trying shit either with a sorting algorithm or totally at random until you either win or lose. It's the thing that happens when you're facing puzzle monsters and you have no clues to the puzzle. You know: like every single 4e combat.

-Username17

[Almaz]

4e Monsters are a pretty good example of what not to do when trying to add tactical depth. There is no rhyme or reason behind the things the monsters do. The things their triggered abilities trigger off of are totally fucking random, and the things that happen when the monster gets bloodied are even more random.

That's like the colored oozes of old. You need to use one type of energy attack, but there is no reason for you to know what that energy attack actually is. Bereft of clues, it falls on the players to just try shit at random until they find something that works. This kind of depthless annoyance is so common in D&D and its variants that I think it should have a name.

Searching? Cycling? Sinking (reference to Kitchen Sinks)? Key Fumbling? Something like that. The idea is that you aren't really making decisions, you're just trying shit either with a sorting algorithm or totally at random until you either win or lose. It's the thing that happens when you're facing puzzle monsters and you have no clues to the puzzle. You know: like every single 4e combat.

-Username17

I would refer to the pattern as Chaos Monsters. Because every now and then someone gets the idea that it would be a chuckle if "chaos monsters" had totally randomly generated abilities with no rhyme or reason including randomly determined energy immunities and randomly determined attack sequences, and so you have monsters determined by dice, which is about as much sense as anything else you encounter in some game as 4e. But that's mine.

It is obvious, however, that the solutions that players use to resolve these issues are classic Brute Force algorithms, except even more literally - guess the solution until it dies of force!

[Draco_Argentum]

Searching? Cycling? Sinking (reference to Kitchen Sinks)? Key Fumbling? Something like that. The idea is that you aren't really making decisions, you're just trying shit either with a sorting algorithm or totally at random until you either win or lose. It's the thing that happens when you're facing puzzle monsters and you have no clues to the puzzle. You know: like every single 4e combat.

-Username17

Winnah already posted this one and called it Button Mashing.

[Username17]

Searching? Cycling? Sinking (reference to Kitchen Sinks)? Key Fumbling? Something like that. The idea is that you aren't really making decisions, you're just trying shit either with a sorting algorithm or totally at random until you either win or lose. It's the thing that happens when you're facing puzzle monsters and you have no clues to the puzzle. You know: like every single 4e combat.

-Username17

Winnah already posted this one and called it Button Mashing.

I don't know that I like that term. Or rather, I like that term a lot, but not for that particular phenomenon. Button Mashing to my mind calls up the act of using abilities at random because it makes no predictable difference what abilities you use or what order you use them. 4th edition D&D is a test case of Button Mashing in that sense - but not particularly because you don't know what the enemies are capable of or what resistances they have. In 4e you button mash because you have Encounter powers that are used once each in every encounter, and you have less Encounter powers than there are rounds in the encounter, and each Encounter power is demonstrably and specifically superior to your at-will powers.

The net result is that your behavior really isn't that different if you just choose one of the Encounter Powers each turn completely at random. If you don't use your 2W strike this turn, you'll use it next turn. You're going to end up using all of your attacks against the Solo and it often makes literally no difference at all which order they are used in. That's very different from being forced to do a brute force seeking algorithm to solve the encounter, you're literally just using all your stuff in whatever order because it makes no difference what order your stuff is used in.

-Username17

[Winnah]

fair enough. It was part of my old groups terminology for those kind of scenarios. I did not give it much thought.

Those kind of encounters can fall into the realm of operant conditioning. The negative stimuli for 'incorrect' behaviour is the monster continuing to attack. Positive reinforcement would be the creature reacting to damage and it's eventual demise. It's like a lethal Skinner box.

[name_here]

Brute forcing might be a good term for randomly guessing puzzle monsters. Admittedly, it might get confused with saying, "fuck it, I don't care what the puzzle is, I'm going to punch it in the face".

[RobbyPants]

Isn't that sort of how AD&D used to work? Everyone would announce their actions from lowest init to highest, and then the actions would fire off high to low.

I could have sworn that was in there.

I know 2E Combat & Tactics did that, but I'm pretty sure standard 2E didn't. I can't speak for any older editions.

[RobbyPants]

Brute forcing might be a good term for randomly guessing puzzle monsters. Admittedly, it might get confused with saying, "fuck it, I don't care what the puzzle is, I'm going to punch it in the face".

I like brute forcing, but then again, I'm a programmer.

[echoVanguard]

Brute forcing might be a good term for randomly guessing puzzle monsters. Admittedly, it might get confused with saying, "fuck it, I don't care what the puzzle is, I'm going to punch it in the face".

I like brute forcing, but then again, I'm a programmer.

Brute-force algorithms have their place, but combat is always a limited-iteration exercise, which is exactly where brute-force is the worst solution. Ideally, you want a solution of O (log n) if at all possible. O(1) would be an example of a situation with no depth at all, and O(n) would be just iterating through your options in order.

echo

[RobbyPants]

I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm saying the term is somewhat apt, when you don't have enough information to reliably limit your search actions tested.

[TheFlatline]

Brute forcing might be a good term for randomly guessing puzzle monsters. Admittedly, it might get confused with saying, "fuck it, I don't care what the puzzle is, I'm going to punch it in the face".

I like brute forcing, but then again, I'm a programmer.

Dictionary attack.

[Username17]

Brute forcing might be a good term for randomly guessing puzzle monsters. Admittedly, it might get confused with saying, "fuck it, I don't care what the puzzle is, I'm going to punch it in the face".

I like brute forcing, but then again, I'm a programmer.

Dictionary attack.

That's a really good one.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Isn't that sort of how AD&D used to work? Everyone would announce their actions from lowest init to highest, and then the actions would fire off high to low.

I could have sworn that was in there.

I know 2E Combat & Tactics did that, but I'm pretty sure standard 2E didn't. I can't speak for any older editions.

I don't even own combat & tactics... and know nobody who did. How the hell did I come to play by some of these variant rules???

I don't particularly mind the hidden action declaration concept but for that it involves cards. Which means you need a card for every fucking option a player has available to him. Or every class of option and let the player declare after revealing.

[Red_Rob]

In 2nd Ed. initiative was modified by the action you took, so you had to declare your actions before you rolled for initiative. The book didn't really give a suggestion for how you determined who declared their actions first, leading to the suggestion that you should roll for initiative to determine who rolls for initiative first.

[tenuki]

Isn't that sort of how AD&D used to work? Everyone would announce their actions from lowest init to highest, and then the actions would fire off high to low.

I could have sworn that was in there.

I know 2E Combat & Tactics did that, but I'm pretty sure standard 2E didn't. I can't speak for any older editions.

I don't even own combat & tactics... and know nobody who did. How the hell did I come to play by some of these variant rules???

I don't particularly mind the hidden action declaration concept but for that it involves cards. Which means you need a card for every fucking option a player has available to him. Or every class of option and let the player declare after revealing.

Yeah. And you'd need the same shit for every adversary (or group of chaff) the PCs are facing and keep track of it... Seriously, if I wanted to go through the administrative equivalent of running a small town, I'd run for mayor. Tactical depth in TTRPGs is all well and good, but pace of play should remain a consideration IMO.

However, to return to the three problems named by the OP, how about looking for some countermeasures?

Defaulting: Baddies That Learn.
PCs are gathering information about their enemies all the time in order to find ways to defeat them. There is no reason why an antagonist who is halfway serious about his business shouldn't be doing the same. This has the added benefit that you can integrate these spying activities into the story. One of the challenges for the GM here is to carefully keep track of the information available to the opposition instead of arbitrarily having enemies show up armed to the teeth with perfect counters to the PCs' specialties. Of course, the whole idea also presupposes a ruleset that supports such counters.

Scripting: Hmm.
It strikes me that scripting pretty much defaults to defaulting with a higher resolution: Instead of the same single ability, scripting uses a fixed sequence of abilities that are separate only in theory. That said, scripting should be easier to counter for a smart/informed opponent than defaulting, because most of the time it ought to be enough to prevent a few links of the scripting chain from being implemented. Environmental conditions could also make parts of a script unviable, forcing the player to come up with something else.

Top Decking: Conflict of Interest.
What I mean is that climactic scenes in an RPG narrative should involve some sort of dilemma for the PCs - you get different things depending on what you do, but you can't have it all. Most people are horribly risk/loss-averse; in my experience, making players aware of the downsides of their actions suddenly gets them thinking really hard. The danger here is that some players who are too used to 'winning' may get frustrated. Well, good riddance. (And please note the word <i>different</i> in 'you can get different things depending on what you do'. This is critical.)

CoI may be easier to implement in the overall story arch than in, say, a combat scene. However, a good source for dilemma in a combat/action scene is to give the PCs some other objective they want/need to achieve besides wasting those critters.

[RobbyPants]

In 2nd Ed. initiative was modified by the action you took, so you had to declare your actions before you rolled for initiative. The book didn't really give a suggestion for how you determined who declared their actions first, leading to the suggestion that you should roll for initiative to determine who rolls for initiative first.

That's right. It's all coming back to me...

[Almaz]

Brute forcing might be a good term for randomly guessing puzzle monsters. Admittedly, it might get confused with saying, "fuck it, I don't care what the puzzle is, I'm going to punch it in the face".

That is, in fact, what the player is doing when they fight a puzzle monster and their solutions are futile, randomized expressions of violence.

"RARRRRRGH! *PUNCH*"

[TheFlatline]

So having been interested in it for some time, I ordered, and received, Twilight Struggle, the current top game over at Board Game Geek, and I've been reading the rules, studying the cards, and reading After Action Reports and some strategy posts.

While the game is more strategic than tactical, there are lots of options built on a relatively simple system that gives an extreme amount of depth.

It also more or less sells me on Winds of Fate being the potential for a really deep combat system.

To paraphrase the concept of the game, there are three phases, early, middle, and late Cold War. Each phase has a deck of cards. Each time you move into the next phase, the deck of cards is shuffled in with the next stage of the war, diluting out the deck. Each turn of the game (there are 10) is played over a series of action rounds, where each player takes turns playing a card from their hand.

Cards have Operation Point values on them, and they have events keyed to benefit the US, USSR, or whichever team plays the event. The card may be played for Op points, or it may be played for an event. If you play for op points, and the event is keyed to your enemy, the enemy gets that action. Some actions are removed from the game, the rest are discarded and eventually reshuffled.

Op points are used to build up influence in regions, which the intent to establish control over countries. This control is utilized when a scoring card for the region is played. The more you control the region, the more it's worth. Victory points are on a 41 point spread, and 20 to either team is an auto win (it's a tug-of-war instead of a race). Op points can also reduce influence either by government "readjustments" or coups.

There's also a space race which is a bleed-off valve for bad cards.

There's also a DEFCON track that locks down areas of the world from coup/readjustment as it drops, and if it hits 1, it's nuclear war and whoever phase it was loses the game instantly. Various events raise and lower DEFCON, so it's possible to accidentally trigger nuclear war and lose.

What makes the game interesting is that you are often dealt event cards that will help your opponent, and will almost certainly have to use them during the turn. The powerful options to reduce influence in the world: Coups and readjusts, are locked down, both by a dropping DEFCON rating, and with coups occurring in critical countries in areas throughout the world.

The system itself reminds me a *lot* of winds of fate, in that knowing the deck is important and having to adapt to what you have, and potentially to what your opponent has. I can easily see how a tactical system could evolve, especially with a risk/reward system that offered significant power in exchange for a serious drawback. The game would then revolve around attempting to minimize that biggest drawback possible so you could use that potent move/power.

I'm more or less sold on the idea that there needs to be a risk for the powers to be rewarding. In AD&D this was casting times that could push you into the next round, being vulnerable at this time. In 3rd and 4th, there's no risk to actually casting sleep or fireball unless you're already in melee, which should ideally almost never happen. Fighters were safe and steady, pushing out predictable DPT (Damage Per Turn) with the big drawback being that you were probably the damage sponge. By eliminating the biggest drawback to playing a caster (namely the vulnerability of a caster while he's casting), you eliminate much of the tactical nature of the D&D game as it stands.

[mean_liar]

I can easily see how a tactical system could evolve, especially with a risk/reward system that offered significant power in exchange for a serious drawback...

I'm more or less sold on the idea that there needs to be a risk for the powers to be rewarding. In AD&D this was casting times that could push you into the next round, being vulnerable at this time. In 3rd and 4th, there's no risk to actually casting sleep or fireball unless you're already in melee, which should ideally almost never happen. ...By eliminating the biggest drawback to playing a caster (namely the vulnerability of a caster while he's casting), you eliminate much of the tactical nature of the D&D game as it stands.

I haven't played Twilight Struggle, so I'll focus on this part here.

This, this, this. +1 forevs.

A keyword/tagging system for actions with RPS superiority/determination of advantage, malleable axes of attack and defense altered by action choice, or SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

[echoVanguard]

words

I haven't played Twilight Struggle, so I'll focus on this part here.

This, this, this. +1 forevs.

A keyword/tagging system for actions with RPS superiority/determination of advantage, malleable axes of attack and defense altered by action choice, or SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

What about expenditure of a resource that has non-trivial recovery, especially if success of the action isn't assured? To use a D&D example, what if Eberron spellcasters had to spend an action point to cast a spell?

echo

[TheFlatline]

words

I haven't played Twilight Struggle, so I'll focus on this part here.

This, this, this. +1 forevs.

A keyword/tagging system for actions with RPS superiority/determination of advantage, malleable axes of attack and defense altered by action choice, or SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

What about expenditure of a resource that has non-trivial recovery, especially if success of the action isn't assured? To use a D&D example, what if Eberron spellcasters had to spend an action point to cast a spell?

That only works if one of a couple different concepts is fulfilled:

1. You can't rely on your action points being refilled at a given rate

or

2. Action points could also be used for things that are equally important to blowing off a spell. Like if you could only heal magically if you popped an action point: Then, spellcasters have to fear every single point of damage they take, because healing degrades their offensive capabilities.

Otherwise it's the same spellcasting system as we already have, just on a far more limited basis.

The point of Twilight Struggle is that abilities trigger from both players. There's an inherent value in popping cards for Op points (they are the currency of the game), but if the card benefits your opponent, he gets the benefit while you get the points. The real depth at that point is figuring out the moment to pop that card, get the points (while they're still useful), and yet find a moment or situation where the benefit you're giving the opponent is minimized, or even completely useless (or even rarely a negative). There's inherent risk/reward to each action.

I'm not saying the same concept should be adapted to table-top, namely because card-driven combat is balls and you'd have to come up with complex interactions for every character class and every NPC, which is balls, but that core idea of risk/reward needs to be the crux of combat. Nobody remembers the combats where the mage casts fireball and cuts down 50 orcs and the fighter cleans up. Players remember the fights where the balance of power swings on one attack or one saving throw. They remember taking big risks and having them pay off with luck and planning.

In AD&D, even getting off a fireball was an achievement, because usually half the combatants got to go while you were sitting there casting, and getting shot or hit fucked your spell up. Not to mention that counter-spelling was an actual valid tactic that didn't require you readying an action to make a spellcraft check and if you had dispel magic or the exact same spell memorized you had a *chance* to fizzle the caster.

You don't even necessarily need spells per day to make risk/reward work. Look at Shadowrun for example: you can cast little pissy spells all day long and not blink. But if you need to haul out the big cannons, you're risking significant chances of blacking out or physically injuring yourself (and thus geeking you) by amping up the power levels. The magic system therefore becomes interesting and tactically deeper than D&D.