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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 9775324" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>The brand new (at time of posting) episode 2 of Critical Role campaign 4 has a great example of keeping combat feeling active and fast-paced in the opening minutes. Brennan Lee Mulligan uses narration before, after, and during the players turns to keep the focus on action rather than mechanical action resolution. Most importantly, he commands the action of the scene. At one point, it goes to Laura Bailey’s initiative and she briefly hesitates, asking what her goal is. Where a lot of DMs might simply answer the question and give Laura time to make a decision, he immediately launches back into narration to remind her of the context in a diegetic way, while keeping the scene feeling frantic despite this technically being a stall. Nobody is being rushed to make a decision before they’re ready, but also no one is waiting around while someone else “umm”s their way through a bout of decision paralysis. I think this is the number one most important DM skill for keeping combat engaging. Be aware of the narrative monumentum, and never casually toss it to someone else or allow the person with it to do so. Carefully and intentionally hand it off to the player when it’s their turn, and when they’re done with it, take it back with some narration of your own and deliver it to the next player. If a player drops it, catch it! Give some more narration and then carefully and intentionally hand it back to them.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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