PDA

View Full Version : D&D is not a world simulator



Pages : [1] 2 3

Kami2awa
2016-09-21, 01:04 AM
Wanted to express an idea I've had for a while now.

Some RPGs try their best to simulate all aspects of a world. The Song of Ice and Fire RPG, for instance, has rules for wound infections, and dying in childbirth. D&D does not.

So what does it simulate?

It simulates an adventuring party, and their interaction with the world. It simulates what your character can do, and what the other characters they meet do when they meet the party.

A computer game will not waste processing time or other resources rendering things that the player cannot see. Like a computer program saving memory, the system doesn't need to run when the players aren't looking. The cowardly old wizard who works in the city archive probably gained his power from a lifetime of study, not from killing a succession of more and more powerful monsters to gain XP. On the other hand, the PCs get XP for doing those things, because that's what they do - adventuring is their experience.

That wizard has a reason to be cowardly if he can be killed by a housecat. But that represents what happens if a player party meets a housecat that for some reason has decided to fight them to the death. What happens in that situation is that the party fighter crushes it in one round and the cleric revives the wizard who fainted after a few scratches. If the NPC wizard is attacked by a housecat off-camera (say, one propelled by magical control) he gets away scratched and bloody but alive, because that's realistic.

This is why Fabricate has not replaced all labour, why housecats are not treated like man-eating tigers, and why an ordinary worker doesn't fail at basic tasks exactly 1 time in 20.

icefractal
2016-09-21, 01:34 AM
This is why Fabricate has not replaced all labour, why housecats are not treated like man-eating tigers, and why an ordinary worker doesn't fail at basic tasks exactly 1 time in 20.Hmm. It works for the housecats (they're basically a rounding-error problem - the claws should do only a fraction of a point of damage, but D&D doesn't have fractional HP). And the ordinary worker thing isn't even an issue (they 'take 10', meaning they only screw up when under stress/distraction that would prevent that)

But for Fabricate? That's not a rounding error, or a glossed-over detail; making things instantly from raw materials is the exact and only thing the spell does. I mean, you can totally have a setting where there aren't many mages around, and then Fabricate won't be something most people even encounter. But if there are plenty of mages around, and those mages are supposed to be smart ... why aren't they taking advantage of this major resource?

While some "magic changing the world" things are edge cases that could be said not to apply to the world at large, others are just the direct effect of a spell's most straightforward and uncontroversial use. So I don't think they can just be dismissed that easily.

Although that said, I think the huge variety of extremely powerful and dangerous monsters hanging around would be an even bigger factor in making D&D society different. What would the world be like if sabertooth tigers still roamed the wild, sometimes came into the city to eat people, and even most militaries couldn't stop them? I feel like most (all?) D&D settings severely underestimate that factor.

nrg89
2016-09-21, 02:39 AM
I don't want to sound like a colossal douche, but I've had this view for a long time now and it's one of the reasons why I started looking at other gaming systems (that isn't Swedish, but that's a different story).

The magic is so super powerful that one mage is still enough to warp the entire economy of a region. One 5th level mage would out compete an entire village in most trades such as transportation, preserving food, blacksmithing, you name it.

Which brings us to the political stability. How in the hell can one house rule a kingdom for centuries when the odds that your opponent has a high level adventurer on his side is fairly high? One adventurer on 10th level can handle thousands of mooks for breakfast, the advantage of one adventurer can swing an entire war which would mean that most defense politics in that world is not focused on castles and what not, but finding and hiring high level adventurers. Picture the arms race during the cold war. Also, just like the Soviets went bankrupt, some kingdoms should go broke because of their overspending on adventurers because if you don't have them you can't win a war.

Now, I like Diablo and Torchlight, I'm all about suspension of disbelief but it becomes a lot harder the longer we stay out of combat to not think about how much this world doesn't make sense. I will suspend disbelief, I will not throw it away never to be seen again. I will play D&D mostly for dungeon crawls, but if it's supposed to be horror, sword and sorcery, mystery, political intrigue or anything like that then I'm sorry, I want to use some other system.

Cazero
2016-09-21, 03:01 AM
But for Fabricate? That's not a rounding error, or a glossed-over detail; making things instantly from raw materials is the exact and only thing the spell does. I mean, you can totally have a setting where there aren't many mages around, and then Fabricate won't be something most people even encounter. But if there are plenty of mages around, and those mages are supposed to be smart ... why aren't they taking advantage of this major resource?

Are you familiar with the concept of a lynch mob? Specificaly, the lynch mob made of the people you ruined by taking all of their jobs? Surely that's more dangerous than housecats?
Also, instead of underselling your spell slots as dirt-cheap labour, you could make a fortune crafting only the most hurried jobs for a lot more money without anyone getting angry at you.
There is also the distinct possibility that using your spell slots to get money to buy stuff is usualy a waste of time when you can cut the middle man and use your spell slots to get stuff.
And none of this takes into consideration the plain and simple fact that you would probably kill the demand for your supply in a week or less. Nobody needs three spare full plates.
And the hilarious counter of strict application of RAW. A spell slots has a precise service value based on spell level. Fabricate is no different and won't get you more money regardless of what was turned into what.

RazorChain
2016-09-21, 03:15 AM
Well I think everybody is aware that DnD is not "our" world simulator. But it awkwardly tries to simulate it's own worlds and setting where usually the players take the role of a great white hunter hunting wildlife that for some inexplicable reason tries to coexist with other wildlife in mostly abandoned man made structures called dungeons. Now instead of taking prize parts of their prey like tusks or horns as trophies the PC's gather loot that the wildlife has mostly gathered from random tables or well placed drops. Most of the wildlife the PC's are murdering barely has bartering economy and no need for money. But because of overabundance of magical items, cheap labor and way too much gold, someone has decided to combine all three and make dungeons and stuff gold and magic items there to fight inflation. In said dungeons the wildlife usually stays and hides and maintains the traps.

Even though 100 gp pearls have all been used up for identify spells someone decided that all pearls should be valued at 100 gp to solve the problem so now oysters are on the endangered species list.

Of course you don't need fabricate spell to ruin the economy, you can just do that by producing most anything that adventurers might conceivably buy....like armor. One pound of iron costs 1 silver piece, a 50 pound plate mail sells for 30 pounds of gold. Now you only need cheap labor.

I'm not going into rules discussion on how house cats can murder most normal people or how wishes have to be game balanced as they are available as spells.

But yes, DnD simulates best adventuring parties going into dungeons, killing stuff and taking their loot. Then you go up a level, kill bigger monsters and get more loot. Rinse and repeat.

TheCountAlucard
2016-09-21, 07:14 AM
It amuses me when people say "[x] exists, so [y] must not only have heard of it, but specifically has access to it, knows the workings of it exactly, and is willing to use it to the most broken extents possible."

Intelligence does not equate to omniscience. Some of the high-level wizards who would otherwise ruin economies just plain haven't heard of the spell, or have the requisite school prohibited, or have other priorities, or have any of a thousand other reasons not to.

Might as well ask why folks don't go making gunpowder, or nuclear bombs.

Darth Ultron
2016-09-21, 07:37 AM
This is very true. D&D has always been about ''just a group of adventures''.

It is just about impossible for any ''game'' to be a world simulator. A world is just too complex for that. Any game needs to be focused on something fun and interesting, and most stuff in any world is not fun and interesting.

And, yes, this is why so many things in the game just don't work when you try to put them in a world simulation. The rules are just not made for that sort of thing.

nrg89
2016-09-21, 07:40 AM
It amuses me when people say "[x] exists, so [y] must not only have heard of it, but specifically has access to it, knows the workings of it exactly, and is willing to use it to the most broken extents possible."

Intelligence does not equate to omniscience. Some of the high-level wizards who would otherwise ruin economies just plain haven't heard of the spell, or have the requisite school prohibited, or have other priorities, or have any of a thousand other reasons not to.

Might as well ask why folks don't go making gunpowder, or nuclear bombs.

The Mongols went around making gunpowder and used it to win a war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mohi) against people who didn't have it. The Americans made nuclear bombs and used it to win a war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki) against people who didn't have them.

The Mongols invested a lot of time and resources to move around experts in their empire to make sure that they had the right tools for the job. The Americans invested about $2 billion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project) to build facilities and recruit the best physicists, not only in the country, but the world to make sure that they had the right tools for the job. None of these things were weaponized by one engineer, they required large scale project management but it was possible when powerful entities with deep pockets could provide the necessary funds and bring them together.

Is it total anarchy in the D&D world? As I said, why isn't there an ongoing arms race to recruit high level adventurers? Are kings not able to recruit high level adventurers and put them in rooms together? Do they not have the money, power, influence or trust enough to motivate the adventurers? Then what power are they projecting in order to rule their subjects? High level PCs are literally the WMDs of the D&D world, they can make entire armies irrelevant with just about any constellation of spells that was chosen with some effort. Just like the Mongols made the Caliphates and the Europeans understand that their castles are more vulnerable than they thought, and the Americans made the world realize that you don't need a large army to inflict massive damage, high level adventurers should have made the rulers of the world realize that their armies are completely irrelevant when facing a high level adventurer and that unless they have some of their own they have absolutely no security what so ever.

And when it comes to warping entire economies, you can use one spell to edge out your competition. Create water? Boom, you don't need someone to fetch fresh water. Create food? Boom, you don't need the time to butcher animals, grow the vegetables, bake the bread or anything else. There are many other spells that does the same.
And once you've edged out your competition and you're rolling in the dough you can recruit younger students of magic who might not be as creative to work for you. Facebook, Apple, Google, Boeing, Toyota and the likes are good at bringing smart people together in a room to solve problems because they have the money, and they started out small and were recruiting maybe one engineer a month once upon a time. This business minded wizard, with an above average intelligence, could do the same.

No system can be a proper world simulator, and they shouldn't be. We should expect some suspension of disbelief when designing our worlds. But D&D is begging for so much suspension of disbelief that the phrase is too generously applied, it works great for dungeon crawls but if you stop and think too much about the world it just breaks down. It's in dire need of a game master tweaking the rules, adding house rules, completely removing options and saying "no, because I said so".
Every system needs this, of course, but I dare say that there are systems that don't need nearly as much of it as D&D.

Grac
2016-09-21, 07:48 AM
With regard to magic altering the economy, it's important to realise that each society has its own logic of reproduction.

For Roman senators, owning a ship larger than what is needed to supply personal household needs was illegal. This was to keep senators out of trade and keep them as landed aristocrats. Some definitely flouted the rules, by having freed slaves own the ships and so on. Bit this was rare enough to be noteworthy, and was widely censured. Further, even merchants and bankers, when they got enough money, bought land and became landowners with a largely self-sufficient estate worked by slaves. What they produced for trade was merely to pay taxes and buy certain luxuries that they couldn't get on their own estates. When ownership of slaves is dependent on wealth, and wealth is a function of social station, then having many slaves is desirable. Conspicuous consumption kinda thing. So in addition to the field slaves that actually produced what the estate needed, there were slaves for each household task. One to open the door, one to lead the guest in, one to take the guest's coat, one to cook, one to take the food to the guests, one to fluff the couch cushions, one to entertain, and so on.

In Roman D&D, why would such a senator waste a spell slot on fabricate to make goods for sale? It would be beneath him. Further, having it made by a slave would show off his wealth. Having it made by a free craftsman would be a show of greater wealth: he can afford to hire the best.

We can all think of exceptions. But exceptions would be just that, exceptions.

Taking another example from Roman history, but one much easier for modern people to grasp, despite the irrationality. Marcus Aurelius is frequently denounced for not continuing the pattern of the previous five emperors. He let his son succeed him, rather than adopt someone suitable. He was the only one of those emperors to have a son.the others were forced to pick someone. If he did that, then there would be instability as his son would have a claim to the throne. Would that lead to civil war? Who knows. To avoid that, he would have to kill his son.

Would you kill your child, so you could pick someone to inherit your kingdom? Of course not. You would try to educate the kid to take the position. And that's what he did. Unfortunately the kid turned out to be Commodus, and not a 'rational' choice.

Quertus
2016-09-21, 08:05 AM
Yes, kingdoms are secretly protected by high level characters. Now get back in the dungeons so you can become a high level character!


This is why Fabricate has not replaced all labour, why housecats are not treated like man-eating tigers, and why an ordinary worker doesn't fail at basic tasks exactly 1 time in 20.

In 3e, you don't fall skill checks on a 1. In older editions, you failed checks all the time, on many rolls.


And the hilarious counter of strict application of RAW. A spell slots has a precise service value based on spell level. Fabricate is no different and won't get you more money regardless of what was turned into what.

Wizard: I killed the bandits, I'm here for my 5000 gp reward.
Sheriff: I'm sorry, you used "fireball" to defeat them. The posted rate for spellcasting services clearly states that is worth 150gp.

Segev
2016-09-21, 08:25 AM
Regarding "one house ruling a kingdom for centuries," consider that in real-world history, this is actually pretty rare.

Those houses either get usurped, or they're the same house in name only (hey, why side with the upstart rival house when you can marry directly into the one that's already in power?), or they aren't really...ruling...anymore.

The British throne's been in the hands of the same family for quite some time, but they're more figureheads (in practice) than they are anything else. The various Roman emperors were rarely of the same house for very long, and even those that were were often adopted...sometimes after it became clear they were the ones taking the throne.

So it isn't that unrealistic to have a kingdom's ruling house change hands a lot. I'd posit that, aside from narrative convention, the best explanation for why D&D might have the same house ruling a kingdom for centuries might be precisely because of adventurers. The "Standard Hero's Reward" of marrying the princess and becoming heir to the throne (or the heir's brother-in-law with all the perks and fewer of the responsibilities) would ensure that the already-rich-and-powerful house was the most attractive to adventurers, and would thus accumulate the powerful by marriage and adoption. In some ways, the oldest and most successful might be matrilineal, if they have adventurer-kings every other generation or so.

(Just going off standard tropes, here. I acknowledge there are female adventurers and adventurer-queens.)

Heck, it'd be interesting to have a royal line that tended to have one generation's princess marry an adventurer-hero who became the heir, then their son and heir marries an adventurer-heroine who becomes his queen, and so on down the line. At least as their "traditional" way to handle it. It could even be de facto egalitarian, if whether the King or Queen is the higher authority is usually a moot point (due to their working together) or is based on which one wants to actually do the administrative work (hint: probably not the adventurer).

nrg89
2016-09-21, 08:48 AM
Regarding "one house ruling a kingdom for centuries," consider that in real-world history, this is actually pretty rare. Yes, this is what I mean. For some reason it's the norm in D&D worlds, or they rule as often as houses rule in real world history. And I don't find that realistic, I think the ruling houses should be even more short lived than in real world history, because one single high level PC can be a huge swing.


So it isn't that unrealistic to have a kingdom's ruling house change hands a lot. I'd posit that, aside from narrative convention, the best explanation for why D&D might have the same house ruling a kingdom for centuries might be precisely because of adventurers. The "Standard Hero's Reward" of marrying the princess and becoming heir to the throne (or the heir's brother-in-law with all the perks and fewer of the responsibilities) would ensure that the already-rich-and-powerful house was the most attractive to adventurers, and would thus accumulate the powerful by marriage and adoption. In some ways, the oldest and most successful might be matrilineal, if they have adventurer-kings every other generation or so.

And this is my problem. In most D&D worlds there is not a super power controlling the entire continent because that's not fun, we want multiple factions vying for power, so for that model to make sense we should have constant arms races between factions where they recruit adventurers, they wouldn't waste money on armies and castles because most of it is useless. Sure, they can be used for control of your local population, but they are useless for defense when high level PCs attack. Your castle can easily be accessed through teleportation or flight and one high level PC can take hundreds of rounds for mooks to kill (maybe even thousands if he has healing) while the high level PC one-hit-kills three or four mooks every round, or even uses AOE.

So, sure, your scenario is very likely but I don't see it becoming a D&D world with multiple factions. The ruling house that is preferred by PCs could basically act as a world police, driven to it's extreme the world could be a utopia with no conflicts or 1984 because who would dare rise up against the leader?

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 08:58 AM
One adventurer on 10th level can handle thousands of mooks for breakfast,


Hyperbole?

Cazero
2016-09-21, 09:22 AM
Wizard: I killed the bandits, I'm here for my 5000 gp reward.
Sheriff: I'm sorry, you used "fireball" to defeat them. The posted rate for spellcasting services clearly states that is worth 150gp.
Ha, but dealing with bandits is outsdoor work. It involves a lot of casting of Prestidigitation to deal with the mud.

Morcleon
2016-09-21, 09:47 AM
Hyperbole?

At higher levels of optimization, I'd say "thousands" is probably an understatement.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 09:59 AM
At higher levels of optimization, I'd say "thousands" is probably an understatement.


Depends on the details.

On an open field, how many archers need to fire in volley at a single "adventurer" from range before their attack each round counts as an AoE with no chance to save?

Holding a doorway in a castle, do as many spearmen as can fit their spears through the door at once count as an obstacle the "adventurer" has to voluntarily damage from in order to deal melee damage to one of them in return?

Morcleon
2016-09-21, 10:18 AM
Depends on the details.

On an open field, how many archers need to fire in volley at a single "adventurer" from range before their attack each round counts as an AoE with no chance to save?

Holding a doorway in a castle, do as many spearmen as can fit their spears through the door at once count as an obstacle the "adventurer" has to voluntarily damage from in order to deal melee damage to one of them in return?

Wind Wall makes all arrows completely useless (use planar binding on a bralani to get it at-will), and Summon Elemental combined with Rashemi Elemental Summoning provides effectively at-will Cone of Cold to continually chunk through armies.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 10:36 AM
Wind Wall makes all arrows completely useless (use planar binding on a bralani to get it at-will), and Summon Elemental combined with Rashemi Elemental Summoning provides effectively at-will Cone of Cold to continually chunk through armies.


Thank you for reminding my why I don't play D&D... and haven't for 20-some years.

When I want to play comic book superheroes, I just have a moment of self-honestly and crack open Champions.


(And at any rate, in a D&D world, both sides hire disturbing power-fantasy godlings "D&D adventurers" and it all neutralizes out, while the armies meet in the field and actually settle things anyway.)

nrg89
2016-09-21, 10:41 AM
Hyperbole?

I've defined mook as a warrior, or even fighter, on 1st level but the MM goblins, orcs and kobolds are also acceptable, but they're even more rubbish.

At 10th level, with flight, blink, invisibility, armor with no spell failure thanks to mithril and what not, haste, wall of force, stoneskin and many others you can not only divide the army (if you fly, you're only really fighting the archers for example, and on the ground you can use walls, invisibility and dimension door/teleportation to take out an army squad after squad) but they also need to attack you for a lot of rounds, effectively meaning that more than 95% of their attacks will not even inflict damage on you. You, on the other hand, can either use AOE spells like cloudkill (which can be moved around), simply stab them with your sword (if you go the gish route) or use rays to snipe would be heroes from a distance. And it's with healing magic, provided by potions or other items, we reach the absurd amount of death because a mook will require about 100 rounds to kill you (every 20th will hit you, then about 5 rounds to inflict lethal damage to a wizard on 10th level if the mook is lucky with the damage rolls) but a potion of cure moderate wounds will on average heal 19 points of damage, which is about 40 rounds of work for a mook.

And for a cleric? Well, they don't have the spell failure chance of armor, and if they're Evil they can just hide with invisibility while their wraiths or wights make short work of the mooks, they will probably not have the time to make a thorough sweep when their entire army is being killed.
But, lets say they're Good. They still have access to haste, flight, damage reduction, invisibility, a lot of hit points and they dole out so much damage that with great cleave they can easily kill tens of mooks a turn.

And a rogue, with the pricing of skill modifiers being super ridiculous, cannot be found by a mook when she's hiding. You don't automatically succeed on a skill check if you roll 20 so if she spent full ranks in hide and move silently, has a dex modifier of 4, she only needs to raise her skill checks with 2 (provided by a magic item costing 400 gp), take 10 and suddenly a mook with a wisdom modifier of 4 cannot see or hear her even when the mook is rolling natural 20s. That's a lot of sneak attacks. Sure, they can use lights and stuff to make hiding more difficult but, again, raising skill modifiers is very cheap.

And as for terrain, it will be the choice of the high level adventurer. They will find out that the army is on it's way long before the battle most of the times (because of divination, money to buy influence, flight, teleportation) and they will be able to intercept them at the desired place, fully rested, with enough buff spells online and items before the fight (because of flight, teleportation and the money to buy said items).

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 10:43 AM
I've defined mook as a warrior, or even fighter, on 1st level but the MM goblins, orcs and kobolds are also acceptable, but they're even more rubbish.

At 10th level, with flight, blink, invisibility, armor with no spell failure thanks to mithril and what not, haste, wall of force, stoneskin and many others you can not only divide the army (if you fly, you're only really fighting the archers for example, and on the ground you can use walls, invisibility and dimension door/teleportation to take out an army squad after squad) but they also need to attack you for a lot of rounds, effectively meaning that more than 95% of their attacks will not even inflict damage on you. You, on the other hand, can either use AOE spells like cloudkill (which can be moved around), simply stab them with your sword (if you go the gish route) or use rays to snipe would be heroes from a distance. And it's with healing magic, provided by potions or other items, we reach the absurd amount of death because a mook will require about 100 rounds to kill you (every 20th will hit you, then about 5 rounds to inflict lethal damage to a wizard on 10th level if the mook is lucky with the damage rolls) but a potion of cure moderate wounds will on average heal 19 points of damage, which is about 40 rounds of work for a mook.

And for a cleric? Well, they don't have the spell failure chance of armor, and if they're Evil they can just hide with invisibility while their wraiths or wights make short work of the mooks, they will probably not have the time to make a thorough sweep when their entire army is being killed.
But, lets say they're Good. They still have access to haste, flight, damage reduction, invisibility, a lot of hit points and they dole out so much damage that with great cleave they can easily kill tens of mooks a turn.

And a rogue, with the pricing of skill modifiers being super ridiculous, cannot be found by a mook when she's hiding. You don't automatically succeed on a skill check if you roll 20 so if she spent full ranks in hide and move silently, has a dex modifier of 4, she only needs to raise her skill checks with 2 (provided by a magic item costing 400 gp), take 10 and suddenly a mook with a wisdom modifier of 4 cannot see or hear her even when the mook is rolling natural 20s. That's a lot of sneak attacks. Sure, they can use lights and stuff to make hiding more difficult but, again, raising skill modifiers is very cheap.

And as for terrain, it will be the choice of the high level adventurer. They will find out that the army is on it's way long before the battle most of the times (because of divination, money to buy influence, flight, teleportation) and they will be able to intercept them at the desired place, fully rested, with enough buff spells online and items before the fight (because of flight, teleportation and the money to buy said items).


I withdraw my question, I forgot how silly D&D is.

On the plus side, I'll link to this discussion the next time someone asks for ridiculous rules in RPGs.

Segev
2016-09-21, 10:46 AM
Thank you for reminding my why I don't play D&D... and haven't for 20-some years.

When I want to play comic book superheroes, I just have a moment of self-honestly and crack open Champions.

<Max_Killjoy> Bah, you're wrong about this D&D fact.

<Other_Poster> No, actually, here's how that works.

<Max_Killjoy> Well, D&D is a dumb system then because I wanted that not to work.



Why do you keep starting with an insistence that your preference must be so? Starting with "I think D&D is too high powered, so I don't like it" is fine. But you start by sneering at people as if your preferences were objective reality. And then you go and insult people by implying things like a lack of "self-honesty" for daring to play a game system with which you have problems.

I don't know if you ever wonder why people find your posts obnoxious and factually baseless or not, but this is why.

nrg89
2016-09-21, 10:55 AM
I withdraw my question, I forgot how silly D&D is.

No problem, I saw that Morcleon gave a better and more concise answer anyway.

I've mostly avoided D&D for a long time now because of how silly it is. However, my group has never played it and the mage think he sucks too much and submitted D&D for a vote. I conceded and said that we'll play it for a campaign so that they can see how it is, and I will handwave just as much as in other settings, but that I'll play maturely and honor the will of the group. I accepted the D&D system, I did not accept all the extra work to make this world make sense, so it's my hope that the players will see how silly the world is when you can all this amazing stuff. It's not a handwave anymore when you say that armies and castles are valuable in a world with high level adventurers, it's ridiculous.

nrg89
2016-09-21, 11:00 AM
I don't know if you ever wonder why people find your posts obnoxious and factually baseless or not, but this is why.

Whoa, dude, let's stay on topic and take a chill pill, shall we? He asked me if I was exaggerating, and since he asked me it's highly implied he doesn't remember it clearly, and then he argued that terrain should make a difference and we explained why it doesn't matter. Then he gracefully conceded his point and, very briefly, made a remark about how silly the rules are and that's the reason why he hasn't played for a while, which in turn explains why he misremembered.

Segev
2016-09-21, 11:06 AM
Whoa, dude, let's stay on topic and take a chill pill, shall we? He asked me if I was exaggerating, and since he asked me it's highly implied he doesn't remember it clearly, and then he argued that terrain should make a difference and we explained why it doesn't matter. Then he gracefully conceded his point and, very briefly, made a remark about how silly the rules are and that's the reason why he hasn't played for a while, which in turn explains why he misremembered.

His crack about "self-honesty" is what got to me, given the implicit suggestion that anybody who likes the "epic fantasy heroes" genre is somehow lying to themselves.

arrowed
2016-09-21, 11:18 AM
A lot of the comments here about how a level 10 D&D adventurer can mow down 1000 level 1 soldiers seem to be based on the mechanics of D&D 3.5. I feel the need to point out that this is not necessarily the case for other editions. I doubt even a level 20 wizard in 5e could take on 1000 warrior npcs and win easily (although I doubt many of the soldiers would survive, especially if Meteor Swarm was involved). I hope I don't come across as rabidly plugging 5e or anything, I just want to point out different editions can be quite... different. :smallbiggrin:

Morcleon
2016-09-21, 11:25 AM
A lot of the comments here about how a level 10 D&D adventurer can mow down 1000 level 1 soldiers seem to be based on the mechanics of D&D 3.5. I feel the need to point out that this is not necessarily the case for other editions. I doubt even a level 20 wizard in 5e could take on 1000 warrior npcs and win easily (although I doubt many of the soldiers would survive, especially if Meteor Swarm was involved). I hope I don't come across as rabidly plugging 5e or anything, I just want to point out different editions can be quite... different. :smallbiggrin:

Simulacrum chaning can get you as many copies of yourself as you want, each with full cantrip use. The odds start looking better for you once you have a million level 20 wizards against 1000 warrior NPCs. :smalltongue:

nrg89
2016-09-21, 11:29 AM
A lot of the comments here about how a level 10 D&D adventurer can mow down 1000 level 1 soldiers seem to be based on the mechanics of D&D 3.5. I feel the need to point out that this is not necessarily the case for other editions. I doubt even a level 20 wizard in 5e could take on 1000 warrior npcs and win easily (although I doubt many of the soldiers would survive, especially if Meteor Swarm was involved). I hope I don't come across as rabidly plugging 5e or anything, I just want to point out different editions can be quite... different. :smallbiggrin:

Oh, I believe you. The vast power gap between the players who were just starting out and picked randomly and the seasoned players who focused their builds is, I think, one of the reasons why 4e did away with multiclassing for example because in 3.5 it wasn't unusual for players to sigh or make faces when someone made "the wrong" choice and jeopardized the entire party. The DM had to power game if there was a seasoned player in 3.5, because otherwise that one player would make every other player useless.

I've only heard good things about 5e, but I don't have the time and money to buy and read the books. Someday I'll give it a try.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 11:33 AM
Whoa, dude, let's stay on topic and take a chill pill, shall we? He asked me if I was exaggerating, and since he asked me it's highly implied he doesn't remember it clearly, and then he argued that terrain should make a difference and we explained why it doesn't matter. Then he gracefully conceded his point and, very briefly, made a remark about how silly the rules are and that's the reason why he hasn't played for a while, which in turn explains why he misremembered.

To be fair, the way that D&D is this 900 lb gorilla in fantasy gaming, and yet so many people don't seem to understand that D&D is a very specific game and that playing it is not "using D&D rules for X setting", but rather that playing D&D shapes the setting and the characters in very particular way... has over timed ramped my snark level up to about a 10.... or 11...

Also to be fair, I have Segev on ignore due to his behavior in other threads, so... whatever.

Segev
2016-09-21, 12:31 PM
To be fair, the way that D&D is this 900 lb gorilla in fantasy gaming, and yet so many people don't seem to understand that D&D is a very specific game and that playing it is not "using D&D rules for X setting", but rather that playing D&D shapes the setting and the characters in very particular way... has over timed ramped my snark level up to about a 10.... or 11...


The funny thing being that I agree with you here: D&D does shape any setting in which it is the system used, at least for that game. It is "generic fantasy," but only insofar as there can be said to be such a thing. It necessarily focuses the "generic" nature, if only through the lens of its magic mechanics.

Your "snark level" is, however, obnoxious and veers into flat-out insulting. You go beyond "I don't like this" or even "Because I don't like this, it is objectively bad" to "and because it is objectively bad, anybody who likes it is in some fashion deficient as a person." (By implication through things like the "self-honesty" jab, which is admittedly something I probably should have let slide and reacted to as I did only due to it being one more straw in your pattern of behaviors that are worse and more vitriolic.)

RazorChain
2016-09-21, 01:34 PM
Yes, this is what I mean. For some reason it's the norm in D&D worlds, or they rule as often as houses rule in real world history. And I don't find that realistic, I think the ruling houses should be even more short lived than in real world history, because one single high level PC can be a huge swing.



And this is my problem. In most D&D worlds there is not a super power controlling the entire continent because that's not fun, we want multiple factions vying for power, so for that model to make sense we should have constant arms races between factions where they recruit adventurers, they wouldn't waste money on armies and castles because most of it is useless. Sure, they can be used for control of your local population, but they are useless for defense when high level PCs attack. Your castle can easily be accessed through teleportation or flight and one high level PC can take hundreds of rounds for mooks to kill (maybe even thousands if he has healing) while the high level PC one-hit-kills three or four mooks every round, or even uses AOE.

So, sure, your scenario is very likely but I don't see it becoming a D&D world with multiple factions. The ruling house that is preferred by PCs could basically act as a world police, driven to it's extreme the world could be a utopia with no conflicts or 1984 because who would dare rise up against the leader?

You realize what you are saying is that DnD is just a superhero game in a fantasy setting.

If I was the king I would have goverment sponsored training facility to train adventurers...eh I mean superheroes for my kingdom. It would consist of a megadungeon filled with all kinds of monsters.

Which reminds me of I once played a sorcerer who wore platemail and painted it red and yellow and flew around shooting fireballs and magic missiles at people. The DM was not amused.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 01:39 PM
You realize what you are saying is that DnD is just a superhero game in a fantasy setting.


Well, when 1000s of archers all firing at an "adventurer" at once is blithely dismissed with "I have an at-will power that makes all arrows useless against me"... superhero game in a fantasy setting is a good summary.

Mechalich
2016-09-21, 01:45 PM
D&D is absolutely a world simulator. What it is not is a high fantasy or low fantasy pseudo-medieval word simulator. Instead it is a crazy many-worlds multiverse of wizards and warriors simulator that has a lot more in common with Dr. Strange's than anything in Tolkien.

However, this is mostly a function of the incredibly high power level of D&D style spellcasting and magic item production. When you restrict D&D power levels via various methods - E6, banning T1 full casters, heavy magic item restrictions, etc. - then it changes into something much closer to a high fantasy world simulator.

Segev
2016-09-21, 02:25 PM
I'm not going to argue over whether D&D's "fantasy heroics" and modern "superheroes" are the same thing or not. I will say that there are genre differences, setting distinctions, and differing expectations.

The closest D&D-style adventurers come to modern superheroes is in the model where they travel around like the Lone Ranger and solve otherwise-insoluble problems for various towns in the wilderness.

Oddly, He-Man comes closer to standard genre conventions for superheroes than most D&D games, because He-Man lives in one place and thwarts villainous plans against said place. D&D adventurers usually go to a problem locale and deal with the problem there, and they are often much more traditionally...defined. The fighter/mage/cleric/thief paradigm is classic for a reason, and you'll usually find variations on that theme rather than the strange and often monomaniacal power sets of superhero teams.

But the similarities are there, and one could argue that D&D is modeled on the kinds of stories which modern superhero stories are the modern equivalent of.

Kaiu Keiichi
2016-09-21, 02:50 PM
D&D has always been a narrative game. If you want a sim engine, play Runequest. D&D can't even physically define what a hit point is.

Make it clear when you run that the game runs on movie and novel logic, and you'll be fine.

When I run Pathfinder, for example, I forbid the use of the world realistically, and make it clear that we're emulating a fantasy series on HBO.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 02:53 PM
D&D can't even physically define what a hit point is.


May add to sig...

Kami2awa
2016-09-21, 02:54 PM
Sorry, I didn't make my initial point very clear. This is not a great criticism of D&D.

D&D never *tried* to be a world simulator. It tries to be an adventure simulator, and it does a pretty good job. Most of the problems which arise from it come from trying to interpret the world outside the adventure using the rules intended for the adventure and the adventure alone.

Other RPGs try to simulate a world, by making their rules more realistic, less abstracted, and closer to a simulation of reality (well, fictional reality), so that they can apply across more situations than adventuring. But really, adventuring is what the players will do, and D&D does what it was designed to do there.

CharonsHelper
2016-09-21, 03:35 PM
When I run Pathfinder, for example, I forbid the use of the world realistically, and make it clear that we're emulating a fantasy series on HBO.

Please... think of the catgirls. - http://sellingoutforfunandprofit.com/images/catgirltpreview.jpg

Grod_The_Giant
2016-09-21, 03:37 PM
Sorry, I didn't make my initial point very clear. This is not a great criticism of D&D.

D&D never *tried* to be a world simulator. It tries to be an adventure simulator, and it does a pretty good job. Most of the problems which arise from it come from trying to interpret the world outside the adventure using the rules intended for the adventure and the adventure alone.

Other RPGs try to simulate a world, by making their rules more realistic, less abstracted, and closer to a simulation of reality (well, fictional reality), so that they can apply across more situations than adventuring. But really, adventuring is what the players will do, and D&D does what it was designed to do there.
Part of the problem is, I think, that 3.5 kind of glosses over this fact. Even in just the core books, it has extensive rules for NPCs, for crafting, for creating magical armies, all that jazz. It's sort of like the uncanny valley effect-- close enough to realistic that we recoil when we realize that its head is 50% eyeball and it has no fingers.

The Glyphstone
2016-09-21, 03:44 PM
i'd say the traditional D&D game is something closer to a fantastic Western story, of the John Wayne/Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone variety, than it is a superhero story. As was mentioned above, typical superheroes are local defenders of an area - threats show up and they defeat them; if they leave their 'home turf', it's to help out another hero on their own turf or take on some multi-hero threat. Whereas D&D parties are like the Man With No Name or the Magnificent Seven, traveling from locale to local solving the problems of the locals as they arrive, then departing to the next source of adventure.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 04:10 PM
i'd say the traditional D&D game is something closer to a fantastic Western story, of the John Wayne/Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone variety, than it is a superhero story. As was mentioned above, typical superheroes are local defenders of an area - threats show up and they defeat them; if they leave their 'home turf', it's to help out another hero on their own turf or take on some multi-hero threat. Whereas D&D parties are like the Man With No Name or the Magnificent Seven, traveling from locale to local solving the problems of the locals as they arrive, then departing to the next source of adventure.

"Superheroic" in their scale and in the capacity for "central characters" to utterly disregard "the little average people" and laugh at the notion that even an army of "mundanes" might be a threat to them.

E: and as I noted earlier, I think my snark level regarding D&D would be much lower if the publishers and many of the fans would not, had not tried over multiple decades, to present D&D as "THE" fantasy RPG system, and instead had been honest about how it's intimately tied to a very particular sort of setting.

Cluedrew
2016-09-21, 05:19 PM
To Superheroes: If I had to pick a single feature of superheroes stories that identified them it would be the 'once off' nature of their powers.

Superheroes are not part of orders where they receive training, the rarely study in schools or use some mass produced technology. Almost every single one has an ability/power-source that is either unique or almost unique.

In that sense D&D can be a superhero story, it actually depends on the NPCs. If they have abilities like the PCs (even if weaker) than it isn't a superhero story.

As for the main topic. Yes D&D is not interested in showing the entire world. It seems to be trying to a little bit sometimes, but overall not really.

Lord Raziere
2016-09-21, 05:27 PM
I agree that its not a world simulator. But I don't agree about it emulating any particular genre.

if it was a world simulator, we'd be able to agree on what world is being simulated here. there would be no disagreement on whether it was simulating this or that, or whether Tippyverse could ever actually be a thing or not, or if the people involved would auto-optimize everything to its full potential without any scruples or cultural backlash. it would be consistent enough for people to look at and agree upon what its aiming to be and whether it achieves that or not.

if it was emulating a particular genre, well...
-if it was really emulating wild west in any form, it wouldn't ban guns by default, that is something you can't not have for anything approaching wild west. such settings based on that, have to have the romance of the cowboy and the six-shooters to count. until I can I pull out a six-shooter as the fastest draw in the west and kill my foe dead no refluffing anything, no hacks, nothing, but canonical emulation without any system mastery involved, that does not count. can't meet the standards for that. Pathfinder does, but not DnD.

-if it was emulating superhero anything, well.....to be honest, its too resource heavy for that. too much bean counting, when what really matters is being a strong being with unusual if not unique powers kicking ass, not tactics or inventory management, or leveling up. DnD focuses too much on those things when what you really want from a superhero game is start off strong no matter what, that and the powers aren't unique enough, too conventional and prone to extrapolation and wide use and application, you aren't an exception enough. So, can't meet the standards for that.

-now it was based on sword and sorcery stuff, DnD was never actually based on Tolkien, the Tolkien races was just added in because the first player group wanted it. so adventurers aren't actually supposed to emulate any epic farmboy heroes that save the universe from a dark lord or anything, they are supposed to be like Conan going around taking stuff from dungeons, fighting evil spellcasters who made deals with demons, corrupt kings and then spending all their money on booze and wenches at the end of the day then going out to try have more adventures because they are poor from spending all that money. But it doesn't quite emulate that either, because your encouraged to instead spend your money on improving your gear which has zero genre precedent, and you never hit a peak of your power where your just an experienced adventurer and thats all you'll ever be, you just keep going up until you become godlike, which again, has no genre precedent in sword and sorcery. so, can't meet the standards for that.

-There is action anime which looks similar to it in at least its "zero to godlike" scale and ways that fighters can survive great falls and whatnot, but given that such anime came AFTER it, and that its still too focused on inventory management and tactics over cinematic action, it doesn't meet the standards to me really.

-Honestly, the closest I can say it is, is that its a squad-level war game. all the stuff you have deal with during war: inventory management, troop positioning, what tactics you'll use to kill this or that just scaled down, the quality of your artillery and guns and how you upgrade them. its just that 3.5 got saddled with one of the most broken magic systems ever made, and the logisticians of the army decided to go crazy with it, and thus now you have a war already won, and an army trying to make a civilization out of weapons, armor, traps and iron rations.

Shortstuff
2016-09-21, 05:33 PM
Just wanted to say: D&D can be way more realistic if you limit tiers and the like, or assume that adventurers above level <X> are super duper rare.

For instance, let's say that we're playing in an E6 setting. Okay, everyone's max level is 6. They get extra powers and such beyond that... but they're still level 6. Suddenly, these aren't gods on Earth; these are quite killable human beings that happen to possess some strange powers and are really skilled at what they do. They could potentially take on an army, but the circumstances have to be tailored for that. They'd still be amazing assets to any kingdom, and everyone would want their own set of adventurers (gotta catch 'em all!), but adventurers alone wouldn't determine the fate of the world.

It's when you start crawling into higher level play - especially when it involves full-powered manifesters, arcane spellcasters, and divine spellcasters - that you get weird settings.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-09-21, 05:34 PM
D&D grew out of wargames combined with sword and sorcery. It doesn't really emulate anything at this point, though. D&D is its own thing.

kyoryu
2016-09-21, 05:35 PM
It's not an anything simulator. It started out as basically a survival horror game where you went into scary places, stole their stuff, and hopefully came back out alive.

It then changed into a game system used to tell DragonLance-like stories.

It then changed into a game where people became larger than life demi-gods.

The biggest problem is that each evolution carried some of the baggage and decisions from the previous variant with it.

Tanarii
2016-09-21, 05:46 PM
E: and as I noted earlier, I think my snark level regarding D&D would be much lower if the publishers and many of the fans would not, had not tried over multiple decades, to present D&D as "THE" fantasy RPG system, and instead had been honest about how it's intimately tied to a very particular sort of setting.For at least a decade, it was effectively THE fantasy RPG setting. Because D&D was the origin of the hobby. That doesn't mean it's the only fantasy RPG system any more, but it's still the bull in the china shop, from Brand recognition and market share.

And it's not really tied to a particular sort of setting. It's tied to it's origins, which were twofold: war gaming and mega-dungeon delving. That makes it fairly good for certain kinds of game play (mainly dungeon delving adventuring & to a degree wilderness adventuring) and not so hot at ... well, being a simulator really.


D&D never *tried* to be a world simulator. It tries to be an adventure simulator, and it does a pretty good job. Most of the problems which arise from it come from trying to interpret the world outside the adventure using the rules intended for the adventure and the adventure alone.

The most critical thing to realize about D&D is that from the beginning, it wasn't supposed to be serious or a simulator. The game took the piss from all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy that was well known to the writers and designers at the time.

And Gygax even said at the beginning of the DMG "A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires. Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly on adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author’s opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. In all cases, however, the reader should understand that AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participants desire, but in no case something to be token too seriously. For fun, excitement, and captivating fantasy, AD&D is unsurpassed. As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure. Readers who seek the latter must search elsewhere. Those who desire to create and populate imaginary worlds with larger-than-life heroes and villains, who seek relaxation with a fascinating game, and who generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste."

The Glyphstone
2016-09-21, 05:51 PM
"Superheroic" in their scale and in the capacity for "central characters" to utterly disregard "the little average people" and laugh at the notion that even an army of "mundanes" might be a threat to them.


That's not an unfair assessment of Western protagonists either, honestly. Sure, in theory they both have their six-shooters or rifles, but the Good Guy always gets his shot off the mark first, and never gets hit by the robbers/cattle rustlers/hostile Indians' shots in return. His effective ability to ignore his 'mundane' opposition is more or less absolute, and he's capable of solving problems and battling enemies that the townsfolk are helpless against despite having the same weapons he does, probably the same training, and vastly higher numbers. He doesn't need to bother himself with their problems, he could just move on to the next town immediately, but instead he sticks around to help.

Sure, there's plenty of other archetypes/tropes tying into this, as part of the general 'lone hero' meta-type, but it fits even more closely than I had realized at first glance.

Tanarii
2016-09-21, 06:13 PM
and he's capable of solving problems and battling enemies that the townsfolk are helpless against despite having the same weapons he does, probably the same training, and vastly higher numbers.lol Three Amigos just came to mind

The Glyphstone
2016-09-21, 06:44 PM
lol Three Amigos just came to mind

I'm pretty sure comedies and spoofs of the genre are implicitly excluded from the statement.

Tanarii
2016-09-21, 06:59 PM
I'm pretty sure comedies and spoofs of the genre are implicitly excluded from the statement.Or possibly they're the exception that proves the rule. In hilarious fashion. :smallbiggrin:

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 07:29 PM
For at least a decade, it was effectively THE fantasy RPG setting. Because D&D was the origin of the hobby. That doesn't mean it's the only fantasy RPG system any more, but it's still the bull in the china shop, from Brand recognition and market share.

And it's not really tied to a particular sort of setting. It's tied to it's origins, which were twofold: war gaming and mega-dungeon delving. That makes it fairly good for certain kinds of game play (mainly dungeon delving adventuring & to a degree wilderness adventuring) and not so hot at ... well, being a simulator really.

The most critical thing to realize about D&D is that from the beginning, it wasn't supposed to be serious or a simulator. The game took the piss from all sorts of sci-fi and fantasy that was well known to the writers and designers at the time.


Every RPG system, as a set of mechanics, is a "simulator", or -- better terminology -- a map or a model. The system used in a game succeeds or fails to varying degrees as a map of that territory that is the game's setting and "atmosphere".

D&D, with its very particular set of mechanisms, is only really well suited as the "map" of a very particular sort of territory.

To varying degrees over the last 30+ years that I've been exposed to it, the iterations of D&D have been marketed as far a far broader set of rules than was really objectively accurate for those marketing it to claim, and to an even larger degree. The system has been used for many published settings (and far more homebrew settings) that it was never really an appropriate map/model for, especially when including various offshoots of that system.


( * "Simulating" because I am still and always not entirely sold on the whole GNS theory thing. )




And Gygax even said at the beginning of the DMG "A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires. Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly on adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author’s opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS 8 DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. In all cases, however, the reader should understand that AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participants desire, but in no case something to be token too seriously. For fun, excitement, and captivating fantasy, AD&D is unsurpassed. As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure. Readers who seek the latter must search elsewhere. Those who desire to create and populate imaginary worlds with larger-than-life heroes and villains, who seek relaxation with a fascinating game, and who generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste."


I can almost hear the Gygaxian smug in this. "Some people want to have fun, and some people want to play those other games."

Tanarii
2016-09-21, 08:46 PM
I can almost hear the Gygaxian smug in this. "Some people want to have fun, and some people want to play those other games."
Wow. Segev wasn't kidding about your snark in relation to D&D. That's quite the chip you're carrying on your shoulder there.

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-21, 09:44 PM
Wow. Segev wasn't kidding about your snark in relation to D&D. That's quite the chip you're carrying on your shoulder there.


Gee, maybe I'm misreading his comment that approaches to game design other than his own are absurd...

(As for that other poster... out of sight, out of mind.)

Mechalich
2016-09-21, 10:07 PM
D&D has an inherent contradiction in design in that it wants to represent a fantasy world in the heritage of Tolkien but offers characters powers in the heritage of Moorcock and Vance. The result is that the characters are too powerful for the world to contain and the functionality of the worlds make no sense.

Now you can scale the powers back to make them match the intended world - which is the premise behind E6 and similar mechanical variants. Or you can scale the world up and make it match the powers - which is the premise of Planescape and other settings that embrace D&D's super high magic. Whichever choice you make, one is necessary, otherwise for D&D worlds to function at all, certain elements have to be strictly limited by fiat that's not in the rules. A big and obvious example is FR's unwritten restriction on high-level spellcasters. They aren't allowed to rule the realms as living gods because they aren't.

nrg89
2016-09-22, 12:48 AM
Just wanted to say: D&D can be way more realistic if you limit tiers and the like, or assume that adventurers above level <X> are super duper rare.

Yes, and that's the reason I seldom play it because other settings don't require such drastic changes. These are things the fans have figured out after witnessing the absurd power level of D&D and it requires something to be done. You cannot pick up D&D and run a Conan game with the vanilla rules, for example. The engine should be judged on its own premises and if someone picks up D&D as his entry to the hobby because of brand recognition, and he or she wants to create a setting that acts sort of like Medieval Europe, he or she better read the book thoroughly, along with some forums.

Had he or she picked up other systems this might not necessarily be true. The world could behave in a way that mostly makes sense for everyone, requiring very little suspension of disbelief, without a complete rules overhaul.



Now you can scale the powers back to make them match the intended world - which is the premise behind E6 and similar mechanical variants. Or you can scale the world up and make it match the powers - which is the premise of Planescape and other settings that embrace D&D's super high magic. Whichever choice you make, one is necessary, otherwise for D&D worlds to function at all, certain elements have to be strictly limited by fiat that's not in the rules. A big and obvious example is FR's unwritten restriction on high-level spellcasters. They aren't allowed to rule the realms as living gods because they aren't.

Yep. It's the main reason Forgotten Realms is my least favorite setting (well why don't you just become king so you can fix everything all the time, Elminster? Because of some non-flexible alignment rule?) while Planescape is my favorite, followed by Eberron and Dark Sun. Either you embrace the reality warping powers of magic or you invest the time to make a setting that restricts the players in a believable way. As Max_Killjoy said, vanilla D&D warps the entire setting its applied to.

Lacuna Caster
2016-09-22, 07:23 AM
@Max_Killjoy: I agree and all, mostly, but I think you need to consider carefully whether getting persnickety over this problem is an optimal use of your time.

Going back to the original point, (since most of the others regarding 3E or later have been thoroughly dissected- i.e, superhero physics with western narrative and a lot of inventory tetris,) I will chime in and say that I agree that D&D is not a world simulator. However, I say this specifically because the bulk (http://story-games.com/forums/discussion/16437/so-how-much-of-the-d-d-book-is-really-about-combat-anyway) of the rules have always been concerned with dungeon-crawling, and not with interaction with a larger setting (whatever it might look like.)

I'll quote a few excerpts from Luke Crane's playthrough of Moldvay D&D (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+lukecrane/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5):


As for design specifically…the game seems easily hackable. And it is, in the same way a hotrod is customizable. You can tune the engine, try different tires and even change the chrome, but you can't take it off-road. This game is a hotrod. It is built to explore dungeons. As soon it moves away from puzzle-solving and exploration, the experience starts to fray. There are precious few levers for the players to pull once their out of their element. Heaven forfend we get into an in-character argument at the table, the game is utterly silent on that resolution. Might as well knife fight...

My point is that while the original designers may have wanted an inclusive and expansive design, their best rules focused on underground exploration and stealing treasure. Moldvay brushes away the caked up sand like an archeologist and shows the true beauty of the artifact. Or, more accurately, Moldvay does a fine job editing the rules down to their core game and evoking the brilliance of the original design...

I understand that the designers may have thought their game could do anything. I understand they may have wanted to bend it to a variety of circumstances, but in truth their design had narrow application. It does most things poorly, and a few things exceedingly well—and it odd though it may seem, it's not for the designers to say. You can say your game is about friendship, but if most of the rules are about fighting, then the game is about fighting.

CharonsHelper
2016-09-22, 07:35 AM
E: and as I noted earlier, I think my snark level regarding D&D would be much lower if the publishers and many of the fans would not, had not tried over multiple decades, to present D&D as "THE" fantasy RPG system, and instead had been honest about how it's intimately tied to a very particular sort of setting.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. As the market leader it is inherently the default choice, and in some peoples' minds it is almost synonymous with fantasy RPGs in the same way that sometimes people say "Kleenex" when they mean "tissue" despite Kleenex being a specific type/brand of tissue. (Not the best comparison - perhaps soda/Coke or motorcycle/Harley would be better. *shrug*)

And of course they're going to play up the fact that they're the market leader. That's what market leaders do. It's like Campbell's commercials that are basically about how if you like soup you should get Campbell's soup. It's the little guys who make the comparisons between themselves and the market leader. The market leader wants you to forget that the others exist.

Quertus
2016-09-22, 07:45 AM
I'll quote a few excerpts from Luke Crane's playthrough of Moldvay D&D (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+lukecrane/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5):
There are precious few levers for the players to pull once their out of their element. Heaven forfend we get into an in-character argument at the table, the game is utterly silent on that resolution.

First off, how much cred am I supposed to give someone who can't differentiate between "they're" and "their"? I mean, I'm usually typing on my cell phone, with crazy autocorrect, but I still usually get things breast.

Second, some look at that as a feature, not a bug. I do not appreciate having a GM try to dictate what my character thinks, feels, or says. If you encapsulate everything in the rules, eventually The Rules will look at all the wetware cluttering up the game space, ask what it needs those for, and toss them out.

Lacuna Caster
2016-09-22, 08:00 AM
I'll also suggest that D&D isn't really tied to a particular type of setting, because it mostly isn't concerned with setting at all. It's concerned with dungeons, which may be found in almost in any setting.


First off, how much cred am I supposed to give someone who can't differentiate between "they're" and "their"? I mean, I'm usually typing on my cell phone, with crazy autocorrect, but I still usually get things breast.

Second, some look at that as a feature, not a bug. I do not appreciate having a GM try to dictate what my character thinks, feels, or says. If you encapsulate everything in the rules, eventually The Rules will look at all the wetware cluttering up the game space, ask what it needs those for, and toss them out.
Quertus, with respect, you don't know what you're talking about (and Mr. Crane does (https://www.burningwheel.com).) Having rules on the subject of thoughts/feelings/speech doesn't give the GM dictatorial control over said attributes any more than rules for combat means the GM gets to dictate combat tactics.

To be frank, it's a rather strange non-sequitur. What gave you this impression?

Cluedrew
2016-09-22, 08:01 AM
I think Dungeons & Dragons does what it is supposed to do quite well. The thing is, it has been around long enough and adapted so many times that people forget what that actually is. Actually take a look at Tanarii's Gygax quote "A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires." D&D was not supposed to be a magical catch all fantasy role-playing game. But because of a combination of presence and marketing people seem to think it is. And speaking of marketing: take a look at where that quote is from. This is not an unbiased review (if Gygax could give one) but a sales pitch, playing up the game to the max. And even there is says if you are looking for a serious or realistic game, don't play this.

wumpus
2016-09-22, 09:22 AM
It amuses me when people say "[x] exists, so [y] must not only have heard of it, but specifically has access to it, knows the workings of it exactly, and is willing to use it to the most broken extents possible."

Intelligence does not equate to omniscience. Some of the high-level wizards who would otherwise ruin economies just plain haven't heard of the spell, or have the requisite school prohibited, or have other priorities, or have any of a thousand other reasons not to.

Might as well ask why folks don't go making gunpowder, or nuclear bombs.

I'm not aware of any claim in any of the books that claim that using material found in sourcebooks counts as "metagaming" in D&D 3.x (don't even think of using information in the DMG or monster manuals in AD&D. They later figured out this was hurting sales). Also, if PCs can do it, so can NPCs. While you might claim "perfect information" is an economic fantasy in our world, D&D players and NPCs *do* have perfect information about the rules of their world.

The reason D&D is not a world simulator is because it is designed to be a "four player crew explores a dungeon" simulator. Fixing the rest of the world shouldn't be hard (and I'd recommend giving most NPC casters plenty of extra "ritual" powers. Especially enough to cover an "a wizard did it" situations you might need). Keeping the casters from overwhelming the peasantry (beyond how the elite crushed them in actual history) can be fixed by importing a few 5e rules. Note that in the original DMG, Gygax had a foreward where he was instructing the DM to create his own game (which should be *mostly* AD&D, but not entirely).



I can almost hear the Gygaxian smug in this. "Some people want to have fun, and some people want to play those other games."

Nice quote. Except that was *published* in 1979, back when Gygax (with Anderson) was essentially inventing roleplaying games. If you want to go play Monopoly, that would be fine. But don't expect any modern role playing game to exist until those game designers became absolutely familiar with D&D, its assumptions, and its failures. And AD&D certainly never assumed that the rules were complete and could describe the working universe: the universe existed for players to adventure in and was held together by plot tape, not a heavy rules system. Any rules lawyer foolish enough to demand a DM follow a rule would be lucky to evade summary death (the alternate choice would be complete following of the rules: something a character would be extremely unlikely to survive. There is a reason some grognard players consider it a failure if the dice ever leave the bag).

Basically when he wrote that your choices were AD&D, other TSR properties, Tunnels and Trolls, and Traveller. And no, the modern German board game movement didn't exist either. Stick to Monopoly (Traveller would almost certainly run into the same problems as AD&D and more. It was a completely wide open game).

Tanarii
2016-09-22, 10:39 AM
Nice quote. Except that was *published* in 1979, back when Gygax (with Anderson) was essentially inventing roleplaying games. If you want to go play Monopoly, that would be fine. But don't expect any modern role playing game to exist until those game designers became absolutely familiar with D&D, its assumptions, and its failures. And AD&D certainly never assumed that the rules were complete and could describe the working universe: the universe existed for players to adventure in and was held together by plot tape, not a heavy rules system. Any rules lawyer foolish enough to demand a DM follow a rule would be lucky to evade summary death (the alternate choice would be complete following of the rules: something a character would be extremely unlikely to survive. There is a reason some grognard players consider it a failure if the dice ever leave the bag).

Basically when he wrote that your choices were AD&D, other TSR properties, Tunnels and Trolls, and Traveller. And no, the modern German board game movement didn't exist either. Stick to Monopoly (Traveller would almost certainly run into the same problems as AD&D and more. It was a completely wide open game).You're missing who Gygax was mainly addressing: war gamers. He was telling them 'this isn't a war game aiming for realism like you're used to."

Gygax took criticisms of his product personally, and responded to them aggressively in many venues. It's totally unsurprising he'd pre-emptively try to address this common criticism against the game in what was effectively his magnum opus. Or more accurately Principia D&Dia, since it was a trait and tactic both he and Newton shared.

Edit: it wasn't pre-emptive, it was responsive. Struck that.

Quertus
2016-09-22, 11:20 AM
Quertus, with respect, you don't know what you're talking about (and Mr. Crane does (https://www.burningwheel.com).) Having rules on the subject of thoughts/feelings/speech doesn't give the GM dictatorial control over said attributes any more than rules for combat means the GM gets to dictate combat tactics.

To be frank, it's a rather strange non-sequitur. What gave you this impression?

Sorry, just relating my experience with how any such mechanics in RPGs I've experienced play out, and why I didn't find your appeal to authority very convincing. I may have put too much of my personal experience and impression in my response, conflating "the GM" and "the rules".

Following the link, I saw "Burning Wheel". I've heard good things online about BW, but I've never played it myself.

If you're claiming that Burning Wheel has social mechanics that are not prescriptive, and a cut above what I've experienced, I'll give it a look.

But

As I've said before, millions of lines of code, and, AFAIK, we still don't have a passable AI. As Einstein said, everything should be as simple as it can be, and no simpler. Rules to correctly model human behavior should be... too complex for a casual RPG. The only thing of adequate complexity to model the human mind available in a standard RPG... is the human mind. If you can accept some lesser substitute, great! I'm a more... discerning audience. I'm picky. When I look at such rules, my response is, I cannot accurately model myself or my characters with such a system; thus, the system is a hindrance, and gets in the way of role-playing.

If I find some BW rules, I'll read over them and let you know what I think.

... Or have I gone off on a tangent and missed your point entirely?

Koo Rehtorb
2016-09-22, 11:27 AM
If I find some BW rules, I'll read over them and let you know what I think.

There's a PDF detailing the extended social combat mechanics, actually. I don't know how much sense it makes without understanding the core mechanisms of the game but here you go.

https://www.burningwheel.com/pdf/dow_95_108.pdf

Quertus
2016-09-22, 11:29 AM
There's a PDF detailing the extended social combat mechanics, actually. I don't know how much sense it makes without understanding the core mechanisms of the game but here you go.

https://www.burningwheel.com/pdf/dow_95_108.pdf

Thanks, I'll see if I can groc it.

Talakeal
2016-09-22, 11:42 AM
Wind Wall makes all arrows completely useless (use planar binding on a bralani to get it at-will), and Summon Elemental combined with Rashemi Elemental Summoning provides effectively at-will Cone of Cold to continually chunk through armies.


Simulacrum chaning can get you as many copies of yourself as you want, each with full cantrip use. The odds start looking better for you once you have a million level 20 wizards against 1000 warrior NPCs. :smalltongue:

I have to wonder if summoning help really counts as "single handedly". Being able to beat a thousand men ceases to be impressive when you bring your own even larger army afterall.

Also, what is stopping these thousand mooks (or whoever they work for) from pooling their resources, buying a candle of invocation, and then brininging their own army of chain gated outsiders into the battle for support?

Segev
2016-09-22, 11:48 AM
I have to wonder if summoning help really counts as "single handedly". Being able to beat a thousand men ceases to be impressive when you bring your own even larger army afterall.

Also, what is stopping these thousand mooks (or whoever they work for) from pulling their resources, buying a candle of invocation, and then brininging their own army of chain gated outsiders into the battle for support?

Yes and no. It depends how you do it. The general of an army is still a powerful man to be feared, even if it is the strength of his men's arms which are the most immediate concern to those who've angered him.


And if Sam the Summoner can take on a thousand men by gesturing and calling forth a hundred demons (each capable of taking on 10 men easily), that's still terrifying and impressive.

Morcleon
2016-09-22, 12:22 PM
I have to wonder if summoning help really counts as "single handedly". Being able to beat a thousand men ceases to be impressive when you bring your own even larger army afterall.

Also, what is stopping these thousand mooks (or whoever they work for) from pulling their resources, buying a candle of invocation, and then brininging their own army of chain gated outsiders into the battle for support?

Because you can do it more and better, and have the ability to AoE them to death. :smalltongue:

Kiero
2016-09-22, 06:20 PM
It's pretty clear from most of the discussion here that you're not really talking about D&D (all editions), but very specifically 3.x.

B/X has a ton of rules considering all sorts of stuff (eg the Expert Set has loads around wilderness travel/survival and the outdoors generally), and it was more a case of choosing just how much of that detail you wanted to use. It certainly wasn't all combat simulation, nor were individual PCs demigods by 10th level. Nor was there a great deal of "optimisation" possible, either. Nor did wizards rule the world.

They broke 3.x when they removed all the rules that acted as checks and balances on magic and casters in previous editions.

Lacuna Caster
2016-09-22, 07:55 PM
It's pretty clear from most of the discussion here that you're not really talking about D&D (all editions), but very specifically 3.x.
Nope. I was specifically citing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?501306-D-amp-D-is-not-a-world-simulator/page2&p=21229940#post21229940) a playthrough for Moldvay D&D.

I didn't play much (or any, pre-2E) of the earlier editions personally, but did you find the non-combat rules particularly sturdy and helpful? (Not that the absence of sturdy rules for X means that a particular group can't successfully do X anyway, either by instinct or explicit house-ruling. But that's a credit to the group, not the designer.)

Speaking of-

Following the link, I saw "Burning Wheel". I've heard good things online about BW, but I've never played it myself.
I'll try and expand a little on the social/belief mechanics in BW, but it's a little off-topic, so probly by PM.

Vitruviansquid
2016-09-22, 08:18 PM
I think DnD is great for world simulation when you are using it to make silly, interesting, theoretical thought exercises. Of course, these also tend to end up being the basis for the most obnoxious arguments on these forums, but before then, it's totally good.

You don't use DnD for world simulation in an actual game. That would just be bringing the basis for the most obnoxious arguments on these forums onto your table.

Lacuna Caster
2016-09-22, 08:33 PM
I think DnD is great for world simulation when you are using it to make silly, interesting, theoretical thought exercises. Of course, these also tend to end up being the basis for the most obnoxious arguments on these forums, but before then, it's totally good.

You don't use DnD for world simulation in an actual game. That would just be bringing the basis for the most obnoxious arguments on these forums onto your table.
Planescape was already mentioned, but I do find myself wondering if you could create a game that, e.g, reliably made the alignment system work. Maybe where excursions to the morally/ethically-attuned outer planes and deaths/rebirths/resurrections would be an expected part of baseline play. In that sense, the Planescape would become the implied 'setting', with the mortal world being a matter of local detail and an excuse for PCs to shack up together.

Tanarii
2016-09-23, 07:50 AM
I think DnD is great for world simulation when you are using it to make silly, interesting, theoretical thought exercises.I've been rereading the entire Dungeonomics series over on critical hits. They're pretty much this statement taken to an extreme. :smallwink:

wumpus
2016-09-27, 05:12 PM
You're missing who Gygax was mainly addressing: war gamers. He was telling them 'this isn't a war game aiming for realism like you're used to."

Gygax took criticisms of his product personally, and responded to them aggressively in many venues. It's totally unsurprising he'd pre-emptively try to address this common criticism against the game in what was effectively his magnum opus. Or more accurately Principia D&Dia, since it was a trait and tactic both he and Newton shared.

Edit: it wasn't pre-emptive, it was responsive. Struck that.

Well, that makes sense. But just how much realism you can expect from a title that includes "dragons" (and literally means that it includes the mythical beasts)? But yes, trying to include realism in D&D would likely make a bad game.

I wonder if there is a market for a *realistic* knight simulator? Basically try to make a profit as the head of a single knight and the various hangers on and included mercenaries?

Tanarii
2016-09-27, 06:40 PM
Nowadays? No clue. Given the impact D&D and following RPGs have had on the way we all think about these things, I'd guess probably not. But Gamism vs Simulation was clearly a thing even back then. :)

Max_Killjoy
2016-09-27, 07:56 PM
Well, that makes sense. But just how much realism you can expect from a title that includes "dragons" (and literally means that it includes the mythical beasts)? But yes, trying to include realism in D&D would likely make a bad game.

I wonder if there is a market for a *realistic* knight simulator? Basically try to make a profit as the head of a single knight and the various hangers on and included mercenaries?


Realism is a tricky, elusive, and often frustrating thing.

That's why my sig says what it does.

I can expect something that's not ludicrous and doesn't feel actively UNreal, when it comes to fiction or RPG.

Kiero
2016-09-28, 06:07 AM
Nope. I was specifically citing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?501306-D-amp-D-is-not-a-world-simulator/page2&p=21229940#post21229940) a playthrough for Moldvay D&D.

I didn't play much (or any, pre-2E) of the earlier editions personally, but did you find the non-combat rules particularly sturdy and helpful? (Not that the absence of sturdy rules for X means that a particular group can't successfully do X anyway, either by instinct or explicit house-ruling. But that's a credit to the group, not the designer.)


Sorry, but you didn't start this thread, nor did you first intervene until post #56. I said "most" not all the discussion.

Mitth'raw'nuruo
2016-10-05, 12:56 AM
With regard to magic altering the economy, it's important to realise that each society has its own logic of reproduction.

For Roman senators, owning a ship larger than what is needed to supply personal household needs was illegal. This was to keep senators out of trade and keep them as landed aristocrats. Some definitely flouted the rules, by having freed slaves own the ships and so on. Bit this was rare enough to be noteworthy, and was widely censured. Further, even merchants and bankers, when they got enough money, bought land and became landowners with a largely self-sufficient estate worked by slaves. What they produced for trade was merely to pay taxes and buy certain luxuries that they couldn't get on their own estates. When ownership of slaves is dependent on wealth, and wealth is a function of social station, then having many slaves is desirable. Conspicuous consumption kinda thing. So in addition to the field slaves that actually produced what the estate needed, there were slaves for each household task. One to open the door, one to lead the guest in, one to take the guest's coat, one to cook, one to take the food to the guests, one to fluff the couch cushions, one to entertain, and so on.

In Roman D&D, why would such a senator waste a spell slot on fabricate to make goods for sale? It would be beneath him. Further, having it made by a slave would show off his wealth. Having it made by a free craftsman would be a show of greater wealth: he can afford to hire the best.

We can all think of exceptions. But exceptions would be just that, exceptions.

Taking another example from Roman history, but one much easier for modern people to grasp, despite the irrationality. Marcus Aurelius is frequently denounced for not continuing the pattern of the previous five emperors. He let his son succeed him, rather than adopt someone suitable. He was the only one of those emperors to have a son.the others were forced to pick someone. If he did that, then there would be instability as his son would have a claim to the throne. Would that lead to civil war? Who knows. To avoid that, he would have to kill his son.

Would you kill your child, so you could pick someone to inherit your kingdom? Of course not. You would try to educate the kid to take the position. And that's what he did. Unfortunately the kid turned out to be Commodus, and not a 'rational' choice.

Although I agree with the OP, this is an outstanding, persuasive & impressively knowledgeable rebuttal.

Mitth'raw'nuruo
2016-10-05, 01:22 AM
Thanks, I'll see if I can groc it.

You mean grok? Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment"

I've never heard / seen the word, but it makes sense in context.

Knitifine
2016-10-05, 01:31 AM
DnD is what the players and GM make it.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-10-05, 01:41 AM
DnD is what the players and GM make it.

System Matters.

nrg89
2016-10-05, 05:30 AM
DnD is what the players and GM make it.

Absolutely, but it requires far more time to make into something suitable for other things than dungeon crawling when compared to other systems.

2D8HP
2016-10-05, 01:09 PM
D&D is absolutely a world simulator. What it is not is a high fantasy or low fantasy pseudo-medieval word simulator. Instead it is a crazy many-worlds multiverse of wizards and warriors simulator that has a lot more in common with Dr. Strange's than anything in Tolkien.




Funny that you mention that:


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DSs2bX13hVc/SfSTvGTzk8I/AAAAAAAAA84/YD61FTdoiwA/s280/DrStrange.jpg


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8e/D%26d_Box1st.jpg/175px-D%26d_Box1st.jpg


Notice anything?

:amused:
-

Beleriphon
2016-10-05, 04:17 PM
Notice anything?

:amused:
-




I really wish I could read Dr Strange's dialogue there. That said, it does make me wonder which one riffed on that warrior first, Dr Strange comics have been around since the mid-60s.

Quertus
2016-10-06, 07:52 AM
You mean grok? Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment"

I've never heard / seen the word, but it makes sense in context.

I probably do. It's been a long time since I first learned that word. Thanks for the correction.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to... grok... it yet, because, upon opening the file, my PDF viewer promptly died. :smallfrown:

2D8HP
2016-10-06, 08:56 PM
Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to... grok... it yet, because, upon opening the file, my PDF viewer promptly died. :smallfrown:"Grok" is a "Martian" word for "to understand", it came from Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", which was strangely popular :smallwink: in the 1970's, along with Tolkien and Astrology.

Cazero
2016-10-07, 04:14 AM
"Grok" is a "Martian" word for "to understand", it came from Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land", which was strangely popular :smallwink: in the 1970's, along with Tolkien and Astrology.
So what you're saying is that not content with bonking others languages on the head in back alleys to steal them vocabulary, English set a colony on Mars before we do just so it could steal one word?

Gemini476
2016-10-07, 06:21 AM
I really wish I could read Dr Strange's dialogue there. That said, it does make me wonder which one riffed on that warrior first, Dr Strange comics have been around since the mid-60s.

Oh, OD&D was the one tracing Doctor Strange. Strange Tales #167 (April 1968), page 11, panel 2, according to The Internet. They changed the cover for the third printing onwards once they found out.

That artist, Greg Bell, copied the layouts of a bunch of old Marvel comics. Googling around with "Greg Bell Marvel" and similar search terms should give you a bunch more examples, I think.

Grac
2016-10-07, 07:16 AM
It's not the only drawing in the original core books copied from comics, either.

Beleriphon
2016-10-07, 08:31 AM
It's not the only drawing in the original core books copied from comics, either.

As suggest a quick search turns up some Nick Fury swapping a gun for a sword looks, a few more Dr Strange and there's even one that looks like Beast fighting some medieval dude with a spear (its the dude with spear, not Hank McCoy's fuzzy blue look that gets copied).

Lord Raziere
2016-10-07, 01:15 PM
So what you're saying is that not content with bonking others languages on the head in back alleys to steal them vocabulary, English set a colony on Mars before we do just so it could steal one word?

There was no colony on Mars in the book I think, there was only one man who came back to Earth raised by martians. So its more like English sent an advance scout to go and steal it from martians as a part of a long term infiltration mission.

Wardog
2016-10-08, 12:57 PM
Regarding the issue of mid-level PCs being able to fight and defeat hundreds of mooks: that isn't unprescidented in myth and legend.

A description of the Irish king Conaire Mor, in The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T301017A.html):


Great is the tenderness of the sleepy simple man till he has chanced on a deed of valour. But if his fury and his courage be awakened when the champions of Erin and Alba are at him in the house, the Destruction will not be wrought so long as he is therein. Six hundred will fall by Conaire before he shall attain his arms, and seven hundred will fall by him in his first conflict after attaining his arms. I swear to God what my tribe swears, unless drink be taken from him, though there be no one else in the house, but he alone, he would hold the Hostel until help would reach it which the man would prepare for him from the Wave of Clidna56 and the Wave of Assaroe57 while ye are at the Hostel.

c. Nine doors there are to the house, and at each door a hundred warriors will fall by his hand. And when every one in the house has ceased to ply his weapon, 'tis then he will resort to a deed of arms. And if he chance to come upon you out of the house, as numerous as hailstones and grass on a green will be your halves of heads and your cloven skulls and your bones under the edge of his sword.


I make that:
600 kills before he gets his weapons.
700 kills once he has them
Then 900 kills defending each of the gates.
Then when all the other defenders are out of the fight, that's when he really starts getting serious.

Durzan
2016-10-08, 01:20 PM
I think some of you are missing the obvious... just scale up the levels needed to be considered extra human... or in other words... power down base classes.

Cluedrew
2016-10-08, 03:28 PM
To Durzan: Could you please expand? I mean even if you adjust the basic power levels does that really address the fact D&D doesn't have rules to cover large sections of life? I don't think it would.

By the way I just discovered an "Easter Egg" in your avatar. Is that on purpose?

nrg89
2016-10-09, 05:58 AM
Regarding the issue of mid-level PCs being able to fight and defeat hundreds of mooks: that isn't unprescidented in myth and legend.

I agree, and myth and legend is a very special genre. The idea is that we hear these stories passed down, sometimes purely orally, through generations of people who are rooting for one side. That's why the heroes are described as flawless superhumans who encompass the nation's values, bonus point if the hero is carrying out a god's will to fulfill some prophecy. The "bad guys" have a wildly different myth/legend where the losing side was really just misunderstood and highlight some uncomfortable things that the winning side did, setting up scenes where the characters find out the truth about X. What a tweeeeeeest!

Harry Potter; Harry's father was actually a bully and not the Jesus-figure he grew up hearing about, while Snape was far more complicated and kind than was first revealed.

Avatar: the Last Airbender; this show did this a lot. The first avatar was an outcast for screwing up a lot. Plus, Aang didn't just disappear when Solzin's comet came, he did something human which he is very ashamed of and ran away, contrary to myth. Solzin also conquered the world after he betrayed his childhood friend, avatar Roku, something the Fire Nation historians try to cover up. Avatar Kyoshi straight up killed someone, the details of which were very murky and solved by Aang getting in touch with his past lives. The Fire Nation teaches that the Air Nomads had armies in order to portray themselves, the winners, in a better light.

Star Wars: Luke's father was not a noble Jedi knight who was killed by a sith, his father was seduced by the dark side and became a sith himself, contrary to the flawless image conjured up by Obi-Wan. This also shows that Obi-Wan is also more complicated than we thought, he's a normal human being who also lies from time to time.

Basically, they're back story for a reason, because watching flawless, simple killing machines bulldoze their problems and make maybe one decision (which is more often than not very straight forward) is boring as all hell. Most of the time in fiction when a character has the opportunity to go back, they find out that the story has at best been simplified, multiple character arcs have been condensed into one charismatic hero who takes all the glory for example.

I'm not saying I don't like the type (yes, singular) of stories D&D at higher levels can inspire. I love Torchlight, Diablo, some of the elements in Lord of the Rings but this is what D&D does well, as in it's one of the best systems for it. Nothing else. If you want good Sword and Sorcery systems, either crack your knuckles and start fiddle with the rules a lot or pick up some other system. The same goes for horror, political intrigue and many, many other genres I love. D&D s a very special system for very special types of games, as soon as you introduce it and venture outside that box you're fighting the system to play the types of games you want.

Morty
2016-10-09, 06:19 AM
Regarding the issue of mid-level PCs being able to fight and defeat hundreds of mooks: that isn't unprescidented in myth and legend.

A description of the Irish king Conaire Mor, in The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel (http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T301017A.html):



I make that:
600 kills before he gets his weapons.
700 kills once he has them
Then 900 kills defending each of the gates.
Then when all the other defenders are out of the fight, that's when he really starts getting serious.

Sure, except killing whole armies is a mighty feat of mighty heroes in mythology and legend. Not something that becomes routine when you're halfway to being the biggest, baddest person around.

The statement in the OP is true as far as most editions of D&D go. TSR-era ones, the fourth and the fifth don't really bother simulating a whole world, beyond the PCs and the trouble they get into. The third edition, though, does try its hand at simulation, so it's only fair to judge it for the ringing failure it is at this task.

Even in other editions, though, the franchise has no idea how to handle its power curve and the level it eventually reaches. Fourth edition makes the best effort, but it's half-hearted. Not to mention how it makes the problem of high levels being the same thing as the low levels, except with bigger numbers, worse.

pwykersotz
2016-10-09, 12:52 PM
I think DnD is great for world simulation when you are using it to make silly, interesting, theoretical thought exercises. Of course, these also tend to end up being the basis for the most obnoxious arguments on these forums, but before then, it's totally good.

You don't use DnD for world simulation in an actual game. That would just be bringing the basis for the most obnoxious arguments on these forums onto your table.

I find D&D to be fantastic inspiration for creating worlds though. And once you have that inspiration, you can pare down the bits that don't fit and add bits that fit better until you have actually created a reasonable simulation of a world.

But wholecloth simulation? That way lies madness.

2D8HP
2016-10-09, 05:26 PM
D&D may be a lousy world simulation, but it's a wonderfully fun game.
Of all the other RPG's (Traveller, Runequest, Villains & Vigilantes, Call of Cthullu, Champions, Cyberpunk, Vampire, Shadowrun etc.) none have been as fun to play as '70's/80's and 5e Dungeons & Dragons.
What's so great about realistic simulations?

Koo Rehtorb
2016-10-09, 05:37 PM
D&D may be a lousy world simulation, but it's a wonderfully fun game.
Of all the other RPG's (Traveller, Runequest, Villains & Vigilantes, Call of Cthullu, Champions, Cyberpunk, Vampire, Shadowrun etc.) none have been as fun to play as '70's/80's and 5e Dungeons & Dragons.
What's so great about realistic simulations?

The problem is that the ruleset is still trying to simulate things. It's tilting at windmills, but it's still trying.

A much better goal would be to give up on the whole concept of rules as a physics engine and instead design rules to give a specific experience.

georgie_leech
2016-10-09, 06:10 PM
The problem is that the ruleset is still trying to simulate things. It's tilting at windmills, but it's still trying.

A much better goal would be to give up on the whole concept of rules as a physics engine and instead design rules to give a specific experience.

They tried that. 4e kept getting pushback for having rules that were just there as rules and not trying to simulate things :smalltongue:

ComradeBear
2016-10-09, 06:53 PM
They tried that. 4e kept getting pushback for having rules that were just there as rules and not trying to simulate things :smalltongue:

That's likely because D&D has such a strange mixture of eschewing detail while desperately relying on detail.

It doesn't matter how much a gold piece weighs... until it does.
It doesn't matter exactly how tall a bridge is, until it does.

Because D&D relies so heavily on everything being measured and have precise numbers attached, any place of vagueness is a place where DMs must tread carefully because the wrong decision can lead to chaotic outcomes.

D&D's dna roots in war games means that things work smoother with more numbers attached. Games that operate on the assumption that there is no meaningful difference between firing an arrow 60 feet and firing it 61 feet and other such vagueries don't run into this issue very often.

But hey, that's just a theory that popped into my head just now.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-09, 09:13 PM
The problem is that the ruleset is still trying to simulate things. It's tilting at windmills, but it's still trying.

A much better goal would be to give up on the whole concept of rules as a physics engine and instead design rules to give a specific experience.


What if the "experience" I want is (as summed up in my sig) a game that doesn't completely kick me out of what's going on in the game, and make me think "WTF was that?" every few minutes?

ComradeBear
2016-10-09, 09:18 PM
What if the "experience" I want is (as summed up in my sig) a game that doesn't completely kick me out of what's going on in the game, and make me think "WTF was that?" every few minutes?

I don't see how versimilitude and rules free from exact measurements for everything are mutually exclusive?

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-09, 09:47 PM
I don't see how versimilitude and rules free from exact measurements for everything are mutually exclusive?

I was responding to Koo Rehtorb's comment that the rules should be based on an "experience".

Lord Raziere
2016-10-09, 09:54 PM
What if the "experience" I want is (as summed up in my sig) a game that doesn't completely kick me out of what's going on in the game, and make me think "WTF was that?" every few minutes?

That is a completely subjective assessment. So....you'd have to be more specific. what is one persons disbelief-breaking thing, is another person's "AWESOME!", much like how one man's trash is another's treasure.

you may find it worth it to be like that, but not everyone lets that kind of stuff impact their enjoyment of things to the same degree. if no one agrees and you can't compromise with any group on that, then your out of luck.

Vitruviansquid
2016-10-09, 09:59 PM
The way I see it, it's because people think of DnD not as a single game in a medium of many games, but as the only pen and paper RPG.

It's like this: I enjoy video games. I enjoy that in video games, I can have competition against people my skill level, I can experience an epic story, I can relax and zone out over a video game, I can be intensely engaged in making some very interesting decisions, and so on.

I like all these things about video games, but I recognize that I'm never going to play a single video game to scratch all my itches at once, nor is such a game even possible. I don't, after all, see how I can have a game to relax and zone out over WHILE also having intense competition. Those goals are mutually exclusive.

But when we're talking about DnD 3.5, which basically any player will acknowledge has flaws, people want the game to provide everything and have no flaws ever, not understanding that sometimes they want two mutually exclusive things that can't be possible in one game. For example, there is the complaint that high level play is broken, which ultimately stems from the way the game is totally changed from low to high level. And yet when the new edition makes it so the game doesn't change so much upon reaching higher levels, people realize they *also* liked that DnD 3.5 was many games at once depending on which level bracket it was being played in. Another example is that people dislike how much spellcasters take the spotlight from non-spellcasters, but also enjoy being the omnipotent wizard at the same time. These things are mutually exclusive, you should rightfully be playing the omnipotent wizard game *separate from* the balanced party game in two separate games, but people want DnD 3.5 to be everything.

edit: This was in response to ComradeBear's post.

ComradeBear
2016-10-09, 10:49 PM
I was responding to Koo Rehtorb's comment that the rules should be based on an "experience".

The experience you described is an experience a ruleset can be designed to encourage. So I still don't understand the complaint.


The way I see it, it's because people think of DnD not as a single game in a medium of many games, but as the only pen and paper RPG.

It's like this: I enjoy video games. I enjoy that in video games, I can have competition against people my skill level, I can experience an epic story, I can relax and zone out over a video game, I can be intensely engaged in making some very interesting decisions, and so on.

I like all these things about video games, but I recognize that I'm never going to play a single video game to scratch all my itches at once, nor is such a game even possible. I don't, after all, see how I can have a game to relax and zone out over WHILE also having intense competition. Those goals are mutually exclusive.

But when we're talking about DnD 3.5, which basically any player will acknowledge has flaws, people want the game to provide everything and have no flaws ever, not understanding that sometimes they want two mutually exclusive things that can't be possible in one game. For example, there is the complaint that high level play is broken, which ultimately stems from the way the game is totally changed from low to high level. And yet when the new edition makes it so the game doesn't change so much upon reaching higher levels, people realize they *also* liked that DnD 3.5 was many games at once depending on which level bracket it was being played in. Another example is that people dislike how much spellcasters take the spotlight from non-spellcasters, but also enjoy being the omnipotent wizard at the same time. These things are mutually exclusive, you should rightfully be playing the omnipotent wizard game *separate from* the balanced party game in two separate games, but people want DnD 3.5 to be everything.

edit: This was in response to ComradeBear's post.

I think this is also a part of the problem. D&D strives to be all things to all people, and in doing so tends to miss capitalizing on its actual strengths. People don't tend to analyze D&D closely enough to figure out where its strengths end and its struggles begin.

Quertus
2016-10-09, 11:04 PM
Another example is that people dislike how much spellcasters take the spotlight from non-spellcasters, but also enjoy being the omnipotent wizard at the same time. These things are mutually exclusive, you should rightfully be playing the omnipotent wizard game *separate from* the balanced party game in two separate games, but people want DnD 3.5 to be everything.

Why must these be mutually exclusive? Why can't the omnipotent wizard exist, and be balanced with the omnipotent fighter, the omniscient rogue, the omnipresent psion, the omnidirectional (I'm running out of things my phone won't auto correct, ok?) scout, etc?

Lord Raziere
2016-10-09, 11:17 PM
Why must these be mutually exclusive? Why can't the omnipotent wizard exist, and be balanced with the omnipotent fighter, the omniscient rogue, the omnipresent psion, the omnidirectional (I'm running out of things my phone won't auto correct, ok?) scout, etc?

Because as soon as you make any thing that isn't magic just as powerful you get a bunch of people crying "that fighter is too anime!!" or something like that, and then you start getting into the class disparity and well.....here is the bingo chart for you:

https://img.fireden.net/tg/image/1462/82/1462823206153.png

Vitruviansquid
2016-10-09, 11:37 PM
"Mundanes must not be out of genre or unrealistic" VS "Mundanes should be as competent as spellcasters who are pretty much always stronger in the genre, and are utterly unrealistic"

Pick one.

Talakeal
2016-10-09, 11:56 PM
"Mundanes must not be out of genre or unrealistic" VS "Mundanes should be as competent as spellcasters who are pretty much always stronger in the genre, and are utterly unrealistic"

Pick one.

And all of the games which are not D&D and have managed to solve this problem are wrong.

Vitruviansquid
2016-10-10, 12:13 AM
Of course.

Look at these friggin' games!

There's not even any difference between the mundanes and the casters in this one!

nrg89
2016-10-10, 01:08 AM
D&D may be a lousy world simulation, but it's a wonderfully fun game.

Amen to that. Some of the best gaming memories ever involve me down in the dungeon with some friends, looking for an evil cleric who is building up an army of the undead. I love many types of games and the types D&D can deliver are thoroughly enjoyable to me too.

My only gripe is it's diversity of game styles but I'm not disputing that what it says on the tin, that you get to explore dungeons and interact with powerful monsters like dragons, is awesome.


The way I see it, it's because people think of DnD not as a single game in a medium of many games, but as the only pen and paper RPG.

Yes, that's it. The hobby is huge, if you have the cravings for something other than dungeon crawling and slaying big monsters there's a game for that, or an engine you can build your own game on top of.

Having so thoroughly explained some of my problems with D&D, I also feel like I have to defend what's good; the issue is the diversity of games.


And yet when the new edition makes it so the game doesn't change so much upon reaching higher levels, people realize they *also* liked that DnD 3.5 was many games at once depending on which level bracket it was being played in. Another example is that people dislike how much spellcasters take the spotlight from non-spellcasters, but also enjoy being the omnipotent wizard at the same time. These things are mutually exclusive, you should rightfully be playing the omnipotent wizard game *separate from* the balanced party game in two separate games, but people want DnD 3.5 to be everything.

edit: This was in response to ComradeBear's post.

And this, coupled with the fact that D&D is a harder game to teach (aw man, I absolutely hate the feat chains) means that I will break out D&D from time to time (I'm starting up a campaign soon) with players who preferably are not brand spanking new to the hobby. When you explain to them that at level five you mostly do this, and at level 10 you mostly do this, they sort of get it and aren't as surprised. The versimilitude isalso kept intact by explaining what the campaign will focus on and why the players won't warp economies Mansa Musa style.

If you have the right expectations, they will be met and your gaming experience will be beyond satisfying.

Batou1976
2016-10-10, 02:03 AM
And none of this takes into consideration the plain and simple fact that you would probably kill the demand for your supply in a week or less. Nobody needs three spare full plates.


Tell that to Henry VIII, or Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. :smalleek: They each had significant armor shops just for providing them personally with harnesses (yeah, if you were their friend or something you might be allowed to commission one, too). The need for differently constructed suits of plate for specific situations (jousting, foot combat at the barriers, combat as a footman, functioning as cavalry, etc etc ) is what led to the development of the garniture.

nrg89
2016-10-10, 03:23 AM
What if the "experience" I want is (as summed up in my sig) a game that doesn't completely kick me out of what's going on in the game, and make me think "WTF was that?" every few minutes?

I would say that's achieved by focusing the game on a premise you, as a player, can get behind (you're a pirate trying to get booty, a mercenary fighting in a continent wide war or a Public Enemy era bank robber trying to get infamy and money) and show, not tell, the hints that there's a larger world out there and not venture too far away from the concept.
Everyone knows that Indiana Jones is not a documentary on real archeology, but we buy into the fantasy because it stays focused on what it is. Could you imagine a movie about Jones fighting for research grants to save his university? Or going to conferences about egyptology? Sure, we would be delighted to see him do any of that boring stuff academics do only to be interrupted by someone who wants him on a team to recover the true Mantel of Muhammad.

An Indiana Jones game would be a game with rules about swinging with your whip, not about interviewing prospective research assistants. D&D is a game about dungeon crawling, stick to that and your verisimilitude might be intact.


Tell that to Henry VIII, or Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. :smalleek: They each had significant armor shops just for providing them personally with harnesses (yeah, if you were their friend or something you might be allowed to commission one, too). The need for differently constructed suits of plate for specific situations (jousting, foot combat at the barriers, combat as a footman, functioning as cavalry, etc etc ) is what led to the development of the garniture.

These are powerful nobles with large estates and subjects they can levy taxes on, not murderhobos sleeping under the starry sky living off of dungeon loot.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 06:15 AM
The experience you described is an experience a ruleset can be designed to encourage. So I still don't understand the complaint.



I use "experience" in quotes intentionally. I've found that anyone or anything trying to sell "an experience" is pretty much going to be something I don't care for.




I would say that's achieved by focusing the game on a premise you, as a player, can get behind (you're a pirate trying to get booty, a mercenary fighting in a continent wide war or a Public Enemy era bank robber trying to get infamy and money) and show, not tell, the hints that there's a larger world out there and not venture too far away from the concept.



I've found that this is exactly the sort of thing that results in rules that make no damn sense to me.

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-10, 07:52 AM
D&D may be a lousy world simulation, but it's a wonderfully fun game.
Of all the other RPG's (Traveller, Runequest, Villains & Vigilantes, Call of Cthullu, Champions, Cyberpunk, Vampire, Shadowrun etc.) none have been as fun to play as '70's/80's and 5e Dungeons & Dragons.
What's so great about realistic simulations?

What if the "experience" I want is (as summed up in my sig) a game that doesn't completely kick me out of what's going on in the game, and make me think "WTF was that?" every few minutes?

I'm seeing two bald statements of preference without any specificity on mechanics or expectations here.

(For what it's worth, based on past discussions I anticipate that what MK is referring to is non-gritty-realism, and to answer 2D8HP's question, what's great about such systems is that they preserve a nice isomorphic mapping between what the rules & math imply and what might be presumed to happen in a self-consistent universe, which some of us find intrinsically pleasing. If that motive is alien to you, that's fine, but you also don't get a monopoly on defining 'fun'.)

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 08:00 AM
I use "experience" in quotes intentionally. I've found that anyone or anything trying to sell "an experience" is pretty much going to be something I don't care for.

Depends on the experience being sold.





I've found that this is exactly the sort of thing that results in rules that make no damn sense to me.
This is likely because what makes a good game and what makes a good simulation are often very different.

And as much as I've seen you hate on this logic, the mere inclusion of magic makes the simulation end of things a million times harder. Because magic lets a small group of people blatantly ignore the laws of physics. Meaning that in order to maintain balance you must either:
A) make sure everyone can blatantly ignore the laws of physics or
B) Make casters who don't really do anything terribly outside of what mundanes can accomplish.

It's also worth noting that the rules often make sense within the context in which they will most likely come up. Applying combat rules outside of combat would be silly. Nobody wants to walk from Oldville to Rivendorn in 6 second chunks. And I include "the rogue sneaks off and stabs some random guy in an alley" as not-combat unless things go wrong. If the rogue is undetected, and the guyis just standing there minding his own business, and is just some schmoe, I probably won't even make the rogue roll damage because there's no logical reason why Mr. Sneaky stabbing a random villager in the back of the head would need to be broken down into combat rounds. It's a waste of our time and nothing is at stake except a few copper pieces.

There's also the fact that rules are written by game designers, not scientists interested in creating pen and paper simulations. Add onto this that these game designers are human, and will write a rule that doesn't work how they were thinking it does because they have their own reading which probably makes more sense but that's not immaculately clear because language has a tendency to have multiple meanings for any sentence. For instance,

"I never said she stole my money."
Read that sentence, but place the emphasis on a different word each time. The meaning of the sentence changes every time.

This same kind of problem happens with rules.

Essentially, it's sounding like the way to solve your problem is to write your own system and play that. There is a rule among tabletop rpg designers which reads:
"If you are looking for a certain kind of game, and discover that it doesn't exist, it is now your duty to make it."
So go do it, and let us know what you find out!
I'd be more than happy to help, too.

Segev
2016-10-10, 08:10 AM
And as much as I've seen you hate on this logic, the mere inclusion of magic makes the simulation end of things a million times harder. Because magic lets a small group of people blatantly ignore the laws of physics. Meaning that in order to maintain balance you must either:
A) make sure everyone can blatantly ignore the laws of physics or
B) Make casters who don't really do anything terribly outside of what mundanes can accomplish. Truthfully, mages aren't "ignoring the laws of physics." They just get to use parts of them that others do not.

One of the things that frustrates me when "mundanes don't get a fair shake" or "mundanes suck" discussions come up is that people will quickly scoff at "mundanes" having what amount to superpowers. For all Max_Killjoy has a wonderful point about verisimilitude in his signature, I get the impression that he doesn't actually apply it the way I would: to me, verisimilitude requires consistency. If Bob can swallow some steel and then be able to telekinetically shove other metals away from himself, with the laws of momentum and mass meaning those metals shove back, then so, too, should Bill be able to. Or, if Bill can't, then there needs to be an explanation for it (e.g. "It takes a special talent that Bill doesn't have"), and that explanation had better not amount to "because." And if Bob can do this, he'd better be able to do it in a consistent way. He had better be able to use it to "fly" AND not be able to shove something particularly heavier than him (rather than him being pushed back) without first bracing himself against something that won't move.

Mundanes being able to leap tall buildings in a single massive Jump check don't bother me. Tell me it's not magic, just heroic prowess, and I'm fine with it. "Magic" is just a word used to describe, in the real world, things we can't adequately explain by other means. In a fictional world, it could describe specific sets of energy or activities. It certainly does in D&D settings; an (Ex) ability is not magical, and can't be cancelled by anti-magic and can't be dispelled. I see no reason why it shouldn't be able to allow somebody to do something "impossible" by real-world physics, though.


"I never said she stole my money."
Read that sentence, but place the emphasis on a different word each time. The meaning of the sentence changes every time. That is actually a really cool linguistic experiment. Thanks for sharing it!

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-10, 08:38 AM
And as much as I've seen you hate on this logic, the mere inclusion of magic makes the simulation end of things a million times harder. Because magic lets a small group of people blatantly ignore the laws of physics. Meaning that in order to maintain balance you must either:
A) make sure everyone can blatantly ignore the laws of physics or
B) Make casters who don't really do anything terribly outside of what mundanes can accomplish.
Either that, or magic comes at a hefty price in terms of ethics or resources.

FWIW, I don't have a particular problem with the 'all caster' party (runequest/hero quest do this, for example, and it's assumed that various forms of magic pervade everyday life and economic functions. Going without magic entirely would be a little like going without fire, or maybe your pants.)

On the point about summarising or abstracting large-scale or trivial activities and processes (i.e. stepping back from reductionism)- that's distinct from cases where the rules and circumstances do ask you to get engaged in fine-scale blow-by-blow minutiae, but the result still isn't a simulation of 'what would really happen'. And long-distance travel can still be a perfectly gritty simulation if you're tracking rations, rolling vs. frostbite, stopping to catch prey or gather tinder, et cetera.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 09:19 AM
Truthfully, mages aren't "ignoring the laws of physics." They just get to use parts of them that others do not.
I'm assuming this is a sort of in-universe explanation, in which case sure, but we have no evidence from within the rules that mages are doing something other than breaking Newton's Laws and the Laws of Thermodynamics, as well as Conservation of Matter when they cast spells. Mages pretty much get a pass on doing things that are blatantly not possible for reasons extending beyond "magic isn't real" and into "This would cause such a massive release of energy that it would be like a bomb going off."




One of the things that frustrates me when "mundanes don't get a fair shake" or "mundanes suck" discussions come up is that people will quickly scoff at "mundanes" having what amount to superpowers. For all Max_Killjoy has a wonderful point about verisimilitude in his signature, I get the impression that he doesn't actually apply it the way I would: to me, verisimilitude requires consistency. If Bob can swallow some steel and then be able to telekinetically shove other metals away from himself, with the laws of momentum and mass meaning those metals shove back, then so, too, should Bill be able to. Or, if Bill can't, then there needs to be an explanation for it (e.g. "It takes a special talent that Bill doesn't have"), and that explanation had better not amount to "because." And if Bob can do this, he'd better be able to do it in a consistent way. He had better be able to use it to "fly" AND not be able to shove something particularly heavier than him (rather than him being pushed back) without first bracing himself against something that won't move.

Mundanes being able to leap tall buildings in a single massive Jump check don't bother me. Tell me it's not magic, just heroic prowess, and I'm fine with it. "Magic" is just a word used to describe, in the real world, things we can't adequately explain by other means. In a fictional world, it could describe specific sets of energy or activities. It certainly does in D&D settings; an (Ex) ability is not magical, and can't be cancelled by anti-magic and can't be dispelled. I see no reason why it shouldn't be able to allow somebody to do something "impossible" by real-world physics, though.
Indeed. It's also good game balance, but yes. I don't think you're alone in this general sentiment.



That is actually a really cool linguistic experiment. Thanks for sharing it!
Language is neato-burrito, fam. I'm happy to share tidbits.
(Don't derail for this but the Grammar rules you were taught in school have nothing to do with spoken English. :D)


Either that, or magic comes at a hefty price in terms of ethics or resources.

FWIW, I don't have a particular problem with the 'all caster' party (runequest/hero quest do this, for example, and it's assumed that various forms of magic pervade everyday life and economic functions. Going without magic entirely would be a little like going without fire, or maybe your pants.)

Indeed. This is part of the reason I like Apocalypse World's bit of supernatural-ness. Yes, there is a Brainer class with lots of psychic goodies, but its bread-and-butter move is a basic move available to everyone. (Open your Brain)

I just need to get my players to use it more.



On the point about summarising or abstracting large-scale or trivial activities and processes (i.e. stepping back from reductionism)- that's distinct from cases where the rules and circumstances do ask you to get engaged in fine-scale blow-by-blow minutiae, but the result still isn't a simulation of 'what would really happen'. And long-distance travel can still be a perfectly gritty simulation if you're tracking rations, rolling vs. frostbite, stopping to catch prey or gather tinder, et cetera.

I totally agree with your second point, and I'm sorry if it seemed I was trying to infer otherwise.

As for combat, combat is an incredibly intricate interaction that has an unbelievably huge amount of variables. In real life, most fights are settled pretty quickly, especially when swords are involved. The interactions between various weapons are diverse, and there are often ways of interacting that the rules don't account for.

So, because we can't have combat rules sections as thick as encyclopedias (which we could have if we really wanted to be this specific) then you have to allow for a degree of error. The less intense the rules are, the bigger the degree of error will probably be. (Though more flexible rules do have some real advantages since the tiny differences can often be accounted for and specific circumstances are often easy to deal with.)

There is a reason why, though, that I often describe what's happening in my sessions as though it were a TV show we're all watching/creating. I have found that some of the ridiculous happenings are a little easier to swallow when we describe them as "big budget SFX scenes" for our made-up tv series.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 09:27 AM
This is likely because what makes a good game and what makes a good simulation are often very different.

And as much as I've seen you hate on this logic, the mere inclusion of magic makes the simulation end of things a million times harder. Because magic lets a small group of people blatantly ignore the laws of physics. Meaning that in order to maintain balance you must either:
A) make sure everyone can blatantly ignore the laws of physics or
B) Make casters who don't really do anything terribly outside of what mundanes can accomplish.


The magic needs to be accounted for in the worldbuilding, and mapped as part of the whole, not tacked on.

If a setting has magic, then that magic doesn't violate physics, it's part of the "physics".

Segev
2016-10-10, 09:33 AM
The magic needs to be accounted for in the worldbuilding, and mapped as part of the whole, not tacked on.

If a setting has magic, then that magic doesn't violate physics, it's part of the "physics".

Exactly! The world-building has more, by definition, to do with setting than with mechanics, though. If you have a set of mechanics, building a world that they work in is doable.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 09:37 AM
The magic needs to be accounted for in the worldbuilding, and mapped as part of the whole, not tacked on.

If a setting has magic, then that magic doesn't violate physics, it's part of the "physics".

Then you can easily account for other ridiculous things that occur as being part of the setting's "physics" even beyond magic. Yes, sufficiently buff people in this setting CAN leap tall buildings in a single bound. And in fact getting buff toughens your skin and bones because that's how human physiology works in this setting, so hitpoints make sense again.

If all you're wanting is sufficient excuses to make anything in the rules make sense, that's not particularly hard. So I'm still not sure I understand the complaint.

Edit: You could even give a name to the Martial Energy and make it something like Determination.

In this setting, simple dogged determination has actual effects on the real world. The Barbarian is indeed an unkillable rage machine and that's because he is so determined to survive and to kill you that it literally empowers him.

The Fighter SHOULD die from all these wounds. But his sheer force of will keeps his broken body held together anyways because that's a thing in this setting.

*shrug* sufficient creativity can make just about any rule make sense in terms of the physics of a setting.

nrg89
2016-10-10, 09:40 AM
I've found that this is exactly the sort of thing that results in rules that make no damn sense to me.

Could you elaborate a bit? We could have two different views on verisimilitude, mine is that the rules are consistent and makes sense given what we've been told is different in this world. As long as the game sticks to it's setting, where these things aren't challenged, I don't see any problem. Or do you want Indiana Jones's whip to follow the same rules of physics as they do in real life? How about a spy game with James Bond like poker in it, will you do a few checks and say "you won on a royal straight flush!" or will a player make consecutive checks to see if he can stay awake long enough to grind the other players out after hours upon hours of play?

RPGs are about escapism. I agree that the worlds must offer consistency and be well thought out to be enjoyable, but they must also offer a fantasy players want to escape into. Are fictional tropes out of the question?

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 09:50 AM
Then you can easily account for other ridiculous things that occur as being part of the setting's "physics" even beyond magic.



No, actually, you can't -- not unless you're willing to follow through with all the implications of those ridiculous things being part of the "realm of the possible" within that setting.

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-10, 10:11 AM
No, actually, you can't -- not unless you're willing to follow through with all the implications of those ridiculous things being part of the "realm of the possible" within that setting.
Max, bold-and-underline doesn't add any particular weight to the argument. If you have a point, spell out what you mean. Are you talking about the TippyVerse, or something?


RPGs are about escapism. I agree that the worlds must offer consistency and be well thought out to be enjoyable, but they must also offer a fantasy players want to escape into. Are fictional tropes out of the question?
This is another one of those problematic claims. Does Tolkien offer 'escape' to the howling wastes of Mordor? How many people would really want to live in Westeros?

Segev
2016-10-10, 10:23 AM
No, actually, you can't -- not unless you're willing to follow through with all the implications of those ridiculous things being part of the "realm of the possible" within that setting.


Max, bold-and-underline doesn't add any particular weight to the argument. If you have a point, spell out what you mean. Are you talking about the TippyVerse, or something?

Yeah, I'm afraid I don't see where anybody has refused to follow through on the implications of such things. Quite the contrary, they've suggested they would prefer to.

To what implications are you referring? Personally, the "implication" that sufficient training can make your skin tougher than swords doesn't really seem all that harmful. Especially if part of the training is a technique that makes it so, rather than it being an "always on" sort of deal. (Thus allowing "stitches" with a normal needle to still work, rather than the Superman problem with getting a shot.)

2D8HP
2016-10-10, 10:27 AM
to answer 2D8HP's question, what's great about such systems is that they preserve a nice isomorphic mapping between what the rules & math imply and what might be presumed to happen in a self-consistent universe, which some of us find intrinsically pleasing. If that motive is alien to you, that's fine, but you also don't get a monopoly on defining 'fun'.A quick search has led me to think that I don't have the vocabulary and education to even understand the definition of "isomorphic mapping", so I have to leave that alone (PM me if you'd like), on your second point, when I wrote "none have been as fun to play as '70's/80's and 5e Dungeons & Dragons", I really should have instead wrote that, "none have been as fun for me to play as '70's/80's and 5e Dungeons & Dragons.

Sorry.

They may indeed be other games that would be more fun for me, to play (Castle Falkenstein, Flashing Blades, Pendragon, 7th Sea, Space 1889, and Warbirds top my list as ones I'd to try), but I have not yet found a table for them (a couple of those games have been on my "list to try" for decades BTW).
They were some dark years for me, when they were no open tables for D&D only tables for other RPG's that were less fun for me. During those years Runequest (I simply don't remember Rolemaster well enough) had a setting that was closest to D&D yet having more verisimilitude, but I also remember it as being less fun for me to play.
So what are these games that you've played with actual other people that you've enjoyed playing more?

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 10:35 AM
No, actually, you can't -- not unless you're willing to follow through with all the implications of those ridiculous things being part of the "realm of the possible" within that setting.

So lets suppose I'm A-ok with that. (And I'm not entirely sure how my explanation causes any major problems down the line.)

A high-level fighter is capable of mystical feats of strength because he has sheer determination/force of will/etc that literally grants him power. The only problem this might have is with save-or-die will saves, but those are pretty stupid to begin with and I'd happily allow those to be swept under the rug in favor of something else that I don't have the time to sit down and design right now.

And as Segev said, this determination can be selective. Think of it as being a little bit like Orks in Warhammer 40k, if they all believe something to work, it pretty much does. If a fighter is determined not to die, he pretty much won't. But nothing says he's determined to not get sewn up after a fight, so that works fine. Essentially, the Fighter and the Wizard are both tapping into the same reality-altering energies that are a part of the world, but in very different ways.

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-10, 10:44 AM
As for combat, combat is an incredibly intricate interaction that has an unbelievably huge amount of variables. In real life, most fights are settled pretty quickly, especially when swords are involved. The interactions between various weapons are diverse, and there are often ways of interacting that the rules don't account for.

So, because we can't have combat rules sections as thick as encyclopedias (which we could have if we really wanted to be this specific) then you have to allow for a degree of error.
Well, depending on how much of the text you consider to be combat-related, one could argue that D&D has rules as thick as an encyclopedia...

I agree with the basic point that there's essentially no limit on how much complexity you can squeeze in to get diminishing returns on simulation accuracy, and never reach 100%, bu-ut... I still think you can call a system more or less simulationist based on how much priority is assigned to accuracy within a given complexity budget.


A quick search has led me to think that I don't have the vocabulary and education to even understand the definition of "isomorphic mapping", so I have to leave that alone (PM me if you'd like)
Oh, it's just a formalised way of saying that two systems have the same behavioural structure, more or less. (As for the systems that I felt gave me more bang for the buck- well, I tend to gravitate to Burning Wheel, since it probably has the most stable player-base.)

Anyways, no need for apologies.

nrg89
2016-10-10, 10:48 AM
This is another one of those problematic claims. Does Tolkien offer 'escape' to the howling wastes of Mordor? How many people would really want to live in Westeros?

I wouldn't want to be an orc in Mordor or a commoner in Westeros, but a very powerful hero in either universe that saves the day, sure. This is why D&D doesn't have any rules about making pies or harvesting wheat because even though that's (supposedly) the day to day activity of the vast majority of the population you want to play as the character that gets stuff done.

At least, I do. I don't know any successful RPG systems where you simulate farming. I would gladly play a German board game about farming like Agricola, because then I'm invested in the farm, but not so much the farmer.

So long as the rules keep the actual verb part of the game consistent and believable, I can suspend disbelief.

Aotrs Commander
2016-10-10, 10:58 AM
I treat D&D like I treat any other set of rules - as an imperfect simulation of the "real" world, where sometimes, the flaws in the system (and there are always flaws in a system; show me a pefect system and I'll call you a lair) have to be worked around or simply ignored if they don't make sense.

(I should also note that I also take a hatchet to every set of rules I have ever played to modify and tweak for my own preferences. 3.x (or more correctly 3.Aotrs) has been one of the more.. extensively modified.)

D&D is not a particulatly good simulations and some incarnations are worse than others at approximating simulation (e.g. 4E), but on the whole I find 3.Aotrs to be a perfectly functional mechanical system, suited to the sort of games I run, where Rolemaster is not as appropriate, Both systems have their boons and flaws (D&D can allow you to have boss battles... RM... inevitably does not), but both can be used, with some judgement, to make a reasonable approximation of verisimiltudanistic world.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 11:05 AM
Well, depending on how much of the text you consider to be combat-related, one could argue that D&D has rules as thick as an encyclopedia...
I tend to have anything directly and obviously related to combat as combat rules. And in the core rulebooks, you'd be close to right. D&D (page-wise) is about 50% combat rules. So it should be no surprise that D&D is good at combat and not very good at any of the intricacies of the many things that could be defined as "not-combat."



I agree with the basic point that there's essentially no limit on how much complexity you can squeeze in to get diminishing returns on simulation accuracy, and never reach 100%, bu-ut... I still think you can call a system more or less simulationist based on how much priority is assigned to accuracy within a given complexity budget.


I didn't intend to make it seem otherwise. I'm not saying that simulationist games don't exist, I'm simply saying that not allowing for any degree of error is not doing oneself any favors, since a perfect simulation won't be happening any time soon. And to a certain degree we all understand that we are dabbling in the improbable.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 11:28 AM
Max, bold-and-underline doesn't add any particular weight to the argument. If you have a point, spell out what you mean. Are you talking about the TippyVerse, or something?


Depends on the setting and the specific deviations from the world we know.

But using the paraphrased example of "it's within the range of possibility for the most talented people to leap five times higher than the most talented people in our world do", then... why is this possible?

If gravity is lower, then there are all sort of consequences that derive from that change.

If human muscle is that much stronger, then there are a whole set of things that would change about other human capabilities, anatomy, bone strength, resistance to injury, etc.

Etc.

All too often, the full implications of these changes are not explored, or intentionally ignored.

Morcleon
2016-10-10, 11:41 AM
Depends on the setting and the specific deviations from the world we know.

But using the paraphrased example of "it's within the range of possibility for the most talented people to leap five times higher than the most talented people in our world do", then... why is this possible?

If gravity is lower, then there are all sort of consequences that derive from that change.

If human muscle is that much stronger, then there are a whole set of things that would change about other human capabilities, anatomy, bone strength, resistance to injury, etc.

Etc.

All too often, the full implications of these changes are not explored, or intentionally ignored.

Creatures are capable of generating power beyond the physical, an extraordinary force that, with the correct training, is capable of feats beyond what should normally be possible.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 11:48 AM
Depends on the setting and the specific deviations from the world we know.

But using the paraphrased example of "it's within the range of possibility for the most talented people to leap five times higher than the most talented people in our world do", then... why is this possible?

If gravity is lower, then there are all sort of consequences that derive from that change.

If human muscle is that much stronger, then there are a whole set of things that would change about other human capabilities, anatomy, bone strength, resistance to injury, etc.

Etc.

All too often, the full implications of these changes are not explored, or intentionally ignored.

I've already dealt with both of those problems.

As martial fighters train and become more capable, they begin to believe themselves more and more capable of astonishing feats. This mere power of belief causes them to become capable of such feats in reality. Essentially, they're using magic just like wizards do, but instead of changing the world around them they change themselves.

This also explains diminishing returns from killing certain monsters at higher levels. There really IS a difference between killing a goblin at lvl 1 (when there are still doubts that you even can) and killing a goblin at lvl 6 (when you've killed so many that you no longer doubt your capabilities in this regard, so killing more goblins does nothing to bolster your determination or self-belief.)

Basically, a fighter can leap a tall building in a single bound because he BELIEVES he can, and his increasing firmness in belief in his own capabilities literally warps reality in the same way magic does.

Problem solved.

Edit: I'll also note that while you state that magic is "part of the physics" anyone nonmagical (meaning in this context "not-a-caster") must be bound to exactly the laws of physics as we understand them. You're breaking your own rule by not extending the existence of reality-altering ability to its logical conclusions for the sake of the setting. You're demanding that magic be handwaved but nothing else may be handwaved!

Everything can be easily accounted for via magic. So do so? And have no problems.

RazorChain
2016-10-10, 11:58 AM
I've already dealt with both of those problems.

As martial fighters train and become more capable, they begin to believe themselves more and more capable of astonishing feats. This mere power of belief causes them to become capable of such feats in reality. Essentially, they're using magic just like wizards do, but instead of changing the world around them they change themselves.

This also explains diminishing returns from killing certain monsters at higher levels. There really IS a difference between killing a goblin at lvl 1 (when there are still doubts that you even can) and killing a goblin at lvl 6 (when you've killed so many that you no longer doubt your capabilities in this regard, so killing more goblins does nothing to bolster your determination or self-belief.)

Basically, a fighter can leap a tall building in a single bound because he BELIEVES he can, and his increasing firmness in belief in his own capabilities literally warps reality in the same way magic does.

Problem solved.

Edit: I'll also note that while you state that magic is "part of the physics" anyone nonmagical (meaning in this context "not-a-caster") must be bound to exactly the laws of physics as we understand them. You're breaking your own rule by not extending the existence of reality-altering ability to its logical conclusions for the sake of the setting. You're demanding that magic be handwaved but nothing else may be handwaved!

Everything can be easily accounted for via magic. So do so? And have no problems.

just like this


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEkfnrUI5Z8

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 12:50 PM
I've already dealt with both of those problems.

As martial fighters train and become more capable, they begin to believe themselves more and more capable of astonishing feats. This mere power of belief causes them to become capable of such feats in reality. Essentially, they're using magic just like wizards do, but instead of changing the world around them they change themselves.

This also explains diminishing returns from killing certain monsters at higher levels. There really IS a difference between killing a goblin at lvl 1 (when there are still doubts that you even can) and killing a goblin at lvl 6 (when you've killed so many that you no longer doubt your capabilities in this regard, so killing more goblins does nothing to bolster your determination or self-belief.)

Basically, a fighter can leap a tall building in a single bound because he BELIEVES he can, and his increasing firmness in belief in his own capabilities literally warps reality in the same way magic does.

Problem solved.

Edit: I'll also note that while you state that magic is "part of the physics" anyone nonmagical (meaning in this context "not-a-caster") must be bound to exactly the laws of physics as we understand them. You're breaking your own rule by not extending the existence of reality-altering ability to its logical conclusions for the sake of the setting. You're demanding that magic be handwaved but nothing else may be handwaved!

Everything can be easily accounted for via magic. So do so? And have no problems.


I refuse to engage further with someone who tells me what I'm thinking as if they know better than I do.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 12:57 PM
just like this


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEkfnrUI5Z8

Yes, but based on internal belief and it actually works. xD

(10/10 video, though)

I'd liken it to Warhammer 40k Orks and their belief-powered technology.
In essence, in Ork armies the red vehicles are faster.
Not because they paint the faster ones red...
But because they all think red makes their vehicles faster.
And so IT DOES.

So imagine that, but just one guy powers it.


I refuse to engage further with someone who tells me what I'm thinking as if they know better than I do.

Woah, chillax a moment.

I've never declared what you're THINKING but I've repeated what you appear to be SAYING. These are two different ideas. I apologize if I've failed to make that clearer, but it should be readily apparent that I don't have telepathy and can only go by your words to interpret your meaning.

What I said is the perceived fault in logic between two things you say you want that are at odds with oneanother. That's the most I can do.

Segev
2016-10-10, 12:57 PM
Depends on the setting and the specific deviations from the world we know.

But using the paraphrased example of "it's within the range of possibility for the most talented people to leap five times higher than the most talented people in our world do", then... why is this possible?

If gravity is lower, then there are all sort of consequences that derive from that change.

If human muscle is that much stronger, then there are a whole set of things that would change about other human capabilities, anatomy, bone strength, resistance to injury, etc.

Etc.

All too often, the full implications of these changes are not explored, or intentionally ignored."Training can strengthen the humanoid body to these extremes" doesn't really carry implications beyond just what was said there.


I refuse to engage further with someone who tells me what I'm thinking as if they know better than I do.Nobody did that. Somebody did try to infer what you meant, and spoke to that, but when you refuse to reply to people's queries for more of your thoughts, and instead leave short sentences implying that you have a broader point that should be obvious, it's a bit disingenuous to get huffy with people who are trying to infer what you seem to be implying.

A more useful response would be to say, "That's not what I meant. Here is what I did mean, and how it's different than what you seem to think I meant."

Cazero
2016-10-10, 01:32 PM
I've already dealt with both of those problems.

As martial fighters train and become more capable, they begin to believe themselves more and more capable of astonishing feats. This mere power of belief causes them to become capable of such feats in reality. Essentially, they're using magic just like wizards do, but instead of changing the world around them they change themselves.
My awesome high-fantasy Fighter doesn't need any of that "believe in yourself" disney crap to not break verisimilitude, thank you very much.

"Training can strengthen the humanoid body to these extremes" doesn't really carry implications beyond just what was said there.
See that right there? That's how it works. Nothing breaks. Problem absent.
It doesn't carry any implications other than legends being retelling of real facts rather than embelished or imagined stories.
Sun Wukong? Epic D&D Fighter. The Monkey King fought the armies of heaven. And won. He clearly needed tons of HP and insane attack bonuses to do that.
Heracles? Straight D&D Fighter. The demigod killed something immune to physical damage with physical damage. Clearly that "immunity" was only high DR/AC overcome with a big enough STR/BAB.
I could go on, but I'm actualy not that knowledgeable at that mythology stick.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 01:54 PM
My awesome high-fantasy Fighter doesn't need any of that "believe in yourself" disney crap to not break verisimilitude, thank you very much.

See that right there? That's how it works. Nothing breaks. Problem absent.
It doesn't carry any implications other than legends being retelling of real facts rather than embelished or imagined stories.
Sun Wukong? Epic D&D Fighter. The Monkey King fought the armies of heaven. And won. He clearly needed tons of HP and insane attack bonuses to do that.
Heracles? Straight D&D Fighter. The demigod killed something immune to physical damage with physical damage. Clearly that "immunity" was only high DR/AC overcome with a big enough STR/BAB.
I could go on, but I'm actualy not that knowledgeable at that mythology stick.

I don't think you understood the meaning behind my explanation, but it was just an option that happened to cover a lot of bases.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 01:56 PM
Woah, chillax a moment.

I've never declared what you're THINKING but I've repeated what you appear to be SAYING. These are two different ideas. I apologize if I've failed to make that clearer, but it should be readily apparent that I don't have telepathy and can only go by your words to interpret your meaning.

What I said is the perceived fault in logic between two things you say you want that are at odds with oneanother. That's the most I can do.


OK, fine.

Where exactly did I demand a "handwave" for magic? Because nothing I said was such a demand, unless one would claim "well, if your setting includes gravity, and you can't explain the exact workings of gravity in your setting, that's a handwave", or any similar thing.

And where did I say that anyone who is "not a caster" (your term, not mine) is bound by physics exactly like ours, in every single world with "magic" ?

And who exactly established as "fact" that "reality bending" was the way in which all "extraordinary powers" worked?


( And really? "They believe so very very much" is the explanation? )

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 02:18 PM
OK, fine.

Where exactly did I demand a "handwave" for magic? Because nothing I said was such a demand, unless one would claim "well, if your setting includes gravity, and you can't explain the exact workings of gravity in your setting, that's a handwave", or any similar thing.

"Magic is part of the physics of the setting"
Meaning that whatever Magic does is within the new physical laws of this setting. Including things that violate basic physics principals like Newton's Laws and Conservation of Matter.

This is a handwave. We don't need to explain the inner workings of magic so long as they're consistent, and we just accept that it works as advertised.



And where did I say that anyone who is "not a caster" (your term, not mine) is bound by physics exactly like ours, in every single world with "magic" ?

When the only explanations for a person leaping a building were "Gravity is lower" and "Everyone is that strong." Two things that require them to abide by a different set of rules than casters. If a wizard jumps over a building you'd likely say that he enchanted his legs.



And who exactly established as "fact" that "reality bending" was the way in which all "extraordinary powers" worked?


It's a given for the hypothetical setting in which that explanation applies. (Though magic in many settings/games does indeed alter reality. Such as via the Wish spell in D&D or the Time Turner in Harry Potter.)

As for the belief thing, it covers a lot of bases. Amd pretty much any explanation for anything can sound stupid if you try. Like the big bang.
"In the beginning, there was nothing. Which exploded."

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-10, 02:21 PM
I wouldn't want to be an orc in Mordor or a commoner in Westeros, but a very powerful hero in either universe that saves the day, sure. This is why D&D doesn't have any rules about making pies or harvesting wheat because even though that's (supposedly) the day to day activity of the vast majority of the population you want to play as the character that gets stuff done.
I understand your point, but going by body-counts in the canon narrative I'd argue that even high-ranking nobles and veteran soldiers (i.e, the 'heroes') in Tolkien or GoT have a pretty poor life-expectancy relative to what 21st-century citizens in RL can expect (even in many parts of the developing world.) I don't have a definite understanding of what the purpose of fantasy fiction is, but I think 'escape' is simplistic.

'RPGs about farming' is an interesting thought experiment, alright. Might come back to that some day...


I didn't intend to make it seem otherwise. I'm not saying that simulationist games don't exist, I'm simply saying that not allowing for any degree of error is not doing oneself any favors, since a perfect simulation won't be happening any time soon. And to a certain degree we all understand that we are dabbling in the improbable.
I don't disagree. It's just I've heard people posit this false dichotomy between '100% perfection in simulation' and 'ignoring verisimilitude completely' often enough that the argument gets a bit tiresome. (Not you, just others.)

Basically, a fighter can leap a tall building in a single bound because he BELIEVES he can, and his increasing firmness in belief in his own capabilities literally warps reality in the same way magic does.
While I'm open to the broad idea that uber-combat skills could be fluffed as a different form of spellcasting... wouldn't this essentially give you more and more power based on how gullible or narcissist you are, until delusional schizophrenics logically become the princes of all creation? Even the TippyVerse wouldn't survive that.


But using the paraphrased example of "it's within the range of possibility for the most talented people to leap five times higher than the most talented people in our world do", then... why is this possible?

If gravity is lower, then there are all sort of consequences that derive from that change.

If human muscle is that much stronger, then there are a whole set of things that would change about other human capabilities, anatomy, bone strength, resistance to injury, etc.
Yeah, but the original suggestion was that high-level warriors essentially gain access to specialised forms of magic, not that baseline physics or biology is intrinsically different. Their muscle and bone can be supercharged for the same reason crystal balls let you see the future and carpets can fly. (Why this should intrinsically depend on hacking up monsters, of course, is a different question...)

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 02:28 PM
"Magic is part of the physics of the setting"
Meaning that whatever Magic does is within the new physical laws of this setting. Including things that violate basic physics principals like Newton's Laws and Conservation of Matter.

This is a handwave. We don't need to explain the inner workings of magic so long as they're consistent, and we just accept that it works as advertised.


That's not a handwave, it's a fictional conceit.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 02:43 PM
That's not a handwave, it's a fictional conceit.

Central Conceits (aka fictional conceits) are, by their nature, handwaves.

We simply accept that they work and suspend our disbelief for their sake.



While I'm open to the broad idea that uber-combat skills could be fluffed as a different form of spellcasting... wouldn't this essentially give you more and more power based on how gullible or narcissist you are, until delusional schizophrenics logically become the princes of all creation? Even the TippyVerse wouldn't survive that.

You could easily say that madness prevents these abilities from working.

And no matter how narcissistic you are, you'll always have that doubt that maybe you can't. And until you prove it, that doubt will leave you vulnerable.



Yeah, but the original suggestion was that high-level warriors essentially gain access to specialised forms of magic, not that baseline physics or biology is intrinsically different. Their muscle and bone can be supercharged for the same reason crystal balls let you see the future and carpets can fly. (Why this should intrinsically depend on hacking up monsters, of course, is a different question...)
Indeed.

georgie_leech
2016-10-10, 02:47 PM
That's not a handwave, it's a fictional conceit.

Would it not be equally true that it's a fictional conceit that heroes from myths and legends can do things physically impossible in the modern world? Why does it need to be something like lowered gravity?

nrg89
2016-10-10, 03:00 PM
I understand your point, but going by body-counts in the canon narrative I'd argue that even high-ranking nobles and veteran soldiers (i.e, the 'heroes') in Tolkien or GoT have a pretty poor life-expectancy relative to what 21st-century citizens in RL can expect (even in many parts of the developing world.) I don't have a definite understanding of what the purpose of fantasy fiction is, but I think 'escape' is simplistic.

'RPGs about farming' is an interesting thought experiment, alright. Might come back to that some day...


Yes, we can infer a low life expectancy on them, but they die after having lived fulfilling lives where many people depended on them and will honor them beyond death. Their adventures will be the stuff of legends and that's a fantasy for most people working 9-to-5, at least for me it is.

I don't mean that they are just about escapism, I've been playing RPGs for 15 years and consuming fantasy fiction for more than that, and I would never reduce them to simple escapism. They give commentary on things, they're an exercise in empathy, they're an outlet for creating fiction that feels more personal (since you created it) and much more.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 03:05 PM
Central Conceits (aka fictional conceits) are, by their nature, handwaves.

We simply accept that they work and suspend our disbelief for their sake.


To me, a "handwave" implies a different thing.

A fictional conceit such as "magic" or "FTL travel" or whatever can still have "rules" by which it is known to function, even if the deeper "how" isn't really explained. "Casting spells causes fatigue and eventually damage to the caster if they keep pushing, because it draws on their own energy" or "it takes at least X amount of time between FTL jumps based on the mass of the ship and the size of its capacitors/batteries".

A handwave is just "whatever, stuff happens here, and fireball!" or "they got to their destination 20 times faster than the speed of light, because their ship has an FTL drive".

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 03:17 PM
To me, a "handwave" implies a different thing.

A fictional conceit such as "magic" or "FTL travel" or whatever can still have "rules" by which it is known to function, even if the deeper "how" isn't really explained. "Casting spells causes fatigue and eventually damage to the caster if they keep pushing, because it draws on their own energy" or "it takes at least X amount of time between FTL jumps based on the mass of the ship and the size of its capacitors/batteries".

A handwave is just "whatever, stuff happens here, and fireball!" or "they got to their destination 20 times faster than the speed of light, because their ship has an FTL drive".

The four options you presented have minimal differences.

Namely, you've just added more rules to magic in the first and given the FTL a gradient and a technobabble reason why the gradient exists, but when you boil those down they rely on further handwaves. (We just have to accept that magic comes from your own energy, and we just have to accept that different FTL parts have different effects because this table says so.)

The first of the bottom two is marked by uncreative description rather than anything instrinsically wrong with a fireball being cast.
"The wizard gesticulates his body and then leans forward, burping forth a ball of flame that zips to its target and explodes in a fiery burst!" This informs us of what casting a fireball looks like, and that gesticulation of some sort is involved. We can describe the specifics later.

In the FTL one, there's no reason why FTL's can't have a max speed of 20x light speed and a new speed barrier has been hit. Or just that the rules say this ship goes this fast. We can come up with the reasons ourselves without the rules needing to justify every single decision in the fluff.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 03:20 PM
As far as I'm concerned, there is a fundamental difference between a conceit and a handwave. And the rules and fluff should be in sync.

Beyond that, forget it, we're wasting time and breath at this point.

Cluedrew
2016-10-10, 03:31 PM
I wrote this section this morning, but then couldn't post it this because of computer issues:


Why must these be mutually exclusive? Why can't the omnipotent wizard exist, and be balanced with the omnipotent fighter, the omniscient rogue, the omnipresent psion, the omnidirectional (I'm running out of things my phone won't auto correct, ok?) scout, etc?If you want to play at that power-level than go for it. Why shouldn't the fighter be able to bat the fireball back into the wizard's face or the rogue have a save-or-die slit their throat ability* or the monk be able to meditate their way though a wall-of-fire?

* Well, besides the usual problems with save-or-dies.


Essentially, it's sounding like the way to solve your problem is to write your own system and play that. There is a rule among tabletop rpg designers which reads:
"If you are looking for a certain kind of game, and discover that it doesn't exist, it is now your duty to make it."
So go do it, and let us know what you find out!
I'd be more than happy to help, too.As this is a major part of my life philosophy applied to game design, I agree.

This part I just wrote:

On Handwaves: Personally I will call anything that is put into a piece of fiction without an explanation a handwave. Fictional conceits, miracle exceptions and so on are often either handwaves or built off of a handwave that goes down just far enough that people don't feel the need to peel back another layer.

Good handwaves are either put in corners where people don't care or are part of the premise, the fictional conceit*/miracle exception that the story is based off of and then are explored. Not in to get an explanation, but out to see the consequences. But that doesn't make them stop being handwaves.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 03:49 PM
As far as I'm concerned, there is a fundamental difference between a conceit and a handwave. And the rules and fluff should be in sync.

Beyond that, forget it, we're wasting time and breath at this point.

As Cluedrew has said above, I think you enjoy well-hidden handwaves or handwaves hidden under an appropriately large list of "Becauses."

You have to be convinced that there is something deeper regardless of whether or not there actually IS. (And there usually isn't)

A Handwave in literary terms is often used insultingly but mainly means any aspect of the plot/setting left unexplained. The term is usually used to point out when it's done badly, but it's not necessarily that.

A fictional conceit is an aspect of the plot/setting that is unexplained, and simply accepted as fact. Basically, the difference between a Conceit and a Handwave is not about WHAT it is but how well its donen though a handwave need not actually be done badly to qualify, making them synonyms with one that has a different connotation. See Tenacious vs. Stubborn. Tenacious and stubborn mean the same thing but Stubborn has a negative connotation. A person who is being stubborn is doing the same thing a tenacious person does, but the speaker dislikes it. Invert for tenacious.

Same thing with handwave vs. Conceit. If you like it, it's a conceit. If not, its a handwave. But they mean the same thing.

Cosi
2016-10-10, 04:16 PM
D&D is definitely a world simulator. Sometimes the world it simulates isn't the world we want (i.e. 3.5 with high optimization and few houserules), and sometimes that simulation has very little detail (i.e. 4e). But it always exists. The question isn't "is D&D a world simulator", it's "how much do we care about various parts of the world".


And all of the games which are not D&D and have managed to solve this problem are wrong.

You mean like Shadowrun, which supports non-super-powered mundanes by having mundanes be cyborgs? Or WoD, which supports non-super-powered mundanes by having everyone be magic? Or Exalted, which does the same thing? I can't think of a game that has high powered casters, mundane martials, and overall class balance at the levels in question.

An example of a game that you think resolved the dilemma would have been helpful.


As Cluedrew has said above, I think you enjoy well-hidden handwaves or handwaves hidden under an appropriately large list of "Becauses."

Even the real world doesn't have a totally justified set of physical laws. At some point the answer to "why does <thing> behave in <way>" is "because that is the experimental result" rather than "because <other thing> behaves in <different way>".

I also think Max seems to radically underestimate the value of having rules that produce results that are mechanically desired. Yes, HP is not perfectly consistent with various possible theories as to what exactly it's representing. But it is pretty consistent with the "physical damage" theory, and it (in theory) produces the results it needs to to make the game resolve events in the ways we want. And it can be resolved by humans in reasonable time. Those properties are much more important than "100% consistent physics engine" when designing a game for humans to play.

Tanarii
2016-10-10, 04:22 PM
D&D is definitely a world simulator. Sometimes the world it simulates isn't the world we want (i.e. 3.5 with high optimization and few houserules), and sometimes that simulation has very little detail (i.e. 4e). But it always exists. The question isn't "is D&D a world simulator", it's "how much do we care about various parts of the world".No it isn't. It can also be a set of abstract rules for resolution of conflict. It doesn't necessarily have to simulate anything.

Aotrs Commander
2016-10-10, 04:26 PM
You mean like Shadowrun, which supports non-super-powered mundanes by having mundanes be cyborgs? Or WoD, which supports non-super-powered mundanes by having everyone be magic? Or Exalted, which does the same thing? I can't think of a game that has high powered casters, mundane martials, and overall class balance at the levels in question.

An example of a game that you think resolved the dilemma would have been helpful.

Or Rolemaster, as the problem is casters are usually woefully under-powered at below very high level (where they can, like D&D, be stupidly powerful) and, especially in scifi, they can be horrendously inefficient compared to straight-up fighters.

(In RM, until we did ANOTHER major rules revision and rebuilt the character, the 12th-level archmage - a class which can cherry-pick any spell list in Rolemaster - was at her most game-breaking only when empowering the combatants with Haste and allowing in them to shoot twice as fast. (And that was already skipping the rounds of preparaion which would have otherwise meant she would be able to cast one spell in the time it took the other characters to fire their guns up to nine times...)

If you go strictly by the rules in RM (as, to be fair, we never have in twent years), your 1st level mage maybe literally limited to (MAYBE) being able to do nothing more produce a flashlight once per day, OR to boil a cubic foot of water once per day...

Cosi
2016-10-10, 04:26 PM
No it isn't. It can also be a set of abstract rules for resolution of conflict. It doesn't necessarily have to simulate anything.

That's still a "world simulator" because you can plug NPCs in on both sides of the conflict resolution engine. You don't have to do that, but you totally can.

The idea that some game is or isn't a "world simulator" is basically stupid. If you have a conflict resolution engine and a set of inputs, you can simulate a world. That simulation can be flawed in various ways (i.e. 3e not simulating the world people want it to without some level of rules massaging), but at no point is it not a simulation.

Tanarii
2016-10-10, 04:40 PM
That's still a "world simulator" because you can plug NPCs in on both sides of the conflict resolution engine. You don't have to do that, but you totally can.

The idea that some game is or isn't a "world simulator" is basically stupid. If you have a conflict resolution engine and a set of inputs, you can simulate a world. That simulation can be flawed in various ways (i.e. 3e not simulating the world people want it to without some level of rules massaging), but at no point is it not a simulation.You're not using any definition of "simulation" that's I've ever seen.

Simulation implies it is attempting to model the underlying thing it represents. An abstract set of rules for conflict resolution is just a way of resolving conflicts. The math doesn't have to model anything in the in-game world. It just needs to present a way for resolving situations.

wumpus
2016-10-10, 04:48 PM
You're not using any definition of "simulation" that's I've ever seen.

Simulation implies it is attempting to model the underlying thing it represents. An abstract set of rules for conflict resolution is just a way of resolving conflicts. The math doesn't have to model anything in the in-game world. It just needs to present a way for resolving situations.

You're missing the point. The rules of D&D (and many other role playing games) only care about the conflicts. Any non-conflicting bits can simply be described by the setting. Trying to force the rules of D&D onto the world in general is how you get the tippyverse.

The setting is merely the world, often as it is not in conflict. And you shouldn't even assume that conflict between NPCs (off screen or on) are determined strictly by the rules. Do you really think TSR/WOTC/Hasbro/whoever really were supposed to role the dice for each battle in the various edition changing cataclysms (not really sure if there were any others but 3.xe to 4).

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-10, 05:24 PM
You're missing the point. The rules of D&D (and many other role playing games) only care about the conflicts. Any non-conflicting bits can simply be described by the setting. Trying to force the rules of D&D onto the world in general is how you get the tippyverse.

The setting is merely the world, often as it is not in conflict.


The setting is the world, the reality -- the rules are just the map.

Tanarii
2016-10-10, 05:29 PM
You're missing the point.No I'm not. The point is the rules are, or at least in most versions work best, if they are treated as abstract rules that are there for adjudicating conflicts (by which I don't just mean 'fights') between the PCs and certain aspects of the world. Not for simulating (by which I mean modeling) a world.

Edit: For that matter, how much they model the interactions between the PCs and the world can be open to question.

ComradeBear
2016-10-10, 05:39 PM
No I'm not. The point is the rules are, or at least in most versions work best, if they are treated as abstract rules that are there for adjudicating conflicts (by which I don't just mean 'fights') between the PCs and certain aspects of the world. Not for simulating (by which I mean modeling) a world.

Edit: For that matter, how much they model the interactions between the PCs and the world can be open to question.

In agreement with this, but I'd also put out there that in most systems simulating the world is the GM's job, or falls under the purview of subsystems within the system.

Taking Apocalypse World as a familiar example for me, the MC is responsible for determining how the world behaves (often with assistance from the players.)
So of the players tell me that Rice is starting a cult, it's up to ME to determine how Rice will behave from here on out. There is no hard and fast rule of how he should behave, though there is a tool to help me lay it out in a consistent way.

In D&D such frameworks don't exist. The DM is solely responsible for figuring out the behavior of the rules as viewed through the rules.

At most, the rules are a lens we perceive the world through, but they are at least a rough edges sketch of What Might Be.

Cluedrew
2016-10-10, 06:55 PM
On "World Simulator": I'm not sure of the actual definition but in terms of how the phase was used by Kawi2awa (who started this thread) I think the mean in terms of emulating large sections of the world and daily life. D&D does not do that, leaving most of those matters to narration or glossing over the details entirely. (The example was wounds getting infected.)


I can't think of a game that has high powered casters, mundane martials, and overall class balance at the levels in question.Last time we danced this dance it took us 6 pages and we derailed the thread. So I am going to try and keep this short. Mundane as in "boring, as-seen-in-real-life" no because a D&D fighter isn't balanced against that. Mundane as in "not popping off spells/non-magical" than I would say ShadowRun is an example. A cyborg may not be seen on the streets, but it sure is not a wizard.

Tanarii
2016-10-10, 09:48 PM
On "World Simulator": I'm not sure of the actual definition but in terms of how the phase was used by Kawi2awa (who started this thread) I think the mean in terms of emulating large sections of the world and daily life. D&D does not do that, leaving most of those matters to narration or glossing over the details entirely. (The example was wounds getting infected.)


The way I took the OP was that the D&D game rules for PCs and their (most commonly) activity of dungeon and wilderness adventure, aren't necessarily a representation of the physics engine of world. It's a method for resolving the conflicts common to their adventures. At the most abstract, that means things like XP, class levels, HPs, skills, spells, and even the implied economics, are just a way to represent their growing heroic-ness and resolve the way they interact with things, not simulate their reality.

Now, different editions, and even different sub-systems within the different systems, have different levels of abstraction. For that matter, even at different tables the level of abstraction used will vary.

But at its core, I took it as a classic gamist vs simulation statement being made.

Batou1976
2016-10-11, 03:41 AM
These are powerful nobles with large estates and subjects they can levy taxes on, not murderhobos sleeping under the starry sky living off of dungeon loot.

True enough. The point was, armor is not necessarily "one size fits all", thus obviating the need for more than one; it is possible to have a need for more than one harness (or be rich enough to have several just because :smallbiggrin: )... and even murderhobos living under the starry sky can eventually accumulate enough loot to buy a second (or third!) set. Maybe they find Armor of Invulnerability useful in one case and "regular" ol' +3 plate optimal in another.

Which again illustrates how D&D isn't a comprehensive world simulator. If the game world made any kind of practical sense, such murderhobos shouldn't live long enough to amass that kind of wealth, not to mention- why is so much loot just left lying around in the first place? :smallconfused:

RazorChain
2016-10-11, 04:08 AM
My awesome high-fantasy Fighter doesn't need any of that "believe in yourself" disney crap to not break verisimilitude, thank you very much.

See that right there? That's how it works. Nothing breaks. Problem absent.
It doesn't carry any implications other than legends being retelling of real facts rather than embelished or imagined stories.
Sun Wukong? Epic D&D Fighter. The Monkey King fought the armies of heaven. And won. He clearly needed tons of HP and insane attack bonuses to do that.
Heracles? Straight D&D Fighter. The demigod killed something immune to physical damage with physical damage. Clearly that "immunity" was only high DR/AC overcome with a big enough STR/BAB.
I could go on, but I'm actualy not that knowledgeable at that mythology stick.

Actually Hercules strangled the Nemean Lion...as in cut off it´s air supply and it sufficated. In DnD terms it could be said that it was immune to normal weapons as Hercules could make a cloak out of it´s skin by cutting the skin with it´s claw.

ComradeBear
2016-10-11, 10:17 AM
As a side note, has anyone ever noticed that in D&D there is a weird lack of Self-preservation instincts in... anyone except the PCs?

Seriously, why does EVERYONE fight to the last man? When four to six dudes just killed 10 of my buddies in 6 seconds, I'm either gonna surrender or get the hell outta there. I don't care if we've got 30 more guys. Screw that. I'm gonna live.

DMs in the future, please remember that the badguys want to survive more than they want to kill the PCs UNLESS they're unintelligent. (And even most animals will retreat when they are injured.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-11, 10:26 AM
As a side note, has anyone ever noticed that in D&D there is a weird lack of Self-preservation instincts in... anyone except the PCs?

Seriously, why does EVERYONE fight to the last man? When four to six dudes just killed 10 of my buddies in 6 seconds, I'm either gonna surrender or get the hell outta there. I don't care if we've got 30 more guys. Screw that. I'm gonna live.

DMs in the future, please remember that the badguys want to survive more than they want to kill the PCs UNLESS they're unintelligent. (And even most animals will retreat when they are injured.)


That's a GM thing as much as it's a system thing.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-10-11, 11:23 AM
As a side note, has anyone ever noticed that in D&D there is a weird lack of Self-preservation instincts in... anyone except the PCs?

Seriously, why does EVERYONE fight to the last man? When four to six dudes just killed 10 of my buddies in 6 seconds, I'm either gonna surrender or get the hell outta there. I don't care if we've got 30 more guys. Screw that. I'm gonna live.

DMs in the future, please remember that the badguys want to survive more than they want to kill the PCs UNLESS they're unintelligent. (And even most animals will retreat when they are injured.)

Earlier editions literally had morale built into the system?

I seem to remember a morale check on first casualty and a morale check on 50% casualties.

kyoryu
2016-10-11, 11:52 AM
Earlier editions literally had morale built into the system?

I seem to remember a morale check on first casualty and a morale check on 50% casualties.

They did, it's true!

Tanarii
2016-10-11, 12:05 PM
As a side note, has anyone ever noticed that in D&D there is a weird lack of Self-preservation instincts in... anyone except the PCs?

Seriously, why does EVERYONE fight to the last man? When four to six dudes just killed 10 of my buddies in 6 seconds, I'm either gonna surrender or get the hell outta there. I don't care if we've got 30 more guys. Screw that. I'm gonna live.

DMs in the future, please remember that the badguys want to survive more than they want to kill the PCs UNLESS they're unintelligent. (And even most animals will retreat when they are injured.)AD&D 1e, D&D BECMI, AD&D 2e all had non-discretionary morale checks built into the game. It was 3e that dropped it. 5e has reintroduced has as DMG optional rules (Loyalty score for NPCs on the party side, Morale for enemies).

It's important to remember that 3e is not all of D&D. :smallwink:

Also, even in 3e/4e, IMX this is highly dependent on the DM. And on the enemies fleeing early enough to survive a round or two of ranges attacks. As well as having somewhere to flee to: allies nearby, cover/concealment they can hide and lose the PCs in, a dangerous environment the PCs won't just headlong pursue into (ie Dungeon corridors). Or just being faster than the PCs / being able to fly, etc.

Segev
2016-10-11, 12:18 PM
That's a GM thing as much as it's a system thing.

Exactly this. The DM controls the monsters. If he wants to play them with self-preservation instincts, he can.

ComradeBear
2016-10-11, 12:59 PM
That's a GM thing as much as it's a system thing.


Exactly this. The DM controls the monsters. If he wants to play them with self-preservation instincts, he can.

This is why I included that last paragraph. It is indeed a GM thing as much as a system thing, but the system certainly doesn't make suggestions otherwise. (Surprisingly few do)

I was somewhat aware of morale checks, which makes sense given the wargame origins of the game. Though in all of my 15 years of play I've never had a DM other than myself have our foes behave like they had any desire other than to skewer themselves on our blades.

Which struck me as really weird.

mujadaddy
2016-10-11, 02:09 PM
Though in all of my 15 years of play I've never had a DM other than myself have our foes behave like they had any desire other than to skewer themselves on our blades.
Uh, 3rd Edition, which has no morale component, came out in 2000, which was 16 years ago.

That may not help, but it might explain some of your experience.

kyoryu
2016-10-11, 02:16 PM
This really is an area where video games may be slightly to blame.

I've seen very few video games where, once combat is initiated, the enemy will ever break off. Not many let you retreat, either.

That sets a certain level of expectation that combat lasts until one side or the other is wiped out. It's not surprising that that carries over to RPGs.

TheCountAlucard
2016-10-11, 03:46 PM
I've had squads of enemies scatter after seeing enough of their fellows bite the dust in my RPGs - it's the PCs that never seem to want to run away.

ComradeBear
2016-10-11, 05:19 PM
Uh, 3rd Edition, which has no morale component, came out in 2000, which was 16 years ago.

That may not help, but it might explain some of your experience.

This is true, though I have seen the phenomenon beyond just 3e D&D and beyond.

Though I'm regretting bringing it up now since it's apparently derailing the thread. Just a minor pet peeve of mine.

Talakeal
2016-10-11, 05:26 PM
This really is an area where video games may be slightly to blame.

I've seen very few video games where, once combat is initiated, the enemy will ever break off. Not many let you retreat, either.

That sets a certain level of expectation that combat lasts until one side or the other is wiped out. It's not surprising that that carries over to RPGs.

It was a trend for a while in the early 2000s, for example in classic World of Warcraft or the first Dragon Age. Of course, enemies running away in those games is always a bad thing as you are still flagged as in combat (and thus can't rest) until you chase down the runners, and they almost always come back with friends.

Tanarii
2016-10-11, 06:23 PM
I've had squads of enemies scatter after seeing enough of their fellows bite the dust in my RPGs - it's the PCs that never seem to want to run away.
You can make them paranoid enough they'll think about it early on. But yeah, players not used to very lethal games tend to wait until it's too late. Then they panic. Then when they roll new characters, they're a little more cautious. Then when they roll new characters, they're a lot more cautious. Until eventually they're sufficiently paranoid. :smallamused:

kyoryu
2016-10-11, 06:25 PM
It was a trend for a while in the early 2000s, for example in classic World of Warcraft or the first Dragon Age. Of course, enemies running away in those games is always a bad thing as you are still flagged as in combat (and thus can't rest) until you chase down the runners, and they almost always come back with friends.

WoW did that a lot less than EverQuest did.

Wardog
2016-10-12, 03:41 PM
As a side note, has anyone ever noticed that in D&D there is a weird lack of Self-preservation instincts in... anyone except the PCs?

Seriously, why does EVERYONE fight to the last man? When four to six dudes just killed 10 of my buddies in 6 seconds, I'm either gonna surrender or get the hell outta there. I don't care if we've got 30 more guys. Screw that. I'm gonna live.

DMs in the future, please remember that the badguys want to survive more than they want to kill the PCs UNLESS they're unintelligent. (And even most animals will retreat when they are injured.)

I would think that animals would be even more likely to retreat if injured (or before the fight began if they thought you looked too big and scary). Animals won't die for their country, or seek revenge at any cost, or want to die gloriously.

Kane0
2016-10-13, 01:09 AM
Animals won't die for their country, or seek revenge at any cost, or want to die gloriously.

Soldier squirrels, man. You wouldn't believe.

Cosi
2016-10-13, 09:29 AM
Simulation implies it is attempting to model the underlying thing it represents. An abstract set of rules for conflict resolution is just a way of resolving conflicts. The math doesn't have to model anything in the in-game world. It just needs to present a way for resolving situations.

What things exist in the game world other than conflicts and the start state?

Questions like "how extensively should the world be simulated" are different from "is D&D a world simulator".


The setting is the world, the reality -- the rules are just the map.

This is the exact opposite of the truth. I mean, unless you believe that Eberron is a real place you can actually interact with. Eberron exists as a series of defined rules elements and possible interactions with them.


On "World Simulator": I'm not sure of the actual definition but in terms of how the phase was used by Kawi2awa (who started this thread) I think the mean in terms of emulating large sections of the world and daily life. D&D does not do that, leaving most of those matters to narration or glossing over the details entirely. (The example was wounds getting infected.)

Yes it does. The fact that it simulates things poorly (or not at all) doesn't make it "not a simulation" it just makes it "less accurate of a simulation". Weather simulations still simulate weather even though they don't have defined interactions at the quantum mechanical level. For any thing in a simulation, having it not happen is a totally valid simulation. You may not like it, but no one is saying you have to like it.


Last time we danced this dance it took us 6 pages and we derailed the thread. So I am going to try and keep this short. Mundane as in "boring, as-seen-in-real-life" no because a D&D fighter isn't balanced against that. Mundane as in "not popping off spells/non-magical" than I would say ShadowRun is an example. A cyborg may not be seen on the streets, but it sure is not a wizard.

I agree. Shadowrun presents a great solution to the problem of "make high level Wizards and Fighters equal". But that's not the problem which the poster I responded to claimed had been solved. He wants a solution that also satisfies "Fighters have abilities that are believable in the real world."


The way I took the OP was that the D&D game rules for PCs and their (most commonly) activity of dungeon and wilderness adventure, aren't necessarily a representation of the physics engine of world.

So what is the physics engine of the world? Because if it isn't the rules, then you end up with holes all over the setting (see: why do people in a world with create food and water and magic traps farm). Having the answer be "the PCs are special snowflakes" is inherently unsatisfying, because it means that the world doesn't behave predictably outside the PC's actions. Which in turn means the PCs can't predict the results of their actions, and thus can't role-play.


Which again illustrates how D&D isn't a comprehensive world simulator. If the game world made any kind of practical sense, such murderhobos shouldn't live long enough to amass that kind of wealth, not to mention- why is so much loot just left lying around in the first place? :smallconfused:

You're going to have to explain why the PCs should be killed off more than they are. There's a word for "people trying to kill you so you don't amass wealth" in D&Dland and that word is "adventure".

The piles of loot thing actually makes more sense if you accept that the rules govern the operating of the world. That castle full of wights? It's not there because the DM said so. It's there because there used to be a castle full of normal people, but the Wightpocalypse happened and now it's full of wights.

Tanarii
2016-10-13, 09:46 AM
So what is the physics engine of the world? Because if it isn't the rules, then you end up with holes all over the setting (see: why do people in a world with create food and water and magic traps farm). Having the answer be "the PCs are special snowflakes" is inherently unsatisfying, because it means that the world doesn't behave predictably outside the PC's actions. Which in turn means the PCs can't predict the results of their actions, and thus can't role-play.But you've made it clear you're inherently a simulationist with this argument. But as I showed with a Gygax quote, that wasn't the original intent of the D&D rules.

But to answer your question: The in-world physics (which includes magic in D&D) are the physics engine of the world. The rules aren't necessarily a direct attempt to model that. They are (at the minimum) an abstraction meant to allow us to play a game of adventuring.

Just because you find it "inherently unsatisying" that they are game rules for playing adventurers, and not a simulation modeling the in-game reality, doesn't mean everyone does. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's BAD that you have that preference. But speaking from personal experience, what I think is bad is the assumption that the rules MUST be a simulation attempting to model the in-game world. Because when I assumed that was the case, it caused me to make all sorts of horrible interpretations of, and ruling on, rules that didn't originally have any such purpose.

Cosi
2016-10-13, 09:55 AM
But you've made it clear you're inherently a simulationist with this argument. But as I showed with a Gygax quote, that wasn't the original intent of the D&D rules.

Could you try phrasing that in terms of things that are meaningful, rather than GNS babble?

Also, "Gygax said this" is probably the worst possible argument you can make for a position given the percentage of things Gygax said that are terrible ideas. Unless this is some kind of weird appeal to authority where things are permanently assigned the meaning attached to them by their creator? I can imagine a few examples of how obviously stupid that idea is, but they're too political to post here.


But to answer your question: The in-world physics (which includes magic in D&D) are the physics engine of the world. The rules aren't necessarily a direct attempt to model that. They are (at the minimum) an abstraction meant to allow us to play a game of adventuring.

You've put yourself in a deeply stupid dilemma there.

If the rules of magic in the setting aren't known to the players/DM, they can't be used to model the setting. Remember, the setting isn't a place that exists independently of the game. It cannot have rules that are not processed through the players/DM.

If the rules of magic in the setting are known to the players/DM, but are different from the rules of the game, taking the same action can have different effects depending on whether or not the person taking it has the PC tag. That is incredibly stupid. And it gets even stupider if people can switch between PC and NPC. And it still has the net effect of "the rules of the game are the rules of the world".

You can't appeal to "in-world physics" for D&D, because it's not real and there aren't any in-world physics that aren't game rules to appeal to.


But speaking from personal experience, what I think is bad is the assumption that the rules MUST be a simulation attempting to model the in-game world. Because when I assumed that was the case, it caused me to make all sorts of horrible interpretations of, and ruling on, rules that didn't originally have any such purpose.

That sounds like you've been playing games with rules that don't do what you want. You should try playing games with rules that do what you want.

georgie_leech
2016-10-13, 10:12 AM
Could you try phrasing that in terms of things that are meaningful, rather than GNS babble?

Also, "Gygax said this" is probably the worst possible argument you can make for a position given the percentage of things Gygax said that are terrible ideas. Unless this is some kind of weird appeal to authority where things are permanently assigned the meaning attached to them by their creator? I can imagine a few examples of how obviously stupid that idea is, but they're too political to post here.



You've put yourself in a deeply stupid dilemma there.

If the rules of magic in the setting aren't known to the players/DM, they can't be used to model the setting. Remember, the setting isn't a place that exists independently of the game. It cannot have rules that are not processed through the players/DM.

If the rules of magic in the setting are known to the players/DM, but are different from the rules of the game, taking the same action can have different effects depending on whether or not the person taking it has the PC tag. That is incredibly stupid. And it gets even stupider if people can switch between PC and NPC. And it still has the net effect of "the rules of the game are the rules of the world".

You can't appeal to "in-world physics" for D&D, because it's not real and there aren't any in-world physics that aren't game rules to appeal to.



That sounds like you've been playing games with rules that don't do what you want. You should try playing games with rules that do what you want.

Or, you know, the rules are meant to let you play the game rather than defining how the in-game universe works. Unless you're arguing that stabbing enough kobolds really does improve your lockpicking skill, or that in the 3.5verse the most powerful healing agent possible, capable of removing unbounded amounts of damage, is a bucket of water?

Tanarii
2016-10-13, 10:19 AM
Could you try phrasing that in terms of things that are meaningful, rather than GNS babble?But GNS is the entire point. That makes it meaningful.


Also, "Gygax said this" is probably the worst possible argument you can make for a position given the percentage of things Gygax said that are terrible ideas. Unless this is some kind of weird appeal to authority where things are permanently assigned the meaning attached to them by their creator? I can imagine a few examples of how obviously stupid that idea is, but they're too political to post here.Yeah it wasn't supposed to be an argument. It was supposed to be a historical note about the origins of the game.


You've put yourself in a deeply stupid dilemma there.

If the rules of magic in the setting aren't known to the players/DM, they can't be used to model the setting. Remember, the setting isn't a place that exists independently of the game. It cannot have rules that are not processed through the players/DM.Of course it exists separately from the game. It exists in the head of the players. That doesn't mean the in-game world and the rules for resolution of actions are the same thing.


That sounds like you've been playing games with rules that don't do what you want. You should try playing games with rules that do what you want.No it means I used to be like you. I though the entire purpose of rules was to be a model for the world in our heads we were trying to play in. Then after some people came at me pointing out that wasn't automatically the intent, I was forced to take a look at things like GNS, and understand that hey, actually rules can have multiple purposes. And in understanding the underlying theory behind them, it's possible to make the rules work for you, instead of constantly fighting them.


edit:

Or, you know, the rules are meant to let you play the game rather than defining how the in-game universe works.To someone who prefers simulation, they like them to be one and the same.

To someone stuck in simulation thinking, unable to see that there exists any other possibility, this kind of statement is nonsense. I used to be one of those people. Luckily I was bludgeoned over the head enough to understand that it's not the only possibility.

Cosi
2016-10-13, 10:27 AM
Or, you know, the rules are meant to let you play the game rather than defining how the in-game universe works. Unless you're arguing that stabbing enough kobolds really does improve your lockpicking skill, or that in the 3.5verse the most powerful healing agent possible, capable of removing unbounded amounts of damage, is a bucket of water?

How else could those things possibly operate in the game world? The game world isn't real, we have only rules (and setting info) to describe it. The map is the territory.


But GNS is the entire point. That makes it meaningful.

No, it's not. GNS is attempting to analyze RPGs by breaking them down into "role", "playing", and "game". It's not coherent.


Of course it exists separately from the game. It exists in the head of the players. That doesn't mean the in-game world and the rules for resolution of actions are the same thing.

Uh, what? You still have yet to explain how there could possibly be parts of a fictional setting that aren't created by people in the real world (in this context "rules"). Until you do that, any amount of "they aren't the same" is just prattle.


it's possible to make the rules work for you, instead of constantly fighting them.

I agree. It's just that I prefer the apparently incomprehensibly mystical strategy of "writing rules that do what I want" rather than insisting that people who want to use the rules as written to understand the world they describe are doing it wrong.

If you make a toaster that burns down people's houses when they use it to toast bagels, you don't insist that they don't really want bagels. You make a toaster that toasts bagels.

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 10:29 AM
If the rules of magic in the setting are known to the players/DM, but are different from the rules of the game, taking the same action can have different effects depending on whether or not the person taking it has the PC tag. That is incredibly stupid. And it gets even stupider if people can switch between PC and NPC. And it still has the net effect of "the rules of the game are the rules of the world".

How about this. The Avernum CRPG series have a bunch of magic stuff in them the player never gets to use. Ever. For example the archmage Erika (if you foolishly, soooooo foolishly) decide to try and kill her in the game she unleashes spells and abilities that your PC wizard/cleric type character can never, ever use. There's X and Solberg do the same thing. My interface with the game isn't the reality of the world, its the interface as a player I interact with the world through, the rules of the game simulate enough of the world for me to play the game, but the rules aren't the entirety of the world the game shows me.

In much the same way as Skyrim's rules facilitate adventuring around a specific place in the Elder Scrolls setting, the rules D&D uses are an interface the game uses to allow the characters to interact with the make believe environment and they only simulate enough interaction to facilitate the game play its designed for. Much like Skyrim isn't designed as a farming simulator (there's no option for the Dovahkiin to grow cabbages using shouts that control the weather, despite the fact one could make a mint doing so) the D&D rules are not the be all end all of every possible action or interaction in D&D-land. They are designed to facility interaction between characters in a game, and those rules don't have to apply the same way to every type of character.

Should the rules we do have apply consistently ever time we use them? Sure, in so far as one can write rules to cover every possible imaginary scenario a human can come up with. The D&D rules aren't meant to be used to simulate everything the players can interact with in the game, that's silly since the rules don't cover every possible interaction. But at the same time the rules we do have, largely combat, are meant to provide an interface for the players to interact with and provide a way to resolve situation the game is meant to played for (ie. stabbing orcs in the face and taking their stuff). The D&D rules have expanded to provide more interfaces for different types of situations, but they're still just an interface for the players to use, they don't necessarily represent the way any other type of character encountered has to interact with the world. I don't think the king needs to make diplomacy rolls using his 15 charisma and +6 to diplomacy skill to convince his daughter to go marry the prince from another kingdom, he either does or doesn't based on what the DM decides will happen, because the players are interacting with that. If they choose to interact with, then we use the rules to have the player affect a situation. Otherwise the rules don't matter, since they don't govern the actual interactions of the world until the players become involved.

Segev
2016-10-13, 10:33 AM
I like my rules to simulate the physics of the world well enough that I don't wind up with my characters interacting with the world in ways entirely alien to the fiction/fluff about the world.

If the rules make it so that swinging down on a chandelier is a terrible tactic, I don't want the setting to insist that it's something that's done all the time by the most successful of swashbucklers. If the rules say that magic lets you bring back the dead if you have enough money, I don't want the game's fluff to treat assassinating the king as if it's the end of the kingdom. It should be perfectly valid for a mid-high level party to say, "Okay, if he dies, we'll resurrect him." A high-level party could even spring for true resurrection. I would like a D&D setting to treat it as such.

If the fluff, on the other hand, says that magic is done by focusing one's will and using ritual implements to shape and aid in the focus, and that different qualities of ritual components can require more or less willpower (and personal energy) to pull off the effects, then the rules had better not tell me that I have specific, single-effect spells with durations and casting times measured precisely and which are cast out of a limited number of spell slots per day.

I expect to be able to play the kinds of characters and do the kinds of things described in the world's fluff. The rules need to support this.

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 10:49 AM
Uh, what? You still have yet to explain how there could possibly be parts of a fictional setting that aren't created by people in the real world (in this context "rules"). Until you do that, any amount of "they aren't the same" is just prattle.


This qualifier doesn't add up. A distinction between a fictional world and the rules for games occurring within that universe is not dependent upon that universe existing spontaneously. Examples are easy to find.

40k is a good example. Often the lore and the various games are at odds. Dark Heresy does not function like Only War, and neither functions like the wargame. These do not cause them to be different universes, though they ARE varying lenses through which the universe is viewed, making them different games with different methods of resolving conflict based on what the game wants to accomplish.

It should also be noted that 40k BEGAN as a tabletop rpg, not a wargame, under the name Rogue Trader. So there is a precedent for tabletop rpgs expanding into many different kinds of games with different purposes and rulesets while portraying the same universe.

So this point doesn't mean anything, nor does it counter the idea that the rules and the fiction of a game are not necessarily identical.

Edit:


I expect to be able to play the kinds of characters and do the kinds of things described in the world's fluff. The rules need to support this.

This is a noble goal, though for some fictional settings it is better to have multiple rulesets for different purposes (as with 40k) rather than trying to create a massive tome of rules the size of wikipedia if it were printed.

So for instance a game about swashbuckling pirates is best-off having different rules from one about courtly intrigue, even if the two take place in the same universe, because the experience of each game will be very different from one another. A third game taking place in the darkest dungeons of the world will be vastly different from the other two as well.

Fluff and mechanics CAN coincide, but the rules serve to facilitate a specific gameplay experience, not to dictate the fluff of a world. Sometimes the rules and the fluff come into conflict. This usually happens in games that try to model too much at once, rather than doing one thing and doing it really well.

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 10:58 AM
I like my rules to simulate the physics of the world well enough that I don't wind up with my characters interacting with the world in ways entirely alien to the fiction/fluff about the world.

Sure, that makes sense, the rules need to be consistent in terms of the way the game expects the game to be played.


If the rules make it so that swinging down on a chandelier is a terrible tactic, I don't want the setting to insist that it's something that's done all the time by the most successful of swashbucklers. If the rules say that magic lets you bring back the dead if you have enough money, I don't want the game's fluff to treat assassinating the king as if it's the end of the kingdom. It should be perfectly valid for a mid-high level party to say, "Okay, if he dies, we'll resurrect him." A high-level party could even spring for true resurrection. I would like a D&D setting to treat it as such.

There are reasons that might now work, although it should be a valid option in some instances.


If the fluff, on the other hand, says that magic is done by focusing one's will and using ritual implements to shape and aid in the focus, and that different qualities of ritual components can require more or less willpower (and personal energy) to pull off the effects, then the rules had better not tell me that I have specific, single-effect spells with durations and casting times measured precisely and which are cast out of a limited number of spell slots per day.

Again, consistency important. But the interface for the game only needs to match enough in game fiction to make the game work, the rules aren't necessarily the be all end all of how that in game fiction is supposed to work.


I expect to be able to play the kinds of characters and do the kinds of things described in the world's fluff. The rules need to support this.

They do and they don't to a degree. A game might be about more less modern world archaeologists delving into lost tombs and finding amazing ancient artifacts while fighting Nazi/Communists/space-hipsters/whatever. We're pretty much aware that dentists are thing in the game's universe, we don't need rules for dentists to play this game though since our characters aren't going to be running a dentistry practice.

Cosi
2016-10-13, 11:12 AM
How about this. The Avernum CRPG series have a bunch of magic stuff in them the player never gets to use. Ever.

So, to a lesser or greater degree, does any game where players must choose between abilities. If I must choose between learning fireball and stinking cloud, whatever choice I make the game will contain an ability I can't use. The only difference between that and your example is that I could have hypothetically had stinking cloud in the alternate universe where I picked it instead of fireball, while I will never get the magical abilities of various archmages in Avernum. But the principle is much the same.


I don't think the king needs to make diplomacy rolls using his 15 charisma and +6 to diplomacy skill to convince his daughter to go marry the prince from another kingdom, he either does or doesn't based on what the DM decides will happen, because the players are interacting with that.

Ah, but this is a different question! "Should we consider X an element to be simulated or part of the start state of the game" is not "does the game simulate X". Also, the interaction in question is between two NPCs controlled by the same player (the DM). In a squad based game (perhaps something like the wargames in which D&D finds its origins) we would not expect the units in a player's army to have to be convinced to work together.


It should also be noted that 40k BEGAN as a tabletop rpg, not a wargame, under the name Rogue Trader. So there is a precedent for tabletop rpgs expanding into many different kinds of games with different purposes and rulesets while portraying the same universe.

No, those things have the same start state: the Warhammer 40k fluff. Because they have different rules, they are different universes. Rogue Trader games occur in a galaxy where things are required to be stable given the Rogue Trader rules. Warhammer 40k Miniatures Wargames occur in a galaxy where things are required to be stable given the Warhammer 40k Miniatures Wargame rules. Are they similar? Sure. But they're no more the same than playing in Greyhawk is the same in 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e.


We're pretty much aware that dentists are thing in the game's universe, we don't need rules for dentists to play this game though since our characters aren't going to be running a dentistry practice.

But what if the players need to interact with a dentistry practice? Perhaps it's situated on top of some artifacts they need to dig up, or a front for the enemies they're fighting, or one of the players makes money as a dentist to fund their adventures. If we simply don't model things the way your side suggests, the game stops. If we model a world, even very roughly, the game continues, using rules for running a business to model dentistry.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 11:25 AM
The rules are the map -- the setting, characters, atmosphere/feel, concepts, etc, are the actual territory.

No one expects a map to show every last tree limb and blade of grass, and yet attacks on "simulation-based" rules too often come down to an exagerated false dichotomy, an assertion that mapping is pointless because you can't account for every last possible interaction.

The irony is that well-crafted rules are coherent, consistent, and associated, allow players (including the GM) to extrapolate existing rules to smoothly apply to novel situations. Because the rules derive from "the world" directly, they can be extended to cover additional parts of "the world" with relative ease.

In contrast, rules that are disassociated and/or a jumbled mess of situational specifics, require a new special ruling for every single novel situation that occurs.

Furthermore, rules that are disassociated from the "fictional reality" tend to result in "what he heck?" moments -- results that fail to be internally consistent and coherent -- far too often.



The question is not whether an RPG ruleset "simulates" something -- all RPG rules "simulate" something -- but rather whether they "simulate" what you want them to "simulate".


(I use the quotes here because I find the GNS/Forge theorizing a bit suspect. A well-crafted set of rules flows from the setting, is fair and balanced, and gets out of the way of the story that emerges from gameplay. That is, it has all three elements, and yet doesn't get lost in an attempt to fixate on any one.)

Tanarii
2016-10-13, 11:33 AM
I like my rules to simulate the physics of the world well enough that I don't wind up with my characters interacting with the world in ways entirely alien to the fiction/fluff about the world.Can't disagree with your preference. Which is why it's important to distinguish between "this is what I like in my rules" and denying that any other way of thinking about rules is possible, let alone just being badwrongfun.

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 11:43 AM
Ah, but this is a different question! "Should we consider X an element to be simulated or part of the start state of the game" is not "does the game simulate X". Also, the interaction in question is between two NPCs controlled by the same player (the DM). In a squad based game (perhaps something like the wargames in which D&D finds its origins) we would not expect the units in a player's army to have to be convinced to work together.

Its not though, at least a world sim go. How non-players interact in the fiction don't matter as far the rules go. If the rules were a world sim then one would expect to use the rules to simulate these interactions. But we don't because it doesn't matter until the players come along, since the rules govern how the players interact with the fiction of the setting.


But what if the players need to interact with a dentistry practice? Perhaps it's situated on top of some artifacts they need to dig up, or a front for the enemies they're fighting, or one of the players makes money as a dentist to fund their adventures. If we simply don't model things the way your side suggests, the game stops. If we model a world, even very roughly, the game continues, using rules for running a business to model dentistry.

But the game doesn't need dentistry rules, because the game isn't about running a dentistry practice. There don't need to be detailed rules for drilling into molars, bicuspids, root canals, or general tooth care. One could get away with a background saying "You're a dentist, you can dentist effectively", in a game that focuses on fighting Nazis and generally trying to be Indiana Jones expies having dentistry be anything more than a passing reference is very slim. It doesn't mean there aren't dentists, it just means the game does try to model how to be a dentist.

To return to Skyrim. The character can become a master alchemist, but they can't hang out running an alchemy shop in Whiterun, because that's not what the game is about. It doesn't mean such things don't exist (clearly one does) but the game doesn't focus on that aspect of the setting for the player, because its not what the game is trying to do.

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 11:49 AM
No, those things have the same start state: the Warhammer 40k fluff. Because they have different rules, they are different universes. Rogue Trader games occur in a galaxy where things are required to be stable given the Rogue Trader rules. Warhammer 40k Miniatures Wargames occur in a galaxy where things are required to be stable given the Warhammer 40k Miniatures Wargame rules. Are they similar? Sure. But they're no more the same than playing in Greyhawk is the same in 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e.
Apart from edition differences, you're going to have a very hard time proving they aren't all within the 40k universe than I will proving they ARE.

Lore in 40k is rather murky at best, on purpose. Conflicting accounts, differing opinions about the same conflict, plenty of unanswered questions. Thousands of unnamed worlds and trillions of human lives that could potentially exist. While the adventures may not be CANON to the series, they definitely take place within the same universe, as described within their pages. Since they examine different portions of said universe to provide a different play experience, they utilize different rules. It is worth noting that the 40k universe is only partially defined within rulebooks at all. At no point did I proclaim that these adventures were considered Canon (though to a degree they may as well be), but that they all occur within the same fictional universe. And that much is obviously true, save for minor changes to previous lore (lore which often doesn't affect the games because they aren't reliant upon those pieces of lore. The existence/nonexistence of the Squats means nothing in a Dark Heresy game, because they aren't mentioned.)




But what if the players need to interact with a dentistry practice? Perhaps it's situated on top of some artifacts they need to dig up, or a front for the enemies they're fighting, or one of the players makes money as a dentist to fund their adventures. If we simply don't model things the way your side suggests, the game stops. If we model a world, even very roughly, the game continues, using rules for running a business to model dentistry.
This brings up the question of why the GM is putting a dentistry practice into the game in a way that requires mechanics, in a game that has no way to support such a thing because that's not what the game is about. Sure, it's theoretically possible for the players to entirely abandon the campaign premise for rhe sake of opening a dentist shop, but at that point the game is over because the GM didn't sign up to play Dentists and Drills and has no obligation to force the system to fit this new fiction. If you want to play Dentists and Drills, then find a system that works for that.
If your players are just going to passingly interact with a dentist once, then you make up something that works for right now. And then you're done. The rules do not need to (nor should they try to) account for every single possible thing that could possibly happen. Do one thing and do it really well, instead of trying to do everything and (almost always) doing it poorly.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 12:02 PM
Its not though, at least a world sim go. How non-players interact in the fiction don't matter as far the rules go. If the rules were a world sim then one would expect to use the rules to simulate these interactions. But we don't because it doesn't matter until the players come along, since the rules govern how the players interact with the fiction of the setting.


However, rules should be such that they do not contradict what we see the NPCs doing, and that the NPCs and their interactions with the world could be represented within the rules if necessary.




But the game doesn't need dentistry rules, because the game isn't about running a dentistry practice. There don't need to be detailed rules for drilling into molars, bicuspids, root canals, or general tooth care. One could get away with a background saying "You're a dentist, you can dentist effectively", in a game that focuses on fighting Nazis and generally trying to be Indiana Jones expies having dentistry be anything more than a passing reference is very slim. It doesn't mean there aren't dentists, it just means the game does try to model how to be a dentist.


Why would one design a ruleset along such narrow lines as "just like Indiana Jones fighting Nazis"? This isn't a boardgame.

The campaign may focus on fighting Nazis as an Indy expy, and different rulesets may be more suited for that sort of game than others, but starting out with such a narrow focus is going to inevitably lead to wonky results as soon as anyone steps the least bit out of the initial focus, even if it's entirely within the flow of the campaign to do so.




To return to Skyrim. The character can become a master alchemist, but they can't hang out running an alchemy shop in Whiterun, because that's not what the game is about. It doesn't mean such things don't exist (clearly one does) but the game doesn't focus on that aspect of the setting for the player, because its not what the game is trying to do.


Skyrim is a video game, and is limited to exactly what exists in the code and data. No on-the-fly extrapolation is possible, everything must be added to the code and data.

CPRGs are TERRIBLE as guidelines for actual RPGs.

2D8HP
2016-10-13, 12:12 PM
A well-crafted set of rules flows from the setting, is fair and balanced, and gets out of the way of the story that emerges from gameplay. That is, it has all three elements, and yet doesn't get lost in an attempt to fixate on any one.)OK M. K., I have to ask:
Rules that fit your three criteria plus my criteria of:

1) Easy for me to learn (ie either inherently so or based on the rules I know best TSR's D&D or Chaosium's BRP)
2) I can play PC's like the young and old versions of Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Moore's Jirel, in a Swords and Sorcery setting.
3) Quick PC creation, not a long "mini-game",
like GURPS or HERO.
4) My FLGS can get me a real box or book with the rules, I don't want a PDF!

What rules are those?
(If you say Pathfinder or Runequest I will scream!)

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 12:35 PM
The campaign may focus on fighting Nazis as an Indy expy, and different rulesets may be more suited for that sort of game than others, but starting out with such a narrow focus is going to inevitably lead to wonky results as soon as anyone steps the least bit out of the initial focus, even if it's entirely within the flow of the campaign to do so.

I think the premise of Indy fighting Nazis who want to steal priceless relic for their nefarious purposes is a pretty good premise for a game system. Our hypothetical rules doesn't need the extra layer of being a dentist and doing the work. What it might need is something to say the character is a dentist and can do dentistry when they want to. Maybe even make a living off of it, but like Indy we see enough to know he works as an archaeology professor, teaches classes, but generally speaking the important stuff is what happens out in the field, which is what the story and by extension a game based on that kind of story needs to focus on.

So again, we don't need detailed rules for dentistry, running a dentistry practice, determining out much our dental hygienists get paid, whether they're going to go on strike next week because they didn't get a big enough raise, or whether the College of Dentists is going to have surprise audit next week. If we had those rules, doesn't that make the game about being a dentist, rather than an intrepid archaeologist and friends?

A game about being a dentist could be fun but its a different game than one that has the one where the SWAT teams raids drug labs.


Skyrim is a video game, and is limited to exactly what exists in the code and data. No on-the-fly extrapolation is possible, everything must be added to the code and data.

CPRGs are TERRIBLE as guidelines for actual RPGs.

They actually aren't terrible because they tend to have fairly narrow focus, and good ones focus the player on the things the designers want to focus on. The structure, pacing and world building that goes into the best of them tends to be much greater and far better than any RPG run by a single person (largely because the biggest are built by teams of at least several dozen people). Think about it, D&D has rules for fighting, and how players do things related to being adventurers. But does your D&D need rules for detailed accounting and cattle ranching? How about beer brewing? These are all things that take place in the setting, but the rules don't cover them because its usually unnecessary for the type of game D&D is about. Just like Skyrim doesn't have rules for setting up shops and making money as a merchant, but there are computer games about that but they don't have rules for running around shouting dragons to death. Thus the rules aren't a world simulation, the rules are an adventurer simulation. You might be able to extrapolate the existing rules to cover something they don't do by default, but assuming the cover every single possible situation one could come up with in the fictional milieu is a fools errand.

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 12:43 PM
However, rules should be such that they do not contradict what we see the NPCs doing, and that the NPCs and their interactions with the world could be represented within the rules if necessary.

I agree with this, but probably not on the way you imagine. A system that gives me a way to create on-the-fly rulings fits this need. Because said on-the-fly rulings are specifically for fringe cases.




Why would one design a ruleset along such narrow lines as "just like Indiana Jones fighting Nazis"? This isn't a boardgame.

The campaign may focus on fighting Nazis as an Indy expy, and different rulesets may be more suited for that sort of game than others, but starting out with such a narrow focus is going to inevitably lead to wonky results as soon as anyone steps the least bit out of the initial focus, even if it's entirely within the flow of the campaign to do so.

His point isn't weakened any by expanding to "Archeological Adventures in the 1940s."

The point is still solid even if his specific example strikes you as overly narrow. (Hence attacking the example rather than the point.)



CPRGs are TERRIBLE as guidelines for actual RPGs.
I agree with this except for the elitist "actual" rpgs moniker for tabletop rpgs. Let's not stoop to gatekeeping what is and isn't an "actual" rpg...

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 12:49 PM
I agree with this, but probably not on the way you imagine. A system that gives me a way to create on-the-fly rulings fits this need. Because said on-the-fly rulings are specifically for fringe cases.



His point isn't weakened any by expanding to "Archeological Adventures in the 1940s."

The point is still solid even if his specific example strikes you as overly narrow. (Hence attacking the example rather than the point.)


I agree with this except for the elitist "actual" rpgs moniker for tabletop rpgs. Let's not stoop to gatekeeping what is and isn't an "actual" rpg...


It's not a matter of elitism or gatekeeping, it's a matter of how much actual roleplaying goes on when playing many of the CRPGs that have come down the pipe.

Segev
2016-10-13, 01:05 PM
Again, consistency important. But the interface for the game only needs to match enough in game fiction to make the game work, the rules aren't necessarily the be all end all of how that in game fiction is supposed to work.



They do and they don't to a degree. A game might be about more less modern world archaeologists delving into lost tombs and finding amazing ancient artifacts while fighting Nazi/Communists/space-hipsters/whatever. We're pretty much aware that dentists are thing in the game's universe, we don't need rules for dentists to play this game though since our characters aren't going to be running a dentistry practice.
I never said anything about handling things not expected to come up. It's nice if it can, but I'm fine with a DM having to ad hoc something if it's not part of the core storytelling of the setting. Dentistry, if it comes up, is still going to be a peripheral thing to adventurer-archeologists warring with foreign spies over mystic artifacts.


Can't disagree with your preference. Which is why it's important to distinguish between "this is what I like in my rules" and denying that any other way of thinking about rules is possible, let alone just being badwrongfun.
I generally won't tell anybody who enjoys what they're doing that they're having badwrongfun. I will tend to evaluate game design quality, and if the rules actively get in the way of the feel of the setting, that's bad design.

The d20 Wheel of Time rules are actively bad game design, because they shoehorn 3.0 sorcerer-casting onto the Channeling concept of that setting...and it just does NOT work well. White Wolf games suffer from some bad design in their chargen because they want you to start with "balanced" stats, but the game is best played if you have some areas of great strength and other areas you just aren't any good, AND the chargen resources buy high stats at linear costs, while the XP system buys increasing stats at geometric costs. That is, it costs more to buy your 5th dot than it did to buy your 4th dot with XP, but it costs the same if you're doing it with starting dots or bonus points (both of which only happen at chargen).

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 01:09 PM
It's not a matter of elitism or gatekeeping, it's a matter of how much actual roleplaying goes on when playing many of the CRPGs that have come down the pipe.

As much as you want to do. I can pretend I'm whoever I want within the constraints of Skyrim. So yeah, it's a matter of gatekeeping/elitism.
(As is suggesting you can't roleplay in a CRPG. I've roleplayed in a flight sim game all by myself.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 01:26 PM
As much as you want to do. I can pretend I'm whoever I want within the constraints of Skyrim. So yeah, it's a matter of gatekeeping/elitism.
(As is suggesting you can't roleplay in a CRPG. I've roleplayed in a flight sim game all by myself.)

I didn't suggest that you couldn't.

It's a hard fact that a CRPG is going to be a different beast than an RPG, and that the constraints are tighter and the path actually supported by the game itself is more narrow. You can imagine whatever you want, but that's true in any game; one can imagine the pieces in checkers to be soldiers or whatever, that doesn't make checkers an RPG. An actual roleplaying game is more than "I imagine myself to be", more than just pure make-believe -- the other half is the structure of the game.

At some point, when the CRPG says 'YOU WILL BE CAPTURED HERE" and that's what happens... "imagining" that your character(s) aren't captured is a total disconnect from what's going on in the game.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 01:50 PM
I think the premise of Indy fighting Nazis who want to steal priceless relic for their nefarious purposes is a pretty good premise for a game system. Our hypothetical rules doesn't need the extra layer of being a dentist and doing the work. What it might need is something to say the character is a dentist and can do dentistry when they want to. Maybe even make a living off of it, but like Indy we see enough to know he works as an archaeology professor, teaches classes, but generally speaking the important stuff is what happens out in the field, which is what the story and by extension a game based on that kind of story needs to focus on.

So again, we don't need detailed rules for dentistry, running a dentistry practice, determining out much our dental hygienists get paid, whether they're going to go on strike next week because they didn't get a big enough raise, or whether the College of Dentists is going to have surprise audit next week. If we had those rules, doesn't that make the game about being a dentist, rather than an intrepid archaeologist and friends?

A game about being a dentist could be fun but its a different game than one that has the one where the SWAT teams raids drug labs.


I didn't realize we were talking about detailed rules for the minutia of dentistry -- in most games, it can probably be covered by one or two skills. I read the comment as "if the players themselves won't be dentists, dentistry can be utterly ignored and treated as if it doesn't exist".




They actually aren't terrible because they tend to have fairly narrow focus, and good ones focus the player on the things the designers want to focus on. The structure, pacing and world building that goes into the best of them tends to be much greater and far better than any RPG run by a single person (largely because the biggest are built by teams of at least several dozen people). Think about it, D&D has rules for fighting, and how players do things related to being adventurers. But does your D&D need rules for detailed accounting and cattle ranching? How about beer brewing? These are all things that take place in the setting, but the rules don't cover them because its usually unnecessary for the type of game D&D is about. Just like Skyrim doesn't have rules for setting up shops and making money as a merchant, but there are computer games about that but they don't have rules for running around shouting dragons to death. Thus the rules aren't a world simulation, the rules are an adventurer simulation. You might be able to extrapolate the existing rules to cover something they don't do by default, but assuming the cover every single possible situation one could come up with in the fictional milieu is a fools errand.


The narrower the focus of the rules, the more likely the game is to end up in territory completely uncovered by the map. This might be fine in a CPRG where the character(s) literally cannot leave the established territory, but a TRPG is not constrained to fixed territory unless the GM is railroading.

Even if the rules of a TRPG don't explicitly cover "beer brewing" or "cattle ranching", they shouldn't make wandering into that territory a PITA to deal with. That is, the map should be easy to expand.

No one is asserting that the rules as published need to cover every last possible situation in exactly minute detail -- such an objection is veering dangerously close to a strawman.

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 02:17 PM
I didn't suggest that you couldn't.

It's a hard fact that a CRPG is going to be a different beast than an RPG, and that the constraints are tighter and the path actually supported by the game itself is more narrow. You can imagine whatever you want, but that's true in any game; one can imagine the pieces in checkers to be soldiers or whatever, that doesn't make checkers an RPG. An actual roleplaying game is more than "I imagine myself to be", more than just pure make-believe -- the other half is the structure of the game.

At some point, when the CRPG says 'YOU WILL BE CAPTURED HERE" and that's what happens... "imagining" that your character(s) aren't captured is a total disconnect from what's going on in the game.

So the goalposts are moving from "playing a role" defining it to "Level of freedom" defines it. Ok.

Except that Roleplaying games are not defined by the level of freedom. They're defined as Games in which you assume the role of a character or characters in a fictional setting, and participate in the development of these characters. How they develop and whether you do acting or make structured decisions at predetermined points is irrelevant to a game being an RPG.

CRPGs are not misnamed nor are they any less "Actually rpgs" than trpgs. They are less flexible, yes, and a very different kind of game. But implying they're secretly not REALLY RPGs is both factually inaccurate and elitist af.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 02:43 PM
So the goalposts are moving from "playing a role" defining it to "Level of freedom" defines it. Ok.


The goalposts are exactly where they've always been. Going through the motions and playing out a very very limited set of choices available isn't really roleplaying.

There's a word for acting out a role that's handed to you -- it's called acting.




Except that Roleplaying games are not defined by the level of freedom. They're defined as Games in which you assume the role of a character or characters in a fictional setting, and participate in the development of these characters. How they develop and whether you do acting or make structured decisions at predetermined points is irrelevant to a game being an RPG.

CRPGs are not misnamed nor are they any less "Actually rpgs" than trpgs. They are less flexible, yes, and a very different kind of game. But implying they're secretly not REALLY RPGs is both factually inaccurate and elitist af.


The more a game falls under "you will assume this assigned role and follow it through this predetermined story", the less it is really an RPG. Responsiveness to player input and openness of character design are key features. This is true whether it's a video game or a tabletop game. No one mistakes a "choose your own adventure" book for an RPG, and yet do the same thing on a computer, and it's sold as a "CPRG".

There's really no secret here.

Any impression you have of elitism is ENTIRELY your inference.


On that note, I'm not going to derail the thread further on this topic. Feel free to slam me some more for whatever character faults you imagine I have.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-10-13, 02:55 PM
The more focused the ruleset is the better the game tends to be, in my experience. Rulesets that make wild promises that you can do absolutely anything you want tend not to do anything very well.

dascarletm
2016-10-13, 03:21 PM
A game about being a dentist could be fun...


I just wanted to quote this.

"Roll a d100 to see what silly thing the patient says after waking up from the wisdom teeth removal."
"You're running low on novocaine, what do you do?"
"Roll your cleaning check against their plaque build up... oh and make sure to add in your bonus from the masterwork dental pick."
"The mouth mirror is fogging! Quick, roll to see if you can de-fog it!"
"Roll to see if you understand what the patient is saying with their mouth full of your hands." ... "Uh-oh you think he's saying something inappropriate."
"Looks like Betsy is paying with pennies again! Your receptionist is getting upset."
"Mr. Jenkins doesn't seem to be brushing twice a day... what do you do?"
"The root canal was a success, good job guys! You get 5,000 XP!"

Segev
2016-10-13, 03:21 PM
Feel free to slam me some more for whatever character faults you imagine I have.

Okay!

Your attack bonus and saves are low for your level, and your WBL is poorly spent!

dascarletm
2016-10-13, 03:23 PM
Okay!

Your attack bonus and saves are low for your level, and your WBL is poorly spent!

I think you may have miscalculated how many skill-points you have. By my math you should have 8 unspent points... oh and also you are missing a feat... and your HP is kind of low... did you remember to level-up last session? :smalltongue:

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 03:39 PM
The goalposts are exactly where they've always been. Going through the motions and playing out a very very limited set of choices available isn't really roleplaying.

There's a word for acting out a role that's handed to you -- it's called acting.

According to...?

There are many formal definitions of roleplaying and of rpgs, and none of them state that fewer options makes a roleplay less roleplay-ish. In fact, by this logic Freeform RP is the God-king of Roleplaying because it has no restrictions.




The more a game falls under "you will assume this assigned role and follow it through this predetermined story", the less it is really an RPG. Responsiveness to player input and openness of character design are key features. This is true whether it's a video game or a tabletop game. No one mistakes a "choose your own adventure" book for an RPG, and yet do the same thing on a computer, and it's sold as a "CPRG".

Actually, a choose-your-own-adventure novel DOES exist on computers as "games." They are called Visual Novels.

Notice how that's a different thing than CRPGs because people who are big enough nerds to study game design more intensely than either of us have, notice that there is a qualitative difference between the two.

CRPGs often have features of character creation, levelling and other character development, a central conflict, and turn-based combat.

Those are things VNs and CYOA novels don't have. Hence the distinction. This isn't groundbreaking stuff.



Any impression you have of elitism is ENTIRELY your inference.

Saying a thing is an elitist thing to say doesn't make a person elitist anymore than pointing something out to a person makes that person blind.



On that note, I'm not going to derail the thread further on this topic. Feel free to slam me some more for whatever character faults you imagine I have.
You gotta stop taking everything personally, man. Your ideas/words are not you. I can point out their flaws without meaning ill towards you.

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 03:48 PM
I just wanted to quote this.

"Roll a d100 to see what silly thing the patient says after waking up from the wisdom teeth removal."
"You're running low on novocaine, what do you do?"
"Roll your cleaning check against their plaque build up... oh and make sure to add in your bonus from the masterwork dental pick."
"The mouth mirror is fogging! Quick, roll to see if you can de-fog it!"
"Roll to see if you understand what the patient is saying with their mouth full of your hands." ... "Uh-oh you think he's saying something inappropriate."
"Looks like Betsy is paying with pennies again! Your receptionist is getting upset."
"Mr. Jenkins doesn't seem to be brushing twice a day... what do you do?"
"The root canal was a success, good job guys! You get 5,000 XP!"

By my guest, I thought it was funny after I typed it.

2D8HP
2016-10-13, 04:08 PM
While the 1977 Basic set did indeed say "FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING GAME"
http://i2.wp.com/shaneplays.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/dungeons_and_dragons_dd_basic_set_1stedition_origi nal_box_holmes_edition.jpg?zoom=4&resize=312%2C386, the phrase "role-playing" was not part of the 1974 rules.
http://i2.wp.com/shaneplays.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/original_dungeons_and_dragons_dd_men_and_magic_cov er.jpg?zoom=4&resize=312%2C494
Notice that the cover says "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames", not role-playing!
I believe the first use of the term "role-playing game" was in a Tunnels & Trolls supplement that was "compatible with other Fantasy role-playing games", but early D&D didn't seem any more or less combat focused than the later RPG's I've played, (in fact considering how fragile PC''s were avoiding combat was often the goal!) so I wouldn't say it was anymore of a "Wargame". I would however say it was more an exploration game, and was less character focused.
These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs'
Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last
bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!
E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Frankly while role-playing is alright, it's the 'enjoying a "world" where the fantastic is fact' part that is much more interesting to me. I'm far more interested in exciting settings than I am in character "freedom".

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 07:10 PM
According to...?

There are many formal definitions of roleplaying and of rpgs, and none of them state that fewer options makes a roleplay less roleplay-ish. In fact, by this logic Freeform RP is the God-king of Roleplaying because it has no restrictions.



There seems to be this leap here from "there are points beyond which things that involve playing a role, are not an RPG, and one of those is player control over character creation" to "the defining feature of an RPG is freedom and more freedom=more RPGish".

ComradeBear
2016-10-13, 07:18 PM
There seems to be this leap here from "there are points beyond which things that involve playing a role, are not an RPG, and one of those is player control over character creation" to "the defining feature of an RPG is freedom and more freedom=more RPGish".

Lemme quote you real quick.



Going through the motions and playing out a very very limited set of choices available isn't really roleplaying.

I didn't make the assertion that less freedom = less RPGish (which also means its opposite must be true, by simple logic). That was YOU.

There are also plenty of RPGs outside of tabletop that feature character creation in a wide variety of ways. They might be more limited due to programming constraints, but that specific metric is a very weak one to stand on.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-13, 07:45 PM
Lemme quote you real quick.
I didn't make the assertion that less freedom = less RPGish (which also means its opposite must be true, by simple logic). That was YOU.


Funny -- you tell me I said something, quote where I supposedly said it, and it's nowhere to be found in what you quote.

Like I said, you're making a leap here, from "there are points beyond which things that involve playing a role, are not an RPG, and one of those is player control over character creation" to "the defining feature of an RPG is freedom and more freedom=more RPGish".

I'm saying "there's a border here, and outside that border, you're no longer in the realm of what an RPG is", and you're somehow reading that as "there's a scale of more RPGish and less RPGish".

Dragonexx
2016-10-13, 09:14 PM
XP: Beer Me
“ Boil an Anthill: Go Up One Level. ”

The rubrics for challenge and advancement as depicted in the DMG have to go. We've looked at them from every direction, and they don't work. At all. And no, I'm not talking about the classic problems like the variable difficulty inherent in fighting a giant scorpion (an interesting intellectual exercise for a 4th level horse archer or a brutal melee slugfest for a 14th level swordsman). That's a real problem, but we are talking about the basic structure of fighting monsters of increasing CR, getting increased piles of XP, and moving on with your life. That's got to end.

Here's why: according to the DMG you are supposed to face about 4 equal-level challenges per day of adventuring. Further, going by the XP chart, your 4-person party will go up a level every time you defeat 13.3 of those encounters -- which is less than 4 days worth of encounters according to the first idea. So if you adventure "like you're supposed to" -- you'll go up 2 levels a week. And of course, if you encounter less than 4 enemies a day, spell-slot characters like Wizards and Druids are crazy good. Essentially, this means that D&D characters go from 1st level to 20th level in half the time as it takes to bring a pregnancy to term.

Indeed, D&D society is essentially impossible. Not because Wizards are producing expensive items with their minds or because high level Clerics can raise the dead -- but because the character advancement posited in the DMG is so fast that it is literally impossible for anyone to keep tabs on what the society even is. High level characters are the military, economic, and social powerbases of the world. And they apparently rise from nothing in about 2 ½ months. That means that if a peasant goes home to plant his crops, then when he gets back to the city with his harvest in the fall the city will have seen the rise of a group of hearty adventurers who attempt to conquer the world and achieve godhood four times while he's gone. The city will have been conquered by a horde of Dao and sucked into the Elemental Plane of Earth and then returned to the prime material as a group of escaped Dao slaves achieved their freedom and themselves became powerful plane hopping adventurers who graduated to the Epic landscape. Then a team of renegade soldiers from the Dao army will have run off into the countryside and survived in the Spider Woods long enough to return with the Spear of Ankhut to return the city to the Dao Sultan in exchange for a gravy train of concubines and wishes. Then a squad of frustrated concubines will have turned on their masters and engaged in a web of intrigue culminating in the poisoning of the Dao Sultan with Barghest Bile and ultimately turned the city into a matriarchal magocracy run by ex-concubine sorceresses. So when the peasant returns with his harvest of wheat, he returns to a black edifice of magical stone done up in Arabian styles and bedecked with weaponry from Olympus that is all controlled by epically subtle and powerful wizards who are themselves the masters of a setting created from the fallout of the destruction of a setting that is itself the fallout of the destruction of a setting that was in turn created out of the destruction of the setting that our peasant walked away from with a bag of grain come planting time last year.

And while purely intellectual exercises in a universe that is essentially a giant lava lamp of crazy can be interesting, satisfying storytelling is impossible. If the players can't make lasting impact, the game has no meaning. And if players are seriously going from 1st to 20th in a single season, lasting impact of any kind is absurd to even contemplate. It behooves players and DMs to come to a consensus about how they want their campaign to be structured. There is no single best way to handle character advancement in a cooperative storytelling game, and there are a lot of ways to really piss off the other players at the table if you aren't all on the same page to begin with.

Yes, D&D is not meant to accurately simulate a world, as this example demonstrates when you try to apply the rules literally.

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-14, 05:41 AM
I'm way outta the loop on this discussion and I'll have to catch up later, but one remark for now-


The rules are the map -- the setting, characters, atmosphere/feel, concepts, etc, are the actual territory.
The foremost purpose of the game mechanics isn't really providing a map or simulation framework for an imagined world. The 'rules are there for resolving disagreements' comment someone made earlier is actually correct on this point, because the fundamental 'hardware' here is a collection of human beings.

Only to the extent that the players prefer an accurate simulation does representing an accurate simulation become an important tool for helping to resolve disagreements. I happen to be one of these people with such an intrinsic preference, but neither of us gets to declare that RPGs exist to service us.

I mentioned this before by PM, but I'll say it again- GNS theory is first and foremost concerned with social dynamics. Any recommendations about system are side-effects (albeit very important ones.) Speaking of which (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/):


[The Bitterest Role-Player In The World] prefers a role-playing game that combines Gamist potential with Simulationist hybrid support, such that a highly Explorative Situation can evolve, in-game and without effort, into a Challenge Situation. In other words, the social-level Step On Up "emerges" from the events in-play. This view, and its problematic qualities, are extremely similar to that of the person who wants to see full-blown Narrativist values "just appear" from a Simulationist-play foundation. It's possible, but not as easy and intuitive as it would seem.

...He probably developed his role-playing preferences in highly-Drifted AD&D2 or in an easily-Drifted version of early Champions, both of which he probably describes as playing "correctly" relative to other groups committed to these games.

This man (I've met no women who fit this description) is cursed. He's cursed because the only people who can enjoy playing with him, and vice versa, are those who share precisely his goals, and these goals are very easily upset by just about any others.

* His heavy Sim focus keeps away the "lite" Gamists who like Exploration but not Simulationism.
* The lack of metagame reward system keeps away most Gamists in general.
* Hard Core Gamists will kick him in the nuts every time, just as they do to Simulationist play.
* Most Simulationist-oriented players won't Step Up - they get no gleam in their eye when the Challenge hits, and some are even happy just to piddle about and "be."
* Just about anyone who's not Gamist-inclined lumps him with "those Gamists" and writes him off.

I've known several of these guys. They are bitter, I say. Imagine years of just knowing that your "perfect game" is possible, seeing it in your mind, knowing that if only a few other people could just play their characters exactly according to the values that you yourself would play, that your GM-preparation would pay off beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Now imagine years of encountering all the bulleted points above, over and over.

At present, I have no suggestions to help them, just as I cannot help those who expect to see "story" consistently emerge from play that does not prioritize it.

2D8HP
2016-10-14, 07:51 AM
Speaking of which (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/):
Ah yes, Ron Edwards.
A decade or so ago I picked up the "Sorcerer" game, and the "Sword and Sorcerer" supplement. I loved the sketches of settings, and the bibliography in the supplement, but the core game left me cold, mostly because I just don't want to learn rules that are so unfamiliar (I'm sure you've noticed a theme in my posts).
If I had a young agile mind (and a lot of free time), and I was just getting into RPG's I could see wanting to find "novel", and "ideal" rules, but these days I'm frankly lazy. If I can't learn the rules fast either because they're simple or they're close to rules I already know, I'm probably not going to bother.
The only way I can imagine being motivated to spend a lot of time studying new rules, is if I was really excited by the setting and there is a group of people who I want to game with, who also want to try the game.
Those are pretty high bars these days.
A well-crafted set of rules flows from the setting, is fair and balanced, and gets out of the way of the story that emerges from gameplay. That is, it has all three elements, and yet doesn't get lost in an attempt to fixate on any one.)OK, please forget my preferences, I'm in suspense here, @Max_Killjoy, please just say the name of the game (games?) that fits your preferences already! I'm really curious!
When I want to play comic book superheroes, I just have a moment of self-honestly and crack open Champions.If it's Champions (which I last played in the 80's). It's got three strikes against it for me.

1) PC creation takes to long.
2) Modern day setting.
3) PC's are too powerful.

I'm much more interested in playing a regular mortal exploring a fantastic world, than I am in playing a superpowered PC in a world that is mostly close to modern day reality.

To each their own.

Segev
2016-10-14, 09:40 AM
Yes, D&D is not meant to accurately simulate a world, as this example demonstrates when you try to apply the rules literally.

Eh...

While he has valid points, he's exaggerating it to the extreme. Not every day travelling needs to have encounters at all; it is just recommended that you have at least 4 on any "serious" adventuring day to present a challenge. And while they absolutely can go up 2 levels in a dungeon crawl, the default assumptions of D&D originated with the idea that there would be significant downtime between adventures. They won't spend four and a half months constantly fighting every single day. They'll spend a couple of weeks getting to their adventuring site, having one or two serious "encounter days" where the fighting actually stresses them, and then spend maybe a week exploring it, and another week or so returning. Overall, the whole adventure might be four weeks. They're likely only mostly to (level at start of adventure)+3, having gained two and most of a third.

Then they'll spend down time back home, researching their next foray into the wilds, figuring out the clues to the BBEG's plot, forging magic items, training, partying, etc. When they determine their next step, they'll take at least a week, if not a month, gearing up and planning the expedition, and then repeat the process.

Going on 3-4 adventures per year, and leveling up 6-10 times, is still pretty impressive, but it's not as fast as that post suggests. Add in that it's actually supposed to be fairly lethal, and the relative rarity of adventurers, and yes, you'll have adventurers who rocket to prominence in a short time, but you'll also have a lot more who are just plain dead or retired "early."

ComradeBear
2016-10-14, 09:41 AM
Funny -- you tell me I said something, quote where I supposedly said it, and it's nowhere to be found in what you quote.

Like I said, you're making a leap here, from "there are points beyond which things that involve playing a role, are not an RPG, and one of those is player control over character creation" to "the defining feature of an RPG is freedom and more freedom=more RPGish".

I'm saying "there's a border here, and outside that border, you're no longer in the realm of what an RPG is", and you're somehow reading that as "there's a scale of more RPGish and less RPGish".

Let me quote the same quote again with a direct link to the post where you said it.


Going through the motions and playing out a very very limited set of choices available isn't really roleplaying.


You did indeed say this. Again, this is YOUR assertion. Not mine.

Second, your point is still very weak since plenty of CRPGs give you a wide variety of choices for character creation. Including CRPGs built on the Dungeons and Dragons system.

georgie_leech
2016-10-14, 09:45 AM
Let me quote the same quote again with a direct link to the post where you said it.



You did indeed say this. Again, this is YOUR assertion. Not mine.

Second, your point is still very weak since plenty of CRPGs give you a wide variety of choices for character creation. Including CRPGs built on the Dungeons and Dragons system.

I think by 'isn't really role playing, ' he doesn't mean it's less RPGish but is flat out not role playing. That is, it's binary; he needs X amount of freedom to be an RPG, and anything that falls short of that isn't an RPG at all. Dunno what X is for him though.

ComradeBear
2016-10-14, 10:20 AM
I think by 'isn't really role playing, ' he doesn't mean it's less RPGish but is flat out not role playing. That is, it's binary; he needs X amount of freedom to be an RPG, and anything that falls short of that isn't an RPG at all. Dunno what X is for him though.

The issue is that this implies that a gradient still exists, with things becoming less RPG-like until they hit an arbitrary point where they cease to be RPGs. Things above that line could be considered "barely an rpg" by this measurement standard. This still implies a gradient of things being More or Less RPG-qualifying using Freedom of Choice as the metric. And on that line, Freeform roleplaying or Freeform Roleplaying with extremely limited game elements would be King of RPGs since it has infinitely possible character creation, and infinite choice, based on the two metrics he's offering.

Implying a lower limit on the gradient doesn't prevent the gradient from being present.

EDIT:
And the reason making an arbitrary cutoff between CRPGs being "not really rpgs" and TRPGs being "actual rpgs" is that it justifies saying really crappy things like:
"Oh, you like RPGs? Which ones?"
"I like Final Fantasy and Fallout"
"Those aren't actual RPGs."

And guess who is never going to want to play a trpg with you since you just laid a steamer on their favorite games?
And guess who just made their hobby even harder to get into for someone?
And guess who's now partially responsible for people thinking tabletop games are hard to get into?

That's why you don't do it. The implications don't just piss off fanboys. They hurt the hobby. Just distinguish between CRPG and TRPG and you're less likely to push someone away from the hobby.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 11:40 AM
I'm way outta the loop on this discussion and I'll have to catch up later, but one remark for now-


The foremost purpose of the game mechanics isn't really providing a map or simulation framework for an imagined world. The 'rules are there for resolving disagreements' comment someone made earlier is actually correct on this point, because the fundamental 'hardware' here is a collection of human beings.

Only to the extent that the players prefer an accurate simulation does representing an accurate simulation become an important tool for helping to resolve disagreements. I happen to be one of these people with such an intrinsic preference, but neither of us gets to declare that RPGs exist to service us.

I mentioned this before by PM, but I'll say it again- GNS theory is first and foremost concerned with social dynamics. Any recommendations about system are side-effects (albeit very important ones.) Speaking of which (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/):

I think that quote has helped me finally nail down part of what's always bugged me about Edwards and others in his camp -- he's a "legalist". He can't seem to get his head around something happening in a game unless its right there in the rules. Without rules to make something happen, it's apparently just never going to happen. If the rules don't actively support something, then the game will "fail to deliver" regardless of any other factor. At least, that's how Edwards, etc, come across.

Ironically, given his statements and some of the replies I've received, I think this is in part because they project their own particular histories and experiences with gaming onto the entirety of gamers, campaigns, and systems.

I see this same thing in a lot of his underlying justification for separating the "stakes" and "conflict" from discrete tasks, where Edwards has personally had and seen issues with GMs and players trying to game tasks/actions with "you made that stealth role, well there was another guard too, so role stealth again" and similar shenanigans -- so his personal solution was to ditch action/task resolution and have vague "conflict" resolutions, and make rather disparaging comments towards any game that does not, as if everyone else must have had the same issues he did, and will continue to do so unless they use his Best New Thing.

Or hey, we can go with this:

Brian Gleichman, a self-identified Gamist[8] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_GNS_Pt6-8) whose works Edwards cited in his examination of Gamism,[6] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Edwards_Gamism-6) wrote an extensive critique of the GNS theory and the Big Model. He argues that although any RPG intuitively contains elements of gaming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game), storytelling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling), and self-consistent simulated worlds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_world), the GNS theory "mistakes components of an activity for the goals of the activity", emphasizes player typing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_type) over other concerns, and assumes "without reason" that there are only three possible goals in all of role-playing.[9] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_GNS_Pt1-9) Combined with the principles outlined in "System Does Matter",[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Edwards_SystemDoesMatter-3) this produces a new definition of RPG, in which its traditional components (challenge, story, consistency) are mutually exclusive,[10] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_GNS_Pt3-10) and any game system that mixes them is labeled as "incoherent" and thus inferior to the "coherent" ones.[11] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_Theory_Pt2-11) To disprove this, Gleichman cites a survey conducted by Wizards of the Coast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizards_of_the_Coast) in 1999,[12] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Reynolds-12) which identified four player types and eight "core values" (instead of the three predicted by the GNS theory) and found that these are neither exclusive, nor strongly correlated with particular game systems.[13] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_GNS_Pt4-13) Gleichman concludes that the GNS theory is "logically flawed", "fails completely in its effort to define or model RPGs as most people think of them", and "will produce something that is basically another type of game completely".[8]
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_GNS_Pt6-8)

Gleichman also argues that just as the Threefold Model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threefold_Model) (developed by self-identified Simulationists who "didn't really understand any other style of player besides their own"[14] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_Theory_Pt1-14)) "uplifted" Simulation, Edwards' GNS theory "trumpets" its definition of Narrativism. According to him, Edwards' view of Simulationism as "'a form of retreat, denial, and defense against the responsibilities of either Gamism or Narrativism'" and characterization of Gamism as "being more akin to board games (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_game)" than to RPGs,[11] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_Theory_Pt2-11) reveals an elitist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitist) attitude surrounding the narrow GNS definition of narrative role-playing, which attributes enjoyment of any incompatible play-style to "'[literal] brain damage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_damage)'".[15] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_GNSComments-15) Lastly, Gleichman claims that most games rooted in the GNS theory, e.g. My Life with Master (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Life_with_Master) and Dogs in the Vineyard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_in_the_Vineyard), "actually failed to support Narrativism as a whole, instead focusing on a single Narrativist theme", and have had no commercial success.[16] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_theory#cite_note-Gleichman_Theory_Pt4-16)





As for "simulation" -- if the rules and the setting (the world, the desired atmosphere, character capabilities, etc) are mismatched, then there are going to be disconnects and dissonance. I don't see how ANY sort of gaming (G, N, or S, if one buys that trichotomy) is fostered by a system which repeatedly creates "what the hell was that?" moments. For the "gamist", mismatched rules & setting make the game more vulnerable to situations with imbalanced or unfair outcomes. For the "narrativist", mismatched rules & setting make the game more vulnerable to moments of "bad story".

Another problem that comes up is that many designers and players seem to conflate the "narrativist focus" with "drama resolution", creating a game which shares the sins of much poor fiction, in which events are transparently contrived to "Make The Best Story".

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 11:44 AM
The issue is that this implies that a gradient still exists,

No, it doesn't.

ComradeBear
2016-10-14, 11:58 AM
No, it doesn't.

So if there is no gradient, then your measurements make 0 sense except for Inclusion vs. Exclusion, ie True vs. False.

If Character Creation = True and
Choice(s) that affect storyline = True then any game with both of these is an RPG regardless of whether there is only One storyline affecting choice or 20 billion.

So a game that lets you choose between Boy and Girl for character creation and allows one storyline altering choice fits the definition of an RPG in the absence of a gradient.

Note the following:
If you agree with the above paragraph, then your assertion between CRPGs and "Actual" rpgs is invalidated.

If you disagree, you're admitting that you utilize some kind of gradient in your definition.

Choose which loss you wanna take, but you pretty much walked into this one.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 12:00 PM
So if there is no gradient, then your measurements make 0 sense except for Inclusion vs. Exclusion, ie True vs. False.

If Character Creation = True and
Choice(s) that affect storyline = True then any game with both of these is an RPG regardless of whether there is only One storyline affecting choice or 20 billion.

So a game that lets you choose between Boy and Girl for character creation and allows one storyline altering choice fits the definition of an RPG in the absence of a gradient.

Note the following:
If you agree with the above paragraph, then your assertion between CRPGs and "Actual" rpgs is invalidated.

If you disagree, you're admitting that you utilize some kind of gradient in your definition.

Choose which loss you wanna take, but you pretty much walked into this one.


If you're standing on top of a mesa, and you walk too far in any direction, you fall off the mesa.

You can move around quite a bit, but once you're over the edge, you're no longer on the mesa.

nrg89
2016-10-14, 12:01 PM
I normally agree with Max_Killjoy but I have to take 2D8HP side here. I'm all for pointing out what doesn't work in RPGs but this begs the question; what systems ticks off your boxes and makes you pick it up and play?

I could name several that makes me pick it up but I'll name my go-to system as of now; Savage Worlds. The PC power is always in check and if one enemy is too weak you can always scale up the difficulty by throwing more at the players meaning armies are not useless. Character creation takes a very short time, the way people are taken out is consistent with most cinema universes, the magic is not game breaking, it's not super important to have magic items meaning that underdog characters can still come out on top, the setting changes actively change the rules and the rules are fast and quick enough that they don't get in the way of the story.

We already have 7+ pages of discussion on what systems can do to break verisimilitude, it would be nice if we could discuss concrete examples of how to enhance it.

ComradeBear
2016-10-14, 12:06 PM
If you're standing on top of a mesa, and you walk too far in any direction, you fall off the mesa. It's not how close to the edge you are, it's whether you're past the edge.

In this situation there is a gradient. It is "Nearness to the center of the mesa."

Eventually this distance becomes too great and now you are not on the mesa, but the gradient exists, even with a limit. Some things are closer to the center than other things, even if everything within a certain area is defined as "on the mesa."

Which would place, in this scenario, close-to-freeform RPGs nearest to the center by your two listed measurements.

Your example doesn't help your argument.

Edit: another problem with this example is that a Mesa's area is non-arbitrarily defined. In your case, what Is and Is Not an RPG is arbitrarily defined. Meaning someone else's Mesa may be differently sized from yours, making the gradient even more important. You have drawn a line and said "everything past this is not an RPG" but there is no reason why someone else can't draw their own line elsewhere. The gradient is still shown to exist.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 12:12 PM
Ah yes, Ron Edwards.
A decade or so ago I picked up the "Sorcerer" game, and the "Sword and Sorcerer" supplement. I loved the sketches of settings, and the bibliography in the supplement, but the core game left me cold, mostly because I just don't want to learn rules that are so unfamiliar (I'm sure you've noticed a theme in my posts).
If I had a young agile mind (and a lot of free time), and I was just getting into RPG's I could see wanting to find "novel", and "ideal" rules, but these days I'm frankly lazy. If I can't learn the rules fast either because they're simple or they're close to rules I already know, I'm probably not going to bother.
The only way I can imagine being motivated to spend a lot of time studying new rules, is if I was really excited by the setting and there is a group of people who I want to game with, who also want to try the game.
Those are pretty high bars these days.OK, please forget my preferences, I'm in suspense here, @Max_Killjoy, please just say the name of the game (games?) that fits your preferences already! I'm really curious!If it's Champions (which I last played in the 80's). It's got three strikes against it for me.

1) PC creation takes to long.
2) Modern day setting.
3) PC's are too powerful.

I'm much more interested in playing a regular mortal exploring a fantastic world, than I am in playing a superpowered PC in a world that is mostly close to modern day reality.

To each their own.

HERO 4th and 5th have come closest (the broader system of which Champions would be a subset). However, I've found that HERO doesn't handle characters below a certain point on the "power scale" as well as might be claimed, because there's just not that much "room" down there. I've become less enamored with the segments/phases/SPEED setup, and the focus on grid movement, over the years.

Really, at this point, I'm doing a LOT of searching, and nothing I've found (including all the repeated recommendations here) has really been what I'm looking for... each turns out to have a fatal flaw.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 12:24 PM
In this situation there is a gradient. It is "Nearness to the center of the mesa."

Eventually this distance becomes too great and now you are not on the mesa, but the gradient exists, even with a limit. Some things are closer to the center than other things, even if everything within a certain area is defined as "on the mesa."

Which would place, in this scenario, close-to-freeform RPGs nearest to the center by your two listed measurements.

Your example doesn't help your argument.

Edit: another problem with this example is that a Mesa's area is non-arbitrarily defined. In your case, what Is and Is Not an RPG is arbitrarily defined. Meaning someone else's Mesa may be differently sized from yours, making the gradient even more important. You have drawn a line and said "everything past this is not an RPG" but there is no reason why someone else can't draw their own line elsewhere. The gradient is still shown to exist.

The problem is that you're assuming the gradient also makes one "more on the mesa" or "less on the mesa" in a direct scalar fashion -- that is, if going too far in one direction makes you "off the mesa", then any movement in the other direction makes you "more on the mesa".

Consider instead that going too far in the OTHER direction ALSO puts you off the mesa entirely.

You asserted that if too little character design freedom or character decisions freedom can make a game not an RPG, then more freedom makes a game more an RPG and total free-form would then be the ultimate RPG. Instead, that's too far in the other direction -- too little freedom, and you have a board game or choose your own adventure book; too much freedom, and you're playing make-believe, like children saying "I shot you!", "No you didn't!"


In general, you're coming across as more eager to "catch me being wrong" than to understand what I've been saying.

Segev
2016-10-14, 12:50 PM
I think what's being asked for here is a clear demarcation of how far from the center of that hypothetical mesa something can get before it is "not an RPG."

By asserting that there is "no gradient," that things are 100% in or 100% out of the set "RPG," you're making a call that there is a precise set of criteria. And, since your precise set of criteria include some grading as to how well they're met, with imperfectly meeting them allowing some to qualify while others (which are even less perfect) do not, you need to spell out where you draw the limits.

Otherwise, there is, in fact, a gradient that lets you give fuzzy membership to some games which are "more RPG" than others.

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-14, 01:02 PM
I think that quote has helped me finally nail down part of what's always bugged me about Edwards and others in his camp -- he's a "legalist". He can't seem to get his head around something happening in a game unless its right there in the rules.
I can't speak for Edwards directly, but I think you're missing the point completely here. The overriding thrust of GNS design philosophy is that "the rules and procedures of play are at the mercy of the social contract and not vice versa", (AKA the lumpley principle.) Group concensus and buy-in is the foundation, not the rule-set (though of course, certain rules are immensely helpful for fostering concensus and advertising what you buy into.)

This is specifically why I was taking exception to your rather bald statement that the purpose of the rules is to be a 'map to the territory'. This is only true if you have a bunch of players that attach primary value to mapping territory to begin with. In short, your agenda is showing, and you expect others to kowtow to this definition as if it were self-obvious. Whether players and their preferences come in 3 or 5 or a million different flavours doesn't really soften that problem.

Now sure- with enough good will and a certain amount of instinct, you can get story or balance or whatevs in the absence of explicit rules to cover it, purely through a gentlemen's agreement.... But if this is your approach to negotiation... then I wouldn't count on that happening.


Your other points seem to be throwing up flak to dodge the central complaint, and are far too wide-ranging to cover in depth, but out of courtesy I will briefly address two of them.

Gleichman's citation of the '99 WotC study is interesting, mainly because the conclusions are completely contradicted by it's own data (e.g, powergamers' total disregard for story effects somehow being complementary to the storyteller.) But I think a 4-way division of preferences (which I might loosely map to nar, sim, gamism and hard-core gamism) is quite plausible, and has found (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types) some practical application.

There are certainly potential forms of lack-of-realism that both undermine balance and undercut storytelling. There are also forms of metagame reward systems, or 'artificial' constraints on character progression or scene framing, that significantly help to regulate powergaming or fuel an engrossing narrative. If you inherently reject all metagaming- which in practical terms I'm not even sure is possible- you will necessarily have a suboptimal system for any agenda aside from pure simulation. There's nothing wrong with pure simulation, but the overlapping segment on that venn diagram is a precarious place to dance.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 02:01 PM
I can't speak for Edwards directly, but I think you're missing the point completely here. The overriding thrust of GNS design philosophy is that "the rules and procedures of play are at the mercy of the social contract and not vice versa", (AKA the lumpley principle.) Group concensus and buy-in is the foundation, not the rule-set (though of course, certain rules are immensely helpful for fostering concensus and advertising what you buy into.)

This is specifically why I was taking exception to your rather bald statement that the purpose of the rules is to be a 'map to the territory'. This is only true if you have a bunch of players that attach primary value to mapping territory to begin with. In short, your agenda is showing, and you expect others to kowtow to this definition as if it were self-obvious. Whether players and their preferences come in 3 or 5 or a million different flavours doesn't really soften that problem.

Now sure- with enough good will and a certain amount of instinct, you can get story or balance or whatevs in the absence of explicit rules to cover it, purely through a gentlemen's agreement.... But if this is your approach to negotiation... then I wouldn't count on that happening.


Your other points seem to be throwing up flak to dodge the central complaint, and are far too wide-ranging to cover in depth, but out of courtesy I will briefly address two of them.

Gleichman's citation of the '99 WotC study is interesting, mainly because the conclusions are completely contradicted by it's own data (e.g, powergamers' total disregard for story effects somehow being complementary to the storyteller.) But I think a 4-way division of preferences (which I might loosely map to nar, sim, gamism and hard-core gamism) is quite plausible, and has found (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types) some practical application.

There are certainly potential forms of lack-of-realism that both undermine balance and undercut storytelling. There are also forms of metagame reward systems, or 'artificial' constraints on character progression or scene framing, that significantly help to regulate powergaming or fuel an engrossing narrative. If you inherently reject all metagaming- which in practical terms I'm not even sure is possible- you will necessarily have a suboptimal system for any agenda aside from pure simulation. There's nothing wrong with pure simulation, but the overlapping segment on that venn diagram is a precarious place to dance.


From my point of view, this isn't about a "simulation uber alles" agenda. It's about setting/world, system, and the sort of game (and story) the participants want, all syncing up and meshing together well. I greatly dislike dissonance and disconnect.

If the sort of game one wants to play requires divergences from the world we're all familiar with, cool, no one is rejecting that, the critical issue here isn't realism in the sense of carbon-copying our familiar real world. However, those divergences require some form of explanation, and will have some consequences that might further diverge the world from what we would expect from our daily experiences.

The system being used need to sync with that "new world" well enough that it doesn't throw the players out of the in-world headspace with inconsistent or incoherent results. No one is claiming it needs to be perfect, it just needs to be close. And obviously it needs to have mechanics in place for those other abilities.

The metagaming I'm just about completely rejecting here is that of the "what would make the best story?" sort. When the players -- or the author(s) of a fictional work -- start asking themselves "what would make the best story here?" at the expense of "what would the characters in question do here?" or "what's within the realm of the established possible for this setting?", the road to contrivance is short, and steeply downhill.


Oddly, despite what many of the proponents of Narrativist play seem to assert, that sort of "The Story" metagaming is apparently not the heart of Narrativist play -- a definition I keep seeing is instead something like this: "Narrativism relies on outlining (or developing) character motives, placing characters into situations where those motives conflict and making their decisions the driving force." -- and if that's accurate, then "narrativism" is actually quite character-centric, despite the name.

Rather, it seems that perhaps the key component of "The Story" metagaming would be, in GNS theory, "Drama resolution": "Participants decide the results, with plot requirements the determining factor." For some reason, Drama Resolution and Narrativist Focus appear to have been heavily conflated in certain games designed after the advent of GNS theory became an influential school of thought.

Lacuna Caster
2016-10-14, 02:10 PM
Ah yes, Ron Edwards.
A decade or so ago I picked up the "Sorcerer" game, and the "Sword and Sorcerer" supplement. I loved the sketches of settings, and the bibliography in the supplement, but the core game left me cold, mostly because I just don't want to learn rules that are so unfamiliar (I'm sure you've noticed a theme in my posts).
If I had a young agile mind (and a lot of free time), and I was just getting into RPG's I could see wanting to find "novel", and "ideal" rules, but these days I'm frankly lazy. If I can't learn the rules fast either because they're simple or they're close to rules I already know, I'm probably not going to bother.
The only way I can imagine being motivated to spend a lot of time studying new rules, is if I was really excited by the setting and there is a group of people who I want to game with, who also want to try the game.
Those are pretty high bars these days.
Yeah, I can understand that. I rather liked the exotic settings from the Sorceror supplements myself (particularly the one where the 'demons' were subcutaneous insect symbiotes), but never did get a proper group together for it.

Segev
2016-10-14, 02:13 PM
To me - and I am no expert on "GNS Theory" - "narrativism" is about "the story," yes, but not telling a pre-set one. All narrativism means is that you're primarily interested in the story. You want to play the characters and build the narrative around what they're doing and how the world reacts around them.

In a sense, to me, a GOOD simulationist game will also cater to a narrativist view, because the simulation will include rules that guide how the world reacts to character actions and choices. The story evolves from the simulation as the players push the buttons and pull the levers that represent what their characters' choices would be.

And that, too, factors in with a good gamist game - the gameplay IS the development of the narrative through the simulation.

Which is what I look for in an RPG.

Talakeal
2016-10-14, 02:47 PM
To me - and I am no expert on "GNS Theory" - "narrativism" is about "the story," yes, but not telling a pre-set one. All narrativism means is that you're primarily interested in the story. You want to play the characters and build the narrative around what they're doing and how the world reacts around them.

In a sense, to me, a GOOD simulationist game will also cater to a narrativist view, because the simulation will include rules that guide how the world reacts to character actions and choices. The story evolves from the simulation as the players push the buttons and pull the levers that represent what their characters' choices would be.

And that, too, factors in with a good gamist game - the gameplay IS the development of the narrative through the simulation.

Which is what I look for in an RPG.

I agree with you 100%, but I don't think that is what people mean by "narrativist" games.

The problem with that is that if you are simulating a "real world" you are going to different results than a strict narrative.

For example, in a movie extras who get shot once fall over and quietly die in an instant, heroes, on the other hand, typically just shrug it off as only a flesh wound and continue doing badass things. This would make sense in a narrative game, but not in one that is trying to simulate anything but a Hollywood action movie.

Even if a game was, say, trying to simulate a far out setting like Power Rangers, the players wouldn't behave properly from a narrative perspective. The show follows a formula, minions attack, they fight as humans, monster attacks, they morph, monster grows, they summon zords, they merge into the Megazord, they get beat up, they use the Mega Sword to end the fight. Whereas the players would ignore the formula and just start out with the Mega Sword.

More narrativist games actually need rules to keep things running along the expected narrative rather than just concluding in the most logical manner. Then you get things like the 4E AEDU power system which works all right from a narrative perspective but when looked at from a simulationist perspective leaves a lot to be desired. Honestly I think the main cause of "edition wars" is that previous editions had run on simulationist logic and assumed that a good story would emerge from the simulation where as 4E took a more narrativist approach and tried to have rules that forced a more coherent story structure on the mechanics.

Cluedrew
2016-10-14, 07:22 PM
Frankly I'd be happy if the "R" was removed, and we called them something like "table top Adventure games (when I was young, I saw the acronym "FRP" more than "RPG").You would like them to be called "playing games"?

Sorry, I just felt that should be said out loud. Really adventure games would be a nice term for it, although it is probably too late to change now. I agree that roll-playing is not quite as fundamental to roll-playing games as one might expect from the name. At least as I understand roll-playing, I have seem people play (Computer & Table Top) RPGs while doing very little roll-playing and roll-play in things that are not roll-playing games.


The part I agree most with is of course "However it is played, the primary purpose is to have fun." Which I hope we don't lose sight of.I agree. Sometimes it seems it is just another thing that exists so people can be right about it.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 07:26 PM
Roll or role? :wink:

Cluedrew
2016-10-14, 07:36 PM
...

... ... ...

How did I pull that off?

That was not on purpose. And thinking about what I meant to say, its not a Freidan slip either.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 07:44 PM
...

... ... ...

How did I pull that off?

That was not on purpose. And thinking about what I meant to say, its not a Freidan slip either.


Given what you were saying, I didn't think you meant "roll", but given the discussion and everything, it's too funny anyway.

Cluedrew
2016-10-14, 08:33 PM
I know, and roll-play is a (semi-ironic) term on its own I did not mean to use. I did mean to say role-play in every case (I re-read just to make sure) but I'm leaving it there now.

2D8HP
2016-10-14, 09:24 PM
I know, and roll-play is......I'm not going to touch that, even with a ten foot roll um role er pole (whoo finally).

:amused:


l'm leaving it there now.

Thanks!

:biggrin:

Oh I realized that I should walk back some of my "setting matters more than rules" ranting.
I think Pathfinder's "Inner Sea" setting looks much cooler than 5e D&D's "Forgotten Realms", but despite it being the basis of my favorite web comic, I just don't like the 3.x rules.

:redface:

Cluedrew
2016-10-14, 09:57 PM
Well I'm glad everyone is having a laugh.

Anyways, I need to go back and acknowledge a reply way back on page 7. Man this thread moves fast.


Yes it does. The fact that it simulates things poorly (or not at all) doesn't make it "not a simulation" it just makes it "less accurate of a simulation". Weather simulations still simulate weather even though they don't have defined interactions at the quantum mechanical level. For any thing in a simulation, having it not happen is a totally valid simulation. You may not like it, but no one is saying you have to like it.... How come people seem to assume that just because I can point out a game's faults means that I don't like it over all? I mean you may not be doing that but it sort of looks like that to me.

Anyways, my point is (which is to say my interpretation of post #1 is) that it is about intent and goals. D&D can be used to simulate word but if you do the simulation is inaccurate and incomplete. In fact all D&D worlds would be created and than become barren as there are rules for dying and aging (although I'm not sure about dying from aging) but none about child birth. Maybe there is in the Book of Erotic Fantasy, haven't read it.

So you can do it, but that's not the point. It is a game that you play, not a mathematical model you analyze for data as with the weather forecast.


I agree. Shadowrun presents a great solution to the problem of "make high level Wizards and Fighters equal". But that's not the problem which the poster I responded to claimed had been solved. He wants a solution that also satisfies "Fighters have abilities that are believable in the real world."Which, by the way, is from page 4. It's quite a chain of replies.

"Mundanes must not be out of genre or unrealistic" VS "Mundanes should be as competent as spellcasters who are pretty much always stronger in the genre, and are utterly unrealistic"

Pick one.And all of the games which are not D&D and have managed to solve this problem are wrong.Now, this little back and forth hinges on what Talakeal's interpretation of Vitruviansquid's post, but what I believe what Talakeal is saying is that it is not necessarily out of genre to have fighters and wizards be on equal footing. Lord of the Rings had some pretty nasty spell casters but in the Chronicles of Narina almost all the major casters are brought down by martial power. Usually a normal human being with a metal stick.

Now if we take "realistic" to mean "as in real life" and not "reasonable or plausible" or "appears to be like reality at first glance" or "no, you mean internal consistency" then... yes you can't do it without holding wizards to the same standard. (In which case Anderson Silva will beat up David Copperfield no problem.) I think those are both who I think they are.

OK, this took me much longer than expected. Done for now.

Max_Killjoy
2016-10-14, 10:01 PM
Is it just me, or is there a dismissal of rules with a sim basis because, supposedly, they need to sim the growing of grass and the currents of the ocean, or they're an utter failure -- and since that level of detail is pretty much impossible, why even try?

Where does this notion of a "world simulator" come from?

Batou1976
2016-10-15, 03:08 AM
You're going to have to explain why the PCs should be killed off more than they are. There's a word for "people trying to kill you so you don't amass wealth" in D&Dland and that word is "adventure".

What I meant was, if people IRL tried to murderhobo their way through life like a D&D adventurer, they wouldn't last very long. Hence D&D not being a world "simulator", but merely an "adventure simulator".


The piles of loot thing actually makes more sense if you accept that the rules govern the operating of the world. That castle full of wights? It's not there because the DM said so. It's there because there used to be a castle full of normal people, but the Wightpocalypse happened and now it's full of wights.

I get that. But that doesn't make practical sense (as I originally stated)- wightpocalypses (and trollpocalypses, and whatnot) happen so often in a D&D world that if said world did work like the really-real one.... there'd be nobody left but the monsters.