Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Fantasy world maps and real world geology
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 3584027" data-attributes="member: 15999"><p>Just to clarify, what I mean by "on-camera" is what happens during the game sessions to the PCs or the beings they are interacting with. A tiny and typically extraordinarily anomalous subset of "All events that happen in this reality."</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'll give this a shot. Bear with me if I misinterpret the distinction.</p><p></p><p>I'm envisioning that the Rules as Used apply to PCs and their opponents during the combats. I might not use the insta-kill variant (consecutive 20's confirmed) in the game, but use it for other events of the game world (such as backstory). A dragon slain by a single arrow in a weak point; a skilled samurai killed by a single musket shot. If the players were to ask "Well, why can't we insta-kill things?" I could respond "Look, if you want me to use the insta-kill variant, fine, but it'll generally work against you." The result is that it only applies off-camera, and the Rules as Used are modified from the underlying reality in order to make the game more fun. Same for crippling injuries, a 3000' fall killing a frost giant, NPCs leveling by fiat, frequency of wandering monster encounters for a typical hamlet, and so on. The "off-screen" rules aren't the same.</p><p></p><p></p><p>From the character perspective, I'd expect PCs to apply a predictive model consistent with whatever I've expressed to be the prevailing "natural philosophies" of their cultures, unless they have enough knowledge to think otherwise. Suppose it's Dark Ages Europe tech level with rare magic. Basic mechanics and simple machines are fairly well known, some concepts of aerodynamics, little understanding of disease, etc. Magic is not the rules, magic is a very rare thing that breaks the rules. It's always an exception, always an anomaly. No predictive model accounts for it or explains it. Now, if I've tried to establish a feel for the world as mostly realistic, the PCs can try to use real-world physics. I'll house-rule something if the RAW are in egregious and *immediate* disagreement with real-world physics -- not plate tectonics but something like falling damage for a mouse familiar. But they can only use physics to the degree that their PC would have understood it. Using a lever to move a heavy rock, sure, that would work (although perhaps not in a dreamscape or the Faerie Realm). Another PC tries to use Polymorph Any Object to create antimatter, appealing to the RAW for his definition of reality (the DMG has antimatter rifles). Nope, sorry, doesn't work. </p><p></p><p>Many actions involving PCs *do* allow the rules to be used as a predictive model because the PCs are "on-camera." They have tons of experience with the flukey things that defy every scholar's expectations, and they may come to rely on the game mechanics and actually believe that reality more. That ends up being like Last Action Hero; he *expects* that cars will blow up when he shoots them because that's the RAW of his world when he's on-camera. This is the situation in which PCs *know* they can jump off a 3000' cliff and survive. Some players won't apply that level of metagaming, some will. That, I think, is a player decision -- however, they certainly can't apply this model to things that happen off-camera. They should never ask "Why didn't the king just jump off the cliff, take the HP damage, take 10 on his Swim checks, and get away?"</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think it's a few anomalies slapped on. Everything we know is the same, except for this thing, which is not. It's not explained, it's not defined, it just exists. It's a kind of magic. </p><p></p><p>Personally, that's how I like to use magic. Not as part of reality, but as an exception to reality. That's what makes it magic and not technology in my mind -- and I try very hard to make it seem as unreal as possible. The spells Solipsism and There/Not There from the 2e Tome of Magic were among the best illustrations of what I think magic should be.</p><p></p><p>I was at the NC Museum of Art the other day, and there was a Mona Lisa made up of spools of thread hanging on wires. A black spool here, a brown spool here. From far enough away, it's the Mona Lisa. Look real close, zoom in one one spool, and all you see is some black string. D&D rules, like movie/TV conventions, work fine as long as you don't look real close. I don't think they hold up under scrutiny or attempts to use them as a predictive model, though I imagine it could be done with a great deal of work. I'd be very curious to see, say, Fusangite's interpretation of what a world *does* look like when you use the RAW as your underlying rules of reality.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 3584027, member: 15999"] Just to clarify, what I mean by "on-camera" is what happens during the game sessions to the PCs or the beings they are interacting with. A tiny and typically extraordinarily anomalous subset of "All events that happen in this reality." I'll give this a shot. Bear with me if I misinterpret the distinction. I'm envisioning that the Rules as Used apply to PCs and their opponents during the combats. I might not use the insta-kill variant (consecutive 20's confirmed) in the game, but use it for other events of the game world (such as backstory). A dragon slain by a single arrow in a weak point; a skilled samurai killed by a single musket shot. If the players were to ask "Well, why can't we insta-kill things?" I could respond "Look, if you want me to use the insta-kill variant, fine, but it'll generally work against you." The result is that it only applies off-camera, and the Rules as Used are modified from the underlying reality in order to make the game more fun. Same for crippling injuries, a 3000' fall killing a frost giant, NPCs leveling by fiat, frequency of wandering monster encounters for a typical hamlet, and so on. The "off-screen" rules aren't the same. From the character perspective, I'd expect PCs to apply a predictive model consistent with whatever I've expressed to be the prevailing "natural philosophies" of their cultures, unless they have enough knowledge to think otherwise. Suppose it's Dark Ages Europe tech level with rare magic. Basic mechanics and simple machines are fairly well known, some concepts of aerodynamics, little understanding of disease, etc. Magic is not the rules, magic is a very rare thing that breaks the rules. It's always an exception, always an anomaly. No predictive model accounts for it or explains it. Now, if I've tried to establish a feel for the world as mostly realistic, the PCs can try to use real-world physics. I'll house-rule something if the RAW are in egregious and *immediate* disagreement with real-world physics -- not plate tectonics but something like falling damage for a mouse familiar. But they can only use physics to the degree that their PC would have understood it. Using a lever to move a heavy rock, sure, that would work (although perhaps not in a dreamscape or the Faerie Realm). Another PC tries to use Polymorph Any Object to create antimatter, appealing to the RAW for his definition of reality (the DMG has antimatter rifles). Nope, sorry, doesn't work. Many actions involving PCs *do* allow the rules to be used as a predictive model because the PCs are "on-camera." They have tons of experience with the flukey things that defy every scholar's expectations, and they may come to rely on the game mechanics and actually believe that reality more. That ends up being like Last Action Hero; he *expects* that cars will blow up when he shoots them because that's the RAW of his world when he's on-camera. This is the situation in which PCs *know* they can jump off a 3000' cliff and survive. Some players won't apply that level of metagaming, some will. That, I think, is a player decision -- however, they certainly can't apply this model to things that happen off-camera. They should never ask "Why didn't the king just jump off the cliff, take the HP damage, take 10 on his Swim checks, and get away?" I think it's a few anomalies slapped on. Everything we know is the same, except for this thing, which is not. It's not explained, it's not defined, it just exists. It's a kind of magic. Personally, that's how I like to use magic. Not as part of reality, but as an exception to reality. That's what makes it magic and not technology in my mind -- and I try very hard to make it seem as unreal as possible. The spells Solipsism and There/Not There from the 2e Tome of Magic were among the best illustrations of what I think magic should be. I was at the NC Museum of Art the other day, and there was a Mona Lisa made up of spools of thread hanging on wires. A black spool here, a brown spool here. From far enough away, it's the Mona Lisa. Look real close, zoom in one one spool, and all you see is some black string. D&D rules, like movie/TV conventions, work fine as long as you don't look real close. I don't think they hold up under scrutiny or attempts to use them as a predictive model, though I imagine it could be done with a great deal of work. I'd be very curious to see, say, Fusangite's interpretation of what a world *does* look like when you use the RAW as your underlying rules of reality. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Fantasy world maps and real world geology
Top