Celebrim
Legend
I didn't conflate anything. There are plenty of debilitating conditions available in D&D that being burned could inflict on a person which being burned notably do not inflict. If we really wanted fire to be debilitating or scary in a primal way, there are mechanics we could avail ourselves of to accomplish that. But D&D doesn't simulate real fire per se. D&D simulates 'Hollywood fire', because D&D has never been much about debilitating PC's to the point that they fear to take on heroic challenges - as you note yourself infection, lingering pain, ongoing blood loss, shock, trauma, maiming wounds and so forth aren't generally and regularly part of D&D. So D&D fire acts far more like the sort of fire seen in say 'The Incredibles', where the superheroes are standing around in this burning building uncomfortable and perhaps worried about the consequences of not escaping, but not actually seriously inconvenienced by the fire around them. And I would argue that this is at least partially a conscious decision on the part of the designers, and that the sort of choices that this provokes in players are the sort of choices that are intended and are appropriate for the constructed reality.
You are applying your real world understanding and knowledge to something not justified by the rules. The rules are quite explicit about when pain rises above a threshold when it must be recorded and a condition must be applied. There is no reason to think fire is not painful in D&D (it after all is damaging), but the pain involved is not great enough that heroes cannot 'tough it out' and ignore it.
I have no intention of arguing one, but I don't think you understand my position. (For the record, I'm in the camp that says all hit point loss is associated with at least some physical injury.)
No, that's illogical. Something had to teach the players that or they'd never expect it. There was always a first time when it worked. That first time wasn't motivated by assumptions about what would take place necessarily. The expectation that there is a metagame where the GM uses kid gloves on you has to be built up over time.
This is the reason I tell my experienced players to never try to metagame me. First, I'm more experienced than them and if they try to metagame me by reading things I don't intend to put into my performance of an NPC or reading my facial expressions when reacting to their theories, I'll consciously start using false gestures in defense of the game world. And secondly, because my metagame is likely wildly different than their expectations and if they are guessing based on anything other than what is explicitly in the game world they are going to miss what's important. So for example, if there is a dungeon near the town where there is said to be fabulous treasure, but no one who has ever gone to the dungeon has ever returned - this is probably not a suggestion to go to the dungeon. Since my world is verisimilitude of real, the assumption is that everything has a history and the PC's are no more special than any other heroes. You are not the first party of adventures to come along in the past 1000 years. Unless you really are the most powerful heroes to come in the area in last 1000 years, guess what - that dungeon is probably filled with encounters well above the parties current level and you'll die horribly and in totally unfair ways. Don't say you weren't warned, because I tried to warn you and you were so busy assuming that it was all color of danger you didn't consider the possibility that in a quasi-realistic world there isn't any color of danger unless there is seriously real danger. For crying out loud, "Look at the bones!"
