Tonight we finished what has been a 3 session combat in our D&D game. That’s 3 game sessions of 3 or so hours; so around 9 total play hours, to represent a little over 2 minutes of game time! Okay, so for D&D you might say that’s par for the course – after all, some folks might argue that it’s a really tactical wargame with roleplaying elements. Certainly this game has been a tactical fiesta with the Giant Toad eating several of the party, spitting them out, then eating them again, while other enemies drag us into water or beat us down from unusual angles.
Nevertheless, I find it a little mind boggling. Being a fan of old-school games I have run plenty of epic fights in my time. For example; Masks of Nyarlathotep, which I’ve run several times now, is laden with them. And recently I’ve taken the next logical step, and invested in miniatures, primarily for Cthulhu, but also for Supers and other games I might run.
A part of me feels a little dishonest for doing so, because I do subscribe to the argument that a GM should be able to adequately narrate a combat, keep things flowing and both empower the players, and add a lot of flavor in the process without needing props. In the past a map, with relative locations usually sufficed. After all, this is roleplaying, not wargaming (don’t get me wrong – I wargame as well, but prefer to keep these hobbies separate).
I recently put this into practice in my Kingsport Tales, in a situation where the characters were investigating an old house, which contained a basement, secret corridor and blasphemous temple chamber. I did this principally because I find that often, players can become confused about their relative position, the position of other characters, NPC’s and even room layout. By putting everything in miniature, and letting players only move their own miniatures, everyone can see sight lines, and should have a clear understanding of relative positions. I also used this system (using tokens rather than miniatures) in my 6 different runs of My Little Sister Wants You To Suffer from Cthulhu Britannica and found that it worked very well. It's also a handy antidote to the player who asks for information about a room, then, after triggering an associated encounter will argue they couldn't possibly have done so, as they had described their character as remaining outside the whole time.
Nonetheless, after this epic D&D marathon game, which I found unnecessarily complex and sometimes frustrating, I do find myself questioning whether miniatures and their ilk really add to games which prize story elements, and which downplay combat. What do you think?
-For the record our D&D party ‘survived’ and were not TPK’d, and might even be considered victorious, but only through the heavy use of story elements tied to our mysterious backgrounds and introduced by the GM as the characters were killed.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
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Ye gads! A 9 hour combat! Tell me its 3.5e.
ReplyDeleteI find myself in a weird position with miniatures. Until 3 years ago I never used them. Since then I have used them for 3 games - WFRP2e, Star Wars Saga and D&D4e.
ReplyDeleteWFRP2e - Minis work well in WFRP2e to help emphasise that old school vibe. The mechanics surrounding them are simple and clear making their use hassle free. However, I think the game would work just as well without them.
SW Saga - Minis worked OK. I liked the visual element of minis for SW, though the system being close to 3.5e began to fall apart without a lot of effort. However, it was a great learning curve on how best to use minis for...
D&D4e - I wouldn't run it without minis but then the system is pretty fab for minis so its a no brainer. 4e has helped me understand what minis can add to an action game. They can provide very concrete objectives and alternatives that a purely narrative game would struggle to do. As such though, running a straight fight with minis is dull. You need to present options, pressures and multiple objectvies to get the best effect.
Sadly no, it was 4e. Although I should point out that the combat involved 65+ bad guys, the bulk of whom were minions. We accounted for 58, but the balance, the really tough ones, got away so there is probably more combat yet to be had before we can consider this 'encounter' complete.
ReplyDelete:o That's sounds truly aberrant. I haven't run a combat much over 60 minutes and I have run games up to level 18 (45 minutes is about average).
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that there were multiple encounters combined into 1? Did you have short rests in the encounter?
I have been trying to work out the Encounter build for that many bad guys (even all minions) and, for the life of me, I just can't :D
ReplyDelete65 minions is still 16 monsters of equivalent level. The only way to make that possible, even at the hardest level an Encounter should be, is having them so far below the PC level that they would be as dull as dishwater. For example, with a group of level 4 PCs, you could push things to a level 8 encounter (slightly over the max recommended) and get 65 level 1 minions. But level 1 minions against level 4 PCs would be just a grind in dice rolling as hitting would be so certain and damage irrelevant. Given you had a number of powerful bad too only makes it more wonky.
I don't think that any of my 4e experiences are that useful to you given the number of times your reports leave me scratching my head :)
I believe it is a case of the story trumping all again. We faced a number of encounters, designed to be fought one at a time, rolled into one because we went in through an unexpected door.
ReplyDeleteThere were a lot of minions, around 40 or so, and we killed a lot with attacks of opportunity and burst attacks. Then there were the brutes and the giant toad, plus a controller type.
Then, several rounds later the elemental ones with horrible weapons that allow them to push and pull us around arrived which destroyed any real tactical options. We had a moment of Glory running for most of the fight, so we would have died much, much sooner otherwise, but effectively half way through we stopped being able to do real damage and just tried to escape. Only by the two of us that were killed outright turning into Level 6 monsters(backstory), and having the remaining frogs decide to evacuate, did we not get TPK'd several times over.
There were no breaks or rests (except becoming a monster temporarily) but the DM did allow us to spend additional action points. In the end every character had made death saves at one point or other.
It's kind of like Jehovah's witnesses finding the tradesman's entrance to the Temple of Elemental Evil!
ReplyDeleteOh and don't even get me started on the Giant Toad that eats someone with an attack, leaving them imobilized with ongoing damage 5,the when they fionally make a save to be spat out, it gets an attack of opportunity to eat them again. two thirs of the party were inside the toad at one time or another... can you tell I have PTSD?
ReplyDeleteWhy does the frog get to make an Opportunity Attack? Forced movement such as being spat out doesn't trigger Opportunity Attacks.
ReplyDeleteBased on what you have here, I think I have serious difference on how your DM handled this based on mu understanding of how 4e is to run. I especially disagree that it can be attributed to "story" (especially when that excuse is trotted out in rapid succession) but that is a deeper discussion for another time.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the stuff you are reporting is so far removed from my understanding that I can't really offer any helpful suggestions that aren't just criticisms. So I will leave it there :)
I agree, and have posted my thoughts on this. To be fair the Toad was only getting a swallow attack of oppotunity when he would normally have gotten an attack of opportunity, but the nature of the fight was such, that it was quite often.
ReplyDeleteAs for my attribution of this to 'story' - that's just my take. I suspect the DM designed the 'Dungeon' created the bad guys, their locations and behaviours and let the chips fall where they may. If we're smart and tactical we fight it piecemeal with less challenge, if not we get killed.
Cool. I guess there must be a point though where multiple TPKs that occur from a difference between what the DM considers "smart" and what the players actually do that I (if I were the DM) would start to question where the disconnect comes from and look to adjust accordingly.
ReplyDeleteThat is assuming that the players aren't consciously trying to provoke the DM or that TPKs and playing "guess what the DM thinks is smart" are not considered to desriable objectives.