Interrupting Combat, switching between combat and the narrative smoothly.

[Bjarkmundur]

I was reading the One-Shot adventure "Wolves of Welton" (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/171236/The-Wolves-of-Welton--a-SingleSession-Adventure), and one of the combat encounters had a really interesting mechanic. As written, it's a set of conditions that once one f them is met, the players have a chance to Interrupt Combat and attempt to de-escelate the situation verbally.

I've always chucked this down to individual rulings, but I have had trouble with it in the past. In many of my sessions, there seems to be little consistency when the players can attempt to end combat early and when they cannot. I am against these kind of inconsistencies in ttrpgs, since they work against the players getting comfortable in your world. A player who believes he knows how the world works is more likely to be confident and outgoing, and creative. A player who is unsure how the world reacts to his actions is less likely to act.

To make it perfectly clear to me and my players, I've been cooking up this little diddy.

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Interrupting Combat
Despite the tropes, combat is rarely "to the death". In any given combat situation each side has their own agenda, and will only fight as long as it furthers their plan. Sometimes, such in the case of assassins, death of the players is the only option. But when losing, one might instead choose to live and let live.
When one side feels the outcome of combat is already decided they might be more open to discussion.

At set intervals during combat. the player characters have an opportunity to Interrupt Combat. The PCs can focus on the objective of the opposition, rather than simply striking them down, and possibly save on valuable resources such as spell slots and HP, or their life. A player could do this via a Charisma check to attempt to reach or reason with his opponent, or a Wisdom or intelligence check to discern their motive, or simply by giving up.

The intervals are as follows:

A player character is brought to 0HP
The opposition leader is brought down to half hit points
The leader's support, such as minions or henchmen, are defeated
Half of the opposition is defeated, if no obvious leader is present.


This interruption takes form of a decleration from the players. Here are a few examples:


"I want to interrupt combat to discern why they are actually fighting us"



"I want to interrupt combat to try to negotiate with their leader"



"I want to interrupt combat to give them a chance to back down, or sell we'll show no mercy"



"I want to interrupt combat to offer our surrender"



"I want to interrupt combat to take my blade and run it across my arm, snarl, and try to scare them away"



"I want to interrupt combat to visibly ready a fireball spell, and tell them they can either listen to our terms or I let the spell loose"

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This hopefully helps bring the narrative better into combat, without making combat trivial, such as by allowing players to roll to intimidate on their first turn. This, along with a smooth initiative ruling, makes transitioning between the narrative and combat smoother, and hopefully less immersion-breaking.


Although this could be done without a mechanic or a decleration of the keywords "I want to Interrupt Combat", I think getting in the habit of doing so is a great way to make sure that the DM can clearly switch to a narrative, rather than tactical, mindset, and to announce to the other players that the goals of combat have temporarily changed


"Adding depth where depth is due" is the idea here.

[Bjarkmundur]

Many DMs already do this by having 0HP not mean "dead" but instead mean "defeated", but I always found that method a bit too arbitrary to not break immersion. Allowing the players to defeat their opponents at their own prerogative, and do so naturally, will hopefully benefit the pacing of the session as a whole. This also makes it less of a numbers game, and gets the players in the habit of visualizing combat and be mindful of their enemies goals at any given time. It gives all monsters you throw at them depth and substance, without any effort on your half. If the players are taught to always think what the opposition is thinking, it will automatically up their importance in your players minds, making your world feel that much more alive.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk xD

[Unoriginal]

I was reading the One-Shot adventure "Wolves of Welton" (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/171236/The-Wolves-of-Welton--a-SingleSession-Adventure), and one of the combat encounters had a really interesting mechanic. As written, it's a set of conditions that once one f them is met, the players have a chance to Interrupt Combat and attempt to de-escelate the situation verbally.

I've always chucked this down to individual rulings, but I have had trouble with it in the past. In many of my sessions, there seems to be little consistency when the players can attempt to end combat early and when they cannot. I am against these kind of inconsistencies in ttrpgs, since they work against the players getting comfortable in your world. A player who believes he knows how the world works is more likely to be confident and outgoing, and creative. A player who is unsure how the world reacts to his actions is less likely to act.

[...]

Although this could be done without a mechanic or a decleration of the keywords "I want to Interrupt Combat" can be done, I think getting in the habit of doing so is a great way to make sure that the DM can clearly switch to a narrative, rather than tactical, mindset, and to announce to the other players that the goals of combat have temporarily changed


"Adding depth where depth is due" is the idea here.

Combat is still the narrative. Interrupting a combat shouldn't be some kind of "do X to achieve combat interruption", IMO, and certainly not something that happens at "key interval".

For example, a combat has a chance to be interrupted when, RP-wise, one of the participants attempts to convince the others to stop fighting. How successful they are depends of many factors, ranging from general ones like if the motivations of the foes or if combat-stopper has any legitimate authority on the other people to specific ones like "one of the combatants' brother was killed by the other side, so there is no way they will stop willingly" or "the second-in-command will try to kill her leader and take over if the leader shows any sign of what they consider weakness, like allowing perceived-as-inferior enemies to surrender willingly". Or when some kind of sudden disaster forces both sides to stop trying to kill each other in order to survive, like an explosion setting the building on fire and both sides deciding that only a fool fight in a burning house. Or when a third party arrives and the previously fighting sides decide to unite against something they hate or fear even more. Etc.

Point is, I don't see any reason why there should be hard rules on when or how a combat can be interrupted. The Drow Priestess could not care if all her mooks are killed. The Deva might be willing to fight to the death personally, but will not allow harm to pass on their mortal allies. A magic swordsmith may be willing to cease hostility when they see the legendary weapon one of the PCs has drawn in answer to the swordsmith's construct attacking.



Many DMs already do this by having 0HP not mean "dead" but instead mean "defeated", but I always found that method a bit too arbitrary to not break immersion

You can knock people out rather than kill them, if you bring them to 0 HPs with a melee attack, as per the rules.


If the players are taught to always think what the opposition is thinking, it will automatically up their importance in your players minds, making your world feel that much more alive.

If the players are taught that to stop a fight they have to do a Charisma check when X, Y or Z event happens, then it will make your world feel that much less alive.

[Bjarkmundur]

I think you should know by now that we play our games reeeaaalllyyy differently. I don't think we've ever seen eye to eye on a quality of life improvement of the game.


You're absolutely right that this would be a general rule rather than a specific one. But since our games are so dissimilar I think it'll be hard for you to see the benefit such a rule might bring to my table.


At many tables, mine included, "rolling for initiative" really changes the vibe in the room, and it also enforced specific rules that weren't necessarily in play before. In many games, the game has very different rules between the pillars, and that can make it weird sometimes when to pillars try to coexist at the same time. I've seen this in skill challenges in 4e, for example. Many times they didn't quite feel like combat, but they didn't quite feel like RP either. They felt like a skill challenge.

This Interruption mechanic also helps, especially newer, players to get a feel for what is an appropriate moment for in-combat RP. It sets a precedent; "this is thing that can be done, and this is one of the ways you can do it". I once had a player who tried de-escalating combat on the first round of combat, always. This was sometimes to the detriment of those players who were looking forward to combat. I made good rulings at the time, but preventing problems is one of my favorite things to do and a DM. Despite this, it often felt like combat was something the players were required to do, simply because I couldn't always let his attempts slide. He eventually did get a litttle bit frustraded, and I ended up making a mechanic specifically for him where he could make a minor enemy flee, as an action, as long as it was under half HP and he made his Intimidation check. Before then it often felt like he just wanted to be able to do unlimited damage by making enemies flee on the first round. I mean, he was hella scary, and in the narrative it often made sense, but because narrative and Combat ís seperate, this could ruin entire encounters.

I will of course also declare to my players "You have a chance to Interrupt Combat" when the story calls for it, and I like that they can then remember it as a specific mechanic they have practiced before. Repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes, repetition legitimizes.

I hope now you can see how such a precedent might benefit other tables <3

[Man_Over_Game]

At many tables, mine included, "rolling for initiative" really changes the vibe in the room, and it also enforced specific rules that weren't necessarily in play before. In many games, the game has very different rules between the pillars, and that can make it weird sometimes when to pillars try to coexist at the same time.

I wrote this (an RPG Stack Exchange answer) (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/128898/45619) a long time ago after someone was asking how to keep tension present after combat was over, since his players just seemed to relax whenever Initiative wasn't relevant. The short of it is that I suggested that his players could try rolling Initiative after they Rest, instead of at the start of the fight, so that the players are never too sure when something might try to take a bite out of them.

I dunno, something about what you said reminded me of it. It's similar to your solution, yours focuses on solving the "Initiative" side, while mine focuses on the "Everything Else".

I hope it helps. And if not, I hope it helps somebody else!