Use Morale

As I first mentioned in why you should use Linear Charts, Morale is an exception. I advocate for Linear Charts because it is more exciting due to being unpredicable. When you want a normalized result is the benefit of using multiple dice to determine results. Treasure Charts and Morale Saves are the two examples of making a normalized distribtion. What is Morale and more importantly, why use it? Excellent question my mutely accommodating audience.

It’s the Circle of Theft

Stolen from some wargame at the inception of Dungeons and Dragons, Morale is having a score between 2 to 12 for a creature or a group. Any time you think “Hey, let’s see if the stand fast or turn tail”, you roll 2d6 and check the result against their Morale score. If the result is equal to or lower, the creature wishes to continue fighting. When you roll a pair of d6s, 7 is the most frequent result which is what you assign to whatever feels like an ‘average’ fighter.

If you give out 5s or 6s, the creatures will flee fairly often. That doesn’t have to be a mistake, as you feel like a group of Goblin auxilieries are itching for an excuse to run. A 12 should be reserved for non-Intelligent Constructs and Undead, as they will never retreat but can be found destroyed attempting to fulfill their final order. There isn’t much difference between an 11 or 12 by the numbers, but at least there’s the possibility that they’ll flee from the field. A 10 is a reasonable amount for an elite corps of hardened veterans; with how 2d6 rolls, you want most of the combatants be between 7 to 10.

But Why?

Some groups use Dungeons and Dragons as an excuse to have epic fights. Why would you put in a mechanic that would cut that short?

Sandbox Hexcrawls are an excuse for play, which means catering to all types. The theatre kid or political animal would like to get this dull dice rolling to be over to get to what they find important. Morale is a way to cut a combat short; it is obvious that the players are victorious but everybody has to go through the motions until one side has stopped twitching. Depending on the scenario, that might be easily half an hour and I am sure there are players who have sat through much longer than that for what was inevitable.

If you followed my advice about dropping the DM screen, then the players can see when their opponents have decided to flee from the field. If you want combat to cut short, you can have Morale Tests be rolled against every act of heroism that your players do. You can also rule with a “Eh, close enough” and have the opposition rout when the result is closer to their Morale Score. If questioned, the Morale Score of the enemies was lowered due to the losses they suffered.

There’s always ‘Director Fiat’ if you want to be honest about why you want to move on.

Fleeing from the Field Dynanism

When enemies flee, your players can decide to follow. This could be as simple as wanting to get their arrows back to realizing that the runners have an agenda. If you rolled some insane loot, the creature fleeing from the party could be wanting to protect it. Your players get to try being on the other half of the MacGuffin hunting trope, like the letter of passage in Casablanca (1942) or the Helm of Disjunction in Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Amongst Thieves (2023).

You’re giving your players an opportunity to change things up, allowing for a Skill Challenge or another way to play. Changing scenes and actions is how you maintain the game ‘feeling fresh’. If you doubt it, next time things go stale in a conversation, just move to a slightly different area. Your brain will feel renewed and with mirroring the person will be receptive to changes. Controlling the tension of peaks and valleys is a skill that’ll elevate your game as the Director. Instead of a harsh come down from the slugging match, your players are able to glide to a safe valley.

If you followed my advice about Jacquasing Stat Blocks, this will present an opportunity to both show your work and show off. If you added Athletics or Acrobatics to the Stat Block, then they can be quite the quarry.

Actually Use Responsibly

Responsible use would be to make sure that your players get full experience from fleeing foes. There’s no need punish them by starving the player of their precious XP. We don’t want to encourage Fireball Frank behaviours involving prides of lions. Combat is a dramatic question of whether the party will be victorious; when their opponents have fled, they have answered the question.

A word of caution, if the party lets someone go, the spared shouldn’t be to be able to immediately betray the party. You can perhaps pull that off once but the danger of doing that in a West Marches game is that it’s always someone’s first time. First impressions are powerful, if they see that happen the first time then they might make every battle go to the bitter end. They don’t see that the event is the exception to the rule but the rule itself.