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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8286673" data-attributes="member: 42582">What do you mean by "plus"?I can tell you what [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] means when he says that "all D&D combat can basically be captured by "this is a boardgame and the Skilled Play that is an outgrowth of this play is predicated exclusively upon boardgame dynamics." He means what he says: D&D combat is basically a boardgame which is defined and resolved by a closed set of rules and moves. If this is true, then Moldvay Basic (for instance) would unfold in two distinct "phases" - the bit which is about the shared fiction and the players engaging that with the GM adjudicating/extrapolating from his/her notes in accordance with the rules and conventions of play; and then from time to time the bits which involve combat, which are boardgame like "interruptions" of the fiction-oriented play they are embedded in.If this is true, then there is no Gygaxian skilled play in D&D combat.For what it's worth, I am confident that Manbearcat would readily concede that his characterisation of D&D combat as a boardgame is a generalisation rather than a stipulation of a universal truth. In the context of Moldvay Basic, encountering an unrecognised type of dungeon slime and trying to find out whether fire is necessary to kill it or likely to feed it so it becomes even more fearsome might be resolved in part using the combat rules but clearly isn't boardgame play. And I can give example of 4e D&D combat which involve maps and tokens but are clearly more than boardgame play. Manbearcat is making a point about what is typical or paradigmatic to facilitate a focusing of thought and discussion.So anyway, I know what Manbearcat is saying. What do you mean by "plus"?</blockquote>

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