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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="haakon1" data-source="post: 5834398" data-attributes="member: 25619"><p>My cure for this is to play in the 1st-12th level slot (in 3.5e), which doesn't allow for a lot of "Easy Button" solutions.</p><p></p><p>Also, while for a normal castle I just think of medieval mundane defenses (locks, guards, walls), I do think (vaguely) about the higher level defenses the national ruler's castle should have, informed partially by the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. I'm thinking things like Detect Magic and See Invisibility on the gate, plus mundane stuff like confiscating weapons from adventurers who visit, and of course having a high level cleric (retired PC) and a gold dragon (long story in an old campaign) sleeping in the basement, next to the teleportal to an allied fortress.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I hear you. I haven't played in or run a weekly game since 1991 (when I graduated from college). I don't like to run stuff on the fly, either, so I put a LOT of prep into running my games -- at least 10x the game time, I'd say. That's possible when you only run a live game a few times a year.</p><p></p><p>And for my email campaign, it's also possible to do intense preparation and give them lots and lots of setting/background. Outside combat, I must write 50 lines of setting and NPC activity/dialogue for every line the players add (typically short version of what general actions they want to take, or dialogue). It doesn't take much time for them to read it and get immersed in the story, looking for hints and foreshadowing and going deep with NPC's that interest them -- and I have time to do things like write a summary of a history book one of them read. In combat, it's more balanced, more like the tabletop game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've seen stuff like that in the first few games with a new group. Once people get used the "sandboxy" nature of "downtime" in my campaign, and get to know what's going on in the setting and with the NPC's, it's usually not a problem -- usually, they have goals they're going after, and they'll tell me when they are ready to move on.</p><p></p><p>Might be about practice.</p><p></p><p>If they wanted to get drunk in the bar, I'd say something, "Sure, go ahead. At the other tables are groups of merchants here for the fair, some folks that look like farmers in their holiday best, some with mercenary guards in leather armor, and sweaty poor folks who made money today lugging stuff around for the fair and seem to want to spend their coppers as soon and as loudly as possible. The bartender is a large, bald, human, and the servers are a female half-elf and a male half-orc."</p><p></p><p>That gives them something to interact with. The fair stuff is the setting material (what's going on in my email campaign as we move into my variant of "The Speaker in Dreams") and the rest is just riffing on it/on the fly.</p><p></p><p>If they don't interact with anyone, I might send someone to interact with them.</p><p></p><p>About the banks . . . I'd say there are no banks, but (as they already know in my campaign, if they've been around a while) some temples store and transfer money, as do jewelers and sometimes merchant guilds.</p><p></p><p>If someone insisted on wanting to rob, say, the Temple of Pelor (certainly where the most money is in town), I'd warn them OOC about the consequences. They would make an enemy of both the church and state, and would be hanged if caught. If they couldn't be apprehended but the ruler somehow figures out whodunnit, they'd be declared outlaws in absentia, which means other adventurers, bounty hunters, and assassins would be entitled to kill them for a reward, and anyone who aided them in any way would be guilty of a felony -- and would hang if the PC's commit murder in their robbery (aiding a fugitive murderer is a death penalty issue in my campaign, as I think it was in Merry Old England). So, do you want to be villains and get hunted down while losing all ability to buy healing potions, etc., or do you want to be heroes?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's ridiculous. I've never had a group refuse to play the game before. If they did that, I think I'd say, "That's not what I'm running. If you want to RUN a gladiator game, I'm happy to play in it. But I'm running this campaign over here, and I'd like you to play in it."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I like stupid, petty, mundane things to set up my epic stories. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p>The story means a lot more to me if the setting seems real and deep -- "The Hobbit" starting in the Shire and moving to the epic world makes it connect deeply for me. If it started with the infiltrating the Lonely Mountain, I think I'd be bored.</p><p></p><p>I like meat and veg more than dessert . . .</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="haakon1, post: 5834398, member: 25619"] My cure for this is to play in the 1st-12th level slot (in 3.5e), which doesn't allow for a lot of "Easy Button" solutions. Also, while for a normal castle I just think of medieval mundane defenses (locks, guards, walls), I do think (vaguely) about the higher level defenses the national ruler's castle should have, informed partially by the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. I'm thinking things like Detect Magic and See Invisibility on the gate, plus mundane stuff like confiscating weapons from adventurers who visit, and of course having a high level cleric (retired PC) and a gold dragon (long story in an old campaign) sleeping in the basement, next to the teleportal to an allied fortress. I hear you. I haven't played in or run a weekly game since 1991 (when I graduated from college). I don't like to run stuff on the fly, either, so I put a LOT of prep into running my games -- at least 10x the game time, I'd say. That's possible when you only run a live game a few times a year. And for my email campaign, it's also possible to do intense preparation and give them lots and lots of setting/background. Outside combat, I must write 50 lines of setting and NPC activity/dialogue for every line the players add (typically short version of what general actions they want to take, or dialogue). It doesn't take much time for them to read it and get immersed in the story, looking for hints and foreshadowing and going deep with NPC's that interest them -- and I have time to do things like write a summary of a history book one of them read. In combat, it's more balanced, more like the tabletop game. I've seen stuff like that in the first few games with a new group. Once people get used the "sandboxy" nature of "downtime" in my campaign, and get to know what's going on in the setting and with the NPC's, it's usually not a problem -- usually, they have goals they're going after, and they'll tell me when they are ready to move on. Might be about practice. If they wanted to get drunk in the bar, I'd say something, "Sure, go ahead. At the other tables are groups of merchants here for the fair, some folks that look like farmers in their holiday best, some with mercenary guards in leather armor, and sweaty poor folks who made money today lugging stuff around for the fair and seem to want to spend their coppers as soon and as loudly as possible. The bartender is a large, bald, human, and the servers are a female half-elf and a male half-orc." That gives them something to interact with. The fair stuff is the setting material (what's going on in my email campaign as we move into my variant of "The Speaker in Dreams") and the rest is just riffing on it/on the fly. If they don't interact with anyone, I might send someone to interact with them. About the banks . . . I'd say there are no banks, but (as they already know in my campaign, if they've been around a while) some temples store and transfer money, as do jewelers and sometimes merchant guilds. If someone insisted on wanting to rob, say, the Temple of Pelor (certainly where the most money is in town), I'd warn them OOC about the consequences. They would make an enemy of both the church and state, and would be hanged if caught. If they couldn't be apprehended but the ruler somehow figures out whodunnit, they'd be declared outlaws in absentia, which means other adventurers, bounty hunters, and assassins would be entitled to kill them for a reward, and anyone who aided them in any way would be guilty of a felony -- and would hang if the PC's commit murder in their robbery (aiding a fugitive murderer is a death penalty issue in my campaign, as I think it was in Merry Old England). So, do you want to be villains and get hunted down while losing all ability to buy healing potions, etc., or do you want to be heroes? That's ridiculous. I've never had a group refuse to play the game before. If they did that, I think I'd say, "That's not what I'm running. If you want to RUN a gladiator game, I'm happy to play in it. But I'm running this campaign over here, and I'd like you to play in it." I like stupid, petty, mundane things to set up my epic stories. ;) The story means a lot more to me if the setting seems real and deep -- "The Hobbit" starting in the Shire and moving to the epic world makes it connect deeply for me. If it started with the infiltrating the Lonely Mountain, I think I'd be bored. I like meat and veg more than dessert . . . [/QUOTE]
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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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