Combat in play by post

[MrMiracle]

I was planning to start an M&M game soon and wanted to come up with a system that allows players to maintain some level of flexibility in their combat while keeping posts to a minimum.  I came up with this:

For each combat, I'll ask the players a series of questions and have them make 10 or so rolls of a d20 on invisiblecastle.  M&M only uses a d20, so that simplifies things already.  Lets say there's a bank robbery going on.  The bank has a main exit and an emergency exit.  There is one main villain in the bank and 4 henchmen.  There are 8 employees and bank patrons on the floor and behind the desks.  The questions I ask are like this:

What are your top three priorities in this situation?
  Answers may include things like: 'attack the henchmen first', 'go for the villain first', 'block the exits', 'protect the employees and patrons', and anything else the players can think up.  Players can even use 'if-then' style statements to make their priorities.

What powers do you use to attack?

How do you choose to defend yourself at...
full health?
medium health?
low health?

What will you do if...
a bystander gets hurt?
the villain gets away?
an ally is unconscious?

Basically a series of questions along those lines.  I then take the rolls from invisiblecastle and use them to determine the success/failure of the players actions.  Likely an encounter like this will still take more than one post on everyone's part, but a lot less than what it would take to wait on each player individually.

Once each player has listed their answers, I'll narrate the scene to them.

Input please?

[Cosmicarus]

It's a good idea MrMiracle, I'd like to see it in action. I have to admit that I'd feel odd posting a characters actions for them, even if they have mapped it out for me. This would work much better in a low combat game I reckon. I like the idea of there being one post to sum up all (or a large portion of) the combat.

[MBCE]

Basically a series of questions along those lines.  I then take the rolls from invisiblecastle and use them to determine the success/failure of the players actions.  Likely an encounter like this will still take more than one post on everyone's part, but a lot less than what it would take to wait on each player individually.

Once each player has listed their answers, I'll narrate the scene to them.

Input please?

Hmmm.  It looks like a very involved system to handle combat.  The only real question I have is how would you use the rolls?  Would you use them in order or use them based on how the person places the importance of their actions?

Without knowing how you'd assign the rolls, it's hard to say whether this form will work or not.

[MrMiracle]

Hmmm.  It looks like a very involved system to handle combat.  The only real question I have is how would you use the rolls?  Would you use them in order or use them based on how the person places the importance of their actions?

Without knowing how you'd assign the rolls, it's hard to say whether this form will work or not.

The rolls would be assigned in basic combat order.  Everyone's first roll is the initiative, naturally.  If they have the initiative, then their first rolls will be used to accomplish their priorities.  If not then the next roll is used for their defense.

Lets us the bank robbery example from above.

Player A chooses the following priorities: Protect the innocent, stop the bad guys from escaping, and subdue the bad guys.
Player B chooses: Attack the main villain, attack the minions, prevent the bad guys from escaping.
Player C chooses: Assess the situation more carefully (Notice and Search checks), try to talk the minions down, protect the innocent.

All three players roll 10 D20s, and get a whole bunch of results.

Player C gets the initiative and manages to spot a 5th minion who was hiding.
Player B goes next and attacks the main villain.
The villain goes next and fights Player B.
The minions go next and try to fight the good guys.
Player A goes last.  Since none of the bystander's are at risk, he manages to activate the alarm and shut the security gate.

Now since Player A's second priority and Player B's first priority are taken care of, I exclude those from the remainder of their actions.

Next round:
Player C tries to talk the minions down.  She convinces one of them about the error of his ways, and he thows his weapon down.
Player B continues to battle the main villain, but is now close to half damage.  We'll check his damage priorities for the next round.
Villain keeps beating on Player B.
Minions fight more.  One minion gets desperate and takes a hostage.
Player A's turn.  If he has the means to release the hostage, he'll use them.  If not, he keeps any of the other minions from getting the same idea.

After the last round, its clear that Player A and Player C are going to try and keep the minions from taking more hostages, either by subduing them or by getting the hostages clear of the situation.  Player B chose 'fight defensively' for his half-damage priority.  He continues to fight, but uses the defensive option.

I realize that this system means that things aren't always going to go quite the way the players would want compared to a round-by-round system.  After the third round, I'll probably check with the players to see if their priorities have changed.

[reefwood]

I'm going to run a D&D 3.5 game on Groovy later this fall, and it will contain a good bit of combat, so this thread has been good to read, seeing all sorts of different ways to handle it.  Don't know how I'm going to do it for my game yet, but this is definitely helps with brainstorming ideas.

I do want to use a battle map because I do like the technical side of the game.

As for round-by-round posting, I think that's something else I'd like to include.  I'm hoping to find players who do post frequently to help keep things from dragging (and the one person who I know is playing will do this), and this game will only have 3-4 players to help lower the odds of waiting for people too long (and I may add in an additional lower level NPC to help them out once in a while if the situation requires it to make up for the low amount of players).  Another thing I'm going to try to do is have the players and their adversaries be powerful enough that combat ends quickly, one way or the other, but then again, this kind of thing can never be guaranteed.  Also, if combat does become repetitively simple at times, I may speed it up for a few rounds until something of note happens (npc goes does, player is significantly injured, etc).  For example, if everyone is just attacking with melee weapons, I'll just fast forward the combat (by making the rolls myself) and sum it up when that noteworthy point (or some other stipulation by a player) is reached.

One new idea I have is rolling a new initiative for each player every round.  My reasoning behind this is two-fold.  It seems more realistic, and I think it'll help the game go faster.  Even though initiative determines the turn order during a round, in theory everyone is supposed to be acting more or less at the same time within a six second window.  It seems more realistic that in this kind of situation, you may not always wind up with the ideal set of actions by everyone since it all happens so fast (unless the group comes up with some sort of strategic attack plan ahead of time, and even then, you never know what can happen once the dice start rolling), so to me, having everyone post their actions before they know what everyone else is doing (or at least their outcome), it'll keep it more "real" in that sense.  Also, this will allow everyone to not be stuck in their same initiative for an entire combat, which also seems more real to me.  Just because someone starts off with the first attack, it doesn't mean that they can't stumble on a rock that makes them go later in the next round, or maybe someone else simply gets a burst of adrenalin to bring them out of last place.  Plus, the new initiative every round will help keep the first part of my reasoning alive since you'll never know when exactly you are going.  And by doing all this, I hope the players won't feel the need to wait to post their actions until in initiative order since they won't know it anyway, and therefore, posting will go as quickly as possible.

I like the idea of having players post certain situational or alternate actions, and the Combat Thread seems pretty neat too.  What I may do to start a combat is describe the initiative instigating point in the IC thread and tell people to move to the Combat Thread.  The Combat Thread will include the battle map, player hit points (and any other important active effects to note) and a technical translation of information in the IC thread (for example, "The largest dragon Kadell had ever seen" in the IC thread would be spelled out as "gargantuan dragon" in the combat thread, or perhaps whatever information was deemed from a Knowledge check).  The players would post their first round actions in the Combat Thread, and then I'd sum up the round "in story" in the IC thread.  And while the Combat Thread will mostly contain technical actions and such, I'll also let the players include any IC descriptions, thoughts or diaglogue, which I would also include with my IC summary.

So yep, that's what I got so far.

[Eyeonthemountain]

I have become a fan of the You Go, then They Go style of initiative.

So the party acts in the  same order they post,  so they know what everyone else is doing. Then the baddies go all at once so by the time each individual combat round is done, the heroes know the situation (I use maps) so they can do their actions again.

I just did he first fight in my expedition game this way, and I think it went very well.  And yes, I did roll all the dice except healing, i find having characters roll healing speeds up the game because then they know if they return to consciousness, or their level of health.

[Cosmicarus]

I have become a fan of the You Go, then They Go style of initiative.

So the party acts in the  same order they post,  so they know what everyone else is doing. Then the baddies go all at once so by the time each individual combat round is done, the heroes know the situation (I use maps) so they can do their actions again.

I think I'll try this style the next time I run a game.

[BerkaZerka]

This does simplify things a lot, which is a plus for PbP.

BZ

[reefwood]

I have become a fan of the You Go, then They Go style of initiative.

So the party acts in the  same order they post,  so they know what everyone else is doing. Then the baddies go all at once so by the time each individual combat round is done, the heroes know the situation (I use maps) so they can do their actions again.

I just did he first fight in my expedition game this way, and I think it went very well.  And yes, I did roll all the dice except healing, i find having characters roll healing speeds up the game because then they know if they return to consciousness, or their level of health.

I have mixed feelings on this system.  On one hand, it is nice as a player to know what exactly is happening just before you act, and it seems good for a DM since it encourages (or at least sort of rewards) timely posting.  However, it does obviously toss out the need for Initiative and any abilities & feats that apply to it, along with the rules & reality behind it (such as suped up speed [Dex] acting faster than the muscled up masher [Str]).  And even beyond technical reasons, it could penalize someone who may post often but does so usually at a different schedule than the DM.  For example, someone who will make 1 or 2 posts a night (i.e. after school & work) interacting with the other players, but if the DM only posts in the mornings, by default, the night poster will more often go last if the other players are able to post during the day.  I guess this last part isn't really that big of a deal, but it's one of the thing I thought of when reading this.  Then again, I've never DM'ed a completely PbP game before, so maybe I'll be touting this system after I run a game, heh.

Who knows, maybe I'll even gives this system a shot in a combat or two in the game I am about to run.

p.s. - how do you determine when the baddies go?  is it just whenever you get around to posting?

[Eyeonthemountain]

Well, Initiative could help decide if the baddies go first, or the party, but I usually do not play at such a high level that I won't let the players go first, unless they are surprised. Players like to go first.

But generally, disencourage players form taking improved initiative and such, high Dex already has more than enough rewards, and would still be a must-have stat.

As for my posting it would depends on the game, but hopefully when everyone has posted. I might set a time limit, also. I like this system as a slow poster will slow up the group less as they can post a day or so later at the end of the player's turn without everything slowing to a halt if they post slow.

[Prancer]

What differnece does it make if the players roll their own dice or not?

The only one I can think of is that the players would not know if they hit the target or not, and this is simply solved. When I play in a game and combat comes up I roll my attack & damage at the same time (rolling sneak attack and all bonus damage seperate.) then I post all my rolls. If I hit then there is damage already done, if I miss then I just waisted 20 seconds of my own time at the invisible castle (No big loss).

I do roll most of the spot checks though...just so the players don't know what's up.

[Eyeonthemountain]

I suppose it would not matter so much if players rolled their own dice, but as a player my preference is strongly for the DM/GM doing so. I do generally prefer if players post up their combat stuff, so I jsut look at their psot instead of having to look up their sheet every round, but I do the rolls.

[Fire horse]

The PBP system is not very nice to the intiative system, at least not on a round by round, player by player roll. Before combat starts you have to get all the players to roll initiative, then decide on actions (if the players are rolling their own attack/damage dice there is anothre round of waiting) and then the posting of the results only to start again.

It takes much more pataince then I have to wait for these things to happen, if you have one player that is posting on an every other day basis, then just te first round could take longer then a week.

I use initiative in situations that require it ... and only that situation. Most of the time the set-up of the incounter will tell you which side should go first .. from there I use the team system (Bad guys then good, or the other way around)

I tell players right up front that in most situations investing in Initiative skills/feats would not benifit your character as much as you think.

As for combat rolls and damage, I do all of those as well. As I have post on this thread someplace (Could have been last year though )

I do this ... it works out well

Set-up post (If the Bad guys have won Initiative, this would include their attacks)
Charcter A action post. (Attack Bad guy 1)
Charcter B action post. (Attack bad guy 2)
Character C action post. (Attack bad guy 1)
Character D action post. (sneak around)

In my update post, I would tell the results of the round in a standard post format. Instead of putting numbers into the discription, I use the quote feature for all OOC info such as attack rolls and damage results, then end the quotes and get back to discribing the combat based on the rolls.

Example -

Brooke got back to her feet and started toward where Alex had fallen to the ground, taking a second to create water on some of the flames that were nearest her position. Until she saw Maxwell walking along the sidewalk toward Alex as well.

She had been calling out to Alex, but it was Max that looked her way. Knowing that it would be her best chance to end this quickly Brooke focuses everything she had in one blast at Larissa brother.

Brooke's attack (+11) vs Max's Defense (10; He is not even trying to avoid the blast) is an automatic hit; The blast has no effect.

Max, still looking at Brooke as the mousy young lady as she blasted away at him, just smiles and shakes his head at her Young Lady, you need to learn to respect your betters He takes a small metallic devise from his pocket, flips a switch and tosses it at Brooke Here's a toy for you to play with little girl

The object could very well be another bomb, but Brooke was still in her water form. She hoped that it wouldn't harm her. As the object tossed her way seemed to slow as it got closer and closer. It was turning in mid air slightly and emitting a strange sound Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick Not like it was counting seconds, but much quicker .. Like a playing card in the spokes of a bicycle tire.

Before Brooke could react the object made a final turn as it neared her. the sound was the snapping of an electric charge between posts on one end of the object ... It was self defense tool ... It was ELECTRICAL STUNNER

Max's Attack (+15) vs Brooke's Defense (21) rolls, 8. Hits

The shocker moved closer so slowly that Brooke had a chance to count the sparks that it was giving off as it approached her. The handle hit her first and made a slight ripple in her watery form. As she looked in horror, the metal prongs moved closer and closer as the object started moving through her water form. She had time for a final gasp before watching the prongs immerse into her form.

Fort Save (+6) vs Shocker (DC17). Rolls, 5. Fails. (HP for re-roll) 10, fails. Brooke takes double effect from Electrical Damage. She is Stunned (x2). Losing Dodge bonus to Defense and suffers a -4 to her remaining Defense .. She may only take reactions moves

As the Shocker vanishes into her body, she starts to shake violently

With Max paying too much attention to the ground combatants, he fails to notice the new arrivals ....

In this system, the characters post and the GM updates ... The the characters post ... and so one ... it most as quick as the players post ... if one takes too long, I keep it moving anyway.

[Prancer]

Interesting. I am not sure that I like breaking up the post like that but it is something to think about.

[Padre]

I think ultimately it goes back to three main factors, GM preference, Style (basically what kind of storytelling are you looking for, mortality rate, etc.), and Game system (potential strengths and weaknesses of said system using a given format)

My concern with the team iniative concept is that with a cunning group (or an evil GM) an entire team can be wiped out prior to the actual combat beginning.  I've seen a combat done this way in a M&M2E game where a 5-vs-5 battle was going to take place and the good guys were able to completely obliterate two opponents and severely damage one other with a series of area attacks before the bad guys even got the chance to react.  This effectively made it a 5-vs-2.5 before the bad guys even got to react and the whole combat was over by the end of the second round.  Alternatively, I've seen a team of heroes get sandbagged by a group of villians winning team initiative.  In both cases, I think it takes a bit of the fun out of the game. 

But then again, does that fall back to the combination of system & style?  Could team initiatives provide a better base for systems that don't have lots of area effects--I'd say so.

Personally in a M&M game, I perfer to stick to the initiative order myself.  I have the PCs tell me what they want to do and add flavor text as needed.  If any don't post by the time I start crafting the offical GM post (I try to always give notice before writing up the post), I NPC their character who becomes subjected to my whims for that given round--sometimes they'll actually attempt an attack, sometimes they'll stand around dumbfounded for a round--it all depends on what I feel would make a better scene for that character.  My large sweeping post covering all PCs and NPCs is made and combat continues.

However, in my Call of Cthulhu game I'm wrapping up (using the BRP rules), I've completely thrown out combat order.  Typical BRP CoC rules dictate that order is determined by DEX, from highest to lowest.  However, since combat tends to much more deadiler than a M&M game, I let the players determine what order they go in by how well they crafting the scene and their characters actions (within given reason).  I look at all the intended actions, make the neccessary die rolls, and then craft the scene after that.  So one round your character might be acting first, the next round he's fourth in line, the following round he's second, after that he's last, etc.  Basically what I look for in this situation is how can I keep the suspense and air of danger as high as possible by the time this post end.