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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Laurefindel" data-source="post: 9417600" data-attributes="member: 67296">Moral implications aside, combat is fun because it’s a dynamic challenge that (particularly in D&D but in many other RPGs as well) is broken down to a very fine level of details.No other situation in life requires such a fine level of micro-observations, where scenes need to be decomposed and analyzed to the same degree. There are other complex situation involving conflict of course, but combat is the epitome of competition that involve team-play, individual skills, equipment, short time limits, and high stakes. The only thing that comes close is competitive team-sport but event then, sport is usually ‘burdened’ with ‘unnecessary’ restrictions and rules, requires specific installations, needs a set number of players, and requires witnesses (usually an audience and referees).What I’m saying is that in D&D, combat is fun because that’s what the game does best - no other elements of the game comes even remotely close. PerhapsIf they did we’d be doing those instead, but it would also make D&D a heavy, heavy game to play. Combat in D&D is horror for the characters but a sport for the players. We put our characters in situation of harm waaaaay more than we would in real life because as players, we want to play the sport.(As an aside, that’s why I hate paralysis-type spells. They go against one of the core ‘rule’ of D&D combat: everyone has a turn. It’s also why I think fantasy is a popular genre, and why some people don’t want guns in their fantasy)I’ll finish by saying that we have some control over the kind of ‘sport’ we want to play. Not all combat need to be to the death. Going to 0 hp does not always have to mean death; It means defeat. In context, defeat can mean many things, and your own life does not have to be the only stake.</blockquote>

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