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

[Lanefan]

D&D is one of the worst possible TTRPGs if you want good in-world explanations for how the rules work. It's horrendous for that, and it's been horrendous since the very beginning. AC, hit points, levels, and many saving throws are some of the worst offenders, and they've been at the core of the game since its start.

AC is almost always trivially easy to explain in-world, and levels are easy enough as well particularly if characters have to train into them.

Hit points are very abstract and always have been - a necessary evil, says I.

Saving throws are (relatively) much more in-world explainable in the older editions where for example your clothing, gear, etc. could and did burn if you blew your fireball save; the newer version you reference below is indeed somewhat nonsensical.

There are other fantasy TTRPGs whose rules are not as gamey and abstract where using those rules for more tangible in-world explanations makes more sense and you don't quite turn the fictional world into a silly goofy mess like what happens with D&D (all editions) when trying to use the rules as more like physics.

And that ties into my original argument: you're so used to AC and hit points and Reflex/Dex saves/breath weapon saves/spell saves (empty room, fireball, no damage to your clothing/armor = goofy video game logic) that you don't mind them anymore, but if the game changes, yet retains the same gamey logic for its rules, it becomes an issue all of a sudden. It's been that way from the start. Don't play D&D if you want rules that make sense in the world!

 

[Lanefan]

Not with any sort of mechanical support for most of the concepts.

If you loosened the allowable multiclass combinations in 1e you could get close-ish enough to a fairly wide variety of character concepts, the glaring (and good, and very intentional) exception being the James Bond style character who is just plain good at everything and has no real weaknesses.

 

[Maxperson]

If you loosened the allowable multiclass combinations in 1e you could get close-ish enough to a fairly wide variety of character concepts, the glaring (and good, and very intentional) exception being the James Bond style character who is just plain good at everything and has no real weaknesses.

That would widen the number you can achieve, but a great many would still not be achievable unless you were willing to setting for something that kinda, sorta seems like your concept if you squint hard enough. With 3e I think I encountered less than 5 concepts that I couldn't realize, over the 20 years that I played it. With 5e I have to duck a funky chicken dance to not get hit by concepts that I can't realize.

 

[Lanefan]

How do races come into play when discussing which traits generic NPC stat blocks have?

Because the generic stat block for an Elf should be different that that of a Dwarf or a Hobbit or a Goliath or a Human; all of which should also be different from each other.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

We're discussing mechanical representation of concepts or not. Pretending that you have achieved something that the mechanics don't back creates a contradiction within the game. You haven't actually achieved it.

Sure.

But I think there's a huge difference between delineating an NPC to accurately accord with a specific vision - and one which is consistent with the way PCs are constructed - and requiring that the NPC partake of and be a function of an overarching imagined mechanical sub-reality which governs the way the game world works in every detail.

My personal preference is to use transparent, interoperable rules with regard to PC and NPC construction; as I've noted on previous occasions, it appeals to my aesthetic and stimulates my creativity to use this framework. But that isn't the same as singling out the game elements (e.g. Power Attack), treating each as a Ding an sich within the imagined world, and affording them an assumed reality independent of their particular context.

Which is what happens when an NPC "takes" a feat (with an implication of choice). I would argue that the NPC is assigned a feat to accord with the vision of the DM, and to achieve a certain mechanical goal, I happen to prefer a common language between PCs and NPCs in this regard, but it doesn't require that I assert that the feat exist independent of the characters to which it applies.

 

[Lanefan]

I'm sorry but that's intellectually dishonest. The Assassin does not have an action, a bonus action, or a trait that allows it to apply poison to both its weapon attacks. By default applying poison would either be a bonus action or an action, just from baseline rules when interacting with poisons and other similar items. Thus, you would also have to create a custom trait for the 2014 Assassin, which would allow it to apply poison to both attacks, above and beyond what a creature could normally do.

Easy enough to assume (or, if a PC, have the player declare as SOP) the poison was put on the weapons while breaking camp each morning...

That is absolutely no different than giving the hobgoblin a trait that increases the weapon's damage die or dice when the hobgoblin wields that weapon.

In my view it's quite different, in that it's way harder to explain in the fiction why the same weapon does x base damage in the hands of one species and y base damage in the hands of another, before any bonuses or penalties are applied in either case.

 

[Lanefan]

And like the aarakroca javelin, there is no rule for the 7d6 poison in the PHB or DMG. It can't be bought, created, and the rules for use are murky. Nor is it listed as an inventory item. So you have magical quantum poison that only that NPC can use, never runs out and doesn't exist outside the statblock of the NPC.

But sure, 2014 was great for versimillitude.

So 2014 had problems to; no news there.

The lack of any rule or write-up for the 7d6 poison is IMO a flat-out error.

 

[Lanefan]

I suspect that there are DM facing players that loot everything till the bone marrow of any monsters they defeat.

Ayup.

Assassin and Hobgoblin does poison damage, I want it toooooooooo!

Exactly. As a player, I want there to be at least the possibility of getting this (e.g. if my PC is an Assassin then I should either already know o be able to learn that poison trick); and as a DM, I expect the game to give me the tools to provide it.

 

[Lanefan]

Then your concept was never realized if it was something that involved becoming the best archer in the world. Let's say you didn't want ranger abilities and wanted to be a fighter.

In BECMI, 1e and 2e, you were ask good at 1st level with a bow as any other level 1 fighter in the world with your dex. At 20th level you weren't any better than any other 20th level fighter, nor were you better with a bow than a dagger(assuming you had dagger proficiency). You never got better with a bow.

Post-UA 1e and all of 2e would beg to differ, as they had weapon specialization such that you could get better with a bow than (most) other same-level warriors.

 

[Lanefan]

This makes it sound like "fighter" and "feat" are a real thing in-universe, as though they were "plumber" and "vocational qualification" - and I think that's a stretch for most people.

Not for me; as that's exactly how I see them. Your class is your (current) profession - she's a plumber, he's a baker, I'm a cleric, she's a fighter. A feat or ability or spell represents some specialist training you've had along the way.