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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imagicka" data-source="post: 3124935" data-attributes="member: 4621">Greetings… Well, encouraging RPing can be rather difficult; especially when you have a group dynamic of players who just aren’t in the ‘mood’ to do as such.  Personally, I view the players figuring out the threshold for combat to be one of the little extra bonuses.  One of the perks to the game, if your so inclined to enjoy such things.  When the players figure out in-game what the AC of your monster is, so that they know they have to beat X on their rolls.  Well, who does it really bother?  After all, they are in combat, and there really isn’t a lot of roleplaying going on at this point in time.  As soon as the combat is over, that’s the end of it.  The next monster is going to have a different AC.  But if you think that their knowledge of such things is disrupting the game.  Or that you want them to concentrate more on their characters and their actions, instead of the rules and the numbers.  It’s a lot of work… but you could take over combat for them.  One of the things that most groups/GMs eventually try is the game where the GM has all the character sheets, or at least the players have character sheets without numbers.  This way, the players know what their character’s abilities and skills are, but aren’t worried about the numbers.  Now, if you have access to a laptop, you can run the combat using a programme, and the players don’t have to deal with rolling dice or worry about the numbers.  They can just concentrate on their actions.  There are a lot of programmes out there that are good at maintaining campaigns and combat… such as: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/RolePlayingMaster/" target="_blank">RolePlayingMaster</a> or <a href="http://www.dmgenie.com/" target="_blank">DM Genie</a> or even <a href="http://www.twinrose.net/" target="_blank">Campaign Suite</a>   I can’t remember if Campaign Suite handles combat.  I don’t know which proramme you’ll like best.  Also, I don’t know if there are other combat organizers out there… but if there are, perhaps some other people might reply and include their links as well.  However, with a programme such as DM Genie you can set up the monsters and the party, then have them do battle.  All you’ll really have to do is let the players know if they hit or miss.  Also, if your players want to continue to roll their own dice, you can input those numbers into the programme while your running the combat.  So the players at least get the sense that their fate and luck is still in their own hands.   Or you could just organize everything by hand.  I always like to keep a party list.  That lists the players’ names, character names, ACs, HP, Saves and the number of ranks they have in special skills like Appraise or Search where the players don’t necessarily know the outcome of a given situation (where the DM rolls the dice for them).  So, again, you have the numbers in front of you, and the players don’t.  As for giving colour commentary about combat situations, I know that I personally like to do this in a game.  I believe that most of my players would desire I do such, rather than simply saying “you hit, you miss”.  Now, of course, I do shorten things when combat is becoming long, boring and tedious.  But I think most players would rather have more colour commentary than not.</blockquote>

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