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Worlds of Design: The Lost Art of Running Away
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<blockquote data-quote="Aaron L" data-source="post: 8065278" data-attributes="member: 926"><p>I think a huge reason for this lack of running away by PCs anymore is because of 3rd Edition, which put the idea in players' heads that every "encounter" was supposed to be perfectly mathematically tailored to their character levels... with the corollary reason for this phenomenon, being that 3E introduced the horrible rule that the only way to gain experience points was from combat, thus creating a situation where the players started to consider every encounter to be a <em><strong>combat </strong></em>encounter, and one which was supposed to be tailored for them to win after a fairly moderate fight, to give them XP.</p><p></p><p>This totally removed the idea from earlier editions that good play was to run if the situation looked like you weren't going to win. Because, while combat was a source of experience it was a minor one, and the <em>main </em>source of experience was from gaining treasure, so if you could get the treasure <em>without </em>combat that was actually preferred as a smart, superior play style. It actually drastically altered the nature of the game into something where PCs became nothing but constant combat machines in order to gain levels.</p><p></p><p>As an example, about 3 years ago my brother and I started playing D&D again with the person who was our first ever Dungeon Master nearly 30 years ago, but now with my brother DMing (he started DMing about 4 years ago and has turned out to be <strong><em>amazing </em></strong>at it. And we were actually <em>appalled </em>at how his play style had changed over the years since we'd last known him, as a result of his playing nothing but 3E in the years since we had last gamed with him (rather than the 2E we used to play with him.) He used to be a very diplomatic player, preferring to talk rather than fight, and he would only enter combat as a last resort. Now he entered combat first and didn't even bother talking at all later. He considered everything we met outside of a city to be an <em>automatic </em>target for combat... and this wasn't just one character, this was all five of the PCs he played once we started gaming together again. As soon as we would see a creature of any sort in the wilderness he would assume it was a valid target and start rolling initiative and attack. Because his years playing 3E had incentivized him to assume that <em>every encounter was another combat to give him more XP</em>. And on the <em>multiple </em>occasions where this attitude got him badly maimed and nearly killed he was actually upset and <em>blamed the DM</em> for "not balancing the encounter for us appropriately." The idea that he should have run away if the fight was too hard, which once was something he would have assumed from the start, <em>or that he should never have fought in the first place</em>, now never even crossed his mind.</p><p></p><p>When our normal group plays we always plan a possible retreat for if the fight goes against us and we have to run. We <em>never </em>just assume that we are going to win and always know we may have to retreat... but unfortunately it seems that too many players these days automatically assume they will be able to win every fight they enter because "there are rules to calculate that stuff." This idea of "balanced encounters" is kind of a bane of the game, and there should be a totally different way to calculate experience points. I personally think that XP should be decoupled from combat as it was in 1E and 2E, with XP primarily calculated from treasure gained with combat XP relegated once more to just a minor percentage.</p><p></p><p>My idea is to multiple the XP tables by 10, and reintroduce XP per GP gained, but I haven't had an opportunity to playtest that idea. That also has the benefit of allowing the DM to raise the PCs levels by dumping treasure on them when he wants a level increase (as our DMs always did back in 1st Edition) instead of the current cycle of endless combat leading to ever increasing levels, leading to even more combat <em>ad nauseam</em>, with PCs ridiculously gaining 10 levels in less than a year of constant hard combat (I think it should take YEARS of hard adventuring to gain so many levels, and there should be mandatpry training imtervals between level gains.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aaron L, post: 8065278, member: 926"] I think a huge reason for this lack of running away by PCs anymore is because of 3rd Edition, which put the idea in players' heads that every "encounter" was supposed to be perfectly mathematically tailored to their character levels... with the corollary reason for this phenomenon, being that 3E introduced the horrible rule that the only way to gain experience points was from combat, thus creating a situation where the players started to consider every encounter to be a [I][B]combat [/B][/I]encounter, and one which was supposed to be tailored for them to win after a fairly moderate fight, to give them XP. This totally removed the idea from earlier editions that good play was to run if the situation looked like you weren't going to win. Because, while combat was a source of experience it was a minor one, and the [I]main [/I]source of experience was from gaining treasure, so if you could get the treasure [I]without [/I]combat that was actually preferred as a smart, superior play style. It actually drastically altered the nature of the game into something where PCs became nothing but constant combat machines in order to gain levels. As an example, about 3 years ago my brother and I started playing D&D again with the person who was our first ever Dungeon Master nearly 30 years ago, but now with my brother DMing (he started DMing about 4 years ago and has turned out to be [B][I]amazing [/I][/B]at it. And we were actually [I]appalled [/I]at how his play style had changed over the years since we'd last known him, as a result of his playing nothing but 3E in the years since we had last gamed with him (rather than the 2E we used to play with him.) He used to be a very diplomatic player, preferring to talk rather than fight, and he would only enter combat as a last resort. Now he entered combat first and didn't even bother talking at all later. He considered everything we met outside of a city to be an [I]automatic [/I]target for combat... and this wasn't just one character, this was all five of the PCs he played once we started gaming together again. As soon as we would see a creature of any sort in the wilderness he would assume it was a valid target and start rolling initiative and attack. Because his years playing 3E had incentivized him to assume that [I]every encounter was another combat to give him more XP[/I]. And on the [I]multiple [/I]occasions where this attitude got him badly maimed and nearly killed he was actually upset and [I]blamed the DM[/I] for "not balancing the encounter for us appropriately." The idea that he should have run away if the fight was too hard, which once was something he would have assumed from the start, [I]or that he should never have fought in the first place[/I], now never even crossed his mind. When our normal group plays we always plan a possible retreat for if the fight goes against us and we have to run. We [I]never [/I]just assume that we are going to win and always know we may have to retreat... but unfortunately it seems that too many players these days automatically assume they will be able to win every fight they enter because "there are rules to calculate that stuff." This idea of "balanced encounters" is kind of a bane of the game, and there should be a totally different way to calculate experience points. I personally think that XP should be decoupled from combat as it was in 1E and 2E, with XP primarily calculated from treasure gained with combat XP relegated once more to just a minor percentage. My idea is to multiple the XP tables by 10, and reintroduce XP per GP gained, but I haven't had an opportunity to playtest that idea. That also has the benefit of allowing the DM to raise the PCs levels by dumping treasure on them when he wants a level increase (as our DMs always did back in 1st Edition) instead of the current cycle of endless combat leading to ever increasing levels, leading to even more combat [I]ad nauseam[/I], with PCs ridiculously gaining 10 levels in less than a year of constant hard combat (I think it should take YEARS of hard adventuring to gain so many levels, and there should be mandatpry training imtervals between level gains.) [/QUOTE]
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