Legends and Lore - Nod To Realism

[Argyle King]

For what it's worth, I view 4th's Bloodied condition to be more realistic than the 3rd Edition model in which being at 100 HP is treated exactly* the same as being at 1 HP. There are some monster abilities which key off of a character being bloodied; it makes sense. I think the term 'Bloodied' might carry some baggage with it at this point in 4E's life though. When I GM, I usually describe a machine or construct as being 'oily' instead of bloodied or I might say that a part of a zombie's body has fallen off. I change the term if I feel doing so fits the theme of the creature better; though, if I sense player confusion, I follow it up by clarifying that I mean the creature is 'Bloodied' as in the game mechanics term.

*with the exception of certain spells

 

[LurkAway]

It would not surprise me to find that there are others right now who are eating 'chicken nuggets' and believing they are in fact pieces of 'pizza.'

That may be true, but personally, I have played Call of Cthulhu too and I know what great immersion is, and I can still expect and enjoy a different (IMO lesser) quality of immersion in D&D. I mean, one person can say that LoTR is far more immersive than other fantasy films, and another person will say that LoTR is silly and only the realistic gripping dramas are immersive, and I will say that both LoTR and modern dramas are immersive in different ways. Crazy Jerome is correct that pizza preferences is about various toppings and styles of pizza. Analogizing that a certain 'pizza' is really just a 'chicken nugget' is, IMO, segregating beyond what is necessary.

 

[Argyle King]

That may be true, but personally, I have played Call of Cthulhu too and I know what great immersion is, and I can still expect and enjoy a different (IMO lesser) quality of immersion in D&D. I mean, one person can say that LoTR is far more immersive than other fantasy films, and another person will say that LoTR is silly and only the realistic gripping dramas are immersive, and I will say that both LoTR and modern dramas are immersive in different ways. Crazy Jerome is correct that pizza preferences is about various toppings and styles of pizza. Analogizing that a certain 'pizza' is really just a 'chicken nugget' is, IMO, segregating beyond what is necessary.

I agree with part of this. I too can still enjoy D&D; if I didn't, I would no longer show up to game day with the group I play with. However, part of my point was to say there was a time when I had no idea that different flavors existed. I accepted D&D as pizza because I was told it was.

I like both chicken nuggets and pizza. Now that I am aware there is a difference, I'm overall happier because I am now aware that when what I'm really hungry for is chicken nuggets and not pizza that I can go somewhere else and get chicken nuggets.

I am now better able to enjoy D&D 4th Edition because I am now able to recognize that it is designed with a certain flavor in mind, and I am aware that other flavors exist if I do not want that flavor. Before, I was at a state in which I did not like the flavor 4th Edition was offering, but was not knowledgeable enough about the other flavors to comprehend how different they would be. I became a bitter customer because my experience was bitter.

I didn't know enough to be aware that I might be happier eating something else. The other cravings I had, I now know can be satisfied by going somewhere else. Now, when I walk into 4E and sit down at the table, I do so expecting something which is offered and served rather than trying to special request something which the chef or the guy running the milk shake machine isn't able to offer.


edit: Though I do still feel there are things which would make D&D better. When I run a game of 4E, I do modify parts of it. However, there comes a point where -if I want a certain thing- it's easier to just use a system which is better equipped to handle what I want rather than trying to make nuggets into pizza.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In fact, I find it vastly amusing how so many people here on these boards will take the most nonsensical illogical rationale, and explain it as if it makes all of the sense in the world, and it isn't just a cumbersome rationale to explain away a non-plausible rule that exists in the game system, merely because the rule is simpler than any plausible rule that the designers could think of to take its place.

You know, you could also say, it is amusing how some people believe, the hit point system can be plausible at all...

Some thingsyou listed are in fact better than any system before... some of your listed items do bother me too...

Warlords healing by shouting and hp as a real abstraction seems consistent enough for me. The only thing I would change would be bloodied in fact meaning bloodied. (First blood drawn) And beeing unconscious having effects after combat.)
I really would like to see some use of healing skill, that allows you to saw wounds, etc. And maybe some damage carrying over to the next day, if you are badly hurt.
Not beeing able to describe a nearly deadly blow as a nearly deadly blow is problematic.

Fire melting ice and spell effects that are iconic and really different from each other would make immersion a lot easier!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip
...I really would like to see some use of healing skill, that allows you to saw wounds, etc. And maybe some damage carrying over to the next day, if you are badly hurt.
...

this is something I would like but only as a optional system, when I am in the mood for gritty D&D

 

[KarinsDad]

I know this has been discussed to death in the past, but clearly - in at least some cases - a player's use of Come and Get It does not correspond to (or correspond only to) things that his/her PC is doing in the fiction.

Sometimes, at least, the forced movement reflects something else going on in the fiction (eg the villain zigged when it should have zagged).

Except that it has nothing to do with zigging or zagging in many cases. Again, a real stretch of the fiction in order to explain the subpar metagame rule.

I hate stretching the fiction to have things make sense.

As an example, the NPC shifts away from the Fighter with Come and Get It and is planning on running away. He's moving north. The Fighter is using the power and the NPC is suddenly moving south, even though that's clearly not the intent of the NPC in the fiction.

This is jarring in the fiction. It's not zigging where he should have zagged. It's turning him around 180 degrees when the NPC was out of reach.


But what is even more jarring in the fiction is that this power has no plausibility in my viewpoint of fantasy. Martial powers should not act like spells. Pulling someone towards you is what telekinesis or charm should do. Fighters should fight. As long as someone is within reach of their weapon, that foe can be affected. Fighters should not be able to affect foes outside the reach of their weapon (shy of throwing a weapon in which case, the foe is still in reach of that weapon).

It bugs me that there is no internal "non-magical" consistency in the Martial powers.

Martial powers shouldn't heal people. A portion of hit points should be actual damage. The game shouldn't be cartoonish, all for metagame reasons that then have to be explained away in the fiction.

Obviously, YMMV and I agree, Come and Get It has been discussed to death.

But, I just wish the lines were drawn in the sand a little further towards plausibility and less towards fictional stretches of metagame rules. It really wouldn't kill the game (and I think it would help) if the Martial power source was limited to physical effects which are non-magical in nature. Especially at the Heroic tier.

Come and Get It with a thrown weapon where it requires the PC to bounce his weapon off a wall and knocks the foe towards the Fighter? Bravo. What a cool Epic level power. Come and Get It as the equivalent of a magical attraction spell at Heroic level affecting NPCs out of the Fighter's reach? Meh. What a waste of paper that it's written on.

 

[KarinsDad]

My favourite version of this treats the Inspiring Word, on such occasions, as a metagame power. It is analogous to Aragorn's dream sequence in the Two Towers movie, in which (to put it in RPG terms) the player of Arwen uses one of Arwen's powers to heal Aragorn, even though the two are not in the same country. The ally regains consciousness because memory's of the warlord's inspiring presence, or previous urgings to victory, etc, revive him/her.

Another version, equally tenable, is this: the PC is unconcious, but as her eyes flicker open she sees the warlord gazing intently at her. His lips are moving, but at first she can't make out what he's saying. Then gradually (as it seems to her - because time has slowed down for her, although in reality this is all happening in mere moments) it dawns on her that she has been wounded, but he is urging her to get to her feet - the battle isn't over, and her friends need her.

Not only is this second version tenable - I'm pretty sure that I've seen that scene more than once in war/action films, and I think 4e is the only version of D&D capable of reproducing it.

Anyway, there is nothing about any version of Inspring Word on an unconscious PC that is an obstacle to a verisimilitudinous fiction.

Nonsense.

The game should be consistent. Other players cannot encourage the PC to get up with a shout. Why can't the Heal skill be used at range to do this?

You have to really stretch the fiction to get to your conclusions. IMO.

In a moment, that PC might be dead due to failing death saving throws. He goes from being dead to being "just a flesh wound" because the Warlord asks him to get back on his feet. Sorry, but that's just plain silly and cartoonish, and a real stretch of the fiction. The metagame rule taking over the fiction of what should be possible.


The way Inspiring Word SHOULD have been worded is temporary hit points. The Warlord INSPIRES a conscious PC to fight better. Future attacks against that PC harm him less because he is being inspired to fight a bit faster, avoid the attacks a bit better, etc.

Inspiring Word should not heal. It should encourage.

I have no problem with the Warlord encouraging conscious allies, giving them extra attacks and buffs and saves. I have a problem with the non-plausibility of the Warlord healing allies (conscious or unconscious). It's a realm of the game that the Martial Power source shouldn't be able to go into. Just like it shouldn't be able to go into Flight or Teleport.

 

[Mallus]

Inspiring Word should not heal.

Wounds should impair.

How is what pemerton suggesting functionally any different from the kinds of rationalizations D&D players have been making since OD&D?

Oh, and the difference between a Heal check and Inspiring Word is the first represents medicine and the second represents mythology/folklore.

 

[steenan]

Interpreting 4e mechanics as "process simulation" is doomed to failure. From this perspective, it definitely does not work. I think it's obvious to everybody here.

The point is, that is not what 4e mechanics does. It is the first edition of D&D with reasonably consistent design assumptions and goals - and it was never designed as simulation. It's not a good hammer, not because it is poorly made, but because it is a reasonably good screwdriver.

Powers work on metagame level. They represent story elements, not setting elements. When a player uses a power, they are requesting something to happen in fiction, they are extending their narrative rights; it's very different from the character doing something to this effect. In many cases, a character does not anything special when a power is invoked - it's how others react and how circumstances change. Using mechanics as a way of deciding outcomes and narrating events to make sense within it is not patching a nonfunctional system; it's playing the game as designed.

One more thing of note: the magical/mundane split you seem to request is mutually exclusive with class balance many people want from D&D. Being able to override physics, psychology and other notions of "realism" is by definition more powerful than not being able to do it. So, when aiming for balance, one has to either give magic to everyone, remove everything "magical" from magic or move from simulation mechanics to metagame, narrative mechanics. 4e is far from perfect, but the choice it made here is the most sensible one.

 

[Mallus]

As an example, the NPC shifts away from the Fighter with Come and Get It and is planning on running away. He's moving north. The Fighter is using the power and the NPC is suddenly moving south, even though that's clearly not the intent of the NPC in the fiction.

But as soon as the Fighter uses CaGI, the NPC's intent changes to "I want to get up in that fighter's grill and smack him".

This is jarring in the fiction.

Not when you describe it as the NPC changing their mind.

But what is even more jarring in the fiction is that this power has no plausibility in my viewpoint of fantasy.

Of course it does: the NPC changes their mind.

Martial powers should not act like spells. Pulling someone towards you is what telekinesis or charm should do.

It's not magic. It's metafiction. Think of it less as a maneuver or spell, and more like a action point. Something that acts directly on the game fiction, and not an in-game object or process. In fact, think of it like a traditional saving throw, which model the heroes' ability not to die --of various causes-- in middle of the story.

TObviously, YMMV and I agree, Come and Get It has been discussed to death.

Damnit... you're right. Sorry. Got sucked into this again...