Lots to reply to. Let's see if I can tease out the most relevant things to say, here.
Professor Phobos said:
"Make up a rule" is indistinguishable from fiat.
Not entirely. Fiat is declaring something happens. Nobody can contradict that, and fiat (on BOTH sides of the screen) is unsatisfying to me as a player. Because I can make up stories with my friends without D&D, I want D&D to provide a game experience for me, which means I want to roll some dice and use some rules. D&D doesn't satisfy a direct creative outlet for me. Archetypes are stereotypes that don't fit perfectly, I can write a story better than any D&D campaign, and ultimately the melieu is limiting. It's creative, no doubt, but creation isn't what I really have fun doing. D&D satisfies a
gearhead kind of fun for me. Some people tinker with car engines, some people mess with computers, I play D&D.
The distinction, then, is that fiat doesn't use rules, it just declares something as occured. This, to me, is cheating, of a sort. It is going up to the guy who is tinkering with his car and saying "Why don't you just ride a bike?" Meanwhile, coming up with a new rule is coming up with a new part: you can use it, I can use it, and we can test its effectiveness and its consequences together.
Where are you getting this? I didn't say anything about player actions not mattering. In my own campaign, they matter more than anything- barring certain edge cases where I negotiate for some kind of compromise, I let player whim trump my own. Admittedly this is because I am very lazy and if they want to drive the plot, I'm not going to stop them.
The sense that you're allowing it, that you choose not to stop them -- rather than actually not being able to stop them via the rules -- is what reminds me constantly that we're in the DM's universe, and that the DM gets to say what goes. That blows out my suspension of disbelief, because I'm very acutely aware that this isn't a world I choose to affect, this is a world the DM chooses to allow me to affect. It robs me of agency and autonomy to have to pass through the DM filter.
Basically, I don't believe anyone other than the PCs are "important."
This breaks my suspension of disbelief as well, because it creates two categories of people in the world (at least), and the category is entirely dependant on a metagame consideration. Knights are only immune to falling of a horse and dying if they're being controlled by a player, but, in the game world, there's no real knowledge of who is a PC and who is an NPC.
In the real world, if my co-worker goes home for the night, they're the same person they were when they were with me during the day. In D&D, if my adventuring buddy retires, he's suddenly vulnerable to a host of mundane threats that he was immune to when he was with me on adventures?
They need to be the same, even if you're not looking at them. This creates a living, breathing world with a context outside of the PC's, and allows me to become more immersed in the setting because the NPC's do things other than stand around and wait patiently for death. If the knight is level 20, he got there the same way every level 20 character gets there, and he can only die in the same way every other level 20 character can die, and he has the appropriate gold and magic and power of a 20th level character, even if he's not doing anything relevant to my adventure right now with it. It's over there as a game-world element, and thus is a tool I can use in the game.
I like to use the combat rules when I want some tension and some tactical gameplay, or if the scene is important and dramatic. But I don't see the value in running a whole combat just for the sake of following the rules- if it isn't interesting, and the players don't care, I'd just skip it. Outclassed opponents? Slaughter 'em however you want.
Again, I'd feel robbed of agency and feeling impotent, because I am again reminded that the only reason I'm slaughtering them is because you're letting me.
It'd be nice if you created a rule for what happens when you outclass an opponent, though. That way, I could use the rule, instead of letting you just do whatever you please.
"Can I grab the Hobgoblin and use him as a shield?" is a game-mechanics question; the player is asking if the game makes it possible. I would say, "Yes, make a grapple check to grab him and, oh, a dex check to get him in the way in time." Something like that. He's trying something not explicitly covered in the rules.
"Can I talk the Princess into making peace?" I would normally say, "You can try."
"Can I shove the folding boat into the creature's mouth, shout the command word, and have the boat enlarge inside it's skull?" I would definitely say, "Hells yes! Make a (appropriate roll) and if you succeed it dies!"
"Can I get a message from my father informing me my mother has died?" I would nod, and tell the player that he doesn't even need permission for that kind of thing.
You see, it robs the game of believability if I have to ask the DM if I can do anything.
I would instead ask: "I want to grab the Hobgoblin and use him as a shield. What do you want me to roll for that?"
Or "I use my silver tongue to try and convince the princess to make peace. I rolled a 24 on my Diplomacy check, which is good enough to improve her mood unless she's being oddly reticent. If that's not good enough, I give the wizard the 'charm person' signal."
Or "I shove the folding boat into the creature's mouth and speak the command word. What happens?"
Or "I write a letter home asking how my mother is."
And as a DM, I'd rather have my players tell me what they do rather than asking me what they can do.
This is why "mother may I?" play is unsatisfying for me. If the DM wants to stop me from using the Hobgoblin as a shield, wants to stop me from making peace with the princess, wants to stop me from jamming the boat in the creature's mouth, and wants to tell me how my father writes back, it's her choice how to do it. It's my choice, my right as a player, to perform these actions, though, without having to ask for clearance from the DM. As a DM, I don't want to rubber-stamp these actions, I want the players to see what is on their character sheets and let their imaginations run wild. If it's too wild, I'll use my ability as a DM to reign it in, but I'm never going to make you ask permission to do something.
The reason this jarrs me from believability is because, in the real world, I don't have to ask someone if I can go to the bathroom, or if I can try to jump a puddle, or if I can set my alarm to wake me up tomorrow morning. I just
do it or
not.
People with unbreakable necks breaks the believability of the world. People who, by narrative logic, will just never break their necks is fine, because that's how almost any story works.
People who have survived dragon fire hotter than liquid rock and who have killed giants four times their size and who have slain entire armies of undead don't fall off horses and die.
People in the real world do, but people in the real world would also die horribly if a dragon breathed fire on them, would get crushed under a giant, and would likely be part of that army of undead, happily munching on their former townsfolk.
D&D is not about people in a realistic world. Superman doesn't get paralyzed falling off a horse. The actor who portrays him does. Superman exists in a realm of heroic fantasy. Christopher Reeve is an actor, he doesn't.
My D&D character exists in a realm of heroic fantasy. There, people not breaking their necks is not a matter of narrative contrivance, it's a matter of their necks being DAMN tough to break. It's not heroic fantasy anymore if heroes die from mundane causes, so it's certainly not the D&D I expect, or would have much fun playing in.
KarinsDad said:
Sure there can be exceptions, but those should be carefully considered by the DM, not just knee jerk decisions for some potential DM perceived fun. The best intentions when making on the fly rules changes or just flat out breaking the rules can torpedo a game just as quickly as a TPK.
This is very true as well. Any DM who ignores the rules on a regular and rather arbitrary basis is not really considering what is fun for me. That is, playing the game. I can compose a story with friends without D&D.
robertligouri said:
You do not have a clear idea how it is or why it should be that after a lifetime of adventuring, you should achieve superhuman levels of toughness and capacity. This is well and good. I, myself have no idea how it is or why it should be that Superman's Kryptonian metabolism can convert yellow sunlight into superhuman levels of toughness and capacity, but within the context of Superman comics, I don't claim that Superman's powers are an abstraction; he actually can fly, despite flight being conventionally impossible.
This is worth calling out, because it illustrates that the D&D characters I play are not expected to be living in a 'realistic' world where people break their necks falling from horses. They live in a world where maybe 90% of the people break their necks falling from horses, but the characters I play belong to that 10% that doesn't. People who are Level 20 belong to that 10% that doesn't. They can survive a bad fall, despite that being conventionally, for 90% of the world, impossible. Because my character is entirely capable of performing the impossible, and has on a regular basis. Anyone who is Level 20 is likewise capable, and has done the impossible.
For those 90% who do, there are rules for them: they are 1st level commoners with 2 hp and falling from a horse deals 1d6 points of damage.
JohnSnow said:
Do you use the game rules to adjudicate the outcome of every NPC vs. NPC fight in your game? In other words, when two nations in the game world go to war (or there's a tavern brawl that the PCs don't take part in), how do you resolve the battles?
I'm all for simplification, but those simplifications should still be rules. For isntance, I'm fine with the dying rules in 4e because "0 hp = dead, unless you're invested in it coming back" for NPC's is just a simplification of "5% chance to get back on your feet" for PC's. I'd still feel a bit robbed and rocked if the BBEG just
kept coming back without any other explanation, because it'd be transparent DM fiat, and no longer responsive to the rules (it'd be cheating), but it lets a DM do that once in a while and be convincing, without having to roll every time.
When two nations go to fight, of when there's a tavern brawl the PC's don't take part in, I decide who wins based on "average 10" and stats (highest BAB/AC wins!), but I reserve the ability to make a few unlikely considerations because "average 10" is just a simplification of what would actually be happening out there.
In effect, I just simplify what actually happens to make it faster for me as a DM. Which keeps my sense of belief intact, because it's still based on the rules of what actually happens, it's just simplified for the sake of expedience, rather than made up for the sake of expedience.
If this 20th level death fall from a horse were a simplification, I'd either expect falling damage to be a whole lot higher, horses to be a whole lot taller, or some other factor (warlock's curse, unusually fragile 20th level knight with a CON of 2 who rolled 1 on all hit points and not only fell off a horse, but fell off of a horse into a 30' spiked pit trap) to be at play.
Professor Phobos said:
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.
They're built to be a game, not a storytelling device. Which means they aren't exactly an abstraction the way most narrative contrivances are. They are concrete rules on which the reality of the world is based. This isn't a simulation, but rather a neutral ground on which villain's actions and player's actions can take place opposite each other and enjoy fighting each other. It doesn't simulate the world, it describes the PC's, which exist as part of the world, just like every NPC and monster. It doesn't simulate a narrative, it evokes a feeling of a genre, a genre where falling off your horse doesn't kill you, but it might kill 'lesser mortals.'
You're not a lesser mortal, according to the rules, and any NPC who is high-level isn't, either, so it would be utterly bizzarre to have them killed by falling off a horse. That's not something that happens to heroes. That happens to actors. Actors are not 20th level heroes, by and large.
Likewise, a PC's levels is a meta element.
A PC's hit points are a meta element, but that represents something in the world: the ability to survive otherwise deadly things.
A PC's levels are a meta element, but that represents something in the world: the general level of heroic skill they have attained.
A PC's skill ranks are a meta element, but that represents something in the world: how good they are at a particular skill.
Even if you disregard the meta-elements when they're not on the screen, you still have high-level characters full of heroic skill, full of puissance, and able to survive otherwise deadly things.
Which is why it makes no sense for a high-level hero to die by falling off a horse. It's not about hit points. It's about thier ability to survive otherwise deadly things, which is an in-world element, NOT an abstraction.
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.
D&D has done that, over and over again. Yes, the fates have blessed him. Yes, his soul is strong. He's 20th level. That's what being 20th level represents, that's what being 20th level means, that's why he's 20th level. He is 20th level specifically because he can survive things that would kill lesser mortals (giants, dragons, undead armies, and falling off of horses included).
A man with certain powers and a certain reputation, but just a man.
Those certain powers are reflected direclty on his character sheet, and ignoring them when it's convenient eradicates my sense that he has it in any real sense at all; instead, he has it just when you deem it appropriate.
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.
Having a man survive the bite of a 40 foot dragon and then die by falling off a horse is, to me, fundamentally inconsistent.
pemerton said:
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).
This much metagame thinking removes me from the imaginary world we have set up.
But it's true of historical figures.
And this is one of many, many reasons that D&D is not said to model the real world. Historical figures aren't heroic fantasy characters, they are mere mortals with mortal problems and mortal frailty. Abraham Lincoln was a pretty stellar fellow, though he never slayed a dragon and he died from a single gunshot wound. Hercules is a heroic fantasy character. He strangles snakes as a toddler. John Lennon was a marvelous philosopher/singer. Orpheus visited the land of the dead. D&D is not a game of historical figures or average people. These 'mere mortals' occupy the lowest rung on the ladder, like nameless Trojans in the Illiad, and die from things that everyone dies from. 20th level heroes do not.
This is not an abstraction, or it looses it's value as a model of heroic action, and it looses it's believability when you can be stomped by a giant and lived, but a fall off of a horse kills you.
Hussar said:
The PC's patron is held hostage by a orc fighter. There is no possible way that he could do enough damage in a single round to kill her other than possibly on a crit. Can the players act with that knowledge in the foreground? In other words, can they simply attack knowing that she will survive?
Yes. Indeed, they *should*. It is known that the patron is an experienced warrior blessed by the fates, and that orcs are generally sloppy murderers whom heroes cut down in droves. The patron is a hero, albeit not the hero of this particular adventure, certainly the hero in her own.
Mallus said:
While it possbible to describe the effects of limb loss under the D&D rules, there aren't any procedural rules to get a character into that state. Would you rule that losing limb is, in fact, impossible? What about scarring? No procedural rules exist for that, either. In both cases, it's easy to see why the designers choose not to model this sort of thing within the game rules, but I think that makes a strong case for the belief that the rules where never intended to be used as the "physics" that the "simulation" was built on.
This is one of those places where 'new rules' would be useful. By the book, people don't really loose limbs, but if you want a character with a missing limb, you describe the mechanic by which it takes place (a called shot mechanic? a special grapple option? an ability only certain monsters have?), make it available to everyone (now the PC's can hack off limbs, too, in the right circumstances), and go have fun.
Instances like that are why DMs are given the ability to modify and change the rules. Instances like "I need a king to die" are covered by the rules already, and would require a DM violating them and my suspension of disbelief in order to kill them without using the tools presented to them.
