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

[Steady Vane]

While seemingly about combat, each descriptor more describes what the relationship between combat and the rest of the game rules is. Or what the game wants out of combat in its system.

War sees combat as flashy, but ultimately an obstacle to be interacted with. Talk, fight or flee, each has macro gameplay outcomes and options.

Sport sees combat as only flashy if it interacts with a player's build. Use your Feat chains or daily powers to do a flashy move on the enemies and watch them die horribly, feel good. The structure is moved to more micro decisions, as is the time of game rounds. War has combat rounds last a minute. Sport shrinks individual rounds to 6 seconds as it zooms in.

Theater sees combat as extension of the GM's duties to shape a story for the PCs to enjoy. Have fun incorporating the PC's backstory into the combat to make it worth something. Combat should reflect current game state of the story, not be an obstacle or the point of the game. The game is instead now about meta character story, not combat mechanics or emergent through world interplay.

 

[Minigiant]

I disagree. There is combat still. And it is theatre.

Deciding whether or not to break their oath is not combat.

Swinging the sword down to do so is Combat.

The Attack roll vs AC, Damage Roll vs HP, and Saving throw vs DC are combat.

If you Combat as Theater mechanics dont affect that, it isnt Combat as Theater.

Its Theater.

Now one of the biggest CaT mechanical trends is high defenses. High Defenses ensures that you have enough time to be theatrical.

CaT IMO often has

• High PC Defenses
• Very "Flavor is Free"
• Easily adjudication of Damage per Level/CR for improvised actions
• Fewer powergaming levers
• Some asymmetric mechanics between Players and DMs.

This is why CaT gets a reputation of being easy and heavily in the favor of the Players.

 

[BenjaminPey]

Sorry, still no. Choosing to attack is combat. Choosing to hit him with a sword, rather than commanding him to flee, is combat. And theatre.
It is combat as theatre. You don't decide your actions mostly because they are optimized (sport) or because they will ensure victory (war), but because of their dramatic charge. It's combat as theatre.

 

[Minigiant]

Sorry, still no. Choosing to attack is combat. Choosing to hit him with a sword, rather than commanding him to flee, is combat. And theatre.
It is combat as theatre. You don't decide your actions mostly because they are optimized (sport) or because they will ensure victory (war), but because of their dramatic charge. It's combat as theatre.

Choosing not to hit him or flee because of story reasons is not part of the written game unless the rules interact with it.

In the rules dont affect the gameplay, it isnt CaT. Its just Roleplay and Theater.

 

[BenjaminPey]

Choosing not to hit him or flee because of story reasons is not part of the written game unless the rules interact with it.

First, it's totally part of the written game. It's the base game. The most basic game loop there is.

Second, choosing to hit him with your sword, threatening to kill him, or to cast a Command spell to make him flee, not killing him, is a choice made in combat, interacting with the combat rules, made for dramatic purposes.