Tony Vargas
Legend
check.(a) natural language
Tradition. Check.vsetting/class/environmental components being established first, with bounded system maths (later)
Bah! Natural Language!In game jargon
Objective but rulings based = subjective., this would be the design of an "objective" (but rulings-based) framework.
The contrast is who's picking the numbers and how.Contrast with systems in which the game's maths chassis has primacy and the fiction is derived genre-wise around those numbers (mutable/ malleable fiction or fluff).
In the former case, you have game designers picking numbers more or less out of the ether to model specific things, locking the game into modeling only those things, and only with those numbers. Greatsword. 2d6. End of story. Want anything else, put on your game designer hat and pull numbers out of the ether (within bounds).
In the latter case (Hero would be an example) you have players with concepts picking numbers from an effects-based set of mechanics, to model, mechanically, the effect they envision the concept having in play. A greatsword might be a 2dHKAp, OAF, for 15 pts, or it might be a bit more or less or even something else entirely depending on how the player imagines both it and how his character will be using it. (One PC in a Champions! game had 'greatsword' that was actually an illusion, and just gave him a few HTH levels, that he usually used for DCV.)
In both cases, someone's starting with an idea and using numbers to model it.
NO! Natural Language!!!Alright, because D&D is still laden with game jargon, we eschew "natural language" for a moment
Just in the natural language sense. Easy is easy, hard is hard. For whom? Whomever. It's bounded accuracy, one whom isn't so different from the next.From a GM utility perspective and reading this through a "natural language" prism, I gain nothing here when attempting to discern/establish a DC baseline (Easy, Medium Hard for whom?) for play use.
When the DM decides they are uncertain.Roll the dice only when there are prospects of failure/outcomes are uncertain.
Most people would be low-level NPCs. The C stands for character. Sounds interchangeable enough.the designers use the terms "character", "most people", and "low-level characters". We know these are not interchangeable so deciphering a standardized baseline becomes a wee bit opaque.
YES!!!!I guess they're telling us it doesn't matter, use whatever you like
Go forth and do whatever, you are EMPOWERED!
Yeah, the DM is running a game, and the PCs are likely not of wildly different level. To do so he makes rulings, which are necessarily subjective.Finally, there is also the "off message", rather subtle insinuation that story/environmental items aren't, in fact, objectively evaluated. "Becomes reasonable after 10th level or so." Eh? Soooooooooo...associated DCs scale with characters? Fiction related to Hard DCs becomes "reasonable"...rendering it...Medium..or...no? Is this meant to inform adjudication/play procedure or is this just..."stuff"?
Just give up trying to stuff 5e into any sort of 'objectively' box.
5e isn't objective. It has objectives. Like 'be as much like D&D as possible.'
When in doubt, let natural language win out!Regardless, this bit interacts wonkily with "natural language"
Uh, Natural Language, remember? We're not all lumberjacks or forestry service managers, here. An Ogre is battling heroes in the woods (in a fantasy world). It whacks 'em with a tree.Alright, so we have an Ogre battling the PCs in a stand of trees. As GM we want our Ogre to shove over a small (30 ft high), medium canopy (20 ft diameter), Sawtimber tree (lets say nearly a foot diameter trunk at 4.5 feet up) onto a couple of PCs.
No. Just no. What goes into ripping up a tree and pounding heroes with it? Well, one being an Ogre, because Ogres do stuff like that. And two is, well, one's enough, really, but fantasy woods are not just stands of timber - the Ogre could be messing with stuff that'll mess with him, or the tree could symbolize something...A lot goes into toppling a tree (beyond its size, health, and lean); the magnitude of applied force, leverage (at what height force is applied), robustness of root plate:soil/earth interface on opposite side of applied force. Think of a tree as a weighted cylinder with a broad, heavy base which is buried. You have a lot to contend with to knock it over. But if that base is destabilized on the opposite side of the applied force, the job becomes much, much easier.
Who cares? Do you want the Ogre to hit heroes with a tree? Yes? Then he does. Describe it.If Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard, Nearly Impossible are fixed story elements in our setting, centered around "normal human average" (or even "low level characters" if we wish it), what natural language descriptor would we associate with pushing this tree over? Hard? Very Hard? Nearly Impossible?
Yep. That was an example. An example of the DM making a ruling.So how do we go about doing this? Let us see the DMG example for for adjudicating such improvised actions
It doesn't. It works as an Empowered DM making a ruling.How does this work as a procedurally coherent template for stunting that creates thematic fiction and changes the situation dynamically, thereby creating interesting decision-points for players?
Dude, you, like, totally overthought that. ;P
Alright, that's enough from me. Have at it. I'll check back in in a few days to see what folks have to say and acknowledge [MENTION=6793093]Jeff Albertson[/MENTION] 's laugh (I guess that qualifies as preemptive acknowledgement).