D&D General Discuss: Combat as War in D&D

[Imaculata]

Quite cromulent, but isn't "combat-as-X" always going to be inadequate for that? You want to capture stuff beyond combat in your term.

Possibly. Which is why I was trying to find different terminology that covers more than just combat.

See, I don't actually think THIS is strictly accurate either. I've known 4e DMs who do exactly this--because they trust the 4e system to deliver a fun fight even when they do it. (It's part of how the best 4e game I've ever been in had 2 deaths before 4th level, and a near-miss before 5th.)

I have never played 4e, so I really can't comment on that.

I would absolutely do this to my own players--whether in 4e or DW or if, in some fit of pique, I ran 1e or something like that, in that too. An example of my own:

-snip-

Love the example!

Yet I would absolutely say I run a "combat as adventure" game, not "combat as war." I just make the victories and defeats, the rewards and losses, something that primarily happens on the "what stuff matters to the NPCs? What stuff do they love or hate?" level, rather than the "your ticket for getting onto the ride (aka their PCs themselves)" level.

I don't think it's an either/or situation, or black and white. The way I see it, it's a sliding scale. You can run a combat-as-adventure game that has elements of strategy in it. But you can also run a strategic campaign that has elements of adventure in it.

Even my current campaign isn't constant war and strategizing. While the actual battles can get quite tactical and detailed, in between those big battles there is plenty of run of the mill dungeon delving and adventuring.

It is up to the DM how much of those ingredients to include. I try to keep my games tactical, to make it different from default D&D, without getting so specific that it becomes a full on simulation or tabletop war game.

 

[Democratus]

There hasn't really been a good definition of Combat as War thus far. The reason being that it begs the quesiton, "Which war? What kind of war? With what goals?"

There's no such thing as generic "war" as a end-all-be-all description of how forces conduct themselves in and out of combat.

 

[gatorized]

Claim: If the enemies ever adopted a true combat as war mindset then the PC's would eventually be crushed. This does not happen. Therefore, the enemies do not treat combat as War. There's something that seem inherently unfair about that and yet many still find Combat as War fun.

Discuss!

In which games does it not happen?

 

[FrogReaver]

There hasn't really been a good definition of Combat as War thus far. The reason being that it begs the quesiton, "Which war? What kind of war? With what goals?"

There's no such thing as generic "war" as a end-all-be-all description of how forces conduct themselves in and out of combat.

You taking the term war in it too literally.

 

[tetrasodium]

There hasn't really been a good definition of Combat as War thus far. The reason being that it begs the quesiton, "Which war? What kind of war? With what goals?"

There's no such thing as generic "war" as a end-all-be-all description of how forces conduct themselves in and out of combat.

It's a term that describes different styles of combat encounters. Inflating it with too many unrelated variables from other parts of the campaign outside of the combat encounters themselves only makes it difficult to convey meaning.

If those other areas are common enough in singular style to justify their own names then those can have their own names. Thst if then is of questionable justification though given how so many things people have tried to shoehorn into caw/cas in this thread lack good simple descriptive terms for their use by a gm other than perhaps meatgrinder

 

[Fanaelialae]

There hasn't really been a good definition of Combat as War thus far. The reason being that it begs the quesiton, "Which war? What kind of war? With what goals?"

There's no such thing as generic "war" as a end-all-be-all description of how forces conduct themselves in and out of combat.

I'd say one way to look at CaS vs CaW would be to say that CaS is war waged with both sides abiding by some agreement (akin to the Geneva Convention), whereas CaW is war waged without such limitations.

Although I do think that the best definition is one of symmetry.

CaS gameplay is denoted by (reasonable) symmetry. Meaning that the DM won't throw an ancient dragon in the path of a level 1 party, and the players don't generally go to significant to strategically subvert the encounters they do come across.

CaW gameplay, by contrast, is about asymmetry. The DM is free to put anything in the the path of the party, even an ancient dragon in a level 1 dungeon. The players are free to engage with these challenges by whatever means they can. That might mean avoiding the dragon entirely, poisoning its water supply to (hopefully) kill it, or collapsing the tunnel to its lair so that it can't threaten them.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'd say one way to look at CaS vs CaW would be to say that CaS is war waged with both sides abiding by some agreement (akin to the Geneva Convention), whereas CaW is war waged without such limitations.

Although I do think that the best definition is one of symmetry.

CaS gameplay is denoted by (reasonable) symmetry. Meaning that the DM won't throw an ancient dragon in the path of a level 1 party, and the players don't generally go to significant to strategically subvert the encounters they do come across.

CaW gameplay, by contrast, is about asymmetry. The DM is free to put anything in the the path of the party, even an ancient dragon in a level 1 dungeon. The players are free to engage with these challenges by whatever means they can. That might mean avoiding the dragon entirely, poisoning its water supply to (hopefully) kill it, or collapsing the tunnel to its lair so that it can't threaten them.

That’s a decent summary.

I think we could also add this. CaS is when the DM is setting out to create balanced encounters and expects the party to engage in them or at least in some of them.

Typical CaW is when the DM just creates encounters and allows the players to determine how to engage - or even whether to engage at all.

CaW as typically played has alot of pre and post encounter strategy/tactical elements.

which brings me to my initial op supposition. That there must be some method of limiting powerful, smart, tactical, ruthless enemies (relative to the PCs) from targeting the PCs. Once those start to come into play with more regularity then the PCs won’t last long. I view these kinds of enemies as inevitably arising unless curbed by dm fiat.

 

[AnotherGuy]

which brings me to my initial op supposition. That there must be some method of limiting powerful, smart, tactical, ruthless enemies (relative to the PCs) from targeting the PCs. Once those start to come into play with more regularity then the PCs won’t last long. I view these kinds of enemies as inevitably arising unless curbed by dm fiat.

You're referring to a mechanical process that limits or some logical reason through the fiction (i.e. DM decides)?
D&D is very limited in a great many things. It is its strength and weakness.

 

[FrogReaver]

You're referring to a mechanical process that limits or some logical reason through the fiction (i.e. DM decides)?
D&D is very limited in a great many things. It is its strength and weakness.

I don’t believe there’s a tangible difference since the DM creates that fiction and also any mechanical processes used in its resolution. Maybe an illusory difference though.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It may not be CR2 ogres, but a while back my players started at level zero using these rules set against a pack of magebred war wolves using the CR3 winter wolf statblock, There was about 2-3 sessions of planning gathering & setup interacting with NPCs & skill checks to accomplish things ranging from poison bait to painstakingly created traps/defenses & ritually constructed spell type traps such as a weak force cage that gave them a round or two to trgger other stuff , the players were able to successfully rid the town of the breeding pack of war wolves. What the players face in a CaW sirtuation ca be as important as the situation & how empowered they are in CaW. Any single screwup without someone ready to step in & stop the whole plan from collapsing could result in what would have effectively been "yea that's death by massive damage" & there were a few hairy points but they pulled through as a team.

That was an unusual example & it's far from the norm in my games. While it was neither helped nor hindered by the near removal of tactical stuff & so much of the room for crunch the more common minor CaW type interactions are absolutely hindered regularly by it.

Well, maybe unusual in that this type of play was being used at all, since it is a lot harder to pull off/more work than standard directed play. I think, once you get into this way of playing, this is the sort of scenario you run into. Of course there's a range. I set the PC against a level+7 elite 'crawler. They figured out how to win, that was in 4e. It was not super typical play in that campaign, though I have done similar things a few other times.