D&D 4E 4e and reality

[pemerton]

In order to satisfy the condition that "Every mechanic in the game has to have a fictional explanation," we first have to specify what kinds of 'explanations' are permissible.

If any self-consistent explanation is permissible, then (at least as I see it) it's usually trivial to come up with explanations of just about anything

I agree with the last quoted sentence, but prefer explanations that are come up with moment-by-moment rather than trying to get a general theory of what hp are, what marking is, etc. This helps me preserve "common sense".

OK, but what does "require" mean? I'd say the only definition of require that makes sense here is that if you cannot supply such a description then the action cannot take place. Sort of like "If you can't tell me how you grab the swarm then you can't grab it."

<snip>

The "just use the RAW and don't go down that path" camp basically seems to be saying that it is in some fashion unfair to the players to tinker with their resources and could unbalance the game. The "fiction is paramount" camp says that a game which ignores the fiction is basically gussed up Monopoly.

Well, I more-or-less agree with both the quoted paragraphs. The implication of this is that I feel it's part of my job, as GM, to help the players tell a story about what's going on in the fiction, if they can't think of something themselves.

In my game, for example, I have a multiclassed cutthroat who uses Bluff as a minor action every encounter to get Stealth. The playe of that PC always says what's going on in the gameworld when he uses that power. It's often pretty gonzo, but I regard that as part and parcel of D&D.

I have another player whose fighter uses footwork lure and come and get it. He's not very good at coming up with a story about what's happening in the fiction, so when he uses those powers I tend to supply a story via my own GM narration. For the sort of game LostSoul is running with his hack this wouldn't work, because I'm removing the challenge to the player by helping out. But in my group it seems to work fine.

Personally in my actual play of RPGs I don't care much about all this theory.

I agree with this, to the extent that mostly I find there's no need to think about these theoretical things at the table. Still, I feel that talking about them here, and reading things like Vincent Bakers blog post, has improved my GMing and therefore my game.

And it's also kind of interesting in it's own right!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with the last quoted sentence, but prefer explanations that are come up with moment-by-moment rather than trying to get a general theory of what hp are, what marking is, etc. This helps me preserve "common sense".

I figure for the most part what hp mean is of interest to the players. They can invent ways. I've suggested a few.

Well, I more-or-less agree with both the quoted paragraphs. The implication of this is that I feel it's part of my job, as GM, to help the players tell a story about what's going on in the fiction, if they can't think of something themselves.

In my game, for example, I have a multiclassed cutthroat who uses Bluff as a minor action every encounter to get Stealth. The playe of that PC always says what's going on in the gameworld when he uses that power. It's often pretty gonzo, but I regard that as part and parcel of D&D.

I have another player whose fighter uses footwork lure and come and get it. He's not very good at coming up with a story about what's happening in the fiction, so when he uses those powers I tend to supply a story via my own GM narration. For the sort of game LostSoul is running with his hack this wouldn't work, because I'm removing the challenge to the player by helping out. But in my group it seems to work fine.

I have a practical approach to this. If the player isn't going to tell the story then I have a choice to just ignore it and leave nothing but the purely mechanics to tell the story or pick up the slack. The players RP adequately. It is up to THEM how much of it they want to do. I don't set the style of the game any more than they do. This is why a good sandbox works well. You want to have a horror theme? Well, just dance on over here to yon Woods of Terror! Want a nice dungeon crawl? I got JUST the lost dwarf city for you!

I agree with this, to the extent that mostly I find there's no need to think about these theoretical things at the table. Still, I feel that talking about them here, and reading things like Vincent Bakers blog post, has improved my GMing and therefore my game.

And it's also kind of interesting in it's own right![/QUOTE]

I guess it must be interesting if we're doing it?

 

[Hussar]

Backing up a little about the idea of the Monopoly RPG. Now, 100% agreed that Monopoly is not an RPG as written. No one will disagree with that I think. But, can it be one with a minimum of fuss? IMO, yes.

The problem with the lines in the picture above is that they ignore one fundamental fact - the dice in the game drive the narrative, not the other way around. This is something that gets skipped over many times when we're talking about this sort of thing. The effect has to be resolved first, before the narrative is applied, otherwise we might as well free-form.

The dice in Monopoly dictate that you will move X squares every turn. Thus, your narrative has to justify this move, not the other way around. It's no different than the player has to narrate a hit or a miss AFTER the attack, not before. A player cannot say, "I cleave him in twain" roll the dice and miss.

Well, he can, but, now the narrative is totally divorced from the events in the game.

So, in Monopoly, if we want to play it as an RPG, the player has to accept that every turn, he will move and then take the direction of his or her role play from that move. He lands on his own property and has a good night's sleep. He rolls three doubles and get's caught in a hotel room with hookers and blow. Rolls a double on the next turn and his lawyer gets him off without so much as a warning.

Narrative has to come after results are known, not before.

 

[LostSoul]

The problem with the lines in the picture above is that they ignore one fundamental fact - the dice in the game drive the narrative, not the other way around. This is something that gets skipped over many times when we're talking about this sort of thing. The effect has to be resolved first, before the narrative is applied, otherwise we might as well free-form.

The way I like to picture it is as a positive feedback loop:

Situation (influences) -> Fictional Action (influences) -> Mechanical Resolution (changes) -> Situation (influences) -> Fictional Action (influences) -> Mechanical Resolution (changes) -> Situation, etc.

(The Situation is both mechanical and fictional. There are Orcs (fiction); they are Bloodthirsty (fiction); they have 20 HP and 15 AC (mechanical); they are standing 100 Feet (fiction) away, giving your crossbows a -2 To Hit (mechanical) on a Ledge (fiction) that grants them Cover (mechanical).)

If you make the Fictional Action - the narration, description, colour, flavour, whatever you want to call it - take place after the Mechanical Resolution, it doesn't feed into the loop; it doesn't change the Situation. You can take it out of the cycle.

A player cannot say, "I cleave him in twain" roll the dice and miss.

Well, he can, but, now the narrative is totally divorced from the events in the game.

Traditionally the assumption is that the player is saying "I try to" before the description, but without that I agree with you.

 

[LostSoul]

Let's consider a hypothetical game "D+D X". The D+D X combat system works like this in brief outline:

Not a big fan of that sort of system because - as I see it - it takes away chances for the players (including the DM) to inject their own creative contributions into play. The designers have already done all that work for you.

That's why I'm not a big fan of 3E's approach to Sneak Attack.

 

[LostSoul]

It all depends on what you want to get out of things.

Quoted out of context because this is important - yes, exactly. I have my preferences, and I like to argue for them. (And it seems they change over time!) The rest of your post is good and I can only reply to say what I'd like to see in a game.

If, OTOH, the flavour has to be set in stone beforehand, you wind up with the situation where every power becomes situational. The rogue can't backstab undead. Can you "trip" a flying creature? Can you, indeed, grapple a swarm?

Yes, exactly! That's the kind of thing I like to see. It requires the people playing the game to make judgement calls; it makes it really important who you play with.

In a game that's as social as D&D, I think that's really important. For me, at least.

I also think there are important implications for immersion, but I don't really understand what immersion means, so I haven't thought too much about that. Maybe that's what I'm talking about.

Which brings me to my second objection. When options are specific and situational, two things, IME, happen. First, general will always trump specific. Sure, in that special situation you might rule, but, because the player has no real control over the situation, that special ability is just so much wasted ink. So, players being fairly smart, will choose vanilla options over specific options just so they know their choices will come into play.

Secondly, you create endless corner cases because the specified description can't possibly cover all situations. You trip by sweeping the legs. Ok, how many legs? Can I trip a giant spider? Carrion Crawler? Yuan-Ti? So on and so forth. It tends to cause all sorts of disagreements at the table because no one can agree whether something should apply or not.

1. You'd probably have to allow players to pick and choose what kinds of encounters they get into. "All my powers are good against people and humanoids; I don't really want to go fight dinosaurs."

2. You'd also need to make sure there was a rule that said that the DM is the final arbiter of all of these judgement calls. Disagreements would be against the rules.

Dogs in the Vineyard has a rule like this; whoever doesn't like the invocation of a trait can overrule it.

This could get messed up if there are dicks in play; don't play with dicks, you can't make rules that stop that. What's more, though, is that you're not going to like everyone's judgement calls. That's fine, find people you do want to play with.

The two approaches have strengths and weaknesses. The Flavour approach gains flexibility - the DM can apply it based on his own judgement. But, it loses out on consistency and predictability. The Mechanical approach loses flexibility. You might have pretty ridiculous situations (tripping a Gelantinous Cube) that are allowable by the mechanics. But, you gain predictability and consistency at the table. The players know what to expect when they try to use an ability.

Yep, well said. I do think that it's better the more influence the specific people you're playing with have over the game - the more choices, decisions, and judgement calls people can make - but I could be wrong, and there's no way to prove that. It's an opinion and the opposite is just as valid.

 

[Alex319]

Here's a possible counterpoint to the whole thing about "the specific people you're playing with have more influence on the game:"

You (or not necessarily just you, other people as well) have mentioned the idea that 4e has "dissociated mechanics" - i.e. mechanics in the game that don't correspond to anything in the fiction, so players have to focus on the mechanics rather than the fiction. I can think of examples, however, where the judgement-based system you describe can lead to mechanics that are even MORE dissociated.

For example, let's say Alice is a player and Bob is the DM. Alice often describes his character as blocking sword blows with his bare hands. This works for a while until one day Bob watches the episode of MythBusters where they demonstrate that that is impossible. So the next time Alice tries to do that Bob uses his newfound knowledge to say that won't work, with the obvious results.

The point is that what the system is trying to get you to do (as I understand it) is to "read" the DM to try to predict what the DM will rule. So I can imagine players thinking like "I know Bob is a big MythBusters fan, and last night's episode showed that X doesn't work, so I probably don't want to try X. But if Bob can't make it and his friend Charlie is the DM instead, I probably should try it because Charlie thinks that the MythBusters never get anything right." As I understand it that is what you are supposed to do.

But of course this mechanic of "reading the DM" is even more "dissociated from the fiction" than anything in 4e. If you are complaining about it being hard to explain in "in-character terms" why you can grapple a swarm or use Come and Get It on someone who is immobilized, then how would you explain in "in-character terms" why a character's tactics and powers suddenly work differently depending on who the DM is or what television shows the DM watched last week?

 

[P1NBACK]

For example, let's say Alice is a player and Bob is the DM. Alice often describes his character as blocking sword blows with his bare hands. This works for a while until one day Bob watches the episode of MythBusters where they demonstrate that that is impossible. So the next time Alice tries to do that Bob uses his newfound knowledge to say that won't work, with the obvious results.

Disassociated mechanics have nothing to do with realism. If you want your hands to block swords, talk it over with your DM and agree on a reasonable way to do it.

 

[LostSoul]

That is a good reply, Alex319.

That sort of thing can lead to "Mother-May-I" play. What's important is the role of the DM. Why does he make the rulings he does? Does he approach those rulings from certain principles, or is it something else (like whom he thinks is hotter?).

What's needed, and what I tried to do in my hack, is to tell the DM what his job is, and give him certain principles to base his rulings on.

In my hack, "reading the DM" is somewhat the point of the game; the DM represents the setting, does so impartially, and the players try to overcome the challenges within. I wnat the players to anticipate the rulings I make, since I'm only trying to represent the setting through them.

(more later)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is a good reply, Alex319.

That sort of thing can lead to "Mother-May-I" play. What's important is the role of the DM. Why does he make the rulings he does? Does he approach those rulings from certain principles, or is it something else (like whom he thinks is hotter?).

What's needed, and what I tried to do in my hack, is to tell the DM what his job is, and give him certain principles to base his rulings on.

In my hack, "reading the DM" is somewhat the point of the game; the DM represents the setting, does so impartially, and the players try to overcome the challenges within. I wnat the players to anticipate the rulings I make, since I'm only trying to represent the setting through them.

(more later)

This is only true of course if the DM is "Mom". Just to introduce a slightly different perspective to this what if it is the players who generally decide what mechanics match the fiction? The DM is still an arbiter and may have a fair amount to say about this for reasons I've mentioned up thread of course. Honestly this is the main way these things happen in my 4e play experience. For instance a player invents fluff for a build they create where the character blocks sword blows with his hands. Some discussion of this might follow but in general it simply works.