Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[JohnSnow]

I can see the distinctions more clearly now. It boils down to how you answer various questions.

1) Is the high-level hero like Superman, in being actually invulnerable to certain kinds of injury, or is he like Batman, who is just "narratively" protected from those forms of injury?

2) As a corellary to the above, what do hit points represent in the gameworld?

3) Does the DM need to create a mechanical resolution system for every possible eventuality he wants to have occur in the game world?

4) Is it more troubling to your "suspension of disbelief" for PCs to be "narratively special" or for the game world to "operate under physics substantially divergent from our own?"

Back to point 3, I could, as a DM, decide that if you fall off a horse, a natural 1 (5% chance) on your REF save forces you to roll on a d% table. And that a result of 00 (1%) on this table means you have potentially suffered a serious injury from this inconsequential fall and must roll on a second table. And that a result of 00 (1%) on that second table means the character has suffered causing a broken neck resulting in either instant death (failed save), or long-term injury (successful save). After all this, the chance of this happening to a PC is a game-acceptable (to me) 1-in-a-million (or less). However, it is now, by the rules, possible for any character to break his neck falling off a horse, and so my NPC king can bite it that way. But I have to wonder, is this houserule (which just about everyone says I have every right to make) worth the effort? Since I have no plan for this rule to apply to the PCs, my gut instinct says "no." Too much effort for too little reward. Especially when there's a simple solution: it happened to this NPC because that's my plot hook.

Since it's narratively unsatisfactory, I, as a DM, will never do this to a PC. However, the player may make that decision if he wants, just as he could choose to have his character lose an eye, get scarred, or whatever. I'd do all of the above without penalty (unless the player wanted one). However, in the interests of "realism," if a player wants his swordsman to lose his dominant hand, I'd have to impose at least a temporary penalty until the character had some time to train. It might, for example, last until he went up a level or maybe even took a feat of some kind. But I imagine a player who decided to have his character lose his dominant hand would expect, and even want, a penalty like this.

Just to cover point 4 in slightly more detail, I'd add this. By the rules of Point 4, if I game in the Forgotten Realms, my PCs are "special" in a way that, for example, Elminster and Drizzt are not. As the "main characters" in my game, the PCs just have narrative protection that NPCs lack. On the other hand, I usually have a "Lois Lane" exemption too. Which is to say this: an important supporting character won't be killed off in an arbitrary way. In other words, it's fine for the game if Lois Lane dies, as long as Superman at least has a chance to save her. But Lois slipping on a bar of soap and cracking her head open isn't "cool."

Basically, I hold the view that when characters are offstage, their campaign "significance" is more relevant than their in-game stats. KM, I know you don't share this opinion but I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Are all accidental deaths outside the realm of possibility, or is it just the ones for which we have abstract rules systems already?

Could he die from a heart attack or stroke? Could he choke to death on a fig? Surely he could drown, we have rules for that. Old age? Autoerotic asphyxiation?

And if he can die in all these ways in an acceptably simulationist way, but can't die from a fall because the falling rules won't allow it, how can we not just draw the conclusion that the falling rules suck?

It is difficult for me to accept a heroic being (a 20th level fighter) dying by random accident. It's not impossible, but the more possible it becomes, the less heroic that being is, and the less heroic the world is, and the less I feel like I'm playing a heroic fantasy game.

If he had a heart attack or a stroke or choked to death on a fig, it is too obviously transparent to me as a metagame descision, and too 'realistic,' to me, to fit in a heroic game, so it makes the experience unsatisfying for me.

If the DM introduced rules for these things, I think most of us would agree that they'd be pretty pointless rules, and would add very little to the game. If the king was a 1st level Aristocrat instead of a 20th level fighter, all these things could kill him without me raising much of an eyebrow, because all these things routinely kill normal people, and the king uses the rules for 'normal person' and not for 'heroic being.' If the DM intended it to be a mysterious "accidental" death that the PC's could investigate, I'd gladly send my character after that little trail, knowing, in-character, that Slayers of Dragons don't just choke on normal figs.

We have rules for drowning and for running out of breath and for old age, and as long as what happened to him falls within the bounds of what the rules describe would happen to him, those don't really violate my sense of realism. If for some reason he was underwater too long to hold his breath (given that a high CON probably means he can hold his breath for quite a while), he can die. If he's roughly within the age range for an old character, he can die. It won't break me out of the game, and the DM can adhere to those rules without ever rolling a single die.

And we can say that the falling rules, or the aging rules, or the drowning rules suck, and we can make new rules to replace them. The aging rules are a perfect candidate (and I'd bet that 4e doesn't have any height/weight/aging rules, though I bet the averages are described for each race). Heck, we can decide that the hit point rules suck, and change those. The point is to remain internally consistent, so that even when the camera isn't in focus on an event, it is still running 'invisibly' by the same rules, because for me, D&D isn't a story. It isn't a simulation, either, it's a game, and in any game, all the players should abide by the rules that are relevant to them.

Which means when someone falls, the results possible and likely are already described, either 'on-stage' or not.

 

[WyzardWhately]

I tend to prefer the interpretation that hit points are how the world works. So, no, a high-level fighter can't die by falling off a horse, in my game.

As an interesting aside, if the aged Baron who slew dragons in his youth were to be found in the forest with a broken neck after his steed returned alone, it might be assumed that he had fallen from the horse and died like so many others...if you were one of the callow fops and courtesans that populated his court, and knew nothing of how deep his strength ran. But the Elven Wizard and Dwarven Rogue (the PCs!) who were his boon companions in his youth are still hale and strong, in the fullness of their youth as their people count the years. And they know their friend survived a hundred blows of ten times the strength, and could never have been slain by so slight a force.

There is foul play about, and they will find the heart of it no matter what self-important dandy presumes to call them Romantics.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Basically, I hold the view that when characters are offstage, their campaign "significance" is more relevant than their in-game stats. KM, I know you don't share this opinion but I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree here.

And that's totally okay. Honest. Though I'd like to point out something else in your post:

But I have to wonder, is this houserule (which just about everyone says I have every right to make) worth the effort? Since I have no plan for this rule to apply to the PCs, my gut instinct says "no." Too much effort for too little reward. Especially when there's a simple solution: it happened to this NPC because that's my plot hook.

You're pretty right on the money, here, I wouldn't make such a house rule, either. I don't think it'd make the game any better.

Which means, to me, I can't use it as an excuse to kill off a given heroic NPC.

Which also means I have to think of another way to kill him, or use different stats to represent him, or somehow work, within the rules of the game, to get the end that I want.

My simple solution? Depends on why I'm killing him. If it's to get the PCs to investigate, then something like a warlock's curse would be perfect. If it's to sew unrest in the kingdom, then he can be a 1st level Aristocrat. Or whatever.

Since it's narratively unsatisfactory, I, as a DM, will never do this to a PC. However, the player may make that decision if he wants, just as he could choose to have his character lose an eye, get scarred, or whatever. I'd do all of the above without penalty (unless the player wanted one). However, in the interests of "realism," if a player wants his swordsman to lose his dominant hand, I'd have to impose at least a temporary penalty until the character had some time to train. It might, for example, last until he went up a level or maybe even took a feat of some kind. But I imagine a player who decided to have his character lose his dominant hand would expect, and even want, a penalty like this.

I'm in basic agreement, here.

Just to cover point 4 in slightly more detail, I'd add this. By the rules of Point 4, if I game in the Forgotten Realms, my PCs are "special" in a way that, for example, Elminster and Drizzt are not. As the "main characters" in my game, the PCs just have narrative protection that NPCs lack. On the other hand, I usually have a "Lois Lane" exemption too. Which is to say this: an important supporting character won't be killed off in an arbitrary way. In other words, it's fine for the game if Lois Lane dies, as long as Superman at least has a chance to save her. But Lois slipping on a bar of soap and cracking her head open isn't "cool."

I've worked a lot of interesting lines out of the difference between 'heroic' characters and the 'mere mortals' they are expected to protect, and D&D currently does a wonderful job of allowing me to do that, with NPC classes and 'everyone is 1st level' rules. I might have Jimmy Olsen slip and fall on a bar of soap and die, if I think it'll somehow be cool (like, the PC's then go on a planar adventure to save his soul). But I wouldn't have a heroic character do the same, because it's pretty much never cool -- Superman CAN'T die like that. Jimmy Olsen could. That's a valuable distinction for me, and one of the many reasons I prefer D&D.

 

[Celebrim]

But now, I see that by "rules" you don't mean what KM clearly does mean, namely the character build and action resolution mechanics.

I'm not entirely sure what KM includes in the word 'rules' because I don't think he's made it perfectly clear. (Though to be honest I'm not paying alot of attention to KM's thread of the discussion.) I will say that 'action resolution mechanics' covers IMO alot broader of an area than the formalized rules of the game. I don't think there is any table out there that has as its body of 'rules' only the RAW. There might be tables that think that they do, but I believe that they haven't been terribly self-reflective. It's not clear to me that KM thinks that the only rules are the rules as written and the a priori specified house rules. I'm not sure that he would disagree with my claim that there is an equally important body of 'table common law' which resolves actions not clearly or fully specified by the RAW - such as the case of 'what happens when non-spellcasters do not sleep every 24 hours for prolonged periods'.

But in that case I'm still puzzled. When you said "everything will conform to the rules" I took you to mean "every event in the gameworld". But maybe you really meant "every event at the gaming table" If this is so, then so far from being ridiculous you were correct!

Ok, so if we've established that it remains to resolve whether every event at the gaming table is functionally equivalent to every event in the game world.

But it makes no sense at all to talk of the rules that tell us how to play at the gaming table are the physics of the gameworld. For example, consider "Saying yes" rules - what does it mean to say that the gameworld does or doesn't conform to those rules, or that those rules are the physics of the gameworld?

Ewwww.... we are about to jump into the deep end of the pool. I like.

Let me make sure that I understand what you mean. By 'saying yes' rules, do you mean a resolution system that involves one or more players voting on resolutions so that actions are resolved in a consensual fashion? If so, let me first state that such a resolution system when generalized is for the most part so far removed from how D&D games normally resolve cause and effect as to be a totally new discussion.

I won't discuss this in detail until I know exactly what you mean by the term, but I will say in brief that as I understand it 'saying yes' is a special case of referee fiat, differing only in that 'the referee' in this case refers to more than one person. As such, most of what I've said about DM fiat already applies.

This makes no sense to me, as the PCs (presumably) have no beliefs about the rules, but only about the gameworld. And whether or not the players believe that the mechanics that govern the PCs also govern the NPCs depends entirely on what the rules of the game say.

Ok, you are quite correct here. I meant to say 'player' and wrote 'PC' by mistake. It seems to me that we must be very careful to define what me mean by the mechanics that govern the NPC's also govern the PC's if we are to avoid some red herrings.

a) I've frequently had posters counter this claim by saying something along the lines of, 'Well, of course the players don't expect the same rules to apply to monsters and PC's, because monsters have all sorts of advantages PC's don't. For example, dragons breath fire.' This is a red herring. Clearly, PC's don't have a reasonable expectation that things which are of different in game types won't follow the exact same rules. No one expects the rules for elves and dwarves to be exactly the same, or the rules for dragons and humans to be exactly the same, or for that matter no one is surprised if maces and swords have different special rules attached to them. They are distinguishable in the game, and hense mechanical distinguishing features aren't surprising. But this is a red herring because the designation NPC and PC is a pure metagame distinguishment with no in game basis (or very likely none).
b) A variation on the above is that you might claim that different rules applied to NPC's and PC's because NPC's had different feats or skills. Same sort of thing. So long as the PC could have qualified for the feat or ability provided they had the same background as the NPC, this doesn't apply.
c) You have to distinguish between a situation where the PCs are uniquely different and merely different from the vast majority of the population. The expectation is that PCs are heroes. But if the expectation is that heroes are merely rare, and that the PC mechanics apply to NPC heroes (and villains) then this is not really a case of the PCs and the NPCs obeying different rules. The elite, 'Heroes' - whether PC or NPC, still follow the same rules.
d) Most recent systems that try to pull off game mechanics where the PCs and NPCs do have different rules try to alleviate player concerns by making it clear that the rules differences will always favor the PCs. That is to say, being a PC is always strictly better mechanically than being a NPC. I don't think I can reasonably claim that that will eventually gall everyone, as there is always going to be someone that doesn't think he's being cheated so long as the resolution system always tilts in his favor. But I will claim that this is itself a slippery slope and that it will gall alot of players.
e) I'd like to note just how important the perception of 'd' is to the trick of getting someone to accept the whole flim-flam. If the designers of 4e quite correctly pointed out that the game is rigged in the players advantage anyway by the simple fact that most DMs create adventures where player and player character success is by design, and hense justified on that basis that the rules could (indeed should) 'cheat' in the favor of NPCs in order that the players would be suffiicently challenged to enjoy the game, I think that alot more people would be thinking harder about why having NPC's and PC's use the same rules is a good idea. Having NPC classes and abilities far superior to PC abilities doesn't necessarily need to gall a player right away either. Afterall, there is no particular reason why NPC's should be 'balanced' the way PC's are, and its all good as long as you win, right? The trouble with this creeps up more subtly than you think. It comes not from the obvious NPC with DM fiat plot protection, or the NPC that the DM gave 'die no save' attacks. It comes from trying to interact with the world in the same way that an NPC just did and having the DM just flat out say, "No." Not just, "No, you need to do X." The guy that was asking, "What happens when the NPC the player is trying to protect gets reduced to -1 hit points?" is asking the right sort of question.

And to avoid posturing, and make it practical: suppose that every time the issue of pregnancy comes up, the players and GM all "Say yes" to ignoring it. Or, as is probably even more common, the players and GM all "Say yes" to ignoring the PCs urination and defecation while in the dungeon. It does not therefore follow that noone in the gameworld ever gets pregnant, nor that they never go to the toilet.

I would argue that this is a bit of sleight-of-hand, in that you are making a claim about the 'Saying yes' ruling that isn't in fact warranted. Ok, so lets imagine that by some concensus (even just, 'I'm the DM and I make the rules.'), the table agrees to ignore PC urination and defecation. Then it does not therefore follow that noone in the gameword never goes to the toliet, not because the ruling says that the PC's don't go to the toliet, but because the ruling merely says that we will ignore it as having no pertinant role in the game. The ruling almost certainly is not literally that PC's never urinate or defecate, but merely that we'll ignore the fact that they do. If in fact the ruling was literally that PC's never urinate or defecate, then my assumption is that NPC's never urinate or defecate either, and if they do, I'm going to wonder why they do and my character doesn't. For example, I'm going to wonder why my character can't dry his own feces to provide fuel for a fire after he's been left for dead on a desert island if NPC's are assumed to defecate if hitherto my understanding is that we merely ignored the fact that my character does.

So this would be an example (drawn from my own gaming experience) which I believe shows that there can be consistent rules which are not the physics of the gameworld. And I think it also shows that there is a practical difference between John Snows type A and type B players.

I don't think you got there yet or that you can, though I admit that I'm intrigued whether you can sustain your push for a strictly narrativist rule set. But unless I fail to understand you completely, I think you are going to run afoul of my earlier statements about the role of referee fiat.

 

[JohnSnow]

For example, if the desired outcome is that "inactive former adventurers (such as many kings) aren't as tough or skilled as they used to be (see: Rocky III and sequels)," then I start thinking about "level-atrophy" rules. What if every X months spent outside the "adventuring lifestyle" (or equivalent, such as regular intensive training and workouts) gave you a negative level (including the sometimes-referenced-in-the-RAW -5 hp), to a max of (character level -1) negative levels, which would never result in actual "level loss" or death, but could only be "worked off" through X weeks of intensive training (cue "Rocky" theme and 80's training montage)? You'd probably want to put some floor on how low skills, BAB, saves, and HP could get. Naturally, undead, outsiders, and other potentially-levelled immortal critters that tend to be stuck in small rooms for decades would be immune.

Is any of the above necessary? IMO, no, but it can add to the fun.

Okay, I actually think this is pretty frickin' cool as a concept. And I think it might (and I stress "might") even satisfy KM's requirement for proper treatment of heroic characters.

The theory is basically that when Sir Hacksalot "retires" from adventuring, he isn't necessarily keeping in shape, and therefore preserving his heroic status. To steal an example from the series where I got my alias, it's like the difference between Eddard Stark (or even Barristan "the Bold") and King Robert Baratheon.

Nearly twenty years have passed since they won the throne of a kingdom. Eddard has been warden of the North, riding hard and constantly training. He might not quite be the man he was 20 years ago, but he's still a dangerous, dangerous man. King Robert is different. He's been living the good life, whoring and drinking and feasting. He's fat, and jowly, and his armor no longer fits. He's still strong as an ox (his ability scores haven't dropped much), but he's no longer the warrior he was in his youth. Robert Baratheon is just NOT an adventurer any more. Barristan is more halfway between the two. Due to a combination of age and lack of practice, he's probably not quite the warrior he was in his youth, but he's hardly a pushover either.

D&D doesn't allow for this kind of "level loss." Similarly, it doesn't allow for the notion of a character who's past his youth and decides to take up adventuring without him being a multiclass nonheroic/heroic.

But aren't both of these situations something we might want rules for? The first is unlikely to ever affect PCs, ambitious and constantly active as they are, but they could be a great world-building tool for DMs.

I actually think something like an inactive year is probably better than so many months. So if the king, who was once a mighty warrior (Ftr 15), hasn't bothered to pick up a sword in 12 years, he might be barely more than a low-level fighter by now. And the example that Professor Phobos and I suggested could be covered by our once 20th-level knight having been inactive for decades. Now he might be vulnerable to a relatively mundane injury, because with all his inactivity, he's effectively become a low-level commoner.

I actually think this covers nicely characters like the Musketeers, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, who were clearly more powerful heroes in their prime than when they "came out of retirement" for their later adventures. And not just by a couple points from their physical stats due to middle-age. They're pretty clearly "out of practice" and therefore "lower-level" than they used to be.

Cool concept. I may work this idea into my next game.

 

[ruleslawyer]

I do this already. My assumption is that high-level NPCs have an adventuring "life cycle" similar to that of PCs; they go on an intense rollercoaster ride of adventures that causes them to acquire great skill and might at an equally great risk of death, and so they achieve their prime quite quickly. Once they're retired, or even just doing something that doesn't involve facing "CR-appropriate" encounters on a regular basis, they drop levels to somewhere in the high single digits; enough to reflect past combat experience and power, but not enough to be capable of taking on the truly deadly challenges of the world.

[EDIT: There is another way to make the knight-falling-off-horse-and-breaking-neck phenomenon work in the game by implementing the following house rule: Any time a character suffers hit point damage of any kind, he must roll a d20. On a 1, he must reroll, and if he rolls a 1 again, he dies or suffers a debilitating injury. Then you can just explain to nosy-parkers players that because this scenario is so unlikely to come up in play, you'll just assume they made their roll every time! ]

 

[robertliguori]

Okay, I actually think this is pretty frickin' cool as a concept. And I think it might (and I stress "might") even satisfy KM's requirement for proper treatment of heroic characters.

The theory is basically that when Sir Hacksalot "retires" from adventuring, he isn't necessarily keeping in shape, and therefore preserving his heroic status. To steal an example from the series where I got my alias, it's like the difference between Eddard Stark (or even Barristan "the Bold") and King Robert Baratheon.

Nearly twenty years have passed since they won the throne of a kingdom. Eddard has been warden of the North, riding hard and constantly training. He might not quite be the man he was 20 years ago, but he's still a dangerous, dangerous man. King Robert is different. He's been living the good life, whoring and drinking and feasting. He's fat, and jowly, and his armor no longer fits. He's still strong as an ox (his ability scores haven't dropped much), but he's no longer the warrior he was in his youth. Robert Baratheon is just NOT an adventurer any more. Barristan is more halfway between the two. Due to a combination of age and lack of practice, he's probably not quite the warrior he was in his youth, but he's hardly a pushover either.

D&D doesn't allow for this kind of "level loss." Similarly, it doesn't allow for the notion of a character who's past his youth and decides to take up adventuring without him being a multiclass nonheroic/heroic.

But aren't both of these situations something we might want rules for? The first is unlikely to ever affect PCs, ambitious and constantly active as they are, but they could be a great world-building tool for DMs.

I actually think something like an inactive year is probably better than so many months. So if the king, who was once a mighty warrior (Ftr 15), hasn't bothered to pick up a sword in 12 years, he might be barely more than a low-level fighter by now. And the example that Professor Phobos and I suggested could be covered by our once 20th-level knight having been inactive for decades. Now he might be vulnerable to a relatively mundane injury, because with all his inactivity, he's effectively become a low-level commoner.

I actually think this covers nicely characters like the Musketeers, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, who were clearly more powerful heroes in their prime than when they "came out of retirement" for their later adventures. And not just by a couple points from their physical stats due to middle-age. They're pretty clearly "out of practice" and therefore "lower-level" than they used to be.

Cool concept. I may work this idea into my next game.

This has another good side benefit; it encourages people in leadership positions to be good leaders, rather than qualifying by dint of being able to survive the most recent scry-and-die attempt of itinerant adventurers. It also emphasizes that if you want to tear open the fabric of reality, shrug off mortal wounds, strike four deadly blows with a greatsword in six seconds, and so forth, you need to devote your life to doing so, and that you might not be able to afford to take the time to play politics in the court, see to your spouse, raise your heir as he should be raised, perform civic works and formal ceremonies and keep up with your career as a duskblade. It gives you a reason for high-level wizards to be in towers performing research, instead of taking over kingdoms and turning them into rare spell component production facilities.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And I think it might (and I stress "might") even satisfy KM's requirement for proper treatment of heroic characters.

Yeah, I'd embrace such a rule.

 

[JohnSnow]

Yeah, I'd embrace such a rule.

Wow. That's rather surprising.

I guess this particular rule straddles the line between my desire for a heroic narrative (because while it makes sense in the gameworld, it would almost NEVER apply to PCs) and your desire for consistency (since it is a logical and consistent rule).

It certainly opens up some very interesting narratives for the DM to have old adventurers "lose levels." On the other hand, I could see some players (and gaming groups) embracing this rule for an adventure that brings their old PCs out of retirement.

And, from a world-building standpoint, it helps explain why the world isn't crawling with high-level adventurers.

I think for verisimilitude purposes, you might have to work out which skills and abilities logically would atrophy and which ones would not. Obviously the list begins with powers, attacks, defenses and hit points, but it probably doesn't end there.

Done right, the rules might allow for a character with some pretty whacked out numbers. Like the former 16th-level fighter who's kept up his diplomacy running his kingdom, and has been riding as a hobby (so both have bonuses of like +20 or so), but he hasn't had to handle a weapon in 14 years, and so has like a +4 BAB.