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

[EzekielRaiden]

In fiction, it's true that Holmes is a consulting detective (a fact in W'). It's not true that Holmes is a consulting detective in W (the real world). Of these conflicting facts, W' is privileged so long as we're entertaining fiction. It's not ruled out that there is a consulting detective called Sherlock Holmes in W' just because there isn't one in W.

This becomes interesting when it's asked "What else is true in W'?" Upthread I gave an example. Could Sherlock Holmes have taken passage to New Zealand or Neptune? It's never established in the fictional world of Holmes that he takes passage to either, but one seems like a more "realistic" possibility because in W in the 19th century, consulting detectives were able to take passage to New Zealand, but not Neptune. By this and an abundance of examples like it, it appears evident that W is privileged only where W' is silent.

Speculating on the problems you identify, I can think of a few explanations consistent with the idea of cognitive models. One is where player A assumes F to be an established fact in W' whilst player B does not. This would be acute where A has a slightly different imagined world in mind than B... something that is readily possible. B will foreseeably argue from W (because to them, W' is silent) while A will expect what they take to have been established in W' ought to prevail. You can see the obvious permutations.

Another explanation is where W' has until now adhered closely to a genre (this relates to the "accessibility" quality I mentioned upthread.) Holmes is a consulting detective, but not an elf. And no dragons appear in Holmes' Europe. Player A might develop expectations along the lines of an expected genre, making them resistant to propositions that some F is "realistic" in W' because those propositions would not be "realistic" in other possible worlds fitting the genre, which they assumed W' to be a member of. Again, I think you will see the permutations.

So where W' is silent or where it is assumed to match other worlds but turns out not to, one would predict disagreements about what to count as realistic. I suppose that'd be most noticeable at the moment an F that formerly was not established in W' became established.

Okay. Now: How do we then make sense of a claim such as "I reject F because W' is unrealistic."?

Because that sort of claim is precisely why, for example, a player might balk at Bastilles & Basilisks 7th Edition, because it contains elements that are "unrealistic". Or why someone might assert--as has happened in this very thread--that it is problematical ("unrealistic" is known to be a flawed word, so some variation like "lacking verisimilitude" etc.) to have a mechanic which resolves an action by having failure indicate that a bad situation has occurred as a result of the undertaken effort, for one reason or another.

In such things, W' itself is specifically being called out as wrong, bad, incorrect, unacceptable, etc., etc., specifically because it conflicts with W. Even when the actual content of the real world is more similar to the thing described in W' (hence my repeated reference back to the lockpicking example).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The rules in D&D are a set of tools to run a game. They give you advice on how you can run the game but it's always up to the DM and group to make it their own. This is very different from how DW is presented for example, in DW the rules explicitly tell the GM they are also bound by the rules. In D&D we are explicitly told that the DM is in charge, not the rules. DMs are encouraged to try different things to find what works for them and their players.

As usual, your jaundiced and frankly hostile descriptions of a game you haven't played, haven't read, and know almost nothing about are completely out of whack with what the actual game says.

Yes, there are rules which are binding on the GM. This is also true of D&D. Unless you're now going to claim that a player rolling a d20 and getting 20 on the die is now something that GMs are supposed to just discard completely? I had thought we had settled previously that the GM is bound, by the rules, to respect the rolls a player makes in the open?

 

[AlViking]

As usual, your jaundiced and frankly hostile descriptions of a game you haven't played, haven't read, and know almost nothing about are completely out of whack with what the actual game says.

Yes, there are rules which are binding on the GM. This is also true of D&D. Unless you're now going to claim that a player rolling a d20 and getting 20 on the die is now something that GMs are supposed to just discard completely? I had thought we had settled previously that the GM is bound, by the rules, to respect the rolls a player makes in the open?

From the DWSRD (which I read and double checked) "The GM has rules to follow, too.", "From the get-go make sure to follow the rules. This means your GM rules, sure..." are a couple of examples.

The DMG talks about a lot of things, including that sometimes a DM may want to ignore the dice because they just had a string of crits. I don't play that way but D&D openly states that the DM is in charge, not the rules.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You can use it as DR but I think it has other issues. Meanwhile we agree. Armor does not make you better at dodging. Well made plate mail may not make you invulnerable but you do have to strike at the weak points to do damage. If you're off by a few inches, the wearer takes no real damage.

This depends a lot on the type of weapon (do we need to bring back weapon type vs armour type)?

Take a hit on your breastplate from an ogre with a club, for example, and you won't suffer broken ribs thanks to the breastplate - but the force is still there and you still get slammed into the wall, rattled around, and bruised. Damage reduced but not eliminated. Likewise a pollaxe is designed to hurt through armour.

The issue mostly comes with specialist anti-person weapons. You more or less can't cut through metal with human strength and a long contact area. But if you cut bare flesh you maximise damage because of the length of the wound.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

From the DWSRD (which I read and double checked) "The GM has rules to follow, too.", "From the get-go make sure to follow the rules. This means your GM rules, sure..." are a couple of examples.

The DMG talks about a lot of things, including that sometimes a DM may want to ignore the dice because they just had a string of crits. I don't play that way but D&D openly states that the DM is in charge, not the rules.

So the GM should ignore the rolls their players make?

 

[AlViking]

So the GM should ignore the rolls their players make?

I don't. It's in the DMG as an option.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't. It's in the DMG as an option.

Okay. So...you do actually abide by rules when you GM? You treat certain things as genuinely inviolate?

 

[Neonchameleon]

So the GM should ignore the rolls their players make?

I think this is a complaint about not having Rule Zero to either patch broken rules or break working ones

 

[Eric V]

Good, we're clear that it is not the case that "Wearing heavy armor makes you dodge better." At least, not in D&D.

Everyone else, even people on your side of the argument, has understood what I said. Well done standing on your own.

 

[Maxperson]

That's only half of the issue though isn't it? You still have the player knowing that according to the rules of the game jumping off the top of a cliff is a viable tactical option.

So at the very least you need the player to play along as well and to play their character as if they don't know that the GM will narrate their miraculous survival.

Which by all means can work - but really when you get down to it, the whole point of bringing in the escalating hit points is not that they prevent Sim play, it's that they reveal that the system's priorities are elsewhere - with progression and advancement and pacing and reward.

As I said before, it's that you wouldn't start from here if simulation is your priority design goal.

Hit points are not all or even most of D&D. They're used for combat, and then a few other things like falling and traps. The exploration and social pillars for the most part don't ever look at hit points.

And that's the whole point. Simulation is not D&D's priority. Nor is narrativism. Nor is gamism. D&D has no priority along those lines. This is why D&D appeals so broadly.

It takes very little to increase the amount of simulation in it to turn it into simulation as the priority if that's what you want to do, and it takes very little to do the same with narrativism and gamism.

D&D won't be great at any of those, because it's not designed with any of them as a priority, but DMs can get D&D to be decent to pretty good at pretty much any style they want to play.

Answering @Hussar's question about missing by 5 or 10, D&D doesn't get that far into it's simulation of combat. But I put in a tweak that took me 5 seconds to implement that increases the amount of simulation involved there. If the miss is by the amount of AC provided by the target's shield(if it has one), then the miss impacts the shield and does no damage. If it misses by more than that, but by less than the amount of AC provided by worn or natural armor, it impacts the armor/body and does no damage. If it whiffs by more than the amount of AC provided by armor/shield, you miss completely.

It really doesn't take much to move D&D in the direction you want to take it, if you want to move it in a direction at all. Some like that it doesn't focus on any one particular aspect.