Monsters and other matters

[kt_peasant]

So, to those experienced GMs and players out there, how would you recommend making combats in table-top short and snappy, but still interesting and full of good stories? Is there a best number of comabtants? Question inspired by last nights Dark Heresy game, run by the immensely creative chromenewt another involving a horde of mooks, who provided much drama

Comments

[oldnick]

I don't know how DH combat works, but...

Big combats will be slow - but they can be memorable if they go well, and are worth doing occasionally.

Pick a system with a 'cinematic' approach to mass combat. If the game doesn't do that, cheat so as to make it seem as if it does.

1) Do as much as you can in advance, so as to speed up the mechanics. Spreadsheets with randomised dice rolls and as-far-as-possible pre-calculated results are your friend.

2) If it's really large mass-combat, with many NPCs on the PCs' side, work out some averaged figures for how NPCs vs. monsters should work out, stick a bit of randomness on top, and spreadsheet the results.

3) Never rely on PCs retiring or losing to get to a combat result that fits the story. Players sense when this is done, and will be horribly tenacious in making sure it doesn't work.

4) Make sure that some of the opponents in nay fight have distinctive characteristics / descriptions. Not all of them have to, but enough that not all of them are just nameless cannon fodder.

[chromenewt]

I did experiment once with a previous game (40k based on the Big Eyes Small Mouth rules) with a mass combat formula that included variables which were both inside and outside of the PCs control, and it worked out NPC casualties on both sides. I created a spreadsheet to fill in the values and it would give the casualties which would then be used in the next calculation. UInfortunately it took just as long to fill in the spreadsheet as it did to do dice rolls normally.

Just to give an idea, DH is very similar to Warhammer Fantasy RPG. Difference is that there's more emphasis on long range combat than the predecessor. One idea that we came up with is to abolish the dodge roll for ranged combat unless the appropriate talent is owned. Dodging bullets should be bordering on the supernatural, not something that mooks and low level PCs can do.

[oldnick]

My spreadsheet approach is (I think) simpler than you are envisaging.

A line for each monster, each round, with (using fairly generic terms - you'd need to modify to suit the mechanisms) the attack it would use, their (randomised) dice roll(s), the armour classes that it would affect, and the damage it would do.

You then just say monster A attacks PC B - check any modifiers and see if it hits B, and read off the damage it does then cross through that line so you don't use it again by accident.

Stick a description above the monster, so instead of reading out "Monster A", you say "The X that smells of eels", and that's it.

The trick you're trying to achieve is to get back to the players running their characters more quickly, by not being bogged down by the dice rolling and calculating for monsters.

[chromenewt]

Ahh, I getcha! I do that with the more complicated NPCs and it worked rather well with a bunch of well equipped "cultists". The only reason I abandoned it for this game was the number all at once meant it was hard to keep tabs of hitpoints on the same page.

[chromenewt]

Is this entry friends only? Just wondering because I thought that posting a link on my LJ would also include my RPing flist in the mix.

And thanks for the compliment. ;)

[kt_peasant]

My posts are f-locked by default - I've unlocked it now.

[mr_h_r_hughes]

Use a system that is cinematic, snappy and deadly. If the deadliness is an issue then let players have a small amount of 'fate points' or 'hero points' or whatever to allow them to avoid squelchy doom in ways that are both cool and appopraite to the system.

Some people roll one initiative/defence roll (if your system has these) at the start of a fight and each character uses this until a future fight when it's re-rolled. This sometimes screws, sometimes makes you superfly but it *does* speed things up as everyone knows exactly when their turn is (Simon English used this a fair bit).

Alternatively if you don't want to shorten the fights but make them more fun then allow people (to a point, no making complex plans mid barney) loads of dialogue time during fights to bellow insults and flowery kiss off lines at one another - maybe no suitable for DH but then again some latin verse extolling the emporer while mowing down unbelievers never goes amiss.

[chromenewt]

In all our games we adopt the "roll once for initiative at the beginning of combat and it doesn't change for the duration" rule. This gets rid of a diceroll apiece from each character. I also tend to mob NPCs of similar types into a single initiative roll so all the mooks go at the same time, the support go at a different time and the leaders get their own.

In big fights?

[harrytc]

Just make up everything that happens to the npcs.

Real DMs just roll the dice for the sound they make anyway.

Re: In big fights?

[chromenewt]

Since I was robbed of a table and a GM screen this doesn't wash anymore. Dammit, now they know...

[irdm]

I guess it depends if the ratio of "mooks on both sides" per PC.
If small, one way would be to get the players to roll for both their own attacks and the ones against them, freeing the GM of most work.

If large, I remember an AD&D2? Mass Combat for Dark Sun system where groups fought groups and groups with a PC did better. When the combat roll was made it effectively decided how many from each side were removed from combat.
If the group was reduced to just the PC then go back to individual combats?

[kt_peasant]

> one way would be to get the players to roll for both their own attacks and the ones against them, freeing the GM of most work

Ooo - I like this. I think our group is grown-up enough not to flange if they can see the stats of the mooks, and then apart from rules queries, a turn could be a lot more talky 'I swing wildly at the monster who smells of eels and crush his left arm, but he dives under my guard and gets a lucky stab past my Uplifting Primer. I'm looking at bit wobbly.'