Aiding in RPG combat

So we were playing The Troubleshooters and were in the middle of a fight. We had four PCs, but one of them had already been taken out. We faced a formidable NPC bad guy and her mooks. And it wasn’t going well for us.

Unfortunately for us, only one character was good at combat. As it wasn’t me, I decided to take a leaf from FATE’s book and help our fighter, somehow. So I asked the GM if I could distract the bad guy by picking up a trifle and throwing it at her.

Not to do damage (I already knew that would be hopeless), but to give my friend a bonus when it was his turn to attack.

Unfortunately, nothing in the rules suggested we could do such a thing. We were in combat, and my options (from the rules) were:

Move

Free actions

• Say something
• Pick up something
• Drop something
• Ready a weapon
• Change weapon
• Break cover
• Fall Prone

Main actions

• Sprint
• Attack
• Catch your breath
• Reload
• Take cover
• Survey
• Delaying your main action

Alas, throw trifle at someone to distract them, wasn’t on the list. Not even a generic some other action or distract enemy or help a friend, which might have allowed such nonsense.

(Quick aside. While I play and run lots of freeform larps, I have only played actual-combat boffer-larp once or twice. I don’t like sword fighting, and I’m not good at it. But I remember I was most effective when I attacked enemies that were already engaged in fighting. They couldn’t focus easily on two opponents (Darth Maul is a force-boosted exception), particularly if we attacked from opposite sides. So even though I was rubbish, by flanking I either had an unprotected side or back to attack, or I distracted my opponent for my more-skilled colleague to deliver the killing blow.)

The GM’s role?

Now, you could argue that’s what the GM is for—to mediate the player’s chaotic ideas.

But I’ve noticed that detailed rulesets tend to inhibit such improvisation. I don’t know why that should be, but I’ve seen it both with GMs ruling and with players simply rolling dice to hit. (As a player, I’ve been inhibited myself as this story about D&D shows.)

In my example above (with the trifle), the GM agreed and gave the other PC a bonus to hit. 

(It didn’t help, unfortunately—and even had he hit, the NPC would have had a dodge roll followed by rolling damage. I so much prefer FATE—I would have created an advantage which my PC could have used to not only improve his chances of succeeding but also increase the damage inflcted. Ah well.)

Aiding in combat

Putting aside the challenge of improvising while playing/running detailed rule systems for a moment (or another post), are there other games that let you help in combat?

Picking some games from my small library…

In FATE, even if you have no combat skills, you can create an advantage that someone else can invoke during the fight. You might flank them, throw sand in their eyes, distract them by throwing a trifle at them, shine a light in their eyes, upset them with insults or whatever else you can think of.

Mongoose’s Traveller has a catch-all miscellaneous action in combat. It would be nice if the examples included helping another PC, but it’s better than nothing.

ALIEN and Liminal both include rules for helping or assisting others in a task, although neither includes that in their list of combat actions.

One of the basic moves in Monster of the Week is Help Out—which gives a bonus to another PC’s move (and is exactly what I was doing with that trifle).

While Cthulhu Dark has rules for helping, it also rules that if you fight the monsters you die!

So in summary, a mixed bag.

Improvising in detailed systems

For me, much of the joy of roleplaying comes from improvising and doing all those things you couldn’t do if you were playing a computer RPG. And yet I still find myself inhibited when faced with a detailed rule system—if the rules don’t say you can do it, you can’t do it.

And yet, you can.

You just need to ask.