DECLARE ACTIONS: Communicating The Stakes For Interesting Combat Choices

DECLARE SPELLS & RETREATS

A funny little rule that always trips up MUs, neophyte and acolyte alike, is the need for spells (and retreats) to be declared before initiative is rolled. A runner-up, especially for players new to old-school games, is that MUs cannot move while casting a spell.

This is a very easy step to overlook, but it becomes important when high damage, long-range spells like fireball and lightning bolt (or earlier with sleep) appear. This is because if an MU is hit while casting a spell, the spellcasting is ruined and the spell is lost until memorized again. If the MU is not required to declare they are casting a spell, then it is possible for the spell to always be deployed optimally with little risk.

I like this rule, even though I screw it up all the time, for three reasons: (1) primarily it places any MU as a temporary "objective" in the combat space, (2) secondarily, while frustrating when trying to cast magic missle, it is an important limitation when casting fireball or disintegrate (on a failed save, target [any] is instantly destroyed), (3) finally it pulls away from a "optimal course of action" preserving an un-optimal state is importatnt in preserving some of the tension of old-school dungeon crawling

But much like the overloaded encounter die or random encounters as RAM, what if we broadened the declarations under this step to include other special actions/effects/events?

DECLARE ACTIONS

A big aspect of DMing today's old-school games (and really most RPGs in general) is to give the players more information rather than less. Into the ODD, for instance, extols: "The more dangerous something is, the more obvious it is." But a conundrum might be when does a DM signal something? How do we prevent a maneuver, environmental effect, or spell-like effect from being a "gotcha!" by only triggering it during the monster's turn?

By co-opting the "declare spells" portion of the encounter, we can load useful & open information into stake-setting before the initiative die roll. A byproduct is that we further increase the tension around the initiative die, drawing in player attention. The players are then required to make an important decision based on the enemy's actions.

Classic examples of things we might want to declare beyond spells:

• Breath Attack: The dragon inhales, its throat and chest glowing a fire red
• Sound Alarm: Captain of the Guard raises the horn to his lips
• Charge Attack: Scenting you, the minataur bellows and drops its head
• Set Spears: "We if that thing is gonna charge, I'll set my spear"

The classic examples above are expected actions from monsters are well known to players. Where I think "Declare Actions!" could be more useful is when a DM wants to use something from a novel monster or make up something on the fly:

• Designating a PC as a target or perhaps their backpacks
• Signaling that the area the PCs are currently standing in is changing
• Alerting PCs that reinforcements are arriving through a particular entrance
• Show that a monster/NPC will initiate a phase (either attack/defence)

In each of the instances above, the PCs will have an interesting choice to make, assuming they win the initiative roll. Do they choose to protect the PC who drew the monster's ire? Will they remain in place or opt to not to cast spells and move? Do they now move toward the sorcerer or do they guard against this gnoll guards coming through the arcway? Finally, do they proceed with the same attack or do they try to prepare for a new form?

So, while not ground-breaking in concept, this small modification or codification to a procedure you are already doing might help provide more dynamic space to your old-school games.