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[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5807911" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Wars are meant to destroy the enemy's ability and will to fight. Sports are not /easy/, some of them are torturously hard. People die 'playing' sports. </p><p></p><p>D&D is just a game. It's supposed to be fun. It's not something you should be considering taking performance-enhancing drugs to win (a sport), and it's certainly not something you should be considering firebombing civilian populations to win (a war).</p><p></p><p>So, no, I don't really quite feel you answered my question.</p><p></p><p>All you said was you wanted a challenging game. A challenging game /should/ still have rules and those rules should still be fair. Whether you, as a GM, want to present players with a measured challenge they're likely to overcome (because thats what your story demands), or an overwhleming challenge they'll have to bring their 'A Game' to for a 50/50 shot at survival, you can do it with a balanced game, and anything in-between, as well. </p><p></p><p></p><p>...</p><p></p><p></p><p>In case you missed it, the OPs take-away was that 3.5 was a 'combat as war' game, and 4e a 'combat as sport' game. That is, 4e presents no challenge, while 3.5 does.</p><p></p><p>This is patently false. The difference between 3.5 and 4e is that the former is poorly balanced. That does mean that you can go all 'combat as war' with it - against your players, against your DM, pvp, whatever - in that the rules aren't up to the task of making you 'play fair.' That's not really 'war,' it's more like a sport without referees, with doping, and mob involvement. It's a /bad/ sport that plays out like a war. </p><p></p><p>That doesn't mean you can't love it. I quite enjoyed it for most of it's life, there's a long list of games I'd play 3.5 in preference to - some of them, like GURPS, arguably quite superior to it. It doesn't mean you have to rationalize or justify enjoying it by making up reasons it's flaws are features.</p><p></p><p>Which is all this thread is. Rationalizing a preference for a game that isn't quite as technically good as its successor.</p><p></p><p>If 5e beats the odds and turns out better than 4e, you'll see similar threads defending the preference for it, just as unecessarily.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5807911, member: 996"] Wars are meant to destroy the enemy's ability and will to fight. Sports are not /easy/, some of them are torturously hard. People die 'playing' sports. D&D is just a game. It's supposed to be fun. It's not something you should be considering taking performance-enhancing drugs to win (a sport), and it's certainly not something you should be considering firebombing civilian populations to win (a war). So, no, I don't really quite feel you answered my question. All you said was you wanted a challenging game. A challenging game /should/ still have rules and those rules should still be fair. Whether you, as a GM, want to present players with a measured challenge they're likely to overcome (because thats what your story demands), or an overwhleming challenge they'll have to bring their 'A Game' to for a 50/50 shot at survival, you can do it with a balanced game, and anything in-between, as well. ... In case you missed it, the OPs take-away was that 3.5 was a 'combat as war' game, and 4e a 'combat as sport' game. That is, 4e presents no challenge, while 3.5 does. This is patently false. The difference between 3.5 and 4e is that the former is poorly balanced. That does mean that you can go all 'combat as war' with it - against your players, against your DM, pvp, whatever - in that the rules aren't up to the task of making you 'play fair.' That's not really 'war,' it's more like a sport without referees, with doping, and mob involvement. It's a /bad/ sport that plays out like a war. That doesn't mean you can't love it. I quite enjoyed it for most of it's life, there's a long list of games I'd play 3.5 in preference to - some of them, like GURPS, arguably quite superior to it. It doesn't mean you have to rationalize or justify enjoying it by making up reasons it's flaws are features. Which is all this thread is. Rationalizing a preference for a game that isn't quite as technically good as its successor. If 5e beats the odds and turns out better than 4e, you'll see similar threads defending the preference for it, just as unecessarily. [/QUOTE]
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