Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="meltdownpass" data-source="post: 8244248" data-attributes="member: 7029921">Sure, from a metanarrative perspective we know he won't be. But it's extremely common in fiction for heroes to be caught with their pants down and our narratives are better when characters in the narrative treat that as a possibility. Things like levels, HP, dice, and other mechanics don't actually exist, so if we're reasoning about them as a means of driving how our narrative world should operate, that seems like a problem."Appropriate" is meaningless here. If you wanted to examine D&D's mechanics, then we could make a case that none of the official game settings for D&D are "appropriate" with the world implied by those mechanics. I recall many a good chuckle reading threads that really explored the implications of some D&D subsystems. Stuff like using crafting to create infinite-gold generating factories, or diplomacizing your way into world domination. It is very easy to use the logic of the game mechanics to achieve consequences that are inappropriate for the setting unless you have a social agreement that disallows this type of disruptive behavior.I do like your example. This is actually a great illustration of my point and how I'd prefer to play things. The D&D ruleset doesn't really cover what happens when you introduce a narrative scenario like attempting to slit a character's throat. Instead you've created a rule on how to cover this that supports the narrative you'd like to tell. This is exactly how we should be doing things.When we talk about how much more powerful D&D characters "should" be than guards, what we're doing is extrapolating across two disparate areas of the rules system. One is the level system that D&D uses to gives player characters a sense of progression. The other is sociological data about the population of given settlements and their makeup. Should there be a <Challenge Appropriate> guard? The rules are actually silent on this issue. Should we extrapolate that there should only be such-and-such composition of the settlement ergo it's absurd to face a <Challenge Appropriate> guard?Maybe, maybe not. We can apply similar logic elsewhere. Why not look towards ecological data about a given region and use that to determine the absurdity of dragon inhabiting areas without the biomass to actually support them? If we want to tell a story about a dragon terrorizing a small village, we probably don't care. And if a game is one where we want to tell the story of adventurers running afoul of the law, I see no reason why we should care either.For anyone intent on seeing this as a major lapse of internal logic, rather than an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of imperfect rules, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to bring mechanical expectations in line with narrative:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The locals know this area better than you, they gain +X bonus on checks on their favored terrain</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The militia trains and uses organized tactics. They gain +X bonus to AC and attacks fighting as a unit</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Characters suffer fatigue -X penalties per day spent in territory where they are wanted by the law</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">etc.</li> </ul>Most of this is the type of thing I would argue GMs should be doing all the time, but the overall mechanical yardstick of "level" tends to be leaned on far more heavily since it's simpler and easier to use.Generally I think most players enjoy progression mechanics in games, but I don't think this has much bearing on game narratives. Either way, you're pretty likely to find yourself in a D&D game for reasons that don't have to do with wanting to play out the ascend-to-godhood power fantasy.</blockquote>

Verification