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

[Retros_x]

Daggerheart literally has a system for sharing the spotlight, or focusing on one character as they get their power moment. 5e tells GMs to fudge rolls to make the story interesting. The style is indeed about mechanics, and deserves to be among the other two

Isnt that mechanic a general mechanic that works outside of combat too? But even if not, it is a different mechanic. I precised my point, that combat vs sport is mainly about balance, about symmetry. In combat as sport combat is symmetric, balanced and all your options are present on your character sheet ("pressing the buttons"), combat vs war is asymmetric and imbalanced and often players use ideas and tactics that are not present on the character sheet (like the famous example of flooding a dungeon or smoking it out).

Combat as theatre, even with mechanics like the one you describe of Daggerheart, feels wrong in that comparison, as I stated, I think its concerned with a different quality and such a different axis/spectrum.

But, of course, the (IIRC former) existence of 4thcore is inconvenient for the "CaW"/"CaS" dichotomy, so it gets completely ignored.

Or you know I just never played. Sorry if I offended you. I of course over simplified it for the sake of my argument, and there might be some unsucessfull editions of DnD that do not guarantee win in a balanced encounter, but I still firmly believe that at its core sport vs war is about mechanics and balance and symmetry.

Combat as Theater should be not equated with roleplay. It's more about combat as an approach that emphasizes drama and character expression.

I did not equate it I said it is on a different problem vector than war vs sport, one that is more related to roleplay. Also drama and character expression sound very much more like roleplay than like mechanics.

This may involve symmetric or asymmetric combat. The symmetry of the situation isn't the point.

That was exactly my point! War vs Sport is about symmetry and balance, that why combat as theatre as you describe it is concerned with a different category.

But to be clear, this thread is about exploring the idea of Combat as Theater.

I do understand that and I participate in exploring that idea: My contribution, as I repeat: I believe it combat as theatre, as you describe it, is concerned with a different quality of combat than the sport vs war axis. There might be a 4th missing piece, the opposite end of the spectrum where combat as theatre might lie.

 

[Aldarc]

I did not equate it I said it is on a different problem vector than war vs sport, one that is more related to roleplay. Also drama and character expression sound very much more like roleplay than like mechanics.

That was exactly my point! War vs Sport is about symmetry and balance, that why combat as theatre as you describe it is concerned with a different category.

I do understand that and I participate in exploring that idea: My contribution, as I repeat: I believe it combat as theatre, as you describe it, is concerned with a different quality of combat than the sport vs war axis. There might be a 4th missing piece, the opposite end of the spectrum where combat as theatre might lie.

I remain unconvinced, and I don't actually agree with your points here. I'm not sure if maintaining the binary of Sport vs. War is helpful, even if it involves putting Theater on a different axis.

 

[BenjaminPey]

I can't understand for the life of me why "fudging rolls" should be more CaT than CaW or CaS. "Fudging rolls" is an age old technique to circumvent undesirable outcomes, and a "game over" state could be as undesirable in CaT as it is in CaW or CaS.
On the other hand, a character dying or a scenario short-circuited doesn't translate to "game over" every time for everybody, and no more in CaT than in Caw or CaS. Fudging rolls is orthogonal to all of that.