Combat in Gamebooks

I've mentioned a couple times a combat-related post that I was working on. Well, without further ado, here you go:

This year in Windhammer, the authors as a whole presented some amazing innovations in combat systems, rules, and styles. It's given me a tremendous amount of food for thought, and I've tried to wrap up and present here some of the ideas all this experimentation has led me to.

The big question seems to be: How to make a gamebook combat system dynamic, within the limitations of the genre? You can't present a system that's too involved, or it simply won't be manageable. Most gamebook systems are incredibly straightforward (i.e. one or two stats, very few rolls, etc.) But those don't have enough moving parts to create any real dynamism. That said, one thing I've learned is how far you can push it. Several gamebooks, such as Brewin's Trial of the Battle God, had very full systems. It was a lot, but if you're spending a lot of time in the game, it might be worth it. 

To get down to the root of the issue, we need to think about what kind of decisions are possible within a combat situation, in a game. Let's do a quick brainstorm. In a fighting game, player speed and skill becomes very important, but you're still choosing which maneuver to do when. This has a lot to do with guessing what the other guy is going to do. You've got to try to fake the other guy out, make him think you're doing one thing, then do another. This is reminiscent of my (short-lived) fencing days. Our teacher's mantra was "make noise in the east, attack in the west."

For this to be meaningful, the different choices each participant makes have to interact with each other in interesting ways. If I block in the west, but you attack in the east, then I'm in trouble. But if I block in the east, I might be able to get a quick riposte in. This often comes down to a sort of rock paper scissors effect. If the first player does action A, and the second player does action B, then second player has the advantage. But if second player did action C, then first player has the advantage.

This sort of model also relies on a multiplicity of options. If you only have one option "attack" and you do that again and again until the battle is over, then there's not this kind of model in action. Arguably, the more options there are, and the more relationships there are between the options, the deeper the strategy in this case.

So what we're seeing come together here is a few requirements:

* The player has to have options in combat. Not just "Attack," or "Defend," but what kind of attack?
* The options each combatant makes have to interact with each other in interesting and meaningful ways.

So the question then becomes, can you include that in a gamebook?

Not only do I think you can, I think I have. I've written up a system (which isn't ready to expose to the public yet, but is in progress) which includes both of those elements, and while it is heavier than most gamebooks, the feedback I've gotten so far is that it is still manageable.

Over the next month or so, I'll be working on writing up a short, sample gamebook which demonstrates these rules. When it's ready, I would love to hear all of your feedback.

Until then, stay tuned for more blog posts on this general topic. Also a couple more reviews upcoming. Next week, I'll go over a lot of the specific mechanics which various authors introduced in Windhammer this year, with an analysis of each one.

Merry Christmas!

To those of you who celebrate it. To those of you who don't, have a cookie on me you heathens.