Legends and Lore - Nod To Realism

[Mark CMG]

Does a Green Slime have a creature stat block?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

You are just avoiding the actual issue. 4E is not consistent in such borderline cases.

I'm not avoiding anything. This is the outcome I want out of the game.

Clealy, you mileage varies, and that's fine, but you're spending an awful lot of effort trying to convince others that they're Doing It Wrong when it's clearly just a case of different preferences. The only one you really need to concern yourself with trying to convince is WotC, and that is only if you care to buy whatever they produce next. If you don't, I'm baffled as to why you're even arguing so hard about something that shouldn't matter in the slightest to you.

 

[Balesir]

Does a Green Slime have a creature stat block?

Yes.

 

[El Mahdi]

That is one way to apply "realism" to an RPG. Another way is to ask "Is the fiction verisimilitudinous and/or genre appropriate?" This can be achived other than via mechanicall modelling of ingame causal processes. It can be achieved by the participants at the table making sure they don't break genre/verisimilitude in their narration.

Very true. Good point.

 

[Derren]

I'm not avoiding anything. This is the outcome I want out of the game.

Clealy, you mileage varies, and that's fine, but you're spending an awful lot of effort trying to convince others that they're Doing It Wrong when it's clearly just a case of different preferences. The only one you really need to concern yourself with trying to convince is WotC, and that is only if you care to buy whatever they produce next. If you don't, I'm baffled as to why you're even arguing so hard about something that shouldn't matter in the slightest to you.

When this what you think why do you involve yourself at all in this discussion?

 

[LurkAway]

Because that is the way the universe of D&D works. Theories about why it works that way are the province of sages and players with nothing better to do.

Understanding why it works is part of the nod to realism. With all due respect, if you don't care how/why it works, if you don't care about in-game "realism", then the OP article is irrelevant to you. Your answer to the polls is 'no' and 'not important'. So why are you bothering others and arguing against with rationilizations that are ultimately meaningless to you?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

When this what you think why do you involve yourself at all in this discussion?

I participate (and also tell WotC what I think) because I have a vested interest in the design philosophies used in 4e continuing forward in future releases. I would really like to see them make allowances for as many playstyles and genres and philosophical views as possible, going forward, but if that isn't in the cards, I'd sooner see them keep going with what they're doing than re-do something they've already done.

 

[El Mahdi]

You were taking me to task for saying that @pauljathome was confusing "consistency" with "realism". I was referring to comments in his post...

How is this "inconsistent"? If it were inconsistently applied, if some powers could not discriminate between objects and creatures but others could - that would be inconsistent. But every power (excepting special cases, perhaps, with appropriate explanation - your "unknown factor") discriminating between objects and creatures in a systematic way is surely a feature of the game universe, not any sort of "inconsistency" except that it be "inconsistent with the way the real world works", no?

Well, first: I think "taking you to task..." is bit more aggressive of a description than what I was doing. I apologize if it came across that way.



Second, I believe the point being made at the time (by pauljathome) was that in comparison to previous iterations of D&D, such a fireball would be inconsistent (unless I read the conversation wrong). Quite honestly, I've never seen any type of fireball, be it video game, movie, or written fiction that works in such a way. Doesn't mean it can't be done that way in a new edition, but it seems inconsistent with what we know of fireballs (as a trope), inconsistent with fireballs as we know them in real life (though I wasn't speaking about real life in my post, nor do I think pauljathome was at the time either, though I could have misinterpreted), and inconsistent with fireballs as we know them in the D&D game and D&D fiction. And making a fireball that does this in a new edition, creates an inherent inconsistency if not explained from the get go. If a fireball spell took on this iteration in a new edition, simply in order to be easier or simpler (etc.), then you've created a dichotomy where a "Nod to Realism" is no longer possible, or at the least extremely difficult. On top of that, the unintended consequences would defeat the purpose of it being easier in the first place, and creating a situation more complicated than the problem attempting to be addressed.

 

[pauljathome]

You seem to be conflating the concept of "realistic" with the concept of "consistent".

On the first, since damage to living bodies requires temperatures of only 100 degrees C or so (boiling the water in our bodies does horrible things to us) whereas setting light to paper requires temperatures well over 400 degrees C if the ignition source is short lived, I don't think a fireball that damages living things but does not ignite papaer is in the least "unrealistic". Heat transfer is a subject I studied at degree level, and the flame heat required to get paper surfaces up over 400 degrees in a second or two would be well above that of many "fireballs" (especially gas-based ones).
.

Except the rules that treat a "creature" as different from an "object" treat amimated objects, incorporeal undead, creatures of solid bone as "creatures" and not objects.

So much for consistency.

And to reiterate a point I've made many times before, please do NOT interpret comments about 4th Ed as implying that I believe earlier editions were perfect.

ALL RPGs are at least somewhat unrealistic, somewhat inconsistent, do some things for purely gamist reasons, etc.

But, IMO, 4th edition is far less consistent and far less realistic than is 3rd edition. Its also far more balanced from a gamist perspective.

 

[pauljathome]

Of course though, this also highlights that "Fluff" does matter. It's not a simple thing to just "change the Fluff" to fit what you want it to be, while keeping the "crunch". Realism means that "Fluff" and "Crunch" are consistent with eachother, and work consistently throughout the game.

That is an extremely good summary of my position.