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<blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6301042" data-attributes="member: 17106">I have never heard of anyone who plays D&amp;D and, for example, believes that not all people in the world possess a strength score, or that the strength score is not an objective measure of how much physical strength each character has. Any creature of any type can be directly compared with regards to their strength score. It always means the same thing, and it has objective and easily observable consequences. It has nothing to do with any metagame considerations.The idea of suggesting that this is not the case is really unfathomable given the totality of the rules as presented.Yes.Consider the contrary. What if there are one-armed veterans? The players can participate in an infinite number of battles and have no risk of losing an arm, nor of severing someone else's. If they encounter such a one-armed veteran, most any player will ask &quot;How did he lose an arm? That's not in the rules.&quot; And they'd be right.Frankly, that's DMing 101. One of the first things my players taught me was that if there's no valid reason within the rules for something to happen, it shouldn't happen.Moreover, any player worth his salt, upon seeing a one-armed veteran, will immediately set about trying to &quot;dis-arm&quot; his opponents, which will require a DM response. What is that response supposed to be? To tell them that no, their powerful fighter can never sever an enemy's arm, despite the fact that it happens in battle all the time? To write an entire new system of houserules to cover limb loss? To just throw in a limb loss arbitrarily from time to time, rules be damned? To me, the only parsimonious conclusion is to say that in this D&amp;D fantasy world no one ever loses their arm in the first place, given the unavoidable implications.Though, of course, plenty of people have gone the houserule route.Very possibly. They're different games.I don't see what's backwards about it. It's taking the books and using them to do the thing that they're for.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ahnehnois, post: 6301042, member: 17106"] I have never heard of anyone who plays D&D and, for example, believes that not all people in the world possess a strength score, or that the strength score is not an objective measure of how much physical strength each character has. Any creature of any type can be directly compared with regards to their strength score. It always means the same thing, and it has objective and easily observable consequences. It has nothing to do with any metagame considerations. The idea of suggesting that this is not the case is really unfathomable given the totality of the rules as presented. Yes. Consider the contrary. What if there [I]are[/I] one-armed veterans? The players can participate in an infinite number of battles and have no risk of losing an arm, nor of severing someone else's. If they encounter such a one-armed veteran, most any player will ask "How did he lose an arm? That's not in the rules." And they'd be right. Frankly, that's DMing 101. One of the first things my players taught me was that if there's no valid reason within the rules for something to happen, it shouldn't happen. Moreover, any player worth his salt, upon seeing a one-armed veteran, will immediately set about trying to "dis-arm" his opponents, which will require a DM response. What is that response supposed to be? To tell them that no, their powerful fighter can never sever an enemy's arm, despite the fact that it happens in battle all the time? To write an entire new system of houserules to cover limb loss? To just throw in a limb loss arbitrarily from time to time, rules be damned? To me, the only parsimonious conclusion is to say that in this D&D fantasy world no one ever loses their arm in the first place, given the unavoidable implications. Though, of course, plenty of people have gone the houserule route. Very possibly. They're different games. I don't see what's backwards about it. It's taking the books and using them to do the thing that they're for. [/QUOTE]

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