Advice/Help How do you run combat?

[Hexblood Bandit]

While dice roleplays are good way to help mitigate combat, how do you manage combat without dice? Between two or more roleplayers? Between the player and NPCs you made? The problem I am having with text roleplay is the fluidity of combat, and whether or not I should intervene with the players. For example:

James is roleplaying as an human wizard with a specialty in fire magic, in his CS James solves most of his problems by incinerating them while flying. How do you handle the little arsonist when he wants to burn down the tavern he is in, and then escape. How much input does he get in the situation.

GM: "Well, look what the cat dragged into this fine establishment, a no good fella that hasn't paid Bossman respect yet." The thug sneers at Draco and rests his mitt of a hand on the shoulder. "Now we can't have that, so what do you say you fork over some silver now and get back to your drink?"

J: Draco is surprised by the thug blatantly shaking him down in the tavern, but quickly steels himself for combat. "No, I don't think I will," Draco says as he swipes the thug's hand off and then spews fire into that sneering face of his. Regardless if the thug managed to dodge the flame, Draco immediately flies over behind the table and readies another spell.

I know this depends on the roleplayer, and the abilities they are able to choose for themselves, but where do you intervene? What if multiple roleplayers are in the situation at the same time, do you go by who posted first? Or who is directly involved? Do you allow roleplayers to say they hit or not, and the amount of damage dealt from that hit?

 

[Daisie]

I can't comment too much on this mostly because I do 1x1s, but what I do with my partner is plan beforehand who is going to win the fight. It clears up a lot of confusion and isn't much of a hassle as long as your partner and/or yourself are humble enough to accept defeat for the furthering of the story. Once that's hammered out, things go much more smoothly and the players can decide how much of a beating they want their characters to take.

Communication is key. If push comes to shove, tell them you have an issue with suddenly instigating combat and forcing hits. Make your feelings known and see if there's a way around it.

 

[Hexblood Bandit]

I can't comment too much on this mostly because I do 1x1s, but what I do with my partner is plan beforehand who is going to win the fight. It clears up a lot of confusion and isn't much of a hassle as long as your partner and/or yourself are humble enough to accept defeat for the furthering of the story. Once that's hammered out, things go much more smoothly and the players can decide how much of a beating they want their characters to take.

Communication is key. If push comes to shove, tell them you have an issue with suddenly instigating combat and forcing hits. Make your feelings known and see if there's a way around it.

Huh, that's a good way of running it. Kind of like WWE performances, where the wrestlers know the outcome, but play off of each other to create drama and tension. You mentioned communication, however what if you do not know the roleplayer will get into the fight? Or that the situation won't necessarily end with anyone's defeat, but do not want the roleplayer to know beforehand?

Would something like this work?

GM: James, in this encounter you will defeat the harpy at a great cost. The harpy is hard to nail down in the air, so a brute force method will not work.

Can you give an example on how you would handle a harpy encounter 1x1?

 

[Daisie]

GM: James, in this encounter you will defeat the harpy at a great cost. The harpy is hard to nail down in the air, so a brute force method will not work.

Can you give an example on how you

Hmm...

First off, I would do it differently in that instead of telling my partner what the outcome of the fight would be, I would discuss it with her and make sure she's okay with it. It's a small difference, but it would be more of a "I'm thinking your character can probably win this, but not without sacrifice or some sort of heavier injury. Does this sound good to you?" type of deal. I don't know if it's a lot different with a GM leading things - from the sounds of it, you're going for a more DnD-game-master type of vibe rather than my extremely casual style of RP - but I imagine that you deciding everyone's fates alone may carry the risk of stifling creativity. I'm not saying you can't do it that way, but that is something to keep in mind in case it comes up!

I do like this part though:

The harpy is hard to nail down in the air, so a brute force method will not work.

Because that gives the player a mystery to solve with their own creative license. They have to think outside the box and come up with something, themselves. That's fun, and if sometimes they might need help coming up with ideas, you can always spitball a couple things in their direction and see if anything sticks.


Regarding spoilers...
Not gonna lie, my partner and I rarely have surprises for each other in our RP. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but we've found it easier to plan general plot points and individual character arcs together ahead of time so we can get on the same page and collaborate on ideas. That way we don't wind up with conflicting ideas that we can't fix later in the game... then BOTH of us are unhappy.

Sure, having surprises is good, but you've really gotta balance how much surprise you want vs how much ease of communication you want.

If she DOES want to keep something a surprise, she'll say it like it is. "I have something spoilery coming up, but I need your characters to be in xyz position for it" and I'll help to work something out, taking her word on good faith. I don't know if that's just cause we've been friends for years though? I trust her to be careful with the story and she trusts me. If there's an issue, we can always talk it out.

Now, if she has something spoilery for me that, for whatever reason, we have trouble setting up (to the point where it's getting frustrating to plot around), she'll eventually just say "do you want to know what it is? I don't think there's a way around this", and we'll suck it up and spoil it.

As much of a bummer as that is, it actually goes pretty well, cause then we can put our heads together to make things work. Not only that, but I'm usually inspired by her ideas and can help her come up with ways to enhance them. Give them more drama/action/efficiency/ect. It's pretty great when we get the idea train going. Builds a lot of hype!

That being said, I've found most of the surprises that happen in a RP are a surprise to BOTH of us. We'll come up with something on the fly, our characters will "act" in a way we didn't expect, that kind of thing. Moments like those can really be exciting, but I get the feeling that's also some late game stuff, after the characters have already been well established.

I reiterate: if all else fails, communicate about it openly and honestly! It's a LIFE SAVER. It sounds so simple but people seem to have difficulty with it.

Lmk if i missed anything, I realize I may have meandered a lot lol

 

[Hexblood Bandit]

Really great stuff, and I especially like this bit.

Regarding spoilers...
Not gonna lie, my partner and I rarely have surprises for each other in our RP. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but we've found it easier to plan general plot points and individual character arcs together ahead of time so we can get on the same page and collaborate on ideas. That way we don't wind up with conflicting ideas that we can't fix later in the game... then BOTH of us are unhappy.

I was struggling with finding the balance between giving people too much freedom in their actions and stifling creativity, but collaborating on the general plot and arcs beforehand really does help with fluidity. Hopefully I could get on board the idea train with someone else, and ramp up the creativity with them. Last thing though how general is general? Would you and your partner work out something like this?

Example 1-
-To begin this upcoming arc Draco will be confronted by his former rival from his academy days. At first he will challenge Draco to a magic duel, which you can attempt to dissuade him from or battle him there.
-After cursing himself for being stupid, the rival will ask Draco's assistance in saving your mutual friend from the grasps of a unknown baddie
-Draco agrees (with some additional terms?) and will rush to the Tower with the rival in hand.
-Journey through the harsh woodlands and spend a night or two there (depending on choice may become temporarily lost)
-Smash some mobs together at base of Tower
-Confront the baddie and save the friend
-Betrayal at the hands of the rival

Example 2-
-Alright for the upcoming arc we decided Draco will be confronted by his past from his academy days
-We decided this arc should have elements have betrayal, loss, and renewal
-James really wants a climatic fight near the end so we agreed that Draco will be with fighting a dragon
-Draco should be getting a boon near the end, so James and I agreed to the Sword of Revealing Light

 

[Malphaestus]

The most sensible idea would be to plan everything out in a private converation with the involved parties before writing it out. But that works and does not work in proportion to what type of roleplayer you’re dealing with. You all know what I mean.

I typically, therefore, make sure that I am the opponent more often that not. The power of a GM. PVP should be something with impact. It’s the smarter approach. Though we all enjoy ourselves some good PVP combat anyway, which is why there are faction versus faction roleplays all over the RP-sphere. Frankly, it’s not the best idea, and I will explain why. Even though I like the concept more than not.

Most roleplayers ride on momentum more than anything else. Planning out combat drags out the process, making it likelier for them to flake out of the roleplay. Especially when they lose. Merely spreading unspoken beliefs shared by many of us.

The alternative, then, would be for it to be turn-based, or GM-decided. Both have their ups and downs. Turn-based combat will go on forever, but it is the least invasive and most likely to keep momentum moving. Fight until someone gives in. GM-decision based combat is technically the medium between fairness and flow. You decide who wins after a couple of sequences, and the roleplayers resume the combat with that in mind. The problem here, though, is that it’s succeptive to both of the problems with the two prior methods.

To summarize, tailor the system to your audience. If you can’t, then simply stretch your hand into the bag of poisons and hope your participants have an immunity to it.

 

[Daisie]

Really great stuff, and I especially like this bit.



I was struggling with finding the balance between giving people too much freedom in their actions and stifling creativity, but collaborating on the general plot and arcs beforehand really does help with fluidity. Hopefully I could get on board the idea train with someone else, and ramp up the creativity with them. Last thing though how general is general? Would you and your partner work out something like this?

Example 1-
-To begin this upcoming arc Draco will be confronted by his former rival from his academy days. At first he will challenge Draco to a magic duel, which you can attempt to dissuade him from or battle him there.
-After cursing himself for being stupid, the rival will ask Draco's assistance in saving your mutual friend from the grasps of a unknown baddie
-Draco agrees (with some additional terms?) and will rush to the Tower with the rival in hand.
-Journey through the harsh woodlands and spend a night or two there (depending on choice may become temporarily lost)
-Smash some mobs together at base of Tower
-Confront the baddie and save the friend
-Betrayal at the hands of the rival

Example 2-
-Alright for the upcoming arc we decided Draco will be confronted by his past from his academy days
-We decided this arc should have elements have betrayal, loss, and renewal
-James really wants a climatic fight near the end so we agreed that Draco will be with fighting a dragon
-Draco should be getting a boon near the end, so James and I agreed to the Sword of Revealing Light

I'm not actually sure! Honestly it's down to personal preference. Unfortunately I can't really answer how much planning is too much and how much is too little, cause from what I've see that varies from RPer to RPer.

I like how detailed the top one is, and I also like how casual the bottom one is. They're both good for their own reasons, and it really depends on the type of RP you're running. It can really also vary from scene to scene... Keep in mind we're also winging the story pretty heavily right now, with only vague ideas about how it should end.

I think the trick is to not get too attached to the image you have in your head, cause more often than not, that's not how it's going to go. Be open to the idea that something might happen that's actually better than your original plan, but still be trying to find ways to integrate it into your original direction.

Our brainstorming sessions are usually over voice chat, and then we take down pretty basic notes after we're done so we don't forget where we're going. Idk if this helps... like... at all, but in case it might, here are some actual notes from our planning sessions. Given the lack of context, it probably won't make a lot of sense, but... it might help you get a feel for it?

This was for the direct future of the plot (Very short term):

Up next: Micah finds a physical way to communicate with Corvus
Nate and Stan both threaten the man giving them information. Once they have the location of the underground fighting ring's operations, they head towards it and we leave them for a moment.
We cut to Lucia and Reavis for a timeskip, have them explore their surroundings, look at the fighting, talk about their previous confrontations aboard Ava, ect.
Nate and Stan, in the meantime, try to sneak in. We can maybe have them catch an announcement that Reavis and Lucia are the prizes for the game before getting caught.
Just as they're caught and about to be thrown out (or worse), the ringleader comes and announces that they'd be good participants.
He offers them a place in the ring and lets them pick out suits (Maybe for some pre-show presentation, because it occurs to me that fighting in the suits would be awkward).
Fun Nate and Stan bonding as they try to pick suits.

Looking back, we made a few plans here that didn't end up panning out. Very small things though. Like the small bit about Nate and Stan catching an announcement before getting captured didn't happen, so we had it happen after. The fun suit-picking-bonding thing didn't really happen either because the characters were mainly too busy interacting with other participants. I don't feel bad at all about the way things turned out, they were both really fun! Just be aware that things won't always stick to the plan, no matter how rigid you make it.

So we also have super vague long(er) term plans:

Reavis's arc: Drugs and falling in love w Stan (Drugs could possibly make that shaky), praying
Stan's arc: Memory loss gun and falling in love w Reavis
Nate's arc: Obsession with Lucia, brotherly bonding with Stan, praying
Lucia's arc: Drug thing, depression, psychopathic Lucia

Probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but you can see that we have really vague directions we want to take the characters in, no matter what the up-front events of the RP are.

And then we have even LONGER term plans:

Stuff that needs to be expanded or wrapped up in some way before we end the RP:
- Ava's backstory/transition to feeling more emotions
- Aethox and Petula's backstory
- more development of Micah with the crew
- the origin of the lights
- getting Reavis and Nate to pray and get the mark of Aethox

These are all direct quotes from our plans channel in Discord, and all of these resulted from rigorous planning sessions, bouncing ideas off of each other, and reworking things until we found something that works. I'm not sure if this helps a lot? Honestly everyone has their own style of planning ahead. I've seen some do it way more than we do, others do it way less, and they both seem to lead to very successful and fun RPs. It just depends on the situation you're most comfortable with and how much you're willing to sacrifice for your partners.

Let me know if this helps! I'm happy to try and elaborate further if you need, just know that what works for me might not necessarily work for you. It takes a lot of experimentation - it took my partner and I years to work out what was best for us. Keep going with trial and error and you'll get there!

 

[AnnJam]

This is how I have always done a win/lose combat situation in a narrative game with no combat/dice system.

Communicate and plan the scene. Not to the extent that you know every beat, but decide who wins and who loses and to what end. Then free write the scene. In a narrative game making sure players know and agree on the end result is a fine way to handle things and doesn't diminish fun factor. People don't mind losing if there is some narrative weight, some meaning to the loss. If there is emotion, struggle and conflict when losing it brings a lot more to the table for both players. It leads to character development, world building, and various story beats. Losing opens narrative doors and deciding who wins and loses isn't going to break immersion.

edit

Basically what I am saying and what it appears everyone else is saying. No matter what method or system you implement it doesn't matter if the combat scene has no purpose. You can come up with a dozen ways to handle the situation between players, but it comes down to deciding what the point (if any) the combat has; or if players are just trying to be dicks in character to each other. At which point you nip that behavior in the butt (no fight scene and move the story along, you can do that as the GM!)

In narrative games communication is the ultimate answer. If players talk and make good narrative decision you'll have a good time; even if things don't pan out exactly as planned!

 

[Crayons]

Hey-de-ho! I'm just going to add to the above mighty posts of advice that I'd advise only allowing one defensive action and one attacking action per post. (Or attacking only if the player initiates combat.) This stops them becoming a crazy monster who does billions of things and destroys your settings. It's also pretty standard for combat roleplaying across the universe.

J: Draco is surprised by the thug blatantly shaking him down in the tavern, but quickly steels himself for combat. "No, I don't think I will," Draco says as he swipes the thug's hand off and then spews fire into that sneering face of his. Regardless if the thug managed to dodge the flame, Draco immediately flies over behind the table and readies another spell.

Draco can swipe the thug's hand (defensive action) and then spew fire (attacking action) but what he can't then do is fly away and "ready another spell" (this is another attacking action). This means you get a chance to intervene before all heck comes raining down on your carefully manicured parade.

I would also absolutely count readying a spell as one action and casting it as another action, especailly if they have to do some fancy shiz to ready it.

If the player is always trying to mess things up for you, I'd have a quiet word with them about their attitude towards the game and/or yeet them into the nearest sun if they perpetuate it, because no one needs that kind of player in their game.