Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrunkonDuty" data-source="post: 5520238" data-attributes="member: 54364">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.</blockquote>

Verification