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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Wikipedia also has John Mclain as John Mclain (character). Does this mean all characters are Jogn Mclain?

Huh? It means that magic IS supernatural, just like John Mclain IS a character! lol. I thought that was kinda obvious.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Huh? It means that magic IS supernatural, just like John Mclain IS a character! lol. I thought that was kinda obvious.

You were replying to me saying magic is supernatural, but not everything is supernatural is magic.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No one has done that.

Except like all the time in this very thread.

 

[FrogReaver]

Except like all the time in this very thread.

Then you are not understanding us.

 

[Oofta]

I brought this same thing up earlier. Didn’t gain much traction.

I seen a few others bring it up in various ways as well.

In short in a game not utilizing narrative mechanics the only remaining explanation for such abilities is supernatural. People are just bad at articulating their objections. Doesn’t mean their objections are invalid.

And yes, insisting others adopt narrative mechanics so they can have the kinds of fighters they want is part of the reason such strong pushback to narrativism gets expressed. It’s not D&D players coming to threads about PbtA games and telling them they should play their game different and adopt d&d style mechanics for their games.

I don't know how many ways there are of saying the same thing, this is a good effort. I want the option to play a PC in D&D that only interacts with the world around them by what they say or what they physically do. Yes, that fighter can kill a giant with a sword but it is still the fighter swinging a sword. Can they sometimes goad people into a fight? Under the right circumstances, sure. Any PC can. But I don't want a set of rules that forces the DM to have the enemy respond in a specific manner unless there's a spell or explicitly supernatural ability involved.

There's this weird slippery slope argument "A fighter can survive X, therefore they should be able to do Y" going around. All I can say is that no game can be everything. If you want a PbtA game, play a PbtA game. It's just not for me and I don't think it fits the niche that D&D targets.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Then you are not understanding us.

No one has claimed that taunting someone to attack you is supernatural?

Despite it being the core argument for twenty pages?

 

[M_Natas]

Then let's clear the taunt ability up so we don't have to bother with that kind of hangup.

Addendum: "Oppressive Taunt: Every enemy within 30 feet who is involved in combat with you or your allies, or who could be reasonably provoked into combat given the circumstances will have to roll a wisdom save. <rest of the rules go here>"

Now the ability is clearly more limited while still being useful in social situations if the GM agrees.

It wouldn't break the game for me but now it is suddenly such a niche rule, that ... that's just a charisma throw. That's what charisma is for.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

The deception skill is not mind control. You do not influence the mind. Your character is doing something (lying) and the NPC makes an insight check against that. It also doesn't prescribe behaviour. Yes, it may think you tell the truth but it doesn’t tell the NPC what to do with that false information.
The same is true with all other non magical abilities.
Yes, you can instill fear, that has some effects, but you don't decide, what the NPC is doing with that fear the same way that the DM is not deciding what you as a player do when your chatacter is frightend.
You can impose conditions non magically that can reduce the options a creature has or you can grant bonuses, butnyou can't decide what the creature is doing.

But they all influence the mind, and characters use what they know to adjust their behavior, so my deception example holds.

If I can convince the barkeeper that there is a fire in his kitchen, he will go do something about that.

The fear example is obviously influencing the mind. This one is particularly interesting because someone else mentioned rational behavior and self preservation. I think it is actually fair to compare against older editions here, and it's worth noting that the old "panicked" condition actually forced the character to run away, disregarding self preservation.

The fact that we can't decide what a creature is doing is only because there are no mechanics to do so, not because there can't be any realistic mechanics that do so.

 

[FrogReaver]

But they all influence the mind, and characters use what they know to adjust their behavior, so my deception example holds.

If I can convince the barkeeper that there is a fire in his kitchen, he will go do something about that.

The fear example is obviously influencing the mind. This one is particularly interesting because someone else mentioned rational behavior and self preservation. I think it is actually fair to compare against older editions here, and it's worth noting that the old "panicked" condition actually forced the character to run away, disregarding self preservation.

The fact that we can't decide what a creature is doing is only because there are no mechanics to do so, not because there can't be any realistic mechanics that do so.

It’s almost as if there’s more to the issue than simply whether an ability influenced an NPCs mind.

Isn’t that exactly what we have been saying?

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

It wouldn't break the game for me but now it is suddenly such a niche rule, that ... that's just a charisma throw. That's what charisma is for.

How is it niche? I created the feature in the beginning to illustrate how difficult it is to add features to this game, because someone will argue that this feature does not belong because it is too much like a feature in a game. And now people are arguing that the feature is unrealistic, so I make sure the feature is explicitly, ridiculously, fundamentally realistic, and now you are saying it doesn't actually DO ANYTHING?

I'm not seeing how it's niche. It's intended for use in combat and it will work in combat unless you have a game master who can't read.

I'm not sure I even understand what your objection IS now. I think you are saying that every game master would allow you a charisma check to taunt all enemies within 30 feet to attack you and you get a free counter attack? Is that it? Because I don't think many GMs would do that. That's why I made it into an ability.