Legends and Lore - Nod To Realism

[Hussar]

One of my players once insulted a skeleton so hard it died.

Heh, I do have some sympathy for this. Bards drive me nuts.

 

[Hussar]

Totally agree. I just don't believe D&D needs to be one of them.



Right again. A fractured player base is inevitable at this point. This is why I think the designers should pick a direction and commit completely to it.
A design that tries to capture both sides of the coin will more than likely be seen as too nebulous and unfocused by fans of both playstyles.

The thing is, if they decide to go the indie storytelling route, what about the future? That style might be popular with a lot of folks right now but suppose some new style becomes all the rage with the indie crowd in the next 10-15 years. Will D&D abandon thier storytelling fans to pursue the latest trends in the industry to better fit in with all the cool kids?

That road leads to a loss of brand identity.

Meh, I'm not overly concerned with the slippery slope issue.

Additionally, if the game changes every 15 years to reflect how changes in the genre in general have come, then great. At least it will attract new people. The old crowd still have their game. D&D has always actually changed every 10-15 years to address different playstyles anyway.

1e -> 2e saw a big shift towards story aspects and world building. Primarily fueled by a need to distance the game from Gary Gygax and the huge popularity of things like Dragonlance. 2e->3e saw a big shift towards paying attention to what is actually happening at game tables and away from telling people how they "ought" to be playing the game. The story aspects faded back and a huge amount of effort was expended on getting the rules "right".

3e->4e is drawing in part on the success of 3e and also the push for more egalitarian power sharing at the game table. The players are given more authorial control because those types of mechanics have proven to be very popular in 3e.

5e will continue this evolution. Possibly in a new direction entirely. Something more akin to the FATE system where you can appease the Sim crowd while still maintaining authorial control with the players.

6e? That'll be something different entirely.

 

[Hussar]

Well 4E did change the genre from fantasy to supers so why wouldn't everyone want to be a mutant?

Not being a mutant in 4E is like playing Jimmy Olsen in DC Heroes game.

Why does 4e get to wear the blame for this? 3e had this exact same criticism leveled at it ten years ago. The whole Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit wasn't a criticism of 4e after all.

And, let's not forget that outside of fighters, every single AD&D character had access to magic/magic abilities. Every one. Fighters were the only class not to have magic abilities (even thieves could read scrolls for example).

Does that mean that 1e was fantasy supers? After all, Aragorn is shooting magic missiles.

 

[Hussar]

As I see it, in 3E, "extraordinary," "supernatural," and "spell-like" are three different classes of "fantastic ability." They represent places where the fantasy world explicitly deviates from the real one. The only difference is in how they interact with other abilities.

Anti-magic shell will shut down a dragon's breath but not a monk's slow fall. That doesn't mean the monk's slow fall is a normal, mundane ability that someone in real life could do. It just means it's not in the category of stuff that's affected by anti-magic shell. There is a vague sense that extraordinary abilities are "mundane turned up to eleven," but that isn't a universal rule.

Also, citing monk abilities as examples of martial classes getting to do "magicky" stuff isn't quite fair, since monk is not a martial class.

The examples of Monk with Ex abilities comes from 3e where there isn't a delineation between power sources. Is a monk a magic-using class in 3e? The rules say no. He has Ex abilities. Well, that's not entirely true, some of his abilities are Su so, he's a bit of both.

But, a Rogue dodging a lightning bolt is also an Ex ability. As is the Rogue or Ranger vanishing in broad daylight without any cover from five feet away from you (Hide in Plain Sight is an Ex ability).

But, you are right. The three levels of special ability are a kludgy fix on how you can have anti-magic effects without boning certain classes.

4e simply took Su and Ex abilities, wrapped them up together and gave them the title of Martial Power. Again, it's not all that different from the fact that Rangers gain empathic psionic powers with animals as an Ex ability, and a Druid can drink a cyanide milkshake laced with ricin and smile. All as non-magical abilities.

The big difference between Ex and Su, at least in core 3.5 was that Ex abilities generally only had a personal effect and they were reactive. Even a Troll's regeneration is considered non-magical despite the fact that it lets you reattach your severed head!

Which, like others here, makes me kind of wonder why Martial healing in 4e causes such consternation when it was virtually absent in criticisms of 3e.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Which, like others here, makes me kind of wonder why Martial healing in 4e causes such consternation when it was virtually absent in criticisms of 3e.

Personally, probably because 3.X says (Ex) abilities can break the laws of physics, and thus are not necessarily entirely mundane. The Warlord seems to be defended as mundanely inspiring people. If he was literally breaking the laws of physics to heal actual injuries, I think there'd be less objections (though there'd definitely be some objections to that style of healer).

Just my thoughts. I think that's the reasoning widely used, in all likelihood. In 3.X, (Ex) doesn't mean mundane, it means non-magical. Although, certain (Ex) abilities definitely beg to be questioned, such as Evasion or Hide in Plain Sight (as you noted).

3.X also did things like make a barbarian rage a certain number of times per day with no association to the game world (for some reason). That kinda warrants an explanation beyond "game balance" too, in my mind.

At any rate, I feel like I'm mostly agreeing with you. I understand why people draw that line, because 3.X kinda covered itself with (Ex) abilities by saying, "if it doesn't make sense, it's because it doesn't need to be entirely mundane, since it can break physics." In 4e, the Warlord is defended as a mundane healer, using just inspiring words to bring allies to their feet. This gets questioned because, from what I've heard, the Warlord is rarely defended as "it doesn't have to follow the laws of physics." If that were the case, that disconnect would probably dry up.

Just my thoughts. I might be way off, though. As always, play what you like

 

[FireLance]

Well, the problem with bards seems to be partly due to how the effects are flavored, and partly due to what types of creatures should be affected.

Several bardic powers deal psychic damage. This is the same kind of damage you get when a psion uses ego whip, or when a creature is hit by a wizard's phantasmal killer. Based on this, the underlying physical (or magical) law appears to be: psychic damage can be caused by any excess of emotion (such as anger or depression), not just from an excess of fear. However, it can cause problems for some players because dying from anger or depression is not as intuitive as dying from fear.

The other side of the coin is that there do not seem to be any mindless creatures in 4E (even the slimes and oozes that I've looked at have a minimum Intelligence of 1), and the underyling law appears to be that any creature that has a mind can take psychic damage. Again, this can be non-intuitive for players who have spent years thinking of skeletons and oozes as mindless, or having different types of minds from most other creatures.

Which raises another interesting point, at least with respect to this discussion: when everyone has a different concept of "realism" (insofar as it applies to a universe where magic exists and the laws of physics are different enough to allow "non-magical" feats and creatures that would not be possible in our world) whose version of "realism" should be nodded to?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Which raises another interesting point, at least with respect to this discussion: when everyone has a different concept of "realism" (insofar as it applies to a universe where magic exists and the laws of physics are different enough to allow "non-magical" feats and creatures that would not be possible in our world) whose version of "realism" should be nodded to?

Well, for a DDI version, it might be tenable to include keywords specifically for that, possibly dusting off the 3E "extraordinary" and "supernatural" as a couple of the categories. Every power gets one such keyword, from "mundane" to maybe "gonzo". Mundane means that this power more or less plausible in the D&D, non-magical physics. Extraordinary means that is plausible the same way, but assuming some unlikely in the real world training, genetics, etc. All right up to "gonzo," which means, "don't use this unless you want lots of gonzo; we really mean it!"

Of course, you'd need a good cross section in the printed books, but that isn't that big of a problem if they get rid of redunant powers and don't stick to a separate list for every class. For online, it gets even easier. Merely allow filtering by keywords. If they get a few keywords off, no sweat. That is the kind of errata that doesn't really hurt anything, as all it touches is the filter. (And people using everything, not even them.)

If careful on the keywords, you could use the same technique for other flavorings (and thus use more than one per entry, where warranted). For example, there are rare occasions when I enjoy the quasi-technical, crazy gnomish stuff, or those mad wizard devices. But usually, I don't want that in my game. But I don't want it out, either, because it is part of D&D from the very beginning, and a lot of people like it. Would be nice to exclude all that with a filter and/or two lines in a campaign document.

But mainly, if you have that kind of system built in, you can be conservative with the keywords, but very liberal with what you include, and get the best of both worlds. Yep, right there in the weapon list are firearms and double-bladed self-maiming Dire Maul wannabee swords, but with appropriate keywords.

 

[pemerton]

Deciding to treat it as a PC resource or player resource is not entirely in the player's hands. If it takes up a PC's turn, it's a PC resource, as is the action economy. Abstracting the actions a character can take into manageable operational bits doesn't take it away from a PC resource nor force viewing the world in stop-motion.

I don't agree with the last sentence. Turn-by-turn initiative isn't just an abstraction. And even if it were, there would be no inherent reason to treat the action economy as a PC rather than a player resource.

And then the door bursts open and 4 men enter. The skeletons animate. Combat ensues. And the bard summons magic to viciously cry out "Ni! You stupid bag of bones -- you're dead! You don't deserve the spark of life!"

But this isn't what Vicious Mockery has to be. If you read some traditional myths or fairy tales, Vicious Mockery - denouncing a person, or their lineage, or their honour, or their existence - and this having a real effect, is more verisimilitudinous than fireball or magic missile.

myths have a certain mythical dream quality that is rarely duplicated in D&D and certainly not with internal consistency.

Is this meant to mean that it's an objection to a fantasy RPG ruleset that it tends to produce fiction with a certain mythical dream quality?

Personally that strikes me as very bizarre, and reinforces [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION]'s comment upthread - which he's said before - that "verisimilitude" in relation to D&D fantasy often means "fantasy by engineers for engineers".

The rules are there as a support structure to help the DM and the players agree on how events in the game universe play out.

This is one way to design an RPG, but my point is that it's only one way, and a designer (like Monte) who assumes it is the only way will miss (or misunderstand) important features of 4e.

The other way is that the rules are a support structure to help the participants agree on who gets to say how events in the game universe play out, and also perhaps provide constraints on that narration, but leave the details of how things play out free to be specified in accordance with those constraints plus broader considerations of genre, verisimilitude etc.

Anti-magic shell will shut down a dragon's breath but not a monk's slow fall. That doesn't mean the monk's slow fall is a normal, mundane ability that someone in real life could do. It just means it's not in the category of stuff that's affected by anti-magic shell.

This seems to imply, then, that "anti-magic" in 3E is as misdescribed as "healing" in 4e. Is that right?

In my ideal world, players should not say, "I have a fighter with Come and Get It. How do I describe this in the game world?" They should say, "I have a big guy with a sword, who likes to bait opponents into traps. What class and powers do I use to describe him in the rules?"

But that's fine. In 4e, the answer is "Play a fighter and take Passing Attack, Come and Get It, Footwork Lure, etc".

The inspiring dream should be psionic or arcane or even divine.

The first scene can be handled via magic easier than through non-magical descriptions, even in earlier versions of the game.

The consequence of this is that someone who is in love with a wizard can have an inspiring dream of that person, but not someone who is in love with a fighter, or an ordinary person. In my view, that is breaks the verisimilitude of fantasy.

It is also a problem that the dream becomes a consequence of Arwen deliberately casting a spell, when in fact there is no evidence either that (i) she is a spell caster at all, or (ii) the dream was the result of someone's deliberate decision (contrast Saruman trying to bring down the mountain).

If Charisma can be used to fight good with a melee weapon, then it should be able to be used to encourage an ally to no longer be unconscious through "half closed eyes" by anyone.

Yes. That is what page 42 is for. Diplomacy in lieu of Healing, but the DC would have to be higher, and perhaps also some adverse consequence like granting CA until the start of your next turn as you stop fighting to talk to your comrade.

 

[Argyle King]

Originally Posted by Cybit
"I've noticed a high correlation between folks who used to play caster-y types in older editions, and those who do not like 4th. Magic being super kick ass is awesome...as long as you get to be the magical guy."



That hasn't been my experience, but experiences often vary considerably from table to table. Personally -as someone who prefers story and character- I find that I had to learn to min/max more than I used to if I want to fit in with the rest of the group during a 4E game. I find myself talking more in terms of builds and things of that nature than I do when playing other games.

 

[pemerton]

I am completely failing to understand your point.

I (the player) am looking at the battle mat. I SEE the wizard suddenly pulled towards the fighter (who is NOT moving). How the heck can I possibly interpret that as the wizard being wrongfooted or finding no clear path or anything else?

If you think the fighter is not moving, then you seem to be assuming that the action economy, and turn-by-turn initiative, as depicted on the battlemap, really do correspond to a stop-motion world.

I assume that actions happen roughly simultaneously (as in real life), that the reason creatures occupy their squares isn't because they're very fat but because they're moving around in them, etc. Once you assume that the combat in the fiction looks like a real world fight rather than a chess game, it becomes fairly easy to envisage any number of reasons why the wizard suddenly and unexpectedly moves towards the fighter.