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View Full Version : Making a campaing more like a movie/show?



randomhero00
2010-05-20, 06:05 PM
I'm curious if anyone has tried this. And by that I mean making the majority of combat vs easily defeated mooks. With the only tough encounter the boss fight after months of playing. So heavy roleplay with mook slaughterfest to break it up until boss fight. Does that work?

I was thinking that might be fun some of the time...defeating easy enemies and focusing instead on dramatic effect and relationships/plot.

To clarify, I don't just mean heavy roleplay, but a mix of combat and roleplay, just that the fights themselves are easy mook fights the majority of the time. For instance most of LOTR was legolas bitch slapping orcs.

So it'd be more focusing on terrain and other objectives, such as saving townspeople from a raid of easy to slaughter orcs. Or fighting off a siege of mooks.

I figure this would also help out balance problems since if even the weakest member of the party can slaughter them, the guys with more power won't matter so much.

Jair Barik
2010-05-20, 06:23 PM
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1098

Obligatory link is obligatory.

Could work what you are proposing but in reality long battles of attrition don't necessarily work very well in certain systems (namely D&D)

randomhero00
2010-05-20, 06:28 PM
I didn't mean they'd all be fights of attrition. Just a few. Most would be over more quickly than standard combat. So for instance, you'd basically divide the CR by half for most fights, but still give normal experience. But still keep it to a few encounters a day, and maybe 4 encounters a session.

Dr.Epic
2010-05-20, 06:35 PM
I did something like this except it was only for one boss fight. The players were level five and they took on a 30 person legion of rogue* prostitute gnomes before facing a dwarf general with over 200 HP and a large warhammer that dealt well over 3d6 on a successful hit.

The rogues had only one level and none of them got to use the sneak attack ability.

J.Gellert
2010-05-20, 06:36 PM
Mutants and Masterminds does exactly that... So I think it comes down to two things.

First, the minions; basically enemies who cannot score critical hits against non-minions, and go down in a single hit. The orcs getting bitchslapped by Legolas.

Second, hero points and options like "extra effort" which add more "crowning moments of awesome" to players. Legolas riding the Mumak.

Piedmon_Sama
2010-05-20, 06:36 PM
If it's virtually certain what's gonna happen, at some point I think it's really okay to just stop rolling. Instead of rolling for every hit, just say "you emerge unscathed but awash in the blood of your foes after passing like lightning through the orc horde, the ring of steel on steel and slams of steel on flesh still resounding as the evil horde falls together," or something a little less flourid. The point is, if it's just gonna waste everyone's time, skip over it, just like you'd normally skip over the long boring walk between the dungeon and the village.

nargbop
2010-05-20, 06:37 PM
Chapters! Asking your players to recap at the beginning of every game. Encouraging visual descriptions.

Dark Herald
2010-05-21, 01:08 AM
Do not have your player fight 40 stormtroopers four levels lower than them with NPC classes in a 200m long tunnel with no cover. It was interesting, but dragged on for hours.

Really, skip the combats they're likely to win without a scratch and spend your prep time making memorable villains and rivals. Most of the awesome fights in movies are between two people who BOTH have tricks up their sleeves. Give the villain a unique weapon, like a scourge or a halberd, or give them a feat tree that you know is inferior but have always wanted to try, like spring attack or mounted combat. Make a monster with class levels. An evenly leveled character optimized to the party is really the most interesting fight most players will have.

To summarize, cinematic fights are not one sided; your players will remember the battle where they fought the Ettercap Druid who tried to paralyze them and throw them down a well or the Ettin with three magic crossbows who rotated them between the fire one, the ice one, and the acid one. What they won't remember is when they fought 30 Orcs in the room and blew a cure moderate because four orcs got unconfirmed criticals and rolled higher than average damage.

To Sum up: Make the opponents fun and unique. ask the Playground, they've lots of time to make wacky stuff if you don't.