D&D 4E How does 4E hold up on verisimilitude?

[Mistwell]

The current popularity of attacking elitism is clearly political in nature -- so we probably shouldn't debate whether it's right or wrong -- but it's based on the obvious disconnect between what the "coastal elites" take for granted and how that differs tremendously from what "ordinary Americans" care about.
None of that strikes me as elitist. Using jargon is perfectly normal for any group -- lawyers, scientists, policy wonks, whatever -- discussing a specialized topic.

Oh I hadn't even thought about current politics. I was thinking about just the general topic, which I've seen before for many groups.

And as a lawyer, let me say I really dislike it when fellow lawyers try to use latin words (for example), because I know damn well they are doing it just to make non-lawyers feel stupid. The current trend in law schools (at least when I went) was to try and cut our all those elitist left-overs from an era when it was cool to be elitist in that profession.

The only time I think it's OK to use jargon is when it actually saves time, and you're not excluding people. When you know the person you are communicating with understands that jargon, and you're not trying to get someone to join your group that doesn't understand that jargon. That isn't the case with this hobby. Particularly with this word, we know for sure at this point that it's not saving time, because I have yet to see the word used without someone else arguing about it's definition, or asking about it, or backing away from the discussion because they are uncertain of its meaning.

And, as I mentioned earlier, I hardly think of using verisimilitude as either elitist or a fad that came about because it was cool.

I do. At least, I think the first people to use it here were doing it for that reason (and, no offense to those folks, but it's a common sort of nerdy elitist thing to do, to use words you think your debating opponent might not know to make them feel lesser in the debate).

People started using verisimilitude for the simple reason that when they said realism someone would always quip, "How can you be concerned about realism in a game with wizards and dragons?"

Verisimilitude is not a word most of us use in everyday conversation, but it is the correct word, and, more importantly, it sidesteps that facile "there are wizards and dragons" counterargument.

It might be the correct word, but it doesn't serve to communicate that message very well, and I think that's been shown over and over again. If you are trying to say "This new hit point system doesn't feel as believable as it should", that communicates better than saying "The 4e HP sys breaks verisimilitude". The odds that people will understand what you are trying to say are better when you use the first sentence than when you use the second. And the odds you will spook a new person are greatly increased when you use the second sentence.

 

[billd91]

It might be the correct word, but it doesn't serve to communicate that message very well, and I think that's been shown over and over again. If you are trying to say "This new hit point system doesn't feel as believable as it should", that communicates better than saying "The 4e HP sys breaks verisimilitude". The odds that people will understand what you are trying to say are better when you use the first sentence than when you use the second. And the odds you will spook a new person are greatly increased when you use the second sentence.

I don't see much problem in the term verisimilitude communicating an idea poorly, although I find the sentence you used it in for your example a poor one. If someone uses the term and doesn't intend to exclude people from understanding what he's saying, it can hardly be termed elitism, even if there are people who don't understand it. It just means they have different vocabularies.

Would you say that a commentator who used a rich vocabulary was deliberately being elitist? An essayist? An editorialist? An email or letter writer? Could be that they're just using the vocabulary they know to be appropriate or is use of challenging words from an extensive vocabulary enough for elitism?

 

[Mister Doug]

4E is much worse than 3E in this regard.

Here some examples:

• Some martial attacks are limited to 1 use per day
• The whole geometry does not resemble something we can imagine. The D&D world looks more like a alternate dimension out of a Lovecraft novel (1-1-1 diagonals = Circles are Squares)
• Every PC is a superhuman who can do everything. (Skills are automatically increased making it impossible that a PC is bad in something)
• There is a huge difference between what PCs can do and what NPCS/Monster can do, making PCs looks like some aliens or mutants which are not a normal part of the world

I would argue that PCs were always superhuman compared to average characters, back to AD&D 1e with it "zero-level" commoners.

I would also argue that the geometry issue is one of one abstraction being better than another. Does 3.5e present a world that has space warping every other step when you move diagonally? Of course not. Nor has either edition actually postulated a world composed of 5-foot squares, nor one where a stride for anyone is automatically 5 feet regardless of the person's height.

And I would argue that balancing PCs and NPCs using th same mechanics ignores differences in resource mechanics. A broad array of abilities is good for a PC who is able to mix and match abilities over a work day. A PC needs only abilities for an encounter, and manages his resources (hit points, attack powers, etc.) in order to deal with different types of threats. This was acknowledged in every edition of D&D to some extent, though less so in 3.x, which presented a semblance of equivalence between monsters and characters, but this equivalence was often poorly balanced due to the issues I mentioned or involved irrelevant data. This could lead to the conclusion that the well-intended plan for balance wasn't so good in practice.

But the need for balance really depends on the game. In FATE 2.0, I would build opponents based only on traits most of the time. In T&T, it's easier to use most monsters with just a MR 90% of the time, and in RQ, the fact that opponents have all the same traits as PCs makes running a big combat too daunting and difficult to track -- not that PCs will often survive against a large number of opponents. Only in fairly simple systems does using the same set of stats tend to work easily and smoothly from the DM side of things IME.

Of course, 20 years ago when I quit playing D&D, the lack of united monster and pc mechanics was one of the problems I would have listed, and one thing I thought was great about D&D 3.0. I have changed my mind, but understand the reasons why people are bothered by this.

 

[Mister Doug]

I believe you're ignoring the fact that the players aren't casually observing the end results of the mechanics, like an audience viewing realistic blood without knowing it's fake, but are actively interacting with the mechanics and making decisions based on them. In your metaphor, they can taste that the blood is corn syrup, they know it washes off with soap and warm water, etc.

Every RPG involves some hand-waiving of mechanics. D&D has always involved a large amount of just accepting the mechanics compared to some others which worked harder at simulation. The question is what kind of hand-waiving is comfortable to players and I suspect part of that is based on players' existing conceptions and assumptions as much or more than the actual content and level of abstraction of the rules.

 

[Keltheos]

Would you say that a commentator who used a rich vocabulary was deliberately being elitist? An essayist? An editorialist? An email or letter writer? Could be that they're just using the vocabulary they know to be appropriate or is use of challenging words from an extensive vocabulary enough for elitism?

Only if their rich vocabulary was limited to a 'dropin' word every so often. And also where a less 'rich' word or phrase would suffice.

If I'm reading something that consistently contains rich vocabulary I'm fine with that. But dropping in a $5 word here and there in a 500-word monosyllabic diatribe (not that was what the OP did, just an example) smacks of an author who wants to sound smart or is manipulating their readership in an exclusionary manner.

U writ gud al teh tyme, awesumsauce.

U writ gud to soot ur purpuz, lose.

 

[Phasmus]

For the folks concerned about elitism, what would you suggest as a non-elitist way to succinctly communicate the concept of verisimilitude, without giving wise-crackers an opening for the old "it's got dragons in it!" line? For the duration of this post, I will refer to this concept with the new monosyllabic nonsense(in English anyway)-word, xun.

I tend to visualize the concept of broken xun in two categories. First is "Stuff that if I read it in a sword 'n sorcery book would make me go 'That makes no sense at all'." I will call this disruption of conceptual xun or c-xun. 4e elements that break c-xun include the magic item economy, and a cleric beaning a skeleton with a mace to make the fighter's wounds heal up. It might make sense given enough thought, but it's still a mental speedbump.

Alternatively there is, "Stuff that forces me to think about the tactical situation in a way that is jarringly different from how the character would have to be thinking about it." This is disruption of what I will call mechanical xun or m-xun. The archetypal m-xun breaker in 4e is the daily martial power, where I think 'Okay, this is tactically the right time to use my best power of the day, so here it goes...' and my character thinks 'What luck! Just when I need my best but least-often possible move, my foe has left me an opening for it!'

I think, in terms of m-xun in particular, 4e is pretty much a step down. It may be possible to come up with plausible explanations for why certain 4e mechanics work in certain ways, but those explanations tend to drive a wedge between character thought and player thought. I can't think of many powers in 3.5e where you have to be thinking in entirely metagame terms to take a rational action (it's entirely possible they're there and I just got used to them, there's no need to be snide when you point them out to me, which I encourage you to do). That seems to come up a lot 4e though.

A lot of 4e powers, particularly ones that cause shifting at range, remind me of DreamBlade. There's no xun to break, because it's a board game, and if you really want to imagine the action... it's all happening in a weird dreamscape, where if you can blame anything on a magic-like effect. It feels to me like they tried to take some of those fun dream-blade-like game elements and use them in an environment where some folks (myself included) want to be able to imagine or describe the action in a cinematic way without having to jump through too many conceptual hoops. Things may smooth out with time and practice... but for now there's still an awful lot of conceptual hoop-jumping called for.

 

[Keltheos]

I'm not sure but your use of 'xun' seems pretty elitist...

 

[ForbidenMaster]

An honest question: is being bloodied in the new rules more problematic than the fact that in previous editions heroes were either fine (1 hp or more), unconscious (0hp), dying (-1 to -10) or dead? Was this more challenging to verisimilitude? If not, why not?

The problem is healing. One can easily make the assumption that being bloodied means that you are physically wounded, and that not being bloodied means that you arent. So if one accepts that as true, it doesnt make sense when a character can go from being bloodied to not being bloodied from a word of encouragement.

My solution is simple: dont make the assumption that bloodied means your character is physically bloody in game.

It was a really bad word choice with regards to people who actually care about stuff like this, but I think that it works well for the visceral aspect of D&D.

We have known since 1ed that when you hit a target, in game it doesnt make sense if you physically hit it. It has never made sense that a character can do the same amount of damage to one character as they do to another character that is the same in every other way except level, yet have one die and the other treat the hit as nothing.

However, when we play and we really get into it, we do say that we stabbed the buy in the chest, or whatever. It doesnt make sense if it were actually happening in game, but most gamers enjoy the visceral aspect of that narration of combat. That is where bloodied comes into play. It appeals to the visceral aspect of D&D, nothing more. Trying to apply the word in game as anything more than a win meter and a mechanical trigger just messes things up.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't see much problem in the term verisimilitude communicating an idea poorly, although I find the sentence you used it in for your example a poor one. If someone uses the term and doesn't intend to exclude people from understanding what he's saying, it can hardly be termed elitism, even if there are people who don't understand it. It just means they have different vocabularies.

If you didn't like my example, then I welcome your own. Use the definition of verisimilitude in a sentence instead of the word, and then use the actual word, and I think you will find the sentence that uses the definition communicates better. For example "That pirate told a verisimilar tale" is an accurate use of the word, but few people would know what you meant. "That pirate's tale sounded like it was probably true" is a sentence that just about everyone would understand, but has the same meaning, and therefore it communicates better.

It may well be that some people are so used to being an elitist that they no longer intend to exclude people, they just automatically do so without thinking about it anymore. I'm not really harping on the intent, just the result (which is lack of communication and exclusion).

Would you say that a commentator who used a rich vocabulary was deliberately being elitist? An essayist? An editorialist? An email or letter writer? Could be that they're just using the vocabulary they know to be appropriate or is use of challenging words from an extensive vocabulary enough for elitism?

Often, but not always. Particularly for essayists and editorialists, it's often intended to convey a sense of superiority or smugness. And, I think, to try and give a sense of superiority to the reader (thinking that, for example, reading the New Yorker Magazine makes you feel superior to readers of People Magazine).

 

[Mister Doug]

Would it be easier if the term was "f'ed up" instead of bloodied?

The problem is healing. One can easily make the assumption that being bloodied means that you are physically wounded, and that not being bloodied means that you arent. So if one accepts that as true, it doesnt make sense when a character can go from being bloodied to not being bloodied from a word of encouragement.

My solution is simple: dont make the assumption that bloodied means your character is physically bloody in game.

It was a really bad word choice with regards to people who actually care about stuff like this, but I think that it works well for the visceral aspect of D&D.

We have known since 1ed that when you hit a target, in game it doesnt make sense if you physically hit it. It has never made sense that a character can do the same amount of damage to one character as they do to another character that is the same in every other way except level, yet have one die and the other treat the hit as nothing.

However, when we play and we really get into it, we do say that we stabbed the buy in the chest, or whatever. It doesnt make sense if it were actually happening in game, but most gamers enjoy the visceral aspect of that narration of combat. That is where bloodied comes into play. It appeals to the visceral aspect of D&D, nothing more. Trying to apply the word in game as anything more than a win meter and a mechanical trigger just messes things up.