It wasn't an epic clash with a dragon or a siege on a keep.
The single greatest combat encounter I've ever run was a mundane, random encounter with a couple of bandits. The table has retold it excitedly several times since then, and it's become clear that this will be one of those tales told for years to come.
Setting the Scene
Before we go into why this was amazing, let's set the scene. We have two players engaged with a pair of bandit archers. The players have taken cover behind the ruins of a shed in a field at a farm. The bandits are circling around both sides of the shed, and the players are aware that next turn they will be in the crossfire. They are also aware that the bandits have bows drawn and ready to fire the second the players are visible. The hope is that they can take out one of the bandits so they can continue to circle around the shed, maintaining cover from the other bandit.
The fight goes from lost to won in a single turn. From a mundane and forgettable filler encounter to a legend retold ad nauseam at my table. Here's how it went down.
Player1 lacks a ranged weapon and is aware that the bandits are maintaining distance to leverage their ranged advantage. Player2 has a sling and is ready to hit the bandit the second he can. But spinning up a sling shot just isn't going to be as quick as a readied bow shot, and everyone at the table knows it. Player1 says, "I have a bear costume written down in my inventory. I want to put the bear head on my quarterstaff, and try the old helmet-on-a-stick trick, to draw his fire." He then pokes the bear's head ever so slightly out of cover, and the bandit lets the arrow fly in response. Success! Player2 now steps around the corner, takes a shot, and drops the bandit. At this point, the remaining bandit fails a morale check, and the encounter ends.
This sounds pretty routine so far. A player wastes the enemy's action economy by leveraging their inventory in a creative/unintended way. What made it interesting was how the system (Cairn 2e) made it happen very naturally. I think a good DM can do it in any system, but I'm certainly not creative enough in the moment to make this happen without the system walking me into it.
What Really Happened Here?
When the player attempted to draw the enemy's fire, they triggered a roll. Whoever is "most at risk" makes a save against the most appropriate stat, to see if they suffer a consequence. In this case, I ruled that the bandit was most at risk because if he fails, he'll get shot with a sling while reaching for another arrow rather than shooting the player as they become visible. We need to find out whether his nerves hold and whether he is tricked by a bear head on a stick. He needs to roll a d20, at or below his Will stat, and he failed. He mistakes the bear head for the player and wastes the shot.
Typical "dnd-derived" ttrpgs are going to resolve this by an initiative roll (to see who shoots first) and then take turns making shots against each other's AC, presumably adjusted for cover and perhaps other factors. A typical TTRPG "as written" has no way to resolve what Player1 has done here, aside from nudging the "to-hit" roll that it is barrelling unerringly toward. But Cairn doesn't have "to-hit" rolls. This is an interesting design decision that gets overlooked as a simplification. What's actually happening is that the tactical strategy is shifted forward to the point of engagement. What is typically a foregone conclusion (We will kick the door down and attack) becomes a chess match. If you're forced to engage on your opponent's terms, you will likely lose.
Why did it land so hard?
So, the table knows that right after player1 and player2 act, the bandit will drop a damage die 3x bigger than their total hp, and this will very likely determine the outcome of the fight. This is a palm-sweatingly tense moment, and the players are aware they are severely disadvantaged because they are about to have a two-front fight against ranged opponents that get to shoot first. The moment Player1 suggests the bear head, there is a palpable wash of hope. And when the bandit fails the Will check, the table bursts into cheers because they know they now have the advantage. The first bandit is about to get brained, and the second bandit will be in the same hopeless two-front fight they were in mere seconds ago.
The players acted naturally within the fiction and never invoked any rules or mechanics directly. They remained immersed in the fiction the entire time. Their experience as players was that the whole "drop to mechanics, roll for initiative, choose an action" never happened in this fight. The encounter was completely "live and diegetic", and it wasn't until after the other bandit fled that it occurred to either player that they were even "in combat."
If you ask my players why this story is epic to them, it's exactly because the mechanics never stopped the action. It was an intense quasi-narrative experience, and while it was completely procedural and run by the mechanics of the game, those mechanics weren't the "interface" the players interacted with. It was compelling and tense in a way they had never experienced with a TTRPG before. Indeed, when they retell the story with big smiles and bright eyes, they aren't talking about some amazing bandits or a setting or any of that. They are talking about what combat in a TTRPG "could be," and they want to share that experience with others, the way some people share a new band or restaurant they just found. "This is going to change everything," they say, and it has.
Comments
Post a Comment