What makes a TTRPG tactical?

[SableWyvern]

Any RPG can be tactical when the GM creates challenging combats using asymmetrical terrain, cover, and traps, and uses foes intelligently to force the players to think before they act. It's not necessary to have a mini-game puzzle of dodge, parry and attack choices in the rules to be tactical.

I agree with this. The most tactical games I've played tend to be B/X and AD&D and the like, where characters have very few options once they're locked in melee, but formation, manoeuvre and decisions about when and how to engage are critical.

That said, whenever I see people mentioning "tactical combat" with respect to tabletop roleplaying, it's clear that the term is mostly used to refer to gridded combat, precise position and the careful used of skills and abilities to create power combos, and I'm not typically going to recommend B/X if someone says they want a game with "good tactical combat".

 

[GMMichael]

Any RPG can be tactical when the GM creates challenging combats using asymmetrical terrain, cover, and traps, and uses foes intelligently to force the players to think before they act . . .

I'm thinking that a tactical RPG (TRPG) is one that enables and rewards the use of tactics (thinking before acting). If there is such a thing, then there must be tenuously-tactical RPGs (TTRPG), so some threshold of tactical content must be met to qualify as a TRPG.

To continue with thinking before acting, I'd expect a TRPG to require PCs, or groups of PCs, to not just choose an action for combat, but to choose a tactic. Opponents would choose theirs, and the better choice would win the round. So, choosing your activity at the initiative phase would make a game tactical. However, skilled combatants can adapt, so there would be a possibility to change tactics to try to salvage or even win a round.

Failing that, a game that provides options beyond move, attack, cast spell, and turn undead (or other options that actually accomplish something) could be considered tactical, but that's the norm, I think?

 

[Li Shenron]

I agree with many here, it's quite funny that the actual general meaning of tactic is related to having a plan, while it seems more common to me that RPG players call 'tactical' a game that has lots of rules and options which in practice allow (or soft-force, by overwhelming options) them not to plan, throw their PC into battle, and change idea each turn.

 

[aramis erak]

For me Dragonbane has the right amount of tactical weight. Each round Players decide if they want to dodge or attack, and inititive makes this a meaningful choice. Then anyone with a spell or fighting ability decides if they spend willpower or just do something basic and save willpower.

That is the bare ones of what I consider tactical. Obviously lots of games ramp those round by round decisions even more.

I found Dragonbane to lack meaningful depth of choices.
Dodging is a no-brainer: do it or die. Most of the monsters one needs to dodge kill PCs in 1 or 2 hits, maybe 3 for the fighter. Not dodging when one's being attacked is almost always a bad choice.
Willpower or not is a meaningful one, provided one's spellcasters have a weapon.

 

[Theory of Games]

Any rpg can be played tactically, but not every rpg focuses on tactical options.

Tactics is about increasing the chances of not only winning a contest, but winning quickly and decisively. I love the film 13 Assassins (2010). From the time Shinzaemon agrees to execute Lord Naritsuga, it's TACTICS. All along the way. Shinzaemon plots the steps that bring him closer and closer to Naritsuga. Then, when he faces his old friend, Hanbei, a fight that could have lasted minutes is instead ended in seconds by use of tactics.

People often remind us that D&D evolved from wargaming, but few emphasize how the use of wargaming tactics can keep a party alive in the most dangerous encounters.

 

[KYRON45]

If a DM or players aren’t tactical minded; it doesn’t matter anyway.

 

[Umbran]

... I'm looking for what people would be looking for in a tactical game - is it a game that cares about positioning? A game with extensive combat rules? A game with oodles of special abilities?

What does it mean for you if a game is 'tactical'?

A game is "tactical" when much of the play centers around careful planning of actions on short timescales with fairly immediate goals, and fairly contained scope.

Most commonly, this comes to a TTRPG through a battlemap and combat rules with lots of fiddly-bits. It is tactical game if combat feels like a small-unit tactical wargame.

There are other ways to be tactical, but that seems the most common, to me.

 

[Krachek]

When combat table turn last for more than one hour, it is tactical.

 

[borringman]

I agree with many here, it's quite funny that the actual general meaning of tactic is related to having a plan, while it seems more common to me that RPG players call 'tactical' a game that has lots of rules and options which in practice allow (or soft-force, by overwhelming options) them not to plan, throw their PC into battle, and change idea each turn.

Well it's an interesting contradiction, because in warfare, the ideal is to not have "tactical" combat at all, but to overwhelm one's opposition. For example, when American fighter pilots realized dogfighting the Japanese Zero was suicidal, they switched to power diving (American planes were less maneuverable but had more powerful engines). They weren't interested in "meaningful choices" or fighting the enemy on even terms; they wanted to survive the fight.

But we're playing games, not risking our lives, and one-sided, one-tactic fighting isn't exciting. So games marry tactics with a silent partner: parity (a.k.a. "balance"), something you very much don't want in a real fight. For example, in boxing, you won't fight someone 50 pounds lighter than you in a ring; they have weight classes specifically to prevent that. Parity makes the bouts more uncertain, more exciting. In a real street fight, you WANT to be 50 pounds heavier. And preferably holding a weapon. And a bunch of buddies to back you up. As unfair as you can make it.

A solid tactic is one that is clearly the best option, but that makes for a poor tactical game.

 

[Laurefindel]

What does it mean for you if a game is 'tactical'?

For me, a tactical RPG is one that offers multiple approaches to the same problem, and that depending on the circumstances around that problem, some approaches are more likely to succeed than others.

So for a RPG to be tactical...
1) it needs to offer multiple approaches to a single situation, with different yields based on the selected approach. This implies a certain level or rule-granularity.
2) it needs to offer players multiple options allowing for different approaches.
3) characters can specialize in one option, but the same option cannot be used to approach all situations.
4) players need to have the information required to make a deduction on whether an approach is adequate or not.
5) players need to be able to change their approach and select another option before it is too late, or at least, have the information required to learn form their mistake.

Many games have 1) and 2)
Many games that have 2) fail to implement 3) - oftentimes, the options that characters are optimized for remains the best regardless of the situation.
Most games fail at 4) and 5)
To be fair, making a tactical RPG is not easy.