Running Exciting D&D / TTRPG Combat (from someone who hates combat) 

To those who get to play RP focused TTRPGs all the time: you lucky beautiful thing. To all the other drama lovers, I hope this helps! Big thank you to Skyler @theADHDM for his help, the Corkboard appreciates your sacrifice. (And yeah, it took me way too many takes to figure out how to pronounce quantitative, and I’ve still no idea if I got it right).

There is a phrase, I don't remember by whom, related to musical theatre. Songs should come in when the characters' emotions are too intense for talking, and dancing comes when the emotions are too intense for singing. I believe that the same is true for combat in RPGs: they should come from the characters' emotional energy, not an interruption of their story but a significant part of it.

"After all, Agnes is a sensible person, she really enjoys not being dead," Is maybe one of my favorite quotes of all time now.

The algorithm has blessed me with a great new DM to watch!

as a GM who loves both the combat and roleplaying parts of ttrpgs but hates how separated they usually are, this video is incredibly useful! also, this is the first video of yours I've seen and your presentation, writing, editing, and everything is so cool and good. instant subscribe

Well done and solid advice for adding drama to combat. A lot of combat videos try to add player incentive through mechanics or a bigger payoff after the battle, as if it were a stepping stone to the game's story rather than a way to inject story into the game. This is one of the few videos I've seen that blends the potential for plot development into combat almost seamlessly.

I have always played combat with story bits in mind! My Paladin, who has grown up all their life believing her only usefulness is through enemy slaying is slowly finding out why her patron never spoke directly with her before. And as her group faces 3 hags to save a childhood friend, for the first time since forever she chooses to protect her friend instead of giving chace, trusting her allies to keep the hags off as she uses her strength to break the chains. She even casts "Protect from Good and Evil" on said NPC when it becomes clear she needs to get back out there as soon as possible. Very relevant to point that she's been downed in almost every encounter with a boss too, and left her companions to bail her out of it. She was considering to train harder, a bigger sword, to get stronger... all the wrong lessons she could take from her own shortcomings. It wasnt until the desire to protect was stronger than her fear of "not being enough" that she hears her patron: "You are worthy". Sanctuary is casted to get them out of there. She's stopped being the sword and is slowly learning to be the sword AND shield. A Paladin.

On top of the content being excellent, this video is SO well made! Well done!

Interesting point. I always try to make my games as character-centric as possible, and most times it leads to really dramatic scenes due to players put a lot of their own personalities into character. But I never before thought that combat may be the perfect place to push those triggers! Thank you for this deadly weapon!

I love the dedication and exquisiteness you pour in each video. As for this one, I can deeply relate: I am fond of combats, but they are like food (it's very easy for it to end up completely dry and tasteless). Marinating any game mechanic in good amounts of storytelling, conflict and meaning will hook both players and narrators for a scrumptious meal that won't be forgotten too soon! ❤

this video is my fist introduction to your channel, and aside from this useful guide for us fellow drama lovers, i absolutely have to say that the visual style of your videos is amazing ✨ thank you for your work, subscribed for more!

This is an amazing video! The editing, the pacing, the quality of the information, the vibes, it’s a miniature masterpiece! I hope more people get to see this!

I stumbled upon your channel by accident and was quickly taken in by your presentation and the richness of your advice. There have been many videos about improving rpg combat, but yours ramps up the action by ramping up the drama of the story. I found this to be quite amazing! I’m not quite sure how I will be able to implement it comfortably, I guess I will just try to do it and keep at it. My one criticism is that I have already made my way through your other videos. Hurry up! lol seriously though, well done!

Such wonderfully advice. I can't wait to try and nestle this in my games

Man this is some fantastic advice! I love your examples too because when my brain here’s goals, it immediately jumps to big things, and your examples are simple and grounded.

Very well done, and I'd love to see more new DM's take advice like this to make their combats feel more impactful to both their characters and the narrative being built at the table. Love the channel!

Great video! I enjoyed the quality of the information, the clarity of delivery, the mood/vibes, and how much the editing synergized with your message. Thank you for this-I shall listen several more times for inspiration. Subbed!

Very solid advice and clear presentation. Your examples also helped me to wrap my head around some of the concepts. Like, I've always undertood all of that intuitively but you have voiced it in a way that I couldn't. Gonna try and use some of these consciously in my next game. Keep up the good work. Subscribed

I love this approach so very much. Your video gave me quite some interesting ideas for my tables, although it will give me headaches having all of this in my head at the quick recall within moments while juggling numbers and the fight. Thank you

I've been a ttrpg player for many years and only recently gotten into DM'ing. I love making horde encounters but adding subplots to the battle or just giving a narrative reason to why a player missed an attack has really gotten me excited. Thank you!

I just discovered your channel and this is just the advice I needed for my first campaign as GM. Thank you. I'm going to follow your channel right away.

Earned yourself a new sub with this editing, truly terrific! Can't wait to see more

Oh my goodness! This video was so succinct and absolutely enthralling, I feel like this helped me reflect on how I run battles. Thank you!

Just discovered your channel and love your style. I've always though of TTRPG's as cooperative storytelling and not just the video-game style of numbers and fighting. Keep up the great work, I've subscribed and look forward to more!

Thank you for codifying so many of the things I’ve been feeling about how I run combat! Haven’t really been able to articulate it until now but the lack of story cohesion with compelling combat is something I think I can better address because of this video!

I can only really think of Combats as a conflict, and none of this Drama bits. I envy you drama people.

Hello! I just wanted to say your content is just what I needed for motivation for my own games. I'm a GM and I struggle with making non combat encounters. I found your channel and you are outright amazing in the way you explain your methods and creative ideas. Thank you so much for sharing your craft and ideas :)

This is excellent! I very rarely watch short rpg content, but you had me subscribing in three minutes. On a par with a lot of the best written blogs.

Great content, love the vibe of this channel. I always wanted to run a game or play in a more Noir style and your channel fills exactly this niche! Great advice! Love it! :D

This is great advice! I have a few players that are really interested in combat, but I and the others are more interested in RP and story. This technique should help bridge the gap 🙂

Really cool! I have compiled lots of info for combat to make a guide for myself, I didnt put a lot of emphasis on this, now I have, I feel like its the most important thing and I didnt notice until now. Thanks

This single video of excellent content and your lovely accent have made my day after a very very long shift at work. Thanks for cheering me up and inspiring me. Instant sub.

I must say, this is quite good. Very good job, and great ideas. This has been missing in my games. I will attempt to integrate and learn from you, thank you.

Thanks for this video! You really gave me a lot of ideas to make combat way more interesting

I don’t think my players will remember any combat from my campaign more than the one where one of character’s mentors and father died in a related fight. And THEY WERE BOTH REVIVED!

I love this! I love your voice, love your presentation, love your accent (from my perspective), and these amazing tips

I'm impressed. You've worded it far better than I could. Bravo. Sharing this to my protégé.

This is absolutely wonderful and helpful. Thank you ❤

Just discovered your channel, thanks for the inspiration. This is just what I needed to help advance my RP. Subscribed!

Great content and you have an amazing voice to listen to! You have gained a subscriber! :)

I love this! The best fights are always the ones that move the plot forward! Ended up taking session 0s really seriously so I could get into the mind of each character to make the fights really matter to them. Had a pirate-con artist-Sisyphus type who was constantly terrified because an irate God had shut the door on his ability to come back from the dead so had a sort of ghost rider/wolf from puss in boots type unstoppable bounty hunter always tracking him. Made the fights really high stakes

This is both well put and super comprehensive. I'm saving this video to watch later.

Great video! I love the way you laid this out, I feel like I've had this problem a lot lately. My combat & roleplay have almost felt like two separate games. I hadn't seen any of your stuff before, but consider me a new subscriber!

Just wanted to say I really appreciate the softer lighting in your video , and your humour too .

What great quality stuff - I really enjoyed that video and it gave me loads to think about.

I just discovered this channel, and you're already one of my favorite DnD youtubers to listen to. Your content is so well presented, and interesting, and your voice is very nice to listen to. I don't usually leave comments, but we need to help the algorithm show you to new people.

YT algorithm really did some good work here! Found you today and watched all your videos. You're a really really creative person and surely a great GM! Thank you for great tips, stories and a spark of creativity

Great stuff as always! Keep em coming!

40 seconds and it’s already the Frenchest TTRPG video I’ve ever seen. 😂💖

Love this video! Thank you for the inspiration!

A lovely video. Thank you. I now have an idea for an extra element to add to an upcoming fight for my players in a mine.

The depth of content and introspection in these videos are on the same level as Dungeon Masterpiece (Baron Du Ropp). It takes me a few watches to internalize and apply it on my table. Thank you for making these videos!

Good video as usual val, hope the YT algorithm actually does its work and more people get to see it

Secondary Goals are IT for me. Not the only tip for combat, but those secondary goals are wonderful. They make the "reason for combat" necessary. Your bit about adding stoey beats and keeping the timing of the changing circumstances in mind really changed my thinking. Thanks for this. Earned a sub from me for that. Gotta think of this the next time I plan and run the game.

This was genuinely fantastic! If it didn't cure my long-running GM burnout, it's helped me make a huge step back towards running games again!

Love the video. We can all get stuck in a rut where combat has little to no meaning. This makes it so much more interesting. Hope you make a lot more of these!

I realized this when I started playing Fate*. Playing fiction-first systems in general opened my eyes to these details that make the scenes more meaningful to the progression of the plot. Today I incorporate much of what I learned from these systems into all of my campaigns. *note: I recommend it to anyone who is willing to break paradigms and venture into new systems, Fate gave me a lot of cool ideas that can be applied to any rpg.

Fantastic video! Informative and pleasant to listen/watch. Thanks!

I love "ominous af crystal" and will try and introduce one into my campaign when I run it next year, thank you! Oh, and all of your other fantastic approaches. Thank you.

Thanks! A lot of nice ideas and advices included into these 9 minutes

Simply the best video about RPG combat I have seen. Everything, to the letter, resonates with what I preach. I used to want to love combat but always hated it, until I focused on the things you mentionned and used a minimalist system that did not restrict storytelling. Great work (and great voice). +1 sub.

"When you add more variety to the possible ramifications of a fight, then you refresh the story with each combat scene. Each time opening up new story paths..." Brilliant. Love it. Subscribed.

I love the editing on these videos. Great work. More people need to find her :)

This was fun! Thanks, and sharing with my D&D friends right now!

Holy crap that was good! 2nd video I’ve seen from you, absolutely subscribing!

Damn this is EXACTLY what I needed for years! Thanks for bringing that up in a condensed form. Because we record our sessions for a podcast I also try to get away from roll heavy rules based combat (and the players also are way more interested in RP

Really great ideas to add story to any combat. Thank you for the video

This is such good advice and such a high quality video! Commenting so more ppl see it :) Also, to anyone whose interested, I believe the narrative dice in the Genysis rpg by fantasy flight games work very well with this sort of play.

This is stupid-good inspiration 😍 Thank you so much for making this video!

Super instructive!! Thank you. I always keep in mind why there is a conflict and how far are the protagonists ready to go. Even monsters do not want you to die. So how about humans. You always need to keep this in mind. Keep these kind of videos. They are great.

Another great video. Especially in long term games it can get too easy to slip into a pattern with combat. It’s very important to try and keep things interesting, and make sure combat still feels like it has meaning. I’ve been Gming for 20 years, and I’m proud to say I’m still learning. Thanks for the good advice 😁

Hi and thanks for this video! I am in the same case as you are: I'm not into combat oriented games, more narrative ones but that's not the case for some of my players. So I need to add some in my games. The advices you give in this video are very valuable and quite inspiring. Thanks again! 😀

Such insightful words. Thanks for sharing. Very well presented. Keep it up

I think this is what I needed to hear going into my Feywild chapter! Trying to find a way to integrate one of my player’s backstory without boring the rest of the table is my issue right now and I think this is how I’ll do it! ❤️

This is a really wonderful and useful video! Cheers!

This is so cool! Thanks for the cool ideas!

New sub. That was the most thought provoking piece of D&D content I've seen in a while.

First time viewer. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don't dislike combat, but I try to balance combat with other sorts of scenarios and moments. I think I may use this sort of advice for lashing these concepts together, where plausible.

Inspiring & intriguing. Thank You!

Great video, Val.

Thank you so much for sharing this! I really needed this insight. As both a DM and player, I don't dislike combat, but I do find it to be something to get out of the way, sometimes, and I find it draining to run. But your thoughts here are going to really help me infuse my combat with meaning. I think DMsLair had a video where he talked about players who decry combat because they "prefer the roleplay", and his issue with that statement was that the entire game IS roleplay, including combat, because you're making decisions as your character, even in combat. But I've still struggled to FEEL like I'm role-playing in combat. But you have really provided a valuable contribution here, that speaks volumes to HOW to achieve that feeling! Truly great stuff here! ❤

I really needed a video like this! I love combat but I'm running a campaign for a group of players who really don't care for it, so this is super helpful for me. Thanks!

This is really great advice. I have sort of been doing this already, but I like how this video creates a method for it. The conflict framework was really useful. Though, I knew it in general the aspect that the characters come changed after it was new and exciting one. It makes sense, but I just hadn't put it to words yet. I like structure in my storytelling and that helps the most when you have to improvise stuff up (which is most of the time for me :D). Recently I have experimented with other systems besides DnD. Thirsty Sword Lesbians (and the PbtA engine) made me realize how combat can be exciting and how you can add stakes with each roll into an everturning tide where the players get some but the baddies almost always get something in return. I think it opened me to switch things up on the fly a lot more since the system encourages it through mixed beats (good stuff with a consequence) and down beats (bad stuff happens). It encourages you to add stakes to each situation with each roll. Of course they can be smaller or greater, but it encourages you to think of each encounter (social, combat, intrigue, etc.) as having stakes. I think the advice of tying the story to the PCs stories is the most crucial one. The players have to care about the stakes and the best way to ensure that is to have personal stakes. Sure, the end of the world is bad, but what if you are merged with the BBEG, also in love with them and the PCs you are fighting are your friends. Would you still want to destroy them to save the world? (This happened in my last Thirsty Sword Lesbians game.) Awesome video. Really got my creative juices flowing~! 😄✨

Great video, thank you so much!

This is an excellent video. I find myself in a similar situation as a GM who loves drama more than the combat itself. TTRPGs combat tends to move quite slow and without the drama there's not much real tension from turn to turn. I will be revisiting this video for advice a lot I'm sure.

This is the stuff I live for, awesome video! Gets me excited for my next session!

Another excellent video with excellent advice and I love that this video has advice that can be applied to all sectors of DND and not just combat!

Spectacular! Thank you for that!

I wish you were my DM. Your perspective on combat and role play is fantastic and very literary. I am surrounded by Theatre students and grads that would love your spin on story telling through combat. Thank you for sharing this.

You are not just a game master, you are an artist. i look forward to more.

I recommend giving Burning Wheel a read. When you engage in a conflict, you decide what is at stake for both sides, and the characters have Beliefs which are challenged by conflict. It's a system built to do a lot of what this very good video describes, and it helped me learn to be a better GM and create better conflicts in games other than Burning Wheel as well.

Love the change in tone to walk us through an example. Reminds me of Seth Skorkowsky's work.

I love Chronicles of Darkness in this regard, all combat, all chases and investigations require someone pointing out their intent to get something done or if the intent is actual removal of an individual/group. Each player states their intent and you get a meta discussion before jumping back into the game to resolve the various points of intent.

Great tips! Thanks a bunch, going to use the story beats in a fight. An easy way to add in some more information to fights

I’ve only been DMing for about a year and a half. I think this video is probably one of the best lessons I’ve been needing to hear - I’ve been struggling to keep my player characters invested in the quest as they journey across the wastelands. As players and DM we’ve had fun random encounters, but I’m realizing I need to add more story ramifications into these encounters!!

Watson is far from dumb, he's an experienced doctor and knew that being a sounding board for Sherlock's erratic genius was where he was most effective.

Amazing advice once again. I love using subgoals and actually having the option to do something else besides combat. In my groups there is allmost always soneone whose character is not made for combat. So having a subgoal is essential. I also love to put a timer on the combat so that the players might not continue fighting, because it feels like there is no time and a more creative solution needs to be there (so that they can later on beat or befriend the opponent)

Straight up solid advice all the way around. Some people just want to win at combat, but even those can often be sucked into the right story. Nothing sidetracks murder hobos like the sudden realization that they have been outplayed, and are working toward the wrong (often painfully so) objective.

You have made excellent points on how combat should be handled in general to avoid it turning into just very complex chess. Excellent content.

This is part of why my favorite RPG is a game called Mythras. It could be called a very simulationist kinda game, but it's not _as_ cumbersome as many games like that are, and most importantly... Combat _matters._ Like, choosing to fight someone is a big choice. Mythras fights are actually blow-by-blow duels rather than "and then I swing my sword again", physical injury is a serious problem, and there's a LOT of opportunities for someone to surrender for the sake of their lives. So it doesn't happen often. Combined with the game's big focus on connections to your local community, when a fight happens, it's mechanically interesting in a way that satisfies the "I wanna fight" people, it's almost always narriatively significant, and it's detailed enough that it feels like you're still in RP mode, just with way more structure, rather than everything becoming very abstracted. Most players recognize the price and stakes of pulling a weapon on someone so everyone defaults to literally any other solution, which just feels right narriatively. (Also it manages to do all of that without the "oh, there goes your 1hp, I guess you're dead" issue.)