Comments on: Narration in Combat

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:38:09 +0000

It isn’t, really. But if a player’s been trained to come at combat from a purely mechanical/wargaming standpoint, the attack bonus will help him take notice, and reward him for making the effort. Once he gets into the habit of describing attacks, it becomes rarer, but it’s still a little extra encouragement.

A lot of players probably don’t need the extra motivation, but when you have one who does… well, lesser of two evils.

By: Questing GM

Questing GM — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 03:31:26 +0000

I like your second method of resolving the mechanics first before going to the narration.

I don’t quite agree with you on giving modifiers for good combat narration. I do that for good roleplaying for social skill checks but giving modifiers for combat description feels like the Storyteller system, which I don’t think D&D is made for.

Questing GM’s last blog post: Word of Wizards – 12/9/2008

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:30:25 +0000

I think you have a point there. I narrate just about everything — but my games are fairly light on combat, for the most part. Most fights do take a while. I always assume an hour for a fight scene, although it’s usually closer to 40-45 minutes.

By: .o.

.o. — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 08:19:58 +0000

Howdy – I really like narration in my battles, but I started wondering if I was overdoing it. No GM worth a copper piece ever has trouble coming up with a vivid description of an attack. Instead, I think the reason battles degenerate into “I rolled a 15. It hits. 10 damage. Next” is because the GM (or the players) have to come up with descriptions round after round, encounter after encounter, adventure after adventure.

I’ve had battles with a BBEG and some sidekicks last 12 rounds. With 5 PCs and the same number of villains that’s somewhere between 65 and 120 attack rolls. Assuming you can come up with that many attack descriptions, if you figure 15 seconds per attack to come up with and speak each of the “attempt” and “resolution” narrations, that adds up to 16 to 30 minutes of real time. At a certain point, narration becomes more of an excitement drag than a boon.

I wonder if the narration challenge is really about balance? When to use narration, why, and how often? In addition to how you go about adding narration (I like the idea of putting more of it on the players!), I’d be curious to hear peeps ideas on the proper dosage of narration in your games.

By: gamefiend

gamefiend — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:32:03 +0000

How fun to follow this topic around to everyone’s blog! Hearing what other people are doing is pretty awesome. As a GM, I really get into describing the actions sometimes, so holding up my end of the bargain is no problem.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 23:05:13 +0000

@Jim: Thanks!

@Patriarch: I love redefining the fluff myself, when I play, and so far my players have jumped at the chance to do so while I’m GMing. We make minor modifications to the mechanics if it seems appropriate, too.

By: Patriarch917

Patriarch917 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:47:02 +0000

4e is particularly nice in that you will hardly ever merely attack, but will usually use a power that tells you :how: you attack. Characters get to select powers that reflect the fighting style they want to develop. I've also been encouraging my players to rename their powers and rewrite the fluff so as to make them their own. Patriarch917's last blog post: Killing Minions with Style

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:02:45 +0000

What a great way to describe combat and keep all the players involved. Sometimes players get sidetracked if it’s not their turn to attack/defend/etc. Good job. Love the blog.