D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[FormerlyHemlock]

Oh, but they do. And if that became a benefit for players in the game it would be documented, promoted, and defended as something that the DM should be allowing because it's RAW.

One of the things that I (don't) get, is that certain people play the game specifically by the rules. That is, not only do they use the rules to help adjudicate the action within the world, but they define the action within the world by those rules, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. The way I see it, they define the game as a game, which it is, but I think it's missing the point. The game is the activity in the fiction, and the rules are their to support that fiction. Whereas treating the rules as the game means that the rules define the fiction, and altering the rules alters the fiction. Sometimes you want that. For example, without rules for magic, there is no magic in the world.

Rules Lawyers thrive on finding those loopholes. So I get it, but I don't get it.

Since you say you don't get it, I'll spend a moment to explain the value some people see in doing this:

Some people, like myself, are engaging with the game via the rules not as a game but as a world. That is, let's assume the rules accurately model a world--what can we say about that world?

This has the advantage of ensuring that things that happen in that world aren't dependent on whether or not the players are there via PCs playing a game at the time. There aren't any Heisenevents. If a lich can beat an army, then a lich can beat an army--not just in a cutscene, but in actual play as well.

That's my DMing approach but it informs my play approach as well. When a DM makes it clear that his offscreen plots and backstory follow different rules than what happens onscreen, it kills my suspension of disbelief and my emotional connection to the fantasy world, and makes me very aware that he's just running a game. So I try to avoid giving my players that same experience. If there's a rule that leads to an unaesthetic situation like @pemerton's "initiative purge", I'll either have a good in-world explanation for that rule (e.g. I know exactly why HP work in 5E and if PCs experiment a bit they can figure it out too) or I'll change/extend that rule so that it becomes something that does have a good in-world explanation.

 

[Imaro]

Oh, come on! This whole thread is better off because of CapnZapp's decision to drop the subject instead of arguing contentiously back and forth with you (and me, and everyone else who disagrees with him).

If you're looking for an endgame where CapnZapp says, "Oops, I changed my mind because you pointed out my error," well, that mostly just doesn't happen on the Internet. (It happens with some people and I highly value discourse with those people, but they are not the norm.)

No but I was looking for an acknowledgement that mistakes were made in the example... especially since, like I posted before, some posters are still moving forward under the assumption that his example actually supported his assertion.

 

[Caliburn101]

Some of us consider excessive DM fiat a cure worse than the disease.

You would rather have excessive rules fiat and the GM hog-tied?

The GM runs YOUR game, campaign and knows your character and those of the other players. The rules don't know you or your group from Adam, and leaving too many decisions to the rules, not to mention over-restriction of GM choice is bad.

You may disagree, but I've experienced both sides of this, and the best choice is clear.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You would rather have excessive rules fiat and the GM hog-tied?

No. That's not the dichotomy I referred to.

Some of us prefer a world that actually functions as a consistent fantasy world. Other people prefer worlds where lots of "combat encounters" materialize out of nowhere on a regular basis, so their players can have fun fighting things. The latter kind of DM never has any trouble challenging any PC, because he can just always hit the PC's weak point. (Wizards: you're now fighting in an antimagic field. Archers: an Invisible Stalker just grabbed you and is hitting you. Stealthy Rogues: all of the enemies now have Life Detection built in. Etc.)

But some of us don't consider that a successful game. "Challenging" the players isn't the goal; providing an environment with fun choices for the players to make and experience is the goal.

 

[Caliburn101]

No. That's not the dichotomy I referred to.

Some of us prefer a world that actually functions as a consistent fantasy world. Other people prefer worlds where lots of "combat encounters" materialize out of nowhere on a regular basis, so their players can have fun fighting things. The latter kind of DM never has any trouble challenging any PC, because he can just always hit the PC's weak point. (Wizards: you're now fighting in an antimagic field. Archers: an Invisible Stalker just grabbed you and is hitting you. Stealthy Rogues: all of the enemies now have Life Detection built in. Etc.)

But some of us don't consider that a successful game. "Challenging" the players isn't the goal; providing an environment with fun choices for the players to make and experience is the goal.

I see. Yes - I hate CR bubble/deus ex machina games - agreed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It is a different approach, where through 3.5e they continued to add "karaoke" as you put it. The approach at the time was inclusive, in that anything is generally possible, except for the exclusions noted.

Yeah, I don't get the karaoke reference.

But, no, I don't recall D&D spell descriptions erring on the side of being what you can do or what you can't do, just being unclear, often long, and occasionally self-contradictory.

If it's not listed as a function of that ability, you can't do it. This generally allows for very concise entries. They further reduced the amount of text needed by the use of keywords.

Again, not so much. Greater clarity doesn't have anything to do with whether you can only do what's spelled out, it just makes where that line is more certain.


I do think there was a trend of consolidating mechanics for a while, and definitely (and relevantly to this thread) a trend towards making spellcasting and ranged combat easier and less risky...

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Since you say you don't get it, I'll spend a moment to explain the value some people see in doing this:

Some people, like myself, are engaging with the game via the rules not as a game but as a world. That is, let's assume the rules accurately model a world--what can we say about that world?

This has the advantage of ensuring that things that happen in that world aren't dependent on whether or not the players are there via PCs playing a game at the time. There aren't any Heisenevents. If a lich can beat an army, then a lich can beat an army--not just in a cutscene, but in actual play as well.

That's my DMing approach but it informs my play approach as well. When a DM makes it clear that his offscreen plots and backstory follow different rules than what happens onscreen, it kills my suspension of disbelief and my emotional connection to the fantasy world, and makes me very aware that he's just running a game. So I try to avoid giving my players that same experience. If there's a rule that leads to an unaesthetic situation like @pemerton's "initiative purge", I'll either have a good in-world explanation for that rule (e.g. I know exactly why HP work in 5E and if PCs experiment a bit they can figure it out too) or I'll change/extend that rule so that it becomes something that does have a good in-world explanation.

Actually, you and I are on the same page. I think the rules should apply both in front of and behind the screen. One of my frequent examples regarding a problem with the existing rules is a scene that was used in the first two 5e releases: An NPC who is too sick or injured to do something himself, or to be able to help the PCs. A common trope, but what if the PCs decide to just heal them?

I'm referring more to the sort of thing like a thread from a DM that was upset because when the villain held a knife to a villagers throat, and the players debated and decided that instead of surrendering, they would be better off killing the other monsters, letting the villain cut the villagers throat, and then taking care of the villain while one of the other PCs stabilize the villager because they would have at least 3 rounds before he died. This is the sort of thing I don't get. I mean, I know why they do it, I just don't understand why anybody would really want to play that way.

The key is that we're looking at what the rule is supposed to accomplish, and fixing the rule.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Actually, you and I are on the same page. I think the rules should apply both in front of and behind the screen. One of my frequent examples regarding a problem with the existing rules is a scene that was used in the first two 5e releases: An NPC who is too sick or injured to do something himself, or to be able to help the PCs. A common trope, but what if the PCs decide to just heal them?

I'm referring more to the sort of thing like a thread from a DM that was upset because when the villain held a knife to a villagers throat, and the players debated and decided that instead of surrendering, they would be better off killing the other monsters, letting the villain cut the villagers throat, and then taking care of the villain while one of the other PCs stabilize the villager because they would have at least 3 rounds before he died. This is the sort of thing I don't get. I mean, I know why they do it, I just don't understand why anybody would really want to play that way.

FWIW, that seems as legitimate to me as relying on a Revivify spell. The tactic could still go wrong in a number of ways: (1) Hostage's HPs are low enough that the villain insta-kills the hostage with no death saves required; (2) villain knows the gameworld physics as well as you do and is planning on sawing the victim's head off (i.e. stabbing for auto-crits until 3 death saves are achieved); (3) there may be repercussions for getting your throat cut and surviving it, e.g. it may be very painful and cause psychic trauama or leave scars.

The PCs are probably aware of all these factors, but the reality of the universe they live in is that for some reason, people don't die as easily as they do in our universe--so it would be wrong to transpose attitudes from our universe into that one.

Amputation of limbs is very difficult under the 5E ruleset (I allow if only if you've already failed one death save and therefore your spirit is starting to dissociate from your body), so NPCs at my table look on amputees with a special horror that a medieval peasant from our world would have trouble relating to. Captain Hook isn't just odd to these people, he's disturbingly wrong--as wrong as mating a grizzly bear to a giant owl.

I don't get the feeling that we are quite on the same page, because I don't get the feeling that you would extrapolate the world this way. Maybe it's partly because I come to (A)D&D from a Spelljammer background; binary gravity and phlogiston and alternate physics is part of what D&D is and always has been to me. People in my 5E game aren't even made out of atoms, they're made out of vaguely Aristotelian elements like "flesh" and "bone".

(What I don't get about the death saves/hostage scenario is why any DM would set up those rules for his game and then get upset when the PCs want to play by them. Or rather, I understand it at an intellectual level--those DMs probably see the rules as loosely modelling the game world, but the master copy of the world is the fiction in the DM's head and not embedded in the rules--but I don't relate to it emotionally. How could you blame players for playing by the rules you gave them for the universe you invented? I can understand a DM feeling dissatisfied afterward and wanting to revise his rules because it didn't match his intended aesthetic, but I can't understand why he would be upset at the players and not at himself.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

So in the case of the villain holding a hostage...why even resort to the HP and death saves rules anyway? Is the outcome really in doubt?

I'd let my players know that if he strikes, the NPC is done for. No death saves or anything like that.

 

[Corwin]

So in the case of the villain holding a hostage...why even resort to the HP and death saves rules anyway? Is the outcome really in doubt?

I'd let my players know that if he strikes, the NPC is done for. No death saves or anything like that.

Totes. Heck, in the context of this discussion, where "rules" are supposedly interfering with "narrative", I'm going to need to see a quote, or page reference, that indicated NPCs are entitled to three death saves before dying. Otherwise I question why [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] would have even brought such an example up in the first place?