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

I stumbled across this blogpost as I was lurking around social media and man, this really crystallized some of the things that I just can’t really wrap my head around with OSR:


The portion that really stuck out to me was this:

It's not a maxim touted uniformly across old-school play cultures. For example, some tables consider combat a desirable outcome from decision making.

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Back when I was playing 1e/2e, we typically had 7 or 8 players at the table, at least a couple of which had henchmen or retainers. When we played as kids, we weren’t thinking about avoiding combat. We avoided some combat because everyone knew mind flayers ate your brains, vampires drained your precious experience points, and beholders flat out disintegrated you, but if you weren’t one of those, we felt pretty confident our party of 8+ could take your gang of orcs. Our stance mirrored the stance of the dungeon, if that makes sense. Temple of Elemental Evil? Be sneaky. Slavelords? Who doesn’t like kicking the crap out of slavers?

I also just can’t wrap my head around the idea that the rules are something there for when your imagination fails. To me, it’s the opposite. The rules are the default - here’s what you can absolutely do, but it’s not the only thing you can do and try to experiment and interact a bit. But I don’t treat combat as a fail state unless the game says so.

Call of Cthulhu says so. Mothership says so. D&D never said “don’t fight those monsters, it’ll go badly for you.”

Another one that gets my goat: the answer is not on your character sheet. Every ability, item I have, and relevant score is on the character sheet. Modern OSR eschews long blocks of text in favor of brief descriptions. But one of the things those sometimes obnoxiously long blocks of text did was give you a full accounting of what was in a room to interact with, sometimes down to the smallest detail. I find GMs struggle with the “less is more” room descriptions. If the answer is not on my character sheet, it’s also not typically in the room description of a modern OSR game. So where is the answer?

I call BS on the maxim. The answer is most certainly on your character sheet but if you want to find other answers, you may be able to find them elsewhere.

Anyways, really good article that addresses at least some of the incongruity in OSR that I’ve seen. I still feel like I’ve yet to find the OSR game that really speaks to me probably because I’m so at odds with these core maxims. Maybe I just stick with 1e/2e.

Theory of Games said:

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I think there’s a better mousetrap to be built.

To me, this is the most salient quote in the blog post:

"Therefore, by not systematizing something, we give it the power to expand and dominate a part of the conversation, because without rules the fiction must be resolved through discussion. For example, by not giving characters a skill for finding traps or disarming them (but putting them in direct conflict with traps), we plant fertile seeds for emergent play about discussing how to find, avoid, and disarm traps in detail. Conversations that cannot be skipped with a skill roll."

The most core tenent of OSR play is that play is supposed to be about negotiation. Ideally, negotiation with an impartial DM that's acting as a "world simulator" who is generating material as impartially and algorithmically as possible.

All rule sets beyond that have an implicit purpose of moving some of the authority to make all decisions away from the DM. That could be towards table-visible resolution methods or more directly towards the players.

TiQuinn said:

Anyways, really good article that addresses at least some of the incongruity in OSR that I’ve seen. I still feel like I’ve yet to find the OSR game that really speaks to me probably because I’m so at odds with these core maxims. Maybe I just stick with 1e/2e.

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It's a good piece. Before I followed the link I was going to link to @Gus L 's 7 Maxims of the OSR post, which breaks down several of these shorthand phrases and explains their origins and where people go wrong with them, ...and then I saw that the author linked to that right up front.

I agree that "combat is a fail state" really only applies a) for groups which are trying to maximize odds of success in treasure for xp systems, and b) when the rules and the numbers in the situation make the risk of death unacceptably high.

Tons of us who play OSR enjoy combat. But I think part of the fun of OSR games with deadly combat is picking your spots. Figuring out when to take a chance and press your luck vs. when to retreat/fold 'em and walk away to live to fight another day. And ideally this also makes combat more exciting when we DO engage in it, because we know the risks are high. We know we had the option to run. We know we had the option to avoid the signposted danger. We made a choice to gamble with our characters' lives. And the "combat is a fail state" maxim ideally serves also to remind the DM not to spring too many unavoidable ambushes or un-signposted dangers on the party. Don't force them into an un-fun situation. Occasionally it can be fun and exciting to be caught with your pants down, and scared and figuring out how to get out of a corner your characters are suddenly backed into. But it's not good for it to be happening regularly.

TiQuinn said:

Another one that gets my goat: the answer is not on your character sheet. Every ability, item I have, and relevant score is on the character sheet. Modern OSR eschews long blocks of text in favor of brief descriptions. But one of the things those sometimes obnoxiously long blocks of text did was give you a full accounting of what was in a room to interact with, sometimes down to the smallest detail. I find GMs struggle with the “less is more” room descriptions. If the answer is not on my character sheet, it’s also not typically in the room description of a modern OSR game. So where is the answer?

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I think the answer is SOMETIMES on your character sheet. In the last OSE session I played in our Thief was scouting and got charmed by a Harpy. She was going to pick his skinny charmed elf butt up and take him 75' up into her black oak nest where he'd definitely have been dead before the party could hope to get at her. But I decided to invest my M-U's one Sleep spell in trying to save the Thief and win the encounter, and we won initiative.

But this maxim is more about players being encouraged to engage in the fictional world and manipulate the objects and people in it. You're right that minimalist keying can SOMETIMES leave the DM and players little data to work with, and in that event the game relies on the players being imaginative and the DM being good at "yes, and" and "no, but" to their ideas to let them figure out solutions. But the core idea is more that, broadly speaking, it's more fun and immersive to engage in this process of conversational back and forth play than just to roll a skill check.

Level of room detail is a fine art. Too little and the DM doesn't have enough to work with and has to improvise a lot. Too much and it's unwieldy to work with and the DM has to read a ton and commit it to memory or hope they can find the essential details in the heat of play.

I happen to be one who has an OSR mentality usually, but uses it playing modern games.

I agree wholeheartedly that rules are there to be used only after imagination fails. After all... the entire premise of the RPG is:

Player describes and says what they wish to do, DM describes the result.

At no point do "rules" ever have to come into it... it's a verbal description followed by a verbal description. No rules there. The "rules" only come into play when you add on to the end of the sentence "and roll the dice if there is a potential for failure."

At its heart (much to the disagreement of a lot of players)... I believe RPGs are merely long-form improvisation. Players describe what they want to do... DMs describe what happens. That's improv. That's all verbal negotiation. Completely made up. Nothing you need to use dice for. If players are really good and imaginative at describing what they wish to do and DMs are really creative in describing what the players see and what happens when they do... the game can go back and forth without ever needing to roll dice. It happens all the time in "social" scenes or shopping scenes or whatnot... no reason it can't be done that way at other times too.

But of course people like using the dice. Heck, I like using the dice (and I'm as long-form improvisation RPG as they come.) Not because I think the game IS the dice... but merely because the dice randomize the results of ideas that are generated from the verbal negotiation. It's a way to make things easier on the DM. Rather than the DM having to invent every single response to what the players describe... they can relieve some of that pressure by rolling dice and getting results instead. But none of that is necessary. And if the DM is really experienced and knowledgeable and even-handed and very good at descriptive improv, they can produce all the results that might come from dice just from their own imagination.

Modern games, with all of their rules and abilities and features can absolutely be played more in a board game style, where player actions are not invented by the player but instead are taken directly from their character sheets... but that I personally believe that removes a lot of the point of playing an RPG in the first place.

"Therefore, by not systematizing something, we give it the power to expand and dominate a part of the conversation, because without rules the fiction must be resolved through discussion."

As children, we all played "make believe". We all stopped playing make believe because without rules the fiction had to be resolved through discussion and that wasn't fun.

Mannahnin said:

It's a good piece. Before I followed the link I was going to like to @Gus L 's 7 Maxims of the OSR post, which breaks down several of these shorthand phrases and explains their origins and where people go wrong with them, ...and then I saw that the author linked to that right up front.

I agree that "combat is a fail state" really only applies a) for groups which are trying to maximize odds of success in treasure for xp systems, and b) when the rules and the numbers in the situation make the risk of death unacceptably high.

Tons of us who play OSR enjoy combat. But I think part of the fun of OSR games with deadly combat is picking your spots. Figuring out when to take a chance and press your luck vs. when to retreat/fold 'em and walk away to live to fight another day. And ideally this also makes combat more exciting when we DO engage in it, because we know the risks are high. We know we had the option to run. We know we had the option to avoid the signposted danger. We made a choice to gamble with our characters' lives. And the "combat is a fail state" maxim ideally serves also to remind the DM not to spring too many unavoidable ambushes or un-signposted dangers on the party. Don't force them into an un-fun situation. Occasionally it can be fun and exciting to be caught with your pants down, and scared and figuring out how to get out of a corner your characters are suddenly backed into. But it's not good for it to be happening regularly.

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Totally. Also combat didn't have nearly as many knobs and dials (feats and maneuvers, etc) so if you did try to bull rush through something like the Temple of Elemental Evil, you were going to get bored very quickly as well because those games don't really support a lot of combat variation.

Mannahnin said:

I think the answer is SOMETIMES on your character sheet. In the last OSE session I played in our Thief was scouting and got charmed by a Harpy. She was going to pick his skinny charmed elf butt up and take him 75' up into her black oak nest where he'd definitely have been dead before the party could hope to get at her. But I decided to invest my M-U's one Sleep spell in trying to save the Thief and win the encounter, and we won initiative.

But this maxim is more about players being encouraged to engage in the fictional world and manipulate the objects and people in it. You're right that minimalist keying can SOMETIMES leave the DM and players little data to work with, and in that event the game relies on the players being imaginative and the DM being good at "yes, and" and "no, but" to their ideas to let them figure out solutions. But the core idea is more that, broadly speaking, it's more fun and immersive to engage in this process of conversational back and forth play than just to roll a skill check.

Level of room detail is a fine art. Too little and the DM doesn't have enough to work with and has to improvise a lot. Too much and it's unwieldy to work with and the DM has to read a ton and commit it to memory or hope they can find the essential details in the heat of play.

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Yeah, I think there's a happy medium that needs to be struck in room description. Ideally, I think the GM should have some ideas for how to engage with an encounter and the environment, and have enough information on hand to communicate that to the party. I think this is where really spartan room descriptions fall flat. But conversely, you don't want to pages upon pages of room description that early 1e modules often gave. I actually think Tomb of Horrors was one of the better modules for this. There was just enough description to give the players points of interact with, as well as a "here's the most obvious way to deal with the problem", but it wasn't the only way to deal with it.

DEFCON 1 said:

But of course people like using the dice. Heck, I like using the dice (and I'm as long-form improvisation RPG as they come.) Not because I think the game IS the dice... but merely because the dice randomize the results of ideas that are generated from the verbal negotiation. It's a way to make things easier on the DM. Rather than the DM having to invent every single response to what the players describe... they can relieve some of that pressure by rolling dice and getting results instead. But none of that is necessary. And if the DM is really experienced and knowledgeable and even-handed and very good at descriptive improv, they can produce all the results that might come from dice just from their own imagination.

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I agree with most of your post and your general philosophy expressed here, and I even broadly agree with this paragraph, but I think it misses something that's exemplified by this section. The "randomization of ideas" is, at its heart, the game. Although the negotiation, imagination, and storytelling are all key to the game as well, the game is all about dealing with unexpected events. Otherwise, it's just collaborative storytelling - which is a realm that a lot of rules-light RPGs definitely stray into, often with great results!

But taking OSR and its offspring, the dice are there to force improvisation and clever storytelling, for both the DM and the players. They're also there to create true drama, which I would argue is also a key component of RPGs. Not to get too academic, but without the whims of the gods (of dice, in this case), true drama cannot exist. If my character survives by the skin of their teeth due to my DM being motivated to tell a fun story, or to prevent a TPK, or just because the game is going well and they don't want me to have to roll a new character, then there's no drama and no story. If they survive despite it all, thanks to a lucky roll (and perhaps the intervention of Fate), then that's drama, and a real story to tell.

Of course, none of this really applies to the OP's post (which is strictly limited to OSR combat philosophy), but your post got me to think about this point. It's part of the general tug-of-war between rules-light and -heavy systems, and the debate over the reason we play RPGs at all.

Good gravy... 8 players plus henchmen!?

I didnt really play old school D&D, but I did play with old school D&Ders. So, I sort of had one foot in two different eras (and still do). I think folks often take the "combat is a failed state" to extremes as if you should never get into combat. The truth is the idea was more made around the entire adventure day and/or dungeon as a challenge. Often, it was better to smartly maneuver around a combat that would soak your resources as fighting every combat is going to blow the mission and/or get the party killed. Some fights were just there to wear the party out, like a trap, and thus designed to have a workaround. As the editions rolled on, the characters got more and more abilities and sterner in regards to go and survival power changing the nature of combat frequency. Also, modern combat is juts more nuanced and satisfying to do altogether.

I call BS on the maxim. The answer is most certainly on your character sheet but if you want to find other answers, you may be able to find them elsewhere.

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I think an issue that arises is that for many, this isnt true. If my character is a fighter, than the answer is always fighting. If my character is a healer, than they should always be healing. Thats a bit simplified as skills expand that a bit, however, its the abilities and class features that make the game work. Outside of it might as well not even exist. I'm not saying, im just saying. I've seen this both at tables I've played with and folks here at EN World posting it.

On one hand, you can argue the old school method was more creative because the rules didnt cover situations they needed to. Though, I've seen it with both old and newer players to the point I think its playstyle difference. Some folks lean heavier into the game aspect of the RPG. Thats not a damming statement, its just what folks enjoy. While many like to come up with generational explainations, or put the blame on things like videa games, I just chalk it up to different folks and different strokes. Instead of making proclamations about how the game is played rightly or wrongly, I just find like minded folks to have fun with. My time is too valuable to waste it complaining. YMMV.