Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Actually, speaking as a big fan of 4e, I agree here. It's one of the major flaws of WotC's adventures in particular, IMO. I'm fine with longer combats, but to keep plot interest across sessions, there need to be fewer of them in between story developments. (And there needs to be more emphasis on diplomacy/avoidance as solutions, as well as fewer "this monster attacks immediately and to the death" encounters.)

-O

This is not the first time it's come up that the adventure design and the rules design don't seem to be on the same page.

My brief experience with WotC adventures for 4e suggests that there are way, way too many fights. So much so that it seems counterproductive if you want to keep selling adventures. We need time to finish these massive slogs.

I find it interesting that the only time one of their play podcasts with the PA guys included a previously published adventure, they basically cut out 90% of the combats.

 

[malraux]

I find it interesting that the only time one of their play podcasts with the PA guys included a previously published adventure, they basically cut out 90% of the combats.

In fairness, the goal there was to play through the entire adventure in a relatively short timespan.

 

[maddman75]

But the DM sets the focus of the game...not the rules.

Here I disagree. The rules of the game are the only way for the players to interact with the game in an objective way. The rules determine what is a good idea, and what is a bad idea. They determine what kinds of abilities the characters can have, and how that affects the world.

I can, as a GM, decide that I am going to run a game with a focus that it was not designed for. You can also, as the saying goes, pound in a screw with a hammer. That doesn't make it a good idea. I can say "I'm going to run a hack and slash dungeon crawl with Call of Cthulhu rules", but that doesn't make it a good idea. You're much better off decided what kind of focus you want and then picking a game that works for that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In fairness, the goal there was to play through the entire adventure in a relatively short timespan.

That's kind of the point. Change relatively short timespan a bit for a home game but otherwise we have the same issue. The individual encounters get so involved that the overall adventure that connects them gets a bit lost.

 

[CleverNickName]

I can, as a GM, decide that I am going to run a game with a focus that it was not designed for. You can also, as the saying goes, pound in a screw with a hammer. That doesn't make it a good idea. I can say "I'm going to run a hack and slash dungeon crawl with Call of Cthulhu rules", but that doesn't make it a good idea. You're much better off decided what kind of focus you want and then picking a game that works for that.

I concede your point: 4E was designed with detailed combat in mind, and that might not be suitable for everyone. And there are tons of games out there with different styles of combat, and they are all great fun.

What I was trying to say was, if you don't like the way combat works in 4E (or any game system), another option is to just use less of it. While I don't particularly care for 4E, I can't deny that it is extremely versatile. There are lots of other ways to earn XP besides combat. Furthermore, not every encounter has to result in combat in order to be "won." And not all battles have to be to the death.

These things are set by the DM, with the rules. Not against them.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Here I disagree. The rules of the game are the only way for the players to interact with the game in an objective way. The rules determine what is a good idea, and what is a bad idea. They determine what kinds of abilities the characters can have, and how that affects the world.

I can, as a GM, decide that I am going to run a game with a focus that it was not designed for. You can also, as the saying goes, pound in a screw with a hammer. That doesn't make it a good idea. I can say "I'm going to run a hack and slash dungeon crawl with Call of Cthulhu rules", but that doesn't make it a good idea. You're much better off decided what kind of focus you want and then picking a game that works for that.

Are you saying that a given set of rules only supports one playstyle?

 

[Obryn]

Are you saying that a given set of rules only supports one playstyle?

I don't think so, based on the conversations we've had in the past.

Every RPG is better at some things, and worse at others. When I'm running a game, I try to pick an RPG that's good at what I want to get out of the campaign. If I want dungeon-crawly, tactical goodness (and believe me, I do), I'll pick 4e. Yes, you can play highly political, intrigue-centric games using 4e, and I'll argue vehemently against anyone who says it's impossible, but it's really not what 4e is best at. When I wanted to run Temple of Elemental Evil, I pulled 1e off the shelf. 1e is perfectly suited to the kind of campaign I wanted to run and to the kind of adventure ToEE is. When I wanted a grim & gritty game, I ran WFRP2. When I wanted to run some space-opera Star Wars stuff, I pulled out SWSE.

No single RPG can provide everything I, personally, want out of gaming. I want different experiences from my games, and some of them are even self-contradictory. I'd go nuts trying to make a single system do everything I want to do. So, I play lots of different games, as the mood strikes me. Right now, in addition to my 4e game, I'm running an intermittent Call of Cthulhu game to scratch my character-centric, plot-heavy itches. It works really well.

Honestly, I think the best thing a GM can do is play games to their strengths and against their weaknesses. (With, of course, small tweaks to make them even better, should the mood strike you.) It makes for better gaming for everyone, IMO.

-O

 

[Umbran]

I think any RPG that requires you to rush through combat by using various tricks or techniques is a telling failure in that part of the game.

My wife is fatally allergic to strawberries. Does that mean that strawberries on a cheesecake are a telling failure in a dessert, in general? No.

We frequently confuse "failure to meet our particular needs" with "failure in general", and forget that no single game is going to please everybody. Yes, many folks need to speed up combat in 4e - but many people don't. The folks who don't need it sped up are probably happy with it - speeding it up would be a detriment to them, not an improvement in design.

 

[maddman75]

What Obryn said.

As well, sometimes new games are interesting because they give you new ideas. By focusing on different areas you realize that games can work differently and focus on areas that you might not have considered before.

 

[Ariosto]

"A reasonable amount of time" means different things to different people.

The "requirement" comes from a preference (which I share) for faster action, combined with a determination (which I do not share) to use a set of rules designed to produce prolonged combats.

It would likewise take a "kludge" to make a 1st-level fight in OD&D take as long. Combatants with one hit dice are typically 90%+ likely to be out after two hits. With even a mere 20% chance, that's an average of 2 hits per round for 10 combatants. The basic rules do not stipulate a lot of bonuses for this and penalties for that -- and even a fair bit of such elaboration doesn't slow down a game much unless the factors have to be recalculated frequently. Moreover, "grind" is harder to come by when you've got morale factors.

To resolve an attack takes just a few seconds. Players can roll at once, but even doing one at a time in sequence doesn't add up to much. At a minute or two per round, even a 10-round fight takes but 10 or 20 minutes.

"Why must I kludge my combat", someone might ask, "to have it not be so suddenly and seemingly randomly resolved, with such a high casualty rate among beginning characters?"

The answer, again, is because it was designed to be that way. To slow it down, one could add hit points, reduce chances to hit, add rolls beyond the standard two per attack, throw in modifiers that change from round to round (or even attack to attack), use individual initiative, allow and precisely track a lot of movement even in a melee, and so on.