Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
RPG Combat: Sport or War?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7726680"><p>I'm sorry, but my point has been so horribly misrepresented I have to tear this apart line by line.</p><p></p><p>I already answered this: because previous posts discussing combat as war have assumed as such. They may not have said so explicitly, but the way they talk about "gathering your forces until you either force surrender or cause a massacre" implies as much. This is entirely unreaslistic to how war works. Yeah, <em>ideally</em> you gather strength until you overwhelm your enemy. But <em>realistically</em> you strike when presented with an opportunity, even if you are not at a place to create a total surrender or complete massacre.</p><p></p><p>Again: I answered this in the post your quoted. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Well we're talking about D&D aren't we? I don't want to hear anything about how 3E represents boulders if you're going to start saying "in reality" now. We're talking about a <em>game</em> and a game does not work like reality.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There is only one portion of this that matters: "every advantage you can get" ie: every advantage <em>possible</em>. In war, there are an infinity of possible advantages, but only some of them are <em>possible</em> It's known as "opportunity cost". For every opportunity you wish you to gain there is a cost in other lost opportunities. If one could guarantee that the Enemy was a fixed target and you could simply avoid it until you had gained sufficient strength to overcome it with ease, everyone would do it! But that's not how reality <em>or </em>the game works. </p><p></p><p>Besides, in a game like D&D, from whence does that "extra strength" come? You don't really get much XP for defeating challenges that you've completely out-matched and are no longer a threat.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This is as absurd as it is implausible. You want to talk to me about "in reality" and then tell me how we can guarantee victory in a direct engagement? There's a reason that even some of the most qualified tacticians in the world are the folks who say things like "No plan survives contact with the enemy." or "There are known known, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns." These are people who know their stuff plainly saying that we can never guarantee <em>anything</em>. We can develop reasonably sound approaches to problems</p><p></p><p></p><p>I have never provided my players with any certainty that they will win a fight. Probably because a use a "spwart" model of gameplay. It's up to the players to assess the variables and develop a plan of action for any given fight. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Not really. There's a reason we started killing each other with swords and daggers instead of rocks.</p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Weapons</em> cause <em>specific</em> trauma. You can easily puncture a lung, slice the heart, skewer a kidney, disembowel someone with a bladed weapon. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The physics issue you're missing is that 10000lb rock does not transfer the entirety of it's force to the puny human. It's one of the reasons humans can survive car accidents (and falling from 30000 ft). The human body bends, twists and ultimately gives way after a very (comparatively) light application of force. Even if you steeled your body, arms out to attempt to stop the rock, you're more than likely to just end up with a LOT of broken bones, as the force and mass of the rock is so great it will hit you, transfer a small portion of it's kinetic energy into your body and then <em>keep going</em>. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Now it's safe to say that D&D does a terrible job representing health and combat anyway. Realistically noone would likely have more than 20HP, damage would affect us differently depending on the body part that received the damage and players would drop like flies to mere infections from a glancing blow. </p><p></p><p></p><p>3E rules do worse than <em>trying</em> to emulate physics. They fail at it. They do worse than representing human health, they <em>fail</em> at it. They represent it so badly that WotC rightly discovered that <em>no</em> representation is superior to <em>bad</em> representation.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Attempting to argue and impart real world physics into a game like D&D is absolutely pointless.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 7726680"] I'm sorry, but my point has been so horribly misrepresented I have to tear this apart line by line. I already answered this: because previous posts discussing combat as war have assumed as such. They may not have said so explicitly, but the way they talk about "gathering your forces until you either force surrender or cause a massacre" implies as much. This is entirely unreaslistic to how war works. Yeah, [I]ideally[/I] you gather strength until you overwhelm your enemy. But [I]realistically[/I] you strike when presented with an opportunity, even if you are not at a place to create a total surrender or complete massacre. Again: I answered this in the post your quoted. Well we're talking about D&D aren't we? I don't want to hear anything about how 3E represents boulders if you're going to start saying "in reality" now. We're talking about a [I]game[/I] and a game does not work like reality. There is only one portion of this that matters: "every advantage you can get" ie: every advantage [I]possible[/I]. In war, there are an infinity of possible advantages, but only some of them are [I]possible[/I] It's known as "opportunity cost". For every opportunity you wish you to gain there is a cost in other lost opportunities. If one could guarantee that the Enemy was a fixed target and you could simply avoid it until you had gained sufficient strength to overcome it with ease, everyone would do it! But that's not how reality [I]or [/I]the game works. Besides, in a game like D&D, from whence does that "extra strength" come? You don't really get much XP for defeating challenges that you've completely out-matched and are no longer a threat. This is as absurd as it is implausible. You want to talk to me about "in reality" and then tell me how we can guarantee victory in a direct engagement? There's a reason that even some of the most qualified tacticians in the world are the folks who say things like "No plan survives contact with the enemy." or "There are known known, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns." These are people who know their stuff plainly saying that we can never guarantee [I]anything[/I]. We can develop reasonably sound approaches to problems I have never provided my players with any certainty that they will win a fight. Probably because a use a "spwart" model of gameplay. It's up to the players to assess the variables and develop a plan of action for any given fight. Not really. There's a reason we started killing each other with swords and daggers instead of rocks. [I]Weapons[/I] cause [I]specific[/I] trauma. You can easily puncture a lung, slice the heart, skewer a kidney, disembowel someone with a bladed weapon. The physics issue you're missing is that 10000lb rock does not transfer the entirety of it's force to the puny human. It's one of the reasons humans can survive car accidents (and falling from 30000 ft). The human body bends, twists and ultimately gives way after a very (comparatively) light application of force. Even if you steeled your body, arms out to attempt to stop the rock, you're more than likely to just end up with a LOT of broken bones, as the force and mass of the rock is so great it will hit you, transfer a small portion of it's kinetic energy into your body and then [I]keep going[/I]. Now it's safe to say that D&D does a terrible job representing health and combat anyway. Realistically noone would likely have more than 20HP, damage would affect us differently depending on the body part that received the damage and players would drop like flies to mere infections from a glancing blow. 3E rules do worse than [I]trying[/I] to emulate physics. They fail at it. They do worse than representing human health, they [I]fail[/I] at it. They represent it so badly that WotC rightly discovered that [I]no[/I] representation is superior to [I]bad[/I] representation. Attempting to argue and impart real world physics into a game like D&D is absolutely pointless. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
RPG Combat: Sport or War?
Top