Practical Ways to Modify the Modern RPG

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Okay, so I am currently working on a concept for a new RPG, but 1- its nowhere near ready to place into the homebrew section and 2- I have some core concerns about where and how I can modify how astandard rpg works. Here are my critiques on what I want to change in a normal RPG and what I want to do. Considering the sheer wealth of experience on this forum, I 'm hoping things that are just impossible to change, or not worth changing can be caught. Note, these ideas are centered around more modern "real world" (i.e., non D&D type) rpg's, such as Deadlands, Shadowrun, and other human experiences.

Combat:

1- Boring combat. Most RPG's work around the same basic system. Everyone has a basic place in the turn at which they can strike or act, and most of the turn consists of one person moving, the GM responding and everyone else waiting for them to go. Secondly, combat, especially random encounters, is often cookie cutter and dull. Person A shoots at person B, often on a near flat plane with little to add tactically wise. Video Games basically do combat better these days, especially computer rpgs. Shadowrun returns, as an example, basically strips away much of the time filling parts of the turn (rolling dice, calculating the numbers you need) as well as adding more terrain and the like. This leads to 2,

2- Dice. Dice waste a ton of time and place limitations on how the game engine can work, because you have to work around a limited pool of potential random numbers.

3- Consequence-less combat. The distinguishing factors of RPGs are the free form nature they give to games. In a computer game the consequences have to be programmed into a system, with a basic flow chart being imposed.

In short, you encounter a group of faceless mooks, you kill the mooks after 30-60 minutes of dice rolling, you gain some cash, you continue. The encounter is basically a box you check on the way to your final destination. In a lot of ways, this is a legacy of the pre computer game era, when this was the only way to simulate combat. Unfortunately, in the post 2000's age, computer games have surpassed RPGs in the ability to simulate combat in a fun way, often with more player creativity and tactical options than in a paper game.

Proposed changes:
1- Use the rise of tablets and smartphones to the fullest. I am not saying that you need to computerize everything. However, storing a character on a tablet type device, linked to a localized network to the gm, means you can speed up combat greatly. You decide who you attack, GM decides modifiers, signs off on it, it happens. Players can still look each other in the eye, without the dehumanizing factor of computer screens, while taking advantage of the greater numerical flexibilities computers give you.

2- Remove initiative steps. I go/you go is outdated and quite frankly, not that fun. Infinity, for all of its troubles, is a perfect example of how much a free flowing turn structure improves a game, as well as creating new options in what players have to consider. Instead of deciding who goes first and who gets shanked without responding, speed should be a deciding edge in whether the actor or reactor gets the upper hand.

3- This goes along with number 2, Speed up the combat turn. A combat turn is supposed to represent a short period of time. Not to mention, especially in games like Shadowrun, or horror games like Deadlands, combat should be frantic to keep the atmosphere. You're sprinting away from corporation security, while the clock ticks on whether or not you make it. Players should be receiving limited decision time and should be under pressure. Not to mention, group planning should be before a combat event begins. Within combat, talking to each other should be a full action. Dice rolling should occur after choices have been declared, to limit thinking time.

4- The solution would be a simultaneous declaration of actions. Once declared, people should be able to react to whats happening around them. Someone set to overwatch should be a powerful ace in the hole, not a small bonus. Plus, no more shanking a guy before he fires back, at least without surprise. Killing someone is tough, and even a firefight is often a group of duels with people pairing off. Combat should be about concentrating on an enemy, suppressing him, noticing him, ect. Team work should take thought and be a powerful force multiplies.

5- Increase "real world" time length of a turn. Ten seconds is what a great sprinter takes to make 100 meters. Even just a good one can make about 60 meters. With a longer turn, you can remove hex counting as a major factor in player decision making, replacing it with general goals "I want to make it to that upturned table". This shortens the time it takes to finish a turn, while making the failure of an action more about what other people are doing to stop you.

6- Morale and Mentality. Combat shouldn't be about killing all your enemies. Breaking their will and forcing them off should be a decisive option. This helps in two ways: 1- reduce mook factor and 2- reduce the impact of total party kill. TPK's suck, especially in a long running game. You just basically blew a metric crapton of character building. Mook factor can be just as bad, the enemy is not just hp and damage, they are people with goals, asperations, ect. A Shadow Over Mordor, the new Lord of the Rings game, is making it so that enemies remember you and develop character based on it. RPG's have no excuse not to do this either. The mook whose buddy who brain you blew out? Maybe he's the bodyguard for the mafia leader you meet with over a deal. The same goes for players, often quirks and character traits go out the window during combat. Players should be forced to consider how their character thinks. A coward may bug off before losing his wounds, someone who normally isn't too tough but is fighting for a cause he belives in should be able to continue fighting past what his stats would normally allow. This leads to:

7- Consequences. Killing someone should have strong consequences. Family, friends, ect. Especially in personality driven games, or games supposedly occuring in a small town environment, the killing of a local should reverberate through your environment. It should also be just one of many options for how to end a combat encounter. Instead of "combat ends when everyone is dead", it should be about capturing an enemy, driving them off, with killing them being a last resort. Give oppurtunities for people to talk to each other and give players options in building a better story.

Thus: I want to pull combat in a more flexibile direction. It should be as much about what the characters want and how they feel their actions would impact their game as it should be about xp and loot. Nerve should be as important as HP. Secondly, surprise and planning should be lethal. If the enemy knows you are coming they can dig in or withdraw. Thirdly, within combat knocking an enemy out of the game should require team work. Fourth, turns should be just as much about story as they are about hex counting and dice rolling.

[Lokathor]

Item 1, by itself, is a big deal of a project.

Item 2, I don't see how speed deciding turn order and then someone gets shanked is different from a roll deciding turn order and then someone get shanked.

Item 3, I just don't think anyone is gonna go with it.

Item 4, we had that in ADnD 2e, and people hated that shit, so they moved away from it. Also, you're declaring an action, and then you can react to someone's action instead... so what's the point of declarations? And you're saying that combat is slow and consequence free, but you want it to take longer to kill someone.

Item 5, I can agree with this one. It's simple. A "round" is 10 or 12 seconds, that's cool. I vote 12 seconds and not ten so that 5 rounds is a minute, because people tend to multiply 5s better than 6s.

Item 6, sure that's cool, write up a system for that.

Item 7, there's nothing that prevents any of this from happening already. People just don't bother to do it because it's complex to setup and manage that and they've only got so much free time.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Attributes:

Agility rules combat. Strength is meaningless. You've played enough games to know where this is going. Too many times player characters resemble each other too much, with little to differentiate one fighter from the next. The same goes for intelligence based characters. The charisma needed to seduce someone is not the same needed to convince someone to support your claim to the throne, ect.

The advantage of adding in more computerization is that you can make attributes more complex without taking up more space on a sheet or forcing more math. This allows greater flexibility in who people want to be. Another factor to add in is giving people an idea of what their stats mean in the real world. Lets say you want to play a character who's strong. Which gives you a better feel of who you are, the fact that you can deadlift 600 pounds, or the fact that you have STR 14?

Here's how I would break down stats:

Physical:
Explosiveness: How fast is your action/reaction time? This is one half of the way I split the classic agility.
Stamina: How much gas do you have in the tank?
Strength: Duh.
Toughness: How much your body can take?

Consider a lineman and a running back. A lineman beats the running back on strength, but often they can be just as explosive as the back. However, the running back can go for longer. The more space he gets, the better off he is.

However, this is where the X factors come in.

X-Factors (Force Multipliers):

Coordination: How good they are at controlling their body, the second half of agility. The running back can keep his balance better and can pivot a lot easier. Just because you are a great shot doesn't mean you should also be able to sprint a 100m dash like Usain Bolt.

Nerve: How cool under fire they are. Between a great shot who can't stand the heat and a poor shot whose stone cold when the bullets start flying, the poor one wins in a gun fight. Not to mention determining, along with drive below, whether or not someone bugs out and flees.

Drive: How dedicated the person is. In combat Drive should be a factor as well as tougness in how much damage a person can take. Maybe he's small, but that's his Goddamn kid they are holding hostage and by God you need to burn his corpse before he stops coming after you. This should be a variable factor and a place where roleplaying should give concrete results in a fight. A character who cares about an issue shouldn't just be about roleplaying, when the chips are down, he should be able to take more. Plus, this should also play a strong role in exp gain and character improvement. Someone who is dedicated isn't going to goof off, they'll be in the gym or the library. On the other hand, too good of drive can be off putting. Sometimes you drive people away because of intensity.

Focus: How much can the bloke concentrate on at one time. This should come into play most during complex skill tests as well as during combat. Being able to keep track of where people are should be an important factor in the more story based combat I am advocating.

Combining them all can make:

Fanatic: Great drive and nerve, not so good coordination and focus. This is someone who will keep on going forever and will be able to take a ton of damage. On the other hand, maybe they aren't the best at fighting, and being so consumed by rage, they aren't the best at keeping track of people and can be taken down by surprise or be distracted.

Mental:
Charisma: How well can you speak, how well do you blend in with people. Charisma should be a bonus, but one cannot rely on charisma alone. You also need:

Awareness: How well you pick up on things plays a huge role in convincing people or charming them. Plus, it should have a concrete role in combat. As I said before, getting the drop should be important in combat, and noticing what's going on around you should be important.

Plus, Memory: remembring the name of the guy's kid will be important if you run into him again. If you notice the successful traits of a dictator, for example, its not really intelligence. Much more of it is remembring people's traits, noticing how people react to each other and using them all to convince people.

Finally: Intelligence. The usual stuff, how fast you learn and what you can learn. Nothing too different here, but it should be less tied to experience gain. Just because you are smart, doesn't mean your long term memory is that good, or you are dedicated to improvement.

Bringing them all together is a way to make a party feel like they are working together more. Maybe you have the face of the party for the flim flamming, but having someone behind them to pick up on when things are wonky, or to point out that something doesn't make sense should be just as important of a guy to have around. For those with significant others, how useful is it to have someone who can whisper in your ear the name of the guy you are about to greet again?

In short, the idea behind these twelve traits is to give more people a chance to distinguish their character, as well as creating more options for people to work together. Fighter A should be distinguished from fighter B. Maybe fighter a hits harder, but not as fast, can take more punishment, but is less cool under pressure. Plus, Agility needs to be broken as the trait that rules them all.

The big question, is whether or not all of these changes are viable/that good of an idea in the first place. I think my goals are clear by now, considering how many games you all have played, are these changes that would make a game better or worse for you?

[Foxwarrior]

I notice you mention fights on a boring flat plane being a problem, but then don't actually suggest any ways to make sure the map is interesting.

In a modern-style game, nearly every "random encounter" could reasonably be against mooks with assault rifles. With terrain rules that matter, a random map generator is a useful toy. Although I have been finding that modern campaigns generally make it easy to make up entirely non-contrived interesting maps, because the real-world contains plenty of car-filled parking lots and buildings filled with walls and tables that one is more likely to be in than standing in the middle of the Sahara.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Item 2, I don't see how speed deciding turn order and then someone gets shanked is different from a roll deciding turn order and then someone get shanked.

Item 3, I just don't think anyone is gonna go with it.

Item 4, we had that in ADnD 2e, and people hated that shit, so they moved away from it. Also, you're declaring an action, and then you can react to someone's action instead... so what's the point of declarations? And you're saying that combat is slow and consequence free, but you want it to take longer to kill someone.

Item 7, there's nothing that prevents any of this from happening already. People just don't bother to do it because it's complex to setup and manage that and they've only got so much free time.

2/4- The idea is that if two actions conflict with each other, being faster should help give an edge to one person or another. Another option is to use the Leviathans system of slower people declare their actions first with everything being resolved at the same time. Person A takes a shot at Person B. Person B takes a shot at Person A. If Person A is faster than he gets an edge in whether or not he hits the person B. My idea of combat is sort of like in the movies with two guys behind pillars taking shots at each other. The thing is, this adds in the ability for Person C to take advantage of their focus on each other and clobber the guy from the side. The idea is to make combat more of a one on one opposed action, instead of "I hit, you hit". Your actively trying to hinder the other person trying to hit you just as much as you are trying to hit the other person.

3- This is in large part up to the gaming party, but setting a stopwatch wouldn't be the worst of ideas. The actions people remember are more about in story decisions, so the idea is to clear as much of the chaff as possible. Combat should be short and tense.

7- A way to simplify this would be to reduce the total pool of enemies in a game. Instead of facing against 200 enemies in a campaign, maybe you face off against a couple of smaller groups. Killing someone in a mafia game maybe gives you a hard penalty in conversation with a mafia snitch the next time. In short, the idea would be to have the gm create fewer, but more characterful enemies, that can evolve over time. That group of Tir Ghosts you squared off against the last time? Now they really want blood. If anything, it can help reduce management, as the Gm can store fewer enemies and reuse them more without it feeling repetitive.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

I notice you mention fights on a boring flat plane being a problem, but then don't actually suggest any ways to make sure the map is interesting.

This comes down to the more narrative style of the game system I am advocating. The GM can say its occuring in a large cubical farm. Instead of having to draw cubicles everywhere on a hex grid, he can use a more general description and then the players can take advantage of it as the fight develops. What I would like to see is fewer, but more memorable combat encounters, sort of a shadowrun style game where planning is half the battle. I find that hex based games ironically reduce the importance of terrain, because actually having it physically there, be it an object or representation on paper, limits the creative abilities of gms and players. Plus, its kind of gamey to physically count how far your character can go. This is where the smartphone/tablet can really come in handy. The more math the computer does, the more the GM can focus on what he wants to modify/change.

*Note* I am on vacation at the moment, so I can't respond as often as I'd like. Will be able to give a serious compiled response to repeated problems in a couple days.

[Username17]

We use "I go, you go" because it is faster than any other possible initiative system in a table top RPG. A player declares what they are going to do and then they do it. Anything else you could possibly do, whether it's interrupt actions or some kind of action simultaneity kludge or whatever, would by definition take more time to resolve. Networked computer games can do simultaneous actions effectively because the MC can listen to the input from all players at once because it is a series of networked computers. Since human players at a literal table can only effectively listen to one person talking at a time, a distinct turn structure is simply faster than any other option it is possible to implement.

-Username17

[fectin]

Exalted (and possibly other WW games which I haven't played) had a reasonable speed-based initiative system. It still boiled down to I go, you go, but you might like it better. Key aspects were shorter action increments ("ticks"), nearly all actions taking multiple ticks, and adding a speed rating to goddamn everything.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I've got something for item 6:

Morale Damage: Morale Damage is basically ultra-nonlethal damage. A character with combined nonlethal and morale damage in excess of his or her current hitpoints will retreat if able, or try to surrender, whether because they're afraid, or because they just don't care enough to fight. Mindless creatures and other creatures without free will (or at least something that looks like it) are immune to morale damage.

It's currently missing:

• When and how fast the damage wears off
• Abilities that inflict it

Item 3 is a deal-killer, though. I have never played Space Alert (although I've watched it many times), and intend to never do so.

[Username17]

Tick based combat is just a version of "I go, you go" where you perform complicated mental gymnastics to determine who goes next each time a character acts. Still faster than simultaneous declaration or simultaneous resolution systems, but considerably longer than just going around the table.

-Username17

[Orca]

I have played in a game where communication took multiple full actions (actually the equivalent, it wasn't d&d) and it sucked. Combat became really, really boring. Coordination didn't happen, the players essentially did their own things. I recommend you think again on this.

Strength, stamina and toughness are all related. Yes, you can have someone who is better at one than the others but it's not a great way of dividing up character concepts IMO. Particularly stamina; unless you're doing something weird people shouldn't be collapsing from exhaustion during a fight, and marathon running is rarely a focus of a role-playing session.

BTW, what sort of genre are you trying to emulate here? Modern warfare leads to different requirements on the rules than d&d dungeoneering, or urban fantasy, or James Bond spy games, or anime, or likely whatever you have in mind.

[TheFlatline]

This whole proposal seems like it can be fixed with "MC better". Eliminate pointless grinding combat, come up with better combat situations, make NPCs have morale, remember combat... You don't need mechanics to do any of this, you just need commitment and work.

[Josh_Kablack]

OP, you really don't know what you are talking about. Who dared you to post it on the Den? They are not your friend.

. Note, these ideas are centered around more modern "real world" (i.e., non D&D type) rpg's, such as Deadlands, Shadowrun, and other human experiences.

Okay, here's the first eyeroll. You call Shadowrun "real world" and insinuate that Deadlands in actually playable.

Protip: everything is "other human experiences"

Combat:

1- Boring combat. Most RPG's work around the same basic system. Everyone has a basic place in the turn at which they can strike or act, and most of the turn consists of one person moving, the GM responding and everyone else waiting for them to go.

Well since at least the early 90s, HERO had rules for both abort maneuvers where you could use an action before your turn and pay later and ways for a character to ready an actions to shift their place in the turn order. Speaking of the 90s, see also Feng Shui's active dodging. And hell, Contingency has been a way to abuse the action economy since back when people took Gygax seriously. These are exceptions, but you should know about them if you are looking at alterante initiative systems.

However, the turn system is one of the fastest and easiest initiative systems possible. The best way to streamline things and make it so each player spends less time waiting for their turn to come back around is to make turns quicker. And that means simplifying turn order and giving characters *fewer* options on each turn. The solution here is to use single-action only turns resolved in player seating order. Your chararcter does one thing, then the player to your left has their character do one thing, then the player two seats to your left goes, and so on.

There is an alternate path to consider. Instead of making things faster, you could make them more interesting. The idea here is that turn order becomes its own attention-based minigame. You could steal the keyword mechanic from Once Upon a Time or the card-based auction mechanic from Give me the Brain, or the numerologic pattern search mechanic from Bingo, or something similar. When a player won such a minigame, then they would get to take their turn. This could be very interesting to design, but the problem is that to be a satisfying minigame it would need to be moderately complex and as such you would have to sacrifice complexity in other areas to end up with a game that players could actually learn and understand.

Secondly, combat, especially random encounters, is often cookie cutter and dull.

Cripes, didn't the random encounters or no random encounters debate die off when it was replaced by the "oh shit TSR is going bankrupt" debate?

Person A shoots at person B, often on a near flat plane with little to add tactically wise.

Not my fucking problem that noone in your group thought to tote along some building blocks / dominoes / icehouse pyramids / Heroscape tiles / holiday decorations / actual terrain pieces along with their chessex battlemat.

There are a couple options for interesting mapless combat. (See Big Fat Squares, and some of Robin Law's writings about set-piece based combat and giving players the authorship ability over combat terrain details)

Video Games basically do combat better these days, especially computer rpgs. Shadowrun returns, as an example, basically strips away much of the time filling parts of the turn (rolling dice, calculating the numbers you need) as well as adding more terrain and the like. This leads to 2,

You misspelled Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

2- Dice. Dice waste a ton of time and place limitations on how the game engine can work, because you have to work around a limited pool of potential random numbers.

Uh, what now?

Dice are a more truly random and flexible random number generator than anything else.

And while it's tautologically true that any random number generator is limited to a finite pool of results, you propose no alternatives here. I'm not sure if you're just complaining about the lack of granularity in single roll vs target number systems (HERO, D&D, Feng Shui, Rolemaster, ) -- which can be addressed by using dice pool resolution (Shadowrun, Storyteller) or if you are advocating for diceless games. Even within the realm of dcieless games, there is considerable difference between pure DM fiat games like Amber Diceless and the vaguely tarot-reading non-numeric results generation used in Everway. Each of these approaches has benefits and drawbacks, and it is kind of telling about their merits that dice-based RPGs continue to be the most common while diceless games are a niche at best.

3- Consequence-less combat. The distinguishing factors of RPGs are the free form nature they give to games. In a computer game the consequences have to be programmed into a system, with a basic flow chart being imposed.

In short, you encounter a group of faceless mooks, you kill the mooks after 30-60 minutes of dice rolling, you gain some cash, you continue. The encounter is basically a box you check on the way to your final destination. In a lot of ways, this is a legacy of the pre computer game era, when this was the only way to simulate combat. Unfortunately, in the post 2000's age, computer games have surpassed RPGs in the ability to simulate combat in a fun way, often with more player creativity and tactical options than in a paper game.

Huh?

I agree with your points that the biggest advantage of TTRPGs is their truly open ended potential and that consequence free combat can be a problem. But I see no elaboration on how these are tied together nor what you think the specific problem is. Instead I see you wanking to computer games here. And while I have nothing against wanking to computer games, I really don't get your point enough to even try to offer help.

Proposed changes:
1- Use the rise of tablets and smartphones to the fullest. I am not saying that you need to computerize everything. However, storing a character on a tablet type device, linked to a localized network to the gm, means you can speed up combat greatly. You decide who you attack, GM decides modifiers, signs off on it, it happens. Players can still look each other in the eye, without the dehumanizing factor of computer screens, while taking advantage of the greater numerical flexibilities computers give you.

Using computers to simplify RPG play and math has been proposed since at least the days Apple II+. And yet all we really have are die rollers, chargen programs and occasional useful-yet-languishing freeware projects. Think about why such tools haven't really caught on. It could be that the technology has not been cheap or common enough; it could be that the update cycle doesn't work well with RPG campaign lengths; it could be that gamers don't want to learn new interfaces along with a TTRPG system; it could have to do with crappy wiring and network coverage in the attics and basements where so many RPGs are played; or it could be something about the tech stymying their human interactions or improvisational ability.

I don't know which to blame. Some of those factors are fading, but some are inherent and will never go away.

2- Remove initiative steps. I go/you go is outdated and quite frankly, not that fun. Infinity, for all of its troubles, is a perfect example of how much a free flowing turn structure improves a game, as well as creating new options in what players have to consider. Instead of deciding who goes first and who gets shanked without responding, speed should be a deciding edge in whether the actor or reactor gets the upper hand.

Okay, I'm ignorant of what you mean by infinity and google just turns up Infinity Engine and RPG maker computer games, so I cannot comment intelligently on that system.

I will ask if speed is the deciding edge, why players would ever play low speed characters?

3- This goes along with number 2, Speed up the combat turn. A combat turn is supposed to represent a short period of time.

Okay, I'm with you here. Your proposals do the opposite of this, but it's a laudable goal.

Not to mention, especially in games like Shadowrun, or horror games like Deadlands, combat should be frantic to keep the atmosphere. You're sprinting away from corporation security, while the clock ticks on whether or not you make it. Players should be receiving limited decision time and should be under pressure.

Fuck you
Fuck you
Fuck you
Fuck you
Fuck you and your whole gaming group with a rusty railroad spike.
Goto 10

Now lemme talk about Brian.

Brian beat alcoholism. He served in Iraq (both times), he works 2 jobs and keeps his reserve commitment so that he can afford to raise kids that aren't his -- his wife had them before she met him. He gets roughly one night a month to go hang out with his old nerd buddies, and he goes short on sleep to make it to game nights. In short he's a nerd who grew up and met the adult responsibilities of the real world, he's an everyman and an American hero.

Brian shows up at game nights and he's tired and stressed, and he wants to forget about the grind of his daily life. He's not always mentally all there (that alcoholism remember), but he's sharp when he is. He has notable hearing loss (at war twice, remember) which is worse when in a room of excited gamers.

And you just said that his once a month recreational guys-night-out experience should be putting him under pressure and not giving him enough time to make decisions for his character or ask for clarifications of the game situation. How many puppies have you kicked today?

It's like you completely missed that this activity is supposed to be fun. And while it is an issue than taking time to repeat something in order for Brian to hear it does take time away from everyone else's turns, the solutions to that are trivially simple. Either encourage patience, or exclude Brain. Include him, but set the system up so that he will fail and not have fun is a nonstarter here.

Not to mention, group planning should be before a combat event begins. Within combat, talking to each other should be a full action.

So you can have your character talk or you can have your character attempt something to progress towards the combat goal? Gee that will inspire a feeling of teamwork and camaraderie amongst players

Dice rolling should occur after choices have been declared, to limit thinking time.

Huh?

What are you even talking about? Aren't dice for attack usually rolled after targets are selected? And aren't the results of dice rolled for things like random results charts and information-gathering skills part of the choice making process for players?

What are you even talking about?

4- The solution would be a simultaneous declaration of actions.

So everyone talks at once and the loudest player goes first? That does sound a lot like Amber diceless.

Once declared, people should be able to react to whats happening around them.

Oh, no you didn't mean that, instead you meant to speed up initiative by turning a single initiative pass into two initiative passes. If you had tried that even once in any game with three or more players, you would already know how bad an idea it is, but since you don't, lemme splain:

You would think that going from one initiative pass of

• a player declares what their character does, then the character does it, then the next player declares what their character does, then then does it, etc to a system
• of each player declares what their character will do, then after everyone has declared, each player has their character do that

would only double the real time it takes to run game combats, since what was one turn is now two turns with twice as many options for players to miss that it is their turn now. But in practice it's actually worse than doubling, as players will optimize by looking for ways to avoid wasting actions when their initially declared action becomes irrelevant due to actions of other characters between declaration and resolution. This can be as simple as intentionally vague action declarations "I will shoot the biggest threat" (leaving biggest threat undefined at declaration time to allow tactically flexibility at resolution time or as complex as stopping the game for lengthy arguments about game rules and prior statements "That's not what I said I was doing! You weren't listening, I totally did!" 'No you didn't|

Someone set to overwatch should be a powerful ace in the hole, not a small bonus. Plus, no more shanking a guy before he fires back, at least without surprise. Killing someone is tough, and even a firefight is often a group of duels with people pairing off.

Oh? How many firefights have you been in?

And people pairing off into duels often runs contrary to the shared narrative of a group TTRPG. If the firefight breaks into pairs, then either player characters are limited in their ability to aid other PCs, or players themselves get left out of the action, when their characters get cut out of the ongoing portion of the fight.

Combat should be about concentrating on an enemy, suppressing him, noticing him, ect. Team work should take thought and be a powerful force multiplies.

Wait concentrated fire is totally the opposite of pairing off into duels. Which are you trying to encourage?

You are also complaining that things are not tactically interesting but proposing that a system which encourages focus fire (aka "smear the queer") would be tactically interesting despite it actualyl being a rather uninteresting tactical option

5- Increase "real world" time length of a turn. Ten seconds is what a great sprinter takes to make 100 meters. Even just a good one can make about 60 meters. With a longer turn, you can remove hex counting as a major factor in player decision making, replacing it with general goals "I want to make it to that upturned table". This shortens the time it takes to finish a turn, while making the failure of an action more about what other people are doing to stop you.

This is the point in the thread where I started to wonder if we were just being trolled.

Not merely do you confuse "real world" with "in game" in your terminology, but you are also advocating for making character turns longer when above you advocated for making player turns quicker and with more limited information it an attempt to speed the game up.

PS: you can find tape measures at most dollar stores, they do wonders to speed up "hex counting".

7- Consequences. Killing someone should have strong consequences. Family, friends, ect. Especially in personality driven games, or games supposedly occuring in a small town environment, the killing of a local should reverberate through your environment. It should also be just one of many options for how to end a combat encounter. Instead of "combat ends when everyone is dead", it should be about capturing an enemy, driving them off, with killing them being a last resort. Give oppurtunities for people to talk to each other and give players options in building a better story.

This makes sense if and only if you are playing a game with modern sensibilities that cleave close to the real world.

If you are playing in a fantasy Iron Age (aka D&D etc), then killing somebody shows you are a badass, and depedning on the victim other badasses may or may not be pissed off or happy about it. Contrast Odysseus's blinding of Polyphemus earning the ire of Poseidon with Odysseus's killing of Penelope's suitors re-establishing him as the rightful king of Ithaca and being defended by Athena.

If you are playing in a dystopian future setting (aka Shadowrun, etc), then killing somebody shows that life is cheap and that the institutions which modern first-world citizens count on for protection have failed or been corrupted.

If you are playing in a superhero setting (M&M, Champions, etc), then killing someone can show that you are not a good guy, or that you are not a silver-age superhero (see Wolverine, the Punisher), or that you occasionally lose control (see The Hulk)

If you are playing in an action movie setting (Feng Shui, HKAT!), then killing people is very likely part of the main character's day job (Die Hard, The Killer) but will occasionally be made into a big deal no-no (Terminator II)

Thus: I want to pull combat in a more flexibile direction. It should be as much about what the characters want and how they feel their actions would impact their game as it should be about xp and loot. Nerve should be as important as HP.

Adding more conditions to track is the opposite of speeding things up.

Secondly, surprise and planning should be lethal. If the enemy knows you are coming they can dig in or withdraw.

This doesn't work in a TTRPG, as the MC will always have a large asymmetric information advantage over the player group. You cannot have well-planned ambushes be lethal in a game if you want to avoid TPKs in that game.


TL;DR: You don't have clear goals, and the changes you propose all move games away from the goals you do have.]

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Okay, here's the first eyeroll. You call Shadowrun "real world" and insinuate that Deadlands in actually playable.

Protip: everything is "other human experiences"

Shadowrun for the most part emulates a somewhat modern society, with most combat occuring between oppoenents on a relatively human scale. As for Deadlands, classic I agree with you, but reloaded, though oversimplified, isn't too bad. I actually really enjoy the setting. "Real world" to me means strong gun presence with PC capabailities being somewhat within the realm of comprehension of a normal person (barring magic and the like). Even a troll's strength doesn't stretch the imagination too much, you can still somewhat place it on a numerical (kg's lifted) scale. A modern world rpg plays very differently than a fantasy world where you are half dragon and murdering gobbos for the gold they inexplicable keep in their bellies. Its limited in one sense, but roleplaying wise, because its closer to our own experiences and views of morality, offers a more detailed experience. Its easier to empathize with.

Cripes, didn't the random encounters or no random encounters debate die off when it was replaced by the "oh shit TSR is going bankrupt" debate?

Random encounters can have their place, but especially towards the middle of a campaign, once the players are used to the enemies encountered, they can become sort of a chore. A time tax you pay on the way to more interesting goals. What I'd like to do with less lethal combat and fewer enemy groups, is if you have a random encounter, maybe its a group you've squared off against before. Only this time they've learned and adapted their gear or stuff like that. In short, similar enemies, but with enough of a twist to keep it feeling new, without forcing the GM to create a set piece. What a gm could do is after an encounter roll a few dice and have a pre-set "memory table". Lets say your group is heavily armored and the first time the enemy brought shotguns instead of armor piercing weapons. GM rolls for the survivors and writes it down on their index card. Next time you run into them, they've got military grade ammo for their rifles.

Not my fucking problem that noone in your group thought to tote along some building blocks / dominoes / icehouse pyramids / Heroscape tiles / holiday decorations / actual terrain pieces along with their chessex battlemat.

There are a couple options for interesting mapless combat. (See Big Fat Squares, and some of Robin Law's writings about set-piece based combat and giving players the authorship ability over combat terrain details)

Even with said things, you're still basically turning terrain into chest high walls. Plus, not that conducive to internet playability. I've found that the less you show the players, the more detailed the mental image becomes.

You misspelled Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

Heard of it, never played it. Was born about a decade after it was released.

Uh, what now?

Dice are a more truly random and flexible random number generator than anything else.

You are limited to a pool of 4,6,8,10,12 or 20 random numbers, because you are relying on physically randomizing a limited pool of numbers. A diceless system based upon computerized probability can allow you a d7 for example. Or, sort of like Leviathans tried to do, push the numbers more into a bell curve. Instead of having the chances of getting a 1, 6 and 12 all be the same, programmed systems offer the chances of choosing a result based on 1,2,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,11,12, ect. Dice are limited to multiples of numbers already made. I am not arguing for a system based on GM fiat by any means. However, moving away from dice can help break the core limitation on what you can do with the randomized results, the need to work within a limited set of ramdom number generators.

Huh?

I agree with your points that the biggest advantage of TTRPGs is their truly open ended potential and that consequence free combat can be a problem. But I see no elaboration on how these are tied together nor what you think the specific problem is. Instead I see you wanking to computer games here. And while I have nothing against, I really don't get your point enough to even try to offer help.

The point was that combat systems in pen and paper games cannot really compete with those in computerized systems as it is. A mook murder fest is faster and quite frankly, often more entertaining within a computer game. Instead, I feel pen and paper combat should be redirected towards a more free form system, with character personality traits being reflected in the stats. I'll get into this in more detail in the turn length time segment.

This is the point in the thread where I started to wonder if we were just being trolled.

Not merely do you confuse "real world" with "in game" in your terminology, but you are also advocating for making character turns longer when above you advocated for making player turns quicker and with more limited information it an attempt to speed the game up.

PS: you can find tape measures at most dollar stores, they do wonders to speed up "hex counting".

The idea here is to push the time that a turn length represents into a larger direction. 5 second turns means an action can carry across both turns. It can also lead to really weird combos of somehow reloading, sprinting and shooting all within 5 seconds. 12 second turns is usually enough to accomplish whatever you wanted to do. Its a more flexible period of time to decide what you want to do. Plus, it helps speed up combat a bit. You can safely assume that you can reach your next objective or piece of cover. Now it becomes less about "how many inches or hexes of move do I have" and more "what can my opponent do to stop me from accomplishing this?"

This makes sense if and only if you are playing a game with modern sensibilities that cleave close to the real world.

If you are playing in a fantasy Iron Age (aka D&D etc), then killing somebody shows you are a badass, and depedning on the victim other badasses may or may not be pissed off or happy about it. Contrast Odysseus's blinding of Polyphemus earning the ire of Poseidon with Odysseus's killing of Penelope's suitors re-establishing him as the rightful king of Ithaca and being defended by Athena.

If you are playing in a dystopian future setting (aka Shadowrun, etc), then killing somebody shows that life is cheap and that the institutions which modern first-world citizens count on for protection have failed or been corrupted.

If you are playing in a superhero setting (M&M, Champions, etc), then killing someone can show that you are not a good guy, or that you are not a silver-age superhero (see Wolverine, the Punisher), or that you occasionally lose control (see The Hulk)

If you are playing in an action movie setting (Feng Shui, HKAT!), then killing people is very likely part of the main character's day job (Die Hard, The Killer) but will occasionally be made into a big deal no-no (Terminator II)

As I mentioned above, the direction I am going for is mostly a modern world type system. However, killing someone in a village or a dystopia should have even greater consequences. The point of a feudal or shadowrun type dystopian setting is that the organization within which a person can function has fragmented. You live in the village all your life. You work for that corp all your life, you buy from them, marry within it, live within company housing, ect. Especially in more corrupt societies, what you can accomplish is strictly limited to who you know and what they can do for you. Therefore, killing someone means that it isn't the action of an individual vs an individual within a large free form society. Instead, you just removed an important cog in a small microsystem, upon which other people were relying upon. You kill a corrupt cop, suddenly the people who were paying him for protection lose the guy they know provides a service. He may be corrupt, but he is their corrupt cop. Same thing for a fantasy village, the local bully is also a local power broker, and a key person in keeping the machine functioning. The life in a universal sense means less, an organization can kill a dozen people with less backlash than if a government did it today, but on a micro scale, where the PC is concerned, people who in a modern day society who wouldn't be impacted or out for revenge now have a reason to string up the bastard. The consequences of death should change from genre to genre, but no matter what age you are in, removing a cog will bring the wrath of different groups down upon you.

As for gameplay, I guess it would be best to illustrate what I want to do with a sample turn.

PC's 1,2,3,4,5 and Mook gang A,B,C,D,E are in the midst of a firefight in a parking lot and roughly in the same lines. They are currently all taking cover behind cars. 1 is paired with A, ect. PC 1 decides to break the stalemat and flank the mooks. He tells this to his group (cover me!). The group has been working together for a while and their teamwork score is high. To represent this, they get more time to communicate to each other, representing the non verbal assumptions a trained group can make. On his tablet (or of his index card choices), he chooses out of the Move/Support/Engage/Action choices, to move. PC 2 and 3 decide to support PC 1 in this action. Instead of focusing on fighting their current pair, they will sacrifice some lethality for the ability to suppress more people. PC 4 and 5, to keep mooks D and E from reacting and shifting down to respond to PC 1, decide to engage Mooks D and E. That means all 4 are actively trying to kill each other. On the other side, Mook gang A-E are quite happy plinking away at their targets.

Everyone has made their choice and the gm, having made his own choices for his mooks can review at will. He asks PC 1 where he is moving. Based on this he makes the call that Mooks A-E can notice him. If not, he could simply click on the mook and say he can't notice PC 1. Because of the added cover (the assumption is that a target is in cover, with modifiers based on heavier cover or less cover) in between PC 1 and the mooks, he gives PC 1 a little bonus. Happy with his choices, he signs off on it and the results are viewed on everyone's tablet.

PC 2 passes his nerve test and is able to redirect his attention to covering PC 1. Mook A is a big guy, but not the fastest nor the most observant. When he notices that PC 1 isn't trying to him, he pops out to take a shot, but PC is able to notice and suppress him. No damage down, but a close call takes a hit to his nerve. He's breathing fast and thinking about why the hell he is here in the first place. Here, PC 2 opposed Mook's A action, and thanks to a myriad of factors, was able to have his own desired outcome occur.

PC 3 on the other hand is less cool under pressure. As he tries to cover PC 1, Mook C engages him, successfully distracting him. PC 3 is able to fire back and glance him, but he's taken some nerve damage himself. Mook C was able to redirect the action of PC 3 and both took some damage in the ensuing fight.

Unfortunately, that leaves Mook B uncovered. Mook B is pretty aware, but not too fast. He notices that PC 2 is engaging someone else and pops up. He notices PC 1 making a run for it and tries to stop the action with some 5.45mm medicine. PC 1 is pretty dang explosive and small to boot, so he's hard to track. So Mook B only glances him. However, PC 1's doesn't have too much mass behind him. His armor takes most of the blow, but he feels it more than a bigger guy would. His action is completed, but the attempted flank has been noticed, meaning no surprise and he's lost some wind thanks to the bruising. Next turn he is going to be a bit slower.

PC 4 and Mook D continue plinking away at each other, Mook D is a better shot on the range, but PC 4 is cooler under pressure. PC 4 is a little faster but Mook D is more aware of his surroudings. Their fight is pretty even and both see some close calls, but nothing too bad except their hearts are racing.

PC 5 on the other hand is able to get the upper hand on poor mook E. He gets a solid hit on Mook E's arm, sending the man sprawling in pain, while Mook E's shots go flying into the air. Mook E's nerve is out of it and next turn he is going to retreat to lick his wound.

In short, PC 1 decided to move and Mook B was able to impact, but not halt his action. PC 2 covered and halted Mook A's action. PC 3 was redirected and stalemated with Mook C. PC 4 decided to engage and he and Mook D took a little nerve damage. PC 5 was able to halt Mook E's action and took him out of the fight. the major stats and probability work was done by the computer, and nothing had to be premeasured. The only limitation was what the players wanted to do and what the GM tried to do.

A secondary goal is to have a situation where TPK's can end with the group in the hospital, or retreating from the encounter to lick their wounds. There will be heavy consequences (and medical bills), with enough options for negative impact that a group really doesn't want it to happen. For example, if they wipe out during this combat encounter, a pc they are friendly with could be harmed, or the ballot boxes for Mayoral campaign A might be stolen, end result being the bad guys win for a bit. I would like total death to be limited to when groups are tired of the campaign and want things to end in a suitable insane manner.

[Previn]

You are limited to a pool of 4,6,8,10,12 or 20 random numbers, because you are relying on physically randomizing a limited pool of numbers. A diceless system based upon computerized probability can allow you a d7 for example. Or, sort of like Leviathans tried to do, push the numbers more into a bell curve. Instead of having the chances of getting a 1, 6 and 12 all be the same, programmed systems offer the chances of choosing a result based on 1,2,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,10,11,12, ect. Dice are limited to multiples of numbers already made. I am not arguing for a system based on GM fiat by any means. However, moving away from dice can help break the core limitation on what you can do with the randomized results, the need to work within a limited set of ramdom number generators.

You are an idiot.

You can use dice in combination to achieve essentially any resulting number you want. Want a number between 1 and 1000? Roll a d10 three times. First is the 1s place, second is the tens place, third is the hundred's place. Triple 0 is 1000. Want 10000? Add in another d10. Want to roll them all at once, make each dice a different color. I can easily tack on 3 more separate results from that single roll (Matching pairs, even/odd rolls, which dice are higher than others).

The ability to institute a curve is pretty simple. If you want to get into stupid curves then it might be harder, but you should then be asking yourself why are you trying to get such a curve anyways?

If you really insist on doing some really stupid rolling or curves for no reason that you're an idiot, you still don't want to have to have an electronic device to do so. Power is out, battery is dead, out camping, don't have such a device are all suddenly things that now prevent your game from being played.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

If you are operating in the realm of the power of ten, of course you can work with it. Which is exactly my point, you are constrained to the powers of the physical dice in your possession. With even the most basic excel program, I can create the exact bank of numbers I want. And yes, the matter of power is there. That being said, most of the time you are playing an rpg you are t someone's house or a store. Or, far more likely now a days, YOU ARE PLAYING ON THE INTERNET TO BEGIN WITH!

Dice were good when they were all you had to work with, but the curves they can do are limited to what is in production. Plus, they limit how an action occurs, because of practicalities sake. You roll a dice to hit. Anything more to that, even basic stuff like modifiers really start to bog down the machine. With a programmed system, you can have combat where multiple stats and rolls can be combined for a single result, without added paperwork on the part of the player.

So yes, maybe your player is a retired marine with a deadbeat wife. Yes, maybe you're playing while camping in the post apocalyptic future. But most likely you're playing at home and with 70% smartphone penetration in modern society more than likely you have a computer to work with.

Also, on a side note, computerized systems also open up a lot of options for sneaky stuff and betrayal, adding in skype chat to the paranoia games I ran with my friends at college added in a ton of new dynamics to the game.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I misunderstood what you were saying with dice. I assumed you were saying, "randomness is bad," when what you were actually saying was, "physical dice are inferior to digital RNGs"

But, I suspect that for most things that aren't bad ideas, humans will have difficulty noticing the difference in outputs between a d20 RNG and a dInfinity RNG. (although they might be able to mathematically determine that a difference exists from the rules)

[Cyberzombie]

Here's how I would solve some problems.

Initiative/ Round Structure: The current system is relatively efficient, but makes the combat feel extremely turn-based. Yes, I realize it's an RPG and combat has to be turn-based, but you feel as though people not acting are literally frozen in time in their squares.

The first thing I would do is have it so that damage and saves are made at the start of your turn, not immediately after the attacker's attack. So that if the party pegs the troll chieftan with 3 fingers of death, you aren't certain if the first FoD affects him until the troll's turn. Meaning you get a potential for wasting attacks if you choose to focus fire. Obviously for damage it works better if you're using a Mutants and Masterminds toughness roll instead of a D&D numeric damage, but you can still simply declare the effects of damage on the creature's turn. This also simplifies status effects, since all effects come into being at the start of a creature's turn. So there's no more daze effects that end at the end of the attacker's turn.

Trap effects would similarly only trigger at the first negatable effect. So Krogar the barbarian walks over the pit trap seemingly unhindered on his turn and attacks the troll. Meerlin the elf wizard may try to cross the hidden pit as part of his action as well. It's only when the troll's damage resolves when the trap springs on all parties that crossed it. If the pit successfully stops any of the characters, then any effects that produced are thusly negated. So the troll never has to resolve the damage if Krogar fell in the pit. The obvious difficulty there would be battlefield control effects and summons, that physically alter the battlefield even if no target is within them. For those I'd either make them a 1 round casting time, or potentially have them come into being at a random initiative count.

Also I'd take a page from 13th Age and allow people to intercept enemies as an interrupt. If you're approaching an enemy group, one of their number can come out and meet you before you get to the group (so long as they're not in melee themselves). This makes it easier for melee types to control space and also breaks the illusion that Krogar the barbarian stands there slack jawed while the giant bat moves 50 feet around him and attacks the wizard.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

I have played in a game where communication took multiple full actions (actually the equivalent, it wasn't d&d) and it sucked. Combat became really, really boring. Coordination didn't happen, the players essentially did their own things. I recommend you think again on this.

Strength, stamina and toughness are all related. Yes, you can have someone who is better at one than the others but it's not a great way of dividing up character concepts IMO. Particularly stamina; unless you're doing something weird people shouldn't be collapsing from exhaustion during a fight, and marathon running is rarely a focus of a role-playing session.

BTW, what sort of genre are you trying to emulate here? Modern warfare leads to different requirements on the rules than d&d dungeoneering, or urban fantasy, or James Bond spy games, or anime, or likely whatever you have in mind.

Sorry for the double post, but Stamina is actually a crucial thing to add in to the game. Combat, especially melee combat is exhausting. I'm a member of our VFD as well as a training fighter. It takes a peak athlete to not be gassed within a couple of minutes. Add in the fact that the pcs are taking bruises and cuts, and have been running around before combat and stamina can play a good balancing factor between bigger and tougher characters and smaller guys.

A big thing I am aiming towards is a human centric setting. So a bit more realistic, even though urban fantasy and other things can come into play. An elf is maybe an elf, but what he or she can do can still be placed into a pretty human context.

What I would sort of like to do is introduce weight classes to characters, meaning that height and weight are no longer as meaningless on a stat sheet (big thing is to avoid one stat to rule them all and using how people feel about who they are to have a greater impact on what they can do in combat). Big guys can be just as fast as small guys, and stronger to boot, but they can't last as long. This can even come into play when planning an encounter, lets say you're running away from a group of bruisers, if you're lighter than they are than you can deliberately postpone combat and then turn the tables. This might help de genericize a character as well as maybe help the player realize their constraints without explicitly telling them "you can move 5 inches".

[TheNotoriousAMP]

I misunderstood what you were saying with dice. I assumed you were saying, "randomness is bad," when what you were actually saying was, "physical dice are inferior to digital RNGs"

But, I suspect that for most things that aren't bad ideas, humans will have difficulty noticing the difference in outputs between a d20 RNG and a dInfinity RNG. (although they might be able to mathematically determine that a difference exists from the rules)

Exactly, some chance is good. That being said, having the chances of getting a 6 be the same as getting a 1 or 12 is not necessarily the best. When I lift weights, I can generally assume to achieve a certain result. Within that result, depending on a ton of factors, I can do better or worse, but its not like one lift I'll bench 10 and the next 320. The advantage of de dicing it is that you can add in more moving parts to a distinct roll. So a damage result to an immobile person can be more consistent, He's not moving and you have all the time in the world to aim. You can thus be way more sure about how much damage you. Instead of doing extra damage, it instead does consistent damage. A hgh motion duel between two triad hitmen shooting guns akimbo in the middle of a burning church on the other hand is going to be far more random. RNG's can be modified to represent this in a more intuitive way than dice.

[PhoneLobster]

4- The solution would be a simultaneous declaration of actions.

Anything else you could possibly do, whether it's interrupt actions or some kind of action simultaneity kludge or whatever, would by definition take more time to resolve.

I disagree somewhat with Frank. I've experimented a lot with "simultaneity kludges" and have with various compromises managed a system about as complex/fast (maybe faster) than relatively standard 2E/3E initiative systems.

But one of the MAJOR "kludges" or compromises is essentially removing simultaneous declaration because that shit is a train wreck. Simultaneous declaration requires either secrecy (which adds needless and significant time, complexity and note passing), or requires... rules about the order people openly declare things which at that point isn't actually simultaneous declaration any more by definition.

I mean unless the plan is for everyone to literally simultaneously state their actions in a chaotic cacophony that the GM somehow understands with god like multi-tasking capabilities.

Attributes:... Too many times player characters resemble each other too much...The advantage of adding in more computerization is that you can make attributes more complex without taking up more space on a sheet or forcing more math. This allows greater flexibility in who people want to be.

Yeah that is the direct opposite conclusion to my own experience. I've found removing standard attribute mechanics entirely and offering LESS choices for each individual character of defining attribute like traits off a longer, but still relatively short and simple, but importantly more interesting and impactful list results in more interesting and unique characters.

Just having a larger list of more complex standard attributes everyone HAS to take doesn't provide differentiation on it's own at all. In fact the narrower your attributes functions the more wizards are going to look alike when they [Invest in new sub-type of Int that wizards need] + [invest in new sub type of Constitution that you concentrate with] + [invest in new sub type of Dex that applies to the defenses wizards use] etc...

You want wizards to look different? Give them options that make investing in Str, Wis, Cha, or the equivalents a thing that it is worth while to sometimes do. If there was a good reason to be a Str wizard AND a good reason to be a Cha wizard in the form of spells and other class abilities then you would meet wizards of those types Until there is a good reason to do it then no number of ADDITIONAL attributes/sub attributes/whatever basic attribute complexity you add will EVER actually motivate Str and Cha wizards to exist and just results in additional categories of non-existent wizard like "Skate Boarding Attribute Wizard".

3.0E D&D didn't succeed. But it did give, or at least TRY to give SOME reason for every character to invest in every attribute. And it did it by making (or attempting to) the attributes ALL provide SOME bonus ANYONE would care about. Which is the reverse to what you get from a larger number of narrower attributes.

Your plan DOES add needless complexity costs and I don't give a shit how many tablets and smart phones you wave around, at some point HUMANS have to understand their characters and their options or it might as well be fairy tea party only now even the GM doesn't call the shots because it's all a magic box mystery how even the most basic rules in the game fucking function. And anyway, regardless of your complexity budget it is STILL a counter-beneficial complexity cost which is bad for programming and computers just like it is for thinking and people.

[Chamomile]

A distinction between strength and stamina makes sense if the focus of your game is on kung fu fighting or street brawling or other (fictitious) situations in which melee combat is likely to last longer than about 30 seconds. However it is absolutely a bad idea to tie those stats to a character's height and weight. I do not want to look up a chart on optimal height/weight to determine what a STR 15 STA 18 character should look like. Likewise, if the focus on the game is in minute-long bursts of melee combat follow by 5-10 minutes of walking around, the odds that characters will become significantly fatigued become basically zero, and if the emphasis is on gun combat than melee combat is going to be rare enough that modeling the difference between strength and stamina isn't worth it anyway. All you care about is carrying capacity, accuracy, and the number of bullets you can absorb before you go into shock. Maybe also running speed.

The trap you are falling into here is the assumption that making something which more accurately models reality is always a good idea. Usually it is in fact a terrible idea, because even stories like Dark Knight and the original Die Hard do not cleave very close to actual reality even though that is exactly what people are talking about when they say "realistic," and even if you are doing what is essentially historical re-enactments, there still comes a point when modeling tiny distinctions takes more time than it is worth.

Plus, you're assuming that big guys necessarily have low stamina and I know for a fact that big dudes with lots of stamina do in fact exist. I don't even know if being big has a correlation with having low stamina.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

A distinction between strength and stamina makes sense if the focus of your game is on kung fu fighting or street brawling or other (fictitious) situations in which melee combat is likely to last longer than about 30 seconds. However it is absolutely a bad idea to tie those stats to a character's height and weight. I do not want to look up a chart on optimal height/weight to determine what a STR 15 STA 18 character should look like. Likewise, if the focus on the game is in minute-long bursts of melee combat follow by 5-10 minutes of walking around, the odds that characters will become significantly fatigued become basically zero, and if the emphasis is on gun combat than melee combat is going to be rare enough that modeling the difference between strength and stamina isn't worth it anyway. All you care about is carrying capacity, accuracy, and the number of bullets you can absorb before you go into shock. Maybe also running speed.

The trap you are falling into here is the assumption that making something which more accurately models reality is always a good idea. Usually it is in fact a terrible idea, because even stories like Dark Knight and the original Die Hard do not cleave very close to actual reality even though that is exactly what people are talking about when they say "realistic," and even if you are doing what is essentially historical re-enactments, there still comes a point when modeling tiny distinctions takes more time than it is worth.

Plus, you're assuming that big guys necessarily have low stamina and I know for a fact that big dudes with lots of stamina do in fact exist. I don't even know if being big has a correlation with having low stamina.

The idea is more to place some limits on what a person can reach depending on their frame. Instead of having classes, you basically decide on a weight class. Untrained there will be a lot of similarity but each weight class taken to their peak will differentiate itself in what it can do better than another. I agree with you that realistic is not necessarily better, but I'd like the cosmetic aspect of what you want to look like come into play a bit more.

The idea is mostly that you have a lot of freedom in your stats at the beginning, but as you improve each weight class will start to hit limits in some things. Sort of like (sorry to return to it again, but it did play a role in influencing what I want to do) Shadowrun Returns, where each race has a peak it can improve a stat to. An elf can't be a powerlifting champion, a troll won't be setting gymnastic records. In the same guise, a welterweight is going to find himself negotiating cover better than the 250 pound heavyweight behind him. On the other hand, a heavyweight will be able to soak damage a bit better, since he has more mass to stop the blow.

As for stamina, not saying big guys can't have great stamina. But at peak performance, a smaller frame is going to last longer cardio wise. You can see this in action in mma, where welterweights can basically keep banging on for hours (which is why you have fewer tkos, as fatigue doesn't impact them as much) whereas its a rare heavyweight that can keep going for all 5 rounds without losing performance.

So, returning to the blood opera scene mentioned before. If two people are sprinting around a parking lot shooting and sliding, they are going to get tired fast. But on a more subtle level the guy with the better gas tank is going to be aiming better, thinking better, reacting faster. Even without the short bursts of melee, exhaustion will play a deciding factor relatively quickly. Plus, its super cinematic. A fight decided because one man, drenched in sweat and slick with blood, was just twidge too slow.

[PhoneLobster]

The idea is more to place some limits on what a person can reach depending on their frame. Instead of having classes, you basically decide on a weight class.

What is this "Crazy Body Building Freak Rants About Build Stereotypes THE RPG!"?

Untrained there will be a lot of similarity

So your whole "attributes will differentiate between characters!" thing entirely out the window for early game then.

... I'd like the cosmetic aspect of what you want to look like come into play a bit more.

That's nice and laudable and all. But when it comes down to basic attributes one of the specific problems people have pointed at time and again for decades is that they undermine simple cosmetic character archetypes they want to play. "Small but Strong" character is a simple cosmetic archetype people will want to do, undermining that by saying "You are small you can NEVER match what a big guy can do!" is... bullshit really.

... a peak it can improve a stat to.

Yeah OK, that's just old school bad right there. That's racial level limits/class limits bad.

"You are a Big Guy, you cannot be Gun Dude, or will automatically be inferior gun dude either now and forever, or eventually and then forever and even more."

That is bad bad bad. And more than that, it isn't a "Practical way to modify a modern RPG". It is rather a "Failed mechanic better off dumped from archaic RPGs".

As for stamina, not saying big guys can't have great stamina. But at peak performance... [big guys can't have stamina]

Yeah. The summary I provided there is basically accurate and damning. Anything else is a juvenile "realizmz" rant, obsessing over "MMA" of all the dumb things to get disturbingly fixated on, that exists purely as excuses for bad RPG mechanics.

So, returning to the blood opera scene mentioned before... [Fails to bring this back around to any kind of relevance to the rest of the post]

Yeah... so none of that justifies anything you have said about attributes or your interesting obsession with various oiled masculine uber man MMA physiques engaging in brutal and sadistic car park "Blood Operas".

Nor does anything you have suggested actually in any way clearly lead to your... kinda disturbing in it's description "Blood Opera"...

[Cyberzombie]

But one of the MAJOR "kludges" or compromises is essentially removing simultaneous declaration because that shit is a train wreck. Simultaneous declaration requires either secrecy (which adds needless and significant time, complexity and note passing), or requires... rules about the order people openly declare things which at that point isn't actually simultaneous declaration any more by definition.

The main benefit of simultaneous declaration is that it helps against choice paralysis. If players take a long time making decisions, simultaneous declarations puts people thinking concurrently rather than consecutively, and that can be a big time saver. Simultaneously declaration also cuts down on the amount of planning required, because initiative occurs after you declare, so you can't be certain which action will come first.

The downside of course is that it requires an initiative roll each round, which will be slower than an initiative roll once for each combat.

In the ideal case, where players decide on their actions quickly, then simultaneous declaration is a terrible system, but I can see the appeal of using it if you've got PCs that take a long time thinking when their turns come up, because it can be an enormous time saver in certain groups.