Commentary on Session 8 combat and prefaced by prior test versions.

This post is reposted from the post at https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_RPG_Tools/ concerning the story combat session past with identicall post names. 

Thanks, to the current subreddit members! If you haven't joined the community yet, every membership helps bring more of my tool content [the next goal is 15 members to open the next content reward, an encounter-type tool]. See Coin Solo RPG System 1_05 for membership criteria.

[Spoiler text is for if you haven't yet looked at the Setting up, Inciting Event, and Sessions 3 through 8 result. Read those posts first.]

I felt very satisfied with the first conflict giant worm one-shot kill. Here is why.

I wanted to comment on the session 8 first giant worm conflict combat result and preface it with a recap of the 3 prior test Combat Results so far. I'm recounting a summary what has happened so far with the combat system to sort of explain why I thought and felt that way.

You can read the full prior tests in those posts from months ago.

For Version 1_04, there were two combat test results.

1st Test 1_04

In the first combat test done with the simultaneous, before adding combat skill, combat done 3 months ago between William and the demon wolf went as follows.

1. William shot off the demon wolf's right hind leg and the wolf bit lightly into his abdomen.

2. William missed with the walking stick, and the demon wolf killed William by ripping open William's stomach, abdomen muscles, and main artery. (William died in two rounds)

2nd Test 1_04

In the second test, the final nature of the combat was made very apparent as well. This was before factoring negative ability, negative skill, and before skill models.

1. William shot blasted the demon wolf in the chest destroying muscle, bone, and organs and the demon wolf bit and clawed at William's abdomen causing light wounds. (Demon wolf died in the first round)

1st Test 1_05

In 1_05, the skill models, weapon scaling, and revised damage rules for the current version were added.

1. William's blast nicked the wolf's rear left leg and the demon wolf bit off a chunk of William's left arm rendering it limp and useless.

2. William swung and broke the demon wolf's rear left leg with a walking stick and the wolf bit and clawed light damage to William's upper right leg.

3. William swung his walking stick with a heavy blow to the demon wolf's and struggling the demon wolf bit and teared at his lower left leg. The demon wolf then collapsed dead. (William killed the demon wolf in 3 rounds after taking a heavy left arm wound)

4. William then was overcome with poison for a period of time.

Correction for 1_05 and 1_06 combat example

I noticed and will change one example that needs one small correction as noted for the 1_05 and 1_06 PDF versions. It doesn't change the rule nor the example. It just was a typing error shown in bold. The combat doesn't change at all.

The disadvantage slides the pistol shot from 4-2=+2 to 2-1=+1This means, because of the disadvantage, the damage would go to the 2nd flip instead of the first flip. 1st tails, 2nd 2 coin damage tails & tails = both tails damage, 3rd flip = heads. Damage result = player inflicts Light damage, opponent inflicts Heavy damage. William's target = tails, heads, heads= Upper left leg receives heavy light damage.

Session 8 William vs Worm Commentary

Having prefaced this giant worm story combat with what William has experienced in the past 3 combat test examples, this worm combat felt really good and satisfying. Especially after all of the narrative setup and giving William a real reason to fight the worms, his one shot to the head (well giant worm mouth) was very satisfying.

It is satisfying after experiencing frustration with both Troy in the corn field, that sadness of Mr. Anderson's farm, questioning whether it was even his battle, and Harry telling aunt Sarah about uncle's dire situation.

If you haven't looked at that text yet, see sessions Setting Up, Inciting Event, and 3 through 8 for the current former Mayor Jacob Vaast adventure.

Even though the story will continue, I knew I had to stop after the one-shot kill.

RPG and Story Scenes: RPG scenes

For the last series on  Character & Society see those posts.

RPG and Story Scene Series

RPG and Story Scenes: The foundation of action within a story.

RPG and Story Scenes: RPG scenes

RPG and Story Scenes: Writing and RPG methods
RPG vs Story Sequel: Reaction

The last part was primarily from a story writing perspective. In this part, I wanted to look into a RPG perspective of scenes.

In most games time comes in two major forms. They may not even name these two forms, but they become more evident when looked at more closely. These two time forms have corresponding story writing forms of time.

The purpose of both forms is to focus on the exciting stuff and quickly pass by the boring stuff. And stuff that is trivial to character development can be brushed aside.

A. Timeless

The first form is when major action is not occurring. In this time mode, time itself is less relevant. Things occur in a very vague sense of time using broad terms. Because action is not being focused on, thus accurate game time is not important. Time can easily slip from minutes to hours to days all in a few moments of gaming time.

In gaming, this might be while at a town or village not at any specific location, travelling to a location, or some introductory overview.

The party enters the village of Shattered Teeth. You make your way towards the citadel located on a medium sized hill.

An interesting mechanic that uses this form is a series of two or more competing characters rolling in succession which represents several events or actions over a long period of time to try reaching a target or goal. Many skill rolls use this time mode. The two main edition of Fudge even have a combat option called Story Element, where vague story units use one or taking-the-median-of-three rolls can sum up an entire combat, skill, or social interaction sequence. HeroQuest has a similar summary mechanism. In this time mode, time isn't really kept accurately.

[You roll some great success result] 
Not only do you destroy all of the foes around you, you even kill the ones trying to escape.

In writing all of these mechanics represent this type of time is called narrative summary and transitional scenes.

If timelessness is one form of time, then time focused is the other form.

B. Time Focused - Rounds

The second form is when major action is occurring. During these types of time mode, time itself becomes very important.

Many games use specific increments called rounds, which divide time into set increments. Another form is to use moves where actions are triggered by descriptions of actions within the discussion of the game. Some mechanisms are simultaneously resolved such as some Fudge and Dungeon World conflicts. Most use alternating resolution where some sort of turn-taking method is employed. Indicators of this type of time in gaming is dialogue between the characters, rolling for specific action and results, and time based skill rolls such as combat.

[Roll to see if your surprised]
[Roll for initiative]
Q: What do you do?
A: Since I have first action, I ....
Etc...

In writing, this is the main content to proactive action scenes and reactive reaction sequels - writing the scenes that describe action, reaction, emotions, thoughts, dialogue, and real-time conflict.

What is similar between the two media types?

Similarities between RPGs and Story Writing Time Modes

Both RPGs use two major types of time modes. They use vague timeless scenes and sequels where time and action are less important. They also uses more exact time for those scenes where time and action are very important. How they do so is by using various methods.

The RPG and Story Writing Methods of managing Time Modes

RPG gaming uses time vague skill rolls, a series of sequence rolls vs target or each other, and story element rolls for timeless modes. For time focused moments they use simultaneous rolls, alternating rolls, dialogue, time specific skill rolls, and time based narration all within a time frame of rounds, moves, or other time-unit based system. The time units keep track of time more closely and accurately.

Story writing uses narrative summary and transitional scenes for timeless moments when quickly moving from one important moment to the next - when details don't matter as much. For those time focused moments, they use dialogue, action, vivid descriptions of supporting character actions, interior monologue, and inner thoughts from the POV character.