Tips and Tricks 2

Tip 2. Combats and the art of fudging.

For a starting GM and others who are easily overcome by the volumes of numbers in a fight here is a trick I learned from William.

The most important thing for a GM in a combat is to keep it running smoothly. If you stop for too long or scrabble in your notes the players will lose interest and start to talk amongst themselve further disrupting the flow of combat.

The most common error amongst new GM's is that they stick hard and fast to their numbers and have not had a chance to practise and develop the skills to keep track of the numbers, hence the resulting scrabbling through sheaves of paper.

To fix this and for those occasional moment where the GM's brain just stops William came up with some simple numbers.

On a low level Game if a roll is under 75 it's a hit. On a medium level game if a roll is under 50 it's a hit. On a high level game if it's under 25 it's a hit. On an extreme game you either shouldn't be GM'ing at this level or your players will have some patience :-)

This allows you to get over the particular strike in question and recover the paperwork without disrupting the combat.

Obviously you use the real numbers as much as possible but if you miss and end up fudging one as long as the combat flows nicely most players will never notice.