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

[Maxperson]

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 a shame. I'd be down for some tactical combat.

I still disagree that there's not a kernel of information involved by RAW, but I don't think either one of us is going to budge on that.

 

[clearstream]

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

It's a good question. Under the cognitive models framework, the rejection of W' itself (rather than a fact in W') as "unrealistic" must occur at the meta-representational layer. It seems the person has made a decision that the imaginary world ought to be more like the real world.

If that leads them to reject surviving 100' falls but not dragons, then something suspect is going on. It would appear there are rules incorporated in the meta-representational layer about how worlds can be constituted and perhaps the proper ways in which categories of facts ought to be established in them. To give an example of the latter, they are saying "I reject F because W' is unrealistic in that respect". They haven't accepted that F has been properly established as an exception in W' and therefore it ought to be as it is found in W.

Relatedly, and possibly bedeviling debate here, is where W' is undefined or differently defined per poster. That lets in all of the causes for disagreements I have so far listed.

 

[clearstream]

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.

How is that even a tweak? If an attack misses by an amount equal or less than the shield bonus, then the shield bonus is the reason the attack missed. The same would apply to a miss due to the disadvantage applied by dodging.

 

[Maxperson]

How is that even a tweak? If an attack misses by an amount equal or less than the shield bonus, then the shield bonus is the reason the attack missed. The same would apply to a miss due to the disadvantage applied by dodging.

Is it? Or was it the armor and the shield bonus was somewhere in the middle this time around. All armor and shields do is give bonuses. It doesn't say where those bonuses go except after the base 10. Hell, it doesn't even say where to apply the dex bonus. Actually, looking at it, it doesn't say that the armor and shield don't go before the base 10, either. It gives no order for it at all.

It's a tweak because I give the locations of those bonuses specificity. It's logical specificity, but it's more than what the game gives.

 

[clearstream]

In what way would you possibly think that I think that? I've pointed to many, many different games which provide some information about why things succeed or fail. The provide basic elements that inform the narrative. In a system which lacks any input into how a result was achieved, it is not simulating anything.

You claimed that play would inevitably be overtaken by "narrativium".

But there are TONS of systems that you can use the mechanics to inform the narrative without simply making it up after the fact.

I may have spotted the cause of the gap between our analyses. Essentially, you seem to deny that GM can be a means of simulation. (I assume this means you rule out the possibility of simulationist FKR play.) You then look at the bare mechanics of D&D and see that in aspects that matter to you, they don't track causes and detail results visibly enough for you. (And possibly some of the detail as they do provide is connected with imaginary subjects you do not care to entertain.)

When I review D&D, I do so with a few things in mind that cause that gap in our analyses. I firstly assume the game is to be played according to all the instructions, not just some of them. Seeing as there are instructions appointing DM to a very high degree of curation of play, I interpret the rest with that in view. I commit myself to neutrality about the imaginary subjects: I don't worry whether or not D&D is like our real-world, I treat it instead as a work of fiction (or rather, instructions for creating works of fiction of a certain kind) and look at what it says. If it says high-level heroes can survive 100' falls from dragons, my first thought is not whether dragons are "realistic" in our or some specific imaginary world: I just take that as a fact about the kinds of imaginary worlds applying those 'instructions' will lead to. Dragons (and heroes surviving 100' falls) will be "realistic" in those worlds just because that is established in the fiction. And of course, I am comfortable with GM or players being a means for simulation. (Partly because I consistently observe them to be even if a system details as much as a group can handle at the table.)

Although I would say we must agree to disagree, that last point might be worth considering. If you narrate an iota of fact about your imaginary world not provided by system, then either you must say that fact is epiphenomenal or you must say that you have acted as a means of simulation. Seeing as the former seems unlikely, it looks probable to me that our disagreements amount to matters of degree or sufficiency.

 

[Enrahim]

For much the same reason the idea that hovercraft have incredibly low hydrodynamic drag is irrelevant to cruise ship design.

Freeform LARP/FKR has things to offer (and you can see some of them in Vincent Baker's games including Apocalypse World games as Meguey Baker is a freeform LARPer) but has some fundamentally different design assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses.

But once we have decided what type of game it is we've already cut off some approaches. It doesn't matter how low the hydrodynamic drag of a hovercraft is - you're never going to make a cruise ship hovercraft for many reasons starting with the noise.

Here we are back to the context problem that was the entire point of my post. Are we talking about floating devices, or are we talking about cruise ships? Seemingly the context here was so poorly defined that I thought we talked about the former while you seem to posit that @EzekielRaiden talked about the later?

I do not think that was the case here though. It seemed more of a case of being so annoyed by their argumentation style and (seemingly) closemindedness of the FKR hardliners, that they couldn't get themselves to engage with their core belief even when posited by a moderate like myself. I pointed out that this was a communication problem that complicates conversation when an important influence is dismissed in this maner by some of the conversation participants.

I agree with @EzekielRaiden that the FKR hardliners approach to discussing these things are problematic. That was actually the point of my post that started this particular reply subchain. However the extreme of fully rejecting the FKR notion of no rules is in my eyes as bad. This was what I tried to express in the paragraph that started this.

Another dimension is that the entire simulation entusiast sphere is split into the mechanics vs rulings lairs dating back to the kriegspeil/free kriegspeil split. Those in the first lair would typically put simulation mechanics in category 1, while the other might rather say they hamper simulation (though maybe not go as far as claiming them to be fully incompatible like category 2 suggest). And this gets even harder when the majority of the players liking simulation isn't even aware of this split, and happily mix stuff from both lairs.

My impression was that the utter rejection of FKR crowd (note FKR is not even mentioned in this paragraph) that this paragraph triggered, was a clear signal of flagging belonging to the "kriegspeil lair" given the context.

(Edit: I also have to moderate the "no rules" claim. FKR games clearly have some rules, and I think looking at what even they are willing to include can be instructive for informing some design choices)

Not that specific unless the answers are somehow predetermined. At least not compared to e.g. Persona 3.

A certain kind of experience is much broader than a certain experience.


More than just one - the three classes played very differently as did the three implicit tiers. And how it played out varied a lot.

A particular kind of experience (mercenary dungeon crawling) but not a particular experience

If you want to nitpick you can nitpick. If you want a good conversation, that might not be the best strategy tough.

 

[clearstream]

Is it? Or was it the armor and the shield bonus was somewhere in the middle this time around. All armor and shields do is give bonuses. It doesn't say where those bonuses go except after the base 10. Hell, it doesn't even say where to apply the dex bonus. Actually, looking at it, it doesn't say that the armor and shield don't go before the base 10, either. It gives no order for it at all.

It's a tweak because I give the locations of those bonuses specificity. It's logical specificity, but it's more than what the game gives.

The game gives exactly that specificity. AC is explicitly ordered Armor + Dexterity modifier, and shield is listed as "+2". That means that if one really wants to know what blocked the hit on an armored fighter with no Dexterity modifier a miss by 1 or 2 is shield.

One quickly runs into one of the reasons game designers stopped going for kitchen-sink levels of detail. Fiction necessarily elides. Thus I suspect part of what informs sensitivities people have to level of detail is an unconscious omission of how much is left out. We want to know if a blow was parried? Where did that leave the combatants' weapons and balance, which will surely matter to their next exchange? Has one exerted themselves more than the other, so that in a few more exchanges they will weaken? I think "how much is enough?" is (and historically was) a serious challenge to defining simulationism on such terms.

 

[Maxperson]

The game gives exactly that specificity. AC is explicitly ordered Armor + Dexterity modifier, and shield is listed as "+2". That means that if one really wants to know what blocked the hit on an armored fighter with no Dexterity modifier a miss by 1 or 2 is shield.

One quickly runs into one of the reasons game designers stopped going for kitchen-sink levels of detail. As an aside, IIRC one of the problems faced by early authors of novels was knowing how much detail was necessary. I could write "The man sat in the chair" but then should I add "in the room" and do I then need to say "with light coming through the window" so the reader knows he can see. And then "by the door" so they know how he got there, and "that has a lock with the key on this side" so they know he is not trapped. But what day is it? Which country? How is he dressed? What colour are the walls? How much is enough!? Fiction necessarily elides.

I suspect part of what informs sensitivities people have to level of detail is an unconscious omission of how much is left out. We want to know if a blow was parried? Where did that leave the combatants' weapons and balance, which will surely matter to their next exchange? Has one exerted themselves more than the other, so that in a few more exchanges they will weaken? I think "how much is enough?" is (and historically was) a serious challenge to defining simulationism on such terms.

Armor + dex, but where is the base 10? Before or after? And the shield is +2, but it doesn't say after the armor, before the armor, or somewhere in the middle.

I get that they stopped going for kitchen sink levels of detail, but that just means that there will be more variation among games as DMs make various rulings. If DM #1 does it 10+armor+dex+shield, that's not wrong. If DM #2 does it armor+dex+10+shield, that's also not wrong. Same with DM #3 not giving a hoot and just making it AC 17 with no granularity at all.

The point is that the game doesn't specify an order. The closest you get is 10+dex, but that doesn't mean that AC granular instead of hit for damage or miss completely.

By specifying an order that is absolute for my game, I have a slightly higher level of simulation than the base AC vs. attack roll gives.

 

[Enrahim]

Armor + dex, but where is the base 10? Before or after?

As we are getting into these details. There is no base 10 in 5ed. 10 is the "armor" for not wearing anything but ordinary clothes. The effect of each armor type is presented as a new base AC.

 

[Maxperson]

As we are getting into these details. There is no base 10 in 5ed. 10 is the "armor" for not wearing anything but ordinary clothes. The effect of each armor type is presented as a new base AC.

10 is specifically unarmored. That's why barbarians and monks have unarmored defense. Those are 10(unarmored) + dex + other stat bonus. The monk also has unarmored movement.

So when we look at the armor chart that means hide only gives you +2 over unarmored, but is listed at 12.

Edit: We can also see it in the monster creation rules.

"A monster that doesn't wear armor might have natural armor, in which case it has an AC equal to 10 + its Dexterity modifier + its natural armor bonus."