D&D General Combat as War vs. Sport and a Missing Third Mode

[Minigiant]

Combat as Professional Wrestling

Combat as Professional Wrestling is something else.

Pro Wrestling feuds have a structure based on building of wins and losses. Of structures.

In CaPW you dont want to keep winning because the story is building to a loss.

The point are the payoffs and hints and the build up to the final confrontation. So each side needs a way to swing things back in their favor until the unswingable arrives.

 

[Pamphylian]

I don’t think these three modes are mutually exclusive. In practice, most tables blend them. A group might use sport-like mechanics, war-like caution, and theater-like narration all at once. But explicitly recognizing “theater” as a distinct lens can help explain why different groups sometimes talk past each other when discussing combat expectations. This is to say that some of what likely gets classified and talked about as "combat as sport" is likely not sport at all; instead, it's theater!

Seems like a very useful distinction in terms of goals. I do wonder what mechanics scaffold this mode of combat best? For combat as war, I'd suppose the scaffolds would be robust resource management systems to connect the strategic intimately with the tactical; morale and other "wargamey" tools; items, equipment, mechanics and abilities that encourage open ended problem solving; and maybe fast combat resolution. For combat as sport, perhaps good encounter balance guidelines and good number of set-piece friendly monsters (eg. with complementary, chess-like combat rolls), hazards, and environments. Obviously many of these are beneficial to both modes, which is great, because as you say, many tables mix things. E.g. a good interface between tactical and strategic gives more weight to battles in combat as sport as well, it's just less integral to the combat itself. And likewise, good interlocking monster types (skirmishers, brutes, etc.) can liven up a combat as war scenario as well.

What about for combat as theater? I admit a lot of the tools and DMing approaches I've seen that maybe fit this mold I find rather unappealing (e.g. DMs excessively bending the course of events towards a desired narrative conclusion). The pathos of overcoming against odds or failing dramatically as a group and the complementary bathos of failing or succeeding for absurd reasons (ridiculously flawed plans, falling to weak enemies or mundane traps, unlucky or lucky rolls of the dice) that you might find in Combat as War usually fulfill most of my dramatic narrative needs, and naturally encourage dramatic events - for me I think most "artificial" tools for heightening drama would cheapen the outcome, and thus the narrative impact. But I'd be interested to hear if there are any particularly effective ones out there that would blend well with DnD style gaming.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Good point. I think that the original CaS/CaW thread was largely influenced by the perception of D&D as a wargame (fighting simulator, whatever) whereas more and more players nowadays play it as a storytelling medium.

 

[Marandahir]

As with Pro-Wrestling, I can see Combat as Theatre in a state where everyone knows the PCs are going to survive, that the DM will fudge the dice if need be to keep the game going rather than trying to TPK or trying to "let the dice lie where they fell" in some sort of rules arbitrational sport.

And despite knowing this actual real lack of tension over the characters surviving, the PCs are able to separate their own knowledge out from that of their characters and portray the characters are truly fighting for their lives, etc.