D&D 4E 4e and reality

[LostSoul]

We've all played us some 4E and we're familiar with the mechanics. We can see how the way the fictional situation isn't as important as it is in Sorcerer; it's much more like my experience with Freemarket. In my con experience with Freemarket, all that really matters is the numbers on the sheet. Similar things can be said for the suite of powers a PC has. It doesn't matter that I'm fighting a swarm of angry bees, I can still trip them.

I also think it's interesting to look at different ways games have taken to put more emphasis on the fictional situation. 3E did it by trying to have rules that simulated that fiction. There are a lot of specific rules for dealing with oozes, for example.

Personally, I don't like that approach. Let's say that two characters are flanking a gelatinous cube. Another character, perpendicular to these two, fires a scorching ray at the cube. I describe the cube as lurching to one side, stretching out, one thin strand connecting two bulky masses.

Now most of its mass is on one side and it's revealed a weak point. What happens if I say that I'm going to cut that thin strand with my sword? If I'm a Rogue, do I get Sneak Attack bonuses to my damage? If I want to trip it, does that make it easier? Can I flank it now?

It's the same thing with 4E or my experience with Freemarket - the rules say that an ooze can't be flanked or sneak attacked or critically hit. So it can't.

If the same situation occurred in Sorcerer, the DM might award me some bonus dice for excellent tactics (if I cut at the thin strand). Thus reflecting the fictional situation, emphasizing it, no house ruling required.

*

The reason why I don't think it has anything to do with realism is that you could have a setting where the Martial Power Source was explicitly magical and it wouldn't change a thing. The action that your Fighter takes still has no meaning on how the fictional situation plays out beyond the game mechanics of it. The game would play the same way - conflicts would be resolved the same way, XP would be handed out the same way, treasure would be given out the same way. The game would not change.

 

[Obryn]

I quote "My bard made a Gelatineous Cube cry so hard it died."

Explain that one away.

The bard's not making the Cube cry. He's casting a spell through his songs/lyrics/poems/insults/etc., just like the Wizard casts spells with secret formulae and the Swordmage casts spells through scratching runes in the air with his blade.

-O

 

[Hussar]

Since he's the only one I hate and the only one with those kind of items, I'm prepared to call him an outlier. Leiber and Howard and their imitators (a) are far more common; and (b) have retained far more popularity. People who didn't play 1e have actually read them and enjoyed it.

It's not my fault that the creators of D&D based so much of their game on literary outliers like Moorcock and Vance who were already unpopular when I started playing in the late '80s and have only gotten less popular since.

People coming into the game now tend to find Moorcockian and Vancian tropes extremely off-putting, IME. I sympathize, because I actually read some of those books back in the say and I still found it off-putting in the game. Obviously, YMMV, but I find the faster D&D runs away from Moorcock and Vance, the more fun it is and the easier it is to get new players to buy into the game logic (to finally bring this aside somewhere close to back on topic).

Moorcock is a literary "outlier"? Umm, what? He's a best selling author with a raft of literary awards from both SF and the fantasy side of the street. And, he's still pushing out content as well - there's a new Moorcock story in the Starshipsofa collection (if you're an audio fiction fan).

Putting Moorcock in the same basket as Vance (who truly is an under-appreciated author) is not accurate. Moorcock is a well known author, well outside gaming circles. I'd even go so far to say that withing fantasy circles, Moorcock is as well known as Howard. Numerous graphic novels, a couple of rock bands, and he's been pretty much constantly in print for the past four decades.

Definitely not a minor player in the fantasy scene.

On the whole genre definition thing, you have to remember that genre isn't generally (although sometimes it is) defined by trope, but by theme. Sword and Sorcery isn't defined by the level of magic, but by the scope of the plot. S&S fantasy deals with the individual (or small group of individuals) who is usually shady (to say the least) and not interested in saving the world or doing anything altruistic like that. It's contrasted with epic fantasy by way of the plot - epic fantasy is huge, sprawling, cast of thousands, end of the world, great wars, etc.

"I don't like it" is not a reason to reject a work from a genre.

Then again, I'm a big believer that 4e actually does S&S pulp very well. Larger than life heroes that kick ass and take names. Conan isn't a normal guy who does extraordinary things. He's the direct descendant of an Atlantean king, the strongest, the nastiest and the best at pretty much everything. Sounds a lot like a 4e character to me.

 

[lutecius]

And yet, D&D has -never- been good at making rules to fit the fluff... it's always been about making the fluff to fit the rules. The only difference is that 4th edition admits it, and goes 'Look, you make the fluff, cause it's arbitrary anyways.'

You want to talk simulationist rules, then there is absolutely no edition of D&D that qualifies.

Take, for example, armor class. This is an example of where 4th edition is actually MORE simulationist than previous editions. See, a lot of training in weapon play is in how to defense yourself. Fourth edition is the only edition of D&D that models it, outside of monk-like character classes.

There's no explanation in second edition why they can be pulled off exactly zero times in a fight either. Or why in third edition an expert at arms can, with experience, get better at avoiding hits from spells and magic, but not get better at avoiding hits from swords.

Every edition has its arbitrary problems where 'simulation' breaks down. The difference is that 3rd and previous editions claim to be simulationist while utterly failing to do so, and 4th edition doesn't bother claiming to be something it's not.

So, when someone refers to the simulationism of 3rd edition, they're certainly not refering to how rules are made to match the fluff, but instead, to rules depth used to disguise the arbitrary nature of the rules. Or they're deluding themselves.

Either way, not my problem.

Welcome to epic fantasy roleplay. Stop asking if Melvin the burger flipper can grab or poison these things. Ask if Hercules, or Batman, or Ajax, or Paul Bunyun, or Aragorn, or Legolas, or anything -legendary- can do these things. D&D4th is about simulating -legend- not about simulating -reality-. And when legends include doing 7 impossible things before breakfast, why let something arbitrary like rules-restrictions get in the way?

Hell, if you don't want tortured explanations, just use this one.
'He's that awesome.'
Seriously. That's all you really need. This is a game with flying floating eyes that pew pew laser beams as one of its mascots for gossake.

I like the minion mechanics. It -accurately- simulates the idea of disposable mooks. It's not even like 4th edition invented the concept. The same thing has been used in other rpgs like 7th Sea, Feng Shui, etc.

Every battle grid is an abstraction. One is easy to use, the other requires kludges to handle things like 'straight wall.' People will complain with either one. Wizards chose to use the one that can handle a straight wall.

But healing surges -are- simulationist. They simulate the ability to keep going and shrug off fatigue and injury over time. Contrast with every edition's way of handling it which is 'They have hitpoints... and... um... it's an abstraction.'

How are healing surges and hit points -less- simulationist than hit points? What -exactly- do hit points simulate?

tl;dr: People using simulationist as a word to describe any edition of dungeons and dragons are being ignorant of the arbitrary rules those editions have had that have absolutely zero simulation in them. No edition of D&D has ever truly been simulationist. Ever. Palladium is more simulationist than anything D&D has come out with... and Palladium's terrible at simulationism.

Play games that aren't based on d20 rolls, then come back to me with your simulationism claims.

uh, ok?

I don't recall claiming that dnd was particularly simulationist.
I do think that, no matter how many gamist elements and fluff inconsistencies you find in the previous editions, those added in 4e still make it less simulationist (and just because you're willing to accept a certain level of quirkiness doesn't mean you want more of it) but that wasn't really my point.

I was specifically challenging your assertion that "when most people say 'simulationism' they really mean 'ability to game more elements of the world", which would equate simulationism with "rules heavy". Again, most discussions about simulation in 4e involve existing rules (hence my examples), not the lack of rules.

Your views on "legendary" grabbing powers, martial dailies, the grid, minions or healing surges were um, enlightening but really, these mechanics have been debated to death since 4e's release… precisely because some people don't find them believable.
whether you agree with them or not, these are common simulationist issues. 4e not "attempting to make everything into game elements" isn't.

 

[Hussar]

I was specifically challenging your assertion that "when most people say 'simulationism' they really mean 'ability to game more elements of the world", which would equate simulationism with "rules heavy". Again, most discussions about simulation in 4e involve existing rules (hence my examples), not the lack of rules.

Hang on though. Aren't simulation games almost universally rules heavy? If you want to have a game where the mechanics represent a believable reality (which is how I understand simulation to work), doesn't that require a fairly heavy ruleset?

I'm trying to think of a truly sim style game that is not rules heavy. GURPS, HERO, Pirates and Privateers (which actually requires the use of square roots to calculate encumberance), and all the other sim-games that I can think of all have fairly heavy duty rules sets.

Can you point me in the direction of a rules light simulationist game?

 

[SkidAce]

literary outliers like Moorcock and Vance who were already unpopular

Unpopular?

I equally respect everyone's views. And we all know that you can't assess the truth entirely from your own perspective.

But wow...I thought I was in the majority on this one (liking those authors). Kinda made my reality spin around on me like walking out the wrong side of a building by mistake does.

/goes and sits down.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Unpopular?

I equally respect everyone's views. And we all know that you can't assess the truth entirely from your own perspective.

But wow...I thought I was in the majority on this one (liking those authors). Kinda made my reality spin around on me like walking out the wrong side of a building by mistake does.

/goes and sits down.

Cheer up, both Vance and Moorcock are towering icons of the fantasy and SF genre. Neither of them has faded all that much in popularity either. Vance is pushing 100 and hasn't published much new stuff since the early 90's but he's got a vast list of awards for his fantasy and you can find reprints of many of his novels in book stores right now today. In fact he did write an autobiography that was published last year, pretty good for a 95 yr old. Anyone who thinks Vance hasn't been a huge influence on SF and fantasy lives under a rock!

Someone saying Moorcock isn't a major influence or a hugely popular author truly IS living under a rock. He's highly active, has had a HUGE influence on modern fantasy and it would be hard to argue he isn't THE single most influential writer in the genre in general since Tolkien. He's still QUITE active and has written at least 5 or 6 fantasy novels in the last 10 years. I'm pretty sure they're quite popular.

So cheer up, anyone saying Vance or Moorcock aren't popular influential fantasy writers simply literally isn't in touch with what is going on in fantasy. They are also the two by far most wide ranging and imaginative of modern fantasy authors. Outside of Tolkien (and maybe even considering Tolkien) they've probably together done more to shape the genre in the last 50 years than anyone else.

Hang on though. Aren't simulation games almost universally rules heavy? If you want to have a game where the mechanics represent a believable reality (which is how I understand simulation to work), doesn't that require a fairly heavy ruleset?

I'm trying to think of a truly sim style game that is not rules heavy. GURPS, HERO, Pirates and Privateers (which actually requires the use of square roots to calculate encumberance), and all the other sim-games that I can think of all have fairly heavy duty rules sets.

Can you point me in the direction of a rules light simulationist game?

Traveler. A VERY simulationist game with quite minimalistic rules. There have been large elaborations on elements of the Traveler WORLD, vast amounts of equipment, starships, setting material, etc. but the actual core rules of the game are dirt simple, significantly less elaborate that Basic D&D even and have survived with no change or elaboration for over 30 years.

 

[Hussar]

I'll admit, I'm not that familiar with Traveler, but, isn't that the game with the three hour character generation system where you can actually die during chargen? Is it also not the system that has an entire random generation system for generating pretty much every single element of a planet (if not a planetary system)?

Or am I thinking of the wrong game?

 

[DracoSuave]

I'll admit, I'm not that familiar with Traveler, but, isn't that the game with the three hour character generation system where you can actually die during chargen? Is it also not the system that has an entire random generation system for generating pretty much every single element of a planet (if not a planetary system)?

Or am I thinking of the wrong game?

That's the one!

Now THAT is a simulationist game!

 

[BenBrown]

I'll admit, I'm not that familiar with Traveler, but, isn't that the game with the three hour character generation system where you can actually die during chargen? Is it also not the system that has an entire random generation system for generating pretty much every single element of a planet (if not a planetary system)?

Or am I thinking of the wrong game?

Actually, it's the game with the three minute character generation system where you can actually die during chargen. Chargen in the most recent version can take 15 minutes or more, but you can't die during it. The planetary generation system takes about as long as the chargen system, and doesn't really have more than a broad overview with a half a dozen or so things like population, atmosphere type, and so forth generated.

AbdulAlhazred is incorrect, though, about the rules having been unchanged for over 30 years. There've been a number of versions, many of which have significantly different rule sets. It is, I guess, on the light end of the scale, coming in at about the same level as white box D&D in its original incarnation, and BECMI in the current iteration. Whether you call that rules-light or not depends on what you take as a baseline. It's certainly less rules-intensive than D&D 3.5 or even 4E.

As to it being favorable to simulationist-types (I refuse to say a game is simulationist, since it really depends on group), it bends slightly fewer things away from reality than early D&D in favor of game play. I think this is as much a function of the type of literature that inspired it as any intent on the part of Marc Miller & co., though. Rather than the scattering of fantasy sources across subgenres from sword & sorcery to dying earth fantasy, to high fantasy, it's squarely based on the science fiction trends of the 1950s-60s, where keeping pace with science was an important part of SF, and the heroism had to work around real scientific constraints. If it had thrown out a broader net, including Sword & Planet stuff, or Space Fantasy such as Star Wars, its apparent "simulationism" would be far less.