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

[MichaelSomething]

Are you willing to oppress the D&D world so that the game will conform to your taste or not?
Cause going over preferences for the hundredth time isn't gonna make you like 6E or whatever more.

 

[James Gasik]

It's the same sort of thing that happened with the shift from 3e to 4e. Where 3e often went out of it's way (to it's detriment) to have the same rules for everything (you turn into a fleshraker dinosaur, you get all the stats of the creature, 1 HD humanoids advance via class levels, most things have feats), this could lead to issues- like what exactly to spend all the feats of my CR 10 monster with 20 HD.

Making high level humanoid foes becomes tedious because you have to advance them, give them feats, make sure they get their stat bonuses, then equip them so they can even be a challenge to the players, only for that equipment to instantly turn into loot for the PC's- I would spend hours building encounters!

4e made the change that the end result was more important than the journey in a lot of things. Rather than worry about how a given creature is a CR 7 threat, you just say "here's the numbers, assume it has them", which is similar to what's going on now.

Rather than worry about edge cases, an ability does what it says it does, no more, no less. This approach saves on a lot of printed words, and the game can be much easier to run for the DM, but it leaves it's own sticking points. Here are two:

First, edge cases are what TTRPG's are about! "If I cast my Fountain of Flame in a bakery, does it ignite the flour? What happens?". It's a classic GM conundrum- do you go with what should happen, despite the fact that it's way off script and beyond the scope of the ability, and thus risk your game running off the rails, or do you stick to the strict letter of the law, making the game feel more like, well, a game?

(Somewhat amusingly, the answer generally depends on whether or not it favors the PC's, in my experience, lol).

Second, "How is this goblin a CR 12? I shouldn't be fighting goblins at level 12, should I? What makes it so strong that it can keep up with me?". It's the same thing you see in MMO's- enter a new zone, suddenly you're attacked by a level 20 wolf. How the heck is a wolf level 20?! (and why did it drop a magic sword when I killed it, but failed to have any wolf paws on it's person?).

These sorts of abstractions can be quite immersion breaking if you think about them too much!

I used to institute a "No Prize" house rule, based on the old Marvel comics tradition. Simply put, anyone can point out an inconsistency or error. A true player spots the inconsistency, then produces an explanation for why it's not an inconsistency at all!

I would encourage my players to do this, because to me, a TTRPG is a creative endeavor, and a good narrative can trump little quibbles like how game rules =/= real world physics.

(An example of this kind of thinking- I once had a DM say he couldn't imagine allowing a Warforged PC in his Forgotten Realms campaign. I spun him a story about a statue of the goddess Sune that stood in a temple garden, lovingly sculpted by a master who had once had a vision of the goddess. Then, during the Spellplague, when magic went awry, a blue lighting bolt struck the statue, bringing it to life, where it was instructed by the priests of Sune. Game rules of a Warforged, even though it wasn't actually one. The DM approved the concept on the spot.)

It is better when one is able to square the circle, rectifying the vagueness of necessarily arbitrary game rules with an immersive narrative. Ideally, the rules should do this on their own, but too much attention to detail and attempting to model real world things can lead to just as many problems as not attempting to do so.

The pendulum has swung both ways in D&D's history. And it will again. Striking a happy balance is hard- either you upset the pedants who must have everything make logical sense, or you open the floodgates to rabid munchkins always looking for an exploit, lol.

I've found I'm of two minds about this. As a DM, I love the gamist approach. It makes my life easier. But as a player, it bothers me when something makes zero sense, like why a stock NPC who is stated to be a warrior just like my Fighter uses an ability there is no way for my character to ever learn or possess with no explanation. In universe, we're meant to be similar, but mechanically, we're worlds apart!

With no answer forthcoming from the game itself, I'm forced to earn my own No Prize.

 

[Parmandur]

I want there to be spells that summon actual animals and ones that summon a pack of spirit animals with special Force damage attacks.

There are both in the PHB.

 

[MGibster]

I agree it does do that, and that time saved is valuable. I just personally don't think its worth the (to me) uneeded and unwanted abstraction required of that approach.

Come on, Micah! We're not supposed to have a reasonable disagreement here. We need to fortify the hill each one of us is willing to die on!

I actually understand where you're coming from. Truthfully, and I'll deny this if you tell anyone, I'm not sure if the time saved is worth the abstraction. I might change my mind with more gameplay experience.

 

[dave2008]

Which is also not an official. I don't feel like doing the extra typing, or for that matter pretending like D&D wasn't revised. But you know, I figure people can call it what they want. It'll settle out in the end. 5E, as you will recall, wasn't even 5e at one point.

I think Mike Shea (@SlyFlourish ) has the right idea that 5e is not a game made by WotC, but a genre of games that include (among others) LevelUp, Tales of the Valiant, and D&D. With that understanding, 5e24 is still very much 5e, just like LevelUp and Tales of the Valiant are as well. They are just different flavors of the same yummy ice cream!

 

[dave2008]

Except its supposed to be the same spell, and it does a different thing.

So want to rename the spell, fine call it Conjure Spirt Animals. You can use either version just fine.

 

[Worrgrendel]

I would argue that in a game of magic and spells that conjuring a spectral animal that does force damage is equally reification as conjuring a living animal

It’s certainly more humane than summoning an actual live animal and mentally forcing it to fight and die so that you may live and loot the room.

 

[Lanefan]

And yet here you are, typing out an elaborate explanation of why you used a misnomer. Sure seems to have saved you time and effort.

They have officially named them, incidentally, as the 2024 rules.

Why do any of us give a flying fig about what name WotC "officially" gave the new version?

The only thing that matters is what the general community ends up calling it, and while 5e2024 is clunky it seems to be what the community is slowly settling on. (personally I'd call it 5.5e if given the option)

 

[Lanefan]

Ok, ignoring the 6e thing.

The only thing that has been lost is the players trying to game the system by choosing the "best" animal (or whatever being summoned). So, now, your summoned animal is a single statblock that prevent cheese weasel power monkeys from using the Monster Manual as a shopping list to eke out every single bonus they can.

IOW, you absolutely can summon a "seal" or whatever animal you like to summon. What you cannot do is abuse the system, just like every other caster, and try to gain advantages over the game.

Fantastic.

Whatever happened to the idea that summoning monsters got you something random either from a chart or from what tends to live in the area?

There ain't much cheese-weeseling you can do if you've no way of being sure what you'll get - or how many - when you cast the spell.

 

[Lanefan]

Not honestly sure that I'd agree that it's insightful. To me, the vague definitions that were used in the game in 2014 D&D led to a shopping list of abuses. Players would simply "creatively interpret" every single vague statement in the game to maximize the power of their characters. It has nothing to do with trying to "reify" anything and everything to do with power gaming and rules lawyering.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, AFAIC. The only real problem is when people insist that game defined terms MUST mean a particular dictionary definition instead of treating it as a game defined term. You are invisible - as in not being able to be seen. This is a perfectly valid interpretation of the word invisible. The problem comes when people want to define invisible as the way it was used in the Invisibility spell - which, in itself, is a ludic definition of the word.

Instead of trying to reinterpret game terms, why not embrace them and realize that the game terms are just that? Like you said, a package of rules functions under a specific key word. It's this insistence that everything must be written in plain, conversational English, that causes virtually all of the malfunctions in the D&D ruleset.

Why not instead use real definitions when they make sense, i.e. "invisible" means you're transparent and can't be seen but can still be heard smelled etc., and when a term is needed for something game-related either use a different word or - better yet - make up something new. We all know what "hit points" are, for example specifically because it's a bespoke term created for the specific purpose of referring to what it refers to and nothing else.

Here, the term "unseen" could be used as a term for someone who can't be seen due to cover or hiding-in-shadows or lack of light whatever but who is not actually invisible. The spell that already uses that term would need to have its name changed to Invisible Servant, of course, but whatever.