This blog is primarily dedicated to musings around systemic design. How we can give more power to the players and generate emergent experiences. One of the things that countless games have done in various ways is combat. Yet, no matter how many combat-driven games gets made, we’re likely to see more of them.

Before we get into the systemic design, however, we need to know how we treat our combat. We need to figure out our combat design philosophy. Is it the type of combat where limbs are cut off and all that happens is that the black knight shrugs and says “just a flesh wound?” Or is it the kind where the enemy you just shot is writhing in pain and crying for several seconds before finally perishing?

In this article, I will look at combat in games from a general high level perspective. In four separate future articles I will go into how to implement systemic versions of them. Exactly when those see the light of day, we’ll just have to wait and see. They’ve turned out to be a lot more complex to write than my other systemic articles.

War and Peace

In the tabletop role-playing community, or more specifically the Dungeons & Dragons community, two kinds of combat philosophy are generally acknowledged and/or the strong preference of different groups.

In Combat as Sport, players want to put their efforts against non-player characters or other players. Balancing is crucial, even if asymmetry is often added to create an interesting possibility space. All of the fighting happens in relative safety with clear conditions for who wins and who loses. It’s more about the number crunching, optimisation, and competitive elements than it is about lethality or the fight itself.

In Combat as War, the ends justify the means and getting the upper hand through strategic decisions and logistics is more important than the act of fighting. It’s implicitly more “realistic,” since it doesn’t care about balancing and is often more dangerous to its participants. It’s less about defeating the enemy in the most effective way possible and more about achieving strategic or tactical objectives at minimal risk and expense.

A third kind of combat is used in games designed for passive observation, and it’s the kind of combat that Hollywood makes frequent use of.

In Combat as Drama, the winning is never as important as the struggle. Knowing who to vie for, knowing what’s at stake and to whom, and understanding how the situation escalates from beat to beat and culminates in a pivotal climax. Stories need endings, and few endings are as definitive as the death, condemnation, or even redemption of an enemy.

To understand what we are trying to achieve with systemic combat, let’s explore these three some more.

Anatomy of a Sport

Sport can be contentious to define, but there are some common features that we can consider. They’re not common to all sports, but common enough to provide us with a framework.

Rules

Sports have rules for many reasons. Some to make the game itself balanced and competitive, others to guarantee competitor safety or even competition legality. Things like the general banning of anabolic steroids and the prohibition of electrical motors from Tour de France bicycles are rules same as any other. Many countries have whole organisations dedicated to the approval and policing of athletic regulations, with the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the sport.

Fouls

With rules in place, there also needs to be ways to detect and punish participants who cheat. A boxer who falls out of the ring gets a 20-second count where spectators and others are not allowed to help the boxer back in. If the count runs its course, the match is ceded to the ring-leaver’s opponent. In other words: breaking the rule to stay in the ring can cost you the match. There’s also a weigh-in prior to the match, and medical examinations like blood tests designed to discover use of prohibited substances.

Competition

Clear rules with clearly defined consequences for breaking them means that you can train for a sport. You can learn the rules and work hard to achieve better results against other participants respecting the same rules.

Working to improve your track record, knockout punch, or cardio, is directly tied to your performance in the sport. Skill is about being better than your competitors. Rules mean you can become the best.

But competition is also about trying, failing, and coming back later to try again. Though the winner usually takes it all, there can be consolation prizes, participation awards, and there are not just gold but also silver and bronze medals awarded to those who place second or third. There is also the next competition, and the next one after that.

Entertainment

Many sports are tailored not just for participants to compete on equal terms, but also to provide entertainment. Large arenas are built to house their fields, courts, and rings. Sports can draw crowds of hundreds of thousands—even millions in the digital and broadcast realms—that will celebrate or suffer alongside their favorite athletes.

This adds more requirements. Not only must the sport have rules for the sake of competition and legality; now it must also have rules that can be clearly understood by spectators. Rules must be consistent. Unlike board and role-playing game communities, where house rules and custom exceptions are fairly common, a sport must remain strictly rules as written (RAW), and the use of referees becomes crucial. Some sports even use multiple referees and average or majority scoring to minimise the risks that unwelcome biases may affect the outcome.

Sportsmanship

Since all competitors are competing on equal terms and may very well compete against the same opposition again in the future, it’s important to exercise good sportsmanship.

Good sportsmanship is about being polite towards your opponents and not exhibiting the characteristics of a sore loser or bad winner. Don’t yell, don’t throw stuff, don’t kick your horse or vehicle. Whether you come in first or last, you should do so in a dignified manner. Even more important for a spectator sport, since everyone needs to be a good role model for both up and coming athletes and for the spectators and are not just representing themselves anymore.

Fairness

Losing without tantrums and winning without gloating. Following the rules and relying on them to treat everyone equally. Doing what the nice referee says. Competing on equal terms. All of it comes down to one thing: fairness. Let’s use that single word to describe the concept of a sport in the game combat context. Fairness.

Anatomy of War

In a war, if you can leverage a technological advantage against an enemy, you can defeat them without suffering as many casualties. If you can trick them into an ambush or march your army into a position they don’t expect, you can push for a decisive end without a single rifle shot or sword swing. No one except the Hague will try to reinforce any rules.

War is unfair, even deeply so. A war is defined by other things.

Context

“The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.”

Robert Wilson Lynd

Wars are usually fought for reasons other than murder. Political, religious, cultural, and opportunistic reasons. For example, the idea of a “short victorious war” to improve the spirits of a declining nation has been proposed by multiple leaders throughout history. (It’s never worked.)

Before revolutionary France invented general conscription and patriotism, soldiering tended to be a paid job. Professional soldiers fought in wars, whether as the standing levies of feudal lords, as mercenaries, or something else. They did it because it was their job. Later, they did it for king and country. Or because they were compelled to, through conscription, and on pain of death.

But you can also be holed up trying to defend your home from invasion, or forced to take up arms against your neighbours in a historically charged religious conflict. The common ground is that there is something you fight for that is external to yourself and typically completely outside of your control.

However. It can just as easily be that you want to get into the compound and steal the treasure, and there are guards standing in your way.

Objectives

Unlike how most games portray objectives, wartime objectivs are rarely about killing your opposition. Killing enough of the opposition may cause the enemy to retreat or surrender, and this can definitely be the goal sometimes, but combat engagements in a war are typically a consequence of one side opposing the intended strategic objectives of the other side. Either as part of its own strategy or as a consequence of patrolling the same region or as a counter-strategy.

Sometimes, as with Maskirovka, it’s not even clear what a military force is trying to do because they’re not actually trying anything. Just acting like it with the intention of confusing you or making you look away while something else is underway.

If you look at the physical battlefield, an objective can be some kind of significant asset, like a factory, storage facility, or bridge needed to cross a wide river with heavy equipment. It can also be a person of note, a cache of fuel, the maps and charts used in an invasion plan, etc. Even just a high hill, tall building, or deep ravine that can provide a tactical advantage.

Given any of those, military forces will usually try to hold, to take and then hold, or simply destroy the objectives. Engagements only happen if these attempts encounter an opposing force.

In fact, most fighting forces only spend a tiny fraction of their time fighting. Only about 15% of enlisted personnel is expected to “see combat.” The rest of their time is spent waiting for orders, moving around, or moving and waiting. Some jokingly refer to this as “hurry up and wait.”

Morale

There are multiple layers of morale in a war.

First of all, the morale of the fighting forces. Mounting casualties, negative rumours, bad communications, unreasonable orders from commanding officers, and other factors, all affect morale negatively. Victories and an idea that you are fighting the good fight can affect it positively.

Second, the morale of the staff in charge of the war. If they don’t believe in it anymore, it’ll be hard for them to make the best of their situations. If the monarch is slain, or there are factional disputes among staff, there’s a great risk that this trickles down to the rank and file.

Thirdly, the morale of the nation or alliance that supports the war. The regular people whose tax money or crops are feeding the hungry maws of the fighting forces. If there’s a political revolution back home, a workers’ strike, or massive demonstrations, this is likely to affect the morale of both staff and fighting forces. Particularly in modern democratic countries.

This is the morale that terrorism, including state-sanctioned terror bombing, is targeting.

Terrorism — “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”

Oxford Dictionary

Fighting

When it comes to the actual fighting, there’s simply no substitute for victory. You will want to win no matter what. You may invent new weapons, device new surprise tactics, or employ far-reaching propaganda campaigns that coerces your opponent into standing down before anyone has to die.

There’s no reason to risk your life in a fight if you don’t have to, meaning that bombs, artillery, mustard gas, napalm, and all manner of technological marvels have been invented with the intention of destroying an opponent or an opponent’s morale without any risks to your own troops. The same goes in combat as war.

You may flood the dungeon so all the goblins drown, rather than risking your life by confronting them. You may ambush the king in his privy as he’s about to arrive in the capital, rather than fighting the lines upon lines of royal guards escorting him. As the saying goes, all is fair in love and war.

Aftermath

You can win almost every battle and still lose the war because of a disadvantage in numbers, equipment, morale, or some combination of all three. Conversely, you can lose every battle and still win the war because of a decisive final engagement.

For the soldier on the field, the aftermath of war can be disastrous. A white cross on a memorial cemetary, a crippling injury, or psychological trauma that makes it hard to lead a normal life. Unlike a sport, where you can usually just get back in the saddle, there’s no way back from death or losing both arms.

Because of this, you want to win decisively. You want to make sure there’s not even a risk that you may lose.

Strategy and Tactics

If you want to win decisively and minimise your losses in personnel, materiel, and morale, you must outsmart or overwhelm the opposition. You must have a better strategy at the staff level, and better tactics at the grunt level. These are the two words that define combat as war: strategy and tactics.

Anatomy of Drama

Drama uses combat for effect. The risk of death is more important than actual death, even if some dramas don’t shy away from boosting the bodycount.

Show, Don’t Tell

Dramatic combat has many unspoken rules. Before you can hurt or even kill anyone, you must first establish that they somehow deserve it and you need to introduce the instrument that does the dark deed. Enemies need to be clearly despicable dog-kicking villains, even if they may be tragic or misunderstood as well. The whole concept of a villain stems from the narrative need to know who not to vouch for.

To make good drama, you need to make people care and you need to establish who they should care about and why. In film and television, the adage is “show, don’t tell.” You want the viewer to understand who’s the hero and who’s the villain without having to explicitly say it. Establishing what’s true, who’s bad, etc. This is where you will see the villain kick a dog, for example. In any media with pictures, it stirs more emotions to see the dog get kicked than it does to hear someone tell you that a dog was kicked.

Stakes

If the dog-kicking villan isn’t stopped, they will kick more dogs, end the world; maybe both. Often highlighted by a sense of urgency. If the hero doesn’t stop them NOW, they will kick a dog and end the world!

Once it’s established who we should vouch for and who’s the villain, we need to make everything as personal as possible. The hero’s child is kidnapped or their dog murdered. The villain isn’t just threatening life as the hero knows it, but something deeply personal to the hero. Something we, as viewers, can gasp at. We now need to know the stakes involved.

This is where all the MacGuffins come from. If we know that something is important and why, we can also know that of course the hero must get to it before the villain does. Or something awful will happen.

Escalation

A character that brandishes a blade or gun is upping the ante. They are showing that there’s now a lethal threat in action. Some escalation is much more subtle than this, with a glance to the wall-mounted rifle or other way to tell us that the escalation is happening.

It can also be to introduce or increase the stakes. If that precious MacGuffin that the villain needs to power their doomsday device is now in the taloned hand of the villain, the end must surely be near!

Showmanship

Unlike sportsmanship, where it’s about being respectful, showmanship is about putting on a good show. “Flynning” is the choreographed fencing style of early adventure movies where the combatants are not even trying to kill each other but actively hitting each others’ swords instead. It’s so iconic that the sound of a movie swordfight has remained the same ever since.

One-liners, theatrical body language, angry tirades, and comments on which things belong in museums are all showmanship used to reinforce the characters involved.

Character Development

If a sport revolves around fairness and war is deeply unfair but demands strategy and tactics, drama is about characters. Drama wants us to care. It wants us to see characters try, fail, then try again and succeed.

Conflict Types

Combat as sport, as war, or as drama. Games often jumble these together in different ways, even if they tend towards a combination of sport and drama. Considering how often war serves as the backdrop for video game combat, it’s very rarely informing how combat works. The simple fact that you can often retry skill-based moments until you get them right puts a game’s combat in the sport camp quite squarely.

Games that allow single-death hardcore modes of different kinds come closer to emulating combat as war, since it will often cause you to play more carefully and use any means necessary to push through.

Player vs Player (PvP)

The closest a game gets to sports is in player versus player environments. Whether you’re talking about The Finals, with a sports context in its narrative, or Rocket League, or even Chess, or anything else, it’s a balanced, skill-based and decidedly fair experience. If it’s not fair, or if the players feel that it’s not fair, you can rest assured that they will tell you. Games like these are never done. There will almost always be some fine-tuning left to do.

Player vs Environment (PvE)

Kratos in the remake of God of War (2018) is definitely portrayed as a badass who cannot lose, with combat as drama for framing. But the gameplay treats combat as a skill that must be learned and dying means replaying parts of the game until you are skilled enough to push through; combat as sport. This mix of sport and drama can probably be considered the default for many single-player and cooperative games, but it’s also the source of most, if not all, ludonarrative dissonance.

Player vs Player vs Environment (PvPvE)

In games like Hunt: Showdown, and other extraction shooters, we get a little bit of combat as war into our games. Once you have felled your bounty in Hunt, other players can come in to deprive you of your kill. If they do, you will lose the potential points. Large part of what makes this more war than other types of games is because it’s often quite unfair. There’s nothing that balances the skill level of the assaulting players with you or makes sure that the playing field is leveled out. Of course, there’s still plenty of balancing and fairness to this experience, so it’s not entirely combat as war, but it’s closer than most.

Another subset of PvPvE is coopetition games, where you are fundamentally cooperating with your team but also in it for your own score in a competition against them. Something like the Firefight game mode in Halo 3 O.D.S.T, for example. This turns the PvPvE into sport once more.

Players vs Designers (PvD)

This isn’t a genre or definition anyone ever uses, but it’s still highly relevant. When you as a designer start restricting a game space because you feel that a player’s interactions “break” that space, you have pitted yourself against your player. As the player stretches the boundaries, you will constrict them further.

In many cases, this is exactly where features come from. By defining exactly what a player can and can’t do with this thing in your game, you are making your own development of the game more stable and you are eliminating unknowns. But what you are also doing is that you are creating a design space where you need to keep up a constant whack-a-mole against player discovery. Unintended uses of your features is now a problem. If the wall-climbing leads to players finding out-of-bounds areas, you will put some invisible walls there or maybe arbitrarily make some walls unclimbable, for example.

Systemic games often disregard this type of balancing. The player is allowed to be more clever than the designers and when they are, the designers celebrate it. Sometimes by merely allowing it, and at other times by turning the discovered behavior into an integral part of the game design.

In a way, systemic design is easier in this case, because as a designer you are simply resigning to the player’s imagination and letting them have the experience they already imagined. The issues come from the combinatorial explosion it can result in.

Next Steps

Combat is a huge topic, it turns out. There will be four followup posts to this one, sporadically released during the rest of 2024 between other monthly blog posts.

They will specifically deal with:

• Building Systemic Melee: the dynamics of dueling, swordfight choreography, and the difference between realistic combat, Flynning, and other types of combat, and their requirements from a technical and design perspective.
• Building Systemic Gunplay: a continuation of the Building a Systemic Gun article that deals with the full cycle of gunplay, including inventory, projectile dynamics, and more.
• Building Systemic Sport: scoring, competition, and fairness within systems and games based heavily on systems.
• Building Systemic Drama: an exploration of concepts introduced in the other three articles, given a narrative layer and looking at the convergence of systems and character development.

And as always, if you disagree or you want me to come and inspire your studio to work on more systemic stuff, you can do either (or both) via annander@gmail.com.