Do people really enjoy close battles?

[Xervous]

But in that case, it seems like you'll never be able to get the "good end"?

Again, I guess it depends on what the magnitude of these events are. If the end result is that you, the people you care about, and/or the world are in a worse state than at the start, then it makes me think: "A strange game, the only winning move is not to play".

Unable to get the perfect run? Sure you didn’t find the time to rescue the kidnapped orphans, but you did stop the corrupt mayor, the vampire, the bandits caused some collateral damage but the town is still standing and most people are singing praise. It’s not something for the completionist mindset that will lament missed opportunities. But the key points are that things keep moving, and that even with failures here and there you can arrive at a state that’s good enough to be termed a happy ending.

[kyoryu]

Also, think of, well, any movie or book. The good guys suffer defeats. In all of them. And yet, in the end they usually end up victorious.

The Empire Strikes Back is literally nothing but setbacks and defeats... and yet, at the end of Return of the Jedi, the good guys win, the Empire falls, everything is restored.

Ideally, the setbacks and valleys make the successes and peaks even sweeter.

But in that case, it seems like you'll never be able to get the "good end"?

This also presumes that there is a "good end" that's kind of defined up front.

Again, I guess it depends on what the magnitude of these events are. If the end result is that you, the people you care about, and/or the world are in a worse state than at the start, then it makes me think: "A strange game, the only winning move is not to play".

If that's the case, then you must have screwed up pretty royally along the way. That line of argument feels a little strawmanny - nobody argued for that, and you seem to be taking the line that "any failure must be catastrophic, and any success rate less than 100% is equivalent to abject failure".

Like I said before, look at movies. The characters in movies suffer setbacks in every single movie that I've ever seen. And yet, for the most part, they end up victorious and not in a situation where the world is in a worse state than the start.

[Talakeal]

If that's the case, then you must have screwed up pretty royally along the way. That line of argument feels a little strawmanny - nobody argued for that, and you seem to be taking the line that "any failure must be catastrophic, and any success rate less than 100% is equivalent to abject failure".

Like I said before, look at movies. The characters in movies suffer setbacks in every single movie that I've ever seen. And yet, for the most part, they end up victorious and not in a situation where the world is in a worse state than the start.

To be fair, when I started the thread that was kind of what I was arguing.

In my games players never die, let alone suffer a campaign ending defeat, but still complain that even a narrow victory feels like an abject failure to them.

[KorvinStarmast]

During downtime, the Mad Scientist / Wild Mage died to their own invention? Priceless.

Years later and its still funny. Best thing is I didn't do anything beyond saying OK to the wildmage prc and the expanded wand of wonder table.

Lovely illustration of one of my favorite DM techniques called "Give 'em enough rope"

[kyoryu]

To be fair, when I started the thread that was kind of what I was arguing.

In my games players never die, let alone suffer a campaign ending defeat, but still complain that even a narrow victory feels like an abject failure to them.

One of two things is true:

1. Your players are the worst collection of cretins
2. You have a very strong inability to see their POV or understand their actual complaints

In either case, taking lessons from your tables is not something I'd do.

[RandomPeasant]

Or, they just have a different preference from most people. Someone who plays Skyrim on the minimum difficulty settings because they're more interested in the story than the challenge isn't a "cretin".

[Mechalich]

Also, think of, well, any movie or book. The good guys suffer defeats. In all of them. And yet, in the end they usually end up victorious.

The Empire Strikes Back is literally nothing but setbacks and defeats... and yet, at the end of Return of the Jedi, the good guys win, the Empire falls, everything is restored.

Ideally, the setbacks and valleys make the successes and peaks even sweeter.

The tropes of single-author narrative fiction are not a good guide to the effective tropes of cooperative gameplay. Both systems function very differently (one of the many reasons why video game adaptations tend to be massive failures). For example, contrast Star Wars with Mass Effect, a reskinned version of the same universe but created as a game instead of a film. In Mass Effect characters pile on one success after another as they chip away at a seemingly insurmountable problem. Failures, insofar as they happen, are confined to cutscenes over which the party has no active input.

Additionally in many games the appropriate reaction to a failure is to charge right back at the very same problem that just beat you down only with a new tactic in the hopes of achieving victory this time, something that's quite realistic (many military operations involve multiple slightly different assaults intended to take the same objective), but that only shows up in the most hi-fidelity of historical films.

There's absolutely a place for failure in tabletop gameplay - though it's very important to recognize what failure actually means in terms of the resource management systems used by different games (ex. in many games with level gain, it is possible to 'win by losing' in that your party might lose a battle against overwhelming odds but accumulate so much XP in the process they can turn around and absolutely massacre the attackers the next day), especially whether or not time is actually a factor - but failure in games does not operate the same way it does in straight narrative fiction.

[icefractal]

The thing that bugs me about using the "lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, WIN" trope in a TTRPG is that it pushes the fiction/narrative angle front and center. Because often there's not really a good reason why the heroes are suddenly able to prevail in the end - other than luck - and so it feels more like "We won because that's how the story goes" rather than "We won by our own merits".

[NichG]

I mean, think of a situation where all paths sacrifice something to gain something, and that's a sequence of losses of a kind, but doesn't necessarily result in a complete failed state.

Losses only lead to ultimate failure when losses cost future agency and wins increase future agency. You can easily even have the reverse of that.

Consider e.g. a survival genre where you start with 700 people surviving a cruise ship going down. Sometimes maybe you'll lose some NPCs to failures, misfortunes, etc. Sometimes maybe failure means you lose a random person, and success would just mean you get to choose who you lose and not that you save both. But as a result the amount of food needed, the complexity of getting everyone organized into a convoy to travel, etc decreases. You're trying to juggle 10 things and dropping one means you failed to juggle 10, but at least now you're only juggling 9.

[Cluedrew]

The tropes of single-author narrative fiction are not a good guide to the effective tropes of cooperative gameplay. For example, contrast Star Wars with Mass Effect, a reskinned version of the same universe but created as a game instead of a film. In Mass Effect characters pile on one success after another as they chip away at a seemingly insurmountable problem. Failures, insofar as they happen, are confined to cutscenes over which the party has no active input.

I would also point out that the same can be said of a single-player game with a save system and a cooperative table-top game. Failure in a computer game is usually removed from the narrative or from game-play (in that the failure is either ignored or scripted). Its not a rule but very few games break that trend.

Also, I know I don't try to force any pattern (or even ratio) of wins and losses. I do try to get it across that messing up is OK, and even if you win there may be consequences base on how you win. I try to go with the obvious ones of whatever the group did, I'm not trying to surprise anyone, I'm not even trying to make people to fail, I just fine solving isolated problems and then moving on boring.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I have an experience from last week's game--we had two battles (part of an adventuring day).

The first one was a cakewalk[1]. Them vs 40 goons, about 25 of which died and the rest fled. Minor damage and a few spell slots spent.

The second was a bit tougher. Harder goons, worse tactical position. One PC would have gone to zero without clever thinking and some resource burning. Used up probably 60% of their resources; the warlock was completely tapped and near death, the wizard burned about 40% of his spell slots (including most of his higher level ones), the paladin burned a fair chunk of his slots, and the bard used a few slots (player was absent, so was on autopilot).

Which one were they more fond of? That's right, the first. Because, as one of them said, "we warned them. Several times. Don't mess with us."

[1] really it was a textbook Easy-to-maybe-Medium encounter. No threat of death, minor resources burned.

[kyoryu]

Or, they just have a different preference from most people. Someone who plays Skyrim on the minimum difficulty settings because they're more interested in the story than the challenge isn't a "cretin".

Uh, have you read Talakeal's threads?

That statement wasn't about difficulty.

The tropes of single-author narrative fiction are not a good guide to the effective tropes of cooperative gameplay. Both systems function very differently (one of the many reasons why video game adaptations tend to be massive failures). For example, contrast Star Wars with Mass Effect, a reskinned version of the same universe but created as a game instead of a film. In Mass Effect characters pile on one success after another as they chip away at a seemingly insurmountable problem. Failures, insofar as they happen, are confined to cutscenes over which the party has no active input.

Video games also have the increased difficulty of being pre-scripted (for story-based games).

Frequent loss can work in TT games. It really can. Maybe not every game, but there's no reason it can't work.

There's absolutely a place for failure in tabletop gameplay - though it's very important to recognize what failure actually means in terms of the resource management systems used by different games (ex. in many games with level gain, it is possible to 'win by losing' in that your party might lose a battle against overwhelming odds but accumulate so much XP in the process they can turn around and absolutely massacre the attackers the next day), especially whether or not time is actually a factor -

No, but it we can certainly take a lot of lessons from narrative fiction and apply them to tabletop games - how to set interesting stakes, move forward from loss, etc. If the game is really designed on a preplanned path, where each scene represents a challenge that is intended to be beat (what I call the "gated challenge" model) then it's hard to shoehorn failure in - the model just isn't set up for it. But that's not the only effective model.

but failure in games does not operate the same way it does in straight narrative fiction.

Please don't tell me how tabletop games work, k? Can we at least start with the basic assumption that we're both experienced players? And maybe consider that if there's something that doesn't make sense, maybe the other person has an experience that you don't, rather than the inverse?

The thing that bugs me about using the "lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, WIN" trope in a TTRPG is that it pushes the fiction/narrative angle front and center. Because often there's not really a good reason why the heroes are suddenly able to prevail in the end - other than luck - and so it feels more like "We won because that's how the story goes" rather than "We won by our own merits".

Well, yeah, that would be awful. Don't do that.

Losses only lead to ultimate failure when losses cost future agency and wins increase future agency.

Especially if they remove agency. Removing some options doesn't mean a loss of agency.

Also, I know I don't try to force any pattern (or even ratio) of wins and losses.

I think everyone does to some extent. Maybe not consciously.

If a group is losing every single encounter, you're going to dial things back. If they are utterly curb-stomping everything, all the time, you're going to increase the challenge. I don't know a single GM that doesn't do that.

I do try to get it across that messing up is OK, and even if you win there may be consequences base on how you win. I try to go with the obvious ones of whatever the group did, I'm not trying to surprise anyone, I'm not even trying to make people to fail, I just fine solving isolated problems and then moving on boring.

I agree.

I think that if scenes are based around questions ("does this happen or that happen?") it gets dull if you know that, realistically, it's always going to be what you want to have happen.

Note that that's really critical in what I call "choice-based" games, vs. "challenge-based" games. Though even with challenge-based games I think if you always easily win, at some point the illusion of danger is shattered.

[Frogreaver]

Variety is the spice of life. Close battles are great. Never having anything but close battles would be terrible though.

[KorvinStarmast]

and the bard used a few slots (player was absent, so was on autopilot).

She'll do better next time.

Which one were they more fond of? That's right, the first. Because, as one of them said, "we warned them. Several times. Don't mess with us."

The two battles I still am most fond of were the fight with the Vampire Lord (which was hard, and close to a defeat until someone figured out "go through the wall!") and the running battle that ended up with the Void Dragon encounter - which was hard. And from where I sat, it was close given the kind of damage my bard had done to her.

The ROFL stomps along the way can be fun, sure ,but memorable?
The one versus the Lich was hard but sadly I was not at the table for that one.
Fight versus black dragon, fire giant, Ogre Magi, and two evil heroes (champions?) all at once?
One of the best ones in the campaign from a lot of angles ... nothing easy about that, particularly when the Paladin screws up the ambush I had planned by charging into where I was going to cast Prismatic Spray ...

[Xervous]

the Paladin screws up the ambush I had planned by charging into where I was going to cast Prismatic Spray ...

Did he at least invoke the immortal battlecry?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Did he at least invoke the immortal battlecry?

IIRC, his battlecry was something to the effect of "Nyx you <term for a female dog>!". Bad family (ex-wife[1] and twin brother[2]) blood going on there.

[1] well, she was his ex-wife after he thoroughly smote her[4] and dropped her off the side of a flying dragon. Until then they were informally separated[3]. She deserved it.
[2] who had been sleeping with his ex-wife since before the paladin and ex-wife were married, who had insinuated that the paladin's kid was really the twin brother's, a mystery not explained yet
[3] as in "he ran away and took the kid because she was extremely abusive and was pimping him out to her friends". Halfling culture in my setting is all sorts of screwed up.
[4] IIRC, the final blow was with the edge of his shield[5] to her face
[5] I made the mistake of giving her an ability to shield bash as a bonus action (1d4 finesse). No kneecaps are safe.

[kyoryu]

She'll do better next time.
The two battles I still am most fond of were the fight with the Vampire Lord (which was hard, and close to a defeat until someone figured out "go through the wall!") and the running battle that ended up with the Void Dragon encounter - which was hard. And from where I sat, it was close given the kind of damage my bard had done to her.

The ROFL stomps along the way can be fun, sure ,but memorable?
The one versus the Lich was hard but sadly I was not at the table for that one.
Fight versus black dragon, fire giant, Ogre Magi, and two evil heroes (champions?) all at once?
One of the best ones in the campaign from a lot of angles ... nothing easy about that, particularly when the Paladin screws up the ambush I had planned by charging into where I was going to cast Prismatic Spray ...

Both are useful. The ROFLstomps are like dessert, they taste good, but ultimately aren't filling. The closer fights really make you feel like you've accomplished something.

ROFLstomps show you that you're a badass. Close fights let you prove it, and let you feel like you've earned your victory. Both are useful and arguably necessary.

Also, for some people it really is primarily a power fantasy, and what they want is to win all of the time, and feel like a badass. Know your audience, and know what kind of game you're running.

[Talakeal]

One of two things is true:

1. Your players are the worst collection of cretins
2. You have a very strong inability to see their POV or understand their actual complaints

In either case, taking lessons from your tables is not something I'd do.

Like most things, I am sure the truth is somewhere between. Probably also with a lot of mismatched expectations / preferences as well.

That being said though, just because you dismiss someone doesn’t mean that nobody is saying it.


But, upon further reflection, I suppose I am parroting forum suppositions rather than things my players have said directly.

Normally my players complaints are along the lines of how I am over-tuning adventures because they always win but typically use most of their resources in doing so, and so they would fail every mission if X Y or Z were true. To which I respond, “well yeah, but X Y or Z aren’t true so I guess I am balancing it just right” which is seen as dismissing their complaints.

[KorvinStarmast]

IIRC, his battlecry was something to the effect of "Nyx you <term for a female dog>!". Bad family (ex-wife[1] and twin brother[2]) blood going on there.

[5] I made the mistake of giving her an ability to shield bash as a bonus action (1d4 finesse). No kneecaps are safe.

Meh, improvised weapon, but proficient (and a variation on shield master, I suppose). And you are right, no kneecap is safe!

Did he at least invoke the immortal battlecry?

I think he said something like "your kneecaps will be jello before I'm through with you!" but it was kind of noisy what with the dragon trumpeting, the Oni blasting cold, the fire giant clashing his two shields together, and various trash talking going on.

Both are useful and arguably necessary.

Yes, which is a point I think I made on page 1. We seem to be in violent agreement!

[Quertus]

Normally my players complaints are along the lines of how I am over-tuning adventures because they always win but typically use most of their resources in doing so, and so they would fail every mission if X Y or Z were true. To which I respond, “well yeah, but X Y or Z aren’t true so I guess I am balancing it just right” which is seen as dismissing their complaints.

Facepalm.

"The ceiling is too low - if I were an inch taller, I would have hit my head."

"But you're not an inch taller, so the ceiling must be just right."

There's a certain amount of clearance that is required for people to feel comfortable.

Consider that maybe your players need more of a safety net, a larger number of things that could wrong before things go ploin-shaped, in order to feel comfortable in an RPG.

Kinda like we've just been discussing: how many bad things are you away from failure? Your players just complained that "1" is not good. Telling them that that one didn't happen doesn't change how many steps from failure they were, or how that felt.

EDIT: myself, I like to be (or, second choice, have on my team) the Secret Master Planner. The Secret Master Planner knows that, although we look X steps away from failure, he has Y contingencies, of which Z apply to this situation. This concept may be useful to this thread.

[RandomPeasant]

To be charitable, what that sentiment is expressing is a feeling that the players did not have sufficient agency over their situation, and they won because circumstances that would have defeated them did not arise, rather than because they actively avoided those circumstances. For example, playing against Aetherworks Marvel in MTG tends to feel unsatisfying even if you win, because you often win not by stopping their combo, but by having them brick when they try to combo. As a result, it feels less like you won and more like they lost.

Both are useful. The ROFLstomps are like dessert, they taste good, but ultimately aren't filling. The closer fights really make you feel like you've accomplished something.

It's not really that clean-cut of distinction, to be honest. Sometimes you ROFLstomp the enemy because you outsmarted them and your tactics happen to produce large margins of victory. That feels plenty fulfilling. Sometimes you win a narrow fight because you just happened to be slightly tougher than the other side, and that doesn't feel fulfilling at all. The psychological impact of a fight has relatively little to do with how close it was, and that's completely setting aside the question of what different things people might want to get from the game.

[Talakeal]

There's a certain amount of clearance that is required for people to feel comfortable.

Consider that maybe your players need more of a safety net, a larger number of things that could wrong before things go ploin-shaped, in order to feel comfortable in an RPG.

Kinda like we've just been discussing: how many bad things are you away from failure? Your players just complained that "1" is not good. Telling them that that one didn't happen doesn't change how many steps from failure they were, or how that felt.

Which comes back to the concept of if players really do enjoy close battles or not, hence the thread.

Although I will note that in my case the margin is pretty wide, player death or party defeat both occur less than 1 in 200 battles at my table. Likewise the X Y and Z above are things like “if we had been down a player” or “if we had tried doing two dungeons back to back”, not just “if we had failed a single crucial roll”.

The most common one was “we drink a lot of potions, if we didn’t have an alchemist in the party we couldn't afford that” without taking into account the fact that if they didn't have an alchemist in the party the adventures would have been balanced for a smaller party and thus much easier.

[Batcathat]

Which comes back to the concept of if players really do enjoy close battles or not, hence the thread.

Judging by the answers so far, it seems the answer is "some of them do". I think the people who enjoy them have been in majority so far (though that might be bias since I'm part of that group) but from your tales, it seems likely that your players don't enjoy them.

Of course, what they do or don't enjoy seems like a lesser problem at your table.

[Mechalich]

It's not really that clean-cut of distinction, to be honest. Sometimes you ROFLstomp the enemy because you outsmarted them and your tactics happen to produce large margins of victory. That feels plenty fulfilling. Sometimes you win a narrow fight because you just happened to be slightly tougher than the other side, and that doesn't feel fulfilling at all. The psychological impact of a fight has relatively little to do with how close it was, and that's completely setting aside the question of what different things people might want to get from the game.

There's an interesting insight here about players vs. spectators. Evidence from sports is absolutely overwhelming that players in the game are only too happy to blowout opponents and utterly crush them. However, blowouts are rarely fulfilling to the audience, especially because if the outcome is decided early, there's absolutely no tension and at some point the remainder isn't worth watching. Anyone who's ever stopped watching a game at halftime because one team has an overwhelming lead has experienced this.

In tabletop each participant is both player and spectator at the same time, though the GM hews more to the spectator side than any player, critically. The greater the immersion level the more the players are actually likely to win big, because they are invested in their characters and have no desire to see them lose anything. At a lower immersion level tactical accomplishments separate from character accomplishments may be acquired and valued, so pulling out a slim margin victory increases in value (games with greater tactical plane options and awareness also probably increase this value, while theater of the mind combat makes it difficult to pin down any factor as to why you won beyond good roles and some basic moves).

However, there are other important factors. One is time and pacing. A curbstomp is often decided very early on, but may take some time - especially in complex systems - to 'play out.' This can be extremely tedious - for example a battle won by casting Confusion as the very first action might take quite a few rounds for the party to chase down and murder the helpless enemies - and tends to turn the players into spectators almost entirely. This can induce a close battles preference because in a close battle everything up to the last turn matters.

There's also the GM factor. It is no fun, for the GM, to run monsters that get curbstomped over and over, and if the GM isn't having fun, the game gets miserable. So, if frequent combat is a thing in your game, close battles are a way of keeping the GM happy.

[RandomPeasant]

One is time and pacing. A curbstomp is often decided very early on, but may take some time - especially in complex systems - to 'play out.' This can be extremely tedious - for example a battle won by casting Confusion as the very first action might take quite a few rounds for the party to chase down and murder the helpless enemies - and tends to turn the players into spectators almost entirely. This can induce a close battles preference because in a close battle everything up to the last turn matters.

This is one that I think is really important. Spending your time rolling a bunch of dice when it doesn't matter is basically never fun. And this applies to a lot more than just combat. One thing systems will sometimes do is introduce "extended tests" of some kind where you roll a whole bunch of skill checks in a row to resolve something. And on the surface, that sounds fun. But in the naïve case, it ends up being just like a single skill check, except more time-consuming and less likely to produce varied outcomes. Which is the opposite of fun.

[Satinavian]

And on the surface, that sounds fun. But in the naïve case, it ends up being just like a single skill check, except more time-consuming and less likely to produce varied outcomes. Which is the opposite of fun.

Disagree.

I know there are gambler types who do love the thrill of randomness and unpredictability, but there are also many people who very much hate it. Now making it more time consuming is a drawbak, if it doesn't come with additional decisionmaking during the process but avoiding varied outcomes is pretty much the point of the excersize.

[Quertus]

Which comes back to the concept of if players really do enjoy close battles or not, hence the thread.

Although I will note that in my case the margin is pretty wide, player death or party defeat both occur less than 1 in 200 battles at my table. Likewise the X Y and Z above are things like “if we had been down a player” or “if we had tried doing two dungeons back to back”, not just “if we had failed a single crucial roll”.

The most common one was “we drink a lot of potions, if we didn’t have an alchemist in the party we couldn't afford that” without taking into account the fact that if they didn't have an alchemist in the party the adventures would have been balanced for a smaller party and thus much easier.

Facepalm.

"How likely they are to TPK" is a mostly independent metric from "how many steps from failure they were".

Responding to comments about one with an appeal to the other is… less than useful.

The alchemist incident, while most unusual, has almost nothing to do with whether or not people like close battles, and bringing it up says nothing favourable about your ability to make an on-topic response to people's concerns.

[RandomPeasant]

Disagree.

I know there are gambler types who do love the thrill of randomness and unpredictability, but there are also many people who very much hate it. Now making it more time consuming is a drawbak, if it doesn't come with additional decisionmaking during the process but avoiding varied outcomes is pretty much the point of the excersize.

If you want to avoid random outcomes, why are you having people roll in the first place?

[Satinavian]

If you want to avoid random outcomes, why are you having people roll in the first place?

To simulate the uncertainty that the shared fiction demands. There is no need for any additional randomness nor any desire to pursue chancy strategies.

[Talakeal]

Facepalm.

"How likely they are to TPK" is a mostly independent metric from "how many steps from failure they were".

Responding to comments about one with an appeal to the other is… less than useful.

The alchemist incident, while most unusual, has almost nothing to do with whether or not people like close battles, and bringing it up says nothing favorable about your ability to make an on-topic response to people's concerns.

Quertus, if I may be blunt, popping into the thread every few days to facepalm at me and tell me I don't understand doesn't really lead to a productive conversation, it just makes me frustrated and even less able to understand.

From my perspective, in a dice game, if you were really "too close to failure" all the time you would eventually cross that line. Otherwise, what does "too close" really mean? Like, I can see if gaming were more like stacking bricks where it was exhausting but with little chance of failure, but in a game of skill and dice I have trouble spotting the distinction.

If it is merely the psychology of it, i.e. this game is stressful because it looks like we are about to fail without actually being in danger, then that goes back to the thread topic afaict.


Like I said though, my players rarely come right out and say "this game is too hard for us". They instead say "We are afraid of failure / We think the game is over-tuned, because if something had gone drastically differently for them they would have TPKed / (even worse) lost money on an adventure." The alchemist complaint was the most common one, likewise the sorcerer complaining that they would cast almost all of their spells over the course of the adventure.

Like, in the session before last, I prepped the adventure with two main combats that each were balanced to use up ~40% of the parties resources and two optional combats which were balanced to use ~40% of the parties resources. The first combat went really, really well for them, and they only ended up using 10-15% percent of their resources, yet I had two players (Bob and the new guy) both insisting that the combat used up "almost all of their resources" and wanting to turn back, abandon the mission, and end the session after a single combat rather than pressing on.