Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[Lanefan]

Celebrim is arguing that consistent DM fiats on stuff not covered in the rules, but still come up often enough, develops a body of precedence and established guidelines that eventually evolve into a new rule to cover the situation.

In which case, I agree with Celebrim - it's called in-game consistency.

This is the exact opposite of my experience, in which over time in gameplay more and more rules are discarded as unnecessary as the group becomes more comfortable.

Must be hard for someone to join in halfway through the campaign, then.

Lanefan

 

[Professor Phobos]

Must be hard for someone to join in halfway through the campaign, then.

Well, after they pass all the initiation tests and the ritual scarification, plus the apprenticeship period, they tend to adapt well.

Of course that's because of the cult indoctrination techniques. I find those very helpful!

 

[Thaniel]

in response to a question about non-rule situations...

Knights falling down and breaking their necks.

How is this a non-rule situation? There are rules for this. Falling is 1d6 per 10 feet. This is the exact opposite of a "non-rule situation". That's like saying jumping over an 8 foot chasm is a non-rule situation. Or shooting a guard with an arrow. These are not in any way "non-rule situations".

 

[Professor Phobos]

How is this a non-rule situation? There are rules for this. Falling is 1d6 per 10 feet. This is the exact opposite of a "non-rule situation". That's like saying jumping over an 8 foot chasm is a non-rule situation. Or shooting a guard with an arrow. These are not in any way "non-rule situations".

Oh, for the love of god. We've been over this a thousand times already in this thread. I am tired of repeating myself, but one more time:

I am of the school of thought that the rules are for a specific purpose and for a specific time. An off-screen, NPC knight is not what the rules are for. The rules are for the players to govern their PC's interaction with the world, not the world's interaction with itself. There are no rules for what he can and can not die from. A DM's common sense controls the interaction of off-screen entities.

I do not care if you disagree. Don't even bother.

I DO NOT WANT TO RESTART THIS DEBATE. It is over, I will not change my mind, nor will the contrarian's change their mind. I am going to snap the necks of a knight in every session of D&D, 4th Edition I ever run if I ever run it. Once per session, at a random time designated by me, a knight will appear and- for completely arbitrary reasons- have his neck snapped. Every session. I am going to do this in front of the players. I'm going to keep track of neck's snapped. There might be a chart. I may compile statistics. If I happen to have a player who shares the belief that the rules are the Immutable Laws of God and he complains, then I will have two necks snapped.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, let's take this into the realm of the concrete.

What rules justification can you invoke against a player who declares that his non-caster PC never sleeps? After all, there are no rules in core covering when you have to sleep or how often. The closest thing is that elves don't. But, that doesn't ever say that other races do, or how long they do.

So, when my fighter and his four cohorts decide to pull all night and all day shifts, day after day, what ruling can you make, by RAW to stop that?

Or, does no one in your world ever sleep?

 

[Lanefan]

I DO NOT WANT TO RESTART THIS DEBATE. It is over, I will not change my mind, nor will the contrarian's change their mind. I am going to snap the necks of a knight in every session of D&D, 4th Edition I ever run if I ever run it. Once per session, at a random time designated by me, a knight will appear and- for completely arbitrary reasons- have his neck snapped. Every session. I am going to do this in front of the players. I'm going to keep track of neck's snapped. There might be a chart. I may compile statistics. If I happen to have a player who shares the belief that the rules are the Immutable Laws of God and he complains, then I will have two necks snapped.

And all these nearly-headless knights are going to later reincarnate as Spinal Tap drummers, I suppose?

Lane-"Oh my god! They killed Kenny a knight!"-fan

 

[Someone]

I do not consider it lazy or devoid of imagination to assume that things the rules directly imply cannot happen in the game world, however, cannot happen.

Consider for a moment the following, a bit extreme, example: one PC or NPC wants to cut his toenails with a greataxe. Now, physical damage is very well defined in the rules, being combat so important, and nowhere includes the accidental removing of limbs or toes, least of all by using non appropiate toenail cutting implements (after all there's 0 chance of losing anything other than blood -if we interpret correctly the 'bloodied' status in 4e- in combat, which is more chaotic and unpredictable than personal grooming)

That put us into an uncomfortable trilemma. Either we rule beforehand the chance of cutting your own toes when using large axes, which in itself is not so difficult but a) doesn't mesh with existing rules, mainly the impossibility of losing body parts in combat and b) is only a very small part of possible exceptions to the rules, or we ignore the possibility of such a wound, which for some of us would stretch suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, or rule on the fly the possibility of cutting off our own toes when using a greataxe as toenail cutter, which is anathema to the rules as physics crowd.

 

[JohnSnow]

Where's that head-banging smilie when you want it?

 

[RedShirtNo5]

Once per session, at a random time designated by me, a knight will appear and- for completely arbitrary reasons- have his neck snapped.

Your DM fiat poses a high probability of incompatability with gamist players, with commensurate increase in inter-player conflict and danger of campaign collapse. I suggest the use of the following chart.

Table I.A. (roll d100)
01-13 knight falls off horse, snaps neck
14-24 knight is in brawl with thug, thug snaps knight's neck
25-37 knight is hit in neck by flail
38-41 knight is hit in neck by flying cannonball
42-54 knight is wrongfully sentanced to death by hanging
55-58 knight trips on own feet, falls and snaps neck
59-63 knight eats quall's feather token:tree, says command word while token is stuck in throat
64-69 knight misses ball with croquet mallet, hits self on neck
70-73 knight forgetfully lifts off own head instead of helmet
74-77 knight wanders into anti-gravity zone, falls up into tree
78-83 knight slips on ice patch, slides head-first into wall
84-86 knight has accident with handglider
87-90 summoned rhinoceros materializes over knight and falls on knight's head
91-92 knight is reincarnated as a badger, snaps own neck in shame
93-94 knight is hit on head with rubber chicken, knight lives!
95-99 knight encounters wandering prostitute, roll on table I.B.
00 roll three times on this table

 

[Imban]

After having thought about it for a day, I think the actual difference between myself and some other players on this thread are that, instead of treating "game rules" as "physics", I treat high-level characters as superheroes because I see them as capable of superheroic feats, which the game rules tend to support. For me, 20th-level characters are all Superman and no Batman; guys who are just that darn tough.

I prefer to take input from the rules when offscreen events happen as well, because I was never a fan of those comics where Spiderman beat up the amazingly more powerful Firelord with his bare hands (compare: 10th-level Monk vs. Fire Elemental Monolith), and since I think stories where the listed abilities of superheroes go straight out the window when convenient are crappy, I try to avoid telling stories I think are crappy.

rule on the fly the possibility of cutting off our own toes when using a greataxe as toenail cutter, which is anathema to the rules as physics crowd.

Actually it's not. Well, some people hate rulings on the fly, but they're missing one of the biggest advantages of D&D. What I don't really like is previously established facts being negated because it's narratively convenient, or the standard "bad crap happens and you can't affect it in any way" video game cutscene.