That doesn't make it a war game.Its a game about killing stuff, always has been.
That doesn't make it a war game.Its a game about killing stuff, always has been.
I got to thinking about combat as skill challenge and from there getting rid of the attack roll entirely.
If PCs need to infiltrate a giants fortress, rescue the prisoners and recover the stolen artifacts, they could use stealth to sneak pass the monsters or diplomacy/intimidation to cower them or architectural skills to navigate or they could use Athletics to muscle their way through - which is the nearest you'd get to violence - You're emphasizing skillful choices to achieve goals rather than violence merely to slay the enemy
And yet...Good thing we're talking about an imaginary world then, where we're all acting like fictional characters and no one is actually getting hurt.
That's not just a western thing. That's a human thing.Western media is quick to justify lethal force against people it deems Evil
maybe violence is not the best choice always or anytime, but it's sure fastest and most efficient most of the time.And yet...
We've been having lots of discussions about the systems of violence that exist in the game. Genocide. Slavery. Red cards. Implied SA in the origin of half -orcs. You can't say there ain't nothing there.
And to be clear, I don't believe that the game itself is harmful to its players. But I do have concerns that Western media is quick to justify lethal force against people it deems Evil, and D&D is built squarely on the tropes of violence being the best solution to the majority of conflicts.
I understand your concern, but quite frankly I don't see a solution to it, other than abandoning D&D and a lot of other TTRPGs descended from its philosophy. There's nothing else to be done IMO, since changing the game sufficiently to alleviate your concern would render it a fundamentally different and, I feel, less generally fun and therefore salable to the number of people required for financial viability. In short, it wouldn't be D&D anymore even to the degree the current edition is compared to editions past.And yet...
We've been having lots of discussions about the systems of violence that exist in the game. Genocide. Slavery. Red cards. Implied SA in the origin of half -orcs. You can't say there ain't nothing there.
And to be clear, I don't believe that the game itself is harmful to its players. But I do have concerns that Western media is quick to justify lethal force against people it deems Evil, and D&D is built squarely on the tropes of violence being the best solution to the majority of conflicts.