D'karr
Adventurer
I see your point, but this still just doesnt work for me.
And that is fine, and I'll leave it at that. It obviously works for me, in both martial arts, and the game.
I see your point, but this still just doesnt work for me.
And that is fine, and I'll leave it at that. It obviously works for me, in both martial arts, and the game.
In martial arts this is quite a common technique, luring your opponent is commonly done. As a matter of fact it hardly requires Anna to make an attack.
The way to simulate the karate style is with something like spring attack that lets you leap in, attack and leap back out. Thus forcing your opponent to move to keep up with you rather then being able to plant and focus on attacking only.
And that could be exactly a game description of what the poster that put the diagram up was showing. The mechanics have completely abstracted the "description." Attack, move, slide enemy adjacent.
Somebody mentioned immersion, which I call the "bridge too far" argument. Which can also be seen in the "thinking too hard about fantasy" argument.
What the argument really says is - I have internalized all the "faults and flaws" of the D&D abstract combat model. I have made them my own. It might have taken me years to do so. Years, to convince myself that the abstract combat model, with all its inherent absurdities, is not absurd. But that abstract thing those guys "over there" are doing that is a bridge too far to cross.
It has nothing to do with the game system. No one needs mechanics to get immersed. As a matter of fact, if you concentrate on the mechanics too much, any of the mechanics, you will be completely drawn out of immersion.
If you look real close at ALL the mechanics involved in D&D's abstract combat model then immersion is completely out the window from the get-go. Some have internalized the "faulty & flawed" combat mechanics of D&D. So much so that hit points, armor class, no death spiral, "extraordinary" abilities, mostly stationary combat, etc., don't break their immersion. In no way does it mean that those things listed are not gamist metagame constructs within a completely ABSTRACT model. Just as much as martial powers are gamist metagame constructs within the same type of ABSTRACT model.
Hit Points are not wounds. Armor Class is not actual armor that "protects" you. Immersion? How is it that you get "hit" but you don't get worse in combat? There is no fatigue per se in the ABSTRACT model. You are completely combat capable at 1 out of 100 HP. Just as you are at 100 out of 100 HP.
3.x introduced mechanics such as the 5' step, and few penalties for moving and attacking. You would think that you would see lots of movement in combat. However, if you moved you lost all your iterative attacks. It was not, "mechanically", very advantageous to move. So combat pretty much remained "two tokens" adjacent to each other, with players rolling dice in some order.
You could still "describe" it as a series of lunges, and parries, and shoves, and attacks, and ripostes. But the ABSTRACT still remained "two tokens" locked in "deadly" combat adjacent to each other.
All these ABSTRACT mechanics when looked at as true to life combat, are absurd! If you look at them at all, they break under most scrutiny. They are not immersive, they are completely the opposite. They are game constructs designed to "organize" the chaotic environment of combat, and we accept them. But if someone dares add some mechanics, to that already ABSTRACT model, that somehow move those "two tokens" around; stop the presses - that's a bridge too far. It's baloney.
Until 3.x there really was not much "movement" during combat. You "sat" there stationary whacking at each other. The "description" might have been that there was constant movement, and shoves, and parries. But the actual mechanical representation within the ABSTRACT model was two "tokens" adjacent to each other, with players rolling dice in some order.
But Anna is the one who successfully made the attack, not the orc. I think you run into issues like "if Anna takes a step back, why does the orc have to do the same".
Actually no its not. Manuevering backwards is typically done in very back and forth fighting styles like karate. Its is NOT done because you want your enemy to follow you. its done because you want a little breathing space because your attack style involves leaping in an out like a duelist.
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I imagine it's hard to get people who aren't already your good friends to try an RPG they've never heard of. It's probably much easier to get a group that starts with D&D as an "RPG gateway drug" so you can potentially lead them to try more and more indie RPGs.I've met a lot of people who say they don't play different games because they cannot find players, but that's something of a self-defeating problem. If you never play a game, how do you ever get a group started? How did you get a D&D group started?
I find this pretty dismissive. You might not have any trouble buying into some of these 4E mechanics. But a huge swath of the gaming community does. And many of them site issues it presents to immersion. You can try to define it away, or make arguments like "but if you accepted one abstraction in 2E you have to accept a bunch of them now" but it doesn't change the fact that these things can be problematic for some gamers.
I have no problem with it not being a problem for you, but I do find it annoying when posters question my own experience of the game or try to discount something like immersion (which for a lot of people is really important).
In 2E you were able to move ten times your movement rate in feet in a round. The kind of moves you could make were also detailed: move up to an opponent, charge, retreat (which included fleeing and withdrawiing), ranged movement. Withdrawing was a bit like the five foot step, where you moved 1/3rd your movement rate. Moving your full move was fleeing and that exposed you to attacks from adjacent foes (a bit like attacks of opportunity).