Rules for bar fight?

[Manu]

RQG has great rules for sword and shield fighting. But a brawl in a bar is more difficult to handle.

It is not very clear to me...

[Ultor]

Fist, Kick, Grapple, Knockback, Dodge, Thrown Rock give you the basics. I'd make any improvised weapon have 1d4 damage with crushing (for a beer mug or plate) or slashing (for a kitchen knife). The free Rune Fixes document contains rules for subduing and disarming.

[drablak]

11 minutes ago, Manu said:

RQG has great rules for sword and shield fighting. But a brawl in a bar is more difficult to handle.

It is not very clear to me...

You use the unarmed attacks (p.208), don't forget the Damage Bonus. I'd use a club for an improvised weapon (stool leg) or 1D4 for something like a clay bowl (one shot only!), perhaps 1D8 for a amphora? 

Edit: Ultor beat me to it!

Edited December 14, 2018 by drablak

[jeffjerwin]

Does anyone else recall the White Dwarf scenario "Rumble in the Tin Inn"? Because it seems germane.

[Ultor]

9 minutes ago, jeffjerwin said:

Does anyone else recall the White Dwarf scenario "Rumble in the Tin Inn"? Because it seems germane

Indeed, but iirc that was no-holds-or-weapons-barred.

[Lord High Munchkin]

'Rumble in the Tin Inn' is a classic! The character write-ups are short and pithy, funny, and all-round excellent.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Manu said:

RQG has great rules for sword and shield fighting. But a brawl in a bar is more difficult to handle.

It is not very clear to me...

The difficulty is that RQ doesn't have any sort of non-lethal combat. So one punch to the head from an average guy usually leaves their opponent incapacitated or dead. 

What you might want to do is just use use hit points as a measure of what it takes to knock someone out. Maybe give everyone a point of free armor to reflect the fact that clothing can take some of the force out of a punch or kick. If someone wants to escalate things to lethal combat (say by drawing a knife) then switch to normal RQ combat. That way you can run a bar fight without having to deal with a body count. 

[Ultor]

2 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

The difficulty is that RQ doesn't have any sort of non-lethal combat.

The rules for subduing and disarming are here: https://www.chaosium.com/blogrune-fixes-1-clarifications-and-play-examples/

Also, immobilizing the head via grappling could be regarded as knocking the character out, although iirc the rules are silent on this.

[womble]

Yeah, those are pretty limited rules. You can only hit the head, for one, and unconsciousness or 1HP is the only outcome. I suppose it's possible to extrapolate to allow other locations to be targetted for 'disabling', but frankly if you want to win, you just do the damage, rather than missing aimed shots, a lot. You can probably avoid killing someone outright with bare hands... unless you've got a D6 damage bonus, then you're cruising for a weregeld... average damage probably won't kill outright, but a high roll on a Special/Crit (same thing if they're not wearing armour - punches are crushing damage right? so roll DB twice?) could certainly off a pencil-neck (unless fists don't get Crush Special results).

[Ultor]

14 minutes ago, womble said:

a high roll on a Special/Crit could certainly off a pencil-neck

I'm sure Gimpy's has a sign outside saying "No Pencil Necks." If not, Loud Lilina's certainly does.

[Atgxtg]

9 hours ago, womble said:

 average damage probably won't kill outright, but a high roll on a Special/Crit could certainly off a pencil-neck.

It does strain credulity a bit though. In game terms, two punches to an unprotected  head are more lethal than a whack with a mace! When it comes to fist fights, RQ's (SCA) roots are showing. 

[Psullie]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

two punches to an unprotected  head are more lethal than a whack with a mace

2x 1d3 v's 1d6+2, I don't follow the math. If you add a damage bonus to both, sure it starts to balance out - 2x(1d3+1d4) v's 1d6+2+1d4 with a chance that two bare knuckle sucker punches will inflict more damage. People have been killed by less. 

Weapons take damage if parried, the same goes for unarmed combat. As most folks have 4-6 HP per arm, deliver too high damage and you risk harm. 

[womble]

1) they aren't necessarily sucker punches.

2) bare knuckle fighters don't necessarily go down if punched clean 3x in the head for 'lightest significant contact' (i.e. rolling minimum damage), and I guarantee you they'll all have d4 damage bonus at least. Heavyweight boxers are doing d3+d6, which, while it might knock an ordinary person out, pretty much guaranteed, with a clean hit, they'd have to be very unlucky to be dead within 5 minutes, absent the risk of additional head-kerb interactions, and extremely unlucky to be dead within thirty seconds.

3) if hand to hand parries did as much damage to arms as armed ones do, boxing matches would never go 12 rounds.

The rules are a very poor simulation of unarmed combat, because they're not designed for it. All the lipstick in the world...

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Psullie said:

2x 1d3 v's 1d6+2, I don't follow the math. If you add a damage bonus to both, sure it starts to balance out - 2x(1d3+1d4) v's 1d6+2+1d4 with a chance that two bare knuckle sucker punches will inflict more damage. People have been killed by less.

Yes, I added damage bonuses. Yes people have been killed by less, but not nearly as many as would in an RQ fistfight. With the way RQ runs, every barroom brawl would result with people with broken bones or worse.

3 hours ago, Psullie said:

Weapons take damage if parried, the same goes for unarmed combat. As most folks have 4-6 HP per arm, deliver too high damage and you risk harm. 

Which is patently silly. In the real world most punches don't do much damage, and few people end up with broken arms from blocking a punch. Just image how a boxing match would play out in BRP. 

 

I really think that that if it is going to be a brawl, then some sort of non-lethal rule should be used. Otherwise draw swords and get it over with quicker. In RQ swords and fists are both doing lethal damage and are lethal weapons. 

[Psullie]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

then some sort of non-lethal rule should be used

I agree that if you wanted a less-lethal punch up then additional rules are needed, such as all damage is temporary or halving the damage modifier. 

Without gloves, punching someone can lead to broken knuckles, fractured wrists etc.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Psullie said:

I agree that if you wanted a less-lethal punch up then additional rules are needed, such as all damage is temporary or halving the damage modifier. 

Plus to e social conseuqnces. Nortnally a bar fight isn't considered the same a tryintg to kill sombody. But here, it is the same, just with less effective weaponry.

1 hour ago, Psullie said:

Without gloves, punching someone can lead to broken knuckles, fractured wrists etc.

Yeah, hitting someone with your hand isn't all that good for your hand. Not all that great for what the hand hits either.

[styopa]

It's pretty simple, punching attacks just do way too much damage, and the consequence of 0hp-in-your-head is too drastic.  (By that measure, I'd also say chests are much too fragile as well, but that's another post...)

The whole concept of non-lethal damage is a kludge long ago born in d&d.  Damage is damage.  Getting hit with a padded club is just less damage, nothing intrinsically different.

A simple club is just a fist with another arm's length of leverage that doesn't hurt you if you hit something badly.

For example, I could see the following simple changes:

- fist attacks do 1 point plus damage bonus.  Anything above 1 point of damage is applied also as damage to the puncher's arm (hand), armor protects. (This is regardless of if it penetrates the targets armor, as well.)

- kicking attacks do 2 points, otherwise the same. Personally I'd say the threshold for self damage for leg should be higher, maybe 3, but that might be excessive niggly complication.  Kick attacks vs humanoid use d10 for hit location, unless target prone or using martial Arts.

- head at/below zero = unconsciousness, not death.  This would mean bare knuckle fighters have a reason to called-shot head, as it's the quickest route to downing an opponent.

Unfortunately, at the low levels of damage we're talking about, pain is the main thing that stops fighting...and if you want to invent some system for motivating a targets behavior through the granularity of pain (ie damage less than incapacitating), that's substantially more complex.

An endemic problem to rpg games generally is that there are no pleasure/pain mechanics...there's no mechanical "reward" for having a pleasant beer with friends, though I think we'd all agree it's something we'd definitely seek to do in the real world. 

Likewise, and more relevant here, there is no pain in RQ...nobody really cares about injury except insofar as it pushes them incrementally closer to losing function in that limb.  It's a HUGE omission in rpgs that afaik nobody's ever satisfactorily solved.  As long as someone heals the hp, we are like lepers, insensate to harm until actual function fails...

[womble]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

An endemic problem to rpg games generally is that there are no pleasure/pain mechanics...there's no mechanical "reward" for having a pleasant beer with friends, though I think we'd all agree it's something we'd definitely seek to do in the real world. 

Ticks on your Loyalty([group you're drinking with]).

 

1 hour ago, styopa said:

Likewise, and more relevant here, there is no pain in RQ...nobody really cares about injury except insofar as it pushes them incrementally closer to losing function in that limb.  It's a HUGE omission in rpgs that afaik nobody's ever satisfactorily solved.  As long as someone heals the hp, we are like lepers, insensate to harm until actual function fails...

The problem with implementing an incremental detriment for sub-incapacitating damage (and lots of games have done that, notably Rolemaster) is that it tends to lead to a "spiral of death" whereby the first hit effectively decides the contest, because the person hit first will be at a disadvantage for the rest of it. Apparently, people don't like playing that kind of game, or that's what's been asserted by some games designers when I've seen it pop up in discussion before. Me, I don't mind. Some of my favourite memories of Rolemaster have come from "Rocky-style" moments of getting back up off the floor at 70 penalty, and somehow winning. Or just plain surviving long enough (as the Big Bad hammered my character into the ground like a nail) for the Long and Silent Stride Ranger to fillet the Troll.

It does mean more bookkeeping and probably slows the game down a bit.

Not sure how you solve the 'death spiral' effect. But then I'm not sure it needs solving; someone shanks your leg, you're going to be slower getting out the way of the next prod from that spear, even if they didn't cripple it. A 'gritty' game like RQ should have room for that sort of tension.

[styopa]

1 hour ago, womble said:

Ticks on your Loyalty([group you're drinking with]).

SO what's the pleasure-mechanic of eating an ice-cream cone?

1 hour ago, womble said:

The problem with implementing an incremental detriment for sub-incapacitating damage (and lots of games have done that, notably Rolemaster) is that it tends to lead to a "spiral of death" whereby the first hit effectively decides the contest, because the person hit first will be at a disadvantage for the rest of it.

Which is UTTERLY realistic, and why IRL people spent so much time/effort getting that first hit in.

You're right, it's something that RQ has missed pretty obviously since the beginning, but then you wouldn't have epic/heroic slugfests...IRL long drawn out melees I believe were more about who lands that hit and starts that spiral, more than enduring a beating.

[womble]

1 minute ago, styopa said:

SO what's the pleasure-mechanic of eating an ice-cream cone?

The exact opposite of the pain-mechanic of not eating one?

It's not often you see GMs hitting players with penalties to skills/Passions/whatever for skipping meals, or bonuses for having just sat down to something special, but I do see people getting on and roleplaying such 'trivia' anyway... On a slightly larger scale being feasted by a Chieftain might push your Loyalty (Clan) up, or your Rep. More social than limbic, I know.

[womble]

Actually one way Rolemaster did deal with the Death Spiral was to have spells which allowed you to set it aside for a while, for some classes. Spells that cleared off "Stunned, unable to Parry" results and negatives for Concussion hit thresholds having been passed, or set them in abeyance for a shorter or longer time. But, being class-based, those weren't available to everyone, and they took resources which you may or may not have had left.

I think the absence of the death spiral in any given game is a philosophical design decision, quite often, rather than an omission by negligence. DnD doesn't have such a thing, none of the BRP games have ever had anything but fine-unconscious-dead distinctions, except maybe as optional rules. RM was the first place I found it, I think.

[BWP]

One way of implementing a "death spiral" in BRP games (not necessarily the "best" way, or even necessarily a "desirable" way) would be to compare damage-done (i.e., damage that has penetrated armour) vs. current-HP (in that location if using a hit location system, or total HP if not) on the Resistance table.  Success indicates a "special effect", varying depending on the location, perhaps varying depending on the weapon type being used (a lot of GM discretion would be required here).  So success in hitting the head = stunned or even unconscious, success in a limb = temporary paralysis, and so on.  Different types of creatures may have particular immunities to certain effects, or even certain vulnerabilities.  (E.G., arthropods would generally ignore limb damage other than movement penalties if legs are lost, etc.)

Every point of damage then matters more than just being that much closer to total HP failure ... keep bashing on that troll's noggin and he may just keel over, or keep smacking him in the arm and you may force him to drop his maul, even if you haven't done enough damage in either case to cause "serious" injury.

I also particularly liked the knockback rules from RQ3 for showing ongoing "combat effects" in a fight without necessarily representing accumulating damage.  A lucky strike still might not take down your opponent if he's tough, but driving him back a meter or two will almost certainly disrupt his attacks, possibly make him fall over, etc.

 

[Atgxtg]

On 12/16/2018 at 12:33 PM, styopa said:

It's pretty simple, punching attacks just do way too much damage, and the consequence of 0hp-in-your-head is too drastic.  (By that measure, I'd also say chests are much too fragile as well, but that's another post...)

The whole concept of non-lethal damage is a kludge long ago born in d&d.  Damage is damage.  Getting hit with a padded club is just less damage, nothing intrinsically different.

Yes, mostly except for:

1)In real life people react to being damaged. In most RPGs they just mark down the points are carry on, unless the damage is enough to hinder hem in some way. In real life a 1 point punch could stun someone, cause them to fall down, or even give up.

 

2) In ral life people heal constantly, not weekly. So a punch that does "damage", but not a lot of damage (less than a point in game terms) mightheal up in a few days or even a few hours.

 

On 12/16/2018 at 12:33 PM, styopa said:

Unfortunately, at the low levels of damage we're talking about, pain is the main thing that stops fighting...and if you want to invent some system for motivating a targets behavior through the granularity of pain (ie damage less than incapacitating), that's substantially more complex.

Not necessarily. For example the old James Bond RPG had it so that most punches and kicks didn't do enough damage to inflcit woulds but instead caused Stun results that forced a roll to avoid being stunned for a bit. Serious wounds had a Pain resistance roll that was similar. In RQ, you could easy modify fight fights to require something similar. Any head hits could be treated as Knockout attempts pitting damage against head HP. Not all the complex. I'd probably rule that fists roll 1D10+10 for hit location too. The only time some get's punched in the foot is when he is trying to kick somebody.

 

On 12/16/2018 at 12:33 PM, styopa said:

An endemic problem to rpg games generally is that there are no pleasure/pain mechanics...there's no mechanical "reward" for having a pleasant beer with friends, though I think we'd all agree it's something we'd definitely seek to do in the real world. 

Yeah. Mostly ture.

On 12/16/2018 at 12:33 PM, styopa said:

Likewise, and more relevant here, there is no pain in RQ...nobody really cares about injury except insofar as it pushes them incrementally closer to losing function in that limb.  It's a HUGE omission in rpgs that afaik nobody's ever satisfactorily solved.  As long as someone heals the hp, we are like lepers, insensate to harm until actual function fails...

Yes, both in the sense that there is no reason to avoid it, and that it doesn't impair the character in any way. It's why I never liked "Rumble at the Tin Inn" adventure. I though it just doesn't work. Instead of a barroom brawl you have multiple homicides. 

There are a few RPGs that address it, but a lot of players don't like dealing with wound penalties. Realistically it's a aggregate effect. Eventually the pain and disorientation become so great that the person can't fight effectively for a few seconds (or longer) and that's when their opponent takes advantage of of the situation and really lays them out. 

 

I think oder RPGs, such as RQ suffer the most at this sort of thing because they came out before the idea of fight fights and similar situations had caught on. Back then PCs wanted to  to kill whatever they were fighting, so treating  fists and kicks as lower damage weapons worked just fine.

 

 

[Rob Darvall]

I'd use punch and kick RAW with one mod. Any head punch with a bare (or even merely gloved) fist causes parry damage to the fist concerned.