D&D General Why Combat is a Fail State - Blog and Thoughts

[MGibster]

Call of Cthulhu says so. Mothership says so. D&D never said “don’t fight those monsters, it’ll go badly for you.”

There's a Delta Green campaign called God's Teeth, and in the very first scenario combat is a given. There is simply no viable solution that doesn't involve a great deal of violence brutally inflicted on some very, very bad people in order to achieve a satisfactory conclusion. The players have some control over how that violence is inflicted, but the mission cannot succeed without violence. One of Call of Cthulhu's dirty little secrets is that violence can be shockingly effective. There are plenty of mythos creatures that can be thwarted by a liberal application of bullets, fire, or explosives. Though violence always comes with a cost even if you win. When I'm playing these games, I try to stack the deck in my character's favor as much as possible when engaging in violence. A fail state is when my character is surprised by combat.

For my entire gaming life, D&D has revolved around combat. Combat isn't a failed state in that game, it's the whole reason we're playing. I don't need to spend every second of every session fighting, but if we go a while without a fight I get antsy. I want to fight!

 

[Theory of Games]

There is no "fail-state" to combat.

The article author states the "maxim" came from within the OSR community. From who exactly? It can't be found in the OSR materials that were linked (I checked). Did the author just make up this "maxim" to generate a hot take?

Both in BECMI and AD&D combat is presented as one of several options when encountering monsters. The B/X core rules and AD&D Players Handbook clearly provide these options to the players. But you look at the combat section in the 5e Players Book and there's one option: FIGHT. No evasion or negotiation or fleeing.

The author ends his article with,

"In other words, combat is a fail state in old-school play, because old-school combat elides the core tenets of old-school play."

Hunh? Combat can be a "failstate" in any ttrpg because normally there's a risk that your PC will die. Combat is just as integral to D&D as magic because they're both tropes of the Fantasy genre (Appendix N). What are the "core tenets of old-school play"? Matt Finch's 'Primer' does a decent job of covering them and none of it "elides" combat, just as none of it "elides" magic.

The article is just another uninformed "hot take".

 

[TiQuinn]

There is no "fail-state" to combat.

The article author states the "maxim" came from within the OSR community. From who exactly? It can't be found in the OSR materials that were linked (I checked). Did the author just make up this "maxim" to generate a hot take?

Both in BECMI and AD&D combat is presented as one of several options when encountering monsters. The B/X core rules and AD&D Players Handbook clearly provide these options to the players. But you look at the combat section in the 5e Players Book and there's one option: FIGHT. No evasion or negotiation or fleeing.

The author ends his article with,

"In other words, combat is a fail state in old-school play, because old-school combat elides the core tenets of old-school play."

Hunh? Combat can be a "failstate" in any ttrpg because normally there's a risk that your PC will die. Combat is just as integral to D&D as magic because they're both tropes of the Fantasy genre (Appendix N). What are the "core tenets of old-school play"? Matt Finch's 'Primer' does a decent job of covering them and none of it "elides" combat, just as none of it "elides" magic.

The article is just another uninformed "hot take".

OSR doesn’t necessarily equate to 1e or B/X.

 

[Gus L]

The concept likely comes from the forum discourse around the release and creation of OSRIC. See this 2009 post at Grognardia discussing OSRIC's advice on combat mechanics and exploration.

The Primary Activity in Adventures

Though I tend to speak more these days about OD&D and its retro-clones. I should state upfront that I am a big fan of OSRIC . I own a hardco...

grognardia.blogspot.com

The actual phrase is harder to track down - I suspect because it's first use is found in either G+ discussions or on Dragonsfoot and search doesn't pull those up. It was already in use in the mid 2010's based on blog posts referring to it. Generally the criticism and understanding of it has been the same as what I posted above - fair combat in older systems is neither the goal of the game or especially productive for characters - it represents a significant risk and finding ways to mitigate that risk tactically or strategically are a part of sound OSR play.

As I said above, an increasing number of people seem to strongly oppose the idea that "OSR" design disfavors combat or that it represents a risky solution for in game problems... This idea naturally ties into the OSR as a rejection of 3.5E and 4E design which was extremely combat centered. The reaction to it now is to me further proof that the OSR no longer functions as a cohesive scene or set of ideas, but instead has many different claimants and various progeny with different ideas about design. This makes maxims from the OSR era collapse on themselves, especially when people without much OSR knowledge appear to have begun the project of nostalgically claiming the OSR for a particular style of play based on their concepts of what OSRIC era/Old School Revival design goals were, while rejecting the majority of the OSR's history.

 

[Clint_L]

There's a Delta Green campaign called God's Teeth, and in the very first scenario combat is a given. There is simply no viable solution that doesn't involve a great deal of violence brutally inflicted on some very, very bad people in order to achieve a satisfactory conclusion. The players have some control over how that violence is inflicted, but the mission cannot succeed without violence. One of Call of Cthulhu's dirty little secrets is that violence can be shockingly effective. There are plenty of mythos creatures that can be thwarted by a liberal application of bullets, fire, or explosives. Though violence always comes with a cost even if you win. When I'm playing these games, I try to stack the deck in my character's favor as much as possible when engaging in violence. A fail state is when my character is surprised by combat.

If you don't do everything you can to stack the deck in your character's favour in CoC, your character is probably going to die. Horribly.

For my entire gaming life, D&D has revolved around combat. Combat isn't a failed state in that game, it's the whole reason we're playing. I don't need to spend every second of every session fighting, but if we go a while without a fight I get antsy. I want to fight!

I wouldn't say that combat is the whole reason for playing D&D, at least not for me, but it is a pretty typical outcome and one that the game is certainly geared towards. But we have plenty of sessions where there is no combat, including my last two.

In general, I find combat the least fun part of D&D. Beating the bad guys is fun in the story, but the actual mechanics of D&D combat are mostly time consuming and tedious.

 

[TiQuinn]

As I said above, an increasing number of people seem to strongly oppose the idea that "OSR" design disfavors combat or that it represents a risky solution for in game problems... This idea naturally ties into the OSR as a rejection of 3.5E and 4E design which was extremely combat centered. The reaction to it now is to me further proof that the OSR no longer functions as a cohesive scene or set of ideas, but instead has many different claimants and various progeny with different ideas about design. This makes maxims from the OSR era collapse on themselves, especially when people without much OSR knowledge appear to have begun the project of nostalgically claiming the OSR for a particular style of play based on their concepts of what OSRIC era/Old School Revival design goals were, while rejecting the majority of the OSR's history.

Perhaps this is why New School Revolution (NSR) has also popped up - putting labels on all this stuff has never clicked for me, but I have seen a difference between people wanting the throwback to the older versions of the game versus people who want the feel of B/X (and it seems predominantly B/X) but with simplified rules overall.

 

[Theory of Games]

OSR doesn’t necessarily equate to 1e or B/X.

That statement makes absolutely zero sense

 

[TiQuinn]

That statement makes absolutely zero sense

I think you are confusing OSR with retro clones.

 

[Theory of Games]

I think you are confusing OSR with retro clones.

The OSR was founded by retro-clones

Old School Renaissance - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Aldarc]

I’m not an active OSR participant, but I find a lot of what the OSR folks do very interesting and often aligned with what I aim for in D&D. From that perspective, I think “combat is a fail state” is probably overstating the sentiment. The real underlying idea seems to me to be that combat ought not to be something the PCs actively seek out, but rather one possible means of resolving conflict with monsters, which themselves ought to be obstacles to the PCs’ goals. It’s not so much that if you get into combat you’ve messed up, but rather that combat is dangerous and there are often safer ways to accomplish your goals.

Likewise, I think “the answer is not on your character sheet” is overstating the case a bit. Obviously the character sheet can provide answers to problems. But I think the intent behind the adage is that the character sheet ought not to be the first place the players look for solutions to problems. Sure it’s where your stats live, but it’s generally more in the spirit of the game to take a more fiction-first approach. Imagine yourself as your character, in the world, and describe what you would do or try to do in a their shoes; the character sheet will help in figuring out what happens as a result.

IMHO, my problem with the whole "the answer is not on your character sheet" is that it's kind of insulting towards players, especially when it is used in contrast to other games like 5e D&D. There are probably better ways to express a "fiction first" approach than implying that players are just scrambling to look for easy answers to problems on their character sheet.

And with the former about "combat being a fail safe," I would also disagree. Sometimes combat is simply a result of the players leaning into engaging with the material that the GM has prepped.