Legends and Lore - Nod To Realism

[avin]

Likewise, even the fact that we could casually stroll through The Nine Hells and physically walk to where we needed to go without really having any serious problems seemed odd. It wasn't for a lack of the DM trying to challenge the party; we simply just crushed anything which tried to impede us. It was jarring because all of the uber-devils and lords and creatures which were supposedly terrors to behold were just steamrolled over. It was difficult to understand why anyone in the game world would fear them if the powers available to heroes were so much better than what the villains had.

Ah, you hit the nail why sometimes D&D (in every incarnation I've played) make me sick...

 

[DEFCON 1]

In fact, I find it vastly amusing how so many people here on these boards will take the most nonsensical illogical rationale, and explain it as if it makes all of the sense in the world, and it isn't just a cumbersome rationale to explain away a non-plausible rule that exists in the game system, merely because the rule is simpler than any plausible rule that the designers could think of to take its place.

That's cause for myself and probably a few others... it isn't at all cumbersome, because D&D's a game. As a result, I accept that game rules are in place to try and make the game fun, balanced, and interesting for all players, all races, and all classes, and sometimes game rules run counter to so-called 'immersion'. And I just don't get hung up on that in my made-up fantasy story... because if I wanted immersion above all else, I wouldn't be playing a game. I'd be doing improv theater or writing a novel, that way I could get immersed as much as I wanted and never have to worry about those pesky game rules occasionally getting in the way.

I am at one end of the acceptance spectrum where I just don't bother demarcating some game rules as 'acceptable' to the 'immersion' and some rules as 'not acceptable'. My 'immersion' is going to be broken at some point regardless, just due to the fact that it's a game. So why waste my time worrying about only certain parts of it? The game rules are the game rules. And if the game rules are fun, great! Let's play!

 

[billd91]

I know this has been discussed to death in the past, but clearly - in at least some cases - a player's use of Come and Get It does not correspond to (or correspond only to) things that his/her PC is doing in the fiction.

Sometimes, at least, the forced movement reflects something else going on in the fiction (eg the villain zigged when it should have zagged).

This is something I detest about the CaGI power and how dissociative it could be. If the PC is spending an action and having an effect, I really want the causality to be fairly clear. I don't want a PC action to generate some other narrative effect not related to the PC's action.

If I want any actions to have a non-PC caused narrative effect, I want it to come from the player not from his avatar in the game setting. If that means having cards like in Torg that the player can use to affect the action, that's fine since I don't believe they have any effect on the actions a PC can take (though I'm new to Torg and may not have learned all the cases in which a card comes into play).

 

[avin]

Come and Get It with a thrown weapon where it requires the PC to bounce his weapon off a wall and knocks the foe towards the Fighter? Bravo. What a cool Epic level power. Come and Get It as the equivalent of a magical attraction spell at Heroic level affecting NPCs out of the Fighter's reach? Meh. What a waste of paper that it's written on.

Amem.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The most sensible only if the goal of the game is collaborative storytelling.

The original D&D game was not designed for such a goal. The biggest challenge for the designers is to decide if the game is going to be about roleplaying adventurers exploring a fantasy world or an exercise in collaborative storytelling.

Either way, about half the audience will have diminished interest in the game.

I think what you're saying here speaks to the dichotomy inherent to the two game design philosophies that came together to create D&D in the first place. It's fairly evident that both Gygax and Arneson brought different ideas and priorities to D&D, but also, I think, in equal measure.

So to me, saying that roleplaying adventurers exploring a world and collaborative storytelling are mutually exclusive as design goals, sells the game short. There is nothing to say that it can't do both, and IMHO, it does both fairly well. Or, at least it can. The rest is largely dependent on the group and their preferred style of play, I suppose.

But it is incredibly jarring that suddenly the massively intelligent wizard with a huge will who doesn't even speak my language decides to come up close and smack the big huge fighter with his dagger. That is atrocious and unbelievably bad fiction.

Without knowing the exact circumstances of the fiction involved with that particular scenario, at that particular table, sure it sounds silly. It doesn't have to, though. If one has already decided that a given power is ridiculous, one tends not to try very hard when describing its effects.

If described properly, I can see ways in which even that scenario makes sense. Perhaps in this case CaGI represents a warrior feigning weakness, enticing even a lowly mage with a knife to want to come stick it in his belly during a moment of weakness.

This has been discussed before because it is SO absurd an example to many of us. I've never seen an explanation that made the slightest sense to me.

So I don't particularly expect my example explanation to make any more sense to you either, especially since your mind is already firmly made up.

But here's the thing - CaGI, and powers like it, are basically like giving players 'narrative control cards' that they can invoke pretty much any time. They are not only free to, but more or less obligated to figure out how that interacts with the fiction of the game at any given time. This is not always an easy task. It speaks to why (at least in part), there are so many fewer DMs than players. A power like that basically turns the player into a DM for part of her turn, but the game gives only the vaguest guidance on how to do that (i.e. flavour text), and what guidance given isn't always going to fit what's going on. It can't - that would require far too much text for every power.

So this is where the actual DM is needed - the DM needs to interpret how the player is playing their 'narrative control card', even if it isn't what they had in mind, and make it work the way the player wants it to in a given situation. Again, some DMs will have trouble doing this, with good reason - it isn't always easy.

From personal experience though, when it works, it really works. Particularly if the end goal is not only exploring a fictional game world, but telling a collaborative story while you're doing it.

Some groups or players won't like that, and that's fine. Some DMs don't like losing that control, even for a part of a player's turn. Some players don't want the responsibility. Some DMs don't want to have to come up with explanations when they player can't or won't either. That's fine - it just means that there are some elements of the game that they should avoid. The problem with that is, 4e isn't very good at explaining this, nor on giving advice on how to handle it.

Obviously lots of people have no problem with this and that is absolutely fine with me.

But for some of us CAGI exemplifies design decisions made in 4th Edition that we do not like. NOT "bad" decisions, just decisions that are not to our taste.

I just wanted to point out that I appreciate your civil tone in your post. It's very easy to go on the offensive about elements you find really jarring, and like some, to call it all nonsense.

 

[billd91]

But here's the thing - CaGI, and powers like it, are basically like giving players 'narrative control cards' that they can invoke pretty much any time. They are not only free to, but more or less obligated to figure out how that interacts with the fiction of the game at any given time. This is not always an easy task. It speaks to why (at least in part), there are so many fewer DMs than players. A power like that basically turns the player into a DM for part of her turn, but the game gives only the vaguest guidance on how to do that (i.e. flavour text), and what guidance given isn't always going to fit what's going on. It can't - that would require far too much text for every power.

As in my post above, I don't see it as giving narrative control cards to the player. It's giving them to the character and uses a character's actions to achieve an effect not directly related to any cause the character could effect. If you want to give that power to a player - give it to the player through some alternative mechanism that's not directly caused by a PC action.

 

[LurkAway]

As in my post above, I don't see it as giving narrative control cards to the player. It's giving them to the character and uses a character's actions to achieve an effect not directly related to any cause the character could effect. If you want to give that power to a player - give it to the player through some alternative mechanism that's not directly caused by a PC action.

That's an astute point.

I suppose they could say that these narrative-control powers are not given to the characters, but rather assigned to the character. But if so, growing up with D&D never, ever taught me to think that way. AFAIK, nothing in the 4E books mentions that either (does it?). The fact that CAGI got nerfed doesn't seem like a heartfelt support of "narrative cards" either.

 

[Dausuul]

As in my post above, I don't see it as giving narrative control cards to the player. It's giving them to the character and uses a character's actions to achieve an effect not directly related to any cause the character could effect. If you want to give that power to a player - give it to the player through some alternative mechanism that's not directly caused by a PC action.

Bwah? You're giving narrative control to the character? Your fighter is suddenly gaining the power to reshape reality?

The idea of giving narrative control to a character makes no sense unless you're playing in Discworld or equivalent.

 

[Aenghus]

Bwah? You're giving narrative control to the character? Your fighter is suddenly gaining the power to reshape reality?

The idea of giving narrative control to a character makes no sense unless you're playing in Discworld or equivalent.

Depends on your definition. In previous editions spellcasters had lots of ways to effectively reshape reality via their magic. Case in point, there was a 1e Illusionist spell called "Alter Reality". Was 1e D&D Discworld?

Non-spellcasters had much less ability to instantly affect their environment in previous editions, especially as character levels rose. However, they could build strongholds and work through other people to effect medium and long term change.

4e has balanced the ability to instantly reshape reality much more by greatly reducing spellcaster power in this area across the board, while opening the gates to non-spellcasters to do such actions sometimes.

I do think some players are more aware than ever before for their personal game preferences and agitate for something that exactly fits them. But preferences are so personal, individual, idiosyncratic that you end up with a whole bunch of small camps of people, each wanting a different set of rules.

A successful new edition of D&D will have to appeal to as many different camps as possible, which will inevitably involve compromise, both in the rules themselves and on the part of the GMs and players who play the game.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Time for me to use Come and Get It!!!

Come and Get it a great power and anyone who disagrees simply lacks the imagination to make it work!!!!