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

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm a bit confused on this. So, 4e has a WIDE array of ways to deal with this situation. You could acquire some sort of item or feat that might make one of your at-wills more effective against a single target. You might MC into another class, Ranger for instance springs instantly to mind, and get access to one or two good single-target powers (IE Twin Strike is excellent for a dual wielding fighter). Heck, you can simply take ANY fighter power, most of which are intended to work well against single targets (admittedly you might not perform like an optimal fighter with that power, but it should work OK). Your defenderish abilities shouldn't be hampered at all against single targets either, so maybe taking a feat or some armor class enhancing option or something that makes that work better is also an option.

It is not that the character was unusable. (And I don't remember the details anymore.) But all you suggestions are just patching the underlying problem.

I simply don't agree that one-use situational powers is good design for the core features of the game. Varied and situational powers are cool, but they make much more sense in a shared resource pool system. And I think WotC understands this too. That's why Battlemaster manoeuvres use a shared pool and why we got neo-Vancian casting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To be completely fair, this is something that D&D has really gotten weird about. 1e dragons were a LOT smaller. More the St. George type, so, it was a bit more plausible that dude with a pointy metal stick could conceivably kill it. But, yeah, when your dragons are kaiju sized, the notion that I can kill Godzilla with a sword is just so laughable. And it gets even weirder in that a large group of dudes with bows and arrows can kill that dragon.

Well, they were always VERY BIG. A full sized bull elephant stands about 12' at the shoulder, is around 15' long, and weighs in around 7 tons (that's about the limit of bigliness, though mammoths and such did get a bit larger). The SMALLEST AD&D 1e dragons are 30' long. So already 2x bigger than the biggest elephant. They must perforce weigh in at something like 14 tons, and a Red Dragon is 48' long, so MUCH MUCH bigger, and thus probably on the order of 30 tons. Note that the writeup is pretty unclear on what 'Size' actually means, as the MM states that dragons come in 8 age categories and 3 sizes (which is orthogonal to age). Now, we could assume that the 48' long Red is an Ancient Huge dragon, but we could JUST AS EASILY conclude that it is an Adult Medium sized red dragon, and then we could EASILY assume that an ancient huge version is 'Kaiju Sized'. OTOH I don't disagree that AD&D 1e dragons are somewhat on the wimpy side, for D&D. I mean, a red will do an average of 24 damage, enough to put a decent dent in a name-level fighter, but not enough to kill him outright (unless you roll incredibly bad hit dice and have a bad CON). The breath weapon, at 88 damage is, however, nasty enough to kill anything but a very tough high level fighter, or a bard. On the whole though 1e dragons are BIG but not as fearsome as things like demons.

2e, BTW, embiggened them quite a bit. The Red Dragon still says Size: 48', but that is noted as 'base' and the age categories now go up to 12. The largest Elder Wyrm Red Dragon in 2e is now a full 183' long (and has a 171' long tail on top of that!), an AC of -14, does an average breath damage over 110 points, and it does a MINIMUM of 40 points of damage in melee, and averages 66 points! It also has 23 hit dice, magic resistance, etc. A single 1e fighter of very high level could probably solo a maxed 1e red dragon, a very high level 2e fighter would be burnt to a crisp on round 1 by a 2e maxed red dragon, lol. Anyway, at a snout to tail tip length of 354' it is AT LEAST as big as Godzilla!

 

[Oofta]

@Crimson Longinus repeated it, and carried it forward.

Getting somewhere!

This is exactly the post-hoc rationalization that isn't simulation. There's no attempt to create a thing that aligns the play with what someone might understand about the real world, instead we have that these events happen in the game, so we craft individual and specific stories for each instance to explain how it did happen. That's not sim, that's weaving a narrative after the fact to make sense of the game results.

And that's 100% perfect! I don't really know how else you could approach 5e.

I never said everything in D&D was simulation of the real world. Magic, and dragons, do not exist. On the other hand we can simulate what it would be like to fight one using the same knowledge we have for how we've fought existing creatures for millennia. D&D is also an imperfect simulation for a lot of reasons. Being imperfect does not make it not a simulation.

Well, yes, it's absolutely post-hoc because this didn't start with 'simulating dragons' and then coming up with rules systems to do so. Instead, we start with the facts that the game presents in it's mechanics, and after we read those (post-hoc, after the fact) we come up with ways to weave a narrative around it. We know that the fighter didn't lose all his hitpoints in the fight, so after the fight (or after each blow that doesn't kill the fighter) we make up a story to explain the facts that have already happened -- the fighter ain't dead, so here's how that happened. This is 100% post-hoc. And, again, 100% perfectly fine.

It's not post-hoc because dragons are not real, therefore the simulation aspects of a fight against dragons (their AC, HP, attacks and so on) are complete fiction. What else is new?

As far as HP for the fighter, we know that if you put two people of similar size and musculature in a cage and have them fight until one goes down, in general the person with better skill and training will likely win. It will near certainty if you have a trained MMA fighter vs someone who's only fighting experience comes from a video game. That's reflected in attack bonus and HP. It's crude, it's not granular, but it is simulating a real thing.

Now we've moved from discussion of simulation as making things feel real to following the rules of the game. Can we pick a stable set of goalposts?

Nobody's moving the goalposts.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm sure other people did the same and I'm not surprised other people didn't like ToTm. The lack of reference in books is what I was referring to.

Yeah, its really quite ambiguous. In OD&D the game pretty explicitly says "use Chainmail" and then it actually describes the scaling as 1" = 10 yards (or 10 feet indoors). Now, that isn't a grid, its a SCALE, and grids were generally used in minis battles in that era as a convenience (you can quickly measure distances and areas without needing to trot out a tape measure or a template). Beyond that, dungeon maps in the OD&D era were explicitly drawn by convention on a 1 grid square = 10' basis using graph paper. So generally you HAD a grid indoors, as well as a scale, even if you didn't lay out a battle mat. Even if you used the 'alternate combat system', all it did was tell you how to handle attack rolls, everything else was still bog standard Chainmail (the idea that you could, technically speaking, play combats without Chainmail is erroneous, though obviously most people figured out ways around that pretty easily). AD&D includes PICTURES of a hex grid and a square grid and explains how characters fit on it and how facing works. OTOH the actual rules don't mesh with that very well, so its kind of just a grab-bag of mix-and-match techniques.

So, grids have pretty good reference in books, if slightly indirect in the earliest days, and SCALES are very explicit. I agree, lots of people didn't play with them at all, ever. I actually never played WITHOUT them, because I recall the first time I did, which was around 1982/3 in college when we played in our dorm room and there was simply no place to set things up. I recall it seemed very awkward and less like a formal session of play than a bull session to me, lol. Of course, by then, playing on a table with a grid was both widely known, and not so much used anymore.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Why? I've never seen anyone use this definition outside of game theory.

Because, otherwise calling it a simulation is just empty words! If your simulation process cannot tell you HOW and WHY something came to pass, then it is nothing more than a random generator of outcomes! Calling it a 'simulation' is thus meaningless, it is just as equally valid to call it a "random generator of genre-appropriate results."

Ever seen the simulation of how gravity works? Take a rubber sheet stretched taught and then roll something across it. It goes in a straight line. Put something heavy in the middle and roll something on the sheet and this time it starts to "orbit" the heavy object. It simulates the interaction of gravity, but we have no clue what gravity really is. We can mimic it, we understand it's effects (to a degree, there's still significant debate) but we have no clue how it does it. That means that, according to your narrow definition we could never simulate gravity.

I would talk to some physicists about that... Yes, we don't have a complete description of ANYTHING in the Universe at some 'final cause' level, but we have a DEEP understanding of how gravity actually works! No physicist needs a rubber sheet, they can use the full equations of GR (if they really want to do a lot of math) and tell you very accurately what any system of masses will do. While I cannot speak for @Hussar's intended meaning, I am highly skeptical that he is proposing your maximal interpretation. There is an excluded middle here. In order to do a simulation we need to be able to construct some sort of model, which takes as inputs the relevant conditions in the simulated system, and produces as outcomes some new state of that system or additional facts related to it, and where there is some kind of either A) actual verification that the outputs resemble the simulated system, or B) a formal description of the causes and effects within the system which can be shown to relate to known laws. Absent A or B, we have really nothing. Since A is impossible in relation to a game world, we are left to conclude that any meaningful definition of simulation must include that it incorporates a formal description of the causes and effects that it models.

It seems that we can't use any word to describe how I want D&D to mimic the real world because of how you've declared a definition that is not widely accepted as the only truth. I can't call it simulation, emulation only works if it existed before. I'm tired of the redefinition of common words. Since this has devolved into the meaning of words as defined by an academic take on the subject, I'm done.

No, I can simply say that when I describe things in D&D I describe them as being largely analogous to things in the real world. I don't have a REASON for why they are like the real world. I don't actually care! It is not a 'simulation', I am simply following a convention that says I do this thing this way. Its perfectly fine if I construct some tables or whatever that spits out plausible descriptions of things too. It isn't 'simulating' anything, it is simply a "generator of plausible things." I'm all for plausibility and the resulting comprehensibility and verisimilitude of settings. I just don't honestly believe that there's any possibility of approaching this in terms of simulation (except in possible a few very restricted and specific cases, like I'm sure you could make a table that told us how long it takes to fall X distance that is based on Newtonian Gravity and I will grant that using it in a specific situation is 'performing a simulation', for all that's worth).

 

[Ovinomancer]

No. You simply have intentionally describe thing in nonsensical manner. I don't know why, the game certainly doesn't demand this. "This 120 foot long dragon occupies this 20 foot square" is a thing that a person can say. It however is not a thing that can be visualised, because it is logically impossible. Personally I wouldn't consider making things intentionally unvisualisable good GMing practice.

The game says that the 120' dragon fits in a 20'x20' square. I dunno what to tell you, that's what the game says. If you think it's poor GMing to use what the game says, I'd say you really need to send a letter to WotC about this. In the meantime, maybe don't tell other people they're bad GMs because they don't do it like you do?

No mate. The mammoth example was brought up because you thought that it would be more realistic for giant lizards to be able to bring down the modern world full of tanks and supersonic jetfighters than a group of late medieval people killing said giant lizard. This of course is blatantly laughable. It was never claimed that dragons are as easy to kill than mammoths, merely an example that it is possible for humans to kill animals far larger than themselves even using simple sticks. One would expect renaissance tech help quite a bit, and of course with modern tech it is not worth even contemplating.

Um, no, and we can all scroll back up and see where mammoths entered the discussion. And yes, Reign of Fire is MORE REALISTIC than D&D fighters going toe-to-toe with dragons. At what point does this claim that it's very, kinda or even sort realistic? It's MORE realistic that the silliness that D&D does. As in, Duck Tales is MORE realistic than, say, Road Runner.

This again is not what happened. I had mentioned before the t-rex size was examined that I'd expect dragon extremities overhanging their square. So I was using a consistent model the whole time.

"A bit." You said, specifically, overhangs "a bit." Your image now is 50% overhang. As in, the Dragon in your image is more than 60' long but fits in a 40' space. I wouldn't classify that as "a bit."

How do you think the reach works? The dragon can attack a foe 15 feet away without leaving its square, because it's neck and tail can reach that far away.

I dunno, doesn't really make much sense because you're only that big in the instant you attack, and that size has no other meaning. I can't ready an attack outside my reach for you to attack from yours, for instance. That extra size exists only to enable the reach mechanic, and not to describe the fiction. The fiction you're using to describe how reach works is post-hoc -- it comes after you see the rules and need to find a way to rationalize them.

Like I have said several times, I'm fine with pretty broad strokes simulation. Just some basic sensemakery is fine. And yeah, I'd prefer 5e to have a tad more of it. But I don't think what is gained by being intentionally obtuse and interpreting things that actually make sense in nonsensical manner.

I didn't start the argument that dragons are just fine simulation. I started with they are not. You've argued the point. If you didn't mean to argue that point, what are we doing?

You have several time misinterpreted what has been said and when, in order to attack some strawman version of my arguments. Call it what you want, but stop doing it.

Can you point out the specific misinterpretations? That way I can be sure to avoid those, as asked, instead of having to guess what it is you mean. I've taken the time to lay out the sequence twice, so it should be fairly easy.

 

[Baron Opal II]

If you don't have time to put your thoughts in order, you may want to hold off until you do so there's no confusion about what you are saying or unforced errors on your side of the debate.

Listen- I realized I was unclear, apologized for it, and tried to clarify.

Every time you come into a conversation that I'm involved in, whether you are replying to me or not, you nearly always lead with hostility, disdain, and condescension. If not leading with it, you reach that point amazingly fast in the thread. I recognize that you are far more passionate about D&D than I am. Have at it. Enjoy the board.

And naughty word you very much with your over serious naughty word-tastic attitude about a game. You may be right, I think I have more important things to think about.

Good day, sir.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, I know. I also knew you'd say that. My GM was obviously not following that advice, they were just using encounters they felt made sense in the fiction. And that the game cannot handle a super common fantasy trope (fighting one big monster) is a colossal design flaw. Again, with a shared power pool this would not be an issue.

Wouldn't the same problem come up, in 5e D&D, for a Horde Breaker ranger? It doesn't seem to me to be an issue about the design of resource pools.

 

[Thomas Shey]

AD&D didn't actually have ANY coherent notion of position at all. In some places it showed a diagram of a hex or square ruled area and how various relative positions had various game effects, and then if you read the actual text of the melee combat rules the letter of the rules was every melee combatant is all just swished together in one big 'pool' and every round you randomly determine which attack goes against whom! Technically the game doesn't even mention the possibility that there might be different distinct disjoint physical locations where fighting is going on! I mean, clearly you can build some sort of process out of all that, but it is impossible to run 'bog standard AD&D combat' as no such thing exists! Even in 2e's rules it is still pretty vague!

Yeah, and they were, if anything, even worse in OD&D. Like I said, you had to be able to close up if you were meleeing a target or within range with your bow, and you kind of wanted to know where the hell everyone was when the dragon breath or fireball went off, but other than that there was no real discussion of facing or flanking or cover.

Even then remembering where everyone was when there was a scattered battlefield was impossible for me without some kind of diagram; it might work in a dungeon because there were few opponents usually and limited number of points of contact, but even then it wasn't reliable.

I accept that other people manage to keep all that in their heads. I'm not them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, its really quite ambiguous. In OD&D the game pretty explicitly says "use Chainmail" and then it actually describes the scaling as 1" = 10 yards (or 10 feet indoors). Now, that isn't a grid, its a SCALE, and grids were generally used in minis battles in that era as a convenience (you can quickly measure distances and areas without needing to trot out a tape measure or a template).

That's not surprising; Gygax and company came out of miniatures wargaming, so pulling out a tape measure would have seen fine to them. As I noted, if you came from a board wargame background, it always seemed conceptually like a pain in the behind.

Beyond that, dungeon maps in the OD&D era were explicitly drawn by convention on a 1 grid square = 10' basis using graph paper. So generally you HAD a grid indoors, as well as a scale, even if you didn't lay out a battle mat. Even if you used the 'alternate combat system', all it did was tell you how to handle attack rolls, everything else was still bog standard Chainmail (the idea that you could, technically speaking, play combats without Chainmail is erroneous, though obviously most people figured out ways around that pretty easily). AD&D includes PICTURES of a hex grid and a square grid and explains how characters fit on it and how facing works. OTOH the actual rules don't mesh with that very well, so its kind of just a grab-bag of mix-and-match techniques.

Once you had Greyhawk to deal with some elements of it without Chainmail, it was plenty doable; you just lost some nuance that Chainmail could potentially bring to it (but then, a lot of parts of Chainmail were completely irrelevant to how many people played, so even if they had access they probably ignored it pretty quickly)

So, grids have pretty good reference in books, if slightly indirect in the earliest days, and SCALES are very explicit. I agree, lots of people didn't play with them at all, ever. I actually never played WITHOUT them, because I recall the first time I did, which was around 1982/3 in college when we played in our dorm room and there was simply no place to set things up. I recall it seemed very awkward and less like a formal session of play than a bull session to me, lol. Of course, by then, playing on a table with a grid was both widely known, and not so much used anymore.

Can't say, since by that time period I'd moved on to RQ and Champions, neither of which I'd ever have thought of playing without a map of some sort.