D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[Charlaquin]

And that's a problem. If a hobgoblin can pick up a dagger and do the exact same damage as with a longsword or greatsword, something is wrong. They are independent objects, whether the game wants to treat them as such or not. If the goblin drops the dagger, a PC doesn't pick up both the goblin and the dagger if he picks up the dagger.

If a hobgoblin picks up a dagger, it no longer has the same stat block, since the standard hobgoblin stat block doesn’t have a dagger.

 

[Parmandur]

If a hobgoblin picks up a dagger, it no longer has the same stat block, since the standard hobgoblin stat block doesn’t have a dagger.

It is, at least, the DM adjusting the stat block away from the baseline, and actually fairly significantly.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is, at least, the DM adjusting the stat block away from the baseline, and actually fairly significantly.

Right, and an adjusted stat block is a different stat block.

 

[Parmandur]

Right, and an adjusted stat block is a different stat block.

Yup, per the DMG guidelines.

I think questions of equipment probavly fall inder the same rubric as Spell selections, where the designers fixed CR by steering a DM to use each stat block more optimally, as Vrawford laid out in one of those MM videos.

 

[Maxperson]

Why is that a problem? The player has no idea how much damage a monster can do and no idea how that damage is calculated.

The only person with a problem is the sausage maker - the DM.

How did the monster do X damage is not a question that any dm should have to answer.

If a hobgoblin no stronger than the PC fighter swings a sword and hits much harder for no discernable reason, that's an in fiction issue. Unless magic is involved, which it isn't. The fiction needs to be consistent and make sense for many of us. If you don't mind it not making sense, that's fine. That works for you. It doesn't work for me.

It would not have been difficult to give the hobgoblin an ability to explain the damage increase. They should have done that.

 

[Maxperson]

And it’s a Hobgoblin, not a fighter or barbarian.

Same explanation applies.

Only if it has abilities to explain the damage increases, like the fighter and barbarian do. If it doesn't, then it's not the same explanation.

 

[Maxperson]

If a hobgoblin picks up a dagger, it no longer has the same stat block, since the standard hobgoblin stat block doesn’t have a dagger.

That's silly. I shouldn't have to have exact hobgoblin clones forever or else the CR, stat block and damage changes(to normal for the weapon). I should be able to arm my hobgoblins differently and the damage will vary slightly as per the weapon used. And if there is going to be an increase in damage beyond weapon plus associated stat bonus, then there should be an ability to explain the increase.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I agree they aren’t antithetical, but that extra work is pretense in a literal sense. You’re doing that extra work to present a more convincing illusion that the game mechanics represent real things. The underlying truth will always be that they’re just game mechanics though.

To be clear, I think that work is worth doing in a lot of cases, this one included. None of us would be here if we didn’t want our games to present the pretense of representing a consistent reality, we’d be playing… I don’t know, Yahtzee or something.

And it’s 2008 again and everyone is up in arms about presentation and not substance.

One of the points I'm advocating for is that it is substance. Not just presentation and preference. That being worth doing means it is doing some work in the play of the game.

It is pretense, but so are many things of substance in the game. Monster stats themselves are a pretense.

It takes work to get in the head of your PC. It's effort deployed regularly in the play of the game, an action demanded of the player. A fully baked ("reified") game element makes that a little easier, a little smoother. It allows and encourages me as a player to pretend to be my character rather than being a player controlling a character. A longsword dealing consistent damage when wielded by a hobgoblin or a conjuring spell referencing an actual creature help that.

When a game abandons that, it's not just a stylistic choice about presentation. It's doing a worse job at helping you play your PC.

That tradeoff might be worth it (there is something to be said for simplicity - a lot of '24 monster stats do that), but it is a tradeoff where the game is choosing to do something worse in exchange for doing something else better. It's not just how something looks, it's how it behaves at the table.

 

[Lanefan]

Sure but let's look at the Gladiator again.

Brute: A melee weapon deals one extra die of its damage when the gladiator hits with it (included in the attack).

What is the DM going to narrate to the players? That the Gladiator is a big mean bully and so does extra damage? What could the players do to counteract and avoid it? Not get hit?

The end result is pretty much the same- this guy is doing more damage because the game says so. The explanation doesn't really matter.

Lower the Gladiator's Strength by attacking him with a Shadow, subject him to a Slow spell, blind him, or affect him with fear, every time he makes a weapon attack, he does bonus damage. It's a "black box" with one moving part and no conditions attached to it.

Which means the players, in character, have no means of mitigating that extra damage because they don't and can't know its source - unless the DM makes something up. Ideally, the write-up for the Brute would say how-why it gets that extra damage (the one word "strength" would do, hardly a space-chewer), whereupon (also ideally) other more generic rules would say how to modify the damage should the Brute's strength be somehow reduced...or enhanced, for all that.

The DM could change this, but they could also come up with an explanation on their own that makes more sense than "uh, well, he's a Brute".

That's exactly what I'd be wanting to avoid, because "Uh, he's a Brute" might very well be all I can come up with on the spot if-when asked; and IME players do ask about this stuff - and IMO they have a right to a useful answer.

 

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan The PC sheets cannot represent the whole creature either. If they do, you're making the world into a silly topsy-turvy video game. Think about it: All PCs, whether they're 3'2 or 6'5 have the exact same melee reach. The tiny little halfling with nothing but their fist and the big burly barbarian with a greatsword both have exactly 5 feet of melee reach. A 5'2 human commoner and the 6'4 level 15 fighter both have the same identical movement speed of 30 ft. How could that possibly be the whole truth as they exist in the world, and not just a gamey abstraction?

It can't, and thus is IMO poor design, I suspect due to an excessive-to-the-point-of-ridiculous desire to want to make all the PC-playable species function the same mechanically (and work with the 5' grid).