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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6242402" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>That's kind of like seeing enjoying combat as "what would be fun for combat-loving players is to prevent other players having their fun." It's kind of projecting a completely unnecessary hostility. </p><p></p><p>This is a collaborative effort, after all. If we're going to spend an hour resolving a challenge (which, I should say, still seems like a largely unnecessary amount of time to spend on just one challenge to me, but whatever), that challenge needs to be fun for everyone at the table, and if not everyone is really into combat (and is showing this by choosing characters who suck at combat but are great at other things), <strong>then you probably shouldn't spend an hour in pure combat</strong>. It'll tromp over the fun of everyone else! If you're a player who demands all combat all the time (or even 75% of the time), you probably shouldn't play with people who are interested in other things, because in enabling their fun, you are going to be unhappy. There's only a few hours you have to play this game, and combat does not automatically deserve a larger chunk of that time than other stuff. </p><p></p><p>I feel like this is a pretty basic social concept, though. It harkens back to generic food analogies about pizza toppings and lessons toddlers learn about playing well with others. If you have 5 people who each have their own unique characters that show what kinds of gameplay they are interested in, you're going to want to dedicate roughly equal time to all of their favored modes of gameplay. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>More to the point, it requires Samwise's player to be interested in combat, which is a non-starter for him, because by voluntarily and knowingly creating a character who sucks at combat, he's telling you that <em>he's not really interested in fighting things with this character</em>. What you're suggesting is that he should just be interested in combat. He's not. No amount of lazylord attack-granting powers are going to make him interested in slaying the dragon. He's not playing a dragon-slayer, he's playing a gardener, a friend, an optimist. The challenges he wants to face aren't slaying dragons, they're defeating hopelessness and bringing light into the darkness of people's hearts. HP attrition and attack rolls aren't something they're going to want to worry about, because they're combat mechanics.</p><p></p><p>I mean, <em><a href="http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/the-one-ring/" target="_blank">The One Ring</a></em> has a separate morale mechanic for a reason! </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think you're describing a bunch of 4e powers, and I know you're describing a bunch of things that happened before those 4e powers came along (and after, in non-4e games), too. So if you can't imagine that, I'd start with imagining how those 4e powers would work. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There's more than those two categories. Think, for instance, about how early D&D assumed a thief's usefulness based on a trap-filled dungeon, and then extend that to explicit DM adventure-making guidelines, and you'll have the beginnings of how you'd sandbox something like this.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 6242402, member: 2067"] That's kind of like seeing enjoying combat as "what would be fun for combat-loving players is to prevent other players having their fun." It's kind of projecting a completely unnecessary hostility. This is a collaborative effort, after all. If we're going to spend an hour resolving a challenge (which, I should say, still seems like a largely unnecessary amount of time to spend on just one challenge to me, but whatever), that challenge needs to be fun for everyone at the table, and if not everyone is really into combat (and is showing this by choosing characters who suck at combat but are great at other things), [B]then you probably shouldn't spend an hour in pure combat[/B]. It'll tromp over the fun of everyone else! If you're a player who demands all combat all the time (or even 75% of the time), you probably shouldn't play with people who are interested in other things, because in enabling their fun, you are going to be unhappy. There's only a few hours you have to play this game, and combat does not automatically deserve a larger chunk of that time than other stuff. I feel like this is a pretty basic social concept, though. It harkens back to generic food analogies about pizza toppings and lessons toddlers learn about playing well with others. If you have 5 people who each have their own unique characters that show what kinds of gameplay they are interested in, you're going to want to dedicate roughly equal time to all of their favored modes of gameplay. More to the point, it requires Samwise's player to be interested in combat, which is a non-starter for him, because by voluntarily and knowingly creating a character who sucks at combat, he's telling you that [I]he's not really interested in fighting things with this character[/I]. What you're suggesting is that he should just be interested in combat. He's not. No amount of lazylord attack-granting powers are going to make him interested in slaying the dragon. He's not playing a dragon-slayer, he's playing a gardener, a friend, an optimist. The challenges he wants to face aren't slaying dragons, they're defeating hopelessness and bringing light into the darkness of people's hearts. HP attrition and attack rolls aren't something they're going to want to worry about, because they're combat mechanics. I mean, [I][URL="http://www.cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/the-one-ring/"]The One Ring[/URL][/I] has a separate morale mechanic for a reason! I think you're describing a bunch of 4e powers, and I know you're describing a bunch of things that happened before those 4e powers came along (and after, in non-4e games), too. So if you can't imagine that, I'd start with imagining how those 4e powers would work. There's more than those two categories. Think, for instance, about how early D&D assumed a thief's usefulness based on a trap-filled dungeon, and then extend that to explicit DM adventure-making guidelines, and you'll have the beginnings of how you'd sandbox something like this. [/QUOTE]
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