RE: [DL] combat system

["Phalen, Pat" <Pat.Phalen@infores.com>]

Allan makes some good points.  The *best* is to drive down through the cards
as he suggests.  Another thing I do is INSIST that players roll *all* their
dice at once.  Nothing slows down combat more than some wanker who rolls a
single d10 5 times for a 5d10 roll!  I even make players roll the hit
location die at the same time they roll to hit...

Patrick

-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Seyberth [mailto:darious@darious.com]
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2001 1:01 AM
To: deadlands@gamerz.net
Subject: Re: [DL] combat system


At 10:45 PM 5/18/2001 -0400, you wrote:
 >for some reason the cards and the rerolling of aces just caused a single
 >battle to drag on for an hour

Hmmmm.

There's not much to be done with the rolling of aces except that folks get 
faster with practise.  One thing I like to do is to keep track of the 
highest roll ever made.  I give a blue chip to the first person to break a 
fifty, and each time the high roll is beat after that.  It gives a meaning 
to some of those times when a player has gotten far higher than he needs - 
he can keep rolling to beat the max.
As for the aces you roll - after a couple of aces - stop.   No matter what 
a player is gonig to be hurting. Well - if you need to bleed off a LOT of 
chips, keep rolling the damage.  :)

Another trick I like to do to keep the rolling down is to pre-roll the 
first three rounds of initiatives for the bad guys and write the numbers 
down.  When their turn comes up all I do is apply the modifiers and draw 
the proper number of cards.

As for the cards - the slowest part for me was the countdown across the 
whole Ace-Duece range.  So I started counting off at a staccato pace.  Aces 
go!  KingQueenJacks. go!  You've got a king and you've got a jack?  King 
go!  What do you do?  Roll to hit.  (while he's rolling) Jack - what do you 
want to do?. . .
It's pretty effective psychologically - as it creates a sense of urgency 
that should exist in combat.
If you call a number and a player biffs calling out AND irrevocable things 
have happened in the combat, don't rewind - it's the player's 
responsibility to act when you call.

Just be fair about keeping the pace.  If you skip over a player's number or 
the mistake is otherwise yours, do a full rewind back to the player's 
action or somehow make certain that your mistake isn't a penalty for the 
player.  If you have a player that can't gear up to that speed don't force 
it - just use the time to plan what you are thinking of doing with your
guys.

But. generally it all gets faster with practise.



-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com
Deadlands fan site - http://www.darious.com/

Thundrous echoes of deep thoughts without form.


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