D&D 5E DM's: How Do You Justify NPC's Having Magic/Abilities That Don't Exist in the PHB?

[billd91]

I have to admit, it baffles me that people want magic to be consistent. It's magic. It's the opposite of consistent. If you want physics, that's why we have SF. Magic isn't physics, sufficiently advanced or not. Magic works on Narrativium - it's capable of doing whatever you want it to do whenever you want it to do it.
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Well, there pretty much goes the rationale for wizards - the guys who gain magical power by studying it. Magic may not be physics because it breaks the rules of physics all the time. But there has also always been a subset of magic in D&D that is subject to study, classification, consistency, and mastery through doing so. That doesn’t mean all magic has to fit into that subset, but a substantial portion will.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Are you sure they arent hovering over characters heads in glowing red letters?

Only when you mouse over them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

What framework? The word "framework" doesn't appear in the post you quoted.

Posts 319 and 321 upthread have examples of magical places, effects etc that I have included in my FRPGing. They didn't conform to, or arise out of, PC build rules.

I think the idea you state here can have at least two readings. (Maybe more? But at least two.)

(1) Is having the fiction of magic opaque from players good practice? To which my answer is, opacity of magic is like opacity of anything else in the shared fiction - it may be good or bad depending on context. Part of the context for magic is that it's magic! And so mystery or opacity can reinforce that colour.

(2) Is having the mechanical resolution of magical effects be opaque to players good practice? There's a long tradition of this in D&D - think eg the demilich in ToH - but it's not my personally favoured approach. I mostly play RPGs - 4e D&D, Prince Valiant, Agon, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Torchbearer 2e, etc - that have uniform or at least systematic resolution processes.

(2) and (1) are independent. Someone could set up a non-opaque fiction around magic (and so reject (1)) but have it be opaque in its resolution (and hence an instance of (2)), eg because it involves directly persuading the GM by reference to the fiction, like how some people like social resolution to be handled.

Given your post to TwoSix we seem to be in alignment in thought, however with regards to (1), remember we are not just talking about any RPG but rather D&D which has a system (read framework) for magic. Given that arguably at minimum half the PHB deals with spells & classes, feats and abilities that deal with magic - the mystery or opacity of magic is practically non-existent unless we are dealing with beings beyond a stat block.

 

[Blue]

They got it wrong, is all that's telling me.

When the designers consistantly through multiple books do not use classes to build NPCs, it's pretty clear this is a conscious design choice and not a case of "they got it wrong".

 

[TwoSix]

What framework? The word "framework" doesn't appear in the post you quoted.

Posts 319 and 321 upthread have examples of magical places, effects etc that I have included in my FRPGing. They didn't conform to, or arise out of, PC build rules.

I think the idea you state here can have at least two readings. (Maybe more? But at least two.)

(1) Is having the fiction of magic opaque from players good practice? To which my answer is, opacity of magic is like opacity of anything else in the shared fiction - it may be good or bad depending on context. Part of the context for magic is that it's magic! And so mystery or opacity can reinforce that colour.

(2) Is having the mechanical resolution of magical effects be opaque to players good practice? There's a long tradition of this in D&D - think eg the demilich in ToH - but it's not my personally favoured approach. I mostly play RPGs - 4e D&D, Prince Valiant, Agon, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Torchbearer 2e, etc - that have uniform or at least systematic resolution processes.

(2) and (1) are independent. Someone could set up a non-opaque fiction around magic (and so reject (1)) but have it be opaque in its resolution (and hence an instance of (2)), eg because it involves directly persuading the GM by reference to the fiction, like how some people like social resolution to be handled.

My intention was more towards point (1), as the earlier examples I had raised were more about the DM's authority to frame scenes and NPCs that utilize magic that doesn't derive from the structure of magic in the PHB.

I would agree with point (2) in that I like player-oriented resolution to be as transparent. My major point in rebuttal to @Lanefan and @Jack Daniel's point is that, in my authority as a scene-framer, I have no necessity to adjudicate my own framing as somehow being mechanically derived. The magic is a narrative, not a mechanic, and my responsibility is solely to allow the PCs fair attempts to overcome it, if hostile, and maintain some level of fictional consistency.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've run a lot of RPGs, in a variety of settings. I don't think I've ever designed a setting's physics. I have sometimes considered a setting's sociology and/or theology and metaphysics, because to me these are far more central to RPGing than physics. But other times I have let those things emerge more-or-less organically via play; or have established them by reference to a known exemplar or paradigm (eg Let's play Vikings or Let's play Middle Earth or Let's play Victorian-ear Cthulhu).

By gravity which of the following do you mean?

Things fall to earth - which has been common knowledge for all humans for as long as humans have existed; or,​

​

All things fall to earth at a uniform rate of acceleration if air resistance is disregarded - which has not been common knowledge and as far as I know isn't obviously true in any FRPG I'm familiar with, given that none of them involve detailed calculations about falling things, ballistics etc; or,​

​

The same physical factor that explains how and why things fall to earth also explains celestial motion - which is actively false in many FRPG settings.​

I've seen D&D module with magnetic effects that to the best of my knowledge are not explicable in terms of real-world magnetism (eg "lodestones" that pull and trap characters wearing metal armour).

I just don't see any evidence that FRPG settings need the sort of detail or rules established in advance that you say they do.

I don't think they need them to function, necessarily. But I want them there, and they function better for me when they are there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When the designers consistantly through multiple books do not use classes to build NPCs, it's pretty clear this is a conscious design choice and not a case of "they got it wrong".

Think of it more as "they got it wrong" for you. Obviously that was a choice they made, likely to maintain the simplicity that is their top priority this edition and which is continuing to get more important as they design the new edition.

But it actually doesn't matter that much to me that NPC statblocks don't resemble PCs. Way back at the beginning of this thread, my claim was simply that a PC should in theory be able to acquire any ability an NPC who represents a person similar to a PC (like an archmage, or a gladiator) can do. It might be very difficult, or even impractical, but I believe it should be possible, and the DM should, IMO, be able to answer a player's question about that in an in-universe, non-gamist way.

That's still what I believe, but of course there are other schools of thought. Other games, particularly narrative sorts and genre-emulators, may operate under a different paradigm. And that's ok.

 

[TwoSix]

But it actually doesn't matter that much to me that NPC statblocks don't resemble PCs. Way back at the beginning of this thread, my claim was simply that a PC should in theory be able to acquire any ability an NPC who represents a person similar to a PC (like an archmage, or a gladiator) can do. It might be very difficult, or even impractical, but I believe it should be possible, and the DM should, IMO, be able to answer a player's question about that in an in-universe, non-gamist way.

I would generally agree with that. But I would also argue that sometimes a mechanic doesn't necessarily map to a discrete fictional element, and that's OK too. The gladiator doesn't have something in the fiction that maps to the "Brute" feature, it's simply a mechanical way to demonstrate the gladiator can kick some butt in melee combat. A PC fighter can also kick butt in melee combat, but has a different mechanical base to demonstrate that same narrative.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would generally agree with that. But I would also argue that sometimes a mechanic doesn't necessarily map to a discrete fictional element, and that's OK too. The gladiator doesn't have something in the fiction that maps to the "Brute" feature, it's simply a mechanical way to demonstrate the gladiator can kick some butt in melee combat. A PC fighter can also kick butt in melee combat, but has a different mechanical base to demonstrate that same narrative.

I think there are very few mechanics that don't map to the fiction. Stuff like "Brute" would be a necessary but unfortunate short-hand in my view, and my goal is to avoid that kind of thing whenever possible.

 

[TwoSix]

I think there are very few mechanics that don't map to the fiction. Stuff like "Brute" would be a necessary but unfortunate short-hand in my view, and my goal is to avoid that kind of thing whenever possible.

Out of curiosity, what's your personal take on the "class in fiction" question?