D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[Mallus]

Let's pop over to a favourite game system of mine for a minute: Champions

A great game, though I --don't hate me-- kinda prefer it's d20 cousin, Mutants and Masterminds, especially 2e.

In that game systems all abilities are created by the player from building blocks and all abilities start off disassociated.

Champions/HERO is the system that first taught me the benefits of disconnecting the mechanics from the the in-game fiction, or at least of the advantages of 'loosening' the connection.

So a 9d6 EB vs. Pd can be anything from bean bags fired from a gun, magical bolts of invisble energy, concentrated spray of high-pressure water, or any other effect in the game world tha the player can describe that will fit the mechanical description.

My favorite example came from a friend of mine's PC, Kid Bazooka. His main attack was a 10d6, Sticky, Persistent Energy Blast -- defined as a magical bazooka which shot tiny pterodactyls that not only damaged on impact, but continued to fly around the target's head pecking them to death.

Champions provides a descriptive language for powers. But it doesn't really tell you how they function. It doesn't try to. Nor does it require any particular kind of logic to be applied to a power, ie they can be just as hard to explain from an in-game perspective as CaGI.

For example, in Champions you can create...

... a PC with a gun that has 6 rounds: "Mr. Six-Shooter".
... a PC with a gun that has an infinite number of rounds: "Bullet Hell".
... a PC whose gun cannot be taken away from then (ie, not a Focus): "Hand Off My Piece, Yo".
... a PC who shoots gamma radiation out of their eyes (defined as an Energy Blast): "Three Mile Eileen".
... a PC who shoots more realistic gamma radiation (defined as RKA with additional unpleasant riders/powers): "Captain Cancer".
... a PC with normal strength who can nonetheless throw a boomerang at supersonic speeds: "Kid Koala".

And so on.

Anyway... Champions allows for richly described powers, but it doesn't really model anything, since the player determines the extent/limits of the modeling, and what can be extrapolated from it, at design time.

Even a simple question like, "Can my gun be taken away?" can only be answered by asking, "How did you build the power?". If the gun wasn't designated an OAF/OIF (it's the world's tiniest gun), then it can't be. Case closed. Explain it any way you like.

So let's see how we can model Come and Get It shall we?

The fluff suggests it should be a charismatic ability, but there are no limits to the sort of creatures can be taunted, teased, or otherwise convinced to come to the character.

How is this different from my example of a radiation-shooting Champions PC? That fluff suggests several things, too. Some, all, or none of which may be borne out by the actual implantation.

The radiation might kill you, poison you, transform you, knock you on your butt, or blind you. It might be stopped by lead/force fields. It's all up to you.

Likewise it would make (a kind of) sense for someone who can throw a boomerang that packs the wallop of an anti-tank missile to very strong. But they don't need to be. They can just have a knack. Or perhaps they were bit by a radioactive Aboriginal.

Nothing entails from the fluff "gamma radiation", or "real good with a boomerang". Nothing is required. Nothing is explained. Nothing can be extrapolated. There are no mechanisms at work -- it's all arbitrary. Descriptors and effects without process.

ie not so different from D&D 4e's powers.

It doesn't strike me as fair to ask how 4e powers work, if you don't do the same Champions.

OK so possibly it's not a power easily modeled in the other game system.

To be fair, the two systems use very different methodologies/representational strategies. I mean, Champions doesn't model purchasing/finding items of worth very well -- because it's currency is Power Points.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Can you tell me if I like chocolate? No? then I guess chocolate doesn't exist except subjectively.

I think the better phrasing there would be "enjoyment of chocolate doesn't exist except subjectively."

 

[billd91]

Champions/HERO is the system that first taught me the benefits of disconnecting the mechanics from the the in-game fiction, or at least of the advantages of 'loosening' the connection.


My favorite example came from a friend of mine's PC, Kid Bazooka. His main attack was a 10d6, Sticky, Persistent Energy Blast -- defined as a magical bazooka which shot tiny pterodactyls that not only damaged on impact, but continued to fly around the target's head pecking them to death.

<snip>
Nothing entails from the fluff "gamma radiation", or "real good with a boomerang". Nothing is required. Nothing is explained. Nothing can be extrapolated. There are no mechanisms at work -- it's all arbitrary. Descriptors and effects without process.

ie not so different from D&D 4e's powers.

It doesn't strike me as fair to ask how 4e powers work, if you don't do the same Champions.

I'm not sure you're arguing the same point. Yes, in Champions you have total control over the special effects of the power when you build the character. Flight might be like Superman (completely unexplained), a flight ring, boot jets, wind riding, telekinesis, levitation, or a whole host of alternatives. But that doesn't change between uses once it has been defined (unless you have some kind of much more expensive variable power). And that doesn't seem to be like CaGI at all. In Champions, the association is performed by the player at design time when he decides how his energy blast works and then that's how it works. But with CaGI, Nagol's point is the player may be associating it differently each time it is used.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

radioactive Aboriginal

It is a darn shame that I cannot XP you for that.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In Champions, if the DM builds all the powers, associates a meaning, and then the players pick form the list, you have something closer to traditional D&D. OTOH, if the player builds a Champions power in one of the later versions with the "variable special effect" advantage (or whatever it is called now), then it is more like 4E.

In all three cases, someone associated a mechanic with fiction (or at least, implied genre).

 

[D'karr]

In Champions, the association is performed by the player at design time when he decides how his energy blast works and then that's how it works. But with CaGI, Nagol's point is the player may be associating it differently each time it is used.

Or he can choose to associate it one time when he selects the ability for his character. If as a player I can choose it whenever I want, then I do so. If I choose not to associate it, that is my option also. That does not "force" the mechanics themselves to be on either state. That is a player driven option.

 

[Mallus]

I'm not sure you're arguing the same point.

It's certainly possible. There's good chance I was just looking for an excuse to make up some Champions PCs in my head! (instead of, for instance, working...).

But that doesn't change between uses once it has been defined (unless you have some kind of much more expensive variable power). And that doesn't seem to be like CaGI at all. In Champions, the association is performed by the player at design time when he decides how his energy blast works and then that's how it works.

But in post I quoted, Nagol was specifically trying to figure out how CaGI works.

Nagol proposed several explanations --it's charisma, it's mental domination, it's telekinesis-- and then went on to extrapolate from each, citing the ways in which the power didn't conform to the reasonable expectations implied in each method, ie "if it's telekinesis, why does it work on ghosts?".

I pointed out Champions powers don't hold up to that kind of scrutiny, either.

Just because a power is described as "gamma radiation", there is no requirement, or even expectation, that it function like gamma radiation, that it have it have any particular qualities, limitations, side effects, or consequences, outside of the ones you assign it via authorial fiat.

It's trivially easy to create Champions characters whose powers defy the reasonable expectations of them; like the gun that never runs out of ammo. I find these similar to Nagol's attempts at explaining CaGI -- neither work they way you think they should.

Why is only one a problem?

 

[Hussar]

Well, possibly the problem is that in D&D, traditionally, "powers" (such as they are) are generally pre-defined by the mechanics. There are a plethora of exceptions, but, the baseline is that a given effect will work a specific way all the time.

For example, why do paladins have at will Detect Evil? Well, because ... But, the Detect Evil always works the same way and it always comes from the paladin's holiness.

I totally agree that if you scratch below the surface, you expose all sorts of holes and contradictions, but, if you don't, then it works fine.

 

[pemerton]

It is a darn shame that I cannot XP you for that.

Hmm. I'm sitting here in Australia, and the reason I didn't report it is because I have a lot of fondness for [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION] as a poster. But think about how that would come across if framed in more familiar American cultural terms . . .

 

[pemerton]

So the question becomes, how much value does the subjective use (or objective misuse) of disocciation add to any discussion. So here's some pairs of statements:

a) Hit Points are disocciated
b) I couldn't understand why I could run, jump and climb with 1HP just as well as I could with 100.

a) Vancian casting is disocciated
b) I couldn't understand why I forget a spell after casting it. That didn't make sense.

a) Vicious Mockery is disocciated
b) We really struggled to narrate Vicious Mockery in a way which made sense in the situation

Which of those pairs of statements says what is happening? Which allows a constructive conversation to evolve rather that simple gainsaying?
Which one tells us about an instance of play which can be discussed?

Great post.

And this is exactly why I've been saying upthread that actual play examples are important here, if we're to learn anything about different techniques and mechanics and how we are all using them and making sense of them.

Heck, heavy-handed Alignment is a Narrativist mechanic

Huh? Not in the Forge sense of "narrativism" - it's ultra-heavy GM force! In Forge terms, I'd associated it with High Concept Simulation - it's a tool to keep everyone on the same genre page and focused on "the story".