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I've been testing out a new combat system for White Wolf games, such as Vampire: The Masquerade.
White Wolf games opined about how the system was simple - roll a number of D10's equal to your Strength + Athletics (or whatever), and count all the dice which land on 6 or more. The player then reads the dice like so many runes, and the final result would yield detailed information.
It works eloquently, and the constant demand for interpretation really helped drive stories forward.
The Storyteller knows the local Cainites hide in a local house, and have ghouled the local police. When the players investigate and receive a single success, the Storyteller then has to invent some appropriate, but small, clue. Perhaps they notice a police officer using abnormal strength, or a police officer pulls over a car to ask the group what they're doing - not an amazing clue, but it points out that the police are unusually active.
The simple rules had a couple of variations, such as extended rolls (where you roll many times, and accumulate successes), and resisted rolls (where you roll against an opponent, and the lower roll subtracts from the higher roll.
This wonderfully parsimonious system fit onto only two pages.
Once the book moved into combat, bloat crept in. We received a long, complicated list of actions to perform, each with their own rules:
Our crew of vampires were meant to be able to take on many mortals, but if anyone actually attempted a crew of twelve soldiers with body-armour facing off against a coterie of four kindred, they would end up rolling 80 dice to finish a single round of combat.
The rules for combat gave enticing options, which makes players focus on it - money just gets you stuff, but combat has levers and buttons to push! But after all the rolls were done, the system gave players a single result after a round - you are wounded, so is the opponent.
Roll again? [Y/n]
The rules on different attack-types cast an illusion of choice, but a little Mathematics clearly shows no tactics exist. Anyone rolling 4 or more dice should perform an ordinary roll. Anyone rolling fewer dice should attack their opponent's eyeballs (+2 Damage, +3 difficulty).
Later White Wolf books would taunt the notion of players who bought 5 dots in Dexterity and MĂȘlĂ©e instead of 'proper roleplaying', despite the fact that their own rules had focussed on combat more than anything else.
Rather than having a combat system, I wanted to make a Contest system, where people face off against each other, in any arena. The idea was to add rules for actions which were both 'extended' and 'resisted'.
This single system would cover a game of poker, a car chase, an investigation, a knife-fight, or vicious barbs at the local Elysium.
The first idea was to have people simply roll against each other. Having a fight? Both roll Strength + Brawl. If you get a 5 and your opponent gets 3, you deal 2 Damage, which gives a -2 penalty to future rolls.
Same with gossip: roll Charisma + Etiquette to get the room on your side rather than someone else's. The two Contestants wouldn't even have to meet - they could simply do one roll a night. And if one weren't there, gossip would continue uncorrected, which would certainly provide an adequate reason for the players to want to attend Elysium.
And of course the same could apply to a car-chase, with the penalty representing how far you've got away. Once the police have you at a -5 penalty, you can still try to get away, but it sounds like your tyres have been busted, and you're backed into a corner.
A few questions remained at this point. Which stats do we use for combat? If everyone uses Dexterity + MĂȘlĂ©e then players will feel forced to accrue Dexterity in order to fight.
I decided the defender should choose. After all, the attacker has decided on MĂȘlĂ©e as the Skill, why shouldn't the defender select the Attribute?
Neil wants to kick a gang member in the balls. He selected Brawl, so the gang member goes with Stamina. I guess that represents wrestling?
Andrew wants to charm a woman in the club, but a local Gangrel has chosen the same target. He's gone with Subterfuge as his weapon of choice as he reels off lies about his amazing band, so the Gangrel selects the Charisma Attribute. Both roll Charisma + Subterfuge.
Gordon doesn't want anyone finding out where his lair is, even the Prince. Someone is attempting to find out, so the Storyteller has him roll against an opponent he isn't even aware of. The opponent has gone with the Investigation Skill, and he selects the Intelligence Attribute. Both roll Intelligence + Investigation, once per Chapter (this will be a long Contest!).
Various Contests could draw out over the course of many scenes. One Contest might even take place over the course of a whole Chronicle, with the players gaining resources specifically to help with the next roll.
Since I chucked everything out, I needed some way of returning weapons to the system, and some equivalent for the other arenas.
I went with simple pluses. A dagger gives +1 die, a sword +2.
For social rolls, we can add backgrounds. Characters with 4 dots in Allies might use them to intimidate opponents. Those with Contacts could use them to find out information.
This not only fits, it provides a more concrete reason to have these backgrounds than the original system. Previously, nobody liked getting the Contacts background because it didn't give any pluses - it just gave you the horrible task of book-keeping one Contact's name per dot, plus 5 minor contacts per dot. After all that work, the Storyteller would arbitrarily decide whether you got information about something, which really means nobody used this system with rules, merely by fiat.
Other rolls might gain pluses from various items. Binoculars could help with monitoring an area. A fast computer could help hacking into a system.
All in all, I think this works much better than the original system. We get a fast, easy-to-understand result from any Contest.
But maybe not fast enough.
The system obviously promotes entropy. Each round where people don't have a tie, someone takes a penalty, and we move a little closer to a state where one Contestant cannot act.
In most cases, we'd see 2 to 4 rounds of combat, with simple dice rolls. However, we still have no real options, and I find that a shame.
I added options beside simply dealing a penalty. Players can spend each success they gain separately on the following:
That third entry, 'remove all difficulty penalties', might seem like too much, but despite how powerful it seems, inflicting a difficulty penalty still works well.
Some examples of difficulty:
Neil thrashes forward with a baseball bat, making the gang member stumble back. His back is towards the train tracks, and train is coming. He gets +2 difficulty to all future rolls, but a single success means he can regain his footing.
The Gangrel taunts Andrew incessantly, and Andrew could rage at any moment (+1 difficulty). He could continue, and hope to regain his composure, or leave the Contest now, with no real harm done.
Gordon leaves various clues suggesting he lives at a local methlab. That should keep the Prince, the harpies, and even criminal investigators going round in circles for a while if they attempt to track him down, as they get a +3 difficulty.
When the coterie fight a single elder, or one of them has to fight many police officers, what do we do? Add successes together? That seems a bit much.
In the end I decided to have everyone roll, and use the biggest result. Someone with a dice-pool of 8 would have little use for an ally with a total dice-pool of 3, but there would be some use - specifically, all 8 dice could roll 0 success, while the helping person might score 2 successes. This isn't much help, but it's something, and that feels in keeping with the World of Darkness.
And if three neonates with a dice-pool of 5 start assassinating an elder's servants, they know that each additional person rolling dice brings up the average result.
We can also speed up combat by letting someone inflict all their results on more opponents by spending a point. Got 3 successes? Spend 1 on adding a target, and the other 2 on penalties. 2 opponents each receive a bloody -2 penalty.
Guns no longer work the same way. If someone attacks with a blade, players can no longer wait until their Initiative comes up and say 'I shoot him with my gun'. They need to gain a success first to use the gun, and until they do, the Lasombra's ghouls continue to bludgeon their skull.
Dominate takes its rightful place in combat. It's not an instant-win, nor is it forbidden from combat. You just need to roll a success first to use it. We might even stipulate it cannot be used while someone is off-balance in any way, i.e. when a character has some difficulty penalty.
We also have non-lethal ways to end a Contest. Once someone has a +3 difficulty, they could agree to lose, rather than press on. If the player characters have the Prince at a +3 difficulty penalty, he might grant them what they want rather than continue the Contest, because he's in a bad position. At that point, the players have won, without causing the Prince any harm.
Larger combats have become a lot easier. The Storyteller no longer has to roll for 5 ghouls' Initiative, then their attack, damage, then subtract soak. Instead, each ghoul gets rolled in succession, and the Storyteller only needs to remember the highest result so far. The first ghoul rolls 3, then next rolls 4 (forget about the first), then 2, then 3 then 4 successes again. In the end, they simply have 4 successes as a group.
Finally, we've done away with any need to roll Initiative, or plan. Everyone simply rolls, then if they gain successes, they can spend them.
What if you enter a brawl, but later pull out a knife?
We can add this sort of thing easily by adding a final ability from rolling a success. We allow a single success to get spent on changing one Trait in the current arena.
Neil was wrestling with Stamina + Brawl, but now that the gang member's free, he spends a single success to switch the arena to MĂȘlĂ©e, and pulls out a knife.
Andrew wasn't doing great with Charisma + Subterfuge, so he switches the Attribute to Appearance. The player explains they're going to rejoin the group, and the girl's friends will ask her what she's doing with such an ugly creature - he looks far better, and that's all that counts in a club.
Gordon doesn't know much about how investigations work, and has only 1 dot in Investigation. However, he knows a lot about Finance, so he changes his lair every few months by inhabiting houses which will remain empty, and up for sale. Now he just needs to understand the local housing market more than whoever has been asking questions about him.
We should limit this ability to once per round, or players could change both the Attribute and Skill used, which might demand too strange an interpretation.
The system has worked well in play, but it does demand a bit of book-keeping. Either the players or Storyteller must keep a record of all long-term Contests occurring.
The system also promotes some abstractions, which might feel counter-intuitive at first. If someone has a blade but the other doesn't, why are both using MĂȘlĂ©e? Players must just accept that weapons-training helps with defending against a sword, even when unarmed.
Some of what counts as 'appropriate use' still relies a lot on Storyteller fiat. Let's imagine Gordon wants to hide the location of his lair by using Academics, because he has lots of dots in Academics. Players might feel tempted to promote all manner of nonsense to use their highest Skills.
When you win a fight, you kill or subdue someone. But what about when you win a social contest?
The Storyteller must ensure every Contest has a clear goal before it begins. Perhaps the characters want to uncover a Sabbat plot. Perhaps after insults have been exchanged, someone loses a Willpower point.
Items, or Backgrounds can add to various rolls. Both players roll the same Attribute + Skill combination, but can add different Bonuses.
Since Contacts, Allies, and Status finally gained some uses, so some other system will have to allow players to gain them. My personal rule was 5 successes per dot, so moving from Allies 2 to Allies 3 would require 15 successes. Each player can make a couple of rolls in their downtime, between adventures.
At one point, I started rewriting a few disciplines.
Celerity adds dice to a roll. Potence adds Damage (only penalties, never any other effect). Fortitude removes normal Damage.
When taking Aggravated Damage, the player must roll Fortitude dice instead of simply subtracting the Damage.
Presence acts exactly like Potence, but for Social Contests. If someone rolls 1 success, but has Presence 2, they can inflict a -3 penalty on their opponent, or +1 difficulty and a -2 penalty.
This method ensures characters should still have good Social Attributes to make proper use of Presence, since losing to an opponent means they won't be able to use the Presence dots. It also provides a more concrete explanation for the notion that Ventrue often eschew the use of Presence, as it's a clumsy tool, useful for demanding things, or publicly embarrassing people, but not so great at putting people in a tight situation (i.e. raising their difficulty), or regaining one's composure (i.e. removing one's own different penalties).
Dementation locked people into a particular Attribute + Skill combination, or gives a difficulty penalty to people using an even-numbered dice-pool. The idea was that players would feel forced into selecting strange weapons or Traits, simply to remove the penalty.