Membership Posing an actual combat challenge without mechanics

[Gota 45]

So, this may be a bit specific but something that I'm still trying to figure out is how to make battles against NPCs an actual challenge. Yeah, you can talk with the participants and plan out who wins and stuff but that is not what I'm talking about. This is about PvE and cases like a "boss"-NPC. Or, to give an example, I want to have a hit list feature where bounty hunters and similar people can take on specific tasks and hunt unique enemies, no matter if creature or humanoid. I thought that I could combine this with a member shop and clearing these hits grants you hunter points or something which you can spend on something (I didn't figure out on what yet).

The thing is - if it's predetermined that the players win, I can just give these points out for free and they lose their purpose. So my question is how can you make battles against NPCs actually challenging and even pose the threat that a player loses (especially against super-tough enemies)? (Without dying, of course, otherwise almost nobody would take the hits on)

[Uaithne 543]

Question first - what is the "risk" associated with this?  Obviously you don't want death, but is there something else that occurs?

[Quell 249]

If your board has stats, I'd make basically stats for the npc's. Then you run a normal thread etc. With the npc's stats instead of the PC's. (Especially if other players are putting out the hits on the enemy NPC, maybe you could have the requester play the baddie?)

 

I've never done stats games or points games, so if this makes no sense, I apologize.  O.o

[Gota 45]

@Uaithne Well, the risk mostly depends on the player. Like, if they want that their character is heavily injured, that is fine. Just failing and retreating if things don't go so well would be fine as well. I guess it also depends on how far they are willing to go to win and when they decide it's best to retreat if it looks like they might lose.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Gota

[Elena 546]

We treat NPCs like any other characters, just that their ownership is shared. PCs and NPCs are battling together (ie usually not only NPCs are the opponents, but there are cases when the opponents are only NPCs). We agree beforehand who wins and who loses this time, then we are trying to write the best story possible. Some characters and NPCs get wounded, some die... like in any battle. 

[Gota 45]

@Elena Yeah, players can do this in other instance but not for this specific one. This one is not supposed to be pre-planned or stuff like that and I'm looking for a way to manage that without stats. I'm pretty sure there has to be some way.

I personally don't like this whole "it's agreed beforehand who wins". There's no suspense that way.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Gota

[Kazetatsu 263]

its good to have a player or staff member operating as the face of a strong npc, basically controlling it and the outcomes as if it were a player character, and responding accordingly to give the other players a challenge. with this power playing or blasting through the npc  doesn't work as well because someone else is telling the npc's story.

 

its hard to get around own character bias with npcing for yourself, but its possible. When I'm writing npcs for myself or a solo moment another thing I do is give the npcs as much power as possible for what they are. Killing them off the bat is off the table for me because many times the opponent is supposed to be a fair match. I rather write out a more intense fight and maybe even hurt my own character or come out from a close call, so that the npc actually matters to the events that happen afterwards. to enforce this kind of thing in rp might be tough. npcs are often used as fodder after all, and that's the culture on some sites, but perhaps you could give points for how the players write the npcs rather than how many they beat. the quality of the fights can be made to matter so that a player gets more points if they write an npc interaction thats clearly a close call, than if they make it easy for themselves.

I think another thing you might do, even without stats is to roll dice or a random result generator for the npc. have the odds weighted in such a way that chances are higher that they won't die right off the bat, but leave the randomness of a successful kill up to a random generator rather than any player's discretion. the hardest npcs can have the lowest kill-chance, and higher chances of responding in retaliatory fashion or going in for a 'kill' on the pc.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Kazetatsu

[Elena 546]

1 hour ago, Gota said:

I personally don't like this whole "it's agreed beforehand who wins". There's no suspense that way.

 

For the readers, it is always suspense. But for the writers, it allows for writing a smoother and a better story, without inconsistencies, as the main aspects were agreed beforehand so that each writer meets his objective. And the side losing now can win the next time, in different story circumstances!

[Gota 45]

Er, that sounds way too much like a book to me, which RPing isn't in my opinion. Not disrespecting that you think like that but I prefer it if the players can have suspense sometimes (and I'm not sure who the audience is).

Edited May 6, 2018 by Gota

[Hypester 28]

Having a staff member use NPCs works to help establish that this NPC isn't something they can just powergame, which is crucial for challenge.

 

The other aspect is, well, powergaming with your NPC. That is, you set up challenges in posts, if those get ignored, then the NPC inflicts some damage status effect on their next post.

 

For this to work, of course, you have to have sign ups, so people know and agree for what they're getting into for these events. And these NPCs do have to be quite powerful to take on multiple players at once and for players to feel comfortable with this character winning.

 

Of course, keep in mind, some players will NEVER feel comfortable with their character losing, no matter what.

[Kajes 40]

I've known this problem of challenge an' risk verses reward in rp for...ever. -buffers- Yeh, forever. I encountered this issue when I first started rping, and still struggle with it now. I view rp more as a multiplayer game, rather than collaborative writing, although the mode of interaction with players is definitely well described as such. I like challenge in my games, and challenge - more often than not - relies heavily on the threat of losing - the risk of defeat. Losing does not have to be a large risk, like death of a character, but the risk has to be something tangible... If the thing lost is easily replaced, then the challenge has no bite. There is little point to the exercise at all, like you said. If there is no risk of losing, there is no true victory, and you might as well just hand out the points without requiring the defeat of an NPC.

 

In a freeform rp, there is little - if any - risk involved in combat. The nature of the freedom given to the player removes all risk, and, like others have said in this thread, few people like to lose. Many rpers enjoy writing their character in a losing fight and happily organize fights to the other character's victory, yeh, but...to me, that is not a true loss. They still got to write what they wanted, how they wanted, so they won. Anyway, if you want to create a combat challenge that does not impose on the level of freedom in your game, or introduce battle mechanics...I suggest...writing challenges paired with only staff control of the NPCs.

 

Maybe create little puzzles around how to defeat the NPCs. Like a weakness that has to be discovered and exploited by the player before the NPC may be defeated, and hint that those weaknesses in the NPC's narrative. The staff would control the NPC to make sure those hints are dropped, the character responds to combat correctly, and to prevent the players from just...writing that the NPC dies and they win. Huzzah. Maybe attach a time limit to the encounter of so many days or posts, so that the player has a chance to fail if they do not work out the puzzle quickly enough. This does not add much risk to losing, but may be objective enough to add a lil challenge without stamping on the player's freedom.

 

Or...I begrudgingly suggest a judging system... A set of rules by which to judge the quality of the combat, and from there determine if the player is deserving of the points for defeating the NPC. I have seen a lot of different combat judging systems in the past, and I have yet to see one that is...objective...by what I'd consider to be any reasonable standard. But, some people like them, maybe it is worth looking into. I disagree with judging systems both in theory and practice, but hey. -shrug-

 

What I think would work the best is a stat n' dice mechanic. I know you want to create challenge without any mechanics, but... I have meditated on this problem for years, and stat n' dice - even a simple coin-flip with skill modifier - type mechanics are the best method I've seen for introducing real challenge, risk, and reward into an rp. I've played games with very light and very heavy mechanics, and both can be excellent at adding a tangible sense of risk verses reward.

[Samantha 64]

For our site when we have BWPs there is usually a pretty good chance your character is going to get hurt so we always have injury limits in the sign ups. Usually people say "no death, permanent dismemberment or injuries" and we work with that guideline. 

 

In the BWP we have ongoing many characters have attacked the enemies in the prompts and out simply, I decide what I want to happen. If it would be more interesting for their attack to have no effect then I say it doesn't, or I say that it affected some of the enemies but not all. 

 

Essentially, even though I can't kill the characters, I can still do anything else I want (and I do) [insert evil laugh here]. And best of all, the members really seem to enjoy it. So what I would do is for the bounty hunter list I would put a sign up that lists an injury limit and actually hurt the characters so they don't come out of it unscathed. Use the environment of the scene to throw in some twists and surprises and give the baddie a "fighting chance" even though you and the other writer both know they're going to die. 

 

Those are just my thoughts, at least. I hope you find something that works for you!

[PhantomMask 8]

In my opinion, it is impossible to have challenging and balanced roleplay combat without having concrete combat mechanics. This especially applies to large-scale combat. There should always be a risk of death, dismemberment, or the like in combat, or it's simply not compelling. It's like how in a show where you always know the good guys are going to win, it's far less compelling than a show where there's a real chance of loss of one kind or another.