Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[Professor Phobos]

Just as a point of order, a canon NPC (Dr. Netchurch) researched and discovered exactly what blood points are in-setting in Vampire: the Masquerade.

That was a joke, though. Netchurch broke the fourth wall regularly.

 

[Imban]

That was a joke, though. Netchurch broke the fourth wall regularly.

You never really know what's a joke joke and what's a serious joke with those Malkavians.

 

[Patrick O'Duffy]

Just as a point of order, a canon NPC (Dr. Netchurch) researched and discovered exactly what blood points are in-setting in Vampire: the Masquerade.

And this is one of several bad ideas that were fixed and removed in Vampire: the Reqiuem, where Vitae aren't quantified and countable in the game's reality the way blood points were.

 

[Professor Phobos]

Professor Phobos, the reason many of us play D&D specifically is that the rules of D&D create a set of assumptions many of us find interesting. We know that the D&D rules stop describing people in our world past about level 6 or so; this is a selling point for us.

But D&D doesn't create a set of world assumptions. You aren't supposed to derive a world from the rules. The rules are just an abstraction. They're built to be a game, not a simulation.

However, this is the way D&D universes work; expecting otherwise is like killing Superman in an auto accident.

I disagree. Superman's invincibility is an in-world element. Superman's plot immunity is a meta element. Likewise, a PC's levels is a meta element. It isn't anything other than a rough approximation of experience and general badassitude in the game world. Hit points are an abstraction. They do not exist in the world, the only exist in the game.

This is why Aeris couldn't be raised with a Phoenix Down. The needs of game, story and world are all sometimes contradictory and a balance must be struck between them. Some things are for the game, somethings are meant to simulate some element of the world, and some things are just for cracking good stories.

Basically, if you're going to get me to accept that a 20th level fighter can not break his neck, you're going to have to establish some justification for it. Have the Fates blessed him? Has his soul strengthened so much he can subconsciously guide his own destiny as a result of being tempered by struggle after struggle? Something like that.

Because as it stands, I don't buy it as something in the world. I treat it as I would treat Blood Points in Vampire: The Requiem. A simplified abstraction designed to produce a specific gameplay result, not simulate something in the world.

I can accept narrative conventions- the 20th level fighter, when he's interacting with the PCs, is important to the story and so probably doesn't check out through some random, arbitrary death.

But let's say I'm starting a campaign following the unexpected (but natural), death of a powerful King who had done all sorts of heroic things and the political fallout of his accidental demise. Why shouldn't I say he fell and broke his neck? Because he's 20th level? What does 20th level mean?

When he's on screen, it's a relative measure of power. When he's off screen, it means nothing. Absolutely, positively nothing. He has no hit points when off screen. He has no skills. He is nothing more than a bit of the setting. He is no more than a tree, an apple, or a rock. He's a man. A man with certain powers and a certain reputation, but just a man.

Now, I'll certainly accept that entities in the game universe should behave reasonably, or at least have justification for their out-of-the-ordinary behavior. Apples should be apples, and if they display unapple-like behavior, I should probably eventually explain it as it being some monster disguised as an apple.

So I can understand it if players demand a reasonable expectation for a strange occurrence with regard to, say, our 20th level King. Like if he turns into President Eisenhower and starts talking about Communism. But I don't understand why they'd demand an explanation for why a 20th level fighter died to a 0th level accident, because to me "20th level" is just a provisionally applied abstraction representing how powerful he is as a significant character, not how powerful he is as window dressing.

If it makes everyone feel any better, I'll establish the following rule: NPCs lose all their levels when it is no longer important that their capabilities be represented by levels. They get them back if it becomes relevant again.

 

[JohnSnow]

If it doesn't matter, I don't care save that I'll try to avoid positing events that are rules-impossible. Tavern brawls happen all the time, and assuming a rules system that provides that two 1st-level commoners can meaningfully hurt each other, people get hurt. They're not people that matter, so I just don't care.

When two nations in the game world go to war, I'd probably look (again) to the rules to inform me, if possible. I may not have enough information for the rules to give input - if all that's given, information-wise, is that Human Nation A and Human Nation B have armies and are at war, essentially anything I come up with would be valid. However, I would still be careful to not posit rules-impossible events in such a narrative.

I see. So at least from your perspective (although perhaps not all of the "simulationists"), it's the probabilities that matter, rather than rigid adherence to the rules. So you don't require all 2000 NPC soldiers to actually make a d20 attack roll against the other 2000 soldiers, but you assume that the only events that happen will be possible according to the d20 rule set. So a 15th-level fighter could die if he was hit by 6 arrows, because they might all be max-damage crits from warriors with a 14 strength (30 hp each). As I understand, that's okay with you, because it's unlikely, but possible.

On the other hand, the real world scenario where he's killed by a single arrow just can't happen because it can't exceed his MDT, even on a crit, and it certainly can't deplete all of his hit points. So a high-enough level fighter can just laugh if someone points a crossbow at his chest. Because he knows it won't kill him.

So the metagame rules actually dictate the ingame reality. A PC can't die from a single arrow, or a single stab wound, because it just can't take away enough of his "hit points." And he has a pretty good idea that he's got hit points, saving throws and things of that nature. They're concrete, measurable things in his world.

Personally, I hate that approach, but I suppose I have to admit it's a valid interpretation. But as I said earlier, it's just a little too Order of the Stick silly for me to enjoy it.

I start with one basic premise:

1) Except where it's obvious (*ahem* magic), the game world operates under the same general physical laws as the real world does.

That means people in the game world (not necessarily PCs) can die from any of the same things that people can in the real world. PCs usually don't, but they're more like Batman or Captain America (protected by skill, luck, and plot) than Superman (actually physically incapable of dying of those things).

But that's just my preference. And I have to say I'm very glad Fourth Edition seems to be leaning towards my interpretation of things.

 

[Professor Phobos]

I concur about the Order-of-the-Stickness. Unless I'm aiming for a humorous campaign, the game world is not aware of game mechanics.

 

[pemerton]

"What if I have a wizard character with an NPC mentor who has powers built using the NPC rules? Suppose that mentor dies and my PC studies his notes to learn his powers. If both characters are human, it makes no sense to me that my PC could never learn those abilities. It would break my suspension of disbelief."

The answer, of course, is that within the context of the game world it is possible for the PC to learn those powers. However, to do so requires stepping outside the standard rules simulating the game world. You have to move to realm of the narrative and have a talk between the player and the DM to see if it is appropriate to break the simulation in this case and still have a fun game for everyone.

Excellently put. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to design rules that (i) produce a mechanically balanced play experience for a good range of typical play groups and (ii) don't impose metagame limits on the PCs, which have no ingame rationale.

Then it appears lazy and devoid of imagination to not provide us rules for how that happens.

I think this is far too harsh a judgement. Sometimes the gameworld is more satisfying if we all know that the constraints on PCs are purely metagame. For example, I quite like the idea that, in the gameworld, falls from horses can be fatal even for powerful warriors, but we also know that no combat the PCs engage in will be ones where single blows kill powerful warriors (because, as a matter of combat mechanics, those warriors have the "plot protection" that hit points provide), and we know that this state of affairs has a purely metagame rationale (we want the fights to be interesting and even nail-biters, rather than non-events).

I'm not seeing the issues mentioned. If you feel that it should be possible for a high-level fighter to die from falling off a horse, then falls from horses should be capable of dealing in excess of 50 damage.

No - the point of the OP (unless I'm very mistaken) is that we want hit points (and the protective role they play) to be important in a certain range of situations, but at the same time we expressly deny that they are part of the gameworld physics, and thus in situations in which hit points don't matter (eg background details about the deaths of NPC warriors) we don't feel obliged to fit the world to the hit point mechanics.

fluff trumps crunch. Always. The fluff is that Drizzt is a flesh-and-blood elf who escapes death through superior skill, quickness, and luck. Therefore it is possible for him to die from falling 30 feet, no matter what the crunch says.

He won't in fact die, unless a specific decision is made to discard the crunch result, but the possibility is there within the reality of the game world.

I don't think that what you are saying is true of every game system - eg in RQ and RM, the rules are meant to be the physics of the gameworld. But you are identifying one alternative, and (to me) attractive, way to approach the rules.

I don't think it's too much to ask that all the players (including the DM) follow the rules of the game.

But the question is: should we regard it as part of the rules of the game that (for example) hit point mechanics are to govern not only all the PC's actions involving physical danger, but all such activity in the gameworld full stop. D&D has never in fact made it clear what the rules are in respect of the second alternative.

such things happening in the game reek strongly of DM Fiat.

Assuming that only the GM has the relevant narrative control. But even then, the rules tell us (for example) that the GM cannot ignore the hit point rules whenever the PCs engage a physically dangerous situation. So it is GM Fiat only within certain parameters - and D&D already has this.

it's the feeling I get when the DM breaks with the rules of the game so dramatically just to justify some sort of narratrive contrivance that, 9 times out of 10, a little imagination could have worked within the bounds of the rules to create something the players COULD interact with, and thus could have added to the game, rather than made me feel like I was just along for the DM's ride.

But D&D already has an arbitrary amount of stuff done by the GM that is outside the players' control (eg the initial shape of the dungeon, the shape of the cosomology, the latest plot hook, etc) that I don't see why more or slightly different necessarily hurts things.

I don't know of once in all the tales of epic heroes where someone fell off their horse and died.

But it's true of historical figures. And I think it (or something comparable) is true of some of the heroic figures in Appendix A of LoTR. To me it's an unsatifsying feature of your way of playing D&D that I can't, as GM, set up a backstory in which a hero, after a great victory, does die from falling of his horse - such a story could be the precursor for all sorts of interesting gaming.

A one-in-a-million chance doesn't, effectively, from the POV of the table, ever, really, truly exist. And if the DM calls it in, it blows my suspension of disbelief right out of the water, because no longer does my character adhere to the heroic archetype I thought she was.

I don't think that the OP was suggesting stripping away PC plot protection via hit points and all the mechanics that interact with them. I think the idea was rather that, when this sort of plot protection is not at stake (like in setting up campaign backstory, or resolving NPC matters off-screen) there is no reason to adhere to systems whose metagame purpose is quite different (ie to regulate the PC's derring-do).

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

I think this is the key point of the OP.

Nobody's suggesting changing the rules at the point where they interact with the players. We're just talking about what kind of control the DM has over what happens in the game world when the PCs aren't involved in the action.

Agreed - although I'm not sure if one should say "players" there, or "PCs". And your earlier post was good too.

 

[Professor Phobos]

I don't think that the OP was suggesting stripping away PC plot protection via hit points and all the mechanics that interact with them. I think the idea was rather that, when this sort of plot protection is not at stake (like in setting up campaign backstory, or resolving NPC matters off-screen) there is no reason to adhere to systems whose metagame purpose is quite different (ie to regulate the PC's derring-do).

Yes, exactly. This is well said. Your whole post is well said. You are an excellent person.

The purpose of hit points, the combat system, is for use in play to make for fun, tense, tactical combats. For that purpose, I'll use 'em.

For storytelling and world-simulation purposes, the mighty powers of my intellect are more than enough.

 

[S'mon]

If it makes everyone feel any better, I'll establish the following rule: NPCs lose all their levels when it is no longer important that their capabilities be represented by levels. They get them back if it becomes relevant again.

Nice rule, and I agree entirely. IMC if I decide NPC Overking Tarkane the Usurper dies from falling off his horse, as did William the Conqueror, then that's my business as GM. Rules are for players.

 

[S'mon]

I don't think that what you are saying is true of every game system - eg in RQ and RM, the rules are meant to be the physics of the gameworld.

No, they're just highly simulationist game systems. But plenty of stuff that happens in Glorantha was not possible in the Runequest 2e ruleset. In the Dragon Pass game, Harek the Berserk can destroy whole legions of Lunar troops. It's impossible to create a human in the Runequest rules who can do that, AFAIK, no matter how experienced/heroic.