Mundane vs. Fantastical

[Hussar]

And the job of the mechanics *should* be to help create a believable setting, since a believable setting is part and parcel of any D&D game. If the mechanics don't help me do that, the mechanics don't help me make a D&D game.

I disagree. Basic D&D had next to no rules for creating a believable setting. It was solely focused on the dungeon. Expert expanded things out into wilderness adventuring, but that was about it.

"Believable setting" is entirely the job of the DM. No amount of mechanics can help you there. 3e most certainly did not make a believable setting, unless believable means you can never lose a limb, economies are entirely bizarre, and a host of other oddities that everyone sweeps under the carpet.

Yet, I've played in perfectly "believable" 3e campaigns. Why? Because, like a good magician, the DM's I had were able to draw my attention away from the stuff I shouldn't be looking at and focus on the stuff I should. And that's always been the primary goal of DMing. To keep the players engaged enough that they don't start poking holes in the tissue thin veneer of believability that exists in D&D.

Heck, look at elves. (Note, I hate elves as a PC race, and this is why) Unless elves are massively developmentally challenged, the rules for elves makes no sense. An PC elf, starting out at level 1 is over 100 years old. Yet, other than a few racial benefits, he is IDENTICAL to that 1st level 15 year old human. Completely the same. Unless this elf is massively retarded, he should be light years ahead of the human by this point.

This is "believable"? Not to me it's not. Yet, I turn a blind eye to it and get on with the game, because, well, it's D&D and D&D has elves. I don't play them, but, I can live with it.

Looking back through this thread KM, you're basically saying that because 3e did "mundane fantasy" for 2 levels, that's support. I'm saying that the sweet spot in D&D started at 3rd for a reason.

 

[mmadsen]

"Believable setting" is entirely the job of the DM. No amount of mechanics can help you there.

No, a believable setting is not entirely the job of the DM. "Bad" mechanics can definitely lead to a less believable settle, so "good" mechanics can definitely help you produce a more believable setting.

3e most certainly did not make a believable setting, unless believable means you can never lose a limb, economies are entirely bizarre, and a host of other oddities that everyone sweeps under the carpet.

It looks like you've enumerated some of 3E's "bad" mechanics.

(I'm obviously using "bad" to mean "leads to a less believable setting," and "good" to mean the opposite.)

 

[Just Another User]

The problem with mundane animals as antagonists that I've encountered is less boredom and more sympathy. My players know animals pretty well, and it's just really not much of a noble fantasy for them to beat up wolves or bears. If I had wolves or hyenas attack the party, they'd say "Holy crap, something must be really wrong for these poor critters to be acting so out of character." A bear might be more plausible, but it's still sympathetic to the players. This is only reinforced by other games we're into like Werewolf.

I fail to see how that is a problem, it sound awesome to me.

Of course it means you can't use animals to attack the party all the time but there are still a lot of mundane or simil mundane opponents your PCs can fight, like goblin, orcs, things like that (yes, I consider goblinoid "mundane") and of course all those pesky humans, but there are still occasions when you can use animals against the PCs, all you need is a reason for them to behave strangely, for example, maybe one of the weird monsters (a wyern? a chimera? Adragon, maybe) entered in their territory and drove them away, and now they are so hungry that attack anything on sight, or maybe an evil druid is using them to purge the lands of that human scourge, or they feeling that something really weird is going to happen soon and it making them going a little crazy.
If your PCs feel simpaty, even better, they can use some non-lethal tactics, cast a fireball high above ground to scare them away, use Calm Animal, stinking cloud or things like that, that would make the fight even more interesting.

 

[Just Another User]

Real life certainly doesn't work like that. If you fight against 3:1 odds, by and large, you lose. Badly. ((Yes, yes, Battle of Thermopyle and all that, but, for every Thermopyle, you have a LOT more Alamo's))

But, and I think I'm not the only one here, I don't want Real Life, I want something that if I look at it from an angle and squint a little could look like real life... under the right light. I want more "normal" animals. And I don't want electirfied scorpions or fire-breathing rabbits, except maybe in some special occasion. When I meet lightinging tailed scorpions I want my- or my PCs- reaction to be "Holy s**t! Giant scorpions that shoot lightining!! " and not "Oh, Giant scorpions that shoot lightining ... again. "

 

[Just Another User]

Exactly.

Like I said before, it's not how fantastic (or mundane) something is, it's how well the DM portrays it. The idea that by simply limiting the number of fantasy elements in a campaign, you'll automatically increase the level of 'wonder' is ridiculous.

But the idea that you could obtain the same effect simply by increasing the number of fantasy elements is equally ridicolous.

Actually it would be worse, if you find that your campaign don't have enough fantasy elements you could find ways to add more in a still believable way (maybe they were limited to some part of the world, or some other plane) but if you add to much fantasy elements I doubt that removing them would improve things, and I can't see how could you it in a way that it don't sound forced and contrived.

 

[Hussar]

But, Justanotheruser - if you want to use mundane animals in 4e what is stopping you? Creating monsters is pretty easy. Advancing them to be a challenge for the level of your party is fairly easy too.

Now, the default assumption is that the monsters will be more fantastic and not so much just a bear. But, that's just the default assumptions. If you want mundane animals, go for it. It should be a matter of minutes to create and use them.

KM, I think we're talking in circles. You equate Eberron with mundane, everyman fiction. But, Eberron draws heavily from pulp which is the complete opposite of mundane or everyman. Conan wasn't just some guy with a sword, he was the strongest, baddest, boldest muther around, and the last decendent of Atlantis to boot. Indiana Jones wasn't just some archeologist stumbling around in dusty places, he was an expert marksman, very knowlegeable, and drives like Mario Andretti. He's a superhero without the spandex. Doc Samson, Quartermain, etc are all the same - bigger, badder, smarter, tougher than everyone else around.

And they are that way right from day one. There's no point where we see Indie growing up as a weak assed teenager into the hero of the movies. Conan goes from being a boy to being a man in about three pages (depending on which version you choose). Pulp heroes are most certainly not everyman heroes.

And the problem is, Everyman believable realism doesn't work in pulp stories. When you ride that runaway rail car, you die. When you crash into the jungle from that airship, you are a red smear on the ground. THAT'S mundane. Battling dinosaur riding halfling barbarians from the moving top of an elemental powered railway car is very pulp and the complete antithesis of mundane.

Me, I prefer the wahoo of pulp for D&D. There are games where mundane works. Warhammer Fantasy being one. Chivalry and Sorcery being another. D&D? Naw, I'll stick to Conan and Indiana Jones for inspiration.

 

[mmadsen]

Conan wasn't just some guy with a sword, he was the strongest, baddest, boldest muther around, and the last decendent of Atlantis to boot. Indiana Jones wasn't just some archeologist stumbling around in dusty places, he was an expert marksman, very knowlegeable, and drives like Mario Andretti. He's a superhero without the spandex. Doc Samson, Quartermain, etc are all the same - bigger, badder, smarter, tougher than everyone else around.

We can agree that pulp heroes aren't everyday Joes. (Although hardboiled protagonists might be.) But they're certainly mundane in fantasy-RPG terms. They aren't superheroes minus spandex -- unless by "superhero" you mean pulp-style hero with no superpowers, like Batman.

And they are that way right from day one. There's no point where we see Indie growing up as a weak assed teenager into the hero of the movies. Conan goes from being a boy to being a man in about three pages (depending on which version you choose). Pulp heroes are most certainly not everyman heroes.

Agreed. Pulp stories are rarely about the hero growing in competence. (This is in stark contrast to much high fantasy.)

And the problem is, Everyman believable realism doesn't work in pulp stories. When you ride that runaway rail car, you die. When you crash into the jungle from that airship, you are a red smear on the ground. THAT'S mundane.

No, that's not mundane so much as grim. Real-life hobos used to jump on and off of moving train cars all the time. They weren't superheroes. Most of the passengers and crew on the Hindenburg survived. (In fact, one of the fellows on board was a circus acrobat who looked down and jumped to safety; he knew he could survive the fall.)

In real life, people don't all die in a bad situation, and they aren't all incompetent.

Cortez and Pizarro each conquered an empire with a handful of men. That's an amazing accomplishment, even compared to what most D&D characters achieve, but it was totally mundane -- and obviously perfectly realistic.

Battling dinosaur riding halfling barbarians from the moving top of an elemental powered railway car is very pulp and the complete antithesis of mundane.

That in no way resembles a Conan story, you'll note.

 

[Desdichado]

Which, I believe was always my point. If you have to massively rewrite your game to serve the game that you want to play, why not pick a game that works?

That's not massively rewriting the game. How is finishing the game before the PC's hit 10th level a "massive rewrite?" D&D is like a buffet of gaming; it caters to a variety of gaming styles, depending on the choices of the DM and players. Every D&D game, no matter how long and intensive, uses only a fraction of the rules. In my case, it was done deliberately to keep the game in a subgenre that I like.

I don't understand why you think that's a bad thing. Presumably you're saying you'd like a game that catered specifically to your taste from "start to finish" or something like that? I dunno; lately I don't see the need for that when everything I need is right there in the books already. I just need to use the material that serves my purposes and not use the material that doesn't.

 

[Hussar]

We can agree that pulp heroes aren't everyday Joes. (Although hardboiled protagonists might be.) But they're certainly mundane in fantasy-RPG terms. They aren't superheroes minus spandex -- unless by "superhero" you mean pulp-style hero with no superpowers, like Batman.

They are superheroes in that they are bigger, stronger, smarter, faster, whatever'er than everyone else around them. How is that not a super hero? Sure, they usually can't fly, but, if you're better than everyone else, you're super human.

Agreed. Pulp stories are rarely about the hero growing in competence. (This is in stark contrast to much high fantasy.)

Agreed

No, that's not mundane so much as grim. Real-life hobos used to jump on and off of moving train cars all the time. They weren't superheroes. Most of the passengers and crew on the Hindenburg survived. (In fact, one of the fellows on board was a circus acrobat who looked down and jumped to safety; he knew he could survive the fall.)

Umm, reread what I wrote. It wasn't "slowly moving rail car" it was runaway mining car a la Indian Jones. Slight difference. And, while many of the crew and passengers of the Hindenburg survived, most of the crew and passengers of the Titanic didn't. What's your point?

In real life, people don't all die in a bad situation, and they aren't all incompetent.

Cortez and Pizarro each conquered an empire with a handful of men. That's an amazing accomplishment, even compared to what most D&D characters achieve, but it was totally mundane -- and obviously perfectly realistic.

In real life, people don't face life or death situations more than a few times, by and large. Earlier in the thread I mentioned this. Sure, you can have Agincourt, but, for every example where people beat the odds, there are many more where they didn't. That's why we remember the survivors. Because they are very, very lucky.

That in no way resembles a Conan story, you'll note.

Perhaps not. But, it does resemble John Carter pretty nicely. Conan is not the only pulp hero.

 

[Hussar]

That's not massively rewriting the game. How is finishing the game before the PC's hit 10th level a "massive rewrite?" D&D is like a buffet of gaming; it caters to a variety of gaming styles, depending on the choices of the DM and players. Every D&D game, no matter how long and intensive, uses only a fraction of the rules. In my case, it was done deliberately to keep the game in a subgenre that I like.

I don't understand why you think that's a bad thing. Presumably you're saying you'd like a game that catered specifically to your taste from "start to finish" or something like that? I dunno; lately I don't see the need for that when everything I need is right there in the books already. I just need to use the material that serves my purposes and not use the material that doesn't.

Before, you said 7th level, so, things are a bit shifting. But, in any case, yes, I do consider ejecting at least 50% of the rules of a game to be a massive rewrite. I'm not sure how you could view it any other way. Stripping at least half of the game out is a pretty large change any way you want to look at it.

Yes, while any given game does not use a large fraction of the rules, that's true, the potential exists in a given game to use any rule. You've cut off that potential then try to say that you haven't made any major changes? Play styles entirely change because of the changes you've made. PrC's are now pretty much off the table for one. Higher level magic is off the table. PC wealth is pretty low, so, you're not going to see more than minor magic items. A large chunk of the monsters are off the table. On and on.

And this is not a major shift in the game?

You argue that you get what you want with these changes. That's fair enough. I totally buy that. But, don't try to pretend that you haven't made huge changes to the game. You have.

My point is, if you're going to make such sweeping changes, why not find a game that fits what you want better? Obviously a level based system like 3e isn't what you want, since the level power is too high. You obviously don't want the higher powered magic that 3e assumes as well.

There are d20 variants that much better suit this playstyle, if you want to stay within the d20 family. The aforementioned E6 is a good example.

I just don't understand, with the huge number of games out there, why stick with a game that really doesn't work as written with what you want?

I guess I don't understand why anyone would want to invest money in rules that don't work for what they want. Yes, I expect the game I play to suit my playstyle. I don't think that's unreasonable. 3e D&D is not particularly suited to "mundane" fantasy and, IMNSHO, D&D has never really been suited to "mundane" fantasy. Going back to 1e, by the time you hit about 6th level, you could stand toe to toe with just about any non-unique monster and expect to survive. By 9th, the only thing that killed you was save or die. That's not mundane to me. When my fighter can stand in front of 20 bad guys and expect to win, that's pretty wahoo.

Just as a question, do you consider Bruce Lee movies to be mundane or fantastic? How about Jackie Chan?