To compliment our other two threads, I figured I'd pose a trickier question...one I don't have a real answer to, but would love to hear it...
What system does grappling combat best?
RPGs are notorious for having bad clinch combat systems. They tend to swing from pointless to ridiculously over-powered, with no medium I've managed to find as yet.
If forced to pick one, I'd go with FASERIP, as it's at least functional without breaking the game.
Without referencing texts, just off the top of my head, I'm inclined to say TSR Marvel Super Heroes alias FASERIP.
Surely someone will stand up for AD&D. 😂
Once again, in keeping with my previous FIGHT!!! recommendation, I'll go with "Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game".
Let us describe grappling in Street Fighter! Remember that it is a White Wolf game of essentially the 1st generation, just before they moved to the target number 7 iteration of the rules you'd see in Aberrant and so on. Health is handled very differently than in other WW games, though, and is basically just a number of HP between 10 and 20.
All maneuvers in Street Fighter have a Speed, Damage, and Movement (and possibly other things...) In the book, these Maneuver statistics are generally described as modifiers (though sometimes, especially with Blocks and Grabs, the Movement value will be a static number). The Speed of a Maneuver is the Maneuver Modifier + Dexterity (generally). The Damage is Maneuver Modifier + Strength (generally) + Technique. The Movement is the Maneuver Modifier + (usually) Athletics. You make up index cards with these values on them for each of your maneuvers so you and your opponent can secretly select your moves at the start of each round.
Here we'll imagine 2 characters with every Technique and Attribute at 4, so here are some example values for maneuvers:
Jab: 6 Spd, 7 Dmg, 4 Mov
Roundhouse: 2 Spd, 12 Dam, 3 Mov
Flying Thrust Kick: 4 Spd, 14 Dam, 2 Mov (Cost 1 Willpower, Aerial, Knocks down Aerial opponents)
Bear Hug: 3 Spd, 11 Dam, One Mov (Sustained Hold)
Street Fighter combat occurs on a hex map. The Damage value (minus the opponent's Stamina) represents how many dice you roll to hit/damage someone. Each success means you deal 1 damage. Strikes can be performed when adjacent to an opponent or in their hex. Grabs, on the other hand, almost always require you be in the same hex as your opponent to execute them. So, you get scenarios like this:
Scenario 1
(Fighters have 2 hexes between them)
Fighter A: "My Speed is 6"
Fighter B: "Mine is 2"
Fighter A: "I wait to see what you do."
Fighter B: "I step up 2 hexes next to you and perform a Roundhouse!"
Fighter A: (He has a choice, he can interrupt and throw his Jab, then eat the more damaging Roundhouse in return, he can interrupt and use the Movement of his Jab to run away from the big Roundhouse, or he can eat the Roundhouse, then perform his Jab afterwards, let's say he interrupts and Jabs the guy) "I interrupt and Jab you!" (He will roll 3 dice, his Damage of 7 minus the opponent's Stamina of 4) "I dealt 1 damage!"
Scenario 2
(Fighters still have 2 hexes between them)
Fighter A: "My Speed is 3"
Fighter B: "Mine is 6. What do you do?"
Fighter A: "I step forward 1 hex towards you to perform a Bear Hug"
Fighter B: "OK, I step up 1 hex and Jab you in the face!"
(Fighter B gets to Jab with no retaliation from Fighter A, because Fighter A needs to be in hex with his opponent to execute the Bear Hug, and he can't move that far.)
Scenario 3
(Fighters still have 2 hexes between them)
Fighter A: "My Speed is 2"
Fighter B: "Mine is 3. What do you do?"
Fighter A: "I step up 2 hexes and perform a Roundhouse."
Fighter B: "I interrupt you, step into your hex, and execute a Bear Hug!"
(If the Bear Hug does damage, it will cancel Fighter A's maneuver and do its damage. Between rounds, the characters will have to make an opposed Strength roll to see if Fighter A escapes the hold, or is stuck in it for another round, taking the Bear Hold's damage again! Fighter B can continue to hold Fighter A for a number of rounds equal to his Grab Technique [4 in this case], or until Fighter A wins the opposed Strength roll between each round)
There is more to the system, including dizzies (doing enough damage to stun someone for a round), combos and various reasons why you might want to go immediately when you have high speed rather than always waiting to see what an opponent is doing and interrupting... but you can see how Grabs are powerful, but reliant on having high speed, or tricking your opponent into your hex or ending adjacent so you can step in hex on them, etc. The simple opposed Strength roll to sustain is... simple. There are additional maneuvers to make sustaining or escaping holds easier (not common, but there).
Thus ends my rampant Street Fighter evangelizing... for now.
Sounded pretty good until you said fights require hex maps. Hex maps = I'm out.
Quote from: Matt;827815Sounded pretty good until you said fights require hex maps. Hex maps = I'm out.
If you're in a non-tournament situation, thrashing some thugs and whatnot, a hex map is not required. Its fighting system is about being tactical game in itself though, and so does rely on a map like other tactical systems like The Fantasy Trip or D&D 4 (& 3 to an extent). It is also emulating a fighting video game where range is a factor. Admittedly, that means if, when you face off against M. Bison in a tournament and you don't want to pull out a sheet of hex paper, the game definitely is not suited for you! You can play all sorts of stuff, but the core of the game is that you're a fighter, and when it really counts you're gonna test yourself against an opponent using the system with a hex map, for sure.
Quote from: Matt;827780Surely someone will stand up for AD&D.
Surely someone will stand up for Runequest!
There is, of course, a GURPS supplement for that: Technical Grappling (http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-martial-arts-technical-grappling)
Haven't used it personally, because our group of 6 players means ultra detailed combat is a drag. But if I was running a smaller group and wanted ultimate detail this is the first place I would look.
I tried to do my best with it in Arrows of Indra, where wrestling is an important feature of the cultural context.
LOL it's hard to beat the simplicity of FASERIP (but I made one house-rule that it's a resisted Fighting, not Strength check to escape - otherwise super-strong characters will destroy you). That said... it's damn elegant.
If you like "technical" blow-by-blow type combat with good grappling. I always liked Cyberpunk 2020's Pacific Rim martial arts rules.
Keeping it light - Talislanta always did Grappling pretty easy. Much like FASERIP with different die-resolution. Same principles tho.
Quote from: tenbones;828679LOL it's hard to beat the simplicity of FASERIP (but I made one house-rule that it's a resisted Fighting, not Strength check to escape - otherwise super-strong characters will destroy you). That said... it's damn elegant.
I think I;'d make it a new Martial Art (F?) to allow that or maybe which ever was higher?
Quote from: dbm;828092There is, of course, a GURPS supplement for that: Technical Grappling (http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-martial-arts-technical-grappling)
Haven't used it personally, because our group of 6 players means ultra detailed combat is a drag. But if I was running a smaller group and wanted ultimate detail this is the first place I would look.
Sorry I missed this a while back, but thanks for the shout-out. There are a couple ways to simplify and speed TG rules for larger combat, though Peter Dell'Orto uses it full-on in his multiplayer Dungeon Fantasy game.
Apologies for the thread necromancy.
Quote from: dbm;828092There is, of course, a GURPS supplement for that: Technical Grappling (http://www.warehouse23.com/products/gurps-martial-arts-technical-grappling)
Haven't used it personally, because our group of 6 players means ultra detailed combat is a drag. But if I was running a smaller group and wanted ultimate detail this is the first place I would look.
Quote from: DouglasCole;846870Sorry I missed this a while back, but thanks for the shout-out. There are a couple ways to simplify and speed TG rules for larger combat, though Peter Dell'Orto uses it full-on in his multiplayer Dungeon Fantasy game.
Apologies for the thread necromancy.
GURPS combat in general handles grappling just fine. Better than most games. Toss in TG and you have all the detail you could want (and of course, you can pick and choose to flavor for your game). My vote would be for GURPS.
Yeah, GURPS grappling has always been quite good. The technical grappling expansion goes even further, if you want that much detail.
I wouldn't say it slows things down too much, particularly because grappling tends not to be the main thing people do terribly often, unless someone makes a grapple-fu oriented character, which I've rarely seen even in NPCs and never in PCs (though you could). But GURPS low-tech combat is chaotic and opportunistic enough that situations do come up where some grappling can be very useful.
Of course, if you don't want the detail of GURPS and/or just want to get the results as fast as possible so you can get on with non-combat roleplaying, then, well, I'm not sure why you want good grappling rules anyway...
I liked Marvel Superheroes. (despise the FASERIP name gits keep trying to stick it with!)
AD&Ds grapple rules were fairly straightforward too.
Render ACx10 into a percentile. Roll with mods for DEX, defenders armour type + etc.
Attack, counter, eventually see what sort of grapple gained.
So Im a wizard with AC:10. Damn kobold tries to grapple me. DM rules its got a DEX of 16. So it grapples me on a roll of 84 or better. Dev in plate mail is a 30. The kobold can grapple him on a roll of... er... -16. (Heavy armour makes you absurdly easy to grapple. But harder to get a good grapple on.)
Kobold rolls a 95, a hit, then rolls a... 100? Yep, kobolds still have it in for me. I get kicked for 8 points of unarmed damage. (2HP, 8 pummel) And am stunned.
Still a bit more complex than probably needed to be. It is pretty much its own mini game.
I used to be able to say Marvel Super Heroes - and never have to refer to FASERIP...
then that piece of shit Marvel Super Heroes game using Cortex or whatever came out.
Clinching, grappling and fisticuffs has always been a pain in the rear with many RPGs. The rules are over-complicated to the point that require several checks to even make a clench. Even then, once the clinch is initiated, the resulting effects are overshadowed by the benefit of doing damage. In that, here is my approach in ZWEIHÄNDER (http://grimandperilous.com): simple, easy and comparable as a usable "stunt" in combat. Meaning, you don't have to "grapple" someone to do something cool afterwards:
QuoteCHOKEHOLD
Perilous Stunt
You tighten the grip around your enemy’s neck, restricting their ability to move.
Cost: 1 Action Point
Effect: When Engaged with a foe, make an Athletics Test. If successful, your foe may attempt to Resist by making a successful Athletics Test or be made Choked.
While Choked, your foe’s Peril Condition Track immediately drops one step, and at the start of each of your Turns if you maintain the Chokehold. If the foe drops to Incapacitated!, they fall unconscious. It costs 3 Action Points to maintain a Chokehold, requiring no additional Skill Tests to do as such. Your Choked foe cannot use any Actions, but may attempt to Resist again at the beginning of their Turn to escape.
You cannot use any other Actions while you maintain a Chokehold. However, you may release a Chokehold at any time. If you are struck with a Called Shot or suffer an Injury while maintaining, you must relinquish your hold.
I happen to like the method of my own devicing (I think that I didn't read it elsewhere first, at least) the best.
Attacker can initiate a grapple (or some other maneuver) or do damage on a successful hit, the defender may attempt to nullify the maneuver, but nothing else, until his turn comes up next. Succesful damaging hit may not be nullified by the defender under any circumstances, only maneuvers.*
A houseruled Dragon Age maneuver thingy also looked good first on paper, but in practise it was shitty, for precisely the same reasons the original is.
Edit: *To see the precise thing, see my sig and the writing, "How I Made My Peace with SilCore"
I always want grappling/wrestling rules to be as simple as possible. I tried to stick to that in both Arrows and Albion's Appendix P.
I just role-play fight scenes. Fight scenes in movies don't have characters talking about initiative and speed values and moves per turn. So I don't either.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;848558I just role-play fight scenes. Fight scenes in movies don't have characters talking about initiative and speed values and moves per turn. So I don't either.
That's a completely valid way to do it, if that's how you relate to fighting.
However, it's the opposite of how I relate to fighting. When I see or read or game a fight scene, I get really interested in what happens in a very detailed way. I watch everyone involved and think about what they perceive and how they act, and what happens as a result of their actions and circumstances, and it's really interesting to me, except when the creators don't seem to care and it doesn't make sense and/or it seems fake, or the outcome decided by what some storyteller thought would make their plot most interesting.
There are books and films and games where one of the main elements is about tactics, technique, equipment, and the details of combat situations and the experience of them, the decisions involved, etc. There are also films/books/movies and games where the combat is the main point of interest, and the rest of the plot is neglected and mostly just a context for the combat.
I can enjoy games that handwave or abstract combat details to nothing, but that tends to just remove something that could be interesting to me, so something else needs to be interesting for the game/film/book to be interesting.
There are some occasions, depending on the game and the situation of the fight, where I'll ignore the initiative rules.
I'm partial to the system in The Manor #8 Zine which distills the GURPS technical grappling rules into a fully D&D compatible version.
I haven't tried them as of yet but from a read-thru they seem to hit the sweet spot in playablity and detail
Also the fact that they are compatible with most any AC/HP D&D or D&D like game out there is a huge plus
My review (http://5stonegames.blogspot.com/2015/06/in-manor-of-old-school-grappling.html)
HERO/Champions is great at this as it is basically the default combat option that the game engine was designed around.
White Wolfs Adventure RPG for the Aberrant line was another good one for the down and dirty fist fights as it was modeled on the pulp heroes and serials.