D&D General The Importance of Verisimilitude (or "Why you don't need realism to keep it real")

[Micah Sweet]

Why bother with mundane classes if they're strictly inferior? The point is that balance is necessary, and that if there's any desire for V-tude, limiting how good non-magical player options can be, the workable solution is to tune magical options to balance with them. That they could as easily be intentionally imbalanced low to make playing a caster a woeful sacrifice, is just making the point.

More philosophically, even the most trivial magic could mean something in a given setting, or have a very specific use woven into a plot. If, IRL, you could prove that you could levitate match sticks, you would be an international celebrity and drive physicists crazy.

Every version of D&D had casters and non-casters, all had some degree of balance between them, and all were workable games that some people enjoyed (even to the point of financial success, although I don't really care about that). How much balance is actually necessary seems rather relative.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So if you want to increase the verisimilitude in D&D, are you better off rewriting the lore or the mechanics?

If verisimilitude is THAT important go you, you could play a game that was built ground up to support it. Like GURPS!

 

[Pedantic]

Why bother with mundane classes if they're strictly inferior? The point is that balance is necessary, and that if there's any desire for V-tude, limiting how good non-magical player options can be, the workable solution is to tune magical options to balance with them. That they could as easily be intentionally imbalanced low to make playing a caster a woeful sacrifice, is just making the point.

More philosophically, even the most trivial magic could mean something in a given setting, or have a very specific use woven into a plot. If, IRL, you could prove that you could levitate match sticks, you would be an international celebrity and drive physicists crazy.

Well now it feels weirdly like we're talking past each other. If you invert the tone, I could have written this post.

To answer the implied question; I don't think there's much desire to move away from pretty high impact magic, except ironically in the same set of people who both really want a fighter present, and have a pretty exclusive model of what a mundane character class does. That, and modern fantasy just doesn't actually have a strong magic/non-magic divide. If you're writing a fantasy novel that has systemic magic at all, it's either going to be universal (all people can learn to draw in essence, you can focus it internally or externally, the greatest duelists use essence to move faster than the eye can see) or the relationship between magic and the individual is a significant plot point. There frankly isn't often a clear dichotomy between "magic-user" and "warrior," except in how one goes about invoking effects.

 

[Alzrius]

I mean, you could keep asking to define words in a definition indefinitely...

It's not indefinite, but rather until there's a practical aspect to be taken into account, rather than an aspirational one. (The kicker, naturally, being that you can't really attach a practical definition with universal application to a comparative state of options available to characters in a game that has little-to-no hard-and-fast situational parameters and anything can be attempted.)

Meaningful obviously sounds like a subjective element. A choice might seem meaningful to one player, but not to another. It's perhaps less important in designing a balanced system.

Viability is more straightforward. Does making the choice harm your fellow players' chances of succeeding in the cooperative game? Is it less-contributing than an equally-weighted alternative?

I disagree that viability is straightforward, here, because even if we leave aside the issues of how you quantitatively measure the chances of success (which are, at best, an issue of dice probabilities), there's even less ways of applying a metric to "less-contributing" and "equally-weighted."

The point which I'm trying to make here is that this is a rabbit hole which, similar to the prospect of some sort of immersive verisimilitude which appears to be tantalizingly close if only we add just a few more options, can't be achieved. Or at least, can't be achieved in any objective sense; personal satisfaction is the best there is.

Chess is a very well-balanced game, but if your opponent is Gary Kasparov, then despite having an equal number of pieces of equal capability, he'll still dominate the game. That's not a perfect analogy for a cooperative game, but I'm of the opinion that the central conceit remains true: that while balance in principle of design isn't unimportant, the bulk of its application depends entirely on the particulars of any given game session, which isn't something the rulebooks can mandate.

In that regard (and to bring things back around on topic), I think that verisimilitude is an answer to the problem of balance, because it presents a rational counterpoint in explaining why that balance isn't attainable, nor necessary to the quality of the game. From the way(s) that magic works on down through the reasons the party finds themselves in a particular scenario, the immersive quality offers a satisfactory explanation for why one character might have more options than another right now, and that's okay.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well now it feels weirdly like we're talking past each other. If you invert the tone, I could have written this post.

lol, that is a danger of the medium.

To answer the implied question; I don't think there's much desire to move away from pretty high impact magic

That certainly seems true in the D&D community.

Bringing magic down any notches at all seems unthinkable.
Dragging 'mundane' options up to match also seems a pretty hard sell.

But there's nothing about the idea of the magical or supernatural that demands, or even remotely supports, those attitudes.

That, and modern fantasy just doesn't actually have a strong magic/non-magic divide. If you're writing a fantasy novel that has systemic magic at all, it's either going to be universal (all people can learn to draw in essence, you can focus it internally or externally, the greatest duelists use essence to move faster than the eye can see) or the relationship between magic and the individual is a significant plot point. There frankly isn't often a clear dichotomy between "magic-user" and "warrior," except in how one goes about invoking effects.

Fair. But, just another way D&D doesn't model genre.

 

[Cadence]

Fair. But, just another way D&D doesn't model genre.

Is "D&D" (ot D&D and its penumbra) a genre in itself?

 

[Tony Vargas]

In that regard (and to bring things back around on topic), I think that verisimilitude is an answer to the problem of balance, because it presents a rational counterpoint in explaining why that balance isn't attainable, nor necessary to the quality of the game. From the way(s) that magic works on down through the reasons the party finds themselves in a particular scenario, the immersive quality offers a satisfactory explanation for why one character might have more options than another right now, and that's okay.

Thank you for your honesty.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is "D&D" (ot D&D and its penumbra) a genre in itself?

D&D has been so bad at modeling genre for so long that it's defined a self-referent sub-genre, that, tautologically, it models perfectly.

 

[Cadence]

D&D has been so bad at modeling genre for so long that it's defined a self-referent sub-genre, that, tautologically, it models perfectly.

It feels like there is an obvious quip that those disliking 5e could make with that and part of one of the alignment axes...

 

[Tony Vargas]

I disagree that viability is straightforward, here, because even if we leave aside the issues of how you quantitatively measure the chances of success (which are, at best, an issue of dice probabilities), there's even less ways of applying a metric to "less-contributing" and "equally-weighted."

Class is a clear example of an equally weighted choice. Every player picks one class at first level. There is no 'cost' to choosing one over the other.

Less-contributing is likewise quantifiable. What abilities do you bring to the party? What resources? Do they synergize with others in any way. The can be quite complex, but they're not unknowable.

Chances of success can be estimated. That's what the CR guidelines try to do, they're just terrible at it - in large part, because the classes are so imbalanced that party composition can cause large swings in how capable they are. Prior editions have done better.