Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
[Very Long Indeed] Reconciling Combat as War and Combat as Sports in 5ed
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5818444" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I get the impression you are positing this a priori, rather than deriving it from experience. From experience, I can suggeset that it is not true.</p><p></p><p></p><p>These posts give one illustration of how encounters can be balanced yet tactically meaningful within PC death being on the line to any significant extent: the abilities of the participants in a fight - both antagonists and protagonists - can be configured so that death is not a serious threat <em>provided that the players play their PCs with mechanical and tactical cleverness</em>.</p><p></p><p>An action resolution system can be designed to increase or decrease the scope for this sort of play. The scope for this sort of play in Basic D&D, or in Runequest, is comparatively low, because there are few or no choices to be made about how a player is to deploy his/her mechanical resources: you just point your PC in the right directionand roll your dice! (These sorts of mechanical designs can also support combat-as-war, because they encourage the players - whose intrinsic resources are sparse - to look to the gameworld to gain useable resources to bring to bear on action resolution.)</p><p></p><p>Conversely, a game like Rolemaster or 4e increases the scope for play in which victory is (near-)certain provided the play is clever, because they have action resolution mechanics with multiple moving parts and decision-points by players: in RM, how much of my bonus do I allocate to attack, and how much to defence? in 4e, which of the several powers that I have available do I use?</p><p></p><p>Agreed. Another example: the time the PCs came to the top of the tower, hoping to rescue the baron's niece, only to find that the niece was in fact a necromancer performing some sort of ritual over a half-open sarcophagus. Fight? Negotiate? And then, a couple of rounds later, when Kas comes out of the sarcophagus, what do the PCs do? Fight? Negotiate? (<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/313724-actual-play-pcs-successfully-negotiated-kas.html" target="_blank">answers here</a>).</p><p></p><p>This sort of "stakes other than dying" combat benefits from a mechanical system in which combats are mechanically interesting and engaging over a range of possible threats - so that whether or not the PCs decide to fight Kas, the combat is still in an interesting range between easy and TPK. 4e, at least in my experience, fits this requirement.</p><p></p><p>I think it is tilted towards your preferences. It may be that your preferences overlap heavily with those of many others, though not so much with mine. I find attrition a pretty boring stake in combat, and haven't played a game (D&D or otherwise) in which attrition was the main stake in combat since the mid-80s.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5818444, member: 42582"] I get the impression you are positing this a priori, rather than deriving it from experience. From experience, I can suggeset that it is not true. These posts give one illustration of how encounters can be balanced yet tactically meaningful within PC death being on the line to any significant extent: the abilities of the participants in a fight - both antagonists and protagonists - can be configured so that death is not a serious threat [I]provided that the players play their PCs with mechanical and tactical cleverness[/I]. An action resolution system can be designed to increase or decrease the scope for this sort of play. The scope for this sort of play in Basic D&D, or in Runequest, is comparatively low, because there are few or no choices to be made about how a player is to deploy his/her mechanical resources: you just point your PC in the right directionand roll your dice! (These sorts of mechanical designs can also support combat-as-war, because they encourage the players - whose intrinsic resources are sparse - to look to the gameworld to gain useable resources to bring to bear on action resolution.) Conversely, a game like Rolemaster or 4e increases the scope for play in which victory is (near-)certain provided the play is clever, because they have action resolution mechanics with multiple moving parts and decision-points by players: in RM, how much of my bonus do I allocate to attack, and how much to defence? in 4e, which of the several powers that I have available do I use? Agreed. Another example: the time the PCs came to the top of the tower, hoping to rescue the baron's niece, only to find that the niece was in fact a necromancer performing some sort of ritual over a half-open sarcophagus. Fight? Negotiate? And then, a couple of rounds later, when Kas comes out of the sarcophagus, what do the PCs do? Fight? Negotiate? ([url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/313724-actual-play-pcs-successfully-negotiated-kas.html]answers here[/url]). This sort of "stakes other than dying" combat benefits from a mechanical system in which combats are mechanically interesting and engaging over a range of possible threats - so that whether or not the PCs decide to fight Kas, the combat is still in an interesting range between easy and TPK. 4e, at least in my experience, fits this requirement. I think it is tilted towards your preferences. It may be that your preferences overlap heavily with those of many others, though not so much with mine. I find attrition a pretty boring stake in combat, and haven't played a game (D&D or otherwise) in which attrition was the main stake in combat since the mid-80s. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
[Very Long Indeed] Reconciling Combat as War and Combat as Sports in 5ed
Top