How do you approach tactics?

[Krensky]

Leeroy Jenkins video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

The funny thing is, from what I've been told, Leeroy wasn't doing anything wrong persay. The rest of the party had spent a ludicrous amount of time coming up with a plan that would have had the exact same effect. I don't play WoW, so this is admittedly hearsay, but is intricately planed failure better tactics then failure do to enthusiastically charging in?

As for in general, it depends how we're defining tactical play. Is it in running the party like an archetypal special forces squad using scry-buff-teleport, magical flash bangs, and extreme prejudice? Or is it entirely contained within the battle, maneuvering for flanking and environmental bonuses, pinning heavy hitters down, hitting the enemy where they're weakest, etc. Is it knoiwing that Grognar has problems with anything more complex then "Hit the big one." and accounting for it in play?

Frankly I think it largely boils down to the party and the players (incuding the GM) at the table.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The number, and precise disposition, of different victory conditions in D&D is much larger in D&D than in a board game like Axis and Allies (ie, there are a lot more ways to play, win, and play well). Those victory conditions are also far more negotiable. YMMV.

There's been a strong gamist element throughout D&D's history hasn't there? It's particularly strong in OD&D, 1e and 4e.

In OD&D and 1e there is definitely a way to lose - your character dies and isn't rezzed, or loses levels, treasure, magic items, etc. You win by going up levels, acquiring magic bling and a large posse of retainers. It's a lot like gangsta rap.

 

[Mallus]

There's been a strong gamist element throughout D&D's history hasn't there? It's particularly strong in OD&D, 1e and 4e.

In OD&D and 1e there is definitely a way to lose - your character dies and isn't rezzed, or loses levels, treasure, magic items, etc. You win by going up levels, acquiring magic bling and a large posse of retainers. It's a lot like gangsta rap.

I didn't mean to sound like I was advocating removing the game part of the game. I probably should have stuck to writing: find the right kind, and level, of challenge for the players you have in front of you.

You're definitely right about 1e, but what interests me is, despite the seemingly more clear-cut definition of 'winning' and 'losing', people still used it to run their own kind of fantasy adventures, everything from lighthearted romps to epic Tolkien clones, where the default victory conditions found in the rules took a back seat to the individual group's play priorities.

Also, I never really thought of character death as 'losing', thanks to the infinite number of continues you get in D&D. And leveling is 'winning' kinda in the Pyrrhic sense, seeing as it means your character now has to face increasingly difficult opponents, armed with increasingly insta-kill abilities.

And yes, D&D is a lot like gansta rap. Word.

 

[Doug McCrae]

You're definitely right about 1e, but what interests me is, despite the seemingly more clear-cut definition of 'winning' and 'losing', people still used it to run their own kind of fantasy adventures, everything from lighthearted romps to epic Tolkien clones, where the default victory conditions found in the rules took a back seat to the individual group's play priorities.

Yeah, I agree. To what extent do you think it's there in the text and to what extent did people go in completely their own direction?

In 1e Gary does talk about the PCs, as they go up levels, finding themselves embroiled in the grand global or cosmic struggle between good/evil, law/chaos. It's very Tolkien-esque or Moorcockian.

OD&D has a similar idea where the game starts off in the dungeon and ends with the PCs as castle-building, army-raising military commanders in the fantasy wargame between the forces of Law and Chaos.

So you can see there the idea of going beyond simple personal power at least. Becoming part of a wider struggle.

Also, I never really thought of character death as 'losing', thanks to the infinite number of continues you get in D&D. And leveling is 'winning' kinda in the Pyrrhic sense, seeing as it means your character now has to face increasingly difficult opponents, armed with increasingly insta-kill abilities.

Winning and losing might be more subjective than I first thought. I used to dislike it when my WoW toon died even tho you basically lose nothing, just a minute or so of time to run back to your body. I'd defined dying for myself as losing, even tho, objectively nothing had been lost, even in the game-world.

 

[Barastrondo]

There's been a strong gamist element throughout D&D's history hasn't there? It's particularly strong in OD&D, 1e and 4e.

Yeah, whenever I see "player skill" being spoken of seriously that really pings my gamist radar (as much as I have gamist radar).

 

[Ariosto]

I am glad that, in the real world, I don't need to deal with determined perversity among the people with whom I play games.

If someone's idea of fun is to act in bad faith after voluntarily agreeing to the terms of an undertaking, and then to argue, against all remonstrations, that the behavior is proper simply because it is her or his whim, then -- at least in my circle -- that person is not going to have such difficulty again, because she or he will not be invited to play again.

(Somewhere, perhaps, there is a "game preserve" for players of Lawful Stupid and Chaotic Insane alignments.)

We have one player whose character contributes very little, certainly much less than if some of the class functions were exercised more often. The character, like the player, is more of a spectator than an actor in the adventures.

That can be irritating at times, but the hanging-back, inactive character tends not to be much different from no presence at all -- not a help, but also not a hindrance.

The one whose thoughtlessness could pretty directly have gotten companions killed raised an issue that was important to the group.

Someone can play an incompetent character, or an evil one. "Playing it to the hilt" can endanger other characters -- to the point the other players are willing to put up with it.

If that behavior has consequences, then there is no double standard just for the "free spirit"!

The other players are just as much free to do as they please!

 

[Saeviomagy]

Mallus, I really think you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. The number of games where the goal of the majority of the party doesn't involve survival is slim to zero. Even whacky comedy characters need to continue living in order to be whacky and comical. Even romantic characters need to continue living to be romantic. Even tragic characters don't set out to be tragic: otherwise they fail to be tragic and end up just being short lived comedy characters with a schtick that wasn't all that funny.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

YouTube - Leeroy Jenkins

That looked like a fine fluster cluck!

Too much talkee, not enough killee has often inspired the same in our group.

 

[Lanefan]

The number of games where the goal of the majority of the party doesn't involve survival is slim to zero.

You'd think so, wouldn't you.

But then I look at my crew, and the amazing variety of creative ways they find to kill off their characters whether intentionally or otherwise, and I realize it just ain't always so.

Lan-"but it's still the same campaign"-efan

 

[pemerton]

Despite RC's analysis in a thread in OT - I think the common perception of Sword and Sorcery is Conan the Barbarian being none to discriminating about how he goes about a fight.

On the specific example of Conan, I would add to Umbran's point of what is meant by Conan. Are we ONLY allowed to look at the REH short stories?

I've read two volumes of REH Conan in the past few years - that's 20 or more stories - and they're chock-full of Conan throwing himself into fights and winning. No doubt he is also a great tactician and general, but often he just cuts down multiple opponents with his superior fortitude and fighting skill.

Note, there's a disjoint there: some long time gamers may get the idea that the character's wild and aggressive mental state and experiences are represented by cool and careful planning and tactics on the part of the player. But I suspect many players don't approach it that way - to them, if the character is attacking with wild abandon, that equates to little pre-calculation on the player's part.

That's a very interesting idea - a metagame-y rather than immersionist S&S game, where to get the ingame reality of wild abandon, the player has to have anything but wild abandon in playing the game. I think I know a game that plays a bit like that . . .