Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)

[Savage Wombat]

I've suggested strategic/tactical focus and I've suggested Action Movie/Heist Movie as better and less troublesome ways of expressing what you are trying to get at.

I'm not convinced strategic/tactical focus accurately describes the difference. I'm still considering Action Movie/Heist Movie, which has potential.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Someone did, certainly. Possibly back in the original thread.

I thought the "Combat as Means" vs. "Combat as Ends" had merit, though it doesn't describe quite the same thing. It's still possible that what I'm seeing has to do with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's "scene reframing" thing.

But you did suggest removing combat from the terms, right?

I think that's a very good idea. One would also remove War/Sport, because they pertain to combat, but I think one thing EVERYONE agrees on is that this issue isn't just about combat or the avoidance/biasing thereof.

Action Movie/Heist Movie is fairly accurate, but it's kind of funny, because people always claim (positively and negatively!) that 4E is "Action Movie" style, but my 4E game could not be much more "Heist Movie"! I mean, with action scenes, but most Heist Movies have the odd one of those!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Action Movie/Heist Movie is fairly accurate, but it's kind of funny, because people always claim (positively and negatively!) that 4E is "Action Movie" style, but my 4E game could not be much more "Heist Movie"! I mean, with action scenes, but most Heist Movies have the odd one of those!

Heh. The last two 4e games I ran were heist movies with action scenes as well

I also suspect that there's something in a Sandbox/Adventure Path dichotomy.

Edit: Indeed I find heists work better if you keep the magic relatively low - you're actually subverting the issues rather than snapping your fingers and rendering them irrelevant. And it's 3.0, 3.5, and PF I wouldn't care to run heists in. Magic is just too powerful (AD&D strictly limited it and 4e makes it not that strong).

 

[Daztur]

I really liked the ideas that @Libramarian talked about in post #167. Good stuff there.

I'd be interested in any comments on post 164, and/or the episodes of play that are linked to.

OK.

I’m having a hard time following the details of what went on because of the amount of 4ed-specific terminology. Both of my 4ed characters were heroic tier fighters and if you get much beyond that my knowledge gets a lot spottier.

From what I can follow that seems like some good examples of smart play. The set-up for Torog’s appearance sounds like CaW play, while there are also a lot of examples of solid CaS tactics. In general I love combat that takes place around interesting and unique terrain as it can shove players out of their comfort zone. While 4ed tends to cater to CaS more than CaW in the original CaS/CaW thread I heard too many story about 4ed players using tactics that would make the Black Company proud (including some with weird combinations of magic items that lead to the players winning a fight without making a single attack roll to make me think that you can’t CaW the hell out of 4ed.

One aspect of 4ed skills that are on display here that I don’t like is how open-ended the skills are. I prefer skill systems that nail down really precisely what skills can do in narrative terms (ACKS proficiencies do this well despite being a bit blander than I’d like) so players can plan around what their skills can do. However, just about every RPG out there has very open-ended skills, including lots of old school as all hell games, so nothing specific to 4ed there.

I really like what 1ed D&D does with spells in that it really nails down exactly what the spells are doing in narrative terms (especially with the addendum in the DMG) so it’s easy for the DM to adjudicate the PCs doing clever things. For example I want to know exactly HOW the succumbus is going to screw with the PCs’ heads. Kiss (full helm!)? Voice (wax in ears!)? Telepathy (break out the lead sheets!). That sort of thing.

A lot of 4ed abilities don’t really do that, they give you the consequences of a power being used without giving me a clear idea of exactly what’s happening to do that, which makes it hard to use those abilities off-label, but then you can say the same about a lot of 0ed spells so that’s not really specific to 4ed either.

Because you were saying that Combat as War people liked options. When you look at the AD&D fighter there aren't mechanical options. You can't even easily change your weapons. Which means that the AD&D fighter should be the exemplar of the class you hate the most. From which I can conclude that either
a: You think that CaW should only be undertaken by spellcasters
b: This isn't actually a consideration and CaW is just a battle flag.

Often lack of options helps get the creativity going. I’ve run a lot of D&D with students over the years and I just don’t have time to teach them the rules so I hand them pre-gens, give them a 5 minute spiel, field questions and help them select spells for 5 minutes and then they’re at the door of the dungeon.

They don’t know what their options are. The fighters don’t know there are just rules to hit stuff. The thieves don’t know what their thief skills are (I just put “you’re good at doing sneaky stuff like a thief”). Because they don’t have any real options on their character sheet they instead have to look at the environment and manipulate it, which sparks a lot of creativity.

On the other hand it helps to have SOMETHING to work with. I’ve had far better results with “you’re a dude with a sword, ten foot pole and a cow” than “you’re a dude with a sword.” And yeah, this is where 1ed fighters get a bit short changed as you point out. When you get to high level the CaW tactics start focusing more and more on spells (poor fighters) and magic items (equally shared) which leaves them a bit out in the cold, which is something that wouldn’t happen in my theoretical ideal D&D edition.

More like "we want cheap curb stomps of the enemy and would yowl to high heaven if high level NPC mages were to take CaW seriously and start scrying for bands of adventurers and then sticking up wanted posters with rewards once they hit third level".

Depends. One of my favorite campaigns was a Ravenloft one in which the DM managed to enforce Murphey’s Law in such a way that half of the sessions ended with us thinking “oh God, what a mess we made of everything, it was all our fault.”

But even if the CaW is completely one sided, curb stomping stupid NPCs CaW can be just as fun as curb stomping them CaS style (using perfect tactics against dumb NPCs) and high-fiving each other. Don’t think enjoying beating NPCs and hating when they beat you is exclusive to any one playstyle

What I've seen way too many times in D&D is:

A) In 1/2E - Good planning, good play, bad rolls so TPK anyway. I just don't get how this is supposed to be fun. It sucks. Everyone's game is over because the designers set up a game which is really swing-y with lots of instant death.

B) In 3.XE - Good planning, good play, bad rolls means one PC is effectively useless for an entire combat (almost never seen this in 4E because of the narrower ranges involved and the fact that you can usually choose to target NADs or the like).

For the 1/2ed one, if you’re guaranteed victory for having good planning and good play then that leeches out some of the gambling-style excitement. For example in poker you can have calculated the stats perfectly and still get beaten anyway, which is part of what makes the game fun.

For the 3ed one. Been then, seen that, poor poor poor scout/rogue.

Actually, I've just worked out why the playstyle claimed by the advocates of so-called Combat as War sticks in my throat so badly.

On the one side you have a large, powerful, and slow to react force. That is expected to play in a manner that is approximately fair because otherwise it could wipe out the individuals concerned. On the other hand you have a small and well armed but tiny force trying to win by any means necessary where any means necessary explicitly mentioned (in this thread alone) includes collapsing living quarters and burning down the entire forest the enemies live in.

This isn't warfare. Warfare almost invariably has rules like the Geneva Convention - or the rule that once a breach has been made you surrender. Collapsing dungeons and burning down forests puts you well into the realms of Terrorism.

Good point. Maybe Combat as Duel vs. Combat as Terrorism would’ve been better? The reason I chose “Combat as Sport” as the term was because of conversation on Tobold’s blog (tobolds.blogspot.com) a looooooong while back about MMORPGs in which he said that he liked battlefields because they were like a game of soccer (even playing field etc. etc.) while open world PvP in MMORPGs was too much like war and war isn’t fun. I just translated the thinking over to PnP RPGs.

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.

Ooof, this threads too long. Three more pages and I should’ve gone to bed half an hour ago.

Anyway, one last thought, after thinking over some stuff in reaction to this thread I’m going to try to come at this from another angle: basically looking at things from the point of view of task resolution instead of overall play style.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So let me check. You're saying that a small band of heavily armed (non-government if it matters) people melting the building a lot of people live in and destroying them by destroying the building isn't terrorism? Because it's what Savage Wombat is advocating. And you're saying that a small band of (again non-governmental) people burning down where others live to eliminate them also isn't terrorism? Because again Savage Wombat is using exactly that as an example of CaW on this thread.

I've heard terrorism defined as the illegal use of violence to effect political change.

Political change is rarely the goal of adventurers. 'Banditry' would probably be a more accurate term, more in keeping with the vaguely medieval setting.

"If" 4E had come anywhere near simply maintaining the D&D fanbase, then it would be reasonable to discuss what would or would not have happened "if" 4E had grown that base.

I get what you're trying to say. You want to believe that 4e 'failed' because you and others like you rejected it. It's an empowering thing to believe. But, the only thing you have to support that is the fact that had a short run. You can't point to data that say it sold less than other editions - in fact, the little data available suggests that it sold quite well. An insider admitted, years ago, what kind of goals were set for 4e, and the fact that it 'failed' merely shows that it didn't meet those goals. We also have some indication as to why, though it's an unpleasant topic of conversation, the upshot being that development of DDI was never completed.

And, yes, 4e almost certainly did grow the base - it didn't actually chase anyone away from the hobby (they only ran as far as Pathfinder) and it did attract and retain new players (IMX, 4e retained new players better than any edition I'd ever used to introduce people to the hobby).

Ruin Explorer made a good point about that. If you adopted 4e, you might have encountered new players - in my case, it was via the Encounters program and local conventions, and see how easy it was for them to learn 4e. It was surprising to see new players quickly pick up a game that presented some hurdles for you or your group, because you were 'un-learning' tricks you'd long used to cope with the game's issues, while new players were free of that baggage. If you were a non-adopter, you retreated into an established circle of players who, like you, favored a given past edition. You were less likely to encounter new players.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Again, you do not support your argument that a strawman is involved, or that the dichotomy is false.

The assertion of theories like this is that there are only two playstyles. That there is more than one such theory is ample proof that they're all wrong on that particular.

I keep feeling that, when I describe CaW, you hear "breaking the rules to get away with stuff." Is that what you think?

"Leveraging the rules to assure success" would be a better way of putting it, in the ideal case. Outright 'cheating' presumably wouldn't be out of the question, though, as it /is/ an open-ended, outside-the-box way of improving your chances.

Ok, good. That's not what Combat as War is. That might explain why you dislike the discussion.

Not /all/ that it is, but certainly something it's OK with.

Or, maybe that's exactly what it is:

As far as CaW being cheating. Yup, that's exactly what it is. A lot of classic CaW maneuvers are basically the same thing as computer game exploits which sucks in PvP play but can be great fun if the only ones getting the raw end of the exploits are NPCs.

1. People have said that 4e is strongly dedicated to CaS in contrast to CaW. That does not mean that one is equivalent to the other. The existence of the phrase "Combat as Sport" is not intended as a slap at 4e. (Portions of the article do suggest the writer's distaste for 4e - that's not the same thing as the core topic of the article.)

In effect, CaS is a stand-in for 4e or the 4e-defending trenches in the edition war. So much of the theorizing such as you see in this thread's OP and in CaW/CaS and other theories like it is just rationalization for some not-necessarily-rational preference.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Does this example work:

In the Action Movie paradigm, the target has a security system. The players are expected to fight/sneak/talk their way to the station where the system can be deactivated, or just deal with the consequences of the system being on.

In the Heist Movie paradigm, one player says "instead, let's just go steal an electromagnetic pulse bomb from a nearby research lab and knock the entire grid out for several seconds".

Criticisms? Tweaks?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Does this example work:

In the Action Movie paradigm, the target has a security system. The players are expected to fight/sneak/talk their way to the station where the system can be deactivated, or just deal with the consequences of the system being on.

In the Heist Movie paradigm, one player says "instead, let's just go steal an electromagnetic pulse bomb from a nearby research lab and knock the entire grid out for several seconds".

Criticisms? Tweaks?

The irony there is that the two genres would appear to be backwards. "Drop a really big hammer on it and don't worry about collateral damage" is a staple of the action movie, while in a heist movie you talk/sneak/fight your way in while not having shatteringly large effects, or deal with the consequences.

 

[Aenghus]

In the Action Movie paradigm the plot tends to be stated up front, transparent and typically isn't messed with. It tends to be "Bring down the BBEG" with a side order of "Save the Hostage" and "Now it's personal". Action Movie logic is in effect, specifically that "Action is Effective" and beating up bad guys and blowing up stuff leads to victory. A final direct confrontation with the BBEG is guaranteed even if it doesn't make sense by strict logic.

The Heist Movie paradigm is "Get the maguffin by any means deemed acceptable and escape" with a sideorder of "We're all crooks here" and "Something always goes wrong.". Twists are very common in heist movies. The plans are often overcomplex with multiple points of failure, and are designed to be entertaining to watch more than effective. The boring bits like hiding for eight hours in a box tend to be skipped. Intra-party conflict and treachery is a common feature.

I think the underlying argument here is about aesthetics and taste. In the former should they survive the party are guaranteed a face to face confrontation with the BBEG, and probably a monologue, followed by a dramatic showdown. In the latter a hostile encounter with the mark is a potential failure condition and generally something to avoid.

I'm trying to come up with a third paradigm. Maybe the AntiHero Movie paradigm, where the winner is whoever is willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary to gain victory, regardless of the cost to themselves or others. "Victory requires gettin dirty", "There is no honour" and "No good deed goes unpunished". In this paradigm a personal confrontation with the BBEG is something to be avoided, you want to kill him as safely and efficiently as possible. The only problem with nuking the BBEGs palace from a safe distance is gaining proof of death and to hell with collateral damage.

Maybe an acceptable dichotomy is "Planning is the best route to victory" vs "Planning is a waste of valuable playing time". I've seen players with attitudes re this topic across the entire spectrum, and the extremes don't mix well.

 

[Libramarian]

This is interesting, because, as a DM, I absolutely hate that. The players are my friends, and when they suffer, I feel bad (even if they aren't my friends, as humans, I don't enjoy their suffering). If they do something dumb or nasty and consequences slap them in the face, that's great, or if they're being lazy and assumptive, I don't mind them getting walloped. But if they are genuinely trying, if they are putting their all into it, then I feel nothing but vague guilt and sorrow at them suffering. So I particularly loathe the gambling element of 1/2E, where you could do everything right and still lose easily because the dice disliked you.

I mean, I have and will TPK a party who play like morons, or decide to stick with an obviously losing strategy out of stubborn-ness or the like, but I want that to be in part my decision, in part theirs, not really "Whoops that's a lot of natural 20s!", which caused a number of TPKs in my early AD&D days (and lead to me starting to roll behind a screen and fudge).

I want to see my friends do well and be happy in life and love but when it's gaming time I want to see the joy of victory and the agony of a natural 1. I actually think of myself as a softie in the sense that I don't like to be the one turning the screws, most of the time. I want the game to do that. I'm not a "killer DM". My preference is to be an uncertain, but prone towards positive DM running a killer game.

I like these terms, but like, I've never seen a party trend really strongly towards one or the other. My experience in 4E is that there's a lot of risk management. Example: party wanted to clear out some cultists from the sewers in a city, because they wanted to use the sewers as an escape route later (it's a long story!). The cultist-clearing wasn't an objective they were hired for or anything. So rather than risk their hides fighting the cultists (despite this being 4E and there being this supposed expectation that all fights are safe/sport, an expectation I guess I must have successfully subverted), they wrangled an elaborate situation which caused the city guard to fight the cultists for them. Extreme risk management! The key player behind this has never played an RPG but 4E, either.

It's important not to get hung up on the fictional events rather than how risky it actually feels at the table. One of the greatest insights of GNS theory IMO is that a given transcript of fictional events could have been produced by any creative agenda. The fact that your players contrived a plan to have guards fight the cultists doesn't tell me how much tension was involved in that choice and whether they're really scrapping for advantage or it was more of a lighter, just for fun/showing off thing. I want real, player-level fear and apprehension (While being good sports and us all recognizing that this is just a game of course. The way I describe this is making me sound like I force the players to play for my own amusement.)

Another game I was thinking of as an example of the "efficiency optimization" style is SimCity or The Sims. When I play those games I actually hate the random disasters and try to turn those off as much as possible so I can just relax and explore how the game works and gradually advance my city/person. I understand the pleasure of this but as I said in the Rob Schwalb blog post thread I don't like this in a multi-player game because it's remarkably boring to watch someone having this type of fun.

I think I'm a bit softer than Libramarian, but I definitely see where that approach is coming from. I feel sorry for my players when they go for a big set-up and then someone rolls a 1. But I also laugh (or at least giggle - and sometimes taunt).

It's especially amusing when it's the sorcerer's player who rolls a 1. As a chaos mage, he pushes everyone within 5 sq 1 sq on a 1 (and at our table I, as GM, decide where they get pushed to). In a recent session, the roll of a 1 knocked Vecna over the side of an earthmote, just after they had come up with a plan that relied on holding Vecna in place. It was funny!

That's definitely lighter than my game, but yes, the same sort of thing. I should say that when the player left the room after their character died last time it was understood that they were a good sport about it and leaving the room was partly a performance to make the event even more amusing for the rest of us. That one just hurt because he was the last of the "original six" and had almost made it to level 4.