Combat vs. Story

The image shown is from p. 9 of 4th Edition's DMG, How to be a DM.

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The tenor of the text exploits a common theme that runs in the company's writings: that "combat" is somehow a separate part of the game from its other constituent parts—specifically, according to the text, the story and roleplaying elements.  Note the advice at the bottom: don't let the player ruin adventures by killing things at the wrong time, or too vigorously, or indeed things that shouldn't be killed at all.

Last night, I obtained a copy of Playtone's Greyhound, written by and starring Tom Hanks.  The film is based upon a novel by C.S. Forrester, The Good Shepherd, and relates real life events as historical fiction related to the movement of transport ships across the Atlantic during World War II.  I strongly recommend the film.  For those who appreciated Band of Brothers (and since I've written about both Band of Brothers and C.S. Forrester on this blog, you know I did), this is every bit as tight and visual as an afficionado could hope for.  Phenomenal.

I do not wish to spoil the film, but I do with to make a point about the writing, the storytelling and the overall relationship the film has to combat.  The film's story is all about combat.  I'll try to make my point as best I can, for those who haven't seen the film and may never see it, without ruining it.

If you've seen naval war films—for example, the commercialized Hunt for Red October, which I'm sure most everyone here has seen—you're familiar with the standard film presentation we all take for granted.  We're given an action scene, then the characters talk about the action, they express some of their tension, then we move into another action scene.  Hunt is excessively dialogue/character heavy, so much so that the action taking place is almost incidental to the characters; we know the Red October is going to get out of its scrape, so we're introduced to Ramius and Ryan and encouraged to watch their very personal struggles.  I can point to similar films from classic Hollywood, such as The Cruel Sea, Run Silent, Run Deep or the comical Operation Petticoat.  The intent of this intra-action dialogue is to relieve the tension, impose relatable characters for the audience to identify with and offer something other than a film made of shots of ships and subs that are necessarily models.  There's only so much that can be done with camera angles and lighting.

Wolfgang Petersen's 1981 Das Boot was a phenomenal game-changer in a lot of ways.  While backstory and character are instrumental, these are definitely shoved out of the way to depict a submarine crew stuggling to survive against odds.  The cold, raw brutality of the film, emphasizing the freakishly enclosed space aboard a German sub, with a crew that plaintively suffers through hell, eschewed scenes attempting to reduce the tension.  There are brief interactions with members of the crew and the captain; momentary interludes; but the "roleplay" aspect of the terrible adventure being faced is muted tremendously from other films of the genre.  Petersen had no intention of relieving the tension at all.  The film should have won best picture, but instead that went to an enormous piece of crap called Chariots of Fire, a vomitous boring romp that no one ever bothers to mention now.  Typical.

Greyhound goes one further.  It eliminates all character dialogue, except for two sequences that bookend the film.  There are no scenes where the characters express their feelings about what's going on, mutter phrases encouraging other crewmates or talk about whether or not they'll live.  There's zilch along those lines.  The film is about what is going on, and only about what is going on; yet there isn't a second where the pain, the sacrifice, the sorrow or the fear isn't palpable.  Truth is, a story doesn't need what D&D writers laughably call "roleplay," which is little more than silly staging that allows the players to goof off while tension pisses itself down the drain.

The point of all this going around the barn is to argue that combat is story.  Particularly if we choose to make combat matter, and if we don't attempt to create tension out of contrived game structures like "social or skill challenges"—which aren't stressful and are, in fact, dull as dishwater, especially after they've been reproduced ten times a session for months.  As the company found out with 4e when all their cleverness took a spectacular dump.

Combat becomes story when it ceases to be "an unexpected battle" to keep things from getting dull, and becomes that thing that every outcome in the campaign hinges on.  This is a concept that is not created through bigger or cooler monsters; it is not made by pouring bigger treasure into chests waiting to be plundered; it is not accomplished through ambushes, big massive weapons, monsters taunting players with insults or any other horrific cheesy combat trope.

Combat becomes story when the Battle of Helm's Deep is not just a way to receive x.p., but the lynchpin of the whole plan—and very definitely the PARTY'S plan, not the DM.  If it's the DM's plan to defend Helm's Deep, no one gives a good goddamn shit if it's defended or not, so long as we get our experience.  The players didn't invent the situation, they just went from one part of the DM's story to the next and now that they're here, they don't have an emotional stake in what's going on!  Why would they?  It's just a bloody story.

It has to be the party's battle; the party's stakes; the party's plan that's being tested.  The stakes have to be higher than experience and gold.  For example, if the party wins this battle, the party will rule this entire region—this, after small incremental victories, along their own path, with close calls all along.  Now this, this huge battle at Helm's Deep (or wherever, because we've ditched the LOTR plot) is where is all rides.  If the party loses, they lose everything.  Not just the battle, not just their overlordship, but all their allies and friends, all their commitments, all their contacts, everything.  Lose this battle, and they have to start from scratch, and probably in a new country where they've never been.

In a combat film, the characters are fighting for their lives.  None of the characters in Das Boot want to be there.  The characters in Greyhound are there because it's a terrifying, necessary job that if its not done, the war is lost and millions will die.  We can't create these sorts of tensions for the player, even if the players really love their characters.  Therefore, for combat to matter, it has to put things on the line that the players really care about: their mental faculties for making a plan; their shame if it fails; the sense of their joint effort with their friends, to commit themselves to something this big.

If it's the DM's story, those tensions are obliterated.  It's the DM's plan.  It's the DM's shame if we all die.  We didn't ask for this.  We're just here because the DM said, "Go to Helm's Deep," so we did.  Don't blame us.  We're just following orders.

That's why railroading and storytelling sucks for game play.  Not just because the players haven't agency to make their own lives, but because they haven't any reason to give a shit what the lives they're living stand for.  Thus players can squabble about petty bullshit, like saying "fuck all this talking" and killing the monsters that should have been talked to.  IF the players really cared; if talking to the monster really mattered; if this were our adventure and not the DM's, well, hell.  We'd want to talk to the monster, wouldn't we?  We wouldn't be "slayers," would we?  It's just that all this story-telling shit is so damned boring.

Throughout the 80's and 90's, the company tried so hard to get this dialectic started that there were two types of gaming:  the game where the players killed everything, and the game where people roleplayed.  It was a hard sell.  It's still being sold.  There is this tacit acceptance that the company gives to power gamers and killer-hobos, where they acknowledge that the accumulation of power is awesome or that it's thrilling to mete out punishment to villains (though, let's face it, it's thrilling to mete it out to anyone, once the pretense is shelved)—yet it is plainly lip-service.

It is hammered in every book and every article that real gameplay is story and roleplay driven.  Yes, yes, kill things if you must, but remember!  Story!  Mustn't forget!

The last two player types in the list are the "Storyteller" and the "Thinker."  Get ready.  It is going to be a long haul.

This series continues with The Carrion of Story