Game rules are not the physics of the game world

[Professor Phobos]

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?

You know what? This isn't hard to understand. If you really don't get it, I guess you never will at this point, because it has been explained time and time again during this thread.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

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)

So you guys don't have to read 13 pages, let's see if I can't get at the cusp of it:

If a 20th level fighter NPC died falling off a horse, would that seem inconsistent to you?

For me, it would, because in-character, as a player, I know that great heroes of the land who are blessed by the fates don't just die from mundane accidents like mere peasants and petty nobles (as the rules imply).

For others, it wouldn't, because in-character, as a player, they know that people die from falling off horses and this king is a person, so he can die from falling off a horse, too (which makes NPC's an exception to the rules when they're off-screen).

 

[robertliguori]

So you guys don't have to read 13 pages, let's see if I can't get at the cusp of it:

If a 20th level fighter NPC died falling off a horse, would that seem inconsistent to you?

For me, it would, because in-character, as a player, I know that great heroes of the land who are blessed by the fates don't just die from mundane accidents like mere peasants and petty nobles (as the rules imply).

For others, it wouldn't, because in-character, as a player, they know that people die from falling off horses and this king is a person, so he can die from falling off a horse, too (which makes NPC's an exception to the rules when they're off-screen).

Well, I think I get it. You know how the villians always empty their guns at Superman? And they're always surprised when it doesn't do anything? Well, if you assume that A the default assumption is that people can be shot (or die falling off of horses), and B you are incapable of noticing that in specific cases (such as Kryptonians or legendary heroes) this never actually happens, then you're surprised every time your bullets bounce off, or the hero combines a Wily E. Coyote maneuver with a Dread Pirate Roberts Rapid Ascension right back up the 1000 foot cliff he just tumbled off. No matter how many times legendary heroes actually survive impossible-to-survive things, everyone should cluster around and say "No one could have survived that!" and forget that every single one of them has, repeatedly, probably while drunk.

If you assume that the universe has a set of meta-rules (people die from bullets/falls) and never allow what actually happens in the world to establish precedent, then you can get the results described. You also get a universe in which villians, heroes, extras, and designated victims all know their place, and act according to the Narrative, rather than the Narrative being formed from what each of those characters (who believes themself to be the hero of their own story) chooses to do (or is simulated choosing to do, based on the DM's approximations).

Stories in which the actions of the NPCs and the tangible results of the universe bend to how the Narrative considers you do not entertain me.

 

[Celebrim]

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.

I'm guessing you haven't been involved in many actual fights. I find the above description to be 'casual realism', in as much as it doesn't worry so much about realism but what it manages to achieve is believable anyway.

I'd be really surprised if a drunken brawl involving clubs lasted more than 12-18 seconds. The first solid blow would finish it. Most fights I've been involved in or witnessed didn't last that long. As long as you use a 'fortune in the middle' technique for describing the fight, I think it would work pretty well.

The real 'problem' D&D has with realism is the lack of non-lethal injuries. It fatality/casualty ratio isn't realistic. But again, if we assume that many of the participants stabilize before hitting -10, then we can use 'fortune in the middle' to describe thier abstract injury as cracked ribs, bruised organs, broken noses and what have you and achieve what I think is sufficient 'casual realism'. This is an especially good veneer of realism for 1st level commoners because they take a while to naturally heal up to above 0.

But, really, realism isn't necessarily what we are going for here. Particularly if I'm playing D&D, I'm not striving for a world that is actually realistic, because the PC's would spend much more time recovering from fights than fighting them. We only need realism if one of the participants can't believe in the world as described. And even that isn't necessarily the end of it, because its really only the real world experts that need more than casual realism in a particular area because they do know what is realistic and they care.

If someone had thier eyes blackened, and thier nose busted enough times to claim to be an expert on drunken brawling, and they told me we need a long description of beat down with baseball bats because otherwise they couldn't believe in the game universe, then I probably could alter the rules of the game universe to handle that without screwing up the game. But I'd do it by actually altering the rules so that the problem wouldn't keep cropping up.

 

[I'm A Banana]

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.

Seems about right for a group of rowdies swinging around baseball bats, truth be told.

 

[S'mon]

Seems about right for a group of rowdies swinging around baseball bats, truth be told.

Yeah, yeah, I stand corrected. I was thinking of two burly pub goers, who likely know each other, non-lethal brawling with improvised clubs. Most people when they brawl are still pulling their punches, which is why fatalities in eg soccer hooligan fights are so rare. Two guys actually trying to kill each other and using real clubs (the Imperial War Museum here in London has a nice display of WW1 clubs btw) is a different matter, and is what the rules model.

Edit: May be a cultural difference - I get the impression Americans & various other nationalities (eg Turks, Italians) are much more likely to resort to lethal force in a brawl than are eg Brits, Australians or (maybe) Germans.

 

[AZRogue]

So you guys don't have to read 13 pages, let's see if I can't get at the cusp of it:

If a 20th level fighter NPC died falling off a horse, would that seem inconsistent to you?

For me, it would, because in-character, as a player, I know that great heroes of the land who are blessed by the fates don't just die from mundane accidents like mere peasants and petty nobles (as the rules imply).

For others, it wouldn't, because in-character, as a player, they know that people die from falling off horses and this king is a person, so he can die from falling off a horse, too (which makes NPC's an exception to the rules when they're off-screen).

Thanks for that.

Yeah, I'm firmly in the second category. As a matter of fact, I would say that the first category can't even exist, really, because how would a character, in-game, know that great heroes CAN'T die from falling off a horse? As a matter of fact, once I said that it happened, reality would have shown that character, in-game, that he was wrong. He should then say something like "wow, I thought great heroes couldn't die from falling off a horse. But that guy just did. Live and learn."

 

[AZRogue]

Edit: May be a cultural difference - I get the impression Americans & various other nationalities (eg Turks, Italians) are much more likely to resort to lethal force in a brawl than are eg Brits, Australians or (maybe) Germans.

It's true. Three things flash through our minds in a bar fight: "Do I have a weapon? Am I going to get my @ss kicked? And, is my girlfriend watching?"

 

[Celebrim]

Edit: May be a cultural difference - I get the impression Americans & various other nationalities (eg Turks, Italians) are much more likely to resort to lethal force in a brawl than are eg Brits, Australians or (maybe) Germans.

Way off topic, but yes, you are pretty much correct.

There isn't really anything in the American culture to signal, 'This is one of those fights where I want to fight, but I don't really want to kill you.' Americans don't as a people, 'bluff' or 'bluster', and they don't really understand or recognize when anyone else is doing it to them. Basically, any threat is treated as if you were completely serious, because they would be completely serious in the same situation. American 'saber rattling' means, 'this sword is about to come out and knock your head off... like so'. Culturally speaking, all fights are 'to the death, or at least until one side gets knocked down to where they can't get back up'.

It's pretty pervasive though our literature, and especially our 'heroic mythology' (watch a few Westerns).

A good introduction to the problem would be to read Mark Twain's 'The French Duel'. This is far from a recent difference between Americans and Europe.

 

[robertliguori]

Thanks for that.

Yeah, I'm firmly in the second category. As a matter of fact, I would say that the first category can't even exist, really, because how would a character, in-game, know that great heroes CAN'T die from falling off a horse? As a matter of fact, once I said that it happened, reality would have shown that character, in-game, that he was wrong. He should then say something like "wow, I thought great heroes couldn't die from falling off a horse. But that guy just did. Live and learn."

Well, one way to figure it out would be to put on a Ring of Regeneration and fall off a horse until the cows came home, and not suffer a broken neck, nor any worse wound than being stabbed by a shortsword (which is to say, lethal to most, insignificant to you and other heroes). This would then lead you to believe that if there's nothing special about falling off a horse that violates what you thought you knew of the world, something must be off with the hero; the most obvious solution is that he wasn't actually a hero*.

* Hero again being used as a term of art to describe a sufficently-leveled character.