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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& #39;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& #39;re on bad ground
* Wear your opponent out
* Hit the monster& #39;s weak spot
* Knock the evil artifact out of their hands
Etc
* Maneuver your opponent so they& #39;re on bad ground
* Wear your opponent out
* Hit the monster& #39;s weak spot
* Knock the evil artifact out of their hands
Etc
Not every fight really needs specific tactical goals, of course. Sometimes you& #39;ve just got a bar brawl or an assassin attack and your goals are either nebulous or extremely straightforward (live). That& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;s a goal.
* Gives your readers a sense of progress (and setbacks)! If it& #39;s just "fight until there& #39;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& #39; hearts pounding.
* More opportunities for your characters to be clever and/or heroic! If there& #39;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& #39;ve got a goal beyond "get & #39;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& #39;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. 
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It& #39;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!"https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😁" title="Grinsendes Gesicht mit lächelnden Augen" aria-label="Emoji: Grinsendes Gesicht mit lächelnden Augen">
It& #39;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!"
