D&D 5E Combat as war, sport, or ??

[UngeheuerLich]

Combat as diplomacy by other means...

I disagree that in all other editions, you could get a substantial advantage by clever approaches and I disagree that enemys are not allowed to get advantages before combat if players act unclever.

So it is and always has been combat as war for me in 5e and 3e and 2e. You do combat if you must, but avoid it if possible, because it can mean your death, especially if it is a "fair"* fight.
And if you know all fights are fair, combat is boring very fast, because it is just a puzzle to be solved.

*scissors are OP, rock is fair... best regards, paper.

 

[overgeeked]

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.

Watch the video. It’s not directly about this topic. It’s about referees being tired of having to homebrew or buy 3PP books to fill the gaps in 5E’s design. Things like good rules for downtime, crafting, domains, etc.

The 5E approach may appear milquetoast, but it suits casual gamers very well.

That’s also a big part of that video. It’s easy for casual players because the onus of mechanical bits is shifted almost entirely onto the referee and the mechanics don’t work, like monster design and encounter design, or are entirely absent.

 

[Lanefan]

IMO. They charge because it’s fun to charge, not because it’s the most efficient thing to do.

And they pay the price in blood and gravestones; 'cause if not, it really has become sport.

 

[Malmuria]

XP rewards are relevant here. If the xp is for gold, there is no metalevel benefit to pushing toward initiative. If it's for monsters, then you need fights to level up. If it's for milestones, it depends, though can be that your incentive is just to go through the story the dm has prepared.

 

[dave2008]

I've killed PC's in 5e. probably moreso than 3.x. When a PC died in 3.x the group could always look back & theory craft what they could have done different & what they could do to avoid similar in the future. When PCs are killed in 5e that sor of introspective tends to be missing from the death by fiat feeling of monsters targeting downed players.

That has not been my experience. In general my players know what went wrong from a battle/encounter and will strategize get a better outcome in the future. Of course my group comes from 1e/BECMI and carried the same playstyle into 4e and 5e.

death saves & trivialized healing/recovery insulate PCs to such an extreme degree that there's nothing to theorycraft for the future within the space of that razor's edge of execution.

Of course we play with neither death saves nor trivialized healing, so maybe that's the reason!

 

[dave2008]

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.

Of course what is "busted" to you may be perfect for others. Based on popularity it seems to work for a lot of those others.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If D&D was meant to be a war, then why wasn't "The Art of War" included in Appendix N???

 

[overgeeked]

If D&D was meant to be a war, then why wasn't "The Art of War" included in Appendix N???

If D&D was meant to be improv theater sports, then why wasn’t Viola Spolin’s “Improvisation for the Theater” included in Appendix N???

 

[Composer99]

To my mind the "combat as..." framework, such as it is, is a particular way of "packaging" gameplay preferences. That's fine as far as it goes, but it goes from "interesting way to think about how you like to play table-top RPGs" to obnoxious once anyone tries to assert the superiority of their particular preference writ large. As appears to be happening in this thread.

I don't think there's anything about any version of D&D that inherently precludes playing "combat as war" or "combat as sport" (or what-have-you) - and indeed, I would not say that any version of D&D is intended to be played with either (or an alternative) approach (*); say rather that the specifics of the mechanics of a given version of D&D tend to enable one over the other.

(*) Gygax's DMG has a discussion about balancing combat encounters, and the wandering monster tables in, say, the Moldvay Basic rules will lead to encounters that are balanced against the level of the PCs more often than not, for instance, and nothing's stopping you from consistently running encounters with either too many enemies or over-leveled enemies in 4e if you want the players to turn to alliances and the environment to even the odds or tilt them in their favour.

 

[payn]

To my mind the "combat as..." framework, such as it is, is a particular way of "packaging" gameplay preferences. That's fine as far as it goes, but it goes from "interesting way to think about how you like to play table-top RPGs" to obnoxious once anyone tries to assert the superiority of their particular preference writ large. As appears to be happening in this thread.

Unfortunately, the origin did have that connotation that simply cant be shaken.

I don't think there's anything about any version of D&D that inherently precludes playing "combat as war" or "combat as sport" (or what-have-you)

Agreed.

- and indeed, I would not say that any version of D&D is intended to be played with either (or an alternative) approach (*); say rather that the specifics of the mechanics of a given version of D&D tend to enable one over the other.

Nope.

(*) Gygax's DMG has a discussion about balancing combat encounters, and the wandering monster tables in, say, the Moldvay Basic rules will lead to encounters that are balanced against the level of the PCs more often than not, for instance, and nothing's stopping you from consistently running encounters with either too many enemies or over-leveled enemies in 4e if you want the players to turn to alliances and the environment to even the odds or tilt them in their favour.

You cannot, however, stop using 4E's tactical combat system without some serious rejiggering of the mechanics.