It's the beginning of the week, and that means video blogging! This week, John and Anne talk about combat, the tick system, and how Anne is always right.
Question: Why do some boons require 10-tick actions? Doesn't that seem a bit counterintuitive, since the wheel has 8 ticks?
Question: How do you handle combat in your games (at Hero, Demigod and God level)? While I like the tick and battle wheel system in Scion, I find that combat can become a huge time sink in the session. How do you balance combat for characters who aren't that combat savvy, or whose actions might require them to spend a significant amount of time performing secondary objectives? I'm reaching a point where I'd prefer to cinematize my combats to save time while still illustrating the main points of the encounter while also allowing for my players to shine. How does combat work for you and your group? Perhaps understanding how another Storyteller handles it may shed some light on my own problems.
It's longer than usual, but that's because of a combination of excitement and fights, so we figure it's at least entertaining!
I'm actually the one who asked about the 10-tick. I didn't know your playstyle and that sheet seems a very good idea, especially to keep track of boons that «lasts a number of ticks equal to activation successes»
ReplyDeleteI liked the wheel tough : (
Too bad, your system works better in everyway.
For the other question, I agree with everything said. I've been doing this and my Social powerhouse feels very needed. This is not only true in Scion. When I do get to play instead of STing, I often go social/mental characters and try to «stunt» my way trough battles, trying to be creative to damage foes or support my group.
If STs have to think battles to involve everyone, Players also have to be creative about how they use their abilities and try to influence the tide of the battle. Maybe they bring allies in the fray, convince disgruntled enemy officers to turncoat, or simply distract and support their warriors. Don't let those bullies believe they could survive without you ^^
Our system is really not different from the wheel; it's just a different way of visualizing. Everything follows a progression of ticks, so whether you draw them in a wheel or out as a line is mostly a matter of style and preference. It's just easier to use larger numbers when the wheel isn't involved, but you can always make a larger custom wheel. :)
DeleteThat is a good point - if you've given PCs plenty to do and they just aren't doing it, that's more of a problem on their end (and they might fail at what they're doing because of it). It's always a bit of a balancing act.
The only problem I have with your advice is that it seems to encourage the party to split up. I totally agree that most of those awesome actions can and should be done, but only in the most extreme circumstances should the party be split up.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that depends on the Storyteller and players, and on the capabilities and plots of the individual characters. If the Storyteller isn't good at making sure nobody is spending long stretches sitting around, or the players aren't enjoying the others players' stories, then you definitely want to minimize time apart. But if the characters have skillsets and goals that would be better served by splitting up, it not only makes sense for them to do so in the story, but keeping them together all the time just for the sake of out of game ease would be crippling to them in the game.
DeleteAmy mentioned below that lower-Legend Scions almost always stay together while higher-Legend ones more often split off, and I've found that tends to be true. We didn't see much, if any, splitting before Legend 7 or 8.
....why? Our parties are often split
ReplyDeleteBecause when the party is split, people who are not in the active scene are just waiting for their turn. If you absolutely must split the party, you should probably take turns asking each player what he is doing so nobody has to be left out for more than 5-10 minutes.
ReplyDeleteYou say that as if its a very bad thing. Isn't that always happening anyway? Also rarely splitting up the party is just insanely unrealistic for a long term campaign.
DeleteIn John's games, when we play characters of lower legend, we tend to stick together as a party. But as our legend increases and we have more individual responsibilities to forces outside of our band (our allies, pantheons, and cults) we split up more and more. At that point, working together to achieve common goals is actually hindered by remaining joined at the hip. This especially becomes true when every god needs you to do something for them Right This Very Minute. It's silly for Sverrir and Folkvardr to drag Vala along to beat down some frost giants when she could be working on negotiating with Hel, and vice versa.
DeleteI did enjoy the Titans! I cannot wait to include them. Cronos makes such a better big bad than Aten did.
ReplyDeleteAlso, our characters have NEVER gotten past Legend 3, and JSR has a very 'Legend 4 is the minimum we will ever write for' attitude, so I'm always stuck trying to figure stuff out on my own as to what kind of antagonists/plots I should use based on the content. :(
I am definitely looking forward to the Storytelling classes and you can count me in.
We currently have a legend 3-4 game that started at legend 2! :)
DeleteAlso I was going to make a comment but seemed to completely forget - we used to use the New (Current? It's not really 'New' anymore) World of Darkness system of just 'everybody takes a turn' because the tick system confused the crap out of us at first, until one of our players and one time ST came up with a really clever idea to use a chessboard. So what we do is we make every character a different chesspiece (white) and the antagonists black, and each square on the chessboard equals one tick. When you reach the end, you start back at the beginning. It's not too far a system from yours, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI love it. Sounds a little fiddly still with the moving of pieces, but I LOVE the ingenuity of it. It is spawning chessboard type combat ideas.
DeleteQuestion asker #2 here, thanks for the great discussion!
ReplyDeleteAlas, all I have to work with is a 4-hour time slot once per week due to restrictions in my players' schedules. This means time is at a premium and combat often feels like a necessary evil rather than a fun break.
At the moment the group is made up of 4 characters; only one of which is Physical/combat oriented. I like your suggestions about how to involve the less battle-minded characters in the combat.
As much as I love the stunting system, I find that it, too, can slow down combat significantly when every tick each player is stunting their attack or their DV. Would you suggest limiting this at all, or would that cut too much creativity out of the mix?
I was guessing that the question asker might be working with a 4 hour type time slot. That can get REALLY tricky. I completely feel for you, and that situation must suck. The first and most importance thing to do is make sure you arent wasting any time. Our group usually has 30 minutes of chitter chatter at the beginning of game...make sure those kinds of things arent slipping in, if you only have 4 hours, make sure its game time the whole time.
DeleteOnly one physical out of 4 seems normal, but that person should get something to do. Id suggest maybe only a combat every other game instead of every game? Although generally, just write them into your story as necessary, but remember that he'll need some limelight just like everyone else. As long as he gets 25% of the spot light(ie time) over the course of the story, then you probably have enough combats.
Stunting is integral. And the social and mental pcs are stunting too right? Cant not let the combat people stunt. I find that 1 social stunt usually takes 5x as long as all the stunts a combat person does over the course of an entire combat. So....I think taking them out would be folly. However, you can make sure that someone has their stunt ready as soon as its their turn or you skip over them. Or if people arent ready exactly on their tick then it moves to the next tick, they can still go, but the combat is happening around them(unless they have tons of wits and you think ithat they werent given sufficient time to plan that their wits would have allowed).
This is great feedback, thanks again. My players are generally very good about acting promptly when it's their turn to do so in the heat of combat (even the non-physicals). Our resident mental-primary Pesedjet has become enamored with Speak Hu-ing all kinds of shenanigans in combat, from spreading burning oil across the ground to Overt Ordering an enemy soldier's grenade to explode at his hip.
DeleteThe physical primary (daughter of Odin) is actually a newcomer to roleplaying in general, and we thought that a physical character would be an easy introduction to the whole concept. She's still fairly shy and testing the waters with how she's comfortable contributing to the story, but she definitely gets her spotlight during our combats.
Follow up question: How does one deal with a primary fighter going after the not-so-big baddies that we meant for the tertiary combat character?
ReplyDeleteI know we've had it pop up but I'm not sure what to do when that eventually happens in the game I'm going to be running.
I totally meant to answer that in the vlog!
DeleteYou make it so the big monster they're supposed to fight is gonna murder someone(literally) if they arent dealing with it. Also rolling all courage type virtues against not fighting the larger challenge.
Hey guys! I realize this post is old so here's hoping you still get notified about comments somehow. I love your non-wheel Tick system and would like to bring it into my game, but something wasn't very clear to me about it.
ReplyDeleteDo you still use the "no matter how low you roll the latest you can go is tick 6" rule using the tick-list or is that out of the picture? When I brought the idea to my table we had split opinions about it, me and a friend thought it should because it makes it worth it for those who spent their XP in Epic Wits and some others thought it didn't make sense for them to take so many actions before if they didn't have Epic Dexterity to move superfast. I'd love to hear your take on the whole thing!
Hey, there! I'm sorry we missed this for so long! John's got your version sent in to the question box in his queue to answer in a post, since it seems like something a lot of people might need clarification for.
DeleteQuick but not necessarily thorough answers because I'm not the mechanics side of this operation: yes, everyone ends up in tick 6 as the latest they can go. People with crazy Wits who are miles ahead of everyone else on rolls will get multiple actions before their friends act, but those actions can't be physical - so they can turn on five knacks, blow a few boons, aim, send out distress calls, or whatever, but they can't just go attack a bunch before the combat starts, because that would be broken (even if they did have sufficient physical speed to match their Wits).
The only exception: if you botch your Join Battle roll, you go on tick 10. You don't really know what's happening and are that guy who's sort of looking around in slow motion and starting to mouth, "Huh?" while everyone else is leaping into action.
I hope that helps. :)
Thanks! This clears it up a bit, although that still leaves the problem of everyone who didn't invest in Epic Wits ending all bunched up on a single tick, and with so many boons and knacks being 5-tick actions it's a vicious cycle that's often pretty hard to break in the combat (and makes it a bit frustrating if it goes on and on every time).
DeleteI'm happy to wait for the post version to see the full breakdown, but I'd like to see added (if possible) how do you guys deal with that? Or if you don't, do you have any suggestions to make combat less stagnant after a few rounds of "ok so everyone goes together... again".
Thanks a lot to both of you for your time and keep doing the awesome things you do!