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[Very Long Indeed] Reconciling Combat as War and Combat as Sports in 5ed
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 5819285" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>No, because if they make mistakes or have unlucky rolls, death suddenly makes its presence known at the table. The threat is always there, because the PCs know that they're only a few mistakes (or bad die rolls) away from having death dogging their heels. </p><p></p><p>As I tried to explain, you don't need a high death rate for death to be present because PCs can be expected to fight many combats in a campaign. For example, let's take a very low rate of death (1% chance per combat). If I have 300 combats during the course of my campaign, then the odds are that 3 characters died. That means that, at the typical gaming table of 4 or 5 players, more than half of them lost a character during my campaign. If the majority of players at the table lose a character during a campaign, I wouldn't call that nonexistent death. And based on my experience, even 4e has a higher death rate than 1%.</p><p></p><p>CaS style tactical play skews that even more, because that death rate is only assumed if you play well. If you just point your character at a random creature and roll the dice, you can expect to die with far greater frequency.</p><p></p><p>Edit: Let me also add that I think that CaS style play engenders more love for one's character, so that it's more of a loss when it does happen. We've all heard stories of old-school CaW play where players just named their new character Bob X+1, because Bob III wasn't expected to outlast Bob II by much. That may be part of the reason why the threat of death is more of an issue for one style than the other.</p><p></p><p>Second Edit: I've gone to significant lengths in the past in order to avoid having to roll even just a 5% (natural 1) chance of death, such as hopping over a bottomless pit with a Jump check that can only fail on a 1. In my opinion, even a 5% chance of death is quite high if it regards a character I care about (this of course assumes low availability for resurrection, as is the case in some of my campaigns).</p><p></p><p>In contrast, I've had a character I cared about willingly throw himself off of a cliff in order to get at a BBEG riding a wyvern, so to an extent, risk vs reward also factors into it. In the first case, there was little reward other than continuing the adventure (it was a mere obstacle), so it was high risk for very little reward (the same reward I get for walking forward through the "dungeon"). In the second case, it was an attempt to eliminate a BBEG that we all hated (high risk, but high reward). That attempt did pay off, fwiw.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 5819285, member: 53980"] No, because if they make mistakes or have unlucky rolls, death suddenly makes its presence known at the table. The threat is always there, because the PCs know that they're only a few mistakes (or bad die rolls) away from having death dogging their heels. As I tried to explain, you don't need a high death rate for death to be present because PCs can be expected to fight many combats in a campaign. For example, let's take a very low rate of death (1% chance per combat). If I have 300 combats during the course of my campaign, then the odds are that 3 characters died. That means that, at the typical gaming table of 4 or 5 players, more than half of them lost a character during my campaign. If the majority of players at the table lose a character during a campaign, I wouldn't call that nonexistent death. And based on my experience, even 4e has a higher death rate than 1%. CaS style tactical play skews that even more, because that death rate is only assumed if you play well. If you just point your character at a random creature and roll the dice, you can expect to die with far greater frequency. Edit: Let me also add that I think that CaS style play engenders more love for one's character, so that it's more of a loss when it does happen. We've all heard stories of old-school CaW play where players just named their new character Bob X+1, because Bob III wasn't expected to outlast Bob II by much. That may be part of the reason why the threat of death is more of an issue for one style than the other. Second Edit: I've gone to significant lengths in the past in order to avoid having to roll even just a 5% (natural 1) chance of death, such as hopping over a bottomless pit with a Jump check that can only fail on a 1. In my opinion, even a 5% chance of death is quite high if it regards a character I care about (this of course assumes low availability for resurrection, as is the case in some of my campaigns). In contrast, I've had a character I cared about willingly throw himself off of a cliff in order to get at a BBEG riding a wyvern, so to an extent, risk vs reward also factors into it. In the first case, there was little reward other than continuing the adventure (it was a mere obstacle), so it was high risk for very little reward (the same reward I get for walking forward through the "dungeon"). In the second case, it was an attempt to eliminate a BBEG that we all hated (high risk, but high reward). That attempt did pay off, fwiw. [/QUOTE]
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