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

[Fanaelialae]

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!

I would say that in most typical CaW scenarios, the PCs are the agressors, while the enemy is the defender. Offense is easier than defense. The PCs only need to find and exploit one weak point in the enemy's defenses, whereas the enemy must try to defend themselves against potentially unlimited and unknown threats (using only limited resources).

This mirrors the asymmetrical nature of CaW. The PCs need to find a way to win against forces that they could not necessarily overcome by direct means. The enemy puts obstacles in the way (traps, large patrols, etc) to try to block such attempts, but since they usually don't know when or where or how the PCs will strike, and in many cases won't know what the PCs are capable of, these generic defenses will generally be less ideal for the scenario than the players' custom tailored plan.

Of course, there may be some situations where the players have to assume the role of defense. Perhaps they've made themselves a sufficient nuisance that the BBEG puts a bounty on their heads. Even then, some consideration should arguably be made towards the PCs. It's not a bad idea to telegraph the threat, for example (maybe one of the PCs' allies hears about the bounty and informs them).

I mean, you could have the archmage BBEG scry their location, teleport over their camp while they're resting, and drop a meteor swarm on them. However, particularly for a low level party, it probably won't be much fun. It's essentially TPK by DM fiat, which arguably isn't really what CaW is about, IMO.

Ultimately, while I think CaW/CaS is useful terminology for discussing different playstyles, I do think it is often taken to extremes. I see it as a range. I doubt that most games are "pure" CaW or CaS. As the OP states, in a hypothetical pure CaW game, where the DM is antagonist and playing the enemy as effectively as possible, the PCs arguably don't stand a chance. And I find it hard to imagine a pure CaS game where the PCs meet Asmodeus at level 1 and Asmodeus is therefore a low level monster that the PCs can beat with only a modicum of effort.

You can have a game that leans toward CaS (where most combats are fair and balanced) but also includes elements of CaW (some encounters are dangerous or impossible to beat in a straight fight, and must be overcome by alternate means). I'd say that's my preferred type of campaign both for running and playing in. I similarly see no reason why a CaW style game couldn't utilize CaS encounter design for at least some encounters (particularly those where the DM is playing offense).

 

[tetrasodium]

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

That's not the case at all. The player characters are very small fish in a very big pond. Even if they are often punching above their weight class when they get roped into things. The enemies are focused on other goals that the PCs just happened to somehow get caught up in stopping.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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

Well, things are a bit different for the players. They're restricted to knowing and doing what their PCs can know and do. However, there is an analogous thing going on. I mean, it might be reasonable for a PC to suspect the orcs have a spy in town. Or is it? I mean, the PLAYER thinks that, but it is hard to say how the character might think. Beyond that, there are a million possibilities, most of which nobody has even thought about. I mean, does the GM describe regularly, or even know, what sorts of large birds fly over the town? So, if the orc shaman uses them as spies, would anyone even have the means to ask about it? Presumably the GM might consider whether certain PCs (the druid, the ranger) might notice such a thing, but it is only one of 1000 things the players might think of and ask about on their own initiative.

So, yeah, you can certainly make the town vs orcs war, in which the PCs are a significant factor, play out in a way that has a 'feeling' of what people might do in an actual war of some analogous kind in the real world (give or take, lets not quibble overmuch about any differences between fantasy and reality for now). But the action itself, and what factors turn out to be important, how ploys and plans and strategies turn out, will be largely in the hands of the GM to invent narrative reasons for. He's likely to reward some creative, fun, thinking by the players with some successes, etc. OTOH IME a lot of the time the players have a quite different view of what is going on, and their actions may make no sense at all to the GM, and appear to be ridiculous and bound to fail, yet be utterly logical and coldly rational in the players minds.

I think that last bit actually probably encapsulates a large part of the reason that most games tend more to the tone of a certain degree of 'heroic play' where the PCs are active, the monsters are largely passive, and whichever ploys the players come up with, they may fail, but they can just try something else unless whatever they did was really incredibly dangerous, or when the GM decides to turn the tables and create a tense situation like taking hostages, or an attack on the town by the orcs. Even then, most games will resolve the situation with a symbolic fight or rescue, which is more narratively satisfying vs downright plausible if you start to think about it too much.

I mean, even back in the days of Gygaxian dungeon crawl there were conventions. The monsters in B2 don't set up watches and alarm systems and all swarm out of their caves to gang-bash attacking human parties, although that would make a lot of sense for them to do (there are a few perfunctory guards around, and I think in the notes for the module it talks about maybe if the monsters get shellacked a few times they might all clear out). I mean, probably realistically, given the scale of the Caves of Chaos, as soon as anyone came visiting the whole place would be in an uproar, and the party would be fleeing for its lives! But there's a convention, if you pay lip service to being discrete, the DM doesn't pile 10 encounters worth of monsters on you at once. Otherwise the dungeon crawl just doesn't really work. OK, you can stock all your dungeons with skeletons and zombies, insects and such, and traps, plus maybe an ooze or a jelly or two, that might be a bit more plausible. Nobody does that much though, because it gets old fast...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Right, but of course this is the roots of the game. It is quite apparent that Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor D&D game was exactly an adversarial game. Not with the GM against the players, but with the players against EACH OTHER. Not that they didn't ever cooperate, but the idea of some sort of 'party' that you always stick together with that fights monsters simply did not exist in ur-D&D (-1th Edition? lol). There were players controlling PCs and players controlling 'monsters', and the GM was just a referee. So, he didn't have to worry about any sort of conflict between his roles of running the bad guys and adjudicating all the warfare that was happening.

 

[payn]

System design has a lot to do with CaW and CaS as well. PF2 for example, has +1/lvl and a <10> DC critical system. This means anything outside a strict level band with the party would auto-crit them to death. Punching above your weight is suicide, so it keeps you within a challenge band, which is very CaS, IMO. In older editions, if you laid out and executed a good plan, it was possible (yet dangerous) to punch above your weight and be successful.

As to the premise, CaW can be fun because the players are figuring out how to dismantle their opponents in interesting ways. If the enemies went full blown CaW on the players, it would be nightmare mode and constant TPK. Some play that way, and some go easier. Yeah, its true CaW isnt hardcore badass, while CaS is wimpy as it can be often framed. Either preference can be difficult or easy in a myriad of ways.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's not the case at all. The player characters are very small fish in a very big pond. Even if they are often punching above their weight class when they get roped into things. The enemies are focused on other goals that the PCs just happened to somehow get caught up in stopping.

That is an assumption of a particular sub-genre of D&D play. Not one that has ever been universal. I'm not even sure it is really all that common these days. I mean, most generic "We play in some campaign world" play has some degree of this in that the world is assumed to be far more durable than PCs and thus you would posit that any given character has some limited ability to drastically change things. Even that doesn't preclude a more 'Epic' play though.

 

[tetrasodium]

That is an assumption of a particular sub-genre of D&D play. Not one that has ever been universal. I'm not even sure it is really all that common these days. I mean, most generic "We play in some campaign world" play has some degree of this in that the world is assumed to be far more durable than PCs and thus you would posit that any given character has some limited ability to drastically change things. Even that doesn't preclude a more 'Epic' play though.

Some of us have been talking about how we impliment these concepts in our own games. The fact that there are other ways to run the game that employ different stylistic choices does not make either badwrongfun deserving of the kind of pruning 5e applied to coding against that playstyle

 

[Helldritch]

Well, things are a bit different for the players. They're restricted to knowing and doing what their PCs can know and do. However, there is an analogous thing going on. I mean, it might be reasonable for a PC to suspect the orcs have a spy in town. Or is it? I mean, the PLAYER thinks that, but it is hard to say how the character might think. Beyond that, there are a million possibilities, most of which nobody has even thought about. I mean, does the GM describe regularly, or even know, what sorts of large birds fly over the town? So, if the orc shaman uses them as spies, would anyone even have the means to ask about it? Presumably the GM might consider whether certain PCs (the druid, the ranger) might notice such a thing, but it is only one of 1000 things the players might think of and ask about on their own initiative.

So, yeah, you can certainly make the town vs orcs war, in which the PCs are a significant factor, play out in a way that has a 'feeling' of what people might do in an actual war of some analogous kind in the real world (give or take, lets not quibble overmuch about any differences between fantasy and reality for now). But the action itself, and what factors turn out to be important, how ploys and plans and strategies turn out, will be largely in the hands of the GM to invent narrative reasons for. He's likely to reward some creative, fun, thinking by the players with some successes, etc. OTOH IME a lot of the time the players have a quite different view of what is going on, and their actions may make no sense at all to the GM, and appear to be ridiculous and bound to fail, yet be utterly logical and coldly rational in the players minds.

I think that last bit actually probably encapsulates a large part of the reason that most games tend more to the tone of a certain degree of 'heroic play' where the PCs are active, the monsters are largely passive, and whichever ploys the players come up with, they may fail, but they can just try something else unless whatever they did was really incredibly dangerous, or when the GM decides to turn the tables and create a tense situation like taking hostages, or an attack on the town by the orcs. Even then, most games will resolve the situation with a symbolic fight or rescue, which is more narratively satisfying vs downright plausible if you start to think about it too much.

I mean, even back in the days of Gygaxian dungeon crawl there were conventions. The monsters in B2 don't set up watches and alarm systems and all swarm out of their caves to gang-bash attacking human parties, although that would make a lot of sense for them to do (there are a few perfunctory guards around, and I think in the notes for the module it talks about maybe if the monsters get shellacked a few times they might all clear out). I mean, probably realistically, given the scale of the Caves of Chaos, as soon as anyone came visiting the whole place would be in an uproar, and the party would be fleeing for its lives! But there's a convention, if you pay lip service to being discrete, the DM doesn't pile 10 encounters worth of monsters on you at once. Otherwise the dungeon crawl just doesn't really work. OK, you can stock all your dungeons with skeletons and zombies, insects and such, and traps, plus maybe an ooze or a jelly or two, that might be a bit more plausible. Nobody does that much though, because it gets old fast...

On the bolded quote...
Monster can and will gang up on the PCs. The normal strat is to "ally" with one faction to destroy the others. Usually, the players are encouraged to put each factions at each others' throat. If the PCs are storming the caves, it will raise some concerns. Most probable allies are Orc tribes (both of them), Goblins and Hobgoblins (and may be the Bugbears), I doublt that in 5ed anyone will ally with the gnolls, but the Bugbears will ally with the hobgoblins and/orcs to ambush the character on their second or third foray. Of course, if no one survives to tell the tale, the players are in for a good ride. But the priests in the Evil temple will hear about the "adventurer" problem. I often make them go into cleared caves and make them animate the remains of the humanoids into Zombies and Skellies.

The tribe themselves will set up watches outside the caves, set up additional traps and make it so that some will try to flee to warn the others when the PCs are in on them.

Also
Although each caves can not replaces their losses (but wounded will heal) it is also stated that cleared caves will not stay empty for long (and that is as long as the priests are there). A new monster (or monsters) will enter the caves after 1-4 weeks of being cleared. It can mean a really fast or slow rate of new monsters.

As for the rest of the post.
I do believe in an "active" world where the actions of the PC will influence the outcome of events but that outside the PCs, events are also unfolding. I do not "doom clock" per say... but the monsters will not wait patiently to be killed.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's not the case at all. The player characters are very small fish in a very big pond. Even if they are often punching above their weight class when they get roped into things. The enemies are focused on other goals that the PCs just happened to somehow get caught up in stopping.

This seems more like a justification for why enemies aren’t treating combat as war than a disagreement about whether they are.

 

[Mallus]

Reductive Metaphor for D&D Play vs. Another Reductive Metaphor for D&D Play. Discuss!