A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

[Lanefan]

Is it possible that an early-stage design goal somehow morphed over time, in the minds of some fans, into a "promise"?

Not only possible, but highly likely. It certainly resonated more than most things the design team said during that period.

 

[Guest 6801328]

As for WOTC, I am still undecided on whether they just chose to ignore us when not ignoring was almost free OR whether they really had no one one staff that fully understood our viewpoint.

Given that it's not so hard to understand, I'm guessing it was A. I suspect Mike Mearles listened to you, patiently nodding (while thinking "oh my god...it's that dissociative mechanics guy again...), said something polite (which you may have misinterpreted as agreement), and walked away thinking, "Not in a million years. There are approximately 8 gamers on the planet who care that much about the issue."

When you design a game with essentially built in subclasses, you would think the controversial mechanics would go in the subclasses. You would think you'd then design subclasses that basically appealed to the different styles. By building second wind, action surge, etc. into the base they ruined every subclass. Again who knows what they were thinking. Bawylie in a short time gave an easy option they could have used. So I don't think it is design skill.

How are you determining "controversial". As you allude to below, not many people actually find daily-use martial skills controversial.

Can we call each of my gripes about 5e "controversial", too?

(That said, I find almost everything Bawylie says to be thoughtful and intelligent, so now I'm curious what his stance is on this issue.)

And while people who are really bugged by some of these things are rare, the cost to add them to their playerbase is really small.

What does that look like? For example, if everybody except a few of you like Action Surge and Second Wind, then how do you do that? Put Action Surge and Second Wind into every subclass except the one that has been earmarked for anti-daily-martial-skill people?

 

[Lanefan]

What does that look like? For example, if everybody except a few of you like Action Surge and Second Wind, then how do you do that? Put Action Surge and Second Wind into every subclass except the one that has been earmarked for anti-daily-martial-skill people?

Simple.

Make them feats, available only to certain classes; then make feats (individual or collective) a non-essential optional element of the game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Simple.

Make them feats, available only to certain classes; then make feats (individual or collective) a non-essential optional element of the game.

I don't think that works very well. If getting those abilities are a "non-essential, optional" element, it means I have to give something up to get them. What would I be giving up?

Also, one of the things I hate about Feats is that they are optional. That is, the way they made them optional sucks, because taking the ASI is almost always better than taking the Feat, unless you take one of the overused and overpowered cookie-cutter Feats like GWM.

No thanks. That's making the thing I like least about 5e even worse, all for the sake of keeping a handful of zealots happy. But of course they still won't be happy because they also hate HP, HD, and just about every other aspect of D&D....

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think that works very well. If getting those abilities are a "non-essential, optional" element, it means I have to give something up to get them. What would I be giving up?

Also, one of the things I hate about Feats is that they are optional. That is, the way they made them optional sucks, because taking the ASI is almost always better than taking the Feat, unless you take one of the overused and overpowered cookie-cutter Feats like GWM.

Oops - forgot I wasn't thinking to myself. In my mind I always just see ASIs as another type of feat, as mechanically that's about what it is: an unnamed feat that lets you gain a couple of stat points instead of whatever ability you'd get if you chose a named feat.

I'm just trying to think of a way to take those disiked abilities out for some tables yet keep 'em in for others. Making them feats and then making feats - together with ASIs! - optional; or up-front making each individual feat optional for a DM to include or exclude from her game, seems the simplest from here.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Some one made the statement that if a Giant stood up then its bones would break under its own weight. And yet you find that bone can support at least 18,000kg of weight, which is much more then required to support a Giant.

A normal sized thigh bone can support up to 30 times the weight of a human.

[MENTION=60326]heretic888[/MENTION] has already pointed out that the issues aren't with thigh bones.

As well as the ankle, I would have thought that giants might have pelvis issues, and also problems with musculature given the human-like nature of their bipedalism. It's certainly the case that a human scaled up to giant size would be unable to stand or walk.

Someone said that Giants could not get enough oxygen to breath and yet we already have creatures bigger then Giants that can get enough oxygen to breath.

I don't know whether a giant's lungs, given its proportionately human chest cavity, would give it enough oxygen, and whether its circulatory system would be up to the job of getting it to all the relevant parts of its body.

I think its brain is quite a bit bigger than a T-Rex's, given it can speak and use tools and in some cases (eg some cloud giants, all storm giants) is cleverer than a typical human. I'm not a biologist, but I suspect that puts demands on its respiratory and circulatory system that are different from a T-Rex or even an elephant.

Anyway, what I said was that I don't think a giant scorpion could respirate. I also think it would have trouble with its exoskeleton. Not having done my own research, nor studied much biology, I linked to a sensible-looking website which seemed to confirm these conjectures (including suggesting that 4-ish kg is the maximum feasible size for a land arthropod). Do you think that website was wrong?

 

[pemerton]

A game by nature can't come close to encompassing all the things that might happen out there or might need to be answered.

A game that doesn't have fantasy or sci-fi elements can do this. And some sci-fi games can do this too. Because in those games it really is the case that you can extrapolate from real-world scientifc knowledge should you wish to.

[Gygax]was big on not trying to simulate reality. That doesn't mean that an approximation of physics wasn't in his game.

What bit of physics, approximated, is part of AD&D as published by TSR? Not nuclear physics (because the elements are air, earth, fire and water). Not chemistry (see previous point). Not biology (many creatures, certainly sentient ones, are created, and have non-material components - minds/spirits/souls - that generate material effects, like movements of body parts when the mind wills it). What's left, besides a few remnants of common sense that were common knowledge among human beings long before the idea of physics as a science was even conceived of?

Feel free not to envision gravity when you play. Nothing is requiring you to, but the fact that you need wings to fly, things fall when you drop them, you have limited jumping ability due to the force pulling you back down, you have weight, etc., means that there is gravity in D&D

No it doesn't, because none of those things show that gravity exists! Aristotle knew all those things, but knew nothing of gravity. Gravity does not mean "unsupported things fall to earth and can't just take off from it". Even a 3 year old knows that. Gravity means that a force obtains between all masses, proportionate in some fashion to their product. None of the things you mention show that such a force exists.

If a D&D character could replicate the Cavendish torsion balance experiment, that would show that gravity is part of the gameworld. But no D&D book I've ever read has discussed the result of that experiment, or whether the equipment and knowledge needed to perform it (eg wires which have a calculable constant torque) is available. And for good reason! - it's not a sci-fi game, it's a fantasy one.

It doesn't matter if Aristotle and his toga maker knew about gravity or envisioned it. It existed for them the same as it does for you. The same applies to D&D.

Well, Aristotle lived in a real world that had properties (like universal gravitation) that he was unaware of.

But I think we all agree that the D&D world is not real, and hence does not have mind-independent properties in the same way.

If Aristotle, rather than Gygax, had written the DMG very little about it would have to be different (it alludes to some technologies and some social forms that Aristotlte didn't know about). He certainly wouldn't have had to change any of the rules around falling damage, nor dragon flight, nor Gygax's discussion of flying to the moon on a winged steed.

I think that's a sufficient demonstration that nothing in Gygax's DMG assumes that physics (as opposed to common sense - dropped objects fall, creatures without wings can't fly, etc) is part of the gameworld.

The contrast with (say) Traveller, or even Call of Cthulhu, is in this respect rather marked. Both game systems posit worlds which are chock-full of stuff that Aristotle could not even have conceived of.

 

[Maxperson]

A game that doesn't have fantasy or sci-fi elements can do this.

It's clear from the context of the discussion that I'm not talking about checkers.

And some sci-fi games can do this too. Because in those games it really is the case that you can extrapolate from real-world scientifc knowledge should you wish to.

And this is just an admission that I am right. If you have to extrapolate, the game did not encompass the situation. In science FICTION, you have elements that go beyond what we know and/or are just made up. Technobabble anyone?

What bit of physics, approximated, is part of AD&D as published by TSR? Not nuclear physics (because the elements are air, earth, fire and water).

Thermodynamics. Fire consumes fuel unless it's magical fire, then it creates non-magical fires that consume fuel, leaving behind carbon. Charred remains are common in modules from that era. Gravitational physics. And more. I'm not going to scour the game to find every different type of physics in it.

Not chemistry (see previous point). Not biology (many creatures, certainly sentient ones, are created, and have non-material components - minds/spirits/souls - that generate material effects, like movements of body parts when the mind wills it). What's left, besides a few remnants of common sense that were common knowledge among human beings long before the idea of physics as a science was even conceived of?

Yes, this exists in AD&D. Gygax introduces alchemy as a medieval type of chemistry, as well as gun powder. Also, this is from page 32 of the 1e DMG. It's the sage field of study table.

Humankind 01-30
Art & Music
Biology
Demography
History
Languages
Legends & Folklore
Law & Customs
Philosophy & Ethics
Politics & Genealogy
Psychology
Sociology
Theology 8 Myth

Physical Universe(s) 61-70
Architecture & Engineering
Astronomy
Chemistry
Geography
Geology & Mineralogy
Mathematics
Meteorology & Climatology
Oceanography
Physics
Topography & Cartography

Oh look, biology, physics and chemistry. You were saying?

No it doesn't, because none of those things show that gravity exists! Aristotle knew all those things, but knew nothing of gravity. Gravity does not mean "unsupported things fall to earth and can't just take off from it". Even a 3 year old knows that. Gravity means that a force obtains between all masses, proportionate in some fashion to their product. None of the things you mention show that such a force exists.

You keep saying this like it means something. Just because Aristotle did not know about it, doesn't mean that gravity didn't exist. Are you seriously arguing that gravity sprung into being when we discovered it? Schrodinger's Gravity? It both existed and didn't exist until we spotted it?

If a D&D character could replicate the Cavendish torsion balance experiment, that would show that gravity is part of the gameworld. But no D&D book I've ever read has discussed the result of that experiment, or whether the equipment and knowledge needed to perform it (eg wires which have a calculable constant torque) is available. And for good reason! - it's not a sci-fi game, it's a fantasy one.

I'm content to take Gygax's word for it and know that physics, chemistry and biology exist in the D&D universe. While Aristotle may have been ignorant, D&D sages studied those fields.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Problem is, it seems there's a bunch of people like me who heard/read that quote at the time, attributed it to the design team as a whole, took it in, accepted and approved of it as a pleasant fact of 5e design, and went about our day.

I never knew the specific person who said it had left, as I never knew - and never cared - which specific person said it in the first place.

It came from the design team - good enough for me - and they never really walked it back that I know of. Therefore, it's IMO perfectly reasonable to view the reality of 5e in light of what was said during the design phase. I don't think anyone lied, I just think they set themselves what turned out to be an impossible goal and settled for getting as close as they could.

Hi Lane -

1. 4e design. Easy mistake to make but just so folks don't start another tangent thread I'll note it.
2. The problem is that folks in general take their gaming way too seriously and group think their way through problems.

Your point about assuming makes sense. But it doesn't matter how or what people take from Monte's commentary if they don't listen to noise and think their way through situations instead of reacting.

It's something everyone has problems with, including me. It's just something I'm consciously looking to correct about myself and I wish that it was more common among others.

Be well
KB

 

[Kobold Boots]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]

While the disciplines that sages can study include the foundational sciences it does not mean that those sciences work the same way for every game world.
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I think Maxperson adequately defended his side of the argument.

From my perspective I'd say that there's nothing meta about player knowledge of the sciences in a game world. Only reason why they would be is if you had a real world scientist playing an average intellect character in a medieval setting and the DM specifically said, "all real world physics works the same in my world".

All you have to do as a DM is not have that be the case and you've essentially killed meta. But then expect that the curiosity of the player (as a scientist in real life) is going to be piqued and you'd better be ready to answer his or her questions consistently as it pertains to your world on some level.

Be well
KB