So here's what I want to talk about. 1. Opportunity attacks suck because they slow the game down and how to do them better. 2. If you're roleplaying your character in combat, you probably wouldn't give anyone an opportunity attack ever. 3. Stop using initiative. First, the concepts you probably all know: engage, disengage, and opportunity attack. In some games they have this concept of engaging or being engaged in melee. That is to say that when you come within 5 ft of an opponent, you have to physically stop and face them or else. If you disengage recklessly, this means you turn and move away without defending yourself and open yourself up to danger. If you disengage safely, this means you actively defend yourself as you walk or run from that opponent. The former is faster but hazardous because you open yourself to some opportunistic attack, the latter is effortful but safer.
Topic 1, opportunity attacks slow down combat. People should be allow to turn and run if they want. That's player agency. But every time someone does that, you have to delay everyting else as one or more Players or NPCs start making all these reactions. Something I hate is people shouting "opportunity attack!" at the table. I also hate when people declare "insight check!" but that's a separate topic. When you're playing a war game, sure, take all the time you need to resolve your opportunity attacks. That's fine. Whatever. In a roleplaying game, I want to be engaged with the narrative and the tension of the moment. Having someone declare "I make an opportunity attack" when it's not their turn is for me like someone talking over a movie. That's crap and it's gotta stop! So my solution is no initiative. Yeah, extreme, right? NO! Have you ever been in a real 5 on 5 fight before? Everything is happening everywhere, all at once! You do NOT get to watch other people, then pause life to strategize, then take a turn. You're in a moment to moment situation. A second to second situation. That dude you're engaged with has your shirt by the collar and his balled up fist is coming for your head. You get tunnel vision. You can't swivel your head around and see how your friends are doing. If you take your eye of the ball, you're gonna get hit. So get rid of initiative. It's weird. Here's how combat works! Let me tell you, then circle around to attacks of opportunity. So in simultaneous combat, you the game master go around the table and you ask your players to describe their action in one sentence. Ask them consider that you're all writing a scene in a novel together, and each of them gets to write one line. Make it a good one. Tell them what they see. Set the scene for them so they have some guidence, a place to start. "You see 5 goblins appear from the bush. They're running straight at you with weapons drawn, aggressive looks in their eyes, and war cries on their breaths. What do you do?" Tell them you expect that one sentence to encapsulate everything they do. "I move here, and I do this." or "I do this, and I move here." "I take cover behind the wall, then I stand up to shoot that guy with my bow." "I sneak up on this guy and shank him in the back with my knife." "Grugtar looks across the field to this goblin here, he grips his sword in both hands, he rages and he charges at the goblin and brings his might sword down on it's head!" Then, after everyone has declard their actions, let me repeat that in case you somehow missed it, AFTER everyone has declared their turns, you the GM call for die rolls. Everyone rolls all their dice, attack, damage, ability checks, skill die, whatever. Then, you the GM, sort everything out all at once narratively. "As Jim takes cover from behind the tree, his arrow finds one goblin in the eye! Roar! It falls to the ground. Then Grugtar engages with this goblin here. Grugtar just misses the goblin's head with his claymore and the sneaky goblin stabs him in the leg with a dirty knife. It stings..." An on and on. It's more thrilling if you can present an energetic performance with your narration. So now, you've got a vague understanding of how to do most of combat. What about opportunity attacks? Let's say "Beth the wizard is getting beat down into a fetal pose in the dirt by two goblins with spiked bone clubs. She screams these horrible blood curdling screams, and the bone clubs sound like a butchers tenderizer on soft meat. Then, Grugtar the Barbarian, who's got a big soft spot for Beth, who's full of kindness and brilliance, his stomach wrenches and angry bitter tears fill his eyes, he disengates wildly like a hurt beast for the goblins attacking Beth. The goblin he's currently engaged with gets advantage on his attack roll because Grugtar has exposed his back carelessly. He does 5 damage..." That's it. You're in simultaneous combat. If you look away from the guy in front of you, you're not going to be able to defend yourself normally from his attack. That's it. Advantage, EASY, or some kind of bonus applies. This is a realistic and appropriate penalty for disengaging recklessles. You do this instead of interrupt the flow of your game, or interrupting someone's turn, to make some out-of-order action. It's out of order!
Topic 2, disengaging recklessly demonstrates a lack of self-preservation, and needs a really good roleplay reason to justify. Literally what happens when you engage with someone, that means that there's an angry son of a gun who is mean mugging you from 3 feet away, and he's got a big sword he wants to cut your face with. If you are roleplaying your character, this is your absolute top priority. This guy is an immediate problem. He represents a threat to your personal survival. That comes first. He represents a threat to your friends survival second only by defeating you and diminishing the size of your party and the powers that your party has to defend itself from TPK from your opponent and his friends. If you are roleplaying your character, you do not run away from your opponent in melee to go fight another opponent over there. And you want to stay near your friends, too. You watch their back, they watch yours. It doesn't do you any good to be 20 feet away from your friend in a melee. Let's say you are 20 feet away from your friend and he's getting beat to hell. You are engaged with someone whose got a big sword for your face and he's mean mugging you. Do you spin around in place and run to your friend, presenting your unprotected back to your opponent so he can slash your spine? Now you and your friend are both dead, and you roleplayed your character poorly by ignoring self-preservation. This decision in this scenario has to be justified by roleplay, narrative, and character development, not strategy. If you sacrifice roleplay for strategy, you're metagaming. Stop that. In a real fight, you wouldn't open yourself to taking a severe injury like that, and neither would your character. Fight off your opponent first, then help your friend. Secure your oxygen mask first, then assist the child.
Topic 3, Initiative Sucks and here's something else to consider. If you were to play a tabletop roleplaying game for the purposes of entertaining an audience like Critical Role, your combats are slow and boring to your audience if you strictly adhere to the movement and action rules. I can say this because I have watched over a hundred episodes of Critical Role and I can tell you most combat in that show bores me from the movement they start taking initiative. You need to make your combat scenes as freeform as the roleplay scenes to keep them engaging, like the examples of play I gave earlier. Cut the fat. If your GM has to ask you "Is that it for your turn?" your game is too clunky and complicated. Cut that out. Use simultaneous initiative. When you call for initiative, it's like pausing a movie right before the best part to take drink orders. I don't care how fast you can do it. Stop it. Second, you have to track that crap and you can mix up the order. I've seen it happen, I've seen Matt Mercer do it, I've done it. It's like pausing the movie during the best part to sort out who got whose drink. Now, my pausing the movie before the best part analogy is not the best because in combat, the best part your turn and you know it. Everyone else's turn is kinda boring and lame unless someone does something really cool, really bananas, or they're about to die. Die die. Permanent death. Moments I remember in Critical Role combats are Mollmauk's death and Caleb being mind-controlled and fireballing the party. I also kind of remember Fjord cutting a dudes hand off., but that was kind of gross Everything else is a bit of a blurr. I remind you, I watched over a hundred episodes of this show. The show's combat is not as engaging as the show's roleplay, and the combat rules are to blame. Anyway, throw out the rules and do some freeform combat. It will help keep your players off their phone in the middle of a game, and you'll be able to get more meaningful stuff done in your session. Also, cap hit points low. To hell with hit points above 25. Low hit points will also do wonders for the pacing of your game.
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