Talk:Mano a Mano

MaM 2007 - what's left?

• update tutorials, how-tos and examples.
  • watch out for cross-dependency between tutorials. by quoting instead of just linking the tutorial can be self contained.
  • game design/equipment/example equipment lists
    • CP & leverage columns are empty
• preparing MaM 2007 for publication
  • front and back covers, title page.
  • how to create a book version

New CP Scale

CP has been multiplied by 100 and merged with XP. Reach is now available in tenths of a meter (0.1 m, 10 cm or about 4 inches).

• Perhaps on a scale like that a template could use 19 CP for what used to be 0 CP... (see agility CP scale below)
  • I don't understand this - and what agility CP scale do you mean?

• Related to this I see a revisualization of our ability scale and combat abilities. For example, I could see the "hand to hand" abilities broken down beyond what they are now into: Grappling (Natural Weapons,) Striking (Natural weapons,) light one handed weapons (arnis,) heavy one handed weapon (fencing... light long weapons used with one hand,) light long weapons(staffs and spears... heavy one handed weapons used with two hands,) heavy long weapons (large swords and polearms.) Since a +1 on a 1D6 represents such a massive ability promotion, each ability only provide a maximum of about 4 promotions throughout the life of the character. The more abilities we have the more opportunities for character promotions we have.)
  • Breadth of character development options is an interesting topic. Fractional ability levels are an option discussed elsewhere on this page - but probably only practical in a computer game. What is the maximum number of whole ability level promotions? I would say at least 7 (for "zero to hero" development where the hero can block the attacks of the zero 100% of the time) but a more typical game would have a range of more like 3 levels per ability.

limitations of description and customization

We need a new Game Design section about choosing limits on sex, age, templates, build, abilities, CP, equipment, etc. What are the default limitations (if any) what limits should a game designer pay special attention to.

Fraction ability levels

This might be more appropriate for the Hack and Slash Real-Time RPS

If fractions of ability levels are allowed the table also shows how much CP is required for each additional fraction of an ability level.

          Whole      Add       Add      Add
   CP    Ability     1/2      1/10     1/100
          Level   for each  for each  for each  Beyond

 100-299    1      100 CP     20 CP     2 CP     100 CP
 300-599    2      150 CP     30 CP     3 CP     300 CP
 600-999    3      200 CP     40 CP     4 CP     600 CP
1000-1499   4      250 CP     50 CP     5 CP    1000 CP
1500-2099   5      300 CP     60 CP     6 CP    1500 CP
2100-2799   6      350 CP     70 CP     7 CP    2100 CP
2800-3599   7      400 CP     80 CP     8 CP    2800 CP
3600-4499   8      550 CP     90 CP     9 CP    3600 CP
4500-5499   9      500 CP    100 CP    10 CP    4500 CP

Fast Characters

Characters may be able to get extra speed from extraordinary athletic ability or fighting skills. Their speed would increase by 1 for every 5 ability levels.

Damage

How should damage be expressed?

• power = 2, sharpness = 1/2
• power = 2, lasting damage = 1
• lasting damage = 1, stun = 1

When is absorption taken out of damage? In the old days when we had sharpness fractions, sharpness was used to calculate lasting damage from total damage after absorption. This required a quick division calculation for every successful damaging attack. Now that absorption is relatively smaller, perhaps we can calculate lasting damage before absorption, or do away with the fractions completely.

The second option is confusing since stun is only implied. It would be nice if we could figure out how to use the third (non fractional) option... like how it would work for cases of half-effective attacks (which only result in 1/2 damage) for example. -BFGalbraith, 3:45PM Seattle-Time, July 3rd 2007

Damage and Stun

Normal "lasting" damage and stun both represent a variety of things which can hinder or incapacitate a character. In real life the effects of injuries can last a few seconds, recover in minutes, heal in a few weeks or last a lifetime. Some effects are independent while others accumulate, adding to the effects of other injuries.

Separate Stun and Damage

The two types of damage would be separate, and your damage penalty would be based on whichever is greater. This might be simpler than keeping track of stun and damage separately (depending on how health, lasting damage and stun are tracked.)

Independent, Non-accumulating Damage or Stun

Instead of - or in addition to - accumulating damage points, if the damage of an individual attack (possibly increased or multiplied by some factor) is greater than some threshold (health? toughness?) the character's condition worsens (incapacitated or goes through damage penalty stages)

The most realistic system might be to have independent AND accumulating effects of BOTH damage types (stun and lasting damage) but that would be too complex. A compromise might be to have stun accumulate while the effect of each lasting damage injury is independent. In other words a character could be hindered or incapacitated two ways: (A) by a sufficient amount of accumulated damage in a short time or (B) by distinct injuries with deadly weapons which increase damage penalty or incapacitate but don't add to the accumulated damage.

Disabilities & Using Abilities During Combat

Seriously guys. Don't allow players to take disabilities for negative CP. In fact make them pay double CP for disabilities if they want to be crippled and lame and blind and deaf and missing pretty much all their limbs and sensory organs because thats pretty much what they want anyway. Players who take disabilities can bite me.

Its pretty much an established fact that lawyers can just like see waves of sound bouncing off of your face. But at what cost? What cost indeed. If you use an ability to compensate for a disability it should require the minimum effort of 1 hitpoint per round. For example -- a blind person may use a cane to collect sensory data.

At times a GM might ask players to perform an ability check during a round of combat. My opinion is that players should not add their ability bonus to the check unless they specifically have established that they are using the ability. If the check is called before the player's turn and the player stated the use of the ability before the beginning of combat. The player would be allowed to add their ability bonus. If the check is called after the player's turn then the player would not be allowed to add their ability bonus the unless they specifically spent at least 1 hit point to use the ability.

--ulrich 11:00, 2005 Jul 2 (CEST)

LOL! - A blind person might also use a cane to fight evil - which will take more than 1 hit point per round :-). Seriously, placing limits on disabilities is essential to good gaming. A good rule would be that a character should not have more than one disability unless (A) she has a sucking character template (and then those should be her only disabilities) or (B) GM's permission (or allowed by the specific game.) Another good rule (especially if you have lots of small quirky disadvantages in the game) is to allow no more than 10 (or fewer) points of disadvantages. (This is one of those optional rules so important it should not just be in an appendix.)

I'm not sure I understand everything you are trying to say about ability checks, but we do need a rule for arbitrary actions during combat, to avoid the whole "while I fight these guys, I'm searching for traps, and burying bodies" problem.--SerpLord 15:17, 8 December 2005 (CET)

Individual Height and Reach Variation

Rules for varying Height and Reach for individual characters (perhaps something as simple as +1 or -1 CP for an extra 1/2 meter, with no such option for zero-reach characters?)

Character templates have minimum and maximum heights, if you are outside that range, the template does not describe you. A full 50cm reach difference seems like it would also mean you are mutated beyond your template. We should consider (at least for future editions of MaM) templates that don't allow build variation (mecha) and and templates that allow extraordinary variation (mutants.)

If we look at a sufficiently large template (an 18 meter giant for example) a 0.5 meter reach difference is only like a 5 cm difference for a human. 1 CP per 0.5 m might work. We can set the minimum for all templates at 0 (could reflect disability or damage) but how do we set maximums? The easiest solution is to only allow it if the GM approves and/or assume that templates reflect the upper limit of the race's reach. The complicated solution is to add a new number to the template (especially complicated because now templates present options with multiple CP values instead of a fixed package of features.) --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

Archery example - calculating max range, CP

An example of how to calculate the CP of the max range of a weapon (so a decent archery example... the correct answer is "you DON'T caculate CP of the max range of a weapon," but an example of how to caculate max range is needed.) In other words, we need a clear example of pull.

The reach of a ranged weapon is it's effective range. The CP of reach is 1 CP for each 0.5 m, or 2 CP/m According to Wikipedia, an AK-47 has an effective range of 300-450 m. Depending on whether you take the high or low estimate, that's 600-900 CP. (Imagine that we are fighting on an open plain and you have an AK-47 and I have a knife. I can move a few meters every time you get a shot off, so you'll get a dozen chances to shoot me before I reach you. It's potentially like a guy with a knife fighting 20 guys with spears.)

One nice thing about MaM is that it has been created by people who have really shot bows bows and firearms, have had their arms twisted into submission, been choked out, knocked out, slowly beaten down, been cut by knives, have done full-contact stick fighting, etc. :) I think you are forgetting "kick" in the above CP formula. Kick is Pull for fire arms, and the difference is that you spend the hit points as you pull the trigger, instead of before you pull the trigger. Body-power subtracts from kick before you spend the HP (parrelled to how it effects pull.) So for a 400 meter range weapon, with a kick of 4, the actual "reach" listed on the character sheet would be 100, and the total range would be 400m (4HPx100m.) In that case the reach of the AK would be worth 50 CP, and that would be about right IMHO. (And THAT's why we need an example of Kick in the rules.) -BFGalbraith, Sept. 12, 2006

The relationship between pull and range is complex, but here's a rough formula: 120 m + (20 m for each +1 pull), but no less than 20m. --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

Generating Armor - mass

I couldn't find any equipment mass calculation rules (they were probably removed when we were attempting "fuzzy size",) which is pretty important in the case of generating Armor.

Armor is way more important (players expect characters to be slowed down by heavy armor.) There are 3 main factors involved in Armor: Cover, Absorption, and Toughness. I would think that for primitive technologies, the mass of this would be something like "(Cover + Absorption + Toughness) times 20% of Carying Capacity = armor mass," and that for advanced technologies it might be something like "(Cover + Absorption + Toughness) times 10% of Carying Capacity = armor mass."

Here's an empirical approach: For midieval armor divide the mass by the cover bonus and get a "mass per Cvr" value. Then we can divide that by the weight of a large man (100 kg) and get an estimate of the weight per cover for any species (based on that species' upper weight limit.) Modern high-tech armor may be 1% better, and some vital areas of the body require less material to cover and still give a +1 bonus. (For example a titanium chest plate that covers my heart could have +1 cover and +5 absorption, but only weigh 2 or 3 kg.)

Armor Type  mass/Cvr  Abs  Tgh
Padded       1% /Cvr   1    2
Leather      2% /Cvr   2    3
Scale        4% /Cvr   3    3
Chainmail    3% /Cvr   3    3
Brigandine   5% /Cvr   4    3
Lamellar     4% /Cvr   4    4
Plate        5% /Cvr   5    4

The "ideal" formula for the armor's mass is the wearer's mass times the cover and absorption of the armor, divided by 100. Padded, Leather, Chainmail, Lamellar and Plate approach this ideal. Scale and Brigandine are a little less efficient, but they are inexpensive and just as useful in many situations. Toughness is more an economics issue (how much do I want to invest in this much armor?) --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

Boiler Plate for MaM "Design"

Some adventures are a sequence of challenges like an obstacle course. However, players often want to be able to try anything they want with their characters, so an engaging environment for the characters to freely adventure in - letting the story develop naturally - is usually better than forcing players to follow a story line.

For example, if the PCs are likely to end up fighting in a village market, the GM should have a village market combat map prepared. (Instead, the GM may choose to have a blank sheet of Hex Paper, and use "pieces" to show where various Village Market obstacles are on the hex paper.) The more specific the location, the more important it is for the GM to have a specific map prepared. The GM may also have a selection of general terrain maps, for conflicts that take place in general types of areas, instead of taking place in very specific locations.

You will need one piece for every important character in the game. You will also need a piece for every significant object in the game, which is not already part of a combat map. (By significant object, I mean any visible object that the players are likely to interact with. For example, if there is a discarded spear the players are supposed to find out in the open, it would be best to have a piece for that spear, if it is not part of a map.)

After studying this tutorial, these should be all the reference materials the GM and players need to play the game. Some of the pages can help players create their PCs, others are designed only for the GM's use.

Blow by Blow System

This system allows more detail, flexibility and improvisation in combat.

Toughness

Toughness = health / speed (rounded up.)

Damage Penalty

Damage penalty = total damage / toughness (rounded down.)

Actions

Actions = Speed - Damage Penalty. Quick actions count as one action. Powerful actions use more energy and count as two actions. Some actions take more time, keeping you busy for one or more rounds. Speed does not help with those actions. Characters get an extra action when they use a secondary weapon. (They cannot move with this action or use it to perform a powerful action.) A character with 1 speed can do a powerful action that counts as one action if their total damage is less than half of their health, but they cannot use a powerful action and a secondary weapon during the same round.

Movement

Characters can move before each action. A characters stride, swimming, flying and reach is the distance they can move with each action. Optional Rule - Sprinting: Each time a character uses more than half their movement with any action, they take one point of stun damage. (This should be reconsidered in light of the new health/damage scale)

Aimed and Flanking Attacks

flanking attacks and aimed hand to hand attacks are avoided in favor of two normal attacks.

Action, Formation, Interfering and Covering

A character may have several chances to use their actions between the end of one turn and the end of their next turn, so the character's turn is the last chance to use the actions the character hasn't already used moving in formation or interfering with other characters' actions.

1. At the beginning of an action the character whose turn it is, and any characters moving in formation with that character, can perform one action each. Formation actions have to be planned before the turn begins.
2. If they do not perform an action, the turn ends. Otherwise, the opposition has a chance to interfere with them by performing one action each. Interfering is an opportunity, not an invitation: The game doesn't stop so everyone can be asked if they would like to interfere.
3. Then, any characters who have not performed an action but are providing cover for the character whose turn it is or the characters moving in formation can perform one action to interfere with the opposition. Characters interfering with interfering actions should announce their general intent in advance - "I'm covering Jimmy" - but don't have to choose a specific action or target until the opposition has chosen their interfering actions.

Hack and Slash Real-Time Role-Playing System (Hack and Slash RPS)

What 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. However, in some games each individual action is affected by input. (fighting games, shooting games, action/RPG hybrids.) How would Mano a Mano be adapted to a "button-mashing" computer game?

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

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 often work.

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.
• An action whose success level is no more than -0.5 is unsuccessful.

CP values for new fractions are interpolated linearly. Every tenth of a level or modifier between two sequential whole number levels or modifiers should be worth one tenth of the difference between the CP values of the two levels or modifiers. Every hundredth of a level between two sequential whole number levels would be worth a hundredth of the difference between the CP values of the two levels.

Speed, power and sharpness have fractions which are more difficult to interpolate. Sharpness increases by 0.01 for 12 CP and by 0.1 for 120 CP. In other words, a weapon's sharpness is it's sharpness CP divided by 1200.

   Speed       +0.01   +0.1

0.00 to 0.25   80 CP   800 CP
0.25 to 0.50   60 CP   600 CP
0.50 to 1.00   20 CP   200 CP

   Power       +0.01   +0.1

0.00 to 0.50   16 CP   160 CP
0.50 to 1.00   12 CP   120 CP
1.00 to 1.50    8 CP    80 CP
1.50 to 2.00    4 CP    40 CP