Making tactical engagements fun (in Roll20)

My GMing style has been, so far, very narrative. We usually do without maps, any even on roll20 I only show character portraits and images to illustrate the scenery once in a while. However, as my newest campaign has happened to go in a more tactical, military direction (we're playing Mekton, so that's to be expected), I for the first time find myself faced with the prospect of having to design tactical encounters with maps and so forth. The problem is: I have absolutely no experience with this, nor any feeling for what is fun. Yes, I am an avid wargamer and enjoy long, drawn-out tactical engagements tremendously, but there are so many things that I have never approached from the perspective of a GM trying to make a fun scene for players without wasting their time. For example, a simple setup: a baddie has taken hostages in a gas station, and the players are trying to take him down. Knowing my players, they will go into "kill everything" mode immediately, which is fine. However, the mission would practically devolve into a game of X-Com, i.e. essentially a computer game, way too quickly. It's basically taking turns rolling dice, and I don't feel like I need a roleplaying game to do that. Another aspect is Roll20 itself. I have no feeling for what makes a decent size for maps to illustrate such engagements. What should I remember when building them? Are there any tricks of the trade you use to make tactical engagements more straightforward, possibly with macros and tables? I'd be very grateful for your input, as will (probably) my group :)

While I can't give you many specifics, I would encourage you to give it a shot and just be open with your players. If they know it's your first time, and you communicate with them re: what they'd like to see be different, you might be surprised how well it goes. My group is fairly RP-heavy, but have enjoyed the Roll20 VTT experience a lot. For our group, the biggest advantage is not having to spend a lot of time doing mental math/measurements like you do in a physical game - if the average player turn is 4-5 seconds instead of 30, you can achieve a special kind of "combat" feel/tension that often is missing from RP games. For our group, that makes a *huge* difference. It does feel a bit video/board-gamey, but in our case it hasn't been in a bad way. The key (for us) is the speed. To get that speed, I put macros for almost everything. I did it for my players, though given how much work it might be ideal if they do it. But whatever your system "standards" are (in Pathfinder, for example, attacks & damage, perception and initiative) are absolute minimums to be macro'd for each character. Preferably any skill/ability involving movement, etc. Given how roll20 works, it might be a good idea to build up one char and then copy it several times - just keep in mind you're likely to forget something and delete the copies, then do it again. Single-line summary: there's a massive difference between "click, click, enter" (I put in modifiers for most macros so we could put in situational stuff like flanking) and "oh, yeah, um, I've got a skill...it's somewhere on this sheet...oh, +4...now, how do I roll that again?" Preparation can make it mostly/all the first one. Since you're a mentor, you might also spend a few minutes poking around in the API forums looking for things like movement path trackers, etc. The biggest slow-downs we've experienced have been in trying to describe and measure movement paths using "pings", which is tedious.

Kikanaide said: . The biggest slow-downs we've experienced have been in trying to describe and measure movement paths using "pings", which is tedious. Pick up your token with the select tool, and hold it. Now press spacebar while holding it. Then hover it over the space you want to move to and press spacebar. Repeat for your entire movement path. This feature is built into Roll20 already.

The difference between Roll20 and F2F really comes down to Macros/Abilites, Dynamic Lighting/LoS and maps. With good preparation you can make the combat a lot quicker and the "grid" a lot clearer. Other than those I feel the tricks are the same here on Roll20 and in F2F sessions. Do your players like tactical or simple combat? How well does you system support tactical combat? These should help you to decide how tactical you actually should make the combat. Usually the game systems don't have any psychology or roleplaying rules for combat so if you want to emphasize those areas you need to make house rules. Eg. I have implemented a Moral Failure system for combat to represent the psychological aspect of doubt. Basically if things start to go bad for your team you need to be mentally strong not to lose your nerve. Losing one's nerve can mean penalties or restrictions to what the N/PC can (try to) do. You can make similar effect for roleplaying. Two things that seem to have a big effect on how fun combat are: truly interactable environment and not limiting the options a N/PC can do to the actions given in the rulebooks. Usually there are no rules for things like blindfire, suppressive fire, agile movement in non-flat environment, destroying the environment, setting things on fire, etc.the list is almost non-ending. For example in one of my games one of my players had a bomb/grenade and they were in a cave. He decided to try to make the bomb explode in air next to the ceiling of the cave above their enemies to make it collapse on those enemies. Trust me there were no rules for any of this in the rulebooks. There were no rules on how to time the explosion to a specific point in mid-air, no rules for how the cealing is supposed to react, no rules on who are hit and how much damage is caused, etc. But by allowing the PC to try this the player felt he was being clever and clearly sounded exited. Unfortunately for him the PC fumbled the throw and almost killed himself but that event ended up being the source/trigger for a lot of good roleplaying afterwards. I guess what I'm trying to say is that since Roll20 enables certain preparations do those well and the actual sessions will go a lot more smoothly and then play the combat as you play the rest of the campaign. Whether you want it to be roleplay heavy, tactical, fast, etc. there is nothing stopping you other than the restrictions you give yourself.

Askren said: Pick up your token with the select tool, and hold it. Now press spacebar while holding it. Then hover it over the space you want to move to and press spacebar. Repeat for your entire movement path. This feature is built into Roll20 already. Askren is referring to the Waypoints feature. You can read more about it on the wiki: <a href="https://wiki.roll20.net/Manipulating_Graphics" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.roll20.net/Manipulating_Graphics</a>

I just run it all as narrative. I use handouts for pics, "The guy looks like this" "The beach you are at looks like that." I don't use a grid, it turns it into a wargame for me.

Interesting topic. I personally have no clue how you can run a game purely narrative with no basic map or even a simple layout of players versus monsters or etc. As both a GM and a player I am always being asked or asking - Where again is such an such place? or Where is such an such adversary or npc in relation to myself or my character?. We always used simple dry erase boards, or dice ( or other simple tokens) on a hand drawn map, or even just a tablecloth. Nothing fancy. I prefer a more narrative and roleplaying game style, but I do not know if or how to manage or organize a game without a map or some type of layout. That might be myself, as I am a very visual and tactical and technical layout orientated person. We never required extreme details an such, but maps or diagrams allow for consistent locations and places, and they also are an outstanding way to track or make notes for future games and scenarios. However , Even though I use a lot of maps and drawings, I still continue to play rather freely or openly. I do not worry too much about say distances traveled or weapon ranges and etc. The map is only a visual tool or assistant to give additional aide to the narrative aspects of the game. -- About building your map scene - or world. I believe in building a world for the players, not just a single scenario. I GM run a space opera game. I have made a map of worlds to visit, and as the players travel I try to plan ahead and create a starbase or spaceport and other places. While creating these maps for the locations I keep them rather generic at first, so I can use them in various scenarios. Changing what I need when I know the players will actually go to one. Basically I make a template, I can use for many other locations. -- Use whats already out there - If you are playing a big wargame, grab a map of a city or location that already exists. Need a desert map? Grab a map of a real desert. Need a city? Grab or google a map of a real city. Flip it upside down or etc and modify it as you need. I usually plop it in roll20 as the background map layer, then use the tokens to make buildings an such, or notes. -- roll20 specifics. I usually make a 50 x 50 grid. Then set the grid to the average size I want, or if a more combat orientated map, to the movement distance appropriate for 1 turn. Again, most of my maps are aides only for the narrative and Roleplaying. I might slow a player or starship down, I allow players to move their own tokens, and sometimes I have to grab the token and put it back hahah, to keep a player in pace with the other places or as time is properly moving during a scenario. If my map is more for layout - we play a space campaign, with players on a starship. I set the grid to about 1 to 3 meters, which is the size of a player, or a hallway width. This gives the players a good feeling for the SIZE and SCALE of the starship they are in. Again its all for supporting the story and narrative. But just that basic scale and actual dimensions I find brings a whole extra level of the scene or starship feeling more REAL for my players. The interior map allows them to see where their room or cabin is in relation to the bridge or engine room and other places. Note - my maps contain a good amount of details on locations or places, but I still narrate what the location really looks like. Or show a picture like many of you do. A shop or merchant tavern on the map is usually only a simple box, labeled Tavern. But If I feel it needed, I will quick sketch up an interior layout for a player if they wish. I hope some of these comments help ya! If you like, you can stop in an check out our space campaign, I would be happy to show you what maps etc, we have been using. They are pretty basic ( in my opinion) compared to some of the awesome maps I've seen images posted of. But they work for us. ^__^ Campaign link - PM me an I can show you around sometime if requested. <a href="https://app.roll20.net/campaigns/details/317597/sso-singularity-space-opera-anime-rpg-on-hold-till-april-19-2014" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/campaigns/details/317597/sso-singularity-space-opera-anime-rpg-on-hold-till-april-19-2014</a>

In playing largely 4E, I have a number of different maps that I have made and found that work very well tactically. I run 25x25 most of the time, since 50x50 seems absolutely huge to me. I suppose the specifics will always depend on the system, but to me I try to follow a few rules to make things engaging first, I always try to mix melee and ranged. This works well because it forces people to have to move around. Combat gets boring in any system when the tokens are just sitting there for 30 minutes while you say 'i hit that guy' Secondly, I am a firm believer in combat that has an objective. Or multiple objectives. Lets use the hostage example that you had. Already you have an objective. But, do you have an alternative plotline or some sort of contingency if the hostage dies? That to me is one of the big keys. The hostage living or dying should be almost irrelevant. The players should want to save the hostage and be rewarded more heavily for doing so... but if the whole purpose of the fight is to save the hostage, then as a GM you are basically saying the hostage can't die. Perhaps what the players really want is some information that the hostage has.... which if the hostage dies now has to be found in a more difficult manner. (Just as an example) This can set up a whole world of RP. If the players go into 'kill em all' mode, maybe your terrorists get an itchy trigger finger. and now the game just got harder. I mentioned a secondary objective.... this gives the Players something else to worry about besides just your hostage. Maybe there is a bomb elsewhere on the map that needs to be diffused else... boom. Or, the terrorists get away car/helicopter/teleporter/whatever is arriving and they are headed towards that at a certain point in the combat... now its a race. Again, this partly relies on saying to yourself as a GM... "ok, i dont really care if the hostage itself lives or dies or gets captured the plot can and will go on" Maybe if the terrorists get away, then the next mission is to locate and infiltrate their hideout. So as you see, not only are the Players concerned with the primary objective--- recover the hostage but now they need to also worry about threat #2, a bomb or a built in timer in the form of a get-away. Additionally, taking your hostage example. Randomization is your friend. If you decide that a hostage being rescued is the main story, and there is no other way around it.... make many hostages and randomly roll to see if the PC's find the RIGHT hostage. That way maybe they work their down a corridor to save a hostage but find out it wasn't the one they needed. Good RP opportunity there too since maybe a conversation between the hostage and the players happen for more information etc. these types of ideas I would use in a central combat in my campaign. I don't have every single fight have these types of dimensions because it gets weary after a while too. You absolutely need to have the "trash" fights in contrast to the cool multi-faceted scenario's. Also, you have a gigantic built in hazard in your own setting... a gas station. Gas Stations are notoriously flammable. Not the sort of place you want to be doing overt gunfire in (i am assuming that since you have a gas station, your campaign includes guns)... maybe now this has to be a stealth mission? One thing I think though--- the minute you put tokens and a map down... you run the risk of making your RP session a bit more board-gamey. I think that is just the nature of the beast. It is just very ingrained in players to pick up the piece and move it accordingly etc. That said, I personal believe you can embrace that... use that as PART of the game, and still have tons of RP with no tokens just as you always have done. It becomes the responsibility of the players (as well as you) to make sure the game stays at the level of RP that you guys are happy with. This imo is sort of the crux of the 4E anger a lot of people have, but that's a whole other topic anyway. If you would like to see some of the stuff I have on Roll20, please feel free to PM me.

Fabian said: Knowing my players, they will go into "kill everything" mode immediately, which is fine. However, the mission would practically devolve into a game of X-Com, i.e. essentially a computer game, way too quickly. It's basically taking turns rolling dice, and I don't feel like I need a roleplaying game to do that. I want to zero in on this. The difference between X-Com, etc. and an RPG, which is really going to be the difference between a war or board game and an RPG, is the characters. Combat can, and I will argue should, be an opportunity to showcase one's character. Torvald, the barbarian is reckless, but he also loves his friends. So, he should be so on the battlefield, making reckless decisions or decisions that put him at risk in order to protect others. This should sometimes involve "bad" tactical decisions, suboptimal ones, b/c you're playing a role-playing game. Corum, who has seen too many innocent lives lost, should approach things differently. In the example in the OP, the characters may approach the hostage situation differently. It's sort of a classic difference: what's more important to characters, saving lives, or meting out justice? Stuff like that. And, in an ideal world, their character builds should be able to reflect all that; the game should give them cool ways to showcase those elements of their character. For instance, Superman is always throwing himself in the way of an attack, and if a superhero game didn't have some mechanic for that (e.g., M&M's Interpose advantage) it'd be lacking.