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Whenever I read through the rules for most role-playing games, I find it interesting when some mention “combat is just a kind of opposed roll, but it usually takes a number of rolls to determine the outcome”. The reason is simple – combat is usually the main conflict of most games, the point in time when your builds, equipment, strategy and cunning all come into play. (Strangely, though, it’s hard to find formal rules for skill checks which could doom a character if he fails just one roll, like falling down into a bottomless pit). Yet I have GMed games which combat take an hour to go through, and I have known D&D combats which went for 2 to 3 hours. Is there a faster way to resolve combat while keeping it fun, and allow players to employ tactics?

Why a One Roll Combat?

The idea of one roll combats come from video games – the famous “reaction sequences” from God of War and its numerous clones as well as the Time Crisis arcade games. In those games, usually, out from nowhere, an enemy will launch at you or an event will demand your immediate attention. On the screen a button will flash and you have to hit it at the right timing to avert imminent doom. Resident Evil 4 uses this to good effort, with an entire fights played through by pressing a combination of right buttons.

An armed confrontation, in a RPG, is usually a time for thrill and action-packed roleplaying; but sometimes tactical rules could drag the process down and it becomes a number-crunching, planning-laden process. The motive of thinking up a one-roll combat is to have the thrill of combat without all the lengthy dice rolling.

When to use One Roll Combat?

One of the features of old-school dungeon crawls, and in console rpgs, are random encounters (or planned encounters for the the good old dungeon). The intent is to soften up the adventurers before they come to meet the final bad guy at the end. The idea of one roll combats is for those cases – not for epic, dramatic, pivotal showdowns (which are often slow-downs as well)  but for fighting mooks.

A lot of emphasis on one roll combat is more than just attribute + skill or a roll-under of certain sum of number – but also the use of environment, tactics and strategies to outsmart your opponent. While usually in a normal combat encounter the usage of those is broken into several rounds, for a one-roll combat system this is all abstracted in one quick roll (or several rolls, for each of the player).

Actually, another inspiration for this idea comes from Tunnels and Trolls, where everyone rolls their combat dice and adds and compare it with the monsters. No movement chart, no flanks or attacks of opportunities. Well, no formal rules, anyway. It is possible to use “saving rolls” for other effects, but there’s only GM’s fiat to work that out.

Likely Objections to ORC

Right, typing “One Roll Combat” is tiring my fingers out, so let use ORC as its shorten name instead. One of the biggest objections to ORC is that it takes out all the planning and the fun crunchy part of the game. It’s a valid one; however, ORC is not intended to replace all combat. It is a pacing tool, as one could see later.

A second challenge to ORC is what if it doesn’t incorporate all the nuances of combat? For example, if designing an ORC for D&D 3.5 and it doesn’t take into consideration iterative attacks, fighters may feel ‘nerfed’ when using the ORC system (or for D&D 4, the inability for fighters to mark targets for a long term advantage). For such reason, ironically ORC is good for medium rules heavy game instead of ultra-heavy ones – unless the players are all right with the inconsistency. One thing to stress though is that ORC is a pacing tool – it is  intended for “mook combat” , an alternative to “only 2 combat scenes per game” as fully ran combat could run up to an hour.

A Simple One Roll Combat System for Fate 3.0

To start off simple, let’s consider a ORC for Fate 3.0 (where ORC is the acronym for One Roll Combat). The SRD for Fate 3.0 is online and at any rate it is based on FUDGE. The concept is simple.

1. The mob is given a level, maybe Average (+1) or Good (+3). The GM will roll 4dF for the mob, add it to the it’s level and hide the result.
2. Each player has a chance to use one skill (and if they wish, tag an Aspect or two) in the fight. That skill represents their main thrust of strategy in the combat. A character who uses the Weapon skill is of course, engaging in combat. Another character may use Leadership in an attempt to coordinate the battle. One may use Stealth to try to stay hidden and cause distractions.
3. Players will roll their skill.
4. Each player compare his skill to what the GM has rolled. For each player, if he rolls lower than the mob, he takes a physical stress equal to the number of shift. If the player has rolled higher, the mob takes 1 point of damage. Keep track of the running damage.

For each point of damage taken by the mob, its quality drops by one level. Once it is reduced to mediocre (+0), the mob is dispersed or utterly destroyed. Hence, a mob of Fair quality (+2) upon taking 2 or more points of damage would not be of any threat. If this is too easy, consider this variant – for every point of damage equal to the number of players, the quality of the mob drop by 1. So for 4 characters, if there are 4 points of damage, the mob’s quality will go down by 1.

Only evaluate whether the mob’s threat is neutralised after giving resolving each roll of the player’s.

Of course, some skills would not be applicable during a a pitched battle (for example, Academics), so it’s the GM’s call whether a skill can be used. Depending on the nature of the enemy, certain skills may be penalised. A character going hand to hand with a bunch of gangsters wielding tommy guns may get a disadvantage via tagging of an aspect.

Doing an ORC fo Fate is simple, really. Let try something with medium crunch next – Dragon Warriors.

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