Is Always Hitting In TTRPG Combat "Heroic"?

Last year, American KZbinr and game designer Matt Colville announced the Kickstarter for his new game, codenamed The MCDM RPG. And since then, nobody's been able to shut up about how in its rules, player character never miss their attacks. Is this a good idea? Does it, ironically, completely miss the point? Well, that's exactly what we'll be talking about.
Videos Referenced:
• MCDM RPG Has ARRIVED! ...
• MUST Play RPG's in 2024
You can find the MCDM sample combat here: • We Play A Full MCDM RP...
You can find my timings and calculations here: docs.google.co...
#rpg #ttrpg #mattcolville #mcdm #mcdmrpg

[@alexandercorsbie1986]

The online discourse around "no to hit" being quicker is misleading. Combats being quicker has never been a design intent by the MCDM team. They are on the record saying combat takes as long as it takes, but it should be fun. Having run the playtest for 5 people, a combat encounter with four enemies took about 1 hour, and that was being new to the system. But at no point is anyone ever disengaged from the fight because there are heroic reactions which can be used off turn to mitigate damage. So people had to pay attention and it never felt like a slog. Remember the enemies always hit too. Regarding your last comment about encounter and adventure pacing, the victories mechanic they introduced do this better than anything ive ever come across.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I appreciate that not everyone is as hung up on fast combats as I am. I'm also not able to comment on the victories mechanic, as I haven't yet found a full actual play where I can see how it works over multiple encounters. Everyone seemed pretty engaged in the sample combat I reviewed for this video, to be fair, While I'm still sceptical about how the game will handle higher levels, you do make some good points.

[@helixxharpell]

Removing the probability of hitting IS DEAD WRONG IMO. I'm also a patreon of MCM & I'm somewhat bitter because during these Q&As they've had, my questions were all IGNORED. My questions were all valid & they blew me off on every one. Matt also has this political bias that, if your politics don't align with his he will either block you or ignore you. I NEVER inteject my politics into anything game-related. Matt is this huge 4e D&D lover, (which btw was a huge failure so why would you hitch your wagon to concepts that were largely disliked by the community? 🙄 Matt has "influence" & now he has money.. MY MONEY. And I'm totally ready to stop sending him MY MONEY. That's my rant. I will now throw my soapbox against the wall & hope something sticks. Just like what Matt is doing now.

[@Firecell777]

@@helixxharpell I can see why your questions were ignored

[@Firecell777]

@@allseeingeyetrpg d20play has 2 or 3 actual plays of the playtest. As someone who ran it myself everyone was constantly engaged and having fun so combat never felt long even if statistically it might have been.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@Firecell777 I might give them a look

[@matthewparker9276]

I do agree with the MCDM team that "the null result" (i.e. missing an attack) is not fun to experience at the table, especially when it occurs multiple times in a row. Removing the attack roll does mean that even when you're having a string of bad luck, you are still being effective in combat. However, I do still think attack rolls present an opportunity for interesting mechanics and interactions, and I do still think that the potential to miss an attack can provide value to a ruleset.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Agreed. Just because something isn't fun, doesn't mean it isn't useful.

[@ori7647]

​@@allseeingeyetrpg That's why I quite like the approach that Tom Bloom uses for some of his games. Some weapons have the potential to partially hit the enemy even if you miss. Sure, you might not get the full damage, and the damage might still be lower then most weapons with solid hits, but it can be useful if you want to make sure that you can have a reliable source of damage. Also, I love how he uses heat as a mechanic to kinda incentive your character to push your mech over the edges on Lancer. Of course, the risk could be literally your mech blowing apart, but that's part of the thrill.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@ori7647 I haven't heard of him, I should give his games a look

[@elgatochurro]

get good

[@jeice13]

Well its sort of true but it misses the bigger picture. Gambling is addictive because you dont always win or always lose. Chance is exciting even if not all the results are

[@lucamonticelli267]

Personally i think no roll to hit can work in a tactical cinematic combat game, mostly because i played a game that does it decently well, called "panic at the dojo".

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I've never heard of that game, but I'll need to check it out

[@daniel8181]

John wick tabletop when?

[@emmettobrian1874]

There's another way to approach the boring turn issue. I'm not banging the realism drum, but here it works. Think about combat that's consequential, in real life or most movies, hitting is actually rare. What makes it exciting is that getting hit REALLY matters. I think too many games pile up hit points and heal spells so individual attacks just don't feel important. If a random successful roll from a low skill character can still turn the encounter, it really feels exciting when it does. I tend to go with the idea that 1-3 hits are deadly when I design games.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I notice a lot of recent RPGs pump up PCs' hit points, because they're afraid of someone losing a character. That said, being on the edge of your seat, wondering if your character will make it, is invariably more exciting your massive HP bucket dribble away in ones and twos.

[@emmettobrian1874]

@@allseeingeyetrpg if the fear is character death, there are other tools to handle that. I'm implementing three that the players can choose from. The character takes a (possibly significant) reduction in a stat with the idea being they've taken grievous harm such as the blinding of an eye, a significant scar or bodily loss. This requires a setting where that can't be easily reversed however. Second they may choose what I call "one last breath" where they don't die for a short time but can attempt a final goal that's at hand. Something like saving their friends, making a final strike to an arch enemy, etc. the idea being an important and poignant sacrifice. Allowing the character to die, but the group can bid for more experience and equipment for a new hero. This is if the player is more worried about the time investment of playing that character being wasted. I'm curious if anyone has other death mitigation ideas. Personally, I prefer death to be a real consequence even when I'm a player because it means more. I'm a big fan of hard mode rogue likes in video games though so I'm likely an outlier.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@emmettobrian1874 IMO Torchbearer does the best of mitigating random death whle still keeping a genuine risk. You can basically only die one of three ways: first, if you keep adventuring too long without resting, you'll accrue conditions until you die. Second, if you're Injured or Sick, you can die from a failing a roll, but the GM has ot warn you beforehand and give you a chance to back out (and even if you die, you still achieve what you were trying to do). Finally, if you try to actually kill your enemies, rather than simply wounding them to drive them off, they'll try to kill right back. Death is less a product of bad luck and more a product of bad decisions.

[@emmettobrian1874]

@@allseeingeyetrpg Sickness is interesting, it could be generalized to your wounds have made you sick or opened you up to infection. Balancing how long the character has at that point would take some tuning. The idea that your enemies won't kill if you don't could work in a bunch of settings like for pirates or gangs. It's a good tool to have, but I don't think it works everywhere (nor does it need to). Accumulated conditions are narrative and help tell the story so it's a cool mechanic but functionally each condition is like a hit point. Don't get me wrong, in play it's not the same thing, but I mean in the end you have a number of things that count down (or up) until death. Not reducing the idea by any means, it sounds very atmospheric.

[@Capt.Thunder]

The issue with that is that it gets a lot more swingy. You would need to find a way of making it tactical enough that it doesn't feel like rolling to see who rolls a 6 on a d6 first, and should ideally have a second layer of decision-making beyond just "attack every round" which some ranged (modern setting) combats can become. That said, combat would certainly be faster if it was roll;miss / roll;miss / roll;miss / roll;hit / roll;miss etc.

[@SplotchyInk]

I think in this case, 'failure' in a D20 setting feels worse cause your denied that attack roll. But I think if the 'roll to hit' is 'also' the damage roll, then it shortens everything and softens that blow. Making it feel that, even if it 'did' hit then it wouldn't have done much damage if it was a low roll. Also the concept of having 2 proper actions means you can either double down on attacking or try and do something different.

[@little_isalina]

There is this binary thinking about rolling to hit. Either you have rolls to hit and chance people not accomplishing anything at all on their turn or you don't roll to hit at all. But there are more options available: 1. Instead of making a roll to hit the difference between a) damage or b) no effect whatsoever, you could have a failed hit roll mean that the damage dealt is reduced. Representing that the target still has to expend some effort to turn the blow aside. 2. Give characters more things to do on their turn. Maybe a secondary action can impose a condition on the target. 3. Make rolling to hit conditional. Like the target gets hit automatically unless it uses a reaction to dodge/parry/take cover. Then even though you missed, you burned the target's reaction for this round and the next player can capitalize on that. These are just the first three ideas coming to my mind

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Although I've not played any yet, the RPGs that seem to do this best are the Powered by the Apocalypse type of games. Attacks in that system have three outcomes: you hit, you hit but something bad happens (such as being counterattacked), or everything goes horribly wrong (you're hit yourself, you run of ammo, etc). No matter what outcome you roll, something always happens.

[@IsaacMyers1]

@@allseeingeyetrpgI enjoy the way that the root rpg does it. its not about whether you hit as much as its about realistic combat. every attack in combat leads to opportunity to be hurt, and every time a hit occurs leads into opportunities to parry, shield, utilize your armor, or damage your weapon. This system has brutal fast combat, but it often ends with either a wound (not a death), or it ends with someone surrendering due to being disarmed or damage to equipment. This allows your character to collect scars and have reoccurring opponents.

[@darkblue099]

I think you can gauge the same reaction from both instances. In most other TTRPG's, you're rolling to see if you hit. In this one, you're rolling to see if you hit BIG. Rolling low damage might do nothing if the enemy's damage reduction is high enough, resulting in a null value anyway. The key here is that rolling some damage feels like less of a wasted turn than rolling no damage at all. Everyone understands the concept that, "Every point counts". So dealing 1 point of damage will always feels some fraction better than dealing 0 damage. I don't think they're trying to reinvent the wheel, I think they see the road has tons of potholes, and they're trying to make the ride smoother.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

First off, I'm pretty sure they did away with NPC damage reduction. Certainly in the sample combat I studied, it never happened even once. As much as people can intellectually understand that every point counts, a rubbish roll will still deflate you. In d20 games, when players beat the NPC's AC and then roll a 1 for damage, nobody goes "well at least I made progress". In my experience, they usually whine about how their damage roll sucked. MCDM's system will lead to that same whining, but with fewer steps.

[@darkblue099]

@@allseeingeyetrpg Well, the problem there is the whiners, which is never the developer's fault. If nothing else, it seeks to speed up play by eliminating one superfluous dice roll.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@darkblue099 Yes and no. Oftentimes, people who whine about low damage rolls also whine about missed hits. MCDM are specifically catering to people who whine about missing hits, so they're opening themselves to people who whine about low damage (though they can always say "the buck stop here"). If you want to remove a superfluous roll, damage rolls are arguably more hit rolls. Over the Edge merged attack and damage rolls in the 1990s, and Cubicle 7's editions of the Warhammer Fantasy and 40k RPGs managed to combine attack, damage, and hit location rolls into a single d100 roll. If you want to speed up play, that seems the better way to go.

[@darkblue099]

@@allseeingeyetrpg does it really matter which role you eliminate? You can make the same argument by encouraging players to roll their D20s and their damage dice at the same time.

[@whynaut1]

The problem with attack rolls is that you get two chances to "miss". For example, you could roll a nat20 and then roll only 4 damage after doubling your dice. In MCDM's case, a "miss" is just rolling low damage

[@HeribertoEstolano]

That´s D&D PROBLEM which other TTRPGs with misses do not have. For instance: In Warhammer Fantasy you don't roll for damage; being a d100 system you just take your success levels, which are how many tens above your skill you rolled and add it to your weapon damage and strenght bonus. Rolling high is a thing, criticals are diferent. a Critical in WFRPG is when your dice rolls doubles like 11, 22, 33. Than you can use the critical table to make critical wound that can cripple, incapacitate or even kill your oponent. In Year Zero games you also don´t roll for damage, the weapon damage is fixed. But if you get an extra succes on the dice poll, you can either choose to add more damage to your weapon of spend it on a critical effect on the critical hits table.

[@jeice13]

However you can also roll max damage with a non critical attack. Sometimes you do better than average other times worse

[@joshuaward5498]

Into the odd removed to hit rolls first and it works there. To your point, MCDMRPG is more granular than ItO and might feel less ‘fun,’ in the long run.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I've not looked into Into the Odd, but I probably should so I have a point of comparison

[@donaldshults2230]

@@allseeingeyetrpg It's the best.

[@SkittleBombs]

Try mausritter/cairn they are copies of the mechanics with pay what you want pdf and are rules lite just to get the jist@@allseeingeyetrpg

[@robotacid]

@@allseeingeyetrpg The framing of always hit in Into the Odd is special though. You get hit-protection instead of hit points, which describes stamina and luck for dodging blows, before your actual STR stat starts being shredded. It's faster, yes, but it's cutthroat dangerous. The tone isn't heroic, it's desperate.

[@___.51]

Missing an attack can be cool, if players describe their attacks and DM describes what happens next and both are giving it their all. Stop saying "you miss." Just stop lol. Dexterous bobs and weaves, already poised for their next attack. Strong blocks and parries. [mage] Armored leans in and absorbs your blow. Your attack bounces uselessly off of Big Boss, now you see their weak point, and if you could only... reach it... Near miss, your longsword cuts a thin slice across their cheek. Your firebolt singes their hair and covers their face in soot. Your arrow is sticking out of their breastplate. If you have to miss, an active variable ruined your attack. Dexterous trips you, Strong headbutts you, Armored swipes your arrow out of the sky. These are nat 1 occurrences. No whiffs allowed. You know, embracing the RP part of TTRPG. // Entering homebrew territory, a miss can reduce the target's AC or save rolls for the rest of the battle (or temporarily), reducing future misses and adding mechanical value to misses, at your discretion. Your warhammer crushes Armored's shoulder pauldron, they can barely raise their shield (-1AC). Dexterous is reeling from narrowly avoiding your sacred flame (-1 to the next dex save). Helps if you play with low hit points and every hit that does land, matters.

[@reksraven]

It all depends. In a game like Pathfinder 2e (my current main ttrpg) I don't mind missing, as there are different things to do for every class because there are 3 action points every turn (unlike 5e where most classes have no meaningfull bonus actions and movement is highly disincentivised because of the omnipresent attack of oppurtunity) I imagine it will be faster. Not technically shorter combat encounters, but I'd imagine knowing if you do something and it succeeds removes a lot of the small pauses that can stack up over encounters. So the wait between turns might be shorter. Overall the most important part that the RPG has to nail is to be fun and achieve it's goal. To hit or not to hit is not important if the game was designed around 100% hitchance than it will propbably work.

[@toronaldaris]

in defense of always hitting. It is assumed that your adventurers. You've been doing this for sometime. You're capable in combat and the actions you take. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. Oh I miss the goblin. This is an issue pretty much in any game that I have run. and I have to play DM and keep the fun and action going and people constantly missing isn't fun, before I learned to embrace the fun, it was basically meat grinder city. Roll new Characters. People who constantly roll ones on d20's is a thing.(looks in Will Wheaton's direction) People become not-engaged with the game because they don't feel like they are contributing to the success. I've watched as a DM, and I've felt it as a player. I think too many people think that they don't like it. Feedback is important, but the the hate I see this feature getting is silly. You like the idea, You backed it. Simple. As a DM, I want everybody to have fun, and do their thing that they specialize in. This might make this a game that could be more accessible just for that simple fact. Don't punish people just to punish them, punish them because of an action that they took that resulted in an outcome you weren't expecting, but don't stop the fun, expand the story and events. 5E has expanded TTRPG's in a way that may never happen again. It was very Accessible, not to mention a couple of boosts from pop-culture. The dumpster fire that is Wizards of the Coast has fortunately sparked a lot of creative types to do different things. The more creatives we have in the space, means more ideas and new games that we get to see. I don't want TTRPG's just to be 1 or 2 massive corps. I think people should embrace playing other games. I'm holding my review and other opinions about the game until it's in my hands, or when I can start to contribute feedback to the playtesting.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

First off, bold of you to assume the PCs are experienced adventurers. In most fantasy games, level 1 is "I picked up a sword yesterday." And even if that's not true of every game, there should always be RPGs that evoke that everyman feel. Second, professional soldiers miss all the freaking time. In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US army expended 250,000 bullets per insurgent killed. Now, a lot of those bullets were used suppressive fire, and weren't meant to hit anybody. However, even if with modern rifles, sights, night vision gear, drone reconnaissance, and access to heavy ordnance, it still took them a quarter of a million bullets to kill one enemy. Translate that ratio into a tabletop RPG, and a 50% chance to hit seems inflated. Third, players _can_ have fun in a meat grinder. I would know, I ran one that my players loved. We lost a PC every other session going through Curse of Strahd, but for all the constant stream of player corpses, the group actually maintained good momentum and only got bogged down once (in Vallaki). And finally, yes, RPGs are about having fun. I want my players to leave my sessions happier than they joined them. That does not mean I try to make them happy every moment of every session. I am perfectly content for my players to be bored, angry, or miserable in game, as long as it's only fleeting. If anything, the lows only make the highs feel stronger.

[@taragnor]

@@allseeingeyetrpg Yeah, there's two distinct camps when it comes to what's most fun in a game. Some people prefer the IV drip of slow constant progress, where as others prefer the more swingy valleys and peaks where sometimes you get smoked and other times you're the star. Given Matt Colville is a fan of 4E D&D, I'm not surprised his tendencies lean towards the former group.

[@kusawwwwww]

Yeah, after a certain point or in certain circumstances rolling for a chance to miss isn’t just unfun, it’s straight up illogical. I remember once an instance where a player character had a gun held point-blank to an enemy’s head but the roll said “miss”, and this dragged on the fight for another two hours whilst completely killing any sense of tension and drama that just fucking killing the thing then and there would have had. Fights are set dressing. They should serve as a way to showcase the participants’ abilities-a good storyteller understands that dramatic tension and the rule of cool are more important than adhering slavishly to RNG and what is technically correct according to a set of gamified rules. If you absolutely must include roll to miss, a pity system is a necessity IMO. For important scenes especially it’s inexcusable not to allow some leeway to actually let player characters be capable without getting fucked over by RNG. Even video games let you retry.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@kusawwwwww I completely disagree. First off, you can absolutely miss at point-blank range. All it takes it is our target jerking their head away at the last moment (or the shooter's hand slipping). I actually do prefer rules as written over rule of cool - learning and mastering a game's ruleset is vastly more impressive to me than simply pulling an impressive description out of your arse, so I reward my players for doing the first way more than doing the second. "Storytelling" is no excuse for overruling mechanics: you should never presuppose what you think is "dramatic" going into an RPG, and should instead build a story around what's actually happening at the table. Finally, while I'm not averse to negative feedback loop mechanics than increase your chance of success after each fail (Kids on Bikes gives you an "adversity token" that you can spend for +1 to a future roll each time you fail), a straight-up "pity mechanic" takes things too far. Not only would deciding when such a mechanic triggers be highly subjective, but any success given would be completely unearned. Nobody was ever made to look competent by receiving pity. I understand that fight you describe wasn't very fun for you, but this seems like an overreaction.

[@georgecook83]

I don’t really understand this “I’m just sitting there bored if it’s not my turn” thing. You should be invested in what your team mates are doing. Following what the enemy is doing. But whatever.

[@yutt]

You're trying to participate and play, not observe other people while occasionally failing to roll a dice. TTRPG players have this fixation and idolatry with the limited game mechanics in their systems, while also being terrified of becoming board games. I guess this is the cognitive dissonance of being a TTRPG player. Believing you're better than mere board games, while also believing the board game mechanics you hold onto from the lost past are perfect and necessary.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

On some level, yes. You should be paying attention to everybody else's turns, and be invested in what they're doing. It even makes combat faster (not the feeling, the actual amount of time). However, "players should" =/= "players will". If your combats are long and slow, it becomes difficult to pay attention. If they're repetitive or lack in description, it's also hard to become invested. While boredom at the table *shouldn't* be an issue, it *is* an issue, and what's led us all down this rabbit hole.

[@georgecook83]

@@yutt yeah…not here for that either. I love board games, but I have played various versions of d&d since I was a kid. I like the game mechanics of it. I have tried a few of these new “rules light” games and just don’t find them all that interesting. I am, however, happy that they exist for people that play d&d but seem to hate games, they can find those and hopefully be happy. In combat I enjoy working together as a team to combine our abilities and spells to figure out the solution. But I guess I’m just old.

[@MagiofAsura]

You have to actually play MCDM to feel this out. I have heard people having stated feeling this way about this aspect of the system but upon playing it having felt to the contrary.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

This is a fair point. I believe there's a playtest document on Matt's Patreon, but I haven't paid to access it. We should get a backer packet in the summer, and since I backed the PDFs, I will get to try it out then (maybe even on livestream). We'll see if I'm right or wrong then. Until then, I'll freely admit that I'm running off speculation.

[@yzfool6639]

Waiting 20 minutes, rolling a 3, and missing, and waiting another 20 minutes is modern D&D, right? And since no one dies in modern D&D, there is no tension to entertain the peanut gallery in between turns.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

When I ran Curse of Strahd, we had 18 PCs die in 32 sessions. I had very few issues with player concentration. Coincidence?

[@archer111000]

I think that removing the attack roll just simplifies the process a little bit. We've just skipped the part where we first check if you pass the 70% chance threshold before you roll damage. Unfortunately I don't think there's a perfect way to navigate this in the RPG space. Missing can be cinematic and fun sometimes, but it can also be very frustrating if you miss all the time on a streak of bad luck. Hitting all the time can smooth out those runs of bad luck a little bit, but it does feel anti-climactic to win a fight by dealing the lowest damage result (possible with or without an attack roll). Rolling a "19" on your attack roll and then rolling low damage does not feel good.

[@nichan008]

I think the concept of missing in combat is not great. This isn't football where you miss the goal kicking from halfway across the field. If you really watch fights (or have been in them) I think you'll realize that missing is much more a function of the opponent's skill against your own. So, for me, it's more intuitive that I would flat out roll for damage to keep it simple. Adding more complexity on the GM's side to figure out if the enemy blocked or whatever would also be fine. But me rolling to hit is mathematically just rolling for damage with a disadvantage. How about if you roll minimum damage you roll to see if you crit fail or get the damage? I wonder if that's enough psychological gymnastics to counter the negative feelings😆

[@archer111000]

Some of that is just the terminology we’re using. There’s no difference between “I miss” and “you dodge.” Some of this is also “what is damage?” The classic discussion about whether all damage numbers mean actual harm inflicted, or just a reduction in your ability to continue your heroism and battle prowess. There was a game I played once at a convention where you rolled your dice and tried to reach whatever the target number was. Anything at or below that was a miss / dodge. If you exceeded the target number, the difference was your damage. Players rolled to attack the enemies, and Players rolled to try to beat the enemy static attack values. I cannot for the life of me recall what kind of dice we used or how the modifiers were set up that affected the person rolling the dice.

[@youcantbeatk7006]

@@nichan008Dodging should be a reaction players actively choose to do rather than be dependent on rolls.

[@nichan008]

@@youcantbeatk7006 I only mentioned how players' attacks should work and how GMs should be responsible for enemies' actions. But yes, Ilit does follow that GMs can play by the same rules and the player has an option to dodge damage. Though I think it is debatable whether enemy attacks should work the same as player attacks in every way.

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

I'm in favor of how Cyberpunk 2020 used to do it. Where you still roll to hit or for damage but you can take actions and penalties to make you harder to hit or make it easier to hit your target.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I've only ever played one session of CP2020, but yeah, that massive modifier list does give you a lot of options

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

@@allseeingeyetrpg Not only that but it gives players incentives to make their combat as cinematic as possible. Instead of just standing there and shooting at each other, you're jumping over barriers, diving behind cover, doing cartwheels and other really cool stuff. Btw, I like your stuff. Got a subscription from me.

[@mos5678]

I think the biggest issue when it comes to "no miss" = "Your turn always matter" ... when all turns matter... none of them do. There are so many systems out there that gives you more stuff to do on your turn than a single attack and so many others that allow you to push failed rolls for even larger risk vs reward. Pathfinder 2e: "I missed twice but I can still aid my allies" Anything Free League like mutant or vasen. "Oh I missed but I can push my roll for potential boons" Some newer systems in development like crucible and ambrosia use action points. There are so many things you can do to solve the issue of disengagement due to bad rolls but I feel like removing the actual "To-hit" roll is the absolutely worst. Akin to how video gaming has the issue of 'bulletsponges'

[@rybromide2219]

I think the participation trophy argument, at least for me, involves more of if you can't fail, why does succeeding matter? It's the ups AND downs that make the game fun. "good can't exist without bad" etc

[@Frederic_S]

As a Larper and hobby swords person I can say, that it is virtually impossible to miss in armed combat. The other person can dodge or block, sure enough. But misses are very unlikely.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I never did that much LARP (despite being VP of my uni's LARP society), but you're correct. Tabletop RPGs usually overestimate the difficulty to hit in melee, and overestimate the difficulty to hit at range (NYPD officers miss 60% of their shots within 6yd, and miss 80% beyond 6yd, for instance). The odds of hitting in RPGs are usually normalised around what creates a satisfying challenge, even in supposedly "realistic" combat systems.

[@jh-ne4sy]

I think you missed the point here on the whole thing about how long combat takes. The problem isn’t that people want less combat (at least not in my experience) but that they want to spend less time waiting to do something in combat. So if you run a combat that takes 1-2 rounds that lasts 20 minutes in one system and a combat that takes 6 rounds and lasts 30 minutes in another the players still got more turns per minute spent in the second combat. Presumably this means more engagement. Although that remains to be seen. If your problem is just that you don’t want to spend time in combat and want it to be over as quickly as possible then there are lots of games out there which would probably be better at what you’re looking for.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

If you could get through six rounds of MCDM combat in 30 minutes, you might have a point. But when a two-player group takes as long in combat as my five-player Cyberpunk RED home group, you have a problem. The other advantage to shorter is you can have more of them in a session. You can fight a wider variety of enemies, you can make more progress towards your goals in a single session, and you have more time for exploration and roleplay between fights. Time is a zero-sum game. MCDM#s combat system might make for the most enjoyable hour of combat of your life, but will necessarily come at the expense of literally anything else you could do in that hour. And for me at least, that's an issue.

[@bikzimusmaximus5250]

I think while badly paced games probably have a long average combat length like 5e in the later levels, I don't think that combat length is the cause of bad pacing. Pacing is traditionally about how many plot turns you have per unit of material, so if you have upended the status quo every 2 minutes in a movie, then you have a really fast paced movie, while if anything barely ever changes then you have a slow pace. What happens in a lot of roleplaying combat systems, is that the rules are set up so that something interesting for you only happens on your turn. It is simple to figure out who to attack, and what attack you pick is a simple decision, so you don't have to worry about what is going on the rest of the time. And in an environment like that, it is best to keep turns short and snappy. But when you have a more tactically dense combat system, you can have interesting things happen in a lot of different ways, and that effects the pacing of the combat just as much as keeping things short. This is for example what they do in Lancer, each combat can easily end up taking 2+ hours, but because of how the system works, the pacing doesn't suffer from it. This isn't even talking about how the initiative system can impact your sense of pacing. There are also some smaller nitpicks (one of which I apparently wrote a lot about sorry about that) to make like the current playtests are made with non-levelled characters as there isn't a level system at all in the game right now, and it does seem like a level 1 character will be able to do a bit less than what the current pregens are capable of. Also to hit rolls aren't the only way to gain engaging negative results, but you can tie those effects to the specific creatures you are fighting. Like the Kobolds in the playtest have Weapon Immunity 3 as long as they are adjacent to another kobold, meaning in that case they take three less damage from weapon attacks, and so if you deal 3 damage or less, then you don't deal any damage. But you can also do other things like in their Flee Mortal's supplement for 5e, they have: - you take damage when you hit or touch a creature - a creature attacks you when you hit it - a creature attacks you when you kill it - another creature resurrects the creature when you kill it - another creature gets hit instead of the creature you targeted - a creature you attack spews poison at you - a creature tries to run at you and knock you prone when you attack them - a creature tries to charm you and makes you attack another target - a creature damages everyone adjacent to the creature when you attack them - a creature sets you on fire making you take damage until the fire goes out when you try to target them - a creature hits you with a barrage of sound when you try to cast a spell that damages you and makes you lose the action if you can't save against it and that's pretty much just stuff from the first 100 pages or so of that book. So there are clearly lots of ways to have negative results. And in the rare case that you really think a null result would be dramatic, you can still create it without an attack roll, and having it come from an ability that the creature you're attacking has rather than just missing, I would say, lessens the negative feelings associated with a null result.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

First off, even if combat is 100% engaging for everyone all the time, a 2+ hour combat is still too much for my liking. As you said, pacing is the amount of plot turns per unit of time. While a combat itself might be full of plot turns (or devoid of them), IMO it represents only a single plot turn in the broader campaign. There are sessions where my players and I have spent so much time joking around, we got nothing done in the session. We were all fully engaged, we just weren't very productive. You make a good point about RPG combat being predictable though. Likewise, when I first started running Cyberpunk RED, I found myself running a lot of large-scale set piece combats that would easily take 2 hours. Running a mission with 3 or even just 2 combats wasn't really an option, because sooner or later the players would run out of session time, HP, or both. While those missions were far from boring, they needed to have a short, flat narrative structure to accommodate to fit combats in one session. This was bloody inconvenient. As for using special abilities to create dramatic negative outcomes, IMO that's a double-edged sword. PCs and enemies should both have enough special abilities to make them feel unique, but you can go overboard. If I have to keep double-checking a monster statblock every two minutes to make I'm applying all of their abilities correctly, that will get tedious. Especially as a GM, unless you run a monster type particularly often, you don't get much chance to learn monster statblocks by heart, so you end up in a dilemma between constant rules-checking and making mistakes. There's a reason a lot of modern RPGs are moving towards super-simplified NPC statblocks. I can't speak for well-implemented the abilities in Flee Mortals are, since I don't own it, but I can say that monsters having more than a couple of special abilities hurts my brain.

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

The way I see it, the way to make combat interesting for everyone is to make sure that even if they have "nothing" to do, they always have something they can do. But more importantly, to keep passing the Turn baton back to them. This is something that Daggerheart does really well (not that I see myself running that with the hope and fear mechanic, though it is really cool), and I actually have a variant rule for a TTRPG I'm designing that allows players to alternate turns ridiculously quick, and it can even mix the monsters around at the same time. Even when a Player ends their Turn, they can always set something up by preparing an Action. And if they end before the big attack is made *woosh!* They step just out of range in response to the Attack, or AoE, allowing them to improve their situation by paying attention. I also decided that even if you're Incapacitated or Dying (like with DnD 5e), you basically become a "Buff Beacon" that allows you to continue turning the tide of Combat, provided one Creature moves within 5 feet of you.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Part of why I like Cyberpunk RED is that each turn in combat goes super quickly. The action resolution is very quick, and everyone has a very constrained action economy (just 1 action and a move). Players have just enough time to do something useful, and nobody has to wait around for too long.

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

@@allseeingeyetrpg Sounds like something a lot of groups would enjoy!

[@verlandes1]

It is weird to me how few are mentioning Into the Odd and Electric Bastionland when discussing MDCM:s combat system.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

ItO/EB are both on the more niche of the OSR space. I've heard of both, but never picked up either. Put simply, the number of people tallking about the MCDM RPG vastly outstrips the number of people qualified to talk about these two games.

[@gendor5199]

A "you will automatically hit" just means that if the target is a target dummy, you will hit. If the target fights back? That's the armor roll. "It's more fun to risk missing that last hit" so what is the difference between "You miss" and "Your damage was too weak to kill"? There is none. Which is also why I find it so meh that they say "You should do something meaningful in combat every turn" because auto-hitting doesn't actually do that.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

It all depends on whether you think something has to be earned to be meaningful. You and I both it does, but MCDM clearly thinks it doesn't.

[@SkittleBombs]

honestly i think auto hit is just an extreme over correction to games that dont explain how to "fail forward" as a built in game mechanic. I play story game with mixed success called Ironsworn and when you miss its bastically the monster damages you , you hitting with mixed success is most common and is like you hitting and getting hit back. and strong hits is hitting and dodging the monsters attack. its a great middle ground to the Null effect miss

[@thenerdlog1602]

Frankly, I do think that removing dice rolls to hit removes some of the confusion over combat. New players are used to rolling dice once per turn, so having to roll once to hit, another time for damage, then asking the dungeon master for a saving throw can be very confusing. I personally will probably not play this RPG, but if it helps players get into RPGs, then I'm all for it

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I don't think that's such a big issue. Most players get the hang of the multiple rolls pretty quickly, and if you really do only want one roll, just merge the attack and damage rolls.

[@grandsome1]

Roll for attack and if you miss you get a tactical non-offensive action to set up the next player. To balance the enemies get two offensive actions.

[@andrewduitsman3918]

I think if you are looking at his key words for the game Heroic does not relate to the concept of not missing. The tactical part relates to not missing. Heroic is the concept that your hero does not start at farmer who just picked up a sword. A level one PC should be an established hero in MCDM. He stated that a level one PC in MCDM is like level 5 in D&D 5E. The assumption is you already have renown and are acting more like an “Avenger” taking on daring threats for others benefits and not a rat catcher looking to loot a tomb for 50sp. Tactical relates to the not being able to miss. Instead of D&D or many other TTRPGs where an attack (Random number generator system) delivers a result, where damage (Random number generator system) delivers effect they are instead getting rid of the attack step. Instead the result is always the same, but you have heroic resources in each class and various ways to generate them. Rather than your effectiveness in combat being a product of the random number generator after a random number generator, it is instead how well you manage your resources for maximum tactical results with a random number generator for damage to add variability to effect……. I actually see huge promises in this because players will quickly learn the optimal strategy for building up heroic resources for “best” results. Then good DMs or “directors” (why does everyone need unique terminology) will design encounters to alter when what is effective, because strategy may be the best long term plan, while tactics is having to make a decision space for what is best in the moment. Two little things. 1st Time spent per turn doesn’t determine engagement, I have played a game of Pandemic which normally has like 1-3 minute turns, very fast, high engagement, and toward end game me we talked out how we could win and had 15 minutes of what everyone thinks before working out a plan and returning to 1-3 minute turns. That is a board game yet everyone was engaged, both in fast turns and slow. 2nd I have always thought of Conan as a pulp character and not heroic. He is very competent, and I have read two collections of Robert E Howards short stories, and I love the movie. He is normally motivated by greed or revenge while to me heroic, requires acts of valor, altruism, service to others, or in general heroism.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Your first point is factually incorrect. James Introcaso straight-up stated on a livestream that it was the idea of players as heroes that inspired them to finally remove the "null result" as they call it. As for whether managing the heroic resource will prove fun, I don't know yet. The first backer packet drops this summer, so I'll find out then. I specifically analysed round and turn lengths because it was something I could objectively measure (unlike fun or engagement). While the combat might be fun in the moment, if they drag on for over an hour with mid-sized groups (as I hypothesised), your campaign will go at snail pace. Finally, regarding Conan, I agree with your assessment that he's not a traditional hero. I was using him more as a reference for power level, then for his moral compass. While I take your point that MCDM is meant to be Avengers-esque, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for players to make morally grey choices.

[@gendor5199]

The most heroic combat I think I ever ran was for 2 players, they had 2 NPCs with them, one tank and one ranger, and they were trying to save a baby from a witch sacrifins it. Almost every round I balanced: If the PCs are doing well, the NPCs are suffering, if the PCs are hurting, the NPCs will come to their aid, and there was always the story. Even if there was a Roll to Hit and Roll to Damage, a lot of time the enemy beasts were more about keeping the PCs pinned so they couldn't reach the witch. There was also never any wait between players, because the time was wrapped up quickly between every round. I did not time it, but the players loved it.

[@OMGSAMCOPSEY]

The problem for me is theyre going for a heroic angle but sometimes i like my heroes to be good at dodging. Sometimes i like my monsters to be slippery. They say you can wear armour and that's going to reduce the damage, which is great if i only want to play the tankiest of men but sometimes im not feeling the heavy armour and my dark souls speed runner nude dude is calling to me. Mechanically it can work but id sooner get rid of roll for damage

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

The rules do have options for dodging as a reaction or halve damage, reduce it by a die roll, or sometimes both at once. But you can only do that once a round.

[@btCharlie_]

Plenty of very epic heroic fights and combat scenes have the main hero missing or failing their attacks. In my mind, it's more epic if you hit in the right moment when it counts, and it becomes heroic when you sacrifice something to secure that hit.

[@GalgalimEyes]

I don't have a strong opinion on always hitting. I think it's fine and for players it's probably going to be more fun. I don't think every RPG should do away with the attack roll but I don't think it has to be a core feature of every system. On the opposite side of things, Feng Shui 2nd edition is specifically designed to have a high miss rate and for a game that is all about fast and exciting combat it's one of the most boring systems I've ever GMed. It feels awful.

[@rickcarson591]

Sounds like a person's turn takes ~100 seconds. Which initially I didn't think sounded too bad, but then 5 players is 500 seconds, and if the DM has 7-10 monsters (even though they're moving faster) that could easily take another 700 seconds, which gives a total of 1200 seconds, or 20 minutes between turns. I think it begs further analysis. I.e. what were the players spending their time on? Were they spending 90 seconds with their thumbs up their (collective) butts and then just doing the one thing they did all the other turns because that was their optimal action? Were they spending 15 seconds on their move and the other 85 seconds were the DM 'roleplaying' out the sucktitude of their 1 damage roll? (A certain other Matt who DMs seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on elaborate narrative whenever someone whiffs in combat, which seems like 'sorry you suck, here's some salt for your wounds) Were they interacting with the environment in cool ways? Were they using different powers each turn? Did they have 'cool' combos with other players? MCDM seems to be predicated on the notion that every class should have completely different mechanics - did _that_ slow things down or get in the way? Were players spending time building up (or bleeding off?) their unique resource in order to pull out 'a daily' (i.e. spend 3 rounds to set up an attack that does much more damage than normal). Were the characters in any real danger? Or was it a pretty formulaic 'roflstomp' of the NPCs? Were players doing things in other players turns? (Which would increase the complexity) Or were there a lot of interruptions where one (or more) players were trying to tell the other players what to do in their turn? (I realise that with only 2 PCs that might not really be an issue, but if the game is susceptible to that sort of thing then it's something which would scale non-linearly as extra players are added). Was there a lot of analysis paralysis? I.e. did the players have too many options? Was there a learning curve? I.e. do you think a second combat would have gone a lot faster? (I don't remember whether MCDM was one of the 'action point' systems with 3 or 4 action points on each player's turn - if so do you think that slowed it down? If not, do you think it could have benefitted from it?) I _think_ MCDM might lend itself to longer combats simply because of their approach to resource management. I.e. if you have to spend 3-4 turns building up to your awesome thing, and the average combat only lasts 2-3 rounds then you'd never get to do your awesome thing.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

A lot of good questions, but since it's been months since I watched the demo, I'm afraid I only have vague answers. There was only minimal narration, and I don't think there was too much analysis paralysis, either. There were a couple of confusing moments where they lost of whose turn it was, too, but most of the time was spent querying or interfacing with the rules. As for how tough the fight was, one PC (the Tactician) hit low health despite being a high-HP tanky dwarf, but he spent a recovery and got like 20 HP back. Despite this, I don't think the PCs were in too much danger overall. There were some moments of PCs saving up for powerful abilities, but oftentimes their usage of their resources were more opportunistic. They almost always some special ability or other to use each round (including "triggered actions"/reactions). Honestly, the players seemed to be engaged and having fun, and tried to use the rules to the fullest. Every class feeling different is something I didn't really touch upon in this video (as it wasn't relevant), but I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, variety is important, and nobody wants every character to feel the same, but if you make classes TOO different, players might decide to only learn the rules for one class, and play it over and over, which defeats the purpose of variety. There's a delicate balance you need to strike, and I don't know if MCDM will manage it.

[@TheLunarPierce]

I wish I had seen this video when it first came out. I backed this project as well, it I think I prefer how DC20 is handling rolls to hit better. I highly recommend people check it out.

[@jimbob929]

Just from taking a quick glance at the combat demo, it seems like a large portion of the time comes down to the fact that it was a combat demo, so there was a LOT of tutorialization and explaining abilities as they came up. The players took a while because they didn't seem to know the system perfectly yet, and the GM took a while because every round he was explaining some mechanic or selling some part of the system.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

From watching the entire demo, that explains part of the issue, but not nearly enough. The tutorialisation does progressively decrease throughout the demo, and it seemed to me the players already had a reasonable grasp of what was on their sheets when they started. Furthermore, this doesn't excuse the number of rounds it took - that's not inexperience, that's just hit points maths.

[@Laezar1]

Personally as a player when I play something like a mage I almost only take spells that do stuff like "on a successful save they take half damage" and almost never use things that do nothing on a save. Using your turn and ressources to have 50% chance to auto win and 50% chance to do nothing is just not enjoyable. It's mitigated a bit on an aoe cause you're going to miss some hit some so you still end up with a satisfying result but for a big single action it's the worst. Same with attacks really, it's most frustrating when you have only one attack, if you do 5 attacks in your turn and only hit 2 that ends up being the same as if you do one and roll low on damage so that's not a big deal, and hitting zero would be super rare, but if you have only one action and it's a binary effect it's the worst. I think having attacks always hit is also fine but what's important is the ressources you expend, like if all you do is roll damage it's boring. An interesting encounter makes you think about ressource usage and target prioritizing. There should be multiple answers to how to solve an encounter and they should change the way the encounter play out meaningfully. Having basic attacks always hit but having them be one of your weakest options and always having something better to do but that consumes ressources or is situational should be the goal in my opinion. And having the ressources you expend always achieve something is also important. Another thing with consistent encounter is you can also make them consistently more challenging. Say your mage has hold person. If you design your encounter assuming it'll hit the party is in a really rough spot if it misses, if you design assuming it'll miss they auto win if it hits. If the spell always does it's thing you can design the encounter to be tougher and it's on the players to use their ressource efficiently. Or maybe you make condition under which the spell always succeed so that the player can chose to gamble but maybe they can combo with their ally. For exemple an ice spell that works like hold person but always succeed if the target got hit by a water spell that round, now you are thinking in term of combos and team synergy. That's just random exemple but basically there are way more things that could be adjusted to make encounters feel more in the hand of the players while adding complexity or keeping the same difficulty.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I think a big issue for mages in d20 games with save-or-suck spells is that you've just wasted a finite resource (spell slots). If say, your slots weren't expended when enemies save against spells, or if you had access to unlimited casting (as mages do in many non-d20 games), at least some of the sting from save-or-suck would go away.

[@Laezar1]

@@allseeingeyetrpg yeah that'd also help a lot true!

[@quickanddirtyroleplaying]

By removing to-hit rolls and going straight to damage rolls, that accentuates an entropy effect to combat encounters: opposing forces are sliding down a slope towards the pit of defeat and the losers are the ones who fall in first. To-hit rolls make for ubiquitous pauses towards that slide, while MCDM brings those pauses completely into the domain of tactical decisions, as opposed to partially as is the case of games that use to-hit rolls. Having said that, mechanics bloat can still slow down a game's flow; this is something that affects all TTRPGs. When it comes to combat, this is why I prefer something like PbtA-style games, where something always happens with every dice roll and mixed results when attacking someone in combat often times lead to an exchange in blows. It has the safe "sliding down the slope towards the pit of defeat" effect but it handles combat much quicker than MCDM's RPG because combat is played out exactly like everything else, as opposed to its own separate mini-game. To me, it feels very much like Quick-Time Events in video games, which actually makes TTRPG combat quite exciting. IMO, as far as TTRPG combat goes, less is more.

[@matthewlaird5235]

Does the game have dice rolls? If the answer is yes, then there is nothing that can be done to stop the cruddy feeling of rolling bad. The only way to take that bad feeling away is to remove all dice rolls. Take Matt’s system for instance every attack is a hit, ok, roll damage. What will happen is rolling the minimum will start to feel the same as doing nothing on your turn. I know it’s not the same as missing, but once everyone will get use to always hitting and rolling dame will give you that cruddy feeling.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

My point exactly. The funny things is, if you completely took away die rolls and made damage a flat number per turn, you'd still have that problem, as you'd feel bored every time you did damage.

[@meiliyinhua7486]

I can be of two minds about roll to hit. On one hand, it doesn't make much sense for a trained professional to just straight up miss a swing with a sword against someone with no armor at any real chance above 1%, as they know full well *every* movement with a sword needs to be made in a way that it will injure an opponent if not prevented from doing so, plus with a blade you're aiming an entire line of a cut, not just a spot as with a thrust, and rolling below an AC needs extra flavoring to make up that difference in realities without extra mechanics, but if some other mechanic does the mitigation, it reinforces a ludonaritive consonance. On the other, it can be a very useful source of tension in an rpg where every hit counts, and if you have dms that *do* that extra flavoring, it can work out, especially in low-HP scenarios where each hit has a risk of knocking you unconscious, such as my trpg I'm designing with just a wee bit more than XCOM 2 levels or HP But in a system like D&D, or any other where you have a large amount of HP and can therefore can take several hits before suffering any consequences... I feel that it doesn't really add to the experience... The hit% chance just falls flat as a tension until you ratchet up damage numbers or end up in the red zone of dropping anybody, and I feel like the more tense part is frequently the damage roll anyway.

[@ThePiachu]

I agree with the sentiment to an extent. I remember we were playing Godbound, a game where you're like level 20 D&D Characters at chargen and go up from there. We had two characters try to duel one another with swords while they usually relied on magic in regular combat. After multiple rounds of whiffing we just called it quits. Didn't really feel like a demigod fight. I guess a better approach to the problem of misses feeling unheroic is to stack the math in character favour so missing is nigh-impossible. Exalted or EvWoD did this quite well. About 1 in 3 dice you roll result in a hit and your regular dice pool for a character that's into combat is like 20. So you still have a chance to miss, but most of the time you will end up hitting people so hard and doing so much damage your fists will leave a shotgun hole in enemy's chest. Sometimes players want to show off how great they are so you give them easy rolls to show how they dominate something. Don't do it for trivial things, but for things the PCs focus on - give a locksmith a lock to just obliterate and they will feel great about their dice investment.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

This works up to a point. Conan 2d20 and Cyberpunk RED, which I mentioned in the video, both heavily weight combat in favour of the PCs by simply making them way stronger than the mooks they're beating up. On the one hand, this definitely enables the power fantasy both these systems are meant for, on the other hand, the low of combat makes players overly reckless, and means the GM can't seriously hit them with consequences unless they either super duper screw up, or the GM starts pulling adversarial BS. There's swings and roundabouts to everything.

[@LangyMD]

I feel like separating morale and health wiuld help with this. Misses still injure morale but don't injure health and hits are relatively highly damaging to health.

[@MagiofAsura]

Personally, i like DC20's take on speeding up combat by taking out the damage roll instead of attack rolls. The higher your to hit roll the more damage added to your base damage. I rolled a 28 in 5e means very little. In DC20, if the AC was 15, you add 2 damage to your weapon attack which is huge in the system which HP is scaled down by 3.5x. The otherside of the equation i believe your analysis is missing and that most ttrpgs dont realize is a problem is off-turn player engagement. I know MCDM has a trigger for players to do things off their turns but my understanding of it is limited. For DC20, all your 4 action points can be completely spent before your turn even comes if you use maneuvers to act off your turn which means you should be engaged in paying attention off your turn because at any moment, you can act and add value to the fight. There is also a tactical element because if you spend all your AP parrying and defending your allies, you wont have any for your turn since action point replenish at the end of your turn.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Quite a few RPGs combine attack and damage rolls, yeah. Cubicle 7's takes on the Warhammer Fantasy and 40k RPGs managed to combine attack, damage, and hit location rolls into a single d100 roll, which is pretty impressive. Regarding reactions (or "triggered actions, as MCDM calls them), MCDM gives players one per round. I chose not to track them for my analysis, as I figured it would make things too confusing. You do, however, make a good point about them helping with off-turn player engagement. Also, I've not actually heard of DC20 before, I should probably check it out.

[@taragnor]

Yeah absolutely, I think one of the most annoying problems with the conventional RPG structure is off-turn player engagement. It's not uncommon in your average D&D game for players to just tune out when it's not their turn and switch their brains on again when their turn comes up. Hell I've done it myself on many occasions. It's a laudable goal to get things moving faster. It's one reason I actually like a lost of the OSR style of 1 action per turn instead of all the fancy bonus action/move action/etc of the more modern D&Dish games. Sure it adds some interesting choices during your turn, but it also seems to slow things down a lot. And once things start to slow, the problem compounds since more and more people aren't paying attention, making it take even longer.

[@mctkrlvn]

Glad to see someone else in here from the DC20 crowd

[@nichan008]

Some GM's (and players) want to follow the exact rules, which is fine, but I find this often leads to extremely drawn out battles that are not "realistic" like players might say they want because they believe the rules represent "realism". To keep players engaged, you want them to feel like they're making a decision, seeing a result, and doing that often. Can we blame combat length on enemy HP count and "null results"? Maybe, but I'd say it's more of a time to kill + lack of narrative issue. Notice I said "time to *kill*", we're talking fantasy, so sure, your players' objective may be to kill everything. But should your NPCs' objective be to fight until their own death? In all but the most extreme cases, probably not. Better root cause issues are: "combat only ends after players kill all the enemies" & "players only pay attention when the combat situation changes" So, let's give the GM more tools to justify to players why combat ends faster, modify the state of combat more often, and reduce the complexity of combat while trying to preserve depth. Instead of being (solely) bound to hard thresholds of something being dead and alive, I think a "Team Morale system" could positively affect both problems. Reducing complexity is easy enough by allowing auto-hit with critical misses happening when minimum damage is rolled. For example: Sum each enemy's HP into a global Morale pool. Allow all attacks to "hit" the morale pool (except for critical misses!). Each time 10 damage is depleted from the Morale pool (or whatever scale makes sense for the game/GM), on the enemies' next turn the GM does a Morale check. Let's say, 1d6 and there's a 50/50 chance one of the enemies runs away, succumbs to their wounds, finds their equipment has been severely damaged, is too exhausted to avoid being hit, or whatever the GM needs to say to justify that they have lost their ability to continue fighting *effectively*. If you roll a 6 on a Morale check, do another Morale check for another enemy noticing that one dropped out. Hypothetically, this should make players pay more attention for less time while giving the GM a lot more narrative options about how a combat is progressing even when it isn't the players' turn. This should also make it really easy to scale encounters to players if the GM makes the threshold for Morale checks be related to the higher end of the players' possible damage output. Meaning that when the players' have a good combat round, they stay invested to see if they will get that extra reward from knocking enemies out via Morale check.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Early D&D had a Morale system where you rolled 2d6 equal or under the Morale stat of NPCs once they were severely damaged to see if they ran away, but it was eventually done away with. From my brief experience of OSR play, it works well enough. I also notice that Imperium Maledictum (the new Warhammer 40k RPG) has a Resolve mechanic, where once the PCs gain the upper hand in combat (based on how much Momentum they build up), the NPCs surrender or flee. Although you don't always need mechanics for this. My PCs in Cyberpunk RED (where combat is assumed to be to the death) habitually leave 1 NPC alive at the end of each fight to spread the news of how dangerous they are, so they can earn higher reputation.

[@nichan008]

@@allseeingeyetrpg Oooh, momentum sounds pretty interesting. Though I guess it doesn't solve the problem of perpetually rolling badly, just a cherry on top system?

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@nichan008 I just bouble-checked the rules. It's called superiority, not momentum, but you earn it whenever you: plan well before a fight (up to 3), kill the enemy leader or Elite-level NPC, or kill a number of Troop-level NPCs equal to the enemies' Resolve in one turn. Superiority is also lost whenever PCs go down, get surprised, or the NPCs get reinforcements or a beneficial change in the battlefield. Each point of superiority also gives a +10% chance to all the PCs' attacks. NPCs give up once the PCs' Superiority is equal to or above their Resolve (unless they're cornered or refused surrender, in which they do fight to the death). I should note that I've not yet played Imperium Maledictum (although I want to), so I can't say how well these mechanics work in practice.

[@nichan008]

​@@allseeingeyetrpgThat's... a lot going on... 😲 Though I guess I can't rightfully critique too much as my drug of choice is GURPS 😅

[@josephgreer2291]

I don’t know all the ins and outs of the system but if I always hit so I’m just rolling damage but the armor takes the damage to zero ain’t that the same as missing?

[@Dialethian]

You get counter attacked.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Early versions of the system apparently had armour doing damage reduction. However, in the sample combat I studied for this video, I didn't hear the word armour mentioned once, so I'm not sure how it works. I think it might just give you extra HP, but don't quote me.

[@quickanddirtyroleplaying]

Armor is part of a character's "kit," which is a package of equipment along with a single encounter ability that goes along with that kit. As such, all kits have armor as part of their package and, the heavier the armor, the more bonus health it grants. There are still abilities that do things like cutting damage in half, reducing damage by a dice roll, allowing you to move out of reach of the attack as an interrupt, and being able to defend yourself, which imposes -2d4 on any one who attacks you that you can defend against (something every character can do as an action). Maximizing your survivability is more of an active effort in this game than in, say, D&D.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Thanks for the clarification. I can't say I love armour giving bonus health (it feels too videogame-y), but given how the rest of the mechanics work, it does make sense.

[@resmores]

I mean into the odd did this over a decade ago

[@youcantbeatk7006]

Seriously, this is not a new mechanic. I've written games that function the same. I don't get why everybody's so butthurt over it.

[@Tysto]

It makes more sense if every attack just reduces hp, but the attack roll was a way to account for armor and I haven't seen a good alternative, include damage absorption. Colville will probably work his way back around to a modified version of 4e after awhile. I'm just disappointed that he explicitly states his system won't service the exploration pillar. He seems to be just focused on combat, and combat cruft is one of 5e's (several) problems.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Honestly, I prefer armour reducing damage to armour prvoiding AC. As for to hit rolls, to me they represent you overcoming your opponent's attempts to parry and dodge. I hadn't seen him say the MCDM RPG won't service exploration, can you point me to where that is?

[@0bomberjack0]

This way of thinking is literally how Vidya started to become this microtransaction hell that wants your reward center to give out dopamine as much as possible so you like the game. Just look at phone games that yell at you how great you are for every button press so you'll turn into a good little addict who wants his fix on the reg and disregards every other game since the other game won't abuse your brain like that. And just like it's with drug addict at some point weaker things not heavily abusing your brain just won't feel right. Btw this is also how Websites like YT became this bad since if one starts it at some point others have to follow or they'll lose a lot of their customers to the abusive competitor. I also hate this "Games need to make me feel like i'm my le hekking ebin main character Marvel hero who can never *really* fail" crowd who moved in over the last few years, pandering to the lowest common denominator isn't great for quality and usually destroys character to appeal to the passing masses which are gonna jump interest in a few years at which point a lot of your OG fanbase is most likely also gone. have fun with your participation trophy and your reward center frying tho as long as you don't get the idea in your head everyone needs to play like this and try to force this as some superior way to play. You can have your "obsessive need to matter" game as long as i can have my "i'm capable of accepting failure" game. I just realized but if your brain supposedly treats a minimum damage hit as a miss due to innate negativity bias you'll just get the same issue like you had before since there's no difference before anyway.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

The funny thing about building a tabletop RPG around dopamine-chasing is there's no reward for the designer. There's no ads or microtransactions (thankfully). Furthermore, RPG sessions are usually a fixed length on a regular schedule, so making an addictive tabletop RPG won't necessarily make people play longer or more often. The incentive structures between social media/phone games and tabletop RPGs just don't line up

[@taragnor]

D&D has had always-hit effects since its conception. Every "save for half damage" spell will do some damage. It's not some revolutionary new idea honestly.

[@0bomberjack0]

@@allseeingeyetrpg As if DnD (for example) doesn't have Apps with microtransactions like their compendiums, extra classes etc. and there's also tons of video games about it and there's nothing stopping other ttrpgs from monetizing like that. oh and don't forget the merch and extra stuff you don't actually need but want and licensing fees for shows/fanmade content if your players get a big stream with a decent following going. If you seriously think they can't monetize the shit out of that game you obviously haven't heard about the ~150mil Dollars that DnD made in 2022 alone..... in it's 6th year of continuous growth. @taragnor yes but the main difference is the choice i can make to use that or not plus there's always a chance of half dmg and no effect happening which isn't the case in MCDM unless the enemy burns a heroic action. that change to the risk/reward balance can have pretty strong effects on enjoyment. i personally would use a called shot/attack system where you have a lot higher chance of hitting a guy's chest but his armour is in the way so less dmg if you hit. Target the head? 1.5x to AC but also 1.5x to dmg (depending on class and abilities). This way you give the Player the choice to play it safe and raise the hit chance or go crazy and aim for the eye in a last ditch effort to not die.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@0bomberjack0 I've used D&D Beyond, so I'm fully aware of how it's monetised. The difference between buying game supplements and merch and video-game microtransactions is that you buy the first type of out of game and the second while playing the game. IMO that meaningfully alters the psychology of the buyer

[@burtonmoore996]

"Welcome to the game everyone, is everyone ready? Alright, well you all win, here's your loot, a castle and infinite wishes. Good game everyone."

[@haysmcgee801]

I think they’re trying to “solve” a problem that has existed in tactical heavy combat heavy RPGs since the 70’s. I think their approach is a little novel but all in all it’s going to become 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Law of averages and all that. Other games approach this same problem by changing the dice type and system used to make the probability more “reliable”. As far as retaining player attention at the table during combat one very simple “fix” is going from a passive defense (AC, Defense rating) to an active one (roll to parry, block or dodge) which is essentially all the MCDM RPG is doing. This means that either they are purposefully using provocative language to spark dramatic buzz about their game or they don’t understand this concept of game design has been in place for 50 years because they have never played anything except DnD. Which I’m pretty sure it’s the former not the latter. Colville and crew have been in the industry for 40 years. What they are doing isn’t as novel as some are giving them credit for and in fact from what I have seen, because of the language they are using to communicate this very simple idea, it’s causing some unnecessary clunkiness in their game. The damage roll being the attack roll doesn’t eliminate either it just bundles them. All of the mechanics being decided after the roll instead of before it is illusionary. It’s not going to speed up combat, characters are still going to “miss”, this isn’t a human negativity bias this is because dice are being used. To your example of the “roll to climb the ladder “ story. This is just an example of dice being implemented too much. There is a whole generation of ttrpg players who have been taught to roll way too much. Dice are only supposed to be used when the action has definable or negative consequences for the POSSIBILITY of failure. In your example, if the ladder climb was during a fight, or a high speed chase yes roll. If the rogue is picking a lock and is not being rushed and has a reasonable amount of time then no roll. If that same rogue is trying to get through the door before being spotted by an approaching guard then yes, roll. If your barbarian snuck up successfully on the sleeping unnamed minion enemy and wants to quietly dispatch them, why make them roll for attack or damage? Just let them feel like a badass and move on. Don’t make the Ranger roll for damage during hunting of a deer unless you want to play out the “bad shot” and make them track the bleeding deer for ten kilometers until they can finally put it down. I hope you understand my point; dice are called for too much. Here’s a fairly common way we can tell they’re being used too frequently: the players asking, “Can I make a perception check?” Instead of saying, “I’m going to look around the room, searching everywhere, pulling out every drawer, flipping the mattresses, knocking on the walls and floor until I find (insert magguffin here)” then the GM decides if that requires a roll based on time available, consequences of failure, etc. I think that I have rambled on a bit too much, but I hope that I was clear enough at conveying my thoughts.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Yeah, I definitely used to make my players roll way too often, until I ran Conan 2d20. That game has such a fiddly core mechanic that it made some of those more frivolous rolls more pain than they were worth. My roll discipline has been better ever sense.

[@haysmcgee801]

@@allseeingeyetrpg man I really wanted to like Conan 2d20. It was the first kickstarter I ever backed, I even backed it to the highest level I could afford after saving up a bit, getting the collector’s edition, the dice, the tokens, the stretch goal books in hard cover, and then after waiting for like 3 years (because I stupidly opted to have it all sent at once and some of the books were in wave 3 of release) I finally got it and cracked open and spent the next 6 days trying to decipher the rules. If you have played the game then you might understand this: my wife likes to play Archers in fantasy games. So I needed to look up the Archery rules, and what the different types of bows were…. ( O . O ) It’s a gorgeous book, with incredible art. Some really cool narrative mechanics like the momentum and doom tokens (if I am remembering correctly). But holy shit is it the worst layout I have ever seen in a ttrpg. Straight character creation is fun, I randomly generated 20 different characters and they were all completely different and interesting. But fuck me were the rules of actual game play all over the place, so much so that we got half way through the campaign and switch to the Dark Eye rules system because it handled the Conan, sword and sorcery gameplay so much better. I think that tells you everything you need to know about the 2d20 system, my gaming group preferred to use the Fucking Dark Eye.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@haysmcgee801 The layout isn't great, but that part I managed to wrangle. What I struggled with was the poor editing and inconsistent rules, which meant that even when I could find the rule I wanted, I still didn't know what to make of it. I actually found the Doom rules especially painful - they're fun in theory, but figuring out what should and shouldn't cost Doom was a pain, and combined with me having two raging Doom-phobes for players, I couldn't use it to nearly the extent the system wanted me to. After about 15 sessions, I ran out of steam, and we switched campaigns.

[@williampounds5191]

I mean people are playing it and having fun so speculating off of not having played it is literally worthless. We aren't talking about a theoretical ruleset, it exists and is playable.

[@gendor5199]

I have a simmilar start with Colville, started out good, lost a lot of interest as time went on, and I wish he had just taken Enlightened System from his friend Jim Murphey, whose kickstarter failed, but the system itself is so much smoother.

[@zionich]

It is always annoying to me when giving a spoiler for something that has been out a long time is somehow justifiable. If it's your first time at what ever age you are, it can very well be someone else's first time also.

[@midnightdl]

I like the appeal of not hit roll, it certainly is not a magic fix for everything boring at the table as you rightfully call out. Thing is, why would anyone wait for mcdm to finish all their play testing to reinvent the wheelz, when those RPG options seem to exist already? Hype?

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

While asking for a money for a game that isn't even made yet is a ... bold move, I can't really criticise them for it, since I did in fact give them my money. And yes, games like Into the Odd or Panic at the Dojo already do this, as other commenters have mentioned. We'll see if MCDM spend my £53 wisely and manage make not rolling to hit work.

[@samaranthae9671]

To me this is anti simulationist and therefore agaisnt verisimilitude. Its a game and thats ok. But to me when you get better at fighting with a sword. the thing you get better at is hitting and not being hit. But games have taught us that the thing you get better at is that you do more damage. The questions i ask is. Should level 1 feel heroic? if so then yeah. but if you want to feel like you got better then its kinda gonna suck at first And the other question is. How do i stop my players from waiting 15 minutes for their turn.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Yeah, if you're already a big damn hero at level 1, any future "heroism" you can achieve will have diminishing returns.

[@taragnor]

Well really it comes down to what's a "hit." In most games with hit points, being hit by a dragon's bite doesn't mean your arm is going flying off or you're ripped in half (as would likely make sense if you took a blow by something that massive). The majority of games equate to no consequences besides a few lost hit points, but you still fight at full power, you're not knocked down, etc. Until you run out of hp, there's often no consequences at all. And at 1 hp, you're not dragging a useless mangled leg and barely making it, you're still able to act unimpeded but you're in a state where you can't stop the next blow. So what you're really saying with a "hit" most of the time is you meaningfully depleted someone's ability to defend themselves. In that context, constantly always dealing damage and improving the damage you deal makes sense. It always takes some energy to fight your attacks off, and as you get better, you attack faster and more frequently, meaning you're better at depleting foes defenses. And as far as being heroic, dealing big damage numbers always makes you feel like a badass. The main problem really isn't about feeling heroic, It's more about the game becoming too predictable if there's no enough variance in damage rolls.

[@samaranthae9671]

I've never really liked the hp as an abstract. But I get that it works for some people. In my game hp is flesh and blood and bone and sinew but you have adrenaline until you pass out. I've modelled how average damage per turn goes up significantly as your attack bonus goes up, without your damage going up. But that's bounded damage and bounded hp rather than bounded accuracy. Many valid ways to skin a cat. And mcdm will really rock for some people. Just not for me. 😊

[@taragnor]

@@samaranthae9671 I will say that in most games, at least the accumulating HP D&D style ones, hit points has always been this nebulous undefined concept. It can't be pure meat because you get tons of hp at higher levels, to the point that you may be able to reliably survive a 50 ft fall, while always dying to the second 50 ft drop. On the other hand, you apparently require healing to get the hit points back, suggesting that maybe it is an actual wound. Then you have big monsters like dragons that would inflict a debilitating wound, if not a lethal one, if it got any kind of solid hit. And of course you can somehow be swallowed by a purple worm and survive. I don't really know if there's a right way to handle that, because there's no narrative that's completely internally consistent with how the rules treat it. Hit points have always been a bit silly, so I guess I never minded designers playing around with how they're used.

[@samaranthae9671]

There is history in both and dnd certainly has been defined as both or either at certain times. Saying it can't be because it doesn't make sense. Kind of backs up my argument that it's not simulationist to increase hp with level and increase damage, but instead to increase rhe frequency with which you hit and reduce the frequency that you get hit. Or to increase the number of times you attack I guess. (Although that can get out of hand lol)

[@michaelnurse9089]

I recently made and played my own RPG - I listen to all Matt's videos and copied many ideas but I did NOT copy the attack mechanic. The players need to feel some pain when they fail. I distilled combat to two rolls - against a standard 'danger level' for each encounter: 1st roll is attack roll - if it suceeds the hero hits the enemy, else the enemy hits the hero. Then a damage roll. It worked great - there was much less time invested in a single dice roll and there was groans and cheers depending on results.

[@SavageGreywolf]

I take umbrage with the idea that just because something 'isn't fun' it doesn't belong in the game. sure, missing isn't fun. Getting hurt isn't fun either, maybe we shouldn't have hit points. Maybe PCs shouldn't be able to die either. Status effects aren't fun, maybe we shouldn't have those. In fact, it feels a little like every single rule an RPG has is some sort of limitation that prevents me from declaring that I teleport behind the bad guy, do a grazillion points of damage and win instantly.

[@youcantbeatk7006]

Getting hurt is a part of the fun though, unless you're trying to compare getting hurt in real life to getting hurt in the game, which would just be silly, but I assume you're smart enough to not make that argument, right?

[@mightystu49]

Yeah, they fundamentally misrepresent their system as saying a turn where an attack is missed is a turn where nothing happened like you can't reposition, use other resources, etc. You took a chance, same as casting a spell and the targets resisting it. Given how iffy some of the other mechanics they have worked on in and that this project doesn't even have a name yet, this all smacks of being rushed out the door to capitalize on the "WotC bad" zeitgeist. I do think you are right in that it sort of misses the point and just shifts the "null result" as they like to overuse as a buzzword. Players having shit attention spans is a personal problem, not a system problem, as well. I agree that I quite liked early Matt Colville stuff when he was just giving friendly advice but as he has tried so hard to both monetize his youtube popularity and cultivate a cult of personality where he can be the popular guy at the enter of things, he has really become a much less useful voice online that is clearly only interested in superficially turning a profit.

[@ItsXenixo]

Quick answer: no he is not wrong. Save you the 21 min.

[@clev7989]

The "why" is important. Without it, there's no reason for someone who disagrees to consider the opposite position. As your comment is without a "why," not only do you not give me reason to agree, but as it's on a video that extensively explores the "why", it doesn't save me time, and it makes me think you haven't actually thought through the "why."

[@ItsXenixo]

Im simply saving people the 21 min of logical mish mash and fumbling. Having played for many years, waiting 15+ min only to roll once, miss, and wait another 15 is a design flaw. he is fixing it. So again, wasted video, and now, even more, a wasted reply.@@clev7989

[@nevisysbryd7450]

The only time of mine wasted here was reading this vapid comment.

[@vitore.sanches7712]

Thanks man.

[@jayteepodcast]

Participation trophies for everyone

[@youcantbeatk7006]

No, it's participation for everyone.

[@garhent]

Colville's mechanics is bad, horribad. Never missing makes hits less exciting. It makes the moment at the table when you really needed to hit, but you rolled two 1's in a row and you lost your bud, well that moment is gone as is the time when you rolled that crit right when you needed it to save the party from a TPK. Colville is increasing the hitpoints to allow for auto hitting which makes for longer combat and more math at the table. I'd rather have less hit points and more lethal combat. It would require players to think more about ways of avoiding combat or optimizing combat to minimize chances of being hit in the first place and again less math. I'd rather deal with an extra +1 to +4 to hit or a -1 to -4 to hit than having to subtract 17 from 168 and then 8 from 151 and so on. I'd rather be at 80 and subtract 5. If Colville wanted to do something revolutionary, how about damage is done in increments of a 5. If you do 2 hp damage doesn't count, if you do 3 hps round up to 5 and apply it to the damage and so on so damage is done in 5's, 10's, 15's etc and keep monster and player hp's in increments of 5 as well. The math is now easier to handle.

[@AlexBermann]

Obviously, people can play however they want. To me, the whole null result is part of the fun. Yes, it can be frustrating if you fail to achieve anything, but this is the price to pay for the times when everyone at the table holds their breath for when you attempt the deciding blow, or the moment of disbelief when you make the hit that seemed almost impossible. The priblem with heroic design is: if everyone is a super, nobody is. Rolling damage just because you declare an attack does not feel heroic if you roll low damage. It feels like a participation reward feels to the people who received it. Those rewards do not just feel bad to people who win. They feel condenscending. Another analogue from sports is if you know that your opponent lets you win. Yes, you did win, but because it does not feel earned, it is a mockery of your efford. I do not say we necessarily should have a binary of results. It is absolutely possible to make failed attacks more meaningful. In a modern genre, a missed shot from an automatic weapon could serve as surpressing fire. A grenade that does no damage could force movement. But the attack judt doing damage is not great. It can be made to work. Many JRPGs have HP be a much more dynamic value and have a big variance in numbers. This does not make the attack that does 10 damage look heroic when other characters do 999 and it is not supposed to. Instead, the low damage visualizes the gap between powers more than a probability could. The 10 damage are an insult - and as such, they work well. The discourse about combat speed also is kind of a dead end. For this, let me present the opposite: you roll for attacks, but if anyone gets hit, they are taken out of the fight with possibly terrible consequences. This system speeds up combat considerably because it can be over in one roll - and the average length of combat could also be relatively low. HP are padding. Padding can be good if you want combat to take longer. The problem with the approach of making attacks auto hit is that you take out the parts of combat that offer suspense, while leaving all the padding in. I do get that some people get bored with combat. Much of that is because players see incapable of thinking of their turn before it comes up and thus take forever. The other part is that it often does not offer interesting decisions. I like to take pathfinder 1 as an example. For a fighter, the only viable move in most turns is going to be full attack. It is just window dressing if that attack does damage. As a player, you wait until the game is finished playing itself. You may try to spice it up with descriptions, but this will only make the rounds even slower. Let players decide if they want to play it safe this round, if they accept a weak defense to focus on applying pressure, if they want to do a risky, decisive blow or if they want to make quick, but weak attacks. Give people decisions, give them agency in the gamble that is attack rolls instead of making it feel even more like a cutscene.

[@jacobbarnhart8770]

Great review. The concept of "Never Miss" or "Always Hit" I think was poorly executed with MCDM. They missed the issue (pun intended) with D&D and combat length. The roll to hit never adds that much time to the table to begin with. Auto-attacking also isn't very fun either. Which is what most of combat was/is. Missing in D&D sucked. You wait a while for your turn, hopefully plan it based on the actions others are taking, roll ....and nothing. Because you missed. It isn't fun. That's what removing the "Roll to Hit" does. That's the mindset I've approached with regarding the game system I'm developing. It's not a miss - it's a degree of effort, it's not that you didn't hit it - you hit it but not hard enough. One might say this is the same, but it isn't. Without going into a large amount of detail about my game, the target of the attack has choices regarding their response to being attacked - one of them is to not get hit by movement or spell. Choosing that, the attacker can still miss! But not due to a poor roll. It's involved. Players have enjoyed the play tests so far. (With many more to come!) Definitely enjoyed this review. Thank you.

[@Adamthegeek70]

It's dumb, yes rolling a one on damage is bad, but you don't fix it by taking away the attack roll. No risk = no reward. Would have been better to have a min damage instead. I think.

[@Stephen-Fox]

The thing I find interesting about MCDM doing that to be 'heroic' is that the OSR I'm currently playing - Mausritter - seems to do that to help combat be deadly and dangerous to PCs. Combat is deadly and you are vulnerable, without the safety net that your enemies might sometimes miss. (Though I'm new to the system, and since we're playing PbP we haven't gotten into our first combat yet, so might be missing something)

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

It wouldn't be the first time two RPGs did similar things for totally different reasons. I've heard of Mausritter, but I haven't got around to got around to looking at it yet.

[@cobinizer]

You lost the initiate to the dragon? Oooooh, too bad. Everyone take 80d6 damage.

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

I mean, there's no point dragon that combat out I'll see myself out

[@daniel8181]

Everyone but me is wrong. Rolling to hit is stupid because presumably your character doesnt have constant violent muscle spasms that prevent him from being able to just....hit something. Not rolling to hit is stupid because presumably your opponent isnt in a vegetative state. Simply contextualizing rolls as the interaction between your strike and their defense however seems stupid because your damage roll seems to determine how well they defended. The real answer is mage knight, always was.

[@WittyDroog]

A lot of RPGs don't contextualize the roll to hit as a single swing of your weapon, but rather a volley and the "hit" represents if you are able to connect with your opponent rather than then dodging or their armor effectively glancing off the blow, is it an attack that's actually able to damage the fighting capability of your opponent (because just as well a lot of RPGs abstract HP as overall combat effectiveness and not just blood in the body)

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Based

[@spikemonster7857]

Which one is based?!!

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@spikemonster7857 Yes

[@daniel8181]

lol @@allseeingeyetrpg

[@Goshin65]

If you want faster-paced combat, first don't model on 5e or 4e. Lower hit points a lot, lower AC a little. If need be use a timer... you've got 15 seconds to make up your mind what you're going to do, if not you miss your turn. I wouldn't like waiting for 20 minutes for my turn to come around either, but it my games an entire combat shouldn't take 20m.

[@youcantbeatk7006]

"Faster" combat isn't about rushing to the end, it's about progressing faster, and doing more with the time you're given. Even if combat last a long time, "faster" combat means you're getting several more rounds and interactions within that amount of time. There's no fun in rushing through things, and not being able to think things through. The end shouldn't be the reward, but rather what you get to do and how much you get to do while playing.

[@Cynidecia]

Players will never tell this to your face, but they want to see the consequences of their actions, both positive and negative. Taking away the negative takes away interest. Also, is it "heroic" for things to be easy with always hitting? Is it "heroic" to be able to calculate the average DPR to Game combat incredibly easy? "Oh that guy will die in 2 rounds with our average DPR, kill him first"

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

Conflating power fantasy with heroism seems to be more and more common these days

[@Cynidecia]

@@allseeingeyetrpg "A Victory without danger is a triumph without glory." -Pierre Corneille

[@allseeingeyetrpg]

@@Cynidecia I studied two of Corneille's plays at university. Seeing a quote in his in my comment section is a pleasant surprise

[@taragnor]

Well some people really like the DPR calculations since it lets them be more tactical. It's really a matter of player perspective. Slay the Spire and Dark Souls are both great games, but for different reasons. As far as always hitting, D&D has had always-hit effects since forever. Like magic missile and fireball. They'll will always do damage when you use them, barring some kind of special ability that specifically nullifies it.

[@Pgans94]

Very lukewarm take but I think "natural 1" results are utter garbage. Yes, let's punish the players and their characters for a random occurrence happening that they have next to no control over (barring Halfing race or Lucky feat). Sure, the knight that has trained with weapons for a decade has a 5% chance every time he swings his sword to behead his nearest ally or fatally maim himself, or this netrunner with a sidearm that has been in their family for decades suddenly decides to break from normal use and being properly cared for because one shot out of twenty just said "mmm no". It doesn't add drama, it kicks the people at your table in the shins for just playing the game.

[@fbibarbie]

A better option is if a player really hates missing test him and see if he really wants a consistent weapon. I would never remove the entire risk-reward dice roll and fail system most players as much as they hate missing in my experience like it. Instead of removing the mechanic you simply need only make a weapon that has any effect such as the reliable effect on assault rifles from Lancer of always doing some damage even on failure or miss. Even if you fail your attack even crit fail it always does 2 damage to the enemy. Make them choose between two magic weapons that have higher normal damage on success vs one that has the trait of doing some slight damage even when you fail I have tested this on 3 players who hate missing and they all chose the higher damage on success one EVEN when I made the one that is consistent far better damage on average. I am one of the few people who actually like weapons with those traits which is why I use the old boring assault rifle in Lancer. I can see why others don't they as their turns are far more exciting like a gamble either doing Massive damage or failing is entertaining. Meanwhile I am slowly but constantly chipping away at the enemy doing far more damage on average but it goes unnoticed as there is no spectacle to slowly killing your enemies by constantly spraying them with an impossible-to-dodge amount of bullets. But yes I challenge you eye to try it and test one of the players that say they want to never fail I have not seen one yet actually back that up with their actions when given the choice.

[@wbbartlett]

I used to quite enjoy Colville's earlier vids too, but then he became a self-publicity machine devoted to pumping out product after product that were of no interest to me. Haven't watched any of his stuff for a few years.

[@Conan_Burns]

The participation trophy of ttrpgs. For weak people who can't deal with the trauma of losing a die roll

[@youcantbeatk7006]

Your internet tough guy routine is pathetic. It's literally a game of pretend.

[@Conan_Burns]

@youcantbeatk7006 thank you 😊...like all pretend, like sports and just games in general. I believe they mean something, that they have a purpose. The truth always sounds like a lie to the sinner

[@youcantbeatk7006]

@@Conan_Burns Genuinely, what the fuck are you even talking about? You're neurotic.