Mano a Mano:Hack and Slash

The Hack and Slash Real-Time Role-Playing System (Hack and Slash RPS) is based on efforts to adapt Mano a Mano to "action" computer games (action/RPG hybrids, fighting games, shooters, etc.) How could you add to Mano a Mano in a computer game? Which aspects of the system would you simplify? The normal Mano a Mano rules may work fine for a real-time strategy or role-playing game, but in some games each individual action is affected by input.

Real-Time Turns

Characters do not have turns, but turns are still used as a unit of time between 1 and 2 seconds, depending on the speed of the game. Actions can begin at any time, but usually don't begin until the last action has completed. This is not as different from Mano a Mano as it first appears. A player waiting until a specific instant to press a button is like a player delaying a character's turn to fight in formation. When a character with no stun receives stun, they recover 1 stun every turn until they have no more stun. In other words the 1 to 2 second timer for stun recovery turns is reset when a character with no stun receives stun.

Duration

In real-time we give actions different durations instead of skipping turns for slow characters and giving fast characters more actions per turn.

Powerful and Reduced Actions

When damage plus stun is more than a character's health, or when the character uses an unwieldy weapon, the character performs reduced actions: quick actions with the duration of powerful actions. Powerful and reduced actions have a duration of 1 turn for characters with 1 or more speed and a duration of 1 turn divided by the character's speed if the speed is between 0 and 1. (If the character's speed is 1/2, the duration is 2 turns. If the character's speed is 1/4, the duration is 4 turns.)

Combo Actions

When the character does not have to perform reduced actions because of damage and stun or unwieldy weapons, they can perform combo actions: quick actions which may have a shorter duration depending on a character's speed and whether they use a secondary weapon. The duration of a combo action with a single weapon is 1 turn divided by the character's speed. The duration of combo actions by character's using multiple weapons depends on their speed. If they have 1 or more speed, the duration is 1 turn divided by (speed + 1). If they have between 0 and 1 speed, the duration is 1/2 turn divided by speed. (If the character's speed is 1/2 the duration is 1 turn. If the character's speed is 1/4 the duration is 2 turns.)

When the animation of actions does not exactly fit the duration the action is supposed to have, you can trim and pad the animation or adjust the duration.

Trimming Animation

If a character has a 1.5 second animation for a punch with a duration of 1 second, the last 0.5 seconds are probably just follow-through animation, and the character can interrupt this follow-through animation to start a second punch as soon as the 1 second duration is up.

Padding Animation

If a character has a 0.5 second animation for a 1 second duration action, the character could return to moving and fighting stance animation for 0.5 seconds after the animation completes.

Adjusting the Duration

If a character has animation for a combination of punches averaging 1.1 seconds in length, but the character is supposed to have punches with a duration of 1 second, the duration of each punch could be changed to fit the animation even though the average punch animation length is not exactly the same as the correct duration and

Speed does not have to be limited to whole numbers and simple fractions. Instead of designing animation to fit a template's speed, you may want to estimate a template's speed based on it's animation. For slow templates, speed could be 1 turn divided by the duration of their average powerful action. For fast templates, speed could be 1 turn divided by the duration of their average combo action. Subtract 1 from the speed of fast templates if the combo uses secondary weapon actions.

Movement

Characters move continuously in a real-time game. Movement determines how fast characters move. Movement can be converted to meters per second by dividing a character's movement by the duration of 1 turn.

Damage Penalty

You might change the effect of damage on movement to make escape easier, to simplify the game, or to fit a set of animation. Characters might move more or less than half their normal speed when damage plus stun is more than half of their health. Or they might continue moving at full speed until completely incapacitated.

For example, suppose a character has animation for running about 12 miles per hour and walking about 3 miles per hour (one quarter of the running speed.) The character may start walking instead of running when they are badly injured - 1/4 of their maximum ground speed instead of half. You might also decide to only impose this penalty when damage plus stun is more than 3/4 of the character's health. (The damage plus stun required to slow a character's movement does not have to be the same as the damage plus stun required to limit a character's actions.)

Simplifying Movement

You may want to limit the number of different speeds characters can move to simplify the game, or characters may need to move at speeds that fit a set of animation. Movement is affected by movement abilities (and the lame disability), speed and encumbrance.

• Speed can be set to whatever you want when designing templates.
• Movement abilities can have a (level) limit of 0 so all characters of a given template have the same movement. Another possibility is only allowing specific levels of abilities or disabilities. If you only have running animation and walking animation which is 1/4 the speed of the running animation, then you might allow the lame disability at whatever level should reduce a character's movement to 1/4 of normal.
• Encumbrance might be ignored completely, or you might only apply encumbrance when the character passes certain thresholds. You might slow the character from running to walking when they carry more than twice their CC. Then you could make the character unable to move at all when they carry more than 5 times their CC. You might not allow the character to pick up more than a certain multiple of their CC.

Movement as Stamina

Instead of having movement affect how fast characters move, you could treat movement as a kind of stamina. Instead of the number of meters the character can move per turn, movement abilities could be the number of turns the character can move fast until they have to slow down and rest. This is an extra constantly-changing value to track, but that is the sort of thing computers do well.

Interfering

Dueling characters may miss each other completely; One might miss and the other find his target; One might kill the other before he has a chance to attack; Or, they might mutually kill each other. There must be a window of time between the success of the attack being determined and the damage taking effect for a mutual kill to happen.

When characters are using hand weapons, unsuccessful attacks should be parried or dodged instead of simply passing through the target without any effect. If a hand weapon attack fails while the target is also attacking, no special animation is usually needed. A parrying sound can be played, and perhaps the failed attack will be deflected away from the target. If a hand weapon fails while the target is not attacking, these effects can be accompanied by the target doing a parry or dodge animation.

Luck and Skill

Depending on the game you want to make, player skill and other elements of chance may affect or completely replace some success rolls. Abilities that are not useful can be removed, ignored or determined automatically so players do not waste CP on them. For example, if archery depends entirely on player aim, then archery ability has no CP value. On the other hand archery has some CP value if:

• archery depends entirely on a success roll
• if you fail the roll the arrow doesn't shoot straight, but might still hit something on accident
• player aim determines whether you hit while the roll is still used for armor
• accuracy is affected by combat bonuses without success rolls

Numbers

None

Some modifiers can have the value "None", which is different from the number 0. A character with 0 flight ability can barely fly, but a character with no flight ability cannot, and has a flight ability modifier of "None". A natural weapon which is not a hand has a dexterity modifier of "None", meaning it cannot be used as a hand, while a natural weapon with 0 dexterity is a very good hand. A sharpness of "None" means a weapon always does stun, while a sharpness of 0 means a weapon always does damage.

Fractions

A computer game can use the same whole number and simple fractions for levels and modifiers that are used in Mano a Mano. However, if you want smaller increments, any fraction between the minimum and maximum values will usually work.

Success Levels

If fractions of modifiers to success rolls are allowed: an action whose success level is at least 0.5 is successful; an action whose success level is between -0.5 and 0.5 is half-successful; and an action whose success level is no more than -0.5 is unsuccessful.

Linear Interpolation

CP values for fractions are interpolated linearly. To interpolate the CP of a modifier in the modifier range (mod1, mod2) with the CP range (cp1, cp2):

CP = ((modifer-mod1) / (mod2-mod1)) (cp2 - cp1) + cp1

To find the modifier for a CP value:

modifier = ((CP - cp1) / (cp2 - cp1)) * (mod2 - mod1) + mod1

Geometric Sequence

Many CP values are based on a geometric sequence. The n^th term of the sequence is the previous term plus n, which collapses down to: term = n * (n + 1) / 2. To find n for a given term of the sequence: n = (sqrt(8 * term + 1) - 1) / 2. A computer game might use these formulas or a table of CP values that are already calculated.

The default CP scale for non-negative modifiers is 100 times the geometric sequence, using the modifier as n. For negative modifiers, the default CP scale is -100 times the geometric sequence, using -1 times the modifier as n. The double and triple CP scale are 2 and 3 times the default CP scale respectively.

The CP of sharpness levels up to 4 is 1000 - 200 * sharpness. If you allow sharpness over 4, (increasnigly blunt weapons unlikely to cause lasting damage) you could use the CP formula 800 / sharpness.