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

[Vaalingrade]

And thus every wizard blinks out of existence.

 

[Malmuria]

Were D&D combat as war, a common activity for characters would be massacring civilians and subjecting them to exemplary violence, to negate the ability of their polities to sustain resistance, and force them to surrender themselves and their resources. I think one could make an argument relating to the typical humanoid subjects of character violence that casts them as just such civilians. The point I would make - emphatically - is that war is not the application of strategy to prevail at the tactical layer. War is coersion by the least costly and most convenient means available. The military-industrial complex has warped "least costly" into "most profitable", of course. It's not that interactions between strategic, operational, and tactical layers are absent, it's that they are a possible means but not the overriding purpose or even a necessity of war.

Were D&D combat as sport, then we might expect to see some effort to pit equal challengers against one another. As others have argued, this too visibly falls short as a description of D&D play. (Although I am also sympathetic to arguments that defend this, as there visibly is some effort to establish a level of challenge, and in particular a level of challenge over a series of combats. Somewhat defeated by other choices made by the designers.)

I guess I didn't take the war/sport terms very literally; the relevant distinction for me is before/after initiative. Having initiative sets combat up to be a particular thing in the game, and the relevant question is what best describes player goals, options, and success in the particular thing. So the war/sport distinction wouldn't make a lot of sense, at least in terms of mechanics, in games that don't have initiative and special rules for resolving physical violence.

I think one has to position D&D combat within both character-development (choices about the character that have mechanical implications) and adventure-development (the string of encounters and arc of adventure.) I might characterise D&D combat in two ways. 1) As an "arena of proof" in which player choices are validated against a routine of tests, with a modicum of in-the-moment skill deciding performance. 2) As overcoming a hurdle or obstacle to progress... beating a programmed challenge. (I'm describing here a sort of formulaic D&D presented in many published adventure modules, and not aiming to say that D&D as a game system is capable only of sustaining that kind of play.) I might label both cases as "Combat as Trial." This is consonant with play: the option to try something at stakes that one finds palatable.

Sometimes people (jokingly) say that OD&D is a game about doors given how many references there are to doors in the original texts. In that, what happens in the liminal/ interstitial spaces, as expressed via turn procedure, matters a lot. Taking it seriously, I think it speaks a little bit to the what the war/sport dichotomy is trying to get at. Perhaps then the latter game (sport) is a game of rooms, in that room encounters function as these "arenas of proof"?

 

[Aldarc]

And thus every wizard blinks out of existence.

Hence why wizards don't have any world records.

 

[tetrasodium]

that is not my experience

It's very much been mine. Take this example from several months ago. The group was not able to use stealth for scry & fry tactics due to the fact that they were trying to couple it with what if do I & can I 20 questions quantum actions. A single fight after their last rest one player was trying to force a confirmation on certainty of a successful rest before taking one & every time prompted "what are you guys doing?" the response was always some form of waiting fo him/watching him/keeping watch from the rest of the group. After twenty minutes of the first player trying to barricade a door* some of the lizard men got together to smack the rear guard squishies "keeping watch" before running away. This caused two things to happen. First the repeated barricading attempts were continued with renewed fervor. Second the group started hearing people pleading & whimpering for help.

[edit spotty signal & something happened to the rest of post]. This continued for another hour of real world table time before I pointed out that it had been an hour of real world time. That player was reminded how often he said "my character just wants to help people" & frustrated that being told that wasting everyone's time does not guarantee a rest that player declared "but not those people... They are going to have to help themselves"

*there was an open hallway 4way intersection & no door behind the room with this door being barricaded not a single entrance

 

[Vaalingrade]

Hence why wizards don't have any world records.

Alan Moore has the record for most Eisner Awards for Best Writer.

This is Alan Moore:

 

[Aldarc]

Alan Moore has the record for most Eisner Awards for Best Writer.

This is Alan Moore:

View attachment 267698

Color me unimpressed.

 

[Scribe]

Simulating reality is also why it's important to maintain the god wizard and peon fighter paradigm. Realism in fantasy games only applies to fighters.

Never forget.

I read this in a very serious voice, having had Remembrance Day not long ago, and laughed hard, no offense intended.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Color me unimpressed.

You say that right up until he covets your tsarina and causes the downfall of your reign.

 

[Xetheral]

I guess I didn't take the war/sport terms very literally; the relevant distinction for me is before/after initiative.

That's the relevant distinction for me too. Regardless of what terminology is used, I see the question as whether: (1) players are expected to accept the premise of a potential combat as presented by the DM and attempt to win it after initiative is rolled; or (2) players are expected to try to redefine the premise of a potential combat to play to their character's strengths, effectively trying to win before initiative is rolled.

And while it's definitely non-binary (there are varying degrees of just how far a table can expect the players to go in an attempt to redefine a potential combat in advance), in my experience it's sufficiently bimodal that having a pair of distinct labels is useful terminology for describing a table's playstyle.

Neither method is superior to the other, and, while I have a decided preference, I still enjoy both approaches to combat. I just need to know as a player what a table's expectation is so that I can choose my character's actions appropriately, and as a DM I need to be able to discuss with the players the intended playstyle for a particular campaign. Having labels for the distinct approaches to combat isn't necessary to have the relevant discussions, but it absolutely helps.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's the relevant distinction for me too. Regardless of what terminology is used, I see the question as whether: (1) players are expected to accept the premise of a potential combat as presented by the DM and attempt to win it after initiative is rolled; or (2) players are expected to try to redefine the premise of a potential combat to play to their character's strengths, effectively trying to win before initiative is rolled.

And while it's definitely non-binary (there are varying degrees of just how far a table can expect the players to go in an attempt to redefine a potential combat in advance), in my experience it's sufficiently bimodal that having a pair of distinct labels is useful terminology for describing a table's playstyle.

Neither method is superior to the other, and, while I have a decided preference, I still enjoy both approaches to combat. I just need to know as a player what a table's expectation is so that I can choose my character's actions appropriately, and as a DM I need to be able to discuss with the players the intended playstyle for a particular campaign. Having labels for the distinct approaches to combat isn't necessary to have the relevant discussions, but it absolutely helps.

Then, as stated, why not use "strategy" vs "tactics"? People generally understand the meaning of the words, and the meaning is (as others have noted) closer to the metal than that of "war" and "sport." Indeed, the latter two have explicitly problematic elements purely in their intended meanings, not even accounting for any historical-precedent issues.