Your Suspension of Disbelief: SHATTERED!

[amethal]

it's especially jarring when the character suddenly acquires a British accent.

You'd be fine in our group, as our characters have British accents all the time.

 

[mrpopstar]

Mechanics disassociated from narrative are always the main threat to my own suspension of disbelief.

Related: Speaking through mechanics in order to make narrative contributions is something I work to push my players' thinking on. Contributing to the story using, for example, the cookie-cutter descriptions of spells in the PHB results in an awkwardly prescriptive tale.

The DM did not bother giving names to (unimportant) NPCs. Instead he called them Guard 1, Guard 2, Barmaid 1, etc. Terrible!

Though from a metagaming perspective, it made it easy to see which NPCs were significant and which ones were not. If an NPC had a real name it was like okay, this one is important to the story. lol.

LOL I kinda sorta maybe do this same thing (in a less egregious way).

I operate D&D as if the PCs are in a movie. Important NPCs get names, just like in a movie.

This!

If the adventurers take an interest in knowing someone, I'll offer a name where I didn't intend for there to be one, but it could be said that my offering of names is used as a signal as to whether or not I planned for a particular NPC to be important within the narrative.

 

[Riley37]

[MENTION=6786839]Riley37[/MENTION]Oh wait he is barred by class Definition from wearing it because of cultural Level ... ah wrong because of stereotype of course.

You've named yet another thing I find jarring in standard D&D: "balancing" higher tech levels with lower tech levels, in order to balance a stereotypical Level X barbarian with a stereotypical Level X samurai with a stereotypical Level X knight. When an army of unarmored barbarians, fighting as individuals, meets an army with armor, with shields and shield-wall methods, with archer auxiliaries, with centurions calling signals - we *know* what happens. Cannae was an exception to a long string of victories by Roman legions, and the Germans won at Cannae by fighting with methods they learned from Romans. An individual armored knight, in a pit fight against an individual barbarian, doesn't have ALL those advantages, because the methods specific to mass combat - the technology of teamwork - do not apply; but the knight still has a technological advantage in the form of better armor (and possibly a sword which is sharper and harder to break).

[MENTION=6786839]I am perfectly fine with your halfling pikes, they will have about the size of a human spear and be totally useless to said halfing other than in a Formation. I am not even debating damage die there which should be 1d8 of course instead of 1d10

Hey, we agree! 5E assumes a human-sized wielder, marks the pike as Heavy and lists d10. If you'll extend that table to a version usable by Small people, and that version does d8, then I'm with you 100%. If you give it a quality which makes it much more effective for a formation than for an individual, as Umbran notes, then *even better*. (IMO pike doesn't even belong on a list of weapons for PCs.)

If you give the halberd some quality which makes it the go-to weapon against foes in plate armor, more so than against anyone else, then that works for me too!

 

[Riley37]

You'd be fine in our group, as our characters have British accents all the time.

Indeed, Nevvur objects specifically to the *sudden* acquisition of a British accent. Not that a Guernsey accent has quite the charming lilt of Mancunian or Scouse... ah, never mind.

Are there passages from USA mass media, which people in Britain quote, with a corresponding accent shift? Or do you only quote Aaaahnold's lines from Terminator and so forth, thus borrowing from USA media but never in a USA accent?

 

[mrpopstar]

Are there passages from USA mass media, which people in Britain quote, with a corresponding accent shift? Or do you only quote Aaaahnold's lines from Terminator and so forth, thus borrowing from USA media but never in a USA accent?

Based on time spent in Britain and Ireland, it occurs to me that everyone across the pond thinks all Americans speak like a clueless valley girl ("like, ohmygod") or a dumb cowboy ("howdy y'all"). LOL

 

[Morrus]

When we are roleplaying a tavern scene and I dont have ceramic or wooden mug for my bear.

Why does your bear need a mug?

 

[Umbran]

Why does your bear need a mug?

You'd prefer he drank straight from the keg? You know if you do that, you aren't getting that keg back, right?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Why does your bear need a mug?

Because I treat my Animal Companion as an equal: if I'm drinking, he's drinking!

Mechanics disassociated from narrative are always the main threat to my own suspension of disbelief.

What do you play instead of D&D? Or do you replace hps, AC, turn-based initiative, &c, with less disassociated alternatives?

If the Players are to make a conversation DM should eventually provide a Name, esecially if they are to talk to them more often.
But equally interesting is: "My Name is of no concern to you!" Or "Why do you want to know my Name?"

" My name's not important. You must come with me..."

" How can I come with you if I don't even know who you are?"

" Well, um, my name is, um, it's ...
... Slartibartfast."

" What?"

" I said it wasn't important."

 

[Li Shenron]

What do you play instead of D&D? Or do you replace hps, AC, turn-based initiative, &c, with less disassociated alternatives?

Despite all the attempts to convince me otherwise, I've never had a problem with hp, ac or initiative.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Despite all the attempts to convince me otherwise, I've never had a problem with hp, ac or initiative.

I doubt anyone has tried to convince you that you do. It just indicates that it's some other quality - one that hps &c have, or that mechanics you label dissociated have, in addition to being barely as dissociated as hps.

For instance, hps have been part of D&D forever - so have qualities of tradition and long familiarity, on top of being as dissociated as can be.