D&D (2024) Command is the Perfect Encapsulation of Everything I Don't Like About 5.5e

[Lanefan]

But here's the problem. The idea of saluting doesn't exist until about the 16th century. Tell an Ogre to salute and he'd have no idea what it means. In fact, outside of knights, no one would understand what that means. Again, that's not being creative, it's being anachronistic.

The Romans didn't have a salute or equivalent sign of respect/acknowledgment of a senior officer? Huh.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The Romans didn't have a salute or equivalent sign of respect/acknowledgment of a senior officer? Huh.

I'm pretty sure displays of supplication have existed since animals started living communally.

 

[Umbran]

Cleric cast Command "Develop" on himself.

Cleric gains a level.

No. Cleric shakes like a Polaroid for one round.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

No. Cleric shakes like a Polaroid for one round.

Or for 1 round, the target starts construction on a new building making NIMBYs within sight begin raging.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Flavour/Setting is the greatest weakness of 2024.

 

[Hussar]

The Romans didn't have a salute or equivalent sign of respect/acknowledgment of a senior officer? Huh.

There are no actual historical records of it. This was added by historians much later to justify all sorts of political stuff.

 

[Daztur]

Making up fiction is playing the game. It's like deciding what a NPC says, or which PC a creature attacks. It's not a ruling about the consequence or impact of some rules element.

Compare the Command spell to the Apocalypse World Brainer's "direct-brain whisper projection". The latter requires the Gm to make decisions about how a NPC responds, but not to make any ruling about whether or how the effect works.

"Direct-brain whisper projection: when you whisper a command direct to another person's mind (they have to be able to see you, but you don't have to interact), you get the effects of going aggro without going aggro. Roll+weird instead of roll+hard. If they force your hand, your mind counts as a weapon (1‑harm ap close loud‑optional)."

My Apocalypse World rules jargon is a bit rusty (although I do have fond memories for Pig Dawg, my AW bike gang leader with Spam can armor who cemented the loyalty of his gang with food) but what I'm seeing here is that you can basically attack people with a different stat but at the same time (IIRC, been a while since I played AW) the specific effects of attacking someone ("going aggro") are subject to a lot of GM interpretation. But there are some problems with this approach. It's so abstract that often the details that are important to the fiction gets abstracted away and doesn't matter.

The way I see it with RPGs you get a choice:
1. Abstract: the rules are broad and cover a lot of situations. Downside: the details gets blurred away by the abstraction and stop mattering.
2. Complicated: rules rules are specific and numerous and cover many specific situations. Downside: www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Grapple www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/climb.htm eyes glaze over
3. Narrow: rules are both specific and simple. Downside: there's a lot of naughty word that the rules don't cover so the GM has to constantly make naughty word up.

4e, taking a leaf from a lot of Indie games, is full-on abstract. 3.5e and the crunchier traditional RPGs tend to be complicated, while OSR games tend to be narrow. All approaches have strengths and weaknesses. 5e rejected a lot of the complication of 3.5e and has a lot of compromises between Abtract (things like advantage) and Narrow (a lot of legacy D&D-isms from TSR-D&D like, say, the Command spell). 5.5e is moving (slowly) back to Abstract which can be seen in things like how the summoning spells now summon mobile AoEs instead of critters and other moves towards abstraction such as Hide having a set DC of 15 (I actually rather like this one).

I just tend to think that the mesh of narrow rules, rather than the blanket of abstract rules is a big part of the charm of traditional D&D and I'm sad to see 5.5e chip away at it.

 

[Daztur]

But here's the problem. The idea of saluting doesn't exist until about the 16th century. Tell an Ogre to salute and he'd have no idea what it means. In fact, outside of knights, no one would understand what that means. Again, that's not being creative, it's being anachronistic.

And, again, it's outside the intent of the spell. The spell's intent is that you use CLEAR verbs. That you keep using the spell wrong is not my fault. Nor should WotC be beholden to your wrong interpretations.

That's actually exactly the sort of thing I love about Command. The ogre isn't going to salute because the FICTION of the world is that it's a medieval society in which saluting has not been invented yet. Now the fiction of the world matters in terms of how the spells work. Yay!

As for the intent the intent says "You might issue a command other than one described here. If you do so, the DM determines how the target behaves." The intent is for the DM to have full control over what the target does. That's all the intent I need.

In 4e D&D, that's a move in a skill challenge.

twitches
If healing surges were 4e's best mechanic, skill challenges were its worst.

In B/X D&D that would either be a +1 on a reaction check (if there's no fight yet) or else would be a move in evasion resolution, where there is a % chance that the creature stops to eat the food - I can't recall what that % chance is in B/X, but in Gygax's DMG it works like this:

Food, including rations and/or wine, will be from 10% to 100% likely to distract pursuers of low intelligence or below, providing the food/wine is what they find palatable. Roll a d10 to find the probability, unless you have a note as to how hungry or food-oriented the creatures are. Add 10% to the result for every point of intelligence below 5, and give a 100% probability for non-intelligent creatures pursuing. If probability is under 100%, roll the d10 a second time, and if the result is equal to or less than the probability determined, then the pursuers break off pursuit for 1 round while the food/wine is consumed.​

I love the 1e DMG. It's an utter clusterfuck, but it's a glorious one.

I don't see that making decisions about the fiction is "rulings". That's just playing the game.

Yeah, and I really am not grasping the distinction between deciding what happens when I throw some honey at the owlbear and deciding what happens when I cast "defenestrate" at the orc. They're the same exact thing to me. Players try to do naughty word that requires some DM input and I decide what happens. They're both a normal part of the game.

This could be handled a number of ways in 5e as I see it.

* Instead of using a "luck roll" to see if the owlbear likes honey and if that the tactic works, this world-building element and if the tactic was a success could be resolved via a Handle Animal check. All you need to do is determine the difficulty.
(Dice determines Yes or No)

* DM determines if honey is part of the diet of the owlbear, since he is Master of the World - per the DMG and if (a) Yes, then a Handle Animal check or another appropriate check is used to determine if the tactic works.
The check may resolve a number of items (jar was thrown aggressively, did the jar break allowing the owlbear to identify the honey...etc). Perhaps there is an Advantage that is granted.
And if (b) No, then perhaps the sound of the jar smashing scares off the beast, or the honey reminds it of a bad encounter with wasp's nest when it was young, or it makes the owlbear more aggressive...etc
(Say Yes, with dice to determine degree of success, or Say No, but...)

* DM decides the idea was creative enough and that the PC used up an appropriate resource for the challenge thus circumventing the risk of rolling dice.
(Say Yes, no dice)

* Then there is the obviously outright No by the DM, but that is harder to justify in this scenario with such limited facts, IMO.

Yup, there are a whole slew of ways that a DM could handle this, just like there are a bunch of ways different DMs can handle NPCs getting hit with creative command spells. Not really seeing a difference here. In both cases the DM needs to make a call.

 

[TiQuinn]

That's actually exactly the sort of thing I love about Command. The ogre isn't going to salute because the FICTION of the world is that it's a medieval society in which saluting has not been invented yet. Now the fiction of the world matters in terms of how the spells work. Yay!

I’m going to make a guess and say 0.1% of players are going to be amused by the idea that saluting has not been invented in the DM’s world and therefore their command doesn’t work.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I’m going to make a guess and say 0.1% of players are going to be amused by the idea that saluting has not been invented in the DM’s world and therefore their command doesn’t work.

If it literally was not a thing that existed in the world, then the PC obviously cannot refer to it either. So in such a situation the GM should inform the player when they try to issue the command, so that they can choose something else.

Though I think "formal greeting" is a concept that has existed for a very long time, so the idea that it would not be a thing seems rather strange to me.