Mearls' Chicken or the Egg: Should Fluff Control Crunch, or the Other Way Around?

[JamesonCourage]

How is this not edition warring?

 

[pemerton]

Can a kobold shift while you are watching him closely?

Can a kobold shift when the lights are on?

Yes.

But what follows from this? Some stage magicians can trick you even when you are watching them closely, in full daylight. Furthermore, most encounters with kobolds are probably going to happen in underground tunnels, where the light is not on.

I still don't know what point you're trying to establish. Upthread I distinguished between (i) puzzles in the narration of particular episodes of action resolution and (ii) puzzles of general flavour/characterisation. The question I've just responded to still seems to me to be about (i), and therefore of only limited relevance to (ii).

So we are discussing the Shifty power... not the fluff for the kobold or the situations you can engineer to support your interpretation of the power, but the actual power, it's text and what fluff it and it alone imparts to the kobold entry... independent of everyhting else... right?

No. We're talking about the power. Which is not independent of how it plays. (Or how it can be envisaged to play by a GM who reads it and asks herself or himself "How might I use some kobolds in my game?")

The Monster Manual is not a novel. It's a rulebook for use in playing a game. Part of the way it conveys flavour is by setting out action resolution mechanics that will yield that flavour in play.

what you've done is shift goalposts, engineer specific situations where the Shifty power could possibly represent something sneaky being done, and quote text that is not in the actual power. Such as what you are doing below...[

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all this other stuff you are bringing up is irrelevant

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Nothing in the above power anymore speaks to tricks and deception that my earlier examples of being quick and furtive. It is the ability to shift a square as a minor action which in and of itself tells me nothing about kobolds.

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Where is the fluff or flavor text OF THE ACTUAL POWER? Nothing in Shifty speaks to a kobold's ability to skulk, swarm, ambush, set traps, sneak around, etc. It is a minor action 5' shift... that's it.

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You've proven nothing.

Just to be crystal clear - are you saying that the descriptive text for a monster entry is of no relevance to understanding its powers? That the very word or phrase used to label a power - like "shifty" - is of no relevance to understanding its powers?

What do you think the descriptive text is for, if not (among other things) to help a GM understand and run the monster's powers?

Here is some text plus powers/traits for a hydra (from the 4e MM):

A hydra is a serpentine beast with many heads.

Hydra Fury (standard; at-will): The fen hydra makes four bite attacks.

Many-Headed: Each time the fen hydra becomes dazed or stunned, it loses one attack on its next turn instead. Multiple such eff ects stack.​

Are you saying that it is mysterious what a furious hyrdra gets to make multiple attacks, and loses only one attack when dazed or stunned? That it is not intended that we should understand this as relating to the hydra's many heads, of which only one gets stunned or dazed at a time?

Here's the d20srd text for a balor demon's death throes:

Death throes (Ex): When killed, a balor explodes in a blinding flash of light that deals 100 points of damage to anything within 100 feet (Reflex DC 30 half).​

Here's the 4e MM text:

Death Burst (when reduced to 0 hit points) (Fire) The balor explodes in a burst of flame: close burst 10; +29 vs. Reflex; 7d10 fire damage. Miss: Half damage.​

By your standards, does the 4e version of the power not tell us why or when the balor explodes, because "Death burst" appears only as the name of the power?

yet in the end my interpretation of them being quik, furtive jittery little buggers is just as valid as yours when looking at the Shifty power.

Of course that's valid, in the sense of a reasonable reskinning. But the descriptive text says nothing about the quickness or jitteriness of kobolds, and does talk about their skulkiness and swarminess. So I would expect a GM who was uncertain about how to run kobolds to go with (what seems to me to be) the obvious default.

Have you ever tried fighting 4e kobolds in melee? Because they sure as hell are shifty little bastards.

That is, I think, what this comes down to. You haven't played the game.

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Shifty means that kobolds slip around in the fight and can't be pinned down. They swarm weak party members and run the hell away from the strong ones.

If you had ever fought kobolds in 4e you would experience how shifty, slippery, sly, and other adjectives these creatures are.

But you haven't.

This fits with what I said above - that a rulebook is not a novel. It doesn't describe skulky, shift kobolds - it exhibits them as game elemens.

But I think Imaro at least has played/does play 4e. This isn't the first time, though, that I've been surprised by Imaro's posts given that play experience.

 

[pemerton]

How is this not edition warring?

I think there's an element of that. But I think it's also about presentation of flavour. Is there, or can there be, something distinctive about an RPG which means that the way it conveys fiction differs from the way a novelist conveys fiction?

 

[Hussar]

Imaro's argument, like most of these arguments, on whichever side of the fence you want to stand on, requires taking a single element, stripping it of all context and then claiming that it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If you had ever fought kobolds in 4e you would experience how shifty, slippery, sly, and other adjectives these creatures are.

Or, perhaps, you would experience how their powers work on the grid.

But you haven't.

Don't be too certain of that....If your argument is going to boil down to this, it will soon be boiled away! Not preferring a game is not the same as not having tried it.

If the kobold shift ability actually works by being sneaky and hiding in the dark, can a kobold shift while you are watching him closely? Can a kobold shift when the lights are on?


RC

 

[Neonchameleon]

You guys are really stretching this. So just to be clear... if you use the "Shifty" ability to facilitate tactics you attribute to trickery and deception(even though everything you've come up with could also be attributed to the kobolds just being fast and jittery.) then it gives the kobold the flavor and fluff of being tricky and deceptive... Uhm, ok but nothing in and of the power itself (without you purposefully setting up tricky or deceptive situations to use "Shiifty" in) gives one this flavor or fluff and that is what is being argued. The power "Shifty", in and of itself, does not give the DM fluff about kobolds. It gives him an abstract mechanic he can interpret or skin in numerous ways but it tells us nothing about kobolds in the game world... unless we start adding stuff to support our interpretation of what said power is suppose to represent.

OK. Tactics encouraged by the game and design of the monsters aren't part of the flavour. Mechanics aren't part of the flavour. Deliberately flavourful names aren't part of the flavour. This would appear to leave the sum total of the flavour as the parts of the game that have no direct impact at the table at all. Is this a fair summary of your position, and if not what have I missed out?

D&D has to make it feel like a balanced set of classes is equally contributing to the goal. The problem is that total balance starts, at some level, to feel illogical. How can a warrior or a thief without magic items compete with a caster that is supposed to fulfill the idea of the epic, spell slinging wizards?

I don't know. But in mythology, epic level fighters could quite literally cut the top off a mountain or leap ridiculous distances. Or only be shot in the Achiles Tendon.

(Ignoring 4e) D&D has no epic level fighters. It does have epic level wizards. Which makes your question "How can a non-epic fighter keep up with an epic wizard." The problem isn't the fighter vs wizard. It's that the wizard is epic and the fighter is not. If you want epic level wizards to be in a party with fighters, you should either go with Ars Magica and make it explicit that the fighters are retainers, or go with Exalted and make the fighters and thieves epic. Give them the sword swings to cut the tops off mountains, cut the ground in half, and even learn to literally steal time or thoughts.

Otherwise epic wizards should not be in a party with non-epic fighters. For that matter, I'm pretty sure D&D invented the epic wizard. All the mythological or earlier fantasy wizards I can think of were either NPC adversaries (e.g. Circe) or loremasters more than spellcasters (Merlin).

Even in the D&D, setting based novels this never happens. There is no sword swing that destroys an army without magic, but a wizard could call down meteors to level a major city.

However in the supposed source material, the reverse would appear to be true.

I personally can't suspend my disbelief to enjoy a game that is balanced but alters my expectation of the fantastic reality. YMMV of course.

And D&D prior to 4e alters my expectation of the mythic reality. The mythological wizards I can think of (e.g. Merlin) or the fantastic ones (e.g. Gandalf) are better modelled as Bards than Wizards.

 

[Imaro]

Imaro's argument, like most of these arguments, on whichever side of the fence you want to stand on, requires taking a single element, stripping it of all context and then claiming that it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Yep, especially when one makes the claim that these powers are one of the ways 4e gives fluff to a creature (not my claim of course). If you make such a claim... then taking a power by itself should give you fluff irregardless of everything around it... otherwise your claim is false.

 

[Imaro]

OK. Tactics encouraged by the game and design of the monsters aren't part of the flavour. Mechanics aren't part of the flavour. Deliberately flavourful names aren't part of the flavour. This would appear to leave the sum total of the flavour as the parts of the game that have no direct impact at the table at all. Is this a fair summary of your position, and if not what have I missed out?

What you've missed is that the Shifty power doesn't do any of this on it's own. Hey look... Power Attack in Pathfinder makes your attack directly more powerful (causes more damage), at a reduced chance to hit. That is a mechanic backing fluff... the attack is actually more powerful in damage than a regular attack. Shifty in and of itself allows you to shift 5 feet as a 5' move, and generates none of the supposed fluff people want to attribute to it. Nothing about it is sneaky, deceptive, or involves trickery.

 

[Imaro]

Have you ever tried fighting 4e kobolds in melee? Because they sure as hell are shifty little bastards.

That is, I think, what this comes down to. You haven't played the game. You are literally ignorant of how it works. Not in an insulting, shame on you way, but simply "You do not have the experience needed to understand this."

In my experience this is where 99% of the "complaints" about 4e originate from. You haven't played it. There is a reason literally every 4e player is telling you that you are wrong about Shifty not representing or implying anything in the fluff.

Shifty means that kobolds slip around in the fight and can't be pinned down. They swarm weak party members and run the hell away from the strong ones.

If you had ever fought kobolds in 4e you would experience how shifty, slippery, sly, and other adjectives these creatures are.

But you haven't.

You are wrong... that is all.

EDIT: This attitude amongst some 4e players baffles me. Why do you assume because I interpret a power different from you I've never played the game? That type of tactic of dismissal went out in 2008, I even stated earlier I played kobolds as furtive, quick little buggers when I ran them.

 

[Hussar]

What you've missed is that the Shifty power doesn't do any of this on it's own. Hey look... Power Attack in Pathfinder makes your attack directly more powerful (causes more damage), at a reduced chance to hit. That is a mechanic backing fluff... the attack is actually more powerful in damage than a regular attack. Shifty in and of itself allows you to shift 5 feet as a 5' move, and generates none of the supposed fluff people want to attribute to it. Nothing about it is sneaky, deceptive, or involves trickery.

So, how exactly is the kobold shifting 5 feet (which is not a Move Action Shift - that's another beasty) as a free action being accomplished?

Or is it the fact that 4e doesn't lock you down into a single interpretation what you're complaining about? We know that it's not a teleport or illusion, since it lacks those key words. So, exactly how is this being accomplished?

Even ignoring everything else about the kobold description, how would you interpret making what is effectively some sort of dodge as a free action?