I've not been much of a fan when it comes to dungeon game combat, because if it's all theatre of the mind, then combat becomes really weird, difficult to picture, and starts to resemble an old final fantasy game where nothing matters, especially not positioning. You just trade attacks and spells and such until the battle ends. The biggest issue for me is that there's not really much in the way of tactical thinking from the players, until the GM introduces some kind of complication, at which point, it's now extremely important. These conversations tend to go like this.
"Oh, and now a goblin is approaching from behind."
"Whoa whoa whoa. I was watching our backs."
"Okay but you never said that, all you guys have done is attack the orc boss and his men, which I said were gathered up by the north wall."
"Oh I was watching our backs. :^)"
This is, I dub, as the King of the OSR, "Shrodinger's Tactician": A player that typically is disinterested in tactical RPG play but wishes for the benefits of said style of play, usually expressed in asking for actions they aren't willing to accept happening to them.
For example, if you're a DM, you've probably had this happen:
"The Kobolds win initiative and charge!"
"Can I uh, like, uh, set up a free attack for when they come?"
While this seems like a decent thing to ask, they wouldn't accept this:
"You win initiative."
"Okay, I charge the nearest Kobold."
"Okay, uh it uh like holds up its spear for a free attack."
Shrodinger's tactician.
So I decided to hack the hell out of a game called Aketon(pronounced ack-tawn) and add my attempt at having some small measure of tactical combat while not requiring the rigors of something like 4e. If you want a truly tactical game with gobs of interesting options and very interesting encounter building, run 4e. It's great.
Rank and Flank is not that. It still retains the simpler gameplay of OSR combat, life is cheap, henchmen are definitely the meta, etc. It adds the most important thing to cutting combats down as many rounds as possible: the combat resolution step - ironically taken from a game where resolving a battle in three real-time hours is extremely good. There's no actual ranks, by the way, just a very nebulous front and back as you fight in a type of formation that isn't just rushing pell-mell into a melee like a hollywood film, and as a DM, you need to make sure players know if their flanks are exposed and if their rear is exposed. And it works! You fight a single round of combat, tally up how it went, and then, my friends, you see who won. Bards actually contribute to the fight, by breaking ties during the combat resolution step! There's banners(although this is an abstraction, a banner can be anything from a reputation to a famous sword or armor set or just a knight of good repute) that assist in combat!
If you lose, that side tests fear. If less than 2/3 pass, they break - they run screaming a lot of feet away, choosing directions at random, attempting to break into doors they come across even if its a dead end. The winner can choose to pursue - and if they catch their quarry, that group is destroyed ( or captured, or eaten whatever it doesnt matter). Even if you win, you have to give ground, and if you can't give ground, you automatically break. You basically want to make sure when you do commit to battle you are ready to go. Fighters matter, because in this game, a pack of wizards isn't going to be able to do jack shit, and fighters past level 1 aren't hireable.
So yeah, troupe play and tactical play without needing minis, battles that resolve quickly but require planning, and high stakes combat.
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