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

[Faolyn]

You need a greater restoration (5th spell level so 7th level cleric or higher) in order to cure disease, lesser restoration removes the conditions Blinded, Deafened, Paralyzed, or Poisoned. The spell could be cast a total of 9 times in a day by a 20th level caster assuming they use higher level spell slots to do so. Not exactly going to stop a plague, although it would be difficult for many people to know who to cast it on.

They've changed that in 5.24 then. In 5.14, disease was specifically listed in lesser restoration.

And it doesn't appear that any version of the spell in 5.24 cures disease.

Anyway, assuming 5.14, it's not going to stop an existing plague, but it would do a huge amount to prevent one from starting. You notice someone with weird symptoms and cure them, they can't then spread the disease to others.

Plus, considering it's a world where you have people who have lived for hundreds of years, the state of medical knowledge should be higher in general. An healer who has had literally centuries to accumulate knowledge would have created an extensive library just of their own personal observations. Multiply that by the thousands of healers out there, plus various gods of healing (or their servitors) who may occasionally manifest, plus fantastic plants or creatures with healing properties. The real world had some truly amazing healers in Ye Olden Times. Give them actual magic and potentially centuries to practice, or at least the ability to learn from those who had centuries to practice, and a fantasy world is going to look very different from the real world.

Of course, you could go an the idea taken from real-world belief: maybe diseases are caused by demons. Maybe there are very few or no serious diseases that are caused by viruses or bacteria.

Which is why I consider the approach the game takes than the actual level of abstraction or granularity. Any label we apply isn't ever really going to be accurate, for me it's more about am I looking at what happens in game and how what the character says and does is resolved. In a narrative game you're thinking about the impact on the story, in sim it's more what's the direct result first and then considering whether something else will happen because of that direct result.

That's... not correct. In a narrative game, you look at the direct result and then determine the effect it has on the story. You don't just dismiss something because it doesn't make a good story; you look for ways to integrate it into the story.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That said, has 5e gone at all into the idea of stay-at-home or non-adventuring spells and abilities, as a worldbuilding aid? If yes, maybe this fits there.

No (more's the pity), and they continue to go farther away from the idea.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They've changed that in 5.24 then. In 5.14, disease was specifically listed in lesser restoration.

View attachment 411513

And it doesn't appear that any version of the spell in 5.24 cures disease.

Congratulations. We've found a change in 5.5 I like.

 

[AlViking]

They've changed that in 5.24 then. In 5.14, disease was specifically listed in lesser restoration.

View attachment 411513

And it doesn't appear that any version of the spell in 5.24 cures disease.

Anyway, assuming 5.14, it's not going to stop an existing plague, but it would do a huge amount to prevent one from starting. You notice someone with weird symptoms and cure them, they can't then spread the disease to others.

Plus, considering it's a world where you have people who have lived for hundreds of years, the state of medical knowledge should be higher in general. An healer who has had literally centuries to accumulate knowledge would have created an extensive library just of their own personal observations. Multiply that by the thousands of healers out there, plus various gods of healing (or their servitors) who may occasionally manifest, plus fantastic plants or creatures with healing properties. The real world had some truly amazing healers in Ye Olden Times. Give them actual magic and potentially centuries to practice, or at least the ability to learn from those who had centuries to practice, and a fantasy world is going to look very different from the real world.

Of course, you could go an the idea taken from real-world belief: maybe diseases are caused by demons. Maybe there are very few or no serious diseases that are caused by viruses or bacteria.

You're right about the spell - it looks like the only way to cure disease is now via paladin.

That's... not correct. In a narrative game, you look at the direct result and then determine the effect it has on the story. You don't just dismiss something because it doesn't make a good story; you look for ways to integrate it into the story.

The player chooses what happens with things like like the Carouse and Outstanding Warrants moves, Discern Reality and Parley if you want to stick to basic moves, as more story oriented than anything. But discussing this stuff is always going to be fraught because we don't have an agreed upon vocabulary.

I just find it a different approach than how I run my D&D game. It's not a criticism to say that they work differently.

 

[Campbell]

As a sidenote, when GMs make decisions in games like Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts "the story" is not part of the agenda. Quite the opposite. In fact, Monsterhearts goes out of its way to tell us not to make decisions based on what we think makes for a better story.

Keep the story feral.

The conversation that you have with the other players and with the rules create a story that couldn’t have existed in your head alone. As you play, you might feel an impulse to domesticate that story. You form an awesome plan for exactly what could happen next, and where the story could go. In your head, it’s spectacular.

All you’d need to do is dictate what the other players should do, ignore the dice once or twice, and force your idea into existence. In short: you’d have to take control. The game loses its magic when any one player attempts to take control of the story. It becomes small enough to fit inside one person’s head. The other players turn into audience members instead of participants. Nobody’s
experience is enriched when one person turns the collective conversation into their own private story.

So avoid this impulse. Let the story’s messy, chaotic momentum guide it forward. In any given moment, focus on reacting to the other players. Allow others to foil your plans, or improve upon them. Trust that good story emerges from wildness. Play to find out what happens next. Let yourself be surprised.

I don't know why people keep getting this stuff twisted. This was a major point of contention way upthread.

 

[Enrahim]

I do not understand how you got from FKR is simply irrelevant to game design sims because they are aggressively anti-rules to "You have planted yourself solidly in the kriegspiel lair what simulation is concerned,".

I might have misread the grounds for why they would be considered irrelevant? How is the notion that absence of rules can provide a better simulation irrelevant in game design of sims? The only way I could see was if you totally reject that notion, which is the hard line kriegspiel line of the best simulation is those supported by explicit simulation mechanics. I agree it is not completely spelled out, so I might have missed something?

There are a whole lot of D&D 3.X fans who would disagree with you and were using this as a club in the anti-4e edition wars. (I find their case wrong; I cut my RPG teeth on GURPS but they definitely are a large camp)

Yes, D&D has had some elements of more simulating rules. I think it is relatively uncontroversial to claim that these has still been tied to very specific (tough crucial) situations, and that the heavy lifting of running the sim has been based on DM know-how. And as such if you strip away accepting DM know-how as a valid basis for simulation what you are left with is quite pitifull compared to games trying to provide a more comprehensive simulative ruleset.

No game produces "an" experience through game design unless the scenario is a railroad and comes in the box. Even My Life With Master doesn't and neither do Grant Howitt One Pagers. (Ten Candles might)

I have played experimental roleplaying games where players are fed a fixed line of questions they should answer in character. And that is the game. It do not feeling railroady as the questions are very open ended. They manage to produce a very narrow, spesific experience though.

The idea of designing a game to be optimalised for a certain kind of experience has been quite dominating in certain circles. The above example is real output from people trying to see how far they can push it. Most adhering to this design idea doesn't push it as hard, but it is still quite recognisable that design with focus has been at play.

Then you have games like GURPS or FUDGE that clearly are designed without this kind of consideration at all. Rather my claim is that the design of these are the opposite: Design something with as broad applicability as possible. This is what I was getting at with my post. Designing toward a spesific single experience is a choice.

I think the original D&D was designed with a particular experience in mind. I think AD&D was designed to try to broaden that original scope, making it able to support a wider range of experiences. I think 3ed tried to rein it in a bit, while maintaining width. I think D&D 4ed went hard on designing for a particular experience. I think D&D 5ed back reacted by actively trying to make the D&D formula as broadly applicable as they dared.

 

[Enrahim]

I've already proposed my alternative, which I see as cleanly solving this problem without major issues: "Groundedness." This concept recognizes that it is sentiment, not any objective quality, which is of utmost importance (the feeling of groundedness); that even highly fantastical contexts can be acceptable, even laudable, so long as they maintain certain functions (such as self-consistency and "showing their work", if you'll permit a colloquial phrase); and that the exact same context can appear grounded to one player/observer/user and un-grounded to another based on external factors (such as presence of absence of relevant background knowledge, how far/how much one can reason from input data to wider/distant consequences, how much one approves of a particular convention, etc.)

I want to emphasise this so much. This is what I want to see more of. I completely agree and want to stand side by side with you in dismantling any counter arguments that might be coming our way.

Even if my meta frustration blow-out turn out to do nothing more than help you produce this gem of a paragraph, I am happy. I will take another deep look at your long post to see if there is anything else I think is important enough that I feel like replying in light of the danger of obfuscating this message.

EDIT: I tried very hard to find anything to reply to. It seem like the rest of your reply is indicating various ways I have written things prone to be misread. I see nothing you say that I disagree with beyond your representation of my words. I don't think what I intended to covey is important enough to try to clarify, beyond this statement that it was not what you got from my writing.

 

[AlViking]

As a sidenote, when GMs make decisions in games like Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts "the story" is not part of the agenda. Quite the opposite. In fact, Monsterhearts goes out of its way to tell us not to make decisions based on what we think makes for a better story.


I don't know why people keep getting this stuff twisted. This was a major point of contention way upthread.

So ... what should we use? Take Defy Danger from DW. It states "On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice."

There's no direct correlation to D&D, but one example would be provoking an opportunity attack by leaving a threatened area. While DW doesn't actually say what "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" actually means in the SRD, it's left up to the GM.

Let's say the example scenario is Brog the Barbarian is trying to run past the orc to shut down the Apparatus of Releasing Badness by pulling a lever.

In D&D, the orc (if it still has a reaction) could attack Brog with an opportunity attack in an attempt to damage him. In 2024 rules, the orc could also try to grapple Brog to stop them from reaching the lever. If it's a grapple Brog has a chance to ignore the grapple attempt. As DM I'm looking at what the orc knows, what options they would consider, what the goals of the orc are. I don't really care what Brog's goals are because I'm not playing Brog, I'm playing generic orc #4.

In DW it's a defy danger and the GM takes a look at Brog's goal let's say they choose an option. My understanding of possibilities would be something like

• Worse outcome: The orc stops Brog from getting to the lever would be an option. Brog gets to the lever and it's stuck could also be a worse outcome or any number of things.
• Hard bargain: the orc grabs Brog's cloak of awesome as Brog runs by. Does he relinquish the cloak or continue on to the lever?
• Ugly choice: as Brog gets to the lever he sees that pulling the lever will crush a kitten and he has no time to get the kitten out. Brog really likes kittens, does he still pull the lever?

To me these are just very, very different ways of running the game. I called it focus on story for DW, would narrative focus be better?

I'm open to a better explanation but when the SRD literally says "Do X" and then has no example or definition of what X is, why is there any surprise if it's not clear? Even if I did find a game, who's to say that the GM running the game has a better understanding of it than I do? I would also note that when I looked for clarification it came up as a question in Reddit and it's clear I'm not the only one who would not know what these options really mean.

 

[Campbell]

@AlViking

Narrative focus would be better, addressing premise would be best (for Apocalypse World at least). Like there is more than collaborative storytelling and simulation as viable aims. Some games are genre emulation, some are aiming to address character, some aiming to do those other things. Not everything that does not fit what you are aiming is the same thing.

 

[Warnavick]

Congratulations. We've found a change in 5.5 I like

For further information on this change. The reason being is because they now use magical contagions instead of diseases. Monsters that previously inflicted a disease now just inflict the poison condition. Mundane diseases are not really mentioned in the rules. So spells or features that cure diseases are obsolete.

I gather from my reading, that the designers want things like plagues or outbreaks to be hard to deal with and will probably need an entire quest to solve. So players are no longer curing themselves of filth fever every giant rat encounter. They are slaying the evil necromancer to find his alchemical zombie antidote to save the lands and cure their infected party member.