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RPG Combat: Sport or War?
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7726703" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>I certainly never used that language. Perfect knowledge is implausible in any believable world. In an RPG, we're constrained to what our characters know, which is rarely the whole picture. It's all about making best guesses, based on knowns and known unknowns and unknown unknowns.</p><p>A game works like <em>a</em> reality. If the game is worth playing, then every single rule in the book is meant to reflect <em>some</em> truth about the reality of the game world. Otherwise, there would be no point in playing.</p><p>At least we seem to be in agreement on that much. Combat-as-War means making a lot of tough decisions, and taking a lot of risks outside of combat. It's <em>one of</em> the reasons why it's important to have a trustworthy DM - because it's trivially easy for a DM to render your decisions meaningless by altering the unknowns.</p><p>That was the hypothetical "if you could", which forms the basis of Combat-as-Sport. The proponents of Combat-as-Sport <em>can</em> know with reasonable certainty that they are likely to win a fight with negligible losses. That was the entire premise of 4E. Combat existed so that you could optimize your round-by-round power usage to defeat enemies who were specifically set up so that they could present a believable threat before you inevitably defeated them. Yes, it is entirely absurd. That is one of the many reasons why the game failed.</p><p>That's a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they did well <em>enough</em> for most practical purposes. The rules, for the most part, <em>made sense</em> (although there were still some obvious concessions toward making the game playable). As with most things, it does require you to play in good faith, and try to understand why the rules are what they are.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7726703, member: 6775031"] I certainly never used that language. Perfect knowledge is implausible in any believable world. In an RPG, we're constrained to what our characters know, which is rarely the whole picture. It's all about making best guesses, based on knowns and known unknowns and unknown unknowns. A game works like [I]a[/I] reality. If the game is worth playing, then every single rule in the book is meant to reflect [I]some[/I] truth about the reality of the game world. Otherwise, there would be no point in playing. At least we seem to be in agreement on that much. Combat-as-War means making a lot of tough decisions, and taking a lot of risks outside of combat. It's [I]one of[/I] the reasons why it's important to have a trustworthy DM - because it's trivially easy for a DM to render your decisions meaningless by altering the unknowns. That was the hypothetical "if you could", which forms the basis of Combat-as-Sport. The proponents of Combat-as-Sport [I]can[/I] know with reasonable certainty that they are likely to win a fight with negligible losses. That was the entire premise of 4E. Combat existed so that you could optimize your round-by-round power usage to defeat enemies who were specifically set up so that they could present a believable threat before you inevitably defeated them. Yes, it is entirely absurd. That is one of the many reasons why the game failed. That's a matter of opinion. Personally, I think they did well [I]enough[/I] for most practical purposes. The rules, for the most part, [I]made sense[/I] (although there were still some obvious concessions toward making the game playable). As with most things, it does require you to play in good faith, and try to understand why the rules are what they are. [/QUOTE]
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