D&D 4E Bridging the cognitive gap between how the game rules work and what they tell us about the setting

[Pedantic]

I'd rather call that connection something else. If that was the definition, I don't think the most immersion is necessarily the best goal.

I'm certainly open to an alternative term; you could make a solid case immersion is a quality affected in players as a result of mechanics that have more or less of this property with reference to some player psychographics maybe. I'm not sold there's a better term floating around though. The next closest is the "association" you bring up later, and that's fraught in its own way.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I think it's probably better to look at that stuff as being less about "immersion" and more about "suspension of disbelief". Immersion itself can refer to a lot of things in a lot of different contexts, and for RPGs I think you can be both immersed in the mechanics (Very involved through various gameplay buttons and levers) as well as immersed in the world itself (the fiction of the game universe).

When we have discussions about stuff like HP, I don't think it's about immersion directly as much as people's "suspension of disbelief" and how it falls apart at different points. Now that can make you less immersed, but I would say that it largely effects the "world itself" side of things, where it is taking you out of the world. You could potentially be very immersed in the complexities of 4E combat but take out of the world by certain mechanics because of how you view them.

 

[Zeromaru X]

You could potentially be very immersed in the complexities of 4E combat but take out of the world by certain mechanics because of how you view them

You say that, but every time I read some simulationist rules from 1e or 2e, my suspension of disbelief fails (like that rule that asks the DMs to importunate the players if they take too much time bartering... Really?).

After all, suspension of disbelief is a very subjective thing.

 

[Justice and Rule]

You say that, but every time I read some simulationist rules from 1e or 2e, my suspension of disbelief fails (like that rule that asks the DMs to importunate the players if they take too much time bartering... Really?).

After all, suspension of disbelief is a very subjective thing.

No doubt, but that's part of the point: it's very subjective and hard to quantify. It's something different for every person. I just think that's probably where this discussion is actually at, rather than "immersion".

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

In my case, especially with the actual setting being indistinct to enable customization, it led to reconcilatory fiction.

Its not that some of it is really healing, and some of it is courage-- its that regaining your courage lets you draw out more of your vitality in the same way divine power does, and this matches well with the implication of healing surges, and action points, giving a very shonen anime-esque conception of one's inner resources, the inner world directly imposes on the outer one.

Similarly, flamebullets and pyrospheres might have similar effects, but they're accepted to be different techniques-- thats why the damage isn't the same, its the thousand tiny variations on fireball real mages might develop and pass down in different lineages of magic, better and worse for specific things, or requiring different levels of investment and training.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'd say "epic fantasy," in that by the time you're able to lose that many hit points due to taking such incredible damage, you're pushing (if not completely beyond) the boundaries of mortality. It's xianxia by that point, which matches with the progressive nature of what characters at that stage can do. Which strikes me as entirely appropriate; 4E, like 3E, offers a dramatic scale in power across the levels that characters can progress through, so expectations of what the characters are capable of later in their careers should scale accordingly.

4e's model works PERFECTLY well for something like 'Seven Deadly Sins' style epic conflict where the PCs are literally invoking and being hammered by epic level magic that blasts the land almost on a scale equivalent to nuclear weapons. Arthur comes back to Camelot in a sequence at the very end of the series, after 5 demon lords and 6 or 8 ultra-powerful characters duked it out there. The whole place is literally melted slag. Every character (on both sides) walked away from that fight, albeit some of them were 'bloodied' a bit. Even the healing powers that some of the characters employ are very well modeled by 4e; at several points major characters are 'out of gas' and reduced to either outright unconsciousness or ineffectiveness, and then one of the healers comes in and charges them up again, and they rejoin the fight, albeit they're often still somewhat worn down.

I mean, I agree with you, NO VERSION of D&D emulates anything realistic very well AT ALL. High level AD&D is not really all that different in character from 4e in terms of how it is best interpreted. Hit points are basically 'plot armor' and can be equated with luck, fatigue, minor injury, etc. Sure, you can imagine a PC as having some limited degree of significant injury (broken ribs, cuts, piercing wounds, maybe a severed minor body part perhaps). Still, clearly their limbs, torso, head, etc. is entirely intact, or they'd be suffering critical debilities.

And it isn't that hard to make a more realistic system. If EGG intended any level of realism, any level of 'your body is actually being ripped apart' then it would have been trivial to implement, and many RPGs have done it. I mean, my own game has the possibility, you can accept an 'affliction' of the type 'wound' in place of critical damage. It's just a fun way of introducing another dimension of stakes into combat. Players can entirely ignore that and play 4e style, or they can trade an HS worth of damage for 'broken arm' and whatever conditions that imposes. Honestly I'm not sure how well that plays, it's an element of play that hasn't been used much up to now.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That strikes me as being characteristic of "heroic fantasy" where genre emulation is concerned, but that seems to be more in line with 4E's heroic tier (i.e. levels 1-10). By the time they've gotten to paragon tier (levels 11-20), it looks to me like they've largely left behind most of the constraints of what mortal heroes can do, to the point where it strikes me as being counterintuitive to still have them operate under the idea that they're still working under those paradigms. And of course, by the time they get to epic tier (levels 21-30), the idea is ratcheted up even further.

But, again, go watch 7DS, its on Netflix. SURELY these are 'epic' characters (at least the major characters are). They dodge, they use shields, defensive magic, magical armors and such, and when they do finally get solidly hit by equivalent opponents, the results are pretty nasty!

 

[Micah Sweet]

4e's model works PERFECTLY well for something like 'Seven Deadly Sins' style epic conflict where the PCs are literally invoking and being hammered by epic level magic that blasts the land almost on a scale equivalent to nuclear weapons. Arthur comes back to Camelot in a sequence at the very end of the series, after 5 demon lords and 6 or 8 ultra-powerful characters duked it out there. The whole place is literally melted slag. Every character (on both sides) walked away from that fight, albeit some of them were 'bloodied' a bit. Even the healing powers that some of the characters employ are very well modeled by 4e; at several points major characters are 'out of gas' and reduced to either outright unconsciousness or ineffectiveness, and then one of the healers comes in and charges them up again, and they rejoin the fight, albeit they're often still somewhat worn down.

I mean, I agree with you, NO VERSION of D&D emulates anything realistic very well AT ALL. High level AD&D is not really all that different in character from 4e in terms of how it is best interpreted. Hit points are basically 'plot armor' and can be equated with luck, fatigue, minor injury, etc. Sure, you can imagine a PC as having some limited degree of significant injury (broken ribs, cuts, piercing wounds, maybe a severed minor body part perhaps). Still, clearly their limbs, torso, head, etc. is entirely intact, or they'd be suffering critical debilities.

And it isn't that hard to make a more realistic system. If EGG intended any level of realism, any level of 'your body is actually being ripped apart' then it would have been trivial to implement, and many RPGs have done it. I mean, my own game has the possibility, you can accept an 'affliction' of the type 'wound' in place of critical damage. It's just a fun way of introducing another dimension of stakes into combat. Players can entirely ignore that and play 4e style, or they can trade an HS worth of damage for 'broken arm' and whatever conditions that imposes. Honestly I'm not sure how well that plays, it's an element of play that hasn't been used much up to now.

Worth noting that realism can and does exist in many areas of the game beyond hit points and injury. You can't use, "but hit points!" as an excuse to disregard all claims of verisimilitude.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Worth noting that realism can and does exist in many areas of the game beyond hit points and injury. You can't use, "but hit points!" as an excuse to disregard all claims of verisimilitude.

Verisimilitude is overrated. In practice what I've found is that 99% of the time people are really more concerned with things being different from the way they already played, and the other arguments are post hoc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Verisimilitude is overrated. In practice what I've found is that 99% of the time people are really more concerned with things being different from the way they already played, and the other arguments are post hoc.

Your opinion. Not mine.