Keep out of combat in D&D? Why?

[Snoweel]

Not all all. I do believe that it exactly that type of game that WOTC is marketing 4E as, not what everyone may actually be playing.

I must vehemently disagree.

Look how elaborate skill challenges have become in 4e. The chapter on building noncombat encounters in the DMG is 24 pages.

By contrast the chapter on building combat encounters is only 18 pages.

Unless you're bemoaning the lack of deep-immersion roleplay support in 4e but that doesn't automatically make a game hack-and-slash.

Both styles of play bore me to tears to be honest. I want mysteries and skill challenges in my game with occasional abstracted combat and roleplaying encounters.

I'm just as averse to sending PCs into a hole in the ground to kill and pillage as I am to spending an hour playing amateur-community-theatre without rolling any dice.

4e suits this style of play perfectly.

 

[Walknot]

... I want mysteries and skill challenges in my game with occasional abstracted combat and roleplaying encounters.

I'm just as averse to sending PCs into a hole in the ground to kill and pillage as I am to spending an hour playing amateur-community-theatre without rolling any dice.

4e suits this style of play perfectly.

Sure can be a perfect fit. On the other hand, since every DM & player's preference is slightly different, then you know there is room for tinkering.

Seems that if you are a DM and you want to play 4e with less focus on combat, and maybe skill challenges seem too limiting to you also. Maybe you really want more "acting" and more "imagination".

You can tweak your game in a way that is completely compatible with players' preference for the more "gamist" combat and advancement. Go ahead with as much hack&slash as your players will enjoy. Why not play a fun game for those folks? The role-play can fit in fine with the ro11-play.

Add in as many spicy RP elements as you like, just keep them "above" of the XP/GP game elements. Create combats and skill challenges that lead in to RP situations and advance the story. You know that plot conflicts have no conflicts with gaming.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I must vehemently disagree.

Look how elaborate skill challenges have become in 4e. The chapter on building noncombat encounters in the DMG is 24 pages.

By contrast the chapter on building combat encounters is only 18 pages.

Unless you're bemoaning the lack of deep-immersion roleplay support in 4e but that doesn't automatically make a game hack-and-slash.

Both styles of play bore me to tears to be honest. I want mysteries and skill challenges in my game with occasional abstracted combat and roleplaying encounters.

I'm just as averse to sending PCs into a hole in the ground to kill and pillage as I am to spending an hour playing amateur-community-theatre without rolling any dice.

4e suits this style of play perfectly.

If 4E suits your playstyle then play and be merry. No edition ever had "rules" for deep immersion roleplaying anyway. I don't think you get very abstracted combat though. The focus on the map and fiddling around with all the minor movement really draws the attention to the board and away from the story.

 

[Hussar]

But still, for a long time old school=hack and slash. And the old schoolers where proud of it! None of this hand holding, story telling, sneaking around, running away, talk to the monsters crap for them.

Certainly true here.

9th level after 50 sessions means one level every ~6.25 sessions.

3E is designed for a level every ~3.33 sessions.

4E is designed for a level every ~2.5 sessions.

So, in fact, there is a significant acceleration. Of course, 4E has tempered that by making each level worth less; a 3E level is worth about two 4E levels, so if you measure by actual character power as opposed to level, 4E advancement is closer to the 2E ideal than to 3E.

Nitpick. 50/9=5.5, not 6.25. And 40 sessions, if you take the low end, is 4.4, which is very, very close to 3e.

I would point out also that 3e levels after 13 encounters. There is no real measure of how many encounters you should have per session. That being said, 3 and a third seems to be about the right rough average based on what we've seen on En World in the past.

What Raven Crowking completely ignores in his criticism of Quasqueton's analysis is that Q did not give ANY xp for magic items. Not a single point. He lowered the money to 75% and it made about 1 level difference, maybe. If he included the xp for magic items, any discrepancy with respect to missed treasure would likely be covered.

Also in the thread, he pretty clearly shows that in, at least the modules he looked at, the myth of hidden treasure is pretty much just that.

I refer you to my earlier post in the thread, where I said:



I think many gamers who played the older editions back in the day did *not* play them in the manner I described, earlier, but took their cue from the published modules. I think that's especially true for younger players (I include myself in that category, at the time). However, published modules weren't necessarily examples of how the game was played and approached by some of the older groups. Remember that Gary was surprised there was a big market for published adventures; he's on record as saying he thought most referees would prefer to create their own material. Of course, TSR adapted and filled the need, though. Personally, I don't think there's *ever* been a published adventure that models the kind of underworld dungeon campaign play described in original D&D's "Volume III," The Underworld and Wilderness Adventure; published modules simply don't lend themselves to that kind of approach. (Also see Robert Fisher's recent blog post on D&D tournaments and modules.)

This isn't a right answer/wrong answer situation. Some people played the way I described, earlier, and other people did not. My goal isn't to prove that my explanation and favored approach is the way old-school D&D should be played, but rather to answer Merric's question on why avoiding combat was ever a old-school approach.

Lastly, I think there's a tendency for these edition-oriented discussions to fall into caricatured positions. For example, avoiding combat in old-school play is often a very smart approach. That doesn't mean that old school play always avoided combat; combat was still a *huge* draw and focal point for the game.

I think this is absolutely true. A lot of gamers, older and younger I think, played from modules and not from homebrew adventures. This, more than anything, IMO, explains the difference in experiences between gamers.

 

[Delta]

Nitpick. 50/9=5.5, not 6.25.

He counted 8 "level-ups". The first level you get for free.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I wouldn't claim that old school play avoids combat. I'd claim that "skillful" old school play avoids combat.

The decision for or against combat is a strategic one:
Can we avoid it?
If we join battle, can we win?
What are our chances of winning?
If we win, what do we get out of it?
Can we defeat this without the risk of fighting?

If you stand to gain nothing (like with a wandering monster or something that clearly inhabits a dead-end room with no treasure) then avoid combat if possible.

Old school gamers: You aren't special.

This is not different from how I've been playing Fourth Edition D&D, and I am 100% certain that we're playing the game as intended.

 

[Korgoth]

Old school gamers: You aren't special.

This is not different from how I've been playing Fourth Edition D&D, and I am 100% certain that we're playing the game as intended.

OK.

But the thread was about whether old school play avoided combats. I was just answering Merric's question. It's not an edition war.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

OK.

But the thread was about whether old school play avoided combats. I was just answering Merric's question. It's not an edition war.

I felt that you phrased it in the typical, shall we say, exclusivist edition-war way. That is, "we did it this way, they don't do it this way no more" - which is crap.

If that wasn't your intent, cool.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What do you think?

I've never had to run from combat in any game of D&D I've ever actually played.

Combat is an important part of D&D for me. It's not the most important part, and it's not even the most fun part, but it is a key part to the ongoing development of the story/world/game.

And it's more fun without minis for me.

 

[RFisher]

I think despite doing their best, the books did a poor job of explaining the game. When I left all forms of D&D behind, I thought I fully understood the game. How surprised I was many years later when I started hanging out at DF and other places online and found new understanding of the old games.

Or maybe I’m just thick.