Combat Encounters, Narrative Style

[alex_greene]

Here's the thing. When a combat encounter starts, right, the Referee does the thing with slowing down the flow of time to combat rounds, they do the initiative thing, everybody starts rolling for Gun Combat, bullets flying everywhere until the bad guys are all dead.
I've been bored stiff by combat scenes for years. It's just dice rolling. If I wanted a game of chance, I'd go for poker. At least you would care about the stakes - your money, your car, your wife.
Someone surprised me the other day by calling for Diplomat skill as the combat was about to start. Combatants were ducking for cover, guns coming out, and this frail little figure was standing there, calling for a halt.
Natural 12. Boxcars, staring at everyone from the table. Nailed it. People got talking, a huge misunderstanding was cleared up. Everybody lived.

I would love to see a character whose preferred weapons of warfare were Diplomat, Persuade, Investigate, even Admin, Advocate, or Deception. There was a show called Ransom, whose protagonist was a renowned hostage negotiator. They used real life negotiation tactics, right out of the Cialdini playbook: reciprocity, commitment or consistency, consensus or social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, and unity.

I'd rather this than some cynical Ref going "Nah, these thugs are just out to kill you because I want a combat encounter. Everybody shoots you. You're dead. Next round!"

 

[Vormaerin]

So do that? My group does that a lot, though not always successfully.

And if your combats are boring, then change how you run them. Or just stop running combat encounters if your group doesn't enjoy them in general. They certainly aren't a requirement.

 

[Fulcs]

Here's the thing. When a combat encounter starts, right, the Referee does the thing with slowing down the flow of time to combat rounds, they do the initiative thing, everybody starts rolling for Gun Combat, bullets flying everywhere until the bad guys are all dead.
I've been bored stiff by combat scenes for years. It's just dice rolling. If I wanted a game of chance, I'd go for poker. At least you would care about the stakes - your money, your car, your wife.
Someone surprised me the other day by calling for Diplomat skill as the combat was about to start. Combatants were ducking for cover, guns coming out, and this frail little figure was standing there, calling for a halt.
Natural 12. Boxcars, staring at everyone from the table. Nailed it. People got talking, a huge misunderstanding was cleared up. Everybody lived.

I would love to see a character whose preferred weapons of warfare were Diplomat, Persuade, Investigate, even Admin, Advocate, or Deception. There was a show called Ransom, whose protagonist was a renowned hostage negotiator. They used real life negotiation tactics, right out of the Cialdini playbook: reciprocity, commitment or consistency, consensus or social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, and unity.

I'd rather this than some cynical Ref going "Nah, these thugs are just out to kill you because I want a combat encounter. Everybody shoots you. You're dead. Next round!"

I've always tried to convert all dice rolls into narrative in order to avoid the "I roll, I hit, I do x damage" cycle, whether it be DnD or Traveller;

DnD - "You can almost feel the impact of your mace through your mailed fist just before it smashes the side of the ogre's helmet inward. Through the padding inside your helmet you hear the slightly muffled ringing of metal on metal and the crack of its solid skull bone giving way to your perfectly timed strike"

Traveller - "As you slowly edge forwards between the enclosed walls of stacked cargo containers in your ship's hold, a dark shape, hunkered down on 4 wiry legs, scuttles quickly across the end of the corridor but straight into the sights of your already raised energy pistol. Your reaction is instant, you feel the familiar resistance of the trigger under your finger and a moment later a flashing burst of blinding red connects with the shape. For an instant, it lights up the cargo containers and ceiling of the hold. As your eyes adjust back to the dim light, the flash still visible if you close your eyes, the dark shape is nowhere to be seen. However, there is a smell of burnt hair and several drops of liquid on the floor where it had been moments before. You can hear the scrape of talons on metal echoing from your left... probably from your left... the echoes are deceptive in this warren"

It's a bit wordy, maybe, but I do prefer it to "I roll, I hit"

 

[alex_greene]

That's a good way of describing a combat scene. But I'd not say no to a player who tells me that they're scared of combat, and they want to break it up with words.

I'd like there to be room in Traveller for characters who aren't combatants of any stripe, whose first response to hostilities is to try and use the skills they are good at, specifically Persuade, or Diplomat, or Carouse. Something to break the foul air between the teams of hostiles. Anything that interrupts the flow of a combat scene.
After all, there are plenty of times when a scenario has forced a combat scene to interrupt a non-combat scene, and we're all supposed to just slip into combat mode and, as has been said here, "I roll, I hit" X number of times.
And if you can't talk to the other guy holding the gun, can't break through their bog standard "I'm only here to point and shoot this gun and murder your characters," what in Hades are all those other skills like Language, Science, Flyer all for?

 

[Fulcs]

That's a good way of describing a combat scene. But I'd not say no to a player who tells me that they're scared of combat, and they want to break it up with words.

I'd like there to be room in Traveller for characters who aren't combatants of any stripe, whose first response to hostilities is to try and use the skills they are good at, specifically Persuade, or Diplomat, or Carouse. Something to break the foul air between the teams of hostiles. Anything that interrupts the flow of a combat scene.
After all, there are plenty of times when a scenario has forced a combat scene to interrupt a non-combat scene, and we're all supposed to just slip into combat mode and, as has been said here, "I roll, I hit" X number of times.
And if you can't talk to the other guy holding the gun, can't break through their bog standard "I'm only here to point and shoot this gun and murder your characters," what in Hades are all those other skills like Language, Science, Flyer all for?

Absolutely, I try to avoid saying "You can't do that" outright and much prefer "You can certainly try".

Ultimately, I think it's very situational.
Sometimes persuasion, diplomacy and carousing can prevent a combat, but there will be those occasions where one side sets out with violence in mind and talking isn't going to stop them.

Maybe the trick then is to 'read' their intent with those skills, act early and not be there when the bullets start flying.

 

[Vormaerin]

There is absolutely room for non combat characters. The referee and the players jointly decide what situations they get into. The Referee is expected to adjudicate the game based on what the players actually do even if using a published scenario. Published adventures just cover what the author thinks is the most likely outcomes. They are limited by page count and lack of information about the crew actually going on the adventure, so they can't cover every possibility.

I'm confused about what you want here. As you point out, the social skills exist in game. Just use them. If you just want published scenarios to explicitly remind you that the social skills exist and can be used, that could be done. But it is generally along the lines of just stating "this is a TTRPG, not a video game. You have a referee, use the power to tailor the game to what your players do."

Traveller doesn't have any game mechanics that force combat, like XP for dead bad guys or whatever. In my current campaign, the PCs actively avoid combat. In the last dozen adventures, there's been a grand total of 3 scenes where there was a full on combat. One was vs a critter swarm, one was non lethal takedowns of a location security team, and one was taking back a ship from some hijackers (and that fight ended with the PCs offering to accept surrender once they got the upper hand). The Marine is perfectly happy being the threat that deters violence most of the time.

There have been plenty of other scenes that could have gone violently or where there was fighting in the area, but they used stealth/social skills to get away from it.

 

[alex_greene]

Sometimes persuasion, diplomacy and carousing can prevent a combat, but there will be those occasions where one side sets out with violence in mind and talking isn't going to stop them.

That's the default setting, and there has never been any serious effort made in roleplaying games to persuade DMs, GMs, STs or Referees to do anything otherwise with combat scenes.

 

[Fulcs]

Definitely agree with that in most games. In DnD, for example, kills=XP.

That becomes an ingrained mindset that takes a bit of leaving behind but Traveller seems to have much less reliance on combat - the pressure to fight to progress doesn't seem to be so much of a thing?

I guess you've been finding that too many encounters always end in combat and it feels inevitable, no matter what actions the players take?
I get your frustration if that's the case, that can feel like railroading which isn't great in TTRPGs.

 

[Vormaerin]

Games are generally setting out to model popular fiction in game form. The most popular fiction (particularly in the dominant fantasy genre) is action/adventure. And even other genres tend to have a certain amount of violence. So, naturally, games model that.

There is, however, no reason why your table needs to do that. And there are lots of games where violence is not a significant source of gameplay. Games need conflict and tension (in most cases, there are storytelling games), but that conflict and tension absolutely does not need to be combat. And the rules exist in Traveller to run entirely non combat games. Further, unlike fantasy RPGs, Traveller does not even default to characters being competent at combat.

Do published adventures tend to follow the middle of the road defaults? Certainly. They don't know the group that is going to be playing them, so the better ones have a mix of all kinds of activities. Traveller has almost no published adventures that are all about combat. Most of them have a risk of combat, but few of them have a guarantee of it.

 

[alex_greene]

Okay, having just seen an article about a forthcoming supplement for Vampire: the Masquerade, introducing the concept of "bleed," or "empathy for one's characters," and seeing the little edgelords struggling with the concept of playing vampires as something other than a bunch of mooks who kill with their fangs ...
... Carry on, everybody. You've got this. *starts handing out the ammo*

 

[CordwainerFish]

Hey Top, ain't we gonna need wooden ammo for this one?

 

[Condottiere]

Crossbows, or reload with silver bullets, dipped in Holy Water.

 

[alex_greene]

Sounds about right. The V:tM rules seem to define "bleed" as "Hello, edgelords, here is how you roleplay your characters with a thing we call emotions. Now I know this is something you're not used to, apart from impotent rage, and we're going to have a word with you about impotence in another chat, but for right now this is how you apply your chargen dots to this thing called feelings. So have at it, you incel scum, and see you in the next blog."

 

[Condottiere]

 

[alex_greene]

Shades of F.A.T.A.L.
Quite clearly, it is possible to go too far when searching for alternatives to murderhobo play.
Like I said, carry on. As you were. You've got this.