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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="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5810050" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>From my perspective, I don't really care about either CaW or CaS. Or to be more productive about it, I suppose that I'm quite willing to use either technique towards the primary goal, which is to somewhat replicate the tone and events of a high fantasy novel or movie, within the RPG medium. That means that <strong>knowing</strong> what is a fair fight is more important than having one. Moreover, this extends to the players as well. Then you tack on the requirement that we are older, have kids, don't want Fantasy Vietnam--that is, the players need some room to screw up without bringing the whole thing down like a house of cards.</p><p> </p><p>One of the key things that 4E brings to the table when you choose to run it as a sandbox, no default encounter balance, is that encounters that aren't winnable are seldom <strong>immediately</strong> fatal. This would seem to be something that would be valuable to all but the most hardcore of the CaW fans. (That is, those that go with the idea that if you get into a fight without knowing you can win, you've already "lost".) And in fairness to 4E and its critics, it is easy to run 4E as a sandbox if you already know how, but nothing in the rules teaches you how to do so.</p><p> </p><p>Ideally, then, for my purposes, combat length would scale up or down as warranted. If the players work hard and get information that lets them know not to tangle yet with the red dragon in the cave, then they don't go there. But if they do go there, the conflict/tension is: A.) Do they recognize they are outmatched in time to run? B.) What do they risk losing while running? In other words, the time we want to spend is less about the fight itself and more about the conflict. OTOH, if this is a fight they can win, then we don't mind going into slow motion and playing it out. That's back to high fantasy. And some orcs met along would get brushed aside.</p><p> </p><p>This would seem to suggest that one way to handle supporting both styles in a single game would be to make the default resolution "conflict resolution" similar to many Indie games, and only drill down into the task resolution options for the fights that are either "fair" for the CaS fans or "critical" for the CaW fans. Different tables would, of course, pick different times to so drill down. (4E hinted at this divide a bit with skill challenges, but Skill Challenges Version 1.0 fell far short of their potential in this regard.) Conflict resolution can give you faster, more meaningful resolution in the CaW sense in an unfair fight, because it is so often about defining the stakes instead of modeling the process.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5810050, member: 54877"] From my perspective, I don't really care about either CaW or CaS. Or to be more productive about it, I suppose that I'm quite willing to use either technique towards the primary goal, which is to somewhat replicate the tone and events of a high fantasy novel or movie, within the RPG medium. That means that [B]knowing[/B] what is a fair fight is more important than having one. Moreover, this extends to the players as well. Then you tack on the requirement that we are older, have kids, don't want Fantasy Vietnam--that is, the players need some room to screw up without bringing the whole thing down like a house of cards. One of the key things that 4E brings to the table when you choose to run it as a sandbox, no default encounter balance, is that encounters that aren't winnable are seldom [B]immediately[/B] fatal. This would seem to be something that would be valuable to all but the most hardcore of the CaW fans. (That is, those that go with the idea that if you get into a fight without knowing you can win, you've already "lost".) And in fairness to 4E and its critics, it is easy to run 4E as a sandbox if you already know how, but nothing in the rules teaches you how to do so. Ideally, then, for my purposes, combat length would scale up or down as warranted. If the players work hard and get information that lets them know not to tangle yet with the red dragon in the cave, then they don't go there. But if they do go there, the conflict/tension is: A.) Do they recognize they are outmatched in time to run? B.) What do they risk losing while running? In other words, the time we want to spend is less about the fight itself and more about the conflict. OTOH, if this is a fight they can win, then we don't mind going into slow motion and playing it out. That's back to high fantasy. And some orcs met along would get brushed aside. This would seem to suggest that one way to handle supporting both styles in a single game would be to make the default resolution "conflict resolution" similar to many Indie games, and only drill down into the task resolution options for the fights that are either "fair" for the CaS fans or "critical" for the CaW fans. Different tables would, of course, pick different times to so drill down. (4E hinted at this divide a bit with skill challenges, but Skill Challenges Version 1.0 fell far short of their potential in this regard.) Conflict resolution can give you faster, more meaningful resolution in the CaW sense in an unfair fight, because it is so often about defining the stakes instead of modeling the process. [/QUOTE]
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