Combat RP'ing

[the Jester]

The best way I know to encourage your players to rp during battle is to have the npcs talk smack.

In other words, lead by example.

But I think that the line between thinking tactically and roleplaying gets really blurry when you're talking about combat- Greylock, f'rinstance, describes something that could be either or both above.

 

[Dancer]

Your response confuses me.

The characters are true, and they are played not by stereotype, but by basic ability stats.

I mean, I believe (IMO) that roleplaying involves playing the character's personality traits, as opposed to just their ability scores. Being guided in their roleplaying by their ability scores is just fine, in fact, neccessary but just using their ability scores can be done in wargaming (and in fact, is usually the only guide in wargaming). What makes the difference in roleplaying is that the characters have individual personalities outside of their attributes.

As an example, describing a character as having an 18 str and being 4th level as opposed to describing that same character as strong as an ox, the slayer of Neagangal the giant and always crying "Roland's balls" when he is surprised or upset. Only the first description is neccessary to play the game, but the second description is what makes it a "roleplaying" character.

I hope that's a little more clear. This is of course my opinion, YMMV.

 

[Talmun]

Have you tried mini-less combat?

As I indicated in my initial post, we do have combat without minis on occasion (usually for short, simple skirmishes), and that does seem to encourage more in-character combat decisions.

...But my point here is that I like minis combat, I think it's a lot of fun; not to mention that there are quite a few feats whose use pretty much relies on knowing the exact lay-out of the battle. I'm just looking for suggestions for encouraging more role-play during combat, and any thoughts on the situation in general.

Given what I have read here, and my thoughts on it, it seems like one route is to increase the amount of flavor-text I use in combat, and encourage the players to do so as well using minor bonuses to the rolls for actions described...

 

[Faraer]

The idea of 'flavor text' presupposes that it's something optional added on top of the structure of the rules. You need to abandon that mindset entirely. The 'flavor text' is the substance of what's going on in the fight, the dice rolls are just to resolve whether particular actions work.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

In my experience, there are several factors here:

1. Acting "in character" during combat usually involves a certain degree of suboptimal decisionmaking. If everyone is playing a trained tactician who fights dirty taking every possible advantage, then, to some degree, you wouldn't be able to tell if they were role-playing. On the other hand, if you have a Sturm Brightblade type paladin who refuses to flank intelligent humanoid opponents (striking from behind is dishonorable) and who won't strike foes who are blinded, stunneed, or prone, then combats that would otherwise be easy might be difficult and those that would otherwise be difficult become deadly. If the deadliness factor is cranked too far up, players may well feel that there isn't room to role-play such a character. (Also note that mini-less combat won't help this kind of role-playing in the slightest).

2. Out of character chatter is probably one of the biggest contributors to not role-playing in combat. If every character's move is a group decision ("You should attack him; I need help/If you move here, you can avoid AoOs/No, don't avoid AoOs, provoke them and draw the AoO so I can withdraw") then you'll find the role-playing reduced in two ways. First, since everyone is discussing each character's move, they're likely to arrive at one of the better moves but it's unlikely to seem like role-playing. Secondly, it removes the role-playing potential that is in-character communication.

What I would suggest as a way to start introducing more role-playing into combat is to:
1. Slightly dial down the intensity of combats so that non-optimific moves aren't terminal.
2. Prohibit group decision-making. "It's his character; he knows the rules; let him decide what to do."
3. Have your NPCs demonstrate by talking to each other. If the NPCs effortlessly move to flank and always know what the other one is planning, it's not surprising that the PCs do so too. If, on the other hand, the NPC warrior yells, "help! I need some healing!" and the rogue yells "double team him" when he delays or readies an action to attack the PC as soon as he gets a flank, players may get into the same act.
4. Sometimes have NPC plans fail because they don't act as a team. The NPC rogue moves and readies an action to attack when he gets a flank but the NPC fighter steps back and drinks a potion instead of flanking. Etc. Just because a move would be optimific for Team Bad Guy (TM) doesn't mean that it's a good idea for any particular NPC. Evil NPCs (except perhaps for the Krazy Kultists of Doom) generally don't like to be sacrificed for the greater good of their masters or even their companions. Since it's all about them, there's no point to it.

 

[The Shaman]

When our group started playing 3.x games it was a bit of an eye-opener for me: I hadn't played since 1e AD&D so the complexity of the new rules was quite a bit different from what I knew - so much of what we used to house-rule on the fly was now covered by mechanics. All but one of the players in our group was O.G. (original gamer) as well. I think anyone looking in on us would have been pretty amused at how basic our tactics were at first - for the fighter-types it was pretty much close-and-bash in true 1e fashion, for example.

As time went on and we became more familiar and comfortable with the rules, that chess-board style thinking began to creep into our play. Avoiding AoOs to oneself while forcing them on others became a big deal. About half our group became enamored of this style of play.

The other half continued to emphasize roleplaying their characters' responses to combat. For example, the thief (the player disdained the "politically correct" term rogue...O.G., remember?) skulked in the shadows, but didn't necessarily look for opportunities to sneak attack - he would claim (in-character) that he was maneuvering into position to take out the enemy spellcaster, or protecting the party's flanks (even if there was only a single monster in the room). In reality his character did everything he could to avoid getting hit - he didn't mind violence, as long as it wasn't directed at him. His "tactics" were dictated by this character trait, not the battlemat or class mechanics. The thief was more likely to take total defence as a combat action than sneak attack.

To me, roleplaying in combat is not describing how the character fights or reacts to damage - that's scene-setting, exposition. Roleplaying in combat is guiding the character's actions during combat in the same way that one would decide the actions in a seedy tavern or an audience with the prince. It's an extension of the character's traits - heroism, cruelty, pacifism, cowardice - into these situations.

 

[Henry]

I don't know that what you've described is role-playing. It actually sounds more like tactical maneuvering. Now if the barbarian screams curses as he attacks or the Druid actually calls for nature's blessing (or whoever delivers his power), that's what I consider role-playing.

Actually, BOTH occur, and I consider both role-playing. Tactical maneuvering I would think implies SUCCESSFUL tactics, even when such is against character, which some of the things they engage in aren't.

 

[Hitokiri]

Most of my players fall into a tactical mode when we play, but they sure do try to keep to their characters abilities. I've watched most of my players make moves that were strategically unsound but within character at various times, so I don't worry too much about trying to get them to RP more. Besides, I don't think I can handle more than one crazy gnome who thinks a rod of wonder is a perfectly legitimate weapon. I spend most of my time trying to make the action come to life. Detailed descriptions of actions get everyone into the game more and seem to help the players with RPing (they won't mind doing something stupid if it will look cool and heroic I've found )

 

[Evilhalfling]

One of the most memorable RP combats I ever had was in 3.0
a con game where we were a romeo and juliete Party - two waring houses..
in the same adventuring party.
I was trying to make my house look better than theirs - and every round was full of in character boasting and tactical choices - ie weaken the foes my friends were fighting and stealing kills where possible from my rivals.
In no way did we describe each blow, and a normal map was used -
but fondly remembered as the best roleplayed combat.

One problem is that the fights have to be a little easier, allowing RP choices rather than optimized ones.