Okay. This is not a sensible or serious proposal, it's an exercise in game design.
Aims:
- Numbers should be small, and much abstracted.
- All skills should be activated abilities; genre / class emulation should come from requiring behaviour patterns to activate these abilities.
- There should be no skill cooldown period longer than one encounter.
- One second rule in operation. Drumrolling is bad.
- Starting characters should be of approximately equal absolute power to long-running characters. Long-running characters could have different, rather than better, skills.
- Permanent effects on characters should be possible.
Concepts:
- An 'encounter' is easily defined on a linear but less so in an interactive. If it becomes relevant, an encounter is equivalent to five minutes; if you have time to sit down and rest for an entire minute, then the encounter has finished and your powers have refreshed.
- Combo points. It is up to you, not your opponent, to keep track of these. Some skills gain them in other ways, but the easiest way to gain them is to hit opponents with weapons. The default call is 'nothing', which gains you a combo point. Without further skills you may not have more than five of these at any one time; after you hit five points, you no longer gain any until you spend some.
- A 'Single' is a telling blow. It is encouraged to act like it.
- A 'Double' is a devastating blow which will strike most people off their feet.
- 'Disarm' means 'you must drop your weapon'.
BASE CHARACTER STATS
- Two global life points. When your life points reach zero you begin a five minute death count, and may during this time be killed by any player roleplaying stabbing you up for 10 seconds finishing with the call "Execute."
- The ability to fight with a one- or two-handed melee weapon, with which you may make no call. If you strike an opponent, you gain a combo point.
- The ability to call 'Single' by weapon at a cost of five combo points.
- Four skill points to spend on the skills below. A skill at one level in a tree is a prerequisite for learning the next one up. It is possible to unlearn a skill in order to free up a skill point, and once you have learned a skill you no longer require the prerequisite, but you may never have more than four skills.
PHYSICAL SKILLS (trees denoted by bulleting levels)
- An additional life point. If you buy this skill you must show it by wearing light armour (up to studded leather) or massively padded costume as per 'body development' skills everywhere.
- A further additional life point. If you buy this skill you must show it by wearing heavy armour (really serious heavy reinforced leathers, mail or plate) or by wearing light armour and bulking up.
- The ability to call 'Single' by weapon once per encounter without any combo points. If you buy this skill you must show it by always wearing or carrying a weapon openly. If this weapon is stolen it is not your fault and you aren't breaking any rules (but you can't fight either, because you have no weapon...)
- The ability to call 'Disarm' once per encounter by striking an opponent's weapon, at a cost of three combo points. If you buy this skill you may never wield a weapon two-handed.
- The ability to gain two combo points whenever you strike an opponent. If you buy this skill you are limited to swords, axes, maces and hammers as weapons, and you may never call damage with a weapon wielded in one hand.
- The ability to call 'Double' rather than 'Single' by weapon once per encounter. If you buy this skill you may never gain combo points or call damage with a weapon wielded in one hand.
- The ability to wield a weapon in either hand. If you buy this skill you may never wield a two-handed weapon.
- The ability to gain five combo points by striking an opponent on the rear of the torso, no matter how this is accomplished. If you buy this skill you may never wield a weapon longer than 36".
- The ability to use a shield.
NON-PHYSICAL SKILLS
- The ability to cause the death count to pause (call 'staunching wounds'), and after 30 seconds of bandaging or mumbo jumbo of your choice to stop (call 'bandaged'). If you take this skill you must carry with you at all times bandages or mumbo jumbo equipment. Anybody who has been so healed should choose an entertaining permanent physical or psychological injury or obvious scar.
- The ability to return a bleeding target to one hit; this takes 30 seconds of bandaging or mumbo jumbo of your choice and does not stop the death count. Call 'healed'. If you take this skill you must carry with you at all times bandages or mumbo jumbo equipment. Anybody who has been so healed should choose an entertaining permanent physical or psychological injury or obvious scar.
- The ability to gain a combo point by pointing one empty hand towards the target, who must be within 10 metres, and chanting or calling out at least five words at at least a loud speaking voice - that is, a taunt, battlecry or spell vocal. If you take this skill you must wear something on your head. Please note that no more than one skill or weapon blow may be activated per second; there is no point learning to gabble words at unintelligible speed.
- The ability to point both hands at a target and call 'single' at a cost of four combo points. Neither hand may have any item held in it at the time. If you take this skill you must wear a robe or dress of some sort, with a hemline below the knee.
- The ability to chant ten words, point both hands at a target and call 'double' at a cost of five combo points. Neither hand may have any item held in it at the time. If you take this skill you must wear a robe or dress fo some sort, with a hemline below the knee.
- The ability to point one empty hand at a target and call 'strikedown' at a cost of two combo points.
- The ability to perform a suitable activity (meditating, praying, psyching yourself up, preparing a spell) for one minute uninterrupted and gain two combo points to use in the next fight. If you take this skill you must wear obviously visible accoutrements of the profession of magician, monk, ninja or berserker.
- The ability to start every encounter with one combo point (this stacks with its prerequisite). If you take this skill you must wear obviously visible accoutrements of your profession as for its prerequisite.
- The ability to gain one combo point if struck by a 'single' or greater call. If you take this skill you must have obvious and visible scars or an eye patch.
- The ability to gain three combo points if struck by a 'single' or greater call (this does not stack with its prerequisite); in order to do this you must fall over. If you take this skill you must have obvious and visible scars or an eye patch.
BASE MONSTER STATS
These define the genre, really. This could be usable for, say, Warhammer Fantasy if monsters usually had four or five hits and took three combo points to do Single; on the other hand, when I was writing the above I was thinking of action movies where monsters usually have zero hits and take five combo points to do Single. A monster statted on zero hits will die or be otherwise entertaingly incapacitated if it takes any call at all, or in any event after taking five hits (effectively giving every character the D&D feat 'Cleave' for free).
Implications
- A fighter is almost compelled to carry a weapon, and must dress as some sort of warrior.
- A wizard is almost compelled to wear a hat and a robe.
- Rogue is not yet correctly implemented, but ninjas are cool, so we have ninjas.
- It's possible to be both tough and strong, but if that's the case you take a while to get going compared to those who have specialised in dealing damage.
- The greatest threat to a PC is another PC.
- Due to the small numbers in the system, it is very easy to create 'boss' type monsters of extreme scariness. A pair of things doing Single by weapon with 10 hits apiece would be a serious challenge for a five-person party.
- More and more I see this as linear-only.
- Hmmmm... I like. Would work best for small-party cinematic, or fest style. I reckon that getting combo points per hit landed isn't going to work - just because you don't know if you've landed a hit. Per hit *attempted* (i.e. hit/parried/blocked) kinda works - in that it encourages you to spar a bit between landing blows (unfair versus dodges, of course, but excessive dodging causes its own problems). The scars from bandaging would get many and silly fast, so I suggest temporary injury decoration and/or roleplaying for a while. The 'backstab' tree is the one I'd go for, just because I can dagger-hug and do damage every 2 seconds, while my opponent will max out at one every 6 seconds (i.e. I'll kill a 2-hit PC/monster before it can damage me) and I note that technique is silly and/or dangerous. I think you missed spear out of your weapon list for 2-per. --I
- Oh yes, my favourite build: Disarm, taunt, strikedown, and one more. Any of free single, shield use, backstab and light armour work (as do most other things). Played as a poncy duellist, of course - but note the way I have two cheap combat tricks and uninterrupted combo point gain. I think it unbalanced compared to other obvious archetypes. --I
- I'm not convinced this would look or feel cinematic, to be honest. Combat is still a matter of landing blows and counting things. That said, I'm not convinced running something reminiscent of a TT linear in a cinematic style is achievable or desirable, to be honest. To me, cinematic in terms of LARP implies
- What matters in combat is looking cool, not being effective.
- Major characters only die significantly.
- Many monsters are there just to die or to advance the plot, not to "challenge" or "threaten" the PCs.
- I don't think this would make for a fun linear - you'd have lots of roles whose only point was to die. A non-trivial part of the fun of a linear is that it's competitive to some extent, and I think that's highly uncinematic. We can get "dramatic", but I think that linears are not a good medium for "cinematic", alas.
- If I wanted to run something "cinematic", it would resemble an interactive much more than a linear, with everyone or nearly everyone as a PC. That would mean that every fight was important enough to justify a possibility of death. Combat would be a matter of comparing numbers to determine the result beforehand, and then playing out the scene by mutual consent (so you wouldn't want to make it too large a focus); to introduce more player input into it there would probably be lots of situational modifiers: Vindice the hero's combat score is 3, +1 in a duel, +1 if Maria is watching, +3 vs anyone who's threatened Maria, +2 vs anyone he has discovered to have killed his father, +1 vs anyone who's insulted him, +2 in the last 10 minutes of an act; Sparafucile the assassin has a combat score of 2, +3 with a dagger, +2 by surprise, +3 with poison, +1 if he makes an ironic quip before stabbing them, +2 in act IV, +2 if he's been paid by someone else.
--Jacob
- I consider that a) playing small monsters who die very easily, in droves, can be good fun - both to play as, and to fight, and b) You can make something competitive cinematic by shifting the balance in favour of the PCs a bit - although it may require adherence to a metagame understanding fo the tone desired. No more so than '3/4 speed, heroic style, for this linear - which works with *LT*, so I'm sure we're capable of it... I don't consider the points-based thing you outline to be larp combat - which isn't to say it couldn't be interesting. (I would only be happy running it with handpicked players, though). --I
- I generally dislike playing waves of small monsters, although I agree it makes for good cinematic combat. But I find it makes for a very bitty experience - you're IC, you're OOC, you're IC, you're OOC, and so on, and you never get a chance to get much immersion (and you have to be careful not learn from experience). But yes, I fully agree it's great fun to play against, and would make for decent cinematics. --Jacob
- I'm a hardcore advocate of the competitive style of LARP combat; however I can see how something like this might be fun to some people in the abstract sense. And yes, small monsters that die easily are fun to play if they keep coming back. 3/4 speed I strongly dislike, but might look good. I suspect your current proposal would lead to combat as it is now, actually - people fighting aggressively till they get the combo points then going for a hit. Would be like saying everyone had 12 global hits, effectively. Meh, will think about it more when less tired. -TheKremlin
- What Jacob describes here is *narrativist*, not *cinematic*. I contend that pure narrativist is impossible to do in LARP (and strongly dislike it in roleplaying in general, but that's beside the point), and for exactly the points Jacob raises, whereas cinematic is quite possible so long as the players share the goals of the refs in terms of genre and game. I have seen many cinematic action films. They in no way resemble the above description, but closely resemble a linear with better special effects - there are no more than four or five PCs, the enemies are either 'bosses' or far, far less tough than PCs, fights are decided by a large number of near misses and one or two telling blows.
- Agreed; but while your system is *representing* such a fight, it's not actually *providing* one - every blow counts, because it's providing charge-up, and so it will feel just like TT combat; and it will also look like it to someone watching. I would say that a large part of "cinematic" is that it's designed to look cool, and that needs incentives to encourage players to concentrate on posing at the expense of landing blows.
- By using rule sets such as these, the dynamic of combat can be changed to suit the style of the game one is trying to run without (and this is important) dictating to the players in any fashion how the story is supposed to go. --R
- Another point. "You would have large numbers of roles whose only point was to die or advance the plot." We do! We do! It is not interesting, in the general case, that the PCs succeeded - it is interesting how they succeeded. If they failed, that is interesting too - but the default assumption of a linear is that the PCs will succeed, merely because it's quite hard to organise one otherwise. We could stat every encounter as capable of defeating the character party, but that would be a betrayal of the game's social contract. We must make the game challenging for the players, sure - but the defining understanding of roleplaying is that it is not a competition between the players and the non-players!
- Overall (over the course of a linear taken as a whole) I completely agree, but in the context of any particular fight between two people - or possibly more accurately in the context of any given exchange of blows - it is: "can you hit him before he hits you" is pure competition, and is a non-trivial part of the fun of linearing. --Jacob
- The refs are there to make the game interesting, not to kill player characters; to provide challenge and enjoyment, not to 'beat' the players. Because the refs have ultimate power over the setting, and can arbitrarily declare that the characters lose if they should choose so to do, they must never set as their OOC goal something which opposes the OOC goals of the players. Interesting stories emerge from the lack of resources, and that is why monsters deal damage and PCs have limited hit points. Interesting stories emerge from dilemmas, from hard choices, and we aim to try and provide those. But at no stage are we running a realistic simulation of a mediaeval world, nor are we attempting to tell a predefined story where N is the protagonist and M is the adversary.
- I would contend that in many "zombies/swogs/demons attack you and die" encounters that is not the case. --Jacob
- What do you mean by that? I fail to see what part of the argument you are disagreeing with, the only vaguely likely candidate is "nor are we attempting to tell a predefined story where N is the protagonist and M is the adversary", but you seem to be assuming that when a bunch of monsters are sent in 'to die' that they are the adversary. Things may have differed a little in previous years but certainly this year we've always known where 'random' encounters have come from - and there has been more than one occasion when a PC has staged a 'random bar attack' to cover something that they were up to. --Koryne
- The above system is less 'realistic' than TT, and its assumptions and goals are a bit more transparent, and both of these things are there on purpose. --Requiem
- I agree up to a point, but I think that to some extent you're confusing *depicting* a cinematic adventure with running something that *feels* cinematic, which I'm not convinced is terribly viable. Possibly by making combat competitive, but relying on "special moves" rather than simply blows landed, but I don't think that's workable --Jacob
- I like the idea of the system but agree you will end up having combats similar to the ones in TT where everyone is trying to get ad many hits as possible. I can't think of anything to overcome this. The end result is that actual combat will have the result of being very cinematic in result however. I'd like to take some part in this, if it were ever to occur, on either side. Although I can see Jacob's point that playing weak monsters might be boring, I disagree. You've just set your sights on just getting any damage on any hero at all. As to the actual character concepts themselves I like what I see currently, but obviously there needs to be some more variation in certain archetypes. Possibly mass touch attack to represent mighty warriors swinging a weapon in a circle defeating many foes? Might be too powerful, but you could make it loads of combo points.
A thought: rather than awarding combo points for blows landed, you gain points for "special moves": 1 point for a spinning attack, 3 for ducking under or jumping over a blow, 1 each for a parry, lock, grunt and disengage, 2 for three successive good parries and a cutting remark, and so on. This would take a lot of work to make practical, but *would* lead to cinematic looking and possibly cinematic feeling combat. --Jacob
- I've pondered this, and the best I can do so for is to give people points that accumulate over time, and rely on people to do cool things while they can't actually hit people. (More like Energy than Combo Points, to take the original analogy further). --I (Implementation of 'special moves' is a non-starter, IMO. Too hard to adjudicate, even to self-adjudicate.)
- How about gaining points by time spent fighting? Or possibly, as that might be hard to count (and provides an incentive to count faster), gaining points for attacks, parries and being hit, making it roughly symmetrical, and independent of fighting effectiveness, how quickly each combatant gained points. Different classes could gain different amounts from each of these - the "Crazy Bastard Who Just Won't Die", requiring lots of scars and gaining double points from being hit, leaps to mind. --NT
Incidentally, I think we all know where Requiem's repeated mention of hemlines below the knee comes from... --Tristan