Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 204 - Enemy Motivation in Combat

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

Not every combat needs to be a slog to determine which side grinds down the other to 0 hit points.  By considering enemy motivations, the “why” of the fight you can introduce more variety to the end result of encounters.   #dnd #pf2e #DMTips #rpgcombat   Resources: 3D Crafts & Curios etsy store - https://etsy.com/shop/3DCraftsAndCurios  Matthew Colville:  Why Are We Fighting?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAfPoOxIVm0&t=1s  The decision to fight or flee – insights into underlying mechanism in crickets - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2012.00118/full

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Even methods of travel that most lower-level PCs don't have, like flying, swimming, burrowing, for example. If they weren't absolutely committed to fighting to the death, they would use these abilities to get away if they needed to. Thank you for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 204. The second, and probably last for a little while, episode of tips for DMs on how to run enemies in a more varied way, depending this week on enemy motivation. I want to thank our amazing sponsor, 3D Crafts and Curios.

They have beautiful 3D printed items for use at your gaming table. One of my favorite items that I have from there, regularly gets comments from my gaming friends, is the little chair of shame with a blue dunce cap for those D20s that aren't rolling well that night. Head over to etsy.com slash shop slash 3D Crafts and Curios for your own copy of the Dice Chair of Shame. While there, you can use the coupon code TAKING20, that's TAKING20, to get 20% off your order through the end of the Dice Chair of Shame. While there, you can use the coupon code TAKING20, that's TAKING20, to get 20% off your order through the end of the year. I'll include a link in the resources,

and I'll be sure to share it on social media as well. Also want to thank our other sponsor, Washing Machines. I feel such a relief every time I put clothes in the washer. It's just a load off my mind. Hey, we have a website, taking20podcast.com. You can find out information about the podcast, listen to old episodes, and even leave comments for me. Check it out when you have a moment.

The holidays are coming up, and I'm going to be taking a little bit of time off. My last episode of 2023 will be published on December 17th. That's next week as of this recording. I'm going to take a break for a few weeks and episodes will resume on January 14th. I might, might publish an episode in that gap, but no guarantees. I do apologize for needing to take a break, but I need to get caught up around the house with family and holidays coming up, new classes starting in the spring that I'm teaching, and everything else that's going on. As I advise to others, I need to take a little time to put on my own oxygen mask before putting

on the mask for others, and I apologize again for the break, but thank you all for understanding. If you've listened to last week's episode, hopefully it's gotten you thinking about how not all combat should be the same. Intelligence is certainly a driving factor to how combat should be run in a more varied way, but it's not the only one. For example, motivations of those entering combat, in other words, the why the fight is happening and what are the antagonists or the opponents trying to get out of it. Another way of asking this is, what are the motivationsists or the opponents trying to get out of it? Another way of asking this is,

what are the motivations of the opponents entering combat? This is not like an actor before a scene who's begging the director, what is my motivation? No, no, no. When combat is joined, both sides have the understanding that they may not walk away from this particular encounter, and today may very well be their last. Now, adventurers, they understand that this risk of life or death comes with the job.

But what about the antagonists? Why are they putting their life on the line? Before I get deep into this topic, I want to call your attention to an amazing video by Matthew Colville titled, Why Are We Fighting? I'll put a link in the resources, and if you're listening on YouTube, there should be a little card in the top corner. If you don't subscribe to Matthew Colville's channel, you really, really should. He's a brilliant DM and game designer and has written numerous books, including his upcoming system called MCDM. In the video, he discusses why some combat turns into a slog, defines what slog is, and how objective-based combat is better for everyone, or at least at a minimum, is a good break from traditional grinds to zero-hitpoint combats. Please go watch that video. Objective-based combat is something I should have covered before he did, but he covers it very well. It's a detailed

discussion of the topic, and it goes deeper than I ever could in 20 minutes. The point behind it, though, is that there has to be a reason for the opponents to be willing to take on this risk of death. And I'd argue that there are only few very specific reasons why they would join combat against the PCs to begin with, or fight as long as they do. These reasons, these motivations, will dictate the likely outcomes of combat and how DMs should treat the inevitable end of the fight. Now some opponents, let's get this out of the way, may decide that discretion is the better part of valor and not attack the PCs. I've played Skyrim basically since it came out, and I always

laugh when you're the protagonist, you're the hero, walking down the road between Dawnstar and Winterhold, and you're wearing dragon bone armor and wielding a sword worth an amount of gold that would pay for food for an entire village for a month. And here comes random bandit number 406 wearing not even leather armor who thinks they're going to show up and rob you. You almost have to admire the pure hubris of it all. Like they're thinking, if I can somehow rob this really rich and heavily armed person, I'll never have to rob anyone else ever again. That breastplate alone will pay for my family to move to Whiterun. All right, pumpkin, come get you some. Two minutes later, you're two gold and a cheap bow richer while their lifeless corpse is tumbling somewhere down in that ravine. I think better NPC logic in

this case would be for them to realize, oh, wait a minute, maybe we're not up to the task of robbing this particular person wearing god-tier armor and wielding a sword that could sink a warship with one swing. Let's wait for an easier mark to come along. Good idea? Great idea. Of course, I will grant you that if every opponent avoids combat with the PCs, the game's going to get boring fast. So let's just discard that aspect of the real world from

our conversation going forward. But DMs always remember that. Smart opponents may decide that it's just not worth it and not even engage in combat. Assuming combat does happen though, it makes a lot of sense for some opponents to flee before they die. Even predators, animalistic creatures, will run from fights that, for example, are more difficult than expected. I remember when I was a young tyke on a TV show called Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, there was a video where a zebra kicked a lion's jaw out of socket. The lion broke off pursuit of the zebra and then went somewhere else to nurse its wounds. Why? Because it was injured and it realized that it wasn't worth it to continue fighting. Some combatants have innate abilities to run away. If so, if you had that,

why wouldn't you use them if you thought you were in any kind of real danger? Vampires can turn into mist. Some extraplanar creatures can return to their home plane, can turn into mist. Some extraplanar creatures can return to their home plane, teleport, dimension door, misty step, long strider, tailwind, even methods of travel that most lower level PCs don't have like flying, swimming, burrowing for example. If they weren't absolutely committed to fighting to the death, they would use these abilities to get away if they needed to. So DMs remember those abilities and if the creature decides it's not worth it to. So DMs remember those abilities, and if the creature decides it's not worth it to fight all the way to the death, they will use these abilities to flee from the PCs. Sometimes the encounters cut short because victory will require more

resources or energy than the opponent wants to spend. It's just not worth it to the antagonists. Two of their friends are lying unconscious, and they have a couple of stab wounds themselves, so they say, you know what, whoa, this is going to be way more costly than I thought it was going to be. I'm going to stop fighting. A classic example from Earth would be cheetahs. You probably know that cheetahs are the fastest land mammals.

They can run up to 70 miles an hour or 112 kilometers per hour. They can only do that, though, for about a quarter of a mile, about 400 meters. They don't run that fast for longer durations because it would be so tiring for them. It's not worth it. Wouldn't it make sense that there may be some monsters in D&D and Pathfinder and other tabletop RPGs who are willing to fight for a few rounds, but if it stretches on past about round five or so and victory is not imminent, they may just decide, F it. It's not worth it. I'm out. I would also argue that fights to the death should be relatively rare, regardless of the opponent. Think about it. Okay, you're a low-level guard at Castle Doomhammer.

You're working for that big bad Lady Cravenswell. Why would you fight some random group of do-gooders entering the castle and continue fighting until you died? Are you really going to your ever-after because you're being paid two gold a month? Probably not. I would argue that all things being equal, if the guard feels like

they're overmatched, they would turn tail and run rather than feeling what it's like to have your spleen impaled on a spear. This guard may have a family and they probably want to see them again rather than meet Phrasma in the afterlife this morning. Even animals can recognize when they're not going to win a fight. Okay, at this point, I need to pull aside the curtain and show you the weirdness that is researching for this podcast. One of the papers I stumbled across about fight and flight responses in animals was a paper called, quote, The Decision to Fight or Flee, Insights into Underlying Mechanisms in Crickets from Frontiers in Neuroscience. I read this crap, that seems harsh, but it was a very intellectual paper, and caught myself getting fascinated by the role of

various hormones and amino acids in the fight or flight response. I'm putting a link in the resources because, well, I'd suffered, and so should you. I mean, if you're interested in that topic, you can read up on it as well. So, my beloved DMs out there, if you decide to start having your opponents be a little smarter and running before they die, make sure you give the PCs the experience points as if they had killed those opponents. Because if you don't, you're going to create an adventuring party who will ruthlessly pursue and slaughter any and everything that fights against them for that extra XP. In the rest of this episode, I'm going to use the term creature because it's easier than antagonist or opponent or whatever. So when I say creature, I could mean humanoid combatants against the party

or animals against the party or extra-paranoid creatures or dragons or whatever they're fighting. But suppose you decide it would be more fun at your table to have all of these guards, all these creatures, stick around and fight to the very end. You need to know why they would do that. There needs to be a good reason why this guard chooses death over family and friends, or seeing how their favorite streaming show ends. Don't get me wrong, I have a family and there are days when death seems appealing. Of course, I'm kidding, honey. I love you so much.

Seriously, that'd have to be a very compelling reason for someone to be willing to lay down their life. Good news is that since this is a guard for a big bad, there's a built-in reason why the guard is willing to die rather than run. It's because they're more scared of Lady Cravenswell than they are of death. run. It's because they're more scared of Lady Cravenswell than they are of death. The big bad, Lady Cravenswell in this example, holds sway over the creature that scares them more than death ever could. Maybe she has the guard's family held hostage, or maybe she has the capability to cause the guard pain after death or worse than death if they run. These creatures have a built-in reason to fight to the death because they are scared of the alternative, and that makes a lot of sense. Another reason why a

creature may fight to the death is because they legitimately think they're going to win, despite all the evidence to the contrary. They scream, you underestimate my power, and get their legs lopped off and set on fire for their hubris. They think they're the toughest. They've always been the toughest. So the thought of losing a fight is a foreign concept to them. It's ego and pride and the belief that no one can match them. And they just can't deal with the fact that they may not be the strongest.

A creature or an opponent may fight to the death because there is no way for them to escape. They're cornered. They have nowhere else to go, and the only way out is through the party, and they lash out viciously because there is no other choice. Maybe a creature fights to the death because they're protecting something more important to them than their life. They're protecting their young, or kids, or their lair, Lady Cravenswell, their treasure, a village full of innocence, property, or whatever it happens to be. For example, some dragons may believe their treasure is worth dying for. I'd argue not many of them because they're smart enough to come back for revenge, but some might.

Finally, a creature may fight until the death out of desperation. They have to kill members of the party or die. They may be desperate to eat and starving or desperate to rob someone and provide for themselves or others. So DMs, I want to encourage you to think about why creatures are fighting the party and if it makes sense, maybe end the combat before the last opponent reaches zero hit points. Have creatures flee. Smart creatures may revert to surrender or diplomacy to ensure they see another sunrise. They could even swear fealty to the party and pledge to serve them. Now, how genuine that would be is entirely up to the DM, but if it makes sense, consider ending combat that way. Suppose you get this tool out of your GM

tool bag and the PCs just kill the surrendering creature anyway. Well, the PCs get a reputation for killing every opponent, even those that stop fighting, few are going to surrender to them going forward. Years ago, I was in a group in an evil campaign where everything was turned on its ear. We were invading good dungeons, for lack of a better term, and repelling the good groups who would try to kill all the evil minions we had worked so hard to win to our side. We did evil things like kill someone who had surrendered to us and left one alive to spread the word of our misdeeds. Suddenly, no one was surrendering to us anymore because we had a reputation at that

point of being heartless murderers. For more about evil campaigns, by the way, see episode 58 of this fine, well, mediocre, well, subpar podcast. Last thing I want to cover in this episode is that yes, this advice makes the game more complicated. If every combat results in one side completely dead and the PCs leaving a swath of corpses behind them at every turn, dead and the PCs leaving a swath of corpses behind them at every turn, victory is easy to understand and the probability of complications would be relatively low. If enemies are allowed to escape, though, they can spread word about the PC's existence, the tactics they use, the actions they take, and choices that they've made for good or ill. If the PCs are somewhat famous, or infamous for that matter, that could affect the way they are perceived by others in the world. It could also introduce complications like people or

groups seeking revenge, or the big bad taking a personal interest even sooner than you'd planned in the campaign, and that may require more juggling of the adventure behind the screen as towns and regions and continents and worlds, or maybe even entire planes of existence, learn about the party and their goals. It could bring new groups into play as humanoid leaders like mayors and queens, or even powerful entities like devils and diva, modrons and elementals decide they want a little piece of that party, or they want to go after the same thing the PCs are searching for. But, I will say this, those complications would make for one hell of an adventure. I believe not every combat should be to the death, and it makes your game more realistic

when creatures flee or surrender when they realize they're beaten. Many, maybe even most, would realize that discretion is the better part of valor, and to quote Sid from the Ice Age movies, would realize that discretion is the better part of valor, and to quote Sid from the Ice Age movies, I choose life. You could still have lots of your combat be to the death, but maybe introduce one every now and then that results in the enemies fleeing, surrendering, or even attempting to bribe the party for their life.

Add in this variety to the end of your combats, keeping in mind the motivations for the creatures that are fighting against the PCs, and I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Do you have any topic ideas for me? Even if you don't think it would make a great episode on its own, please send it to me. I'm going to do a listener questions episode early next year,

and I would love to answer your question during that episode, so please send it to me. Also, don't forget to use that coupon code TAKING20 at 3D Crafts & Curios Etsy shop for 20% off your entire order. Links and the resources are go to etsy.com and search for 3D Crafts & Curios. Tune in next week when I'm going to talk about

DMs adjudicating flavor requests by their PCs. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Washing Machines. My clothes don't really like going to the washing machine. They get so agitated. You see, because washing machines have, or at least used to have, a part called an agitator. And I just realized this joke doesn't work well in 2023. Nice weather we're having. This has been episode 204, Enemy Motivation and Combat. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.

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