D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[Cadence]

The ability can be used at any time, no matter what the fiction had established up to that point. Labeling something as "not supernatural" doesn't change my opinion that the ability to force an NPC to take a specific action is a supernatural act.

You want to play a very different game than what I want.

I realize it's a very different thing, but I ask to know if I want to set up a follow and if so.whichnibe. How were you about the B/X morale rules?

Also, are there any combat things (force a retreat, push back) that rely on forcing the defender to make a decision to move back that you are ok with?

And finally, I'm pretty sure there are things I can bring up in threads that will make at least 1/3rd of the readers attack. Would it be better if it was some percent of the opponents instead of all? (Assuming appropriate language and they got.appropriate situational bonuses to will saves).

 

[pemerton]

You want to play a very different game than what I want.

Sure. But that doesn't mean that you get to decide that the fiction of my game involves supernatural events, when I'm expressly telling you that they're not. They're just circumstances of this person making these other people really angry.

I mean, maybe someone doesn't like Fast and Furious 6 or 7 because they think stopping tanks and planes with cars, using cars to catch people who are flying through the air, parachuting cars onto a mountain highway, or jumping a car from skyscraper to skyscraper, is silly or unrealistic. That doesn't mean that those films are really about magical cars.

 

[pemerton]

What people mean is something like: "Unless this is supernatural compulsion this ability creates fiction that is implausible and stupid."

OK. They could say that, then. It would identify what the actual issue is.

 

[Cadence]

Sure. But that doesn't mean that you get to decide that the fiction of my game involves supernatural events, when I'm expressly telling you that they're not. They're just circumstances of this person making these other people really angry.

I mean, maybe someone doesn't like Fast and Furious 6 or 7 because they think stopping tanks and planes with cars, using cars to catch people who are flying through the air, parachuting cars onto a mountain highway, or jumping a car from skyscraper to skyscraper, is silly or unrealistic. That doesn't mean that those films are really about magical cars.

Is it fair to say they aren't realistically portraying things that could happen in our world?

(Insert something now about those not liking it projecting our world into the fictional world of the movie to some extent or another.)

I guess a recent one for me is folks who liked the movie Sisu until the second to last scene. On the one hand, why draw the line there. On the other we probably all draw the line somewhere.

Even compared to a lot of things in Looney Tunes...

 

[Thomas Shey]

People being sloppy on their arguments, especially when they make such an argument that speaks to an "objective" fact that is anything but, is entirely on them. I would expect and have had people call me out when my own arguments are flawed.

The person you responded to didn't make an argument; they made a statement.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Don't get me wrong, I love PF2e, but it is extremely gamist, and some of its greatest virtues (tight balance, engaging combat, rewarding team play, easier encounter tuning) are a direct result of this.

But it also manifests in things like leveled equipment, which seemingly do not exist anywhere in the world.. until the PCs are at a level appropriate to recieve them.

Not entirely true; its just assumed to trail off in availability outside of areas that level appropriate. But then, those are also the places that have monsters up to the challenge of the PCs. Once you're going to deal with the idea of "appropriate challenges", one isn't that much odder than the other. At least you don't have the Starfinder thing of a PC having to be of a particular level to use a particular piece of equipment; it'll just likely be hard for them to find them.

But, while I think it's fair to say that the design ethos for PF2e is "game first", most of my experience with PF2e has been that, with few exceptions, the mechanics in place are there to give players more agency over their interactions with the world. They are (mostly in my experience) mechanics tied to fiction.

Well, honestly, gamist mechanics often do give players more agency; whether or not they match up with the fiction is a separate question.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The problem as I see it is that the rules are complex, numerous, player-facing, and mandatory. IMO, most of the rules should be on the GM side, so the players don't have a ton to parse and remember unless they play something that requires it.

Actually, there's tons of PF2e rules players don't need to know. There's also a lot they do, but most of those are related to what particular class they're playing. About the only thing really generic to all characters are either things that are true in every D&D version (how AC and damage works) or the action consumption process--and any game with a detailed action distinction requires that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There are two things I don't get about this.

(1) The ability only creates fiction when it is used. The notion of "allowed to be used" only applies in the real world, as a fact about the relationships between the participants in the game and their collective creation of a shared fiction. It's not a notion that has any meanning within the fiction.

(2) The ability clearly intends - by its reference to insult - that the event that occurs, in the fiction, is one that occurs via ordinary psychological processes (namely, the enemy, being insulted, is goaded into attacking). You may think that's a terrible fiction, but that doesn't mean the fiction is about something other than what it is about.

I'll give some concrete examples from a RPG I play that is not D&D. In the Prince Valiant RPG, a player can sometimes gain the ability to use a "Special Effect". One of those effects is Kill a Foe in Combat:

Any enemy, whether newly made or long known, can be destroyed with this Special Effect, guaranteed, as long as the selected character is armed and capable of serious offensive action. The character must be in combat with the chosen foe at the moment, and not in a disadvantageous situation (surrounded by enemies, injured, his back turned to the enemy). The selected character makes an attack, and the attack is miraculously successful, killing the foe instantly.​

By your measure, this ability must be supernatural because it is "unrealistic" that the knight in question can kill anyone or anything. But it is not. I can tell you that this ability has been used twice in my campaign. The first time, the character whose player used it was jousting with a much more puissant knight. The PC's lance splintered, and a sliver of wood flew through the visor of the NPC knight and killed him. The second time, the character whose player used it (the same character and the same player) was in the water fighting a giant crocodile. He was able to swim beneath it (a successful Brawn + Agility check was made, which ensured that the character was not "in a disadvantageous situation") and stab it in its soft underbelly.

Both those events, although improbable and perhaps even miraculous, occurred through ordinary physical causation. Neither was supernatural.

Another Special Effect is Incite Lust:

This Special Effect makes one character’s primary thoughts turn to lust for another character of the opposite sex. The user of the Special Effect may select any two characters, even Adventurers, as the lustful party and as the object of desire. The emotion is permanent.​

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The current Storyteller will have to make a ruling as to how the lustful character behaves. If the lustful character is an Adventurer, the controlling player decides how lust affects his character. A Storyteller may veto the controlling player’s wishes only if the intended behavior is unrealistic.​

​

If this Special Effect is used to permit one character to dominate another, common sense and logic should be used. The character will not jump off a cliff for the object of his lust, nor will he necessarily wish to marry her. This can be a cruel Special Effect to use, especially if the object of lust is unattainable.​

In our game, a NPC had this Special Effect (with herself as the object of longing) and I as GM declared its use on the same PC as killed the NPC knight and the crocodile. It occurred when the PC rescued the NPC from attacking knights, swinging down on a rope from the castle wall and taking her in his arms. Naturally, hilarity ensued - but the point of the example is that nothing supernatural happened in the fiction. The PC becoming infatuated and obsessed with this NPC (to an extent that seriously threatened his marriage) was a result of purely ordinary human interaction and the attendant psychology.

The ability that @MuhVerisimilitude has suggested is just like these ones: it is a "special effect" that the player can use, which establishes that a certain thing happens in the fiction (ie the goaded enemies attack the character). That event is not a supernatural one.

Prince Valiant is not any version of D&D, not even 4e (which is probably closest). In a game with those design parameters, an ability like that is fine. I am not ok with it in D&D because, yes, the fiction is terrible, and to me the fiction should inform the mechanics as much as possible.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What people mean is something like: "Unless this is supernatural compulsion this ability creates fiction that is implausible and stupid."

Thank you. That's it in a nutshell.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Until the ability is actually used in play we have not idea what the situations even are in which the goading and attacking occur.

When they do occur, the ability itself tells us that they are not supernatural.

Again, the fact that you don't like them as fiction doesn't mean they suddenly become stories about supernatural things occurring.

It does mean I don't want it in my game, because I can't see that effect as anything but supernatural. So to me that ability misrepresents itself as mundane.