Combat as Sport or Combat as War

[haakon1]

Yeah, if you read the original thread, it is prettymuch just calling anyone who doesn't play old school a pansy.

Let it go, Tony.

I know it's not easy sometimes, but let's all try to cut each other slack, and realize that folks wanting different things from the game, or liking different editions or playstyles, is NOT an attack on us.

ENWorld as War or ENWorld as Sport both suck, and no one ever wins an edition war, play style war, or argument about what Lawful Good means and what paladins should or should not do.

 

[Savage Wombat]

ENWorld as Sport - using every semantic trick you can think of to get more experience points for your posts than your rivals.

ENWorld as War - tracking your rival to his home IP and deleting his account information, sabotaging his computer and/or burning down his house.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Yeah, if you read the original thread, it is prettymuch just calling anyone who doesn't play old school a pansy.

Tony, I'm seeing a lot of negativity from you on the threads in this forum, and an increasing degree of passive-aggressiveness. If these things annoy you, why not spend more time in the parts of the site that are fun for you?

If you are going to continue in this forum, you may need to rethink your posting style. I'm not saying you have to drink the cool-aid and become all happy-clappy, but I'd like you to lose what looks like the chip on your shoulder.

Please feel free to email me if you want to discuss this

 

[Mercule]

Tactical combat is a riot. My favorite 3e character was a rogue/acrobat who was fabulous at moving around and playing off whatever happened to be in the field. That said, the character was also part of a group that attempted to do RtToEE by stealth, which is pretty much the other end of the scale.

I guess I prefer having the opportunity to deal with many -- maybe most -- situations strategically. I like having the occasional critter that is beyond the party's ability. I also like having creativity and planning be rewarded. That said, sometimes, heroes just need to throw down with the big bad. In that case, strategy should have some impact, but the climax should run long enough for tactics to matter, too -- at least most of the time.

 

[Tallifer]

I worry that if I don't say CAW then someone's gonna call me a wimp.

That would be people who do not watch Spartacus Blood and Sand on television?

Although Augustus in the miniseries "Rome" is good demonstration of Combat as War: he never even steps into a fight, but he rules the world through a combination of ruthlessness and justice.

 

[Libramarian]

What I want for the standard scenario is to have a gauntlet leading up to a setpiece boss battle.

In the gauntlet portion the players try to make it through in as good a shape as they can using richly contextual CAW trickery. This feels like classic AD&D crawl gameplay.

And yet the setpiece boss battle has enough rules weight and PC - encounter balance that no matter what resources either side has, it's going to be a tight, weighty, tactically rich throwdown, where both the players and DM can dig in and play as hard as they can. And with it being very possible for the DM to win. This feels like an overlevelled 4e encounter but brisker and less grindy.

But there also can't be an ugly seam between the two "modes". I am OK with a bit of a seam. But it could turn me off. It depends.

And I don't want anything that feels too different from traditional D&D. Here I also can't say exactly what would turn me off. It depends.

(Never said I was easy to please).

 

[Daztur]

That would be people who do not watch Spartacus Blood and Sand on television?

Although Augustus in the miniseries "Rome" is good demonstration of Combat as War: he never even steps into a fight, but he rules the world through a combination of ruthlessness and justice.

Excellent example. Gladiator fights are fun and they skew much more to CaS (except if figuring out how to cheat at gladiator fights is a big part of the fight...).

I prefer CaW overall and the pre-3ed editions overall, but to add in some caveats if I were running 4ed I'd play it more along CaS lines (and run a game that looks like Princess Bride crossed with Kung-fu Panda) and there's plenty of things about WotC-D&D, that I like more than TSR-D&D...

 

[S'mon]

One way I've approached CAW/CAS in 4e is to have CAS be the best reasonably possible outcome of the preliminary CAW. Ie CAW play can take a very bad situation and turn it into a winnable CAS fight, but it almost certainly cannot give you a trivial fight.

This seems to be the 4e 'sweet spot'.

By contrast 1e works great with both trivial fights and unwinnable run-away fights. 1e also does well with well-balanced CAS-ish fights though. I've seen three brilliant, evenly matched battles in my 1e AD&D campaign so far, where the survival of the PC group hung on a knife-edge. The one last night, we ended with a cliffhanger - 1 PC & an NPC still standing over 3 dead orcs in the old stable, 2 PCs down & incapacitated, and the mob of 'Sleeped' goblins outside the stable waking up... not looking too good for the PCs!

 

[haakon1]

That would be people who do not watch Spartacus Blood and Sand on television?

Although Augustus in the miniseries "Rome" is good demonstration of Combat as War: he never even steps into a fight, but he rules the world through a combination of ruthlessness and justice.

Cool examples of what's cool about each style.

 

[haakon1]

What I want for the standard scenario is to have a gauntlet leading up to a setpiece boss battle.

In the gauntlet portion the players try to make it through in as good a shape as they can using richly contextual CAW trickery. This feels like classic AD&D crawl gameplay.

And yet the setpiece boss battle has enough rules weight and PC - encounter balance that no matter what resources either side has, it's going to be a tight, weighty, tactically rich throwdown, where both the players and DM can dig in and play as hard as they can. And with it being very possible for the DM to win. This feels like an overlevelled 4e encounter but brisker and less grindy.

If the CaW gauntlet doesn't affect the outcome of the CaS boss fight, what's the point of the CaW part?

Hmmm, I guess if it's fun while you're doing it, or adds to the atmosphere, that's OK, but I'd worry about the players figuring out the gauntlet is irrelevant . . . and it sorts of feels like DM cheating if the boss monster fight gets tweaked up or down to balance where the PC's power level is at after the gauntlet.

Perhaps you could achieve what you're looking for if there was a "once a day" recharge, so you could effectively have the powers of an overnight rest (in traditional D&D) right before the boss fight?