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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7726734" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>C'mon, you don't see how Gandalf being a 5th level magic user peforming a Retributive Strike with his mostly-charged Staff of the Magi to kill a Type VI demon, making the 50% chance to plane-shift instead of vaporize, and leveling up, isn't 'Gandalf breaking the bridge to defeat the Balrog, and coming back later as Gandalf the White.' No? Seemed obvious to me when I was 14. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p> I dusted off the 1e DMG 'Pursuit & Evasion of Pursuit' rules, such as they were, a few years ago. There's not much to them. The slowest member of the party being chased by faster monsters was caught up to, and combat resumed.</p><p></p><p> D&D, if the DM designs encounters to 'challenge' his party, is prettymuch running in 'CaS' mode. All three WotC versions of D&D facilitate that by providing encounter-design guidelines. Such guidelines can also be used to make push-over or overwhelming encounters. </p><p></p><p> I think part of what makes CaW/CaS problematic is that it's used as if it were a quality of a game, when it was actually articulated as a style of play - and then went on to make claims about what games worked with what style. It's much like the problems GNS runs into, being a description of aspects of how people play games, and taken as a set of boxes to sort games & gamers into, denying any overlap. </p><p></p><p>An actual game is going to present players with a selection of meaningful, viable choices, and it's going to resolve conflict based on those choices and the mechanics. The examples we see of CaW tend not to be of games, but of bypassing the game, finding a series of choices that lead the DM ('cause it's always D&D get'n the CaW treatment) to make a ruling in favor of the PCs, without regard to the rules. Obviously, you can do that in any game, all you need is a GM willing to go for it. It's a style, maybe, at the outside, a game-the-DM strategy. </p><p>Examples of CaS, OTOH, tend to be examples of a game, and specifically of taking a guideline as a rule. If CR guidelines recommend 4 Ogres as a challenge, or a DC 25 lock as an obstacle at a certain level, they'll be misrepresented as rules. The lock's DC is 'set by the party level,' you 'can't encounter' a 7th ogre, etc - therefor, since you can't violate the guidelines-masquerading-as-rules, the game can 'only be run CaS.' Obviously, you can treat guidelines as such, it's just that, the more dependable the guidelines are, the more the DM can count on the challenge being too much if the party just take it on head-on.</p><p></p><p>The series of choices that might work for CaW with one GM might not with another - they might get you killed or get you a standard challenge. </p><p></p><p>CaW/CaS also gets represented as a difference in fiction rather than a difference in playstyle. For instance, carefully planning and prepping for a battle, acquiring specific gear, gaining specific aid, sneaking up on and overwhelming the enemy, might be presented as 'CaW narrative.' But, it could have been resolved as a series of checks, resource uses, & risks that were fairly-'balanced' and challenging and gave the players a CaS-appropriate chance of success. </p><p></p><p></p><p> It <em>failed</em> to hit a revenue goal set for it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7726734, member: 996"] C'mon, you don't see how Gandalf being a 5th level magic user peforming a Retributive Strike with his mostly-charged Staff of the Magi to kill a Type VI demon, making the 50% chance to plane-shift instead of vaporize, and leveling up, isn't 'Gandalf breaking the bridge to defeat the Balrog, and coming back later as Gandalf the White.' No? Seemed obvious to me when I was 14. ;) I dusted off the 1e DMG 'Pursuit & Evasion of Pursuit' rules, such as they were, a few years ago. There's not much to them. The slowest member of the party being chased by faster monsters was caught up to, and combat resumed. D&D, if the DM designs encounters to 'challenge' his party, is prettymuch running in 'CaS' mode. All three WotC versions of D&D facilitate that by providing encounter-design guidelines. Such guidelines can also be used to make push-over or overwhelming encounters. I think part of what makes CaW/CaS problematic is that it's used as if it were a quality of a game, when it was actually articulated as a style of play - and then went on to make claims about what games worked with what style. It's much like the problems GNS runs into, being a description of aspects of how people play games, and taken as a set of boxes to sort games & gamers into, denying any overlap. An actual game is going to present players with a selection of meaningful, viable choices, and it's going to resolve conflict based on those choices and the mechanics. The examples we see of CaW tend not to be of games, but of bypassing the game, finding a series of choices that lead the DM ('cause it's always D&D get'n the CaW treatment) to make a ruling in favor of the PCs, without regard to the rules. Obviously, you can do that in any game, all you need is a GM willing to go for it. It's a style, maybe, at the outside, a game-the-DM strategy. Examples of CaS, OTOH, tend to be examples of a game, and specifically of taking a guideline as a rule. If CR guidelines recommend 4 Ogres as a challenge, or a DC 25 lock as an obstacle at a certain level, they'll be misrepresented as rules. The lock's DC is 'set by the party level,' you 'can't encounter' a 7th ogre, etc - therefor, since you can't violate the guidelines-masquerading-as-rules, the game can 'only be run CaS.' Obviously, you can treat guidelines as such, it's just that, the more dependable the guidelines are, the more the DM can count on the challenge being too much if the party just take it on head-on. The series of choices that might work for CaW with one GM might not with another - they might get you killed or get you a standard challenge. CaW/CaS also gets represented as a difference in fiction rather than a difference in playstyle. For instance, carefully planning and prepping for a battle, acquiring specific gear, gaining specific aid, sneaking up on and overwhelming the enemy, might be presented as 'CaW narrative.' But, it could have been resolved as a series of checks, resource uses, & risks that were fairly-'balanced' and challenging and gave the players a CaS-appropriate chance of success. It [i]failed[/i] to hit a revenue goal set for it. [/QUOTE]
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