How does combat go for you?

[arete]

Yes I have been using the conseqences for "named" character, but not for mooks.  I made a few fights where the badguys had more stress/concequences but next time I am goling to up skill to a 6 or 7 to see which makes for more entertianmeent

[Kaldra]

  you think thats bad?

taking a leaf out of one of my players books from an old 3.5/3.75 game your BBEG starts up an orphanage and starts teaching children the ways of thievery and eventually shape shifting, in the dnd setting it was infecting them with lycanthropy but la we digress.

start out by having the children stealing from occult shops, small things crystals and such, then have the pc's stumble on one of the robberies and see one of the kids do something like a minor evocation or some such, eventually have a wolf attack the group and when they kill or knock out the wolf have a kid form in front of them, no better way to stone cold stop a group from violence or make the waaaay hesitant than to have the children be on the other side.

[BumblingBear]

you think thats bad?

taking a leaf out of one of my players books from an old 3.5/3.75 game your BBEG starts up an orphanage and starts teaching children the ways of thievery and eventually shape shifting, in the dnd setting it was infecting them with lycanthropy but la we digress.

start out by having the children stealing from occult shops, small things crystals and such, then have the pc's stumble on one of the robberies and see one of the kids do something like a minor evocation or some such, eventually have a wolf attack the group and when they kill or knock out the wolf have a kid form in front of them, no better way to stone cold stop a group from violence or make the waaaay hesitant than to have the children be on the other side.

Not all players will care.

[Kaldra]

aye it depends on the group, however in the DRFPG setting if your character takes action against children, long term it means your character thinks they are the type of person who can hurt or kill children and their gm slowly starts to let the evil maniacal laugh roll out of his/her belly, you have to get the deep belly one.

thats another way to make combat a bit harder on the characters, what are the long term emotional or psychological effects of killing/harming these people they fight; do they care if the shops damaged in the scuffle go out of business?

what happens when the mournful daughter comes a knocking one day and wants to know what happened to her father, that bouncer at the night club who got in the way or maybe he was one of the goons that the party tuned up.

[arete]

My players have been really responcable about killing.  I have 1 character who operates in the grey area of the laws, but otherwise all my players are ethical.  I really have not had many issues with the roleplay side of things.

[BumblingBear]

aye it depends on the group, however in the DRFPG setting if your character takes action against children, long term it means your character thinks they are the type of person who can hurt or kill children and their gm slowly starts to let the evil maniacal laugh roll out of his/her belly, you have to get the deep belly one.

thats another way to make combat a bit harder on the characters, what are the long term emotional or psychological effects of killing/harming these people they fight; do they care if the shops damaged in the scuffle go out of business?

what happens when the mournful daughter comes a knocking one day and wants to know what happened to her father, that bouncer at the night club who got in the way or maybe he was one of the goons that the party tuned up.

Not necessarily.

The position I am coming from is that war is war.  Conflict is conflict.  Violence is violence.  Soldiers and cops sometimes have to kill children.  Just because they do so doesn't mean it gives them pleasure.

Killing anyone is traumatic.  Killing children may be more so, but to do so will not fundamentally warp someone into an evil creature.

If someone evil is turning children into combatants, their deaths are on that person.  Not he or she who has to defend themselves.

[Amseriah]

Not necessarily.

The position I am coming from is that war is war.  Conflict is conflict.  Violence is violence.  Soldiers and cops sometimes have to kill children.  Just because they do so doesn't mean it gives them pleasure.

Killing anyone is traumatic.  Killing children may be more so, but to do so will not fundamentally warp someone into an evil creature.

If someone evil is turning children into combatants, their deaths are on that person.  Not he or she who has to defend themselves.

Sorry to deviate from the topic, but I agree full Bear.  There are plenty of veterans of the Vietnam War who didn't become evil, but they were forced to kill women and kids.  Also terrorist groups are known to get kids to kill for them.  In a war situation you sometimes have to kill children because they are coming at you with an assault rifle.  Let's not forget the children warriors in Africa...the evil people are the ones turning these children into combatants.

/rant

[BumblingBear]

Sorry to deviate from the topic, but I agree full Bear.  There are plenty of veterans of the Vietnam War who didn't become evil, but they were forced to kill women and kids.  Also terrorist groups are known to get kids to kill for them.  In a war situation you sometimes have to kill children because they are coming at you with an assault rifle.  Let's not forget the children warriors in Africa...the evil people are the ones turning these children into combatants.

/rant

Exactly.

And the Dresdenverse is very gritty.  It can be dark and dare I say, "realistic".

Some of the stuff in the books at times makes me whistle or curse.  I think that a GM who can occasionally shock players that way is probably doing a good job and staying true to the source material.

The Dresden Files is not a "Happily Ever After" series where everyone comes from nuclear families and are virgins until they get married to a prince or princess.

One of the reasons I was attracted to the DFRPG is the potential for serious role play and agonizing ethical choices.  You just can't get that sort of grittiness when everyone is playing elves and all the bad guys are monstrous looking and always act Abberantly Evil.

It's a lot harder to defend yourself against some poor bastard hooked on Red Court saliva than it is a giant floating eyeball with huge teeth and tentacles.

[Kaldra]

aye, i did not mean to imply that every one does become evil, only as the traveling people say "as the axe does violence to the tree so does the tree to the axe" its going to have an effect on you, in the end it will vary person to person but its still there.

[noclue]

Bringing this back to the OP's topic, you might take a note from the books. Dresden rarely gets a chance to rest up before someone else comes gunning for him. He often goes from one battle to another to another, taking consequences along the way. So, you might try a series of encounters to soak up their Fate points and soften them up for a few consequences.

[newtinmpls]

"what happens when the mournful daughter comes a knocking one day and wants to know what happened to her father, that bouncer at the night club who got in the way or maybe he was one of the goons that the party tuned up."

I love versions of this, ever since I got nailed with it (and two years worth of service to the family of the guy my PC killed).

[admiralducksauce]

I think that using morality on PCs in combat and the subsequent fallout is highly dependent on individual groups and players.  We can discuss tactics to help the OP without having to resort to "the NPCs' families all hate you now!"

General rules that could help you out:
1.  Defense: You want to minimize your losses and keep the units you have at peak operating capacity for as long as possible.  I see many disposable units as a slightly better option here than simply making your standard number of units tougher.  Each individual loss is a smaller percentage of your entire force, and the PCs only have so many actions.  Hell, bait your PC wizards into area-attacking a clump of your fodder just to buy a round or two for your better-trained goons to get their licks in.

2.  Offense: The quicker your units can acquire and engage new targets, the better.  This pretty much always comes down to ranged weapons being your best choice, because your enemies have a much harder time running away from bullets and lightning bolts.  Your guys can fire (or combine fire or set up maneuvers) on a new target without having to move  It also speaks well to defense: if half your enemies cannot even engage you, you've cut their effectiveness by the same amount.  If ALL your forces can engage the enemy, even better.

3.  Reinforcements!  This was mentioned upthread, and it may or may not work for you.  There's something to be said for a good alpha strike by a shitload of Uzi-wielding thugs, but the more enemies on the field on round 1, the higher the chance your players are going to figure out a clever way you didn't notice before to severely mess them up in one fell swoop.  Too many waves of reinforcements and each individual wave won't be any more effective than the previous.  They'll just be waves breaking against the rocks.

Sorry if I'm retreading old ground here.  It just kind of bothers me to resort to relying on the PCs' reluctance to kill bystanders.  Seems to me we can beat those pesky wizards and summer knights with good old fashioned tactics!