There’s been an influx of D&D players in the last few years, largely due to the streamlined ruleset of fifth edition and the explosion of livestreamed campaigns like Critical Role. Dungeons and Dragons has become bigger than it’s ever been before, and no individual gaming group plays the game in the exact same way, or for the exact same reasons. Some revel in the bloody throes of combat, hacking and slashing with slick, shining swords or methodical, mischievous magic. Others take pleasure in the fantasy of living in a world of magic and heroes by interacting socially with characters and creatures they dreamt of as children. These two foundations of the game harmonize with one another, but only when the Dungeon Master knows how best to manifest the mixture. The first tip I’ll be sharing with you, as we focus in on the methods of management, is how to make combat have a stronger narrative presence in your campaign.
Combat is important in D&D; it’s the time at which most players get to use their most exciting class abilities. Barbarians unleash their Rage with a gore-covered axe held high, and rogues meticulously maneuver into the perfect position for a silent assassination. But there are those who find the long hours—or even short minutes—of combat to be disconnected from the session’s journey. Things don't have to be this way. The best D&D games interweave narrative depth into combat encounters and mechanical interest into roleplaying scenes, engaging all types of players in all types of scenes. These tips are simple, but their value is deep. Intertwine everything.
The Devil in the Details
Aesthetic can function for more than just atmosphere. In the best stories, the details carry clues and mysteries to be hunted and unraveled. In your overarching narrative, your grand enemy prowls the land clad in armor of deep crimsons and ghoulish blacks. These colors can become signifiers of allegiance to this creature, or to go further, the opposite palate may signify opposition to this evil. This isn’t an uncommon use of visual storytelling. It’s the method of use, however, that ties our mysterious plot hook into battle. Good stories, be they novels, films, or D&D campaigns, don't give you any information that isn’t in someway relevant to the narrative. The description of a messy kitchen depicts how often a character cooks, and how little they care for cleaning. It may lend to how many people live in the household, and how many of them are in the care of the chef. All of these factors tell us about the life of our cook before we even meet the character. Combat scenarios can have the same effect in lending detail and intrigue, especially when long turns and poor rolls can lead to disinterest.
The mathematics of mechanical success and failure are at the will of the dice. As a Dungeon Master, you’ll see how these fluctuations affect the morale of the players at your table. Even a successful attack may not be what a player finds value in. This is an opportunity, rather than a potential dead end. For instance:
Your warlock’s eldritch blast tears through the air, directly at the chest of the heavily armored knight. Your magic strikes with an unholy ferocity, successfully dealing 14 damage to your opponent. As the knight recovers from the blow, you see beneath their crimson and black tunic another garment of green and white.
Even if the players haven’t encountered these colors, which are in contrast of the colors of their grand enemy, you’ve now given them a clue to invest in. You can directly recommend and challenge your narrative-focused players to pursue the clue with ability checks and dialogue. Invest time in aligning details from non-combat situations into your battles and your table will have a great deal of detective work laid out before them.
Not Just Kills, Thrills
Many players—especially those who cut their gaming teeth on video games or hack-'n-slash dungeon crawls—will slay just about every enemy you place in front of them unless you show them that murder isn’t the only way to achieve their goals. A great deal of what you’re doing in D&D is detective work. If we use that frame in the context of combat, it becomes a place where your gumshoes gain major advantages in their quest for information.
When your party comes close to claiming victory over their enemies, they then have an opportunity to leverage the situation to gain information. A bandit loses loyalty to their troupe as their numbers thin, leaving your heroes with a chance to take a prisoner. A cultist sorcerer deems their life more valuable than their faith and shows you a secret passage to their leader. It’s even possible that a powerful opponent finds respect in their enemy as you lock swords with them, granting knowledge upon receiving an honorable loss. Morale plays a huge role in real-life combat scenarios. You can try to represent morale with a mechanical framework (past editions of D&D have done so!) or simply through DM fiat.
In short, create conditions that are only obtainable through analyzing the potential benefits of capture, surrender, intimidation, and trickery. And on that point...
Enemies Speak!
It’s in moments of stress and tension that it’s easiest to reveal information that one might otherwise have kept secret. When in a tavern, attempting to goad the location of a kidnapped monarch out of a clever wizard, you might require a character to succeed on a Charisma check with a DC of 20 or higher. When combat is joined and staffs are raised, summoning flame and wind and water from the skies, the DC of the check might drop to 18 or lower. How do the players know that the check has become easier in combat? Give you enemies lines to speak! Show their emotional instability upon being surrounded, upon losing allies to your superior strategy or relentless strength.
Imagine yourself as the enemy of your party. If you’re the vengeful cleric leader of this group out for the blood of the party’s druid, there’s likely a lot you have to say as to why this moment has arrived between you. Lend those moments to your players, specifically to engage with. Speak a few lines and communicate that checks can be made to influence how much information their enemy may provide. Whether that be their personal story or clues about the journey at large, the value of immersion is gained. You can make this system as simple or as complex as you want by considering how conflict-averse or bloodthirsty a foe is, if they've been given strict orders upon pain of death to avoid speaking, and so on. A super simple system is this: if a creature is below half its maximum hit points and conflict-averse, Charisma checks made to get the creature to speak have advantage. If they're prone to violence, then Charisma checks have disadvantage when the creature is below half its hit point maximum.
Ability Checks Are Indeed, Free
Ability checks are one of the key ways that a character can interact with their environment, even in the midst of a violent confrontation. The rules regarding making ability checks in combat aren't crystal clear. Thus, every DM seems to have their own set of house rules regarding the opportunity cost of a ability check. Some DMs rule that making an ability check in combat requires an action, some decide that you need to use a bonus action to make a check, and others rule that an ability check is free, but can only be done once per turn... and so on. The Player's Handbook doesn't have a hard-and-fast rule for what kind of action you need to make an ability check, preferring to leave it in the hands of the Dungeon Master.
Err on the side of generosity when allowing characters to make ability checks: only a smalls set of very specific checks cost an action in combat. Otherwise, encourage your characters to interact with their environment by making ability checks free of charge. When it comes to engaging in the narrative tools you’ve laid about your combat scenario, players will rarely give up their action for a skill check because the value of actions are incredibly high. There must be an incentive to engage in your story elements, and that is easily given when participation is free. Choosing otherwise is removing one of the strongest tools you have for players to engage in the multifaceted adventure you’ve come to construct.
Lies and Deception
With all of these tools in hand, keep in mind that the opposition can be just as intelligent, clever, or convincing as your heroes, if not more. When a bard’s life is on the line, they may concoct a mixture of partial lies and half-truths in order to live another day. A proud lizardfolk may seemingly give away the location and formation of their troupe, or it may have been the last deed of honor they do for their cohorts. This brings into consideration what kind of opponent the characters are fighting, beyond the stat block. That leads into the specifics of each individual character’s ability check scores, which usually vary to a large degree. If specific players are more interested in these narrative aspects of combat, slightly tilting the required skill checks in their hero’s favor may help them engage further.
And don’t be afraid for your players to be outwitted. For more intelligent and intimidating enemies, there’s the potential for them to use ability checks against the party. For example, you raise an encounter that the players are doomed to lose. A demonstration of how powerless they are, as well as how powerful they must become. Let your villain slyly trick your sorcerer into saying more than they should by rolling insight or intimidation against one another, applying their mighty +10 and resulting in victory. This replicates the loss of sense one has when in great danger, and contrasts the valley of difference between where you’re beginning and where you hope to end. That small loss resonates with players as a trap to avoid while also building the beginnings of a rivalry. Losing a battle of wits can sometimes be more thrilling than losing a battle of blades.
Your Own Play Style
Players of many different play styles and skill sets play D&D, so there’s no one set way to play the game. When a table of players form, the rules, campaign, themes, and even setting, can change dramatically. That’s the beauty of the game. As a Dungeon Master, you have to be aware of the tools you possess to make sessions as fun as possible. A large part of that is communicating with your players and asking them what their needs are. What areas of a session are they most engaged in, and which can be flat out boring? No one creates a perfect campaign right at the get-go. It takes refining over time.
Combat is a place where this refining is much needed, especially as more narrative focused players enter the community. Expanding your skill set to best suit them is key to being the ever-evolving DM. So my final tip is to talk to your players about implementing these tools. If they don’t work for your table, no worries! At the very least, you’ve opened up a space where experimentation and open dialogue is an option. That kind of care for your players keeps them coming back each week.
Speaking of, I’ll be bringing some more of the helpful tips I’ve learned over the years here to D&D Beyond. Stay tuned for my next article, which is going to be on formulating character stories and backgrounds. Let’s investigate how we frame our adventurers before the game begins and how we might angle our heroes in new and interesting ways. Until then and beyond, keep rolling 20s.
Have you ever focused on creating combat encounters that tell a story in D&D? Tell us about it in the comments!
DC is an independent game designer, and the creator and author of plot ARMOR, as well as a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast. You can find them assisting the tabletop roleplaying game community’s growth on Twitter @DungeonCommandr.
Again you aren't reading what I typed. I use the 3 pillars of XP award system that gives out XP for exploration, social encounters and combat encounters and it is found outside of the books. My point is that in other systems the core XP is better than what D&D (and {Pathfinder) offer and you don't have to go to a DMG or make a DM alternative to what the book offers for XP rewards.
One thing I've found common when it comes to DM's and the narrative is that too many DMs make no distinction between a character and a player when it comes specifically to the Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma score.
A few examples: A player's barbarian has an INT of 6. The DM sets the players to a puzzle. To the player, the solution is obvious. But the player is also markedly more intelligent than their character. The opposite example is also true. A player's wizard may have an INT of 20, but the player has difficult with the puzzle. The former example is more difficult to manage because its a form of metagaming. The latter is simple: have the player make an INT skill check with a set DC. On a success, you drop a hint. If they're still having issues, repeat the process. If they score a crit on the skill check, create a narrative where their genius character unravels the puzzle, allowing you to showcase your work on the puzzle by basically solving it for the players while they watch. The player is gratified that their character is a genius who single-handed resolved the encounter, and all your hard work in putting the puzzle together isn't wasted. (the one exception I make is if I invested in a puzzle prop, such as a puzzle box. If I produce a real-world puzzle, they're on their own to solve it because I'm getting my money's worth, one way or another...)
Another example: Wisdom is, in general, a character's innate ability to common sense, intuition, and self control. If your player has a character with a high WIS and a high passive insight, when the player goes off to something impulsive or silly that could get themselves killed, narrate something along the lines "With your passive insight, you get the feeling that while doing X seems like it might be fun, it probably isn't the best idea." That way, you guide the player through narrative, without forcing them to take an action. After all, people get the feeling something is a bad idea, but do it anyway all the time.
Finding the balance in the differences between your players and their characters is, for me, at least, crucial.
Read the title of this article and was upset. Combat is not a grind! I said to myself. Then I read this "Players of many different play styles and skill sets play D&D, so there’s no one set way to play the game." A beautiful way to capstone this article!
Wow! What an amazing article!
Thank you for the article. All of your talking points should be something every DM understands but as stated the video game mentality and the influx of new players and this particular past time going "mainstream" requires a re-statement of the obvious. Full disclosure I am a DM from waaaaaaaay back with the original Chainmail game designed by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren that would become Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and the rest is history as they say. In other words I am old. Of course in those bad ole days of the dark ages and the nascence of role playing games we did not have desk top computers as of yet, much less the immersive video games now available.
Those of use who first became fans of D&D pulled from our nerdy selves all the novels and comic books we devoured in our youth. I ran D&D games based upon my love of Robert E. Howard's Conan books and Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone series. As well as the tropes of The Lord of Rings. After all D&D owes a major depth to that source and many others. I bring this up as it was perhaps more understood then that of course the villains and other opponents that your players faced would have depth to them beyond just being an obstacle to the treasure in the next dungeon room and that combat should be evocative and visceral.
I always ran games that attempted to create a larger world and immerse my players as much as possible into the "story" that they and I were in collaboration.. Good times I can assure you. Now after a long hiatus I have stepped back into the DM chair and while I have group of veteran players I also have some young people who are part of the video game generation and while some get the role play aspect of role playing, others I've had to encourage and show them that there is so much more to this past time than just killing the monster and looting the treasure. I take time to describe the combat as the author has suggested and encourage the players to act out, describe, suggest how they will perform their attacks. Instead of, "I swing my sword." I now hear, "I attempt to lock blades and use my strength to throw the orc off balance!"
Of course, much is up to the DM to encourage and demonstrate and emote the action as it is taking place.
I only use combat as a way of advancing the story. Otherwise, what are the stakes?
Great article! As a new DM, I love hearing about these little tips and tricks, especially with combat, because it's the thing I'm least comfortable with. I'm always worried my combat is too boring, so this is handy for spicing things up!
I have found a great way to enhance combat is to remember that a failed attack roll isn't necessarily a "miss".
When players or NPCs fail a roll to hit try mixing it up with phrases like:
Your swing your sword unerringly towards the enemy's neck when he brings his shield up at the last minute. Thundering metal against metal as he blocks your strike.
Your arrow penetrates the first layer of her armor but fails to get deep enough to draw blood. She smiles wickedly as she snaps the haft off and presses her attack.
You move in with you axe and strike but the creature's hide deflects the brunt of your attack and only enrages it further.
Hell, you can even have weapons cut, arrows can slice through an enemies ear, magic bolts can crackle and sizzle and singe, swords can dent armor, or anything else that wouldn't really be HP damage but still means characters aren't literally MISSING their opponent half the time and leaving players to think their character (or dice) suck.
Thanks for the great article! Looking forward to the next one on character backstories as that is an area where I could improve.
I generally base things off of the type of creature. So if it's a character that's inherently "Evil" i.e. a goblin or something - then diplomacy rarely outstrips their own greed and avarice. Generally if you're fighting a beast or not specifically intelligent creature - I usually disadvantage against any kind of talking/diplomacy. They have to be humanoid or above a certain intelligence or not particularly evil for the party to even consider trying to parlay.
Plus let's say you ARE trying to trick or talk to a goblin, you would have to appeal to their greed and attempt to deceive them, not necessarily appeal to their better nature or common sense. So if they're not approaching that particular enemy in a way that would actually work I usually just have the creature respond with violence and end the conversation.
I feel a lot of DM's let their players control a bit too much of the game. Just because that game mechanic is there and -could- potentially work doesn't mean it will help with the story or move things along. So don't be afraid to just rule as DM "Nope he's evil, he keeps attacking" and avoid letting them upset every encounter you have planned.
I have constantly struggled with making combat more narrative over my years as a DM. Not only with making it feel like a poignant piece of the narrative, but also in coming up with narrative ways to describe combat, rather than the purely mechanical, "HIT!" "MISS!" "PASS!" "FAIL!" One of the most fun and engaging ways I've found to start introducing narrative combat to players is with the questions, "Would you like to describe the killing blow or shall I?" Giving players the freedom to describe exactly how their attack dispatched their foe allows them an opportunity to contribute to the narrative and can even make those who are more focused on the mechanics of combat more interested in the roleplay aspect of the game.
Already have and I've read it twice now. :P
Great article. Really like the section on Ability Checks during combat--major boost to filling out detail and nuance to the battle scene/narrative.
This is great advice! Will definitely use in my next campaign!
This is a very helpful article about narrative tools to employ to enrich role playing! I look forward to reading more of your articles.
I've noticed the narrative combat in Critical Role and it really is amazing how much information can be gleaned from a simple encounter when the DM properly incorporates story into combat. This article does a really good job of providing some helpful advice on how to do that in one's own campaign. Thank you!
DC.. i have read two of your articles and I am absolutely hooked, I like the way you think... I shall be reading all of your stuff on DNDBEYOND.COM
One thing that I do with my group is to award the XP if they successfully navigate the encounter. If they fight and kill the NPC, they get XP. If they negotiate a peaceful/semi-peaceful resolution, I give them the XP. This may be your alternative also, but thought I would throw this out there so others may read it.
A lot of DMs have combat happen in fairly open and flat spaces, when the environment doesn't do much. At most there is a water feature, some trees, or another, simple detail. I do the opposite, the Michael Bey approach; Combat is never simple and the opponents may not be the biggest threat. Something that can catch on fire should catch on fire. If the PCs and the NPCs can end up riding mine carts, or sliding down a slope, or in a room that's flooding, or fighting in the eye of a hurricane, or just being on horseback, make it happen. IT shouldn't just be an ooze in that pit trap, it should be an ooze and a wall of spikes slowly closing in. You can up the CR as you see fit.
For example, I once ran a combat scene set in a castle that was rolling down the side of a mountain. It caused an avalanche, and part of the castle that broke off (with some PCs inside of course) was headed towards the mouth of an active volcano while the rest was headed for the ocean. While inside and navigating their opponents' attacks, the players had to watch out for falling furniture, decide weather or not to save various NPCs, and either avoid falling out windows and door ways or try to fall out of them to escape before hitting lava or drowning.
It takes more set up, and you can't do it every session, but it's worth it, and it isn't as hard as it sounds. Remember, this is a game with elves and dragons, so you only need to be as realistic about the physics as is fun. Realism is not inherently a virtue.