Could this work: Combat cards

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 3:49 pm

I've had this idea tumbling through my head for a quite a while now and I want to see what people think.

One of the things that kind of annoys me about pretty much every RPG out there is there is no good interaction between defensive and offensive actions (that I know of). I'd like a system where a defenders choice of action could matter as much as the choice of the attacker. For many games like D&D, you are actually punished for taking defensive actions.

BTW I'm primarily envisioning this for a lower fantasy setting than D&D (or simply low level D&D) that would encourage multi turn combats (though it's not to say it might not work for others)

What I'm proposing is that attackers and defenders have action cards, which each will select one of and flip them over simultaneously. The cards would be color/shape/whatever coded and have a rock paper scissors effect on each other.

Eg.:

attacker plays crushing blow which is a rock card.
defender plays shield block which is a paper card.

Because paper beats rock, the defender is going to get an advantage on the round (bonus AC, free disarm, bonus on next attack, I don't know). Obviously had the attack won the card flip, he would have gotten an advantage.

Now my first thought is to make the victory a bonus/penalty on the attack roll so that superior opponents won't be out and out skanked by a bad card flip. But the card draw could be the whole conclusion of the attack.

I'd expect that different defense cards would have used for melee/ranged/magic and more could be done for things like social interactions (spycraft 2.0 has something similar I believe)

Some down sides would be that it's one more thing you have to have ready and organized and mixing it with a die roll would be adding one more action into the combat turn.

Anywho, thoughts?[/i]

ludomastro · Post by **ludomastro** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 5:03 pm

I like the concept rather a lot but I believe that you have already outlined the potential problems based on book-keeping.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:18 pm

Simultaneous choice action systems take extra time to resolve because there is an extra layer of action declaration and resolution but they do make tactical choices more fraught. After all, if your actions have a massive benefit or detriment based on what your enemy is attacking and defending with, there's a clearly "correct" action if you know what the other guy has chosen.

But of course there are limitations in an essentially non-competitive game like D&D. Since the DM isn't trying to "beat" the players, it makes little sense for the player to do anything but just use whatever action is most likely to provide a benefit (or provide the largest benefit), because monsters are probably going to be using their combat cards randomly.

-Username17

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:24 pm

The DM is only trying not to beat the players on a large scale. In any particular encounter, he is playing a group of weaker individuals or a single individual as powerful as a single PC andis trying to win. He will fail because he set it up that way earlier, but he's essentially handicapped himself.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 7:53 pm

I don't feel like the card system is going to add much more than randomness.

You basically run into a RPS syle game, only like Frank, said, the DM isn't necessarily trying to win, so there's not even all that much psychology like "he threw rock twice last time, now he'll try paper"

It's also going to be a pain to do cards for every monster the PCs encounter, since to make it interesting, you'll need lots of cards. And all in all while the results become more random, since there are more variables, you're not really adding more tactics.

I personally think the way to go is manipulable combat sliders that are set up that let people do various super moves when they go a certain amount in favor of a given team.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:30 pm

Groups of mooks could have one stack of cards, and then just play one against each pplayer, to deal with the problem of having to keep too many decks separate.

Making it actually add tactics is a problem, of course. Maybe if you had the ability to see your opponent's decklist, and cards only slowly came back online after you played them? That way you at least have the tactics generated by ablative defenses and attacks. Of course, being able to lead people is also important; your "tactics" will just become "alright, he's running low on Rocks, so I'll use Scissors" unless you can let him know you're using a Paper so that he'll play his last Rock.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:47 pm

IGTN wrote: Making it actually add tactics is a problem, of course. Maybe if you had the ability to see your opponent's decklist, and cards only slowly came back online after you played them? That way you at least have the tactics generated by ablative defenses and attacks. Of course, being able to lead people is also important; your "tactics" will just become "alright, he's running low on Rocks, so I'll use Scissors" unless you can let him know you're using a Paper so that he'll play his last Rock.

What you'd probably want to do is create it similar to card games like Hearts or Spades where you've got to follow suit, and higher card beats lower card. You may also want to throw in trump cards possibly.

You could also toss in other status effects and conditions to make it more interesting, but your base format would be a suit and a number.

So if the opening attacker leads with a club, the defender has to also respond with a club if he has one, and the higher number wins. The suits could represent attack types. So diamonds might be a fire attack. And if you wanted a creature to have weak fire defenses, he would have low fire cards, such that his defenses are bad there.

You'd want to set it up such that having a low card is worse than having no card at all. One way of handling it is if you are out of a suit, you can play another card, and while it doesn't contribute to blocking, you still get that card's offsuit effect, which only comes into play if you play it against a card of a different suit.

So flame shield may be a 9 of diamonds that has an offsuit effect that lets you take half damage from any ice attack. So while it may not block a 10 or even a 5 of spades outright, it can still help you in another way by contributing side effects. Meanwhile if you were holding a 4 of spades as your only spade, you'd just be screwed, since you'd have to play it and lose.

For card abilities you'd want stuff like "return" where the card automatically comes back to your hand, or maybe even "refresh" where you roll randomly each turn. You could come up with all manner of other interesting abilities too. Some may be similar to conditionals in M:tG which prevent people from using certain abilities. "Players can't play spades this round" or something like that would be okay.

I'm thinking it'd be more of a multicard game each round, where each creature or player on a side plays a card, instead of just a one on one attack versus defense. That way you get some teamwork as far as when to play what card.

And I figure you'd have two categories of cards, offenses and defenses. Where you have to play your defenses to nullify an attack card. Defenses would probably be set to run out, unless they're racial traits. A creature with DR might have a physical resistance card like the 10 of clubs that has a "return" on it, so he can keep playing it. If you had a weakness to something you'd have a low defense card with a "return" on it. Now you could probably try to cover your weakness a bit by getting cards that are in the same suit but higher. But eventually your high hearts will run out and you'll be left with your constant low heart.

Now the main issue is that it'd be a pain to make up all those cards.

Another main problem is that while it may be a fun minigame, it's probably going to translate poorly into a story.

the_taken · Post by **the_taken** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:23 pm

Card based fighting? I've got some ideas.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 12:13 am

Here are some lessons I have learned:

The randomness of dice rolls is more fun than the randomness of card resolution. I have played some card resolution games, dice are more fun.

Rock, Paper, Scissors is a fun game, a maximum of three times per day. After that, one player figures out the system and can destroy the other player AND/OR someone picks "random" and it goes back to the first point.

As a DM, you need to plan your actions on the opponent's turn. Hardcore. Monsters can be as complex as a player and you have more of them. Additionally, the faster this is accomplished, the more fun it is for the players (and their planning of actions). If you are interrupted during planning to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, then the players are having less fun. If you choose randomly, why bother playing (dice are better).

Hey_I_Can_Chan · Post by **Hey_I_Can_Chan** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 1:54 am

Now, were there some kind of reasonable way to accommodate Lost Worlds-style combat, then we're talkin'.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:18 am

My thoughts on the 3-way non-mutual antagonism: it's the least amount of variety before such a dynamic collapses in to mutual antagonism, which is 2 types trumping each other offensively when paired off.

I like R/P/S. It's a good dynamic... but difficult to execute.

For instance, when one character has a ranged attack (unless you're mentioning an exclusively card-based game and not as a function for an RPG) while the defender has a melee counter, what good is trumping the ranged attack when there's no added effect other than staying alive?
As for the ranged winning over a close-range defense, obviously the attacker damages the failed defender and brings the battle a little closer towards victory on their part.
These kinds of issues make for hair-pulling on my part (not literally) as I attempt to work one of K's old discussions from months ago in to new RPG concepts.

I'd quote K on his mention of the necessity to provide characters with their own personal sets of R, P, and S in varying amounts, but damn it I can't even remember the thread it was in.

I think it could work.. but you'd need to find balanced, some times arbitrated, means of making all sides effective at winning, even if they are 'defensive' choices.
Otherwise, be prepared to abstract severely.

Edit: Rather than bump repeatedly I'll re-edit this post.

I have some suggestions concerning alternatives to cards, although the R/P/S concept has had me stoked in varied amounts for almost a year by now.

Frank's mention of the attacker always having an advantage over defense is related to the fact that the defender's options are static while the attacker's are 'rotating'.
This isn't the case when the defender's selection is unknown to the attacker in any variation.

Flipping hidden-selection cards is one way to get around the attacker advantage but there are others.

Rolling Defense
With this version, attackers may choose their poison but defenders roll a d6.
• 1-2 : Rock, Defense A
• 3-4 : Paper, Defense B
• 5-6 : Scissors, Defense C

It would help tremendously to use a d6 panted or marked appropriately but not everyone has this luxury.
Still, it's cool if you do (seriously, just paint the dots and scrub the surface back to normal, they won't rub out).

Pendulum
First pick of mode depends on the winner of a die roll.
When one side makes an offensive move on another, roll for a 50/50 chance of deciding who chooses first.

The chance could go to attacker or defender. While the attacker does have a clear advantage half of the time, so does defender (if a better defense can block the match entirely).

Limited Hand Pick
A shuffled yet limited 'hand' of cards to choose from each battle might provide an element of strategy rather than luck since the pool of cards is limited in diversity (say, 5 at most?).
• In the course of a battle, the typical low-level character has 5 R/P/S cards in their hand. The maximum cards in hand could increase with level or other factors but it need not.
Contests are selected and placed face down as by ck's OP and compared normally, then those cards are placed in some kind of reusable deck.
• This quantity of card in hand increases by 1 to the maximum 5 every time they win one of the R/P/S pair offs, but does not increase on a win or tie.
On a tie (same card as attacker) the defender does get to keep their card.
• Spending a Move or Standard action or whatever also allows an increase of 1 card. This is to prevent stalemating.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:27 am

Aha. This is similar, but not quite, and I totally agree.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48934

K wrote:Rock-paper-scissors game design makes adventure design a pain in the ass (DnD 3rd edition).

Here's another (old) thread wherein Frank gives a dissertation on R/P/S combat.
I assume User3 is K.
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=6621

Someone named Essence had a concept similar to yours, ck.
IMO best point similar to the cards concept:

Essence wrote:The issue behind this, of course, is that attackers get to always use their best attack, and defenders don't get to choose which defense they're using. This needn't be the case.

If you had, for example, attack types of Strong, Fast, and Skilled, and defense types of Block, Soak, and Dodge (Strong beats Block, ties with Soak, loses to Dodge; Fast ties with Block, loses to Soak, and beats Dodge, and Skilled loses to Block, beats Soak, and ties with Dodge)-- and the defender got to choose which type of defense he was using against each particular attack -- then balance can once again be found, because a character can be equally served by being near-immune to Strong attacks as he can being moderately resistant to all three kinds.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 12:07 pm

It's important to realize that Essence was wrong then and he is wrong now. Being able to choose the defense you use against any particular attack in no way alters the dynamic of "attacker chooses" and it still makes specialized defenses inherently inferior to specialized attacks.

It's like what RC was talking about with "choosing to defend yourself." Of course you're going to use your best defense against any particular attack, that's not a meaningful choice at all. Yeah, you can let people "choose" to use ice resistance, fire resistance, or acid resistance, but when you're being hit by a fireball, how is that different from just having your fire resistance passively on all the time?

Even if you make the defender put up their defense choice first, thereby to one extent or another forcing the attacker's hand, it still functions like Attacker Chooses. Fundamentally, nothing actually happens until an attack occurs. The person making the attack makes the one and only choice in the battle that actually pushes the battle forward, so it is that choice and no other that defines the value of all defenses. Which is why RPS defenses are always a disadvantage to have, while RPS attacks are always an advantage to have. Always.

-Username17

Thymos · Post by **Thymos** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:59 pm

What if instead of a specific kind of attack or defense (fire ball vs. fire shield), the cards represented various bonuses that range from great to ok.

So the tactic here is to trick your opponent into getting rid of his good cards with your shitty ones, and then beat him down.

You get a hand of lets say 5 cards. Ever time your attacked/ attack others etc. you put down a card and so do they. Once your run out of cards your whole hand refreshes.

This would have interesting tactical depth because you can have some idea of what's in your opponents hand (if they blow their fantastic card then you may know that you have cards that are better, or you can figure out that their last card is the great one).

I'm pulling this mechanism from the board game "A Game of Thrones". The game was ok, but this mechanism seemed pretty neat.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:44 pm

Thymos, If you want to play that game, look up Cosmic Encounters. Better yet, I'll do it for you.

Here is where you can buy it: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15
Here is where you can play it online: http://www.cosmicencounter.com/screens/home.html

I'm going to be over here playing an RPG that has a random die roll to determine success/failure instead of a metagamey plaer-versus-DM card-off.

BTW - Cosmis Encounters uses almost the exact situation that you are describing with one exception: Compromise (auto-lose) cards.

Thymos · Post by **Thymos** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 7:25 pm

I don't want to play that game either, at least not in an rpg.

I was just trying to suggest one possibility that someone else might care for, I don't really care if it's shot down.

How good is cosmic encounters as a board game?

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:03 am

It is an amazingly good game. I played it significantly growing up and into my teen years. The only reason I don't play it now is because it is my dad's game.

Here are the short rules:
You have planets (5) with dudes on them (4). You have 5 cards. You can attack other planets through a wormhole (quasi-randomly) with these dudes (up to 4 from any home planet). #dudes + Value(card) Versus #other dudes + Value (opponent card). Winning dudes occupy defeated planet. Dead pieces go to the middle. If you win, you get another turn. At the beginning of each turn you get 1 guy from the middle (if you have one). You may ask another player to help you attack or defend, if they do, they can also get up to 4 dudes to share the planet or up to 4 dead pieces/cards. If you play a Compromise card (which are common), you lose unless you both play a compromise, in which case you have 1 minute to strike a deal (usually to share a planet or for everyone to go home, but can be anything). First player to control 5 external planets wins (can happen in 2 turns with some time-dilation powers).

Also, Exception Based Design. You also get a special power. Special Power range from shitty (The Mind - look at other players hands), to moderate (Macron - each dude counts as 4 dudes), to useful (you can scoop up graveyard cards, or you can give shitty cards to other players), to awesome (Void - instead of going to the middle pieces you destroy are gone forever from the game, Virus - you multiply by #dudes instead of adding). There are also special bonus cards (target opponent can't use power, everyone's dead pieces come back to life, etc.). If you lose control of 3 out of 5 home planets, you lose your power (which you may or may not care about).

So, you usually end up pairing your shitty power with someone else's moderate power to team up on the person that drew the Void or the Virus.

This game, Settlers of Catan, Risk 2010, and Munchkin get Special Bonus Points for being reasonably good 3-player games (which is extremely rare).

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:06 am

FrankTrollman wrote: Even if you make the defender put up their defense choice first, thereby to one extent or another forcing the attacker's hand, it still functions like Attacker Chooses. Fundamentally, nothing actually happens until an attack occurs. The person making the attack makes the one and only choice in the battle that actually pushes the battle forward, so it is that choice and no other that defines the value of all defenses. Which is why RPS defenses are always a disadvantage to have, while RPS attacks are always an advantage to have. Always.

Combining the concept of "Defense" back in to a worthwhile means of winning.... an "Attack"... would help.
There would be no Defenses. Only Attacks (Powers, Techs, Specials, w/e)

Rather than comparing a passive force resisting a force that would cause a one-sided outcome, players compare attacks.
In essence, Attacks used as Defenses.
The loser of a matchup takes a smaller bit of damage, effect, or other quantitative loss... although not as much as what the attacker would deal, it's

It seems abstract, having a Defense bring one closer to victory simply by winning a bid to avoid being injured, but when you factor in the ample supernatural fantasy instances of;
• Empathic Link sharing damage (Telepathy attack as defense)
• Reflection of projectiles (weapon attack as defense)
• Counters pushing a blow back in the offender or the classic grab-and-pull that brings them to you for a gut punch (unarmed attack as defense)
• Aura of Evangelical Despair causes foes to stab themselves (whatthefuck attack as defense)
• and outright Parry to make the Norse brute overswing before you deftly lop their head off (speed attack as defense)
... it becomes a bit more possible than comparing "bunkering" vs. "aerial assault".

(It gets a bit ridiculous when you think of a hero reflecting a sniper shot from over a Km away, but that's fantasy for you)

At the cost of actions, the defending player might actually use an Attack of their own to strike back at the same time.
I'm not even going to elaborate the results of such a match.

TL;Should'veRead: OF COURSE the Attacker will eventually win against a completely inoffensive combat option.
So, why not make the Defense hurt back?

SunTzuWarmaster wrote: This game, Settlers of Catan, Risk 2010, and Munchkin get Special Bonus Points for being reasonably good 3-player games (which is extremely rare).

Risk 2210.
Never played it but it looks decent. I'm a big fan of such games even while they take too damn long to play.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:28 am

My idea would be both attacker and defender flip their cards simultaneously so it would simply be too see how effective the defense was against the attack. Each attack/ability type would have its own card showing what it defeated and what beat it. Defense card would show what happened on a defeat.

4 variables might be better than 3

So an attack card would look like this:

Twin Strike
with a weapon in each hand you strike from opposite directions at your opponent.
Defense color
Red: major hit both strikes hit doing 2X damage
Blue: minor hit on strike goes through doing X damage
Green: draw Nothing
Black: defense advantage see defense card for advantage

The defense card like this

Wall of Steel
Black Defense
advantage: You do riposte doing X damage

So if the attacker flipped the "Twin Strike" and the defender flipped the "Wall of Steel" the defender would get his advantage.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:58 am

ckafrica wrote: Defense color
Red: major hit both strikes hit doing 2X damage
Blue: minor hit on strike goes through doing X damage
Green: draw Nothing
Black: defense advantage see defense card for advantage

I presume it's a highly abstracted version of direct confrontation and a low granularity of combat, then.

still, whichever outcome the cards concept has, I remain of the opinion that the lowest assortment of choices before reaching the 2-type mutual antagonism is best.
Namely; 3-type.
... unless you have the 4th type as an automatic 'neutral' match. That would work in limited amounts with a hand of cards.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:14 am

Perhaps more clarification is in order (in my own mind as much as for the rest of you).

In my original idea, you wouldn't have a deck, just a card for each of your possible actions (within the system) which you always had in your hand (unless they were expendable and expended. What beat what would not be set. so sometimes rock would beat paper and sometimes paper would beat toilet bowl. Each card would have the various defense codes (3 to 5 if figured) on it showing the various degrees of success that defense had.

I figure it could either adjust the bonus on your roll or replace the roll straight out. The advantage of replacing would be it's faster but it wouldn't account for power deferential very well. Rolling would prevent a vastly superior combatant from being completely cock blocked by some bad flips but they would still be reduced and their actions wouldn't be as effective.