Failing at combat vs failing other rolls

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Ian Sokoliwski at 2005-10-19 23:10:56
Converted from Phorums BB System

This is a really interesting idea...I could see lots of times that it might work.

The major difficulty, however, that I see in stripping down combat to a single roll is that a lot of combat doesn't have a simple pass/fail result.

F'rinstance, if you lose your roll when trying to hack into a computer system, you fail. If you fail spectacularily, it might attract unwanted attention, but most of the time you just fail.

If you lose in a combat situation, however, the results may not be that simple. Your character may have been killed, or may be severely injured, or may have been slightly injured (and, in some systems, disarmed) and decide that cowardice is the better part of discretion and gotten the heck outta there. You could have also taken out the opposition, but 'lost' (a badly-thrown grenade could have left both parties helpless and bleeding to death, as an example).

Granted, with a lot of gaming groups, failure at combat means the death of the PC's. A lot however (like in my Hunter game) are willing to back away from a fight when things go too bad, or will seek out other options even in the middle of a combat scene.

...just tossing in my two cents ;)

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Rob Carriere at 2005-10-21 02:17:32
Converted from Phorums BB System

There are systems out there which will let you choose what happens. In other words, the die roll says that you lose the combat. You narrate how. Anything goes, as long as it (a) makes your character lose and (b) doesn't make the other players reach for the puke bag.

Alternatively, you could design a results table you roll on. A single roll (with, say a d1000 if you like your details) tells you that you lost 5HT, were disarmed and are currently faced with the choice of surrendering or being summarilly killed. For most RPG combat systems, such a table would be simpler than many a random encounter table I've seen.

The table could be specifically designed to make combat have the characteristics you want. For example, you could always give the player a last choice rather than roll "death" results. In a game with area weapons, you could have mutual destruction results like your grenade example. Whatever floats your boat.

An elaborate combat system can be great, but you don't need one just to have a variety of possible results.

SR
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