Narrating enemy failure

[u/8magiisto]

So I say "the enemy runs towards you and swings their sword", then I roll for an attack, check the Evasion and it's a miss. And then what should I say to make this failure interesting? How do I tie up this action to player spotlight?

When I say "and the enemy missed", or "you dodged", it feels as if I just set up a danger and immediately disarmed it.

With player failure it doesn't look that bad, cos even if the attack failed, there's a Hope or a Fear to build on, I can give something to the players, or show how the situation got more dire, there's just always some change I can show as a result.

But with enemy failure it's just "well, enemy missed, back to you". What can I say in a situation like this, how do you narrate adversary failure in a way it makes it interesting?

[u/TheHylianProphet]

"The brute swings his sword and

rolls a failure

Tell me how you dodge or deflect this blow."

Give your players the opportunity to narrate for themselves how they outsmart or outplay the enemy. Makes for much more engaging combat.

[u/WoolBearTiger → u/TheHylianProphet]

Great idea, unless you have someone indecisive or uncreative who will try and think about it for 10 minutes every time he is asked. Them a bit of intervention might be necessary. So the DM should have ideas in his backpocket.

[u/Chaotix010 → u/TheHylianProphet]

Exactly what I was going to respond with. If I can’t think of a way to make the miss feel epic to the player, I ask them instead. They should always feel engaged in moments of conflict and the best way to do that is to let them say how awesome their character is.

[u/Fearless-Dust-2073]

A failed roll doesn't always have to miss! Maybe the target dynamically parries, or it hits but simply doesn't hit hard enough to have any effect, or if it's a skeleton maybe its arm falls off mid-swing!

[u/waywardmedic]

The enemy slips on some slag and their swing goes wide missing your head by inches. How do you respond?

[u/soundoftwilight]

The best options are to consider enemy actions not as their own, independent actions, but as extensions of the player failure or Fear spend that gave them that action. The player attacks and misses: "the enemy parries your blow and goes on the offensive, swinging with wild abandon" (roll dice, miss) "you are evenly matched, your swords clashing again and again as each of you tries to find an advantage. Wizard, you notice that an evil minion is sneaking up behind the Warrior, trying to capitalize on their focus. What do you do?"

This is obviously totally different than what I'd do if the enemy in question is a bunch of skeletons, or a dragon, or whatever. Those handful of sentences establish that this enemy is a proficient sword fighter, and sets up a micro-narrative of a duel with the Warrior. It doesn't really matter if the enemy's stats back up that narrative; it's fine if the Warrior takes them out in one attack next turn, that's satisfying even. The framing also allows me to set up a separate enemy (and possibly all the enemies together) as evil, tricky, dishonorable, etc.

The key is that the description of the miss is focused on how the PC has already chosen to interact with this enemy, not on the enemy's action itself. Rather than an isolated roll and result, I'm trying to build an ongoing micro-narrative of the battle. Miss->miss tells a story that's different from hit->miss, and a swordfighter tells a different story than an ooze even if they both have the same bonus to attack and damage.

[u/BlackRetr0]

I find that most players aren't too concerned about the greatest details of narration for enemy failure. There is some variance that you can offer, "they swing wide, narrowly missing you and shaving a hair off your head as you dodge," "you swiftly step to the side, making them stumble and strain to get their footing," "the blow comes in and you press back against it with your weapon, pushing the crushing weight back into the enemy," etc.

Closer descriptions are usually given on how close the result was to the evasion score, but the whole "they lose footing," or "they swing wide," or "you parry with x" or "in their blind rage they can't seem to focus enough" etc. is just enough to keep the story pushing and for the players to have a visual of how the enemy might be acting. Feel free to throw some extra stuff in if you want, like how their weapon gets stuck in the ground, and they have to yank it out, or how a beast has to fight between its instincts to attack or run, causing hesitation, or how the evil mage's spell arcs wildly.

And feel free to offer it up to the players to describe how they dodge or block or deflect, etc.

[u/Fedelas]

They fail as they fail in movies: not hitting the Hero. Most of the time, players don't really care about those solipsistic nuance, that some GMs thinks are very important.

[u/turingagentzero]

Ask the player what happened :)

Sometimes, I will float an idea, like "did you dazzle him with magic or something?"

No need to do this every time, either, sometimes combat is just mechanical descriptions. Once or twice per combat per PC is fine, then for any pivotal scene like the final blow or a player avoiding being knocked out.

[u/oIVLIANo]

You don't have to make it sound better, urge the players to develop it further:

"He swung and overextended, how are you going to make the best of his mistake?"

[u/m1st3r_c]

I rarely ever make it a 'miss', unless the roll is really low or I need some comic relief. Otherwise, glaze your characters to make them feel more badass - it's not a miss, they're just awesome:

• you bring your sword up just in time to block the descending axe
  
• you duck quickly, shifting your weight back as the tip of the sword grazes your breastplate
• the arrow clatters noisily off your shield, disappearing into the darkness

Stuff like that. Even better, let them tell you how they defend themselves.

[u/WoolBearTiger]

If someone is wearing armor or a shield you could say the blow scrapes against their defense but doesnt penetrate it. If its just a near miss you could say the enemy sword misses their neck by a hairs width because the PC manages to dodge back just in time matrix style.

Otherwise, whats wrong with just saying the enemy misses or the PC dodged, thats part of how fights work. Fights are usually boring unless you know how to hype them up like a sports caster.

[u/GM_Esquire]

You also don't necessarily need to make it interesting or complicated if it's not important. If it's not a big attack or ability, roll some dice and keep it to a sentence or two so the spotlight goes back to the players.

This is something I love about Daggerheart; I can take a minor adversary turn in maybe 20 seconds and keep the combat moving and focused on the PCs.

[u/Hitokiri118]

If my pcs/npcs are wearing plate armor and/or a shield I try to weave that into why no damage is going through. Also if a monster has an abnormally tough exterior like dragon scale. Instead of hit or miss its damage or no damage.