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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8706402" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>I believe D&D is one of the poorer systems to try and do rival organizations. because of what the baseline gamestate of any D&D world tends to be.</p><p></p><p>At its core, D&D is built to fight and kill monsters. That's the default. Yes, you can just "defeat" monsters and knock them out, and the DM can always have the monsters retreat... but if nothing is ever mentioned, the default assumption is you knock an opponent down to 0 HP and the monster is dead. That's how the game has always worked, and that's how most players of D&D see the game playing out.</p><p></p><p>The problem with this though is that we players are so used to this gamestate and DMs are so used to just running it this way... it means that narrative and story events that should be a thing... like if you attack someone else in a town, the guards should be able to arrive and arrest you for assault... rarely get played in any sort of narratively consistent manner. How often has the party found "the bad guy" in town, attacked him and his allies in the street, killed the group (because it isn't ever said that they didn't kill them when they hit 0 HP) and the DM had guards show up only to see the GUARDS get attacked by the party because they were the next opponent up? And any attempts by the DM to arrest the party for murder get the party to go on a further murder spree (seeing as how their character sheets make them so much more powerful than most Guard statblocks), and they attack anyone who tries to bring them in?</p><p></p><p>That kind of stuff happens all the time, because D&D pushes all of us to think of the game in this way-- we are in a combat simulator, and anyone who attacks us is an opponent to defeat, regardless of how good or bad or indifferent that opponent might be. And that's why a rival party seems to me to be exceedingly difficult to run-- because unlike superhero comics, where opposing sides of good guys can come to blows and then dust themselves off after the fight is done, no harm no foul... in D&D we are all conditions to KILL KILL KILL until the opponent is dead.</p><p></p><p>If you don't have a table full of players who go along with the conceit of there still being laws and allow themselves to be arrested and such, or at least not have a default assumed death after every 0 HP (and the party doesn't go around coup de'ta-ing every creature who's unconscious anyway)... then a rival party won't survive past the first battle where the PCs overpower them (more often than not.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8706402, member: 7006"] I believe D&D is one of the poorer systems to try and do rival organizations. because of what the baseline gamestate of any D&D world tends to be. At its core, D&D is built to fight and kill monsters. That's the default. Yes, you can just "defeat" monsters and knock them out, and the DM can always have the monsters retreat... but if nothing is ever mentioned, the default assumption is you knock an opponent down to 0 HP and the monster is dead. That's how the game has always worked, and that's how most players of D&D see the game playing out. The problem with this though is that we players are so used to this gamestate and DMs are so used to just running it this way... it means that narrative and story events that should be a thing... like if you attack someone else in a town, the guards should be able to arrive and arrest you for assault... rarely get played in any sort of narratively consistent manner. How often has the party found "the bad guy" in town, attacked him and his allies in the street, killed the group (because it isn't ever said that they didn't kill them when they hit 0 HP) and the DM had guards show up only to see the GUARDS get attacked by the party because they were the next opponent up? And any attempts by the DM to arrest the party for murder get the party to go on a further murder spree (seeing as how their character sheets make them so much more powerful than most Guard statblocks), and they attack anyone who tries to bring them in? That kind of stuff happens all the time, because D&D pushes all of us to think of the game in this way-- we are in a combat simulator, and anyone who attacks us is an opponent to defeat, regardless of how good or bad or indifferent that opponent might be. And that's why a rival party seems to me to be exceedingly difficult to run-- because unlike superhero comics, where opposing sides of good guys can come to blows and then dust themselves off after the fight is done, no harm no foul... in D&D we are all conditions to KILL KILL KILL until the opponent is dead. If you don't have a table full of players who go along with the conceit of there still being laws and allow themselves to be arrested and such, or at least not have a default assumed death after every 0 HP (and the party doesn't go around coup de'ta-ing every creature who's unconscious anyway)... then a rival party won't survive past the first battle where the PCs overpower them (more often than not.) [/QUOTE]
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