D&D 5E Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)

[Balesir]

Well, arguing backed up by 38 years of GMing. All I mean by that is I have seen plenty of it in different systems.

Yep, I'll second this. I started DMing around 1978, and I understand exactly where you're coming from, here.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Having creatures with immunities is fine, but I think it's really a separate topic. The problem with the line of logic you are using about oozes is that it leads - if taken to its extreme - to "anything we don't understand should be immune to stuff". And the stuff they are not immune to? Well, we don't understand that stuff, because we don't share a world with the creatures we don't understand...

Well, what's worse is in D&D terms because we don't understand magic and it, almost by definition, has no explanation, it always tends to work. There are thematics that provide some exceptions (undead are usually thought to be immune to things like poison, maybe sometimes in some systems oozes are immune to charm), but in general you end up with a mass of reasons for why all the non-casters are ineffective in given situation X, and then casters get to roll right on because who says a Magic Missle won't work fine against a swarm of bees or a ghost? Obviously a sword won't though.

My approach to say making an ooze a unique monster is to A) present it in a situation where narratively it can show its specialness, and B) to make it a tough challenge (or maybe an easy challenge). The ooze shows up in a spot where the last thing the PCs want is to deal with a monster, or they are forced to go all over the place to find an ooze because they need one for some reason, and then it is really hard to capture and/or transport. Again, there's an element of lazy design in just making different creatures basically an orc with some immunities and such slapped onto it. I think it tends to stop the thinking process right there.

For instance the 4e Gelatinous Cube is actually already a fairly unique monster with some special mechanics. Even so it is still treated like other monsters mechanically. I put mine inside a maze with invisible walls that the PCs had to feel their way through, while the several GCs closed in on them... Honestly, the rules for the GC itself were nigh irrelevant. The players are still cursing me for that little encounter

 

[D'karr]

I don't think I'd have had some big problem if they were impossible to trip. It just wasn't a big deal to bother about. Really, it felt like the kind of nitpicky objection people come up with when they really just don't like something and someone asks "why".

Exactly, and since the exceptions trump the general rules, you could easily handle corner cases like tripping an ooze. The DM doesn't like oozes "tripped", institute an exception, oozes are immune. These things are best handled at each individual table, where the game play actually matters. If the table has no problem with "tripped" oozes, then play it with the general rule. If the table prefers the other way, make an exception. That is one of the things that DMs are supposed to be there for. Isn't that what is being advocated in DDN, rulings not rules?

As gamers we have been placing so much faith in the rules that we've forgotten that the DM is there exactly for that reason. With 4e I found a foundational framework that was solid. It allowed me to make these rulings with a lot of comfort that I was not breaking anything when I instituted this or that exception. I found that the solid framework was very flexible, and allowed great freedom and stability. When some started arguing about oozes and the RAW, my eyes would glaze over. The intent of the rules is not to be all inclusive, they can't. That was my biggest "beef" with the approach 3.x took where everything needed a rule.

Even things that are explicitly "prohibited" by the rules are open to rework at individual game tables. So why should the immunity or non-immunity of an ooze become such a contentious issue?

What I would have loved to see from the designers was alternate systems to tweak the base system. The vaunted "dials" that they spoke off. Those would have been awesome to see in 4e. Want a more gritty game, here are the dials to tweak. Want long term injuries, here are some more dials. Want to use rituals in combat, tweak these other dials. Want combats with no grids at all, here's a subsystem for that. Want Epic to really work, here's the real system you should use. Want domains/kingdoms/spheres of influence, take a look at these rules. Want a more exploration for exploration's sake game, here are some tweaks for that. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I'll have to continue designing these exclusively for my game.

 

[Balesir]

[MENTION=23049]Abdul Alhazred[/MENTION], you might want to check your attributions - you seem to be blaming [MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION] for something I wrote...

 

[D'karr]

hmmm....I guess my problem with that is that would lock you into the "official" world much more than previous editions. I mean, so long as you're there in PoLand with the default cosmology, etc. and your players know enough about it to make those choices meaningful, then yes signalling could happen. In my home games, neither of those is true. This might lead into why I feel 4e is a much narrower game than previous editions.

If you are playing in a homebrewed world, like I am, the players are cognizant of the base assumptions because I talk to them about them. When they are making a choice that I know will not be meaningful I let them know from the beginning. When they are going to make a choice that they might be making assumptions on, I make sure they are able to make an informed decision. I don't surprise them with it. Like a ranger choosing a favored enemy that I know is not going to be encountered in the campaign.

4e could only be considered narrower if you decided that only what was on the page of the books was fair game. In AD&D, and 3.x if I took the assumptions of the Manual of the Planes, and the alignment system, and the Greyhawk references as the only way to do things I'd have consider them narrow too. I never did that with D&D before 4e, so I surely didn't feel inclined to start with it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't see that this "locks you into" the "official" world so much as this is "added value that the official world offers you". What was arguably missing, of course, was good guidance in the DMG about both using and developing variants on this stuff for your own worlds. But then, advice about a lot of the "new paradigm" in 4e was absent or stunted - maybe because it was new to the designers, too?

Eh, there was no more guidance about how to use the cosmology in AD&D than there is in 4e AFAIK, but it was a lot harder to do much with for the reasons Pemerton states. Mostly it was just that it was hard to see how the GW cosmology was relevant in an ordinary sense to the inhabitants of the world. All ordinary people in that cosmology could possibly do was hunker down and hope nothing busted loose, they were both irrelevant to and had no stake in any sort of conflict or etc that might be going on. The universe was basically an unchanging reality that bore little relation to even the PCs and which didn't really help you frame conflicts. Later on they added in the "Blood War" clearly for exactly that reason, but again the PC's world was at most some minor side front in that. You could of course engineer more out of it, but you had to construct the whole conflict and plot.

Compare this with 4e where the relationship between say Moradin and Demogorgon is going to be PERFECTLY clear and they have an ongoing active conflict in which the stakes are primarily the 'natural world', which is the focus of that conflict. A conflict which is also built around the theme of order vs chaos, which is THE central theme in all human myth and religion when you get right down to it. The story telling potential is rich and the situation fully charged and ready to go. AD&D gives you the pieces of a gun to assemble. 4e gives you a cocked and loaded gun that is ready to fire. Of course you can always reflavor the 4e material, Moradin can be replaced with some other thematically appropriate god, and so can Demogorgon if you wish, but the overall setup remains, order vs chaos, the world at stake. A narrative of mighty conflict based in the founding of the world and destined to play out until the final apocalyptic end of time (again you can adapt all this as much as you want).

Obviously if you really want a VERY different sort of cosmology and conflicts than 4e provides then its material isn't maybe any more helpful than the GW cosmology material was, but I have to ask, when is it LESS useful? Given that 4e's rules really don't worry about the cosmology outside some very casual explanations of some magical effects, there's no big problem with just rolling your own thing.

I suppose you could say 4e lacked some world-building advice for creating a different cosmology and world, but there was no such thing in AD&D either. They gave you a cosmology and just assumed you used it. There isn't even a suggestion about what the gods are or how they work in AD&D. 1e in fact slaps you with a single 'priest' class that has no options and a pseudo-christian flavor to work with, and the paladin, again with the pseudo-christian flavor. Later on the various settings added gods, and they got more embedded in 2e's lore, so you had something to start with, but even then it was mostly bad guys, the good guys were singularly lacking in definition and motive. 2e had at least the 'priest' class, but then they were strictly weaker than clerics, sort of undermined the whole concept. I'll take 4e's world-building advice any day! It was mostly example and template, but they did hand out some perfectly good ideas in their example story and campaign arcs and some of the DMG's later chapters.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@Abdul Alhazred , you might want to check your attributions - you seem to be blaming @Crazy Jerome for something I wrote...

Don'tcha love quotes? lol. sorry [MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION]...

 

[bogmad]

It's generally assumed that having a mind is a positive benefit, in evolutionary terms; it allows reactions and novel approaches. This leaving aside that, in order to do something as intentional as "attack", D&D oozes must have something that we would functionally describe as a "mind"...

Likewise with "shape". A puddle is immobile and can't send out pseudopods to 'attack' anything. To do those things, an ooze would need to develop some sort of coherent (if somewhat malleable) 'shape', together with the internal means to modify that shape at will - and there's that "mind", again...
...
Having creatures with immunities is fine, but I think it's really a separate topic. The problem with the line of logic you are using about oozes is that it leads - if taken to its extreme - to "anything we don't understand should be immune to stuff". And the stuff they are not immune to? Well, we don't understand that stuff, because we don't share a world with the creatures we don't understand...
.

But I can't yell "hey look over there! At an ameoba and expect it to turn around. Why should a charismatic halfling who regularly does that to humanoids be able to suddenly think of something else to do for an ooze just as easily?

I'm not one for extremes though, so Rather than take it to an extreme and declare immunities nilly willy I'd be more comfortable saying that all things being equal, or rather equal level, I'd rather that if I see a level 1 kobold next to a level 1 ooze that it may be easier for my non-expert (but still perhaps even knowledgable about oozes), level 1 halfling thief to trip the kobold than it would be for him to do the same thing to the ooze. That just seems very common sense. Maybe the "harder is just reflected in much higher defenses agains that sort of thing? I could get behind that. The last thing I want however is a combat maneuver system. Why not just say that creature type is difficult to or immune to disadvantage by martial attacks (or mundane, physical, non-elemental, etc)?

Why not put them at different levels because the ooze is now "harder"? Well perhaps that ooze has the same or less hit points. It still dies just as fast when damaged even if not every tactic works the same against it.

I do think the game is flexible enough that it could support the exception based rules y'all prefer where you say "normally this would trip it, but since it has this effect I'll figure out something else narratively" and what I'm talking about. But what should the standard be? If the rules don't give us clear ways to adjudicate problems like "tripping an ooze" will that be a deal-breaker? Is that where you think 5e is turning away from what you'd like to see?

 

[Ratskinner]

What was arguably missing, of course, was good guidance in the DMG about both using and developing variants on this stuff for your own worlds. But then, advice about a lot of the "new paradigm" in 4e was absent or stunted - maybe because it was new to the designers, too?

That may be the critical thing, for my experiences with it.

 

[TwoSix]

Yep, I'll second this. I started DMing around 1978, and I understand exactly where you're coming from, here.

1978, fine year, although I spent the bulk of it in a watery sack.