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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 7593138" data-attributes="member: 6786839">There are boardgames such as Pandemic, which are (and which simulate) a more or less dynamic cooperative activity that involves meaningful decision making by all parties... but not in the ways unique to combat. Combat involves immediate physical danger AND fast pacing. There are other activities which involve immediate physical danger, such as mountain climbing, but generally, slowing them down is safer and wiser. (With the exception of the overlap set: US Army Rangers at Pointe-du-Hoc on D-Day scaled a cliff while under fire.)Team sports such as basketball involve pacing and coordination which is somewhat like combat. A basketball game, and a six-on-six SCA match, have similarities of movement and flow. Decisions such as engaging one foe or another happen at much the same pace as the basketball decision to shoot or pass, because they're both under the time pressure of the opponent trying to make similar decisions just a bit better and faster. (With tough trade-offs between better and faster.) Combat is still unique because the stakes are higher (unless it's that Mayan game in which the losing team gets executed).I don't want players taking a minute to chose whether their PC spends six seconds casting Web or casting Shatter; I want that decision to happen under at least as much pressure as the basketball decision of shooting or passing. So I try to decide my PC's action within six seconds. I have the advantage, of pondering the situation during the turns of other players; perhaps that balances (a) my PC is more awesome than I am and (b) the PC can see the situation in first person view, while I'm making do with miniatures on a tabletop.In D&D, it often takes much more time *resolve* the action. I try to make the "Web or Shatter?" decision in under six seconds. It then takes more than six seconds for everyone in the Web's area to make saving throws and declare results. IMO this is one of the differences between 4E and World of Warcraft: who does the math, and how quickly the results show up in everyone's display.When I have no spell slots left, and neither Web nor Shatter are options, and my only practical option for pressing the attack is casting Fire Bolt, then I no longer feel any tension in trying to make a decision anywhere near as quickly as my PC might. Heck, I could just tell the DM "whenever my initiative comes up, I cast Fire Bolt at +5 to hit", and then just watch the fight play out, unless a change in the situation inspires me to override "auto-play mode" with fleeing, offering the foe a parlay, or some other interesting decision. During the attrition phase, my player agency becomes less interesting, to myself or to anyone else. I'm happy for the DM to hand-wave the outcome of attrition.So far, I'm in agreement with Celebrim's points, right?The victory of one side, whether by attrition or otherwise, is also a turning point. I enjoy stories in which it matters both how the PCs win (or don't), and what they DO with that victory. Sometimes that's simple: we killed the guards/dragon and we loot the vault/hoard. Often it's not: do we offer surrender? do we pursue a fleeing foe? if more than one PC has dropped to O HP, who heals whom first? does choosing to immediately loot determine who sees the loot first... or who reaches the trapped chest first, and checks Perception? No, I don't play D&D in groups which allow "I steal all the magic items, because my character would." But in my current group, the urchin rogue takes a single coin from the hoard, before dividing the rest evenly; it's a quirk or flaw which I find more interesting than annoying, and I look forwards to the scene in which another PC notices and raises the topic. (The players all know he does this, the PCs do not.) IMO the most interesting round of many combats, is the round AFTER the last point of damage is dealt. Or the round during which some PCs are trying to do damage, while other PCs have switched to other priorities.So though I don't want to play out the kind of D&D rounds which Celebrim accurately compares to RISK endgame, I also don't want the DM to narrate the *resolution* of combat.</blockquote>

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