The Whys

Got a few links with my own commentary for today. This is mostly on "why" I do certain things the way that I do them in my games. This is particularly focused on the fact that after years and years of doing so, I dislike using miniatures, battle mats, combat grids and all that jazz in my roleplaying games. In my case, this probably goes all the way back to the vector by which I came into the hobby; as a fan of fantasy fiction rather than of wargames. This is somewhat in contrast to the development of the game itself. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson certainly seem to have been fans of fantasy fiction, but their hobby was wargames, and D&D grew out of an adaptation of wargaming into a novel approach of playing the game.

Now, I don't dislike wargames, although I will admit that it's a hobby that I've only dabbled in, not embraced. However, I dislike wargames and roleplaying games mixing tropes and mechanics. Having your roleplaying game "stop" while you indulge in a mini-game that's of a completely different nature has never facilitated the kind of experience that I want, which is more like an interactive and impromptu fiction created by a group. I've always wanted the RPG experience to resemble as much as is reasonably possible, the medium that was my vector into it in the first place, namely fantasy novels, stories and occasionally movies (because of the sucess of the Conan the Barbarian movie, fantasy movies were a thing when I was a kid in the 80s. Most of them were pretty dang cheesy, but still. It was a source of inspiration, and not every 80s fantasy movie was terrible. Dragonslayer for instance is really quite good, and I've got a fond nostalgia for Willow. And more recently, of course, we've got the Lord of the Rings movies as better inspiration. Albeit still secondary to the Lord of the Rings texts.)

I recognize that most people play modern versions of the game with terrain or at least a battlemat of some kind. In part, this is because it's very difficult to run combat "correctly" without it. How do you do flanking, for instance, without a grid? I wonder if, if given better "theater of the mind" options in the base rules themselves, if more people would prefer to run their combats that way, however. I believe that they would, although naturally I can't prove it at all. Anyway, rather than attempt to describe all of the reasons that I prefer "theater of the mind" combat, and systems that enable it, I'll link to "Sly Flourish's" page that already does so quite capably. This link is especially focused on the why, although it links to a "how." This how is really only particularly useful to you if you're in a 5e milieu. Since I am not, the why is the more interesting and useful link for me.

https://slyflourish.com/tyranny_of_the_grid.html

Now, from all that I hear, 5e has been a good direction to take "3e-ish" D&D mechanics and make them both easier and more fun to use. But because I'd already accepted a much more drastic take on modifying "3e-ish" mechanics by using Microlite, or m20. There's a buttload of options in m20. Here's the big collection: https://microlite20.org/

But my specific versions are my specific versions, and are devised specifically for my own tastes and my own settings and the tone that they're supposed to represent. I am finally at a point where I think I've been convinced that there's a 5e rule that I should import. My first thought on understanding this rule is that I wasn't interested, but I've been gradually convinced over time, including by the essays linked to below, also from Sly Flourish. While some of those essays are written in a 5e context, it also shows that the subsystem works. In fact, it's a much better motivator than the old action points mechanic which Eberron thought would encourage more swashbuckling action. It didn't. This does, however, because it isn't just a mechanic, it's also a player motivator. The mechanic in question is advantage/disadvantage. And it can be used to improvise combat to become much more dynamic, interesting and fun without making it more mechanically complex. I'm really coming around to the idea that it will make combat much better.

https://slyflourish.com/improvising_combat_with_advantage.html

I talked about this in my last post, although I didn't link to it, but it's a slight iteration on the same idea.

https://slyflourish.com/cinematic_advantage.html

Anyway, I'll think about exactly how to implement in m20. I'll probably take most of the advice from the articles linked just above, but keep in mind that those are from a more typical D&D paradigm, and a specifically D&D 5e paradigm, so there may be a few things it lists which I find in context don't make sense for Dark Heritage. And I have to decide if adding advantage/disadvantage means that my Heroism points are now something that I no longer need. Sigh. Cascading effects are a minor deal with rules lite games, but occasionally they're still a thing.

But I do find it likely that this is the missing piece I was looking for to draw out interesting, swashbucklery combat more reliably.