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rockwoodThis is the fourth in a series of fairly lengthy articles, the first of which can be found here.
This article will deal with some of the differences in the combat systems of the Serenity RPG and the Cortex engine; specifically, the rules regarding multiple actions.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not the owner of Serenity, the Serenity RPG, or the Cortex System. While I wrote a good portion of the later Cortex books (BSG, Demon Hunters, and the generic Core Book included), I'm just a freelancer. The opinions expressed in these articles are my own. When it comes to the design philosophy I discuss, I try to present what I understand to be the 'general consensus' of the Cortex developers and the design goals of the owners, Margaret Weis Productions.
If you want to learn more, read on!
That's one of my favorite rule-system changes to the Cortex engine, so I'm especially looking forward to any feedback or criticism on this one. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them! Also, I'm running out of ideas for subjects to address in this series of articles, so suggestions are welcome on that front as well.
Blessed be,
~Nathan
This article will deal with some of the differences in the combat systems of the Serenity RPG and the Cortex engine; specifically, the rules regarding multiple actions.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not the owner of Serenity, the Serenity RPG, or the Cortex System. While I wrote a good portion of the later Cortex books (BSG, Demon Hunters, and the generic Core Book included), I'm just a freelancer. The opinions expressed in these articles are my own. When it comes to the design philosophy I discuss, I try to present what I understand to be the 'general consensus' of the Cortex developers and the design goals of the owners, Margaret Weis Productions.
If you want to learn more, read on!
Combat: Multiple Actions
How Serenity Did It
In the Serenity RPG, we included very little in the way of strict guidelines about how many actions a player could make in one round---and, unfortunately, the rules that did exist suffered from a lack of examples. That said, when one deciphered the rules, this was how it worked.
At the beginning of combat, Initiative was rolled; not uncommonly, the highest result would go first. On your turn, you would decide how many actions you wanted to take. If you wanted to attack twice and then reload a gun, that would be three actions you 'declared', which you would then make immediately. If you only declare one action, it has no penalty, but for every action beyond the first, each declared action suffers a -1 Step Skill penalty: for example, if you declare those three actions, they each have a -2 Step Skill penalty. This penalty is only applied to the Skill dice, not the Attribute dice. If the penalty reduces your Skill dice to 0 or below, you can't take that action (meaning that you can never attempt multiple actions involving untrained Skills).
Simple enough so far. However, that doesn't include dodging, which is a big part of combat in Serenity and the other Cortex games. In the Serenity RPG, if you wanted to be able to dodge an attack later in the round, you'd have to declare that dodge at the same time you declared all your other actions (and 'save' it for later)---which is a little chancy, since you might not get attacked at all. That said, if you declare the dodge on your turn, it counts as yet another action that round (and when you roll it, the dodge will suffer the same Skill Penalty as your other actions). On the other hand, if you want to make an 'undeclared dodge' later in the round, as a spontaneous response to an attack, things are different. The undeclared dodge (or block) will "count against your total [actions] for the next combat turn" (Serenity RPG first printing, p. 150). Basically, it's like you're declaring actions early, and increasing the NEXT round's multiple action penalty.
The Problem
There are a couple issues here.
1) This is ambiguous. By the core book, it seems that these undeclared dodges do not suffer any multiple action penalty at all! Though they will count towards your actions for the next round (making normal, declared actions more difficult on your next turn), the dodges themselves are free from penalty. Of course, since the book doesn't say what to do, GMs can rule a number of different ways on this. You could apply the most recent multiple action penalty to the undeclared dodges. You could have them begin accumulating the penalty (the first undeclared dodge is free, as it's your first action; the second one receives a -1 Step Skill penalty; the third gets a -2, etc). But the core book doesn't actually address this, at least in the first several printings; as a result, many people will play the game very differently from one another, making discussion, balancing, and cross-group play (like at conventions) difficult. At least there are a few obvious fixes there, but since not everyone will choose the same version, it's still problematic.
2) Regardless of how you rule on that, the book is even more vague about dodges you make during the combat round, but before your turn in the Initiative order comes up. Do they follow the same rules as 'normal' undeclared dodges, and count as if you'd made them the round before? Depending on how your GM ruled on the previous question, this could be a non-issue, or it could be another piece of confusion.
3) From a game-design standpoint, keeping track of how many additional, undeclared actions you made from one round to the next is messy and counter to MWP's design goals of simplicity and speed of play. It requires extra book-keeping, it means that some actions work in a different way from others, and forces you to worry a bit more about math and strategy (storing up actions vs having enough for the next round, etc).
The Fix: Cortex Changes
When redesigning the combat system for the Cortex engine, I found the best option to be the simplification of the existing system. Initiative is pretty much the same, you still have to make most attacks and other actions when your turn in the Initiative order comes up, and you can still dodge or block after your turn is over. However, we did away with the idea of declaring a bunch of actions at once and then resolving them 'simultaneously,' with each suffering the same Skill penalty. Instead, each action is dealt with individually, in the order it was 'declared.' Your first action is free. The second one receives a -1 Step Skill penalty, the third gets a -2 Step Penalty, and so on. This is essentially what a lot of house rules of the Serenity system led to anyway, but now we've got it all official-like.
Each round of actions is now completely separate and self-contained, with no more carry-over from the previous round. If you decide to dodge once before your turn in the Initiative order, that's your first (free) action. If you attack twice on your turn, the first attack suffers a -1 Step Skill penalty, and the second attack (your third action for the round) suffers a -2 Step Skill penalty. If you dodge once more before the round is over, that makes for a fourth action, and it suffers a -3 Step Skill penalty.
In addition, we provided more guidelines about how many actions (total) are advisable in a single round. While we didn't add a hard-and-fast limit, the suggestion is that 3 separate actions is usually pushing the character's ability to divide their attention. Hopefully, combined with the mechanical changes, combat in the Cortex RPGs will now be easier to understand and faster to resolve.
How Serenity Did It
In the Serenity RPG, we included very little in the way of strict guidelines about how many actions a player could make in one round---and, unfortunately, the rules that did exist suffered from a lack of examples. That said, when one deciphered the rules, this was how it worked.
At the beginning of combat, Initiative was rolled; not uncommonly, the highest result would go first. On your turn, you would decide how many actions you wanted to take. If you wanted to attack twice and then reload a gun, that would be three actions you 'declared', which you would then make immediately. If you only declare one action, it has no penalty, but for every action beyond the first, each declared action suffers a -1 Step Skill penalty: for example, if you declare those three actions, they each have a -2 Step Skill penalty. This penalty is only applied to the Skill dice, not the Attribute dice. If the penalty reduces your Skill dice to 0 or below, you can't take that action (meaning that you can never attempt multiple actions involving untrained Skills).
Simple enough so far. However, that doesn't include dodging, which is a big part of combat in Serenity and the other Cortex games. In the Serenity RPG, if you wanted to be able to dodge an attack later in the round, you'd have to declare that dodge at the same time you declared all your other actions (and 'save' it for later)---which is a little chancy, since you might not get attacked at all. That said, if you declare the dodge on your turn, it counts as yet another action that round (and when you roll it, the dodge will suffer the same Skill Penalty as your other actions). On the other hand, if you want to make an 'undeclared dodge' later in the round, as a spontaneous response to an attack, things are different. The undeclared dodge (or block) will "count against your total [actions] for the next combat turn" (Serenity RPG first printing, p. 150). Basically, it's like you're declaring actions early, and increasing the NEXT round's multiple action penalty.
The Problem
There are a couple issues here.
1) This is ambiguous. By the core book, it seems that these undeclared dodges do not suffer any multiple action penalty at all! Though they will count towards your actions for the next round (making normal, declared actions more difficult on your next turn), the dodges themselves are free from penalty. Of course, since the book doesn't say what to do, GMs can rule a number of different ways on this. You could apply the most recent multiple action penalty to the undeclared dodges. You could have them begin accumulating the penalty (the first undeclared dodge is free, as it's your first action; the second one receives a -1 Step Skill penalty; the third gets a -2, etc). But the core book doesn't actually address this, at least in the first several printings; as a result, many people will play the game very differently from one another, making discussion, balancing, and cross-group play (like at conventions) difficult. At least there are a few obvious fixes there, but since not everyone will choose the same version, it's still problematic.
2) Regardless of how you rule on that, the book is even more vague about dodges you make during the combat round, but before your turn in the Initiative order comes up. Do they follow the same rules as 'normal' undeclared dodges, and count as if you'd made them the round before? Depending on how your GM ruled on the previous question, this could be a non-issue, or it could be another piece of confusion.
3) From a game-design standpoint, keeping track of how many additional, undeclared actions you made from one round to the next is messy and counter to MWP's design goals of simplicity and speed of play. It requires extra book-keeping, it means that some actions work in a different way from others, and forces you to worry a bit more about math and strategy (storing up actions vs having enough for the next round, etc).
The Fix: Cortex Changes
When redesigning the combat system for the Cortex engine, I found the best option to be the simplification of the existing system. Initiative is pretty much the same, you still have to make most attacks and other actions when your turn in the Initiative order comes up, and you can still dodge or block after your turn is over. However, we did away with the idea of declaring a bunch of actions at once and then resolving them 'simultaneously,' with each suffering the same Skill penalty. Instead, each action is dealt with individually, in the order it was 'declared.' Your first action is free. The second one receives a -1 Step Skill penalty, the third gets a -2 Step Penalty, and so on. This is essentially what a lot of house rules of the Serenity system led to anyway, but now we've got it all official-like.
Each round of actions is now completely separate and self-contained, with no more carry-over from the previous round. If you decide to dodge once before your turn in the Initiative order, that's your first (free) action. If you attack twice on your turn, the first attack suffers a -1 Step Skill penalty, and the second attack (your third action for the round) suffers a -2 Step Skill penalty. If you dodge once more before the round is over, that makes for a fourth action, and it suffers a -3 Step Skill penalty.
In addition, we provided more guidelines about how many actions (total) are advisable in a single round. While we didn't add a hard-and-fast limit, the suggestion is that 3 separate actions is usually pushing the character's ability to divide their attention. Hopefully, combined with the mechanical changes, combat in the Cortex RPGs will now be easier to understand and faster to resolve.
That's one of my favorite rule-system changes to the Cortex engine, so I'm especially looking forward to any feedback or criticism on this one. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them! Also, I'm running out of ideas for subjects to address in this series of articles, so suggestions are welcome on that front as well.
Blessed be,
~Nathan
