D&D General Why Combat is a Fail State - Blog and Thoughts

[Gus L]

OSR may not be "balanced" but there is an expectation that the GM telegraphs danger to the players so they can make informed decisions. If a 5e GM telegraphs a dragon cave, the players may assume that the dragon is level appropriate. If the OSR GM telegraphs a dragon cave, it may be their way of telling players avoid it and come back later when you are level appropriate, though players can also ignore that telegraphing to their own peril. Some OSR GMs will even be pretty open and transparent about things like, "Hey, you can tell that the area of this hex is more dangerous than where you have previously been."

There are other concepts of balance in even the oldest systems, and many of these have made their way into OSR and Post-OSR design. The major one is "Level Based Balance". What this means here is that dungeon level (originally literally and often exactly) corresponds to PC level. So a level 1 dungeon is largely balanced for 1st level PCs while deeper levels (or simply locations described as "suitable for levels x to x") are designed for higher levels. This is baked into OD&D in the form of the standardized random encounter tables in the original little brown books.

What's interesting is that this Level Based Balance is combined with Asymmetrical Encounters. Individual encounters may be "over leveled" for the expected party (though with the flatter power curve of OD&D and many OSR editions/games this is less of a risk), even if the level as a whole is not. This is because encounters, and especially random ones, serve the purpose of creating risk and threat - because players aren't meant to seek out combat. Combat is usually inevitable (that "inevitable fail state" thing) but the players are expected to delay it and scheme around it as much as possible, picking fights they think they have the best chance at or those that have a greater reward ... because the fight itself will offer little in the way of rewards.

So while the OD&D encounter tables can end up placing a gargoyle (weapon immune and rather dangerous to 1st level PCs) on the first level of the dungeon, the players are expected to recognize the level of danger involved and find another way to deal with the threat - usually by fleeing. In modern Post-OSR play recognizing the danger will be more reliant on referee description and hints, while in groups attempting to emulate older "boardgame" or "classic" styles of play the players are expected to use meta-knowledge of the monster list.

 

[Remathilis]

There are other concepts of balance in even the oldest systems, and many of these have made their way into OSR and Post-OSR design. The major one is "Level Based Balance". What this means here is that dungeon level (originally literally and often exactly) corresponds to PC level. So a level 1 dungeon is largely balanced for 1st level PCs while deeper levels (or simply locations described as "suitable for levels x to x") are designed for higher levels. This is baked into OD&D in the form of the standardized random encounter tables in the original little brown books.

What's interesting is that this Level Based Balance is combined with Asymmetrical Encounters. Individual encounters may be "over leveled" for the expected party (though with the flatter power curve of OD&D and many OSR editions/games this is less of a risk), even if the level as a whole is not. This is because encounters, and especially random ones, serve the purpose of creating risk and threat - because players aren't meant to seek out combat. Combat is usually inevitable (that "inevitable fail state" thing) but the players are expected to delay it and scheme around it as much as possible, picking fights they think they have the best chance at or those that have a greater reward ... because the fight itself will offer little in the way of rewards.

So while the OD&D encounter tables can end up placing a gargoyle (weapon immune and rather dangerous to 1st level PCs) on the first level of the dungeon, the players are expected to recognize the level of danger involved and find another way to deal with the threat - usually by fleeing. In modern Post-OSR play recognizing the danger will be more reliant on referee description and hints, while in groups attempting to emulate older "boardgame" or "classic" styles of play the players are expected to use meta-knowledge of the monster list.

What I find ironic is that the 5e challenge system emulates much of that. The PCs set the "level" and the encounters range from easy to deadly. Now, 5e was overly cautious with it's numbers (something the revision has addressed) but the result was pretty similar with the sole exception that the PCs, not the dungeon level, sets the average.

 

[Mannahnin]

Remember, too, that the WotC editions have all contained instructions that not all encounters should be balanced per the level of the PCs. They all suggest that at least some portion should be weaker, opportunities for the players who kick butt and feel powerful, and some portion should be overscaled and deadly, opportunities for the players to exercise good judgement and caution, avoiding the fight by some means such as negotiation. See for example 3.5 DMG pages 100-102, 4E DMG page 104.

The OSR was founded by retro-clones

Old School Renaissance - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

You have that backwards. The OSR movement started in the early 2000s. The term was first used around 2004, to describe a scene that was already extant, and the first retro-clones (BFRPG, OSRIC) showed up in 2006. Originally to make the rules consistently and affordably available, often for the sake of module publishing.

The OSR was a confluence of old school players who had never left AD&D and other TSR editions, who were already congregating on sites like Dragonsfoot by 1999* and players who came to D&D (often BACK to D&D after an adulthood break) with 3E, then found it wasn't to their tastes (didn't recapture the feelings they had playing the older editions in youth, for the adult returners).

The scene as a whole started with the TSR editions, spawned the retro-clone movement, then branched out from there into newer non-clone games sometimes nicknamed nuSR or NSR, like Knave, Maze Rates, Cairn, the GLOG, etc. And there's also a whole wing of the Old School movement which includes non-D&D games like Traveller.

So as TiQuinn noted, the OSR is not synonymous with 1E and B/X, even if those are hugely popular games within both the gaming movement/scene (which has fractured all over the place) and the marketing category.

*(thanks to WotC's friendlier policies toward fan sites; TSR was directly hostile to them and threatened litigation to many)

 

[DarkCrisis]

Sneak. Negotiate. Bluff. Avoid. Scary monsters beyond the group's capabilities are usually obvious. Set things up to give your group an edge.

I've been playing a lot of OSR games lately. We are not churning through character sheets because we play smart and cautious. In a modern style OSR adventure, there is lots of interesting things and NPCs to engage with. It's simply not a boring slog with short lived heroes. It's fun, exciting and challenging. And I really disliked D&D back in the day because it was everything you describe (in my experience).

Some great examples are Norman's Hole in the Oak, Brad Kerr's anthology, Wyvern Songs, Ben Milton's Waking of Willoby Hall, Kelsey Dionne's adventures and many more.

When my 5E group tried 2E they quickly learned you can't play it like 5E. You aren't assumed to kick all kinds off ass every single combat. And thankfully the lessons they learned about "smart play" carried over into the 5E games for the most part.

What really stuck with me was in 5E the game would slow down because they would fight EVERYTHING. While in 2E (etc) they would bypass some fights thus saving game time for other aspects of the game.

Heck in 5E I just have them autowin some fights (published official adventures) because it's not worth the time spent to play it out. "You completely own the 5 goblins in the forge room, moving on..." OSE every fight is worth playing out because even some damage can mean a lot later on. Plus the combat is faster anyways.

 

[Theory of Games]

Remember, too, that the WotC editions have all contained instructions that not all encounters should be balanced per the level of the PCs. They all suggest that at least some portion should be weaker, opportunities for the players who kick butt and feel powerful, and some portion should be overscaled and deadly, opportunities for the players to exercise good judgement and caution, avoiding the fight by some means such as negotiation. See for example 3.5 DMG pages 100-102, 4E DMG page 104.


You have that backwards. The OSR movement started in the early 2000s. The term was first used around 2004, to describe a scene that was already extant, and the first retro-clones (BFRPG, OSRIC) showed up in 2006. Originally to make the rules consistently and affordably available, often for the sake of module publishing.

The OSR was a confluence of old school players who had never left AD&D and other TSR editions, who were already congregating on sites like Dragonsfoot by 1999* and players who came to D&D (often BACK to D&D after an adulthood break) with 3E, then found it wasn't to their tastes (didn't recapture the feelings they had playing the older editions in youth, for the adult returners).

The scene as a whole started with the TSR editions, spawned the retro-clone movement, then branched out from there into newer non-clone games sometimes nicknamed nuSR or NSR, like Knave, Maze Rates, Cairn, the GLOG, etc. And there's also a whole wing of the Old School movement which includes non-D&D games like Traveller.

So as TiQuinn noted, the OSR is not synonymous with 1E and B/X, even if those are hugely popular games within both the gaming movement/scene (which has fractured all over the place) and the marketing category.

*(thanks to WotC's friendlier policies toward fan sites; TSR was directly hostile to them and threatened litigation to many)

When I dug into the OSR, I had three questions:

1. What is it?
2. When did it begin?
3. Why did it begin?

The whole thing has a weird kind of "smoke" around it. But I found a series of articles that cleared all that smoke and made sense of everything:

Myths of the Early OSR 1: origins and anti-storytelling sentiment

A blog about table-top role-playing games after a break of two decades.

lichvanwinkle.blogspot.com

 

[The Firebird]

Remember, too, that the WotC editions have all contained instructions that not all encounters should be balanced per the level of the PCs. They all suggest that at least some portion should be weaker, opportunities for the players who kick butt and feel powerful, and some portion should be overscaled and deadly, opportunities for the players to exercise good judgement and caution, avoiding the fight by some means such as negotiation. See for example 3.5 DMG pages 100-102, 4E DMG page 104.

How many of the WotC published adventures have included this distribution of encounters, with many that are too difficult? At least in the ones I've played, those have been few and far between.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

The first encounter of Lost Mines can be pretty deadly, talk about setting the tone for 5e with the starter set!

 

[MerricB]

How many of the WotC published adventures have included this distribution of encounters, with many that are too difficult? At least in the ones I've played, those have been few and far between.

It's hard to say with Wizards adventures because we're unaware of the skill level of the playerbase. Yeah, for my players they're really easy - but there are a LOT of more casual players out there. So what we see as very easy, they may see as a lot more challenging.

I do think it is hard to dispute that many Wizards adventures don't allow for failure, however. Many encounters are presumed to be defeated on the first try. The situation just changes so much if the characters have to retreat, that the scenario no longer really works. One of my examples of this was in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. During the early stages of the adventure, you enter the hideout of a cult. And it does have difficult encounters in it (having a 2nd level party encounter a spellcaster with fireball is just a bit challenging!)

So, the party may be forced to retreat. But if they've killed everyone in the hideout except the leaders who are the link to the rest of the adventure, why do the leaders stick around? Cultists are paranoid. They'd change hideouts, especially when damaged badly. (This also happened to one of my contacts in Eve of Ruin with the drow).

It's a challenging design problem, in any case. How much space can you allocate to this? Should you just rely on the ingenuity of the DM?

But building on this, it's why I say adventure structure is so important. If you're running an exploration scenario with no encounters that have to occur, then putting in over-levelled encounters from time to time is fine. If you're running a story-based scenario, then not so much.

Of course, consider that the entire plot of Curse of Strahd revolves around becoming powerful enough to defeat Strahd. That's one adventure where you can ABSOLUTELY end up in areas that are too dangerous for you. Princes of the Apocalypse is much the same. Both are a lot less linear than other titles.

Cheers!

 

[Thomas Shey]

When I dug into the OSR, I had three questions:

1. What is it?
2. When did it begin?
3. Why did it begin?

The whole thing has a weird kind of "smoke" around it. But I found a series of articles that cleared all that smoke and made sense of everything:

Myths of the Early OSR 1: origins and anti-storytelling sentiment

A blog about table-top role-playing games after a break of two decades.

lichvanwinkle.blogspot.com

Good gods. Didn't expect to see my name and old LoC zine mentioned there...

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's hard to say with Wizards adventures because we're unaware of the skill level of the playerbase. Yeah, for my players they're really easy - but there are a LOT of more casual players out there. So what we see as very easy, they may see as a lot more challenging.

This constantly comes up in the context of D&D5e players trying out PF2e; the latter assumes a certain degree of commitment to and interaction with both the character mechanics and what other players are doing that doesn't play well with people who are really casual and full-speed-ahead in their approach. Its in no way Old-School, but it assumes non-casual players as kind of a default, and if you end up with casual players you really need to turn the suggested difficulties down a notch or two.

I do think it is hard to dispute that many Wizards adventures don't allow for failure, however. Many encounters are presumed to be defeated on the first try. The situation just changes so much if the characters have to retreat, that the scenario no longer really works. One of my examples of this was in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. During the early stages of the adventure, you enter the hideout of a cult. And it does have difficult encounters in it (having a 2nd level party encounter a spellcaster with fireball is just a bit challenging!)

So, the party may be forced to retreat. But if they've killed everyone in the hideout except the leaders who are the link to the rest of the adventure, why do the leaders stick around? Cultists are paranoid. They'd change hideouts, especially when damaged badly. (This also happened to one of my contacts in Eve of Ruin with the drow).

This has always been an issue with linear adventures; if you're not doing a sandbox or a tree adventure, they can come to a screaming halt.

It's a challenging design problem, in any case. How much space can you allocate to this? Should you just rely on the ingenuity of the DM?

But building on this, it's why I say adventure structure is so important. If you're running an exploration scenario with no encounters that have to occur, then putting in over-levelled encounters from time to time is fine. If you're running a story-based scenario, then not so much.

Unless you bake in avoiding the encounter into the story-plan, but doing that properly can be tricky.