And, a lot of the accounts of early players repeatedly talked about how they consistently tried to avoid combat with monsters while stealing their treasure. Monster XP wasn't worth it, gold XP was.

I agree with what you're saying. How I normally run RPGs whether that be DnD or something else is that Combat is dangerous and not always the optimal option. You shouldn't want to charge head first into a Dragon. You want to survive to spend your hard looted treasure. You can see this mentality in a lot of B/X products and that migrated to games like LotFP. But that doesn't mean combat shouldn't exist or that it shouldn't be dangerous. I don't particularly like genuinely crunchy simulation style combat. But simple combat mechanics doesn't always mean a lack of danger and lethality.

I will say, that games that full on de-emphasize or trivialize combat are bad. Any Blades in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse game that I've seen likes to do this. A lot of woke indie games do it too. It seems to come from that Critical Role thing of wanting to make a cinematic experience where the players do heckin valid things like romance and aimlessly wandering to do "cool things". And any kind of combat is disingenuously refereed to as "too crunchy and slow" no matter how simple it is. There's a fear of losing a character that represents an avatar of the player. And to those people that's just unacceptable as for whatever reason they see failure in an RPG as a critique of them personally.

Quote from: King Tyranno on January 21, 2024, 08:51:16 AM
I agree with what you're saying. How I normally run RPGs whether that be DnD or something else is that Combat is dangerous and not always the optimal option. You shouldn't want to charge head first into a Dragon. You want to survive to spend your hard looted treasure. You can see this mentality in a lot of B/X products and that migrated to games like LotFP. But that doesn't mean combat shouldn't exist or that it shouldn't be dangerous. I don't particularly like genuinely crunchy simulation style combat. But simple combat mechanics doesn't always mean a lack of danger and lethality.

I will say, that games that full on de-emphasize or trivialize combat are bad. Any Blades in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse game that I've seen likes to do this. A lot of woke indie games do it too. It seems to come from that Critical Role thing of wanting to make a cinematic experience where the players do heckin valid things like romance and aimlessly wandering to do "cool things". And any kind of combat is disingenuously refereed to as "too crunchy and slow" no matter how simple it is. There's a fear of losing a character that represents an avatar of the player. And to those people that's just unacceptable as for whatever reason they see failure in an RPG as a critique of them personally.

I am not familiar with those games that you mentioned but kind of funny that a game called Blades in the Dark would deemphasise combat. Seems a bit like false advertising.

Quote from: King Tyranno on January 21, 2024, 08:51:16 AM
I agree with what you're saying. How I normally run RPGs whether that be DnD or something else is that Combat is dangerous and not always the optimal option. You shouldn't want to charge head first into a Dragon. You want to survive to spend your hard looted treasure. You can see this mentality in a lot of B/X products and that migrated to games like LotFP. But that doesn't mean combat shouldn't exist or that it shouldn't be dangerous. I don't particularly like genuinely crunchy simulation style combat. But simple combat mechanics doesn't always mean a lack of danger and lethality.

I will say, that games that full on de-emphasize or trivialize combat are bad. Any Blades in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse game that I've seen likes to do this. A lot of woke indie games do it too. It seems to come from that Critical Role thing of wanting to make a cinematic experience where the players do heckin valid things like romance and aimlessly wandering to do "cool things". And any kind of combat is disingenuously refereed to as "too crunchy and slow" no matter how simple it is. There's a fear of losing a character that represents an avatar of the player. And to those people that's just unacceptable as for whatever reason they see failure in an RPG as a critique of them personally.

I resonate so much with this post. You nailed why I dislike PbtA and the new wave of indie games that are currently in vogue. They claim to be "narrative".

I like gritty, dirty and brutal combat. A system where combat should be the last option because it is deadly and there is no such thing as a fair fight. That gives the times when actual fighting ensues a lot of weight. I like games when killing creatures does not reward XP or any sort of character advancement outside of perhaps looting the gear the opponents had. Suddenly Players started to use more stealth, negotiation and even gasp ask for surrender or even retreat.

Now, if the goal is to rescue the Princess from that orc camp, then they will fight the orcs only as much as they need to rescue the Princess. If the goal is to delve into that cave to find the rare mushroom the apothecary needs, they will only fight anything that comes between them and the mushrooms and then between them and the exit.

Monsters can be monsters again. None of this "challenge rating" stuff. That basilisk will petrify you. Better avoid that encounter or prepare in such a way that you have a plan to avoid or negate the monster's advantages.

Victories are truly earned. That monster wasn't placed there as a bag of XP for the Players to kill. If they do end up slaying that monster, then it was because of their cunning, moxie and a little bit of luck. 

One story that my friends fondly remember was one time they had to setup a trap to burn a troll alive on a forest, since no one had access to magic, they had to really think and plan on how to create a fire source big enough to negate the troll's regeneration.


I know some people enjoy the "kick the door down and take names" style of game like D&D where monsters are supposed to be there to be killed and HP scaling means goblins and orcs become a non-threat. But, I like more grittier games where combat is so brutal the Players will do anything before having to fight it out and this leads to a lot of creative solutions and even when combat does break out, the Players always find ways to stack the deck on their favor or fight just long enough to achieve a goal.

I like games where the first rule of engagement is: survive.

Quote from: Cipher on January 21, 2024, 04:26:58 PM
I like games where the first rule of engagement is: survive.

I like both. I like combat to be serious and deadly enough so players take it seriously, but I also like to kick down doors and go in gunz a blazin. I think most groups find their own set-point between the two poles.

What I dislike is incentivizing avoiding combat with xp awards. (Or the lack of them) Specifically, by making treasure the main source of XP in old D&D, it incentivizes Getting Loot. What if my character doesn't want loot? I'll have to Get Loot in order to get what I'm really after, the XP.
In my opinion, XP should be divorced from the extremes of combat or treasure. I spread XP awards all through an adventure. Combat, loot, exploration. As long as the characters are doing something, taking risks, making plans, fighting enemies, I award them XP for it.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 21, 2024, 05:09:43 PM

Quote from: Cipher on January 21, 2024, 04:26:58 PM
I like games where the first rule of engagement is: survive.

I like both. I like combat to be serious and deadly enough so players take it seriously, but I also like to kick down doors and go in gunz a blazin. I think most groups find their own set-point between the two poles.

What I dislike is incentivizing avoiding combat with xp awards. (Or the lack of them) Specifically, by making treasure the main source of XP in old D&D, it incentivizes Getting Loot. What if my character doesn't want loot? I'll have to Get Loot in order to get what I'm really after, the XP.
In my opinion, XP should be divorced from the extremes of combat or treasure. I spread XP awards all through an adventure. Combat, loot, exploration. As long as the characters are doing something, taking risks, making plans, fighting enemies, I award them XP for it.

I dislike XP for killing because its a little too gamey for me.

Killing a goblin camp that has been harrasing the cattle of the nearby villages should be a reward in itself. The adventurers should be able to prove they were the ones doing the dead by showing the villagers their trophies and then get hailed as the heroes they are.

Or, lets say the apothecary on a big city hires some adventurers to get some troll bones for a healing poultice, then the bones are what gets their monetary reward and also renown amongst their peers as the ones that slayed the troll.

In my post, I talked about rescuing a Princess from a band of orcs. Killing the orcs would be secondary. The King will reward the heroes for rescuing the Princess.

So, its not the actual killing that gives the rewards to the heroes. Its the reasons for the killing. Like I said in my post, this means that they are not obligated to kill if there's nothing to gain. They can still choose to for the bragging rights. But, it opens up a lot of ways to approach a situation and if all else fails, they can always throw down.

Now, I said "killing". In games that have XP for killing creatures, it makes it so living creatures have to fight to the death, because if they flee then the Players are getting less rewards. Less XP and less loot. I find this situation breaks internal consistency of the game world. Only undead or constructs should fight to the death. Living creatures that can feel pain and/or fear should see the tide turning and flee.

Yes, you could just use "milestone" XP or give XP per encounter and not per creature but still... I'll rather have fights mean something other than just character progression.

Mind you, I am not saying playing those games like D&D where you are supposed to kick doors and take names is "bad wrong fun". I am just saying I stopped finding that enjoyable longer than I can remember and now prefer to play games where combat is a means to an end and not the end itself, which I think (and I may be wrong here) is the spirit of what Pundit's video was about.

Quote from: Cipher on January 21, 2024, 05:55:29 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 21, 2024, 05:09:43 PM

Quote from: Cipher on January 21, 2024, 04:26:58 PM
I like games where the first rule of engagement is: survive.

I like both. I like combat to be serious and deadly enough so players take it seriously, but I also like to kick down doors and go in gunz a blazin. I think most groups find their own set-point between the two poles.

What I dislike is incentivizing avoiding combat with xp awards. (Or the lack of them) Specifically, by making treasure the main source of XP in old D&D, it incentivizes Getting Loot. What if my character doesn't want loot? I'll have to Get Loot in order to get what I'm really after, the XP.
In my opinion, XP should be divorced from the extremes of combat or treasure. I spread XP awards all through an adventure. Combat, loot, exploration. As long as the characters are doing something, taking risks, making plans, fighting enemies, I award them XP for it.

I dislike XP for killing because its a little too gamey for me.

I feel the same way about xp for treasure.

QuoteKilling a goblin camp that has been harrasing the cattle of the nearby villages should be a reward in itself.

Sure, but the main advancement game mechanic in D&D is levels and gaining xp to increase those levels. So xp becomes the currency that players expect to get paid in (and rightfully so) so their characters can increase in power and ability.

In your examples, if the characters have the option to rescue the princess, or save the village, or get a big sack of gold, the fact that xp for treasure is a thing means that getting the big sack of gold is the "better" choice from a gameplay perspective.

Quote
Yes, you could just use "milestone" XP or give XP per encounter and not per creature but still... I'll rather have fights mean something other than just character progression.

Well, I just look at it from the angle of, what kind of choices are incentivized by xp awards...

QuoteMind you, I am not saying playing those games like D&D where you are supposed to kick doors and take names is "bad wrong fun". I am just saying I stopped finding that enjoyable longer than I can remember and now prefer to play games where combat is a means to an end and not the end itself, which I think (and I may be wrong here) is the spirit of what Pundit's video was about.

Maybe. I just don't think xp for treasure is a good alternative.

Quote from: Pundit's original textAnd, a lot of the accounts of early players repeatedly talked about how they consistently tried to avoid combat with monsters while stealing their treasure. Monster XP wasn't worth it, gold XP was.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 21, 2024, 11:48:16 PM

Quote from: Cipher on January 21, 2024, 05:55:29 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 21, 2024, 05:09:43 PM

Quote from: Cipher on January 21, 2024, 04:26:58 PM
I like games where the first rule of engagement is: survive.

I like both. I like combat to be serious and deadly enough so players take it seriously, but I also like to kick down doors and go in gunz a blazin. I think most groups find their own set-point between the two poles.

What I dislike is incentivizing avoiding combat with xp awards. (Or the lack of them) Specifically, by making treasure the main source of XP in old D&D, it incentivizes Getting Loot. What if my character doesn't want loot? I'll have to Get Loot in order to get what I'm really after, the XP.
In my opinion, XP should be divorced from the extremes of combat or treasure. I spread XP awards all through an adventure. Combat, loot, exploration. As long as the characters are doing something, taking risks, making plans, fighting enemies, I award them XP for it.

I dislike XP for killing because its a little too gamey for me.

I feel the same way about xp for treasure.

QuoteKilling a goblin camp that has been harrasing the cattle of the nearby villages should be a reward in itself.

Sure, but the main advancement game mechanic in D&D is levels and gaining xp to increase those levels. So xp becomes the currency that players expect to get paid in (and rightfully so) so their characters can increase in power and ability.

In your examples, if the characters have the option to rescue the princess, or save the village, or get a big sack of gold, the fact that xp for treasure is a thing means that getting the big sack of gold is the "better" choice from a gameplay perspective.

Quote
Yes, you could just use "milestone" XP or give XP per encounter and not per creature but still... I'll rather have fights mean something other than just character progression.

Well, I just look at it from the angle of, what kind of choices are incentivized by xp awards...

QuoteMind you, I am not saying playing those games like D&D where you are supposed to kick doors and take names is "bad wrong fun". I am just saying I stopped finding that enjoyable longer than I can remember and now prefer to play games where combat is a means to an end and not the end itself, which I think (and I may be wrong here) is the spirit of what Pundit's video was about.

Maybe. I just don't think xp for treasure is a good alternative.

Quote from: Pundit's original textAnd, a lot of the accounts of early players repeatedly talked about how they consistently tried to avoid combat with monsters while stealing their treasure. Monster XP wasn't worth it, gold XP was.

I wasn't talking about D&D, though. I was talking of different games that are not about "kicking doors down and taking names" like D&D. Because no matter how you slice it, as you say, in D&D HP scaling and levels mean that at some point, goblins and orcs become non-threats and I like the idea that a dagger to the eye is always going to be a dagger to the eye.

I am not saying people that enjoy that are having "bad wrong fun". I am saying this is why I don't like that style of game and why I prefer games were combat is lethal and brutal and so other options  and rewards are incentivized.

In those kinds of games, gold or loot doesn't give XP. It's usually per session or per adventure but the GM is encouraged to adjudicate when to give XP to the Players. Like I said, the reason why I enjoy it is because then monsters can actually be monsters again, instead of being there to be killed because, like you pointed out, characters have to level up, like in D&D-like games.

When I was 11 years old I was reading Conan and Elric stories.  Both of these characters were cutting down enemies like wheat.  Probably the most non-combat story I liked was The Hobbit but even that book culminated with the slaying of a dragon and five armies fighting over the loot. 

Then I get into D&D where your fighter can have 1 hit point and no strength bonus.  Despite the heroic looking figures on the covers of the books and modules slaying monsters and doing all kinds of cool shyt.  Kind of a letdown.

So OD&D wasn't about combat, but we made it about combat.  We made the game do all the things we wanted it to and we had fun.  We rolled 4d6 drop-the-lowest for stats and put them where we wanted to, then eventually used Method V (Thanks Gary!) and got behind the wheel of some serious hot rod characters. 

We died at -10 hit points. Used optional rules from Dragon Magazine articles, played experimental character classes, and slew demons, devils, daemons, demodands, slaadi, and then eventually the gods.  Lolth: Demon Queen of Spiders?  Yeah I f**ked her.

Somewhere along the way TSR figured out what we wanted and wrote rules for us to become immortal.  By then we had moved on to other games and other styles.  Now I prefer a more mature campaign.  But young men like their action and they will have it, if the have to rewrite the rules to get it.

Quote from: King Tyranno on January 21, 2024, 08:51:16 AM
I agree with what you're saying. How I normally run RPGs whether that be DnD or something else is that Combat is dangerous and not always the optimal option. You shouldn't want to charge head first into a Dragon. You want to survive to spend your hard looted treasure. You can see this mentality in a lot of B/X products and that migrated to games like LotFP. But that doesn't mean combat shouldn't exist or that it shouldn't be dangerous. I don't particularly like genuinely crunchy simulation style combat. But simple combat mechanics doesn't always mean a lack of danger and lethality.

I will say, that games that full on de-emphasize or trivialize combat are bad. Any Blades in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse game that I've seen likes to do this. A lot of woke indie games do it too. It seems to come from that Critical Role thing of wanting to make a cinematic experience where the players do heckin valid things like romance and aimlessly wandering to do "cool things". And any kind of combat is disingenuously refereed to as "too crunchy and slow" no matter how simple it is. There's a fear of losing a character that represents an avatar of the player. And to those people that's just unacceptable as for whatever reason they see failure in an RPG as a critique of them personally.

Well yes, those Storygames will be dismissive of combat, reducing it to an abstract die roll to determine who gets to narrate "the fiction" (seriously, intentionally renaming as 'the fiction' is such an own-goal fuckup and shows a total and complete ignorance of what RPG settings are supposed to be); but then again, they will do the same to EVERY other part of the game where the peak experiences can take place. That's the problem with storygames.

The AD&D 2nd Edition DMG explicitly states that:

Quote"This isn't a combat game..."

Going on to say:

Quote"...the rules are not ultra-detailed, defining the exact effect of every blow, the subtle differences between obscure weapons, the location of every piece of armor on the body, or the horrifying results of an actual sword fight."

Then it goes into the reasons why:

Quote"Too many rules slow down play (taking away from the real adventure) and restrict imagination. How much fun is it when a character, ready to try an amazing and heroic deed, is told, "You can't do that because it's against the rules."

Players should be allowed to try whatever they want—especially if what they want will add to the spirit of adventure and excitement. Just remember that there is a difference between trying and succeeding."

Quote from: Digitalelf on January 23, 2024, 04:25:31 AM
The AD&D 2nd Edition DMG explicitly states that:

Well...AD&D 2nd was supposed to simulate intrigue in the Forgotten Realms, not emulate Conan traipsing around abandoned tombs, so there's no surprise here.

Pundit is right that combat wasn't the main point of D&D from the onset; in fact, avoiding combat is the most important thing you could do to gain levels. Unfortunately, as others have stated, 12 year old boys who love LotR want to be Aragorn and kill fucking orcs by the hordes, so most games ended up being some sort of variation of that. Then I got older and played wargames and realized how valuable feints and running away could be, so of course my RPGs followed suit.

Quote from: Brad on January 23, 2024, 05:09:07 AM

Quote from: Digitalelf on January 23, 2024, 04:25:31 AM
The AD&D 2nd Edition DMG explicitly states that:

Well...AD&D 2nd was supposed to simulate intrigue in the Forgotten Realms, not emulate Conan traipsing around abandoned tombs, so there's no surprise here.

Pundit is right that combat wasn't the main point of D&D from the onset; in fact, avoiding combat is the most important thing you could do to gain levels. Unfortunately, as others have stated, 12 year old boys who love LotR want to be Aragorn and kill fucking orcs by the hordes, so most games ended up being some sort of variation of that. Then I got older and played wargames and realized how valuable feints and running away could be, so of course my RPGs followed suit.

Well said.

Quote from: Brad on January 23, 2024, 05:09:07 AM

Quote from: Digitalelf on January 23, 2024, 04:25:31 AM
The AD&D 2nd Edition DMG explicitly states that:

Well...AD&D 2nd was supposed to simulate intrigue in the Forgotten Realms, not emulate Conan traipsing around abandoned tombs, so there's no surprise here.

Pundit is right that combat wasn't the main point of D&D from the onset; in fact, avoiding combat is the most important thing you could do to gain levels. Unfortunately, as others have stated, 12 year old boys who love LotR want to be Aragorn and kill fucking orcs by the hordes, so most games ended up being some sort of variation of that. Then I got older and played wargames and realized how valuable feints and running away could be, so of course my RPGs followed suit.

You say that about LotR but I actually like to use the Hobbit as an example of how I like to design and resolve situations in RPG. Only at the very end is there any kind of pitched battle. Nearly every hostile force the party encounter can't just be fought and defeated because there is an understanding that those foes are too deadly. The trolls are defeated by outsmarting them until the sun rises, Gollum is tricked into giving up the Ring, Bilbo at least tries to sneak past Smaug to get to the treasure. No one charges head first into combat and any danger is presented as serious and frankly insurmountable by regular people. Needing to be either avoided or subverted as opposed to just fighting everything until it's dead. Most modern DnD parties would've attacked the trolls, attacked Gollum, and attacked Smaug. And because modern DnD characters are fucking superheroes now they probably would've won too. No riddles, no outsmarting. Just stab, loot, and repeat until your character is the shinyest and bestest of them all.