Making Combat Fun

So the other day I had a friend complain that combat was the least interesting part of their D&D game. Admittedly, I’ve felt this way before too depending on how the game has been ran. This post is mostly me stealing from myself from that chat, to try and give you all a better idea of what’s going on in my games and in my head when I invent a combat scenario, and also a bunch of opinions on combat and other stuff.

So, the first question is “which better describes combat in D&D for you: Final Fantasy Turn Based Whack-A-Mole, or brutal Jason Bourne desperate life-struggle, or riveting Musketeer Style Swashbuckling?”

The second and more important question is “What do you want combat to be?”

Personally, I want swashbuckling and brutality in equal measures, but with a focus on swashbuckling. Leiber, Moorcock, and Howard were the heart of D&D’s fictional inspiration, and I want my fights to mimic theirs in speed, tone, and lethality. Or as much as they can, given that this is a game and not fiction. 

To begin, I always try to remember what The Tome of Adventure Design said about combat: that combat encounters are only ever as interesting as they are as a game-board. Meaning that a mob of ten goblins in an empty room is boring. 

A mob of ten goblins riding giant wasps while you climb a latticework of climbing roses, in order to get to their wizard employer’s tower is memorable and fun. 

Granted, not everything has to be in weird and wacky locations. Currently I just finished running the wonderful Deep Carbon Observatory by Patrick Stuart, and had an absolutely lethal dinosaur fight, which ironically took place in a mostly empty room, but was super memorable due to just how bonkers it was. Still, the fight should be interesting or exciting somehow, and fights should take place in interesting locales. The environment should be a danger, a tool, or both. The minute my Barbarian gets two attacks in 5e, I flip the script on the caster with minions every time, because I now have the ability to grapple (as an attack action, doesn’t end rage) and YEET a minion (advantage on athletics checks from rage, it’s an attack so it doesn’t end) INTO the wizard. Concentrate on THAT.  It’s an example, but like, why couldn’t I do that with food at a banquet hall? Or if I’m in a bridge, just kick them off the edge? Why can’t that be my Attack? Interacting with the environment is an onus that is on the player, but you as the GM Set that up.

The other tip I have is that, for me as a player, I know what I’m doing before my turn. And as a Game Master, I expect my players to tell me what they’re doing when I call their name. Combat for me is RAPID pace. I do group initiative between the party and monsters, and for multiple opponents split them into chunks. Only the party’s initiative matters, the monsters go in whatever order I want on their turn. If a player, especially a caster, doesn’t know what they’re doing, or starts flipping pages in a book to find out what their spell does, I’ve told them ahead of time that their character has done a brain fart and is flipping in their spell book during combat and they get skipped this round. We did two rounds of combat last night. Just like boxing, I feel a fight should be three rounds or less. A real fight is over in less than two minutes; D&D should feel that short and lethal.

I also ask my players to briefly describe their attacks when they hit, or describe their misses when they whiff. If they don’t want to, I’ll fill in that gap with a short sentence. I also have them describe Crits and Death Blows, as every player likes to describe their Mortal Kombat Fatalities.

Badguys and players should also be encouraged to do and be things besides chunks of numbers. Have villains tangle and trip the players. Have them take hostages mid fight, have them retreat when half their numbers are killed. Let them try to disarm them.

Honestly, this works so well for me, and this is why I veer much more into low and mid level games. At high levels, monsters and bosses just becomes BLOBs of HP, and it’s a whittling game that’s boring as fuck. No offense to some people’s GMing style, but some people’s boss fights are awful trudges through simple math. As a player, I once had had an excellent boss encounter where we fought in an antigravity room with mystic shields blocking LoS for casters, making athletics checks to astronaut push our way around the room and stop ourselves before overshooting enemies (that would have given them attacks of opportunity). Especially for 5e, that was a great fight, and it owed a lot to an interesting location/gameboard.

By comparison, many years ago I once had my players fight a dragon in an empty room. It was a snore fest, and an important learning point for me. Despite all the working up of the boss narratively and the dread and themed dungeon dressings, by the end of it my players weren’t hooked, and one was actively looking for something else to interact with in the room.

Since then, the outstanding article “A 16 HP Dragon” over at the La Torra blog has informed a lot of my personal Dragon fights. I don’t keep them as low as sixteen HP, but I keep most of my monsters under 200-300hp for a reason. And I put them in better locations. 

Here’s my other combat-related opinion: getting “cool things” per level, like action surge, second wind, etc, is BAD for the game and players. It teaches them to think in terms of what the GAME says they can do and not what THEY think their characters can do. Especially as it encourages players to crave numerical bonuses instead of weird and whacky shit that drives the fantasy genre. 

This is why my humans get no racial bonuses. Humans get a Special Thing. Each player chooses their special thing they can do (typically starting out as once a game session, or once a dungeon room/scene) and if they can’t think of one then I tell them to take a feat, they can do that once a game session/room instead.

“I can teleport 30ft in any direction once a game.” 

Cool. 

“I can echolocate twenty feet in front of me once a room/scene.”

Cool!

“I can attack with such fury it gives me advantage to hit once a game.”

Cool!

“I am a kleptomaniac and have accidentally stolen just the right non-magical item once a game.”

Perfection. 

“I wear gloves because once a scene I can use psychometry on an item to find it’s history.”

Glorious!

These are all things humans in my world have done.

They aren’t in any books, and are infinitely better than +1 to all ability scores or a feat.

I’m a firm believer that D&D and combat gets creative when players and GMs do.

The other thing to for me is, combat happens when combat is the 1) only choice or 2) the players’ choice.

Meaning that, when the players encounter a Minotaur in The Crawling Gardens, it will attack them back if they choose to attack it. But if they greet that Minotaur with a friendly “Salutations Horned One!” I’m sure the scene will go differently.

And when they encounter cannibal scum cultists of some torture god, they are gonna have to fight no matter what (unless they get cool with some evil shit reeeeal quick).

Cursed of Circe

The Moon, and thus The Queen of Night has an... unusual influence on some people. The Moon changes. It should come as no surprise then, that the witches, priests, and supplicants of Her darkling faith are both prone to change themselves and also can hold that power over others.

Enter the tale of Wallor Gloll, leader of a modest mercenary group. The stories vary, but Gloll and his crew were not good people, and transgressed a deal with a priestess who gave them food and shelter. In her fury, she cursed them with a change, but not the usual kind that her Queen bestowed: a permanent change, one that they could not shake, and one that grew. Some say it was not the priestess herself who cursed Gloll, but rather The Queen of Night Herself, taking revenge for those who would act with gluttonous greed and callous indifference to Her half-holy servants. 

Wallor and his lot were malformed into half-swine, porcine faces that walked on two digitigrade legs. Nails replaced with hooves for feet on weak ankles, little nailless hands that can’t scratch itches, layers of choking fat between their tissues, sores, boils, and all manner of skin-lesions. And above all, a relentless hunger that could not be filled despite their ability to devour food. Just as Gloll and his crew blasphemed the comfort they were offered, the life of one of The Cursed of Circe is one of constant discomfort.

Since then they have splintered into various tribes and warbands, scattering across the world and seeking work as foot soldiers for anyone wicked enough to hire them, or foolish enough to allow them into their kingdom. For the curse, you see, is transferred to those who share their food and shelter with the revolting Pig-Men, a reminder that this is a divine punishment, and that mortals need not intervene. 

Which war-band has your party encountered?

1) The Lesionnaires: scab and wart crusted warriors in lorica segmenta and horse-hair helmets. Barely regimented mobs covered in pustules. 
2) Refined Swine: Gloating bloated autocrats and politicians covered in the garbage of the elite and hyper-wealthy. Costume jewelry and gold paint, lipstick on ignorant pigs.
3) Slag Hogs: Tusked raiders in heavy, rusting plate. Bursting at the seams of their armor, they screw hot metal into their flesh to brace their joints. Smells of grease and salt.
4) Wild Pigs: Razorback ruffians with sharply crested backhair, they pierce their porcine flesh, tattoo butcher lines. Won’t stop drooling, as dumb as they look. Gluttons for punishment, and anything else. 

What are their horrible desires this time?

1) A feast of flesh! Animal, man, it matters not as long as they can tear sinew from bone and suckle at marrow. 
2) Wealth by the pound! Buckets of gold, glittering gems and baubles galore!
3) Sloth! To sleep, lazing the days away. They refuse to do their work, or anything but lie around farting and telling crass jokes.
4) Drink! Alcohol, drugs, whatever dampens the mind and produces mild euphoria. Great gallons of the stuff, they can never be drunk enough. 
5) Filth! Whether mud or muck, cisterns or emptied chamberpots, they wish to roll about in the mire or man’s making. 
6) Company! Join them, feast with them, tell them a tale and stay a spell. They’re sure you’ll fit right in.

The Names of Wolves

Nobody really speaks the language of wolves, unless you’re raised by them, or perhaps a wash of moonlight madness pulls your soul closer to the Wilds of Night, and the Old Dark. 

But wolves do speak. Less often than you or I. Their sentences tend to be short and to the point without being blunt. Pragmatically taciturn, not brutalist short. A dog that speaks will have a conversation. They will tell you that they have a favorite tree and that they like you and generally chatter. A wolf will tell you what you need to know, and that’s about it. A dog will say “please.” Wolves do not. And they are fine with it that way. 

If one uses magical means to speak with wolves, one will quickly realize wolves don’t have names like dogs. Dogs have names given to them by people, and thus know that name and go by that name. Wolves have names given to them by wolves, and they aren’t like our names. 

Wolf names tend to be like their sentences, and change over time, as their names tend to be centered around the roles they fill or have filled in their lives. Sometimes, important wolves get important names, but this is a rarity. Wolves are familial creatures, and tend to think of “we” before “I” or “you”. And just like you know many people with the same name (like Andrew, Chris, Ashley, or Jessica), most wolves have the same name. There isn’t a way to separate them, save that they know one another and themselves. How this works in conversation is unknown, and most wizards who have tried to find out haven’t come back, their research lost to teeth and claws. 

Here is a list of Wolf Names:
Closes the Circle
Wounds The Leg
Tears The Throat
Eats Last
Listens
Watches 
Oldest
Harry and Bleed
Howls First
Mother of Six
Three-Father
Loves Play (a name most pups carry, and any adult during play)
Hunter (a name used specifically when a wolf is moving between packs)
Takes The Weak
Den Guard
Runs The Edge

The Cult of Crows

No one knows how long the corvid cult has existed for. Eons, likely, or at least as long as therianthropic cave paintings of men with wings and black birds were lit by firelight and painted with fear and reverence by men. It’s called many names, Raven Host, Murder of A Thousand Eyes, Corvus Occassus, The Crow Cult. Their totemic worship is answered in omens, signs, and whispered secrets in Thrush. 

The cult’s tenets are simple at first, consisting of only three core rules: deceive once a day, always take from the dead, and warn other siblings of danger before taking flight. The higher the echelons of worship, the more esoteric the laws: a feast of flesh, a sacrament of theft, a secret kept. 

Thus fledgelings are brought into The Great Wheel, the first and central circle of the Black Bird Gang. The make-up is similar across the world: thieves, grave-robbers, brigands and street toughs, the usual rabble. But something is different with them, something uncanny in its ability to unify them. Maybe it’s how there’s always a crow watching them outside, ubiquitous though they are in the world. Maybe it’s how they know where she hid the knife, like somebody whispered it to them. Maybe it’s the little colorful ribbons and coins they keep finding on their person, like gifts.

For all the blessings, the great bird-beast they worship has increasing demands. The Great Wheel encompasses all followers, but the Left Wheel follows stricter rules in preparation for the Filled Skies: that certain earthly members, in possession of certain treasures, must be plucked as gifts to their god. Assassins, the lot, murderers of finest skill, Rhyming Rooks, a penchant for poetry with every kill. They mimic voices and sounds without equal, and cling to the dark like black pinions. The Right Wheel finds harsher laws making way for the great all-scouring flock that will pick the earth clean of life: seek the secret sign, hoard the glimmer of glamour, and the gilded coin so greedily guarded by men and worse alike. Wizards, druids, and all manner of hedge-witch make up the arcane arm of the cult, Augers and Haruspex, Magus Magpies and Raven Mavens all to the man. They are the esoteric priests and diviners, giving orders to the other wheels as the omens see fit.

The Central Wheel is the deepest chamber of Their Thieving Trickster God, the truth apparent to their high-priests: The Raven Creature wishes to steal much, much more than arcane might and physical wealth. They divine on carrion, crawling through the wreckage and the aftermath of battles. Some follow armies like black-clad priests of the dead and dying, hearing the last words of warriors and victims like a profane version of confession. They never help. Where else would their brothers and sisters over head feed? Trophies they take: teeth, eyes. Sometimes ears, to better hear and see the cries from the Crystal Mountain filled with the Cold Sun that their god speaks from. 

For members of The Murder of A Thousand Eyes, life is but an illusion. In death, is truth found. For there lies beyond this world another, the Shadowed Realm. The actions they take are necessary, not as a tribute to their dark god, but in mimicry of them. For there will be a time of Filled Skies, when the Thrush speakers turn on the rest of the world, and All Eyes Will Be Blinded. From the Shadowed Realm a new world must be hatched, and the Corvus Occassus will be the darkling phoenix that rises from the ashes.

Starting The Game for Beginners

Thanks to my move across country, I’ve found myself much more firmly in the game-master seat than in previous years. This is both a blessing and a curse, and I definitely have some rust I need o shake off. What baffles me the most is that in the ten years since I have been gone from my current home, instead of being mocked and ridiculed for my game, I have about eighteen people asking me to either run them on the game or teach them the game. 

So, in the spirit of teaching newbies how to play D&D for the first time, here’s my spiel I give to people about to play D&D the first time, and some home-brew rules: 

So, we’re gonna play a game that is mostly cooperative storytelling. We’re all working to tell the story together, but you play the main characters and heroes, and I as the referee will handle all the other stuff, like setting and villains. There is no wrong way to play this game, and everybody plays differently and for different reasons. Some people play because they like to kick butt and be big action heroes, others play to solve puzzles and be challenged mentally. Others play to stretch their acting chops, while others prefer the numbers and math of the game. None of these ways are wrong, and you may find that one or more of these aspects suits you. 

Because we’re all playing with new friends and such, many of us don’t know what kinds of stories we all like, or what content is ok. Lots of people have things in their past which may greatly upset them. I’ve played with combat vets and struggling parents, both of which let me know certain content wasn’t ok with them in the game. So if anything another player or their character does upsets you, hold your hands in an “X” above your head. We’ll immediately end that scene, move to another player for a moment, and then take a break. You can then talk to me or another player you feel comfortable with about that scene, what upset you, and both I and all the other players will make sure it doesn’t ever come up again. Also, if you know ahead of time not to mention or include a particular subject, let me know and I will address it at the table. 

Now, if you’re gonna be playing a hero, you need to come up with one. So, if you don’t write or just make up people for fun, I would like you to just choose a character or two from a book or movie you like who’s the hero, and imagine them as the same person, or decide what you like about them or why you’d want to play them in a TV show. Give them a name of your choosing and figure out how they’d look in this setting. 

No matter who or what you’re playing, understand you’re playing an Adventurer: some one who, for whatever reason, has chosen to engage in a high risk, high reward career path that can lead to gold, glory, and fame, or death, destruction, or worse. Typically, most adventurers start this path, because they are flat broke and a very special combination of brave, stupid, or both. 

While the rules often say to choose your species or race first, I’m gonna actually ask you to pick a class, or a job, first. Mostly because it has a lot more effect on what you do as an adventurer, and how you interact with the game itself. As a matter of fact, I prefer it if you’d all be human, but I understand a lot of people just love elves and dwarves and want to play those things. So we can talk about that later, if you want, but choosing your job is tough enough (especially as their are so many of them in the latest version of the game!). If you feel overwhelmed, I suggest choosing from the four original jobs the game had: Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric.

Now for the numbers part, all players start with 16,14,12,10,8,6 assigned as they choose among their Ability Scores. From here you can calculate the rest of the math for the latest version, or any version, of the game using the rulebook. I know some of you have heard of “rolling” these numbers, but assigning an array like this keeps it fair among all players and prevents problems with powerful or weak characters.

From there, you can follow the book’s easy QuickStart guide to making a character. You don’t have to worry about backgrounds and such that the book lists, but do have an idea of your character’s past, and what has forced them into the adventuring life.

Opinion: Plot Hooks are Extraneous

So I’ve been doing some mixed reading lately and I’m trying desperately to find where I read it, but recently a blog I read stated that they’ve stepped away from writing reasons for the characters to be in said place. These are that list of adventure hooks that show up invariably at the beginning of certain modules. Recently also someone I know also mentioned they were having trouble with their own adventure hooks, which prompted me to think on this just a bit. 

So, here’s my postulation: Good Adventurers don’t need adventure hooks. Creative players and referees don’t either. 

Crazy as it may sound, I have the firm belief that an Adventurer both should and will seek adventure. They are snoops and scallywags of the highest order. An adventurer who does not go looking for trouble is not an adventurer, rather they are a reluctant hero, and while that works in fiction, at the table that is going to get old very, very quickly. To that end, the Baggins are not Adventurers, despite having had one or two. A better example from modern cinema of an adventurer is Captain Jack Sparrow, who’s constantly after... something, anything. Indiana Jones is an excellent example for us older folks. I suppose that’s my opinion at the end: that those who claim to perform an action for a living should seek it.

That’s not to say that you can’t have good Characters who require some extraneous motivation. But frankly if I as a referee open a game where you’re in front of a dungeon as a player and you ask me “but what’s my motivaaaatioooon???” I will physically throw something at you. Nobody likes a needy actor.

More so, I feel like making a character should include some base motivations, and I mean that as both foundational and of low moral value: Morg Skulltaker didn’t get that last name by not coveting skulls, and your class’s name is always a great thing to want. A fighter should want to fight, a thief to steal, a wizard arcane power, and a cleric to convert or proselytize. Further, unless your basically playing in an attempt to be a moral paragon (*cough*paladin*cough*), having a vice adds a little human element that I think does Adventurers well for role-play and storytelling. 

I also think a crafty referee can rope any character into heavily armed underground death-trap spelunking and exploration with a little application of ingenuity. Yes, that includes stubborn ones made by players who’s whole character concept is antithetical to the game, such as reclusive home-bodies who suffer agoraphobia and won’t leave their locked home. One must go out for groceries sometime, and sinkholes and meteors swallow highways and strike homes, why not theirs? Still, this may often feel like pulling teeth or bathing a cat- both are a painful process and often leave one feeling exhausted and a little empty when the work is done.

Certainly I don’t think it’s bad idea to have rumors of the dungeon or the adventure or whatnot that players might know, but by no means are they necessary. Especially if you have a mentally tired player or someone who is unfamiliar with the game, or maybe someone who struggles with writing, prefab suggestions and ideas can help. Especially since they’re quite ready (and intentionally designed) to be used right out the box. Still, I’d rather suggested plot hooks act as springboards for my players’ own imaginations rather than railroading them in to a single or multiple prefabricated hooks. 

Incoherent Rambling about Old school play and Death Saves

I was discussing some old school tenets with my brother the other day, when I explained my dilemma with Old School Save vs Death (too harsh) and 5e Death Saving throws (too lenient), and my inability to find a happy medium, my workaround, and the thoughts behind the feelings that have arisen to such. 

My biggest thoughts mostly deal with danger, expectations, and storytelling, and the media we consume in our modern world. Moreso, I think it related heavily to our Videogames we play as well. 

I’m of the opinion that the game itself, and perhaps the entire genre of fantasy gaming, has been hijacked initially by Tolkienic Fantasy and then again afterwards by Blockbuster Videogames and Movies. Televised electronic media is ever prevalent and all consuming, and this in turn has had a heavy hand in the guiding of our fiction, both literary and private. More-so, our games-industry increasingly attempts to deliver a cinematic experience rather than a challenge of skill, and that’s where the crux of my ambiguity lies: I, as a narrativist, want to tell a good tale. But I, as a gamer and referee, wish to challenge my players (and be challenged as a player) fairly and have my skills tested/test the skills of my players. Not that there aren’t outliers to this, Dark Souls, Sekrio, Darkest Dungeon, anything by Altus, and other electronic games pride themselves on their levels of depth and difficulty. But right now I’m running the risk of making a blog commenting on Videogames rather than RPGs, which is what this blog is supposed to be about. 

The roots of the hobby lie not in the games of today, but rather in napoleonic wargaming. A hobby long since given over to Warhammer’s science-fantasy realm and legions of rabid fanboys. Anyone who’s played such a game can certainly attest, all the troops don’t make it home from the board even if you win. Even older videogames returned you to the beginning of the game if you struck out three or more times. A rousing game of Contra or Castlevania should serve as an excellent education in the price of defeat. Brutal, to lose all progress. But back then, it was considered fair. Some still consider it such. 

Couple this with the increasing extravagance of cinema’s and the videogame industry’s fantasy worlds, one where all too often the heroes single handedly trounce monstrously giant opponents, god-like in their might, the audience never doubting for a moment that the heroes would lose, as they slug their way through hundreds of foes. This is intentional: the victory is important, not the journey, or the hundred would-be heroes who have come before. In electronic games, a loss or failure often merely delays the story’s completion, it does not erase it. Falling from a cliff or being ran-through by a demon’s blade is but a trifling setback. This is also intentional: the challenge is not the focus, the story is. 

And this is the scenario we’re accustomed to: that the heroes will win, and that losses will be negligible, only delaying time (which will not be of the essence), and we’ll get a good tale out of it. Not that the danger is a ruse in most all forms of media we take in, but rather the consistent focus doesn’t let us see the deepest of travails, merely the triumphs, and we have become desensitized to total-loss (which death is for characters).

Granted, this is all half-fact and a lot of theorizing and generalizing on my end of things. So frankly I’m talking out my ass about this. I’m not a sociologist or a media analyst. I’m a dude who’s listening to ‘80s deathmetal and painting little plastic monsters while daydreaming about cave-divers with swords. Speculation does not reality make.

Now you may think, “Oh but I have worked hard on this character, spent hours playing them. To lose them to a poor roll is frankly dumb!” And I agree. Poor luck of the die is hardly a good reason to end a burgeoning or advanced career in delving, despite its realism. It makes for an unsatisfying end to the tale, and smacks of the simulationism that Gygax warned against in the AD&D DMG. 

Neither do I think that 5e’s current death saves are fair. Best 3 out of 5 rolls? That eats time, and is there to allow your compatriots to make it to you before the clock runs out. It’s supposed to be the bleed-out of first person shooters where everyone drops their stuff and runs to help. Except only the cleric or designated person with a potion moves. The fighters keep fighting and 5 rounds (two to three, at the fastest) is a leisurely walk in the park at the table. We once had a fighter pinged with Healing Word alternatively by a cleric and bard for ten rounds at the table. We joked he was doing burpees, coming up to attack and then down again. Granted, the ready availability of healing is... another topic for another day. But it is... difficult to die in the most modern edition of the game. Absurdly so. 

My work around (which, admittedly I’m not super happy with either), is to rule it as this: Save vs Death Means Save Vs Death Saves. If a spell would kill a character flat on a failed roll, they instead must roll three Constitution Saving Throws against the DC of the spell/trap, not ten (otherwise merely flip a coin). Best two of three determines their fate. Going to Zero in Combat results in the same, with successful saves indicating your character lives, but with a nasty physical or mental scar that the player must decide upon. That feels fairer than that one-roll death and less padded for those old hats like me who don’t mind if a character dies.