Lanefan
Victoria Rules
That's actually not a bad set of terms. Heroic vs Efficient might do also.
D&D 5E Combat as war, sport, or ??
- Thread starter overgeeked
- Start date
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Wow. That's awesome. Spot on. The refrain is either "let the DM fix it" or "go buy a 3PP book to fix it." So incredibly tired of both. How about put out a non-busted system? Maybe 6E. Or 7E.
Exactly. Most players think "charge!" That's it. 5E has trained them that simply blindly charging in works 99% of the time, so why should they bother with anything more involved.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
IMO. They charge because it’s fun to charge, not because it’s the most efficient thing to do.
Composer99
Hero
Them monsters did done good those times, that's for sure.Yay monsters! Go monsters! Rah rah rah!
Though I've never played it, reading the initial rules and hearing anecdotes tells me it's tendency seems to be to either kill no characters or all of them at once; they kind of rise and fall as a unit. Contrast this with 0e through 3e, where killing individual characters was fairly common even if TPKs were not.
Apropos of individuals versus the party rising and falling as a whole, that sounds about right - both situations where player characters died also saw the rest of the party at 0 hit points at intervals. 4e doesn't really do the kind of post-battle rout you see in real-life pre-industrial battles, where the side that turns and flees can get obliterated, but I'd probably say that that's what it amounts to, within the framework of turn-based combat.
(More apropos of the thread topic, we've also had one situation that could have turned into a fight but for our diplomatic efforts, and one situation where the correct course of action was to surrender, so it hasn't all been "fight then proceed to next fight". I daresay a lot of folks round here wouldn't care for the specific mechanical instantiation of the diplomacy, but it still happened.)
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Sure. It's fun to charge. But after a few reps it becomes stale. Monster, charge. Monster, charge. Monster, charge. Monster, charge. Monster, charge. It was already boring the third time. And if that's all the game is to some players, there are infinitely better games to play if all you want is go endlessly charge and slaughter monsters.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
You clearly have one preference. You also clearly wish to frame your preference as superior.
FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
I like either. Heroic vs pragmatic has a bit better ring to it IMO.That's actually not a bad set of terms. Heroic vs Efficient might do also.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
To be fair, if a person doesn't think their preference is superior for them, it wouldn't be their preference.
I don't think either charging in or not charging in is inherently better. I've certainly had my Leeroy Jenkins moments. To my earlier point, I think the fun of a "combat as war" style game leans toward strategizing in the out of initiative moments, whereas the fun in "combat as sport" style games leans towards tactics within the initiative order. Though I admit I don't really get the "combat as performance" style, but clearly that's a preference too.
payn
Glory to Marik
I think all of this attests to what I said earlier. If the system isnt hardcoded towards strategy or tactics, RPG enthusiasts will find it unsatisfactory. They also see adding supplements and Oberoni fixes as working against the system to make it suitable for them. The 5E approach may appear milquetoast, but it suits casual gamers very well.
Indeed, some folks dont want to walk on eggshells, they want to kick ass.
