Non Combat Systems- spin-off of Women in Glorantha

[jenh]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

My purpose is to put a definite mechanic out in public in accord with the theme of the thread.  This suggestion is  intended to get  players and GMs thinking about non-combat events.

Oh yes, I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't good to put forth such mechanics, especially in a thread precisely about that! I was just registering, poorly, that my feedback can only be minimal and ill-informed, given my tastes. Sorry about that!

And I totally understand your reasons for wanting mechanics, and look forward to seeing your bargaining template. Even when I don't use explicit mechanics for such things, having a rough framework for judging how I (if GMing) might factor in character skills and such can be useful.

[Alex]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

But when the player has Orate 5%

Ouch. 🙂  But yes, this is a thing in every possible domain of PC competence.  To steal from RDL (I've been watching Krakenvids, I commend them to the house!), this might be summed up as the "As an experienced investigator..." effect.  You need to have a table-satisfactory way to bridge the competence gap.

 

6 hours ago, jenh said:

I'm at the extreme end of not caring about gamist concerns.

But they're potentially also valid simulationist and narrativist concerns, too.  (I'm now hear @Ian Cooper's voice in my head saying "step slowly awaaaaay" from the Big Model".  But certainly there's a spectrum here of desirable amounts of "crunch", and of procedural determinism in the "system" that's happening in practice at the table.

 

5 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

In a sense, this fight feels more Pendragon than RuneQuest.

Not such a big gap these days!

 

7 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I am thinking that in a second round, the targeted groups' reactions to the first round might affect each other; that is, if the priestess and the chief change to be favorable, then in round 2 they might affect the weaponthanes and the farmers. 

This is, as I understand it, quite similar to the logic of (what are now) "Chained Sequences" in (what's now) Questworlds.  Break down the conflict into game-world logical components, and apply intermediate Consequences that may affect subsequent ones.  (Also conceptually not wildly dissimilar to the "lots of preparatory augments" system.)

[Mugen]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

But when the player has Orate 5% and the character has Orate 60%, the die roll is intended to let the player play someone who can orate.  Just like plenty of people who have never thrust a sword or a spear (or a rifle and bayonet, very similar to a 2 handed  spear) can play characters who have Broadsword 90%, 2H Spear 90%.  If you want to  play a Mostali with a musket, do you have to have a real world skill with muzzle loading smoothbores?  

I agree. The purpose of Roleplaying Games is to have fun while pretending you're a fictional character, and not to be an exercise to improve your own social and acting skills.

One of my most frustrating experience as roleplayer was in a game where I played a character that was very different from me, and more like the main protagonist of The Mentalist TV show. But the GM didn't care for his high CHA or social skills, and expected that I convinced him with my own skills. Which means that in every tense social situation, I had to step out of character.

[Alex]

It occurs to me that another metaphor for "extended resolution" is the visual that PbtA seems to use a lot:  clockfaces.  Decide what "ply" your conflict would be;  anything for from two half-pies (Moon Roon!) to twelve orange-segments if you want to take the 'clock' part to its exhausting extreme.  HQ extended contests/QW scored sequences  would have five chunks.  The signature "Apocalypse countdown clock" of AW and the Trivial Pursuit-style wedges/cheeses would each be n=6, just drawn differenty.  (6*2 vs. 3*3+3*1.)  One-off rolls, skillchecks and the like are just the default n=1 case, so don't really need the paraphernalia, but it's trivially consistent in that sense.

Of course, this tells us very little about either the details of the mechanic -- is this a two-runner race to n, or a zero-sum back and forth? And it doesn't help work out 'n' -- you either have to take a pacing/important/randomness decision in the abstract (not such a big deal, maybe a 3;  this is epic, let's make it an eight!), or split them up according to how they might decompose in the fiction.  (Points at issue in a negotiation;  people or factions to persuade in a group, etc.)

[g33k]

7 hours ago, jenh said:

... want to run everything as in-character conversations with outcomes determined solely on what feels right, but that's neither a mechanic nor something many people find at all satisfying (for a variety of entirely valid reasons)...

This is my preferred method, too.  I find that sometimes, it's just not viable.

How many *players* can muster the hefty "Ernalda Cult Lore 85%" skill, to roleplay their Priestess augmenting a social skill, etc?

Similarly, I played at a 'Con game one time where a "role-play the die roll" situation came up...  Rather a mix of players at the table (as so often at such "open table" events).  One PC was a 007-like character:  a suave, debonair ladies-man masking the hyper-competent adventurer beneath.  There was a scene which called for him to flirt -- mildly -- with another PC, for "cover" in a social situation.  But the 007-alike was played by a mid-teen guy, and the other player was a decidedly-cute blonde woman in her late 20's.  Teen boy could *not* muster even a microgram of "debonair" in the face of the expectant gaze of the cute woman; and when she tried to give him some "mildly flirty" in-character support, it only got worse for him.  The GM moved us along after a few awkward minutes... with a die-roll instead of any role-play.

I feel that role-playing social stuff is *always* better... except when it's not.

[Darius West]

On 10/14/2021 at 9:05 PM, HeartQuintessence said:

Ways to do other interesting things in Runequest Glorantha other than combat, that are more than just simple dice rolls.

RQG could use a more in-depth system for crafting and all forms of economic activity.

TBH, I have always tried to insure that my players are combat shy enough to look for "another way" before shrugging, declaring a negotiation "too hard" and opting to fight.  I even go so far as to consider how a scenario can be resolved peacefully, so that is always an option for those who do their "due diligence".

As Sun Tzu says: "To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the apex of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the apex of skill."

As a result I often wind up running intrigue heavy games, where information gathering, rumor mongering, disinformation, divide and rule tactics , leveraging, bribery, and other chicanery get employed.

On 10/15/2021 at 12:14 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Andrew Logan Montgomery proposes a way of handling roleplayed persuasion of individuals , on pp 98-100 of The Company of the Dragon.  This is guidance for methodical GM'ing.  This can obviously also be applied to persuading groups: 

Having read over this, it is a good system and I can see how it can be used to good effect.  I would suggest that it doesn't adequately accommodate the effect of laying a groundwork of intrigue before the debate occurs, but there is not reason such a system can't be retrofitted to do so.

I have developed an espionage system where you can send infiltrators into another faction, and they get a periodic event roll.  Sometimes that event is good, and they get a chance to improve their influence or something, and other times they are endangered or threatened with exposure.  These infiltrator agents form cells, and can perform missions, generally resolved with a single skill-based die roll, than nominally take a month to lay the groundwork for and a week to complete.  You can rush them but they become less effective.  Oh, and gods help you if you don't pay your agents.

Using this system I had a situation where my Tovtari rebels were using their agents to covertly support the very worst and most militaristic elements of the Princeros called the "firebrands", to the point of sabotaging their Vantaros allies attempts to undermine and destroy the Princeros firebrands, because they knew that the firebrands were doing more to alienate and cause hostility towards Harvar Ironfist than any other faction.  They wound up exposing the Vantaros agents and were promoted by Ironfist for doing so, while pushing for Ironfist to follow the stupider firebrand policies while insuring the rebels knew where the blows would fall in advance, and uniting more people in the region against Ironfist in the process.  Poor Ironfist soon found that his administration had become riddled with factions, blackmail, foul rumors, corruption, and mismanagement to the point where Ironfist himself needed to start fudging reports to Tatius the Bright.  Argrath's arrival was as much of a sigh of relief to Ironfist as to the rebels.  Every now and again the players would get their report from their agents, and they became quite engrossed and amused by following their agent's progress and all the twists that occurred. 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Darius West

[Akhôrahil]

9 minutes ago, Darius West said:

RQG could use a more in-depth system for crafting and all forms of economic activity.

Agree. I have been looking at house-rules for this, but it's hard to have them 1) good, 2) in the style of the game, and 3) simple enough.

My PCs have a joint farmstead, and the rules don't really work out for that. 

[Runeblogger]

6 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

My PCs have a joint farmstead, and the rules don't really work out for that. 

What about the rules in RQ3 Dorastor: Land of Doom?

[Darius West]

11 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Agree. I have been looking at house-rules for this, but it's hard to have them 1) good, 2) in the style of the game, and 3) simple enough.

My PCs have a joint farmstead, and the rules don't really work out for that. 

Yes, I sympathize.  Presently the system amounts to a Manage Household roll, and the assumption is that players aren't interested in micro-managing their estates, and the game is made more boring by such.  Personally I find my players are far more motivated to protect their homes and incomes than go adventuring, as a result I often use threats to their political or business interests as scenario motivation.

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Darius West

[Akhôrahil]

12 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

What about the rules in RQ3 Dorastor: Land of Doom?

They are a bit weird - for instance, they don't care about how much land or how many herds you have access to (although the idea may be that there's ample land), merely the workforce, and they don't accumulate costs for dependents. They could also benefit from being a bit more elegant in execution. The basic idea is pretty good, though.

One thing I have implemented is to separate an income roll (typically Farming) from an expenditure/management roll (typically Manage Household), and that two different people need to perform these. 

8 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Yes, I sympathize.  Presently the system amounts to a Manage Household roll, and the assumption is that players aren't interested in micro-managing their estates, and the game is made more boring by such.  Personally I find my players are far more motivated to protect their homes and incomes than go adventuring, as a result I often use threats to their political or business interests as scenario motivation.

Yes, same here.

Another thing that you basically have to change in this situation is to roll family events in advance for the year. It's fine to find out in Pendragon that your wife had a child this year when you check in winter - it's not fine to retroactively find out that one of the PCs in RuneQuest did...

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Squaredeal Sten]

11 hours ago, jenh said:

....

And I totally understand your reasons for wanting mechanics, and look forward to seeing your bargaining template. Even when I don't use explicit mechanics for such things, having a rough framework for judging how I (if GMing) might factor in character skills and such can be useful.

You had a more detailed bargaining concept started with writing down goals.  What steps would you suggest for carrying it out?

For example, one possibility is to do opposed skill rolls and each "win" achieves one  goal in the package. 

But if we do that, do we stop when the list of goals is exhausted?  When one side's list of goals is exhausted?  How do we decide whether the resulting package is acceptable or one side, having lost every point and gotten nothing, walks away?

 

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
spelling, my nemesis.

[jenh]

2 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

You had a more detailed bargaining concept started with writing down goals.  What steps would you suggest for carrying it out?

I might handle it in one of two ways, depending on whether it was entirely PC-facing or not. A negotiation might be one in which I only care about what the PCs get and give up (PC-facing) or one in which I want greater detail on what the other sides get.

For the former, first I'd work with the players to create the lists of things they want, things they might give up, and negative consequences/elements that tie into the other sides' desires etc.

Then comes an opposed roll, and with some degrees of success determination from that we'd enter the interpretation phase. Based on that degree of success, items are chosen from the various lists to end up with something that feels like the right balance of positive and negative items. I wouldn't bother having much if any formal quantification of weightings for various items; I think that would become pretty clear through discussion. If it was really wanted by a group, perhaps both the list making and item choosing could be regularised so that each list has three weights of items, and each degree of success/failure is a point in the starting pool. Then buy items off the positive list, balancing where needed with items off the negative lists, with the different weights having different costs.

For situations that are not entirely PC-facing, I'd change the lists so that each side had a list of things they wanted and things they were willing to give up. The opposed roll and degree of success would be used as above for interpreting results, except that now the desired items of the non-PC sides would be involved in the balancing. Not a huge difference, but does make the situation one which allows for far greater win-win outcomes.

Please note that I've never used this process in this form, so it may not work well at all. I'd dislike it as a player, but it seems a reasonable way to introduce some abstraction, randomness, and character skill into a process that most of those I GM for would not always want to just play out in character.

[soltakss]

On 10/29/2021 at 10:14 AM, Akhôrahil said:

On 10/29/2021 at 10:03 AM, Darius West said:

RQG could use a more in-depth system for crafting and all forms of economic activity.

Agree. I have been looking at house-rules for this, but it's hard to have them 1) good, 2) in the style of the game, and 3) simple enough.

Book of Doom has rules for crafting for RQG.

On 10/29/2021 at 10:14 AM, Akhôrahil said:

My PCs have a joint farmstead, and the rules don't really work out for that. 

Our Risklands Campaign will have a lot of things for that, expanding on the Sacred Time Rules.

[Squaredeal Sten]

23 hours ago, jenh said:

I might handle it in one of two ways, depending on whether it was entirely PC-facing or not. A negotiation might be one in which I only care about what the PCs get and give up (PC-facing) or one in which I want greater detail on what the other sides get. .......  For situations that are not entirely PC-facing, I'd change the lists so that each side had a list of things they wanted and things they were willing to give up. The opposed roll and degree of success would be used as above for interpreting results,....

It strikes me that we should define one single process, not two, if it is to be revealed to the players.  Why?  Because it's not good for suspension of disbelief if you can tell from the process whether the GM cares and has fleshed out the NPCs. 

If I am GMing and I haven't fleshed the NPCs out and am doing this on the fly, then I will do it on the fly, and essentially work off of the players' list plus an immediate whim of my own  that may fit with the current story.

What do you think of this take on it? 

Edited October 30, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
taking out white space

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

...

What do you think of this take on it? 

I think it's bad to have the choice of game-mechanic (Mechanic-A vs Mechanic-B (and/or -C and/or -D &c, depending)) reveal something substantive that's otherwise indistinguishable from an in-world / in-character POV.

Regarding the NPC's lists of "want to get this / want to avoid that" ... I don't think the PCs necessarily *KNOW* what's on the NPCs' agendas; so there may be Reputation or Insight rolls to determine that, or the NPC may flat-out state one or more of their agenda items.  But it seems to me like "hidden agendas" might be A Thing, rather than open ones.

It's worth noting that there's probably tiers of objectives -- I *need* this; I *must* avoid that... I *really* want (or don't) want those things... I'd prefer this and I'd prefer not-that.  Not every agenda item, good or bad, will carry the same weight.

N.B. -- from the modern POV, hidden agendas are often seen as a significant obstacle to good-faith negotiations, so this is IMHO something that should be explicitly addressed on a GM/Player metagame perspective, "Session 0" style; breaking trust risks breaking the campaign.

Edited October 31, 2021 by g33k

[jenh]

6 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

It strikes me that we should define one single process, not two, if it is to be revealed to the players.  Why?  Because it's not good for suspension of disbelief if you can tell from the process whether the GM cares and has fleshed out the NPCs. 

Go for it. I wasn't really thinking about it in terms of which NPCs are fleshed out, though, but rather whether the interaction is one where the other parties are trying to get something and that is important to the situation. So when convincing a guard to let one in, what the guard "wants" is better expressed through the lens of potentially negative elements for the PCs. Given, as you mentioned above, you would only use this for negotiations rather than persuasion, you'd only want to use the second form.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 10/30/2021 at 9:48 PM, jenh said:

Go for it. I wasn't really thinking about it in terms of which NPCs are fleshed out, though, but rather whether the interaction is one where the other parties are trying to get something and that is important to the situation. So when convincing a guard to let one in, what the guard "wants" is better expressed through the lens of potentially negative elements for the PCs. Given, as you mentioned above, you would only use this for negotiations rather than persuasion, you'd only want to use the second form.

How does this look for a first draft of the negotiation model / form?

1. Negotiation only starts when the targeted side is interested.  To get there use the Persuasion form. 

The GM should shift to negotiation when after persuasion, the resistance scale is down to "Inclined", (that is from 1 to 3 on an 11-point scale from 10 to 0) and the GM sees Bargaining as fitting the story line.  Role play the shift to negotiation, at least briefly

2. Both the GM and the PCs prepare lists of Bargaining goals, divided into

A. One Most Important thing they want

B. Two Less Important things they want

C. Up to three Things they want to avoid

Naturally the GM is doing this on behalf of the NPC(s) and the GM's list should reflect the extent of world building and character creations or lack of it.  If that extent is zero then do it on the fly, you are the GM!  The GM's list may be kept concealed.

3. Both sides do Bargaining rolls, which may have reasonable augments.

Crit -  get (A) One Most Important thing or preclude  one item from (C), or cause the other side to give up one item from their own (B).

Special -  get either 2/3 of (A) or one item from (B)

Success-  get either 1/3 of (A) or 1/2 of one item from (B) or preclude one item from (C).

Failure - get nothing

Fumble - have to take one item from their own (C) or must give up one item from their own (B).

4. At this point the PC(s) may make an Insight roll to discover one item on the NPCs/GM's list, and if that roll is successful then the item is arbitrarily or randomly revealed by the GM.

Regardless of whether Insight is attempted,

  If one side has achieved all their (A) and (B) list then they will opt to end the negotiation. 

However at that time if the other side has not achieved any (A) or (B) item then that side may walk away and declare NO DEAL.

If neither of those ending criteria apply, then now each side has the option to continue the negotiation or stop and settle for what is already negotiated.  The players play this decision and the GM GMs this IAW their concept of the situation and adventure. 

5. If both sides opt to continue the negotiation, repeat step 3 above. 

If one side fumbles twice  or fails three times and has not achieved their (A ) item, then they may walk away and declare NO DEAL.

That is my first draft of the negotiation model / form.  Your thoughts?

 

 

Edited November 1, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
clarity

[jenh]

11 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

That is my first draft of the negotiation model / form.  Your thoughts?

It's more involved than suits me, in terms of mechanics used to engage with the lists. But that's no surprise: my aim in play is to introduce the minimum level of abstractions necessary either to speed up a process that would be too slow run real-time IC and/or to accommodate players unwilling or unable to run the situation IC. So I would have the interpretation phase of a fairly simple mechanical element (likely just an opposed roll, or maybe a few) be the meat, where the abstraction of the lists gets fleshed out by partially IC discussion. Basically, I"m a bad person to give feedback on this sort of thing - what you have might be amazing, and work really well for many people, but I wouldn't know because mechanics aren't my jam. (I ran a HeroQuest game once, that almost immediately turned into a systemless game because after rolling the dice once I realised I never wanted to do that again.)

There must be others reading this thread who have an opinion.

Having said all that, I don't like the GM's list being secret. It's pretty hard for someone to get what they want in a negotiation without telling the people they're negotiating with what they want. Sure, you have the insight rolls to find out, but that seems both punishing and misaligned with the fiction. I imagine that you have it that way because it adds more doubt and more mechanical engagement, which will suit those really wanting to engage with the game side of things?

[Squaredeal Sten]

Yes, because the PCs start with uncertainty.  And because that uncertainty is realistic, unless the adventurers already know tbe NPCs well. 

Question, how would you decide that "know well" issue with or without dice?

But the NPCs' goals should become evident as the negotiation progresses.  Perhaps we will get more comments about how quickly the NPCs' goals should be revealed, and appropriate mechsnics or criteria for doing that.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
spelling

[jenh]

1 minute ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Question, how would you decide that "know well" issue with or without dice?

I would be operating, I think, on a slightly different scale than the one you're trying to model; I'd want the whole negotiation encompassed by the one roll (or a few in a row; augments or some other bits and bobs). So rather than the mechanics simulating a step by step process, I'd have an initial phase of IC talking that sets up the negotiation, which would provide the basic context for what is happening. It's partly from that that the lists would grow from. Then, since the one roll is covering the whole negotiation, the interpretation phase would then retroactively generate the fiction of what occurred - such as the PCs learning of something the others wanted and which was rejected, causing the negotiation to break down, or whatever.

The more intermixing of non-IC with IC there is, the more disruptive I find things, so I try to avoid having to jump out and back several times to build up what's happening.

Does that help at all? Sorry, I don't want to distract from the actual mechanics, since that's the topic of the thread and I don't have any more of a system than what I presented initially. I'm glad it's something you're taking and generating something more robust from!

[Squaredeal Sten]

3 hours ago, jenh said:

I would be operating, I think, on a slightly different scale than the one you're trying to model; I'd want the whole negotiation encompassed by the one roll (or a few in a row;.....I'd have an initial phase of IC talking that sets up the negotiation, which would provide the basic context for what is happening. It's partly from that that the lists would grow from. Then, since the one roll is covering the whole negotiation, the interpretation phase would then retroactively generate the fiction of what occurred - .....

Does that help at all? Sorry, I don't want to distract from the actual mechanics, since that's the topic of the thread ...

Well this is about negotiation , not just bargaining over a price.  Bargaining over a price is already handled on p.168 of RQiG, in which IF you do a single skill roll  a special gets you a 25%  add or subtraction from standard price and a crit gets you 50%.

But if we are negotiating over  a multi-part package of mostly non-monetary exchanges and concessions, then I'd want to take the advice in the first full paragraph on the right hand column on that page: " ...Bargaining is about compromise."  So how do we set up a mechanic to get the players as characters to compromise and do it in as engaging a way as combat?  And lead them through negotiation even if as Real World people they are not good negotiators?

I think your "initial phase of IC talking that sets up the negotiation, which would provide the basic context for what is happening. It's partly from that that the lists would grow from ...  " is right.  But I'd like a slightly more involved mechanic to actually get the players into the compromising.  I see the single die roll as cutting corners on that.  

So how do we actually get the players into the compromising?  My draft 1 approach was to have them win or lose on the multiple issues by winning or losing issue by issue.  If it's clunky then please suggest how to improve it or replace it, or suggest another path to get them into the compromising.  

I'm thinking of playing it out and seeing how many die rolls are really involved -

Would you care to set a scenario from which we can derive a test set of issues or proposals? 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by Squaredeal Sten
punctuation

[Alex]

15 hours ago, jenh said:

(I ran a HeroQuest game once, that almost immediately turned into a systemless game because after rolling the dice once I realised I never wanted to do that again.)

That's an interesting calibration, as I've seen HQ described as borderline systemless in a couple of contexts!  Partly as its supplements ranged between "stats lite" and "stats homeopathic", and partly as it goes out of its way to give you lots of ways of not rolling the dice...  (Though there's lots of broad-sense "system" in nudging people to get there, like the infamous "why this almost certainly isn't an extended contest, and probably isn't even a dieroll" decision tree.)

 

15 hours ago, jenh said:

Having said all that, I don't like the GM's list being secret. It's pretty hard for someone to get what they want in a negotiation without telling the people they're negotiating with what they want. Sure, you have the insight rolls to find out, but that seems both punishing and misaligned with the fiction.

Depends on the nature of the fiction. I imagine.  If you're going for "fraught political drama" or "bizniz sharks with no ruth whatsoever" type of negotiation, you could be modelling a situation where each side is playing what their "bottom line" or "right, I'm out" really is.  Obviously their actual negotiating position/demands/wants should be obvious, otherwise someone's not doing it very well!

[Lordabdul]

On 11/1/2021 at 3:46 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

That is my first draft of the negotiation model / form.  Your thoughts?

This is pretty much how I run most non-combat scenes, but in a very ad-hoc/organic way, instead of any formal structure like you have here.

In particular, if a player rolls a special/critical success, I frequently give them what they wanted to achieve and add "you can get one/two additional goals" (depending on success level), kinda like what you have here but in general with any scene. So a critical Move Quietly roll might let them explore a few extra rooms in the cave complex, or stay longer in one room to witness a full NPC conversation.

When you add the optional Insight check to know what the NPC thinks or wants, that's usually prompted by the player in my games -- like I said, it's all organically handled. It works well when you have players who think about the story first ("I want to do <X>") and mechanics second ("ok so <X> might be a roll of <Y> or <Z>... I could augment with <Blah>"). Formally structured mechanics are good for those who go the other way around, looking at mechanics to figure out what course of action is available to them in a situation.

The mechanics used for whatever the players want to achieve depends on the scene:

• When the scene needs to be short, and one roll is appropriate, a simple success on the player's part is enough for me. The Resistance Table is also good for short, one-roll scenes, where an opposition needs to be taken into account. But it's pretty uncommon for me to use it.
• When the scene is a bit more complicated and there's an active opposition, I do opposed rolls. With ties, it can get exciting and go to new places, especially since I started getting better at handling those (see my blog post here on that). I ran a scene last week during a harvest festival where Earth priestesses control snakes to clean up granaries and other food stores before they get filled for the winter. As rats and pests flee from there, kids compete to kill as many as possible to be crowned "Rat Killer King" of the festival. By the time only one player was left in the competition we had gone through 4 rounds of opposed rolls, each with a different ability roll, plus various augments. It was pretty exciting.
• To make things more interesting, I very rarely add some kind of required number of successes (as opposed to opposed rolls which go until one beats the other). It can be a fixed number, or it can be a number derived from each opponent's stats (CHA, INT, POW, whatever) like in Mythras and other D100 systems. You can count them in your head or make a pretty "clock" like in Blades in the Dark. The effectiveness of this depends on how much tactical choices the players have. If it's just "roll and count your successes until you've won", it's just not worth it. So you have to offer them options, like "sure you can do this, it will give you +20%, but you run the risk of....". Sometimes it feels a bit like designing a new sub-system on the fly, but most of the time you can just remix existing mechanics.

The last one is really what combat is. You make opposed rolls and cause attrition on some pool of points derived from stats. Combat has actually multiple related pools of points (hit locations, weapon/armor HP) so if you want to get reaaaally crunchy, you could also do several pools too. So for instance Bargain would deplete a different pool from Intimidate. (I think Mythas Companion's social conflict rules have this? Can't remember) But that's way too crunchy for me so I wouldn't do this personally anyway.

I think what people really want when they say they want non-combat systems is that they want something that's as exciting as combat, not necessarily as crunchy. Adding crunch to these other situations might not necessarily make them as exciting, but YMMV.

Edited November 2, 2021 by lordabdul

[Squaredeal Sten]

5 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

.......

I think what people really want when they say they want non-combat systems is that they want something that's as exciting as combat, not necessarily as crunchy. Adding combat-like rules to other situations might not necessarily make them as exciting as combat though, but YMMV.

What will make the non-combat scenes as exciting as combat?  And, by the way, make them last longer than a single die roll, with actual player choices and not just time-wasting = so the non-combat scene is not just a minute's break between fights?

My only thought is the dramatic pattern of rising to a dramatic climax, and then the falling action of playing out the results.  Your thoughts, though?

Specifically about the Negotiation scenario?

And how do we structure that so it will be played by players and GMs who are not good negotiators in the Real World?

 

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

What will make the non-combat scenes as exciting as combat?  And, by the way, make them last longer than a single die roll, with actual player choices and not just time-wasting = so the non-combat scene is not just a minute's break between fights?

A single die roll, with a few augments (especially as a group roll) and a bit of roleplaying can already fill up a 5 minutes scene or longer. Although arguably I tend to be a fairly expansive GM who, as a result, makes everything longer than it needs to be.

Use opposed rolls, or required number of successes, or both, and it starts being a much longer scene. Say, 20 minutes or more with good roleplaying.

Combat takes longer because it's not only crunchier (you need to look up tables, measure distances, count down Strike Ranks, roll for damage, look up more tables and more rules, and so on) but also because everybody in the party is a full participant in it. Compare that to one or two PCs in the party bargaining with an NPC, while the other PCs are hanging in the back. There are way less people rolling dice, even if you made a super crunchy bargaining system, so it will always take less time than combat (unless it's a combat with only 1 or 2 PCs involved too). That's good because you have several players not involved in the scene and you don't want them bored for half an hour.

I guess two things come to my mind:

1. Don't make other scenes longer. Make combat faster. For example, don't count down SRs: write down the "needed" SRs or track them in Roll20 or on the Infinity Engine SR tracker or the upcoming Starter Set tracker. Make players roll D100+D20+Damage in one big roll. Remind players who's next after you're done with the current PC ("Vasana, you're up. Yanioth, you're next"). Use the 3 second rule ("if you can't think of what to do in 3 seconds, your character is in a defensive stance and observing the scene"). And so on.
2. It's possibly a false dichotomy to try and compare a combat scene with a non-combat scene. It may be better to compare time spent in combat with time spent outside of it overall. If you fought a band of trolls for 40 minutes, but then in the other 2 hours of the session you traveled to two different places, had another encounter where you intimidated the bandits and got them to back down, struck a deal with a clan chieftain, got a new mission, bargained for a magical item, hired mercenaries to accompany you, met those bandits again at the market, and are now looking into how to ransom a troll back, then I'll say there was a lot more important stuff done outside of combat. The question isn't "should the meeting with the clan chieftain last 40 minutes to make it feel as important as combat?". The question is "were the players shaking in their seat at the thought of failing one of those 3 rolls in the chieftain's hall?". Failing a roll or two in combat might be nasty, but there's always Healing spells... usually. Failing a roll or two in the chieftain's hall might affect the entire course of the adventure. Or of the world! There are less rolls, but they can carry more weight.

Edited November 2, 2021 by lordabdul