[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...

[pemerton]

a plot arc where the party cuts an enemy's supply route, for example, is possible in CAS play, but it's probably a background to the encounters the PCs find themselves in rather than their way to overcome an encounter or other challenge.

Or it would be an encounter in its own right - it would be the challenge.

 

[S'mon]

If all they do is react constantly to almost unanticipateable attacks from enemies that have no precise limits on what they can do then they'll tend to lose that agency...

Why would the PCs be unable to anticipate NPC attacks? They live in the same universe, with the same physical and magical laws. There may be some in-game cultural constraints on NPC action, the PCs may know about that too. Eg in a Viking game it may be routine tactics to burn down the farmstead the other guys are sleeping in; in a Western it may be honourable to duel in the street at high noon whereas shot-in-the-back is murder.

Your description of players 'losing agency' reminds me of certain turtle players I've seen. But IME turtle play was far more common in 3e than any other edition; partly because it was the only edition where high level play mandated that the GM not use the RAW if the game were to be playable.

 

[Hassassin]

Or it would be an encounter in its own right - it would be the challenge.

Sure.

 

[HorusZA]

You know, CaW requires a shitload more work from the DM in terms of game prep. As an example, the prison raid I ran tonight (Pathfinder) required me to write up the three main battles standing between the heroes and their goal, and that took a lot of my energy and time. A CaW version of the same fight would have required me to write up the entire prison complex, from start to bottom, and have a clear idea on the total numbers of soldiers in the entire complex - ninety percent of which would be unnecessary when the party decided on their way in.

Of course, my players seem to LIKE railroads. Saves on time and arguments.

On the other hand it could also be less work:
You don't have to worry about balance or designing specific encounters. You just write down what you think would be reasonable prison breakdown (10 x 2nd Level Guards, 2 x 5th Level Captains, etc.) The rest will come out in the wash...

 

[Mostlyjoe]

I sorry I found this post so late:

What's hilarious is I've spent years trying to describe the Combat As War (CAW) playstyle for ages. I even came up with a term for it with my group(s).

Magical Engineer Commandos

My groups have been playing like the fantasy version of the A-Team for years. I've posted threads about this before and was told "Go Read Black Company" and oh boy were they correct!

My players and I by extension love Standard Operating Procedures, out thinking the NPCS, and massive deck stacking.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Why would the PCs be unable to anticipate NPC attacks? They live in the same universe, with the same physical and magical laws. There may be some in-game cultural constraints on NPC action, the PCs may know about that too.

Presumably because the DM is just having them arbitrarily attacked out of the blue to prevent resting or prepping in a bid to keep a lid on caster power.

Your description of players 'losing agency' reminds me of certain turtle players I've seen. But IME turtle play was far more common in 3e than any other edition; partly because it was the only edition where high level play mandated that the GM not use the RAW if the game were to be playable.

I'm pretty sure I don't want to know, but:
'turtle play?'

 

[Tony Vargas]

I did have a player, a good friend, in a 4e game a fortnight ago who seemed to think it was unfair that a demon focused on his relatively fragile character rather than the Defender, then used an attack to finish off his already-dying PC. This was after the PC had already been felled & healed earlier in the fight, so the demon knew that 'dying' =/= 'out'.

That's a bit mean, yes. Demons are known for being more than a bit mean, though. Good job waiting to note healing before starting with the CdGs, though I'd wait for a second heal... Healing is common among 4e parties, and the heroes are plentifuly suplied with surges, but both are quite rare in the broader world. It's the heroes' 'plot armor.' Monsters have one surge, rarely ever have healing (regen, maybe, but it stops at 0), and die at 0. Persumably, they've spent their whole lives eating people who rarely ever get up when downed, and /never/ get up a second time... In light of that, not bothering to attack downed PCs makes a fair bit of sense. PCs are really shockingly unusual people.

 

[Mostlyjoe]

I'm pretty sure I don't want to know, but:
'turtle play?'

Maximum risk adversion. In play, it the caster who always casts defensively, is stacked to the brim with status defenses, and has enough healing and protection layed on them to make battleships jealous.

(aka. The Force Fields so thick you could bounce ping-pong balls of them.)

Combinatino of mindset in combat too, always using group back to back fighting, minimal risk for flanking. Shield up and then nuke from safety.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Why would the PCs be unable to anticipate NPC attacks? They live in the same universe, with the same physical and magical laws. There may be some in-game cultural constraints on NPC action, the PCs may know about that too. Eg in a Viking game it may be routine tactics to burn down the farmstead the other guys are sleeping in; in a Western it may be honourable to duel in the street at high noon whereas shot-in-the-back is murder.

Your description of players 'losing agency' reminds me of certain turtle players I've seen. But IME turtle play was far more common in 3e than any other edition; partly because it was the only edition where high level play mandated that the GM not use the RAW if the game were to be playable.

The question is really whether or not the DM can determine what the NPCs can and can't do and when, where, and how they will do it or not. Typically there are many unanswered questions about this kind of thing (speaking from experience and noting that I have a pretty detailed setting that has seen a LOT of play over 30 years). It isn't hard for the DM to come up with plausible situations where the PCs can be attacked, but do the PLAYERS really have the level of detailed information they would need to anticipate them? Generally not.

Of course it depends somewhat on the nature of the enemy. You may well be reasonably able to guess that the orc tribe will launch raids against your village and you can probably determine what orc tactics are. Orcs are fairly predictable opponents. The thieves guild OTOH? Unlikely to be very predictable at all. You better not jot out back to the loo, eat a meal you didn't cook yourself, etc etc etc. In the real world one can at least understand this sort of enemy and determine exactly what his resources probably are and decide when and where you're likely to be more or less safe. In a game, where the person organizing this opposition knows everything about you and has carte blanc to decide the details of exactly who's an informer, what sort of tools the bad guys have, etc the players will not really be able to do this.

Thus in effect the DM is probably going to say to himself something like "Hmmm, yeah, I won't mess with them in their castle because ...." and come up with some plan that HE considers plausible, but which the PCs really can't even find out about or anticipate because the plot doesn't exist until the DM invents it (IE "Oh, yeah, I know, the bartender actually owes the thieves guild 500gp, so he's going to look the other way while their guy slips poison into the character's ale"). That's the sort of thing that might logically happen, but there's practically zero chance even the most thorough DM has mapped out the entire web of relationships between NPCs and whatnot ahead of time such that the players could have their characters figure it all out.

CaW works pretty well when it is basically one-sided or the enemy is not exceptionally proactive or is reasonably limited in their means to respond. You can anticipate the orc tribe, set an ambush, foil their raid. Once you get into the level of more capable and flexible opponents it turns into more of a "what's fair" situation where the DM has almost unlimited options but will only choose to exercise some that create an interesting story. In fact at a strategic level it really becomes indistinguishable from 'CaS'.

Basically IME there's just no clear boundary between the two and rarely a hard distinction. I could certainly create settings where one or the other mode is prevalent. For instance you won't run into many downright dishonorable fights in our Alleterre campaign because its all about medieval knights and damsels, etc. There can be a few designated "dishonorable people/creatures/whatever" that you know not to count on to play by the conventions, but largely fights are fair. Clearly you could also create a Machiavellian court intrigue and backstabbing game where poisoned cups and backstabs are the rule of the day. Neither type IMHO is that close to what D&D normally is (and I note that I wouldn't use D&D as a system for either of the above settings).

 

[S'mon]

The thieves guild OTOH? Unlikely to be very predictable at all. You better not jot out back to the loo, eat a meal you didn't cook yourself, etc etc etc. In the real world one can at least understand this sort of enemy and determine exactly what his resources probably are and decide when and where you're likely to be more or less safe. In a game, where the person organizing this opposition knows everything about you and has carte blanc....

Eh, this keeps coming back to terrible, antagonistic DMing. Do you DM like that? If so, stop. Does your DM DM like that? If so, tell him to stop.

If not, then what is the problem? That you don't trust yourself NOT to be a crap DM?