Found this gold nugget in the 2ed DMG (combat chapter) that summarizes things for my DM style nicely:
"Too many rules slow down play (taking away from the real adventure)and restrict imagination.
"To have the most fun plaing the AD&D game, don'r rely only on the rules. Like so much in a good role-playing adventure, combat is a drama, a staged play. The DM is both the playwright and the director, creating a theatrical combat.
"The trick to making combat vivid is to be less concerned with the rules than with what is happenening at each instant of play.
"Combats should be more like, 'One orc ducks under the table jabbing at your legs with his sword. The other orc tries to make a flying tackle, but misses and sprawls to the floor in the middle of the party!' This takes description, timing, strategy, humor, and- perhaps most important of all- knowing when to use the rules and when to bend them."
The question is: How would you incorporate this concept into 4ed? I tried like crazy to do this with 3.x and it simply did not work.
The example of the orc is actually a very good one and has happened in my games a number of times. The response has consistently been: "So the orc leapt at me? Where's my AoO? He's prone now, right? He'll provoke if he tries to stand and I get a bonus to hit him!" etc etc. This absolutely killed the creativity and cinematics of fight scenes. Trying to liven things up with description would invariably come back to bite me.
The players would take advantage of any dramatic embellishments <see Flying Orc above> while they would stick with "I swing. Do I hit?", giving an advantage without buy-in to the dramatic part of the combat scene.
How would/do you encourage your players to buy in on dramatic combat? I am feeling pretty abused.
"Too many rules slow down play (taking away from the real adventure)and restrict imagination.
"To have the most fun plaing the AD&D game, don'r rely only on the rules. Like so much in a good role-playing adventure, combat is a drama, a staged play. The DM is both the playwright and the director, creating a theatrical combat.
"The trick to making combat vivid is to be less concerned with the rules than with what is happenening at each instant of play.
"Combats should be more like, 'One orc ducks under the table jabbing at your legs with his sword. The other orc tries to make a flying tackle, but misses and sprawls to the floor in the middle of the party!' This takes description, timing, strategy, humor, and- perhaps most important of all- knowing when to use the rules and when to bend them."
The question is: How would you incorporate this concept into 4ed? I tried like crazy to do this with 3.x and it simply did not work.
The example of the orc is actually a very good one and has happened in my games a number of times. The response has consistently been: "So the orc leapt at me? Where's my AoO? He's prone now, right? He'll provoke if he tries to stand and I get a bonus to hit him!" etc etc. This absolutely killed the creativity and cinematics of fight scenes. Trying to liven things up with description would invariably come back to bite me.
The players would take advantage of any dramatic embellishments <see Flying Orc above> while they would stick with "I swing. Do I hit?", giving an advantage without buy-in to the dramatic part of the combat scene.
How would/do you encourage your players to buy in on dramatic combat? I am feeling pretty abused.
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