[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...

[Daztur]

Tony Vargas:
I THINK I've responded to the bulk of the issues that you've brought up here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho...difference-d-d-play-styles-3.html#post5805524

and here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho...difference-d-d-play-styles-8.html#post5807885

If there's other important points that those don't address I'll try to answer them as I have time, the length of this thread has left me a bit (pleasantly) overwhelmed and I had very little time to read or reply over the weekend aside from brief snatches on the Smartphone (a three year-old an a seven month-old will do that to you...). I'll try to respond to everything on this thread that I can think of something to say about as I have time, but it'll take me quite a while to get caught up.

Since people have been talking a bit about the possibility of reconciling what players with a strong combat-as-war preference like and what players with a strong combat-as-sport preference like but not coming to too many conclusions, here's a thought. Maybe all of the out-of-combat, resource-tracking, strategic-planning stuff that combat-as-war players like, instead of setting the difficulty of the combat you get into, sets the stakes? If you plan and manage resources well, maybe you successfully raise a rebel army against the evil emperor, bust into his throne room and end up in a balanced fight against him and a handful of his elite guards while your allies hold off the rest of his forces outside. If you plan and manage resources badly, the rebellion collapses and the balanced fights you end up getting into are instead against the evil emperor's patrols as they try to hunt you down and capture you: your main goal at that point is just to get out of the emperor's lands alive, and you're going to have to really shine in those combats to ever get a shot at taking the emperor down.

My main problem with the combat-as-war paradigm is the fact that it can trivialise combat encounters that I'd have enjoyed being challenged by, so I think I'd be happy with a game that did something like this, but I'd like to hear what players with a combat-as-war preference think.

This is a very interesting post. It's not how I'd DM personally but it seems like a very interesting say to go about reconciling the two sides. What this post reminded me of, however, was this incredibly awesome blog post by a screen writer:

Kung Fu Monkey: Writing: Action Scenes

Summary: having a fight scene in which the only thing that is at stake is "will the main character die or not" is boring in film since the audience KNOWS that the main character isn't going to die halfway through the movie. So, what's better is to have other stuff be at stake during a fight since the audience has no idea if the hero is going to lose those other things that are at stake since the story can continue if the hero wins or loses those other things.

This same logic applies to RPGs. If the main thing that's at stake in a RPG fight is "will there be a TPK or not" then either you've going to have a whole lot of PC deaths (more than even the most neck-beared grognard would probably want) or you're going to have a whole lot of boring combats during with nothing is at stake. And even if you have a risk of a TPK in every fight, whole swathes of combat can still be boring if it has become clear which side is going to win.

If you could have fights in which interesting things are at stake in combat in which it's clear which side's stronger at any given point in the fight, that'd do a lot of reconcile the CaS/CaW sides since the CaS sides could do fun tactical stuff all the time, even if it's clear who's going to win the fight (either due to the initial set-up or due to what's gone on during the first few rounds of combat).

Let's brainstorm some ideas!

There's no way that the PCs can beat the Tyrannosaur! It's just too big! And if we run it's just too fast! How can we run and keep it from chasing all of us down?

The goblin guards are no match for us awesome heroes, but they're going to light the signal fire to bring a thousand goblins down on our heads! How can we stop them?

Help! There's a thousand goblins coming on down on our heads! We're all going to die! What can we do? Let's try to grab a hostage an negotiate our way out!

Ha! Ha! That wolf is dead meat! Let's all go kill it! Silly wolf! ON NO! There's wolves eating our pack mules! Go away wolves!

Stuff like that. Basically what you need to do is give the opposition a way to give the party a headache that PERSISTS AFTER THE END OF COMBAT (logistics and resource tracking is one way of doing this, but not the only one, healing surge draining critters can do this as well) and is hard to get rid of (i.e. persists longer than 24 hours would be ideal) and also give the PCs tools to do useful things in combat that they cannot hope to win so that there is something interesting at stake in any combat even if it's clear which side is going to win if there's a fight to the death.

 

[The Shaman]

I never played Boot Hill, but didn't it have the same firearms system as Top Secret? Definitely primitive games, though not as whacked as my beloved Gamma World.

Tony, can I suggest that you stop referring to games as "primitive" or "rudimentary?"

And Top Secret drew a big chunk of its firearms system inspiration from Boot Hill, but they're not the same.

 

[The Shaman]

Summary: having a fight scene in which the only thing that is at stake is "will the main character die or not" is boring in film since the audience KNOWS that the main character isn't going to die halfway through the movie.

For me, one of the very best things about roleplaying games is that I can throw that expectation nonsense right out the ing window.

Of course, I also like movies where a main character dies unexpectedly before the end, frex,

Spoiler

To Live and Die in LA

.

Basically what you need to do is give the opposition a way to give the party a headache that PERSISTS AFTER THE END OF COMBAT (logistics and resource tracking is one way of doing this, but not the only one, healing surge draining critters can do this as well) and is hard to get rid of (i.e. persists longer than 24 hours would be ideal) and also give the PCs tools to do useful things in combat that they cannot hope to win so that there is something interesting at stake in any combat even if it's clear which side is going to win if there's a fight to the death.

Yes, win or lose, encounters should have consequences.

I describe it this way when I'm behind the screen: if the adventurers are winning, then someone else is losing, and vice versa. This creates a persistent dynamic tension which drives conflict and action and guides both my planning and adjudication during actual play.

 

[The Shaman]

I have to imagine that most gamers sometimes want to think outside the box and defeat the enemy with cleverness and sometimes want to just kick down the down and have a drag out fight won by some combination of luck, tactical acumen and toughness (usually on the part of the characters).

Yup.

So one of the things that games need to do is teach both referees and players how to do this.

 

[SlyDoubt]

Actually, now that you mention it, I have a different definition of herosim.

At its most basic, heroism means doing the right thing (at least to me). Of course, the harder it is to do, the more the odds are stacked against you, the greater the heroism. However, if what you're doing isn't right in the first place, then you're not a hero in my book. Someone who wins the lottery succeeds where he's not expected to succeed, but I don't consider him a hero.

The guy who rushes into a buring building to save a trapped child? He's a hero. To me, it doesn't matter whether he's a fireman who's been specially trained and has the right equipment so that the chance of him succeeding and surviving is more than 90%, or some man off the street who decides to do it because he's the only one around who can help and the trained firemen will not arrive in time.

Now, while I would consider the latter to be more heroic because it requires a great deal more courage for Joe Everyman to rush into a burning building than for a professional fireman, that doesn't stop the fireman from also being a hero. After all, he's doing the right thing, and he's risking his life to do so (a 90% chance of survival still means a 10% chance of not surviving).

I get what you're saying. I should have been more specific but I didn't really feel the need. I tend to assume people won't bother picking things apart where there's really nothing to pick apart.

I agree with you but RPGs are different than reality. I was talking about how things go in an RPG from my own experience. I run sandboxy games. To me heroism is something that occurs spontaneously in the game. There are countless little heroic moments in every game. I prefer those to purposeful heroism.

It's really not worth having a bigger discussion about. Everyone knows what a heroic action or a hero is in reality. Expressing that idea in an RPG varies from player to player. It depends on so much because the world itself isn't a default we all automatically share equally (like ours).

 

[Hassassin]

My faith is waning that they can build a game to cater to all crowds. I clearly want different things than you do Hassassin. We want to build very different games.

But going forward I really don't want them to make a crappy product which is a mutant of 4e (or 3e or 2 or 1) with other editions thrown in. I DO want them to make a new game. A game which is its own, but incorporates elements from all prior editions. This is a FAR preferable idea to me, and one it seems like they are already doing - if you pay attention to the playtests reviews.

No, I think we want quite similar games. At least in the scope of this thread. I want a new game as well, although I don't particularly care if it ends up looking like edition X + a bit of the others. Only how it plays and accommodates my (and my group's) preferences will matter to me.

Just a general question, both for you Hassassin and to anyone else who wants to answer it. When in history, literature, myths, legends, etc. have we ever had stories where the heroes were good to go ALL THE TIME. Where they fight 1000 battles and end up as fresh as they start.

For me, this is a problem bigger than 4e but exacerbated by 4e's (healing surges and encounters). It seems like there SHOULD (looking at those sources) be a large amount of downtime, for prep, research and healing. I don't really want a video game mentality where you wait 2 minutes out of combat and suddenly you are 100% ready again. I would love to see a system where you fight, get tired (winded), need to surge into battle again (second wind) but then end up sore, fatigued and in need of extended downtime to recoup. Not just 5 more minutes and then good to go.

I digress, not the point of this post or this thread.

I want the same things. However, I'm fine with a game that supports other styles as long as it doesn't hinder mine. HP loss is one area that is either or, so if they want both they need optional rules.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Tony, can I suggest that you stop referring to games as "primitive" or "rudimentary?"

We are talking about games that came out within a couple years of the 'first' RPG. I could call them 'early' or 'primeval' or 'less evolved' or a lot of other things, but if I don't call them something that indicates they antedated any advancements or improvements in the 'industry,' over the last 30 years or so, I'd be lying.

 

[Hassassin]

We are talking about games that came out within a couple years of the 'first' RPG. I could call them 'early' or 'primeval' or 'less evolved' or a lot of other things, but if I don't call them something that indicates they antedated any advancements or improvements in the 'industry,' over the last 30 years or so, I'd be lying.

How about "old"?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not really as accurate in conveying the idea as 'primitive' or 'rudimentary.' And, 'less evolved' just sounds pompus. Maybe 'early?'

When you say 'old' RPG, you don't really have context, it could be from 2 years ago, but there's a newer one out. When you say 'early,' you get the idea that you're back where RPGs began... and RPGs have progressed quite a bit since their beginning.

 

[Jools]

In 4e (which I'm willing to do as a player, but most of my close friends won't try), the lack of logistics/spell planning, and the lack of randomness/suspense in combat (no PC ever dies) make it boring for me. I can see how no logistics is "Combat as Sport", with emphasis on balance, but a sport where you can't ever lose doesn't seem like much of a sport to me.

4e allows you to choose the difficulty of encounters from easy (never die) all the way up to almost guaranteed death. If you find your DM's game too easy ask them to crank it up a notch.