Provide an example of when FLUFF overrided > Crunch

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

It went (paraphrasing), DM: "The ogre hits you for ... roll, roll, roll ... X damage. Heh, that's kind of a lot. Are you even still standing?"

Me: "Yep. Jonath's pretty tough."

DM: "Oh. You sure? Okay, well, uh, the hit was so strong it knocks you flying from your feet, across the room. Oh - you hit this wall over here, 30' away, so that does ... roll, roll, roll ... Y damage."

Me: "That knocks me out."

DM: "Okay, you slump to the ground, out of the fight. So-and-so, your turn."

What you describe here is a bad GM, one who singled out a character. Your original post did not make this clear (at least to me ). I'd not be playing under this GM. There's a difference with changing the Ogre to have a knockback prior to combat and adding it in response to not knocking out a PC.

I advocate looking at an encounter and adding mechanics to support the fluff prior to the session. Not changing the encounter during the fight to spite a PC.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Would your opinion of fluff trumping crunch improve if it had been a more reasonable improvisation (such as moving your character adjacent to the wall) without taking you out of the rest of the combat?

Not really; on the other hand, if on my turn I'd used Acrobatics to tumble out of the reach of the ogre, then "The ogre's club hits you and sends you flying, but you manage to adjust and land on your feet" would be a cool example of crunch informing the fluff.

In short, I determine what the mechanics tell me should happen, and then construct the fluff to follow that. I don't like deciding "what happens" and then trying to force the mechanics to make it happen.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

I have. I don't like it, and I don't run my games that way.

You've cherry picked a lot of comments from my posts. I want to point out something you may have overlooked.

By agreeing to play in the DM's game, you've ceded to him the vast majority of Narrative Control. If he's smart and capable, he'll trying to create an experience that everyone at the table enjoys (that includes the players and the GM). Having his monsters auto hit probably isn't a good change. If he abuses his Narrative Control, he'll find himself without players in short order.

A GM who abuses the power the players have given him isn't going to be GMing very long. Because you can doesn't mean you should.

A GM must get to know what his players like and don't like. You aren't running a game for yourself, you are running a game for everyone at the table.

A GM who clings to every rule may find them to be an anchor. The game was written by humans, there's a good chance they didn't get everything right.

 

[Niccodaemus]

Really

In times like this, I'm reminded of the first two rules in the 7th Sea Game Master's Guide.

Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Cheat anyway.

The DM is more then a calculator. The DM shouldn't be a computer program mindlessly following the rules. The DM should ignore, break, bend, change, and make up the rules as needed to present the game.

The DM modified the Ogre based on the fluff. Good for him, that's good DMing. He took a look at a monster and said, how can I add something to it. If I was DMing this game, and you or another player asked for a saving throw to land gracefully against the wall, I'd have allowed it. It's just as appropriate as the Orge's mighty smash.

You are correct in saying that you can't narrate the ogre's actions based on your character's description. The DM can. The DM can ban spells, feats, classes, items, monsters, or races all for fluff or mechanical reasons. The DM doesn't need to roll an attack role to hit you. The DM gets to judge how spells work or don't work (check out the great Orca Wall example earlier).

By agreeing to play in the DM's game, you've ceded to him the vast majority of Narrative Control. If he's smart and capable, he'll trying to create an experience that everyone at the table enjoys (that includes the players and the GM). Having his monsters auto hit probably isn't a good change. If he abuses his Narrative Control, he'll find himself without players in short order.

Finally, how do you know the Ogre didn't have a mighty smash ability that knocked targets back? Is there some sort of player review of the monsters before the game session (like a peer review of a scientic paper perhaps )?



Who knows, you might enjoy my DMing style. Have you tried it?

I'm digging your style, both as DM and player.

I think all DMs run games the way they would like a game to be run if they were playing. I started a 7 page post over at Dragon's foot defending what people call "railroading". Here's part of one of my posts:

I don't believe such fudging is cheating. I don't believe there is such a things as cheating in D&D. There is either play style you like, or play style you don't. Even if a player fudges dice rolls in the creation of his character... damn... if he wants his character to have high stats that bad... go for it. "Just once I want to play a fighter with 18/00 strength!

Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Cheat anyway.

Indeed

 

[prosfilaes]

The DM modified the Ogre based on the fluff. Good for him, that's good DMing. He took a look at a monster and said, how can I add something to it.

And what he added to it was overpowered, and took a PC out of the game and made that player very unhappy.

I don't want to play in a game where the monsters get to do all sorts of cool things and the PCs don't. Are you really comfortable letting PCs do mighty blows whenever they think it's cool?

As for the type of game that plays free and loose with the rules, Prime Time Adventures can do it. Maybe 7th Sea can do it. But D&D, where characters are built around a pile of feats and abilities that depend on precise rules to work right, like AoOs and flanking? Why did I waste my time building a character with a detailed set of miniatures rules if you're going to throw it out the window?

If he abuses his Narrative Control, he'll find himself without players in short order.

But the whole complaint was that he was abusing his narrative control, so what is the definition of narrative control abuse?

 

[S'mon]

In one game I was playing, as a swashbuckling rogue-fighter, the DM decided that when an ogre hit me with its club for a substantial, but non-lethal, portion of my hit points, that meant that I got flung across the room and into the wall on the other side.

The damage from hitting the wall was enough to knock me unconscious, so I got to sit out the rest of the combat.

So, yeah, not a huge fan of "fluff over crunch."

[EDIT: To be clear:

Crunch: My character took XXhp of damage. This reduced him from A/B hitpoints to (A-XX)/B hitpoints, but otherwise had no mechanical effect.

Fluff: My character totally just got golf-clubbed by a giant! That obviously means you go flying through the air.]

In an abtract combat-game like 1e AD&D, it would be good DMing to describe the effect of being hit by an ogre for a big chunk of your hp as being sent flying through the air. But hitting a wall should not do additional damage, not unless the wall has spikes on it or something - a d6 damage is for falling 10' or being stabbed by a shortsword, hitting a wall at speed might wind you but should be non-lethal. And with the 1e 1-minute combat round there is plenty of time for the PC to recover and get up again for next round.

Only in rare cases should the fluff have a deleterious mechanical effect - say the PC is on a narrow ledge, the 1e ogre might knock you off it by the power of fluff (but save vs PPD to catch the ledge). I prefer how 4e lets this kind of thing be coded into monster & PC mechanics, though.

 

[S'mon]

Sort of fits the OP -- in the 2e Complete Book of Elves there was an off-hand blurb that if non-elves heard elvish funeral songs their hearts would burst of sorrow and they would die.

God that is appalling. Does the US still have capital punishment for games designers?

 

[S'mon]

I don't believe such fudging is cheating. I don't believe there is such a things as cheating in D&D. There is either play style you like, or play style you don't. Even if a player fudges dice rolls in the creation of his character... damn... if he wants his character to have high stats that bad... go for it. "Just once I want to play a fighter with 18/00 strength!

Rule #1: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Cheat anyway.

Indeed

Fine if the other players & the DM agree; otherwise you're a cheating ******* who deserves to be kicked out of the game.

 

[steeldragons]

In an abstract combat-game like 1e AD&D, it would be good DMing to describe the effect of being hit by an ogre for a big chunk of your hp as being sent flying through the air. But hitting a wall should not do additional damage, not unless the wall has spikes on it or something - a d6 damage is for falling 10' or being stabbed by a shortsword, hitting a wall at speed might wind you but should be non-lethal. And with the 1e 1-minute combat round there is plenty of time for the PC to recover and get up again for next round.

I think this pretty much sums up my take on this particular case of "Fluff v. Crunch."

I would (and have) had PC's be "thrown/flung/tossed" by attacks by larger foes, especially one that make attacks with clubs or wide swipes of their limbs or weapons, ogres and trolls usually. On the flipped/fluff side, I would/have allowed PCs with, say, Gauntlets of Ogre Power to throw/fling/toss smaller/lighter opponents, as well.)

It seems the complaint here should not be against the "fluff" of being flung away, but the a "crunch" of the additional damage for slamming into the wall. I would say that is where the "bad DMing" call was made.

I would not have enforced additional damage. You take the damage of the attack from the monster. If you/the DM liked, the damage of the attack could be narratively interpreted as the strike itself and, say a HP or 2 of it might be the landing/slamming into a wall. But, not extra/new damage!...unless you're flying off of a ledge or the monster is purposely knocking you into a pit or something like that (then falling damage would be appropriate...likely I would allow a Dex check or Acrobatics/tumbling or something to "catch" yourself before going over the edge).

I haven't had players complain about this kind of fluff from me. Perhaps because I assume they can get up and back in the fight the following round (if not their very next turn if it is the same round).

I'll also point out, that sometimes PCs are more than happy to be "backed away" from the threat a bit to reassess the battle/renew their assault as opposed to being flat on their face directly in front of the creature to receive another immediate attack (assuming the monster has one).

In the example of given, if your character were known to have/use tumbling skills, I definitely would have either "fluffed" it that you do some kind of cool flip or landing roll or "hit the wall with your legs and push/flip yourself off the wall into a crouching weapon-ready stance, a la Spiderman" to arrive on your feet.

If I was feeling "crunchy" or the situation was particularly difficult (i.e. the above detail of trying to knock you into a pit) perhaps I would require a roll to pull off the maneuver. But if acrobatics/tumbling were one of your strong suits/oft used tactics, I would be inclined to simply fluff it that you landed ok and could easily get back into the melee if you so desired.

Unfortunately, I wasn't your DM.

So yeah, seems the proper complaint here is against the crunch (of additional damage against the wall), not the fluff (being flung by the ogre's attack).

That's all I've got...out of my first cup of coffee.
As always, have fun and happy fluffing...no...wait...

EDIT: And to the original purpose of the post, it might be obvious from my explanation of the above but in case it isn't, I interpret "fluff" over/beyond "crunch" often. Not "instead of" or blatant disregard of the crunch, but enhancing the scene beyond the "you rolled X. You hit. roll. Y damage. NEXT PC/roll!" (that sort of game bores me to no end very quickly) But the PCs, in my games at least, are supposed to be the heroes so I pretty much make sure whatever fluff I use isn't going to put them at a disadvantage in cases where the crunch/mechanics would provide otherwise. I.e. my players' PCs get to do/exhibit all kinds of "cool" things/scenes fluff-wise, so when the fluff comes from their adversary's side, they don't really have cause to complain. It's all in the interest of making a "better"/more fun/more exciting/cinematic/"however you want to define it" experience for the table. A strictly "RAW"/mechanics/crunch are the end-all-be-all is not that kind of experience for me or the people I enjoy playing with.
--Steel Dragons

 

[jasper]

To get back on topic.
3E I think Sunless or Forge of Fury. The players were have a bad night on the rolls. A bear has killed 2 pcs and knocked out 2 more before it die. The cleric was down. So one of players with a dead pc makes a God call and rolls under 5%. Wishes that pcs were raised etc. Problem different alignments, difference gawds mythos, etc. My solution. Grow the elfs ears till they look Elf quest ears. You know take Spock's ear and super size them 3 times.
1 e. Using Critial Hits and Misses chart. Pc destorys the giants/orge? club. Next round the giant crits the hobbit. Then uses it as club. I ruled 1d6 on target. And 1d4 on the hobbit.