Welcome back, students. Crunch here to talk about Wrought Iron episode 7.
This episode was entirely devoted to combat. It was a needed break from all the role playing that’s been happening. Not that the role playing isn’t wonderful. But combat is a fundamental part of this game. The majority of the rules revolve around resolving conflict through combat. Including combat also provides a nice change of pace for both the players and you, the listeners.
We’ve discussed on the podcast previously how combat can be used to further character development. This combat is a perfect example of such a thing. Michael, Scott, and Matthew continued role playing through the entire combat. I’m extremely proud of my players and their demonstration of this skill. It’s something that has been developed over the years.
The best example of this is the comedic elements that continued in this episode with Arahamie being drunk. That was a choice made completely by Michael that I did not expect at all. This forced everyone else at the table to react accordingly and incorporate this new element. Scott and Matthew took this in stride and rolled it right into their performance without skipping a beat. If I had been writing the story version of this game, I never would’ve come up with this idea. But because we are telling a story socially, unique and interesting ideas like this are frequent occurrences.
This is also a great example of how to deal with unpredictable player choices as a GM. In this session, I planned to end with the combat encounter. When Michael made the choice to have his character get drunk, I could’ve delayed combat. It would certainly make sense for the fighter to be at peak capacity. And it would’ve been very easy to simply shift the planned encounter to the morning after Arahamie had recovered. But it was more entertaining to incorporate this into the story at that moment. Making the most interesting choice usually leads to a better game. So I proceeded with the combat as planned. I used the Disadvantage mechanic to reflect Arahamie’s inebriation.
It’s not always right to do this. Sometimes your plans as GM should not be changed. If you are telling an important part of the story or sharing crucial details, you might not be able to incorporate player ideas exactly as they happen. And not ever idea improves the story. Your task as GM is to make the right decision in the moment. In my experience, however, saying “no” isn’t always the best idea either. It is usually better to make a compromise.
This encounter also features something we’ve been doing on our Actual Plays for a while: narrative combat. I am sure you noticed that in this combat, there were no mentions of things like exact movement or what square a PC was standing in. I promise that we didn’t just edit it out. You might be surprised when I say this, but I find that this type of combat offers less restrictions and creates more opportunity for entertaining choices. No, I am not abandoning my title. Just like in the rest of this campaign, I want to players to have much freedom to create the story as possible. One of the best ways to do that is to remove the hard restrictions and limitations of tactical, gridded combat.
And ultimately, what does it matter? Does counting squares and range have any positive impact on the story? No. It stops the story. These details still need to be recognized, but they don’t need to be the primary concern. A focus on game mechanics means there is less attention on story details and descriptive statements. What’s important here is that I am making this choice because we are recording these games for an audience. Many of my GM decisions are very different than in a home game for this very reason.
However, using narrative combat is a great tool to use in your home games. Many newer RPGs have less of a focus on formal combat and encourage the use of descriptors and details. It’s also a way to improve your role playing skills. It’s very easy to use mechanics as a crutch. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. I’ve enjoyed many, many games like this. But incorporating more narration in combat gets both players and GMs thinking more creatively. It gets everyone at the table more involved. And since telling a story socially is the highest form of art in existence, these skills are incredibly valuable.
Going back to the combat itself, my goal was twofold (beyond simply breaking up the raw role playing). I wanted to introduce oddity and strangeness to the world, and I wanted to reinforce the danger of the world. Again, this reflects back to the principle of using combat to tell the story. It would’ve been very easy to use exposition to describe the strange elements and terrifying monsters that make the world of Wrought Iron unique. But by revealing these facts through combat, the players and listeners were able to share in the shock of learning new facts. There is far more happening in this game than is known to you the listeners, and there is more happening than what the players established during session zero. Personally, I think that a revelation like this is far more engaging and entertaining than simple exposition.
I’m sure that someone will ask, so yes, I made up the monster on the fly. However, I used a sneaky trick and just slapped a new description onto a monster that already existed in the Monster Manual. And here’s what’s really interesting. I made up the description of the monster with no previous plans of how it would connect to the larger story. As soon as this beast was introduced, the story clicked into place around it. There are many elements of Wrought Iron that I am still developing and planning. There are ideas that came up during session zero that I haven’t figured out how to incorporate. But this monster created a new opportunity that I hadn’t seen before and a lot of things make more sense now.
Bonus points if you guess what monster I used. It’s not that hard to figure out.
One of the most challenging things I’ve been trying to figure out is how to include clues about the larger story that’s happening. The biggest problem is that I haven’t decided what that story is. Frankly, I don’t want to. I want the players to define the story as they experience it. But my job is to create the illusion of a living world that exists beyond the scope of these 3 characters. Luckily, what I figured out with this combat fits really nicely with other details and I have a clear direction of what’s happening now. But working in those details is still a puzzle. At this point, there are 2 clues that I think point towards what going on. There’s more coming. But I need to do a better job.
So we’ve actually discussed a lot here, for an episode that was just about the characters killing a monster. I think the most important take-away is about incorporating more narration and story details in combat. What do you think was best? The next few episodes are going to get really interesting. Stay tuned!
