D&D 5E Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)

[D'karr]

Frankly I think it more work than it is worth compared with just saying "hey, OK, maybe the ooze isn't actually prone, but the mechanics are good enough, big deal". It seems to me like a matter of fighting the battles that really matter.

I agree, and for my game that is more than sufficient. It would be nice if the game had a good foundation to do so, and good examples/guidelines for this type of "common-sense" adjudications. The problem is that "common-sense" is rather uncommon.

That is one of the problems with "healing". It's a loaded word. When a Warlord "heals" you, he inspires you to keep going. So why is it called "healing"? The problem is that "heal" has a common-language equivalent. What it means mechanically is HP Recovery, in all instances. But it gets muddied when you call it healing, like "healing surges". How about recovery surge, heroic surge, adrenalin surge, visceral reserve, effectiveness surge, or simply surge.

If all HP Recovery was called recovery, but the martial "powers" that induce HP recovery were called inspiring, and the magical "powers" that induce HP recovery were called healing you could have both within the same mechanical space without creating a language barrier within the mechanics. A warlord would induce recovery, respite, or whatever, and the cleric would induce healing, you could have a language distinction with no mechanical change (HP Recovery). HP have never modeled real wounds. But if you wanted to introduce that modularity you could introduce ways of making each available at separate points so that "recovery" would happen when you are not seriously wounded, but healing can cover you with either. Just as a thought.

 

[Loonook]

That is why the language label of "prone" is a poor one to use for a general purpose condition. It is limited to being off your feet face down in the common language, but in mechanical terms all it's doing is imposing a mechanical penalty. A mechanical penalty that would make the exact amount of sense for an ooze that is "overextended" and needs to rearrange itself before attacking, or to a guy that is laying belly first on the ground and needs to get up to attack.

Yeah, there's a theory behind it. Or we could declare that oozes are immune and be done with it.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[D'karr]

It gets back to the whole idea of story (narrative) taking precedence over rules. How about rules that use words that clearly and narratively describe what happens instead of inventing rules that require us to provide narrative justifications for effects?

Because then you end up with exactly the opposite, "rules over narrative". The broader a rule the more cases it can encompass. In effect, opening up the space so that a rule can cover many different narratives to the players and DMs' content.

The best example that comes to mind is the difference between the fireball spell in Cook/Marsh Expert, and the fireball spell in 3.x. In B/X, the fireball spell has a range, a duration, and is described as a missile of fire that burst into a ball of fire of 20 feet radius. It does 1D6 points of fire damage per caster level to each creature within the sphere.

In 3.x the spell is much more narrative. This is a copy and paste from the SRD description:

A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.​

Indeed, the 3. X version is much more narrative and uses a lot more plain language. It is also much more restrictive. If a DM decided that the narrative does not include metals, the rules work against him. In fact, the effect is the opposite of "narrative over rules."

By using broad rules that don't have a "loaded meaning" the narrative is completely open. If the DM wants to describe the fireball as melting metal, he can. If he wants to describe it as having a back blast, he can.

 

[n00bdragon]

It gets back to the whole idea of story (narrative) taking precedence over rules. How about rules that use words that clearly and narratively describe what happens instead of inventing rules that require us to provide narrative justifications for effects?

If it's easier to understand the effect of a rule than the narrative explanation of said rule, maybe it's not the best rule.

Why model the fluff after the rules rather the other way around? Simply, because it makes for a better game that way. Because there is no rules in the game for "disrupting enemies without a distinct form" (and I am in no way implying there ever should be such a rule) the rule for knocking things prone works as a decent stand in. We can assume that if the character doing the proning knows something about knocking over people he probably also knows something about disrupting formless creatures because it's more fun that way.

Also your last point is just silly. By that logic we should just get rid of turn based combat entirely because it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

EDIT: For some reason, I can't see the intervening 14 posts between mine and #280.

I think this just illustrates that there is more than one way to approach the issue, and it seems to come down to a matter of preference. Some seem to prefer that the story should flow from what the rules say are happening, while others would prefer the rules are only there to support whatever story it is you want to tell.

I personally approach 'story not rules' to mean that there should be a few, general rules that can cover a lot of ground, and you apply them when you think they make sense (which should be up to the table to determine). I find that less intrusive than rules that are overly specific, and thus prefer a 4e-style approach.

This is one of those areas where I don't feel that Next is being designed with my interests in mind and would require substantial reworking to make it "work," unless they want to get really general and just have a mechanic for gaining advantage or forcing enemies into disadvantage. That would be about as simple as it gets; you wouldn't need to go to a 3.x style exhaustive list of conditions, but it might not satisfy those who don't want to constantly have to "make up" what is happening in the fiction to represent advantage/disadvantage.

I felt 4e got the list of conditions about right, but like many other things it got right, that doesn't seem to matter to the design team of Next...

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It did have an interesting take on magic. Beyond that I wasn't blown away. We had fun playing it but I suspect overall RQ or (a bit later) RM include a lot of similar mechanical ideas without some of the problems or complexities. DQ was still a game of that age when designers still hadn't grasped the idea that there was some other axis to tweak besides more or less detailed/abstract sim. It was very much an RPG written by wargamers. I think it would have gotten a lot further if level 1 PCs had for instance maybe not killed themselves QUITE so much. The lethal failure consequence mechanics turned what should have been a rich game into a character grinder. I think it taught me to hate all types of critical failure mechanics with a passion. Honestly, IMHO that sort of mechanic is the worst bad idea that ever entered RPGs. However, more narrative critical failures that allow you to fail things forward are fine. Maybe boons could be associated with a level, so a low level PC acquiring a high level spell and using it would invoke a large risk of bad plot consequences. I'd make that an optional sort of rule (really the DM can avoid it just by not giving out higher level stuff). DMs that are up for that kind of thing could do it.

Late to the DQ party, but I did want to say I read that every year or so, and still think it had some great ideas buried under a ton of too fiddly mechanics. In particular, the way it had the intersection of magic, skills (professions + a few separate skills) + weapon use + abilities being mostly orthogonal gives a wide range of possibilities for characters with relatively little material.

In particular, I think it had the right idea about having major, thematic packages (like "thief") that weren't exclusive to a narrow class, but did have some separate pieces that could then be used in other areas--such as "spy".

 

[Crazy Jerome]

No matter how you accomplish it, the more you make the rules elegant and clear (natural language, keywords, or other means), the less room you leave for players or DMs to pull stupid game-lawyer tricks with pieces of the rules. Whereas longer rules with lot of specifics make such play easy. Some people find such play the point of RPGs, and consider it clever. I and most people I play with find it banal. There really isn't any compromise a system can do that will satisfy both groups. You might as well try to write a science fiction game that rigorously avoided space travel or a horror game that totally avoided fear--maybe possible if you twist the concept enough, but rather pointless.

 

[jhunton]

cant wait to see the basic rules,so fare it sounds good.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But that is one of the problems with "healing". It's a loaded word. When a Warlord "heals" you, he inspires you to keep going. So why is it called "healing"? The problem is that "heal" has a common-language equivalent. What it means mechanically is HP Recovery, in all instances.

If all HP Recovery was called recovery, but the martial "powers" that induce HP recovery were called inspiring, and the magical "powers" that induce HP recovery were called healing you could have both within the same mechanical space without creating a language barrier within the mechanics. A warlord wound induce recovery, respite, or whatever, and the cleric would induce healing, you could have a distinction with no mechanical change (HP Recovery). HP have never modeled real wounds. But if you wanted to introduce that modularity you could introduce ways of making each available at separate points so that "recovery" would happen when you are not seriously wounded, but healing can cover you with either. Just as a thought.

Sure. I think this is something you approach case-by-case though. What you outline seems like a reasonably way to avoid some semantic ambiguity and in general won't add complexity as only the guy with the Warlord has to know the ins-and-outs of what his thing does, and it never changes for him.

I think the same sort of observation goes for [MENTION=6695559]bogmad[/MENTION] and prone. Maybe for that specific condition the best answer is that some creatures are immune to it. Honestly a creature you can't knock prone in 4e is not THAT big a deal. It will slightly inconvenience characters here and there, but unless you're a paragon warden polearm gamble based lockdown master it isn't THAT significant, and you can still do damage fine.

We could go down the list of conditions. Maybe immobilized isn't even worth bothering with (aside from some very peculiar and specific magical effects it seems like a very odd condition, you're stuck to one spot but are otherwise in no way shape or form discomfited, bizarre). Restrained works and makes more sense anyway. Honestly I don't see a problem with other 4e conditions. Once in a great while one of them gets used in some odd way or might logically not be relevant, but they are really very extreme corner cases.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But what is it about, say, a "trip" maneuver that lets you disadvantage something that is applicable towards an ooze? Is "trip" too specific for a general purpose maneuver? Do we need a maneuver that is simply a "disadvantage" maneuver that requires the player to describe just how he stretches an ooze out to overextend itself?

It gets back to the whole "story, not rules" idea of the L&L article. How about just using words that clearly and narratively describe what happens instead of inventing rules that require us to provide narrative justifications for what happens.

It's clearly easier (or it should be in my opinion) to disadvantage a sentient, vertebrate humanoid than a mindless, formless puddle.

I don't know about that. I have no understanding of how an ooze actually works. Maybe they are quite easy to disadvantage. After all they lack a skeleton to support them or give them leverage. Can I just hit it with my weapon and cause it to spatter and have to draw together again? Does cutting it cause a loss of hydrostatic pressure it uses to move? Does it have organs that are vulnerable and not well protected by its weak oozy form? I can think of a million ways that ooze could be pretty easy to fight. Obviously different types of ooze might have different weaknesses or strengths too.

Again the problem with the whole "story, not rules" is the players never have any idea what is what. Can they use oil flasks to burn up monsters by throwing them? Who knows, it is entirely up to the whim of today's DM. What happens when you hit an ooze with a cold spell? Does it freeze up? Does that hurt an ooze more, less, or the same as anyone else? This leads IME to players either gaming the DM, or always playing it safe, etc. There are some reasons for nailing things down. IMHO it is superior to just give blanket answers that work and then find the exceptions. The main obvious ones will be in the rules, like "ooze can't fall prone, instead it gets disadvantage" or they are so weird they come up in play and then at least the DM is only ruling on one very niche thing now and then, not half of everything the PCs can try to do.