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

[Pedantic]

Is there an inherent value in creating one-to-one (or even approximation thereof) relation between the rules and the fiction?

All design is compromises, sometimes you have to have a specific rule that doesn't make in-universe sense on its own but is a part of a larger model congruent with the theming.

All the conflict here is because everyone seems to think the answer to that question is obvious. I personally think that's a huge design expense you need to be buying a lot with, the whole minion discussion is predicated on it being pretty cheap.

 

[Deset Gled]

Is there an inherent value in creating one-to-one (or even approximation thereof) relation between the rules and the fiction?

There is inherent value in creating harmony between the different aspects of the game (You can use Rules and Fiction, or Narrativist, Gamist, and Simulationist, or use something else as a model. It's tangential to the question).

I don't know what "one-to-one" means in this scenario. I suspect whatever it means, its importance is negligible compared to the desired harmony.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh, that was just 3.5 RAW. Here's the spell:

And here's the general rules on illumination:

Shadowy illumination is less dark than darkness.

We never noticed that and would have just changed it had we seen it.

 

[loverdrive]

There is inherent value in creating harmony between the different aspects of the game (You can use Rules and Fiction, or Narrativist, Gamist, and Simulationist, or use something else as a model. It's tangential to the question).

What if taking a step back and neglecting such harmony on a level of a specific rule reveals harmony when evaluated in the context of other rules?

Let's say there was a rule tying movement to attacks: to strike into specific cells, you have to move in a specific way, along X axis, or Y axis, or diagonally, or move left previous turn and forward this turn.

On a surface level, it's nonsensical and disconnected from the fiction — character isn't thinking about cells on a grid, they don't exist in the game world — but it creates an interesting gameplay of prediction ("She took a step back, which probably means she is going for a lunge! If I step diagonally, I'll be able to punish her!") and mindgames ("But she knows that I know that I can sidestep, so she might choose to stand still and punish me instead!") that is arguably closer to emulating the process of swordfighting than just yelling "I HIT HER WITH MY SWORD" over and over again.

 

[Deset Gled]

What if taking a step back and neglecting such harmony on a level of a specific rule reveals harmony when evaluated in the context of other rules?

Let's say there was a rule tying movement to attacks: to strike into specific cells, you have to move in a specific way, along X axis, or Y axis, or diagonally, or move left previous turn and forward this turn.

On a surface level, it's nonsensical and disconnected from the fiction — character isn't thinking about cells on a grid, they don't exist in the game world — but it creates an interesting gameplay of prediction ("She took a step back, which probably means she is going for a lunge! If I step diagonally, I'll be able to punish her!") and mindgames ("But she knows that I know that I can sidestep, so she might choose to stand still and punish me instead!") that is arguably closer to emulating the process of swordfighting than just yelling "I HIT HER WITH MY SWORD" over and over again.

 

[Enrahim]

Yes, and the whole paragraph is repeated in in the MM Glossary. Therefore to call out just one sentence as "redundant" isn't right: it's all redundant.

The third sentence is confirmed as a rule, seeing as it is repeated on every minion. So that text while redundant, is not just an observation. Clearly it doesn't cease to be a rule just because it's repeated.

It is therefore right to say that this paragraph containing three sentences contains at least one rule. To assert that the first two are observations becomes picking and choosing as there's nothing about those sentences that differentiates them from the third that the designers packaged them with.

I see why @Maxperson entertains it in support of their argument, but it continues to appear arbitrary. With no explanation for how text supposed to amount to needless observations is distinguished from rules. And giving "destroyed" a special meaning here when it is everywhere else used with consistency.

The entire paragraph can be read as making that one rule very clear. Let us break it down: The first short sentence introduces the topic by reiterating the main rule regarding 1 hp. The second sentence emphasizes that this rule is still in effect for auto damage (that is a "hit" is not required to cause damage). With this backdrop third and final sentence formulates the thing that is new and unique to minions (an explicit miss do no damage) - now with less chance of misinterpretation due to the contrast with the second sentence.

This is basic holistic reading of the paragraph?

 

[clearstream]

The entire paragraph can be read as making that one rule very clear. Let us break it down: The first short sentence introduces the topic by reiterating the main rule regarding 1 hp. The second sentence emphasizes that this rule is still in effect for auto damage (that is a "hit" is not required to cause damage). With this backdrop third and final sentence formulates the thing that is new and unique to minions (an explicit miss do no damage) - now with less chance of misinterpretation due to the contrast with the second sentence.

This is basic holistic reading of the paragraph?

There is no rule needing reiterating regarding 1 hp. Silence on that score would have covered it.

"Destroyed" is used 41 times in the core MM. An holistic reading will give it the same meaning on the 40th and 41st appearance as it had on the other thirty-nine.

 

[clearstream]

In one game. Other games act differently. In Daggerheart, the word "defeated" is always used, with one exception that I can find: a sample of play where skeleton minions were destroyed.

Why not just use a different word than destroyed or killed? It's not like gamers have never reworded or rewritten rules before.

I agree. RAW could mean something different from destroyed simply by using a word like "defeated".

Yet the 4e RAW uses "destroyed". Folk can always house rule that or interpret it to mean something else.

 

[clearstream]

Ok. so, if "when" is non-exclusive, then it includes being killed. Thus, the rule for not dealing lethal damage applies.

Huh? Do you recall what you wrote upthread (about minions being "immortal, never need to eat or sleep, and utterly immune to diseases")? Look at the sentence structure and see where the non-exclusivity applies. It doesn't change that a minion is destroyed when it takes any amount of damage: that remains true. Rather it allows that in addition to that a minion might be killed in other ways such as without taking damage.

You can't have it both ways. Either destroyed includes "killed" (non-exclusive interpretation), which means you are wrong, or destroyed doesn't include killed (exclusive interpretation) which means that minions are immortal which is obviously a ridiculous interpretation (which I think we both agree on).

That's a peculiar and mistaken reading. The "when" applies to the "any amount of damage=destroyed" condition=effect pairing. And it's non-exclusivity has nothing to do with the meaning of the word "destroyed". It simply allows other, different pairings to also apply (or at least, doesn't rule them out from applying).

Were there a disease for instance that killed creatures without damaging them such that "diseased=killed" then that isn't ruled out just because "any amount of damage=destroyed". Both can be true.

 

[clearstream]

Let's not forget the cherry picking too. After all, zombies, skeletons, ghouls, wights, specters and ghosts all can be destroyed AND incapacitated. Never minding every construct in the game. But, apparently, even though I can incapacitate a ghoul or a zombie, it becomes impossible to do so to a ghoul or zombie minion.

As I said, I think it is more obviously cherry-picking to exclude certain uses of "destroyed" in order to interpret other uses of "destroyed" in a special way. But that aside...

Exactly what people claim to want to do when they play an RPG. That whole, "My game has no story". "My game's story only emerges after the fact". Well, guess what? 4e gives you the building blocks for your story, but, it's up to you, the player to create the story after the fact. ((You here being the general you, not anyone in particular))

In some respects we see this in a similar way. Taking 4e as game, I don't see "destroyed" to pose any barrier to the fiction because it is (to me obviously, but ) simply an abstract game-system state. It says "this is the state the game is now in" without serving at the same time as a direct narrative-description. It just tells the group that this minion will normally play no further part in their shared narrative. What that looks like is up to the group.,

A couple of times now you have pointed out that 4e presents game as game. For instance in your #22,358 yet you continue to argue that the 4e game abstractions must be formed using strictly simulative language. That is to say, contrary to your grasp of 4e as showing how the sausage was made, you continue to require "destroyed" to be a direct narrative-description. I read it instead as abstract game-state: leaving up to players to create the story just as you say.