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Flexible Powers/Combat Mechanics 2016-11-28 18:41:49 Post No. 50437325
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Flexible Powers/Combat Mechanics 2016-11-28 18:41:49 Post No. 50437325
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There's a certain combat thing I want to encourage or just make possible in a campaign. A thing I see a lot in shonen anime is where characters have maybe one specific power, often with strict rules in place on it, but it makes the fights interesting because they have to be creative and figure out and push the limitations of their own powers and that their opponents. And it makes the audience think about the possibilities too and try to think ahead, like with a mystery story. And I'd love to have fights like that instead of every fight I've ever had in an RPG just being something you could do in a miniatures war game. And I think that probably would tap well into the human and interactive elements of an RPG.
How do I do that? Do I reward bonuses to rolls whenever the characters do something clever? And are there system that scaling in mind? Maybe something like how Simple D6 uses it's skills and qualities? I guess another way is basically let players have a ton of powers in a more complex system, just with them all under the same theme. But I'm afraid that mechanical approach might be against the whole point of the intent. Systems are important, but I think it might be a very GMing related thing too? But yeah, I'm lost and any experience some of you have on this would be nice to hear about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owt6LiM40nk
Basically, how do I make a fight like this (yes, I'm not gonna say that anime is good, but I think this particular fight is a good example of what I'm talking about) happen in my RPG campaign?
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I'd say FATE's aspect invokes have the most "mindgamey anime fight" feel I've ever seen in an RPG. I haven't really looked into it if it has any supplements to support that though.
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>>50437325
Well, you can modify abilities in GURPS with an accessibility modifier that covers whatever weird situation the plot requires. Then simply have the player try to arrange that situation in narrative.
Fred Saberhagen's Books of Swords are a good example of this. The twelve Swords of power are overwhelmingly potent... but all have very specific powers and pretty stringent limitations on their use. So Townsaver basically makes you an invincible killing machine... but only when you're defending unarmed people in a fixed location of some kind. And the sword doesn't keep you from being hurt, it just keeps the wounds you take from having any effect until the fight is over. Also you're rooted to the earth while it's active.
Shieldbreaker gives you an invincible defense against magic and weapons attacks, and will explosively autosunder any weapon used against it (and often also kill the weapon's wielder). But it will only do that on a parry or block, ie when someone attacks you first. If you try to hurt an armed opponent who isn't attacking you at that moment, then you have to try your own skill. And if the opponent is unarmed, the weapon passes harmlessly through him (and he's magically vulnerable to grapples even from much weaker enemies if they're unarmed).
So those kinds of very specific, very situational powers lend themselves to encounters where you can improvise away from the conventional game mechanics to set up the situation you need. If you can only breathe fire when coming to the defense of virgin redheaded maidens, then you'll need to keep one on hand and somehow get her to encourage the enemy to threaten her rather than you.
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>>50438550
GURPS also has rules for extra effort, godlike extra effort, "stunting" powers outside their normally rigid boundaries (I defocus my lethal laser beam attack to blind everyone in the room instead!), and "ultrapowers" which take a normal power far past it's intended use (super flight to fly around the earth so fast that it goes back in time? Blowing up a planet to save a friend? Ripping an entire city out of the ground using TK?) at potentially great cost of failure.
Lots of other stuff too but these are what I can think of off the top of my head.
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>>50437325
I think Fate is your best bet, really anything that lets you bullshit the DM
Half of those anime fights end because it's revealed that during the fight the character in question was also secretly setting up an elaborate trap, if you try to play through all the shit Shikamaru does in that fight against Temari it would take an hour
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>>50437777
>first post gets quads
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