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

[GSHamster]

There are two supers. One has life support and can survive in an environment with no atmosphere (cheap). The other has paid for an attack that causes his opponents to suffocate (expensive). It sounds to me like Majoru Oakheart would find it unfair for the character with life support to sucker an opponent into a low-pressure area and let the lack of atmosphere do in his opponent. He didn't pay for that attack but he used the environment around him (maybe he suckered his opponent into an airlock on the satellite base and got them both blown out) to achieve an effect that someone else paid (a lot) for.

The thing is that this plan is dependent on a lot of DM-fiat variables. First, the enemy super has to be suckered into the airlock. That means the player super has to convince the DM that the enemy should run into the airlock, instead of pulling up.

After all, why should the players be the one to dictate the battlefield? Surely the enemy super has a vested interest in playing on his own turf.

Second, how often does this happen? If it happens once, that's fine. If it happens a lot, say a space campaign, then it's clear that the ability is undercosted, and the player is exploiting that cost.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Because the Rogue had to actually come up with a viable plan, whereas you just say: "I cast fireball". There's nothing stopping you from both taking 'fireball' and also coming up with viable plans.
Unless you're saying that lazy 'fireballing' play should be equally as effective as creative 'MacGuyer' play, in which case I'm not impressed.

In my experience, a "creative" solution is never done just once. If a player determines that with a sword and some rope he can make a trap that kills the next monster to walk through a door, exceeding the damage of all the abilities on his sheet...you can bet that the SOP at doors now is to rig the door, make a bunch of noise and wait 5 minutes to see if a monster comes through and dies. At EVERY door.

In a way, however, I do believe the game should encourage you to use the abilities on your character sheet. I want the game to be sword and sorcery...heroic PCs who stand up against the enemies with sword and spell in hand and heroically defeat the enemies, while taking a bunch of damage in the process. Battles that end with the PCs taking no damage at all aren't satisfying for me as a player or a DM. There wasn't any risk involved. Which takes away the tension.

It becomes even worse when spells BECOME your "creative" play. Like the first time you determine that if you use a fireball on the roof, the DM is willing to rule that it causes the whole roof(but only the area right under your fireball) to collapse and instantly kill anything standing beneath it. Then it becomes more useful to use your fireball on the roof than it does on the enemy. So, every battle you see a fireball to the roof. You try the same thing with single target spells when the room is too small for fireballs. It might be interesting the first time, but the 50th time? Plus, I hate when players get the attitude of "It's the super powerful archmage who is going to destroy the world and we've been hunting for 10 levels? YAWN! I shoot the roof above him. He's buried in enough rock to kill him...if it doesn't kill him, he can't move or breathe to cast any more spells and he'll die soon. That was easy."

 

[billd91]

The thing is that this plan is dependent on a lot of DM-fiat variables. First, the enemy super has to be suckered into the airlock. That means the player super has to convince the DM that the enemy should run into the airlock, instead of pulling up.

After all, why should the players be the one to dictate the battlefield? Surely the enemy super has a vested interest in playing on his own turf.

Second, how often does this happen? If it happens once, that's fine. If it happens a lot, say a space campaign, then it's clear that the ability is undercosted, and the player is exploiting that cost.

Well sure, that's why I try to reasonably role play the enemy. If he's kind of dumb or super aggressive, he'll advance into the airlock. He probably doesn't even recognize his potential danger. Smarter opponents won't fall for it though. Sometimes the smart villain will turn the tables on the hero too. It happens. I'm not going to water down the effects of successful counterplans either.

 

[Alzrius]

In my experience, a "creative" solution is never done just once. If a player determines that with a sword and some rope he can make a trap that kills the next monster to walk through a door, exceeding the damage of all the abilities on his sheet...you can bet that the SOP at doors now is to rig the door, make a bunch of noise and wait 5 minutes to see if a monster comes through and dies. At EVERY door.

This.

While there are certainly exceptions, most of my experiences with players in role-playing games has them less worried about creating a powerful narrative, or looking for the most creative solution to a given problem, than they are with finding effective solutions. What do they do once they find those solutions?

They spam them as much as they possibly can.

Hence why I think that systems which encourage player tactical creativity and narrative drama tend to somewhat miss the point. Players want their game to make a good story, but that desire is secondary to (or rather, a subset of) wanting to win.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I suggest either running a CAS game (eg 4e D&D), or else if you do want to keep a CAW element, then run a much lower-magic game with fewer variables for you to be outsmarted by. Your earlier example of a 20th level Wizard who drowns in rock-to-mud would seem to indicate that it doesn't exactly take brilliant tactics to outsmart your BBEGs, or you. If you regard something as trivial as that as 'unfair' on you and the other players I think your tactical ability is well below what CAW-D&D (any edition pre-4e) expects from a DM.

I admit, I'm a lazy DM. I've run almost nothing but adventures I purchased or downloaded for years now. Mainly because I don't have the time to come up with stuff in between everything else I like to do. But also because things like this make it 10 times harder.

I've had this conversation in another thread...but making an enemy ceases to become an effort in choosing cool spells to use in battle, but becomes a checklist of counter spells to common PC tactics. And if I miss even one of the counter spells, then the PCs win by using that tactic. Combat becomes a rock paper scissors effort of "Spell", "Counterspell". And I always forget at least one of the spells.

I wasn't the DM in question that the Rock to Mud worked against. It was one of my first DMs who taught me how to play. And I believe Rock to Mud followed by Mud to Rock was the common tactic. Then you just had to convince the DM that "chest high" was easily enough to trap the enemies arms and then they were basically helpless. I saw it done a number of times until the DM just started arbitrarily saying "Mud? The enemies run for the edge of the mud pool and get out as their action this turn." Previous to that, they used to do the obvious: "Mud? You plan on stopping me with MUD!?!? Hah hah hah...I cast a spell at you from inside the mud."

Then, when the group realized that the DM was going to have all enemies metagame getting out of the mud as soon as possible to avoid the next round Mud to Rock, they simply cast Rock to Mud as an effort to remove an entire turn from the enemy(since they would waste their turn leaving the area of effect). It eventually got to the point where it was so common to open the battle with a Rock to Mud that the DM said the game was getting no fun being exactly the same every time. A bunch of the other players agreed and we all came to the conclusion that we should stop using cheesy tactics and stick with legitimate ones. So we made a gentleman's agreement not to do it because it was ruining lots of people's fun.

It's not a matter of "tactical" ability. I use what the enemies have at hand...often that's nothing or at least nothing useful. The PCs have all of the dirty tricks they've come up with and brought with them. I'm running a prewritten adventure where the NPC Wizard didn't even prepare Dispel Magic. I spent my time reading through the adventure so I would know what is happening. They spent their time coming up with new and innovative ways to kill enemies without a fair fight. Most of which they read on the internet or were told by someone they met at a convention.

Or I'm running a battle between them and a 20th level Barbarian with 6 Int who I'm trying to play to his intelligence. He runs forward and smacks the closest thing he can see until it dies. The PCs Forcecage him and shoot fireballs and arrows through the cracks of the cage.

To me, "creative" play actively encourages the game to go off of genre. You don't see Gimli or Gandalf or Drizzt or The Seeker(in the TV show at least) doing those kinds of things. They fight the enemy with their weapons and spells.

I don't deny good ideas, before people accuse me of that. If you have a good idea, I'll give you a benefit for it. But it won't be instant defeat of the enemy. It might give the enemies a penalty or they might take damage equal to one of your dailies without having to use up any resources. But I dislike the idea of instant win buttons and working AROUND the system. Enemies have hitpoints for a reason. To defeat them you need to deplete those hitpoints. Nothing should work around them. Even clever ideas need to work WITHIN the hitpoint rules and should give you a benefit without it being an overwhelmingly powerful one.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't consider anything terribly clever if it can be easily replicated. That's actually part of my criteria for deciding whether or not to reward "clever play" with in game awards.

After all, if it is that easy to replicate, then someone has probably come up with it before, and the characters heard about while swapping tales down at the guild hall (i.e. they read it on the internet instead of coming up with it themselves).

If the party finds a couple of huge kegs of lamp oil in and underground complex, stored in a place such that it is hard to get where they want it ideally placed, and hard to get lit at just the right moment to make maximum use of it--then a plan that accomplishes all that is probably at least somewhat clever. I'm happy for a big effect to get attached to that, and if it more or less wipes out half the encounter, fine.

They won't start carrying around 2 kegs of oil that don't even fit into a bag of holding. I know this, BTW, because it is an actual play example.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

How is unfair to the other players if one player comes up with an encounter-ending idea? Can't the other ones do so as well?

Sometimes they can, sometimes they can't. Different players have different levels of "creativity". Some of the people I've played with never come up with ideas that are very outside the box. They don't think that way. One in particular comes to mind. Some players feel like I do, that such things are "unfair" and they've rather have a fair fight with the enemy. Either from a sense of personal honor or roleplaying their character's honor. Other times, it's a matter of resources. The Fighter has a sword. The Wizard has 20 spells, each of which when interpreted broadly enough can have way more effect than the game designers likely intended. The Fighter likely has an 8 Int and when roleplayed correctly doesn't come up with super intelligent ideas. The Wizard has an 18 Int and should be expected to come up with these things. This adds up to the Wizard doing crazy out of the box ideas that defeat the enemy in one round nearly every combat while the Fighter is restricted to "I attack it with my sword."

For me, it's rarely the knockdown drag out fights of attrition that I remember. It's the flashy ones in which unusual and different things happen that stand out in the long run. It's one reason I think 4e may not be doing so well. You fight lots of grindy fights, and what stands out years later?

I don't know, I remember the hard fights. Like when we fought a primordial. Or that fight where the giants kept kicking my character into the freezing water. I'd run out and they've kick me back in again. Or that battle where all the enemies drained healing surges and we had to pull out our big guns to kill them as quickly as possible.

Yes, in each of those cases it was something "unusual" happening. But they were unusual and still within the confines of the hitpoint system(except maybe the healing surge loss, but that's a topic for another day). The lake did damage when he kicked me into it, but it wasn't more damage than he could do with his normal attacks.

That suggests, to me, that you put too much of your own ego into your creations as a GM. You can't really choose what elements of your game the players will remember and think well about in years to come. You can't expect your players to not mess up the encounters you set up without railroading them away from doing so. If faced with a similar issue, I would simply tell the players that they outsmarted the BBEG, who are always built with the recognition that they are one guy who can't possibly account for everything the PCs can do, and then graciously congratulate them for having a cunning plan. As I see it, that's part of DM's job. It's like being the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters.

Yet, years later when they tell the story, it's still to make fun of me for not planning ahead. Not pride at how they defeated the enemy. Even they will admit that the reason they keep telling the story is because it was so funny. And it was funny because it was the exact opposite of expectations. They expected to nearly die...instead they didn't take any damage at all.

I've seen them fight long, drawn out, difficult encounters. They take pride in defeating them and enjoy them. Which is why I try to make sure at least the boss fights are like that. But they also enjoy killing things in one hit. Killing things in one hit is no fun for ME however, so I rule that it doesn't work(at least in important fights).

As for ego, I think some DMs are TOO neutral and selfless. The goal of the DM is to make sure EVERYONE, including the DM is having fun. If the players have fun in a way that makes the game no fun for the DM, then it needs to be changed. I refuse to be a martyr just to be the DM. It already takes a lot of work, if anything I have a little MORE right to have fun than the players.

Also, it isn't about ego. It's about spending 3 hours writing up the stats of an enemy, 6 months of playing time building suspense and tension to the final meeting of the ultimate boss only to have him die under a pile of rocks while he's in the middle of a monologue about how the PCs are doomed. It's a waste of time and effort for me.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

They won't start carrying around 2 kegs of oil that don't even fit into a bag of holding. I know this, BTW, because it is an actual play example.

Just wait until someone finds a portable hole.

I remember a time that my all warforged party realized that no one had to breathe, so they put themselves all in the portable hole except for the druid who turned into a bird, picked up the piece of cloth and flew passed every encounter I had planned to get to the center of the island they were trying to get to.

Then they realized they could do it as many times as they wanted.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Just wait until someone finds a portable hole.

Extra dimensional spaces are one of the D&D aspects that bring out my inner rat bastard DM. Besides, they know full well that if they started carrying around that much lamp oil, I'd keep putting them in situations where it exploded.

Plus, my normal response to any attempt to try such things several times in a row is, "Do you really want this to be standard operating procedure, knowing full well that it will be available to intelligent enemies?" Then the players vote amongst themselves, and whatever they decide, that's the way we play it for the rest of the campaign. They rarely vote in the affirmative.

 

[GSHamster]

I agree with Majoru Oakheart. The archetypical Buff-Scry-Teleport is Combat as War at its "finest".

And it is brutally hard to defend against that constantly without warping the game. That's what a lot of CaW turns into, especially with spells. If a particular spell combo works once, it gets pulled out over and over again.