No More Massive Tomes of Rules

[Celebrim]

Just to reiterate: this thread isn't really about numbers of rules. it is about presentation, clarity and conciseness. You cna do chase rules in 100 words. You can even do Luna Rule Futbol in 100 words if you want.

I love clarity and conciseness. I also think that's a very hard challenge. In 3e D&D people seemed to think that writing a new feat was the easiest thing in 3e D&D design because they were short. In fact, because they were short writing a good feat was one of the most challenging things you could do in D&D design, and 3rd party publishers and even WotC wrote a lot of terrible feats.

So let's see it. What would your 100 word chase rules look like. I'm not saying you can't do it; you may be a much better rules smith than me. I'm just saying I doubt I could write a 100 word chase rules for any game system that would in general case be a better approach than handling the scene by fiat or which would really provide clear guidance and useful support to a novice GM.

 

[Maggan]

With your two page supplement as your only guideline, you are going to be going to wikipedia and then doing your best to translate the information you find there into rules hoping that your knowledge of guns is enough that you are making reasonable rules. This process will take you hours of your time.

Well, our play styles are widely different. I'd just look at what's in the rules and approximate the stats from there. The granularity of Call of Cthulhu isn't IMO really suited to having enough meaningful differences between weapons that they warrant 200 pages of rules. A pistol is a pistol and a machine gun is a machine gun that's enough for me. If I wanted more granularity I'd pick up Phoenix Command ... but then my players would head out the door.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, our play styles are widely different. I'd just look at what's in the rules and approximate the stats from there.

Maybe so. I grew up with country boys that meaningfully knew the difference between a .303, a .308, a 30/30, and a 30.06 and ex-soldiers that had a lot of experience with weaponry. And I'm a bit of a history buff that cares a lot about having period appropriate submachine guns and rifles.

But this is what I mean when I say that if you don't get this then it's because rules aren't for you.

The granularity of Call of Cthulhu isn't IMO really suited to having enough meaningful differences between weapons that they warrant 200 pages of rules.

There is an immense amount of ground between the granularity you are comfortable with and the granularity of Pheonix Command. Some of us occupy that territory.

As an aside, the problem with Pheonix Command is mostly that the end result of their long process could almost precisely be simulated by simply using hit points and having weapons that dealt very large amounts of damage over wide ranges. PC rules are badly designed IMO, and they are badly designed in ways that don't add to realism to any degree. A good example of this IMO is the Dwarf Fortress game, which goes so far as to model creatures in layers - skin, flesh, bones - but ultimately produces a combat result that is no more realistic in practice than D&D or Nethack. Combat in Dwarf Fortress in fact often gets really sort of silly. Rather than going through some mathematically elaborate process of play to abstract out all the steps with dubious adherence to realism and try to model things with dubious adherence to physics, just observe what the end results are and come up with a simple random function that covers the end results. You probably won't get your probabilities of likely results any worse than the game system as mathematical model approach and you'll have a much better understanding of what you actually created rather than what you thought you created.

One interesting approach to PC would be to run a computer simulation over thousands of iterations and plot the results, then find a much simpler function that approximated the end results.

 

[Emberashh]

What would your 100 word chase rules look like

To be fair, its 158 but mine would qualify if I really cared to compress it further:

There will come times when it is prudent to flee from a battle, or to chase down your opponents. The Chase Grid utilizes the normal Combat Grid to simply convey the chase, and give you, or your opponents, a goal to achieve whether you are chasing someone or being chased.

How it works is that the fleeing side will always move first beginning in the Rear Support Position (C2), but from there the Initiative passes as per normal Combat, and the goal is to simply reach the opposite side of the Grid, as a group, before your opponents can either take you down or meet you there. If they do, the Chase Grid and everyone's Positions will reset as the Chase continues.

The opposing team simply must do whatever it is they're setting out to do by chasing; whether that happens to be to kill or to capture. Optionally, either side can continue normal Combat at any time.

 

[Maggan]

But this is what I mean when I say that if you don't get this then it's because rules aren't for you.

That's not the case. Without rules there is no game, IMO.

But I don't see any way to meaningfully model the difference between .303, a .308, a 30/30, and a 30.06 in the framework of Call of Cthulhu.

That does not mean, nor does it imply, that rules aren't for me. I am a role-playing gamer after all.

It's more a case that more rules are not more realistic than less rules, they are simply more detailed rules. Trying to model reality within the confines of BRP or even D&D or Phoenix Command is IMO an impossible task.

And as others have said in this thread, less rules can free up players to really get into the role-playing aspect without constantly feeling schackled by the rules.

Different boats for different folks.

 

[Emberashh]

And as others have said in this thread, less rules can free up players to really get into the role-playing aspect without constantly feeling schackled by the rules.

If rules are interfering with roleplay they're bad rules. The number of them is immaterial.

 

[Reynard]

So let's see it. What would your 100 word chase rules look like.

Slightly over 100 words:
Chase Rules

A Chase occurs when one creature or group attempts to catch another creature or group who is trying to avoid being caught. The GM determines the chase distance between the groups, counted in move units. Each round, those involved must use one action to move or forfeit the chase.
Chase Actions:
Close the Gap: opposed Athletics, Riding or Vehicle check (as appropriate) made by the pursuer. Success reduces the chase distance by 1 unit.

Get Away: opposed Athletics, Riding or Vehicle check (as appropriate) made by the pursued. Success increases the chase distance by 1 unit.

When the chase distance is reduced to 0, the chase is over and the encounter resumes.

Note that this assumes the regular rules for movement, initiative and whatever else are followed. It is just a slapdash system meant to show that you don't need tons of convoluted prose to explain a subsystem.

We should not, to, that 100 pages is between 50K and 80K words depending on layout. that is a lot of room to explain a lot of things if you don't bloat your text.

 

[kenada]

What exactly constitutes a “mini-campaign”? As I noted in post #10, I’m aiming for a small core, but we’re around the forty session mark. I have no idea how many more sessions we’ve got before we finish (because that’s up to the players), but if I had to guess, it would be at least as many more. If that’s “mini” now, that’s some wild campaignflation.

⁂​

Regarding the two sets of chase rules, how do you transition into them? Specifically, if we’re in combat, what steps can I take to escape without getting immediately run down by a faster adversary? Does speed matter while escaping? Are there things you can do other than just move to make progress? These are some of the questions that come to mind when running chases.

The way I would handle chases in my homebrew system is to use the conflict resolution process. To get out of combat, there is an end-of-round Escape reaction you can use if no enemies are next you you.

The conflict resolution process works (more or less) as follows:

1. Players state their goal
2. GM determines level, cost to participate
3. GM frames scene, players say what they do
4. Repeat 3 until the conflict is over (goal has been reached, cost can’t be paid, etc)

Level determines progress required on the tracker to get your goal (= level × 4). Progress is made based on the margin¹ of checks made by the PC. If the conflict is not resolved², the GM adds consequences (as foregrounded during the check procedure).

Cost can be an opposing tracker or something else that must be paid regularly by the PCs. For example, if you are trying to escape ravenous monsters that are faster than you, dropping food/rations/hirelings/etc could be the cost to keep them distracted while you escape.

Otherwise, you just play like normal. When the PCs make a check, success must be respected. The GM cannot negate it with consequences or other chicanery. If the PCs establish that a particular passage is safe, you can’s have a surprise guard patrol pop out of nowhere. That is a misplay by the GM.

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[1]: Margin is the different between the check result and the target difficulty. There is a standard difficulty that can be modified by factors such as distance, scale, etc. Those factors have tables indicating how to determine the factors. There can also be temporary factors as consequences and factors based on relative rank.
[2]: I’ll add the caveat that the conflict rules are undergoing change at the moment and won’t be used in a session³ until the Saturday. The current rule for checks uses degrees of success, but I would like to move away from that.
[3]: I post recaps in the commentary thread. I should have Saturday’s up that day or probably no later than Monday. When I try new things, I usually comment on them in the recap.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Chase Rules

As written, there's no way for the fleeing party to escape. Presumably if the chase distance reaches some arbitrary non-zero value the pursuit has failed.

Good way to demonstrate the drawbacks of improvising rules - it's easy to miss things.

 

[Emberashh]

Regarding the two sets of chase rules, how do you transition into them?

Both of the examples provided hinge their low word count on you being familiar with a full system.

For mine, a combatant could theoretically flee at any time, but your Party has to collectively agree to do it together, and in either case they have to reach either C1 or C2. If so, then the Chase Grid kicks in.

Individual enemies can just flee whenever unless they're also a part of a "Party" (think Hordes, but smaller), and these would only utilize the Chase Grid if someone in the party chases after them. While a bit unclean unless you pull out a second Grid (which isn't near as bad as it might be with more conventional mapping systems), it works well.