How Important is Magic to Dungeons and Dragons? - Third Edition vs Fourth Edition

[Scribble]

And also it seems that objectively- whether or not something not in the game's magic system should be/ would be considered "magic" in the common parlance... is quite subjective.

 

[rounser]

I don't overlook it, I just don't care. I think you overestimate how much players actually give a toss about this sort of thing. The overwhelmingly vast majority of players couldn't give two figs about this sort of thing.

The same could be said for game balance, but that's been made an all-consuming false idol. A semblance of believability, suspension of disbelief and verisimilitude got sacrificed on the game balance altar, for instance. Hit points, mundane "magic" etc all have to be handwaved until your wrist falls off, and that's a feat and a half: making D&D even more disconnected from intuition and even more self-referencing than it already was. It's bad design IMO.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

This has been a very interesting read that has killed productivity for me lately.

Thank you all.

I shall now attempt to incite further productivity death....

The DMG quotes seem to support a different game than the one presented in the PHB. Taking into consideration all the wisdom in those quotes all one needs are a few simple rules and a few guidelines on making effective rulings. It seems that the only thing out of place about it all are the hundreds of pages of rules that tell you exactly when you can push, pull, slide, and fart.

The difference between the PHB and DMG "philosophies" is not a bug, it's a feature.

The PHB gives you the tools to interact with an imagined world. Period. (included caveat: the DM can change this as needed). You need lots of those rules in place for reasons of depth and choice for the players. However, the PHB doesn't do a whole ton of parting the veil. It isn't necessarily intended for the players to think about "the physics engine" as it were. When you are playing a video game, if you stop and think about how the terrain is being rendered.... the game has failed to sell you the illusion. One could make a case that the same applies here. Ideally, the players shouldn't see the strings. In fact, it's more fun when they don't (IMO. When I want to interact with the strings, I'll DM). They really don't want to know when the DM fudged a dice roll to help them take out the BBEG, for example. The majority want to play a game, not meditate on a philosophical mountaintop about the meaning of narrativist versus simulationist tropes. In any case, the tropes that are readily available to them are all very gamist (if they choose to think of them as such).

The DMG, on the other hand, lives on the other side of the veil (or behind the curtain, if you prefer). The DM needs to be aware that there are things more important than the rules. The DM needs to spend a least a little cognitive power in a very meta place. He needs to see the strings, and pluck or pull the right ones as needed.

The problem is that people have taken the term "implied setting" to extravagant heights. They are also looking for some vast unity of principle for no discernible reason.

Vast unitary principles might be philosophically satisfying (to some), but they are not necessarily fun. (They can be fun. But they are not inherently so anymore than a polyglot is inherently badwrongfun)

But beware that that a consistent formal logic is incomplete, that means there are true properties that you cannot prove via your logic.

You likely just broke the brain of many people who think they understand logic.

Which is reminding me of an old truism about people who understand binary....

While I'm on the subject of logic..... if the outcomes of events in your world are determined regularly by the rules of any game system I've ever seen or heard of.... your world is NOT "logical."

It may have been very logical and internally consistent before the player characters got there, but I'm sorry, there is no set of rules that won't dump logic down the rabbit hole fast.

Also... "logical" worlds are not realistic. Study history or psychology for 5 minutes and you realize that human beings and animals are not only really, really stupid, but defy expectations and logic with such consistency that one day we really, really need to start expecting it.

The same could be said for game balance, but that's been made an all-consuming false idol at the expense of believability. It's just the result of an extreme stance that I'm railing against, and you're cheerleading for, for some reason.

I've bumped into more people who I could never get to play again "because the only classes worth playing have spells" than people who were obsessed with "believability" in their game about slaying orcs and dragons.

There may be a market issue there.

 

[rounser]

I've bumped into more people who I could never get to play again "because the only classes worth playing have spells"

And I've never met even one of these, nor ever found a party where everyone wanted to be the mage or cleric. Ever. Go figure.

 

[Scribble]

But we observe that it IS different -- else the issue should not have arisen in the first place.

I won't argue you obviously perceive it as different.

I'm just saying the reality I think doesn't match your perception.

The "no different then it ever was" line is curious, because if taken seriously it would negate the incentive to rush out and plop down hard-earned cash for the new product.

Umm... I think you are drawing an erroneous unsupported conclusion with that one.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

And I've never met even one of these, nor ever found a party where everyone wanted to be the mage or cleric. Ever. Go figure.

I will assume that is at least partially because you travel in gaming circles where those kinds of things are just more or less expected. I frequently find myself trying to introduce new people to the hobby, usually people who have played computer games and board games with a reasonable concept of balance.

2e and 3e were more or less completely unpalatable to most. And these are intelligent, creative cats with multiple degrees and the ability to immerse themselves in theater, Settlers of Catan, Blizzard video games, or a deep, introspective discussion of the merits William Shatner's singing career, coarse ground mustard, and Socratic teaching methods, among other things. You would think I'd be in a fertile land for planting D&D enthusiasts. They should be growing like kudzu on steroids.

I have not had the opportunity to try 4th with them yet, though the Penny Arcade/PVP/Wheaton podcasts are doing some reasonable evangelizing for me, so hope springs eternal.... at least until my wife finishes her current degree and we move again next year and I get to start all over again.... again.

 

[rounser]

2e and 3e were more or less completely unpalatable to most. And these are intelligent, creative cats with multiple degrees and the ability to immerse themselves in theater, Settlers of Catan, Blizzard video games, or a deep, introspective discussion of the merits William Shatner's singing career, coarse ground mustard, and Socratic teaching methods, among other things. You would think I'd be in a fertile land for planting D&D enthusiasts. They should be growing like kudzu on steroids.

I have multiple degrees. Big deal. I also don't like Star Trek, even though it's a stereotypical geek thing to like. Who cares? People have different tastes, and a lot of people I know who were up to the hilt in M:tG wouldn't give D&D the time of day, and vice versa.

I think you're stretching to suggest that newbie players give up on D&D for game balance issues, it just doesn't seem credible when veteran players can't spot the gotchas until years after the fact (e.g. remember when 3E was perfect and couldn't be improved on?). They were easier to spot in 2E splat, but by the time you've read that you're well embedded in the D&Diverse.

 

[FireLance]

I hope it doesn't surprise you that, in most (if not all) ancient cultures, great skill was often viewed as being supernatural in origin, either as favour of the gods or as favour of/purchased from less savoury supernatural beings.

Remember that people were accused -- and convicted of -- witchcraft because their fields/animals prospered when their neighbours' did not.

No, it doesn't surprise me, for the reason you mentioned in the post. Nonetheless, as alluded to by Clarke's Law, the perception of magic does not necessarily mean that magic is actually involved.

Many staples of the science fiction genre - teleportation, matter transmutation, force fields, etc. - seem magical, but the genre convention is that they are not.

Similarly, many abilities from the superhero genre - telepathy, telekinesis, flight, resistance to harm, great strength, regeneration, shape changing, etc. - are defined as non-magical by the genre because they are natural abilities of the character's (usually alien) race, or they are acquired through mutation, whether natural or induced (gamma radiation, cosmic rays, radioactive spider venom, etc.).

The wuxia genre, and (IMO) its close Western analogue, Star Wars, add another aspect to special abilities. Kung fu (occasionally translated as martial arts ) and Force abilities are considered by the genre to be both non-magical and non-innate. In other words, they are acquired through training and practice. While D&D muddies the water with the idea of separate Ki and Psionic power sources, the fundamental concept which the genre introduces is that skill is as limitless in its potential as alien or mutant abilities, technology, or magic. And that, I believe, should be the basic premise behind the Martial power source.

 

[Ariosto]

FireLance, your three examples of SF "magic" are actually real-world phenomena ... just not of the character you probably have in mind. If the how and why are not treated, then a story had better have something besides "genre convention" to justify the "science" part of the term -- or else (as with Star Wars) it might as well be called fantasy. Indeed, the difference between SF and "rationalized fantasy" can be pretty superficial ... and really "hard SF" eschews baloney with dedicated (if not total) rigor.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The difference between the PHB and DMG "philosophies" is not a bug, it's a feature.

The PHB gives you the tools to interact with an imagined world. Period. (included caveat: the DM can change this as needed). You need lots of those rules in place for reasons of depth and choice for the players.

No you don't. You need lots of these kinds of rules in place for the same reason that one child cannot have a slightly larger scoop of ice cream at the party. The multitude of rules exist to sell books after convincing the players that the game falls apart without them.

However, the PHB doesn't do a whole ton of parting the veil. It isn't necessarily intended for the players to think about "the physics engine" as it were.

A set of good rules shouldn't require the players the to think about the physics engine at all. If the game world and the game rules are created in a manner that compliment each other the issue doesn't even come up.

When you are playing a video game, if you stop and think about how the terrain is being rendered.... the game has failed to sell you the illusion. One could make a case that the same applies here. Ideally, the players shouldn't see the strings. In fact, it's more fun when they don't (IMO. When I want to interact with the strings, I'll DM).

When you are playing a videogame, the mechanics are all under the hood and all you do is handle the steering wheel and watch the road. In a tabletop game the hood stays open and the engine has to be interacted with directly. Every sputter,stall, and cloud of black smoke is visible to the player. The more at odds the mechanics are with what is happening the uglier the engine is to look at.

They really don't want to know when the DM fudged a dice roll to help them take out the BBEG, for example. The majority want to play a game, not meditate on a philosophical mountaintop about the meaning of narrativist versus simulationist tropes. In any case, the tropes that are readily available to them are all very gamist (if they choose to think of them as such).

Fudging die rolls and the use of other such DMing tactics is a separate issue from the quality of the rules design.

The DMG, on the other hand, lives on the other side of the veil (or behind the curtain, if you prefer). The DM needs to be aware that there are things more important than the rules. The DM needs to spend a least a little cognitive power in a very meta place. He needs to see the strings, and pluck or pull the right ones as needed.

The problem is that people have taken the term "implied setting" to extravagant heights. They are also looking for some vast unity of principle for no discernible reason.

Tell me about it. There is nothing as trite as the "narrative" unified principle used to explain every nonsensical rule and design concept. That gets old real fast.