4/30/2024 0 Comments Editable character sheet shadowrun![]() Exceptions to that limit tend to be when the party is having a series of related encounters/combats (say, they are assaulting someone's keep/lair). And just the time to explore, discuss, decide, and then encounter something "planned", tends to limit those to one per game session. I'm just not a fan of "random encounter for the sake of a random encounter", so I use them only occasionally. I think our record was four sessions for one really massive fight (yeah. We do, occasionally, have to stop mid fight (just gets too late), and then resume in the next session. And given the game system, and the complexity/difficulty of some of those fights, it may actually not be resolvable in a single session. Some will have minor or random encounters "on the way" to something bigger (and a whole lot of information gathering and social stuff), then we deal with a major combat. So there's usually a bit of ebb and flow to the game sessions. There are never more than one of these, and they tend to take up a large portion of the session when they happen. Or they track the Orc raiders to their warcamp, and attack. Or they've found the location of the evil baron's keep, and attack. ![]() They decide to raid the local bandit hideout. The bigger combats are generally plot focused, and something that represents an objective the party has, and an action/choice that leads them there. Usually, there may be one or none of these in a typical game sesssion. For the most part though, those are going to be pretty minor/quick combats and don't take up much time. That's not to say that I don't toss in some "random encounter" type stuff as well, some of which may certainly involve combat. I like to give the players as many opportunities to make RP and action decisions as possible, so providing them with lots of information, choices, and potential interactions maximizes that. ![]() My game tends to focus more on the PCs interacting with all of the places/people around them, talking, getting information, traveling, encountering people along the way, etc. Lots of encounters, but most aren't going to involve combat. That's a game system where combat is almost more of a failure state than an intended piece of gameplay. On the even more extreme end, something like Call of Cthulhu might well involve as few as two or three fights in an entire campaign. ![]() That said, combat is still sufficiently central to the system that less than one fight for every two or three sessions is too few. With combat being so involved and high-tension, and more emphasis on non-combat sequences than D&D, one combat per session is plenty, more than two starts to be too many. Combat is brutal, takes longer in terms of overall number of turns, and there's almost no such thing as a 'low-stakes' fight a scrap with a small goblin patrol can be a life-or-death affair, and injuries are hard to recover from. In 5e D&D, my ideal would be one to three fairly 'simple' fights (not very challenging, low stakes, there to burn a few resources and to build tension) with one or maybe two 'centerpiece' fights (more dangerous, more tactically involved and complex, higher stakes).įor my current favorite system of choice, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the formula is different.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |