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Attacking defenseless NPCs
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7626156" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>For once, I largely agree with Celebrim - not just on this, but on the entire post. I have some additional thoughts I'll add.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In a game theory sense, the stakes are known, but probabilistic. It is like playing a hand of blackjack for the right to make a spin on a roulette wheel. You don't know the exact outcome, but you can totally work out the expected return on the bet.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think this becomes even more clear if we consider that the issue is that we feel like we know the *result* before the roll. There aren't "stakes" unless there's some question about the resolution. There is no "fortune", or action resolution, required - the player feels like they are in a position to strictly determine the narrative by choice.</p><p></p><p>There are only stakes from the point of view of a person <em>trying to stop</em> the throat from being cut - "If I don't convince them to stand down, my friend dies," has stakes. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I am not sure that's entirely true. </p><p></p><p>Consider the TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this show, vampires are killed by a stake through the heart. But Buffy almost never *leads* with an attempt to stake a vampire. She generally takes an extended period pummeling the vampire, and then stakes them as a finishing move. Basically, the stake is ineffective until the vampire has been pummeled enough. </p><p></p><p>This is not too terribly different - in D&D, the equivalent is reducing the target to zero hit points, but alive. This is actually the helpless state the player wants - it is a choice explicitly allowed in the rules, and in this state, yes any hit will kill the target. The problem/disconnect is that the player feels this state can be reached by just grabbing the target, and that's not the case. Targets in D&D are... much more feisty than in the real world. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nothing <em>in the combat rules</em> tests that proposition. However, thinking about it this way, we could say that this isn't really a combat action. It is a *social interaction* action. Specifically, Intimidate - threatening someone with a sharp object is even one of the examples in the skill description!</p><p></p><p>Basically, "I [try to] put a knife to the target's throat," and, "I [try to] stab the target in the throat" are different propositions. The former is about intimidation, the latter about combat. D&D doesn't have hit locations, so "in the throat" is a bit that has no meaning in the combat system.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>"If I allow this, everyone you've ever honked off is going to try to hire snipers to kill you, and they are as likely to succeed at it as you are to succeed at this," should be a good perspective-enhancing notion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 7626156, member: 177"] For once, I largely agree with Celebrim - not just on this, but on the entire post. I have some additional thoughts I'll add. In a game theory sense, the stakes are known, but probabilistic. It is like playing a hand of blackjack for the right to make a spin on a roulette wheel. You don't know the exact outcome, but you can totally work out the expected return on the bet. I think this becomes even more clear if we consider that the issue is that we feel like we know the *result* before the roll. There aren't "stakes" unless there's some question about the resolution. There is no "fortune", or action resolution, required - the player feels like they are in a position to strictly determine the narrative by choice. There are only stakes from the point of view of a person [I]trying to stop[/I] the throat from being cut - "If I don't convince them to stand down, my friend dies," has stakes. I am not sure that's entirely true. Consider the TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this show, vampires are killed by a stake through the heart. But Buffy almost never *leads* with an attempt to stake a vampire. She generally takes an extended period pummeling the vampire, and then stakes them as a finishing move. Basically, the stake is ineffective until the vampire has been pummeled enough. This is not too terribly different - in D&D, the equivalent is reducing the target to zero hit points, but alive. This is actually the helpless state the player wants - it is a choice explicitly allowed in the rules, and in this state, yes any hit will kill the target. The problem/disconnect is that the player feels this state can be reached by just grabbing the target, and that's not the case. Targets in D&D are... much more feisty than in the real world. Nothing [I]in the combat rules[/I] tests that proposition. However, thinking about it this way, we could say that this isn't really a combat action. It is a *social interaction* action. Specifically, Intimidate - threatening someone with a sharp object is even one of the examples in the skill description! Basically, "I [try to] put a knife to the target's throat," and, "I [try to] stab the target in the throat" are different propositions. The former is about intimidation, the latter about combat. D&D doesn't have hit locations, so "in the throat" is a bit that has no meaning in the combat system. "If I allow this, everyone you've ever honked off is going to try to hire snipers to kill you, and they are as likely to succeed at it as you are to succeed at this," should be a good perspective-enhancing notion. [/QUOTE]
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