Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041452:confused: Can you expand on this? Why not?

What I was try to say was you can't make the assumption that avoiding combat is purely for dungeon exploration, because the ability to avoid combat can also be used to improve your success at future combat. Not saying that it isn't useful for exploring a dungeon, just that you can't say rules to avoid a combat aren't rules that can help you in combat.

*

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041452You certainly can come to that conclusion if you want. And someone else comes to the conclusion that it isn't. And you are at an impasse (and we are back to actually searching for support for those conclusions, of which a "feel" isn't really one that will convince someone who doesn't already share your position). That was literally the point of the text you quoted.

I already defined it once, I'll try to be more specific: when I say the gane has a combat "feel" I'm not saying it has some intangible aspect that makes it combat related, what I'm saying is: the game constantly puts actions that might otherwise be out of combat in the frame of how to use them in combat. I'm trying to use it as shorthand for saying the game has several instances of measuring actions in turns instead of actual time, or how you can hire mercenaries, which, sure, you could use those mercenaries as buttlers, craftsmen, merchants, or politicians, but if you're hiring a cleric, and not using them to heal you (a task strongly rooted in combat) then why do you need to hire a cleric? And if you are hiring them for some other reason, why not take advantage of their ability to heal you?

To recap: I'm using feel to mean "lots of mechanics tie back into the combat rules in some way." perhaps it may not be entirely objective to say the game is purely about combat, but I would argue it provides many rules to enable that function.

Just to clarify my position: I have no problems with the concept of a game being about combat, nor would I level that as an argument against playing that game. I'm not even trying to say that having a combat focus is a bad thing, I'm just trying to justify the viewpoint. I will admit, I'm not a fan of D&D, or most OSR or D20 class based games (specifically for mechanical reasons. I do still enjoy and collect LOTFP books, for example, mostly for their content, but not the system it uses), but those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with the combat system, or what the game is "about."

The biggest reason I see a combat correlation, is, to my knowledge, all classes in most OSR (and D20 games in general) get better at it as they advance, almost always gaining HP and usually also improving their ability to hit things, and often gaining new abilities that specifically assist in combat. The way characters progress have a strong impact on how the players will interpret the game.

If the characters see themselves getting better at combat in general, wouldn't that make the game appear to focus heavily on combat?

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040991not to imply I'm re-entering this argument (I only really entered it halfheartedly to begin with), but if you aren't going to provide a clear source for that kind of a statement, you may as well not have made it at all.

As far as I am concerned, if someone played with the creators of D&D back in the day, they can say what their recollections of those times were. They don't need sources, other than "I was there".

Now, the fact that the designers played one way does not necessarily mean that it is the best way, or the only way, or even a good way, but it was they way they played.

Quote from: soltakss;1041491As far as I am concerned, if someone played with the creators of D&D back in the day, they can say what their recollections of those times were. They don't need sources, other than "I was there".

Now, the fact that the designers played one way does not necessarily mean that it is the best way, or the only way, or even a good way, but it was they way they played.

That's fair, but as someone completely unaware of the person in question's actual status of having done those things, why would I have assumed he was speaking from that experience? I'm not saying it's necessarily not true, but as a relative newcomer (I made an account a while ago, but haven't exactly been using it until very recently) why would I have any reason to believe him? If it is common knowledge here that he did those things, then very well, I accept it, but you can't fault my initial scepticism. People have been known to lie on the internet before after all.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041495That's fair, but as someone completely unaware of the person in question's actual status of having done those things, why would I have assumed he was speaking from that experience? I'm not saying it's necessarily not true, but as a relative newcomer (I made an account a while ago, but haven't exactly been using it until very recently) why would I have any reason to believe him? If it is common knowledge here that he did those things, then very well, I accept it, but you can't fault my initial scepticism. People have been known to lie on the internet before after all.

Your skepticism is indeed well-founded. For the record, guys like Gronan, chirine ba kal, and a LOT of other folks on this forum have been playing this game since longer than I've been alive (and I'm not young, buddy). It's pretty awesome that they've congregated here to deliver their beer-drenched wisdom to our undeserving brains.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041495That's fair, but as someone completely unaware of the person in question's actual status of having done those things, why would I have assumed he was speaking from that experience? I'm not saying it's necessarily not true, but as a relative newcomer (I made an account a while ago, but haven't exactly been using it until very recently) why would I have any reason to believe him? If it is common knowledge here that he did those things, then very well, I accept it, but you can't fault my initial scepticism. People have been known to lie on the internet before after all.

I'm going to grab this one first. And say, first and foremost, that it is perfectly reasonable. Evidence of a keen mind perhaps. This is the internet after all, where padding one's resume seems to be ridiculously common. If everyone who claimed to be a medieval weapons expert or master martial artist or history professor on RPG forums (or 'medical expert' on forums general) actually were such things, well then the discourse would be more informed than it actually often is.

Here specifically, Gronan is a guy* who is listed in the 'Special Thanks' section of oD&D supplement I and played at the tables of Gygax, Arneson, and EPT's MAR Barker. Chirine is also a Barker original who has lots of primary document access and recollections.
*or has done a very thorough job of impersonating said guy and taking over his online identity. I suppose technically I don't know that that guy didn't die or stop caring about gaming in 1978 and Gronan is a 25 year old woman in Tulsa or a Russian hacker or something (three squirrels with a stolen ipad and a wifi network?)

Mind you, none of that tells one anything except that they have some knowledge of how things actually progressed in front of the authors back in the day, and what they personally stated. Everything else they say or argue, they have to back up with coherent argumentation, just like the rest of us. There's no special cachet or status that goes along with any of this, it's simply a historical footnote, along with a unique perspective.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041486To recap: I'm using feel to mean "lots of mechanics tie back into the combat rules in some way." perhaps it may not be entirely objective to say the game is purely about combat, but I would argue it provides many rules to enable that function.

So then you would also say that games like FATE are primarily about accumulating benny tokens since most of the game's rules enable that function?

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041486What I was try to say was you can't make the assumption that avoiding combat is purely for dungeon exploration, because the ability to avoid combat can also be used to improve your success at future combat. Not saying that it isn't useful for exploring a dungeon, just that you can't say rules to avoid a combat aren't rules that can help you in combat.

I agree that you cannot make the assumption that avoiding combat is for dungeon exploration. That is true. You could use it that way ("oh man, we don't need to fight these kobolds, we have a dungeon to explore. Let's see if we can evade them."), but it is not inherent. The second part ("you can't say rules to avoid a combat aren't rules that can help you in combat."), I'm still not catching. Avoiding combat helps you in combat? I guess in that you are fresh and have all your HP when you find yourself in combat you can't/don't want to avoid.  

QuoteI already defined it once, I'll try to be more specific: when I say the gane has a combat "feel" I'm not saying it has some intangible aspect that makes it combat related, what I'm saying is: the game constantly puts actions that might otherwise be out of combat in the frame of how to use them in combat. I'm trying to use it as shorthand for saying the game has several instances of measuring actions in turns instead of actual time, or how you can hire mercenaries, which, sure, you could use those mercenaries as buttlers, craftsmen, merchants, or politicians, but if you're hiring a cleric, and not using them to heal you (a task strongly rooted in combat) then why do you need to hire a cleric? And if you are hiring them for some other reason, why not take advantage of their ability to heal you?

To recap: I'm using feel to mean "lots of mechanics tie back into the combat rules in some way." perhaps it may not be entirely objective to say the game is purely about combat, but I would argue it provides many rules to enable that function.

I feel that this is back to most of the mechanical heft of the game is usable in combat, which I don't think anyone is disputing. "[L]ots of mechanics tie back into the combat rules in some way," is a statement I can totally get behind, that I don't think is the same as saying that the game is about combat.

QuoteJust to clarify my position: I have no problems with the concept of a game being about combat, nor would I level that as an argument against playing that game. I'm not even trying to say that having a combat focus is a bad thing, I'm just trying to justify the viewpoint. I will admit, I'm not a fan of D&D, or most OSR or D20 class based games (specifically for mechanical reasons. I do still enjoy and collect LOTFP books, for example, mostly for their content, but not the system it uses), but those reasons have absolutely nothing to do with the combat system, or what the game is "about."

The biggest reason I see a combat correlation, is, to my knowledge, all classes in most OSR (and D20 games in general) get better at it as they advance, almost always gaining HP and usually also improving their ability to hit things, and often gaining new abilities that specifically assist in combat. The way characters progress have a strong impact on how the players will interpret the game.

And to clarify mine, I'm don't have a horse in this race. My opinion is similar to TJS's when he said, "to the extent that it makes sense to say a game is 'about' anything - something I'm s[k]eptical about - at least if we're just talking about the mechanical side of the game." D&D isn't really "about" anything except playing a game. It is a game, it has combat rules in it that one can roughly assume you are expected to need. The advancement metric (and here I will assume that the game is vaguely 'about' what it rewards you for doing) does reward fighting successfully, but significantly greater rewards gaining treasure (and given a highly lethal combat setup, greatly GREATLY rewards obtaining treasure without resorting to fighting*). One plays it in the format of playing the role of characters interacting inside an environment (dominated by dungeons, cities, and wilderness in between said dungeons and cities). The rules structures facilitate a series of scenarios where you explore the wilderness and dungeons (and the cities I suppose), with rules for travelling, negotiating (small in pagecount though they may be), yes fighting, and collecting/carrying/managing equipment and treasure. There does not need to be an inherent "about" more specific than that.
*I will acknowledge, at this point, that I among other OSR analyzers, have a tendency to overstate this. Back on page 2, Rawma has it right with, "by the rules, there are too many ways that inevitable combat happens, and carefully chosen combats are very profitable. Yes, you can fling copper pieces and jerky around as you desperately flee around as many corners as you can, but some monsters will not care or will be too close for this to work. You want to avoid pointless combats (treasure free wandering monsters and things you cannot defeat) but jump on profitable combats (relatively safe and lots of treasure)"

Mind you, there is no law of gravity to this. The game can exist as a thing unto itself. It can have left its' foundation (started as an offshoot of a wargame) behind, without a end-goal (such as downstream purpose*) as an anchor up above. It needs no support above or below lest it collapse into incoherence. It absolutely can just be.
*and given how readily people have changed things like the advancement metric to be focused on other things (like purely combat in the WotC era, or houseruling 'adventure milestones' or the like such that the game can be repurposed to play a LotR-style adventure or 'paladins and princesses' or whatever), it seems the end-goals can be swapped out readily easily.

QuoteIf the characters see themselves getting better at combat in general, wouldn't that make the game appear to focus heavily on combat?

Again, this seems to be another one of those things that aren't in dispute, that also doesn't really support the end position of the game being about combat. The game focuses heavily on combat. Granted.

Quote from: Bren;1041540So then you would also say that games like FATE are primarily about accumulating benny tokens since most of the game's rules enable that function?

To some degree, isn't it?  I haven't ever tried to care about FATE, mainly because it sounds so abstract and not seeming to offer anything I'd want.  In fact, the reason I don't give attention to most abstract game designs is that they seem to be more about their abstract mechanics than the supposed subjects of the game situation.

Quote from: Bren;1041540So then you would also say that games like FATE are primarily about accumulating benny tokens since most of the game's rules enable that function?

Well, I would certainly say that. The player spends a great deal of time dealing with matters that the character could know nothing about.

There are a lot of games that are about whatever the players focus upon.  If the people at the table play the game with a preconceived notion as to what it is about, it will nearly always be about that thing.  Whether that it is a chicken or an egg, will vary from table to table.

Quote from: Bren;1041540So then you would also say that games like FATE are primarily about accumulating benny tokens since most of the game's rules enable that function?

Actually, having played a FATE game, I would say it's more about using Benny tokens in general. Since spending those tokens is also an import mechanic tied together with their collection.

"Avoiding Combat" is just another way of saying "using tactics."  Fair fights are for chumps.

Strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight.
Tactics is the art of fighting dirty.

Fight at a time and place of your choosing, not the enemy's.
A head-on assault is idiocy.
Never fight a battle you do not absolutely need to win.

Really, it comes down to "do you fight smart or do you fight stupid?"  TRACTICS is a WW2 miniatures game that is ALL ABOUT combat.  That does not mean I am going to fling my Sherman straight at a Panther.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041544*I will acknowledge, at this point, that I among other OSR analyzers, have a tendency to overstate this. Back on page 2, Rawma has it right with, "by the rules, there are too many ways that inevitable combat happens

It is an honor just to be acknowledged in the fine print!

I should note that I don't have a strong opinion as to what OD&D was about; my main objection is to statements that purport to prove it's not about combat because "[something not combat] is [some number] times more pages than combat" when that's pretty obviously not true.

For OD&D when I first played in 1977, maybe the game was just about being a role-playing game and even the role-playing game. With fewer other available choices then than now, players who wanted very different things all ended up playing D&D together, and found support for what they believed or wanted the game to be about, either in some rules about that thing or in the parts that explicitly made it open-ended and whatever you wanted. The result was occasionally disastrous but mostly worked better than you might expect.

But all that might just be my nostalgic blind spot.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041585Actually, having played a FATE game, I would say it's more about using Benny tokens in general. Since spending those tokens is also an import mechanic tied together with their collection.

Interesting. I wonder if that is why my players and I don't like Bennies or Hero Points or whatever similar mechanism other games incorporate? We play tested FrontierSpace and totally forgot to their version existed. My players are interested in role-playing, and the whole bennies/hero-points/whatever just doesn't fit into our conceptualization of that.

Quote from: Tod13;1041890Interesting. I wonder if that is why my players and I don't like Bennies or Hero Points or whatever similar mechanism other games incorporate? We play tested FrontierSpace and totally forgot to their version existed. My players are interested in role-playing, and the whole bennies/hero-points/whatever just doesn't fit into our conceptualization of that.

Some games encorporate them better than others. Agone uses them to fuel your super powers, as well as a die modifier and spare lives. They are actually representative of an ingame mystical force that each player has the ability to tap into.

My group usually prefers having them exist, but we usually play ganes where they are fairly scarce, at least in the beginning (7th sea, Agone, L5R, etc.)