I cant stand complex combat sub-systems anymore

[silva]

(cross-posting from here)

There was a time when I would happily play through hours long combats, in games full of little options and variables like Shadowrun, Gurps, D&D, etc. But nowadays I dont have the time or interest anymore. I think the wave of lightish/indie games from the last decade may have spoiled me on the matter, with its faster and simpler combat resolution (specially as seen in games like HeroQuest and Apocalypse World), Or perhaps adult life catch on and my tastes evolved to conform to it. And I realize another reason my interest faded: those kind of combats tend to drag me out of the "fiction" (and these days I love being immersed in fiction) into a purely mechanical world of cold numbers and artificial constructs of thac0s, BaBs, Strike Ranks, Passive Defenses, Initiative phases, etc. It feels like Im halting the roleplaying session and beginning a boardgame one.

So, to sum it up: I dont have patience for hour long combat anymore, neither for highly granular sub-systems full of mathematical options.

I was wondering if this is some kind of trend in the hobby. Anyone else have similar feelings about the matter?

[fectin]

What time was that?
Which of the games you listed have you actually played?

[NineInchNall]

Translation: Waaah!

[malak]

I was wondering if this is some kind of trend in the hobby.

No.

Anyone else have similar feelings about the matter?

No.

[nockermensch]

Next thing, you'll confess, to our complete surprise, that you really enjoy Apocalypse World.

[Previn]

So, to sum it up: I dont have patience for hour long combat anymore, neither for highly granular sub-systems full of mathematical options.

Hour long combats may or may not be be from highly granular subsystems, or ones full of mathematical options. There is also no reason for combat to drag you out of the 'fiction.'

Nothing about a 'rules light' system prevents hour long combats, or keeps you in the fiction.

[TheFlatline]

Long combats are fine as long as they have a purpose and have some stakes behind them. 2 hour long "random encounters" suck because you're not supposed to be in dire danger and the fact that it's a random encounter means it has no ultimate impact on the game other than being an XP grind/consumables sink.

To a lesser extent, part of combat dragging can also be from analysis/decision paralysis. I have a couple friends who are this way: For some reason they stall when it's their turn and spend forever looking at their options only to shrug in frustration and use like Magic Missile or something default-ish. That's going to be system neutral though.

Sometimes all I'm in the mood for is a highly tactical combat romp, for which I used to go to D&D 3.x for that fix, but these days I tend to just throw down an evening of Descent: Journeys in the Dark or something similar. I get my dungeon crawl fix and the evening is self-contained.

Combat used to take forever in my dark heresy game, so I tried to avoid it as much as possible, to the point where we might only have 1 session in 3 with *any* combat because I hated it so much. But my players enjoyed the combat because combat was lethal and always had a purpose instead of being "oh let's just throw a fight at you to kill some time". So while as a DM I hated it and I always felt like I was cludging my way through (and I was), the players never complained, and in fact repeatedly said they liked the combat and the balance of it vs the story.

TLDNR: Your gaming group sucks.

[Josh_Kablack]

Welcome to the mid-1980s trend in RPG design.

[Mask_De_H]

Very few people who aren't playing straight wargames probably want hour long combats to be the standard, but the things that cause long combats (poor system mastery, poor encounter balance, option paralysis, et al) are not solely the province of granular systems.

For fuck's sake silva, do you actually play the games you talk about? If you do, do you try to understand the problems with them or why you are unsatisfied with specific elements?

[TheFlatline]

It feels like Im halting the roleplaying session and beginning a boardgame one.

HeroQuest is a board game dipshit.

[Atmo]

So, to sum it up: I dont have patience for hour long combat anymore, neither for highly granular sub-systems full of mathematical options.

1 - Laconic is the future. Laconic is love.
2 - Don't play these games with combat ON, then.
3 - Continue playing those games, without engaging on combat.
4 - Did you get my point?

It feels like Im halting the roleplaying session and beginning a boardgame one.

4e?

[Heisenberg]

I was wondering if this is some kind of trend in the hobby.

I sure hope not.

Anyone else have similar feelings about the matter?

Fuck no.

To add: I enjoy combat, it is part of the storytelling, in addition to being a fun tactical/strategic exercise.

Also what kinds of combats are you talking about taking hours to resolve? Depending on the system and scale of the combat, you may well be doing it wrong.

[kzt]

I've seen experienced players run Champions fights fairly quickly and seen more rules-lite system with tiny fights degrade into hours long combats/rules disputes. If people know the game system and are both provided enough info to make choices and willing to make choices you can run any game system fairly fast. One of the tricks is to not put in trap options that you expect the players to find, because then they take forever asking questions and debating before acting.

[Ice9]

I've seen experienced players run Champions fights fairly quickly

What is "fairly quickly" to you? I love the char-gen of Champions, but the combat is just too damn slow. And I've tried speeding it up, but to no avail. For example, with:
* Experienced players
* Partial-averaging large amounts of dice
* Not tracking END, exact KB amounts, or squares of movement
* A precalculated speed chart.

It still runs at the pace of mid-speed D&D combat - ie. painfully fucking slow. Now maybe an hour to run a simple fight is acceptable to some people, but for me that's tedium.


I think that the "rules complexity has no effect on combat speed" opinion in this thread is, frankly, bullshit. Yes, silva hypes AW too much. That's no excuse for making bullshit up. Yes, there can be outlying cases - the trend is still there and still obvious.

I've played games with a wide range of complexities, and in general, the simpler ones are faster. It's about what trade-offs in detail and tactics you're willing to accept for that speed.

[Red_Rob]

HeroQuest is a board game dipshit.

No no no, he means HeroQuest, not HeroQuest!

But why would someone reuse the name of a highly successful fantasy game for another, less well known fantasy game? Personally I can't decide whether it's an attempt to ride on the coat tails of a well known name or whether Robin D. Laws just done goofed.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

In-combat, I get to throw millions of knives at an alarming rate, summon illusions, and alter the flow of time. Out of combat, my wheelhouse is... cooking and cleaning. So yes, I can forgive a fight that drags on.

[Kaelik]

I think that the "rules complexity has no effect on combat speed" opinion in this thread is, frankly, bullshita strawman I just made up.

Fixed that for you.

[Dogbert]

Something similar happened to me while giving Champions' 5E book a try.

1) Open the book.

2) See composite stats

3) Say "fuck that noise."

4) Close the book.

"If you can't explain something in simple terms, then you don't understand it well enough."

[Stinktopus]

Sounds like Silva needs roleplaying and quickly resolved combat. My prescription is phone sex while playing Skyrim.

That said, I do have to second the idea that simple rules don't necessarily equal a fast combat. This is particularly true in games with a "damage soak" or parry mechanic. I've played combats in Savage Worlds where I just wanted the fucking thing to end already.

Hit. Roll damage. Damage is soaked. Hit. Roll damage. Damage didn't exceed toughness. Bad guy rolls to become unshaken. Bad guy hits. Player is shaken. Player fails shaken roll and loses a turn. Hit. Roll damage. Damage is soaked. Bad guy rolls 15 explosions on his die and hits for a thousand points of damage. Player cashes in bennies and survives after multiple rolls. People forget whose turn it is because one guy has been cashing in bennies and rerolling for 15 minutes...

Swordman vs. swordman can be slow in GURPS, which is why they felt the need to have shields disintegrate after absorbing two hits. However, if you shoot a guy, you just shot a guy. Combat probably isn't going past the first round in a gunfight.

3.5 combat lasts a long time if you're doing it wrong, have shitty characters, and/or let the newbie play a wizard.

[kzt]

But why would someone reuse the name of a highly successful fantasy game for another, less well known fantasy game? Personally I can't decide whether it's an attempt to ride on the coat tails of a well known name or whether Robin D. Laws just done goofed.

It was always intended to be called heroquest, but someone else published a game using the name while Greg Stafford was screwing around with it for a decade. Once that name was freed up they bought it.

[fectin]

As of a couple months ago, Silva had not played most of those systems he is griping about. So, speculating on what he was doing wrong is an exercise in futility.

[hogarth]

Anyone else have similar feelings about the matter?

Yes, as long as tabletop RPGs have existed, there have been some people complaining there's too much combat and some people complaining there's not enough combat.

I was wondering if this is some kind of trend in the hobby.

In the sense that a variable that stays constant over time is a trend, sure.

[Dean]

As of a couple months ago, Silva had not played most of those systems he is griping about. So, speculating on what he was doing wrong is an exercise in futility.

Yes my understanding is that he has not played the games he is complaining about so this is almost certainly another three card monte scenario where we try to chase down the point and he tells us Apocalypse World is the best.

[OgreBattle]

I enjoyed my games of 4e that ended in 4-6 rounds, but the wonky math really killed the enjoyment of a lot of battles.

My games of 3e were either very low level so it was swingy with an orc getting a crit on a guy, or playing at 10+ where I thought whirlwind attack was super cool then the wizard turns into a gold dragon.


I'm also having fun with the PbP Conan d20 game on the Den, where combat ends rather quickly but the decision points are in who I throw into what, or positioning things for when the magic users set off explosions.

I've enjoyed sandbox murderhobo dungeoncrawling with ACKS, where it feels like 8bit Final Fantasy where you just go and hit things until they die, but things die in one hit.

[silva]

Come one Fectin, stop being a [EDITED] and address my question.

Welcome to the mid-1980s trend in RPG design.

Yeah, I think it was around that time when these hyperdetailed combats were the fad.

Hour long combats may or may not be from highly granular subsystems, or ones full of mathematical options. There is also no reason for combat to drag you out of the 'fiction.'

Nothing about a 'rules light' system prevents hour long combats, or keeps you in the fiction.

While I see this this statement being true in theory, in practice the games I know or have played contradict it.

Compare Gurps to Heroquest for example. The first is highly granular and bombards the players with lots of options and variables at all times, resulting in a big "decision-cycle", while the second, Heroquest, is much simpler and uses an opposed roll for anything, from bargaining to flerting to combat.

On the "in-fiction / out-of-fiction" field, each option and variable in Gurps is associated with very specific system behaviors that must be known for one to take a conscious decision (an "All-out-Attack" adds -x to your roll and +y to your damage but adds +z to your passive defense stat and disallows you to use Active defense, etc), requiring the player to go "out of the fiction" to think in boardgamey/math terms. Contrast this to Heroquest combat which only consist of you narrating "I hit him with my Ancestors Hammer, augmented by my Furious about Liers " and make an opposing roll.

My games of 3e were either very low level so it was swingy with an orc getting a crit on a guy, or playing at 10+ where I thought whirlwind attack was super cool then the wizard turns into a gold dragon.

This doesnt reflect my experience with D&D 3e. While not on the same level of Gurps or Shadowrun hyperdetailed combats, the only time I tried 3e it was a slow and boring grind with analysis paralisis from the wizard about his spells, half a dozen enemies that took too many hits to kill, and a room full of traps that made us get afraid of even move.

I've enjoyed sandbox murderhobo dungeoncrawling with ACKS, where it feels like 8bit Final Fantasy where you just go and hit things until they die, but things die in one hit.

Yup. While I havent played ACKS, the game of OD&D we are having now is exactly like this. Fast and simple. So I suspect its a feature of pre-3e D&D ?

It was always intended to be called heroquest, but someone else published a game using the name while Greg Stafford was screwing around with it for a decade. Once that name was freed up they bought it.

Yup, thats what I heard. Greg had intended to use this name "Heroquest" in some product since the creation of Chaosium back in the 70s, but got slow to actually make it real. Then the Milton Bradley guy (or whatever his name is) came up with the boardgme and frustrated Gregs plans at the time. It wouldnt be until the late 90s that the name fell out of use and Greg could snatch it.

I think that the "rules complexity has no effect on combat speed" opinion in this thread is, frankly, bullshit. Yes, silva hypes AW too much. That's no excuse for making bullshit up. Yes, there can be outlying cases - the trend is still there and still obvious. I've played games with a wide range of complexities, and in general, the simpler ones are faster. It's about what trade-offs in detail and tactics you're willing to accept for that speed.

That said, I do have to second the idea that simple rules don't necessarily equal a fast combat. This is particularly true in games with a "damage soak" or parry mechanic. I've played combats in Savage Worlds where I just wanted the fucking thing to end already.

Hit. Roll damage. Damage is soaked. Hit. Roll damage. Damage didn't exceed toughness. Bad guy rolls to become unshaken. Bad guy hits. Player is shaken. Player fails shaken roll and loses a turn. Hit. Roll damage. Damage is soaked. Bad guy rolls 15 explosions on his die and hits for a thousand points of damage. Player cashes in bennies and survives after multiple rolls. People forget whose turn it is because one guy has been cashing in bennies and rerolling for 15 minutes...

Yup, it makes sense. Never played SW myself but Ive heard a lot of critics about its "Fast and Furious" combat not being Fast nor Furious exactly because of what you said above.