So I've been pondering this question, not just in regards to Pathfinder, but in regards to other games that include combat as a centerpiece as well.
And it had me thinking.
What is a good fight?
Keep in mind I'm not simply talking about challenging fights with a wide variety of enemies, personality, and quirks. But at its very core what makes a fight fun.
I sat down and tried to do some research came up with a basic synopsis on the elements that make a fight fun and came up with some decent ideas on the elements that matter (challenge, relevance and tension) and I wanted to typify what would appeal to what in terms of the type of tabletop gamers that there are.
Unfortunately, no one has done a serious study on the various sorts of tabletop gamers that exist. Sure there are a lot of joke instances but nothing particularly useful from a research or even business perspective.
So, I felt compelled to ask.
What makes a good, memorable, fun fight from a meta perspective?
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To me the environment plays a large roll in making a fun fight. You can lay out a challenging creature in a blank room and it turn out ok but if you placed said creature in a room the used the items around it then it makes the fight so much better and draws a person into the fight more than just back and forth hack and slash.
i.e. mooks flipping over tables for cover or a challenging enemy fight near an erupting volcano where each round you roll a d6 to see if you are hit/dodging flaming debris during the fight.
To me the environment plays a large roll in making a fun fight. You can lay out a challenging creature in a blank room and it turn out ok but if you placed said creature in a room the used the items around it then it makes the fight so much better and draws a person into the fight more than just back and forth hack and slash.
i.e. mooks flipping over tables for cover or a challenging enemy fight near an erupting volcano where each round you roll a d6 to see if you are hit/dodging flaming debris during the fight.
What makes that fun though? Is it about having an exciting set piece to fight in? Is it about the additional challenge?
I like the options and tactical opportunities the things Tyranius said provide. Flipped over tables? Knock them down, push them back, or perhaps claim them as your own cover. Volcano? Push them in, position yourself to take less damage and/or for the opponent to take more. To me, those things add another variable for the party to work with (or have work against them). It sort of pulls me out of the feeling that success is solely dependent on just statistics (dice rolls, bonuses, etc). Obviously, this is still an important part of the game, but the illusion that I have some sort of control over it makes it more appealing.
For comparison, a fight without any extra variables is going to come down to frontliners beating on each other until one goes down and the other can reach squishier targets. The characters with stronger numbers are usually going to win and the day is over. If there is an extra variable in play, there is another avenue to utilize. Now numbers are important, but there is also a more human aspect involved and my tactics start to matter. A level 6 fighter vs a handful of level 2 archers is going to be a cake walk. A level 6 fighter vs a handful of level 2 archers with some cover/difficult terrain between them is much more exciting. In this case, the extra variables are more likely to be in the archers' favor, but the fighter might still be able to figure something out to his advantage.
Am I making any sense?
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Asking what makes a good fight in Pathfinder/D&D is like asking what makes a good scene in movies/books. It's way too broad, because a good narrative uses lots of different types of fights/scenes at different points in its progression in order to accomplish different things.
One fight might be a climactic, high-stakes showdown that would benefit from being highly challenging and cinematic.
Another fight be against a group of enemies that used to be a major challenge a few levels back, with the intent of showing the growth of the characters in relation to the world; such a fight is best served by ease rather than challenge.
Another fight's purpose might be to reveal a plot cookie ("Goblins in Town Hall?! What madness is this?!"), and the actual challenge level is 100% irrelevant, best tailored to the group.
Another fight might exist solely because its absence would be weird (i.e., the vault should have guards, a six-day trip through canonically monster-infested wilderness shouldn't be uneventful, etc). Such a fight needs to be there, but doesn't really have anything inherently special, so adding some unusually engaging mechanics (like shifting floors and whatnot) can add some spice. Alternatively, you can make it deliberately easy so you don't have to devote much time the "verisimilitude check".
Yet another fight might exist specifically as a baseline against which to compare some past or future fights. An easy fight can highlight the challenge of a later fight, a fight on an open plain can make a fight on a slick-floored/sloped catwalk more interesting, and so forth.
Still another fight might exist solely to break up an otherwise monotonous stretch of necessary-but-unexciting exposition/exploration. Such a fight shouldn't be too challenging, lest it force recovery that breaks the current drive.
The list goes on. Some of these can be combined into a single fight, while others cannot.
Ultimately, the fight is not the whole. The fight is a part, and its only job is to elevate the whole; this can only be done if each part serves its own role, rather than all trying to be the same big/dramatic/impressive thing.
What is a good fight?
Keep in mind I'm not simply talking about challenging fights with a wide variety of enemies, personality, and quirks. But at its very core what makes a fight fun.
You basically want an abstraction level between 'variety of enemies, personality, and quirks' and 'a good fight is fun'?
Well, there is a lot of material about what makes games fun. It's a quite related question, and if you really want the essence instead of all the useful details: It feels good if it triggers brain's reward centre. I'd say that's also true for 'good fights' - assuming we use the word 'good' here in the same way.
What is a good fight?
Keep in mind I'm not simply talking about challenging fights with a wide variety of enemies, personality, and quirks. But at its very core what makes a fight fun.
You basically want an abstraction level between 'variety of enemies, personality, and quirks' and 'a good fight is fun'?
Well, there is a lot of material about what makes games fun. It's a quite related question, and if you really want the essence instead of all the useful details: It feels good if it triggers brain's reward centre. I'd say that's also true for 'good fights' - assuming we use the word 'good' here in the same way.
The material in question doesn't really help in developing an encounter. Which is what the crux of the question comes to. For example it's difficult to bake in immersion and sensory pleasure into a combat.
The trick is to find what applies in a sense of something actually buildable from a GM perspective
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Things to look for in a good fight:
Interesting decisions - the best tactic isn't a simple 'go up to the nearest enemy and hit it repeatedly'.
Emotional resonance - something outside of the tactics and numbers that makes the fight matter, like a hateful enemy, strong visual imagery, etc.
Unexpected factors - when they players are starting to get too comfortable, something surprising happens.
Asking what makes a good fight in Pathfinder/D&D is like asking what makes a good scene in movies/books. It's way too broad, because a good narrative uses lots of different types of fights/scenes at different points in its progression in order to accomplish different things.
One fight might be a climactic, high-stakes showdown that would benefit from being highly challenging and cinematic.
Another fight be against a group of enemies that used to be a major challenge a few levels back, with the intent of showing the growth of the characters in relation to the world; such a fight is best served by ease rather than challenge.
Another fight's purpose might be to reveal a plot cookie ("Goblins in Town Hall?! What madness is this?!"), and the actual challenge level is 100% irrelevant, best tailored to the group.
Another fight might exist solely because its absence would be weird (i.e., the vault should have guards, a six-day trip through canonically monster-infested wilderness shouldn't be uneventful, etc). Such a fight needs to be there, but doesn't really have anything inherently special, so adding some unusually engaging mechanics (like shifting floors and whatnot) can add some spice. Alternatively, you can make it deliberately easy so you don't have to devote much time the "verisimilitude check".
Yet another fight might exist specifically as a baseline against which to compare some past or future fights. An easy fight can highlight the challenge of a later fight, a fight on an open plain can make a fight on a slick-floored/sloped catwalk more interesting, and so forth.
Still another fight might exist solely to break up an otherwise monotonous stretch of necessary-but-unexciting exposition/exploration. Such a fight shouldn't be too challenging, lest it force recovery that breaks the current drive.
The list goes on. Some of these can be combined into a single fight, while others cannot.
Ultimately, the fight is not the whole. The fight is a part, and its only job is to...
I think that's pretty self defeating, particularly given the mountains of actual scholarly material on what goes into making a good scene in a movie or book. The only argument is not whether or not it's a good scene but how many people view it as a good scene versus those that do not.
No one expects universal appeal, but knowing what aspects actually go into an appealing fight would be an incredibly useful DM tool.
To say that "all parts serve the whole" is pretty much a given, but if the individual parts do not maintain themselves than the overall picture suffers. Afterall people have this icky habit of focusing on the bad, forgetting the mediocre, and remembering the great inaccurately.
I don't think the subject is too broad so much as there's a lack of desire to seriously look at the bits that actually appeal and work from there.
I've found that the fights that I have enjoyed the most we entered into with a "This will NOT end well" vibe, and we struggled through it, had some minor victories during the course of it, looked like it was going to end well for the villain, and then we manage to come out of it winners, with some incapacitated, but no deaths.
It follows the train of thought of "Any session where the players have been profoundly scared or worried by events, but not defeated at the end, is a good session."
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I think that's pretty self defeating, particularly given the mountains of actual scholarly material on what goes into making a good scene in a movie or book.
Maybe it's just that you misunderstood me or I'm misunderstanding you (or both), but it sounds like you're saying that there's mountains of scholarly material that says XYZ makes for a good scene regardless of whether the scene in question is a gunfight, a panoramic establishing shot, a tear-jerking dialogue, a steamy sex sequence, a character-building flashback, or a slapstick gag.
If that's the case, then I'd be fascinated to learn the common threads between those different types of scenes, and then might be able to "translate" those ideas to D&D combats and maybe give you something a bit more helpful.
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I've found that the fights that I have enjoyed the most we entered into with a "This will NOT end well" vibe, and we struggled through it, had some minor victories during the course of it, looked like it was going to end well for the villain, and then we manage to come out of it winners, with some incapacitated, but no deaths.
It follows the train of thought of "Any session where the players have been profoundly scared or worried by events, but not defeated at the end, is a good session."
See, I disagree with this. This is like trying to make every episode into the season finale. It's like a bad anime where the toughest foe is barely defeated, then you have to find a tougher-than-toughest foe and barely defeat them too, then find an even TOUGHER foe and barely defeat them, and eventually the discovery of tougher foes and their allegedly narrow defeats become routine.
In my own experience, the more skin-of-your-teeth fights there are, the less exhilarated I am by challenge. Eventually, none of these "challenging" fights are memorable. But if instead a certain baseline is established and then certain fights are "above the curve" with a higher challenge, then those fights are exciting and memorable.
That which is the assumed norm is almost never exciting, regardless of challenge level.
EDIT: And that's before we even get into some of the other types of fights, such as clue-revealing fights or growth-displaying fights.
I don't know that what I said is something to be disagreed with, as I wasn't inviting debate, and its subjective. Those are simply the fights that I enjoyed the most. Not every fight is like that, and not every session is like that. Partly because of the reasons that you gave, but also because the game (and most well-written adventures) aren't structured like that, otherwise it would be predictable all the time.
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A good fight is one that requires more than merely a good build for victory.
A good fight needs to feel threatening in some way.
A good fight needs to allow for victory.
A good fight needs to be ABOUT something.
A good fight needs to vary from the last few fights in some way.
A good fight needs to contain some new element.
A good fight needs to be roughly familiar.
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I don't know that what I said is something to be disagreed with, as I wasn't inviting debate, and its subjective.
Sorry, poor word choice on my part. Not even sure what a better expression would have been, actually. Just saying that my experience/preference differs from yours.
Oh, and also that I dislike the related train of though you cited in the last line of your post, and in fact some of the worst sessions I've played have been those influenced by believers in that mantra.
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A good fight is one that requires more than merely a good build for victory.
Disagree. Some fights that meet this criterion will be good, but it's not a requirement for "good"-ness.
A good fight needs to feel threatening in some way.
Disagree. (Same reason as above.)
A good fight needs to allow for victory.
Agree.
A good fight needs to be ABOUT something.
Agree.
A good fight needs to vary from the last few fights in some way.
More or less agree. A small dose of repetitiveness can help establish baselines that highlight unique elements of other fights, but for the most part I agree.
A good fight needs to contain some new element.
Ehhh... Not all of them.
A good fight needs to be roughly familiar.
I'm only speculating at your meaning here, but I think I agree.
I don't know that what I said is something to be disagreed with, as I wasn't inviting debate, and its subjective.Sorry, poor word choice on my part. Not even sure what a better expression would have been, actually. Just saying that my experience/preference differs from yours.
Oh, and also that I dislike the related train of though you cited in the last line of your post, and in fact some of the worst sessions I've played have been those influenced by believers in that mantra.
I'm sorry that has been the case for you. In my main group, that line of thinking is shared by all of the members. I value your opinions though Jiggy.
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I'm sorry that has been the case for you. In my main group, that line of thinking is shared by all of the members. I value your opinions though Jiggy.
Yeah, I've had tables where the GM held the "players must be worried/scared for the fight to be fun" belief so strongly that they'd trust that over the actual feedback of the players. So you get to the easiest fight of the scenario, somebody crits it into the ground on their first turn, and amid the cheers and smiles of the players, fiats in extra monsters to make sure the players get worried. Then they can't figure out why afterwards the players look like they're not having as much fun (or worse, think it's because they haven't been sufficiently worried yet).
I have literally heard an experienced GM say that he's not satisfied unless there's at least one unconscious PC in every single fight.
I'm sorry that has been the case for you. In my main group, that line of thinking is shared by all of the members. I value your opinions though Jiggy.Yeah, I've had tables where the GM held the "players must be worried/scared for the fight to be fun" belief so strongly that they'd trust that over the actual feedback of the players. So you get to the easiest fight of the scenario, somebody crits it into the ground on their first turn, and amid the cheers and smiles of the players, fiats in extra monsters to make sure the players get worried. Then they can't figure out why afterwards the players look like they're not having as much fun (or worse, think it's because they haven't been sufficiently worried yet).
I have literally heard an experienced GM say that he's not satisfied unless there's at least one unconscious PC in every single fight.
Ooooo (said with disdain). No, that's not good. They have to have a few to several good victories under their belt for it to be satisfying for them. Its only then that a difficult fight really matters. When the normal stuff isn't working for them, that's when they try harder, get more creative, and try to think out of the box. It can't be a rough chore EVERY time, otherwise it loses its value/meaning.
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A fight that only requires tanking and spanking, not changing tactics, not doing more than standard 101 lost its allure to me more than a decade ago. You need to challenge the players too, not just their characters.
A good fight needs to allow for both victory and defeat. Note, though, that defeat is pretty widely defined here. Losing enough resources to be seriously threatened next fight is enough of a defeat condition.
A good fight requires new elements, enough to stimulate you to think, change things up. Going back to fight another five goblins is repetitive and time better spent doing something else. Give the goblins a tanglefoot bag, however, and you have changed things. Or a new kind of goblin dog.
A fight needs to feel familiar, in that all the new elements need to relate to what people expect. Suddenly adding in a skin-of-their-teeth combat against powerful psionic monsters doesn't compute if they never met psionics before.
Meaningful, allowing for victory or defeat, familiar and fresh, and with something for the players to do. And of course, not every fight needs to be a good one - but unless it is, it's not going to be anything much to remember.
One of the thing I've always liked in a fight: consequence. Whether positive (treasure! bad guys go to jail! FINALLY took down that star vampire!) or negative (strike me down now and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine). Said consequences should be organic; just saying "hey, you beat the dragon! Turns out he was an illusion the whole time and actually he just blew up the eastern seaboard suckos!" without any warning or foreshadowing is kinda lame.
I like fights where you've been after a monster or villain for some reason or you NEED to plow through these foes for something other than loot and xp. Just because its the end of the dungeon isn't a good enough reason.
And finally, there's the heroic choice. Y'know, when the villain's like "sure, you could wail on me and haul me off to jail but as soon as you do I drop the 'deadman's switch' on the c-4. Either you let me go OR watch as the school bus filled with kids goes up in smoke!" Moments like that give a richness and importance, a pathos to the scene you don't get when just hacking through a dungeon or a gang banger block or a bunch of bank robbers or whatever.
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As a GM, if the combat ends with every player except one unconscious (but not dead), and that last player has less than 5hp left as he delivers the deathblow to the big boss, with all consumables exhausted and the whole party jumps up and starts yelling in celebration when he drops...I've done my job right.
Almost dead players. Almost dead players makes a good fight.
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As a GM, if the combat ends with every player except one unconscious (but not dead), and that last player has less than 5hp left as he delivers the deathblow to the big boss, with all consumables exhausted and the whole party jumps up and starts yelling in celebration when he drops...I've done my job right.
Almost dead players. Almost dead players makes a good fight.
I dislike almost killing my players. Police inquiries, doctor bills and OH how players like to vent to OTHER players about getting stabbed; good luck finding a replacement at the table then!
Almost killing the CHARACTERS though, that I'll get behind ;)
As a GM, if the combat ends with every player except one unconscious (but not dead), and that last player has less than 5hp left as he delivers the deathblow to the big boss, with all consumables exhausted and the whole party jumps up and starts yelling in celebration when he drops...I've done my job right.
That is one sort of good fight. If that kind of battle becomes routine, there are diminishing returns.
Also, unless the GM is cheating in some way, all these close-fought battles have a significant chance of turning into a TPK. So after three or four the campaign is likely to come to a screeching halt.
Another type of good fight: the party, having returned from their last quest at a much higher level, stumble upon a group of arrogant bullying bandits harassing some villagers. The bandits think they can push the PCs around but they are actually completely at the PCs mercy. The PCs can deal with them as they wish; it's more of a role-playing opportunity than a challenge.
Of course, you wouldn't want to do that all the time either. Variety is good.
As a GM, if the combat ends with every player except one unconscious (but not dead), and that last player has less than 5hp left as he delivers the deathblow to the big boss, with all consumables exhausted and the whole party jumps up and starts yelling in celebration when he drops...I've done my job right.
Almost dead players. Almost dead players makes a good fight.
I dislike almost killing my players. Police inquiries, doctor bills and OH how players like to vent to OTHER players about getting stabbed; good luck finding a replacement at the table then!
Almost killing the CHARACTERS though, that I'll get behind ;)
I don't like it either, but they keep cancelling sessions without advance notice and eating all the stuff in my fridge; you can't let them get away with that unpunished.
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As a GM, if the combat ends with every player except one unconscious (but not dead), and that last player has less than 5hp left as he delivers the deathblow to the big boss, with all consumables exhausted and the whole party jumps up and starts yelling in celebration when he drops...I've done my job right.
Almost dead players. Almost dead players makes a good fight once in a blue moon.
Fixed that for you.
The more often you have that type of fight, the less good it is. Having more than one such fight in a given story arc in a TV show or book series would tell me that the writer is lazy and unimaginative and doesn't know how to write an engaging story and so they're trying to fill in the gap with near-death experiences. In an RPG, it tells me the same thing about the GM.
The more often you have that type of fight, the less good it is. Having more than one such fight in a given story arc in a TV show or book series would tell me that the writer is lazy and unimaginative and doesn't know how to write an engaging story and so they're trying to fill in the gap with near-death experiences. In an RPG, it tells me the same thing about the GM.
You just described recent seasons of Supernatural...
An interesting way to measure what makes a good fight might be to create a list of ideas similar to sissyl's and have people rate their importance much like jiggy did.
Personally, a good fight is one that I care about. It should matter to me in one way or another. Beyond that I can't think of a universal element...
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You just described recent seasons of Supernatural...
You mean every season beyond 5th...
Yes, I know if you overuse a trope it falls apart. The "almost died" battle is so bloody hard to set up that, honestly, even when I'm trying every single boss fight to pull that off it doesn't, because the players are usually way better than I expect, and I would rather err on the side of caution than slaughter them mercilessly with a battle way out of their range.
You mean every season beyond 5th...You just described recent seasons of Supernatural...
Kinda...
Yes, I know if you overuse a trope it falls apart. The "almost died" battle is so bloody hard to set up that, honestly, even when I'm trying every single boss fight to pull that off it doesn't, because the players are usually way better than I expect, and I would rather err on the side of caution than slaughter them mercilessly with a battle way out of their range.
You know, its a funny thing. Maybe its just my group specifically, but they are inconsistent. On many more than one occasion, there will be a fight that I am convinced is going to take the whole session, maybe even bleed into the next, and its a cake walk for them. Maybe the dice go their way, or they are better prepared than I expect, or some similar thing. Then there are other times when I will throw something at them challenging, but something that I think won't take more than a few rounds, and I hand them their asses.
I've tried to analyze it, but I haven't really noticed a common denominator. Definitely keeps things interesting though.
So I've been pondering this question, not just in regards to Pathfinder, but in regards to other games that include combat as a centerpiece as well.
And it had me thinking.
What is a good fight?
Keep in mind I'm not simply talking about challenging fights with a wide variety of enemies, personality, and quirks. But at its very core what makes a fight fun.
I sat down and tried to do some research came up with a basic synopsis on the elements that make a fight fun and came up with some decent ideas on the elements that matter (challenge, relevance and tension) and I wanted to typify what would appeal to what in terms of the type of tabletop gamers that there are.
Unfortunately, no one has done a serious study on the various sorts of tabletop gamers that exist. Sure there are a lot of joke instances but nothing particularly useful from a research or even business perspective.
So, I felt compelled to ask.
What makes a good, memorable, fun fight from a meta perspective?
To Crush the PCs
See them driven before the BBEGAnd to hear the lamentation of their Players.
On a serious note?
*One that would conceivably drain half of more of their limited-use abilities.
*Since no enemies will be ever played below potential, escalate the threat with additional waves if the PCs are having it too easy.
*The enemy must have a reserve and not reveal their hand too early -the PCs must be confronted with a pivotal turn they must address or nullify. Drop the hammer when the PCs are committed.
*Half or more of the PCs will be knocked out/debilitated before pressure begins to ease.
*When the PCs are driven to moments of inspired gameplay -as in they take advantage of Free Actions to note everything happening on the battlefield as much as they are able and to pull something out of their ass.
*Let downed PCs and their comrades find ways to bring them back into the fight -like an epic potion/wand throw or desperation spell.
Knowing when to back off additional pressure is key because it can TPK versus Epic moment. When the horde is vanquished and the BBEG felled, the party can bask in all that extra loot and XP they just scored.
My opinion...
A good fight is one where the GM understands the purpose of the fight, and that purpose is kept in mind both while designing the fight before the game as well as while the fight takes place.
This, I feel, dovetails with what Jiggy is saying. You can't just put it in a box and say "this will make any fight a good fight, the contents here...just plug them in, and magic." Story has its own timing, and if you set up a scene in that story, give it a goal for a given timing, and then set that scene in the wrong time...you shatter the story. A fight is just one type of scene.
To me, a good fight is fun. Maybe it has important resonance to a particular character, maybe it had an interesting build-up, maybe it allows a character to do something cool or memorable.
The important part is that it shouldn't feel like checking off boxes (tedious) or like a forced march (grueling).