How to Run Combat in a Combatless System*
Strange Times does not treat combat differently from normal gameplay. Players do not enter initiative, and while we do have weapons and player health pools, these things don't work the way you might imagine!
We'll be writing a few designer diaries and discussing why we wanted to avoid special combat mechanics sometime soon, but the short summary is: we felt including combat mechanics didn't support the horror themes of our game! Having these mechanics added nothing to the tension and slowed the game down.
* For those of you that are combat-inclined, we included a page of optional rules that you can use to introduce more traditional combat mechanics in your game
First off, how can we have weapons but not use weapon stat blocks? By acknowledging that a weapon is just a tool. Whenever you use a weapon, you use it with a goal in mind and make a Roll to see how successful you were at achieving that goal.
In the gameplay example at the end of this post, the players use a firearm to distract a troll and buy enough time for their escape. In our own sessions, we've used them to slow down charging aliens, thin out hoards of ravenous fairies, but never to dispatch threats entirely.
During a hostile encounter, players can still lose health. In Strange Times, the players Saves function as health pools, and physical damage reduces a players Body Save. Take a lot of damage at once, and you may have to roll for a Body Save to see what kind of injury your character suffers.
I actually just wrote about how lowered Saves open up the player to worse consequences when failing rolls. This means that the old adage "the only hit point that matters is the last one" isn't true. Health is more than just a separation from death, it’s an active measurement of how much danger you are in.
As for how to handle player order during a Hostile Encounter: the GM should apply pressure to the players and ask them to respond to what the active threat is doing.
The threat does not have a "turn." Any failed rolls during a hostile encounter should result in some type of Damage or negative effect from the threat, and inactive players should be pressured to make Saves to avoid harm. Hostile Encounters should feel like a game of tennis, with the GM constantly volleying balls at players (is that how tennis is played..? I have no idea...)
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If you liked any of these mechanics and want to try Strange Times, the demo and several modules are available for free on our website!
The home of the Strange Times: An Investigative Horror RPG
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A full example of gameplay during a Hostile Encounter is shown below the cut.
