Wrestling with a White Whale

This one's about grappling.

Has any ttrpg done grappling well? I'm sure some have, just as I'm sure every edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game that includes grappling rules is not among them. Rise Up Comus said as much yesterday on Bluesky, and it got me thinking... how would I do it?

That question opened up a majestic can of worms (sorry, I'm so sorry). What do I want from grappling rules? Well, I want them to be fast. But not too fast, one-and-done is anticlimactic. Dice rolls should be involved, however. In contested rolls! That way my players and I can narrate the back-and-forth as each side struggles for the upper hand. And it should be simple, something I could explain in about 30 seconds. 

Here it is in much more, "these are game mechanics" language. 

A Grappling Contest

These rules use a dice chain (d4>d6>d8>d10>d12>d20). 

When one character attempts to grapple another, a contest is started between them. Each contestant starts with a grappling die, which is a d8 by default. The die is incremented one step for each advantage a contestant has, such as a difference in size, abundance of limbs, etc.

The contest is a series of rolls using the grapple dice. Any to-hit melee bonus or penalty from a contestant's Strength score is applied to the roll. Each time one side loses, their grapple die decrements one step. When a contestant no longer has a die to roll, they have lost and are grappled. 

Well, there you have it. I haven't tested this, besides grabbing some dice at my kitchen table. It seemed fun to me, I could imagine the back-and-forth action that I want out grappling mechanics. Will it be fun for my players? Only time will tell. 

Speedrunning Combat

This one's about using Otherkind Dice in old-school play.

There are two things I love. The first is the aforementioned Otherkind Dice by Meguey & Vincent Baker, without whom this post wouldn't exist*. I think about those dice a lot, maybe once a week. My game design drafts are full of possible ways to use them. 

My second love is combat in old-school roleplaying games. It's dangerous, but it rewards planning, creative item use, etc. Also, compared to modern fantasy games, it's fast. Still, there are things that slow it down, like turns/phases/actions, to-hit rolls, hit points, etc. Some games out there even do away with some of these things to speed it up. I love that, too.

But what if there was something that kept what I like about old-school combat, but was even faster? Like, really fast? What if OSR stood for Otherkind School Revolution? Maybe it would look like this:

Combat
When two forces clash and it is obvious who would win, they do. The GM will say what the consequences for the losing side are.

Otherwise, grab 3d6 and consider the following:
-Do the player characters have tactical advantages (high ground, surprise, superior numbers, etc)?
-Are the player characters using items to bolster their chances (molotovs, caltrops, oil, an optimal weapon, etc)?
-Are the player characters using magic to tip the odds in their favor?

Add a d6 for each advantage, item, or magic the characters employ. Then, answer the same questions for the opposite side. Take away d6 as appropriate.

The players then roll the remaining d6 and assign results to the following tables/index cards:

Characters
Were the player characters injured?
0: They were all killed or captured, at the GM's discretion.
1-2: One of them was killed or captured at the GM's discretion. determine randomly if no one volunteers. The rest were injured.
3-4: Half of them were injured, one gravely so. Determine randomly if no one volunteers.
5: One of them was injured.
6: Miraculously, none of them were.

Resources
Were any of the items or spells they used lost or broken?
0: Yes, all of them.
1-3: Yes, half of them. Determine randomly if no one volunteers.
4-5: Yes, one of them. Determine randomly if no one volunteers.
6: Somehow, not a single one.

Enemies
How did their opponents fair?
0: Completely unscathed.
1-2: They suffered minor injuries.
3-4: Half of them were injured, one gravely so.
5: Half of them dead, captured, or fled—players' choice.
6: Completely routed. they are all dead, captured, or fled—players' choice.

Now, how would I hack this into a pre-existing game like B/X? Perhaps I'd add a d6 for each THAC0 score improvement. Multiple d6 if Turn Undead was used against low-HD opponents, that could probably work. I'd probably just start playing with it and come up with solutions as they arose.

But I'm more interested in what a new game that uses this combat would look like. Would it use Otherkind Dice for everything? I'm of two minds about that. Games that have a single resolution mechanic are usually easier to pick up and play. Grab some d6s and the relevant index cards and you're set. That sounds fun! On the other hand, Otherkind works best when there's at least three result cards in play whenever a roll is called for. It could be a challenge to make a game that includes everything I want to leave to chance while also only rolling when the situation is complicated enough to warrant three result cards. 

And then there's the ritual of it all. This is hardly new territory, but resolution mechanics are rituals we enact while playing make-believe. And even if we can resolve everything in a game by flipping a coin or rolling a d20 and adding a number, there is something fascinating to me about the various parts of a game using different rituals to find out what happens next. 

Anyway, I'm excited to continue tinkering on an old-school game that speedruns combat. I'm sure I will come up with enough of something to play with my friends. I already have a near-complete draft of overland travel on a hex map that uses Otherkind Dice. Maybe you'll see that in a future post. 

*I originally posted about this on Bluesky. I was encouraged by Amanda P to blog about it, so credit to them for this entry as well.