Rocket Launcher Tag is better

[mlangsdorf]

Switching from one player to another always slows things done. In principle, two rolls by two different people can be done at the same time. In practice, the first player rolls and then the table waits while the second player comes back from the bathroom.

[Neurosis]

So people whined and bitched about 3e because of ROCKET LAUNCHER TAG. Like, I could hit you with an attack and you would die on a failed save. Or maybe you wouldn't even get a save, because my attacks were so powerful you just took hundreds of damage and died.

Then 4e had "padded sumo", with impotent characters wailing on each other for 20 rounds with pathetic attacks like losers. The only people who thought that was cool also fantasize about Mike Mearls inserting his shriveled smelly penis into their oral cavity.

Nowadays, people say they want something in between. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

I'm here to proclaim to you that Rocket Launcher Tag is better than "in between" and better than padded sumo.

Let's say you have a 50% chance to defeat your enemy with an attack or spell or whatever. That means you will defeat your foe in one or two turns only. Say you sometimes need another turn to sort out positioning sometimes. That means your enemy will be defeated (or will defeat you, if it's roughly equal in strength) in 1-3 turns ONLY.

Similarly, say you have an attack that pretty much always hits, and tends to knock off 50% of your enemy's health on a hit. Again, if you factor in a turn of positioning, you are talking about 1-3 rounds ONLY.

Throw in some special defenses or counters and you might bump things up to 4 rounds maximum. MAXIMUM.

I'm telling you... THAT IS ENOUGH. Why dick around for longer than that? It's almost always better for the story's progression to have MORE short battles than it is to have FEWER long battles. Remember, the story doesn't progress much during a single two hour fight scene. What if you had three fights in those two hours, with a bunch of non-combat stuff in between?

I've seen a lot of people say "Fights should be five rounds on average!" That's just too damn long.

People complain, "Oh no, the big important villain died in only one hit!!! cry cry cry!!!" Seriously, is that such a big deal? I don't see why it should be. Happens all the time in stories.

You might say, "OMG my character got knocked out in one hit!" But if the fights are short, that's okay! If your team can't fix you on the fly, they can fix you right after the fight -- which is short! As long your compadres have the ability to fix your condition after (be it Dead, or Petrified, or KO, or Paralyzed...whatever), what's the big deal?

My conclusion: If you are making a fantasy game with hardcore wizards and warriors and monsters, most people should be defeated in one or two attacks. And I don't mean "fully optimized characters run by ultra-nerds with absolute system mastery" should kill things that fast. EVERYONE should kill things that fast. Anything more is shit.

Discuss.

The thing is, at the not-insanely-optimized level, D&D 3.5e isn't too much rocket launcher tag at all. It actually errs on the side of goldilocks/just right. From my experience, non-insanely optimized 4E D&D has a bit of a tendency to lean toward padded sumo.

I have never seriously played any D&D with more than casual optimization, so I don't know how those stack up.

In the other side, I don't think that 5 rounds for an average fight is at all too long. My personal sweet spot is...

Ordinary Fight: 2-5 Rounds
Super Duper Boss Fight: 5-15 Rounds