GM Combat Rules and Playtest Rules Progress
I'm about seven pages into cleaning up the last three weeks of blog posts into a single cohesive document. I'm finally getting into Character Creation, which thankfully hasn't changed much structurally since the initial drafts posted here.
The topic that slowed me down the most as I started to condense my thoughts was the issue of NPCs, especially in combat. My initial concept at the beginning was that player characters and the GM draw hands and attempt to resolve actions simultaneously. If the GM is managing multiple mobs of enemies, as is a common situation in your typical NSR game, then they need a pretty large hand of cards to resolve actions appropriately. This works in His Majesty the Worm because each card-in-hand corresponds to an action that the monster can take on their stat block and the GM draws from a different deck than the players. The fact of the matter is, if each player is working with 4-8 cards per round and the GM needs like 13 cards to simulate the actions of each mob on the field, then you're going to be shuffling the deck every round and it's going to feel sluggish at best.
I consulted Josh about this right as we were kicking around other sorts of game design thoughts that naturally emerge when one thinks about cards. One of the blog posts that has taken up the most space in my noggin so far this year is Storytelling through Violence in Mothership RPG by the Novel Game Master, Shannon R. Shannon posits a reframing of the Mothership combat procedure that I find inspiring (full disclosure: I don't have table time with Mothership yet but I think about it frequently). In particular, I am really struck by the idea that, at the top of the round, the GM explains what will happen if no one intervenes. This feels like fertile design space to reduce the card and cognitive load for the GM during an encounter.
When I described my next thought to Josh and some other pals, they told me about how NPCs in Gubat Banwa essentially follow a script for a turn based on a d6 roll. What if the GM in our game only draws as many cards as actions that will be taken by NPCs this round, and those cards' Suits correspond to a plan of attack for the round? It scratches pretty much every itch I have...although I will probably miss the poker hand minigame as a GM. We'll see if special NPCs still have a more symmetric ruleset for combat.
The following sections are my current writeup for playing combat as a GM. You'll notice that a lot of the language should be cleaned up and standardized compared to our freeform blog posts earlier...hopefully! I make some references to phases of combat so as a reminder, we are using:
- Draw Phase. All players draw up to their Hand Size (HS) into their hand. The Dealer narrates what will happen this round if the players do not intervene.
- Target Phase. If player characters are going to perform a Combination Action, they state their intent and target a foe.
- Replacement Phase. All players select up to Replace/Discard (RD) cards in their hand. These cards are discarded from their hands and that many cards are drawn from the deck.
- Misc. Phase. Players may choose to discard cards from their hand to enable Armor or perform other Miscellaneous Actions.
- Action Phase. Players either Fold or reveal their hands to play a Full Action.
Combat as Dealer
Non-Player Characters (NPCs) have more deterministic scripts/behaviors in violent encounters than Players. During the Draw Phase, the Dealer draws a card for each unique enemy creature type on the field (some NPC stat blocks may say to count them as more than one creature type). NPC creatures have a script of actions that they may take according to the suit of the drawn card assigned to them. The Dealer then narrates to the players what harm will befall them if they do not take action, based on the threat presented by the NPCs, and then plays these cards face down.
The players then proceed through the phases of combat, up through the Action Phase. After the player actions resolve, the Dealer turns their cards face up, assesses the impact of the players’ actions on the NPC scripts, and narrates the consequences. The Dealer cards are left face up during the next combat turn as Community Cards and may be used by any surviving players in performing Full Actions. At the end of the turn, the Community Cards are discarded and replaced with the Dealer’s hand. Each subsequent turn, the Dealer draws one additional card and allocates the additional action(s) to an NPC of their choice.
NPC Creation
The players will likely cross paths with a variety of sapient and non-sapient beings in their adventures. Everything can probably be killed if you hit it hard enough, but this is not just a game about killing monsters in the mountains of North Carolina. When reasonable, NPCs should have interests and goals that can be targeted as effectively as their center of mass.
NPC Stats
NPCs are probably not symmetric with player characters. Player characters’ lives are measured in sessions and campaigns, NPCs’ lives are measured in turns. Rather than Suit scores, their stats are based on Stamina, Patience, and Morale.
Stamina represents the NPC’s physical fortitude. One possible victory condition of a combat is to exhaust the foe’s Stamina through attacks. It is up to the players’ discretion whether attacks are made with lethal intent, but some NPCs may need to be stabilized if their Stamina drops to zero due to a serious wound.
Patience represents the coolheadedness of the NPC during combat. Players may attempt to reason with, persuade, or confuse NPCs with Rhetoric while the NPC still has Patience. After it is exhausted, players may still attempt to berate, frustrate, or demoralize NPCs with Browbeat. Patience is typically reduced by being Attacked, being Browbeaten, or being targeted with Rhetoric that does not satisfy the NPC’s motivations. Patience typically regenerates when an NPC goes a round without being harmed or when an NPC sees a unique demonstration of value. NPC stat blocks should include any unique Patience conditions.
Morale represents the willingness of an enemy to continue to fight. If Morale is exhausted by Rhetoric, the NPC is likely willing to negotiate a surrender. If Morale is exhausted by a Browbeating, the NPC is likely to cower or flee the encounter.
Last Design Thoughts
I feel good about this as a model to go into play test. One of my heuristics going into this writeup was, basically, it sure would be nice to get to a point where NPC stat blocks are more like Cypher or Black Sword Hack; NPCs are assigned a Level and their HP and damage flow naturally from there. I didn't want to fully go down that path, but Stamina, Patience, and Morale feels like reasonable overhead to track if the NPC actions are pre-planned.
The other element is that each turn, the threat ceiling/envelope posed by the NPCs grows. In exchange for this growth, the PCs get access to "Community Cards", which function like the flop, turn, and river in Texas Hold 'Em - thus effectively increasing hand size and therefore shifting the probabilities in favor of players getting higher-ranked hands. I'm excited to see whether this works in play and what directions mechanics may need to be tweaked.
Let me know if this makes sense!