D&D General When the fiction doesn't match the mechanics

[James Gasik]

I think it was the 2e DMG that briefly discusses why specific wounds and injuries aren't modeled for a reason; given the sheer amount of combat a D&D character sees, by 5th level, they'd be a sorry mess of missing eyes/ears/noses/fingers/limbs (I'm suddenly reminded of Wesley's threat of "to the pain!").

 

[Micah Sweet]

But when is a good time to level up? In real life, you learn continuously. You don't go back to some class-based home base (a wizard's tower, a fighter 'school'). To me, that form of level up is a cognitive dissonance.

And a random DING! as soon as you kill that last goblin isn't?

 

[Neonchameleon]

You can't be poisoned or envonomed by a venomous creature or poisoned weapon without being hit. I should think that was obvious.

And you don't need to be more than scratched to be poisoned. Scratches, grazes, and bruises - the sort of damage an action movie hero picks up without seriously slowing them.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And a random DING! as soon as you kill that last goblin isn't?

I tend to make it the next long rest. But the concept of "levelling up" at all being more than a metaphor is something that categorically demonstrates that the D&D world is not like ours and runs under its own logic. The next long rest is the least immersion breaking option.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And you don't need to be more than scratched to be poisoned. Scratches, grazes, and bruises - the sort of damage an action movie hero picks up without seriously slowing them.

Again, you may be playing an action movie, but I'm not.

 

[Cadence]

Given the choice between:

(a) the words cure, heal, wounding,, hit, damage, regeneration, etc... just being words about getting more or less nothing (until the last hp is gone and then being a matter of life and three dice rolls from being dead), and D&D combat meaning no one was ever actually injured in the usual sense until the last swing,

and

(b) hit points being a mishmash of luck, vitality, physical health, etc.. and damage being a mishmash of wounds, exhaustion, depletion of luck, etc... and hits being a mishmash of actual hits of various severity and strenuous rolling with the hits that deplete the stamina and luck and etc... and the game rules just not finding it worth while to give penalties as the hp to down or to separate the meat from the heroic chutzpah on the character sheet

I'll take the the latter and choose to narrate it as an appropriate seeming mixture. The former has always struck me as pretty insipid. Others mileages obviously vary.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again, you may be playing an action movie, but I'm not.

You might not be - but that doesn't mean that D&D rules aren't designed using Hollywood Physics. You just ignore or fight them every step of the way from hit points to levelling up between episodes.

And while you can force D&D not to be an action movie game it was explicitly designed for fun by someone who thought realism was a refuge of scoundrels. And there are plenty of games that actually try to model reality.

So why use D&D?

 

[Cadence]

Don't most action movies have the hero actually hurt momentarily - bloodied, a hurt arm, physically staggered back - besides when they're almost dead? Isn't it almost de rigeur at least once before they really let the opponent have it?

 

[Micah Sweet]

You might not be - but that doesn't mean that D&D rules aren't designed using Hollywood Physics. You just ignore or fight them every step of the way from hit points to levelling up between episodes.

And while you can force D&D not to be an action movie game it was explicitly designed for fun by someone who thought realism was a refuge of scoundrels. And there are plenty of games that actually try to model reality.

So why use D&D?

Because I have a group full of 5e players, the same reason as everyone who'd rather play something else.

And where does it say that designers of 5e think realism is the refuge of scoundrels (or words to that effect)? Do you have a statement anywhere from WotC about their design intentions? I know you assume you're right, but I don't.

 

[Lanefan]

But when is a good time to level up? In real life, you learn continuously. You don't go back to some class-based home base (a wizard's tower, a fighter 'school'). To me, that form of level up is a cognitive dissonance.

Not for me.

For me it's the class-and-field learning model: you learn x-amount of theory in class then go out and put that learning into practice in the field. Then having mastered that material you go back to class for the next round of theory, then once again head to the field to put that new theory into practice and integrate it with what you already knew. Lather rinse repeat.

I've been in many a course that's used just this model. It maps well to the idea of training before each level: bumping indicates you've mastered the last round of theory and are now able to go back to the (figurative) classroom for another round.