Frequency of Combat

[Fenton Hardy]

I worry less about the number of combats per session or adventure than the role of each combat within the larger narrative. I want every fight to mean something, to move the story forward, or to resolve a plot element. Gratuitous combat risks becoming another hazard and and devalues what should be a climatic and meaningful moment. To me that maintains the spirit of Tolkien. Consequently, my group may go a couple of sessions without seeing any fighting and then have two biggish fights in a single evening of play.

[Glorelendil]

I'd also be curious to know how LMs scale their fights. Is every fight one that the heroes might lose, or do you throw some fights at them that you know will be easy?

[Stormcrow]

every fight to mean something, to move the story forward, or to resolve a plot element. Gratuitous combat risks becoming another hazard and and devalues what should be a climatic and meaningful moment. To me that maintains the spirit of Tolkien.

I dunno, it seems to me that anything less than the scale of armies is treated tersely to get it out of the way. The battle with orcs in Moria is handled in a few sentences. Boromir's fall is only told of in a flashback. The only personal battles that are depicted in detail are generally the ones that involve found things other than hacking and slashing. Bilbo's battle with the spiders, for instance, is about his clever tactics; his individual blows are not usually described. Tolkien talks about battle, but he does not dwell on it. Personal combat is not the centerpiece of his scenes.

[zedturtle]

I'd also be curious to know how LMs scale their fights. Is every fight one that the heroes might lose, or do you throw some fights at them that you know will be easy?

As mentioned before, my personal goal is 75%. In other words, the characters should have a goodly shot at coming out on top, but it should not be a sure thing. Now, for a combat due to a Hazard or other such 'bump in the road', I'd be willing to let it get closer to 100% success chance. For a final conflict, 50% (or lower) might be acceptable, depending on the strategy and preparations of the heroes.

[Rich H]

I'd also be curious to know how LMs scale their fights. Is every fight one that the heroes might lose, or do you throw some fights at them that you know will be easy?

For me it's important that every fight pushes forward the narrative rather than the level of difficulty - personally, I've used easy fights to achieve certain things and harder ones also. Like Fenton said in a previous post, it's more important that the fight moves the story along in some way.

[Majestic]

My players enjoy combat, but I don't think they need it to feel it was a good session. A number of times they've used diplomacy, stealth, or other tactics to avoid it, when necessary.

Since I've been using mostly published materials (the vast majority of our games have been from Tales), I haven't really scaled the fights myself, instead going with what was recommended. For those I have (like improvised Hazards), they haven't struggled too much, as quite a number of my PCs have become quite competent warriors. Still, they know when they should probably avoid combat. They didn't dare go up against Raenar the dragon. Last night they didn't hesitate to attack Tauler (and nearly bested him, forcing him to flee), but knew better than to go up against the Werewolf of Mirkwood.

[Fenton Hardy]

every fight to mean something, to move the story forward, or to resolve a plot element. Gratuitous combat risks becoming another hazard and and devalues what should be a climatic and meaningful moment. To me that maintains the spirit of Tolkien.

I dunno, it seems to me that anything less than the scale of armies is treated tersely to get it out of the way. The battle with orcs in Moria is handled in a few sentences. Boromir's fall is only told of in a flashback. The only personal battles that are depicted in detail are generally the ones that involve found things other than hacking and slashing. Bilbo's battle with the spiders, for instance, is about his clever tactics; his individual blows are not usually described. Tolkien talks about battle, but he does not dwell on it. Personal combat is not the centerpiece of his scenes.

I am rereading LOTR again and I noticed just what you are saying. I agree with you to a point. You are right, the combat scenes are terse and abstracted - TOR does a good job reflecting that - but I would argue they are critical to the narrative and no less meaningful for being terse. Tolkien does not include a single gratuitous fight. The orc attack in Moria builds toward the encounter with the Balrog. If the scene is short, it is still climatic. Without Boromir's bout of madness and subsequent death, Frodo would not have left the Fellowship, at least not then and under those circumstances. Nor would Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas have hoofed it Fangorn in pursuit of the Hobbits. I would add that Sam's struggle with Shelob is also short but it is vivid and again vital to Sam's development and the storyline. Maybe it is not surprising that a survivor of WWI would avoid lengthy and detailed descriptions of combat. For me, Tolkien's ability to build tension by allowing the reader to fill in the details attests to his skills as an author.

[Stormcrow]

Y'know, it's funny: I just started rereading the Hardy Boys series, then you started posting here...

Tolkien does not include a single gratuitous fight.

No, he doesn't, but he does make it clear that combat is not the centerpiece of the adventure, which is really what I'm getting at.

The orc attack in Moria builds toward the encounter with the Balrog. If the scene is short, it is still climatic.

Well, not climactic—the climax is with the balrog—but if there were no fight, the orcs would have ended up as a non-threat, never having actually encountered the Fellowship.

Without Boromir's bout of madness and subsequent death, Frodo would not have left the Fellowship

Frodo left the Fellowship without knowledge of Boromir's death. It was precipitated by Boromir's bout of madness, which is not a combat-related feature of the game.

Nor would Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas have hoofed it Fangorn in pursuit of the Hobbits.

The only requirement of this is that the hobbits were taken by the orcs. If they had taken the hobbits without a fight, the Three Hunters would still have given chase. The real meaning of Boromir's battle was his redemption after sucumbing to the temptation of the Ring. The details of the battle are unimportant to that purpose, and we only get the battle relayed by conversation and clues.

I would add that Sam's struggle with Shelob is also short but it is vivid and again vital to Sam's development and the storyline.

This one I agree with. Combat DOES sometimes feature in Tolkien's works, but not nearly as much as many people think. For instance, Peter Jackson felt it necessary to greatly expand those combat scenes I've mentioned as being terse and non-central in the books, to make them centerpieces in the films.

The published adventures and outlines also tend to put combat in a more central position, though not as much as the films. This is in part due to the fact that the rules give combat its own subsystem, which people then want to make use of. The rule book's suggestion of one combat every second session is saying, "I know it looks like we gave combat a lot of emphasis, and we probably did, but to emulate Tolkien you'll want to use those rules only occasionally."

[Wbweather]

Combat in The One Ring seems to cause a break in the story. It can allow for some good role playing, but at least from my perspective of as the LM, a gratuitous large battle runs the risk of derailing the flow of the story. I have a hard time gauging how much the players are enjoying a combat. There is something satisfying about using your upgraded cultural weapon with a decent weapon skill. Legolas and Gimli did make a game out of racking up combat kills. The spirit of the game and Tolkien is general though is to use combat as a last resort. I think that one of the things to keep in mind as well, is that there is not really any advantage to the players to have excessive amounts of combat, as there is no reward in terms of advancement or experience points awarded for combat (unless its a roll for a non-combat action).

[Fenton Hardy]

Good spot Stromcrow. You are the first person to connect Fenton Hardy to the series.

I could be wrong but I think we agree more than disagree. I concede your well-made points but I think my larger argument is that combat, because it is neither central nor gratuitous, when it does occur it is significant to the narrative ie. Boromir's redemption, Sam's development, the death and rebirth of Gandalf. As an LM, I want combat to serve rather than derail the story as Wbweather points out. That is why I am sometimes disappointed with the published adventures. As well crafted as they are, combat assumes too much prominence.