D&D General D&D isn't a simulation game, so what is???

[Oofta]

Take a look at what I did for a cheetah. I think something like that could work for flying creatures.

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Feline Speed (2/ Short Rest). When the cheetah takes the Dash action it can move at 10 times its speed (500 ft.) during this movement. Additionally, if the cheetah succeeds on a DC 10 Constitution check at the end of its turn, its ability to use Feline Speed recharges.

BONUS ACTIONS
Feline Agility. The cheetah takes the Dash action.

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Basically the speed listed at the top of the stat block is a combat speed, what they can do while engaged in combat. For flying creatures it would probably be a hover speed. I then gave it traits that increase its speed.

I also gave dragons the following trait:

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Overland Flight. When a dragon is not engaged in an encounter and has flown in a straight line for at least 2 rounds, it can move at 10 times its flying speed.

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Something like this would be my answer as well if I cared. Maneuvering in battle is far different from just cruising around at "I need to get from point A to point B" speed.

Then again, it's an oddly trivial thing to me to care about. If I cast animal messenger and it really matters how fast that hawk can travel, I'll google the flight speed of a hawk. When it comes to creatures that couldn't fly without the aid of magic, I care even less. I don't assume that combat rules apply in all situations.

 

[Lyxen]

While playing on a grid is a variant rule, I'm not sure you can claim it's not the majority use choice -- most of the major streams of D&D use the grid (and usually nifty terrain).

I admittedly have not watched a lot of Critical Role, but they don't, even at start. And none of the groups I've played with use these rules, because honestly they are incomplete and none of the media require them, including VTTs.

The only place where I've seen it is in Solasta, because it's a computer game, and Solasta at least counts diagonal movement in a less silly manner.

That aside, the rule for the variant is clearly that diagonal movement is only 5'. There's an optional rule in the DMG to do other things, but the baseline is that diagonal movement is not different from rectilinear movement. And it's also not commented on very much at all.

And this is a reason for me saying that it's inconsistent as an option, because while it's true for movement, it's never for spell effects, for example, the templates are not for firecubes.

Once more, all of it is optional and apart from people liking the feel from previous editions, I don't see any reason to use the option at all.

 

[Yora]

The smartass reply to this whole question is: "What even is D&D?"

I think say B/X, 4th edition, and 5th edition are completely different games with very different goals and assumptions on how actual play looks like.

 

[Oofta]

And they were right, it's ugly, and don't start me on the firecubes...



5e does NOT do it. 5e's game is TotM without grid. IF people are using a map (which they don't have to), and if they are using a grid on top of that map (which they even less have to), then they have a number of additional options, including that one. But I've never see anyone use it.

There were a lot of issues with 4E, non-Euclidean math was just one example of what felt like "dumbing down" the system to some people.

As far as movement, I've moved to a hex grid for my home game. I'm not overly concerned about exact positioning, if it's a 10 ft wide hallway two people can fit even if the hexes don't line up because people can normally be in a half hex. Primarily the hexes are just there for measurement. In the game I just started playing we're using the 1-2-1 rule because we play on a grid.

 

[Lyxen]

There were a lot of issues with 4E, non-Euclidean math was just one example of what felt like "dumbing down" the system to some people.

As far as movement, I've moved to a hex grid for my home game. I'm not overly concerned about exact positioning, if it's a 10 ft wide hallway two people can fit even if the hexes don't line up because people can normally be in a half hex. Primarily the hexes are just there for measurement. In the game I just started playing we're using the 1-2-1 rule because we play on a grid.

Preferences are preferences, my only point is that, while some editions of D&D required a grid, and while there were reasons for some people to make the measurement simpler, and while some tools only worked on grids, I think today there is not need of anything like this, whether in person or through a VTT, where it's even easier to compute things without any grid, that's all.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Are you reporting your own biography here? Or conjecturing about what motivates others?

Less the “motivation” of others and more what seems to me, to be a necessary truth.

I played Rolemaster as my principal RPG for nearly 20 years. The reason wasn't that I particularly enjoyed "crunchy, complex games". It was because in RM, the character sheet gave a near-total description of the PC's capabilities (unlike the AD&D PC sheets of that era) and the resolution system - especially the combat resolution system - created vibrant, visceral fiction. I played one session and went out and bought the boxed set, and didn't look back for a couple of decades.

Given that RM really doesn’t “simulate” reality, but just abstracts it in a more complex way, I’m not sure that changes my view here. You enjoyed the complexity in that it gave you more seeds around which to imagine things, which is cool. But it’s no more a simulation of combat than dropping watermelons off rooftops and imagining they are people is a simulation of automotive safety. (Sorry, best analogy in the moment.)

EDIT: But, yes, upon further reflection you raise a good point: my original phrasing was too narrow, and enjoyment of more complex games isn't necessarily because one enjoys the crunchiness itself. The extra details can also stimulate the imagination. But I'll stick with my claim that this doesn't make it "simulation". I will sometimes use the cards from Hobbit Tales as a tool to randomly generate plot hooks and encounters, but that doesn't make it simulation.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I admittedly have not watched a lot of Critical Role, but they don't, even at start. And none of the groups I've played with use these rules, because honestly they are incomplete and none of the media require them, including VTTs.

The only place where I've seen it is in Solasta, because it's a computer game, and Solasta at least counts diagonal movement in a less silly manner.

Weird, because here's a still from a CR game:

And this is a reason for me saying that it's inconsistent as an option, because while it's true for movement, it's never for spell effects, for example, the templates are not for firecubes.

Once more, all of it is optional and apart from people liking the feel from previous editions, I don't see any reason to use the option at all.

It's not inconsistent as an option. Unless you're saying feats are inconsistent as an option, or any other rule with an optional variant is inconsistent as an option. It's not something you play with, sure, but it's the default for grid play.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Okay, time to get in trouble... ahem NO RPG SHOULD BE A SIMULATION. waits for rocks, spears, assorted footwear and other projectiles to stop flying No really, they shouldn't be. No amount of fantasy can be simulation because it's 'fantasy'.

This posture only works for a narrow and specific definition of "simulation". Simulation does not have to reference conventional reality at all (though it usually defaults to that in part because conveying a reality that has too little connection with our own is too damn much work).

So I think you're basically creating a tautology.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But, even then, it's a pretty shoddy simulation. I'm making up numbers here, but if D&D simulates 0.5% of reality, even the crunchiest of games simulate...2%? Yay?

I believe the reason for playing the more complex games is not that they are better simulations of reality, but simply because one enjoys playing crunchy, complex games.

I think you're going to just have to take our word for it that's not at least the only reason here, or you've just decided to engage in Internet Telepathy.

 

[Vaalingrade]

And they were right, it's ugly, and don't start me on the firecubes...

That and the diagonal movement complaints are part of why simulationism gets a reputation of making games unnecessarily more complex.

That and 3e.