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

[Neonchameleon]

From people'es discussion that an effect can vary per invocation, I have to disagree. The keyword assignment may be eager, but the in-game presentation is lazy.

Look at how magical missiles can be presented and how a player's whim can vary those representations. Look at how any of the Fighter powers represent a variety of maneouvres/special circumstances/reactions as opposed to a particular thing. Classic lazy binding.

Lazy/eager or hard/soft? I'd say 4e has under your definition eager binding but soft binding. It's not that 4e's binding is less eager, but I'm allowed to rebind (and can have a lot of fun doing so) should I so wish.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I thought of minions straight away too - only instead of minion, we have the unbridled application of GM force.

I've long thought that a lot of those who don't like aspects of 4e, such as minions, like a lot more GM force in their action resolution than I do, and these examples just upthread are not dissuading me from that opinion!

And I look at minions as an attempt to legislate a situation that doesn't require rules (and in this case isn't addressed very well).

 

[timASW]

So you don't do things like rolling for initiative, saving throws, or hit point damage? Do you adjudicate that on the fly, as long as it fits in the narration?

I do often change initiative to something more fitting. If it only makes sense for one group to go first like a good ambush I let them. Or if each party member engaged in a one on one contest within the fight I'll usuallly have the one with the higher initiative of a pair go first and then the person they are fighting and proceed down the line that way in pairs rather then in straight initiative order.

Saving throws are often ad hoc'd in various ways.

Damage is sometimes tweaked, usually to stop something like a lucky crit from one shotting a PC in the first or second round. But sometimes for NPC's too. I dont mind killing off a PC but no one wants to get one shotted in the first round because you lost initiative.

So yes, for the sake of story flow I ad hoc these things quite often.

 

[Balesir]

And I look at minions as an attempt to legislate a situation that doesn't require rules (and in this case isn't addressed very well).

True, if what happens is determined entirely by "what the DM thinks ought to happen (with which we assume all present agree)", then rules are not really needed at all. Personally, I would rather have rules.

So... narrating the foregone conclusion of a fight with something simple like "You quickly overwhelm his weak resistance" is unbridled application of GM force but defining an opponent as a speed bump with 1 hit point--hit it and it's dead--is narrative positioning and Pemertonian scene framing? Is that the spin I'm hearing here?

In a very brief (oversimplified) summary, yes. My answer to "why do you need rules for a creature that will die as soon as you hit it?" is simple - you might miss.

 

[Ahnehnois]

True, if what happens is determined entirely by "what the DM thinks ought to happen (with which we assume all present agree)", then rules are not really needed at all. Personally, I would rather have rules.

My philosophy is that everything that happens is what the DM says, and that under certain situations he essentially delegates his power to rules and/or dice to make the game more fair, realistic, or unpredictable.

 

[pemerton]

And I look at minions as an attempt to legislate a situation that doesn't require rules

My philosophy is that everything that happens is what the DM says, and that under certain situations he essentially delegates his power to rules and/or dice to make the game more fair, realistic, or unpredictable.

Unless I've badly misunerstood, there is nothing here that contradicts what I said upthread. You seem to be saying that you regard the default mode of resolution in the game as GM force, and hence that minion rules are unnecessary.

Which is more-or-less what I hypothesised.

So... narrating the foregone conclusion of a fight with something simple like "You quickly overwhelm his weak resistance" is unbridled application of GM force but defining an opponent as a speed bump with 1 hit point--hit it and it's dead--is narrative positioning and Pemertonian scene framing?

Scene-framing is mostly orthogonal to the issue, I think. But the contrast between action resolution via mechanics, and action resolution via GM force, is for me a pretty stark one - as [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] and [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] also indicated upthread.

There are other related issues, too. For instance, "narrating the foregone conclusion of a fight" is, as a technique, somewhat similar to "Say yes or roll the dice". Which is, in turn, an approach to the mechanics that treats them as about distributing and regulating narration, rather than primarily modelling the world. Which in turn is a 4e-ish approach to the mechanics. Yet 4e is typically criticised for this very feature.

 

[Hussar]

From people'es discussion that an effect can vary per invocation, I have to disagree. The keyword assignment may be eager, but the in-game presentation is lazy.

Look at how magical missiles can be presented and how a player's whim can vary those representations. Look at how any of the Fighter powers represent a variety of maneouvres/special circumstances/reactions as opposed to a particular thing. Classic lazy binding.

Not really. Not if you assume (which is how the rules present it) that keywords are mechanical, not simply flavour.

A power with, say, a Martial Weapon keyword cannot be refluffed as a ranged attack, for example. I cannot use anything other than a martial weapon with that power, at least, not without the DM stepping outside the rules. As a player I certainly cannot do that without the DM's express approval. At least, not by RAW and RAI.

Now, if the DM wants to Page 42 a power and allow Conan to throw his sword for a 3W Brutal Strike at some range, that's up to the DM. But, the powers are actually pretty solidly bound.

It's just that within that binding (if that's the right term) you have a fair degree of flexibility. How do you trip an ooze? Well the power flavour might say you sweep his legs, but, since that only works 90% of the time, the DM should be stepping in that other 10% to make it work here or, conversely, disallowing the power. Exactly the same as DM's do every other time.

 

[Hussar]

I do often change initiative to something more fitting. If it only makes sense for one group to go first like a good ambush I let them. Or if each party member engaged in a one on one contest within the fight I'll usuallly have the one with the higher initiative of a pair go first and then the person they are fighting and proceed down the line that way in pairs rather then in straight initiative order.

Saving throws are often ad hoc'd in various ways.

Damage is sometimes tweaked, usually to stop something like a lucky crit from one shotting a PC in the first or second round. But sometimes for NPC's too. I dont mind killing off a PC but no one wants to get one shotted in the first round because you lost initiative.

So yes, for the sake of story flow I ad hoc these things quite often.

Ahh, I think I see some of the disconnect here. At our table, virtually all rolls are made in the open. Certainly all attack, damage and initiative rolls are 100% in the open. If I was to change them as the DM, it would really, really break the fourth wall and make the DM's hand very visible. Something that I find far more immersion breaking than anything else.

We're very, very much a "If you roll the dice, you live with the consequences" group.

So, yeah, fudging dice at our table is virtually unheard of.

 

[Libramarian]

OK.

The only part of your post I understood was that you think JA has a deficient imagination so that's the only part I am responding to: the guy's a professional actor and had a bunch of adventures published during the d20 era, so I don't think that's true.

 

[timASW]

Ahh, I think I see some of the disconnect here. At our table, virtually all rolls are made in the open. Certainly all attack, damage and initiative rolls are 100% in the open. If I was to change them as the DM, it would really, really break the fourth wall and make the DM's hand very visible. Something that I find far more immersion breaking than anything else.

We're very, very much a "If you roll the dice, you live with the consequences" group.

So, yeah, fudging dice at our table is virtually unheard of.

I was like that for a long time but I've recently found thats often more fun not to be at total tyranny of luck. Changing the init is just a matter of simulating the feel of a duel better and making it more about the 1 one 1 between combatants then a large group melee. I use more encounters of roughly even numbers then I do encounters with large amounts of mooks though. So it works for me. It wouldnt if I went with more traditional encounters.