mechanics of surprise

[Mary K. Kuhner]

I'm interested in mechanics to represent the combat advantage
of surprising one's opponent. The discussion that follows assumes
a segmented initiative system like Shadowrun or D&D.

We've never found a really satisfactory way to represent the
advantage of surprise. Some that we've tried:

(1) Side which gets surprise has one free round of actions, after
which initiative is resolved as usual. In both SR and D&D, at
higher levels this leads to a lot of combats where surprise
completely decides the outcome, often before anyone on the surprised
side gets to act. This is defensible but too bloody for me.

(2) Side which gets surprise acts first, then side which lost
surprise. Behaves more or less like (1) with occasional weird
pathologies (in general it's not good, in segmented initiative
systems, to force all of one side to go "together"--it exposes
weaknesses in the system).

(3) No mechanical effect of surprise at all. This can have very
non-intuitive results: side A completely surprises side B, but then
side B rolls better on initiative and moves first. But it does
lead to less onesided combats.

(4) Side which gets surprise acts first, but can only do
"half-actions". This is what current D&Dv3.5 does. When normally
a character can move and attack, or move and cast, in a "surprise
round" she can only do one of those. This reduces the danger
posed by fighters a lot. Unfortunately it doesn't do the same to
the danger posed by spellcasters. Also, some characters'
combat manuvers don't work in a surprise round and this can lead
to grumpy comments "we didn't want to get surprise here, it's
screwing us up." (Of course the characters can wait out the
surprise round without acting, but that feels horribly artificial.)

(5) Side which gets surprise gets an initiative bonus. If the
bonus is huge this reduces to (2). I have no practical experience
with smaller bonuses, but maybe they would be more satisfactory.

For all of these, cases where only some combatants are surprised
should also be considered. They are perhaps most easily handled by
(5).

Are there any more? Any comments on picking among these? I've
tried (1), (2), (3) and (4), and currently use (4) in D&D, but
I'm never really happy with the results.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[gleichman]

My answer is as usual, useless as it applies to my own game and really
no others.

In AoH, the group with the surprise advantage gets a free round of
actions. But the surprised do still get their defensive rolls (if at a
negative modifier).

In addition I determine surprise in a uncommon way. The game calls for
a surprise roll against the group (representing one of them alerting
all) and then if the group fails- each individual member gets an
individual roll that only determines his own condition (surprised or
not).

As a result, I don't have the problems you've noted and battles
typically play more like the source material with one or two people
getting whacked and then a normal battle playing out.


HERO is a little more troublesome, but I tend to run it the same way.

[Eric P.]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:39:00 -0800, gleichman hath written thusly

Post by gleichman
My answer is as usual, useless as it applies to my own game and really
no others.
In AoH, the group with the surprise advantage gets a free round of
actions. But the surprised do still get their defensive rolls (if at a
negative modifier).
In addition I determine surprise in a uncommon way. The game calls for
a surprise roll against the group (representing one of them alerting
all) and then if the group fails- each individual member gets an
individual roll that only determines his own condition (surprised or
not).
As a result, I don't have the problems you've noted and battles
typically play more like the source material with one or two people
getting whacked and then a normal battle playing out.
HERO is a little more troublesome, but I tend to run it the same way.

A free round of actions for just one side can be devastating to the
other. In a case where attacking side gains complete surprise over
defending side, attackers should probably get a "partial round" to act,
typically meaning a single attack or a relatively simple attack
routine, and getting off any effects (spells or other supernatural
effects) that can be unleashed quickly. Defenders should still be
allowed to act, but mostly this would be defensive action. Let them
attempt to fend off the attack, but give them a penalty to their
defenses that reflects the fact that they were caught with their guard
down.

I recently reread the surprise rules in 3.5e D&D, and discovered I'd
been running it incorrectly for a while (D'oh!). IIRC, those rules
don't allow completely surprised individuals to take any actions at all
in the surprise round. In the case of partial surprise...I guess I need
to read that section yet again, because I don't recall whether they're
treated as flat-footed and still get partial actions that round or not.
In any case, I prefer that the defending side be allowed to do
something, instead of nothing...unless that side was asleep at the
start.

- E


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[Rick Pikul]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
(4) Side which gets surprise acts first, but can only do
"half-actions". This is what current D&Dv3.5 does. When normally
a character can move and attack, or move and cast, in a "surprise
round" she can only do one of those. This reduces the danger
posed by fighters a lot. Unfortunately it doesn't do the same to
the danger posed by spellcasters. Also, some characters'
combat manuvers don't work in a surprise round and this can lead
to grumpy comments "we didn't want to get surprise here, it's
screwing us up." (Of course the characters can wait out the
surprise round without acting, but that feels horribly artificial.)

Less artificial might be to allow people to trade the limited action for
a hefty initiative bonus. For instance, in D&D you could give up your
surprise round action in order to "take 20" on your inititave roll.


In a continuous inititative system I toyed around with for the Palladium
system a while back, (but never got around to testing, I gave up on
Palladium at about the same time), being surprised meant you didn't get an
inititative roll. This would have meant restrictions on using defenses,
(non-auto and early use of auto defenses cost an initative point), and no
ability to break inititative ties in your favour until you spent an action
to re-roll inititative.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

In article <***@sympatico.ca>,
Rick Pikul <***@sympatico.ca> wrote:

[surprise round = half-actions]

Post by Rick Pikul
Less artificial might be to allow people to trade the limited action for
a hefty initiative bonus. For instance, in D&D you could give up your
surprise round action in order to "take 20" on your inititave roll.

This exists in D&D as the "refocus" action, but it's fairly artifical
too. I'm balky about mechanics which focus attention entirely on the
details of the initiative system. I think I'd have the same trouble
with your (snipped) "if you're surprised you can't break ties"
rule. I can't easily map these to anything the character is doing.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Rick Pikul]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
[surprise round = half-actions]

Post by Rick Pikul
Less artificial might be to allow people to trade the limited action for
a hefty initiative bonus. For instance, in D&D you could give up your
surprise round action in order to "take 20" on your inititave roll.

This exists in D&D as the "refocus" action, but it's fairly artifical
too.

Actually, refocus was cut in 3.5, but it was part of the inspiration for
the thought. The rest was the idea that, while the activity would take
too long to do in your moment of surprise, that moment would surely let
you start your move before those you surprised could react.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm balky about mechanics which focus attention entirely on the
details of the initiative system. I think I'd have the same trouble
with your (snipped) "if you're surprised you can't break ties"
rule. I can't easily map these to anything the character is doing.

The idea was that if you are surprised you are going into the fight
unready and will be at a disadvantage until you take a moment to pull your
situational awareness together. The big disadvantage would actually have
been the restrictions on dodging and parrying attacks.

The system was based on counting up, with a step equal to the number of
attacks you would have had under the reqular rules and an action once you
reached a total of 10. One available action was taking a moment to
reorient yourself and make a fresh initative roll.

[psychohist]

Surprise mechanics need not be tied to initiative. For example, in my
Eastern Isles mechanics, the primary combat effect of surprise is a
combat bonus on the first attack (typically +4 to hit on a 2D20
system). In addition, I think only the one character initiating
action would typically benefit from this.

In group situations, the primary benefit of surprise in my system is
that the group with tactical surprise would get up to a free round of
movement, but not combat. That could still be a big advantage, but
it's not as overwhelming as a system where the entire group gets a
free round of combat.

Warren J. Dew

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by psychohist
Surprise mechanics need not be tied to initiative. For example, in my
Eastern Isles mechanics, the primary combat effect of surprise is a
combat bonus on the first attack (typically +4 to hit on a 2D20
system). In addition, I think only the one character initiating
action would typically benefit from this.
In group situations, the primary benefit of surprise in my system is
that the group with tactical surprise would get up to a free round of
movement, but not combat. That could still be a big advantage, but
it's not as overwhelming as a system where the entire group gets a
free round of combat.

How do you deal with situations like the following?

(1) My forces set up just outside the cavemouth. As soon as the foe
steps out of the cave, we fire arrows at him. We don't intend to move
at all as we have good cover where we are.

(2) My group and the enemy group are standing face to face, talking.
Negotiations break down; the leader of my group gives a secret
signal, not detected by the enemy, which means "Attack immediately."
(This happened in our last session; the group leader is a telepath
so it's easy for him to signal undetectably. We ruled it as
not-surprise as the other group may well have sensed that negotiations
were going poorly.)

In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot
one of us before we got to shoot him. I'm not as sure about #2,
but how about this:

(3) Half of the PCs have been replaced by dopplegangers. The
dopplegangers have agreed among themselves in advance that if the
PCs try to open the door to their secret hideout, they'll have
to attack immediately. The PCs have failed to notice
the dopples and have no idea anything is wrong, and they haven't
yet been able to open the locked door so they are not expecting
attack from that direction.

Would you allow only one of the dopples a bonus to hit on its
first attack? How would you pick which one?--an initiative roll?

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[psychohist]

(repost - I hope it's not a duplicate)

Mary Kuhner asks me how I deal with the following situations:

(1) My forces set up just outside the cavemouth. As soon
as the foe steps out of the cave, we fire arrows at him.
We don't intend to move at all as we have good cover where
we are.

I'll answer for my actual rules. Note that my rules do include a fine
grained initiative system; it's just that the initiative system
doesn't act differently for surprise situations than for normal
situations.

This first case counts as a "passing attack" situation. If the foe is
unaware of your presence and has no reason to be suspicious, he'll
move out of the cave mouth normally (rather than "alertly", see
below). The individuals in your force may borrow their first attack
from the following combat phase to use at an arbitrary point in the
foe's movement. The first individual to do this gets the surprise
bonus for his attack, which means his roll to hit is doubled (not +4
as I mistakenly said before, sorry).

After the first such "passing attack", the foe may respond by ending
movement and executing his own action, becoming alert if he wishes.
For example, he might throw something back if he already had it out -
exercising his own "passing attack" - or if he had no weapon out, he
might use his action to draw one - or he might simply become alert.
Thereafter, the round would proceed normally with no further surprise
bonuses given the foe is now alert. The advantages you gain in this
situation are (a) the first attack, with a surprise bonus, and (b)
starting the combat in a position favorable to you. The latter is
likely to be the bigger advantage.

Alternatively, the foe could choose to continue his planned movement
rather than stop. In this case, the next individual in your force
could exercise their passing attack, with surprise. After each
attack, the foe would have another chance to decide to end movement
and execute an option - though obviously it would have been better to
do that after the first attack rather than after a later attack. The
primary reason a foe might continue to move would be if they felt that
they could withstand your entire group's attacks and continuing their
move would give them a better position later - for example, getting
them far enough away to safely flee on the next round.

If the foe has reason to be suspicious, he can choose to step out of
the cave "alertly" rather than normally. This halves his movement
rate but means that you would not have the "surprise" advantage on
your passing attacks - though you would still get the passing attacks
themselves. Realistically, the foe would only choose to do this if he
was habitually "alert" every time he stepped out of his cave, since he
can't distinguish the time when you are there from the times when you
are not. Most people would not choose to do this since the half
movement rate is a big penalty.

(2) My group and the enemy group are standing face to face,
talking. Negotiations break down; the leader of my group
gives a secret signal, not detected by the enemy, which means
"Attack immediately." (This happened in our last session; the
group leader is a telepath so it's easy for him to signal
undetectably. We ruled it as not-surprise as the other group
may well have sensed that negotiations were going poorly.)

I would probably handle this as a normal combat round in which
everyone on both sides is passing their initiative until the leader
gives the signal. Someone on your side gets to be the first to use
their initiative to attack rather than pass; things then proceed in
normal initiative order. In my game, initiative order is determined
primarily by largest number of remaining active blows, secondarily by
largest number of reactive blows, and finally by current endurance.
Note that characters tend to have 3-6 actions per round in my system,
so simply having the first blow in melee is not a huge advantage.
This is different than the above archery case, because an arrow shot
typically costs most or all of one's blows, so the free attack is a
much bigger fraction of the character's combat potential for the
round. If the negotiations were tense, everyone probably starts out
"alert", so you don't get the surprise advantage.

If negotiations were not tense - say it was a prepared trap, and you
successfully got them to relax and let down their guard before you
attacked - then they would start out unalert, giving the first of your
party to attack a surprise bonus. Each foe could, and probably would,
become alert at their normal initiative turn, but would be subject to
surprise until then; how much this exposed them would depend on their
initiative relative to your party's.

In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got
to shoot one of us before we got to shoot him.

The advantage in (1) would be substantially greater than in (2),
because of the positional advantage and because the surprise bonus
tends to be a bigger advantage for archery than for melee in my
system. While the foe gets to react quickly in (1), he likely does
not have a missile weapon ready and may not have one on him at all.
Because he ends movement in the middle of ambush, you likely will get
a second round of missile attacks on him, which is normally difficult
to arrange.

I'm not as sure about #2, but how about this:

(3) Half of the PCs have been replaced by dopplegangers.
The dopplegangers have agreed among themselves in advance
that if the PCs try to open the door to their secret hideout,
they'll have to attack immediately. The PCs have failed to
notice the dopples and have no idea anything is wrong, and
they haven't yet been able to open the locked door so they
are not expecting attack from that direction.

Would you allow only one of the dopples a bonus to hit on
its first attack? How would you pick which one?--an
initiative roll?

This is roughly the equivalent of the latter variation of (2), with
the nondoppelgangers replacing the foes who let their guard down. The
characters take their attacks in normal initiative order, with each
nondoppelganger being subject to surprise on any attack on him that
occurs before his first initiative in the round.

Note that I only discuss melee and missile attacks here. Spellcasting
benefits much less from surprise in my system.

Warren J. Dew

[Will in New Haven]

Post by psychohist
(repost - I hope it's not a duplicate)
(1) My forces set up just outside the cavemouth. As soon
as the foe steps out of the cave, we fire arrows at him.
We don't intend to move at all as we have good cover where
we are.
I'll answer for my actual rules. Note that my rules do include a fine
grained initiative system; it's just that the initiative system
doesn't act differently for surprise situations than for normal
situations.
This first case counts as a "passing attack" situation. If the foe is
unaware of your presence and has no reason to be suspicious, he'll
move out of the cave mouth normally (rather than "alertly", see
below). The individuals in your force may borrow their first attack
from the following combat phase to use at an arbitrary point in the
foe's movement. The first individual to do this gets the surprise
bonus for his attack, which means his roll to hit is doubled (not +4
as I mistakenly said before, sorry).

If a group is set up and ready to fire, why does only the first
individual benefit from surprise. It doesn't take intense discipline
and training for them to get off a rough volley and that should give
everyone surprise. And it shold, against people, or whatever, stupid
enough to let them get into that position. "Ambushers are murder and
murder is fun" applies to this situation.

This situation should be really difficult to achieve as most foes
would have a sentry or sentries or some sort of magical warning system
or at least a dog. Once you achieve it, by cunning use of your own
scout(s), magical suppression, dumb luck or a combination of these
things, you SHOULD get the benefit. This could be a walkover or it
could still be a tough fight, depending on other factors, but this is
why you try to get the drop on people.

Post by psychohist
(2) My group and the enemy group are standing face to face,
talking. Negotiations break down; the leader of my group
gives a secret signal, not detected by the enemy, which means
"Attack immediately." (This happened in our last session; the
group leader is a telepath so it's easy for him to signal
undetectably. We ruled it as not-surprise as the other group
may well have sensed that negotiations were going poorly.)
I would probably handle this as a normal combat round in which
everyone on both sides is passing their initiative until the leader
gives the signal. Someone on your side gets to be the first to use
their initiative to attack rather than pass; things then proceed in
normal initiative order. In my game, initiative order is determined
primarily by largest number of remaining active blows, secondarily by
largest number of reactive blows, and finally by current endurance.
Note that characters tend to have 3-6 actions per round in my system,
so simply having the first blow in melee is not a huge advantage.
This is different than the above archery case, because an arrow shot
typically costs most or all of one's blows, so the free attack is a
much bigger fraction of the character's combat potential for the
round. If the negotiations were tense, everyone probably starts out
"alert", so you don't get the surprise advantage.

Here, I could see giving one unit, person or whatever on the attacking
side a bonus. For one thing, they could have had a plan about who
should be dropped when the stuff hit the fan.

Post by psychohist
If negotiations were not tense - say it was a prepared trap, and you
successfully got them to relax and let down their guard before you
attacked - then they would start out unalert, giving the first of your
party to attack a surprise bonus. Each foe could, and probably would,
become alert at their normal initiative turn, but would be subject to
surprise until then; how much this exposed them would depend on their
initiative relative to your party's.
In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got
to shoot one of us before we got to shoot him.
The advantage in (1) would be substantially greater than in (2),
because of the positional advantage and because the surprise bonus
tends to be a bigger advantage for archery than for melee in my
system. While the foe gets to react quickly in (1), he likely does
not have a missile weapon ready and may not have one on him at all.
Because he ends movement in the middle of ambush, you likely will get
a second round of missile attacks on him, which is normally difficult
to arrange.
(3) Half of the PCs have been replaced by dopplegangers.
The dopplegangers have agreed among themselves in advance
that if the PCs try to open the door to their secret hideout,
they'll have to attack immediately. The PCs have failed to
notice the dopples and have no idea anything is wrong, and
they haven't yet been able to open the locked door so they
are not expecting attack from that direction.
Would you allow only one of the dopples a bonus to hit on
its first attack? How would you pick which one?--an
initiative roll?
This is roughly the equivalent of the latter variation of (2), with
the nondoppelgangers replacing the foes who let their guard down. The
characters take their attacks in normal initiative order, with each
nondoppelganger being subject to surprise on any attack on him that
occurs before his first initiative in the round.

This should be a slaughter. Or nearly should, depending on the
planniing abilities of the dopplegangers and whether they could get in
good position for their treacherous attack. It might backfire if
getting in position requires moving to places that the characters they
are replacing wouldn't normally go.

Will in New Haven

--

[psychohist]

Will responds to my description of how my system handles surprise in
an ambush, in part:

If a group is set up and ready to fire, why does only the
first individual benefit from surprise. It doesn't take
intense discipline and training for them to get off a rough
volley and that should give everyone surprise.

The ambushing group cannot communicate perfectly. In fact, all but
one of them are likely to receive the same notice as the ambushee that
combat has begun: the shot from the first ambusher.

That said, I may need to modify my previous post, where I was thinking
that the ambushers all "fire when they see the ambushee step out from
the cave", which will give them a spread in attack times. If instead
they fire "as soon as the first ambusher fires", their action occurs
at the same point as the ambushee's action, so they would be resolved
in initiative order; on average, half of them would get the benefit of
the surprise mechanics. It might be all, or it might be just the
first one, depending on how quick their reactins are relative to those
of the ambushee.

You seem to be making the assumption elsewhere in your post that the
ambushee, to have gotten into that situation, must be "stupid". I
don't think the mechanics should make that assumption, and mine
don't. If the ambushee is stupid, that's a matter to be reflected in
how he's roleplayed.

Note also that in my system, the initiative order acts in exactly the
same way even if the person coming out of the cave knows that the
ambushers are there. The only difference is that he's moving
"alertly", so the attackers won't get the surprise benefit and he
himself moves at half speed - and perhaps he'll have a missile weapon
out, so his "passing attack" opportunity can be used in an actual
attack, rather than likely being used up in readying a weapon.

Regarding the 'treacherous doppelgangers' situation:

This should be a slaughter. Or nearly should, depending
on the planniing abilities of the dopplegangers and
whether they could get in good position for their
treacherous attack.

In my game, it probably would be a slaughter, even though the surprise
mechanics themselves would not dictate that result. What would make
it a slaughter is that the doppelgangers would likely get into the
right positions to make the most of their surprise advantage, turning
a merely substantial advantage into an overwhelming one.

Perhaps another way to put it is that my surprise mechanics handle
microtactical surprise of the "I stab you in the back while you're not
looking" kind, and not small unit tactical surprise. The latter form
of tactical surprise is handled using the same movement and combat
rules as are used for other combat situations, and the tactical
advantage flows naturally out of the actions taken by the characters
to arrange for surprise.

Warren J. Dew

[Russell Wallace]

Post by psychohist
Note also that in my system, the initiative order acts in exactly the
same way even if the person coming out of the cave knows that the
ambushers are there. The only difference is that he's moving
"alertly", so the attackers won't get the surprise benefit and he
himself moves at half speed - and perhaps he'll have a missile weapon
out, so his "passing attack" opportunity can be used in an actual
attack, rather than likely being used up in readying a weapon.

I'm curious, since realistically there is of course a huge difference
between the decisecond-scale timing of firing a readied weapon and the
much longer timescale of going from flat-footed to effective small-unit
combat - is this an intentional unrealism for the sake of reducing
lethality? I ask because AFAIK you mostly run on the basis of "let the
bodies fall where they will".

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
I'm curious, since realistically there is of course a huge difference
between the decisecond-scale timing of firing a readied weapon and the
much longer timescale of going from flat-footed to effective small-unit
combat

Don't be so sure of that. People in combat are never anywere as
effective as one would think. In fact, they are mostly just plain
terrible.

Being someone with a degree of experience with readied weapons- I'm
not sure that I could make a accurate decisecond firing decision upon
command that would do anything besides make noise. Human minds don't
work that way, to get there takes extensive training that few can
master.

[DougL]

Post by gleichman

Post by Russell Wallace
I'm curious, since realistically there is of course a huge difference
between the decisecond-scale timing of firing a readied weapon and the
much longer timescale of going from flat-footed to effective small-unit
combat

Don't be so sure of that. People in combat are never anywere as
effective as one would think. In fact, they are mostly just plain
terrible.

What's the stat for misses by trained police at 20 feet or less?
Something like 5/6ths of shots fired under those circumstances. And
police are overwhelmingly better than most of their foes under those
circumstances.

Post by gleichman
Being someone with a degree of experience with readied weapons- I'm
not sure that I could make a accurate decisecond firing decision upon
command that would do anything besides make noise. Human minds don't
work that way, to get there takes extensive training that few can
master.

The Human Eye takes roughly a decisecond to respond at all (some
movies are at 12 frames a second, your eye may just barely be able to
notice the flicker which is why the standard is faster), and if you
are firing on sound then anything from more than 30 meters or so away
hasn't even REACHED you yet after a decisecond and human sound based
reflexes tend to be slower than light based (eyes are our primary
sense).

I don't believe in Decisecond action scales in combat. The senses and
nerves simply aren't fast enough.

Ready, foot on the brake petal (but not pressing down), hit the brake
as soon as you see breaklights on the car ahead of you, and you know
it's coming: it STILL takes about 1/4th of a second for someone with
good reflexes to respond IIRC.

That's roughly doing Brian's make noise, any need to aim would add to
the time. Anything less than 1/4th a second to start acting is
probably nonsense.

OTOH a surprised but competent driver takes about 3/4ths of a second
to hit the break in an obvious emergency. And some of that is used
actually moving the foot the greater distance from the gas to the
break.

I'd guess that's close to the minimum time to do a target ID, aim, and
fire. But it's also close to the minimum time to duck or start dodging
and weaving or draw a weapon.

DougL

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by DougL
I'd guess that's close to the minimum time to do a target ID, aim, and
fire. But it's also close to the minimum time to duck or start dodging
and weaving or draw a weapon.

The difference is that before a guy can start "ducking and weaving",
he first must realize that he is under attack. Which has as a lower
bounds about the same time as it takes for the other guy to do the
Target ID, etc., because it involves a similar process (and one that is
possibly quite a bit longer if the target is not used to being under
attack).

I'm with Russell Wallace on this one. The incoming fire might not be
*accurate* (I think it is a separate argument that RPG characters are
hyper-competent under fire), but the attacking party should have a
significant initiative bonus towards loosing shots over the other side
reacting effectively.

Biff

[Will in New Haven]

Post by DougL

Post by gleichman

Post by Russell Wallace
I'm curious, since realistically there is of course a huge difference
between the decisecond-scale timing of firing a readied weapon and the
much longer timescale of going from flat-footed to effective small-unit
combat

Don't be so sure of that. People in combat are never anywere as
effective as one would think. In fact, they are mostly just plain
terrible.

What's the stat for misses by trained police at 20 feet or less?
Something like 5/6ths of shots fired under those circumstances. And
police are overwhelmingly better than most of their foes under those
circumstances.

Not that I disagree with your overall point, in fact I agreee with it,
but the police are a very poor choice of examples, almost as bad as
their opponents. You can't get your average police officer to go to
the range, he is shooting a handgun anyway and, no matter how many cop
shows he has seen, he is always shocked to find himself in a gunfight.
Misses by swat team members at such ranges are much less likely, as
are misses by legally armed private citizens. As are misses in
comparable situations by soldiers. Of course, most of a soldier's
shooting is in more difficult situations.

The model for most of the Player Characters we see discussed on here
seems to be "professional adventurer." If they are in a game with
firearms and have a chance to pull an ambush, they probably won't be
using handguns, they probably have been to the range and they expect
to be in gunfights. I think that they will do better than the cops and
robbers example.

Will in New Haven

--

Post by DougL

Post by gleichman
Being someone with a degree of experience with readied weapons- I'm
not sure that I could make a accurate decisecond firing decision upon
command that would do anything besides make noise. Human minds don't
work that way, to get there takes extensive training that few can
master.

The Human Eye takes roughly a decisecond to respond at all (some
movies are at 12 frames a second, your eye may just barely be able to
notice the flicker which is why the standard is faster), and if you
are firing on sound then anything from more than 30 meters or so away
hasn't even REACHED you yet after a decisecond and human sound based
reflexes tend to be slower than light based (eyes are our primary
sense).
I don't believe in Decisecond action scales in combat. The senses and
nerves simply aren't fast enough.
Ready, foot on the brake petal (but not pressing down), hit the brake
as soon as you see breaklights on the car ahead of you, and you know
it's coming: it STILL takes about 1/4th of a second for someone with
good reflexes to respond IIRC.
That's roughly doing Brian's make noise, any need to aim would add to
the time. Anything less than 1/4th a second to start acting is
probably nonsense.
OTOH a surprised but competent driver takes about 3/4ths of a second
to hit the break in an obvious emergency. And some of that is used
actually moving the foot the greater distance from the gas to the
break.
I'd guess that's close to the minimum time to do a target ID, aim, and
fire. But it's also close to the minimum time to duck or start dodging
and weaving or draw a weapon.
DougL

[gleichman]

Post by DougL
I'd guess that's close to the minimum time to do a target ID, aim, and
fire. But it's also close to the minimum time to duck or start dodging
and weaving or draw a weapon.

In real life, this is close enough to the truth to be at the core of
US Military training. There the proper response is to *immediately*
return fire and counter-attack through the ambush position. Advantage
of firing first isn't as major as most RPGs make it. As a result the
US Military are very good at turning ambushes into death for those
foolish to launch one as a result.

See http://compass.seacadets.org/pdf/nrtc/cb2/14235_ch5.pdf for the
basic concepts.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
Don't be so sure of that. People in combat are never anywere as
effective as one would think. In fact, they are mostly just plain
terrible.

Well, it's the ineffectiveness of people taken by surprise - at least
for the first few seconds - that I'm arguing for

Post by gleichman
Being someone with a degree of experience with readied weapons- I'm
not sure that I could make a accurate decisecond firing decision upon
command that would do anything besides make noise. Human minds don't
work that way, to get there takes extensive training that few can
master.

By "decisecond-scale" I meant an order of magnitude, of course reacting
in exactly 0.1 seconds would be pushing it, but consider the two positions:

A) You know the enemy are coming, you can see them, you have your
gun/bow/lightning wand/whatever in hand, you've already had time to aim,
all you have to do on command is pull the trigger, you can probably do
that in a few deciseconds and have a reasonable chance of hitting, right?

B) You're walking along not particularly expecting to be in combat
today, suddenly without warning you're under fire. You have to dive for
cover, ready your weapon, figure out where the attack is coming from,
aim in approximately the right direction and fire. That's going to take
on the order of seconds rather than deciseconds, isn't it? Also because
there still isn't really time to aim properly, when the initial return
fire does come, isn't it more likely to be spray-and-pray with little
chance of hitting anything? It would seem realistic to not only give the
ambushers a free round of attacks, but also when the targets do manage
to shoot back, give them an initial to-hit penalty. (Some game systems
do model this to some extent, by giving the ambushers to-hit bonuses for
having spent a couple of rounds aiming.)

[tussock]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by gleichman
Don't be so sure of that. People in combat are never anywere as
effective as one would think. In fact, they are mostly just plain
terrible.

Well, it's the ineffectiveness of people taken by surprise - at least
for the first few seconds - that I'm arguing for

You're assuming the targets get all flustered while the shooters
stay cool. That's simply not a fair assumption, it's the green troops
that'll stutter no matter what end of the ambush they're on.

People run-strafe IRL just like they do in Quake, funnily enough,
navigating on periferal vision, and holding an aim on the move well
enough for realistic encounter ranges. A ambusher that's a touch slow to
line up his second shot isn't going to see anything but a whole lot of
muzzle flash.

[psychohist]

Russell Wallace responds to me regarding an ambushee being able to
react fairly quickly in my system:

I'm curious, since realistically there is of course a huge
difference
between the decisecond-scale timing of firing a readied weapon and
the
much longer timescale of going from flat-footed to effective small-
unit
combat - is this an intentional unrealism for the sake of reducing
lethality? I ask because AFAIK you mostly run on the basis of "let
the
bodies fall where they will".

Are we talking about the original scenario where the ambushee doesn't
know about the ambush, or the modified 'no surprise' scenario where he
goes out ready for it?

My system is fairly fine grained; for example, you actually have to
get initiative twice to shoot an arrow, once to draw and nock the
arrow, and once to actually shoot. In the original scenario, the
ambushers have already nocked their arrows in a previous round, so
they get to shoot in the "passing attack" opportunity. The ambushee,
if he wanted to shoot back, would only get to nock his arrow - he
doesn't then actually get to shoot it until all the passing attacks
are over and the combat round formally begins. This is why I talked
about "readying" a weapon rather than using it. It's true that if he
had a throwable weapon out he could throw it instead of nocking an
arrow, but that's rather less effective than an arrow.

If he starts dodging rather than trying to counterattack - well,
there's a reason Marines are trained to hit the dirt instantly. You
can react even to an ambush fast enough to improve your chances, even
though it doesn't guarantee survival.

In the modified scenario, we're positing that the ambushee is every
bit as ready for combat as the ambushers - he's just at a tactical
disadvantage because he's the one who has to run the gauntlet. I
believe the ambushee can still react just as fast as the other
ambushers can to the sound of the first arrow being loosed - there's
no fundamental asymmetry in their initiative situations.

Heck, Niels Bohr believed based on his admittedly nonrigorous
experiments that reactions were actually faster than actions.

One other thing to keep in mind is that my system is designed for
medieval technology, not for modern technology. Arrow time of flight
is more significant than bullet time of flight, especially for rifle
bullets. You can see this from the terminology: the fact that it's
called a "passing attack" rather than an "opportunity attack" is
because its most common use is actually for melee attacks.

Warren J. Dew

[Russell Wallace]

Post by psychohist
In the modified scenario, we're positing that the ambushee is every
bit as ready for combat as the ambushers - he's just at a tactical
disadvantage because he's the one who has to run the gauntlet.

Oh, fair enough, I thought we were still talking about the target being
taken by surprise. In this scenario I agree the way you handle it is
reasonable.

[tussock]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
How do you deal with situations like the following?

I'll answer from a strict DnD perspective.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
(1) My forces set up just outside the cavemouth. As soon as the foe
steps out of the cave, we fire arrows at him. We don't intend to move
at all as we have good cover where we are.

Your cover gives you a Hide check, if it beats his Spot he's surprised.
Anyone who's unskilled at hiding should stay down behind total
cover (missing the surprise round) to prevent themselves spoiling the
ambush (those behind total cover also can't be seen).

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
(2) My group and the enemy group are standing face to face, talking.
Negotiations break down; the leader of my group gives a secret
signal, not detected by the enemy, which means "Attack immediately."

Everyone is aware, roll initiative.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot
one of us before we got to shoot him.

There's LOS, so he's only unaware if you were able to hide (having
cover, concealment, or a hide in plain sight ability) and he missed his
spot check. DnD assumes everyone sees everything not explicitly hidden
by skill or spell (to a limit by environment).

Your foe would need to see the ambush and win init to get first
shot off, and would probably be better to do a runner if the chance arises.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
(3) Half of the PCs have been replaced by dopplegangers. The
dopplegangers have agreed among themselves in advance that if the
PCs try to open the door to their secret hideout, they'll have
to attack immediately. The PCs have failed to notice
the dopples and have no idea anything is wrong, and they haven't
yet been able to open the locked door so they are not expecting
attack from that direction.

The PCs are aware of those making the attack, so no surprise round.
It's not all that unusual in DnD for your buddies to be turned against
you one way or another, so I'd expect to see some subdual attacks from
the PCs.


I add a house rule allowing the 'combat bluff' mechanic outside of
combat to earn a surprise round against those who're aware of you. It
represents "I'm totally not stabbing you with this sword", and
Doppelgangers have +14 there when reading minds.

I also run the old 3.0 option where the first round is /always/
partial actions only, you just can't act in it if surprised.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:06:43 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by psychohist
Surprise mechanics need not be tied to initiative. For example, in my
Eastern Isles mechanics, the primary combat effect of surprise is a
combat bonus on the first attack (typically +4 to hit on a 2D20
system). In addition, I think only the one character initiating
action would typically benefit from this.
In group situations, the primary benefit of surprise in my system is
that the group with tactical surprise would get up to a free round of
movement, but not combat. That could still be a big advantage, but
it's not as overwhelming as a system where the entire group gets a
free round of combat.

How do you deal with situations like the following?
(1) My forces set up just outside the cavemouth. As soon as the foe
steps out of the cave, we fire arrows at him. We don't intend to move
at all as we have good cover where we are.

[snip]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot
one of us before we got to shoot him.

Query: Is that "I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to
shoot before the *first* shot from our side (but it's OK if the foe
happens to be fast/lucky enough to shoot second, after our fastest guy
shoots but before the rest of us)"? Or is it "I would feel quite
perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot before *all* of the guys on
our side got our first shots in"?

If you want the second case, then I'd say that you have contradictory
desires for surprise - you want it to be severe enough that the
slowest of your guys act before the fastest of theirs, but you also
don't want it that severe because suprise that severe produces bloody
slaughters.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:06:43 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by psychohist
Surprise mechanics need not be tied to initiative. For example, in my
Eastern Isles mechanics, the primary combat effect of surprise is a
combat bonus on the first attack (typically +4 to hit on a 2D20
system). In addition, I think only the one character initiating
action would typically benefit from this.
In group situations, the primary benefit of surprise in my system is
that the group with tactical surprise would get up to a free round of
movement, but not combat. That could still be a big advantage, but
it's not as overwhelming as a system where the entire group gets a
free round of combat.

How do you deal with situations like the following?
(1) My forces set up just outside the cavemouth. As soon as the foe
steps out of the cave, we fire arrows at him. We don't intend to move
at all as we have good cover where we are.

[snip]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot
one of us before we got to shoot him.

Query: Is that "I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to
shoot before the *first* shot from our side (but it's OK if the foe
happens to be fast/lucky enough to shoot second, after our fastest guy
shoots but before the rest of us)"? Or is it "I would feel quite
perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot before *all* of the guys on
our side got our first shots in"?

Why would there be, by any detectable amount, a delay between your
first guy shooting and your second guy shooting? Your watching a cave
mouth, you've discussed this before. For some reason, they got
themsevles into this position or you managed to GET them into this
position, which requires luck and/or skill.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
If you want the second case, then I'd say that you have contradictory
desires for surprise - you want it to be severe enough that the
slowest of your guys act before the fastest of theirs, but you also
don't want it that severe because suprise that severe produces bloody
slaughters.

This SHOULD produce a bloody slaugther. If the ambush victims are good
enough to win here, and some would be, they have to be good enough to
win after suffering a terrible first strike. If the PC's are the
ambush victims here they have been awfully careless or the GM has sent
them against super-ninjas or the equivalent. Walking out of a narrow
opening, a cave mouth, into an ambush is not a winning strategy.

Will in New Haven

--

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
--
Erol K. Bayburt
- Show quoted text -

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Will in New Haven
This SHOULD produce a bloody slaugther. If the ambush victims are good
enough to win here, and some would be, they have to be good enough to
win after suffering a terrible first strike. If the PC's are the
ambush victims here they have been awfully careless or the GM has sent
them against super-ninjas or the equivalent. Walking out of a narrow
opening, a cave mouth, into an ambush is not a winning strategy.

I'm curious about this. Are your players routinely this careful in
all situations, or only when they have reason to believe that they are
hunted/in enemy territory?

I had a Shadowrun party which attracted the attention of an unpleasant
enemy magician with a sniper rifle. They'd walk out their front door,
he'd shoot one of them and depart. They'd get out of their car at the
mall, he'd shoot one of them and depart. This was all recoverable but
it was intensely upsetting to the PCs, and they found it very hard to
establish sufficient security to stop him short of going "turtle"
completely.

Most of my D&D parties do not take heavy precautions when, say, leaving
a random roadside inn. They could, but it would be fairly painful in
play. And tactically it's probably just as bad as the cavemouth.

Do you have a "gentleman's agreement" not to ambush them under such
circumstances? How would your players react to an ambush TPK?

Episode 4 of _Age of Worms_ has an enemy, unknown to the PCs, aware of
their arrival in his city and motivated to kill them. I had to drop
this plotline, because if this was the situation I think he *would* kill
them. My player is likely to complain loud and long if he sees that
the NPC should, but inexplicably doesn't; better not to let it
arise at all. I am wondering at the moment how much of this I'll face
in upcoming modules. (Episode 5 is even worse but luckily easy to fix.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
This SHOULD produce a bloody slaugther. If the ambush victims are good
enough to win here, and some would be, they have to be good enough to
win after suffering a terrible first strike. If the PC's are the
ambush victims here they have been awfully careless or the GM has sent
them against super-ninjas or the equivalent. Walking out of a narrow
opening, a cave mouth, into an ambush is not a winning strategy.

I'm curious about this. Are your players routinely this careful in
all situations, or only when they have reason to believe that they are
hunted/in enemy territory?

How careful do you have to be to have a scout among you, to have a dog
in the camp? Complete tactical surprise should be rare against anyone
who realizes that they are possibly in danger. My current players are
moving through farm country toward some rather wild country where they
will have to be very careful. Ordinarily, they might be fairly lax
while moving on roads, pasts fields and pastures and encountering
friendly people. However, they know that a rival, possibly not one who
would resort to violence, is around. They are keeping their eyes
open.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I had a Shadowrun party which attracted the attention of an unpleasant
enemy magician with a sniper rifle. They'd walk out their front door,
he'd shoot one of them and depart. They'd get out of their car at the
mall, he'd shoot one of them and depart. This was all recoverable but
it was intensely upsetting to the PCs, and they found it very hard to
establish sufficient security to stop him short of going "turtle"
completely.

A magician with a sniper rifle would be formidable indeed. However, he
must approach to a location where he could see the door. Someone with
woodscraft and patience might be able to ambush _him_

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Most of my D&D parties do not take heavy precautions when, say, leaving
a random roadside inn. They could, but it would be fairly painful in
play. And tactically it's probably just as bad as the cavemouth.

Leaving an inn is another matter than leaving a cave. One assumes that
grooms and others would have been moving about and might have seens
something. Still, my current group takes some precautions. The last
time they stayed at an inn was the time the forester slept until
midway between midnight and dawn and then left via the kitchen door,
having arranged for inn night-watchman to re-lock the door behind her.
She was in the nearby grove of oaks for some few hours of drizzling
discomfort but she didnt mind it much.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Do you have a "gentleman's agreement" not to ambush them under such
circumstances? How would your players react to an ambush TPK?

No gentleman's agreements at all. They ambush their enemies and their
enemies ambush them. They learn to get GOOD at it. Scouts earn their
keep. Our ranger class, when we use character classes (we are giving
them up) doesn't have spells but they are vital for many situations,
or someone else has to have those skills.
Ambush TPK? Happened once, or nearly so. They didn't like it but they
didn't stop playing. They agreed that they should have noticed that
the dog was agitated, as I told them a couple of times.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Episode 4 of _Age of Worms_ has an enemy, unknown to the PCs, aware of
their arrival in his city and motivated to kill them. I had to drop
this plotline, because if this was the situation I think he *would* kill
them. My player is likely to complain loud and long if he sees that
the NPC should, but inexplicably doesn't; better not to let it
arise at all. I am wondering at the moment how much of this I'll face
in upcoming modules. (Episode 5 is even worse but luckily easy to fix.)

I don't know much about modules, although I ran _A Keep on the
Borderlands_ when it was fairly new. Sounds like that episode of the
_Age of Worms_ would be, um, interesting. If he is tough enough to
kill all of them, given that he has the drop on them, it is probably
bad design. Or maybe they knew people would edit hiim down or out.

Will in New Haven

--

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Will in New Haven
How careful do you have to be to have a scout among you, to have a dog
in the camp? Complete tactical surprise should be rare against anyone
who realizes that they are possibly in danger.

Maybe a system difference?

What would the party's night-time camp arrangement look like?
How are they handling the possibility of being attacked at
night?

What would their daytime approach to, say, a thick copse of trees
look like?

I'm not trying to pick on your campaign, but I'm startled--it's
my experience that complete tactical surprise is moderately easy
to obtain in most systems, if the enemy is not actively aware
of you and trying to stop you. Most PC parties are not big
enough to effectively prevent it, nor are they happy about the
occasional loss of the scouts that comes with having a good
scout perimeter.

I certainly have not been able to prevent my PCs from being
surprised, even in games where I've tried so hard that it's
had ruinous effects on the campaign. Something in our games
must be quite different.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
How careful do you have to be to have a scout among you, to have a dog
in the camp? Complete tactical surprise should be rare against anyone
who realizes that they are possibly in danger.

Maybe a system difference?

That's probably part of it. The kind of spells that make an ambush
easier to pull off are not learned until farther along the magician's
path. The skills to do scouting are pretty detailed and "scout(s)
versus scout(s)" can be as serious as a combat round. Dogs are more
useful in detecting ones enemies than most D&D campaigns would allow.
Invisibility, for one thing, don't mean squat to a dog's nose.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
What would the party's night-time camp arrangement look like?
How are they handling the possibility of being attacked at
night?

My current campaign has been in civilized country so far. A typical
night camp from my most recent campaign.

Manny (scout, forester, archer) had been moving ahead of the main
group all day. When he arrived at a suitable camp site, which he knew
about in advance from being a hunter and trapper in these woods, he
marked a tree and moved past it and checked out the woods for another
couple of miles. In all this, he was aided by Ash, his dog. Ash isn't
magically enhanced or an extremely formidable combatant but she has
another set of senses, some of them better than his, and she is very
bright. If their likely attackers in this situation were human, she
would be somewhat less useful but she would certainly notice Bearmen
or Giants or Ogres. Or wild animals or dragons, for that matter. She
couldn't do much about Ythri but they really, really hope that the
flying folk are not part of the problem.

Nika, same combination of skills, had been between Manny (the point)
and the main group all day. She was close enough to hear him if he
called and for the main group to hear her if she called. They also
had "magic whistles" to signal each other. The "magic whistles"
produce no sound that even a dog can hear but induce sympathetic
vibrations in amulets worn by the group. Seeing Manny's' mark, Nika
makes another one that even the city folks can see. Then she moves
away from the stream to check out the woods to the left of the trail.
For most of the day, she has been moving through areas already
"cleared" by Manny but now she is on her own and, without a dog, she
is vulnerable.

When the main group comes up, they recognize the mark that Nika made,
and possibly Manny's original mark. One of the magicians immediately
puts his eyes well above his head (a fairly common spell) and looks
down on the surrounding woods. What he can see in the minute or so he
does this is limited but it is possible that he would spot something.
The heavy hitters in the group tend to the pack animals and set up the
camp.

The troubador arrives a few moments later. She is a magician with only
limited scouting skills but she has been traveling with small parties
all her life and only recently had the kind of money to hire scouts
and bodyguards (she is a very GOOD singer/songwriter) so she has done
an adequate job of trailing along behind, looking and listening for
trouble coming up from behind. The tactical situation is such that any
trouble is almost certainly in front of them or she would have had
Nika's place and vice versa.

The camp: Manny chose a rise along the banks of the stream (the Blue
Branch) that runs to the right of the trail. Approach from the stream
would require coming up a steep bank in the dark. The approach from
the trail is not as steep but the camp still has the advantage of high
ground. The slope that is to the right of the entryway, as it were, is
steep and there is a big log along the top. The other approach to the
camp would be up a slope, but not a steep one, and also through a
dense, thorny thicket of bushes and trees.

The group will still not be able to relax and ignore the possibility
of attack. People will take turns being awake all night. With seven in
the group, it will always be at least two. Ash will be on the alert as
well, much of the time and the player characters know enough to watch
her reactions and those of the pack ponies as well, for that matter.
Nika has been telling them these things for weeks, so they better
know.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
What would their daytime approach to, say, a thick copse of trees
look like?

This group relies pretty heavily on Ash in those situations. They are
moving through many thick copses of trees in this case. The magician's
ability to put his eyes up in the air helps, although it is easy to
miss things with so many trees around. He does it quite often.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm not trying to pick on your campaign, but I'm startled--it's
my experience that complete tactical surprise is moderately easy
to obtain in most systems, if the enemy is not actively aware
of you and trying to stop you.

It strikes me as odd that they would not be expecting to be attacked
in the campaings I hear about on here. Not your campaign specifically
but I keep hearing the phrase "professional adventurers." I don't know
how professinal adventurers would need to be protected from the unfair
advantages of ambushers.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Most PC parties are not big
enough to effectively prevent it, nor are they happy about the
occasional loss of the scouts that comes with having a good
scout perimeter.

No one is happy to lose a comrade. The chance of a casualty is part of
being an adventurer.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I certainly have not been able to prevent my PCs from being
surprised, even in games where I've tried so hard that it's
had ruinous effects on the campaign. Something in our games
must be quite different.

Well, my players seem to see the "scouting game" to be almost as big a
part of many, not all, campaigns, as the "combat game." Trying to
avoid being ambushed has taken up some of their time but they don't
seem to mind. One problem some players have had with it is that their
characters did not take much part in the "scouting game" and I was
sympathetic. However, they found enough to do in the rest of the
campaign. One of them is running a scouting type in this campaing,
however.

Will in New Haven

--

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail
better."
Samuel Beckett, "Worstward Ho", 1983

[Mary K. Kuhner]

In article <***@z35g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
Will in New Haven <***@taylorandfrancis.com> wrote:

[snip long description of scouting]

Thanks! That's very helpful. Sounds quite interesting, too. I haven't
used a system which really allowed for this kind of thing.

Conventional wisdom in D&D is that if you split the party up it just
gets defeated in detail. I think there is too much variability in the
results of the search/stealth system, and also individual characters
tend to be rather specialized and don't do well on their own. But it
may also be that I've gotten into a rut of disregarding scouting, and
could improve my strategies.

I presume that the advance scouts feel there is not a large chance of
them encountering something they can neither defeat nor get away from.

My D&D party does use a forward scout (with Stealth and Invisibility)
but she doesn't get more than about 200' ahead of them because otherwise
they cannot react quickly enough to save her ass when things go wrong.
It is just too easy for her to step into a trap, be spotted by
something with acute senses, etc. Having someone a mile away really
means they are on their own in case of trouble, and that's somewhat
tricky in our games.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Will in New Haven
How careful do you have to be to have a scout among you, to have a dog
in the camp? Complete tactical surprise should be rare against anyone
who realizes that they are possibly in danger.

The real world activity most similar to what the traditional PC party
gets up to is guerilla warfare (and variants thereof: counterterrorism,
gang warfare etc). If you look at the history of guerilla warfare,
tactical surprise is pretty common; it confers a huge advantage, often
enough to decide the outcome of a fight, so people try very hard to
achieve it and often succeed. Also while a legion of 5000 men can expend
a scout from time to time without great ill effect, a party of 5 PCs can't.

Assuming a) the campaign setup is such that the bad guys will have the
motive, means and opportunity to try to ambush the PCs with lethal
force, b) one dislikes dumbing-down the bad guys' tactics for script
immunity and c) one dislikes having the PCs killed off, it seems to me
there are two solutions:

1) Make sure the PCs can't be ambushed. The ideal for this is some sort
of sixth sense. In the last campaign I ran, the Entropy mage had this;
on at least two occasions it let the party dive for cover a moment
before an attacker opened fire with an automatic weapon. There are lots
of possible variants, of course.

2) Make sure the PCs can survive a round of attacks without dying or
being badly hurt enough to be easily finished off. In real life and some
genres of fiction, a single arrow or bullet is often enough to put a man
out of the fight, but in other genres it isn't; in superhero fiction,
for example, it's not uncommon for protagonists to be able to take a
full-strength attack and get up again. If people are realistically
fragile but the setting has ultratechnology or magic, reactive shielding
is good. Escape methods with very fast reaction time (e.g.
teleportation) are good. Etc.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Russell Wallace
1) Make sure the PCs can't be ambushed. The ideal for this is some sort
of sixth sense. In the last campaign I ran, the Entropy mage had this;
on at least two occasions it let the party dive for cover a moment
before an attacker opened fire with an automatic weapon. There are lots
of possible variants, of course.

Or at least make surprise less likely. A lot of rules decisions
influence the chance of surprise. D&D could make See Invisibility a
lower-level (or Invisibility a higher-level) spell or could change
their relative durations. It could play with whether targets all
get independent Spot checks or not and with whether one target who
is alerted automatically alerts all others. It could be more permissive
than it is with Scent and other ways to locate ambushes; it could
be less permissive of tactics like Silence or Teleport-to-attack.

Post by Russell Wallace
2) Make sure the PCs can survive a round of attacks without dying or
being badly hurt enough to be easily finished off. In real life and some
genres of fiction, a single arrow or bullet is often enough to put a man
out of the fight, but in other genres it isn't; in superhero fiction,
for example, it's not uncommon for protagonists to be able to take a
full-strength attack and get up again. If people are realistically
fragile but the setting has ultratechnology or magic, reactive shielding
is good. Escape methods with very fast reaction time (e.g.
teleportation) are good. Etc.

You can also limit "snowball" spells. D&Dv3.0 had a version of Haste
which meant that if one side got surprise and cast Haste, their
effectiveness was close to doubled and the other side had almost
no way to recover. (It was usually too late by the time the other
side could cast Haste, at least in my games.) v3.5 cut this down a
lot, and surprise become noticably more survivable.

Another "snowball" is the death-spiral mechanic. Ambush was frightfully
lethal in our Shadowrun campaign because the damage death spiral meant
that inflicting even a light wound on a foe gravely reduced their
effectiveness. So spraying around some light-damage effects during a surprise
encounter would always decide the fight, and light-damage effects
were easy to achieve. (I loved that game, but I don't think I would
ever again willingly play with a death-spiral mechanic, at least not
one that severe.)

I'm not sure about "escape methods with very fast reaction time," though.
It seems to me that those just increase the extreme importance of
surprise, because if both sides have access to them, only fights with
surprise will ever be conclusive--otherwise the losing side will just
flee!

My SCAP PCs bumped off a high-level wizard recently, using Invisibility,
Flight, Pass Without Trace, and Silence to avoid detection and Dimensional
Anchor to block the target's escape. Their analysis of the fight was that
if they failed to get surprise or the Dimensional Anchor failed, the
engagement would be over--and they would be in terrible trouble as a
return assassination attempt would be inevitable and hard to block.
These tactics would of course work equally well on the PCs, except
that Dimensional Anchor is single-target and would thus be harder for
an enemy to deploy against all of them.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm not sure about "escape methods with very fast reaction time," though.
It seems to me that those just increase the extreme importance of
surprise, because if both sides have access to them, only fights with
surprise will ever be conclusive--otherwise the losing side will just
flee!

Yeah, if you're going to give the bad guys have access to it you'd want
to introduce it as part of a combo, perhaps a countermeasure like
teleport jamming that's relatively slow, conspicuous and/or nonportable
so that by the time you've used it, the targets can't get away but they
are alerted so no ambush.

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm not sure about "escape methods with very fast reaction time,"
though. It seems to me that those just increase the extreme
importance of surprise, because if both sides have access to them,
only fights with surprise will ever be conclusive--otherwise the
losing side will just flee!

Yeah, if you're going to give the bad guys have access to it you'd
want to introduce it as part of a combo, perhaps a countermeasure like
teleport jamming that's relatively slow, conspicuous and/or
nonportable so that by the time you've used it, the targets can't get
away but they are alerted so no ambush.

Jumping game systems here, but that was an effective story-telling
technique in my recent Amber campaign. Nothing hikes up the party's
tension level quite like the Trump artist sensing a Trump block going up
and knowing that you are about to get jumped (or something).

Biff

[psychohist]

Mary Kuhner expresses doubts about "escape methods with very fast
reaction time" as a way of ameliorating the effectiveness of surprise.

In my experience with the online game Lineage, teleportation that was
very fast relative to the time it took to be taken out of action - in
that case, about 1 second versus maybe 15 seconds - greatly reduced
the lethality of surprise.

Surprise was still effective in helping to win the field of battle -
it's just that the losers would inevitably escape. Obviously surprise
would not be as effective in such a system if what you wanted to do
was specifically to kill the opponents.

Warren J. Dew

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by psychohist
Mary Kuhner expresses doubts about "escape methods with very fast
reaction time" as a way of ameliorating the effectiveness of surprise.
In my experience with the online game Lineage, teleportation that was
very fast relative to the time it took to be taken out of action - in
that case, about 1 second versus maybe 15 seconds - greatly reduced
the lethality of surprise.
Surprise was still effective in helping to win the field of battle -
it's just that the losers would inevitably escape. Obviously surprise
would not be as effective in such a system if what you wanted to do
was specifically to kill the opponents.

What were the goals of in-game combat? Did fights which ended in all
foes escaping tend to achieve those goals, or not?

I'm not entirely sure how a society would handle combat in which
no one ever suffered a loss more severe than being driven from
the battlefield. Would conflict move to some other venue, such as
property damage? (I'm wondering the same thing about demon/demon
conflict in the Abyss, a topic one of my PCs has recently become
interested in. A lot of the creatures find it nearly impossible to
kill each other. How do their fights work? What do they try to
accomplish? Do they count coup? Do property damage? Try to
embarrass their foes?)

I know how my SCAP PCs would react; they would try to increase the
pace of decision so that their foes couldn't teleport away, which is
exactly the wrong direction for my peace of mind as a player. Of
course, the world-laws could be such that this goal was never
achievable. But otherwise, they wouldn't know how to get anything
done. (Perhaps they would not have developed such a strong
orientation toward solving problems via combat in the first place.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[psychohist]

Mary Kuhner responds to me, in part:

What were the goals of in-game combat? Did fights which
ended in all foes escaping tend to achieve those goals,
or not?

The set piece battles in the game were castle sieges. Holding the
castle at the end constituted a win even if all the foes escaped.

I'm not entirely sure how a society would handle combat
in which no one ever suffered a loss more severe than
being driven from the battlefield. Would conflict move
to some other venue, such as property damage?

I think it would just more strongly emphasize large scale territorial
operations, rather than small unit commando type operations. In
Lineage, the emphasis was more on traditional military tactics and
strategy, and beyond that, diplomatic skill in recruiting troops,
forming alliances, suborning enemies, and that sort of thing.

Warren J. Dew

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Will in New Haven
How careful do you have to be to have a scout among you, to have a dog
in the camp? Complete tactical surprise should be rare against anyone
who realizes that they are possibly in danger.

The real world activity most similar to what the traditional PC party
gets up to is guerilla warfare (and variants thereof: counterterrorism,
gang warfare etc). If you look at the history of guerilla warfare,
tactical surprise is pretty common; it confers a huge advantage, often
enough to decide the outcome of a fight, so people try very hard to
achieve it and often succeed. Also while a legion of 5000 men can expend
a scout from time to time without great ill effect, a party of 5 PCs can't.

People also spend a great deal of effort to avoid being surprised and
they often succeed as well. Going into the details of scouting and
countermeasures would lead into a discussion of specific gaming
systems. We find that the time we devote to the "scouting subroutine"
is well worth it. Scouting is interesting in itself to my group. If
the times in "from time to time" are not too close together, a party
of Player Characters can survive the loss of a scout.

Guerillas always have a great deal more success creating ambushes in
their own bailliwick. The Vietcong, for instance, were very succesful
at times in ambushing units. The NVA, who replaced them when they
threw themselves away in the Tet Offensive were excellent regular
soldiers and had some support in the countryside but their use of
stealth and surprise was never as efficient as that of their
predecessors.

My current Player Characters are in their own neck of the woods. Some
possible foes are also at home in these woods, including one of the
most likely. However, the two most formidable groups of sapient foes
are from outside the area. If they were going over the hills and far
away, the Player Characters might have more problems.

Post by Russell Wallace
Assuming a) the campaign setup is such that the bad guys will have the
motive, means and opportunity to try to ambush the PCs with lethal
force, b) one dislikes dumbing-down the bad guys' tactics for script
immunity and c) one dislikes having the PCs killed off, it seems to me
1) Make sure the PCs can't be ambushed. The ideal for this is some sort
of sixth sense. In the last campaign I ran, the Entropy mage had this;
on at least two occasions it let the party dive for cover a moment
before an attacker opened fire with an automatic weapon. There are lots
of possible variants, of course.

The PCs have a two magicians. One of them can put his eyes way up in
the air and look down. That is a useful ability, although not as good
as that sixth sense.

Post by Russell Wallace
2) Make sure the PCs can survive a round of attacks without dying or
being badly hurt enough to be easily finished off. In real life and some
genres of fiction, a single arrow or bullet is often enough to put a man
out of the fight, but in other genres it isn't; in superhero fiction,
for example, it's not uncommon for protagonists to be able to take a
full-strength attack and get up again. If people are realistically
fragile but the setting has ultratechnology or magic, reactive shielding
is good. Escape methods with very fast reaction time (e.g.
teleportation) are good. Etc.

We don't find either of those solutions necessary because we don't
consider it a problem. -By the time the Player Characters have to
leave their home town or their home woods they will be more
formidable. Until then, they have a pretty good chance of doing well
in the Souting Subroutine.

Will in New Haven

--

SunSpear, who walked the length of Shadows Dance

Post by Russell Wallace
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Will in New Haven
Guerillas always have a great deal more success creating ambushes in
their own bailliwick. The Vietcong, for instance, were very succesful
at times in ambushing units. The NVA, who replaced them when they
threw themselves away in the Tet Offensive were excellent regular
soldiers and had some support in the countryside but their use of
stealth and surprise was never as efficient as that of their
predecessors.
My current Player Characters are in their own neck of the woods. Some
possible foes are also at home in these woods, including one of the
most likely. However, the two most formidable groups of sapient foes
are from outside the area. If they were going over the hills and far
away, the Player Characters might have more problems.

That's a very good point - in guerilla warfare, the home field advantage
is significant. A setup like that, played realistically, is going to
have a different balance from the traditional dungeon crawl scenario.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Will in New Haven
Guerillas always have a great deal more success creating ambushes in
their own bailliwick. The Vietcong, for instance, were very succesful
at times in ambushing units. The NVA, who replaced them when they
threw themselves away in the Tet Offensive were excellent regular
soldiers and had some support in the countryside but their use of
stealth and surprise was never as efficient as that of their
predecessors.
My current Player Characters are in their own neck of the woods. Some
possible foes are also at home in these woods, including one of the
most likely. However, the two most formidable groups of sapient foes
are from outside the area. If they were going over the hills and far
away, the Player Characters might have more problems.

That's a very good point - in guerilla warfare, the home field advantage
is significant. A setup like that, played realistically, is going to
have a different balance from the traditional dungeon crawl scenario.
From the POV of the player characters being in the woods, on an

assignment that is certainly dangerous, puts them in a very good
position vis a vis ambushes and surprise against two important foes
and into fair position against the third. Random stuff like big hungry
bears they can probably handle.

One foe, Bearmen, live in these woods. One Bearman can be stealthy,
compared to a city person but they are not really good scouts. Plus
dogs hate the smell of Bearmen and the party has a very good dog with
them. To complicate matters, however, Bearmen are not always inimical
and their assignment out here is to find out why Bearmen raided a
small village, which raid was spectaculary unsuccesful, and make sure
that it doesn't happen again. Bearmen would be hard to ambush, being
local and having good senses. Also, diplomacy is not easily carried
out by means of ambush. On the one hand, Bearmen would have a poor
chance of ambushin the group. On the other paw, the two scouts and the
troubador in the party are more mobile than Bearmen. However, the
party as a whole, with three heavy hitters, another mage and three
pack animals, cannot refuse combat with Bearmen and get away easily.
Bearmen would have trouble avoiding hte party because the scouts and
the troubador could make them miserable and keep track of them. It is
pretty evenly matched but the idea is to make peace with the Bearmen,
possibly by killing the right individuals, not take on the whole
tribe.

An Ogre/Giant raiding group would come from outside these woods. It
isn't all that likely and the Player Characters would have a
tremendous stealth, scouting, ambush advantage. They could also avoid
a group that seemed too large for them to fight, at least until they
found some allies. That would also mean that the Bearmen, whom the
Giants and Ogres hunt like food animals, would be VERY amenable to
making nice.

The party's bitter personal enemies are a section (in this case, about
twenty men) of Imperial Auxilliary western nomad cavalry. They would
be INSANE to come into these woods. In open country they would have a
tough fight with the PCs but the PCs probably wouldn't win. However,
the troopers would have a very tough time with getting away with it.
Slaughtering law-abiding residents is not their privelige and they are
already not allowed to go into town because of their bad relationship
with the locals. In these woods, the troopers would be destroyed and
probably not kill anyone in the party. At least one player AND her
character would kiss me if I could motivate Tim Khan and his band of
nasties into these woods.

Will in New Haven

--

Post by Russell Wallace
--
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Will in New Haven
My current Player Characters are in their own neck of the woods. Some
possible foes are also at home in these woods, including one of the
most likely. However, the two most formidable groups of sapient foes
are from outside the area. If they were going over the hills and far
away, the Player Characters might have more problems.

I'd be interested in hearing about the mechanics here. Is it a
matter of having skills earmarked as "local knowledge" or is
it more a matter of having skills for the appropriate terrain
type?

One thing I enjoyed in Shadowrun was that a lot of the skills
were typed in this way: you could have Etiquette (underworld)
or Etiquette (corporate) and they were useful in quite different
domans. Or Survival (marine) and Survival (woodland).

D&Dv3.5 has "Knowledge: Local" and I'm having a terrible time
figuring out what that means. Local to where the PC was when
she learned it? Modules tend to treat it as "local to wherever
the PC happens to be right now." But in the Age of Worms game
I'm running the PCs are rednecks visiting their very first city,
and surely should not be using Knowledge: Local to find their
way around.

What would go wrong for the legionnaries if they attacked in the
woods, other than it being bad cavalry country? Would they
get surprised? Take penalties for terrain that the locals
don't?

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Will in New Haven
My current Player Characters are in their own neck of the woods. Some
possible foes are also at home in these woods, including one of the
most likely. However, the two most formidable groups of sapient foes
are from outside the area. If they were going over the hills and far
away, the Player Characters might have more problems.

I'd be interested in hearing about the mechanics here. Is it a
matter of having skills earmarked as "local knowledge" or is
it more a matter of having skills for the appropriate terrain
type?

There is a scouting skills modifier for being in familiar terrrain and
a flat add for it being the _identical_ terrain where you have been
practicing the skill. In other words, Manny's scouting skills are full
strength in forests of this type and he gets another additional couple
of points for it being _the_ forests where he hunts, traps and
smuggles on a year-round basis. If the Ogres and Giants have a human
(probably slaveborn) scout of the same skill level, Manny will have
two points on him because the guy is from the other side of the
mountains, although from a similar forest. If they somehow had a
plainsman of equal skill level, he would be two points down because of
Manny being local and operating at half his normal skill because of
unfamiliar terrain. The latter disadvantage would eventually be made
up but it would take a LONG time to become local. Then we saddle the
poor enemy scout with a group of Ogres and Giants crashing along
behind him, and probably not trusting him very far ahead. And then
there's Manny's dog. She gives him an extra perception roll with
different bonuses (much better nose, worse eyes, decent ears) and he
gets the whole thing because he is trained at observing her
reactions.

A Beaman scout would be a local and in the right terrain and he could
have skills as good as Manny's (and a nose as good as a dog's) but
Bearmen are big and clumsy and the dog always knows when they are
about.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
One thing I enjoyed in Shadowrun was that a lot of the skills
were typed in this way: you could have Etiquette (underworld)
or Etiquette (corporate) and they were useful in quite different
domans. Or Survival (marine) and Survival (woodland).

We have similar skill situations.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
D&Dv3.5 has "Knowledge: Local" and I'm having a terrible time
figuring out what that means. Local to where the PC was when
she learned it? Modules tend to treat it as "local to wherever
the PC happens to be right now." But in the Age of Worms game
I'm running the PCs are rednecks visiting their very first city,
and surely should not be using Knowledge: Local to find their
way around.

They should not. Manny and Nika have had many amusing and embarrassing
moments because hanging out with their friends in Hengst's Landing
(the closest thing to a city around) gives them many opportunities to
faux paus. They don't get lost in town but HL is not very large and is
fairly simply laid out.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
What would go wrong for the legionnaries if they attacked in the
woods, other than it being bad cavalry country? Would they
get surprised? Take penalties for terrain that the locals
don't?

If they ride, they will taking awful penalties on movement while they
are _used_ to being the fastest things around, avoiding combat or
forcing combat as they please. They are, considering the way they
treat other humans, very kind to their hardy little horses and would
worry about broken legs, etc.

If they walk, they are walking. They don't like to walk. They don't
run much. They don't like uneven terrain. They don't like TREES.

They have no forestry scounting skills.

Their "eyes above" is their shaman's red-sided hawk, a bird of the
open plains. He wil find looking down at all those trees confusing. He
will not have an easy time feeding himself. He might attract hostile
attention from a Golden Eagle, although the eagle might ignore him.
Their shaman knows nothing of forest spirits except that he hates them
and vice versa.

They are lightly armored mounted archers. They have shields and sabers
but, in melee combat, their primary skills are outnumbering people and
rape.

They probably don't want to be taken alive and handed over to forest
spirits or, worse, the local women.

I can't make them come into the forest, more's the pity. The Player
Characters are going to have to wait awhile to settle their hash.

Of course, this is all a "snapshot" of a bygone campaign and this
particular bunch of troopers got their commupance.

Will in New Haven

[tussock]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
D&Dv3.5 has "Knowledge: Local" and I'm having a terrible time
figuring out what that means. Local to where the PC was when
she learned it? Modules tend to treat it as "local to wherever
the PC happens to be right now."

That's exactly what it is in DnD terms, the skill of learning how
things work where you are, and why. You don't just know the laws and
customs, you know how to quickly find out what they are without first
transgressing them.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
But in the Age of Worms game I'm running the PCs are rednecks
visiting their very first city, and surely should not be using
Knowledge: Local to find their way around.

That's what it's for, so you don't have to play out asking the
guard about how to properly greet the magistrate (and a thousand other
little things), you just roll Know(Local) to see if your character
already did something like that to help with the current problem.

The real rednecks are the PCs /without/ Know(Local).

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot
one of us before we got to shoot him.

Query: Is that "I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to
shoot before the *first* shot from our side (but it's OK if the foe
happens to be fast/lucky enough to shoot second, after our fastest guy
shoots but before the rest of us)"? Or is it "I would feel quite
perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot before *all* of the guys on
our side got our first shots in"?

I'd certainly feel perturbed if the enemy went before any of the
ambushers, but I could live with him going before some of the
ambushers--it's less realistic, but a lot more survivable, and that's
important to me.

I really dislike "ambushes" where the ambushed side ends up going
before any of the ambushers, unless a successful ambush-spotting
roll is involved.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
If you want the second case, then I'd say that you have contradictory
desires for surprise - you want it to be severe enough that the
slowest of your guys act before the fastest of theirs, but you also
don't want it that severe because suprise that severe produces bloody
slaughters.

It may well be that my desires are contradictory. I'd like surprise
to make a difference, but not such a large difference that surprising
the PCs means a TPK, or that surprise by the PCs means a walkover.

My GM, reading over my shoulder, says "In a match between even and
roughly similar forces, should surprise determine the victor completely?"
I think I'd be more comfortable if it did not, though at higher levels
that is very hard to arrange. But I'd rather surprise were not totally
irrelevant either.

This is a lot easier in a system with a low speed of decision, because
then you can simply give the free round, and it will not be an
overwhelming advantage. Mid- to high-level D&Dv3 is not such a system,
though. I ran _Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil_ for a party optimized
on Initiative and immediate damage capability. They always went first so
behaved rather like they always had surprise. It was...impressive, but
not much fun for the GM. (The player seemed okay with it, but I got
really tired of the pushover combats.)

My SCAP party is a lot less optimized but has still had some fights where,
for example, the rogue's ability to do an average of 93 pts to an unaware
target has completely changed the odds at the outset. (She has so far
nailed a high-level mage and a mind flayer.)

So far, for v3.x the "partial round" mechanic works about as well as
anything, though it favors mages. It's better in v3.5 than it was in
v3.0, partly because Haste is less of an issue.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:44:53 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
In #1 I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot
one of us before we got to shoot him.

Query: Is that "I would feel quite perturbed if the unaware foe got to
shoot before the *first* shot from our side (but it's OK if the foe
happens to be fast/lucky enough to shoot second, after our fastest guy
shoots but before the rest of us)"? Or is it "I would feel quite
perturbed if the unaware foe got to shoot before *all* of the guys on
our side got our first shots in"?

I'd certainly feel perturbed if the enemy went before any of the
ambushers, but I could live with him going before some of the
ambushers--it's less realistic, but a lot more survivable, and that's
important to me.
I really dislike "ambushes" where the ambushed side ends up going
before any of the ambushers, unless a successful ambush-spotting
roll is involved.

OK, then the idea I posted elsethread of giving the *victims* of an
ambush partial actions during the first round won't work for you.

When using the standard rule of a free round of partial actions for
the ambushers, the thing that annoys me isn't that some characters
want to use full-round actions, but that getting surprise while losing
initiative is worse than not getting surprise and then winning
initiative. And that getting surprise *and* winning initiative is just
too good.

One idea is to treat the ambush-targets' initiative rolls as
'blackjack' rolls - if a target rolls better initiative than the
best-initiative ambusher, then the target loses his action for the
surprise round but gets to keep his high initiative on subsequent
rounds (i.e. he gets to act before any of the ambushers get a second
action on round two). If the target rolls worse than the
best-initiative attacker, then the target gets to act normally in the
surprise round. So the best result would be to get an initiative
number just below the fastest ambusher, but above the rest of the
ambushers.

As a consolation prize, you might allow an ambush-target who rolls too
high to not be flatfooted during the surprise round, or at least to
not be flat-footed after the first attack by the fastest ambusher.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
This is a lot easier in a system with a low speed of decision, because
then you can simply give the free round, and it will not be an
overwhelming advantage. Mid- to high-level D&Dv3 is not such a system,
though.

Yes and yes. My current working theory is that D&D spells are
excessively powerful, and that this has warped the rest of the system.
In the past I've groused that "xD&D doesn't have wizards; it has
artillery pieces *disguised* as wizards." The cool stuff in 3e made me
forget this, for a time, but it's still a problem:

o The spells have to be keep rare, rationed out to the spellcasters.
Which makes spellcasters vary wildly in powress depending on how many
spells they've got left for the day. This also causes problems as
spellcasters get to mid to high levels where spells are merely rare vs
low levels where they're ultra-precious.

o The power of the spells make them exceptionally well suited to
"alpha strike" tactics.

o Non-spellcasters have to be given heaps of magic items and/or
powerful & outre abilities in order to remain competetive at mid to
high levels. (And even that doesn't always work - high level
non-spellcasters tend to fall behind. Worse, even weak spellcasters
(rangers, paladins, multiclass wizards or sorcerers, etc.) fall behind
in power.)

I would dearly like to see a d20 game where magic was common without
spells being powerful - that did not cater to the "low magic = rare
magic" meme - and that explicitly and deliberately did not try to be
power-level compatable with D&D. Iron Heroes sounds interesting, but
as I understand it, it does try to do "high level heroes without magic
items that just as powerful as the standard D&D ones with their
standard loadout of magic items."

[tussock]

My current working theory is that D&D spells are excessively powerful,
and that this has warped the rest of the system.

I think mostly it's that DnD's spells are often distinct in effect
from the rest of the system. Spell users can choose to ignore the
mundane character's skills and abilities (and thus most of the
challenges in the game) simply by using their own unique part of the
game system.

That's hardly unique to DnD.

In the past I've groused that "xD&D doesn't have wizards; it has
artillery pieces *disguised* as wizards."

DnD's wizards are modelled on Chainmail's wizards, which were
invisible, fear-causing, artillery pieces. These days there's more
options, and probably better ones, but they're not as obvious.

Try buffing the grunts, scuffing the enemy, and working crowd
control; it's better than artillery these days. Master the fights
instead of bypassing them.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by tussock

My current working theory is that D&D spells are excessively powerful,
and that this has warped the rest of the system.

I think mostly it's that DnD's spells are often distinct in effect
from the rest of the system. Spell users can choose to ignore the
mundane character's skills and abilities (and thus most of the
challenges in the game) simply by using their own unique part of the
game system.
That's hardly unique to DnD.

True, but the effect is more apparent and obnoxious in D&D than in
games where the individual spells are less powerful than D&D spells.

Post by tussock

In the past I've groused that "xD&D doesn't have wizards; it has
artillery pieces *disguised* as wizards."

DnD's wizards are modelled on Chainmail's wizards, which were
invisible, fear-causing, artillery pieces. These days there's more
options, and probably better ones, but they're not as obvious.
Try buffing the grunts, scuffing the enemy, and working crowd
control; it's better than artillery these days. Master the fights
instead of bypassing them.

That these options are just as good as, if not better than, blasting
away with artillery-spells isn't an improvement. Not when the problem
is one of the wizards (and other primary spellcasters) being fearfully
and dominatingly powerful as long as their spells hold out.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
True, but the effect is more apparent and obnoxious in D&D than in
games where the individual spells are less powerful than D&D spells.

Except for those of us who regard powerful magic as a feature not a bug,
in which case the effect is more apparent and not obnoxious at all ^.^

[Ed Chauvin IV]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My GM, reading over my shoulder, says "In a match between even and
roughly similar forces, should surprise determine the victor completely?"

Yes, it should. This is true in real life and there's no reason it
shouldn't be true in the game.

Surprise is a hefty weapon and can level the playing field for a
weaker foe. As a GM, you should use it cautiously, typically to make
an encounter with a weaker foe more interesting. As players you
should be prepared for it and try to be the ones using it to your
advantage, not the other way around.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My GM, reading over my shoulder, says "In a match between even and
roughly similar forces, should surprise determine the victor completely?"

Yes, it should. This is true in real life and there's no reason it
shouldn't be true in the game.

True in real life, I'll grant, but there are good reasons why one
might not want it to be true in a game.

Post by Ed Chauvin IV
Surprise is a hefty weapon and can level the playing field for a
weaker foe. As a GM, you should use it cautiously, typically to make
an encounter with a weaker foe more interesting. As players you
should be prepared for it and try to be the ones using it to your
advantage, not the other way around.

Well, in some styles of play the GM *can't* "use it cautiously" - the
GM doesn't have that kind of storytelling control, but instead is
obligated to play the foes as competently as possible. Which means
that if surprise is a hefty weapon, the foes will try to exploit it as
best they can.

And as a player it can get unpleasant to always have to play
characters who are obsessed over surprise; over gaining suprise over
their opponents and over not being surprised themselves.

So in a game, it might well be a good thing to depower surprise,
making it unrealisticly weak as a weapon in order to promote in-game
fun.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Ed Chauvin IV
Surprise is a hefty weapon and can level the playing field for a
weaker foe. As a GM, you should use it cautiously, typically to make
an encounter with a weaker foe more interesting.

Well, in some styles of play the GM *can't* "use it cautiously" - the
GM doesn't have that kind of storytelling control, but instead is
obligated to play the foes as competently as possible. Which means
that if surprise is a hefty weapon, the foes will try to exploit it as
best they can.

Yes. My player complains endlessly if the foes don't make a
good-faith effort to win. And we are playing in a system where
Invisibility and Silence are second-level spells so "don't let
yourself be surprised" is very difficult advice to follow.

I think I'd have a lot of problems, myself, with a campaign where
the PCs got to employ surprise but it was never effectively employed
against them--it would feel both unfair and unreal to me, unless
there was a very strong game-world reason why.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
And as a player it can get unpleasant to always have to play
characters who are obsessed over surprise; over gaining suprise over
their opponents and over not being surprised themselves.

In my experience, by the higher levels (I've seen this in both
D&D and Shadowrun) you get a strange play style in which the
PCs are always either setting an ambush or hiding. They can't
do any normal activities, because if they are themselves ambushed
they'll all die. And trying to be totally safe from ambush is
incredibly difficult in most systems, unless you stay in your
prepared fortress.

Our long Shadowrun campaign was nearly destroyed by this; it
became apparent to the player that given the enemies the PCs
had made (against whom they couldn't muster an immediately
decisive attack) if those enemies ever caught them flatfooted
it was TPK for sure. And they couldn't build a strong enough
fortress. They responded by running away--severing all
contacts with their friends and allies, buying a mobile home
and hitting the road. They stopped accomplishing anything
towards their goals. Eventually they slipped up and the TPK
happened anyway, at which time the GM and I had a long talk
about the game and tried to find ways to rescue it. I vividly
remember what a horrible feeling of despair came out of a few
sessions of this.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Ed Chauvin IV]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Ed Chauvin IV
Surprise is a hefty weapon and can level the playing field for a
weaker foe. As a GM, you should use it cautiously, typically to make
an encounter with a weaker foe more interesting.

Well, in some styles of play the GM *can't* "use it cautiously" - the
GM doesn't have that kind of storytelling control, but instead is
obligated to play the foes as competently as possible. Which means
that if surprise is a hefty weapon, the foes will try to exploit it as
best they can.

Yes. My player complains endlessly if the foes don't make a
good-faith effort to win. And we are playing in a system where
Invisibility and Silence are second-level spells so "don't let
yourself be surprised" is very difficult advice to follow.

See Invisible is a 2nd level spell also.

[Klaus Mittag]

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Yes. My player complains endlessly if the foes don't make a
good-faith effort to win. And we are playing in a system where
Invisibility and Silence are second-level spells so "don't let
yourself be surprised" is very difficult advice to follow.

See Invisible is a 2nd level spell also.

With a ten-minute-per-level duration (though a caster of 10th or higher
level with access to the Permanency spell can spend 1,000 XP to make it
permanent -- until dispelled by a higher-level caster, anyway) and a
range of 'personal'. Better hope your wizard/sorcerer/bard 'just
happens' to have it up and running and isn't looking the wrong way when
invisible foes come trying to ambush you, I guess...and that they really
*are* invisible, rather than using clever illusions or just plain hiding
well enough.

See Invisibility is a nice spell if you know in advance when and where
to expect foes who might turn invisible on you, I suppose. As a means of
foiling genuine ambushes, though, it's not so hot.

Klaus Mittag (***@t-online.de)
#include <disclaimer.h>
#include <fancysig.h>
spam > /dev/null

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Yes. My player complains endlessly if the foes don't make a
good-faith effort to win. And we are playing in a system where
Invisibility and Silence are second-level spells so "don't let
yourself be surprised" is very difficult advice to follow.

See Invisible is a 2nd level spell also.

Yes, it is. But the attacker has a substantial advantage in
this particular arms race, because to make an attack he can
cast Invisibility at a moment of his choice, whereas the
defender must guess the time of attack in order to cast See
Invisible.

A magic item which does See Invisible all the time costs
20,000 gp. In my experience it's not in reach for several
levels after the probable opposition has Invisibility. My
SCAP party didn't have it until 6th level, whereas Invisible
foes are certainly reasonable from about 3rd level on. And
it was a horrendous expense when we did get it.

The PCs have picked off two fairly serious opponents by
studying their daily routines and choosing a dificult-to-
predict moment to launch an ambush. In neither case did
I see a really good way for the foes to prevent this--one
foe did have See Invisible (in fact, the superior True
Seeing) but it wasn't enough. They could have eschewed
having a daily routine, but a merchant whom no one can
ever find to do business with him isn't very functional.
They did have bodyguards, strongholds, and a carefully
established perimeter, but it wasn't enough.

This would work on my PCs just as well. I can only hope
that, not being merchants, they don't have a routine the
foes can guess; and that their true intentions aren't yet
widely known. (A powerful NPC has been lying about
the PCs' power level, bless his heart, and that's helped
a lot. I was really happy as a player to find this out,
because it made the PCs' continued survival so much
easier to believe.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Brandon Blackmoor]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
So in a game, it might well be a good thing to
depower surprise, making it unrealisticly weak as
a weapon in order to promote in-game fun.

Indeed. Nor would that be the first or last such disconnect between
reality and playability in a role-playing game. It's a game, after all:
playability nearly always trumps realism.

[Ed Chauvin IV]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
My GM, reading over my shoulder, says "In a match between even and
roughly similar forces, should surprise determine the victor completely?"

Yes, it should. This is true in real life and there's no reason it
shouldn't be true in the game.

True in real life, I'll grant, but there are good reasons why one
might not want it to be true in a game.

Outside of assumption clash, I can't really think of any good ones.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Ed Chauvin IV
Surprise is a hefty weapon and can level the playing field for a
weaker foe. As a GM, you should use it cautiously, typically to make
an encounter with a weaker foe more interesting. As players you
should be prepared for it and try to be the ones using it to your
advantage, not the other way around.

Well, in some styles of play the GM *can't* "use it cautiously" - the
GM doesn't have that kind of storytelling control, but instead is
obligated to play the foes as competently as possible. Which means
that if surprise is a hefty weapon, the foes will try to exploit it as
best they can.

I would submit that in those styles of play, this is "Not a Problem".

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
And as a player it can get unpleasant to always have to play
characters who are obsessed over surprise; over gaining suprise over
their opponents and over not being surprised themselves.
So in a game, it might well be a good thing to depower surprise,
making it unrealisticly weak as a weapon in order to promote in-game
fun.

Which would be just as unacceptable to me in a game where the GM
wasn't allowed to use surprise cautiously.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Well, in some styles of play the GM *can't* "use it cautiously" - the
GM doesn't have that kind of storytelling control, but instead is
obligated to play the foes as competently as possible. Which means
that if surprise is a hefty weapon, the foes will try to exploit it as
best they can.

I would submit that in those styles of play, this is "Not a Problem".

Mileage varies.

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
And as a player it can get unpleasant to always have to play
characters who are obsessed over surprise; over gaining suprise over
their opponents and over not being surprised themselves.
So in a game, it might well be a good thing to depower surprise,
making it unrealisticly weak as a weapon in order to promote in-game
fun.

Which would be just as unacceptable to me in a game where the GM
wasn't allowed to use surprise cautiously.

Why?

[Ed Chauvin IV]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
Well, in some styles of play the GM *can't* "use it cautiously" - the
GM doesn't have that kind of storytelling control, but instead is
obligated to play the foes as competently as possible. Which means
that if surprise is a hefty weapon, the foes will try to exploit it as
best they can.

I would submit that in those styles of play, this is "Not a Problem".

Mileage varies.

I don't see how.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt

Post by Ed Chauvin IV

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
And as a player it can get unpleasant to always have to play
characters who are obsessed over surprise; over gaining suprise over
their opponents and over not being surprised themselves.
So in a game, it might well be a good thing to depower surprise,
making it unrealisticly weak as a weapon in order to promote in-game
fun.

Which would be just as unacceptable to me in a game where the GM
wasn't allowed to use surprise cautiously.

Why?

Essentially, for the exact same reasons.

[psychohist]

Regarding reasons why, in a game, one might not want surprise to
completely determine the winner of an otherwise even encounter, even
if it did completely determine the winner in the player world,
EdChauvin IV posts:

Outside of assumption clash, I can't really think of any
good ones.

I can think of at least two. First, if combat abilities are more
deadly in the game than in the player world, one might want to
compensate by reducing the effect of other things, like surprise, to
maintain the same overall probability of winning or dying. Second, if
one wants a relatively 'safe' game for the characters, one might want
to reduce the effects of surprise to give the characters a better
chance to assess the likely effects of an encounter and to retreat if
it looks like they are losing.

These are similar to the reasons people have resurrection in games.

Regarding styles of play where the gamesmaster is expected not to
exercise authorial power to prevent opponents from using surprise when
one might expect them to in the player world:

I would submit that in those styles of play, this is "Not a
Problem".

Wanting the game world to run consistently is not the same thing as
wanting it to be identical to the player world. Mary provides
examples where this is indeed a problem; she's willing to change the
way the game world works to lessen the problem, but not willing to
change to a different style of play regarding gamesmaster influence on
the foes' decision making.

Regarding reducing the power of surprise:

Which would be just as unacceptable to me in a game
where the GM wasn't allowed to use surprise cautiously.

No one is saying you should play in such games. Other people may find
them perfectly acceptable, though, and may find the styles you prefer
unacceptable. I'd certainly not want anything to do with a game where
the gamesmaster 'used surprise cautiously' to balance encounters.

Warren J. Dew

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by psychohist
Wanting the game world to run consistently is not the same thing as
wanting it to be identical to the player world. Mary provides
examples where this is indeed a problem; she's willing to change the
way the game world works to lessen the problem, but not willing to
change to a different style of play regarding gamesmaster influence on
the foes' decision making.

Example:

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. That kind of thing shatters
my belief in the game's internal reality immediately. It also
makes it nearly impossible for me to share my PCs' decision-making
process. They can't know that rifles only work for them and not
for the NPCs, so I'm caught between their reasoning (rifles are
deadly, we can't survive a sniper attack) and my reasoning (the
GM won't do that, and for the game's sake I'd better not let my
PCs turtle). Something has to give, and in practice it's my grasp
on the characters.

Being able to make intelligent in-character tactical decisions for
my PCs is really important to me. Having a tight match to real-world
armaments is not. Obviously mileage differs a lot here, and I
certainly understand that for some players, the toned-down rifle is
just too obviously wrong to believe. (There are realism issues I
feel strongly about, but not weaponry: they tend to involve ecology,
sociology, and religion instead.)

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner

Post by psychohist
Wanting the game world to run consistently is not the same thing as
wanting it to be identical to the player world. Mary provides
examples where this is indeed a problem; she's willing to change the
way the game world works to lessen the problem, but not willing to
change to a different style of play regarding gamesmaster influence on
the foes' decision making.

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.

I wouldn't play in either one very likely.

That kind of thing shatters

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
my belief in the game's internal reality immediately. It also
makes it nearly impossible for me to share my PCs' decision-making
process. They can't know that rifles only work for them and not
for the NPCs, so I'm caught between their reasoning (rifles are
deadly, we can't survive a sniper attack) and my reasoning (the
GM won't do that, and for the game's sake I'd better not let my
PCs turtle). Something has to give, and in practice it's my grasp
on the characters.

I can understand that. My solution is to let it all hang out or not
play in a campaign with firearms. I usually don't play in campaigns
with firearms and I have only ever run one. And that campaign was set
in the early Nineteenth Century where firearms had the decency to be
flawed. I have never written the firearms rules for my game system and
probably won't, although we cobbled one together for that campaign. I
own firearms and have used them but they don't strike me as a fun
element in a game.

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Being able to make intelligent in-character tactical decisions for
my PCs is really important to me. Having a tight match to real-world
armaments is not.

I don't know what the state of the art is in the current edition but
missile weapons were delibrately shortchanged in First Edition AD&D
and in old D&D. That was to make the game more heroic. I changed that
when I was still running AD&D and it did not cause a problem. However,
modern sniper rifles would be awfully hard ot incorproate as would
automatic weapons, etc.

Obviously mileage differs a lot here, and I

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
certainly understand that for some players, the toned-down rifle is
just too obviously wrong to believe. (There are realism issues I
feel strongly about, but not weaponry: they tend to involve ecology,
sociology, and religion instead.)

Prior to firearms, weapon "realism" is not going to harm the game or
not harm it much, so I strive for an approximation.

Will in New Haven

--

[gleichman]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
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.

[tussock]

Post by gleichman

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
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.

Or characters toned-up to be heroically lucky about when they bend
down to tie their shoe laces. 8]

Post by gleichman

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
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.

Heh. Rifles don't work in the real world because the societal
response to killing people with them is overwhelming. The best trained
folk in the world won't see more than a couple of weeks freedom after
using one in a 1st world nation.

Where they are used, in war zones, getting sniped is effectivly a
plot point, and the PCs would only get sniped when it's dramatically
approriate.

If you want a game mechanic for sniper rifles, it should be things
that save you gaining the attention of any NPC snipers, from stealth (or
having the political sway to close a city) on the immediate level, to
anonymity or good PR in the long-term.
Or one could just play president and never see the light of day.

[Simon Smith]

Post by gleichman

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
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 opportunities.
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 ambushing 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.

Important 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.

[Russell Wallace]

Simon makes some very good points here: the opportunity for a perfect
ambush isn't necessarily easy to come by.

Consider the "we lie in wait outside the enemy's cave and whack them as
they emerge" scenario. Yes if you can pull that off, and if the two
sides were roughly equal in strength, then the ambushers should have a
very good chance of scoring a TPK with few or no casualties on their own
side.

Consider the setup, however. An isolated cave with no neighbors or
passersby to get suspicious and alert the authorities - convenient. But
then how do the ambushers know where their enemy's hideout is, let alone
their schedule?

A very plausible way for that to go is: the ambushers spend days
searching the woods until they find the cave, and set up their position.
More days pass, no sign of the enemy, it's raining, they can't set up a
proper camp, half the party is borderline hypothermic, one is coming
down with pneumonia, the rest are bored, stiff and exhausted, eventually
with much trepidation one steps into the cave, shines a light around and
finds it's empty - this is the wrong cave! So, badly demoralized, they
stumble wearily back towards town - only to blunder into the enemy, who
while not expecting them, are at least fresh and in peak fighting condition.

Sure, in some systems you can say "the ambushers could just divine the
location of the cave and teleport there at their choice of time"; but if
so, that usefully highlights an area of the system that needs to be
fixed: balance between offensive versus defensive uses of scry, teleport
etc.

Another example from my last campaign: the party (a Euthanatos, a
Verbena, a Black Spiral Dancer and couple of NPCs) were up against Clan
Tremere (and ultimately the Antediluvians and Caine). On paper this
would be instant splat for the party, but what actually happened was
that they ended up in a series of progressively tougher fights and they
didn't run into the major opposition until late in the campaign when
they had the wherewithal to deal with it. Why did the Tremere behave in
such a suboptimal way? Because a) they weren't omniscient, and b)
realistically, bad news doesn't instantly travel up the chain of command
of a large organization. The clan didn't react to a low-level group of
enforcers getting wiped out with "eek, it's the PCs, send maximum force
at once!"; they just sent a somewhat tougher group to find out what
happened to the first.

Now granted if e.g. one of the Shadowrun setting's most powerful
megacorporations has "terminate the PCs" as #2 priority on its to-do
list, you're in trouble. But it's usually possible to set things up so
that you don't have to break game world consistency for this to not
happen, at least not until the PCs are ready for it.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
Now granted if e.g. one of the Shadowrun setting's most powerful
megacorporations has "terminate the PCs" as #2 priority on its to-do
list, you're in trouble.

Completely disagree. In fact, assuming this to be true is counter to
the primary underlying conceit of the game itself.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman

Post by Russell Wallace
Now granted if e.g. one of the Shadowrun setting's most powerful
megacorporations has "terminate the PCs" as #2 priority on its to-do
list, you're in trouble.

Completely disagree. In fact, assuming this to be true is counter to
the primary underlying conceit of the game itself.

Is it? I was under the impression there were so many groups of
shadowrunners in the setting that any one group, unless they do
something like blowing up the HQ building or somesuch, will be regarded
as small fry on the scale of a megacorporation as a whole, not worth the
expenditure of vast resources to hunt down and terminate at all costs.
Where do you disagree with this reasoning?

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by gleichman
Completely disagree. In fact, assuming this to be true is counter to
the primary underlying conceit of the game itself.

Is it? I was under the impression there were so many groups of
shadowrunners in the setting that any one group, unless they do
something like blowing up the HQ building or somesuch, will be regarded
as small fry on the scale of a megacorporation as a whole, not worth the
expenditure of vast resources to hunt down and terminate at all costs.
Where do you disagree with this reasoning?

I disagree due to the reading of the game's fictional history and
background. It's whole concept is built around the idea that skilled
Shadowrunning teams are able to penetrate even the most secure areas-
and then disappear off the radar to repeat the process again.

The background even includes characters such as Fastjack- who's matrix
skills are such that no Mega-Corp or Nation can even keep a decent
file on him without it being compromised or lost, let alone seriously
threaten him.

Given the background, this actually makes sense.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
The background even includes characters such as Fastjack- who's matrix
skills are such that no Mega-Corp or Nation can even keep a decent
file on him without it being compromised or lost, let alone seriously
threaten him.

Oh, heh, shows how much I know about the setting. Matrix skills eh? If I
ever fall through a rift in the space-time continuum and find myself in
the Shadowrun universe, I'm going to make a fortune selling the
megacorps the patent on a legendary device called a "printer".

Post by gleichman
Given the background, this actually makes sense.

This must be some strange usage of the term "makes sense" that I wasn't
previously aware of :)

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
Oh, heh, shows how much I know about the setting. Matrix skills eh? If I
ever fall through a rift in the space-time continuum and find myself in
the Shadowrun universe, I'm going to make a fortune selling the
megacorps the patent on a legendary device called a "printer".

Part of the conceit of the Shadowrun background is that "common sense"
is basically gone. In its place you have top down rule by tradition
and whim. Things are done because that's the way it's done, and the
ability to innovate and improve is all but a thing of the past. People
don't solve problems, they follow process. Add in the other cyberpunk
conceit of techology outgrowing man's ability to cope and the pot is
sweetened.

These are the primary reasons Shadowrunners can be so effective. The
*good* Shadowrunners are throwbacks to more effective ways of thinking
and acting.

The thing many players, GMs and even authors of Shadowrun tend to
forget is that it's a world wide culture in near collapse- only a
couple of steps away from being post-apoc. At it's best (and that's
rare), it's the Soviet Govt around 1991 with no one to help bail them
out in the aftermath.

As far as printing out the data on Fastjack... Which of the thousands
of files are you going to assume to be correct for your base printing?
Which of the perhaps millions of updates (most generated by Fastjack
himself) from all your intelligence sources are you going to use to
update it? And then how are you going to get it to the 'field' in a
secure and timely manner to be used effectively? Basically how can you
chase a Matrix entity moving in Matrix time with c1940 intelligence
methods? Good luck.

Or to use an old Star Trek quote (may be paraphrased): "Maneuver!?
Aye, we can wallow like a garage scow against a warp-driven starship!"

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by gleichman
Given the background, this actually makes sense.

This must be some strange usage of the term "makes sense" that I wasn't
previously aware of :)

Add in some of the above factors, and it starts to click.

Reality itself often doesn't make sense. I could point out real world
example after real world example. Until one gets used to this idea,
one is doomed to recreate variants of Mary's problems (be it
overpowering NPC foes, sniper rifles, or ambushes) with games again
and again where she self-destructs on a seemingly senseless result. A
problem that is "duplicated" in the real world without producing the
outcome she consistently sees for reasons beyond her knowledge or
understanding.

After years of reading posts on immersion and it's like, I've decided
that it is perhaps the worst method of creating a game world that's
reasonable or character reactions that's are anywere near realistic.
Warren is my primary example of success in this area and seems to be
quite the exception. To get there however Warren has created a world
that would likely bore to me to tears* as it's too much like the real
world, I think I'd run a farmer in it...

*To be honest, Warren's game may well not bore me. Instead it might
server as a outlet for my 'make money' side typically only see in
online MMORPGs with crafters, traders and the like.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
Reality itself often doesn't make sense. I could point out real world
example after real world example. Until one gets used to this idea,
one is doomed to recreate variants of Mary's problems (be it
overpowering NPC foes, sniper rifles, or ambushes) with games again
and again where she self-destructs on a seemingly senseless result. A
problem that is "duplicated" in the real world without producing the
outcome she consistently sees for reasons beyond her knowledge or
understanding.

I suppose I see two opposite extremes here, and I don't find either
quite believable.

On the one extreme there's "can't unturtle without getting instantly
TPK'd by unstoppable assassins", and I agree with you that's not
believable as an all-the-time thing, assassins etc in real life have to
work with limited information and resources, they aren't omniscient etc.

On the other hand, while I've no problem believing in screwups, I don't
find it believable when _everyone_ is screwed up in exactly the _same
way_, at _all_ times, and that's the problem I have with the Shadowrun
setting as you describe it. If some hacker runs rings around megacorp X
because their security department is a Dilbert gulag, well sure, that
sort of thing happens in real life too. If _nobody on the entire planet_
can _ever_ so much as keep a file on him, well I don't think that's
plausible. _Somebody_ sooner or later is going to figure out how to do it.

Post by gleichman
After years of reading posts on immersion and it's like, I've decided
that it is perhaps the worst method of creating a game world that's
reasonable or character reactions that's are anywere near realistic.

I completely disagree (unsurprisingly, seeing as I use it quite a lot
myself :)). I just think you're expecting it to do more than is
reasonable. Immersion sometimes generates screwed-up results, and you
have to incorporate feedback, you have to be prepared to notice the
screwups and fix your model so it'll give better results next time. But
the same is true for any method whatsoever! Immersion isn't a magic
crystal ball, but nor is anything else.

Post by gleichman
Warren is my primary example of success in this area and seems to be
quite the exception. To get there however Warren has created a world
that would likely bore to me to tears* as it's too much like the real
world, I think I'd run a farmer in it...

Heh, I remember having that conversation with Warren awhile ago and
coming to the same conclusion :)

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

If some hacker runs rings around megacorp X because their security
department is a Dilbert gulag, well sure, that sort of thing happens
in real life too. If _nobody on the entire planet_ can _ever_ so
much as keep a file on him, well I don't think that's plausible.

Wait.

You're okay with dragons resurrecting themselves with magic in order
to run corporations, but the idea of a hacker nobody can catch is too
much for you?

Anyway, when I play Shadowrun, it's a stylized game in which the whole
world is a mid-80s rock video. Corporations can't crush shadowrunners
because if they could that would mean that the Man is capable of
defeating rock and roll, and that's obviously a silly thing to put
into a music video.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
You're okay with dragons resurrecting themselves with magic in order
to run corporations, but the idea of a hacker nobody can catch is too
much for you?

Yep. I'm fine with material unrealism (or I wouldn't be into sf and
fantasy in the first place!) but I have a much bigger problem with human
unrealism (to me, the point of stories is that they're about people,
whatever trappings the people may be surrounded by).

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
Anyway, when I play Shadowrun, it's a stylized game in which the whole
world is a mid-80s rock video. Corporations can't crush shadowrunners
because if they could that would mean that the Man is capable of
defeating rock and roll, and that's obviously a silly thing to put
into a music video.

If that works for you, go for it ^.^

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
Anyway, when I play Shadowrun, it's a stylized game in which the whole
world is a mid-80s rock video. Corporations can't crush shadowrunners
because if they could that would mean that the Man is capable of
defeating rock and roll, and that's obviously a silly thing to put
into a music video.

If that works for you, go for it ^.^

I'm a world away from Neelakantan in style, however I do have one
point in common. Genre matters, and if you as a player or GM cannot
rationalize in some method the primary conventions of that genre- you
have no business attempting to run it. It will only end in tears.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
I'm a world away from Neelakantan in style, however I do have one
point in common. Genre matters, and if you as a player or GM cannot
rationalize in some method the primary conventions of that genre- you
have no business attempting to run it. It will only end in tears.

I almost agree. Rationalizing beyond a certain point is a bad idea; it
becomes the practice of finding arguments for a proposition one's better
judgement knows to be false, which is self-deception - a very bad habit
to train oneself into. Instead I think if a genre convention truly is
not realistic, it's better to just say "it's not realistic, but it is a
premise of this genre - now am I okay with just accepting it as a
premise, or should I modify the genre or move to a different genre
completely?"

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
I almost agree. Rationalizing beyond a certain point is a bad idea; it
becomes the practice of finding arguments for a proposition one's better
judgement knows to be false, which is self-deception - a very bad habit
to train oneself into.

And yet, it seems most of the world is highly practiced at this...
back to games.

With respect to games and settings like SR, the proposition isn't
false. The game setting requires it to be true. Thus if you are to
play in that setting as anything other than a joke- you must have a
way of viewing those requirements that allows you to play.

Such a rationalization may be as simple as "wearing glasses is a
foolproof method of concealing your secret id- yeah, I can accept
that'. Having magic in a fantasy game is a classic example.

Or it can be as complex (or more so) as the background I gave for
Shadowrun.

It doesn't matter which you do, but you must do something.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
With respect to games and settings like SR, the proposition isn't
false. The game setting requires it to be true. Thus if you are to
play in that setting as anything other than a joke- you must have a
way of viewing those requirements that allows you to play.

Another alternative, often overlooked, is to run a somewhat modified
version of the setting. In the last campaign I ran in someone else's
setting (World of Darkness) I made significant changes relative to (most
people's interpretation of) the official version.

Post by gleichman
Such a rationalization may be as simple as "wearing glasses is a
foolproof method of concealing your secret id- yeah, I can accept
that'.

Well, "rationalization" generally refers to coming up with an elaborate
explanation in attempt to convince oneself of the plausibility of
something that one has previously decided one wishes to believe for
reasons unconnected with the purported explanation; that's the habit I
think it is worth trying to train oneself out of, not into.

To say "wearing glasses is a foolproof method of concealing your secret
id- yeah, I can accept that [because I think Superman is a cool story
and I want to run it as written]" has the great virtue of honesty, not
to mention the nontrivial virtue of simplicity. I think that's a much
better way to go. (As it happens I personally don't think Superman is a
cool story and I don't want to run it, but I see nothing wrong with
other people using it if that's their cup of tea.)

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
Another alternative, often overlooked, is to run a somewhat modified
version of the setting. In the last campaign I ran in someone else's
setting (World of Darkness) I made significant changes relative to (most
people's interpretation of) the official version.

I'll come back to this.

Post by Russell Wallace
Well, "rationalization" generally refers to coming up with an elaborate
explanation in attempt to convince oneself of the plausibility of
something that one has previously decided one wishes to believe for
reasons unconnected with the purported explanation

Not the sense I was intending to use the word for. I accept
responsibility for poor usage in this case.

Rather I was trying to describe a method of reverse-engineering in
which all layers of the campaign is examined to determine why certain
genre conventions and expected outcomes are true.

Sometimes that results in either inability to come up with a
reasonable and or acceptable outcome. Thus making changes is the only
option as you noted in the previous quote. I for example have made
significant changes in the SR setting for my own campaign as I had a
different story (and different history) to fit it into.

Post by Russell Wallace
To say "wearing glasses is a foolproof method of concealing your secret
id- yeah, I can accept that [because I think Superman is a cool story
and I want to run it as written]" has the great virtue of honesty, not
to mention the nontrivial virtue of simplicity. I think that's a much
better way to go.

I disagree.

The background I explained provides a huge amount of insight into the
world, hooks for adventures, ideas for NPCs, etc. etc. that a mere
"Shadowrunners... yeah they can exist and work- sure I accept that"
doesn't.

Add in that some genre conceits just can't be accepted by some people-
and the need as well of usefulness of more complex answers should
become plain.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
The background I explained provides a huge amount of insight into the
world, hooks for adventures, ideas for NPCs, etc. etc. that a mere
"Shadowrunners... yeah they can exist and work- sure I accept that"
doesn't.

Oh, it's much better when you can arrange it so that things do make
logical sense! (As you said you did for your version of Shadowrun for
example.) I merely advocate recognizing the point when things still
don't make sense.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
Oh, it's much better when you can arrange it so that things do make
logical sense! (As you said you did for your version of Shadowrun for
example.) I merely advocate recognizing the point when things still
don't make sense.

It might be worth running by someone other than one's self however to
prevent one's own limitations becoming dogma. For example, this thread
has shown many hold to the common concept that in general surprise and
ambush cannot be overcomed by the defender. I hope that I've dispelled
that notion for the real world at least.

Carrying real world concepts back to the game is generally not
difficult. With few or no rule changes- one's game experience can be
moved more towards a real world example no matter the game system.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
It might be worth running by someone other than one's self however to
prevent one's own limitations becoming dogma. For example, this thread
has shown many hold to the common concept that in general surprise and
ambush cannot be overcomed by the defender. I hope that I've dispelled
that notion for the real world at least.

(At least in cases where the defender is significantly stronger.) But
yes, that's one of the things forums like this are good for.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
(At least in cases where the defender is significantly stronger.) But
yes, that's one of the things forums like this are good for.

It works even when (and especally when) the defender is weaker, such
as SF teams (typically a dozen men or less) breaking free of ambushers
greatly outnumbering them with much higher firepower.

The key is training, teamwork, action under pressure, tactics, etc.
Under pressure, most people screw up. The core concept than is to
apply pressure and take advantage when they screw up.

[gleichman]

Post by gleichman
The key is training, teamwork, action under pressure, tactics, etc.
Under pressure, most people screw up. The core concept than is to
apply pressure and take advantage when they screw up.

Thought I'd toss in an famous example, from naval warfare for those
interested. Mostly because I love history, and because it so fits my
point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
It works even when (and especally when) the defender is weaker, such
as SF teams (typically a dozen men or less) breaking free of ambushers
greatly outnumbering them with much higher firepower.

The relevant measures of 'stronger' aren't just numbers, but...

Post by gleichman
The key is training, teamwork, action under pressure, tactics, etc.
Under pressure, most people screw up. The core concept than is to
apply pressure and take advantage when they screw up.

...exactly the things you list above. (In game terms, special forces
guys would typically be quite a bit higher level than their enemies.) My
original claim was that a successful ambush confers a significant
advantage, enough that it's likely to be decisive if the forces were
otherwise fairly evenly matched; that doesn't imply ambush is the
ultimate tactic capable of automatically defeating even a better-trained
enemy.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
...exactly the things you list above. (In game terms, special forces
guys would typically be quite a bit higher level than their enemies.) My
original claim was that a successful ambush confers a significant
advantage, enough that it's likely to be decisive if the forces were
otherwise fairly evenly matched; that doesn't imply ambush is the
ultimate tactic capable of automatically defeating even a better-trained
enemy.

I just provided an example where complete surprise was overcame by an
inferior force who's training (considering they were very much second
string units) was not a significant edge. Indeed, they even screw up
at first with what can best be called the "run away" tactic.

Additional historical examples abound of green troops pulling off such
defenses against highly experienced ones. The only required defensive
'edge' is the willinginess to attack instead of cover or run. Once
that's in place- it's a battle, one that may go in either direction
depending upon the normal factors that influence such things. And once
it's a battle, it may well completely psychologically over turn one's
foe who was expecting a one-sided cake walk and thus reverse any
expected 'surpriser' advantage.

The reason these tactics work in the real world, and across the entire
range of military experience at that is that Surprise is only
"decisive" if the defender allows it to be, either by lack of prep for
suprise or by inaction during surprise.

The common case for most groups and nations is that defenders do
indeed allow this. Reflecting this in game rules however is poorly
done by 'free round' mechanics.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

I just provided an example where complete surprise was
overcame by an inferior force who's training (considering
they were very much second string units) was not a significant
edge. Indeed, they even screw up at first with what can best
be called the "run away" tactic.

I agree that the U.S. forces' training was probably not a significant
edge, but it probably wasn't significantly inferior, either. The
units were "second string" because they were smaller ships -
destroyers and escort carriers rather than cruisers or battleships and
full size carriers - but that just means they had smaller crews, not
necessarily worse trained crews.

Whether they were an "inferior force" might be a matter of debate as
well. Their total tonnage was certainly much smaller. On the other
hand, they had aircraft carriers and the Japanese did not, and if
there's one lesson to be learned from the Pacific theater in World War
II, it's that aircraft carriers beat battleships.

That said, I do agree with your general conclusion that
counterattacking in the face of surprise can greatly reduce the
advantages of that surprise, or even turn it around on occasion.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
I agree that the U.S. forces' training was probably not a significant
edge, but it probably wasn't significantly inferior, either. The
units were "second string" because they were smaller ships -
destroyers and escort carriers rather than cruisers or battleships and
full size carriers - but that just means they had smaller crews, not
necessarily worse trained crews.

In the Navy, better officers tend to move up in ship type as they
advance. The better pilots are moved to attack carriers instead of
escort, etc. Enlisted see less movement, but have less impact
individually as well. In addition to all this is the psychological
impact of being aux units, ones not expected to see (nor extensively
trained or even armed for) fleet action. Their job was to provide anti-
sub, picket defense and ground support for landed troops.

The Japanese meanwhile had their main battleline commited to this
action including their national flagship, their sole reason for being
there was to crush enemy shipping. On the downside, their Navy had
suffered under constant loss since Midway meaning that they were
unlikely to match their excellent early war levels of skill.

In general, I'd label it something of a wash training wise with
Japanese advantage in expectation and correct task assignment.

Post by psychohist
Whether they were an "inferior force" might be a matter of debate as
well. Their total tonnage was certainly much smaller. On the other
hand, they had aircraft carriers and the Japanese did not, and if
there's one lesson to be learned from the Pacific theater in World War
II, it's that aircraft carriers beat battleships.

Except in this case the aircraft were not armed against heavy surface
combatants and were thus rather ineffective. They did however add to
the noise and confusion, which is the primary requirement for
overturning surprise.

No historician I have read has called the Japanese anything but the
highly superior force in this engagement.

Post by psychohist
That said, I do agree with your general conclusion that
counterattacking in the face of surprise can greatly reduce the
advantages of that surprise, or even turn it around on occasion.

The US has over the last 50 years extensive experience in dealing with
the surprise attack and ambush and has almost without exception turned
it around on the attacker even as early as the Vietnam War. Indeed,
current doctrine is to invite such attacks because it brings one's
foes out where they can be killed. Hence the turn towards roadside
bombs and other non-engaging tactics of current US foes.

Here, the edge is of course with the highly trained, superbly equipped
US troops who likely are soliders of one of less than a handful of
nations who could pull this off (the Soviets being the prime example
of one failing badly). However this element certainly stands in for
the traditional rpg PCs- who seldom truly face equal foes in combat
(for it they did, they'd lose half their battles by definition).

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by gleichman
The reason these tactics work in the real world, and across the entire
range of military experience at that is that Surprise is only
"decisive" if the defender allows it to be, either by lack of prep for
suprise or by inaction during surprise.

As has been pointed out by citing hit percentages at close range, a
lot of the reason *why* surprise is comparatively ineffective in the
Real World is because hit percentages there lag those in RPGs by a large
margin. I.e. if *everyone* is only hitting (say) 20% of the time, and
hits are not in themselves necessarily conclusive, then letting your
opponents have an unopposed first shot isn't necessarily a significant
advantage.

It seems to me that your argument bears more upon the need to correct
hit-and-damage rolls to match 'reality' rather than directly upon the
real-life implications upon achieving surprise.

Biff

[gleichman]

Post by Beowulf Bolt
As has been pointed out by citing hit percentages at close range, a
lot of the reason *why* surprise is comparatively ineffective in the
Real World is because hit percentages there lag those in RPGs by a large
margin. I.e. if *everyone* is only hitting (say) 20% of the time, and
hits are not in themselves necessarily conclusive, then letting your
opponents have an unopposed first shot isn't necessarily a significant
advantage.

As was nicely pointed out by DougL, the reaction time for launching an
attack may well bleed over into the reaction time needed to launch a
counter attack. Add in the fact that many times Surprise isn't total
(someone breaks and fires before the order, someone spots something,
etc.) and I would seriously disagree that the first shot would be
'unopposed' even in the majority case.

However I will agree that the Pace of Decision in most RPGs is much
higher than the Pace of Decision in the real world and that this is
the primary factor for dominance of Surprise in those games.

Post by Beowulf Bolt
It seems to me that your argument bears more upon the need to correct
hit-and-damage rolls to match 'reality' rather than directly upon the
real-life implications upon achieving surprise.

I think some here didn't believe that Surprise was not realistically
represented by RPGs, i.e. they didn't feel the rules needed to be
corrected. So I've been mostly debating that point. But I'm ready to
move on to correcting the problem in rpgs.

I'll have to follow up on this in another post however as I need to
log in to my servers at work and burn much of my evening there.

[gleichman]

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
It seems to me that your argument bears more upon the need to correct
hit-and-damage rolls to match 'reality' rather than directly upon the
real-life implications upon achieving surprise.

I'll have to follow up on this in another post however as I need to
log in to my servers at work and burn much of my evening there.

Ok, picking this idea back up.

1. You've stated the most obvious solution to the problem. Reduce the
Pace of Decision to something that more closely matches the real world
in order to reduce the effect of Surprise to that same level. While
this would resolve the problem, it does so at a cost. RPGs generally
increase strike chances in order to prevent boredom and reduce time
spent on uneventful use of mechanics. Most players would object to
rolling 6 times for every hit and unless the damage was increased to
match the lower hit rate- the time to resolve a combat would be vastly
increased. Another side effect of this is the feeling that luck and
not player skill drives the combat.

So what other options are there? Here's a few suggestions...


2. Another solution is to remove Surprise completely from the
mechanics. This can work if at the cost of 'realism' and the risk of
player disconnect as they lose part of their expected world.

3. Another solution is to manage the advantages granted by Surprise
such that the final result more closely matches in the abstract the
real world. Warren to some degree has gone with this option (only one
or two attackers get first fire). Abstract solutions run the risk of
causing problems in the mental image players have of the game world,
as some of the response to Warren suggests.


4. Another solution is to remember that mechanics are abstractions and
thus may represent only part of what's being considered. Thus if one
defines the Surprise rules as "Worst Case" events and various results
of the Initiative System as lesser degrees of Surprise- one moves
closer Real World results without changing anything. This solution
depends upon rare use of Surprise (or "with Caution" as suggested by
another poster). While each level of Surprise is controlled by
mechanics at the Game layer, determination of which case applies most
often is found at the Meta-Game layer which can cause problems for
those players who take objection to that.



I use what would be a mix of #3 and #4 for my campaigns.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by gleichman

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
It seems to me that your argument bears more upon the need to correct
hit-and-damage rolls to match 'reality' rather than directly upon the
real-life implications upon achieving surprise.

I'll have to follow up on this in another post however as I need to
log in to my servers at work and burn much of my evening there.

Ok, picking this idea back up.
1. You've stated the most obvious solution to the problem. Reduce the
Pace of Decision to something that more closely matches the real world
in order to reduce the effect of Surprise to that same level. While
this would resolve the problem, it does so at a cost. RPGs generally
increase strike chances in order to prevent boredom and reduce time
spent on uneventful use of mechanics. Most players would object to
rolling 6 times for every hit and unless the damage was increased to
match the lower hit rate- the time to resolve a combat would be vastly
increased. Another side effect of this is the feeling that luck and
not player skill drives the combat.

Let me point out here that the Pace of Decision can be lowered by
methods other than reducing "strike chances." And from previous
discussions, I myself would prefer a Pace of Decision that runs at
about half the speed of your prefered Pace. At least for "high level"
& high powered PC types.

I think that part of the problem is that many players have
incompatable desires wrt Pace of Decision. They want:

1. To be able to slay monsters with a single mighty blow, or at least
a small number of attacks, [high Pace of Decision]

2. To be able to withstand many attacks, or attack attempts by
monsters against them, [low Pace of Decision]

and

3. To have the same rules apply to both their PCs and to the
NPCs/monsters.

Something has to give.

Post by gleichman
So what other options are there? Here's a few suggestions...
2. Another solution is to remove Surprise completely from the
mechanics. This can work if at the cost of 'realism' and the risk of
player disconnect as they lose part of their expected world.
3. Another solution is to manage the advantages granted by Surprise
such that the final result more closely matches in the abstract the
real world. Warren to some degree has gone with this option (only one
or two attackers get first fire). Abstract solutions run the risk of
causing problems in the mental image players have of the game world,
as some of the response to Warren suggests.
4. Another solution is to remember that mechanics are abstractions and
thus may represent only part of what's being considered. Thus if one
defines the Surprise rules as "Worst Case" events and various results
of the Initiative System as lesser degrees of Surprise- one moves
closer Real World results without changing anything. This solution
depends upon rare use of Surprise (or "with Caution" as suggested by
another poster). While each level of Surprise is controlled by
mechanics at the Game layer, determination of which case applies most
often is found at the Meta-Game layer which can cause problems for
those players who take objection to that.
I use what would be a mix of #3 and #4 for my campaigns.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by gleichman
It might be worth running by someone other than one's self however to
prevent one's own limitations becoming dogma. For example, this thread
has shown many hold to the common concept that in general surprise and
ambush cannot be overcomed by the defender. I hope that I've dispelled
that notion for the real world at least.

(At least in cases where the defender is significantly stronger.) But
yes, that's one of the things forums like this are good for.

"Cannot be overcome by the defender" and "does not confer an often
significant advantage" are not the same thing. Gleichman has killed a
strawman and may now pound his chest. Being trained to return fire and
counter-attack an ambush does not put you in a position where you
don't try to avoid being ambushed.

Will in New Haven

--

Post by Russell Wallace
--
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On 1 Mar 2007 13:46:55 -0800, "Will in New Haven"

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by gleichman
It might be worth running by someone other than one's self however to
prevent one's own limitations becoming dogma. For example, this thread
has shown many hold to the common concept that in general surprise and
ambush cannot be overcomed by the defender. I hope that I've dispelled
that notion for the real world at least.

(At least in cases where the defender is significantly stronger.) But
yes, that's one of the things forums like this are good for.

"Cannot be overcome by the defender" and "does not confer an often
significant advantage" are not the same thing. Gleichman has killed a
strawman and may now pound his chest. Being trained to return fire and
counter-attack an ambush does not put you in a position where you
don't try to avoid being ambushed.

Mary's complaint in her original post was that surprise, in her games,
does give a "cannot be overcome by the defender" result. She was
looking for a modification that would tone suprise down to a mere
advantage; in abstract wargame terms a one place odds shift on the CRT
rather than a big enough shift to turn a even-odds attack into an
automatic "defender destroyed" result.

If it makes combat more realistic to tone down surprise this way, then
that's good news. It means that standard surprise rules are like the
"death spiral" mechanics seen in many games - a naive attempt at
"realism" whose removal would make the game both more realistic *and*
more fun to play.

[Will in New Haven]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
On 1 Mar 2007 13:46:55 -0800, "Will in New Haven"

Post by Will in New Haven

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by gleichman
It might be worth running by someone other than one's self however to
prevent one's own limitations becoming dogma. For example, this thread
has shown many hold to the common concept that in general surprise and
ambush cannot be overcomed by the defender. I hope that I've dispelled
that notion for the real world at least.

(At least in cases where the defender is significantly stronger.) But
yes, that's one of the things forums like this are good for.

"Cannot be overcome by the defender" and "does not confer an often
significant advantage" are not the same thing. Gleichman has killed a
strawman and may now pound his chest. Being trained to return fire and
counter-attack an ambush does not put you in a position where you
don't try to avoid being ambushed.

Mary's complaint in her original post was that surprise, in her games,
does give a "cannot be overcome by the defender" result. She was
looking for a modification that would tone suprise down to a mere
advantage; in abstract wargame terms a one place odds shift on the CRT
rather than a big enough shift to turn a even-odds attack into an
automatic "defender destroyed" result.

That's an excellent analogy and about where surprise is in our
campaigns. It is a big enough disadvantage to be surprised that one
spends a great deal of effort to avoid being surprised and to gain
surprise but it isn't usually or very often decisive.

I think that the _degree_ of surprise and the tactical situation the
sides find themselves in at the moment of surprise make for a great
many variables. I have to admit that the reason that surprise isn't
decisive is that our Pace of Decision is slower than it would seem to
be in D&D today. I was wondering why surprise wasn't more effective,
since we made no effort to make it less effective, until Gleichman
brought up Pace of Decision.

When I stopped playing AD&D the Pace was, or seemed, extremely slow
due to the huge number of Hit Points, more than anything else. It was
like two big bars of soap carving flakes off one another. This was all
covered well by Gleichman when he said that giving your opponents the
first shot is not all THAT big of an advantage when the Pace of
Decision is at a realistic level.

Ours is not at a realistic leavel but it is a good deal slower than
D&D has apparently become. With no firearms, our Pace is such that
complete tactical surprise will give the surprised side a significant
handicap but they can win. We allow for a great many degrees of
surprise short of complete.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
If it makes combat more realistic to tone down surprise this way, then
that's good news. It means that standard surprise rules are like the
"death spiral" mechanics seen in many games - a naive attempt at
"realism" whose removal would make the game both more realistic *and*
more fun to play.

Toning down surprise would seem to be uneccesary if you have a
reasonable Pace. Most surprise would involve the use of missile
weapons. Missile weapons miss their targets quite often and some of
the hits aren't kills. So being surprised is a handicap, not a death
sentence. If the suprisers have a powerful spell-caster, it is a much
tougher situation but fighting a powerful spell-caster is never easy.

Also, stealth does not multiply. Three guys, even three stealthy guys,
are much less stealthy than one stealthy guy. Large groups have a very
tough time achieving surprise, especially complete tactical surprise.
So usually the victim of surprise isn't meeting numerous enemies at
the moment of surprise. The surprisers may have heavy hitters coming
up later to take advantage of the surprise but the surprise round was
only available to their scouts and other mobile quiet types. A full-
scale ambush would be the major exception to this and avoiding those
is part of the game.

On the other paw, surprise being toned down too much takes one of the
more interesting, to us, parts of the game away. We find scouting, etc
a very interesting part of the game.

I have possibly played in a "death spiral" game but I never remember
the term used. The highest-casualty game I ever played in was
playtesting the scenario based on the Cthorr invasion but there you
generally died form one blow or bite or whatever. We play-tested it in
GURPS and, I believe, in Simbiada's fantasy rules, whatever he calls
them.

Will in New Haven

--

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
--
Erol K. Bayburt
- Show quoted text -

[Neelakantan Krishnaswami]

Post by Russell Wallace

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
You're okay with dragons resurrecting themselves with magic in order
to run corporations, but the idea of a hacker nobody can catch is too
much for you?

Yep. I'm fine with material unrealism (or I wouldn't be into sf and
fantasy in the first place!) but I have a much bigger problem with human
unrealism (to me, the point of stories is that they're about people,
whatever trappings the people may be surrounded by).

Okay, but hacking is just a species of magic (sometimes literally so)
in Shadowrun -- why is it so hard to accept that there's a magician
who's better than the best corporate mage?

[Russell Wallace]

Post by Neelakantan Krishnaswami
Okay, but hacking is just a species of magic (sometimes literally so)
in Shadowrun -- why is it so hard to accept that there's a magician
who's better than the best corporate mage?

Oh, I don't have a problem with that. The original proposition was - or
I understood it to be - that nobody could keep track of Fast Jack
because nobody on the entire planet has thought of printing stuff out on
paper or similar simple countermeasures; that was what I found implausible.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
On the other hand, while I've no problem believing in screwups, I don't
find it believable when _everyone_ is screwed up in exactly the _same
way_, at _all_ times, and that's the problem I have with the Shadowrun
setting as you describe it.

I don't believe I described the problem down to the exact detail level
where one could claim "exactly the same way at all times", I was
speaking of cultural norms that drives the culture of the World.

FastJack is of course something of an exception in Shadowrun
representing the best of the best and his ability is given to the GM/
player as a fact- it may not be so considered by the powers that be in
SR. Indeed, they may consider him a myth or a combination of many
different actors. This exact result has occurred in the real world
with spies existing in place for decades without detection.

So I find your disbelief an excellent example of over-thinking a
setting. Looking only at a handful of all the influences and then
drawing a very distorted view as a result.

Post by Russell Wallace
I completely disagree (unsurprisingly, seeing as I use it quite a lot
myself :)). I just think you're expecting it to do more than is
reasonable.

I think people are using it for more than they should.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
FastJack is of course something of an exception in Shadowrun
representing the best of the best and his ability is given to the GM/
player as a fact- it may not be so considered by the powers that be in
SR. Indeed, they may consider him a myth or a combination of many
different actors. This exact result has occurred in the real world
with spies existing in place for decades without detection.

True.

Post by gleichman
So I find your disbelief an excellent example of over-thinking a
setting. Looking only at a handful of all the influences and then
drawing a very distorted view as a result.

It's true of course that it's been many years since I looked at any of
the source material myself, and then not very thoroughly; any
conclusions I draw from a few paragraphs of description have to be
considered very tentative.

[Mary K. Kuhner]

Post by Russell Wallace
Simon makes some very good points here: the opportunity for a perfect
ambush isn't necessarily easy to come by.
Consider the "we lie in wait outside the enemy's cave and whack them as
they emerge" scenario. Yes if you can pull that off, and if the two
sides were roughly equal in strength, then the ambushers should have a
very good chance of scoring a TPK with few or no casualties on their own
side.
Consider the setup, however. An isolated cave with no neighbors or
passersby to get suspicious and alert the authorities - convenient. But
then how do the ambushers know where their enemy's hideout is, let alone
their schedule?

When my PCs recently needed to pull off such an ambush, they came to
town a week early and investigated questions like "How are these
guys getting fed?" There were only a few businesses in town that
could cater for a group the size of the enemy's team (it would have
been harder to track this in a city) and questioning the
caterer's low-level employees gave the PCs some idea of the enemy's
location, schedule, and approximate numbers.

A lot of additional information came from staging a preliminary
attack (by two dinosaur skeletons, as it happens) on the road.
This told the PCs that the foe would teleport instantly if spooked,
and also revealed the foe's use of baboons as forward scouts. The
PCs then waited several days (in case of heightened readiness)
before staging the actual attack.

Catching and questioning one low-level foe is an incredibly
powerful technique, even without magic and especially with it
(Detect Thoughts/Zone of Truth/Charm Person in D&D). It would be
harder in a more lawful area but in a remote location like this
putative cave, the law is unlikely to be able to react effectively.
And if the PCs are ruthless, they can kill the victim afterwards.
(If they are necromancers, killing the victim beforehands works
fairly well too!)

Attempts to do this to the PCs in return would have been more
difficult because they were not locals, and were not trying to
operate a business (as their foes were). On their home turf,
where they *do* operate a business and have scheduled appointments,
they'd be rather more vulnerable than their foe, and I believe
would fall to an attack very similar in kind to what I just
outlined. I honestly don't know how to prevent it. The location
of their hideout is known and they cannot afford to guard the
entrance constantly. (At much higher level they may start
Teleporting in and out, and dispense with having a door, but they
can't do it now.) Sending a scout out might save the group at
the cost of certainly losing the scout, and with only 6 PCs this
is not very affordable. Low-level hirelings cannot deal with
attackers who are stealthy or invisible or shapechanged or just
blending in with the urban crowds. And it is next to impossible to
do business without ever establishing a pattern that can be
used to ambush you.

Mary Kuhner ***@eskimo.com

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
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.

I'm not Mary, but speaking for myself *I* wouldn't play in the real
world. Not as a "player character."

For me the whole point of playing an RPG is to vicariously experience
doing cool things that I can not, dare not, or ought not do in the
real world. To have my characters do things that are stupid and/or
crazy to attempt in the real world - and not have my characters be
stupid or crazy to do so.

Which means not playing in the real world.

Post by gleichman
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.

And yet downthread you claim that most RPG rules give too big an
advantage to attacking first. So which is it? Are the rules OK, or are
they unrealistic in a fun-killing way wrt "surprise"/acting first?

Post by gleichman
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.

Again, I'm not Mary, but it seems to me that she'd be happy with a
game where sniper rifles have the same range and lethality as in the
real world, but where setting up a sniper's nest is, for some other
reason, not a killer tactic (pun intended) in most places, so that the
PCs don't have to live with professional paranoia. Where they don't
have to resort to the 24/7 anti-sniper measures of, e.g. the US
President and his horde of Secret Service bodyguards.

The thing is, these other reasons need to be laid out - and then
checked to make sure that they still hold in the world where PCs exist
and do PC-like things. Maybe they're intuitively obvious to you, but
you eat, breathe, and shit tactics in a way most of the rest of us
can't match.

Anyway, the sniper rifle scenario is at best an extreme case, and
arguably a different case to be dealt with separately. If at least
*part* of Mary's and my problem with suprise and the advantage of
acting first is a case of naive game designers making these things
over-potent in the name of "realism" (similar to the way naive
designers put in death spiral mechanics) then fixing these bad
mechanics will solve at least *part* of our problems.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:26:49 +0000 (UTC),

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
I'm interested in mechanics to represent the combat advantage
of surprising one's opponent. The discussion that follows assumes
a segmented initiative system like Shadowrun or D&D.
We've never found a really satisfactory way to represent the

[snip]

Post by Mary K. Kuhner
Are there any more? Any comments on picking among these? I've
tried (1), (2), (3) and (4), and currently use (4) in D&D, but
I'm never really happy with the results.

Another possibility is to start the first round of combat normally,
and give the victims of surprise a partial action (only) during that
round. This is more-or-less what I do in my homebrew-based-on-TFT
game, although that game's initiative system doesn't map exactly to
3.x D&D.

Standard TFT has "roll d6 for initiative" for order of movement, and
then resolves actions in order of Dexterity (highest first). My
homebrew has movement in order of increasing Intelligence (lowest
first) although a high-IQ figure can choose to move early. But then
actions are in reversed order from movement - move first, act last
(with some special case exceptions).

For surprise, the victims are considered to have moved first, before
becoming aware of the situation. The attackers achieving surprise then
move "second" and act first, and then the victims get to act.

The 3.x translation of this is a lot more random: If a victim of
surprise rolls well for initiative (or if an attacker rolls badly)
then the result looks like a reversed suprise - the supposed victim of
suprise gets to act first with a partial action. I'm not sure if you'd
consider this a bug or a feature. For that matter I'm not sure if I'd
consider it a bug or a feature.

If the randomness is a bug, an initiative penalty could be added. E.g.
the victims of surprise roll d10 instead of d20 for initiative during
the suprise round (and only get partial actions that round), and then
reroll initiative on the usual d20 after the surprise round.