Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)

[Tony Vargas]

This is what I mean when I point out that it's not necessarily the original writer that's the one causing the hostile tone here.

The presentation of CaW/CaS was condescending and slanted, whether the OP consciously intended it to be so or not.

And there's no reason you can't hold such an opinion, and defend it, while maintaining civility.
Discussions such as this one help me better understand the play experience from multiple points of view, and I don't want them to descend into anger.

Then perhaps an alternative way of expressing the idea, since CaW/CaS carries those connotations and overtones of incivility conceived in anger & resentment?

Let's try to identify the actual idea, while scrubbing it of anything of that nature:

The theory seems to be that there are exactly two, distinct, mutually incompatible ways to play D&D.

One approaches conflict in an anything-goes manner that views rules, genre conventions, and anything else that stands between the player and victory, as things to be somehow gotten around or leveraged in that pursuit of victory.

The other approaches in-game conflicts in the context of rules & genre conventions, and seeks to remain inside the guidelines implied by each.

If that were true, what are the implications:

What would a game have to do to allow play in first style? Well, it doesn't really have to do much, since the player will act in defiance of anything the game lays down, be it rules, guidelines, themes, or whatever, when doing so is necessary in his view to secure success.

What would a game have to do to allow play in the second style? Well, it also wouldn't need much, it would just have to have clear, functional rules, and be clear on it's intended genre and themes (or lack thereof, leaving them to the GM, as the case may be). That way players wouldn't be left guessing what the 'point' of the game was.

What could a game do to 'force' the first style of play, even on players who prefer the second? A few things: Excessive lethality, for instance, would cause players to focus on victory (and thus survival) over other consideration, because those other considerations can't really be addressed without a character. Unclear or incomplete rules would force the DM to resort to frequent judgement calls, making 'gaming the DM' a needful strategy. On the other extreme, very detailed and inflexible rules could be designed to 'reward system mastery,' again, making effectiveness trump other factors when making decisions.

What could a game do to 'force' the second style of play, even on players who prefer the second? Not much, since players preferring the first style are willing to go outside the rules as presented if need be. About the closest a game could come would be making following the rules and cleaving to genre convention the optimal path to victory in most cases. Which is not so much forcing the second style as disguising the first style as the second.


And, what if there is a continuum between the two? What difference does that make to the theory?

It /would/ imply that the styles are not mutually exclusive, and therefor a game could (perhaps should) support both rather than cater to one or the other.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I continue to disagree that anything was wrong with the OP's presentation other than that you could discern his personal preference from his writing. I think people perceived it as an attack on their style and received it poorly.

I disagree that the styles are considered "mutually incompatible" any more than other styles - simply that one or the other is favored.

I also think your definition of the two styles is slightly off in terms of focus. Combat as War is not about defying rules or genre conventions - rules are a part of any game, and genre is irrelevant to the topic. Combat as War is about overcoming obstacles through open-ended problem solving. Combat as Sport limits the problem-solving to the context of the scene or frame.

The point about rules comes down to that CaW players want rules for summoning, polymorphing, teleporting, and other exploits that many CaS players consider to be harmful to game balance. (Again, we're talking about a continuum of preferences here.) So one system might favor one end and disfavor the other.

And "encourage" a style of play is better than "force".

 

[Tony Vargas]

I also think your definition of the two styles is slightly off in terms of focus. Combat as War is not about defying rules or genre conventions - rules are a part of any game, and genre is irrelevant to the topic. Combat as War is about overcoming obstacles through open-ended problem solving.

Open-ended would, perforce, include all sorts of things that could work: including bending, breaking, or merely leveraging rules, metagaming, or sacrificing (or leveraging) genre fidelity, in-character play, simulation or whatever else the game tries to do on the surface, to achieve success.

Combat as Sport limits the problem-solving to the context of the scene or frame.

'Scene' in the RPG-as-collective-storytelling sense I get. And, yes, I'd argue that'd include genre conventions.

"Frame?"

The point about rules comes down to that CaW players want rules for summoning, polymorphing, teleporting, and other exploits that many CaS players consider to be harmful to game balance.

That's a /very/ specific point, one too specific to come up with some high-level rationalization for, really.

And, really, you can have rules for summoning, polymorphing, and teleportation that aren't game-breaking. So, it's not really those things that are at issue - it's whether the rules (any rules) break easily.

And "encourage" a style of play is better than "force".

It would be, yes. But if we stick to merely 'support' or 'encourage' it's hard to find any rule that really does that. It's hard to discourage 'CaW,' for instance, because it doesn't, by it's very nature, let itself be limited by what the rules encourage or discourage.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I'm curious as to why it seems important to you to bring genre into it. I suspect it may be important to your dislike of the concept.

Incidentally, I decided to go back through the original thread - and I can't really find any of the level of anger or hostility people seem to associate with the concept. Even the argument you got into about "balance" seemed pretty well-behaved. There seems to be other issues at work here.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm curious as to why it seems important to you to bring genre into it. I suspect it may be important to your dislike of the concept.

There really aren't very many things that limit your freedom to approach problems from a variety of angles in an RPG. The rules are the obvious one. But D&D, except for 3.x and the whole 'RAW' zietgiest, of course, has a long tradition of tweaking or overriding the rules. Expectations - like genre conventions - are the only other thing I could think of that might be an issue.

I suppose you could think of it as 'spirit of the rules,' instead, if that makes more sense to you. (I am trying to avoid anything as inflammatory as 'sense of fair play' or 'cheating.')

Incidentally, I decided to go back through the original thread - and I can't really find any of the level of anger or hostility people seem to associate with the concept.

Portions of the original thread may no longer be available.

I mean, I could tell you I'm not angry or hostile (I'm actually trying to argue /against/ hostility), but I /do/ object to problematic 'theories' that seek to divide the hobby into arbitrary us/them halves for purposes of talking up a favored thing (be it a 'style' or one side of the edition war or whatever), and dumping on those who don't embrace it.



Also: what did you mean by "Frame," above?

 

[BryonD]

You seem to be working very hard to avoid talking about what can, potentially, on the outside, happen, whilst avoiding acknowledging what the mechanics might make likely. I'm not following closely but, just because something can, technically, happen, just because you've seen it happen, doesn't mean it's very likely in the mechanics.

You say "I'm not going to get hung up on...", and that's nice for you, but if that's a common result of using a system RAW or the like, that's certainly an issue that should be acknowledged, and airily dismissing it, as you really appear to be doing, doesn't really contribute anything.

Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick, though.

In fairness, I truly think you have the "wrong end of the stick" on this one.

My attitude has long been that 3E allows ALL KINDS of really bad things to happen.
You can build terrible characters. You can break the system a million different ways. We could go on and on with game-wreaking things that 3E/PF do nothing to prevent.
I find that players who set their mind AND ATTITUDE to it can stop these things. And further, I find that when the rules try to stop these things they can succeed. But they do way more harm than good FOR ME. (also for a lot of people I game with, perhaps we are the lucky freaks of gaming. I don't think so, but for sake of discussion I'll concede that we are if it helps.)

Hussar said that these things simply happen. I asked if he meant "for him" or if they were unavoidable truths (or some wording to that general effect). So far the agreement that "for him" applies is not forthcoming.

I respect complaints about what the game I love can and does do at other tables. I respect the love of 4E felt by some people. I truly believe in play what you like, and I think I grok better than most not just diversity of taste but multiple axises of taste.

But don't tell me my game doesn't happen. That just makes you look silly. (The general "you" here, not RE you. )

 

[Tony Vargas]

In fairness, I truly think you have the "wrong end of the stick" on this one.

My attitude has long been that 3E allows ALL KINDS of really bad things to happen.
You can build terrible characters. You can break the system a million different ways. We could go on and on with game-wreaking things that 3E/PF do nothing to prevent.
I find that players who set their mind AND ATTITUDE to it can stop these things.

I was right there with you in the 3.x era. That really was the best defense of 3.x, that it gave you the freedom to really screw up the game, but you could choose not to do so. A good DM presenting just the right mix of challenges, some pro-active player restraint, and you could have a good campaign in spite of everything - and do so without having to resort to a thick stack of house-rules like you might've done under AD&D.

And further, I find that when the rules try to stop these things they can succeed. But they do way more harm than good FOR ME.

Rhetorically, the thing for me to say, here, is that, while I understand the above, I don't get this part. Actually, I absolutely do get it. I get the guy who has a car that he has to push-start every time, who doesn't want a new one. Telling him it's a better car doesn't help, telling him he could push start the new car if he really wanted to doesn't help.

Where I feel compelled to argue against this is the way it was used in the edition war, begrudging everyone else their less-broken version of the game. I get that's not what you're trying to say here, but, none-the-less, that is the agenda that stories like yours were used to advance. Just because one guy, or a few, or a lot, have a personal reason for wanting a car that doesn't start doesn't mean starters should be illegal - or even obliged to be after-market options - on all new cars.

But don't tell me my game doesn't happen.

I will say that the fact your game could happen didn't mean that 4e deserved to get the axe. Nor does it mean that 5e has to continue going back to being badly-balanced in the same ways.

 

[BryonD]

I will say that the fact your game could happen didn't mean that 4e deserved to get the axe.

Oh, God, I would never claim that my game SHOULD have anything to do with ANY game's fate for better or worse.

4E deserved to get the axe because it didn't cater to the market.

Nor does it mean that 5e has to continue going back to being badly-balanced in the same ways.

And, MY GAME, means nothing. I think emulating success seems to make more sense that following a path to "the axe".

 

[BryonD]

I will say that the fact your game could happen ....

would you mention this to Hussar for me?

 

[pemerton]

If a group is consistently beating the odds, on a consistent basis, then the odds are not what they think they are. They cannot be.

The odds of me running a 10-second 100m sprint are zero. The odds of a world champion running that speed might be close to 100%. But that doesn't mean that it isn't hard for the champion sprinter to run that time: I'm pretty sure that sprinter is working and training hard all the time in order to maintain that level of performance.

In other words, the odds of success aren't per se a measure of difficulty, because it may be that hard work is a major contributor to those odds which, but for that work, would be much worse for the players/PCs.

Combat as War is about overcoming obstacles through open-ended problem solving. Combat as Sport limits the problem-solving to the context of the scene or frame.

The point about rules comes down to that CaW players want rules for summoning, polymorphing, teleporting, and other exploits that many CaS players consider to be harmful to game balance.

I don't really grasp the contrast between "open-ended problem solving" and "problem solving within the context of the scene or frame". Why can't problem solving within the context of the scene or frame be open-ended?

If the emphasis is on "open-endedness", then I don't see how any RPG doesn't permit that.

If the emphasis is on the unit of play (which eg [MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION] has mentioned upthread) then I don't really think that war/sport is a very helpful terminology (for the reasons that [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] and [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] have given).

Rapid-deployment long-range teleport is problematic for scene-focused play, because of the authority it gives players to unilaterally reframe the scene. But I don't really see what summoning or polymorph have to do with any contrast in this neighbourhood.