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

[Crimson Longinus]

@DND_Reborn Yeah, the current 5e creature spaces are rather small. Though for creatures with reach I'm fine with imagining their extremities hanging out of their squares quite a bit, so I can see T-Rex in a 15 feet square. (The body from the hip to the collarbone roughly fits in that space, but it indeed is pretty cramped.)

 

[Baron Opal II]

As an aside:

For reference (Tyrannosaurus | T-Rex Dimensions & Drawings | Dimensions.com):

View attachment 252004

I would definitely say this would fall through the roof of a modern house, let alone a cottage's.

 

[Oofta]

I wasn't aware you and I were disagreeing...


I never made one...


And yet this we agree on (I think)...



For example, if you shove a creature, knocking it prone, we know it is prone and you caused it. But the how you accomplished this is completely narrative.

Did you grab it and use your foot to trip it? Did you put both hands on it and just push it over? Since 5E's "shove" doesn't differentiate between a shove and a trip or do some sort of hip toss, we just don't know. So, this is the narrative provided by the player and/or DM as to the "how" is accomplished.

Was the attempt easy for you? Difficult? Again, we have no way of knowing this from the simple contested roll involved. Now, you could use a system where the closer the contested roll, the harder it was, but unless that also carries some impact there is little point in doing it so (in general) it isn't done. This is the matter of scale, you mention. It could be done, but what would the point be other than determining one aspect of the narrative--the difficulty. (Even with that, you still have to decide how granular you want it to be...).

Personally, I don't have any issue with this. The systems in 5E generate a very general and vague simulation in most cases, and the narratives fill in the details when needed or desired.

Apologies for reading/responding before caffeine.

So I think we agree. I think D&D has both simulationist aspects and narrative aspects. But I also think it's rather artificial to get too picky about what aspect is what. If it makes sense, the game tries to mimic reality in ways that I would call simulation. Gravity, barring magic or unique location, is assumed. In other aspects it relies on narration because it's just not worth having rules for all the details. In other aspects like initiative order things are simply game constructs because simplifies thing. Various areas bleed into one another and get tweaked to create a unique version of fiction.

 

[Blue]

Referring to first level, since we're talking D&D. At no time do I expect D&D PCs to remain wholly within typical mortal parameters throughout their adventuring carrier.

This comes across completely as a backpedal from our conversations, whihc were earlier in the thread than the post you called out. There was no point in any of our previous discussion was there any mention of that applying only to first level - the caveats were things like "Olympic training" and such.

And I gave examples like jumping down 40' and continuing to fight that would not have been possible at 1st level so there was ample opportunity to call out.

I can't tell if your position has shifted during this discussion - which is a good sign since an open mind can take in new information and reevaluate previous positions, or if this has been your position the entire time and you were just a poor communicator about it and read with low comprehension when I gave back examples that didn't apply to first level characters to call it out. I'd prefer to think you have an open mind.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I would definitely say this would fall through the roof of a modern house, let alone a cottage's.

You'd be surprised how much modern houses can hold, especially with supports every 12-16"!

I think a lot would depend on the size of the house. A 2000-sq ft could support about 40,000 (or even more!), but that is over its entire surface, and of course the weight of the T-Rex would be focused on its feet. I would imagine it falling through on its footfalls, but its bulk would probably be supported.

Regardless, I am sure if such a creature thrashed around on top of the roof, trying to free its feet/legs, it would break the supports and probably fall through eventually.

 

[Oofta]

I've provided pretty clear evidence about why you can't call these mechanics a simulation. So, no, that's not true.

By your definition. Not by most people's as far as I know. You certainly can't tell me what I think the word simulation means.

So what? I don't need to know how gravity works in order to simulate the effects of gravity. Your own example SHOWS that you can simulate the effects of gravity and that simulation is not a black box at all. We can use the simulation quite effectively to demonstrate how gravity works. If I wanted to, for example, demonstrate what happens when a satellite is deorbited around a planet, this would work perfectly well.

It's a pretty limited and imprecise version though. It doesn't take into account the affects frame dragging or time dilation for example. If I try to climb a cliff I either succeed or I don't. Whether I do is a combination of skill, the cliff I'm trying to climb, whether that rock I'm using for support just happens to break free at that moment after eons of weathering or not.

"How it works" is something you're adding in, not a criteria I've ever even suggested. What I have suggested is that for mechanics to actually be simulationist, they actually have to simulate something. They can't be black boxes. A black box that only spits out results isn't a simulation.

We're simulating a world and PC's interactions with it. Many things in simulations have black boxes that oversimplify aspects that the simulation isn't trying to simulate.

But, these aspects DON'T MIMIC REALITY. If it's a black box, and you seem to be agreeing that it is, then it's not mimicking reality. You can keep harping on this idea of "academic definition" all you like, but, it's not really helping your argument. I'm using the basic definition of simulation. The character standing at the bottom of the hill ---->cloud of completely unknowable probabilities---->character is at the top of the hill is NOT a simulation.

Most simulations do not directly simulate every aspect of what's happening. Black boxes and assumptions for things we don't understand are used constantly. If we simulate gravity at a large scale we throw in numbers that just happen to make the rest of the equations work. We have no idea where those numbers come from or whether the theoretical underpinnings are correct or accurate. Dark matter, dark energy? Black boxes we created so that the overall visual result of how the cosmos behaves work. By your definition most astronomical simulations are not really simulations because they don't mimic reality, they just get close enough.

D&D is not a cliff climbing simulation. It's a rough simulation of the real world + action movie logic + magic.

 

[Baron Opal II]

This comes across completely as a backpedal from our conversations, whihc were earlier in the thread than the post you called out. There was no point in any of our previous discussion was there any mention of that applying only to first level - the caveats were things like "Olympic training" and such.

True, it was an omission on my part. I am a bit surprised that you would assume an unchanging standard as levels increase, but, hey, so it goes. Missed cues abounded.

I can't tell if your position has shifted during this discussion - which is a good sign since an open mind can take in new information and reevaluate previous positions, or if this has been your position the entire time and you were just a poor communicator about it and read with low comprehension when I gave back examples that didn't apply to first level characters to call it out. I'd prefer to think you have an open mind.

I'm sorry to disappoint you. Yesterday was ungodly busy for me- I was unable to give your thoughts the proper focus. I feel I have vexed Ovinomancer as well.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@DND_Reborn Yeah, the current 5e creature spaces are rather small. Though for creatures with reach I'm fine with imagining their extremities hanging out of their squares quite a bit, so I can see T-Rex in a 15 feet square. (The body from the hip to the collarbone roughly fits in that space, but it indeed is pretty cramped.)

You're taking this both ways. You're limiting dragon size to whatever grid space it's been assigned (in 5e only, even) and arguing that they cannot actually be bigger than this because that's how big the game says they are. But a T-Rex is a problem because we know how big they are and the game has them in a small space than you think is appropriate, so now the game is not a good source of information.

Consistency here would demand arguing that T-Rexes are only as big as the game says they are.

 

[Oofta]

You're taking this both ways. You're limiting dragon size to whatever grid space it's been assigned (in 5e only, even) and arguing that they cannot actually be bigger than this because that's how big the game says they are. But a T-Rex is a problem because we know how big they are and the game has them in a small space than you think is appropriate, so now the game is not a good source of information.

Consistency here would demand arguing that T-Rexes are only as big as the game says they are.

Look at this picture of a T-Rex (with curious cat for scale) that I just painted.

The base, the area that the dino occupies on a mat is smaller than the actual critter. You can look at it and say "Obviously a T-Rex is bigger than huge." Or you can look at and say that the area it's standing is huge, and it's the space that the feet occupy, the room it needs to stand on and maneuver, is what makes it huge.

I think either way of looking at it is fine and don't have a problem with the latter. The reach exceeds the space it occupies by 10 feet which makes sense based on the mini.

P.S. No cats, or minis, were harmed in the production of this photo, although I did put the mini back safely behind glass before posting.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You're taking this both ways. You're limiting dragon size to whatever grid space it's been assigned (in 5e only, even) and arguing that they cannot actually be bigger than this because that's how big the game says they are. But a T-Rex is a problem because we know how big they are and the game has them in a small space than you think is appropriate, so now the game is not a good source of information.

Consistency here would demand arguing that T-Rexes are only as big as the game says they are.

I feel I've been pretty consistent about this:

It is true that gargantuan says 20 by 20 ft. or larger, but considering that the previous age category fits in 15 by 15 square (though I'd assume the tail and neck might overhang a bit to explain the reach) it would be weird if the next category actually was several magnitudes larger. Yes in art sometimes there are absurdly big dragons, but the rules really don't reflect those. So yeah, I'd assume that the body of the basic MM gargantuan dragon roughly fits in the 20 by 20 square.

I said the exact same thing about dragons than I said about the T-rex, only the body needs to fit in the square, neck and tail can overhang, and it makes sense as the creature has reach.