D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[Ahnehnois]

I'm honestly truly baffled by people who point to D&D as this highly immersive game. It boggles me to no end. Just how much of the system do you have to internalize and/or ignore to achieve that?

Exactly. That's what happens. You internalize the system.

The same thing happens in any genre fiction; people who get past their initial misgivings accept the conceits and just run with it. But when something violates their sense of what those conceits are, they get pretty jolted by it.

I see this with Star Trek all the time for example; people accept a world of pseudoscience, melodrama, and dramatic conceit, but when something feels out of place, you bet the fans cry out about it. It's a very immersive world, even though it is in many ways nonsensical.

Same for D&D. We've all accepted that characters are categorized by "classes", that armor and dodging feed into the same defense mechanic, and magic comes in "spell slots". Are those "unrealistic"? Yes. Are they good mechanics on any level? Not really. If we were starting from scratch and trying to build a new D&D, would it have a single element in common with the existing rules? Probably not. But we've made our peace with the flaws of our best known edition. Thus when a new game comes along with new flaws, it's quite jarring.

For people who never did make their peace with D&D, this isn't a problem. But legacy issues will always haunt every new version of the game.

 

[Obryn]

I'm not so sure of that. I think it has a lot more to do with how you approach the game rather than how new it is to the players. For example, one of the prime recruiting grounds for AD&D when I was a kid was scout camp. There, the primary DM wouldn't teach much about the rules to new gamers. He'd help them make up characters and then send the PCs on their merry way into adventure. The casual gamers just decided what they wanted their characters to do and the DM operationalized it all. The game flowed well and the casual players didn't have to be hyper-conscious of the system - and weren't.

But there it was essentially a rules-light RPG. Even more than that for the players - nearly a rules-none RPG. If there are no visible rules, there's no curve, but I don't think it's a good model for RPGs in general.

For most role playing games, I see it it as a weakness. Most of the time it just undermines immersion, which I think runs counter to typical RPG goals. Sometimes the mechanic, however, is so good from a narrative standpoint that being pulled out of immersion is acceptable, like James Bond 007's difficulty bidding, but it has been my experience that those mechanics are rare.

I think immersion has been way over-sold as a goal. I also don't find it's typical of RPGs in general. It wasn't a goal in the earliest days of the hobby, nor is it the main goal of most new, non-OSR games. (And even there, clever mechanics are pushed in games like DCC.) I know some find it important, but in my 30+ years of gaming, I've never once sought it as a goal or heard it brought up as a virtue except on message boards, and usually particularly in regards to 4e being immersion-deficient.

This isn't to say you shouldn't care about it, but from a quick survey of the RPG hobby, I can't call it a "typical" goal.

-O

 

[Neonchameleon]

@Neonchameleon , Apocalypse World and its fantasy derivatives (Dungeon World is the one I know) postdate 4e, I think. Which is not to say that they got the idea of mixing gonzo fantasy and indie from 4e. But just to make the point that 4e was not simply reinventing the wheel.

So does the Leverage RPG. And, for that matter, the Leverage TV show didn't start broadcasting until after 4e was launched.

Whereas I have grave doubts that the world needs another variant of Rolemaster (there are already 3 in print including the playtest edition),

Are you counting the Darker Dungeons retroclone?

HARP, Chivalry & Sorcerery, Mythus, etc, etc. The simulatonist-heavy, all skills, more-or-less soft class fantasy game has pretty well been done to death. 3E was D&D's go at it, was pretty late to the party (and a bit half-hearted about it, as you say), and is now making Paizo a modest fortune. I would be gobsmacked if WotC went down this path with D&Dnext.

Paizo, to be fair, have slightly harder classes than WotC 3e.

Also, while I (perhaps) have your ear, a MHRP question - how much of an NPC datafile is the GM meant to share with the players? Eg is the GM expected to inform in advance of limits, or rather are the players meant to learn about the limits by having their heroes undertake assess actions against the Doom Pool to identify weaknesses. Or some other method I haven't thought of. (In some cases, limits will be obvious - eg gear - but I'm thinking of something like the Hulk Robots "overload" limit.)

However much the GM thinks is appropriate is the only answer I can give here. I normally invoke the limits as a reward for hitting the appropriate fluff, stepping up the doom pool and giving them the shut downs. Which as the limits are tied to the fluff works. That said, let's see if invoking the name [MENTION=3817]Cam Banks[/MENTION] comes up with a more official answer.

 

[Cam Banks]

I generally don't sweat telling the players about specific kinds of Limits the bad guys might have, though the situation is always the best measure of how much the players might know. One cool thing is to reward players who spend a Transition Scene picking up an information-based resource on the villain (or grab one during play) by also telling the player what the villain's Limit is.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Guest 85555]

But

I think immersion has been way over-sold as a goal. I also don't find it's typical of RPGs in general. It wasn't a goal in the earliest days of the hobby, nor is it the main goal of most new, non-OSR games. (And even there, clever mechanics are pushed in games like DCC.) I know some find it important, but in my 30+ years of gaming, I've never once sought it as a goal or heard it brought up as a virtue except on message boards, and usually particularly in regards to 4e being immersion-deficient.

This isn't to say you shouldn't care about it, but from a quick survey of the RPG hobby, I can't call it a "typical" goal.

-O

People were not using the term immersion until recently but from my first days playing we talked about a great game that "made you feel ike you were really there". The big thing thay turned me onto RPGs, from the moment i first played, was the sense of being in a world and looking at it through the eyes of my character.

 

[Obryn]

People were not using the term immersion until recently but from my first days playing we talked about a great game that "made you feel ike you were really there". The big thing thay turned me onto RPGs, from the moment i first played, was the sense of being in a world and looking at it through the eyes of my character.

I'm even including that sort of thing in my personal experience. I've never seen it as a goal in my personal games, and it's not a stated goal for the most interesting new developments in RPGs. So I'm still not buying it as a "typical" design goal. Again, not doubting it's important to some folks, but I think its import gets overstated whenever the conversation turns to 4e, because 4e is hardly atypical in this regard as a late-2000's non-OSR RPG, and around the same complexity level as 3.x. And I rarely hear people complaining of a lack of immersion in Savage Worlds or FATE, two other excellent "gamey" systems. (Or in WFRP3, though I admittedly haven't looked hard for it.)

-O

 

[Guest 85555]

I'm even including that sort of thing in my personal experience. I've never seen it as a goal in my personal games, and it's not a stated goal for the most interesting new developments in RPGs. So I'm still not buying it as a "typical" design goal. Again, not doubting it's important to some folks, but I think its import gets overstated whenever the conversation turns to 4e, because 4e is hardly atypical in this regard as a late-2000's non-OSR RPG, and around the same complexity level as 3.x. And I rarely hear people complaining of a lack of immersion in Savage Worlds or FATE, two other excellent "gamey" systems. (Or in WFRP3, though I admittedly haven't looked hard for it.)

-O

I think you are confusing two issues: criticisms of 4e and immersion as a goal. I think even most people I know who like 4E, like it becaus ethey find it immersive. What wrecks immersion is a very subjective thing and its own discussion. But frankly I know very few people who dont consider immersion a critical factor of enjoying the game. I happen to like Savage world a lot and dont find it terribly disruptive to immersion. But then in savage worlds you interface with the world through skills not aedu powers (and not saying AEDU is inherently disruptive to immersion, it just is for me).

 

[Obryn]

I think you are confusing two issues: criticisms of 4e and immersion as a goal. I think even most people I know who like 4E, like it becaus ethey find it immersive. What wrecks immersion is a very subjective thing and its own discussion. But frankly I know very few people who dont consider immersion a critical factor of enjoying the game. I happen to like Savage world a lot and dont find it terribly disruptive to immersion. But then in savage worlds you interface with the world through skills not aedu powers (and not saying AEDU is inherently disruptive to immersion, it just is for me).

No, I'm saying this is the only time I ever hear about it, that's all. It's simply not a factor for me and it's never been brought up as a goal. Tension? That's a goal. Likewise fun, challenge, and the like. That's what's brought me to the table for 30 years. I agree that a light system can kind of disappear once you climb the learning curve, but for me that's not about immersion.

-O

 

[Neonchameleon]

Exactly. That's what happens. You internalize the system.

The same thing happens in any genre fiction; people who get past their initial misgivings accept the conceits and just run with it. But when something violates their sense of what those conceits are, they get pretty jolted by it.

And part of the problem here is that "Violating the conceits" is not the same as "Breaking immersion". It's simply a familliarity issue.

Same for D&D. We've all accepted that characters are categorized by "classes", that armor and dodging feed into the same defense mechanic, and magic comes in "spell slots". Are those "unrealistic"? Yes. Are they good mechanics on any level? Not really.

I disagree on all points. All of those mechanics are good mechanics for what they were meant to model.

Armour as passive protection that reduces the chance of you being hit effectively in the same way as dodging works well if you're in good armour - the enemy doesn't do a hell of a lot unless they find the weak spots or use overwhelming force. Armour as damage resistance also fails utterly if you are going to have sharply scaling hit points because hit points are a metagame rather than physical mechanic. With sharply scaling hit points either the DR is overwhelming or it's near trivial.

Spell slots are an excellent mechanic for allowing magic to be used with strategic planning. And I for one don't know what type of mechanic for magic is unrealistic.

And balanced classes are useful to channel people into different archetypes with simple character building and detailed character descriptions, and provide abilities that should almost certainly not be mixed. (Massively unbalanced classes are no use to anyone).

Are those three things what I want to see in all games? No. Does that make them bad mechanics? No. They have their place and their use.

 

[Guest 85555]

No, I'm saying this is the only time I ever hear about it, that's all. It's simply not a factor for me and it's never been brought up as a goal. Tension? That's a goal. Likewise fun, challenge, and the like. That's what's brought me to the table for 30 years. I agree that a light system can kind of disappear once you climb the learning curve, but for me that's not about immersion.

-O

Okay. I don't dispute your personal experience. But for a lot of people immersion is, and always has been, a huge part of the game. And in my own experience this is very common.