D&D 5E Clouds, cubes, and "hitting"

[MarkB]

Sure, thing is, there are even more (more pervasive in the D&D experience) where representing hp loss only as phsysical injury doesn't make sense. Like characters gaining HD as they level. Those were the sorts of criticisms EGG was answering, and they were effective answers, and remain relevant as long as D&D uses hps, and has characters gain hps from experience (rather than, say, from growing to enormous size or becoming increasingly dense (in the molecular sense).

True enough. The classic example of that is the way that a Cure Light Wounds spell will pick a 1st-level commoner up from death's door and bring him to perfect health, but will only marginally improve a similarly direly-injured 10th-level character - so becoming more experienced gives characters a natural resistance to healing magic?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

My reason for doubting that there are meaningful leftward arrows in the Gygaxian paradigm of hitting (as I presented it in the OP - I'm bracketing [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]'s thought that a hit is always in some sense a hit) is that nothing downstream follows from what is imagined (about luck, endurance etc being depleted). For instance, there is no penalty to future saves; no penalty to run or jump; etc.

Someone playing a board game could imagine stuff in the fiction as they make moves from boxes to boxes, but that wouldn't matter to resolution either.

It's only what I've labelled a meaningful leftward arrow if, downstream, some rightward arrow will follow from it. (I think this is one part of the debate over 4e and "dissociated" mechanics. I think 4e does have leftward-followed-by-rightward arrows, but - as I said in the OP - these are carried by conditions (and also keywords), not by the "to hit" mechanic per se.)

This implies that what you actually care about when playing an RPG is whether you win or lose, and not the story which unfolds as a result of your actions. You seem to be saying that something which happens in the narrative is only important if it affects the cube-side mechanics, and that you don't care about anything that only happens in the cloud, which is the direct opposite of my assertion that players actually care about the narrative and only care about the mechanics to the extent which they influence the narrative.

If someone stabs me, and I lose HP but am otherwise mechanically unimpeded, then someone still stabbed me. Maybe it was just a nick or a scratch, but the narrative where I'm now (slightly) bleeding is still a different narrative from the narrative where I'm entirely intact, regardless of whether that scratch later contributes to my falling against a dragon or whether that small drop of blood throws the next shark I encounter into a frenzy. When I play an RPG, it is for the explicit purpose of finding out what happens as a result of my choices, and that's why I care whether or not I was actually hit. The narrative is the important part.

 

[pemerton]

there are occasions where representing a 'hit' as something other than a physical injury doesn't make sense.

The classic example is poison. If a character coats his blade with poison, that poison's effect is delivered to the target upon a successful hit - even if it was a grazing 1-hit-point dagger thrust, and the first damage that target had taken. Narratively, it makes no sense to resolve that attack as anything other than a physical injury sufficient to draw blood and introduce the poison into the subject's bloodstream.

Gygax links this to the saving throw rather than just the to hit roll (DMG, p 81):

[R]ecall the justification for character hit points. That is, damage is not actually sustained -at least in proportion to the number of hit points marked off in most cases. The so called damage is the expenditure of favor from deities, luck, skill, and perhaps a scratch, and thus the saving throw. If that mere scratch managed to be venomous, then DEATH. If no such wound was delivered, then NO DAMAGE FROM THE POISON.​

But with that caveat/qualification, yes, I agree. That is an example of what I mentioned in the OP, of using condition infliction on a hit to establish an arrow from cubes to cloud.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sure, thing is, there are even more (more pervasive in the D&D experience) where representing hp loss only as phsysical injury doesn't make sense. Like characters gaining HD as they level. Those were the sorts of criticisms EGG was answering, and they were effective answers, and remain relevant as long as D&D uses hps, and has characters gain hps from experience (rather than, say, from growing to enormous size or becoming increasingly dense (in the molecular sense).

I think the extent to which hp loss narrated as one or the other not making sense is entirely dependent on the individual. Gaining HD as you level can make sense when HP's are physical injuries, as this represents the skill of turning a potentially lethal wound into something less than lethal - a 4 HP commoner hit by a longsword attack takes most of that attack right in their meat. A 40 hp PC hit by that same longsword attack might only get nicked and bruised by the force.

Similarly, there's probably some way you can explain away poison even when there's no physical contact made (poison is functionally disadvantage in 5e, so "the attack makes you question your own destiny!" would be as consistent as "the attack injects a literal poison into your veins").

Which one makes sense and which one is a hand-wavey justification for a game mechanic depends on individual aesthetics.

 

[pemerton]

I find that very un-convincing. In the second example, for instance, if the weather is determined by a random roll (cube) it's identical to A, being cube -> cloud -> cube.

I don't know if your read [MENTION=6857506]Harzel[/MENTION]'s follow-up post, which cut-and-pastes the full exchange from Vincent Baker's blog page. The same thing was raised there.

As Baker sees it, the difference between A (roll your "inflict penalty" check, if successful also give an in-ficiton reason for the penalty) and B (roll for weather, note its hot, then later - when a character exerts him-/herself - apply a penalty for oppressive heat) is that A is cube-to-cube, with an incidental leftward arrow to the cloud (the narration of oppressive heat), whereas B is cube-to-cloud (roll to determine the weather, which is a thing in the fiction) and then cloud-to-cube (the fiction is relevant to the resolution of a subsequent act of exertion).

Baker elaborates on B:

[T]he more time and conceptual space between those two rules' applications [that is, the weather roll rule and the penalty-to-action rule], the more real the oppressive heat will seem. For instance: you make a weather roll at the beginning of the session, declare that it's oppressively hot, and so for the entire session all the players roll -2 for all their characters' strenuous actions.​

When people criticise CaGI, the underlying idea (cleaning away all the rhetorical cruft about "martial mind control", and the confusion over which actions should require a die roll and which can be auto-successes) is that it has too much A: cube-to-cube, with perhaps an offhand narration about why the enemies move, which generates an incidental leftward arrow.

Now, as the rules are written, that leftward arrow is actually completely optional. So in that sense, the critics can even more vociferously assert that it is cube-to-cube.

However, CaGI also produces a change in the enemies' position, and that (in my view) is (a) not just cube-to-cube, but rather is a change in the fiction, and (b) is a change in the fiction that matters to subsequent resolution.

From which I infer that the critics of CaGI either (i) assume that the "battlemap" is purely in the cube realm, and/or (ii) are of the view that positioning is an insignificant element of the fiction. (ii) seems to me a matter of taste and I'll leave it alone.

But (i) seems to me fairly fundamental. I discussed it back in the epic "dissociated mechanics" thread (here), and it has also come up in some recent discussions about roleplaying vs boardgamings (eg on the "Low CR monsters - ogres are boring") thread.

If you treat positioning on the battlemap no different from the location of a piece on a gameboard - and eg terrain doesn't matter until it's "mechanised" as difficult terrain, or blocking terrain, etc - then you seem to me to be in the realm of cubes-to-cubes, and the criticism that CaGI is not really RPGing has some bite.

It seems clear to me that 4e is not intended to be played that way, and that nonsense about "wrought iron fences made of tigers" is just that (ie nonsense); and that what forces the players to engage with the fiction, rather than leaving such engagement optional, is all the standard stuff of RPGing: eg if our characters are roped together, will that mean I don't fall down the pit even when I'm pushed into it (ie even when, in cube-land, my token is moved onto that square of the battlemap)? If I blast the pond with my ice attack (which, in 4e, will have keyword cold), can I freeze it (thereby turning it from hindering terrain into difficult or perhaps challenging terrain)? Etc.

And here's another way - far more table specific - that CaGI can generate leftward arrows that then, down the track, support rightward arrows. In my game, the CaGI fighter is a polearm fighter, and the default assumption for his use of CaGI is that deft work with his polearm has wrongfooted/outmanoevred his enemies - that is, that CaGI is typically about physical prowess on his part, not about the tendency of mooks to rush him Jackie Chan-style. This table undertanding of what was going on then meant, when he was in a pond infested with a water weird, and wanted to use his polearm to deftly force stones from the edge and bottom of the pond down into the spring at the bottom of the pond, so as to cut off the flow of water to the weird, he could[/i].

I think that this sort of example of arrows between cubes and clouds is looser than what Baker is discussing in his worked example - it seems to me more a case of cube-stuff, and its generation of/iteration with "local" cloud-stuff, also generates more "global" cloud-stuff - such as "When the pressure is on, my polearm guy can display unrivalled deftness of timing and manoeuvring with his polearm" - which then feeds back into permissible action declarations and the cube-ish dimensions of their resolution.

Thinking about it as I type, its probably cube-to-cloud-to-cloud-to-cube-to-cube-to-cloud: CaGI (cube) > My guy's timing and skill with the polearm is impeccable (cloud) > My guy can use his polearm to shove stones into the spring at the precise movement the water weird surges up out of it (cloud) > CaGI can be expended to support a check in the skill challenge (cube) > I get the last required success in the skill challenge (cube) > the water weird has been defeated because its source of power (the spring) has been pluged (cloud).

Another example of this sort of "local" cloud to "global" cloud then back to cubes that in turn feed back to clouds: the dwarven artificers were having difficulty reforging the same player's dwarven thrower as a mordenkdrad ([url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?324955-Whelm-reforged-as-Overwhelm-and-other-recent-skill-challenges]"Whelm" to "Overwhelm") - as GM, I was narrating the poweful thrumming and brightness of the arcane energies, which were preventing the dwarves from properly controlling the artefact with their tongs. And the player thinks aloud to himself, "I'm the toughtest dwarf in the land, so I'm going to shove my hands into the forge and hold the hammer still so they can properly grab it with their tongs to start working on it - is that an Endurance check to contribute to the skill challenge?" Another example of cubes (mechanical resolution over the course of the campaign) > cloud (I'm the toughest dwarf around > cloud (I'm so tough I can shove my hands into a dwarven forge and hold down a powerful artefact so the artificers can grab it with their tongs) > cubes (Endurance check) > cubes (successful skill challenge) > cloud (I've got very sore hands, but at last Whelm has been reforged as Overwhelm).

(The sore hands were treated with Remove Affliction powered by Fundamental Ice- that's clouds (sore hands) > clouds (they need healing, preferably with a powerful anti-burn agent like Fundamental Ice) > cubes (resolve Remove Affliction, cross Fundamental Ice of the equipment list, etc) > clouds (now my hands are better).)

Anyway, this post has drifted a bit from the original example, but hopefully sheds more light on what I think is going on.

I also hope it sheds some light - even if only at an oblique angle - as to what I think is at stake. In case you hadn't already worked out, to me this is a companion to my "role in roleplaying" thread, in that I'm trying to look at different ways of thinking about what roleplaying is. In particular, I am contesting the claim - frequently put forward very vociferously, as for instance in some of those recent monster-design threads - that RPGing is just about lots of flavour, including imagined motivations and ecologies and the like for monsters,etc, so that people who care about or complain about mechanics are really boardgamers in disguise. In this thread, that's about looking at how the clouds inform the cubes, but also how the cubes generate clouds - and what is needed for a cube to generate a cloud as opposed to just another cube ("Oh no, we've been boargaming all along!").

 

[pemerton]

This implies that what you actually care about when playing an RPG is whether you win or lose, and not the story which unfolds as a result of your actions. You seem to be saying that something which happens in the narrative is only important if it affects the cube-side mechanics, and that you don't care about anything that only happens in the cloud

I have no idea how "win or lose" fits into this - I haven't even told you what I think win/loss conditions might be for an RPG!

But you are correct that I regard fiction (clouds) that don't matter to downstream resolution as mere colour. As I said, you can have that playing a board game. My daughters overlay mere colour, in this sense, on their play of Monopoly or of Mystic Wood (the latter is a 1980 tile-based Avalon Hill exploration/quest game, a bit like Talisman but better eg because it finishes in a reasonable time) - but not their play of (say) chess or Connect 4. I think this is because the first-mentioned games use flavour text that relates to human choices in an imagined scenario - they have a "role adoption" element that chess or Connect 4 lacks.

But personally I don't see the principal function of RPGing as "making me imagine stuff". I don't really get that from playing Monopoly, but even I - an experenced gamer - get that from Mystic Wood, though not to the same degree as my kids. In my view, it becomes RPGing when the fiction that is generated matters to subsequent moments of resolution - that is, when rightward arrows are generated from cloud to cube. (Eg, because I'm covered in blod, I get a reaction roll penalty on my interaction with the duke; because I have a scratch, I have an increased chance of infection when I shove my hand into the murky pond; or whatever it might be.)

At this point, it's not just that I'm imagining stuff. Rather, my imagination of stuff is - via a systematised procedure which means I can do it with my friends without arguments breaking out - driving the imagination of more stuff. There's a dynamic of fiction generation that we're all participants in, that has complex emergent and iterative aspects to it that don't arise merely from being prompted to imagine or give voice to mere colour.

To me, that's what RPGing is, and why it's a worthwhile activity.

As I said, I have no idea how or why you see that as connected to "winning"/"losing".

 

[pemerton]

there's probably some way you can explain away poison even when there's no physical contact made (poison is functionally disadvantage in 5e, so "the attack makes you question your own destiny!" would be as consistent as "the attack injects a literal poison into your veins").

That would suggest that the "poison" tag is misleading at best.

 

[MarkB]

I also hope it sheds some light - even if only at an oblique angle - as to what I think is at stake. In case you hadn't already worked out, to me this is a companion to my "role in roleplaying" thread, in that I'm trying to look at different ways of thinking about what roleplaying is. In particular, I am contesting the claim - frequently put forward very vociferously, as for instance in some of those recent monster-design threads - that RPGing is just about lots of flavour, including imagined motivations and ecologies and the like for monsters,etc, so that people who care about or complain about mechanics are really boardgamers in disguise. In this thread, that's about looking at how the clouds inform the cubes, but also how the cubes generate clouds - and what is needed for a cube to generate a cloud as opposed to just another cube ("Oh no, we've been boargaming all along!").

That's kind-of how a lot of the design of Eberron came about, as I understand it. Much of the way that setting's societies and economics were set up was the result of looking at the mechanics of (3.5e) D&D, and considering what their implications would be in a fictional world. So in a sense, many of that setting's elements were clouds generated from 3.5e's cubes.

 

[pemerton]

That's kind-of how a lot of the design of Eberron came about, as I understand it. Much of the way that setting's societies and economics were set up was the result of looking at the mechanics of (3.5e) D&D, and considering what their implications would be in a fictional world. So in a sense, many of that setting's elements were clouds generated from 3.5e's cubes.

Yep, that fits with my recollection too.

From the point of view of design, I see it as working both ways - you need cubes that will give you the clouds you want, and also it should be at least fairly clear how/why the clouds you have matter to the cubes.

So when I see people saying "I wish monster M had mechanics that were a bit XYZ-ish", to me they seem to be saying - "At the moment, these cubes don't give me the clouds I want." And a reply along the lines of "If only you introduced these other clouds, then either (i) you wouldn't mind, and/or (ii) you might have slightly different cubes or generate slightly different clouds from your cubes" seems mostly to miss the point.

There is an idea that seems to me to be implicit in some posts - I find it especially prominent in approaches/discussions inpsired by 2nd ed AD&D - that (at one and the same time) the cubes are sacrosanct (so we must have rolls to hit, and AC and hp and the like - and eg fighter auto-success is "martial magic" or "martial mind control"; but it would be terrible to have new mechanics that might take input from, and give rise to, different sorts of clouds); and yet the clouds can be whatever you want, such that it's a type of power-gaming or boardgaming to think about varying the cubes so as to change their relationship to, and the content of, the clouds.

Hopefully it's very obvious that I don't share this particular idea.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Hit points can represent luck and fatigue but there are some cases where it gets weird. How does one only lose fatigue or luck when a fireball explodes 5 feet from their face?

The bigger question for me would be why does the fireball do fire damage and the longsword do slashing damage if they do not, in fact, actually do any fire or slashing damage. (In Gygax's description he acknowledges that any successful sword hit would involve a nick at least).