Some Game Mastering Questions

[dr_venture]

Hey folks, been running some test battles and ran into some questions about how to run a good C&C session in FG... figured maybe some of you would have some ideas.

1) Dead bodies: I have been replacing dead combatants' tokens with 'dead body' tokens, but find that the battle field gets difficult to use pretty quickly. First, it can become hard for FG to tell which figure you're clicking on if somebody stands over a dead body (I would *love* a FG feature to move tokens to a background layer that could be used for dead bodies, battlemat scenery items, horses/vehicles, etc.). Also, if the figure is still on the battlefield, it still shows the combatant's colored square as taking up space as if they were still standing. I suppose that's easy-enough to ignore...

2) Also related to dead combatants, how do you deal with them in the combat tracker? I find that they are kind-of irritating to have pop up over an over after they are dead (especially when they roll higher Initiative rolls than the living). I have also found that if you delete them from the combat tracker, any effects that update on that combatant no longer update any more. I find myself wishing that there was an option for having all Effects resolve on the combatant that they are assigned to, but I suspect that there's a reason that they resolve the way they do... and everybody else seems to be using it just fine, so I assume that I'm just doing something wrong here.

My current solution is to delete the dead guy's token, the put a big "DEAD" in his name so that it's painfully obvious when the turn for "Orc 12 DEAD" shows up in the chat window that he can just be skipped. I guess "DEAD" could be an effect, too. If I want to take the time, I'll visually scan through the CT to see if the dead guy has any Effects tied to him - if not, then I'll delete him altogether.

How do you guys handle dead guys in combat?

[Sorcerer]

not sure how other rulesets resolve this, and I suspect that it could be handled better by changing how it is scripted (for instance removing all minus hp combatants from the initiative roll), but personally what I do currently is when they are dead is I click the show/hide NPC check box so that they are invisible to players, that way they do not try to attack them, and their turn is not flagged in the chat window.

it should be possible to make the tokens appear translucent to players (the same way it appears to the GM when the tokens are invisible to the players) or maybe a coloured (blood red?) mask could be applied when they are dead. I don't know, I have never looked into it.
In any case it could require some work by someone.

is the main issue how the GM tracks this or how the combatants appear to the player?

[dr_venture]

I had thought of the idea of making all >1 hit point combatants always autoroll a 0 for their Initiative. It's easy for me to come up with things to request to have implemented into the ruleset, but you're so generous with your time programming, that's neither really fair to ask nor practical seeing as how I can't afford to put you on a payroll and you have your own very good ideas that you're working on Oh, and you have a life! I figured that I should ask what others are doing, as often there's a simple solution to these issues that I just overlooked or haven't found in the ruleset.

This is a combination/balance of a GM tracking question and a player view issue - I'm happy to go with a solution that first runs the game right, and looks as good as possible on teh battlemat as well as in the CT/in gameplay. I'd like to be able to show the dead bodies & have Initiative automatically work the way I want it, but as Daffy Duck said, "I WOULD LIKE... [pause] ...'I would like?' I would like a trip to Europe." I'm fine with just hiding the figure (again, thank you for the feature, Sorce!) and maybe just dragging the inviso-figure out of the way somewhere... or deleting it, as it's not serving much purpose anyway. I was just wondering if I was missing something.

[Sorcerer]

well i did say it could require some work by someone.
which I thought you might translate as meaning it could be done by anyone other than me..

currently I am sort of in fear of my job, so I am kind of concentrating on that for now, meaning that I am doing very little on the FG front.

but I am also curious as to how others handle this, because it is not really a C&C thing, as far as I know there is no provision for dead NPC's in any other ruleset either (I await the death mail to correct me).

[dr_venture]

I agree - I wasn't sure if I should post this question here or in a broader forum. Praps I'll do that - if I do, I'll post the link here.

Being in fear of your job is no fun - take care of bidness, my friend! If you never post another update, you've already changed the face of the ruleset far, faaaarrr for the better!

[vodokar]

I always delete the dead out of the tracker when they die. This also deletes the dead token off the map simultaneously. I'm pretty sure that is the way most DM's handle it.

There is no reason to keep the dead bodies lying around on the map or in the tracker. They just get in the way and slow things down.

If there is something important that they carried that the pc's might find, I just note it down. If the players don't have enough imagination to realize their are dead bodies laying at their feet after they just had a battle and think to tell me they are searching all of them, then I guess they just don't get the stuff. The burden should be on the players to learn how to interact with their gaming environment.

[dr_venture]

Now you realize that if there are any Effects on the other living combatants that are marked as being updated on the dead guy's turn, that those Effects will never get updated again after you delete the dead guy, right? Or do you handle that somehow?

[Crowley72]

I delete the dead out of the CT as well. My story window tells me how many there were and what treasure, ect.

I started gaming so long ago. Even before miniatures the player and the GM had to use the mind's eye to follow events.

FG2 gives us so many goodies, but for the sake of keeping the game moving I remind my players what they see before, during and after combat situations.

I really enjoy that FG2 lets me keep the feel of the table top in my games. Too much more, and well...you may as well call it a video game and drop the GM entirely!

EDIT: To clarify - I tend to wait til effects are at a minimum. I re-apply as needed. My players try to pay attention to the "Dead" and "Dying" text in their CTs, so confusion is at a minimum.

C

[dr_venture]

Yeah, just deleting the guy from the CT was my first assumption, after I tried to leave the bodies - I like leaving those around when I can, as they sometimes pile up and can change the combatant's tactics on both sides, or distract light-fingered thieves from more important duties.

But barring that, just deleting the guys was the first thing I did, too, as all their info is usually stored for retrieval in modules. Now with the Effect issue, I think I'm just going to put an effect of "DEAD!" on them and do as Sorcerer suggested: set them to invisible & just drag them off someplace to dispose of later. That way it's pretty quick and I don't have to worry about the potential of an orphaned Effect getting neutered in the process.

[vodokar]

Now you realize that if there are any Effects on the other living combatants that are marked as being updated on the dead guy's turn, that those Effects will never get updated again after you delete the dead guy, right? Or do you handle that somehow?

In 4e, effects applied by opponents would be "end next" or "save ends" or "encounter".

"Encounter" ones would still be in effect even if the creature that applied it were already dead. "Save ends" would still be in effect until the character saved successfully, regardless of if the creature applied it were already dead.

So, that leaves only "end next" which we have to account for - so, you wait until the creature's turn comes round again, the effect will drop, then you can delete him. You can simply turn the corpse sideways temporarily to remind you he is dead and that you'll need to remove him from the CT as soon as the effect drops, which would be in 1 round or less.

That is how I would handle it in 4e, but 4e doesn't have any effects that last a certain number of rounds.

If you had to account for effects that lasted a specific number of rounds and it were being counted automatically based on the creature's initiative count, then it might be necessary to leave the corpse in the CT until the effect expires.

I wasn't aware that C&C even had that sort of functionality for automatically counting rounds for effects expiring, however. If it doesn't automatically keep track of it, then the DM would have to keep track of it manually anyway, thus it wouldn't be linked to the corpse. I'm not as familiar yet with the C&C ruleset yet though, so maybe it does have this feature, in which case, you would need to account for that.