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

[Xyl]

I think this entire board needs to take a remedial reading comprehension class.

In 4e, they replaced the reading comprehension class with a paragon path.

 

[Stogoe]

Some people like a realistic game, and that's cool.
Other people like a completely unrealistic game, and that's cool too.
Almost everyone likes a mix of both, and it's still cool.

How can we believe that you really mean this when you have categorically refused to admit that viewpoints other than your own are valid?

 

[Andor]

Could you be more specific?

Certainly! For example earlier we had this exchange:

In other words, you are using your personal preferences to say that 4e is a bad game instead of trying to judge it based on whether or not it achieves its stated goals - faster gameplay, easier on the DM, etc.

You're saying that because it breaks with simulationism, it's a failure.

Now you could argue that earlier editions did better model reality and thus appealed to a more simulationist bent.

Nng. Would you care to show me where I ever said any of these things?

And you apparently did not comprehend my words becuase you have certainly failed to cite any place where I said any of those things.

All I see is you and Derren endlessly repeating the mantra that rules MUST EQUAL physics or the game is completely ruined and unbelievable.

This has been proven to be false since numerous systems, particularly rules lite systems, obviously don't follow this pattern.

Again, can you please quote me as saying any of those things? Because if you cannot I am forced to conclude you are not in fact understanding any of my posts. You instead seem to be attacking a series of statments that are at best a distortion of my position, and at worst have nothing to do with me at all.

 

[CleverNickName]

How can we believe that you really mean this when you have categorically refused to admit that viewpoints other than your own are valid?

Believe what you like, I won't mind.

I don't know you personally, Stogoe. (At least, I don't think I do.) I must have offended you on a fairly personal level to merit such harsh criticism, however, so I apologize for any tresspass. If I have ever "categorically refused to admit viewpoints other than my own are valid," then clearly I was wrong.

 

[robertliguori]

Good lord. This thread is almost entirely people talking past each other. There are a dozen examples of people saying "No you're wrong! It works in exactly the way you described with slightly different phraseology!"

People keep attacking points that nobody made, and refuting playstyles that no one claimed.

I think this entire board needs to take a remedial reading comprehension class.

How dare you talk about my mother that way?!

Most FiTM action resolution systems require the player to narrate the action so as to explain the outcome. Thus, winning a conflict would not cause things to happen for no ingame reason. The player's narration would explain what the reason is.

"Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the world explodes."
Whoops. Either you have actual physics that says things like "Regardless of general consensus

A general question to all those who say that rules must be the physics of the gameworld: do you actually deny the existence of RPGs (e.g. The Dying Earth, Prince Valiant, HeroWars, etc) which do have action resolution mechanics, but in which those mechanics are not the physics of the gameworld? Or do you think that the people who play those games don't understand what they are really doing when the play them?

There are games whose mechanics for resolving action within the world depend entirely on out-of-game-universe arbitration. Many of them are good games. These are games with very simple physics that do not generally resemble the physics of reality. But all games that are recognizable as games have rules that serve as the physics of the gameworld.

Also, because I'm pedantic:

All 1s = 10 hp. Not enough to kill a 1st-level fighter.

The odds of a 50-foot fall doing ten damage are 0.000129. See previous points about the odds of surviving long-ass falls.

Also, check the point that this is not only a character who partakes of nascent heroic mojo (by having PC class levels), he also is in the top 10% of those types (having max hp).

The D&D falling rules work. Long falls are appropriately lethal to things they should be lethal to. There are many things in reality that can survive a 50-foot fall (tungsten-steel alloys in the right shape, for instance). At high levels, your capacity to resist damage bears more resemblance to said alloys than it does to average-human. There are solutions to this sort of thing (called E6, or, for proper realism, E1 with d20 modern classes.)

The rules provide a mechanism for determining the outcome of events. If you think that the outcome of a particular set of rules is wonky, you can change the rules. But whatever method you use to resolve events is the physics of the world.

 

[Andor]

Could you be more specific?

Also, I don't think you've really answered the question. Do the game rules have to cover the totality of game world interaction, or can they focus on a specific kind of interaction? I'm not talking about specific sub-systems, I'm talking about the rules as a whole.

I'm really not sure how I could be more clear or specific, but I'll take a shot at it.

When I say the rules are the physics of the game world I do NOT mean to say that the rules must cover the entirety of what is physically/magically/socially possible in the game world. Nor do I mean that they must attempt to model the physics of our world.

What I do mean is this: The rules are the lens through which we view aspects of that game world. We can best comprehend what our characters may or may not achieve when that aspect of the rules is spelled out clearly. While the rules do not, and cannot, cover every eventuality what they do cover can be viewed as certainty. In D&D an object with a hardness of 7 cannot be harmed by a 10' fall. In Ars Magica 4e a magical spell cannot pierce the lunar sphere. In both games a human cannot normally fly but can with the aid of suitable magic. These things are a given and a character inside that world who deals with these things can be expected to know them.

Therefore a rule that clearly and correctly portrays an aspect of the world to the players is a good rule. A rule that misleads or confuses the player as to what is or is not taking place in the world is a poor rule.

For example: In 3e a normal melee attack adds the Str mod to damage. This lets the player know that a strong foe hits harder than a weak one and his character can guess that someone bulked out like a pro-wrestler is probably a bigger threat in melee that one who looks like Don knotts.

OTOH, as frequently cited in this thread, the rules make it quite clear that bringing the dead back to life to fairly easy to the rich and powerful and yet this is frequently not a facet of the world that GMs want to portray. Therefore this is a poor rule.

Similarly a midlevel character may easily have 60 HP and yet may be expected to somehow not know that a 40' fall cannot possibly kill him. Therefore this is also a poor rule, in the eyes of those who dislike regarding HP totals as existing in game.


My problem btw is not with large HP totals, but with GMs who expect my characters to act as though they do not know that they have a lot of hit points. To my mind expecting a character to go toe to toe with a giant swinging blows that could crush a car and somehow not know he is tough after taking a few of those blows is laughable.

 

[VannATLC]

Which is why anybody treating HP as meat-points is doomed.

On the other hand, my combat descriptions involve a lot description (And always have) of how you just avoid being nailed by that tree-sized club. Or of how you got swotted, but your armour holds out, or wall of force, etc.

Getting a real blow from that club is just as damaging as you expect a 40ft fall to be.

I still don't really understand how anybody can treat HP as an indicator of anything wholly physical, in the game.

 

[Professor Phobos]

When I say the rules are the physics of the game world I do NOT mean to say that the rules must cover the entirety of what is physically/magically/socially possible in the game world. Nor do I mean that they must attempt to model the physics of our world.

Okay I'm definitely not making myself understood here. I am not talking about things within the game world the rules do not cover, like Economics. I am talking about the rules modeling a particular set of interactions of a class that do not exclusively represent even those interactions within the game world. In an Economics game, the rules do not represent all of Economics, just Cinematic Economics. I am talking about genre.

What I do mean is this: The rules are the lens through which we view aspects of that game world.

The lens, or a lens? I am going to return to this later.

Therefore a rule that clearly and correctly portrays an aspect of the world to the players is a good rule. A rule that misleads or confuses the player as to what is or is not taking place in the world is a poor rule.

Is this the only criteria for good/poor rules?

My problem btw is not with large HP totals, but with GMs who expect my characters to act as though they do not know that they have a lot of hit points. To my mind expecting a character to go toe to toe with a giant swinging blows that could crush a car and somehow not know he is tough after taking a few of those blows is laughable.

As a DM, I expect my players to have a certain degree of "wink and nod" behavior in certain cases. If, for example, I have a hostage with a dagger to their throat, I expect the players to react as if that throat can be opened and the life's blood of the hostage spilled. I expect them to recognize that while someone going after someone with a dagger in combat couldn't ever do that in one slash, in this kind of circumstance, it can happen.

I would even go so far as to expect the same behavior from a player character. In that instance I would say: "I won't roll damage- if you do some funky maneuver, you'll make a Dexterity check. If you fail, then you have a slashed throat, if not, you break away. The other guy's success will determine whether it's just a scratch or a grievous injury. A slashed throat needs medical attention in five minutes or so or you'll be dead." The threshold of medical attention being pretty low. I wouldn't even have them subtract hit points. It's not an abstract "hit" but a tangible injury emerging from the story.

In other words, because the damage model doesn't govern this eventuality, I'm declaring it by fiat. I'd certainly make these sorts of stakes clear at the outset, but I'd have no trouble introducing this sort of situation nor would I expect revolt from my players. I guess you could characterize my style as a hybrid of the much derided "mutual rules-free narrative" and "we're playing a board game ironclad rules.' I am comfortable switching between the two as necessary. As a player, I have found GMs unwilling to do this to be extremely tedious.

I think the root of our disagreement is over the whether or not the rules are the exclusive lens of game world interaction, or just one of many. I certainly recognize that players are going to make decisions based on their expectations of the rules. But what I do not expect is that this is the only sort of information they'll base decisions on- I expect them to engage with my expectations (and vice versa), I expect them to engage with the ongoing narrative and the genre considerations of the game in question. I expect engagement with common sense and a willingness to discard the rules when they do not seem to apply. I expect them to engage with me if they don't like something or have a request and all that.

 

[Ahglock]

T
For example: In 3e a normal melee attack adds the Str mod to damage. This lets the player know that a strong foe hits harder than a weak one and his character can guess that someone bulked out like a pro-wrestler is probably a bigger threat in melee that one who looks like Don knotts.

I don't know, Don Knotts was feisty.

 

[drjones]

Good lord. This thread is almost entirely people talking past each other. There are a dozen examples of people saying "No you're wrong! It works in exactly the way you described with slightly different phraseology!"

People keep attacking points that nobody made, and refuteing playstyles that no one claimed.

I think this entire board needs to take a remedial reading comprehension class.

if I wanted to read I wouldn't be on the internets! I came here to pontificate pointlessly and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of bubble gum.