Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6261050" data-attributes="member: 27160">Yes, but is the fact of *having* xps something that means anything to the character? Do they feel any different (assuming they have not levelled up) when they get a few more xps?My original post did not say that the view of hp, xp, attack rolls or whatever as specific events or things in the game world was the "problem"; please read it again.What it was saying was that some people do see the mechanical steps of resolution as corresponding exactly with steps in the process we are imagining happening in the game world, while some people find that the process described by such a supposition is hopelessly non-believable (even in a world of elves and pixie-fairies). This is the problem - that there are incompatible desires/needs, not that either preference is "wrong".The term does not come from the Great Bête Noir, and I have explained at great length what it means (and if you don't want to read through that detail every time it is discussed, congratulations - you have just discovered what jargon is for).And as for your preferred playstyle being worthy of consideration, of course it is - which is why there is even a "problem". If either playstyle were not worthy of consideration there would be no problem - we would simply ignore that playstyle!What I have tried to explain is that this "model" of how the fight works just fails to work for me. If you like, it "shatters my suspension of disbelief". The idea that one combatant might swing their sword (or whatever weapon) in a great arc trying to "hit" their opponent is just so at odds with how sword fights and such work that I hardly even know where to begin. All that conjures up for me is some sort of bizarre, wooden parody. It almost sounds like schlager duelling where you are supposed to let your opponent hit you. The idea that you aim for a specific target on your enemy's body and the blow either gets blocked/parried/dodged or it does not is just alien to any conception I can reasonably form of how sane, sentient creatures might fight. The depiction is more surreal than it is real.This is all, of course, true. But the precipitating action is "I attack the orc (or whatever creature I'm fighting)". The sequence of events that follows is confused, complex and immensely variable, and during it I will act more as a result of my training (or lack of it) and instinct than ever I will as a result of rational, considered thought. Combat consists of a succession (from possibly only one up to as many as the combatants can manage before reaching exhaustion) of sharp, confused (at least from an observer's point of view) flurries of action. Each flurry may or may not end with one combatant being hurt, dazed, bruised, reeling or disabled. It could be either combatant, and both combatants will almost assuredly have tried to disable, maim or kill their opponent at some point during the flurry.Even so, this is likely how the combatants in a real fight view the action, in part. The rapid sequence of actions in combat are done mainly through habit of training and instinct. It is only after the flurry - while circling awaiting the next attacking move - that the fighters will review what just happened rationally and make decisions about their approach to the next flurry.I think there is a strong, strong argument against it, if we are talking about declaring individual weapon moves, because (a) these are seldom things that combatants do consciously/rationally and (b) they are almost certainly a realm of decisions where the character will be vastly better placed to make the decisions than the player.The only really considered decision the character makes rationally is the decision to attack. After that, everything is down to reactions and responses. There is a really good reason they say "no plan survives contact with the enemy" - you can have intentions going in, but not really a plan since, as the Duke of Wellington once remarked, your enemy "has not vouchsafed his plan to you".It looks like adopting a guard, making an opening move intended to neutralise his weapon and/or shield or force him to make some counter move, and then reacting to his counters and counters to your counters by trained reflex and instinct until either one of you is stunned, maimed or disabled or you separate due to neither of you wanting to follow up hard.This does not just apply to humans fighting - watch cats or dogs fighting some time; it works much the same way with them. This is why the whole thing is pertinent to a game of pixie-elves - it's not a specifically "real world" thing. It's a "sentient creatures with soft bodies fighting" thing.What I'm suggesting is not "waffling" - it's just that:- Assuming an implausibly simple process of "fighting" in the game world destroys plausibility for me and others like me- There is no need to model the process that is happening in the game world step-by-step in order to have a functional game system- A plausible process of fighting is too confused/complex/involved to model with a simple, quick system- But some folk apparently need (or at least prefer) to follow every stage of the happenings in the game world with system artefactsThis generates a problem, because the various desires are at odds one with another.If player decisions are set at the level at which the character might make considered, rational choices I think you get everything you need from a roleplaying and drama point of view. If the resolution process then eschews following the game world process step-by-step then it seems to me that imagination could reasonably fill in the gaps in whatever way the various players find satisfactory.What I'm trying to get to is, in fact, a system that will satisfy all the preferences/playstyles. Saying "a hit must mean that the attackers swing has struck home" does not do that. Leaving it ambiguous enough that the to hit and damage rolls might just be an abstract model of a flurry resulting in an outcome of one or both combatants damaged would satisfy me - how about you? Saying "damage on a miss is impossible because a miss means the swing was wide" blows it for me - how about you?But if an "attack" is a move that leads to a flurry of counters and wrestling for advantage, does that really make sense? What does a "hit" mean in this context? The combatants probably "hit" each other many times, but not all "hits" really hurt. A "hit" that is a kick between the legs could be just as effective (and just as deadly, if followed up) as a spear thrust to the face. A spear haft to the kidneys would work, too. What does that "to hit" roll mean, now? Does it mean that the point of the spear made the strike? Or would a boot suffice to make it a "hit"? What about a mailed fist or sword pommel?No, the "problem" is not any one particular way of doing things - it's finding a way of formulating the rules such that all the ways of doing things are accommodated.I agree - 5E ought to (at least try to) satisfy both (or even all) camps. Saying that the mechanics must model what I can only see as a ludicrously oversimplified process, and judge what is or is not possible in the game based on that process, fails in that precise aim.I don't know for how many players following a causal process in detail would be important, but this is more-or-less what I was saying in my original post. Some players apparently do feel the need to have the sub-steps of the process explicitly modelled by sub-steps in the game mechanism. My question is can we provide for this in some way without the need to model a cartoonishly bizarre process? Is there some explanation, some alternate wording or some slightly adjusted model that might satisfy both camps?Please read the thread again. It is not, and never was, about realism or simulating the real world. It is about the perceived need (or lack of need) for the resolution system to step through the in-game-world process that leads to the modelled result (whether that is "realistic" or not).</blockquote>

Verification