Why Are We Fighting?

Is fighting to the death the only option?

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[digitaljanus]

I still remember the scenario in my friend's 4e game where we had to save an NPC from an aboleth lair, and I said "Our goal here isn't killing everything. Our goal is to get the captive out of here." The fastest PC ran to snatch and grab the prisoner while everyone else ran interference; it was one of the best combats we had in that game.

[helloMCDM]

It’s funny that everyone KNOWS, correctly, that D&D is built on wargaming bones. But, ironically, wargames used to focus on scenarios with victory conditions! D&D…DOES NOT!

[discount]

I doubt you will ever see this comment, but I just wanted to say how thankful I am that you made that first RunningTheGame video. If not for your advice, I don't think I ever would have played Dungeons and Dragons. I was always waiting for the game to come to me. I never considered that I could run the game I was waiting for. You are an inspiration and gave me a great reason to meet with my friends every week.
Thank you, Matt!

[rayfroklage]

When it’s clear the bad guys have been beat, I ask my players “have we smoked the best part of the cigar?” And they always say yes. I allow them to narrate how they defeat the stragglers without rolling, and we just roll forward to keep the pace up.

[matthewbergdorf]

I think the Verbs video is also great for this! “Defend” the magic whatever machine; “Capture” the enemy lieutenant alive; “Rescue” the covert operative!

My DM had our party owe a debt to the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, and those jobs came with bonus objectives. “You must fight the leader in a high-noon-style duel, ” or “provoke a gang war between these two factions, so our assassin has the cover he needs.” And I remember those sessions very, very fondly.

[vornsuki]

"If literally all we want is to fight monsters, well, go play Gloomhaven." Curiously enough, Gloomhaven is FILLED with missions where the objective isn't to kill all the monsters. It's a fantastic resource for GMs to browse through to find some objectives to inspire them and reskin for TTRPG sessions

[jaddriscoll]

Part of the problem is that D&D and adjacent games are not systems where every fight can or should have narrative weight. The boss fight at the end of the dungeon may be the reason the party is there, and can have alternate conditions for victory, but unless you want the players to go nova on the bbeg then you'll need to have anywhere from 2-8 encounters beforehand along the way. It's a lot to ask of DMs to think of a unique story objective for each of those.

I think this is one of those issues where we really are reaching the limitations of the system. Want to play d&d? Acknowledge that its bones are a resource management dungeon crawling war game. Want every fight to be a Indiana Jones scene? Look into other systems.

[ggnorekthx]

It's amazing that after all this time, somewhat simple or straightforward advice can still result in "aha!" moments. This video is one of the best Running the Game videos you've done in awhile and has given me a ton to consider - I am definitely a DM guilty of too many "wipe them all out" objectives.

I'm super excited for a design series. Thanks for continuing to share your thoughts on this awesome game!

[paxtenebrae]

One of my favorite tricks for this is "bad guys make things worse in 5 turns". The ritual is complete in 5 turns, there's a ton of minions between you and them. Go. It's not the end of the campaign if they fail, just a bonus boss battle or something. The bad guys doing their thing not being a lose condition lets you make the timer much tighter. When the players enter the room and they see the ritual, I'll actually tell them they have five turns, crank up the tense music. Very fun.

[sunshinejameth]

I had a great moment where once my players were in the "win state" my husband and wife bad guys who were the sun and moon in an evil organisation based on tarot.

When they realised they were losing the bad guys came together and locked their wedding rings together to make a portal. It became a mad dash to not lwt them get away and it seemed drama was on our side because they managed to kill the husband but the wife got away and she became one of my best ever recurring bad guys

[katzeexmachina]

On the "waiting for your go" bit, the Genesys system uses initiative slots that can be taken by any player, which means everyone has to be thinking about what's the right time to go and talking about what's the best order to use their abilities. Makes combat much more engaging in my opinion

[keorgefashington]

This put some serious clarity on my previous encounters. I had a juiced up frost salamander terrorizing my players while they navigated it's lair. The whole encounter was just about them trying to escape. After a few rounds they started taking turns drawing its attention while hopping across platforms to get out. They used resources and took some damage of course. Though the escape was exciting for them. They felt like they won despite not killing anything. Gotta try and capture that drama in more of my encounters.

[callethenalle]

I am currently running Red Hand Of Doom (cheers for tip btw), and the Battle for Skull Gorge Bridge was probably the best combat I ever run. I am not sure any of the enemies actually died. Just run in, blow up the bridge, survive, retreat. And it was tense, dramatic and entirerly badass.

[nitehood]

This is the key I've been missing. Wow. Already thinking about how random encounters in the wilderness could start not with an ambush, but with an enemy stealing a magic item from a party member. Now it's not about killing everything, it's about getting the item back, which once they do, that would be the perfect moment for the remaining bad guys to abandon ship and flee.

[Spec]

I think one of the things that made the fight against the Black Iron Pact so fun and memorable is that there was real danger to the PCs. The moment of victory and the moment all the BIP were dead aligned because each BIP member represented a real chance to kill a PC, and getting through the slabs of HP meant each character in the party was a little bit safer. The fight had *stakes* from start to finish, and so the players had fun. 5e needs better tools to balance encounter design, since most encounters either tip to victory too quickly, or threaten a TPK immediately.

[CoffeePaladin]

One reason I love this channel and company isn't just because the awesome Running the Game videos but it really feels like this community and company is growing constantly, producing new and amazing stuff that makes the hobby feel alive. Thanks so much, you guys. And great advice, it really opened my eyes and now I wanna run an encounter where the goal is more objective-based like pull the levers simultaneously or retrieve the special book in the obscure language, all while the bad guys try to stop you.

[ShadyInversion]

Running games has been a really interesting experience b/c I had some hardcore D&D types in my first game as GM and they all had surprised Pikachu faces when a last surviving miniboss turned and ran down a Vietcong style tunnel system to light a fire alerting the entire dungeon. They managed to hunt him down in time but boy does introducing real tactics and strategy take some people completely off guard.

I'm awful at roleplay but the combat scenarios and objectives are what I love designing and doing.

A recent example was a spaceship with zero G filled with water canisters. When the players missed water droplets sprayed everywhere making visibility nearly zero. I had planned the encounter to be a brutal melee encounter but a player asked to use a console to turn on gravity and despite never thinking about it during prep I said yeah you can try. A few minutes later my players attached to the floor with mag boots in a firefight with an enemy squad in knee deep water on the ceiling. The objective was to stop the ship that was running their blockade. They could've gone to the bridge and gotten intel and ordered the ship to stop, but instead they went to the engines to shut them down. When they succeeded I reminded them that there was a whole other half of the ship yet to explore they opted to blow the engines and drift out into space for pickup because the mission was done.

It's why I became a GM in the first place. I run the games I wish I could play and because I easily get bored and distracted, as DM I'm using every available preplanned resource to realistically challenge, surprise, and subvert player expectations.

[bertonpinkham]

Killing every last bad guy is a mindset. Almost every encounter I prepare in my campaign has the losing group running away when the battle meets certain milestones (leaders killed, a certain number of the opposing side goes down, etc.) I like the idea of objectives in combat. As always, great content and a means to improve the games I run.

[sethwilliams]

I love that every time Matt makes a video it immediately improves my games.

Can’t wait for Appendix M!!!

[aqbrooks]

I normally have most enemies run away when the heroes have won and now just need to finish the fight, but normally they don’t get away because as soon as they do I treat them as minions. But I like the idea of adding more variation with encounter goals! And other great video. thank Matt