5 Questions Before Combat

Combat can be fun. Combat for combat’s sake is trite and you're better than that. So here are some questions to ask yourself before you throw some hit point bags at your characters

12/8/2024

Why? Story-First Combat, of course!

Here are some questions I try to answer before I put any enemies in front of my players. Generally if I can't answer these questions, a combat doesn't need to happen where I was planning it. YMMV. Let's get into it!

What are your party's win conditions?

This is probably your most important question to answer. If wincon is “kill all enemies”, your combat is shallow. That’s fine and nothing is wrong with that, but let’s explore for a moment. We may need to know more about opposition to answer properly. Simple common answers will work for now. 

Here are some basic reasons players might be willing to fight:

• • • Defeating a specific foe (a member of Opposition)

    • Stealing a MacGuffin

    • Passing through a contested/hostile area

    • Defending a point/ally

    • Repelling a hostile force

What does opposition want

This question Informs combat priorities. And lots of times, it may determine whether combat happens at all. Bandits that want gold, Owlbears looking for food, and Feral Zombies all have different desires that may all culminate in battle but the fun is in the details here. Solving for Oppositon Desires:

• • Informs how much they’re willing to lose

    • Wolves looking for food flee after a death or a few injuries

    • Owlbear defending nest fights to death

    • Bandits might stop to negotiate after the first exchange if nobody dies

  • Informs what happens if the fight doesn’t. 

    • Where they go

    • If they follow/report on  players' presence. 

What is Opposition Doing

This is where things get really fun. Imagine a hypothetical set of bandits. Think about their immediate gear and demeanor. Now imagine them at a celebration after a big job. Now imagine them tracking someone who's stolen from them just before they purchased food for the month. See how different all those sets of bandits are from each other? If we want to build a world that is believable and a story that doesn't revolve around the player's characters, NPCs need to be busy when they aren't being observed. The simplest way to do this is to roll for it. I'll include an example table below. When you know what your Opposition is doing before the encounter it:

• • Informs their gear/preparedness

    • Scouts Scouting vs Raiders Raiding vs Raiders fishing vs Killteam hunting Party

  • Informs the combat arena

  • Informs any 3rd parties that might be around as well

    • Fighting? Hunting? Doing Parley? What -did- your players just walk into? 

Example Encounter Table that includes action:

Who cares when they don't come back?

And with this question, we start to zoom out and think about Factions. Did these bandits have a camp? A Captain? A homebase? A Political Patron? A Patron deity? and Just how much do you want to drag the players down the rabbit hole should they decide to antagonize the wrong people? Or spare the right people?

• • Is there a faction at play?

    • If there wasn’t one five minutes ago, is it a better story if there was?

What does defeat look like for party?

And here we get a little spicy. What happens if the players don't win? Are they fighting a predator that's going to eat them? Maybe eat them on site befoee the battle even ends? Are they fighting a reasonable enemy that will offer surrender terms instead of killing them? Are the enemies dishonorable enough to execute a fallen foe or will they capture the first downed enemy and try to get a ransom? Which of these is actually dishonorable?

• • Are enemies out to kill, or just defending themselves?

  • Capture vs Kill vs Talk

    • You know your opposition better now. What would they do if they had the party at their mercy?

      • Consider using nonlethal attacks and vaguer words than “dead” when describing downed players. Consider long-term incapacitation/KO if a capture instead of kill

Now that We've Answered these questions:

• Give your players something to do, that's more important than killing the baddies.

• Throw difficult decisions at them. Punch the Goblin or Save the Princess?

• Have them consider the consequences of starting a fight, and killing enemies.

I expect we'll be talking about this more, especially as a begin to explore systems like Wanderhome where there's no combat at all. You'll know, though.

Thanks for reading!