In the last post, I introduced a small project I’m undertaking here–developing a solo fantasy RPG right here on WordPress. No long playtest sessions, no external resources, just me at my desk with some dice and a long-held dissatisfaction with pretty much every solo RPG I’ve ever played.

Last time we talked about the game structures we want to support and sketched out a rudimentary ability score or Stat system–Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma. Now it’s time to hone in on the most clearly-defined game structure in RPG history–combat. Alright, let’s get into the weeds.

Scene-Based Resolution

For a solo RPG, you can’t have the player also “playing” the monsters. (You can, actually, but then you’re veering off into Storytelling game territory. That’s fine if that’s what you’re into, but it’s not what I’m into.) There’s two other ways to do it:

Action resolution: You “play” combat like in other RPGs, but it’s simplified to a couple of simple actions, and the monster/NPC/enemy actions are procedural.

Scene resolution: Combat is resolved as a “scene” with certain outcomes; rather than choosing “attack,” “spell,” or “item” and resolving those actions until someone is defeated, you start with a decision point (example: I’m going to fight the monster with my sword) and roll to see how it goes. Combat could theoretically be resolved in a single roll this way, but for more dynamism and complexity we could also have it lead to further decision points (the monster has me on the ropes; do I fight to the end or change up my strategy or what?)

My original instinct here was to use action-resolution–it’s how most traditional RPGs do combat, after all, and it provides more realism and granularity. But I also know from my experience trying to play solo RPGs that it doesn’t feel good.

Scene resolution is more abstract, but also potentially more interesting than “I attack the monster for 3 points of damage. The monster attacks me and deals 2 points of damage. I attack the monster again and miss. The monster attacks me for 4 points of damage.” That doesn’t sound like that much fun, does it?

I went down a design dead-end here for a little while, talking about HP and procedural action generation. Here’s what that table looked like:

1d6 Action Table

1-2 Standard attack

3-Special attack (unique to each monster)

4-Special action (unique to each monster)

5-Surrender/negotiate (if Wounded; else standard attack)

6-Flee

I started designing ideas for stats and how different monster abilities would affect this, and how becoming Wounded would impact combat.

But I say this was a dead end because it very quickly turned fiddly and overly-complex. I rolled some dice to “playtest” some ideas and it felt really bad. When this happens, it’s usually a sign that I’ve gotten too complicated with it.

So I cut almost all of that out–about 1500 words–because I’m going back to the drawing board with combat.

I’m going to try out a scene-based resolution system. It feels better for a solo game, where “playing” the monsters really just doesn’t feel great no matter how much you try to proceduralize it.

Scene resolution systems are more common in storytelling games that have less of a focus on the moment-to-moment actions of the characters. But the fun of those moment-to-moment actions comes from the interplay between the players and GM, and the players with each other. We can’t do that here, so I think a quick but dynamic scene resolution system will be perfect.

I’m also thinking of using a 2d6 with “quality dice” mechanic to resolve most or all actions. Essentially, the player will need 2d6 but each die will have to be a different color (or have another way of distinguishing them). This packs more information and variables into a single roll–you can use the sum of the roll along with checking which die rolled higher to resolve things, or just resolve two rolls at once.

But I don’t think we need to go as far as resolving all combats in a single roll. That might happen, and as players get stronger it should probably be more likely for weaker monsters. But we also want to simulate the idea of a tough fight, where players will have to stop in the middle, analyze their odds, and decide to keep fighting or flee.

I originally wanted to avoid Hit Points entirely and use a simple Healthy/Wounded/Dead condition system. But as I’m sitting here thinking about it, I fear that this will clash with the design goals of having your character “level up” and feel significantly stronger at higher levels.

At the same time, inflationary Hit Point systems are a lot of mental load and very abstract. Instead of doing away with them completely, I’m thinking now of collapsing them into the character’s Level–your Hit Points are equal to your Level.

The more I think about it, the more I like it–in the kinds of games I’m trying to emulate, one of the primary means of “getting stronger” at level-up is by getting more Hit Points. This accomplishes that goal with fewer numbers and the same level of abstraction–being higher level means you’re generally “harder to kill,” so it encompasses the character’s general combat experience and skill at staying alive.

Since we don’t want to be “playing” the monsters, we’ll take advantage of our 2d6 with different qualities to have the player roll for themself and the monster simultaneously. One die will be for the PC, the other for the monster or enemy. (We’ll need to figure something out for fighting multiple enemies at once, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.) You’ll add whatever stat is appropriate for the weapon you’re using, and whatever value the monster uses for attack (put a pin in that), and compare against yours and the monster’s Armor Class (AC). If you hit, you deal damage; if the monster hits, they deal damage.

Because we’re doing scene resolution and trying to resolve combat in as few rolls as possible, I’m thinking you also deal your Level in damage. Since the level is an abstraction of “combat experience and efficiency at surviving fights” (among other things) it makes sense that it along with your character’s Strength or Dex affect your ability to deal damage.

Some immediate problems present themselves:

• At this point, there’s no way to differentiate weapons. Since you deal your Level in damage no matter what, Stormbringer will do the same amount of damage as a rusty dagger. That needs to be fixed.
  • A possible fix is to give weapons an attack value that you add to your rolls along with your Strength or Dex or whatever. This might work, but I’d like to avoid it if possible since you already have to do two addition operations (for yourself and the monster) with every attack roll.
• A better system might be to give some weapons qualities or conditions that give them advantages in specific situations or against certain enemies. This is a lot of bloat in terms of word count but very little in terms of design since you generally only need to keep one in mind at a time.
  • It doesn’t bother me too much if all common weapons are effectively as deadly as each other–if I bash you in the head with a big rock or a woodcutter’s axe or a longsword, you’re probably going to die no matter what.

Another benefit this system has is that it is symmetrical. I love symmetrical RPG design.

By “symmetrical” I mean that Player Characters and monsters and NPCs are all built the same way. A monster stat block could work as a PC, and an important NPC can be built just like a Player Character.

I love this in traditional RPGs because I’m usually the GM and it makes GMing so much more fun. I want to roleplay the monsters and NPCs, and I want concrete, meaningful information about the gameworld. I love that I can “play” the NPCs and monsters just like the players play their characters. I love that “Intelligence” means the same thing on my monster’s stat block as it does on the character sheet. I don’t want to be treating my monsters/NPCs like wargame units or board game pieces–they’re real characters in the world. It’s more realistic, it makes the game “engine” more immersive, and it really helps me roll to roleplay.

But it is often a stumbling block in solo RPGs. Without a GM, you effectively have to either “play” the monsters, which takes away the roleplaying aspect of inhabiting a single character, or treat the monsters as obstacles to overcome through mechanics. I am obviously targeting the latter solution, but the problem is that PCs are generally not designed to be mechanical obstacles.

But I think this system might work. To test, I’m going to need to roll some dice; to do that, I’m going to need to create a monster.

I’m not going to make full character creation rules right now. I’m going to start by designing what I think will be the weakest monster in the game, and then what I reckon an optimized 1st-Level PC might look like, roll some dice, and see what happens. Fast and dirty testing, here.

So, designing the weakest enemy and then going up. Rats are a classic weak RPG monster, but going around killing ordinary rats is pretty evil so our first enemy is going to be the monstrous Dire Rat (for now).

Dire Rat – Lvl 1

AC: 4, Str-1, Dex-2, Int-0, Chr-0, Rat Fangs (1-in-6 of transmitting Rat Bite Fever on hit)

That’s a pretty weak monster, eh? For this game, I’m making the executive decision that Intelligence 0 means animal intelligence. These numbers are added directly to d6 rolls, so every point in them is going to have a big impact. We haven’t decided whether or not there’s a “ceiling” they can’t go past, but for now let’s assume that they probably won’t get much higher than 5 or 6.

But that does raise the question of Armor Class. The number range on a d6 is pretty small, so unless we keep numbers very constrained, there’s going to be ACs that literally cannot be hit by certain characters, and also ACs that are automatic hits. That’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world, but if it happens to too many monsters or too quickly in character progression, it’s a problem. We’ll put a pin in it.

Now let’s make a proto-PC. I say “proto” because I don’t have any character creation rules yet, so this may not be what a final 1st-level PC looks like, but it’ll do for now.

I think we can expect most 1st-level characters to have no more than a +3 in any stat, and even that rarely. +2 and +1 will be far more common. We’ll use +2 as our baseline, and assume this character is wielding the humble Short Sword, so using Strength.

Bill – Lvl 1

AC: 6, Str-2, Dex-2, Int-1, Chr-1, Short Sword (Str)

(Right now I’m thinking 3 will be the base AC for an unarmored, Dex-0 creature, and Bill is wearing Leather Armor which gives him +1 to AC. We’ll see if that sticks.)

So, before I roll any dice, I’m anticipating that while Bill has a significant advantage, combat in this game is going to be pretty deadly unless I find a way to put my design finger on the scale for the player. Bill only needs to roll a 2 to kill the rat, but the rat will still kill him on a 5 or 6. A 33% chance of dying to the weakest monster in the game seems a little harsh, but…we’ll see.

So, in the first matchup, Bill challenges the fiendish Dire Rat, and…

…they each roll a 5, and kill each other!

RIP Bill.

I like the elegance and simplicity of the system, and I think I’m going with it. But there are definitely kinks to work out, the first being how I’m going to push things back in the player’s favor.

One thing that occurs is a simple tiebreaking rule–if the player and the monster would kill each other, the player just wins. It’s pretty rare for two combatants to literally fight each other to mutual death, after all, and while this is a sort of “out-of-fiction” rule, I’m mostly okay with it.

Players should also be able to flee from combat, and use skills and expertise to gain an edge in combat.

So in addition to ties going in the player’s favor, I’m going to add a rule where players can make some kind of skill or ability check to gain an edge in combat. To encourage more engagement with the fiction, we’ll say that any environment might have objects, hazards, or scenery that can be interacted with for a bonus. (We’ll figure out how to actually generate this stuff later.)

For example, you’re in a room that has a chandelier. The player wants to leap up, grab the chandelier, and use it to swing downward and stab the rat for extra damage.

Any time that the player wants to gain an environmental bonus, they make a check using 2d6 + a stat or skill vs a flat DC. If they succeed, then they get either a flat bonus on their attack roll, or possibly Advantage (this might mean requiring 3d6 to play the game, though players can also just reroll and use the best result). If they fail, either the monster gets a free hit on them, or they roll on some kind of fumble table. We’ll see.

Okay, so let’s reset the scene. Bill is fighting the Dire Rat in some kind of ballroom with a big chandelier, and channeling a swashbuckling hero, leaps for the chandelier. We’ll use 7 for our base DC (right in the middle of the 2d6 bell curve), and he gets to add his 2 Dex (if we add a skill system later that might be more appropriate, but we’ll see). Bill leaps, I roll the dice, and…

…I roll a 5, meaning Bill succeeds! (5 + 2 = 7)

Now let’s reroll the attack, but Bill rolls with Advantage.

Bill’s highest roll is a 4, +2 Strength for 6, so he swings down from the chandelier with catlike grace, plunging his shortsword into the Dire Rat’s stinking black fur. The Dire Rat rolled a 4, +1 Strength = 5, not enough to match Bill’s AC. The rat’s spittle-flecked teeth snap, and scrape against Bill’s hardened leather armor, but cannot break it, and with an ear-splitting squeal, it falls dead.

Bill draws his sword, now slick with crimson blood, from the rat’s flank. His chest heaves beneath his armor. This time, he has survived.

To be honest? That works for me. I think we’ve got the skeleton of a combat system.

Back to beginning

Next: Skills