How much is too much talk in combat? What level of back and forth do you let players get away with each turn? Both in and out of game, I bet this question has lots and lots of answers. From experience and reports from my player base, there seems to be quite a big variation in what different GMs allow at their tables, which is mad when you consider that some games have ‘combat is a given’ as a common element, and it can make a massive impact on how a large proportion of the game feels.
I recently had some players return from a D&D convention to tell me that their GM didn’t allow them to speak to each other out of character about anything regarding the combat during a combat scene. They could talk about, say, their love of a book series, but the moment they said, ‘If you step there, I can go there’, then the GM would consider them in breach of the game. Which made me wonder, ‘Are they doing it wrong? Am I doing it wrong?’. And after some deliberation, I decided to write this article.
Because I think RPGs are games about communication, taking part in the medium of communication, and therefore I kind of have a large idea to err…communicate.
In Game Concerns
When we limit talking in a game, it’s often about believability. Usually in a heightened situation such as combat or a disaster, seconds count. While a fight scene might take us an hour to play out, in game it’s happening over often under a minute: a brutal back and forth where the characters have very little time to think let alone let loosing a treatise on the perils of the enemies effect on market economies.
And often, restricting communication is based on maintaining this idea. Players’ turns are meant to represent a finite amount of time, in which they don’t really have time for a back and forth. In the past, to maintain this fiction, I’ve kind of limited word counts. ‘Yes you can say that to them but don’t go over 10 words’ and if a player doesn’t stop to count the words, it usually gives the feeling of a brief moment passing. But this hits a snag. What if a player wants to reply? Do we have to wait for their turn? If the conversation needs a back and forth of like several turns do the players just wait? Or do we just dock both of their turns and say ‘They spent it talking?’. It’s hard to know and it’s something we have to think about. After a long time playing RPGs, I am now at a point where I basically follow the rule of ‘yes, you can talk in character but don’t make it stretch out or I’m going to make you vulnerable to attack because you’re not concentrating’. This is seems to work, especially in games that have looser initiative structures like Daggerheart or Feng Shui or Dungeon World where the ‘time’ of individual ‘turns’ is a little more fluid.
Some GMs are far more hardcore on this point and I find it hard to argue with them. They’re interested in the fiction of their universe and think that if you needed to come up with a detailed plan, you should have done it before this point. Plus the idea of one player trying to communicate an idea through like five words and a second player getting the wrong end of the stick, doing the wrong thing and Fixing the problem anyway is totally worth enforcing some form of realism to the in game communication.
But there is a problem. And it’s actually an issue of bleed.
Combat Bleed
So as we’ve discussed before, ‘Bleed’ is when the emotions a PC goes through in a game run back into reality to the player. In this the ‘reality’ of the game maybe feels a little too real and we have to work to not feel sad/drained like a traumatised character or we can bask in the feelings of joy we experience when or character finally frees their family from the bad guys.
But there’s a strange type of GM bleed I hadn’t thought of before in which we start to try and enforce the reality of the game onto our players. Now we can do this intentionally. Whenever I run Lacuna Part 1: The Creation Of The Mystery And The Girl From Blue City, I intentionally greet the players with dark glasses on and make them sit through a character creation process that is sort of like every anxiety school test dream you’ve ever had where they’re filling in parts of their character sheet before knowing what it does to create that bleed between game and reality.
But it can also happen in ways we don’t expect. And I think the GM from the convention might have been doing that. Because they’re going ‘characters can’t talk between their turns, they can’t pause time and discuss it, so these discussions can’t happen’. The reality of the situation is what they’re trying to preserve.
But we’re playing a game. The reality is that means your players are going to sit in silence and not communicate with other players, only being allowed to speak in their go once every fifteen minutes or so (some GMs, this might be an hour gap). Or alternatively, they might instead start talking about the latest streaming show they both watch, completely disengaging from the game. Neither of these options sound like the game is being served.
Learning To Let Go
This GM was really an extreme. So, strawman-like in their example I couldn’t help but respond, it’s worth mentioning that even the most relaxed GM might be wondering about this from a reasonable perspective. The argument about not being able to stop time does make some sense. Except that in actuality, you want your players to be talking about the combat. You want them to be wincing when some takes a big hit or someone else being like ‘Oh drop those vines there, I can move through them without a problem’. Working out team combos and plays together is part of the tactical fun of any game you’re working with. It’s why the X-men are always finding new way to vary up the fastball special move with different characters, it’s why games build different character powers to have synergy. Working together and slotting pieces into place is fun.
So I tend not to worry about meta-talk between players. In my head it represents the downtime we don’t see – them spending time together running drills or talking about ideas. Because there’s big gaps of time we often elide in RPGs that totally could be filled with getting better at working together. It’s representative of characters getting better as the players get better and is maybe a more natural advancement moment than any number of levels of XP points could ever simulate.
So next time your players cross talk, maybe let them? See what parts of the game they assemble into some ungodly kids-Lego-project-like killing machine. As long as no one is telling someone what to do, then you’ve got a team working together and that brings joy to your game you can’t get by putting up barriers.
Creative Commons image credits: Attack on lighthouse by StormyCub and Tactical Coordination by Kommandant4298.
