I swing my sword

[amerigoV]

For others that have played older editions, how do you feel towards these claims that older editions were stagnant slugfests? Am I alone in my perceptions?

I have fond memories of 1e fighters. 1/2 Orc twin brothers that hunted dragons (them 2-handed swords were Dangerous!) was a blast. The real cruelty in 1e were clerics. Sure, there was this great spell list full of options, but it may as well read "Cure Light Wounds", "Cure Moderate Wounds" , "etc". Well, at least that was how it went in our group. The Cleric only got to pick another spell it was key to a known upcoming encounter (a key buff).

 

[MinistryOfGame]

I think ExploderWizard hit the nail on the head. Sometimes, you just want to get by those guards, and you know they've only got three hitpoints, so you say, "I swing my axe mightily at his neck and try to behead the bugger before he makes any sound" and you know that you deal at least three hitpoints, so if you hit, his head is detaching from his body (of course, when you make declarative statements like that is when you roll a 2 and miss).

In my games of 2E and such, I actually give fighters an ability that I call "Feng Shui fighting heroism" (a shout out to the Feng Shui roleplaying game) - which basically says that fighter characters (and NPCs) can attempt great feats of heroic action which 1) make the fight more of a spectacle, and 2) create some cool beneficial result. The thing is, no such rule is needed, because they could always do that - but I just put that on their sheet because new players don't understand what they can and can't do, and get stuck in the "I swing, I miss, my turn's over" business. It gives them something they can point to - "I'm using my fighting heroism ability to fire arrows into the giant slug, creating a makeshift ladder for the other fighter to climb up."

I can't see any reason why you couldn't do the same thing in 4E. So your "at will" ability says it dazes the opponent, and the little flavor text says you do it by whacking them in the head. What's the difference if you reflect some bright light into his eyes with your shiny sword blade? No difference at all to the end effect, so why not let them do it? You shift - do you do it by slowly walking backwards, or by doing a backflip, or some par cour, or whatever? No difference to the result, but one sounds cooler than the other.

 

[The Shaman]

For others that have played older editions, how do you feel towards these claims that older editions were stagnant slugfests?

I think many of the gamers who make those claims either didn't read or didn't understand, and therefore didn't avail themselves of, many of the tactical options available in the rules-as-written.

The fact that many of the combat rules were in the DMG rather than the PHB contributed to this somewhat; while the old wargamers understood things like using shields to create a testudo or setting a polearm to receive a charge - and would've expected the referee to come up with something on the fly if they weren't in there - many of the gamers coming into the hobby after around 1980 or so didn't have that background from which to draw, so they needed combat options spelled out for them to a degree that those who came before did not.

I think this lack of background may have hurt referee's even more, however. If you've never read about ancient or medieval warfare, then improvising appropriate responses to requests which are only thinly covered, or simply not covered at all, by the rules is definitely more challenging, and no doubt contributed to the cult of 'no-way' dungeon masters.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Anyone who brings this "I swing my sword" stuff to older editions is deliberately trying to not have fun with the game.

Or, you know, not everyone was blessed with having experienced, awesome DMs from the get-go who knew not only to stage their fights in interesting-enough areas that there was always something other than swinging your sword to do, but fairly and consistently adjudicated the various oddball action attempts that their players managed to dream up.

They certainly never decided for no immediately apparent reason that, no, you can't disarm Badguy X, and then "rolled" behind their screen (if they had one at all) to "determine success" and just announced failure regardless of what came up. Etc.

The fact is, beginning DMs don't know how to do this stuff well, if they even think to do it at all. Rules, in the open, known by everyone, may constrain people into "looking at their character sheets," but they also mean that when someone picks something from their character sheet to use, they have a reasonable expection for how it will turn out.

Also, your font is annoying.

 

[Jhaelen]

I remember PCs doing disarms, swinging from chandeliers, wrestling and all sorts of strange stunts
[...]
Do I just run an unusual game then?

Maybe.

I've not played BECMI much, I vastly preferred AD&D. However, AD&D had wrestling rules, and they sucked. So much so, that we never used them.

I think I've seen disarming, too. Basically, the DM coming up with a (very high, i.e. negative) AC that needed to be hit to succeed.

I don't think I've ever, in any game, seen anyone swinging from a chandelier.
Thinking about the extremely small number of games that actually ever featured a chandelier, I can only remember instances of the players either trying to steal the chandelier or chandeliers crashing down.

The latter was usually caused by a trap effect (or more rarely by a pc trying to swing from a chandelier - which only works in Hollywood movies ).

 

[Whisper72]

Well... it may depend upon how the DM runs the game, but in all the 'old school' games I've ran or played in, the option of 'I swing my sword again', and thus going toe to toe with the enemy, was usually one of the LEAST sensible things to do...

Smarts and tactics were usually needed to defeat enemies. Either because there were too many of them and you'd be overwhelmed, or because they were too powerful to simply walk up to and smash it out...

Melee combat often started at range with missiles of various types, throwing up quick barricades and otherwise using terrain and furniture as well as caltrops etc. to canalise enemy routes or give cover from enemy fire. The use of flaming oil, acid etc. was also rampant, especially for the lower levels. The thrown flask of greek oil was basically the 'fireball for lower level PC's'. Don't leave home without a bunch of them...

Also, with dual/double classing being so useful in the old days, I barely remember any pure classed characters in any case for the basic 'core' classes (fighter, wizard, cleric and thief). Usually only the Paladin and Ranger were single classed, sometimes the thief. Mages usually dual/multiclassed in fighter to have some survivablity (i.e. more hit points, and to be able to swing that sword more effectively once all spells were gone...), and most fighters as well as thieves dualled/multied into wizard or cleric for some spells and variety, so the whole issue barely came up from that perspective as well... Even most clerics in our games went dual/multi into wizard, becoming massive spell slingers...

In other words, we rarely if ever had a situation where a player's only option was to 'swing a sword' in the old days... since I never played any edition 'higher' then 2nd, I cannot attest to how this works out for 3rd or 4th edition...

 

[Umbran]

Anyone who brings this "I swing my sword" stuff to older editions is deliberately trying to not have fun with the game.

And anyone who says stuff like this is deliberately trying to be insulting, and dismissive of other people's problems.

How's that feel, to have someone else telling you were doing something kinda crappy? Doesn't feel so great, does it? So don't do it to others. Golden Rule, and all that.

 

[airwalkrr]

My personal feelings are that the crux of the issue is poor definitions in the original rules set of how to adjudicate actions beyond simple "I swing my sword" attacks. If the player wants to disarm his foe, there are some very generalized guidelines for the Dungeon Master (if you are playing AD&D and have the AD&D DMG) on how to do this, but for the most part, it is left for the DM to decide how this is accomplished (what kind of roll) and how difficult it is (how high the player needs to roll).

A permissive DM who wants to encourage unique tactics might just have the player roll to hit the weapon against AC 10. A less permissive DM who wants to allow such things but doesn't think they should be easy might simply call for an opposed attack roll. A DM who doesn't think it should be possible for whatever reason ("the goblin has a firm grip" or "the ogre is too strong for you to knock his club away"), even if it isn't a really good reason, might simply disallow it.

As the game has evolved, more of the rules have been put into the hands of the players so that there is common agreement on what is allowed, and how it is done. This leads to less diversity in gaming experience, which is arguably either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your point of view. But players tend to prefer knowing how the mechanics work for more than just swinging a sword to strike an enemy. After all, the wizard gets very descriptive examples of how his spells work, under which conditions, and how likely they are to succeed. Why should the fighter be so much different?

 

[Diamond Cross]

How about I fire my bow?

How about I swing my fists?

How about I spit in your face?

You see, that's all combat, even in real life, was until the advent of firearms, was a whole lot of singing and moving around.

Then when firearms cam about it was "I point my gun".

You can not have combat without swinging something.

Even when you read old swordsmanship manuals, all they really are doing is swinging their sword.

 

[baradtgnome]

I have not found the older or newer editions of the game to be superior in promoting the combat fluff text. I don't mean to be derogatory when I say fluff text, because I am a big fan of imagery it brings. The DM & players have to work to put that in the game regardless of edition.

I think the DM needs to lead by example. If he wants the players to use more tactics than 'I swing my sword', he can have NPCs or monsters 'show off'. Players can then have a huh moment which we hope is followed by, "How do I do that?".

I will over simplify here:
Older versions tend to leave more of these tactics to the DM to figure out and adjudicate on the fly. If you are an experienced DM and can handle that, and your players are not detail oriented wargamers who are happy with on the fly rulings, this works wonderfully.
Newer versions tend to codify these tactics so DMs who don't want to figure this out on the fly, or players that want the details to know the odds of success before trying it, can be happy. You must be fluent with the rules, and as a DM be willing to lead a player, who isn't, quickly through them as needed. If that makes you happy - then this too works wonderfully.

I've been both places. Had loads of fun both places. And sometimes I just feel like swinging my sword (and watching the decapitated head of the goblin roll across the floor in front of his comrades as I gaze menacingly at them, and wondering if they will make their moral check - not caring if the DM uses a hard, fast rule or making it up on the fly)