D&D 5E Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It exists

There is no "truth" that makes it exist.

Make up your mind, Max - only one of these statements can be true.

 

[Maxperson]

Make up your mind, Max - only one of these statements can be true.

Context. Learn it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm a person in the modern era. I have been playing RPGs - including Gygax's - for longer than you. Given that he is one of the inventors of the game form, and one of those who coined the phrase "roleplaying game", I believe his game is a paradigm of the game-form.

I could not possibly care less about the thing which he referred to as a roleplaying game, because it doesn't meet the minimum quality standards for what constitutes a playable RPG, as established in the late eighties to early nineties. If you want to quibble over who gets dibs on the name, then that is irrelevant toward the merits of each system.

A system for tracking motion (ie position over time) which cannot tell you where anyone is at any given time, and which in fact requires "freeze frame" for most of the participants through most of the resolution process, and has no notion of simultaneity (because of the aforementioned "freeze frame") and which, on any attempt to unpack it systematically, will yield inconsistent results without the deft overlay of some more-or-less ad hoc narrative, is not a simulation.

I don't think that you know what a simulation actually is, if you honestly expect anyone to buy into that. Any simulation is restricted to finite resolution, whether you want to measure time in increments of six-seconds or femtoseconds. Simultaneity might be useful for certain purposes, but by no means is it mandatory.

What makes you so confident that the world (not the real world - that would be contrary to board rules - but the game world) is cold and uncaring. Why can't I play in Middle Earth, in which the world is not cold, uncaring and random but rather unfolds in accordance with a providential logic?

Sure, and you could also play in Discworld, if you really want to. Don't expect anyone to take the game seriously, though.

Yet my players do it all the time.

You might think that they are, and they might think that they are, but it is logically impossible. Your elf character cannot actually decide when fate or luck intervenes* and thus any such invocation prohibits role-playing while you do so.

*Unless they can, such as by magic.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

A system for tracking motion (ie position over time) which cannot tell you where anyone is at any given time, and which in fact requires "freeze frame" for most of the participants through most of the resolution process, and has no notion of simultaneity (because of the aforementioned "freeze frame") and which, on any attempt to unpack it systematically, will yield inconsistent results without the deft overlay of some more-or-less ad hoc narrative, is not a simulation.

Only some 5E games lack a notion of simultaneity. WE-GO Initiative variants are not only possible but one is actually in the 5E DMG.

Therefore, I don't think it's a correct generalization to say that 5E has no notion of simultaneity, or that 5E is non-simulationist. At best you can say it doesn't have to be played in a simulationist way, which is true.

 

[Hussar]

You might think that they are, and they might think that they are, but it is logically impossible. Your elf character cannot actually decide when fate or luck intervenes* and thus any such invocation prohibits role-playing while you do so.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ur-game-have-PHB-classes/page30#ixzz47OwKkYTY

So, basically, according to this extremely limited definition of role play, a very large proportion of what we do when we play an RPG isn't actually role playing. Sorry, complete and utter ballocks. You don't get to define roleplaying in such a way that only supports your own play style.

The part that I find absolutely baffling is why you would want to. What is served by such a limited definition.

Oh, and I'm still waiting to hear how your simulation allows for two creatures of roughly the same size to be vastly different in HP.

 

[pemerton]

Only some 5E games lack a notion of simultaneity. WE-GO Initiative variants are not only possible but one is actually in the 5E DMG.

Therefore, I don't think it's a correct generalization to say that 5E has no notion of simultaneity, or that 5E is non-simulationist. At best you can say it doesn't have to be played in a simulationist way, which is true.

Absolutely. Side initiative allows for simultaneity - I'm only talking about turn-by-turn (3E/4e style) initiative.

 

[TwoSix]

I could not possibly care less about the thing which he referred to as a roleplaying game, because it doesn't meet the minimum quality standards for what constitutes a playable RPG, as established in the late eighties to early nineties. If you want to quibble over who gets dibs on the name, then that is irrelevant toward the merits of each system.

"Call AD&D a roleplaying game again, and you will be declared anathema." Thus sayeth Cardinal Saelorn of the Alexandrian Church of the Process-Sim

 

[Maxperson]

So, basically, according to this extremely limited definition of role play, a very large proportion of what we do when we play an RPG isn't actually role playing. Sorry, complete and utter ballocks. You don't get to define roleplaying in such a way that only supports your own play style.

The part that I find absolutely baffling is why you would want to. What is served by such a limited definition.

Oh, and I'm still waiting to hear how your simulation allows for two creatures of roughly the same size to be vastly different in HP.

Perhaps you should ask the person who actually wrote that

 

[Maxperson]

I could not possibly care less about the thing which he referred to as a roleplaying game, because it doesn't meet the minimum quality standards for what constitutes a playable RPG, as established in the late eighties to early nineties. If you want to quibble over who gets dibs on the name, then that is irrelevant toward the merits of each system.

Eh. Mind posting a link to those official and universally accepted minimum quality standards? I've never seen them.

 

[Umbran]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Let us be clear about something - EN World does not generally support "One True Way" gaming discussion. And nobody on these boards really has the authority or clout to define for others what is, or is not, a role playing game. As a practical matter, no such definition will fly if made by personal assertion. If you're trying to do so by anything other than consensus building, you would probably be well-served to rethink your approach.

Moreover, we've seen more than enough attempts to do this in edition wars, old vs new school wars, and other arguments over arbitrary and constructed dichotomies. While the purveyors of definitions make claim for some technical need for a definition, frequently their actual goal, and almost always their effective result, is to draw lines between people - creating an Us vs Them - those who are Roleplaying and those who are Not Roleplaying.

You all know that when you create exclusionary definitions, and define someone out of a group they identify with, they will push back. If you claim a right to exclude them, you're being rude, and generating argument, and may eventually get called on that by a moderator. So, be wary where you tread - "But it is The TRVTH about RPGs!!!1!" will not be taken as an applicable excuse.

Not a moderator directive, but a bit of advice: You are apt to find it more constructive to think of the definition of "role playing game" like a genre definition (it being a genre of game). Genre definitions are not exact, and are done by way of inclusion, rather than by exclusion. A thing is considered part of a genre if it includes enough of the tropes and elements thought to be characteristics of the genre. Having things that are not characteristic of the genre does *not* exclude the thing from inclusion. You can have a Western movie with science fiction elements, but it is still a Western. And, you can have an RPG that includes elements that are not directly about playing roles.