D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Maxperson]

This is another moment I feel the need to point out that what I’m calling fictionless is not the utter lack of any fiction. I’ve said this countless times now. Instead, It’s the lack of a detailed enough fiction at the time a player decides their characters actions such that those decisions cannot be based on fiction but instead on mechanics.

I disagree. I think the decisions are primarily based on a combination of mechanics and fiction(often broken due to the mechanics), and in some cases purely fiction as shown in the "talking" example above. What you think of as "on top of combat," I think of as integrated with combat.

 

[Lyxen]

I am used to having at least some players who are very disassociated from the mechanics and as a DM asking what do you want to do, have them describe it narratively (I would consider this fiction), and then I translate that into mechanics for the system (mechanics), then translate that back to the characters narratively (fiction). 1e encouraged this style of interaction with having lots of game mechanics buried in the DMG and emphasizing the difference between DM and player knowledge of and access to the rules.

In this type of DM-player interaction setup players can engage completely in the mechanics (if they know them), completely narratively, or along a continuum between the two.

I completely agree, and in the end, if you have a majority (or even all) of players who are more on the fiction side (or even better can help you bridge the gap with mechanics), you can do something that is really not too shabby in terms of fiction. It's at least what we aim for at our tables, although to be fair, sometimes the mechanics still get in the way because we were not careful enough or there is some misunderstanding.

 

[clearstream]

During combat, participants make decisions for the characters they are controlling which matter to how things turn out (eg decisions to move, to cast healing spells, etc) and which are chosen based on knowledge of the mechanical state of the game (eg where another character is on the grid; what a character's current hit point total is; etc). But at least some of the fiction that corresponds to those mechanical states can't be known until after the decisions that matter have been taken and the actions resolved. Because only after the event do you get the sort of "emergent" fictions that you are putting forward.

It might help to look at when decisions are being called for. Under my approach (T is for time, not turn) -

T1 = DM: based on how things have unfolded, let's roll initiative
T2 = Fighter Player: rolls lower than DM
T3 = DM: decides what orcs do, and resolves their turns
T4 = Fighter Player: decides what they do, based on the current game state (groans weakly, dying)
T5 = Healer Player: decides what they do, based on seeing the current game state (fighter groaning weakly, dying): casts

It sounds like you might be describing -

T1 = Fighter Player: decides what they want to do
T1' = Healer Player: decides what they want to do
T1" = DM: decides what orcs will do
T2 = DM: based on how things have unfolded, let's roll initiative
T3 = DM: because orcs won initiative, game state is unchanged so unproblematically resolves what they decided to do
T4 = Fighter Player: what they decided to do is now at odds with the current game state: insert sound of SoD shattering
T5 = Healer Player: didn't decide to cast healing because no one needed healing back when they decided: sound of SoD shattering intensifies

Can you correct the above, which I feel sure I must have laid out wrongly?!

This means that those decisions, and the knowledge they are based on, don't themselves correspond to decisions being made, and knowledge possessed, by the character whose action is being chosen by the participant. In that particular sense, D&D combat is fictionless - ie it involves purely mechanically-driven decision-making that (from FrogReaver's point of view) "masquerades" as in-character/in-fiction decision-making.

One nettle I am grasping is captured in that word "masquerade". I say that "Yes, it truly is all a big masquerade!" For the purposes of play, if the pretence is good enough, then it really is good enough. It matters how hard you look at it; what subjective hoops you make it jump through.

 

[jmartkdr2]

It might help to look at when decisions are being called for. Under my approach (T is for time, not turn) -

T1 = DM: based on how things have unfolded, let's roll initiative
T2 = Fighter Player: rolls lower than DM
T3 = DM: decides what orcs do, and resolves their turns
T4 = Fighter Player: decides what they do, based on the current game state (groans weakly, dying)
T5 = Healer Player: decides what they do, based on seeing the current game state (fighter groaning weakly, dying): casts

It sounds like you might be describing -

T1 = Fighter Player: decides what they want to do
T1' = Healer Player: decides what they want to do
T1" = DM: decides what orcs will do
T2 = DM: based on how things have unfolded, let's roll initiative
T3 = DM: because orcs won initiative, game state is unchanged so unproblematically resolves what they decided to do
T4 = Fighter Player: what they decided to do is now at odds with the current game state: insert sound of SoD shattering
T5 = Healer Player: didn't decide to cast healing because no one needed healing back when they decided: sound of SoD shattering intensifies

Can you correct the above, which I feel sure I must have laid out wrongly?!


One nettle I am grasping is captured in that word "masquerade". I say that "Yes, it truly is all a big masquerade!" For the purposes of play, if the pretence is good enough, then it really is good enough. It matters how hard you look at it; what subjective hoops you make it jump through.

There are games (and I think DnD variant rules) where this is built into the initiative system, although it doesn't quite work as you described:

DM: Combat has started, let's roll initiative (orcs win, then healer, then fighter)
T3a = Healer's Player: decides what they'll do. Since their character reacted the slowest, other characters can react to what the Healer is doing - ergo they must declare first, to represent needing to choose to act without being able to see what others are doing first. They can decide to hold their action, usually, but with restrictions. For example, they can say "I'll cast a spell", or they can say "I'll heal the fighter if he's hurt." IN the second case, if the fighter doesn't get hurt the turn is lost (but not the spell slot, at least)
T2a = Fighter Player: They know what they healer is doing (since they're a little faster on the uptake) but if they don't want to hold the action, they need to decide without knowing exactly what the orcs are up to.
T1a = DM: decides what orcs will do, having knowledge of the players' choices since the orcs are quite alert today.
T1 = DM resolves the orc's action
T2 = Fighter player resolves the fighter's action. Some variables might be decides here, ie the fighter could have declared they'll attack the nearest orc, which isn't set until after the orcs have all moved
T3 = Healer players resolves healer action.

While this mostly fixes the issue with the orcs charging into a room scenario, it creates a new set of edge cases - because the underlying issue is taking turns, which creates ludonarritive dissonance. (Unless you can justify turn-taking in the fiction, which is at least a very different model that how dnd works.) The only "solution" to that would be not taking turns at all - so the practical answer is still find a system that works well enough for your personal suspension of disbelief.

 

[Garthanos]

No, he was right. I play sans Grille.

I thought it was about having a pompous sounding name for playing with a gridded map to match up with "Theatre of the Mind" not duplicate it.

I don't understand why people use grids. Just choose a conversion factor between feet and inches or centimetres, and then move the models or counters with a tape measure. If you're using a VTT you don't even need that, measurement is all built in.

I don't get why grids ever became a thing. Did people learn to be okay with this weird abstraction whereby you speed up if you move diagonally because there was a run on tape measures in 1970s Wisconsin or something?

We used a gridded paper in the 70s and 80s to draw our maps on just for easy measurement without a ruler Not because it was hyper precision positioning

 

[turnip_farmer]

I thought it was about having a pompous sounding name for playing with a gridded map to match up with "Theatre of the Mind" not duplicate it.

I was looking for a pompous name to describe something that was neither theatre of the mind, nor gridded.

 

[Garthanos]

While this mostly fixes the issue with the orcs charging into a room scenario, it creates a new set of edge cases - because the underlying issue is taking turns, which creates ludonarritive dissonance.

Turn taking indeed is the issue and it is a play simplification which takes a massive load off of the DM in my experience.

(Unless you can justify turn-taking in the fiction, which is at least a very different model that how dnd works.)

There is indeed some in story turn taking for instance in the back and forth of individual fighting between 2 engaged melee combatants. The need to respond to an adversary delaying ones own action. So it goes 1 act 2 react, 2 act 1 react and so on.

The only "solution" to that would be not taking turns at all - so the practical answer is still find a system that works well enough for your personal suspension of disbelief.

Tadah!!!

 

[Garthanos]

I was looking for a pompous name to describe something that was neither theatre of the mind, nor gridded.

LOL well TOM is already pretty pompous

 

[Garthanos]

There is indeed some in story turn taking for instance in the back and forth of individual fighting between 2 engaged melee combatants. The need to respond to an adversary delaying ones own action. So it goes 1 act 2 react, 2 act 1 react and so on.

Wonder if a practical system where one has initiative points which get spent acting and reacting. And the person with the highest at any given point acts next (reacting for defense generally being cheaper). Use tokens to track their spending. Meh.

 

[Bohandas]

for charging specifically, what if charging was changed to a multi-round action whose benefits lasted until you hit something in the correct direction or stopped