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Discuss: Combat as War in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8264922" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Woo, leaping into a discussion <em>in media res</em>! That's totally not going to make things difficult <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite7" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":p" /></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, I think I get what you actually mean by that. But you really should sit down and consider what it means when you say, "I want to play a roleplaying game that ignores all 'game' elements until the very last step, and then only includes the absolute bare minimum to qualify as a 'game.'"</p><p></p><p>Perhaps I've missed a definition or two (having, as stated, just jumped in)--what does "process simulation" mean in context?</p><p></p><p>Intent without execution is an engineer promising you a space elevator, or a physicist promising you a fusion power plant. Lovely, but that intent and a buck might get you a dirt-cheap cup of coffee.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Sure. And (though I know you'll touch on this in a bit) 4e did the same thing: by codifying the idea that threat level is relative, rather than absolute. You can't <em>say</em> that an ogre is an absolute threat level of 3, because a gaggle of 1st level characters <em>could potentially do it</em>, it'd just be very hard (1st level solo fight)--it might wreck them, but they've got a shot. Likewise, an 11th-level party is going to wipe the floor with an ordinary ogre--even <em>one person</em> on that team could do it--so the <em>relative</em> threat level is significantly lower (11th level minion).</p><p></p><p>If you can just let go of the notion that there must be one, perfect, diamond-absolute threat level that always matters for every PC ever, no matter what their table does or who their allies are or what resources they bring, you can have your cake and eat it too.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I strongly disagree with this sentiment, mostly because all but <em>one</em> of the 4e DMs I've played with DID approach it from an in-character perspective. The chips fell where they may; encounters were designed based on what they logically should be, which includes "the player characters are rational beings who at least TRY not to take jobs too far above their paygrade and mostly ignore jobs below their pay grade" (translated into suitable mechanics for the associated setting, of course).</p><p></p><p>But there's another reason. 4e did an awful lot of work to make "approach it from a game-first way" EQUIVALENT to "approach it from an in-character world simulation direction." The poster child for this is its version of Lay on Hands, which is <em>the only version that actually makes Paladin-like behavior the direct result of the mechanics</em>. In at least 2e, 3e, and 5e, LoH has been "here's a pool of HP, you can hand it out to friends." 4e made it "<em>I give of myself, to replenish them.</em>" Likewise, stuff like the various Avenger subtypes, where the mechanics of getting your sweet bonuses (Oath of Enmity) <em>meant</em> you would hound your lone target (Censure of Pursuit), gang up on one guy with your buddies (Censure of Unity), or dive deep into enemy territory emboldened by other enemies' strikes (Censure of Retribution). Several other classes also work this way; it's not an absolutely perfect metaphor, but it works often enough to be worth talking about.</p><p></p><p>When you consider playability early, you can <em>do</em> this. You can make "playing the game" be, in and of itself, "thinking from an in-character perspective." It's one of the reasons why my third favorite system (after 4e and 13th Age) is Dungeon World, because it does <em>exactly</em> the same thing, just from the other direction. (Though in fairness I do find DW a bit mechanically thin for my taste as a player--it's great for DMing though.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>So, just so I'm understanding this correctly:</p><p>A group of children attacking a sewer rat should face <em>exactly the same numerical values</em> as a group of god-slaying nigh-transcendent heroes?</p><p></p><p>Because that's what you're demanding. You're saying that internal consistency can <em>only</em> occur if "sewer rat" has one, and only one, representation no matter who faces it, no matter what equipment they bring, no matter how disparate the table's tastes might be. You are saying that there can be one, and only one, representation of any given entity.</p><p></p><p>I find it both more satisfying in terms of game-mechanics AND in "in-world situation" terms of "how should person X deal with threat Y?" when the game factors into Y "the kind of threat X would perceive Y as." Because threat level IS a matter of perception, isn't it? It's about <em>relative</em> differences. Just as (for example) a trained soldier would be an almost impossibly difficult target <em>for me</em>, when I have no combat training and barely-remembered years of Boy Scout survival skill training (and very poor physical condition, sadly!), whereas it might be no problem for my cousin who works on a farm and does target practice regularly with his guns.</p><p></p><p></p><p>It....really isn't as bad as you make it sound with 4e. You can <em>quite</em> easily have a party that is within +/- 2 levels and not really notice much, because 2 levels will equate to (at <em>absolute</em> most) +4 to various numbers between the lowest and highest characters and maybe an extra ~20 HP (unless specifically built to have lots of HP). If you get to more than about +/- 4 levels, then things get dicey, as if you're really pushing the boundaries of those ranges, you may see characters with nearly doubled HP or have enemies that are unhittable by the lowest-level ones and really easy to hit for the highest-level ones. But still, a roughly 5 level range is pretty well comparable to older editions, if I'm not radically mistaken--I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to take ultra-fragile 1st-level characters along with 7th-level seasoned adventurers in 1e unless you were <em>very</em> comfortable with repeatedly losing characters to "oops I rolled a big damage number" moments.</p><p></p><p></p><p>...Swinginess <em>literally means</em> the opposite of a "flatten[ed]" power curve, my friend. It <em>literally means</em> that the curve is sensitive to sudden, unexpected spiky behavior. So...I'm really not sure what you're saying when you say this.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I believe the point is more: it borders on being ONLY dumb luck. You aren't playing a <em>game</em> that you can <em>strategize with</em>; you're throwing craps, and sooner or later the house wins (meaning, you lose your character sheet). For a LOT of people, that's...frankly, demoralizing. As I've said in other threads, I (and I know a lot of people are with me on this!) struggle mightily to become attached to anything that I know is always in danger of being taken away at a moment's notice, <em>especially</em> if there's essentially nothing I can do to alter that. If I can't take hold, why bother? Better to resign myself to failure <em>now</em> so it won't hurt when I <em>do</em> inevitably fail.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Eh. If there's always a 10% chance my character is going to just flat die in any encounter, it's going to be very <em>hard</em> to make the fights interesting. Because I'm going to be actively trying NOT to care, so that it won't hurt when I lose. And since I know, for an absolute and incontrovertible fact, that I'm <em>going</em> to lose eventually, I'm going to try <em>very</em> hard not to care.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah, I've brought this up before as well elsewhere. Like the "Quick Primer," the terms come from a debatable place of being well-meaning, but they are pretty clearly disparaging to the currently-common style and unabashedly positive toward the advocated style. The latter is perfectly fine; it is the former that is a problem.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps, but it is <em>very very VERY</em> often framed as "combat-as-war is SERIOUS BUSINESS, combat-as-sport is just playtime," or the ever-popular "nothing <em>matters</em> in CAS"/"you can never <em>lose</em>"/etc. that tends to crop up. See also, the thread I made (which <em>exploded</em>) over fear-of-character-death not being essential and even being detrimental (sometimes, anyway), followed by a dozen people telling me that that must mean I want a game where nothing matters and no one ever suffers loss.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yeah uh...no, I don't really care for that either. Both because I would consider 4e play very tactically-minded, and because "simple" is...really easy to read as derogatory? Like I think I understand what you mean, but "oh that's SIMPLE combat, what you really want is the superior STRATEGIC combat" is not at <em>all</em> hard to read from those words.</p><p></p><p>For my part...trying to keep the ideas of "combat as a dangerously <em>grueling</em> thing you avoid like the plague or else slant so heavily in your favor you basically can't lose" vs "combat as a dangerously <em>exciting</em> thing you engage with when you want that kind of experience," I'd call them combat-as-extermination vs. combat-as-adventure. Combat-as-extermination is an extraordinarily serious affair; you are out to exterminate your enemies as ruthlessly as possible by exploiting every possible advantage you can (think 4X games!) and your enemies will do likewise. Combat-as-adventure isn't a <em>non-</em>serious affair, but it is <em>less</em> serious than the previous; you are out to do or see badass, (anti-)heroic/(anti-)villainous, and/or awesome/terrifying things, and enjoying the highs and lows of having that happen. </p><p></p><p>I'm reminded of a term--was it yours, [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] ?--that someone used on RPG.net, contrasting <em>lethality</em> with <em>volatility</em>. Early-edition games are highly lethal, basically all the time. Even a 10th-level Fighter, who has lots of HP and great gear, can be one bad roll away from permadeath. (Admittedly, that is <em>unlikely</em>, but early-edition saves were very, <em>very</em> nasty at times.) By comparison, 4e games are much less lethal (though absolutely NOT non-lethal, as my own experience can attest), but they very frequently feature characters <em>brushing against</em> death, or dropping <em>perilously low</em>, etc., only to be righted a bit later by an ally's support. And just as turn-by-turn can be volatile, round-by-round can also be volatile; many 4e fights I've played, we started off at a significant disadvantage until we learned "what's this guy's deal???" so we could oppose them effectively. We had to think dynamically; we had to pool our resources; we had to act like a team and not four-five individuals who happen to adventure to the same places at the same times. Early-edition gameplay is much less volatile most of the time. It has its upsets, to be sure, but most of the time, you either stockpile so many resources/advantages that the result is a nearly foregone conclusion, or you're taking a huge risk and hoping against hope that it pays off, because one outcome or the other will come down pretty damn quick.</p><p></p><p>Combat-as-adventure values volatility and tamps down on lethality, because the latter <em>ends the sequence</em>, as it were. Combat-as-extermination amps the lethality up to 11, but is so-so on volatility <em>per se</em>, because the latter depends on a level of "bouncing back from problems" that doesn't mesh well with its "if something goes wrong, it goes REALLY wrong" mentality.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This, at least, I absolutely agree with. Motivations and goals should be paramount to a DM. It's how you create villains that stand the test of time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8264922, member: 6790260"] Woo, leaping into a discussion [I]in media res[/I]! That's totally not going to make things difficult :P So, I think I get what you actually mean by that. But you really should sit down and consider what it means when you say, "I want to play a roleplaying game that ignores all 'game' elements until the very last step, and then only includes the absolute bare minimum to qualify as a 'game.'" Perhaps I've missed a definition or two (having, as stated, just jumped in)--what does "process simulation" mean in context? Intent without execution is an engineer promising you a space elevator, or a physicist promising you a fusion power plant. Lovely, but that intent and a buck might get you a dirt-cheap cup of coffee. Sure. And (though I know you'll touch on this in a bit) 4e did the same thing: by codifying the idea that threat level is relative, rather than absolute. You can't [I]say[/I] that an ogre is an absolute threat level of 3, because a gaggle of 1st level characters [I]could potentially do it[/I], it'd just be very hard (1st level solo fight)--it might wreck them, but they've got a shot. Likewise, an 11th-level party is going to wipe the floor with an ordinary ogre--even [I]one person[/I] on that team could do it--so the [I]relative[/I] threat level is significantly lower (11th level minion). If you can just let go of the notion that there must be one, perfect, diamond-absolute threat level that always matters for every PC ever, no matter what their table does or who their allies are or what resources they bring, you can have your cake and eat it too. I strongly disagree with this sentiment, mostly because all but [I]one[/I] of the 4e DMs I've played with DID approach it from an in-character perspective. The chips fell where they may; encounters were designed based on what they logically should be, which includes "the player characters are rational beings who at least TRY not to take jobs too far above their paygrade and mostly ignore jobs below their pay grade" (translated into suitable mechanics for the associated setting, of course). But there's another reason. 4e did an awful lot of work to make "approach it from a game-first way" EQUIVALENT to "approach it from an in-character world simulation direction." The poster child for this is its version of Lay on Hands, which is [I]the only version that actually makes Paladin-like behavior the direct result of the mechanics[/I]. In at least 2e, 3e, and 5e, LoH has been "here's a pool of HP, you can hand it out to friends." 4e made it "[I]I give of myself, to replenish them.[/I]" Likewise, stuff like the various Avenger subtypes, where the mechanics of getting your sweet bonuses (Oath of Enmity) [I]meant[/I] you would hound your lone target (Censure of Pursuit), gang up on one guy with your buddies (Censure of Unity), or dive deep into enemy territory emboldened by other enemies' strikes (Censure of Retribution). Several other classes also work this way; it's not an absolutely perfect metaphor, but it works often enough to be worth talking about. When you consider playability early, you can [I]do[/I] this. You can make "playing the game" be, in and of itself, "thinking from an in-character perspective." It's one of the reasons why my third favorite system (after 4e and 13th Age) is Dungeon World, because it does [I]exactly[/I] the same thing, just from the other direction. (Though in fairness I do find DW a bit mechanically thin for my taste as a player--it's great for DMing though.) So, just so I'm understanding this correctly: A group of children attacking a sewer rat should face [I]exactly the same numerical values[/I] as a group of god-slaying nigh-transcendent heroes? Because that's what you're demanding. You're saying that internal consistency can [I]only[/I] occur if "sewer rat" has one, and only one, representation no matter who faces it, no matter what equipment they bring, no matter how disparate the table's tastes might be. You are saying that there can be one, and only one, representation of any given entity. I find it both more satisfying in terms of game-mechanics AND in "in-world situation" terms of "how should person X deal with threat Y?" when the game factors into Y "the kind of threat X would perceive Y as." Because threat level IS a matter of perception, isn't it? It's about [I]relative[/I] differences. Just as (for example) a trained soldier would be an almost impossibly difficult target [I]for me[/I], when I have no combat training and barely-remembered years of Boy Scout survival skill training (and very poor physical condition, sadly!), whereas it might be no problem for my cousin who works on a farm and does target practice regularly with his guns. It....really isn't as bad as you make it sound with 4e. You can [I]quite[/I] easily have a party that is within +/- 2 levels and not really notice much, because 2 levels will equate to (at [I]absolute[/I] most) +4 to various numbers between the lowest and highest characters and maybe an extra ~20 HP (unless specifically built to have lots of HP). If you get to more than about +/- 4 levels, then things get dicey, as if you're really pushing the boundaries of those ranges, you may see characters with nearly doubled HP or have enemies that are unhittable by the lowest-level ones and really easy to hit for the highest-level ones. But still, a roughly 5 level range is pretty well comparable to older editions, if I'm not radically mistaken--I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to take ultra-fragile 1st-level characters along with 7th-level seasoned adventurers in 1e unless you were [I]very[/I] comfortable with repeatedly losing characters to "oops I rolled a big damage number" moments. ...Swinginess [I]literally means[/I] the opposite of a "flatten[ed]" power curve, my friend. It [I]literally means[/I] that the curve is sensitive to sudden, unexpected spiky behavior. So...I'm really not sure what you're saying when you say this. I believe the point is more: it borders on being ONLY dumb luck. You aren't playing a [I]game[/I] that you can [I]strategize with[/I]; you're throwing craps, and sooner or later the house wins (meaning, you lose your character sheet). For a LOT of people, that's...frankly, demoralizing. As I've said in other threads, I (and I know a lot of people are with me on this!) struggle mightily to become attached to anything that I know is always in danger of being taken away at a moment's notice, [I]especially[/I] if there's essentially nothing I can do to alter that. If I can't take hold, why bother? Better to resign myself to failure [I]now[/I] so it won't hurt when I [I]do[/I] inevitably fail. Eh. If there's always a 10% chance my character is going to just flat die in any encounter, it's going to be very [I]hard[/I] to make the fights interesting. Because I'm going to be actively trying NOT to care, so that it won't hurt when I lose. And since I know, for an absolute and incontrovertible fact, that I'm [I]going[/I] to lose eventually, I'm going to try [I]very[/I] hard not to care. Yeah, I've brought this up before as well elsewhere. Like the "Quick Primer," the terms come from a debatable place of being well-meaning, but they are pretty clearly disparaging to the currently-common style and unabashedly positive toward the advocated style. The latter is perfectly fine; it is the former that is a problem. Perhaps, but it is [I]very very VERY[/I] often framed as "combat-as-war is SERIOUS BUSINESS, combat-as-sport is just playtime," or the ever-popular "nothing [I]matters[/I] in CAS"/"you can never [I]lose[/I]"/etc. that tends to crop up. See also, the thread I made (which [I]exploded[/I]) over fear-of-character-death not being essential and even being detrimental (sometimes, anyway), followed by a dozen people telling me that that must mean I want a game where nothing matters and no one ever suffers loss. Yeah uh...no, I don't really care for that either. Both because I would consider 4e play very tactically-minded, and because "simple" is...really easy to read as derogatory? Like I think I understand what you mean, but "oh that's SIMPLE combat, what you really want is the superior STRATEGIC combat" is not at [I]all[/I] hard to read from those words. For my part...trying to keep the ideas of "combat as a dangerously [I]grueling[/I] thing you avoid like the plague or else slant so heavily in your favor you basically can't lose" vs "combat as a dangerously [I]exciting[/I] thing you engage with when you want that kind of experience," I'd call them combat-as-extermination vs. combat-as-adventure. Combat-as-extermination is an extraordinarily serious affair; you are out to exterminate your enemies as ruthlessly as possible by exploiting every possible advantage you can (think 4X games!) and your enemies will do likewise. Combat-as-adventure isn't a [I]non-[/I]serious affair, but it is [I]less[/I] serious than the previous; you are out to do or see badass, (anti-)heroic/(anti-)villainous, and/or awesome/terrifying things, and enjoying the highs and lows of having that happen. I'm reminded of a term--was it yours, [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER] ?--that someone used on RPG.net, contrasting [I]lethality[/I] with [I]volatility[/I]. Early-edition games are highly lethal, basically all the time. Even a 10th-level Fighter, who has lots of HP and great gear, can be one bad roll away from permadeath. (Admittedly, that is [I]unlikely[/I], but early-edition saves were very, [I]very[/I] nasty at times.) By comparison, 4e games are much less lethal (though absolutely NOT non-lethal, as my own experience can attest), but they very frequently feature characters [I]brushing against[/I] death, or dropping [I]perilously low[/I], etc., only to be righted a bit later by an ally's support. And just as turn-by-turn can be volatile, round-by-round can also be volatile; many 4e fights I've played, we started off at a significant disadvantage until we learned "what's this guy's deal???" so we could oppose them effectively. We had to think dynamically; we had to pool our resources; we had to act like a team and not four-five individuals who happen to adventure to the same places at the same times. Early-edition gameplay is much less volatile most of the time. It has its upsets, to be sure, but most of the time, you either stockpile so many resources/advantages that the result is a nearly foregone conclusion, or you're taking a huge risk and hoping against hope that it pays off, because one outcome or the other will come down pretty damn quick. Combat-as-adventure values volatility and tamps down on lethality, because the latter [I]ends the sequence[/I], as it were. Combat-as-extermination amps the lethality up to 11, but is so-so on volatility [I]per se[/I], because the latter depends on a level of "bouncing back from problems" that doesn't mesh well with its "if something goes wrong, it goes REALLY wrong" mentality. This, at least, I absolutely agree with. Motivations and goals should be paramount to a DM. It's how you create villains that stand the test of time. [/QUOTE]
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