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

[Micah Sweet]

Incidentally, there are plenty more not D&D games that do what YOU want. Also, you can option stuff like that if you insist on adding real world realism to the game. In fact, this was Gary Gygax’s advice back in 1978.

Sure, but there are games in the D&D family that do what I want, and I can add rules to the others to make them do more of what I want. You're welcome to do the same. Play 4e, or mod 5e to your liking. That's what I do.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If you want them to fight, they need to be tougher. D&D is an action RPG. 80% of the rules are in support of combat.
Of course there are RPGs with "weak" characters who can be easily killed like us mere mortals. But these are not D&D.

So what? Some of them fight regularly, and even fight things not uncomparable to what D&D characters do. They just don't get hit as often or as hard.

Big piles of hit points are not the only model for survivability. Thinking it is is amazing tunnel vision.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is how I feel about attempts to making the game more "realistic."

And we're both welcome to feel how we feel. That's all any of this is in the end.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I will agree that I would not like it if an NPC ability with this ability forced me to attack them.

But I don't believe there is anything in the D&D rules to suggest that the existence of a character class ability means that NPCs can use that ability against PCs. Sure, an "NPCs with character levels are perfectly possible" but they don't (as far as I'm aware) exist as an official thing.

Why not? What makes PCs different?

 

[mamba]

High level melee fighters are not hiding in air vents from "mercenary no 5" and "unnamed lackey with machete". They are running toward them by the most direct path, slicing them down and then running past their corpses, again by the most direct path, to the hulking fire lizard beyond.

This just isn't 80's action heroes' brand of combat, and, in my opinion, we should stop acting like it should be.

you were the one proposing McLane, if you do not like him as an example, then propose someone else and see if we consider them a good representation of a 5e fighter

 

[billd91]

Again, somewhat begging the question.

Let's ask it this way. Whose experiences are likely to be more similar to those of a D&D fighter?

Wolverine, Thor, and Captain America
OR..
Robin Hood, James Bond, and John McLain

The latter 3 plus Captain America. Wolverine might come close to being a troll fighter if his radical regeneration wasn't stopped by being burned. And Thor - yeah, well beyond the reach of a fighter who isn't born an Aesir with an incredibly sweet bunch of magic items and a DM's writ to be a divinity.

 

[M_Natas]

They're characters.

In a game.

Who exist only to serve the experience of the players.

But you need the illusion that they are real.
It is not fun to engage with Game Mechanic NPC 721, it is fun to interact with Grodi the Goblin Marauder.
So everything that is done to NPCs by players needs to be supported by the ingame fiction.
Narrative controlling player facing rules that can override ingamr fiction are laying the game mechanics bare. It's like seeing the Boom Mic and the green screen in a fantasy movie. It destroys the experience for a lot of people.

They never had free will. They aren't people. They're tools to tell a story. A DM shouldn't get bent out of shape by a game element let the players made some decisions for those tools because they also aren't the DM's characters.

And it shouldn't matter how the players gets a hand on those tools. In fact, it's worse to set it up so only a chosen few special players get to use those tools. 'It's magic' shouldn't be a plot coupon that let's you experience the game in just a flat out better way than other players who made the mistake of wanting to play the dashing, powerful hero that certain people want to disallow.

Declaring 'immersion' only when it disenfranchises certain players is not cool.

It is always that certain classes have different abilities. Fighters are good at fighting. Rogues good at Sneaking and thieving and Wizards are good at magic.
Every class as different abilities to influence the game in different ways.
And the tool to compell NPCs (and even players) to do something very specific is magic. And in D&D every character can get their hands on magic. Command and Sugegstion can be get by magic initiate feat for example.
And the fighters gets so many feats, if that is an ability you wanna have, you can get that feat.
But one character not having all the tools available is the quintessence of having classes.
D&D is not a classless game or society. Not having one specific tool is not a bad thing.
If you want to play a certain type of fighter, 5e has the subclass for you. Compell people - I think an Eldritch Knight can do that. Not sure about the spell list right now.
A Paladin can do it definitely.

You complaing that a fighter can't mind control NPC and bend reality of the world by normal speaking as something unfair is like somebody complaing that it is unfair that a Wizard is not very good at Meele fighting.
That's by design!

 

[M_Natas]

So what? Some of them fight regularly, and even fight things not uncomparable to what D&D characters do. They just don't get hit as often or as hard.

Big piles of hit points are not the only model for survivability. Thinking it is is amazing tunnel vision.

Of course there are other ways, but making characters super tough is done often. From Counter Strike to like 95% of any shooter to a lot of RPGs from Fallout to Skyrim to JRPGs ...

 

[Bill Zebub]

Why not? What makes PCs different?

Because WotC-published NPCs don't have character levels.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Of course there are other ways, but making characters super tough is done often. From Counter Strike to like 95% of any shooter to a lot of RPGs from Fallout to Skyrim to JRPGs ...

You realize that a huge number of modern computer games are derived from D&D, right?

And the point is still, no, you don't have to make characters superhumanly tough to make them survivable. That's just a method OD&D did as a simple derivative from some miniatures games and has carried down out of heritage. Acting like its the only method that allows characters to act heroic is, simply, wrong.