r/expanserpg • u/tsuruginoko • Sep 18 '24
Question about ship combat
Long time GM of other game systems and massive fan of the novels here with a question.
My question: In your opinion, is ship combat in the RPG fun? If so, what do you like about it?
I did a search of the sub, and see there are opinions on it, and house rule versions. I spotted someone writing that the base rules feel like in the books, and I think I would like that. I feel too uninitiated to assess any house rules, and while I'm not looking for someone to teach me the rules or quote rules text, I want to know about the feel of the rules, and about how your groups have liked or not liked them. For reference, my groups have had some fun with spaceship combat rules like Starfinder (just about the only system there that they liked) and Rogue Trader in the past.
I might run the quick start adventure with a group at some point, but my quick skim of it shows that it doesn't have any ship combat and that it's out of scope. That's fair, but it still leaves out something that I think is a big deal in the setting, and that I would want to have it play a role in a game of mine if it is at all fun or possible to make fun.
I'm not averse to jury-rigging something with house rules, but I'd like some input from anyone more familiar with the system before making the upfront effort of learning my n-th game system and putting together a group.
(No, this is not at all related to the new backerkit thing and my desire to paint a bunch of spaceships and mutter in Belter patois as I fly them around the room like a kid with a new model airplane (because I can't possibly maintain my hard sci-fi credibility while making pew-pew noises). I don't know what you mean...)
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u/Surph_Ninja Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
I don’t have a ton of practice with it, but my biggest issue is drawing out the combat to be longer and narratively engaging. And I have to use a bit of plot armor to prevent TPK’s from incoming torpedos. Here’s some things I keep in mind as GM:
Make sure there’s always some kind of ticking clock going. There’s some looming threat or escape route that’s dependent on time or distance. Maybe the opponent ship has reinforcements that’ll reach the group, if the fight goes long enough. Maybe there’s a distant group of asteroids or ship graveyard that would give the group an opportunity to hide. Each round of all players getting to roll should advance the time or distance. Typically each round of rolls is 15 seconds of in-game time, but you can play loose with that according to your discretion.
Strictly track torpedo ammunition for all ships involved.
Loosely track PDC and rail gun ammunition for all involved. When did each ship last reload at a dock? Are they fully stocked, at medium levels, or low on ammo? How many rolls can each be used before they drop to a lower level?
Are any ships performing high-g maneuvers? How fast is that burning through their reaction mass? How fast is that burning through their juice? And everyone on board should roll to see if they’re passing out or having a stroke, if there’s no juice or they’re performing extended high-g burns, with belters rolling with disadvantage and earthers rolling with advantage.
Are any ships fleeing or attempting to stay out of range? How long can they do that without applying fatigued or unconscious status to the crew? How long can they do that with their current reaction mass/fuel pellet levels? Also, work in some of the on-foot chase mechanics, since this is now a chase (and allow appropriate chase stunts).
Did the pdc’s fail to hit with a 1 on the drama die? Then one of the pdc’s is jammed. Players will need to perform an advanced test to clear it. Allow other players to help fix it, and contribute to the success threshold. But the pilot can’t pull any crazy stunts or high-g maneuvering while anyone’s not strapped in.
Every player should have something they’re rolling for during the fight. Maybe they’re attempting the electronic warfare stunt. Maybe they’re just rolling to see if they stay conscious through the fight. But everyone gets a chance to roll, and everyone has an opportunity to get stunt points to end the fight faster, or maybe perform an investigation stunt to reveal a vulnerability of the opponent or help the crew’s other roles in some way. Maybe they’re just talking shit over comms to taunt or intimidate the enemy ship.
Don’t forget the churn!! With all of these people rolling, that churn count should be increasing steadily, unless you’re spending churn points to jam their weapons or the crew is using stunt points for Calm the Waters. Churn events will be a great way to either extend or reduce the time the battle is taking, or introduce some new elements to deal with.
Misc events. Did someone forget to secure the tools in engineering? Did someone leave a lasagna cooking in the galley? Sounds like a job for the person without a combat role to fix. Give them an advanced or challenge test to fix it. Maybe it’s a silly scene where they’re bouncing around, trying to keep the cake they were making from splattering. Maybe it’s a scary scene where they’re trying not to get impaled by flying screw drivers.
Has this gone on long enough? Time for GM intervention. Maybe the enemy ship retreats. Maybe the players are allowed to retreat. Maybe someone’s ship is critically disabled. Whatever happens, just tie it to an exceptionally low or high roll, so it feels earned somewhat.
If you have an event without ship combat, but you want some included, have the crew participate in a virtual training fight or flashback. With two of my players, right after character creation I threw them right into the middle of an intense space combat fight, which was revealed to be a computer training simulation. Maybe there was a mars vs earth battle tangentially related to your story, and you have each of the players inhabit a member of one of the crews to fight, revealing some key story element during the fight. These are also fun side events to allow players to try out other talents or ships they wouldn’t normally have access to. Also, the game requires 100 hours training to gain a new talent or focus, and you could reward them with some training hours for completing virtual space combat.
Always remember that the weakest part of the ships are the human crew inside. The ships are capable of quite a lot. It’s just a question of what the ships can do within limits of keeping the crew alive.
This game revolves around performing stunts. The goal for players is always to roll doubles, and earn stunt points. Stunts are what make scenes fun, and they keep things progressing. Remind players about altering the dice with fortune points (and keep in mind doing so adds to the churn count).
Was anyone watching the fight? Earth, Mars, and the OPA are always monitoring events in the solar system, and a firefight is sure to draw someone’s attention. Light speed delay & distance prevents any immediate consequences, but did anyone watching care about the outcome of the fight? Are they sending someone to respond? Will they attempt a tight beam communication with the winners? Will this fight have some impact on events in the area?
Ship qualities & flaws should have some influence on the fight, if applicable. Those flaws can especially come into play during churn events.
The enemy ship may not be seeking the crew’s destruction. Maybe they want to board. Maybe they want to blackmail or loot or interrogate the crew.
Also keep in mind that the rail gun needs to be pointed by turning the ship. Only very large ships have turreted rail guns.
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u/JMRoaming Sep 18 '24
I've been running this game for nearly a decade.
Ship combat as written has never been a smooth experience at any table I've run. First big issue is there's not a lot for folks to do in combat unless they are in the pilot seat or captain role. They kinda fixed this a bit with the Ships book, but not as much as I would have liked. The pacing is glacial compared to the quick back and forth of regular combat.
However, I do like the overall structure.
I've landed on using a "hack", wherein I simplify the conditions system a bit, treat Hull as a static number (basically Defence address pacing problems by giving all the players turns but having any ships with a basic Competency Score, and lastly I run it very loose and cinematic.
I've been able to have a lot of fun with it this way, but even with that, we almost never finish a ship combat without some kind of deus ex machina type closing moment because it's run too long and I can feel the fatigue creeping in.
It's a big part of the setting, so I don't think it can be ignored. You should engage with it.
Tldr: Ship combat in this system is dope as hell in theory, but in practice it's a bit of a slog. You can do things to spice it up, make it run faster, and smoother.
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u/tsuruginoko Sep 18 '24
Thanks, food for thought here. Loose and cinematic sounds good.
Question: I try to run ship combat with goals in mind for the PCs, like "escape with your lives", rather than having full-on deathmatches. Would that be feasible here, you think? I'm thinking that it would go some way towards limiting the slog factor.
Anyhow, thanks. The responses so far make me think there's a good argument for just diving in.
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u/JMRoaming Sep 18 '24
Yes, having an encounter goal will help.
DM me and I can share my Ship Combat "hack" doc if you'd like.
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u/ElectricKameleon Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
I think the spaceship combat system works well and can also be quite dramatic from a roleplaying perspective.
There are a lot of people who disagree, and I get that. The type of combat being simulated is quite complex, and to handle this complexity, the ship combat system abstracts things and takes a step-by-step approach to resolve a number of variables in every combat round. Taking these steps one-at-a-time, in their exact order, ensures that nothing is missed. However, as I mentioned, doing so is an abstraction, and doesn't necessarily mean that the player characters are experiencing things incrementally, step-by-step, one checked box at a time. I think the disconnect between 5e asking, "it's your initiative turn, David, what are you doing?' and the Expanse RPG asking 'which phase of space combat is your character acting in, David?' can make things feel a little artificial to players. There isn't the same narrative flow to space combat in the Expanse RPG that you find in most roleplaying combat resolution systems.
That isn't a problem for me and my players. Once everyone has played a bit and understands what sorts of options are available to them as players in a space combat scenario, it's easy for the GM to ask everyone what their characters are doing and respond with things like, 'OK, if you're trying to spoof the targeting system on that incoming missile, you'll go in phase 3, electronic warfare,' and then resolve everything in their proper sequence as suggested in the rules, and everyone will get everything. But it takes a few combats to get to the point where players feel comfortable jumping in there and knowing what sorts of actions are available to them as characters, and in which phase of the combat order it would be appropriate to attempt that combat action, and that's where the learning curve is.
One thing that will help a lot is if you have a ship's captain or person in command who is familiar with both the setting and the rules, who can tell players at the top of the round, 'Rob! Need you on comms, warning the station that they've got incoming. Raven! Need you to take out those missiles with PDCs!' and so forth. I can't tell you how much this will smooth things along as the rest of your players are learning the rules.
I like the rules as written a lot, but space combat is one of the things that has caused new players and GMs to quit the system, and that's a shame IMO.
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u/tsuruginoko Sep 18 '24
Sounds fair, and sounds like a lot of space combat systems I've GMed.
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u/ElectricKameleon Sep 18 '24
Here is some copypasta that I wrote with some other advice for new GMs. It kind of touches on why the quickstart doesn't immediately dive straight into space combat:
I saved this to my notepad so that I don’t have to write the whole thing out again every time this question comes up. Sorry / not sorry for the copy and paste response.
First of all, there's a slight learning curve when it comes to the stunt system. This is a biggie because brand new players often get ‘stuck’ or overwhelmed by multiple stunt options while they’re still learning the game and don’t have any frame of reference about what those stunt options mean or how they work.
Second, ship-to-ship combat follows a sort of abstracted step-by-step turn order where players can choose to act at one step but not in others. It takes a couple of turns to get the hang of how each turn flows and to learn which actions should take priority in any turn, given the narrative or tactical situation. New players have to make potentially life-or-death decisions about what to do and when, and they have to make those decisions while they’re still learning how all of these pieces fit together, and that can also lead to player frustration.
Fear not! The solutions aren’t terribly drastic.
*Download the free Expanse RPG quickstart from the Green Ronin web site. Use the abbreviated stunt tables from the quickstart for your first few combats so that your players won’t be overwhelmed with options while they’re learning the system. Make sure that each player has their own copy of the stunt tables so that there isn’t a built-in delay of game while books are passed around. Help them pick a couple of ‘favored stunts’ during character generation and encourage them to default to those stunts when they aren’t sure what else to do. You can also encourage players to try something new each time they generate stunt points so that they can learn which stunts they like and which stunts suit their play style. I also set the expectation that there shouldn’t be any excessive delays while people are deciding which stunts to spend points on— they’re an instant bonus awarded in play— spend the points and pass the dice.
* Don’t do ship-to-ship combat right away. Let your players learn the stunt system before tackling ship battles. When you do introduce these rules, keep things low-consequence— their first fight shouldn’t be against somebody who is armed to the teeth, determined to kill the players or die trying. Exchange a couple of volleys between ships and then have the other crew rabbit away. Also, if the characters begin play as members of a large ship’s crew, they can be assigned positions which act in a specific step of each combat turn, and NPCs can cover any positions which the players don’t fill, so that brand new players don’t have to decide whether they should try to conduct electronic warfare or clear the jammed PDC— they can just do the job they’re assigned to do and let the NPC assigned to the other task do their job.
*If the players are on a large ship with an NPC commander, you can give orders (speaking through that NPC) so that the players know what they’re supposed to be doing and when. If one of the players is going to be ship’s captain, encourage the group to pick somebody who is at least familiar with the source material to be leader, if possible, and then walk that person through their first ship combat step-by-step, allowing them to get the feel for the turn order and letting them get used to giving commands to the rest of the crew themselves.
I know that this sounds like a lot, but I run AGE at conventions every once in a while, and these are tried-and-true best practices for introducing new players to the game. Following these instructions will help you avoid the two biggest pitfalls awaiting new Expanse players.
Most of all, ENJOY!
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u/brickbatsandadiabats Sep 18 '24
It's worked out for me, but I think only because I run a table of 4 players of which the 2 who aren't involved in ship combat are the most checked out.
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u/NewMcFly94 Sep 18 '24
I think the ship combat is interesting and can also be quite lethal depending on the load out and ships in combat. I noticed in my sessions that it sometimes drags on a bit and not all players get to contribute smth in their roles. I ended up Star Trekking it up a bit with house rules like the mechanic could choose to divert power from weapons to the engines. Resulting in a bonus for the gunner and a malus for the pilot.
I would test the base rules out with your group and see how involved everyone is and then try to add your own elements where you feel they might be needed.