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

[Bluenose]

Speaking personally it's not that I don't care about simulation. For me it's more that I value other things more. I tend to experience things on a more emotional level. My greatest concern when playing a role playing game are relating to the characters as (fictional) people as well as the visceral excitement of victory and defeat. For example when I watch other media I don't mind plot holes if they lead to a more compelling shot or authentic dramatic scene. That's where the focus is for me.

I'll also add that 4e is far from my favorite game. It's the most compelling D&D game. These days I'm beginning to wonder if I'm even all that interested in D&D, besides tangential interest as an RPGer. It's really threads like this that I feel treat the greater hobby with a broad brush that tend to reel me back in.

I had some hopes when Traits, Flaws and Bonds were initially being considered, but the article is extremely disappointing and the continued emphasis on Process Sim (Process Sim that's done in a way I consider poor at that) makes me think I won't be having much to do with this edition of D&D. Though to be fair I can only take D&D in small doses anyway, even the versions I like. I should not be surprised that it's not to my taste.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But what possible in game explanation would there be for gaining levels and this HP? Bob can take 5 arrows and the sixth puts him down. Some time later, Bob can now take six arrows.

How do you explain this in game?

It would be a better example if you used bigger numbers. When he's just starting out, Bob can usually take one arrow but a second usually drops him; much later on, he can take twenty arrows without dropping. Your question would seem to be about verisimilitude, though, rather than internal consistency.

Maybe some of those hit points represent divine protection, and the gods are more willing to protect their accomplished champion Bob rather than the fledgling adventurer Bob? That's a perfectly plausible and consistent explanation. It is one of many, actually.

I believe the traditional explanation is that gaining a level represents a benchmark where you have learned enough from your experiences that you are better capable of doing what you do - fighters are now better enough at fighting for it to be reflected with increased accuracy, spellcasters are better enough at casting spells that they can now prepare more/better ones, and everyone is better enough at "taking" "hits" that it now requires more of hits in order to drop them.

Where those extra hit points come from doesn't really matter all that much. One popular explanation (from 3E) is that hit points represent your ability to turn a lethal hit into a less lethal hit, such that a 5-point arrow represents a direct hit against a level 1 character (who may not even have 5 hit points), but a similar 5-point arrow represents a grazing shot to a level 10 character.

For the purposes of consistency, though, a level 6 character is substantively different from the same character at level 5 in precisely the ways which are reflected by the game mechanics - including the ability to take more hits before dropping.

 

[LostSoul]

LostSoul is the only 4e GM around here who I know runs a sandbox (maybe the Jester too?). Maybe they can tell us how they use minions (if at all).

I don't use them. I have non-combatants who only have a handful of HP (they'll usually drop from a typical hit) and I fiddle around with some encounter budget stuff for monster lairs, but that's different enough from 4E that I don't think I can call them minions.

 

[howandwhy99]

Where are the predefined options, in any D&D book published in the 1970s, for disturbing the calcified skeleton of an abbot?

None that I know of. Cases of bad adventure design don't prove playing poorly is the intended manner of play. Skeletons should be covered by any competent DM. Bone already is. Water too. It isn't too difficult to have a code behind the screen cover what is suggested. And all adventures must be converted to a DM's code behind the screen before they can be presented in play anyways.

Also, can you please tell me your interpretation of the following passage from DMG p 96:

You must make some arbitrary decision regarding the time expended in activities which are not strictly movement.​

Every DM does that before play begins. How long do activities take? As Players tell DMs most of the time that usually isn't an issue. It's simply about having a default.

Or this on p 62:

As DM you will undoubtedly decide that there are situations where penalty and/or bonus do not apply, such as when an individual is otherwise prepared or when the individual is in the act of pulling chain mail over his or her head. Such adjudication is properly within the scope of refereeing the game . . .​

Initiative and order of actions are hugely important in D&D. Are you pulling off the armor first? Does the sword swing into your PC's torso first? Gary's not providing a good example, I agree. But even edge cases can be made 50/50 in any case like this before the game's beginning.

You are also wrong to say that "resolution" always entails choice from a range of options. A matter can be resolved although only one resolution was available. Just as a matter can be determined although only one determination was possible. For instance, if someone says "We resolved the question as to whether or not cows are bigger than hamsters", that person is not implying that the question of relative size was a matter of choice. You can find this usage in item 6 of the definition of "resolve" in the Collins World English Dictionary as extracted at dictionary.com: to find the answer or solution to; solve: to resolve a problem . As I noted in my earlier post, the cognate definition of "resolution" is "something resolved or determined".

How do you determine something? How do you come to a resolution for yourself? Conflict resolution (the same philosophical root as the Big Model's "narrative" resolution) begins with the prior acceptance that there must always be multiple interpretations at start in conflict. So no, this "resolution" isn't follow the the rule, read the die, no choice making stuff. This is the Storygame Mechanic rearing its head as the only allowable game mechanic.

There are no resolution mechanics in games, there are mechanics in games. The deliberate use of language to abuse and control people's thoughts (and thereby behavior) is a huge reason why we are suffering in the current cult-like groupthink. You don't have to agree with what I'm saying, but get out of this single solution BS. Have any other idea, many preferably. What's the answer to what's happening in my game? Quote the Big Model. I see you defending a profoundly prejudiced man's opinion as gospel. Not a person who hated Storyteller WW games, but openly shamed people who knew why D&D was designed as it was in the 90s and deliberately misconstrued current practice for preference. Please have at least one other point of view at least.

Mod Note: Please see my post below. ~Umbran

 

[Ahnehnois]

But what possible in game explanation would there be for gaining levels and this HP? Bob can take 5 arrows and the sixth puts him down. Some time later, Bob can now take six arrows.

How do you explain this in game?

Given that the arrow damage is random to begin with, there is already a range of possible numbers of arrow hits any character could take even if his own hp remains static. These different damage rolls are likely narrated as more or less impactful hits or hits that go to more or less important areas.

But even if we actually consider the difficult-to-detect difference that occurs from gaining a single level, it's pretty simple. He's been eating his Wheaties, so he pushes through one wound that would otherwise have felled him. He learned a new technique that allows him to deflect one of the arrows into a glancing blow. There are plenty of ways to rationalize it.

 

[howandwhy99]

I've a degree in mathematics. You're claiming I don't have experience with actual game theory. Riiiight.

I don't have a degree in mathematics. But I have learned some game theory. Once you want to start talking about some I will gladly participate.

Then in your own words, what do you mean by playing a role?

Learning how to perform a social role by deciphering the patterns of reality. Unlike acting it doesn't require pretending.

You can say there's no such thing as pawn stance. I've played games of D&D in it (generally when the DM was terrible and there wasn't much point emotionally engaging). One single counter-example shows claims of non-existence to be false.

I can't help your biases brought to a game. There are no rules for you doing that. Stances aren't a part of game design or game play. They are simply another linguistics term attempting to turn games into a narrative enterprise by whitewashing the identity of games and usurping them into story. Games are not stories.

And "always narratives" is because our monkey brains interpret events as a story even if there is no causal link between them. In any RPG there is generally a causal link between events even if you're using a Wand of I-Wonder-why-someone-invented-this.

Our machine brains encode the input of our environments because all of things are codes. And causality is inevitable or nothing would be existent.

But it is very obvious that whatever you understand about the version of D&D you play you are making counter-factual assertion after counter-factual assertion about games that don't fit your favoured version of D&D. You can accuse pemerton of not thinking outside the box, but you have no idea as to where the box is.

So you're saying you're still stuck in it? I'm not going to study a smear campaign disguised as philosophy to learn "where the box is". There is so much unbelievably good game theory from the 70s and 80s which is almost entirely forgotten I can only think that "box" was destroyed out of shame (abashed) and hatred (violence through ignoring) - have you ever read another game theory as massive which never once referenced strategy or pattern recognition?

As for why 1980s D&D was so wildly popular, times have changed - and we no longer have Patricia Pulling and BADD giving free publicity to D&D. A lot of the appeal of D&D is fairly thoroughly covered by World of Warcraft and related games. Not all of it but a lot. Especially of the sort of D&D that runs using a referee rather than a GM. If the GM is not there making decisions, but measuring on the map and moving the pieces as directed while not interfering with actual players playing computers are about 1000 times as good at this as any human ever can be.

This is why I never read books anymore. Deciphering text is an oppression by writers. Film is so much better, preferably when no one's screwing it up with jibber jabber throat noises.

Eurogames made a comeback specifically because they promote actual human interaction in person and they rely almost exclusively on pattern recognition (i.e. non-random game mechanics). They fed actual games to gamers and the crowds came running. That computer quote you've trotted out is last in a long line.* It's more pejorative Forge dogma meant to demoralize anyone not willing to make a 1-page storygame in our hobby.

EDIT
*-I say this here not because you have said it before, but because so many have quoted this line from the Forge before. Because only Forge games are easy enough to play. The fun to play. The only economically viably business strategy. The only game players have time to play. and on and on...

FYI, Referees don't engage in creative acts to enable players to jump over that bar, run that distance, trust that timepiece, and in games to decipher the game's pattern/design to achieve their objective. In D&D this means player imagination - something actually stymied by most computer output. Plus I happen to believe people are smarter and more capable than any current computer.

 

[howandwhy99]

There have been boardgames with predefined rules as far back as you can go. The appeal of D&D is that it's not one of those. Its something where you do not have to pick from the list of predefined options but can instead do your own thing. And because you have a living breathing human being as GM they are able to adapt to whatever you are trying to do rather than simply saying that you are trying something not on the predetermined list. And in D&D you have never had to stick to the predefined list.

What you're proposing is a hobby with no games (or "games" without any rules). In the hobby I've been a part of we're like 50 million words of rules in the other direction. Maybe you decided you wanted to claim you were playing a particular game, but didn't like the rules part of it and tossed the books aside?

Needless to say that isn't the appeal of D&D, much less games. Some of the appeal of D&D is knowing that if you're smart enough you can predict outcomes 10, 20, 30 moves ahead. Far into the future of the game. And that remembering and learning from your past experience with the game enabled you to learn how to better play it. All without the DM showing you a single rule of code, a single map, game book, adventure module or campaign setting from their side of the screen. Computer geeks loved it so much they've been trying to recreate the experience on computers for decades. And they will never compare to the boundless quantity of options available in D&D.

The appeal of D&D has always been "We made up some we thought would be fun" - and doing an end run round the rules because you have a DM who is more than a simple referee. It's that, not following the rules, that distinguished D&D from every other game on the market in the 1970s.

The appeal has been "Thank God! we have a good DM."

One where we can give her anything, any background, any cool magic effect, my awesomely drawn character, this castle we're going to build we've mapped out, and the DM is practiced, trustworthy, and using a solidly balanced game system to incorporate all of those suggestions into game components. Do they need to be good at math? Of course. Good at storytelling? Irrelevant, we are in charge of where we go. Good at describing and tracking everything? Good at map use and organization? Damn right! But all of it is far easier than anything we do as players. They are merely holding that bar still, timing the jump, watching our feet and the line. We're the ones who need to flex our brains.

 

[howandwhy99]

I think this is funny because I think everything you write seems to me to fall within the scope of the Big Model of the Forge. The reason why I think it's funny is because I can't understand why some people - those who have decades of RPG experience - read the exact same thing and come to wildly different conclusions.

The first sentence says to me that you're mentally imprisoned in a philosophy. But plenty of others in our hobby are similarly stuck. Get out of that theory is my advice. Evacuate it from your mind. Don't believe my opinions instead. That won't help me. But quit all that lousy reductive thinking from the Forge which leads people into your second sentence: That you can't even understand why individuals can live life differently from each other.

I don't see anything about what you write that contradicts the Big Model; in fact, I think it reinforces it.
SNIP
I think what you say reinforces the Big Model...
SNIP
I can't see anything that contradicts the Big Model in any way at all.

Seriously, I'm glad you posted. But this isn't saying anything to me other than you may not be willing or capable to see things differently than the path you've been led down. At least where the crowd is shuffling...

I mean, if you like it, fine. But do you see anyone else around here contradicting this all-knowing theory? Supporting free thought for understanding RPGs & D&D? Promoting theories based on practice and evidence not suppressive agenda?
(honestly, there are some folks, but it's usually more break open a can of the one true way)

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't have a degree in mathematics. But I have learned some game theory. Once you want to start talking about some I will gladly participate.

Given the frequency in this thread alone with which you have made strictly false statements, and assumed bad faith (especially about Ron Edwards who in his Gamist essay was defending D&D - which was deeply unfashionable with his audience at the time) I have no interest at all in doing so.

Learning how to perform a social role by deciphering the patterns of reality. Unlike acting it doesn't require pretending.

Bwuh? Role playing isn't about learning to perform a social role. Immersive roleplaying is about putting yourself in someone else's shoes (fictional or real) and acting as if you were them. Which isn't just a social role.

I can't help your biases brought to a game.

Yeaaahhhh. My biasses as a kid in the 90s. Before I'd ever read anything Ron Edwards had written. Riiight.

There are no rules for you doing that.

This is true in precisely the same way there are no rules for playstyles for chess. Therefore, by your logic, no one can be an attacking chess player or a defensive player.

I'm not going to study a smear campaign disguised as philosophy to learn "where the box is".

By declaring it a smear campaign (and thereby attacked Ron Edwards directly) you have shown that you have no understanding of it. And by declaring it to be a smear campaign while also boasting you have not studied it shows that you are assuming bad faith.

There is so much unbelievably good game theory from the 70s and 80s which is almost entirely forgotten I can only think that "box" was destroyed out of shame (abashed) and hatred (violence through ignoring) - have you ever read another game theory as massive which never once referenced strategy or pattern recognition?

First if you haven't forgotten it dig it up. I for one would be interested in reading it. I'd be even more interested in seeing what sort of outcomes it lead to and how the theory actually improved current games. Second, who the hell says that it never references pattern recognition? It doesn't reference it by name, but without pattern recognition you can not have a narrative.

This is why I never read books anymore. Deciphering text is an oppression by writers. Film is so much better, preferably when no one's screwing it up with jibber jabber throat noises.

Was that meant to be self-parody?

Eurogames made a comeback specifically because they promote actual human interaction in person and they rely almost exclusively on pattern recognition (i.e. non-random game mechanics). They fed actual games to gamers and the crowds came running.

Eurogames did something else. They stopped trying to compete with computers. Eurogames use simple and elegant mechanics with effectiveness and almost no flash - in short they don't try to either use reams of rules the way the old Avalon Hill wargames did or flashy mechanics and pieces the way "Ameritrash" boardgames did. You can't call Avalon Hill games things that aren't boardgames.

Eurogames are the 1 Page RPGs of the boardgaming market. Simple and relatively fast to play, elegant mechanics, promote social interaction, and don't do anything computers would do better. But boardgaming is a slightly different hobby from tabletop RPGs.

That computer quote you've trotted out is last in a long line.

It's not a quote.

What you're proposing is a hobby with no games (or "games" without any rules).

No it isn't. It's one where there are rules for common situations and guidance the rest of the time. I'm saying that 1 Page RPGs beat 0 page RPGs - but every page of mechanics beyond that has diminishing returns.

In the hobby I've been a part of we're like 50 million words of rules in the other direction.

Which is what lead to both The Forge + Storygames and to the OSR which actively promotes "Rulings not rules".

Boardgames had their 10,000 counter Avalon Hill Wargames. Those died because few people wanted to wade through so much text and because computers could do it better. Roleplaying games have their 500,000 word games - and no mass market traction outside D&D. The 500,000 word RPG has always been a specific style of RPG - but it's the only one you can make a significant amount of money out of. Once someone owns a one page RPG what then? How are you going to get more money out of them? Sell a second page? The best you can do with a basically one page RPG is either license it and sell it as a one-off toy, or wrap a book round it and hope all the buyers buy a single copy and then sell adventures for it. (Evil Hat is trying both these). If you have a 500,000 word game you can sell the same person literally dozens of books (I probably own three dozen GURPS books).

Maybe you decided you wanted to claim you were playing a particular game, but didn't like the rules part of it and tossed the books aside?

Every time I've dealt with someone who claims to be a fan of AD&D and interrogated them in detail about how they play they've told me they do exactly this for a lot of the rules. I don't understand it either. Nevertheless it is a phenomenon I've seen time and time again from AD&D fans (and Palladium/Rifts fans)

One where we can give her anything, any background, any cool magic effect, my awesomely drawn character, this castle we're going to build we've mapped out, and the DM is practiced, trustworthy, and using a solidly balanced game system to incorporate all of those suggestions into game components. Do they need to be good at math? Of course. Good at storytelling? Irrelevant, we are in charge of where we go.

And here you are confusing Storytelling with the 90s White Wolf "Storyteller" games that The Forge was a reaction against. Being good at storytelling for a good GM involves being good at describing everything and good at keeping everything consistent. The story itself in a storygame is an emergent property of the game. It's what happened. Storygames exist to make it easier for the DM to be good at describing things, have a solidly balanced system, and use suggestions that are important for the style of game in question while minimising the need to be good at math.

But all of it is far easier than anything we do as players. They are merely holding that bar still, timing the jump, watching our feet and the line. We're the ones who need to flex our brains.

Ahahhahaha!

There are no resolution mechanics in games, there are mechanics in games. The deliberate use of language to abuse and control people's thoughts (and thereby behavior) is a huge reason why we are suffering in the current cult-like groupthink.You don't have to agree with what I'm saying, but get out of this single solution BS.

YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON TALKING ABOUT SINGLE SOLUTIONS. Mechanically Fiasco has nothing in common with Monsterhearts. Both are awesome games, and both are indisputably storygames. There is a vastly greater difference in terms of mechanics and playstyle between Fiasco and Monsterhearts than there is between D&D, Runequest, and Vampire: The Masquerade.

What's the answer to what's happening in my game? Quote the Big Model.

The problem with the Big Model is the opposite of what you are claiming. The Big Model's problem is that it is too big By the time it was done the Big Model could be boiled down to "Different people like to play different ways. Here are some ways of thinking of those ways." The trap The Big Model itself falls into is that, to quote Popper, "The theory that explains everything explains nothing". But [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] wasn't saying that The Big Model explained what was going on at your table. He was saying that what was going on with The Big Model was in line with what went on at your table. If you were to play an RPG where you could only act when standing on your head, and conflict resolution was handled by both players being waterboarded until one gave up the narration rights that too would be in line with the Big Model. As would one being played dressed in tutus, speaking in Pig Latin and involving boxing matches between the players to handle individual actions.

And that is why the Big Model outlived its usefulness. Once it reached that point it became a simple statement that "Different people like different things - here is a way we can categorise those things".

see you defending a profoundly prejudiced man's opinion as gospel.

And this is something you have projected onto the discussion. Edwards said a lot of things, many of them interesting, some of them right, some of them wrong, and doubled down on the thing he really​ shouldn't have said. But your blithe dismissal of him reflects more on you than it does on him. And you claim to want to "support free thought" by straight up rejecting what someone influential said rather than analysing it. You are doing the opposite here. Attacking the messenger without reading the message. Pure ad-hominem.

 

[billd91]

But what possible in game explanation would there be for gaining levels and this HP? Bob can take 5 arrows and the sixth puts him down. Some time later, Bob can now take six arrows.

How do you explain this in game?

The same way we always have - he's better at managing what he's got and avoiding serious injuries. That arrow that would have killed him when he was still green, he avoids the worst of now, protecting his vitals and taking it somewhere less serious or rolling with the punch, so to speak. Would you expect a skilled boxer to be able to function longer while taking hits than a neophyte? I would. He's better at blocking, he's generally better at managing the after-effects of a hit in the short term, and he's better at managing his own stamina. Same with a more experienced fighter.