A New Look at Combat (Part 2): Character Choices, not Player Choices

In the last post, I outlined the fundamental problems with the common structure of RPG combat but didn’t provide any constructive advice for how to fix it.  The rest of the posts in this series will focus on the considerations of the players, presenting ideas that game masters can use to build a new combat system.  Whether you’re building a new system from scratch, or just want to gut the combat mechanics of your favorite system, this should give you ideas that will help you create a more engaging experience for your players.  It will be helpful to read Part 1: “Reexamining the Fundamentals” to get an idea of the scope of this endeavor.

The most important part of determining how to build your new combat system is examining the choices that a player will have to make in combat for their character.  If it’s as simple as choosing to attack the guy in front of him with a normal attack or one of his more-powerful but limited-use attacks, then the actual combat will be boring and the focus of the player will be on resource management.  To keep the player focused on combat, he must be given choices that are rooted in the combat he’s in.