D&D 5E Simulation vs Game - Where should D&D 5e aim?

[Manbearcat]

There is a massive difference between "encounter guidelines" and "challenge rating", and that difference lies in their intent. Encounter guidelines, like wealth-by-level guidelines, tell you what you should be doing. Challenge rating merely describes what something is.

I wasn't using "challenge rating". However, if you want to use CR, I'm using it in terms of its metagame functionality within the process of "encounter building"; its value as a singular combatant (a unit) toward the effort of creating a predictable (for the GM), interesting and tactically engaging combat. Not its relevance/place in the world. That is left for the GM to frame and for play to sort out.

I think you may also be using "encounter guidelines" different than I am. I'm using the term to describe all the various layers of advice given to GMs in their effort to create interesting, tactically compelling, genre archetypal conflict for their players to resolve. Guidelines speak to what sort of combatants and terrain to use to generate a dynamically mobile, swashbuckling encounter. Guidelines speak to what sort of effects/lackeys/terrain features cohere well with, and force multiply, the arsenal of a BBEG red dragon. Guidelines speak to potential system components that may be brought to bear to nonviolently or asymmetrically resolve a conflict that appears inevitably headed for violence. Guidelines provide battle templates and breakdowns of their usage (commander and troops all having a "Bane's Legions" theme and the terrain that they would use best to their - mechanical - advantage...use Swarms and break out a number of bloodied standards and minions of equal budget to the Swarm at the bloodied condition). They provide GMing techniques for how to mechanically bring to life bog-standard genre tropes (combat on 2, high speed runaway rail cars). Guidelines tell you what happens if you use various level monsters vs the PCs and what are the upper and lower bounds of the math of cannon fodder contests versus BBEG contests. Encounter guidelines run down the Operant Conditioning effects of using too many traps, or too many of the same traps in the same types of situations, or pixel bitching with traps, or using the kinds of punitive traps that take someone out of the resolution of the conflict by their mere existence.

I don't need the DMG to frame either the overall fiction or the micro-conflicts for me. I will do that myself. In terms of guidelines, I'm describing robust and transparent system information such that my assimilation of it will allow me to consistently compose interesting and dynamic conflicts that my players can engage and resolve without me anxiously fretting over the fact that I'm expected to hold the whole thing together with a heaping helping of tea leaf intuition, paper clips, bubble gum and GM Force hammer time.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It's a very straightforward concept, recognizable as a simplification of reality.

Indeed. People forget (or never thought about to begin with) how much of reality as we know it is embedded in rpg rules. There are certainly things in those rules that aren't the way reality works, but those are the exceptions.

If you look at D&D, prior to 4E, there was basically nothing that could make you lose hit points that wasn't something doing physical damage to your body. Swords, fire, and falling were all hit point damage. Psychic attacks didn't do hit point damage, unless it was physically setting you on fire. Marching for days on end would be fatigue and exhaustion.

3e represents starvation as hp damage, and there are various psionic effects that do cause psychosomatic damage. However, in both cases, the body is still suffering discernible harm, even though the source of that harm and the process by which it occurs is less tangible. It's probably true that there are no effects that create hit point damage that exists in purely psychological terms.

 

[howandwhy99]

You are correct that football has no representation aspect. RPGing manifestly does.

For instance, no part of playing football involves a participant responding to a question "What do you do now?" with a remark like "I walk down the corridor". RPGing does. Hence, in RPGing, there are depictions of things (characters, corridors, monsters) that don't actually exist.

In order to engage with anything in D&D it first must be made to exist as a game construct. That's why all those 1000s of books exist with stuff inside them statted up. They exist on the game board, which is simply hidden from the players. Heck, the DM can even draw what the rules say the PCs sense in order to give the players a better idea of the layout. Calling a game component a "king" or "rook" doesn't make it a simulation. At best those labels are merely clues upon first encountering the game elements they refer to. But no one thinks D&D orcs were designed to depict this actual thing called an orc. That's crazy. They are game constructs to be gamed. Not representations to put on a show.

Gygax, on p 7 of his PHB, states that "As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter. You know how strong, intelligent, wise, healthy, dextrous and, relatively speaking, how commanding a personality you have [sic]. . . You act out the game as this character . . . You interact with your fellow role players, not as Jim and Bob and Mary who work at the office together, but as Falstaff the fighter, Angore the cleric, and Filmar, the mistress of magic!"

That's not very ambiguous. The "become" isn't literal, as the reference to "acting out" indicates. Roleplaying involves a certain sort of pretence, evaluating propositions not in relation to the real world (in which, for instance, neither Falstaff nor Angore nor Filmar exists) but in relation to an imagined state-of-affairs (which, following the usage of contemporary analytic philosophers, plus ordinary language, can be termed a fiction).

Role playing is not portrayal of a personality. Nor it is subject to storytelling or actual being. Role playing is performing social roles as they relate to being a functional member of society. That counts for for acting or actuality. There is no pretension in D&D just like there is no pretense about the English language allowing us to functionally communicate with each other. D&D is a game, so it's an actuality and players don't pretend to play it.

Clearly I'm not agreeing with Gygax's statement above. I think he was unclear on the issue, but his design speaks for itself as a game. There are plenty of other quotes where he didn't want D&D confused with theater games.

And this is apropos of what? The most frequent instance of such "short-circuiting" that I see discussed around here is the role of Save-or-Die in pre-4e D&D, especially 3E/PF.

You think a player losing the game and the game being over for them is a rule promoting a contrived outcome? Players lose in D&D. They can get in on the same campaign (game instance) by rolling up a new character, but level 1, zero XP. They start over.

Of course if you are playing the same game again the player can go and get back their stuff (the dead or lost PC). But this has nothing to do with dismissing all game play up unto any point to tell a more dramatic story.

There is no special connection between game rules intended to facilitate dramatic contrivances and the "short-circuiting" of game play. For instance, a player spending a healing surge during the course of resolution of a 4e combat is not short-circuiting game play; s/he is playing the game. That's as true at a gamist table (eg Lair Assault organised play) as it is at my table.

No connection? Then we must be talking about something else. Your example is a game mechanic, a resource that can be gamed and doesn't create contrived outcomes. People don't like healing surges because it removes a great deal of the strategic, not tactical results of skirmish combat. It results in mindlessly repetitive videogame fights where how you fight is largely irrelevant both before and after the fact. It's a rule that removes the subtle nuances so carefully built into 4e combat once an "Encounter" is finished. As if all those nuances shouldn't affect how players play all the rest of the game on the D&D board. In classic D&D everything carries over from the first time the dice are rolled in a campaign to the last time. Everything in the rules is being tracked by the DM behind the screen.

Sure, that the code is hidden from the players allows them to learn and be unrestrained for creative thought on what they might try. But that there is an actual game construct largely not of their making that is a pattern, i.e. gameable, allowing players to be actually succeed, be challenged, and become performers of awe-inspiring excellence. Think: great teams with profound personal proficiency in each of its members, but also as a whole. Unfortunately, all these role players aren't likely to be that great at storytelling or acting.

 

[Hussar]

It serves the dm's purpose to have an interesting game world and to adjucate interacions between the party and the game world fairly. It never serves a dm to "make sure the party wins."



How do you figure? Except in a very broad sense, in that the dm presents the game world, the players choose their difficulty. They may go to the Tomb of Horrors (or the campaign's equivalent death trap) or the Keep on the Borderlands at level one or at level 10 if they so choose. The dm has very little say.

Oh of course it does. It just depends on why you're playing and the play style you adopt.

Unless the DM has created an entire amusement park world where the players can go wherever they want and do whatever they want, this is almost never true. In the vast majority of campaigns the DM has an adventure, or maybe two, and the players play that.

I mean, it's pretty standard that every module has an expected level range and it isn't exactly out of line to think that people who play those modules play with characters that fall in that level range.

And funnily enough, when you play through those modules, the vast majority of encounters are "make sure the party wins" encounters.

 

[Hussar]

I'm going to disagree here. I don't want to spoil too badly for those who haven't read the books (or seen the show) but IMO many of the actual deaths are the opposite of high drama, and I find them to lean in a much more simulationist direction in their structure... I also find that some/many of the actual deaths are instituted by meaningless, random mooks and henchmen... sure it's on the orders, plots, etc. of superiors but that still doesn't change the fact that you actually got ganked by a nobody. Finally I also find many of the deaths to be pretty non-heroic in nature... But the fact of the matter is, it's the knowing that no one is safe from anything that, at least in part, makes the books a good read and the show interesting

I think this is just confirmation bias. You want simulation, so you see simulation. I look at it, and never see a random death in the book. No one gets ganked by a nobody. Any of the main characters die dramatic deaths. The Red Wedding is hardly a scene lacking in drama.

 

[Imaro]

I think this is just confirmation bias. You want simulation, so you see simulation. I look at it, and never see a random death in the book. No one gets ganked by a nobody. Any of the main characters die dramatic deaths. The Red Wedding is hardly a scene lacking in drama.

First when I am speaking of "dramatic deaths" I am speaking of the type of deaths @pemerton seems to reference as exemplified by someone like Boromir in LotR... i.e. exciting and impressive ...

I'll put most of my replies in a spoiler box... though I do find it funny you skipped a few deaths to get to one that I agree was probably one of if not the most dramatic... Others were, IMO, much less so... I also think that in order for it to feel simulationist there have to also be dramatically important deaths mixed in with the not so dramatic ones... just like in real life.

[sblock]

Robert slowly dies from the wound he receives from a boar after his squire gets him too drunk to hunt and he does it anyway... a man who conquered the 7 kingdoms is killed by a boar...

Ned is beheaded after spending days in prison... ironically enough he bestows this fate on a common criminal earlier in the story

Viserys has melted gold poured on his head, uhm yeah... not exciting or impressive.

Joffrey chokes to death on poison... again neither impressive or exciting, and after the evil he inflicted on others not really even dramatically satisfying...

Contrast these to a death such as Boromir's and I'm sorry but these are not the dramatic deaths of heroes or villains (the balrog or Nazgul) in the traditional sense. Honestly these are deaths any common man could suffer in Westeros.
[/sblock]

 

[Imaro]

Versus its AC of around 37, with their ~+20 to hit (21 vs AC, 19 vs NADs, roughly), needing ~17+ to hit. Compare this with the Standard: AC ~29 (hit on 8-10), hit points ~199 with PCs doing around 35 damage per hit, on average. The minion does 16 damage on a hit - which it does at roughly +30 (hitting most PCs on any but a 1). The Standard does ~30 damage on a hit, but only does so at around +22 (hitting on around a 9+).

The Standard is a bit tougher to kill - I picked a Paragon level Brute as base, which was not a good choice on my part - but they are really not that far apart. The action points, re-rolls and so on apply as much to the Standard as the Minion - re-rolls maybe more on the Minion, action points arguably more on the Standard.

The difference is that a single hit can kill the minion... so at that point get the guy with the largest to hit bonus, pump everything into it and everyone aid him... so he now has a +28 (and I'm betting the overall to hit bonus would be at least a few points higher for a dedicated striker like a Ranger with twin strike) to hit and now he only needs to roll a nine or higher to kill him... the thing is it's much easier to optimize the chance to hit than it is to optimize damage in 4e.

P.S. This may seem at odds with common experience of 4E, because you typically don't face L17 Standard monsters and L25 Minions with characters at the same level. More usual would be L17 standards and L17 Minions - in which case, of course, the Minions drop faster. That's only natural - they are the equivalent of somewhere around L9 "Standard" monsters.

No that's not it... I explained it above and I've seen the type of things the action economy can accomplish when I was running 4e, it's much easier to optimize a chance to hit (especially when you only need to hit once) by funneling party resources towards it as opposed to increasing overall damage being dealt...

 

[pemerton]

In 40 years of RPG play, the fact that there's merely a handful of examples is fairly compelling evidence of the gamist / narrativist divide. You've long espoused 4e's "uniqueness" in this regard.

I've never espoused 4e's uniqueness in this regard - I've known of Ron Edwards' examples longer than 4e has existed!

Let me flip it around - other than Gygaxian D&D, can you give me an example of a gamist RPG that is not driftable to narrativism without a fair bit of hacking?

I think that will be hard, because other than Gygaxian D&D there aren't that many self-consciously gamist RPGs out there.

 

[Hussar]

First when I am speaking of "dramatic deaths" I am speaking of the type of deaths [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] seems to reference as exemplified by someone like Boromir in LotR... i.e. exciting and impressive ...

I'll put most of my replies in a spoiler box... though I do find it funny you skipped a few deaths to get to one that I agree was probably one of if not the most dramatic... Others were, IMO, much less so... I also think that in order for it to feel simulationist there have to also be dramatically important deaths mixed in with the not so dramatic ones... just like in real life.

[sblock]

Robert slowly dies from the wound he receives from a boar after his squire gets him too drunk to hunt and he does it anyway... a man who conquered the 7 kingdoms is killed by a boar...

Ned is beheaded after spending days in prison... ironically enough he bestows this fate on a common criminal earlier in the story

Varys has melted gold poured on his head, uhm yeah... not exciting or impressive.

Joffrey chokes to death on poison... again neither impressive or exciting, and after the evil he inflicted on others not really even dramatically satisfying...

Contrast these to a death such as Boromir's and I'm sorry but these are not the dramatic deaths of heroes or villains (the balrog or Nazgul) in the traditional sense. Honestly these are deaths any common man could suffer in Westeros.
[/sblock]

I'll reply in the same vein

[sblock]All of these deaths are hugely important to the story though. Robert is murdered. The method of the murder isn't really that important is it? It's that he's murdered and his murder sets in motion the entire series of stories.

Varys dies a cowards death exactly as he deserves. He pretends to power that everyone around him knows he does not have. The fact that they melt gold and pour it on his head as a crown is about as dramatically satisfying as you could make it.

Joffrey is murdered. He doesn't die valiantly or a heroes death. He dies exactly as he lived - as a coward with no honour. I'd say it was perfectly fitting.[/sblock]

Unless you define death as "must be in battle in order to be impressive and exciting" I'd say that the deaths were all very dramatically successful.

But, you are also missing the point. No one dies before they have run their course. They all die after they have played out their part in the narrative. No one is killed by a stray arrow from nameless archer number 4, despite there being numerous occasions where it could have happened. No one falls off their horse or gets dysentery in the field. Every single charter dies at a very narratively appropriate time.

Sorry for the bit of a spoiler here, but, it's from very early in the first book and I'm not too worried about it.

Or put it another way, Bran Stark doesn't die when he falls, despite all sorts of perfectly good reasons why he should. In a sim game, he most often would. If you had that event occur at ten different tables 9 tables would see Bran Stark die and that entire storyline die with him. That's the problem with trying to rely on sim rules to produce an enjoyable narrative. Most of the time they don't.

 

[Hussar]

Hang on [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]. What?!?

[sblock]Ned Stark is publicly executed by surprise. In front of his daughter. The order is given by the boy betrothed to his daughter who forces her to watch. This event is the primary motivation of the entire series and directly leads to the war between north and south.

How is this not a dramatic death?

[/sblock]