Captain Anorak's
Guide to Gaming
Combat Psychology
The question of whether or not characters should have psychological
stats is discussed in another essay. This
essay covers the problems inherent in statting combat psychology.
Once long ago, I tried to write a set of rules for combat psychology
in a skirmish battlegame with firearms, which would contain some
roleplaying elements.
Characters had two psychological stats, Bravery (to
overcome fear) and Calm (to overcome the urge to attack). The rules went
like this:
At the start of each combat round:
1. Make a Bravery test for the character. If he fails the test by
1 or 2 points, he moves into cover. If he fails by 3 or more points,
he flees.
2. If he succeeds in the Bravery test, make a Calm test. If he fails,
he opens fire on the nearest enemy target.
3. If the character succeeds in both tests, then the player chooses
his action.
There were various modifiers to Bravery and Calm which essentially
meant that it got harder to pass the tests once any combat had started,
and got more difficult as the casualties mounted.
This made sense for a game with shooting in. My reasoning was that
at the start of the game, the characters of the two sides would be
expecting violence to start, and would have their fingers on the triggers
ready. As soon as one person started shooting, everyone would start
shooting, like at the end of Reservoir Dogs or True Romance. Since the
shooting was pretty deadly, the side which opened fire first had a good
chance of wiping out its enemy and thus ensuring its own survival.
Then I tried to apply this same thinking to a roleplaying game. I
soon started to see problems with this: this system can not be applied
to hand-to-hand combat. If you use the same rules system, but you say
that failing the Calm test means that a character rushes forward to
engage a foe in hand-to-hand combat, the results seem a bit silly.
Imagine: a group of player character warriors is facing up against
a group of Orcs. A character fails a Calm test: he rushes forward out
of the group, charges the Orcs and attacks the nearest one. I have to
say, I don't think many seasoned fighters would behave like that. There
might be a few battle-hungry maniacs who would do it, but for most
people the instinct toward strength in numbers and security in the pack
would lead the group to stay together and fight as a unit.
The upshot is that I found it impossible to write a sensible set of
rules that would cover both missile and melee combat. Also, in these
rules the psychological stat tests were modified by the numbers of
friends and enemies present. That's fine in a boardgame with two distinct
sides, but in an RPG it may be unclear who is a friend and who an enemy,
making it impossible to put numbers on these things.