D&D General If you could put D&D into any other non middle ages genre, what would it be?

Tony Vargas · Jun 21, 2019

robus said:
I addressed that by discussing the fact that HP is recording your ability to defend yourself from the attack. If you're not defending yourself then that dagger attack is going to kill you no matter what your HP. The difference for guns is there is no reasonable defensive tactic except cover..

I don't suppose there's a whole lot of functional difference between HP as 'plot armor' or hp as 'ability to defend yourself.' Either way, if you're being shot at, you're not being hit, or taking less serious hits, whether it's modeling author force (plot armor), divine intervention, a sixth sense, finite luck, or desperate defense.

Picking one of those possible interpretations and calling it 'fact' is overstepping.

In some genres, bullet-time would be just fine. In most genres, characters being shot at do move & dodge, defending themselves not by seeing a bullet and moving out of it's trajectory like Neo, but by making themselves a much harder target.

Even IRL, you can decrease your chances of getting shot by more tactics than just seeking hard cover. A moving target is harder to hit, for instance. What do characters in genre shootouts (rather than showdowns) do? They /move/ & fire, making themselves harder targets to hit. That's defending yourself.

Sure that's fine for cannon-fodder, but for actual shootouts with competent adversaries?

There's going to be more running, dodging, seeking cover, dropping prone, and more rounds exchanged - and hps ablated - before someone in a white hat gets shot in the shoulder, or someone in a black hat get's killed or implausibly disarmed.

robus · Jun 21, 2019

Saelorn said:
How do your players feel about their epic god-slaying hero being murdered in their sleep by some punk with a knife, with their only possible defense being a Perception roll (at Disadvantage) to wake up in time?

Well, I'm not that kind of DM.

It's actually entirely feasible for me, as DM, to kill any PC, at any moment, for any reason, but that wouldn't be much fun would it?

robus · Jun 21, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Picking one of those possible interpretations and calling it 'fact' is overstepping.

I mis-spoke, I meant "point", but I take your point

There's going to be more running, dodging, seeking cover, dropping prone, and more rounds exchanged - and hps ablated - before someone in a white hat gets shot in the shoulder, or someone in a black hat get's killed or implausibly disarmed.

Sure, I'm just not sure it'll give the right feel for me is all.

Tony Vargas · Jun 21, 2019

robus said:
I mis-spoke, I meant "point", but I take your point
Sure, I'm just not sure it'll give the right feel for me is all.

Nod. Feel or expectations seems like it's the main stumbling block

Hit points can and do model the same sorts of things when swords, arrows, fireballs, and lightning blots are flying around. But itty-bitty pellets of streamlined lead start flying around ...

robus · Jun 21, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Hit points can and do model the same sorts of things when swords, arrows, fireballs, and lightning blots are flying around. But itty-bitty pellets of streamlined lead start flying around ...

It's all fun and games until the lead starts flying...

CapnZapp · Jun 21, 2019

Oofta said:
Good point. Because there's no weapon in D&D that does the same damage of a longsword that has a short range of 150 feet. It's not possible to take a feat that increases range to 600 feet without penalty while ignoring cover.

Yes, ranged combat in 5E is seriously reeling on the brink; that is, of becoming too close to melee as to make melee superfluous.

It's still a primitive game for that purpose (since there's basically nothing in place to encourage behavior commensurate with ranged tactics) so this is not a good thing.

CapnZapp · Jun 21, 2019

robus said:
Leaving guns aside, I think the best way to apply D&D rules to a different genre is to basically remove player options that aren’t appropriate.

You need more than that.

Even if your fine with the effect of a ranged attack on a healthy hero (i.e. none at all) I'd wager you still pretty much need new rules.

A couple of very basic example suggestions:

* if you don't start with the enemy in sight, your attacks against him are at Disadvantage.

(To discourage hiding completely behind a corner, only popping out during your own turn)

* Somebody upthread suggested everyone walks around pretty much unarmored, and that "fighters" gain their AC through other means, such as using cover intelligently.

Tony Vargas · Jun 21, 2019

CapnZapp said:
* Somebody upthread suggested everyone walks around pretty much unarmored, and that "fighters" gain their AC through other means, such as using cover intelligently.

Prof to AC as long as you move on your turn could work.

CapnZapp · Jun 21, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
I don't suppose there's a whole lot of functional difference.

On the contrary: As I've explained, it's at the core of the issue, since plot armor is only part of the problem, and many players simply can't marry hit point loss with the sensation of danger.

CapnZapp · Jun 22, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
That's one of the inconsistent expectations that monkeywrenches adapting D&D/d20 to some genres. Firearms kill. They also miss. They also wound, sometimes not even that seriously. It's a deadly weapon. So is a dagger doing 1d4. Deadly just means it does actual damage, and can kill an ordinary person under ordinary circumstances, enough of the time that you wouldn't want to use it if your intent wasn't to kill. If you want most of the redshirts and black hats in the setting to obligingly drop dead when shot, give them fewer hps. They'll also obligingly drop unconscious when you break a whiskey bottle over their head, or give 'me the old one-two. Which is probably as it should be.

And again, this only takes you so far.

If you're the hero behind an outhouse, and you need to Sprint across open ground to the next cover where your friends are, the excitement is whether you will make it without getting shot.

If the game engine uses hit points, it might reduce the excitement to a question of getting there with 64 hp or maybe 56 hp.

That is a vastly different experience.

See how this also ties into the issue of ranged tactics? (That is, how you basically don't need them when you got hit points instead.)