barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
So Adamant Entertainment released a book called Narrative Combat that intrigued me enough to not only buy it, but actually try to playtest it in the final session of my long-running Barsoom campaign.
I didn't have time to prep out as much as I was hoping to, so some of the details slipped past me, but it worked out great, I have to say. I'll definitely be using this thing again.
Basically what you do is define an encounter as a set of thresholds, events and outcomes, and then let players describe what they want to do -- and those actions contribute to meeting (or preventing) the assorted thresholds, trigger events, and lead to outcomes.
It's just what d20 combat needed, in my opinion. It nicely complements the existing tactical maneuvering system and lets you run much broader, more free-form combats than the 5' square allows.
My example combat had the players seated in thrones that acted as control systems for the entire world. They could fold space and were sort of simultaneously in the same spot and widely distributed across the globe. They could sort of move, but they always stayed in the thrones. The bad guys were a group of alien cthulhuid god-things that were tearing apart the very fabric of reality. The heroes had to cast a ritual spell in order to convert the god-things into spirit creatures that could then be bound into mortal flesh (that bit's kinda complicated, don't worry about it too much).
So there they are, folding space and being all schrodinger, and the god-things are raining destruction down on their heads. So the players have to decide if they're going to try and attack, or defend their comrades, or whatever. The meat shields end up defending the spellcasters, the ranged guys fire away while the spellcasters try desperately to gather the required number of Spellcraft successes. It was great fun. The rules make defending a comrade really effective (though costly), and there was something fun for everyone to do every round.
I didn't know the rules super well, so I was kind of handwaving some stuff, but even that worked just fine.
Immediately following that we had a traditional combat on a grid against the spirit creatures, so it was an interesting comparision.
You wouldn't want to use NC for EVERY combat, but there's definitely a real value to it for those combats that for whatever reason don't lend themselves well to a grid (too many (or too few) combatants, lots of non-maneuver-based action, etc). It's perfect for "stop the ritual" or "complete the ritual" type of combats, and the rules explain how to use the system for kidnapping scenarios, duels, mass battles and lots more.
A very interesting and, on a first test, very playable system. Recommended.
I didn't have time to prep out as much as I was hoping to, so some of the details slipped past me, but it worked out great, I have to say. I'll definitely be using this thing again.
Basically what you do is define an encounter as a set of thresholds, events and outcomes, and then let players describe what they want to do -- and those actions contribute to meeting (or preventing) the assorted thresholds, trigger events, and lead to outcomes.
It's just what d20 combat needed, in my opinion. It nicely complements the existing tactical maneuvering system and lets you run much broader, more free-form combats than the 5' square allows.
My example combat had the players seated in thrones that acted as control systems for the entire world. They could fold space and were sort of simultaneously in the same spot and widely distributed across the globe. They could sort of move, but they always stayed in the thrones. The bad guys were a group of alien cthulhuid god-things that were tearing apart the very fabric of reality. The heroes had to cast a ritual spell in order to convert the god-things into spirit creatures that could then be bound into mortal flesh (that bit's kinda complicated, don't worry about it too much).
So there they are, folding space and being all schrodinger, and the god-things are raining destruction down on their heads. So the players have to decide if they're going to try and attack, or defend their comrades, or whatever. The meat shields end up defending the spellcasters, the ranged guys fire away while the spellcasters try desperately to gather the required number of Spellcraft successes. It was great fun. The rules make defending a comrade really effective (though costly), and there was something fun for everyone to do every round.
I didn't know the rules super well, so I was kind of handwaving some stuff, but even that worked just fine.
Immediately following that we had a traditional combat on a grid against the spirit creatures, so it was an interesting comparision.
You wouldn't want to use NC for EVERY combat, but there's definitely a real value to it for those combats that for whatever reason don't lend themselves well to a grid (too many (or too few) combatants, lots of non-maneuver-based action, etc). It's perfect for "stop the ritual" or "complete the ritual" type of combats, and the rules explain how to use the system for kidnapping scenarios, duels, mass battles and lots more.
A very interesting and, on a first test, very playable system. Recommended.