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

[Arilyn]

Ok, the paranoid "triple check everything" approach.

Nope. Danger should be telegraphed so players can make informed decisions. Gotchas are seriously frowned on in most OSR circles these days.

I hated the paranoid play that was too common back in the day. These days a well designed OSR dungeon is fun, challenging and will contain factions or entities to role play with. There's also a push your luck feel which is always exciting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right, which makes them paranoid that everything and anything will kill them, so they take excoriatingly long times to handle even the most routine actions. Put in OSR terms; if I'm a level 2 adventuring party and I know that any given room could have a level 8 challenge, I'm going to triple check every possible scenario that could play out. Or maybe I won't care, kick in the door, and we'll all laugh and laugh as we roll up new PCs...

If that's your jam, shine on.

Did you just tell them how their players necessarily behave at their table? How could you possibly know that?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok, the paranoid "triple check everything" approach.

How does "talk first or scout" equal "paranoid triple-check"?

 

[Belen]

Did you just tell them how their players necessarily behave at their table? How could you possibly know that?

I am not worried about the fact that they make assumptions based on their own prejudices.

I never lack for players and have people that ask me to run on a regular basis.

I tend to be an open DM, always ask and listen to feedback, and folks seem to have fun which is my metric for success.

I was responding to the comment that players in 5e ‘know’ they can beat everything because the game is level capped to the party.

I do not like level cap idea and find no sense of wonder in those types of games.

 

[Shardstone]

I'm someone who learned D&D largely through 5E.

It has never made sense to me that people act like 5E is a game that enforces balanced encounters. Not in 2014, and def not in 2024.

I have always, and in my wider gaming community this is the same, ran a mixture of encounters. Some are for flavor, some are small challenges, some are even matches, and some are super crazy lethal.

I have never designed a map where each region was level locked except once, and I regretted it. Largely, I created terrains with a mixture of challenge levels in them, and forecast ones that would kill the party if they treated it like anything else.

Even in the 2014 DMG, it gave advice for what to do to make an encounter Deadly. Wasn't good advice, but wasn't saying I should balance each encounter.

I think most of this is just hangup from 3/4E at this point.

All OSR advice works amazingly well with 5E. The only people who don't believe that are the people who refuse to try it and are stuck in their ways.

 

[Remathilis]

Nope. Danger should be telegraphed so players can make informed decisions. Gotchas are seriously frowned on in most OSR circles these days.

I hated the paranoid play that was too common back in the day. These days a well designed OSR dungeon is fun, challenging and will contain factions or entities to role play with. There's also a push your luck feel which is always exciting.

See I don't see where that's any different than any other modern well-designed dungeon in Pathfinder or 5e. It ain't exactly "Old School" if "New School" DMs are doing it as well, is it? That's just good dungeon design. All those "gotchas" was what modern D&D did away with. I assumed it was part of the OS paradigm to bring those back (what with all the discussion about "invincible" PCs, character funnels, smart play, and combat as a fail state). If irs not, I'm even more confused because now its just modern D&D with a B/X varnish.

 

[Thomas Shey]

See I don't see where that's any different than any other modern well-designed dungeon in Pathfinder or 5e. It ain't exactly "Old School" if "New School" DMs are doing it as well, is it? That's just good dungeon design. All those "gotchas" was what modern D&D did away with. I assumed it was part of the OS paradigm to bring those back (what with all the discussion about "invincible" PCs, character funnels, smart play, and combat as a fail state). If irs not, I'm even more confused because now its just modern D&D with a B/X varnish.

The problem is there's two elements going on, avowedly, with OS design:

1. Less Player Centric encounter design: basically, doing things that support taking another option from combat or that make combat uninteresting depending one whether they're uphill or downhill from the party. While not every modern design avoids these to the same degree, there's a perception that a potential combat encounter that can't be fought (at least without cooking the books) or that is trivial is a potential encounter prone to going off the rails and/or a waste of time. OS proponents don't see it that way; they see them as springboards for other types of play.

2. Making the former work by proper signalling: As Arylin says, in principal the idea is to give the players enough information they know to avoid or take advantage of those power differentials in a way that's actually, well, interesting. Two issues come up here: first, not every Old School game is as good at spelling this out as others, leading to some of the unpleasant coping mechanisms you reference that existed in such commonality early in the hobby. Second, some of the same people who are attracted to OSR style play sometimes have a weird sort of simulationist-fixation that tells them that providing too much information is "gamist". Even when well meaning their attempt to thread the needle can fail out in sometimes catastrophic ways, especially if they're also resistant to letting PCs back out of things that have proven problematic. To make it clear I'm not saying everyone or even a majority of such GMs are like this, but there are people on this very board who will act like if the players screw up on this, that's entirely on them.

So there's an intended playstyle for more Old School games that isn't objectionable on the face of it (it might end up being tedious to some people but that's another question) and then there's how it plays out in the wild, which can sometimes be quite different.

 

[MerricB]

See I don't see where that's any different than any other modern well-designed dungeon in Pathfinder or 5e. It ain't exactly "Old School" if "New School" DMs are doing it as well, is it? That's just good dungeon design. All those "gotchas" was what modern D&D did away with. I assumed it was part of the OS paradigm to bring those back (what with all the discussion about "invincible" PCs, character funnels, smart play, and combat as a fail state). If irs not, I'm even more confused because now its just modern D&D with a B/X varnish.

Some of the things OSR people are reacting against... are quite visible in actual Old School products. "Modern" D&D didn't come from nowhere - and I can argue that a lot of the story-driven play that it typical of 5E Wizards adventures has its seeds in Gygax's Giant/Drow adventures.

Some of it is cherry picking the stuff produced in the old days and saying it was all like that... when it really wasn't.

There are certainly design precepts that current D&D adventures don't follow, and I really wish they would. For instance, I wish the middle section of Descent into Avernus was a lot more sandboxy than the mostly linear path it follows, with various devil strongholds the party would go between based on their choice and make deals with to become strong enough to deal with Zariel. OTOH, Curse of Strahd does do a lot of that. (And has some DMs struggling with it!)

Does Dungeons of Drakkenheim give you old-school vibes? Looks like a 5E product to me. (Yes, it's not from Wizards. So?)

The idea that modern play devolves into just rolling dice - witness "make a Perception check, then make a Disable Device check" - is not without merit. I certainly prefer tricks and traps that require the players to use their minds more than just commanding their hands to pick up dice. But the origin of that is 1975's Supplement 1, which introduced the Thief class to the game with its Remove Traps skill. What is that but dice-rolling?

To add to this, you have the problem that a lot of original procedures weren't written down in official rulebooks. How did players deal with a locked chest before the Thief class came out? Did Gygax and Arneson just never include them?

I certainly relate to the wish that characters were more at risk of death in combat. I don't want OD&D levels of low-level characters variability, but at present it's very hard for any 5E character to be hit hard enough to actually die. (I observe that 5E tends to be either TPKs or no character deaths, except in rare circumstances, since the rest of the group are good at returning "dying" characters to the fray). But this is a 4E-era change... since 3E characters were very likely to go from living to dead. Death at -10 hit points plus high damage codes (and criticals!)

The state of modern D&D? It changes with each edition. Each knob in a different place. 2024 is not the same as 2014, though a lot of knobs are similarly placed.

The state of OSR games? Each one different, knobs in different places.

 

[Gus L]

Right, which makes them paranoid that everything and anything will kill them, so they take excoriatingly long times to handle even the most routine actions. Put in OSR terms; if I'm a level 2 adventuring party and I know that any given room could have a level 8 challenge, I'm going to triple check every possible scenario that could play out. Or maybe I won't care, kick in the door, and we'll all laugh and laugh as we roll up new PCs...

If that's your jam, shine on.

This still reads to me like a misunderstanding of how OSR type games are played (or at least how I play them).

1st - The level two party can choose to go to level 8 (or a location that has level 8 type creatures), but if there's a "level 8 creature" (Say a mature red dragon) in a room on dungeon level 2 it won't exist as a sudden "Boo - I'm gonna fry you and eat you for not looking through the keyhole" type encounter. It will likely want something from the PCs and offer plenty of clues to its present (e.g. the berserkers nearby worship it, there are huge claw marks by the entrance to its cavern and shed red scales...)

2nd - In the second case (level 8 of the dungeon) the risks are huge and the players should know that - they will be super cautious ... but then they also decided to go somewhere way too dangerous for them! Knowingly. they want to play that kind of game - risk everything on a chance to bring back the big treasures etc. That's of course possible as the power curve in OSR and some older systems tends to be flatter. This is not a design issue though - this is daring players.

3rd - Taking too long, checking everything with 10ft poles is the worst way to do go into a super dangerous area. The random encounter check will get you. A level 8 dungeon might have vermin with 5-6 HD... So move fast, take risks, run away and sneak about and only use up time to check things you're really sure are necessary. The random encounter check always acts as a counterweight to player caution.

 

[Gus L]

Some of the things OSR people are reacting against... are quite visible in actual Old School products. "Modern" D&D didn't come from nowhere - and I can argue that a lot of the story-driven play that it typical of 5E Wizards adventures has its seeds in Gygax's Giant/Drow adventures.

This is true - though I think it depends on what one defines as "Old School" - I'm of the "The OSR was a new approach to RPG design" gang though, not the "The OSR recovered the CORE MAGICAL TRUTH of D&D!" gang. Giants and Drow are especially interesting as they are I think the best examples of Gygax's early D&D design (not other peoples design with his edits and his name slapped on). I've argued they are relentlessly designed as "commando films" - where the party is meant to infiltrate and make war on a more powerful organized enemy force. I think 5E tends towards "superhero" or "action hero" design ... following the trends in action movies. I'm not trying to say that 5E somehow isn't proper fantasy D&D because the PCs are heroes with lots of "powers", rather that as a bit of game design history it'd be interesting to compare 5E advice, rules, and adventures to earlier superhero games - maybe MERP, V&V, or Champions (all of which were pretty popular in the 80's).

[...]
To add to this, you have the problem that a lot of original procedures weren't written down in official rulebooks. How did players deal with a locked chest before the Thief class came out? Did Gygax and Arneson just never include them?

Not anywhere I've seen ... When I played in the 80's procedure was generally handed down to players by different referees and it was varied... I haven't found much on procedure or anything about chests in Strategic Review or Alarums & Excursions either. If you really want to know I'd ask Lich VanWinkel who has a store of knowledge on esoteric bits of early RPG history. My own thoughts are that procedure sort of grew up in communities and was largely the thing that defined their differences (that and goals). So on the West Coast the D&D fandom tended to be more from the Sci-Fi and Fantasy literature space and wanted more narrative elements almost immediately. They bent OD&D to that goal pretty quick. In Lake Geneva and the Twin Cities it was wargamers - so the procedures were likely assumed to be those of 70's chit wargames.

For locked Chests? I suspect they didn't really exist in the earliest games, or would require "knock" - though I assume this lasted about 2 sessions until someone found one and demanded the ability to pick it with a hairpin... Something I suspect there were a few ad hoc systems for at different tables.

I certainly relate to the wish that characters were more at risk of death in combat. I don't want OD&D levels of low-level characters variability, but at present it's very hard for any 5E character to be hit hard enough to actually die. (I observe that 5E tends to be either TPKs or no character deaths, except in rare circumstances, since the rest of the group are good at returning "dying" characters to the fray). But this is a 4E-era change... since 3E characters were very likely to go from living to dead. Death at -10 hit points plus high damage codes (and criticals!)

Death is rough in 5E - time to make a character is more then the 2 minutes it takes for an OD&D PC and there's a lot of effort to tie in characters to the adventure and setting (at least in Actual Play podcasts and WotC books) so I think survivability is key. When I was running 5E I found one could up the lethality pretty easily by having intelligent foes kill (or threaten to kill) downed PCs ... and by limiting rests with random encounter chances ... but it felt off, against the spirit of the game, and made my players super adverse to combat in an unproductive way. OD&D combat is deadly, but in both directions, so a good ambush or overpowering spell can end them without much HP loss. 5E combat less so, meaning players can't trick themselves into thinking they'll come out of a fight without a scratch.

I do think though that 5E could do with more longterm effects to being serious injured or downed. Like a cumulative -1 to rolls per time the PC has to make a death save roll in the session (healed by either more serious magic or a long rest?) and perhaps lasting injuries for some kinds of serious near death experiences. A colorful table would help here, even if most of the injuries were simply cosmetic or narrative in nature. E.G. You have an aversion to spiders now after nearly dying to the Great Webbeast of the Shrouded Pit... or Everyone recognizes the green stains of goblin blades on you extensive scars. For some of course mechanical effects, but for others just in game char development? It'd need limits of course, and I'm not sure if this is already a 5E community thing - but it might make injury and combat risk feel more sound without character death becoming more common?

The state of modern D&D? It changes with each edition. Each knob in a different place. 2024 is not the same as 2014, though a lot of knobs are similarly placed.

True - and also true that the OSR and now Post OSR have always been full of change and evolution as well.