D&D 4E 4e and reality

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I mean really... when you watch the LoTR movies, do you cry '!' when Legolas does that awesome stuff to take down an oliphant? No. Why? Because his world is not the same as ours. What he does is plausible for him to do. He's just as martial as anyone... but he transcends the laws of -our- world by dint of simply not being in it.

Have you met the internet? There are entire nations of people whose existence is devoted almost entirely to bitching about that single Legolas scene. They are more vocal, but less common than the "LOL Shield Sk8ter" faction.

I maintain that these people are genetically incapable of relaxing and having fun, but I assure you, they are about, and they are certainly gaming.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Here's the core issue tho.

My character is in a game of power fantasy. He is expected, in the narrative, to do fantastic things. The bounds of our mundane reality are not his reality. I do not find it believable within the genre of power fantasy that he has such limitations is Earth physics. With enough skill, he can leap 30 feet regularly, move faster than Usain Bolt, turn on a dime, while wearing armor made out of metals heavier than any found on earth.

That might be your vision of D&D, but it doesn't match any vision of D&D which I've ever had or met other people with. I think you are projecting your ideas of mythic fantasy onto a game which was never designed (originally) with that in mind.

If I wanted to play mythic power fantasy I'd play heroquest or champions or something similar.

If I want classic swords and sorcery I'd play D&D (at least up to 3.5e, anyway!)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

That might be your vision of D&D, but it doesn't match any vision of D&D which I've ever had or met other people with. I think you are projecting your ideas of mythic fantasy onto a game which was never designed (originally) with that in mind.

If I wanted to play mythic power fantasy I'd play heroquest or champions or something similar.

If I want classic swords and sorcery I'd play D&D (at least up to 3.5e, anyway!)

I think we're well into mutually exclusive definitions here. i.e. "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means." (No offense intended, just that we're defining things differently).

D&D has always been (at least since 2e) packed to the gills with mythic fantasy. Once you get a few levels under your belt, D&D has always been a lot more High Magic and Myth than swords and sorcery. The magic items alone, which are about as core to D&D as you can get, have long pushed mythology straight into the forefront of the game.

If 2e had been Swords and Sorcery, my Fighter's effectiveness would have been defined by his skills, not his equipment. I always felt way more like Perseus than Fafhrd.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here's the core issue tho.

My character is in a game of power fantasy. He is expected, in the narrative, to do fantastic things. The bounds of our mundane reality are not his reality. I do not find it believable within the genre of power fantasy that he has such limitations is Earth physics. With enough skill, he can leap 30 feet regularly, move faster than Usain Bolt, turn on a dime, while wearing armor made out of metals heavier than any found on earth.

And all this is believable, because he's NOT on Earth. He doesn't obey the laws of physics because he's not in a world of physics. He's in a world of heroes, of legends, of demigods, of the fantastic. He is in a world where one who grasps power can take it and -become- power.

He can't grab a waterfall? Why the hell can't he try? He's not Dwayne Snibblin, computer programmer. He's GORGANASH THE CONQUERER, and with his axe has brought nations to his command.

I mean really... when you watch the LoTR movies, do you cry '!' when Legolas does that awesome stuff to take down an oliphant? No. Why? Because his world is not the same as ours. What he does is plausible for him to do. He's just as martial as anyone... but he transcends the laws of -our- world by dint of simply not being in it.

When you say something is impossible, you need a better reason than 'It's not realistic' because of the nature of the world you're playing in. In the D&D presented in the books, it IS possible, and it IS plausible, and to claim otherwise breaks versimilitude while Page 42 exists.

Sure, but there are things he CAN do and things he CAN'T do. He may be the Burninator himself, but your character isn't all powerful. Is it REALLY that big a deal if he can't grab a swarm or climb a waterfall? I mean I'd put it this way. If a player said "Hey, I'm going to throw my cloak over that swarm and 'grab' it." then bingo he's got something going on there. If he wants to stick his frost blade into a waterfall and 'hit' it to freeze it, well we can at least look at that and see if it seems somehow feasible and give him a chance at it, at which point he may have a frozen waterfall he can do stuff with. I just don't buy the argument that ALWAYS everyone can use every power they have regardless of the situation in the game world and it 'just works'. Most of the time it WILL and I'd never be the one laying roadblocks in the way of PCs using their standard powers, nor am I prone to saying 'no' to page 42 stunts. Just not every PC will always have the resources needed to apply to every situation. That's why there are other party members. The wizard's Ray of Frost may be better at freezing waterfalls and his Scorching Burst may be better for burning up a swarm. OTOH the mighty fighter's sword is likely a LOT better for breaking stuff and is likely to be quite a bit more useful against certain monsters as well.

The trick for the DM is not to overdo it. You're entirely correct, 'realism' is a very thin sort of justification for things, but I think it is reasonably important to retain a certain degree of consistency in the game world such that the player's can apply their understanding of how things work in the real world within reason. The guy playing the grabby fighter can reason that grabbing a bunch of bugs is not going to work well, nor is climbing a waterfall. Once the mechanics get TOO far outside of what we understand from actual life experience then how are the players supposed to figure out how to do anything? It can be fun now and then to have something crazy that is just totally unexpected but for the most part the world should work like the real world enough that the players can reason about it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've often seen this kind of statement, but it doesn't really make any sense - it seems to be saying that because there is a fantasy world, you shouldn't care about believability.

Fantasy worlds can still be 'believable' - or, at least, internally consistent. In the lowest of low fantasy, in modern fantasy, and in stories where magic is the focus and all the important characters wield it, you can have a world that conforms very closely to our own /except/ where magic is directly involved (and, even then, magic may not 'break' physical laws, just have ways around them). In myth & legend or high fantasy or heroic fantasy or sword & sorcery or anime-inspired fantasy (or, heck, pulps, comics, or action movies), though, the characters and events often have little respect for everyday or scientific reality.

D&D has kind of forged it's own sub-genre of fantasy, and it's not real consistent. There's a science-nerd streak in some of EGG's stuff, for instance. In 4e, the game feels like it's actively trying to model an action movie - and comic book or anime would be much of a stretch. Running a low fantasy campaign would require some re-jiggering. Delving into a science-nerd take on magic in which you speculate on the ramifications of conjuring spheres of absolute zero matter or teleporting to a different latitude on a rotating globe of a planet, is also way outside 4e's comfort zone.

That might be your vision of D&D, but it doesn't match any vision of D&D which I've ever had or met other people with. I think you are projecting your ideas of mythic fantasy onto a game which was never designed (originally) with that in mind.

Maybe he has, but, guess what, the rules /do/ support it in 4e. You guys are the ones overriding the rules to keep it from being that way.

Sure, but there are things he CAN do and things he CAN'T do. Is it REALLY that big a deal if he can't grab a swarm or climb a waterfall?

No, it's not such a big deal that he /can/ grab a swarm and can't climb up a waterfall (and I'm sure the check to /swim/ up it would be crazy-high). But, some people seem to think that it /is/ such a big deal that they should override the rules to keep a player from using his character's abilities.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No, it's not such a big deal that he /can/ grab a swarm and can't climb up a waterfall (and I'm sure the check to /swim/ up it would be crazy-high). But, some people seem to think that it /is/ such a big deal that they should override the rules to keep a player from using his character's abilities.

I'm happy enough to have the character use his abilities. I still would like the player to exercise some creativity. As I said before, if the player is going to explain his amazing feat of awesomeness then he's very welcome to it. Honestly this is not actually anything out of the ordinary in terms of what is ALWAYS done in a game. You don't just have the player say "Yeah, I'm awesome so I'm at the top of that wall." He has to EXPLAIN how he can get to the top of that wall. Maybe not to the very last detail of how he climbed it, but he's going to need to explain how his abilities interact with the world to produce the result he wants at SOME level.

Now, you can simply hand wave and say "yeah, SOMEHOW my grabby fighter grabs the swarm" and that is a sort of general explanation but it doesn't actually address the specifics of the situation at hand. Sometimes there are problems to be overcome in the course of using your character's abilities. I don't think it is outside of the intent of the design of the game AT ALL that you come up with an explanation that deals with those challenges.

Honestly, all the game does is give you a toolbox of some size with which to deal with challenges. You still have to apply it. The rules provide general guidelines for how the mechanics of that works, not absolute license to do anything just because no rule says 'no'. It is up to the DM not to actively thwart the players too much, but he can and should give them problems to solve, and grabbing a swarm is a problem that Mr Grabby Fighter is just going to have to solve. If he doesn't, well big deal, the rest of the party can handle it. If they can't then they're in over their heads or the DM needs to look at the difficulty levels of the challenges, or maybe it's a sandbox where that kind of thing is expected.

 

[Alex319]

As I see it, there's really at least two separate questions being asked in this thread:

1. Should the 4e rules be changed (either in an official update, or through house rules) to better model "reality"?

2. Does it make sense to override the rules a lot during the game in order to fit with the DM's/player's conception of what is "realistic" in the situation?

There are several different considerations involved that have been invoked as a justification for one side or the other:

Believability:

This is whether or not the players and DMs think that what is going on in the world makes sense for the genre. For this justification, it is not clear whether or not "realism" enhances believability. First of all, players can easily disagree on what the parameters of the genre are - just look at this thread and all the discussions about "heroic fantasy" versus "classic sword and sorcery". So anything that makes it more "believable" for one person can just as easily make it less "believable" for another person if they are starting from a different baseline.

Another issue is the situation in (2) above where a player thinks that something will work a particular way and plans for that, but the DM has a different conception of what is realistic and so vetoes it. This is probably less "believable" because in real life people usually do know in a general sense what their capabilities are.

For instance, let's say that a player is facing a dragon and is on the edge of a 100 foot cliff. The player realizes he is unlikely to beat the dragon, but knows he has enough hit points to survive the fall, and jumps off the cliff to escape. The DM says it's not realistic to survive such a big fall, and kills the character without rolling for damage. This is actually LESS believable, because in "real life" the character probably wouldn't have had such a dramatic misconception about his chances of surviving.

But overall, there may not be any way of resolving this issue because it's fundamentally subjective, since it is all about the players' reactions to the information.

Consistency:

This is whether or not what happens in the game world follows a self-consistent set of rules. This is important because it allows players to predict the results of their actions. For this idea, if you are doing (1) above that does not affect consistency. "Swarms can be grabbed just like regular monsters" is a self-consistent rule, and "All swarms are immune to grab" is also a self-consistent rule. As long as you pick one in advance and stick with it you are fine. However, if you do (2) a lot then that actually makes things LESS consistent. For example, let's take the example above about jumping off a cliff. If you were to auto-kill the character then, you would have a system where "The hit-point system is an accurate model of injuries, except when the DM arbitrarily decides it isn't." Same thing with grabing swarms: if you change the rules in the middle then you have a system where "The combat rules are an accurate model of combat, except when the DM thinks that a given power won't work and vetoes it."

Fairness:

This is whether anyone feels like they're not being given a chance to participate, or they're being denied something that they should have. Being fair doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has to have equal power in all situations, just that everyone has a chance to participate and nobody feels "gypped out" of a power they should have. If you do (1) above, it doesn't necessarily have to affect fairness because players know in advance, so they can plan around it. (Of course, this assumes that such planning is possible. For instance, in the example of 3e rogues vs. a dungeon full of undead with no traps, the only way to "plan around it" is to not play a rogue, because pretty much all of a rogues' unique stuff has to do with traps and sneak attacks.) In fact it could even increase fairness if the restriction of a power in one situation makes it so that someone else has a chance to shine, or if the "realism" comes in the form of adding an option rather than taking one away. However, if you do (2), then it can easily decrease fairness because a player thinks they should be able to do something, but then can't.

In the grabbing swarms example: If you were to tell the players in advance that all swarms are immune to grab, then players who wanted to build a grappler fighter would know to make contingency plans for fighting swarms. If you didn't, then a player creating such a fighter would assume that the powers would still work fine against swarms (a reasonable assumption, since the rules say they do and you didn't tell them anything else), build around that, and then get frustrated when his assumptions are violated and it's too late to make any changes.

Another important caveat is that for some reason it tends to be only martial classes that get the "realism treatment." There's all sorts of threads about how martial dailies work, whether you can grab swarms, how Come and Get It works, how fighter marks work, and so on, but I haven't seen anything criticising arcane or divine classes and powers for not being believable. Which is surprising, because I can think of lots of "rules/fluff inconsistencies" with arcane or divine powers as well.

For instance, if divine powers are granted by the gods, and there are particular rules about how many times a day you can use a given power, that means the gods must be keeping track of when you use each power in order to know whether to give you a power when you call for it at a specific time. If this was actually how the fluff worked, such information could be used in other ways: "According to Erathis' records, my client used Lay on Hands on Korvak Hammershield of Springhaven at 7:32 P.M. on the evening of the murder, so there's no way he could have been at the tavern in Fallsgrove at the time the murder took place."

 

[AllisterH]

Taken from the 2e PHB

"There are many famous fighters from legend: Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristand and Sinbad.

......

Your fighter could be modeled after any of these...."


Looks at the wikipedia page for Cuchulain and sees feats such as

"He averts his eyes, and the Ulstermen wrestle him into a barrel of cold water, which explodes from the heat of his body. They put him in a second barrel, which boils, and a third, which warms to a pleasant temperature.[8]"

Yeah...the thing about D&D is that WESTERN fighters of legend were just as ridiculous as the new thing (anime/manga/asian films) fighters if not more....the only problem is that D&D never really seemed able to mimic this...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now, you can simply hand wave and say "yeah, SOMEHOW my grabby fighter grabs the swarm" and that is a sort of general explanation but it doesn't actually address the specifics of the situation at hand. Sometimes there are problems to be overcome in the course of using your character's abilities. I don't think it is outside of the intent of the design of the game AT ALL that you come up with an explanation that deals with those challenges.

There is no expectation that a wizard's player say more than "I cast fireball - centered right...uh... there," why is there an expectation that the player of a fighter need explain how he uses his abilities?

If a DM feels the need to consistently deny martial characters their power, or even to hold them to some double-standard where they must justify their powers before being permitted to use them, then he should just cut to the chase and ban martial classes from his game. It'd save a lot of trouble.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There is no expectation that a wizard's player say more than "I cast fireball - centered right...uh... there," why is there an expectation that the player of a fighter need explain how he uses his abilities?

If a DM feels the need to consistently deny martial characters their power, or even to hold them to some double-standard where they must justify their powers before being permitted to use them, then he should just cut to the chase and ban martial classes from his game. It'd save a lot of trouble.

This is silly and we both know it.

There are ALL SORTS of situations where casters have reduced capabilities. Since when have I seen an environmental effect that ONLY made swordplay less effective? Yet there are plenty of times where this that or the other spell effects are negated or reduced. TONS of monsters have immunity or resistance to various damage types which are virtually never even inconvenient to a martial character.

And consider cases that aren't covered specifically by the rules, a wizard is going to do REALLY well in almost any game with fire spells under water for instance.

Besides, just exactly how many cases are we talking about here? This is a mole hill made into a mountain. Really, if you are going to have a campaign full of swarms then you want to tell people about any specific ways you handle them that go beyond the book. If one is going to show up every level or two as an element of an encounter, big deal. Man up.

Alex, I think you have looked at things from ONE angle but not from others.

For instance, consistency isn't simply internal. There is external consistency as well. There is also internal consistency across situations. You wouldn't allow a player to grasp a pile of stones in one hand and hold onto them all. So why would a swarm be different? We often confuse consistency with believability because things that are termed 'believable' are generally meant to be 'consistent with reality as we know it.' and since reality as we know it is pretty consistent that provides consistency. It isn't the ONLY type of consistency however. Neither is 'consistency with the rules', which are after all simply words written on paper which were the best attempt of someone somewhere to create a fun game. Given that the rules themselves can be fairly inconsistent at times (though 4e is at least pretty good about this) even just adhering to RAW doesn't guarantee consistency of ANY kind.

Nor do the rules guarantee fairness. They in fact really guarantee nothing. It is the DM, the arbiter of the game, who creates fairness if it is going to exist (or destroys it as the case may be). Following the letter of the rules is an OK way to be consistent and fair, but I almost guarantee you that the DMs you really want to play with have little interest in that.

I mean heck, there are some pretty good ones here. I won't speak for any of them, but I'm betting that adherence to specific rules when it gets in the way of the game is not super high on any of their lists of do's. Being entirely arbitrary probably is high on most really good DM's list of don'ts, but I think we already knew that.