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What are the “boring bits” to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9277461" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Except that I dislike swingy combat and frequent character death at least as much as I dislike overly-short rounds, so that path leads to no better results I'm afraid.</p><p></p><p>And there's a reason I spoke of flowcharts rather than predictability <em>per se.</em> That is, a flowchart is about determining what <em>I</em> (or any particular player) should do on any given turn, not a perfect map of each combat. The combats will change, but if the system is too simple, it becomes trivial to set up a decision procedure that automates combat decision-making. At which point, "strategy" has ceased to exist; it is mere tic-tac-toe/noughts-and-crosses writ large. My experience of both Labyrinth Lord and Dungeon World combat (as a player) was in this vein. It's why I always work to make my DW combats interesting in ways that break such SOP/flowchart stuff, set pieces or complications rather than the painfully dull drudgery of Yet Another Goddamn Kobold Fight.</p><p></p><p>I guess more simply put, I don't know how any given combat will play out in OSR-like/ultralight gameplay. But I can set up a procedure that, with a handful of yes/no questions, can pick either the optimal action, or a near-optimal action, in the vast majority of cases. It may end up that the optimal choice is to run, if a fight goes unexpectedly poorly. It may be that the optimal choice is to stab the balrog, if a scary fight goes shockingly well. But the actual involvement of my brain in the process of deciding what to do is damn near zero. When I don't have to use my brain as part of play, I get bored. Roleplay uses lots of my brain, because I'm having to keep in the headspace of someone who isn't me. Combat doesn't have that element, generally speaking, so it needs to provide something else to keep my brain engaged or I get bored.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9277461, member: 6790260"] Except that I dislike swingy combat and frequent character death at least as much as I dislike overly-short rounds, so that path leads to no better results I'm afraid. And there's a reason I spoke of flowcharts rather than predictability [I]per se.[/I] That is, a flowchart is about determining what [I]I[/I] (or any particular player) should do on any given turn, not a perfect map of each combat. The combats will change, but if the system is too simple, it becomes trivial to set up a decision procedure that automates combat decision-making. At which point, "strategy" has ceased to exist; it is mere tic-tac-toe/noughts-and-crosses writ large. My experience of both Labyrinth Lord and Dungeon World combat (as a player) was in this vein. It's why I always work to make my DW combats interesting in ways that break such SOP/flowchart stuff, set pieces or complications rather than the painfully dull drudgery of Yet Another Goddamn Kobold Fight. I guess more simply put, I don't know how any given combat will play out in OSR-like/ultralight gameplay. But I can set up a procedure that, with a handful of yes/no questions, can pick either the optimal action, or a near-optimal action, in the vast majority of cases. It may end up that the optimal choice is to run, if a fight goes unexpectedly poorly. It may be that the optimal choice is to stab the balrog, if a scary fight goes shockingly well. But the actual involvement of my brain in the process of deciding what to do is damn near zero. When I don't have to use my brain as part of play, I get bored. Roleplay uses lots of my brain, because I'm having to keep in the headspace of someone who isn't me. Combat doesn't have that element, generally speaking, so it needs to provide something else to keep my brain engaged or I get bored. [/QUOTE]
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