2020-01-09 Everybody against everybody else...

Norbert G. Matausch wonders: Static vs. dynamic: how old is your game? The idea is that in a fight, the two opponents roll simultaneously and the winner hurts the loser. I wondered how this would work in a fight with more combatants.

Static vs. dynamic: how old is your game?

How about this:

All combatants in melee roll their attack and deal damage to anybody they beat.

That would explain why mooks don’t dare fight big shots... it would also make sense to have long “rounds” because it’s basically everybody tries to cut everybody else and then we all take a step back and see who falls...

I guess we can roll morale checks after every round, now!

​#RPG ​#Old School ​#2d6

Comments

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That’s interesting! I was familiar with the simultaneous roll mechanic from gamebooks, where it was likely popular because it cuts down on dice rolls. I added it as a variant combat rule to Battles&Balances after using it successfully in The Fairy’s Throne, then used it again in Keep of the Mad Wizard, with just as much success.

As for your suggestion, I briefly considered a similar system where everyone picks an opponent then rolls for attack. All combatants act in descending order of their rolls (so the attack roll doubles as initiative). If you beat the chosen opponent’s roll, then you deal damage *and* interrupt them. Which of course falls apart for one-on-many battles.

But I never got to test this idea anyway. And your version sounds better.

– Felix 2020-01-10 12:40 UTC

Felix

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Maybe if one day I switch to an even simpler 2d6 based rule system.

– Alex Schroeder 2020-01-10 16:29 UTC

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Hey, that’s exactly the way we’re playing it!

– Norbert 2020-01-10 21:17 UTC

Norbert

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Excellent. 🙂

– Alex Schroeder 2020-01-10 22:34 UTC

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A 2d6 system would be the gamebook way, yes. Tried to design one of those just recently in fact. Ended up with another dice pool system, except with fewer dice and success counting. Oh well.

– Felix 2020-01-11 09:16 UTC

Felix