Bringing more narrative to your combat.

I see GMs and players complain about the "I hit it with my axe" limited view of combat. People often feel that if the rules don't facilitate a more narrative approach than it's not "part of the game".

I personally don't feel this is the games responsibility, the rules are the structure and dice are the hand of rate. Story should be facilitated by the storytellers, Both the GM/DM and players. I feel many GMs miss golden opportunities to help player to help themselves. Narrative combat makes the game more exciting, and narrative driven combat makes the GM's job easier.

The two biggest opportunities for this is during the players action, both before and after the die is rolled. These might seem like a no brainer to some, but stay with me.

Two very simple phrases GMs can use to help players get into combat as narration is "what do you do? Describe it", and "what does/did it look like?"

"What do you do? Describe it".
Before the player rolls the dice, ask the player to describe their attack. Ask for quick details about weapon swings or how the character is moving. To further facilitate narrative combat do the same with monsters and NPCs. Describe the grimace on the orcs face, the assassin's fast blade slashes, and the sneer on the city guards face as he sets his spear.

"what does/did it look like?"
Take the narrative and apply it after the roll as well. After the player rolls ask the player to describe the effects of the dice roll. Use the player's description to guide the reactions of other combatants. After the player describes jumping from the cart, while sinking his dagger into the guard smirking, describe how the other guards react. Give the characters description impact, nothing would be less rewarding and more discouraging to a player than to give an amazing description, just to be met with a none narrative reaction.

GM musings, UA GreyHawk initiative

The Unearthed arcana article on the grayhawk style initiative system has been out a while. I've had time to let it roll around in my head. I think it's an interesting idea, I'm not totally against using it....but I'm not totally sold on it.

I think what really bothers me about it is lowest going first. It feels so counter intuitive. All of 5E is roll high. Maybe if I used it regularly I would I would get us to it.

My only analogy for how rolling low for initiative feels to me is if I was driving, and at every intersection there was a roundabout, and in roundabouts you drove in the opposite side of the road. You drive on the same side before the roundabout, same side after, but while in it, you drive in the opposite direction in the opposite lane.

After a lot of mulling it over I came up with what for me feels much more organic to 5E. Everyone rolls a D10 (D20 if you like but I feel d10 makes the bonuses more meaningful) highest roll goes first.

Ranged weapons, including bows, wands, cantrips and any other ranged fast attacks get a +6. Melee attack, fisticuffs, Molly whopping of any kind gets a +3. Spell casting is just a standard roll.

As a totally optional rule, for  this totally optional rule: If player chooses to move after their action, no matter if the choose to shoot, Molly whop, or cast add +2. Moving before the action doesn't give a bonus or penalty.

What I like about this is it can be recorded on the character sheet. Add bonus for type + Dex adj.(if you choose to keep Dex bonus)= Initiative bonus. Long sword with a +2 Dex adj.? Then +5 to initiative.

Ranged vs Melee (Savage Worlds)

I'm always drawn to perceived issues with systems. Things that my players or other people believe to be broken and in need of a fix.

One that has caught my eye is the supposed discrepancies between melee and ranged combat. Which goes something like this:
Difficulty to hit in melee is 2+ 1/2 your opponents Agility. While to hit with ranged is a set number of 4.
Which gives range an advantage over melee.

By itself, out of context of the rest of the system I can see where this could seem unbalanced. Lets examine both as they pertain to the combat system at large. First I'll examine melee.

In melee your parry of 2+1/2 of fighting skill is only applicable if you are not surprised by an attack and only if you have a proper weapon reddied to defend yourself. If you are unarmed, weilding an improvised weapon, surprised, or making a wild attack your parry will be lower. So the defalt melee defense is assuming you are ready, knowing, and armed. So I say melee by defalt assumes the defender is at advantage to defend against a melee attack.

Now ranged combat on the other hand has a defult difficulty of 4. This assumes that you are not surprised, within close range, and not in cover.
The proper tactic against a ranged weapon is cover (causing cover penalties). The proper weapon for a ranged attack is one that is effective at the range you need (to avoid range penalties). So I say by defult the defender is assumed at a disadvantage against a ranged attack.

In quick summery, in melee the advantage goes to the defender, with penalties to the defender for being unarmed or unprepared. By contrast ranged assumed advantage on the part of the attacker, with penalties to the attacker for conditions and defender tactics.

Within context of the rest of the system I don't find this unbalanced. If anything it seems fair and makes sense given the nature of melee and ranged conditions and penalties.

GM musings, Believable cyberpunk.

In my games the world revolves around my players. But if I am to make the world believable, it must seem as though it doesn't.

I'm in the prossess of planning my first interface zero game. Although I am new to IZ, I am not new to cyberpunk roleplaying. Shadowrun was the second rpg I ever ran, cyberpunk 2020 a close 3rd.  thought I might share some of my tricks to more realistic world building while running cyberpunk. This might be obvious to some, I just hope it's useful to someone. 

Organizations: make organizations with no ties to the players. Too often we as GMs only create what our characters will interact with as they interact with it. Create street gangs, political activist groups, political leaders, vigilante groups, gun runners and drug dealers. Make an alliance web. Who (atleast at start) is aligned with whom. Who has a beef with whom. Let those alliances shift over time from actions off camera revealed through media or rumors from contacts.

Interaction: create interactions between your groups outside of player interaction, rather these interactions happen around the players.
A few examples:

As the players cross the road to meet a contact gang A commits a drive by against gang B on the block across from the players.

As the players enter walk down the street a buildings windows blow out. A bomb planted by a political terrorist group just blew up the headquarters of their rival.

As the players enter a bar two rival biker gangs kick off a fight.

A bank is robbed right next to the players who are on stake out. With a shootout with police and everything.
A rival gang takes out one of your contacts as a retaliation for something totally unrelated to your characters story.

A corporate take over has random groups suddenly breakout in gunfire, corporate security have checkpoints or areas blocked off.

A living world: As your city or world moves and jumps it will seem to have it's own heartbeat. The players have to decide how to act, react, or avoid each and every group drawing them into your alliance web. Every action will have a consequence in the web.