D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I have made no comment on this terminology. I understand what it intends to convey. But referring back to Gygax, he certainly understood that players are distinct from and have interests and agendas that go beyond playing in character. I suspect that the sorts of immersion you advocate for would not be things he'd have cared much about.

No skin off my nose. I met him once, and he seemed like a nice guy, but I'm not beholden to his teachings.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Dragons and undead both generate supernatural effects. That's what we were talking about.

Do they? In Chainmail dragons simply had a bad effect on morale, much like heavy cavalry charging you. D&D included that rule, but it is never described as supernatural, certainly not in AD&D. Dragons are just scary as heck!

 

[Bedrockgames]

I wasn't agency. I was addressing @Faolyn 's this would not fly commentary (which seems very normative) when what flies differs from game to game.

Sorry, I misunderstood the context of that post

 

[Faolyn]

Did you read the context of what happened? The character was in no way expecting to have gather up spilled blood from a freshly murdered corpse.

Yes, I read it.

The context of this particular exchange was if the player knew in advance that they would need blood.

 

[Faolyn]

Oh...BW is a Luke Crane game? Well then, this conversation has taken a dark turn.
slowly backs away

?

 

[Faolyn]

That explains why I don't remember it. Another reason not to move to 5.5.

See, I don't even mind the idea that a lion could cause fear with its roar. Lion roars are scary and can be heard up to five miles away! But then I'd want there to be a rule that rangers and druids are immune or have advantage since they understand big cats better and know how to mollify them. They'd be like those park rangers that have lions coming over to nuzzle and snuggle them. And that would lead to the exception either being put in the class write-up, leading to people being upset at this extra bonus, or the exception being put into the creature stats, which would lead to "why are rangers and druids immune to a lion's roar but not <insert other beast that causes fear>, and then someone invents savannah elves or PC wemics and wants them to be immune, but we're back to inserted ability being OP, and the whole thing would be a mess.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

?

I'm assuming it's a reference to the Perfect RPG Kickstarter and Crane trying to backdoor Adam Koebel back into public on the back of others' reputations. Which was not great.

Edit to add: clarification added regarding actual events.

 

[Lanefan]

And if your core priority is "simulating real life" rather than "rolling when stakes are raised", it would make sense to do so.

"Simulating real life" isn't the priority in this game.

If the mundane non-fantastical elements in the fiction don't work at least vaguely like real life then how the bleep is anyone supposed to engage with that fiction with any granularity?

Unless the assumption is that mundane non-fantastical elements will be ignored until-unless they become important, at which point they'll be diced for (or, in the case of equipment slots in BitD, quasi-retconned in).

Personally, I'd like to be able to have my in-character pre-planning have a lot more to say about my ultimate success or failure than that; if I have the right gear (in the blood-gathering case, a vial and a cloth or sponge) because I thought ahead to bring the right gear then I should pretty much auto-succeed in both my task (gather the blood) and intent (deliver it to whoever it is that wants it), where if I blew my preparations and didn't bring the right gear then I'm (potentially*) screwed: the blood's been spilled and now I can't deliver it to anyone. And if the game rules don't allow for this kind of preparation detail that's a fatal bug, not a feature.

* - in the latter case, where I didn't have that equipment on me, IMO the GM is being generous by giving me a chance to overcome my in-character error via a roll to see if there happens to be anything there that I can scoop the blood into.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, the 2014 rules were a holdover from TSR days. Orcs are occasionally the enemy in my games but it's not simply because they're orcs.

Better if they'd just left it at Giants a la 1e and stopped there.

 

[Faolyn]

Yea, and people choosing to follow those beliefs shows agency. The imaginary figure is not exerting any agency.

That's not what was originally said:

Just to be clear - are you saying that imaginary things (like the Elven Lady Galadriel, or the Easter Bunny, or the Millenium Falcon) have real causal effects in the world?

Obviously, Santa isn't actually going around delivering presents and Slender Man isn't really telling people to kill their schoolmates, but belief in their existence has real causal effects on the world. If the idea of a being who gives gifts to good little children had never been invented, then children wouldn't start behaving really well during a particular month of a year.