What Hill Will You Die On?

[Emberashh]

Just curious, why not?

Because rules don't need to meticulously detail how a character reacts to something scary or potentially dangerous for them to still act appropriately when such things present themselves.

Games have tried, mind, to get that deep. You and I don't know those games by name for a reason.

Mechanics that work against the feel want are actively bad.

The lack of a mechanic doesn't prevent the feel from occurring, however, as these are roleplaying games and as such, unless you're going to mechanize every single facet of what it takes to roleplay as a particular character, theres going to be things the system doesn't give you mechanics for because they simply don't need to exist in the first place.

Keep in mind, there are a lot of things players expect to be able to do in these games, and if you take this logic to its actual conclusion, those things are not possible.

And for the great bulk of games, that includes the very idea of telling stories. No story mechanics? Sorry, game doesn't support it. Want to introduce a plot twist? Oops, no twist mechanics.

Making arbitrary lines where we let one side of a GM screen actually roleplay while the other can stick it is ridiculous.

The constructed reality will be determined not by the reality of our world, but by the reality created by the rules

See above.

And if you as a participant in those games don't like that

Interesting, considering what you go on to say.

Throwing a temper tantrum about metagaming or how the character wouldn't do that is just bad GMing.

I was actually referring to GMs abusing this logic to screw over players, not the other way around, but it ultimately doesn't matter.

There are a lot of games that don't have an explicit section in the rules detailing how Lava works.

That doesn't mean any GM who isn't a complete novice (and a pushover) isn't going to immediately rule you dead if you dive in to a pool of it.

And thats a very simple example of the problems created by this logic. It gets more complex when you do things that start violating the fantasy being portrayed with the flimsy excuse of "no rules".

If a Barbarian is blocking off an area so his Wizard friend can cast spells, I don't care what system it is or what rules it has. You don't phase enemies through the Barbarian, and you definitely don't throw out this flimsy nonsense as a defense of that.

Because thats not just "playing the game". Thats you looking at two players coordinating their efforts and working as a team to win their encounter, and you're telling them to take that highly desirable playstyle and shove it up their rear ends.

Thats how you start making toxic tables that just revolve around screwing each other over.

And to think you have the audacity to call that "Good GMing".

 

[Celebrim]

See above.

None of the argument you outline logically follows.

I was actually referring to GMs abusing this logic to screw over players, not the other way around, but it ultimately doesn't matter.

There are a lot of games that don't have an explicit section in the rules detailing how Lava works.

True.

That doesn't mean any GM who isn't a complete novice (and a pushover) isn't going to immediately rule you dead if you dive in to a pool of it.

First of all, I disagree with that claim on the grounds that a good GM always quantifies everything in order to be able to handle edge cases. But secondly and most importantly, you clearly don't even know what you are arguing. If a GM creates a rule that touching the lava is death, well now you have rules for lava that describe the physics of it. And it's only after you have rules describing the setting that my assertion even says anything. And what my assertion says is that if touching the lava is instant death, then people in that setting will act according to that logic whether or not that logic has anything at all to do with the real world.

If a Barbarian is blocking off an area so his Wizard friend can cast spells, I don't care what system it is or what rules it has. You don't phase enemies through the Barbarian, and you definitely don't throw out this flimsy nonsense as a defense of that.

Err... OK. Whatever. Seems like a situation of either change the rules or live with it to me. "It's realistic so the rule shouldn't apply!" is an argument I hoped to have heard the last of 30 years ago.

Thats how you start making toxic tables that just revolve around screwing each other over.

And to think you have the audacity to call that "Good GMing".

You know, I'm just not even.

 

[Guest 7042500]

90% of what is discussed in online game forums is absolutely irrelevant to 90% of the people who actually play games.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

90% of what is discussed in online game forums is absolutely irrelevant to 90% of the people who actually play games.

I admire your optimism!

 

[CleverNickName]

We all have one: that subject that you just dig your heals in on, no mattter what.

Damage on a miss.

An attack that misses its target and still does damage? Absurd. It will never make sense to me. Yes, I've heard that explanation. And that one, and that one. Yes that one too. And that one. And that one, that one, and that one. And that one too, even though you just made it up on the fly to test me.

Still nope. You can miss me* with that nonsense.



*like really miss me, not miss-me-but-still-somehow-hit-me-anyway

 

[Richards]

"Drow" is pronounced "drow" and not "drow."

Johnathan

 

[Emberashh]

None of the argument you outline logically follows.

Yes it does.

If a GM creates a rule that touching the lava is death, well now you have rules for lava that describe the physics of it.

You're missing the point. The ability (and need) to retroactively add a rule to a game system, ie make a ruling, is precisely what undermines the idea that the game's rules can describe the "physics" of the world. They literally cannot without the further and unpredictable input of a GM, at which point you can no longer truly call what results the game's actual rules.

And lets be clear, this is one of the biggest issues that keeps recurring in TTRPG spaces in that no single table actually plays the same, even if they're ostensibly playing the same game.

Your assertions are not just wrong interpersonally at the table level for reasons already spoken to, but wrong even in the greater meta sense.

It's realistic so the rule shouldn't apply

...what rule? You are the one asserting the absence of a rule means you can get way with doing illogical nonsense.

Thats the second time you've tried to flip this around like Im just a bad GM/Player and thats getting rather aggravating.

Damage on a miss.

An attack that misses its target and still does damage? Absurd. It will never make sense to me. Yes, I've heard that explanation. And that one, and that one. Yes that one too. And that one. And that one, that one, and that one. And that one too, even though you just made it up on the fly to test me.

Still nope. You can miss me* with that nonsense.



*like really miss me, not miss-me-but-still-somehow-hit-me-anyway

I think this comes down to the relative illogic of "missing" anyway. With ranged attacks, missing makes general sense.

But melee ranged attacks? Nope. Swinging a sword and completely whiffing it can be fun for the laugh, but if thats to happen during serious combat, it needs to be because something their target did actively resulted in it.

Thats why Ive grown fond of dropping to-hit as a thing entirely and just adjudicating attacks based on opposed damage vs armor rolls.

 

[payn]

Female dorfs have beards.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

90% of what is discussed in online game forums is absolutely irrelevant to 90% of the people who actually play games.

Including the people doing the discussing.

 

[Fifth Element]

Mine is: Having a hill that you would die on with respect to a type of game is very, very silly. That should be reserved for things that really matter in the real world, which would probably be considered politics here so I won't provide any examples.