Have more fun with unbalanced encounters 

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If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight. - Sun Tzu

Incentives play a role as well. If combat costs them little and rewards them then it will look like a really useful hammer they want to hit everything with. Things like xp for gold, deadly combat, limited access to healing, danger when resting in dungeons, makes the avoidance of combat look more profitable and drives them to the war mentality. Additionally, I think the structure of characters play a role as well. If you look at 3rd, 4th and 5th ed character sheets, anywhere from 75-90% of the sheet is combat related. This can trigger the players to believe this is a combat centric game. Again, if you give players hammers, everything in your game will look like a nail. Great video. An underrated classic of roleplaying games.

Escalation of violence is a concept that often seems to fall to the wayside in some modern D&D settings; like, the adventure is set up for players to battle monsters to the death, and if they didn't then all that prep work would be wasted - that's a sentiment some designers clearly have. But questioning the necessity of violence, treating the groups involved as real living breathing folks, makes the entire game come to life. It stops being a rules-choked game of chess, and starts to become a story. You've got another subscriber, dude. :) Side note: My players are bounty hunters in our current campaign, but the society they live in believes strongly in justice, and won't pay out bounties for corpses. So the players actually need to bring criminals in alive, and preferably in good enough physical health to work in labor camps - because of course this society also doesn't favor the death penalty. It's been amazing thus far! Plus they always get to pick from multiple bounty options, many of which spiral into larger conspiracies and corruption scandals. Tabletop rpgs are just too dang good.

My 2nd edition D&D group of four level 2 characters defeated a Land Shark, otherwise known as a Bulette, which is a 9 HD monster. We didn't take a single point of damage. Cleverness and understanding your adversary is more powerful than any monster.

On a more critical note, this approach is one of the patterns that has lead to the quadratic wizards/linear fighters phenomenon. Utility magic makes the Art of War much easier and enables many tactics to start with. In 3rd Edition there was a term "scry&die", used to describe just what you describe: gather information on your enemies and the use that information to take them down in one overwhelming strike. The best way to do this: divination magic to spy and teleportation magic to move. Finally, while mundane types could pile on damage, spellcasters could actually access means to target the weaknesses revealed by the information gathering. I mean, how do you divert a river? Dig? Or just move earth? Wall of stone dam? Have 10 unseen servants dig for you? Stuff like this is fun the first time it works out, but can quickly become frustrating. Finally, not everyone enjoys long sessions of planing with short action sequences at the end. I played a lot of Shadowrun back in 2nd and 3rd edition days and here the Sun Zu-ism lead so some very boring sessions that started to grate on everyone. Every once in a while planning and orchestrating a perfect heist was great fun, but in general that most enjoyable sessions where ones where players had to react quickly and things kept moving. Thus the movement towards more balanced "gamey" combat. It's not perfect, but - having started gaming in 1991 - I do prefer it over how things often degenerated in the past.

Fantastic video! We had an issue with unbalanced encounters in 5e once where we faced a mage, and the barbarian tackled him into a river and held him underwater. Because the barbarian used rage he had advantage on athletics rolls and because the wizard couldn't breathe, he couldn't escape. Very cool as a player to see something not necessarily meant to happen happen, but you could tell the DM was a bit frustrated because it ruined the big reveal. The OSE/OSR rulings make these kind of plans so much easier and definitely makes encounters much more fun, varied, and dangerous!

Reaction checks with charisma playing a role, morale checks, initiative check every round. All of these things come from the wargaming roots of D&D and were meant to add a level of chaos to combat. I've had players parlay with the opponents and recruit them as henchmen due to a really good reaction roll.

I'm only seventeen, but my dad taught me the ways of classic dungeons and dragons. I fell in love with it almost immediately, because the idea of starting off as barely more then beggars and building the common hero always fascinated me. You have to fight dirty with sharp blades, poison, tooth, and claw. You'll be a bloody badass who's done unspeakable things to earn their might. Just... yes.

This is the single best D&D advice video on RU-vid. Brilliant and important. If you are playing balanced encounters, your players are missing out on a more exciting and cerebral gaming experience.

there are a few resources that can help you get a feel for running enemies as real people. Books by Rory Miller, Lawrence Kane, Mark MacYoung and Varg Freeborn all delve into how violence actually works, why people do it, and how to escalate or avoid it. As a DM you have to be willing to let these things work. The hardest part of role-playing imho is that the reality in the DM's head isn't the reality that is in the players' heads, and that disparity causes a lot of conflict and disappointment. "Yes, and" or "Yes, but" are essential phrases for DM's who wish to run combat as war. Otherwise, it's a boring string of "No"'s.

Lol, I really like the flood a dungeon idea. I imagine having already drawn up a dungeon and then the party floods it, THEN enters. and i get to go back and figure out what has flooded and what is still accessible. I came across your videos yesterday and I am really enjoying them! I like your calm and gentle presence. It's not a loud personality like many MANY channels on youtube! Awesome channel and videos! Keep it up!

One of the best things about old school combat, is that monsters felt scary and weird. They gave very little XP and were bad ass, and as a result, were best avoided rather than confronted.

I came to RPG via wargaming, so i have always run open world, combat as war. This encourages incredible stories the DM could never create on their own, because the characters survival depends to a large extent on their players creativity, and how they overcome obstacles is often ingenious. One player had a very powerful wizard who very rarely cast a spell, he tried to to talk his way or think his way around every obstacle and felt like he had somehow "failed" if he actually had to reduce an enemy to a sputtering grease-spot by means of unleashing eldritch fury on them. Fun gaming.

Combat as war! Brilliant.

Totally agree, having roots in BECMI and Ad&D I remember how time we used to spend trying to avoid fighting or at least doing with some kind of leverage. Now it seems all useless since PC are organic battletanks optimized since their creation only to deal the maximum damage possible!

I threw out the CR guidelines in 5E. I also use what I call tidal initiative. It’s side based for initial-but as the tide of battle flows the groups can take/lose the initiative through tactics & luck. And when a PC goes down they generally get torn to pieces (death saves?)- or have their heads smashed in. As a first fight in my session zero: their characters were a 10 year old girl, 13 year old girl and a 18 year old boy armed with 3 wood spears 1 wood shield & a wooded helmet vs 8 Mountain wolves. They used terrain, a pre-prepared (by accident) battlefield to tactically reduce the enemy in. number & size. As a bunch of 5e players they have never heard of how brutal old D&D was. I’ve been running it that way ever since-they love it-to me, it’s way more satisfying watching them squirm when combat initiative is rolled. This ONE thing can make a campaign or one shot extremely more fun. And my players never believe they are guaranteed to make it to the end of a session. You are soooooo right on war over sport.

Great video! I can't think of how many times my players overcame incredible odds by using tactics unsupported by game mechanics.

In my game last night we had a battle that could have gone very badly, but with some preparation and sneaky tactics, we were able to turn it around. That made the victory more satisfying.

Wow, I've rarely seen this topic covered such eloquent and on the spot. Plz do more episodes. @topic: the problem here is for the DM do make rulings the players can relate to (like they can with a rulebook).. Otherwise, there is no sense in making any plans if you can not even estimate its outcome or at least the game world's reaction to it. Old Schoolers usually argue, bad rulings can not happen with a perfect DM but, d'uh! perfect is perfect by definition.

Great topic, great explanation! I love this style of play for the reasons you mentioned. The great sense of satisfaction knowing you won by your wits, the actual thrill of death being a possibility, the feeling of having actual agency in a living world, and most importantly the great stories that always come about as a result!

It's a subtle thing, almost like how a small interpretation of a religious text can change an entire religion and a way of life: Do you want to play a game where there is creativity and uncertainty or do you want to play a game where there are "builds" and all of the encounters are planned and rated according to CR?

Great video ben! Realy touches on what makes the OSR style combat fun; preparation and improvisation. A lot of games went more towards the tactical miniatures wargame side of combat, which can be fun for sure, but its hard to build in rules to wargame that allow you to kick over a table into the approaching guardsmen, leap off the balcony and swing from the chandelier and into the boss. Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see more of these :)

This is exactly my reason for despising combat in DnD (and Skyrim and so many other games): battles are too even handed, even when taking into account unmatched-levels encounters. It’s really nice hearing the same concerns voiced by a notable member of the community. Especially because you provide a means of correcting the issue! I’ve been working on my own kind of system that focuses on strength-in-numbers, morale, and player ingenuity. Damage amounts matter very little, it’s basically just inconsequential damage, injuries, and mortal wounds. Injury-based combat; it has nothing to do with hit-points. Organ failure and ultimately spiritual departure. Fear undermines and courage bolsters. Fight smart. 5 goblins with even rudimentary spears can kill a master swordsman because of their numbers and reach advantage. In the event you read this, do you have any suggestions?

My 6th Level Diviner has 20 hit points. Every combat she engages in has the core thought “how do I survive this?” She doesn’t have the luxury of taking blows to deal damage back because one lucky hit will take her out of the game. I have the most fun with this character because the challenge is so much more real.

One thing I really love from Old-School Games, that honestly isn't as common any more, is the idea of a Funhouse Dungeon. Now dungeons are all basically the same, and *heavily* grounded in reality, but in a world with such powerful entities and beings of great influence it makes more sense (in my opinion) that these Grand Structures would be built by such entities. Maybe this dungeon was built to house certain creatures of extreme danger as a type of Menagerie, or maybe it was a challenge created by a Wizard in order to see who in the land would get one of his magic items. Which, brings me to the other Old-School idea that I really enjoy: Random Magic Items. They don't have to be randomly generated (although that can be quiet fun as well), but items that aren't always intended or specifically designed for the players. Yes, giving your Bard Otiluke's Lute of Irresistible Dancing or your Paladin Holy Avenger can be fun, but what about a Staff that when tapped upon he ground twice, allows the wielder to understand how safe one path is to another (those bushes have poisonous thorns, that ground is unstable, etc.). Or, what about a spoon that while held in your mouth, grants you the ability to stay awake without needing to rest, but as soon as you remove it, that tiredness immediately returns to you. Items that are less geared towards making your PCs better at what they do (these would still exist, but wouldn't be the only thing available to find), and instead create unique- almost mysterious effects that are still useful, without just being a bonus to Attacks, Damage, Skills, Abilities, and Powers. These types of magic items are also a great way to keep your players from knowing what something does, just based off it's visual description alone, and makes the idea of Magical Items more... Mystical! It can also keep a party on their toes about what items should be scanned with Detect Magic, although if you're anything like I am, you meticulously activate Detect Magic upon encountering something that isn't an immediate threat to your character. This is due to thinking of Magic as being powerful, strange, and practically incapable of mortals understanding it.

I wanted to specify two things: First of all, combat as sport can give the same rush of achievement if the system is deep enough to give options. Of course, if the system is simply "pick the obvious best options" or "roll to attack", then no, it isn't fun. But when the system also offers multiple options in game, then things start to get interesting. For example, Shadowrun 5e, whie absolutely broken in many aspects, has a combat system that is *very* deep. If we take just physical combat (no magic, no hacking), you have different firing modes (which makes targets easier to hit but increase recoil and consume more ammo), you have martial arts (small perks that modify melee combat), you have called shots (penalties to hit in exchange to various additional effects), you have active defenses, you have combat maneuvers. This without taking into account stuff like different devices that can affect the way combat happens (like a melee character using a jammer to disable enemy smartlinks to cover his charge). Even if it's just two people in a white empty room, there are a lot of decisions you have to take in a fight. If you beat a superior opponent, you can also get the feeling of overcoming a real challenge. Sure, it might be more of a shonen kind of feel, but shonen moments can be cool too. Of course, that also depends on the gaming system, and Shadowrun 5e needs a lot of houseruling to be functional due to abysmal editing. But the skeleton of the system has a lot of potential. Second, while combat as war can be as great, as you say, it also puts a lot of strain on the GM. Because in order for the players to hatch clever plans, they need to be able to acquire specific and precise informations. Which also means the GM has to think a lot more things through. In Combat as War, it's not only the players who have to keep track of rations, torches and distances. Not only that, if the GM likes narrating a lot and creating atmosphere, they will have to deal with their narration and roleplay being continuously interrupted by players specifing all the precautions they take while doing everything. Which may be rude, but is a rudeness that is encouraged, since carelessnes and "going with the flow" are punished. Without this, the players risk ending up in a situation where they are at war, but they cannot treat it as such. Basically a football team dropped in 'nam, that is still expected to play by the rules. And that is not really fun. Well, maybe for the GM, if they are a sadist.

Thank you, @Questing Beast. This and other videos are becoming my go-to for RPG help

I loved the video. The thing between combat as sport vs. combat as war, is one of the things that drew me back to OSRs & Rolemaster. Combat should be deadly, the npcs should not be mindless drones (unless they are Zombies ect) & the PCs should survive by their wits if facing greater numbers or a more dangerous threat.

This channel, more than any other, has helped acclimate me to OSR. Gearing up for my first OSR DMing session!

Dungeon Craft sent me here. Brilliant video. I prefer combat as war. Much more exciting and dangerous.

Fantastic. I've been looking to run this style of game using GURPS in a low fantasy mercenary setting. I had encountered in my games as a player in Pathfinder that enemies like ogres felt nowhere near as dangerous as they should be. The whole world had been influenced by the combat as sport approach, and I felt like we encountered ineptitude of our allies or the apparent strength of a few notable figures that always acted to simply frame our actions as "the heroes". Not that I think this is the "wrong" approach, it was fun and to each their own, but the character I had built was a Hobgoblin who used intelligence over strength and skill as a means of waging war... but I found he ended up sitting about in combat, where his int-modifier merely affected his studied strike with a pistol and the alchemical buffs he'd given allies (he was an Investigator). It was very much a combat as sport approach which really did not align with my character at all. Now, I can think of one example at least, and this is to the major credit of our GM, where that was not the case. We had come into possession of several barrels of gunpowder, and at one point I managed to convince everyone to help me set up a trap against an ogre army to collapse the sides of a canyon in on them, inflicting considerable casualties. Nothing has come of that yet, though it has been regarded well by the enemies of the ogres, but, still, I find myself wishing nearly all combats in the game were of that sort, and that everyone at the table would be planning in the same way. So lots of fun things to explore in the game I'll be running. Thanks for the great video, I've sent it to my friends.

This is the reason why I play GURPS. Out of the box, it has gritty combat where one hit can put you out of the fight. And! There are a lot of books that contain a lot of rules for pretty much any combat or non-combat scenario. GURPS really is the ultimate "Combat as War" ruleset.

I love this! Combat in pretty well every game I have played has always felt so, game. It doesn't matter, we wipe the baddies, and there is no fear or sense of risk, and it quickly waters down, well, everything. Great video

my first vid of yours, and you earned mad props. I run as war 90% of the time, and folks have enjoyed the fact that their actions matter, not just "oh it was unbalanced", or even worse "it was handed to me as a win"

Well now that was an inspired foray into the heart of mature RPG dynamics. One could explore this topic in depth. Within the battle space a huge limiting factor for creativity to overcome lethality, is how the rule's action economy is modelled. Readied actions, opportunity actions, and the degree and sophistication of triggers allowed is at issue. We know intuitively that skilled smart hero's have more options to use but if your DM says: you can setup only one specific trigger and won't let you react to the obvious when you've held your turn.... Example: as an archer sniper you say I'm looking to shoot over there any enemy, and another enemy then moves up to mek

I just read one of the Angry GM's articles that touches on some of this; pretty much every edition of D&D is incomplete. Like: running away. According to the rules, it's...pretty much impossible. Unless your *entire* party has a higher movement than *every* enemy, tactical retreat just isn't feasible. So if you want real depth, real richness and that living, dynamic element so many of us crave, you'd best get comfy creating some sub-systems to fill in the blanks. The difference between editions in this regard seems to be that the older editions were less worried about nailing down every single possible outcome with very precise language and were more comfortable leaving things open-ended for GM adjudication. I remember an argument about whether or not a +1 flaminging sword could start a fire. Some people were absolutely up in arms over the idea that such a "drastic" reinterpretation of the rules could occur at the table. I was told that, as a permissive rules system, the game tells us what we can do. So if it doesn't mention whatever it is you're thinking about, you just can't do it. Which feels...just really sad and like a massive waste of potential. The counter-arguments to my "but it's *fire*" were essentially "but you need to be consistent! What about a shocking sword, then? Could someone use that to electrocute an enemy on a metal platform? Could they use a frost sword to create an ice bridge across a lake?" But I feel like...I'd rather be consistent in terms of logic and fairness than in application of a set of rules that cannot hope to cover all the situations that may arise.

This kind of video is really good for people who did not grow up playing osr games, and need to understand the style behind the game (which is not always obvious by just reading the rules). This video reminds me of hedge hobbits video on encounter balence

Im currently playing an old school insta deth adventure. The best way to to win combat, i think, is to hire about 15 guys to come with you. Numbers is key. You probably want to get horses for everyone as soon as you can too because theres a reason Ghangis Khan almost conquered an entire continent.

I made a rpg system that’s entire point is that the characters are normal people, so this helped with figuring out how to design it.

Your videos are very recognisable to me. You give me confirmation that I'm on the right track, you explain why my choices are not bad at all, and that relaxes me and gives me confidence.

I've started running The Black Hack and DCC recently, this (and the playlist) are gold.

I always put the fear of death into my players. they know that almost anything is possible, and that death is one wrong step, or bad die roll away. When they survive, its a huge relief, and a big rush. We have a great time. Having said that I run a 2e Dark Sun game, so its easy to have that style of game.

I think you hit the nail on the head with knowing & manipulating game rules (of 3e-5e, which are video game-like and encourage power gaming) vs. actually having to play with tactical creativity because you cannot win otherwise. 6:52 When I am the DM, I love it when the players outsmart me with a great tactic (rather than with rules lawyering and power gaming)!

Right on! You really captured what the real essence was of old school D&D! The tension created makes if feel more real and more satisfying.

Just found this video on reddit. Really good, I liked and subscribed. Looking forward to seeing more of your channel when I get some downtime this weekend. I'm new to D&D but what you described in this video is very exciting, and would be the reason I would want to take up the hobby seriously much more than for "combat as a sport". Thank you for the ideas.

I always do combat as war, as it encourages more fun, risk, & reward. Your description of this playstyle is spot on!

Honestly the best content dm wise I've seen in a minute.

I'll definitely use these insights in the campaign setting I'm working on. Thank you!

Extremely helpful video, I have been attempting to run combat as war for months in my own campaign, without any idea what it actually meant to run combat as war. I would often wish players would dig deeper into things relating to the combat that is more than just mechanical or rules-based, and this really helped to clear that up.

This is so inspiring! I already was into roleplay that was more about creativity than math and stats, but man this gives me ideas :D

Another way it works in that way is tailored vs. status quo play. It's good to have a mix of both. Old skool gaming had places that were deadly, or creatures that lived in certain places that were deadly. You could be going through a level 1-3 adventure and find a chamber that had some dark evil that you should back away from and avoid or learn very quickly to run. If you plan it out right, you might be able to take that fight and possibly get some good loot out of it, but you better be very certain of it and not just try to walk in just rolling dice as typical and expect to get through it. It could be anything from a large group of intelligent giant spiders that have extremely powerful venom, or even an adult green dragon where you better realize that huge roar coming from the crater means to get the hell away, before it pops out looking for whatever is making that noise while climbing the rim. It's especially effective if you foreshadow its presence. Maybe they find huge sticky webs filling a huge cavernous pit, so they know those spiders must be absolutely terrifyingly huge.... Or maybe a tribe of goblins worships the dragon or have a small golden idol with his name engraved at the bottom... When there are rumors that a powerful lich rules in a lost underground crypt somewhere deep in the forest, they may know better when they find a strange ruined squat tower in the forest with no door to enter... Or back off when they see a crypt underground if they find a way inside... They can put those things on their to-do list for when they feel more powerful or avoid it altogether.... --Because not everything in the world is waiting to meet them until they are on equal footing with them.... Also, in the same vein, to make it feel more realistic, you should also throw some adversaries that are not even a match for them.... They can still prove a huge challenge, especially if they are prepared for them, but even if they go around killing goblins all day at lvl 10, that's just part of the world... There's less risk, but less reward.... but goblins don't cease to exist, just because they're easy to a higher level character... and they can still get up to fun mischief that the players might feel like smacking down for an easy reward and to feel powerful... Sometimes revisiting things that used to be a challenge really lets you appreciate how you've grown...

Great video! I enjoy your setting reviews, but it’s nice to see a change of pace, too!

I really enjoyed this video. Thank you so much!

Hey pardner. New to your channel and am digging it. With this one, you are so spot on. I'm an old school AD&D 1E & 2E. Well said. You put into words why I really never saw the need or desire to move on with the later versions. That's just my thoughts on it anyway. Thanks for the video my friend.

I'm playing in a 5E Strahd campaign (my first game of actual D&D since the 90's) - it's definitely combat as sport. Especially with minis - feels like video game emulation; press play on "action music track #2", combat has begun again. I'm not sure if we're following the rules right, but as a rogue I'm always being hit to 0 HP, going down, then before I have to start making the 3 "death saves", someone heals my PC and he leaps up back into the fight. Gets hit again, goes down, gets healed again. It's like whack-a-mole. No consequences. You can even do your action any time during movement, so I've had another PC move past me, touch/heal me, and continue on their way. Almost literal high five of healing as they run past. It's ridiculous and undermines the gloomy atmosphere of Barovia (which I happen to enjoy, it reminds me of Dark Souls). If I was going to run Strahd, I'd pick something like LotFP or RC to play it - with new PCs (from PC deaths) coming from outside like the original party, or from Barovian locals once the Players know more about the setting.

Another thing about Combat as War is that encourages large groups of players. Safety in numbers.

This was an amazing video. I would love to see more videos about the OSR philosophies like this.

I’ve like your recent essays and thought processes.

After 45 years of play style to draw upon, I find it interesting to see the resurgence of 'how the game used to be played', does this point to a more accurate way to play? Or does it mean the 'free wheeling game mechanics' are better when used correctly? Long live OSR!

I'm unsure on the whole avoiding combat thing. I grew up on BECMI and AD&D and I don't know what everyone else was doing but my players had to brawl. We probably ran 1 to 3 combats per session.

Supporting the contention that different systems support different play styles (like CaS vs CaW), I'm reading this thread about the question, "How would you effectively use a battlemage in GURPS?" I'm noticing that most of the answers start by pointing out that you have to specify the scenario...are we talking small squad engagement, ambush, is there a squad of them as part of the army, etc? And all of the answers basically sound like "combat as war" type scenarios, like...use Summon Animal to direct all the horses in the cavalry, thus rendering cavalry useless. Use Control Earth to make an instant fox hole. Glue the enemy in place, then Create Fire followed by Control Fire to burn them alive... None of answers are answers are like, "Here are the most OP spells with the highest damage dice," even though, yeah, they do have fireball and lightening bolt. (Lightening bolt is great because it ignores armor/metal...can go through/electrify metal in general, and has a high chance of stunning. All of the spells are written with the assumption that they affect the world in logical ways and will be used as such, not just hand out strictly delineated conditions/modifiers.) Not saying GURPS is the perfect ultimate system or whatever, or that you can't do this kind of stuff with D&D... Just that I think D&D, even in earlier editions, does kind of have this "combat as sport"-type assumption built into its design, and thus supports and encourages it a bit more, compared to systems that are...maybe you could say less "gamey", maybe more "simulationist"/"narrativist" for lack of a better way of putting it.

Great video! Always look forward to your videos man, keep up the great work! I think you've got some an Ennie worth channel.

Dungeoncraft sent me. BUT! I was already subscribed to both channels, so, there's that!

my group play as Combat for war. it is certainly challenging for new player when they barely know the system or familiar with their own character. HOWEVER this help the group work as a group , there are no " im the hero" type player because everyone know their survival rely on working together. this on a long run enhance everyone familiar with each other as a character and each other ability. my classic play is having a 500ft square map, players can explore the whole map while its heavily infested by enemies they just have to choose their battle and learn to do things sneaky. sure they will and can make mistake but thats why its so much fun for them when they overcome it and slay the boss

I love it! I made a house OSR version of DnD and cap leveling at 6th. This keeps HP around 40 when capped and all 2-handed weapons do a 1d12. A 6th lvl character can now die to a guard patrol of 1st lvl.

Dungeoncraft sent me! It's definitely much harder to do unbalanced combat in 5e, but I agree that it definitely makes things more interesting if your players are up for it.

I'm about to get my Dungeon World table fighting against a kraken so this gets me very excited.

6:25 Our warlock used illusions too frighten goblin skirmish troops and broke the hobgoblin army's cohesion after a critical failure to their morale roll. Battle won without fighting.

Dungeon Craft sent me - but you knew that already didn't you? Texas here (and I was already subscribed - I bought 5TD because of your review!)

LMoP SPOLIERS: Regarding the last bit about winning in combat-as-war coming down to "you came up with a scheme that the DM was not prepared for", I thought of Venomfang in LMoP. With any group moving at the expected pace of LMoP, Venomfang (a young green dragon) is encounterd when the party is 3rd level and would generally be considered an unbalanced encounter. If that party says "tally ho!" and charges into his tower, a TPK is just as likely as mayyybe getting lucky and driving him away at half HP but not killing him. But we scouted via familiars, used Pass Without Trace to sneak up on him after waiting for him to sleep (confirmed by scouting), bartered with the local druid for Protection vs Poison for the front-liners, used a potion (flying or climbing, can't remember) to put the ranged rogue and EB warlock up on top of the tower so they'd have line-of-sight with less danger, and coordinated our attack timing so everyone could participate in the first round with surprise. Our level 3 party took him down completely within 3-4 rounds, as even when he tried to escape he still had the ranged PCs ready to finish him off. Easy money, but only because we created a great plan and then executed it with discipline.

This is exactly the type of game I'm preparing. I want to run a gritty witcher-inspired game where most of the monsters will be quite dangerous.

In the dragonlance campaign im working on im trying to always give my players a way out of combat. I learned a lot from my dm who uses unbalanced encounters. I just had a character die the other day because i did something stupid. Anyway this video has given me food for thought. Thanks

I'm just kinda fed up with all those rules. A fantasy games shouldn't be that complicated. I want to play those Basic D&D modules like Keep on the Borderlands but with my D&D5e mindset I start reading them and I just can't see how my players are supposed to survive that module. This video helped me a lot. I think I have a better understanding on how to run an old school game.

I like these ideas its much more exciting than your simple punch things till they die then take there loot and punch more things till they die

Dungeon craft sent me War, nice points.

Funnily i've been playing tabletop RPG for 15 years (i'm 26) with my older brother and my cousins sometimes with my parent and the parents of my cousins when they accept youngster at the table, and in this circle of players we always plays combat as war. Lately we've been playing in a world and a set of rules invented by my brother, i have 6HP and i'm the Tank lvl 5, i'm two bad move away from getting killed, my sister play a half dragon barbarian, one time she turned berserk and put me down in one hit ahahah.

GREAT VIDEO. Please make more OSR advice videos!!!!!!!

SUPER interesting

'Dungeon Craft sent me. Great site. Carl from PA.

"Ambushes are murder and murder is fun" My players generally manage to get the drop on the other side. sites.google.com/site/grreference/

Well, if you play combat like war, bad things will happen to good player-characters! I am not sure, whether your player will like it! They will claim that you (the DM) are unfair, because you throw encounters at them that they cannot beat without a lot of thinking. Sooner or later, they will chose the wrong strategy. Will they like that? I doubt it, IF this results in characters dying. Therefore, there should be other sorts of punishment beyond death. Maybe the character loses a hand (like Luke) or is captured and tortured by evil humanoids? Maybe he is beaten up and left for dead in a hostile wasteland?

I often dump Constitution for my AL characters, just for thrills/ cool builds.

I also have that lotr poster

You talk about OSR combat as if it is something from a history book. Players are still alive from the early 70s, who have continued this style of play despite all of the games that have come out between 1970 and 2018. It is the latest generation of players who are discovering the reason for those designs and play styles (like yourself). As you said on one of your videos, OSR is not just having a revival for nostalgia’s sake. Playing those games in that style is fun, and tension filled, and demands that players get into problem solving themselves (using their own creativity), rather than having the game mechanics do all the problem solving for them.. Finally, when there are encounters that are beyond your capabilities, you learn to make different choices, and avoid or run from threats that you can not handle (yet).

Difficult with Tunnels & Trolls with the mass combat mechanic.

I wonder how this meshes with the random encounter system. "Combat is excessively dangerous if you're not completely prepared for it ahead of time." Turn around "Anyway, here's a combat that not even the DM knew about until I rolled this die." seems a little hokey.

I would describe it as combat as improv rather than combat as war But i also do get why it would appeal to some people

I don't know. We did an awful lot of fighting in 1st-edition AD&D. There was never an attitude of sport versus war. We saw a monster and tried to hit it. True, I tired of balanced encounters in 3rd-edition. In 5e, I don't bother much about "balance".

Dungeon Craft Sent me! ;) Robert from N.Y.

I understand combat as war and the OSR philosophy of not fighting when you don't have to. I don't have much experience with the style of play, but feel like I understand it a bit. My question would be this: How is that reconciled with wandering monster encounters, random wilderness encounters, etc.? If the players have no control over when they get hit with one of these, what option do they have to plan and gain the upper hand to fight them? Or are those encounters meant to represent that sometimes you don't get to prep before a fight and whether you win or lose will just depend on whether you could flee or win, how hard the monsters that got rolled up randomly were, etc.? When you can die in one hit, it seems like any fight that you don't choose to have has a decent chance of just wiping the party.

Karl von Klauzewitz has another description of war then sun tzu. overkill emediately or don't start a battle.

Hey, silly question, what's that book between Godbound and Hubris?

As a DM, if there isn’t a pc death every two to threes sessions, you’re doing it wrong…..

DungeonCraft Sent Me! :)

Where did the art come from that's the thumbnail image for this video?

As a few have mentioned, I feel like GURSP could be really great for this kind of thing. I'm reading the original forum threads on "dissociated mechanics"... Some of the 4e partisans were arguing that you could make the same argument about hit points, so clearly it was a bogus concept just invented by 3e fanboys to bash 4e. To which I would respond, absolutely hit points are a dissociated mechanic, and I always hated them for that reason. Ever since I discovered other systems like White Wolf and Cyberpunk, D&D in general, even OD&D, seemed too much like a video game/board game for my tastes. Dissociation is a sliding scale...4e just pushed it too far even for people who love D&D. I OTOH have an extremely small tolerance for it. My preferences are I guess you could say simulationist > narrativist > gamist. Or maybe reverse the first two... If what should logically happen would ruin the experience, fine, nix it, and let's go with what would be more fun. Maybe. But otherwise: If for example, you're battling a giant lizard with jaws like T-rex, you should have to be extremely nimble to avoid getting bit, shaken around, hurled across the room, and slamming into the cave wall, in which case, you're immobilized from broken bones and passing out from blood loss. "No fair! I'm level 46 and have a bajillion HP!" To which I say, WTF is a level and what is HP? How is it possible that a successful bite from that giant maw only brings you 1/20th closer to death? Good warriors are good because they're good at hitting and not getting hit, not because they become increasingly better bullet sponges. Do you have really good armor, or is your skin hard as stone? Are you just insanely lucky/blessed by the gods? Ok, fine, why not have an actual mechanic for that? Ie, if you're playing as a Super, as you effectively are in D&D, have rules that specifically delineate and **model** (key word there) what your super-powers are and how they work. And an explanation that makes sense in the context of the setting! (I love how Exalted does this--you can get mauled in fight after fight and recover in a few days, and do crazy wuxia-style antics, etc because you are literally a demigod.) IOW, there's no such thing as "fluff"--"fluff" is primary, it's the actual reality of the game world, and "crunch" is only there as a tool to help determine uncertain outcomes. Maybe it's possible to make the thing bleed to death if you spear it enough, but really, the sensible thing is to hit it with a ballista if at all possible. Maybe immobilize it first...etc etc. Which gets us to how it relates to CaS vs CaW... IMO, things should happen as you would logically expect them to based on in-setting logic, and the rules should support that. (This doesn't mean it has to be super-gritty and "realistic"! It could be a cinematic game, in which the criteria is: what would be a reasonable outcome to expect in an action movie, or some other genre?) The rules are merely tools to help adjudicate outcomes. If they can't, and dictate radically different outcomes based on their own internal logic, then by my personal criteria, they are not good rules. Or maybe they are great rules, but for a different kind of game than the one I personally want to play. I want to play a game where we simulate imaginary scenarios with our imaginations, not a board game who's outcomes we then narrate and come up with plausible rationalizations for.

Dungeon Craft sent me! -- Dr. Christian Bynum, Washington State

You are overthinking this. I grew up playing AD&D. Back in the day, it wasn't a tactical battle. It was a bloody, nasty gang fight between the PCs and the bad guys. It was like a swat team kicking down the door. It was the Clockwork Orange gang come to life. Your hooligans kicked down the door, launched every missle you could get your hands on including arrows, rocks, bottles of flaming oil, and then either charged in if the results were positive, or if you missed, slammed the door shut and ran for it ducking their barage of missles. It was so lethal you pinned your will to your clothes before you entered the dungeon. You brought hirelings witth you knowing you wouldn't end up having to pay half of them because they were going to: 1) die, 2) carry your body out, or 3) carry the treasure out and one of the players were going to kill them the second they reached town. It's still a great game!

How do I design a campaign like this though