I’m talking about this fight, and it’s awesome.
It’s so awesome, that I use it as the standard against which I judge RPG combat systems.
This isn’t the only ruler I use, nor is it strictly defined, but, by and large, it’s very useful. When I want to analyse a system that claims to be able to create exciting and/or suspenseful fights, it has to show me that it knows how to produce at least some of what happens in the fight, because this is such a great scene, that does many things very well. I check not only whether it is possible to play this scene using the given system, but more importantly, whether such a scene will arise naturally as one is playing the system, assuming that the participators do not try to create it deliberately.
Let’s do this now. I will compare the scene to two systems: D&D 5e, because everyone knows it (and it can be said that D&D 5e does indeed claim that its fights are supposed to be exciting and tense), and the game I am developing, Vivid, which has “be like that Balin Tomb fight scene” as one of it stated goals. (If you make a new game, make it as close to the ideal as you can!)
The Combat Elements
Let’s examine what happens in this fight. We’ll start with the most general concepts, and narrow down to specific actions. I wrote a basic analysis of this scene as part of a previous article, which covered all the fight scenes in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, but here I am going to get deeper into details.
Much, much deeper. Probably deep enough to awaken something in the darkness. Settle in.
Purpose
The purpose of this fight, from the point of view of the characters (and the players) is to survive, and that’s what makes it exciting. More precisely, the goal is for Frodo to survive, so it’s even more exciting when Frodo is in danger. A lesson we can draw here is that it is important for such fights to be possibile, fights in which “survival” is the main goal.
Going into detail about how D&D and Vivid handle this point would take ages, because it requires a discussion of how each system address “action” in general, and I want to remain on topic here, so let’s put that aside. Suffice it to say that this fight is, in fact, only the first part of a series of three action scenes (followed by “running away from the orcs”, then “you shall not pass!!”), and that in each of them there are tension and suspense of various kinds, in a gradual build-up. A significant lesson is that “combat” is not a useful unit to work with if you want to make something that feels like a Lord of the Rings movie, and instead it’s better to say “action scene”, with “combat” being only one application of such scenes. A second lesson is that action scenes should provide the GM with tools that allow her to create and release tension.
In D&D 5e there is no solution to the first issue (combat is an independent mini-game separate from the rest of the system), and the second issue could be satisfied by the GM using her decisions of which enemies to have, which abilities to activate and when, and which tactics to use. For this to work, she is required to understand how to create and release tension through tactics, which is not an easy skill to acquire, and indeed the rulebook fails in explaining it, leading to the rise of supplementary books like The Monsters Know What They’re Doing which is considered an important source.
In Vivid there are three types of scenes: montage, freeform and action, and the difference between them is only in scale and the question of whether they are resolved in rounds. All the rules are applied in the same way in all of them, whenever the rule becomes relevant (it is possible to maneuver between arenas during a fight, maneuver between different conversations in the royal court, or maneuver between different terrains on a journey). The GM has Principles, similar to Powered by the Apocalypse games, and receives clear guidance on how to use the rules to create and release tension, because this is her main responsibility. The rules show her how to work with the players so they can help her; if one of the players is good with tactics, the GM does not need to understand tactics herself to create tension through tactics (This is because the tension building depends on the player’s descriptive ability according to the context, which then becomes mechanics).
Initiative
The fight begins with orcs hacking at the door while the heroes shoot at them, in a desperate attempt to delay the assault that is surely coming. This is a moment of tension building. Then the door bursts open, the hobbits stand in shock (an emotion their players should empathise with), and a wave of orcs clashes into the warriors who are standing at the front.
A combat in D&D begins when the GM deciding to roll initiative, and here this can be done at one of two points: when the orcs start bashing the door, or when they manage to break through it. It’s better at the second point (it’s more exciting), but there is nothing in the rules that will encourage her to make this choice, and in fact, it seems more “natural” to do it in the first point, because the heroes have already started making attack rolls, and who has heard of attack rolls outside of initiative? If the heroes want to start shooting, they will naturally ask whether to roll initiative, and it is likely that the GM will say yes, because the rules don’t provide her with any reason to decide differently.
Beyond the “when does the initiative start” point, after a moment it no longer matters at all who acts first, or in what order. The cinematic goal of this moment is obviously to feel like there’s a great commotion, like you’re being overwhelmed by orcs. The only reason to keep following the order of actions is administrative, to make it easier for the participants in the game to act.
The initiative mechanism in Vivid (a similar implementation of which also exists in Burn Bryte), works in a fundamentally different way, which requires a bit of unlearning for those who are used to D&D, so bear with me for a moment. Try to think of yourself as a film director who moves the frame between areas, it helps.
An action scene is divided to “arenas”. An arena is defined as an interesting place, and all the PCs are automatically interesting, so they are always in an arena. If they stand together, they are in the same arena; if they stand apart, they are in different arenas. At the beginning of each action round, the GM redefines the arenas, if necessary, and this moment is very important (similar to how the “roll initiative!” moment is important).
In the first round, there are three arenas: the door, the warriors in the front, and the hobbits in the back. In the rounds after the orcs burst through, the door ceases to be an arena. There are two reasons for this: first, because it is no longer interesting, there is no one there. And second, because it gives the feeling that there is nowhere to run. The GM sets certain expectations in the players’ heads by announcing the situation at the start of the round. That’s a lot of power, and the system helps the GM learn how to use it. Also, the players can always ask to set up an arena, even in the middle of the round.
The second thing the GM does when a round starts is to set the intentions of all the enemies (and the environment itself, for example in the collapsing staircase that will come later). She directly tells all the players exactly what the enemies intend to do – and that is indeed what will happen, unless the heroes prevent it, for example by defeating the foes or diverting their intentions (see more on that when we get to the troll). Hidden enemies (and some dastardly ones) can hide their intentions, but that doesn’t happen in this scene.
When the action begins, the GM announces that we focus, which means that from now on we move to looking at arenas and acting in rounds. The rules give her a reason to choose to do this at the first point (when the orcs are bashing the door) in order to make the players start thinking in actions and understand that we have transitioned into an action scene. But we said that for maximum tension, the best point would be the second, when the orcs break through. Well, when the second point arrives everyone benefits from increased tension again, because this happens at the start of a round – and having the arena definition moment at the start of each round feels like a new “roll initiative” moment each time. In D&D, rounds have no meaning in themselves once the fight has started, they serve only to clarify who acts when; in Vivid, a round is an independent unit, and the start of each round is a moment of tension building, in which we get to learn what the enemies will do.
On the first round the GM sets intentions like this: the orcs will break the door and rush in, enter your arenas and start pounding on you. There may be a short conversation here, where the players ask if it will be possible to completely prevent the orcs from reaching the hobbit arena in the back, and the GM says that the heroes just can’t tell, because they don’t know how many orcs there are. There might not be enough fighters to block the front half of the room. At this point the players still think that their escape depends on them defeating this wave of orcs and then run out (they don’t know that a troll is coming), so they all prefer to stay in positions, hoping to contain this assault.
Then the GM hands the control to the players. They decide how to move the camera’s frame across the battlefield, which arena actives when, from among the arenas that include PCs. All PCs in the same arena activate at the same time or in whatever order the players want; then all the enemies in the same arena act. At the end of the round, all the enemies that have not yet acted get to fulfill their intentions.
On the first round of this fight the heroes decided that the warriors would act first. They all shoot bows at the orcs to eliminate as many as possible. Then they activate the arena behind, where the hobbits gather and spend their turn gathering courage. That’s literally what they do, they roll (well, draw cards) to gather courage. We will talk about this when we get to the paragraph about fear, later.
At the end of the round the orcs act, break the door, and rush into the room. Most of them enter the arena with the warriors, but a few enter the arena with the hobbits.
In the second round, the GM defines that the orcs in each arena are going deal some mayhem, which brings us to…
Attacks
Let’s go back to the movie: the orcs charge in, and then a lot of them are immediately eliminated. Even before they enter some are already killed by arrows, and after they break in, every hero’s attack hits and kills an orc. There is great commotion, orcs and heroes, a big mess. A few orcs manage to get past the warriors’ defensive line and reach the hobbits – and we see that the hobbits also eliminate them effectively.
The mayhem works in D&D – throw 12 orcs into a room and the players will definitely feel like there’s mayhem – but the rest doesn’t. First, because attack rolls can miss, and second, because enemies always have enough HP to stay on their feet for more than a turn, because they are supposed to be a continuous threat. D&D doesn’t like the idea of dozens of orcs storming into a room, it prefers an orderly environment with a known number of participants which will be dealt with over 3-5 rounds. The hobbits, who are supposed to lack any fighting skills, still manage to eliminate a few orcs, and that’s just not likely in D&D.
What’s important here is to create a sense of chaos, and Vivid can do that (and the rulebook can guide the GM on how to do that, by defining abilities for creatures; see below). The instant killing of orcs is useful, because it creates the feeling that no matter how many kills you get there are always more, and it’s very simple to do mechanically.
To do something, you draw cards from your personal deck of standard playing cards and try to get reds. The number is not important, only the colour, black or red (there’s also a thing with exploding faces, but let’s put that to the side for now). You want as many reds as possible because you can buy effects with them, and the most important effect is to “succeed in this thing I’m trying to do right now”. In our context, kill an orc.
The degree of difficulty depends on a flexible component called, well, difficulty. Difficulty is usually a short description that expresses something that makes things harder to achieve, such as quick or protective if talking about orcs, for example. A quick orc is harder to hit than a non-quick orc. Difficulties can come from anywhere: from the enemies in front of you, from the environment, from your own injuries, from faulty equipment, whatever, but for a difficulty to affect what is happening, it must be directly relevant to the situation. If the orc is also grumpy it will make it difficult to talk to him, but does not affect your attempt to thrust a sword into him.
Each of these orcs has one difficulty, wild, and that’s it. This means two red cards are enough to eliminate them (one for a basic success, and another one for the difficulty). Even the hobbits manage to do it, since they seem to be working cooperatively (working together is simple: you just combine your reds with a friend’s). More complex challenges, like the troll later on, progress through stages each time they are overcome until they are finally defeated, but the orcs only need to be defeated once.
And yet, there should be a price to be paid, so the fight will feel dangerous. If everyone just hits all the time, and doesn’t get hit, then there is no sense of danger. So first, every draw of your cards has a chance of getting a black Ace, which creates a complication. And secondly, of course, the orcs may hurt you.
Harm
Tension arises from the perceived chance that something bad might happen to something you care about.
In D&D there are two and a half ways to be harmed: losing HP, getting a condition, or taking a level of fatigue. Due to a serious system failure, fatigue levels are the opposite of fun, so they’re almost irrelevant (because no one wants to kill the fun, so they’re never used).
HP is an abstract representation of combat ability – not health, not vitality, but combat ability. Which is an abstract concept in itself, and therefore to this day we have issues with stuff such as breaking bones, healing, morale, etc.. The mechanical expression of these things, and what is described as happening in the game world, do not overlap well enough.
The orcs can caused damage in HP, and this would give a feeling of wear and tear. But that isn’t what’s happening on the screen – we don’t see any hero getting hurt. Even if they were to get hurt, it doesn’t work with the hobbits, because they’re not supposed to be strong and tough warriors – so if even one orc hits a hobbit it should be terrible and painful, putting the hobbit out of the fight. Let’s say a hobbit takes 7 hit points out of 16 – that’s half, and therefore, theoretically, terrible, but in practice the hobbit was not affected in any way because HP does not affect the game until it reaches 0. The player might say “Wow, it hurts!” but nothing prevents him from making an attack and succeeding just as well as always, while describing that he does it out of pain.
In Vivid there is no HP, only difficulties. The GM tells everyone what difficulties will be imposed by the enemies as she defines their intentions, and her considerations are not based on “what an orc really does” (because there is no such thing as an orc really), but on what is appropriate here and now and useful for this scene. Each creature has a list of suggested difficulties, depending on the role it should play in the scene. Yes, there is no generic orc statblock – there are “orcs that chase you”, “orcs that assault you”, “orcs that guard a tower you’re sneaking through”, etc.
These orcs could impose the difficulty deep cuts or broken limbs but their mechanical definition says that they can only do so to heroes who already have two other injuries (a term for any difficulty that relates to your body or mind). By default, the orcs in this scene first force the difficulty confused. It doesn’t sound serious, but this difficulty is relevant to almost every action, and it is also considered an injury. It also matches what we see on screen – the heroes are busy fighting and have trouble concentrating, and if they don’t stop the orcs now, it’s clear that the next difficulty will be worse. A character that gets confused will have a harder time acting even if they are not physically harmed, and the player feel like they are in the middle of a big commotion and on the brink of escalation. This allows us to stage a scene where the orcs do hurt the characters – that is, affect the heroes – so that the players feel that they are under attack, even though the characters are not physically harmed.
Enemies don’t draw cards, they just act, so your ability to defend yourself is up to you. Everyone who is able to defend himself has “guard”, which is a binary definition: either you have it, or you don’t. If you have guard, then the first time you are supposed to be hit, you are not hit, and that’s it. The guard absorbs the harm, whatever it may be, as long as it is physical. There is also a mental equivalent called composure.
You can spend a red card to regain guard, but only on a relevant check, for example if you check to attack or to reposition yourself in this fight. Certain special abilities that can be taken by heroes who are skilled in combat (getting higher skills grant access to possible abilities) make it easier to regain guard, and your shield can also hold guard. This is important, because when your guard is gone, you are sure to get the next physical difficulty, no more checks or rolls or anything.
If you can hold your guard, you’re safe. If you’re caught off guard, then you will suffer a severe physical difficulty. Or maybe it won’t be severe. It wholly depends on the foe and the circumstances, so there is tension here – and you just don’t want to get into that situation. You always want guard, and not having guard is scary, even if the current consequences are not dire.
In our case, it seems like because the orcs are trying to inflict confused, but they do so through physical means, either guard or composure can be used to soak it. It’s quite possible that some of the heroes couldn’t keep their guard against so many orcs, and so some of them got confused. It matches what we see on the screen.
Fear
Just before the battle began, drums were heard in the darkness. Remember the drums? They are part of the scene. Unfortunately the video I linked does not include this part, but the scene starts there, not at the door.
The drums made everyone rattle with fear – or rather, the hobbits, because all the other guys here are tough heroes who can keep their cool.
The most familiar equivalent from D&D is a dragon’s aura of fear – everyone has to roll a Wisdom save, and those who fail get the Frightened condition, which is pretty awful, but you can reroll the save every round. It’s tricky, because I think the hobbits have pretty good Wisdom, so they’re not supposed to fail, but on screen they’re clearly scared at first. And that’s what’s dramatic appropriate, because those who get scared can then overcome their fear, which is great for drama. Tension rises and is then resolved. Also, Boromir has low Wisdom, so he’s supposed to fail, but he’s probably a fighter with an ability that grants him advantage on rolls against fear, so ok.
In Vivid, when the drums sound, the GM says that everyone is filled with fear, and it eats away at their composure. It just happens, there is no such a thing as a saving throw. But all fighters are able to regain composure immediately, relatively easily.
The hobbits don’t have impressive combat skills to help them feel safe, so they don’t manage to immediately refresh their composure, which is dangerous because the orcs know how to make you confused (and after you get this injury it’s easier for them to murder you, I remind you). So, as the first action we see, the hobbits huddle together, swords drawn, and muster courage. They draw cards together to regain composure.
It is worth noting that the scene also has the doomed difficulty because the heroes have just read Balin’s chilling last words (“they’re coming”), and that the GM added drums in the deep as a difficulty, and both apply to trying to gain composure.
Enter the troll
I bet you thought we’d get to this moment a lot sooner. It’s 50 seconds into the video, clearly the second or third round of the fight. But there was a lot to say so far, and there is still a lot more left to be said, ho ho!!
The troll bursts in, and everyone looks at it, but they are busy fighting. Legolas puts an arrow in the troll, but no one else acts, because they are busy fighting. In terms of tension, we see an immediate and clear increase; the orcs are revealed to actually be marginal, the real danger has just come in, and an arrow that killed an orc earlier doesn’t affect this newcomer at all.
The troll pounces on Sam, who rolls between its legs then spins around on the floor trying to defend himself. It’s clear to us that a single hit can finish Sam, and we breathe a sigh of relief when we see how elusive he is. But he’s not skilled, so he’s stuck on the floor as the troll approaches a second time. He is almost crushed, but it turns out that Aragorn and Boromir have grabbed the troll’s chain and are pulling it back. Friends help each other! The troll turns with the club towards them and they are almost hit – it turns out that perhaps they too could be killed by a single hit from the troll – then the troll pulls on the chain and Boromir, who was still holding it, crashes into the wall and falls to the floor in shock. An orc almost kills him, but then Aragorn throws his sword into the orc.
In D&D, almost nothing of this works.
When the troll bursts in, and Legolas shoots it, it sounds like two turns happening at different turns, in different places in the initiative. But then the troll continues to move, which means one of three: either the troll has two chances to act, like maybe it’s legendary (and I would claim that if this troll is legendary, than almost every opponent in the entire trilogy of movies must be legendary as well, and then, what does “legendary” even means?); or that Legolas prepared an action (though it makes no sense that he did); or that the troll’s entry is not part of its turn, but “something that happened at the beginning of the round”. Which is a legitimate interpretation, but not fully supported by the rules – technically, the troll enters the scene as part of its turn, because movement is something you only do on your turn.
The attack on Sam seems reasonable, because while the troll has a high attack bonus, Sam has high Dex and therefore a good AC. The troll seems to make two attacks, which makes perfect sense, because multiattack. The second one fails (or he is prevented from making it) because he is pulled by the chain – but pulling the chain is simply impossible. Such an event will never happen in D&D, because there is no time window during which it can happen, and because it is not a worthwhile action for the players.
First, cooperation is difficult, because everyone acts on their turns, and class abilities encourage independent thinking – what will I do, not what will we do. So it’s tricky to get Aragorn and Boromir to act together.
Second, it looks like they had to prepare an action in order to be able to interrupt the troll in the middle of the its attack, and no one would do that. That’s because the mechanical action performed here is not worthwhile. It appears to be an opposing Strength (Athletics) roll to make it harder for the troll to attack Sam. Maybe they’re trying to force a disadvantage on the attack roll. As a GM I would approve this (an opposing Strength (Athletics) roll to impose a disadvantage) but it’s a lot of work for a single disadvantage. Statistically, this is not justified at all. It seems much better to simply attack the troll in an attempt to cause it a lot of damage – and many GMs would say that after you harm the troll, it is now focusing on you.
After that, we seem to have moved on to a new round. The troll knocks Boromir aside, which must be a separate turn from the previous one, and Aragorn throws the sword, which again must be a separate action from the previous turn.
In Vivid, the start of the round is when the GM describes the intentions of all the enemies, so that’s exactly when new enemies enter.
This is also the time when arenas are redefined, and clearly all of the adventurers have scattered everywhere and are now in separate arenas (we saw it happen on screen). It is possible that some of the orc attacks did not impose difficulties, but pushed the adventurers into separate arenas – this is also a possible effect (which can be blocked with guard, but the adventurers preferred to use the guard to prevent getting difficulties, so they let the orcs disperse them).
The GM states that a troll appears, walks in, and intends to crush Sam to death. The troll has a special ability that allows it to act before everyone else, at the very beginning of the round, a limited number of times during the scene; it’s not because it’s fast, but because it’s important. It’s sort of like being legendary, only it’s pretty common – in Vivid every “boss” is likely to have this. Such creatures get to act first, and then again as normal – that is, after all PCs in their arena have acted.
Theoretically, no one can stop the troll’s first action, because it acted ahead of everyone else, but Legolas’ player really likes the Awareness skill, so it’s very high, and this allowed him to notice the troll as soon as it entered (with no need to draw; high skills act like passive Perception in D&D). The player also invested in a Title (kinda like a feat, or class ability) based on Awareness, that allows him to announce that his arena acts during the setting of intentions, before everyone else, because he really likes to be the first and shoot arrows. So he acts first and shoots an arrow. The troll doesn’t care, because it imposes on this shot the difficulties very large (which counts as two difficulties, because it has the word “very”), and thick skin , and Legolas may also suffer from the difficulty of engaged (he’s surrounded by foes). Legolas fails to harm the troll.
So the troll advances to Sam’s arena, and crushes him to death – but Sam, of course, has guard, so he uses it to roll between the troll’s legs and not be crushed to death. Then the proper round begins, and the players can choose which arena is activated first (other than Legolas’, it was already active). As soon as Sam’s arena activates, the troll will also activate – so players prefer to activate other arenas first. This is a central mechanism in the system to create tension, and it allows for things like what will happen in a moment.
Aragorn and Boromir decide to join forces. One of them joins the other’s arena. When you’re surrounded by enemies you usually have to put effort into moving between arenas, but the orcs don’t seem to surround them at that moment (but weren’t they surrounded a moment before, when the troll entered?… We’ll have to ignore this, as the movie seems happy to ignore it as well)
The players realise that defeating the troll is going to be hard (because now they know its difficulties) and take some time (because it probably has more than one stage – it will need to be defeated multiple times). Sam is in immediate danger, so they decide it’s best to neutralize the troll’s intentions. This is one of the things you can spend reds on: divert intentions towards you, or neutralize them completely if you have enough reds. If you managed to neutralized them, it means that the foe does not act at all this round. They try to neutralize, but only succeed in diverting the intentions towards them.
The chain around the troll’s neck “adds” to their action. Adding is a bit like the opposite of difficulty, only it’s rarer, and even more circumstantial. When you “add” you to get a red for free as if you drew it, and this happens when something is obviously helpful. Here the existence of the chain helps the heroes. Also, as you’ll recall, the troll is very large, so that’s tricky, but the fact that it has thick skin is not relevant to this check, so only the first difficulty has an effect. The heroes succeed in the draw (it’s a co-op Fitness check), and divert the troll’s intentions towards them. Then, because its sights are on them, and all the PCs in their arena have just finished acting, it acts. Yep, that what happens when you divert intentions toward you – you basically make the foe immediately act, against you.
(Aragorn and Boromir could have tried to make a check to defeat the troll, instead of neutralizing intent, but that’s much harder. First, because then thick skin is relevant, and second, because they’ll have to justify how they can harm the troll by pulling on its chain. One of them says “Maybe if we pull it into one of the pillars”, but they realize that this would require them to reposition themselves to the arena behind a pillar and that’s not gonna happen, and it’s much better right now to focus on protecting Sam, because he doesn’t have guard, so he’ll almost certainly be crushed by the troll unless someone does something )
When the troll acts, it knocks Boromir aside. Why Boromir? From the look in Boromir’s eyes, a second before he’s blown away, I’m guessing he had a complication – that’s what happens when you draw a black Ace. The GM can also decide to introduce a complication if you have no reds left at the end of your check, i.e. if you chose to use them all. I think Boromir drew a black Ace. In any case, he doesn’t have guard at this moment, and he is thrown to a distant arena and gets shocked and also on the floor.
The round is over.
A new round begins; the troll seems to wander off from Aragorn’s arena, maybe going for Gimli (see below). The orc in Boromir’s arena sets intentions to skewer him; it is allowed to do this now, since Boromir has several injuries. It will be difficult for Boromir to regain guard, because he has a lot of difficulties right now, and it will be even more difficult to eliminate the orc (because it only adds difficulties). Aragorn has reds left from the previous check and wanted to save them for the current round to continue the attack (this is called holding momentum) but he decides to try to support his friend from a distance. The players activate his arena first, and because it is difficult for him to reach Boromir (the arena is remote and surrounded by enemies), he simply throws the sword, which is not easy (it is not designed for that, so he gets the unwieldy difficulty or something like that), but we already know that it isn’t hard to take down orcs.
We see the hobbits gathering – they’re checking Stealth to avoid attention (make it so foes can’t set intentions on them) – which is going to be very relevant shortly.
Using the troll
In the next round, Gimli dodges the troll several times, and because of this, the troll throws several orcs to the sides.
In D&D, this isn’t really possible, except that there are GMs who will say that this is what will happen if the troll gets a natural 1 in an attack on Gimli.
In Vivid this is pretty standard. It’s a skill system, and any skill can be used to achieve your goal, and Dodge is a skill. As long as the description is relevant to what is happening in the game world, everything works. Gimli defeats two orcs by dodging the troll’s blows. He seems to be out of guard, but Legolas comes from the side and manages to divert the troll’s intentions and prevent it from attacking Gimli.
The troll then turns to Legolas, destroys the environment a bit, and Legolas jumps on the chain and reaches the troll’s head, where he shoots it.
In D&D, Legolas may suggest to the GM to jump on the troll to get an advantage on an attack roll, and the GM agrees and lets him roll Dexterity (Acrobatics), against the troll’s AC maybe. He makes a ranged attack in melee, which technically imposes a disadvantage, but Legolas surely has some ability that bypasses that; after all he shoots orcs at point blank range all the time. The shot into the troll’s head is probably a crit.
But, in D&D, it isn’t certain that this situation would have happened in the first place. In D&D we usually know exactly where everyone is at any time and what are the distances between them, which means that Legolas needed a reason to get to where he is – on the second floor – and it’s not clear that he had one. A GM might grant an archer an advantage on their attack if they’re at a higher point, but that’s not in the rules, and also it’s only 3 meters above the enemy, so there’s really no advantage to getting to the 2nd floor. Seems like he’d be better off being closer to the hobbits so he can attack the orcs that assault them.
In Vivid, description is everything – the only difficulties that affect an action are those that are directly relevant to what is happening – so an archer standing on the second floor can probably ignore orc difficulties such as cover. But more importantly, arenas can be ambiguous. Given Legolas’ flexibility, he may have a Title ability that allows him to become a “floating” arena, which solidifies only when the camera moves back to it. Think, for example, of a rogue who hides in the crowd and suddenly appears with a knife behind one of the villains – he was in a floating arena, which then became fixed. Legolas was out of the frame, and because he is very agile and fast and can always be in the right place (that is, he got the appropriate Title, based on his skills), he can decide that when the frame turns back to him, it can be anywhere around the scene . At least, as long as we didn’t know where he was before (and the player can check to make his arena “float”, for example with Stealth).
In fact, it’s possible that up to this point no one imagined the room as having two floors. (Did anyone notice this in the movie? Not really, because the camera didn’t really show the 2nd floor, and the framing didn’t include it, because it wasn’t important so far). After the GM defined the troll’s intentions, the player of Legolas suggested that there is a second floor and that he is on it, behind pillars, and the GM accepted. This gives Legolas an advantage – and that’s absolutely fine, because the purpose of the system is to create interesting situations, and making things difficult for the players is only one way of doing so. If the GM wants the player to pay for it, she can require that he spends “readiness”, a limited resource that allows him to set parts of the scene.
At the start of the round the troll’s intentions are clearly to kill Legolas with the chain, and it goes first (as always) and Legolas uses his guard. The GM says the area gets demolished by the chain. Then Legolas’ arena activates, and he uses the Balance skill to put himself in an improved position; he isn’t moving to a different arena, they’re both in the same arena, but it’s definitely going to help his next act – Legolas builds momentum for himself, like Aragorn wanted to do earlier: he draws cards with one skill, then saves them for the next skill, as long as it’s a direct continuation of that action. Making two checks in a turn is tricky, because the second one gets a situational difficulty for, well, being the second one, but the chain gives an add, so that mitigates the difficulty. He makes an Archery check, gets some more reds, and defeats the troll’s first stage. Whenever a challenge shifts between stages something happens, either good or bad, very much depending on the creature. In this case, the troll loses its intentions.
A notable thing that you may have noticed, with both D&D and Vivid, is that the troll acts a lot relative to the player characters. We see it acting against one or two other characters, then move on and it’s again against another character or two, and we seem to ignore everything the other characters are doing in the meantime. It’s always troll plus someone. That’s because it’s great for the movie; in the game, it kind of sounds like everyone just stare while the GM goes from player to player figuring out how each deals with the troll.
Since Vivid works based on creature reactions to player actions, this could theoretically work, but I’m not sure it’s recommended. It’s great for a movie, not necessarily a game, but maybe it deserves some more thought.
The troll versus the hobbits
Merry, Pippin and Frodo fled to the side, but the troll sees them and attacks them, which is particularly frightening.
This may be the most important part of the fight, as far as I’m concerned. I want the the players to want to act like the hobbits, that is, to feel frightened, take cover and hide. And since all the player characters should be equally important, this means that this behavior should be satisfying dramatically and mechanically compared to playing as Aragorn, for example.
D&D struggles here. It’s hard to imagine a situation where a bunch of players enter a fight (this, or any other) without every character having some kind of useful attack ability. It’s hard to imagine a hobbit player preferring to use a Dodge action, or Hide, unless he’s a rogue, and even then he only does it because it will help the attack that’s coming in a moment, and it doesn’t cost him an action anyway. The standard action is almost always going to be an attack, because an action is just too expensive a resource, and the goal is to reduce the opponent’s HP to zero, and this can only happen if you attack. It’s also the most satisfying thing to do – an attack involves two different phases of tension (the attack roll and the damage roll), and you get a very clear feedback regarding your contribution to the effort (how much damage you did).
In Vivid, action scenes are only one part of a wider range of activities, meaning there are many times where you can feel useful and have interesting mechanics. Hobbits excel at restoring composure and providing support in montage scenes, through the Household (cooking), Performance and Empathy skills. In an action scene they will rarely be the ones to finish off the enemy, but they can make a clear contribution (provide reds) to others. It is very difficult to make a Stealth check that defeats an enemy, because that’s a goal that is not relevant to the action; on the other hand, defeating an enemy with a sword is always relevant. So the hobbits use their Stealth and Dodge to give red cards to their friends, who can then overcome the enemy’s difficulties and defeat them.
The troll, drawn to the One Ring, starts sniffing after Frodo, who is hiding from him behind a pillar. Aragorn really wants to get there, but there are a lot of orcs in the way, so he can only shout. Frodo thinks he has managed to hide, but then the troll comes from the side, screaming like the sky is falling on it’s head, cornering Frodo, grabbing him, and starting to drag him away. Aragorn keeps trying to come to his help, and Frodo manages to hit the troll which makes it leave him for a moment, then Aragorn comes with a spear – where did he get a spear? – and sticks it in the troll’s stomach.
In D&D, most of what I just wrote is a serious embellishment of standard actions. Frodo rolls Dexterity (Stealth) against the troll’s sniff (probably the scent ability, granting advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to smell), but it fails and the troll is described as screaming, and then it’s the troll’s turn and it grabs Frodo in a grapple, probably to take him to his Dark Master. In the next round Frodo makes a Dexterity (Acrobatics) to break free from the grapple, but it’s described as hitting the troll with the sword, which is jarring, and then Aragorn arrives with a spear – which he had to pick up last round from one of the dead orcs, as an action, which would never happen, because he has a sword that does more damage – and sticks in the troll’s stomach.
In Vivid most of what I wrote happens as written. At the beginning of the round the troll’s intentions are to find Frodo and capture him. Frodo makes a Stealth check to neutralize these intentions, and fails (the One Ring is a relevant difficulty here). This is the end of Frodo’s actions, and he’s the only one in the arena besides the troll, so the troll acts and simply catches Frodo who obviously has no guard (Frodo gets the caught by the leg by a troll difficulty). In the next round the GM announces the troll’s intention to take Frodo to the arena near the door. She uses the troll’s ability to act first, and it moves to the center of the room (generally, you only move one arena per action, whether you’re a PC or a foe), and then the players decide that Frodo’s arena will act first, even though Aragorn is now available and no longer surrounded by orcs. It sounds counterintuitive, but they’re looking at the relevant difficulties: because Frodo is caught by the leg (the troll is not a genius), very large is not relevant, and it can be argued that thick skin isn’t relevant either, so Frodo actually has a good chance of releasing himself. A chance to be a hero! Then Aragorn could use his action to really damage the troll.
Aragorn picks up a spear from some orc, and this counts as part of the larger action of attacking the troll. You can always pick up or move something, unless something prevents you from doing so, in which case an action is required. And why would Aragorn take a spear? Because he asked the GM, and they both agree that a long and penetrating weapon can ignore the thick skin difficulty, so it is better than a sword. He stabs the troll in the stomach and advances him to the third and final stage.
The troll kills Frodo
The hobbits throw stones at the troll, who hits Aragorn with a heavy blow. A worried Frodo rushes to his side, then the troll picks up the spear, charges at Frodo, and stabs him in the stomach. It would later turn out that Frodo survived, thanks to the mithril shirt.
In D&D, Pippin and Merry seem to be trying to distract the troll with some kind of Charisma (Intimidate) roll. They want to try to slow it down, but there are no rules for this, so it all depends on the mood of the GM. It doesn’t work, and the troll attacks Aragorn with its first attack, dealing damage , then Frodo with a second attack, dropping him to 0 HP. Later it will turn out that Frodo survived thanks to… the shirt… the mithril…? It doesn’t work, the shirt gives AC, and has nothing to do with HP. And in any case, falling to 0 HP is not the end of the world, there are death saves after that.
In Vivid, at the end of the previous round Pippin and Merry tried to draw the troll’s intentions and failed (probably using the Swing skill, which covers both throwing and swinging; Hobbits are good at this, see also Sam whack the pan a few shots before). Then the troll moves into their arena and knocks Aragorn, who has no guard. At the start of the new round the GM has it act first, and she declares that it attacks Frodo (off guard as well) to give him bleed to death. But of course Frodo doesn’t take it, because he has a wonderful mithril shirt, an object that holds its own guard. The GM considers the matter, and says that Frodo still takes a difficulty, but a much lesser one, bruised, because after all he did just get a spear in the chest, and context is always the most important consideration (the guard held by objects is not like your guard – you have to justify it). In any case, Frodo only has one or two skills in the Body category, which means his harm threshold is low, and after this hit he becomes “sidelined” – out of the picture.
Pippin and Merry see that Frodo has fallen, become enraged, and jump on the troll. And then we see the whole gang raging and kill orcs like there’s no tomorrow. The hobbits stab the troll in the shoulders again and again, it starts grabbing and swinging them, then the whole gang arrives – because there are no more orcs left – and surround the troll, until a good attack by one of the hobbits makes it raise its head, giving Legolas a chance to shoot it in the throat.
In D&D, getting real mad has no mechanical effect. It still has impact on the gameplay, because the players decide to make bolder choices, such as jumping on the troll and attacking it (one of the hobbits declares an attack for grappling and the other helps; they try to get the same advantage Legolas got earlier, for when they attack the troll in the next rounds). Theoretically the GM could say that everyone get similar effects to a barbarian’s rage ability and have advantage on attack rolls because they are getting so stressed by Frodo’s situation, but it sounds like too much.
In any case, the heroes kill the rest of the orcs, then converge on the troll and deal a ton of damage. The hobbits’ grapple manages to keep the troll Restrained or something similar, and Legolas gains advantage on an attack and deal lots of damage and kill the troll.
In Vivid, Frodo is sidelined, and this creates clear narrative circumstances for the players to justify this as a change of mindset (he is their good friend, who took on the dire responsibility of being the Ringbearer). We’ve talked about adds before – and you can get them from many sources, not just items. A mindset can also give an add if it is relevant to what is happening. The players say that they want everyone’s mindset to change to raging – for better or for worse, since it means for example that they put themselves in more danger – and the GM confirms, and everyone eliminates the remaining orcs thanks to the additional reds.
The heroes gather around the troll and support each other in a variety of actions to build momentum for Legolas to defeat the troll’s challenge for the third time and eliminate it for good.
With both systems it turns out that all the other orcs in the room were killed at incredibly convenient timing. Although in Vivid it’s easier to justify it, with the adds everyone got last round, it’s still unlikely that all of them are killed at the same time. But okay, we can’t (or shouldn’t) convert every element of this scene into an RPG, that’s not the point of the exercise.
Onwards, to halls infested with orcs
That’s what the heroes do, but we’re done! And it only took… oh my, look at the time.
Would such a scene naturally emerge from a game of D&D? Maybe 50% of it, and I would argue, the least interesting 50%.
Will it come up naturally from a game of Vivid? About 80% of it, and I would argue that these 80% include all the interesting parts.
Homework: Take Savage Worlds – a system that certainly claims its fights are exciting – and try the same. You will not be disappointed.
This article was originally posted on my Hebrew blog