D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Micah Sweet]

The highly improbable happens on rare occasions (otherwise they wouldn't be highly improbable), but when it happens repeatedly it is no longer improbable. It's automatic and guaranteed. It's fine that it doesn't bother you, all we ask is that you accept that it's an issue with some people.

Yes. There is tension between how rare something is in the setting (which should theoretically come out regularly in interactions with NPCs) and how rare something is in the party (on which the vast majority of actual play time focuses). For example, you can say you have a low-magic setting until you're blue in the face, but if all the PCs are casters, for practical purposes you don't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

584 Improbable Causes - Giant in the Playground Games

OOTS clearly runs on narrative logic (at least according to Elan). Our games don't have to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But that's only because you choose to have the odds are poor. You can always choose that the odds are something else. After all, you have chosen to believe that it's logical that all fighters (and all barbarians, rangers, and paladins) are proficient in all weapons, even though that is extremely illogical.

Almost nothing in D&D is actually logical. Why is this bit of illogic so important to you but other bits you're willing to ignore?

If your DM decided that your D&D fighter wasn't actually allowed to be proficient in swords because it's illogical that someone of your chosen social class would be able to afford one or been able to be trained in one, or because historically speaking, possibly wouldn't even be allowed to own one--would you be cool with that? Would you instead point out that limitation is illogical and unfun? Would you just leave the game? Would you suck it up and go adventure with your spear and shortbow instead, because those are the weapons you'd be logically allowed to have?

I would absolutely be cool with that! Give me more of that!

 

[mamba]

Look, I asked the question, which you very deliberately chose to not answer. Why, out of all the illogical things in D&D, do you care so much about the perceived lack of logic in a couple of backgrounds?

I did answer it, I said that fiction comes with some built in suspense of disbelief, whether it is Star Wars or D&D, but that does not mean that just because you have to accept some fantastical things any notion of realism should be thrown out and nothing matters any more

As to the background, I say this as clearly as possible now: I think your interpretation of what it is supposed to do is wrong. Your interpretation does not align with its intent, what is written, or what is rational / realistic. All the illogical problems that arise from it are from you defending your misunderstanding.

Feel free to continue using it as you do, I surely never will

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, in the case of the sailor or the criminal, you don't just happen to run into anyone--you're actively seeking people out at a location where they would likely to be. The sailor background also doesn't say you have to actually know the ship or crew, just that you might have served on it or with them. Sure, it says you're calling in a favor, but that also can mean that you're offering a favor for a favor.

Also, while sure, you're quite unlikely to run into someone you actually know when in a different plane (unless planar travel is fairly common in your setting, or the plane is one--like Ravenloft or even the Feywild--where a magical copy of the boat or runner can be made by the powers that be), an instance where the PC is both on another plane and also wants to use their background feature is so vanishingly rare as to be dismissed. I'd go so far as to view that as a bad faith argument, because it's saying "because this feature shouldn't work across the planes, it also shouldn't work if you happen to be in a different place on your own world.


First off, there's a huge difference between "NPCs aren't required to stay at home all the time and sometimes have reasons why they would be traveling; therefore, there is a chance that the PCs and NPC may run across each other" and "here is a small village where everything is made of jewels."

But anyway, isn't that what, like, 75% of D&D adventures are like? The players just happen to be in the location where either some weird event is going on, or someone approaches them, asking them to help deal with some weird event? One of the first Dungeon Magazine adventures I ran involved the players just happening across a tiny village that, in ages past, had petrified a powerful demon in a circle of standing stones.

<grabs Curse of Strahd>

Three of the four hooks are the PCs just happening to be in a location where they meet someone who lures them into Barovia. The fourth hook is a railroad.

<Looks up other adventures>

Descent Into Avernus. Without reading the entire adventure, it looks as though the NPCs just happen to be drafted into protecting the town that happens to get yanked into Hell.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight. One of the hooks is that all of the PCs just happened to have sneaked into a circus without paying when they were a child.

Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. It looks like the hooks are all either the PCs all decided to go somewhere for a festival, or someone approaches the PCs looking for help, or the PCs happen to know someone who need help.

All of these are quite the coincidence, yes? It's almost like the typical D&D party is always in a place where there's adventure to be had.

So if I were in a party where we came across a town where everything was made of emerald, I'd go "plot hook!" and look to see if the ruler was a friendly scarecrow.

To me, all of that sounds like bad/implausible/lazy design. But then I prefer sandbox play.

 

[Faolyn]

I would absolutely be cool with that! Give me more of that!

So would I--if it were something that were discussed ahead of time or was already part of the game's rules.

Not if the GM just decided to spring it on me after the game had already started.

 

[Faolyn]

I did answer it, I said that fiction comes with some built in suspense of disbelief, whether it is Star Wars or D&D, but that does not mean that just because you have to accept some fantastical things any notion of realism should be thrown out and nothing matters any more

Hah. No, you didn't answer it at all.

So go on, explain why you are willing to accept 99.99~% of illogical D&D rules and tropes but not this one.

 

[Oofta]

Hah. No, you didn't answer it at all.

So go on, explain why you are willing to accept 99.99~% of illogical D&D rules and tropes but not this one.

I know it doesn't matter and I'm going to regret responding, but most of the "illogical D&D rules and tropes" that you bemoan are gameplay elements designed for simplicity and ease of play. Every fighter knows how to use every weapon because it doesn't buy anything from a game perspective to have to pick and choose. That, and if we were talking, say modern firearms instead of swords I do think an expert in firearms could pick up a firearm they had never used and get familiar with it fairly quickly.

But "illogical rules" are completely different from an illogical story and world building.

 

[Lanefan]

Sigh...

Look, I asked the question, which you very deliberately chose to not answer. Why, out of all the illogical things in D&D, do you care so much about the perceived lack of logic in a couple of backgrounds?

Which is why I brought up fighters and weapons. It's illogical that every single fighter, ranger, paladin, and barbarian should all happen to know how to use every single weapon with equal proficiency, regardless of the characters' wealth, training, access to materials, and any differences in the societies where they grew up.

I agree. Hence, the IMO better approach is how 1e (and 2e?) do it, where everyone - even Fighters - is proficient in just a few weapons (number of prioiciencies and available list vary by class) and players can use weapon proficiencies as a character differentiator - well, other than MU, but who cares what weapons they use anyway?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So would I--if it were something that were discussed ahead of time or was already part of the game's rules.

Not if the GM just decided to spring it on me after the game had already started.

Well, I would want to explain my take on backgrounds ahead of time as well, although my players have mostly the same sense of logic I do.