How do you discribe combat?

[Imperialus]

That's an interesting article Wil. Some good ideas there.

 

[painandgreed]

Pure system mechanics as there is no need to turn a two hour combat into the five hour one with fluff that does nothing for the plot. Description comes in during NPC inteaction and PC actions outside of combat that set the mood. Once combat starts the only thing that matters is who is left alive unless a PC or NPC has particular actions they wish to take.

 

[Wil]

Pure system mechanics as there is no need to turn a two hour combat into the five hour one with fluff that does nothing for the plot. Description comes in during NPC inteaction and PC actions outside of combat that set the mood. Once combat starts the only thing that matters is who is left alive unless a PC or NPC has particular actions they wish to take.

The longest Silhouette combat I've ever run was 45 minutes (outside of tactical play with Heavy Gear or Jovian Chronicles) and that was a relatively massive melee between 4 PCs and about 20-25 opponents. That is with narratives to describe combat. My shortest combat was about 5 minutes, in Jovian Chronicles. It went something like this:

Me: You all duck behind something as you hear shots from small arms fire coming from down the alley.

Player: I poke my head up from behind a dumpster, aiming my pistol down the alley.

[make some rolls for Combat Sense and decide on some modifiers and whatnot]

Me: You see someone poke their head out from a doorway about 20 meters away. They're silhouetted by the lamp above and behind them.

Player: I pop a shot off and duck back down.

[A few more rolls. Player decides to turkey look round the side of the dumpster (poking your head back up in the same place is kind of dumb) when hbe doesn't hear return fire]

Me: You see a form sprawled in the alley. There's blood spray on the wall in the doorway where he was standing and on the steps leading up to it .


If you note something there (and this was paraphrased to be sure) is that the description is concise and it is relevant. I'm not advocating loving, fifteen minute descriptions in bullet time between the opponents.

To me, it's not a matter of time spent on combat, but fulfillment. A purely mechanical combat may take slightly less time, but it's not as fulfilling and that means that time was wasted. If I want mechanics, I'll play a video game. If I want the combats to be meaningful, memorable and actually advance the game, I'll use narrative and description. I've never once had players get bored or not pay attention in my games because a) they're interested and b) they need the narrative information in order to be effective in combat (the same way that a real life combatant needs to be aware of small details).

 

[Lord Pendragon]

As a DM, I describe blows with a short bit of description. "You perform the maneuver perfectly, but uncannily he dodges." Or "You manage to rap him on the side with your mace, he grimaces in pain."

Nothing too fancy. Enough to keep combat from being a simple numbers game, but not so much as to slow things down.

As a player, I will often come up with a vivid visual description for a new spell or feat and use it once or twice. After that, I drop it. For instance, I have come up with a description for what it looks like when my paladin casts a Quickened Spiritual Weapon, an ability he just gained at his last level-up and hasn't used yet. But after describing it a few times, it ceases to be interesting and instead changes to being long-winded. I like to stop repeating descriptions of things before that happens.

 

[Bullgrit]

In most every game I've ever played in (multiple groups over 25 years), the combat is described immediately in game terms: numbers, AC, HP, etc. The fluff description seems to follow a little behind, in the Player's minds and sometimes in their words. Or the fluff gets added in everyone's minds' eye after the game.

I have only seen one or two Players/DMs actually describe the action in fluff details during the battle. The vast majority of others add in the fluff details when talking about the combat afterwards.

I can't do fluff detail in play-by-play announcer style. But I can picture the event in my head afterwards, and it's way cool.

Bullgrit

 

[Wil]

In most every game I've ever played in (multiple groups over 25 years), the combat is described immediately in game terms: numbers, AC, HP, etc. The fluff description seems to follow a little behind, in the Player's minds and sometimes in their words. Or the fluff gets added in everyone's minds' eye after the game.

I have only seen one or two Players/DMs actually describe the action in fluff details during the battle. The vast majority of others add in the fluff details when talking about the combat afterwards.

I can't do fluff detail in play-by-play announcer style. But I can picture the event in my head afterwards, and it's way cool.

Bullgrit

One of the problems I have with this (and I've seen it happen during combat) is that the differing interpretations of what actually happened can lead to misunderstandings and confusion. Obviously, miniatures and visual aids help out a great deal in this regard, but if you're like me and don't use them then the narrative becomes the only definite tie between what is going on in terms of game mechanics and what is actually happening in the fictional world.

You also quickly find that the flow of descriptions open up opportunities that might not otherwise be present:

"The orc throws his shield up awkwardly as your sword smashes into it, but he's twisted himself so he's off balance" implies several things:

1) That the blow was solid - so let's say (in D&D terms) you rolled a 12. You can be reasonably sure that the orc only narrowly avoided being injured.

2) That the shield definitely prevented the orc from being injured, otherwise he'd be toast. get rid of the shield, and your likelihood of taking him down is much better.

3) That a followup blow is a good idea. You have the orc not only on the defensive, but he's at a disadvantage (which is universally a bad combination).

Yes, you can glean this information from the die rolls and the hit points, but really this method doesn't take much more time or effort and it's more interesting.

 

[Ambrus]

I made a girl throw up once

Are you bragging about that?

I'm always standing when I'm DMing; I just can't seem to stay put in my chair. I ask the player for their intended action, have them roll and then I check the results with my own notes. Then I launch into a description of what's happened, sometimes tying into the previous round's actions if appropriate. I usually mime the PC's attack and the NPC's reaction as I'm describing it. I also embellish my descriptions with flavourful but logical consequences that don't affect game mechanics. For instance, if a creature gets killed by a PC's attack and the PC dealt a significant amount of damage in the last blow I might describe the attack as having cut off a limb, the head or have run the creature through. Sometimes, even if an NPC is technically 'dead' from an attack, I'll have them collapse but continue wheezing or vomiting blood or desperately trying to keep their intestines from spilling out after having been eviscerated by a PC's attack. I usually describe this as: "he's dead, he just doesn't believe/know it yet." If an NPC's attack misses due to a armored PC's high AC then I usually describe the blow as having hit with a loud "clang" or "kthunk". I find its more fun to describe a blow that actually hits but deals no effective damage rather than just saying it "missed". While describing it, the player is never entirely sure if they've been hurt by a blow until I'm done describing it. Damage is the last thing I reveal to PCs in my descriptions.

 

[painandgreed]

If you note something there (and this was paraphrased to be sure) is that the description is concise and it is relevant. I'm not advocating loving, fifteen minute descriptions in bullet time between the opponents.

No, but your example could barely be called a combat. More like NPC interaction that required some of the combat rules (which sounds about how I would have run it). Having 8 players run into a trapped room filled with bugbears, their shamens and an evil necromancer (Secret of Bone Hill) is a combat.

While you weren't advocating fifteen minute descriptions of bullet time, the OP of the semi-rant pretty much seemed to be.

 

[Wil]

No, but your example could barely be called a combat. More like NPC interaction that required some of the combat rules (which sounds about how I would have run it). Having 8 players run into a trapped room filled with bugbears, their shamens and an evil necromancer (Secret of Bone Hill) is a combat.

I'd even run that the same way. I run all of them the same way. It doesn't slow things down much and makes it a lot more enjoyable for myself and (from what I've been told) my players. Doing it the "mechanical way" isn't necessarily bad - I can see that there would be situations where it is preferable. Just none of those situations would ever apply to me

 

[Henry]

About three actions out of four, I'll use pure mechanics, for time-saving more than anything. If someone does something memorable, or if the combat has been getting boring for three or four rounds in a row, I'll throw in a descriptive line or two about what just happened.

"You rear your sword up for a mighty blow, and you miss him by just inches as he gets the hell out of the way."

"With a quick feint and a jab, you graze the hobgoblin for a small amount of damage."

"You corner him, grin, and WICKEDLY impale him on your sword, and down he goes! The next hobgoblin looks like he could soil himself."

"You chant your arcane words, and a white-hot fireball streaks out and explodes on the group. There's screams of dying goblins and worgs everywhere, and as it clears, there's a few left, but it looks like most of them were killed."

"Four magic missiles shriek out and fup-fup-fup-fup right into his chest, staggering him a second."