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

[overgeeked]

Wow, that's really interesting. How are you getting that result? Are the monsters making a point of killing downed PCs? Is the party pushing through all their healing surges?

This can happen if the players don’t use teamwork. Most classes have abilities that do damage but also have a rider that buffs their allies. Ignoring those is not a great strategy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No but to be a little serious, this "use niche terms as a shorthand for some thesis statement" never works out.

How else are we going to formulate means to pick fights with others sans finger camps then?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

From what I'm seeing, we have at least three axes proposed for differentiating the goal/purpose and expression of combat in a D&D-like system. They are, if I haven't missed anything:
Player Methods: Tactics vs Strategy (blow-by-blow action or vs campaign logistics)
Player Attitude: Heroic vs Pragmatic (meritoriousness and discipline vs ruthlessness and guile)
Gameplay Function: Narrative vs Challenge (genre enforcement or theme examination vs entertaining mechanics or puzzle-solving)

None of these is a true axis, in the sense that it is possible to make some efforts in both directions for all three. But most D&D-like games will have a metaphorical "center" which does fall somewhere along this spectrum.

those are 3 good axis to look at, much better then just war vs sport

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This can happen if the players don’t use teamwork. Most classes have abilities that do damage but also have a rider that buffs their allies. Ignoring those is not a great strategy.

poor dice rolls and just plane bad tactics can do it too

 

[overgeeked]

combat as sport has always been an intentionally nonsense pejorative against 4e…

The phrase existed long, long before 4E.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The phrase existed long, long before 4E.

so did the phrase MMO... so did compareing D&D (every edition since at least 2nd) to video games... but some how 4e gets lumped swith it

 

[dave2008]

Combat as filler. 5e combat never rises above cjtscene training mintage but takes so many combats (and probably sessions) to meet the system's expectations that none of the cut scenes are ever me. Or able enough for anyone to really wonder about when they splash by on the eeel

I guess those PCs I killed last week are just filler for Orcus then

 

[Scribe]

"On a long enough time line, every thread goes back to a 4e debate." - Godwin 2022, probably.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I guess those PCs I killed last week are just filler for Orcus then

The Demon Lord of the Undead can really put it away!

 

[Composer99]

Wow, that's really interesting. How are you getting that result? Are the monsters making a point of killing downed PCs? Is the party pushing through all their healing surges?

We've had five deaths so far. (The most I've seen in any months or years-long campaign I've been in is two.)

The first two deaths happened because we had back-to-back combats without taking a short rest in between. (That was the players' fault - we walked right into an ambush back in town. Not to say we should have seen it coming, but if we'd taken the time to heal up I expect we'd have survived.)

The second three (almost four!) happened, I suspect, because the combat was specced for five players and we only had four present. Even so, I feel like we could have almost pulled it off had we brought a few more potions of healing beforehand, and had our die rolls been slightly better on average and the DM's slightly worse. (In particular, one of our players already had a reputation for bad luck on attack rolls with his cleric character; that reputation was well deserved that fight!)

I suspect we'll see fewer deaths going forward, though.