I think I need some pointers in an area of my games that seem to be a bit more 'bland' than others, and that's ship combat. My players are pretty good, creative, narrative on the ground but in the air... things devolve into the following:

ME (GM): OK... two PC slots are up... who's next?

PC: Um... let me see... (He looks at the list of possible maneuvers and actions)

PC: I guess um... I'll do... Boost Shields.

GM: OK... well... roll it up.

That's it. No narration, nothing. It feels like trading dice rolls. They treat the list of maneuvers and actions like a checklist of to-do's. So, I know some tricks how to make that better but...

How do you guys spice up your space battles? Anyone have the same issue I have? Do you have any tricks to make them more memorable and fun?

I wish I was a better GM sometimes.

Well, in theory, with this system, the players should be spicing up their own actions. But, if your players are like mine, and are introverted, anti-social hermits, that cower at the hint of having to act and perform, then yeah, you get a lot of "basic description of what I did."

I've worked for YEARS with my players, to try and overcome this. All I can suggest, is to remind them that this is supposed to be over the top and dramatic. And they should have fun with it. Try and channel their inner 8 year old, who was perfectly content with pretending a couch was the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and "pew pew pew" was the appropriate sound effects for turret lasers.

You can try describing what's happening leading up to their action very dramatically. "Your sensors go off with a loud claxon, and the cockpit rocks back and forth as a torpedo goes off near the ship! You are under attack! You can see 2 fighters bearing down on you! What do you do?!?

Hopefully, they will take the bait and match your dramatic enthusiasm. Sadly, you might just have players who don't do that. And...well I don't really know what to tell you. My players will sometimes pull out of their shell, and ACT for a few moments, but it's few and far between. I've tried music, I've tried voices for the NPCs, I've tried everything I can think of, to try and encourage them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. For my guys, I think a lot of it, is literal performance anxiety, coupled with looking silly. So I will try and out-silly them, I fop about the room, playing some dandy, lisping official NPC, etc etc, to try and establish "No matter how you act, you're not going to out-embarrass me with how I'm acting right now." Again, sometimes it works.

I don't know your players, so I can't really say what will work with them. Try before the next session starts, to flat out say to them, that the point of the game is to have fun, to try and capture, and act out, the pulp fiction nature of Star Wars. With dramatic actions, and flamboyant dialogue, and to make everything Big. Crank it up to Eleven as much as you can.

Perhaps entice them with extra XP for impressive roleplaying in character, dramatically describing what they are doing, and in general, amusing you as the GM. Some players work better with a reward, and if you flat out say "If you amuse me, and make the overall game experience more enjoyable, by hamming it up, and acting out, and describing what you are doing in a FUN way, you will get +5xp at the end of the session." It worked pretty well with my guys. When I dangled that XP carrot, and periodically reminded them mid-game of it if they seemed to be withdrawing, it would very often get them out of their shell, and get them hamming it up again.

1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

Well, in theory, with this system, the players should be spicing up their own actions. But, if your players are like mine, and are introverted, anti-social hermits, that cower at the hint of having to act and perform, then yeah, you get a lot of "basic description of what I did."

I've worked for YEARS with my players, to try and overcome this. All I can suggest, is to remind them that this is supposed to be over the top and dramatic. And they should have fun with it. Try and channel their inner 8 year old, who was perfectly content with pretending a couch was the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and "pew pew pew" was the appropriate sound effects for turret lasers.

You can try describing what's happening leading up to their action very dramatically. "Your sensors go off with a loud claxon, and the cockpit rocks back and forth as a torpedo goes off near the ship! You are under attack! You can see 2 fighters bearing down on you! What do you do?!?

Hopefully, they will take the bait and match your dramatic enthusiasm. Sadly, you might just have players who don't do that. And...well I don't really know what to tell you. My players will sometimes pull out of their shell, and ACT for a few moments, but it's few and far between. I've tried music, I've tried voices for the NPCs, I've tried everything I can think of, to try and encourage them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. For my guys, I think a lot of it, is literal performance anxiety, coupled with looking silly. So I will try and out-silly them, I fop about the room, playing some dandy, lisping official NPC, etc etc, to try and establish "No matter how you act, you're not going to out-embarrass me with how I'm acting right now." Again, sometimes it works.

I don't know your players, so I can't really say what will work with them. Try before the next session starts, to flat out say to them, that the point of the game is to have fun, to try and capture, and act out, the pulp fiction nature of Star Wars. With dramatic actions, and flamboyant dialogue, and to make everything Big. Crank it up to Eleven as much as you can.

Perhaps entice them with extra XP for impressive roleplaying in character, dramatically describing what they are doing, and in general, amusing you as the GM. Some players work better with a reward, and if you flat out say "If you amuse me, and make the overall game experience more enjoyable, by hamming it up, and acting out, and describing what you are doing in a FUN way, you will get +5xp at the end of the session." It worked pretty well with my guys. When I dangled that XP carrot, and periodically reminded them mid-game of it if they seemed to be withdrawing, it would very often get them out of their shell, and get them hamming it up again.

Wow man this really seems like my group. They aren't 'shy' about it just they don't know what to say in the moment. I have a lot of stuttering. I've enticed them with killer RP moments, but have yet to have them cash in. I think you're right, I need to keep reminding them.

Give them more narrative bits to work with. Is it a chase, or a chase through airspeeder traffic because a massive sporting event just got out? When they boost shields, do they notice small asteroids (because they are in an asteroid field, right?) bounce off them and go careening through the rest of the field? While plotting a course, do they notice potential things their enemies can crash into?

Seed the scene a little more, make the encounter itself more narrative, and players will usually follow.

35 minutes ago, scotter23 said:

Wow man this really seems like my group. They aren't 'shy' about it just they don't know what to say in the moment. I have a lot of stuttering. I've enticed them with killer RP moments, but have yet to have them cash in. I think you're right, I need to keep reminding them.

Not really sure how to help with them being more creatively descriptive, for me, that's super easy, for others not so much. Maybe watch the movies, the original trilogy, and try and parrot some of Han's lines and actions? for example -I lean over and frantically hit several switches as the incoming fire approaches. I turn to the copilot- "I hope you fixed that darn flux capacitor or we are space dust!" -Before he has a chance to snark back, I spend my action to activate our shields double front!- For me, that kind of descriptive stuff is easy, but I've had a lot of improv training since I was a kid, and watched a lot of MST 3K growing up, so I'm kind of wired to come up with a witty one-liner at the drop of a hat. Your friends might just not be that way. You could maybe try finding some other types of games to play, that focus on improv and acting out stuff in a silly manner, to help stimulate them in this regard. There is a game called Yes Dark Overlord, which might be useful.

The whole premise of the game, is the players are a group of minions that work for an Evil Dark Overlord, and they are returning from another failed mission at his command. The premise of the game, is that all of you are standing in front of the Overlord, trying to BS your way out of being blamed for the failed mission. When it's your turn, you draw a card from the deck, and have to incorporate that card, whatever it is, into your lie. If your lie is believable, the Overlord (another player who is the GM for that game session), doesn't Glare at you (gives you a Glare card), it then goes to the next person. Who has to incorporate what you said in your lie, and also draw a new card, and work that thing into the ongoing lie. This continues until someone gets 3 Glare cards, either by coming up with a really lame lie, or simply fumbling and stuttering, drawing a blank. If someone gets 3 Glares, they "die", and the game is over. The person that died in the previous game, is now the Overlord, and gets to judge your lies.

This kind of game might help them improve their adlibbing skills, as well as just being fun to play.

Beyond that...*shrugs* I don't really know what to say. Like I said, I've been working with my 2 friends for like 15 years, trying to get them to actually play a ROLE, but it's pulling teeth with them. I've resigned myself at this point, to where we are now, which is the occasional bit of exuberant acting for a moment or two, followed by a lot of introspection and minimalist descriptive dialogue.

How much time have you spent on space combat? It's not the smoothest one in the world and getting used to the mechanics is liable to take everyone's attention for a while simply because they're... well, not the smoothest in the world. Adding descriptive flair may be something that has to come later.

On 5/12/2017 at 5:01 PM, Garran said:

How much time have you spent on space combat? It's not the smoothest one in the world and getting used to the mechanics is liable to take everyone's attention for a while simply because they're... well, not the smoothest in the world. Adding descriptive flair may be something that has to come later.

We've done a fair bit. One PC is a pilot with a signature ship that's the team's Falcon. So we've been in space several times. I'm getting used to it too.

What I'm thinking of doing is getting a large sheet of paper and marking it up with a series of concentric circles, one for each range band. Divide it up into the four fire arcs and place the character's ship at the centre. Then all the other ships can be placed relative to it and moved accordingly. It should help keep track of where everything is. Then we can concentrate on narrating the action, rather than worrying about the geometry.

On 5/12/2017 at 0:52 PM, KungFuFerret said:

Well, in theory, with this system, the players should be spicing up their own actions. But, if your players are like mine, and are introverted, anti-social hermits, that cower at the hint of having to act and perform, then yeah, you get a lot of "basic description of what I did."

I've worked for YEARS with my players, to try and overcome this. All I can suggest, is to remind them that this is supposed to be over the top and dramatic. And they should have fun with it. Try and channel their inner 8 year old, who was perfectly content with pretending a couch was the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, and "pew pew pew" was the appropriate sound effects for turret lasers.

You can try describing what's happening leading up to their action very dramatically. "Your sensors go off with a loud claxon, and the cockpit rocks back and forth as a torpedo goes off near the ship! You are under attack! You can see 2 fighters bearing down on you! What do you do?!?

Hopefully, they will take the bait and match your dramatic enthusiasm. Sadly, you might just have players who don't do that. And...well I don't really know what to tell you. My players will sometimes pull out of their shell, and ACT for a few moments, but it's few and far between. I've tried music, I've tried voices for the NPCs, I've tried everything I can think of, to try and encourage them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. For my guys, I think a lot of it, is literal performance anxiety, coupled with looking silly. So I will try and out-silly them, I fop about the room, playing some dandy, lisping official NPC, etc etc, to try and establish "No matter how you act, you're not going to out-embarrass me with how I'm acting right now." Again, sometimes it works.

I don't know your players, so I can't really say what will work with them. Try before the next session starts, to flat out say to them, that the point of the game is to have fun, to try and capture, and act out, the pulp fiction nature of Star Wars. With dramatic actions, and flamboyant dialogue, and to make everything Big. Crank it up to Eleven as much as you can.

Perhaps entice them with extra XP for impressive roleplaying in character, dramatically describing what they are doing, and in general, amusing you as the GM. Some players work better with a reward, and if you flat out say "If you amuse me, and make the overall game experience more enjoyable, by hamming it up, and acting out, and describing what you are doing in a FUN way, you will get +5xp at the end of the session." It worked pretty well with my guys. When I dangled that XP carrot, and periodically reminded them mid-game of it if they seemed to be withdrawing, it would very often get them out of their shell, and get them hamming it up again.

You sound like an awesome GM. Come run my game?!!

On 5/14/2017 at 6:31 PM, AndrewGPaul said:

What I'm thinking of doing is getting a large sheet of paper and marking it up with a series of concentric circles, one for each range band. Divide it up into the four fire arcs and place the character's ship at the centre. Then all the other ships can be placed relative to it and moved accordingly. It should help keep track of where everything is. Then we can concentrate on narrating the action, rather than worrying about the geometry.

I'll use X-Wing and Armada minis (as appropriate) to simulate relative range and facing. Armada bases are already divided into 4-part fire arcs, which work well enough for ships' Defenses.