Hi All!

I’d like to read your opinion on narration in WFRP 3ed, especially during all kinds of fights.

Why such a topic? Well, first of all game mastering is mostly about narrating. Of course some groups prefer to have more “gaming” in their sessions and the whole storytelling aspect isn’t so important for those players. Putting that aside, one can state that good GM is the one who can drag players completely into the story. I’m almost sure that ability to make juicy, gripping, novel-like descriptions without losing game flow makes one a great Game Master, even if he doesn’t know all the rules or his adventures follow very much the same pattern.

Second of all, lots of articles were written concerning the problem of smooth narration and still most GM can’t do it in a way they would find it satisfactory. It’s especially hard during combat sequences, when on the one hand narration should be fast-paced and on the other hand GM has to keep track of very detailed game mechanics. However WFRP 3ed introduced rather new approach to storytelling and describing PCs actions – due to its revolutionary dice mechanics it combines the storytelling aspect of RPGs with gameplay. Emphasis on narration isn’t achieved by cutting down mechanics or by simplifying gameplay (like in SW for example), but by “every die tells its story” approach. Examples in rulebooks show how GM or a player can interpret dice rolls (mechanical aspect) to give more colors to the story (narrative aspect).

However it doesn’t work that good in practice, as it looks in theory.

For my last game I decided to run short&easy travel episode. PCs get on the boat, swim up the river for few hours, then they almost crush into the shipwreck (1st Encounter). Capitan decides to search the wreck and while PCs do it, undeads attack them (2nd Encounter). After the fight wreck starts to sink and PCs have to run for their lives (3rd Encounter). I thought that the game will take up to three hours, with undeads’ attack lasting circa an hour, hour and a half. I took a lot of time preparing props, creating fight’s script to have everything under control, I even scripted the whole scenario, to have some descriptions or dialogues ready when I’d need them.
What I’ve ended up with was four hours and a half long session with almost three hours fight and unfinished adventure. After first hour of fighting it was impossible for me and for the players as well to keep up juicy descriptions, so the fight turned into emotionless string of actions’ declarations and dice rolls, then the time pressure successfully killed the rests of the mood and what was meant to be an exciting, thrilling episode became tiring & boring necessity.

So here’s the question – what should GM do, to prevent such a turn of events? Or in detail – how can you make storytelling easier using WFPR 3ed’s mechanics? How do you do that? What are your tricks?

I think WFRP is more a 'wing-it' kind of game. Yes, you want to keep your information consistent, but in RPGs, it's easy to write up a page description for an important NPC, then the players all want to know about the insignificant barmaid you invented when they decided to grab some ale.

Then there is the problem when you have a detailed description for someone and nothing for others, you have OOCly identified that one NPC is important and others are not.

For locations a long description works better, but again if you go into 3 paragraphs about an old alter while the you forget to pick a scene for the tapestry beside it, you've given something away.

I want narration and description in a game but it does have to be kept short. Whether by player or GM, it's important that things are not just dice rolls and the Warhammer Dice and Action cards easily combine to produce "he howls bloodlust [reckless stance] and strikes in a berserk rage [acton card]." etc.

Generally the rule of 1-3 details per NPC/thing coming along is good in terms of what people can remember and not get bored through. You can know more or wing more as needed.

That does sound like a long combat - are the players familiar with system etc.?

Whenever I have run fights that run way too long, I look back and think, "I should have put a rally step in there and changed the situation."

Many RPG fights are the standard "in a room with x enemies, fight until all x are down." That tends to drag. Take the authors' advice and break the fight up into acts with each having some different twist or idea behind them, and that 2.5 hour fight won't be as tedious, because the situation will be constantly changing.

@bigity - actually I don't see much problems with long descriptions during narrative mode, however, on the whole, I agree with you, you cannot "overtalk" the session. What my concern is, is the problem with fast-paced but still visual, narrative and developed descriptions of combat sequences.

I've just wanted to mention Doc's session - Underground Rising, which was presented on Reckless Dice. I remember the second episode of UR and it was mostly a fight, right? It took more than two hours if I recall correctly. And though your advice, Doc, is quite resonable and I generally agree with it, I'm not sure if it's so easily aplicable. Let's take the fight from UR ep. 2 - where could you put rally here? A patrol of town's guard (or maybe another bunch of bad guys) could brake in which could be a good moment to introduce rally step, but after that you would end up with more NPCs to track - even more balls to juggle at the same time. In my example rally steps were supposed to be between encounters but it never

And there's also another thing I didn't mention earilier - many of us don't have the luxury of choosing the people we play with. If we don't want to play with someone we would probably end up not playing at all. Why am I saying that? Because not every player wants to memorize all the rules by heart, to the point in which he/she can take part of GM's work and describe his/her PC's actions with more than dry "so I attack him". It's what valvorik wrote - my players know rules in some degree, but not by heart. I can't force them to learn them more, the only way is to play more, but still I'd like to have my combat sequences to have more action and less routine.

Taking it one step further we have to realise that every time players "get out" of the storytelling mood to perform some mechanics-oriented tasks, it makes the mood somehow harder to recover. In WFRP 3ed. even simple skill checks are quite developed - due to collecting proper dice pool - so it's not just a fast dice roll and feedback for GM -I succeded with X levels of success. GM has to add his misfortune/challange dice and after the roll is made players always take few seconds to sum up the results, then they decide how to interpret the roll. It takes time and disturbes smooth narration. How to prevent this?

You can be flavorful as you want in your descriptions of combat as long as the rule results are the same.

For example, if several characters are huddled together and doing Guarded Position, as a Fen Beast is charging at them, if the Fenbeast fails to hit, it doesn't mean it can't be dramatic. The end result would be that the hit was a miss, and the Fenbeast is now engaged with the party, who are all engaged with each other ... that is boring and a bit disappointing after a big charge. But you could describe it like this (and take liberties with NPCs being affected):

-------------

Kesh, seeing the firm stance that the others are making, is inspired by the camaraderie of Reikland's men. "Wait for it to attack!"

The creature's eyes seem to follow Kesh as he runs to the formation and it moves with surprising speed toward the group. The men raise their spears and Rylan intensifies his flame (Bright Wizards Guarded Position bonus described as a wall of flame), as Kesh ducks under the spears and turns to face the creature crouching behind his shield. "Keep up your guard!" Kesh yells.

"Here it comes!" shouts Eldred. The thing plows right through the flames and doesn't seem to care as spears thrust into it and snap. The impact scatters everyone and knocks them back. It almost crushes Kesh as he rolls to one side at the last moment. As everyone tries to regain their footing, Eldred raises his spear with hands shaking. The creature seems to notice something and its attention goes to Eldred, and for a moment, it pauses.

[Creature now engaged with everyone. All are still engaged with each other.]

---------------

The end result is the Fenbeast still missed and is now engaged with everyone, even though they are described as being knocked back and stuff, they are not technically prone, or disengaged. It's all flavor. And you can do whatever you want to the NPCs, like having their spears break.

Doing this on the fly would be more difficult but doable.

Wow Romus that was nice!

May be I have to hire you for my games

I can certainly not do this for each attack of each monster and each player each round.

And that's exactly my problem Yepesnopes too - I can write such a flavorful description, but again write. After first hour of combat it's really hard to improvise such a juicy description. Do you have any tricks that help you keep the narrative tempo?

May be we have to create a "Random narrative combat" generator, like tose tables you find for names and the like, where you roll once or twice to generate a name and a surename.

We could create several tables, like one for PC's, Beasts, Monstrous, Chaos, Greenskins, Skaven etc.. and each table may be divided in two or three columns depending if there where critical wounds or not, then roll one or twice a D100 to generate a random description.

Only do longer descriptions to enhance

-the most dramatic moments, or moments you want to enhance

-things that trigger a rally step

-the first time something happens, like a new enemy attacking

-A death blow or an attack that does a lot of damage

-A powerful action card or ability being played

If they are just doing a basic action or defending then you can still flavor it up but keep it short.

Yarghuzzz said:

First, thanks for listening. I'm in the process of writing the next campaign, and it's encouraging to hear someone actually hears them.

That fight was totally the one I was thinking of when I wrote the post.

In retrospect, when I decided that the gang leader (the Hammer) was going to retreat, I should have ended the act and started a new act focused on a chase. Then, if they caught him, there could be a 3rd act where the fight continued somewhere in the street. Maybe there was another factor (like a crowd forming and harassing the baddie).

That's kinda what happened in the fight in Ep 3, but I didn't do the rally steps. That one was short enough that it worked, though. That game is 90% on the fly, so you do what you can.

--

I agree with Romus as far as only busting out the long descriptions for special moments. Having some actions be brief and others be big makes for more interesting pacing, and really spotlights those moments where you use the long narration.

When a player hits someone with his weapon, isn't it really his responsability to describe what happends (within the effecys of the card). That's another way to do it. Let players narate their own swings. But it has to work and all players should feel comfortable with it.

Personally I don't think every swing should be narated... it would make the moments dull and players would start tapping their fingers as yet another ordinary swing gets the gold treatment. Often criticals mean there is something to narate. If no criticals are scored then it's just minor injury and dull fighting not worth a lot of words. When a player scores a hit with criticals, you get the criticals and can use them as inspiration to narate the effect.

Players can still narate how they act in combat before they toss the dice, even if the GM narates the effects.

3 hours of combat? The horror! If the combat isn't important to the story, perhaps you can consider (next time - you'll get better at judging this as you gain experience) making the baddies easier to beat (using the henchmen rules, perhaps). Or harder.

A lot of the time, what you really need to know by the end of the combat is: did the PCs slaughter all before them, grab the chest and get off the sinking boat? Or did they flee or die? If the PCs are clearly winning, you can skip the rest of the 'rules' for the combat: have the baddies flee or 'all get finished off' - so you can move on with the story. You don't need to roll any dice for this at all (and think up narrative descriptions.) If the PCs are losing; don't spend another hour killing them. Tell them what escape routes there are open to them and wait for them to take one of them!

This advice won't help people who love game systems and rules... But it sounds like your problem is too much rolling and rules, rather than too little.

Angelic Despot said:

I'd agree with you there, but I've had too many fights in this game where it looked like it was going one way, and then it went another. The momentum swings with this system are too wide to assume until the fight is nigh over.

Angelic Despot said:

Most of the rules in the books are about combat in some way. Three hours of combat can be dull, but three hours of awesome combat can be... awesome. Our sessions are usually 10-12 hours, so a fight that lasts three hours and is exciting is fine.

I mean if combat is something to just get over with, to skip to cut short and to avoid... why bother. Enjoy the violence says I or most of the rules are irrelevant anyway and 90% of the cards pointless.

Doc, the Weasel said:

I think the key here is that the PCs are still the stars of the adventure - if the PCs look like they are winning, and the fights being going on for a while, and people are starting to lose interest, close it out quickly like Angelic Despot says - all the story really needs to know is how beaten up the PCs are at the end- does it really matter if the enemies could have turned the fight round? They aren't the important people here.

If the PCs are fighting for their lives, then keep the fight going to see if they can turn it round, if everyone is still excited - if people are lagging, get them overwhelmed, get them captured and give them a different more interesting situation to be in.

Now if the fight is with the major NPC where it is important to play it accurately then all bets are off, and the fight should be played as close to the rules as possible, but even then, if people are bored, the GM can always fudge things so that the baddie falls through the floor to certain death only for the body to disappear etc, etc.

Being able to read players and having enough GM skill to know when to fudge a combat to a quick resolution is far better than ensuring a combat is played out fully to the rules, to ensure fairness, IMO.

Some groups can get into a habbit of wanting combat to just be over with quickly. I think this comes from the effort people put into it. Encounters need to be genuinely interresting. Offer tactical, moral and life or death descisions. If it's just two rows of miniatures slugging it out round by round, die roll by die roll... then it will ge boring.

I do honestly believe combat in WFRP 3rd will benefit a lot fom being played out on a battlemat (squares... hexes suck). It won't make combat last longer, but it can make visualizing the situation, drawing actual stuff etc. easier. It also means that combat can much more easily contain a lot of sub plots, because the board and actual placing of minuatures are there to inspire the GM, to gang up on the wizard, so the warriors must step in. Get to that blunderbus on the wall first and trying to block the enemies from getting there.

I just think enjoying combat is a matter of investing in it. The GM needs to make a good setup, so it's not just "These guys attack you, roll initiative".

I think it's really a shame if groups don't enjoy combat... because if they don't why bother with it at all. 90% of the action cards and most of the rules are combat related. That's a lot of material being wasted on something people ultimately don't enjoy.

The strenght of WFRP3 is that it has the strenght to offer more than just slugging it out. Recharge of cards and all the other details can add a layer of fun to well thought out encounters. When WFRP3 was release people cried out that it was a board game. Silly of course... but combat benefits from being played as an actual game and not just being skipped. That would be like narating a game of "Chaos in the Old World" and just conclude that Khorne wins.

pumpkin said:

I completely agree with this. If you're not being bored by combats, then if they last 10 hours, it's not a problem. But if you are bored, then an hour is far too long. It obviously depends upon the tastes of the players, the talent and experience of the GM, and the context - just how important is this fight to the story.

Just to take up one of Gallows' points - I do find combat fun, BUT... in the context of the story. An exciting fight is exciting because it has options, adventures and narrative interest and consequences. If you're finding the combat are boring, and you can't think of anything to make them interesting - then it's probably telling you something about the importance and the dramatic impact of this combat. A fight on a sinking boat should be fun. But if you've narrated the slips and falls, the damp gunpowder, the rigging falling all around you... and some of your opponents are still standing and you're out of ideas... then you've already got out of the combat everything you should be getting out of the combat. So now is the time to cut to the chase, get to the point and move on.

But that's one of the places where role playing games differ from me just telling them a story. I won't drag out combat, but I also believe combat will be exciting if something is at stake - be it the characters lives or something else. The setup is important too for the combat itself to feel alive by other means than pure naration. Too much naration in combat can also make it feel dull, because you may just force your own vision of what happends on the players. A good combat situation can create images in the players minds with few words and in some cases that can be more powerful than anything the GM can say. Narating combat just for the sake of it is dull. Those awesome swings, exciting moments and on the edge situations can do with some naration, but naration is spice and too much spice makes the meal foul. It's a balance you need to find, a balance that suits the group.

Just to end combat suddenly would feel very strange, but opponents do tend to flee or beg for mercy if they think death is certain.

But a combat where nothing is at stake is pointless.

Gallows said:

I agree with all of that. My point is simply that if you find yourself in a situation where the rules say the combat hasn't finished, but nothing much of interest is actually happening, then there's no point dragging it out.

If the group goes on a 4 week trek through wilderness, you may roll some dice, RP some conversations along the way, accumulate fatigue (and maybe stress), play through some encounters... But sooner or later, as GM you've got to announce that they players have arrived (somewhere: whether or not it's their intended destination...). You don't drag it out just because you haven't rolled high enough.

Going back to combat - if your players are able to pick, roll and interpret dice quickly, and there is something still at stake (such as their lives) in a fight - then it's likely that you'll want to keep rolling and see what happens. And I agree - sometimes a simple 'we battle furiously and I inflict another 6 points of damage' is fine: it's to the point, and it gives the key actions more drama. But if you've got to a point where you know the players aren't going to lose, where it's just taking too long and everyone is frustrated, then it's time to get on with it.

That's why I favour making dice rolls represent larger periods of time sometimes. e.g. If everyone's fed up with the battle, each player can roll a single combat dice pool and then - in conjunction with the GM - describe in broad-brush terms what happens between the high point of the battle and the actual end. e.g. Rather than some successes turning into a damaging strike but an extra point of fatigue, a single roll could become "The battle continues for several more minutes: the groups has turned the tables on the ambushers and forced them into an alley from which there's no escape. The matter is finally settled when you heave a bench into the middle of the retreating thugs, tiring yourself out, but giving your comrades the opportunity to put the last of them to the sword."

I would happily let one of my players interrupt this part way through, saying 'I don't think I'd throw a bench at them - how about my shield? They wouldn't expect that, and it would still give us the opening we need". And then one of the other players adds that as the thugs are being finished off, he is screaming at the top of his lungs, adding to their confusion and fear. Great. Combat finished; players are happy and nothing of importance was missed as a result of turning one dice roll into 'lots of attacks' rather than a single attack.

I guess for my sake it would be odd 'skipping' combat in a game who has long maintained that combat isn't trivial.

If you know the players aren't going to lose, then NPCs will know it too most likely and you can end combat naturally. It's much more exciting taking prisoners and having to make the descision... life or death, moral choices, than just fighting to the death.

Then again the very few enemies that do fight to the death like zombies or other mindless creatures can be a bit boring if you have to spend two more rounds killing the last undead. In those few examples a narated ending could be ok. The combat can still be exciting though if the players are on the edge as hordes overwhelm them and as soon as they get the upper hand and the outcome seems given, I agree it would be silly to just slug it out.

I think I don't worry about the real time lenght of combat, but more how exciting it is. One fight could be exciting for three hours but another should end after 15 minutes. I don't believe in short combat as a general rule, but I hate boring and pointless combat. It's like a movie where a fight scene can be brilliant even though it drags out (Two deadwood fight scenes come to mind), because you're kept on the edge.

If a fight seems slow and boring then perhaps it shouldn't have been a fight in the first place. You can repair it by adding new challenges they need to overcome and give them a rally step to slow things down before you spring the surpríse on them. For combat I really think the three act structure is brilliant with two rally steps seperating the acts. Designing your encounters (that should not always be predetermined as a combat encounter) in three acts forces the gm to think of twists to the action instead of just lining up rows of standups. An encounter could start out as a social fight, turn into a physical fight and end as a social fight for instance. Time limits are also fun, perhaps the players need to finish fighting or reach a point in a certain number of turns. Perhaps they need to survive against the odds for a number of turns until reinforcements arrive (which is a good way to make a big fight, where players are overwhelmed and then end it suddenly at the peak of action).

I just think as a GM that focus on combat is just as important as focus on the story, since most rules and character stats, cards etc. relate to combat or conflict in some way. It's easy to focus mainly on the story and then push combat away so it isn't important - which is certain to make it boring. So a combat or conflict encounter should be fleshed out with its own little plot and story line. The NPCs have goals, that are in conflict with the players goals somehow. If GMs sit down and work on encounters with the same enthusiasm as their story, then players will really enjoy it.

I agree with Gallows.

The main tip I would give you is : remember opponents are sentient beings ! They want to live. They can be afraid, they can rout, they can desert, betray, or they can be suicidal occasionally. But most of the time, they won't fight to the death and if cornered, they'll either surrender or attempt really desperate (and entertaining) moves to get out !

Take the thugs in an alley example. They have their back to the wall, are faced with well armed and determined foes. They would quickly yield, IMO. If not, they might get behind their biggest dude and try to push through the PCs violently (I would let the dude roll an attack on a PC with 2 blacks, then roll an opposed Athletics, with all the other thugs in support, I would let adjacent PCs lend support to the PC that's attacked; the result of these rolls would probably redefine all positions and give a new push to the battle; or everybody could finish prone and an indecent scuffle in the mud would follow... just use your imagination !).

The thing to remember, NPCs can perform a stunt too !

Jericho said:

I'm not actually disagreeing as much as it perhaps appears. If the thugs are going to be pushing through the PCs in a frantic attempt at escape, then, well - the fight is still interesting, and still in doubt, so there's no reason to draw it to a close all of a sudden. It shouldn't be hard in this instance to think up interesting descriptions of what is happening during the battle, which is the problem that we were originally addressing. And if you're all happy continuing the fight, then I wouldn't for a second argue for cutting it off and giving it a narrative 'they all die - congratulations - what do you want to do now?' ending.

I suspect I'm far less patient with the rules than many others and more likely to be happy - with my players' consent - to wrap things up quickly with a couple of 'this dice roll represents what happens in the rest of the battle' rolls and move on than many of you would be, but the principle I'm arguing for still (I believe) stands: if GM and players are getting bored by a battle - end it quickly and move on. Tie things up, and get on to something interesting.

(In fact this goes for any scene, combat or not, but I guess - because there are so many rules involved in battles - that it feels stranger drawing things to rapid close with a fight scene than it does with many others.)

I think 3ed already have all it needs to sort that out: the progress tracker. whit my next gaming group, i'm going to try planning ahead each fight encounter whit a 5 or 6 progress tracker, so that a middle event and a final event are just one or two rounds distant. for example: if the group is trying to save a caged guy from a troll, the middle event could mean someone have actually reached the guy and can now interact whit the cage, and the final event means the combat is over: some other monster appears, ally arrives...whatever!

But how to determine the outcome? at the end of each round advance the PC's tracker if they inflicted more damage than monsters or someone succeed in a relevant action/manouvre, otherwise advance the monster's tracker. (or then again, is just a run against the time, whit the monster's tracker advance each round no matter what). the first tracker who arrives at the end is the combat's winner...gm just need to wrap it up whit a rally step and action flows foward!

That way u save everything IMHO: there's something at stakes that can be lost or won, the combat only run for a prefixed number of rounds, something new happens in just one round or two and everyone has the possibility to be creative whit narration before getting out of inspiration... what do u guys think?