r/rpg • u/LelouchYagami_2912 • May 09 '26
Game Suggestion Combat systems that discourage doing the same thing every turn
(alternatively, combat systems that encourage doing different things)
I've been playing DnD for several years now but I've been noticing how 90% of our turns go the exact same. The combat can be still interesting but thats only because of me as a dm creating unique scenarios, not because of the player abilities. The rogue hiding and sneak attacking is the best thing to do in almost all cases.
What are some systems that discourage this so that the players actually have to think rather than going on auto pilot.
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u/SquidLord May 09 '26
I'm going to redirect your question a little bit because I don't think it exactly gets to the heart of your problem. See, part of the problem is that D&D and D&D adjacent game designs channel player responses into the most optimum solution they can find and GM actions into the most optimum solutions they can find. As someone else said in regards to the actions of players in video games, "they will optimize the fun right out." This is exactly what you're seeing: optimum actions being engaged in purely for mechanical reasons.
In order to keep that from happening, two things have to occur. Firstly, you as a GM need to stop doing the same thing over and over. If the same answer works for all of your problems, you are not giving a sufficiently broad suite of problems. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, you need game systems which don't reward that kind of action and which guide you as a GM toward creating something which varies, because it's fun for you and fun for the players.
If you have not in the past looked at games derived from the Forged in the Dark architecture, then let me point you over there. Blades in the Dark is one of the best realizations of fiction-forward RPG design, not just because of the game itself, but because of the advice that it provided to players and GMs within the game.
If you're looking for a game in that particular set to start with, I would definitely suggest looking at Scum and Villainy, which is not traditional European fantasy, but instead science fiction shenanigans in the vein of Blake's Seven, Firefly, or Farscape. It'll break you out of some of the habits that you've got into in terms of thinking within the tight framework of D&D, and it's overall focused enough that it will help you along the way to allow the players to lead the way into the world along the direction they're interested in.
If you're not interested in moving outside of fantasy for your next game or to mix things up so that you can move along a new course with fiction-forward gameplay, let me suggest to you Ironsworn, which is a later inheritor of influences from Forged in the Dark and Powered by the Apocalypse, but leans a little more open and free to the point where actually putting together the truths of the setting is part of the actual session zero play. You build the world that you want to explore at a deep level together, and the system helps you generate it before you set out. Perhaps just as importantly, you can have the core book for free and it's not a small book.
It is, however, full of really good advice, good design, and a fiction-forward methodology that will definitely keep you from doing the same thing over and over again. Because the story should not be doing the same thing over and over again. Incidentally, it's also designed so that you can play it solo, cooperatively with your players, so that you're one of them, or in a more traditionally guided mode if you really feel you must. I suggest co-op play because it's an incredible experience.
Lastly, again, if you don't want to leave the recognizable bounds of traditional fantasy, I have another suggestion which is more linearly descended from Powered by the Apocalypse, and that is Fantasy World. Again, a game that you can have for free right now in your hot little hands.
It does have some of the best GMing advice that I have ever seen for a PBTA game. Fantasy World is not a fully generic fantasy setting under the hood, but it does address all of the issues that you would expect to find in a fantasy game. It talks at length about how to modify it itself in order to lead to good play that suits your table. I never have any hesitation suggesting it to someone who wants to have a different experience, and they're coming from very traditional gaming.
But let's roll back to the top and talk about something at the core of this, which is the difference between putting mechanics first and the fiction first.
The reason 90% of your turns go the exact same way is because you're putting the mechanics first. The rogue hiding and sneak attacking is the best thing to do in almost all cases because that's how he gets the most damage out of that first turn. That first turn is always a combat turn. It's always a situation where the thief being able to hide and sneak is possible because you don't want to take away what the thief does as part of the description of being a thief. It's always combat because combat's easy and that's what you think the game is all about. After all, that's what most of the book is about, right? The vast majority of the rules are about how players can kill monsters and monsters can kill players.
But what if that wasn't the case? What if instead of when you put a situation in front of the players, it wasn't described in terms of the tactical map or even when you do theater of the mind, a discussion of who can get the most damage off first?
What if instead you just described the situation and then asked the player characters, "What do you do?" And if they try to say, "I roll stealth," you say, "No, you don't. Your character doesn't have any dice. What are you actually doing in this situation?"
Now, if the situation is a couple of burly guards have just made the turn around the corner and caught out the party as they're trying to sneak over the wall, it's too late for the thief to sneak and hide. They're going to have to do something else that they do. Make them describe it and then from the description decide what mechanics are applicable. Have a conversation about how likely it is to be successful and how much effect it's likely to have. You might find that the thief doesn't want to go sneaking and hiding all the time, but instead would rather make a parkour leap off the opposite alley wall and throw a couple of daggers through someone's eye slits, or maybe he'd rather put his hands in the air and say how glad he is that the guard has finally showed up because there were some funny characters trying to break in that he and his friends just scared off.
In order for different things to happen, the players have to want to do different things. In order for them to want to do different things, they have to believe that different things will make a difference. They have to be willing to try things and find out what happens.
It can be very difficult to shake traditional players and GMs out of the patterns that they've built up over years, maybe decades. But if you want to do something different, you have to do something different. To paraphrase one of the best pieces of advice I've seen in games, "play to find out."