A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

[Emerikol]

Ha!

I have another solution:
- Your character will use Action Surge every chance he gets.
- You, the player, are responsible for narrating circumstances such that he only actually gets that chance once per day. At most. E.g., "I'd love to dig deep and attack twice, but that kobold's ferocious attack has me off-balance and I'm just not feeling it." Or, "Those rations I ate during our last short...err, 1-hour...rest must have been in my Explorer's Pack too long. I feel nauseous."

Your character doesn't know he isn't allowed to use Action Surge twice, he just can't seem to find an opportunity to do so.
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Your suggestion is basically author mode. If you like that approach then it is a good solution for you. I just don't prefer to play that way myself.

Also, a question: how do you take turns? I mean, from your character's point of view everything is simultaneous. So if you, the player, patiently wait your turn, aren't you using information your character wouldn't have? To really immerse yourself in your actor stance roleplay, I think you should interrupt everybody else at the table. Constantly

I know this is probably intended as half a joke and is somewhat flippant. When my character is taking an action, he is acting in actor mode as that character.

The constant barrage of false comparisons is tiring. First it's hit points and now it's turns. It should be obvious to you that we've played and play roleplaying games. They all have turns. We played old school D&D, that had hit points. Even if you can't get your head around the theory of what we don't like, you should by now at least be able to grasp the practical cases.

 

[Emerikol]

Except that obviously a stupendous number of seem to like the game. What exactly is their folly?

I look at a game like...oh, all the Fantasy Flight Star Wars variants...and I just have zero desire to play. It's not at all how I would write a Star Wars RPG. It's pretty much the antithesis of what I look for in a game.

However my reaction isn't, "those morons at Fantasy Flight." No, I think, "Hmm...I guess a lot of people have tastes that are totally different than mine. That's a bummer, because I'd really like a good Star Wars rpg."

And yet your conclusion about 5e...despite its staggering success...is that WotC is a combination of malicious and incompetent.

That just comes across as staggeringly arrogant and delusional.

I don't think they are morons. They may though be ignorant of the playstyle preference or they may not. Mike Mearls every time I asked him answered me "We understand that and aren't doing it" Now they scaled it back a lot compared to 4e but they still did it. So what is it? Maybe Mike's understanding of "it" is different than our understanding of "it".

OR the more negative take, which I personally have no proof of one way or the other, would be they deliberately designed the game without regard and were just blowing us off.

It really doesn't matter at this point. I thought it would be nice to have a discussion about fixes to these issues in the system for people that have the issues. A bunch of people though without the problem have dive bombed the thread and ignored the original post.

 

[Shasarak]

[MENTION=60326]heretic888[/MENTION] has already pointed out that the issues aren't with thigh bones.

As heretic888 has already pointed out, if you can not prove your point then just move the goal posts. Because I am certain that if the argument that a Giants legs would be broken under its own weight does not match reality then surely a Giants ankles must break under its own weight or maybe it would stub its toe or maybe its hair would be too bushy to be able to be brushed properly must be correct.

I don't know whether a giant's lungs, given its proportionately human chest cavity, would give it enough oxygen, and whether its circulatory system would be up to the job of getting it to all the relevant parts of its body.

I think its brain is quite a bit bigger than a T-Rex's, given it can speak and use tools and in some cases (eg some cloud giants, all storm giants) is cleverer than a typical human. I'm not a biologist, but I suspect that puts demands on its respiratory and circulatory system that are different from a T-Rex or even an elephant.

Anyway, what I said was that I don't think a giant scorpion could respirate. I also think it would have trouble with its exoskeleton. Not having done my own research, nor studied much biology, I linked to a sensible-looking website which seemed to confirm these conjectures (including suggesting that 4-ish kg is the maximum feasible size for a land arthropod). Do you think that website was wrong?

To be honest, your real mistake is assuming that a Giant is just a big human and likewise a Giant Scorpion is just a big scorpion.

Neither Evolution in the Real World nor Magical Creation in DnD is bound by that premise.

 

[Emerikol]

On this whole science in D&D thing, it is a cinematic reality. We expect people when pushed to fall down. We expect arrows to sail through the air. We expect in most cases what we expect here in this world. The exceptions of course are all the fantasy elements and magic. What we don't expect is for non-magical characters like fighters and rogues to suddenly exhibit powers.

The rest of the whole debate is off topic and really doesn't matter. I'm not making Second Wind and Action Surge into magical powers. It's might've worked for a Paladin (at least Action Surge anyway). Second Wind runs afoul of my healing preferences in ways beyond just my metagame complaint.

 

[Lanefan]

From my perspective I'd say that there's nothing meta about player knowledge of the sciences in a game world. Only reason why they would be is if you had a real world scientist playing an average intellect character in a medieval setting and the DM specifically said, "all real world physics works the same in my world".

All you have to do as a DM is not have that be the case and you've essentially killed meta. But then expect that the curiosity of the player (as a scientist in real life) is going to be piqued and you'd better be ready to answer his or her questions consistently as it pertains to your world on some level.

Yeah, tell me about it!

One of my players has a masters in astronomy and a second masters in classics. I have neither.

For the classics side, I made it clear right up front that even though my game is set in classical Greece, real-world historical accuracy was going out the window as I'm using Herc-Xena Greece instead.

For the astronomy side, I just ask him whether something is plausible when I dream some astronomical thing up that probably isn't, and then tweak to suit if I can. And he's nice enough not to call me on my sometimes-blatant errors unless I ask him to. (I also play in his game and he does the same thing with me regarding boats and sailing, of which I know enough to get by and he knows near-nothing).

Lan-"not Lane"-efan

 

[pemerton]

Your suggestion is basically author mode.

Not entirely sure what you mean by "author mode", but the suggestions given were director stance.

It should be obvious to you that we've played and play roleplaying games. They all have turns.

No they don't. Dungeon World doesn't have turns. Burning Wheel can easily be played without turns - they're part of an optional subsystem.

Neither Evolution in the Real World nor Magical Creation in DnD is bound by that premise.

So what's your point? That a world in which living things are magically created is one that follows the same scientific law as the real world?

 

[Kobold Boots]

Yeah, tell me about it!

One of my players has a masters in astronomy and a second masters in classics. I have neither.

For the classics side, I made it clear right up front that even though my game is set in classical Greece, real-world historical accuracy was going out the window as I'm using Herc-Xena Greece instead.

For the astronomy side, I just ask him whether something is plausible when I dream some astronomical thing up that probably isn't, and then tweak to suit if I can. And he's nice enough not to call me on my sometimes-blatant errors unless I ask him to. (I also play in his game and he does the same thing with me regarding boats and sailing, of which I know enough to get by and he knows near-nothing).

Lan-"not Lane"-efan

Hi Lan

We all have our strengths. In my case, I've got an undergrad in medieval studies with a focus in comparative religion, another in comp sci, an MBA and a masters in cybersecurity and aiming at Ph.D programs. I've done time in the SCA and spent about 20 years doing martial arts. My fatal weakness is anything having to do with power tools or swinging a hammer and my wife will constantly tell you that I forget the simplest things. Pop culture also escapes me due to having a TV, but never turning it on. ( I have managed to catch every Marvel movie since 2008 but that's the remnants of a 100 a month comic book habit that went away in the late 90s)

Most of my group has at least their masters in something mathy or professional sounding so with no shortage of irony, most of our table conversations are incredibly stupid. Questions like "How does magic work?" have taken entire sessions on a tangent and spawned more than a few email threads.

All that said, I'm wired to make connections between disciplines so it's really important to me to have a world that's both continually growing due to the player activity and internally consistent across things my players discover. Fortunately we don't play as often as we all used to while in college so it's not a massive undertaking but I care about it and it reflects in how I post here for better or worse.

I'm thinking about starting a VTT campaign in the coming months and opening up the group to the rest of the world. If I don't self-immolate, I might just be able to finish the model before I die.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.
KB

 

[pemerton]

It's clear from the context of the discussion that I'm not talking about checkers.[/uote]Nor am I. It's possible to have a RPG that has neither sci-fi nor fantasy elements. Top Secret would be an example.

Thermodynamics. Fire consumes fuel unless it's magical fire, then it creates non-magical fires that consume fuel, leaving behind carbon. Charred remains are common in modules from that era. Gravitational physics.

<snip>

You keep saying this like it means something. Just because Aristotle did not know about it, doesn't mean that gravity didn't exist. Are you seriously arguing that gravity sprung into being when we discovered it? Schrodinger's Gravity? It both existed and didn't exist until we spotted it?

Of course not. But I live in a real world with properties that are mind-independent. Fairy stories, though, are about imaginary worlds.

When Aristotle tells a fairy story about a giant in a castle on a cloud, does the giants' castle generate a gravitational field proportionate to its mass? Was Aristotle telling a story about universal gravitation even though he didn't know of it?

Besides making a point that fairy stories aren't real, my main point is that the falling of unsupported things to the earth doesn't prove that gravity exists. The fact that fire needs fuel isn't what shows that combustion is oxidation, or that thermodynamics apply. In fact, D&D clearly isn't bound by thermodynamics, given the various processes that gods, sorcerers etc engage in!

 

[MichaelSomething]

How about changing Action Surge to, "At the start of your turn, roll a D20. If you roll a 20 or higher, you gain another action. Add a bonus to these rolls equal to half your fighter level." You may need to adjust the bonus higher or lower depending on taste\balance.

It should be less metagamey since the Fighter is always trying to do more but not always succeeding instead of selecting when to do it.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Besides making a point that fairy stories aren't real, my main point is that the falling of unsupported things to the earth doesn't prove that gravity exists. The fact that fire needs fuel isn't what shows that combustion is oxidation, or that thermodynamics apply. In fact, D&D clearly isn't bound by thermodynamics, given the various processes that gods, sorcerers etc engage in!

The great thing about all RPG's not just D&D (but focusing there) is that room exists in how the rules are written and executed during play such that if you wanted to, you very well could make the laws of thermodynamics work within the scope of a D&D game using RAW.

That doesn't mean you want to do that. It certainly doesn't mean you have to do that. It's definitely possible.

Just do yourself a favor though and don't try to reconcile that logical consistency with anything that comes out of the designers' mouths via Sage Advice. You will want to poke your eyeballs out with sticks. Once you create your own metaphysics for the game you run, you need to look at all expansion material through its lens. When you find inconsistencies against RAW, then that means someone somewhere made a discovery you need to account for.

2c
KB