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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7459983" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Here's a few more:</p><p></p><p>Definition of combat</p><p>1 : a fight or contest between individuals or groups </p><p>2 : conflict, controversy </p><p>3 : active fighting in a war : action ·casualties suffered in combat</p><p> </p><p></p><p>But, more seriously, "Combat" has it's own range and nuances of meaning in our hobby. It can be outright rules jargon, but, at least, it should reasonably be understood to mean anything pertaining to the combat rules/resolution/play in an RPG. </p><p></p><p>Many RPGs have Combat rules that make it quite hard for a PC to die, and fairly convenient for them to avoid killing. Even the most popular RPG of all time, D&D, currently has very generous 'death save' rules, healing, &c, that make combat far from lethal after 1st level or so, and makes it pretty easy (declare after the fact with any melee attack) to KO rather than kill.</p><p></p><p>And with good, gamist, reasons, too. If there were an appreciable risk of PC death in every, or even most combats, few PCs would rise even to the levels were Raise Dead becomes practacble. It's just statistics. Even a 5% risk of PC death per 'hard' combat would have more than half of 5e D&D PCs dead by level 4, for instance (there's just a lot of combats to earn the neccesary exp to level up).</p><p></p><p>Heck, even a 1% chance of death per combat would statistically work out to half of PCs dying before 10th level. Most campaigns, that doesn't seem to happen, so I don't think that the risk of death is generally that meaningful in RPG combats.</p><p></p><p>Now, maybe you're right and it's a smoke & mirrors thing - the /perception/ of the risk of death is there to provide drama, though the reality isn't meaningful. That's not unfair: it's not like any of it's real to begin with, what's one more layer of illusion or imagination?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7459983, member: 996"] Here's a few more: Definition of combat 1 : a fight or contest between individuals or groups 2 : conflict, controversy 3 : active fighting in a war : action ·casualties suffered in combat But, more seriously, "Combat" has it's own range and nuances of meaning in our hobby. It can be outright rules jargon, but, at least, it should reasonably be understood to mean anything pertaining to the combat rules/resolution/play in an RPG. Many RPGs have Combat rules that make it quite hard for a PC to die, and fairly convenient for them to avoid killing. Even the most popular RPG of all time, D&D, currently has very generous 'death save' rules, healing, &c, that make combat far from lethal after 1st level or so, and makes it pretty easy (declare after the fact with any melee attack) to KO rather than kill. And with good, gamist, reasons, too. If there were an appreciable risk of PC death in every, or even most combats, few PCs would rise even to the levels were Raise Dead becomes practacble. It's just statistics. Even a 5% risk of PC death per 'hard' combat would have more than half of 5e D&D PCs dead by level 4, for instance (there's just a lot of combats to earn the neccesary exp to level up). Heck, even a 1% chance of death per combat would statistically work out to half of PCs dying before 10th level. Most campaigns, that doesn't seem to happen, so I don't think that the risk of death is generally that meaningful in RPG combats. Now, maybe you're right and it's a smoke & mirrors thing - the /perception/ of the risk of death is there to provide drama, though the reality isn't meaningful. That's not unfair: it's not like any of it's real to begin with, what's one more layer of illusion or imagination? [/QUOTE]
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