Dramatic Combat

Wouldn’t it be the bee’s knees if you could run a game session without those pesky non-fun moments?  I think so.  Actually, I know so!  That’s why I laboriously reinvented that thing that was already invented, and put it into words that are my own!   You see, it took many decades of alchemy, wizardry, and drunken dumbery to create, no, to manifest this knowledge!

“Well what is it” you ask?

Thank you for asking! It’s not what it is, but what it does!

Only if you are serious about gaming, may you understand its treasures. Only if you make an effort to promote general good gamery, may you reap the rewards.

By the very nature of good and evil, yin and yang, dark and light, law and chaos, neutral and… neutral, the Dramatic Combat will incite within you a systemic wave of karma – for the good you put into it, it gives good back to you.

Behold!  Dramatic Combats!

You and your players are movin’ and groovin’ through a fun night of gaming when (out of nowhere!) an encounter pops up!  Suddenly, that fun flow you had going is interrupted by drawing a map, writing down statistics, rolling for initiatives, attacks, movements, defenses, actions, reactions, and so on and on and enough!  Now I’m not talking about the meat-and-potatoes of encounters that your adventure is calling for, noooo; I’m talking about those encounters that simply disrupt the flow of the night… too significant to hand-wave an outcome, yet too insignificant to devote a fleshed-out hour(s)-long encounter. You know, those encounters that just grind the game to a halt.  A HALT!

Variety.  It is the spice of life, right? That is why some games have some version of the Dramatic Combat! Unfortunately, not enough games do. Not to worry! They are easy to implement for any game! Also, it is a nice change of pace that everyone usually seems to appreciate. For instance!…

Suppose that the player characters suddenly have a finite amount of time to run through a giant herd of aggressive zombies. They have to get to the other side, they can’t go around, and a raging fire is chasing at their heels!

If you… uh… stop to draw up a map… put out a hundred zombie figures… and told everyone to roll for initiative, well the flow of the game might slow to a crawl as (round after round!) the player characters grind their way through the herd using “standard combat rules.”

OR, you could say this…

“Ok folks, running through these dry fields with the fire at your heels, you’re all getting a little winded, but you imagine that you’ll still be able to make it back to the bedrock barrens. But wait! As you crest a hill you see a herd of zombies in your path – hundreds of them! You need to run through them to get to the bedrock on the other side! As you run through them, the flames will engulf the herd because they won’t be able to move as quickly as you, but can you get through the herd unscathed? So, here’s what I need you to do…

Each round is one minute long, and there will be five rounds. This represents you moving, bashing, sidestepping, attacking, casting spells, and so on. Everyone gets five rounds of actions, and the game master (me) never rolls for anything. In the end, you’ll get to the other side, but how beat up will you be?

On your turn, you decide what you are attempting to do (zig-zag through the herd, run as fast as you can, attack the zombies as you run though, knock them down, blast them with spells, whatever). Make a relevant roll and if you get an average success (such as a 10 on d20), you take 1d10 damage. If you roll a 15, you take 1d6 damage, and if you roll a 20 or higher, you take no damage. Make sure you indicate your intended action and then narrate it based on your roll.

Everyone will get through the herd, but if you end up with 0 or less hit points, you’ll end up collapsing on the bedrock just as the fire engulfs the last of the zombies – after a few minutes of catching your breath and tending to wounds, you’re back up to 1 hit point. Then, everyone can heal normally or not; it’s up to you individually.”

OR!, how about this one…?!

The characters have convinced a dragon to give them a ride across the Swollen Bog of Eternal Urinal. While riding the dragon, the players are bombarded by swarms of flying monkeys, hell-bent on knocking them off. If the dragon attacks the swarm, the player characters will most likely fall off. So, his only course of action is to fly through the swarm, which will take three rounds. Each player character must make three “average” checks (for Dexterity, Climbing, Agility, or whatever). Failure on any of these results in the character falling into the Swollen Bog of Eternal Urinal. Hoozah!

These are just two examples of Dramatic Combat, as they don’t have all the bells and whistles that can slow a game down. I’m certainly not suggesting that you substitute Dramatic Combats for all combats, NO!; just for those that you know would slow the pace of the game down. The players don’t have access to all of the normal combat rules of the game, so the death of a character should not be a possibility – just the excitement that a fast-paced encounter should provide!

Behold! Dramatic Combats! Behold!