Tired of hearing people hate on longer battle times in strategic RPG's

[Smoss]

It was the HP whittling (And bookeeping of thus) that turned me off of D&D. I loved 3E for a while, but I moved on to my own system. 4E didn't solve my problem (And went the wrong direction *for me* in some things, most of which not relevant to this discussion).

As a DM, I wanted less tracking of HP and other multitudes of stuff. I wanted simple and fast to play to help keep the game moving in combat. While keeping the tactical side. It is a hard balance to find (And my balance is very much suited to me, less so to others I am sure).

Each version of the game has its advantages and disadvantages. The adventures DO need to take this into account (Assuming you want the less grindy feeling combats). A long string of combats with "grindy" monsters is going to make me HATE that adventure. I am sure some 4E complaints are based on adventures designed like that. High level 3E adventures that I played in often felt like that too. The answer I would see is to fix the adventure design.

I know - Time is the enemy to that (Reworking a published adventure, making your own adventure, etc). Not everyone is going to have the time resources to do this (Being a jobless bum DOES have the one small advantage...) - But do you have the time NOT to? A good game requires time usually. Until companies are making adventures of all the different sorts we all want. (Yeah, meet the needs of EVERYONE! I dare ya!)

Hopefully there are quick solutions (Morrus points out some 4E tweaks above). If not, well sorry bub.
Smoss

 

[pawsplay]

I like options in combat, and I like playing martial characters the fight in a strategic way, so I like the modern RPG's that do this. I do agree that fights take longer than I would love, but it simply isn't possible to have a high level of strategy in combat and not have that combat take a significant amount of time.

Not true. See: GURPS.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Are we really talking tactics here or is it more of a case of calling a game more tactical because there are more pre-set attack buttons to choose from in a given round?

D&D combat was designed to be abstract. Debate after debate goes on about how HP aren't really "wounds", that an attack roll in a round lasting from anywhere between 6 seconds and a minute doesn't just represent one swing, etc. The particulars of what goes on are to be filled in by the imaginations of the participants.

Taking a basic abstract combat system and plugging in pre-filled detail is pointless and deters from the creativity that the system was designed to encourage.

That being said, I do enjoy playing detailed tactical combat systems. GURPS advanced combat fills this need nicely. The difference is that the combat system was designed as a tactical minigame from the ground up. A round of one second really does mean that an attack is a single swing and an active defense is specifically in response to that attack. In addition hit location, specific wounds, and severity of wounds matter far more than a simple HP tally.

Adding tactically complex components to a basic abstact framework just makes things messy. Its all just smoke and mirrors if, at the end of everything you have to grind down a pile of hitpoints anyhow.

I like my D&D combat simple, abstract, and fast as it was intended to be. There are other games that handle combat differently. I can play them when I want more gritty detail and tactical depth.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Sure you can keep all the options while reducing combat time.

The complaint is not the length of combat - it's the grindyness of it. Down to at-wills, still whittling away at those hit points. If it were exciting for two hours, the length wouldn't be an issue.

The issue here is that people are using excess amounts of grindy monsters, which is a matter of adventure design. Our group has hit paragon, and our last bunch of fights were quite quick (2 fights, a couple of skill challenges and some roleplaying in a 4 hour session), simply due to the fact that the bulk of the monsters we fought were, defensively speaking, quite lightweight. When comparing with previous fights, we really notice the effect of having lots of soldiers in an encounter.

Speaking as a DM, I notice the same: soldier-heavy fights are tedious. I've been making it a point to swap soldiers out for other creatures until there are only 1 or 2 soldiers left in a fight OR replace all the soldiers in a fight with minion soldiers. And I have to do that for most fights: WoTC love soldiers in published adventures.

Incidentally, I also notice a fairly big difference between MM1 and later MM monsters: MM1 monsters have too heavy a side in soldier as a whole.

The other monsters I find boring are the ones that require a setup condition to do their thing: most of the time my players never see the end result because the conditions needed for the setup + finisher are complex enough that they never happen. From the players point of view the monster just looks like a bag of hitpoints with little offensive capability except for annoying status effects (which are usually the required setup).

 

[amerigoV]

If it were exciting for two hours, the length wouldn't be an issue.

Thats what she said.... [/rimshot]

 

[JamesonCourage]

It's not bad yet, but with a thread title like "Tired of hearing people hate longer battle times in strategic RPGs" I think it's all best if we are careful this doesn't turn into people flaming each other. Especially after the last "Tired of..." thread in Game Theory getting locked.

Let's keep it productive

 

[Argyle King]

Something that pops up on these boards a lot seems to be the argument, "back in the day we could have 5 fights and plenty of roleplaying in a 4 hour session, now we have time for like a fight or two and we are done." This, to me, is getting very old. Recently we went back and played a session like "back in the day" and I found it boring. Most characters back then didn't use spells, so they didn't have a lot of options in combat, hence combat was short.

I like options in combat, and I like playing martial characters the fight in a strategic way, so I like the modern RPG's that do this. I do agree that fights take longer than I would love, but it simply isn't possible to have a high level of strategy in combat and not have that combat take a significant amount of time.

What I find surprising is that most games have evolved their rules over the years to make combat more strategic (and therefore longer) but have kept the old adventure format where there is one combat strung up after another. If combats take longer but are more fun, that is great, that means we don't need to fight a bunch of mini-resource-dwindling combats to lead up to the combat that will actually be cool, instead we can just have one or two cool combats per session and have the rest of the time be for more RP. But it seems like the published adventures as well as home made ones both still stick to the old format.

So what is it that people don't like here: longer combats, or just too many combats now that they take longer? Do we need to adapt, or does the game need to take a step back in time?

I don't mind a longer combat if it's meaningful or if I feel like it's actually a two sided fight.

What bothers me is when it's blatantly obvious what the outcome is yet it still takes an hour to get there.

Also, I find fault with the idea that more tactical options = more time. I see no reason why adding player options suddenly turns what was a originally a 5 minute fighting into an hour long grindfest.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Let me preface this by agreeing with whoever it was above who said it's a preference thing. Each to their own!

I prefer the modern game design concept of tactical options for fights. I also like a long fight if it's long for good reasons: drama, lots of interesting foes, challenges, varied terrain and tactical options. On the other hand if it's long for bad reasons: players taking forever to make decisions, trying to understand poorly written rules rules, whittling down HP of some giant monster in a very static fight, general lack of options, it's a chore.

There are 2 main factors in determining whether it works or not.

I think the GM makes a big difference in whether or not tactical combat works. Even with a published adventure. The GM should have a reasonably good idea of what the PCs can handle and be able to modify/design battles that will suit them. Some can be made challenging, some can be cake walks depending on what the situation requires.

The second major factor is the system itself. Some, like 3E DnD, are just not well put together. I've made this complaint here before so I won't labour the point. Suffice to say that the many sub-systems within the game are frequently out of whack with one another and sometimes even the overall game system. Other games have a much more integrated (for lack of a better word) system. GURPS and HERO are good examples of this. Integration/lack or integration directly effects "system mastery." System mastery can be defined as how quickly players can do stuff within the system.

The interaction of these 2 issues determine whether or not the whole shebang works or not.

A longish personal example: I run a Champions game. Famously complicated system, with long combats. I'm the only one in the group with a high degree of system mastery. But the others are learning quickly and we are able to run fairly complicated combats fairly quickly. I have helped them learn by specifically tailoring fights to give the players a chance to learn the system as we go along. The long and the short is we as a group are achieving a high degree of system mastery and learning to speed the game along.

To make the tactical options more interesting when time comes to draw up the combat mat I do a general outline (major streets, buildings, features, whatever.) Then I give the blue pen to a player and say "give me a water feature or 2," give the green pen to another player and say "give me trees and bushes." Then I hand out a bunch of my (badly hand drawn) paper minis and say "put some cars, trucks and pedestrians around."

THEN, during the actual combat I help people by making suggestions, explaining rules, bringing up new options for tactics and cajoling players along if they are taking too long to make a decision.

All up it works well.

cheers all.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I do agree that fights take longer than I would love, but it simply isn't possible to have a high level of strategy in combat and not have that combat take a significant amount of time.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay v3 would beg to differ.

 

[the Jester]

I do agree that fights take longer than I would love, but it simply isn't possible to have a high level of strategy in combat and not have that combat take a significant amount of time.

I disagree. I ran a homebrewed system last weekend with an encounter with 10 kobolds against (IIRC) 6 pcs. It was tactical and very fast- the whole thing was over in less than half an hour, maybe closer to 10 minutes.