Tuesday 3 August 2021

#RPGaDAY2021 3: TACTIC

#RPGaDAY2021

3: TACTIC

Tactics in RPGs mostly imply combat... and I’m not particularly good at or interested in tactical combat. I’ve taken to telling prospective players this after some disappointed expectations. As with MAP I will go for the dramatic action over the practical one.

And for this reason I often have fights with all the PCs up against one opponent because a lone antagonist is easy to characterise and I then have to load them with powers, or a bunch of faceless goons who go down with three solid hits or one smart action each. A tactically interesting fight tends to happen about once a year.

But there are other tactics to use as well. Social approaches, investigation methods, and so on.

Bonus round:

Risk - There isn’t actually much risk in my games. Sometimes random death is off the table altogether. (And when it is, players will sometimes go for it for drama!)

Support - Unless the PCs are totally cut off from any support I will have NPCs who could be on their side appear. As well as fellow action characters, I also include sounding board NPCs. They won’t always be 100% agreeable or reliable, of course. Buffy features Watchers who vary from Giles to Wesley to Travers, and all three and more showed up in The Watch House.

Image - I often use visuals in my games, as discussed when Vision was a prompt last year.

Runeslinger on Image

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