D&D General Alternate thought - rule of cool is bad for gaming

[mamba]

wait, no, that sounds awesome, bring that back!

yeah, swiss cheese fireballs sound as bad as cubic fireballs

 

[Micah Sweet]

Eyeballs are poor simulators.

And, when my eyeball doesn't match the GM's eyeball, we either break out the calculator anyway, have an argument, or players get hosed? No thanks.

Better than the alternative I outlined above for me, player or GM.

 

[Lanefan]

Especially as many games attempt to simulate environments where cool things happen all the time, like swashbuckling novels or superhero comics.

Sure, but within itself that simulation has to be consistent; thus when something comes up that hasn't been seen-done-tried before, a moment needs to be taken to determine how or if that thing fits within the already-established simulation in place.

Why? Because rulings set precedent, and if some gonzo action is allowed once (e.g. the 30' pole-vault using a 5' staff) precedent dictates it then has to be allowed every time thereafter.

Fail to follow precedent and the game devolves into Calvinball.

 

[Reynard]

As usual, many folks seem to be rushing toward the extreme ends. Occasionally making a concession does not equate tumbling inevitably into Calvinball territory.

Also, remember, the Rule of Cool is, in fact, a Rule. that means its application is controlled by agreement, like all the rest of the rules of the game. It may be negotiated on a case by case basis, but so is a fireball when playing Theater of the Mind.

 

[Eric V]

When you are replying to literally every post, and 50% of all posts in a thread are you, that shows that this isn't about the thread anymore, its about the forum battles.

I haven't been responding to every post (so it's not about forum battles for me), and I pretty much agree with everything they're saying, including how their argument is being mis-represented.

 

[Lanefan]

I said you, for example, @Micah Sweet might be qualified to do it generally, but most DMs are not.

Most DMs aren't qualified to simulate on the fly when they start out, but they ain't never gonna get qualified unless they try it over and over again until they've vaguely learned how to do it right.

Many of us here have gone through that process; and we should be encouraging others to do likewise rather than tell them it's a waste of effort.

 

[el-remmen]

There is actually nothing in the text of the 5E fireball spell that says it doesn't spread out to fill its volume. It even suggests it might when the text reads, "The fire spreads around corners."

 

[Umbran]

Better than the alternative I outlined above for me, player or GM

That's your choice, of course.

You are more than free and welcome to reject proper simulation in favor of GM-fiat.

 

[Willie the Duck]

My main issue with RoC as stated is simply that it is, essentially, a narrative mechanic, where choices are made that have mechanical consequences at the table for story reasons. Very much not my bag.

And that I can absolutely get behind. I simple, well-reasoned and stated analysis that accurately describes the topic of discussion, its consequences, and a simple statement of preference against it (all with no straw rebuttals, conflating other issues onto the topic, nor denigration of the opposite position). 10/10, no remarks.

It was kind of annoying because one person that was really good at creating evocative visuals got very significant benefits while the rest of us were more-or-less by the rules didn't get those benefits.

This is the same complaint I've heard about games where the players want to just say what their characters would say instead of diplomacy checks (the most charismatic player has an advantage, even if their character doesn't have high social attributes or skills). I think this might be a broader category -- 'open interpretation rules' or the like ('Mother may I?' probably being the most common term, but clearly showing a bias in one direction) -- under which 'rule of cool' is just one of many playstyles that have to deal with it.

It's another one of those perennial debate subjects that never seems to go anywhere. We all know the two sides -- strictly adhered to mechanical rules create a level playing field, but can feel robotic to some and miss edge cases/produce verisimilitude-straining results; open-ended rules can feel less stilted/more engaging/more realistic, but are subject to GM whim, player (not character) skill, and in the most extreme of cases not give a clear picture of the boundaries of the possible.

*Its not about player survival sim skill challenge.

Fair. There can be aspects of the game that are challenging, and mastering the components of the ruleset isn't trivial (it's not hard, but it isn't nothing).

We can put any kind of name on it we want. The game has (by design) aspects of a game to it, and by that I mean the type of game where each person participating has access to the same rules and attempts to excel within them along some pre-defined metric of accomplishment. The game has certainly shifted away from predominantly focusing on that. Honestly, though, I think there were a lot of people not overly focused on that almost from the get go (even if the rules didn't keep pace), and I don't think it's really gotten that much worse in recent times. I certainly feel that the exploration/high-score game started to take a back seat to 'you can play as a ______ in a fantasy scenario' gaming by the time of AD&D 2E and Gazetteer-era BECMI.

But the game has nothing approaching a fail state outside of a TPK, and even that state falls mostly upon the DM.

Failure to achieve one's goals is still possible.

You don't need it. You can eyeball stuff like that. It's certainly better than the IMO ridiculous conceit of always dropping it in the most advantageous location that stops just short of your allies.

I feel like there's at least a few excluded middles there. Not least of which not being able to perfect-position your blast radius, but not having said radius expand in a confined space in a massive-math-overload outcome (which, to be honest, often ended up with the DM doing some kind of just-eyeballing-it or rule-of-cool/uncool-ing it).

 

[Lanefan]

It was good if you were great at calculating cubic volume or you and your friends were immune to fire, but most of the time it was that fireball, the iconic wizard spell, was bad in most situations.

Yep. High risk, high reward.

Way more fun than the modern-day version.