AI confabulation and Advanced Fighting Fantasy
I’m playing Advanced Fighting Fantasy (2e) with my group right now. It’s a beautifully simple game… at times. It’s also an underdefined game with questionable editing. Which means things mentioned in one part of the rulebook might not appear anywhere else (referenced but not defined, e.g. critical injuries) or it is not described how certain things work together.
Already, humans tend to say things about AFF that don’t seem to be evidenced by the AFF rules themselves.
Take this thread: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/advanced-fighting-fantasy-combat-confusion.633784/
It’s being referenced all the time by the search engine because it’s pretty much the only thread mentioning the initiative phases and or missile combat, but I think it’s wrong.
The underlying assumption by some of the posters here is that the usual “one roll to resolve combat round” applies. This is grounded Fighting Fantasy philosophy, no doubt.
It doesn’t mesh with the “order of events,” though. Given that missiles (at a distance) and spells take effect before melee (I hit you before you hit me) - which is explicitly stated in the rules - they shouldn’t be the same rolls (which it doesn’t state one way or the other).
Even when using different modifiers, you already know the outcome. So unless everybody announces all their actions beforehand (which you would need to write down for bigger combats… fun!), how is that fair? If I know that you hit me and I will miss if I engage you right after, will I still do that? (You can predict the future from your combat total for defending.)
It makes much more sense to roll once for totals for the missile phase separately. You shoot, I defend. I charge you, you defend.
While AFF in general has a philosophy of only one side (the “winner”) doing damage, does it make sense that I cannot hit you with a sword after you hit me with an arrow? I already took the damage, but why should I miss..?
The way I handle the order of events is that I ask:
- Anybody firing a missile at a distance?
- Anybody casting a spell?
- Who is attacking whom in melee?
Then handle each individually as separate “phases of initiative” with separate rolls. It keeps the action economy intact (you can only attack, cast, or fire a missile, but not several) while also honoring the “order of events.”
It also avoids another thing: Having to remember your roll total from phase 1. into phase 3. People tend to mess that up, anyway.
Anyway, it only applies to the special case. Normal missile combat means only someone with a missile weapon can return fire. Missiles when engaged in melee can be handled like regular combat. But firing at a distance and then being engaged? I’d say that is an exception to the rule and requires a “ruling.”
What does the AI say?
As I mentioned, I was looking for answers on AFF. Google nowadays adds these things to your search:
For reference, my search terms were: “advanced fighting fantasy missile weapon in melee” (so I was asking a slightly different question to what I outlined above).
But when you ask about a little-written-about topic like AFF, AI is usually lying through its digital teeth.
If you follow the link it attributes, it leads to the link I mentioned above. Which does not say what is written here.
Note: Google AI Search, in my experience, often references articles and videos as “sources” that have no bearing on the topic if you go check them out. I encounter this all the time. It confidently tells you your answer is in this part of that YouTube video (marking the specific range of seconds), and when you click it and listen, it surely is not.
If you pay close attention to what the AI does here by reading the rest, I get the impression it is doing the following:
- It finds very little direct information linked to AFF to answer the question.
- But it “knows” AFF is an OSR system.
- It then confabulates additional advice for handling this as some OSR systems do without flagging it explicitly as speculation or advice.
Here the “Targeting Constraints” are actually made up, but how would you know? The rest is actually correct but up for interpretation. The last paragraph in blue is actually the clue where it gets the idea from. Note the absence of a link/source on most items here.
I’m not saying this is a bad rule, per se. It would constitute a good “ruling” (as in “rulings, not rules”). But whenever I ask about niche topics I quickly find wrong answers or outright confabulation.
Your niche game? Google AI Search’s answers might constitute fantasy.
