This fall, Kobold Press has gathered essays from some of the brightest Game designers and theory-crafters into a new anthology. The Kobold Guide To Combat takes a look at the why’s and the how’s of Combat in Role-Playing Games from the authors of some favorite RPG systems!
For some, Gaming isn’t just a fun way to spend time with friends - it’s a passion, an art… perhaps even a science!
OK, well perhaps not quite a science. But even if you don’t take your Gaming to quite so extreme a degree, after you’ve played enough game systems, you start developing your own criteria for what makes a good Game for you. And you start questioning the why’s and how’s of the Game’s mechanics – perhaps you even go so far as to even house rule your Game to make it better.
Like it or not, now you’ve started dabbling into the Theory of a Games, the meta-knowledge behind the Game mechanics – in essence the science behind a game system. But not to worry, you’re in good company – it happens to every Gamer at some time or another.
Kobold Guide to Combat
The Kobold Guide to Combat is collection of essays from RPG designers and writers from a broad range of the gaming spectrum and published by Kobold Press. These essays center on COMBAT in heroic role-playing games in all its forms, from both sides of the GM screen, and approach the topic from from points of view which can be historical, practical, simulationist, abstract, metagaming, storytelling, whimsical, and everything in between!
Production Quality
The production quality of the Kobold Guide to Combat is excellent, containing essays from some of the leading minds in heroic RPG design, all bound within a neat trade paperback format. The writing in the essays is exceptional as might well be imagined from the list of essayists. The presentation is simple and clean, perhaps a little too simple, even given the content.
The paperback is lightweight and tightly bound, with a glossy full-color cover. The pages are of solid paper weight, and the measures about 6" by 9". The font choice in the guide is basic Times New Roman and of sufficient size to be fairly easy to read. The Kobold Guide to Combat also has a table of contents with the authors listed for navigating through the book to a specific essay.
The cover art by Emile Denis is bold and striking, with the two warriors charging toward the "fourth wall" with ferocious abandon over the bodies of the fallen. Graphically, the cover is quite eye-catching and certainly entices a reader to pick it up. Obviously, being a book of essays, interior art and graphics was not a consideration by the publisher.
Murder Death Kill!
The Kobold Guide to Combat contains a total of 21 essays dealing with combat in heroic role-playing games. The essayists discuss mainly topics which would be applicable to the tabletop gaming perspective, but some of the essays do touch on combat in PC and console RPGs to provide examples and contrast.
Following a short introductory essay (Entering the Fray), the editor divides up the essays into five different groupings: The Big Picture, Environments, Arm Yourself!, The Right Character for the Job, and One More Thing. And following the essays, the editor provides short biographies of the authors in the event some of the names are not immediately recognizable to the Reader. The majority of these essays are orginal new pieces written for this anthology, with the excpetion of two pieces which appeared in Kobold Quarterly #8.
All the essays are quite good and delve into combat in role-playing games at a number of levels. The essayists approach the topic of combat in RPGs in various ways, ranging from a more meta game design perspective to more practical concerns which GMs can use to enhance their games or players to create a better storyteling experience with their characters.
While it would be far beyond the scope of this review to discuss each and every one of these excellent essays, there are a few gems here worth mentioning:
Jeff Grubb's opening essay, Why We Fight, explores Combat as Communication in an RPG. Comflict, combat, and even surrender scenarios can provide opportunities for GMs to provide additional insight and information to the players about the overall story, as well as presage events to come.
Tactics for Tyrants is an essay "translated" by Chris Pramas from the writings of an evil warlord known as Kovasch the Charnal King. The Charnal King has a number of rather nasty tactical recommendations for waylaying and defeating those pesky meddlesome adventurers, and GMs will no doubt find good sound advice here for creating more dynamic and harrowing encouters in their campaigns.
Steve Winter offers a lesson from history in the essay Military Systems at War, and discusses the various strengths and weaknesses of ancient warfare "technologies", as well as the great armies of antiquity. If the Reader has ever wondered what made the Vikings so fearsome, or what the inherent weakness of the great Mongol Horde, this is a wonderful essay to research.
Ed Greenwood explores Fighting in a Real Fantasy World, and how real world phenomena such as weather, footing, and other environmental factors can be introduced into RPG combats.
Through the Looking Glass by Colin McComb is an essay about introducing the players to realms where time, space, gravity, and other effects which characters might take for granted are twisted or changed. The essayist suggests that surreal environments have been a part of many a good fantasy novel, and can make memorable moments in a RPG as well.
Richard Pett introduces the fun notion of all sorts of new armor and weapons for non-anthropomorphic creatues in A Note on Anatomy. GMs coud certainly create some very unique creature fights when monsters have weapons on tails, wings, etc.
If you love archery and want to make bow-fighting more real in your fantasy game, Miranda Horner has a masterful essay on the topic called Taking Aim. The author even includes some online resources to research for more details on bows, arrows, and sport archery.
Carlos Ovalle's Combat from the Shadows is an essay on all things Rogue in fantasy gaming. The author discusses the topic from characters in novels as well as how to be an effective rogue in combat and gameplay.
And Wolfgang Baur has an excellent essay On Being a Target: Bravery, Cowardice, and Retreat in Game Combat. This essay looks at how to introduce the element of morale into combats, and to present opportunities for players to have their characters face their fears of mortality and fight on bravely... or flee in cowardice.
And there plenty more essays to enjoy…
Overall Score: 7.6 out of 10.0
Conclusions
There is some amazing bits of RPG “wisdom” hidden in the pages of the Kobold Guide To Combat. The topics discussed on Combat in Role Playing Games here are wide-ranging and excellently essayed. Even veteran gamers are likely to glean a few new ideas that they can apply to almost any role-playing game system. And while it references D&D and Pathfinder - being two most popular fantasy RPG systems – the theories in the Kobold Guide to Combat are applicable to almost any sort of game including horror or scifi.
For players and GMs looking to get more from their game systems, to game designers pondering how to make the next new thing in RPGs, the Kobold Guide To Combat is a valuable resource and just a really excellent read!
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
For some, Gaming isn’t just a fun way to spend time with friends - it’s a passion, an art… perhaps even a science!
OK, well perhaps not quite a science. But even if you don’t take your Gaming to quite so extreme a degree, after you’ve played enough game systems, you start developing your own criteria for what makes a good Game for you. And you start questioning the why’s and how’s of the Game’s mechanics – perhaps you even go so far as to even house rule your Game to make it better.
Like it or not, now you’ve started dabbling into the Theory of a Games, the meta-knowledge behind the Game mechanics – in essence the science behind a game system. But not to worry, you’re in good company – it happens to every Gamer at some time or another.
Kobold Guide to Combat
- Writers: Wolfgang Baur, Clinton J. Boomer, Keith R.A. DeCandido. Diana Pharaoh Franci, Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, Rob Heinsoo, Miranda Horner, Colin McComb, Rory Miller, Carlos Ovalle, Richard Pett, John A. Pitts and Ken Scholes, Mario Podeschi, Chris Pramas, Steven Robert, Aaron Rosenberg, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Steve Winter
- Editor: Janna Silverstein
- Cover Art: Emile Denis
- Publisher: Kobold Press
- Year: 2014
- Media: Paperback (160 pages)
- Price: $19.99 (Available from Amazon.com for $17.69 now)
The Kobold Guide to Combat is collection of essays from RPG designers and writers from a broad range of the gaming spectrum and published by Kobold Press. These essays center on COMBAT in heroic role-playing games in all its forms, from both sides of the GM screen, and approach the topic from from points of view which can be historical, practical, simulationist, abstract, metagaming, storytelling, whimsical, and everything in between!
Production Quality
The production quality of the Kobold Guide to Combat is excellent, containing essays from some of the leading minds in heroic RPG design, all bound within a neat trade paperback format. The writing in the essays is exceptional as might well be imagined from the list of essayists. The presentation is simple and clean, perhaps a little too simple, even given the content.
The paperback is lightweight and tightly bound, with a glossy full-color cover. The pages are of solid paper weight, and the measures about 6" by 9". The font choice in the guide is basic Times New Roman and of sufficient size to be fairly easy to read. The Kobold Guide to Combat also has a table of contents with the authors listed for navigating through the book to a specific essay.
The cover art by Emile Denis is bold and striking, with the two warriors charging toward the "fourth wall" with ferocious abandon over the bodies of the fallen. Graphically, the cover is quite eye-catching and certainly entices a reader to pick it up. Obviously, being a book of essays, interior art and graphics was not a consideration by the publisher.
Murder Death Kill!
The Kobold Guide to Combat contains a total of 21 essays dealing with combat in heroic role-playing games. The essayists discuss mainly topics which would be applicable to the tabletop gaming perspective, but some of the essays do touch on combat in PC and console RPGs to provide examples and contrast.
Following a short introductory essay (Entering the Fray), the editor divides up the essays into five different groupings: The Big Picture, Environments, Arm Yourself!, The Right Character for the Job, and One More Thing. And following the essays, the editor provides short biographies of the authors in the event some of the names are not immediately recognizable to the Reader. The majority of these essays are orginal new pieces written for this anthology, with the excpetion of two pieces which appeared in Kobold Quarterly #8.
All the essays are quite good and delve into combat in role-playing games at a number of levels. The essayists approach the topic of combat in RPGs in various ways, ranging from a more meta game design perspective to more practical concerns which GMs can use to enhance their games or players to create a better storyteling experience with their characters.
While it would be far beyond the scope of this review to discuss each and every one of these excellent essays, there are a few gems here worth mentioning:
Jeff Grubb's opening essay, Why We Fight, explores Combat as Communication in an RPG. Comflict, combat, and even surrender scenarios can provide opportunities for GMs to provide additional insight and information to the players about the overall story, as well as presage events to come.
Tactics for Tyrants is an essay "translated" by Chris Pramas from the writings of an evil warlord known as Kovasch the Charnal King. The Charnal King has a number of rather nasty tactical recommendations for waylaying and defeating those pesky meddlesome adventurers, and GMs will no doubt find good sound advice here for creating more dynamic and harrowing encouters in their campaigns.
Steve Winter offers a lesson from history in the essay Military Systems at War, and discusses the various strengths and weaknesses of ancient warfare "technologies", as well as the great armies of antiquity. If the Reader has ever wondered what made the Vikings so fearsome, or what the inherent weakness of the great Mongol Horde, this is a wonderful essay to research.
Ed Greenwood explores Fighting in a Real Fantasy World, and how real world phenomena such as weather, footing, and other environmental factors can be introduced into RPG combats.
Through the Looking Glass by Colin McComb is an essay about introducing the players to realms where time, space, gravity, and other effects which characters might take for granted are twisted or changed. The essayist suggests that surreal environments have been a part of many a good fantasy novel, and can make memorable moments in a RPG as well.
Richard Pett introduces the fun notion of all sorts of new armor and weapons for non-anthropomorphic creatues in A Note on Anatomy. GMs coud certainly create some very unique creature fights when monsters have weapons on tails, wings, etc.
If you love archery and want to make bow-fighting more real in your fantasy game, Miranda Horner has a masterful essay on the topic called Taking Aim. The author even includes some online resources to research for more details on bows, arrows, and sport archery.
Carlos Ovalle's Combat from the Shadows is an essay on all things Rogue in fantasy gaming. The author discusses the topic from characters in novels as well as how to be an effective rogue in combat and gameplay.
And Wolfgang Baur has an excellent essay On Being a Target: Bravery, Cowardice, and Retreat in Game Combat. This essay looks at how to introduce the element of morale into combats, and to present opportunities for players to have their characters face their fears of mortality and fight on bravely... or flee in cowardice.
And there plenty more essays to enjoy…
Overall Score: 7.6 out of 10.0
Conclusions
There is some amazing bits of RPG “wisdom” hidden in the pages of the Kobold Guide To Combat. The topics discussed on Combat in Role Playing Games here are wide-ranging and excellently essayed. Even veteran gamers are likely to glean a few new ideas that they can apply to almost any role-playing game system. And while it references D&D and Pathfinder - being two most popular fantasy RPG systems – the theories in the Kobold Guide to Combat are applicable to almost any sort of game including horror or scifi.
For players and GMs looking to get more from their game systems, to game designers pondering how to make the next new thing in RPGs, the Kobold Guide To Combat is a valuable resource and just a really excellent read!
Grade Card (Ratings 0 to 10)
- Presentation: 7.25
- - Design: 7.0 (Exceptional essays; decent layout; good binding for a paperback)
- - Illustrations: 7.5 (Cool cover art; it’s a book of essays so interior art is not expected)
- Content: 8.0
- - Crunch: 8.0 (Excellent theories on gaming in combat; great practical tips and ideas!)
- - Fluff: 8.0 (Cool ideas to make combats different and exciting)
- Value: 7.5 (Decent price for advice from great minds in Gaming!)
