Combat in IS/SF

Every so often, I see a post on Reddit (e.g. [link]) about how combat is one of IS/SF greatest downfalls. On the surface, I understand the concern. Unlike more traditional games, e.g. D&D or OSR, it seems that combat is overly narrative and lacks any strategic or mechanical thinking.

I think there are a couple of ways to address this without adding a lot of "mechanical crunch" or bookkeeping. Some of it requires simple mindset shifts, while others might involve a little bit of light hacking.

Grid-Based Combat

One aspect that is missing in IS/SF is grid-based combat. There are a myriad of other systems that also don't use grid-based combat, such as Fate, which uses zones. I've even seen games and many posts about D&D using theater of the mind combat. So, is something truly missing from IS/SF without grid-based combat and without thinking about movement and distances?

What are the advantages of these more detailed systems? What things do they account for that might be missing from a mechanical standpoint in IS/SF? Here's a list of some, though there are probably more things that I'm not considering at this point:

• Distance, movement speeds, & ranges

• Terrain and obstacles, and by extension, cover

• Area of effect abilities

I've run and played in many other systems, even ran encounters, where these rules made the experience more cumbersome or less fun, e.g. having to count grid squares to see if your arrow can reach - nope, short by 1 grid! But I also see value in these, so let's see how we might tweak IS/SF to consider these things and up the strategic impact of gameplay.

Narrative Permission

Narrative permission may seem like we are hand-waving past many of the things above, but it really is an important consideration. This is very eloquent and can take into account many situations without creating a need for a long list of rules/mechanics. Let's imagine we have a character who has a ranged weapon, such as a gun. Without it, they can't attack at range.

Lets look at another example, this time focused on range and movement. Imagine your enemy is something that doesn't attack at range, such as a run-of-the-mill zombie. Zombies, by most narrative descriptions, are slow, lumbering creatures that attack by biting or scratching opponents. If we were playing in a grid-based combat system, the strategic play would be to attack it from range and use our movement to stay out of melee. We can capture the feel of this using IS/SF's systems of "in control/bad spot." When we are "in control," we are attacking from range. In a "bad spot," now the zombie has somehow cornered us or caught up to us in range.

We can further codify narrative permissions with items and equipment. IS/SF doesn't worry much about equipment, but one can easily add a quick inventory list to their character sheet. We can also combine this with pre-combat preparation as well. Let's apply this to our zombie encounter. Normally a zombie has a healing factor, making them more hardy to attacks. Your character knows this and decides to gather some equipment to counteract this, in this example a blessed sword. We can represent this mechanically in combat by reducing the challenge rank of the combat; now, instead of it being dangerous, it becomes troublesome.

Pay the Price

Expanding on this, we could also create a customized PAY THE PRICE (PTP) oracle or progression for this encounter. I wouldn't spend time doing this for all encounters, but definitely for more interesting ones.

Let's sketch one out as an example for our zombies:

- PAY THE PRICE - ZOMBIE edition (d6):

• 1-2: SURPRISE! Another set of zombies springs up around you.

• 3-4: You stumble on the terrain, and the zombie catches up to you: -2 momentum.

• 5-6: You look over your shoulder at the creature and are rattled by its appearance. They look more human than they should. -1 spirit

I added mechanics to the table just to give an idea of how they might be represented. But another approach is to incorporate HARD vs SOFT moves, something that originates from Powered By the Apocalypse (PBTA) games. SOFT moves normally don't have mechanical impact whilst HARD moves do. If using our PTP oracle above, I might alternate between using a SOFT PTP move first, and then if prompted to PTP again then make a HARD move. Here's a sequence of events that might play out:

• The zombies catch up to us, we are now in a "bad spot"

• PTP - The zombies surround us, reaching out with their grotesque hands (SOFT MOVE)

• PTP - A zombie's hand rips into our arm: suffer -2 health (HARD MOVE)

Move Flexibility

Using narrative permissions, we can consider how the different combat moves work. We can use the GAIN GROUND and REACT UNDER FIRE moves rather than having separate rules for moving, taking cover, disengaging, terrain, or any other creative moves a player might engage in. These would capture most players' strategic actions versus a more crunchy system, which may seem overly simplistic, but I think lends itself to quicker and simpler gameplay. This reminds me of the OSR mindset of, "rulings over rules" (see Old School Primer, pg 2: https://friendorfoe.com/d/Old%20School%20Primer.pdf)

Returning to our zombie example, a player might sprint away and put more space between themselves and the zombie, let's say, by GAINING GROUND +edge. On a strong hit, they are successful and, looking at the results, take +2 momentum and +1 on the next move. The other option, to mark progress, makes less sense since they are focused on gaining a more tactical footing.

Alternatively, let's imagine a melee fighter who wants to make a "trip attack" against the zombie. If successful, they decide to either cause harm (mark progress), take advantage of the zombie's prone position in their next attack (+1 on their next move), or put some distance between them (+2 momentum).

Resource Management (e.g. Hit Points)

Another piece one could argue is missing from IS/SF is resource management. There is some in the use of the condition meters (health, spirit, supply), but is much simpler than most traditional games. This also eliminates all of the bookkeeping around weapon damage, armor or AC, and to-hit mechanics. These things can be fun at times but also can detract from the experience. For example, in traditional TTRPGs, I'm sure we've all experienced times where round after round of bad rolls, no one hits each other, or where a monster with a huge HP pool turns into 20 rounds of low-damage rolls.

Now, that's not to say these things don't exist entirely in IS/SF. If you want to incorporate this spirit into your game, there are many assets that capture it. I think this approach makes a lot of sense - it allows for flexibility making it only matter in situations where you want it to.

Let's take armor/AC as an example. Most of the time, this mechanic is not terribly interesting or exciting unless you are building a character or facing an enemy where this is their schtick. If that's the case in an IS/SF game, then we can pick up the ARMORED asset. If facing off against a creature in the same vein, then we can increase the CHALLENGE RANK. What if it's the flipped side, an enemy that deals deadly damage with a powerful weapon? Make a SOFT PTP move describing the epic blade glowing with dark sinister energy, then on the next PTP move, focus on increased health damage.

Spells & Conditions

Spells, and by extension conditions, are something I've thought a lot about recently. It's also something that I see mentioned in Reddit and on Discord quite a bit. In most TTRPGs, spells incorporate two things I reviewed above - resource management (e.g., spell slots or mana) and strategic impact. Spells are also limiting in their effect; in other words, they usually have strict narrative permissions; for example, a fire blast can only deal with short-range damage, whilst a fireball can deal with long-range area of effect (AOE) damage.

Now, the built-in assets and thinking of narrative permission handle these things quite well already. A spell that creates a cloud of fog, could easily be thought of as a GAIN GROUND move. Here are a few approaches, depending on the complexity and level of hacking you want to incorporate to add these into your game. This topic probably warrants its own post in the future.

On the simplest level, treat them like inventory. You can have an inventory of spells that allows for narrative permissions, just like our holy blade example above.

Adding more complexity, you could hack/alter/add an asset that also captures this feel. Tweak the FIREBRAND asset to not just be about fire, but spellcasting in general.

If we want to flip it against the characters, we can use a couple of systems. One would be to expand on the IMPACTS and add different ones or temporary ones. We could also create a custom PTP table like above to represent different spell effects. This could incorporate mechanical detractors, too, like representing a dazed effect as being -1 on all moves with the mind or weakened, equating to -2 momentum. If you really wanted to codify it mechanically, we could even create a clock and/or vow track.

For example: PETRIFIED:

• create a clock with 6 segments

  • once filled, the victim turns into a statue

• SWEAR AN IRON VOW to find a cure for petrification.

Making Combat Interesting

At the end of all this, I think the goal is to make combat interesting and strategic. That comes from an encounter design perspective more than just a mechanical one. One tool that I often use a checklist from Monster of the Week by Michael Sands. This book is actually a great read as its full of lists and ideas that can easily apply to solo gaming. Here's a shortened list of ideas from MoTW to keep combat interesting (pg. 207):

• Think about what’s at stake. (Consider using clocks)

• Make maps. (Think about the terrain and environment)

• Apply weapon tags.

• Be creative with moves.

• Most times, do the obvious thing.

• Don't drag things out.

• Use soft moves to set up hard moves.

We haven't discussed tags yet. TAGS are a common mechanic in many PBTA games. At their core is a system of narrative permission. I think it's something that can easily be hacked into IS/SF and can be as lightweight or complex as you want it to be. For example, if we take our zombies from before, we can say they have the "undead" tag. Mechanically, we can say that "undead" creatures are weak to "holy" tagged weapons. When fighting an undead with a holy weapon, lower the CHALLENGE RANK by one. In the future, if we end up with creatures such as a wraith or vampires, we just slap the "undead" tag on them, and we know what's effective against them. You can spin this up into a whole list of tags if you want or simply add them as you go. You can easily hack tags into assets, spells, NPCs, or even scenes as well. More on that in a future post.