TheRPGSite

I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat. I've heard that said about many games since D&D first came out and here is how I replied in my own rules:
"That I provide elaborate combat rules does not mean that combat should be the focus of your campaign. Your GM can provide you many situations and challenges where combat can be avoided and some where it isn't even an option. The rules are there for when you need them.
I ran an eighteen-month campaign where the PCs were performers and roadies in the world's first Elven Fusion rock band. There was some fighting but it was far from a major feature of the campaign."

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781Your GM can provide you many situations and challenges where combat can be avoided and some where it isn't even an option. The rules are there for when you need them.

So put that somewhere near the beginning of the combat chapter, and maybe add another chapter, or even a few paragraphs on alternate problem solving methods. :)

If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

Only to stupid people.

Quote from: Omega;1039807Only to stupid people.

Maybe, but I think that the "vibe" of a game can be found by reading the rules. If combat is all you get, that's all the reader will expect to deliver. Certainly an experienced player or GM can look past the rules and supplement with non-combat stuff, but a novice may not really know to do so.

Take for example the original BOOT HILL game from TSR. Essentially, it's a miniatures combat rules set for Western adventures. There are no real rules for character development, and when we played in the 1970's we pretty much did some hand-waving for the early part of each adventure and then ended with a massive gunfight. The rules sort of implied that this is what we were "supposed" to do when we played. The original D&D rules, however, had information about building castles and taxing the people and so our D&D campaigns may have started out as "loot the dungeon, kill the creatures" adventures but then evolved into a more strategic game of barons and nobles. It was all about the way the games were presented.

Quote from: Omega;1039807Only to stupid people.

If the game spends most of its time talking about combat, and provides little else mechanically to support other forms of problem solving, then that game is poorly equipped to handle non combat situations. Yes, you can argue you still can do those tings, but that doesn't mean a system is good at it.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

False dichotomy.  If a game spends all its pages and energy (or so close to "all" as to make no difference) on one thing, then it is probably about that thing.  However, if a game can explain how a major part of the game works in less words than some other part of the game, that's just the nature of how those parts work in the game.

Also note that mechanics versus GM advice/guidelines are likely to be in different proportions.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

Quote from: Omega;1039807Only to stupid people.

RPGs are the only gaming hobby where you find folks who claim the people who think a game is about what its rules make it about to be stupid.  But it gets worse, as I've even seen people claim that combat rules are actually there to discourage players from engaging in combat. In other words, they're a penalty for engaging in a particular part of play.

If you made either of these claims in any other industry you'd be dismissed as insane. That is, not even rational enough to be stupid.

I'm in agreement with Spinachcat, thus I am stupid according to Omega ( and most people who meet me:)).  Most games have some sort of mechanical focus.  If a 100 page rulebook spends half that page count on combat and things related to combat, then that game's main focus is on combat.  The same could be said if it was half about magic, or social interactions.

It just seems weird that games where combat supposedly isn't the focus because it's lethal and to be avoided at nearly all costs, have some of the most detailed combat systems out there.  If it's not the focus and you want it lethal, there's probably other ways it can be done.

It can be a valid complaint.  Sure, I can play 5th edition D&D (or heaven forbid, 4th edition) and have a game that revolves around political intrigue and all that other political whatnots and drama, drama, drama- never picking up a miniature and breaking out the battle board.  Personally, I'd look for something else to do it, but however someone wants to use the game they have it up to them.

Quote from: Omega;1039807Only to stupid people.

If you spend most of your allotted page count for an aspect of your product which you see as secondary, you've failed as a designer.

Quote from: Krimson;1039784So put that somewhere near the beginning of the combat chapter, and maybe add another chapter, or even a few paragraphs on alternate problem solving methods. :)

Yes. It's no accident that D&D involves a lot of spell casting, and combat, and gathering treasure, because that's the stuff in the books.

4th ed had the good intention, but bad implementation, of trying to create an engaging universal system for resolving non-combat stuff that approached the level of detail of the combat system. While I think the Skill Challenge system was not a good way to approach it, I can say at least they tried, and maybe we can learn from that mistake.

The author, like any artist, loses control of the interpretation of the text upon release to the audiences of the world. The author may try to clarify as best as they can, and schools of thought may attempt to put primacy upon certain contextual ways. But once the work leaves the maker its message is dependent upon who receives it.

And thus you now know how Tzeench causes chaos! :D

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat. I've heard that said about many games since D&D first came out and here is how I replied in my own rules:
"That I provide elaborate combat rules does not mean that combat should be the focus of your campaign. Your GM can provide you many situations and challenges where combat can be avoided and some where it isn't even an option. The rules are there for when you need them.
I ran an eighteen-month campaign where the PCs were performers and roadies in the world's first Elven Fusion rock band. There was some fighting but it was far from a major feature of the campaign."

I.E. Rule Zero.

Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;10398374th ed had the good intention, but bad implementation, of trying to create an engaging universal system for resolving non-combat stuff that approached the level of detail of the combat system. While I think the Skill Challenge system was not a good way to approach it, I can say at least they tried, and maybe we can learn from that mistake.

They tried completely the wrong things however.  They went a long way toward constraining any advantage that a player might be able to get by creative or lateral thinking or approaches to a situation and drew it all back to a series of skill roles.  Anything you wanted to do to resolve the situation - make a skill role.  Come up with a clever plan to avoid the need to avoid making a role in situations you're not suited for?  - nope, that's just colour - make a skill role.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

"All bets made by all players go in a pile of chips in the center of the table, called the pot. No player can compete for the pot unless they are willing to meet the highest bet made by another player. Because of this rule, players are able to bluff and win the pot (everyone else folds, because they don't want to call the bet)."

https://www.hoylegaming.com/rules/showrule.aspx?RuleID=222

Not everything needs to have full mechanical support, fluff can account for a lot of the non-combat stuff. You can roleplay things out, but it can't hurt to have more clearly defined guidelines for how to do other stuff, or more examples. There may also be some value in games that give explicit incentives to roleplay things such as Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Engine.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

That's sort of true but the complaints I hear (about other games because mine has not been widely read yet) are not about the proportion of combat rules compared to the rest of the rules but about the simple size of the combat rules. I suppose I have heard the complaint most about OD&D and the combat rules are not "most of its pages." Nor are they most of the pages in mine.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

Somewhere someone must because it, bluffing, is in some printed rules. The concept should be obvious from the fact that you win the pot if you bet and everyone else folds but I guess it isn't obvious to everyone.

Quote from: TJS;1039887They tried completely the wrong things however.  They went a long way toward constraining any advantage that a player might be able to get by creative or lateral thinking or approaches to a situation and drew it all back to a series of skill roles.  Anything you wanted to do to resolve the situation - make a skill role.  Come up with a clever plan to avoid the need to avoid making a role in situations you're not suited for?  - nope, that's just colour - make a skill role.

Mechanics for resolving negotiation, persuasion and such reduce the amount of  roleplaying required and the people who don't bother,  because "it's just color" make it less enjoyable for some others and possibly themselves.  That people ask for such rules in the name of roleplaying. Go figure.

I have included skills like that but admit up front that they are little used in our campaigns and heavily influenced by bonuses for what the character says when they are.

Quote from: Krimson;1039784So put that somewhere near the beginning of the combat chapter, and maybe add another chapter, or even a few paragraphs on alternate problem solving methods. :)

Great ideas. I have already done some of the latter but moving that to the beginning of the chapter is brilliant. It is one of those ideas that is obvious once one hears or reads it but neither my editor nor  I had thought of it.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat.

Some people seem to be replying as if the word I put in bold were not there.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1039804If a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

But not necessarily all about that thing.

Quote from: finarvyn;1039811Maybe, but I think that the "vibe" of a game can be found by reading the rules. If combat is all you get, that's all the reader will expect to deliver.

Sure, but William wasn't talking about avoiding a combat "vibe" and he wasn't talking about a game where combat is all you get - just that if you do get a crunchy combat system (and presumably, other things), that doesn't mean that game is all about combat.

As Steven already wrote:

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1039818False dichotomy.  If a game spends all its pages and energy (or so close to "all" as to make no difference) on one thing, then it is probably about that thing.  However, if a game can explain how a major part of the game works in less words than some other part of the game, that's just the nature of how those parts work in the game. ...

Quote from: RunningLaser;1039823... Most games have some sort of mechanical focus.  If a 100 page rulebook spends half that page count on combat and things related to combat, then that game's main focus is on combat. ...

Ok, but no one was claiming otherwise.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1039823It just seems weird that games where combat supposedly isn't the focus because it's lethal and to be avoided at nearly all costs, have some of the most detailed combat systems out there.  If it's not the focus and you want it lethal, there's probably other ways it can be done.

An interesting but different point.

I like combat to be crunchy and lethal but I also like actually playing that crunchy combat system to be a major focus of a game, and am disappointed when a game features crunchy combat but it barely gets used.

However, I do know of a couple of types of games where combat is crunchy/lethal and "to be avoided at nearly all costs" and that makes a game I'd want to play:

1) A game where you do whatever you can to avoid combat, but eventually it will break out and then you get to play a glorious crunchy combat based on the situation that was put in place by everyone avoiding it as much as they could. That can be really interesting and a lot like many actual situations go down.

2) A game where you do whatever you can to avoid combat, and might not even ever get into combat, but how exactly you do that matters a lot, and takes into account and is made real by the crunchy combat system you're trying to avoid using. For example, games where agents sneak around trying to accomplish things without getting into combat. Or games where there's a fragile peace kept in place by mutual fear and visible movements of forces (like type 1 above, but the combat doesn't ever break out). In these games, the crunchy/lethal system makes the situation about the danger a detailed and actual thing.

And yes you can play those types of games without the crunchy system backing it up, but personally I'd rather have it.

Quote from: Luca;1039835If you spend most of your allotted page count for an aspect of your product which you see as secondary, you've failed as a designer.

Maybe. But again, not what William or anyone here was saying otherwise.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat. I've heard that said about many games since D&D first came out and here is how I replied in my own rules:
"That I provide elaborate combat rules does not mean that combat should be the focus of your campaign. Your GM can provide you many situations and challenges where combat can be avoided and some where it isn't even an option. The rules are there for when you need them.
I ran an eighteen-month campaign where the PCs were performers and roadies in the world's first Elven Fusion rock band. There was some fighting but it was far from a major feature of the campaign."

I feel like when I design a game, I owe my players and GMs a conversation about how that game should play.

If you want them to know about and use the "tactical infinity", then call that out and bring it to their attention. I made a call-out box in Tian Shang about that very thing; sure, kung-fu super powers dominate the word count, but we have a conversation about the other stuff you can do. That conversation is prominent, and importantly it gives practical instruction for interacting with the setting.

Still, whatever you dedicate the most word count to is probably what your game is about.

In theory you could do something with Tian-Shang that isn't magical kung-fu battles, but... Why would you do that? The system is begging you to rocket-punch your foes into the Heaviside layer. Why resist that call?

I think a lot of games feature extensive sections of rules for combat because many (most?) players want combat to be detailed. It is quite possible to have a game where combats are decided by a single dice rolls with a few modifiers.   Gamers like crunchy, detailed combat.

It is possible to write a "conflict resolution" system that treats other conflicts with mechanics similar to combat. Mouse Guard (and presumable Burning Wheel) do this. Lace and Steel has a repartee combat system that works social combats in parallel to physical combats.

Combat is also a naturally thrilling and exciting situation. Fighting gets adrenaline pumping. So it gets lots of rules focus to try and make game play as interesting, engaging, and exciting as actual combat.  Not all games succeed equally well at this. Some combat systems are as dry and dull as unbuttered toast.

Writing rules that make each skill as detailed in execution as combat and are also exciting, or at least interesting to play is a challenge.  I don't really want to role play through all the steps of baking a loaf of bread, I would rather just making a Cooking skill roll at most and get on with the game.  As for negotiation and social interactions, I would prefer to do at least a little in character roleplaying before tossing the dice to see what happens.  "I Negotiate my way past the guard" is not very exciting to me.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1039932I think a lot of games feature extensive sections of rules for combat because many (most?) players want combat to be detailed. It is quite possible to have a game where combats are decided by a single dice rolls with a few modifiers.   Gamers like crunchy, detailed combat.

It is possible to write a "conflict resolution" system that treats other conflicts with mechanics similar to combat. Mouse Guard (and presumable Burning Wheel) do this. Lace and Steel has a repartee combat system that works social combats in parallel to physical combats.

Combat is also a naturally thrilling and exciting situation. Fighting gets adrenaline pumping. So it gets lots of rules focus to try and make game play as interesting, engaging, and exciting as actual combat.  Not all games succeed equally well at this. Some combat systems are as dry and dull as unbuttered toast.

Writing rules that make each skill as detailed in execution as combat and are also exciting, or at least interesting to play is a challenge.  I don't really want to role play through all the steps of baking a loaf of bread, I would rather just making a Cooking skill roll at most and get on with the game.  As for negotiation and social interactions, I would prefer to do at least a little in character roleplaying before tossing the dice to see what happens.  "I Negotiate my way past the guard" is not very exciting to me.

In combat, there are a lot of choices defined by the rules. Do you attack the archer or the wizard? Which opponent is more dangerous? If I move to attack the wizard, I'll be close to the lava pit. I can push him in, but he might try to push me in. The cleric went down, should we retreat now? etc, etc, etc...
Skill checks and non-combat resolution is, for the most part in D&D a single dice roll plus or minus some situational modifiers. And not every skill should be rolled for. Baking bread is not very exciting, or even relevant unless you're in some strange baking competition.
Skill Challenges at least drew out the more important non-combat tasks, which I had been doing before that with a "best 2 out of 3" rule for critical checks.
I too wouldn't want a task to be boiled down to a dice roll, but in the end, a skill check does boil down to a dice roll. I'd like to see player ingenuity preserved in such a system. And I really don't want to see social/problem solving tasks rendered as if they were combats. I think that abstracts the task too far into Skill Challenge territory.

[Not all of these are direct responses to your reply, I'm brainstorming here.]

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039918Somewhere someone must because it, bluffing, is in some printed rules. The concept should be obvious from the fact that you win the pot if you bet and everyone else folds but I guess it isn't obvious to everyone.

Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules. Bluffing wouldn't be a thing if there was no raising/calling rules in Poker.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1039946Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules. Bluffing wouldn't be a thing if there was no raising/calling rules in Poker.

So what are the rules for bluffing, per Hoyle?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039964So what are the rules for bluffing, per Hoyle?

I never said there was an explicit rule for bluffing. Someone did claim:

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Crom's hairy nutsack.

Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

Which is, of course, untrue.
Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules of raising and calling, and is mentioned on Hoyle's website where they have the rules for poker.

Quote from: SpinachcatIf a game book spend most of its pages on one thing, then the game is about that thing.

Quote from: Omega;1039807Only to stupid people.

Or perhaps a reader might fairly assume that if something is given a lot of pages, it's important to the writer, since a writer spending a lot of pages on something irrelevant and few pages on something relevant is, well... a stupid person.

Writing a long combat chapter and then being surprised when players think the game is largely about combat is like building a website full of porn videos and then being surprised when people say it's porn.

Quote from: RunningLaser;1039823I'm in agreement with Spinachcat, thus I am stupid according to Omega ( and most people who meet me:)).  Most games have some sort of mechanical focus.  If a 100 page rulebook spends half that page count on combat and things related to combat, then that game's main focus is on combat.  The same could be said if it was half about magic, or social interactions..

I am also a complete idiot for thinking that time (e.g., allotted pages, reader attention span, etc.) spent on a topic represents relative importance to the writer.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039921Great ideas. I have already done some of the latter but moving that to the beginning of the chapter is brilliant. It is one of those ideas that is obvious once one hears or reads it but neither my editor nor  I had thought of it.

One way to go about it is the old school method of encounters and reactions, such as using the Mentzer Monster Reaction Table (I will never stop plugging this) for more than just monsters, such as using it for things like negotiation, manipulation, diplomacy, or what have you. If you are using a more modern iteration of d20/D&D then I ported it over (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?36881-Adapting-the-Mentzer-Monster-Reaction-Chart-for-5e) to a d20 system for your convenience.

Mind you, though I mentioned having some wordage about alternate problem solving methods, I don't think you necessarily need a new mechanic for this. Even just encouraging it through roleplay and maybe some skill rolls might be sufficient.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039964So what are the rules for bluffing, per Hoyle?

You bet and see if some one raises, calls or folds.

The object of the game is to win the pot. A player can win the pot in one of two ways:
After all bets are in, all players who are still in show their hands. This is called a showdown. The player with the best hand wins.

If during betting, a player makes a bet that no other players are willing to meet, that player wins the pot without showing his/her cards. (https://www.hoylegaming.com/rules/showrule.aspx?RuleID=222)

In any case bluff, bluffing appears MANY times on the Hoyle website for poker rules (https://www.hoylegaming.com/rules/showrule.aspx?RuleID=222). I counted seven.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1039966Or perhaps a reader might fairly assume that if something is given a lot of pages, it's important to the writer, since a writer spending a lot of pages on something irrelevant and few pages on something relevant is, well... a stupid person.

Writing a long combat chapter and then being surprised when players think the game is largely about combat is like building a website full of porn videos and then being surprised when people say it's porn.

Would this then imply OD&D is about exploration, not combat, since it only obliquely references how to fight anything and the "alternative combat system" is just a few paragraphs?

Quote from: Brad;1040038Would this then imply OD&D is about exploration, not combat, since it only obliquely references how to fight anything and the "alternative combat system" is just a few paragraphs?

...Yeah? Of course it is. D&D being "about combat" was a very alien notion when it stumbled awkwardly into the limelight around 3.0

Quote from: Opaopajr;1039838The author, like any artist, loses control of the interpretation of the text upon release to the audiences of the world. The author may try to clarify as best as they can, and schools of thought may attempt to put primacy upon certain contextual ways. But once the work leaves the maker its message is dependent upon who receives it.

And thus you now know how Tzeench causes chaos! :D

I agree. It made me think of a story my mom told, about a teacher in college who said a particular line of poetry mean something, and nothing else. One of the other students brought in a newspaper clipping. TS Eliot was asked in an interview what he meant when he wrote that particular line of poetry. He replied "I don't remember. It means whatever you want it to mean."

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039920Mechanics for resolving negotiation, persuasion and such reduce the amount of  roleplaying required and the people who don't bother,  because "it's just color" make it less enjoyable for some others and possibly themselves.  That people ask for such rules in the name of roleplaying. Go figure.

I have included skills like that but admit up front that they are little used in our campaigns and heavily influenced by bonuses for what the character says when they are.

We roleplay the negotiation and persuasion. I give bonuses (or minuses) based on the contents of the roleplaying (not the skill of the roleplaying). But we use, and want, the rules for rolling to resolve what happens. It is fun when, as a joke, one character shouted "Yoohoo! Cave Catering! Someone called for food?" and was coincidentally right in front of the spy hole. And the roll went really heavily in favor of the characters.

But we're a pretty weird group in a lot of ways. We like the role playing and we like the roll playing too.

Quote from: Azraele;1040045...Yeah? Of course it is. D&D being "about combat" was a very alien notion when it stumbled awkwardly into the limelight around 3.0

I know, I was being somewhat sarcastic...it wasn't until I started playing 3rd that combat became a focus, to the point of characters being nothing more than a set of modifiers that helped with fighting. That isn't to say the old BECMI game I played from level 1-36 over the course of an entire summer wasn't filled with combat, but that was definitely for a purpose, not an end in itself.

Quote from: Tod13;1040047I agree. It made me think of a story my mom told, about a teacher in college who said a particular line of poetry mean something, and nothing else. One of the other students brought in a newspaper clipping. TS Eliot was asked in an interview what he meant when he wrote that particular line of poetry. He replied "I don't remember. It means whatever you want it to mean."

Sure. But if I say D&D is an instruction manual for shooting baby kittens into the sun with a huge cannon, I bet people will find my interpretation rather odd.
And an added wrinkle is that RPG are also games with rules, which does bring up the topic of RAW (Rules As Written) and RAI (Rules As Intended).

Quote from: Brad;1040052I know, I was being somewhat sarcastic...it wasn't until I started playing 3rd that combat became a focus, to the point of characters being nothing more than a set of modifiers that helped with fighting. That isn't to say the old BECMI game I played from level 1-36 over the course of an entire summer wasn't filled with combat, but that was definitely for a purpose, not an end in itself.

Oh I see. I shouldn't post drunk but... Yeah not gonna stop

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1039821RPGs are the only gaming hobby where you find folks who claim the people who think a game is about what its rules make it about to be stupid.

TT RPGS might be close to singular in that there really even needs to be any discussion about what the game is "about." Most other things that fall under the term 'game' are about winning them in some fashion or another and the most one needs to worry about are questions of victory condition (is it flat out win, beating a high score/opposition, or even 'winning, but not while using such and such cheap method,' recent example on Chirine's thread of wargamers 'beating' other side, but missing what actual victory condition was and thus losing).

On a meta level, all TTRPGs are 'about' having fun playing them. Beyond that, one can only really talk about what they urge, incentivize, or promote.  

QuoteBut it gets worse, as I've even seen people claim that combat rules are actually there to discourage players from engaging in combat. In other words, they're a penalty for engaging in a particular part of play.

I'm guessing that's a reference to osr D&D. And the thing is, the game is about combat and discourages combat. Is that having it both ways? Absolutely! Ever hear the idea that the goal of golf is to play as little golf as possible? Same with osr D&D -- the gp=xp with extremely risky combat absolutely incentivizes playing such as to minimize combat. The system is sublimely simple and it is amazing how that small amount of text can change the system so completely (and that's where the argument that the amount of text is not the deciding factor has the most merit).

Hoooowwwowwowwowwwwever, as has been think-pieced to death, pretty much the instant the game hit the market, people looked at it and said, roughly, 'why would I want to play a sword and sorcery game (and with all these lovely charts and rules regarding the determination of victory in combat) where I systematically fail both to sword, and to sorc? I'm instead going to...' and gone on to play the way they wanted to play in the first place, completely at peace with the people howling that they were somehow doing it wrong. And the battle for the control of the spirit of the game (and thus 'what it is about') has continued since.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1039838The author, like any artist, loses control of the interpretation of the text upon release to the audiences of the world. The author may try to clarify as best as they can, and schools of thought may attempt to put primacy upon certain contextual ways. But once the work leaves the maker its message is dependent upon who receives it.

And that's the other part. Neither the author, nor we, have any real say in what others do with the material. The future authors, at least, can learn from past failures to control said narrative and use that to shape their product to better incentivize people to want to use them the way said author prefers (if that's a goal).

Quote from: Brad;1040038Would this then imply OD&D is about exploration, not combat, since it only obliquely references how to fight anything and the "alternative combat system" is just a few paragraphs?

And let's not forget that CHARISMA gets a longer writeup than any stat, and if the rules on NPC reaction, negotiation, and hiring aren't longer than the combat rules, it's sure close.

And don't forget that treasure descriptions are a LOT more detailed and elaborate than anything about combat.

Quote from: Tod13;1040047I agree. It made me think of a story my mom told, about a teacher in college who said a particular line of poetry mean something, and nothing else. One of the other students brought in a newspaper clipping. TS Eliot was asked in an interview what he meant when he wrote that particular line of poetry. He replied "I don't remember. It means whatever you want it to mean."

:) It is one of the major issues of communication in general. How do we transmit intention, purpose, priority? And it extends to all facets of life. For a fun example see the movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy."

Context is only everything. And human beings, with all their craziness and variance through time and space, are a universe of context unto themselves. :) And now you know you live in the Eye of Terror.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1040129:) It is one of the major issues of communication in general. How do we transmit intention, purpose, priority? And it extends to all facets of life. For a fun example see the movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy."

Context is only everything. And human beings, with all their craziness and variance through time and space, are a universe of context unto themselves. :) And now you know you live in the Eye of Terror.

I knew a guy whose job it was to proofread nuclear munitions manuals for problems like "remove the detonator." next page "But first disconnect explosive bolts A and B". :D

Quote from: Tod13;1040140I knew a guy whose job it was to proofread nuclear munitions manuals for problems like "remove the detonator." next page "But first disconnect explosive bolts A and B". :D

Subtract the 'nuclear' bit and that was a great episode of M*A*S*H -- bomb landed in the compound and the instruction manual for disarming it had that almost word-for-word (and thus they set off the bomb, but it was a propaganda leaflet-bomb).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040190Subtract the 'nuclear' bit and that was a great episode of M*A*S*H -- bomb landed in the compound and the instruction manual for disarming it had that almost word-for-word (and thus they set off the bomb, but it was a propaganda leaflet-bomb).

LOL I remember that episode! From the conversation, something very close to what I wrote was something he actually found and corrected.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040190Subtract the 'nuclear' bit and that was a great episode of M*A*S*H -- bomb landed in the compound and the instruction manual for disarming it had that almost word-for-word (and thus they set off the bomb, but it was a propaganda leaflet-bomb).

"We have to evacuate!"
"I think I just did."

If I ignore 80% of the rules in a game, and I actually playing it?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040072On a meta level, all TTRPGs are 'about' having fun playing them.

This is true of all recreational activities, therefore too broad a constraint for useful discussion.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040072Beyond that, one can only really talk about what they urge, incentivize, or promote.

This on the other hand is perfect, so let's go with that.

In my experience combat heavy rulesets lead to character building minigames, putting rules before reason, and encounters which take hours to resolve.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1039946Bluffing is a tactic that emerges from the rules. Bluffing wouldn't be a thing if there was no raising/calling rules in Poker.

Bluffing is an inevitable result of following the rules as written, and such a fundamental part of Poker that it's impossible to make a rule against it. There isn't even a way to determine if bluffing is actually taking place.

Quote from: TJS;1039887They went a long way toward constraining any advantage that a player might be able to get by creative or lateral thinking or approaches to a situation and drew it all back to a series of skill roles.  Anything you wanted to do to resolve the situation - make a skill role.  Come up with a clever plan to avoid the need to avoid making a role in situations you're not suited for?  - nope, that's just colour - make a skill role.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039920Mechanics for resolving negotiation, persuasion and such reduce the amount of  roleplaying required and the people who don't bother,  because "it's just color" make it less enjoyable for some others and possibly themselves.

These are examples of how rules can make a game not about something.

And combat heavy rules can very much make a game not about anything else.

Quote from: Tod13;1040140I knew a guy whose job it was to proofread nuclear munitions manuals for problems like "remove the detonator." next page "But first disconnect explosive bolts A and B". :D

You can never have too much water in a nuclear reactor.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1040367This is true of all recreational activities, therefore too broad a constraint for useful discussion.

Which I think perfectly encapsulates the nature of trying to make declarations regarding what a TTRPG is 'about.'

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040368Which I think perfectly encapsulates the nature of trying to make declarations regarding what a TTRPG is 'about.'

How Postmodern of you.

A game is about what happens at the table, and rules are designed to guide that in a specific, consistent, and reliable way. Of course you can't force anyone to follow a set of rules, but you can make reliable predictions as to what will happen if they're followed.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1040617How Postmodern of you.

A game is about what happens at the table, and rules are designed to guide that in a specific, consistent, and reliable way. Of course you can't force anyone to follow a set of rules, but you can make reliable predictions as to what will happen if they're followed.

So in other words, 'what they urge, incentivize, or promote?'

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1039884Bluffing appears NOWHERE in the rules of poker.  Not everybody needs to be led around by their dinkie.

Is laughing and going "Hell, yeah!" when you get a flush in the rules?

Quote from: soltakss;1040630Is laughing and going "Hell, yeah!" when you get a flush in the rules?

Only in DnD 3.PF and HERO 8 editions. :p (It produces modifiers for your next hand, of course.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;1040680Only in DnD 3.PF and HERO 8 editions. :p (It produces modifiers for your next hand, of course.)

That sounds like a Fate thing - which does have rules for sabotaging yourself now for future meta bonuses.

Quote from: Luca;1039835If you spend most of your allotted page count for an aspect of your product which you see as secondary, you've failed as a designer.

No. This little fallacy has been beaten to death, buried, raised from the dead, beaten to death again and then re-buried.

You have rules to cover the things you think need covering. Combat tends to be one of those things that needs covering. Talking to NPCs does not. And the combat rules in D&D actually take up not all that much page count. If we are using "page count" as some sort of measuring stick then monsters and then spells beats out all that.

In Moldvay Basic Spells uses 4 pages, Combat uses 5, Treasure uses 6, Chargen uses 9, Monsters uses 16.

Quote from: Omega;1040713No. This little fallacy has been beaten to death, buried, raised from the dead, beaten to death again and then re-buried.

You have rules to cover the things you think need covering. Combat tends to be one of those things that needs covering. Talking to NPCs does not. And the combat rules in D&D actually take up not all that much page count. If we are using "page count" as some sort of measuring stick then monsters and then spells beats out all that.

In Moldvay Basic Spells uses 4 pages, Combat uses 5, Treasure uses 6, Chargen uses 9, Monsters uses 16.

If role-playing is the most important thing in role-playing games why would anyone think that is something that needs not to be covered?

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1040716If role-playing is the most important thing in role-playing games why would anyone think that is something that needs not to be covered?

For the same reason that the diplomacy rules in Diplomacy cover only 174 words.  People are assumed to know how to talk.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040724For the same reason that the diplomacy rules in Diplomacy cover only 174 words.  People are assumed to know how to talk.

Yet the rules do set out when to discuss their plans/schemes. So it does actually tell them to interact and when.

Good try though. Was wondering where you'd go after that poker nonsense was put out to pasture.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040724For the same reason that the diplomacy rules in Diplomacy cover only 174 words.  People are assumed to know how to talk.

We never won a game of Diplomacy.

(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e1/a6/e5/e1a6e59a453be465811766f1ff7daaa7.jpg)

Quote from: Omega;1040713No. This little fallacy has been beaten to death, buried, raised from the dead, beaten to death again and then re-buried.

You have rules to cover the things you think need covering. Combat tends to be one of those things that needs covering. Talking to NPCs does not. And the combat rules in D&D actually take up not all that much page count. If we are using "page count" as some sort of measuring stick then monsters and then spells beats out all that.

In Moldvay Basic Spells uses 4 pages, Combat uses 5, Treasure uses 6, Chargen uses 9, Monsters uses 16.

How many of those spells are purely combat spells? how much of that treasure is just upgraded combat equipment? how many character options are purely combat focused? How many of those monsters are fleshed out in a noncombat setting? are there actually rules for tricking, taming, or otherwise integrating those monsters for noncombat uses, or do they just exist as obstacles for the PCs to stick with their pointy metal sticks? (actually this is half serious, I haven't picked up a D&D book for a very long time)

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1040725Yet the rules do set out when to discuss their plans/schemes. So it does actually tell them to interact and when.

Good try though. Was wondering where you'd go after that poker nonsense was put out to pasture.

Congratulations, you've just made it utterly obvious that you've never actually played Diplomacy.

(q.v. "ultracrepidarianism")

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040732Congratulations, you've just made it utterly obvious that you've never actually played Diplomacy.

(q.v. "ultracrepidarianism")

Are you denying the rules now?

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040730How many of those spells are purely combat spells? how much of that treasure is just upgraded combat equipment? how many character options are purely combat focused? How many of those monsters are fleshed out in a noncombat setting? are there actually rules for tricking, taming, or otherwise integrating those monsters for noncombat uses, or do they just exist as obstacles for the PCs to stick with their pointy metal sticks? (actually this is half serious, I haven't picked up a D&D book for a very long time)

Oh man, you're talking about the whole reason I play OSR games.


-The minority of spells are combat spells. Like, 1/5th or 1/10th in the spell lists that I have. Most of them are things like repairing items, floating disks, summoning water, talking with animals... Y'know, magic! It really encourages non-combat problem solving. It also gives the early-level wizards a larger contribution to the party before they get those fireballs rolling and become living tanks (though that's fun too!)

-I have a supplement that dedicates *pages* of text to the load-bearing capacity of various monsters and creatures. Later, in that same supplement, there are logistics rules for construction projects. We're talking dozens of pages of useful, 100% utility rules-text, none of which is combat

-Equipment like helms of telepathy and cloaks of invisibility *do have* combat uses! But, that's not really their primary utility. Things like horns of plenty and flying carpets abound in D&D

-A fighter clearly has a "combat focus", but I rarely see "charge in to every fight!" in OSR games. It's generally wiser to set up traps and ambushes, negotiate, or avoid dangerous encounters, and you totally can! Because characters are assumed to be able to operate like humans; they can interact with physical reality (well, the game's reality anyway) and talk and negotiate. You just need to know how to run that as a GM (The Alexandrian is a great place for advice on that very thing)

-There are indeed rules for taming, tricking, negotiating with, and otherwise interacting with monsters. Many of them (especially in older editions of D&D) are governed lightly, by things like reaction rolls and discussions on dropping treasure or food to distract monsters during a chase. There's a persistent assumption in the OSR (and it is a reasonable one) that "you can do what a person can do"; you don't need each of those interactions detailed numerically, it's much better to have guidelines or rule by common sense. This isn't a post-3.0 assumption; that edition tended to over-detail things (leading to pathfinder and it's laughable rules-bloat). Modern OSR games, ACKS at least in my experience, do a good job of riding the complexity-line and giving somewhat stronger guidelines in this regard.

Examples!
-My wife tamed a bear. A bear! As a level-1 Elf. That game got gory fast.
-Then later? She tamed a Troll. Welcome to the OSR, kids
-My players keep making friends with the big bad guys. They've got so many happy vampires that they routinely feed and bribe.
-In my most recent campaign, the players tamed a trio (a TRIO) of dragons and used them to lay waste to 400 hexes of alien landscape. That's how you end a campaign, folks

Quote from: Azraele;1040734Oh man, you're talking about the whole reason I play OSR games.


-The minority of spells are combat spells. Like, 1/5th or 1/10th in the spell lists that I have. Most of them are things like repairing items, floating disks, summoning water, talking with animals... Y'know, magic! It really encourages non-combat problem solving. It also gives the early-level wizards a larger contribution to the party before they get those fireballs rolling and become living tanks (though that's fun too!)

-I have a supplement that dedicates *pages* of text to the load-bearing capacity of various monsters and creatures. Later, in that same supplement, there are logistics rules for construction projects. We're talking dozens of pages of useful, 100% utility rules-text, none of which is combat

-Equipment like helms of telepathy and cloaks of invisibility *do have* combat uses! But, that's not really their primary utility. Things like horns of plenty and flying carpets abound in D&D

-A fighter clearly has a "combat focus", but I rarely see "charge in to every fight!" in OSR games. It's generally wiser to set up traps and ambushes, negotiate, or avoid dangerous encounters, and you totally can! Because characters are assumed to be able to operate like humans; they can interact with physical reality (well, the game's reality anyway) and talk and negotiate. You just need to know how to run that as a GM (The Alexandrian is a great place for advice on that very thing)

-There are indeed rules for taming, tricking, negotiating with, and otherwise interacting with monsters. Many of them (especially in older editions of D&D) are governed lightly, by things like reaction rolls and discussions on dropping treasure or food to distract monsters during a chase. There's a persistent assumption in the OSR (and it is a reasonable one) that "you can do what a person can do"; you don't need each of those interactions detailed numerically, it's much better to have guidelines or rule by common sense. This isn't a post-3.0 assumption; that edition tended to over-detail things (leading to pathfinder and it's laughable rules-bloat). Modern OSR games, ACKS at least in my experience, do a good job of riding the complexity-line and giving somewhat stronger guidelines in this regard.

Examples!
-My wife tamed a bear. A bear! As a level-1 Elf. That game got gory fast.
-Then later? She tamed a Troll. Welcome to the OSR, kids
-My players keep making friends with the big bad guys. They've got so many happy vampires that they routinely feed and bribe.
-In my most recent campaign, the players tamed a trio (a TRIO) of dragons and used them to lay waste to 400 hexes of alien landscape. That's how you end a campaign, folks

cool, although I was mostly focused on core rules stuff not supplements. (I also didn't realize that Moldvay basic spells was a things, to me it just sounded like some 5e chapter header, if the supplements are any indication)

Although, I will say I don't mind comprehensive rules for things... especially taming animals, since that's not exactly an easy thing to do in real life. (I actually prefer more complex rules for noncombat actions like crafting and the like, just because it lets you make that out of combat time feel more worthwhile, and lets you actually make interesting things in the meantime)

There are other reasons I don't like or play OSR very much (but I do enjoy reading and borrowing from the SWN and LOTFP books), but they don't really relate to the combat or "what the game is about."

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040735cool, although I was mostly focused on core rules stuff not supplements. (I also didn't realize that Moldvay basic spells was a things, to me it just sounded like some 5e chapter header, if the supplements are any indication)

Although, I will say I don't mind comprehensive rules for things... especially taming animals, since that's not exactly an easy thing to do in real life. (I actually prefer more complex rules for noncombat actions like crafting and the like, just because it lets you make that out of combat time feel more worthwhile, and lets you actually make interesting things in the meantime)

There are other reasons I don't like or play OSR very much (but I do enjoy reading and borrowing from the SWN and LOTFP books), but they don't really relate to the combat or "what the game is about."

The terrifying thing is that most of the above is and was derived from the original wood-grain. Whenever you use real-world physics and social interactions as your judgment mechanism for how and why things happen, this is the result. Most modern games treat their reality as derived from the rules, rather than the other way around, and it just causes so many problems. So many.

The idea that the page count dedicated to something correlates with its relative importance to the game comes from exactly the same impulse that thought you could measure productivity of software developers by counting lines of code.  It's one of those things that sounds plausible on the surface, if you don't really think about it very much.  

Fortunately for gamers, for sake of understanding this idea, in software it was pushed hard by people for years, who simply would not give it up despite any contrary evidence or reason.  It was so pernicious, that finally it was scientifically measured multiple times, and found to be utterly without merit.  Even now, though, it still rears its head when some manager has to be educated on reality.  I suspect that the next fad we will see in gaming will be the equivalent of counting "function points" as a more complex, sophisticated way of ... counting things that don't really tell you anything outside of a particular context.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1040738The idea that the page count dedicated to something correlates with its relative importance to the game comes from exactly the same impulse that thought you could measure productivity of software developers by counting lines of code.  It's one of those things that sounds plausible on the surface, if you don't really think about it very much.  

Fortunately for gamers, for sake of understanding this idea, in software it was pushed hard by people for years, who simply would not give it up despite any contrary evidence or reason.  It was so pernicious, that finally it was scientifically measured multiple times, and found to be utterly without merit.  Even now, though, it still rears its head when some manager has to be educated on reality.  I suspect that the next fad we will see in gaming will be the equivalent of counting "function points" as a more complex, sophisticated way of ... counting things that don't really tell you anything outside of a particular context.

well... that's a bit of a faulty analogy... the closest thing I can compare this to is a play script. Sure, you can interpret the script so far from its actual text that it could mean something completely different to what you might interpret on a first reading, but ultimately the script is still a story with clear intent and content, adding things on to make it a performance makes it better, but generally speaking, sure, you could make Hamlet into a comedy of errors if you try hard enough, but most people would rather change the script (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, for example).

At least as important as rules focus is what behaviors the game rewards. If you give most of the xp for treasure earned then you'll have a different play style to a game where killing things is the major form of advancement.

To use editions of D&D as an example 2E was the edition where the focus from xp for gold and do for killing things started to significantly shift. By 3E you got virtually all your do from killing things so surprise, surprise, that became the default MO for the game.

Beyond that there are other incentives like what the game makes fun. If you have a detailed and exciting set of combat rules then you can bet people will want to use them. If a game makes other activities really fun the players will want to do that.

Now we know why Vampire the Masquerade was played in Superheroes by Night mode.

"In this game you should be ready to face your inner fears, as if looking at the mirror, and come out changed from the experience".... but we don't clearly explain how you achieve that, so instead take these extremely detailed rules for combat, including long lists of guns and powers, that makes combat take 1 hour minimum each time it comes up. :p

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040741well... that's a bit of a faulty analogy... the closest thing I can compare this to is a play script. Sure, you can interpret the script so far from its actual text that it could mean something completely different to what you might interpret on a first reading, but ultimately the script is still a story with clear intent and content, adding things on to make it a performance makes it better, but generally speaking, sure, you could make Hamlet into a comedy of errors if you try hard enough, but most people would rather change the script (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, for example).

Actually.  I think it's good analogy as far as it goes.  Page count is a bullshit metric.  That should be obvious on the face of it, given how overly simplistic it is.

There are things that the rules highlight, things that the rules enable and things that the rules place centre stage and rules (such as random tables) that many critics fail to see are rules at all, and all of these things influence the game in a multitude of ways and reveal the assumptions behind the game and help to bring about emergent styles of play.

Lack of rules for certain situations is more telling.  Older D&D doesn't need rules for searching in a dungeon environment because the situation is generally simple enough that the players can just describe what they are doing.  However, if I want to run an urban mystery game where the players search an entire house for clues, then it's going to become tedious pixel bitching if I make the players describe going through all the sock and underwear drawers one by one.

What matters is what the rules can abstract, and what they bring into focus - and you certainly cannot tell this from page count.

Quote from: TJS;1040759Actually.  I think it's good analogy as far as it goes.  Page count is a bullshit metric.  That should be obvious on the face of it, given how overly simplistic it is.

There are things that the rules highlight, things that the rules enable and things that the rules place centre stage and rules (such as random tables) that many critics fail to see are rules at all, and all of these things influence the game in a multitude of ways and reveal the assumptions behind the game and help to bring about emergent styles of play.

Lack of rules for certain situations is more telling.  Older D&D doesn't need rules for searching in a dungeon environment because the situation is generally simple enough that the players can just describe what they are doing.  However, if I want to run an urban mystery game where the players search an entire house for clues, then it's going to become tedious pixel bitching if I make the players describe going through all the sock and underwear drawers one by one.

What matters is what the rules can abstract, and what they bring into focus - and you certainly cannot tell this from page count.

that's fair, but I think the idea is less the literal page count and more just the content itself, the page count is just being used as an abstraction do quantify the volume of content related to specific elements. Searching rooms is something you will do in practically every rpg, but if an RPG has clearly defined mechanics for searching a room, and dedicates a large volume of information towards those rules, would it not be correct to assume that a significant focus of the RPG is searching rooms? Sure, individual tables might do away with or avoid using these rules, but that isn't exactly playing the game the way it was clearly meant to be done, in essence, what the game was "about".

Although, I seem to remember there being a search skill roll of some kind in AD&D (of course, I haven't played it since middle school, so perhaps I'm miss-remembering, but I clearly remember our thief rolling some kind of search the room roll whenever we entered one).

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040762that's fair, but I think the idea is less the literal page count and more just the content itself, the page count is just being used as an abstraction do quantify the volume of content related to specific elements. Searching rooms is something you will do in practically every rpg, but if an RPG has clearly defined mechanics for searching a room, and dedicates a large volume of information towards those rules, would it not be correct to assume that a significant focus of the RPG is searching rooms? Sure, individual tables might do away with or avoid using these rules, but that isn't exactly playing the game the way it was clearly meant to be done, in essence, what the game was "about".

Although, I seem to remember there being a search skill roll of some kind in AD&D (of course, I haven't played it since middle school, so perhaps I'm miss-remembering, but I clearly remember our thief rolling some kind of search the room roll whenever we entered one).

It may be ok as tentative first assumption but not as dogma.  Why are there such involved searching rules?

I can imagine a Police Procedural game in which most of the game actually involves talking to witnesses and getting into gun fights and doing lots of other stuff, and there might only be one room searched every adventure - but that search usually comes at the murder scene at the beginning of the adventure and experience points at the end are based on criminals actually being convicted - and that depends on police procedures being followed closely, which is why there are such involved search rules (it's a crucial possible point of failure for the players).

All this would tell us that the resolution of searches is important in this game - it says nothing really about how frequent they will be.  There might be one every session or 10 sessions may go by following up leads from a single investigation in which searches do not occur again.

Edit: However this example is a bit unnatural.  In my earlier example the search of the house in the mystery -would in fact be quicker than resolving a search in a dungeon - precisely because the greater abstraction involved in avoiding a search becoming a slog leads to faster resolution.  In that case the presence of explicit rules mean that search actually takes up less time in the mystery game than in D&D.

Quote from: TJS;1040763It may be ok as tentative first assumption but not as dogma.  Why are there such involved searching rules?

I can imagine a Police Procedural game in which most of the game actually involves talking to witnesses and getting into gun fights and doing lots of other stuff, and there might only be one room searched every adventure - but that search usually comes at the murder scene at the beginning of the adventure and experience points at the end are based on criminals actually being convicted - and that depends on police procedures being followed closely, which is why there are such involved search rules (it's a crucial possible point of failure for the players).

All this would tell us that the resolution of searches is important in this game - it says nothing really about how frequent they will be.  There might be one every session or 10 sessions may go by following up leads from a single investigation in which searches do not occur again.

A lot of that really depends on the pacing of sessions though. Regardless of the rules themselves, two groups using the same rules set can easily have vastly different experiences with their implementation. Using the content of sessions as an indicator of what a game is "about" doesn't really feel right because that can vary wildly from table to table. If we're trying to reach a conclusion, the only qualities of the game that don't change from table to table are the rules themselves, and the rules wont dictate the pacing of how frequently or infrequently a mechanic is used, it can only spend time explaining what rules the creators felt necessary to include. The why doesn't really matter at that point, unless the game specifically dictates when and how a rule set should be used. If that Police Procedural game just begins the searching section with "here is how you search for stuff" then the expectation is these rules will likely be used often, but if it instead specifies "these rules are for performing a detailed search of a crime scene at the beginning of a case" then the pacing is a bit clearer. But in either case, if, say, 70% of all text, rules and character options, are dedicated to performing those search rules, then no matter how frequent or infrequent you use them, the would seem to be really trying to push those search rules, especially if every character build possible is forced to contribute to that task in some significant way, regardless of character input.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040765...if, say, 70% of all text, rules and character options, are dedicated to performing those search rules, then no matter how frequent or infrequent you use them, the would seem to be really trying to push those search rules, especially if every character build possible is forced to contribute to that task in some significant way, regardless of character input.

But here the analogy breaks down because no game is ever likely to devote 70% of its space to searching.

I can imagine a game, however, where a designer wants to encourage the emergent play-style of maverick cops who constantly push the line.  In that case we might have four pages of rules involved with the process of getting a warrant for a search.  However, the purpose of these rules might be precisely, to discourage using them, you can get a warrant if you really need to, but the game encourages cutting corners and bending the rules precisely because of the rules involved.

In any case, I don't think anyone would argue that no combat in any edition of D&D is an expected style of play.  PCs are expected to venture into dangerous situations and to be exposed to the presence of dangerous monsters - it is expected that combat will occur at some point and need to be adjudicated.  But there's still a misunderstanding.  The focus of D&D rules is not combat but dungeon situations.  A lot of the rules people say are "combat rules" are more widely applicable and most of the "combat rules" are spells, aside from the spells that are obviously not combat oriented "tenser's floating disc" for example, there are those explicitly useful for avoiding combat "charm person etc" and even many of those which are combat oriented such as "Web" or "Stinking Cloud" are just as useful for avoiding combat as they are actually in combat.   Even the fireball spell, while obviously intended for combat, is clear enough in what it does that you can extrapolate it to use in other situations (eg. burning down a barn - although this is more of an edge case).

Really the focus of Early D&D's rules is not combat as such but exploration of dangerous places, specifically dungeons (or other environment providing that they are capable of being treated in at least some way broadly analogous to a dungeon - which is a surprisingly wide range of situations).

In most cases however, the failure point in exploration is being eaten by a monster.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040765A lot of that really depends on the pacing of sessions though. Regardless of the rules themselves, two groups using the same rules set can easily have vastly different experiences with their implementation. Using the content of sessions as an indicator of what a game is "about" doesn't really feel right because that can vary wildly from table to table. If we're trying to reach a conclusion, the only qualities of the game that don't change from table to table are the rules themselves, and the rules wont dictate the pacing of how frequently or infrequently a mechanic is used, it can only spend time explaining what rules the creators felt necessary to include.

It seems to me that the difficulty of deciding what the game is about based on play doesn't entail that we should then go and make such decisions based on the ruleset alone.

Maybe we should just accept that it's really difficult to straightforwardly say what a game is about and accept that some degree of indeterminacy in this regard is precisely a characteristic of rpgs.

It always pays to stand back and be extremely skeptical about reductionism.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040762that's fair, but I think the idea is less the literal page count and more just the content itself, the page count is just being used as an abstraction do quantify the volume of content related to specific elements. Searching rooms is something you will do in practically every rpg, but if an RPG has clearly defined mechanics for searching a room, and dedicates a large volume of information towards those rules, would it not be correct to assume that a significant focus of the RPG is searching rooms? Sure, individual tables might do away with or avoid using these rules, but that isn't exactly playing the game the way it was clearly meant to be done, in essence, what the game was "about".

Although, I seem to remember there being a search skill roll of some kind in AD&D (of course, I haven't played it since middle school, so perhaps I'm miss-remembering, but I clearly remember our thief rolling some kind of search the room roll whenever we entered one).

That's precisely the point of the analogy with counting lines of code.  It's being used improperly to measure something in a way that does not work.  It implies a precision that is not there.  In the same way that you can say that a developer who writes zero lines of code is probably not being productive, while a developer who writes some lines of code may be productive--and now you've exhausted the useful precision of the measurement.  

Now, as I noted in my first reply on this topic, if a game spends a high page count on a particular thing, then that is a good indication that the game seeks to be somewhat about that.  A good example would be the amount of pages and focus spent on magic in D&D.  The problem comes in assuming that there is some kind of ratio, and that the game can't also be about things without such an obvious indication.

"In order for me to role-play my character well I require mechanical support to do that."

"If there is no (mechanical) support we're just standing around telling stories."
[video=youtube_share;-dyEkUiH2nc]https://youtu.be/-dyEkUiH2nc?t=6m51s[/youtube]

Quote from: Brad;1040038Would this then imply OD&D is about exploration, not combat, since it only obliquely references how to fight anything and the "alternative combat system" is just a few paragraphs?

Obliquely? Gronan's propaganda campaign has definitely persuaded you.

Since the non-alternative combat system is Chainmail, which is all about combat, the ratio would be at least 25% if there were no other combat in the three rulebooks; but the alternate combat system takes up an entire page (with its tables); almost all of the monster descriptions talk about them in combat, and half the statistics for them are significant for combat (number appearing, armor class, hit dice and probably movement - rules for avoiding or ending combat by running away is still about combat); lots of magic items are combat related: weapons, armor, damage dealing wands and staves, various potions and protection scrolls. Without judging whether the rules for wandering monsters and such are combat related, the third volume still contains a lot of pages on land combat, aerial combat and naval combat.

More indicative is that experience is awarded for two things: meeting monsters in mortal combat and defeating them, and obtaining various forms of treasure. Prior to Greyhawk, the XP for defeating monsters was actually competitive with the treasure you might obtain. Yes, we used a lot of non-combat spells to detect treasure and scout out dungeon locations, but almost always with an eye to picking the most profitable fights.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1040072TT RPGS might be close to singular in that there really even needs to be any discussion about what the game is "about." Most other things that fall under the term 'game' are about winning them in some fashion or another and the most one needs to worry about are questions of victory condition (is it flat out win, beating a high score/opposition, or even 'winning, but not while using such and such cheap method,' recent example on Chirine's thread of wargamers 'beating' other side, but missing what actual victory condition was and thus losing).

On a meta level, all TTRPGs are 'about' having fun playing them. Beyond that, one can only really talk about what they urge, incentivize, or promote.

It's not clear how you win an ongoing campaign; it is clear how you lose (your character gets killed). Advancement is useful but not in and of itself winning; it is something that is incentivized, and therefore how one advances is also incentivized.

Many players want to advance to avoid losing and to be able to do cool things (fly, reshape the landscape, protect innocent people from some threat, but most commonly to be able to kill any enemy they meet). Some just want to explore, and go along with advancement because of other players or because they can explore additional interesting places.

QuoteI'm guessing that's a reference to osr D&D. And the thing is, the game is about combat and discourages combat. Is that having it both ways? Absolutely! Ever hear the idea that the goal of golf is to play as little golf as possible? Same with osr D&D -- the gp=xp with extremely risky combat absolutely incentivizes playing such as to minimize combat. The system is sublimely simple and it is amazing how that small amount of text can change the system so completely (and that's where the argument that the amount of text is not the deciding factor has the most merit).

I have to disagree; 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).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040097And let's not forget that CHARISMA gets a longer writeup than any stat, and if the rules on NPC reaction, negotiation, and hiring aren't longer than the combat rules, it's sure close.

It's not really close, even if you don't accept that references to Chainmail mean that 25% of the rules are Chainmail. And while some of the hirelings and followers were sages and craftsmen, they were mostly mercenaries, men-at-arms and others who could fight for the character. Charisma can increase the size of the party (useful for combat purposes, but more ways to divide the XP) and avoid unprofitable fights, but brokering peace doesn't by itself give any XP.

QuoteAnd don't forget that treasure descriptions are a LOT more detailed and elaborate than anything about combat.

The argument about spell descriptions that aren't combat oriented is far more convincing; magic items are more frequently about combat.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1040730How many of those spells are purely combat spells? how much of that treasure is just upgraded combat equipment? how many character options are purely combat focused? How many of those monsters are fleshed out in a noncombat setting? are there actually rules for tricking, taming, or otherwise integrating those monsters for noncombat uses, or do they just exist as obstacles for the PCs to stick with their pointy metal sticks? (actually this is half serious, I haven't picked up a D&D book for a very long time)

In OD&D, it's mostly but not all combat. The majority of the listed equipment in OD&D is weapons (even though there's no rule to distinguish any two melee weapons) and armor; the reset is beasts of burdens, vehicles and sacks (for transporting the loot); some miscellaneous semi-combat equipment (mirrors for gaze weapons, crosses, garlic and stakes for vampires); and a small amount of survival tools and supplies (rope, spikes, rations, light sources, etc.). Combat is less represented in spells, but it's still there, and one of my player characters was murdered by other player characters because I took Charm Person rather than Sleep.

QuoteReally the focus of Early D&D's rules is not combat as such but exploration of dangerous places, specifically dungeons (or other environment providing that they are capable of being treated in at least some way broadly analogous to a dungeon - which is a surprisingly wide range of situations).

In most cases however, the failure point in exploration is being eaten by a monster.

Exactly. It's mostly combat that makes the dungeon dangerous.

Quote from: rawma;1040981Obliquely? Gronan's propaganda campaign has definitely persuaded you.

So "the way the game was actually played by its creators" is now "propaganda"?  Delicious.

Especially with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040983So "the way the game was actually played by its creators" is now "propaganda"?  Delicious.

Especially with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

not 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.

Was there.  Did that.  Or ask Kuntz, Kask, Meyer, Swenson, Hoyt, Megarry, Ward, et al, all of whom have online presences.

Or did you mean prove it goes well with fava beans and a nice Chianti?  That's just a matter of taste.

...And we're back to making arguments based on page count.

Oh well.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040983So "the way the game was actually played by its creators" is now "propaganda"?

Odd that they didn't write the rules for the game they actually played, and instead wrote rules for a wargame with combat making up a significant fraction.

The available written sources are mostly the rules, now that you've apparently given up writing your book.

Quote from: Itachi;1040756Now we know why Vampire the Masquerade was played in Superheroes by Night mode.

"In this game you should be ready to face your inner fears, as if looking at the mirror, and come out changed from the experience".... but we don't clearly explain how you achieve that, ...

Heh, really? Interesting.

Quote from: Itachi;1040756... so instead take these extremely detailed rules for combat, including long lists of guns and powers, that makes combat take 1 hour minimum each time it comes up. :p

VtM has a detailed combat system?  I've always been too uninterested to look at VtM, but I did look at Mage: the Ascension hoping for an interesting magic system, only to find what I remember as "everyone who does magic has a magic rating or three at levels 1 to 5, which let you say different sorts of things happen, but you can be overpowered by someone with a higher rating. Be creative and enjoy your GM being creative as they make up the cool details that have pretty much zero game mechanics behind them except what you and the GM say happens." Which seems to me like sort of the opposite, so I'm surprised to hear VtM would have crunchy rules.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1040983So "the way the game was actually played by its creators" is now "propaganda"?  Delicious.

Especially with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Appealing to authority is a poor way to argue.

Gronan managed to get to page 8 before namedropping. That must be some kind of record.

Quote from: Fiasco;1041006Gronan managed to get to page 8 before namedropping. That must be some kind of record.

You can change your settings to display more posts per page.

Quote from: rawma;1040981Obliquely? Gronan's propaganda campaign has definitely persuaded you.

Actually, I just read the books and came to that conclusion. The game, according to the three books, FROM WHAT I ACTUALLY READ, implies there's this game world that exists and adventurers will go out and try to gain fame and fortune. Sure, combat, could be part of that, but so could persuasion, bamboozling, outright theft, whatever. That's how I learned to play D&D, oddly enough.

Quote from: Brad;1041031Actually, I just read the books and came to that conclusion. The game, according to the three books, FROM WHAT I ACTUALLY READ, implies there's this game world that exists and adventurers will go out and try to gain fame and fortune. Sure, combat, could be part of that, but so could persuasion, bamboozling, outright theft, whatever. That's how I learned to play D&D, oddly enough.

No, no, no, NO!  You're DOING IT WRONG!  Anything I say must be taken as the exact opposite of truth, and if I say "if you don't believe me ask any of these other guys" must be taken as name dropping, instead of, you know, suggesting asking somebody who was actually there at the time.

The Only True Truth must NOT resort to eyewitness accounts, whatever you do!

"There is nothing outside the text".:rolleyes:

Quote from: Brad;1041031Actually, I just read the books and came to that conclusion. The game, according to the three books, FROM WHAT I ACTUALLY READ, implies there's this game world that exists and adventurers will go out and try to gain fame and fortune. Sure, combat, could be part of that, but so could persuasion, bamboozling, outright theft, whatever. That's how I learned to play D&D, oddly enough.

Sweet, where was the mechanical support for all those?

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1041081Sweet, where was the mechanical support for all those?

Men & Magic pg. 11 - Charisma explanation
Men & Magic pgs. 12,13 - reaction table
Men & Magic pgs. 21,22 - Spell lists. 96 spells listed, only six or seven seem to have any sort of direct "combat" effectiveness, the rest are utility spells or spells used to creatively end fights.

That's just from a cursory glance at the first book.

Quote from: Brad;1041083Men & Magic pg. 11 - Charisma explanation
Men & Magic pgs. 12,13 - reaction table
Men & Magic pgs. 21,22 - Spell lists. 96 spells listed, only six or seven seem to have any sort of direct "combat" effectiveness, the rest are utility spells or spells used to creatively end fights.

That's just from a cursory glance at the first book.

Page 11's Charisma explanation says:

Charisma "primary function is to determine how many hirelings" one can hire/retain and what their loyalty is. And as stated, "in all probability" would be hiring "Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and/or Clerics". Oh, there is an aside about how "charisma score is usable to decide things as whether or not a witch capturing a player" will kill them or fuck them and attracting various monsters to their service. All pretty much combat orientated.

Page 12's reaction table is pretty bland and doesn't seem to take into account different Charisma scores. It also covers some "morale dice" for surrendering men or intelligent monsters but it's rather incomplete.

In the end, they either join you army or they fight you.

As for magic, you'd have to ignore the combat support spells to come to the conclusion you have. From the Magic-Users table alone I see dozens of spells that are direct damage or supportive of combat.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1041088Charisma "primary function is to determine how many hirelings" one can hire/retain and what their loyalty is. And as stated, "in all probability" would be hiring "Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and/or Clerics". Oh, there is an aside about how "charisma score is usable to decide things as whether or not a witch capturing a player" will kill them or fuck them and attracting various monsters to their service. All pretty much combat orientated.

That's a rather ungenerous reading of the section. Score X determines how many people you can successfully get to (relatively loyally) work for you is pretty much combat oriented? Well sure, if you use those hirelings for nothing but combat. But that's somewhere between cart before the horse and declaring a model of knife a combat knife because you personally have never used it to cut rope or whittle. And using your charisma to determine if a [witch or anyone else] will try to kill a PC or not... how is that not the definition of using the game rules to resolve a situation without resorting to the combat rules?

QuotePage 12's reaction table is pretty bland and doesn't seem to take into account different Charisma scores. It also covers some "morale dice" for surrendering men or intelligent monsters but it's rather incomplete.

Incomplete (or at least 'less complete than it could be') is an inescapable fact of oD&D. Whether it is good or bad [insert multi-page argument here over whether making a semi-exhaustive ruleset/sufficiently large but solid box inhibits using your imagination and thinking outside that box, I see no reason to rehash it here], it is true. oD&D is not complete. If that is a problem for you, then you will not like the edition. 'Nuff said. That doesn't really address how much the game is about combat or not.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041096That's a rather ungenerous reading of the section. Score X determines how many people you can successfully get to (relatively loyally) work for you is pretty much combat oriented? Well sure, if you use those hirelings for nothing but combat. But that's somewhere between cart before the horse and declaring a model of knife a combat knife because you personally have never used it to cut rope or whittle. And using your charisma to determine if a [witch or anyone else] will try to kill a PC or not... how is that not the definition of using the game rules to resolve a situation without resorting to the combat rules?

I guess you'll point out, where in the rules, that you would use the hirelings for. I mean if you're hiring Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and Clerics I don't think it is a mystery what they will be used for. As for Charima and witches, it's after the witch (or anyone else) has fucking captured you....

QuoteIncomplete (or at least 'less complete than it could be') is an inescapable fact of oD&D. Whether it is good or bad [insert multi-page argument here over whether making a semi-exhaustive ruleset/sufficiently large but solid box inhibits using your imagination and thinking outside that box, I see no reason to rehash it here], it is true. oD&D is not complete. If that is a problem for you, then you will not like the edition. 'Nuff said. That doesn't really address how much the game is about combat or not.

What is your point exactly? It's a table of "they attack you", "they might attack you" or "they'll listen to your offer to join them".

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1041114I guess you'll point out, where in the rules, that you would use the hirelings for. I mean if you're hiring Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and Clerics I don't think it is a mystery what they will be used for.

This is begging the question. If you don't already agree with your premise (and thus think the only thing you can do with Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and Clerics is use them to fight), then this doesn't actually add to the argument that all that you can do with them is fight.

QuoteAs for Charima and witches, it's after the witch (or anyone else) has fucking captured you....

Yes, in this very specific example (and not giving the book any benefit of the doubt about generalizability), you are in a situation of having been captured, and rather than resorting to combat, you are using your charisma to resolve the situation. That seems like a perfect example of not automatically defaulting to combat.

QuoteWhat is your point exactly? It's a table of "they attack you", "they might attack you" or "they'll listen to your offer to join them".

:confused: That oD&D being incomplete, and using examples rather than exhaustive rules is an inescapable, valid critique that seems to me to be entirely tangential.

Look, I'm not against the idea that the game is an awful lot about combat (other than not really convinced that these games are 'about' things)-- the game was derived from a friggin' wargame (yes Gronan, plus Braunsteins). I'm just commenting/critiquing arguments, and saying I don't find the inclusion of 1-in-6 stats and a regarded-as-important (if not high in page-count contribution) resolution table designed for potentially not ending every encounter with bloodshed is an argument for the combat side of things. That's all.

Seems like a similar discussion is happening over here: http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/21677/personal-insight-concerning-player-goals-and-the-blame-of-playing-it-wrong

The usual suspects have it out for D&D, of course.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041131This is begging the question.

"Ya THINK, DiNozzo?"

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041131This is begging the question. If you don't already agree with your premise (and thus think the only thing you can do with Fighting-Men, Magic-Users and Clerics is use them to fight), then this doesn't actually add to the argument that all that you can do with them is fight.

Really? Are you actually going to argue that the mentioned classes are not combat classes or, at the very least, heavily combat focused?

 

QuoteYes, in this very specific example (and not giving the book any benefit of the doubt about generalizability), you are in a situation of having been captured, and rather than resorting to combat, you are using your charisma to resolve the situation. That seems like a perfect example of not automatically defaulting to combat.  

Being captured is pretty much the result of failing combat..... and is somewhat mentioned on page 13 under the "capture of non-player monsters".

Quote:confused: That oD&D being incomplete, and using examples rather than exhaustive rules is an inescapable, valid critique that seems to me to be entirely tangential.

Look, I'm not against the idea that the game is an awful lot about combat (other than not really convinced that these games are 'about' things)-- the game was derived from a friggin' wargame (yes Gronan, plus Braunsteins). I'm just commenting/critiquing arguments, and saying I don't find the inclusion of 1-in-6 stats and a regarded-as-important (if not high in page-count contribution) resolution table designed for potentially not ending every encounter with bloodshed is an argument for the combat side of things. That's all.

Too bad the old guard will insist that it was neither incomplete or missing things.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1041159Really? Are you actually going to argue that the mentioned classes are not combat classes or, at the very least, heavily combat focused?

That is the point of this discussion. If you use a potential result/conclusion of a debated point as evidence towards that conclusion, it is begging the question. This is I am guessing literally from your high school rhetoric text.

QuoteBeing captured is pretty much the result of failing combat..... and is somewhat mentioned on page 13 under the "capture of non-player monsters".

Sure. Why not? It could have been for any number of reasons, but if you really want it to be, why not? You are still using your non-combat abilities to resolve the situation, aren't you?

QuoteToo bad the old guard will insist that it was neither incomplete or missing things.

And then they would be foolish. It is a book that relies on example where a general rule would work and take roughly the same amount of space and be more clear. oD&D, particularly the printed version that those of us not privy to sitting at EGG's actual table (or one of his other word-of-mouth taught adherents) had to have, is a genuinely limited product. One that would have benefitted greatly from more editing and more proofreading time, and lots of other could'a'bens-that-weren't. I still do not see how this is anything but a completely irrelevant tangent. Am I coming in at the tail end of some argument or something?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041131(other than not really convinced that these games are 'about' things)

I think one of the problems here is a miscommunication of definitions. Most people saying D&D is "about" combat are meaning to say: the primary reason you would choose to play this game is because a significant amount of its mechanical focus concerns combat, pursuing it, avoiding it, or how to use abstract means to mitigate the consequences of it.

The "about" is more a matter of the primary reason people choose that game over another. Like how one might say Unknown Armies is "about" going insane, because it has a considerable mechanical focus on making the player characters feel confused, scared for their lives, and on the brink of a mental break down.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041096That's a rather ungenerous reading of the section. Score X determines how many people you can successfully get to (relatively loyally) work for you is pretty much combat oriented? Well sure, if you use those hirelings for nothing but combat. But that's somewhere between cart before the horse and declaring a model of knife a combat knife because you personally have never used it to cut rope or whittle. And using your charisma to determine if a [witch or anyone else] will try to kill a PC or not... how is that not the definition of using the game rules to resolve a situation without resorting to the combat rules?

It's almost as if the game were written to allow a variety of play styles.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1039781I don't presume to speak for every designer who had to hear the criticism that their crunchy combat system meant that their game is all about combat. I've heard that said about many games since D&D first came out and here is how I replied in my own rules:
"That I provide elaborate combat rules does not mean that combat should be the focus of your campaign. Your GM can provide you many situations and challenges where combat can be avoided and some where it isn't even an option. The rules are there for when you need them.
I ran an eighteen-month campaign where the PCs were performers and roadies in the world's first Elven Fusion rock band. There was some fighting but it was far from a major feature of the campaign."

What is the benefit to engaging someone who enjoys hating on D&D?  They're not looking for reasons to stop categorizing it that way.  At best the conversation becomes "bring me a rock".

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041177I think one of the problems here is a miscommunication of definitions.

Well it must be. I've gotten some of the weirdest pushback on this (straight disagreement I get, getting called 'post-modernist?'- I'm still scratching my head).

QuoteMost people saying D&D is "about" combat are meaning to say: the primary reason you would choose to play this game is because a significant amount of its mechanical focus concerns combat, pursuing it, avoiding it, or how to use abstract means to mitigate the consequences of it.
The "about" is more a matter of the primary reason people choose that game over another. Like how one might say Unknown Armies is "about" going insane, because it has a considerable mechanical focus on making the player characters feel confused, scared for their lives, and on the brink of a mental break down.

Okay. If a focus on avoiding combat is part of a combat-centric game, that does push D&D towards the about-combat end. Although, if your typical dungeon-crawling/get-as-much-treasure-as-you-can scenario (holding off arguments on if that is typical D&D) has three main avenues towards getting the treasure -- sneaking/stealing it, fighting for it, or bargaining for it, is one more 'what it is about' than the others?

As to the significant amount of mechanical focus part, I just have a problem buying that page count, etc. is the primary metric. Take social to start with. There is this whole separate side-debate over whether charisma stats and diplomacy skills and the like turn talking into just another dice challenge (and the resultant counterpoint of what do you do then if the character is better at social stuff than the player). That's a valid debate and I don't particularly care which side you come down on. But the EGG and the co. came down mostly on the minimalist rules. Fine. And so the negotiation part is mostly a single chart, one attribute, and a few pages on how to use them. Does that mean that they consider the negotiation/diplomacy part of the game to be less significant than the combat part? I posit that they might, but that this isn't evidence to that effect. An even better example might be the sneaking/stealing (or just in general 'interacting with one's environment'). Up until the introduction of the thief class, there were pretty much no rules on traps (finding, disarming, I'm still amazed that there is a save category for 'Polymorph or Paralization' but not for 'pit traps' etc.), does that mean that traps weren't a big part of the game? Seems that they were, it was just posited that they would be so case-by-case that specific rules would quickly become obsolete in each game group. I'm not saying that all these decisions were necessarily perfect (the multiple overlapping sneaking and surprise rules certain have frustrated many), but I'm not convinced that amount of mechanical support has a strong correlation with what the game is 'about,' either as the designer(s) envisioned, or as people used the game.

I think it goes back to the old "roll-playing versus role-playing" elitism. To be fair, for most games the mechanics for combat are typically much more complicated than the mechanics for non-combat task resolution. Unless you are playing something like Risus where all conflict resolution relies on the same basic/simple mechanic. On the other end of the spectrum you have social/mental combat mechanics which are just as complex as physical combat mechanics but with a slightly different structure.

A failing of virtually all social combat systems is that they are founded on the assumption that social combat (and physical combat, for that matter) operates entirely on a binary win/lose outcome. There are no rules for friendly sparring, much less building a friendship.

I suspect the two biggest reasons for the animosity toward social combat systems are 1) unless you are playing Call of Cthulhu you don't want your character sheet to dictate your behavior and 2) you need flow charts to keep track of mental states and social influence.

Well, I've gone over it before. D&D covers X topics, and Y examples in the printed modules. There may have been a very good technique for doing stuff that wasn't in the books, but if it's not covered well in the books, you can't blame players for that.

I feel the issue is, at least most of the time, a lot of important and memorable instances of those dungeons, and the things (at least in my experience) that a lot of PCs prepare for are combat, and given that the game has a very strong emphasis on exploring dungeons, the potential for, and use of combat rules are significantly increased over, say, a game about political intrigue. The setting of a Dungeon just makes combat, at the very least feel, more present of a danger.

Take, for example, Agone. It is a very high fantasy game, but trying to run it as a Dungeon Crawl game has a considerable number of problems, unless you plan on banning more than half of the character options, because characters can just begin the campaign with abilities that just allow them to reshape the structure of a building with magic, and the only way that is reasonable to tell them no, is to put them in a place where their magic wont actually work on anything. As a result, the more compelling game play ends up being Noir esque fantasy mysteries, which does involve combat, but usually not as much, and the PCs almost never get the luxury of anticipating it well in advance.

As for the page count argument, it's less that there are x pages for y concept, and more the fact that the other rules have a strong tendency to tie back in with the combat rules, as though it is expected for you to be in combat most of the time. Each class generally has some significant and explicit combat role, and several of the spells are given effects in terms of combat application (be it hindering the enemies in some way, or even direct damage). I can see your argument that lack of rules doesn't necessarily, but I would argue that leaving rules out just encourages people to use the rules that are most prevalent, and if most of those involve combat, I would argue most people will play a game full of combat.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041330I feel the issue is, at least most of the time, a lot of important and memorable instances of those dungeons, and the things (at least in my experience) that a lot of PCs prepare for are combat, and given that the game has a very strong emphasis on exploring dungeons, the potential for, and use of combat rules are significantly increased over, say, a game about political intrigue. The setting of a Dungeon just makes combat, at the very least feel, more present of a danger.

You are correct, a game focused on dungeons are not going to have many political intrigue-filled courts (although they might have a few...). Dungeons will have 'monsters' in them (to fight, avoid, or negotiate with), along with natural or emplaced hazards (traps, pitfalls, etc.). So at the very least, the focus of a dungeon is certainly weighted toward direct mortal peril, compared to something like the more long-term peril of a political intrigue game or loss of sanity like CoC, etc., etc.

QuoteTake, for example, Agone. It is a very high fantasy game, but trying to run it as a Dungeon Crawl game has a considerable number of problems, unless you plan on banning more than half of the character options, because characters can just begin the campaign with abilities that just allow them to reshape the structure of a building with magic, and the only way that is reasonable to tell them no, is to put them in a place where their magic wont actually work on anything. As a result, the more compelling game play ends up being Noir esque fantasy mysteries, which does involve combat, but usually not as much, and the PCs almost never get the luxury of anticipating it well in advance.

I think I get it. However, if we stick with the same model ('It is a very ___ game, but trying to run it as a ____ game has a considerable number of problems, unless you plan on...') and apply it to TSR-era D&D and you come up with 'It is a very cautious game, but trying to run it as a full-on combat game has a considerable number of problems, unless you plan on massively modifying the premise/healing/something else' because TSR-era D&D, if you just run a dungeon like 'go to room 1, fight what is in there, go to room 2, fight what is in there,' etc., your characters will die. Or have to retreat after one level, or the like. The hp, AC, and healing does not keep up. Certainly not everyone (maybe even a majority of not everyone) played that way, but that involved house rules or changes to the assumptions of the game, etc., such as to allow us to hack and slash to our hearts content). So we are back to the question of if the game is about combat, and the necessary avoidance thereof, is it still about combat (or alternatively, is the game about what people routinely modified it to be)?

QuoteAs for the page count argument, it's less that there are x pages for y concept, and more the fact that the other rules have a strong tendency to tie back in with the combat rules, as though it is expected for you to be in combat most of the time. Each class generally has some significant and explicit combat role, and several of the spells are given effects in terms of combat application (be it hindering the enemies in some way, or even direct damage). I can see your argument that lack of rules doesn't necessarily, but I would argue that leaving rules out just encourages people to use the rules that are most prevalent, and if most of those involve combat, I would argue most people will play a game full of combat.

There is definitely a reasonable argument to be made to that end. No argument here. Certainly the decision to make the diplomacy system mostly left in the hands of actually saying the words and the DM making some modifications to a 2d6 roll, and leaving most of the skills systems and other noncombat resolution mechanics* vague or at-DM-discretion can lead to the argument that the game incentivizes making it quite a bit about combat.
*mostly in terms of the dice rolls. D&D, even oD&D, actually does have quite a bit of interacting-with-the-environment rules. They are mostly however things like how much does travelling get slowed by moving through X terrain or how much gold is spent furnishing an army of Y soldiers for Z months or whether boats lose their oars in a collision/ram, and very few rules for how a individual player rolls to interact with the world, outside of combat.

However, I would pose it more this way: oD&D takes a very minimalist perspective on what the rules are for. Them being there only for those things that are 1) uncertain, and 2) the DM would have a hard time consistently ruling fairly on. Within that context, the majority of the page space is spent on rules revolving around combat. Thus, if you choose to, you can very easily make the game about combat, and a lot of people have historically chosen to do so. It is probably an arbitrary distinction, but that's where I'm landing at this point in the discussion.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1041337being there only for those things that are 1) uncertain, and 2) the DM would have a hard time consistently ruling fairly on. Within that context, the majority of the page space is spent on rules revolving around combat.

Well... The one problem i see with this, is you can easily make that argument for any contest between two characters (player or otherwise). The diplomacy example still fits with that as being uncertain and difficult for a DM to consistently rule fairly on (at least, in my experience as a player in games that do not have robust, or provisions for, intrigue rules) yet they chose not to include it.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041330I feel the issue is, at least most of the time, a lot of important and memorable instances of those dungeons, and the things (at least in my experience) that a lot of PCs prepare for are combat, and given that the game has a very strong emphasis on exploring dungeons, the potential for, and use of combat rules are significantly increased over, say, a game about political intrigue. The setting of a Dungeon just makes combat, at the very least feel, more present of a danger.

...

As for the page count argument, it's less that there are x pages for y concept, and more the fact that the other rules have a strong tendency to tie back in with the combat rules, as though it is expected for you to be in combat most of the time. Each class generally has some significant and explicit combat role, and several of the spells are given effects in terms of combat application (be it hindering the enemies in some way, or even direct damage). I can see your argument that lack of rules doesn't necessarily, but I would argue that leaving rules out just encourages people to use the rules that are most prevalent, and if most of those involve combat, I would argue most people will play a game full of combat.

I think where your train of thought is chugging along just fine until someone throws a switch and you end up on a dead-end line is this:  Combat is an expected possible outcome in D&D.  Depending upon the savvy of the group, the edition being played, the style of game being run by the referee, etc., you might get more or less of it--but usually you expect some combat.  And running D&D with no combat is possible but kind of odd, if the group has any wide exposure to other rules.  It's not the best possible choice for such a game.

However, all that stated, everything you list for why the page count of the game (or any proxy for that) as evidence for "the game is about combat"--is also equally evidence for "the game expects there to be some combat".  Those are not logically the same things.  You keep coming back to the game "feels" like it is about combat.  Well, feels is about your experience with it and other games.  I have no doubt that some people feel D&D is about combat, because that is their focus when using it.  Nothing wrong with that at all, but it is not a very useful basis from which to evaluate what a game supports beyond, "At least I know it supports combat."  

Now, if you wanted to say something similar to, "D&D is about the threat that a fight could break out at any time," you'd still be off a little, but a lot closer to the mark.  Because a threat can be avoided or tangled with many different ways, and can manifest likewise.  A D&D game with no possible threat of a fight is a very odd duck.

I am reminded of some 60 page legal agreements I've read. While the terms often fit on a single page or less, there is a lot of text about things e.g. dispute resolution, escalation,  breach, and dissolution that both parties hope will never occur and thus hope that the agreement will never be about. But a lot of pages are spent on those things because they can be contentious and the outcome is often of major important.

It seems to me, that if we're now saying that avoiding combat is part of the way D&D is about combat, then we're really saying, as I suggested earlier, that D&D is about dungeon exploration (to the extent that it makes sense to say a game is "about" anything - something I'm sceptical about - at least if we're just talking about the mechanical side of the game).

So why not say that?  Why not just stick with the much less contentious "D&D is about dungeon exploration?"  rather than the more polemical and less accurate "D&D is about combat".  If we really mean the same thing by both statements why use the one that will cause more confusion?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1041354it is not a very useful basis from which to evaluate what a game supports beyond, "At least I know it supports combat."

this isn't a discussion about what the game does and does not support. It's a discussion about what the game is "about" and the feel and popular use are, in fact, good indicators of this, because they associate what the game means to its players, and how the game plays in a concrete way. just looking at what a game can do, realistically any RPG can do anything, so you can't rightly determine an RPGs meaning from what you can do in it, you have to look at what the rules support the most, and what people use it for the most, in an attempt to determine what the main purpose of using it is.

Quote from: TJS;1041362It seems to me, that if we're now saying that avoiding combat is part of the way D&D is about combat, then we're really saying, as I suggested earlier, that D&D is about dungeon exploration.

A generalization about the use of avoiding combat can't really be made. To my understanding, mechanics designed to help avoid combat are simply to allow the players a chance to pick and choose the time and place of their battles, and help them keep resources for future combats. I don't quite follow the logic of the ability to avoid conflict means that the game is about dungeon exploration, because escaping for delaying combat are all important parts of a conflict, regardless of setting or trappings of that conflict. Escaping isn't just an end in and of itself, the intention behind it is however, and if these methods are framed in the context of getting out of an unbeatable situation caused by accident, or as a means to preserve resources, and allow the party to regroup then they only end up helping the combat aspect of the game, not necessarily any other part.

I won't deny the idea of D&D being a "Dungeon Explorer" game, but I do think a lot of emphasis is placed on the combat aspect of that setting, enough to argue it has a combat focus. It was initially designed on the back of a miniature war game after all.

"Feel" is a good thing to discuss to explain why a game comes across a certain way to you.  It's a lousy basis from which to construct an argument about what something is about, because it doesn't take into account how anyone else feels about it.  You say it feels like it's about combat to you?  OK, I answer that it doesn't to me.  Impasse.  To get beyond that, you've got to explain the whys of it, and that's necessarily going to get into support.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1041382"Feel" is a good thing to discuss to explain why a game comes across a certain way to you.  It's a lousy basis from which to construct an argument about what something is about, because it doesn't take into account how anyone else feels about it.  You say it feels like it's about combat to you?  OK, I answer that it doesn't to me.  Impasse.  To get beyond that, you've got to explain the whys of it, and that's necessarily going to get into support.

I'm not... the whole point of my argument was lots of people (quite possibly a majority) treat it like a combat game, and the game has a "feel" (here meaning many of its rules character options or encounters revolve around a particular subject) of combat, and by using those two metrics one can easily come to the conclusion that the game is "about" combat.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041383I'm not... the whole point of my argument was lots of people (quite possibly a majority) treat it like a combat game, and the game has a "feel" (here meaning many of its rules character options or encounters revolve around a particular subject) of combat, and by using those two metrics one can easily come to the conclusion that the game is "about" combat.

The whole point of saying D&D is about "combat" is generally polemical.  It's usually meant to be dismissive and to imply people are playing games wrong in that snide internet forum way in which one tries to open up others to attack, while simultaneously obfuscating and hiding one's own position.


If we take away that polemical context and strip the statement down to mean "D&D has a rules system which places a lot of emphasis on resolving combat" then we're saying something that is both obvious and not particularly meaningful.

Saying D&D is "about dungeon exploration" places those combat rules into a context in which we actually have some expectation about how they might work.  It helps to give a sense of why the rules for combat are in fact different to those in other games which are also "about combat".

Otherwise we could say that OD&D and 4th Edition D&D are both "about combat".  This tells us very little.  If we say that OD&D is about dungeon exploration while 4E is generally about big dramatic showdowns and final conflicts we have a meaningful distinction.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041383I'm not... the whole point of my argument was lots of people (quite possibly a majority) treat it like a combat game, and the game has a "feel" (here meaning many of its rules character options or encounters revolve around a particular subject) of combat, and by using those two metrics one can easily come to the conclusion that the game is "about" combat.

Those aren't "metrics", and they certainly aren't part of any kind of premise or argument that could get one to any kind of conclusion one way or the other.  For begging the question, though, they are great.

Quote from: TJS;1041387The whole point of saying D&D is about "combat" is generally polemical.  It's usually meant to be dismissive and to imply people are playing games wrong in that snide internet forum way in which one tries to open up others to attack, while simultaneously obfuscating and hiding one's own position.

Yes, because everyone knows the initial release was perfection incarnate and has no room for criticism or improvement (just ignore the official updates and new editions let alone the hundreds of tweaked and updated clones). :rolleyes:

Of course it needed an update. Gygax was too thespy.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1041410Of course it needed an update. Gygax was too thespy.

Pretty sure you'll find an old man claiming it didn't need to be and everything else that followed was rubbish.

Quote from: Ras Algethi;1041406Yes, because everyone knows the initial release was perfection incarnate and has no room for criticism or improvement (just ignore the official updates and new editions let alone the hundreds of tweaked and updated clones). :rolleyes:

I think you must have quoted the wrong person.

Your reply seems to be completely unrelated to anything I actually said.

Quote from: TJS;1041425I think you must have quoted the wrong person.

Your reply seems to be completely unrelated to anything I actually said.

So an ostrich then.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041380I won't deny the idea of D&D being a "Dungeon Explorer" game, but I do think a lot of emphasis is placed on the combat aspect of that setting, enough to argue it has a combat focus. It was initially designed on the back of a miniature war game after all.

Yes, D&D was based upon a wargame (which, at least for the context of this thread, we can probably shorthand as being 'about combat'). However, if D&D did not do anything that Chainmail did not, why would anyone have spent the equivalent of ~$50 on a whole second product?

QuoteA generalization about the use of avoiding combat can't really be made.

:confused: Can you expand on this? Why not?

QuoteTo my understanding, mechanics designed to help avoid combat are simply to allow the players a chance to pick and choose the time and place of their battles, and help them keep resources for future combats. I don't quite follow the logic of the ability to avoid conflict means that the game is about dungeon exploration, because escaping for delaying combat are all important parts of a conflict, regardless of setting or trappings of that conflict.

As I understand what he meant, it doesn't. The ability to avoid conflict doesn't inherently mean that the game is about dungeon exploration. The game is (posited to be) about dungeon exploration separately or over-arching-ly. Combat, and the avoidance thereof are simply tasks one performs within the exploration of dungeons.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1041382"Feel" is a good thing to discuss to explain why a game comes across a certain way to you.  It's a lousy basis from which to construct an argument about what something is about, because it doesn't take into account how anyone else feels about it.  You say it feels like it's about combat to you?  OK, I answer that it doesn't to me.  Impasse.  To get beyond that, you've got to explain the whys of it, and that's necessarily going to get into support.

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041383I'm not... the whole point of my argument was lots of people (quite possibly a majority) treat it like a combat game, and the game has a "feel" (here meaning many of its rules character options or encounters revolve around a particular subject) of combat, and by using those two metrics one can easily come to the conclusion that the game is "about" combat.

You 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.

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! :D

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.)

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041905Some 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.)

At that point, it sounds like mana/spell-points or something similar. Maybe with a difference in how they are collected/restored.

(It there a current electronic release for Agone in English? I'm at least 3 generations from my French ancestors. :p )

Quote from: Hastur-The-Unnameable;1041905Some 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

Agreed. Sagas of the Icelanders and Monsterhearts use Bonds and Strings as currency representing how much a given person owes or has leverage over another. It works very well in those games.

Quote from: Tod13;1042000At that point, it sounds like mana/spell-points or something similar. Maybe with a difference in how they are collected/restored.

(It there a current electronic release for Agone in English? I'm at least 3 generations from my French ancestors. :p )

Sort of, but you can also use them for normal skill rolls and such. There are 3 ways to get them back (complete refresh at the start of session, one every day spent in a Perfection, and one every minute spent in a Sanctuary), but they are of a general use, which is nice.

(sadly no... it only ever had the first edition released, and then the company died, and no company has picked up the game again in french or in English. there are some major copyright issues. Having looked though, you might be able to find the PDFs and translations of the french books in PDF somewhere on the internet. You can get the original books super cheap still (in English), but other than that there isn't anything official. There is an all but official in name Fanzine that I got permission to translate and share, which I do in my spare time, but that's about it)