This blog post will assume you have picked your tabletop roleplaying game system, selected your enemies and are ready to prepare a combat encounter. As a visually impaired Game Master, I run narrative combat using Theatre of the Mind. As a result, the advice in this blog post will explain how I create fun and engaging encounters that don’t require maps or miniatures.

The advice in this blog works for any game featuring combat, as I have used this approach in many systems. I prepare combat encounters using four key points:

1. Objectives
2. Events
3. Zones
4. Rewards

Objectives

War. What is it good for? But more importantly, why are you all fighting? What is the goal? What is at stake? Having an objective gives players a reason to work together and a goal to chase. Objectives also provide the Game Master a way of measuring how close combat is to concluding. Don’t be afraid to give enemies an objective too. Below are a list of common objectives I use, with a few examples. I have listed six objectives, so if you are unsure of which one to use, you can roll 1d6 on this list:

1. Capture: Steal an item, restrain an NPC, conquer a location
2. Destroy: Sabotage escaping vehicle, kill an NPC, demolish an object
3. Escape: Run from monster, flee collapsing location, retreat from spell
4. Escort: Ferry some cargo, lead an NPC, direct an asset
5. Interaction: Release a prisoner, activate an item, complete a ritual
6. Protect: Defend a location, preserve an item, safeguard an NPC

Make the objective clear to players at the beginning of combat, in no uncertain terms. Leaving things ambiguous to characters is fine, but players should know what is going on. The reason for this logic is that players enjoy making choices, and providing them the objective allows for player choice. With the objective established, you now hold the focus for combat. This means that if combat starts dragging, its time to shift the objective. Recently, I had players attempting to take back an ambushed truck. The players got comfortable in slowly working their way toward the truck, so I had some NPCs make their way to the truck with the intention of taking it. This caused the players to step up their attack and push out of their comfort zone to get hold of the objective.

Objectives should sometimes feature timers. A timer is quite literally what it sounds like: you set a number and in that many rounds of combat something happens. This could mean the objective gets away, the ritual is completed or the NPC reaches their destination. Timers can be set using an arbitral number or by rolling a die to decide. Either way, I don’t provide specific numbers for timers in this blog, because the system you are using may vary in how many rounds combat typically takes to resolve. If you really want a number, I would say that three rounds is often the sweet spot in most games I’ve run. Communicating the timer with players is necessary, so that players may plan out their actions accordingly within the time constraints provided. Players managing their action economy within the timer can create fun pressure as things don’t always go according to plan. When the timer runs out, the objective may be compromised or changed.

Events

Events are obstacles thrown in the path of player plans. Enemies assembling a laser a cannon, a monster escaping a cage, blast doors sealing, an event is something that the players may need to deal with or work around. Events should be things that don’t require the players to activate, they should always be things from the enemies or the environment which you can introduce to up the ante. Events should be on timers leading to their introduction, allowing players to anticipate something bad is going to happen. Much like objectives, it is usually a good idea to communicate what is going to happen, so that the players can prioritize threats and plan.

Foreshadowing Events is always fun. I had some player characters fighting Ogres on a bridge. The players were particularly clever, and making quick work of the Ogres by thinking outside of the box. So, at the beginning of the next round I described the thunderous roar approaching the side of the bridge through the snowy mist, “There is a dragon flying toward the bridge and it will arrive in two rounds.” Suddenly, the players were picking up the pace of dispatching the Ogres and getting their character’s butts off the bridge. I tell this story to emphasize the importance of telling players what is happening, in clear terms. If the player characters have never encountered a dragon, then you can tell the players, “That roar is a dragon approaching. You know that, but all of your characters do not and so they only know that there is a scary roar coming.”

When creating events, the primary function is to disrupt player plans and pressure them to rethink the situation. I usually make a list of five potential events for each combat, using no more than three to five words to describe each event. I usually only use one or two events per combat, selecting the ones which seem appropriate at the time. Some events may require you to look up specific mechanics to accompany them and make a note before the session, while others are purely narrative. Below is a list of events I sometimes use on rotation with brief examples. I’ve listed six events, so if you are unsure of which to use, you may roll 1d6 on the list.

1. Danger: Heavy weapon activating, deadly creature arriving, NPC being killed
2. Environmental: Unstable collapsing structure, severe weather patterns, deadly local flora
3. Escaping Enemies: Loading into vehicle, opening the gates, casting assistive spell
4. Explosion: Leaking fuel supply, lighting bomb fuse, laser targeting strike
5. Spawning Enemies: Radio for backup, teleporting opponents in, raising the dead
6. Stealing: Onlookers begin looting, NPC is kidnapped, macguffin is taken

Adding an event to the list which benefits the players is often a good idea. Occasionally, you may find you overpower players and if it looks like you’re about to wipe the party out, you may wish to throw them a lifeline at the last moment. This is a last resort, if you know the combat encounter was just too much. Players don’t want to be bailed out, but if you get the impression they feel the outcome is bordering unfair, you should consider this. The lifeline should never instantly save players, it should be something they need to use. Players would typically rather fail forward in their own defeat, rather than have an NPC jump in and save the day for them.

Zones

I have low vision and I can’t really use maps all too well. Instead, I incorporate zones into every game I run. Each zone is a unique area of the battlefield, described in a three word name. Many games use zones for combat movement: Alien RPG, Fallout, Imperium Maledictum, Mutant Year Zero and many, many more. Zones take away the need for a grid map and instead provide generalized regions within a combat encounter. The main purpose of these Zones is to provide players with orientation as to where their characters are, where they can move to and what they can shoot. Below are six random zones I have used in my current Imperium Maledictum campaign, to give you an idea of how to write titles for zones:

• Ambushed enforcer convoy
• Circus master’s throne
• Drukhari raiding skiff
• Enormous xenos skeleton
• Iron gate entrance
• Leaking torchbearer truck

If you’re looking to run a game which defines specific distances and measurements for combat, be prepared to make general rulings to accommodate zones. If a longbow has a greater range than a blunderbuss, then perhaps the longbow can hit targets a couple of zones away, while the blunderbuss can only hit people within their current zone. This could all change depending on the size of the combat area. While you’re not going to give specific dimensions to zones, a battle across a castle surely has larger zones than a tavern brawl. Whatever your hard and fast rule for these ranges is, be consistent and try to rule in favor of the players.

A good number of zones, for your average combat encounter, is five. Use more Zones for big battles and less Zones for smaller fights. It is a good idea to clearly define the layout of the zones to players at the beginning of a combat encounter. It can also be helpful to provide a couple of zones with special features, to give players a safe zone and a reason to take other zones. Special features could be an object, cover, vantage points, stationary weapons or a point of interest. If players are getting too comfortable sitting in a zone, that’s when you put a timer on the objective or throw an event into the combat encounter.

Range Bands

Most games featuring grid-based combat contain numeric ranges for weapons. Translating these ranges for use in zone-based combat can be achieved in one of two ways.

The first method, and the one I utilize, is to use your best judgement. Zone sizes can vary depending on circumstance, so I generally decide if a weapon is within range based on the context of the situation. I use The Rule of Cool to work with my players and figure out what we all think is reasonable. I am comfortable using this method, as I’m quite happy to improvise. If you need clear rules, I would recommend the second method.

The second option is creating a range conversion table. Perhaps a weapon with a range of 30 feet can reach one zone over, while a weapon with a range of 120 feet can reach three zones over. Using a conversion table has the added benefit of being consistent, but it does take some work to calculate conversions which feel ‘fair’. Honestly, range conversion tables work well for some games and not for others. It also depends on whether you have the time to build a conversion table.

Rewards

Players need incentive to want to try and win a fight. Sometimes the objective is enough of a prize, other times you may need to dangle something shiny in front of your players to reward the risk.

The most obvious reward is whatever the enemies have on them or money. I also try to think of what would the players need in order to stand a good chance against this same enemy next time? Then I give the players that thing. Players typically like to feel like they’re moving forward and so it helps to reward them the tools necessary to promise victory the next time they face this enemy. Alternatively, ask players what they want. It can be very helpful to know exactly what players want for their character, so that you can occasionally reward those items. If the game you are running features experience points, those are a great option too, but should not be the only reward. If in doubt, don’t be afraid to fall back on money. Handing out cold hard cash allows players to purchase what they want.

Not all players are motivated by gaining items or money. This will become clear after your first combat. Some players will search for stuff, other players will search for clues and some players will just want to move forward with the story. While rewarding players with stuff is easy, rewarding clues can be challenging. I would recommend writing down a list of clues for your session (which I detail in a later blog titled ‘Investigations’) so that you can present these as rewards. If an enemy survives combat and surrenders, the clues can easily be communicated through interrogation. Placing written clues in the pockets of dead enemies is usually the go-to option if everyone is killed. If I cannot think of a creative way to present a clue in the environment, I put a note in the pocket of a dead body. There’s no shame in resorting to a note explicitly detailing the clue on it, I do it all the time.

NPC Combat

One of the key principles in these blogs is to keep your notes and combat encounters light. While small skirmishes can be easy to manage, largescale combat can be difficult to plan for and present during your game. Bogging down the game with rolls for every NPC involved in mass combat can quickly bloat your notes and become tedious for players in-game. Player characters should be the main focus, and if player characters are not directly engaged with NPCs, it’s better to make a narrative declaration for the NPCs and a single test to determine the outcome.

For example, I recently ran a game where player characters were fighting an alien raiding party who were attacking some NPCs in the background. Instead of rolling for every alien NPC and every human NPC, I determined the humans’ percentage of success. The humans were outnumbered, outmatched, and unskilled, I gave them a 30% chance of holding the aliens off for a round. A single die roll against this target determined the outcome, with the added narrative flavor of the humans failing and being killed.

The same principle can be applied to other game systems. In a d20 system, you can calculate a modifier and a difficulty, then roll. In a dice pool system, you can adjust the number of dice based on the difficulty and roll. If players want to help the NPCs in the background, you can figure out an appropriate action or test they can take to affect the difficulty. The key is to focus on the player choices and the influence their actions have, rather than getting bogged down in endless NPC dice rolls. This is not a tabletop wargame, this is a tabletop roleplaying game and your players are the main characters..

Running Theatre of the Mind Combat

While this blog focuses on planning your combat, Sly Flourish gives great advice on running Theater of the Mind combat. Check out Sly Flourish’s blog, “Sly Flourish’s Guide to to Narrative “Theater of the Mind” Combat in the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons” linked below.

• Sly Flourish’s Guide to to Narrative “Theater of the Mind” Combat in the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons

Game Prep Advice Blog Series Links

Below are links to the other blogs in this series on game prep for blind and visually impaired game masters.

• Jim’s Blog – Game Prep Advice 1 – Introduction
• Jim’s Blog – Game Prep Advice 2 – Combat
• Jim’s Blog – Game Prep Advice 3 – Encounters
• Jim’s Blog – Game Prep Advice 4 – Investigations
• Jim’s Blog – GM Prep Advice 5 – NPCs
• Jim’s Blog – Game Prep Advice 6 – Notes