[Story Hour] How do you narrate combats?

[Delemental]

I was hoping to get some general advice from Story Hour authors out there about what tricks and techniques you use to write up a major combat to make it an interesting read. A round-by-round accounting quickly becomes tedious, but neither do I want to gloss over so much detail that the encounter seems insignificant.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Not from a Story Hour, but from glEN World, here's how I summarized a recent battle in d20 Modern. It won't win any awards, but it may give you some ideas.

Abruptly, the entire complex goes dark. Pulling on the night-vision goggles they so fortuitously purchased, the team springs into action. Black-clad special ops troops slip into the complex, spraying bullets from H&K MP5 submachine guns. In seconds Worcosky and Throop are incapacitated. A sudden blast of flame and bits of shrapnel—Marks has tossed a frag grenade that near-liquefies one of the mysterious assailants. The gunmen swarm into the balcony, pinning down Jeremy Six in the theater below with a hail of suppressing fire.

Loki takes a bullet to the haunch and drops with a pitiful whine. Another gunman goes down. Marks is wounded and falls. Attempting to overpower one of the gunmen, Victor is thrown to the ground and held at gunpoint.

Enter Erik Sturm.

He wears a deep red leather trenchcoat, bushy blond eyebrows and goatee, head shaved bald, and inexplicable black sunglasses. Most distinctively, he knows the team and speaks to them by name.

 

[Rel]

I tend to do mine as a narative, round by round, including things like spells that are cast but excluding hard numbers (like what was rolled to hit or how much damage was inflicted). But I also tend to sometimes describe a character's actions over the course of a couple rounds in a single sentence or paragraph and then move to another part of the action. It might read like:

Cathal tumbled over the edge of the pit as he uttered the incantation to bring his magical Shield into existence. He barely slowed his momentum as he crashed into one of the Dire Wolves and split its skull with his sword. He turned to find Marcus engaged with one of the giants and prepared to come to the aid of his companion.

Meanwhile, toward the rear of the enemy...

You'll note that I italicize spell effects (just to highlight them). I think I picked this up from Old One.

My round-by-round style is facilitated by the Battle Reports written by one or more of my players. I award a small amount of XP for this and find it an absolute necessity for writing this way. My memory is way too bad otherwise.

 

[barsoomcore]

I just make up whatever sounds good, more or less following the best moments from the actual combat (if I remember any at all). Here's a sample from the BBEG battle in my Stewardesses story hour:

Tong Shan leapt for the rungs of the ladder and raced upwards. Two crossbow bolts came rocketing down at her, one creasing her shoulder, but she disappeared through the hole at the top. Ming-Wa growled and ran to follow.

Shan popped up like an energetic child's toy, sweeping out her big sword with a ripple of confident laughter. She found herself facing at least a dozen uncertain fellows in rag-tag armour with swords and clubs of dubious quality. Behind them, glowering with reptilian menace, coiled Maliss.

Shan waved.

"Hi. Hope you didn't lose my axes, you slimy little worm."

Maliss hissed.

Outnumbered by more than ten to one, Shan charged.

She veered right and plowed into one end of the half-circle her enemies had formed around her. Sword flailing, she roared, shoulder-checked, spun, kicked and head-butted incautious opponents, sending them staggering backwards into each other, lopping off limbs and heads as the opportunities presented themselves. Her constant, ferocious pressure kept them from surrounding her and she left a trail of bleeding, thrashing, screaming bodies in her wake.

Ming-Wa clambered up the ladder and emerged at the top just in time to see Shan drive her opponents back just a little too vigorously. For a second she was alone, with no enemies nearby, and Maliss released an arrow at her.

Shan staggered back from the impact and fell to her knees with a scream of agony that tore at Ming-Wa's ears. Her sword clattered forgotten on the planks.

Obviously I've kind of thrown out the round-by-round structure, here. But my story hours tend to be pretty free of game mechanics anyway.

 

[Shemeska]

Well I'm writing my storyhour two years or around 105 sessions after the fact, so I'm reconstructing based on my and my players notes and out recollections of each fight. As such, it's difficult to do it round by round and action by action. I tend to put it into the same format as the story itself and to either gloss over some details or focus attention on others simply to aid in the flow of events. I don't refer to spells by their exact name either; usually I go for a description of the spell's effect instead.

“…how inspiring.” Clueless muttered as he glanced at the map again, noting that the city was off on the edge of Arawn’s domain, though he wasn’t certain if it would be to the left or the right of the tower of bone that sat across the river from them. However, his train of thought was suddenly derailed as Nisha drew a wand and aimed it up into the sky to throw a cluster of purple magical bolts up at one of the birds.

“Whoa! Whoa! What’s that for?!” Clueless said, startled. “Nisha?!”

Overhead the birds circled and started cawing again in unison. The sound was almost like laughter as it carried on the air and echoed off the trees. Nisha began to look more and more depressed and downtrodden as she threw another cluster of missiles up into the air. Another of the birds fell and crashed down into the Styx with a dull and muted splash, but Nisha was beginning to cry slightly and pale.

Clueless reached out and gently caught her hand, “…hon, don’t waste ‘em. It’s going to be ok…”

And then Clueless felt a breeze against his face and a flutter of wings as one of the birds bolted out of the sky and slashed a talon across his face when he turned to look at Nisha. He cursed and immediately felt something wash over him as the birds continued their mocking call. The birds called out like black winged and circling hyenas around a wounded savanna animal and Clueless then felt an insidious cold reaching out to drain his emotions and sap his vitality. It was just like the chill of the plane itself, but it was as if the birds were chuckling at his pain, as if the Wastrels were enjoying his misery as they fed off of him.