D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Enrahim]

Why on earth not? I think the intent is that the individual is no longer relevant for that specific combat; it's not saying anything about afterwards or down the road e.g. an opponent that flees today might come back with some buddies tomorrow.

This is where we intepret differently. I think the intent really as to simulate storm troopers, hydra goons, Jackie chan punching bags, that is alloted a maximum of 5 second screen time to allow the hero to show off something cool before moving on to the real stuff. The hero never is seen interacting with them after having punched them in the face. Best case we see them in the next scene wearing a uniform they might have pilfered from someone.

Having a shot of the hero actually interacting with the defeated mook would break the trope, and elevate the character to much higher importance. Even giving the mook a line might suddently elevating it way beyond mook status. See for instance Admiral Motti.

(What would have happened to the perception of storm troopers if in a new hope we had actually gotten to see a storm trooper with their helmet off? Cutting the scene where the heroes changed clothing I would say was essential to preserve the storm troopers functionality in the movie)

So how to enforce the trope with rules? I really think this was the design imperative that caused the choice of the word "destroyed".

A creature killed can still give useful info - Speak With Dead for the win.

Yes? That is just another example of how "killed"/"defeated" is not strong enough to accomplish the desig ngoal described ref my example of harvesting parts? And honor among the thieves demonstrated how speak with dead could make a character important to enough to varant the character even significant trailer time - not really something matching the minion trope..

Again, Speak With Dead. Or, if they're really desperate, Revivify.

Speak with dead requires a head? This is normally not present on something destroyed. Was revivify a thing in 4ed? (We are currently nitpicking on a single word used in 4ed DM materials)

Well, same here; I'd not have designed minions in the first place. But what you say holds true for any mook-like foe, not just capital-m Minions.

Not really. 7th sea 2ed for instance has mainly mooks, but are going the exact opposite route. They make it extremely explicit that these are not killed, as heroes are not murderers. Rather they are rendered "helpless". That requires a higher degree of player buy-in to make them work properly as mooks, though.

Indeed most implementations I have seen of mooks seem to be treading a more agnostic middle ground with "defeated" or "taken out", which made me a bit surprised to see 4ed using "destroyed" hidden away in the glossary in the back.

 

[Enrahim]

I never had much of an issue with tripping cubes, for the same reason I don't have issues with tripping foes in zero g. It's about disorientation. I'll admit the mechanics aren't always perfect (and vary by game and/or edition), but the concept is functional enough for me.

Why do a disoriented cube get a +2 defence against ranged attacks?

 

[clearstream]

Except that dying is rules defined and you're somehow trying to argue that those definitions don't apply to "destroyed" mostly because that specific interpretation supports your argument. You are rejecting any other interpretation. In other words, you're playing semantic silly buggers in order to score points.

After all, "dying" is a game defined term. But, apparently, you somehow believe that minions are immortal beings that are without any biology because they can never "die" only be destroyed. By your interpretation, a minion orc never needs to eat (since you don't take damage from starvation - which means it cannot starve), drink (same) or breathe (same - suffocation doesn't destroy, it causes the target to die).

All because you insist on an idiosyncratic reading of the rules that is very clearly not supported by the intent of the rules.

Sounds like we're unlikely to reconcile our views on this: let's just agree to disagree.

 

[Lanefan]

This is where we intepret differently. I think the intent really as to simulate storm troopers, hydra goons, Jackie chan punching bags, that is alloted a maximum of 5 second screen time to allow the hero to show off something cool before moving on to the real stuff. The hero never is seen interacting with them after having punched them in the face. Best case we see them in the next scene wearing a uniform they might have pilfered from someone.

In a movie the mooks are ignored after they fall for reasons of runtime. In an RPG runtime is not a concern; the players can take the time to have their PCs interact further with the mooks if they want to, and for reasons of info-gathering it's often to their benefit to do so.

It might also be in the PCs' best interests to charm a mook and keep it rather than kill it or run it off. I can't count the number of times I've both seen/done this as a player and run it as a DM.

So how to enforce the trope with rules? I really think this was the design imperative that caused the choice of the word "destroyed".

Why try to enforce a movie trope at all in an RPG, which is a different medium?

Yes? That is just another example of how "killed"/"defeated" is not strong enough to accomplish the desig ngoal described ref my example of harvesting parts? And honor among the thieves demonstrated how speak with dead could make a character important to enough to varant the character even significant trailer time - not really something matching the minion trope..

Speak with dead requires a head? This is normally not present on something destroyed. Was revivify a thing in 4ed? (We are currently nitpicking on a single word used in 4ed DM materials)

I can't recall if Revivify was in 4e but it's certainly in 5e; and if the idea is to somehow port minions into 5e then Revivify comes into play.

And though we're using destroyed as a catch-all term for killed-defeated-incapacitated, it doesn't mean or imply the body has been run through a shredder. There should still be enough left to speak with...or animate, if you've got that type of group.

Not really. 7th sea 2ed for instance has mainly mooks, but are going the exact opposite route. They make it extremely explicit that these are not killed, as heroes are not murderers. Rather they are rendered "helpless". That requires a higher degree of player buy-in to make them work properly as mooks, though.

Or it means there's no such thing as a true one-hit mook in that game; they all have the potential to play a bigger role depending on how or if the PCs interact with them after they've been defeated.

Never mind that in theory if the mooks are rendered helpless and the PCs are supposed to be heroes, it then falls on the PCs to make sure the defeated mooks are patched up so they don't die and then either signed on to help the party, kept as prisoners, or allowed to run away; all of which requires more interaction than just one or two combat swings.

 

[clearstream]

I never had much of an issue with tripping cubes, for the same reason I don't have issues with tripping foes in zero g. It's about disorientation. I'll admit the mechanics aren't always perfect (and vary by game and/or edition), but the concept is functional enough for me.

We could also consider the difference between propositional imaginging and sensory or imagistic imagining.

In the first (propositional) I entertain that X, for example during a D&D combat I can entertain the proposition that Addy has damaged the owlbear with their rapier without picturing what that looks like​

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While in the second (sensory) I construct a mental sense of that X, for example I picture Addy lunged forward with rapier piercing the owlbear's feathered flank and its twisting away from it​

The ability of players to switch fluidly between these modes of imagining helps sustain their fiction even where it might otherwise become strained, such as in the ways @Enrahim has outlined.

 

[Enrahim]

Why try to enforce a movie trope at all in an RPG, which is a different medium?

I think this might be the big design lesson from 4ed. Trying to enforce narrative tropes via rules seem bound to get into conflict with the fiction. The PbtA branch seem to have had better success via the application of "principles" and reliance on player buy in instead.

That is, it can be valid to want to have an experience that has certain traits more commonly associated with other mediums - but to try to enforce it from within the medium itself might not be viable design.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this might be the big design lesson from 4ed. Trying to enforce narrative tropes via rules seem bound to get into conflict with the fiction. The PbtA branch seem to have had better success via the application of "principles" and reliance on player buy in instead.

That is, it can be valid to want to have an experience that has certain traits more commonly associated with other mediums - but to try to enforce it from within the medium itself might not be viable design.

I really, really agree with this, especially about player buy-in if you're going to use those kinds of rules. Of course, I don't even have GM buy in for that stuff unless it's a supers game.