D&D 5E The Door, Player Expectations, and why 5e can't unify the fanbase.

[Manbearcat]

I'm thinking you could pull off a Batman character nicely if the mechanics allow for it. However, to be quite honest, I would think the Batman archetype within the DnD genre would be much more akin to a Fighter/Mage/Thief. He needs martial brawn and technique of the Fighter, he needs the tech/swiss army knife utility (magic) and shrewd logic of the Mage, and he needs the guile, stealth and subterfuge of the Rogue...and a lot of resources

In 5e terms perhaps a Fighter/Rogue with themes used to diversify his repertoire into the magic realm and focus his Fighter/Rogue repertoire.

 

[JamesonCourage]

If people want to include only martial prowess and not load the archetype with superfluous elements that they don't mean to include (and don't bother to caveat), then they're better off using Captain America lest they risk the conflation of archetypes or inclusion of superfluous elements that do not apply.

I think Captain America isn't used because of his perceived super strength (not that Batman isn't also capable of superhuman acts). Batman retains a feel of "human limits" somehow to a lot of people, where I don't think this remains true of Captain America. Though, Wiki does list his powers: peak physical and mental conditioning, expert acrobat, tactician, and marksman, master martial artist, excellent field commander, and magic shield. I don't think people would object to these being applied to the high level Fighter, so you may be right.

Then again, I think context matters a lot. Saying "being as good as Batman (as compared to basically any anime ninja)" in my post, especially within the context it was used in (it was preceded by bits about jumping down 40 feet, and not mountain cutting), should negate a lot of the issues that others bring up (comparing Batman to a Rogue or Thief). I guess it didn't to you or Neonchameleon, though.

But, hopefully this clears that up. If thinking Captain America works better for you, then sure. His list of powers looks fine from my end. As always, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ok. That's fair enough.

I've seen that archetype used before so I've always assumed that considering how loaded the Batman archetype is with indirect tactics including guerilla, covert, subterfuge, misdirection, logic, tech (that I would say define him at least as much as martial prowess...and I'm a huge Batman nerd so I'm well versed in his history)...that people actually meant what they wrote as "like Batman" (without preconditions or caveat...as you have now done) presupposes the "indirect" aspects of the character as well as the "direct." If people want to include only martial prowess and not load the archetype with superfluous elements that they don't mean to include (and don't bother to caveat), then they're better off using Captain America lest they risk the conflation of archetypes or inclusion of superfluous elements that do not apply.

Cap's a very definite ringer. He might claim not to have super strength but definitely has it.

As for Batman and using brute strength, Batman uses the best tools for the job. When brute strength works he uses it. But if we look at the comic, who are the two physically biggest and strongest foes he fights head on? I come up with Killer Croc and Bane. The one's a low end mutant with very high strength and resiliance. The other is, to cut a long story short, effectively as strong and tough as a steroid abusing athlete gets. Bane would probably be able to take an ogre down in unarmed combat (he's not lacking in skill) but that's about it. Oh, and while I remember, Lady Shiva probably belongs on that list (martial artist/assassin) even if she isn't big.

Restrict the bad guys to the strength of Killer Croc and Bane and you can have your Batman-as-fighter. Put Batman up against a dragon in hand to hand and he'd be turned into a lump of strawberry jam - and he knows it. Which is why his writers don't have him do this.

The fighter on the other hand needs to be front and centre in the battle line - that's what the archetype does. Making him Batman is only going to cut it if you restrict his enemies to the level of physical prowess normally seen in the comic books - Bane or Killer Croc level. Both of whom are effectively about the same level as ogres. You want to cap the game there?

 

[pemerton]

Tolkien is inspired from mythology, but it doesn't have the same irrational tone as real-life myths. LoTR was so popular because it "modernized" myths into pseudo-rational serious fantasy palatable to a modern world in ways that real-life myths are not.

I disagree with your assessment of LotR popularity, and would state that it has remained popular so long precisely because it emphatically did not cater to the modern mindset.

I have views about the cultural politics of LotR, but this thread (and this forum) probably isn't the place.

But if we just confine ourselves to the "dream logic" issue, LotR displays it. One example: the Hobbits live in an essentially autarkic backwater. Yet they have a material standard of living comparable to that which emerged in Britain once it became a centre of world commerce and industrial production. How is this possible? Answer: in the real world, it's not. In LotR, though, economics and sociology unfold according to a mythic "dream logic".

A second example: what actually takes place in Gandalf's 14-day fight with the Balrog? How many blows are struck? Do they all miss, or are the two hewed apart again and again, or do they regenerate? The text has no answer, and doesn't present the desire for an answer as even salient. That 14 days unfolds according to dream logic.

A third example: Aragorn's 80 year career as a tracker, mercenary, soldier, ranger, etc that culminates in him rescuing the Hobbits at Bree. What does he do for 80 years? How is he not notorious and famous? How can the Bree-folk see him and think of him merely as "Strider, that sinister ranger"? It's dream logic.

Then there's all the "divine power of kingship" stuff - the hands of the king are the hands of the healer, the crowing of the king is a guarantee of piece and prosperity, etc. This stuff isn't about Newtonian, or even post-relativistic, cause-and-effect. It's the logic of dreams, of symbols, of tropes that resonate because of their weight in the literary culture that Tolkien is borrowing from.

Even the long lists of kings and stewards in the Appendices have a dream logic to them. What were they all doing for the thousands of years between the arrival of the Numenoreans in the second age, and the restoration of Aragorn to the throne? How come no social change seems to have happened in all that time? These aren't historical texts - they're a literary analogue to a declaration of (conjecture, mythic) ancestry made by a pre-modern war leader, with the same inherent logic (ie a dream logic) as the discussion in the English classics (Geoffrey of Monmouth, maybe?) of Arthur having conquered Rome.

Giants are impossively massive because couldn't absorb enough oxygen to survive.

Well, there is no oxygen in most fantasy worlds, including standard D&D. No nitrogen. Just the Element Air. (Dinosaurs could grow to gigantic sizes because the air was so oxygen-rich during that era; the Element Air is similarly different in properties.) The Element Air supports all living creates of all sizes.

Done. Giants are not impossible after all. Fighters mundanely chopping mountains can still be impossible.

Scientifically, dragons would be too massive to fly. We can say that all creatures with wings can mundanely have lift in Element Air.

Done. Dragon flight is not impossible after all.

There is nothing in Tolkien like this - no attempt, for example, to explain the physical process of turning the world into a sphere (and what would a non-spherical world even be?) while preserving, for some sailors, the "straight road" to the West.

And I'm not a big fan of this sort of stuff in fantasy gaming. To me, it is like the pseudo-science in the Draconomicon or the midichlorians in Star Wars - a genre-breaking attempt to impose hard science fiction norms of storytelling onto fiction and tropes where those norms have no work to do, and don't belong.

What bugs me is what I surmise is the goal of cherry-picking and choosing mythical elements that make my fighter more mechanically powerful while ignoring the inconveniently accompanying mythical context, such as talking animals or whatever that don't jive with the D&D genre

I heard a player at another table once, in all seriousness, say that talking animals weren't acceptable to him because he wasn't playing (colorful language omitted) "Watership Down."

I also think talking animals are a special case, and I somewhat share the (colourful language omitted) "Watership Down" response. But only somewhat. The Rolemaster campaign before my current 4e one had as one PC a fox spirit in human form (inspired most immediately by the movie Green Snake, I think). And sphinxes, dragons, naga etc are all, in some sense, talking animals.

More generally, though, dispensing with some elements of mythical context in the interests of playability, getting rid of mediaeval stuff that justs looks silly, etc seems fine to me. It's the need for ingame causal explanation as a barrier to entry that I don't really get - especially because, in my view, none is actually being provided for wizards, warlocks, sorcerers etc.

Fight your way into the underworld and rescue them.

That's one helluva class ability!

And some 4e martial PCs have abilities pretty close to it. A couple of examples from the Dark Wander epic destiny in Martial Power (prerequisite either ranger or rogue):

Dark Road (24th level): You can walk to any destination you desire in a single, uninterrupted 24-hour period of walking. No matter how distant the location, or how many planes separate you from it, you reach the destination 24 hours after you begin, finding shortcuts, portals, or other modes of transport previously unknown to you. You do not require any rest, food, or water during this travel, except to recharge powers and regain healing surges. During your journey, you are safe from hazards, attacks, and other dangers. . .

You can choose to be accompanied by a number of characters equal to 5 + your Wisdom modifier, all of whom share the benefit of this class feature.

Long Walk Back (30th level): If you die and are not returned to life within 12 hours, your body and possessions disappear. Twelve hours after that—24 hours after your death—you arrive, equipped as you were when you died, having just walked back from
wherever it is you and your DM decided you awoke after you were slain. . .

You can choose to arrive at the place of your death, at the location of any of your allies, or at any location you consider home.​

The point of quoting this is to show that there are actual mechanical precedents in the existing game for mythical fighters. There's no reason why we can't have more of this stuff, with approriate variety in flavour, degree of detail in action resolution, etc.

Fighters (regardless of their archetype) are direct, overt force applied to a problem.

<snip>

The problem with the DnD Fighter is finding a way to make direct, overt force be compatible with genre expectations, mechanically interesting, relevant and viable when compared to his magical counterparts in mid and high level play

<snip>

while not offending the sensibilities of the sub-section of the player base that wants to keep his deployable resources in-line with their expectations of real world musculoskeletal kinesiology/physics/bio-physics (while he fights dragons -flight - and giant spiders and other creatures with exoskeleton - exoskeleton size - that are unbounded by his design limitations).

A nice statement of the problem.

 

[Underman]

But if we just confine ourselves to the "dream logic" issue, LotR displays it.

Sure, but do you differentiate between the quality and quantity or pervasiveness of "dream logic" in real-life myth vs LoTR? I do.

The quality of "dream logic" I had in mind is the pre-rational stuff (like the aforementioned Thor lifting the cat's paw that is actually the World Serpent) which to me isn't exactly comparable to LoTR.

There is also a huge difference between the unexplained and the unexplainable. So Aragorn's 80 yr diaspora is unexplained. Jormungandr encircling Midgard while simultaneously being a small cat in giant's hut is unexplainable.

The 14 day fight with the Balrog is dream logic as left unexplained. Perhaps Gandalf only explained the short version that was palatable to mere mortals in that moment of haste. It probably could be explained if it were given a novella format narrating a drawn out affair with various sieges and ambushes and hiatuses hiding in caves, suspension bubbles, gating in and out of worlds, etc. (from the top of my head, I don't really care)

There's "dream logic" and there's "fantasy logic" and they surely overlap at times.

I probably could go through your list of LoTR examples and try to find rational explanations, but I don't really care, and people will just start making fun of me again because they think I deeply care or something. We already started with the "hands of the healer" anyway.

Which leaves me just generally opinining that the overall qualities and tone of "dream logic" are overall differentiated for me.

And I'm not a big fan of this sort of stuff in fantasy gaming. To me, it is like the pseudo-science in the Draconomicon or the midichlorians in Star Wars - a genre-breaking attempt to impose hard science fiction norms of storytelling onto fiction and tropes where those norms have no work to do, and don't belong.

Exactly, that's why I wrote in that post "But really, who cares?" and then proceeded to elaborate how oxygen never figured into the formation of myths and fantasy, and so the challenges posed by others about giants being scientifically impossible are irrelevant and don't break my suspension of disbelief. People seem to keep glossing over this.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Can anyone really immerse himself into playing a Wizard?

You are reading a spell and memorizing it. But you can only memorize so much, so far I can get that. But then you cast the spell, and it's gone. The memory of it just vanishes? How does that work or feel? I've never had amnesia, maybe an amnesia patient could explain, but I doubt even that, since no one has ever made a few gestures and suddenly forget what those gestures where about in the next moment.
And now the memory is gone, and I cannot try to memorize something else for it again? Why, how does that work or feel?

You may accept that, because that's just how magic works. But daily "martial "combat abilities are evne easier to accept.
You fight and you constantly watch your opponents, looking for the perfect opportunity for a devestating blow - but all the time, something is going wrong - the enemy sees your feint, he retreats at the last moment, the last block you made with your shield forced you to take a stance that makes your desired blow impossible - but then, suddenly, you see the opportunity - and you use it. That opportunity arises when the player uses the daily ability, but in game-world logic, it's easily imaginable what is happening for the fighter.
You may ask "why does it happen only once per day" - but we don't need to consider that only one exact specific type of cut, thrust or blow is described by a power - multiple ones could be covered by it (after all, some fireballs deal 10 damage and some 30 and some in between, and sometimes, people escape the worst and sometimes not). And some other may look so similar to the character that he wouldn't make a distinction (a critical with a reguler attack may make as much damage as a Brutal Strike that deals 3d10+STR damage, so they may look very similar in the game world - or they may not - likewise, a single blow for 6 damage is sometimes a mere graze and sometimes a deadly wound). The rules don't describe the individual cuts, throws, blows or their combination, or how they are deflected, dodged or just taken in the cut - they give only an abstract representation that leaves the details filled by the narrative and the imagination of the player.

 

[pemerton]

Exactly, that's why I wrote in that post "But really, who cares?" and then proceeded to elaborate how oxygen never figured into the formation of myths and fantasy, and so the challenges posed by others about giants being scientifically impossible are irrelevant and don't break my suspension of disbelief. People seem to keep glossing over this.

But then why does it matter how a fighter's epic or mythic toughness is constituted? If the giant gets a free pass, why not the fighter?

 

[Underman]

Can anyone really immerse himself into playing a Wizard?

Yep!

You are reading a spell and memorizing it. But you can only memorize so much, so far I can get that. But then you cast the spell, and it's gone. The memory of it just vanishes? How does that work or feel? I've never had amnesia, maybe an amnesia patient could explain, but I doubt even that, since no one has ever made a few gestures and suddenly forget what those gestures where about in the next moment.
And now the memory is gone, and I cannot try to memorize something else for it again? Why, how does that work or feel?

I gave my take on this upthread.

Also, from the Matrix: Neo asks Trinity if she knows how to fly the helicopter and she says "Not yet". Then after she flies the helicopter, imagine yanking out the USB flash disk so she forgets again.

In real-life: I can't remember some syntax for a programming script, so I Google it. I write the script with my short-term memory. I've completely forgotten it the next day.

Seems (sufficiently) intuitive enough to me.

On a statistical level, perhaps we can accumulate the total number of threads complaining about spell memorization vs complaints about martial abilities and warlord shouty powers, etc.

You may accept that, because that's just how magic works. But daily "martial "combat abilities are evne easier to accept.

Not easier, just different. Depends on the example. I know there are thousands of pages written about martial dailies so it's not objectively "even easier to accept". Plus for this thread, we seem to have been focused before on smashing mountains, leaping over oceans, etc. because it apparently helps to focus on the extreme edges of mythic.

 

[Underman]

But then why does it matter how a fighter's epic or mythic toughness is constituted? If the giant gets a free pass, why not the fighter?

Seriously? I don't know what to say except re-read all of my posts with an open receptive mind?

I wouldn't use the word "free pass" for the giant because there are aforementioned reasons why 99.9% of people don't have a problem with giant size in myth and fantasy.

You used the word "toughness". Are you singularly focusing on toughness or the whole mythic package including unexplainable abilities?

 

[pemerton]

The memory of it just vanishes? How does that work or feel? I've never had amnesia, maybe an amnesia patient could explain, but I doubt even that, since no one has ever made a few gestures and suddenly forget what those gestures where about in the next moment.

I have had amnesia. Yes, really. Nearly 6 years ago I suffered encephalitis. There is a period of around 24 hours that I still can't remember at all, and another week that is pretty hazy - in that period I had (gradually reducing) prospective amnesia (ie I formed no new memories) and also had restrospective amnesia, having lost access to my long term memory for the previous 5 or so years. I only know what happened in the missing 24 hours because my partner was there and has told (and retold) me the story. The rest I remember experiencing, but it's something like a dream or a fog.

I can remember the start of it - I was feeling sick and lay down to rest. Apparently, I then told my partner I had just had a dream about XYZ, when in fact XYZ was something I had seen in real life about 10 minutes before. Then our youngest daughter (then about 6 months old) started crying, and I asked what the noise was, and didn't know that the child was mine, how old she was (apparently I guessed "3 years") and whether or not we had other children.

So it was very sudden and pretty thorough, as far as the years that were wiped out were concerened.

My memory returned over about a week or so (I'm not sure exactly, because one consequence of prospective amnesia is that you don't really notice the passage of time - and my partner only has external indications to go on in judging how quickly I recovered). The best metaphor I can use is to say it was like the pages of a book, or in some cases the images of photos or paintings, gradually coming into resolution - as if in a mist, or dim light. For me, at least, recovering my memories was definitely a phenomenal/perceptual experience, rather than a logical/purely cognitive one.

I haven't play a Vancian wizard since undergoing this experience, and I'm not sure if it would help. What I can say is that prospective amnesia is very shocking, because you contantly feel as if you have just woken from a coma - you're looking around you and don't know where you are or how you got there (my "reset period" was apparently about 3 minutes in the time period that I can't remember, and increased to several hours over the next couple of days - by the time I left hospital after a week and a half there was no noticable prospective amnesia).

So a Vancian wizard, constantly encompassing these powerful thoughts but then losing access to them, might feel emotionally worn or exhausted. And rememorising the spell might be a bit like recovering the sight or feel of something that you believed was part of you, and felt the absence of. I might expect the wizard to become increasingly distant and distracted as s/he runs out of spells, and has less and less of a sense of who s/he is and what motivations and forces got him/her to the situation s/he is in.

All that said, I gather in Vance that memorising a spell is more like the mental subjugation of an alien force - perhaps analogous in some fashion to telepathy or possession - and if that's right then maybe the amnesia analysis is wrongheaded. Maybe casting a spell is a relief, as you are no longer concentrating on trying to keep this unruly thing controlled and under wraps.