I wrote a bit about my struggles as I try to decide what I want to do with combat in my work in progress game.
It’s probably hard to talk about this in depth at this level of production and/or abstraction, but I’m a bit perplexed by
So far, my best idea is emphasizing which side of a fight has the upper hand. If the players have positioned themselves well, when it comes time to let randomization take control a good roll will mean they achieve their goal and a bad roll will be merely a setback.
First of all, isn’t “having the upper hand” more a description of the current state? This would have similar issues as the any death spiral mechanic, where once you keep winning or losing, it’s unlikely to change.
If it’s also a lot about tactical positioning, picking the right weapons and the like, this might result in a lot of rules or GM effort to adjudicate that (if it’s a judicial ruling type of thing, where players propose their setup and the GM then declares the binary “upper hand” status). Never mind the wandering minds of the players who are not too much into that part of combat…
Would be very interested in what your approach is here.
Are you familiar with Blades in the Dark? This is a lot like combining Position and Effect.
granting situational advantage/disadvantage/neutral by GM fiat goes a long way to creating momentum. example:
PCs all lined up with pikes vs bandits with axes and short swords in a standard dungeon room. give the PCs advantage to attack rolls.
then the next round 1/2 the bandits retreat and throw rocks (neutral), while 1/2 of them hide in shadows to flank the party (neutral, or maybe disadvantage if the room is well lit).
the party close the distance and attacks the rock throwers at advantage, but then other bandits flank the party, and attack at advantage.
etc.
point is, it creates a sense of momentum and dynamics to combat, and kinda fits with most systems.
It’s been a while (I tend to bounce of the mixed-case abbreviation games), but wouldn’t combining that run pretty much counter to its use there? Where you quite often have to choose between something risky, but with a chance of higher rewards?
With BitD, this also gave the GM a good currency. Are you willing to have a riskier play, if I give you the win in one turn? If there’s no tit-for-tat involved and the effect of the RNG is small, it’ll just devolve into arguing about how good your position is – and it’s easy enough to go to a stage where this is likely to stay that way. Where you can mathematically basically call it quits, unless you want to have x rounds of just grinding down.
@eeldip Yes, there’s plenty of ways to give the PCs bonuses based on their tactics, from advantages to mere +x bonuses, favored actions in Torg/Masterbook, stunt bonuses in Exalted etc., but those seem like a lesser thing of what’s going on here, where it’s more Tennis or American Football with different roles for an exchange than the free-for-all of other sportsball thingamajigs.
I guess what I am trying to say is that just using adv/dis modifiers a GM can steer a generic OSR game towards replicating a complex momentum style combat system. the GM just needs to have the rules of the more complex system in their head, and steer accordingly.
in other words, simple tools and GM skill goes a LONG WAY and can be used in the place of rule complexity.