Ok, so how *do* you make a robust tactical minigame?

[Prak]

Kicking around another RPG idea, kinda looking at a Storyteller hack, but I'm back on the western/1800s America ideal, which means that the game wants a detailed positioning minigame for when everyone whips out their pistols.

But... I have no fucking clue how to accomplish that, and my main design examples are Storyteller (had no clue what they were doing) and After Sundown (not a heavy combat game).

Wat do?

[Omegonthesane]

My first instinct here is to question whether a detailed positioning minigame is necessary or even helpful for emulating the genres you want to emulate in 1800s western America or, indeed, for making an engaging tactical combat system.

If it's just detailed positions you want you are not going to do better than a classic hex or square grid plus a cover system with the amount of effort this merits.

What varieties of combatant do you want to be valid life choices? 'cause no amount of tactical positioning will make the game the exciting part of a, er, game where everyone has to be Big Iron.

[erik]

Seconded. Why does pistol gunplay necessitate tactical minis? Feng shui doesn’t use minis. Nor does even Rifts which could make a better argument for them than most genres. Granted rifts is a failure but not because of the lack of minis.

[jt]

XCom does shooting and cover mechanics on a tactical grid, so it's possible.

They're very silly, but disk-flicking games get a surprising amount of tactical depth with very little effort by piggybacking on physics. Flick Em Up is one that already matches your theme, too.

Going from scratch, the questions you need to answer are who has visibility to what with how much cover, and what other positions can you run to. If you have a good way of tracking that, the rest is just applying a dice mechanic that scales the way you want, and back-fitting the stats to the encounter length you want.

[JigokuBosatsu]

With the mention of xcom there was a similar game called Hard West that you might look at if you're married to the idea.

[Pariah Dog]

With the mention of xcom there was a similar game called Hard West that you might look at if you're married to the idea.

HW's system was kinda of fucky in the sense that if you had enough luck points left (somehow both mana and 'armor') the shot would miss.

[OgreBattle]

A lot of video games have the benefit of being a video game for tracking fiddly stats, modifiers, distance, and so on.

A lot of those games are slooow single player and get super slower at 2+

I'd say look at MtG as a starting point rather than X-Com for tabletop

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, the issue with taking xcom as inspiration is that the game is designed so that the computer makes determining who has line of sight to which targets relatively quick and intuitive. That's a titanic advantage in a game intended to be about highly lethal ranged combat. Compared to that figuring out how many action flags or action points you want characters to have is just fucking around.

[jt]

One way to handle visibility and cover is to precompute it. Imagine you have a printed picture of the battlefield and it has a graph with a node for every piece of cover you could sit behind, a black edge for every node you could dash between in one turn, and a red edge for every node you have line of sight between (with icons on the incoming side showing whether it's full/half/no cover).

The GM's guide has the actual rules for building your own battle mats the hard way using a ruler, but the game just comes with a stack of pre-printed ones that you're expected to stick with most of the time.

[Iduno]

So something like a lightweight less-retarded version of 40k? Also, with cowboys?

[Blade]

If you want to replicate the style of western movies, you'll want to have cover feature prominently. Anyone standing in the open is easy to hit while targets behind cover are virtually impossible to shoot. And people can be shot at when running from cover to cover.

So maps with hexes + covers and LoS. When you want to shoot someone you go in a straight path between you and your target and if you don't have any cover that's equal to or above your current height level in the way you can shoot. You can also watch a specific area (of n*n hexes) and shoot anyone who enters that area or shoot at someone behind cover to suppress him. And finally there's dynamite that can be thrown behind cover or that can be used to destroy cover.

Most of the tactical part is about positioning correctly, plotting courses where you don't get into anyone's LOS nor anyone's interception zone and/or working as a team so that someone suppresses an enemy so that another one can safely rush through his interception zone. And you've got dynamite when you want to shake things up.

[deaddmwalking]

Aces & Eights second edition just dropped recently. I have the rulebook, but I have not read it (I supported the Kickstarter). I did play a demo of the 1st edition at GenCon. It was super-brutal. My character took a shotgun in the chest very early. I did like the targeting matrix. The first edition had a number of silhouettes - a figure crouching, standing, etc. If you hit, you rolled a die and pulled a card. You would then align a clear template over the silhouette adjusting the position based on the result. This would allow you to determine how many hits/how much damage/where.

I like Western movies, and it is totally possible for someone to miss you when you're standing out in the open. Sometimes the person shoots, revealing their position, and increasing the tension/sense of danger. You'll notice lots of 'bad guys' get a shot off before the 'good guys' shoot back and kill.

I just watched Tombstone again last week, and it's totally possible to walk past someone you want to kill who wants to kill you and for nothing to happen. If you drew first and shot someone, you were a murderer and an outlaw; if someone else drew first and you shot them, you were defending yourself and would be absolved from legal challenge (stand your ground laws). Maintaining the 'we don't gun people down in town' is an important part of making things work - drawing fast when the fight comes is important.

Keeping those things in mind, I think some type of 'initiative' and 'dodge' roll are appropriate - characters that are behind heavily cover might be hard to hit, but they probably don't get a dodge option. Like Action Heroes, not getting shot is very important - real life doesn't allow magical healing so PCs need a way to turn a successful attack into a 'near miss'. 3.x style hit points might actually be appropriate here - losing hit points doesn't represent being 'hit' - and therefore don't reduce your competence - instead they represent 'close misses' and after too many of those, you catch your fate and take one to the chest. Making it clear that you're 'losing fate' and not 'blood' is an important distinction to ensure the game plays appropriately. Ie, a 12 point hit to the head might represent a bullet leaving a hold in your hat...

[K]

Incomparables

[Prak]

For system, I'm working on something that's sort of in between OWoD and AS. So I'm planning on hit boxes, but that's a good point about hit points as a sort of plot armor.

Another question, somewhat related, is how lethal should unarmed combat be? For a western, I kind of want it to be entirely feasible to beat a man to death with your fists, but certainly not the default.

[tussock]

They mostly carried large knives as a general tool. Knife to the liver is extremely lethal and completely debilitating from the start with pain. Turns out when the guy across the table at poker draws his 6-shooter, he has to cock it first, which upsets the aim, and that means you can stab him in the liver before he can shoot.

Outlaws trained to be stupidly quick with draw-cock-shoot, and still more disputes between people with guns were settled with knives. But none used their fists much, boxers were rare men, you might half starve before your broken hand healed after all, and what if it didn't heal right. Plus, if you punch a dude, he might just stab you in your liver.

Though absolutely everyone could wrassle because brothers, and wrassling over a knife or gun is a fine game concept. You may also kick a man when he's down, though that is kin to shooting a man in the back.

You should absolutely shoot men in the back, it's much harder for them to shoot you first then. All the best lawmen shoot people in the back. Very rude, but all the living ones were after a while. Wanted men sat with their back in a windowless corner, because if there was a place you couldn't see, that would be where the lawman was standing when he shot you in the back. People did not fuck around with that "this is the law" stuff, just bang.

[OgreBattle]

For system, I'm working on something that's sort of in between OWoD and AS. So I'm planning on hit boxes, but that's a good point about hit points as a sort of plot armor.

Another question, somewhat related, is how lethal should unarmed combat be? For a western, I kind of want it to be entirely feasible to beat a man to death with your fists, but certainly not the default.

Up to what you want to do, the talk of knives being drawn quicker at a table is nice.

I'd say with some loose sense of realism...

High skill discrepency: More skilled dude decides if he wants to KO/kill or subdue, able to KO multiple unskilled fellows. Able to be veeery defensive
against a knife until they can get an improvised weapon, or attempt to fight a knife dude at risk but still with a chance.

Equal skill: If both players are cautious it can be indecisive, if both players are aggressive it can be swingy. If one is wielding a knife then they have a huge advantage.

Unskilled vs unskilled: ends up with wiggling around on the ground until somebody breaks up the fight or a horse tramples them. Even if they have knives their lack of familiarity leads to swingier damage

----

On a tangent, a buddy of mine playing Red Dead Redemption 2 got killed in online mode. When he respawned he didn't go for direct revenge, instead he waited and sniped his killer's horse from afar.

He then followed from afar on his horse and sniped every single horse that guy purchased or attempted to ride. After no more horses were available the vengeful fellow rode up on his horse, lassoed the horseless killer, and dragged him through town.

[Thaluikhain]

They mostly carried large knives as a general tool. Knife to the liver is extremely lethal and completely debilitating from the start with pain. Turns out when the guy across the table at poker draws his 6-shooter, he has to cock it first, which upsets the aim, and that means you can stab him in the liver before he can shoot.

Second that...many year before the Tueller Drill, but the concept is the same.

Oh, as an aside, the better pistol shooters could use a gun in each hand, or could fan their revolvers (you hold the trigger down and hit the hammer with your other hand as fast as you can) with some accuracy, but, as a rule, they'd always stop that rubbish if they were in a real fight.

Both the bullet that killed Wild Bill Hickok and the one that killed one of the Earps went through them and injured bystanders, though don't know how you'd put that sort of thing in a game.

[Prak]

I looked at the damage rules of AS, since I wasn't super familiar with them, and in it, it's possible to beat someone to death with fists, it basically just requires choosing to do so and continuing to hit them after they're incapacitated, which I like as a default.

I'm also tossing around some in combat options, like you can choose to hit for lethal damage, but you loose a bit on your damage or attack, since you're either going for well protected parts of the body or parts that aren't easy to hit, and I'm thinking about a sort of "MC tracks how much damage you've done and once it's above your soak pool, roll soak against that amount of normal damage" to represent the fact that you're taking bigger risks and your hand could well break. And then there should probably be some good improvised weapon rules for bar brawls and desert scuffles.

I'm considering making a "Fan the Hammer" meritor something like it.

For collateral damage, guns could work like limited line attacks.

[deaddmwalking]

In a Western, a huge part of the narrative you need to preserve is 'getting the drop on someone'. If you're hanging around in hiding while someone is practicing their target shooting until they run out of bullets, then you step out with a loaded shotgun pointed at their chest, they absolutely SHOULD NOT choose to get shot while they reload their guns and start a fight. I'd have some kind of 'Dead to Rights' feature where if you attain that position your attack is a Save or Incapacitate (they could be bleeding on the floor rather than dead, but they're not a THREAT).

High skill people should have an easier time getting someone 'dead to rights' - in fact, a low-skilled person might not even be able to do it. I haven't finished watching 'Buster Scruggs', but there's an example of what I'm talking about in the spoiler.

Buster Scruggs walks into a saloon and asks to join a game of cards. Before joining the table he turned his guns in, so he's unarmed. He looks at the cards and it is the Dead Man's Hand - a pair of black Aces and a pair of black eights. He doesn't want to play the hand, but someone at the table draws a gun on him. Keeping in mind that he doesn't have a gun, it would appear that Buster Scruggs has been caught 'dead to rights'. But Buster slams the table, the other end see-saws up and the man with the drawn gun ends up shooting himself in the head. For good measure Buster hits it several more times to finish the job.

Ultimately, you need a way for the PCs to know it is appropriate to surrender and/or for your villains to be apprehended. In a western shoot outs should happen a lot, but not every time.

[K]

Hard West seems to do a tactical gunfighting well enough in an X-com kind of way, and would b easy enough to add on mechanics for pen-and-paper.

[kzt]

Second that...many year before the Tueller Drill, but the concept is the same.

The problem is that if you are at a table there is this table between the guy pulling the gun and the guy pulling the knife. Who has to stand up and jump across the table and who can just shoot from his seat? Action is faster than reaction. If you are drawing a knife and trying to attack a dude over a table starting when you see him starting to deploy a pistol you are way behind the power curve.

Try a reverse Tueller drill. You stand 20 feet away from a dude with a drawn pistol in his hand by his side and try to draw your knife, charge him and stab him starting when he raises the pistol to shoot you. How often do you think knife dude is going to get his ass shot compared to gun dude getting stabbed?

[Thaluikhain]

If you are drawing a knife and trying to attack a dude over a table starting when you see him starting to deploy a pistol you are way behind the power curve.

Sure, I was reading it as he's drawing his pistol because he sees you going for his knife. Which might not have been the intent, reading it again.

For that matter, you might not see him draw and cock his weapon because he can do it under the table.

[Prak]

Ok, so, as I said, I'm looking at a system that falls somewhere between OWoD and After Sundown. I've got eight attributes (currently. I'm not completely sold on that, they just tie into four temperaments theory and that seems like some nice theming for a Reconstruction/Gilded Era game) plus Grit, which is just renamed Edge. Attribute+Skill+Eqiupment d10 dice pool, TN 7. I'm still mulling over whether any numbers are special. After Sundown style thresholds and Awesomeness.

Fanning the Hammer is a merit, and it lets you fire up to your Reaction attribute or the capacity of your revolver, whichever is lower, and you lose one die from your previous roll on each shot. Switching targets costs one die.

Dead to Rights is a standard combat option, but I need to work the wording. Basically, at the moment, if you have a reach advantage on someone, so like you've got a loaded gun on them and they don't have a gun, or their gun is empty, your first attack against them forces a physical soak roll vs incapacitation. If the ambushed character has higher Grit, however, they can spend a grit point to incapacitate the ambusher instead. This is the scene where Buster Scuggs takes out Surly Joe, or the character who gets ambush bides their time and then elbows their captor in the face and takes the shotgun from them.

I've got some merits/flaws written up, but they don't really directly impact combat.

Hows that look so far? And I'm liking the idea of hexes with border coding to show cover and such.

EDIT: I've been thinking about initiative while at work, and I want to know what people think about this initiative scheme:
At the start of each session, players are dealt five playing cards. When initiative is called for, each player plays one of these cards and adds their Reaction rating. The highest number goes first, except an Ace always goes first.

Players who have played all their initiative cards must rest for a night (at least eight hours) to be dealt a new Initiative Hand. Players may trade cards in their hands for new ones, but this requires resting for two hours per card traded. If a player wishes to discard a full initiative hand, all players must do so too. (Ie, if someone is unhappy with their hand and wants to immediately rest ten hours to draw a new one, they have to convince everyone to do so).

There could be a few merits related to this initiative scheme, like Hidden Ace, where the player can declare one card is an Ace regardless of face value per session.

[OgreBattle]

Both the bullet that killed Wild Bill Hickok and the one that killed one of the Earps went through them and injured bystanders, though don't know how you'd put that sort of thing in a game.

Some kinda fumble/critical/fate mechanic. Like if you've used your last Fate point up for the killer shot the GM rolls on a "lol" table.

[JigokuBosatsu]

We need more "lol tables". I mean, if you're gonna have tables, they should at least shit out humorous results.