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Is D&D combat meant to be heroic?
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<blockquote data-quote="ha-gieden" data-source="post: 3391869" data-attributes="member: 50207"><p>When I read the original question, I thought "heroic" was being used to describe combat the way we see it in martial arts movies: a single person (the hero) takes on every opponent in sight and walks off looking for more. Almost more important than the sheer number of opponents, however, is the style and, well, the "wow" factor with which the hero's task is accomplished. </p><p></p><p>I didn't think it actually had much to do with the moral fiber or innate characteristics of the characters being played. I thought it was the combat *itself* that was being asked about.</p><p></p><p>To that effect, I probably should have used the word "cinematic" instead of "heroic". But I think "cinematic" sometimes implies "unrealistic", and the combat sequences in our games don't tend towards that. Of our group Saturday, five out of the eight participants had taken at least one martial art and had had some form of weapons training. Of the remaining three, two were prison guards and one was a police officer...SWAT. Our combat sessions almost never stay with "I attack on my init."; we almost always say things like, "I'm gonna try to kick in his knee." If a high enough success is rolled, then the DM will probably assign the guy who just got his knee kicked in a movement penalty. So our combat is rather cinematic/heroic/interesting.</p><p></p><p>Sometimes game mechanics do seem as if they would get in the way of this...but that's what house rules are for. So was D&D combat meant to be heroic in a cinematic way? I dunno...but like I said, anytime one guy can walk through a whole town kicking behind and taking names, it's gotta be heroics/cinematics or pure game mechanics, one of the two.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="ha-gieden, post: 3391869, member: 50207"] When I read the original question, I thought "heroic" was being used to describe combat the way we see it in martial arts movies: a single person (the hero) takes on every opponent in sight and walks off looking for more. Almost more important than the sheer number of opponents, however, is the style and, well, the "wow" factor with which the hero's task is accomplished. I didn't think it actually had much to do with the moral fiber or innate characteristics of the characters being played. I thought it was the combat *itself* that was being asked about. To that effect, I probably should have used the word "cinematic" instead of "heroic". But I think "cinematic" sometimes implies "unrealistic", and the combat sequences in our games don't tend towards that. Of our group Saturday, five out of the eight participants had taken at least one martial art and had had some form of weapons training. Of the remaining three, two were prison guards and one was a police officer...SWAT. Our combat sessions almost never stay with "I attack on my init."; we almost always say things like, "I'm gonna try to kick in his knee." If a high enough success is rolled, then the DM will probably assign the guy who just got his knee kicked in a movement penalty. So our combat is rather cinematic/heroic/interesting. Sometimes game mechanics do seem as if they would get in the way of this...but that's what house rules are for. So was D&D combat meant to be heroic in a cinematic way? I dunno...but like I said, anytime one guy can walk through a whole town kicking behind and taking names, it's gotta be heroics/cinematics or pure game mechanics, one of the two. [/QUOTE]
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