Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)

[Tony Vargas]

What's wrong with taking him at his word?

I am:

On another forum I’ve been running in circles with fans of other editions about different D&D play styles and how different editions support them, but I think I’ve finally nailed a key difference that sheds an enormous amount of light about so many disagreements ....

While either form of D&D can be played with any edition, it works better with some editions than others. TSR-D&D mostly sucks at Combat as Sport.... Also a lot of elements of TSR-D&D design that drive Combat as Sport people crazy, really tie into the Combat as War mindset. ..

With 3ed the game shifted a bit towards Combat as Sport and then shifted a good bit more with 4ed. In 4ed it’s easy to tell what’s a good fair fight for a given party and combat rarely goes in a direction that the DM completely didn’t expect and there’s tons of fun combat variety. However, the 4ed focus on balancing combat at the encounter level rather than the adventure level runs directly counter to Combat as War gameplay. ...But probably most importantly, 4ed combat just takes too damn long for Combat as War players. If you’re going to spend your time doing sneaky rat bastard Black Company stuff before combat starts, then having combat take a long time is just taking time away from the fun bits of play.

The main point of this post was trying to understand why a lot of the posts of 4ed fans sound like crazy moon logic to me while mine seem insane to them, I think this is a better rubric than most I've seen for providing an explanation for that.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I am:

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your use of "justification" here. I'd say he was looking for a root cause, or explanation, of the edition warring-behavior - as opposed to a reason why the edition war was right and necessary.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your use of "justification" here. I'd say he was looking for a root cause, or explanation, of the edition warring-behavior - as opposed to a reason why the edition war was right and necessary.

A fine distinction, but not an unreasonable one. He was seeking an explanation, then, that laid the 'blame' for the edition war on the contents of the edition he was warring against. That seems a lot like justification, to me, but I suppose one could judge it, very dispassionately (which can be hard for a veteran of the edition wars to do, even when consciously making the effort) ignoring all charged language and the 'side' the person expounding upon it was admittedly on, as merely seeking an 'explanation.'

There are much better explanations (really, a large set of contributing factors, rather than a single explanation), though. The reflexive rejection of the new that happens with every rev-roll, the nostalgic regard that the large segment of the fanbase who started with AD&D (myself included) has for classic D&D, a desire to continue the lavish rewards for system mastery that 3.5 provided, and so forth...

The idea - not unique to CaW/CaS - that the more balanced edition didn't 'support' this or that imagined playstyle, though, is one a very poor one. The playstyles are defined into being after the fact, for one thing, which is a red flag indicative of a rationalization rather than a reason. And, even so, playstyles generally were not, in fact, impossible or singled out and discouraged - they were merely made part of a larger set of playstyles that could be pursued without undue 'reward' or 'punishment.' Not the first time the opening up of alternatives was viewed as a threat to tradition.

 

[Savage Wombat]

A fine distinction, but not an unreasonable one. He was seeking an explanation, then, that laid the 'blame' for the edition war on the contents of the edition he was warring against. That seems a lot like justification, to me, but I suppose one could judge it, very dispassionately (which can be hard for a veteran of the edition wars to do, even when consciously making the effort) ignoring all charged language and the 'side' the person expounding upon it was admittedly on, as merely seeking an 'explanation.'

OK, this is the thing. My mental picture of Daztur's train of thought (exaggerated for effect):

"That sure was an interesting thing my friend said about that MMORPG feeling more like 'war' than a 'game'."
"Hmm. I've played in D&D games that feel more like 'war' than a 'game'."
"You know, some of the people I've heard from who dislike 4e say it feels too 'gamey'."
"I wonder if that's the same thing? I'll think on this some more."

Now, this is just my perception, but I think he was attempting a description of 4e that would explain that reaction. And it happened to be a description you disagreed with.

This is not the same as saying "4e sux because...". But you seem to be determined to interpret his statement in that way.

Now, in this particular thread, I've been trying very hard to avoid mentioning editions at all - since, as demonstrated, a lot of the criticisms of any edition are not based in solid fact. But I do think the concept of CaW/CaS has some interesting aspects, so I wanted to discuss it. But the reactions I get from the "veterans of the edition wars" seem to be based in the assumption that I am continuing to attack their preferred game regardless of what I actually say. And several posters have bashed the concept solely on what they think Daztur, or I, meant instead of what he or I said. A pet peeve of mine.

So, I dispute the charge that Daztur's post was an extension of the edition war, and feel that the edition war was unfairly dragged into the whole debate.

And I apologize in advance if this is the post that gets the thread closed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now, in this particular thread, I've been trying very hard to avoid mentioning editions at all - since, as demonstrated, a lot of the criticisms of any edition are not based in solid fact.

A good policy.

But I do think the concept of CaW/CaS has some interesting aspects, so I wanted to discuss it...
So, I dispute the charge that Daztur's post was an extension of the edition war, and feel that the edition war was unfairly dragged into the whole debate.

Any 'explanation' that excused hatred of an edition involved in the edition war can't help but be tied to that unfortunate conflict.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Any 'explanation' that excused hatred of an edition involved in the edition war can't help but be tied to that unfortunate conflict.

Hatred. In the absence of direct name-calling, why is expressing dislike for something the equivalent of hate?

I'm sure you support the right of people to play the way they want. And I'm sure you support the right of ENWorlders to discuss, civilly, why they like what they like. Which usually implies a certain amount of why they like what they dislike.

Again, I don't like it when people argue with what they imagine I'm thinking, instead of what I'm saying.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't like it when people argue with what they imagine I'm thinking, instead of what I'm saying.

Consider that what you're trying to say may not be the same as the message they receive.


However, one way to get in more interesting discussion would be to tease the interesting ideas out, and examine them on their own. For instance, you can discuss the potential of strategic focus or resource management without contrasting them to other approaches or pointing to this or that game as 'bad' for such things.


The same goes for the OP. The 'interesting choices' half could have made for an interesting discussion, if the OP hadn't chosen to provide a contrast the way he did.

 

[Pickles JG]

Guerilla combat vs. swashbuckling combat works too. There’s a reason why I chose the Princess Bride duel for the CaS example to go along with Indy shoots the guy with the sword as the CaW example.

I liked your original analysis & did not peg you as anti 4e at all from it. I was wondering the other day abou t this issue. At some point D&D switched from being about collecting treasure & circumventing difficult fights & inconvenient traps into being about fighting stuff. Obviously in both forms of the game as originally described they are er games & carried out for the entertainment of the players. Both sides are fighting as sport.

I have been running EotE in google plus. Here the slightly suspect system & the overhead on playing without any mapping tools means we shy away from combat & other hugely mechanical situations. Combats are assassinations from long distance. A race involved several weeks of nobbling the other racers. Planning a heist took several weeks & the results could be narrated from what had already happened in the set up with minimal further dice rolling etc. I think this is partly because the systems are somewhat bad & not fun to engage in too closely.

In 4e where tactical combat is great fun, for those of us who like such things, we jump at the chance to play it. Uneven battles are often anticlimactic (& still long) so we are disincentivised from making them so (though we would still rather insanely difficult missions were simpler so there is some scope for planning, research & strategy. Logistics is right out )

 

[Tony Vargas]

At some point D&D switched from being about collecting treasure & circumventing difficult fights & inconvenient traps into being about fighting stuff.

Depending on who you talk to, it switched /back/ to that, since Greyhawk (supplement 1, 1975), changed the exp system to try to make the game less about fighting and more about treasure-hunting. 2e backed off from that, making exp for treasure optional, and later editions (including 5e), dropped it entirely. So 1989 or 2000, depending on how you look at it - though, really, no exp for gp was a very common variant prior to that, as well.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, just to related this back to the thread a bit, you all realize that neither Strategic combat, nor Tactical combat has anything to do with difficulty? Both can be difficult or easy.