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

[hawkeyefan]

And sit through an argument every time. Ruling "No rolls before I ask for them" just brings pestering "Can I roll yet?" requests.

If you give the players a rules-based avenue to skip the playing-out of role-play scenes and just resolve them mechanically, there's inevitably going to be some who insist on doing just that.

You insist this is true, but it doesn’t need to be.

And it's bad news, unless of course the whole table wants to work under that paradigm.

And sure, a solution is just to toss such players out of the game; but that ain't so easy if they're friends otherwise. The IMO much better solution is to take that avenue away (or better yet, never have it in the first place).

Yeah, that’s unnecessary. There’s no need to boot any players, and I’m in a similar situation where my players are all friends of mine.

Plus, I’m not sure what game there is when it all becomes freeform like that.

To the former: yes it does. Why? Because to the latter, IME players (including me) are almost universally awful at separating character knowledge from player knowledge. It's unnecessary mental overhead, often leading to overcompensation the other way where players pretend their characters don't know thing they in fact should or do know.

Keep the knowledge levels lined up where possible, and playing true to character becomes much easier.

I don’t think playing true to character requires that players be limited to knowing what the character knows. But as I said previously… I don’t think players tend to be bad at making the distinction.
bluff.

So you're picking nits by purposefully using a ridiculous, extreme example? Not the best take unless you're just trying to score points, IMO.

The Fail Forward discussion says hi.

Why did the character fall? Because it was uncertain whether or not they could climb the cliff.

That’s not a reason for failure.

Modern D&D, particularly WotC's brand, is no longer my concern.

Well, older D&D didn’t really try to be a sim game.

 

[Hussar]

Like I said earlier, we're not really having a conversation in this thread most of the time because there is such a lack of common understanding of terms. And, honestly, I'm not really sure there is any way around that. To me, there is no difference between one completely abstract roll generating content in the game without any connection to events in the game, and another completely abstract roll generating content in the game without any connections to events in the game.

D&D does not even pretend to be a simulation. It never has. This is some bizarre fixation that a group of very conservative gamers has latched onto in order to block any changes to mechanics in the game. We cannot have damage on a miss because of "simulation" was the cry. We MUST have 11 counting on the battlemap because of "simulation". On and on. Frankly I find it very disingenuous because as soon as those mechanics become somewhat acceptable in the game, suddenly all these cries of simulation go away.

It's almost as if the true definition of simulation is "mechanics I personally like". Has nothing whatsoever with anything to do with actually trying to simulate anything or trying to create mechanics that work as a form of simulation. If simulation actually mattered in D&D, we'd see mechanics that actually influenced the narrative in the game. Simulationist mechanics like the following:

• [1]Hit locations - this is a pretty basic requirement of any game with any sort of sim leaning. [2]Graduated failure. - failing a check by X gives Y result. Failing by Z gives A result. Why a check failed is baked into the check itself. [3] Combat mechanics that are more defined - different kinds of strikes, different defenses. Parry, dodge. That sort of thing. [4] Some sort of social resolution system beyond simple pass/fail. At the very least, a more robust system allowing for multiple time frames.

Simulationist games are more complex. They just are. They have to be. You need that complexity in order to simulate something. A coin flip does not simulate anything. And we see that conflict in D&D play all the time. The simple "Persuasion" check where the player's actual words don't affect the check at all. The player makes his speech and then rolls his check. The check may very well not reflect the speech at all because the mechanics are not actually tied to the narrative of the game in any meaningful way.

 

[Umbran]

Very few game designers, or GMs, seem to really comprehend actual Narrativist play.

Then, by all means, write the book that educates them.

But, maybe try to do it without being a condescending, insulting know-it-all. It won't help you there any more than it does here - turning the discussion into an ego contest against you isn't going to help anyone understand narrativist play.

 

[Lanefan]

I suspect that ship sailed by the time of 3e, even if there was a significant number in 2e.

Not sure about that, as 3e did its clunky best to make itself at least sim-friendly.

By 4e, though, they'd given up any pretensions of designing with sim in mind; and 5e has kept going down the same path.

 

[Lanefan]

D&D does not even pretend to be a simulation. It never has. This is some bizarre fixation that a group of very conservative gamers has latched onto in order to block any changes to mechanics in the game. We cannot have damage on a miss because of "simulation" was the cry. We MUST have 11 counting on the battlemap because of "simulation".

Well, ideally we'd be using straight-line measures and not counting squares on a grid in the first place.

Snapping everything to grid is highly gamist.

It's almost as if the true definition of simulation is "mechanics I personally like". Has nothing whatsoever with anything to do with actually trying to simulate anything or trying to create mechanics that work as a form of simulation. If simulation actually mattered in D&D, we'd see mechanics that actually influenced the narrative in the game. Simulationist mechanics like the following:

• [1]Hit locations - this is a pretty basic requirement of any game with any sort of sim leaning. [2]Graduated failure. - failing a check by X gives Y result. Failing by Z gives A result. Why a check failed is baked into the check itself. [3] Combat mechanics that are more defined - different kinds of strikes, different defenses. Parry, dodge. That sort of thing. [4] Some sort of social resolution system beyond simple pass/fail. At the very least, a more robust system allowing for multiple time frames.

For [1]. [2], and [3] on that list, I mostly agree. Hit locations and 'called shots' are one of those gray areas where practicality and complexity meet in the middle and while practicality usually triumphs, it doesn't have to. Ditto for more elaborate strikes-parries-dodges etc. but not as special abilities of certain characters, bake them in for everyone to use.

Gradated success and fails on a check: all for it, though I don't agree the reason for failure (or success) needs to be baked in if only because the same check mechanic often has to cover such a wide variety of in-fiction situations.

For [4], however, I very much disagree. One could argue that the very purest form of sim is two or more players (maybe including the DM) socially interacting entirely in character without a game mechanic anywhere in the neighbourhood. Adding mechanics detracts from the sim and rapidly makes it more gamist.

Simulationist games are more complex. They just are. They have to be.

In some ways, yes. In others - see the bit re social interaction just above - no.

 

[Maxperson]

I never said it was bad D&D. Far from it. I consider it D&D--without quality qualifier. It simply is. Whether you like that it is or not is irrelevant. We cannot deny that the Dragonlance modules are D&D; we cannot pretend that their approach was somehow utterly unacceptable to anyone who played; in fact, we can't even deny that it had a long-term impact on the hobby, because it one million percent DID, just (generally) not in that specific area of "scripted to the point of almost being a theatrical performance".

And because we cannot deny those things, it isn't the case that death is a necessity, structural or otherwise, to being "D&D".

As I said in the other post, I looked into DL 1 and the first 4 modules in that grouping release and nothing in there that I saw said death wasn't part of it. Nothing said that Raistlin couldn't die before he got to Xak Tsaroth.

What are you referring to when you say that the Dragonlance modules have limited death?

 

[The Firebird]

Simultaneous combat resolution doesn't have to be complex: Classic Traveller is one example. Tunnels & Trolls is another.

I don't dispute that many RPGers find D&D combat "acceptable". But I think that's because most of them don't particularly care about whether or not their combat resolution is simulationist.

Yes, d&d players typically prefer more in depth combat that does better with something sequential. That doesn't imply that they are being dishonest or mistaken when they care about a strict order of causation out of combat.

 

[Hussar]

For [4], however, I very much disagree. One could argue that the very purest form of sim is two or more players (maybe including the DM) socially interacting entirely in character without a game mechanic anywhere in the neighbourhood. Adding mechanics detracts from the sim and rapidly makes it more gamist.

Not even a little.

That is not pure sim at all. Because, now, you're not simulating anything, you're actually doing it. Lacking any structure or mechanics, there's no actual simulation. It's simply "can I convince my DM".

Again, a simulation has to SIMULATE something. That's the whole point. And, if we're just going to free-form role play, that's not simulating anything. It does not take into account anything other than the player. It 100% injects the player into the game and completely ignores the actual character being played.

 

[Hussar]

As I said in the other post, I looked into DL 1 and the first 4 modules in that grouping release and nothing in there that I saw said death wasn't part of it. Nothing said that Raistlin couldn't die before he got to Xak Tsaroth.

What are you referring to when you say that the Dragonlance modules have limited death?

Sigh. This conversation would be so much better if people would actually simply have the common courtesy to accept that some of us know stuff that we read. The reason you couldn't find that is because the DM information is listed in DL 5. Which you would know if you were any sort of familiar with the original modules. See page 5 of DL 5 - Obscure Death ... And How to Live with It. It states:

Page 5 DL 5 Dragon's of Mystery

If a "name" character (any DRAGONLANCE PC or featured NPC) dies prematurely, that character meets an "obscure death" so that you can bring him or her back later on.

Now, can we move on?

 

[Maxperson]

Sigh. This conversation would be so much better if people would actually simply have the common courtesy to accept that some of us know stuff that we read. The reason you couldn't find that is because the DM information is listed in DL 5. Which you would know if you were any sort of familiar with the original modules. See page 5 of DL 5 - Obscure Death ... And How to Live with It. It states:



Now, can we move on?

Not quite. Why is stuff in DL 5 relevant when PCs would have been dying for 4 modules before the DM ever read that? Half the heroes of the lance could dead by then.