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View Full Version : Janken as a twist for combat systems



Shinken
2014-10-05, 03:53 PM
I'm currently designing a game with supernatural martial arts combat and I have an idea for a twist in its combat system.
Before each attack, you and your opponent play janken. If you win, your attack hts. If you tie, you roll dice. If you lose, you miss.
Each janken option would be a type of attack or defense - rock would be a solid attack or a block, paper would be grappling or a parry and scissors would be a fast attack or a dodge.

It's similar to how Burn Legend works, but without props. What do you think?

Metahuman1
2014-10-06, 01:40 PM
I already don't see soft power defenses represented and have issues with it for a martial arts game.

Shinken
2014-10-06, 02:00 PM
I already don't see soft power defenses represented and have issues with it for a martial arts game.

I don't understand, sorry.

Segev
2014-10-06, 02:14 PM
I suggest making it more implicit than explicit that you're playing RPS. Instead of declaring it such, name three "kinds" of maneuver, and give them an RPS kind of relationship. Have the players reveal the maneuvers they're attempting, then roll if they chose the same kind.

You could spin this into more depth, if you wanted, creating cycles of maneuvers within maneuver types, such that you have multiple "digits" of RPS comparisons to go through, and whichever has the most victories between the maneuvers chosen wins. You'd avoid ties entirely that way. Or at least, you could, if you were very careful about how you set it up.

Illogictree
2014-10-06, 02:16 PM
I've actually seen a card game that uses a similar concept - "Yomi" by Sirlin Games if you're curious. Strikes beat Grabs, Grabs beat Blocks/Dodges, and Blocks/Dodges beat Strikes. Each card might have a different special effect, and individual characters have different decks with different mixes of each basic type. Cards can also form combo chains like in a fighting game. The tricky bit is both players reveal their cards at the same time, so you have to guess ahead of time what they're going to try.

Just using janken / rock-paper-scissors might be a little shallow for anything but a LARP, but I can see how it might be expanded in a tabletop game.

endoperez
2014-10-06, 02:57 PM
I don't understand, sorry.

Soft and hard power (and soft and hard martial art styles) are different approaches towards a conflict. A hard power defense would be to strike the enemy first, or to grab his arm and not let go, or to block in such a way that his strike does no harm.
A soft power defense would be to unbalance him before he gets to strike you, or to move to a more advantageous position before his strike connects, or to block in such a way that his strike misses.

As you can see, with a bit of rewording, your three options might be able to represent very different styles of martial arts. Possibly these, but it's just a suggstion:

Rock - symbolizes stability, balance, invulnerability- the opponent can't get past your defenses and his attack is negated / your attack is direct and v. powerful if it connects

Paper - symbolizes engulfing, absorbing, reacting - you react perfectly, countering the attack in some way / you attack methodically to overwhelm your opponent's defense

Scissors - symbolizes cutting through, I guess? - you act before your opponent, stopping the attack before it starts / your attack is fast and furious, to surprise your opponent


A fast, agile character who the player imagines as dodging can now use each of the moves while staying somewhat consistent. Well, the rock might still need some work - can't really imagine how rock symbolizes a dodging move.

Friv
2014-10-06, 03:14 PM
I suggest making it more implicit than explicit that you're playing RPS. Instead of declaring it such, name three "kinds" of maneuver, and give them an RPS kind of relationship. Have the players reveal the maneuvers they're attempting, then roll if they chose the same kind.

You could spin this into more depth, if you wanted, creating cycles of maneuvers within maneuver types, such that you have multiple "digits" of RPS comparisons to go through, and whichever has the most victories between the maneuvers chosen wins. You'd avoid ties entirely that way. Or at least, you could, if you were very careful about how you set it up.

That would be the Burn Legend system that the OP is using as a springboard for his idea.

OP: I tend to think that your idea isn't going to work; I've seen too many LARP games in which it turns out one player can predict another fairly well, and suddenly their character always wins at everything.

Segev
2014-10-06, 05:17 PM
Good ol' rock. Nothing beats rock.

Psyren
2014-10-07, 11:08 AM
Good ol' rock. Nothing beats rock.

Poor predictable Bart; always takes rock.

Shinken
2014-10-07, 02:18 PM
I suggest making it more implicit than explicit that you're playing RPS. Instead of declaring it such, name three "kinds" of maneuver, and give them an RPS kind of relationship. Have the players reveal the maneuvers they're attempting, then roll if they chose the same kind.
That's basically what I want to do, but doing it this way would require some kind of props and I'm trying to avoid it.


You could spin this into more depth, if you wanted, creating cycles of maneuvers within maneuver types, such that you have multiple "digits" of RPS comparisons to go through, and whichever has the most victories between the maneuvers chosen wins. You'd avoid ties entirely that way. Or at least, you could, if you were very careful about how you set it up.
I actually want ties to happen, because that's when you use the dice.


I've actually seen a card game that uses a similar concept - "Yomi" by Sirlin Games if you're curious. Strikes beat Grabs, Grabs beat Blocks/Dodges, and Blocks/Dodges beat Strikes. Each card might have a different special effect, and individual characters have different decks with different mixes of each basic type. Cards can also form combo chains like in a fighting game. The tricky bit is both players reveal their cards at the same time, so you have to guess ahead of time what they're going to try.

Just using janken / rock-paper-scissors might be a little shallow for anything but a LARP, but I can see how it might be expanded in a tabletop game.
I'll see if I can find it! Thanks.
The idea is not to use janken as *the* combat system, it's just part of the system. When you die, you roll dice.



OP: I tend to think that your idea isn't going to work; I've seen too many LARP games in which it turns out one player can predict another fairly well, and suddenly their character always wins at everything.
Yeah, that is one of my worries. I considered using numbers instead of janken to avoid the common traps.

It was suggested that I could use an expanded janken - like the variant with Lizard and Spock.

Segev
2014-10-09, 11:07 AM
That's basically what I want to do, but doing it this way would require some kind of props and I'm trying to avoid it.

I actually want ties to happen, because that's when you use the dice.

Yeah, that is one of my worries. I considered using numbers instead of janken to avoid the common traps.

It was suggested that I could use an expanded janken - like the variant with Lizard and Spock.

Have you ever heard of nontransitive dice? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontransitive_dice) I've been playing around with them conceptually for a while; you can actually go beyond the 3 player game version that uses 7 dice if you wanted to. You need 15 dice for a 4-player game, 31 dice for a 5-player game, 63 dice for a 6-player game...

Though in your case you don't need quite so strict an increase, just as many dice as you have "styles" or "moves" or however you want to break it down. But dice roll every time, but your choice of dice impact the odds of your winning the exchange. And there are no ties between dice as long as you have only one "set."

weckar
2014-10-09, 12:29 PM
Ummmm What's Janken?

Dusk Eclipse
2014-10-09, 12:46 PM
Rock paper scissors.

Shinken
2014-10-09, 02:35 PM
Have you ever heard of nontransitive dice? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontransitive_dice) I've been playing around with them conceptually for a while; you can actually go beyond the 3 player game version that uses 7 dice if you wanted to. You need 15 dice for a 4-player game, 31 dice for a 5-player game, 63 dice for a 6-player game...

Though in your case you don't need quite so strict an increase, just as many dice as you have "styles" or "moves" or however you want to break it down. But dice roll every time, but your choice of dice impact the odds of your winning the exchange. And there are no ties between dice as long as you have only one "set."

That sounds interesting, but nontransitive dice are basically props - and hard to find props at that. :smallfrown:

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-10-09, 02:52 PM
My main concern is that it feels...well...I don't like how you have to play out two steps for the combat.

Oddly enough, I'm okay with it in Burning Wheel, and I think it's because Burning Wheel uses pre-scripting: you plan a few moves into the future and write them down. Then, when comparing your moves against your enemy, you write it down.

But if you're not doing the pre-scripting, then to me it feels like an extra step, not very streamlined.

What if you assigned different die sizes (d4 vs d6 vs d8) to the three different types of moves? And had a different advantage to each one? Then on the count of three, both players take one of their three dice secretly and then openly roll it?

Shinken
2014-10-09, 03:16 PM
What if you assigned different die sizes (d4 vs d6 vs d8) to the three different types of moves? And had a different advantage to each one? Then on the count of three, both players take one of their three dice secretly and then openly roll it?
I was considering this, but this leads to problems with the totals, which is what my mechanic uses.
I'm now considering using dice of different colors for each maneuver class.

Btw, Sirlin Games has a free download of their Yomi game. Looks pretty cool! Maybe I should use playing cards as props? They are props, which kind of sucks, but they are even easier than dice to get.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-10-10, 11:12 AM
That could work; dice of varying colors shouldn't be too hard to get ahold of, though. You can usually find such dice at a dollar store.

Illogictree
2014-10-10, 01:29 PM
That sounds interesting, but nontransitive dice are basically props - and hard to find props at that. :smallfrown:

Not that hard; if you can find blank dice anywhere you can make your own. Or even just make them out of papercraft. :)

I've been playing around with anydice.com, and the basic 3 example nontransitive dice in the Wikipedia article show some interesting behaviors.

Each die has a 2 in 3 chance of beating itself, oddly enough.

If you add modifiers to the dice, only the difference between the modifiers is important (adding e.g. 3 to both dice results in the same results as just the base dice).

Generally modifiers have an impact only if you step them by 2, though the red vs. green match up (using the Wikipedia article's colors) steps on different numbers than the other two.

It takes a difference of +7 to ensure that the 'higher' die is unbeatable, and -8 to ensure the 'lower' die wins every time. (red vs. green is an outlier here; the other two match ups ensure a 'lower' victory after a modifier of -5)

I'll have to see if some of the other nontransitive dice sets show similar behavior, this is interesting.

RED: d{2, 2, 4, 4, 9, 9}
GREEN: d{1, 1, 6, 6, 8, 8}
BLUE: d{3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7}
ADD: 0
ALSO: 0
output RED+ADD > GREEN+ALSO
output GREEN+ADD > BLUE+ALSO
output BLUE+ADD > RED+ALSO
\output RED > RED\
\output GREEN> GREEN\
\output BLUE> BLUE\

Shinken
2014-10-11, 05:41 AM
Not that hard; if you can find blank dice anywhere you can make your own. Or even just make them out of papercraft. :)

I've been playing around with anydice.com, and the basic 3 example nontransitive dice in the Wikipedia article show some interesting behaviors.

Each die has a 2 in 3 chance of beating itself, oddly enough.

If you add modifiers to the dice, only the difference between the modifiers is important (adding e.g. 3 to both dice results in the same results as just the base dice).

Generally modifiers have an impact only if you step them by 2, though the red vs. green match up (using the Wikipedia article's colors) steps on different numbers than the other two.

It takes a difference of +7 to ensure that the 'higher' die is unbeatable, and -8 to ensure the 'lower' die wins every time. (red vs. green is an outlier here; the other two match ups ensure a 'lower' victory after a modifier of -5)

I'll have to see if some of the other nontransitive dice sets show similar behavior, this is interesting.

RED: d{2, 2, 4, 4, 9, 9}
GREEN: d{1, 1, 6, 6, 8, 8}
BLUE: d{3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 7}
ADD: 0
ALSO: 0
output RED+ADD > GREEN+ALSO
output GREEN+ADD > BLUE+ALSO
output BLUE+ADD > RED+ALSO
\output RED > RED\
\output GREEN> GREEN\
\output BLUE> BLUE\

That's too much trouble for most people. I'm trying to make an easy to play game and trying to get it to work fine online, as well. The more props I use, the less it works for what I want it to do. :smallfrown:

Illogictree
2014-10-11, 12:32 PM
That's too much trouble for most people. I'm trying to make an easy to play game and trying to get it to work fine online, as well. The more props I use, the less it works for what I want it to do. :smallfrown:

Well, I guess that's true, it would be a bit more work than some would like. (Although some people, like me, would probably like to get some nontransitive dice anyway just to have them :smallsmile:)

Incidentally, just continuing my thoughts from the previous post, Miwin's Dice show similar but much more smooth behavior. Every difference between modifiers has an impact and it seems to up to +9 / -9 rather than +/-7. Plus they have the advantage of having different values on all faces and so 'look' like normal dice. I might have to use this in a game myself at some point.

Segev
2014-10-13, 08:45 AM
Hm. The trouble with jankenpon online is that most media of exchange will have one person's post show before the other's, which means that there's always the chance to cheat. Unless you have a lot of private messages to the GM to let him know what everybody's doing, and then they announce in the open after he confirms he has all the responses. Which can, itself, slow things down.

Most dicebots can be re-written to handle any kind of die, too. At least, any kind of sidedness. That said, a similar problem of favor going to the one who chooses second exists.