HOU: Distress as Brain Posture, FILO, Other Combat Thoughts

(I laid out a sort of post-plan previously but not even one proper post in and I'm abandoning it. Sorry! But it's in the name of "just post" energy).

I mentioned my plan for a Balance-based HP system prior. More or less all of that remained true into the current draft, so I'm just going to jump off from there to quickly wrap up combat-thoughts.

Distress

As another character-sheet-attackable, imagine Posture HP again but for your mind. But different.

yes again JoJo- I swear I consume other things; this just keeps happening to be useful 

When something significantly unsettling, stressful, spooky, or ゴゴゴ happens- your character becomes Distressed. This isn't long-term stress or morale or anything like that, this is gauging pure jump-scare moment-to-moment adrenaline reaction sort of stuff.

With a moment to Steady themselves, your character can easily take a breath and recompose themselves; just like with their Balance for the Posture system.

But if some more bullshit catches them off guard, that means it's up to the player to pick whether its fight or flight.

• Fight: press on and face it, but you are shaky and easy pickings the whole time
• Flight: running away is honestly such a good strategy

Or for a little more nuance, there's the other 3 F's.

• Freeze: Freezing up in a dangerous situation is probably not advantageous (although, if you are in a safe enough spot that a friend can shake you out of it?), but I also can picture Distress being used in situations where taking a second to think can help as well. Giving a speech and your rival throws you off? Sitting in a slowly ticking death trap? Freaking out might mess you up more than the reaction tine lost.
• Forfeit: Surrender often can lead to unique situations!
• Faint: Okay this one probably for sure isn't ever going to be picked by the players, but it's not for them. Since their enemies also operate on the same rules, all of these 5 F's also can act as alternative non-violent ways of ending a conflict mechanically.

Afflictions

"Injuring" players is more codified as giving them "Afflictions"; as a sort of catch-all for any less-conventional injuries, mutations, etc. While I have some example ones written down, a lot of these can just be thought of as "placing a restriction on what the target can do." Slash their hand? Can't use that hand. Burn their eyes? Can't see anything. More creative mechanical options work too, but I figure on-the-fly this is simple & intuitive enough.

Engagement

Everyone (only sometimes) has a sort of secret extra layer of defence in melee combat: you actually have to be in range to swing a weapon at them.

In HOU, this might mean using your whole turn to 1. move up to them and 2. begin combat with them proper. While it's a little less intuitive, I think it will be important mechanically?

• It really really disincentives charging in swinging. If you run right in and start the fight, you're basically giving them the chance to swing at you first. Instead either circling each other and waiting for the right move, ganging up on someone, using cheap tricks, etc is way safer!
• If the target also happens to be faster than you and you run in to engage them 1:1, they basically can easily wipe you out without an exit strategy.
• Conversely and more importantly: it gives players a chance to react with any sort of violent monster that would run right up to them and start swinging.
• Spells & Projectile Weapons sort of ignore this, but they also tend to be slower in Initiative and have other considerations to worry about.

Weapons

I have boiled everything down into 5- technically*- kinds of weapons.

This all starts with just like, your stock standard one-handed Melee weapon, serving as the archetype against which any other kind of weapon is judged.

• Small: In my previous house rules grappling basically meant that targets using small weapons auto-hit each other, and targets using big dumb weapons auto-missed. That sort of ethos of grappling-as-equalizer carries on here too. Per the Balance post, a target wearing a ton of armour might be real tough to deal with in conventional 1:1 non-magical combat; but getting the drop on them and grabbing and shanking them where they are unarmored hopefully feels like an intuitive strategy for players.

• Ranged: With every character essentially having limited actions, theater of the mind, & 2 HP- Ranged weapons would basically be unstoppable. Besides just including cover as balance, making Ranged Weapons act lower in Initiative felt natural. It gives players times to observe the threat, and dramatically dive to cover before they become pincushions.

• Heavy: Since there is no HP, Big Weapon = More Damage wasn't on the table. So instead, again trying to think of real combat a bit, Big Weapon = Controlling the Space, like swinging around a big sword or holding people off with a polearm. Mechanically this became attacking targets without being engaged; making the threat more naturally that charging in against the guy with the big weapon means they can poke you before you poke them.

• Binding: I'll level with you: I wanted a non-violent option for players and thought all the ropey/chain weapons were a good way to do it.

*Technically whether a weapon is blunt / slashing / piercing sort of matters, but really its the sort of thing that can be figured contextually right? Mace beats skeleton, axe beats plant, etc.

FILO Initiative

I originally adopted a FILO each-character-has-a-turn system for a few reasons.

1. In TTRPGs, I Don't Like Healers

A lot of better & older writing exists on this so I'll be brief, but the role of "sit and undo our mistakes" in more standard D&D type games stinks.

In older version of my house rules, instead I adopted an Estus Flask sort of system as a precursor to my current Balance system. Every player could heal themselves a little bit by just steadying themselves. If a player still wanted to engage in supportive play, instead they had to distract enemies, make openings or protect players to create that precious window for them to take care of themselves.

That sort of thought carries over here, just even moreso when everyone sorta has 2 HP.

2. Interrupting People is Fun

You ever think of those scenes in martials arts flicks or like swashbuckling sword movies where the bad guy is about to strike someone down and then another character unexpectedly jumps in to defend them?

Or in a heist movie when someone does a last minute improvisation to cover up a mistake?

Or like you ever play a game and someone is about to do a winning play but then you last minute stop them?

I love that shit- and FILO is a really good way of getting that dynamism and turnabout energy in any situation, combat or non-combat.

3. Timing as a Form of Defence

Besides whats been brought up previously- being fast lets you dictate fights + interrupting people trying to harm you- the existence of a clear & visible turn order also gives players a little buffer, sort of like a strategy game.

You know whose going to be coming up when, so the timing & information really help players formulate strategies... if they aren't distracted, which blessedly I haven't had to deal with as much since college.

4. Timing Makes for Fun Character Abilities

Depending on how deep a breakdown I do for the list of abilities I wrote, I can go into this more in-depth, but design-space wise I love letting players bend rules and cheat. Messing with the turn order or action economy in general is a nice intuitive fun way to provide them then with defence, offense, utility, etc all in one.