Game Design Questing Beasts- Individual Tactical Combat

The Questing Beast has a couple of interesting meanings. The one most people know is that of an endless and fruitless search, and it's in that thought that I titled this article. Various long sought after and likely unreachable game design goals.

Of these a truly tactical individual vs. individual melee combat system must rank highly as an example. Reviewing the definition of Tactical I given before, we know that such a system would be based around Resource Management, Dissimilar Assets and Maneuver.

The problem with respect to the individual vs. individual combat is that Dissimilar Assets by definition don't apply (the combatants are set as they enter melee), and Maneuver is contrained because melee combat has already been joined.

That leaves Resource Management. But for the individual battle, having that as the only determinate results in the winner is generally known before the battle begins- i.e. whoever has the most resources. Not a very interesting encounter.

Many games have taken their shots at this beast. Riddle of Steel for example attempted it with the selection of attack and defense options, backed up with a dice pool assignment (Resource Management) and an Attack/Defense die drop.

The problem with that approach is that two of the three options weren't Tactical, but were instead Strategic. The attack/defense and die drop are both Near Game Layer mechanics. In addition to being something other than our goal of tactical combat- it's also for many people too meta-game. And thus too far removed from the character's abilities (as opposed to the player's ability to guess at the opposing player's choices).

Even Riddle of Steel's Resource Management part (the die pool assignment) was also in the end Strategic as the primary advantage was gained in guessing how one's opponent assigned their die pool and adjusting yours accordingly. So in th end, nothing tactical was left.

Worst, such meta-game focused mechanics become unwieldy at best as the number of combatants increase.

IME a game can successfully focus on the Tactical only when the number of combatants (PC and NPC) is more than two. Further its Tactical favor and demands increases as the number rises further. Given that rpgs are typically about groups of PCs, this is more than acceptable.

Thus my advice is that anyone wishing a Tactical RPG experience should focus on team level design and abandon it at the one-on-one level. You'll chase it forever, and never catch it.