Topic - Dungeons And Dragons
Today I would like to talk about improving the quality of your combat encounters in Dungeons And Dragons. Combat encounters are an essential part of the game: they are an opportunity for classes to experiment with tactics, use weapons and armour that they spent all that gold on, and think laterally about environments: an occurrence that cannot be matched by any other encounter-style. They are essential to please the more blood-thirsty players, and are one of the greatest tools a DM has for providing a crescendo-finish. Despite this, combat encounters are consistently dull and repetitive. Rather than being a chance to fully engage players they instead waste their time: providing unoriginal, unintense little dice rolling games. Now, what I want to cover today is how you can take you CEs from a mindless grindfest to an exciting battle!
1. Beefiness Arrangements and Anti-Grind
This is the most key point in improving your combat encounters, I believe. To fully understand my point here we must first understand the 4 laws Of CEs, here we go:
1. Hitting monsters is not the fun bit.
2. Moving, changing the terrain, and interaction IS the fun bit
3. Killing many small things is often more rewarding than 1 big thing.
4. Multitasking is fun.
Now, most of this is going to sound very scary, but it is important not to take these literally. OF COURSE killing monsters is fun, however a CE consisting of only hitting things will not bring satisfaction. The ability to move and interact is key: combat encounters are more fun if players feel that they have freedom and are actually there. Furthermore, OF COURSE killing an enormous ogre can be extremely rewarding, however if that is the single premise of your encounter that the players will not enjoy it. So lets talk about what "Beefiness and Anti-Grind" means. Let me describe a situation:
Present: The Party, A Frost Giant, and a whole bunch of Goblins
1. The party kills all of the goblins: they charge straight at them, and have low health.
So far so good...
2. Now they have to spend 10 minutes just hitting the ogre with attacks until it dies...
Oh dear... This "2." is what we call a Grind: when players must focus a character and keep hitting it until it finally dies. At all cost, Grinds must be avoided. There are 3 ways to avoid grinds:
1. Introduce More Characters - multitasking is fun, and it gives players the option to chose which one to focus on... Even if all they do is kill the minions, thats fine. Keep spawning the bastards, and eventually they will split themselves up: some killing big-guys and some killing minions.
2. Space Things Out Differently - rather than a big hulk that runs around, try something like this: a weak but dangerous character that hides at the back, guarded by bigger things. This forces players to think about sneaking by and clearing paths, it means that when they get to the "boss" he dies quickly.
3. Interactive/Puzzlish Scenery - rather than have the boss die by grind, why not include another way to kill them? A pit, a pillar, some sort of secret weaknesses are all good ideas. They still have to deal with the minions first, but once sorted they can start think about the area in a different way. This also pleases the more "thinky" rather than "killy" types.
2. More Than Just Fighting
We just touched briefly on pleasing "thinky" types, but its very important. Many players would prefer to be solving puzzles that doing the actual damage. Here I would like to suggest including interactive scenery and opportunities for characters to experiment with other skills such as knowledge-checks, acrobatics, and puzzle-solving. Similarly, it allows classes like Rogues and Rangers to think about acrobatics and athletics, jumping about in order to exploit privileges. What you want to do is really flesh out the combat room: vines, balconies, statues and gargoyles are great ways to bring out a player's fun-side. Ruins are especially useful: taking more or less any shape they choose to and create a scary atmosphere.
And its EVEN better if the scenery CHANGES. Tables falling over, things collapsing, things being revealed and hidden. Forcing one player to be doing one thing (e.g. picking a lock) while the others fight can be a really interesting setup as well.
3. Personality And Charm
This is probably the hardest thing to perfect as a DM. It is YOUR job, in this case, to make the encounter seem realer, and more intense. You know how I love them, heres a list:
1. Describe The Scene In Detail, And Include Lots Of Features - A cave should be more than a cave. It should be a dark, brutal abode, with the scent of blood and tears thickening the air to a dense pulp. Solitary patches of cold stone wall sparingly decorated with cave-paintings and slowly-dying torches, and various bones scattering the floor. As I said, fleshing-out a room is incredibly important. The players should feel like they are part of a story. The same rules apply for describing creatures within it.
2. Monsters Should Have Personality. - This one may be a bit more confusing. The players should not be fighting armoured cardboard-cutouts. I want to see goblins squabbling, ones with particular scars, a fat one, a thin one, a leader goblin (he can still have the same stats) and one thats holding a candlestick. This not only gives the players a way to recognise what they're killing, but makes it more satisfying. Try to really make every detail fun.
3. Include Useless Things - Believe it or not, DnD has hoarders. I can comply because I am one myself: I adore keeping trinkets and nicknacks that I find in old dungeons and cemeteries. It makes the scene seem more real: in a church, even when there's fighting going on, there are still going to be things lying around! Books, glass, ornaments. Although these things may be pointless they make it seem as if you are actually fighting in a CHURCH, rather than a blank room with monsters in it.
4. Make Encounters Have Relevance To The Story - Not all encounters should be fights-for survival. They should thicken the plot, and allow a scenario in which players can interact with NPCs, and find out information etc.
So that about concludes this talk. I hoped you learned a bit about improving your CEs, and I hope you can take away at least one tip.
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