Contested Ground Studios

[magoo]

Hi there,

I just grabbed a copy of CC from my local (black lion) and am looking forward to running it this Friday. I am pretty sure i have a handle on most of the concepts as written, except group combats.

Is there any way someone could give me a detailed'ish example of a combat situation between say 4 pc's and 5 npcs?

Something to keep in mind is that this will be my (and our groups) first narrative system, so my brain is looking for clarification on things like who declares first, who rolls when, when is combat "over" etc. Feel free to use the characters listed in the rulebook for the example btw, that way i can refrence their traits and such.

Sincerely,

magoo.

[magoo]

I guess the authors don't come here too often then. :(

Oh well, to the "never to be played shelf" then i guess. :cry:

[Paul]

Hi anf welcome to the forums. Malc is probably the best one to answer your questions, but he is currently somewhere in Australia. Im sure he'll get back to you as soon as he gets near a computer.

Cheers

Paul

[Malcolm]

Hey,

Paul is quite right, I've been out and about in the wilderness with not very much internet access over the past while (wireless is somewhat lacking out on the Great Barrier Reef).

An example of combat involving that many subjects will be a pretty lengthy thing, so if you can give me a while to get it written up and posted, that would be appreciated.

Cheers
Malcolm
_________________
The worn sprocket on the singlespeed hub of CGS

"If the concrete and the clay beneath your feet
Don't get you son
The avenues and alleyways are gonna do it
Just for fun"

[magoo]

Thanks Malcolm, i look forward to seeing your reply.

[Bazin]

Malcolm,

I'm also watching this topic with interest, as this was one part of my recent game that I think I sort of fell flat on.

Enjoy the rest of your vacation!

[magoo]

Ahh well, it's been over 2 weeks and still no reply. :(

I guess you must be busy Malcolm, but i must say that this was the first and now the last CGS product i will buy.

I appreciate everyone has a rl to lead, but when people are paying money for a product i expect a little bit of customer service to go with it, especially when i (we) can't even enjoy the game until we resolve the issue. :(

Sincerely,

magoo.

[Malcolm]

Well, I'm sorry that you feel like that and I am saddened it has come to this. However, as I might have mentioned, the last two weeks have been spent on the Great Barrier Reef, trekking round Tasmania and now canyoning in the Blue Mountains. It's been a period of little internet access and precious little time to devote to writing up the detailed combat example that you require.

It's unfortunate that your request has coincided with the last (and very hectic) period of my travels round the world. To be fair, I have been writing up the combat example in spare moments, but making it accurate and useful, without being pages long, requires time which I sadly do not have much of at the moment. I really am sorry that I cannot devote as much time to queries such as yours at the moment. You are quite correct in pointing out that with purchase of the game comes the expectation of a certain level of customer service. Conversely, I hope you understand that, however much I would like to have been able to quickly and fully answer your question, I have simply not been able to over the last couple of weeks. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, much of my time has been spent out in areas where I have not had internet access or the ability to sit down and write up the example.

In a couple of weeks, I'll once more be home in Scotland and will have much more time to give lengthy answers to forums queries.

Cheers
Malcolm
_________________
The worn sprocket on the singlespeed hub of CGS

"If the concrete and the clay beneath your feet
Don't get you son
The avenues and alleyways are gonna do it
Just for fun"

[Marcus]

Personally I think the feedback and response from the CGS team is excellent.

I would imagine that a reply to this thread would have been much easier if specifics had been asked, rather than just the "can you write up a whole mass combat scene with full explanations on how it all works". - In fact Many gaming companies would actually refuse to answer such a question, as it gives a major chunk of the rules away for anyone to have without buying the book. Most would have responded asking for questions about which part of such a scene that is unclear.

I was surprised when Malc said he'd answer this question fully, and can understand that this kind of answer is bound to take a long time to produce, even if he'd not been on holiday.

Also if a specific question(s) had been asked, maybe others besides Malcolm could have been able/willing to help.

I suppose if CGS had been a big company like D&D (well Hasbro now I suppose) or Whitewolf, than they'd have a range of staff who does little else but monitor the forum to answer all the questions, plus the player base would be much bigger and give a wider source of help than is available with CGS and the current player base that visit this forum.

Now, I don't own Cold City (it's on my list of things to buy) so cannot comment on how easy or hard the combat is to understand, but from this thread, it may be that CGS needs to look into a possibility for the next print run of adding in an example to help clarify mass combat, or even maybe to produce a PDF suppliment (GM Guide?) showing various examples of situations, Team equipment packs, known experiments, and other juice bits and pieces which could be included and be offered for a few of £s

[Malcolm]

So, I'm back in Sydney for a couple of days until I fly to Borneo for a bit. That gives me about 36 hours of decent internet access and some time to respond to various questions.

On the train down from the Blue Mountains today, I was thinking about the initial questions posed (BTW, Magoo, do you have areal name we can call you by? I much prefer interacting with people rather than screen names). Marcus also mentioned this, but I feel it is worth re-addressing.

There are several questions inherent in the original post and, while I was about half way through and long-winded description of a 5 PC vs 4 NPC conflict, I had a sudden thought: "Maybe this isn't required? Maybe this isn't the answer, because I'm looking at the question wrongly?" So, I thought on that. Conflict situations with 5 PCs vs 4 NPCs are, to my knowledge, exceptionally rare. very few times will a group that size be acting with totally common purpose.

So, to go back to the very beginning, what do you mean by group combat? I ask this because a combat situation is no different from any other conflict. On the simplest level, the 5 PCs could pool their dice according to what is set out in the game text) vs the NPCs and two big pools are rolled with a single intent on each side. But I get the feeling this might not be what you are asking about.

If this is the case, could you break down the initial question into what is causing you problems about the game mechanics. Conflict resolution isn't the same as, for example, a combat round in Shadowrun or D&D. It can cover a much broader space of time and a much broader scope of action.

If you could articulate what is causing you issues, then that provides a good point for us to start a fruitful discussion.

Cheers
Malcolm
_________________
The worn sprocket on the singlespeed hub of CGS

"If the concrete and the clay beneath your feet
Don't get you son
The avenues and alleyways are gonna do it
Just for fun"

[Bazin]

Hey Malcolm,

Thanks for the response to this.

I think the problem I'm having with combat in general is forgetting to pool dice for the assistance.

How do you determine who is the 'lead' when everyone is on equal footing?

What if the group insists on acting as individuals, rather than assisting each other (even when attacking a single enemy)?

I think I've been considering combat in the wrong light, so I think with answers to these, I'll have a better idea of what you intended.

[magoo]

My questiosn are as with Bazin, plus:

What happens when 2-3 characters set stakes that slighlty conflict?

Eg. from our first session:

Pc One - I throw a grenade into the room!
Me - You know there are 2 of your fellow RPA's in there?
Pc One - Yeh but remember my Personnal Hidden Agenda? (it said, kill all Technology no matter what the cost!).
Me - Fair enough...so you also get to double your Action and add the their trust in you as a betrayal bonus!
Pc One - Sweet!
Pc Two - I dive for cover behind the door!
Pc Three - I try and pick up the greande and throw it out the window!
Me - The beast attempts to flee through the hole in the wall!
Me - Ok, so all roll!

I cant remember the exact results but in the end the beast beat Pc One, who beat Pc Two, but Pc Three beat Pc One.

Althoug the beast escaped, this lead to a kind of weird situation where the grenade was picked up and thrown through the window but still somehow did 9 consequences to Pc Two! In the end we just narrated that Pc Two picked up the grenade (we winged stats for this) and threw it, but it hit the wndow sill and bounced out right next to Pc Three. Though this "worked", it felt very forced.

So how would you have handled this? What did we do wrong?

Part Two-

Damage

Are we missing something or when you take say 7 consequences from damage what is to stop you from simply coming up with say 4-5 negative traits and then just making 2-3 of your positive negative? After this you would still not even be close to crisis point? We felt this just felt wrong, not to mention very slow and cumbersome as you waited for the player (or me) to come up with 5 traits on the spot.

What about monsters? Can they also just keep adding negative traits until they reach nine before they start reducing their attributes?

I think the game (system) has tonnes of potential, but sometimes it feels like the book was written in a manner that may not be very clear for people who are new to the system/style.

Enjoy my homeland by the way, and try not to turn into a lobster! ;)

Cheers,

Wayne.

[Malcolm]

Josh questions:

The person who is the leading character is the person that wants to be the leading character. or, it's the character that is considered most appropriate in that case.

I think that the key is not to think of combat in the sense of combat rounds, but in the sense of bigger, broader moments of time.

Wayne questions:

Part 1:

When resolving things, think about who was in adversity with whom. Who were the PCs each acting against, who was the conflict with?

Also: even in a situation that involves physical combat, consequences do not have to be physical in nature. So one PC takes several consequences as a result of the conflict, think about what was going on as a whole and what could have happened to the PC. Through narration, the story of what happened can be fleshed out and the assignment of consequences can reflect that.

Part 2:

There is nothing to stop people doing that, other than responsibility. CC does not rely on the iron hand of the GM to enforce such things. If people are avoiding potentially hitting a crisis point, and they can account for that, so be it. If they are being obtuse and obstructive, then it's up to the group as a whole (rather than just the GM) to encourage them to take another route. There is no proscriptive guide to consequences, it's down to individual choice, but that choice must be made with thoughts in mind of the story as a whole and how it will affect play.

Cheers
Malcolm
_________________
The worn sprocket on the singlespeed hub of CGS

"If the concrete and the clay beneath your feet
Don't get you son
The avenues and alleyways are gonna do it
Just for fun"

[magoo]

Necro!

[magoo]

As an aside, would it break anything to use the Hot War agenda's system in Cold City? I think it is far more elegant than the default CC one.

[Malcolm]

In response to your first question, everyone seems to be in opposition to, and in adversity with, Ed. His character is throwing the grenade, everyone else is attempting to foil that or escape from that.

As far as your second question goes, I see no reason not to use the method of creating hidden agendas presented in Hot War.

Cheers
Malcolm
_________________
The worn sprocket on the singlespeed hub of CGS

"If the concrete and the clay beneath your feet
Don't get you son
The avenues and alleyways are gonna do it
Just for fun"

[magoo]

Thanks folks, appreciate the advice.

By the way Malcolm, the changes to rules in Hot War (and retrospectively to CC i guess) are great. Hot War reads (havent actually got to run it yet as my gamers like the idea of the CC setting more) a lot more clearly than CC v1 did. Nice job!

[Adrian P]

Extremely late, but I thought I'd jump in with a question: if grouped conflicts are proving tricky to run, what's wrong with getting everyone to roll individually even when the outcome sought is the same for each?

So say 3 PCs are shooting a single monster, with the goal of turning it into a dead heap on the floor: each players rolls separately and compares their score to the monster's, winning or losing as if the goals were separate. As usual, the highest-succeeder gets ultimate narration rights.

Pros:
- maybe more intuitive for some players;
- effectively more dice for the players, since they can bring their agenda in;
- you can get 'partial wins' where some players lose and take injury even if the monster is defeated.

Cons:
- maybe double-dipping on Trust;
- too many dice for the poor monster to stand a chance

One other wrinkle is if the dice are added to one pool, as in the rules, it's easier to collect 3 successes. If each player rolls separately, while the total successes might equal or exceed those of the single, pooled method, they might not be enough to reach the magic 3 and send the monster into Crisis.