D&D 5E (2024) How do you handle surprised but won initiative?

[Artamo]

Yes, but that game is simulating what, in terms of the characters' reality?

Combat as war, where blood flows, survival is job one, and characters (and opponents) die in messy fashion?

Or combat as sport, where dramatic poses are struck, the foes die cleanly, and nobody else comes to any real harm?

I think D&D has only ever been about simulating other forms of fiction, not reality - to the point that I think simulation as a description just seems wrong.

 

[Reynard]

Full-on combat as sport?

You are aware this is a game played at a table with dice, right?

Nobody tell him - let him enjoy his blissful innocence.

These are both insulting and disingenuous comments. I am confident that you both know what he meant.

 

[Lanefan]

I think D&D has only ever been about simulating other forms of fiction, not reality - to the point that I think simulation as a description just seems wrong.

No matter what the form of fiction, that fiction forms the reality in which that fiction's characters live; and it's up to the game to try its best to simulate that reality. If that simulation is at least somewhat grounded in our own Earth-based reality then so much the better for purposes of player uptake and immersion, but it doesn't have to be.

In Lord of the Rings that fictional reality is Middle Earth, thus any LotR RPG should do its best to simulate that Middle Earth reality because thats what its characters live in. In Game of Thrones, it's Westeros and surrounds; ditto. In D&D there's a bunch of different realities (a.k.a settings), and DMs are constantly inventing new ones.

And so my question stands: what are you trying to simulate?

 

[ECMO3]

Pretty simple. It is their turn, they get an action. It is up to the player to decide how they know what to do.

 

[Artamo]

These are both insulting and disingenuous comments. I am confident that you both know what he meant.

You’re absolutely right, I was responding to his phrasing of other people’s game play as “sad”.

Maybe everyone should be a bit more careful about how they refer to other people’s posts, hmm?

 

[Artamo]

And so my question stands: what are you trying to simulate?

Something that you’ve already determined to be sad.

 

[Smackpixi]

Why on earth would a group of PCs with any sense of self-preservation want to make a combat the least bit more challenging (i.e. dangerous) than they have to?

"Hey, I know, let's walk out of our hiding place and challenge those 20 Orcs to a fair fight! I mean, sure, they could easily kill two of us in the process, but that'd be way more fun than shooting most of them down from here and not taking a scratch, right?" Players who run PCs who think like that really do deserve to have those PCs die. Over and over again, if necessary.

Co-operative storytelling means you're co-operating to tell a story, but says nothing about what that story might consist of.

Yes, but that game is simulating what, in terms of the characters' reality?

Combat as war, where blood flows, survival is job one, and characters (and opponents) die in messy fashion?

Or combat as sport, where dramatic poses are struck, the foes die cleanly, and nobody else comes to any real harm?

If I might try to reconcile the gameplay differences here, @Artamo is positing that much modern DnD consists of people moving from encounter to encounter (social, environmental, or combat) and behaving strategically within those encounters. As opposed to a style where the players are poking stuff with 10 ft. poles and setting ambushes and engaging in combat outside the combat encounter.

 

[Reynard]

If I might try to reconcile the gameplay differences here, @Artamo is positing that much modern DnD consists of people moving from encounter to encounter (social, environmental, or combat) and behaving strategically within those encounters. As opposed to a style where the players are poking stuff with 10 ft. poles and setting ambushes and engaging in combat outside the combat encounter.

There is a huge excluded middle here.

Granted, I think D&D 5E is trying to serve that middle. It just isn't great at it.

 

[Artamo]

If I might try to reconcile the gameplay differences here, @Artamo is positing that much modern DnD consists of people moving from encounter to encounter (social, environmental, or combat) and behaving strategically within those encounters. As opposed to a style where the players are poking stuff with 10 ft. poles and setting ambushes and engaging in combat outside the combat encounter.

I think that’s a fair summation. I also think that modern D&D players are looking for specifically more heroic encounters that exercise the breadth of their abilities, rather than repeating a tactic that works over and over but also results in non-heroic or even boring gameplay in some cases.