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View Full Version : Stop saying "not internally consistent"



Vikazc
2008-05-23, 09:12 PM
D&D 4ed is a separate system from 3ed, 2ed, and every other edition. WotC clearly decided to take things in a different direction from the previous systems and change things. They did not at any point make the guarantee that 4ed would include every single option from all previous systems, or that you could do everything you could previously. It is a system designed to facilitate group play within the rules structure laid out by the game, while allowing people to alter the rules to suit their playstyle if it differs from the designers vision.

That was all simple right?

Following that line of thinking, every single freaking thing in 4ed is internally consistent. The NPC rules, PC rules, all of it. Why? Because internally consistent only refers to consistency within the given rules system. That means 4ed. Not 3ed, not 2ed. Just 4ed. The designers are not obligated to give you every option you ever wanted, and you do not sound smart by claiming everything you see is not internally consistent, because it does not allow you to create a world in the same manner as other game systems.

Sorry for ranting. I just lost it after seeing the words "internally consistent" 20+ times in 1 thread about 4ed.

Emperor Tippy
2008-05-23, 09:22 PM
Any setting should be internally consistent. If the rules say, as a random example, that everyone has the ability to teleport to any other location on the planet at will as a free action and take anything they are touching with them when they go, then a setting in which shipping and trade caravans exist makes no sense.

Whether or not 4e is or is not internally consistent isn't something I am prepared to comment on without actually reading the rules.

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 09:26 PM
It was time someone said it.

seedjar
2008-05-23, 10:41 PM
I don't think consistency is even defined for gaming systems - it's not like there's a symbolic logic for D&D.
~Joe

Justin_Bacon
2008-05-23, 10:48 PM
D&D 4ed is a separate system from 3ed, 2ed, and every other edition. (...) Following that line of thinking, every single freaking thing in 4ed is internally consistent.

(1) Your conclusion does not follow from your premises.

(2) Can you cite anybody actually claiming that 4th Edition isn't internally consistent because it isn't compatible with previous editions?

Maerok
2008-05-23, 10:57 PM
4th Edition isn't internally consistent because it isn't compatible with previous editions. </devil's advocate> :smallbiggrin:

Justin_Bacon
2008-05-23, 11:01 PM
4th Edition isn't internally consistent because it isn't compatible with previous editions. </devil's advocate> :smallbiggrin:

I will kill you until you die from it. :smallbiggrin:

Valairn
2008-05-23, 11:01 PM
4th edition isn't internally consistent because it doesn't have lolcats!

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-05-23, 11:04 PM
4.0 isn't internally consistant because a lot of the rules make no sense, not because it's not backwards compatible. I'll give examples if you'd like. (killing a swarm of insects with an arrow, a 600% markup on items being sold to people whose job it is to kill things and take their stuff, and people who exist only to be an annoyance, to name a few)

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 11:05 PM
OK, i just hace to ask this, what is a lolcat?

Scaboroth
2008-05-23, 11:06 PM
Oh yeah? Well, your face isn't internally consistent!

Townopolis
2008-05-23, 11:07 PM
The logical ramifications of the mechanics of 4e create a fantasy world that I personally find unattractive and irritating to no end.

is that better?

Valairn
2008-05-23, 11:07 PM
OK, i just hace to ask this, what is a lolcat?

Ask and you shall receive!

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Behold_the_Void
2008-05-23, 11:12 PM
4.0 isn't internally consistant because a lot of the rules make no sense, not because it's not backwards compatible. I'll give examples if you'd like. (killing a swarm of insects with an arrow, a 600% markup on items being sold to people whose job it is to kill things and take their stuff, and people who exist only to be an annoyance, to name a few)

1. If you kill a swarm with an arrow, they're already pretty heavily damaged so you probably just skitched the last clump of them or otherwise broke the swarm apart. Arrows aren't very effective against swarms, but can do some damage if used properly (which the system assumes that a PC has the skill to do).

2. People markup prices for just about anything. Do they give you a free gun if you're trained to kill someone? I think not. We have a nice little thing called society to let people get away with things like that.

3. Minion-class enemies is roughly equivalent to a bunch of level 1 warriors attacking a higher-level party in 3.x. Basically, the PCs are so awesome they're felling a bunch of dudes with no trouble at all. Fighting against Minions isn't for plot, it's for a cinematic effect that a lot of people enjoy. It shows up in fantasy all the time, where the heroes are just skilled enough to wade through large swaths of enemies. To use one of the more literary examples, in 4e Lord of the Rings is a Heroic Tier game and they were fighting a nigh endless horde of minions at Helm's Deep.

Coplantor
2008-05-23, 11:14 PM
Oh yeah? Well, your face isn't internally consistent!

Your momma is so internally inconsistent...

I think that the real problem with 4th edition is the fact that I bought the 3rd edition books four months ago.

TempusCCK
2008-05-23, 11:26 PM
"You keep using that word, I don' think it means what you think it means"

4e isn't internally consistant because it uses different rules for PC's than it does for NPC's...

"But TempusCCK, if the PC's can go out and kill Goblins and get uber power from that, why doesn't everyone do it and everyone be uberpowerful! Lolz! Obviously, the Pc's should be ruled differently than everyone."

Uhh, because in an internally consistant world, the people with the ability to do so are doing that. If your entire world is built around the premise that you (The Pcs) are the only ones capable of being powerful, have fun, but your world is not internally consistant. There should be fighters everywhere that are very powerful, there should be powerful wizards all over the place. Why doesn't everyone just go up to level 20? Well, because there is considerable risk involved in that, and some people don't want to die, adventurers, on the other hand, are seperated only by the fact that death is not an issue to them. Therefore, they are the ones willing to put themselves up to level 20, unlike everyone else in teh world. Commoners have low stats, most people aren't willing to risk their lives to get very powerful, and the poeple that do are exceptional.

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 12:35 AM
Wow usually my posts get ignored so I didn't come back for a while..hmm.

I may have spoken in a difficult to understand manner. I do not mean people necessarily expect 4ed to be compatible with 3ed in a game sense. I mean people expect things in a 4ed world to be a certain way, because that was what passed for realism in 3ed.

Example: Swarms being killed with arrows. In the 4ed universe, a swarms hive mind activity could be disrupted by foreign objects passing through, causing the death of large amounts of its group make up. Thus making this an internally consistent fact of 4ed, because that's just how **** works there.

Huge markups? I remember an example in Econ back in college was an old couple who bought a 12,000 dollar RV on a high interest loan and ended up paying 128,000 dollars for it over 30 years. High interest loans are extremely common in our society, although that <b>1000%</b> mark up for the old couple is fairly extreme, its not unheard of. So if such a markup is the norm in this game world, it is indeed consistent. If some merchants inexplicably sold items for normal value, then you are correct, it would be internally inconsistent. They don't, so it's not.

Minions? The 4ed system uses a particular system of abstract HPs that determines that the last point of hit point damage you take that puts you o the ground, is the big solid blow that finally catches up with you. From this we can deduce minions are not little pansies waiting for a stiff wind to kill them. They are just your average luckless soldier. The kinda guy who catches the wrong stray round in the face in Vietnam. They just are not the hereos, or the villains, and they don't have the luck or the moxy to carry on. Solo and elite mobs, PCs and NPCs, represent the people who make it in the world because they have that extra bit of luck that gets them out of harms way even when it looks like death is coming. Completely consistent within the 4ed system.

And as an aside to tippy. That world of free teleportation could be internally consistent with minor fluff actually. For example, social stigma against teleportation. Everyone can do it, it's no secret, but you just don't do it out in public. It's inappropriate and vulgar. Thus, caravans. An example of this would be why we don't pee on sidewalks, pleasure ourselves in public(most of us), or travel in the nude, despite everyone being put together the same.

Xefas
2008-05-24, 12:47 AM
An example of this would be why we don't pee on sidewalks, pleasure ourselves in public(most of us), or travel in the nude, despite everyone being put together the same.

Maybe this just proves that the real world is internally inconsistent, so things that are also internally inconsistent are more realistic.

Why don't we pleasure ourselves in public? That sounds like a fantastic idea, and yet I don't really want to...

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 12:57 AM
That makes sense to me, I mean look at the world, we have the ability to miraculously defecate anywhere there is a conveinent drainage location, but we've wasted billions of dollars walling in our toilets, just so other people don't know that we pee just like they do.

Pirate_King
2008-05-24, 01:36 AM
I don't think consistency is even defined for gaming systems - it's not like there's a symbolic logic for D&D.
~Joe

I am not Joe. Therefore, I posted the previous statement.

I'm sorry, I had to make a symbolic logic joke.

but on terms of minions: did we really need game versions of npcs that pc's can mow through without a thought? I mean, if we don't really need to roll for it, why make stats for it? DM's can set up cinematics if they really want. If your players want o have a campaign where they're essentially "button mashing," then so be it. just say "you kill everyone" in a creative way. that's not roleplaying. in my book, that's lame. you might as well be playing a video game. you don't need rules if the rules basically let you kill everyone.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-05-24, 01:48 AM
but on terms of minions: did we really need game versions of npcs that pc's can mow through without a thought? I mean, if we don't really need to roll for it, why make stats for it? DM's can set up cinematics if they really want. If your players want o have a campaign where they're essentially "button mashing," then so be it. just say "you kill everyone" in a creative way. that's not roleplaying. in my book, that's lame. you might as well be playing a video game. you don't need rules if the rules basically let you kill everyone.

Minions is an attempt to get the best of two worlds. They are so flimsy that they fall if you look hard enough at them, but at the same time they pose a level appropriate threat in terms of their chance of hurting or impeding your progress.
Essentially you want them to be destroyed easily (but not without devoting time to do it), but you also want them to have a meaningful role so they are not just ignored.

skywalker
2008-05-24, 02:13 AM
TempusCCK already said what I wanted to say, but better.

I will simply add this:
Saying "stop saying this" or "that is a fallacy" is getting really old. SamtheCleric hates "verisimilitude." Vicars hates "internal consistency." And now there's fallacies left and right. I kinda want a fallacy named after me, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad thing...

But seriously guys, are we to the point where certain words aren't even allowed to be used in discussion?

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 02:17 AM
Yeah, pretty much what Sil said. People seem to keep getting the idea that minions are weaker then mooks were previously. Minions exist to rectify the problems of 3.5ed. The problem being, anything that won't demolish the party in large numbers, can't even hurt the party. Previously, 10 appropriate level monsters would demolish an average party because actions were the most valuable part of combat, and they had enough over the course of the fight to overwhelm the party. On the other end, a hundred goblins are not anything resembling a challenge to a level 10 party that's even reasonably optimized.

Minions exist to have large scale battles without drawing it out into a battle of attrition. A fight with nine minions and one solo mob is much smoother then the ten monsters from the 3.5 example. The 9 minions provide the some damage, but can be taken down fairly quickly to allow the party to catch up. If they didn't go down relatively quickly, they'd quickly swarm the party and massacre them.

You know, theres the simple question. Can anyone come up with a better way for the party to be able to fight against large groups of enemies without giving them abysmal AC and attack bonuses so low that they are not even a viable threat?

Edit to avoid bickering about whether word usage is something worth posting about.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-05-24, 02:20 AM
SamtheCleric hates "verisimilitude."

...

But seriously guys, are we to the point where certain words aren't even allowed to be used in discussion?

I think Sam meant his complaint to be humorous in nature.

Xefas
2008-05-24, 02:21 AM
I kinda want a fallacy named after me, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad thing...

Skywalker's Fallacy: The fact that a fallacy has been named after you must be either a good or bad thing.

In reality, it can be a perfectly morality-neutral occurrence.

Lady Tialait
2008-05-24, 02:32 AM
I am going to go with 4e, if I don't like it, Ebay will have a full set of 4e core and the quickstart modual in a lot...pretty simple.

I don't know enough, but be ensured after I get my hands on the bunch, and play a full 30 levels, you will hear all kinds of comments on my problems/or not and my hate/love for it.

Ah, the neutrality in me...mmmm yumma

LCR
2008-05-24, 02:32 AM
2. People markup prices for just about anything. Do they give you a free gun if you're trained to kill someone? I think not. We have a nice little thing called society to let people get away with things like that.



Yes, they do. It's called the military.

Behold_the_Void
2008-05-24, 02:44 AM
Yes, they do. It's called the military.

The military still has to pay for their weapons, they just arm their soldiers for free. It's also a government organization, which funds most of their weapon budget. The weapons are most certainly NOT free, far from it in fact. Also, most D&D PCs are not part of the military, adventurers are closer to mercenaries, who all have to pay for (or otherwise acquire) their weapons.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-05-24, 02:48 AM
Skywalker's Fallacy: The fact that a fallacy has been named after you must be either a good or bad thing.

In reality, it can be a perfectly morality-neutral occurrence.

You gave him the false dilemma? Give that back!

The Necroswanso
2008-05-24, 03:13 AM
Oh yeah? Well I hate people who go on forums and talk about how much they hate terms. Let's ban you!

*Pitchfork* Kill the beast!

Aquillion
2008-05-24, 04:34 AM
"You keep using that word, I don' think it means what you think it means"

4e isn't internally consistant because it uses different rules for PC's than it does for NPC's...

"But TempusCCK, if the PC's can go out and kill Goblins and get uber power from that, why doesn't everyone do it and everyone be uberpowerful! Lolz! Obviously, the Pc's should be ruled differently than everyone."

Uhh, because in an internally consistant world, the people with the ability to do so are doing that. If your entire world is built around the premise that you (The Pcs) are the only ones capable of being powerful, have fun, but your world is not internally consistant. There should be fighters everywhere that are very powerful, there should be powerful wizards all over the place. Why doesn't everyone just go up to level 20? Well, because there is considerable risk involved in that, and some people don't want to die, adventurers, on the other hand, are seperated only by the fact that death is not an issue to them. Therefore, they are the ones willing to put themselves up to level 20, unlike everyone else in teh world. Commoners have low stats, most people aren't willing to risk their lives to get very powerful, and the poeple that do are exceptional.Where do the rules say that only the PCs are the ones doing things like that?

My understanding is that most opponents (generic mooks, random orcs and monsters, etc) use non-heroic stats and rules, but 'important' NPCs (the big evil wizard, rival adventurer groups, etc) use stats that are basically comparable to the PCs, though simplified on a few points for mechanical reasons (there's no point in tracking their XP and so on when they don't have detailed advancement, say.)

3rd edition already uses vastly different systems for PCs and NPCs, you know. CR and LA are generally unrelated, so a monster that would be considered epic and world-shatteringly important as a PC can be considered only a minor, local threat as an NPC. Likewise, NPCs in 3rd edition do not earn XP or possess XP totals, and few DMs will bother to assign all the skills and feats for NPCs that they don't consider important. Typical NPC stats are dramatically lower than PC stats, NPCs have their own classes that nobody with a choice would ever consider joining, and so on.

But the biggest thing is non-human monsters. Seriously, 3rd edition screwed up monsters completely -- the way monster HD, CR, and HD advancement works bears no resemblence whatsoever to PC classes. Some monsters have class levels added onto them in a horrible frankenstein graft that, let's be honest, never worked. The whole CR adjustment / LA + HD / graft class levels onto a djinn thing was bollocks from the start. (Why do typical PC humanoids always have one class level, when a djinn or giant doesn't? It's stupid and badly hacked-together.) If you've been paying attention, it's actually something that 4th edition fixes -- monsters and PCs are now under similar rules, ones that should make them considerably more comparable.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 07:03 AM
4.0 isn't internally consistant because a lot of the rules make no sense, not because it's not backwards compatible. I'll give examples if you'd like. (killing a swarm of insects with an arrow, a 600% markup on items being sold to people whose job it is to kill things and take their stuff, and people who exist only to be an annoyance, to name a few)

1: If you don't think you could kill a member of a swarm or two, at minimum, with a single attack, I think you have a strange concept of a swarm. If it's an enormous mass of say, insects, how can you /not/ kill several by firing an arrow into it?
2: First, it's a 300% markup. Second, it makes complete sense for merchants who don't specialize in magic items to make that kind of markup, due to the difficulties in unloading it. I already explained the economics of it in the relevant thread.
3: I guess you've never seen a movie or read a book.

Edit 1: For that matter, Swarms are internally inconsistent in 3.5. Under 3.5 rules, if that swarm were all individual creatures, you would unconditionally kill all of them within a particular area with a Fireball spell, or a Whirlwind attack. Statted as a Swarm, however, you can't kill every member of the swarm with an area attack that contains the entire swarm.

Morty
2008-05-24, 07:17 AM
3: I guess you've never seen a movie or read a book.


And why, I ask, should a RPG game look in any way like a movie or a book? I'm not saying it shouldn't, mind you, but I'd like to know why everyone keep on insisting RPGs are somehow expected to try to look like them.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 07:23 AM
Why should all Roleplaying games do so, or why should DnD? Because there isn't a reason why all Roleplaying games should, since there will be some that have different goals, but any game that is being made with the intent to emulate a particular kind of fiction should. A game that was focused on creating a completely airtight, realistic world setup doesn't, but such games are rare, and DnD stopped being one by the time of 2nd ed, assuming it started as one (I doubt it, since we have hitpoints). If DnD were, say, Riddle of Steel, then I could see not emulating fictional elements, but it's not. It's an attempt to give us a way of playing heroic fantasy; Therefore, it should make it simple for us to replicate heroic fantasy tropes. In point of fact, I would say that by /not/ making it easy, it fails at its goals. If you'd like to argue that isn't DnD's purpose, you're welcome to, but you'll have a hard time without some Word of God (Which is itself insanely rare because WotC and TSR always keep saying "DnD can be used for every type of game we don't have a different system for", rather then just saying "This is what DnD is designed to do"). And it's pretty much impossible to claim that DnD is designed as a simulation of anything, given, you know, the entire setup.

Well, you could argue that DnD is there to provide us a mechanical skeleton for a game to play for the sake of winning a game, and could do so very convincingly and accurately. I would actually say that's DnD's first goal, period, all things considered, but nobody wants to hear that. But then you would shoot yourself in the foot if you were trying to claim that DnD is for simulation purposes, and would have to attack the tropes that the rules make possible as mechanical and game constructs, rather then attacking their 'consistency' or apparent lack thereof

Morty
2008-05-24, 07:41 AM
I'm not arguing that it should be impossible for D&D to replicate fantasy tropes from books and movies, as obviously many people want it and recieve it. However, I will argue that when some game element looks like book or movie it's automatically, objectively good, and vice versa. Because RPG is neither movie nor book even if it tries to replicate them.
Also, I don't think "cinematic" and "100% realistic" are the only options available. You can have a game that's not entirely realistic that doesn't look like a book or a movie.
Generally to summatize my point, I'm tired of people saying "duh, it's like in the movies/books/myths/whatever, you have to like it".

Rutee
2008-05-24, 08:04 AM
You don't have to like a trope because it's a trope, but you can't bitch about DnD having heroic fantasy tropes. Every time you've heard anything remotely similar (To my knowledge), it was in the context of DnD. And frankly, if an RPG sets out to try to replicate a type of fiction, /it is an objectively good thing for it to replicate their tropes/. That's the whole point of the work. Of course, DnD isn't just meant to replicate a type of fiction. That's probably aim no. 2, but aim no. 1 is, as it always has been, to have a dungeon crawling and combat game.

And of course there are games that don't care about portraying an internally consistent world or a particular type of story; But those are usually games meant to be played for their game mechanics.

Morty
2008-05-24, 09:55 AM
Right, I can't complain about D&D containing fantasy tropes themselves. However, I can, and will, complain about D&D containing bad, in my opinion, tropes. People existing only to be an annoyance is one of them.
Then again, 3ed was designed with preety much the same tropes in mind -the difference being, WoTC didn't boast about them in dozens of previews- yet my group managed to play almost entirely without them.

UserClone
2008-05-24, 09:58 AM
May I ask why people keep whining about weapon damage affecting insect swarms? You haven't seen any 4E insect swarms yet. If a level 12 Fighter can't hit a (Tiny, ~housecat-sized) Stirge or 2 with a sword swing, he probably would have died back at 2nd level when the Needlefang Drakes (also Tiny in size) proved likewise unhittable. Chances are, swarms of Fine creatures won't take much, if any, weapon damage from an arrow or flail. Truth is, we don't know yet. [/OT rant]

Also, italics emphasize things and are fun (and easy) to use.:smalltongue:

Scintillatus
2008-05-24, 10:37 AM
Do you think there's a tiny subset of Call of Cthulhu fans trying to turn it into giant robot anime?

Wait, ****. Bad example.

Tren
2008-05-24, 10:58 AM
To the OP's point, people seem to be confusing "internally consistent" with "logically consistent". The rules and parameters of 4E are defined to include things such as "minions die in one hit", "NPCs and PCs operate on different mechanics", "Something about swarms yada yada." These are the standard assumptions about the world in 4E, and short of having printed material that completely disregards these rules (not appending or revising, not creating additional rules that are exceptions, but simply flat out ignoring) it is impossible for any rules set to be "internally inconsistent" because the rules set defines what is consistent.

Now some people may look at the 300% markup and say "That doesn't make sense to me/doesn't seem logical/doesn't appeal to me" but that does not make it "internally inconsistent". You can argue it's unrealistic, or not the best way of handling such a system, but that's not the same thing.

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 11:11 AM
Thank you Tren, that is exactly what I meant in fact. A game system is always internally consistent because it IS the system, so it is always consistent with itself.

To take Rutees example about 3ed swarms being inconsistent because a fireball should instantly kill a swarm, perhaps in 3.5ed, swarms cluster into a tight mass when AoE effects go off, causing the fireball to peel away many layers of the tiny critters, but ultimately leaving the core mass mostly intact, thus causing damage to the whole, but not destroying it instantly.

It's easy to say a system is wrong because it doesn't match up to real life, or past systems, but the fact of it is, 4ed and 3.5ed are their own world, and whatever they say, is just how it works. Kinda like how back in AD&D you could bounce lightning bolts off walls, doors, and just about everything else. That was just how it worked.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 11:20 AM
Well, no, it doesn't work that way. A system isn't always internally consistent, and that's fine. To take the 3rd ed example, there are no rules to do what you claim a Swarm does. It would be internally consistent if, without actually being a swarm, you could execute the tactical maneuver you claim a Swarm does. Further, clustering /closer/ would only make them more likely to all die, because creatures can't block line of effect for other creatures.

Basically, it's internally inconsistent because by changing the statistical classification, you have completely alterred the rules by which the enemy (Or enemies) operate under. Which is fine; I couldn't care less if Swarms operate under the same rules as 1000s of individual creatures.


Right, I can't complain about D&D containing fantasy tropes themselves. However, I can, and will, complain about D&D containing bad, in my opinion, tropes. People existing only to be an annoyance is one of them.

It's not a bad trope; It's a trope you dislike. And to leave it out completely would be objectively bad. Why? Because an RPG is closer to a guide on how to write that kind of fiction then it is a work of that fiction. Your heroic fantasy isn't bad for not having red shirts, but if in talking about heroic fantasy, your guide or explanation of heroic fantasy completely skips the concept of "Red Shirt", you have in fact messed up.

Yahzi
2008-05-24, 11:52 AM
"You keep using that word, I don' think it means what you think it means"
Exactly what I was thinking when I read the OP. :smallbiggrin:


If your entire world is built around the premise that you (The Pcs) are the only ones capable of being powerful
Some people like to play games in sand-box mode. Heck, D&D is designed to be sand-box: the typical encounter is only supposed to use a quarter of your resources. That's not fighting for your life; that's killing for profit.

Yahzi
2008-05-24, 11:56 AM
A game system is always internally consistent because it IS the system, so it is always consistent with itself.
By that definition, everything is always internally consistent.

When you've defined a word to mean everything, it no longer means anything.

3.5e is not internally consistent; it has glaring stupidities. However, it has less of them than previous editions. The problem is not that we expect a perfect game system, it is that we expect a better game system with each edition, and 4e is creating whole new reams of non-consistency.

To be fair to 4e, these inconsistencies only appear once you leave an encounter. They only occur in the game world, not on the battle map.

Which, to be fair to the 4e detractors, is exactly their complaint.

(Sorry for the run-on posting... I accidentally hit Quote instead of Edit, and wound up quoting myself.)

skywalker
2008-05-24, 12:20 PM
Basically, it's internally inconsistent because by changing the statistical classification, you have completely alterred the rules by which the enemy (Or enemies) operate under. Which is fine; I couldn't care less if Swarms operate under the same rules as 1000s of individual creatures. Most of us, like you, don't care when this is applied to insects. But when it is applied to larger, more important, perhaps humanoid monsters, I think that is where the problem lies. At least, that is where it lies for me. Because while I will accept the alteration of the rules to create a swarm, it seems less kosher when it's a applied to orcs, or kobolds, or whatnot.

@Xefas: I consider neutral to be a good thing, because your name is out there and every time someone cites the "[you] fallacy" more people hear your name. Also, while I realize that was already a proof or theorem or some other fancy math-y philosophizing word, I think my fallacy is a specific enough case(about fallacies) to keep it. Pretty please?

Rutee
2008-05-24, 12:31 PM
Most of us, like you, don't care when this is applied to insects. But when it is applied to larger, more important, perhaps humanoid monsters, I think that is where the problem lies. At least, that is where it lies for me. Because while I will accept the alteration of the rules to create a swarm, it seems less kosher when it's a applied to orcs, or kobolds, or whatnot.

The rules are not significantly altered with Minions. "Doesn't take damage from a miss". That is the only actual rules alteration. They are in fact significantly so with swarms. There is also the fact that I ascribe no more importance to a minion then I do to the individual bits of a swarm, because they're /not/ any more important.

Animefunkmaster
2008-05-24, 12:40 PM
3. Minion-class enemies is roughly equivalent to a bunch of level 1 warriors attacking a higher-level party in 3.x.

I believe I have been trying to make that comment with little avail. While not exactly level 1 warriors, I would define them as weak enemies in an encounter in 3.x. For you see, they have defenses and to hit that is pretty close to par of a creature of that level, they just don't have the damage or the hp (and are immune from taking damage on a miss). So in fluff, they are weaker, low level, or mooks, but in mechanics they are a stronger version than a level 1 warrior in 3.x.

skywalker
2008-05-24, 12:48 PM
There is also the fact that I ascribe no more importance to a minion then I do to the individual bits of a swarm, because they're /not/ any more important. And WOTC seems to agree with you. But I don't(obviously :smallbiggrin:) Minions also have only 1 hitpoint, do a set amount of damage, etc. That's more alteration, I do believe. The point I was making is, the rules are being altered for the same reason, and IMO, minions are more important than the individual bits of a swarm.

The Necroswanso
2008-05-24, 12:58 PM
{Scrubbed}

Ralfarius
2008-05-24, 01:23 PM
{Scrubbed}
Posting in a thread dedicated to griping about how people gripe too much, only to gripe about it is like... Art.

I'm amused!

The Necroswanso
2008-05-24, 01:32 PM
Posting in a thread dedicated to griping about how people gripe too much, only to gripe about it is like... Art.

I'm amused!

Hey... You actaully got the point.[/not sarcasm] :3

TempusCCK
2008-05-24, 01:37 PM
Internal consistency is completely thrown out the window when you can use a skill to deal damage on a miss against one enemy, but not against another, the ONLY justification of that, of course, being that the skill would kill the enemy even on a miss, it it'll be too useful in the situation. You're not consistant on what constitutes "damage".

Sure you can say that Hp is a abstract and also includes things like the willingness and ability to fight, alright, so if Minions have 1 Abstract health/ability to fight, why can't you use your skill which drops it to make them faint? Oh, wait, too easy again, let's just make an arbitrary rule that you can't use this against X and move on.

Also, this begs the question, if HP is the abstract of willingness to fight... then when can I start dropping HP with intimidate checks? Oh, would that be too easy too? Better make sure that doesn't happen either.

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 02:02 PM
Rutee: You seem to be under the impression that the rules are inconsistent because swarms behave in a certain way, in which other creatures do not, simply because it doesn't explain to you exactly why swarms do. I gave one example of why a swarm might survive a fireball, and it actually was accurate. heat dissipates into matter. So if a given section of a swarm forms shells of bodies around a central core with space in between, it would soak up heat and concussive force from a fireball. Furthermore, no tactical maneuver is required for consistency. 3.5ed says swarms behave in a way that allows it to survive AoE damage that does not meet its HP total. It doesn't have to tell you exactly why, it doesn't have to give them any sort of special quality for it. They just do, because the HP and damage system says they do. Since at no point in the rules does it say every single creature by defaults reacts the same way to a fireball, their is no loss of consistency if Swarms react differently.

Tempus: Same concept applies to your point. it might not seem consistent to you that minions react differently to a special ability, but it is. Until WotC comes out and puts on the first page "All creatures are identical and must react to attacks in the same fashion.", It is still consistent with its internal rules structure. They don't necessarily have to explain to you exactly how the HP system allows minions to avoid miss damage, they just do.

As for the intimidate comment... use intimidate on a goblin to coerce it to surrender. Threaten it until it lies face down on the ground. Coup de grâce the goblin. Barring extraordinary luck on the goblins part, or lack of luck on your own, you have just bypassed all of its morale styled HP, and killed it in one solid blow.

SamTheCleric
2008-05-24, 02:08 PM
I'm going to call in to work "internally inconsistent" ... I wonder what my boss would say.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 02:37 PM
Rutee: You seem to be under the impression that the rules are inconsistent because swarms behave in a certain way, in which other creatures do not, simply because it doesn't explain to you exactly why swarms do. I gave one example of why a swarm might survive a fireball, and it actually was accurate. heat dissipates into matter. So if a given section of a swarm forms shells of bodies around a central core with space in between, it would soak up heat and concussive force from a fireball. Furthermore, no tactical maneuver is required for consistency. 3.5ed says swarms behave in a way that allows it to survive AoE damage that does not meet its HP total. It doesn't have to tell you exactly why, it doesn't have to give them any sort of special quality for it. They just do, because the HP and damage system says they do. Since at no point in the rules does it say every single creature by defaults reacts the same way to a fireball, their is no loss of consistency if Swarms react differently.

You're taking Swarms' internal consistency as axiomatic. "Because DnD says Swarms do this, they do, and it's internally consistent because a Swarm always behaves this way". That's the disconnect in our conversation. My argument is centered on the fact that the tactics you discuss are utterly impossible within the rules if you do not have the "Swarm" tag appended to your name.

Also, applying physics when most of the system does not is also inconsistent.

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 03:35 PM
So your argument for inconsistency is that if Swarms, or any other creature, have unique abilities not able to be replicated then it is inconsistent? That is just silly. There could be a thousand reasons for that. Perhaps only a hive like intelligence used in a swarm allows that sort of reaction time? They don't need to explain it, because the rules justify. The rules say a swarm is one creature, with certain unique attributes. It does not say that a swarm must follow the same rules as 1000 individual creatures, because it is not 1000 individual creatures, it is a swarm. The swarm tag itself is what makes such tactics or abilities possible, therefor it is utterly consistent. To argue otherwise is similar to saying the rules are inconsistent because treants can walk and ordinary trees can not replicate that tactic without the treant tag. It walks because it IS a treant.

And the system doesn't apply physics. It allows for fluff related to physics within its rule structure. It could just as easily say Swarms are immune to fireballs. Why? No reason, they just are. And it is still consistent as long as all swarms are immune to fireballs.

Rutee
2008-05-24, 03:40 PM
So your argument for inconsistency is that if Swarms, or any other creature, have unique abilities not able to be replicated then it is inconsistent? That is just silly. There could be a thousand reasons for that. Perhaps only a hive like intelligence used in a swarm allows that sort of reaction time? They don't need to explain it, because the rules justify. The rules say a swarm is one creature, with certain unique attributes. It does not say that a swarm must follow the same rules as 1000 individual creatures, because it is not 1000 individual creatures, it is a swarm. The swarm tag itself is what makes such tactics or abilities possible, therefor it is utterly consistent. To argue otherwise is similar to saying the rules are inconsistent because treants can walk and ordinary trees can not replicate that tactic without the treant tag. It walks because it IS a treant.

And the system doesn't apply physics. It allows for fluff related to physics within its rule structure. It could just as easily say Swarms are immune to fireballs. Why? No reason, they just are. And it is still consistent as long as all swarms are immune to fireballs.
So I heard I stopped listening to you after I realized that you were conflating "Rules consistency" with "Fluff consistency". But hell, one of my complaints was rules based, so.


So your argument for inconsistency is that if Swarms, or any other creature, have unique abilities not able to be replicated then it is inconsistent? That is just silly.
No, it is not. The part that makes it inconsistent is that the Swarm tag is a requisite for the feats you are apparently attributing to Swarms, except nothing about swarms makes them suddenly capable of that /besides/ the Swarm Tag. In point of fact, the Swarm Tag is in itself an inconsistency (All other creatures are single, distinct creatures; The Swarm Tag suddenly changes this rule), but what you say isn't something that is attributed to the Swarm Tag (Such as a hive intelligence), and thus, isn't an acceptable explanation.

What we come down is that by altering a title, the rules function in fundamentally dissimilar ways. This doesn't equate to in character inconsistency, but it is /damn/ inconsistent of the rules. Which is fine; I really don't care. *They're different things*. They /should/ be on different rules. But they're on different rules.

Vikazc
2008-05-24, 04:51 PM
I've actually just given fluff examples of how the crunch rules could make sense in a logical way, in no way is fluff required for consistency. The swarm tag isn't inconsistent, because the swarm tag is the basis for the rules about swarms.

They do not have to have hive minds, feats, tactics, or anything else to do what they do, because the swarm tag is what gives them that ability in the rules. The game designers could literally have put in a notation that says "Swarms are immune to all forms of damage or harm because orbiting space stations protect them with lasers and force fields" and it would not change the consistency one bit because swarms operate under the rules presented with them. How and why are not questions the rules are obligated to answer for consistency. All they have to tell you is what it does and what happens. Swarms are a certain way. All creatures with the swarm tag have certain abilities. Creatures with the swarm tag do not have these abilities unless otherwise noted. Those are perfectly consistent rules and you are just ignoring that fact, and the meaning of internal consistency to further the argument.

Since so many people seem unable to grasp the meaning of both the words consistent, and internal when applied to a gaming system, I won't be replying further.

Reel On, Love
2008-05-24, 04:56 PM
Next time I run a game, all Deflection bonuses will be provided by orbiting space stations.
(Also, Swarms' defenses.)

Kurald Galain
2008-05-24, 05:37 PM
Because internally consistent only refers to consistency within the given rules system. That means 4ed.

Yes, and that is called "circular reasoning".

However, you have apparently missed the meaning of "internally consistent". 2E isn't internally consistent because some rolls are "d20 high is good", others are "d% low is good" and so forth. 3E isn't internally consistent because, well, do I really have to point that one out again? And guess what, 4E isn't internally consistent either, because (among other things) PC rules don't apply to NPCs.

It's no big deal; most systems aren't internally consistent. I'd be hard-pressed to think of any RPG that is*. This thread simply feels like somebody is upset because he hears things about his favorite game, things that he doesn't fully understand but perceives as negative.

* well, except for Paranoia, of course.

AslanCross
2008-05-24, 05:43 PM
Next time I run a game, all Deflection bonuses will be provided by orbiting space stations.
(Also, Swarms' defenses.)

I like that! *yoinks*

Cuddly
2008-05-24, 05:43 PM
Yes, and that is called "circular reasoning".

However, you have apparently missed the meaning of "internally consistent". 2E isn't internally consistent because some rolls are "d20 high is good", others are "d% low is good" and so forth. 3E isn't internally consistent because, well, do I really have to point that one out again? And guess what, 4E isn't internally consistent either, because (among other things) PC rules don't apply to NPCs.

That's not internal consistency, that's just rule consistency. Internal consistency refers to consistency of fluff.

Kurald Galain
2008-05-24, 05:51 PM
That's not internal consistency, that's just rule consistency. Internal consistency refers to consistency of fluff.

Ah. Well, the fluff in 4E certainly is consistent, because every single race in the player's handbook (and several that aren't) have had a huge empire in the past that collapsed because of something evil happening. :smallbiggrin:

Seriously though? No. "Rules consistency" is a term I never heard before today, and which gets ~4k google hits where "internal consistency" gets ~800k, so I think that you made up the quoted difference out of thin air. In essence, consistent rules are an important part to internal consistency (but, as I said above, internal consistency really isn't that important to have for an RPG).

Tren
2008-05-24, 05:57 PM
Internal consistency is completely thrown out the window when you can use a skill to deal damage on a miss against one enemy, but not against another, the ONLY justification of that, of course, being that the skill would kill the enemy even on a miss, it it'll be too useful in the situation. You're not consistant on what constitutes "damage".

Logically inconsistent, maybe, other people are already arguing this point so I won't worry about it myself. But internally inconsistent? Not really. If the rules state "minions only take damage on a succesful to-hit roll", and then lo, minions only die when the fighter scores a succesful hit, it's consistent. Just because it might not be realistic, follow the laws of physics, or promote uniformity of mechanics across the entire game doesn't mean it's "internally inconsistent". As long as the rules don't blatantly contradict themselves, and minions only ever die on a successful to-hit roll (without codified exceptions written into the rules) then it's consistent.

Aquillion
2008-05-24, 08:49 PM
Under 3.5 rules, if that swarm were all individual creatures, you would unconditionally kill all of them within a particular area with a Fireball spell, or a Whirlwind attack.While I basically agree (certainly as far as fireball and so forth goes), I just had an image of a Barbarian frantically Whirlwind Attacking in the middle of a swarm of flies, and hitting every single fly in the swarm... exactly once.

Don't forget how Cleave would interact with swarms, too.

Roderick_BR
2008-05-24, 11:16 PM
(...) and people who exist only to be an annoyance(...)
That's actually internally consistent with Real Life :smalltongue:

Cuddly
2008-05-24, 11:27 PM
Ah. Well, the fluff in 4E certainly is consistent, because every single race in the player's handbook (and several that aren't) have had a huge empire in the past that collapsed because of something evil happening. :smallbiggrin:

Seriously though? No. "Rules consistency" is a term I never heard before today, and which gets ~4k google hits where "internal consistency" gets ~800k, so I think that you made up the quoted difference out of thin air. In essence, consistent rules are an important part to internal consistency (but, as I said above, internal consistency really isn't that important to have for an RPG).

When people use internal consistency, what they really mean is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verisimilitude). The consistency of the rules isn't really related.

For instance, in the Matrix movies, if they could manufacture all those high tech devices, why couldn't anyone get a decent pair of non-torn clothes? Are there no sewing machines in the future? That's the type of internal consistency people are complaining over.

The consistency of the rules is a different matter, not directly related to internal consistency.

Prophaniti
2008-05-25, 10:33 AM
@Cuddly: Well, obviously torn clothing is the fashion rage in their society.


so a monster that would be considered epic and world-shatteringly important as a PC can be considered only a minor, local threat as an NPC Said back on page 2, citing examples of the horrible mess 3.x made of monsters as PCs. True, it is a mess in that system, but the quote makes me think instead of exactly why I don't dig this 'PCs and NPCs/monsters use different rules' angle. Now, I'm not defending 3.x here, they didn't do it well either. 4th seems to be making a further disconnect from logic here, in favor of making the heroes 'special'. Which I suppose is fine, if that's the game you want to play. It is not for me.

"Internally Inconsistent", turns out, is actually quite amusing to say as often as possible in a discussion or argument.
Your momma is so internally inconsistent...I lol'd. Then I realized how horrible that sounds if you think about it too much. Then I lol'd again.

Seriously, though, as was pointed out earlier, most people (both people on this thread and the ones the OP was complaining about) are confusing Internally Inconsistent with Logically Inconsistent. Consistency in a game is either refering to the rules (ie whether or not rules contradict each other) or the setting itself (whether the story/history/background contradicts itself). This has nothing to do with how the rules or story compare with reality or logic, only whether they are consistent within themselves.

Every game has rules inconsistencies, it's a by-product of the creative process. Designers miss mistakes, don't think of certain odd situations where the rules don't mesh, things like that. Many games and settings also have story inconsistencies. These would be things like, one book says the Evil Overlord Jim came to power by killing the True King and usurping the throne, while another says the True King was simply deposed and exiled. Same reasons here, the creators simply missed the error, or they are trying to retcon something for some reason.

I have no real problem with "Internal Inconsistency" (it really is fun to say, try it) in most games. I expect it, and can handle it, and 4E looks to be no more "internally consistent" than any other edition of D&D was.

Thanks to those who actually read my post all the way through. It seems few people do anymore. Maybe I use too many big words... Like "Internally Inconsistent"!:smallbiggrin:

Talya
2008-05-25, 01:30 PM
TempusCCK already said what I wanted to say, but better.

I will simply add this:
Saying "stop saying this" or "that is a fallacy" is getting really old. SamtheCleric hates "verisimilitude." Vicars hates "internal consistency." And now there's fallacies left and right. I kinda want a fallacy named after me, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing, or a bad thing...

But seriously guys, are we to the point where certain words aren't even allowed to be used in discussion?

Skywalker wins the thread.

Newtkeeper
2008-05-25, 04:06 PM
I don't want the rules to be consistent between systems- if they were, why upgrade? I do want the rules within a system to be internally consistent (meaning they don't contradict each other). Not having read the 4e rules, I cannot comment on this.


I also want the rules to be consistent with the setting- what happens in the setting is determined by the rules, the economics of magic and the setting's economy jibe, if there are level 30 wizards running around, they have a good reason they are giving me quests instead of doing it themselves. Previous editions weren't very good at this (consider the economics of magic), and I don't really expect that much better from 4e, but hope to be pleasantly surprised.


And yes, too many people are claiming x is a fallacy. I really grow tired of hearing any two-bit typist claiming to be able to set the rules of discourse. But that's just my opinion- and disagreeing with me isn't a fallacy.

Jack Zander
2008-05-25, 04:24 PM
And yes, too many people are claiming x is a fallacy. I really grow tired of hearing any two-bit typist claiming to be able to set the rules of discourse. But that's just my opinion- and disagreeing with me isn't a fallacy.

Where do you think fallacies come from? How many people knew who Stormwind was before he wrote his fallacy?

I have to admit, I have told people on these forums recently that they were giving examples of the Rule 0 Fallacy. But you know why? Because they actually were.

Roderick_BR
2008-05-25, 04:40 PM
Where do you think fallacies come from? How many people knew who Stormwind was before he wrote his fallacy?

I have to admit, I have told people on these forums recently that they were giving examples of the Rule 0 Fallacy. But you know why? Because they actually were.
Who is Stormwind?


:smalltongue:

Talya
2008-05-25, 06:30 PM
In order for a fallacy to actually be a logical fallacy, it would need to fit into normal logical debate fallacy categories. They've just been specially named in this community to more easily be recognized as referring to a particular aspect of RPGs.

"Stormwind Fallacy" is essentially an example of circulus in demonstrando.

Jack Zander
2008-05-25, 06:40 PM
Who is Stormwind?


:smalltongue:

See? People still don't know who he is, thus proving my point that he started as (and maybe still is) some two-bit typist.


:smalltongue:

Cuddly
2008-05-25, 06:41 PM
Heh, no kidding.

Rules 0 fallacy? Seriously? That's not a fallacy at all; that's an alternative conclusion to a long syllogism with virtually all its premises unstated.

Jack Zander
2008-05-25, 07:03 PM
Heh, no kidding.

Rules 0 fallacy? Seriously? That's not a fallacy at all; that's an alternative conclusion to a long syllogism with virtually all its premises unstated.

Actually, now that I've searched around, I'm not sure there is a Rule 0 Fallacy. But The Alexandrian (http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive.html) has this to say on the subject:


RULE 0 FALLACY

You can also work around some of these problems by invoking the Rule 0 Fallacy ("this rule isn't broken because I can fix it"). In this case, when the system is inappropriately reporting failure or success, the DM should simply ignore it.

But if the mechanics are so broken that we need to frequently ignore them, why are we using them at all?

Talya
2008-05-25, 07:06 PM
Correct. Arguing "it isn't broken because you can fix it" is an example of circulus in demonstrando. However, there are other arguments to be made on that subject that are not circular in nature.

Cuddly
2008-05-25, 07:13 PM
How is that circular?

"Here's a system- we know it's not perfect, so we've implemented a mechanism to change it so if it fails you, you can modify it."

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-25, 07:28 PM
Yeah, but it's modifying the criteria of a question 'Is X, RAW, balanced?', changing them to 'Is X, RA(my DM says) balanced?', obtaining an answer of 'yes', and then using that answer to claim that the first question is answered in the affirmative.

Talya
2008-05-25, 08:24 PM
How is that circular?

"Here's a system- we know it's not perfect, so we've implemented a mechanism to change it so if it fails you, you can modify it."

"It isn't broken because I can fix it" is inherently circular. You only need to fix something that is broken. The people who are screaming that it is broken can also fix it. If it wasn't broken, nobody could fix it at all, and anything that is broken, can be fixed.

"It isn't wet because we can dry it out."
"It isn't dark because we can buy more lights."

wodan46
2008-05-25, 08:38 PM
Internal Consistency refers consistency with self, IE to rules in 4e not contradicting other rules in 4e, not whether or not it contradicts 3e or common sense.

For example, being able to hit a swarm of flies with a sword can be declared doable, so long as it is consistent within the setting.

On the other hand, merchants selling products at 5 times normal price would make sense in the real world, where even if you could kill the merchant and take their stuff, you would get killed by law enforcement, the weapons they use are lethal against you regardless of how experience you are. In 4e, PCs could kill the merchant with their pinky finger and the city guards with their index. After all, if the city guards could stop you, then why did the city need the PCs to stop the dragons? The only thing that can stop high level PCs are more high level PCs, and the world would logically be dominated by such people, as they would have near total domination over others. Granted, all of this was true in 3e.

I rinse my hands of this debate now.

NoDot
2008-05-26, 02:15 AM
Also, this begs the question, if HP is the abstract of willingness to fight... then when can I start dropping HP with intimidate checks?Isn't it already a Save-or-Instantly-End-Combat (panicked).


Correct. Arguing "it isn't broken because you can fix it" is an example of circulus in demonstrando. However, there are other arguments to be made on that subject that are not circular in nature.It sounds more like a concession of defeat to me.

Jack Zander
2008-05-26, 02:25 AM
It sounds more like a concession of defeat to me.

Which is why I've been pointing that out to people who claim it. And now we have posters getting angry and telling me to stop telling them that.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-05-26, 12:08 PM
Yes, and that is called "circular reasoning".

However, you have apparently missed the meaning of "internally consistent". 2E isn't internally consistent because some rolls are "d20 high is good", others are "d% low is good" and so forth. 3E isn't internally consistent because, well, do I really have to point that one out again? And guess what, 4E isn't internally consistent either, because (among other things) PC rules don't apply to NPCs.

It's no big deal; most systems aren't internally consistent. I'd be hard-pressed to think of any RPG that is*. This thread simply feels like somebody is upset because he hears things about his favorite game, things that he doesn't fully understand but perceives as negative.

* well, except for Paranoia, of course.

I think you're making the same mistake as the OP, or rather, you're making an analogous mistake from the opposite direction. Or maybe you're both getting the same right answer from opposite directions.

The moment you say "no game is internally consistent" or "all games are internally consistent" you've essentially defined the term into meaninglessness. So really the question becomes "is it meaningful to talk about internal consistency."

The basic problem is that deciding whether something is "internally consistent" or not depends very much on what criteria you *assume* something is making its internal decisions.

There's a lot of good examples here which unfortunately involve real-world politics, which I won't go into (most people view most other people's political beliefs as internally inconsistent) so I'll try and stick with D&D examples.

The Swarms example is a good one actually. The rules for fighting particular monsters change depending on whether you treat 1000 wasps as a thousand individual creatures or as one swarm, and those rules affect the actual results you see, in character, when you cast a fireball at a cloud of insects.

You could say "this is internally inconsistent" and it is if you assume that the purpose of the rules is to provide an infallible simulation of the operation of a fictional reality. If you assume that a fireball literally will do 5D6 damage save for half to everything within its area then it should be impossible for anything with fewer than 3 Hitpoints to survive a fireball, even if it was very, very lucky. If the swarm rules allow part of a swarm of 1HP insects to survive a fireball, there is a problem.

On the other hand you could also argue that the rules are internally consistent if you assume that they are an abstraction attempting to provide a fair and acceptable answer to the question of "what happens next". There is no non-mechanics-based reason to assume that it is impossible for some wasps to survive a fireball (indeed intuitively I would expect it), so the swarm rules provide a perfectly acceptable way to adjudicate an IC event which the current rules clearly do not cover.

To put it another way, anything can be internally inconsistent if a system is assumed to be sufficiently simple (chess is internally inconsistent because the pieces move in different ways) and anything can be internally consistent if a system is assumed to be sufficiently complex (the fact that you roll high for some things and low for others is perfectly consistent with a system in which you roll high for some things and low for others).

If you assume that the purpose of - say - the D&D character creation rules is to allow you to provide game stats to any being living in the game world, the 4E rules are inconsistent. If you assume the purpose is to provide game stats for PCs and important NPCs they are entirely consistent.

TempusCCK
2008-05-26, 05:23 PM
There is an issue here with a distinction being made between consistency of rules and consistency of logic/fluff/verisimilitude.

The main issue with this thread is that people are saying '4e can't be internally inconsistant because it's a whole new addition with new rules!'

Yes, and I agree on that point, from a rules perspective, 4e cannot be anything but internally consistant...

However, from the other standpoint, 4e is throwing internal consistancy out the window. "This attack has this effect against creature X, but not against creature Y." And why not? "Because Killing Creature Y would be too easy with that power!"

You know there's a term for that, it's called metagaming- using knowledge of the fact that you are in a game to effect the workings of the game. Only now instead of a butthead player Metagaming, it's WotC.

So, a quick summary of points:

No one is arguing that 4e rules are internally inconsistant, because the rules are a new entity in themselves and are going to always be consistent with whatever incarnatio it takes.

HOWEVER: There is logical/verisimilitudinal inconsistency via some of the rules as outline by the 4e game. That is what 'we' dislike.

Helgraf
2008-05-26, 05:45 PM
You're taking Swarms' internal consistency as axiomatic. "Because DnD says Swarms do this, they do, and it's internally consistent because a Swarm always behaves this way". That's the disconnect in our conversation. My argument is centered on the fact that the tactics you discuss are utterly impossible within the rules if you do not have the "Swarm" tag appended to your name.

So you take exception to the fact that D&D is an exception-based rule system, then?

Cuddly
2008-05-26, 05:54 PM
However, from the other standpoint, 4e is throwing internal consistancy out the window. "This attack has this effect against creature X, but not against creature Y." And why not? "Because Killing Creature Y would be too easy with that power!"

You know there's a term for that, it's called metagaming- using knowledge of the fact that you are in a game to effect the workings of the game. Only now instead of a butthead player Metagaming, it's WotC.

They're designing a game, not a simulator. The premise of D&D is to play heroic archetypes in an archetypical fantasy settings. Thus the rules must be constructed to allow that.

Rutee
2008-05-26, 05:58 PM
So you take exception to the fact that D&D is an exception-based rule system, then?

Perhaps you missed one of the many, many posts where I said "I don't really mind that the rules aren't totally consistent".

Helgraf
2008-05-26, 06:01 PM
Perhaps you missed one of the many, many posts where I said "I don't really mind that the rules aren't totally consistent".

That's internally consistant with my comments, yes.

Jayabalard
2008-05-27, 06:30 AM
"It isn't broken because I can fix it" is inherently circular. You only need to fix something that is broken. The people who are screaming that it is broken can also fix it. If it wasn't broken, nobody could fix it at all, and anything that is broken, can be fixed.

"It isn't wet because we can dry it out."
"It isn't dark because we can buy more lights."most people don't actually say that it's not broken... the claim is usually more like "it doesn't have to remain broken, because I can easily fix it."

"It doesn't have to remain wet, because I can easily dry it."
"It doesn't have to remain dark, because I can easily light it."

There's nothing circular in any of those statements; they indicative of a fundamental difference in what people think is valuable for discussion: what the situation is vs what the situation could be.

Rutee
2008-05-27, 07:16 AM
That's internally consistant with my comments, yes.

No, it isn't. "To take exception to" means "To take umbrage with". I hardly mind, but I did point it out.

Notwithstanding that DnD is hardly exception-based for most things. Perhaps magic, but.. the rest? Hardly.

PnP Fan
2008-05-27, 08:59 AM
The military still has to pay for their weapons, they just arm their soldiers for free. It's also a government organization, which funds most of their weapon budget. The weapons are most certainly NOT free, far from it in fact. Also, most D&D PCs are not part of the military, adventurers are closer to mercenaries, who all have to pay for (or otherwise acquire) their weapons.

I'd also argue that anyone who's been in the military would hardely say that they received those weapons for "free". After all, they've had to take oaths, and sign contracts, and do lots of other unpleasant things (not just boot camp), in order to receive a weapon that is on loan from the military, not given to them to own. But those are things that are hard to account for (except as the number of years of your life "lost" to military service, if you are inclined to feel that way).

Jack Zander
2008-05-27, 11:45 AM
most people don't actually say that it's not broken... the claim is usually more like "it doesn't have to remain broken, because I can easily fix it."

"It doesn't have to remain wet, because I can easily dry it."
"It doesn't have to remain dark, because I can easily light it."

There's nothing circular in any of those statements; they indicative of a fundamental difference in what people think is valuable for discussion: what the situation is vs what the situation could be.

But the game still starts out dark and damp when we buy it. If you wanted a white towel, you wouldn't buy a wet, black towel just because you can go home, dry and bleach it would you?

nagora
2008-05-27, 11:56 AM
D&D 4ed is a separate system from 3ed, 2ed, and every other edition. WotC clearly decided to take things in a different direction from the previous systems and change things. They did not at any point make the guarantee that 4ed would include every single option from all previous systems, or that you could do everything you could previously. It is a system designed to facilitate group play within the rules structure laid out by the game, while allowing people to alter the rules to suit their playstyle if it differs from the designers vision.
Okay.


Following that line of thinking, every single freaking thing in 4ed is internally consistent. The NPC rules, PC rules, all of it. Why? Because internally consistent only refers to consistency within the given rules system.
Not a logical conclusion. All you can say at this point is that not being consistant with previous editions is not something which makes 4e inconsistant. It may still be inconsistant with itself when it comes out. Nobody knows yet.

PnP Fan
2008-05-27, 12:31 PM
"Consistency, soundness, and completeness
Among the valuable properties that logical systems can have are:

Consistency, which means that none of the theorems of the system contradict one another.

Soundness, which means that the system's rules of proof will never allow a false inference from a true premise. If a system is sound and its axioms are true then its theorems are also guaranteed to be true.

Completeness, which means that there are no true sentences in the system that cannot, at least in principle, be proved in the system.

Not all systems achieve all three virtues. The work of Kurt Gödel has shown that no useful system of arithmetic can be both consistent and complete: see Gödel's incompleteness theorems.[7]"
Above is from Wiki entry for Logic.

I thought this might help the discussion a bit, so we can clarify terms like Consistancy.
I think when we are talking about rules conflicts, and definition of things within the game, that is Consistency (or Internal Consistency). As long as the rules don't directly contradict one another (i.e. in location A, the book says a +1 sword gets +1 to hit and damage, and in location B the book says a +1 sword gets ONLY a +1 to hit with no qualifiers as to why this situation is different, would be an example of Inconsistency, because the rules directly contradict each other). I think it's safe to say that, without a complete set of properly edited rules, none of us really KNOW if 4E is actually consistent or not, though conjecture is certainly entertaining. :-)

When we are talking about the natural conclusions about the world, and the implications the the rules have on things like physics and whatnot, that would be analogous to the propertly of Soundness. I'm pretty sure that we can all agree, that no RPG ever created can properly model the real world, and that, few, if any, games have this propertly. Catgirls die regularly.

I would also propose that, because human beings are finite, and the rules are, by necessity, finite, that completeness cannot be achieved either. Though an argument might be made that the rules by themselves are complete, it's their lack of the quality of "soundness" (verisimilitude, if you like), that inevitably they appear lacking in one respect or another. At best, they might be complete for a genre of literature, or a specific setting, and even that is probably stretching it a bit.

I hope this helps distinguish the things we are discussing here, because I think, from reading the thread, there is a lot of confusion between the concepts of Consistancy and Verisimilitude, and Game design (at least one person pointed out using the die rolls in a consistant manner as being an argument in favor of Internal consistancy)

edited for spelling.

nagora
2008-05-27, 01:21 PM
"Consistency, which means that none of the theorems of the system contradict one another.

The OP was trying, correctly, to establish that 1ed, 2ed, 3ed are not part of the 4ed system. Fair enough. But that says nothing of the consistancy of those rules that are parts of the 4ed system.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-05-27, 01:34 PM
most people don't actually say that it's not broken... the claim is usually more like "it doesn't have to remain broken, because I can easily fix it."

"It doesn't have to remain wet, because I can easily dry it."
"It doesn't have to remain dark, because I can easily light it."

There's nothing circular in any of those statements; they indicative of a fundamental difference in what people think is valuable for discussion: what the situation is vs what the situation could be.

But when the discussion is about what the situation is, those statements are useless. If somebody says "this is wet" and you say "but it does not have to remain wet" that isn't engaging with the issue.

I think the problem, though, with the "rule zero fallacy" is that different people expect to apply different levels of "common sense" and interpretation to a situation. For example, a lot of people complain about the fact that, by RAW, a pick can't break through stone, it doesn't bother me much because I don't think the D&D rules are *supposed* to model the use of a tool for its intended purpose.

These kinds of situations could perhaps be expressed as "it's not wet, you're just trying to use it in the shower" and "it's not dark, you have your eyes closed."

Jayabalard
2008-05-27, 01:47 PM
But the game still starts out dark and damp when we buy it. If you wanted a white towel, you wouldn't buy a wet, black towel just because you can go home, dry and bleach it would you?That doesn't really have anything to do with whether or people are using circular reasoning. If you'll note, my entire point is that Tayla is misunderstanding what people are actually saying since for the most part they mean that there is nothing wrong with having to fix thing.

If you want to make an analogy about games and use towels to represent them, then "a white towel" isn't really meaningful; you'd have to go with something like: I am looking for a tie dyed towel, and I have no problem buying a plain towel and tie dyeing it myself rather than buying one pre-tie-dyed. As a matter of fact, I'd far prefer to do it myself, because then I get exactly (or at least closer to) what I'm looking for instead of someone else's approximation.

D&D, even the most broken versions, isn't a wet black towel (edit, I haven't actually looked much into 4e, so I'm not actually including that one; it may well be black, wet, moldy and even less pleasant adjectives); at worst, it's a wet off-white towel. I don't have any problems getting it to where I want it to be, so I don't have any interest in getting the less fluffy pure white towel or the already tie dyed towel, since they will give me a less perfect end product even though their starting place might be "better"


But when the discussion is about what the situation is, those statements are useless. I don't have any interest in discussions of "what the situation is" . If I want to know that, I'll read the rule book. If I'm going to bother posting on an internet forum, I'm really only interested in "what it could be." If the only thing you're interested in is "what is" then you should specify that pretty explicitly and get used to dealing with the fact that many people are going to be interested in a bit deeper discussion.

Bryn
2008-05-27, 01:48 PM
But the game still starts out dark and damp when we buy it. If you wanted a white towel, you wouldn't buy a wet, black towel just because you can go home, dry and bleach it would you?

No, but you wouldn't buy a game system that has every aspect completely different to what you want. But what if there is a towel that is in a pattern that you happen to like, but there is just one bit of it that has been caught in the rain or something? Should you forgo the entire liked towel just because of one corner, or should you just dry that corner and enjoy the towel?

I have made this metaphor sound so goshdarned (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoshdangItToHeck) silly, and for that I apologise. To put it in more realistic terms, if generally you like 4e, but Dragonborn-boobs are a problem, is it such a good idea to go without 4e entirely because you disagree on the issue, or just remove that aspect of the game (entirely trivial to do, it's not like every roll is modified by a 'Dragonborn-boobs modifier' or something) and enjoy the rest? If you don't generally like 4e, then it won't make any difference anyway.


Edit: Oh dearie me, it seems the ninjas have attacked. Or at least, posted first.

Jack Zander
2008-05-27, 01:52 PM
Ah, I see the problem with the analogy now.

To me, 4th edition is a black, wet towel. To others it might only be off-white, or damp.

But my point remains that if there are a large number of rules that need house ruled to work, putting in a rule that let's you house rule them the way you want them is not actually fixing the rule. It's telling your customers to fix it themselves.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-05-27, 01:57 PM
That doesn't really have anything to do with whether or people are using circular reasoning. If you'll note, my entire point is that Tayla is misunderstanding what people are actually saying when they say that there's nothing wrong with having to fix thing.

Tayla isn't misunderstanding, people do *regularly* follow the logic that because something can be fixed it wasn't broken in the first place.

In some cases this is, in fact, perfectly fine (the fact that the rules don't *explicitly* state that dead characters can't take actions doesn't *actually* need fixing because you have to willfully misinterpret the rules to get that one wrong). In other cases it's extremely annoying (the most common example I can think of being "Wizards aren't overpowered, because if you play them as a pure blaster they're about as good as a Fighter").


If you want to make an analogy about games and use towels to represent them, then "a white towel" isn't really meaningful; you'd have to go with something like: I am looking for a tie dyed towel, and I have no problem buying a plain towel and tie dyeing it myself rather than buying one pre-tie-dyed. As a matter of fact, I'd far prefer to do it myself, because then I get exactly (or at least closer to) what I'm looking for instead of someone else's approximation.

Which is great (and not surprising since if I recall correctly you're a GURPS player). What annoys some people is that you can go into a shop looking for a tie died towel, find a box with "Genuine Tie Died Towel" written on it, buy it, take it home, and find you've got a white towel and when you try to complain about it people say "but it *is* a tie died towel, you just have to tie die it yourself!"


D&D, even the most broken versions, isn't a wet black towel; at worst, it's a wet off-white towel. I don't have any problems getting it to where I want it to be, so I don't have any interest in getting the less fluffy pure white towel or the already tie dyed towel, since they will give me a less perfect end product even though their starting place might be "better"

Which is great, but what the "Rule Zero Fallacy" complains about isn't people like you, who say "actually, when I want a tie died towel, I just buy a white towel and tie die it", it complains about the people who genuinely refuse to accept that there is a difference between tie dying a towel yourself and getting one pre-tie-dyed.

Jayabalard
2008-05-27, 02:00 PM
Ah, I see the problem with the analogy now.

To me, 4th edition is a black, wet towel. To others it might only be off-white, or damp.

But my point remains that if there are a large number of rules that need house ruled to work, putting in a rule that let's you house rule them the way you want them is not actually fixing the rule. It's telling your customers to fix it themselves.Oh I agree completely; I might even add in moldy or less pleasant adjectives.

Even as bad as it is, it's probably fixable... though not worth the effort imo. I'm much more likely to start with a different ed of D&D (or gurps) and then add the stuff from 4e that I like to that game instead.

PnP Fan
2008-05-27, 02:05 PM
The OP was trying, correctly, to establish that 1ed, 2ed, 3ed are not part of the 4ed system. Fair enough. But that says nothing of the consistancy of those rules that are parts of the 4ed system.

Fair enough Nagora. I wasn't disputing the OP, so much as I was trying to help some of the discussion on pages 2-4, where there was a great deal of confusion about the proper use of the term "Internally Consistant", which some folks were using to describe Versimilitude, and others were using to describe "consistant use of a game mechanic" which I don't think was the OP's purpose.

Oh, and I'll point out again, we don't really know what the 4E rules really are. We have teasers, sneak peeks, opinions, and one product that is intended to be incomplete (and a bunch of lousy hard cover advertisements disguised as "Product". In short, we have only the shadows on the cave wall, and folks are trying to describe the thing making the shadows. We might get some lucky guesses, but I'm still reserving judgement till I look out the mouth of the cave and see the product itself (which is why I'm avoiding participating in the argument, just trying to facilitate communication).

RukiTanuki
2008-05-27, 04:59 PM
Help me out here:

What level of "consistency" are we asking from a ruleset that openly defines itself as "exceptions-based"?

Anyway, I don't take part in as many discussions around here as I might, because it seems there's always someone repeating a phrase whose context I don't completely understand, and I'd rather not try and discourse with them for five pages only to find out that we don't even agree on the base definition of that phrase.

But then, I'm of the opinion that any time a dictionary definition is pulled out, that the discussion is basically on agree-to-disagree terms anyway. So, perhaps I'm internally inconsistent. :)

nagora
2008-05-27, 05:01 PM
But then, I'm of the opinion that any time a dictionary definition is pulled out, that the discussion is basically on agree-to-disagree terms anyway. So, perhaps I'm internally inconsistent. :)
You can get tablets for that now. Or just eat prunes.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-05-27, 08:01 PM
So many people keep saying that 4E is internally inconsitent. I disagree. 4E is not any less internally inconstent then other editions. It only changes what is consitent and what is not. There is a number of things in 3E that I think don't make any sense. Here are some examples

1) They say that hit points is an abstraction, and the reason that a high level fighter does not get killed from an axe swing is because he was able to roll with the blow and avoid most of it. But that does not explain why the high level fighter is harder to heal then the low level one. It makes that whole 'hit point is an abstraction' thing unbeleivable.

2) It seems that the only reason clerics are there is to heal the PCS. NPC's do not seem to get healed so easily. So many D&D computer games that I have played, have featured permently injured, or dying NPC's, that are unable to be healed. The clerics standing about do not seem to be able to do anything. (haven't they heard of cure light wounds?) It seems PC's can be miracously cured of anything. But the way clerics are portrayed in books, or the way clerics are portrayed in D&D settings, this is not always so.

3) It seems healing potions are there just for the PC'S. You find so many potions lying around everywhere,in enemy corpses, underground crypts, in locked chests, everywhere. This makes it evident that healing potions are very common. This would have a drastic effect on the D&D world. Everyone with some degree of money would have a few of them at home. It would allow them to be more daredeviish, becase healing is so easy. More monsters should be seen using them, and fights should turn into big long slugfests as both sides keep downing potions.

4) Wizards are clearly more powerfull then the other classes, yet they don't rule the world.

5) Detect evil, would have a profound impact on society. Paladins, or just low level spells casters, should be wanted everywhere just for that. Rulers would want that ability to check on their subjects. People who are in charge to keep the peace would want it for their investigations. Merchants would want it for their caravan guards, etc.

6) Raise dead is another spell that is clearly there just for the PC'S. That spell itself would have a big impact on society. No one who is rich would ever need to fear assasins.

7) It always seems odd that armies even exist, since low level characters are so useless. A higher level sargeant, would more uselfull then all of his men combined. Similarily, according to the descriptions of goblins, what is supposed to make them dangerous is that they come in large numbers. Yet numbers mean little. It seems puzzling that monsters a few levels higher haven't wiped them all out.

Taken together, clerics which are farily common and can cure everything, healing potions that are everywhere, dominating wizards, detect alignment spells and raise dead should change to society to a point we wouldn't recognize it. The D&D society descriptions do not reflect that. These things can all be explained away, but so can the so called 4th edition inconsitencies. It is game so there is always going to be something that does not make sense. Personally I feel that 4th edition seems more real, in realtion to the real world. Most of the points up top are fixed or reduced as an issue in 4th edition.

1) Healing always doing a percentage of total health, and healing surges and resting restoring hp, make the 'hitpoints as an abstraction' thing much more believable. It is still not perfect, but I can actually think of them as abstractions now.
2) The descirption and feel of clerics has changed, and is closer to how they are portrayed in media.
3) Healing potions are now unnessesry, and I am hoping they are either completly gone, or very rare.
4) wizards are now balanced, but feel powerful at the same time, matching their society descriptions.
5) all alignment spells are gone
6)Raise dead can not be gotten rid of, but at least now it sounds harder to cast.
7) The minion rules now allow for , 'strength in numbers', making both armies seem usefull, and goblin existience make sense.

Helgraf
2008-05-27, 08:18 PM
No, it isn't. "To take exception to" means "To take umbrage with". I hardly mind, but I did point it out.

Notwithstanding that DnD is hardly exception-based for most things. Perhaps magic, but.. the rest? Hardly.

Pretty much any feat that gives you an ability you don't have otherwise is an example of exception-based ruleset at work. Thing A, _except where widget B says otherwise_.

And that's all over 3rd edition. It's blatantly all over 4th edition because they're not even trying to hide the fact that it's an exception based rule system this time around.

Oh, if you don't think DnD 3.x is an exception based rules system, I invite you to consult the Rules Compendium, page 5, under the big header ORDER OF RULES APPLICATION, where they spell it out point-blank. {Bolding mine for emphasis}



The D&D game assumes a specific order of rules application: General to specific to exception. A general rule is a basic guideline, but a more specific rule takes precedence when applied to the same activity. For instance, a monster description is more specific than any general rule about monsters, so the description takes precedence. An exception is a particular kind of specific rule that contradicts or breaks another rule (general or specific). The Improved Disarm feat, for instance, provides an exception to the rule that an attacker provokes an attack of opportunity from the defender he's trying to disarm (see Disarm, page 45).

Prophaniti
2008-05-27, 08:20 PM
I want to point out again that all problems with the 'realism' of a feudal society in a world with magic stems from people treating the game rules as the rules of the world. They're not. The game rules are the (imperfect) tools we use to interact with the world. They are simplified and streamlined to ease our gameplay, that is why spells such as Raise Dead are so readily accessible. The rules do not reflect what the 'reality' would be with casting such obviously powerful and world-changing spells. Magic, if it were 'real' and you were actually standing there, instead of interfacing with it via the game rules, would undoubtedly take far more skill, time, money, energy and effort than what is called for in the spell descriptors.

That is why feudal societies are perfectly plausible in a magical world, although if you like, you can certainly build worlds where magic has had profound impacts on the average person's daily life. At least, that is my opinion on the matter.

Yahzi
2008-05-27, 08:29 PM
The rules do not reflect what the 'reality' would be with casting such obviously powerful and world-changing spells.
But it does - because your players can cast.

Unless the DM says, "No, you can't cast spells out of combat."


That is why feudal societies are perfectly plausible in a magical world,
They're perfectly plausible because magic only works when the DM wants it to?

At the risk of introducing another definition war, you might want to look up "plausible." :smallbiggrin:

nagora
2008-05-28, 06:06 AM
This reply is from a 1ed perspective:

1) They say that hit points is an abstraction, and the reason that a high level fighter does not get killed from an axe swing is because he was able to roll with the blow and avoid most of it. But that does not explain why the high level fighter is harder to heal then the low level one.
The high level fighter recovers from a single axe swing exactly as quickly as a low level fighter. If an attack did 7 damage to either, then 7 points of healing will heal that damage in either case. The abstraction issue is that the 7 points of healing is in the form of rest and/or blessings for the high level fighter, whereas for the low-level fighter it is in the form of physical healing. But, again, if the high level fighter gets down to 2hp, then their healing will be physical too.


2) It seems that the only reason clerics are there is to heal the PCS. NPC's do not seem to get healed so easily So many D&D computer games that I have played, have featured permently injured, or dying NPC's, that are unable to be healed. The clerics standing about do not seem to be able to do anything. (haven't they heard of cure light wounds?) It seems PC's can be miracously cured of anything. But the way clerics are portrayed in books, or the way clerics are portrayed in D&D settings, this is not always so.
Clerics demand payment and other pre-conditions they don't hand out their deity's blessings to everyone who walks down the street. Plus, in 1ed, spell-casting clerics are, like leveled fighters, a tiny minority of the population. If other games and editions have fiddled with that concept then there is a logic gap, I agree.


3) It seems healing potions are there just for the PC'S. You find so many potions lying around everywhere,in enemy corpses, underground crypts, in locked chests, everywhere. This makes it evident that healing potions are very common. This would have a drastic effect on the D&D world. Everyone with some degree of money would have a few of them at home. It would allow them to be more daredeviish, becase healing is so easy. More monsters should be seen using them, and fights should turn into big long slugfests as both sides keep downing potions.
These are all issues with your DM rather than the system.


4) Wizards are clearly more powerfull then the other classes, yet they don't rule the world.
That probably is a rules issue and is partly caused by the single XP chart.


5) Detect evil, would have a profound impact on society. Paladins, or just low level spells casters, should be wanted everywhere just for that. Rulers would want that ability to check on their subjects. People who are in charge to keep the peace would want it for their investigations. Merchants would want it for their caravan guards, etc.
In 1ed, Detect Evil works only on the most extreme cases. Most people, even murderers, are not strongly enough aligned with Evil to show up. Polymorphed Demons and artifacts of evil do, as examples. Again, the rarity of leveled characters in 1ed answers some of your points - spell casters (let alone paladins!) are too rare to find them at every merchant's office.


6) Raise dead is another spell that is clearly there just for the PC'S. That spell itself would have a big impact on society. No one who is rich would ever need to fear assasins.
I agree and, once more, the rarity of spell casters, and the great rarity of high level spell casters has an effect but also, the average person has only a 75%-80% chance of survival, which decreases each time, and once that's failed it's over for good. Plus, it doesn't help with death by old age.

But generally, Raise Dead is something that should have a bigger impact on the world than is usually the case, IMO.


7) It always seems odd that armies even exist, since low level characters are so useless. A higher level sargeant, would more uselfull then all of his men combined. Similarily, according to the descriptions of goblins, what is supposed to make them dangerous is that they come in large numbers. Yet numbers mean little. It seems puzzling that monsters a few levels higher haven't wiped them all out.
Yes, yet again, the 1ed solution to that is that fully 98% of people are incapable of gaining levels in anything. An army of such people can easily overwhelm a single figure, hold them down and slit their throats - hit points are no defense.


1) Healing always doing a percentage of total health, and healing surges and resting restoring hp, make the 'hitpoints as an abstraction' thing much more believable.

So the same heal spell that cures a low level character of a sword blow cures a high level character of 3? That seems strange.

RukiTanuki
2008-05-28, 03:40 PM
A thought I just had in another thread...

One argument against consistency follows thusly:
* I try to picture creatures in the game world in as many contexts as possible to increase the lifelike qualities of their portrayal during gameplay.
* I believe that a creature or NPC acquired its power naturally and organically, through birth, training, experience, etc.
* I like mechanics for generating stats for creatures or NPCs that reflect this organic power acquisition. (i.e. a naturally-powerful creature has base stats for its power, then "grows" if it's more fierce than normal. An NPC of a race a player could select for a PC gains levels and experience just like a PC, and has abilities a PC could take if they meet the prerequisites.)
* In the absence of these organic generation methods, even if the end result is indistinguishable, I lose the suspension of disbelief gained through being able to "watch" the monster NPC acquire its power.
* Without the above-mentioned, I find myself less able to understand how the creature or NPC became what it is. This directly affects my ability to portray the creature/NPC during gameplay.

All of this, of course, goes straight out the window if you're a person who doesn't consider it important that the mechanics directly reflect how every creature/NPC in the world acquires power. (Or, if you're a person for whom the acquisition of power is a silly little Dragonball-style idea anyway, and prefer to explain how PCs get mechanically stronger through some other trope.)

None of this means that the game system is consistent or inconsistent; they merely reflect how much the mechanics attempt to be a simulation. Magic the Gathering is consistent; it is not, however, much of a simulation.

Does that put the idea into perspective?

Dan_Hemmens
2008-05-28, 04:00 PM
But it does - because your players can cast.

Unless the DM says, "No, you can't cast spells out of combat."

I think the point Prophaniti is making is that although by the game rules taking a level of Wizard is no more difficult than taking a level of Fighter (or, for that matter, commoner) it is perfectly plausible and consistent to say that in the actual reality of the game world the ability to perform magic is rare and powerful, and spells are not cast lightly. Your players can ignore this, just like they can ignore the fact that your NPCs are supposed to be real people instead of little bags of loot and XP, but while the system does not *support* it, there is nothing preventing your running a D&D game in which the casting of a single spell is considered a significant act.