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

[Lacyon]

The amount of Hit Points lost determines the gravity/type/location of the wound, not the contrary.

Precisely. If the answer isn't "all of them" then you can't have suffered a lethal blow. Thus, if you want your system to treat a shotgun blast to the face as a lethal blow, you can only use that description after rolling damage and checking to see if you got "all of them". Otherwise, the wound is decidedly non-fatal.

This has nothing to do with healing surges at all. You can't use any HP system without this being fundamentally true.

 

[Cadfan]

Lidda: "Wait, how can he do that?"
GM: "Sure. As a terrified non-combatant the princess counts as helpless so he'll coup-de-grace her."
Lidda: "Crap. That could kill her instantly. Jozan?"
Jozan: "I can raise her, but we don't have the diamonds and his evil lair is too far from the castle for us to make it back in time."
Lidda: "Hey GM, can I do that?"
GM: "Sure, when you find a noncombatant NPC you want to murder."
Mialee: "Lidda you worry me sometimes."
Redgar: "Shush"
Redgar: "Okay foul villain just don't hurt the Princess. What are your demands?"

...so the solution is different game mechanics for PCs and NPCs, coupled with the creation of a category called "noncombatant" into which... some group of people including princesses... except when the princess in question isn't the fainting type... fall? And since this is a codified rule, it has to be consistent and robust, and function for the whole monster manual, instead of being adjusted on the fly. Maybe we can give every monster a new keyword to sort things out.

And you know what the absolute WORST, most head-asplodey part of all of this is?

The fact that you used an ad libbed game mechanic as an example of the superiority of written, codified game mechanics over ad libbed ones.

"Oranges are better than apples. See this orange? Its moldy. Here, look at this apple *holds up a different orange.* It is clearly superior to the moldy orange."

 

[billd91]

Not really. If you don't like Go, then you don't like Go. It says nothing about the quality of Go as a game, just your own reaction to it.

This simply means that your criteria for judging whether a game is a quality game differ from the criteria you use to determine whether it is a preferred game for you. Had those criteria been the same, Go would probably not be a quality game in your estimation.

We are all free to choose the criteria we want in judging both the quality and preferredness of a game. We also typically have differing opinions on how well a game may meet the criteria laid out. Put those two together and you've got a subjective decision on your hands.

 

[Hussar]

However, there are other ways to play. And that is the crux of the whole argument. The dev team seems to think that this cinematic play is objectively best for everyone**. If I interpret things correctly, the entire marketing scheme has been to highlight all the 'cool' action movie things you can do. As evidenced by the discussions here and on other boards, not everyone wants an action movie game. At least not action movie only. Certainly, wuxia, swashbuckling, larger-than-life cinematics and so on have a place in the rules. Making that virtually the only playstyle is, by definition, limiting.

Now, this I have no problems with. I actually agree with you. I would say that they are leaning the game towards a high action cinematic experience. I'm not sure if you are correct in saying that the devs are saying its the best for everyone. They are saying that it is the best way to present D&D. There is a difference.

But, yes it is limiting.

Here is a big trouble spot. This is not a universal game convention. If I am GMing and the party of 1st level PCs insist on going into the troll swamp I am not going to pull punches and they are most likely going to get eaten by trolls. If I was playing in your game and the adventure called for me to go into the troll swamp you are asking me to metagame, using my player knowledge of plot immunity, to make my character do something which he should logically feel to be certain suicide.

It depends why your party is going into the Troll swamp. If they hear about it and decide for themselves to go in, then, well, have at them. They've been fairly warned. OTOH, if your plot hooks lead into the Troll Swamp, you shouldn't be dumping two or three trolls on them at the same time. That's just piss poor adventure design and has nothing to do with metagaming or mechanics.

Forcing metagame decisions on the players is disruptive. As an example from the very last session I played in our party was in Xendrix and found an old ruin that contained some sort of trapped elemental horrors which if set free would combine and destroy the world. The plot clearly called for us to summon these things one at a time and destroy them individually. We all knew that. However our 4th to 6th level characters had absolutely no in game reason what-so-ever to think the we should be able to beat ancient elemental horrors that even a group of dragons (apparently) had only been able to imprison. We spent half the game session arguing in character about if we should summon these things, or merely chuck the summoning stones into the sea. It took hours and we ended up fighting only one of the four or five entities when the GM had intended to end the campaign that night.

Again, blaming piss poor adventure design on mechanics is futile. This isn't metagaming at all. It's simply poor adventure design. It's railroading. There is only one possible right solution and no other solutions work.

Incidently I was not one of the troublemakers. When we started the discussion I said "Well we know it will be a level appropriate encounter..." and got roundly booed by the rest of the group.

Do you see? By enforcing genre conventions you compel players to metagame which ,by definition, forces you to come out of character.

Actually, they were right to boo you. You decided to metagame and declare that the DM will never set something before you that you cannot handle. It would be the same if I walked into your Troll Swamp, despite being warned in game that it was suicidal and then complaining that we met trolls as trolls are certainly not level appropriate for 1st level characters.

I fail to see how this remotely relates to the idea of physics=rules. This is just poor adventure design.

 

[Hussar]

This simply means that your criteria for judging whether a game is a quality game differ from the criteria you use to determine whether it is a preferred game for you. Had those criteria been the same, Go would probably not be a quality game in your estimation.

We are all free to choose the criteria we want in judging both the quality and preferredness of a game. We also typically have differing opinions on how well a game may meet the criteria laid out. Put those two together and you've got a subjective decision on your hands.

But, you are conflating two criteria though. "Do I like this game" is a criteria. And, by and large, it's fairly objective - yes or no. But, that criteria in no way is related to "Is this a good game?" All sorts of things come into play when determining whether something is a good game or not - does it do what it's supposed to do? are the rules presented in a reasonable manner? do the rules cover the situations in game? etc. etc.

Go is a good game. It does what it's supposed to do - present a tactical challenge for two players. The rules are straight forward and there are no exceptions. Play is challenging and deep. The game is not repetitive and can be enjoyed for years. In all meaningful criteria, it's a good game.

That I don't like it in no way changes that fact.

 

[Andor]

...so the solution is different game mechanics for PCs and NPCs, coupled with the creation of a category called "noncombatant" into which... some group of people including princesses... except when the princess in question isn't the fainting type... fall? And since this is a codified rule, it has to be consistent and robust, and function for the whole monster manual, instead of being adjusted on the fly. Maybe we can give every monster a new keyword to sort things out.

And you know what the absolute WORST, most head-asplodey part of all of this is?

The fact that you used an ad libbed game mechanic as an example of the superiority of written, codified game mechanics over ad libbed ones.

"Oranges are better than apples. See this orange? Its moldy. Here, look at this apple *holds up a different orange.* It is clearly superior to the moldy orange."

No actually I said (not as clearly as I thought) that the minimum disruption to the rules leads to the minimum disruption to the game. The coup-de-grace rules are a standard and well understood part of the game. Applying them to a situation where the NPC would not normally count as helpless is a lesser disruption then trying to describe a "You take no damage but bleed out in 5 minuetes for some reason" effect.

Ideally you could find a way to make the scene work without even needing that non-combatant tag. With more time to think about it I think it would be better to either give Bar-Sinister a feat that allows him to treat a pinned grapple buddy as helpless (isn't there such a feat?) or simply declare that Princess Vapid has fainted and is therefore as helpless as any other unconcious person.

But if you did decide to codify the Noncombatant as a house rule why would it be different for PC and NPCs or require an entry in the monster manual? A PC (a bookish wizard say, or priest of a pacifist god) could declare themselves a noncombatant if they wanted to. Perhaps treat it as a UA style flaw and let them get a feat out of it.

 

[Andor]

Oh, nevermind. I can't keep this up. You win.

I'm not trying to 'win'. I was enjoying a discussion about the merits of treating the rules as physics.

I'm still not clear on why you would rather issue a stream of on the spot adjudications to make the game fit into the genre you want it to be, rather than simply using a genre appropriate rules set.

I really like 3e D&D, but if I were going to do a Swashbuckling game I'd think long and hard about using 7th sea first. If I did go with D&D there would be variant rules for armour class to allow for lightly armed characters to be viable fighters. If I were going to do a Supers game I wouldn't even try to use D&D, I would go with the Hero system or possibly M&M although I don't yet have a copy. Either way there would be a pre-game document passed around to the players on play style, game expectations and what rules variant were in effect.

 

[Andor]

I fail to see how this remotely relates to the idea of physics=rules. This is just poor adventure design.

I was replying to John Snows post stating level appropriate encounter design is a genre rules that he employs in his game as a modifier to the 'rules as physics' model.

Which would rapidly lead to what you and I seem to agree is poor adventure design because it requires the PCs to act in a way contrary to their in game knowledge, or 'metagaming'.

 

[Hussar]

I was replying to John Snows post stating level appropriate encounter design is a genre rules that he employs in his game as a modifier to the 'rules as physics' model.

Which would rapidly lead to what you and I seem to agree is poor adventure design because it requires the PCs to act in a way contrary to their in game knowledge, or 'metagaming'.

I don't think it leads to anything of the sort actually.

Not dropping insta-kill monsters on the party is pretty basic DM advice. It's no fun. Engineering a situation where these uber monsters are actually not so uber is just bad design. Your DM could have come up with any number of alternative explanations and reason for you to let these creatures out of their cells to deal with them, but, he chose poorly.

But, the basic premise that adventures should be challenging without being instant deathtraps is still very much true. Adventures that ignore this are poorly designed. But, they are better fitting with the idea that physics=rules.

I know that people tend to laud the virtues of sandbox play to the point where the world never be altered to fit with the players. That's fine. And, if the players choose, fully knowing that its suicidal, to go into that situation, then, fair enough.

However, just because you roll Blue Dragon on the random encounter table when the players are 1st level, doesn't mean that it's a good idea to drop that encounter on them.

Killing PC's is ridiculously easy. Challenging PC's in a way that carries the threat of failure is hard. If the rules=physics, then you should never, ever tweak an encounter to fit your group.

 

[hong]

For PCs we'll use our Iconic 4 and like most career criminals Lidda will be a bit of a rules lawyer.

. . .

Scene Redux:

Lidda: "Wait, how can he do that?"
GM: "Sure. As a terrified non-combatant the princess counts as helpless so he'll coup-de-grace her."
Lidda: "Crap. That could kill her instantly. Jozan?"

I thought you said Lidda was a rules lawyer?