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 coming! 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
*Dungeons & Dragons
Warlord as a Fighter option; Assassin as a Rogue option
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="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6052816" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/eldritch_lord.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: yellow">Eldritch_Lord</span></a></p><p> </p><p>Ok. You're not talking about Process Simulation. You're talking about High Concept SImulation where you are emulating genre and using genre-logic to get from point A to point B and make sense of both points and the ephemera between. Understood. This is actually precisely how I play. However, you seem to be referencing something a little bit different. You're talking about D&D's genre emulation of...D&D...some kind of weird tautology stating that D&D can only be D&D if it emulates its canon material which is a marriage of (primarily wargame) Gamist contrivances to incoherent Process Simulation. Further, these assumptions and agendas have evolved rather dramatically over the years so what exactly is canon and then fair game for inclusion? 1e's assumptions and mechanical tools are extremely different from 3e. 3e's are different from 4e's (but I would say less so than 1e to 3e). Why does this evolution absolutely end with 4e? Why is it heretical? </p><p> </p><p>So I don't know which D&D assumptions and mechanical tools (1e or 3e?) you're using here to represent canon and if you're inclusive and going with an amalgamation then I'm really having a hard time understanding how:</p><p></p><p>- HPs generally</p><p>- Saving Throws vs Breath Weapon/Evasion while immobilized with no cover</p><p>- 1 minute combat rounds abstracted into 1 contest roll</p><p>- XP (and specifically XP for gold)</p><p>- A failure of an Open Locks roll making the lock unpickable until you reach next level</p><p>- The ability to stab your way out of a creature's vital internal organs from within and them not falling over dead (but rather the wound that cannot be hand-waved as luck, etc and should cause massive loss of blood pressure and internal destruction closes...instantly)</p><p>- falling from 100 ft and surviving every single time</p><p>- master bakers and blacksmiths unable to be anything but butt-kicking master bakers and blacksmiths</p><p>- arthropods that should collapse or suffocate from the weight of their exoskeleton</p><p>- flying behemoths without the requisite thrust and trim characterists</p><p></p><p>all fall into the same bucket of "Ok, that's High Concept D&D Sim of D&D so its ok"...especially considering its been an incoherent evolution of inclusion of these things from Basic onward. I don't find any of these things particularly conducive to High Concept Sim of any genre. I don't find much them remotely coherent unto themselves, let alone with other collectively as a design framework. What I do see is a mish-mash of Gamist contrivances for expedience and ease of use and grotesque efforts at Process Simulation married to a Gamist infrastructure so we can allow for all manner of things (such as Swallow rules without them being SoD). As such it just seems as though the inclusion of concepts/mechanics into the canon of "High Concept Simulation of D&D emulating D&D" has no rhyme or reason. So the evolutionary track is hard to get my head around. We're good with all of these things but we aren't good with 4e's thematic, (legitimately) High Concept Sim powers, deviation from Actor Stance and unified build mechanics. How does that work out but the Gamist pacing mechanisms and abstractions such as XP for Gold and 1 minute combat rounds solved by singular rolls are inherently part of the same High Concept Sim family tree as stabbing your way out of someone's gut being solved by several different checks (while having the same chance damage expressions from inside your enemy as outside) and being unable to open a lock (after a failed attempt) until you get enough xp to improve your level?</p><p> </p><p>I've played D&D the same way since Basic Onward and 4e doesn't cause me to balk at all. My High Concept Sim is not D&D emulating D&D. Its a bit of Indiana Jones chases, crypt/dungeon exploration and hijinx, a smattering of A-Team's "good guys against the big, bad world", a pinch of Wild West frontier justice and outlaws, all manner of Swashbuckling influences with dashing heroes and flashing blades, a dose of George Martin's grit, intrigue, horror, and a heaping helping of LotR's high fantasy. Its the fiction that matters in High Concept Sim. As such, my question regarding what should "default to canon" is how do those mechanics support my needs in emulating the amalgamation of those fictional tropes? Bloody Path could just as easily allow the Rogue to make an MBA against all adjacent opponents. The Monk has dailies that do that. Perhaps they thought that was too potent of a power and yielded to Gamist interests for balance? Nonetheless, my table has 0 problems with the idea of a Rogue running a gauntlet of foes, parrying their strikes such that their blades/weapons smash their feat or skewer their leg with the errant swing, etc. It works for our High Concept Sim interests as it provides the emulation of our favorite fantasy tropes. CaGI does the same. Why these things would be branded heretical to an evolving canon with (clear) evolving assumptions and mechanical tools when the 3e branches of the family tree resemble nothing of the 1e roots (in both design aim and level of abstraction) is baffling to me.</p><p> </p><p>so TL;DR version: </p><p> </p><p>If "proper D&D" is an agenda of High Concept Simulation of D&D (D&D emulating D&D)...and we have all of these disparate assumptions fraught with varying levels of granularity/abstraction and gamist contrivances within the evolutionary track from 1e to 3e...what exactly are the prerequisites by which we deem something canon and heretical? I don't see a coherent application of a line of reasoning (or a line of reasoning itself) here dictating the pass/fail judgement. It seems to be that the question is more than; "do these mechanics support proper thematic, genre emulation"?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6052816, member: 6696971"] @[URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/eldritch_lord.html"][COLOR=yellow]Eldritch_Lord[/COLOR][/URL] Ok. You're not talking about Process Simulation. You're talking about High Concept SImulation where you are emulating genre and using genre-logic to get from point A to point B and make sense of both points and the ephemera between. Understood. This is actually precisely how I play. However, you seem to be referencing something a little bit different. You're talking about D&D's genre emulation of...D&D...some kind of weird tautology stating that D&D can only be D&D if it emulates its canon material which is a marriage of (primarily wargame) Gamist contrivances to incoherent Process Simulation. Further, these assumptions and agendas have evolved rather dramatically over the years so what exactly is canon and then fair game for inclusion? 1e's assumptions and mechanical tools are extremely different from 3e. 3e's are different from 4e's (but I would say less so than 1e to 3e). Why does this evolution absolutely end with 4e? Why is it heretical? So I don't know which D&D assumptions and mechanical tools (1e or 3e?) you're using here to represent canon and if you're inclusive and going with an amalgamation then I'm really having a hard time understanding how: - HPs generally - Saving Throws vs Breath Weapon/Evasion while immobilized with no cover - 1 minute combat rounds abstracted into 1 contest roll - XP (and specifically XP for gold) - A failure of an Open Locks roll making the lock unpickable until you reach next level - The ability to stab your way out of a creature's vital internal organs from within and them not falling over dead (but rather the wound that cannot be hand-waved as luck, etc and should cause massive loss of blood pressure and internal destruction closes...instantly) - falling from 100 ft and surviving every single time - master bakers and blacksmiths unable to be anything but butt-kicking master bakers and blacksmiths - arthropods that should collapse or suffocate from the weight of their exoskeleton - flying behemoths without the requisite thrust and trim characterists all fall into the same bucket of "Ok, that's High Concept D&D Sim of D&D so its ok"...especially considering its been an incoherent evolution of inclusion of these things from Basic onward. I don't find any of these things particularly conducive to High Concept Sim of any genre. I don't find much them remotely coherent unto themselves, let alone with other collectively as a design framework. What I do see is a mish-mash of Gamist contrivances for expedience and ease of use and grotesque efforts at Process Simulation married to a Gamist infrastructure so we can allow for all manner of things (such as Swallow rules without them being SoD). As such it just seems as though the inclusion of concepts/mechanics into the canon of "High Concept Simulation of D&D emulating D&D" has no rhyme or reason. So the evolutionary track is hard to get my head around. We're good with all of these things but we aren't good with 4e's thematic, (legitimately) High Concept Sim powers, deviation from Actor Stance and unified build mechanics. How does that work out but the Gamist pacing mechanisms and abstractions such as XP for Gold and 1 minute combat rounds solved by singular rolls are inherently part of the same High Concept Sim family tree as stabbing your way out of someone's gut being solved by several different checks (while having the same chance damage expressions from inside your enemy as outside) and being unable to open a lock (after a failed attempt) until you get enough xp to improve your level? I've played D&D the same way since Basic Onward and 4e doesn't cause me to balk at all. My High Concept Sim is not D&D emulating D&D. Its a bit of Indiana Jones chases, crypt/dungeon exploration and hijinx, a smattering of A-Team's "good guys against the big, bad world", a pinch of Wild West frontier justice and outlaws, all manner of Swashbuckling influences with dashing heroes and flashing blades, a dose of George Martin's grit, intrigue, horror, and a heaping helping of LotR's high fantasy. Its the fiction that matters in High Concept Sim. As such, my question regarding what should "default to canon" is how do those mechanics support my needs in emulating the amalgamation of those fictional tropes? Bloody Path could just as easily allow the Rogue to make an MBA against all adjacent opponents. The Monk has dailies that do that. Perhaps they thought that was too potent of a power and yielded to Gamist interests for balance? Nonetheless, my table has 0 problems with the idea of a Rogue running a gauntlet of foes, parrying their strikes such that their blades/weapons smash their feat or skewer their leg with the errant swing, etc. It works for our High Concept Sim interests as it provides the emulation of our favorite fantasy tropes. CaGI does the same. Why these things would be branded heretical to an evolving canon with (clear) evolving assumptions and mechanical tools when the 3e branches of the family tree resemble nothing of the 1e roots (in both design aim and level of abstraction) is baffling to me. so TL;DR version: If "proper D&D" is an agenda of High Concept Simulation of D&D (D&D emulating D&D)...and we have all of these disparate assumptions fraught with varying levels of granularity/abstraction and gamist contrivances within the evolutionary track from 1e to 3e...what exactly are the prerequisites by which we deem something canon and heretical? I don't see a coherent application of a line of reasoning (or a line of reasoning itself) here dictating the pass/fail judgement. It seems to be that the question is more than; "do these mechanics support proper thematic, genre emulation"? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Warlord as a Fighter option; Assassin as a Rogue option
Top