What would you recommend of tactical and narrative combat?

I`m new to pen and paper roleplaying and picked up WFRP 2e.
Any tips on how to execute combat without innterrupting the flow of the game? Seems a bit stupid to tell my PCs to sit back and wait for 15 minutes while I set up a "chess board" with figures for them to play out combat.
Any other tips on executing combat and creating a live atmosphere around it would be much appreciated.

Almost all RPGs have that disconnect between the Talking part and the Gaming part.   It's not new to our hobby, but it gets more pronounced with the introduction of maps and minis.  I first encountered the "full stop" to the game with Champions and The Fantasy Trip in the early 1980s.

How much this "interrupts" the game really depends on your players.   Many players love the miniatures skirmish wargame aspect of RPG battles.  Many players love the switch to the boardgame aspects of the rules - its why D&D 3e was such a hit.   For many players, they play RPGs to experience their hero doing kewl stuff on the board.

I personally prefer WFRP 1e, but you can run 2e easily without minis or just use minis for "relative distance" which is a good compromise.   In gaming parlance, its called "hand waving" and you just eyeball distances and give the players the benefit of the doubt in regards to any rules that require exact placement.

Of course, you are running Warhammer so that's an unusual case with fans.  Since Warhammer is famous for its miniatures, many fans are drawn to the RPG with the expectation of playing with those figures.   That's not an issue when dealing with fans of an RPG without any established miniatures line.

Most importantly, TALK to your players.  

Even back in the 1970s, it was common for the Dungeon Master to announce "3 Trolls charge into the room" which caused the game to stop, the room get drawn out on the graph paper, everyone then placed their minis and then the game resumed.

However, this wasn't always the case even in 1978.  For many groups, they never bothered with the map or the minis.  They talked and diced it completely, perhaps with the occassional quick sketch just in case anyone was confused about the setup of the scene.

Quote from: jirisan;440833What would you recommend of tactical and narrative combat?

I`m new to pen and paper roleplaying and picked up WFRP 2e.
Any tips on how to execute combat without innterrupting the flow of the game? Seems a bit stupid to tell my PCs to sit back and wait for 15 minutes while I set up a "chess board" with figures for them to play out combat.
Any other tips on executing combat and creating a live atmosphere around it would be much appreciated.

Battlemat + requisite markers + a handful of minis to start with (DDMs, chess pieces, dice with the number facing = to the players starting on your left and going counter clockwise, whatever).  It won't take you 20 minutes to set up a combat scene like that, more like 30 seconds.  Less if you have the mat already unrolled.  They're pretty resilient so you won't have to worry about spills, etc. (unless your scenery is predrawn).

We use miniatures in our (not WFRP) battles when things start to get complex... over a wide area, lots of combatants. There's always a battlemat on the table in case that becomes necessary... but we're not going for precision... we don't use rulers or get picky about the coverage of AOE spells/weapons... it's still primarily narrative.
If I were doing a straight up dungeon-type adventure I might get a lot more elaborate with it... or maybe not.

If you're good at drafting or freehand drawing, you can use a whiteboard and markers, and then coins or thread spools for characters.

One thing we often do is that the DM describes the scene to the guy who did engineering in university and therefore knows drafting. While he draws up the scene, someone else grabs all the minis we'll need, and someone else draws up a list of initiatives. Once the drawing's done, the DM adds any changes he wants, and determines the starting positions of everyone. It works surprisingly well, and everyone's doing something, so set-up goes quickly and no one's sitting around doing nothing while it happens.

I prefer tactical combat, but I do not mean "chessboard square counting" by it. That's not tactics, that's playing a mini-game of rules bullshit within the game. Tactical management can happen in character, as you choose how you are confronting your enemies, choose the highground to throw that bucket of oil in the middle of the pack of orcs, use the doors to leverage exit points from a location, create a bottleneck with a set of crates to confront your enemies one by one, etc. All this stuff is actual tactics, and it has nothing to do with square-counting metagame bullshit.

To encourage this sort of game play, you need to leave choices open to the players, provide them with interesting combat situations, combat set up, terrain elements, tools and people to use against each other, etc etc.

You need to be ready for anything, and answer in kind.

Keep the game engaging, encourage people to describe what they do, describe cool results to their actions, do the same for NPCs, and let the ball roll from there.

Try The Pool.

Don't get out minis or a battlemat/grid at all. Don't even draw up stuff behind the screen. Have a rough idea of what's happening, winge the rest. You, the GM, and the players need to be comfortable though with you winging it. Winging it means that lots of rules get glossed over (nearly all of timing and positioning), and that you've gotta make the calls by yourself. Your players need to trust you (especially if there are PC casualties, which there inevitably will) and you need to trust your own capacity.

It works wonders when it does, and works regardless of which game system you use.

The Laptop is your friend.

Draw your Dungeon out on a spread sheet and use letters to represent minis.

So much quicker.

Quote from: Windjammer;440935Don't get out minis or a battlemat/grid at all. Don't even draw up stuff behind the screen. Have a rough idea of what's happening, winge the rest. You, the GM, and the players need to be comfortable though with you winging it. Winging it means that lots of rules get glossed over (nearly all of timing and positioning), and that you've gotta make the calls by yourself. Your players need to trust you (especially if there are PC casualties, which there inevitably will) and you need to trust your own capacity.

It works wonders when it does, and works regardless of which game system you use.

+1

the most we ever used was a piece of scratch paper and a quick sketch of any notable objects/obstacles.  learning to wing stuff is the most important skill of any ref, IMO.  after all, a ref's plan + players' actions almost always = not what the ref thought of :jaw-dropping:

I've never used minis in WFRP. The important thing is to keep a general mental track of where people are in the action.  I mean, obviously you can use minis, but I don't think its particularly necessary in that game.

RPGPundit

I should note that I have no idea if the above holds true in the grotesquerie that is the alleged "3rd edition" WFRP game.

RPGpundit

I must be some kind of weirdo because I think WHFRP goes hand-in-hand with minis like politics and corruption.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;441000I must be some kind of weirdo because I think WHFRP goes hand-in-hand with minis like politics and corruption.

I think the same way, but I also started playing Games Workshop stuff with the likes of Blood Bowl and Space Hulk.

Thanks for good advice, and thanks for the pool. I`ll try the pool out this weekend and give you some feedback.

When it comes to combat in WFRP I`ll try a combination of narrative and minis. None of the PCs are warhammer miniature fans/experienced. I`ll print out maps over combat areas when they are presented in the scenario (town square in "through the drakwald" campaign), and make simple drawings of terrain layouts when a map is not already included. I`ll use an approximate yard/inch to measure distance (not using a tape measure, rather go for eye-measure), not a square grid (thats too much board game for us I think).

It sounds best to use coins n other small items to represent heroes and monsters. I have plenty of plastic figures from Descent - journeys in the dark boardgame. But Im afraid too detailed figures will ruin the imaginative part of play.

So again, thanks for all the advice, and I hope to contribute more in the forum once Ive got some experience.