[Very Long] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles...

[pemerton]

Depends what you mean by serious about the game. Certain characters simply aren't "active" characters and are much more passive.

<snip>

Unless the DM actively gives them a quest and appeals directly to them, they will not DO anything.

These days I try to avoid having the players make such characters, for just the reasons you give. For example, at the start of my current campaign the instructions to players were: (i) build a 1st level PC who is 4e legal; (ii) your PC must have one loyalty to something/someone as part of his/her background; (iii) your PC must have a reason to be ready to fight goblins.

The way the campaign has unfolded reflects, to a significant extent, those loyalties and those reasons that the players built into their PCs. It's interesting how the reasons to fight goblins continue to figure prominently in the game, even though the goblins themselves are mostly (not completely) out of the immediate picture now (at 15th level).

For example, one PC's reason to be ready to fight goblins was that his (former) city was razed by humanoid armies. And since 3rd level, he has been on a quest to restore the Empire of Nerath, and his city as one element of that, by restoring the Sceptre of Erathis (= the Rod of 7 Parts).

Another PC's reason to be ready to fight goblins related to his background as a dwarf. Now he is a warpriest of Moradin who is the party leader, and trying to protect the remaining settlements (both human and dwarven) against marauding armies.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've found that just a little bit of proactive PC background, with quite a narrow or minimal focus, can end up producing a lot of drive and (unpredictable but still powerful) direction for a campaign, once it actually gets picked up on and brought out in play. And I don't think, these days, I could go back to a game where a PC starts with nothing but stats and a tavern corner to brood in. For exactly the reasons you give.

 

[S'mon]

Still, you've got this MM full of lore and cosmology - stuff about gods, and primordials, and the mythic history of the world...

Apparently I have a different MM from you.

Worlds & Monsters is great. I was amazed though that it contains way more cosmology etc than appears in the actual DMG! In fact the 4e Manual of the Planes barely goes beyond what was already in W&M.

 

[pemerton]

Apparently I have a different MM from you.

Maybe! I've got the one that uses the entry on hydras to tell me about a fight between the gods and Bryakus, and that uses the entry on spiders to tell me about Lolth's prior role as a god of fate, that tells me about hobgoblin imperial history and breeding programs, etc.

Worlds & Monsters is great. I was amazed though that it contains way more cosmology etc than appears in the actual DMG

Yes. The DMG should have had more of this stuff - including more about how the designers intended for it to be used. The closest it gets is the one page discussion of languages from the metagame point of view.

 

[Imaro]

Maybe! I've got the one that uses the entry on hydras to tell me about a fight between the gods and Bryakus, and that uses the entry on spiders to tell me about Lolth's prior role as a god of fate, that tells me about hobgoblin imperial history and breeding programs, etc.

IMO, this is one of 4e's greatest fumbles in presentation. It's lore is scattered, and often incomplete (which of course was compunded by their cancellation of the gazetteer). This in turn often leads to a situation where collecting, processing and using the lore is more trouble than it's worth for most... and if it's hard to use the lore well then most people aren't going to bother trying to put it all together or remember. For a game that's suppose to be all about usage at the table, it seems they really dropped the ball on this aspect of the game.

Take the first of the lore snippets you've cited... it doesn't really tell me anything about Bryakus... except he's a primordial, and like almost every primordial mentioned in 4e, he fought the gods. Why did he create hydras? What relationship did the primordial have with these creatures? He was defeated but was he destroyed, imprisoned, or what? In other words don't just drop a random name, especially for something that didn't exist in previous editions, without some kind of reference. To make matters worse, if you search for Bryakus in the compendium... nothing comes up. IMO, nothing in this entry speaks to the mythology of Bryakus specifically and thus it is kind of pointless as far as lore goes. As always, YMMV.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Sheesh. Not every encounter has to be violent.

That's true. But the section on encounter balance was talking about fighting them. You don't get XP for non-violent encounters by default. XP is given out by how difficult it is to defeat them.

If we're talking about non-violent encounters, of course you can use whatever monsters you want...the power of the monster is generally inconsequential to non-violent encounters with them.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've found that just a little bit of proactive PC background, with quite a narrow or minimal focus, can end up producing a lot of drive and (unpredictable but still powerful) direction for a campaign, once it actually gets picked up on and brought out in play. And I don't think, these days, I could go back to a game where a PC starts with nothing but stats and a tavern corner to brood in. For exactly the reasons you give.

And I agree perfectly. It doesn't always work however. I'm running a Neverwinter Campaign Setting campaign right now with no set direction as to where it'll go. It's just got all of the plots and NPCs in the Neverwinter book as background and setting. I asked all the PCs to take themes from the Neverwinter book in order to give their PCs a hook to want to investigate and defeat at least one of the villain groups in the city and I figured I'd sit back and see what happens.

After a session of letting them sit there and doing basically nothing, I decided to go back to my old ways and simply write up an adventure for each session, drop a plot hook in front of them and run what I plan rather than what they plan.

Which is, relating back to the original post why CaW never works for me, as it often relies on the PCs coming up with a plan and executing it. My PCs wait for an NPC to come up with a plan and execute that one.

 

[billd91]

That's true. But the section on encounter balance was talking about fighting them. You don't get XP for non-violent encounters by default. XP is given out by how difficult it is to defeat them.

If we're talking about non-violent encounters, of course you can use whatever monsters you want...the power of the monster is generally inconsequential to non-violent encounters with them.

I think that's a skewed view. You get XP for overcoming obstacles (and any thing else the DM finds significant). And even doing so non-violently, the CR of the obstacle NPC will relevant. Some of the opponent's skills may be quite high.

In many of the encounters I run, it's as much up to the PCs whether the encounter will be violent or not as me (and sometimes more).

EDIT: I leave the players with a lot of freedom to do whatever they want. With all that latitude, I don't see the CaS approach working that well. CaW is the way it would end up anyway. It works for me.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think that's a skewed view. You get XP for overcoming obstacles (and any thing else the DM finds significant).

I used to be a Triad member for Living Greyhawk, the official campaign in 3e/3.5e. We were not allowed to give out XP for anything that wasn't combat encounters and traps. Word came down from our superiors(through WOTC) that giving out XP for anything other than that was a house rule and not the intention of the rules.

That section is about overcoming obstacles that could hurt you. If you didn't risk dying, it wasn't worth XP. That's why the CR system was used to determine XP. CR is a challenge of how difficult things are in combat in relation to the power level of the group. XP was given out based on how MUCH you risked death by fighting it.

In Living Greyhawk, we were allowed to give out XP for a combat encounter where the PCs used spells/skills to avoid the combat. But if they avoided seeing the encounter at all, no XP was given. For instance, teleporting passed it without knowing it was there didn't give you XP but showing the royal seal to a group of guards that attacks anyone without it counted....unless you expected every group to go through the adventure to have it...then it was never intended as a combat encounter. Basically, if the default position was "these enemies attack you immediately UNLESS you do something extraordinary", it was a combat encounter. If a diplomacy check gets you passed, then you get no XP. If it takes 3 Diplomacy checks of DC 30 while fighting the enemy, you do.

If the PCs fought an encounter that was never intended as a combat encounter, no XP would be given out.

And even doing so non-violently, the CR of the obstacle NPC will relevant. Some of the opponent's skills may be quite high.

It's almost completely irrelevant. It's POSSIBLE that a CR 20 creature has good skills. It's just as possible that some of their skills will be worse than CR 1 monsters...since CR has no relationship whatsoever with skills.

It's impossible to use CR as a guideline for how difficult a monster will be outside of combat. Some of them have extensive non-combat abilities and some have none.

Even then, how one "defeats" them out of combat is entirely up to the DM and determining the "challenge" of that is highly subjective. Since XP is based on risk, how much risk does a party really have if you determine that a bluff check against their sense motive of -2 makes them go away?

In many of the encounters I run, it's as much up to the PCs whether the encounter will be violent or not as me (and sometimes more).

That's the case sometimes. Each person runs their game differently. However, my experience is that the vast majority of encounters in a game go like this: "You are walking down a path when out of the woods jumps 3 dire tigers...roll for initiative." or "You walk down the corridor into the next cave, you see that the group of drow you were chasing appear to be doing some sort of ritual. Their apparent leader yells, 'Intruders! Stop them!'. They draw their weapons, roll for initiative."

EDIT: I leave the players with a lot of freedom to do whatever they want. With all that latitude, I don't see the CaS approach working that well. CaW is the way it would end up anyway. It works for me.

CaS can work when given freedom as well. Basically, you arrange things so that when a battle happens(or is even likely to happen), the enemies you have prepared are an appropriate challenge and number for the PCs.

The thieves guild that they wanted to attack conveniently has blocked themselves off into rooms of 1-10 members depending on their individual CRs, and they don't move to reinforce the others except after a reasonable amount of time to make sure the PCs aren't overwhelmed. They fight each room as a set piece.

 

[Hassassin]

I used to be a Triad member for Living Greyhawk, the official campaign in 3e/3.5e. We were not allowed to give out XP for anything that wasn't combat encounters and traps. Word came down from our superiors(through WOTC) that giving out XP for anything other than that was a house rule and not the intention of the rules.

There is a paragraph in the 3.5 DMG that essentially says that if the party sneaks past a sleeping minotaur to get to the treasure, you probably want to give them the XP. I understand not giving XP for completely skipped encounters in organized play, because that may throw WBL off if you don't get the treasure.

In any case the debate isn't really pertinent to whether encounters that are significantly higher or lower than the party level is a good idea, which editions encourage status quo encounters, or the topic of the thread.

 

[pemerton]

I'm running a Neverwinter Campaign Setting campaign right now with no set direction as to where it'll go. It's just got all of the plots and NPCs in the Neverwinter book as background and setting. I asked all the PCs to take themes from the Neverwinter book in order to give their PCs a hook to want to investigate and defeat at least one of the villain groups in the city and I figured I'd sit back and see what happens.

After a session of letting them sit there and doing basically nothing, I decided to go back to my old ways and simply write up an adventure for each session, drop a plot hook in front of them and run what I plan rather than what they plan.

My typical approach is, I think, somewhere between the two approaches you describe. I don't wait for my players to initiate the action - I will frame a situation which requires the PCs to act in some fashion, and so requires the players to choose. And I will try to make sure that, within that situation, is something that speaks to the story elements the players have incorporated into or developed via their PCs.

But how things unfold from situation to situation is in the hands of my players. Which doesn't mean I don't prepare anything - often some courses of action (eg that the PCs will eventually go to the ruined temple to try and recover the lost relic) are fairly predictable. But sometimes things move in unexpected directions. For example, in my previous campaign, before the PCs went to the ruined temple, they got in a fight with a rival clan, and three of them ended up unconscious and shut inside barrels in a storage room in the rival clan's compound. When the other two PCs staged a rescue, the location and opposition had to be worked out by me on the spot.

For this sort of improvisational/just-in-time GMing, I rely on (i) a good general sense of the setting and the genre expectations at the table, and (ii) the game's mechanics working so as to make a situation interesting in play even if it's fairly simple in conception.

To elaborate on (ii), in relation to breaking into the compound to rescue the other PCs. In Basic D&D, if the NPC guards were 5 1st level fighters and the two rescuers were 3rd level, this would probably not be all that interesting to resolve. To make it interesting I think you'd have to pile on more opposition, a more complex floor plan, etc - all stuff that can be tricky to do on the fly.

But in games with more elaborate action resolution mechanics, like Rolemaster or 4e, even a fight with a handful of weak-ish enemies, or the climbing of a wall and sneaking across a courtyard, can become a bit more dramatic in the actual resolution - which shifts the burden away from having to come up with lots of clever stuff on the fly (tricky) and onto making sure the situation unflods (via the mechanics) in an interesting and engaging way (which is the bread-and-butter of GMing, in my view).

To bring this back (at least somewhat) to the topic: my approach to GMing has two main components - (i) setting up the situations, and (ii) adjudicating the resolution of them in a way that maximises interest, engagement, dynamics, driving things forward to interesting new situations, etc. World building I see as secondary - it provides backstory for primary job (i). And settling the rules I see as secondary - it is a subordinate component of primary job (ii).

This is an approach which, in terms of the OP's classificatory scheme, is probably CaS rather than CaW, but I don't think the way the OP describes CaS quite captures the salient features of my approach. It's not primarily about balanced encounters. It's about engaging situations that leverage the action resolution mechanics rather than bypass them.