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A side chat on another thread got me thinking about why I like having a tactical goal in action scenes, so I'm going to do a little thread!
By a tactical goal, I mean something your characters are trying to accomplish besides "beat the bad guys."
By a tactical goal, I mean something your characters are trying to accomplish besides "beat the bad guys."
Some simple examples:
* Get from point A to point B
* Get the thing
* Complete a task
* Protect someone
* Extract/rescue someone
* Defend a point
* Take out a specific enemy
* Destroy a thing
* Etc
Or the reverse: stop your opponents from doing those things!
* Get from point A to point B
* Get the thing
* Complete a task
* Protect someone
* Extract/rescue someone
* Defend a point
* Take out a specific enemy
* Destroy a thing
* Etc
Or the reverse: stop your opponents from doing those things!
Other times, the tactical goal might be a means to an end—a short term goal to gain an advantage to win a fight. For example:
* Maneuver your opponent so they're on bad ground
* Wear your opponent out
* Hit the monster's weak spot
* Knock the evil artifact out of their hands
Etc
* Maneuver your opponent so they're on bad ground
* Wear your opponent out
* Hit the monster's weak spot
* Knock the evil artifact out of their hands
Etc
Not every fight really needs specific tactical goals, of course. Sometimes you've just got a bar brawl or an assassin attack and your goals are either nebulous or extremely straightforward (live). That's fine!
Or you might be more focused on personal/character stuff—also cool!
Or you might be more focused on personal/character stuff—also cool!
They're one tool in your kit to make your action scenes interesting.
There are a few things I like about having specific tactical goals, particularly in small group action scenes:
* Enables teamwork! Easier to have your characters work together in cool ways if there's a goal.
There are a few things I like about having specific tactical goals, particularly in small group action scenes:
* Enables teamwork! Easier to have your characters work together in cool ways if there's a goal.
* Gives your readers a sense of progress (and setbacks)! If it's just "fight until there's no more guys left," they may not even have a great sense of how close we are to done, how bad things are, etc.
* More ways to manipulate tension! If your goal is KEEP THE BAD GUY FROM PRESSING THE BIG RED BUTTON, you can have some near misses & such to get readers' hearts pounding.
* More opportunities for your characters to be clever and/or heroic! If there's a specific goal, they can try wild stuff to try to accomplish that goal rather than just slugging away.
* Relatedly, it gives less combat-oriented characters something useful and cool to do! They can try to do sneaky stuff, distract enemies, etc—things like redirecting attention, bluffing & intimidation, and stealth can be highly effective when you've got a goal beyond "get 'em."
* It also provides a through line for the fight. I often have a lot of ideas for cool moments in a fight, but having a tactical goal provides the string to put those beads on.
* Plus it forces me to think more creatively! I have to go beyond stab-parry-stab and think how my characters will try to accomplish their tactical goal with the resources they've got available.
And of course you can have multiple tactical goals, or they can shift during the action scene, or—always fun—different characters on the same side might have different/conflicting goals (like if A wants to destroy the evil artifact at all costs but B just wants to protect A).
All of this goes for tabletop & live action rpgs as well, which honestly is where a lot of my own perspective on fight scenes comes from. 
It's just one aspect of an action scene, of course, but one I find too easy to forget sometimes when my outline just says "they fight!"
It's just one aspect of an action scene, of course, but one I find too easy to forget sometimes when my outline just says "they fight!"
