Roleplaying Fear Traps in Battle

In most RPGs, battles start by rolling initiative. In the real world, battles start with fear. The attacker feels the adrenaline and sweat and the inner voice listing everything that could go wrong. For the defender, the attack kicks the heartbeat into overdrive and panic tries to lodge deep. How do you roleplay the effects of this fear for extra verisimilitude in your RPG of choice?

image courtesy of Pixabay​

Combat does strange things to the mind, as your psyche also wages war in trying to protect you mentally from the stark terror surrounding you. Sometimes, plunging into conflict calms the mind and a warrior sees time seem to slow down as they fall back on training and experience to fight to win.

Other times, there are four dangerous places the thoughts of a warrior might wander to called fear traps. Keeping these mental journeys in mind can flavor combat and enrich your understanding of your character. Roleplaying how your character shakes off these dangerous mind tangents and gets back to attack and defense will also enhance your roleplaying enjoyment.

• Broken record: You think that your plan is a good one. You focus exclusively on one thing, even if it isn’t a good idea. Your character may experience this if hit by an opportunity attack you should have seen coming or stumbles into a trap he should have expected. Maybe you try to reload a ranged weapon even if an enemy is in close and you take a hit. You may simply say, “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all better try something else” and switch tactics.
• Dreamer: You feel an almost out of body experience and detached from what is going on around you. You believe that somehow everything will just work out. Time seems to slow down and you feel like you stand apart almost like one already dead. You might demonstrate this state after a hard hit from an enemy gets through your character’s defenses. You might say that as the attack comes toward you, your character admires the flash of light off the incoming blade or appreciates a gleam of dust motes in sunlight as a bullet strikes home.
• Panic: combat starts and you can’t think clearly, you can’t process your thoughts, you make terrible decisions, and everything is mixed up and backwards. With panic, you find it easy to die and you have become a liability. This trap is easiest to roleplay when your PC has succumbed to a fear effect. That loss of control and not getting to pick actions for your character covers the panic trap completely. You can describe your character’s confusion, his head whipping back and forth without focus, seemingly unable to raise his weapon to defend or attack, and finally turning and running the wrong way.
• Retirement: When you should be planning your next move instead your mind wanders to the future. Eager to leave the real danger you are in, your thoughts go somewhere else entirely putting you in even greater danger due to distraction. You may imagine yourself as a tavern owner, warm and well fed, or living quietly in a cottage somewhere with your feet up. Maybe you remember your favorite food and beer from back home. Roleplaying distracting thoughts is easy if you roll really poorly to attack. You may simply state that you miss and say your character looks unfocused, as if her thoughts are on places or times far away. She shakes her head to clear her mind.

These responses to fear can be used to add roleplaying to a negative event that affects your character. Instead of simply taking a bad hit or failing a save you can quickly roleplay your character’s reaction to this set back. You can even go back over, in character, what happened in the fight later when the party sits around a campfire or in a tavern, assuming your character survives.

The inspiration for this article came from the Warrior Poet Society on YouTube.

 

[R_Chance]

Just having your NPCs undergo this type of thing can make the PCs think. An NPC quit adventuring after a near TPK (ghouls, only one PC hadn't been paralyzed). Nightmares about going back to the World Under. She said her goodbyes and went back home and built a steading with what she had saved. The PCs were surprised at first... and then decided it made sense. The world became just a bit more real to them as a result.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

What are your thoughts about "fear" effects being an exception to the rule that DMs shouldn't tell players what their characters feel or do?

And, if it is an exception, what do you think about rolling a 4-sided dice when players fail a wisdom save on a fear effect, where:

1. Panic - must use full movement to run away from the source of the fear each turn

2. Retirement - creature is incapacitated until the start of its next turn

3. Dreamer - same as frightened condition

4. Broken Record - This one is more difficult. I was thinking that the character can only take the same action it took the prior turn until it makes its save. But for many battles that really won't be much different than what characters would do anyway. Though I could see it really screwing characters in some situations, especially casters. It would be fun to see how this plays out in actuality.

I think a GM should be able to tell a player the emotions a character feels in some cases. Humans don't actually control emotions (we can't turn them on and off) we only react to them, which is what the article is about in regards to fear.

In practice, I think RPGs have long allowed the player to decide the emotions of their PC which is much less realistic. As GM I think a talk up front about whether the GM will describe not so much emotions but the body's physical response--the dump of adrenaline, sweating, time seems to slow down etc. is appropriate. Probably will work better in an RPG like Alien than D&D.

As to your second idea I really like it. I'd say run it by your players and try it out. I like it when GMs are constantly fine tuning their own setting and game to tailor it to their players and their characters. If you do try it out, I'd love to hear how it goes, especially 4.

 

[Jharet]

Interesting article. Thanks.