RPG Combat: Sport or War?

There are two different extremes in arranging fights. One is like war and the other is like a sporting event. Sporting events are supposed to be fair contests between roughly equal forces. On the other hand, war is the epitome of unfair competition.

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Jeffro Johnson introduced me to this topic, which was discussed in an ENWorld forum. If your game doesn't involve much combat this discussion may not mean a lot to you.

Strategem: a plan or scheme, especially one used to outwit an opponent or achieve an end

Any GAME implies fairness, equality of opportunity. Knightly jousting tournaments were combat as sport. We don't have semi-pro soccer teams playing in the Premier League, we don't have college basketball teams playing the NBA, because it would be boringly one-sided. People want to see a contest where it appears that both sides can win. And occasionally the weaker side, the underdog if there is one, wins even when they're not supposed to.

An obvious problem with combat as sport, with a fair fight, is that a significant part of the time your players will lose the fight. Unless they're really adept at recognizing when they're losing, and at fleeing the scene, this means somebody will get dead. Frequent death is going to be a tough hurdle in most campaigns.

The objective in war is to get such an overwhelming advantage that the other side surrenders rather than fight, and if they choose not to surrender then a "boring" one-sided massacre is OK. Stratagems are favored in war, not frowned upon. Trickery (e.g. with the inflation of the football) is frowned upon in sports in general, it's not fair, it's cheating.

Yet "All's fair in love and war." Read Glen Cook's fantasy Black Company series or think about mercenaries in general, they don't want a fair fight. They don't want to risk their lives. They want a surrender or massacre. The Black Company was great at using stratagems. I think of D&D adventurers as much like the Black Company, finding ways to win without giving the other side much chance.

When my wife used to GM first edition D&D, she'd get frustrated if we came up with good stratagems and strategies and wiped out the opposition without too much trouble. She felt she wasn't "holding up the side." She didn't understand that it's not supposed to be fair to the bad guys.

Think also that RPG adventures are much like adventure novels: we have to arrange that the players succeed despite the odds, much as the protagonists in a typical novel. In the novel the good guys are often fabulously lucky; in RPGs we can arrange that the players encounter opposition that should not be a big threat if the players treat combat as war rather than as a sport.

I'm not saying you need to stack the game in favor of the players, I'm saying that if the players do well at whatever they're supposed to do - presumably, in combat, out-thinking the other side -then they should succeed, and perhaps succeed easily. Just like Cook's Black Company.

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
Photo © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess that's one way to look at it - nothing quite says "LotR" like Keep on the Borderlands and the DMG city encounter table!

Of course, I do see the holes in it, now.

The wilderness evasion rules have slightly richer mechanics for resolving the chase. But the key to the dungeon purusit rules is (i) a different take on movement rates and how movement and combat interact from that which applies during rounds of combat, and (ii) a system of specified determinations (either random or pre-written), rather than spur-of-the-moment GM fiat, for determining whether pursuit occurs and continues.

For once I'm not remembering something from 30 years ago, and that still doesn't sound like the same thing...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Personally, I think they did poorly for practical purposes. You can easily bash in a skull with a fist-sized rock, but by the rules you need something about the size of a car to get anyone's attention.

I don't know the rules other than from [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s account of them in this thread, but at least as they've been presented I absolutely agree with this.

Are you arguing that a fist-sized rock should be more or less dangerous than a dagger or club?

As far as I recall, every edition would model that as an improvised weapon, dealing damage in the d4 to d6 range and giving a substantial penalty to the attack roll. The 1d6-per-100lbs was only for falling objects, rather than improvised weapons. That one strike from any hand weapon is insufficient to fell a mighty warrior in magical armor, or a powerful wizard, does not speak of a problem in the relative lethality between small rocks and crafted weapons.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's silly. Some game rules are just game rules, and some of them are just bad.

If you don't agree that the rules of the game exist as a reflection of the reality under which the game world operates, then it makes sense that may not understand exactly why Combat-as-Sport is so widely reviled. If you argue from the perspective that the rules don't necessarily reflect anything within the game world, then there's no common ground in which to discuss those rules with people who do ascribe to that as the central tenant of a role-playing game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Where did Gygax say that? Not in his PHB or DMG, both of which attribute high hit points to skill, luck, divine intervention, etc.

I wish I could find it. Someone mentioned it on these boards, in one of those interminable thread which keep popping up, and I remembered it because it actually made sense (as opposed to most of what Gary said). I'll let you know if I can find the reference.

The game also suggests that the terrain that comes into play will be commensurate to level/tier of play (see eg p 44 of the 4e DMG). The game doesn't anticipate that within a given campaign, dropping the ceiling on someone does different damage depending on the level of the dropper (or the victim of the drop). Once dropping is established as doing X damage, it does X damage.

If you want to argue that dropping a ceiling always does 2d85 damage because it's a heroic tier stunt, and dropping a building always does 3d8+10 damage because it's a paragon tier stunt, then that's a little bit more tolerable. I only played 4E until midway through paragon tier, and we were still at the point where we were dropping ceilings on people rather than entire buildings (albeit we were dropping those ceilings on giants rather than on orcs), but I don't know if that was just a failure of the game to convey the assumed escalation of stakes.

The sense that I got while playing 4E was very much like the feeling I get from high-level 5E, in that they were trying to flatten character growth (in some ways, if not others) so as to facilitate basic dungeon crawling adventures across an expanded range of levels. You might be wandering through some demon lord's castle in the Abyss, rather than some random goblin tunnels, but you still just kick down the door and fight whatever is in the room. That's why they removed the more open-ended spells from 2E and 3E that tended to make the game go weird. But again, that could have been a failure of the game to convey the tone they were going for.

So why does a fighter in AD&D, or 3E, or 5e, who ambushes and stabs someone, do only enough damage to kill a mook? (Whereas a thief or assassin might do more?)

Because the force generated by a sword thrust stays relatively consistent regardless of how experienced the wielder is, but the ability of an experienced warrior to withstand trauma does not. To contrast, a thief or assassin actually does get better at learning how to disable a helpless opponent, which they study at the expense of direct combat training. The warrior goes toe-to-toe with enemies, and learns how to strike at enemy weak points while protecting their own, while the thief or assassin spends relatively little time doing that and instead practices getting their blade at exactly the correct angle against an unaware foe to maximize the effect of the consistent force which they generate.

 

[Sunseeker]

It failed to hit a revenue goal set for it.

An absurd revenue goal. A revenue goal when Hasbro was treating their subsidiaries like milking cows while refusing to feed them. A revenue goal based on an almost completely different version of the game. A revenue goal that almost saw D&D canceled.

But I would hardly consider meeting corporate-giant revenue goals as a failed game. It may have led to earlier replacement, but keep in mind 4E published 60 books (including Essentials) while the vaunted 3E published 69. Only NINE books different. It would be more arguable that WotC's decision to not have an OGL and thus not get 3PP support for 4E was certainly a significant contributing factor to 4E's decline.

I'm not stupid. I'm not going to argue 4E was perfect. But it also my favorite edition of the game.

I don't know the rules other than from [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s account of them in this thread, but at least as they've been presented I absolutely agree with this.

The rules account for mass of the rock, that's about it. It doesn't factor in density, speed, or use. I mean, a mace is basically a rock on a stick right? But somehow when you hit someone with a rock, it's an improvised weapon, you get no strength bonus, and it deals something like 1d2 or 1d3 damage.

But if you hit someone with a boulder, suddenly it's like 16d6 because the rock has a 3' radius. Completely discounting the accuracy issues of throwing such an object, and ignoring how hard it was thrown, IF it was thrown at all, since a rock falling from the ceiling is almost exactly as deadly.

If you don't agree that the rules of the game exist as a reflection of the reality under which the game world operates, then it makes sense that may not understand exactly why Combat-as-Sport is so widely reviled. If you argue from the perspective that the rules don't necessarily reflect anything within the game world, then there's no common ground in which to discuss those rules with people who do ascribe to that as the central tenant of a role-playing game.

Well, okay I can buy that argument. More often than not, I feel game rules represent game elements. HP, AEDU powers, short/long rest recharges, these are not fundamental elements of the reality of existence in the gameworld. These are game elements designed to balance play in a manner to keep rogues engaged in combat, instead of simply waiting on the sidelines doing nothing for days until they stab someone in the back. These are game elements to overcome the fact that the Wizard bends reality around his little finger.

While I have seen a clear preference for combat-as-war in this thread, and even hold such a view myself simply because as was said upthread, combat-as-war allows for the option of combat-as-sport, I do not believe I have seen any serious expression of revulsion towards combat-as-sport.

Personally, if we're going to give the players a 90% chance to win any given fight anyway, then the fights are largely meaningless and how you approach them as a DM or a player is equally meaningless. If the game is designed to ensure you win regardless, then the outcome has been determined and the method doesn't matter.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The rules account for mass of the rock, that's about it. It doesn't factor in density, speed, or use. I mean, a mace is basically a rock on a stick right? But somehow when you hit someone with a rock, it's an improvised weapon, you get no strength bonus, and it deals something like 1d2 or 1d3 damage.

If you look at the rules as though they're trying to reflect something about the game world, then it does make a good amount of sense, within the context from which the rules were designed to address. The art of RPG design is about isolating relevant factors in order to simplify processes so that you can run them at the table. The main difference between a small rock and a club is that rocks are harder to hit someone with - you have better reach if the rock is on a stick, and nobody really trains or practices fighting with a rock in their hand - so that's represented by a penalty on the attack roll. I don't remember the part about not getting your Strength bonus, but if that's actually a rule, then it could have been implemented in order to represent other improvised weapons; a stick, for example, can't transmit that extra force because it's too flexible, or it will break in half if you swing it too hard (depending on its composition).

One of the common pitfalls that shows up in D&D heartbreakers is that they try to account for too many variables, when many of those variables would have a much smaller effect on the outcome than can be represented by the size of the die. The difference between a club made of stone and wood, and a solid iron mace, is not necessarily significant enough to warrant modeling at a mechanical level.

Personally, if we're going to give the players a 90% chance to win any given fight anyway, then the fights are largely meaningless and how you approach them as a DM or a player is equally meaningless. If the game is designed to ensure you win regardless, then the outcome has been determined and the method doesn't matter.

The best part of an impartial style of DMing - which might be considered Combat-as-War, by default, since there's no guarantee that any fight will be fair - is that nothing is predetermined. Whatever happens is just the result of the players making decisions for their characters in a world that doesn't really care about them. The only concession to the likelihood that the PCs will prevail is that the DM not design a world which is so incredibly lethal that anyone could die for no reason. Whether they succeed or fail at whatever they're trying to do, that's up to them.

Combat-as-Sport does seem pretty pointless to me, unless you really like using your powers to move people around on a grid, since the DM has pretty much decided that you're going to win anyway. And even if you do fail, due to some fluke of the dice or just poor planning, the DM is probably going to shoulder the blame for overestimating you. Once the DM has decided to meta-game, the players lose any agency they may have had in determining what happens. Where that model does excel is if you do like using your powers to move people around on a grid, since the game basically turns into a hyper-advanced chess match between the players and the DM. There's nothing wrong with liking a good miniatures tactics game, of course. I just don't really see the point of attaching it to an RPG.

 

[FrogReaver]

If you look at the rules as though they're trying to reflect something about the game world, then it does make a good amount of sense, within the context from which the rules were designed to address. The art of RPG design is about isolating relevant factors in order to simplify processes so that you can run them at the table. The main difference between a small rock and a club is that rocks are harder to hit someone with - you have better reach if the rock is on a stick, and nobody really trains or practices fighting with a rock in their hand - so that's represented by a penalty on the attack roll. I don't remember the part about not getting your Strength bonus, but if that's actually a rule, then it could have been implemented in order to represent other improvised weapons; a stick, for example, can't transmit that extra force because it's too flexible, or it will break in half if you swing it too hard (depending on its composition).

One of the common pitfalls that shows up in D&D heartbreakers is that they try to account for too many variables, when many of those variables would have a much smaller effect on the outcome than can be represented by the size of the die. The difference between a club made of stone and wood, and a solid iron mace, is not necessarily significant enough to warrant modeling at a mechanical level.
The best part of an impartial style of DMing - which might be considered Combat-as-War, by default, since there's no guarantee that any fight will be fair - is that nothing is predetermined. Whatever happens is just the result of the players making decisions for their characters in a world that doesn't really care about them. The only concession to the likelihood that the PCs will prevail is that the DM not design a world which is so incredibly lethal that anyone could die for no reason. Whether they succeed or fail at whatever they're trying to do, that's up to them.

Combat-as-Sport does seem pretty pointless to me, unless you really like using your powers to move people around on a grid, since the DM has pretty much decided that you're going to win anyway. And even if you do fail, due to some fluke of the dice or just poor planning, the DM is probably going to shoulder the blame for overestimating you. Once the DM has decided to meta-game, the players lose any agency they may have had in determining what happens. Where that model does excel is if you do like using your powers to move people around on a grid, since the game basically turns into a hyper-advanced chess match between the players and the DM. There's nothing wrong with liking a good miniatures tactics game, of course. I just don't really see the point of attaching it to an RPG.

I'm out. Accustations of metagaming shall not be tolerated! Have fun with your thread guys.

 

[pemerton]

Once the DM has decided to meta-game, the players lose any agency they may have had in determining what happens.

This claim is manifestly not true.

When a Basic D&D GM reads out the start of the Keep on the Borderland to the players, that is a metagame decision (to frame the PCs into a well-regarded low-level module). It doesn't thwart any agency.

When those players try to negotiate with the ogre, and the referee rolls a bad reaction and narrates (while looking at the player of the elf PC) "Well, maybe I could help you, but I've got this thing about elves ever since one killed my dog" that is metagaming: had there been no elf PC but a dwarf PC instead, the bad reaction might have been narrated in terms of a hostility to dwarves. But it doesn't thwart any agency.

A GM who secretly disregards the action resolution mechanics, or who lies to the players about the mechanical or the fictional state of the game, might deprive them of agency in some (perhaps many) contexts, but I don't see how that is relevant to this thread.

I only played 4E until midway through paragon tier

<snip>

The sense that I got while playing 4E was very much like the feeling I get from high-level 5E, in that they were trying to flatten character growth (in some ways, if not others) so as to facilitate basic dungeon crawling adventures across an expanded range of levels. You might be wandering through some demon lord's castle in the Abyss, rather than some random goblin tunnels, but you still just kick down the door and fight whatever is in the room.

I'm sorry that you had a poor GM for your 4e game.

 

[Sunseeker]

If you look at the rules as though they're trying to reflect something about the game world, then it does make a good amount of sense, within the context from which the rules were designed to address. The art of RPG design is about isolating relevant factors in order to simplify processes so that you can run them at the table. The main difference between a small rock and a club is that rocks are harder to hit someone with - you have better reach if the rock is on a stick, and nobody really trains or practices fighting with a rock in their hand - so that's represented by a penalty on the attack roll. I don't remember the part about not getting your Strength bonus, but if that's actually a rule, then it could have been implemented in order to represent other improvised weapons; a stick, for example, can't transmit that extra force because it's too flexible, or it will break in half if you swing it too hard (depending on its composition).

By and large, I feel these rules could be avoided entirely with simplifying the weapon system (which is again, a terrible representation of anything at all). Noone trains with hitting someone with a rock because as highly evolved monkeys we're pretty good at it by default. Grab rock, pick target, swing arm. We have to train with weapons to overcome the default "non proficient" penalty because weapons are specialized things and we need to master the various forces of physics involved in their operation. We don't train with rocks because we have default monkey proficiency.

To me, the more literal you take the rules as attempting to represent the reality of the game world, the more absurd the game world becomes.

One of the common pitfalls that shows up in D&D heartbreakers is that they try to account for too many variables, when many of those variables would have a much smaller effect on the outcome than can be represented by the size of the die. The difference between a club made of stone and wood, and a solid iron mace, is not necessarily significant enough to warrant modeling at a mechanical level.

I agree. I wish D&D's weapon system was less granular. Weapons should be given damage based on size, with the type (B/P/S) picked by the player and then the remainder fluffed as is necessary. Modeling individual weapons but then refusing to model the differences between wood, stone and metal is just obtuse logic. It's like half-assing it. Either do the job and do it all the way, or don't. By and large D&D systems mostly get half-way through, the designers realize "Holy hotcakes Batman, this is complicated!" and then stop. Forgetting that by traveling half-way down the path, they've set the viewer on the same road to come the same conclusion: "What happened to the rest of the path!?"

The best part of an impartial style of DMing - which might be considered Combat-as-War, by default, since there's no guarantee that any fight will be fair - is that nothing is predetermined. Whatever happens is just the result of the players making decisions for their characters in a world that doesn't really care about them. The only concession to the likelihood that the PCs will prevail is that the DM not design a world which is so incredibly lethal that anyone could die for no reason. Whether they succeed or fail at whatever they're trying to do, that's up to them.

Strong Disageement: this is not impartial. The NPCs are not players. They are not living human beings who have taken time out of their life to sit down at a table and have some good times together. The DM owes them them nothing. What you are describing is indifference.

Besides, the game already beat you to it. It's set the odds so high for player success that impartiality would actually be combat as a sport. The playing field is already uneven, drastically in favor of the players. Combat-as-sport actually evens the playing field, allowing for a DM to be impartial towards the participants.

Besides that, I don't think I've ever actually gamed with anyone who played like the OP or anyone favoring combat as war has ever described. They have almost always desired challenge in their fights. There's no challenge in an enemy who surrenders or gets massacred.

Combat-as-Sport does seem pretty pointless to me, unless you really like using your powers to move people around on a grid, since the DM has pretty much decided that you're going to win anyway.

Holy hotcakes Batman! You've got some skin in the game because this shot just came straight out of left field. Not only is it grossly misrepresenting everything I said but the insult to people who enjoy combat-as-sport is not at all lost on me. The game. Read it again the GAME, made by WotC has decided to set up the system heavily in favor of the players and YOU, YOU have made numerous posts about how it would be impossible to get anywhere in a game that actually split the odds 50/50, so NO you do not get to turn around and tell me that suddenly combat-as-sport leads to a setup where you know you're going to win.

NO. YOU. DON'T. GET. THAT.

Pick an argument and stick to it. Quote me when you do that. I'm done here.

/out

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm out. Accustations of metagaming shall not be tolerated! Have fun with your thread guys.

Accusations of meta-gaming are entirely warranted where meta-gaming is actually taking place. Meta-gaming shall not be tolerated!