Combat Rules Hacks

Alternative Combat Systems in Cortex Prime, Part III: Holding the Line and Coordinated Actions

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For the previous part of this series, click here.

In this part of the series, I’m going offer two (sub)systems for handling particular types of combat situations; the first riffs off of the “Bloody Versus” while the second utilizes a nuanced form of “Narrative Combat.” Let’s get to it:

Timed Defensive Actions

“Mal: Zoe…are you here?
Zoe: Do the job, sir.
Mal: You hold. Hold till I’m back.”

–Serenity, 2004

This system can be used for situations where the characters are fighting a defensive battle against waves of attackers while keeping mechanics streamlined compared to character-by-character combat.

The GM needs two things at the start of the engagement (which can be set in adventure prep). The first is the dice pool used to represent the attacking force. Create this as you would any opposition, starting with a pair of difficulty dice representing the base quality of the attackers and adding dice for a Distinction and other applicable Traits. If the size of the attacking force warrants it, consider using the Scale rules, but bear in mind genre as well as the close narrative—if you’re playing a game involving special operations forces in an 80’s-style action movie, they’re probably expected to absolutely wade through the enemy and Scale would not be appropriate.

The second preparatory item is a mechanism for tracking the enemy’s fighting ability or the amount of time the PCs must hold out before help arrives. Depending on your damage system, the enemy force may have a die step that is whittled down, may have a Stress or Trauma die that is stepped up, or may have a damage track. If the conflict is a matter of holding out for time, you can set up a track or a “clock” in the style of Powered by the Apocalypse games.

Variant: Random Timing: If you want to add additional drama (and stress to your players), you can take a cue from miniature wargaming and have the conflict last for a random number of turns. To do this, decide upon a definite number of turns the conflict will last (e.g. “at least 3”). After the predetermined amount of time has run, roll a die at the end of each turn to determine if the event that would end the conflict (air support or reinforcements arrive, another team manages to destroy the attackers’ path to the characters, etc.) occurs. Use whatever die size you’d like and start with a chance of occurrence you feel comfortable with given the difficulty of the engagement for the characters. For example, you could start with a D6 and the conflict ends on a result of 6. For each time this die is rolled and does not meet the threshold, reduce the threshold by one. In the example above (d6 vs. 6), if the conflict doesn’t end on the first post-turn roll, in the second turn you roll d6 vs. 5, and so on.

In each turn, each player character rolls the appropriate pool against the Opposition Pool. For each PC who fails, that PC takes stress, trauma or injury depending on the damage system you’re using and how deadly your game is overall (I’d personally not recommend immediately applying damage that takes significant time to heal unless your setting has ways to circumvent that—magic or tech—or this defensive action takes place as part of the climax of the story where the stakes need to be turned all the way up.)

Assign the PCs their own track that represents their ability to hold their position. For each failure against the Opposition, mark a box along the track. When the track is full, the PCs are overrun by the enemy.

Variant: King of the Hill: With a slight modification, this system can be used to simulate a “king of the hill” scenario where both sides of the conflict are attempting to take and hold the same location. In this case, build a track with a center point, and have the character’s net successes or failure move the track in their favor or against their favor. When the track has filled on one group’s side, they have managed to seize the terrain with a strong enough position that the other group may not immediately attempt to take it back. If you want to limit the amount of time the conflict can last, remove a box from either side of the track every so many rounds as attrition and exhaustion take their tolls. Of course, one side or the other may take injuries enough that they abandon the field, and that’s okay, too.

One potential issue with this system is that it does not necessarily spotlight the actions of any particular PC, but this is relatively easy to overcome. You can plan certain events between the collective rolls in certain turns and give a particular player a chance to address that particular event before it affects the overall situation.

As an example: say you’re running a modern military campaign with special forces operators holding their position until requested air support is able to decisively end the confrontation. Between the collective rolls representing the characters’ defensive actions, let’s say a tank rolls up and begins to train its main gun on the characters’ position. The player character with the anti-tank weapon gets to take a shot to eliminate the newcomer before it becomes a problem. If this character’s attack roll is successful, the tank is destroyed and does not factor into the opposition in the next collective test. If the attack fails, add another die to the opposition pool representing the need to take cover from tank shells in addition to the rest of the assault. Obviously, the specifics of such opportunities should be drawn from the various abilities and foci of the characters to give each a time to shine, if not in the same engagement then over the course of the adventure.

If the characters have time to prepare for a this kind of defensive action, allow them to create Assets or Resources (i.e. expendable assets) for the conflict. Instead of applying damage to a character who fails an opposition test, the opposition pool’s success die could be used to eliminate or step down an Asset or Resource. In this way, not only do these Assets and Resources provide some benefit to the characters’ rolls, but some additional “armor” to keep characters in fighting shape for future conflicts. Whether an Asset or Resource applies to all PCs’ rolls in a turn or to only some is a judgment call for the GM to make based on context.

Variant: Defend Actor: This system can also be used to simulate situations in which some of the PCs are providing cover and defense for others to complete a non-combat action. Perhaps one or more of the characters needs to complete an ancient ritual while the rest of the party defends from attacking orcs. In this case, rather than keeping a track for the timing of the defensive action, create a track for the number of successes needed for the necessary task to be completed. For each character addressing the non-combat task, a success checks one box on the track and a heroic success checks two. If multiple characters could reasonably be assigned to either defense or the non-combat action, modify the defensive opposition pool (in conversation with the characters so that they can collectively decide where they want to put everyone) based on the number of defenders. You can use scale to do this, but the addition or removal of a die will probably be best for most situations.

If the characters are overrun, they must retreat from their position without completing the appointed task. If the task is successful, it should have ending the onslaught as a narrative consequence (in addition to the story-moving effects).

Coordinated Actions

“Either you’re part of the problem, or you’re part of the solution, or you’re just part of the landscape.”

-Sam, Ronin, 1998

This system is suited for those perfectly choreographed operations that depend on everyone completing their individual tasks at the right time so that the entire operation goes off without a hitch. These are your Mission Impossible montage ops, your small-unit actions to waylay a traveling vehicle and extract a VIP before making a getaway, your high-intensity but short action scenes where everyone has a particular role to play.

I used to love RPG sessions (particularly in Shadowrun) where the players would sort through maps and security schedules, lists of equipment and mission objectives to come up with an elaborate plan. But two things would either happen: (1) the plan needed so much detail that one of the players got tired of it all and decided to kick down a door and start shooting, or (2) playing out the elaborate plan took us three more sessions and everyone got tired of it. These rules are designed to condense the planning to the most exciting parts and play it out with the kind of speed and intensity usually reserved for film.

And really, it’s just an adaptation of the Narrative Combat rules from the previous post, with an added cue from the “Engagement Roll” of Blades in the Dark.

Here’s how we do it: the player characters have their objective. They’ve gathered the necessary intel and the equipment necessary to achieve the objective (perhaps setting up Assets for their various rolls). Then, the PC team plans the op, assigning discrete actions to each PC, like so:

It’s a snatch and grab on a moving vehicle with a target guarded by professionals. PC #1 is the driver, both approach and getaway. Number 2 is the bag man, tasked with extracting the target. Numbers 3 and 4 are shooters to provide cover for the extraction. PC #5 is a hacker whose task is to change streetlights to the advantage of the group, to jam any communications from the target and bodyguards, and to wipe any surveillance footage from city cameras. So, each character’s actions might be described by the following:

  • PC 5 modifies the street lights to box the target vehicle in.
  • PC 1 drives at high speed to block the target vehicle from escape.
  • PC 5 jams communications.
  • PCs 3 and 4 engage the bodyguards, suppressing them or eliminating them as necessary.
  • PC 2 engages the target and pacifies him.
  • PC 2 puts restraints on the target and gets him into the PC vehicle.
  • PCs 3 and 4 make a fighting retreat to the vehicle and get inside.
  • PC 1 drives off at high speed and uses evasive driving to lose any tails.
  • PC 5 wipes security footage to ensure that the PCs aren’t followed by the authorities.

As with Narrative Combat, each individual PC’s various actions are given sequential difficulty thresholds, and then each player rolls against their opposition (I think the best way to do this is for the opposition pools to be created in dialogue with the players, but the opposition roll results to be withheld until the GM narrates the results).

If all players meet all thresholds, the operation goes off without a hitch—the PCs have nabbed their target and taken him to their hideout without anyone being able to identify or follow them.

If any of the players fail, however, there are consequences. If there are only some minor failures—perhaps Player 3 fails his final threshold to return to the vehicle, then you can assign a Complication or injury and the operation remains successful as a whole. If a major threshold is missed (say PC 2 fails to pacify the target), or if there are multiple missed thresholds, then we use the collective rolls in the style of Blades in the Dark’s “engagement roll.”

If you’re not familiar with that mechanic, the engagement roll is a single roll intended to move past the boring bits of a heist and straight onto the excitement, its result sets the narrative positioning of the players as we jump in media res into their action by establishing whether things are going very well, very poorly, or middling at the time play of the heist begins.

In our situation, there’s a bit more complexity for the GM as she’s interpreting separate roles to create a cohesive narrative position for the transition into another type of mechanic to continue the action—this may be turn-by-turn combat, another alternative combat, or some sort of contest or conflict to represent the characters’ escape after things go wrong.

In the example above, with PC 2 failing to subdue the target, the GM might determine that the situation is thus as play moves out of the narrative combat system and into the alternative format: The target, though groggy from a blow to the head, is escaping on foot through a crowd of innocent bystanders. PC 2 is giving chase. PC 3 and 4’s successes mean that at least none of the bodyguards are following after PC 2, but now the rest of the group needs to get out of the middle of the road, evade detection, re-establish communications with PC 2 and find a way to meet up before the local authorities or reinforcements find PC 2 and/or the target first. Had the other PCs missed significant thresholds as well, additional complications would be added to the narrative as we “zoom in” to the aftermath of the botched operation.

Unlike the “generic” Narrative Combat system from the last post, there’s no need to establish consequences for each threshold of each roll in this particular use of the mechanic. The GM can wait until seeing all the rolls to weave together the results, assigning consequences only where necessary.

This system can be used for all sorts of character actions that are planned and prepared in advance. In addition to examples above, generic heists, ambushes, coordinated cons and other exploits can use this alternative to turn-by-turn resolution.

Conclusion

Two more tools for the toolkit in the bag. I think that both ideas are flexible and adaptable enough to accommodate a wide variety of narrative needs. Still, I’ll be adding to this series as I think of additional systems to streamline various types of action sequences or combats.

Again, I can’t stress enough that these are tools to be used alongside the conventional methods for resolving combats and conflicts based on what best fits any particular situation and the play style of the table.

Alternative Combat Systems in Cortex Prime, Part II: Bloody Versus and Narrative Combat

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For the first post in this series, click here.

As I mentioned in the first post in this series, we’re going to look at my adaptation of two systems borrowed from other writers: Luke Crane’s “Bloody Versus” from The Burning Wheel RPG and Peter Rudin-Burgess’ “One Roll Combat,” appearing in Lowborn: an Independent Grim & Perilous Fanzine for Zweihander RPG’s first issue.

Both systems intend to use a single roll to determine the end result of a combat, though the Bloody Versus (by my read, at least) is more focused than One Roll Combat. Let’s take a look at some adaptations for Cortex Prime based on the two.

Bloody Versus

Like most aspects of The Burning Wheel RPG, the core combat system in that game is relatively complex. I’m personally also not a fan of the “scripting” system for close combat, the conceit of which ignores the fact that a fighter makes choices about actions in combat based on cues from the other fighter(s), and not completely blind. But that’s besides the point since we’re looking at Bloody Versus.

Bloody Versus distills combat into a single opposed roll between the fighters. At first blush, a player may complain that this gives too little control over the outcome of a fight, but I’m not sure that this isn’t just a variation of the gambler’s fallacy; whether the statistics are compressed into a single roll or several, they’re still statistics about likelihood of winning, and it’s arguable that any Assets or other things set up for a single-roll combat have greater value than in a turn-by-turn combat, so it may all be a wash. Again, this is just one tool for your toolbox, and it may or may not work to the satisfaction of your table. But I’d judge it based on its narrative usefulness and whether you’ve got players who really want the nitty-gritty details of combat rather than on comparative statistics.

Here’s the issue with a Cortex Prime Bloody Versus: how do you set the stakes? How do you determine if a fight is a lethal one or just a good, old-fashioned donnybrook that results only in bruised faces and egos? Partially, this depends on how you’re handling damage and injury in your game—if it’s a light-hearted game then scaling should look different than if you’re playing gritty dark fantasy.

It should also be noted that the basic rules for Conflict and being Taken Out in a scene are essentially a Bloody Versus (or maybe a Bloodless Versus) depending on circumstances. There’s nothing to say that you can’t just bounce between those rules and turn-by-turn combat. But I’d like to offer something a little more substantial—that doesn’t necessarily preclude the occasional use of the “core” Taken Out rules.

We’ll do that by a bidding system. If you’re using the “Stress/Trauma” system from the Cortex Prime Handbook or some variations I’d described in the series on making Cortex Prime gritty, you’ll need to first determine whether the conflict is a lethal or non-lethal one.

With that determined, we’ll turn to the “Risk” die. Each character chooses a step for their Risk die—this is added to their Pool, but also becomes the Stress/Trauma received if they are on the losing end of the conflict, giving characters some added agency even in a one-roll combat.

Bear in mind that the use of the “Risk” die inverts the normal scheme for Effect Dice—each character is essentially setting what the Effect Die against them will be if they fail, while the selection by the opposing character sets the same. This focuses player agency on the risk rather than looking for the best possible Effect Die after the roll. For me, this seems narratively appropriate, with the added bonus that you won’t spend time looking for Effect Dice after the fact.

As a consequence, though, you’ll need to decide whether the ability to spend a PP to add a second Effect Die is available. For my own games, I’d rule that this expenditure may be used against any “average” opponent but not a PC, an Elite fighter or a prominent NPC. It’s plot armor, yes, but in a relatively unobstrusive way. If you want to go all out, by all means—so long as your players are all in agreement.

It should be noted, also, that this system, as written (and barring the use of PP for additional Effect Dice as described above), does not allow for a character to be killed outright by a Bloody Versus test. If you want to step up the relative danger, you can rule that a character automatically receives a Plot Point if any 1’s are rolled, but that each 1 rolled steps up the Stress/Trauma received by 1 step. This, of course, adds additional risk and unpredictability a part of a Bloody Versus test. And it reflects reality—even the best of warriors can make a mistake that leads to his demise, even against a less-skilled opponent. This rule also means that the winner may take some damage from the test, even if victorious. As with the above, this also matches reality and deepens the risk (and therefore drama and meaning) of even a Bloody Versus roll. On the other hand, you’re playing a game where a death necessarily means a particular part of the story (probably a part of the story important to at least one person) also dies. If you’re using a damage track (as in my posts on making Cortex Plus grittier), you might actually get some additional protection here, depending on the length of the track compared to the “six steps to death” you get under the “Stress and Trauma” rules of the Cortex Prime Handbook. Don’t forget that your system for Armor may effect the overall balance as well.

The Group Bloody Versus

The rule above works well for one-on-one combat, but perhaps less so for larger-scale engagements. Let’s look at some ways we can scale up.

The easiest method is to pair PCs with combatant NPCs. This is cleanest, of course, with an even number of PCs and enemies, but you can also use Mob rules (if appropriate based on the enemies) to further condense the fight.

Bloody Groups

If a one-to-one match-up isn’t possible, then we need to get a little more creative. As I mentioned in my series on swordplay for writers and gamers, it’s really only practical for about three combatants to face a single opponent at once; add more people in and the likelihood that allies injure one another increases exponentially.  This does not mean that you can’t put a group of five enemies on one PC, but you should bear in mind that such an arrangement probably means that two of those enemies are hanging back until there’s an opening for them to switch out with one of their fellows.

To use this method (which I’m calling Bloody Groups): first, group fights as you would for one-on-one fights, assigning additional combatants to each PC as necessary and as matches the positioning of the characters. Then, select a primary actor for the group. To that character’s pool, add the highest dice from two of his allies pools. Roll this against the PC’s pool. From the PC’s perspective: (1) on a failure, the PC takes damage per Bloody Versus; (2) on a success, the primary opponent takes damage per Bloody Versus; (3) on a heroic success, the primary opponent and his two allies all take damage per Bloody Versus. Here’s the kicker: any opponent fighting a PC, whether the primary actor or his two allies, adds any injury/Complication die to the PC’s pool, as any injured party gets in the way of his fellows, and it’s likely that, if there are additional troops standing by, they’ll switch out to allow the uninjured to continue the fight. For ease (and additional realism), establish the injury level at which enemies flee or are no longer combat effective; once they reach this level of injury, remove them from the fight (or, if it’s that kind of game, potentially allow the PC’s the opportunity to kill the fleeing combatant as he attempts to withdraw).

Bloody Skirmish

We can zoom out even further, as necessary, keeping the core of the Bloody Versus system. For an all-out melee where we don’t necessarily need to track each exchange individually, we can use what I’m going to call the Bloody Skirmish system.

To begin, establish a base difficulty for the group opposing the characters—this should be based on the skill of the combatants, not their number. Add dice to the pool for group Distinctions, Assets or other Traits in play as you see fit. Add a Risk die to determine how aggressively the group fights. Lastly, if you’re using a track for damage rather than the Stress/Trauma system, determine the length of the track for this group and when the group suffers a Consequence die due to losses.

Each PC rolls a Bloody Versus against the single opposition pool, applying damage to the opposition as a group or to PCs individually.

If the group greatly outnumbers the PCs (and your genre and narrative fit with this approach), use the Scale rules (Cortex Prime Handbook, pp. 99-100). This should make players reconsider plunging headlong into overwhelming odds (but there’s no accounting for what certain players will do, never tell them the odds, damn the torpedoes and all that).

Narrative Combat

And now we come to my adaptation of Peter Rudin-Burgess’ “One Roll Combat” system, which I’m going to call “Narrative Combat.”

Where Bloody Versus handles conflicts that are focused on the violence itself, the Narrative Combat system is better suited for quickly handling situations where combat is incidental (supplemental?) to the PC’s goals.

The system works like this: after the situation is defined and everyone understands who and what is in play, each player sets out a set of three to five actions (the GM should specify the exact number) that the player wants to accomplish. These actions must be in logical order and in the order in which the player wants to accomplish them. Players and GM should converse to clarify intent, methodology and likely effects for each action individually and as a whole.

Once there’s agreement on these points for a player and PC, the GM establishes difficulty thresholds, with the lowest threshold representing success in the first action, the second threshold set a certain distance from the first and representing success or failure in the second action, etc. As Rudin-Burgess is writing for a d100 system, these thresholds are linear and fixed; making for an easy port if you’re using Static Difficulty (Cortex Prime Handbook, p. 25). The first action might be at difficulty 8, the second at 10 and the third at 13 depending on the nature and difficulty of each action.

Alongside each threshold, the GM establishes a consequence for failure. This may be Stress or Trauma (or some other damage inflicted depending on your system), a Complication, an unintended consequence or change in the scene, etc.

Then the player rolls his assembled pool (again the GM and player should collaborate to determine the most applicable Traits to include in the pool based on the overall sweep of the actions declared). For each threshold met or exceeded, that declared action is successful. For each failed, the associated consequence is applied.

When all players have rolled, the combination of successes and failures is used by the GM to narrate the overall result of the conflict scene. It’s an efficient and creative system.

If you’re using opposition dice pools as per the usual in Cortex Prime, then some modification of Rudin-Burgess’ system is necessary over a simple scaling of difficulty thresholds. As this is true for the majority of my Cortex games, I’m doing the following for my Narrative Combat System:

We start with a base difficulty of two dice for the first action. If there are any other applicable Traits for the pool, those are added in. This initial pool is rolled and establishes the first difficulty threshold (per the usual of taking the two highest rolling results and adding them together). For each additional action, a die of an appropriate step is assigned; it’s result is added to the total from the initial roll, so three dice are totaled for the threshold of the second action, four are totaled for the third, etc.

For this to work, the opposition pool should stick to lower-stepped dice at each step: unless there’s significant justification for doing so, I’d stick mostly to d6s and the occasional d8. If this is feels too imprecise for you, add some techniques from Powered by the Apocalypse games: instead of modifying the difficulty itself to suit narrative positioning, scale the consequences to suit the difficulty (your GM “moves” as it were).

If you want to make things even more efficient, have all players roll against the same opposition pool. If their plans are more divergent, it may be more appropriate to use different opposition pools.

Conclusion

So, there you have it: a system (and variations on a theme) for condensed handling of conflicts in which violence is the focus and a system for conflicts in which violence is much more of a means to an end than an end in itself. You could, in theory, stop reading this series now and have two tools that could cover the vast majority of situations for your game (tweaked only slightly for genre and power level) without having to resort to man-to-man, turn-by-turn combat except where you want to.

But I hope you won’t stop here. In the next post, I’m going to provide some systems tailored to specific types of conflicts/combats, starting with a system for holding your ground against assault.

For the next post in the series, click here.

Alternative Combat Systems in Cortex Prime Part I: The Rationale

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Combat can be the most exciting—or the most excruciating—part of a gaming session. It’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae: checking particular rules (and exceptions), contemplating the potential results of every available action like you’re Deep Blue, clarifying who’s where, what conditions are in effect and what happened on previous actions.

We’ve all been there. The active player is taking minutes to determine his turn while everyone else is playing on their phone. The combat itself is necessarily a matter of slow attrition punctuated only rarely by decisive blows. Rinse and repeat, potentially for hours. I don’t want to say that the conventional style of RPG combat, with its sequential individual turns and actions for each character involved doesn’t work; it can result in exciting and enjoyable combats. But if we take the example of D&D in particular, as the originator and exemplar of this system, the smorgasbord of titles both amateur and professional available on DriveThruRPG.com to “make combat more exciting” indicates that there are many cases where the system doesn’t work as well as we’d like.

And this figures, given that D&D (and therefore RPGs in general) developed out of wargaming. The turn-by-turn system is an artifact of, and beholden to, the miniatures wargame.

Some Alternatives

There are a number of ways that games or homebrews have tried to address this, with varying degrees of success. Making a game deadlier necessarily condenses combat and makes clever tactics (and/or use of rules) even more important.

The Riddle of Steel is one of my favorite examples of this. Its visceral combat system attempts to closely model the actual mechanics demonstrated in the fight manuals of the medieval and Renaissance periods. It does so quite successfully. When I ran games in this system I was simultaneously a study group leader for the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA); I’d spend hours as a “Session -1” with wooden weapons showing those players who weren’t in ARMA with me what the techniques in TROS actually looked like. But the system is not without its faults, either: it had no significant guidance for an overall initiative system, leaving players to judgment calls for a number of situations commonly addressed in other games. To me, it’s a prime example that no RPG combat system can do everything, even if it does some things exceptionally well.

Knowing that, why do we expect a single system to effectively cover all combat situations equally well? The result, as with D&D, is that we have a combat system on top of which we add the occasional non-combat goal for flavor and variety. But shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t we have systems, plural, each focused on different types of situation. Some combats are about injuring or killing the enemy, yes, but many resort to violence in service of a goal that is, ultimately separate from the injuries inflicted on the opposition. This is true even of military operations. As commonly as they are deployed simply to destroy the enemy, they are directed to capture and hold valuable locations, to destroy enemy resources, to drive the enemy from a particular area, to infiltrate an area to perform reconnaissance and surveillance—or to provide forward observation for targeting airborne or artillery-based weapons. In many of these cases, the enemy will be engaged only to the extent necessary to accomplish the mission, because simple attrition is not a great way to win a war (as the American Civil War and, especially, World War I demonstrated).

The Torchbearer RPG keeps this in mind, at least on an abstract level, where the various “intents” (such as Capture, Drive Off, Kill) in a conflict determine the character traits used for rolls.

“Powered by the Apocalypse” systems ultimately treat combat no differently from the rest of the rules, except that consequences and GM “moves” may more frequently cause Harm to the characters. There is no set initiative system, and each “combat test” remains more about the development of the narrative than a tactical mini-game. It leaves much flexibility for how the GM interprets player cleverness, creativity and innovation without needing rules to explicitly do this. On the other hand, for those who are more Gamer-oriented (if you subscribe to Ron Edwards GNS Theory) may find this less than satisfactory.

This Series

This series will present a set of systems for Cortex Prime for particular types of combats, not as an obviation of or replacement for the standard “man-to-man” general RPG combat approach, which has its appropriate uses, but to work together with that system based on the narrative needs of a particular game and the desires for depth of tactics for players.

Elsewhere on the blog, I’ve provided some rules for streamlined military/modern combat engagements. Those will not be repeated in this series, but could be added to the list of options provided here if so desired.

Some of these systems will be taken from the ideas and creations of other writers (and credit will be given where due) and adapted to Cortex Prime, but most of them will be my own creations.

But let us begin with some theory about the role and nature of combat in RPGs.

What is War For? What is it Made of?

Combat is an essential feature of most (but certainly not all) RPGs, whether or not they fall into the “traditional” camp. There are, I think, a few reasons that this is the case. Let’s look:

First, there is the simple fact that many people play roleplaying games because they are a way to experience adventure and danger in a safe way. Most people do not want to be punched in the face, much less risk their lives without extreme need. But they do want the thrill of such stakes, which is why video games, combat sports (whether martial arts, paintball and airsoft or competition shooting), action movies and combat in RPGs are popular.

Second, satisfying narrative requires conflict. Armed (or otherwise) violent confrontation is conflict in its barest sense; it necessarily poses questions to drive a story: Will the characters prevail? Will they survive?

Third, as Louis XIV had cast on his canons (albeit in Latin) and as Joe Abercrombie used as the title of one of his novels, violence is “the last argument of kings.” Or, if we’d rather resort to Heinlein, who has his Mr. Dubois the teacher of “moral” philosophy in Starship Troopers remark to a student who tells him the “violence doesn’t solve anything,”

“I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that….Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst.”

When two sides refuse to compromise, and a situation must be resolved, violence may sometimes be the only available course of action. I don’t think I enjoy that fact as much as Heinlein did, but I agree that it is sometimes an existential truth we must face. In the adventures of our heroes in particular, violence may be the logical (narrative) result when all other means fail.

Fourth, some gamers really enjoy the challenge of combat, of making tactical decisions and outmaneuvering the enemy. And that’s as good a reason as any.

By way of transition from what combat is for into what it should do, the astute GM should bear in mind that that means that combat should be actually challenging—otherwise you’re depriving your players of the satisfaction of victory. The good GM should be a student of war in all its forms (this does not require one to be a practitioner of war, which is perhaps another matter altogether, discussed on other portions of the blog). So, number one—combat is another type of puzzle, problem and challenge for the players to address, and one with stakes higher than many others they’ll face.

As Apocalypse games make plain, combat should drive the story forward. This does not mean that every combat need be decisive; a battle in which the two sides fight to a standstill and must withdraw heightens the conflict and must necessarily make the players question whether they are powerful enough to prevail by force and whether another approach might be preferred.

Combat, when done well and used well, at least, provides options for high drama. What will the character’s fight for? What won’t they fight for? What is significant enough to a character that she is willing to kill (or die) for it? The cliché that you truly learn who a person is by seeing them in a fight is true when it comes to crafted (even when collaborative) narrative—combat need not be just a matter of mechanics; it can become an opportunity for deep roleplaying.

As much, combat is a useful tool for pacing a Roleplaying Game. There is, of course, the old gaming adage that if things slow down too much, have the bad guys suddenly show up to kick things back into gear. But it goes far beyond that. There’s not room to go into the full details of this subject (which can easily be a blog series—or book—in its own right), but good narrative swings back and forth between high-intensity scenes and low intensity scenes. This gives the audience both excitement and pauses to reflect on what the occurrences of the “high points” mean for the narrative moving forward. Think about the Fellowship in Khazad-Dȗm—they flee from goblins and Gandalf confronts the Balrog in a high-intensity scene. The scene that follows the rest of the Fellowship’s escape slows down so that the characters can reflect on the loss of their erstwhile leader and what it means for their quest.

Here’s the issue, though: when combat slows to a crawl as you play out each second by second, it fails to provide the high-intensity sort of scene that it should. When a low-intensity scene follows, as it naturally should, the energy at the table remains low and everyone loses immersion and attention. This is fine if the players enjoy intricate combat for its own sake, but it’s been my experience that I only have one or two of the players in my group for whom the gaming or simulationist approaches to combat are a particular draw.

Conclusion

I think all of this gives us a rubric by which to judge the utility and value of some alternative combat systems. Any system that replaces turn-by-turn combat must: (1) make at least enough logical sense to be acceptable to gamers and simulationists, given the caveat that they must necessarily be more abstract than turn-by-turn systems, (2) following the first point, be at least somewhat satisfying to use, (3) move the story forward in a meaningful way, regardless of specific outcome, (4) allow for meaningful choices, which in turn allows for drama and character development, (5) have stakes high enough to match a “standard” combat system, sometimes softened to account for less control on the part of the players as to outcome, (6) must provide a useful tool for maintaining pacing.

The flexibility of the Cortex Prime system allows us to create a number of different approaches to combat, as you’ll see.

What’s Next?

In the first substantive post in the series, we’ll look at two general systems I’m adapting from other games: Luke Crane’s “Bloody Versus” from The Burning Wheel RPG and Peter Rudin-Burgess’ “One Roll Combat,” a brilliant article written for the Zweihander roleplaying game and appearing in Lowborn: an Independent Grim & Perilous Fanzine for Zweihander RPG’s first issue.

After that, we’ll look at some systems for particular types of engagements created by yours truly.

For the next post in this series, click here.

Cortex Plus/Prime Small Unit Combat, Part II: Streamlined Engagement Rules for Firefights

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These rules are intended to streamline combat engagements that occur outside of CQB ranges (see the separate CQB rules for quickly handling those types of fights). While designed with modern combat in mind, the rules should prove easily useful with near-future and sci-fi based combat as well, though I have my doubts about using them for historical or fantasy combat without some extensive modification.

The rules seek to streamline combat in several ways. First, they group units of “normal” enemy combatants (those we might call “mooks” and which the Cortex Prime book calls “mobs”) into groups while keeping more important enemies separate. Second, they abstract combat to avoid becoming mired in the details of how many feet a combatant can move in a single turn or worrying about specific facing.

Note that these rules have been created under some genre expectations. Particularly, that the characters are especially potent combatants, able to cut through normal soldiers like a hot knife through butter and tough to kill. The tone of the rules creates a high-action sort of vibe rather than a terribly realistic one, though the “grit” factor may be modified by the number and types of opposition encountered at once, as well as the advantages and tactics used by enemy combatants. If deadlier and more realistic mid-range engagements are desired, I recommend using normal 1 to 1 combat rules. The CQB rules given separately should work well with either this approach or the standard one.

Where these rules seem incomplete, refer to the CQB rules to fill in the gaps. If you still have questions or want to share the results of playtesting, let me know so I can address any issues and make these rules better for you!

Differences From CQB Rules
If you’ve read my CQB combat rules, which are designed to be used in conjunction with these rules, you’ll notice some differences. In many ways, these rules “zoom out” from the CQB rules, adding (a little bit of) complexity and nuance. Where the CQB rules group both the Player Characters and their NPC opponents, these rules only group opponents and allow the characters to act individually.

A Note About Cortex Prime
The Cortex Prime rules include instructions for creating and using “mobs” and “ganging up”. The squad-based rules in both this and the previous CQB rules are essentially an expansion of this idea with slightly more granularity.

Initiative
To keep things simple, initiative will pass back and forth between the players and the GM with one activation per character or unit until one side has run out of activations, at which point any remaining activations may be used if available to any other participating group. On the players’ turn, they may choose which character activates, but no character can activate more than once in a turn. Likewise, the GM may activate the characters and units under his control in any order, but none may activate more than once in a turn.

Which side has the initiative should be decided by the situation—typically the attacking force will act first. When there is a meeting engagement (neither side was expecting the other), an attempted ambush, or other unusual situation, each side should nominate a character (or unit) to roll for their side—the roll will be Approach+Analysis+Tactics Specialization (if any)+Assets, Circumstances, Etc.(if using the set-up described in the CQB Rules; otherwise modify as necessary), with the winner choosing which side goes first.

Zones
Zones and Distance: The combat space should be separated out into zones. Zones will be used to calculate range penalties, so use this idea as a general guideline for how zones are placed. Generally speaking, firing at combatants in one’s own Zone takes place at CQB range, those enemies in adjacent zones are at mid-range, and those more than one zone away are at Long Range. Of course, narrative trumps hard-and-fast rules, so adjust as necessary.

Distance Penalties: When firing at targets at mid-range, add a d8 to the target’s dice pool. Add a d10 for targets at long range.

Cover and Concealment: The use of cover and/or concealment is important under these rules. As such, each zone should be given a “Cover Rating.” The Cover Rating represents the highest effect die that can be used (or rather, the cap if a higher die is assigned to the effect die on a roll) when creating an advantage (usually called “In Cover.”). The zone’s Cover Rating is an abstraction of the distance between pieces of cover, the size of cover, the general density of cover, and whether the zone’s cover is actually cover (something that will stop bullets) or is generally concealment (something that makes it harder to aim at a target but that does not stop projectiles fired at the target).

Cover Penalties: It is assumed that all combatants are using cover. However, the best use of cover requires skill and understanding. Add the lesser of a character’s Direct Action rating (or a unit’s lowest quality rating) or the assigned Cover Rating to pools to resist attacks.

Flanking: “Flanking” any enemy is maneuvering so as to be able to attack the enemy from the side. In small-unit firefights such as those depicted by these rules, “flanking” means achieving a position of attack from which the target does not gain the benefit of cover. An actor (individual or unit), may take an action to flank an enemy; treat this as an attack on the Cover Advantage that persists until either the target or the attacker moves.

Movement Between Zones: Handle movement by determining how many actions it would take to move from one zone to another. No need for specific measurements.

Basic Enemy Combatants
Quality Rating: The Quality Rating, expressed as a die, represents the general effectiveness of a troop type, a combination of skill and training, morale, equipment and command structure.

Grouping Combatants: Basic combatants should be put in groups of one to five; the grouped combatants act as a single entity using the Quality Rating of each combatant in the group to constitute the dice pool used for any action (in line with the “mobs” rule in Cortex Prime).

Specialists: Specialists are, as the name suggests, specially trained soldiers with specific capabilities. In game terms, Specialists count as SFX for a group of combatants, giving the group options for the expenditure of Edge Points to undertake special tasks or modify normal tasks undertaken by the group. The expenditure of an Edge Point is required to use Specialist. A group of combatants may have a number of Specialists equal to the number of troops it contains. Examples of Specialists:

Flamethrower: The acting unit must be in the same Zone as the target. The GM spends an Edge Point when the unit attacks to declare that the Flamethrower specialist is deploying the flamethrower. If the attack causes damage, the target takes an On Fire condition equal to the effect die of the attack. At the end of each turn in which the affected character has not extinguished the condition, the character takes damage according to the effect die of the condition. An affected character may attempt to put the fire out in the same manner as overcoming any other situational condition placed upon him.

Grenadier: When the unit attacks, the GM spends one or more Edge Points to declare that the Grenadier is using his or her equipment. For each Edge Point spent, the GM may do one of the following: (1) add another die equal to the Quality Rating of the Grenadier to the attack pool or (2) add another target (in the same zone as any other target) to the attack. Separate Effect Dice must be assigned to each target.

Medic: At any time, the GM may spend an Edge Point to declare that the Medic is activating to resuscitate a fallen combatant. The difficulty of the test to resuscitate a combatant is equal to 3d8; if the Medic succeeds with an Effect Die equal to or exceeding the Quality Die of the fallen combatant, that combatant is returned to his or her unit. Note that this action does not use the unit’s turn.

Drone Operator: Drones come in many forms, from remotely-operated turrets to flying surveillance or explosive-delivery devices. When the GM spends an Edge Point to activate the Drone Operator’s Specialty, she may choose one of the following:

Turret: add a new, standalone combatant with a pool of 3d6 to the fight. The turret may only take the attack or suppressing fire actions, acts separately from the unit that created it, and resists attacks at its dice pool.

Surveillance Drone: While this drone is operational, remove the Drone Operator’s die from the unit dice pool. The drone resists damage with a pool of 3d6. It may move one zone per turn and no target in that zone benefits from advantages representing concealment or cover while the drone is present in the drone.

Because the Drone Operator has limited resources in the field, the cost of deploying a drone (in Edge Points) doubles with each successive drone (1, 2, 4, etc.).

Marksman: When a unit containing a Marksman attacks and the GM uses an Edge Point, the target does not get to add his Armor Asset (if any) to the pool opposing the attack.

Machine Gunner: The GM may spend one or more Edge Points to place a Suppressed condition (disadvantage) equal to the Specialist’s Quality Die on one target for each Edge Point spent. Remove the Specialist’s Quality Die from the unit’s dice pool for as long as the condition remains in effect.

Note about Specialists: If you want to add some complexity and variation to your basic troops, you might consider giving them a separate Specialist die for various Specialists, using that die instead of the Specialist’s Quality Die in pools using the Specialist.

Attack and Defense:

The attack dice pool is formed as with any conflict under Cortex Prime rules—attacking characters will add an Approach, the Direct Action Role, and any Specializations, Assets, or Advantages to the pool, while the defenders will add their approach, Direct Action Role, Cover, Range and any Specializations, Assets, or Advantages. Units will use the dice pool formed from their combined Quality Dice.

When attacking a unit, the attacker may assign more than one Effect Die to take out multiple members of the unit in one attack, but only one Effect Die that would cause injury but not take a member of the unit out of action may be assigned.

Ex. The player-character member of a special operations team has gotten the drop on a fireteam of enemy grunts. The player character wins the conflict test and has d8 and 2d6 left over which might be assigned as Effect Dice. The grunts are well-trained, with a Quality Die of d8. The attacked may put one enemy combatant out of action with the D8 and may assign the d6 as an injury to a member of the unit (which counts as a Consequence/Disadvantage; see the CQB Rules). The attacked cannot also assign the second d6 because there is already an injury assigned to the unit.

Cortex Prime: Small Unit Combat Rules, Part I

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Small Unit Combat for Cortex Prime

This article is a work-in-progress subsystem for Cortex Prime games. I’ve formulated these ideas while working on my Shadowrun Cortex Prime hack, but this system in particular would have usefulness in any modern or futuristic game where small force-on-force tactical engagements are a key part of the game.

These rules will be updated after playtesting. If you have suggestions, leave a comment!

System Assumptions

The below has not been tailored for the Shadowrun ruleset yet, but is formulated for an international espionage/military thriller game I’ll be running for some friends. I’m using a “simplified” (compared to the Shadowrun work) Cortex Prime that starts similar to the Leverage system in Cortex Plus with some of the Shadowrun ideas previously-described incorporated. Trait Sets are Approach, Aspects, Role (rather than Skills, which Shadowrun will use), Specializations, and Signature Assets.

Approaches are: Covert, Expedient, Dynamic, Cunning, Deliberate, Daring.
Roles are: HUMINT, SIGINT, Tradecraft, Direct Action and Analysis.
Relevant Specializations: Direct Action: CQB and Marksmanship; Analysis: Tactics 

This system is using a Physical Stress and Physical Trauma track to account for injury.

What is Small Unit Combat?

When I use the term “Small Unit Combat” in this post and for these rules, I mean localized tactical engagements at the fireteam level, where there are only a handful of combatants on either side. Specifically, these rules were designed with close-quarters battle (breaching, room-clearing and short distance engagements) in mind. Further revisions and additions will be necessary to use these rules on a larger scale or to employ them reliably outside of CQB scenarios.

In CQB situations with trained combatants (we’ll assume that the player characters at least fit that bill), individual operators work cooperatively and closely in fireteams. The fireteam executes its maneuvers, attacks and actions as a cohesive unit, with each person in the unit having pre-assigned and well-drilled responsibilities during each maneuver or action undertaken by the team. For instance, as the team navigates, it does so in a predefined formation, with each fireteam member having not only a designated spot within that formation, but also a designated “field of fire,” an angle or scope of the battlefield around the team in which that member is responsible for engaging targets.

When the team breaches a room to engage the targets within, these roles take extra significance and are determined by the tactical approach decided upon by the team leader. If the team leader determines that entry will be made through a locked door, then the team’s roles might look like this: one person is designated as the breacher—the person responsible for eliminating the door as an obstacle (this might be done by the use of a breaching shotgun to blow the door of the hinges, a breach charge to explode the door inward, or by hand tools like a sledgehammer or battering ram); a second person standing by with a flashbang or explosive weapon to surprise and soften the targets in the room; and the rest of the team who will move into the room immediately after the detonation of the device deployed by the second person (the first of whom is usually referred to as the “point man”. As each assaulting team member moves in, he must make a decision about how to turn and which angles of the room to engage. The team will have painstakingly drilled beforehand on the individual process of room clearing, the priority of target engagement and the positions within the room in which each assaulter will conclude the assault (if all goes well). But as the first assaulter enters the room, she must determine which side of the room she will engage; those who follow cue their own engagement strategies off of the person in front of them. This allows for a combination of well-drilled maneuvers and extemporizing to address the realities of actual contact with the enemy.

Numerous examples of these techniques can be found on the internet, movies and TV. An understanding of the techniques and tactics of close-quarters battle will greatly assist in the use of these rules in a way that creates exciting and fast-paced combat encounters that may be resolved in a matter of minutes.

Fireteams as Characters

These rules assume that the number of player characters involved in the game are roughly the size of a fireteam or breaching unit—typically four to five people, but we’ll assume 3-6 to be accommodating. If there are more PCs than that, they should likely be divided into two (or more) fireteams for the purposes of the combat. Enemy fireteams should be of comparable size.

Like the Fate Fractal, this system models fireteams as characters to “zoom out” from individual actors slightly, simplifying and speeding up combat without depersonalizing it for the players (hopefully). The rules for determining the Trait Sets for fireteams are given below.

Traits for Fireteams

NPC Fireteams: The core of NPC fireteam dice pools are composed of one die for each combatant in the fireteam. The die type correlates with the combat effectiveness of each combatant (later on, I’ll refer to each member’s added die as their “Quality Die”). A combatant with no training and no experience likely uses a d4, while a combatant with training but no real combat experience probably uses a d6. A combat veteran would typically add a d8 to the pool, an elite operator a d10 and a top-ten-in-the-world type combatant a d12. This however, is just a suggestion—you can adapt these rules to skew more to the “hardcore” realistic side or to the more cinematic side by the weight given to combatant skill and experience in dice selection.[1]

I’m going to suggest that NPC fireteams be given no more than six combatants—use multiple fireteams to handle additional combatants. I will likely, in the future, develop some additional systems to address other specific combat scenarios—holding out against overwhelming assault forces, for instance.

Player Fireteams: A player fireteam’s dice pool is composed of the team’s Tactics Die and its Operator Dice.

The first die in the Fireteam’s Pool is their Tactics Die. The Tactics Die is equal to the Tactics specialization die of the fireteam’s designated leader.

Operator Dice: Trained operators in a CQB fireteam communicate primarily about when to take action, not how to take action—each member of the team is expected to know his role and be able to function effectively without getting in the way of his teammates. Each teammate in the fireteam contributes his Direct Action die to the dice pool. If a character’s CQB specialization is higher than his Direct Action skill, he may use that die instead. If the character has the CQB specialization but it is lower than the Direct Action skill, the character may step up his Direct Action die by one (the usual maximum of d12 still applies) when operating in a fireteam.

Other Fireteam Factors

Injury: The highest Stress or Trauma die for any fireteam member who is injured but not out of the conflict is added to the opposing dice pool, per normal combat rules.

Technology and Equipment: If a fireteam is using vastly superior technology to its opponents, give the fireteam an Asset that represents the scale of the difference. For instance, a special ops team operating at night with thermal and/or late-gen night-vision goggles and top-tier weaponry after cutting off a building’s power and facing opponents armed with only improvised melee weapons might get a d12, whereas a fireteam with standard military technology of the most developed nations fighting against a fireteam using outdated but functional firearms and tech might enjoy a d6 bonus. No specific guidelines are given for this die so that it is adaptable to particular situations—but this means consistency in its use is paramount.

Other Assets: As with any Conflict under Cortex rules, a fireteam with time to prepare may create Assets to assist impending combat. This uses the normal rules for Asset creation and must also make narrative sense. These Assets should typically represent good planning and preparation for a maneuver (Covering Fire, Multiple Breach Points, Overwatch) or bringing special equipment to bear (Breaching Charges and Flashbangs). It may be assumed that a fireteam equipped with particular equipment will be using it per standard operating procedures even when Assets are not in play, so Assets should represent especially-effective applications of those tools and equipment.

Combat Effects

The most common goal of an engagement is to stop the enemy, whether by pacifying them, driving them off, or inflicting sufficient injury that they can no longer fight back. In general, fireteam combat operates like combat between individuals (with Effect Dice as damage), but the following changes are necessary to bring the system into greater focus.

Inflicting Harm-the Characters

When a fireteam containing one or more PCs takes damage, we need to know which operator has taken the specific hit. Doing this is relatively simple. Each member of the fireteam is assigned the numbers 1-12, for simplicity sake, you may just assign the numbers arbitrarily, making sure to assign a number to each member of the fireteam before assigning additional numbers to any other member of the fireteam. The numbers should be as evenly distributed as possible, i.e. in a fireteam of four each member should have three numbers assigned. If the numbers don’t divide evenly, or for greater realism even when they do, start with those characters taking the most exposed roles in the team (first in, rear guard, etc.) in assigning numbers.

When an Effect Die is selected, apply it to the character corresponding to the number shown on the die. Each injury die assigned to a character in the fireteam is added to enemy fireteam dice pools.

Given the lethal nature of close-quarters battle (and the benefit of not dealing with armor rules in a complex manner), injuries inflicted by successful enemy/opposition rolls will be counted as Trauma, whereas injuries applied as Complications (see below) will be counted as Stress.

Inflicting Harm—NPCs

Most NPCs in fireteams will be nameless combatants. Therefore, it is not as important to keep specific track of injuries for individual members of a fireteam. To remove an NPC from combat, an Effect Die equal to their Quality Die. For each Effect Die equal to or greater than a combatant’s Quality Die, an NPC combatant is removed from action. If the fireteam has members of mixed Quality Dice, I recommend removing the lower-quality combatants first. Note that this simplified damage system is not based necessarily on killing enemy combatants, but rather, rendering them combat ineffective. That could certainly mean that they have been killed, but it could also mean that they have fled, surrendered, been too injured to continue fighting or that some other circumstance has intervened to prevent them from fighting further—this is intentionally left to narrative freedom.

If the Effect Die assigned against an NPC fireteam is less than the lowest Quality Die in the group, apply that die as a Complication to the NPC fireteam. When a subsequent Effect Die is applied to the fireteam, if the steps of the second Effect Die added to the Complication Die would meet or exceed one of the Quality Dice in the group, remove both a Quality Die for the eliminated combatant and the Complication die. Each Effect Die assigned may injure or eliminate only one enemy combatant at a time—dice steps over the threshold to eliminate a combatant are lost.[2]

A Side Note About PC Injuries

As these rules are currently written, multiple PC injuries will quickly put a PC fireteam in extreme danger. Playtesting will be necessary to make sure that this works in practice (the alternatives I have in mind are to apply either an “average” of the current injury dice or simply the highest injury die in effect as the bonus die to the enemy fireteams). The rationale for the current system is to make combat difficult for characters and to make them focus on good preparation and execution to avoid stumbling into massacres. After playing with these rules some, I may change to one of the alternatives. If you happen to try out these rules for yourself, your input and criticisms are appreciated.

Extra Effect Dice

In some of my previous posts on the in-progress Cortex Shadowrun design, I’ve introduced the idea of applying multiple Effect Dice from a single roll (although I’m sure I’m not the first person either to think of or to implement this or something similar).

One of the goals of this system is to provide a simplified combat system for larger-scale combats (as a supplement to individual-based combat, which may be more dramatically appropriate in certain cases). As such, a limit to only taking out one enemy at a time doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—it artificially slows the pace of combat.

So, I’m going to allow the use of multiple Effect Dice on a successful roll. My current thought (before playtesting) is to allow an additional Effect Die to be applied for each three full points the successful party’s roll beats the opposition’s roll. I also intend to allow a Plot point to be paid to allow one additional Effect Die to the result. Both options assume that an Effect Die is available to be used.

Complications

When Complications are invoked against the PCs in this CQB ruleset, the easiest application is to apply the Complication as Stress to one of the characters—representing that character taking a hit stopped by body armor (but painful, scary and distracting nonetheless), being lightly injured in a hand-to-hand scuffle, or suffering an environmental injury while maneuvering.

One complicating factor here is the determination of which character should suffer the Complication. For this, I’m going to implement what I’m tentatively calling “the Hotseat.” In brief, a different player rolls the team’s dice pool each turn; the character belonging to the rolling player is “in the Hotseat” for that turn and is the one who suffers the (personal) effects of the Complication if one is taken (although, for purposes of the team’s rolls, the entire team will suffer the effects of the Complication Die as it’s added to enemy fireteams’ rolls).

Conclusion and Moving Forward

This system is, as mentioned, currently theoretical and without playtesting. I’ll post about my experiences playtesting it and make modifications to it based upon those experiences.

Additionally, it is not yet complete. Here are a few things I’m already thinking I’d like to add:

-Rules for Sniper Teams
-More guidance for objectives that are not simply combative (we’ll start, I think, with some of the classic video-gamey objectives—bomb disarmament, hostage rescue, etc.)

I’d love to hear from you guys—criticisms, alternative rules or approaches, or things you’d like to see added as well!

 

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[1] It should be noted here that by “hardcore,” I do not mean incredibly mechanically detailed or overly concerned with the minutiae of combat—whether a .45-caliber submachinegun is a better weapon in a particular situation than a short-barreled assault rifle, for instance. Instead, I mean the feel of the combat and thus the game. Is this a game where every combat action carries a serious risk of death or where the player characters are expected to steamroll standard infantry like an 80’s action movie? The nuances of combat are many and, while they make excellent details for the narration of firearms combat, typically only to stall progress and make a fight boring when it should be exciting if incorporated into the mechanics of the system employed.

[2] Of course, you can change this rule and count surplus dice steps against subsequent combatants for a more cinematic game.