D&D 5E Combat as war, sport, or ??

[S'mon]

No. Nor those of 4e D&D.

As you probably recall from some of our conversations over the years, I've got significant doubts about how the relatively complicated and meta-game-y PC build approach of 5e D&D fits well with the mechanics => fiction approach. Bounded accuracy clearly makes it a better fit in this respect than 3E; but for someone who cultivated their sensibilities for that sort of approach using Rolemaster (with RQ/BRP as a back-up), it is a bit hard to look at 5e through a purits-for-system simulationist lens.

1. Yup, you know I like 4e too. It feels like EzekielRadien is saying there's something wrong/not right about the world sim approach to mechanics, he keeps bringing up extreme cases (my flu is a bit better now)

2. I think 5e was intended to be driftable to a variety of approaches, basically they took everything The Forge said about 'correct' system design, and did the opposite. I think 5e tries to be amenable to supporting a wide variety of Gamist, Dramatist, & Simulationist play styles. It deliberately avoids focus. So you can get a group of people at the same table with differing play agendas, and they can all more or less have a good time IME.

 

[tetrasodium]

1. Yup, you know I like 4e too. It feels like EzekielRadien is saying there's something wrong/not right about the world sim approach to mechanics, he keeps bringing up extreme cases (my flu is a bit better now)

2. I think 5e was intended to be driftable to a variety of approaches, basically they took everything The Forge said about 'correct' system design, and did the opposite. I think 5e tries to be amenable to supporting a wide variety of Gamist, Dramatist, & Simulationist play styles. It deliberately avoids focus. So you can get a group of people at the same table with differing play agendas, and they can all more or less have a good time IME.

Trouble is that d&d is still expected to be gsmist in various ways & by avoiding it so hard it just dumps the burden of being so on someone. With the distribution of responsibilities present in d&d that someone is pretty much exclusively the gm & there is nothing to push keep the players towards cooperating with the way that burden is being carried. Without mechanical pressure or even guidance on tha you can wind up with the load being increased deliberately & outrage if the person trying to carry it pushes back.

 

[overgeeked]

So you can get a group of people at the same table with differing play agendas, and they can all more or less have a good time IME.

Except every time those agendas run in opposing directions. Which is basically always. It’s on the referee to try to hold these together and point them in the same general direction despite naturally going in opposite directions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Except every time those agendas run in opposing directions. Which is basically always. It’s on the referee to try to hold these together and point them in the same general direction despite naturally going in opposite directions.

This assumes people have no give in their agendas at all, even when its a minor element to them in a situation and a major element in someone else's. I realize your stated experiences have taught you this is not the case, but you're really at some point going to have to accept that those experiences are not universal or just assume everyone who describes different ones is lying or deluded and stop bothering to talk to anyone else. Because, honestly, and this is from someone who has played with power gamers and other people with some game-negative issues for decades, your experiences come across as phoned in from another world in how extreme and universal you present them as.

 

[tetrasodium]

This assumes people have no give in their agendas at all, even when its a minor element to them in a situation and a major element in someone else's. I realize your stated experiences have taught you this is not the case, but you're really at some point going to have to accept that those experiences are not universal or just assume everyone who describes different ones is lying or deluded and stop bothering to talk to anyone else. Because, honestly, and this is from someone who has played with power gamers and other people with some game-negative issues for decades, your experiences come across as phoned in from another world in how extreme and universal you present them as.

The system offers the gm few if any tools for accomplishing that meeting of the minds & stripped away ones present in past editions. The various books provide no text the gm can point to while trying to gather consensus in order to deflect criticism that the gm even attempt it rather than just accepting whatever The Protagonist wants.

It's one thing to say that experience not universal but you also are not making any effort to describe how the system or rulebooks provide support in reaching the problem free state of perfection you are alluding to others finding under that nonuniversal experience

 

[Thomas Shey]

The system offers the gm few if any tools for accomplishing that meeting of the minds & stripped away ones present in past editions.

This assumes you need tools beyond talking to people. That's not a premise I accept from personal experience, and I'm willing to bet there are other people in just this thread who feel the same.

Again, the expectations that players will always be self-centered and incapable of looking at the big picture is not a given. Yes, that can occur. No, its not a situation anyone is required to assume as a default.

It's one thing to say that experience not universal but you also are not making any effort to describe how the system or rulebooks provide support in reaching the problem free state of perfection you are alluding to others finding under that nonuniversal experience

Because I don't think any rules whatsoever are required to do that. Mechanical tools are what you use when the more straightforward methods don't work.

 

[tetrasodium]

This assumes you need tools beyond talking to people. That's not a premise I accept from personal experience, and I'm willing to bet there are other people in just this thread who feel the same.

Again, the expectations that players will always be self-centered and incapable of looking at the big picture is not a given. Yes, that can occur. No, its not a situation anyone is required to assume as a default.




Because I don't think any rules whatsoever are required to do that. Mechanical tools are what you use when the more straightforward methods don't work.

Please cite book, page number, section, and preferably some section of player facing text that conveys to players that they should expect to participate in this "talking to" in a fashion other than tyrrany of the loudest most inflexible player plus sidekicks.

If the 5e books fail to provide player facing text that supports the solution that you seem to be calling for please provide the gm facing equivalent that a gm can point at to justify their need to engage in this behavior when one or more players disagree on what is proper or feel outrage over the gm trying to force them into some form of consensus.

5e utterly fails to support this. Some of those missing tools acted to facilitate that & other forms of discussion.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Please cite book, page number, section, and preferably some section of player facing text that conveys to players that they should expect to participate in this "talking to" in a fashion other than tyrrany of the loudest most inflexible player plus sidekicks.

If the 5e books fail to provide player facing text that supports the solution that you seem to be calling for please provide the gm facing equivalent that a gm can point at to justify their need to engage in this behavior when one or more players disagree on what is proper or feel outrage over the gm trying to force them into some form of consensus.

5e utterly fails to support this. Some of those missing tools acted to facilitate that & other forms of discussion.

No, I reject the view that such text is necessary. Furthermore, I submit that the kind of people that would not accept a simple agreement as to how to play outside of designer rules would not feel too compelled by the rules either. I will not play with "barracks room lawyers".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Please cite book, page number, section, and preferably some section of player facing text that conveys to players that they should expect to participate in this "talking to" in a fashion other than tyrrany of the loudest most inflexible player plus sidekicks.

Please tell me why I should care whether the book says anything about this or not. I don't need a game book to tell me to do this, nor do I believe most players do.

If the 5e books fail to provide player facing text that supports the solution that you seem to be calling for please provide the gm facing equivalent that a gm can point at to justify their need to engage in this behavior when one or more players disagree on what is proper or feel outrage over the gm trying to force them into some form of consensus.

5e utterly fails to support this. Some of those missing tools acted to facilitate that & other forms of discussion.

Again, I don't see the game needing to do things that should be part of basic human cooperation. Even accounting for the basic truth of "communicating is hard" this seems absolutely unnecessary, and not fundamentally reasonable as an expectation for a rules book to do. The fact some do so--and I can state there are any number that do that provide no carrots at all, even when they do--is a bonus, not a necessity.

The idea that you can only get players to work together if you have game carrots to make them is frankly ludicrous; there are whole classes of games that have no such thing and still manage. Its occasionally a useful supplemental tool in some classes of game, but even then its just that--supplemental.

So, again, your whole argument is based on a premise I'm not buying.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No, I reject the view that such text is necessary. Furthermore, I submit that the kind of people that would not accept a simple agreement as to how to play outside of designer rules would not feel too compelled by the rules either. I will not play with "barracks room lawyers".

Eh. There are people who, in some context, can be helped along to stay with their better angels by such things. I absolutely play with rules lawyers--but most of them are capable of understanding when you get right to the point, and I have no evidence they're some great exception to the general gaming populace.