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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6932212" data-attributes="member: 6787650">You can still have simplicity even without Schrodinger's Monster. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing an encounter as an abstract challenge. For example:DM: There's a couple of ogres there. Make a stealth check, DC 16.Player: Pass.DM: You surprise them. Roll 1d20.Player: 14DM: You vanquish both ogres, losing 16 HP in the process. You wipe the ogre blood off your weapon. You're now in a wine cellar with exits to the north and south and a trap door in through which you have just rappelled...The difference of course is that in 5E, "ogre" is an actual monster with real stats, and players can judge whether it's reasonable to expect to lose 16 HP while taking out a couple of ogres. In 5E, it wouldn't be unreasonable for this to happen:Player: I'd actually be really surprised if the ogre managed to deal 16 HP of damage to me. Can we play this out in detail instead?DM: Sure, if you want to. You've surprised two ogres in a wine cellar. Their eyes widen in shock as you... what are you doing when you surprise them?Player: I'm tripping one while I... [etc.]I don't get the impression, when people talk about 4E, that 4E DMs would have found it equally reasonable for players to ask to use a different set of stats for the monsters in 4E. In 4E, the simplification wasn't just an abstraction on top of an underlying reality--there WAS no specific underlying reality, it was a collection of parallel realities all of equal validity. That kind of thing drives me nuts, and so tossing out that bathwater is vital to making a game that I'd be willing to play. If they'd called that "baby" instead of "bathwater" and kept it around, I'd still be playing GURPS or XCOM instead of 5E.</blockquote>

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