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Has anyone run or played in a successful low combat game?
I've ran a couple, but I don't know if the advice I can offer is constructive, because they were visual novel based, using a system I wrote explicitly for slice of life games where combat is secondary at best.
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If so, I'm wondering how the non-combat challenges were handled.
Many games that are Powered by the Apocalypse have a great mechanism for handling non-combat. In fact, the major ones that do have combat don't often reward XP or system equivalent for killing things. You'll still get loot and stuff, but the XP comes from 6- rolls completing specified objectives, fulfilling alignment/drive conditions, and so on.
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There just isn't that inherent variety (and therefore choices-wth-consequences) when you're climbing a wall or opening a lock, or even when you're verbally sparring with someone.
Ho boy have I got some news for you! There... basically is, really. Granted, a lot of the systems that can claim there's options for climbing walls, opening locks, and verbally sparring with someone usually have broad notions about success. In PBTA for example, there's success and failure (10+ or 6- respectively) which are fairly static, and then there's compromise (7-9) which vary with just about every move, and also allow some broad strokes re: freedom of choice.
That's your problem right there.
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skill challenge system is weak. Making multiple rolls is boring. It's not about rolling a lot of times, it's about making decisions and having them matter.
why yes, yes it is. In some of the games in the system I'm referring to they don't even bother making multiple rolls.
like at all. Where d20 games do multiple rolls say for climbing every so many feet and have to deal with falling damage or something, Dungeon World, for example, makes 1 roll, and lets you win on 10+ all day long, possibly lose some climbing equipment and/or take damage on 7-9, and outright fail on 6-... Even then, the system very strongly discourages outright killing players. They don't even have a specified amount of damage a fall will do.
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In RL, climbing is a great mental and physical challenge. You could probably simulate a bit of that. First, you'd need some kind of time limit built in, otherwise, there's no reason to take any risk or do anything other than slow and steady. There are any number of ways to do that, but absent some kind of external threat, you probably need some kind of fatigue system (hit points for skills).
Oh, you're looking for
more crunch? yeah, that's a failure of PBTA games. There are only a few iterations with some approximation of a fatigue system--and often just abstracted to a condition. Anyway, if you want a Fatigue system, go with GURPS. That'll also get you XP for things besides killing, and all the level of simulation that PBTA games won't give you.
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Then you could build some of the decision-making in: "Ok, you passed your first check, you made it a little ways up the wall. It's not easy. Take 1 fatigue. You see a really good hold up ahead, but you're going to have to lunge for it. You can make a check at -5 to get it, and if you make it, you advance two levels. If you miss it, you fall back 1 level. Otherwise, you'll have to go slowly and it'll take you 2 fatigue points to make it as high."
In PBTA games, you might see something like...
Roll +Sports On a 10+, pick 3, on 7-9 pick 2
* You don't consume any equipment
* You aren't winded or injured
* You make it
On a 6-, you're winded or injured. If you were already winded, you're now injured.
This may be more narrativist than you want, but I've found it works. Different systems will also say something about how injured you are. For the ones that operate on a 6 harm system, you would only take 1 per result that omits fatigue or injury. For something like Dungeon World it'd be a dice roll.
This message was last edited by the user at 07:25, Sun 06 Dec 2020.