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"When DMing I Avoid Making the PCs have 'pointless' combats." (a poll)
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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8698801" data-attributes="member: 7026594"><p>This poll is a tricky one for me. The instruction "For whatever value of "pointless" you use" would seem to lead to everyone saying "true", but so far it's 4 true to 9 false, so obviously people aren't reading it the same way I am.</p><p></p><p>I said true because I don't think combats are supposed to be pointless. They're meant to be entertaining, dramatic (challenging) or just fun (power fantasy), random encounters help tell the players things about the world and what creatures inhabit the area, and they keep the game play fresh and less predictable for me.</p><p></p><p>If a given combat isn't going to be entertaining, if it's not going to represent an actual risk or drain the PCs' resources in any meaningful way that will impact the rest of the game, then I may omit it entirely. Or handwave the end/move straight to surrender or flight once it's established that the PCs are trouncing the baddies. But most of the time, even overmatched enemies can do some damage, drain some resources, raise an alarm or create some interesting consequence, which means the fight wasn't pointless.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 8698801, member: 7026594"] This poll is a tricky one for me. The instruction "For whatever value of "pointless" you use" would seem to lead to everyone saying "true", but so far it's 4 true to 9 false, so obviously people aren't reading it the same way I am. I said true because I don't think combats are supposed to be pointless. They're meant to be entertaining, dramatic (challenging) or just fun (power fantasy), random encounters help tell the players things about the world and what creatures inhabit the area, and they keep the game play fresh and less predictable for me. If a given combat isn't going to be entertaining, if it's not going to represent an actual risk or drain the PCs' resources in any meaningful way that will impact the rest of the game, then I may omit it entirely. Or handwave the end/move straight to surrender or flight once it's established that the PCs are trouncing the baddies. But most of the time, even overmatched enemies can do some damage, drain some resources, raise an alarm or create some interesting consequence, which means the fight wasn't pointless. [/QUOTE]
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General Tabletop Discussion
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"When DMing I Avoid Making the PCs have 'pointless' combats." (a poll)
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