[MtB] At-Bat Option 1 – Duel of Hits

I’ve been thinking lately about baseball. This got me motivated to do some work on Making the Bigs, my baseball RPG that I… am… slowly… developing…

A big part of the game, the sexy killer ap, is the at bat. The current bias is for the PCs to be fielders, not pitchers. Three to five times per baseball game, each PC will get an at bat. The player can choose to do a single roll to resolve the at bat and be quickly done with it. Or, they can choose to move into a task-oriented pitch-by-pitch mode which is much more strategic (and time consuming).

Option 1 I’m considering is the Burning Wheel-inspired version I’m jokingly calling Duel of Hits as a placeholder. In this At Bat mechanic, the player and the GM both roll up their “Hit Points” for the at bat (think of a body of argument here). Then, the player and GM secretly decide upon a tactic for each pitch, reveal the tactic and then resolve via die rolls, if necessary. Usually die rolls will happen, but sometimes, a pitcher tactic and a batter tactic results in an automatic ball or strike. When die rolls are required, the GM and player roll dice based on their stats involved in the conflict and add or subtract modifiers based on their tactics and use the results to reduce each others’ “Hit Points”.. okay, I’m still smirking at the use of “Hit Points” here. I know, I’m the only one, but the juxtaposition of my RPG life and love of baseball is exactly what I’m after with this game.

Anyhoo, once one of the other characters involved in the conflict is reduced to 0 hit points, the At Bat is completed. If the batter is reduced to 0, they do not get a hit. If the pitcher is reduced to 0, they give up a hit. Based on circumstance, the player and GM will color the result by looking at the overall loss of Hit Points. So, in an At Bat where the batter fails to ding the pitcher’s Hit Points, then the batter probably went down swinging. But in an At Bat where the batter made a serious dent in the Pitcher’s Hit Points, then he may have hit a sacrifice fly, or put it in play near a fielder and then the fielder has to make a catch (giving the chance for an error or maybe even a hit).

That’s the concept. I’m not sure on the math yet, but I dig the strategic vibe and the idea of using actual batter and pitcher terms to describe the intent with every pitch. Much like Bringing Down the Pain in Shadows of Yesterday, this isn’t a mechanic I see being used every single At Bat, but I’d employ it in late innings or for specific situations.

So far, the Batter tactics for each pitch are as follows:

• Waiting for a good pitch (the batter plays conservatively)
• Swinging for the Fences (the batter is taking a chance on missing to get more power)
• Make Contact (the batter is just trying to put the ball in play, so he won’t get much power behind the hit)
• Take (the batter does not swing, hoping for a ball, or forcing the pitcher to throw a strike)
• Sit on X (this is a pitch specific tactic that would give a bonus if they guess right; imagine a player saying their batter is sitting on a fastball; if the GM declares that the pitcher will Blow it By ‘Im, then the batter gets a bonus; everything else gets a minus)

So far, the Pitcher tactics for each pitch are as follows:

• Blow it By ‘Im (the pitcher is using power pitches to either get the batter to swing and miss or to just throw it right by them without the batter even swinging)
• Pitch Around (the pitcher throws junk to get the batter to hit poorly)
• Fool the Hitter (the pitcher is trying to make the batter swing and miss or make the batter think a pitch is a ball when it is actually a strike)
• Purpose Pitch (the pitcher is willing to throw close to the hitter in order to intimidate them on future pitches, could result in hit batsman and an automatic free base for the batter)
• Set-Up Pitch (the pitcher is throwing something the batter probably won’t swing at, in hopes of getting a bonus on the next pitch)

I don’t have the numbers behind the mechanic yet, but the hope is to set it so that a player succeeds 20 – 30% of the time in getting a hit.