Something doesn’t seem right here. Suppose we change the goal to “kill the weasels.” Would you then say that by using Defend, the mice would be killing their weasel opponents? i.e. The deaths of the weasels are their points of disposition, and thus by retaining disposition, they are killing. That seems backwards to me.
I tend to think of Attack as moving directly towards your goal, and Defend as preventing the opponent from achieving their goal. However, really it is all tied together, because even if you care much more about preventing the opponents from achieving their goal – to do that you need to reduce their disposition to zero. I think there just needs to be a wide latitude in how you translate “Attack” or “Defend” into in-game fiction.
A/A/A doesn’t mean you won’t lose, true, but conversely using Defend doesn’t mean you won’t lose either. Using Defend doesn’t inherently mean that you’ll win with more Disposition and thus more minor compromises. You get more disposition at the time, but you’ve put off the end for longer so you just have more time to lose disposition in.
I may put together a combat simulator at some point to see how it works out, though that’ll probably be down the line a ways.
To do the full case takes a complex simulator, but let me at least address a simplified case. Suppose (1) Both sides have the same number of dice, say 6d, for Attack and Defend; (2) your opponent always does Attack/Attack/Attack; and (3) all rolls are average.
With these assumptions, we can see that defend doesn’t help at all to keep your ending disposition up. Each time you defend cancels one of the opponent’s attacks, but it lets him get in one more attack before the end so the net result is the same.
When we add in rolls and varying stats it gets more complicated, but the above should be considered at least a baseline.
You’re just saying that Defend doesn’t end the conflict. Attack and Feint are the only two actions that can end the conflict. This is not revelatory. One must Attack or Feint to ultimately win.
Defend’s best case scenario is a stalemate. A player attempts stalemate with Defend is begging to be Feinted. And thus we get into the psychology of the decision-making process for these four actions.
Conversely, an Attacker who likes Maneuvers is offering a very tempting choice for the Defender to use a Feint against those oh-so-helpful Maneuvers.
That’s not quite it. I’m trying to refute what I feel is an erroneous assumption. Here is what I think some people are saying:
“Using a mix including Defend (such as A/D/A) means that on average you will win with more disposition – i.e. have less compromise – than using A/A/A.”
I don’t think that this is generally true. It will be true in some cases, but not in others, depending on the stats.
I would guess that if you are favored to win by having more dice, then using Defend will increase the variance – so it will increase the average disposition that you win with by broadening the distribution, but it will also increase the chance that you will lose. If you are not favored to win, I’m not sure it helps at all.
It has been true in my experience. And it was equally true in the more complex DoW rules in BE, as well. Him who defends can afford to spend Artha to do so effectively, and not only nullify the incoming attack, but rebuild disposition.
It’s all about players deciding compromise sucks badly that makes AAA suboptimal except when you have a massive advantage.
Also, my players quickly grocked that the type of conflict was determined by the mix of intents… Got a Fox? Chasing him off is a combat conflict. Getting him to follow you until he’s stuck under a tree is a combination chase and DoW… assuming you have loremouse… or just a chase.
An issue we should consider here is how much statements about what happens ‘on average’ really matter. ‘On average’ may be a good metric for judging how good a set of three actions are, but once you go to pick actions again, you are in a definite situation. Your action choices will be affected by the current dispositions. What you really want to happen is not what happens ‘on average’. You want to roll successes and you want your opponent to roll none. You want your Defends to not only block Attacks, but to raise your disposition back up.
You have tools available to help you do this do. You can spend Fate and Persona, you can use Traits, you can tap Nature, you can do a Maneuver first. And someone in the patrol is bound to roll better Defend and Maneuver than Attack and Feint, making it more worthwhile for him to play Defend and Maneuver.
One thing that I think is true is that if you do something like A/D/A instead of A/A/A that IF you win, you’re more likely to win with higher disposition. That may be a big if, but some people prefer big rewards big losses.
Mostly I think I just want A/A/A to not be believed to be all that good, as I wouldn’t want to play against it all the time. Then it’d just be a bunch of die rolling, and how risky I’m willing to be. But all attack on both sides seems way too random, too few rolls. Slowing things down with Defends seems worthwhile.
I’m tempted to use thorough fancy math on the conflict rules to see what the result would be…
That’s how almost every conflict that has happened it my group has gone so far: There’s a bit of back and forth scuffling in the first few actions till the enemy disposition gets in striking range, then the best defender taps nature to pretty near fully heal, and the primary attacker on the team follows with a devestating finishing move. Conflict over, very little compromise (at least until I can start better predicting when to drop Feint on them… one of these days).
Most of mine, too, Serpine… Of course, when the group really feels the starting score is reachable in 1, Steve’s Saxon would take At on T1V1, throwing F=6d, Sw=+1dA, Bold@2=+1d, 3 help=+3d, N5+1P=+5d, 3P=+3D, and if available ___-Wise=+1d… 20d, and thus expecting 10s, and fate for +3d more… (another 1.5s…)
He hit 16s in two different fights that way… one was a clean kill. One was matched by a 4s defend (I expected the A), doing 12 of the 13 dispo of the N8 fox… Fox was ganked next volley when it attacked vs their second attack. Net loss, 2 Dispo players… of 12. (My script was DAA, theirs AAD)…
This makes me smile. I’d stalemate you until you got frustrated and then when you predictably changed your actions because you were frustrated, I’d switch to the offense.
Using RAW …
In this case, the players are convinced that A-A-A is the optimal strategy.
Luke is the GM. He pits the players against some kind of overly defensive critter … (not sure what) … something that rolls 12 dice on defense.
First round. The players use A-A-A (probably just rolling 8-10 dice), and are stymied when Luke goes D-D-D.
Second round. Same set: A-A-A vs D-D-D. Players start whispering. Luke smiles to himself.
Third round. The players use F-F-F. Luke reveals: A-A-D. Youch!
It sounds like your conflicts have been much easier on the PCs than ours have been, which might explain some of our difference in experience. In my campaign, we’ve often been lucky to pull off a win at all, never mind getting out with no compromise. I think if our conflicts had been easier, we might tend to use Defend more often.
Huh?!? But this shows the complete opposite. The players lost nothing from doing A-A-A, and they were hammered when they switched away from it. If the players had stuck to A-A-A, they would have come out fine from the third round.
A-A-A wasn’t optimal because they were predictable. When “Luke” noticed a possible change of heart, they were predictable again. Sticking to just A-A-A isn’t optimal.
Kinda why I’d stopped responding. I’m addicted to reading all the responses, though.
The bottom line is this, Corvus: If you’re convinced it’s the way to go, then do it. The way you and your group plays shouldn’t be dictated by any of us. Have fun and let us know how conflicts turn out and if, indeed, it changes the way the players react and set up their actions.
That said, the fact that most of the community here is advising you against doing so and giving good reasons for such should say something.
The most recent situation the enemy had over 10 dispo to the patrol’s 3 (lack of base stat for a conflict issue) and the enemy got 8 to 9 dice per action depending on check. Not sure how that compares with yours.
Ah, I think we’ve spotted the disconnect! Unless I’m absolutely wrong, Defend isn’t “prevent your opponent from achieving their goal,” it’s “prevent your goal (disposition) from being thwarted.” Because conflicts are not static and involve some nuance, this can often be presented in the fiction as “stop my opponent from achieving their intent” but it’s not the only side of Defend, which becomes much more obvious when goals are orthagonal.
In our example, with the PCs goal as “protect the townsmice” and the weasels’ as “kill the townsmice,” Attack is driving the weasels off and Defend is devoting your energies to safeguarding the townsmice. There’s plenty of room in the fiction for your weasel foes to oppose you; if you Attack and they Attack, clearly you’re trying to drive them away and they’re attacking your flank to slip past you to get to the mice. If you Defend and they Attack, you’re forming a perimeter around the mice, and they’re either surrounding you or probing to find a weak spot in your guard.
If we change the PCs goal to “kill the weasels” and keep the weasels’ as “kill the townsmice,” Attack is still attack the weasels (but for the kill, not to drive them off), and Defend is now something more like “fight defensively/retain martial advantage.” That is to say, you keep yourself in a position of strength, harrying the weasels but not going for the kill, waiting for a spot to open up. You can narrate fighting defensively to protect the townsmice, if you like, but it’s very important to note that your successes on Defend have as much to do with your goal to kill the weasels as the townsmice. The weasels scoring successes on you and forcing a compromise don’t mean that despite your best efforts to protect the mice, they killed or wounded some before you killed the weasels; it might mean that despite your best efforts to kill the weasels, some townsmice were injured/killed in the process, and that’s not really your concern (and if I were the GM, I’d be more focused on how their compromise thwarts your goal to kill them). It might be a subtle distinction, but you weren’t concerned with the townsmice (because you didn’t put them in your goal), you wanted to kill the weasels. If the weasels had won and you got a compromise out of them, you injured them while they killed the townsmice.
Let’s further illustrate by changing the weasels’ goal to “escape with our hostage” (and let’s assume they’ve already taken one) and keep the guardmice’s goal as “kill the weasels”. Your Attacks are still going for blood with the weasels. Your Defends are focused on keeping them from getting away so you can’t kill them, so it’s stuff like keeping pace with them and ensuring they don’t escape (whereas Maneuver would be “cut them off” or “try to force them down this particular route”). Weasel Attacks are “Run like hell!” and Defends are more “retreat while fighting defensively.”
What I’m getting at, I guess, is that there’s always some interplay between goals that colors the fiction, but Defend is explicitly not “stop my opponent from accomplishing his goals.” It’s “strengthen and protect my disposition” which often has the effect of denying the opposition their goals, but not always, especially when goals in a conflict are not treated as zero-sum, as in “accomplishing my goal definitionally means your goal cannot be accomplished.”
Assuming your opponent does nothing but script A/A/A, yes. I suppose presented with the absolutely certain knowledge that my opponent would invariably script A/A/A, I’d likely field D/M/A, and tap Nature to bolster a Defend in the second (or third) volley to replenish my disposition.
If I was feeling particularly spiteful, I’d script D/D/D, and bore the opposition to death, like Luke said above.
Also, weapons in conflict. Don’t forget those. Ultimately, all this thread has proven is, assuming equal skills among all four actions and no use of persona, fate, traits or gear, A/A/A is the optimal script, also assuming you don’t care about compromise. OK, fine. You’re completely right. But that case is so narrow as to be useless to the actual game of Mouse Guard.
Well, except I didn’t say that. I had a post earlier when I noted about good times to use Defend, such as when you have a major advantage over your opponent and want to avoid compromise – or a minor advantage and your initial roll for disposition was unlucky. Also, Maneuver or Defend are good choices for characters who are not highly trained in fighting.
I came into this when people reversed the original poster, Corvus’, view – implying that A/A/A was a terrible, reckless, and/or bad choice. I think it is neither the only good choice nor always a bad choice. It is a solid, dependable choice with no particular weaknesses, along with combinations with a maneuver.
Defend is a tricky choice, along with feint. For example, in the example conflict (p104), we know in hindsight that Lieam’s choice of Defend was a big mistake. If the fight had gone to the third round, he would have been toast. We also know in hindsight that if he had chosen attack and pushed it on the first round instead of the second (assuming the same roll as his attack), he would have won with less compromise.
I think we’re both saying the same things here – i.e. that there is a fair amount of leeway to interpret both Attack and Defend. I had been disagreeing with the statement that if you were only doing Attack, then your PCs were doing nothing to accomplish their goal (i.e. if your goal is “protect the townsmice,” then unless you choose Defend you’re not protecting them at all).
Nothing inherently wrong with the former choice – it’s largely a dice-off, though I’d note that by doing D/M/A in the first exchange, your opponent would have something to gain whereas if you win you’d get nothing. The “be boring” option is boring for both you and your opponent – using it to gain an advantage relies on you being more patient. Personally, I’d just wait you out.
Our last session was a Winter Session with no conflict, so none of our numbers are fresh in my mind and I haven’t been taking notes on those numbers. I’d be curious to hear about how you won the above, if you did.
