D&D 5E [+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap

[Micah Sweet]

If we're going to air forum grievances, I'm a little tired of the assertion that being fiction or narrative focused means you don't value consistency and verisimiltude.

My play style has evolved to be more fiction focused precisely because I think orienting the game around extrapolation of the setting from the rules constructs is damaging to both consistency and verisimilitude.

Fiction (by which I mean the in-universe reality) focused and narrative (by which I mean pertaining to creating a good story) focused are two very different things to me.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sure that's true for some. I'm not a big fan of anime, and if I were I would treat it like the story it is.

I didn't mean to imply dueling fandoms, but RL beliefs. And, it's just an aside. If D&D were concerned with being respectful, it'd have to think about how to approach things like that, rather just retreading the 70s Remo William/Quai Chang Kane style Monk, and just generally continuing on it's, as long as it's selling, s'all good, way...

Fiction (by which I mean the in-universe reality)

fictional reality is just a little bit of an oxymoron, tho....
OT1H, yeah, I get it, you have a fictional setting, a set of assumptions, they define a hypothetical, un-real setting that is arbitrarily dictated by the author, there may not be a better, concise, way of expressing such a backdrop.
OTOH, it's not a reality, in any meaningful sense of the word, and anything about actual reality only has sway there via the same author force that makes it un-real.

 

[TwoSix]

Fiction (by which I mean the in-universe reality) focused and narrative (by which I mean pertaining to creating a good story) focused are two very different things to me.

And neither of which discard consistency or verisimilitude. They simply expect it be managed by the participants, not the rules constructs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I didn't mean to imply dueling fandoms, but RL beliefs. And, it's just an aside. If D&D were concerned with being respectful, it'd have to think about how to approach things like that, rather just retreading the 70s Remo William/Quai Chang Kane style Monk, and just generally continuing on it's, as long as it's selling, s'all good, way...

fictional reality is just a little bit of an oxymoron, tho....
OT1H, yeah, I get it, you have a fictional setting, a set of assumptions, they define a hypothetical, un-real setting that is arbitrarily dictated by the author, there may not be a better, concise, way of expressing such a backdrop.
OTOH, it's not a reality, in any meaningful sense of the word, and anything about actual reality only has sway there via the same author force that makes it un-real.

OT1H is all I care about in the context of the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And neither of which discard consistency or verisimilitude. They simply expect it be managed by the participants, not the rules constructs.

I want rules help with fiction, and no rules help with narrative. At all, if possible.

 

[Tony Vargas]

OT1H is all I care about in the context of the game.

I'm sorry, all I acknowledged there, was that it was an understandable choice of words.

In the context of the thread, tho, the fact that any "fictional reality" is entirely arbitrary, dictated by the author of the fiction, be that designer, DM, or DM-player collaboration, it is no impediment whatsoever in finding

[+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap​

Even if we decide we want to hold fictional-reality-sans-magic to real reality parameters, thus capping potential power very low, magic can just be defined, arbitrarily, as low or lower.

 

[mamba]

just because the game turns the dials up a notch or two on what humans are capable of it doesn't make them suddenly completely unfamiliar to us, the answers to those questions will most likely stay the same for all of them.

it's like asking 'can a human be expected to jump across a 20ft gorge?' and being told 'no' but then asking 'can a human in an action movie be expected to jump across a 20ft gorge?' and being told 'oh of course every time'

right, but some in here seem to want to take it much farther than that. As I said, I have no problem with the Fighter being along the lines of Captain America, I expect him to make that jump.

And more importantly, if the rules do not say so, then the implicit assumption is 'they are just like Earth humans' rather than 'anything goes'

 

[TwoSix]

I want rules help with fiction, and no rules help with narrative. At all, if possible.

And that's totally fine, no issues. But having those preferences, AND also valuing consistency and verisimilitude, are not linked in any way and have no dependency on each other.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

And that's a strawman. I don't want to play in a cartoon world where nothing makes any sense. But what I absolutely do not want to do is play in a completely incoherent world where there is no consistency and PCs can be handed a lit stick of dynamite (or explicitly be within a few feet of an entire lit keg of gunpowder (7d6)), Bugs Bunny style, and basically get scorched eyebrows, or they can fall off a Wylie Coyote style cliff and just get up with no broken bones. But at the same time some other random things are being claimed to be "realistic". Even the cartoon world is more coherent than that.

What I actually try and play in is a relatively consistent world using action movie physics rather than real world physics, both for injuries and for the other capabilities of the PCs and NPCs. Setting the entire bar into the middle is the best way I can achieve consistency.

The beauty of it is that a Monk, Rogue or Ranger with the Evasion ability can actually just stand next to a barrel of dynamite and dodge the whole explosion without cover or moving.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sorry, all I acknowledged there, was that it was an understandable choice of words.

In the context of the thread, tho, the fact that any "fictional reality" is entirely arbitrary, dictated by the author of the fiction, be that designer, DM, or DM-player collaboration, it is no impediment whatsoever in finding

[+] Ways to fix the caster / non-caster gap​

Even if we decide we want to hold fictional-reality-sans-magic to real reality parameters, thus capping potential power very low, magic can just be defined, arbitrarily, as low or lower.

I already answered that question. Either go back to the TSR paradigm where casters had real restrictions and fighters were actually best at combat, or use better martial classes.