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

[Hussar]

Yeah, how someone can read "D&D tries to do too many things to be good at any one of them" as "piss poor" escapes me.

I do think its never even been halfway good at simulationist concerns, but that may be my perception of what doing that looks like. I think its been somewhat better at being a game (though a lot of versions have been too lateweight for me in that area) and trying to support genre and some dramatic tropes.

You'll obviously get no argument from me on that score. The truly funny thing is, the whole "D&D is simulationist" schtick only surfaced after 4e. It was an edition warrior dog whistle to try to exclude 4e from the D&D family. That has somehow morphed over the years into this idea that D&D was ever designed with simulation as a priority. It never, ever was.

There's a very good reason why fantasy heartbreakers exist. Most of the time they were in reaction to the fact that D&D was about as far from simulating anything as you could get. Look at the earliest RPG's other than D&D that gained any real traction - Traveler, RIFTS, GURPS, Warhammer Fantasy, Role Master. All of them direct decendents from D&D. All of them with clear sim agendas.

 

[Lanefan]

Narrate something relevant as the DM, or ask for a check. The cat is background flavor, not something relevant to the resolution.

Until it attacks...

It's 4e, not AD&D. Don't do that.

4e doesn't allow henchmen? And if not, why not?

 

[Lanefan]

An absolute statblock is universally true. A goblin is this one set of data, always. The abstraction is the one and only abstraction valid for capturing what "a goblin" is. It is absolute.

A relative statblock is...relative. it represents what a goblin means in context.

Solid definitions.

IMO statblocks should always be absolute. The PCs' statblocks are - the players would justifiably howl if their characters' stats suddenly shrank on meeting a foe way above thier pay grade ON TOP of that foe already being beyond them anyway.

Mechanical symmetry (which IMO is non-negotiable) demands the same be true of their foes.