Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8673489" data-attributes="member: 6696971">The issue I have with your take BO 2 and why I agree with Ovinomancer and chaochou is the convergence of the following:1) All we have to do to play the game is agree about what is required to facilitate functional and rewarding execution of the play of the game itself and design that in. Full stop and nothing more.2) However, there is a very assertive and uncompromising contingent of the D&D userbase that mandates (a) we need more than (1) above and that is (b) that their sense of D&D tropes and immersion requirements always and ever converge.3) And what does that italicized text above entail? Exactly what Ovinomancer spoke about (and chaochou and myself earlier). And…with respect…what they demand makes no sense…none whatsoever. It’s this giant elephant in the room for decades now (accelerating during the 4e era).4) So we collectively privilege their conception of D&D martial tropes…despite their conception being profoundly internally inconsistent (the only way you’re physically clashing in melee with these mythical creatures is if you significantly exceed even tail-of-the-distribution human athletic profile…and that scales with the size and athletic profile of the creature being tangled with!)!5) Finally, we circle back to (1) with the italicized of (2) and then on through (4) does is it creates a paradigm of play that progressively and deeply challenges (1) (the demands of functional play) because it is wholly responsible for the Fighters vs Wizards problem that haunts D&D…and that requires a GM to assume a huge amount of cognitive load in a game with a well-played spellcaster (particularly as the levels pile on); play rock/paper/scissors and an NPC/setting arms race with spellcasters and initiate all kinds of truly obnoxious (I say this as a long term GM who wants no part of this) blocks to rein in spellcasters and allow Fighters to contribute at all and allow functional party play to persist without the Wizard routinely dominating the Adventuring Day.So part of this is the ridiculous OP nature of Wizards (for instance, this paradigm doesn’t exist in Dungeon World and Torchbearer and 4e where Wizards are hugely throttled back and Fighters are relatively elevated). But a huge part of it is the internal causality issue described above…which weirdly privileges “immersionists” or “gritty realism” advocates despite the reality that toggling the Fighter's athletic profile to "superhero" so they can meet the titanic demands of clashing with mythical beasts while in combat (then toggling them back to earth-human baseline when out if combat)…so that “immersionists” and “gritty realists” can retain verisimilitude…should be…well definitionally self-defeating.It both creates dysfunctional play (because of the impacts on (1); overpowered wizards and underpowered Fighters creates increasing dysfunction and cognitive load for GMs as levels pile on…AND if you care about immersion born of internal causality consistency, it should be a problem there too!) while simultaneously making no damn sense! It’s a double whammy!And yes, this intersects directly with and deeply matters to the question of “simulate things; what, why, and how?”</blockquote>

Verification