D&D General A History of Violence: Killing in D&D

[Horwath]

Xp and levels are necessary abstractions. Milestone isn't.

not really.

what level is your character in World of Darkness?

 

[KYRON45]

Not in any way that resembles the D&D usage (or at least not necessarily so). There may be a defense value, but that doesn't have to have anything to do with armor (which can be represented in other ways).



Again, not necessarily in a D&D style where it varies over time significantly.

So all of my examples exist, just not in a way that you find appropriate for the sake of this conversation.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So all of my examples exist, just not in a way that you find appropriate for the sake of this conversation.

When you're contrasting it with D&D, the D&D execution is what is at hand, not every mechanic that has a vague resemblance to each other. RuneQuest has things called "hit points" but other than the fact they're iterative and reduced by damage their execution makes for a vastly different experience. Games that have armor absorb damage produce a very different dynamic than one that bakes it into your defense.

So, no, calling an apple an orange is not something I think is going to be useful for discussion, even if they're both fruit.

 

[KYRON45]

When you're contrasting it with D&D, the D&D execution is what is at hand, not every mechanic that has a vague resemblance to each other. RuneQuest has things called "hit points" but other than the fact they're iterative and reduced by damage their execution makes for a vastly different experience. Games that have armor absorb damage produce a very different dynamic than one that bakes it into your defense.

So, no, calling an apple an orange is not something I think is going to be useful for discussion, even if they're both fruit.

You win I guess.
A hit point reflects how much life you have and armor reflects how hard it is to take those points away. I can see how i'm wrong. It's very clear now. Thank you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You win I guess.
A hit point reflects how much life you have and armor reflects how hard it is to take those points away. I can see how i'm wrong. It's very clear now. Thank you.

If you break everything down to "the elements that make it longer or shorter to defeat something" you've simultaneously said everything and nothing, because there's far more to mechanics than just that. If you don't see why there's important differences in hit-reduction armor and damage-absorption armor in both function and practical impact, I really don't know what to tell you.

 

[Umbran]

Xp and levels are necessary abstractions.

Most RPGs out there don't use levels, so, no they are not necessary.

Some games out there don't even have an analog for XP.

Heck, some games don't even have power advancement as a major element of play.

 

[Lanefan]

Starship Troopers isn't a parody of jingoism for nothing!

I won't go too much farther since I got my wrist slapped already, but my concern is that few people actually consider the implications of an adventurer class of mercenaries having carte blanche on the use of violence to solve societal ills. Things that in the real world would be unacceptable are the norm. I don't know how to solve that disconnect, but I feel "it's just a game" is burying your head in the sand about it. Like issues about slavery and biodeterminism, it's an uncomfortable discussion we won't have until it's thrust in our faces by others and we can no longer avoid it.

The bolded, to me, is most the point of playing in the first place - you can be a person you can't be in reality and do things you can't do in reality. And as a DM, you can design a world that doesn't exist in reality. This specifically includes the bad stuff as well as the good.

If we're eventually going to impose real-world strictures on what fantasy characters can do or what fantasy worlds can be, which seems to be the direction you suggest things will go, there'd be much less reason to bother playing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's no inherent verisimilitude to that. This is an opinion that really requires justification in the sense of explaining what could possibly be considered "verisimilitude"?

There's only one genre of fiction I'm aware of where killing things is always going to make you more powerful, and that is, hilariously, Video Game Isekai, which of course, is directly based on MMORPGs, which are inspired by D&D and so in a flat circle. So what is verisimilitude to? It sure isn't fantasy fiction.

I think it's verisimilitude to itself. Which is circular logic of a strange kind.

Ironically that has more verisimilitude to most fantasy fiction than what you're proposing.

It genuinely sounds like you're video-game-izing D&D. I don't mean that as an insult, but that seems to be the logic you're presenting re: XP.

I'm not looking to emulate fantasy fiction. I'm looking to emulate a fantasy setting. Where you are in the "story" or how many of the game goals have been checked off do not directly affect how powerful your PC is in my estimation.

 

[Lanefan]

Im starting to see why I dont fit in with a lot of players and groups. I dont view the party as an army or even a swat team. I view them as specialists that have the experience and means to investigate and impact the setting on a political level.

I don't view the party as an army or swat team either; instead they're a collection of independent free-thinking individuals sometimes working at cross-purposes and not always getting along or willing to most-optimally work with each other.

That said, two things do push toward the swat-team model: 1) as a team the party are usually greater than the sum of their parts, and 2) the missions they go on often resemble those that a long-range swat or commando team might be ordered to do.

 

[Scribe]

If we're eventually going to impose real-world strictures on what fantasy characters can do or what fantasy worlds can be, which seems to be the direction you suggest things will go, there'd be much less reason to bother playing.

A lifetime ago, my buddy was playing some farm simulator in class. Watering his crop, harvesting, whatever. I was giving him a hard time, because he could be doing that in real life and actually doing something productive.

He asked me why I play video games.

"Because I cannot shoot people with a rocket launcher in the middle of class."