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

[pemerton]

The line I think is the long rest. If something can be completely erased by a long rest, and it doesn't kill you outright, it's just not that threatening. And in 5e, almost everything falls into that basket.

For this to be true, there have to be additional premises that aren't being stated.

I mean, "long rest" is - in game play terms - just a label for a certain sort of recovery point, connected to the passage of in-game time. Whether or not "something" can be erased by that sort of recovery point doesn't seem to tell us much about how threatening it is. In 4e D&D, for instance, all used daily powers and healing surges are recovered by a long rest. This doesn't meant that effects that deplete daily powers or healing surges, or that put pressure on the players to deplete them by spending them, are "not that threatening".

 

[Aldarc]

I’m not bitter about players wanting easy mode. It would be like being bitter that the wind blows. It bothers me that WotC has gone all in on player-based design leaving referees high and dry in fixing the game and/or making it playable.

You say that it's player-based design, but a lot of 5e was designed on the cult-like mantra of "GM empowerment" rather than giving players an easy mode. 4e was arguably more player-based design, and it gave GM tools for balancing and designing encounters as well as running monsters.

Misanthropic? Cute. No. I stopped playing 5E and went back to older editions. Problem solved. Older-edition players (specifically TSR-era players) don’t have that same level of baggage and expectation. They know and accept there being challenge in D&D. The repeated refrain of it being easier to make the game easier. Yeah, that’s true.

I appreciate it when someone tells me that I'm cute, so thank you. That said, I may be misreading your argument as misanthropic, and if so, then I apologize and I am willing to retract my statement. However, it does come across to me as something of a "Boomer complaining about youths today" sort of diatribe that presents an unflattering depiction of players just wanting it easier and easier. Just replace "easy mode" in your rant with the usual Boomer spiel about "participation trophies."

Yes, and if you’re all but guaranteed to win, there’s no challenge.

How many encounters per day was D&D 5e designed assuming and how many encounters per day do 5e GMs typically run? What is the attrition or combat model as designed? And how does it differ from how it exists as played per praxis?

 

[pemerton]

4e where the characters were, big damn action heroes most supported this kind of play in the D&D space and TSR D&D the least because in the TSR era the characters had to scrounge the needed resources from the presented world in the form of henchmen, magic items, potions and so forth and this resulted in a more operational mode

I've been playing a bit of Torchbearer 2e recently.

Player characters in TB are definitely protagonists, in the sense that they have (modest) backstories, friend and enemies and families that are expected to figure in play, player-authored Beliefs and Goals that are expected to matter in play, etc.

But TB also involves scrounging resources and leveraging the fiction: in our last session, for instance, the players had their PCs undertake research that suggested to them the likelihood of encountering undead in their intended destination; and as a result had their PCs purchase holy water, which turned out to be useful when they did indeed encounter undead!

Burning Wheel can also play a bit like this (uncoincidentally, given the design relationship between the two RPGs) although TB doubles down on this sort of play in a way that BW doesn't.

Thus, while I think the distinction between protagonistic and operational play that you drew upthread is a good one, I don't regard it as uniformly applicable to all RPGs or all RPG experiences.

 

[pemerton]

Some of the posts in this thread - about players "cheering" when the GM grants their PCs bonus hit points at 1st level, or about the GM being cast as the "bad guy" - seem to me to suggest a weirdly transactional approach to playing. Like someone made the joke about awarding XP for pouring the GM's drink, but then someone else took it seriously as advice for how to do RPGing.

Why not just agree on the rules of the game we want to play, and then play by those rules?

 

[reelo]

Why? Is your own life meaningless because you aren't at constant risk of death because of smallpox or whatever? Do your achievements lose their significance because you live in an era where most people expect to reach age 70+ where you live?

Oh but everybody is at a constant risk of death in real life!
People die all the time, all over the world, from causes innumerable, other than old age. Accidents and illnesses. It is precisely through the realization of our own mortality that we can fill out lives with meaning, sense, and purpose. Without death, life is meaningless, both in the real world, and in the game.

 

[Aldarc]

Without death, life is meaningless, both in the real world, and in the game.

Death is for loot bags.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For this to be true, there have to be additional premises that aren't being stated.

I mean, "long rest" is - in game play terms - just a label for a certain sort of recovery point, connected to the passage of in-game time. Whether or not "something" can be erased by that sort of recovery point doesn't seem to tell us much about how threatening it is. In 4e D&D, for instance, all used daily powers and healing surges are recovered by a long rest. This doesn't meant that effects that deplete daily powers or healing surges, or that put pressure on the players to deplete them by spending them, are "not that threatening".

It can mean that, depending on the player's preferences. It means that to me.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Oh but everybody is at a constant risk of death in real life!

Not of the kind being requested here.

People die all the time, all over the world, from causes innumerable, other than old age. Accidents and illnesses. It is precisely through the realization of our own mortality that we can fill out lives with meaning, sense, and purpose. Without death, life is meaningless, both in the real world, and in the game.

Except that, again as stated, in the countries where 90% or more of posters are posting from, that's simply not true. According to the CDC, the average life expectancy at birth in the US was 74.2 years for males and 81.4 years for females. The average additional lifespan for people who reach age 65 is 18.2 years for males (so approximately 83.2 total years of age) and 20.8 years for females (85.8 total.)

People do die of such things. But it's rare in the developed world. Indeed, it is highly predictable that most people will live to be in their 70s in the US, and likewise for most developed countries; which comprise the vast majority of users here on ENWorld. Yet in several countries where such random death is rare, happiness and quality of life are quite high: Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, etc. And several of these are in the top 10 for longest lifespans as well.

Death is not what gives life meaning. At most, it gives a time limit--but there are lots of things that have time limits that don't involve death. Friendships. Children. Competitions. Natural phenomena (e.g. comets, solar eclipses.)

So. Why is it that pushing back the clock hasn't made all these countries miserable? Why is it that being very confident you'll live a good long life has, in fact, contributed to greater happiness and quality of life?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Why not just agree on the rules of the game we want to play, and then play by those rules?

Because that would require the DM to not have absolute power.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Because that would require the DM to not have absolute power.

But even when they have that power it is only at the bequest of the players. Abuse that power and the players will walk.