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

[Micah Sweet]

Turn based combat.
Eg: If you line up a million people and each one uses a free action to pass a piece of paper (or whatever) from one person to the next, you can move that piece of paper an infinite distance in 6 seconds, based on how many people you can line up.

Do you think that situation is likely to occur in an actual game run by a GM?

 

[Older Beholder]

Do you think that situation is likely to occur in an actual game run by a GM?

The point being, turn based combat means one person acts at a time.

 

[Hussar]

Reading through all of these and the same themes and arguments keep coming up, retreads from the "Are you running a sandbox".

1. Arbitrary lines drawn by people just to "prove" that we aren't really doing what we think we're doing.
2. The poster doesn't like a specific rule so therefore it means the game is not what we think it is.
3. Litmus tests that, as far as I can tell, are just made up out of thin air.
4. Appeals to authority when the authority doesn't think that the label we apply ever apply to TTRPGs.
5. The "all or nothing" tests where if there's anything that doesn't fit some very specific criteria then it completely fails because it has to perfectly fit someone's idea of what the word means which is usually based on their favorite game.
6. That decisions made by the author of the rules such as charts or lookups somehow are more valid that the decisions of the GM at the table.
7. Impossible criteria that could not possibly be achieved.
   1. Knowing where every monster is at every moment of the day to the level of detail of knowing exactly when where and if the characters are going to cross paths with that particular monster.
   2. Knowing exactly why someone falls off a cliff or falls in love.
8. Uncertainty resolved by the roll of the dice means the game can't possibly be a sandbox or simulation.

With of course mixing and matching along with variations of all of the above. I'm sure there are more. All to say "You're wrong, I'm right" without actually revealing anything interesting or new for discussion.

That is an impressive list of strawmen and complete mis statements of the problems. No wonder you feel attacked if you actually believe any of the above is what is being argued.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The point being, turn based combat means one person acts at a time.

Please use a more reasonable example. I can't tell you what I would do to address a situation that ridiculous.

 

[Hussar]

Way up I was asked about a system that would explain how a character fell. Well, a very simple system would be:

Fail by x or less: character missteps and falls.
Fail by x+1 or more: character falls due to environment factors.

Poof. Instant simulation mechanics. Heck, you could bake that into most skills and expand it a bit and you’d have a pretty robust sim mechanic where the system would give some direction and information.

This sort of thing is seen all the time in actual sim games like Warhammer Fantasy.

 

[clearstream]

Do the rules say that? A good thing D&D has an almighty GM that can override such ridiculousness when desired! Here is a free D&D suplement:

Faling from great height.
If falling more than 500ft the character declares at the end of their turn how far they want to fall - between 500 and 1000ft. If this failing causes them to hit the ground, they then take damage as per the normal falling rules.

You are welcome, your resident physicist.

(Edit: numbers chosen to be easy to remember, while not being ridiculously far from real world corresponding numbers)

XGE gives 5e rules for rates of falling.

When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet. If you're still falling on your next turn, you descend up to 500 feet at the end of that turn. This process continues until the fall ends, either because you hit the ground or the fall is otherwise halted.​

SFAIK RQ lacks rules for rates of falling (it has rules for falling damage).

 

[clearstream]

Way up I was asked about a system that would explain how a character fell. Well, a very simple system would be:

Fail by x or less: character missteps and falls.
Fail by x+1 or more: character falls due to environment factors.

Poof. Instant simulation mechanics. Heck, you could bake that into most skills and expand it a bit and you’d have a pretty robust sim mechanic where the system would give some direction and information.

This sort of thing is seen all the time in actual sim games like Warhammer Fantasy.

Similar rules are found in 5e ("Degrees of Failure")... fail by 5 or more and you fall otherwise no progress.

 

[clearstream]

Wearing heavy armor makes you dodge better?

Dodge is an explicit action in 5e. It's not affected by armor.

 

[clearstream]

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.

Setting aside specific rules misapprehensions, there is a fundamental misapprehension that is easy to fall into with D&D that I think can (and ought to) be read to cover the worries people have expressed (about surviving falls and crossbows). I noticed this in another thread where I realized I'd mis-narrated damage in a game session.

The DM Narrates the Results of the Adventurers’ Actions.​

​

Hit Points represent durability and the will to live.​

​

DM decides how to apply the rules.​

If a group want to use D&D for simulation and their world is one in which people shouldn't survive enormous falls then when a high-level fighter takes one, DM narration should say how they survive. Example "You fall, but the bending and breaking limbs of trees you fall through slow you enough that the damage isn't lethal." Or if a character takes care to plunge to a cleared area with no feasible reduction in damage, DM is endorsed to apply massive damage (i.e. instantly lethal).

One understanding of how D&D is used for simulation is to house rule, and that is valid, but to me the basic means provided in the system is straightforward... and like much else in D&D depends on its commitment to DM curation. Examining the individual rules of D&D without taking that into account is equivalent to embarking on play of DW while ignoring all the stuff about agenda and principles. Ignoring how the rules are supposed to be used.

 

[Hussar]

to me the basic means provided in the system is straightforward... and like much else in D&D depends on its commitment to DM curation. Examining the individual rules of D&D without taking that into account is equivalent to embarking on play of DW while ignoring all the stuff about agenda and principles. Ignoring how the rules are supposed to be used.

But, if we're using the rules the way they are supposed to be used, and it requires the DM to step in and curate those rules in order to address a more sim approach, doesn't that mean that the rules aren't really supporting a sim approach? In DW, agenda and principles are pretty clearly defined. You are told pretty explicitly how they are supposed to work in the game.

Very, very little in D&D tells you how to get a most sim result out of the mechanics. And, if the DM is required to massage the world in order to fit the results that the mechanics are giving you, then those mechanics are not simulating the world.

I've been told repeatedly that the DM should NEVER change the world to fit the results of the mechanics. That's the opposite of sim play.

And note, the "fall if you fail by 5" only applies to climbing. What does missing an attack by 5 look like? Is it different from missing by 1? Or missing by 10? What does failing a performance check look like? Why did my performance check fail if I failed by 3 or by 6 or by 12? The rules are completely silent here.