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

[AbdulAlhazred]

In a lot pf ways doing it makes things even easier because the players go out of their way to seek out & use/manipulate world details in their own benefit so they basically can wind up pumping the gm for worldbuilding loredump & descriptive details that would be difficult to express all at once a opposed to being shaded bit by bit with time to think.

Right, so it leads to a game with a very 'textural' character. That is, you find out all about the limits of what the local blacksmith shop is capable of, or how many barrels of oil the town produces in a year. That sort of thing. The game then tends to focus on these sorts of minutia, or at least they enter into the purview of the players at times. As I've said, this simply boils down to a discussion of ways to create a specific 'tone' in a given game, of which 'focus on the materialistic details of conflict' is a perfectly valid strategy. What I argue against is any notion that it holds anything beyond a very superficial verisimilitude (and 'realism' is I hope not something anyone will seriously try to argue for).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Where it becomes CaS is when either of these becomes or remains true: the opposition consistently underplay their hand and don't use best tactics or even half-decent tactics; and-or when every combat is easy enough to be won by the PCs no matter what they do.

Put another way: in CaW the players/PCs are going to lose unless they work for the win. In CaS the players/PCs are going to win unless they work for the loss.

But again, who is to decide what the monster's 'best hand' is? This is all related to factors which are essentially impossible to fully specify in any realistic game scenario. The bad guy's prep could realistically go anywhere from nothing, they're not organized well enough and have too limited intel to prepare for you, all the way up to the bad guy is Machiavelli Jr and before you even set foot from town he's already turned half the townspeople against you and you don't even know it. And the GM can easily invent some explanation which is plausible for either one of these.

VERY RARE in history is the time when equally prepared and resourceful opponents engage in conflict. Usually one side or the other simply has some decisive material advantage the other cannot counter.

 

[el-remmen]

To me this sounds a lot more like enemies engaging in combat as sport.

‘they may have stayed and fought
‘There could have been a 1v1 duel against leaders’

also the enemy appears to have failed to do some fairly obvious things, like trap the exit and hide in wait. Or Putting their backs up to the temple would have allowed them to stay out of the players field of vision and attempt to surprise them and cut off all avenues of escape.

I think the word "sport" just rubs me the wrong way in this context. Then again, so does the word "war."

I think more along the terms of motivation and personality than "pure tactics." Overconfident guards and an arrogant leader who wants to make a show of force rather than "be sneaky" was what I was thinking. Especially since they expected their allies in the temple to be able to handle most if not all of the PCs, they had no idea when and if the PCs would come out this way (more like orders to "watch the doors for anyone trying to escape"). So having them at the ready constantly for hours just to get a surprise round that might never come didn't seem "realistic" to me, nor did trapping a door where allies might also emerge once the threat inside was dealt with.

i get the feeling this is a fight you wanted them to be able to avoid, such that the enemies weren’t doing everything they could have to achieve their goals. Your post even notes the PCs were fairly hurt and depleted.

Not sure I wanted them to do anything. They chose to avoid it. It would have been a tough fight though I really can't say what the PCs chances were because the number and type out there had to do with who was available, not in my creating necessarily a "balanced" encounter.

This is exchange seems to reinforce my gut feeling that CaW vs. CaS is a pretty worthless dichotomy for my thinking.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think the word "sport" just rubs me the wrong way in this context. Then again, so does the word "war."

I think more along the terms of motivation and personality than "pure tactics." Overconfident guards and an arrogant leader who wants to make a show of force rather than "be sneaky" was what I was thinking. Especially since they expected their allies in the temple to be able to handle most if not all of the PCs, they had no idea when and if the PCs would come out this way (more like orders to "watch the doors for anyone trying to escape"). So having them at the ready constantly for hours just to get a surprise round that might never come didn't seem "realistic" to me, nor did trapping a door where allies might also emerge once the threat inside was dealt with.



Not sure I wanted them to do anything. They chose to avoid it. It would have been a tough fight though I really can't say what the PCs chances were because the number and type out there had to do with who was available, not in my creating necessarily a "balanced" encounter.

This is exchange seems to reinforce my gut feeling that CaW vs. CaS is a pretty worthless dichotomy for my thinking.

Right, I think you hit some of the notes I've been hitting. Is it realistic for a group of creatures to employ deathtraps within their own lair? Maybe, maybe not, only the GM can decide, and who's to say why they chose answer X? Are the little baby bugbears so well-behaved that none of them is endangered by a deathtrap? For how long can that be said to hold? How exactly long can a group of ambushers remain in hiding at full ready for someone to come by? An hour? A day? What is the probability that the PCs do or do not happen to be passing at a moment of readiness, or unreadiness? Is the guy in charge smart enough to send a scout down the path? Do the monsters have a means of signalling, and what is it?

All of these things are easy enough to make up, but I've only scratched the surface, and the real point is, the GM IS making them up. There isn't any reality which dictates the answers, at best there might be a genre convention or something (bugbears are sneaky and patient, the MM says so, but they are also stupid and primitive). The point being 'WAR' or 'SPORT' is just about what the GM made up, and maybe how the players reacted to that or what they asked for.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think the word "sport" just rubs me the wrong way in this context. Then again, so does the word "war."

I think more along the terms of motivation and personality than "pure tactics." Overconfident guards and an arrogant leader who wants to make a show of force rather than "be sneaky" was what I was thinking. Especially since they expected their allies in the temple to be able to handle most if not all of the PCs, they had no idea when and if the PCs would come out this way (more like orders to "watch the doors for anyone trying to escape"). So having them at the ready constantly for hours just to get a surprise round that might never come didn't seem "realistic" to me, nor did trapping a door where allies might also emerge once the threat inside was dealt with.



Not sure I wanted them to do anything. They chose to avoid it. It would have been a tough fight though I really can't say what the PCs chances were because the number and type out there had to do with who was available, not in my creating necessarily a "balanced" encounter.

This is exchange seems to reinforce my gut feeling that CaW vs. CaS is a pretty worthless dichotomy for my thinking.

It probably links back to when the tactical game was a bigger thing, CaW would play the monsters like the players play themselves while CaS would tend to do things that give the players more of a sporting chance

edit: There are merits to both approaches & tons of middle ground for both dliberate and accidental "yea I never considered that" to claim credit for very good or very bad choices

 

[dave2008]

Still thinking about it

OK, no worries. I didn't intend it as a real "think-piece," but take your time.

 

[FrogReaver]

Right, I think you hit some of the notes I've been hitting. Is it realistic for a group of creatures to employ deathtraps within their own lair? Maybe, maybe not, only the GM can decide, and who's to say why they chose answer X? Are the little baby bugbears so well-behaved that none of them is endangered by a deathtrap? For how long can that be said to hold? How exactly long can a group of ambushers remain in hiding at full ready for someone to come by? An hour? A day? What is the probability that the PCs do or do not happen to be passing at a moment of readiness, or unreadiness? Is the guy in charge smart enough to send a scout down the path? Do the monsters have a means of signalling, and what is it?

All of these things are easy enough to make up, but I've only scratched the surface, and the real point is, the GM IS making them up. There isn't any reality which dictates the answers, at best there might be a genre convention or something (bugbears are sneaky and patient, the MM says so, but they are also stupid and primitive). The point being 'WAR' or 'SPORT' is just about what the GM made up, and maybe how the players reacted to that or what they asked for.

on the flip side isn’t that exactly what is happening for the players as well?

 

[tetrasodium]

on the flip side isn’t that exactly what is happening for the players as well?

That goes back to the players typically being the ones going on offenseattacking someone else's home/fortress/whatever

 

[FrogReaver]

That goes back to the players typically being the ones going on offenseattacking someone else's home/fortress/whatever

I’d suggest that’s happening because enemies aren’t treating combat with the players as war.

 

[FrogReaver]

D&D is a game. So are you talking about CaW with respect to the game (DM v Players) or as a simulation of reality (Character vs NPCs/Monsters). Is this a meta concept or something you think should be addressed as if this was a real functioning fantasy world.

Gamist: DM vs Players. AKA a "game"
Simulationist: threat it as a "real" world

I guess I could answer both, but I was wondering what you are thinking.

PS - I see how my additional statement confused my original intent, my apologies.

I think i finally get what you are getting at. I’m coming from a perspective of pc vs npc/monsters. I don’t view players and dms as being adversaries that would ‘war’ with each other.