




1. Villainous monologues



2. Summary


3. Urgency and exigency


4. Exposition





Do as a I say and try to do



6 thoughts on “What game masters (and their monsters) should say during a combat encounter

  1. Ripper X

    What a great article! I try and describe what the players think that they see. This is how I run almost all of my encounters, I try to simulate that panic which happens, so the information that I give may not be what is actually there. As far as my monsters go, typically during most encounters, the monsters speak their own language, they’ll yell at each other and if a character can speak that language some what, I’ll let them pick a word or two out of what is being said.

    My pace is frantic during melee or ambushes, once the players draw their swords I don’t let up on them. Everything becomes chaos, if they start trying to talk with one another then my monsters gain an attack. If they spend too long before engaging the enemy they will be heard, if the players spend too long in one spot, and the place is dangerous, I’ll set a timer, a nice loud kitchen timer that ticks, once the bell rings, time is up.

    I can usually get away with this because we play at a fairly slow pace, there are times when the players are in charge of the timing, but a combat encounter is not one of those times.

    Encounters with an intelligent enemy, there are those that hide their cards, and those that flaunt them. Information is always a quantity in my worlds, only idiots show their cards. Capturing an enemy and trying to learn what he knows is a very good strategy, and a bargaining chip if one does become captured.

  2. Loric

    Great article. I’m just getting started GMing and I’m still learning what works for me at the table. Angry’s article on running combat is one of my all time favorites. I find that sometimes my players are talking before I can deliver any dialog from my villain, so I’m not quite sure how to work with that.

  3. Fractalbat

    In a good group, this can become a feedback loop with the players getting into it to. I love it when my players say things like, “I flourish with my sword and then try to slash his throat out.”

    This also leads to potentially hilarious moments when they then roll a one.

  4. Timothy Park

    David, another insightful and useful article. The notion of delivering (or reinforcing) key information during a fight when attention is strong is something I intend to try tomorrow night.

    Some of what you say here folds into some things I’ve been doing to manage my game.

    I’m rather tired of what seems to be the typical “rut” of Wisdom (Perception) check, Initiative, and then the rounds of combat. The pattern has gotten predictable. (And this article points out some ways to improve that situation.)

    One thing I’ve been doing outside of combat is requesting single and multiple skill checks at different points and making the implication clear that the results guide the options and information I present to the party.

    I’ve backed this up by adding two columns to my character spreadsheet when I DM: Passive Investigation and Passive Insight. (In addition to Passive Perception.) These three give me an idea of “Who notices what and how it is that they notice things.” I got the idea for this and the active checks from the PHB where it does mention that there are other kinds and ways of doing checks. Bluntly, my main motivation is to spread things around and engage more players more actively. In the previously mentioned rut, the tendency is for the character with the best Perception modifier to be the one constantly noticing things first and telling everyone else. The Rogue tends to act first in fights. The Rogues and Fighters dominate the fights. Yawn. Same pattern.

    By breaking things up a bit and using the other kinds of perce*iving*, I think it engages more and creates more verisimilitude. Perception means you notice something — not necessarily that you are aware of what you’re noticing. “I hear something … odd.” Investigation is more about knowing what you’re looking at. Insight is more about sense and intuition. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this Chewie …” My classic example is the perceptive rogue pointing out all the buildings and birds in the city. The insightful cleric notices that one building is out of place and has a “feeling” about that building, if nothing else the black birds are sitting on that building and no others. The absent minded wizard, when pointed out that there are buildings and such goes “My, what is that Netherese Library doing *here*??? Oh, and ravens … ravens on a Netherese building … there is a legend about that …. You’re right to be uneasy, my friends.”

    Where these come into play is that these stats tell me who will notice things and “have things come to mind” and in what ways as in my example. The more active checks I’ve started asking for in batches and then use the aggregate with the passive stats to guide what I share and when I do.

    That guidance provided by the passive stats would fit in with the in combat descriptions you speak of. The fiendish warlock makes his speech, drawing the party’s attention to something the significance of which is lost on all but for the highly intelligent Sage Wizard, for instance, who discerns in the fray the Achilles Heels of the Evil Warlock’s fiendish plan ….

    The whole might serve to let the strengths of the individuals shine more within the party.


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