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

[thefutilist]

I think Vincent points to rising action/rising conflict because he is especially thinking about game design, and how a game's approach to framing and consequences can reward and foster narrativist play, as opposed to tending to squelch it or shut it down when it does rear its head.

Yeah very good point that I should have mentioned especially given that…

In the example I gave it's the 'go aggro' mechanic (created by Vincent) that means Jill can't back out of her commitment to the threat which then forces escalation.

 

[Hussar]

And as I've posted, D&D's combat resolution rules contradict that manifesto at multiple points: they are not "diegetic" and they don't preserve the correlation between in-fiction causation and at-the-table causation.

This is the part that has always baffled me about the whole "I play D&D as sim" crowd. Why would you insist on playing a system that is so hostile to your stated goals? D&D is not a sim. Like, at all. There's a REASON that sim games exist. It's because they aren't D&D and anyone who is serious about playing simulation games would laugh themselves silly at the suggestion that someone is playing D&D as sim.

But, every since the edition wars of 4e, people have insisted, over and over again, that D&D is a sim game. It really is one of the most frustrating things about the conservatism of D&D fans.

 

[AlViking]

And as I've posted, D&D's combat resolution rules contradict that manifesto at multiple points: they are not "diegetic" and they don't preserve the correlation between in-fiction causation and at-the-table causation.

Well if you've said that it's wrong, I guess it must be! The scales have fallen from my eyes and now I see the truth! Oh wait ... nah. You just don't like the abstractions and simplifications that D&D uses. Everything in combat happens in world, represents in-world events. It's fantasy action movie combat of course, but that's what's being simulated, not real world combat.

Like every other TTRPG, it can't be realistic. It takes shortcuts. It oversimplifies things. But is combat in D&D limited to "existing or occurring within the world of a narrative rather than as something external to that world"? Yep. Therefore it's diegetic.

 

[AlViking]

If my character is in the desert, unless I'm next to an oasis, if there's quicksand in that desert, I'm calling shenanigans. Quicksand doesn't form in the desert. It can't.

Dry quicksand - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Dry quicksand is loose sand whose bulk density is reduced by blowing air through it and which yields easily to weight or pressure. It acts similarly to normal quicksand, but it does not contain any water and does not operate on the same principle. Dry quicksand can also be a resulting phenomenon of contractive dilatancy.​

​

 

[AlViking]

While you're technically correct here, quicksand or similar as a hazard in deserts is a trope as old as time and probably isn't going away anytime soon.

If D&D couldn't take advantage of mythical hazards (which in this case may or may not be mythical after all), it wouldn't have very many hazards.

 

[Hussar]

Well if you've said that it's wrong, I guess it must be! The scales have fallen from my eyes and now I see the truth! Oh wait ... nah. You just don't like the abstractions and simplifications that D&D uses. Everything in combat happens in world, represents in-world events. It's fantasy action movie combat of course, but that's what's being simulated, not real world combat.

Like every other TTRPG, it can't be realistic. It takes shortcuts. It oversimplifies things. But is combat in D&D limited to "existing or occurring within the world of a narrative rather than as something external to that world"? Yep. Therefore it's diegetic.

No.

YOu just keep insisting that your misunderstanding of how things work is the only true definition.

 

[AlViking]

No.

YOu just keep insisting that your misunderstanding of how things work is the only true definition.

You insisting that I'm wrong doesn't mean anything so I guess we're at an impasse. If all you can point to is @pemerton saying one the 10 aspects of someone's blog post is not right, it doesn't really hold a lot of weight. Although I will say that I only skim their posts because I don't have that much time. I also don't agree that D&D violates #6, nor do I even really care much. There isn't a standards committee, nor is any game perfect. It just has to be good enough.

I think all of Sorensen's points apply. The fiction world is supreme, when we're playing I'm a referee, the rules we use just give us a way to implement the actions of the characters and so on fit pretty closely to how play the game.

 

[Hussar]

You insisting that I'm wrong doesn't mean anything so I guess we're at an impasse. If all you can point to is @pemerton saying one the 10 aspects of someone's blog post is not right, it doesn't really hold a lot of weight. Although I will say that I only skim their posts because I don't have that much time. I also don't agree that D&D violates #6, nor do I even really care much. There isn't a standards committee, nor is any game perfect. It just has to be good enough.

I think all of Sorensen's points apply. The fiction world is supreme, when we're playing I'm a referee, the rules we use just give us a way to implement the actions of the characters and so on fit pretty closely to how play the game.

But the actions you take in the game world are not connected in any way to the mechanics of the game. That's the point you keep ignoring. They are not abstractions. They are completely divorced from anything inside the game world.

When someone fails a climb check by X amount, they fall. That's what the rules say. Now, we have NO IDEA why this character fell. None. The mechanics tell us nothing. All they do is tell us the result. The character was trying to climb. The character fell. How this happened? No idea. Any narration you care to make is equally valid.

It's no different than a cook popping up because of a failed lock pick check. There is absolutely no differnece. Why did the cook come around right now? We have no idea. All we know is that the lock is not opened. Because the mechanics are not in any meaningful way connected to anything in the game world, ANY result is equally valid.

You might not like that. YOu might choose to interpret results as having some sort of causal link between the die roll and the result, but, that's entirely fabricated by you. It has ZERO support in the mechanics. None.

So, tell me, if I fail a climb check, and fall, why did I fall? Using only the mechanics, give me a narrative that is supported by the mechanics to the exclusion of any other narrative, and prove it. Because, if there actually was any causal links here, that should be easy as pie.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Now, we have NO IDEA why this character fell.

Not true. We know they failed because of something they did wrong.

There is absolutely no differnece.

Not true. If the cook pops in, it's something the cook did, not something the player did.

The cook might still pop in, even if you successfully pick the lock. It has nothing to do with the player's actions.

 

[AlViking]

But the actions you take in the game world are not connected in any way to the mechanics of the game. That's the point you keep ignoring. They are not abstractions. They are completely divorced from anything inside the game world.

When someone fails a climb check by X amount, they fall. That's what the rules say. Now, we have NO IDEA why this character fell. None. The mechanics tell us nothing. All they do is tell us the result. The character was trying to climb. The character fell. How this happened? No idea. Any narration you care to make is equally valid.

The rules don't need to tell us. If it matters, the GM or player can fill in details. That's why it's called abstraction.

But imagine if this were the requirement. That if a character is climbing a cliff and there is a chance of falling, the game has to tell you exactly why and how that happens. How in heck would that work? It's impossible to go into that level of detail, and where does it end? What's the composition of the stone? What's a particular handhold's weight bearing limit keeping in mind that there are hundreds of handholds that could potentially be chosen. How is your weight distributed when you potentially fell? What is the friction coefficient of your footwear? What was the the thermal value of the rock and was there a wind? It's impossible. That's why we have abstractions.

It's no different than a cook popping up because of a failed lock pick check. There is absolutely no differnece. Why did the cook come around right now? We have no idea. All we know is that the lock is not opened. Because the mechanics are not in any meaningful way connected to anything in the game world, ANY result is equally valid.

You might not like that. YOu might choose to interpret results as having some sort of causal link between the die roll and the result, but, that's entirely fabricated by you. It has ZERO support in the mechanics. None.

So, tell me, if I fail a climb check, and fall, why did I fall? Using only the mechanics, give me a narrative that is supported by the mechanics to the exclusion of any other narrative, and prove it. Because, if there actually was any causal links here, that should be easy as pie.

Why did the character fall? Because it was uncertain whether or not they could climb the cliff. When there's uncertainty the DM sets a target DC. Because that's how abstraction works.

This is one giant rock climbing strawman.