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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7758237" data-attributes="member: 42582">Who do you think I'm giving advice to?This is a general discussion in the General RPG forum, abstracted from any particular group's particular episodes of play. [MENTION=6779234]Grainger[/MENTION] was raising questions about why a fight is seen as a typical, even quintessential, climax. You responded to that. And I'm responding in turn: one reason, in the context of RPGing, is because of the system features of many RPGs, especially the most popular one.The fact that, in D&D (and many derivative games) it's easier to generate table-wide excitement via a fight rather than via, say, a surgical intervention to restore the patient before s/he dies; or a race to the top of the mountain (or the bottom of the globe, or whatever); or a series of switches of the backpack and the locker and the car so that the PCs end up on a sunny island with the cash while the NPC ends up surrounded by police at an empty train-station locker; is overwhelmingly system, not authorial ability.If D&D combat was as mechanically sparse as D&D surgery - say, a single opposed check to resolve the outcome (and for spells, as well, which is oen important dimension that D&D, especially more classic versions, draws excitement from) - then we probably wouldn't regard fights as especially suitable for dramatic climaxes.</blockquote>