Falling from Great Heights

[Kynn]

To me as a DM, the difference between:

(a) a PC drinking the poison willingly because its player knows that the PC won't die for it;

(b) a PC drinks the poison by mistake;

is metagaming. Of course the poison's lethality doesn't theoritically change between the two scenarios. But if the player is enough of a *** to blatantly ignore in-world logic, then the DM is perfectly justified to act accordingly.

Said player (in option (a)) deserves to see his PC die a horrible death.

Anyway, the bottle of poison is Schroedinger's Cat all over again.

So if the character has previously sipped such poison, and didn't die, and has an in-character reason to know that he probably won't die from doing it again, that's still "metagaming"?

By in-world logic, player characters of sufficiently high level should know that they're fairly immune to being killed -- because they do it routinely.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, this is good and essentially what I do right now in 1e. I use 1d6/10 feet for falling damage in a situation that is kind of abstract and where one can reasonably imagine that there are damage mitigating things going on, like falling down a rocky cliff or falling into a forest canopy. You take one "hit" per 10 feet.

If the fiction makes this impossible, e.g. straight drop far away from the edge, I use the cumulative falling damage, where 30 feet is 1d6+2d6+3d6, etc.

I wouldn't be averse to using a more in-depth, realistic treatment of falling damage for that situation if one of my players had a simulationist thing for it, at least to an extent. I don't mind some "incoherence" between the realism of the falling damage rules and the realism of the poison rules or the getting hit by club rules. Simulationism isn't always whole hog, sometimes people just have "a thing" for particular situations and want to explore their resolution with more simulationist rules.

The posts in this thread basically saying "it's absurd to care about realism if you're playing D&D in the first place" and giving suggestions to go play HarnMaster or Runequest are unhelpful. Yes, D&D has always been in the game school vs. the realism-simulation school going back to Gygax's use of these terms in the 1e DMG, but the midline between these two schools has clearly shifted towards the game side between then and now. It's entirely reasonable that was in the "game school" by late 70s/early 80s standards is now in the "realism-simulation" school by 2012 standards. You can't criticize people for being inconsistent when the terms are shifting in meaning.

I mean 1e has a pretty simulationist vibe by today's standards. Obviously this doesn't make it "anti-D&D" or whatever.

This sort of militant anti-simulationism I've been noticing in contemporary D&D culture feels contrived and alienating. I've never played with anyone who didn't at least kind of like simulationism as a supporting element.

I disagree that there is a heavy simulationism/anti-simulationism issue. Simulationism requires consistency. D&&D lacks a true realism to simulate off of. When HP damage happens, there is no official description of what happened. A 6 damage sword hit to a person with hit points to spare could men a completely dodged blow, a glancing blow, and a bloody stab to the gut. None of these description are technically wrong. Fans just prefer one to another.

There also is no clear description of what a character who can survive 20d6 damage is. Most books and movies don't even get close to D&D's level 10, which is pretty much the threshold for leaping a max damage height. And even then there are many definitions of a "paragon" character. There are anywhere between slightly better trained humanoid to action genre hero to "video-game character on easy mode".

D&D need some consistency.

 

[Incenjucar]

One of the major issues is really that there is very little in the way of epic tier storytelling. Epic fantasy novels tend to stay at the high end of heroic or the low end of paragon, and the "epic" nature of them is in scope instead of power level.

The whole Quadratic Wizard thing kind of pushes D&D into crazy gonzo cosmic heroes mode at Epic Tier. A fighter that is an equal with a level 21+ 2E or 3E wizard has to be freaking incredible.

 

[Minigiant]

This would be considered pointless and special snowflake-y and would receive some frowns and raised eyebrows and possibly some eyerolls at my table. (just trying to describe my preference and experience as counterpoint, not trying to badwrongfun you objectively).

Maybe Next could develop a new philosophy: solipsistic reskinning. Meaning if somebody wants to change the fiction in a certain way to please themselves, even though this won't affect anything else in the game, they're encouraged to silently imagine it without sharing it with the other participants.

Change the fiction? Change what fiction? The rules state that..

He fell
Something happens
He hit the ground
He took ~70 damage
He lived.

D&D doesn't say what the "something happens" is. That is the core problem.

 

[Elf Witch]

Honestly I don't. To me D&D high level characters should be superhumans that can take over the city guard if they want (as long as the city guard doesn't have its dose of high level characters). An high level fighter should be something like Thomas in R.E.Feist's books and should never fall in a battle to normal soldiers. And I see no problem in an high level character jumping of a cliff and knowing he will survive (like Lloyd jumping off a cliff in Tales of Symphonia).
In a fantasy game like D&D even high level martial characters should be magical to some extent and not be bound by the same limits of mere mortals. I always imagine that high level martial characters are imbued by the sheer strength of "destiny" that will bring them to a glorious victory or defeat, not a "splat!" sound and a pool of goo.
But I understand that other people may want a more down-to-Earth (pun intended) approach.

My wish for 5E is that it gives you the tools to play both. There should be a way to have optional rules that allow for mobs and falling to be deadly. If they really intend to have dials then this would be a thing that would make DnD a much better game.

 

[Elf Witch]

Unfortunately, bad players will manage to ruin any game. Like the people who flip chess boards.

I don't know if they are bad players because put these same players in a Shadowrun game and none of this kind of things happen.

For a lot of them it is just the way they play. They often when planning what to do as players not characters think in this way. Something along the lines of well I am x level and have x hit points the guards will be about third level and they carry longswords so if that all hit me even if they do max I will live. So I laugh and charge them.

Once you have played the game for a long time it is does not take long to figure this kind of thing out.

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't know if they are bad players because put these same players in a Shadowrun game and none of this kind of things happen.

For a lot of them it is just the way they play. They often when planning what to do as players not characters think in this way. Something along the lines of well I am x level and have x hit points the guards will be about third level and they carry longswords so if that all hit me even if they do max I will live. So I laugh and charge them.

Once you have played the game for a long time it is does not take long to figure this kind of thing out.

If their characters are afraid of getting hurt and would avoid harm even when they could benefit, then they're not roleplaying well. If their characters are daredevils who don't mind pain if it assures victory, there's no reason to complain because everything is working as intended.

If you don't like the characters your players are playing, using rules as a bludgeon to make them change seems like it may just make things less fun for them.

 

[Elf Witch]

Precisely. A better example, to me, is in Lord of the Rings (the movies since they're easier to picture): during the battle of Helm's Deep Aragorn and Gimli leap in front of a huge column of Uruk-hai and fend them off. Were they probably nervous to do it? Maybe a little, but they were pretty damn sure they could succeed; that's why they did it.

Or when Gandalf faces down the Balrog. He KNEW he was on of an equal power level as the Balrog, just as paragon-tier characters KNOW they're stronger than some country-militia.

I don't see it that way at all. They didn't know they would succeed they knew that if they didn't try the Uruk-Jai would get in and the woman and children would be slaughtered. They were willing to risk their life by trying.

Gandalf died in the encounter but he was the only one who could go toe to toe with the Balrog and saving Frodo was more important than his life.

There is nothing heroic about doing great deeds if you know you are going to succeed what is heroic is doing even though you know you may well die.

 

[Incenjucar]

Plot armor makes heroes of us all.

 

[Elf Witch]

If their characters are afraid of getting hurt and would avoid harm even when they could benefit, then they're not roleplaying well. If their characters are daredevils who don't mind pain if it assures victory, there's no reason to complain because everything is working as intended.

If you don't like the characters your players are playing, using rules as a bludgeon to make them change seems like it may just make things less fun for them.

Maybe I am not making myself clear because I am having trouble putting this in to words.

Because DnD is a level based game players start to think this way. We are first level we are not meant to fight the ancient red dragon. I am 15 level there is no way I have to worry if I get caught robbing this shop because the city guard can't touch me.

Some players don't do this but a lot do even ones who do role play. Even good role players try and think some what tactically.

With this kind of thinking it makes it hard to tell certain type of stories.