The Redacted Files Podcast

While many if not most modern RPGs tend to favor some other aspects such as investigation, discovery or collaborative narration, the time often comes for the knives to come out. As someone who tends to enjoy these sorts of systems more, but still enjoys a good melee, I thought I’d share some thoughts on combat’s roles and best practices for the more narrative-minded GM.

Don’t Overdo It
-Not every session needs a fight, don’t force one just because it feels like you’re missing out. More importantly, the threat of conflict can sometimes prove more tense than the grimmest firefight, and avoiding it as harrowing a conclusion as a pitched cavalry charge. For your players cast in the role of protectors, their characters can be treated to all sorts of ordeals other than stand up fights: identifying potential threats for instance, or simply being a fish out of water.

Don’t Drag it Out
-I loved techno-thrillers growing up, and what separated a page-turner from a snoozer was the author’s ability to keep the dance between combatants interesting and know how to satisfyingly end things just before that breaking point. When you aren’t in a dungeon crawl killing things to steal their stuff and gain experience points or meticulously modeling the 37th day of the Battle of Stalingrad then, there’’s nothing wrong with a retreat (panicked or planned), a surrender, or even an act of God: where thematically appropriate of course.

Make it Feel Real
-This isn’t so much about accuracy to any sort of reality or fictional continuity, but a basic reminder to keep your players immersed in the story you’re telling. This might be leaning heavily on movie tropes if you have no other background or more reliable common point of reference. Don’t just move miniatures around the tactical grid or tokens on the virtual table, tell your players how the bad guys are walking, talking, using cover, shooting around things. Tell them how well-trained their character thinks the opposition can be, and as always, be ready with the cinematic details.

Don’t Be Afraid to Fudge
-Your job is to tell a story. Don’t let any game element get in the way of that, not even the dice. The one exception to this is your PCs: pay attention to what they’re doing and what they want: don’t get in their way either…

Make it Count
-So you’ve paced the campaign to have one or two pivotal clashes between the good guys and bad, you know just what the bad guys will do and how they’ll do it in a timely way, and you have a few aces up your sleeve; now you can begin to make the PCs care about fighting. Give them something to fight for, something to risk, often best provided by the players themselves. Now set the stakes appropriately high. The rest writes itself.

As we look forward to a whole new year, I can’t help but glance back at where we’ve been and marvel at how far we’ve come. 2016 marks the third year of podcasting for The Redacted Files and RPG gaming for me. A little more than a year ago, I took my first steps into the world of GMing, and since then, well I’ve tried to keep busy. Now, with a few sessions under my belt, a new job and an impending marriage, I have to wonder what I want to accomplish this year. And here’s what I’ve come up with.

1. Spend More Time in the GM Chair
   Megan and I like to trade off GM responsibilities pretty regularly, but lately I’ve been slacking as Beyond the Threshold and Not so Strange have struggled with scheduling issues. This year, I hope to start a new campaign with a new game (open to suggestions on which) and trying some new systems out. It’s not just a matter of sharing the load. In the next year, I hope to stretch my legs a bit and push my boundaries in the sorts of games I run and what moods I can work with.
2. Read More Games 
   I have (the opposite of) loads of free time. But I think in the new year, I want to read more games. This helps build an understanding of new ways to do things and can even prompt thoughts on how old ways of doing things really work well for you after all.
3. Go to Gencon
   Megan and I have had a long-standing desire to go to Gencon. This is for a number of reasons, ranging from it being a chance to meet a lot of friends from around the Internet to seeing the hobby and industry we’ve invested so much time and passion into in its most tangible manifestation. We currently have plans to attend and even run games this August, so stay tuned.
4. Produce a Scenario Worthy of Publication 
   Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m not looking to have anything in a major sourcebook or anything. I do think though that Megan and I have managed to come up with a few good stories in our hundreds of hours of actual plays. So I want to put forward the effort to produce something concrete from all that free form creativity. We’ll see what you can accomplish with a budget of almost nothing. 😛

So those are my aspirations for this year. I won’t go so far as to call them resolutions. Let’s meet back here in a year and see how I did.