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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7405724" data-attributes="member: 29398">Combat as performance art?  Now there's one I've never heard before. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />That said, I was taking the sport-war analogy and applying it more to the whole game rather than just combat.  Exploration-as-war means deadly traps, sometimes-harsh environmental conditions, real risk of dangerous resource depletion (e.g. no water in the desert), etc.  Social-interaction-as-war is a bit harder to define other than that NPCs will have their own sometimes-secret agendas which will inform if not outright direct their responses to the PCs.Agreed.  But within the scope of reasonable play the DM can't be expected to pull her punches: if the PCs get in over their heads (with or without advance warnings of danger) then so be it - characters will die.  Whole parties, however, very rarely die: they're incredibly resilient things.I don't mind seeing the DM as adversary when she's playing an adversary (which is a lot of the time); nor do I mind seeing her as an ally when she's playing an ally.  When describing the game world etc. I see her as a neutral arbiter, ditto for when she puts her referee's hat on for rules and ruling questions.And there's also a dual-layered question of trust.At the table level I trust the DM to run a fair, interesting and engaging game for us - which means, for example, I'll accept a certain amount of hard railroading because I trust there'll be a payoff or reveal or whatever at the end that'll make it worthwhile.  Most of the time that trust bears out, and I can look back on a fun experience.In the fiction level I-as-player don't trust much of what the DM says when she's playing any character - even the so-called allies - as I know from experience that the game world really is out to get us. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  That lack of trust may or may not extend to my characters, depending on how paranoid or naive I've set them up to be.This sounds fine for the short term but after a while would get really grating.  Every now and then in the fiction it's nice for the PCs to be able to stand back, maybe take a few weeks off from adventuring, look around and proactively decide what we-as-a-party are going to do next.  The way you've written this, it sounds like such breaks never come to DW characters.Lanefan</blockquote>

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