How Does "The Rules Aren't Physics" Fix Anything?

[Charwoman Gene]

If you are a statistician, then you are probably the last person who should speak with authority about what 'reality' is

He's not. He's speaking with authority about pretending to have cause and effect when you don't.

 

[hong]

He's not. He's speaking with authority about pretending to have cause and effect when you don't.

Curse you, Charwoman Gene. Curse you, I say

 

[KidSnide]

But there's a problem with this - planning. Because while the rules may not be physics, they are the player's eyes and ears into the world. They are what allows the players to make reasonable choices within the game without asking the DM a nonstop stream of questions and slowing the action to a crawl.

Bottom Line: Whether the rules are physics or not, they need to be consistent enough that players have a clue what will work and what won't.

Absolutely. I don't believe at all that the rules are the physics of the world, but I agree that a certain level of consistency is necessary. But just because you have a certain level of consistency, doesn't mean that the GM is a total slave to the rules. The rules describe how things generally work, but don't cover weird corner cases.

A GM can reasonably say that Whirlwind and Great Cleave work as described, but simply not allow the swarm of a 1000 rats trick. Why? Because we are not computers, and GMs can apply their reason to the specific situation without having to design a general rule every time an exception comes up.

Take the falling rules. I think most of us agree that falling does an unrealistically low amount of damage in general, although we can find examples of real-life people surviving incredible falls. To the extent to which falling was designed (as opposed to just borrowed from 1E), it is a deliberate light touch mostly because most people don't want fully healed characters dying from level-appropriate falls. So, as long as your PCs are only falling by accident or as the result of desperate decision, those rules work pretty well. PCs fall - and you don't kill them. But, as soon as your players get it into their heads that these are the immutable physics of the world, you can get weird situations where a PC plan involves *deliberately* jumping off a 100 foot cliff with no magic (i.e. I grapple the evil wizard and jump - don't worry I'll survive). For many of us, this violates our sense of verisimilitude and wouldn't expect the rules to support such an outlandish scheme.

Similarly, in my last campaign, the PCs the same type of monsters appeared in encounters from level 6 (in 2E) all the way up to level 15 (in 3E). When they first met these creatures, they were deadly and would be well modeled as elites in 4E terms. After a few levels, these creatures were significant threats, but the sort of thing the PCs expected to handle (regular monsters in 4E terms). Towards the end of the game, a single PC fighter could expect to fight a dozen of these guys and get back to the game (weak minions).

Now, a level 5 elite, a level 9 regular monster and a level 17 minion are all worth the same number of XP, but they have pretty different stats. The higher level monsters have higher ACs / attacks, while the lower level monsters with better "ranks" have more hp and a wider variety of maneuvers.

That's because you want a level 17 minion to be able to hit a level 17 party, but you want him to be easy to manage as a GM because there will be many in the battle. You want low hit points, because these monsters are fun partially because you can run through them quickly. In contrast, you want a level 5 elite to have a chance of missing the level 5 party, but you want a lot of hit points (for a satisfyingly long fight) and you want either multiple or AoE attacks so the creature can occupy several PCs at once.

If I were running that game again, I would give different stats to the same creature, depending on the level of the PCs. From a pure physics standpoint, this doesn't make any sense at all. (I can justify it by saying that monsters fight differently depending on who they are facing, but this is a justification - not a rationale.) But it will produce a much better game experience because the monster rules will better reflect the role of that creature in the particular combat at hand.

Of course, the "rules are not physics" argument doesn't solve *every* problem. We all want consistent rules for common combat situations. But it is a reasonable response to someone suggesting a "bag of rats" exploit. Just because there is a loophole in the rules doesn't mean that you can expect the GM to allow you exploit it.

(For a real-life example of this, take a look at the legal history of Grokster. Their whole business plan was based on a "bag of rats" legal defense. See how it worked out for them.)

 

[beholdsa]

"Rules aren't physics" is just a nicer way of saying "Shut up" or "Shut up and go play Rolemaster".

But I actually really like Rolemaster...

...D&D needs to be more like Rolemaster!

 

[Cadfan]

The "rules aren't physics" helps because

1. It explains why a rule that swiftly, efficiently and effectively works 99% of the time its used is still a good rule even if you or your players dream up a crazy edge case that breaks it, and why we shouldn't replace the first quick and efficient rule with a bloated monstrosity just to protect against that 1%. Remember, "The rules are not physics," and combine it with "and the DM exists to adjudicate the edge cases."

2. It explains why you can't argue that because the rules don't explicitly explain how something works, that the something in question doesn't exist. For example, suppose the rules don't include a method for your weapon to sustain damage when you use it to attack something. This means that with power attack, a longsword, and patience, you can chop down castles. Its not like the sword will ever become dull or break! Sure, the sword has hit points, but it has no method to take hit point damage from being swung at rocks! Or... not. The rules cover the majority cases where the dulling or breaking of swords would be an annoyance. If you let your players exploit this you have only yourself to blame because... the rules are not physics.

3. It explains why sometimes rules work differently for PCs and NPCs. For example, a PC can bluff an NPC in 3e with a skill check and a story plausible enough that the DM doesn't call shenanigans. But an NPC bluffing a PC typically involves not only the NPC's bluff roll beating the PCs sense motive, but also the DM successfully bluffing the player. This is a flat out difference in not only how lying works, but in the chances of successfully lying, but its justified because otherwise the dice take the player out of the picture.

There are probably more reasons. Overall, the rules provide a context in which you can interact with the gameworld. They aren't actually the gameworld. A rule might provide an inadequate context for interaction and be a bad rule, but it is also possible that a rule might provide an excellent context that just happens to not work so well in the wacky scenarios you dream up, or when the PCs are off stage and the rules don't need to function anyways.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Isn't this whole thread based on the question of NPC healing ....

.... which is itself a mass of speculation about a part of the rules that we know absolutely nothing about, because we haven't seen it yet?

That being the case, isn't it a bit early to start making blanket statements that the NPC healing rules are ad-hoc and inconsistent, considering that we literally have no idea whether or not they exist, or what they may be if they do exist?

 

[Dausuul]

FLAVOR IS MUTABLE! DON'T USE FLUFF AS CRUNCH IN COMBAT!
... (repeat ad nauseam)

Do you get it yet? Though flavor is important flavor is mutable... and honestly... have you ever had a DM destroy all the equipment something is wearing after the PC's dump fireball after fireball on it? Just because they fluff says something doesn't mean you can assume anything about it's combat use. Also... lead melts very easily... not a point of instant death for anything...

Fluff/flavor is not mutable.

Or at least, it's not mutable within a given campaign. If I say that in my campaign, Fey Step means you step into the Feywild-analogue of the mortal world, move through it, then step back, then that's how it works, and players have a right to expect that I will make rulings consistent with that. If a PC wants to know what's going on in the Feywild and announces he's using Fey Step to pop in and have a look, I can't just fall back on "This is just a short-range teleport ability, the rules don't say you can use it for cross-planar reconnaissance."

Or if you want a combat example--say the PCs are laying a trap for an NPC eladrin, and put a ranger in the Feywild with a readied action to shoot the NPC when he tries to bamf away. If I'm using the Feywild-movement fluff for Fey Step, then that plan should work, even though nothing in the crunch text says so. And it's entirely reasonable of the players to expect that plan to work, and to get mad if I arbitrarily announce that it doesn't.

And if fireball says it melts lead, and I as DM accede to that statement, then the players have a by-God right to expect that they can melt lead with their fireballs, in combat or out. And they can also expect to ignite anything else that would be ignited by a fire that hot. This may lead to some disagreements and require DM adjudication once in a while. Such is the price of playing an RPG and not a computer game.

Now, you can if you like deny the existence of specific fluff for a particular mechanic--in other words, you announce that that mechanic is pure metagame and that you will make up fluff for it on a case-by-case basis when necessary. This is the approach commonly taken with experience points, since it's pretty dang hard to come up with fluff that makes any sort of sense for the way XP works. But this becomes silly past a certain point; if you're going to make up the whole story on the fly anyway, why are you bothering with rules in the first place? There has to be a point of connection between the rules and the imagined reality of the game world.

Coming back to the OP's question... to me, the point of "rules aren't physics" is that the rules express how things generally work; they are not absolute and exact specifications of the game-world reality, but approximations. When the rules produce results that make no sense in terms of the game world, it is the DM's responsibility to adjust the results as necessary (and perhaps apply a house rule if the situation is one that will come up often).

Now, this does not excuse rules from conforming in general to the game-world reality. If the result of a rule has to be adjusted almost every time the rule comes into play, then it's a bad rule.

To draw a comparison with actual physics, consider the Newtonian and Aristotelian models, as applied to space flight simulations. Newtonian physics are a pretty good ruleset for space flight sims. Even though they don't actually match exactly what's going on, and there are corner cases where you have to adjust the results (e.g., when dealing with objects moving at close to the speed of light), in the vast majority of cases, Newtonian physics yields results consistent with what you'd expect.

On the other hand, Aristotelian physics are a horrendously bad ruleset for space flight sims. The results produced by Aristotelian physics are so far from reality that you will have to adjust them pretty much every time you try to use them, to the point that you might as well not even bother.

I would accept "rules aren't physics" as an excuse for using the Newtonian model. I would not accept it as an excuse for using the Aristotelian one.

 

[HeinorNY]

The rules aren't the physics of the gameworld, they just represent the elements of the gameworld which are relevant to the game that's being played.

The rules aren't how the gameworld works, they are what we, the players, can perceive of the gameworld.

 

[Mallus]

There has to be a point of connection between the rules and the imagined reality of the game world.

And that's usually pretty mutable.

To draw a comparison with actual physics, consider the Newtonian and Aristotelian models, as applied to space flight simulations. Newtonian physics are a pretty good ruleset for space flight sims.

To be more accurate, Newtonian physics that make spaceships behave like WWII-era aircraft that clumsy database admins and teenagers could pilot work for space flight sims, at least the ones people play for fun.

Or, said another way, playability trumps simulation every damn time. This guiding principle can also be applied to other games.

 

[Derren]

The rules aren't the physics of the gameworld, they just represent the elements of the gameworld which are relevant to the game that's being played.

The rules aren't how the gameworld works, they are what we, the players, can perceive of the gameworld.

But what when the rules and the physics of the game world conflict?