Tactical arguments and how to avoid them

[Al'Kelhar]

My group used to spend up to an hour getting a sitrep of a place they were going to invade and working out tactics to get in, kill the bad guy/rescue the prisoner/steal the McGuffin, and get out without setting off the alarms or, at worst, with minimal fights.

But their plans had a way of going to very quickly; my players seemed to be incapable of working out that lairs of intelligent bad guys tend to be well protected against invasion by do-good heroes intent on ruining the bad guys' plans. So they tripped the alarms, fell into the traps, got spotted by the guards when walking into an area protected by unhallow - invisibility purge, etc. etc. Even when they got in without a hitch, in the process of doing whatever it was they were there to do, they caused such a ruckus that the whole lair mobilised and descended upon them.

So pre-fight tactics - actually strategy - have gone out the window. And given the amount of hours we have to game in, that's not been a bad result; we've found it's more fun to kill the bad guys than plan to avoid them. So when they find the bad guys' lair, they look at each other, one says "Frontal Assault?", and the usual answer is "Hell yeah". And things descend into the expected chaos and carnage. This is where battlefield tactics make a diffierence, and my players are pretty good at those. And now the characters have Action Points to spend, they tend to survive... just.

What I think you need to do is work out how important strategising is, both for the group's enjoyment of the game, and for whether the characters live or die (these two are not necessarily independent).

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[sniffles]

What I think you need to do is work out how important strategising is, both for the group's enjoyment of the game, and for whether the characters live or die (these two are not necessarily independent).

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

That's a very good point. Sometimes it may not be necessary to work out a plan of attack.

Interestingly enough, the situation that made me start this thread is literally storming a castle. But we've already decided we're going for a frontal assault on the BBEG; it's just that we'd prefer not to have to plow our way through all his minions first. So we're trying to work out how to get into the keep quietly and then rush the villain.

 

[merelycompetent]

That's a very good point. Sometimes it may not be necessary to work out a plan of attack.

Interestingly enough, the situation that made me start this thread is literally storming a castle. But we've already decided we're going for a frontal assault on the BBEG; it's just that we'd prefer not to have to plow our way through all his minions first. So we're trying to work out how to get into the keep quietly and then rush the villain.

It sounds like it's not an issue of trust with the GM, it's an issue of each player not knowing where his/her PC fits into the tactical roadmap, not trusting the other players to fulfill those tactical roles (witness the comment about the player whose characters never flank), and individual players being way too risk-averse.

Some of your fellow players may be too unsure of their character's abilities in a fight, and work too hard at minimizing risk. You may also have one or more players who feel completely overwhelmed by the combat rules. You probably want to talk to each of your fellow players, and the DM, and find out how they feel about this idea first: I've found that working out a few standard tactics ahead of time (as The_Gneech has already posted) works extremely well. Get everyone together and create both individual tactics for each PC, and group tactics for everyone to use. Get the DM involved - he or she is the final authority on your game, after all. Adjust the tactics for the personal idiosyncracies of the player or character. Get everybody to buy in and agree to the tactics. (There's a Paladin in the party, right? This is Lawful behavior - use it.) And always have an escape plan. It helps emphasize individual abilities and gives the less-confident players a chance to see their characters shine.

Also consider this: You've got somewhere between 3-6 players studying the tactical/strategic situation, but only 1 DM. The players can come up with more tactics on the fly than any but the most experienced, skilled, or lucky DM. As soon as you disrupt the BBEG's plans, your party has a clear advantage in mental resources.

I've had one or two players in every group I've DMed or Played in, whose lack of confidence in die rolling (eight 1's for to hit rolls in a row, in one fight, and that was only 50% more than normal) and/or lack of expertise with the rules led them to bog down every strategic/tactical discussion with ways for their character to avoid being in combat. When we sat down together (with the DM there to field rules/game world questions - and offer advice), worked out the benefits/drawbacks of various individual tactics, and used those tactics successfully over the next couple of sessions, everyone's enjoyment of the game improved *dramatically*.

Hope this helps.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Who is this Leeroy Jenkins of which you speak?

http://www.leeroyjenkins.net/

 

[Jubilee]

Our group is more likely to argue over who gets to be the one to take the highest risk or gets to stay behind to die heroically so the rest can get out safely.

For example, we've got a goblin that's something of a ward for the Paladin (my character). He's probably also our stealthiest (only stealthy?) resource - and an NPC. One suggestion was to have him climb over the walls and sneak around to let us in. Then the wizard brought up that he can cast gaseous form on someone and they could slip under the door that way. When sniffles later reported in her journal that the plan was to have the gaseous goblin (that just sounds wrong) go in and open the door for us, the Wizard was upset because it was his intention to go in, scout about while invisible, and let us in himself.

He then said he was best because he could use the knock spell if the door were barred, locked, or magically sealed.

At which point the DM pointed out that he could just "knock" the door open from outside and we could all rush in then.

We also now have at our disposal an unreliable, torn and bloodied, magic carpet that we don't know how fast it'll go, whether it'll land right, or how long it will work. Can't wait for the argument about who gets to risk their skin trying to fly in on it to hold the gate house while we try to storm it that way...

Ah well. The last time we spent so much time discussing how to approach a situation tactically, we ended up charging up hill a camp of giants, on a narrow road, and only one of us got knocked off by a giant's rock (or maybe the giant jumped on someone from above, I can't remember).

I think we'll probably end up throwing progressively larger rocks at the front gate until they let us in.. Ultimately, the GM wants us to get inside so we can get beat up by the evil priestess and her wizardly minions, not to mention the warlord, so I imagine we'll get in. The problem really will be in getting out alive again, which no one is even beginning to consider.

/ali