GM's Glossary Part 3: Everything you can do with Movement
Let's get a move on
This is part 3 in a series on system neutral abilities, conditions and status effects.
Now that we’ve fleshed out all the fun stuff we can do with an environment, today we’ll be looking at how characters move, or move others, through it. While this list aims to be exhaustive, I want to limit myself to things that either exist irl or are suitably generic and common enough in fiction to warrant a mention. I’m also aiming for a fiction-first, system neutral approach, so I won’t be discussing system specific abilities that play around with grid squares and hexes. I will however consider it if I’m running a giant magical chess board encounter though.
Locomotion
Walk / Run
Most people have this figured out by the time they’re 12 months old so I don’t really feel the urge to explain it further.
Specifically this refers to how fast a character moves across a normal ground surface.
Climb
The speed at which a character can climb vertical surfaces.
Typically this requires a surface with enough strong handholds to support them but a character might have Insect-Climb; the ability to climb flat surfaces or ceilings.
Swim
How fast a character moves through water.
Or some other liquid medium I guess.
Varying swim and walk speeds is a nice way to represent varying levels of amphibiousness.
Leap
How far a character can jump from one surface to another.
May be different if the leap is vertical or horizontal.
May also depend on how much of a running start they get.
Crawl / Squeeze
How fast a character moves on all fours / through tight spaces
Now given the variety of limb arrangements on offer in the average D&D party these days maybe “all fours” isn’t the best term.
I’ve bundled these together since I can’t think of a good use case for one without the other.
I’ll bundle in contortionism and hiding in small spaces while I’m at it.
Root
How easily a character can resist movement.
Uses: heavy characters, nearby grapple points, literal roots in the ground.
Fly
The speed at which a character moves through the air.
There’s few variations to this:
Powered Flight which requires constant activity to stay in the air.
Levitation/Floating which doesn’t require any activity on the flyer’s part.
Gliding which allows the character to move downwards and horizontally but not upwards.
Zero-Gravity in which the character isn’t pulled down by gravity but may be stuck in mid air.
Burrow
The speed at which a character digs through the ground.
Usually restricted to loose earth and not solid stonework.
Consider whether or not the character is leaving behind a tunnel as they move.
Medium Alteration
Moves through one type of medium as though it was another
e.g: waterwalking, airswimming, stone burrowing.
Phase
The ability to pass through solid objects.
This is sometimes limited by not allowing characters to end their turn inside an object, preventing turtling shenanigans.
You could also limit it to single actions, like a short dash that can pass through objects.
We can also vary it by what type of objects you can phase through. E.g: The gnome can move through stone but not wood, ghosts can’t penetrate consecrated protection wards.
This could also make for a nasty curse, forcing a victim to phase through the ground into the centre of the earth.
Teleport
A character's ability to move directly from A to C without going through B.
Unlimited, unconditional teleportation is no fun to play against and overpowered to play with. Consider a few ways to make it more interesting:
Limited to a specific range.
Limited to visible places.
Limited by inexactness. This might mean you only show up near your location or you show up in a similar but distant location.
Exotic Medium Traversal
Ability to move through an unconventional medium.
This is a catch-all category for the ability to move through non-traditional mediums.
E.g: Druid who can walk into one tree and appear out of another, magical ninjas who step into shadows.
Directionality
How fast a character can move in different directions.
Not really relevant on the typical flat combat grid but relevant when we start talking about flight. A flying character might be able to descend rapidly but ascend slowly.
Heading
Which way a character is facing.
More common in vehicular or naval games but for skirmish combat things like damage can depend on this.
Uses: Backstabs, weak spots, raking fire.
Turning
How much a character can change its heading.
Not really a concern for typical player characters but think about something large and cumbersome like a ship or a piece of heavy artillery that can only turn 90 degrees each round.
Momentum
How much speed a character has built up and how that affects their movement.
Not really a big consideration for skirmish games where characters aren’t moving faster than a sprint, but worth considering for representing very large or very fast characters.
Forced Movement
So let's say we want to move a target in a particular direction.
You could do any number of weird things with this but below are a few of the most common variations.
Note that I’m not including anything mind control related, wherein a character is compelled to move using their own movement abilities. Mind control is for my next post.
Push / Pull
Moves the target further / closer respectively.
Uses: Shoves, grabby tendrils, strong winds, magnetism.
The foundation of interesting combat. Infinitely useful when paired with a dynamic 3D combat environment.
Consider effects that pull two characters together.
Lift
Moves the target upwards
This makes a fun one-two lift-and-drop combo, which is extra fun since there's a couple of ways of responding to it (Another character catching you, an improvised parachute, aiming for the bushes.)
This could also be used to strand a target in the air or rip them out from cover.
Especially devious underwater, where it can cause decompression sickness
Uses: antigravity, updrafts, tentacled skyfish.
Sink
Moves the target downwards
This one probably won’t see too much normal use but it could be useful in a more 3D environment, for example drowning targets underwater or grounding flying targets.
Uses: Quicksand, grasping zombie hands, spontaneous hole generation.
Spin
Target is rotated along a circle’s circumference.
Uses: Turntables, tornados, getting swung around on a rope.
This one’s criminally underused despite how simple it is.
Hasten/Slow:
Target’s speed is increased / reduced.
Uses: Debilitation, adrenaline rushes, time warping.
We can break this down by medium for more variety. E.g: Fish armor that hastens you but only while swimming.
Gravity
The direction or intensity of gravity is altered.
This could be an AOE, the personal gravity of a single character or tied to a surface that activates when stepped on.
This could also represent the artificial gravity of a rotating space station.
Bind:
Target can’t move beyond a certain range of something.
Uses: Tethers, grapples, magic wards.
In the case of grappling the range would be 0 and the something in question would be the grappler.
There will be more discussion on the minutiae of grappling and restraints in a future post.
Sync:
One character’s movement also moves another.
Uses: Mounted characters, puppetry curses, control system crosswiring.
Great mechanic for fun movement puzzles.
We could also reverse it and force one character to move in the opposite direction to the other.
And that’s the list. Or is it? I’m sure there’ few interesting movement options I’ve neglected. So if you can think of one please let know and I’ll add it to the pile.
EDIT:
Temporal Negativity suggests time loops as an interesting varient of teleportation.
Time Loop Teleportation:
Character returns to a spot they were in previously.
May require a character to place a “save point” down which they can return to.
I could also see a varient of this where this where a character is physically rewound back where they were either as a utility tool or as a type of forced movement.
Some general things about movement to consider:
Movement is only interesting if paired with a suitable environment. We want pits and explosive barrels to throw people into.
Some attacks might deal more damage depending on how much a character has moved. e.g: A mounted warriors charge, a plunging attack.
We can combine forced movement with AOEs for things like shockwaves, wind gusts, or magnetic fields.
Speaking of magnets, that’s an interesting case of only being able to move certain types of objects, we could apply that to other types of matter too.
A couple of the things mentioned in the previous post also apply, we can bounce, arc and ricochet people off wall if we want. I’ve excluded them here at the risk of sounding repetitive.
Next time in the the GM’s glossary: Mind Control, and it’s many variations. Move yourself over to that subscribe button lest you miss it.