"Oddities" in fantasy settings - the case against "consistency"

[Bedrockgames]

Well, at least in 5e it is trivially easy to make a fighter who is good at pick pocketing.

Certainly this is going to vary tremendously by edition and system. My point is just character creation usually leads to these kinds of limitations unless the system is extensively engineered.

As for the person who can only cast fireball and nothing else, I'd say that's like wanting to know calculus without knowing arithmetic; it's just not how that stuff works. Now magic being fiction, we of course can decide how it works, but personally I prefer if the rules and fiction are aligned. If every bloody PC class learns their spells level by level, having to go through lower ones first, then I kinda want to have the setting metaphysics to reflect that.

But this is your rationale. We can come up with any rationale we want here. If we took it to fighting, you don't generally learn a kick like spinning hook kick until you have mastered front kick, round house kick, back kick, etc. But I have no doubt I could teach my niece of nephew to just perform a spinning hook kick. Same goes for music even, which I think is probably little closer to vancian magic. It would be hard for me to just teach you stairway to heaven and no other songs along the way. But it could be done. I could even teach it to you, without teaching you any of the chords. You would be playing the chords as they are performed in the song, but I wouldn't necessarily have to have you know what chords you are playing and how to play them in different places on the guitar neck.

We don't know the exact ground level details of spell casting, and again these do vary buy edition, but I don't see why one must learn 1st level spells just to learn a third level one. Those limits are obviously based on power and balance considerations. You see this all the time in fantasy stories where someone who isn't particularly adept learns one powerful spell. Sure there may be principles she must learn to cast that third level spell, but that doesn't mean she needs to be a 5th level wizard with all that entails.

Ultimately this is subjective, but I think it is a heck of a lot more believable that a GM has the ability to say "this character was taught fireball by her protective but largely absent father" and still make her a zero level nobody. I may want to throw in something to reflect her poor command of spell casting overall (a chance of failure perhaps). But I think that matches what is going on in the setting with that character more than walking her through five levels of mage.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also, since we've been in the internet era for a quarter-century plus now, it's easy to forget that most of our ideas couldn't be analyzed and dissected by hundreds of people in a few days simply by posting or blogging about them somewhere. Unexamined assumptions, especially on more niche topics, just tended to persist for much longer periods of time.

Yes but at the same time sophistry does have a tendency to dominate a lot of online discussions. I mean I disagree with some posters here like @Crimson Longinus on this particular issue. I don't think that means he is wrong to think the way he does about the topic or that his approach is unworkable. It clearly works for him. Something I don't like about the internet is it leads to a kind of "smart stupidity" in online communities (and to be clear not suggesting anyone here is stupid).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

We don't know the exact ground level details of spell casting, and again these do vary buy edition, but I don't see why one must learn 1st level spells just to learn a third level one. Those limits are obviously based on power and balance considerations. You see this all the time in fantasy stories where someone who isn't particularly adept learns one powerful spell. Sure there may be principles she must learn to cast that third level spell, but that doesn't mean she needs to be a 5th level wizard with all that entails.

Ultimately this is subjective, but I think it is a heck of a lot more believable that a GM has the ability to say "this character was taught fireball by her protective but largely absent father" and still make her a zero level nobody. I may want to throw in something to reflect her poor command of spell casting overall (a chance of failure perhaps). But I think that matches what is going on in the setting with that character more than walking her through five levels of mage.

Like I said, it is fiction, so you can have it work however you like. I just feel that if in the fiction a random peasant can learn to cast fireball without any other magical training, then this should also be a thing that is available to PCs. As a feat or something. Like we are not even talking about some super unique individual with unlikely and rare to be repeated backstory, it is just that they were taught the thing and learned it. I think basic character creation should be able to handle such common thing in the setting, and if it can't, why the hell we are using it for this setting, where such things are possible?

Like I have in my setting basically commoners that can do some magic. What they effectively have is magic initiate feat. Sure, it is just some cantrips and a first level spell, but still a cool thing when most people cannot do magic at all. Any more magic requires tapping on some of the defined metaphysical sources of magic, which means taking a caster class or something close to it. (This is broad stokes stuff for me, I don't worry about every bonus or feature.) And yes, this is me intentionally writing fiction that aligns with the rules. I do this because I want them to be directly connected. If the rule doesn't fit the fiction I want, then I change the rule. But I don't want the fiction and the rules to become unmoored from each other.

 

[TwoSix]

Like I said, it is fiction, so you can have it work however you like. I just feel that if in the fiction a random peasant can learn to cast fireball without any other magical training, then this should also be a thing that is available to PCs. As a feat or something. Like we are not even talking about some super unique individual with unlikely and rarely to be repeatable backstory, it is just that they were taught the thing and learned it. I think basic character creation should be able to handle such common thing in the setting, and if it can't, why the hell we are using it for this setting, where such things are possible?

Probably the biggest difference I have is the ability to cast fireball at a low level (maybe not 1st, but earlier than 5th and doesn't require a caster class) IS available to the PCs. But like most abilities that are actually available, I'm simply not codifying them in a list that's presented to the players. The players have to come up with a concept ("I want to be a peasant farmer that learned how to cast fireball at a young age") and then we'll work together to build that character, with the appropriate tradeoffs.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Like I said, it is fiction, so you can have it work however you like. I just feel that if in the fiction a random peasant can learn to cast fireball without any other magical training, then this should also be a thing that is available to PCs. As a feat or something. Like we are not even talking about some super unique individual with unlikely and rarely to be repeatable backstory, it is just that they were taught the thing and learned it. I think basic character creation should be able to handle such common thing in the setting, and if it can't, why the hell we are using it for this setting, where such things are possible?

Because character creation and leveling mechanics aren't about, or need not be about, simulating all possibilities in a setting. A character with fireball who isn't fifth level may well be perfectly in keeping with a setting, something the GM ought to be allowed to have happen, but it could also be something that would be overpowering for a player character to be able to do. There are tons of things that will be possible in a setting I am not going to want to make part of basic character creation, no?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Because character creation and leveling mechanics aren't about, or need not be about, simulating all possibilities in a setting. A character with fireball who isn't fifth level may well be perfectly in keeping with a setting, something the GM ought to be allowed to have happen, but it could also be something that would be overpowering for a player character to be able to do. There are tons of things that will be possible in a setting I am not going to want to make part of basic character creation, no?

I'm glad you qualified that, because that first statement is very D&D-centric view. I know of more than one game where its entirely possible to simulate all possibilities with character generation and advancement, though it maybe impractical because of magnitude of cost to do some of them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm glad you qualified that, because that first statement is very D&D-centric view. I know of more than one game where its entirely possible to simulate all possibilities with character generation and advancement, though it maybe impractical because of magnitude of cost to do some of them.

It is challenging because we are speaking generally but 5E and D&D are specifically being used as examples. I think it may be useful when people aren't clear whether a person is talking just about D&D or broadly about all RPGs, to ask what their intended meaning is (my impression in this thread is most people have experience running and playing different kinds of games).

Yes, I would say there are games that are more engineered to cover every possibility, but I have yet to play a game that feels like it does so in an exhaustive way (there always seems to be something the system doesn't account for). Also just as personal taste, when you get to a certain level of detail here, a game starts to lose my interest.

 

[Faolyn]

Which does exactly what you say below that you don't want: denies the player of the nasty Fighter the ability to play that character.

RPGs are group games. They're cooperative. Having a player decide their character is going to attack, steal from, or otherwise harm the other members of the group goes against the very nature of the game because they are not being cooperative.

This is not a character issue. This is a player issue. The player needs to be part of the group. That doesn't mean being slavishly devoted to the rest of the PCs, but it does mean being trustworthy.

Well. I admit I'm making an assumption here, that you all are gaming all as a smallish group of 4-6 players plus a GM. If you're in some sort of West Marches thing where there's like twenty players who all drop in and out of the game whenever they want and are only working together in the sense that you happen to be at the table at that moment, then that's a different thing. I still wouldn't work with that fighter, because I couldn't trust him.

Depending on the situation, letting her go might be the cruelest option of all: she'll be on her own in dangerous country.

Wow, that's a disturbing take on the situation. I'm pretty sure that most orcs, even "rabid monster" orcs, would be much better off, much happier, being free in dangerous country than a slave. This is bordering on the "we have to forcibly educate the savages so they can be part of civilized society because we know better than they do" colonial BS that has plagued so much of real history.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if orcs captured your characters and kept you as charmed slaves "for your own good, because it's dangerous out there," you'd hate it and do everything you could do to break the charm.

The current party I'm running has gone through 5 Orcs this adventure.

And this is the most disturbing line of all. "Gone through."

Nah - I'm very much a let-'em-fight DM, as long as it stays in character.

Which means that they're disrupting the rest of the group and quite likely wasting everyone's time.

Forcing a game character to act against its will and forcing someone at the table to act against theirs are not the same thing; assuming a healthy level of detachment between player and character emotions.

And here you don't realize that probably most players have some attachment to their characters--enough to care about them as characters rather than as disposable pawns. If I wanted to play a character I didn't care actually about, I'd play a video game.

 

[Faolyn]

Like I said, it is fiction, so you can have it work however you like. I just feel that if in the fiction a random peasant can learn to cast fireball without any other magical training, then this should also be a thing that is available to PCs. As a feat or something. Like we are not even talking about some super unique individual with unlikely and rarely to be repeatable backstory, it is just that they were taught the thing and learned it. I think basic character creation should be able to handle such common thing in the setting, and if it can't, why the hell we are using it for this setting, where such things are possible?

If it were me, and I really needed a peasant to be able to cast fireball, I'd probably just give them a discreet magic item. Reskin a wand of fireballs into a pair of beat up ol' work gloves.

Of course, here's we're talking about D&D. In SWADE, for instance, a peasant casting a fireball is easy-peasy--just take the Arcane Background (Gifted) Edge with Blast with the "fireball" trapping; standard-issue humans get a free edge and for anyone else, you just take Hindrances for the points. AFAICT, in most PbtA games, you'd just come up with the fiction of how the NPC is able to cast a fireball, and give them either an attack appropriate to the game or you give them a custom move.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It is challenging because we are speaking generally but 5E and D&D are specifically being used as examples. I think it may be useful when people aren't clear whether a person is talking just about D&D or broadly about all RPGs, to ask what their intended meaning is (my impression in this thread is most people have experience running and playing different kinds of games).

Yes, I would say there are games that are more engineered to cover every possibility, but I have yet to play a game that feels like it does so in an exhaustive way (there always seems to be something the system doesn't account for). Also just as personal taste, when you get to a certain level of detail here, a game starts to lose my interest.

But that's of course your take on it (and to be clear, you have a right to feel as you do). There's always going to be a variety of degrees of lumping/splitting people like or don't, but the point was, you don't have to have rules for NPCs and other entities be significantly different than PCs; that's a choice as a consequence of other priorities.

(And I'm fussy about the issue I brought up because its very, very common for people, especially here, to assume D&D assumptions even when a thread, as this one, is addressing general RPGs. That narrows the perspective a way I do not think is benign.)