D&D 4E Non-Euclidean Geometry in 4E?

[KarinsDad]

don´t think its wrong. It is complicated to optimize, but rules are simple... roll a d20, roll high...

There are more than 600 pages of rules for core 3.5.

That is not simple. That is not just rolling a D20.

 

[BryonD]

Crude approximations to Euclidean geometry are critical to your ability to roleplay a character in a D&D game?

See prior posts

 

[BryonD]

don´t think its wrong. It is complicated to optimize, but rules are simple... roll a d20, roll high...

And yet it remains wrong.

I agree that it is plenty simple ENOUGH for me. (Ironically, the 4E design basis is that is ISN'T simple enough). But you didn't claim it was merely simple. You claimed it was one of the most simple. There are lots of other games that are more simple.

 

[hong]

See prior posts

Is the fact that characters do not appear to exude bodily fluids also critical to your ability to roleplay a character in a D&D game?

 

[Wormwood]

We have always played "one square of movement is one square in any direction" and we have had no noteworthy problems with it.

But how did your group cope with the 1/1d6 SAN loss from witnessing a 2' spacial paradox?

 

[Fifth Element]

That's pretty much the Oberoni fallacy right there: "This rule isn't broken because it can easily be fixed by doing X."

But if it needs fixing, isn't it broken?

No. The argument isn't "the rule isn't broken because you can fix it with X", it's "the rule isn't broken because the tradeoff between simplicity and realism is a net gain", followed by "AND if you don't agree that the tradeoff is a net gain, there is an easy fix for you."

 

[Geron Raveneye]

1-1-1-1-1-1 is also perfectly valid.
Chess uses that symetrie for hundreds of years now, and nobody I know ever complained about a chess board beeing round. (Ok, in chess you actually do exploit that rule sometimes)

Chess? What's chess got to do with D&D? Chess doesn't assume a square is 5'x5', for one, or any size, actually. Chess has taken abstraction to extreme levels in order to faciliate a game that is only bothered about long-term strategic thinking on a simplified battlefield. Chess is not trying to describe a fictional reality on its board. Chess is about as far away from D&D as a whole as it can get.

The disconnect for a lot of people with the new movement rules is pretty simple...it impacts reality on a deeper level than "it's just for combat". A square is, by definition, 5'x5'. Moving either orthogonally or diagonally is, by definition, a move of one square. Which leaves us with either of these conclusions:

a) The diagonal of a 5'x5' square is equally 5' long.
or
b) The diagonal of a 5'x5' square is roughly 7' long, but a character can still traverse it in one movement step.

If the measuring used during combat is consistent with how distances and geometry works in non-combat situations, it paints a very skewed picture of the campaign world behind it, because either geometry is TOTALLY alien to ours, or movement speed depends on the direction a person moves in relation to some sort of grid underlying the world. If this kind of measuring only comes up during combat, the world undergoes a reality shift every time a group of adventurers goes into combat mode, either locally or globally. Either way, it's a lot more than some simple handwaving can explain away for a lot of people here (and personally, I know quite a few players who'll have a snark fest about this rule when they get told of it).

And if all rooms are aligned so their walls run orthogonally to the grid, no matter how they are aligned towards each other, I'd LOVE to see the border squares in the grid along the line where the angle suddenly changes from one room to the next when you look at it on a bigger map.

Or we could simply throw consistency out of the window...it's just a silly RPG after all, nobody cares about those details anyway, right?

 

[BryonD]

Is the fact that characters do not appear to exude bodily fluids also critical to your ability to roleplay a character in a D&D game?

I find it enlightening that you see this as analogous.

 

[BryonD]

No. The argument isn't "the rule isn't broken because you can fix it with X", it's "the rule isn't broken because the tradeoff between simplicity and realism is a net gain", followed by "AND if you don't agree that the tradeoff is a net gain, there is an easy fix for you."

So you are endorsing the position that anyone who rejects the claim that this trade is a net gain should avoid 4E?

 

[hong]

I find it enlightening that you see this as analogous.

Well, personally, I find the fact that characters do not exude bodily fluids to be absolutely critical to my ability to pretend to be an elf. Because bodily fluids would mess up my perfect hair, you know.