In Defense of the Theory of Dissociated Mechanics

[Crazy Jerome]

And it doesn't follow that there was anyone paid specifically to do so. I have no doubt that half the designers had their own homebrew worlds and did worldbuilding in them. But in a systematised way and paid to do it? No. I don't think this likely.

One reason I don't think this likely was that from everything I saw WoTC D&D was not interested in worldbuilding. Not even as interested as late TSR D&D. On what do I base this opinion? There was an almost complete lack of new worlds produced by WoTC...

WotC is and has been interested in individual DMs building worlds to suit themselves. This is most evident in the DungeonCraft series that ran so long, with multiple authors. And this is not inconsistent with early to mid TSR, either. For a long time, it was assumed that modules and campaign source books were primarly meant to serve either as examples, or as springboards or supplements to your own world building. Only with 2E was the emphasis shifted to playing the the campaign has provided.

OTOH, TSR and WotC have always been inconsistent about this, because the have always had elements in both camps. Not least because, a killer world may be only marginal profitable, but the novels and other materials that it faciliates are highly profitable. In that context, the contest that produced Eberron makes complete sense--WotC has a strong interest in there being worlds for which they own the rights. They aren't picky about how they get there, as long as it works and doesn't cost too much.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't know if you've had any, or much, exposure to Rolemaster - or visited the ICE forums. If you haven't then you might want to have a quick look as a type of ethnographic experiment - though I personally wouldn't recommend spending too much time there even if you are a Rolemaster player! They're arguing over the cataloguing of book X as early- or pre-teen while the haphazard piles are not only still unsorted, but getting so high that if they fall over fatalities will result!

I've had just enough exposure to RM and ICE to appreciate how this could happen. You get some of the same issues in Hero discussions, though Hero has the advantage of having a base that was put together somewhat more cleanly as a starting place. I suppose it is not an accident that the Shadow World campaign was able to support stats for both.

 

[Yesway Jose]

That is, if you want the fun of figuring out how zone of truth can gloriously screw up the world, then you've got to have zone of truth--supplied by someone else to whose ruling you will submit.

I'm sure that screenwriters struggled with the adoption of the cell phone in real-life. Many movie plot devices were all based on the landline phone. Now you deal with it by either a) setting the movie in the 80s or earlier, or b) make up an excuse for why your cell phone isn't working, or c) adapting the plot to cell phones for a different story. All 3 approaches are legitimate, although (b) only works for any one scenario in one movie, and only (c) really rolls with that reality.

There is option (d) -- a movie set in 2011 where no character uses a cell phone even if they could and didn't have an excuse not to. That's disassociated to me. It's forgivable though, if I'm so distracted and immersed in everything else that I completely forgot about the lack of cell phone.

I'm probably overlapping what you wrote, but with zones of truth, you can a) not even notice the implications -- true in my experience, b) notice it but purposefully gloss over it, c) houserule it out of existence, d) introduce in-game reasons to restrict its use by NPCs, e) just roll with it and work the stories around it.

So lots of different techniques and viewpoints here with worldbuilding.

I rather like fairy tale logic in my games, as played. And I don't mind it in my life, or in stories written by others. But I don't much care for it in my world building.

Totally tangential, but is there in-game-based "fairy tale logic" and metagame-based "fairy tale logic"? In fairy tales and myths, it has one feeling. In video games, it's a different feeling. The 1st is very difficult to do successfully for me in an RPG, the 2nd I think is rather easy.

When I'm gaming, I'm more interested in the characters than the world. Accordingly, my world building is more about providing a place for the characters to act than it is about the world itself.

Me too, but I don't know how you can have one without the other at every place that they interact.

 

[tomBitonti]

Whoa, you think the thread is trailing off, and it starts up again!

I wanted to point out that Zone of Truth is not entirely a clear-cut world breaker:

1) It allows a will save. (And do you know if the save was successful?)

2) You can still evade telling the truth by evading questions with clever or misleading answers (they only have to be true, they don't have to be transparent or to the point).

Of course, an unsophisticated target who has a low will save is in trouble, and if a cabal has any such members, they will be easy to expose.

Also, there is the problem of knowing that Zone of Truth was actually cast. Unless the audience has reasonable Spellcraft checks, how can they be sure that the proceedings are honest? Maybe the caster gave the target a break and cast something else. Or maybe the caster, a devious unscrupulous sort, actually cast some sort of charm or compulsion?

The whole matter would be limited by the honesty of the caster, and of the skill of the audience to detect duplicity.

TomBitonti

 

[Crazy Jerome]

"Fairy tale logic" is a loaded word that's ripe to last another dozen pages of this thread. I would differentiate between in-game-based fairy tale logic vs metagame-based fairy tale logic. In fairy tales and myths, it has one feeling. In video games, it's a different feeling. The 1st is very difficult to do successfully for me in an RPG, the 2nd I think is rather easy.

Probably is loaded. So let me clarify that I'm using it here as Chesterton uses it, circa 1910, with a more positive meaning than it probably conveys isolated from his work and sensibilities. It isn't the whole of it, but you can get a sense of the kind of limits Chesterton means by saying that fairy tale logic says that you can't have a non-greedy dragon. Not because it is world breaking, rule breaking, or physics breaking--but because if you (as person with control of the narrative) take away the greed from a dragon, it isn't really a dragon in some ways. That is, you can imagine a non-greedy dragon with no problem, but once you do, you took away several fairy tale options. (Of course, if you are careful, you can replace the greed with something equally fairy tale inducing. And good authors have.)

 

[prosfilaes]

I personally find it interesting that many players - and not just D&D players, because I've seen the same thing on the Rolemaster boards discussing this sort of issue - accept that NPCs can have social status, wealth and the like that PCs of the same level would never be permitted, but arc up when NPCs have magical or martial capabilities that PCs of the same level are not permitted. My tentative hypothesis is that for those with simulationist priorities there is an important distinction between what is "internal" to the PC - like spells known or fighting move mastered - and what is "external" to the PC - like social status, relationships and wealth.

I don't think it has that much to do with simulationism. If I'm playing a barbarian, I want him to Conan, not Conan's sidekick. And part of it has to do with

But if XYZ would be unbalancing in the hands of a PC, then while the PC could do it, s/he won't. Just as s/he won't be a luxuriating king. (Note that "balance" here need have nothing to do with combat. A PC having access to unlimited long distance teleportation, or to wish magic, can be unbalancing for all sorts of reasons other than its possible implications for combat.)

But I don't want to be a luxuriating king. In fact, any PC that wants to be a luxuriating king probably can get there, DM willing, even if that will probably mean the retirement of the character. But if my PC wants to learn teleportation, then it may be universal in the game world, every apprentice learns it, but for some reason the PC can't. It's arbitrary, and it's arbitrary in a way that goes against what the players want to do, solely in the name of balance. It's like the weapons your enemies use disintegrating when they die.

 

[wrecan]

I wanted to point out that Zone of Truth is not entirely a clear-cut world breaker:

1) It allows a will save. (And do you know if the save was successful?)

2) You can still evade telling the truth by evading questions with clever or misleading answers (they only have to be true, they don't have to be transparent or to the point).

Of course, an unsophisticated target who has a low will save is in trouble, and if a cabal has any such members, they will be easy to expose.

The Zone of Truth would be coupled with a Detect Magic spell (a 1st level spell). First, the Detect Magic spell is used to determine if the subject is already under some magical protection. If so, you remove that protection. Second takes three rounds to determine if someone is affected by a charm. If the person saves, you cast it again, until he doesn't save. It doesn't take much to ensure the Zone of Truth is working.

The ability to evade with misleading answers shoudl be a nonissue. Any half-trained attorney or merchant should be shrewd enough to ensure a precise answer, usually with yes/no questions. If the person begins talking in flowery obfuscatory language, the magistrate will tell him to be more direct, or he'll be deemed to have made an admission of guilt (or, in a business context, the deal is off).

If you are concerned that the Zone of Truth caster is corrupt, I don't see how that's any different than being concerned about a corrupt judge. For suspicious people. you hire a different caster with Spellcraft to cast Detect Magic to ensure the reliability of the first. Now you have to bribe two casters whose likelihood depends in part on people believing them to be trustworthy.

While the corruption is a decent plot point, the Zone of Truth/Detect Magic combo still should have wide-ranging implications for any legal system and/or mercantile system.

This isn't even getting to the issue with Wall of Iron. Wall of Iron costs 50 gp to cast but at the earliest level (13th), creates at least 3,744 pounds of iron worth 374.4 gp. So that's a 324.4 gp profit. Every decent-sized kingdom should have at least one 13th level wizard, who can supply any kingdom with all of its iron needs casting this spell once a week (100 tons of iron//year is a fine haul for any medieval-ish campaign). Producing almost two tons of iron every day, should obviate the need for iron mines. Throw in a fabricate spell to divide the wall into easily transportable chunks.

With a simple feat, that wizard can also create a lyre of building at a cost of 6,500 gp (affordable after only 18 walls of iron!) In the hands of any competent bard (and the king should put this in the hands of his highest level servant trained in Perform (stringed instrument)) (let's say 6th level, with a +3 Charisma bonus and maxed ranks, for a bonus of +12), should manage to play on average of 4 hours. That means 1200 man-days of labor every day, at a value of (1 sp/day for untrained labor) 120 gp every day (360 gp if you consider masons a trained labor force, which they probably are). In two months (of 18 days), that lyre has paid for itself. Moreover, you just put 1200 masons out of work. That's probably every mason in the kingdom.

These are a handful of examples of how the published rules create established (and hidden) problems.

 

[prosfilaes]

Moreover, you just put 1200 masons out of work. That's probably every mason in the kingdom.

Each of which has two sabots, which are improvised weapons, doing, say, 1 HP damage, which is more than enough to kill a 6th level bard.

 

[wrecan]

3E has the advantage of a design committee that, if they have a simulationist approach, are paid to spend hours and hours tinkering and playtesting with a believable semi-coherent semi-consistent system. 4E leaves the burden to the DM and players, which is managed ad hoc, and generally without the time and resources available to a design committee.

Yesway Jose, this seems to me to be the crux of the misunderstanding. I see no evidence that 3e's designers spent any time considering the worldbuilding aspects of the mechanics they designed. There is nothing "simulationist" about the Zone of Truth. It's simply a spell that forces people to tell the truth within it. It doesn't "simulate" anything. Its 4e counterpart, Chorus of Truth, is no more or less simulationist.

So I don't think we're discussing anything that has to do with dissociation anymore. 3e could have designed Zone of Truth to work exactly like 4e's Chorus of Truth. That it did not is not because 3e was simulationist, but because Zone of Truth was designed without any regard to how it would revolutionize a campaign world.

And, similarly, 3e could have designed other problematic mechanics, like Fabricate, Wall of Iron, and Lyre of Building quite differently.

It seems to me we're getting off-track.

What we seem now to be discussing is the world-building problems inherent in homebrewing new mechanics. But that issue is identical between 3e and 4e. The only difference is that you play 3e, and thus would miss those mechanics that didn't get ported over to 4e, and you appear to be hesitant to homebrew them. But just as similarly, someone moving from 4e to 3e would miss mechanics that exist in 4e but not 3e and be equally hesitant to homebrew them.

The problem, then, is not anything inherent in 3e or 4e. The problem is inherent to anybody changing systems and wanting to import stuff from their prior system.

 

[wrecan]

Each of which has two sabots, which are improvised weapons, doing, say, 1 HP damage, which is more than enough to kill a 6th level bard.

Those masons don't exist. They'd have been rendered obsolete as soon as the Lyre of Building was created. The notion of masons assassinating the king's lyre-playing minstrel is as absurd as the idea that buggy-whip manufacturers would try to assassinate Henry Ford.

But even if true, it's still got world-building implications. because now, anybody who find or creates a lyre of building is going to have to deal with 120 masons coming at them, sabots ablaze. That seems like a pretty serious world-building wrinkle!