Roleplaying Games
Combat Narration as Dialogue
In most of the role-playing games I’ve played the combat narration has been somewhat one-sided; The player narrating what their character is doing and then the GM narrating the results and all that the NPCs are doing. If there is some game mechanism for reacting to attacks by parrying or doing other maneuvers there is space for a reply in the narrative. I believe this pattern can be adapted to all RPGs, turning combats into more of a dialogue. This can work even in game systems without specific reactive actions.
The thing that can change the nature of the narration is reversing who narrates the effects of attacks (and other actions targeting other players’ characters). I propose that the player (in this I count the GM as one of the players) whose character is the focus of the narration should dictate what is happening; The player of the attacking character will say who and how they are attacking, and the player whose character is targeted is the one describing what happens.
This will work better than the old way, as the player of the target character knows their capabilities best. They can tell whether the attack hits, and if it doesn’t why it doesn’t hit. As they keep track of the character’s state and know how they will react to the stresses of combat, they can best portray how successful attacks affect the character. They also know the character’s equipment, armor, skills and other features that can affect the attack. This is especially important in the more abstract game systems where only the number of HP or wounds on the damage track measure how the character is doing.
Try this the next time you’re running a combat in an RPG. When a monster tries to strike a player character, describe just its intended action. Let the player tell you if it hits, and add their own response to the dialogue. See if this will make the flow of narration in combats closer to the narration in non-combat situations.
