Hard Vs. Soft Crowd Control

As a companion piece to last time, I thought I'd go over the two different type of crowd control. As an MMO player these terms are second nature to me, but I was discussing last week's article with someone and thought maybe this ISN'T a common concept. This week might be a bit of a shortie, but it's about hard vs. soft crowd control. Now, I know what you're thinking and I just want to caution you we're going to be saying "hard" and "soft" a lot. Try to get all the erection jokes and giggles out before the end of the article, please.

Neither type of crowd control is bad, but Hard Crowd Control is the one you have to be more careful with. This type is anything that completely(or virtually completely) denies any action a character can take. Stuns, Paralyzes, Sleeps, anything that makes a PC think it's a good time to get up and get a soda. In fact, while these can be a very powerful threat, THAT is the reason you want to be careful with this style of crowd control: whoever falls victim to it is 'out'. His interest in the game is gone, and it may not necessarily come back once he can act again. Being hit by hard CC is a disappointment to most, and when CC is a problem, it's usually hard CC you're talking about, just like how nearly every time you talk about violent or exploitative video games, it ends up being Rockstar you're discussing.

However, it's not all bad. Neither type is. The good thing about hard CC is its threat factor, they're powerful, scary abilities because they reduce the party's action economy in a single saving throw. Action Economy is the number of actions an individual or party has, and is incredibly important to any type of pen and paper game. This is why Haste was broken in 3.0, why initiative bonus is so important in Shadowrun, and why an army of minions can be so devastating in Mutants and Masterminds. So, knowing all that, we know that Hard CC can be deadly effective and always makes the party sit up and take notice. Use it sparingly, and try to make sure the party knows about it before being hit. That way, the very threat of it will likely make them change their tactics. Reacting to a situation to try and defeat it is what feels good about combat.

Soft crowd control is anything that restricts your actions but does not prevent them entirely. Slows, trips, knockbacks, pushes, herding, grappling and swallowing whole are all in this category. In fact, MOST crowd control lies in this category. Hard CC is a pretty small list in most games. These are effects that cause the players to think, to stare at the board carefully and plan out their action instead of their decisions being basically independent of what's going on in the game board. These you can use more judiciously since Agency has been restricted but not removed, and thus the player remains engaged. The player(depending on how they game) may even be more engaged than he was before. Basically, soft CC is your friend and can be used way more often than its hard counterpart. I do still have two cautions for you, though.

The first is that you really can't spam any of these effects, regardless of the circumstance. Making a decent "really challenging" encounter is a collection of different things and tactics, and overusing any one thing will easily knock your encounter down to "really annoying". As a general rule, don't try to make something more difficult by overusing soft CC or setting up "team tactics" such as pairs of two who repeatedly bull rush you into each other to easily knock you down. Even the guy who came up with THAT one apologized for it later. Remember that the players have a much harder time coordinating tactics than you do, and a solution that sounds simple to you may be anything but for them. In addition to that, the GM often has the luxury of using minions whose actions aren't as important as a player's and thus has more tactics available to him. More on that concept in a future blog post.

The other caution is that, to paraphrase Cool Hand Luke, "Some men, you just can't reach.". Soft CC can easily be used more often in your game, but you still have to use caution. Some people are going to be irritated any time they have to change their tactics due to outside forces. Thankfully, I don't personally know any of these people, but they ARE out there. They're not bad, though, and this isn't something you should try to 'break' them of unless it's very disruptive. Just know that, as always, all of your decisions as GM will be tailored to your specific group. With some, that might mean a grid, miniatures, and heavy tactical combat peppered with crowd control and combat options. With OTHERS, this might mean the joy of jumping into a sea of orcs and destroying them with whirlwind strike over and over, and not worrying about 'dumb stuff' like being pushed around. Neither is the "right" way to play a PNP game, this just comes down to what people want out of their hobby. This is an escape for all of us, and we're equally split between people who crave intellectual challenge when we game(because we don't get it in real life) and people who want to 'turn off' and let loose emotionally(because our real life or job is tense and frustrating). Frequency of Crowd Control is a button for both of these kinds of people.

I'm rambling. Anyway, don't refuse to use crowd control just to pander to the latter crowd. Just tailor your game to their expectations and throw them roadblocks and 'intelligent' encounters every once in a while. With luck, actually, they'll see a powerful sorcerer with the ability to CC them as a major villain and hate them all the more for it.

And in conclusion, penis penis penis.