In Praise of Gygaxian Combat (Part 2)

I was running out the door to catch a bus this morning, so I figured I’d take a little extra time to elaborate on my earlier post. I said that the Gygaxian combat system was elegant, purposeful, and heroic. Here’s what I meant:

Elegance: an abstract combat system, it boils down all the strikes, feints, dodges, sucker punches, kicks, etc. into one attack roll. In fact, “to hit” is a pretty misleading term (one of the reasons I dislike “THAC0”)…the roll describes whether or not you are able to do damage to your opponent in a particular round. In this way, all those complaints people have about “armor absorbs damage, it doesn’t make it harder to hit” are moot. Gygax’s “armor class” takes damage prevention into account by reducing one’s chance of reducing hit points in a given round (by reducing the chance an attack will succeed). The thing that D&D players (including DMs) need to get away from is the idea that one roll = one swing of the sword/mace/staff. Stop saying, “I swing at him;” the narrative of combat can be much more flavorful despite its simple base mechanic. It doesn’t have to be boring!

Purposeful: Gygax outlines that indeed one could devise a combat system that is more granular, and in fact states that other game systems that do so. His does not. This is a clear look at behind the curtain of game design…D&D in its early form was not conceived to model blow-by-blow combat. Gygax cites his reasons, but in practice (say…with D20 or TROS) I have experienced that, from a practical standpoint, combats run faster and character effectiveness (in this case the ability of the player to enjoy the game at full capacity) doesn’t diminish. D&D combat wasn’t designed unconsciously.

Heroic: the abstract design of the system certainly allows for heroic action on the part of the player characters. As Gygax writes later in the DMG (regarding hit points), a single sword thrust can kill anyone. The abstract manner of hit point deduction without penalty allows characters of high level to stand heroically against many such sword thrusts that would kill an ordinary mortal. But for me, that’s not the most interesting, or heroic part of the section.

In re-reading page 61, it caught my eye that this combat system does not (and I presume was not intended) to model equally for both players and monsters. A human or elf might not be able to survive a single sword thrust through the belly, but a dragon or giant certainly could. Hit points in most monsters represent actual capacity to take damage. The implication is subtle yet profound…an experienced character can stand toe-to-toe with the Titans of the Age and fight on a roughly equal footing. Whereas a normal man would be torn apart by, say, a manticore, a 10th level fighter could certainly hold his own and triumph in one-on-one combat.

D&D characters ARE heroic..the simple (but encompassing), purposeful combat system allows players to represent many of the literary and cinematic masterpieces of fantasy.

It’s too bad that video games like WoW, so clearly drawn from D&D roots, have failed to grasp or implicate this basic combat system…instead it labors under the one attack = one swing delusion and characters with hundreds of “health” points are shown unrealistically absorbing damage from bites, claws, sword thrusts, arrows, etc.. But I suppose that’s comparing apples to oranges. Video games are a different (and much more limited) medium than D&D and the human imagination.

Now what does that say about D20 and its movement towards a more video game-like system?