Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)

[Neonchameleon]

It means that King Henry II considered himself a knight to some degree, and therefore stood to benefit from laws protecting them.

Nope. A knighthood is a title. Knights were people given knighthoods by either the king or a previous one.

I was just guessing as to what your eye-rolling remark meant. That's not what I meant at all. Why would you think I meant that?

Because you were saying that Combat as War people liked options. When you look at the AD&D fighter there aren't mechanical options. You can't even easily change your weapons. Which means that the AD&D fighter should be the exemplar of the class you hate the most. From which I can conclude that either
a: You think that CaW should only be undertaken by spellcasters
b: This isn't actually a consideration and CaW is just a battle flag.

I keep feeling that, when I describe CaW, you hear "breaking the rules to get away with stuff." Is that what you think?

More like "we want cheap curb stomps of the enemy and would yowl to high heaven if high level NPC mages were to take CaW seriously and start scrying for bands of adventurers and then sticking up wanted posters with rewards once they hit third level".

In an encounter based game, the players probably do not have the option or ability to collapse the dungeon with multiple rock to mud spells.

First 2E is an encounter based game. Read the DMG.

Second, in 4e I've certainly as the DM had a player create earth walls to seal the dungeon by creating walls of rock with rituals. This worked and was fun - and I was the DM.

And to make clear, I'm not arguing a preference here - I suspect I'd be frustrated by, and suck at, strongly CaW play. But I think the concept is useful, and should be able to be discussed without inferring an edition war bias.

The terms are loaded and one-sided. And the only game I've seen that had CAW being aimed at the PCs was Cyberpunk 2020. In AD&D the players are taking part in a game of padded sumo (1 minute to kill a goblin? Seriously?) and there are rules of engagement NPCs are expected to follow which is why 3rd level PCs don't find prices on their heads from being scryed, and 6th level don't get scried-and-fried if they aren't working for the bad guys.

CaW is a big game safari at best.

Again, you do not support your argument that a strawman is involved, or that the dichotomy is false. A lot of people thinks it describes the games they've played quite well. You're just asserting your dislike of the topic.

I do not have a strong style preference with regard to CaW. I've certainly played in that mode a lot. I just deny that there's only one other way to play.

I for one don't think there's only one way to play. I just find "war" a risible description of any form of D&D there has ever been. I cut my teeth on GURPS where you died to a single crossbow bolt.

Combat as Last Resort would be a decent description. It would also exclude AD&D and oD&D.

Combat as End and Combat as Means might be a bit better?

1. People have said that 4e is strongly dedicated to CaS in contrast to CaW. That does not mean that one is equivalent to the other. The existence of the phrase "Combat as Sport" is not intended as a slap at 4e. (Portions of the article do suggest the writer's distaste for 4e - that's not the same thing as the core topic of the article.)

Hearing that from fans of other D&D games is like an argument between American Football players and Soccer players about which is more of a sport.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think I'm a bit softer than Libramarian, but I definitely see where that approach is coming from. I feel sorry for my players when they go for a big set-up and then someone rolls a 1. But I also laugh (or at least giggle - and sometimes taunt).

It's especially amusing when it's the sorcerer's player who rolls a 1. As a chaos mage, he pushes everyone within 5 sq 1 sq on a 1 (and at our table I, as GM, decide where they get pushed to). In a recent session, the roll of a 1 knocked Vecna over the side of an earthmote, just after they had come up with a plan that relied on holding Vecna in place. It was funny!

I think it's one thing to fail to succeed once, or twice, or three times, particularly if they're doing something silly. That is usually funny. If they're playing smart, though, and the dice just hate them - which is what I take from the reference to "gambling" in a CaW scenario, then I'm not impressed by that, it's not fun, it's not big, it's not clever, it's not usually funny (all imo, of course).

What I've seen way too many times in D&D is:

A) In 1/2E - Good planning, good play, bad rolls so TPK anyway. I just don't get how this is supposed to be fun. It sucks. Everyone's game is over because the designers set up a game which is really swing-y with lots of instant death.

B) In 3.XE - Good planning, good play, bad rolls means one PC is effectively useless for an entire combat (almost never seen this in 4E because of the narrower ranges involved and the fact that you can usually choose to target NADs or the like).

I'm really unimpressed with that sort of design. I used to like it conceptually, but experience of it totally turned me off it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Actually, I've just worked out why the playstyle claimed by the advocates of so-called Combat as War sticks in my throat so badly.

On the one side you have a large, powerful, and slow to react force. That is expected to play in a manner that is approximately fair because otherwise it could wipe out the individuals concerned. On the other hand you have a small and well armed but tiny force trying to win by any means necessary where any means necessary explicitly mentioned (in this thread alone) includes collapsing living quarters and burning down the entire forest the enemies live in.

This isn't warfare. Warfare almost invariably has rules like the Geneva Convention - or the rule that once a breach has been made you surrender. Collapsing dungeons and burning down forests puts you well into the realms of Terrorism.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Okay, then, looking up Dichotomy to see if I'm using it incorrectly.

...

Maybe. I think CaW and CaS are two very different styles of play, though no one would say completely opposite. But for the purposes of this analogy, call them "black" and "white".

Just because I have defined "black" and "white" as concepts does not mean that (a) there is no continuum of shades between them, nor that (b) almost everything falls in the "shades of gray" part of the continuum. It does mean that a lot of grays consist of more black than white, or more white than black.

If you are trying to figure out why a particular person dislikes the shade of gray you like - maybe it's because he likes more black in his gray than you do.

And I don't think it's actively unhelpful - I think it's trying to define terms, which is more productive in discussion than arguing from emotion. If everyone agrees on the same terminology and definitions, then you can more easily discuss why the thing with the agreed-upon-definition is good or bad.

...

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with "Black and White", then pulled the nail out, threw it on the floor, kicked it under the table, and said "what nail?".

Yes, "Black" and "White" is a great analogy. You're using two terms that are the equivalent of "Black" and "White" to describe something that is pretty much always a middling shade of grey. It is absolutely actively unhelpful to call things "Black" or "White" when they're actually grey. You keep saying stuff about people preferring one or the other, whilst excluding the vast majority of people, who prefer a mix of the two - probably a mix that is so grey that it's hard to say if it's black-er or white-er, except with another shade right next to it!

So you say you want to engage in a meaningful discussion. I buy that. Your problem, then, is two-fold.

1) You are using worthless absolutist terms with a lot of baggage. You can claim they have no baggage for you, but it's clear they do for most people, so your view of the baggage is irrelevant if you want to discuss it with people who aren't you!

The absolute nature of them is deeply unhelpful. Less absolute terms would be more helpful.

2) You appear want to suggest people all prefer one or the other, or that versions of D&D lean on way or the other. That's a fact not in evidence, indeed there's considerable evidence to the contrary!

So I am only more convinced by your excellent analogy that using the absolutist terms CaW and CaS, without modifiers or quantifiers is actively (if completely unintentionally!) unhelpful. As is the apparent belief that everyone prefers one or the other to a meaningful degree.

I mean, I'm sorry, but if I prefer 70% black and 30% white, the colour I prefer is GREY, not black. You might point out that it's slightly more black than the 50/50 guy or whatever, and a lot more black than the 30/70 dude, but we all still prefer grey. Only the guy who is at about 95/5 has something so close to black that the term is going to be appropriate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This isn't warfare. Warfare almost invariably has rules like the Geneva Convention - or the rule that once a breach has been made you surrender. Collapsing dungeons and burning down forests puts you well into the realms of Terrorism.

Well, it's stuff that pushes the boundaries, to be sure. Most importantly the PCs fail to obey even medieval "rules" or conventions of war, typically, rather than modern rules.

One might say it's not Combat-as-War, because wars are declared, and in the open, and acknowledged by both sides, for the most part, but rather "Combat-as-guerrilla-action" (note the term warfare is actively avoided) or "Combat-as-banditry".

Or perhaps "Combat-as-bullying", even. When one is completely uninterested in a fair, open, or honest fight, and there are no rules but those set one-sidedly, then there's certainly a lot in common with bullying (and indeed Murder-Hobos are typically bullies of the worst kind, and of the 1E PCs I've read about, easily 90% would qualify as bullies - this dropped steeply in 2E, I note - where there was more emphasis on fighting generally, as gold for XP became a mere obscure optional rule, and more focus on fights being in some way fair).

Combat-as-War is really an aggrandization of something that's much nastier and more brutish. Similarly, Combat-as-Sport is a softening of something much more dangerous. I don't see many football teams beaten to death on the field, I mean, not outside of Blood Bowl, anyway.

If you wanted to be generous, you could maybe use "Combat as SWAT", but it's not accurate, because if SWAT are outnumbered or the like, they just don't go in, and get more people. "Guerrilla Combat", maybe?

Maybe if we want to give both sides cool terms, we could call the stuff people call CaW "Guerrilla Combat" and stuff people call CaS "Swashbuckling Combat". Both have the word combat still, both have an epithet usually regarded as positive, and I think both are fairly accurately described (please let's not have a long argument about how sometimes The Three Musketeers elaborately biased stuff in their favour - they sure did - but they also frequently took huge risks and fought people seriously outnumbering them, with faith in god (at least for Aramis!), luck/fate and their own skill-at-arms - or vice versa with how sometimes guerrilla forces met others on even terms).

 

[BryonD]

Even if 4e had won the entire TTRPG market, we likely would be.

Again, a massive "if" that makes the rest of the conversation pointless.

"If" 4E had come anywhere near simply maintaining the D&D fanbase, then it would be reasonable to discuss what would or would not have happened "if" 4E had grown that base.

Again, over and over I was assured by 4E fans that those of us leaving would be replaced many times over. (When we were not being told that our assimilation was unavoidable). So seeing that held up as a combination impossible standard and substitute for looking at what actually happened is gratifying.

 

[BryonD]

Nope. I'm meaning this pretty generally. Since your description of your game dovetails nicely with what I've said I'm frankly at a loss as to what you are on about.

Ok, so your opinion applies to every table everywhere and me saying the opposite of what you said "dovetails nicely" with what you said.

Got it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Again, over and over I was assured by 4E fans that those of us leaving would be replaced many times over. (When we were not being told that our assimilation was unavoidable). So seeing that held up as a combination impossible standard and substitute for looking at what actually happened is gratifying.

This is an interesting tidbit. I know I didn't tell anyone that, but I wasn't initially a "4E fan", I guess, 4E turned me into one after the fact.

What I do know is, for every 4E group I know IRL, this is actually true - for the odd person we lost (either to natural attrition, or because they didn't like 4E, or whatever), we gained a number more - including people new to RPGs entirely, or who had quit them for boardgames.

So I think on a micro scale, it was probably true. Those groups that stuck with 4E and enjoyed it (and that latter bit is important, a group having a bad time rarely attracts new players!), they gained players, so had a perception that players were being gained (a correct perception, from their perspective). Something about the board-game-y look for 4E also draws in a lot of skeptical people in a way TotM games haven't (or draws in different people, at the very least - someone who shys away from the concept of pure "I'M AN ELF! 8)"-type stuff can more easily engage if it's clear that they're playing these here dudes on the table).

Whereas a group that quit D&D entirely, going to OSR or PF or the like, probably saw only themselves (and maybe other like-minded groups), and saw pure loss.

So, subjectivity of experiences and all that. Interesting stuff, anyway!

 

[Hussar]

Ok, so your opinion applies to every table everywhere and me saying the opposite of what you said "dovetails nicely" with what you said.

Got it.

Um, got what? You said, specifically, that your group chooses to employ the rules in such a way that you have dramatic showdowns time and time and time again. In other words, you deliberately set out to craft an interesting campaign. Great. But, that's not combat as war, which was my original point. It's not random enough to be combat as war.

Put it another way. How many random encounters have you run in the past ten sessions? In combat as war, you should be having random encounters very, very often - that's the point of randomness after all. If you have very few, if any random encounters, then every encounter is a prepared one. Or the vast majority are prepared encounters.

Which, again, is the antithesis of Combat as War. Not random enough. You are crafting a sport. It could be a very difficult sport, but still a sport.

You're running a great game. It's just not Combat as War. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Or, to put it another way, in what way would you characterise your game as combat as war? What random elements are in play? What actions do your players consistently take to mitigate the odds? If the players do not take actions to mitigate the odds, what is the likely outcome of a given encounter?

 

[billd91]

Um, got what? You said, specifically, that your group chooses to employ the rules in such a way that you have dramatic showdowns time and time and time again. In other words, you deliberately set out to craft an interesting campaign. Great. But, that's not combat as war, which was my original point. It's not random enough to be combat as war.

Put it another way. How many random encounters have you run in the past ten sessions? In combat as war, you should be having random encounters very, very often - that's the point of randomness after all. If you have very few, if any random encounters, then every encounter is a prepared one. Or the vast majority are prepared encounters.

Which, again, is the antithesis of Combat as War. Not random enough. You are crafting a sport. It could be a very difficult sport, but still a sport.

You're running a great game. It's just not Combat as War. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Or, to put it another way, in what way would you characterise your game as combat as war? What random elements are in play? What actions do your players consistently take to mitigate the odds? If the players do not take actions to mitigate the odds, what is the likely outcome of a given encounter?

I think you've really tried to push the description of Combat as War into an entirely ridiculous direction. What does the number of random encounters have to do with Combat as War again? Why would having set encounters mean that it's not Combat as War? Combat as War is really more of an attitude about solving the conflict (violent or otherwise) that encounters (whether random or set) pose and the openness to be able to put any plan that appears effective into place - even if that means upending the expectations of the encounter.

As far as the equally as weird side debate about real-world rules of warfare, it's helpful to note what those rules attempt or attempted to do - and that's control warfare on a particular ideology's terms. Ultimately, when you compare with a realist view of warfare (such as that described by Thucydides) you come to realize that rules of warfare whether based on Chivalry or Geneva Conventions mainly serve to try to turn War into Sport. And to do so on terms favorable to the more powerful actor - the strongest individual warrior, the best equipped warrior, the nation with the biggest army.