Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[Professor Phobos]

You mean that, as a GM, you want to tell stories to the players ?

I want to tell stories with the players. I want to see stories emerge from game play. The only "story" I prepare in advance is whatever kicks off a given scenario or adventure, and the NPCs. Sometimes I don't even have to prepare the kick-off if the players are proactive. My scenario notes, aside from NPC stats, rarely run more than one or two sentences.

In that particular statement, though, I was talking about world building. My apologies for being vague. With world/campaign building, I decide what kinds of stories I want to tell with the players (usually with their input) and establish some tone and genre ground rules from there.

I'm also entirely in charge of managing the world beyond the reach of the PCs, and I don't bother using the game mechanics to represent it or limiting myself to what the mechanics allow.

For instance, I can just decree a neighboring city's economy collapses. I don't need rules for that, I can just say it happens. I can just say the Grand Knight of the Empire broke his neck falling off his horse, if I so desire, since he's off screen.

EDIT: Also, what John Snow said.

 

[robertliguori]

And if I can't get the ability I want from those rules? What then?

You find existing rules that model something similar to the effect you're looking for. More importantly, you should note when you try to do something the game system is not designed to do.

You want a character to die from falling off a horse? He's not high-level. You want a character to Call a high-HD outsider? He is high level. You want a character that takes feats that require you to be high level to take? He's high level.

The high-level knight is only a high-level knight when there's high-level knighting to do. Otherwise, off-screen he's just some dude on a horse. Likewise, if a player retires his PC and later says that he's killed in a pointless bar fight, despite actually being capable of single-handedly wiping out whole kingdoms, that's fine too.

Strangely enough, both not falling from a horse without some bastard Disintegrating it out from under you and surviving when someone does so and you happen to be rounding the corner over a 200-foot drop are both tasks requiring high-level knighting. If this character can survive the 200-foot drop a million times (assuming he's healed each time), why should we assume that he might break his neck on the millionth-and-first, from 10 feet?

Oooh, ooh, what about when the rules cover a situation, but we don't want to apply them because it would be extremely tedious?

Take the following. Team Good (the PCs) and Team Evil (the enemy) are both going up a mountain to find the Temple of the Plot Device. It's a tall mountain. According to the Climb skill rules, they're only for an individual wall, or section of mountain, or cliffside. But instead of making six hundred and forty one climb checks for each side...

DM (me): "You all have Climb?"
PCs: "Yeah. Except for Dave."
DM (me): "Whoever's got it highest roll it, with the others Aiding him, and Dave giving a penatly of, oh, say -3, 'cause you got to help him climb. If you beat Team Evil, you get there first. If you don't, you get their after they do."

No falling off the mountain, because we don't care. No tedious mountain climbing, because all anyone wants to do is go fight team evil. All that matters is whether they get there first, and so can set up an ambush, or get there second, and walk into an ambush. But this breaks the rules for the Climb skill, doesn't it?

And yes, before you start yammering about how the players have no input here, if they had some other idea, I'd certainly listen and probably say yes. (Like, "Can we try to intercept Team Evil before the Temple? or, "Can we trigger an avalanche..." or "Can we bribe this nearby dragon to just fly us up..." and so on.)

There is a difference between supplementing the rules, and ignoring them. There are not explicit rules for long-distance climbing; inferring some from the way short-distance climbing works is a good idea. This is the kind of thing that DM's should do. Hurrah.

This is completely different than inferring something contradicted by the rules in other cases. There exist rules for falling from horses, or calling up powerful outsiders and losing control of them; the events proposed do not refine the existing rules, but ignore them, in both spirit and letter.

(emphasis mine) And if I want to handle it some other way? Besides, you already established that changing the price of a magic item is a heavy-handed rules change that implies an abusive GM castrating his players, so clearly your threshold for "circumstances not in the rules" is pretty low.

Well, yes. You've been pretty free with terms of art in the D&D rule-set. Note that an item's price, in D&D, is an absolute and inherent property of the item, totally independent of what any individual might be willing to pay for it. This property affects how much XP you must spend to make an item, how much you get back when an artificer claims the item's essence, and so forth. Changing these around is a big deal, because price in D&D works differently than in reality.

The rules are one way you have an affect on the game world, but not the only way. But keep in mind, just as I expedite a particular narrative effect, so can the players.

And, again, the goal is an emergent narrative- you don't have the story prepared ahead of times, it grows from play in a mutual, cooperative fashion between DM and players.

Ever tried to run a narrative in which one player assumed entirely different genre conventions than everyone else, and due to no actual standards in reality, no one could prove their point? (Hint: look at any alignment thread, ever.)

The rules exist to provide a common framework between all present, so that it's understood that the world works a certain way, and that when the world does not work this way, it's a big deal and meaningful of something.

This doesn't make the player impotent. Roleplaying games are not zero sum, they are collaborative. It makes the players more potent, because they're range of power over the setting is not found just in the rules, but with some discussion with the GM, can extend to the game world itself.

OK. Assume that you have an enraged midget (or myself) in your games. We have discussed with you your changes to the rules, found them to be ass, and have decided to ignore them and assume that the high-level fighter was actually a low-level wizard's apprentice and that the wizard's apprentice was actually a high-level caster in disguise. We reject, in and out of game, your assertion that ignoring the rules in this case makes the game better. What now?

That's ridiculous. There is a huge in-between area. There is no reason to think your character cannot affect the world if NPC knights can break their necks.

*shrugs* That depends. Can our characters kill the blackguard on his nightmare mount by causing him to fall similarly? If random chance can position the high-level knight to die in a means that bypasses his hit points, can our wizard do the same with a telekinesis spell?

If the answer is "Yes, you can; here are a detailed suite of rules for what conditions naturally produce risk of catastrophic falls, and here is the absolute upper limit on the damage from said falls.", then bliss and hurrah; you have extrapolated the existing rules to a new and interesting place, and there will be candy and flowers for all. If not, however, and the reason the NPC happened to fall and break his neck was that you as DM wanted it to happen and didn't care enough to make it happen in a manner consistent with the game world as written, then yes, I'd get the distinct impression that when reality contradicted the DM's plan for events, reality would lose, and I would have no reason to assume that this applied to me any more than it would any NPC, when it came to crunch time.

The rules don't apply. He's off-screen. He's an NPC. He's not facing down the dragon, he's just some dude on a horse. The rules are a provisionally applied abstraction, designed for certain circumstances. NPCs don't follow the rules when the PCs aren't around- the whole world operates exactly how the DM imagines it does...until the PCs change things. The rules are there for the players, not the DM.

So now we have Heisen-NPCs, who have a chance of their wave-form collapsing into an alternate reality state when not observed by a PC?

Well...OK, we can run with this. I suppose that as a character in such a universe, I'd get a 24-7 form of remote viewing on anyone I cared about, to prevent them from accidentally tripping and dying.

In the game world, it can be experimentally confirmed that certain forms of injury are not life-threatening to some people, because those people are just that badass. If you do not want this to be the case, gut the HP system and make new rules more in line with what you want. (The damage save from M&Mm or True20 is one such excellent alternative.) But don't try to claim that something is realistic when every other facet of the game world being simulated says it isn't.

What are you even talking about with this "game over" business?

Take another example. The PCs at some point in the past fought alongside Archbishop Preacher McGodly, the 15th level Fist of the Sun God or somesuch. He's the high priest of a city the PCs have left. Later, they learn via messanger that the archbishop has died under scandalous circumstances- a prostitute stabbed him whilst he secretly visited a brothel!

But wait! He's 15th level, isn't he? He can't die from a stab wound! Yes, yes he can. He can die from the flu. He can get run over by a cart crossing the street. He's only a 15th level Cleric when there is 15th level Clericing to do.

They return to the city. The players might expect it to have been dopplegangers or some 15th level threat- but no, it is all mundane. Just an old man indulging his vice and paying the consequences. Maybe I'm setting up a fall from grace themed story, or I expect the PCs to take over the church in the wake of the scandal, or are granted in the Archbishop's will some terrible knowledge of a dire threat that he wanted them to face if he were unable. Whatever.

...

Yeah, I'm going to go with the cogent and consise reply from up-thread: nuh-uh. If he's a 15th level cleric, he's a 15th level cleric all the time. That's not to say he can't die from a stab wound; if he is helpless and the prostitute performs a CdG, and he fails a Fort save that ranges from DC 12 to DC 20 or so (call her a full-bodied prostitute), then he can die. But if he is not either forcibly restrained or otherwise totally incapable of responding, then if he's a 15th-level cleric, than he can't die from a single stab wound.

See, that's the most annoying thing about your assertions. It is possible, within the constraint of the rules, to produce the situations you want. However, rather than accept the necessary subtleties to make your scenarios work (such as the cleric was asleep when he was knifed), you just assert stuff. And asserting something contrary to expected knowledge of the universe without case is just plain bad storytelling, be it in a game or in a narrative.

Unless, of course, you go find that same master and get the same training...Or maybe the master is long dead. Too bad! The world might be full of those little exceptions. Some might be available to the PCs, some not.

"He's dead? Oh, well. Let's just rip the knowledge out of the living brain of the apprentice, then. Free fighter feats for all!"
Yeah. Wrap rules around it and see what happens.
Look, you can honestly decide that "Hey, the fighter feat tree is neat, but kind of restrictive. I think I'll include a way to increase your effective fighter level, and a method to grant other characters a boost to effective fighter level, then watch as my players discover this, learn it, and the monk founds the Glorious Hero Fighting School, that blends the best of the monk and fighter talent trees.

That would be good DMing. It's not the breaking the rules that's a problem; it's the ignoring what the rules mean. Rules mean that things happening in contravention to them require explanation.

 

[robertliguori]

Because we're not starting with the assumption that you can derive the rules of the world from the rules of the game.

Remember, it is a game. The rules are there for game play. They're designed for ease of use, fun, and all that good stuff.

Real universes- even fictional ones, even ones with genres- are not designed for fun, or balance. They're designed for stories to be told within them. I derive my worlds from the kind of stories I want to tell with the world. I derive my game from the rules. Mixing the two takes a little careful attention and cooperation with the players, but it's not all that hard.

I will avoid invoking Forge jargon as much as possible, but I now see the disconnect. Many of us consider everything that happens in the simulated universe provided by the rules both part of the game, and part of the story. We consider the ability of high-level characters to keep fighting through a dozen arrows not a corner case or a failure of abstraction, but a feature, a glorious expected result of being high level. This is not simply a tactical abstraction; non-tactical effects such as falling from a great height or being immersed in lava also do hit point damage, and can be resisted through sheer grit once you are past a certain threshold of cussedness.

Consider this; the kind of stories you can tell are entirely contingent on the rules of the universe. ("We need to take the ring to Mount Doom? OK. I cut off my left big toe, teleport to Mount Doom, and have my fellow Istari bull-rush me into the lava, teleport back, and Ressurect me. How much XP did I get?") Telling a story about a high-level fighter dying from a fall from a horse is like telling a story about Superman dying from the same; it utterly contradicts the expected results of reality. One can assert that a high-level fighter is mortal, and should be vulnerable to mortal injury, no matter his skill; one can also assert that yellow sunlight does not grant superpowers to Kryptonians, and therefore Superman cannot fly. In either case, it is likely that people who are expecting a story in-genre will simply ignore you, or look for how it came to be that expected reality was so egregiously violated.

If you don't want to tell stories in which the protagonists can shrug off dips in molten lava through sheer toughness, don't play high-level D&D, or allow high-level characters to exist. Consider the E6 variant, where the high-level characters more closely resemble Odysseus than Hercules. But for all that is good and nice and doesn't involve irate players gashing you to death with the sharp corners of the PHB, change the rules that prevent you from telling the stories you want to tell. Don't just ignore them.

 

[Jack7]

Modern man far too often considers language to be reality. Not just his reality, but reality itself.

He thinks that if he can describe it, or formulate it, in some form of language, be that linguistic or legal or mathematical or by whatever means language is most situationally potent, that he has in effect controlled reality.

He views the world as his best and most accurate description of it, and the same thing with his games and his entertainments. Rules everywhere as a descriptive metaphor of reality, but far too often he cannot even grasp the idea, in words or without them, that reality is not a description of that which can be described. It is something he's rarely even thought of in most instances, because thought itself has convinced him by word and by unexamined belief that words shape worlds and men, and not the other way around. The man cogitates and the world agitates.


Modern man, Master and Commander of many words
Explorer of every thought that might lead to deed
Of no deed so ensorcelled as the bright musing
That one day, within his mind, he will become great,
So great that nothing will be beyond him, except, of course,
The adventure and the enterprise that will risk anything
Other than the word he has long ago overmastered...


The idea that the way things are, or should be, and the way he describes, formulates, and constructs a definition for the way things are, could in any way be misaligned, even slightly or obliquely towards the real world, is extremely confusing and often upsetting to him. Deep in his soul. Rebellion brews, unasked and unbidden. He does not know why, but he has many words to rule the feeling that if things were just a bit more predictable then reality would be infinitely more correct by calculation. So by being correct he becomes ordered, and by being ordered he is ruled by what he creates, and yet upon encountering the grimly waiting monster and the enigmatically approaching prodigy who has slipped the noose of his insistent assumptions he is both instinctively horrified, and intuitively enthralled.

He has a rules mania, a sort of psychological fetish that cannot imagine the world operationally independent of preconceived circumstances of observational apparencies. If he can state in a formula or equate by verbal or scripted association of certainty some ungoverned truth, then he feels that he alone has imposed a reality upon the world which supercedes both actual function and observed phenomena. There is a voodoo of the mind in covert corners, a conspiracy against him, to spirit out the secret places of the world where his persuasions are of lesser effect than the letters by which he notes them. So he details every aspect of life and the world about him in a categorical imperative to prevent the impression that the story of the world, much less his own, has some intention, purpose, or outcome beyond himself. Without the structured familiarity of his insistent rules he is afraid, alone, adrift, at the mercy of forces he fears might one day make him the exception to the rule, in whatever way he is most afraid to be exceptional. And modern man is above almost all other things, that kind of man who fears most to be exceptional. He dreams of it, desires it, hopes for it, has a secret faith it is possible, if only the rules allowed such a thing. But then again if the rules allowed such a thing then words would be an unnecessary and superfluous achievement compared to his other and more concrete exploits, wouldn't they? So the map is not the territory, or the game is not the reality, or the word is not the thing, or at the very least the thing is not worth the considering when you've already conceived all of the other possibilities and the mechanics say it just makes no sense.

And that as they say, is just about enough of that.

Then again folks I could be wrong. Very, very wrong.
If the rules say I am then it's probably safe to assume that I am.

So on second thought just forget I mentioned it, and please, carry on.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Modern man far too often considers language to be reality. Not just his reality, but reality itself.

He thinks that if he can describe it, or formulate it, in some form of language, be that linguistic or legal or mathematical or by whatever means language is most situationally potent, that he has in effect controlled reality.

He views the world as his best and most accurate description of it, and the same thing with his games and his entertainments. Rules everywhere as a descriptive metaphor of reality, but far too often he cannot even grasp the idea, in words or without them, that reality is not a description of that which can be described. It is something he's rarely even thought of in most instances, because thought itself has convinced him by word and by unexamined belief that words shape worlds and men, and not the other way around. The man cogitates and the world agitates.


Modern man, Master and Commander of many words
Explorer of every thought that might lead to deed
Of no deed so ensorcelled as the bright musing
That one day, within his mind, he will become great,
So great that nothing will be beyond him, except, of course,
The adventure and the enterprise that will risk anything
Other than the word he has long ago overmastered...


The idea that the way things are, or should be, and the way he describes, formulates, and constructs a definition for the way things are, could in any way be misaligned, even slightly or obliquely towards the real world, is extremely confusing and often upsetting to him. Deep in his soul. Rebellion brews, unasked and unbidden. He does not know why, but he has many words to rule the feeling that if things were just a bit more predictable then reality would be infinitely more correct by calculation. So by being correct he becomes ordered, and by being ordered he is ruled by what he creates, and yet upon encountering the grimly waiting monster and the enigmatically approaching prodigy who has slipped the noose of his insistent assumptions he is both instinctively horrified, and intuitively enthralled.

He has a rules mania, a sort of psychological fetish that cannot imagine the world operationally independent of preconceived circumstances of observational apparencies. If he can state in a formula or equate by verbal or scripted association of certainty some ungoverned truth, then he feels that he alone has imposed a reality upon the world which supercedes both actual function and observed phenomena. There is a voodoo of the mind in covert corners, a conspiracy against him, to spirit out the secret places of the world where his persuasions are of lesser effect than the letters by which he notes them. So he details every aspect of life and the world about him in a categorical imperative to prevent the impression that the story of the world, much less his own, has some intention, purpose, or outcome beyond himself. Without the structured familiarity of his insistent rules he is afraid, alone, adrift, at the mercy of forces he fears might one day make him the exception to the rule, in whatever way he is most afraid to be exceptional. And modern man is above almost all other things, that kind of man who fears most to be exceptional. He dreams of it, desires it, hopes for it, has a secret faith it is possible, if only the rules allowed such a thing. But then again if the rules allowed such a thing then words would be an unnecessary and superfluous achievement compared to his other and more concrete exploits, wouldn't they? So the map is not the territory, or the game is not the reality, or the word is not the thing, or at the very least the thing is not worth the considering when you've already conceived all of the other possibilities and the mechanics say it just makes no sense.

And that as they say, is just about enough of that.

Then again folks I could be wrong. Very, very wrong.
If the rules say I am then it's probably safe to assume that I am.

So on second thought just forget I mentioned it, and please, carry on.

My pompus-meter has overloaded, and that is not a good sign. Also trying to psychoanalyze other posters on an internet board with whom you have no actual contact, just tacky.

 

[Jack7]

My pompus-meter has overloaded, and that is not a good sign.

Are you sure the rules allow for that kinda thing?

Also trying to psychoanalyze other posters on an internet board with whom you have no actual contact, just tacky.

Sometimes I think the internet takes words extremely seriously.
But I could be wrong.

 

[Professor Phobos]

You find existing rules that model something similar to the effect you're looking for. More importantly, you should note when you try to do something the game system is not designed to do.

But I'm still going off the reservation, am I not?

You want a character to die from falling off a horse? He's not high-level. You want a character to Call a high-HD outsider? He is high level. You want a character that takes feats that require you to be high level to take? He's high level.

You will say later in your reply that "Events in contravention of the rules require explanation."
Fair enough.

Event: High level knight breaks his neck.
Explanation: "Level" is a metagame abstraction, not an in-world concept and is only selectively applied to the world.

Heck, if you really need an in-game explanation: "The Fates decreed he die in that manner at that time."

There is a difference between supplementing the rules, and ignoring them. There are not explicit rules for long-distance climbing; inferring some from the way short-distance climbing works is a good idea. This is the kind of thing that DM's should do. Hurrah.

There's no difference, though, to selectively applying the Climbing rules and selectively applying the Level rules to the world. Or anything really.

This is completely different than inferring something contradicted by the rules in other cases. There exist rules for falling from horses, or calling up powerful outsiders and losing control of them; the events proposed do not refine the existing rules, but ignore them, in both spirit and letter.

So? Having an NPC apprentice Call Up What He Cannot Put Down is interesting. It's a good way to start a story.

I can understand the idea of the game rules being an established groundwork for what players can and can not do. I can sympathize with that idea, though I prefer to give them more power than what the strict rules allow. What I cannot understand, nor agree with, is the idea that NPCs are bound to the same agreement.

Ever tried to run a narrative in which one player assumed entirely different genre conventions than everyone else, and due to no actual standards in reality, no one could prove their point? (Hint: look at any alignment thread, ever.)

No, see, there is no "point proving." The group agrees on an appropriate tone and genre conventions beforehand. I've never tried to run a game where one player didn't speak anything other than Medieval French either.

The rules exist to provide a common framework between all present, so that it's understood that the world works a certain way, and that when the world does not work this way, it's a big deal and meaningful of something.

No, that common framework is for how the players interact with the world, not how the world interacts with itself in the absence of the players.

OK. Assume that you have an enraged midget (or myself) in your games. We have discussed with you your changes to the rules, found them to be ass, and have decided to ignore them and assume that the high-level fighter was actually a low-level wizard's apprentice and that the wizard's apprentice was actually a high-level caster in disguise. We reject, in and out of game, your assertion that ignoring the rules in this case makes the game better. What now?

I shrug, take down my screen, pack up my stuff, and depart the GM's chair. I would absolutely never compromise on this basic point. Almost anything else I'd change if the players desired it. But the fundamental idea that I have ultimate discretion over the rules? That I will never surrender. I wouldn't want to run a game without it, nor could I run a game without it.

*shrugs* That depends. Can our characters kill the blackguard on his nightmare mount by causing him to fall similarly? If random chance can position the high-level knight to die in a means that bypasses his hit points, can our wizard do the same with a telekinesis spell?

Nope, because that Blackguard is interacting with the players, and so the rules apply.

If not, however, and the reason the NPC happened to fall and break his neck was that you as DM wanted it to happen and didn't care enough to make it happen in a manner consistent with the game world as written, then yes, I'd get the distinct impression that when reality contradicted the DM's plan for events, reality would lose,

The DM decides what is reality, not the rules. The rules only govern the interaction of players with reality. They're only there to provide the tension of randomness, some fairness from PC-to-PC and that game mechanical crunchy goodness everyone likes so much.

and I would have no reason to assume that this applied to me any more than it would any NPC, when it came to crunch time.

By the same logic, you have no reason to assume I haven't put poison in the mountain dew, no?

So now we have Heisen-NPCs, who have a chance of their wave-form collapsing into an alternate reality state when not observed by a PC?

Well, in this case there's an omnipotent observer (the DM), but the mistake you are making is in thinking NPCs have any kind of independent existence. They're constructs, no different than the weather, or buildings, or wildlife, or forests. I can burn a forest down, can't I? Trigger an earthquake? A solar flare? I don't need rules for those, nor do I need rules for the mundane calamities that befall people.

Well...OK, we can run with this. I suppose that as a character in such a universe, I'd get a 24-7 form of remote viewing on anyone I cared about, to prevent them from accidentally tripping and dying.

It's a metagame thing, there is no in-universe explanation barring "The Fates" or somesuch. Besides, with NPCs important to a character (dependents, family, friends, etc) I'd clear storylines with the PC first, if only to share ideas.

In the game world, it can be experimentally confirmed that certain forms of injury are not life-threatening to some people, because those people are just that badass. If you do not want this to be the case, gut the HP system and make new rules more in line with what you want. (The damage save from M&Mm or True20 is one such excellent alternative.) But don't try to claim that something is realistic when every other facet of the game world being simulated says it isn't.

It's not realistic. It's not even slightly realistic. It's a blatant abstraction for gameplay purposes. Hit points make no sense. Levels make no sense. Classes make no sense. These things are for the players, not for the world. One of the few things I want out of players is an absence of metagaming- the player is aware of the hit point total of his character, but the character is only aware of a rough idea of his wounds, morale, will to continue, etc. I expect characters to react to a dagger to their throat like it could kill them. even if it can't.

Yeah, I'm going to go with the cogent and consise reply from up-thread: nuh-uh. If he's a 15th level cleric, he's a 15th level cleric all the time. That's not to say he can't die from a stab wound; if he is helpless and the prostitute performs a CdG, and he fails a Fort save that ranges from DC 12 to DC 20 or so (call her a full-bodied prostitute), then he can die. But if he is not either forcibly restrained or otherwise totally incapable of responding, then if he's a 15th-level cleric, than he can't die from a single stab wound.

Why not?

See, that's the most annoying thing about your assertions. It is possible, within the constraint of the rules, to produce the situations you want. However, rather than accept the necessary subtleties to make your scenarios work (such as the cleric was asleep when he was knifed), you just assert stuff. And asserting something contrary to expected knowledge of the universe without case is just plain bad storytelling, be it in a game or in a narrative.

No, no it isn't, because these things are not the expected knowledge of the universe. They're metagame elements. They're out of the universe. To reference Vampire: The Masquerade, you can't discover the blood point. A vampire only knows he's full, or hungry, or starving. He doesn't know he has blood points. Blood points don't map to pints of blood. They're abstractions.

In fact, I would propose the opposite: I expect a world, even a D&D world, to make sense. And by that I mean I don't expect it to be operating by the rules outside of the PCs and things interacting with the PCs. It makes much less sense to me that a world has people who can not die from a single stab. You put a knife in that cleric's eye, he dies no matter how many dragons or demons he's kicked the living hell out of.

"He's dead? Oh, well. Let's just rip the knowledge out of the living brain of the apprentice, then. Free fighter feats for all!"

Actually, I'd probably allow that if they had mind-ripping powers. Why not?

That would be good DMing. It's not the breaking the rules that's a problem; it's the ignoring what the rules mean. Rules mean that things happening in contravention to them require explanation.

Not necessarily. I'd only want an in-universe explanation if I were breaking the rules for the PCs. If I had a PC Cleric die from a stab wound, I'd have to have a damn good explanation for it. But an NPC? They don't play by the rules. They don't have an independent existence. They have no rights.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Many of us consider everything that happens in the simulated universe provided by the rules both part of the game, and part of the story.

The only game I'm aware of that even tries is GURPS, and even that has mook rules, cinematic options, etc.

Telling a story about a high-level fighter dying from a fall from a horse is like telling a story about Superman dying from the same; it utterly contradicts the expected results of reality.

Yes, here is the disconnect. Superman is a Kryptonian; he's invincible. He can't break his neck. Even a Superman who never went super-heroing, Clark Kent the tax accountant, couldn't break his neck. A high level fighter is still a mortal man. A man of exceptional skill, luck, daring, experience. A man who might be blessed by destiny or the fates, a man of great cunning or strength, but still just a man. His levels are not something people in the world can recognize- oh, sure, they know he's a great hero. They know he's dangerous. But he still has to go to the bathroom. He still gets stuck in the mud. He still gets indigestion from spicy food. And he can still break his neck. Particularly in a grim world where heroism yesterday means nothing today.

Hit points and levels are abstractions. They're not meant to map directly to in-world concepts like physical health, just like blood points don't map directly to actual blood. "Being a Kryptonian" isn't an abstraction. It's a concrete, in-world thing like being an Elf.

Being an Elf isn't an abstraction. Being "high level" is.

A better example is Batman. Batman's neck can be broken. He could die in the shower as easily as he could die crashing through some warehouse skylight to punch a bunch of gangsters. But readers of Batman stories don't expect Batman to suddenly break his neck by accident, no? Because he's the main character. He's the focus of the narrative. Likewise, major supporting characters- Jim Gordon, Catwoman, the Joker- are not particularly likely to die meaningless accidental deaths, though in the universe it wouldn't contradict anything. A man of Jim Gordon's age could easily just have a heart attack or get in a car accident. From a narrative perspective, it's incongruous. Because these people regularly interact with Batman, readers get attached to them. They matter.

And...who is the focus of the narrative in an RPG? Starts with a "P" and ends with a "C"...

 

[Xyl]

I have to agree with the OP.

The game rules are a useful, simulative abstraction within the context of playing a game and constructing a narrative. At the point at which you decide they represent the "physics of the game world," you're on the verge of creating a game that has Order of the Stick style silliness....

Well said, and I 100% agree.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And if I can't get the ability I want from those rules? What then?

Well, since the rules say 'make up a rule,' I really don't know what else you'd be looking for. Aside from 'do whatever you want', meaning DM fiat, meaning, for me, the DM running roughshod over my believabilitometer and making me feel utterly impotent as a player.

The high-level knight is only a high-level knight when there's high-level knighting to do. Otherwise, off-screen he's just some dude on a horse. Likewise, if a player retires his PC and later says that he's killed in a pointless bar fight, despite actually being capable of single-handedly wiping out whole kingdoms, that's fine too.

And that blows my believability completely out of the water and makes me feel impotent as a player, too.

In nothing I can do matters when the DM gets an idea in his head, why am I bothering to do anything?

If my high-level knight is only a high-level knight when the DM allows him to be, what is he the rest of the time?

You can't honestly see how I can reasonably have issue with this? And you think it's me that has the problem?

No falling off the mountain, because we don't care. No tedious mountain climbing, because all anyone wants to do is go fight team evil. All that matters is whether they get there first, and so can set up an ambush, or get there second, and walk into an ambush. But this breaks the rules for the Climb skill, doesn't it?

Hey, if your group's happy, I'm not saying you need to change.

I am saying that I wouldn't be happy, and defending my right to be unhappy, and play the game I want to play against your continuous hostility, however.

I think it's important to note that what you did there, you made a rule (according to the guidelines in the DMG no less!) and used it.

And yeah, pulled out of nowhere, it would bug me, if I played the Heroic Mountaineer, and you just arbitrarily ruled that everybody could scale it just fine. It would also bug me if I played the Heroic Warrior and every combat was an opposed Strength check just because you thought the rules were boring.

And, again, the goal is an emergent narrative- you don't have the story prepared ahead of times, it grows from play in a mutual, cooperative fashion between DM and players.

The way the players interact with the narrative context is the rules via their characters. They make Strength checks to move statues and they make Attack Rolls to damage goblins and they cast spells and have hit points.

If the DM just decrees things and the players just decree things, without reference to a shared, mutual middle ground of 'the rules,' I feel robbed of my character's ability to impact the world. I can tell a story with my friends without the need to resort to D&D. D&D lets me do it as part of a game, which needs to be played according to the rules, or why bother playing?

This doesn't make the player impotent. Roleplaying games are not zero sum, they are collaborative. It makes the players more potent, because they're range of power over the setting is not found just in the rules, but with some discussion with the GM, can extend to the game world itself.

"Mother, may I?" play is not rewarding for me, either as a player or as a DM. I don't want my players to ask me if they can do something, I want them to try, and I'll tell them what happens as a consequence. As a player, I don't want to discuss with the GM. I come to D&D to play a game, not to help him craft a story. I want to roll some dice and break down some doors and thwart some evil. If the DM is willing to violate the rules just to tell his little tale, then I have no assurance that he won't do so when my player's turn comes up and I try to do something he doesn't want me to do, something that's not narratively expedient for him, something that ruins his precious story somehow.

When I collaborate with my players, I give them the rules with which they can accomplish their goals fairly, with the odds of the game standing against them. I mean, if it boils down to my choice as a DM, why have players? If it's not making a good story for them to loose, I'll let them win, if it's not making a good story for them to win, I'll make them loose, what purpose is the game serving, here?

There is no reason to think your character cannot affect the world if NPC knights can break their necks.

There's plenty of reason to think my character cannot affect the world if you just decide when NPC knights break their necks, rather than creating rules by which people can break their necks and applying them to this specific NPC knight.

If the world serves at the DM's whim, so does everything my character does.

The rules don't apply. He's off-screen. He's an NPC. He's not facing down the dragon, he's just some dude on a horse. The rules are a provisionally applied abstraction, designed for certain circumstances. NPCs don't follow the rules when the PCs aren't around- the whole world operates exactly how the DM imagines it does...until the PCs change things. The rules are there for the players, not the DM.

And this is fundamentally unsatisfying for me as a player and as a DM. If the DM doesn't adhere to the rules, they feel meaningless. The DM can change the laws, but he cannot be above the laws. "NPC" isn't a distinction my character knows. It's an artificial construction of the game, and to have NPC's break their necks randomly at DM decree means, to my character, that people break their necks falling from horses, even when they're powerful knights of the world who should know how to ride horses, and thus I should never ride a horse, because they slay heroes.

Which is absurd to me, as a player, and breaks the believability of the world.

Unless, of course, you go find that same master and get the same training...Or maybe the master is long dead. Too bad! The world might be full of those little exceptions. Some might be available to the PCs, some not.

Which just reminds me that it's the DM's story and I'm just along for the ride. The DM decides what's available and what isn't, not according to a mutually binding set of rules, but according to his own estimation of what makes a good story.

If you know what makes a good story, go write one. Leave me to play a good game.