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RPG Combat: Sport or War?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7726668" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>I'm not sure why you're assuming perfect knowledge here. In the real world, or in any believable game world, you rarely have perfect knowledge of your opponent. That's one of the main reasons <em>why</em> you need to take every advantage you can get - because you never know whether it will be the difference between life and death! If you could guarantee that you would win a direct engagement with negligible losses, then there would be no need to use tricky plots or clever traps; you'd just smash the enemy, and get on with your life.</p><p></p><p>To contrast, if you're using the Combat-as-Sport model, then you <em>do</em> know with significant certainty that the encounter is balanced in such a way that you'll probably win, or else the DM wouldn't have put it there with the expectation that you would face it. It's meta-game knowledge, but most advocates for that model seem okay with it.</p><p>As mentioned before, PCs very rarely engage in fair fights, where their chance of success is anything close to fifty percent. They either resist engaging unless they have a clear advantage, or the DM contrives to only place encounters that the PCs are likely to win. <em>That</em> is why characters frequently survive until level nine or higher. The de facto survival rate is significantly greater than ninety percent.</p><p></p><p><em>If</em> survival in each fight came down to a coin flip, <em>then</em> the likelihood of surviving eighty fights would be the same as winning eighty coin flips. That's basic statistics. But it isn't, so it's not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7726668, member: 6775031"] I'm not sure why you're assuming perfect knowledge here. In the real world, or in any believable game world, you rarely have perfect knowledge of your opponent. That's one of the main reasons [I]why[/I] you need to take every advantage you can get - because you never know whether it will be the difference between life and death! If you could guarantee that you would win a direct engagement with negligible losses, then there would be no need to use tricky plots or clever traps; you'd just smash the enemy, and get on with your life. To contrast, if you're using the Combat-as-Sport model, then you [I]do[/I] know with significant certainty that the encounter is balanced in such a way that you'll probably win, or else the DM wouldn't have put it there with the expectation that you would face it. It's meta-game knowledge, but most advocates for that model seem okay with it. As mentioned before, PCs very rarely engage in fair fights, where their chance of success is anything close to fifty percent. They either resist engaging unless they have a clear advantage, or the DM contrives to only place encounters that the PCs are likely to win. [I]That[/I] is why characters frequently survive until level nine or higher. The de facto survival rate is significantly greater than ninety percent. [I]If[/I] survival in each fight came down to a coin flip, [I]then[/I] the likelihood of surviving eighty fights would be the same as winning eighty coin flips. That's basic statistics. But it isn't, so it's not. [/QUOTE]
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