Talk:Scratch

how much time passes between turns?

There are basically two very different ways of looking at time in turn-based combat. On the one hand you can look at it as a simulation where the time between each turn of the same character is exactly 2, 6, 15 or 60 seconds. Other characters' turns are more-or-less evenly spaced between your turns, but there is some narrative flexibility to treat certain actions as more tightly coordinated or simultaneous.

Being more specific in a simulation forces you to sacrifice some realism and simplicity. Combat usually has a similar number of turns regardless of whether the game says those turns last a second or an hour. This is partly for simplicity, and partly realistic. In real life people can fight all day or get knocked out by the first punch.

On the other hand you can look at it as a story-in-the-round where each turn is regarded as a different paragraph in a story or camera shot in a movie. No real time passes between paragraphs or when the camera cuts from one scene to the next, or one player's turn ends and the next player's turn begins. But a variable amount of story/movie/game time passes that can stretch or compress depending on the situation. When you are jumped in a dark alley, the time between turns is infinitesimally small. In a boxing ring the fighters pace themselves, maneuver and size each other up. In foot chase characters may run for a long time between moments when the characters are close enough to fire at or tackle one another.

Playing an encounter usually takes more real-life time than the fictional duration of the encounter, and if the time between turns is compressed (jumped in a dark alley) the action is basically being described in super slow motion. Each player's turn takes 30-60 seconds in Scratch, which is a very fast system. When there 5 players, that means 5 minutes of real time pass between the beginning of your turns.

Either approach could be fun by itself, even taken to an extreme, but both extremes are more challenging to play and appeal to a smaller set of players. I see Scratch as a little-of-both system as opposed to a lots-of-story, lots-of-rules or lots-of-both.

Assuming we want to steer a middle path between story and rules, and we don't want to have a highly detailed simulation or a make-it-up-as-you-go narrative flexibility, how should we think about the frequency of turns in Scratch, and what - if anything - should the rules say about it?

The actions and abilities in the Scratch system already imply a way of thinking about time. For example we have moves like "hold" and "shoot" but not moves like, "step", "feint" or "draw weapon". Characters turns definitely take place on a scale that could be represented by a continuous shot of 2 to 10 seconds of action. We also know that encounters tend to give each character about 4 turns, and they describe events that realistically should last between 5 and 30 minutes.

So the average frequency of turns should be 1 to 8 minutes, and the average duration of turns should be 2 to 10 seconds. If we have 6 players taking 10 second turns back-to-back in a fast-paced 5 minute encounter, then the action is like a single continuous shoot. Exciting but perhaps unrealistically so. If you only have 2 players taking 2 second turns over a 30 minute period, then the frequency of turns is 2 minutes, and there's an average spacing of 58 seconds between each character's turn.

So in simpler terms: "a turn lasts a few seconds, but up to a minute of time can pass between two character's turns. The amount of time that passes between turns depends on the number of characters and the pace of the encounter. In a frantic melee there may be no time between turns."

I don't think we need to make that a rule, but we could. We could also make it an optional rule. Or like the strength and carrying rule, we can make it a standard rule that is described so that you know you can safely ignore it.

The maximum time that can pass between turns is 120 seconds divided by the number of characters. The following table shows the number of seconds which can pass between turns, depending on the pace of the encounter (frantic, normal, chase and hunt) and the number of characters.

characters	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
frantic (4 min)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
normal (8 min)	15	10	8	6	5	4	4	3	3	3	3
chase (15 min)	30	20	15	12	10	9	8	7	6	6	5
hunt (30 min)	60	40	30	24	20	17	15	13	12	11	10

I don't think we need to make that a rule, but we could.

simplified healing

What if we simplified the healing rule so that characters can only be healed once per encounter, but healing always restored the character to healthy (stamina +1)? (I realize that there currently is no limit on healing, but a more complex healing limit than what I have proposed here is may soon be incoming.)--BFGalbraith 18:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

taking cover while reloading

The bonus and penalty from take cover should last as long as you want, but while you are in cover, you cannot do a close range attack, evade, intimidate or surprise.

You can use healing ability, do long range attacks (with the -2 penalty) or choose to do nothing while you take cover.

Does it make sense to take cover when you are healing an ally?

• Answer 1: no, you cannot using healing while you are in cover.
  • pro: wounded allies may not have cover, and dragging them to cover might be slow and dangerous.
  • con: wounded allies may have cover, and you may not need to expose yourself to treat them.
• Answer 2: the -2 to ranged attacks should apply to healing rolls as well.
  • pro: healing techniques are not optimized for combat
  • con: you can take cover while you heal an ally who did not take cover (drag them to a place where you can safely treat them?)

Answer 1 seems like a slightly simpler rule, but it has a bigger narrative hole, so I think Answer 2 is better. --SerpLord 21:01, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Notes:

• being held or distracted while you are in cover does not make you leave cover.
• panicked characters do not instantaneously leave cover, but they do leave cover when they evade.

grid movement penalty for being injured?

Is there a movement penalty for being injured? If not, there should be, even if it is something simple like -2 spaces for anyone who is injured.--BFGalbraith 18:09, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

There is not, and I am not sure there should be. Do we want to make it harder to escape when you are injured (which is often when you most need to escape)? --SerpLord 21:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

describing abilities

Scratch abilities are less specific than the skills in some games and more specific than the basic attributes of characters in other games. People making characters are expected to give their abilities a more specific description, but this is difficult for some players. We should provide examples that players can follow when describing each of their abilities, using "could represent" language.

The things an ability "could represent" should be text a person making a character could copy or easily paraphrase as a description of his own character's abilities if he cannot think of anything better. For example if we say "fighting could represent prowess with swords or natural weapons." Then a player could use "swords" or "natural weapons" as the description of his fighting ability, and now his character is much more fleshed out.

"Toughness ability level is a character's maximum hit points, and represents armor, size or other damage-resisting traits. Characters who are big, physically fit, armored or highly motivated usually have 4 or more toughness. A cop who stays in shape and wears light body armor would have at least 4 toughness while a large, highly trained, veteran medieval warrior in heavy body armor could have 8 toughness. A child or elderly person may have only 2 toughness. The average horse might have 6 toughness. A war elephant with light body armor would have at least 10 toughness. Some characters might have only 1 toughness because they are particularly fragile or because they are unmotivated and give up as soon as they are injured. Characters without toughness may not perform actions during encounters."

This provides examples of characters with toughness, but glosses over how a specific character would describe his toughness. We need both description and scale examples, and we should be very clear about it.

"Toughness ability level is a character's maximum hit points. Characters without toughness may not perform actions during encounters. An average person without armor has 3 toughness. Less toughness could represent fragility or lack of determination. A child or elderly person might have only 2 toughness. More toughness could represent armor, endurance or size. A big person without armor or conditioning might have 4 toughness. The average horse could have 6 toughness, and the average elephant might have 10 toughness. Training and experience could give a character 1 or 2 more levels of toughness, and heavy armor might give a character 2 more levels of toughness, so a big, heavily armored veteran warrior could have 8 toughness."

Attack abilities currently have no examples of what they could represent.

"Shooting could represent guns, bows, throwing spears or powers that damage an enemy from a distance."

"Blasting could represent explosive or spraying attacks like grenades, a submachine gun or breathing fire."

"Knockout could represent a powerful bludgeoning weapon, deadly assassination techniques, fast-acting venom or a very large character simply crushing his enemies."

"Fighting could represent prowess with swords, other close range weapons, natural weapons or powerful striking martial arts."

"Wrestling could represent chokes, locks and throws or a mixture of grappling and striking techniques."

Stalking abilities explain what they do, but not what they could represent.

Movement abilities explain where they can be used, but not what they could represent.

There are no examples of what healing ability could represent.

"Craftsmanship is an ability which allows a character to maintain and improve his allies' equipment."

This explains what craftsmanship does, but not what it could be.

There is an example of a specific character with command ability but no list of what it could represent.

balance between abilities

Most of our ability levels are well-balanced. Increasing stalking ability, movement ability, craftsmanship or healing from level 1 to level 2 is worth about the same increasing an attack ability from level 1 to level 2. (Swimming levels might be a little underpowered.)

Command ability is worth about 3 times as much as other abilities against enemies with 11 defense, about twice as much as other abilities against enemies with 16 defense, and about the same as other abilities against enemies with 20 defense.

We could reign in command by thinking beyond the individual encounter. Perhaps healing and replacing command ability minions is more difficult than healing and replacing PCs between encounters. --SerpLord 22:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

What if minions only heal one health-state between encounters? So if a minion was incapacitated, he only has 1 HP at the beginning of the next encounter. If he was injured, he is only bare-healthy, and he only has full HP if he was still healthy at the end of his last encounter.--BFGalbraith 18:26, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I like this. By healing about 1/3 as fast as PCs, the minions are just about balanced. It has some interesting side effects to think about (some may be good. some may be not so good.) --SerpLord 22:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

• The effect is stronger for tougher minions (you need 3 HP to have all 4 health states)
• This gives players an incentive to have two weak minions instead of one tough one.
• players still have a strong incentive to build command up to about level 6.

Toughness is worth more than other abilities at most single-digit levels. Instead of a more or less even distribution of a characters with 5 to 10 toughness at the end of the game, optimizing players will ALL have 9 toughness at the end of the game, and very low levels of other abilities that don't pay off as much per level.

Is this still a problem when considering the following? level 3 toughness is like having level 0 in anything else, it's sort of the bare-minimum for a PC-quality character. Level 1 or 2 toughness is like having a negetive ability level in anything else. So ability level 9 toughness is just like having ability level 6 in any other ability. --BFGalbraith 18:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, each single-digit toughness level is worth more than any level of another ability other than level 1 and command ability. This is more extreme in the case of low levels like 3 toughness and barely significant in the case of 9 toughness. The critical area however is levels 4 through 8. This means in TDW there is no way to strategically justify a character with less than 6 toughness. (If you have 6 toughness and 6 command you will still have 3 CP for any other abilities you might want.) --SerpLord 22:28, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

We could reign in toughness by thinking beyond the individual encounter. For example suppose sorcerers in TDW automatically heal up to stamina + 1 between encounters. Then they can make a detection, craftsmanship or healing roll to regenerate themselves to full HP. (Note: toughness was not in that list.) If we want to be even more brutal, we can have the difficulty depend on your toughness, stamina or the amount of damage you have taken. --SerpLord 22:55, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Having at least 1 level of certain abilities adds extra value.

• (~5 levels) your first attack ability doubles attack power when healthy
• (~5 levels) healing potentially heals several points of damage
• (~5 levels) non-flying characters can't hit flying characters with close range attacks when they evade or use a long range attack
• (~1 level) craftsmanship versatility
• (~1 level) your first stalking ability (surprise action)
• (~½ level) command ability intimidate action
• (~½ level) non-swimmers and long-range attacks can't hit character who use swimming to evade
• (0 levels) other movement aiblities

more realistic healing options

games without healing ability (dinosaurs and prehistoric animals)

hardcore

• HP never goes up during combat
  • damage always represents injuries that take a long time to heal.
  • It never represents physical or psychic pain, suffocation or stunning effects that people can recover from during combat. (This could make the rule incompatible with some settings or other optional rules like skills.)
• healing still used in combat with death rules?
  • does first aid remove the healer from combat?
    • NO, either you can use healing as a combat action or you don't use healing until hostilities stop. This is all about how you interpret the duration of combat.
      • If you insist on a very quick flow of combat without pauses for maneuvering and orientation (combat takes seconds), then there is not time in a battle to treat multiple injured allies, and it is not necessary or even appropriate to treat injured allies during combat.
      • If combat turns are more like camera shots in an action movie and clashes in a real fight, which are interrupted by pauses and maneuvers that vary in duration (combat takes minutes), there is time in a battle to treat multiple injured allies or treat an ally and then return fire at an enemy.

milder

• you can only be healed from being incapacitated once per battle. We could give this state a name, like convalescent or wounded.
• we could also limit each healer to healing one character form injured to healthy once per battle.

healing between battles

• everybody heals to stamina + 1 between battles (balance and stability - game designers know you will have most of your HP when you enter a battle.)
• make toughness roll to heal yourself to full HP
• make healing roll for each ally to heal them to full HP

healing skills

• special healing skills might be able to heal you when normal healing actions cannot.
• special toughness skills might allow you to be healed more often.
• toughness skills that help you be healed?

optional death rules

realistic or brutal games like Resilience might have death rules that add dramatic tension and character expendability.