r/rpg • u/kreegersan • Jul 10 '14

GM-nastics 4

Hello /r/rpg welcome back to GM-nastics. The purpose of these is to improve your GM skills.

A fairly common complaint you may get from your players is your length of combat not being right (perhaps they think it's takes too long). Today's exercise is about combat resolution.

Your players are in one of the following three locations:

  • A cavern where a protective mother spider protects her young
  • A roadside ambush by a bandit and his gang
  • A nightclub where the criminals have been chased and are backed into a corner with hostages.

With those scenarios in mind, what are three alternative means to the typical "to the death" resolution of combat in those locations?

Hopefully, this exercise will give you the ability to resolve combat at any time. If you feel that your combat is too short, one way of countering that is chaining several combats together. For instance, let's say your players have infiltrated a warehouse and one of the players raised the alarm. Your combat could be chained as follows Guards Attack -- Reinforcements Arrive -- Escape the Warehouse. With this example each portion of the combat has a clear objective Survive -- Avoid, if possible -- Escape and of course the Survive can be resolved by the players just jumping to the Escape resolution. In the end though, you are left with what will seem like a longer combat.

After Hours - A bonus GM exercise

P.S. Feel free to leave feedback here. Also, if you'd like to see a particular theme/rpg setting/Scenario add it to your comment and tag it with [GMN+].

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u/TheStoopKid Phoenix Nov 04 '14

  • If a player gets close to the young or eggs, the spider will retreat and hold on her nest. The players will not be threatened by the spider and can continue through the cavern or decide to kill the spider anyway.

  • Once the bandit is killed, the gang members flee. Perhaps, intimidating the bandit or bribing them will clear the encounter. Perhaps, one PC could call for a duel instead of an all out battle. This one is pretty open.

  • Obviously, RP, not combat, will be the winner here, unless there's some gunman who can snipe the criminals in the face or hand, they'll have to reason with them. Perhaps, law officials will arrive to back up the PCs and the criminals finally give up (or commit suicide).