60 lines
2.9 KiB
HTML
60 lines
2.9 KiB
HTML
<h1>DESIGNING BATTLES</h1>
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<p>
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As the Game Master, your role is to create battles that challenge the Player
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Characters and enrich the story. The following pages will provide you with a
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variety of tools and guidelines that will help with the mechanical side — but
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first, there are a few important points you should try to remember.
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<strong>Relevant battles.</strong> A battle takes place when two sides are
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at odds and resort to violence in order to achieve their goals. Battles
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should be meaningful: they should build upon what previously happened in the
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story, add new interesting characters or plot elements and move things
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forward in some important way.
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</li>
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<li>
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<strong>People, not numbers.</strong> Characters are more than their stats.
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They have emotions, a personality, their own lives and goals — when they
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fight, they do so for a reason. Even the ones that aren't the focus of your
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story should be treated as more than disposable, faceless pawns.
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</li>
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<li>
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<strong>More than the sum of its parts.</strong> There are a variety of
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elements that can alter the threat posed by a situation — the options
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available to Player Characters, for instance, or the particular synergy
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between two monsters. Once you add the environment, the whim of the dice and
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the occasional use of Ritual magic into the mix, you can see that there is
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no way to foresee the outcome of a battle — and that’s okay. Being the GM
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has nothing to do with being “in control”, but rather with your ability to
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react to unexpected situations. Battles are just like that — sometimes,
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things will get weird, or the heroes will steamroll their foe. Don’t sweat
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it too much.
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</li>
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<li>
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<strong>Balance.</strong> While the advice in the coming pages is geared
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towards building a somewhat balanced challenge, remember that there’s
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nothing wrong with an easy battle every once in a while, or the occasional
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super-hard boss fight. Just don’t make those the norm, or they'll lose their
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charm!
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>
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More importantly, respect the Players' expectations and what you discussed
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during session zero (see <a href="/books/core/#page-147">page 147</a>), and
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design battles in accordance with what you agreed upon in terms of challenge
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and complexity.
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<strong>Take your time.</strong> When the heroes decide to fight an enemy
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for which you don’t have any combat stats ready, it’s perfectly okay to
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pause the game and take your time to design those creatures. The rules on
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<a href="/books/core/#page-302">page 302</a> have been designed specifically
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to make this process as smooth and fast as possible; once you have
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familiarized yourself with them, creating new adversaries will only take a
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few minutes.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p>And there’s always the Bestiary, of course!</p>
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