D&D 5E Combat as war, sport, or ??

[Fanaelialae]

For those of you who say that your players don't care about story consequences, why have a story at all? I realize that the story in these games is emergent, but that's still a story. It would be far less work to run the game as a series of skirmishes or old-school dungeon delve sans over world. You could even design the skirmishes as large set pieces designed to encourage a Pragmatic approach.

It sounds like your players could care less so long as they get experience and treasure, and might even prefer it that way since they could extract the experience and treasure more efficiently. So why go through the presumably not-insignificant effort of creating a living campaign world? Is it just for your own enjoyment, or for some other reason?

 

[FrozenNorth]

You say that it's player-based design, but a lot of 5e was designed on the cult-like mantra of "GM empowerment" rather than giving players an easy mode. 4e was arguably more player-based design, and it gave GM tools for balancing and designing encounters as well as running monsters.

I just want to say that I am a string critic of certain aspects of 5e design and I agree 100% with this. It’s one of the things that I like about 5e, that generally it gives DMs leeway to set things in a manner appropriate to their party.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So you play with equal power, but unequal responsibility? Because in D&D the DM has a lot more of the latter than the players.

no we all work on world building... I guess if you count running 1 off NPCs in a dozen different places as being 1 or 2 characters in everyone of them.
I am enjoying my time right now not DMing, but TBH I still have to help current DMs with rules, world building, plot ideas... so where I am not front loading 100+ hours on world building (but I am still doing that right now for future pitches) I have spent similar amounts of time working with the DMs as I would have working with the players...

 

[Micah Sweet]

no we all work on world building... I guess if you count running 1 off NPCs in a dozen different places as being 1 or 2 characters in everyone of them.
I am enjoying my time right now not DMing, but TBH I still have to help current DMs with rules, world building, plot ideas... so where I am not front loading 100+ hours on world building (but I am still doing that right now for future pitches) I have spent similar amounts of time working with the DMs as I would have working with the players...

If the players are sharing significant responsibility in worldbuilding, that's already an outlier playstyle in D&D (slightly less so in 4e). But the DM is still creating and running the adventure, so they still have more responsibility than the players and therefore, in my opinion, should have more power.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If the players are sharing significant responsibility in worldbuilding, that's already an outlier playstyle in D&D (slightly less so in 4e). But the DM is still creating and running the adventure, so they still have more responsibility than the players and therefore, in my opinion, should have more power.

your opinion is noted but disagreed with
i mean The DM does run the adventures... if we have a disagreement we allvote and DM wins tie votes so Iguess tie breaker is a bit more 'power'

 

[Vaalingrade]

Without death, life is meaningless, both in the real world, and in the game.

I most vehemently object to this philosophy on life. Life gives life meaning. What we do in life gives life meaning.

Death is just an expiration date. One, I will add humanity has been kicking further and further down the line throughout our entire existence. Defying death is what we do best; from running down a deer until it drops dead form exhaustion for food, to developing means to eradicate disease.

Giving in and 'accepting' death and the weird reverence we give to it as a coping process, to me is counter to the entire human experience.

 

[payn]

I most vehemently object to this philosophy on life. Life gives life meaning. What we do in life gives life meaning.

Death is just an expiration date. One, I will add humanity has been kicking further and further down the line throughout our entire existence. Defying death is what we do best; from running down a deer until it drops dead form exhaustion for food, to developing means to eradicate disease.

Giving in and 'accepting' death and the weird reverence we give to it as a coping process, to me is counter to the entire human experience.

So, we should stop playing Russian roulette at the end of every gaming session?

 

[Vaalingrade]

So, we should stop playing Russian roulette at the end of every gaming session?

Probably!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, we should stop playing Russian roulette at the end of every gaming session?

i would have to guess based on the limited information on enworld that many users MUST play Russian Roulette to give there lives meaning.

 

[Vaalingrade]

DYING IS THE ONLY STAKE!

~Privately panics over making ends meet with a sick child and a distant father~