Combat Damage (in post hack-and-slash games) – To roll or not to roll?
Does rolling damage separately make combat more enjoyable?
Or just more complicated/number crunchy?
It’s common in RPGs for attacks to have separate hit and damage rolls: you roll to see if you hit; if you hit, you roll again to determine how much damage you do.
Separate damage rolls certainly prolong the tension of combat – a good hit roll is not enough, you still need to get a decent damage roll.
Separate damage rolls also affect the randomness of combat; how much depends on the settings in the game:
* High damage variability vs total HP = quicker, more random combat outcomes
* Low damage value, low variability vs total HP = slower, more predictable combats
* High damage value, low variability vs total HP = shorter, more lethal combats
In addition, separate hit and damage rolls create a [loose] distinction between combat skill (to hit) and combat power (damage). Once again, the settings determine the relative importance of skill vs power.
Rolling separately for damage is also the default many experienced RPG’ers expect for combat. (This reflects the role of D&D and the ‘beat them into submission’ style of combat it models.)
However, PbtA games do not need damage to be rolled separately, as the effects of combat can all be handled as well narratively, if not better, using PbtA’s move (10+ success; 7-9 complication; 6- fail) structure.
For games like DW, the choice to roll damage separately seems obvious, given its emphasis on medieval fantasy combat and the expectations for this established by D&D.
But what about PbtA hacks that feature combat that’s not the hack-and-slash of medieval fantasy?
Which works better for them?
– Following the default or rolling HP danger separately?
– Handling combat damage using moves?
– Or something else?
I think in general one roll is better, but what that roll resolves or if you actually need more rolls really depends on what you’re trying to do with the hack.
Like a lot of things in RPGs, the real answer is “it depends on what you’re going for,” but personally, I’m increasingly of the opinion that rolling for damage is an extra step that adds a little extra time to every single attack without adding much to the game.
A tiny aside: I was an EMT in college. The first few years of Vincent’s and my gaming together, damage went like this:
V: Mitch, you’re aiming for the upper body, yeah? Roll for it….ok, you hit square on target. Meg, what happens when someone gets hit in the chest with a crowbar?
M: Curve end or straight end, Mitch?
Mitch: Curve.
M: (Description of possible punctured lung, flail chest, broken ribs, internal bleeding, etc…)
So one roll with called shots. Yep. Keep it simple in the mechanics, but let it get messy in the fiction.
Man, do I have thoughts on this. I’ve tinkered with so many damage systems, I can’t even.
First off: I generally agree with Ewen Cluney and Abram Bussiere that it depends on what you’re trying to do with your game.
So, I think rather than asking which approach is “better,” you want to consider what does each approach bring to your game? It’s way more complicated than you might think. The decision is also way more important than I think most folks realize. Harm economies are so close to the core of the game that I’ve stopped letting myself do much design on any given hack/game until I’ve decided on what that’s going to look like.
Anyhow, here are my thoughts on what each element brings:
HP Damage (ala DW or core AW) gives you:
– plot armor
– some mathematical reliability (“I’ve got 2 armor and he does 3 harm… worse case I’ll take 2 harm from this, and I can live with that.”)
– pacing mechanic (e.g. tension grows as HP are diminished)
– numerical design space (e.g. differentiating weapons by their harm, moves that give +1 harm or -1d4 damage)
– abstraction, where you don’t really track specific injuries and often ignore them (at least up to a point)
– potential to munchkin the numbers (e.g. DW fighter + scent of blood + merciless + multiclass [viper strike] + etc. = one hit, one kill)
– generally, low handling time (“take 4 damage from a club to the head, you still up?” “yup”)
– GM (somewhat) relieved of the burden of deciding just how bad an injury is
– tendency to hand-wave recovery (“you get a good night’s sleep, regain half your hit points”)
Narrative Damage (ala Uncharted Worlds, Sagas of the Icelanders, arguably Urban Shadows) gives you:
– less certainty of outcomes (“do I really want to risk taking a blow from this dude’s ax?”)
– more judgment calls on what the effects of any given harm/damage would be
– more negotiating of outcomes with the table (“would an ax chop like that in the arm actually cut it off?” “I doubt it, but I think it’d leave a huge gash, lots of blood, maybe a cut tendon” “oh, sure, that makes sense; also, ouch”)
– more specific consequences for harm (“how do you do that with a broken leg?”)
– more long-lasting consequences for harm (e.g. if we’ve established that the ax cut your tendon, that’s not going to heal itself overnight)
– greater fear of actual harm/injuries
Attack & Damage in One Roll (ala AW:Dark Ages, core AW vs. NPCs, Monster of the Weak, Monsterhearts) gives you:
– lower handling time
– more predictability (thus safety)
– potential to ignore threats because you know you can’t be harmed
– sometimes “move bloat” (where the “fight” move has too many options/possible outcomes to choose from)
Separate Attack & Damage Rolls (ala DW, AW vs. PCs, Saga of the Icelanders) gives you:
– less predictability (more surprises)
– more design space (distinction between “accuracy” and “power”)
– more tension (because the uncertainty & resolution is drawn out more)
– more danger (because more rolls = more chances for bad)
But here’s the thing… it’s so much more complex than just these 4 elements. You’ve also go to take into consideration:
– Will harm work differently for PCs vs NPCs? Do both PCs and NPCs roll? Or just PCs?
– How does armor play into it, if at all?
– Do want to the harm/damage rules to scale with group battles (ala AW) or remain at the individual combatant level (ala DW)?
– Do you want size/scale to play into it (knife vs. elephant, club vs. sprite, etc.)?
– What’s the primary determinant of damage? The wielder (DW)? The weapon (AW)? Something else?
– How do subordinate factors affect damage, if at all?
– How does being a “tough” character play into this, if at all? What about a “wimpy” one?
– How will recovery work?
– Who’s in control of narrating/determining harm? The player who’s character inflicts it? Receives it? The GM always? Determined by the attack moves?
– What, if any, options do PCs/NPCs have to lessen/mitigate harm? (E.g. can I take less harm if I lose my footing/drop something/take a condition?) Who chooses (GM? attacking player? defending player?)
All those elements have to balance into what you want out of your game.
If I’m doing a Film Noir game where a .22 can you leave you bleeding to death in an alley like a chump, where the threat of real violence is constantly there and scary as hell, I’ll go with narrative damage + rolls to determine just how bad it is, no armor to speak of, and no rules for recovery (go to the hospital, chump).
If I want a player-vs-player gaiju fighting game, I’ll take HPs, attack & damage resolved in one move with modifiers for armor, size differences, weapons used, etc.
If I want a standard AW setup (notable PCs against a sea of troubles, with some exciting violence), I’ll go with some sort of HP, a randomizer separate from the attack roll (so that NPCs can roll damage against PCs using more-or-less the same scale), armor, a way for players to mitigate HP loss by taking tactical setbacks or conditions, and if I can swing it, something that scales nicely to group battles and or fighting XL foes. In case you’re interested (and still reading), my Heartbreaker hack comes pretty close to what I want for this: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0lFq3ECDQDQdkVSYzYyeFY1OEU
I’ve used both hit points and narrative damage in a variety of contexts. I can’t think of a single time when hit points added to the fiction, but I can think of a few instances where they got in the way by undercutting what should have been very cool character moments.
Actual example: villain had impaled his scythe through a character’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground. Character decides to go all out, braces himself against the ground and pushes himself up, severing his arm completely to get a desperate hit in while he’s inside the villain’s guard. Aaaaand, he rolls like three damage, accomplishing nothing. Except, of course, for the narrative effect of having his arm severed. Which is much cooler and more memorable than the accompanying loss of hit points, no?
Hit points are basically a way for the game mechanics to say no to the fiction. I think narrative games like PBTA can do better.
Edit: that said, I don’t actually mind hp damage. It’s an easy way to modulate combat pacing, and can create some real out of character tension as you watch your hit points tick down. I just think narrative damage is a little more interesting and a lot more memorable.
I find that separate hit/roll procedure tend to usher the players out of the fiction. Which might be a problem or not, depending on the game, but is not what I like. Sure, the “to hit” roll gives an emotional beat. Then the “damage” roll gives another one. So you gain an emotional beat over the one-roll procedure. However, between the two rolls, there usually is only a gaming void. You have no choice to make, nothing to narrate properly. You’re out of the fiction, getting only the mechanic’s emotional beat, waiting for the next one. It might be occasionally be a good suspense, but repetition makes it loose its edge.
Gherhartd Sildoenfein This makes me think to-hit and then a damage roll would work well in a game where violence is important and potentially deadly, but relatively infrequent.
Particularly if there’s description of the surroundings, or the reactions to other characters present from the violence, before seeing the full result.
I think that the important distinction which having separate hit and damage roles is the ‘ogre’ effect – any situation really where there is a low probability of hitting (or being hit) but awful consequences from it. In a non-fantasy example you would probably find it harder to whack someone with a 50lb chest, but if you did, they would stay whacked. So do you gamble on picking up the chest, or do you take the simpler option of jabbing away with your fists?
Now, you could handle that in PbtA terms by having a 7-9 result being worse for you and a 10+ better if you are using a large heavy object (an idea which I quite like). However it is probably one of the best cases for distinguishing between rolls to hit and rolls to hurt.
My Cowboy World hack works like this at the moment:
When you take harm, roll + body + modifier
Modifiers: If harm is caused by…
-an explosion or a shotgun, take +0
-a gun or a rifle, take +1
-unarmed brawling, take +1
– a blade or native arrow, take + 2
Types of harm:
Lethal harm: Firearms, blades, arrows, falling off a cliff.
Non lethal harm: unarmed brawling, being hit with a chair, falling off a horse.
On 10+, the harm is a scratch or a bruise. You cannot act for a moment and may fumble what you are doing.
On 7-9, you are wounded (describe how) and cannot act for a moment. Take -1 to all Body rolls untill it is healed.
Non lethal harm heals after a short rest (less than an hour)
Lethal harm heals in a few days.
On 6- you are incapacitated.
Non lethal harm heals after a long rest (a few hours)
Lethal harm: You are mortally wounded and will die. The GM will decide when.
Because -1 to body rolls stack, wounded characters are less able to do physical things and are easier to take out.
Mortal wounds may be healed with the healing move.
The lethality of the game is easily adjusted by adjusting the weapon modifiers up or down.
In the playtests so far it really works well. It gets rid of hit points and yet wounds have a serious mechanical effect on the fiction because of -1 to body rolls.
And finally it produces interesting fiction!
Alex White you can always have independent mechanisms for damage that happen at the same time (like all dice together as long as they are differentiable, or like reading dice differently, eg count the number of dice over 3 to get successes to hit, count the number of odd dice to get damage).
I’m personally a big fan of the damage as handled in core AW or Monster Hearts were the damage itself is predictable and though the moves allow for additional damage, each point of which is a very big deal.
To put it in math terms:
For some measurements the difference between a 1 and a 6 on a d6 is significant. For some measurements, the difference is not.
If you’re playing a game where the style and tone needs slow attrition of the characters health along with periodic gigantic losses (a la DND) then HP and random damage might be the way to go (or at least having more damage effects built into the moves).
If you’re playing a game that’s more tv/novel level where all you need to know really is how close to death the character is then 4 health boxes and the ability to sometimes do +1 damage are enough to devastate opponents.
One possibility would be to create a damaging move where different weapons might have set damage values while others have random ranges or bonus effects.
“When dealing damage using the whip, it does x damage or does y damage and has a special effect” for example.
This discussion seems to be leading to the mix of damage dice vs narrative that resulted in the complex way health boxes work in World of Darkness.
I’m pretty sure that the correct answer is “It depends on the game you are wanting to make”.
In general though, I’d say that HP damage is better for games where doing damage and taking damage are expected on a regular basis and that narrative damage is better when damage happens far less often. Jotting down notes each time you are hit can get cumbersome when compared to noting down HP lost. Narrative damage also can be highly subjective and that subjectivity can lead to confusion.
Rolling damage is probably the better choice if you are doing a lot of damage in the game, but it isn’t as vital a design point as Narrative vs HP. If you aren’t rolling damage, the consistent damage values can rob each application of damage of some of its meaning. The more often players are applying damage, the more this is a factor. Rolling damage gives each hit a mechanical variability that can easily work with the fiction in making each hit seem different and unique.
On the flip side, ditching the dice roll has an elegance that appeals to the designer. However, a great many players love rolling dice, and want to do so as much as possible. On the flipside, some people stumble over every roll, and eliminating those bits of the game where they fumble around for dice and roll can streamline things. .
As a side note, I have personally found that Narrative damage can easily fall into a trap of ‘realistic’ effects. I suppose I am sensitive to this because for the longest time I used to collect survival stories. Stories of people fighting off attackers after having been shot in the head, walking away from falls of hundreds or even thousands of feet, etc.
In AW you can take a 9-mil in the face and walk away. Every time.
Wynand Louw http://cdn.meme.am/instances/250×250/63044475.jpg
James Etheridge
I’m sure it is a feature. It makes combat predictable, which is good. I just thought I would point it out… 🙂
Against a NPC, sure.
Against a gunlugger or battlebabe? 9mm (2 harm) + merciless (+1 harm) + terrible harm option (+1 harm) + 10+ on the harm roll and MC chooses +1 harm = 5 harm = not walking away from that crap.
Jeremy Strandberg The takeaway here is that it is unwise to anger a gunlugger, a battlebabe, and/or the MC.
Jeremy Strandberg I would have to disagree. HP can definitely inform the fiction. You roll to hit, then you roll your damage. These shouldn’t be handled and described as different actions. Just like any other action in the game, The player rolls for level of sucess, then they pick the conditions of their success, one of which is rolling damage. Then after that, things get described.
In reality, and most fiction, every hit isn’t the same. Some will be weak and ineffective, and others will be devastating. With static damage every time you ‘hit’ you do the same damage. Every cut of the sword is exactly as devastating as the last one. I’d say that’s more injurious to fiction than randomization. Speed of play and convenience are definitely in favor of static results, but life is amazingly random.
John Alexander… I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with? I don’t think I ever said that HP can’t inform the fiction; I certainly don’t think that.
Also, having the attack & damage resolved in a single roll doesn’t mean every successful attack does the same damage. It just means that any variations from “base” damage have to be generated by the attack roll’s results (see Seize by Force for example).
Wynand Louw actually you can’t. You have been shot in the face. You will be in pain and will need medical attention. It doesn’t bounce away from your skull. You took a bullet to the face.
Jeremy Strandberg “Hit points are basically a way for the game mechanics to say no to the fiction. I think narrative games like PBTA can do better.”
I was disagreeing with that statement. I think HP can be a great way to inform the fiction where you don’t want to bog down on each and every cut, bruise, burn, etc.
Narrative damage can easily be cumbersome. Forcing players and GM to makes notes for each individual injury, then factor each and every one into all resolutions that follow. This can put a lot of weight on the GM’s shoulders and requires a lot of trust from the players. It can easily feel arbitrary and lead to disagreements.
The other way narrative damage can go is where minor wounds are described but not tracked. They become ‘flesh wounds’ things that you rp, but won’t have any impact on success or failure. Only serious injuries are tracked. This was my go-to system for quite some time and fits my preferences well. Obviously I like it, but the downside is it doesn’t handle dropping from a collection of minor injuries well. (Which I am generally okay with, but for some settings it might not be the best fit)
Narrative and HP don’t have to be separate either. I could easily imagine a system that uses HP for most damage, with Narrative damage coming into play for big stuff. A narrative version of Earthdawn’s wound system for instance.
On the subject of Single Roll resolution, I totally agree. A single roll system doesn’t have to translate to standardized damage. That’s the typical result, but totally doesn’t have to be. My personal homebrew is one roll for success and level of success/damage. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer here. It is all about what fits best for your game.
John Alexander Agree with everything you said! That’s James Etheridge’s statement you were disagreeing with, not mine. 🙂
Jeremy Strandberg That’s embarassing on my part Jeremy. Sorry about that. I would like to think it was a slip of the finger…but I did it twice. Time to hang the head in shame.
“Notice that the way these numbers work, a player’s character can take one bullet for free, essentially; the second bullet (or the third, with armor) is the serious one. “
Off course there are some fictional consequences, I never denied that…