D&D 4E 4e and reality

[P1NBACK]

The mechanics directly change the fluff. And you're also missing out "This fight is on a cliff edge" - a nice piece of fluff. No representation for that in DiTV under anything other than extraordinary circumstances.

This is completely and utterly not true.

If we're having a fight on the edge of a cliff, that fictional aspect is most definitely important to the conflict. It matters because fictionally I can use the cliff. I can push you off. That directly makes an impact on the mechanics: the fallout I take - as GM I'd probably rule this d12s, akin to dynamite or something else serious like that depending on the size of the cliff. It could also factor into play fictionally/mechanically if someone has a trait related to cliffs (Scared of Heights 3d4).

If we're not on a cliff, I can't do that. I simply can't. If we're in the town square, I cannot push you off a cliff. Period.

So, it's very important to the fiction and mechanics of the game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

edit: Too slow!

4E will run just fine if you do this:

1. (MECHANICAL ACTION) Player: "I use Cleave. (rolls) 24 vs. AC, 12 damage."
2. (MECHANICAL RESPONSE) DM: "The enemy has AC 22, but he uses his Shield immediate interrupt to buff his AC to 26."
3. (MECHANICAL RESULT) Player: "Okay, then I miss."

This is typical of my 4E play.

Let's try the same thing with Dogs:

1. (MECHANICAL ACTION) DM: (pushes forward two dice)
2. (MECHANICAL RESPONSE) Player: How much Fallout will Sam take from that?

Crash. The game stops working. You need the fictional action in order for the player to make a mechanical decision, and only then can you proceed to the mechanical result. That's the arrow that comes out of the cloud and back into the player.

No. Fallout is simply negative victory points. The fallout is calculated based on the number of dice used to counter. The game continues with the player working out what his best move would be in terms of accepting fallout. The game no more stops than chess stops when you have to decide which piece to move.

And CovertOps, P1NBACK was talking about Monopoly on a tangent there. Not 4e.

 

[LostSoul]

Not true. Fallout is measured by the dice and the stage of calling. Without the fiction game you'd be in a gambling game with exponential raises. What the fiction determines (and not always even that) is the exact nature of the fallout you take.

Here's the game text:

The size of the Fallout Dice you take depends on the nature of the blow: d4s if it’s not physical, d6s if it’s physical but not a hit with a weapon, d8s if it’s a hit with a weapon but not a bullet, and d10s if it’s a bullet.​

Here's Vincent Baker saying the same thing (over here, reply 20):

The first is the most straightforward: if you take the blow, you get fallout dice. The fallout dice you get depend on the details of my raise: am I attacking you with a shovel? Insulting your mother? Shooting you? Shoving past you? All call for different fallout dice. If you don't know what I'm doing, you don't know what fallout dice you'll take if you take the blow, so you don't know whether you want the fallout dice, and thus you don't know whether you want to take the blow.

If you don't know the fictional content of my character's action, you don't have the information you need in order to decide which dice to push forward on the table. If you mumble through this and choose dice arbitrarily, then eventually you're going to push forward 3 or more dice; when that happens, you won't know which dice to take for fallout. The game procedures literally can't continue. You'll be sitting there with your hand over the dice bowl, looking at the dice and not knowing which to pick up, until you say, "wait, but what did your character DO?"​

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is completely and utterly not true.

If we're having a fight on the edge of a cliff, that fictional aspect is most definitely important to the conflict. It matters because fictionally I can use the cliff. I can push you off. That directly makes an impact on the mechanics: the fallout I take - as GM I'd probably rule this d12s, akin to dynamite or something else serious like that depending on the size of the cliff. It could also factor into play fictionally/mechanically if someone has a trait related to cliffs (Scared of Heights 3d4).

I'm afraid that my reading of the rulebook is very clear.

"Note that since only guns inflict d10 fallout, only a gunfight can kill a character outright. And then only with two 10s on your Fallout dice." page 66

"Whenever you Take a Blow, you get one Fallout die for each die you used to See. The size fo the dice depends on the blow you took:

The blow was ...
- Not physical, not ceremonial: d4s
- Physical: d6s.
- A Weapon: d8s
- A gunshot: d10s
... Ceremonial
[Snip range of ceremonies with a range of d4-d8]"
page 81

I'm afraid that here a cliff would count as a weapon - d8. And there is no mention I can see in my copy of DiTV of anything with d12 fallout, and the implicit ruling that only guns do d10.

If we're not on a cliff, I can't do that. I simply can't. If we're in the town square, I cannot push you off a cliff. Period.

So, it's very important to the fiction and mechanics of the game.

If you can't raise from using fists to using weapons, you simply aren't trying - and a cliff would just be another weapon. If you want a cliff to be d12, so far as I can tell then that is a pure house rule according to the actual text of the rules. (It's not one I'm averse to. Merely a house rule and as such has no place in the discussion of the actual rules).

 

[Alex319]

so that the player knows if he's going to be able to do that or if he'll just get his hands chopped off (though I'd tell him that when the player describes the action)

(emphasis mine)

Oh, that explains a lot. I thought the whole point of your system was that you DON'T know how the DM will adjudicate your action until you've already committed to it. Clearly, allowing the players to ask questions about things like that in advance would go a long way toward resolving the "guess what the DM is thinking" problem.

YES!

Only, some people don't play that way (as evidenced here in this thread). They play like this:

<snip>
They skip the fiction.

In 4E, you can do this and still have a playable game (albeit a game with only real world cues [like, maps and figures and whatnot], not fictional ones [the stuff in your imagination]).

In Dogs, you can't.

Make sense now?

Yes, that makes sense. I think the confusion was that we thought you were claiming that "if you want to play a game with a connection between the fiction and the mechanics, you shouldn't play 4e and you should play something like DitV instead," which is saying that you can't have a connection betwen fiction and mechanics in 4e. I think that what we've established is that 4e and DitV BOTH have a connection between fiction and mechanics, it's just that in 4e you can remove it and still have a playable game, while in DitV you can't (or at least it's much harder). Anyway, it looks like we're on the same page now.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Here's the game text:

The size of the Fallout Dice you take depends on the nature of the blow: d4s if it’s not physical, d6s if it’s physical but not a hit with a weapon, d8s if it’s a hit with a weapon but not a bullet, and d10s if it’s a bullet.​

Here's Vincent Baker saying the same thing (over here, reply 20):

The first is the most straightforward: if you take the blow, you get fallout dice. The fallout dice you get depend on the details of my raise: am I attacking you with a shovel? Insulting your mother? Shooting you? Shoving past you? All call for different fallout dice. If you don't know what I'm doing, you don't know what fallout dice you'll take if you take the blow, so you don't know whether you want the fallout dice, and thus you don't know whether you want to take the blow.

If you don't know the fictional content of my character's action, you don't have the information you need in order to decide which dice to push forward on the table. If you mumble through this and choose dice arbitrarily, then eventually you're going to push forward 3 or more dice; when that happens, you won't know which dice to take for fallout. The game procedures literally can't continue. You'll be sitting there with your hand over the dice bowl, looking at the dice and not knowing which to pick up, until you say, "wait, but what did your character DO?"​

He can say that. But the rulebook is clear. Fallout dice for non-ceremonial combat is d4 for non-physical confrontations, d6 for unarmed, d8 for armed, and d10 for guns. It's a very simple escalation mechanism. All I need to know is what size of dice the situation is on. And that is a very simple piece of information for which the fluff is not necessary unless one of the rules is that you aren't allowed to say directly. (A silly rule in almost any game). And for ceremonial confrontations I'd better have a cheat-sheet anyway.

 

[P1NBACK]

"Note that since only guns inflict d10 fallout, only a gunfight can kill a character outright. And then only with two 10s on your Fallout dice." page 66

"Whenever you Take a Blow, you get one Fallout die for each die you used to See. The size fo the dice depends on the blow you took:

The blow was ...
- Not physical, not ceremonial: d4s
- Physical: d6s.
- A Weapon: d8s
- A gunshot: d10s
... Ceremonial
[Snip range of ceremonies with a range of d4-d8]"
page 81

I'm afraid that here a cliff would count as a weapon - d8. And there is no mention I can see in my copy of DiTV of anything with d12 fallout, and the implicit ruling that only guns do d10.

I think LostSoul hit the nail on the head, backed up by Vincent's quote and this text you just posted. You need the fictional details in order to use the mechanics.

If you can't raise from using fists to using weapons, you simply aren't trying - and a cliff would just be another weapon. If you want a cliff to be d12, so far as I can tell then that is a pure house rule according to the actual text of the rules. (It's not one I'm averse to. Merely a house rule and as such has no place in the discussion of the actual rules).

Vincent took d12s out of the game because d10s seemed to be lethal enough. Rolling d12s didn't make much of an impact, but suggested that in cases where your character experienced especially lethal acts of violence, like getting hit by a train or having dynamite explode around them or as I might rule it, falling off a cliff, d12s would certainly be appropriate.

Here's the quote.

Note: using d8s vs. d12s doesn't change the fact that the cliff does matter in the game, fictionally and mechanically. It's not just "backdrop fluff" or whatever.

 

[P1NBACK]

But the rulebook is clear. Fallout dice for non-ceremonial combat is d4 for non-physical confrontations, d6 for unarmed, d8 for armed, and d10 for guns. It's a very simple escalation mechanism. All I need to know is what size of dice the situation is on.

Lol... Exactly. You need the fictional details to determine the dice.

 

[LostSoul]

All I need to know is what size of dice the situation is on.

Ah, that makes sense. I can see why you see Dogs the way you do now. I don't play it that way - I've started off conflicts off with guns drawn, then Escalated to talking. When I play there is no relationship between the situation and the size of the dice, only the actions of the characters involved.

 

[P1NBACK]

Ah, that makes sense. I can see why you see Dogs the way you do now. I don't play it that way - I've started off conflicts off with guns drawn, then Escalated to talking. When I play there is no relationship between the situation and the size of the dice, only the actions of the characters involved.

This is exactly how to do it (I assumed when Neonchameleon said 'situation' he meant 'the action the character took').

From the text:

The size of the Fallout Dice you take depends on the nature of the blow...

You can't possibly determine the nature of the blow without knowing the fictional action taken by the character when they raised. If I shoot you, and you take the blow, d10s. If I call you a scumbag and you take the blow, d4s.