RPG Combat: Sport or War?

There are two different extremes in arranging fights. One is like war and the other is like a sporting event. Sporting events are supposed to be fair contests between roughly equal forces. On the other hand, war is the epitome of unfair competition.

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Jeffro Johnson introduced me to this topic, which was discussed in an ENWorld forum. If your game doesn't involve much combat this discussion may not mean a lot to you.

Strategem: a plan or scheme, especially one used to outwit an opponent or achieve an end

Any GAME implies fairness, equality of opportunity. Knightly jousting tournaments were combat as sport. We don't have semi-pro soccer teams playing in the Premier League, we don't have college basketball teams playing the NBA, because it would be boringly one-sided. People want to see a contest where it appears that both sides can win. And occasionally the weaker side, the underdog if there is one, wins even when they're not supposed to.

An obvious problem with combat as sport, with a fair fight, is that a significant part of the time your players will lose the fight. Unless they're really adept at recognizing when they're losing, and at fleeing the scene, this means somebody will get dead. Frequent death is going to be a tough hurdle in most campaigns.

The objective in war is to get such an overwhelming advantage that the other side surrenders rather than fight, and if they choose not to surrender then a "boring" one-sided massacre is OK. Stratagems are favored in war, not frowned upon. Trickery (e.g. with the inflation of the football) is frowned upon in sports in general, it's not fair, it's cheating.

Yet "All's fair in love and war." Read Glen Cook's fantasy Black Company series or think about mercenaries in general, they don't want a fair fight. They don't want to risk their lives. They want a surrender or massacre. The Black Company was great at using stratagems. I think of D&D adventurers as much like the Black Company, finding ways to win without giving the other side much chance.

When my wife used to GM first edition D&D, she'd get frustrated if we came up with good stratagems and strategies and wiped out the opposition without too much trouble. She felt she wasn't "holding up the side." She didn't understand that it's not supposed to be fair to the bad guys.

Think also that RPG adventures are much like adventure novels: we have to arrange that the players succeed despite the odds, much as the protagonists in a typical novel. In the novel the good guys are often fabulously lucky; in RPGs we can arrange that the players encounter opposition that should not be a big threat if the players treat combat as war rather than as a sport.

I'm not saying you need to stack the game in favor of the players, I'm saying that if the players do well at whatever they're supposed to do - presumably, in combat, out-thinking the other side -then they should succeed, and perhaps succeed easily. Just like Cook's Black Company.

contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
Photo © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5

 

[billd91]

I generally agree with what Aenghus says here.

A further complication is this: what is the *true* damage dealt by a boulder dropped on a D&D character or monster? D&D protagonists and antagonists are (frequently) larger-than-life characters of the sort typical to genre fiction, adventure stories, myths and legends, etc.

Why is it more dangerous to such characters to have a boulder dropped on them than to be stabbed by a sword wielded by a Conan-like figure, or to be shot by an arrow loosed by a Bard-like figure?

Making boulders more dangerous than swords and arrows just seems a recipe for making the game depart from the genres it seeks to emulate, to a rather silly sort of genre, where Conan would prefer to throw stones than to wield a sword.

Why is it more dangerous? Because it's a big, freakin' boulder, that's why. Exactly why using the terrain to defeat a monster isn't genre, I don't know. Gandalf doesn't initially fight Durin's Bane, he breaks the bridge (which would create boulders) to drop it so they can all get away. Tarzan doesn't defeat the lion in Tarzan Untamed by fighting him, he traps him (with a boulder, fittingly enough). Luke doesn't defeat the rancor with his lightsaber and Jedi mind trick, he crushes it with the door (by throwing a very small boulder at the control). And if Conan thought that pushing a boulder off on an enemy would do a better job of killing it than his sword, he darn well would do so because he's not dumb (plus, his strength would probably be necessary to dislodge the boulder).

The reason this sort of thing won't work all the time is because the situation isn't right to pull it off all the time. But if the game is designed so that every problem is effectively a nail, then the PC is never going to use anything other than his hammer (to borrow, somewhat badly from Maslow's "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail"). And that's pretty boring.

 

[Garthanos]

This is certainly something that 4e-type/"indie"-type mechanics are meant to facilitate.

4e isnt the why RPG combat is a story. Anyone noting players are meant to win are going against both sport/war models btw, it is explicitly the story taking precidence.

Gygax spent large amounts of effort explaining the story behind hit points to influence visualization of them. Additionally when discussing critical hits Gygax brought up story characters noting that Conan would not die to such an ignoble event (sure in D&D mayhaps a death spell but arguable he just thought a death by spell was awesome) and that is the point its very much about the story.

The hero going through many battles reliably in many adventures etc is a trope that is supported by D&D hit points that RuneQuests arguably more realistic mechanics didnt really support well when your character is dying of a fluke die roll you make different choices the attrition of hitpoints explicitly enabled making heroic choices ie it at minimum greatly lessened Conan dying to that minion arrow.

1e even had explicit zero level adversaries a fighter could theoretically mow through (ie minion rules) 4e failed to capture the fighter as minion clearer and let the wizard have that.

4e just picked up on a few more tropes like struggling back in to the fight after being beaten down.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The hidden assumption here include that there's a narrative superior to the mechanics that doesn't need to agree with them, and that it's desirable that PCs e.g. drop boulders on enemies to kill them easily.

There's nothing hidden about it. The obvious truth of a role-playing game is that the mechanics of the game are meant to reflect the reality of the game world, and not the other way around. If the mechanics try to artificially limit what is allowed to take place in the narrative, then something has gone horribly wrong.

Some people enjoy the core game activity and don't see extensions and variants as necessarily superior. I don't think chess players see chess variants as superior or more clever just because the happen to have more options.

Chess isn't an RPG, though. Chess is a board game. The rules don't actually mean anything, other than that they are the rules of the game.

To players who enjoy interacting primarily with the core mechanics provided by the game, lethal boulder dropping and their ilk isn't necessarily an improvement of anything, it potentially involves skipping the part of the game that some players enjoy.

Obviously some players enjoy effective boulder dropping and such activities, making an end run around the rules, but other players want to interact with the rules for their enjoyment and opportunities to bypass them aren't universally desirable.

Why would you think that the core activity of D&D is to decide between firing a bow and casting Fireball, rather than the core activity being a decision whether to engage the foe in direct combat or not?

This is a role-playing game, so all in-game decisions should be made from the perspective of your character. The core mechanic is that you decide what your character wants to do, and the DM adjudicates resolution of that action, only consulting dice if the outcome is uncertain. Why would a player character charge directly into combat, rather than seeking any safer alternative and only engaging directly as a last resort?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A further complication is this: what is the *true* damage dealt by a boulder dropped on a D&D character or monster? D&D protagonists and antagonists are (frequently) larger-than-life characters of the sort typical to genre fiction, adventure stories, myths and legends, etc.

False. A D&D character is just a person, similar to any other person except in those ways shown in the rules. They are flesh and bone, and can be modeled as simple physical constructs.

Why is it more dangerous to such characters to have a boulder dropped on them than to be stabbed by a sword wielded by a Conan-like figure, or to be shot by an arrow loosed by a Bard-like figure?

Because damage is a reflection of physical trauma, and the amount of trauma which an object can inflict is directly proportional to the force behind it. For falling objects, that means it scales with mass. The damage inflicted by a falling boulder should be much greater than what Conan can inflict with a sword, because force is quantifiable.

Making boulders more dangerous than swords and arrows just seems a recipe for making the game depart from the genres it seeks to emulate, to a rather silly sort of genre, where Conan would prefer to throw stones than to wield a sword.

From my experience with Conan, he would absolutely prefer to crush his enemies rather than engage them in a fair fight. He is under no illusion that the world is fair, or that he is a protagonist who is destined to prevail.

 

[pemerton]

4e isnt the why RPG combat is a story. Anyone noting players are meant to win are going against both sport/war models btw, it is explicitly the story taking precidence.

Gygax spent large amounts of effort explaining the story behind hit points to influence visualization of them. Additionally when discussing critical hits Gygax brought up story characters noting that Conan would not die to such an ignoble event

I agree with all this. I also think that Gygax's stuff in his DMG might reflect changes in the approach to RPGing that had changed between 1974 and 1979 - this was a time of very rapid evolution in RPGing techniques and preferences.

But, with all that said, there seems to be a "wargame" approach to D&D that has some degree of currency, and that treats the survivability of PCs not as a feature of story but as more like a series of saves or "takebacks" to keep the player in the game over the long term. Preserving that long term status of the player and the player's playing piece can be used to support story, but I don't think it has to be.

The hero going through many battles reliably in many adventures etc is a trope that is supported by D&D hit points that RuneQuests arguably more realistic mechanics didnt really support well

I agree with this comment about RuneQuest.

From my experience with Conan, he would absolutely prefer to crush his enemies rather than engage them in a fair fight. He is under no illusion that the world is fair, or that he is a protagonist who is destined to prevail.

Which REH story do you have in mind?

Why is it more dangerous? Because it's a big, freakin' boulder, that's why. Exactly why using the terrain to defeat a monster isn't genre, I don't know. Gandalf doesn't initially fight Durin's Bane, he breaks the bridge (which would create boulders) to drop it so they can all get away.

Gandalf doesn't through boulders at the Balrog. Nor do Aragorn or Boromir.

In AD&D, a boulder thrown by a giant does 2d8 (hill giant), 2d10 (fire or frost giant) or 2d12 (cloud giant). (Stone giants are a special case, as they are masters of stone; and "unlike other sorts of giants, storm giants do not hurl rocks".)

That is average damage of 9, 11 or 13. A fighter with a two-handed sword and 18/91 strength does an average of 10.5 damage vs a size S or M enemy, and 15.5 vs a size L enemy. Unless that fighter can do more damage with a boulder than a giant can, the boulder doesn't seem significantly better to me.

In the real world, I don't think boulders have ever been the weapon of choice for attacking other soldiers (as opposed to, say, walls and encampments).

Using terrain to defeat enemies is within genre, and 4e supports it more strongly than any other edition of D&D. But that has nothing to do with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s comment that boulders should do more damage than an encounter power, for whatever reason.

 

[billd91]

Gandalf doesn't through boulders at the Balrog. Nor do Aragorn or Boromir.

In AD&D, a boulder thrown by a giant does 2d8 (hill giant), 2d10 (fire or frost giant) or 2d12 (cloud giant). (Stone giants are a special case, as they are masters of stone; and "unlike other sorts of giants, storm giants do not hurl rocks".)

That is average damage of 9, 11 or 13. A fighter with a two-handed sword and 18/91 strength does an average of 10.5 damage vs a size S or M enemy, and 15.5 vs a size L enemy. Unless that fighter can do more damage with a boulder than a giant can, the boulder doesn't seem significantly better to me.

In the real world, I don't think boulders have ever been the weapon of choice for attacking other soldiers (as opposed to, say, walls and encampments).

Using terrain to defeat enemies is within genre, and 4e supports it more strongly than any other edition of D&D. But that has nothing to do with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s comment that boulders should do more damage than an encounter power, for whatever reason.

In 1e, if you’re going to pull stats, giants throw rocks. They aren’t described as boulders (apparently, they aren’t tall enough for that ride). The 2e cyclops, now he gets to throw boulders for 4d10 and that’s really not likely to be the upper limit on boulders that Conan (or others) could drop on someone. So, yeah, if the PCs get a chance to drop some big boulders on their enemies, I expect they may give it a try.

 

[pemerton]

In 1e, if you’re going to pull stats, giants throw rocks. They aren’t described as boulders (apparently, they aren’t tall enough for that ride). The 2e cyclops, now he gets to throw boulders for 4d10 and that’s really not likely to be the upper limit on boulders that Conan (or others) could drop on someone. So, yeah, if the PCs get a chance to drop some big boulders on their enemies, I expect they may give it a try.

I didn't know that "boulder" was a technical term in this context. When I Googled, though, I found that Wikipedia says "In geology, a boulder is a rock fragment with size greater than 25.6 centimetres (10.1 in) in diameter". I think the rocks that giants are hurling in AD&D are envisaged as being at least that big.

If you're dropping really big rocks on someone, presumably it's an ambush. In which case stabbing them with a sword should (presumably) be just as dangerous! (And to the extent that D&D hit points provide protection against ambushes with swords, why should they not provide comparable protection against ambushes with boulders? Which goes back to [MENTION=2656]Aenghus[/MENTION]'s point about the merits, or otherwise, of circumventing the rules.)

 

[Shasarak]

Why is it more dangerous to such characters to have a boulder dropped on them than to be stabbed by a sword wielded by a Conan-like figure, or to be shot by an arrow loosed by a Bard-like figure?

I guess this probably my biggest problem with viewing Combat as Sport; when rocks fall someone asks "so why is that so dangerous".

 

[Aenghus]

False. A D&D character is just a person, similar to any other person except in those ways shown in the rules. They are flesh and bone, and can be modeled as simple physical constructs.
Because damage is a reflection of physical trauma, and the amount of trauma which an object can inflict is directly proportional to the force behind it. For falling objects, that means it scales with mass. The damage inflicted by a falling boulder should be much greater than what Conan can inflict with a sword, because force is quantifiable.

But D&D has hit points and there has been no agreement on what they mean and how they work from the earliest days. Massive dragons can fly in D&D, breaking the laws of physics, and don't automatically kill PCs if they pounce on them even if they weigh tons. Because it's a game, not a physics simulator.

My players don't want to play the "drop rocks on hapless foes game" whatever that is, they want to play D&D with the copious, and detailed rules in many, many rulebooks. If I tried to enforce a "read the mind of the DM or die" style of play on my players I would be a terrible DM and deserve them walking out on me, which is what would happen. Attempts to force players into styles of play they don't want seldom end well. If a compromise style everyone can enjoy isn't possible, play another game instead, or some other leisure activity,

"Rock, good old rock, nothing beats rock". I beg to differ.I want to play Dungeons and Dragons, not Boulderdash.

From my experience with Conan, he would absolutely prefer to crush his enemies rather than engage them in a fair fight. He is under no illusion that the world is fair, or that he is a protagonist who is destined to prevail.

Conan prefers to face his enemies and doesn't take the cowards way out. He only has contempt for fat merchant types who pay others to fight and die for them.

Conan's been written by many writers and as a solo protagonist does what the plot requires. His melancholy mirth allows him to get drunk and wake up in chains when required. He might drop a rock on a brute monster, but IMO prefers to shank evil sorcerer types up close with a sword or other edged weapon, thus proving the superiority of sword over sorcery, sword & sorcery after all is the name of that genre.

 

[FrogReaver]

If you want to bring onetruewayism into this then you should realize that combat is sport is a lot more guilty of this than combat as war. In a combat as war system nothing prevents you to have sport like fights with all that entails. A combat as sport system prevents anyone from playing comvat as war though, thus enforcing its way upon the players.

This is untrue. Why would a smart player ever engage in a combat as sport type combat in a combat as war game? I can't find any reason to ever do so.