Pine Shallows Combat 'Rules'

How I handle combat in a game without combat rules.

Hi!

While I’m still tinkering on the first draft of Look to Starward, I got asked a question about how I run combat for Pine Shallows. After answering I thought I’d write it up a bit more proper, so I can point people towards it until I polish it a bit more and include it in the game.

Pine Shallows?

I realize not all people reading this newsletter might know Pine Shallows. Pine Shallows is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by The Goonies, Stranger Things, Gravity Falls and middle grade adventure book series like The Legends of Eerie-on-Sea in which you portray small town kids going on adventures and solving mysteries.

No combat rules?

Pine Shallows doesn’t contain combat rules because (usually) there are no long combat sequences in the media that inspired the game (Goonies, Gravity Falls, etc).

Still, I do get the question sometimes on how I would handle combat (and my own players also have started more than one fight). Usually combat be handled by the available mechanics.

Pine Shallows (as written) only has player rolls. It uses a PbtA-like 2d6 roll with failure/mixed success/complete success.

If two players fight, I would use a single opposed roll: both roll, best result wins. On a draw, roll again.

For combat with NPCs, depending on the importance I would switch between a single roll, or a clock (usually just a 3 or 4 segment clock).

Single roll combat

Single roll: ask for the plan/strategy, let all involved players roll, with one player having the main roll, and the others contributing using the Helping rules. On a 10+ success the NPC is beaten, if it’s a 7-9, it might cost the characters something ( maybe a grown-up saw it happen, for example).

Combat using clocks

For a more important fight, I’d use an opposed clock, probably of just 4 segments, maybe more for a ‘boss fight’. One clock that fills a segment when the players succeed, even 2 segments on a 10+, the other clock fills on failure. First clock to fill determines who won the fight. Circumstances and good planning determine if the players have (dis)advantage on their rolls.

Make it narrative, so if they fail or have a mixed success, the next roll is based in the fact that the NPC has the upper hand, if they have success the NPC is on the back foot, etc.

The losing side is defeated, but the outcome of a combat will almost never result on extreme injury or death. Losers might be knocked out, just give up or be locked up, be creative!

Coming to Kickstarter soon!

Like what you read about Pine Shallows? I’m still planning to release it in print. There is a big change I’ll be running the campaign in , but you can follow the Kickstarter campaign for Pine Shallows to know it firsthand!