Tired of hearing people hate on longer battle times in strategic RPG's

[Dannager]

I disagree. I ran a homebrewed system last weekend with an encounter with 10 kobolds against (IIRC) 6 pcs. It was tactical and very fast- the whole thing was over in less than half an hour, maybe closer to 10 minutes.

I'm finding it interesting that so many people are disagreeing with the notion that more strategy = longer combats. This should follow logically: the more decisions there are that need to be weighed against one another in determining the optimal course of action, the more strategic the game is. The more decisions that need to be weighed against one another, the more time any given activity takes. It therefore follows that increasing the amount of strategy or tactical decision-making in a game also increases the amount of time that game takes to play.

Responding to this with "I disagree, GURPS/WHFRPG/my homebrew system includes tons of strategy without increasing the time combat takes," makes me very skeptical, and leads me to ask, "How, exactly?"

 

[JamesonCourage]

I'm finding it interesting that so many people are disagreeing with the notion that more strategy = longer combats. This should follow logically: the more decisions there are that need to be weighed against one another in determining the optimal course of action, the more strategic the game is. The more decisions that need to be weighed against one another, the more time any given activity takes. It therefore follows that increasing the amount of strategy or tactical decision-making in a game also increases the amount of time that game takes to play.

If this line of reasoning was completely accurate as presented, then playing D&D would be nearly impossible, as the number of things you can do (in or out of combat) is simply staggering, even compared to something like, say, chess.

Responding to this with "I disagree, GURPS/WHFRPG/my homebrew system includes tons of strategy without increasing the time combat takes," makes me very skeptical, and leads me to ask, "How, exactly?"

I'm curious, too. That's a very good question, because your statement above is generally true (though not always). The exceptions are nice to look at, to see how they handle it.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I'm finding it interesting that so many people are disagreeing with the notion that more strategy = longer combats. This should follow logically: the more decisions there are that need to be weighed against one another in determining the optimal course of action, the more strategic the game is. The more decisions that need to be weighed against one another, the more time any given activity takes. It therefore follows that increasing the amount of strategy or tactical decision-making in a game also increases the amount of time that game takes to play.

Responding to this with "I disagree, GURPS/WHFRPG/my homebrew system includes tons of strategy without increasing the time combat takes," makes me very skeptical, and leads me to ask, "How, exactly?"

I don't think your conclusion is logical. I think your conclusion stems from confusing a game featuring tactical miniature combat as a its primary form of strategy with "strategy" in general.

Spellbound Kingdoms. Rather tactical combat, doesn't rely on miniatures at all. Characters have individual fighting styles and can have more than one. You can get a feel for it here:
Spellbound Kingdoms Combat Primer - T. Shield Studios | RPGNow.com

It's done by Frank Brunner; the same fellow that worked on Tome of Battle.

Card-based games like the old Marvel Saga system can be quite strategic; players choosing which cards to play and when.

There's a fair number of ways of getting at "strategy" and "tactics" that don't automatically equal "more choices to make moving a miniature around and choosing their attack". There's a fair number of small press/indy rpgs out there that have tactics/strategy as a significant function of their design (Burning Wheel comes to mind) that doesn't result in hours taken for a combat.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I'm curious, too. That's a very good question, because your statement above is generally true (though not always). The exceptions are nice to look at, to see how they handle it.

Broadly speaking, you're going to have to look outside of D&D and the usual suspects at the game store to find it. You look to the small press/indy games, and you look to people that are coring out chunks of their favorite rpg and replacing the system.

The thing is, you're also not going to generally find those people here. Or even at rpg.net.

And the reason is quite simple: their anomalies. 30 years of rpgs and 80%+ of gamers refuse to put down their dice and do some sort of dice-less rpg.

RPGs are primarily designed and sold to one group of people: rpg players. There's hardly anything out there really geared to bringing new people into the hobby. Instead, the industry pumps out material to cater to the already existing market and basically hopes that their customers will bring in (recruit) more customers.

Want some strategic combat in your rpg? Try rock-paper-scissors. Or "Attack - throw - Block/Dodge". For example the rules from "Yomi" a card fighting game. Here's the rules:
http://www.sirlin.net/yomi/rules

Here's more about the card game:
Sirlin Games - Yomi

Does it look like D&D? Nope. Could you use this for an rpg combat system? Yup.

This, to me, is getting very old. Recently we went back and played a session like "back in the day" and I found it boring. Most characters back then didn't use spells, so they didn't have a lot of options in combat, hence combat was short.

Honestly, the title of this thread kind of annoys me. "People hate on longer battle times in strategic RPG's" please... this is the _staple_ of the rpg industry. What's the number one rpg? D&D. And what is it? An rpg with a strong focus on miniature/tactical combat. I've got news for you: you're already getting what you want and it's not likely to change against you.

The complaint strikes me as being kinda like a rich person saying, "I'm tired of people hating on me for being rich; having all this money is really a problem".

People that want shorter combats? They have to modify the rules. People that want things "simpler"? They have to modify the rules. People that want to modify the rules? They have to convince people to accept "houserules" and not play "Rules As Written".

So what is it that people don't like here: longer combats, or just too many combats now that they take longer? Do we need to adapt, or does the game need to take a step back in time?

This would have been a much more positive question to ask without the antagonistic title.

I'd love to provide an answer, but I'm not really sure how to answer your question. You're basically talking about D&D, but saying "strategic rpgs"; you seem to have already made the assumption that the only interesting thing about strategy in rpgs is combat (which is not the same as conflict), but then you comment about the lack of evolution in adventure design (which is really rooted in competative tournament D&D games).

Could you sort of break this down better for me? Maybe I'm just stupid today, but you seem to have some things all sorta mixed willy-nilly and it's hard for me to parse them in light of your aggressive post title.

 

[Thasmodious]

There is a big disconnect between modern gamers and those that were around in the beginning, especially since 3.X was released.

I wouldn't go too far in casting it as an old-timer versus young'un issue. There are a whole lot of us who were around at the beginning who play and prefer modern RPGs and appreciate the evolution of the form through the years.

And, for the record, I have always played with minis, from the very beginning, as have the groups I've played with. Lead minis were as much a part of my childhood as D&D itself, collecting, painting, displaying. The early editions used inches, not real world yards and feet, for range and scale. I play more often without minis now than I ever did as a kid.

 

[Dannager]

I don't think your conclusion is logical. I think your conclusion stems from confusing a game featuring tactical miniature combat as a its primary form of strategy with "strategy" in general.

No, I get that. What I'm saying is, if you have a level of strategic/tactical depth in your game comparable to that of D&D, how is it that your game takes significantly less time? The amount of time taken up by D&D combat (once the early hang-ups of learning powers and how combat works are out of the way) is a direct result of the complexity of the strategic calculus that the game asks of the player. If your game takes significantly less time, I suspect it can be safely argued that your game lacks the same level of tactical depth.

 

[Dannager]

I wouldn't go too far in casting it as an old-timer versus young'un issue. There are a whole lot of us who were around at the beginning who play and prefer modern RPGs and appreciate the evolution of the form through the years.

Same. Well, not the beginning, but certainly far earlier than 3e. Early editions of D&D were good. They've gotten better over time, which is no surprise, really, given how young the field of game development is. It would be very strange if there weren't heaps of improvement to be made to the game.

And, for the record, I have always played with minis, from the very beginning, as have the groups I've played with. Lead minis were as much a part of my childhood as D&D itself, collecting, painting, displaying. The early editions used inches, not real world yards and feet, for range and scale. I play more often without minis now than I ever did as a kid.

I, on the other hand, grew up without minis trying to conceptualize D&D combat and exploration using graph paper. I hope to never return to those barbarian days.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

We just recently stopped our Pathfinder game to return to our roots and play 1e. I'm seeing just as much tactical combat as in Pathfinder - it just takes half as long. I fail to see where newer rulesets present more options. At character creation, certainly, but in combat it's the same as it's always been.

 

[kaomera]

So what is it that people don't like here: longer combats, or just too many combats now that they take longer? Do we need to adapt, or does the game need to take a step back in time?

I'm with you right up until "take a step back in time". Fewer combats, with more story significance is a possible solution that appeals to me. Too often filling in the "alloted number of fights" leads me to far more of a feeling of "random encounters" than a well-made wandering monster table ever did. And I'd personally be happy to focus more on non-combat stuff; my current edition of choice makes tactical combat fun for me, but it doesn't make it the only or even main reason I come to the table.

But there's a lot of room for various likes & dislikes. A lot of people don't play D&D because it's their perfect system, but because it's popular and it's good enough or even as good as they expect to see. So there are always going to be complaints.

I've seen a lot of comments lately to the effect that if you're complaining (or if you're not complaining, in some cases) then it's because you somehow don't actually know what game you want to be playing. And that does happen - there are moments when you have to scratch your head and ask "why the heck did I keep playing that game for so long?" But that's a really tricky subject to deal with face-to-face, especially because for a specific enough value of "the right players" you can get nearly any results out of any system.

But that value can easily become completely unrealistic to actually achieve. Sure, you can play an RPG any way you want, but most players want (at least on some level) to play by the rules - and there are "rules" under the written rules, buried in the expectations of the players and in the social structures that we produce around them... It's complex stuff IME (and IMO, I guess) and that makes it hard to communicate effectively under the best of circumstances, which I'd argue the internet is not.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm finding it interesting that so many people are disagreeing with the notion that more strategy = longer combats. This should follow logically: the more decisions there are that need to be weighed against one another in determining the optimal course of action, the more strategic the game is. The more decisions that need to be weighed against one another, the more time any given activity takes. It therefore follows that increasing the amount of strategy or tactical decision-making in a game also increases the amount of time that game takes to play.

Responding to this with "I disagree, GURPS/WHFRPG/my homebrew system includes tons of strategy without increasing the time combat takes," makes me very skeptical, and leads me to ask, "How, exactly?"

The claim was that it would add "significant" time. I don't see a strong relationship between tactical choices and time.

Irrespective of its merits as a game, and I understand a lot of people are big 4e fans, 4e has a particularly poor combat length/tactical interest ratio. GURPS is nittier-grittier and faster, Hero System offers a similar level of tactical interest and variation in abilities with a significant boost in combat speed, and so forth. 4e's slow combats are directly a result of: low lethality, relatively modest and situational bonuses to damage and accuracy, an assumption that powerful attacks will be the result of several PCs working in concert, and a monster tiering system that assumes numerous, high competency but low durability monsters at one end, and high competency, very high hit point monsters at the other end. Slow combats are the price 4e has to pay for avoiding swinginess, avoiding showboat moments, and an encounter structure that favors drawn out resolutions (i.e. grindiness). Tactical choices are just not that "significant" compared to those factors.