We're looking for a way to reduce minor struggles to a single row or two (maybe even a progress tracker if it's quick). There's an excellent Indie RPG titled "Burning Wheel" which features a similar mechanic called Bloody Versus Tests. It allows you to boil down an entire combat into a single roll. Anyone have any suggestions for how to do this in WFRP?

An opposed roll could be made, but what if my Man-At-Arms beats your Knight with only a single hammer? So I bring the pain down on you and win the conflict, but do I suffer any wounds? How many? Any better ideas than opposed rolls?

I have a friend that has been discussing the idea of a role playing game that zooms out combat to single rolls or one roll representing several rounds or minutes of combat.

My questions is why? What does that give your group? I'm just really curious.

Yes I don't really see why you would boil it down to just one roll. As you say yourself what if the bad guy wins? It sucks being a player if your life depends on just one die roll which lets face it can end being a really unlucky roll, even if some people here say there's a 87% chance of it being a success.

Boiling down combat to one roll removes all tactics and description. Unless what you're thinking of is a pure story mode combat.

I can see it being cut down to one roll per henchmen for lesser combat encounters. But I think the important encounters deserve to build the tension of a few rounds of combat. Let the henchmen die first time they're hit if you want (I do most times) but the bosses should be challenging, otherwise the players will be bored.

I could see the one combat working in some situations (although perhaps not in this system) because as I stated before from a GMs point of view, all i need to know is how damaged the PC is once the combat is over..

if the one roll is based on the asumption that the PC will triumph, its just important to know how quickly or how unscathed the PC is afterwards then it could work in those circumstances. I can see this kind of thing being used in something like Trail of Cthulhu or other story centric game, but even though WFRP is much more story driven now, not sure it really fits in this game.

First of all, I don't want ALL combat to be one roll. Occassionally, however, we don't want to spend an hour and a half just to see how wounded the PCs are. We will still be doing full-blown physical conflicts, but I want to be able to throw in a simple opposed check for a struggle if it's not important enough in the story to warrant 2 hours of real time play. Make sense?

If the bad guy wins the PCs are not dead - not unless the group decides they would like one of them to be killed. The party may be captured, the bad guys may have escaped, the bad guys may have grabbed the woman they were trying to capture and taken her away, perhaps they killed the Baron who the PCs were protecting - we typically use stakes when we roll (explaining what stakes are is really outside the scope of the discussion but my examples give you an idea).

Part of the problem, I think, is that the game is based on a task resolution system and I want to drift it to a Conflict resolution system for these one-roll Combats. Typically, though, that is not difficult to do in systems but WFRP 3e is providing some hurdles - particularly because like someone stated, combat is often about how many wounds did the PCs take to get what they want?

what about some kind of contested roll, with the most successes wins, but the number of boons on the losing contested players roll relates to the number of wounds taken in the process by the winning group?

@Charlest: I understand better what you’re after now. It wasn’t quite clear to me from the first post and I think it could probably work, perhaps with pumpkins suggestion.

pumpkin said:

I agree wtth pumpkin again.

Thanks guys, yes Pumpkin's suggestion is pretty good. Our group discussed this a little bit and someone tossed out the number of banes you roll equal to the number of wounds. I think I prefer Pumpkin's suggestion as the loser's roll still has a bearing on the conflict.

One thing I'm worried about in this instance is having to very spur of the moment with a ruling, and thus not having a standard way of doing it which may cause grief for the PCs. Maybe something simple in the flavor of an action card will do:

The loser:

Each bane equals a point of damage which cannot be soaked by the winner

Each sigmar's comet equals a critical wound for the winner which may be negated with a Resilience Check (not sure on the difficulty) or maybe each comet just adds 2 wounds

The winner:

In addition to getting what they wanted from the conflict,

Each Chaos star equals a critical wound suffered by the winner which may be negated with a Resilience check

Setting difficulties for the Resilience checks in these instances is where the trouble lies. Average (2d) sounds perhaps right until a PC reaches rank 3+ in which case they will never be wounded. Hmm...

charlest said:

charlest said:

These dice are , by their inherent nature, so well designed for conflict resolution, better than any other die in the history of dice, if you use them that way! I have been harping on this point for years. A simple solution is this, the player rolls a single roll. Use the contested system, not opposed. Remember too take in account the situation and circumstances of the fight and adjust the difficulty by black dice or purple dice. For particularly nasty opponents, you can throw in extra black, again fiat takes over. If the roll succeeds the player beats the opponent. If he fails he does not. If he succeeds with banes, the opponent deals him mild damage (explain in a second) or some other complication (gm fiat). If the player succeeds with boons, he gains a bonus to his achievement (like a free maneuver or something). If the roll fails, straight up, no boons or banes, he fails, but takes no damage and the combat is a stalemate. If he fails with boons, he takes minor damage. If he fails with Banes, he takes severe damage.

Damage scales as thus: For minor (or mild) damage I take the base weapon damage (sword 5 - 2) and roll that number of purple dice. Each "fail" rolled deals 1 damage. Each bane counts toward scoring a critical as usual. If he takes major damage, he receives an automatic critical. Roll a number of purple dice equal to the amount of banes generated + the base damage of the weapon. Each success deals 1 Wound. Banes again, count for criticals (meaning if the critical value of the attack is 2 and you roll two banes, he would take an additional critical wound). All wounds scored this way automatically ignore soak. If you wish to soften this effect (as I do sometimes) you can roll black dice for the successes generated, but always keep purple dice for the base attack damage.

Now, a permutation I use is if the player is fighting multiple opponents he rolls an additional black die for each opponent he is engaged with to his roll, so four opponents he adds four black dice. In a group setting, use the highest characteristic to compare to the player's stat.

These dice can also be used for conflict resolution in so many ways, it is unbelievable. The only way I can explain this is to use an example. Lets say a dock hand is trying to save a princess from a dastardly villian (who also happens to be a prince) so he has four guards blocking the Dockhand's way to the princess. A tracker is put in place for the Villain's escape and the hero's hope to catch him before he does with the princess (she's hot and there's fat loot at the end of this rainbow, whatever). Anyway, they are now neck and neck with only two clicks before the villain escapes, and the guards now stand in the way. Sure we could slog through the fight with all those guards, but that is hardly important to the story. The point is the showdown with the hero and the villain. So why waste an hour fighting the four guards? Why slow down the climax of the story instead of just getting right to it and having it go down. Basically, in this scenario, the fight with the guards are not important, they are there to simply be an obstacle for the player to save the princess before the villian makes off with the girl. In this case, the one roll mechanism clearly applies.

To give it in brief, without extraneous description, I will show how mechanically, the dice themselves support this type of resolution. The Dockhand rolls one roll against all four guards. If he succeeds, he fights past the guards. If he succeeds with banes, he is slowed down by the fight (maybe he's knocked down, maybe they grab hold of him, maybe he's forced, back to a wall - add that description, it is highly important) and the Dock hand is wounded, score the damage and advance the villain tracker a click (to adjust for the delay time and the time it will now take for the player to catch him). If he fails, just fails he is caught in the perilous fight with the guards (advance the villain token one step further on the track). If he fails with boons he takes damage, but has managed to put some of them down, so for each boon, I knock off one opponent for the next turn of fighting or maybe the princess just at the right moment, breaks free of the villains grip and advance the hero token on the tracker or maybe he manages, during the fight to knock down a banister that swings down and knocks over the villain or gains advantage over the guards, thus giving him a white die to his next turn in fighting the guards. If he fails with Banes, not only does the villian tracker advance (as the situation turns against him drastically), but the PC is seriously wounded by his attempt by a lucky blow from the gaurd. Next round, we will see what happens and that largely depends if he has managed to get through all those men.

The dice can communicate a lot of information. If spamming damage is not your thing, remember you can penalize in other ways, by giving black dice, by making it harder for the player. Each situation you create based on the boons and banes from the rolls, give the players the option to respond, make them think about the conflict and a way to resolve it. Reward them for great ideas or exceptional cunning with white dice. It creates a much more dynamic landscape then the simple I hit, you hit, killed guard one, now killing guard two, system.

We have played since the game came out without action cards. We only read off banes and boons and let them tell a story. It is a rather complex process to explain how we do it, and it was not 100% part of your original post. We have found though that using the dice in this manner has created every typical task into a conflict when used appropriately (this is especially true in combat), and we have had some very dynamic combats. The dice reward great player choices (even if banes come up) because it allows so much more to happen and tells us what went wrong and right so we can all be constantly upgrading the story. It is a hell of a good time, these are hell of a good dice and they should make anyone into confict over task resolution realize, these dice are the dice of their dreams. 'Nough Said. Hope this helps.

I forgot the chaos star being a crit, but that is included in my system as well.

Commoner, man, I love your ideas. I don't know if I could get my group to action cards and abandon the combat system entirely (and I'm not 100% convinced I want to) but I definitely want to try using Conflict Resolution in the way you suggest.

Do you ever go to the standard combat in the game? I'm guessing no, since you don't use cards. Does defense ever come into play? What does armor do if you don't allow them to soak the damage from your rolls? Is it just color? I'd love to hear more if you don't mind sharing. Thanks for taking the time to contribute.

Hey charlest, I'm a big fan of BW too. Why not just use the dice pool as is for the BV test? Its almost identical to BW anyway. Build your die pool from characteristic dice, plus expertise dice, add fortune dice for better armored or armed. Then roll it versus style (competitive test in WFRP). Most successes wins, figure damage as per normal and the battle's over, just like BV.

because charlest is notorious for selling his books and he no longer has the BW books to reference

i like you ideas too commoner, but i dont really want to totally abandon regular conflict. i think the need to buy talent and action cards helps balance out the power of training skills to some degree, and if the players no longer had a need to worry about them it would change the face of the game very much. (also i like my sigmar spells and want to keep using them...) also, for some conflicts your system still seems like it could be fairly time consuming, with multiple rounds of combat still present. the bloody versus test in burning wheel was a single die roll to determine the outcome of a minor conflict. i think this is more what we are looking for in our game. i for one, as a player, would be sad to see combat as it is now completely gone from our game, but it would be nice to have a much quicker way to get through beating up those minor cultist goons and get on with the role playing and the story.

Just actually read Commoner's post in full and that's all good stuff. I'm just now finishing with reading the rules and haven't played but I've sort of been assuming the whole time that I'd be using most die rolls as conflict resolution, except for major combats. So yeah, I really like the gist of what Commoner is saying. I've also been having a neat conversation over on STS about this very thing.

I just thought I'd expand a little bit more on what I mentioned above for a pretty quick and easy Bloody Versus test emulation in WFRP. Do the straight up competitive roll. Add a fortune die to the combatant with the better armor and one for the better armaments (if either has an adavantage there). Use expertise dice as usual, and I'd probably add the Expertise dice from the A/C/E pool for those that have E's. If you want throw in a fortune die for the higher Agility. Most successes win the battle. Resolve damage as per normal. I'd maybe convert all successes above and beyond the losers total into boons to be potentially used as as criticals along with other boons rolled. Loser also automatically converts one additional wound into a critical if it matters (mostly in the case of PCs losing).

That would be quick and dirty and almost identical to BW's bloody versus test.

evilben-"because charlest is notorious for selling his books and he no longer has the BW books to reference "

8-O For shame, for shame...

Thanks donbaloo, we'll probably go with your take on the Bloody Versus Test. By the way, you post on the BW forums don't you? I recognized your name now that you mention it. I used to post there (maybe a couple years ago) under the name agony, but I never really racked up that many posts.

Yeah, used to spend a ton of time over there. I remember your user name! Unfortunately I probably had more time involved in discussions on the forum than I actually got to play BW. But it was one of those games that just got me so excited about gaming in a new way, I just loved being involved over there. There's some good people over there. I wish I had the chance to play BW more, such a great system.

Admittedly, I am not familiar with what exactly goes into a Bloody Versus Test, but it sounds like to me a way to focus fights to conflict rather than task resolution. That I have done quite a bit.

Thank you for the replies and compliments on the system. Glad you guys like the ideas. I actually started the mechanic I now use after running these type of conflict resolution system mechanics as opposed resolution tests. What I found was, this adds an extra level of complication that is not ultimately necessary. The first being that the Game Master has to take a break from the narrative flow to roll a bunch of dice, check successes then get back to the player with exactly what happens. This type of mechanic is great in systems like Pendragon (which only uses opposed resolution in combat) because it is easy to check success and fail off a single die roll. A pool, with as much details as these pools suggest (and three or four different forms of symbols to keep track of) this makes that a bit more complex, thereby slowing down game play. Another game lurching feature of the opposed roll is it gives just as much weight to the NPC as it does the PC. If the NPC is just as important as the PC in a story (I cannot say) I would feel the normal system would better used in its place because it deals with important combats better than the summary system. But that is a question of play-style and the story you are attempting to tell. If you are going for ultra-realism, then yes a guard should kill PCs at will and present a really lethal option. If not, will it actually hurt the game if the PC wins the fight or is it more important that we figure out quickly if the PC manages to get through the fight and if he does, is he wounded because of it or is he stalled by the guard? What is the focus you are really going for generally is a great guideline on how best to judge a combat situation. If you want the PCs to have a showdown with the king, but you know (realistically) guards are in the way what do you want to draw the focus to. Obviously, the PCs do not want (and you do not want them) to get beat down by the guards before they get there, so summarize. If you want to show how powerful the king is and prevent the PCs from getting that far, then run the fight. This would also, when used against other summary style mechanics, add emphasis when the non-summarized or the "normal fights" actually happen. Players tune in and say, oh crap, this is for real! I ran Pendragon for years (all opposed) and while opposed actions are good, they do lend themselves to flukes in the system where the PC fighting a peasant just gets pounded and you had no intention (or desire for it to go that way). So the slowness and unpredictability of the opposed mechanic I found to be a drawback. Lastly, it is absolutely horrible against multiple opponents. Opposed is good against one on one fights, but against multiple combatants against the PC, it just blows up horribly. It means you have to roll for each NPC against the player. That not only takes a huge amount of time, but the game lurches from being about "story" to being about rolls. It also changes up the nature from conflict resolution (getting to the narrative point of the combat) to task again (I have to wade through guards just to do what I want to do). It sort of drains the aniticipation and excitement. Summarizing them into simple +1 Black adds enough of their hint of impact but does not slow down the story all that much. Having to roll through each of them is just problematic at best. In the opposed mechanism, adding black (to PC) pool or White to the NPC pool to account for these extra combatants also heavily impacts the PC success ratio to the point he is bound to fail one or two rolls during the stream of opposed resolution. So that is the third strike. Lastly, if you are trying to use summarized combat mechanics such as these, in an ideal world of mechanics we are only dealing with one player. But fact is we are dealing, on average with three. That means if all the PCs are charging through a room of gaurds you not only have to roll for each guard, but you have to roll each guard engaging a single PC. That means the players have to wait a long time before the GM can get back around to them and we have to roll an awful lot of pools, each of us to simply resolve the narrative tension of do I get through the room. The tension will be gone (and is gone) by the time you get with all those dice. With the "player centric" single roll this allows the GM to sit back and say as you go charging into the room (to the entire group) the horde of hideous, slathering orcs crushes against you, you begin to chop through them, but there seems to be an endless horde (players then roll their combat checks). Based on those rolls the impact is described to each player. Then players choose what they do next and the next turn all players make their rolls at the same time. This way, the narrative does not slow down and the GM can focus only on the narrative action, interpreting boons and banes and passing out a few wound cards.

Now, to answer the question, do I ever use the normal combat system, absolutely I do. This is roleplaying after all and a good fight is sometimes, just what the doctor ordered. I will go through a few examples of how I manage combats in my games. I know so much of every game has so much emphasis on these mechanical aspects, but in my book there are simply more than one way to manage them. I admit, my players were first hesitant about this system, but after using it for the past few years, we have all found these combats greatly enhance not only the story, but really game-play as well. Here it is:

Summarized Combat: The purpose of a summarized combat is to get through the information quickly or to deal with large horde type scenarios where killing the horde is not imporant, the horde represents an obstacle. Like in Resident Evil when you are just trying to get past a bunch of zombies but fighting those zombies is not only suicide it is not important. That is when I use Summarized combat. In my very first example, it is the four guards blocking the way for the Dock Hand to reach the villain making off with the princess on the other side of the room (or as above, the players trying to make it to a door through a room full of orcs so they can escape). In these cases it is not important the slaughter of the guards or the Orcs, what matters for the story is getting to the villain for the final showdown or getting to the door so the players can escape. The PCs want the story to move on, the GM wants the story to move on (in book form the reader wants to know as well what the showdown will be) so the fight with the guards or orcs only grind the narrative attention to a hault if we grind through the actual system. The dice became a way to imply the combat, but not actually go through the details of the combat. You actually used summarized tasks in other aspects of gaming, but for some reason, gamers want to throw it away when it reaches combat. For instance, when a player is looking, lets say, for a secret door do you make him look on the left wall, the right wall, the back wall, each space of floor, each piece of furniture, do they have to look through every detail? No, you do not. Instead, you say roll a search, x difficulty, do you pass. Great you find it, end of story. Did you fail? No such luck. The same goes for combat. One simple roll can summarize a large swarm of detail just to see if the PC succeeds at overcoming the obstacle (in this case the guards). If he takes a few light wounds or even a critical it will have an impact on how he deals with the villain when re reaches it or maybe, the troll on the other side of the door of the orc horde. The system I put forth previously is used in these moments, when the combat is an obstacle, but really has no bearing on the story. No PC wants to get punked here (and most gms do not want it to happen here either), but we want to know things like how long does it take, how hard is the fight, does the PC come out wounded or not. The single roll communicates all that info in a single roll. That is why the system I showed you previously is great for that. Armor, I do ignore because it does not actually represent a single blow, but a series of blows, PCs get beat on, their armor, yeah, sure helped, but you got hit maybe once or twice and are now bleeding. The armor of course would matter against the main villain, but is not important right now. You could totally use the normal damage system and I will post up later on how I think best to translate the boons, banes, success, failures and chaos stars on those types of rolls using the flat damage, but right now (and for the sake of post length) I will leave it out. The other notes in my very first post of player input should absolutely apply.

Dramatic Combat: Dramatic Combat is the showdown. The fight with the villain, the fight with the troll on the other side of the door that is the characters last step toward freedom. These I would absolutely use the normal combat system for as it is time to focus the story on an important combat. Here death should be real and imminent. These actions will decide the fate of the players. This fight will determine the course of the story and game. So of course, the normal combat system should absolutely be used.

Final Fight & Challenge Combat: Final Fights are huge. This is where the PCs face off with the bossman, the huge villain, so to me the I stab you, you stab me, we both bleed, then I kill you or kill me just is not enough for those moments. At those times, I use opposed resolution on all things. Players roll their defense against the attacks of the bad guy. The Bad guy I do not typically even limit to one attack per turn, but maybe one per player, so they each get a go with him. This is the fight with the dragon or the oober chaos cultist so it should be dramatic, powerful, and awesome. Players can still use parry, dodge and block and black die as usual on the bad guys parry rolls. Armor, damage and soak still apply. Action cards still apply, but we deliver a hellishly powerful punch. With each of its attacks though, I do put them on initiative as is normally done for multiple opponents. He (or it) should be a beast and should not simply stand there and get pounded by the PCs while only striking back once. We love the system and gives uses for players working to protect each other, jumping in the way for each other. It is great fun and we use it all the time.

Challenge combat is similar to Final Fights only in regard to the fact it uses opposed resolution. This could be one test to see if the PC gets away from the villain (like jumping off a bridge into the water) or if he has to make it past a single guard to escape while the major villain comes up behind him. I use opposed resolution here because the dice add more dramatic emphasis, thus more suspense, thus more pressure on the PC to make stronger decisions. If the PC wins he either escapes, or dispatches of the guard and gets away. Make sense? It is a single dramatic moment where the fight is not important. The escape or the single fight with the guy is important. I also use this Challenge in moments like a player has to slit someones throat before they scream or they have to push him out of the way before he can sound the alarm. It is more interesting and dramatic then simply (The NPC has a higher initiative so he succeeds or you have a higher initiative so you succeed if you succeed the roll). We want to feel the guard reaching as the elf takes a shot at him with a bow. If the elf takes him down, great if not, the alarm is sounded. It adds so much dramatic power to employ opposed resolution here than normal combat mehanics.

So there you go, that is how I run combats in a nutshell. The systems for each and tons of more detail I could add and I would be more than happy to if people actually like them and would like to use them. For now I will leave it with that. But man, I really should write my own game just to include information like this into the legitimate consciousness rather than house rules.

Happy gaming,

Commoner

I don't know how big the nuts are where you're from but that's a heck of a nutshell. (Feel free to use that setup for any number of punchlines.) I did read it all though and its a great description of how you handle combat in different ways for various narrative goals. Fantastic stuff and I couldn't agree more. It actually took me playing Burning Wheel to be introduced to the concept of conflict resolution and I simply fell in love with it. Your varying strategies are a lot like the systems in Burning Wheel as a matter of fact. Bloody Versus is the short narrative one roll combat where, as you say, the combat isn't really the primary focus but is instead an obstacle between the player and the primary focus (which could in deed be a more dramatic zoomed in battle). Then, for those big fights where the fight is a part of the focus, there's a much more detailed system in place. Its good stuff.

Conflict resolution combat is such a great dramatic tool though. Thanks for taking the time to put up your strategies for conducting that drama in various ways.

Edit to add: I think that WFRP's henchman rules are sort of a half step between standard detailed combat and conflict resolution combat. Its still very heavily task oriented but you can see that its shifted along the spectrum in the direction of conflict resolution. They can be used simply as tools to give standard combat a more heroic look and I think that's the default assumption. But you can also see how the henchman system is a shift on the spectrum of task/conflict resolution while remaining heavily rooted in the default combat mechanics. Just wanted to throw that in there as an academic thought...

Commoner, fascinating ideas man. The way you've been playing is what I'm aiming for. I'm planning on trying that next time we play and I believe my group will love that. Saving the big full-blown combats for very important moments in the story will be much more dramatic and shift things in an interesting way.

I would very much like to hear how you adjudicate damage in the Conflict resolution rolls? So, say you're PCs roll off against a group of Orcs, how do you decide how much damage the PCs take, if there are any criticals involved, etc.

I know that is a pretty big shell I dropped but hey, where I come from we all have huge nuts!

The length is what it had to be given the amount of information I had to share hence the great wall of text. Glad to hear you guys got through it then.

I will absolutely post up more detailed system mechanics shortly. As I have to read an entire Novel by tomorrow, I probably wont be able to get to it til tomorrow night or the next night.

Glad to know other gamers (games) have looked and thought about these situations and some of them have been put forth to the community. They really should become standard since we address combat the same way (more or less) since all the way back to the start of roleplaying games. It really needs progress because right now, its like we roleplay in 2007, but combat is DOS. It is something, I have to admit, that came to me after thinking about mass combats in a White Wolf game I ran back in 2000. They were playing mages in the court of Ramses II and I really wanted some epic scope combats that (especially White Wolf) could not manage. I also wanted to not focus at all on the combats in a blow by blow sense - as the players were god-like in that game so they would be almost pointless most of the time presenting no real challenge to them, guards were like ants to those characters - so I came up with the basis of these ideas. My group at that time fell in love with it and I found the game (and story) moved! Over the years, I scaled down the ideas to more practical games and practical stories.

I also totally agree the henchman rules are a step in this direction and glad to see more games including them. Feng Shui include the Mook rule (very similar to the henchman rule - though a bit better). there are a lot of games starting to look at these types of mechanisms. Henchman, do not go far enough but I do use them. Not everyone can fight big bossman especially in the case of a revenge scenario (player wants to kill the villain for wrongs committed) I find the henchmen give the other players some other way to maybe impact the narrative when they are off doing other things or helping prevent the henchman from interfering with the showdown or are holding off his minions until the deed is done. it is a great tool and one with keeping.

Anyway, back to reading, but thanks for going through the wall of posts. I will the mechanical system elements absolutely as soon as I can, like I said, tomorrow or the next day.

Until then, have a good one.

Commoner

Thanks for the ideas, I'll incorporate them to my next session as well.

I think this underlines the fact that it's not the rules and mechanics but the overall combat design: low-objective combat should be summarized, high-objective combat needs to be simulated in greater detail.

I try to design combat situations multi-layered conflicts meaning there's something else at stake than just "who kills who" which easily is reduced to undramatic tedious hit and miss contest. Running a story element inside a combat encounter should keep things interesting and mix some non-combat elements to it.

Alright, I finally got a free minute to respond about the mechanical aspects of these three different theories I put forward. This will focus mostly on summarized combat, as it is the biggest difference between the usual system and I did post up a bit of mechanics in the last post. For the theory on why this works the way it does, see my other post.

Summarized Combat:

Again, this is used when the combat is not necessary for the story. It can be used a number of different ways and scales. It is not a great mass combat system (characters versus armies or in the middle of battles), but can, depending on the situation, be used there as well. It can be as small of a scale such as trying to escape from guards to trying to through a hallway full of enemies, to a bar brawl. It can be against one or multiple opponents. You also do not have to assume it only takes one roll either. Again, this is all a matter of how you stage it. In normal gaming, let us say you created a scenario where the players are running away as the building falls apart and cracks in front of them, just as they are about to get out the floor cracks so they have to make a jump check to avoid plummeting to their doom. They then make it across, but now find themselves needing to climb over a pile of rubble (a climb check) to make it out the door. The same can apply to the combat itself. There are many ways to gauge this and it really depends on what you are looking for from the scene (in this case) the fight itself. For instance, if the players are running down a hallway of guards, have them fight the first group, then encounter the next, so on and so forth. If they are trying to make it through a room of orcs set up a tracker and say in three turns they have to make it through or they will either be overpowered or need to find a new exit out of the room. So the tracker is set up. So the players set off to accomplish their tasks. As is the case with any tracker based system, do not think the only way players can get by a situation is to "fight" their way through the guards. Always encourage your players to think outside the box and to get creative in their ideas and reward them when they do. As an example, if the rogue is trying to get down a hallway being chased by guards who are right on his heels and their swords are about to come down on him. The Rogue says, I will knock over a statue to block them getting to me, let him make a check using the exact same system below and if it succeeds allow the effect to actually happen. Let us say in another example the same rogue after using a statue to get away from the last guards, turns a corner only to find three more guards are waiting for him. Sure he could charge and fight them and that may be the inclination, but the player may choose something else such as I jump through the nearest doorway or I use my acrobatics to tumble by them. Well, the same summarized combat mechanic can be used for those actions, all you are doing is treating a combat by the player's own ingenuity.

Actual Mechanics:

Now, these rules do make the game player centric, but in my opinion they are. How all rolls for summarized combat should happen is as follows. Again, these are not hard and fast rules, they are generalized mechanics: The GM should roll the barest minimum of dice and avoid as much math as possible. This will allow the GM to focus on the story and how to react based on if the roll succeeds or fails.

The roll: Use the contested roll rules. Compare the Player's controlling characteristic for the action they wish to perform (if melee, strength for example) versus the highest characteristic of their opposition - be it one or multiple - (for a generic guard or whatever I normally set this at 3. For good guards, I give them a four, poor guards or snotlings: 2). This sets how many purple dice are opposing them as base. The rest remains the same, add black for having Expertise (in general, I give weaker opponents no expertise - like a gang of thugs or zombies - while elite characters - such as royal guards or black orcs - I give an Expertise). A player's creative description adds white, I also take in to account if they have an advantage or not (surprise, higher ground, a relevant talent) and add white appropriately to the roll. I then add up to black for each additional opponent in the fight, up to a maximum of 3. The player then rolls their pool. Note, also allow them to convert their dice to reckless and conservative, just make sure it matches the story here. If they are running for their lives, no way I let them go conservative. If they are sneaking carefully, going around and slitting the throat of guards, then of course, I allow conservative. How many they can convert is up to you and the player.

After you have determined all these factors, the player then rolls the dice. Read the results as follows:

Success, no boons: They succeed, allow them to either move one step on a tracker I if using one), get by the opponents, or defeat all of them (or some),

Success, with boons: Allow them to create a narrative benefit from the boons (could also give them one additional step on a tracker if you are using one) and they get past their opponents (or some).

Success, with banes: They do succeed, allow them to move a step on a tracker if using one or get past their opponents, but take minor damage.

Failure with boons: They do not succeed, they cannot move a step on a tracker and take minor damage as well.

Failure with banes: They do not succeed, furthermore maybe they are delayed (if using a tracker, move it back one step) and they take major damage.

Minor Damage: I once presented a system, but concern such as armor, etc came up so I switched it up to cover the normal system. In Minor Damage, Use the weapon's base damage + 1 damage per bane rolled (on a success) or each failure (rolled on a failure with boons). This is totaled and compared to the player's soak value. The remainder is the damage taken.

Major Damage: Major Damage is the same as above, except add the weapon's base damage + the users strength + 1 damage per bane rolled and give them one critical. The critical effect occurs even if the total damage is below the character's soak and they take the required minimum of 1 damage.

Now, if you want give and take for the combat, such as the player needs to being held up by these guards as his fellow comrads are having their souls tested by a demon in the other room, you may want to know how fast he gets through the horde and the single, summarized roll actually defeats the purpose of him being delayed at all. These rules can still be used, however for each success scored, consider one opponent eliminated. If they an action card to deliver more damage or believe it will help them, you can also offer a +1 kill for each additional bonus damage. (criticals mean nothing here).

Another permutation is if a player is trying to hold a gate from being burst through by a horde of orcs. How many orcs? Who cares, the key idea is they want to defend and so put everything to a defensive action. So they want to use their parry actions and block actions, etc. Well, you can let them or you can simply give them a bonus white for their defensive posture and their description of what they want to achieve. Same goes for armor. If someone has cool magic armor and it really defines their character, simply make sure you accentuate it in the narrative or if it gives a magical bonus for defense, ignore a bane or what not on the roll.

Dramatic Combat:

Dramatic Combat should never come down to simple blows either. One great idea you can take from video games is every "big boss" has some kind of weakness, a critical point that deals more damage. This can be used in roleplaying games as well and when used well, it will turn simple task resolution (kill the guy) to conflict resolution. These have to be included and highlighted in the description, such as the summoned demon has the crystal that once housed its soul sticking out of its back or the breastplate on the giant hangs loosely by a frayed, leather strap. This is saying to the player, hit these points and the creature will go down, retreat, or otherwise be easier to kill. if they don't go for it or miss it, clues from turn to turn such as the leather creaks on the plate strap, more strands coming loose with each swing of his club. Another, your blade chinks against the crystal in the demon's back and it loosens ever so slightly from the demon's flesh. These will key a player in that they should interact with it and more over, give them something to do other than hack it to bits. This also means, the envoy with no fighting skills won't be totally useless. Instead, he could jump, grab on the crystal and pull it free. You see? The Harry Potter series is rife with these examples and if you have ever read them, look at the "fights" in those books and you will see what I mean, this is how she predominantly handled fights (for better or worse) throughout her entire novels. This is not only limited to the combatants, but the environment as well, a loose railing at the edge of a building, on the edge of a cliff. Boons and Banes can easily arbitrate pushing each other toward the cliff or knocking someone off the railing. These give players clues and endless ways to defeat the enemy without having to deal x amount of "hit points" to kill them.

Final Fight and Challenge Combat:

I presented this system before, but will post it here for clarity:

I use opposed resolution on all things. Players roll their defense against the attacks of the bad guy. This is done by the player rolling their appropriate weapon skill or Dodge or whatever while the Bad guy rolls his to hit roll, compare successes as usual. The only exception is, whichever side wins, all the boons/banes of their rolls still apply.

In these big fights, I do not typically limit the villain to one attack per turn. In general, use one per player so they each get a go with him. Players can still use parry, dodge and block and black die as usual on the bad guys parry rolls. Armor, damage and soak still apply. Action cards still apply. Make sure you put each of the NPC's attacks on an initiative roll.

You can use the Boons and Banes to communicate things on the action card, but as I outlined in the Dramatic Conflict, you can also use them to determine environmental or situational problems. Such as the player defends with three boons, maybe his blade cuts off the ogres breast plate. The villain hits with two banes and maybe he has been pushed back by the player and now dangles precariously onto the broken railing or the edge of a cliff and is about to fall off.

Final Note:

Now you don't have to do any of this all the time. I recommend you do, but it is all optional. Think of it as a toolkit, allowing you to move in and out of the focus of the story, crank it when necessary, pull back when the fights are more extraneous than important to the story. Players will still feel engaged, trust me, when these systems are used and at times, can put a great deal of pressure on their decisions and forces them to be a bit more interactive and engaged than the typical, passive combat mechanics most games present. Ultimately, how you use these rules is up to you and how you plan your fights to run is also up to you. This will take creativity on the GM's side as well, so make sure you are aware and I suggest, when you start using them, do some pre-planning (even if it just during a rally step) on how to make these elements and mechanics come alive. There is no wrong way to use them, just experiment with them until you get it right. Also, you might want to inform your players of your intent to use them, but sometimes, they will be leary because it is all new to them. Don't worry, just tell them to try it for three sessions and see how they feel about it after it is done, because for some, this is a radical shift from what they are used to.

Hope you enjoy them. I'd love to hear any questions, comments, or alternate approaches you find from the text. I'd also love to hear how you guys use them. Once you start too, if you have any questions or get stuck one night, post them up and I'll see if I can help you sort out the details. My desire is for you guys to actually use these because I think they will improve any game to be honest, so I'm willing to help you out if you need it. Until then,

Have a great time gaming,

Commoner