Falling from Great Heights

[Minigiant]

[MENTION=26918]JAM[/MENTION]ersonCourage

I like your rpg. It gave the little DM in inside of me a heart attack thinking of the complex formulas to calculate things and all the aspects to tract. But to like it.

To me it could be complished in 5E with a simple core, a Armor as DR system, a Stamina system (or some degenerative regenerating DR system), and a couple other tweaks.

But I still don't see how it is different than any other version of D&D other that the stats. You still need about X+20 level 1s to defeat a level 12 hero (X is how many level 1s the hero killed before they got their attacks off because of initiative).

But I just don't get this topic. I don't think 5E will break the trending power curve of all of D&D (maybe not 4E sinceit skipped gritty): gritty to semifantasy to superfantasy to gonzofantasy. Anyone who want to flatten the curve, change the starting point, change the ending point; has to add modules. Then they can play whatever they feel like, yo.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't think the types of players have really changed CJ. I hate to tell you this, but there's such a thing as old age, and we is gettin' there! (slowly perhaps, kicking and screaming for sure, but the river of time moves on...).

Not that nothing has changed, but I think in the old days the divisions just played out differently. I also suspect that D&D has occupied a different part of the overall RPG player space over the years.

Well, it's not like I said all those changes were bad, though I suppose I did focus on the negative ones more than the positive ones. You should have seen the unedited version before submission.

But I can't help compare some of the things now to some of the stoner-types I knew in the 70s--folks that weren't all that bright to begin with, and their habits had in no way enhanced the situation. Yet, because of their time and circumstances, they had a certain amount of minimal common sense about some things. If you helped gather hay, or fed cows, or picked your own tomatoes (and other things ), then a little bit of that "rural reality" will have rubbed off on you. Maybe stoners from the big city then were as bad as meth heads are now, but I doubt it. Maybe it is a "rural vs urban" thing, and there is less and less contact, on average, with a rural environment every year. I do think that if someone had done one of those, "ask the city kids where hamburger comes from," studies in 1975, it wouldn't have been nearly as shocking. But who knows for sure, since no one thought to ask then?

There is a certain kind of "educated into stupidity" that can occur. We've had more "education" in general over the last generation or so, and I think you take the good with the bad on something like that. A great deal of wisdom and foolishness are timeless, and so those haven't changed. Maybe some wisdom and foolishness are a bit situational, though.

The media side is neutral, though it has an effect. There is more varied fantasy media available, and it covers a wider range of styles and topics. It is easier to get, too. There are some things in print now that you couldn't readily get in the 80s and 90s, if you missed out on them earlier. So that's a "difference" in expectations of verisimilitude that is a reflection on the facts on the ground, not because I've gotten old over the course of it changing.

 

[El Mahdi]

Are you saying that you've seen this take place in a game? That you would expect this to take place in a game?

Or that it's typical for newbies to play 10th level PCs, who can teleport, plane shift, fight and kill T-Rex's, but then be puzzled that they can survive improbably terrible falls?

Or are you just making stuff up?

It was an obvious hypothetical situation to highlight a factor that people may not be considering. But yes, I have seen actual game situations very similar to this when introducing new players. Specifically, I find it happens more often with adult players who are new to RPG's.

 

[BryonD]

But this is exactly [MENTION=57948]triqui[/MENTION] and [MENTION=52548]Aaron[/MENTION]'s point (as I read them): that in D&D 3E (at least - maybe other versions as well) fighting a T-rex or a dragon can involve being picked up by it in its jaws, being crushed by its jaws or its body, etc. Which entail "automatic severe harm" just as much as does falling 100 feet.

And hence that, whatever story you tell about your mojo that let's you survive those things ("I wedge it's jaw open with my sword"; "I use my shield to create a little pocket where I survive under the crushing bulk of the dragon") you also tell to explain how you survive the fall ("At the last minute, I use my cloak (which is probably as magical as my sword and shield) like a parachute, Batman-style").

I don't buy this.

I think the root difference comes from presuming player control over the world as you and I have described our disagreement on previously.

First, you've changed my comment on fighting a t-tex to defacto include "getting crushed". That isn't a fair modification. "Getting crushed *IS* in the same category as falling from a great height. If I told a player they "got crushed" they would expect very serious damage or death. If I told a player they were falling from a great height then they would expect very serious damage or death. If, OTOH, I told them they were grabbed by a T-Rex they would expect a real danger of getting crushed, in turn leading to death. Just as if I had told them they were on a ledge over a great height, they would expect a real danger of falling. You are freely mixing and match "real danger" which can be heroically overcome, with after the fact "it happened". You can't do that and address my issue here.

Falling from heights doesn't happen all that often in my games. But it does just so happen that it DID happen in a game I ran last Saturday night. And the circumstances do a great job of being an example of my issue with your "parachute" example. And, once again, it comes back down to getting the narrative concept of the character correct.

The party was exploring around a keep built into the side of a cliff, looking for a back door or other way in. At one point they are on the top of the cliff and became ambushed by a dragon. Gaining surprise the dragon grabbed a heavily armored dwarf fighter and flew out over the edge with him. After the surprise attack the party monk tried to leap onto the dragon and help the dwarf. This did work out as the player had it on paper and the monk fell. The dragon then flung the dwarf to the ground and breathed on the people still on the cliffside. The party witch blasted the dragon with lightning and, using her persistent feather fall, leapt off the cliff to go aid those on the ground.

I use my all rolls of 1 result in a 1 point of CON damage. Both the dwarf and the monk took 1 point each, plus enough HP damage to concern them , but neither was outright killed or even knocked out.

The dwarf player joked about crawling out his crater and made a wiley e coyote reference. Nobody was shaken from the fun, but it was clear that "the wart" on the rules had poked up. Whatever, move on, keep playing.

The monk had slow fall. It was not nearly enough for the height, but it reduced the effect nicely. It also provided more then adequate narrative justification for his survival. No one thought his condition was jarring. There were no cartoon jokes.

The dwarf fighter's narrative concept includes the ability to not automatically be crushed just because he was grabbed. The dwarf fighter's narrative concept does NOT include cloak parachuting. I can think over my player group and readily imagine that one would joke about trying something like that. But it would be purely a "making light of the bad thing" joke. They would know I'd say "no", and they would expect and WANT me to say "no". They don't want the character to be handled "wrong".

Also, when you say "in RPGs fighting T-rex is just a glorified sword fight", you presumably mean "in D&D".

Yes, this clarification is fully correct.
I meant to say D&D or at least RPGs consistent with D&D .

 

[Umbran]

Or are you just making stuff up?

Mod Note: Accusations of intellectual dishonesty are not attractive. You might want to avoid them in the future.

And, no, he isn't making things up. The issue has been around a long, long time. I remember an incident back in the 1e era. 2e hadn't been published yet...

Our party was in a dungeon, running from a Purple Worm. The tunnel ended in a tens-of-yards wide pit, with a staircase running along the inside wall. We all managed to dodge to the side onto the staircase, the worm did not. The pit was terribly deep, and we were not at the bottom. The rest of the party had various fast ways up, but I did not. So, I began to march up the stairs. Like, a quarter mile up of stairs.

The last step, at the very top, was an illusion I didn't notice. It was a half-mile and more to the bottom. The bottom was, in fact, the first plane of Hell.

The DM grinned an evil grin, and picked up his 20d6, expecting a nice clean, old-school "you didn't see the trap, aren't you stupid!" kill. But I was playing a high level ranger with a boatload of hit points. I survived the damage. I survived the system shock roll.

We all sat staring at each other - how the heck did a guy survive falling over a half mile to pancake onto the first layer of Hell? Collectively, we had to come up with an excuse to be able to make this fit our heads - I'd landed on the Purple Worm, and it's fleshy corpse had broken my fall - because otherwise it didn't make any darned sense at all!

 

[JamesonCourage]

[MENTION=26918]JAM[/MENTION]ersonCourage

I like your rpg. It gave the little DM in inside of me a heart attack thinking of the complex formulas to calculate things and all the aspects to tract. But to like it.

First of all, thank you

Secondly, it's not that bad, but it's definitely more complex than D&D 4e. It's streamlined 3.X in a lot of ways, but it does have more complex parts as well.

To me it could be complished in 5E with a simple core, a Armor as DR system, a Stamina system (or some degenerative regenerating DR system), and a couple other tweaks.

I think so, too. You can definitely make a gritty module without jumping through the hoops I did.

But I still don't see how it is different than any other version of D&D other that the stats. You still need about X+20 level 1s to defeat a level 12 hero (X is how many level 1s the hero killed before they got their attacks off because of initiative).

Yeah, in my RPG, 20 level 1s is a very real threat to mots PCs at level 12. It's enough to make them pause, at any rate. In 3.X, that certainly wouldn't be the case (if the PCs are judging things based on mechanics).

But I just don't get this topic. I don't think 5E will break the trending power curve of all of D&D (maybe not 4E sinceit skipped gritty): gritty to semifantasy to superfantasy to gonzofantasy. Anyone who want to flatten the curve, change the starting point, change the ending point; has to add modules. Then they can play whatever they feel like, yo.

I doubt it'll be the base assumption for 5e, too. I've said that. I don't think it should be the base assumption of 5e, either. I've said that, too. But, some people seem to think that you cannot make a module for a "gritty" game for 5e without affecting the core design; I just strongly disagree, there. Make it a module, and make it as an afterthought. I could easily tweak my game to be a lot more gonzo and less deadly to the PCs with a few tweaks. I'm sure you can add a couple rules to make something more gritty. As always, play what you like

 

[pemerton]

Mod Note: Accusations of intellectual dishonesty are not attractive. You might want to avoid them in the future.

I didn't at all intend to imply that [MENTION=59506]El Mahdi[/MENTION] is lying or being dishonest, and for that I aplogise unreservedly.

I was meaning to query the debating style of setting up hypothetical table conversations that (on this occasion, in my opinion) are unlikely to actually happen.

The issue has been around a long, long time.

<snip>

Collectively, we had to come up with an excuse to be able to make this fit our heads - I'd landed on the Purple Worm, and it's fleshy corpse had broken my fall - because otherwise it didn't make any darned sense at all!

I like the narration. But the thing that puzzles me about this example - if your group finds it hard to cope with surviving these falls, how did you cope with people surviving being swallowed by a purple worm?

It's another version of the point upthread about being bitten by T-rexes, crushed by dragons etc. What is it about falling - as opposed to any of the other many applications of body-destroying force that routinely take place in the game, and in which "hit points as dodging" won't work - that causes people grief?

 

[pemerton]

From the Moldvay Basic rulebook (page B60):

[A] combat . . . is taking place on a ledge next to an unexplored chasm. One player suddenly decides that his character has no chance to survive combat. The player announces "My character wants to jump into the chasm to escape!" There may be a chance that he will fall to a nearby ledge or land in a pool of water at the bottom of the chasm. The DM . . . remembers that an underground river flows through some of the lower dungeon levels, so there might be a pool below. Even so, the character will fall 60', and a normal fall will do 1d6 points of damage per 10' fallen. This character has only 7 hp, and seems likely to die even if the water cushions his landing and reduces the damage. However, there should always be a chance to something nearly impossible. A player should have, at the very least, a saving throw or a stated percentage chance of a miraculous occurrence saving the character. The DM answers: " . . . A result of 99 or 00 will mean that your character lives, but any other result will mean that he will die in the attempt. Do you still want to jump?"​

I think the tenor of this is pretty consistent with the discussion of saving throws in Gygax's DMG, and particularly of the emphatic insistence that, even - perhaps especially - when a PC is being breathed on by a dragon while chained to a rockface, a saving throw is still permitted.

For me, at least, that's part of what distinguishes D&D's action resolution mechanics from those of other fantasy games.

 

[Mattachine]

For me, at least, that's part of what distinguishes D&D's action resolution mechanics from those of other fantasy games.

Yes! In D&D saving throws and hit points are the "fate points" used in other systems.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yes! In D&D saving throws and hit points are the "fate points" used in other systems.

No, they're not.

Fate Points are player-controlled, nothing demands you spend one, nothing causes you to lose them. They are a metagame mechanic that allows a player to go beyond the whims of the dice. Saving throws and HP loss are entirely subject to the whims of the dice. These are not comparable mechanics. HP or saving throws my occupy the same design space, but if I park a Honda Accord in a parking space previously occupied by a Ford F250, that doesn't make my auto a pickup.