[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...

[billd91]

Well, I'm not sure I'd distinguish most of your examples as CaW or CaS since mostly they're a bit above the level of tactical or operational play and more into the realm of 'story arc'. For the remainder we might ask questions like "why didn't the enemy just burn the tower?" Isn't the answer mostly "because that wouldn't be fun"? Granted the DM probably constructed some logic to explain why these unfun things didn't happen, but was that logic not at some level a fig leaf?

I think you're hitting onto a difference in approach between people who think of D&D as a simulation of a fantasy story world that uses a game engine as an instrument and those who think of it as a game using fantasy literature as the set design. You're asking if the reason the assassins don't burn the tower is because it's not fun for the players. You're definitely thinking in game mode. But another approach might be because the assassins want to confirm the kill directly (rather than leave unidentifiable remains in the ashes) plus the assessment that burning a moderately defended tower isn't actually as easy as it sounds.

 

[Hassassin]

Well, I'm not sure I'd distinguish most of your examples as CaW or CaS since mostly they're a bit above the level of tactical or operational play and more into the realm of 'story arc'.

If they were given out as quests by NPCs, I agree. However, if they were player invented "solutions" to problems they encountered, they are typical of CAW play.

 

[Badjak]

Really great thread with some really interesting posts. Here is a thought, what would you need in 5e to make it CaW friendly?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you're hitting onto a difference in approach between people who think of D&D as a simulation of a fantasy story world that uses a game engine as an instrument and those who think of it as a game using fantasy literature as the set design. You're asking if the reason the assassins don't burn the tower is because it's not fun for the players. You're definitely thinking in game mode. But another approach might be because the assassins want to confirm the kill directly (rather than leave unidentifiable remains in the ashes) plus the assessment that burning a moderately defended tower isn't actually as easy as it sounds.

Again though, my assertion is that the UNDERLYING reasoning is "because those things would not be fun" and whether consciously or not DMs put fig leaves like "we want to confirm the kill" on it. I'm not saying there can't be any good in-game reason for doing things the hard way or that there's anything wrong with a little DM restraint or rationalizing it in clever ways. Just that practically all scenarios we set up as DMs are bound within these fairly gamist boundaries by necessity.

I once decided to run a little "lets ignore gamist conventions" adventure, basically because of this very sort of debate we once had at our table. Suffice it to say it got ugly pretty fast. It was interesting for a bit, but pretty soon things began to break down. For one thing an omniscient and effectively omnipotent DM (but especially omniscient) is a very unfair adversary. You can SAY you will not meta-game, but for the DM there's no clear distinction since he's got roles in play that require exactly that. Nor IMHO is it possible for anyone to be an 'impartial' DM. There's simply no such thing as a sandbox so elaborately detailed or a rule system so thorough that this is really possible. Even if the DM BELIEVES he or she is impartial good luck getting the players to believe that after a few brutal murder downs.

 

[Badjak]

I agree with Abdul. There is definitely a point where a ruthless CaW DM could go to far.

Adventurers meet for the first time in an inn.

Inn explodes.

 

[Libramarian]

Enjoyable thread.

When someone mentioned that D&D is often players' first introduction to the hobby, I wondered whether a CAS or CAW system would be a better introductory point.

CAS games like 4E seem to curb the negative and positive effects of DMs. I like 4E because it dulls my fear of doing a bad job while I gain skill and confidence as a DM. As someone that tries to bring new players into the hobby, my DM fear is powerful, haunted by profoundly negative experiences playing CAW games with awful DMs. But my desire to share comes from the profoundly positive experiences I've had playing CAW games with fantastic DMs.

4E is my a comfortable compromise, allowing me to stumble and make mistakes while my players have a relatively good time. An extreme example of this dynamic takes place in a 4E game I play in, with an old school DM that appears to hate the system and not enjoy himself while his players still enjoy themselves and repeatedly ask for more. I just wish 4E mechanics encouraged players to test the adjudication of their DMs more and more as it garnered positive results, creating a mechanical path to build and capitalize on growing DM muscle.

I suspect that players passionate enough to visit RPG message boards and conventions probably had / have amazing dungeon masters that made a CAW game with high risk and reward sing, but I wonder whether good DMs or bad DMs are a more common introduction to the hobby and how an introductory CAW or CAS game play into that experience. I also wonder how realistic of a goal it is to support both.

As much fun as I have had running btb, death-at-zero-HP Basic D&D, I don't think it's a good entry point into the hobby.

It REALLY has its own unique flavor. It ain't vanilla fantasy. Which is not a bad thing; it's a rich game design vein when it comes to emergent effects. It's powerful. That's good and interesting. Vanilla is easy; flavorful is hard.

But like Daztur brought up it's super important that the DM lets the emergent effects occur without trying to stifle it with social pressure ("why can't you guys be more heroic?"). That's just not fair to do to players when they have 1 or 2 HP. And that's something that many DMs try to do when they first start DMing I think. The instinct is to be more hands-on and intrusive than an old school DM should be.

Mike Mearls mentioned in an old Legends & Lore column that there might be an "old school" module that would shift the game into being more lethal and requiring more negotiation for advantage in the fiction. I don't think that's a bad idea.

Fantasy Vietnam is a lot of fun but you can't just throw people in there with no briefing.

 

[enigma5915]

Nor IMHO is it possible for anyone to be an 'impartial' DM. There's simply no such thing as a sandbox so elaborately detailed or a rule system so thorough that this is really possible. Even if the DM BELIEVES he or she is impartial good luck getting the players to believe that after a few brutal murder downs.

I would like to think that since I have been an impartial DM that they do in fact exist. As DM, I have no desire to be partial and I would gain nothing by doing it. My game is a sandbox, my players are informed of potential lethality, and for situations that i have yet to plan or did plan ahead for I have my random charts that we go by. My game world does not adjust for the party, it is what it is. This is good and bad, but with great risks come great rewards, and my players know they have earned what ever they have accomplished because nothing gets alter for or aginst them. So, as I stated...DMs...can and IMHO should be impartial...

 

[pemerton]

I'm not trying to imply that "all out war" doesn't exist as a THEME, but I am stating it really isn't viable for a game to actually do it. There are always limits, even if they're rather implicit and now and then violated. The DM always limits the capabilities of the bad guys and does so in ways that tend to put the initiative in the hands of the players.

<snip>

there's a residuum at the very least of "Lets not push it that far, it will stop being fun".

Thus my assertion that at some level there is always an element of sport in the game. It may be more or less explicit, but always exists.

I'm inclined to agree.

Admittedly, true CaW thinking would have been to poison their water supply (or some such) and wait for them to die.

Interesting example, because one of the AD&D books (the DMG, I think, in its discussion of poison in the game) goes to great lengths to explain why this wouldn't be viable in-game (because the Assassin's Guild would object) but also concedes that ultimately the goal is to keep the game fun, and mass poisoning doesn't fit with that aim. The class description entries in the PHB on poison use played a similar role, I think.

Even AD&D put sporting limits on combat-as-war!

If they were given out as quests by NPCs, I agree. However, if they were player invented "solutions" to problems they encountered, they are typical of CAW play.

What if they were player-initiative quests (which is what 4e play aims at - DMG p 103)?

I think running together player initiative and combat-as-war is conflating two (or more) things. Combat-as-war seems to be more concerned with scene-framing conventions and action resolution mechanics.

 

[Daztur]

I was talking earlier about how CaW doesn't necessarily involve MORE DM fiat than CaS, it just moves the DM fiat around and this: http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/318234-morale.html thread is an excellent example of that. You have a lot of people saying that all NPC behavior (including when the PC's enemies and allies run away) should be 100% DM fiat while in Old School D&D whole swathes of NPC behavior have very precise rules and don't involve DM fiat. Different playstyles work better with different aspects of play under DM fiat. I think that one of the failings of the very early D&D texts is that they didn't really communicate the nuts and bolts of the sort of D&D playstyles that were prevalent in the very early days of the hobby so in the 1980's you had a lot of very different playstyles growing up, a lot of which didn't mesh very well with Old School D&D rules.

For me at least, a lot of the OSR isn't "I want to game like I did when I was 12 and never change" so much as "Damn did I do a lot of dumb things when I DMed at age 12, it's great to be able to read about how to run the old rules that I screwed up so badly as a kid in a way that actually WORKS."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I would like to think that since I have been an impartial DM that they do in fact exist. As DM, I have no desire to be partial and I would gain nothing by doing it. My game is a sandbox, my players are informed of potential lethality, and for situations that i have yet to plan or did plan ahead for I have my random charts that we go by. My game world does not adjust for the party, it is what it is. This is good and bad, but with great risks come great rewards, and my players know they have earned what ever they have accomplished because nothing gets alter for or aginst them. So, as I stated...DMs...can and IMHO should be impartial...

Well, I can't of course know how any given person runs their campaign...

That being said, I think if you were to closely examine what you do in enough depth you'd find that there are a structure of conventions that are a bit like arms limitation treaties. The DM and the players abide within certain 'boxes' and if they don't then things can break down.

Even the finest sandbox can't be detailed enough to tell you exactly, without any DM adjudication, exactly what the members of the thieves guild can and can't get up to when someone messes with them. You may have a list of how many thieves and whatnot of what levels and what items they have, and etc. but in a real living society there are so many other factors. How much time and energy do they have to put into a vendetta? Which officials exactly can they bribe and how often and at what cost? Which of the various secrets of the city do they know exactly? Will they torch a whole block of the town to get back at you or is that really beyond what they're willing to do?

Yet these are exactly the sort of questions that "full war" will bring up. The DM will have to rule on these things, even if those rulings are made rather subconsciously and not explicitly. We choose what tables to roll on, and when, and how to interpret the results. We decide when and how the bad guys will come up with and execute plans, etc. It is my thesis that FAR MORE of what actually happens, even in the most structured sandbox, is a reflection of the DM's will and unspoken and unacknowledged conventions about the boundaries of what will and will not work in play.

So in the end 'CaW' is really more of a limited sort of 'brushfire' between the players and the DM than an all-out war. Each side knows (or soon learns) that there is some 'territory' within the whole space of possible game play where the 'fun part' is. Several things bound this, but one of the primary ones is that the players need a significant degree of agency in order to stay interested in the game. If all they do is react constantly to almost unanticipateable attacks from enemies that have no precise limits on what they can do then they'll tend to lose that agency, so the PCs are generally far more the 'active' participants in the story by convention. Other bounds are things like propriety, there are generally certain sorts of acts and imagery that are 'not fun' in a game, and it is VERY uncommon for those bounds to be exceeded (though I know of a few groups who's limits are less strict than others).