I like to, when working on TTRPGs, think of particular scenes, feelings, moments, setpieces I want to emulate. If a system I thought of works well, these moments will occur naturally, putting players in moments that feel familiar in a way.
Image: Door Breaching by KoBOng
I’ve been thinking of firefights in action movies and video games (so not actual military simulation, but capturing the tropes). As usual, I’m working off of the base provided by Into The Odd, Cairn and the like. Since these are very rules-light systems, I’d consider this to be basically system-agnostic.
Some things that spring to mind:
- Standoff (no weapons drawn): covered by making DEX Saves. If neither party has weapons drawn, the DEX Save decides whether you manage to draw before your opponents do, and time ‘freezes’ afterwards, allowing a decision in regards to a Mexican standoff, shooting or diving for cover etc.
- Mexican Standoff (weapons drawn): I might revisit this later; I think that picking a target and all targets/decisions being revealed at the same time and playing out simultaneously could be cool.
- Pinning Fire: The idea of shooting at an opponent’s cover to keep them pinned down is something I wrote about before.
- Covering Fire: Spraying bullets to force opponents into cover is also already covered.
- Blind Firing: A move that doesn’t deal damage, but requires those that desire to move, approach or aren’t in cover already to make a Willpower Save to act.
This already covers firefights that start at equal footing. Traditional dungeon crawling focuses on entering rooms filled with unknown and dangerous possibilities. If we add modern weaponry, we get interesting new options, in the form of breaching and clearing.
Breaching & Clearing
I’ve tinkered around with a few different approaches to this idea. I like the fact that the breachers tend to not know what is in the room, and having to commit to an approach which then plays out.
I was considering a thing with ‘angles’; each breacher choosing whether they’d focus on forward, left or right when going through the door. If there’s no enemies in your quadrant, you’re basically leaving yourself open to attack before you can respond.
I think what I settled on is a bit “rock, paper, scissor”-ish. Following this approach, I figured there’s a few additional variables we can play with:
- Is the enemy aware of approaching breachers? If so, they are likely to be entrenched inside the room. If not, choosing to go loud would alert hostiles in other rooms.
- Does the room contain civilians, or perhaps only civilians? Going in too hard risks hurting people unnecessarily.
So, I kept tinkering, and came up with 3 main approaches (our rock, paper and scissors):
- Guns Blazing: You storm the room, assuming to find unaware enemies and quickly taking them down. Shoot first, ask questions later.
- Enter & Assess: You enter the room quickly, making note of those present, and taking up the most optimal positions available (cover, line of sight etc.)
- Tactical Entry: You use a flashbang, grenade or breaching charge to storm the room.
Putting it together, I think we can make a matrix of sorts:
| Situation | Guns Blazing | Enter & Assess | Tactical Entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unaware Enemies | Highly effective; neutralizes enemies upon entry. Loud. | Grants favorable positions (cover e.d.) inside the room but firefight breaks out after. | Overwhelms enemies, neutralizing them upon entry, wastes resources, loud. Damage to room. |
| Aware Enemies | Firefight. First through the door exchanges damages and falls back. Breachers are outside the room. | Firefight. Team is outside the room – first through the door does not exchange damage. | Highly effective, decisively wins the encounter. |
| Civilians | Each civilian has a 3-in-6 chance of getting injured or killed upon breach. Loud. | Civilians spared. | Each civilian has a 5-in-6 chance of getting injured or killed upon breach. Loud. |
| Empty Room | Loud. | Enter and secure without incident. | Loud, wastes resources. |