Combat in Games

I just spent about 2 hours reading threads on the Fantasy Flight forums as well as rpg.net. It has caused me to harken back to something that I think continues to come up in our games, and yet for some reason we rarely address it.

How do we want to deal with combat?

The Conundrum

Here is the issue as I see it. Some of us want to have tactical decisions that matter. Some of us want to do something cool. Some of us dont really care how the combat is handled as long as it is easy to grasp. Yet, when we actually sit down at the table how different are we?

This is one of those discussions where 'system matters' makes the most sense. Part of the reason we really glaze over combat in Star Trek: The Triangle Missions is that it is poorly implemented. In a way it makes sense, they have implemented what you see on tv: get hit with a phaser, go down. I tried adding a new system so you might survive a hit, just for drama sake, but I am not sure that made the combat more 'desirable' from a player standpoint.

I have often said I want the combats to be more interesting from a system perspective, more 'tactical'. I want the decisions I make to matter. But where does this lead? What if the mechanics say one thing should happen in a series of attacks, but logic says another (this came up in Exposure).

Maybe I have been guilty of something and that has then become endemic to us all: making combat uninteresting from a players perspective.

Think back to the combats we have had. How often is the setting well described? Sometimes we draw a map, but is that the same? Now a follow up, how often have the players utilized the environment to good effect during a combat?

We rarely run for cover, we rarely maneuver other than 'I engage him'. I am thinking this could be a relatively new phenomenon, and it might be part of why we have had a bit of trouble with continuity (or maybe it is caused by it?).

Remember the first session of Serenity Bebop? The players had a fight in a bar with some mobster toughs while attempting to save another group of mobsters. At one point, Rumis character (a combat medic) grabbed an injured NPC and pulled him to the floor while simultaneously kicking over the table to provide cover. She then proceeded to administer first aid on subsequent turns. In other words, she described her action well and added to the scene. We have gotten away from this somewhat, and I think she was also almost punished for trying to be creative in the The Riddle of Steel game when she wanted to pin or break the enemy spear. It just devolved into a system discussion where her eyes glazed over and she got the 'just let me roll the dice' look.

I think we need a strong example, and normally this can come from the GM. I think a lot of what I have been doing less and less in my time shackled to the GM chair is providing leadership in terms of narration. Dieter mentioned this as well in a recent email. Where the GM goes, players follow.

One other point is that in Serenity Bebop, Charles was a player and this is something he excels at. He is excellent at using the scene to his advantage or providing narrative hooks based on action. With him doing it, we all kind of did. We need to find out how we can cultivate this kind of groupthink again. Or at least, I think I would like it if we did.

One consequence of this is the plots take longer to resolve. I would welcome this, but I am not sure this is universal to the players. When plots take more sessions to unfold, the GM has more opportunity to tailor the action to what the players are doing.

Proposed Solutions

We dont really have a problem per se, so solution might be too strong a word, but we could certainly improve. Currently we rush from encounter to encounter, throwing out short sentences, grabbing dice and screaming for resolution. This is true both in and out of combat.

This is not always a bad thing. The frenetic environment of Fractured Reflections was a choice on my part, and I think it contributed to the atmosphere. We should put some thought into pacing, and this is not always the GM who controls this. More correctly, if the players might enjoy a different pace, they should elucidate that to the GM.

This is not something we can address mechanically. In fact, it might not be something we can address at all until we have a consistent group and game. Maybe we need to be more comfortable with one another and 'immersed'. Both Allen and I have expressed some difficulty in getting immersion in one shots or certain atmospheres.

Thoughts

Is this accurate?

--Dieter the Bold 23:52, 21 January 2013 (MST) Combat for me consists of two types: The kind that has important implications and the kind that doesn't. In the latter case, I just want to be able to throw a few dice and get it over with so I can get to the juicier meat of plot or interaction. That's not to say I don't want to have that combat there, as it can be a very personally satisfying experience to lay the beatdown on some mooks or make a statement through superior violence. In these cases I want combat to be like a skill roll. Figure out the modifiers, maybe some minor scheming to tilt said mods in your favor, and just make some rolls.
When the combat has important implications, I suddenly get schizophrenic. On the one hand, combat that will resolve important plot points falls more into roleplaying for me. Which makes it important that the mechanics support me in being able to make decisions that have real effects. This isn't just waving my arms about, this is roleplaying through a sword, or gun, or spell. So I want to have full expression of my creativity within a system that gives my decisions meaning. The mental-split comes about because of how long this type of roleplaying takes. A serious combat between a group of PCs and a group of NPCs can last for hours. And I am kneejerk against spending hours of real-time resolving what will be 10 minutes of game-time.

Go here for a tangent into why I think I game like I do.

--Jason 12:54, 22 January 2013 (MST) I have trouble separating these in my head. I read a thread on rpg.net yesterday about a dude talking about 3 tiers of combats. Should we as GMs ensure that unimportant combats just have fewer participants? Should we decide as a group that there are reduced consequences in unimportant combats? If so, why are we as players resorting to deadly force if we are not willing to risk death ourselves?

I dont know the answer to those questions.

On a related note, when was the last time we had a combat take an hour or more? Well, not counting Riddle of Steel, where it only dragged on because we were complete system imbeciles. I think we have almost completely gotten away from important combats. Even when its story important, we still glaze over it.

--Dieter the Bold 13:46, 22 January 2013 (MST) Evergreen Initiative assault on the MP base, a lot of HERO fights. And I'm also generalizing from my whole gaming career, not just this group specifically. Perhaps unfairly.

--Jason 14:32, 22 January 2013 (MST) I had totally forgotten about Evergreen Initiative. That was a legit 'big combat'. I am wondering if we are devaluing combat? Not sure.

--Dieter the Bold 16:31, 22 January 2013 (MST) I've definitely devalued combat due to previous D&D experiences, but have recently (since I joined up with Star Trek) begun putting combat in a Catch-22 by seeking to make it more valuable (ship manuevers, etc.) but without challenging my assumptions about it. Definitely something I need to work on internally.

--Jason 15:15, 23 January 2013 (MST) Check out this thing I totally stole from an rpg.net thread who totally stole it from Unknown Armies:

Somewhere out there is someone who had loving parents, watched clouds on a summer's day, fell in love, lost a friend, is kind to small animals, and knows how to say "please" and "thank you," and yet somehow the two of you are going to end up in a dirty little room with one knife between you and you are going to have to kill that human being.

It's a terrible thing. Not just because he's come to the same realization and wants to survive just as much as you do, meaning he's going to try and puncture your internal organs to set off a cascading trauma effect that ends with you voiding your bowels, dying alone and removed from everything you've ever loved. No, it's a terrible thing because somewhere along the way you could have made a different choice. You could have avoided that knife, that room, and maybe even found some kind of common ground between the two of you. Or at least, you might have divvied up some turf and left each other alone. That would have been smarter, wouldn't it? Even dogs are smart enough to do that. Now you're staring into the eyes of a fellow human and in a couple minutes one of you is going to be vomiting blood to the rhythm of a fading heartbeat. The survivor is going to remember this night for the rest of his or her life.

Six Ways to Stop a Fight

So before you grab that knife, you should maybe think about a few things. This moment is frozen in time. You can still make a better choice.

Surrender. Is your pride really worth a human life? Drop your weapon, put up your hands, and tell them you're ready to cut a deal. You walk, and in exchange you give them something they need. Sidestep the current agenda. Offer them something unrelated to your dispute, and negotiate a solution.

Disarm. Knife on the table? Throw it out the window? Opponent with a gun? Dodge until he's out of bullets. Deescalate the confrontation to fists, if possible. You can settle your differences with some brawling and still walk away, plus neither one of you has to face a murder charge or a criminal investigation.

Rechannel. So you have a conflict. Settle it a smarter way. Arm wrestle, play cards, have a scavenger hunt, a drinking contest, anything that lets you establish a winner and a loser. Smart gamblers bet nothing they aren't willing to lose. Why put your life on the line?

Pass the buck. Is there someone more powerful than either one of you who is going to be angry that you two are coming to blows? Pretend you're all in the mafia and you can't just kill each other without kicking your dispute upstairs first. Let that symbolic superior make a decision. You gain clout for not spilling blood.

Call the cops. If you've got a grievance against somebody, let the cops do your dirty work. File charges. Get a restraining order. Sue him in civil court for wrongful harm. You can beat him down without throwing a punch.

Run away. The hell with it. Who needs this kind of heat? Blow town, get a job someplace else, build a new power base. Is the world really too small for the both of you? It's a big planet out there.

Oh Well

Still determined? Backed into a corner with no way out? Have to fight for the greater good? Up against someone too stupid to know this is a bad idea? Or maybe just itching for some action? So be it. The rest of this chapter contains rules for simulating the murder of human beings. Have fun.

--Megami 01:57, 25 January 2013 (MST) First, I appreciate the kudos (those candy bars were awesome) of my actions in games of yore. In thinking back to memorable combats, I found a commonality: the ones with roleplaying and some sort of emotional impact, not just fighting, rolling dice, and discussing mechanics/rules, are the ones that are very vibrant in my mind. Even silly blunders, like an elephant charging an enemy, but realizing too late that his speed sucks thus playing out like he's running in slow motion, paint pictures and become memories. Even though most of the time we can see it coming, I like it when we walk into a situation and are surprised by the proclamation of "roll for initiative!". Then, even better, when the dialogue and development of story/characters continue and it's not just "a bunch of bandits start attacking you" then roll dice and crunch numbers for an hour. It's been nearly five years, but I still remember Captain Linkous and his army of undead marching down the road, setting fire to the roofs of the town. Every time I'm at the Red Robin in Tukwila, I look towards the bar where Cyril Jackson and I got into a fight, he managed to grab a hold of me and threaten, "You're mine now, princess!" Little touches like that that make the game seem like it's continuing to tell the story makes me feel far more engaged than just trying to win the combat.