Here's why your D&D combat is boring 

Please do a video about combat procedure. I always use individual initiative, each round, to help keep the chaos which is combat. My players are quick on their feet so there isn't lag on their turn. BECMI, or 5e RAW initiative is far too predictable for me. Anyway, thanks for the great video again and keep the dice rolling!

Wow- I really appreciate this video. The ideas here, I haven’t heard from others, and it makes me look at combat in a whole new way. It makes combat “zoom-able” to its level of importance- and to its level of importance in the game, not necessarily in the story. I’ll be rewatching this video, and keeping more notes.

Great conversation :) And yes would like a video regarding combat procedure.

Absolutely going to use the player's "narrate the win" option for my hex crawl for encounters that are easy wins. I'm going to tweak it / add a little to the idea by awarding EXP based on how good the role play narration is. My players are uncomfortable still with role play and this might help them get into character a bit. Two birds one stone with this idea. Thanks! Was already trying to do procedural combat but didn't know to express it to the players. Didn't even have a name for it. Now I do. Melee, missile, spell, other. Awesome.

Excellent video, and the first I've seen from you, so a sub it is! Ultimately, no one who's invested in the table's growing narrative is super interested in the small combats. Sure, there are days where everyone's tired and they just wanna murder-hobo and that's fine! I've never been a big "D&D" gamer (came to the hobby through Deadlands in the 90s), but the OSR has been really fun to dive into, there's so much creativity all over it. To the point I'm writing my own system. I s'pose we all gotta write our heartbreaker at some point, don't we? Something I wanted to incorporate right from the outset is basically "Procedural" conflict of any kind, on almost any scale, for when players don't want to/can't engage with it in detail or aren't aware of it. I admire the way Savage Worlds has done this over the years, making a couple of very clever subsystems that can proceduralize almost anything from a fairly insignificant combat, to a full blown heist, dungeon crawl, or military campaign. This has a nice side benefit of being a fun mini-game the GM can play with themselves in their prep time to move along the machinations in the setting, and having them be affected by PC actions if it's something they're engaging with. When you can do this inside a lighter system, you've got a nicely streamlined narrative engine that's relatively easy and fun for the GM to keep up with, isn't pure fiat, and gives the players a living and vibrant setting to do their thing in. I'm looking forward to watching your other videos, and here's another vote for "Yes, Procedural Combat video, please!". Sorry for the verbosity, and thanks for the thought that's been provoked!

Food for thought here, another good one, Master Daniel!

Good stuff! Set piece combats are fun... but not when every combat is a set piece.

I find that shifting all rolls onto the player side of the table really helps people stay engaged. When you tell someone "Roll to dodge the Orc's attack" it makes them feel more in control and invested than just rolling the die yourself, and telling them damage. I run a system that is kinda hacked together using the stat-pools from Monte Cook's Cipher system, so it's even more engaging when that player can make decisions about what resources to spend (or not spend) to dodge that attack.

I like the idea of overland narrative combat. This is an interesting idea.

I frankly love procedural combat. I am especially enamored of the system from ASSH. I do use a couple of combat hacks though to make certain choices mean more. Specifically weapon choices. Reach weapons interrupt movement towards a character. Not a free attack, it just bumps them up in the initiative order. Readied range weapons, like a loaded crossbow or a bow go first in a round. Hurled weapons and slings go on the standard position. Short weapons like daggers and saps are interrupted by normal sized weapons like a mace. I use 10 second rounds so movement or action are the options. As I run mostly 1 on 1 games I don't wipe out spells for an interrupted spell, but it does give incentive to keep a staff or wand around as they are like pulling a trigger and work in early parts of the procedure. I dont' have all of it in front of me, but you can get the idea I am sure. I also don't want, as the DM of a single character and a couple henchmen, want to roll for every single kobold, so I group them up into mobs. A drag arse combat is a downer, so I will have enemies disengage toss down their caltrops or treasure and flee when it is appropriate. Not everything has to be a moral check, as I believe you mentioned.

wow. Thanks for this Daniel. I guess since I've been running the same 2E campaign now for 30 years you'd probably say I'm 'OSR' and so, a lot of what you describe here just seems second nature to me but, the way you explain it and organize it is fantastic. I've analyzed 5E to the end and back and can easily see how combat could get boring.

I could say that your procedural combat would be great in a pbta context, and definitely i wanna hear more but I'll implement it for sure

Group initiative, for monsters, individual players, press every round - weapon speed should matter, greatly enhances the wizards and Rogues

I hope you can make the video on procedural combat. I listened to your description twice and I don't see how it will be faster than using initiative. Even if they decide melee or spell ahead of time, they would still have to target, roll dice, and resolve.

Oh and the resource question for 5e is a fair one. I particularly make goodberry consume its material component, then have them search for said material component if they want it. I think its a sprig of mistletoe.... But if you tell your players that it works this way, and that resource consumption is important; they will act accordingly. The specific ruling I've used is that to have a long rest they must eat and drink something, while to have a short rest they must either eat or drink something. I don't make that something specific, or a specific amount, and I only implement these things if after I bring it up the players at my table think its cool. Sometimes they do, other times they don't. When they do, just scavenging for food has been fun for my players especially when they go out of the way to describe how they cook it or how their character eats it.

Hey, Daniel! Great video, excellent points on length of combat, etc. I feel like this is starting to get closer to your podcast topic of your ongoing hack of Chainmail. You tend to make reference to many things in how your table runs. Is there one of your Actual Play posts that you feel is a good example of this stuff? I'd maybe go so fast as to recommend posting one of them to your podcast feed as well..

Another great gaming philosophy video! Nice!

I'm attacking 🤔 But seriously, I only run seriously strategic combat when a "certain player" isn't there because I know he hates it haha, which is fine, good old hack and slash session Boring is subjective to each player You make excellent points as always Daniel :)

Me just wanting to know what that background picture is from !

Thanks a lot Daniel for the great video! I have to admit, as a rpg newbie who has only played D&D 5e, I'm having trouble understanding exactly how procedural combat plays out. Is it the GM who at each round determines who goes when, depending on the actions people declare? That's how I understood it from the video at least. An example would be amazing.

Combat encounters as they should be! Daniel a toast to another great video!!! You reminded me what it is that I have been missing. Time to tell them to not look at their character sheet and just tell me what they are doing.

something I've started doing with combats that are meaningless are weaving some sort of narrative into it that could make it not even a combat. a simple recent example was the party running into a bear as a random encounter that would've been a push over. so instead I had them run into a hunter (who was from the town they're going to) pursuing a bear which turned into an argument and a social encounter and the bear smacking someone and running off which was much more interesting than melting down a bear in half a turn

A thing I’ve been playing with is reverse procedural combat. So, lowest initiative describes their move fist, highest goes last. This rewards players that roll high with more information. Another thing, which has been getting mixed responses, is to allow players to change their action in response to what happens during a particular resolution, but it has to be made immediately after that resolution.

Please, talk about procedure combat. Great video btw...

I would also add that you should make sure to dress the room a bit. You don't need anything super elaborate for every combat, but even just putting in some furniture or whatever else can go a long way, especially for fighters. I've found there's nothing more boring than combat in an otherwise empty room, playing a character who's only real options are to make normal weapon attacks every round, especially in systems where spell casters are able to cast spells basically every round. Being able to incorporate things in the room into attacks really helps to create those exciting cinematic moments that make the fight interesting. Throw people through tables! Hit people with chairs! Push people down the stairs! Set barrels on fire! Shove people into fire pits! Swing from chandeliers! You get the idea. (Also, as a DM I would make doing things like that be at least as useful as just making a weapon attack, regardless of the rules. A lot of systems, such as 5e, make it so it's almost never worthwhile to make more interesting attacks, since they typically do little to no damage and most effects, such as prone, rarely hinder enemies in any meaningful way.)

Maybe I'm missing something but procedural combat sounds like it's more of a headache to try and keep everyone's actions straight rather than standard initiative. Also I found it funny that in almost every example of making combat faster involves spellcasters skipping their turn or not having a turn before all the enemies are defeated. :) Otherwise solid advice (outside of procedural combat - I don't see the point or how it's going to speed things up).

On quick for D&D Type Games - Take the Stunt Die from Flying Swordsmen and add it to your game

excellent thank you

source of the thumbnail?

Well said.

Ok, I will bite.

What is that art?

I’ve been toying with the idea of having combat resolve simultaneously. So I just ask the players what they do. They tell me as a group and I say everyone roll, and I roll for all the bad guys.

Wizards, nice

I don’t know what “procedural combat” in D&D is, but if it’s what you describe where everyone moves, then everyone shoots, then melee, then that doesn’t work for my games. When I design combat encounters, I try to keep them exciting by making positioning matter and trying to include elements that give players a reason to do something other than attack. Players in my games often have to move, perform an action, and then move again. Sometimes the backline needs the melee fighters to knock down the barricades that the goblins were taking cover behind first before they can unleash their spells and arrows. I understand that combat is not for everyone, but I feel that they should probably find another RPG system. D&D is inherently very combat centric with 90% of the rules being combat related and the non-combat stuff not being that great.

How to make combat more exciting, mention every character every turn. Fighter says or does what they want, then narrate it, and mention most if not every character in the description.... repeat on the next players turn. My players say it feels like an action movie. This is why, I believe.

Dont lose the vibrancy of thechannel.as.so many RU-vidrs do once they go down the Patreon path. Instead of the enthusiasm that attracted viewers to them, they start to lose focus on the love of the game and think instead about ways to grow their channel. Just dont change that!

Great video! Slogging through a 45 minute battle with goblins can be grueling. Having a 4 hour battle with Vecna can be exciting the whole time.

I have heard 3-5 rounds of combat is the sweet spot, especially in OSR games, and I think there is a lot of truth to that.

Mindset and purpose as meta game elements reminds me that metagaming seems to be misunderstood and unfairly suppressed imo. The meta elements are where players understand the game, form expectations and develop strategies for play. By contrast an emphasis on roleplaying "in character" often feels a lot more like improvisational theater than playing a "game".

I love this! And it makes me feel validated in my own technique. Why the combat happens is a big deal to me, and I advocate for my players to be sure that they want to engage the supposed enemy. If there is no reason for the players to engage I'd rather simply gloss over it. I've had npcs bandits try to bribe the adventurers to leave them alone(which works way more than it should) or I've told them that they catch some creatures hiding from them or trying too. I've never considered directly asking them how do they win in moments when they would clearly win, and I'm going to now. But I focus and want my players to focus on the objective. If the point isn't to kill orcs we don't need to do so if orcs show up. And what the NPCs are up to upon the players approach is important to me, one of my favorite is the Obvious Trap; a group of creatures have trapped a place specifically to get NPCs that aren't cool enough to simply notice the troggs and their log trap. They then try to solve getting past these troggs as a puzzle instead of a simple combat. I learned in 4th edition that players are destined to ruin any setpiece anything; the events of the game gotta be able to ebb and flow to their actions or whims. I'm also fond of directly warning a player when their actions would make a npc want to attack them, which either changes their direct actions or makes them launch their attack first. And ultimately the more information the players have the smarter, and more interesting decisions they will make in both the social aspects of the game, and the combative ones.

I actually prefer procedural combat, but it certainly stomps on a ton of character builds. I think it would work, but you would need a group that doesn't mind a ton of homebrew. I think one of the big factors in fights taking longer is both sides have huge numbers of hit points to chew through. Great vid.

Just found the channel for the first time with this video and I already love this take on combat. Don't think I've heard one like it. Please do the combat example you were mentioning, I'll take all the opportunities to learn that I can get!

100% agree on procedural combat and group initiative every round. The summary at end of every round is intermittently used.

I would love a video on combat procedure. These videos have been really great helping me hone my DM skills.

I want an example of a procedural combat! 😀

Do a procedurally generated video as soon as possible please. I'm very intrigued by this system, its my first time hearing of it and I would like to know more.

I use the opposite of your "narrate it" technique. I tell the players that they come across some orcs and then tell them how the orcs successfully slaughter and disembowel them.

A fight is exciting until it's clearly decided who will win, not until all enemy are dead. Movies teach us wrong things. Many underlings in reality won't be loyal to a shitty boss until death like in John Wick. Russian soldiers are currently deserting or running for their lives or fight forced by their own officers. So when 30 street ruffians surround 4 awesome heroes, who take out 10 with ease, the rest will run. And why die for Lord Evil, who is in the habit of killing underlings for mistakes? Some heroes entering the scene is the right moment for desertion and leave the heroes to have their boss fight. Even monsters might be mothers with a kid somewhere. If the heroes clearly aren't snack, then run. Large scale medieval battles show the same pattern: one fights the battle as long as there is believe one can win. If that is lost, run to fight another day.

Great suggestions, Bandit! I love the 'narrative mass combat' idea! 5th Ed. combat boredxne to tears simply because it's nigh-impossible for Pcs to die, This sounds great at first-who wants their character to die? But in practice it drains all he tension out of a combat encounter. No tension, no excitement no danger, to the point I was dreading combat because it felt so hollow. If you enjoy 5th Ed. more power to you but it's definitely not my cup of tea.

Spontaneous Owlbears will spice things up.

Implement morale rules. One orc left against a killer party will not pass morale. The game you play has the rules for procedural combat explained and if they don't then use a different rule set. There are many D&D clones that treat combat sensibly. Practice the combat sequence enough and understand the instances that slow combat down - an example is tied initiative. This will create any number of game instances that usually require the DM to decide what happens. In my opinion it is better to just have a home rule 'Re-roll ties'.

How to make combat interesting and NOT a boring chore: 1) Narrate Narrate Narrate!! 2) be loose on the rules. 3) don't make every enemy a boss-like Warrior. Narration : Combat MUST be cinematic. I mean we all love action combat scenes and that's what makes us be in a great fighting game. If your fighting scene is like "roll your dice. OK you hit for x-dice damage or you miss, take x-dice wounds" or something the players feels like they are doing math. But if you say "tell me what you want to do and roll dice." Then depending on success or failure narrate what happened. "You swing your battle axe while running towards the orc warrior. He tries to give you a powerful hit with his hammer but with a swift move you avoid the blow. Dirt and stones are shattered around while the hammer hits the ground. And with a fast slash you cut the Orc's body from shoulder to belly. Thick blood and guts are spread all over while the Orc falls to the ground biting the dust for the last time." Loose rules: Don't make every fight a war simulation. Sometimes strict rules can be tiresome and bothering. Who cares if you're 10 meters away or 15? Make a combat zone of 3 areas. Far, Close, Face to face. In a far distance spell and missile users can act first maybe twice. In close they can act once. And in face to face fighting is melee and simultaneous. Don't count seconds and turns by the "clock" but by your logic and loosely. Hard or easy fights: Depending on the enemy make fights ending in a few turns. You fight inferior enemies. Kill in one hit. Don't count hit points. You fight superior enemies. Give the fight about 3-5 turns. Or less. If the enemy is too hard the player should act accordingly and not try to beat the odds by a lucky dice roll. But give the players a chance of a way out to a difficult situation even at their "last moment before death". But don't be loose on the consequences.

This is great advice, especially about setting player expectations for each session, so they know what they're in for that evening. Telegraphing combats sounds reasonable, realistic. I dm for only 3 players, so I do individual initiative, everyone rolling d6 and adding Dex bonus. Whoever rolls lower than the bad guys goes after them, everyone else before them in order. It really keeps it exciting. We enjoy the idea that even missile fire might take a while to "get a bead" on moving targets in a skirmish -- no one is just standing around waiting for their turn "to hit."

Yes! Side based initiative every round makes D&D combat sooooooo much better and faster. You also cut out everybody hemming and hawing when it gets to their turn. Every turn. That is soooo sloooow.

If every single DnD channel makes a video on fixing boring combat! Then the problem is DnD. Play better RPG. Or throw away your rule book.

How to fix boring combat ? Simple. Reduce hitpoints. Make combat DANGEROUS.

I have run a BX game for nearly 3 years now and I have also found the morale works against the flow of the game and the rotation of misses can be an issue

dan the man back at it again

Would love to see an in game example of procedural combat.

Bit of a long story, but you might find it interesting. One night, I was leaving a D&D session and I pulled up RU-vid so I could listen to a video on the way home (I do this a lot.) Combat was stale in part of this 5e session and it had my mind wandering. A bit bored, I started thinking up an RPG that uses cartoon physics more than real world ones. Anyway, I pull up RU-vid and see the thumbnail for this video. The small character proportions and sword and sorcery/sci-fi vibes of the art really spoke to me and the video seemed to be exactly what I needed, something about fixing D&D combat. During that trip home, listening to this video and thinking about the art, I came up with my own RPG concept. It's a cartoony, light-hearted adventuring game set in a science fantasy world with a lot of inspiration from 80s and 90s anime & jrpgs that were in turn inspired by old-school D&D. It's called Chibi Space Paladins and I've been working on it for about a year now in my spare time. It's not really an OSR game, but I took a lot principles I enjoy from those games and videos like yours have informed the design. I just saw this pop up on my RU-vid home page again and realized it was this entire video that started me down the path of making my own TTRPG, so I just wanted to say thank you! You also got me to explore BX D&D with my friends and I've been running some OSR games for us with some of B/X's procedural gameplay and some of your advice slotted in. So thank you again for making these videos, Daniel!

Some ideas I've toyed with involve things cribbed from video games, like: All-Out Attack (Persona series) - If every enemy is incapacitated, the party can skip rolling for initiative and roll for damage all at once. The rolls are added up, averaged out by the number of enemies, and dealt as Force damage to all enemies. Chain Attack Multiplier (Xenoblade Chronicles) - A d6 is placed on the table, with 1 facing up. Each time a PC lands a hit, the d6 is switched up one number, and the next successful attack by a PC has its damage multiplied by that number, up to 6, whereas a miss "resets" the d6.

Please do a video on procedural combat!! ❤

On Tuesday night my players spent 3 hours fighting a dracoiich head to head. By the end of it they were almost dead, the shield guardian was crushed, their hoverskiff was wrecked, the tank's power armor (ala barrier peaks) was trashed and they killed it...not really killed, but defeated. The battle felt good. Everyone walked away feeling like they did something. I gave them level 12. Good times.

Have you done a video all about "procedural combat" ? Especially for how you did it for your 5E gaming. I liked what you had to say - but not enough time spent on how you adjudicate this. Would love to hear more - since I too think individual initiative takes too long.

Iv found that if i make my combat encounters important to the narritive or theres an objective to it, like saving or protecting the hostages or retreating from an ambush that you have no way of winning gets my players more invested and talking with echother to plan moves and strategies. Just last weekend i had all 8 of them exploring a mad scientist lair and they stumbled into his trap of 40 mutated humans that were no stronger then normal towns folk but because the lab was already set to flood once the support pillars fell in a few minutes it made the whole experience adrenaline pumping for everyone. Me included

Combat for the Tunnels & Trolls system is really abstract and only becomes granular if the players want to do something creative. Very simply, the players all roll their dice for damage and the GM rolls for the monster's damage. Each subtracts their result from the other's hit points. At this point, each side rolls fewer and fewer dice (depending on how much HP they have remaining) until one is eliminated or flees. I ran a T&T game with a bunch of AD&D veterans and they were gobsmacked by how fast and simple it was. They had options if they wanted to use them but they were also glad to be able to run 5 fights AND explore the dungeon to its end in a single session.

Something to think about: RAW procedural combat raises the value of saves, AC, CON, and better HD, since they work whether or not your side won initiative. It also makes the two-handed weapon penalty occasionally a tactical benefit, since by "losing" initiative you will melee after the enemies take most of their actions. These things are intentional components of class balance, especially for fighters; and they reflect the design-as-written of the thief and magic user: using their superior movement to move behind their martial allies.

Combat challenges used in the same way as Skill challenges from 4e. If the combat encounter is more trivial then don’t play it out round by round until bags of HP have been reduced to 0hp, play it as a skill challenge, monsters are just obstacles between the player and what they want/need to do, to move the story forward, so it works much like death saves from 5e, players have to roll a number of successes (usually the number of players in the party) before they accrue a number of failures (usually 3), they can use any skill including attack rolls, but each player can only use a specific skill once, other players may use the same skill. It engages the whole party, everyone gets to contribute something to overcome the encounter, they have to think creatively instead of just attacks, there’s a timescale to the encounter, there are stakes to the combat, as well as rewards for completing the challenge. Throw x20 raiding goblins at the party of characters, if they get 3 successes first, then the goblins scatter, retreat and regroup, if they accrue 3 failures first then the party is overrun and captured or the goblins raid some loot off them and then scatter along with their loot. If the encounter involves a boss or an important NPC then they arrive at 3 failures, roll initiative and switch to round by round. How many minions can they dispatch before the boss gets involved, easily judged by their number of successes. How many dark crystals can they destroy before the cultist concludes his summoning ritual? Combat doesn’t have to be a slog to the death.

DM, " Party of orcs and PC surprise each other at a tunnel cross junction, roll for initiative actions." My rogue gains highest initiative so I kneel and throw out dice and gambling trade goods. Remember most patrol guards are bored and pass the time by playing dice. DM, " Roll body language charisma check to see if any of the patrol guards follow you lead." Chaotics are less likely to have strict patrols and shirk their duties to play dice. Orcs and drow may very well shoot dice, hobgoblins may do belly to the ground to arm wrestle as strength challenge as a precursor to diplomacy checks. It is easier to talk/trade your way into a camp to scout the numbers then hack & slash murder hobo your way, depending on the DM. You could just kill off a drow outpost patrol or trade your way into drow political intrigue for better magic items and a greater story.

Having done a long yrs long campaign in Pathfinder/ Starfinder I am no stranger to slog combats, the amount of options in that game make combat boring and uninspired. the rpg REIGN had combat where every states their action first which i thought was an awesome idea, but I dont like everyone going at the same time, seems to me you would just crush everything all the time that way. Id do it so you state your action at the beginning, but if you want to change it on your turn you go to the end of the round, or like +10 initiative or something.

I've been running OSE for like 8 months and you just made me realize why procedural combat fits so well. I didn't realize how slick it can be. I would love a video with more detail!

My take: One approach doesnt fit all situations. Individual initiative is likely better for set piece battles. Procedural is better for resource drain battles. Free narration is better for "flavor combat". Unfortunately I have yet to see a system actually embracing such a tiering by providing a system suitable for all 3. For instance 5ed bonus action and reaction systems are designed for individual initiative in a way that can make it awkward to run a purist procedural combat with certain characters that is buildt around these systems.

Epic

This seems very similar to segments. I had a thought to roll initiative when it mattered with the participants for each melee separate. The ranger shooting his bow doesn’t roll initiative for the melee he’s not in. I kinda don’t like that people don’t just move at the same time in some systems. Enemies win initiative and can close distance and hit you before you get a chance to react. Players should have the ability to engage or avoid and it helps add another level of decision. Just a trap where you run enemies into an ambush is difficult in modern games.

I learned combat phases from Rolemaster. Is procedural the same thing?

As a martial pugilist, procedural combat feels real. I know how long it takes my foe to take certain actions. I see when I can act first, interrupt or when he’s got me on speed so I need power and accuracy. Even “the ol one two” is a procedural action in combat

I still use individual initiative because an app I use makes it very easy to set up quickly. If I ever had to stop using that app I'm abandoning it for group initiative lol

So, to sum up this video - “it’s not about the length but what you can do with it” - ha! Couldn’t resist that. Thanks for the interesting video.

For most encounters, you can tell in 3 rounds mathematically if the party is going to wipe the monsters. If they are then just wrap it up and move on.

Please make the video with procedural combat!

Do you use any modifiers for side v side initiative? It seems like it's just roll d6 without any Dex modifier.

Great video! Btw what is this thumbnail art from? Very cool

In my system of choice (GURPS), the way that players are kept engaged outside their own turns is that they have opportunities for reactive action (when attacked by something avoidable like a typical weapon, PCs get what's effectively a Reflex Save in D&D terms to avoid taking damage). Technically opening the game up for "more rolling" does make combat take longer, but also makes it more interactive. If your character doesn't have a good opportunity to attack, you can spend your turn All-Out Defending, which gives a bonus to those rolls for dodging, blocking, and parrying - thus a turn of not doing something proactive like an attack or a spell is still not "wasted", which in turn makes players less afraid to do it (it's more helpful on more fragile characters, too). Further, there's the option of risk and reward to actively forego your dodges and blocks between now and your next turn, extending yourself in an All-Out Attack for bonus damage or bonus hit chance.

Dude this thumbnail.. I laughed.

Funny I see wondering monsters as an equal part “resource on the horse”

Please do a video about combat procedure

Yeah, so we need the combat video please!

Love the use of the old Wizards movie art for the thumbnail!

wow, so practical! great vid

Great stuff as always, Daniel.

I would like to see this played out in 5e.

Just a lesson from someone who has basically been forced to be DM for 17 years on how to make your players like you just a little bit more. An exerpt from an old session: Player: "I swing......I believe 24 is a hit with 12 damage." ME: "OKay.......now.....how do you kill him?" *grins* Player: *Gasps at the opportunity to sound cool.* "Okay uh....I like....I grab the bandit by his collar and thrust my blade up through his jaw and blood sprays from the top of his head upon the exit wound!" Me: "Excellent, he is slain. You are victorious, Helm is pleased with the protection of your allies." Player: *Stands* "Yes! Take that!" So, boys and girls. Stop spouting off numbers and action types. Tell the story. THe Story must never stop.

Your channel is hands down the best osr channel, so many gems you share freely!!!

What is the book about low level monsters killing everyone?

where did you get the picture on the thumbnail?

Play a game with concrete wounds. Boring combat is never gonna happen.

Thanks Daniel! I love all of your videos and watch, mining for little rid bits to enhance my player’s experience at our table and I always find something. I’m going to bring up the “narrative minor combat” idea and see what they think. Now I’m switching to one of your actual plays to watch the combat scenes. Thanks! 💫

Great points Daniel! It reminds me of boxing; when the punches flow there's excitement. Keep the momentum of the players attacks flowing fast around the table! I would add create doubt when players are losing hit points, fear when they are dying, and thrills when they show prowess! All by using a few simple descriptors. This engages players and informs them of their resource status: -"The Troll rips your arm wide open!" -"You begin shaking uncontrollably as the Orc plunges his dagger in your flesh!" -"The fighter dashes forward like a steeled panther and slashes his sword!"

Really helpful ty. Let’s keep it fun! Sometimes the big set piece, sometimes the quick and simple, sometimes narrative. Telegraph to the players so their expectations are in line. Summarise at the end of each round of combat. Use morale (and I loved the earlier video) but also recognise that intelligent monsters will just run if the battle starts going against them. I would find a video on procedural combat helpful. Ty Daniel and look forward to details on Patreon etc