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You are here: Home / Archives for combat

Risk, Reward and Thunder-Reclamation

January 8, 2013 by Vanir

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things you miss when you run a roleplaying game instead of playing a character in it, and I’ve remembered something that I don’t think I’ve been giving enough of to my players: namely, the thrill of extracting a character you love from a dangerous situation. It’s the gift that keeps on threatening to kill you.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: combat, Crunch, fluff, play balance, Reward, risk

The Possibly Accidentally Nonviolent DM

September 25, 2012 by Vanir

As you may have guessed from my past few weeks’ worth of columns, I’ve been pretty anxious about getting back behind the DM screen. That finally happened this past Thursday, and it was really fun. The story progressed and grew in ways that were cooler than I initially envisioned (I freaking love that!) and the players were emotionally engaged in what was happening. Also, there was almost no combat whatsoever. Should I be worried? I hope their lust for orc blood doesn’t need to be sated with MINE. (P.S. I game with barbarians.)

Filed Under: Actual Play, Dire Flailings, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: combat, diceless, dm tips, dungeon mastery, heavy roleplay, nonviolent, omg the roleplay it is too much, roleplay, super heavy roleplay

The Easily Lost Explorer’s Guide to Dungeon Crawling

April 13, 2012 by Dave

if we all had perfect spacial thinking and effective communication skills, we wouldn’t need a battle grid in combat. The DM could describe the dimensions and shape of a room in the dungeon, as well as relative positions of inhabitants and features. We could just describe how far we’re going, all adjust our mental pictures appropriately, and voila: the entire time to set up a battle would be the time we need to talk about it. Unfortunately, we don’t all have that. Some of us are terrible at it (me) while others of us are really good at it.

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Editorial, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 3e, 4e, battle grid, combat, D&D, D&D next, dave gets lost easily, gridded combat, scenery, spacial reasoning, theater of the mind

The Experience

August 16, 2011 by Vanir

In most of the games I play in, we just sort of level up as the campaign progresses. I can buy that. My years of martial arts training tell me that a boot to the head is a very powerful lesson. Combat is a great teacher, assuming one survives. However, the theory always sort of fell apart for me when it came to wizards. Certainly, the wizard would gain a lot of knowledge about what worked and what didn’t after a few battles, but that doesn’t explain why a few weeks into his travels he suddenly knows how to cast a Fireball. Wizards always got screwed anyway.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: combat, equal rights for mages, experience, fighters suck, learning, screwed, sword-chucks, unfair, wizard

The Creme Filling Of The DM Soul

April 19, 2011 by Vanir

In which I ignore good advice, accept better advice, accidentally stumble into great adventure, and achieve my heart’s desire. If you’re a cinnamon roll aficionado and this is making you hungry, then this post is probably going to disappoint. Only I can eat my words. Shame they don’t taste like cinnamon rolls.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: bone phone, bones, cinnamon rolls, combat, combat length, combat speed, gentle necromancy, hearts, initiative, mr rogers, necromancy

Innocence Lost: The Price of Omnipotence

April 5, 2011 by Vanir

In which Vanir opens the Pandora’s Box of gaming, and learns things he cannot un-know. In which the Infinite Improbability Drive of D&D can let a DM both cheat and not cheat simultaneously. In which redemption is sought,

Filed Under: Board, Card, and Miniature Games, Dire Flailings, Roleplaying Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy Genre Tagged With: cheating, combat, DM, dungeon master, existential quandary, fudging

The Combat “Out”

February 28, 2011 by Dave

Combat speed in D&D is an oft-debated topic, and while much of the conversation is useful, I have one method that I trumpet above all others to make your combats take less time and work better as a scene in your game, and that’s the combat “out.”

Filed Under: Critical Threats, Featured, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, combat, combat speed, D&D, outs

Reel Melee: The Fateful Duel

September 16, 2010 by dixontrimline

As I watched helplessly, I realized there was a certain rhythm to the battles, a swing and parry, a leap and tumble, a slash and dash and crash… a STANDARD and MOVE and MINOR. All at once, I saw that the action in this movie could be broken into pieces and reassembled into something like the Dungeons & Dragons 4E combat rules.

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Movies, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, breakdown, combat, star wars

Friday Chat: The Issue(s) of Combat length in D&D 4e

August 28, 2009 by The Chatty DM

This post is inspired bu a Twitter discussions I had last week. As my player level up right into paragon level,  I noticed that the length of combat in D&D 4e kept increasing.  We often break the 90 minutes point  for ‘normal’ encounters and massive boss-level fights will easily eat up most of our 3 […]

Filed Under: Musings of the Chatty DM, Player Psychology, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 4e, advice, combat, Friday Chat

About the Author

  • Vanir

    Vanir is the sort of man who has openly wondered aloud about his own armor class in front of his own grandmother. Despite this, he has still managed to somehow become both married and a father. By day, he develops web applications. By night, web applications develop him.

    Email: vanir@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//category/dire-flailings/

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