Hi Peter, the best fights I can recall are all about things that really matter to the players.

I had a fantastic fight last night, and it went down like this: I had to choose between abandoning a young woman to a horde of zombies or put myself - and my friends - into extreme danger for a stranger. I made my choice - abandon her! - and she obviously did not want to be abandoned. And the zombies did not want us to close the door between us and them. So she and the zombies were actively working against me. This was cool because my character has the Key of Not Caring About People, and this sorely tested it. Everyone watched in stunned horror as I pushed this screaming woman out into certain death so we could get the door shut. Now win or lose, that made a great conflict. It said something about my guy, everyone cared about the outcome (I even got a bonus die from somebody), it was fun.

(stupid browser ate this post TWICE, and in the intervening time some of what I said has already been said by other people. But my patience is too strained to edit it now, so please pardon the repetition.)

This is kind of obvious, but I'll throw it in anyway -- some of the most exciting and memorable fights are the ones where the stakes are interesting. And just to make it clear, life-or-death stakes are actually pretty dull when it comes right down to it. (Seriously...a win doesn't automatically lead to anything cooler than what you had before you started the fight, and a loss ends the game. Who's supposed to get excited about THAT?) Some games (I'm thinking here of Dogs in the Vineyard in particular) seem to do a really great job of putting interesting stakes front-and-center in a conflict; other games can require more effort.

So a great fight scene should have something great to drive it, something that really clicks with everyone. Maybe it's defeating an annoying arch-nemesis, maybe it's rescuing a loved one, maybe it's conquering some inner demons, maybe it's making a billion dollars and sleeping with supermodels. Whatever prize is most appealing is going to be the one that can take even a simple "I punch you and then you punch me" struggle right over the top.

Great fight scenes typically have a great location, too. It doesn't necessarily have to be a stunting paradise a la Feng Shui, but it should have some features that everyone can interact with. Things like restricted lines of movement, for example, or dangerous areas to avoid/shove your opponent into (this is why a swordfight on top of a zeppelin is always a winner, especially if there are spinning propellers involved). If it makes sense for an object to be there, it should be there, even if it's something no one mentioned in the original description. And that description should be evocative, but simple enough that everyone can picture it without needing ten minutes of heavy narration.

In crunchy games, a good fight scene really lets you dig in with the mechanics of the game -- so a great d20 fight scene should give people reasons to make interesting skill checks, the opportunity to use their weirdo feats and talents, and enough space to cut loose with crazy powers. Limiting the tactical options available to the characters doesn't always preclude having a great fight, but I've always felt it's something that should only be done sparingly...otherwise, why even bother with a system that includes those options in the first place?

A lot of great fight scenes I've been part of have had a moment of choice -- do you save the hostage, or chase down your enemy? Do you accept their surrender, or take your revenge? Do you step through the mirror, or smash it? Do you grab the cleric and retreat, or do you fight to the bitter end? It's that simple little moment when all the sound and fury of the combat drops away and you actually feel a little bit of anguish over whether the decision you are about to make is the right one that tells you "holy shit, this fight is BIG." If you're the one running the fight, it totally pays off to look for those choices and bring them out, and to know when to slam on the brakes so that people can appreciate the gravity of it. (And, of course, when to lean on them to CHOOSE NOW, to keep the tension high.)

This is obviously not a complete list, YMMV, all sales final, etc. -- but maybe you'll like some of it.

Great fights and action sequences like car chases are in my experience not easy to carry over from other medias into story games.

Movies does a great job of communicating intense action through music, sound effects, clipping and visual effects. This is a very different experience from what can be acchieved through voice or text only. A classic example is the end sequence of Lord of the Rings I, the battle with the Balrog. The script said something like "They run". The final sequence with falling stairs, flying arrows etc. was created by the special effects people.

The one thing that *can* be used to add tension when story gaming action, is of course to include difficult character choices into the sequence (as said by many above). My advice is: let one player do the narration, skip most of the filler stuff, and get to the choice points and the resolution quickly. Especially, avoid draws and stand-offs, they tend to block creativity. If you can't make a strong raise, cross cut to another scene or jump forward in time, even to the point of leaving the outcome open.

For more action, go for gamism or simulationism. Dice rolling, 100% character ownership and random character death as an option bring that tension into the game.

Posted By: Frederik J. JensenThe script said something like "They run". The final sequence with falling stairs, flying arrows etc. was created by the special effects people.

Frederick, real quick: no. The script had all the falling stairs and flying arrows. The special effects people don't just get handed a block of ten minutes and get told to "make it look cool!" They get instructions. ;)

Location, location, location.

And countdowning hit points are cool, they're the RPG equivalent of cutting away to the bomb's digital readout showing 1:19 but then the next time you see it, it's :48! What will happen now??!! Oh noes!

Matt, not quite sure I follow. Are you saying that the hit points are the metric by which we judge whether or not the troll is dead, and therefore if the key is accessible and escape accomplished?

Cause my pickpocketing rogue says otherwise...

Well, look at a modern-setting movie like Die Hard. He is beaten and bloodied by the end of the movie, and half the fun of that movie is seeing him take damage and keep going. I think in some situations hit points can reflect that, but again, too many games by default treat it as a grind. I mean, I used to describe characters taking damage and its effects, then give the "hit point cost" of the attack, but that was really outside the mechanics of the game. I was just adding flair.

ME

First of all, I want to point out that, even as a narrativist player and GM, I (and the groups I use to play with) like crunchy games.


It might sound controversial, but my personal opinion as a GM is that sometimes using miniatures and stuff can improve the dynamics in a fight (at least mechanically speaking).

I try to describe things as deeply as possible, and try to encourage cinematics and tactical thinking (as opposed to "just stand there trading blows"). And for the players to get a broader picture of the terrain, drawing it for them seems to help. Seeing how close the troll is to the cliff uses to make them realize they can actually attempt to trip him. Seeing a badly drawn table sometimes does make them jump into the table to get the higher ground. Watching how the monsters are located in a straight line makes them realize a nice lighting bolt would cause a nice effect...

I use the rules (and the pertinent house rule if needed) to cover as much of those tactics as possible without slowing down the games, but I usually try to make them think outside of the box...

And in my experience, not using miniatures (or any mean to visually represent the fight) tends to encourage the "just stand there trading blows" phenomena. Descriptions help, but they seem more like a tool than the only thing I'd need.


A funny thing I noticed regarding hit points... Some times they bring some drama to the scene... Most of the times they do not. And I have found that as a player I like them. They help me measure how much risk I'm willing to take, how enduring my character is, and how badass my swordplay is. As a GM I hate them. They feel like a mechanical and limited resource, many times making me wish I could make the players do some more damage, just to shorten the agony. I try to give in as much description and drama as possible, but hp are usually more of a hindrance than a help for me.

I'm still looking for a midpoint kind of mechanic. Not as freeform as in most Story Games, not as crunchy and convoluted in most Trad Games.

What if you redid your scene a little bit, Justin? I think it might get interesting.

Me: "The barghest rips into your chest!"
I hand a note card with the number 32 written on it.
Baker, his mind racing, takes the card and flips it over and writes: "16 points of damage, chest plate ruined"
Then I could accept and move on or flip the card over ... we've still never announced our hit points, but we know how important it was to Baker not to be taken out right there.

My two cents, I guess.

On hit points, I always think about Dogs, and fallout. That's a form of interesting "hit point loss", from my point of view. And it's interesting in two ways...

First, when you look down at that building stack of fallout, waiting for you to pitch it and find out how screwed you are, there's tension there. Because you don't know how screwed I am - and neither do I, really; at least, not for sure. So I'm gambling my future when I choose not to give, but I don't know all the results.

Second, because the damage is something other than a straight downward spiral. It has... other effects all tied into it, and decisions, and so on. The "damage" is interesting in and of itself.

Games - whether through design or group procedures of play - that do one or both of those things with their "hit points" always stike me as having one more kind of grabbiness, in terms of keeping me hooked into a conflict.

Also, how did this become a thread about hit points? That's not mentioned in the original post at all.

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonAlso, how did this become a thread about hit points? That's not mentioned in the original post at all.

True, we may be focusing too much on one symptom rather than the underlying problems.

To put a different spin on it -- even in Storygames, and even in the best of them, I sometimes just want a conflict to end because its starting to feel dragged out. Heroquest, TSOY, even my beloved Dogs in the Vineyard all have times where I'm like 'Can we just fucking end this now? I know its about important story shit, but we've been slogging through AP/Harm/Raises for 45 fucking minutes and I just want to move on.'

Anytime, really, that the mechanics become too responsible for having the say over the flow of the conflict, I feel you have the danger of something like that happening.

Of course, with time you can learn to avoid this in most of those games (learning to set giveable stakes being an important part of that, for example) -- but even with good stakes, narrative drive, and a solid system there can be times where the handling of mechanical bits grows dull.

Levi, yeah exactly: cause Dogs fallout isn't hitpoints -- at all -- and therefore Dogs raises and sees are not rolls to hits and rolls to defend. They are actually interesting, and make interesting fight scenes.

Posted By: TristanI universally rule that monsters give XP for defeating them. As in "you don't necessarily have tokillit to defeat it". Usually outwitting and/r incapacitating him would do the trick. Of course, severing the head of that annoying sorcerer that has been bugging you and insulting your good old family weapon can be really fun.

And Tristan, if you rule that the sorcerer isn't killed by decapitation, and therefore depleting his hit points does not defeat him and you don't award hit points, are your players going to take that sitting down? Saying "there are other ways to defeat a thing" is weak sauce when killing a thing is always defeating a thing. You can try to outwit him, and the GM might decide your plan has merit, or you can just kill him, which is guaranteed to work. Those alternatives start looking less and less appealing.

I like the idea of, for lack of a better term, setting stakes in a fight. I think the "fight til one side is dead" can be kind of dull (though not always. I mean, that is the ultimate stake), but one of my hangups as a GM was creating a villain I only would get to use once because there was no way to "stop" the fight without him/her being dead or killing the PCs. If I had them run away, it was almost always a GM fiat or the players accusing me of wimping out. So I like the idea of something other than life/death being at stake in a fight, and victory conditions other than life/death, if that makes sense.

Posted By: TristanKilling someone who has already surrendered or someone who hasn't even fought back would not give them XP.

And I'm tempted to rule that if there is an obvious (or maybe even not so obvious) way to defeat someone without killing him, the actual kill would give the playerslessexperience. Did I mention the "house rules over literary text" thing?

Yeah, but I'm not talking just about games that give XP or even have a rewards/punishment system built in. I'm just saying there are times I would like to have the players on board with the goal of the fight before it begins. It really isnt their fault they see combat as a kill or be killed scenario every time. A lot of games just present it that way.

Heck, even with movies I'm the guy yelling at the hero for not taking out the bad guy who looks unconcious, because we KNOW he is just going to get back up and sucker punch someone. It is an ingrained philosophy that a breathing foe is one who can, and will, come after you again :)

ME

Here's another reason I think a lot of roleplaying fights suck: they're competitive when they shouldn't necessarily be.

Think of the competitive fights you've watched: boxing, ultimate fighter, fencing, wrestling, fights at your local karate dojo. All times where one person was trying to humiliate or beat the crap of another person.

Now think of the cooperative, staged fights that you've watched: all movie fights ever. In movies, the fighters are cooperating to tell the story of a fight, which is way different than actually competing to win. This actually came up in the giant shark game I ran last night. I didn't make it clear to the players that their role in the story was to be actors in a giant shark movie, which often required them to willingly put their characters in danger or die in really interesting ways. Instead, they like kept trying to survive and stuff, just like anyone would if they were faced with giant sharks. It was a very "duh" moment for me as a game designer and player.

So, yeah, we're basically really bad at narrativist fights or even creating the expectation that conflict should be expressive and not about survival or winning. Issues surrounding hit points are just the tip of that very large iceberg.

Here's another issue: in all of roleplaying, but especially in fights, we're really focused on delivering pictures when what we're got are words. We're not video game designers or movie directors, and, unless you're working with miniatures, our visual tools for illustrating what's occurring are very few (even with miniatures, the visual vocabulary is still pretty limited). I can say, "I pull off a butterfly kick that lands on the top of his head and tips him backwards into the vat of acid," but that takes WAY longer to say than it does to watch on a movie screen, which robs roleplaying fights of a lot of the pacing and clarity that I mentioned earlier. Also, since the moves in a roleplaying fight are generally described on the spot, not prepared beforehand, it can be hard to pull that crazy ultra-awesome kick description out of your brain. You can see it in your head, but can you describe it like a brutal poet on command? Probably not consistently. (Also, I hereby declare my copyright on "Brutal Poet" as the name of a future fight game). Unless we can figure out a way to develop a verbal vocabulary of fight, one that's not an imperfect rendering of the pictures in our heads, then descriptions of fights will always be a pale imitation of the visual media we wish we were partaking in.

Posted By: pedyoSo - does anyone here have any great advise or tricks to make fights more interesting? Preferably something that's usable for any system but references to specific system are of course cool. Oh, and I don't really want to hear "No, I haven't had this experience!" If so - cool for you! Instead - please share how you run fights!

Here's what I like to do in fights, in general, regardless of RPG:
* Equip the players with the ability to work in scenery & terrain in a favorable way (rather than in a penalizing way) -- swinging from chandeliers & using broken bottles as clubs is fun. So is bringing said chandelier down and smashing a foe's broken bottle. Let players be creative without penalty.
* Equip the players with the ability to work with each other in a way that's better than if they worked solo and in parallel, in a way that involes all the players -- something beyond "oh, hey, flanking bonus" (Edit: as Jonathan Walton just said above, needless competition in combat is a downer.)
* Equip the players with the ability to modify the situation beyond "hey, I damage you." This ties into modifying the scenery/terrain
* Create a sense of desperation in a serious fight.
* Add in a physical element to play to create a more visceral experience (at its basic could be having your HP has a stack of coins on your sheet)

Here's what I wish I could do, but always seems to feel cheap in most systems I've played:
* Tap into the chaos of battle and change up the situation on a moment's notice.
* Make fear, confusion and other psychological effects on the same level as physical damage, so they could be used in concert.

Here's what I wish I could always do, but don't always achieve:
* Make fights end on a bang rather than a whimper.
* Make every roll of the dice feel like something potentially powerful. Meaningless, rote rolls suck.

So, I'm working on my badass fighty game, Mythender. While it's not hitting on all of these, this is a good list of my goals for the game. Another goal of mine for the game is to make HP feel less like a pacing mechanic (and maybe even a reverse-currency) and more like a precious, scary thing to lose. But that gets away from generic bits and into what I'm specifically trying to do with my game, and thus well off-topic.

Point of note: everytime I test out Mythender's battle system, the stakes aren't personal and there's no game beyond "hey, guys, help me test out my character creation system & battle system again?" In all but one test, everyone loves the shit out of the fight. So, to put out something of a dissenting opinion, you don't need story to make your fight interesting. Shoot, sometimes maybe that's a crutch.

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonI can say, "I pull off a butterfly kick that lands on the top of his head and tips him backwards into the vat of acid," but that takes WAY longer to say than it does to watch on a movie screen, which robs roleplaying fights of a lot of the pacing and clarity that I mentioned earlier.

Posted By: Brand_RobinsThis can literally be an image or two, with everything between filled in by the "viewer" in the same way you do as in a novel, or by simply focusing on a couple of points in the action.

One of the techniques I've been working to develop has a similar vibe, only I think I'm being explicit about it. I work to make everyone break up the action like so: [what they do] [roll] [effect they have]

Or, to use Jonathan's example:
Player: I pull off a butterfly kick that lands on top of his head
[Roll dice]
Player: And tip him backards into the vat of acid.

I didn't really realize it before, but that follow's Brand's idea of focusing on things as an image or two (specifically two). With the break-up, the pacing does seem to flow much, much better.

It occurs to me that I didn't unpack my thought. (I apologize for shotgunning it today -- doing a few things at once).

In the above situation, I'm not treating the roll as a piece of random information. Yes, that's what it's doing, but it's not why I'm really wanting to use it.

Have you heard a really good public speaker or storyteller speak? Said speaker knows how to say things well, and part of that is knowing when to use a pause. That is the more powerful piece of making that roll -- at points in our narrative of this fight, we shut up for a moment and let that silence (or the claking of dice) fill the room. It's the negative space in our story that makes the moments feel a bit more vibrant.

That's why I like breaking up the action like that. The fortune is a bonus to me, not the reason for it. (Specific to Mythender: the rolling isn't task resolution -- you're going to be successful. It's more of a pacing mechanic on said success.)

Brand,

Heh, I almost included "or the negative space between panels" in my list of examples thinking about your post, so I definitely get you. I think in terms of speaking, though, both as a podcaster and as someone who engages folks verbally in RPGs, hence my focus on "the pause."

Posted By: Josh Ballyhoo RobyIt's hard, hard, hard to communicate to players, "If you make this about killing, you will die."

I ask this because I don't know the answer: why can't we just say that? I'm the GM, your character is in the closet with the girl. "Through the gap you can see a bunch of guys come in. You can hear the clack of gun parts as they move around. They're just outside the door, they're between you and the exit, and they're searching the room. If you make this about killing, you will die." My gut says there's something wrong with that, but I can't put my finger on what.

And weirdly, is that pretty simmy?

I mean: if my agenda as GM is narrative, then I need to be presenting things so that the story as it unfolds makes sense (and in strong narrative mode, yeah, I'd say something like "There's way too many guys here for you to take on.") More gamist: "a quick count comes in around 15, armed mostly with light SMGs; roll Tactics to see if you have a better handle on the situation." Other agendas might suggest different approaches.

But that kind of completely hands-off to character stuff strikes me as (possibly only in terms of Threefold) simulationism.

Posted By: Josh Ballyhoo RobyOh, no, it lands solidly in the social sphere for me -- that's YOUR character, and it's YOUR right to decide what he does, and I shouldn't tell you what to do or even what your odds are, because that's influencing what is your decision to make. Totally in character-ownership realm for me.

I basically see two possible different situations.

Railroading and Consequential.

The first one is when the GM guided the player to the situation where he has little freedom of choice (such as "forcing" the player to get into the house, and then giving his character with little option other than to get into the closet with the girl...).

The later is when the player got himself into the situation himself (such as pissing the overly powerful sleeping dragon off).

I try to avoid the first like the plague. I use to see the second not as deciding for the character, but as acting on the consequences of his previous actions.

I kind of thing that how the player got into the closet is exactly the context that makes the difference.

Of course, the blazing part is still stupid, and telling him just that is not bad per se.

So sure he has the choice of what to do (be it a stupid choice or not). But if I, as a GM, "forced" him into those kinds of decisions, then the player is going to feel robbed of his ability to play his character.

That was kind of my point.

Think of my reply more of a spin-off to your comment, not so much as a disagreement.

Nope. Making the player to hide in an alley where he can't get out unless he wants to face those overwhelming number of stormtroopers with only his blaster would be Forcey.

I'd rather make him know in advance that there will be a huge contingent of stormtroopers coming and let him decide how he'll better deal with them (letting him know that direct confrontation is not an option).

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonHere's another issue: in all of roleplaying, but especially in fights, we're really focused on deliveringpictureswhen what we're got arewords. We're not video game designers or movie directors, and, unless you're working with miniatures, our visual tools for illustrating what's occurring are very few (even with miniatures, the visual vocabulary is still pretty limited). I can say, "I pull off a butterfly kick that lands on the top of his head and tips him backwards into the vat of acid," but that takes WAY longer to say than it does to watch on a movie screen, which robs roleplaying fights of a lot of the pacing and clarity that I mentioned earlier. Also, since the moves in a roleplaying fight are generally described on the spot, not prepared beforehand, it can be hard to pull that crazy ultra-awesome kick description out of your brain. You can see it in your head, but can you describe it like a brutal poet on command? Probably not consistently. (Also, I hereby declare my copyright on "Brutal Poet" as the name of a future fight game). Unless we can figure out a way to develop a verbal vocabulary of fight, one that's not an imperfect rendering of the pictures in our heads, then descriptions of fights will always be a pale imitation of the visual media we wish we were partaking in.

This is huge, and not limited just to fights.

The advantage of words was known to radio drama long before we were even around - and it was emotional, not physical. A desperate fight was established by buildup, not execution - what's a Western gunfight in sound except a few shots? But if you've had Black Bart gun down Shorty and Sherriff Bill and kidnap Miss Standish and sneer at all that's good and decent, a few ricochet sound effects becomes, in the mind's eye, a wild fracas. I know, I know, all right thinking people just want to jump right in and get to 'the good stuff', but in the words of that one Cake video, "observe the rising action".

I remember one fight that absolutely rocked and we were using, believe it or not, Heroes Unlimited/Rifts. The reason the fight ended up being so good was:

1.) changing terrain. The hero and villain battled across rooftops and eventually into a building, causing huge amounts of damage to everything around them.

2.) The fight alternated between different goals. At first the hero was just trying to get his wounded friend to safety and was being pursued, and then it became a rather bitter fight between him and the villain with both trying to kill each other. However, when he finally got the villain down and was tempted to administer the coup de grace, he realized more villains were coming, and he could either take vengence on his opponent or save his friend. It was a great moment for the player, who really struggled with it, but finally said to the villain "I guess for today I'm still a hero" and saved the friend.

And 3.) Both me and the player really knew the rules, and were using them against one another in a very competative but friendly manner. I remember near the end of the fight the player used an attack that caused a ton of damage and knockback, so I had the villain declare a simultaneous attack, meaning I don't try to dodge but you can't dodge my hit either. As I described the armored baddy being blasted backwards through the wall, I said "And that is when you see the cluster of micro grenades leave her hand." The look on the player's face as the building detonated was priceless.

The best part of that session, and all of the players talked about it afterwards, was the amount of buy-in felt by everyone in the room. It was a pivitol moment in the storyline, told us a lot about the characters themselves, and was just a lot of fun, even with some clunky game mechanics. I still have buddies who live in different parts of the country who call and talk about that session.

ME

I've been working on a new version of Console, in which fights can easily degenerate into the most boring sort in the world (and yet rarely do for some reason). Here are some tricks I've used to make things more interesting.

* Go halfway between the usual front/back row setup and a free-movement battle map. Battlefields include only the interesting locations.
* Give each battlefield location some sort of effect. Nothing too complex, but a reason to want to be there or want to leave.
* Give monsters and characters ways to push each other around the battlefield so people don't always hang out in the best locations.
* Give every character 2-3 useful things to do, but not many more. They need choices beyond "I hit the damaged one," but too many choices wreck the flow of the game. Some character types will have a lot of options, but those are for people who enjoy playing the Swiss Army Daiklaive.
* Make characters go down in 2-4 hits, so every hit is meaningful. Give them plenty of healing that they have to use often.

Hey, I had a thought, in part inspired by an earlier comment (sorry I am not showing the actual quote) concerning duplicating the kinds of fight scenes we see in movies and television and why that is so difficult to do in an RPG or story game. I realized those kinds of media we most often refer to in looking at RPGs are visual, ie movies and television, while what we should be looking at is narrative combats, like books and stories. It is impossible to duplicate the kinds of combat seen in movies and television because they have the ability to slow down or speed up combat, show you details or give you an overview, it is just a really different way of presenting things.

I love R.A. Salvatore in part because of the way he does fight scenes in his books. I always thought he gives really good levels of detail in his works, describing individual moves and reactions but still keeping the pace of the battle really exciting. But I've also noticed there are ways he glosses over some of the more complicated manuevers, allowing the reader's mind to fill in the gaps, which really is a good way to do it in roleplaying games. We are often looking at the attempt (die roll) and then the outcome (results of the die roll, damage and effect). I remember one passage in one of the Dark Elf books where the hero Drizzt comes up behind a wererat in the sewers and it said something along the lines of the wererat being hit 10 times before realizing the first blow (im paraphrasing of course). And I remember thinking "How cool is that! That's what I want to do in my game." But Salvatore presented that moment of awesomeness in one line, not 10 to-hit die rolls and 10 damage rolls.

Also, I loved the way Robert Jordan presented skilled swordfighting in The Wheel of Time books. I think around the third book the main character Rand, who is still learning to be a swordsman and carries a blade that falsely presents him as a master swordsman, goes up against a true master swordsman. The combat was a paragraph of named fighting maneuvers with no real description of their actions or the fight, but it absolutely rocked and captured my imagination. Jordan never tells you what Leaf Falling on Water looks like, but everyone who read the book had an image in their head of what that fight looked like, and the individuals really filled in the awesomeness of that scene.

ME

Posted By: Callan S.Fights are exciting in comics and movies because you don't know how it will effect the ending.

Sure I do, some of the time. If I'm at the start of the comic, I know the bad guy will win. If I'm at the end, I know the good guy will win.

Posted By: Hituro

Posted By: Callan S.Here's a bit of a disclaimer: You might want to convince me they are meaningful, but I don't matter. If they aren't having any effect on the end but you spend your time convincing me they do, your doing yourself a disservice.

Wait ... so if I think you're wrong then I'm wrong by definition?

Usagi Yojimbo is a perfect example of having fights that are detailed and all about the purpouse, not the ending. The are many fights in UY where Usagi is, for example, running through a wood, carrying a child, fighting ninja. You know he will get through, so the fight isn't about the ending, but it is about the danger and feats that have to be surmounted to protect the child, and the comic lingers on those instants, each blow, each arrow, each panel filled with action. It's all about the flow.

The reason for the fight (as many people said above) is why the fight is interesting, because there are motives, and objectives, and things you care about on the line. But within that context the fight itself is still of interest in detail as well.

I agree. This is where it's difficult for me. Yes, I could easily be much better at making fights MEAN something, but even meaningful fights need something to make the blow-by-blow account (or however it's narrated) interesting. What do you say the fourth time your Strike hits (or misses) in a BW-fight? I need a better vocabulary for this. And this is where the Usagi Yojimbo example becomes meaningful. The visual language of the fights is very well developed and varied. I'd even say that you could read a four-frame fight from Usagi Yojimbo without knowing anything about the story, totally out of context - and still enjoy it immensely.

/Peter

You are of course right, you don't *know* with 100% certainty that the child will not be injured and Usagi will get through, but you have a very strong trend of the established history to tell you that.

UY stories are dramatic and have not resulted in Usagi's death in 17 annuals worth, but have resulted in the death of pretty much every bad guy (except Jei, but that's another story), so you know that Usagi will live and the bad guy will, eventually, die. You also know that, 99 times out of 100, the innocent child will not die. Of course there are occasional exceptions, which exist to shock and surprise you, and of course those surprises are less interesting the second time, but I don't think that has anything to do with the fights.

As Pedyo says UY fights are beautiful, expressive, and comprehensible on their own. I think it is true that while the context gives meaning you could enjoy a UY fight strip entirely out of context as well. They have a beauty all of their own, which is what I think we are trying to capture.

(Sadly I can't find any fight sequences online to include, but there are plenty of covers online that give you a nice feel for the dynamics of the moment to moment combat, e.g.

Hi again, Hituro,

In terms of making fights interesting and what you account, I think:
A: The author is adhering to an creative limitation that he doesn't nessersarily have to. Also, you as audience are sticking to the creative limit, even though you don't nessersarily have to (you could just want the kid to die, for example). I think there's also a strong social aspect here of sharing the same values.

B: The excitement comes from the author wanting to adhere to the limitation, yet not knowing how to yet. The art he makes is an attempt to adhere to that limit - eg, he has to depict some way of the child being saved. But how?? That's the excitement moment, where a rule must be adhered to, but it's uncertain how to do it. As a reader, with each panel of art, your finding out how he stuck to that rule.

That's how I'd put it, because when you write it out that way it begins to become clear how to port it over into roleplay. So I hope its of some help in that way and I can write more if it is.