The Effect of "Big" on Combat

[Manbearcat]

Perhaps weirdly (or naturally...not sure on this), I'm emboldened by running bad guys/monsters who are size large or bigger against my players. I don't mean I'm personally emboldened. I just mean that there is this oddly visceral response that I find comes with looking at the battlemat and seeing a hefty size disparity...seeing markers that serve as dudes/creatures who physically are just freakishly imposing due to sheer size alone. Those little proxies actually serve as legitimate visual cues which heighten things emotionally for both myself and my players. There seems to actual be some measure of transference from the marker (or miniature if you use them) to the player.

We chatted about it the other day and we've found that gridless, TotM combat (these days for us, that is typically DW, MHRP, DitV, MG, and sparingly 13th Age) doesn't produce that same "size-centric" pulse-accelerator. Dungeon World comes the closest due to the elegance of combat and the nature of skillfully using Tags (and the fact that Forceful and Messy, yikes, and some dangerous qualities often come with size). It can really, really induce some terror in players when something huge and dangerous has them in a battle for their lives. But this isn't the same thing as looking at size disparity on a battlemat.

Anyone else have a similar experience? Emboldened GMing and nervous players?

 

[Derren]

No edition of D&D I know of has made big monsters more of a threat than small ones. The closes was probably 3E with the size based grapple modifiers, but other than that being big was hardly much of an advantage.

 

[Umbran]

Anyone else have a similar experience? Emboldened GMing and nervous players?

I've had that experience, but not specifically with large sized critters. I run most of my games "theatre of the mind" style most of the time, so I get that experience not out of having a big mini on the table, but out of very strong, tension filled description of the bad guy. When I manage to paint the image that they really should be scared now, it is a fine thing

 

[billd91]

So... you're saying that size does matter?