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

[Xetheral]

Well, just that CaW must then be a TYPE OF FICTION. I think I've already elaborated on that point in a bunch of posts up thread. There are no ACTUAL strategies being employed, just the RP of strategizing. It may be that part of that is an assessment of the fictional quality of the strategizing RP vis-a-vis what has already been established about the scenario, and the GM's (maybe also the player's) general feeling about that (IE plausibility). So, in character the plans they come up with may look a lot like being strategic or tactical, but in the real world you also consider every possibility, at least inherently. The process in the game, for the players, is more like "what is it actually likely this GM will be willing to spring on us that he hasn't told us about yet?"

I disagree strongly with part of this. I think there can indeed be "actual strategy" from the players' side. Even though the fictional situation the PCs are engaging with will not have the same level of detail as the real world, the plans the PCs come up with to deal with the situation are still an exercise of real strategic thinking on the part of the players. This is no different than participants in a war game being able to develop actual strategies.

Sure, unlike most war games the evaluation of the players' strategies in an RPG is mediated through a DM, which introduces subjectivity to the action resolution. Even a DM who successfully masters their own biases simply doesn't have enough detail available regarding the state of the game world to make a completely objective ruling on how the players' strategies play out. (Although some DMs go to a great deal of effort with advance prep to be able to be as objective as possible.) But the inability of the resolution system to be completely objective doesn't necessarily mean the players were just play-acting like their PCs are making plans--the players' planning can still be actual strategizing.

I take your point about the incentive for the players to strategize regarding what plans they can sell to the DM, rather than strategizing strictly in relation to the fictional scenario at hand. But that's not a given--just as a DM can try to ignore their own biases, players can choose to try to ignore the incentive to play the DM rather than playing the fictional scenario. It won't be perfect, but I don't think that's sufficient to dismiss the players' ideas for dealing with the fiction as just "RP[ing] strategizing". The players' strategic choices for what actions to take to address the fictional scenario are real choices--its not inevitably just an IC planning montage.

(And even if the players aren't completely successful at engaging only with the fictional scenario, real world social engineering of the DM is very much amenable to actual strategy, just of a very different sort! )

 

[Maxperson]

Technically, yes, but I think we have to consider what a useful definition of DM fiat is. We could use it to encompass literally everything the DM does, whether it's to deus ex machina style save the PCs bacon, or adding a 0th level commoner to the world who is the mayor's daughter. However, I would posit that such a definition, while technically true, is not functionally useful.

I think a more useful definition (and the way the term is typically used) is to mean when the DM intervenes to steer events in a desired direction.

I think it's more, "Decisions the DM makes independent of, or against rules."

 

[Ancalagon]

So... couldn't the DM just cheat then?

What do you mean by cheating?

The evil wizard has no HP left but you rule as a GM that he had "more HP" so he gets one more turn? That would be fudging at the very least.

Or

The goblin tribe has called upon their patron, a green dragon, to crush the level 3 party.

The second it's cheating.

 

[Xetheral]

The issue in this version is that all the factions sit back and wait to get poked by the PCs instead of at least some actively going out and engaging with the PCs.

the notion that they only assault the PCs if the PCs first assault them is theDM fiat piece I’m talking about.

The factions aren't sitting back waiting to be poked. They're constantly going out and proactively dealing with the threats they perceive. The PCs' job is to make sure they don't end up on the threat list in the first place (or at least not high enough on the list to be worth spending resources on).

One can make a plausible fictional justification for anything. So I don’t really buy that having a plausible fictional justification for the leave the PCs alone until they attack us behavior is anything more than the dm tipping the scales in the PCs favor - not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that - but if the dm is tipping the scales to keep the PCs from being decimated is that really CaW?

If the DM has to come up with a fictional justification to stop a powerful faction that would otherwise want to target the PCs from following through, then yes, that would be DM fiat. But if the PCs, via successful strategy, prevent the faction from wanting to target them, no DM justification is required--the PCs merely succeeded at avoiding a potential threat.

 

[Maxperson]

The goblin tribe has called upon their patron, a green dragon, to crush the level 3 party.

The second it's cheating.

Says Ancalagon

Seriously, though, while it's certainly a violation of the social contract, I don't think it's cheating. The rules serve the DM, so he really can't "cheat." Violating the social contract is just as bad as cheating my book.

 

[FrogReaver]

The factions aren't sitting back waiting to be poked. They're constantly going out and proactively dealing with the threats they perceive. The PCs' job is to make sure they don't end up on the threat list in the first place (or at least not high enough on the list to be worth spending resources on).

You mean it takes none of those factions saying - hey this group that’s causing problems for all our enemies - why do we think they won’t do the same to us?

If the DM has to come up with a fictional justification to stop a powerful faction that would otherwise want to target the PCs from following through, then yes, that would be DM fiat. But if the PCs, via successful strategy, prevent the faction from wanting to target them, no DM justification is required--the PCs merely succeeded at avoiding a potential threat.

You mean Besides the dm fiat that what the PCs did would prevent them from being targeted?

 

[Fanaelialae]

I think it's more, "Decisions the DM makes independent of, or against rules."

That's reasonable.

However, I don't think that everything that a DM does outside the rules falls under fiat (at least in the sense of normal usage of the term). World building would certainly fall under fiat using this definition (since many aspects are independent of the rules) but I don't think most people would point to world building as a strong example of DM fiat.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's reasonable.

However, I don't think that everything that a DM does outside the rules falls under fiat (at least in the sense of normal usage of the term). World building would certainly fall under fiat using this definition (since many aspects are independent of the rules) but I don't think most people would point to world building as a strong example of DM fiat.

I’m fine using a word other than fiat. It’s not a word I particularly like. I just don’t know a better word.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I disagree strongly with part of this. I think there can indeed be "actual strategy" from the players' side. Even though the fictional situation the PCs are engaging with will not have the same level of detail as the real world, the plans the PCs come up with to deal with the situation are still an exercise of real strategic thinking on the part of the players. This is no different than participants in a war game being able to develop actual strategies.

Sure, unlike most war games the evaluation of the players' strategies in an RPG is mediated through a DM, which introduces subjectivity to the action resolution. Even a DM who successfully masters their own biases simply doesn't have enough detail available regarding the state of the game world to make a completely objective ruling on how the players' strategies play out. (Although some DMs go to a great deal of effort with advance prep to be able to be as objective as possible.) But the inability of the resolution system to be completely objective doesn't necessarily mean the players were just play-acting like their PCs are making plans--the players' planning can still be actual strategizing.

I take your point about the incentive for the players to strategize regarding what plans they can sell to the DM, rather than strategizing strictly in relation to the fictional scenario at hand. But that's not a given--just as a DM can try to ignore their own biases, players can choose to try to ignore the incentive to play the DM rather than playing the fictional scenario. It won't be perfect, but I don't think that's sufficient to dismiss the players' ideas for dealing with the fiction as just "RP[ing] strategizing". The players' strategic choices for what actions to take to address the fictional scenario are real choices--its not inevitably just an IC planning montage.

(And even if the players aren't completely successful at engaging only with the fictional scenario, real world social engineering of the DM is very much amenable to actual strategy, just of a very different sort! )

Yeah, I don't want to be too much of a nit-picker either. I mean, when we played these sorts of scenarios, we sometimes 'outsmarted the DM' and you could reasonably call some of that reasonably in-character strategizing. You might also call it more RP and thinking through all the things that are and are not known in the setting, it was always some sort of mix of various things. As a DM it is really hard to know what is or is not something you invented in reaction to the player's plan for gamist reasons vs some appeal to realism, or to verisimilitude (which are not always the same thing).

This is why I generally try to base my analyses on what I know about the real world, as opposed to suppositions about how hypothetical players are reacting to a situation and what their motives are. That kind of thing is just about impossible to really analyze. As you say, we can suppose that sometimes players RP in-character pretty 'tightly' and sometimes they don't.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What do you mean by cheating?

The evil wizard has no HP left but you rule as a GM that he had "more HP" so he gets one more turn? That would be fudging at the very least.

Or

The goblin tribe has called upon their patron, a green dragon, to crush the level 3 party.

The second it's cheating.

Cheating, or a reasonable extrapolation on the question of "How did these goblins, who are so weak that a level 3 party can crush them, survive? Oh, there's a dragon whom they sometimes serve, and he will back them up." I mean, it seems like an obnoxious and perhaps deficient GM who simply springs that at the critical moment and TPKs the party, sure. That has less to do with it being 'unrealistic' (what does that even mean) vs just being unfun. Clearly fun would be giving the players a hint, or maybe a clue bat bash, that they're in extreme danger, and then see what they do about it. This is why dramatic/gamist needs constantly intrude on the concept of the RPG as 'wargame' where there is some fixed notion of 'fairness' or 'play inside agreed bounds'. The agreed bounds are pretty much 'what makes a reasonably fun game'.

I guess we can posit that there is a table somewhere where being crushed by a green dragon at level 3 without warning is fun!