D&D General What does the mundane high level fighter look like? [+]

[TwoSix]

What is important in roleplaying games to me when compared to other games is that they allow representing and inhabiting a fictional reality. So I prioritise that special aspect of these games. There are other games I can play when I don’t care about that.

I think it's true that the vast majority of players recognize and are interested in the sense of "greater inhabitation of the fiction".

Where the conflict often develops is that techniques and methodologies that help one person's sense of "immersion" may actively hinder someone else's. So the interesting question to analyze is "Why does this disconnect occur such that we have contradictory responses to the same technique?"

Secondarily, it's also good to see if some kind of compromise exists, such that players with contradictory responses can both play at the same table. It's also good to attempt to see if that a technique doesn't work for you, maybe the explanation from someone that it does work for might help you understand better their thought process.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Minion rules to me ARE the world and the mechanics being in synch.

What are the purpose of stats? To dictate how different creatures interact. Why should I not adjust those as needed based on the result I’m looking for?

There's your problem right there, and why we'll never agree (and that's ok): the purpose of stats IMO is not to dictate how different creatures interact. It is to mechanically represent a creature in the setting. In order for that representation to be consistent, it can't change based on how powerful its opponent happens to be today.

 

[Minigiant]

Why do you have to homebrew all your monsters?

Because WOTC doesn't print enough monsters and traps to field a typical 5e campaign. Nor do most 3PP.

Lower levels are VAST over represented.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Scaling with character level represents the character getting broadly better at adventuring, particularly the class's abilities.
Enemies being statted as minions represent them being far below the party in general combat ability, and, for whatever reason, fighting all-out against them for a shot at slowing them down or harming them in whatever way they can, consequently leaving themselves open to killing blows, having very fragile morale, or whatever, such that they're easily knocked out of the fight. The exact same enemies, facing a much lower-level parties could be fighting them on equal footing, and represented by standard blocks, or against an even less experienced party, could toy with them, pulling off otherwise low-percentage tricks that'd never work against an equal, as represented by a Solo or Elite stat block.

None of that is actually unrealistic, counter to genre, or bad at representing the world. It's just designed around the actual focus of the game: the PCs.
A detailed simulation of all the factors that make a monster that gave you a terrifying battle by itself when you were just starting out, but now you mow through hordes of them, would be downright prohibitive. D&D has consistently failed in giving one set of stats that actually deliver a powerful 1-vs-party threat at low level, and a credible threat at mid level, and then a trivially dispatched but not trivial, threat at high level. It's not impossible, it'd just require a lot of detail, different-level combat maneuvers, rules for toying with lesser enemies, or making desperate attack against greater ones, overwhelming situational modifiers, etc, etc....

As above, that might work, in a far more detailed and nuanced simulation. One not, for instance, limited to the flat distribution curve of the d20.

Aside from 'fictional reality' being a bit of an oxymoron, fictional settings aren't that consistent - particularly, not that kind of consistent. All orcs using the same stat blocks isn't consistency, it's a simplification for playability. A representation of 'the world' where the orcs aren't existentially mooks and the PCs not Heroes, would have each orc unique and modeled in the same level of detail as a PC. When the PCs encounter a particularly bad-ass orc leader at first level and he nearly takes them down single-handed, then, later, having undergone rapid leveling, the PCs take him on again, he wouldn't, if the game were faithfully modeling some imaginary objective reality, have the same stats, maybe the orc wouldn't have had as much experience as the PCs in the meantime, but time as passed and he may have gained a level or switched to different gear or picked up a new trick or even have something he's been working on in hopes of a rematch...

Ultimately, a TTRPG is a game, not a simulation. And whether the DM wants to focus on challenging the players, craft a story that the players hve staring (or secondary) roles in, or present a world for the players to explore, it all happens through the PCs, making them the focal point, if not the focus. Even if the PCs aren't the whole point, they're the point of view.

To me and my simulationist friends, the PCs are the point of view, and their actions affect the world, but the world is the focus. Your view is just as subjective and personal as mine. It has no objective existence. Please stop pretending it does.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because WOTC doesn't print enough monsters and traps to field a typical 5e campaign. Nor do most 3PP.

Lower levels are VAST over represented.

Sorry, I was taking your statement literally when you meant it in a much more limited way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's not design goals. I mean, it's little more than a tautology.
A game is a game should not be controversial.
I can't think of an RPG that doesn't have PCs or doesn't have the players assume the roles of those PCs.

That D&D is a game doesn't make the statements you based on that objectively true.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That D&D is a game doesn't make the statements you based on that objectively true.

Is "D&D is a game" not objectively true?
Is "Players in an RPG assume the role of characters" not objectively true? Have you ever run a D&D game where the player do not play characters?
How, given those facts, do you avoid the conclusion that players experience the imagined world of the game through the characters?

To me and my simulationist friends, the PCs are the point of view, and their actions affect the world, but the world is the focus.

So, certainly, to us when we're imagining a setting for a campaign, the rules may act as a language or add consistency to that world-creation experience, from out point of view. (And, full disclosure, I am much more into creating a setting & situations than 'telling a story' - just my personal talent/preference, I'm not some keen observer of the human condition who can write great stories).
But, when we run the game, the players experience it from the PC point of view. That point of view, like every PoV, is relative. Everything the players experience is relative to the PCs. Doubly so if you're down with establishing immersion.

So, while a rule that models a bit of the world in an absolute sense may be convenient for world building, unless it's a very detailed and nuanced mechanic, it might do a poor job of helping the player have the intended experience of that bit of the world. While a rule that models that bit of the world relative to the PC, might very well convey the experience better.

 

[Pedantic]

That's not design goals. I mean, it's little more than a tautology.
A game is a game should not be controversial.
I can't think of an RPG that doesn't have PCs or doesn't have the players assume the roles of those PCs.

First off, the "it's a game" thing has nothing to do with this. I can conceive of a gameplay loop where it's essential that NPC objects are consistent, precisely because the point is to leverage their traits for success. There's nothing intrinsic about design or gameplay that validates your position. What you're actually asserting is that it does not matter by what mechanical process an outcome is achieved, so long as that outcome is the desired result. The counter argument is that the experience of the game is influenced not only by the outcome, but by the process.

Secondly, we have not come to agreement on what the desired gameplay loop and/or mechanical goal of the rules is. I'm all about presenting a consistent fictional world that can be interacted with in known, pre-established ways. It would be a violation of the whole premise to have multiple presentations of the same object in the setting, because it breaks the knowability of those interactions; I could take the same action at different times and get different results.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Like...

People realize that the Ogre minion isn't literally the regular ogre getting demoted, right?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Like...

People realize that the Ogre minion isn't literally the regular ogre getting demoted, right?

No? I mean it is just the same ogre, but for arbitrary gamey reasons it is represented by different stats. Thus objective stats for representing the ogre no longer exist.