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

[Ahnehnois]

The whole idea that your character will only do what the player wants is about as antithetical to realism, immersion and role-playing as you can get. The implication that you're so special that you can't be manipulated into doing something against your best interests... I don't know how anyone takes that seriously.

Who says you can't be manipulated in that way? I manipulate my players all the time into doing things that aren't in their best interests.

 

[Sunseeker]

But this is still a matter of choice. I choose to remain where I am or I suffer the consequences of being struck by a dire boar. My moving is a product of me not wanting to get run over by a boar, not the power of your words to compel me to move.

From a metagame perspective, yes. But this is why soldiers are taught to take orders, because when somebody yells "TAKE COVER!" It's probably a good idea. And in the heat of combat, you're unlikely to consider if you'll only take 5 damage, no damage, or a critical hit, you'll just duck.

Beyond that there's a proximity issue. If you're adjacent to you ally and he tells you to move, chances are he can back that up by grabbing you and throwing you aside. In the case of 4e powers that do exactly this, it just skips the grapple check. You could of course force your ally to grapple with you and then throw you to the side instead of being trampled to death.

But all this feels very devils-advocatey. Unless you've got a specific reason not to move, most of the time when another player says "MOVE IT BOB!" you well...move it move it.

 

[technoextreme]

I am not arguing that all choices are rational. Just that they are choices.

Then we all agree then that come and get it is a cromulent power.

 

[Nagol]

Yep, still fine. It was my choice to stand there after all.

The same can be said about running forward *spring! pit trap* "Good thing you went first!"

Oops, wait a minute moving wasn't my choice.

My character may have thought the situaiton thorugh. He may not have. He may be paused at the side of his dying wife when the tacticlaly smart thing to do is charge forward.

He may be paused at this particular juncture because in previous encounters with the BBEG he always teleports to about here and then takes off -- sometihng the others are forgetting.

He may be paused here because he is afraid to go first since he suspects the hall is trapped.

Whatever the reason for the choice, it is my choice to make for the character.

 

[technoextreme]

Oops, wait a minute moving wasn't my choice.

My character may have thought the situaiton thorugh. He may not have. He may be paused at the side of his dying wife when the tacticlaly smart thing to do is charge forward.

He may be paused at this particular juncture because in previous encounters with the BBEG he always teleports to about here and then takes off -- sometihng the others are forgetting.

Congratulations you just described the miss and hit mechanic of a power. Sometimes your character has his mind contorted into doing something stupid. Sometimes not. Its all a matter of circumstances.

 

[Mallus]

(most of it anyway; I'm aware there are occasionally vegetables).

Also delicious little omelet-things (do you avoid eggs, too?).

[Awaits funny look]. No offense intended to anyone who has a different perspective.

There's none coming you way -- you stated your preference and that's cool. When said 'critical theory' I meant more than just a criticism. I meant a whole long intellectualized argument which seeks to logically justify and/or prove your tastes, ie like JA's dissociated mechanics.

You didn't do any of that, so no look!

Probably because many D&D players identify strongly with their characters and don't like it when their characters do things they feel are out of the player's control.

I think that's true, but also somewhat overstated. A lot of traditional D&D-isms fall into that category, like saving throws and critical hits, which are outside the players control. There's also newer considerations, like post 2e character optimization, which directly links in-game success with explicitly metagame skill, ie character building, which can be connected to an in-game perspective, but a) doesn't need to be and b) is often done so after the fact.

Which is why it always struck me as odd that 3e fans had that particular complaint about 4e. Success in 3e and it's variants is largely a matter of knowing and skillfully utilizing the robust character-building rules, which is necessarily approaching the game from a meta-perspective.

 

[Guest 85555]

Then we all agree then that come and get it is a cromulent power.

I am not passing judgment on it as a mechanic. It is jarring to me and breaks my immersion, but I wouldn't call it cromulent (if I understand what you mean by the word). Some people find it smooth and immersive. It just doesn't work for me. But as a mechanic, I can see there are players who like it a lot.

 

[Nagol]

Congratulations you just described the miss and hit mechanic of a power. Sometimes your character has his mind contorted into doing something stupid. Sometimes not. Its all a matter of circumstances.

No not really.

Hero does this pretty well because Hero inlcudes the strong personality traits of the character and accounts for them in external attempts to affect their choices (i.e. forms of mind control)

So you have a man who thinks spiders are icky just like snakes and other things, a man with a mild phobia against spiders, and a man completely paralysed with fear by them all standing 30' from a 10' spider.

The warden decides to move each of them closer to the spider. In Hero, the man paralysed with fear is considerably harder to move towards the sider (and depending on how the disadvantages is worded almost as hard to convince to move away from the spider) than the man who just thinks they're icky.

In terms of CaGI, it doesn't matter how many times the BBEG/former teammate has seen you pull the same tired stunt, they walk up to you anyway because "This time she'll let me kick the football for sure!"

As a player, I'm always looking at and analysing the behaviour of the opponents. Watching the archer or wizrd that has always avoided hand-to-hand combat walk up to melee range because the fighter convinced them to jarring. It seems out of charactre because frankly it is out of character. The opponent would never do that manoeuvre left to their own devices -- even if it wasn't a trick.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Also delicious little omelet-things (do you avoid eggs, too?).

Not religiously but I can't say that those would be high on my list of things to try.

There's none coming you way -- you stated your preference and that's cool. When said 'critical theory' I meant more than just a criticism. I meant a whole long intellectualized argument which seeks to logically justify and/or prove your tastes, ie like JA's dissociated mechanics.

I do (as I said) believe that taste is developed and I could articulate a complex theory as to how, or as to why particular cultures develop some tastes and others don't. But I wouldn't make any value judgments or try to prove anything, though.

Which is why it always struck me as odd that 3e fans had that particular complaint about 4e. Success in 3e and it's variants is largely a matter of knowing and skillfully utilizing the robust character-building rules, which is necessarily approaching the game from a meta-perspective.

I'd argue that character building isn't a metagame skill, at least not entirely. After all, most people train themselves to do particular tasks. Translating between character creation resources and sensible character development is a metagame skill.

I'd also argue that success is a mutable term. While in the context of one attack or check a success is pretty clear, on a larger level, it isn't. Some players might consider a heroic death for their character a success; some might even strive for that. Others consider death equivalent with failure. And indeed, some people might consider playing a character who is completely mechanically ineffective to be a success, if that character is otherwise enjoyable to play and entertaining to watch.

 

[technoextreme]

I am not passing judgment on it as a mechanic. It is jarring to me and breaks my immersion, but I wouldn't call it cromulent (if I understand what you mean by the word). Some people find it smooth and immersive. It just doesn't work for me. But as a mechanic, I can see there are players who like it a lot.

How is it jarring? Its one of the most obvious powers and the fact that you really can't wrap your head around it is perplexing. I've seen it done in football. Its the foundation of the alt-f5 trick which I've seen variants of it done to people in youtube videos. I've had it happen to me in my game and that was completely through narrative dialogue.