Resolution Mechanic for an Instant Battle

[the_taken]

We are all familiar with the scene. Our protagonist has is out of options. He can either run away like a sissy, or be a man and walk right up and confront the Big Bad like a boss. Obviously, the hero has the resolve to stand up for what's right; we wouldn't have a story about a scardy-cat. Out of a mixture of respect and arrogance, the Big Bad decides to engage in some smack talk with the hero. Gloating, insulting, and revealing his elaborate plans. Then comes the dramatic staring contest. Only the most subtle of motions is taken, as the tension rises like a rubber band being continuously stretched. Everyone goes quiet, except for a few quiet bets being placed by onlookers that decided not to flee.

All it takes is a simple noise - cough would suffice, but more poetically it is a wild wolf's or bird's call, or a mechanical signal such as a bell - the action takes place. A single action. The two opponents draw their katanas/revolvers, then a single noise and possibly a flash of light, then a long pause as everyone tries to figure out what happened. Finally, one of the two falls over dead. Good story writing demands that at the end of a tale, the protagonist wins.

Now how do you simulate that type of fight?

Gambling With Ability Scores
This is the most direct method of resolving an instant battle. Simply take the standard resolution mechanic of whatever the game you are playing normally uses, dress it up to make it speshul, and call it a day.

For instance, if you're playing a variant of DnD set in an approximation of the Wild West, the resolution mechanic for a gun sling battle would be an initiative test, followed by the winner making a standard attack roll to hit with a bonus for studying the opponent for several rounds against the target's AC (which has a penalty on it from them standing still to do the same action), then a roll for damage with a ridiculous bonus to damage akin to a sneak attack or death attack, then if the opponent is still standing, they must make a fort save or die. Then if the one that lost initiative is still standing, they make all those rolls to kill their opponent.

This is arguably a more realistic method, but this method is essentially an all or nothing gamble, and doesn't simulate exactly what we want. From the narrative side of things, there's a chance the protagonist won't be the victor. While you can predict what will happen most often, there's still the off chance that the protagonist will not win, and a BBEG being the victor at the end of a three hour session all because of one or two lucky rolls leaves a bitter taste in our mouth. Also, savvy players will be able to tweek their character to win these kind of confrontations, at which point the drama of the whole thing evaporates.

Can I be a Mongoose?
Here's a fun idea. Why not have the player's twitch reflexes determine their character's quick draw ability? What you need for this is some sort of short timed device and a token item you can clutch in your hand. What you do is set the timer to a few seconds, and when it goes off, the players representing the two participants of the Instant Battle try to be the first to grab token. The timed device could an actual timer and the token a D20, but a more fun thing to use would be one of those little things with a spring inside of a suction cup that jumps up after a few seconds.

There are a couple of downsides to this. First is that reflexes vary wildly between people, and this can be an extremely frustrating challenge to some players that spend very little time trying to punch snakes or retrieve golf balls from alligators. Second, we play RPGs to take advantage of Avatar Strength. We play RPGs because we're not as cool, physically capable or magically amazing as our characters. Having a physical skill base game to simulate an event in the narrative feels kinda counter intuitive.

Trade in Your Karma Coupons
Why do we absolutely insist on the protagonist winning in these kinds of situation? We especially love it when the protagonist is the underdog, though that can't hold true from a realistic standpoint since the underdog actually losses more often, as proven by statistics. One idea is to not have the outcome of the Instant Battle be only determined by the participant's actual attributes, but also be effected by their Karma. So, when you start a gaming session, the protagonist starts with 0 Hero Karma, and as he does hero stuff throughout the session, he collects Hero Karma. At any time, he can cash in those coupons in to pull off more awesome stunts. The key to this is to tell the players that they won't win against the BBEG as they are, and there isn't anyway for them to level up in time to fight him.

So, for instance, a Samurai walks into a town with the BBEG running the place into the ground with a combination of a having goons running a protection racket and paying off law enforcement to keep things quiet. The Samurai has no chance of beating the BBEG, or at least not being able to take him out and all his goons enough to free the town. So he has to run around and harass the BBEG's goons, kill off a few, and generally do heroic things like rescue prisoners or wreck the BBEG stuff when he isn't looking; all to acquire Karma Tokens. Then when the Protagonist and the Big Bad finally meet, the player can cash in all his Karma Tokens for shits tons of bonuses and win.

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Of course, there could be other ways to determine the outcome of an Instant Battle...

[K]

The easiest way is to simply use standard combat and a single round, but make the enemy much weaker.

I mean, in DnD a 10th level Fighter is going to auto-kill a 1st level one, but there is a lot of dramatic tension if the 10th level one thinks the 1st level one is an equal opponent.

[Vebyast]

How about taking the title "Gambling with ability scores" literally? The hero and the villain play a short betting-based minigame between themselves, wagering character options for advantages in the instant phase of the battle. The minigame ends when one of the combatants decides that they have a commanding advantage and initiates standard combat.

This also takes care of things like the "I'm unarmed" fight from Serenity, where the Hero attempts an instant battle but fails ("I am of course wearing full body armor I am not a moron"). This is modeled by one combatant jumping the gun on the bidding war and shooting before he has enough of an advantage.

The downside is that it's very, very not simple, because you have to introduce an entire new minigame.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The easiest way is to simply use standard combat and a single round, but make the enemy much weaker.

Or a glass cannon like those Fey that hit like high-level sorcerers and die like low-level sorcerers.

[TheFlatline]

Basing the life or death of a character (that you've potentially put a lot of time and effort into) on the player's physical dexterity is a crime against gaming it's such a bad idea.

If we're playing dexterity games that's fine, but throwing it into the middle of a roleplaying game, where you routinely have your character act faster, stronger, or more intelligent than you yourself are, is shit. Pure unadulterated shit.

[A Man In Black]

Basing the life or death of a character (that you've potentially put a lot of time and effort into) on the player's physical dexterity is a crime against gaming it's such a bad idea.

That assumes that death is on the line.

[TheFlatline]

Basing the life or death of a character (that you've potentially put a lot of time and effort into) on the player's physical dexterity is a crime against gaming it's such a bad idea.

That assumes that death is on the line.

From the original post (emphasis added by me):

All it takes is a simple noise - cough would suffice, but more poetically it is a wild wolf's or bird's call, or a mechanical signal such as a bell - the action takes place. A single action. The two opponents draw their katanas/revolvers, then a single noise and possibly a flash of light, then a long pause as everyone tries to figure out what happened. Finally, one of the two falls over dead. Good story writing demands that at the end of a tale, the protagonist wins.

Now how do you simulate that type of fight?

So literally yes, in this scenario, death is on the line.

[TheFlatline]

Good story writing demands that at the end of a tale, the protagonist wins.

You've obviously never read tragedies.

[Psychic Robot]

the narrative trope that the OP has described is stupid, absurd, and only comes up in visual media (i.e. shitty anime and bad action movies). trying to emulate that is a bucket of penis

[TheFlatline]

You could make a system that works but I doubt you could make it as tension-filled as the visual media trope.

[angelfromanotherpin]

You could make a system that works but I doubt you could make it as tension-filled as the visual media trope.

I dunno, I played the horror RPG that uses Jenga as its resolution mechanic, and while the game was kind of bullshit, it evoked genuine tension.

So you could probably use Jenga as the resolution mechanic for such a duel and that would be pretty suspenseful. Participants would take turns describing their staring and tics as they pulled and stacked, and when the tower started to topple, someone would have to call out some variant of 'there they go!'

It would just be weird unless the rest of that RPG's minigames were also based on properly evocative actual minigames.

[TheFlatline]

You could make a system that works but I doubt you could make it as tension-filled as the visual media trope.

I dunno, I played the horror RPG that uses Jenga as its resolution mechanic, and while the game was kind of bullshit, it evoked genuine tension.

So you could probably use Jenga as the resolution mechanic for such a duel and that would be pretty suspenseful. Participants would take turns describing their staring and tics as they pulled and stacked, and when the tower started to topple, someone would have to call out some variant of 'there they go!'

It would just be weird unless the rest of that RPG's minigames were also based on properly evocative actual minigames.

Yeah I have that game. But let's face it, watching 2 people play Jenga is boring as fuck.

[Stubbazubba]

Karma Points actually does give you a reason to do a bunch of stuff before you take the fight to the BBEG, so I kind of like that, so long as it is mechanically interesting. But the tension in RPGs comes mostly from the RNG, in my experience.

[Chamomile]

I read a Jenga game rule on the internet where everyone pulled out Jenga blocks whenever something sanity-wrecking happened, and if the Jenga tower collapsed, that person went insane from it. The general concept of having everyone in the party pull blocks from the same tower whenever something goes south is a lot of fun in my experience, but it would get old fast if you just watch two people going at it.

[TheFlatline]

I read a Jenga game rule on the internet where everyone pulled out Jenga blocks whenever something sanity-wrecking happened, and if the Jenga tower collapsed, that person went insane from it. The general concept of having everyone in the party pull blocks from the same tower whenever something goes south is a lot of fun in my experience, but it would get old fast if you just watch two people going at it.

Exactly. In this case though there are even more issues. Like... once the tower falls... what then? Is that the entire combat? If so, that seems unfair. Your character is a professional sword swinger or spell slinger or gun slinger, but you don't have the hands of a surgeon and an engineer's eye for stable architecture. You're basing the results of your imaginary character off of your own personal abilities. Which is again ass.

If the whole jenga thing is responsible for just *starting* combat, maybe with a significant advantage, that's still ass, because the game has now dragged down 10-15 minutes while two people play jenga.

I just don't see a particularly engaging way to reflect such situations in a way that's engaging to the players, fair to the ruleset/characters, and doesn't sandbag the flow of the game.

[Psychic Robot]

you could roll your skill to avoid taking blocks and on a critical force your opponent to take two blocks

[Chamomile]

What you would want to do is have several "step side to side in circles," "glare at the other guy," and "twitch fingers dramatically" checks, which add bonuses to your attack roll. Then, after four or five preparation checks which (hopefully) tilt the odds in your favor, you make an opposed "kill him to pieces" check. Unless you beat his check by a huge margin, you don't outright kill him, but you do decisively end the battle in your favor (i.e. you've shot his arm, leg, shoulder but in the Hollywood way where that doesn't do much more than sting a bit, etc. etc.). This way, if you lose the dramatic gun battle, you don't die, you just lose. Also, it takes about two or three minutes.

[Psychic Robot]

this is sounding like dogs in the vineyard wagering ugh

[Swordslinger]

It's hard to create tension when the PCs know the rules say they won't lose. The only way possible you can do that is by deceiving them, either by not letting them know the rules or by having the NPCs game stats be drastically weaker than what they expected.

[Chamomile]

It's hard to create tension when the PCs know the rules say they won't lose. The only way possible you can do that is by deceiving them, either by not letting them know the rules or by having the NPCs game stats be drastically weaker than what they expected.

Dunno who exactly you were talking to, but that isn't what I suggested. What I suggested was having several opposed checks that add bonuses to the decisive check. You'd still keep the odds at wherever you'd normally want them to be.

[RobbyPants]

Exactly. In this case though there are even more issues. Like... once the tower falls... what then? Is that the entire combat? If so, that seems unfair. Your character is a professional sword swinger or spell slinger or gun slinger, but you don't have the hands of a surgeon and an engineer's eye for stable architecture. You're basing the results of your imaginary character off of your own personal abilities. Which is again ass.

Also, hopefully no one bumps the fucking table.

"Dammit, Ted! You just got me killed!"[/i]

[TheFlatline]

Exactly. In this case though there are even more issues. Like... once the tower falls... what then? Is that the entire combat? If so, that seems unfair. Your character is a professional sword swinger or spell slinger or gun slinger, but you don't have the hands of a surgeon and an engineer's eye for stable architecture. You're basing the results of your imaginary character off of your own personal abilities. Which is again ass.

Also, hopefully no one bumps the fucking table.

"Dammit, Ted! You just got me killed!"[/i]

Heh... really...

Also, as far as the subsequent checks and shit, that just drags the game down.

You want quick, easy resolution? Each player secretly bids 1-10, or maybe 1-20. The player with the lower of the two bids "goes first" and gets his bid as a bonus on the D20. A bid of 20 (or 10 if you're going 1-10) beats a 1. On a tie both players get the bonus since they both went at the same time. Whoever rolls higher total after any bonuses win. If you want experience to count you add your BAB to the roll.

Now we deal with the idea of character death being dependent on a single die roll sucking royally.