D&D 5E yes, this again: Fighters need more non-combat options

The Crimson Binome · Jan 16, 2019

WaterRabbit said:
NPCs have a starting attitude of friendly, indifferent, and hostile. That attitude isn't going to be the same for every PC in the group. In many situations, the Warlock will be looking at a hostile reaction compared to a fighter looking at a indifferent or even friendly attitude. In many cases having certain PCs present might sour the social interaction.

As I said, if you introduce additional rules, then the decisions of the characters would reflect those rules, because everything in their reality supports that. If the enemy henchperson you're about to interrogate is a member of the fighter's fan club, then that would be a relevant factor, which the characters should take into account.

WaterRabbit said:
However, with all other factors being equal, a fighter is going to have a better starting attitude with most NPCs than a warlock.

This is the sort of thing that's going to vary significantly based on the setting. Sometimes, everyone likes paladins, or sometimes they hate them. Sometimes, everyone important is a wizard. Sometimes, there was a war going on, and now people look down on professional fighters. Unless you give them a codified class feature, declaring that people are nicer to them, class is a non-factor here.

Additionally, as far as 5E is concerned, your place in society is really supposed to depend more on your Background than on your Class. A warlock Folk Hero, or Entertainer, is probably going to be received better than a fighter Criminal.

WaterRabbit said:
Stats are just not the whole story. Backgrounds, NPC attitudes, Roleplay by the player all are much more important than Deception/Intimidation/Persuasion rolls.

To the extent which that's true, it's not relevant to the topic at hand, which is how the fighter class does not offer support for those things. Unless you're playing in a setting where everyone likes fighters, which is tantamount to house-ruling them a new class feature, there's nothing in the class which helps a fighter do something other than fight. Which would be fine, if nobody else had anything like that (because nobody really needs those things in order to contribute), but it leaves the fighter coming up short in any direct comparison.

Maxperson · Jan 16, 2019

Saelorn said:
It's not a matter of characters actively tallying their own successes and failures. The entire world works this way, so the characters would have been passively absorbing that for their entire lives. It should be common sense, for everyone in the world, that skill and training are no match for natural talent.

You do know that it's also the way the real world works, right? People are better than other people at speaking, and some are more charismatic than others. And you having experienced the real world with those facts being the same as the game world have not passively absorbed the ability to know who has a slightly better chance of success than someone else. Now, I know you're going to say, "But the game world isn't the real world." You're right, and that's not the point. The point is that a person in the game world, there is no ability for PCs to passively absorb such information. That's just your way of justifying your metagaming so that it doesn't bother you.

The game world is a different place from the real world, and you're ignoring that fact. There's nothing "realistic" about having your character act based on real-world physics rather than game-world physics.

There are no physics, game or otherwise, involved with what the PCs know or don't know about charisma and speaking. There is also no rule that gives the PCs the ability to know that the warlock has +2 over the fighter at conversing. That's metagame information.

cfmcdonald · Jan 16, 2019

Saelorn said:
The real world is a more complex domain than the game world is. In the game world, Charisma applies equally to all charisma-based skills, so you can judge how well a warlock persuades someone based on how well they can dance (or more-to-the-point, how strong their spells are); just as you can estimate someone's ability to climb or swim, based on how well they swing an axe.

This is the part I disagree with. To my mind, the real world and the imagined game world have the same level of complexity. The players play the game using a very simple model for interacting with the game world. Characters have neither knowledge nor experience of that model, which is an artifice that exists to make a fantasy world simulation playable, not to express the fundamental physical laws of that fantasy world.

If we assume the D&D rules are supposed to model the world as experienced by the characters, it raises all sorts of odd questions. Do PCs notice that they follow different physical laws than NPCs? Like what is a "guard"? Why doesn't it follow the rules for a "fighter"? How does it become a "veteran"?

Maxperson · Jan 16, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
I think this gets metagaming completely backwards. Metagaming is using OOC knowledge for IC decisions. IC the characters due not know the rules of the game they inhabit. The rules of the game are an intentionally hyper-simplified abstraction of their reality. The characters are presumed to live in a 'real' fantasy world that is vastly more complex and 'noisy' than the simulation, and basically like our world, except magic. Saying "I have a +5 and you only have a +3, so I should make the check" is exactly what metagaming is. Saying "I am a renowned warrior, I will deal with this leader, he will not respect a scrawny dealer in dark secrets like yourself", is the opposite of metagaming, i.e. acting like your character, irrespective of what the 'best' result is in the outer game model.

Correct. What [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is doing is metagaming.

Maxperson · Jan 16, 2019

Saelorn said:
The real world is a more complex domain than the game world is. In the game world, Charisma applies equally to all charisma-based skills, so you can judge how well a warlock persuades someone based on how well they can dance (or more-to-the-point, how strong their spells are); just as you can estimate someone's ability to climb or swim, based on how well they swing an axe.

The game world is ALSO more complex than you are giving it credit for. Good ideas will give circumstance bonuses, and bad ones circumstance penalties. The game environment will also affect NPC attitudes, such as those noted with different starting attitudes. It's not as simple charisma vs. a DC.

Maxperson · Jan 16, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
This is the part I disagree with. To my mind, the real world and the imagined game world have the same level of complexity. The players play the game using a very simple model for interacting with the game world. Characters have neither knowledge nor experience of that model, which is an artifice that exists to make a fantasy world simulation playable, not to express the fundamental physical laws of that fantasy world.

Correct. The game world is every bit a complex as the real world, but the game rules simplify the resolution. To the PCs, nothing is different in complexity than we here experience.

ad_hoc · Jan 16, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
If we assume the D&D rules are supposed to model the world as experienced by the characters, it raises all sorts of odd questions. Do PCs notice that they follow different physical laws than NPCs? Like what is a "guard"? Why doesn't it follow the rules for a "fighter"? How does it become a "veteran"?

They're not supposed to do that.

They are there to facilitate a narrative based game. The characters are special because they are the protagonists in a story.

The rules are written with story/narrative in mind first. Then comes game balance. Simulation is not a goal of the rules in 5e.

If action movies try to model the real world the hero would be dead in the opening scene.

The Crimson Binome · Jan 16, 2019

Maxperson said:
Correct. What [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is doing is metagaming.

I take offense at the accusation, as I hope you would. The quoted text clearly describes meta-gaming as using OOC knowledge for IC decisions, and that's not what I'm doing.

Our fundamental disagreement is over which specific information is considered in-character information, and which information is out-of-character information. At my table, the actions I describe are considered to be based on in-game knowledge, because it's assumed that the rules in the book reflect the rules of the game world; because the alternative would be unplayable. If the rules in the book don't reflect how that reality really works, then we have absolutely no idea how it does work, and we have no idea what our characters might believe.

As a very simple example, consider slitting someone's throat as a method of execution. In the real world, such an act has a very high likelihood of being lethal. In the game world, it's an automatic critical hit that deals ~10 damage, and is trivially survivable by almost anyone you would want to kill. So what does your character do, when they finally capture the traitor who murdered their family? Do you 1) slit their throat, and leave them to "bleed out", only for them to come back the next day for you to repeat the process? Or do you 2) acknowledge the truth about how the world really works, and do something that would actually kill them? Or do you 3) go through with it, under the expectation that the DM will conveniently house rule the move to be lethal regardless?

To my mind, only the second option could possibly be in-character. The first option is clearly at odds with the character's perception of their reality (why would they think that it should work, in the first place, if it almost never works in practice?), and the third one is a matter of DM discretion whose only support relies on out-of-character knowledge about how things work in some other world.

The Crimson Binome · Jan 16, 2019

cfmcdonald said:
This is the part I disagree with. To my mind, the real world and the imagined game world have the same level of complexity. The players play the game using a very simple model for interacting with the game world. Characters have neither knowledge nor experience of that model, which is an artifice that exists to make a fantasy world simulation playable, not to express the fundamental physical laws of that fantasy world.

If the rules of the game do not reflect the reality of the game world, then what good are they to us? Why even have a chart for what happens when you fall out of a tree, if someone falls out of a tree, and the DM arbitrarily decides that something happens which isn't even on the chart?

Something is seriously wrong if the outcome of an action depends on whether or not you decide to use the rules which exist to determine the outcome of that action. At that point, the deciding factor has nothing to do with the action itself, but on the extremely meta-game decision of whether or not to apply the rules. There is no path down that road which does not rely on extensive meta-gaming.

cfmcdonald said:
If we assume the D&D rules are supposed to model the world as experienced by the characters, it raises all sorts of odd questions. Do PCs notice that they follow different physical laws than NPCs? Like what is a "guard"? Why doesn't it follow the rules for a "fighter"? How does it become a "veteran"?

First of all, no, PCs do not follow distinctly different physical laws from NPCs. That was a mistake of 4E which (if there's any Good in this world) will never be repeated. The stat differences between any two characters, whether PC or NPC, all reflect real differences within the game world. NPCs gain their abilities in a manner which is comparable to PCs, differing only in the specifics between their situations and the abilities in question.

Second of all, it doesn't actually raise very many odd questions. Mostly, it just results in situations which are hard for some people to accept, because they aren't firmly rooted in the real world. For example, some people can (reliably and repeatably) survive falling a great distance. You might think that's weird, but it's not really more weird than dragons or giants or magical elves. It's internally consistent, which is the important thing.

Maxperson · Jan 16, 2019

Saelorn said:
I take offense at the accusation, as I hope you would. The quoted text clearly describes meta-gaming as using OOC knowledge for IC decisions, and that's not what I'm doing.

It is, though. The numbers and mechanics of conversing and charisma are pure OOC knowledge. The PCs have no way of seeing those things and passively picking it up.

Our fundamental disagreement is over which specific information is considered in-character information, and which information is out-of-character information. At my table, the actions I describe are considered to be based on in-game knowledge, because it's assumed that the rules in the book reflect the rules of the game world; because the alternative would be unplayable. If the rules in the book don't reflect how that reality really works, then we have absolutely no idea how it does work, and we have no idea what our characters might believe.

You can't see the numbers of gravity, even though there are rules in our world for it. You can't see the numbers of how charisma affects people, even though there are rules for it in the real world. You can't see the numbers for the strength and endurance of two boxers in a fight, even though there are rules for it in the real world. PCs are similarly unable to see the rules for the game world. The rules are purely for the players and DM so that they can play the game.

As a very simple example, consider slitting someone's throat as a method of execution. In the real world, such an act has a very high likelihood of being lethal. In the game world, it's an automatic critical hit that deals ~10 damage, and is trivially survivable by almost anyone you would want to kill.

In the game world it's lethal virtually every time. If you don't do enough damage to kill outright, you failed to slit the throat. Unless the victim is unconscious, then it's 2 failed death saves which will doom the victim most of the time. Failing the prior situations, the victim moved, escaped your hold, blocked the knife, or some other reason why the throat was not slit. That's how hit points and death work in the game world.

So what does your character do, when they finally capture the traitor who murdered their family? Do you 1) slit their throat, and leave them to "bleed out", only for them to come back the next day for you to repeat the process?

You cut their throat and they end up dead. You just have to set things up so that you can cut the throat, which means removing hit points first.

In any case, hit points work differently than the vague stat/skill bonuses that the PCs are completely unable to see or "passively pick up."