A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

Maxperson said:

Less use is a different metric, and a flawed model can't be of less use than no model. No model = 0 use. A flawed model will be used by at least someone out there. I didn't use the disease mechanics in 1e, but I played with DMs who did. No matter how bad a model is, someone will find use for it. Nobody can find use for a non-existent model.

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But what if no system is mathematically closer to the real world?

If a given real world disease affects 1% of the population, and a game system about disease indicates that a PC is afflicted when they roll a 1 on a d20, the that’s a 5% chance. 0% is closer to 1% than 5% is. Hence, more reals.


What you’re claiming is simply not objectively true. It works for you and you think it’s more real, and that’s fine...but it’s silly to think people who don’t share your opinion are wrong.

Hriston said:

It isn't necessary that there be a rule or a mechanic for the degradation of weapons for it to be an element of the fiction in the game. All that's required is that the players at the table imagine it to be so. The whetstone is listed on the equipment list as an aid to that, so we can see that's what's intended. We can also see that it's intended to be a player-side element because it's on the equipment list, rather than something to be invoked by the DM whether the players want it to be a focus of play or not as a rule or mechanic would suggest.

You don't need a mechanic to tell you how fast grass grows or how many leaves fall from the trees in Autumn for those to be elements of the fiction in a game of D&D. If the party returns to a location after an absence of several months and the DM describes the grass as having grown longer in the intervening time, I don't think it's an appropriate response for the players to say that grass doesn't grow in D&D because there's no rule for it.

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I think it is also a bit silly for someone to hold as an absolute that in classic D&D editions there is something that will never happen. DMs are pretty close to absolute authorities, and if one says "you know, after bashing that gargoyle with your sword for 10 minutes, you better have a whetstone or else blah blah blah..." that seems to me to be perfectly plausible. Sure, we can expect it might be more likely if there's an actual rule for it, but then who exactly is it that is doing all the tracking needed for said rule? If it is just as simple as "it is understood that the party sharpens their weapons fairly regularly, and if there's absolutely no sharpening equipment around, then maybe they'll start to have problems." then that sounds basically the same as the DM fiat case, it hardly warrants a rule.

hawkeyefan said:

But what if no system is mathematically closer to the real world?

If a given real world disease affects 1% of the population, and a game system about disease indicates that a PC is afflicted when they roll a 1 on a d20, the that’s a 5% chance. 0% is closer to 1% than 5% is. Hence, more reals.

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It doesn't work like that. Flat math isn't everything. 0% = 100% unrealistic. Therefore, if the system includes ANY amount of realism, even if it is mathematically farther from reality than 0%, must be more realistic as the realism of that system higher than 0%.

AbdulAlhazred said:

I think it is also a bit silly for someone to hold as an absolute that in classic D&D editions there is something that will never happen. DMs are pretty close to absolute authorities, and if one says "you know, after bashing that gargoyle with your sword for 10 minutes, you better have a whetstone or else blah blah blah..." that seems to me to be perfectly plausible. Sure, we can expect it might be more likely if there's an actual rule for it, but then who exactly is it that is doing all the tracking needed for said rule? If it is just as simple as "it is understood that the party sharpens their weapons fairly regularly, and if there's absolutely no sharpening equipment around, then maybe they'll start to have problems." then that sounds basically the same as the DM fiat case, it hardly warrants a rule.

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Suggesting DM fiat is a good thing is close to heresy with many people on this forum.

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], as far as I know there are no rules in 5e for clothes becoming dirty or sweaty. Does that mean you think a GM who narrates a failed physical manoeuvre in a swamp as "You fall into the mud, making your clothes filthy" is breaking the rules? Or a GM who narrates a failed CHA check to influence a NPC, in circumstances where the PC has been in the wilds for a long time without bathing, as the NPC walking away making a comment about These reeking travellers?

There are many ways that humans can degrade their clothes, their weapons, their pets, their companions (where are D&D's rules for putting a frog in someone's bed?) that D&D's rules don't model. That doesn't mean those things aren't part of the gameworld. It doesn't stop both players and GM's invoking them when the mood strikes, either as mere colour (like [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s player who has a cold and so plays his/her PC as having a cold) or as part of the narration of failure (as per my examples above, or as per the suggestion that [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] and I made way upthread that a missed attack might be narrated as the weapon having become dulled) or even as mattering to resolution (maybe after falling in the mud, the GM imposes disadvantage on CHA checks to befriend strangers until the PC gets clean clothes).

The 5e Basic PDF has whetstones on its equipment list. It also has price lists for different qualities of clothing, food, drink and accommodation, even though there are no mechanics governing social class and status. There is an abacus on the list, although no rule that forbids a player using a calculator or pen-and-paper to do maths for his/her PC. All these things are clearly there to help establish these various elements of the fiction. The fact that there is no mechanic that necessarily invokes them is entirely beside the point.

EDIT: A lot of this was ninja-ed by [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION] earlier today (my time), using the example of grass growing.

Maxperson said:

Less use is a different metric, and a flawed model can't be of less use than no model. No model = 0 use. A flawed model will be used by at least someone out there. I didn't use the disease mechanics in 1e, but I played with DMs who did. No matter how bad a model is, someone will find use for it. Nobody can find use for a non-existent model.

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This is a weird response. The meaning, in ordinary English, of A is less use than B is not A is less used than B but A is of less utility than B. In this particular discussion, the measure of utility is realism. The fact that some people use A doesn't show that it has more utility (ie makes the game more realistic) than B. Maybe all their games become laughable jokes - from the point of view of realism - because of their use of A.

Maxperson said:

Degradation causes weapons to hit less and do less damage

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This is weird too. In this context, degradation is a notion about what is happening to a weapon, either in real life or in the fiction; where as hitting less and doing less damage are purely mechanical notions associated with D&D and similar RPG systems.

In Tunnels & Trolls there's no such thing as "hitting", and so degraded weapons (should a group wish to introduce them) simply do fewer "hits".

In Cortex+ Heroic, a degraded weapon would normally be represented as a complication, which increases the size of an opposed dice pool.

Etc.

pemerton said:

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], as far as I know there are no rules in 5e for clothes becoming dirty or sweaty. Does that mean you think a GM who narrates a failed physical manoeuvre in a swamp as "You fall into the mud, making your clothes filthy" is breaking the rules? Or a GM who narrates a failed CHA check to influence a NPC, in circumstances where the PC has been in the wilds for a long time without bathing, as the NPC walking away making a comment about These reeking travellers?

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So two things. First, I said that the DM can add things to the game. Second, that's a blatant false equivalence. Getting dirty has no mechanical impact on the clothing. Degradation of weapons does. Things that have mechanical impact need rules or else they are done by DM fiat which in the case of a broken weapon or turning a hit into a miss due to dullness, can lead to negative feelings.

pemerton said:

This is a weird response. The meaning, in ordinary English, of A is less use than B is not A is less used than B but A is of less utility than B. In this particular discussion, the measure of utility is realism. The fact that some people use A doesn't show that it has more utility (ie makes the game more realistic) than B. Maybe all their games become laughable jokes - from the point of view of realism - because of their use of A.

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Okay, so then a system, however bad, cannot be less useful than nothing. Somebody will use any given system put into a game.

This is weird too. In this context, degradation is a notion about what is happening to a weapon, either in real life or in the fiction; where as hitting less and doing less damage are purely mechanical notions associated with D&D and similar RPG systems.

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The bolded isn't true. A dull weapon won't go through armor as well, so an enemy you might have killed had you kept your weapon sharp will sometimes live as you fail in your attempt to kill him. That's modeled in an RPG through the hit and miss mechanics. It will also fail to penetrate as far as as sharp weapon would have, doing less damage to the body you are swinging at.

In Tunnels & Trolls there's no such thing as "hitting", and so degraded weapons (should a group wish to introduce them) simply do fewer "hits".

In Cortex+ Heroic, a degraded weapon would normally be represented as a complication, which increases the size of an opposed dice pool.

Etc.

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However you want to model it, there will be a mechanical impact if your weapons are actually degrading.

Maxperson said:

Getting dirty has no mechanical impact on the clothing. Degradation of weapons does.

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What does mechanical mean here? Do you mean game mechanics? In that case, getting dirty does have a mechanical effect: it makes people less appealing! Ie it lowers CHA, or otherwise makes it harder to succeed on tasks that require charisma.

Falling down can also tear holes in clothes. And walking in boots can wear them out. Where are the rules for that? None that I'm aware of, yet the Basic PDF has weaver's tools and cobbler's tools on the equipment list.

Maxperson said:

Things that have mechanical impact need rules or else they are done by DM fiat which in the case of a broken weapon or turning a hit into a miss due to dullness, can lead to negative feelings.

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Players often roll their own misses. Some of these can be narrated as the result of dulled blades.

But your desire to substitute mechanical outcomes for GM narration of the fiction is consistent with what I and some others have posted: that the issue here is not realism but system preferences.

Maxperson said:

Okay, so then a system, however bad, cannot be less useful than nothing. Somebody will use any given system put into a game.

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Sure, if there are systems people might use them. But using a system doesn't per se increase realism in the game. If the system is bad, it might make the fiction less realistic than it otherwise would be.

Maxperson said:

A dull weapon won't go through armor as well, so an enemy you might have killed had you kept your weapon sharp will sometimes live as you fail in your attempt to kill him. That's modeled in an RPG through the hit and miss mechanics.

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There are RPGs without hit and miss mechanics - for instance, Tunnels & Trolls.

pemerton said:

What does mechanical mean here? Do you mean game mechanics? In that case, getting dirty does have a mechanical effect: it makes people less appealing! Ie it lowers CHA, or otherwise makes it harder to succeed on tasks that require charisma.

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If you want to model that with a penalty to persuasion, you can. It doesn't cause any clothing degradation, though. There is no mechanical impact on the quality of the clothing, though.

Falling down can also tear holes in clothes. And walking in boots can wear them out. Where are the rules for that? None that I'm aware of, yet the Basic PDF has weaver's tools and cobbler's tools on the equipment list.

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Not in 5e, unless you add it in. Weaver's tools and cobbler's tools are used for making new clothing and tools. Perhaps the PC wants to sell them. Perhaps he just wants a different color or for a special occasion. Their existence does not meant that clothing wears out any more than the whetstone's existence means that weapons degrade.

Players often roll their own misses. Some of these can be narrated as the result of dulled blades.

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Unless the DM is rolling for everything, the players will roll all of their own misses. Narration due to dulled blades is not supported by 5e rules, though. Weapons in 5e do not degrade. You are also avoiding breakage, which degraded weapons do.......a lot.

There are RPGs without hit and miss mechanics - for instance, Tunnels & Trolls.

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That doesn't mean that dullness cannot be mechanically modeled, or that you couldn't have weapons break if they are truly degrading.