[strategy]: burninate or fix?

Question

The strategy tag is in bad shape. It's low volume, only 24 questions (14 open, 10 closed) so this is like cleaning the base boards behind the fridge, but big or small, we clean things when we see they need cleaning.

The first observation I want to make is that it is often being used to tag questions about tactics. The tactics description reads:

For questions about tactical play, relating to how combat is planned and played out in a game, in individual encounters or in larger group situations. This encompasses tactical concepts directly tied to game mechanics, as well as more abstract discussions.

These questions tagged strategy appear to be tactics questions, in the sense that we have described the tactics tag:

• As a DM is it better to focus fire on defenders or on a weaker target?
• What are some "ideal" marching formations?
• When to use scarce resources in combat?
• How can I discourage/prevent PCs from using door choke-points?
• How do I compensate for really low health early on?
• How do I ensure tactical combat is interesting for my large party?
• How do I make and use tactically interesting terrain?
• How do we kill what we can't see? *
• How can a Mystic circumvent magical fog disrupting line of sight? *
• Do NPCs understand target priority strategy? [closed]
• How effective would a mech be in a city environment? [closed]
• My DM asked me to betray the party; How do I beat them? [closed]
• As a PC, which creatures should I attack first? [closed]
• What are some good sources for combat tactics for a GM to use? [closed]

As you can see, this is most of the questions. Also of note, the two that I have annotated with a "*" are less about tactics and more about looking for mechanics for overcoming a particular challenge.

The second observation I want to make is that, to me, the tag description of strategy is pretty vague:

For questions relating to long-range planning in the pursuit of a goal.

I'm just not sure what this is getting at. None of the questions tagged strategy jump out at me in a way that makes me say "oh that's what the tag description is saying". I cannot tease out the definition of the tag by looking at the questions it is on, even when ignoring the tactics questions.

Removing the tag from tactics questions seems like an obvious step here, but I'm not sure what to do with the tag. I'm leaning towards just burninating it, because in the eight years the tag has existed, it does not appear as though anyone has figured out exactly what it is for. But maybe it can be salvaged - I leave that to you.

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Here are the remaining questions that I did not include in my list of tactics questions:

• Is it possible to turn Tenser's Floating Disk into a chariot?
• Strategic play elements for Microscope
• What happens when a creature falls on another creature?
• How to play a devious character when you are not personally devious?
• Needing a Plan to Win [closed]
• How to make a tavern defensible quickly? [closed]
• What do strategy vs tactics mean in tabletop RPG combat? [closed]
• Is there a guide to implementing realistic army logistics in D&D? [closed]
• Players make a single plan with no backup plan, then complain about DM unfairness when their plan fails [closed]
• Armor of Agathys and Damage Prevention [closed]

Of the open questions, three are just mechanics questions that don't need tactics or strategy. However, the one question about microscope may present a valid use case for the tag, if the tag can be defined well. Though, it is only one question. It asks about strategic play elements, which I think is just a synonym for competition in this context. As far as I can tell, this is the only question where a strategy tag may make sense, but the use there does not at all match what we've set the tag description as.

Answer 1

I vote burninate. In my group, we have an in-joke: in response to any vague player questions, the DM says "roll Tactics". The joke was born when a player dedicated a huge amount of skill points to a useless "Tactics" skill during Call of Cthulhu character creation, because his PC was a military genius. He then attempted to use that skill for all sorts of incongruous tasks. What I'm saying is, we never said "roll Strategy".

But seriously folks, TM makes a great point that it's a redundant tag.

Answer 2

Burn it.

Tactics and strategy are meaningfully different, but we aren't using the tag for questions about strategy. Most questions about strategy, such as "How do I effectively showcase the abilities of the BBEG?" venture into idea generation when they are about strategy e. g. "what strategy could my BBEG employ to build up their shadow market empire?" Asking a good question about strategy is really difficult, and if someone does, they should be able to use the tag for that.

We have very few questions that could benefit from the tag, and none of them used it ( — I have read them, but none come to mind — ). We should burninate strategy, and if we get questions about strategy in the future, we could go from there and do re-tagging efforts, but fixing the tag doesn't seem worthwhile right now.

Answer 3

Several of the answers at the question What do strategy vs tactics mean in tabletop RPG combat? [closed] talk about the classic distinction between military strategy (broad policy choices that generally prepare one's side for battle) and tactics (procedures employed by one's troops during during specific engagements).

Tactics has a central place on this site. During "[type of fight X] what's the best way to achieve [Y]?" is a tactical question. We have many of these questions and we are good at answering them.

Questions at the strategic level we don't do well with.

Sometimes we flat-out reject Strategy questions:
Q: "What's the best way to enjoy playing a rogue?"
A: "We embrace a wide variety of playstyles."

Sometimes we ask the querent to alter the question so much it is no longer a strategy question, but one of tactics:
Q: "What's the best build for a rogue?"
A: "What is your party like? What is your game like? What sort of opponents do you face? Does your DM allow multiclassing? Does your DM allow feats? More information is needed for us to answer the question. Tell us the specific problem you are having."

Sometimes an actual strategy-level question is well supported by the site:
Q: "What sort of magic items and feats should I be trying to acquire in order to maximize my damage as an assassin rogue?"

In the cases in which we can actually support a strategy question, we don't call it strategy (In the example above, we would call it optimization - other examples would fit well under other tags).

Strategy questions are either inappropriate for the site, or can be broken down into questions that fit tactics or some other tag. There is no current need for a strategy tag.

Answer 4

What is strategy?

Strategy is "a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim."

If anything, it would be useful in a game that has a substantial amount of strategy in it. Like a game that allows using military unit movements and such. Currently none of the questions do that.

So I call for an EXTERMINATUS: Burn.