What makes a TTRPG tactical?

[SableWyvern]

I don't agree here. Say they are advancing in the range of enemies to secure a strategic resource. I don't think advancing to secure a strategic resource is definitionally tactical, even with enemies in range, it's still definitionally strategic. But I do agree that most of the things they are doing to advance in this situation would be tactical.

If the intent is to secure a strategic resource, the goal is certainly strategic. Realistically, everything you do is going to be (or should be) a step in furthering a strategic plan.

What you actually do, on a small unit level, while in contact with enemy, or while advancing to contact, or attempting to avoid contact, is tactical.

In essence, strategic assets are secured by employing tactics -- which is pretty much exactly what you seem to be saying when you say, "most of the things they are doing to advance in this situation would be tactical."

This leads me to suspect that we don't actually disagree in any meaningful way, but there may be some minor semantic obstacle or miscommunication happening.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

A game is tactical when there are an obscured yet optimized set of choices to achieve specific objectives. A game is not tactical if all choices are functionally equivalent.

Strategy is what you lay out before a fight, tactics is how you react once the battlefield is met.

A formation is strategy, what you do when an opponent breaks your formation is tactical decisions. A strategy will tell you your objectives for the engagement, tactics will decide how you get your objectives.

In chess, tactics are about maneuvering your pieces together in such a way as to gain an immediate advantage. Theres patterns to chess tactics, pins, discovered attacks, etc.

Strategy is more long term. It’s more about your high level plans, develop pieces to good squares, protect your king, try to win more space so you can more easily manuever. In chess this would often include positional moves which aren’t decisive but build up small advantages.

Tactics are how you fight a battle. Strategy is how you fight the war.

If the intent is to secure a strategic resource, the goal is certainly strategic. Realistically, everything you do is going to be (or should be) a step in furthering a strategic plan.

What you actually do, on a small unit level, while in contact with enemy, or while advancing to contact, or attempting to avoid contact, is tactical.

 

[TheSword]

As many people have said there need to be tactical choices that involve assessing information, making a meaningful decision. Then that decision needs to have consequences that make a difference.

For example. 5e is not very tactical because you are generally encouraged to do similar effective things each round keep doing them until the opponent falls over. Any tactics are usually about when to use
limited resources. But these can easily be replenished by stopping.

WFRP 4 makes a person take decisions every round though because of the way group advantage works and the way combat rolls are opposed. Deciding to fight defensively for a round for instance can prevent the enemy building advantage, and turn the tide of battle. Charging a foe can give you a bonus to hit. While engaging someone already in combat can apply significant bonuses for outnumbering at the risk of letting someone else be outnumbered. Casting poweful spells is a question of gathering energy. Try for too poweful a spell you may not get chance to cast. Too week and you’re missing an opportunity.

 

[Staffan]

A game is tactical when there are an obscured yet optimized set of choices to achieve specific objectives. A game is not tactical if all choices are functionally equivalent.

I would add that, to be interesting, the optimal choices need to be different from situation to situation.

As an example, in Frosthaven there is a locked class with a play structure consisting of gradually playing out various buffs, and then spending a turn or two getting the maximum benefit from those buffs before resetting. When we were playing with this class, the player in question had figured out what he felt to be the optimal order of playing this, to the point where he was basically following a script regarding what abilities to play when. There'd be choices about where to move and whom to attack on round X of the cycle, but not that there would be a particular move card and a particular attack card played. That's the kind of stuff I don't want to see.

 

[payn]

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like the definition of a game as a series of interesting decisions, and would say that "tactical combat" is applying this to the combat scale. In some cases, the interesting decision might just be: Do we fight or not? - in a game with tactical combat, the stuff during the combat also has a lot of interesting decisions.

But what's an interesting decision? I think an interesting decision is when your decision has meaningful outcomes. For example, if a sword and an axe deal the same damage and have the same hit chances and what not, it's not really meaningful during combat which you chose (saying you're a Axe Fighter might be a meaningful decision for the character overall, but not specific to the combat - you fight the same as the Sword Fighter, so it's not a tactical choice. It might be strategic because you know in the Dwarven lands you're living through there are more axe makers, or just stylyistic, because axes/swords are of course coloer than swords/axes).

But maybe there is a difference - with the axe, you can swing around and cut multiple enemies, but with the sword, you can cut a single target multiple times -what is the best for the current situation? Maybe there is a single nasty enemy that needs to be finished off, so you take the sword, but maybe you're wading through a group of goblins, and you take the axe. But maybe both are on the field - so which one is now the best?

Maybe you can get the ability to trip some enemy over with every succesful attack. This isn't very tactical yet, because there doesn't seem to be a reason why you shouldn't do it all the time. But maybe you have also the ability to instead disarm the target- now it becomes more of an interesting decision to make - what is more important right now, what are the consequences in the short and the long run. Or what if you can only reliably do it once - when is the best time to do so?

I think it might not be strictly neccessary, but it can help if your series of interesting decisions is linked. Say, one of the players decides that they really want to take out that single nasty enemy, so they use an ability that makes that enemy easier to hit or take more damage. So the one in the middle of the goblins has to consider whether he wants to miss that buff and rather take care of those next to them trusting the buff will make the other team mates achieve the objective, or help the objective set out by his team mate directly even if it means the goblins will have another go at him.

 

[Scott Christian]

I think in common TTRPG speech, tactical is actually equated to numbers and math and bonuses and effects - and the ability to make a choice that creates them.

For some, advantage/disadvantage is tactical because the player moved their character to a flanking position and not has advantage. For others, it needs to be much deeper than that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think in common TTRPG speech, tactical is actually equated to numbers and math and bonuses and effects - and the ability to make a choice that creates them.

Can't say I've seen that usage, at least as such. Its often necessary to have those for tactics to actually matter, but the tactics aren't about that.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

I would add that, to be interesting, the optimal choices need to be different from situation to situation.

As an example, in Frosthaven there is a locked class with a play structure consisting of gradually playing out various buffs, and then spending a turn or two getting the maximum benefit from those buffs before resetting. When we were playing with this class, the player in question had figured out what he felt to be the optimal order of playing this, to the point where he was basically following a script regarding what abilities to play when. There'd be choices about where to move and whom to attack on round X of the cycle, but not that there would be a particular move card and a particular attack card played. That's the kind of stuff I don't want to see.

Yes to all of this, which is why the optimal choices need to be obscured on some level, whether through chance, interpretation, or situation. The fog of war is a thing for a reason, and a game needs to involve if not a chance of failure, at least a chance of unintended consequences.

 

[Scott Christian]

Can't say I've seen that usage, at least as such. Its often necessary to have those for tactics to actually matter, but the tactics aren't about that.

I understand that point of view. That is one of the reasons I started the definition with "...in common TTRPG speech." I think there is an argument to be made that typical speech and definitions often outweigh the more nuanced and knowledgeable definitions for things that have depth.