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

[Don Durito]

See, now this I agree would be the mechanics providing a tiny kernel of information to guide the narrative. Makes my simulationist heart go pitter pat. ((Heh, you should see my preferred ship combat rules for D&D ((Broadsides!!)) - no one will play with me because it's FAR too into the sim weeds and no one is that interested ))

But, again, that's my point. You have to ADD that to D&D in order to get it to have any sort of sim base. That's great for your game. And I heartily approve. But, we're not discussing your game. We're not discussing my game. We're discussing the game as presented.

That's sort of already implied by the rules already though. There's just not much point spelling it out because it would be another thing to track that doesn't do anything.

To make it meaningful you would need to have some rule by which you check to see if you're shield is actually broken.

 

[Hussar]

That's sort of already implied by the rules already though. There's just not much point spelling it out because it would be another thing to track that doesn't do anything.

To make it meaningful you would need to have some rule by which you check to see if you're shield is actually broken.

No.

All it needs is some sort of connection directly linking the mechanics to the narrative. Doesn't have to be realistic. Doesn't have to be anything really. The mechanics must simply connect to the game world to be simulationist. The shield/AC example is a really good one actually. It tells us a little piece of information that excludes certain reasons for a particular result. The attack hit the shield, but, did not do any damage. The attack hit the armor but did no damage. The attack whiffed entirely and dealt no damage.

Fantastic. That's what simulation looks like.

 

[Don Durito]

I mean this is the existing rules. This is explicitly how AC is produced already.

Take your armour off and attacks that would have been stopped by your armour are now not.

D&D has always been very good at simulating two people who stand there hacking away at each others' armour while doing nothing in particular to defend themselves.

A lot of the obfuscation is because that's just not how people want to imagine it.

It's a lot like spell slots really. 1e had a very specific model of how magic worked and spells were memorised that matched up with how magic worked in the game world. A lot of people didn't like that and so actually decided to treat it as more abstract then it was. So we eventually end up with 5e spell slots which are more abstract and less connected to the game world.

 

[Lanefan]

*Note so self: don't bother to add a little levity to conversations by including poor helpless kittens. On the other hand the example I found on reddit included adding a goblin, an ooze or acid to the scene that had not been established before.

"Poor helpless kitten" my arse - that thing's the most dangerous monster in the room, if not the whole dungeon!

 

[Hussar]

I got asked if I thought simulation doesn't exist in RPG's. And it did remind me that I have tried to drift D&D into sim territory in the past. I'm a HUGE age of sail nerd. I LOVE the idea of piracy and ship combat in D&D. I SOOOO want to do it.

So, back in the 3e days, I picked up a FANTASTIC book (one of my absolute favorite 3pp books and it's companion book is great too) called Broadsides!! It's a very detailed book about ships starting from about 13th century to about 18th century ships. The combat rules are extensive and very, very deep in sim territory. Tacking against the wind, wind strength, movement, different actions taken during ship combat, different scales to use depending on the distance between ships, it's a sim player's dream. Fantastic stuff.

My players absolutely hated it.

See, the problem was, while I ADORE sim play, I'm largely alone in that. The players wanted more cinematic style mechanics where simulation take a FAR back seat. So, we fast forward a decade or so, and during my somewhat short lived Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, and then later during our Spelljammer campaign, ship combat became pretty much 99% cinematic. Skip over most of the stuff to get down to the (more or less) straight up D&D combat.

But, that's a perfect example of how D&D fights back against simulation. You look at the ship combat rules in Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and it's pretty much cinematic. There's very little simulation going on there at all. Because it's a heck of a lot faster to play out and, unless you're a big ship nerd like me, player just don't care. They came to play D&D, not Tabletop Naval Wargames.

Can you drift D&D into more sim based approaches? Sure? But, the system is not doing you any favors here.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is kind of the reason while I'd like to run a outdoor or similar survival oriented RPG (at least in part) because I dig it, I never really have and likely never will; I'd be the only one interested in it.

 

[Faolyn]

My point is you still have 3 options that the GM chooses from*

• Worse outcome: Brog gets to the lever and it won't budge.
• Hard bargain: the orc grabs Brog's cloak that has great personal value and he knows that he can continue on to the lever but it will get ripped in half and be destroyed.
• Ugly choice: he sees that his companion is soon to be surrounded by orcs and is in great danger. Does he go help or continue to the lever? Perhaps Brog is greedy and notices that there's a small pile of gold he could pilfer instead of pulling the lever.

If these are not good options, what would be? I don't really see an option really for making what a D&D opportunity attack, that doesn't really fit any of the three options. Unless it's worse outcome? Then again, they aren't actually defined.

*Note so self: don't bother to add a little levity to conversations by including poor helpless kittens. On the other hand the example I found on reddit included adding a goblin, an ooze or acid to the scene that had not been established before.

I've given you some options. So did @Neonchameleon. As you said, you found other options online.

An "Opportunity attack" would be a worse outcome and would be acceptable. Brog would take some damage.

But to get back to the original point, the GM picks the one that makes the most sense with what they have available: to whit, orcs, who want to kill things and wreak havoc. They don't have to give this option up just because there might be something more dramatic at hand. Nor, quite frankly, is this any different than D&D, where GMs can and will perform actions that are the most interesting or most dramatic, even if they're not the ones that necessarily make the most sense from a purely logical point of view.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is kind of the reason while I'd like to run a outdoor or similar survival oriented RPG (at least in part) because I dig it, I never really have and likely never will; I'd be the only one interested in it.

Did you have a system in mind? My wife and I would be down for that.

 

[Faolyn]

"Poor helpless kitten" my arse - that thing's the most dangerous monster in the room, if not the whole dungeon!

 

[Maxperson]

Really? Success is always a good performance? Or could it simply be the audience is more receptive? Or could it be other factors? Is a success ALWAYS a good performance? Is failure ALWAYS caused by the performer? Or could there be a poor audience member/loud drunk heckler, etc?

There's a million possible reasons for success or failure and D&D does not provide ANY guidance as to which one is the reason for this particular check. It gives you results, but no reasons.

Yes. It's always a good performance. By RAW anyway.

"Performance. Your Charisma (Performance) check determines how well you can delight an audience with music, dance, acting, storytelling, or some other form of entertainment."

Conversely, failure would not be delighting them. And it's always you, not the audience. Again, at least by RAW. "Your charisma (Performance) check...," and "...how well you..."

Not that I would be against a heckler being involved if the DM narrated a failure that way, but as written it's how poorly or well you do with it.