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Combat as war, sport, or ??
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<blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8831720" data-attributes="member: 53980"><p>You're cross cutting heavily. A lot of your factors have a loose correlation at best.</p><p></p><p>Take that extremely deadly "heroic" style campaign I mentioned earlier.</p><p></p><p>That was:</p><p>"If the characters are frequently fighting for survival, Bad Things happening to party members is an accepted fact of life, and the DM's not pulling any punches, that's gritty."</p><p></p><p>But it was also:</p><p>"If the characters are noticeably different from others in the setting just because of their PC status, that's sporty. If the players can plan out their characters' life-paths during char-gen in the expectation that path will be walked in full, that's sporty."</p><p></p><p>Additionally, it had a "heroic" approach to combat that I presume you would not associate with a gritty campaign.</p><p></p><p>IMO, it makes more sense to decouple these concerns and boil them down to the fundamentals. Then, if you want to discuss a certain style of play assembled from those fundamentals, it becomes clear that "heroic" combat type games aren't coupled to "easy" play, any more so than "pragmatic" combat style games are coupled with high difficulty.</p><p></p><p>Some possible fundamentals:</p><p></p><p>Approach to Combat : Heroic - Pragmatic : the default means by which combat is expected to be engaged </p><p></p><p>Combat Deadliness : "Significant Plot Armor" - "Don't Bother Naming your Character" : the overall difficulty/deadliness of the typical combat </p><p></p><p>Resource Scarcity : Low - High : the availability of various combat resources, including recovery thereof</p><p></p><p>So your gritty play style would have a Pragmatic approach to combat, high deadliness, and high resource scarcity.</p><p></p><p>And sporty play style, as you define it, would have Heroic combat, low deadliness, and low resource scarcity.</p><p></p><p>But I can also talk about the style of the aforementioned campaign I was in, which involved Heroic combat, high deadliness, and moderate to high resource scarcity.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fanaelialae, post: 8831720, member: 53980"] You're cross cutting heavily. A lot of your factors have a loose correlation at best. Take that extremely deadly "heroic" style campaign I mentioned earlier. That was: "If the characters are frequently fighting for survival, Bad Things happening to party members is an accepted fact of life, and the DM's not pulling any punches, that's gritty." But it was also: "If the characters are noticeably different from others in the setting just because of their PC status, that's sporty. If the players can plan out their characters' life-paths during char-gen in the expectation that path will be walked in full, that's sporty." Additionally, it had a "heroic" approach to combat that I presume you would not associate with a gritty campaign. IMO, it makes more sense to decouple these concerns and boil them down to the fundamentals. Then, if you want to discuss a certain style of play assembled from those fundamentals, it becomes clear that "heroic" combat type games aren't coupled to "easy" play, any more so than "pragmatic" combat style games are coupled with high difficulty. Some possible fundamentals: Approach to Combat : Heroic - Pragmatic : the default means by which combat is expected to be engaged Combat Deadliness : "Significant Plot Armor" - "Don't Bother Naming your Character" : the overall difficulty/deadliness of the typical combat Resource Scarcity : Low - High : the availability of various combat resources, including recovery thereof So your gritty play style would have a Pragmatic approach to combat, high deadliness, and high resource scarcity. And sporty play style, as you define it, would have Heroic combat, low deadliness, and low resource scarcity. But I can also talk about the style of the aforementioned campaign I was in, which involved Heroic combat, high deadliness, and moderate to high resource scarcity. [/QUOTE]
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