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

[Lanefan]

I can confirm this is accurate. My buddy and I both jumped from the roof of a 5 story building. I landed and shrugged, thanks to my Master’s Degree. He only had an Associate’s and splattered all over the concrete!

I think you both forgot we're still on Earth, and it doesn't come with fantasy extras.

 

[Lanefan]

I can see this working for something like the WFRP career system, but not for the relatively intransigent D&D class system. The core issue is that real people don't progress linearly, learning exactly the same set of skills in the exact same order.

You can make it work by making each "class" be something like an academic course of progression, whereas there are diegetic "schools" that train wizards, fighters, rangers, etc, in a known cirriculum of skills. But that would track with "crafting your setting to integrate with the system", as I advocated for in previous posts.

Well, given that my games have always had training requirements to level up, I'm already well on the way to doing just this.

 

[Pedantic]

I appreciate the "supposed to be" and "if" in what you say. Few worry that super-heroic characters can do such things. But if that isn't what you're going for, you'd need to house rule D&D to fit.

What's quite interesting is how many folk seem willing to insist that simulation necessitates diegetic consequences of system and rulings of mediators.

Well, that's the problem of sim in a nutshell. The violations are obvious, the constituents are not, and sharing those violations doesn't seem to mean sharing those constituents. I understand the urge to suggest is not a thing, because I'm not sure it's one thing.

 

[TwoSix]

I can confirm this is accurate. My buddy and I both jumped from the roof of a 5 story building. I landed and shrugged, thanks to my Master’s Degree. He only had an Associate’s and splattered all over the concrete!

100%.

I do run some games with a more sim agenda, and they have strict diegetic class identities. But even in those games, I have systems in place to accomodate the host of NPCs who have some kind of strong ability or abilities but don't have the corresponding supernatural resilience of high HPs.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Can we try to find an example arguing against simulation that doesn't involve hit points? Just as a change of pace?

People unable to wear armor unless trained in it, and such training not being trivially easy to obtain.

Minimum strength requirements on heavy armor that prevent characters with average strength from wearing it.

 

[FrozenNorth]

How is that not about hit points? Your examples are predicated on how hit points work.

Here’s a classic - a two-foot short sword injuring an 80-foot red dragon.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Here’s a classic - a two-foot short sword injuring an 80-foot red dragon.

Anyone living after being struck by a boulder hurled by a giant!

 

[AlViking]

I can confirm this is accurate. My buddy and I both jumped from the roof of a 5 story building. I landed and shrugged, thanks to my Master’s Degree. He only had an Associate’s and splattered all over the concrete!

So you gave a masters in Ninja? Cool.

 

[Maxperson]

Actually, no rules in D&D tell you how far you fell. No matter what, you hit the bottom at the end of the round according to the rules. You can fall ten feet or ten thousand feet and you will take exactly the same amount of time to hit the bottom, and you will ALWAYS hit the bottom before 6 seconds.

Now, I agree, this is utterly ridiculous. But, that is what the rules say.

It is hard to accept because the definition you are using and the one @AlViking insists that simulationist rules are diegetic. Which means that they actually correlate to what is happening in the game world. For rules to be diegetic, they MUST tell you anything (even the tiniest bit of information would be enough) about how the result occured. That's what diegetic means. I'm simply insisting that you use the definitions that you yourself agreed to.

By your definition ALL mechanics are simulationist. Because all mechanics tell you the result of something and don't tell you how it happened. Rolling dice in Monopoly are simulationist according to you. No matter what, all mechanics are simulationist if simulationist mechanics don't have to actually describe anything other than the result because all mechanics, no matter what, do the same thing - describe a result. The cook popping in after a failed lockpick check is 100% simulationist by your definition. Since there is no need for any causal chain between the mechanics and the result - after all the mechanics in no way describe HOW the result was achieved, thus, there is no need for any causal link between the mechanics and the result - then any result, no matter how farcical - like falling at light speed, but only taking limited damage - is 100% simulationist.

Yes, falling ten or ten thousand feet in the same amount of time is a poor simulation of falling, but it still represents falling. If I say that you take 7d6 damage from the fall, you(and everyone else at the table) will know that you fell about 70 feet.

As for @AlViking's definition, I don't remember ever agreeing to that.

I also forgot a critical portion of the definition for this. It not only has to simulate a process, but the process has to be one in the real world. Just making up a process that doesn't conform the real world, and there are lots in D&D, isn't simulationist. That's why in my examples, it's always falling, or swords, or something else corresponding to the real world. Simulationism and realism go hand in hand. Sorry for leaving that part out.

 

[Maxperson]

I gotta admit, I'm not seeing the issue here. I've seen LOTS of modules which state something like, "if the party makes noise here, there is a one in X chance of a random encounter". That sort of thing is hardly new or unusual. It's been in adventures for many, many years.

So, why would a failed skill check be unusual for a random encounter? Or adding an encounter for that matter? It's pretty common practice.

I've seen modules like that, too. The thing is, a successful lockpick attempt makes more noise than a failed one. In the failed on you don't have the clicking of all the tumblers settling into place and the final click of the lock as it opens.

If you're going with noise attracting the cook, then the successful check would be when she shows up, not the failed check,