Plutonis posted:

I kinda wish there was a way for systems to emulate well stuff like Nen Powers/Stands/Devil Fruits in a way that lets player use them creatively and think out of the box but there hasn't been many successes on that matter

Plutonis posted:

I kinda wish there was a way for systems to emulate well stuff like Nen Powers/Stands/Devil Fruits in a way that lets player use them creatively and think out of the box but there hasn't been many successes on that matter

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I feel like a good number of shonen battles - at least in better series like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or One Piece - are kind of more like puzzle challenges than straightforward fights. The hero has to work out how best to leverage their own powers creatively to beat a foe that is likely unbeatable in a straightforward fight. Though that's not always the case, of course, sometimes there's a secondary element or dilemma that keeps the hero from just throwing out whatever their Big Attack is, like a hostage or a promise they made or they've been debuffed somehow. I'm not sure there's a system that really does that well yet, through I know folks have certainly considered it.

You don't see it as often in western comics, but there are some like Spider-Man, who would have his villain-of-the-month with some quirky power back in the Silver Age and Spidey has to figure out how to beat an electrified foe or a foe made of sand or whatever with just his ingenuity and web-slingers.

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I feel like a good number of shonen battles - at least in better series like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or One Piece - are kind of more like puzzle challenges than straightforward fights. The hero has to work out how best to leverage their own powers creatively to beat a foe that is likely unbeatable in a straightforward fight. Though that's not always the case, of course, sometimes there's a secondary element or dilemma that keeps the hero from just throwing out whatever their Big Attack is, like a hostage or a promise they made or they've been debuffed somehow. I'm not sure there's a system that really does that well yet, through I know folks have certainly considered it.

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

Do you mean specifically Strike's monsters that don't even list hp or do you in general dislike players encountering things that they want to kill but can't? I don't think a way to kill something that requires on unorthodox methods is out of place in and of itself. Surely creatures stronger than the players exist in the world, it's on the DM not to convince the players to challenge them too early but maybe they do anyway? I think a nigh-unwinnable fight is a totally reasonable thing to present to players who have signed the waiver in triplicate and taken the fight to the lich themselves. If there's One Weird Trick that they can use to beat it anyway then good for them I think. That said, I don't think I'd specifically design encounters around such monsters with any regularity if my players signed up for straightforward grid combat.

I think, to do it in a way that doesn't invalidate the other gameplay style, the players would have to use both the one weird trick *and* good tactics to win - the trick lets the encounter proper start, rather than ending it instantly.

fool_of_sound posted:

Right but my example is 'use the combat mechanics, but with a goal other than get the monster's hp to 0'. For example, using crowd control or forced movement skills to try to maneuver the monster to a particular point on the battlefield, or holding the line against it for a set number of rounds. IMO that's perfectly valid.

e: or hell, stuff like 'capture this point and make sure there are no enemies within 3 squares'

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

What about monsters that use the same mechanical framework as regular enemies but are so much stronger than the players that they will always win no matter what tactics players use? I don't think there's much of a difference between that and ones that also have bullshit powers and are magic immune or something. It seems simple to make them technically use the framework while still being unbeatable, would you prefer they just stay unbeatable so as not to encourage players to attempt wacky improvised solutions in a tactical combat game?

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

The Gorgon straight up says "[the players] should come up with their own solution, but it absolutely cannot be as naive or simple as just walking in with a mirror." That's not talking about point control or anything, that's just "come up with a narrative solution to this monster that deals Ongoing 4 damage and turns you to stone if you look at it."

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

I guess it would feel sort of strange to me if there aren't creatures in the game world who will gently caress up the present party without a second thought. What are they leveling up for if everything they might fight is surmountable as-is?

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

I guess it would feel sort of strange to me if there aren't creatures in the game world who will gently caress up the present party without a second thought. What are they leveling up for if everything they might fight is surmountable as-is? It's fine not to design encounters of that nature but don't your players have enough agency that they might "design" an encounter themselves that they cannot win? I don't think you can reasonably call that an error on your part to be corrected.

I'm probably encoding a bunch of assumptions about how RPGs ought to work in there but it sorta seems like your players should have the freedom to face things they cannot kill if they so choose. (There are narrative solutions here -maybe creatures the PCs face really are the strongest thing anyone they know has ever seen.) The tabletop equivalent of invisible walls preventing the players from going somewhere too scary would be pretty unsatisfying to me.

This is separate from the one weird trick thought though - I think it's reasonable to not allow that if you don't like the precedent it sets and want a different style of game.

Jimbozig posted:

Those statblocks have a few uses:

1. To use in case the players encounter the unbeatable enemy before they have a method to beat them. This wouldn't be a straight-up fight, but may involve the players escaping or saving some townsfolk or whatever while the enemy acts with impunity. Maybe they just have to slow down Medusa and her serpentine minions for 3 rounds, keeping out of line of sight, while the prince escapes onto the boat. There are plenty of things you can do with the tactical combat system that aren't straight fights. They shouldn't be the majority - I wouldn't like a campaign that was all gimmick fights - but they are fun once in a while. You could do a scene like this with Skills alone and not use the tactical combat mechanics, of course, and if that's what you prefer, then I encourage you to do that!

2. To modify once the players have found a way to neutralize or weaken the enemy. So instead of the dragon's breath doing 16 damage, it may do only 4 if you are wearing the Cryonic Armor the gnomes made you. With some fairly minor modifications, these monsters go from unfair to fair.

Jimbozig posted:

For #1, totally fair that you hate it. It's something I might put in the work to design a cool encounter around as a GM, with mooks to kill and lots of cover to hide behind, but it's certainly not to everyone's taste.

I feel like you misread #2. The statblocks have a heck of a lot of stuff in them that is fair along with a couple of unfair things. So once the players find a way to negate the unfair things, that affects like two lines and you don't have to make up a whole statblock from scratch.

E.g. once the players get the Cryonic Armor that cuts fire damage by 50% and dragonfire by an additional 50%, they can feel free to attack the dragon and then the main unfair thing they need fear is being dropped from a great height and that the dragon can just soar out of range with impunity. So fight it in a cave or tether it to the earth and you have something that may well be a tough but fair fight, depending on their level. So as the DM you get to use the monster exactly as written without needing to put in any work. Which is the whole point of prewritten monsters.

Cassa posted:

Was it directed at each other, because that sounds in character.


Anyone do fancy D8 sets? Like casino dice but more sides.

Splicer posted:

I think the complaint being made is that if you bust out the combat mechanics, there's an inherent assumption that there's a combat based solution. I think you're making a reasonable argument that falls apart when you remember that much of human problem solving behaviour is based around applying million year old berry gathering algorithms to increasingly inapplicable situations.

hyphz posted:

Tactical combat, in many games, is primarily a sensual mechanic

hyphz posted:

Yawgmoth posted:

I am of the opinion that "you 100% cannot kill this but go ahead and try to solo kil'jaeden on your lv12 paladin if you want" is just as lovely as "this monster has no stat block but will keep hurting you until your brain syncs up with mine", in that both are pretty lame and have the same mechanics when you get right down to it, i.e. "this combat isn't really a combat, but you have to figure that out alongside something else". And sure, there should be stuff that the PCs can't fight but you're the GM; you can make it so those things don't go looking for the PCs until they're a reasonable threat to each other. Make a fight that the PCs are probably going to lose, sure. But make it a fight that they at least have some chance of winning through combat mechanics if you're going to bring combat mechanics into it.

hyphz posted:

Ok, this is a bit e/n, but this ties quite well into the current state of my thinking based on my prior confusion about BitD/PbtA etc.

Basically, most RPG systems, in their existence, revolve around a lie. The lie is that they can allow you to "be" or "do" something. Obviously at a facile level it's a lie because you can only imagine being or doing those things. But it's then a lie again, because the game can't allow you to imagine being or doing anything - since nothing was stopping you doing so without the game.

Oddly, to facilitate this lie, many games (modern ones less so) even misrepresent their mechanics. How many old games said that you rolled dice to resolve conflicts, rather than playing let's pretend and saying "you're dead, I'm not?" Yet a few pages later, they said that the majority of conflicts would be with GM controlled NPCs, that the GM is not playing against the players, and if he/she was they could just declare that rocks fall and everyone dies. In other words, after claiming that dice are rolled to resolve conflicts it's then stated that there should be no such conflicts and that if there were, the dice would fail to resolve them (with the possibly exception of PvP I suppose..)

So, actually, we can consider mechanics as having three properties: socialising (limiting what can be imagined so that it can fit in with other people), inspiring (trying to encourage imagination of things that might otherwise not be) and what can be awkwardly called sensual (adding additional sensory dimensions to what is being imagined). "Crunchy games" tend to favor socialising and sensual mechanics. "Storygames" tend to favour inspiring mechanics. Rough suggestion about what people think when mismatches occur:

pre:

Player Likes->  Socialising  Sensual      Inspiring
Mechanic
Socialising                  Unnecessary  Restrictive
Sensual         Broken                    Unnecessary
Inspiring       Unnecessary  Hollow

Tactical combat, in many games, is primarily a sensual mechanic (although it has aspects of the other two as well). In traditional RPGs, it is not there to guarantee a fair fight (although some RPGs have options that try to make it so, like the Dangerous Delves rules in Strike! or the rigid CR system in D&D - but arguably these take those games out of traditional RPG territory anyway, and you can't use the Unfair encounters in Dangerous Delves). It's there so that hitting something isn't just saying you hit it, and saying your character is good at fighting isn't just saying that.

So, yea. The idea of the Unfair encounters existing in the tactical combat system is to increase the sensuality and thus satisfaction of eventually beating them, on the assumption that you'll go to the tactical system after neutralising their unfair advantages.

DalaranJ posted:

You're talking about MDA framework, but you're using jargon incorrectly. You should go read about MDA framework.

Subjunctive posted:

Nice gatekeeping.

hyphz posted:

pre:

Player Likes->  Socialising  Sensual      Inspiring
Mechanic
Socialising                  Unnecessary  Restrictive
Sensual         Broken                    Unnecessary
Inspiring       Unnecessary  Hollow