That depends on how "belief" is paraphrased, so can/did you come to a conclusion without making a "fallacy fallacy" (argumentum ad logicam)?Except that "belief" IS demonstrably a fallacy.
D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?
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Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
The in-game description of encounter and daily powers doesn't actually require necessarily something as contrived of "my sword-swinging left-upright-down-combo muscle is strained) to become "immersive". You just have to assume that as long as a Fighter has an Encounter or Daily power available, he knows he can perform the maneuver, reading the situation at hand. Once he has expended it, he doesn't see the right opportunity for his maneuver anymore. He may ascribe this to his opponent's being on to him, or to himself being a little tired - but he's definitely of what he can and cannot do, and a large part of it is due to situational aspects that are never described mechanically anyway. D&D has never tried to describe people's individual balance, where they were pointing their swords, or how they execute defensive movements, but all that would affect what kind of maneuvers and techniques can work in any given situation.
Now, a really smart Fighter might wonder "Why, after I tried Maneuver X, I cannot do it again until I rest. How can I be so unlucky it never works more than once". But in that case, we also have to realize that there is no 1:1 definite relation between a power and an event ingame. WHen you use power X, Y happens, but Y can also happen without X - the mechanical description is different, but the in-game situation may seem similar enough to make no difference to the character. I mean, sometimes a hit with a Dagger deals 9 points of damage, and sometimes a hit with a Longsword does at well - the mechanical outcome "9" points of damage is the same, but we cannot assume that these 9 points of damage must have come from a Longsword hit, since that's not the only way to take 9 points of damage. Same mechanical result = different narrative. Sometimes the opposite can happen - Different mechanical results, same narrative - Hitting a 3 hit point creature for 15 damage may be described in a gory manner - changing the damage to 25 would not have really affected the DM's narration, since he just saw "damage way more than the enemy could handle" and used that to guide the description.
Mustrum "And sometimes a dagger through the eye is just a dagger through the eye" Ridcully
Now, a really smart Fighter might wonder "Why, after I tried Maneuver X, I cannot do it again until I rest. How can I be so unlucky it never works more than once". But in that case, we also have to realize that there is no 1:1 definite relation between a power and an event ingame. WHen you use power X, Y happens, but Y can also happen without X - the mechanical description is different, but the in-game situation may seem similar enough to make no difference to the character. I mean, sometimes a hit with a Dagger deals 9 points of damage, and sometimes a hit with a Longsword does at well - the mechanical outcome "9" points of damage is the same, but we cannot assume that these 9 points of damage must have come from a Longsword hit, since that's not the only way to take 9 points of damage. Same mechanical result = different narrative. Sometimes the opposite can happen - Different mechanical results, same narrative - Hitting a 3 hit point creature for 15 damage may be described in a gory manner - changing the damage to 25 would not have really affected the DM's narration, since he just saw "damage way more than the enemy could handle" and used that to guide the description.
Mustrum "And sometimes a dagger through the eye is just a dagger through the eye" Ridcully
Emerikol
Legend
Yep. I came to the conclusion independently but he and I agree totally. I am going to add him to my sig of great links.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
That's been brought up before and there are simply a lot of people for whom that doesn't conceptually work. After all, if he can force the situation once against one opponent, why can't he force it against another opponent who couldn't be on to him? But all it would take is a relatively small amount of rejiggering for dailies to work much better.
Instead of having x daily powers, have x number of high result tokens in a daily refreshed pool. Then allow the PC to use any daily power he has as he has a token to spend on it. Then he gets to force that maneuver with his superior arms skill whenever he wants it until he really is too tired to do so again. It's very easy, but because I suspect that there was a plan to stick to the AEDU structure for all classes in 4e (non-essentials), WotC would have been unwilling to implement it even in the face of opposition to martial dailies.
Ratskinner
Adventurer
That may be D&D tradition, but it certainly wouldn't have to be the case in a version of D&D that strove for balance. Consider encounter budgets. In a D&D that places primacy on balance, they will be specified. Certainly, tradition argues that for D&D a DM may ignore them and have you face whatever whimsy dictates. However, the argument can be made that a DM who ignores a stricture on such a thing is no longer playing the "RAW" game, and certainly wouldn't be playing a "balanced" version of it.
Part of balance, really, must be putting restrictions on the participants in the game, even if those restrictions are affirmative in nature "your character can do X". Something can only be balanced to the extent that it is well-defined, or prescribed by the rules.
Note 1: This does not require the game mechanics to be complicated or onerous, or even squelch narrative. However, they must be well-defined in their interactions with each other.
Note 2: This also doesn't mean that any well-defined mechanics are balanced. Definition is necessary, but not sufficient for balance.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
Then, of course, you get the question of, "Why can I do something awesome exactly 5 times a day, every day? But I can never do 6"?
It's still an issue.
Pickles JG
First Post
One man's dissociated mechanics is another man's opportunity to flavour abilities as he likes
Manbearcat
Legend
I suspect you are correct that several of us run 4e in a very similar fashion. I would wager that we do not precisely map content/genre preferences across our spectrum but my guess would be that the "feel" of our games/tables could be mistaken for one another due to the congruency of our delivery of mechanical infrastructure.
As far as deviation from orthodox goes, I honestly cannot say for sure as I am extremely insulated from the gaming community at large. I've never been to a convention nor do I frequent hobby shops. So honestly, I don't know what mainstream 4e play is. Is it 1e Gamist? Is it encounters? Is it some misshapen effort at the Gamist/Process-Sim styles of old? Is it a "fiction first", "genre logic" Narrativist/Gamist marriage (my style and I suspect the others you mention above)? No idea. However, I do know that 4e can manage all of these styles, some better than others (the Gamist/Process-Sim being the most unwieldy given the RAW, Gamist/Narrativist mechanics).
I absolutely believe that some of the lead authors of the 4e books knew EXACTLY what gaming style (Gamist/Narrativist) they were advocating with the mechanics and their editorializing within the ruleset. However, I wonder if there wasn't some incoherency of vision with regards to those lead authors, their subordinates and their editorship. At certain points they hit you over the head with blunt advocacy for that style...while at other points the tone is modulated significantly (for whatever reason - editing?...misunderstanding subordinates?). I can (and predicted the backlash as I was reading it) understand how reading the 4e ruleset was a bitter pill to swallow for some, specifically the ardent process-simulators amongst us. In truth, this was actually one of the things that appealed to me the most (not the fact that it may turn process simulators off...but rather, despite the flailing modulation, the honesty of intent and coherency of design was abundantly clear).
Prior to 4e, the chronology of my gaming career evolved as Gygaxian Gamist 1e > Some perverted marriage of Gamist/Narrativist/Sim in AD&D/2e (but what fun despite the derangement in style) > Rigid 3e Process-Sim > Maddening attempt to drift 3e to Narrative/Process-Sim > More Maddening attempt to drift 3.5 to Narrativist/Gamist > Full Stop. I became increasingly familiar with collective storytelling mechanics and narrativist mechanical infrastructure (just as much of my own devising as reading) and over the years I had become extraordinarily dissatisfied with DnD's increasing (ly poor) effort at process-simulation. At my table, when trying to pledge fealty to Process-Sim, the output and mood was underwritten by an agonizingly, borderline pathological, dogmatic devotion toward premeditated, ad-hoc and post-hoc rationalizing every moving part and moment so that it "made sense from a real-world, coupled cause and effect perspective". Organic creativity was stifled as the demand for Process-Sim rationalizations became more fervent...while the mechanics that attempted to represent fidelity to the physical model increasingly became more transparently unworthy. This is likely as much a failing of the style for my creative tastes as it is a product of my own obsessively analytical nature (and of my own players to a lesser degree).
The fact that 4e's design framework/mechanics, at least tacitly, was not genuflecting to the Process-Sim Gods immediately caught my eye and endeared itself to me. What's more, the ruleset's design aims were exceedingly intuitive. Perhaps it was because I had been drifting that way over the course of 20 + years. Perhaps it was because the heroic fantasy that I had always wanted to conjure was finally within my grasp (as I could officially cast off my devout clergy robes of the Process Sim Church...and actually be supported in the effort by the system.). Perhaps it was exposure to the spirit of the mechanics already (either those of other systems or of my own devising). The answer is likely at the junction of all of those. However, I think, as much as anything else, it is the fact that I no longer had to play the creativity-stifling premeditated, ad-hoc, post-hoc rationalization game constantly in an effort to maintain maximum internal consistency with a mechanical resolution model and a set of nebulous world physics that do not support me, but rather defy me, in that effort.
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Ratskinner
Adventurer
Indeed. One of my favorite little indie games has mechanics that are totally devoid of attachment to any simulated "reality." That is to say, "Flying 5" just means that flying is more important to your character than another with "Flying 2". It does have rules for what you can and can't narrate as the result of your roll (and when you can do so, as well). It is the most story-oriented game I know.
Emerikol
Legend
I think dissociated mechanices (metagame dissonance) are the number one reason 4e was rejected by such a large section of the player base. While acceptable to many people, it is widely rejected by many. So I believe 5e would be wise to at least limit exposure to these things so that we can choose how much we want.
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