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RPG Combats and the Time they Occupy

JochenL

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Conflict is a/the central part of stories.

Armed conflict is often the focus of RPGs.

I like detailed combat rules (like GURPS or Pathfinder) as they give me the feeling of versatility and being part of combat's "minute" actions. But those rules have downsides, too. Non-system-oriented players have a hard time internalizing them. With many options, analysis-paralysis is likely. Combat starts to drag.

On the other hand, I once played a game (I don't remember the name) where you got bonus dice to resolve your action when you described it in colorful detail. That was fun, started detailed combat descriptions, and derailed into non-sensical, over-the-top narratives. As a result, less extroverted players lost even more of the limelight, and their characters sucked.

I like Fate Conflict as it is descriptive but rules-bound (you describe actions based on your skills, stunts, and aspects written on your character sheet). This approach is more "meta" and thereby better supports introverts. It sometimes breaks immersion, though.

What is essential about combat or conflicts anyway?

I think it's the decisions you make.

Will you cover your brother's back, or will you run to aid the sexy halfling maid in distress? Will you kill the wives and children (sneaking into your back) of the goblin army that killed your comrades and destroyed your walls, or will you arrest them and share food and water already stretched thin?

If I want to equally spend time on the story, system, and setting in sessions, how important are combats in a game? Can you shorten them without removing the spotlight from the warriors or betraying your rules? Should you choose another system that is not that detailed and therefore sacrifices the depth of this aspect of the game?

I am just thinking out loud here.

Please share your thoughts on the topic!
 

JohnnFour

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What is essential about combat or conflicts anyway?

I think it's the decisions you make.
This.

Combat is part of the social contract imo. For example, when inviting friends to play board games, I know who likes heavy games and who likes light games. I don't invite players to games they won't like.

So it's imperative to signal before your campaign how the combat mini-game will be GM'd.

In my Murder Hobos group, we play it as a tactical wargame and have a blast (pun intended).

In my Barbossa group, we played it as a type of story obstacle with uncertain costs (thus important decisions). I started out running combats as wargames, as it was a one-off D&D Day type event. But then I invited the players to form a campaign group, and realized they preferred more of the story-obstacle angle.

And in my Terror in the Badlands campaign, which was VTT only, we ran combats like board games meets running skirmishes. We had infinite scroll basically, so I ran dungeons as organic complexes/simulations. The players often used roleplay and plot management to bypass combat during their run to get to the treasure end point faster or with more resources intact. Outside of the dungeon, we also ran standalone combats in the wilderness and settled areas.

So I think it's important to understand what approach the group wants. There's often a default approach determined by game system. So all players should at minimum expect that. Then it's up to the group to change things.
 

Stephan Hornick

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Nice angle!
So we have the following combat styles / approachs (and why you could choose them) until now:
  • Heavy Stakes Combat (Challenges)
    Stakes are high, danger is high, i.e. challenge rating is high. Give players the opportunity to overcome the challenges. Don't handwave results. The players who enjoy challenge rich games often love to play the underdog.
  • Power Portrayal Combat (Show their Might)
    There are those short and few combat scenes where you want to show to the players how powerful a PC has become. Make those short but overwhelming in their power portrayal. Some player types love to shine. On the other hand, you can use this also to portray the might of a foe. Here is a shift from challenging to too-powerful. You need to make this very clear to not evoke a TPK. Have a route of escape ready. Some kinds of foes don't even worry about escaping PCs. Why should the white dragon bother with fleeing PCs if he can just eat their horses in peace?!
  • Light Combat (Change of Pacing)
    A nice interlude. Challenges are lower, the risk of characters dying is lower. You use combat to make a change of pacing to your game. You should handle combat quickly. Max 3 rounds, below 30min. to just break the pacing without going down a bad pacing again.
  • Wargames (Efficiency)
    Tactics, round based, initiative, grid maps, movement and distances seem to matter much, teamwork and combos are often goals. With miniatures it can reach a boardgame style. It often leads to metagaming though. You can help players get into this style by giving boni for teamwork actions and great combos.
  • Strategic Combat (Change of Setting)
    Tabletop games. War between armies. Heavy impact or battlefield control attacks become more and more important.
    JochenL: I remember a session from PF1's first adventure path where a castle was to be conquered. We had mass combat rules and tactical combat applied at the same time. We switched back and forth between the two. During strategic combat, the players commanded their army's action. During tactical combat, they played their characters trying to infiltrate the castle and open the gate for their army.
  • Story Decisions (Change of Story)
    You play for player control. Moral decisions influence the story very much, decision points are pivotical and should may be pointed out expressively by the GM (do you rescue the girl or prevent the other intruder from getting into your base?). This gives players much more control of the story.
  • Resource Depletion (Resource Control)
    Decisions on resources, health, fatigue, spells, ammo, etc. that make it to a resource depletion game against the GM. By depleting resources you create greater risks and increase the stakes. It becomes a deadly game. But in contrast to the Heavy Stakes approach you concentrate on gradually depleting the PCs and the players know this. All turns become active decisions on whether to use this or that resource as they know that these resources become hard to replenish. You flavor the combat with resource control when you make regeneration slow, healing potions hard to get, ammunition costly or rare, etc. and by giving the PCs not much time to recuperate between following combats or skill challenges. PCs go into the fight already wounded, depleted or desperate. Be careful though that you don't wear down the players also! Your players need to enjoy this kind of game aspect.
  • Roleplay combat (Understand the Reasons)
    Combat that is interwoven with roleplay descriptions, free talk and spoken challenges; this is introduced by having the NPCs humanoids that speak the PCs' language and make the first step. Make the opponents request the PCs to stand back and explain the NPC's reasons to fight.
  • Funny combat (Laughter)
    If you want to create a fun combat like Pirates of the Carribean or Monkey Island, give boni for quip comments, stunts and the use of surrounding objects. Refrain from describing wounds, dire situations, blood and death, but focus on awkwardness, coolness, flashy actions and embarrassing results.
  • Heroic combat (Scenastic Portrayal)
    You describe in colorful pictures how events evolve, stressing the heroic aspects of PCs and opponents alike. Single foes tend to work better with this than hordes of enemies. On the other hand, give the PCs the opportunity to wade through their opponents in dozens to make for this prelude to their "real foe".
  • Quick combat (Adrenaline)
    You play this to create the rush of the moment. This does not describe the total length of the combat, but how many dangers the PCs face simultaneously, e.g. falling rocks, attacking trolls (that ignore the rocks) and the edge of the mountain path, while your comrade clings to his life a few hand spans below you. This again is a point of decision making, but the number of choices (or rather the number of choices you can't take) determine whether it seems dire and hectic. And the results should follow quickly. Beware to not overwhelm your players though! It can lead to the effect that the players think they are failing in every turn and that they could never turn the tide. You don't want this (at least usually).
  • Summarized combat (Save Time)
    You summarize parts of the combat; this can be events that happen in the backgrund (many more combatants) or events that you handwave with a single dice roll. Make sure to mention the background events regularly between turns to make them matter. Else, you will surely hear that the NPCs "didn't do anything", which shouldn't be the case.
  • Maneuver combat (Creativity)
    One of your main goals during combat is maneuvering into better combat positions. I am thinking sea combat rules. I have some nice ones for these that were a great sub-game during my Dark Eye pirates campaign (two to three years ago). But this might also be applicable to chase combat or combat on moving vehicles / mounts / dragons ... The main aspect is to split each round / turn into movement for advantage of all parties and then usual combat from that position. You could also adjust it to usual combat scenes and make the "movement phase" work as running for cover or better vantage points to shoot from, etc. It gets rid of these boring combats where the combatants stay at one place all the time. It enforces movement and creativity. I would also include boni for using the surroundings (already described or not).
  • Mixed
    Mix any of the above to a degree of your liking. E.g. many shadowrun fights are deadly per definition. They combine wargaming with heavy stakes.
Do you see any other aspects / styles to put into your portfolio?
 
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JochenL

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Strategic Combat:

I remember a session from PF1's first adventure path where a castle was to be conquered. We had mass combat rules and tactical combat applied at the same time. We switched back and forth between the two. During strategic combat, the players commanded their army's action. During tactical combat, they played their characters trying to infiltrate the castle and open the gate for their army.
 

Stephan Hornick

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I added it to the list. Nice. Yes, this makes it again into a very different combat experience, a very different sub-game.
Prepared by players or GM, this could work out nicely.
I also added another approach.
 

Morvar

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It is offtopic....but:

Moin @JohnnFour !

I have now read a large part of your tips and tricks and must at this point express my admiration for the theoretical processing of our hobby.

My behavior as a game master is rather...intuitively...shaped than really thought out.
And I would like to get rid of a question.

Are you and others here really lucky to have so many different clearly separated game preferences in the groups?

I've been playing for almost 35 years now, and leading 95% of that time. Most of the time I never have groups that prefer only one type of combat from @Stephan Hornick list. On the contrary, sometimes the way combat is handled, changes in a single session. And I do that depending on the mood of the group.

I would like to know how exactly you can take these quite logical and comprehensible approaches into the current game.

As an example: I am running for Jochen, his wife, my wife and a friend. Jochen loves to play the game, but he also loves to use the tactical elements of Gurps. If I were to run a more tactical match now, his wife and mine would be bored after 2 rounds. If I just hand-wave and go over rules, Jochen is pissed. And so it goes through. For me, there is always only one solution: observe players and react to their current wishes and moods in real time.

Whenever I try to plan or ask for things like you've shown here, 95% of the time it goes wrong.

Since I usually assume that this is due to me, because otherwise I would have no chance to change it, I naturally try to read everything that could help. But in conversation with Jochen, I realized that while we are both aware of these approaches and of course understand them, when we come into contact with the "enemy", it is usually the "socialized" game master style that gets the upper hand.

So far, especially the 5 room approach of you in combination with the concrete elaboration with Jochen offers me a real help.

Long story short, I am again missing the transfer from the theory of the battle list to the concrete game situations or adventure approaches with very diverse groups with which I play.

Unfortunately, I am not a native speaker (English) and have problems to express myself here as extensively as I could in a direct conversation. Sorry.


Morvar/Sebastian
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
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Wizard of Combat
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I am looking forward to Johnn's answer, but some thoughts about this topic from me for the time being:

For me, knowing different approaches to combat helps me ...

A | Identify which of these styles I enjoy most.
Personally, I like a mix of scenastic descriptions and story decisions for typical combats, resource depletion, quick combat and high stakes for mass-combat scenes. Every now and then, I choose to go about combat differently, e.g. maneuver combat or roleplay combat.
I know, I am not a big fan of wargaming, thus, I don't adher to a strict combat initiative, turn order, grid, or use distances, movement and minis often. It took me a while to realize why I didn't like combats in the past. It was because it became a different kind of game due to those elements. Now, I enjoy most of my combats.

B | Shift or push the game into a specific combat style direction.
Knowing what kind of combat I want to induce, I now have techniques to make this happen. When I was GMing that before mentioned pirate campaign, I knew I wouldn't want a wargame approach. I wanted combat to contribute to the fun of the game. It was no dire campaign, it was fun like Pirates of the Carribean or Monkey Island. I watched a lot of old pirate films and thought long about how to recreate these nice, flashy interludes with all these stunts and mockery. Thus, today I know that I need to keep stakes lower than usual, have the NPCs start with quip comments, don't limit the amount of speech per turn, give boni for stunts and maneuvers and other skill checks including quip comments and the use of objects of the surroundings. The opponents try to use these techniques also. Quickly, the players will adjust to this style and often don't rush at the opponents with wargaming precision (absolute best choice and efficiency). Major fails (like a "1" in D&D) I handle by avoiding damage, wounds, critical situations and blood, but rather put the actor into embarrasing situations or situations that are awkward. Combat mood becomes light and fun.
On the other hand, if I want to surprise the PCs with assassins, I give the combat a note of more efficiency, deadly efficiency. The players instantly note that this combat is different to their usual combat.

C | Identify which of these styles work for the group of players and which don't.
Looking at each player individually, I try to determine which styles he/she enjoyed most in the past, and which he/she didn't. I try to find the standard style for this group (also by talking to them about it). And there are sometimes these cases I identify individual players who expect type A (let's say wargaming) while the others enjoy type B most (roleplaying). This could lead to a talk about this topic with all players to set expectations right.

This reminds me very much of Glenn Blacow: Aspects of Adventure Gaming, in: Different Worlds #10 (Oct 1980), in which he describes 4 aspects of fantasy role playing gaming and what happens if new players come to your convention table and what if they expect a very different style.


In your specific case, Sebastian, I think it is quite difficult to live up to these very different expectations of your players.
If I understand you correctly, you put more focus on elements depending on the player who's turn it is right now.
If I were you and I wanted to slightly push the game more towards wargaming, I would maintain a map with grid, tokens or miniatures, a strict order of initiative and I would give players time to think about what to do in their turns. Combat becomes a puzzle and if your wives enjoy this aspect of the game, you could call it out as a puzzle to be efficient in this combat. Also, I would introduce boni for maneuvering, advantages they create for themselves or for each other or mali they create for the opponents (I would even make it as important as the action itself). I am thinking of Shadowrun 6 rules for creating advantages or Starwars. But you could also do this with GURPS by giving standard boni of +1 for using objects of the surroundings, +1 for a successful skill check like acrobatics, -1 for opponents on a successful intimidation (not instead of your action but in addition to it), or +1 for a teamwork effect. Anything that lets your wives get creative about combat.


Here are some more links I enjoyed on this topic:
Johnn Four: Faster Combat 3.03 Show and Tell
Guy Sclanders: 3 Noob DM Combat Mistakes You May Be Making - GM Tips
Mike Shea (Sly Flourish): Theater of Mind Combat
 

Stephan Hornick

Community Goblin & Master of the Archive
Platinum WoA
Wizard of Story
Wizard of Combat
Borderland Explorer
I added several more aspects to the list above and adjusted some descriptions to possibly help other GMs to better get a grasp on what they mean and how to use them.
 
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