D&D 5E On rulings, rules, and Twitter, or: How Sage Advice Changed

[Thomas Shey]

What granularity? A short person has an easier time finding things to hide behind than a tall person, while the tall person can reach things more easily and might even get over certain obstacles a little easier. There is no formula being used to calculate numerical bonuses by the foot, here.

But it does require you to know--or more likely decide on the fly--that someone six foot tall couldn't reach up onto the shelf, where someone seven could. I couldn't even begin to tell you in most games whether that would be true in a given case or not, because I don't list the height of every shelf everyone might ever run into.

(And if so, is 6'6" enough? How about 6'8" if they stretch? How about someone who's a little shorter if you count to their head top, but is long in the limb?)

It's really weird to make these sorts of assumptions rather than just asking for clarification.

There is no age of anything, anymore. No trend or movement will ever go away, ever again, unless it is fully and truly rejected by the whole of society. Which isn't likely. Even disco isn't actually dead, anymore. My friends who actually like being in a crowd and dancing with strangers went to a disco show in fall 2019. It was packed. So no, the "age of simulationism", if such a thing ever existed in a meaningful sense, is not over.

But more importantly, this particular thing has lttle at all to do with simulationism, and everything to do with character distinction. Any simulationism is incidental, like the relationship between strength and jumping in 5e, but more loosely defined.

Eh. I don't think you can entirely unplug simulationist concerns from something as subtle and otherwise trivial as whether a foot of difference in height will matter in reaching a shelf. I've seen some people who are fussy about ability to define their characters, but who still likely couldn't tell you if their character was right or left handed, because it wasn't in an area they'd care about, and plenty of others who might well be fussy about the height of their character but whom would never expect it to make any practical difference in a game whatsoever.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You posted this just as I posted my other thing so I didn't see this until after I posted, but:

Nobody I have ever played with gives a single, solitary turd about that level of difference. Nobody outside of this website I have ever discussed tabletop games with cares about that tiny of a difference. None of the industry people I follow on social media care about simulating that level of realism.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but--so?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You posted this just as I posted my other thing so I didn't see this until after I posted, but:

Nobody I have ever played with gives a single, solitary turd about that level of difference. Nobody outside of this website I have ever discussed tabletop games with cares about that tiny of a difference. None of the industry people I follow on social media care about simulating that level of realism.

Again, it isn't about simulation or realism, it's about the fiction.

And I also doubt that you're even right about all that, if you took the time to ask about it without framing it in a loaded way to weigh answers toward agreement with you. I'd bet that most of them would, as a DM, allow a character 2 ft shorter than the other character to hide in tall grass that they've said the 6+ft tall character can't hide in, for instance. Hell, I'd bet that many of them would allow it for a 5 foot 2 character, "only" a foot and some change shorter.

I'm also laughing my butt off at the fact you think 2 ft of height is a "tiny" difference.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Just because I know you in other contexts--you don't consider Hero System Disadvantages to be a problem here?

Not until 6th. Before that they were things that help define character (psych lims, social lims) that never had to be rolled n play, or things the GM used to set up and frame things (Hunteds ext).
One of the reasons I stuck with 5th Hero is the change to disads that were in 6th.

 

[Charlaquin]

You posted this just as I posted my other thing so I didn't see this until after I posted, but:

Nobody I have ever played with gives a single, solitary turd about that level of difference. Nobody outside of this website I have ever discussed tabletop games with cares about that tiny of a difference. None of the industry people I follow on social media care about simulating that level of realism.

I think there may be some talking-past-each other going on here. In real life, the difference made by a foot of height is not tiny by any reasonable definition of the word. It has a very significant impact on a wide range of physical activities, as well as having an oft-underestimated social impact. When it comes to whether these differences should be modeled in gameplay, however, isn’t about how much difference it makes, but of whether that’s the kind of difference you want to model mechanically. Personally, I would think of character height as a matter of personal expression, and therefore not something that players should have to consider mechanical benefits and drawbacks when deciding on. But, I can imagine someone with different priorities wanting to make sure that such differences are acknowledged on a system level.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But it does require you to know--or more likely decide on the fly--that someone six foot tall couldn't reach up onto the shelf, where someone seven could. I couldn't even begin to tell you in most games whether that would be true in a given case or not, because I don't list the height of every shelf everyone might ever run into.

(And if so, is 6'6" enough? How about 6'8" if they stretch? How about someone who's a little shorter if you count to their head top, but is long in the limb?)

Now you're getting fiddly for no benefit. Some people are especially tall, some especially short, some about average. Shelves have heights that depend on pretty intuitive understanding of how rooms work and who uses the room. If it's built for Goliaths, the top shelf may well be 10 ft in the air. If it's built for humans, probably not in a normal room.

You just eyeball it. I've never seen anyone do math for any of this, but I've seen nearly every group I've ever watched play TTRPGs take physical size of characters into account in the fiction.

Eh. I don't think you can entirely unplug simulationist concerns from something as subtle and otherwise trivial as whether a foot of difference in height will matter in reaching a shelf. I've seen some people who are fussy about ability to define their characters, but who still likely couldn't tell you if their character was right or left handed, because it wasn't in an area they'd care about, and plenty of others who might well be fussy about the height of their character but whom would never expect it to make any practical difference in a game whatsoever.

simulationism is irrelevant to the discussion. Reality is only useful as the basis for how we picture things in our head, and even then shared perception and expectation trumps it. Tall people have longer reach, short people have an easier time hiding, isn't some wildly detailed deep dive into simulationist representation of real life geometry.

 

[Lanefan]

So it's not a game thing, it's a you thing? That just seems excessive.

Lanefan made it seem like that whatever game he's using gives out mechanical buffs or debuffs per inch of height/reach, as opposed to general size categories. "For example, a 5'3"-tall person will find it far easier to move normally in a 5'6"-high space than will a 6'4" person; by the same token, that 6'4" person will be able to melee-hit a creature hanging 9 feet above the floor far easier than will the 5'3" person."

So there's no mechanical impact then,

Yes there is, but it's completely dependent on the situation.

The 5'3" person melee-swinging at something 9' off the floor is going to be at a to-hit penalty*; the 6'4" person is not. That's mechanical all day long, and also highly situational in that not every opponent is 9 feet above the floor.

By the same token, a 5'3" person is going to be able to move at full speed through a 5'6"-tall room where a 6'4" person is going to take a penalty to their move speed. Again mechanical, and again situational: while most normal rooms have ceilings higher than 5'6", if the PCs are operating in Hobbit burrows or Kobold warrens this can be a significant issue.

* - unless using a long enough weapon to cover the gap, of course.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think there may be some talking-past-each other going on here. In real life, the difference bade by a foot of height is not tiny by any reasonable definition of the word. It has a very significant impact on a wide range of physical activities, as well as having an oft-underestimated social impact. When it comes to whether these differences should be modeled in gameplay, however, isn’t about how much difference it makes, but of whether that’s the kind of difference you want to model mechanically. Personally, I would think of character height as a matter of personal expression, and therefore not something that players should have to consider mechanical benefits and drawbacks when deciding on. But, I can imagine someone with different priorities wanting to make sure that such differences are acknowledged on a system level.

I agree, which is why it's a player-facing thing in my game for the most part. Obviously if you play a 3ft tall gnome, the 6ft tall human will have some advantages and disadvantages compared to you, it would be quite strange for a player to balk at that. Beyond such differences, as I said already, it's a matter of stuff like "can I find a place to hide, here? I'm 4ft tall, after all, rockt terrain shouldn't be too hard for me to hide in."

 

[mrpopstar]

Not for me. I'm not in the game to tell a story, I'm there to become my character. The story is done by all the players playing their character and the GM being the world and plot enhancer/driver (depending on level of passivity of players).

The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is a game about storytelling.
Through your character's actions, you're telling us a story about the character you've become.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Agreed. This is one of the many reasons I think, if you’re going to have Background Characteristics grant Inspiration in 5e, it should be the player’s call what counts instead of the DM’s. A simple “once per characteristic per session, you can claim Inspiration when you feel you’ve acted in accordance with that characteristic” suffices. It lightens the cognitive load on the DM having to remember all those things, and it removes the RP-policing element.

Very much this. We’ve recently switched to players awarding inspiration in our West Marches campaign and it is a big hit (and a relief for me when I’m DMing). One house rule we have is that Inspiration doesn’t carry over between sessions. And, to those who are worried about possible abuse of this system, we have encountered none.

Also, worth noting this:

D&D 5E - The Case for Inspiration

I hated Inspiration in the early days of D&D 5e. You could probably dig up some tweets of mine that show that. It was 16 to 20 characteristics for me to track as DM and I already had enough to do like manage villains and monsters, drink Irish whiskey, and smack talk the players. I also wasn't a...

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