D&D 5E Guidance...

[ccs]

But I did not kill the deputy.

No, I killed him too. It was a TPK.

 

[clearstream]

But I did not kill the deputy.

Please don't derail this thread. If you'd like to talk about sheriffs and deputies I urge you to start a thread on that.

No, I killed him too. It was a TPK.

Please don't derail my thread. If you don't want to post responsively, could you start your own thread?

 

[clearstream]

I find it helpful to separate what happens in the fiction of the shared imaginative space from what happens at the gaming table, in the real world. I think what you’re calling “the model” is probably what I would call “the game”.

A few people have said a similar thing, but I'd like to understand better what you mean by "separate"? For example, I think you cannot mean anything like the following

Model (the game)
Pete rolls d20 to see if his fighter hits the giant.

Imaginative space (the fiction)
Pete's bard is walking through a rose garden humming "Life on Mars"

I'm sure my examples has deficiencies. What I'm trying to illustrate is that we don't expect a separation between the game and the fiction. It's more like we expect a close mapping between them, such that they are tied together or connected.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not only can game mechanics differ significantly from the version of events that occur in the player's imagination, every player (including the DM) has their own unique version of what is happening in "imaginative space". It's the role of the rules and the DM to try and avoid direct conflicts between all the different "imaginative spaces", but most players have quite flexible imaginations that can flex their personal reality to accommodate what the DM tells them.

Since players can't actually see what is happening inside each other heads, it doesn't matter that they each have a different version.

 

[clearstream]

Not only can game mechanics differ significantly from the version of events that occur in the player's imagination, every player (including the DM) has their own unique version of what is happening in "imaginative space". It's the role of the rules and the DM to try and avoid direct conflicts between all the different "imaginative spaces", but most players have quite flexible imaginations that can flex their personal reality to accommodate what the DM tells them.

Can you narrate what you mean, i.e. provide an example?

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Im honestly having a hard time seeing what, if anything, is good about this spell. What justifies its existance? In what way is it not just a pet gerbil sized deus ex machina that you keep in your pocket?

If i knew what was good about it i might have an easier time knowing what to do with it and giving ideas. But tbh, right now it just looks like magispam.

 

[Hriston]

A few people have said a similar thing, but I'd like to understand better what you mean by "separate"? For example, I think you cannot mean anything like the following

Model (the game)
Pete rolls d20 to see if his fighter hits the giant.

Imaginative space (the fiction)
Pete's bard is walking through a rose garden humming "Life on Mars"

I'm sure my examples has deficiencies. What I'm trying to illustrate is that we don't expect a separation between the game and the fiction. It's more like we expect a close mapping between them, such that they are tied together or connected.

I mean literally separating out the events and putting each one in its proper place, so following your example:

At the table
Pete rolls a d20 and compares the result to the giant’s AC.

In the fiction
Pete’s fighter either hits or does not hit the giant.

OR

At the table
Pete describes his bard walking through a rose garden singing “Life on Mars”.

In the fiction
Pete’s bard walks through a rose garden singing “Life on Mars”.

I think this puts a focus on what actually happens in the real world as primary, the fiction following from that. Whereas regarding what happens at the table as a model seems, to me, to reverse the order, with the fiction being regarded as the primary thing that is then “modeled” at the table. Semantics aside, however, I just find it’s helpful to be clear about which is which.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Can you narrate what you mean, i.e. provide an example?

" The ogre advances towards you along the dungeon corridor"

How tall is the ogre? What colour is it's skin? Is it left handed or right handed? What does it smell like? What is it wearing? What is the floor like? What colour is the stone? Are there chains on the dungeon walls?

 

[ccs]

Please don't derail this thread. If you'd like to talk about sheriffs and deputies I urge you to start a thread on that.

Please don't derail my thread. If you don't want to post responsively, could you start your own thread?

Oh I wasn't joking or derailing, i was answering the question.
When Guidance became annoying I killed the caster.
And everyone around him.

Hasn't been a problem since.

 

[clearstream]

" The ogre advances towards you along the dungeon corridor"

How tall is the ogre? What colour is it's skin? Is it left handed or right handed? What does it smell like? What is it wearing? What is the floor like? What colour is the stone? Are there chains on the dungeon walls?

A couple of observations that I find interesting relating to that. The first of course is that a model should contain less information than the thing it is simulating. The choice of what to include depends on goals: RPGs have converged around attack chances, hit points and such like. So as you point out handedness is excluded.

Intriguingly, unless someone at the table added left or right handedness to the fiction, that literally doesn't exist. It's not in the model, and it's not in the fiction. The ogre only exists to the extent to which it is articulated... because we don't need a real ogre to have a fiction about an ogre. Therefore the ogre handedness can't possibly exist unless we describe it. I don't claim we couldn't describe it, or even that it's not part of our ideas about ogres, but it does not exist in our fiction at the table until we call it out. Smell likewise, and so on.

Getting back to the main theme - there is a mapping between your model description "the ogre advances" - represented perhaps by a figurine pushed forward on a gridded, laminated map - and your fiction that is 1:1 until you add details that the model doesn't include. At which point there is still a mapping, because there is still an ogre and it is still positioned thus and so, but you have articulated details deliberately omitted from the model.