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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6035416" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], I agree that "the warrior" has a central place in heroic fantasy in a way that "the front handspringer" does not. And that it is this centrality that helps warrant 4e's detailed treatment of combat in comparison to non-combat.</p><p></p><p>But I also think that there is something about the physicality of combat that means it lends itself to a detailed treatment. I'm not saying that an RPG <em>has</em> to treat combat in detail - that would be silly. But I find it hard to envision treating social conflict with the same degree of detail. BW breaks melee combat down into heartbeats, for example - but I can't imagine breaking the resolution of a debate down into heartbeats and BW (with its Duel of Wits) doesn't try to. When you break a combat down into that level of detail, you can still see events that are meaningful elements of the combat - slashes, parries, footwork etc. If you break a debate down into that level of detail, you can no longer see meaningful elements of the debate - you're into individual words or sentence fragments or pauses for breath whose contribution to the debate has become invisible.</p><p></p><p>I think what I'm saying is that, if you want to do combat in intimate detail, you can. And heroic fantasy has a natural reason to want to do so. Whereas, even if you wanted to do social conflict in intimate mechanical detail, it is much harder. Should a narrativist engine therefore do all conflict only at the abstact level? That's a reasonable way to go (Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars/Quest), but I don't think it has to be the only way to go (Burning Wheel, 4e).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6035416, member: 42582"] [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], I agree that "the warrior" has a central place in heroic fantasy in a way that "the front handspringer" does not. And that it is this centrality that helps warrant 4e's detailed treatment of combat in comparison to non-combat. But I also think that there is something about the physicality of combat that means it lends itself to a detailed treatment. I'm not saying that an RPG [i]has[/I] to treat combat in detail - that would be silly. But I find it hard to envision treating social conflict with the same degree of detail. BW breaks melee combat down into heartbeats, for example - but I can't imagine breaking the resolution of a debate down into heartbeats and BW (with its Duel of Wits) doesn't try to. When you break a combat down into that level of detail, you can still see events that are meaningful elements of the combat - slashes, parries, footwork etc. If you break a debate down into that level of detail, you can no longer see meaningful elements of the debate - you're into individual words or sentence fragments or pauses for breath whose contribution to the debate has become invisible. I think what I'm saying is that, if you want to do combat in intimate detail, you can. And heroic fantasy has a natural reason to want to do so. Whereas, even if you wanted to do social conflict in intimate mechanical detail, it is much harder. Should a narrativist engine therefore do all conflict only at the abstact level? That's a reasonable way to go (Maelstrom Storytelling, HeroWars/Quest), but I don't think it has to be the only way to go (Burning Wheel, 4e). [/QUOTE]
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