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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6151847" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>I'd like to think my position wasn't as shallow as that and that I conveyed the multi-faceted issues at the core of my dispute. Perhaps not. </p><p></p><p>D&D 5e is all about tradition and orthodox from D&D's vestigal stages. If we know anything about 5e's design ethos, it is that. So, with that guiding influence, I harken back to the very first Wandering Monster's article where they outlined the orthodox, traditional story of the obviously extremely important Orc; the same one that is in every single one of our Monster Manuals (hence why their story has a fundamental coherency which we can point to and say; "yup, that's an orc".) - edited for brevity and relevance:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yup. That's an orc. That is the orc we all know. Both of you and myself included. Are their anomalous deviations driven by setting, etc? Of course. There are anomalous everything. But they wouldn't be composing these articles and working so very, very, very hard to prove that they understand that 4e's implied setting deviations and incarnations (of which I care little to nothing about) were heretical to canon and they are being removed or shipped off to some corner of the multiverse such that their taint cannot be said to infect the standard, core implied setting. </p><p></p><p>Why we would make the assumption that Mearls is working off of some odd, unorthodox orc "story" iteration is lost on me. Given all of their efforts at reigning in the counterculture and going stridently back to orthodox in their presentation of the edition (of which this is), that makes no sense to me at all so it wouldn't ocurr to me. It would only ocurr to me that he was using the stock, bog standard, edition-spanning (including 4e) Orc story...outlined so well above in their article; "ferocious, only the strong survive, humans are weak, prove yourself in battle or perish, etc." The kind that certainly wouldn't reflexively run, and expose themselves to certain death where Gruumsh or Orcus or whomever wouldn't cull them to be servants in their afterlife...certainly not "scared witless" which was primarily what I was disputing as it was given justification for the bad (edition-spanning) tactical retreat/withdraw/pursuit mechanics of "OA suicide." People have issue with forced movement (which I find to wonderfully simulate martial combat, of which I have a ton of personal experience with, incredibly well) and decry it regularly...but we're ok with "OA suicide" as the mechanical architecture for tactical retreat/withdraw/pursuit mechanics due to "scared witless" even for the "sheer ferocity of orcs"?</p><p></p><p>So yes, issue with the story of the orc displayed here. But that is <em>primarily </em>due to the bad apparatus that we have in place for tactical retreat/withdraw/pursuit. If we had a simple sub-system in place that allowed strategic (not tactical...not at the combat engine level) retreat that wasn't an auto/insta-gib, then it would make for a more dynamic experience. As is, it is nothing more than "this guy jumps on your swords to get the combat over." It comes off as trite and it is very antagonistic toward hardened berserkers whose steel (internal) is smelted, worked and perfected in the crucible of non-stop combat and brutality.</p><p></p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As far as bringing in 4e here, I don't know what the point of that is. I suspect I've GMed more games in the other iterations of D&D here than the vast, vast, vast majority of folks on this board. I like 4e. I'm sorry you can't stand it Imaro. I defend it as I enjoy it. Stop framing an issue that has nothing to do with 4e in a way that is asking for an edition war.</p><p></p><p>With respect to gradations of "combat", I'd say there are many. In my 4 long-standing AD&D and 3.x campaigns, my players were all very "The Black Company." They ganked, insta-gibbed and set up fights "so there wasn't a fight" regularly. The Rogue in my last epic 3.x campaign was outrageously lethal. Just absurd. He would gank Maraliths. He passed Stealth on a melee BBEG, gutted him, lost initiative, and absolutely destroyed him with on his next turn with a FotW combat round and passwalled before his guards could enter the chamber. That was not a combat and no one at the table thought it was as we were all laughing hysterically. My 4e campaign has a Rogue/Ranger built to gank. The Bladesinger and Druid can easily insta-gib an encounter set up as a swath of minions and a Standard. When the Rogue wins a Stealth Skill Challenge, I move the one or two sentries HP to Bloodied. When he ganks them, I don't consider it a combat. When the three of them go nova and utterly destroy an of-level combat composed primarily of minions and a Standard in one round, I don't consider that a combat. </p><p></p><p>"Gank"</p><p>"Nova Insta-gib"</p><p></p><p>These are very different than an ebb and flow "heroic comeback" or a "BBEG setpiece" or even just a 2-3 round one-sided affair. My 4e players "Gank" and "Nova Insta-gib" now and again. Neither I, nor they, consider it "combat". I've playtested plenty of 5e and there are combats to be had. I don't include a less than 1 round massacre where the GM decides to have the remaining enemy, in effect, volantarily skewer himself (because he's "scared witless") on the swords of the 3 PCs around him (because there is no mechanism for a retreat that works outside of the tactical combat interface...which handles it terribly because retreat in the scenario <em>ONLY </em>equals suicide). And I certainly don't herald the swiftness of its "combat" because of that example in the same way that a 4e or 3.x gank or nova insta-gib anyway shouldn't be championed as resembling the duration and dynamics of a standard, multi-round combat...and then have regalings of its swiftness.</p><p></p><p>Neither of you may see it that way. Fair enough. That is my reasoning. It is nothing so shallow as picking a nit or edition warring. I would like there to be functional retreat/escape rules and I would like them to be segmented away from the combat rules. If Mearls wants to handle his orcs as "scared witless" in the face of "humans", then have at it. Its also my opinion that this is quite odd and well astray from orthodox. If his table had fun, have at it! I'm not so presumptious as to tell him how to run a game (he certainly wouldn't solicit my opinion I'm sure) nor to tell his players that they're "doing it wrong". But I have opinions on orthodox orcs and what constitutes a combat and I have opinions on the deficiency of the tactical combat interface of D&D (all of them) to handle retreating and pursuit. And now you have them (at last I hope so...after my last round of efforts all that seems to have been gleaned from it was BADWRONGFUN, HOW DARE YOU? AND ARE YOU A HYPOCRIT, LET'S HAVE A TEST, EH?...or at least that was the apparent take home given the response.). And you may ignore them, deride them, or engage them as you will.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6151847, member: 6696971"] I'd like to think my position wasn't as shallow as that and that I conveyed the multi-faceted issues at the core of my dispute. Perhaps not. D&D 5e is all about tradition and orthodox from D&D's vestigal stages. If we know anything about 5e's design ethos, it is that. So, with that guiding influence, I harken back to the very first Wandering Monster's article where they outlined the orthodox, traditional story of the obviously extremely important Orc; the same one that is in every single one of our Monster Manuals (hence why their story has a fundamental coherency which we can point to and say; "yup, that's an orc".) - edited for brevity and relevance: Yup. That's an orc. That is the orc we all know. Both of you and myself included. Are their anomalous deviations driven by setting, etc? Of course. There are anomalous everything. But they wouldn't be composing these articles and working so very, very, very hard to prove that they understand that 4e's implied setting deviations and incarnations (of which I care little to nothing about) were heretical to canon and they are being removed or shipped off to some corner of the multiverse such that their taint cannot be said to infect the standard, core implied setting. Why we would make the assumption that Mearls is working off of some odd, unorthodox orc "story" iteration is lost on me. Given all of their efforts at reigning in the counterculture and going stridently back to orthodox in their presentation of the edition (of which this is), that makes no sense to me at all so it wouldn't ocurr to me. It would only ocurr to me that he was using the stock, bog standard, edition-spanning (including 4e) Orc story...outlined so well above in their article; "ferocious, only the strong survive, humans are weak, prove yourself in battle or perish, etc." The kind that certainly wouldn't reflexively run, and expose themselves to certain death where Gruumsh or Orcus or whomever wouldn't cull them to be servants in their afterlife...certainly not "scared witless" which was primarily what I was disputing as it was given justification for the bad (edition-spanning) tactical retreat/withdraw/pursuit mechanics of "OA suicide." People have issue with forced movement (which I find to wonderfully simulate martial combat, of which I have a ton of personal experience with, incredibly well) and decry it regularly...but we're ok with "OA suicide" as the mechanical architecture for tactical retreat/withdraw/pursuit mechanics due to "scared witless" even for the "sheer ferocity of orcs"? So yes, issue with the story of the orc displayed here. But that is [I]primarily [/I]due to the bad apparatus that we have in place for tactical retreat/withdraw/pursuit. If we had a simple sub-system in place that allowed strategic (not tactical...not at the combat engine level) retreat that wasn't an auto/insta-gib, then it would make for a more dynamic experience. As is, it is nothing more than "this guy jumps on your swords to get the combat over." It comes off as trite and it is very antagonistic toward hardened berserkers whose steel (internal) is smelted, worked and perfected in the crucible of non-stop combat and brutality. As far as bringing in 4e here, I don't know what the point of that is. I suspect I've GMed more games in the other iterations of D&D here than the vast, vast, vast majority of folks on this board. I like 4e. I'm sorry you can't stand it Imaro. I defend it as I enjoy it. Stop framing an issue that has nothing to do with 4e in a way that is asking for an edition war. With respect to gradations of "combat", I'd say there are many. In my 4 long-standing AD&D and 3.x campaigns, my players were all very "The Black Company." They ganked, insta-gibbed and set up fights "so there wasn't a fight" regularly. The Rogue in my last epic 3.x campaign was outrageously lethal. Just absurd. He would gank Maraliths. He passed Stealth on a melee BBEG, gutted him, lost initiative, and absolutely destroyed him with on his next turn with a FotW combat round and passwalled before his guards could enter the chamber. That was not a combat and no one at the table thought it was as we were all laughing hysterically. My 4e campaign has a Rogue/Ranger built to gank. The Bladesinger and Druid can easily insta-gib an encounter set up as a swath of minions and a Standard. When the Rogue wins a Stealth Skill Challenge, I move the one or two sentries HP to Bloodied. When he ganks them, I don't consider it a combat. When the three of them go nova and utterly destroy an of-level combat composed primarily of minions and a Standard in one round, I don't consider that a combat. "Gank" "Nova Insta-gib" These are very different than an ebb and flow "heroic comeback" or a "BBEG setpiece" or even just a 2-3 round one-sided affair. My 4e players "Gank" and "Nova Insta-gib" now and again. Neither I, nor they, consider it "combat". I've playtested plenty of 5e and there are combats to be had. I don't include a less than 1 round massacre where the GM decides to have the remaining enemy, in effect, volantarily skewer himself (because he's "scared witless") on the swords of the 3 PCs around him (because there is no mechanism for a retreat that works outside of the tactical combat interface...which handles it terribly because retreat in the scenario [I]ONLY [/I]equals suicide). And I certainly don't herald the swiftness of its "combat" because of that example in the same way that a 4e or 3.x gank or nova insta-gib anyway shouldn't be championed as resembling the duration and dynamics of a standard, multi-round combat...and then have regalings of its swiftness. Neither of you may see it that way. Fair enough. That is my reasoning. It is nothing so shallow as picking a nit or edition warring. I would like there to be functional retreat/escape rules and I would like them to be segmented away from the combat rules. If Mearls wants to handle his orcs as "scared witless" in the face of "humans", then have at it. Its also my opinion that this is quite odd and well astray from orthodox. If his table had fun, have at it! I'm not so presumptious as to tell him how to run a game (he certainly wouldn't solicit my opinion I'm sure) nor to tell his players that they're "doing it wrong". But I have opinions on orthodox orcs and what constitutes a combat and I have opinions on the deficiency of the tactical combat interface of D&D (all of them) to handle retreating and pursuit. And now you have them (at last I hope so...after my last round of efforts all that seems to have been gleaned from it was BADWRONGFUN, HOW DARE YOU? AND ARE YOU A HYPOCRIT, LET'S HAVE A TEST, EH?...or at least that was the apparent take home given the response.). And you may ignore them, deride them, or engage them as you will. [/QUOTE]
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