Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Monsters are more than their stats
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 4182331" data-attributes="member: 30001"><p>I would suggest that you will always find that people have a difficult time accepting the universal truth of something that's largely a theoretical construction of someone's imagination. Specifically:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So you say. The objective truth/falseness of this is not obvious to me.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would never argue, on logical grounds alone, that anything simulates "all possible" anything.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Maybe - but the earliest booklets had rules for stronghold construction, prices of weapons, loyalty of hirelings, and so forth, so I think you're overstating the simplicity of the situation or the intentions of the original designers. It's not hard to find rules in ODnD that have nothing to do with combat, and the fact that the DnD rules grew out of wargaming rules would be a significant thing to consider before suggesting that every element of the design was intentional. Wandering monster tables, for example, have nothing to do with combat resolution.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would agree with the objective part of what you're saying here, but I'm very skeptical about the cause/effect that you propose.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A universal set of rules for climbing or surprise, for instance, did not exist in rules prior to 3E. Are you therefore arguing that such things have no effect on combat? Whether or not a king likes you could have a lot to do with whether or not your character gets killed - IMO there is no basis for labeling some resolution as being "combat related" vs. "narrative related" and suggesting that there's some fundemental difference between the two regardless of circumstances.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure anyone is suggesting this. My actual opinion is more subtle than this, but I'm not sure that anything I say that doesn't use the words "utterly" or "100%" is comprehensible in the internet culture of hyperbole.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>IMO it's a bit bold to suggest that DnD's "core competency" is combat. It's not hard to find a game system that came about as an "improvement" over what was seen as pretty lame by some. Consider people's objections about the realism of DnD hitpoints or armorclass for instance. Basically, what you've done is accepted a very abstract model for resolving combat, a model that ignores a myriad of circumstances that would exist in reality. It ignores them in favor of simplicity and game-play. But now somehow you're suggesting that there's a logical basis for saying that such a model (with the attendant abstractions and simplifications) is somehow impossible for non-combat situations. I'm not convinced.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Take an RPG that advertises itself as a "realistic combat simulator" and I'm sure you'd find that a very different beast from DnD as well. But there's no reason IMO to logically assume that because you played out a situation according to a particular system, that there's something fundemental about that situation (combat, social interaction, etc.) that requires that it play that way.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I better do what? I would prefer to accept what makes sense to me. You may not have thought this out completely, so advice about what I better do and not do is probably best deferred for a later time. Your very speculative/presumptuous about the design goals of the original DnD designers, for instance. I think this is unwarranted but seems to be the basis for your argument.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gizmo33, post: 4182331, member: 30001"] I would suggest that you will always find that people have a difficult time accepting the universal truth of something that's largely a theoretical construction of someone's imagination. Specifically: So you say. The objective truth/falseness of this is not obvious to me. I would never argue, on logical grounds alone, that anything simulates "all possible" anything. Maybe - but the earliest booklets had rules for stronghold construction, prices of weapons, loyalty of hirelings, and so forth, so I think you're overstating the simplicity of the situation or the intentions of the original designers. It's not hard to find rules in ODnD that have nothing to do with combat, and the fact that the DnD rules grew out of wargaming rules would be a significant thing to consider before suggesting that every element of the design was intentional. Wandering monster tables, for example, have nothing to do with combat resolution. I would agree with the objective part of what you're saying here, but I'm very skeptical about the cause/effect that you propose. A universal set of rules for climbing or surprise, for instance, did not exist in rules prior to 3E. Are you therefore arguing that such things have no effect on combat? Whether or not a king likes you could have a lot to do with whether or not your character gets killed - IMO there is no basis for labeling some resolution as being "combat related" vs. "narrative related" and suggesting that there's some fundemental difference between the two regardless of circumstances. I'm not sure anyone is suggesting this. My actual opinion is more subtle than this, but I'm not sure that anything I say that doesn't use the words "utterly" or "100%" is comprehensible in the internet culture of hyperbole. IMO it's a bit bold to suggest that DnD's "core competency" is combat. It's not hard to find a game system that came about as an "improvement" over what was seen as pretty lame by some. Consider people's objections about the realism of DnD hitpoints or armorclass for instance. Basically, what you've done is accepted a very abstract model for resolving combat, a model that ignores a myriad of circumstances that would exist in reality. It ignores them in favor of simplicity and game-play. But now somehow you're suggesting that there's a logical basis for saying that such a model (with the attendant abstractions and simplifications) is somehow impossible for non-combat situations. I'm not convinced. Take an RPG that advertises itself as a "realistic combat simulator" and I'm sure you'd find that a very different beast from DnD as well. But there's no reason IMO to logically assume that because you played out a situation according to a particular system, that there's something fundemental about that situation (combat, social interaction, etc.) that requires that it play that way. I better do what? I would prefer to accept what makes sense to me. You may not have thought this out completely, so advice about what I better do and not do is probably best deferred for a later time. Your very speculative/presumptuous about the design goals of the original DnD designers, for instance. I think this is unwarranted but seems to be the basis for your argument. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Monsters are more than their stats
Top