Combat On The Mind
I have combat systems on the mind.
Over the last week, I've played through combat scenes in the same setting (In Nomine) with two different systems: GURPS, and the original In Nomine rules. The former's combat system is often criticized for being too complex and detailed, the latter for being clumsy and too slow. In both cases I was playing a character who specialized in combat, against someone else of the sort. The fights played out very differently, mechanically; in GURPS I was choosing options on All-Out Attacks or deciding what to parry or dodge, while in In Nomine it was mostly a matter of attack, dodge, attack, dodge.
And both were marvelous fun.
It wasn't just GM style, though credit for an entertaining fight certainly went to the GM in both cases; the two GMs had radically different styles for dealing with combat. (In GURPS, I would declare my general course of action, roll for it, and then the GM described the results after checking on the NPC's response. Over with In Nomine, the GM told me if I was succeeding or not after the roll, and then had me describe what my PC did.) It was having entertaining characters, and keeping things lively, and feeling like the fights mattered.
...which of course makes me wonder about combat systems. How much fun in a game's combat comes from the system, and how much from the situation? It can't entirely be situation, because I know there are combat systems I find deathly dull, both on the so-easy-it's-fast and s0-complex-it's-slow sides of things. It can't entirely be mechanics, or I wouldn't find such different mechanics satisfying.
All of this is a verbose way of saying I'm re-examining the combat rules in my long-languishing game system with a new eye to what actually makes them fun. I find it elegant to make the social and physical and mental combat rules precisely parallel, but will this be satisfying or make them all feel the same? I prefer abstracted combat results that the players can then detail as they like, but will this frustrate people who want the game results to suggest complexities on their own? Do the rules for regenerating social points give people more room to strategize, or only clutter things up?
Or maybe I'm making it all too complex, and I ought to go back to something...simple.
GM: *rolls* "You're under attack! Roll your Not Losing Fights skill!"
Player: *rolls* "Okay, I want to attack back, too."
GM: "Fine, roll your Winning Fights skill." *rolls NPC's Not Losing Fights skill*
Player: *rolls* "Woo! I won!"
GM: "Good, good. Now, let's keep moving, we have a conversation to get through, and I'm using the Advanced Conversation rules this time, so you can't just keep using your old taunt-apologize tactics."