What is HERO combat like?

[Altair]

Agree completely.

 

Now, if by "other media" you mean fantasy literature and folk mythology, you're absolutely right. The kill-everything-and-take-their-stuff motif of the classic "dungeon crawl" derives exclusively from Gygax and Arneson's medieval miniatures wargaming sessions in which killing the enemy (army)--all of it if possible--and plundering their treasure was the natural goal of every battle/session. When the action went under the castle being attacked, and the focus shifted to individual heroes rather than nameless regiments, the same goals were carried along without much thought to do otherwise. What the "leveled heroes" were doing underground was just an extension of what the army was doing on the surface.

 

It is in this sense that D&D is effectively its own genre. Inspired by fantasy literature, folklore, and mythology to be sure, but not modelled after it. The structure of the game's narrative, such as it exists, is unique to itself and not found anywhere else except perhaps early D&D novels.

 

Yep! Gygaxian roots show up all over the place. Nothing wrong with them, but they should be used on purpose. I do agree that D&D is its own genre, and this can get confusing when people show up to play D&D, because they might mean different things.

 

By "other media," i mean both those, and other things besides. Basically, there's usually an analogue in media somewhere. Supers have comics, film and television, as well as the occasional novel (I am told that I must read Steelheart), sci-fi has been expressed in a wealth of media, post-apocalyptic stories have been very successfully told in film, print and video games, so take your pick. 

 

And if I think of an example of a fight scene in a non-gaming media, there's often something besides unit attrition going on, at least, when it's interesting. There's an interesting and well-traveled blog post from the dude who made Leverage, which contains NSFW language and topics, but I found compelling. Main takeaway for our purposes:

 

You can stop reading now, if you just take this away: Don't write action sequences. Write suspense sequences that require action to resolve.

 

Basically, "and now they fight!" is not terribly interesting storytelling. This needle is moved a bit in games, insofar as engaging in combat can be fun in itself - but not that far, as the spectacle of an action sequence is supposed to be fun in itself for an audience. When done right, the end result can be intensely satisfying, and highly memorable.

 

Downside: it's a lot of work!

[Hyper-Man]

....

 

I'm all for the dungeon crawl, I've written a few adventures just so people have that as an option for their games.  But you need to keep the encounters interesting.  D&D is a matter of a few d20 rolls to take out crowds of goblins.  In Hero its more complicated and time consuming, and that has to be taken into account.

 

I think a hybrid approach could work well if taking on endless hoards in piecemeal bites. 

 

Run one encounter normally to show set the standard of how the group can handle the opposition (like a patrol of Orcs).  Use this to determine LTE and Charge use and handle any subsequent encounters with similar groups of Orcs as you would in the Amber Diceless RPG (in a very abstract way based on Ranks of Warfare/Strength/Endurance/Psych).  That's one way to move the story along more quickly to the interesting bits.

[zslane]

Or better yet, don't write up your fantasy adventures so the heroes are crossing paths with random bands of Orcs to begin with. That may be what the random encounter table (or your poorly written adventure module) says, but that table isn't the boss of you. ;-)

[Altair]

Oh word. Variety = spice, and all that.

 

Also, sometimes it really is quite satisfying to just stomp some opposition. Establishing the characters as BAMFs, or reinforcing such? Totally a worthwhile goal of an action sequence. 

 

My dramatic structure of combat encounters (in a game where combat is likely to be A Thing) goes roughly thus:

• Easy fight to learn the mechanics if players are new to the system
• Reference implementation fight - here's a baseline for where the PCs stand in terms of the setting. Something they can base expectations off of.
• Introduction of major plot element during high-spectacle combat scene
• Tricky combat scene with non-combat goals - chase, capture, bomb disarming, etc.
• Giant eff-off arc-ending spectacle combat with all bells & whistles sounding.

I try to check those off the list; not necessarily in order, but frames of reference are important, and I'm a sucker for big ending numbers. Now, if I were to do all of those in a game that runs a year or two? That might be every combat that occurs. Still, I try to keep the above in mind - I'm much more improvisational in my style; when I make notes, I just wind up throwing them out and doing something else - so that when a fight scene happens, it doesn't wind up being 5 Orks in a 30 sq, meter space.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well in D&D kills=experience.  So you have to keep the bad guys mowed down like wheat, because each guy that goes down pushes you toward that next level.  Hero is about the story and the fun, so you don't need the tons o' monsters approach.  A build up to and encounter with a single bad guy works fine; get the xps from the challenge and the role playing.

[Ndreare]

I love that hero does not reward kills. It used to drive me crazy, that my character would think of a solution but no kill meant 10% xp with that game master.

[Altair]

Yep. Incentivization! It's a thing.

[zslane]

Also, sometimes it really is quite satisfying to just stomp some opposition. Establishing the characters as BAMFs, or reinforcing such? Totally a worthwhile goal of an action sequence.

Well, I imagine it is only satisfying as long as your players aren't tuning out between their Phases and complaining that the combat is consuming too much playing time for the benefit gained.

 

Well in D&D kills=experience.

Sure, but even in the 80s I played with DMs who had figured out that handing out xp for things other than kills was a worthwhile house practice. Kinda like how they figured out that handing out xp for treasure gained probably wasn't such a smart design conceit. It didn't take that long for non-combat activities to become xp earners, especially for classes that didn't excel at combat. Moreover, in my experience, DMs who didn't give out generous xp for accomplishing plot-advancing goals during sessions where there wasn't any combat whatsoever didn't keep their players for long.

[Altair]

Well, I imagine it is only satisfying as long as your players aren't tuning out between their Phases and complaining that the combat is consuming too much playing time for the benefit gained.

 

For sure. Again, this is in the context of a more combat-sparse environment, where in a biweekly game, about 24 sessions in a year (accounting for misses, etc.) we might only see 5-7 combats, maybe less, as opposed to every session. In that context, having a quick romp added to the total tends to work much better, than if it's a focus of the game.