D&D General On simulating things: what, why, and how?

[pemerton]

I'm referring to well known issue with (I'm already sorry that I mentioned this) "disassociated mechanics." Especially with martial powers it often was rather unclear how their usage limits related to the reality being modelled. So instead of say, Captain America having "Flip a Car" power they can use once per scene, I would just prefer the Captain America to have physical stats that allows them to flip cars.

This is not "simulationism" as per the OP, then, which is "presenting rules ina way that sort of look like how things actually work, if you squint." Captain America doesn't flip cars all day as a hobby; only at moments of drama or crisis.

And, sure, it makes sense that you have Captain America just be strong enough to flip cars. But, therein lies the rub. In D&D, Captain America can't flip cars. Not without magic anyway. And, once you start going down that road, game balance gets really, really hard. Because, now, if we let Captain America be that strong all the time, without the balance of having a writer that's going to control what he does with it, now, we have players who simply pull Batroc's arm off and beat him with it.

Because if you actually go the full sim model of Captain America, and then hand it to the player and tell that player he can do whatever he wants with it, well, guess what? Captain America is now going to look absolutely nothing like Captain America. Simply because players are 1000 times more pragmatic than any superhero will be. Those guys that jump Cap in the elevator in Winter Soldier aren't just beaten up a bit, they're dead. Cap's chucking their corpses out the window from the 15th storey.

So, which is a better way to model Captain America? Give him a power that lets him "Toss a car" once per combat, or grant him the power to toss a car whenever he wants and now he's pulling every bad guy's head off?

The issue is not just about game balance. Or even genre.

In a lot of fiction, trying hard matters. People aren't always performing at their limit, but in moments of crisis they give it their all, and achieve results that are above their every-day performance. We see this in superhero fiction all the time. But also in Star Wars (eg Vader throwing over the Emperor at the end of RotJ; Luke calling his lightsabre to himself in the ice cave on Hoth, etc); in LotR (eg Sam vs Shelob; Pippin vs the Troll; Boromir defending Merry and Pippin to redeem himself for his attempt to take the ring; etc); in Earthsea (eg Tenar cursing Kossil; Ged sealing the breach between the Dry Lands and the mortal world); etc.

4e D&D is the only version of the game to have a systematic mechanical framework to permit trying hard to matter.

And the issue with how 4e did this and your (reasonable) explanation is that all the powers were independent of each other.

Are they? 4e has a lot of elements that push towards specialisation in build - eg feats that boost particular sorts of manoeuvres, secondary stats that boost particular sorts of effects, etc.

Mechanically, one power is separate from another in its recovery rules. But in the fiction, I think there is likely to be a good deal of cohesion for most characters.

Like if you have a character with powers:
1) Hit one foe really hard
2) Hit one foe, then run to another foe and hit them too.
3) Toss a foe at another foe
4) Hit all nearby foes

If these all are independent it is weird. If I am too tired to to do #1 (because I already did it once) why am I not too tired to do #3? I would much prefer a model where you have four power uses (between rests or whatever) and you can use them on these powers any way you want.

The design reason for doing this in 4e seems identical to the reason that a 5e fighter's Action Surge and Second Wind and Indomitable are separate, and all are in turn separate from a Battle Master's manoeuvres. It reduces spamming, which makes the game more interesting, and it makes the game mechanically easier to balance, which also ends up making the game more interesting.

I'd rather deal with the balance issues and talk to my players about what kind of game we want to play.

This is where we get a shift towards cooperative storytelling that I'm personally not such a big fan of. I would rather that the game system itself set the relevant limits, so that the players can then just lean into the play of their PCs.

 

[pemerton]

The best thing about using a grid (IMO) is everyone can see, knows, and agrees on the exact position of everything (creatures, terrain, etc.). Distances, AoE, etc. can be accurately measured, and so forth.

ToM relies on trusting the DM's "vision" of the scene. Sketches can give you some of the above, but not all of it.

TotM at least either requires a system that doesn't focus on position much or a GM and players who have good spatial memory (which certainly doesn't describe me). Sketch maps at least help, though I'm not sure unless you have a scale they're very good at handling non-narrative movement on.

I ran nearly two decades of Rolemaster without using a grid or combat maps - sketches or notes were sufficient to track position.

And I don't normally need a map in Burning Wheel. In Prince Valiant we've used them once or twice for skirmishes between warbands, but not for interpersonal combat. Traveller has rules for range bands, but in the relatively small number of interpersonal combats that have come up in our Traveller campaign, we've only need to track these on paper once or twice.

Just as one example of an alternative to grid-based resolutoin: if the rule for engaging another character in melee is win an opposed test on <insert appropriate ability here>, then we can determine whether or not Character A is able to close with and engage Character B without needing a map or grid.

 

[pemerton]

So several hundred posts and mostly it's devolved into game theory parsing of what the word "simulation" means, that we can't say that D&D has any simulation because a fighter can contribute to a fight against a dragon (the odds of a lone fighter beating a dragon are between slim and none)? Proof that a fighter couldn't kill a dragon is a video of a rampaging elephant that, while an impressive show of elephant strength, shows absolutely no one attacking the elephant?

I don't get too technical about definitions. Simulation just means we're consistently modeling something. I could have a simulation of the two-dimension flat world which would look nothing like reality. D&D is not a particularly good simulation of reality, it takes too many shortcuts and compromises in order to make the game playable and fun. It lacks specific rules for all sorts of things that it could cover because it was decided that it didn't add enough to the game and wasn't particularly relevant. So we don't have levels of blacksmith because it doesn't really matter.

But humans have been hunting and killing (to the point of extinction) megafauna for millennia. People that we would consider commoners in D&D go out to kill grizzly bears armed with nothing more than a spear. Which brings us back to how tough is a dragon. Well, according to the MM, they have an AC 24. They're no more difficult to damage with a weapon than a well equipped human fighter with some help from magic that they're likely to have at 20th level. How much damage can it take before it dies? Well, since it's a completely fictional creature with no real world corollary, we know that as well they have over 500 HP. A dragon bites that commoner? Chomps them in half. Hits a high level fighter? The fighter deflects the majority of damage somehow because of their skill and training.

I've bolded the bit where there is no simulation taking place.

I mean, if that counts as simulation then all @Crimson Longinus's comments about 4e fall away - the character can't repeat awesome feat number one, but can still perform awesome feat number two, for some reason.

 

[Hussar]

Yes. Different classes can be different. Casters can have somewhat more powerful but limited effects, martials somewhat less powerful but unlimited effects.


Yes. And so did I. I said "flipping a car." But it is not a problem.

Throwing, flipping, hey, I responded to your use of dissociated in the spirit it was meant, so, howzabout we don't get too picky here ok?

But, that's the thing - is "flipping a car" a "magical" effect or not? It's obviously something that a normal person cannot do. So, can my 20th level fighter do it or not? Well, by D&D, currently, it doesn't matter if I'm 1st level or 20th level, the answer is no. A caster, OTOH, can do it once or twice at 1st level whereas at 20th level, they can (more or less) do it at will.

So, the trick is, how do we raise that bar for higher level non-casters to become more "fantastical" without the "fantastical" being always on and either being so depowered that it might as well not be there or being too powerful and a balance issue.

And that's the problem. Note, "flip the car" is just a placeholder for "feat that is impossible for a normal person to do but isn't necessarily so magical that it would require a CGI greenscreen to show it in the movie version". Do we allow the level system to simply allow this to be something that all characters of that class to do once they hit a certain level, or do we add it in as a sort of separate subsystem where the "flip the car" is a choice by the player to be able to do and it's balanced against the number of times it can be done.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is not "simulationism" as per the OP, then, which is "presenting rules ina way that sort of look like how things actually work, if you squint." Captain America doesn't flip cars all day as a hobby; only at moments of drama or crisis.

But they could. And the simulation I'm talking about, and I believe OP as well, is simulating the fictional reality rather than emulating a story.

The design reason for doing this in 4e seems identical to the reason that a 5e fighter's Action Surge and Second Wind and Indomitable are separate, and all are in turn separate from a Battle Master's manoeuvres. It reduces spamming, which makes the game more interesting, and it makes the game mechanically easier to balance, which also ends up making the game more interesting.

Hard disagree. It is not interesting to not be able to use most of your power budget, nor is it balanced. My example was not just hypothetical. I played a Whirlwind Barbarian (I think that's what it was called) for a good while, and every time there were fight against a single foe (which was quite often) most of his powers were unusable. I ended up rebuilding the character as a Slayer, which was hella boring, but at least I could use my Power Attack several times. A better solution than either would have been a character with varied powers that could have been used multiple times up to certain combined limit.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I ran nearly two decades of Rolemaster without using a grid or combat maps - sketches or notes were sufficient to track position.

And I don't normally need a map in Burning Wheel. In Prince Valiant we've used them once or twice for skirmishes between warbands, but not for interpersonal combat. Traveller has rules for range bands, but in the relatively small number of interpersonal combats that have come up in our Traveller campaign, we've only need to track these on paper once or twice.

Just as one example of an alternative to grid-based resolutoin: if the rule for engaging another character in melee is win an opposed test on <insert appropriate ability here>, then we can determine whether or not Character A is able to close with and engage Character B without needing a map or grid.

I ran D&D and AD&D for even longer using ToM, sketches, and notes as well before adopting a grid/miniature system.

And as I posted previously even in 5E I mostly use ToM even now, but that doesn't change the fact that "ToM relies on trusting the DM's 'vision' of the scene. Sketches can give you some of the above, but not all of it."

At any rate, each system can work, of course, and each has strengths and weaknesses. While I enjoy grid-systems, they take a long time to set up and using them can slow down the game. As long as a group finds a system that works for them, that's all that matters.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Throwing, flipping, hey, I responded to your use of dissociated in the spirit it was meant, so, howzabout we don't get too picky here ok?

But, that's the thing - is "flipping a car" a "magical" effect or not? It's obviously something that a normal person cannot do. So, can my 20th level fighter do it or not? Well, by D&D, currently, it doesn't matter if I'm 1st level or 20th level, the answer is no. A caster, OTOH, can do it once or twice at 1st level whereas at 20th level, they can (more or less) do it at will.

So, the trick is, how do we raise that bar for higher level non-casters to become more "fantastical" without the "fantastical" being always on and either being so depowered that it might as well not be there or being too powerful and a balance issue.

And that's the problem. Note, "flip the car" is just a placeholder for "feat that is impossible for a normal person to do but isn't necessarily so magical that it would require a CGI greenscreen to show it in the movie version". Do we allow the level system to simply allow this to be something that all characters of that class to do once they hit a certain level, or do we add it in as a sort of separate subsystem where the "flip the car" is a choice by the player to be able to do and it's balanced against the number of times it can be done.

The issue really is that some absolutely want the fighters to be just normal people. But I don't believe this can really work at the higher levels, considering what the casters can do and what sort of foes the characters are expected to face. So I think they should just outright say that past level ten or so the characters start to become mythic heroes and are not necessarily anymore bound by normal mortal limits. And if you want your fighters to be mundane, then just level cap your game to level ten. Most people don't play much past that anyway.

 

[niklinna]

This is not "simulationism" as per the OP, then, which is "presenting rules ina way that sort of look like how things actually work, if you squint." Captain America doesn't flip cars all day as a hobby; only at moments of drama or crisis.

The issue is not just about game balance. Or even genre.

In a lot of fiction, trying hard matters. People aren't always performing at their limit, but in moments of crisis they give it their all, and achieve results that are above their every-day performance. We see this in superhero fiction all the time. But also in Star Wars (eg Vader throwing over the Emperor at the end of RotJ; Luke calling his lightsabre to himself in the ice cave on Hoth, etc); in LotR (eg Sam vs Shelob; Pippin vs the Troll; Boromir defending Merry and Pippin to redeem himself for his attempt to take the ring; etc); in Earthsea (eg Tenar cursing Kossil; Ged sealing the breach between the Dry Lands and the mortal world); etc.

4e D&D is the only version of the game to have a systematic mechanical framework to permit trying hard to matter.

Are they? 4e has a lot of elements that push towards specialisation in build - eg feats that boost particular sorts of manoeuvres, secondary stats that boost particular sorts of effects, etc.

Mechanically, one power is separate from another in its recovery rules. But in the fiction, I think there is likely to be a good deal of cohesion for most characters.

The design reason for doing this in 4e seems identical to the reason that a 5e fighter's Action Surge and Second Wind and Indomitable are separate, and all are in turn separate from a Battle Master's manoeuvres. It reduces spamming, which makes the game more interesting, and it makes the game mechanically easier to balance, which also ends up making the game more interesting.

This is where we get a shift towards cooperative storytelling that I'm personally not such a big fan of. I would rather that the game system itself set the relevant limits, so that the players can then just lean into the play of their PCs.

I have to agree that one-use powers are for the most part overtly game mechanisms. Heck, in 1e, if I recall correctly, magic users can't memorize the same spell more than once for a given day...or at the very least, they have to explicitly couple a spell to a slot, unlike in 5e where anything prepared is available as long as you have slots. (Maybe (little-f) feats of High Fantasy Prowess could have a similar system. Level Up/A5E is going about it slightly differently with its combat maneuvers & exertion.)

I would have enjoyed 4e much more if I'd had as many encounter/daily uses as I had encounter/daily powers, and could use them freely, just like prepared spells in 5e.

That said, yes, 4e does get that "try hard" thing in ways no other version does.

 

[Oofta]

I've bolded the bit where there is no simulation taking place.

I mean, if that counts as simulation then all @Crimson Longinus's comments about 4e fall away - the character can't repeat awesome feat number one, but can still perform awesome feat number two, for some reason.

Nothing you state here has any relationship to what I was talking about as far as I can tell. A PC can use a limited store of luck, endurance, physical damage, some combination therein that may be unique to every individual until they run out and that last hit knocks them out. The details differ, the result is the same.

It's not a perfect system. But it works reasonably well for the game. A real world analogy would be boxing. Two boxers go at it and assuming they go till one drops, they exchange blows. Some boxers will just take the hits, some will dodge and weave so the hits aren't solid, some will be better at blocking. But eventually, one will go down. The specifics of how they grt there don't matter because the end results and the punches thrown by their opponent are the same.

Specific details in simulation are glossed over all the time because the only thing that matters is the resulting impact on the systems being simulated.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But as per my post upthread, if you ignore the simulationist impulse here, but apply it in another domain where exactly the same bit of the fiction is on display (ie the physical prowess of a Hero or even more powerful fighter), then verisimilitude breaks down. If, once we pay attention to what is happening in the fiction, we see how physically unstoppable the Hero is, then everything else in our fiction should reflect that too.

Right, so I create game, lets call it 'Pro Boxing', and in this game your character jumps in the ring with Mike Tyson at his best, and punches his lights out in 2 rounds. OK, so later he goes to carry his girlfriend's groceries up the stairs and he can't lift the 50lb bag of rice. I mean, doesn't this present an obstacle for verisimilitude? It would for me! (and I presume you as well). These sorts of issues can easily arise in any game in any genre, pretty much. I mean, this sort of thing was always an issue with Palladium games. Kevin is just gonzo, and that's all there is to it, but you absolutely cannot make sense of any of those games if you actually turn your brain on. You just don't want to do that!