Fights, Damage, and Cinematography

So I'm cleaning up Unicorn--it is a decade old system at this point (gah!! I'm old!!), and fixing what I want to fix.

One of the big things is damage. Unicorn was a pretty simple hit point system, with an added "Critical Hit" system that I really liked, but not the Hit Point side. I mean, it worked, but...man, Hit Points.  Hit Points are always a little wonky in general--I never know what they represent exactly other than "Hit Points", and they tend to make my fight feel more like a math exam than a cinematic fight. The thing is--I like me some cinematic fightin'.



Now, this has led me to a few days of really over thinking damage in general, and what I'd want in a game. And I realized that for me, it's not killing your target, but instead maneuvering them in a position to take them out. It's dueling with the other guy with a dramatic soundtrack until I finally get them weak enough/moved right in front of that cliff/whatever that I can throw a death-blow and end the fight for once and all.  If I can quote a fellow gamer's PC/movie hero, the goal is to hit "the sweet spot".

The point of a fight isn't to take out a target's hit points, but instead to get them to be open for a take down, be that a swift left hook, a broadsword to a vital organ, getting behind their cover for a barrage of bullets, or whatever.

In this way, how many broadsword strokes you've takent doesn't come into play for most of a combat. Instead, it's your Stance, the way you're moving in the combat. Are you in control of the situation? Are you charging headlong into Hell, ignoring your own vittles to get at the other guy? Are you keeping to the shadows and hugging walls and keeping your shield in front of you? Are you stumbling and rolling away from the THING trying to eat you?

Basically, the Stance is how you're going to handle a fight. When you're attacking a major character--someone that's a real challenge, that is--you'll have two goals in a combat, to break through that guy's defenses while keeping your own up. So when you roll your dice, you're still saying "I'ma hit that dude with my chainsaws!!", but what you're really trying to do is get them off-balance and open enough for you to say "and then I kill him" in a way that sticks. You can decide how much attack you want to throw at a guy, or maybe burn a successful dice to change stances so you can hurt them a bit harder or maybe block a bit better.  Now, there's still the issue that a really good roll can just bypass all of this and suddenly somebody's down (nothing's certain in combat), but if you're calm and controlled in the fight, odds are good you're not going to get hurt.

This gives us a few advantages in my own opinion. First, it makes combat a bit more cinematic--you're not just punching the dude over and over, you're trying to move them in a way where their blade is too slow or their just in the right spot for a roundhouse to knock them comically into a barrel of beer or through a plate glass window or down a bottomless pit. It also allows the player to be in control of their own "health" and gives us a way past the infamous "death spiral". There's going to be few negative modifiers in this--it's simply if you're open, you might get shiv'ed, so you might want to spend the successes to get yourself back in a defensive position.

Even better, the idea of Stances can work great for non-combat as well. Have you decided to forgo dungeons, instead running a game of politics and gerrymandering? Well maybe your speech is Aggressive or Defensive, and in the debate you'll Open the congressman's plan to be killed by the media...

This even works great as it's own "mana pool". Casting a spell isn't sucking up your energy, but it does make it hard to do anything else, like dodge an incoming arrow. By changing the fight from "how many hits" to "can you hit me?", it simplifies a lot of the other baggage of combat.

More later, but right now I'm slowly pulling together an alpha of Unicorn so I can get some volunteers to throw some of these ideas around in the wild. In the mean time, questions or +1's always appreciated.