Dice text combat rules
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Contents |
Why did I take the time to do this?
After playing this game for a long time I have seen that there is often a problem resolving conflict. There are multiple reasons for this. City of Heros/Villians is a world full of hundreds of people telling the stories of their individual characters. This can be problematic for a few reasons.
1. Not everyone has the details of the story your telling with your character.
2. Even if they do, they might be operating in a different "universe" in their story and therefore their own set of rules. (Example: Some people use WoD to define vampires, some people do not.)
3. Some people literally feel their character is the "main character" in their story and therefore they want to win. This is not compatible with an online game where you play with hundreds of people who also all want to be the main characters of their own story. In comic books when multiple main characters interact it's called a "crossover" and generally the authors of the perspective books come to a consensus as to what will happen. They do this while keeping respect in mind for both characters. And more importantly for the perception of both characters. If say Batman and Wolverine were in a crossover, great care would be taken to make sure that both characters got in their licks so to speak, but neither of them would be ruined in the eyes of the fans. If Batman were to just pimp slap Wolverine it would ruin Wolverine's image. The same would be true if it were the other way around. When text fighting, you need to keep this very much in mind. That way it can be a fun and rewarding situation for both you and your opponent.
4. Some people take it too personally. And often way too seriously. This is only made worse if people start OOC getting mad at each other and worse still if they start trash talking each other OOC. The more you do this the less the other person will be willing to take a loss from you. Try to consider player conflict as a way to further a story. If you initiate a conflict with a character and they go along with it, you are sharing their character with them. Be respectful.
5. Some people have characters that are slotted out to the hilt with PVP IO's. Some people simply do not. Also, some people's character classes are critically flawed in ways that do not fit the story. Take a Mace/Shield Brute, this character is totally gimped in PVP and no amount of IO's will ever fix that. This does not and should not mean that every character that uses shield and mace should lose every encounter. Or in some cases even many encounters. If we really want the arena to be the end all be all then for some reason every character in the world will have a gang of whatever following him around. (Mastermind, or whatever class NCsoft has broken for the moment). And in some cases this creates gaping power gaps that should not exist. Violet Sanders one of my main characters for example crushes Labal in the arena. She should not be able to do that. She should be able to hold her own, but I would never resolve a conflict with Labal in the arena because it would be stupid.
Rules overview
So after playing years of various dice gaming systems I have been considering this for a long time. First of all for those of you who are not familiar, there is an emote in City of Heros/Villians that allows you to roll a six sided dice. It's /e dice or /e rolldice and they cause your character to animate rolling a dice, generating a random number from 1 to 6 that is visible to everyone around the character. The system I am designing is to try and make this stuff go as quick as possible. As text fights tend to go for a long time. Particularly if there are a lot of people involved. So, for this reason I wrap Initiative, attack rolls, and defense rolls all into a single dice roll. Note: If you roll a tie, re-roll. This works like this:
Step one:
After agreeing on how many hit points the characters will have to determine the outcome of the fight, (Best of 5, best of 10, etc.) both characters announce their intentions. Both characters roll dice. Compare the number, highest number wins and whatever they were attempting succeeds. IMPORTANT NOTE: Now, particularly early on in a fight a player should not take actions that would one-shot their opponent. Or if you do, don't expect the other person to take it. If your post says "I grab your head intent on ripping it off" the other player is obviously not in any way obligated to take that. You have to find a creative way to actually affect the other character within reason. For example, lets say your opponent is immune to lightning and that is all you have, well then it would be prudent to perhaps blast a heavy object above them and drop it on them.
Step two:
The player struck describes what has happened to their character. Both players should keep an ongoing count of who has won the most rounds so far, as the first character to lose more interactions loses the fight. IMPORTANT NOTE: When struck, take whatever kind of damage is appropriate to your character. As we are doing this to be fair it is important that you try to help your opponent by finding a way to take that damage.
Step three:
Repeat step one. Keep track of the "damage" your character has taken. The first opponent who takes the agreed upon number of losses loses the fight. Your character should never "die" unless you really want them to. If your the winner, be gracious and maybe even find a way to "spare" the other character. If your the loser, find a way for your character to leave the scene or be incapacitated for the rest of the scene.
Now, lets say that your character wins a round, but the attack you had in mind by no knowledge of your own could not feasibly harm your opponent. The way such an exchange should end, is your character inflicts no damage that round, but gets more and more insight into how to harm their opponent. You take no damage from your opponent but inflict none-yet. Every time you win a round this way, you store up that win until your character can find a way to exploit their opponent's weaknesses. When you finally do figure this out, your attack will inflict one damage on them, and ONE bonus damage.
Example of this system in action
Father David and Simi'Kraz meet up in the D and decide they need to fight it out. Forgoing the Arena as David is not slotted, they decide to have a conflict using this system. The two combatants agree to fight to the best of 5 rounds.
Round 1: Father David declares that he is going to fire his rifle at Simi'Kraz, Simi'Kraz decides to project fire at David. David rolls a 5. Simi'Kraz rolls a 3. David's rifle strikes Simi'Kraz. However regular ammunition has little to no effect on Simi'Kraz. As David rolled higher, Simi'Kraz misses with her attack, David describes how he dodged or otherwise avoided the attack. (Note: Simi'Kraz would offer a suggestion to David as to what might work better, of drop a clue basically. Probably with an OOC PM. The idea is the character rolled well so therefore should be awarded some insight. Our characters are exceptional and are likely smarter then we are.)
Round 2: The score stands with David 1, Simi'Kraz 0. However, Simi'Kraz has not taken any damage yet. This means when David finally figures out how to hurt her, he will inflict 2 damage instead of 1. Both combatants declare their intentions. David will fire bullets that are blessed with holy water at Simi'Kraz. Simi'Kraz again tries to fry David with another fire attack. This time Simi'Kraz rolls 6, and David rolls a 1. David describes the damage he has taken as a burn that singes some of his armor and flesh. Simi'Kraz dodges out of the way of David's attack by turning to ash and avoiding the bullets.
Round 3: The score now stands with David 1, and Simi'Kraz 1. David however still has a stored extra point of damage for when he finally figures out how to hurt Simi'Kraz. David tries his holy bullets again, and Simi'Kraz takes a swipe at David with her sword. This time David rolls a 5, and Simi'Kraz rolls a one. David's bullets find their mark, and Simi'Kraz takes 2 points of damage. One point for that attack, and an extra point that was stored to represent that David is now more prepared. Simi'Kraz describes the wound inflicted by David's bullets.
Resolution: The fight continues until one of the opponents has taken the agreed upon 5 points of damage. If David was the first to take 5 points of damage, he is in some way incapacitated or taken out of the fight. Perhaps he is mortally wounded and touches a button on a device on his wrist to be tele-ported home. If Simi'Kraz is the first to take 5 points of damage, then perhaps she disperses and her essence heads back to Abyss to regenerate. In either case, the character in question is removed from the current scene for a reasonable amount of time. (Suggestion, at least thirty minutes, to an hour.) Lets say that a scene ends with a character having stored up extra points that they never get to use. Returning to our example:
David has successfully beaten Simi'Kraz's rolls enough to have built up 3 extra points of damage. However David has no luck rolling higher then Simi'Kraz after he figures out a solution. The scene ends with Simi'Kraz winning, however now David is more prepared to fight Simi'Kraz. He heads home to heal up, and devises a new form of bullet that utilizes cold damage. The next time they fight, David prepares a well aimed shot at the outset of the encounter, and strikes Simi'Kraz with it after a successful roll. David is now has a good advantage over Simi'Kraz in this engagement.
Multiple Opponents
If multiple people are involved in a conflict, I strongly advise you break it up into smaller groups and resolve it that way. If you are one character being jumped by a lot of people, you obviously will be at a disadvantage. The way I suggest to resolve this is that you make a roll against all of the rolls of your opponents. Your one roll is compared to the rolls of all of your opponents. (Alternatively, if your opponents agree you can roll against them each individually. If you do this however it will take a lot longer.) If one of your attacks would affect multiple opponents at once, like a blast wave, wide melee attack, rapid fire firearms etc. then you and your opponents may either agree to have your one roll be the roll they all must dodge/evade/resist or once again roll individually for each opponent. Once again remember this will slow things down.
If your part of a gang jumping on someone, give them a break. Not everyone has a large group of people to run with, so in the spirit of being fair, keep this in mind.
Rules for pets
If you are a mastermind or other character with pets, to avoid everyone pulling their hair out, assume all your pets are attacking one target at a time. In the multiple opponent situation described above you can obviously explain area attacks far more easily. Defensively you can choose to take one of your pets out when you take damage. But regardless the fight only lasts until you have lost the agreed upon amount of dice rolls.
Optional Rules for level differences
I know this is a somewhat controversial issue with many. Meaning the issue that some people do not like that a level 1 toon can beat up a level 50. If this is something that you would like to take into account, you can use these proposed modifications.
Option 1
Dice Roll modifier: For every 20 levels a character is higher then his opponent, that character gains a +1 to his dice rolls. (Rounded down). So if a level 10 character is fighting a level 50 character the level 50 will get a +2 on his/her dice rolls when attacking the lower level character.
Option 2
Hit point modifer: For every 10 levels a character is higher then their opponent (rounded down), they get a bonus of 1 hit point during the conflict. (This only works really in one on one without it getting too nuts)
Closing thoughts
This is a work in progress, so if snags come up or you have questions or ideas please don't hesitate to contact me. My global is @Templar David and my email is VTV@V-RADIO.org.
Basically we have to remember that all of our characters have some reason or another to be powerful. Sportsmanship is really important in this sort of thing. I know a lot of us don't like each other OOC, but if we are to have an RP community that has conflicts for the good of the whole community we have to come together as Role-players and have a system that we are comfortable with where there is no one to "blame" but the dice. If you show a good attitude in conflict, you can expect to have that repaid in kind. Treat other role-players how you would have them treat you.
SG/VGs that endorse this system:
NOTE: An SG/VG endorsing this system means that most of it's membership like it and would support using it. It is however totally up to individual members how they want to resolve conflicts. If you are doing fine with the normal text fighting then all power to you. This system is a fallback for people who you don't know well, get along with well OOC, or when the arena is not a fair option. Obviously plot NPC's are not bound to this system. Cupidita Regnum, The Templar Order, 103 Broadshore Drive, The Croc's Nest, The Redwater Syndicate, James's Abode, Black Tie, Shadow Spiders, Clan Di'mir, Weapons Union
