And to clear everything up:

I say that the books say to avoid unnecessary encounters and that you should run first and ask questions later.

I also say you can play however you want, there's no badwrongfun - just because they say that, doesn't mean you have to play that way.

I also say that I observed younger children focusing on combat to the exclusion of the rest of the game.

Which of these statements do you dispute? Which, in fact, is wrong?

Quote from: Kaldric;495444And to clear everything up:

I say that the books say to avoid unnecessary encounters and that you should run first and ask questions later.

I also say you can play however you want, there's no badwrongfun - just because they say that, doesn't mean you have to play that way.

I also say that I observed younger children focusing on combat to the exclusion of the rest of the game.

Which of these statements do you dispute? Which, in fact, is wrong?

My original comment was poking fun at your post for using the phrase "grow out of it", which has a pretty clear implication.

Me, I like my RPGs to be action-adventure type games.  Not mindless action, just that action is a large component of the experience.  I want something like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark, but not a Michael Bay style movie.

Quote from: Aos;495439Notice how this post follows the typical three act structure. I especially enjoyed the references to the "God" character both direct and indirect.

he's trying to kill me - you all saw it.

Quote from: Aos;495289This is a perfect example of how plot structure is actually built into the game.

Spot on. I'm running an LoTFP sandbox and the thing the players immediately latched onto was that this was about the treasure, not the monster slaying.  Its amazing the new doors this mechanic has opened.  The game is currently 7 sessions in and the players have outfitted a full on archaeological expedition to excavate an ancient Motte & Bailey structure in the hopes of finding ancient treasures inside.  Indiana Jones indeed!

That's not to say there isn't combat of course.  But the players certainly weigh it up more than they normally would and tend to avoid the unnecessary ones. When they do indulge in it, I'd say the fun of it is reward enough.

My players usually make a point of trying to find everything in a dungeon and kill it.  They prefer that to unexpected surprises later.   That's how basically all my groups have operated; so I suspect that what people are talking about here like its common practice is really quite a minority view.
Of course, there's no point fighting something you can't beat, but that's a different question.

RPGPundit

Someone had a blog post about the shift in perspective from goal-oriented play, where you're after something, to kill-everything play, where you 'clear the dungeon'. Can't remember who. Maybe someone writing about megadungeons, and how it's not really possible to clear them out.

I think promoting a "never fight monsters, just get treasure" view of D&D is mistaken, but I'm not so sure that is what anyone is actually promoting.

I think the key is not fighting unnecessarily.  That doesn't mean don't fight monsters.  It means fight monsters on your terms, and when you think there's a reasonable reward for the risk.  That can still be an awful lot of fighting!

FWIW, "clearing" a dungeon is a concept that is mostly foreign and unused, in my D&D games.  There are exceptions, where the whole idea is to clear a certain ruin or site and make it safe, but usually there are other motivations and goals.

To paraphrase William Gibson, players find their own motivations for things.

I occasionally run a friend of mine who is not a hardcore gamer in the least through Castle Delve.  In introducing him to the module I told him about the storied history of the place.  So he, on his own, has decided that finding "The Delver" is his ultimate goal.  The first few times he was attacked by bandits up on the 1st level he was utterly perplexed - who were these people, and why were they attacking him?  Even as he was firing arrows and swinging his sword he'd shout at them asking what the hell their problem was.

He has over a few sessions got a bit more salty and is a kill-first-ask-questions-never type, but is still very addicted to the idea of finding this "Great Delver" and finding out why he built the Castle and dungeons, etc.

As I write the module as players play through, with Steve's mode of adventuring I find myself wondering if "The Delver" will put a cameo in!

Quote from: Kaldric;495331We played pretty much according to the "Successful Adventures" section, pp 107-109 in the AD&D PHB. It sets expectations fairly well, and we have had fun with it for several decades.

One paragraph heading was: Avoid unnecessary encounters.

Yup. That's the psychology shift I was talking about. When the game rewards you only for combat, that provides a strong motivation to seek out combat. This applies to rewarding any tactical method: That method will be preferred and sought out. There will still be some strategic thought (as one differentiates between "challenges that can be overcome" and "shit that's too tough for us"), but the tactical method will be strongly preselected.

If you shift the reward to a strategic goal, OTOH, then players are free to pursue any tactical method for achieving that strategic goal.

Now that I'm in the same place as my LotFP PDF, I can also look at the original quote: "Characters who prefer to fight when it is unnecessary are lunatics, possibly psychotic, and not likely to survive long in a game run by a competent Referee." (emphasis added)

OP left out some important context there. LotFP doesn't seem to actually be an example of the rose-tinted "combat never happened" school of thought that I was talking about.

Quote from: RPGPundit;495946My players usually make a point of trying to find everything in a dungeon and kill it.  They prefer that to unexpected surprises later.   That's how basically all my groups have operated; so I suspect that what people are talking about here like its common practice is really quite a minority view.

Exactly.

Even if they have a goal to find the McGuffin or whatever, the first thing my groups wants to do is clear the place out first to make sure no unexpected threats come up from behind them, or can cut off their escape route, or can sneak up on them in their sleep, etc.

It's basically the same thing the real world SWAT teams do.  Even if you are going in to save the hostages, you clear the place first to make sure you don't get shot while taking them out.  Securing an area by clearing it of enemy combatants is a fairly fundamental strategy.

When I am running AD&D, I always make a point of the relative XP value of treasure and monsters. An ogre is worth like 60XP +1xp per hit point. A one legged kobold with an amethyst ring is worth as much as XP as the ring is worth.

So yes, absolutely, avoid fighting monsters. Just rob old tombs.

And then I proceed to make most of the treasure in areas that are guarded by monsters or other dangers. Simple enough.

One of the dungeons I had, contained a boring beetle (5hd kind of a tough monster) gnawing through the wooden furniture and chests in a treasure-filled room. There were some other branching rooms. My son was playing the final survivor of an expedition- he started out with hirelings but they were all pretty much wiped out. And all he had was his one spell, cast at the beginning of the game, Unseen Servant. He found the room on his way out, after running away from an encounter where his final hireling got killed.

At first he was going to just shut the door and look for another way out.. and then instead, he sent the unseen servant in to tempt the beetle with wood..into the next room..where it shut and barred the door. Then he scooped up the platinum and electrum and ran home.

When I'm running D&D4, it has a much more reliable and gameable combat system, and especially a quest system, so I create situations where players have to go on quests, and face danger. Gold isn't very useful in D&D4- it's not like in D&D3 where it was mandatory to have so many items, nor is it conveniently bled off like in training costs. So I strated creating quests, some of which had a "buy in" requirement, like if you wanted to be able to pilot the spelljammer ship, you had to take a multi-part quest, and part of that was you had to own a 1000gp spyglass.  

Here's some examples: http://fallenstars.wikidot.com/individual-quests

Quote from: jgants;496098It's basically the same thing the real world SWAT teams do.  Even if you are going in to save the hostages, you clear the place first to make sure you don't get shot while taking them out.  Securing an area by clearing it of enemy combatants is a fairly fundamental strategy.

Wouldn't an alternate tactic be to swipe the loot and then wreck the dungeon entrance?

A couple of other points: If it's going to be smart and mean enough to go after you for stealing its treasure, it's going to be smart and mean enough to mount an active defense, and relatedly, there are going to be types of monsters you'll want to expunge ASAP and others you can just go around, so it's not an either/or situation usually ("Kill all the black puddings, they might ambush us in our beds!").

Quote from: jgants;496098Even if they have a goal to find the McGuffin or whatever, the first thing my groups wants to do is clear the place out first to make sure no unexpected threats come up from behind them, or can cut off their escape route, or can sneak up on them in their sleep, etc.

What would they do with a site that was too large to clear? Say, an abandoned huge ruined "city" (say something like Angkor in SE Asia) or a large megadungeon? The first level of the megadungeon beneath the PC's manor in my current M74 campaign reportedly has at least 400 rooms, for example.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;495316

Quote from: Benoist;495288Ratios are about 2/3 for treasures and 1/3 killing enemies in AD&D First Ed in practice, if memory serves.

For example, this ratio -- often quoted by the same people holding up the "combat was always avoided at all costs" meme simultaneously -- is derived entirely by analyzing the amount of treasure you get from the monsters you've defeated.

Actually, no. This specific ratio here given by me is derived from actual play in my campaign, counting all XP from monsters defeated versus all XP derived from acquiring treasure, all the while trying to adhere to the spirit of the rules and advice given in the DMG.

Quote from: Benoist;496233Actually, no. This specific ratio here given by me is derived from actual play in my campaign, counting all XP from monsters defeated versus all XP derived from acquiring treasure, all the while trying to adhere to the spirit of the rules and advice given in the DMG.

I think this is about right, well, at least in the sense that there is no real ratio, it just works out that way.

Last week I ran Dwellers in the Forbidden City (the "A" map, encounters 1-10, in practice 1-9 because we hit closing time and there's a killer encounter at A9).

There's a room with crocodiles and a sacrificial pool, for example. The crocodiles are worth a couple of hundred XP. But if you can figure out how to collect the gems from the sacrificial pool, there's a pair of 1,000 gp gems down there and an assortment of other gems. Obviously the gems are the real XP. There's just no good way of getting them without dealing with the crocs. If you can kill the largest croc and injure all of the others, they swim away..or clever use of Unseen Servant or Mage Hand would easily net you the goods without dealing with the danger. The players in my case resorted to "Tie a rope around the halfling and lower him in" which ended up being a lot of fun for everyone, though.