One player does not want to participate in fights

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Make your combat better. It sounds boring.

>>55006114
Not being a tremendous faggot would be a start. Also learn to actually design encounters. You are apparently shit in it.

>>55006114
>Brutal, difficult affairs
>light and fluffy
Which is it anon? If it really is both, that sounds boring. An all out slug fest with no real danger? I wouldn't want to do that. Sounds like grinding on an old school rpg vidya

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>>55006266
>>55006433

What areas would you suggest could use improvement?

>>55006511

The game is light and fluffy. The combat is brutal and difficult, but even then, the consequences for losing are still light and fluffy.

>>55006609
>What areas would you suggest could use improvement?
What areas do they have a problem with?

>>55006609
The themantic differences between combat and non-combat are likely turning the player off, there's no point in making combat an intricate spreadsheet affair if after combat everything is light and fluffy, even if they lose. Keeping theme and tone consistent is good for player engagement and the flow of a game, it sounds like you are playing a relatively rules light and simple game outside combat, but when init gets rolled you start hammering down everything concretely, counter to the non-encounter tone of the game.

>>55006609
>The combat is brutal and difficult, but even then, the consequences for losing are still light and fluffy.
If you present a difficult task with only a minor penalty for failing, then it's optimal to not bother. It's basic economics, Colette.

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>>55006647

From what I understand, the overall paradigm of combat: in-depth tactics, grid-based positioning, good usage of powers, and a rather high difficulty (albeit one still weighted towards the PCs).

>>55006719
Like >>55006713 said, there's way too much a disparity between the overall tone and the combat. If I'm playing a light and fluffy game, I don't want every combat to be a brutal slog through vietnam.

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>>55006713

I do not see how the tone is incongruous at all. The players are all familiar with various Japanese game series that mix light and fluffy tones with rather unforgiving difficulty levels.

>>55006718

The consequences are light and fluffy in tone. That does not mean the consequences and penalties are minor; it could still very well jeopardize a mission, if not cause an outright mission failure.

>>55006719
That's not a good answer. It's all fluffy and nebulous without actually saying anything. Give us a concrete example encounter and what the problem was with it.

>>55006755
Well, using your pic as an example. Touhou is hard while also being light and fluffy, but it isn't exactly demanding of intense tactical planning like what you're describing your games as. The spellcards hardly last a minute and there's not that many to blast through. But what you're describing sounds like every battle is a long and arduous affair.

>>55006755
Okay, what do you mean by "light and fluffy"?
Are the mechanics light outside of combat?
Is the tone happy go lucky, like a magical girl show?
You need to be more specific on what is "light and fluffy".

If the mechanics are vague aside from combat, that can cause a very big shock to players as gameplay influences tone and flow of RPGs very significantly. A player may not care about encounters being difficult, their issue may arise in the mechanical disparity and complexity between combat and non-combat.

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>>55006763

The party is trying to catch a thief. (The thief is not actually a thief by trade, but rather a thief by circumstance.)
The party lays a trap for the thief.
The party springs the trap on the thief, although it is not too effective due to poor rolls and due to the thief being savvy against surprises of all kinds.
The party does battle with the thief and their summoned allies, in order to subdue and capture the thief. If the party loses the fight, or lets the thief escape, the party fails in their mission overall, though they still have a few clues to salvage.

In this case, the party won, although it was somewhat close.

>>55006815

>it isn't exactly demanding of intense tactical planning
It does, however, require skill.

>But what you're describing sounds like every battle is a long and arduous affair.
No more so than regular RPG combats involving grids and turns.

>>55006818

>Are the mechanics light outside of combat?
I would call it rules-medium.

>Is the tone happy go lucky, like a magical girl show?
I would not call it happy go lucky or saccharine, but there is plenty of anime madness, such as virtually everyone being a cute anime girl/boy of some stripe, kemonomimi everywhere, "power of friendship" logic prevailing, and so on.

>>55006901
I was thinking more about the number of enemies, their relative strength, to the characters, the kinds of dirty tricks they use and their mode of arriving to the conflict.

Also that sounds like an ok encounter, what was their problem?

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>>55006985

>I was thinking more about the number of enemies
I generally aim for a number of enemies roughly equal to the party size, sometimes with one extra.

>their relative strength, to the characters
I usually set enemy strength such that the PCs stand a 75-80% chance of victory.

>the kinds of dirty tricks they use
Just as PCs get to assess enemies and figure out which to focus fire on, so too do enemies get to assess the PCs and figure out which to focus fire on.

>their mode of arriving to the conflict
Enemies usually call or summon backup. They get to "deploy," the PCs get to deploy themselves generously, and the battle begins.

>>55007214
>I generally aim for a number of enemies roughly equal to the party size, sometimes with one extra.
That (and every other design technique) gets stale really quick. Try diversifying the way you set up the encounters.

>I usually set enemy strength such that the PCs stand a 75-80% chance of victory.
That does not sound like what you said about the combat being hard. Also if the game features safety nets (which seem like the case) then you should feature fights in which the only option is to think outside the box. (You should set this up properly, if you just spring it on them, they will hate you for it.)

>Just as PCs get to assess enemies and figure out which to focus fire on, so too do enemies get to assess the PCs and figure out which to focus fire on.
If that's the first thing that comes to your mind when I ask for dirty tricks, I have to say that your imagination and creativity in enemy design seems to be lacking. Try giving the enemies interesting abilities and reduce their number/scores.

>Enemies usually call or summon backup. They get to "deploy," the PCs get to deploy themselves generously, and the battle begins.
Another thing that gets boring if done a lot. I can only hope you didn't do it that way in the example above.

Also you still didn't give me an answer to what was the problem with the aforementioned encounter. It would be nice if you could give more info about it like the exact number of enemies, their abilities, stats compared to the players and possibly the gridmap you used for it.

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>>55007431

>Try diversifying the way you set up the encounters.
I generally dislike running smaller amounts of enemies; even with extra actions, having less pieces to move around is stale to me in its own way. Conversely, having a dozen or so enemies around is a pain to manage even with minion/mook mechanics.

>That does not sound like what you said about the combat being hard.
How is this?

>Also if the game features safety nets (which seem like the case) then you should feature fights in which the only option is to think outside the box.
There are already such things as alternate victory/loss conditions.

>I have to say that your imagination and creativity in enemy design seems to be lacking. Try giving the enemies interesting abilities and reduce their number/scores.
All enemies already have different suites of passive abilities, a set of two or three at-will attacks with nondamaging rider effects, and one or two limited-use powers also with nondamaging rider effects. I do not see the problem.

>Another thing that gets boring if done a lot. I can only hope you didn't do it that way in the example above.
I play in another game with a different GM under the same system. In that game, the GM gives us free rein to reposition ourselves *extremely* generously at the start of combat. We have found it to be extremely cancerous and fight-winning.

>Also you still didn't give me an answer to what was the problem with the aforementioned encounter.
Apparently, after talking to the player even further, it is not so much about encounter design as it is about how my combat encounters feel disconnected from the narrative and the world. I am trying to press the player for more information, but I cannot parse what they are actually saying, because it is couched more in vague feelings than anything concrete.

what system is OP using

Of yoy nust came here to endlessly defend your vauge style of running combat this thread will go precisely nowhere.

it seems to me like your running every adversary as a hyper competent knowitall incapable of fucking up.

thats a huge mistake.

youve already seen one of your players is bored out of his mind by this, heres why.

stats and strategy have no soul. and with all your talk of missions and parameters and sub objectives it seems like the biggest problem you have is portraying these TOO mechanicslly.

try putting a little humanity into your encounters. for example, why the hell is someone forced by circumstances at all competent as a thief? not everyone is sherlock holmes or professor Moriarety.

explore greater variation.

offer simple combats that entail more nebulous challenges.

in short mix it up because its gotten stale. combat isnt a player vs. gm exercise. combat is a tool to provide dramatic tension. if every encounter is a diabolical nightmare players stop caring.

This reminds me of this one time a DM decided to make what she called an "Interesting" boss fight. Two bosses.

One had a ridiculous armor and ridiculous health, but did almost no damage, instead just repositioning enemies and general disrupting.

The other did shitloads of damage but was glassy as hell.

It was boring as fuck. Just because a concept sounds cool in your head, it doesn't mean it's fun for your players.

>>55006114
I think you might just be a shit DM.

>>55007634
>I generally dislike running smaller amounts of enemies; even with extra actions, having less pieces to move around is stale to me in its own way. Conversely, having a dozen or so enemies around is a pain to manage even with minion/mook mechanics.
Suck it up. It's not just about your entertainment.

The combat is either hard, or the characters have 75-80% chance of winning. Combat difficulty is directly related with the chances of the party clearing it. You are either leaving something out you one of those statements is a lie.

>All enemies already have different suites of passive abilities, a set of two or three at-will attacks with nondamaging rider effects, and one or two limited-use powers also with nondamaging rider effects. I do not see the problem.
But are they interesting? "Deal X damage and move the target X squares" is not very interesting. Teleporting next to a target stabbing it, then teleporting back is better, being able to attack from any square, that has water on it is even better (assuming a few puddles and ample cover).
Also consider giving them 1-2 utility powers each. If they are always damage+rider it gets old.

>In that game, the GM gives us free rein to reposition ourselves *extremely* generously at the start of combat.
I'm not talking about that. (Although if the players have done well in for example tracking the thief and setting up the trap, you should allow that.) I'm talking about weather or not the monsters always start on the table. Some of my favourite fights are which start off with a few enemies, but more keep coming as the fight goes on and the players have to focus on the summoner. Also weather or not the enemies start close to each other, are arranged for optimal tactical effect, or are at completely different parts of the map, seemingly without rhyme or reason. As always variety is the spice of life.
cont.

>>55007634
>>55007991
>Apparently, after talking to the player even further, it is not so much about encounter design as it is about how my combat encounters feel disconnected from the narrative and the world.
That's more a failure of the system than anything, but can be mitigated by giving the players a few ways of using the combat powers out of combat, and making the combat parts a lot harder/easier depending on the preparations the players take.

Also what >>55007822 says.

>>55007991
I think @OP meant that enemies generally have 75-80% of the strength of a PC, not 25-20%.

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>>55007665

A D&D 4e retroclone.

>>55007991

>Suck it up. It's not just about your entertainment.
If you think experimenting with enemy numbers will be fruitful, then I will do so.

>The combat is either hard, or the characters have 75-80% chance of winning.
I consider a 75-80% chance of victory to be a hard combat. That is a huge percentage of a chance for the party to lose.

>But are they interesting?
I like to think that they have been interesting enough. I have had enemies with powers that let them teleport to people and grab them, dealing ongoing damage while the grab was sustained. I have had terrain involving teleporters in a room full of sources of cover.

>Also consider giving them 1-2 utility powers each.
This, likewise. I have had enemies with powers that let them block off characters' approach, for example. I do not think enemy design is the problem here.

>I'm talking about weather or not the monsters always start on the table.
Most of the time, although they sometimes start far off.

>>55008189
Do you keep encounter notes?

Hey, touhoufag, we've had this exact same thread before, with similar responses.
You run your combats the way you, the gamemaster, want to run combats.
You do not do what is considered proper to most, ie for the npcs to act in the fashion that is logical for their knowledge, capacity and inclination.
While it is a matter of choice, do realize what you have done is turned every npc into your personal avatar. By replacing an npc's thought processes with your personal ones, you have turned them all into DMPCs, agents of your own will rather than the will of the setting. That is how GMs can metagame poorly, and is frowned upon as much as players who metagame, replacing the will and inclinations of their character with their own.
I'd hate to see you run Shadowrun, where the incredible resources of the major corps is in your hands. You sound like you would abuse it horribly and not understand how you are actually playing the game wrong.

>>55008295
holy shit, is THAT what's been going on?

>>55006114
I empathize with the player. After roughly ten years roleplaying, with experience in countless systems, I've yet to play a single one that made the combat fun.

>>55008324
Then what do you consider fun, anon?
What I find fun is matching wits, will and wherewithal against others. It is not the mechanics that make combat fun, but the scene as it is played out, the competition against others, the threat of failure (not death) and the exultation of success.
Granted, some people just don't like violent conflicts at all, I game with 2 people like that. For them, it's merely a means to an end, and not something to be enjoyed along with the story and characters. I have some pity that they do not enjoy the entire game.

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>>55008295

>You do not do what is considered proper to most, ie for the npcs to act in the fashion that is logical for their knowledge, capacity and inclination.

This is because the kind of setting and campaign I run involves enemies who are almost always tactically intelligent.

I have an encounter lined up with tactically myopic enemies, represented by a specific trait that limits whom they prioritize attacking, but that trait earns them "enemy building points" in exchange. This is actually from the game's rules.

>>55008189
>I consider a 75-80% chance of victory to be a hard combat. That is a huge percentage of a chance for the party to lose.
It is obviously harder in grid-based tactics-heavy games but I usually make it so that if they do nothing but take the enemy head-on, the players have a 50-50 chance of winning or losing. This is the "baseline" encounter, and this can get harder or easier depending on tactics, preparation, etc. Boss battles are obviously harder, with around one in every ten games featuring an enemy who I feel is too strong for them to defeat. At least this is what I use for Dark Heresy, which is our main game. They have pulled through around 30 sessions so far, and "died" 2-3 times. each (there was no TPK).
When we play other games this gets screwed a bit, for example in the Ars Magica game, where the players have a lot more options, I feature "unwinnable" encounters every second or third session. As a result the payers have become experts in circumventing fights they can't win.

>I like to think that they have been interesting enough.
Even so, you should always strive to outdo yourself with every significant encounter.

>I have had enemies with powers that let them block off characters' approach, for example.
I have found that powers that make the characters waste their turn (by either removing their agency or making them waste their turn moving) make fights not fun for players. In my experience they tend to like having a choice (ex.: move through the dangerous terrain and attack, but take an attack yourself, or waste your turn going around).

>>55008431
>This is because the kind of setting and campaign I run involves enemies who are almost always tactically intelligent.
Then your combats are actually myopically the same across the board.
If the only action taken is the "best" action, then you can reliably predict what action is going to be taken in any given situation, distilling an individual's actions to less than 4 moves, and countering or mitigating them.
You do realize that there is a massive difference between fighting smart and winning, because winning means you are ready to extend yourself for advantage. Your combats will not actually be exciting or surprising outside of "Enemy X has Move Y I haven't seen before", and that is boring as fuck.
What setting are you running where every foe is a veteran combatant? Where there are no rookies, no neophytes or humdrum warriors to pad out the ranks? That since everyone is exceptional, no one is exceptional and your battle scenarios lose lustre?

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>>55008501

>I have found that powers that make the characters waste their turn
This specific power immobilized the characters, but still let them launch ranged attacks, in a system wherein everyone has viable, scaling ranged attacks.

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>>55008542

>You do realize that there is a massive difference between fighting smart and winning
You can do both.

>What setting are you running where every foe is a veteran combatant?
One with a very high in-universe power level, thereby making it such that the great majority of the enemies who can threaten the PCs are those with a good deal of power and experience.

>>55008652
>One with a very high in-universe power level, thereby making it such that the great majority of the enemies who can threaten the PCs are those with a good deal of power and experience.
which means that the players are tired of constantly having to fight high-power enemies
You have three options:
>suck it up and bring more weaker, less tactical enemies
>change your combat system to a simpler one
>get new players

>>55008576
That seems to be a major design flaw in a grid-based system, effectively meaning that positioning matters less and making movement-based powers a lot less fun.
Also what >>55008542 says. If you include an "encounter budget" then of course the battles are going to feel samey and bland. And where are the proud enemies, who just walk away, if the party doesn't measure up? Where are the cowardly ones, that flee the second they are able? Where are simply incompetent ones, who try their best and use their limited resources to their full effect, but it just isn't enough? Where are the egoist ones, that let the party heal up mid-battle, the crazy-prepared ones, that shut down the party before the fight really begins and start negotiating from the superior position (ok, that's not really a fight, but a fun encounter)?

>>55006114

Touhoufag, you're a highly efficient optimizer. From reading your posts over time, I don't know if you've ever realized that other people don't consider their fun to be related directly to their amount of optimization. I suspect you have a player who basically either doesn't see the stuff to do, or considers the amount of work he'd have to put in be a significant loss on the amount of fun returned.

I suspect you won't be able to reconcile those differences.

>>55008652
Doing both all the time is the boring I'm talking about, especially since you need to fudge things to do it.
The winning move is not always the smart move, like throwing Red/Red Masterstroke in Riddle of Steel, trusting to good dice to end the fight in a single blow and parrying the followup, versus Yellow/Red where your lack of commitment can get you struck down.
As for your setting, is it a tactical one where the pcs are constantly facing skilled military tac teams? Is the risk/reward there, or are they fighting powerful foes over even banal circumstances? SR handles this well. If you want to throw down with a corp, you are gonna have your hands full, but dealing with gangers means large numbers of weaker foes.
>>55008872
He is a legit autist, and has admitted as such, it is the basis of many of his issues when it comes to gaming. I had a similar player, and had to boot him after a time because he repeatedly defied my edicts as GM

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>>55008807

The reactive immobilization effect was a limited-use, single-target, once-per-encounter power across two enemies. I do not see the issue.

>And where are the proud enemies, who just walk away, if the party doesn't measure up? Where are the cowardly ones, that flee the second they are able?
HP in this system is plot armor and morale, totally disconnected from physical durability. Players can define how they take out enemies: killing enemies (it does not do much in this setting most of the time), knocking them out, forcing them to surrender or flee, and so on. That is why for enemies, I treat "you make them flee" as simply one of the potential ways to take out an enemy.

>Where are simply incompetent ones, who try their best and use their limited resources to their full effect, but it just isn't enough? Where are the egoist ones, that let the party heal up mid-battle, the crazy-prepared ones, that shut down the party before the fight really begins and start negotiating from the superior position (ok, that's not really a fight, but a fun encounter)?
Those are the ones with special traits that dictate their behavior, as I mention in >>55008431, but those traits give them "enemy building points" in exchange.

>>55008890
I am aware of this, hence my last line.

>>55008948
I agree with your last line.
Sometimes, you just can't come to terms, and the best thing you can do is wish well and part amicably.
I've left games where I knew I wasn't going to agree with the GM, and rather than make a scene, simply bow out gracefully.

>>55008431
>tactically myopic enemies, represented by a specific trait that limits whom they prioritize attacking, but that trait earns them "enemy building points" in exchange. This is actually from the game's rules.
What clusterfuck of a system are you even using?

>>55008947
>Those are the ones with special traits that dictate their behavior, as I mention in >>55008431, but those traits give them "enemy building points" in exchange.
okay, not make these types of enemies
but DON'T give them extra points

>>55008947
No, I mean giving everybody a useful, scaling ranged attack does. I honestly think you would be better off with a gridless system.

>HP in this system is plot armor and morale, totally disconnected from physical durability.
So you are saying, you incorporated all things that can be used to bypass HP, and included them in HP? That is a tremendously unfun mechanic is one of the things destroying the enjoyment of your games.
>Those are the ones with special traits that dictate their behavior, as I mention in >>55008431, but those traits give them "enemy building points" in exchange.
And as I have said in >>55008807 having "points" to build your encounters from is a bad idea, because not only should the difficulty change according to story considerations (ex.: a high point in the story needs to be a more difficult fight), but according to the type of enemy faced and the things that happened so far in the game. Taking a predetermined amount of points and building an encounter from them kills any way to change the fight difficulty by smart play, which is one of the problems your player was complaining about.

>>55008947
Why do you need to give the enemies specific traits that make them act a certain way? Why not just imagine what that creature would be doing and how it would react?

>>55009217
See the spoiler in >>55008890

>>55006114
from your descriptions, the player in question does not,want to tactically challenge themselves when they have a baseline 75+% chance of victory. And it sounds like the rest of the party is beginning to agree with this player.

Not everyone finds repeating the same tactical challenges every week enjoyable. I advise asking the players what they want to see in combat scenarios, perhaps along with a questionaire, and implementing their suggestions.

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>>55009134

>No, I mean giving everybody a useful, scaling ranged attack does.

It is a useful, scaling ranged attack, but it is very no-frills and basic. It does not come with rider effects, and it seldom synergizes with class abilities.

>So you are saying, you incorporated all things that can be used to bypass HP, and included them in HP?
If HP is a mix of plot armor and morale, then I do not see why the "morale" part should be ignored. If they have HP left, they have morale left to stay in the fight.

>not only should the difficulty change according to story considerations (ex.: a high point in the story needs to be a more difficult fight)
If there must be a more difficult battle, then I will increase the point budget.

>but according to the type of enemy faced and the things that happened so far in the game
If an enemy is supposed to be a weaker enemy, then I will make a weaker enemy. They will take up less points in the budget.

What is the problem here?

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>>55008872
>>55008977

Two hours ago, I had gathered the group together for a discussion on the matter. Talks rapidly degenerated due to a series of gross misunderstandings, and it had concluded with two people storming out of the channel, something that had never occurred previously.

I am unsure of how "just talk to them" is supposed to be a panacea when, more often than not when I am involved, it simply leads to discussions rapidly breaking down.

>>55009330
>It is a useful, scaling ranged attack, but it is very no-frills and basic. It does not come with rider effects, and it seldom synergizes with class abilities.

A Normal person will call this boring. Especially if being forced to rely on this instead of things with frills, rider effects, and things that their class actually does.

>If there must be a more difficult battle, then I will increase the point budget.

This part on it's own isn't bad, but
>If an enemy is supposed to be a weaker enemy, then I will make a weaker enemy. They will take up less points in the budget.

misses the point entirely. This is basically "You have a party that can't match you optimization-wise". You're going to have to scale this down, not just make a weaker enemy within a budget. To compare 4e's experience budget, you're buying the monsters, but how they are used is a major difference. See the examples of things like fire beetles and those raptor things that could TPK if DM's decided to use them 100% optimally. If your enemies are run as tactial geniuses and your players are not, your game is over because players will leave to find enjoyment elsewhere.

>>55009330
the problem is your players are bored.

A purely mechanical solution that does not deviate from existing practices will not solve your issue.

>>55008414
I like roleplaying, worldbuilding, and creating a shared narrative; and 99% of the time combat just slows all that to a snail pace.

>>55009502
>Talks rapidly degenerated due to a series of gross misunderstandings, and it had concluded with two people storming out of the channel, something that had never occurred previously.
anon, could you post the logs?

>>55009330
>It is a useful, scaling ranged attack, but it is very no-frills and basic. It does not come with rider effects, and it seldom synergizes with class abilities.
It still negates at least half of the tactical considerations the players need to take, making the game less tactics-heavy.

If you just make the budget larger or smaller whenever you like, then what's the point in having it in the first place?
I mean if one of the enemies loses access to a vital power, because of the players' unexpected actions do you bring it back, to full power by rounding out to the full budget again? Because if you do, you are making the game less fun by having out-of-combat actions matter less, and if you don't, then there was no point in having it.

>>55008995
*whistles idly*

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>>55009503

>A Normal person will call this boring. Especially if being forced to rely on this instead of things with frills, rider effects, and things that their class actually does.

I think that being forced to fall back on this as a result of a limited-use enemy power is fair game.

>This is basically "You have a party that can't match you optimization-wise".
That is why I use low budgets: to compensate for the tactics I use. They still face a 75-80% victory rate, for hard yet not insurmountable battles.

>>55009549

I hardly have the permission to do so.

>>55009551

>It still negates at least half of the tactical considerations the players need to take, making the game less tactics-heavy.
I would not say so, because the ranged basic attack is indeed *very* basic, and its range is rather limited for melee-focused characters.

>If you just make the budget larger or smaller whenever you like, then what's the point in having it in the first place?
I use a budget as a baseline for most encounters, and then lower the budget for weaker encounters and raise it for higher encounters. The budget helps me gauge how difficult a battle with be.

>I mean if one of the enemies loses access to a vital power, because of the players' unexpected actions do you bring it back
If a PC can deny access to powers, then that is part of the PC's ability set. That should not affect the budget.

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>>55009624
>I hardly have the permission to do so.
just censor the names

>mfw I accidentally wrote "censor the banes"

>>55008995
Strike!, I think.

>>55009699
Silly anon. You know he's just gonna come up with another way to skirt around this, because he knows full well that he'd reveal his own incompetence by doing so, or because the logs in question don't actually exist.

>>55009624
>I would not say so, because the ranged basic attack is indeed *very* basic, and its range is rather limited for melee-focused characters.
It's either very limited and basic or useful. You are contradicting yourself again.
>I would not say so, because the ranged basic attack is indeed *very* basic, and its range is rather limited for melee-focused characters.
Honestly you should be just eyeballing it. It makes it more fun on both ends. An unexpectedly hard/easy battle shakes up both the players and the GM like nothing else.
>If a PC can deny access to powers, then that is part of the PC's ability set. That should not affect the budget.
You are thinking too mechanically. I mean if they steal the enemy's magic wand/destroy the source of most their power without engaging them, leaving the enemy in a weakened state when they fight him.

>>55008189
>A D&D 4e retroclone.

Huh, didn't know they had those already. I'm kinda curious what game it is specifically so I can look it up and such, or is it homebrew?

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>>55009699

That would still be a breach of privacy, and it would also be confusing due to various references to in-game incidents as well as other games.

>>55009738

>It's either very limited and basic or useful. You are contradicting yourself again.

It can be both very limited, and basic and useful. This is not a contradiction.

>Honestly you should be just eyeballing it. It makes it more fun on both ends. An unexpectedly hard/easy battle shakes up both the players and the GM like nothing else.
I would prefer to be able to gauge the difficulty of battles under such a metric. So far, the budgets have proven useful in that regard.

>You are thinking too mechanically. I mean if they steal the enemy's magic wand/destroy the source of most their power without engaging them, leaving the enemy in a weakened state when they fight him.
Presumably, the characters would have had to spend time and effort doing so. I would treat the enemy as being weaker, and adjust the budget to be lower. The budget is there to help me gauge how difficult a fight will be.

>>55009217
He seems like the kind of GM who doesn't actually "imagine" anything that isn't already in numbers and tables for him.

>>55009797
>It can be both very limited, and basic and useful.
It is either too limited to be useful or generally useful, in which case it's not very limited. This is basic logic.
>I would prefer to be able to gauge the difficulty of battles under such a metric. So far, the budgets have proven useful in that regard.
Another example of your preferences diminishing everyone else's fun.
>The budget is there to help me gauge how difficult a fight will be.
I can't help but feel like you should be able to do it without a budget.

>>55009797
>So far, the budgets have proven useful in that regard
Useful to your bookkeeping, but not useful to your players actually enjoying themselves. You've been given lots of good advice and you seem completely unwilling to bend on much of anything.

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>>55009971

>It is either too limited to be useful or generally useful, in which case it's not very limited. This is basic logic.

Allow me to explain how I see it.

Some characters are dedicated melee specialists. They perform very well in melee, and can usually place themselves in melee with ease.

However, sometimes, they might be forced to resort to ranged attacks. Under such circumstances, they can resort to ranged basic attacks. Such attacks are somewhat worse than the melee attacks they would normally use, but the ranged basic attacks are not *that* much worse, and they automatically scale.

Does that make sense?

>Another example of your preferences diminishing everyone else's fun.
I do not particularly understand how being able to gauge encounter difficulties is a bad thing.

>>55009993

>You've been given lots of good advice and you seem completely unwilling to bend on much of anything.
Much of the advice is also invalid because of various circumstances or because *I already use the advice*, or because they rely on faulty assumptions of the system I am using.

Whatever I do not particularly respond to via quote, I take into account. It is not as though I am ignoring all advice here.

>>55010149
>However, sometimes, they might be forced to resort to ranged attacks. Under such circumstances, they can resort to ranged basic attacks. Such attacks are somewhat worse than the melee attacks they would normally use, but the ranged basic attacks are not *that* much worse, and they automatically scale.
Which cheapens the abilities, that affect movement, force the character to be in a disadvantage to attack in melee, or give disadvantage to attacks not targeting specific enemies.
>I do not particularly understand how being able to gauge encounter difficulties is a bad thing.
As I've said in >>55009738 it adds uncertainty to the battle. It forces the players to be on edge.

Also it's getting late here, so I'll stop posting. Have a good night (or whatever time it is where you are) and I hope you'll improve as a GM.

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>>55010325

>Which cheapens the abilities, that affect movement, force the character to be in a disadvantage to attack in melee, or give disadvantage to attacks not targeting specific enemies.
Those abilities debuff the character, but not devastatingly so. That allows such abilities to be handed out more freely.

>It forces the players to be on edge.
How does *not* using encounter budgets force the *players* to be on edge?

Also, the player in question being on edge is precisely part of the problem.

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Someone else has proposed the following solution to my woes related to understanding and catering to a group of players:

>I think you should have your players talk amongst themselves about what kind of game they want to play. They should reach some kind of compromise that all of them can be happy with. Once they have agreed on what kind of game they want to play, THEN they should explain to you.

>Trying to listen to all three of them voicing different opinions is just confusing you and making things harder.

>And it's impossible to satisfy them all of they don't agree on anything

>Once they have told you what kind of game that they collectively want to play, you can work with them and decide what you need to do from there.

>You may need to compromise on some points that take you out of your comfort zone, but it's also important that you are having fun too.

>Wouldn't it make it easier to understand their expectations if they all settled down and discussed it amongst themselves before presenting their wishes to you?

Is this good advice?

>>55006114
kill yourself pedshit garbage, you should participate in a fight with a rope and lose

>>55006114
> brutal, difficult affairs that demand in-depth tactics, grid-based positioning, and good usage of powers. This is a light- and fluffy-themed campaign, so death is hardly ever on the table, but my fights are nevertheless hard (albeit still weighted in favor of the PCs), my enemies are almost always intelligent and tactically optimal

This does sound jarringly incongruous. I'm all for challenging battles but I want to feel like there's something serious at stake, or else why are we spending so much game time on it?

>>55009768
I'll save the touhoufag the trouble: it's Strike! and I suppose I'm now a shill.

How's your group going, are the two players still not talking after cooling off for a bit?

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>>55011422

There is, in fact, something serious at stake, but it is presented under a light and fluffy tone, much like how children's series are awfully blithe about what stopping someone from destroying the planet *really* means.

>>55011676

One of them has calmed down, but the other has permanently left the game.

This is not the first time I have had someone depart from one of my games. While I am reasonably skilled at running one-on-one games, my attempts at GMing group games over the years have been met with disaster after disaster after disaster. Catering to the needs of multiple persons is far above my metaphorical pay grade.

cbf to read entire thread but I'm willing to throw my two cents in:
1. terrain - try to make the terrain interesting, not just in special effects, but in general "interactive" bits - courtains to be pulled on enemies heads, loose pebbles , cliffs, chokepoints, battlements, etc.
2. don't make the sole goal of combat to kill the opponents. Make them fight somebody who they need alive but who doesnt want to get captured alive. make them NOT want to fight something or somebody. Make the combat a failure state they want to avoid, but give them a way to go around it.
3. lower the powerlevel, so that players and characters WANT to resort to dirty tricks in point 1
4. 4e clone sounds like an awful choice for the campaign's theme. Try something lighter, mabe even a retroclone to make players think in terms of "what would you do" rather than "what are my character's applicable powers". Alternatively try something like Savage Worlds, combat is swingy, but sometimes retarded actions actually yield great results. Once two of us exploded an abandoned air control tower that was surrounded by zergs, while jumping out of the window to catch a rope ladder lowered from a spaceship, just to have our escortee caught by one of zergs, so i dived from the ladder to catch him and pull him up while another PC dragged me by the rope. In the course of the whole visit to the planet concluding with this we entered formal combat for maybe 3 turns, which leads me to:
5. git gud. Enter and exit combat with a better flow, have characters join in and run, or sometimes exchange a few swings and leg it. Don't make the combat binary like in JRPG, in that, you're either out of combat, or in combat until it ends.

>>55008295
>>55008315
This, we've basically had a dozen archived threads about it.

Why does he think the exact same problem would have changed with just time?

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>>55012881

1. I have mentioned the terrain I have used here >>55008189

2. I have mentioned alternate win/loss conditions here >>55006901

3. I do not see how this is relevant. I am fully capable of coming up with interesting terrain regardless of the power level.

4. I strongly doubt I would ever be satisfied running a loosey-goosey combat scheme. It would bore to an extreme degree, such that I would hardly ever be willing to run combat. I am a great fan of mechanically-grounded combat ala D&D 4e and Legends of the Wulin.

>>55012956
Why not try a better designed game like Cypher System and see how the player likes it?

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>>55012980

I have played the Cypher System and stumbled across its host of flaws; I have posted about those flaws in past threads on this board. Besides; its brand of combat is hardly engaging to me.

Two of the other players had accompanied me into this very foray into Cypher and were likewise unimpressed.

As a matter of fact, being quickly disillusioned with Cypher was what prompted me to search for a new system, and then discover Strike!

>>55013036
Oh right, you need every player to be mechanically identical for the combat to be good. I forgot about the weird 4e thing. No wonder you'd see any diverse design as flawed.

>>55013087
It makes it way easier for the GM to balance combat perfectly.

>>55012956
>>55012956
1 & 2 fair enough
3 & 4 there's terrain and there's terrain. My last session's gadget of the game was a large piece of rag. Need to tread on broken glass? Throw a piece of rag on it. Need to remove a piece of broken window? Cover it in a rag and break off so it's muffled. Need to see what's on the ground but don't want your flashlight to be seen everywhere around? Cover the thing in a rag and shine underneath. Need to transport a lot of looted clothing? Throw it on a rag and carry with a buddy. Lower powerlevels force thinking outside of the box instead of trying to apply just relevant character powers.
4 it doesn't need to bee loosey-goosey, just leave some wiggle room outside of the rules. Seems like your players don't have the same hardon for combat rules, and I remember reading a LOT about 4e (and I assume by extension its clone) has this disparity between in-combat and out-of-combat gameplay.

I find that retroclones strike the perfect balance for me - there's a definite to-hit roll, but how the player describes his actions might grant him a bonus. Outside of it, there's just movement speeds, generally every character is very little in the way of numbers. Tactics come from ideas on how to approach the battle and not from there being certain optimal strategy in every fight. Oh, yeah I almost forgot - not giving a fuck about encounters being particularly balanced is kinda great. It's not something you can do out of the blue, but if you estabilish it early enough, your players will learn that not every battle can be won and to actually run sometimes. But I digress.

>>55012956
Why not have a system and setting where the opponents are not always assumed to be highly competent, and that encourages non-symmetrical combat? Dark Heresy and Torchbearer are both good examples, where the ideal battle is won before the first shot is fired.

From what I can see, the players are bored of "Here is the room where the fight is. Now kill each other.".

Like the example you gave when ambushing a thief. Usually setting a trap entails just winning that fight, but instead the thief calmly summoned enough monsters to match up with the players and the fight proceeded as normal.

>>55013184
>but instead the thief calmly summoned enough monsters to match up with the players and the fight proceeded as normal

It's called a boring railroad, Dave.

>>55006719
So... everything about the way you run combat.

>>55013184
Maybe because 40k is shit you autist?

>>55013437
Then make it a new setting or something. It's not like DH is hard to port.

>Mix of solid and energy weapons
>High tech alongside low tech (including low tech weapons with high tech upgrades)
>Careers that generally match up (Assassin, soldier, mechanic, cop, etc)
>Magic that gives reality a migraine

Making a setting that meets those is EZPZ. The influence rolls to get weapons works pretty much anywhere too.

>>55011382
Welcome to 4chan. Now get out.

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>>55013170

Grid-based tactical combat is my single favorite type of combat in an RPG, and the players knew what they were signing up for when I opted to run a game with an emphasis on grid-based tactical combat.

>>55013184

Because I am a great fan of grid-based tactical combat. "Combat as sport," in other words.

>Like the example you gave when ambushing a thief. Usually setting a trap entails just winning that fight, but instead the thief calmly summoned enough monsters to match up with the players and the fight proceeded as normal.

The thief in question was an extremely powerful positive energy elemental (or rather, a vivacious creature). This creature was incorporeal, invisible, and capable of animating nearby objects into warriors.

The characters investigated, researched ways to strip the positive energy elemental of its incorporeality and invisibility, set magical blasting traps to weaken it, and attempted to ambush the elemental.

The party was partially successful: while they were unable to surprise the positive energy elemental, and while it was able to bypass the blasting traps, the party did manage to strip it of invisibility and incorporeality. The positive energy elemental animated nearby objects to serve as its minions, and the battle was on, to subdue the elemental while preventing it from escaping.

What was wrong with such a setup?

>>55013834
>What was wrong with such a setup?

Can you really not tell? Now that you've given me proper context, it seems pretty clear.

Let me ask, was the elemental itself (not its minions) much stronger than the average enemy the party faced? Were the warriors similiar in power to, say, a group of orcs that players had fought a few sessions ago?

The scenario you're describing is sounding like the players gearing up for a boss fight, laying a trap to give them an advantage.
And then once the trap goes off, it turns into just another boring tactical slugfest with a voracious being of pure energy and its animated minions.

Liking "combat as sport" is fine, and running most of your game like that is fine too. But your players clearly put a lot of effort into making a "Combat as war" scenario.

>>55014063
But if you vary the way you play the game, it wouldn't be perfect anymore.

>>55013834
Here's an alternate take on that scenario.

>the traps go off, rendering the elemental corporeal
>the elemental panics, flooding the room with energy
>The entire room becomes animated
>Books fly off shelves, jars shatter and become glittering hurricanes of glass
>floorboards rip themselves out of the ground
>All the players will take DoT, unless a character uses attacks to ward off the objects (probably 1 attack per protected player)
>The elemental is much more powerful than he was in your original setup, to account for being the only enemy

There. Same fundamental start, but it's an encounter that is wildly different from your usual 5v5s and the players will be unlikely to forget it.

>>55014401
Can't balance the action economy. Unless we change the enemy to be able to take 5 actions a turn, that could work. What if it was all the same elemental but he split up and was in 5 different places?

>>55014450
Have him able to take 3 actions, because, you know, he's an elemental of pure energy.

The DoT to every character in the room and the fact that you can't lower the number of actions by killling one off is plenty.

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>>55014063
>>55014401

This was actually the first combat encounter of the... latest iteration of the campaign. The campaign has been troubled for a long time, typical of my attempts at running group games.

In that sense, the elemental was the very first enemy that this group of PCs had faced. They had confronted the elemental in a large chamber full of teleporters, cover sources, differing elevations (which were also cover sources), and clouds of obscuring particles.

>Liking "combat as sport" is fine, and running most of your game like that is fine too. But your players clearly put a lot of effort into making a "Combat as war" scenario.

It was not their idea. I was the one who emphasized, in-game, that it would be a good idea to come to the fight with as many advantages as possible.

>>55006114
your problem is touhou is fuckin gay

>>55014450
>Can't balance the action economy.
So fucking what, who cares if the encounter is perfectly balan-

>What if it was all the same elemental but he split up and was in 5 different places?
ahahahaha fuck, I see. I see. You're autistic. That explains a lot.

>>55011382
You know the funny part is. The main characters are likely 15 at the youngest and more likely 20+ at this point. ZUN just can't draw for shit which is why they all look like little girls.

>>55006114
Those fairies have cute thighs.

>>55007634
>even with extra actions, having less pieces to move around is stale to me in its own way
You should still do it just to mix things up. But you can also make big multi-part monsters or enemies that project status-effecting tokens and things like that. And conversely, sometimes throw the "suddenly literally dozens of minions" thing out to the party.

>>55008652
Something about those butts doesn't look right.

>>55014880
>You're autistic
>this is somehow news to you
He's fucking legendary for his autism. He was featured in the local papers for it.

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>>55008330
>nipple
Away with you, forever more!

>>55016060
2hu?

>>55007822
My favorite response so far. TT RPG combat is simple enough that finding the optimal plan is generally pretty easy, and how things go mostly depends on RNG execution. For veterans or people who are into TT tactics it's pretty boring.

You can tell that this system is pretty tactically bland because the DM can put their one mind against a bunch of people and apparently match them pretty easily. I don't mean that as a knock to the system, most RPG combat rules are pretty tactically bland, and Strike! is probably one of the better ones for that.

Anyway the quick rundown on encounter kino:

(. Interesting environments. Can be tactical considerations like cover and high ground. Can also be lush descriptions of HALO jumping off of a silver dragon with rings of feather fall into an undead hoard.

(. Lots of mobility. Leave the entities free to move around in interesting ways, and feel free to make knockback effects easy to access. An enemy slamming a PC back 30' and through a wall is 10x as interesting as preventing their movement. Also makes 3d environments easier to use, and verticality is fun.

(. A clear understanding of why the fight is happening, and the possibility to resolve things without a slaughter. Can range from a fight to rescue a princess from kidnappers in a cart chase to the docks, to an honorable duel between champions for passage, to holding the tomb of your venerated ancestors at all costs. (Ok that last one will need to be a slaughter I think)

(. A good pace, "punchy" effective feeling actions, and short turns. Probably the most system dependent thing here, but most of it is how much energy, hype, and pressure you bring as a GM. Effective descriptions are critical IMO.

Beyond that, fuck balance, it's the player's job figure out how to win the fight, not yours. Just avoid anti-fun abilities like long-lasting save or sucks, battlefield removal moves, and instant kills. (unless revives are easy to access).

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>>55017042
>(. Interesting environments. Can be tactical considerations like cover and high ground. Can also be lush descriptions of HALO jumping off of a silver dragon with rings of feather fall into an undead hoard.
I have had an encounter in the middle of a battlefield between the living and the dead (not necessarily on opposing sides either; it was a civil war in the divine realm of an Egyptian goddess of the dead), rife with teleportation effects and crossfire. I like to think I can use interesting set piece battles.

>(. Lots of mobility. Leave the entities free to move around in interesting ways, and feel free to make knockback effects easy to access. An enemy slamming a PC back 30' and through a wall is 10x as interesting as preventing their movement. Also makes 3d environments easier to use, and verticality is fun.
The PCs and the enemies are really quite mobile, and forced movement is a dime a dozen in a 4e retroclone.

>(. A clear understanding of why the fight is happening, and the possibility to resolve things without a slaughter. Can range from a fight to rescue a princess from kidnappers in a cart chase to the docks, to an honorable duel between champions for passage, to holding the tomb of your venerated ancestors at all costs. (Ok that last one will need to be a slaughter I think)
I make it absolutely, positively clear why a battle is happening and set the stakes for it. I do not allow social skills to outright circumvent an encounter, but I do allow them to set terms of the battle, like "Okay; if you defeat me here, I will have my forces back down."

>(. A good pace, "punchy" effective feeling actions, and short turns. Probably the most system dependent thing here, but most of it is how much energy, hype, and pressure you bring as a GM. Effective descriptions are critical IMO.
My players take turns quickly enough, and so do I.

While your suggestions are good, I implement them already. They do not address the players' poorly-conveyed problems.

>>55017240
>I do not allow social skills to outright circumvent an encounter
That's not good.

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>>55016379
2hu, Toehoe. Popular Japanese animation series with striking visual style and diverse cast of characters. Also the origin of Death Waltz, Mcroll, Knight of Knights, Cirno's Perfect Math Class and other great music pieces.

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>>55017328
>tfw there are people who unironically believe that

>>55017240
>Doesn't allow social skills to nullify combat
>Thinks fast neans punchy
>Only ever plays combat as sport

wew

>Apparently, after talking to the player even further, it is not so much about encounter design as it is about how my combat encounters feel disconnected from the narrative and the world.

I'm not sure what skill system you use, but try to set battles up so they can/have to use usually out-of-battle abilities during it maybe?

>>55017240
>The PCs and the enemies are really quite mobile, and forced movement is a dime a dozen in a 4e retroclone.
Having played 4e I'm kind of skeptical. IME the sheer stickiness of defenders and AoOs tends to make 4e combat a game of 5 foot shifts. That said I haven't played the exact system you have.

>I do not allow social skills to outright circumvent an encounter
Why not though? My players probably talk their way out of half my planned combats and it feels fine to me.

>My players take turns quickly enough, and so do I.
Yeah, but does each action feel impactful? My experiences with 4e were generally pretty plodding, because taking down even weak enemies generally took many actions and multiple turns. IMO that was the worst thing about 4e.

>>55017042
But really, fuck balance. I'm running a modified version of Dead In Thay (level 9) right now, so D&D 5e. 5e Monsters and NPCs are generally pretty boring individually, but thanks to bounded accuracy it's easy to make good encounters. The next fight they're (probably) going to run into is 30 mixed enemies ranging from CR 1/4th to 21. On paper its between a double deadly, and 8x deadly encounter, with the action economy extremely stacked. With the party at very roughly, half resources I expect it to strain them pretty hard and probably kill a few PCs (it's supposed to be hard after all, and resurrection is easy in the Doomvault so I'm mostly worried about instant kills being really unfun for the player I target with a "you don't get to play in this exciting encounter" move like Power Word Kill more than anything else). There will be some mitigating options and NPC infighting, but on paper they should get their asses kicked by a CR 21 Lich which RAW, they have no business fighting.

Of course, my players are pretty capable, and I'm fairly liberal with magic items, so I expect they can find a way to win.

I can't help but notice you never addressed my previous short comment on balance, so I'm expanding on it.

>>55017406
>Only ever plays combat as sport

You may be onto something. Maybe the player is looking for more "combat as war". In other words, he wants to feel that his actions before the fight influenced the fight to a greater degree (possibly even skipping a fight).

While this seems a bit hard to quantify, I have been considering trying to make a sort of "strategy layer" system where you (admittedly vaguely) compare the strategic abilities of the sides before entering the tactics layer (i.e.e the fight itself).

>Yeah, but does each action feel impactful? My experiences with 4e were generally pretty plodding, because taking down even weak enemies generally took many actions and multiple turns.

A weak enemy in 4e is a Minion, and it takes literally 1 hit to kill them (sometimes not even that).

>>55017529
>A weak enemy in 4e is a Minion, and it takes literally 1 hit to kill them (sometimes not even that).
I don't really want to get into a big 4e critique but because they explicitly used very different mechanics from enemies killing minions generally felt more like an action tax or the reason to play a Controller as being good at hitting things and dealing damage wasn't really rewarded. I generally thought of them as more of a terrain feature than a real enemy type DESU. I recognize that this is a biased opinion that I have, and that I didn't really like 4e until the Monster Manual 3 adjusted their damage output and HP, and after those adjustments I really liked it.

>>55009330
>>So you are saying, you incorporated all things that can be used to bypass HP, and included them in HP?
>If HP is a mix of plot armor and morale, then I do not see why the "morale" part should be ignored. If they have HP left, they have morale left to stay in the fight
What you have done is turned every enemy into a bag that you punch until a result falls out.

Doesn't matter if they're brave, cowardly, arrogant, sneaky, skilled or dumb. You just punch them until result.

You've taken a no-HP system and turned it into the worst kind of pure-HP system.

Also, this summoning reinforcements mechanic is bullshit. They track a thief to a secluded location so you pull out of your ass a bunch of enemies that just happens to be the number you most enjoy playing, just like every other combat? You don't see the problem with that?

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>>55017717
Not 2hu fag myself, but I'm wondering is it bad for me to prefer to have all the enemies out on the table at once for my players, instead of having them rely on backup in the middle of the fight?

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>>55017406
>>55017510

I make social skills useful enough outside of combat. Such skills have been massively useful during the party's latest mission, wherein they inserted themselves into a yugolothic hierarchy.

I do not think social skills should get to outright bypass a set-piece encounter. Dictate terms, maybe, and possibly even sway the defeated enemies afterwards using the power of friendship, but not totally bypass the fight.

>
Having played 4e I'm kind of skeptical. IME the sheer stickiness of defenders and AoOs tends to make 4e combat a game of 5 foot shifts. That said I haven't played the exact system you have.
There is a fair bit more dynamic mobility in Strike!

>Yeah, but does each action feel impactful?
I would say so. Strike! uses small numbers, and it is trivial to identify things such as enemy HP, so it is quite easy to see just how much a PC is ripping through an enemy

>>55017529

If the player in question is heavily pro-combat-as-war, then I doubt we could ever get along.

That is possibly why the player has already left for good.

>>55017717

>Doesn't matter if they're brave, cowardly, arrogant, sneaky, skilled or dumb.
This is what HP represents. If they do not have the morale to stay in the fight, they are probably not the sort to have high HP either.

>Also, this summoning reinforcements mechanic is bullshit. They track a thief to a secluded location so you pull out of your ass a bunch of enemies
The PCs were aware of this capacity of the thief, as laid out in >>55013834.

>>55017674
That's a fair opinion to have, and it's not wrong.

If OP is using Strike!, it has an inbetween step between minion and "normal" monster which is about half HP/competence of a "normal" monster of its level. They work as a pretty good standin for minions as something tougher but not 1HP wonders.

>>55017717

>Doesn't matter if they're brave, cowardly, arrogant, sneaky, skilled or dumb.

Presumably, those are status effects on top of HP damage.

>Also, this summoning reinforcements mechanic is bullshit.

Only if it has not been established beforehand.

>>55011113
How many times have your players decided that a fight was too difficult or going badly and that they should disengage?

How many times have their enemies done that?

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>>55017761
>This is what HP represents.
You know, back in the day we used to have this thing called Morale. A number that told you how easily an enemy would break and run.

>I do not think social skills should get to outright bypass a set-piece encounter. Dictate terms, maybe, and possibly even sway the defeated enemies afterwards using the power of friendship, but not totally bypass the fight.
Do you tell your players this outright?

>>55012956
>I have mentioned alternate win/loss conditions here
You do not have alternate win/lose conditions. It all boils down to who got to the magic number of punches first.

>>55017761
>If the player in question is heavily pro-combat-as-war, then I doubt we could ever get along.

This is exactly why I have been considering that layered system above, to gap the bridge between the two.

>>55013834
>Because I am a great fan of grid-based tactical combat. "Combat as sport," in other words.
Perhaps you should be playing a tactical combat game rather than an RPG?

Maybe consider an infinity campaign?

>>55017848
There's a new Necromunda coming out too. That could be good.

>>55014450
>Can't balance the action economy. Unless we change the enemy to be able to take 5 actions a turn, that could work. What if it was all the same elemental but he split up and was in 5 different places?
Please tell me that's a parody of the OP.

>>55017761
>I do not think social skills should get to outright bypass a set-piece encounter. Dictate terms, maybe, and possibly even sway the defeated enemies afterwards using the power of friendship, but not totally bypass the fight.

How do you enforce this? If a player says "We don't need to fight, we can work together" and rolls high, do you just tell him no? Or do you just not let him roll to begin with?

>>55017768
>If OP is using Strike!, it has an inbetween step between minion and "normal" monster which is about half HP/competence of a "normal" monster of its level. They work as a pretty good standin for minions as something tougher but not 1HP wonders.

>There is a fair bit more dynamic mobility in Strike!

>I would say so. Strike! uses small numbers, and it is trivial to identify things such as enemy HP, so it is quite easy to see just how much a PC is ripping through an enemy
Besides easy access to identifying HP that sounds pretty neat (I generally like to never make enemy HP explicit, or just play it totally openly depending on the campaign)

I think I'll have to give this system a look.

>>55017800
>>55017860
I actually use the old Necromunda/GorkaMorka morale rules in most of my games, I think it's a good way to end encounter early without resorting completely the GM fiat

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>>55017786

>How many times have your players decided that a fight was too difficult or going badly and that they should disengage?
Never. It helps that death is seldom on the table for anyone.

>How many times have their enemies done that?
Never, likewise.

>>55017800

>You know, back in the day we used to have this thing called Morale. A number that told you how easily an enemy would break and run.
And the system in question has no such thing. Due to the power level involved, there will hardly be any neophytes to combat.

>Do you tell your players this outright?
The first time it seemed like they were planning on this, I was absolutely, crystal clear when explaining that an enemy would not submit to a diplomatic approach in such a way as to circumvent a battle. I also explained that they could use their social skills to befriend and persuade the enemy after the fight.

>>55017813

Certainly, if the thief managed to escape, they would have failed in that mission. The thief could not escape, regardless, because the players were doing their best to lock the thief down.

>>55017890

I would not allow that to start with. My campaigns tend to run on "defeat people, then befriend them with your social graces and good cheer" logic.

>>55017240
>I make it absolutely, positively clear why a battle is happening and set the stakes for it. I do not allow social skills to outright circumvent an encounter, but I do allow them to set terms of the battle, like "Okay; if you defeat me here, I will have my forces back down."
It's not about social skills. Players should be able to take actions that mean they achieve their result without a battle or they avoid the battle.

Would I be correct in thinking that whatever non-combst choices they make merely modulate the battle? No wonder they're bored.

>>55017240
>I have had an encounter in the middle of a battlefield between the living and the dead (not necessarily on opposing sides either; it was a civil war in the divine realm of an Egyptian goddess of the dead), rife with teleportation effects and crossfire. I like to think I can use interesting set piece battles
But they yet again fought a group of enemies roughly equivalent in numbers to the party who took the same optimal actions as usual?

>>55017739
It's fine but if they've gone to the effort of getting an enemy alone to immediately go "aha you fight the exact same number of enemies as always" makes the whole thing pointless.

>>55017907
>>How many times have your players decided that a fight was too difficult or going badly and that they should disengage?
>Never. It helps that death is seldom on the table for anyone.
>
>>How many times have their enemies done that?
>Never, likewise.

Well here's the core of the problem.

>>55017907
>I would not allow that to start with. My campaigns tend to run on "defeat people, then befriend them with your social graces and good cheer" logic.
That sounds awful. Combined with how rapidly you shut down any attempts to outsmart their opponents, and how the fights are all against similiar enemies who behave in the same way, It's honestly surprising your players have stuck around as long as they have.

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>>55017910

I made it clear that this campaign would have unavoidable set piece battles.

>Players should be able to take actions that mean they achieve their result without a battle or they avoid the battle.
>Would I be correct in thinking that whatever non-combst choices they make merely modulate the battle? No wonder they're bored.

As explained in >>55013834, they had a chance to make the thief visible and corporeal, another chance to blast the thief with a trap, and another chance to surprise the thief. They successfully made the thief visible and corporeal, but failed to have the thief fall for the trap and also failed to surprise the thief.

>>55017923

That enemy group indeed matched them, though the previous enemy group outnumbered them.

>>55017761
>This is what HP represents. If they do not have the morale to stay in the fight, they are probably not the sort to have high HP either.
You are completely missing the point. You have removed all of the variety of different enemies and replaced it with how many times they need to be punched.

>>55017903
>I think I'll have to give this system a look.

Be prepared for a good battle system, kinda meh core skill system, and optional systems raging from meh to pretty good. Also, amateur book in need of editor.

>>55017972
Unavoidable setpieces are bad.
Let me repeat that.
UNAVOIDABLE SETPIECES ARE BAD.

While I'm at it..
NOT ALLOWING PLAYERS TO BYPASS ENCOUNTERS IN GENERAL IS BAD

FORCING CHARACTERS TO PLAY ONLY IN SLUGFESTS IS BAD

>>55017907
>>How many times have your players decided that a fight was too difficult or going badly and that they should disengage?
>Never. It helps that death is seldom on the table for anyone.
>>How many times have their enemies done that?
>Never, likewise
This is why it's boring.

The punching bags on both sides punch each other until one side gets to the magic number of punches.

Your consequences are all out of whack if being beaten is better than fleeing for both sides.

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>>55017961

Do expound.

>>55017968

The "befriend defeated enemies" part is actually one of the more well-received aspects of the campaign. It seems to be popular, in other words.

>shut down any attempts to outsmart their opponents
Again, as explained in >>55013834, they had a chance to make the thief visible and corporeal, another chance to blast the thief with a trap, and another chance to surprise the thief. They successfully made the thief visible and corporeal, but failed to have the thief fall for the trap and also failed to surprise the thief.

>>55017974
>>55018015

If an enemy absconds at a certain threshold, then that threshold is its HP value, for all intents and purposes.

If certain conditions can cause an enemy to abscond, then those conditions are what trigger a chance to deplete the enemy's HP.

>>55018014

The players knew what they were signing up for. I made this clear to them. It is part of my GMing style.

The characters can affect the battle to a moderate degree, and they can significantly affect the aftermath of a battle. They may delay a battle and/or vastly change its context. They will still have to face the setpiece one way or another, some time down the line.

>>55017972
>I made it clear that this campaign would have unavoidable set piece battles.
You realize that this makes everything that happens between battles much less valuable.

In addition, what happens in battle is boring because you've boiled it down to an utterly dull formula that you repeat over and over with only window dressing as the difference.

In all seriousness I think you should switch to a combat simulation, non-rpg game. I think you'll enjoy it much more.

>>55017972
>That enemy group indeed matched them, though the previous enemy group outnumbered them.
So in the middle of an epic battlefield they fight the usual number of enemies.

Very exciting.

If I could guess who that was going to play out after a few minutes of reading your posts how predictable do you think it was for your players.

OP, I'm confused. If Morale is HP, then does demoralizing the enemy deal damage?

So this is what happens when kids grow up on crpgs that fail to give players enough choice and then come to see that as the golden standard of play? I guess I shouldn't be shocked but holy shit this is funny to read.

>>55017907
>And the system in question has no such thing.
So? Put one in.
>Due to the power level involved, there will hardly be any neophytes to combat.
Experienced warriors generally get that way by being smart enough to know when to withdraw.

>>55018059
>If certain conditions can cause an enemy to abscond, then those conditions are what trigger a chance to deplete the enemy's HP
So I can take prior action to make an enemy fear the negative outcome of battling me and intimidate him in battle.

Or I can punch him so more.

Same thing. Boring.

>>55017907
>My campaigns tend to run on "defeat people, then befriend them with your social graces and good cheer" logic

Anime was a mistake

>>55018059
>They will still have to face the setpiece one way or another, some time down the line.
So why should they bother with the between combat parts?

>>55018166
To be fair, there are plenty of railroaded campaigns that have relatively set combat encounters and still have room to make it exciting and enjoyable for the player, this guy just doesn't really seem to understand what would be enjoyable for the player.

Let me repeat this because it is vitally important and you are ignoring it. >>55018015
>Your consequences are all out of whack if being beaten is better than fleeing for both sides.

You have a campaign where there is no meaningful agency for the players out of combat and in combat the stakes are so wonky that fighting to defeat is preferable to leaving a combat that's going badly.

This whole "they are just punchingbag!" things is stupid.

I agree that they probably need more varied objectives/setups (because those are always good), and he needs to incorporate but depleting HP is always should be the main method of winning a fight in a game that has HP in the first place.

Moral damage from intimidation works well. If they got a hit in, just note it next to the target, have it act more 'afraid' maybe, and then when it drops to 0 HP have it try to run/crawl away/beg instead of dropping down knocked out.

Enemies giving up when they know they can't win (if it's the type of enemy that'd do that; keep in mind OP is doing what sounds like a pretty shounen type thing where people are totally willing to go all out over stupid shit, even when they are destined to lose) also helps, and speeds things up considerably.

Having an entirely separate track/system for "morale" is really pointless.

>>55018186
Sure. This guy seems intent on sucking the fun out of both parts though.

A railroad campaign requires a deft touch to make the players feel engaged.

I think if we tried to explain that to OP he'd tell us that there's no stat for player agency.

>>55018218
If you leave combat, you lose more face than if you actually get beaten. Especially if death isn't involved, it makes sense to fight and give it your all than retreat when it looks bad. I think that's sound logic for a bunch of possible encounters.

Yes, some times you probably want other things going, like a race against time where the villain is trying to turn on/power up his doomsday machine or something, or just enemies who just don't care about saving face, but care about not getting beaten.

>>55018059
>Do expound.
Broadly speaking, a varied difficulty curve is what makes combat interesting. Sometimes its nice to show off the power your character has in an easy fight (I find players tend to "show off their moves" to an extent and push their limits in fights which are easier).

Similarly, *really* hard fights are also a lot of fun. As a GM I have a reputation for being pretty fair in my fights. I avoid screwing the players over in a really targeted way, but that also means that I don't have a problem with allowing a TPK or a serious loss. I have directly told my players that I think they're in a pretty tricky situation, and they better think on their feet pretty well to get out. In that particular case they ended up ransoming themselves to a blue dragon as living parts of its hoard. I didn't expect that, but it worked a lot better than being sacrificed to the dragon by the cult which captured them. They initially thought it was some kind of forced capture and Deus Ex DMPC rescue thing, but after I explained that the last fight was harder than it should have been, and that they could really die in this dire situation they lit up and thought their way out really well.

But that's what I mean, it was a really hard encounter, which they lost, and ended up talking their way out of in a really long session, bypassing the now unwinnable combat. They actually really wanted to retreat, but in character motivations prevented them.

Now, if your enemies enemies are weak enough that simple combat is always enough to overcome them, that will get just as bland as if they were powerless.

>If an enemy absconds at a certain threshold, then that threshold is its HP value, for all intents and purposes.

No it's not at all, and this is a good example of why unified health and morale mechanics suck.

If your party got attacked by idk, rhinos, the fight would go very differently if they decide to fight them in open combat vs casting a Fear spell on them. One is a lot easier.

>>55018283
Yep, I agree for most of the time. That it's never happened for either side - nor even having enemies flee to trigger a chase scene - suggests a boring and broken campaign.

>>55018232
>I agree that they probably need more varied objectives/setups (because those are always good), and he needs to incorporate but depleting HP is always should be the main method of winning a fight in a game that has HP in the first place.
The point isn't that, once the average combat encounter starts it should be solvable without fighting, but rather that the majority of encounters should not be strict combat encounters.

Why would this thief fight to the death? Why didn't he simply return what he stole half way through, or feign to do so in an effort to escape? Why was trapping him in place and calling the authorities, or the victim party or their representative, a feasible solution? How about simply stealing it back? Following them home and waiting for them to sleep? Purchasing it from whoever he fenced it to?

This is tabletop, if the players lack agency, they get bored.

If you want a tactical war game, stop playing an RPG. Miniature War Games are far more up the OPs alley it would seem.

>>55018286
>If your party got attacked by idk, rhinos, the fight would go very differently if they decide to fight them in open combat vs casting a Fear spell on them.

That'd be Morale Damage + some effect. The "Fear" would be an effect ON TOP of the damage.

So yes, they'd fight differently. If they were low HP, they may outright run away then.

Mindless/unintelligent enemies are not a very good fight though, unless there's some driving intelligence behind them.

>>55018325
If an enemies morale and motivations are driven by their HP then what's the difference between an animal and an intelligent enemy? How many times you punch it? The description of what zero HP means?

>>55018325
>That'd be Morale Damage + some effect. The "Fear" would be an effect ON TOP of the damage.
Why? An animal that is injured or afraid would simply flee. People are the same, unless they have good reason to be otherwise. Only magical constructs and other mindless beings should fight to the bitter end the vast majority of the time.

>>55018340
>Why? An animal that is injured or afraid would simply flee.

This is why I'm saying

>Mindless/unintelligent enemies are not a very good fight though, unless there's some driving intelligence behind them.

You don't have a good justification for them fighting you. You could either illustrate this by them having low HP; since they'll just run away at the first sign of injury/fear/etc, or by some other means, or you could just not have the fight.

If you were threatening their cubs, or they were really hungry or something else, then maybe.

>>55006114
After reading the discussion in this thread I have two hypoteses about the reason of your player's behavior:

>Your combats all feel the same.
You could introduce different opponents, different abilities, different terrain, different backdrops and they could still feel the same. Even if you don't see how they could feel the same. The end result is readily observed, after all, so maybe some things you think should feel different to your players actually feel the same to them. Try changing random things you didn't try to change before and note the results.

>Your combats are too exhausting
Brutal tactical combat requires a lot of mental energy. A series of such combats can mentally exhaust the player to the point they're unable to have fun.

In addition, here's a possible reason for your continuing inability to reach an agreement when talking with your players: when you think you're doing something right, you don't challenge that assumption and instead argue that it's right. For example, your "morale is a part of HP" system. It makes sense from a point of view, but it doesn't mean you're doing it right. If something causes your players not to have fun, you're doing it wrong.
To clarify, I'm saying specifically that your approach to morale being wrong. I'm saying that it might be wrong, but you refuse to entertain this thought outright. Same with other things, listing which would be too long.

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>all opponents are tactically competent

>>55018337
How they fight, and also how long they fight I guess.

>>55007634
>I generally dislike running smaller amounts of enemies; even with extra actions, having less pieces to move around is stale to me in its own way.
You find your combat system boring without four or so characters to play at once. Do you think it's fun for your players with one each?

>>55018371
>You could either illustrate this by them having low HP
Until the players decide they want Rhino meat for dinner.

And if you have 2 different HP thresholds anyway, why not use a more dynamic and adjustable metric.

>>55018381
Exactly. You punch them (or do other things that are described differently but have the same effect as a punch) until you reach the magic number.

Boring.

>>55018395
PCs are built differently from enemies?

>>55018405
You equate having the same loss condition (being reduced to 0 HP) with being the same.

This is like saying a wizard and a warrior is the same because they have HP. You are oversimplifying an issue to try to... I don't even know, are you trying to sound smart? Because you are sounding dumb as shit to me.

>>55018400
Yes, hunting a rhino is simpler than scaring it.

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Isn't a lot of this thread basically just subjective opinions of "I don't like your anime tier campaign style"?

>>55018443
No its
>I don't think a spreadsheet makes a good DM.

>>55018439
>Yes, hunting a rhino is simpler than scaring it.

Ugh, I meant HARDER. Hunting is harder so when you hunt a rhino it'll have more HP.

Which is about in line with how animals act (if its attempts at running away fail, it will turn and fight, effectively having more HP).

>>55018443
Well some of it is, the majority of it is the OP defending his style of play vehemently while players try to explain to a literal autist that his players clearly don't seem to like it and he needs to try something new.

>>55018455
So now your rhino is gaining HP mid encounter. Until they want to let it go again, and it loses HP. So what is the purpose of a modular single determination of victory if it changes arbitrarily?
If they want to injure, but not kill the rhino, does it change? What about scaring off an injured rhino? Hunting a scared rhino? Using one number for non-similar situations is bafflingly stupid.

>>55018443
all fun is subjective and his players aren't having fun, so maybe he's not doing too good a job right now
the thing he mentioned is that people liked being able to befriend enemies after winning fights, probably because that gives them some vague feeling of agency and also maybe getting to know characters

>>55018325
I actually chose that example for a pretty specific reason, because the Fear spell is basically just going to win the fight without dealing a pip of damage. (And there's a few other ways to do that as well)

If they fail the save, they'll run far enough that the fight is over, and realistically, aren't going to come back for another save or flee thrashing.

They don't have low HP, they're fucking huge aggressive beasts (the ones in this example anyway), much tougher to hurt than a man. But, all that HP doesn't matter because there's other ways to win the fight which don't interact with HP, like supernaturally inflicting the Fear Of God.

But, if you make every option in combat "reduce their extremely nebulously defined pool of how long until you win" the actions you take matter a lot less, as hitting it with a sword/firearm/fist, angrily yelling, or supernaturally inflicting the Fear Of God all do about the same thing.

>>55018455
Intent based subjective HP is weird as fuck and you know it. You can't reduce everything to it.

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>>55018395

PCs are indeed significantly more mechanically complex than enemies.

>>55018467

>players

I would like to emphasize that only one player had an issue with this. As I explained in the opening post, the other players are *mostly* fine with this.

It is a bit of a moot point anyway, given that the one player who took issue with this has already left for good.

>>55018443
Sounds like something OP would say. "but the campaign is being run correctly")

His players are quitting and this has happened on every campaign he's run that wasn't one on one.

It doesn't matter if the mechanics apart to be appropriate for the setting if no one likes playing it.

>>55018483
>the Fear spell

Why do you think he's playing D&D/Pathfinder.

>>55018499
Not leaving isn't the same as finding the situation enjoyable. It's entirely possible for players to continue in a game despite reservations if they find enjoyment elsewhere, such as by interacting and RPing with each other.

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>>55018499
Welp, seems like the problem solved itself honestly. If the one guy who was upset with the game left then everything's good.

>>55018439
Because they are the same. If every action reduces HP and reducing HP is the only way out of the combat then your choices are pretty much all the same.

>>55018455
>Hunting is harder so when you hunt a rhino it'll have more HP.

If it has to gain or lose huge amounts of """HP""" based off of my goal, it might as well not be HP any more.

HP is a notoriously vague and abstract metric but it's usu ally considered one of two things: wounds; or 'near misses, nicks in armor, glancing blows' up to actual wounds.

Mixing it into morale, means that social RP now just damages like a normal attack. It makes things feel samey. Players don't want everything to fundamentally boil down into "how much damage does this deal" because then they just have to spam the thing that reduces HP the most. And as the OP established, if HP covers morale, the only way to win is to deplete HP.

The problem with seeing a ROLE playing game from the perspective of pure and optimal strategy is that you remove the nuances of emotion, motivation, and flaw in decision making... you end up just picking the 'best' choice each turn.

OP, can players use utility / noncombat skills in an encounter? Set up advantages, impair the opponent, mess with the terrain, pursue the objective, and so on? And if they can, how much of these choices end up just restoring, depleting, or altering how HP is affected?

>>55018499
Clearly they aren't okay with it given your description of the group conversation.

>>55018477
>>55018483
>I actually chose that example for a pretty specific reason, because the Fear spell is basically just going to win the fight without dealing a pip of damage. (And there's a few other ways to do that as well)

That specific situation is stupid though. Why are the rhino's attacking in the first place? Why is there a fight in the first place?

You brought an example where an ill defined "fear spell" would win the encounter.

Okay. If it wasn't meant to be a fight in the first place, they could have just rolled an intimidate and the rhinos run away. No need to even bring out the combat mat.

If it IS supposed to be a fight, then it's major enough that using a single spell shouldn't make them run away. Maybe they are protecting something, or a druid is controlling them. In this case, a single fear spell, or an intimidation roll should not chase them away.

Same way about "hunting or chasing away rhinos". What are the players goals? Hunting a single Rhino?

In this case, the DM sits down and decides "is this worth getting the map out?". Unless you are playing stone or bronze-age levels, probably not. You make a few skill rolls tracking, maybe setting a trap and then shooting the damn thing, and your players are one rhino soup richer. Things could go wrong and they could anger a horde of rhinos, or a rhino-druid or something and then THAT could be a fight, but just "hunt rhino, don1t hunt rhino" is stupid.

>>55018563
Exactly. Do I intimidate the enemy or punch them in the face?

Well, because of our relative stats the punch does 2 HP more damage so I guess I'll do that until I run out of special punches and then I'll go for a bit of intimidate.

>>55018545
>If it has to gain or lose huge amounts of """HP""" based off of my goal, it might as well not be HP any more.

You could call it whatever, HP is just the legacy name. Sounds better than "Reduce to 0 to take out from fight" points too.

>Mixing it into morale, means that social RP now just damages like a normal attack.

Yes, a less motivated enemy will be less likely to put up a good fight. This is still not the ONLY effect it has. It has the normal effects of *thing you attempted to do socially* but if it means he's less willing to fight, it should also drain HP.

>>55018563
What's stupid is tying motivations to HP.

New scenario, a thief steals an item from a man who now wants to kill him. The thief, under this system, has a minimum of 3-4 different HP pools. One to give up, one to be killed, and one to be caught. A party coming in only further complicates things, as suddenly each party member has their own theoretical HP total.

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>>55018524

One player is actually just fine with the combat, and the other two are mostly fine.

>>55018545

Strike! has a good deal of potential nondamaging effects that can come along with an attack. There are rules for improvising together new attacks, so using a social skill to demoralize an enemy would probably be resolved as an improvised new attack with a fear-themed rider effect.

Improvised attacks are usually effective the first time they are used in an encounter, and then no better than regular attacks thereafter, because otherwise, the character would have no need of class powers.

>>55018552

That two-hour-long conversation was a mess of misunderstandings and miscommunications. Nothing good came of it, except for one player taking it as a catalyst that they should leave the game.

>>55018588
In OP's world he has one HP pool and fights until they are depleted at which point [insert exposition].

>>55018581
Actually, Strike! improvised actions are really good and better/as good as your "strong punches" usually. So if you can improvise an action (such as intimidating someone with information only you have about him, or something) it'd be just as good or better than "strong punch". It'd deal both HP dmg and possibly Panic the target.

>>55018588
That only matters on a per encounter basis.

Okay, you want to catch the thief. Does it want to fight at all?

No? Then no need for HP, you'll be rolling skills.

Yes? Okay, is it possible to make this encounter matter?

If no, still using skills. No need to take out a mat for a target that would give up after 1 hit.

Yes? Take out the mat and start thinking about ways to make this encounter fun.

HP literally only exists when a combat encounter happens. Things don't have a HP outside of it.

>>55018606
What does MOSTLY fine mean?

>>55018631
That's largely the point. This is a system where avoiding combat is a significant thing but OP is forcing combat.

>>55018635
They haven't quit yet.

>>55018523
I don't I used it as an example of how effects which don't interact with HP can end fights. I wanted to use Eclipse Phase Overload Grenades, but they're so much less well known.

>>55018563
Whatever, I'll use the example I originally wanted to, because apparently a "save or run away as fast as possible" effect isn't well defined enough.

Look at Eclipse Phase's Overload grenades. They're basically a stingball, flashbang, brown note, malodorants and, and the rest of the less lethal munitions packed into a small high tech package.

The point being, if one lands nearby, the best case scenario is huge penalties to everything, and the pretty normal case is complete loss of bodily control. They technically deal a little damage, but essentially any worn armor protects against that. But basically any time one comes out, the fight ends if they don't have a fairly long list of required countermeasures, and it doesn't remove HP. It's a great way to bypass the defenses of otherwise tough and well motivated enemies.

>>55018631
>It'd deal both HP dmg and possibly Panic the target.
How's that any different from a good punch ringing their bell though?

>>55018698
Panic is a defined effect that means that the target is not in full control of their abilities and may try to run away (possibly repeatedly, which would make it leave the battle).

A punch... well, depends on the punch? I guess, if you have a punch charged with a "Fear Spell" that Panics enemies, it could work the same, but otherwise it probably deals damage and does something else.

>>55018688
>Look at Eclipse Phase's Overload grenades. They're basically a stingball, flashbang, brown note, malodorants and, and the rest of the less lethal munitions packed into a small high tech package.

How long is the enemy out cold? Sounds like either a Stun effect or an instant Knock Out (both of which exist in Strike!) if it lasts longer.

Could be a Stun that lasts until Save. I think it should still deal mental damage, because boy, you probably don't want to keep fighting after THAT.

>>55006755
So they're familiar with that style of game. Do they enjoy them?

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>>55018830

Enough to keep in my game, I suppose.

Goddammit, I remember at least two threads in the past where the touhou-posting OP wanked his TACTICOOL combat that some of his players didn't like. How often do you have problems with your players, dude? Or is it just an excuse for touhouposting?

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>>55019102

I cover this in another thread: >>55016278

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>>55019175
From what i've read touhou anon, you have 3 major issues in Your DMing style.

First, you treat your players as if they were tojiko when assaulted by reimu. This is an "Unavoidable set piece" as you put it, but at the same time it was wholly unnecessary. Social skills should have the ability to bypass combat, at least some of the time. Otherwise, you have people fighting for arbitrary reasons that don't actually have any real effect. It takes the wind out of the sails of the party face, basically making an entire stat useless.

Second, you treat combat as if every enemy out there is remilia, yukari, or miko. If every combat is condensed mind games and tactics, eventually your own tactics are seen through and your players get used to it. You gotta throw in a Rumia or Cirno every once in a while. Something thats a total curveball, Chaotic, without reasoning. Not everything is tactical, and sometimes thats for the better.

Third, and this ties into number 2, Instead of aiming for some arbitrary win percentage, make a few fights that have large amounts of weaker enemies to slog through, or one powerful enemy thats hard to deal with. Make some fights easy and others nigh impossible. If your players have caught on that they have 75% chance to win, its going to be boring. You shouldn't be dictating this chance to win through your end. This takes away player impetus. Its like if you were Yuyuko and youmu was guarding your fridge so you don't eat everything. Eventually you will get that food, but the effort put in doesn't match the reward given. You should set up a challenge, leave it as is, and let the players work their way through it. Make an encounter, and let the dice gods do the rest. Sometimes this means encounters will be unexpectedly easy, others near impossible due to sheer luck. And thats fine. No ones saying not to have highly orchestrated combats, just pepper in more chaos from time to time.

Basically, every now and again, let seija run wild.

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>>55020587

>Social skills should have the ability to bypass combat, at least some of the time. Otherwise, you have people fighting for arbitrary reasons that don't actually have any real effect. It takes the wind out of the sails of the party face
I address this point here: >>55017761
I make social skills useful enough outside of combat. Such skills have been massively useful during the party's latest mission, wherein they inserted themselves into a yugolothic hierarchy.
I do not think social skills should get to outright bypass a set-piece encounter. Dictate terms, maybe, and possibly even sway the defeated enemies afterwards using the power of friendship, but not totally bypass the fight.
I heavily emphasize "defeat enemy, befriend afterwards" logic in my campaigns, and that is actually one of the more universally well-received facets of my games.

>eventually your own tactics are seen through and your players get used to it.
The player in question was complaining about always being outwitted, actually. They felt that they were tactically incompetent and unable to predict anything, and that made them feel powerless.

>If your players have caught on that they have 75% chance to win, its going to be boring.
I address this in >>55009330
There are more difficult battles, and there are easier ones. I do maintain a baseline, but that can be deviated from.

If you would have a look at >>55016278, you will see that over my many sessions of GMing for a group, complaints concerning combat are but one of the many, many, *many* complaints I receive when GMing. Whenever I GM, regardless of whom I take as a player, there is always at least one person made terribly unhappy by something during the session, and that person is always willing to engage in an hours-long argument with me on the topic. Whether it is about combat encounters, noncombat problem-solving, the setting, the NPCs, the way I treat the PCs, or any other aspect of GMing, there are always more problems.

>>55020788
Why did you made this thread if you are going to be contrarian of everything people is telling you, and keep justifying your way as it doesn't have problems when in fact you must be doing something wrong if your players are bored?

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>>55020843

1. I already implement a fair deal of the suggestions here. People seem to think that I use no interesting terrain, employ dull monsters, have no variation in encounter difficulty, and so on, when that is false. I would rather not have to repeat myself to clear the record.

2. I have a particular GMing style. That includes certain conventions I have gravitated towards because I like them and I can execute them well, as opposed to half-heartedly. For instance, part of the tone and theme of the games I tend to run includes the "confront enemy in shonen battle, defeat them, and then befriend them" gimmick, which is one of the more well-received facets of my campaigns. Every so often, a player throws a fit about not being able to bypass a setpiece combat encounter with social skills, but they usually find themselves placated with my post-battle befriending gimmicks.

3. If I do not address something, chances are, I have probably taken it into consideration, as I have explained in >>55010149. It is time-wasting and pointless for me to respond to copious amounts of post sections with "Yes, that seems like a good idea."

>when in fact you must be doing something wrong if your players are bored?
In this particular case of combat, the one player who protested most has already left, so it is a bit of a moot point, really. As for the other issues I run into, there is this thread: >>55016278

>>55020831
>I do not think social skills should get to outright bypass a set-piece encounter. Dictate terms, maybe, and possibly even sway the defeated enemies afterwards using the power of friendship, but not totally bypass the fight.

Let me ask you this then. Why not? This is a fight all its own for the party face. If they can soundly beat an enemies logic and have them understand that, why can't they avoid the fight? One thing anime like this do terribly is pitting ideals against eachother, because in the end its just a slugfest anyways.

If the solution to your party face doing his job is to throw him into combat anyways, suffice it to say you've fucked up. Some people can indeed be reasoned with. Others can't. Let him try, at least. Make it hard, make it complicated, but at least let the sliver of a chance to avoid a fight outright be there. Otherwise, there's no point to him even trying.

Its like the newest season of symphogear. The opposing girls have been asked by hibiki on no less than two separate occasions "If its to help people, why can't we work together", but the enemies outright ignore this line of questioning to continue doing stupid shit they know is fucked up, to remove a curse they know at this point will destroy earth and climate change because a previous villain already tried it with a god damn orbital strike cannon. Sometimes, its some trite and contrived bullshit to not be able to avoid the combat, and you as the DM need to be able to realize when this is the case.

>The player in question was complaining about always being outwitted, actually.
All the better to release the chaos then. Not every fight needs to be a spreadsheet war, and sometimes just letting them fight a bunch of god knows whats can keep the party fresh. Sometimes, a simple killing spree is appreciated. Breaks up the tone a bit, preventing every combat from feeling the same.

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>>55021000

>Why not?
Because I like setpiece tactical combats, there is no dedicated "party face" anyway due to the odd skill subsystem (and even if there was, I would be vindicating their social skills during non-combat scenes and post-combat befriending), and all characters have equal investment in combat anyway due to Strike!'s total siloing of combat capacities.

>Make it hard, make it complicated, but at least let the sliver of a chance to avoid a fight outright be there. Otherwise, there's no point to him even trying.
The way I see it, in the kind of campaigns I run, it is like wuxia. It is not enough to simply state your philosophy with reasoned points. It is also mandatory to back it up with your kung fu (or rather, general fighting skills), such that your martial arete can be a testament to the righteousness of your cause. If that logic works for wuxia, it works for me, and I will happily append "power of friendship" post-battle befriending afterwards.

That is the style of the campaign I run, and I am not budging from it. It is something I have made clear to the players since the beginning.

>Not every fight needs to be a spreadsheet war, and sometimes just letting them fight a bunch of god knows whats can keep the party fresh. Sometimes, a simple killing spree is appreciated.
And that is why, as I explain in >>55008431, I have an encounter lined up with tactically myopic enemies, represented by a specific trait that limits whom they prioritize attacking, but that trait earns them "enemy building points" in exchange. This is actually from the game's rules.

>>55021000
>Why not?

Op already made it clear. All the encounters are meticulously crafted, and tactical combat is the only part of the game he likes.

He plays RPGs because he loves grid based combat, and players have better AI than most computer games. All the enemies are tactically competent, because he's not actually running them as characters, he's playing as if he's playing XCOM.

That's why he hates the idea of people bypassing combat. It's why he worked morale into HP. Because if people solve their problems without the players indulging in his gameplay fetish, he doesn't enjoy the game.

>>55021193
New anon here. After reading the thread I came to the same conclusion.
OP is not GMing for the sake of the players or the story, both players and story are just the means to his ultimate end: tactical combat against people with less knowledge about the encounter than him.

>>55021115
>and even if there was, I would be vindicating their social skills during non-combat scenes

But you aren't. You yourself have stated that a setpiece battle, as you put it, is completely unavoidable, regardless of talking before the actual combat. Going back to the tojiko example, She did exactly this. She was perfectly amiable, helped reimu as she could, and then got her shit knocked out, book stolen, sold to rinnosuke, and then when she was about to get it back, marisa does the same thing.

This means their ability to persuade the one actually important thing there is completely nullified, and then afterward they are thrown a bone, in that "Power of friendship" lets them maybe befriend someone afterward. This is poor handling of social capacities, regardless of your views on how they should work. If your Persuasive reasoning only works after you have beaten down the other person, your persuasive reasoning didn't work at all.

Taking away a players ability to do something simply because you don't like it is bad GMing at its core.

>>55021193
>>55021241
Haha, holy shit, how do you get so butthurt from someone having badwrongfun?

Since when is it bad for a GM to run a game he enjoys? The players obviously enjoy the games enough to at least stick around, so where's the problem?

Touhou is an autist of the highest caliber, and is shit at communicating with people, and this leads to problems when he GMs, sure. Somehow trying to construct a narrative where he is wrong to GM at all because your feefees are hurt by having the audacity to enjoy a facet of the game you don't care about is fucking pathetic.

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>>55021290

>You yourself have stated that a setpiece battle, as you put it, is completely unavoidable, regardless of talking before the actual combat.

Yes. I do not see how that marginalizes the social skills otherwise.

The characters can affect the battle to a moderate degree, and they can significantly affect the aftermath of a battle. They may delay a battle and/or vastly change its context. They will still have to face the setpiece one way or another, some time down the line.

The party's most recent mission involved inserting themselves into a yugolothic hierarchy. With the help of their collective social skills and an extremely lucky and improbable set of rolls, they were able to sway a great slice of the yugolothic upper echelons towards their side, despite it all being one elaborate ruse.

Here is the thing: I decide on set piece battles only one session in advance. It is usually a case of one battle every two or three sessions. During the noncombat sessions, I keep track of what the characters are doing and accomplishing, and if they get into a fight for whatever reason, I will handle it via Strike!'s quick skill-based revolution.

Take the example above, with the yugolothic bureaucracy. Had the party *not* been so wildly successful in their social maneuvering, I would have designed the upcoming set piece battle accordingly, like doing gruntwork to prove themselves. However, since the party *was* wildly successful, they got to skip through all of that and head straight ahead to more climactic battles with more important foes.

Does that make sense?

>>55021369
Why would you play a game where you can't skip fights with social skills?

>>55021369
They don't stick around, one player left.

>>55021443
The others stayed though.

>>55021436
Because I understand social skills shouldn't give me a free ticket out of fights?

>>55021478
Then why take social skills?

>>55021399
We have wildly different views on what a set piece battle actually is.

Convincing a bunch of old assholes to not make you slog through shit isn't a setpiece battle, thats basic roleplaying your players should do regardless. Even if its a setpiece, its more an event than a battle.

By "Setpiece battle" i thought you meant talking down an enemy thats about to blow something up, or has a hostage, or some other high stakes BS.

>>55021507
For all the times they help that aren't related to skipping fights.

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>>55021516

The social maneuvering was not, in fact, the setpiece battle.

"Gruntwork" here would have amounted to an assassination contract, which would have been a setpiece battle. They avoided that in the sense that I never bothered designing it in the first place, because I waited to see how the party would handle the social maneuvering first.

>old assholes

I take my anime-fication of arcanaloths extremely seriously. They can be jackals, hounds, or, like Shemeshka, foxes.

>>55021478
>the others stayed
According to the op, every campaign he's run has fallen apart except for the one campaign where he did the exact opposite of what he normally does and tried to make the worst campaign possible.
That's more than a little telling.

>>55021606
>They avoided that in the sense that I never bothered designing it in the first place
The fact that you feel the need to include every encounter you design and don't allow the players skip it in any way is very telling of how awful a GM you are.

>>55021606
Then the reason people are bitching at you is because your view in and of itself is backwards.

They avoided the assassination contract by talking, circumventing a setpiece through social.

When you say "Unavoidable set piece battle" what people will think is that you are quantum ogre-ing your bad guys, and their decisions. Had you actually been doing this, i'd be inclined to agree with everyone else and say you are essentially railroading.

An unavoidable setpiece battle would have been If they had to assassinate the guy either way. But having two different path's planned is by no means "Unavoidable". Even if it means you didn't actually design the set piece, they did avoid it, and through their social abilities.

Basically, your wording is whats fucked here, not the specific way you are doing it.

>>55021670
I think the idea here is that he only includes them after they become likely enough that they may as well be unskippable (the problem is probably Touhou judging these too favorably towards "likely").