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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6153592" data-attributes="member: 42582">I want to turn this around: if your group experiences combat encounters as "slogs", and wants to reframe them as chicken-herding episodes, what is your GM doing framing combats rather than something more interesting to the group? And why is the group using a system (ie D&D) which emphasises combat as the primary site of conflict resolution?Those questions are partly rhetorical, but only partly. Treated as non-rhetorical, here is my conjectured answer: a group of players - a fairly large group, in my impression - want some minimal approximation to process sim in their rules, such that a BW or HW/Q style "simple resolution" and "complex resolution" system would be dismissed out-of-hand. Therefore, all resolution has to be what would, in those games, be "complex resolution" (ie a potential slog). This same group of players also wants combat, though, because of its importance to fantasy tropes. But then to avoid the "slog" they need to be able to frame away those combats quickly. But they can't have fighters doing that due to the process-sim constraint (heroic fray rules as an exception applicable only to a minority of combats, at least traditionally). Therefore they give wizards the relevant abilities, because polymorph, sleep, transmute rock to mud, etc can all be accomodated within the process sim constraint once they are framed as magic. Therefore we get threads like this one.The positive flipside of the previous paragraph's critique is this: if you want combat in your game for theme/trope reasons, but don't want to have to resolve it via the "real" action resolution mechanics, then - assuming you want parity of narrative control across players of different archetypes - you need to give players of fighters a "simple resolution" option comparable to the wizard's spells.You can try and fudge this by burying it inside the complex resolution mechanics - this is what 3E might do in some cases (with the aforementioned charge, cleave, great cleave option), and what D&Dnext is trying to do with bounded accuracy and its low-hp humanoids. But I think it's better design, and less likely to break down under pressure, to tackle the design issue head on and be upfront about what you're trying to achieve.HeroWars/Quest and Burning Wheel both have rules to the effect of "once violence breaks out words are futile": in BW it takes the form of saying that "I plead with her" does not contradict a declaration of "I lop of his head", and hence both actions take effect without the need for dice rolls (ie he is decapitated as he pleads with her for his life). Marvel Heroic RP, on the other hand, seems quite happy to have words put forward in reaction to violence, and vice versa. And 4e allows that social skills can be used in combat to inflict hit point damage via morale loss. (The early 4e Dungeon adventure Heathen had a less-developed version of this option, but it is better developed in the module Cairn of the Winter King.)There may be some balance issues here (eg I think some designers are worried that talking is already a pretty versatile skill, and it becomes to good if it can also serve as a parry), but I also think it is to some extent a matter of tone. Burning Wheel is definitely going for a grittier feel than Marvel Heroic RP!</blockquote>

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