Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[Wolfwood2]

I've been following this thread, and I'd like to offer something up.

A key point has been made about events that "the rules say can't happen".

I dispute the idea that an outcome not being one of the possibilities provided by the rules is the same thing as saying something "can't happen". "Can't" is a pretty strong word.

In even the simplest situation, a million-and-one things could happen. Let's go back to the iconic example in this thread, that of a high level fighter falling from his horse and breaking his neck. The rules don't account for the possibility of that happening.

You know what else the rules don't account for happening? They don't account for the possibility that the fighter's leg could get entangled in the stirrup and he could get dragged along the ground and have to make some sort of check to either calm his animal or untangle himself. That is not one of the possibilities provided by the 'falling from horse' rule, whether the character is 1st level or 20th level.

If we've now said no no high level fighter can die from falling from his horse, are we now also saying that no fighter of any level can get his foot tangled in his stirrups? Is there a difference?

The rules can't possibility model every possible outcome of a given event. Instead they model the subset of possibilities that the rules creators thought would be interesting and/or balanced to happen. I cannot get my head around the idea that just because a possibility isn't provided by the rules, that means the rules are saying it can't happen.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You know what else the rules don't account for happening? They don't account for the possibility that the fighter's leg could get entangled in the stirrup and he could get dragged along the ground and have to make some sort of check to either calm his animal or untangle himself. That is not one of the possibilities provided by the 'falling from horse' rule, whether the character is 1st level or 20th level.

If we've now said no no high level fighter can die from falling from his horse, are we now also saying that no fighter of any level can get his foot tangled in his stirrups? Is there a difference?

I am more than comfortable in the believability of a universe where mighty heroes of immense personal power, blessed by the fates (20th level Fighters), literally cannot have tragic daily accidents that imperil your average common horse-rider.

The man's basically a demigod. I don't find "basic invulnerability to horse accidents" really beyond the realm of believability for him.

Given that the logic can accommodate it, I, personally, see no reason to change the rule unless I want to achieve some specifical alteration for the purposes of flavor.

 

[AZRogue]

Are we still talking about what could happen to a 20th level Fighter NPC? Or a 20th level Fighter PC? Because there's a huge difference. The PC is owned by the player and a DM follows the guidelines as published, modified by any House Rules in play. An NPC, though, doesn't need to follow those guidelines and is a tool of the DM and fair game to die from an accidental fall should the DM think it appropriate.

Does anyone disagree with this?

 

[Thaniel]

Are we still talking about what could happen to a 20th level Fighter NPC? Or a 20th level Fighter PC? Because there's a huge difference. The PC is owned by the player and a DM follows the guidelines as published, modified by any House Rules in play. An NPC, though, doesn't need to follow those guidelines and is a tool of the DM and fair game to die from an accidental fall should the DM think it appropriate.

Does anyone disagree with this?

Pretty much half of the posters in this thread disagree with that statement. You might want to read what people have written.

I am firmly of the camp that PCs and NPCs are governed by the same rules.

 

[AZRogue]

Well, it's 13 pages so I'll have to do it tomorrow, heh.


So, you think players and NPCs should follow the same rules? Fair enough, but it seems to me overly complicated and not necessary. If the NPC happens to be with the PCs (read that as: in their realm of influence) then I completely agree, but away from their influence, he's window dressing. He's a piece of the campaign world and the rules aren't really meant to adjudicate what you do with him in that context.

The rules should be consistent, and should be applied consistently, but only in regards to the players and their "area of effect" around them. Away from the PCs, the rules aren't needed, only your intention and how you describe the results. There's no danger of hurting YOUR suspension of disbelief since you are the man behind the curtain anyway. And a players suspension of disbelief will only be heightened by seeing the DM handle the world in a way that conforms to their expectations of how a world works, and in the world some weird stuff can happen. At the same time, their confidence in you and your world is increased by your maintaining a consistent ruleset in regards to THEIR interactions with the world.

 

[Lanefan]

This has been one of themost confusing threads I've ever seen; in that each of you has posted things I agree with, and things I don't agree with, all on the same topic! But K.M. has hit a few nails right on the head here...

It's a fair reading. Myself, I take this in conjunction with the "NPCs and PCs obey the same rules"/"gain XP the same way PC's do" statement and assume that just as the PC's at my table star in our adventure, the heroic-classed NPC's in the background are the stars of their own books or movies, just ones the PC's aren't a part of.

For me, this gives the world a very deep, breathing feeling, to know that while you are handling the Necromancer King here, someone else is fighting against demon summoners in the Nation of Fynn, and that freedom fighters are going against the Slave Lords of Bhalbanes, and that the Great Blue Wyrm is being slain by Al-Cid, the God-King of the Easterlands. To know that "adventurers" exist as a profession, albeit a rare one, and that people other than the PC's make fame and fortune slaying monsters and exploring old ruins, is pretty evocative of the D&D milieu for me.

In short, there's more to the organic game world than what you see around the table every Saturday night.

Either that, or your PCs are living and functioning in what amounts to a vacuum.

Now, it's true enough that all the off-stage stuff doesn't have to be roleplayed out...the DM doesn't sit down one night and roll all the dice for the battle between Al-Cid and the Great Blue Wyrm, for example...but the assumption *has to be safely made* that the battle was fought under the same rules that the PCs used when taking down Krakatoa the Red Dragon last session, and thus if the PCs ever bump into Al-Cid in the future his explanation of how the battle went will at least vaguely jive with the established game mechanics. In fact, that might be the last conversation Al-Cid has before getting on his horse and......

On another scale, and perhaps more apropos to this discussion: the above examples speak of heroes fighting big-name opponents; and the PCs are also heroes fighting big-name opponents, so there might not be much distinction there. But what about a couple of commoners with a bit too much strong drink in their systems, fighting with clubs in a village street over some real or imagined insult? These are the true "NPC"s, that most adventurers wouldn't look twice at unless they had "PLOT HOOK" stamped on their foreheads. Should their fight use the same game-mechanical rules for resolution?

Lane-"hint: the answer is 'yes'"-fan

 

[S'mon]

. But what about a couple of commoners with a bit too much strong drink in their systems, fighting with clubs in a village street over some real or imagined insult? These are the true "NPC"s, that most adventurers wouldn't look twice at unless they had "PLOT HOOK" stamped on their foreheads. Should their fight use the same game-mechanical rules for resolution?

Lane-"hint: the answer is 'yes'"-fan

I'd say no, in D&D, since the D&D rules are appalling at modelling such a drunken brawl. 1st level Commoners with d4 hp wielding clubs, AC 10 ATT+0 and d6 damage? Per the RAW the first blow would finish it. Better for the GM to describe how they batter each other until one goes down.

 

[Derren]

I'd say no, in D&D, since the D&D rules are appalling at modelling such a drunken brawl. 1st level Commoners with d4 hp wielding clubs, AC 10 ATT+0 and d6 damage? Per the RAW the first blow would finish it. Better for the GM to describe how they batter each other until one goes down.

Lets see, only 50 % chance of actually dealing damage (25% if you use improvised weapons/non-profiency) to each other and then only a 50% chance to knock the others out (25% if you actually use improvised weapons).
That combat could take a while. But yes, if the commoners carry around clubs which are specifically made for combat and are trained to use them in combat the brawl can be over rather quickly. But that isn't really surprising.

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

Well, it's 13 pages so I'll have to do it tomorrow, heh.


So, you think players and NPCs should follow the same rules? Fair enough, but it seems to me overly complicated and not necessary. If the NPC happens to be with the PCs (read that as: in their realm of influence) then I completely agree, but away from their influence, he's window dressing. He's a piece of the campaign world and the rules aren't really meant to adjudicate what you do with him in that context.

The rules should be consistent, and should be applied consistently, but only in regards to the players and their "area of effect" around them. Away from the PCs, the rules aren't needed, only your intention and how you describe the results. There's no danger of hurting YOUR suspension of disbelief since you are the man behind the curtain anyway. And a players suspension of disbelief will only be heightened by seeing the DM handle the world in a way that conforms to their expectations of how a world works, and in the world some weird stuff can happen. At the same time, their confidence in you and your world is increased by your maintaining a consistent ruleset in regards to THEIR interactions with the world.

This is Natural 18 Wisdom.



We (the DMs) are the ones who tell the story. We are not computers that help everything resolve, we're not calculators. We tell a story. When that story involves our players, we have to be fair and play by the rules. If not, we decide what happens. We decide that "x" NPC fails his saving throw, or that "Y" monster rolled two consecutive 20s and killed an important NPC if we need that to happen (Obviously this doesn't happen if we are in an encounter in which the players are involved)

 

[robertliguori]

I'd say no, in D&D, since the D&D rules are appalling at modelling such a drunken brawl. 1st level Commoners with d4 hp wielding clubs, AC 10 ATT+0 and d6 damage? Per the RAW the first blow would finish it. Better for the GM to describe how they batter each other until one goes down.

Don't forget to add that if someone's being swung at, their first reaction will be to get out of the way (move action) or otherwise defend themselves (fight defensively, total defense action). The end result will be a lot of whiffs and near misses, with a few solid 1d3 punches capable of bringing someone down.

Unsurprisingly, if you use the rules for a bunch of armed-but-unarmored commoners armed with effective weaponry trying to kill each other, they'll do a good job of trying to kill each other.

As for the basic contention that the world outside the PCs experience doesn't need to follow rules; what happens when the PCs's bubble-of-reality sweeps over something it didn't previously cover? Can a quick teleport to the bottom of a cliff save a falling high-level character that otherwise would have suffered narra-death? Do NPCs comment on the unreality field PCs throw out? Do PCs?

Look, if my choices for the development of my fictional universe are Adventurers or Order of the Stick, I'm going to go with the stick figures. I'll take one universe with one set of consistent rules over one universe with one set of consistent rules and one set of inconsistent rules. If you are unable to stick to the established boundaries of the universe you're storytelling in, your story has failed to engage me. In literature, these boundaries are set by precedent; if no one in the story up until now has been killed by a single handgun bullet in a shootout, we'll want to know what was different from now about them. In games, we have both precedent and rules, with the one flowing from the other; if it's been established that certain types of injuries cause a quantifiable amount of damage, and that this damage is flatly unable to kill people of a certain caliber, then if it does, we'll want to know what's different.



Here's another heuristic piece of data: how many people here like the story The Cold Equations?