Tacticians' Academy: Combat 101
FREEBIE: BetterPals Synth-Pet Generator
If you’ve been following my work recently, you’ve likely seen me talk about Tacticians of Ahm, my upcoming rules-lite, tactical combat TTRPG. While there is so, so much I want to say about this game, I first wanted to use this month’s Missive to dig into a bit of the design concepts behind the game’s combat.
At its heart, Ahm is about creating a combat-heavy game in which encounters keep the tactical choices of traditional grid-based combat while removing as many of the elements that do not add to the rewarding feeling of smart plays and cool moves and tend to only slow down the pace of combat (and the game overall).
In DnD combat, there are several things that slow down the pace of play: player decision making, rolls (each attack often requiring 2 or more), the luck-based aspect of hits/damage (bad luck can greatly extend the time a single fight takes), and an overabundance of specific character abilities/items.
Obviously, some of this cannot be eliminated while retaining the core of the experience (like player decision making - that one is pretty important), but many of them can be. These are where I first began to trim.
It feels bad to miss an attack and it adds more time onto an encounter each and every time it happens so attacks always hit. It feels bad to do very low damage, especially when you have put yourself in an advantageous position against an enemy and it only adds to time to the encounter so damage is set and bonus/sneak attack damage is guaranteed when positioned correctly.
Balance is largely a myth in TTRPGs, and in my experience, having too many specific character abilities, magical items, feats, etc. only tends to greatly slow down decision making. To combat this, I opted for something akin to 5e’s magic item attunement system, only applied to character abilities within a combat encounter. By limiting a character to 3 Weapons and/or Abilities per battle, it helps the fight ramp up in speed as it progresses and makes the opening turns key moments for the players to get a feel for the threat they face and to respond accordingly (or to play dangerously conservatively and not utilize all of their slots until later in the fight for maximum utility). All abilities have a simple 1 round cooldown which means you do not have to track or remember anything other than the ability you used last round (and your health, I suppose).
Next, I focused on lowering the time it takes to parse character abilities and employ them in a fight. All Abilities in Ahm are notated with simple grid and color notation using as few words as possible. Every ability effects every target in every square indictated (friend and foe alike) unless otherwise noted. This means players can look at their known abilities and quickly make a decision on the best move to employ.
At this point, I’ve run nearly 10 playtest sessions and the group of 3 players are now each running 3 characters for a total party size of 9, and we are able to have large-scale brawls taking 30-45 minutes that would have likely lasted an entire 3-hour session in a more traditional game all while retaining dramatic movements, cool moves, and clutch saves. Battlemaps are small, typically 8-12 squares across, which means every move on the grid is really vital, and there’s lot of room for tough decisions around doing as much damage as possible with your ability patterns, avoiding friendly fire, and getting around/past enemies blocking your path to heal a fallen ally.
The rest of the game’s design has largely grown out of these core tenets and are working towards some of the goals I have for longer term play, but that’s something for another Missive.
Next up: Character Advancement 101
NEW RELEASE: Corpo Culture Killed my Dog
Corpo Culture Killed My Dog is a 12-page, in-universe space punk zine intended for use with the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG but usable with any blue-collar sci-fi setting of your choice. Made entirely in scissors-and-glue collage and directly inspired by early 2000s Midwest punk zines, Corpo Culture is a mechanics-free, in-world artifact for you to hand to your players, use for inspiration, tease future adventures, and more.
Physical copies are coming VERY SOON.
Available now for just $5 USD at Itch.io!
MISSIVE EXCLUSIVE
This month’s exclusive is a gatchapon-inspired line of synth-pets intended for use with Mothership 1e! Drop some cash, take a gamble, and see what kind of unique creature comes out. Plus, there’s a whole market of BetterPals collectors and resellers all across the galaxy hoping to get their hands on the rarest and most powerful combinations!
MORE COOL STUFF
I keep picking away bit by bit at I CANNOT SEE THE STARS, a Mothership 1e pamphlet adventure inspired by Skinimarink (2022) and The Night House (2020) where PC death is guaranteed. It’s going to be a really interesting design challenge, but I’m exciting to take on something new in the Mothership space.
Triangle Agency is not only a really great looking game that’s crowdfunding later this year, but it’s got some REALLY exciting announcements coming up over the next few weeks. You’ll want to follow this one!
Jean now has great Affinity mockup files for both pamphlets and zines available PWYW on Itch. These are my go-to mockups for the future!
Here’s a thread and Google Doc with a lot of interesting data on Itch.io TTRPG creators taken from a lot of creators (including me)! I think we need more data and there are still holes here, but it’s a great start on getting us a better picture of what “normal” looks like in this space.
Iko is making one of the best TTRPG podcasts out there! Check out this chance to get some quality mentorship!
I recently did a read-through of Rune by GilaRPG and really enjoyed my time with it. It’s very much a game operating in the streamlined headspace of something like Ahm, and it’s one of my favorite takes on bringing the Soulslike-style of gameplay to the table.
If you are reading this, you are a true Missives diehard. I appreciate your time and support! See you next month! - Christian
Tacticians of Ahm looks like it's going to be awesome, love to see this project develop! Thanks for the shoutout, I'm happy you'll be using the mockups :)