Combat in Table Top RPGs sucks. You are welcome to disagree, but I'll have you know that I have the unfortunate burden of being the only human on earth with an entirely correct opinion. As such, it is also my burden to convince you that my opinion is correct. It is not your burden to be convinced by me that your opinion is wrong. Let me explain to you what's good about my opinion without telling you what's wrong with yours so that you may be more inclined to listen.
There are multiple ways to play a tabletop roleplaying game. You can use a grid, you can use theater of the mind, or you can use that sweet, sweet middle ground, best of both worlds, zone combat - like god intended, delivered to us by the Prophets of Games (note the big letters). Or maybe there's some fourth thing super-geniuses like us hasn't conceived of yet (or have we?).
You can use crunchy game systems like GURPS 4e which tries to simulate reality, or you can play D&D 5e or PF2 which are a bit less crunchy but still have a lot of complexity. Or you can play that Lasers & Feelings game where everyone has only one stat and you only need a single six-sided die! Maybe you're playing D&D like a strategic board game or a war game with an emphasis on the rules as written and good tactics, or maybe you're playing Index Care RPG with a strict emphasis on the roleplay and what feels good narratively in each moment. Take any ruleset and make one change to it and you've made a variation of that ruleset. There could be an infinite number of variations of each ruleset. We're all playing different variations of the same game. There is no wrong way to play unless someone is having a bad time (which is the first truth about RPGs).
Whatever your preference, here's the second truth you need to acknowledge: The more rules, the slower the game. How far does firebolt go? How much damage does a scimitar do? What's the weight of a suite of armor? What's the area of effect of a sleep spell? How many undead can I turn? How much hit points does a boogeyman have? Can I open a door as part of my action? Can I close a door as part of my action? Does it take an action or a bonus action to do a thing? When are you allowed to make a reaction? This action is really complicated, let's break it down into steps and call for different rolls for each steps. Enough! Finally, here's the third truth of RPGs: other people's turns are curse word boring! Especially when they take too long, which they often do.
When you have to stop playing to look up or discuss a rule, that is an example of the rules of the game getting in the way of a good time. Even for a moment, this breaks immersion. Honestly, I don't care about the rules so much anymore. If I know a rule better than someone else at the table when a rules question arises, I don't speak up as a player anymore. Just let the GM sort it out. That's their job. The faster, the better. They should make up ruling at the table and look the rule up later. It's not going to hurt anything. If it's life or death, err in the player's favor.
I reiterate the second truth: the more rules in a game, the slower the game. Consider playing the game more strictly as a story telling game. Imagine you are sitting around a campfire with your group. You have no dice. You have no grid, no minis, and no character sheets. Each player creates a character; they name it, come up with a simple one sentence background, a goal, a motivation, and a specialty like religion, archery, magic, whatever. The GM sets the scene then passes a figurative or literal story-stick to the next player who introduces their character, then they pass the story stick to the next player, etc., etc. The method for resolving mechanical conflicts is to imagine a clock on the ground, then drop an actual stick and interpret which hour it points to. Only one end of the stick is the arrow and does the pointing. The later the hour, the harder it is to succeed. Drop your stick, interpret what hour it points to loosely, then call it out and pass the stick. This is the story stick mechanic. When the GM presents the characters with a challenge, with combat, etc., and a mechanism is needed to determine success or failure, this is it. The GM will decide what hour you need to succeed for each action, or how well you succeed or how poorly you fail based on the hour you get. The GM might say "You succeed at 7 o'clock or later." or the GM might say, "because your hour points to 7, you succeed fairly well, but it was close!" The hour needed is case by case and depends on the situation. Are you hurt? Are you armored? Are you attempting a skill your character has almost perfected in their backstory?
Ok, so now that I've set up a scenario for you for a variation of our classic game, we'll call this variation Campfire RPG. Campfire RPG makes a lot of concessions starting with space. We don't use specific distance and range of attacks, of movement, of area of effect, etc., Space must be abstracted, and cannot be literal. Discard or simplify duration of magical effects, hits or hit points, your armor class, skills and abilities, or other strengths or weaknesses. And why should we keep them I ask rhetorically. We don't need to. Don't track other things like initiative, spell slots, ammunition, money, and stuff in your character's pockets. Get rid of the bean counting and resource management. Imagine you're an actor figuratively dressed in costume on a figurative stage, with no props, and you're playing a character in a scene with a simple prompt. Don't think about the mechanics. Tell the GM what you do and how you do it. That's it. The mechanics come from how you describe your character, how you introduce your character, and how you play your character. The GM will rule "your character is a tough veteran, so you resist this poison at 3 o'clock or later." Or, "your character is not magically savvy, so you succeed at 9 o'clock or later to figure out this magic box." If a monster attacks you, they succeed at a later hour if you're armored, or at an earlier hour if you unarmored or particularly vulnerable. If you take a hit, the GM describes that you have receive a minor injury, a major injury, a severe injury, a fatal injury, or etc. Minor injuries are for flavor and don't hold you back. Major and severe injuries might mean you may need later and later hours to succeed at your actions. Fatal injuries need immediate treatment or you risk death.
So here's how combat works in Campfire RPG. The game transitions from a social interaction or exploration scene seamlessly because the rules of play do not change for combat. Why? No initiative. The GM describes "The hoard of zombies shambles your way. Their soulless eyes look at nothing, and their drooling mouths are vile with discolored slime. The smell foul. Their moans and the ruffling sounds of their rags are distinct in the silence of the night. They are slow moving. You have a moment to make a decision. What do you do?" Then you pass the story stick. The players have a moment to deliberate as is reasonable for their characters to deliberate. They get one round to discuss running or fighting, and they may draw their weapons and prepare their spells, seek cover, prepare a trap, or turn and run. And they do so in character. Each character details what their characters do like so: "Beth the wizard withdraws her spellbook from her pouch, turns to the page for Magic Missile, and says to her mates 'shall we run or fight?'" "Grugtar the barbarian draws his silver bastard sword, bashes it against the rim of his shield and says 'we fight!' " "Timothy the priest presents his holy symbol to the hoard and says 'no need. Save your effort for the real challenges ahead!' Then he Turns the Undead." Tim is making an action that requires a use of the story stick mechanic, so he drops his stick. "12 o'clock!" he shouts! The last player says "Bartholomew moves into cover behind Timothy, loads his crossbow and levels it at the chest of the nearest zombie. 'You have your uses.' he says." After all the players use their turn to contribute to the story, the stick makes its way back to the GM who says what happens as a result of all their actions. I've described a game where players take turns around in a circle around a campfire, but alternatively, this can be as freeform as a conversation with the restriction that everyone gets to say one thing per round.
Next, the GM reiterates the actions like a waiter reading back lunch orders for their customers, and describes the results. "Beth opens her spellbook and finds for the page with her Magic Missile spell, Grugtar makes some noise and demands action, Bart readies a crossbow and takes cover, all while Tim presents his cross and repels all the zombies. A blessed light flickers and turns some of zombies to dust right before your eyes." Tim's action went last even though his character's action was not last. This is because Tim's action was the most time consuming. Then the GM sets the scene again. "All the zombies are dead or shambling away. The path ahead is clear to you. A chill is in the air. Is it an omen or just your anxiousness for what happens next? What do you do now?"
This is how you do combat. It has a flow. It's smooth. It's engaging. Participants each get one turn to do something simple and intuitive each round. On their turn, they describe what they do. They can do as little as they want, and as much as is reasonable for the situation. Most importantly, they describe what they do like they're each writing a line in a novel as a group of collaborative authors. Each person can use as little or as much flair as they want. There are no rules clarifications. There are no opening rule books. There are no consulting charts or tables. You don't look at your character sheet for answers to the puzzles in front of you. You roleplay, you improvise, and you stay engaged. This is what combat with an emphasis on roleplay over rules looks like. This is what happens when you discard the rules. Strict adherence to the rules slows the game down. The rules of the game slow the game down. The essence of a roleplaying and a roleplaying game is here. All else is not. And no love is lost. You use your story telling skills. You use your acting skills. You use your improv skills. Be creative. Have fun.
I think I've watched a lot of Critical Role (CR); enough to tell you that if you want to play a game of D&D with the intent of entertaining an audience, the roleplay scenes in CR are fun but the combat loses me from the word Initiative. This is ironic and a shame because action scenes in movies are usually the fastest and most interesting scenes in a movie. If Critical Role could do combat like this, I'd be into their combat no doubt, but I usually check out. Someone send this blog post to Matt Mercer and tell him I said hi. Also let him know that I think he looks more handsome with a short beard.
Finally, let me end by giving you Truth Number Zero. Truth Zero is you don't need any rules. All the rules are arbitrary anyway. How does a game designer know how hard it is to hit an orc? They don't, and neither do you. Orcs are imaginary. They use math and decide it should be X easy or X hard for X level characters. Truth Zero was known to Gary Gygax who famously said something like "the one secret we must never tell DMs is they don't need rules." Do you think he said that ironically? Gary famously struggled with people not understanding or appreciating Truth Zero. Everyone came to him with rules questions. They wrote him. They looked him up in the phone book and called him at his home during dinner so they could ask the author how a home game of which he was not a part should be played. Do you think Gary ever played 3rd edition D&D? Gary who died nearly 8 years after D&D 3e was published? No! Surely, it wasn't to his taste. Too clunky, too cumbersome. D&D 3e ignores Truth Zero. It rejects Truth 0 (you don't need rules), Truth 2 (more roles = slower game), and Truth 3 (other players turns are boring) which becomes a violation of truth 1 (players not having a good time). In some stories, a campfire is symbolic of someone enjoying peace in nature, enjoying the simplicity of it, and realizing the beauty and importance of simplicity. That life is short. That complexity is stressful and unnecessary. Campfire RPG is not a system, it's an attitude. It's a realization. Once you sit at the campfire, you are free to go back to your clunky strategy games, but you will not forget the warmth and the serenity. Welcome to fire.
