Re: mechanics of surprise

In message <1172525372.847986.197680@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
          "gleichman" <fox1_217@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> 
> On Feb 26, 2:30 pm, mkkuh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Mary K.
> Kuhner) wrote:
> > Modern sniper rifles are lethal from frightfully long range, making
> > assassination very hard to prevent.  I would be willing to play in
> > a modern or post-modern setting in which the sniper rifle was
> > artificially toned down to be less long-ranged or less lethal.
> > I would not be willing to play in a gameworld where the rifle was
still
> > long-range and lethal in a PC's hands, but inexplicably was not
> > used in the same way by any NPCs.
> 
> And yet a person may go through world wars, a career of counter-terror/
> terrorist action, or live on either side of the fence of criminal
> activites for decades of an active career.
> 
> And never fire, or be fired at by a sniper rife let alone hit by one.
> 
> So basically... you wouldn't play in the real world.
> 
> Which is fine I guess, but it sort of indicates that your problem is a
> very different one that what you're saying. The problem is not one of
> SoD, it's not one of immersion, and it's not really even one directly
> of realism.
> 
> Rather it's the lack of a mechanical simulation that shows why the
> above is true, and the inability to accept that such things are
> possible without that mechanical justification. The problem is, no
> mere rule system can simulation the reasons for every possible game
> breaking disconnect from reality on this order- and remain playable.
> 
> In short, you over thinking the problem beyond the ability of any
> system to cope.
> 
> Towards that end you have simple solutions that will work. Remove
> sniper rifles. Remove Surprise. Continue until you break SoD at some
> point. Back off a step, and run with it.
> 
> Unless the point of this thread is not to solve the problem, but to
> vent about. Which is a game itself.


I think I generally agree with gleichman's view; it seems to me that
Mary's
complaint about ambushes being "too lethal" may be misdirected.

Considering examples such as Iraq, Vietnam, and gang wars between rival
drugs gangs, I think the real problem is that the game mechanics for
ambush tend to result in perfect ambushes every time. And a perfect ambush
generally results in a TPK. So I reckon the primary weakness is in the
simulation of the gameworld, and the weaknesses in the ambush mechanics
are
secondary.

In Iraq at present, there are a large number of armed insurgents with
ample
motive to ambush American forces, and the means, and daily op****tunities.
And yet their preference is to jury-rig bombs instead. This approach is
much
more haphazard, and while it does result in many wounded and dead
soldiers,
there are relatively few 'TPK's. The reduced risk to the Iraqis' own side
makes it far and away preferable for them to use this apparently inferior
tactic. What's more, the Iraqis aren't waiting for a specific party,
they're
just attacking whichever squad of soldiers happens to come along next.
Trying to target /a specific squad/ is so much harder to do it's almost
impractical. Trying to target a specific squad and wipe them out to a man
is
even worse. So even with regular ambush attempts, a given squad is likely
to
go at least a few weeks between effective attacks, and they will see a lot
of attacks which are only marginally effective. i.e. no fatalities, and
possibly nothing worse than a bit of vehicle damage. So even in Iraq, with
ambushes and attacks a routine event, an effectively unlimited number of
available targets, and modern one-hit-can-kill weapons, there still aren't
that many TPKs. Ergo, they should not be anywhere near as common in RPGs
as
they actually tend to be.

Now compare the recently-posted example of the characters ambu****ng an NPC
as he walked out of his cave. The PCs were perfectly set up, alert, and
the
NPC obligingly walked out of his door right on cue to be slaughtered. I am
reminded of an old Order of the Stick comic, where
Short-Attention-Span-Man^H^H^Hhobbit^H^H^H^H^H^Hhalfling is complaining
that
he's never going to have the patience to wait until nightfall before the
characters execute their attack on a bandit camp. But, having checked that
no-one has anything they want to do in the meantime, the rogue, I think,
says "- Ahem - That evening . . .", at which point night instantly falls.
Ambushes in RPGs usually work in /exactly/ this way. That's why they're
almost always perfect ambushes. And perfect ambushes lead to TPKs.

But if somebody waited to ambush me as I stepped outside my front door,
they
might have to wait a couple of days before I obliged them. And they'd have
to be alert from ~9:30am to sometime past midnight. Given that time lag,
there are a dozen sets of eyes - including mine - that would have several
chances to notice them and become suspicious before the ambush triggers.
What about house guests, visitors, people delivering stuff? What's going
to
happen if there's a rugby match on the day I decide to pop out? There
could
be hundreds of lightly-boozed fans strolling across the assassins'
sightlines in groups of 2-20, even though the main road outside my front
door is a dual carriageway and you would normally see only a few dozen
people a week.

Im****tant NPCs in a gameworld can hire guards, and so can PCs once they're
reasonably rich. An inner perimeter and an outer perimeter. They can have
servants answering the door for them. They can have friends and visitors.
Why they do appear in the open, they may have companions; if it's cold or
raining they may be sufficiently covered up to be hard to recognise.
What's
more, maybe it's not them wearing their distinctive cloak at all; maybe
they've just lent it to a friend who came unprepared for a cloudburst.

If you take complicating factors like these into account, it's plain that
a
perfect TPKing ambush is far harder to set up than the bare game rules
seem to indicate. Given this, I'd suggest the first priority if you're
going
to change the ambush rules is grade the /quality/ of the ambush, with a
quality scale ranging from 'marginal', 'abortive', or 'authorities
alerted'
right up to 'perfect'. And the risk of fatalities should rise along the
scale. At low quality levels, a death should be mostly bad luck, or a
low-level character or henchman getting taken down. And the difficulty of
achieving a particular grade of ambush should depend partly on the
paranoia
and resources of the target, as well as on the stealth/disguise skills and
other resources of the ambushers. And in practice 'perfect' should be very
difficult to achieve, rising to nigh-impossible for the real movers and
shakers of the campaign. And the latter category is likely to include many
groups of PCs.


-- 
Simon Smith

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