D&D General On simulating things: what, why, and how?

[Crimson Longinus]

Ok, let's nip this in the bud shall we?

A 40 foot crocodile would weight in at 18000 pounds (just as a quick Google Search, I'm sure there's quibble room here). Now, I'm going to put a lone armored man in an arena with a sword and shield and then plunk down Mr. Crocodile.

Who do you put money on? Even if that man somehow managed to kill the crocodile, he'd most likely be maimed forever. Loss of limb(s) at a minimum. Now, a 40 foot crocodile is about the size of a wyvern. Not a full dragon, just a wyvern. A fairly dangerous mid range monster that the PC's routinely kill.

That seems off. Wyvern is not even huge. It is large. It is smaller than an elephant by far.

The idea that you could routinely kill 9 ton flying crocodiles with a sword without any sort of magic or fantastic elements is a bad joke. Never minding an actual dragon.

And, even if our knight DID manage to kill that dragon with a sword, let's see him or her do it again. And do it a third time. Because, well, in a high level campaign, facing three dragons isn't unheard of. Or, even better, two at a time - something that does happen in 1e modules. There are encounters with multiple dragons in high level 1e modules (and not just Dragonlance). And the party is meant to win these encounters.

Dragons absolutely ARE super resilient compared to real world animals. An ancient red dragon clocks in at around 60 TONS. That's TWELVE mastadons in size, for comparison. Does your fighter kill 12 mastodons with a sword?

Dragons vary in size, but they tend not even be of the size of largest sauropods. And of course single characters usually don't kill them, groups of people equipped with state of the art (often magical) gear do. And, sure, doing so is an amazing heroic feat, and it seems pretty unlikely. But it doesn't seem impossible to me. It seems like a thing that could happen.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Another thing older editions handled better. You could only earn enough XP to level once then you were capped at another level -1. You had to stop and go back to town and train before you leveled and started earning XP again.

Training wasn't in the game initially; you'll find no reference to it in OD&D. The usual thing that prevented that was advancement was usually excruciatingly slow anyway.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So, like a talking dolphin?

If the talking dolphin had a magical death ray, then sure.

(Also, normal dolphins are talking dolphins. We just don't understand most of what they're saying.)

 

[niklinna]

Ok, let's nip this in the bud shall we?

A 40 foot crocodile would weight in at 18000 pounds (just as a quick Google Search, I'm sure there's quibble room here). Now, I'm going to put a lone armored man in an arena with a sword and shield and then plunk down Mr. Crocodile.

Who do you put money on? Even if that man somehow managed to kill the crocodile, he'd most likely be maimed forever. Loss of limb(s) at a minimum. Now, a 40 foot crocodile is about the size of a wyvern. Not a full dragon, just a wyvern. A fairly dangerous mid range monster that the PC's routinely kill.

The idea that you could routinely kill 9 ton flying crocodiles with a sword without any sort of magic or fantastic elements is a bad joke. Never minding an actual dragon.

And, even if our knight DID manage to kill that dragon with a sword, let's see him or her do it again. And do it a third time. Because, well, in a high level campaign, facing three dragons isn't unheard of. Or, even better, two at a time - something that does happen in 1e modules. There are encounters with multiple dragons in high level 1e modules (and not just Dragonlance). And the party is meant to win these encounters.

Dragons absolutely ARE super resilient compared to real world animals. An ancient red dragon clocks in at around 60 TONS. That's TWELVE mastadons in size, for comparison. Does your fighter kill 12 mastodons with a sword? A dragon isn't a T-Rex, it's several times the size of a T-Rex. An ancient red dragon is the size of a 737.

I guess my comment about a non-magical fighter at best being able to give a dragon a bad pedicure was pretty on the mark!

 

[Blue]

Again, this is so aggressive. Obviously I want the world to resemble the real one excepting those areas where it explicitly doesn't. I've managed to make it work for me more or less for the last 25 years or so. Apparently that's too much to ask, even of my own game.

Curious about that "Obviously I want the world to resemble the real one excepting those areas where it explicitly doesn't".

For me it's the opposite - I'd rather have a single emulation of a genre so that I have a consistant way to evaluate and view everything, instead of having two quite different yardsticks and times where it's not obvious which I should be using, and can perhaps switch between the two in the same action. "Well, can I jump 15' across the chasm? And if I fail and fall 30' what does that mean."

Reminds me of the movie "The Last Action Hero", where things have very different internal logic inside the movie and outside. I'd I know real world and I know high fantasy genre, but only one of them can cover everything in game. I personally would rather only one consistent way.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If the talking dolphin had a magical death ray, then sure.

(Also, normal dolphins are talking dolphins. We just don't understand most of what they're saying.)

Oh, so not talking dolphin. Maybe talking horse? Mr. Ed with laser eyes? Okay, I can see how you could stab Mr. Ed with a spear and he might die. But no one would stab a horse, of course. That is, unless, of course, the horse was a dragon? I dunno, didn't rhyme there at the end. I might still not be getting it.

 

[Reynard]

Well, I don’t know…maybe answer the actual question I asked instead of assuming I didn’t grasp what you said?

What would be a good reason to not simulate something in a game?

Maybe that will give us some frame of reference.

But I am not talking about what NOT to try and apply a sim mechanic to. I am explicitly talking about things that I personally do like having some sim elements to, and not saying anything about other people's preferences except insofar as people that think you CAN'T have sim elements in a fantasy game are just plain wrong.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That sounds about right to me. I hope I haven't fallen into some kind of hypocritical verbal trap be saying so, however.

NO ONE EXPECTS THE SIMULATION INQUISITION!!!

Our chief weapons are fear, surprise, and hypocritical verbal traps!

 

[Reynard]

Now, how does that apply to the game though? It's mostly "making stuff up" which is system agnostic.

So, how do changes in the level of simulation change anything? Since you're not actually engaging the game anyway to world build and going with maintaining what feels right for your group, then why does it matter what the mechanics are?

I have no idea what you issue is. I have not talked about 4E explicitly or implicitly, because I literally do not care about 4E one way or the other. I never really played it, and I don't have the first clue about how it did or did not handle the kinds of sim elements I am talking about.

And just to be clear, in case I am being too subtle: I am not talking about misty stepping eladrin or fire breathing dragons or skeletons walking around without muscles or heroic warriors surviving long falls. I am talking about having to freaking eat, sleep in a bed, maybe light a fire during the winter.

 

[Hussar]

That seems off. Wyvern is not even huge. It is large. It is smaller than an elephant by far.

Which would be an issue if I compared them in size to an elephant. I didn't. I compared them to a 9 ton crocodile, which is EXACTLY the size they are - 40 feet long.

Dragons vary in size, but they tend not even be of the size of largest sauropods. And of course single characters usually don't kill them, groups of people equipped with state of the art (often magical) gear do. And, sure, doing so is an amazing heroic feat, and it seems pretty unlikely. But it doesn't seem impossible to me. It seems like a thing that could happen.

And, here, you are again wrong. Gargatuan ranges in mass from 16-125 tons. I just took the middle range. Which makes them the size of the largest therapod.