Seven-Part Pact: Combat

Continuing my posts about The Seven-Part Pact (7PP) and some of its nifty mechanical design ideas, I want to discuss the rules for combat.

I've already talked about this a bit in my posts on initiative methods, but I'll repeat that info here and expand on it further.

I also want to say up front that I'm not writing about the combat rules because I think they're especially prominent or essential or anything. Every Wizard codex includes its own mechanical subsystem for that player to learn. The Mariner gets the travel rules, the Hierophant gets the companion rules, the Sorcerer gets the rules for researching magic, etc. I played the Warlock, which meant I got the combat rules. So I'm writing about it because it's just the one I know really well. Trust me, every one of those other subsystems is at least as interesting as this one.

As before, I'll help you out by explaining the rules first, then discussing them afterwards.

The combat rules

The combat system can be used for one-on-one duels, messy brawls, mass warfare, etc. You simply designate individuals or teams as the combatants. You don't need any visuals, although they can help. This isn't a tactical sporting combat system, and there's no dice rolling, but it also isn't quite as handwave-y as you might see in a story game.

Quoting from the text:

At the start of every Combat, for each Combatant, the player speaking for that Combatant prepares a list of Assets available by answering the following questions about how prepared their Combatant is and what tools they possess. 

• What weapons do you possess? (Each weapon is a separate Asset)
• Are you wearing any armor or wielding a shield? (Armor is collectively a single Asset)
• Do you have any Treasures on your person? (Each Treasure is a separate Asset)
• Do you have any magical abilities or know any humble magic? (Each magic is a separate Asset)
• Are you accompanied by any beasts or lesser servants? (Each is considered their own Asset)
• Do you have any training or relevant skills? (If so, your training is an Asset)
• Can you wield the landscape here to your advantage? (If so, that familiarity is an Asset)
• Are the winds, the seas, or any higher power present on your side? (If so, this power is an Asset)
• Do you feel excited or dedicated to this fight? (If so, your excitement or dedication is an Asset)

Whoever started the fight possesses the initiative to start. The wielder of the initiative chooses an option from a list of actions. Successfully performing any of these actions automatically passes the initiative to the opponent. Thus, the two combatants simply go back and forth, trading actions until someone loses or flees or whatever.

Once again, quoting from the text, here are the actions:

Say: "I strike at you with [an Asset], which will [inflict Violence]." You must justify how this Asset commits violence. The opposing Combatant must now respond. [see below]

Say: "In a decisive blow, I use [an Asset] to destroy [an opposing Asset]." You must justify how that Asset may be used to so thoroughly destroy the opposing Asset. They lose this Asset, but that opposing Combatant gains the Initiative. 

Say: "I step back and gather my strength." You pass the Initiative, but create a new Asset, repair a lost Asset, cast a spell, or Flee. If you've taken this action three times in a row, you must Flee. 

Say: "I don't know." You must pass the Initiative.

The first of those actions ("I strike at you...") prompts a response in order to complete. When the initiative wielder attempts to strike at you, respond with one of these three options:

Respond with: "I parry your strike with [an Asset]." You must justify how this Asset allows you to avoid or ignore the blow. Your opponent retains the Initiative. 

Respond with: "I take this blow, accepting your violence, but I strike back." You suffer the injury and pain inflicted by their strike, as many Assets as they can justify you lose, but you seize the Initiative. If the violence is enough to Incapacitate you, you must become Incapacitated. 

Respond with: "I don't know." and suffer the pain and injury of the strike, destroying as many Assets as they please and most likely Incapacitating you. In a fight with multiple Combatants, they then pass the Initiative.

There's no dice rolling for any of these, so your action is always successful. The only exception is if you attempt to strike your opponent and they parry it. But then you retain the initiative, so you can just try something else! A "failed attack" doesn't cost you your turn. Just keep trying new attacks until your opponent can't come up with a way to parry it, or switch to some other action instead.

Because this is a game about being Wizards, you may also be wondering a bit about magic. Don't worry, it's surprisingly simple:

First, when you have the initiative, you choose the option to Step Back and say that you're casting a spell. Then, add the effects of that spell to your list of Assets. So if you cast Summoning 1,001 Imps, then go ahead and add "1,001 Imps" as an Asset. If you cast Illusion, determine the results of your illusion and add it as an Asset. If you cast True Transformation, you don't immediately turn your opponent into a frog, but you have it locked and loaded in the chamber.

You are now free to use the spell just like you would any of your other Assets, such as by striking your opponent, parrying your opponent's strikes, or removing one of your opponent's Assets. You're bound only by the common sensical judgment of the group in how you make use of each spell's effects. And that's it!

So what does that look like?

Because your list of Assets is probably going to be quite long, you'll be very well-equipped to parry. Thus, in practice, combat is usually about first removing items from your opponent's Asset list, and then going for a decisive blow against your opponent themselves once they can no longer parry. The players in our group didn't immediately grok this strategy, but I think it clicked after a few rounds.

The trick is that you have to decide for yourself when you think it's time to go for that crucial strike. You could be extra thorough and remove all of their Assets first... but your opponent might go for the swift victory before you're ready. There's an element of pushing your luck, but you can't put a number on the odds. It just depends on how creative your opponent is in using their Assets!

I find this refreshing because it doesn't just reheat the same basic approach used in any existing tradition. It's very noun-based, unlike the more verb-based action you see in PbtA. Yet it's also all about qualitative description rather than quantitative description, unlike a traditional D&D-like that assigns everything stats (or stats disguised as keywords).

This is also a great example of why more crunch doesn't always equal more realistic simulationism. Your character is super powerful, yes. But not because they have tons of HP. Not because they're a high level. Not because they roll a big damage die. They're powerful because they have powers. And we can list out each of those powers!

It also meshes with the themes of the game pretty nicely. "All Wizards are mortal" is an important rule in the game. Despite your world-shaking stature, you are still just a squishy human merely surrounded by magical stuff. You benefit from artifacts and armor and petty magic and followers and circumstances. But through the process of combat, we strip each other of all those things, piece by piece, until the only thing left is the soft and scared human underneath.

In this way, every fight is like a nested HD monster. You gotta peel away the armor before you can hit the creamy core. But you also can't simply brute force it, and it's not merely a contest of attrition. It's all about creativity.

I'm not sure how well this combat system holds up for contests involving more than 2 characters or sides. The rules accommodate it, but I haven't seen it in action to confirm if it's a hassle or not. More research needed.

Is this secretly OSR??

I swear this isn't just me showing my bias again. Jay is the one who keeps trying to get me to call her games OSR. The very thought of such a debate sounds headache-inducing beyond my capacity to endure... but I'll take a swing at it for this one part, at least.

For a quarter century now, the OSR movement has been seeking to prioritize cunning over crunch, fiction-first thinking, player skill over character skill, etc. Not to mention, y'know, players being defined moreso by their equipment and hirelings and whatnot, rather than huge pools of HP and special combat feats they can trigger. This combat system almost feels like the inevitable conclusion of those ideas, taken to their logical extremes.

And yet it totally wouldn't be! Because for all the OSR's innovations over the years, it still feels frustratingly restrained in its design ambitions. For every brilliant new idea they envision, they're equally prone to clinging onto legacy design elements like HP and attack rolls and whatnot. For as much as the OSR recoiled against the direction of D&D combat from 3rd edition onwards, the TSR editions still had a lot of the same problems. A boring war of HP attrition, constant hack n' slash dice rolling. It was just faster before WotC came into the picture. The OSR has just kept infinitely moving closer and closer to this system, yet seems doomed to never arrive.

Here, let me come at it from another angle. One of my favorite pieces of OSR literature is this diagram Josh made:

Whenever I'm trying to sell someone on "player skill over character skill," I show them this. See, their main fear is always that a "player skill" playstyle means they'll have to do everything in that "real world layer." That I'll expect them to get detailed and granular and demonstrate lots of real-world technical expertise.

But in reality, the level of player skill I'm expecting is found in that "approach layer." I don't need you to get detailed. I don't need you to prove that you have textbook knowledge of close-quarters combat tactics. I don't need you to choreograph the precise blow-by-blow. I just want you to explain to me your approach to solving this problem. Walk me through the basic logic.

Seven Part Pact's combat system is pretty much the purest distillation of this "approach layer" imaginable. Trim all the fat, waste no time, focus 100% of the fight on the interesting part. All killer, no filler.

Implementing elsewhere

The first major constraint that jumps out at me is how combatant-centric this is. The location is almost totally abstracted. Like I said before, this is not for crunchy tactical skirmish gameplay.

But I wonder how feasible it would be to incorporate a list of, like, "neutral Assets" up for grabs. Assets that combatants can compete for control over. Imagine if "pillars providing cover" were an unclaimed Asset described as part of the battlefield itself. By using your turn to step back and gather strength, you could claim that Asset, i.e. "reposition behind the pillars." Go play around with this idea and see if it has legs.

The next constraint I notice is how power is and isn't defined in this system. The most important thing is to possess a diversity of strengths. No single Asset can really be described with much granularity.

For example, "trained in Kung Fu" is a combat Asset you could build an entire game out of, right? But in 7PP, it would probably just be that: "trained in Kung Fu," a singular Asset on the list. It's not like you're gunna list every individual Kung Fu technique and stance as a separate Asset. This isn't that kind of game.

Furthermore, each Asset has to be fairly disposable. They can be extremely potent, to be sure. But there has to be some way in which you could theoretically lose that Asset if it were targeted. How could you target my "trained in Kung Fu" Asset to disable it? I can think of a few ways, arguably, but it's tricky. Like I said before, I think this system is going to always work better for games about possessing stuff rather than skills.

If you want a potential direction to take this system, there's one thing that comes to mind. In his blog series talking about the design philosophy of Apocalypse World and other PbtA games, Vince Baker explains the notion of "underlying models" informing the design of each game he makes. In Part 10, he offers a hypothetical underlying model for a new PbtA game you could try making: the "adventure model." Still a story game about "playing to find out," but one in which your character "isn’t a bundle of implicit personal conflicts, armed with angles of attack, but a bundle of competency and resources they can bring to bear on the (often impersonal) problems they face." [emphasis mine]

Sounds to me like a pretty good lead on something you could try applying this system to right away.

-Dwiz

Posts in this series

Part 1: Time

Part 2: Companions

Part 3: Combat

Part 4: Consequences

Part 5: Authority