So I'm rewatching the Pirates movies, and really, they have

>>49891369
I try to do it by giving the players non-combat objectives, if not in every combat at least in every other encounter (and if the players come up with some idea for the other... even better).
It isn't easy, and for me it feels like I'm just playing the same gimmicks (snatch & run, or the party gets snatch'd & run, or triggers more impotrant than the combat itself, or triggers to change combat conditions, the triggers might be the same for both the party and the monsters, or the monsters defend the triggers, or it's a ball game and both sides have to simultaneously attack and defend different goals) over and over... the group likes it tho.
I end up with less combat encounters per day and per adventure, and use the 'longer rests' variation (in d&d, 4e and 5e) to balance it out.

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>>49891369

>>49892309
>I'm practically Legolas over here.
Clever.

>>49891369
Tell conventional mechanics to get fucked. Start having your enemies bodily shove players out of their comfort square. Make things like "swordfighting on top of a wheel" a series of simple, fluid skill checks, and use the opportunity to move them across the battlespace.

Above all, describe what's happening and encourage your players to do the same. Lie about rolls if you have to in order to make cool shit happen.

The entire thing doesn't take place on paper, with minis. It takes place in your heads, an the only limits there are what you constrain yourself with. Push the boundaries a little, or a lot.

>>49892840
Oh I'm no stranger to bending the rules in favour of set pieces. I'm less concerned about the specifics of a fluid fight and more concerned about the theory. If we can have a fight play out both excitingly and flavourfully while also remaining within the confines of defined parameters so the players don't feel hoodwinked, why not try to accomplish both?

Normally I'd be totally fine just doing fiat but my players are autists that like their RULES when combat rolls around, and I can't hold it against them since it is still a role playing GAME after all.

>>49893089
Stop using mapgrids.

Just fucking drop them, abstract positioning is godlike for fluid action.

>>49891369
First thing is to throw away rules like opportunity attacks. They´re realistic, but when the players see they could get hit for moving, they don´t move.

Second, take off the I-go-u-go mechanic. Have the group say what they´re doing. Fast characters of course tend to get away with their actions first, but in general roll accordingly to what´s going on, not to the order everyone´s sitting on the table.

Third, make the NPCs move and use the terrain. I had to train my players into it by showing them how some orcs used a table to half barricade a door, making it much harder for them to break in. Kobolds take cover all the time and show up in other places. Spiders crawl around and retreat quickly if the ambush fails. Never let a fight devolve into rolling until one side is dead, keep things happening.

Fourth, do we REALLY need to represent each damn attack? Why not zoom out a little and simply say how the fight is going? It doesn´t work very well with a d20, but a bell curve does the trick.

So, what´s happening? What do you want to do? Roll. Things go good or things go bad. You don´t just "hit", you stab the opponent in the arm and make him drop his shield, or reach him in the leg and make him loose footing, or scratch his face and cover his eyes with blood. The opponent falls back, goes defensive. His peers move in to help him if they can.

You don´t have to go full narrative system, but don´t let the mechanics get in the way of the story. It´s a reason I don´t like DnD, it´s just too damn tight and numeric. A micro version like Black Hand is much more open, although I still prefer other systems.

And give penalties when someone gets hurt. Helps finish fights faster, which compensates because you´re all taking longer elaborating more on what´s going on exactly.

1/2

>>49893122
I ran an entire campaign mostly devoid of map grids, and while I like theatre of mind for not mechanically demanding games, games that actually have a level of strategy involved demand them. Halfway through the campaign I got tired of forcing my players to play "mother may I?" Every time they wanted to do something.

I feel like they were stripped of agency because of that and I don't like that. I used to be staunchly opposed to the grid, but I've gotta say it does what needs doing.

To rephrase the question, how do we incentivize movement beyond contrived scenarios? How do we make moving away to do something else worthwhile?

Do we remove attacks of opportunity as a concept? Do we hard boil "disengaging" type rules into our PCs and Elite NPCs so they can outwit and outmanoeuvre the rabble?

It's not a question of "how do we do it?" Because the easy answer to that is "just do it." The question is "how do we codify and convey this to the players so they can properly gauge their arsenal and get into the proper mindset of fluidity in combat as opposed to the traditional tank and spank? How do we lay this out in stone in a theoretical way that can be applied to different systems because we understand the idea on a fundamental level"

>>49891369
>>49893218
Cont.

I don´t like Dungeon World either, but the philosophy behind it is very, very solid. Take the case of the 16 HP dragon. In DnD, a dragon is a big pile of stats, abilities, and a huge blob of HP. It kinda feels like a video game. We do X damage per turn, it´s got Y HP. We gotta make Z papercuts and then its dead.

But that´s not how a cool combat goes. Look at the dragons in Tolkien. Smaug was a pain for everyone. Just in the Hobbit it took the Mountain and razed the lake city like it was nothing. It didn´t die because it got shot at many, many times. It died because it got shot once - in the right spot.
Look at Glaurung, known as the worst of all dragons, maybe second only to Ancalagon. It was a cancer for the whole world, yet it died when that guy hid in a crevice and stabbed it in the belly with a spear.
The Witch King got defeated when he got stabbed in the face once, not because he had been fighting and being shot at through the whole siege.

See the pattern? Why do we need dragons with hundreds of HP?
A dragon is like a force of nature, not a tree waiting to be chopped and chopped with a sword until it falls over. Yeah, it´s got just 16 HP, but good luck getting close enough to it to do any damage without getting melted in its fire, chewed apart, whipped away with a tail swipe, rammed... And then you still have to get through its hide, which would be easier if it stopped moving around and flying away when you try to stab it.

Fighting a dragon is scary as fuck. And not because it´s a well-designed, thoughtfully balanced piece of mechanics, but because it´s a fucking huge pissed-off murder-minded DRAGON.


tl;dr Lead with narration, follow with mechanics to clear things up.

Also get rid of grids. Draw a rough map of the area in case it´s a complicated place, and that´s it. Keep it theater of the mind. If the players can see where everyone is, the inner tactical wargamer kicks in and it´s all back to rolling.

2/2

>>49893218
That's a good post.

I'm actually not even playing dnd. My group wanted to try out that Unofficial Elder Scrolls game and the combat is very very very in depth and granular, which we are all excited about trying.

Cutting opportunity attacks I agree is the first fundamental concept to encouraging movement. When AOOs exist the disincentive to move around is just too strong and it changes the concepts away from rewarding to punishment

>>49893296
Unfortunately, this looks like a very subjective thing: your group may need a completely different set of rules and guidelines to encourage it compared to someone else's.

My advice: run a non-campaign, full combat session, full of setpieces and optional rule changes: a sandbox to try different methods to find the right balance in. Let your players know that's the plan, and work with them to help them understand where they have limitations and where they don't.

In my experience, if you put something in a scene where combat will happen, the players will try to use it. So fill an arena with interesting junk and battle orcs until they have the kinks worked out.

>>49893296
The major problem here is that you´re mixing two things. A game with plenty of mechanical strategy benefits from a grid but, thing is, that strategy is made through rules, and rules are constraining. If you need a feat to backstab, then the players are going to have a hard time imagining a dynamic fight because they´ll be looking at their sheets all the time to see what they -can- do. I think the most basic problem here is that we´ve taken strategic complexity for a normal thing, but at the same time we want to play dynamic fights. Either we´re playing a wargame with tight rules, or we aren´t.


The key here is to find the balance between rules and freedom, which is why I recommend, for example, sticking to micro DnD versions like Black Hand, if you like DnD, or even better just looking for other systems that are a little lighter on rules while still keeping some depth.

I´m working on one of those myself because I can´t find a single one that nails that middle point of control/freedom while also working well with just one player. I can share, if you´re interested.

>>49893395
I wanted to play that, but the combat threw me off completely. How the hell are we going to have a dynamic fight if combat is perfectly mapped out in tables? If you write down what the players can do, then that´s all they´ll do. Why do you think people like to walk on the bike lane? It´s a shiny red, very clearly marked path. People like rules and marked paths and most won´t think out of the box if they can avoid it.

There´s also the TESd6 system, which starts fine, quite light, and then goes videogamey AS FUCK, pretty much a port of Skyrim. It´s ridiculous. I used it as a base and I´ve reworked it into my own thing, free of all that bullshit.

Now, it looks like your group does like tight rules. In this case, I guess it´s best if you just think about it and search for a solution made specifically for your group. But in general, you can´t have both freedom and dynamism and tight, in depth and granular rules. Well, you do can, but then you´re in for a massive mess of rules that´s anything but playable.

>>49893395
The problem with cutting AOOs is that then there's zero incentive to engage the enemy frontline and everyone rushes past each other to gank the archers and mages.

weirdly my group recently discussed it and agreed that the most enjoyable fight scene we've ever had was in MonsterHearts, as you can imagine a game without the most robust combat system, and it was largely because of the advantage/disadvantage mechanic which NPCs use for actions. Essentially since the GM never rolls dice but certain mechanics which would give bonuses or penalties can still apply to NPCs the game instead gives them advantage or disadvantage, if they have advantage then the action leaves them in a stronger position, the opposite for disadvantage. In the fight in question (which was a PC and NPC wrestling for control of a gun and trying to kill each other) it was made interesting by the NPC starting off with advantage, meaning the PC needed to made several rolls to overcome their immediate disadvantage, but they managed to inflict a penalty on the NPC meaning that even when they failed and the NPC got a chance to retaliate that then created another opening, of course the NPC is also doing things to try and gain advantage, and combat flowed back and forth in that fashion. It's an interesting way of handling the conflict certainly and I think if you're shooting for that kind of constantly-changing fight then it's not a bad mechanic to steal.

>>49893920
That´s because you´re thinking mechanically again. "There isn´t a rule that says I could get hit if I rush past this guy, so its fair game".

Narration first, mechanics second. You´re here and the guy´s there and the archer´s all back there. You can´t walk through the swordman in front of you. Can you jump over him? No? Then you have to move around him. Are you going to circle him from afar to be safe? No? So your plan is to rush right past to him and then through the rest of the group like they´re frozen in time and can´t grab you or kick your legs?

It´s absurd. You can´t just run past people who are trying to kill you. You can try, but it might not work.

Now, you want to retreat. Move back, away from him. Or to a side, also away. You´re both using swords, which means you two are just out of hitting range of each other, looking for an opening to close up and throw an attack. Why does he get a free attack on you if you´re moving away? He might get to try if he´s a fast guy, or if he already knows you like to do that kind of thing, but otherwise he´ll probably keep the distance for the first few seconds, and by the time he notices you´re leaving you´re already away.

Now, he could pursue. Or maybe he targets someone else.

See the difference? Things move organically, as you´d expect a fight to take place. People aren´t frozen in time while it isn´t their turn, and moving away from an opponent doesn´t make it easy for them to land a sudden attack unless you decide to simply turn around and run away right then and there.

Elaborate. Narrate first, clear things up with mechanics. You´re doing the opposite: first you do the mechanics ("opportunity attack!") and then narrating it ("he tries to stab you in the back!").

I GM Pathfinder, and thanks to Path of War my game has essentially become an anime with people turning into lightning and shield bashing spells and stuff. It rocks.
To make it even more dynamic, I've begun throwing movement that doesn't provoke onto stuff.
Made your Reflex save against the fireball? Cool, you can move 5 feet.
Didn't make the save? How much damage was it... oof, that's a lot. You're knocked back by the blast. Your save was close so you get to move diagonally up or down, but you gotta go left, too.
That kinda thing. I make it up on the spot. It sounds awkward in text, but it's quite smooth in-game. Combined with PoW stuff the fights go all over the place. One dude's throwing people out the window, another's hanging off a railing while throwing kunai around, a third one is surfing down the stairs on his shield, knocking people over... That's a barfight we had a few weeks ago.
We use Hero Points, and I hand them out for cool shit, so the players are incentivized to swing from chandeliers and stuff even though it's not a tactical advantage at all.
The game isn't really Pathfinder anymore, but my group loves it. I do, too.
So, in short: slap free movement on things. Shake the moss off 'em. Reward players for doing things other than full-attacking round after round. It's important to not only allow but incentivize them to do things that aren't on their combat actions list. That's my input.

>>49894315
This. If the players are resistant to moving around, simply move the enemies. Make them smart. Make barricades, maneuver to force them to expose their backs to archers, deny terrain with magic or bombs to make them scatter. The players will learn and adapt. Maybe someone dies first, though.

>>49894239
And you're playing mother-may-I instead of a game.

>>49894419
Here's the thing, what you can't to in a role-playing game is determined by two things: the rules and the GM. What you seem to disagree with is the GM half of that, which is understandable since it's essentially arbitrary, unlike the rules which are laid down and agreed to from the start. However what he's saying is 'designing mechanics for the type of game I want would be tricky' and so is falling back on GM decision instead. Obviously if you have a major issue with that then the solution is to use or make a combat system which enables that sort of thing (personally I'd recommend Legend of the Wulin) but until he find a set of rules for these sorts of situations that he likes GM ruling is the best option.

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Easy mechanics way to do it without AOOs but still preventing "geek the mage"; instead of a threatened area, it's a "zone of control". Leaving a ZOC square costs an additional unit of movement (like 5ft or a square). If multiple enemies threaten a single square, the penalty stacks without limit. This can be fluffed by deflecting attacks, waiting for an opportunity to pass, faking them out, or socking the guy in the jaw as you pass

>>49894419
>*rattles tits while running mouth on shit he knows nothing about*

>>49894585
This also means that if a bunch of guys gang up on you, you're FUCKED.

>>49894532
Having the GM determine possible actions is one thing out of combat, but in combat it utterly cripples planning and game flow.

If a player has to ask "May I" before acting, then they cannot plan their moves in advance without openly revealing their plan to the GM.
Likewise, the pace suffers because the fast and simple "I do X" turn becomes an impossibility and is replaced with the "I would like to X, how can I?" turn.

It also hamstrings less socially adept players while highly rewarding argument and debate: The player willing to spend three minutes convincing the GM has a concrete advantage over the player who shrugs and doesn't waste the group's time.

>>49894662
>It also hamstrings less socially adept players
And there's the "but muh shell" argument. Not socially adept? Don't play a social game.

>>49894662
You raise some good points, I think all of the games I've seen which use GM permission a large amount in combat tend to be story-focused games which, by their nature, tend to be non-competitive so the concerns about revealing your plan to the GM aren't as important as a game where challenging combat was the focus. In situation where tactics were of concern I can understand the need to be fully aware of any restrictions on you.

The only point of yours I'd disagree with is the one about pacing, the exchange of "I want to do X" "Ok but you'll need to do Y first" doesn't really slow down the game as much as plenty of other factors can.

>>49891369
I ran a game called "martial arts theater" that I awarded players for doing the craziest things during fights. The more out there, the higher their bonuses where

>>49894419
>>49894662
Only if
1-the GM is overly controlling and no-fun-allowed
and/or
2-the players are playing a different game, like when the GM is running a gritty campaign and the players are trying to do 90s kung fu film bullshit

If everyone is on the same field, the game moves fast and there´s no need for any mother-may-I. Sometimes it happens, yes, but it still happens sometimes with heavy rules systems.

And in this thread we´re discussing how to make dynamic combat. Heavy rules´s disadvantage when poorly done is stiffness, light rule´s disadvantage when poorly done is mother-may-I.

It´s a matter of finding a good balance for your group, and sticking to it.

>>49892309
Huh? Is this a reference to something?

>>49895394
Pirates of the Caribbean is a tabletop game. There´s an unseen GM, Jack is the character of one of those players who just don´t care about the rules, have no idea how the system works, and just want to do whatever comes through their heads. Will tries to powergame a little but overall sticks around, etc.

>>49895683
Ah, so it's just a what-if thing? That makes a lot more sense.

>>49892309
God that thread was amazing.

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>>49894585
Thanks kind of cool, I like that

>>49895803
No it's a scene from the movies done as IF it was a tabletop scene

>>49891369
Fundamentally I think this approach is incompatible with a scenario-focused ruleset like D&D (or most of what you call traditional story-games). Weaving an action scene like a movie requires a very clear delineation of who has "narrative control" and to what extent they have them. A story-game ruleset that's more about shifting narrative control rather than providing mechanics for specific processes would work better.

>>49894585
That actually sounds really cool.

Thanks, based anon.

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>>49891369
>Opportunity attacks
>conventional systems

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>>49900504
im not even playing dnd you stupid faggot read the thread

I've got a Gambit system I took from Last Gasp Grimoire and changed a bit. Maybe you can tweak it to whatever system you use.

Basically, if you want to try tricky combat manoeuvre stuff (anywhere from tripping to water wheel fighting), you roll to attack twice.

If both hit, the thing happens!
If both miss, there's an ironic reversal!
If one hits and one misses, you get a choice. Either it partially works, or it works with a cost.

So say it's something simple like a trip.
Both hit, you trip them!
Both miss, they see you coming and trip you.
One hit one miss, you either just stop them from moving (partial success), or you trip them but fall over yourself (success at cost).

Because the downside is always equal-and-opposite to the benefit, it balances out.
Want

The other upside is that you're rolling to hit, so those who are better at fighting are also better at combat manoeuvres.

>>49893402
I think most systems encourage the idea of becoming a stationary object that can only be moved in extraordinary circumstances, i.e. the 9 foot tall muscle orc pushing the party tank into the back row with the wizard.

The idea of a grid is also very skeletal, a barebones concept of movement in a game about abstracting the complexities of melee combat into a few dice rolls.

Perhaps if we change movement to be about 'Floating' around different platforms in a shared battlefield, and giving those platforms a variety of qualities like;

>Capacity; how many people can be on it without being considered on the edge(in threat of being toppled off of it)
>Footing; slippery, sturdy, sticky, whether or not its in various degrees of water
>Manipulation; is there a rug to be pulled? a dam to be broken? a wheel to fight on top of, or inside of?

Perhaps making it common to roll two differently colored dice, one fighting the dude, one fighting the terrain

>>49901610
the system legends of the wulin (which got a mention upthread somewhere) does something a bit like this. The terrain is divided into zones which are different in some noticeable way, for example an open field would be only one zone, a tavern might have: the downstairs drinking area, the staircase, the street in front, the upstairs living area. Characters in the same zone can all freely attack each other, characters have to roll to move between zones and can stop each other moving or force each other to move.

>>49894239
You should get rid of attacks of opportunity. By describing opportunistic attacks.

Fucking brilliant.

>>49891369
>Opportunity attacks in conventional systems prevent movement, and while placement is important in many games, a once a character is "stuck in" they really are.

So... Remove attacks of opportunity?

>>49902264
You should get rid of mechanics that force shit to happen when it doesn´t make sense by describing what´s actually going on and acting consequently, be it giving or not giving opportunistic attacks.

Goddamnit learn to read or get the fuck out of /tg/.

>>49894239
>You can´t just run past people who are trying to kill you.
But you've just removed the mechanic that reinforces that narrative, you stupid fuck.

>>49891369
Allow and encourage players do whatever and fudge rules for it on the fly instead of saying "you can't do that because the rules say you can't or there aren't rules for it."

Water wheel scene could be a Dexterity check.

>>49904222
The problem is that the mechanic applies ALWAYS, while the reality doesn´t always happen. We can solve this by adding exceptions (which just makes things cumbersome) or by removing the rule and just having some common sense.

>>49904524
Common sense would be to have a rule for something you expect to happen and that would require mechanical resolution.

>>49904900
Let´s try to move this on. The problem is that the rule is an absolute: you move away, you get hit. But that´s not how things happen.

So, at the very least, we need to modify that rule to make it less absolute.

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>>49901721
>>49901610
>>49901224

These are all interesting ideas. When it comes to the two dice thing, I was actually doing that while testing a Homebrew and may have to revisit the idea. I was doing roll test + skill AND roll test + attribute with both successes being a full success, 1 being partial, etc. I might have to look back at that.

I also like the concept of zones in combat but I don't know if I've seen them done well enough to like them in practice.

Perhaps with the introduction of an "intercept" type of reaction, zones could become operable and not just devolve into a mosh pit of "krump the squishies."

Keep it coming, this is all valuable information and good ideas to jam around to get our DM juices flowing

>>49897298
>approach is incompatible with a scenario-focused ruleset like D&D

I managed to rum a pirates of the caribean style game filled with setpieces and dynamic high flying action in dnd 4e eberron.

Git gud.

I've been thinking about some kind of rule that lets 2 combatants "push/pull" each other around the battlefield. It's a staple of fantasy sword duels where the two are constantly advancing up and down stairs, across bridges, over tables, etc.

Maybe something like:
>If your melee attack hits, you may spend your move action to move both you and your opponent in the same direction up to your move speed.
>You may not use this to move your opponent into a hazard (fire, poison gas, AOE attacks) without also being affected by that hazard.

I know there's probably 5 different feats/classes that do this, but I like the idea of this push/pull mechanic being something that automatically is available during any melee combat.

>>49905329
>Perhaps with the introduction of an "intercept" type of reaction
this is exactly what Legends otW does, when you want to move between zones you declare it at the start of the round, anyone with higher initiative than you can make a minor action to interrupt your movement

To all you guys saying "remove grids, that's what preventing players from movement"

you're wrong. Regardless of whatever house rules you try to create, whether the players will bother to move or not is entirely based on terrain.

If you describe a massive busy tavern and then place the tokens in an empty white map, of course the players won't be moving at all. Even if you are gridless, if you just describe an empty field the players will not move.

90% of the problems with grid-based combat is because DMs just throw the players on an empty grid.

>>49891369
Play Dungeon World instead of D&D.

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>>49905543
this is also a cash money idea. I like this. I don't know if I'd FORCE an opponent to move, but I really like the idea of letting characters "glue" themselves onto another character so they can effectively be dance buddies. Depends on the system, but could function well as a free reaction for replacing opportunity strikes, where if someone in reach / engagement moves, you can automatically move with them, maintaining directional orientation unless the "mover" chooses to weave around to the other side or something?

>>49907816
read the thread

>>49905930
this is a good point, but in defence of DM's, its not easy to improv up the complete details of an entire room. I've gotten into the practice of filling in a few major details and the layout, but for the most part encourage my players to ask a lot of questions at the front end, like

"is there a chandelier? How many mugs are on the table? What is the barmaid carrying?"

to which I can give concise answers because its easy to fill in a room when prompted, because you know the players want to go in a certain direction with these things. So for example I'd respond with:

"Yes, its hanging low, about 7 feet off the ground. Six mugs, three are full. A bowl of piping hot soup."

OP here by the way. Does TG want to do a weekend GM Workshop general? I think it could be neat, because theres a lot of cool ideas floating around in here.

>>49900504
Rape this man.

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>>49908061
>>49905543

I also however like the idea of the "Acting" character forcing movement if he's "pushing." Driving your opponent to the edge of the cliff or into danger is also a staple of action scenes IMO. How would we make this work elegantly?

Function as normal "push" where the characters are "glued" together, up until the edge of the hazard at which point its a strength / agility type contested check? Or maybe if the hazard isnt obvious, like for example, driving someone into the arc of a classic swinging pendulum trap forces an awareness type check?

Not sure, but this is all good brain chow.