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[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5828117" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>I more or less run my 4E games the same way I ran my BECMI and 1E games, which is more or less how you have described above. And I agree that the tools in 4E to let you do this kind of things are excellent ... if you already know how to do it or have figured it out the hard way.</p><p> </p><p>The advice is absolutely lousy at teaching anyone how to do this, or why or when they might want to--and in numerous, "make it all work out just dandy in the end," sections, actually counter-productive towards those goals. There isn't even a good discussion on how and why to dig the PCs into a deep hole (or better, hand them the shovels and a reason to dig it themselves), specifically so that they can have the fun of getting out of it. And this is despite the combat system being explicitly and well-designed to produce this exact feel in micro.</p><p> </p><p>Even the otherwise excellent 4E DMG 2 does not fill in this gap. Given the nature of 4E mechanics, and the relatively light touch of things like skill challenges compared to the more more hard-core "narrative" games from which they take their inspiration, the actual 4E system is better positioned to run a well-oiled, 1E-type sandbox than it is to run the game it purports to run (if you took the advice seriously). It's not awful at the latter, but there are better games for that, too.</p><p> </p><p>I think this is one of the reasons that 4E is so polarizing. It's like you walked into a giant toolshop with some really excellent options, some of them quite specialized and callibrated. Some of us are saying, "Woah, I can use that. Let's get on it. See what we can do. I've wanted a tool to do that for ages!" Others are saying, "Where are the instructions. OK, you clamp this here, then you screw that in there. Eh, I kind of, sort of (I think) see where this is going, but what's special about that? How's that guy over there having so much fun with this?" <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5828117, member: 54877"] I more or less run my 4E games the same way I ran my BECMI and 1E games, which is more or less how you have described above. And I agree that the tools in 4E to let you do this kind of things are excellent ... if you already know how to do it or have figured it out the hard way. The advice is absolutely lousy at teaching anyone how to do this, or why or when they might want to--and in numerous, "make it all work out just dandy in the end," sections, actually counter-productive towards those goals. There isn't even a good discussion on how and why to dig the PCs into a deep hole (or better, hand them the shovels and a reason to dig it themselves), specifically so that they can have the fun of getting out of it. And this is despite the combat system being explicitly and well-designed to produce this exact feel in micro. Even the otherwise excellent 4E DMG 2 does not fill in this gap. Given the nature of 4E mechanics, and the relatively light touch of things like skill challenges compared to the more more hard-core "narrative" games from which they take their inspiration, the actual 4E system is better positioned to run a well-oiled, 1E-type sandbox than it is to run the game it purports to run (if you took the advice seriously). It's not awful at the latter, but there are better games for that, too. I think this is one of the reasons that 4E is so polarizing. It's like you walked into a giant toolshop with some really excellent options, some of them quite specialized and callibrated. Some of us are saying, "Woah, I can use that. Let's get on it. See what we can do. I've wanted a tool to do that for ages!" Others are saying, "Where are the instructions. OK, you clamp this here, then you screw that in there. Eh, I kind of, sort of (I think) see where this is going, but what's special about that? How's that guy over there having so much fun with this?" :D [/QUOTE]
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[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...
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