Do you like "off screen" events to be rules-plausible?

[mmadsen]

These days, I find myself leaning more towards the philosophy of "The rules define how the world interacts with the PCs" than "The rules are the physics of the world".

That's a reasonable philosophy -- but it would be nice to have explicit rules for PC rule-breaking. With just one set of rules, which is really for PCs, we don't have good guidelines for how the rest of folks in the world operate.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Option 5, as DM or player. I strongly prefer that scenario.

Basically. . . see the sig.

 

[Drowbane]

These days, I find myself leaning more towards the philosophy of "The rules define how the world interacts with the PCs" than "The rules are the physics of the world"...

QFT

...we don't have good guidelines for how the rest of folks in the world operate.

Thats why we have a DM.

 

[jdrakeh]

It does not matter to me. It happens off-screen.

 

[Thaniel]

Dang. Misread and thus misvoted. I clicked on No, when I really meant a resounding YES.

 

[S'mon]

I voted 'kinda dislike' but I have no problem with rules-compatible events occurring; I merely don't like the feeling that nothing can occur outside the rules. I certainly have no problem with King William the Conqueror (or William the Dragonslayer) falling off his horse and breaking his neck, without it being the result of a Warlock's curse etc etc.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

What if there were always a chance of a critical fall that could result in death?

Apply all rules of falling (from the horse) as normal... And, in addition to that, roll a fort save (DC? 15+damage sustained???). If the result of the fort saving throw is 1, death is possible. Re-roll the save. If the second roll fails, death is confirmed.

???

Now, anyone can die from a fall.

 

[Aeolius]

If you have any really interesting "offscreen" stuff, and your players can't duplicate or at least meaningfully engage in it, the immersive experience suffers, imho.

The above-mentioned scenario could have been handled within the 3.5e ruleset. Suppose the drow was a member of an obscure Order, read that a PrC for evil drow wizards. The ritual would only work for those in the Order.

Suppose the ritual required the sacrifice of hundreds of innocent beings. If the PCs still proceed, this places them firmly in the camp of evil, so simply have a hundred paladins storm the site and smite them.

 

[FireLance]

What if there were always a chance of a critical fall that could result in death?

Apply all rules of falling (from the horse) as normal... And, in addition to that, roll a fort save (DC? 15+damage sustained???). If the result of the fort saving throw is 1, death is possible. Re-roll the save. If the second roll fails, death is confirmed.

Now, anyone can die from a fall.

This is the sort of problem that arises when you try to model million to one chances (plucked from the air - I'm not sure what are the actual chances of dying when you fall off a horse) in a game. In order to enable the chance to come up, it either has to be made more common for everyone (in the example above, everyone has at least a 1 in 400 chance of dying from a 10 foot drop), or there's going to be a lot of dice rolling to no significant effect. Yes, 95% of the time, it's only an extra d20 roll after a fall, but if the event being simulated has only a 0.000001 chance of taking place, some may find it pointless to roll even that first die. In addition, why stop at falls? Arguably, bludgeoning attacks from Colossal and Gargantuan creatures might create the same sort of trauma as a fall. And what about spells like Bigby's clenched fist and meteor swarm?

Essentially, I think there are events with such low probabilities that for simplicity, we might as well ignore them or increase the probability when it comes to the PCs. So, even though there may be a small chance of dying when you fall off a horse, when it comes to the PCs, the fall never kills them if they have enough hit points. Conversely, even if there is no practical chance of the PCs being able to hit an opponent, a natural 20 always does.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Some consistency. I dislike it when things are totally contradicting things off screen AND offer no explanation why. That's bad DMing for me, like the Drow example above. If things violate rules without being ridiculous, however, it's okay.

A demon casting a nether rite to trap a town in a time loop. Okay with me.

A white dragon who suddenly (and only off screen) develops to breath acid and fire? Strange, but palatable.

A NPC rogue who, by virtue of plot, gets into a fortress while he's obviously worse (as seen in combat as he tried to hide) than the party rogue who couldn't? Now it starts to... irk. Unless there's a nice explanation.

Cheers, LT.