Combat evolution and the dynamic battlefield

[Mailanka]

If there's one thing I hate about many RPGs, it's the way everything "resets" after an exchange in combat. I roll to hit you, succeed or fail, then you roll to hit me, succeed or fail, and we return to exactly where we were at the beginning, perhaps sans a few hit points. Perhaps there's some truth to this, but I don't find it very satisfying. The fights I want to see more closely resemble those you see in movies, read on the pages of books, or play out in some of the better computer games, where the battle shifts and flows, depending on the choices made by the combatants. A thrust pushes you off balance, a feint reveals an exploit that you can use later (if you set your opponent up properly), those feigned retreats were just a way to trick your opponent into walking into a trap, and so on. That's what I want out of my combat.

I'm looking to start up either a martial arts one-shot or short campaign here shortly, and I've been pondering this problem. I find I don't much mind gunfights in GURPS as it always involves people ducking for cover, chucking grenades to flush people out, hiding, aiming, sniping and trying to outflank one another. Great stuff! But my experience with GURPS hand-to-hand is that it can sometimes boil down to boring "roll to hit until you finally do" exchanges.

Why would players choose to do anything other than make Attacks (or Deceptive Attacks if their skill is high enough) over and over again until their opponent dies?

I'm looking for any insights into the nuance of the GURPS hand-to-hand system (when it comes to high-skill fights) to have the sort of deeply satisfying dueling that I find in movies. Anything you can offer will help.



Pondering this problem last night, I decided that there are, in fact, several tools that might help. GURPS obviously has one-second consequences: If I successfully feint, your next defense will be weaker; If I All-Out Attack, I'll be exposed for the rest of the turn, and so on. I'm looking for longer term consequences than that.

I think there are some in GURPS, however, ones I hadn't pondered before, like the retreat option. If you retreat enough, you might bring your opponent into a place where you have an advantage (such as the fight between Yin Yang and Gunner in the Expendables), but you can also force your opponent to retreat in a particular, useful direction.

I've often found that GURPS works best when you stop fixating on the exact game mechanics and start pondering "how it would really work." A character with night vision, for example, turns off the lights if he can, or moves into a shadowed area. He doesn't need some special power to turn the room dark, he merely exploits the naturally occurring penalties that already exist.

So this leads me to my next question:

What sorts of modifiers have you had success in using during a fight to keep the fight dynamic?

[Michael Thayne]

I'm not exactly sure what books/movies you have in mind.

I think Kromm once said that just taking Attack every turn represents striking once per second from the guard position, which obviously neither real nor cinematic swordsmen do. Feint, All-Out Attack, Evaluate, etc. all get around this.

Retreat swordsmen gives reason to move around the battlefield You can tell that a guy's in trouble when he has to retreat every turn! It also might lead to swordsmen leaping backwards onto crates or boulders and taking advantage of the high ground.

And I think those two things cover what you need pretty well. I admit, there are some things the rules don't cover that would be nice to have rules for--temporarily losing your balance, getting your blade knocked out of position so you can't effectively defend, etc.

Those are secondary, though. And you say you want things whose effects will last more than one round, but how many cinematic sword fights really involve elaborate tactical maneuvering?

[Joseph Paul]

How many cinematic sword fights involve elaborate tactical maneuvering?
Just about every one that Basil Rthbone was in!

One of the things that isn't getting played out in a continous exchange of blows while the combatants are stationary is the advice of almost every swordmaster we have record of. To wit standing in the time of the hand, to use Silver's terminology, is STUPID. You want to fight as if any wound will be fatal. That means forcing your opponent to commit to closing on you where you have the advantage of deciding to meet his atack, nullify it, and hit him or escaping and resetting the range. His movement towards you is a huge tip off that he is attacking. You should be using Wait and Evaluate to gain a modifier so that when the opponent uses a rash attack (moving more than a single step, AoA, etc) you can set aside his blows and reply with ease to strike him. If the rules set doesn't allow this then house rule it.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

If there's one thing I hate about many RPGs, it's the way everything "resets" after an exchange in combat. I roll to hit you, succeed or fail, then you roll to hit me, succeed or fail, and we return to exactly where we were at the beginning, perhaps sans a few hit points.

Well, then you should be happy with GURPS because under this respect it isn't like "many RPGs". You've wounded your opponent? He lost 3 HPs in your turn? Then now, in his following turn, things aren't "reset" - he's at a -3 penalty on DX, IQ, and any rolls against skills based on those.

Or what about Feints. Instead of "keep rolling until you hit", against an enemy that fights very defensively, retreating and all-out defending, why not feinting? If you're successful, again it's an exchange after which things are not reset, the foe is at a penalty in his next turn.

[Gigermann]

I think the best thing you can do to keep fights dynamic is to educate the players. It's really hard to come from playing something like D20/D&D, and not end up with the usual static slug-fest—GURPS, as written, allows far more creativity in how fights develop, and the involved strategies, than most other systems, but all that is moot if the players don't take advantage of it.

Incidentally, this is why I'm running an all-combat quasi-campaign right now—specifically, to educate the players in this regard.

[Mailanka]

I want to reiterate something, in case people are losing the bead or in case I've failed to communicate what I'm looking for. Let's set aside the term "cinematic" and go back to "satisfying." It's not just that I want these things to feel like they do "in the movies" (or "in the books"), but I also want this to feel more satisfying than "two guys slugging it out." I want the battlefield to evolve, I want the circumstances the change, and I want the players to interact with that change to try to get the best out of the situation and defeat their opponent.

I'm sure I'm not explaining this well, but I'll try with some examples. One of the beautiful things about D&D 4e is that the single use of various powers and the constant choice of which "At-will" power you want to use, coupled with relatively dynamic monsters and the fact that it's on a map means the battle seldom devolves into two people hitting one another. Weapons of the Gods achieves similar things with its River, the flow of Chi, and the high mobility of its characters. You start with no River and lots of Chi, and as the fight progresses, you build River (representing setting up the perfect attack) but you need the Chi to pull off that attack and so on. But create a series of tough tactical choices and a constantly changing battlefield/tactical circumstances that the players must adapt to.

I think GURPS does this very well with gun play: You can't just stand there in the open blazing away at one another. Taking cover, any cover at all, improves your chances of survival, but pop-up attacks reduce your chances of hitting your opponent. Aiming, even for one second, improves your chances of hitting and killing your foe, but leaves you vulnerable to return fire. Advancing on the enemy is suicide if he's got a bead on you, but it might let you get around his cover and kill him. I find that when several players are working in tandem, a GURPS gun fight is a thing of beauty.

When it comes to hand-to-hand, I'm less sure. I've certainly had good experiences with it in Dungeon Fantasy, but again, we're looking at teams of players fighting, and we're looking at more than just hand-to-hand guys. The game I want to run is a martial arts game, one that will involve one-on-one fights. I really want to drink deep of the intricacy of hand-to-hand, but I don't see how merely offering variants of pre-existing moves really helps with that: It's not that players will choose to Feint here and Beat there, but that Strong characters will Beat and Dextrous characters will Feint.

I want to see an interplay of moves more complex than "I deceptively attack at -2" every turn. As I've said, GURPS already has things in place that move in this direction, things like retreat and all-out attack, but they tend to be momentary, while I want to find elements that make more lasting impressions on the battlefield: If I All-Out Attack and you fail to hit me, when my turn comes around, we're back to square one: Nothing has been lost, nothing has been gained. If I retreat and you step, however, then a little ground has been lost and that fact stays.

My concern is not that GURPS lacks the elements I'm looking for. I'm pretty sure it has them. My concern is that I'm not seeing them. I lack the knowledge. I have come to you to educate me on the intricacies of an interesting hand-to-hand duel, one that evolves and changes, one that requires the players to constantly adapt to the new circumstances. That's what I'm looking for.

I hope that's clearer.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I think Kromm once said that just taking Attack every turn represents striking once per second from the guard position, which obviously neither real nor cinematic swordsmen do. Feint, All-Out Attack, Evaluate, etc. all get around this.

All-Out Attack leaves you vulnerable, though, and Evaluate is not as good a use of your turn as a Feint is. Why would players use these? How can I encourage their use, either by pointing out their merits, or creating situations where they become more useful.

Retreat swordsmen gives reason to move around the battlefield You can tell that a guy's in trouble when he has to retreat every turn! It also might lead to swordsmen leaping backwards onto crates or boulders and taking advantage of the high ground.

Retreats are certainly the sort of thing I'm looking for, and their nature encourages me to use a battlemap. But what else do we have?

And I think those two things cover what you need pretty well. I admit, there are some things the rules don't cover that would be nice to have rules for--temporarily losing your balance, getting your blade knocked out of position so you can't effectively defend, etc.

Well, we have Beats for knocking a blade out of position, though it only seems to affect defense and not attack (not sure how that works). It would indeed be nice to have those kinds of rules... and perhaps they exist and I'm just not finding them.

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

How many cinematic sword fights involve elaborate tactical maneuvering?
Just about every one that Basil Rthbone was in!

I can think of lots of movies too, and quite a few good games.

One of the things that isn't getting played out in a continous exchange of blows while the combatants are stationary is the advice of almost every swordmaster we have record of. To wit standing in the time of the hand, to use Silver's terminology, is STUPID. You want to fight as if any wound will be fatal. That means forcing your opponent to commit to closing on you where you have the advantage of deciding to meet his atack, nullify it, and hit him or escaping and resetting the range. His movement towards you is a huge tip off that he is attacking. You should be using Wait and Evaluate to gain a modifier so that when the opponent uses a rash attack (moving more than a single step, AoA, etc) you can set aside his blows and reply with ease to strike him. If the rules set doesn't allow this then house rule it.

This is, by the way, the very sort of thing I'm looking for, things like a sequence of blows forcing an opening in an attack or making several feints in a row to uncover an exploit in someone's defenses. I could start to house rule these, add in new elements to GURPS, but before I do that, I want to make sure I'm not missing something, or that my concerns aren't overblown. It could just be that even in a skilled fight, they really do look like: Evaluate Evaluate Evaluate Parry All-Out Beat/Attack and hope I kill him because he'll kill me next turn otherwise, and that this is more than satisfying. Not sure though.

Originally Posted by Michele

Well, then you should be happy with GURPS because under this respect it isn't like "many RPGs".

Absolutely. There's a reason I'm running this in GURPS rather than, say, D&D or *shudder* WoD (Great game, but awful combat).

You've wounded your opponent? He lost 3 HPs in your turn? Then now, in his following turn, things aren't "reset" - he's at a -3 penalty on DX, IQ, and any rolls against skills based on those.

Or what about Feints. Instead of "keep rolling until you hit", against an enemy that fights very defensively, retreating and all-out defending, why not feinting? If you're successful, again it's an exchange after which things are not reset, the foe is at a penalty in his next turn.

These are fine, but they both reset: If I feint and I fail to hit you on the next turn, we're back to square one. If I wound you and in your moment of vulnerability you fall back to an all-out defense and I fail to hit you, we're back to square one (Well, sort of).

These are fine elements and the building blocks of something greater, but I'm looking for something more lasting. An injury example is when you drop to 3 HP or less and your move gets cut by half.

Originally Posted by Gigermann

I think the best thing you can do to keep fights dynamic is to educate the players. It's really hard to come from playing something like D20/D&D, and not end up with the usual static slug-fest—GURPS, as written, allows far more creativity in how fights develop, and the involved strategies, than most other systems, but all that is moot if the players don't take advantage of it.

Incidentally, this is why I'm running an all-combat quasi-campaign right now—specifically, to educate the players in this regard.

That's kinda why I'm doing this too: To educate myself (and local GURPS noobs who crave more GURPS goodness) on the intricacies of hand to hand.

[Orienda]

There's two things–dynamic battlefields require interesting terrain. If you can hop up on a 3' table as part of your retreat, that gives you a +1 on all active defenses and your opponent -1 on all active defenses. That's a sizable enough difference that in a duel against two hard to hit foes, the foe might spend a turn to hack through the leg of the table.

Things also tend to be a lot more dynamic if the different players have different reaches. If one player has a longer reach than the other, when the shorter reached player retreats, it's often to their advantage to break off and take an evaluate and a wait while the opponent to closes the distance, or else they open themselves up to either a step away and attack that makes them unable to attack without taking a move and attack (or a committed attack). Characters with the same reach are often equally effected by any distance, and thus have no incentive to change it (or not to change it, in the case of retreats).

Another option is to allow retroactive options at penalties. Maybe you can take an All-out defense with your next turn to give a +2 to your active defense after you've rolled, but you forfeit the defense bonus for any other attacks, any steps or movement options, and maybe even take a -2 to any other active defenses you take until you act normally again (and once you're on the disadvantage, you can't do this again until your null turn has come arround). It makes it considerably harder to hit someone, but the rise in dramatic narrative might be worthwhile.

Another solution grabbed from the World Tree RPG (which may have likewise grabbed it from elsewhere) is Triumph. Depending on your margin of success, you (or the GM) can specify some disadvantage that they must take–maybe they must drop to one knee to dodge your attack, or they are at -4 to attack next turn with one weapon. Little variances like this on a lucky turn can change what the opponent will do the next turn.

And of course, the easiest way to make combats more exciting is just to narrate. Sure, all deceptive attacks use the same rules, but "He deflects your blow wide and steps in before you can pull in your sword to parry or step back properly" certainly sounds dynamic even thought it's just a -4 deceptive attack.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Orienda

And of course, the easiest way to make combats more exciting is just to narrate. Sure, all deceptive attacks use the same rules, but "He deflects your blow wide and steps in before you can pull in your sword to parry or step back properly" certainly sounds dynamic even thought it's just a -4 deceptive attack.

Narration is no problem and I'll already be keeping the descriptions as terribly exciting as I can, but as a veteran of years of Exalted, I can tell you that pretty prose are no substitute for cold hard crunch. The best games weave both into a masterpiece, and that's sort of what I'm hoping for, to take this to the next level. I'm confident in my ability to narrate interestingly, I'm less confident in my ability to keep it mechanically interesting, hence the thread.

[Gigermann]

One thing that will definitely force a more dynamic approach is to look at a 2:1 situation, rather than 1:1—if you absolutely must take this guy down in one shot, because if you don't, you get stabbed in the back by the other guy, you have to get more creative in your approach.