Combat Investment (WotC Community Portal Blog from wrecan)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I stumbled on this featured blog post on the WotC Community Portal:
Combat Investment and how to... err... combat it


I found it very interesting and it makes sense to me.

The core thesis is that the more time you invest in some part during character creation, the more you want to see it used during actual gameplay - so if you spend a lot of time selecting powers, feats, spells, weapons, armor and other equipment during character creation, you expect a return on this investment - and this comes in time devoted to it during play.

So, if you think that you spend too much time during combat, the reason might be that you kinda expect to spend so much time, since you did a lot for it during preparation. If you would have spend a similar amount of time in detailing your characters personality and background, you would also want to spend more time on playing that part out.

The interesting part I find here is the psychological reasoning - you expect a return on your investment.

 

[Slander]

That is interesting, especially if the psychology is valid. I wonder whether this concept gets to the heart of the "Old school feel".

Is "Old school" really the lack [or a lessened degree] of "Combat Investment". If there is less CI in a game, then arguably that would free players to explore and enjoy the aspects of the game they wanted (whether its RP or kicking in doors) without having to first satisfy any psychological expectation.

It also explains, to a certain degree, why new editions (of anything) garner resistance. If you have a understanding of how something works, then any change to that understanding will trigger a feeling of "loss", unless the changes can quickly and visibly outweigh that perceived loss.

I love psychology ... I wish I had studied it more in college.