D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

Emerikol said:

I can't cast fireball over and over because there is an IN WORLD limitation on the number of times a fireball can be cast.

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But why is there an IN WORLD limitation in the first place?

I think we can all agree the IN WORLD limitation exists because we're PLAYING A GAME, and unrestricted fireball casting would be bad for GAME BALANCE, not to mention all the IMAGINARY FLAMMABLE OBJECTS in the game world.

Therefore, it's more accurate to say there is an IN GAME reason for traditional D&D spell slots-by-level.

We RATIONALIZE this through various supporting fictions, or by simply evoking JACK VANCE's name, and his wonderful DYING EARTH stories, whose magic system bears a CURSORY RESEMBLANCE TO the one Gygax created for D&D, and from which he borrowed a few COOL SPELL NAMES.

We also use VANCIAN MAGIC in a wide variety of SETTINGS, most of which are built using very different assumptions than Vance's DYING EARTH -- which is super-far future SCIENCE FANTASY, in case you didn't know.

Which implies D&D's traditional magic system ISN'T MEANT TO REFLECT OR DESCRIBE ANYTHING about the SPECIFIC FICTIONAL WORLD our campaigns takes place in. It's a RULES CONSTRUCT which we adapt/shoehorn our particular settings into, because it's SIMPLE, EASY-TO-USE, and STRATEGICALLY RICH.

(WHERE WAS I? OH...)

Saying spell casting is limited by in-world reasons is inaccurate at best. So if you're willing to rationalize magic being limited for purely game-y reasons, why are martial abilities fundamentally different?

BECAUSE the reason for both sets of LIMITATIONS is IDENTICAL.

(great, I'm going to typing like this for a week. I have only myself to blame...).

Mallus said:

My blind spot here is seeing how process-simulation leads to immersion at all. I experience the strongest sense of character immersion when playing out social scenes in character, without rules or (die) rolls.

The words I'm speaking, my character is speaking. When I say "I", I'm referring my character; "Mallus D'Argentum", "Eastwood West", "Kelis" or, god help me, "Sir Yatagan Fracas". Nothing is being simulated (because nothing needs to be). I am them.

But as soon as my character has to do something that requires simulating, I'm forced to consider the rules-layer of the game. At that point, I am no longer them. I'll switch my attention to the rules-layer, and the more complex the rules are, the more time I need to spend 'crunching the numbers' --which was considerable for my 13th level Pathfinder PC, Kelis-- the more time I'll need to spend outside of my character's perspective.

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That's the trade off I mentioned earlier, with fidelity to process competing with mechanics simple enough to fade into the background. I think a lot of us have had reactions basically like yours, and thought something along the lines of, "Hey, it's too much fidelity to process sim that's causing the problem, for relatively little gain. So let's explore other ways to handle these issue so that we can move on." Thing is, some of these ways are more appealing to a given person than another:

• Process - sim as elegant as possible, then learn the system so well that it fades despite being complex--effort in system mastery for immersion rather than gamist concerns.
• Use a rules light system with processes only mapping in key areas that appeal at your table.
• DM fiat to get that process - sim patina out of mechanics that aren't really (fluff hiding or even flat out lying about the real nature of the mechanics being immensely important here).
• Drop the idea of process - sim altogether for something else -- typically player-driven (e.g. actor stance quality) or result-sim as a first step.
• Move all the process sim onto the DM, maybe even going so far as to take the character sheets away from the players. (Everyone knows the DM is crunching all the factors, but in character, in play it's not relevant to the player, theoretically.)
• Move the process sim into the background and/or away from the table. (A lot of "micro engineer something realistic to handle well in play," is of this nature.)

I'm sure there are others. But the one that I think first grabs hold of imagination and is hard to drop is kind of a "philosophers stone" chase that if only enough smart people work on the process-sim long enough, it will all work smoothly and do everything that everyone wants. You almost have to try to write your own process-sim system to completely get this out of your head.

Mallus said:

<snip LOTS of text WITH DIFFERENT capitalisation>

Saying spell casting is limited by in-world reasons is inaccurate at best. So if you're willing to rationalize magic being limited for purely game-y reasons, why are martial abilities fundamentally different?

BECAUSE the reason for both sets of LIMITATIONS is IDENTICAL.

(great, I'm going to typing like this for a week. I have only myself to blame...).

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Yes and no.

When adding magic to the game, it has to be added with some form of framework and constraint else it overwhelms any other aspect of the game.

The form of constraint on magic can be pretty much anything. Magic is after all, outside the players' direct experience. A player cannot look at the magical framework and say (with a straight face) "That's unrealistic! Magic doesn't work THAT way."

Aspects of the game that are potentially closer to the players' experience need to be treated more diffidently. If constraints for game balance reasons are being applied, they have to be examined for appropriateness and sensibility.

Telling a player that a Fighter may only swing a sword 3 times a day regardless of success, rest, etc. will be treated differently than telling the same player that a Magic-User can only cast 3 spells a day. It's the same constraint, but the Fighter version will get a lot more complaint.

Different players are willing to accept different levels of game constraint and I don't think this axis lines up with any other (simulationism, immersiveness, personality types, whatever).

4e stretched some of the constraints on non-magical abilities further than previous editions (the ED of AEDU). Of course, they were going to cause more complaint about the constraints.

Mallus said:

But why is there an IN WORLD limitation in the first place?

I think we can all agree the IN WORLD limitation exists because we're PLAYING A GAME, and unrestricted fireball casting would be bad for GAME BALANCE, not to mention all the IMAGINARY FLAMMABLE OBJECTS in the game world.

<snip>

Saying spell casting is limited by in-world reasons is inaccurate at best. So if you're willing to rationalize magic being limited for purely game-y reasons, why are martial abilities fundamentally different?

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Except there's one hitch in that analysis. Because there is no real-world equivalent of spellcasting and no single fictional representation of it either, ANY structure for magic is ultimately arbitrary and may serve as the in-world rationale for it. That the structure happens to be abstract and usable to promote game play is immaterial.

This is probably a major reason why you see so many more complaints about the AEDU system for the marital characters than you do for the spellcasters. Any spellcasting system that actually has an effect is arbitrary. Mashing it into the AEDU system isn't more or less believable than the traditional D&D system. It's an easier sell (though I still think its flexibility compared to traditional D&D leaves a lot to be desired).

Emerikol said:

I know you intended it as humor but I'll clarify anyway.

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My crack about talking to your therapist was intended as humor (as was my previous post with all the semi-random capitalization - well mostly humor, there is a point being made).

But this...

Your character is thinking whatever you declare they are thinking.

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... is meant to be a --succinct as possible-- critique of Alexander's dissociated mechanics theory.

JA said:

The mechanic is dissociated because the decision made by the player cannot be equated to a decision made by the character."

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The decision a character makes is a piece of fiction authored by the player. The standard order of operation is this: DM describes the situation --> player asks for additional information --> player begins deciding on an action --> player informs DM of their attempt action.

I don't understand how the two decisions cannot be equated, unless the player is simply unwilling to do so (or is implausibly uncreative).

Consider everyone's favorite 4e Martial Daily, Come and Get It (per-errata, even):

The player decides to taunt or challenge a foe to 'come at me, bro'.

The character decides to taunt or challenge a foe to 'come at me, bro'.

There, I have associated Come and Get It! (not so hard, eh?).

Now, I admit it might be wildly implausible for the given 'bro' in question to accept the taunt -- it might be a squishy mage, or an ooze, or mindless skeleton. But that's a matter of realism, not dissociation between the player and the PCs decision-making processes.

Mallus said:

My crack about talking to your therapist was intended as humor (as was my previous post with all the semi-random capitalization).

But this...

... is meant to be a --succinct as possible-- critique of Alexander's dissociated mechanics theory.


The decision a character makes is a piece of fiction authored by the player. The standard order of operation is this: DM describes the situation --> player asks for additional information --> player begins deciding on an action --> player informs DM of their attempt action.

I don't understand how the two decisions cannot be equated, unless the player is simply unwilling to do so (or is implausibly uncreative).

Consider everyone's favorite 4e Martial Daily, Come and Get It (per-errata, even):

The player decides to taunt or challenge a foe to 'come at me, bro'.

The character decides to taunt or challenge a foe to 'come at me, bro'.

There, I have associated Come and Get It! (not so hard, eh?).

Now, I admit it might be wildly implausible for the given 'bro' in question to accept the taunt -- it might be a squishy mage, or an ooze, or mindless skeleton. But that's a matter of realism, not dissociation between the player and the PCs decision-making process.

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you haven't really associated CaGI with the taunt though.

The character can make that taunt every round of the combat.

The creature only runs over to get torn to pieces when the power is used in round 15. From a character's perspective there is no difference between the first unsuccessful 14 taunts and the last one or a taunt in any subsequent round (which can never be as successful since the Daily was used).

Nagol said:

When adding magic to the game, it has to be added with some form of framework and constraint else it overwhelms any other aspect of the game.

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Right - it's a balance issue. But so is limiting the number of super-moves and/or critical hits a martial character can pull off in a given period of time.

Aspects of the game that are potentially closer to the players' experience need to be treated more diffidently. If constraints for game balance reasons are being applied, they have to be examined for appropriateness and sensibility.

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I think this is true, with two important caveats.

One: most player's practical experience with swordplay/ancient weapons combat comes from entertainment media, ie books, film, television, and computer/video games.

It's a common conceit in those media that a fighter can only bust out their super-moves a limited number of times (and not every second of the fight). So in a way, 4e's AEDU methodology more accurately the combat experiences D&D players are actually familiar with.

Two: there really isn't a lot sensible about pre-4e combat. I submit for consideration my 3e two-handed Reach weapon Improved Trip monkey, Rashid.

Telling a player that a Fighter may only swing a sword 3 times a day regardless of success, rest, etc...

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But a 4e fighter can swing their sword an unlimited number of times per day. However, they get a limited number of super moves/golden opportunities to strike, which is congruent with the a lot of the source fiction.

Different players are willing to accept different levels of game constraint and I don't think this axis lines up with any other (simulationism, immersiveness, personality types, whatever).

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This is absolutely true. We could --and should!-- replace Justin Alexander's whole dissociated mechanics theory with your single sentence.

Nagol said:

you haven't really associated CaGI with the taunt though.

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Sure I have!

The character can make that taunt every round of the combat.

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The one the character makes when the players uses CaGI is extra mean!

The creature only runs over to get torn to pieces when the power is used in round 15. From a character's perspective there is no difference between the first unsuccessful 14 taunts and the last one or a taunt in any subsequent round (which can never be as successful since the Daily was used).

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Why are you assuming the taunts are all identical? The more reasonable thing to assume is the one that corresponds to the use of CaGI is different.

To my mind, your example is a willful attempt to sabotage the association of the mechanic and the fiction by declaring all the taunts to be identical from the viewpoint of the character. If you choose to declare the CaGI taunt as different, more emphatic, ruder, whatever, from the character's POV then your problem goes away.

Mallus said:

But why is there an IN WORLD limitation in the first place?

.....stuff....

BECAUSE the reason for both sets of LIMITATIONS is IDENTICAL.

(great, I'm going to typing like this for a week. I have only myself to blame...).

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First. Magic is made up and it only then becomes part of the D&D world. But D&D has an implied setting. Something thats common to almost all campaigns. Wizards memorize/prepare spells and cast them. Could it be different? Of course. It could be anything because it's magic. In D&D even there are classes that do it differently. But however classes do it that then becomes the standard for the world.

So a wizard who casts a fireball in a D&D world knows with certainty that he can't cast that fireball again. (He could memorize/prepare it twice of course but you get the point). It is a limitation that fits the reality of the world. There is no disconnect from the way the wizard is thinking and the player of that wizard.

On the flip side. In 4e, a fighter who did a daily power once at 10am doesn't realize he can't do it again. The player knows he can't. But the character is hoping another opportunity arises where he might use it. And the nature of some powers completely make this nonsensical. If I do "Come and Get It" once what in the world is the reason I can't do it again. The only reason is that that is the rule. There is no in world explanation.

And that is my issue. It's why I wouldn't have an issue with "Come and Get It" as an at-will power. It's not (necessarily) the power I have issue with. The frequency though is nonsensical. I do have issues with some powers but but hey that applies to all classes not just martial ones and is a totally separate issue and is far easier to fix.

When the system bakes in plot coupons, the game has chosen one style over all others.

Mallus said:

To my mind, your example is a willful attempt to sabotage the association of the mechanic and the fiction by declaring all the taunts to be identical from the viewpoint of the character. If you choose to declare the CaGI taunt as different, more emphatic, ruder, whatever, from the character's POV then your problem goes away.

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But why can't the character do the extra mean taunt every time. Of course there has to be something different even if it's the minds of the enemy. But you the player are choosing something that the character would always choose. You are limiting the character as the player whereas the character would never choose to be so limited.