First up I encourage everyone to watch the original Predator, and this fan film, Predator: Dark Ages.

[video=youtube;YRD8jAk274I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRD8jAk274I[/youtube]

Both these films are a good example of what would be a good adventure design. Too often we see discussions of power levels of characters, and doing 4.32 points of damage a round on average vs a 32.6% chance of being held and... all this supposes that a fight happens by appointment in a featureless wasteland with two opponents who simply slog at each-other like ironclads pouring shot upon one another's armour until one of them sinks. This leads inevitably to players and DMs forgetting to use their imaginations, and instead just looking at the numbers on the sheet. Worse, it's boring.

Instead consider tactics, which involve setting up traps, dodging behind trees and around corridors, striking and running, or bringing overwhelming force to bear at one point, and using all the resources at your disposal to win - or at least win long enough to be able to get away with the treasure.

Most of us, including me, are not imaginative enough to come up with all this by ourselves. So use the dice, and steal freely from books and movies, and take what the dice offered and adjust it a bit. For example, one time the random dungeon map turned up a maze in one part. The labyrinth part had a few orcs or something, I can't remember what I'd rolled up - but shouldn't a labyrinth have a minotaur? And then I rolled up his treasure, and among this were a ring of invisibility and a ring of spider climb. Why not have NPCs and monsters use their own magical treasure, rather than just sitting on it like a particularly stupid Tolkienish dragon? So he wore these rings, and stalked the party like a predator. Climb the ceiling invisibly, drop on character at rear of party and drag him off, leave most of his body somewhere the party will find it.

Obviously you can tie all that into the local NPCs, whoever is giving the party their quest. Flesh them out as interesting - note, I didn't say "real", I said "interesting" - people, and their own wacky motivations and so on, as I described here.

In this way, a simple dungeon crawl becomes more interesting. In this way, fighting even a single monster becomes a great game session people talk about for years afterwards. In this way, "oh look, wandering monster, an ogre, yeah we fought him and killed him" becomes Beowulf.

I am more a fan of Predator 2. That is a camp classic.

But I did use that premise for an adventure once. Basically a group of predator like beings (but not just those) called the Star Hunters (original, I know) decide to go hunting on a planet. They drop off a bunch of alien beasties, not to hunt them themselves, but to see who comes hunting them. And then the Star Hunters hunt the hunters (the PCs). The PCs won and got a starship.

I think one of the things you learn first as a DM is to roll the treasure first, so they use their magic items.

I dunno. I once used tactics on a party, they never forgave me for it. To this day a first level fighter Kobold mounted on a 2hd beast is still the nightmare of an entire party of third level characters.

I was informed that if I ever again used Kobolds as enemies I could kindly find a new group of players.

Yet another 'You're doing it wrong' post.  I'm going to point something out, something that no one seems to understand.  In a real world fight situations, there are variables that are out of a fighter's control that must be dealt with, usually environmental: Terrain type, footing, weather, and other such things to deal with.  Which makes the most effective tactic change from second to second.

In a role playing GAME, there's often ONE best tactic, and like all humans, gamers take the most effective and efficient action every time.  And if it's repeatable, you do so, luckily because it's a game, it often is.

This constant bandying of the word 'tactics' won't change that.  It doesn't matter if the GM puts in cool toys for the players to use if using what they have is more effective, whether it's "I cast a spell", "I shoot mah lazer" or whatever.

That being said, if there was a table to roll on that changes what happens in a fight, then you would see players take a lot more time trying to think of a counter to said situation, and then you'd see just how, to quote Gronan, 'Booger-eatingly stupid' most players are, as most of them have never been in a real fight.  Also, it would probably work better in a miniature's war game format.

Both films are hilarious. All the tactics talk does start to sound a bit nerdmacho goofy.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;977671Yet another 'You're doing it wrong' post.  

Yes, because you are doing it wrong.

QuoteIn a real world fight situations, there are variables that are out of a fighter's control that must be dealt with, usually environmental: Terrain type, footing, weather, and other such things to deal with.  Which makes the most effective tactic change from second to second.

In a role playing GAME, there's often ONE best tactic -

By which you mean, "the DM should ensure that the combat does not take place in a featureless wasteland"? In which case, I agree!

We're not playing chess. The board's not blank. A DM can put other things in, as can the players. For example: ambushes. In real world combats, teams will strive to surprise the enemy. In AD&D1e, for example, there are no rules for this directly, only indirectly with things like thieves' backstab damage multiplier. But if the players say, "we set an ambush", provided there's a fighter-type to organise things, we might say: okay, now when the enemy comes, instead of being surprised on 1 in 6, they'll be surprised on 3 in 6 (or 2, or 4, or whatever, depending on the terrain, is there something to hide behind, etc). Having at least one round/segment where you can just hoe into the enemy and they have no defence but their armour is going to be quite an advantage. And then the DM may choose to do morale checks, and so on.

And of course, the enemy can do things like that, too.

Make it interesting.

Quote from: Voros;977680All the tactics talk does start to sound a bit nerdmacho goofy.

That's the idea. Is not every D&D cover nerdmacho goofy?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;977700Yes, because you are doing it wrong.


By which you mean, "the DM should ensure that the combat does not take place in a featureless wasteland"? In which case, I agree!

We're not playing chess. The board's not blank. A DM can put other things in, as can the players. For example: ambushes. In real world combats, teams will strive to surprise the enemy. In AD&D1e, for example, there are no rules for this directly, only indirectly with things like thieves' backstab damage multiplier. But if the players say, "we set an ambush", provided there's a fighter-type to organise things, we might say: okay, now when the enemy comes, instead of being surprised on 1 in 6, they'll be surprised on 3 in 6 (or 2, or 4, or whatever, depending on the terrain, is there something to hide behind, etc). Having at least one round/segment where you can just hoe into the enemy and they have no defence but their armour is going to be quite an advantage. And then the DM may choose to do morale checks, and so on.

And of course, the enemy can do things like that, too.

Make it interesting.

...All you did to the featureless room was add a box to hide behind.  You didn't make it interesting, you just made the players waste time for pointless reasons and gave them a mediocre bonus on a die roll.  Woo.

That's not what makes a fight interesting.

oye. I gotta side with Kyle on this one, mutant forearms or no mutant forearms.

Not that I think he's all right either, but Christoff here is being a bit of a tightass.


Mind you, my point still stands: I find using tactics against players is a good recipe for TPKs, and they'll never blame their own lack of counter-tactics, because the power imbalance is too convienent an excuse.

I was only half joking about the Kobolds story.  I took the MM at its word when it said Kobolds like traps and tend to fight dirty, and I used them exactly as written, and my players en masse threatened to quit if I ever brought another Kobold to the table.  

No cheating, no perfect GM knowledge. I made my rolls, gave the players rolls... even gentle guidance to even the odds in their favor, and I turned deadly traps into annoying traps just to keep players alive when that failed.

Which, by the way, should serve as an object lesson: fuck the lions, never beard the Kobold in his den.

Anyone can build a deathtrap with Kobolds or otherwise. A well built trap requires some kind of puzzle aspect the characters can solve otherwise it is little different than 'Stone Falls, Everyone Died.'

Quote from: Voros;977756Anyone can build a deathtrap with Kobolds or otherwise. A well built trap requires some kind of puzzle aspect the characters can solve otherwise it is little different than 'Stone Falls, Everyone Died.'

I'm not going to recreate 'Actual Play' storytelling from... oh, god... ten years ago?

Where did the time go?

Never mind that.  

Sure, kid. I put them all in a Joker style glass jar slowly filling with acid and swimming sharks and told them they couldn't get out of it.  you got me, guilty as charged.

Quote from: Voros;977756Anyone can build a deathtrap with Kobolds or otherwise. A well built trap requires some kind of puzzle aspect the characters can solve otherwise it is little different than 'Stone Falls, Everyone Died.'

This is why Tomb of Horrors fails for me, it's full of those types of tricks.

So, the question is, what do you do to make a combat scenario dynamic, instead of having players find the best bonus and keep using that?

The classic example for you, and the classic response, is 'Snipers' in many games that use guns.

In other words, the classic example of players finding and exploiting an apparently broken tactic is the use of Snipers to engage enemies safely.

The Solution is... also Snipers.

Because when the players are nakedly exploiting a tactical advantage, they really really don't want to find it being used against them.  

So a typical MAD senario.

It was just an example, Christopher, you BNG drongo. I'm writing a forum post, not a novel I won't let an editor keep a sane length, like late Tom Clancy, GRR Martin and JK Rowling.

Quote from: Spike;977744Mind you, my point still stands: I find using tactics against players is a good recipe for TPKs, and they'll never blame their own lack of counter-tactics, because the power imbalance is too convienent an excuse.

Of course. But this is why I often have NPCs want to keep them alive. I mean, even if they just want to eat them, it's medievalish, there's no refrigeration, what better way to preserve the meat than to keep it in a cage until it's roast dinner with spuds time? And evil clerics don't just want you dead, they want you to Contemplate This On The Tree Of Woe, and all that.

And even when they're pissed off and want them dead, the NPCs and monsters, I try to play them not smart so much as not entirely dumb. So players do actually have to work to rise above not dumb, but it's not expecting genius.

I don't mind the occasional TPK, though. Keeps 'em in line.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;977981Of course. But this is why I often have NPCs want to keep them alive. I mean, even if they just want to eat them, it's medievalish, there's no refrigeration, what better way to preserve the meat than to keep it in a cage until it's roast dinner with spuds time? And evil clerics don't just want you dead, they want you to Contemplate This On The Tree Of Woe, and all that.

.

Any object lesson invoking the Tree of Woe is worth contemplating.