The Strategy, Risk &
 Intent System (SRI)

Introduction

Roleplaying has its roots in "lets pretend" but goes beyond this (primarily as their are rules for who wins confrontations and what things are possible or not) . The action resolution system I'm presenting has its roots in another child's game that of "Rock/Paper/Scissors" and of course goes beyond this (primarily in that actions have differing degrees of results not just win, loose or draw, often it is a process and the choice isn't a choice of childhood weapons but one of tactics).

A Step by Step Method

This is a simultaneous action resolution system or to be more acurate actions designed to counter or prevent or interfere with your opponents action resolve simultaneous to the action they are modifying. At some level in personal conflict this includes all actions .   Player versus Player and mass conflict methods require  special attention in particular I am thinking of cards used to record and conceal strategies and resolutions.

Story Guide : Decide on the adversaries and supporting casts plans of action first, you could use dice to decide this.
Complex tables could allow  npc's style to be presented in action, and speed the process when the Story Guides brain is feeling burnt, but canned action descriptions can also deaden the flavor.   Elements of the player versus player method will probably be needed to allow the actions of many storyguide characters to be remembered and in order to maintain the SG objectivity, specifically the use of cards.

  1. Is their action ( Direct : Responsive : Fake ) ?
  2. Is their action ( Risky,  Balanced, Cautious, or Sacrifice ) ?
  3. What is their intent? (beyond thwarting their opponents apparent intent)

Story Guide : Have the players describe their characters actions. 
Players:  Describe your characters actions/plan of action... in narrative terms (lots of adverbs please).  One of the differences in this system from many others is that in some ways it is less important what your character is doing than in how he does it. Vivid descriptions come in handy here, and story guides may grant special bonuses to actions who description is interesting. Even waiting and seeing what an opponent appears to be doing is an action. 

Story Guide: Analyze each players action description according to the same parameters as above

Story Guide :  Use the action descriptions to resolve the conflict. The sum of the riskiness of each party is of benefit to both parties and the winning strategy gets its own additional reward, Strategic Success ( direct - defeats -  fake - defeats - responsive - defeats direct ) .  Difficulty of the action (opponents baseline defense/offense?) is Subtracted from each users ability and modified by strategy and the sum of the risks.   Sacrifice moves automatically cause loss of position during the characters next action  to increase your potential results/decrease your opponents results during this action.

Partial Example using  FUDGE stats use below as the base result of opposed actions... 
  • Both characters are being cautious  : terrible
  • One balanced and one cautious : poor
  • One balanced and one risky :fair
  • Both characters are performing risky moves : good
  • otherwise caution and risk are balanced : mediocre

winning strategy gains 1 rank of effectiveness loosing strategy looses 1 (this can be increased to 2 ranks or so depending on how heavy you want the decisions to have influence)

Ability Advantage between combatants modifies this further... 

Moves which are explicitly a defense further subtract their result from the opponents base result.

+6 Transcendental
+5 Mythic
+4 Legendary
+3 Superb 
+2 Great
+1 Good
0 Fair 
-1 Mediocre
-2 Poor 
-3 Terrible 
-4 Negligible
bladed attacks cause damage equal to the base effectiveness 
spiked are -1 but cause imbalance as one rank better
blunt weapons -2 but cause imbalance/loss of position as two ranks better.
soft weapons are an additional -1.
two handed weapons are treated as 1 extra level of risk, increasing offensive results for both combatants.

Story Guide: describe the results of each non conflicted action, followed by the results of each pair of conflicting actions.

Additional Examples:

I will present some prepackaged maneuvers (at the moment these presume a broader range of possible risk and result than the above simple example) for melee combat here which include the strategy and risk.  Any published game would probably need a very in depth set of such canned moves (a.k.a. spells)  specifically to define how magick can be visualized in terms of these strategies and risks, but a monolog of how such mystic combat would flow may be all that is needed for the most spontaneous and imaginative among us (or not).

Strategy, Risk and Intent Cards

In player versus player combat you will somehow need to be able to simultaneously reveal risk, strategy and  intent.
One method might be to write down a description of  your moves resolution and describe its initiation verbally.

A more handy thing might be to mark up cards with these elements and combine them face down.
Revealing them during resolution in order Risk Strategy and Intent you can verbally describe them as they
are revealed

Strategy - Direct

Strategy - Responsive

Strategy - Fake/Fancy

Risk - Very Risky

Risk - Agressive 

Risk - Balanced 

Risk - Cautious 

Risk - Defensive

Sacrifice (increase ability this round by risk
decrease ability next by X)

Intent - Harm

Intent - Force Loss

Intent - Gain Attack Position

Intent - Gain Defense Position