D&D 4E 4e and reality

[Tony Vargas]

Let's not even get into the fact that, as Aegeri outlined above, the target of a grab must be "a creature" - a swarm is multiple creatures represented by one hit point total. That's precedent for not allowing a swarm to be grabbed in some situations...

That is complete and total BS, and you know it. Amusing BS, though.

It's not impossible. I've said 100 times that I certainly permit grabbing swarms - so long as you say it (justify it) in the fiction. I wouldn't let you grab a swarm just by saying "my power let's me grab it" just like I wouldn't allow you to use Intimidate by saying "I want to roll an Intimidate check". I don't know how to clarify this further.

I don't think there's any need for further clarifications. Your style is to ignore the rules arbitrarily to punish players who don't sufficiently entertain you. A style I could probably cope with (or even outright leverage) as a player, but which would drive many a more casual player away. DM'ing is not an easy job, even if 4e has made it a lot easier, and often thankless. If that's what you need to do to derive some enjoyment of your own in return for delivering a cool adventure to your players, then you just have to find the right set of players (which, I assume, you already have).

That probably sounds more critical than I intend it to be. There's nothing inherently wrong with a group having that style.

 

[P1NBACK]

That is complete and total BS, and you know it. Amusing BS, though.

Amusing because I agreed it isn't sufficient?

I don't think there's any need for further clarifications. Your style is to ignore the rules arbitrarily to punish players who don't sufficiently entertain you.

I'm not ignoring the rules arbitrarily, just like I wouldn't be ignoring the rules "arbitrarily" if someone came up with fictional justification to push a swarm (it's against the rules to push a swarm you know?). If a player justified breaking a "rule" and it made sense, I'd let them. Why not? Rules are guidelines and benchmarks for the DM. If I want to create an undead creature that is not immune to poison, I should be able to. That's breaking the "rules" - but if it makes sense, then why not?

The difference here is, one group of DMs prefer to stick to the rules (even when they misinterpret them, as Aegeri has done) and one group of DMs prefer to use the rules as guidelines supplemented by fiction and common sense.

I don't care which you prefer, but the point of this thread is when houserules were appropriate, and when they weren't. Is it appropriate to houserule that a swarm can be pushed by forced movement? It depends on the fiction and common sense.

Yet, someone like you or Aegeri wouldn't allow that because it "breaks the rules". On the flip side, you would allow a single man (well, Aegeri would anyways) to grab hold and immobilize a gargantuan mob of humanoids to the detriment of common sense - because he misinterprets the rules.

Which is worse for the game and the "casual player"? I'd argue the latter. Because then, the new player has to learn what rules YOU are using and how YOU interpret them, instead of relying on the common ground of common sense.

When a new player comes to the game, they don't know the "rules" - they know what makes sense fictionally and within the framework of common sense.

A style I could probably cope with (or even outright leverage) as a player, but which would drive many a more casual player away. DM'ing is not an easy job, even if 4e has made it a lot easier, and often thankless. If that's what you need to do to derive some enjoyment of your own in return for delivering a cool adventure to your players, then you just have to find the right set of players (which, I assume, you already have).

My players prefer to roleplay when they play D&D. So, yeah. I guess so.

That probably sounds more critical than I intend it to be. There's nothing inherently wrong with a group having that style.

To each his own, as they say.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, this thread is way too long for me to swim upstream and find it, but, since this did come up in my game recently, where does it say you cannot push a swarm? Admittedly, we didn't look very long, but we missed that if it's there.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Heh, this thread is way too long for me to swim upstream and find it, but, since this did come up in my game recently, where does it say you cannot push a swarm? Admittedly, we didn't look very long, but we missed that if it's there.

Compendium shows the term swarm is defined in MM2 (probably MM1 as well but it was probably updated). The definition does indeed state that "A swarm cannot be pulled, pushed, or slid by melee or ranged attacks." Now, that doesn't categorically exclude pushing a swarm and in fact say Thunderwave can legally do so, so it is not correct to state that they CANNOT be pushed, just not with a single target power.

[MENTION=8900]Tony[/MENTION]. I think your characterization of DMs using their license to choose some degree of narrative consistency over rules consistency in some case as "to ignore the rules arbitrarily to punish players who don't sufficiently entertain you" and claiming people who do so are doing it to derive some sort of perverse pleasure is, well I would say offensive but honestly all of this debate is just for amusement anyway so that would be overstating it a whole bunch, but it is hyperbole.

And trust me, after DMing for as long as I have I've seen every possible strategy players can use to game a DM.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Heh, this thread is way too long for me to swim upstream and find it, but, since this did come up in my game recently, where does it say you cannot push a swarm? Admittedly, we didn't look very long, but we missed that if it's there.

In the Swarm keyword. "A swarm cannot be pulled, pushed, or slid by melee or ranged attacks."

So you /can/ push a swarm with a Close power like Thunderwave or Sweeping Slash, or an Area power Thunderbolt of the Heavens.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And trust me, after DMing for as long as I have I've seen every possible strategy players can use to game a DM.

Oh, I believe it. I DM'd quite a while myself and been 'gamed' more than once. As much as you can accomplish optimizing, you can get a lot further if you get the DM somehow 'on your side.' I'm afraid in some of the styles being advocated in this thread, that would be very easy for some players to do (intentionally or not) and very difficult for others. I like to /try/ to be 'fair,' but it's not even easy to define 'fair.'

 

[Tony Vargas]

If I want to create an undead creature that is not immune to poison, I should be able to. That's breaking the "rules" - but if it makes sense, then why not?

Most undead (perhaps all published so far) are immune to poison and disease, but it's not a characteristic of all undead. You wouldn't be breaking any rule by creating an undead that wasn't. Even if it were a characteristic of all undead, 4e runs on exception based design, your unique undead wouldn't be breaking a rule, it would simply be an exception. (And, no, I'm not crazy about exception-based design, either, but that's another topic entirely.)

the point of this thread is when houserules were appropriate, and when they weren't. Is it appropriate to houserule that a swarm can be pushed by forced movement? It depends on the fiction and common sense.

How to handle houserules is an issue, too, of course. I think it's generally better to handle them formally, to communicate them upfront. Of course, some house rules aren't even intentional, they're a misinterpretation or mistake that the whole table's made and decided they like, it only becomes a 'house rule' when an outsider points it out. But, like an official rule, a house rule should be reasonably consistent.

When a new player comes to the game, they don't know the "rules" - they know what makes sense fictionally and within the framework of common sense.

Common sense isn't. You may think something makes sense 'fictionally' and is within the bounds of common sense, someone else may not. The DM gets to be the final arbiter, but that standard - which is not standard at all - is just asking for frequent arguments. And, it does leave the DM making essentially arbitrary judgements.

If a DM wants to change the rules and say swarms can't be grabbed, but they can subjected to involuntary movement, that's a house rule, it might influence some players choices or it might not, but it's up front, the players know what it means. If a DM says, "I'll decide whether any or all of your powers work on a case-by-case basis, and how well you describe your characters use of a power will factor into that," that's not a house rule, that's freestyle role-playing. Which is a legitimate form of the hobby, to be sure, but might come as a bit of a shock when aplied to something as gamist as D&D (and every ed of D&D is more gamist than freestyle).

Now, I know you're not doing that, most of the time you play by the rules, it's just, sometimes, when it seems apropriate to you, you'll step in and do what he freestyle GM I just described did. That just makes what you're doing that much more arbitrary.

 

[Someone]

I'd say that if we've reached the point where it's ok to make a Swarm B, identical in all aspects to Swarm A but that's immune to grabs, but not to declare that Swarm A can't be grabbed we're very, very close to start arguing how many halfling can dance in the head of a pin.

Tony, everyone will be making arbitrary rules adjudications sooner or later. Some (of us) don't mind doing it in the middle of combat nor see combat as a special case regarding that - if that happened, instead of a game of roleplaying, it'd become a tabletop wargame that accurately simulates the behavior of plastic pieces in a battlemat, but that's another matter and I don't want to derail my own post.

Back to the issue, suppose a player want to move aside a rock. You check the Moving Rocks Aside rules and find out that it's too heavy for him to do so, but the player says "I use my Fullblade as a lever."

Since the setting's basic rules are approximately the same as ours, you know that levers multiply force and could allow an otherwise weak character move large weights. You have however the option of following the rules to the letter and disallow him to move the rock reasoning that the rules don't allow him to do so and say nothing about any lever stuff, or come up with a rule on using levers and perhaps weapon breakage, based on your most honest working of rulebook space problems, real world mechanics, game mechanics and/or sense of drama. I think most, if not all people here would agree to go for the second option despite that yes, it changes a rule, yes involves (shudder) "common sense" in it's application and yes, could bring arguments to the table discussing momentum, rock density, steel composition, crystallography, physics, precedents in fantasy literature, reminding the master how he allowed that other character to build a hang glider with parchment and brooms and only did that because she's his girlfriend, and yes, the ruling on levers will vary from table to table.

The swarm grabbing issue is slightly different since it involves combat and therefore the risk of angering the people who spent hours with the CB looking for loopholes and strange combos and feel that changing a comma would threaten their delicate constructs of slaughter, but I feel that basically is the same: based on your common sense, you change a rule on the fly. You have basicaly three options, first allowing it as written and don't think about it (which honestly, at least to me it quickly degrades into "this piece of plastic doesn't allow the cardboard counter to move away").

The other two options are based on the fact that grabbing explicitly requires to have a free hand (some of us house rule that to "or other appendage" and allow tentacle-grabbing) suggesting that, in fact, the designer's basic idea of grabbing is to seize the opponent's clothing or a limb with your hand. Then you remember the swarm rules and check that they are immune to single target forced movement, which is consistent with a creature that's composed of dozens or hundreds of single beings, and realize that the basic grab, the seizing a handful of the opponent's anatomy with your hand, won't exactly work here as the members of the swarm you could grab on one hand aren't physically linked to the rest. Then the DM can just come up with a way to gram swarms without using just your hand, like "you throw your cloak over the rats" or whatever or, heavens forbid, ask the player how would he do that. He may even conceive that the swarm can't be grabbed if nobody can come with an explanation of how can it be, the same he wouldn't allow the character in the rock example to move it bsed on that it may exist a yer unknown way to overcome his low Strength. These last options at least pay lip service to the idea that the characters are "real", not a mere abstraction, which I repeat it's really important to some people.

The most extreme case would be to totally forbid swarm grabbing no matter what, but I don't think anyone on this thread or the other one dedicated exclusively to that really advocated that.

 

[pemerton]

suppose a player want to move aside a rock. You check the Moving Rocks Aside rules and find out that it's too heavy for him to do so, but the player says "I use my Fullblade as a lever."

Since the setting's basic rules are approximately the same as ours, you know that levers multiply force and could allow an otherwise weak character move large weights.

My reponse to this example is that I'd be less likely to specify the weight of the rock, and more likely to specify a DC for a check. A character who then wants to use a blade as a lever could get a +2 to that check (analogously to thieve's tools).

Of course it would be possible to set the weight of the rock, determine the tensile strength of a fullblade and do the maths, but I'm not sure that this sort of approach is going to get the best out of 4e (for example, it would hinder the use of page 42 if every swing on a chandelier had to be preceded by a calculation of the tensile strength of the chain that it hangs from).

Of course this isn't a "right way or wrong way" issue - it's just my view about what the rule system is best suited to handling.

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Sorry, with me at least, you're just not barking up the right tree. I think there are a number of things that DMs do for the game. Being dictator isn't one of them, but for lack of a better term I will say that 'director' is a pretty good description of the DM's core role. Ultimately at some point someone at the table DOES have to have the ability to make a decision.

<snip>

The DM MOST CERTAINLY IS in charge of many elements of the plot. Now, you could adjust the plot responsibility quite a bit, but without putting the DM in charge of the plot at SOME level at least many things will not be possible. Sure you could run a murder mystery plot with all the players deciding the plot, but there will be no suspense for the players.

<snip>

While the DM should respect player's resources (the character's abilities for instance) that isn't sacrosanct. There are many cases where a game master should grab hold of the story and bend or break the rules for a greater end. The players could do this as well, as long as they all agree that is the way to go, but as I showed earlier the DM has a hold on the plot, a perspective that the player's as audience cannot have. That gives them a responsibility to edit the rules now and then.

I agree with you that the GM can play a crucial role in providing suspense, and this entails a certain degree of authority over the backstory. But I prefer that this be shared with the players, especially as far as their PCs and their PCs' relationships are concerned.

With your murder mystery example, I'm happy for the GM to choose the murderer. But I prefer that the players have control over when the reveal occurs, by engaging the ingame situation via their PCs. And when it comes to engaging the ingame situation they use "their resources" - the rules. So I think on the issue of whether or not the GM has a responsibility to edit the rules in the service of the plot, I think we just have quite different preferences.

I should add - thanks as always for the interesting series of posts!

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't think there's any need for further clarifications. Your style is to ignore the rules arbitrarily to punish players who don't sufficiently entertain you.

Tony, you've got to stop characterising styles different to yours as BadWrongFun. Your deliberate charicature of someone else style doesn't do you or them any favours.

I'd advise not sitting on a high horse here; otherwise you'll find yourself booted from this thread.

The same goes for anyone else too, of course.