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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9471721" data-attributes="member: 4937">This actually goes off on a tangent.&nbsp; I have argued elsewhere that it's not only not coincidental that RPG play focuses around combat, but that it is almost impossible for any sort of crunchy social RPG to focus on anything else.&nbsp; This is because combat has some unique features that makes it particularly well suited for social play and simulated play and achieving verisimilitude and almost any other sort of problem-solving results in a game with limited choices and limited opportunities for cooperation.Typically games that try to get away from combat as a focus of play run into the problem that the resulting game is most fun for a single player or at most a small number of players.&nbsp; And again, this is another potential tangent, but in my opinion not enough focus in RPG design theory is focused on the fact that the type of play you can have at the table heavily depends on the number of participants.&nbsp; The sort of play that some designers promote as ideal, in fact can't be supported by the for example one to two dozen participants sometimes seen in the early days of RPG play, or even the 5-8 players you might see at many modern D&amp;D tables.&nbsp; If your experience running RPGs is for 1-3 players, the techniques and styles of play you expect many not be transferable.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9471721, member: 4937"] This actually goes off on a tangent. I have argued elsewhere that it's not only not coincidental that RPG play focuses around combat, but that it is almost impossible for any sort of crunchy social RPG to focus on anything else. This is because combat has some unique features that makes it particularly well suited for social play and simulated play and achieving verisimilitude and almost any other sort of problem-solving results in a game with limited choices and limited opportunities for cooperation. Typically games that try to get away from combat as a focus of play run into the problem that the resulting game is most fun for a single player or at most a small number of players. And again, this is another potential tangent, but in my opinion not enough focus in RPG design theory is focused on the fact that the type of play you can have at the table heavily depends on the number of participants. The sort of play that some designers promote as ideal, in fact can't be supported by the for example one to two dozen participants sometimes seen in the early days of RPG play, or even the 5-8 players you might see at many modern D&D tables. If your experience running RPGs is for 1-3 players, the techniques and styles of play you expect many not be transferable. [/QUOTE]

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