The D&D Experience (or, All Roads lead to Rome)

[Raven Crowking]

See, BryonD, understanding what you say and agreeing with what you say aren't the same thing.

True.

I understand what you're saying.

Erm....I'm not convinced that this is true.

Your paraphrase shows that you understand part of what BryonD is saying, but that you are missing crucial parts as well.

Let me try:

There are two views of mechanics.

In one case, the mechanics are an attempt to model the fictional reality of the imagined game space, and, wherever and whenever they fail to do so, the mechanics are replaced either by GM judgement or some other mechanic. I.e., the fictional reality defines the mechanics used.

In the second case, the mechanics constrain the imagined game space, effectively becoming the physics of that fictional reality. In this case, the mechanics cannot fail to model the fictional reality, because the mechanics define the fictional reality.

So, in BryonD's case, the mechanics flow from the narrative choices that the player has made during character generation, but only determine how effective those choices are so long as the result is sensible within the context of the fictional reality. Where a dissonance occurs, the fictional reality wins. Every time.

Both views on mechanics say "You want to make a good jumper, so you use the mechanics to build a good jumper." The first case says, if the mechanics fail, we'll use some other means to model the fictional reality. The second case, and only the second case, says that the mechanics determine how good of a jumper you actually are.

1st case: Come and Get It doesn't affect all kinds of creatures, because it doesn't make sense within the fictional reality for them to be affected.

2nd case: Come and Get It affects all creatures, 'cause that's what the rules say.

1st case: A really clever idea resolves the situation.

2nd case: The situation cannot yet be resolved because the number of successes over failures has not yet been reached.

All games are part the first case and part the second case, but where your emphasis lies drastically changes the experience and outcome of game play.

4e emphasizes the 2nd case (attempting to use it in the 1st case gimps classes like the fighter, but you could make your own fiction-first hack to do so, or borrow LostSoul's).

1e emphasizes the 1st case, both explicitly in the rules, and through the presentation of rules that the DM must choose between when adjudicating what is applicable in a given situation. You could run 1e using the 2nd case, but I think you'd have to houserule even more heavily than you would to run 4e in the 1st case.​

As always, BryonD is welcome to correct me if I misunderstand his point.

You like to call yourself a "Big Tent Kind of Guy", Hussar.

C'mon. Expand your tent a little. You don't have to want to play in case 1 to understand it!


RC

 

[Hussar]

Yes, they are. You have to look at why the mechanics are as they are. If the mechanics generated the narrative, the character would pick or pay for the mechanic they wanted and then come up with a justification for it in the narrative. But that's not what we have here. Characters who wanted to be in the best protective armors have hampered jump checks - makes sense for that to be the case doesn't it? That a character in heavy, somewhat restrictive armor would be worse at jumping than a guy just wearing normal clothing? The mechanics follow choices the player/character has made. Admittedly, the min-maxing player may have made his choices because of the mechanics, but they may have all come from the narrative-oriented choices made by the player.



If I have chosen, through the story, to be lugging around a lot of loot - it will affect my jumping ability (being encumbered may slow me or impact my jump check). If I choose to make a running jump, it will improve my check. My narrative choices can affect my jump. The end result is determined by the mechanics used to model my jumping ability (which may also have been established by choices made to fuel the narrative) - as modified by choices I'm making at the time I jump.

But all of the modifiers are mechanically determined. How restrictive is the armor? Well, it depends on where the designers pegged the advantages and disadvantages of the armor. Move the slider up on the AC and move the slider down on armor check penalties.

How much your encumberance affects your jumping ability is entirely mechanically determined. How much a running jump effects is entirely mechanically determined. Push the right button and you get the bonus. The player's narrative actually makes very little difference here. I can narrate that I'm doing a ballet leap over the pit or I am cannonballing over, but, I still get a specific modifier for jumping that pit.

In other words, so long as I move a specific distance (10 feet in 3e) I gain access to specific jump mechanics. My in game narrative doesn't change that one whit.

 

[Hussar]

1st case: A really clever idea resolves the situation.

2nd case: The situation cannot yet be resolved because the number of successes over failures has not yet been reached.

But, this isn't true. That's the whole problem in a nutshell. Your second case is actually factually false. Nothing in the skill challenge make-up actually states this. For one, you can adjudicate that a success counts as more than one success, for another, all of the DM advice in 4e says that simply tallying up numbers is BORING and shouldn't be done.

If you want to pull a SC out of context and ignore the rest of the DMG, fine. But, let's actually discuss facts. BryonD talked up thread about how an armored knight and a bare chested pirate would have the same defenses if they are the same CR. That is false.

An armored knight would be a soldier and a bare chested pirate would be a skirmisher. Different hit points, different defenses, different capabilities, even though they would have the same CR. Even within a given CR, different creatures of the same type (soldier, artillery, etc) will have different defenses and hit points and capabilities, although, to be fair, they'll be close.

Pretty much exactly the same way that two similar creatures in earlier editions would have very similar stats - an orc and a goblin aren't too far apart.

Why? Because the in game narrative is more believable? Maybe. Or could it be that game designers, looking at two similar monsters, give them similar stats because they are similar challenges?

Chicken or the egg?

To me, the only difference between the 4e decision process and earlier editions is that the decision process is transparent. We KNOW why a CR X creature has Y defenses - it's spelled out very clearly in the monster creation rules. There's a reason why monster creation rules in earlier editions were so opaque - most of the decision processes were not transparent. They were based a lot on, "Well, an ogre is about this big, we need something between an ogre and a giant, well, let's make a troll fit that spot."

There's no narrative reason why an troll is bigger than an ogre and smaller than a giant. A troll is there because you need a big, tough bruiser for PC's to beat on that fits in the 5th level character range.

Now, I'm sure there are monsters out there that were created in the other direction - let's figure out a fictional background for the monster and then make mechanics for it. Sure. But, most of the time, those mechanics are going to be informed by the design space around that monster, not by the narrative.

Thus, medusas gazes are savable. Unlike the narrative, you can have staring contests with D&D medusas. Because it's a mechanical construct, not for narrative purposes.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But, this isn't true. That's the whole problem in a nutshell. Your second case is actually factually false. Nothing in the skill challenge make-up actually states this.

The example need not be true in 4e; it need only be hypothetically true, in some hypothetical game, in order to illustrate Case 2.

The goal is not to denigrate skill challenges (the Jester's examples seem, to me, to show that they can work in some cases even for my playstyle), but to illustrate the difference between Case 1 and Case 2.

Just grok the difference, and we can have an intelligent conversation about how the design philosophy of a ruleset informs its rules. Seeing the difference doesn't make 4e "not D&D" or change what you enjoy. It just allows us to talk.

C'mon. Take the plunge. Embrace the big tent.

 

[Hussar]

So, we've gone from actually talking about real games to some fictional game that only exists in your mind RC?

Sure, you can play games where slavish adherence to the letter of the mechanics would entirely determine the in game reality. I'm not entirely sure I'd enjoy such a game, but, I'm quite sure some exist.

What's your point then? That some game that no one actually plays does this? So what?

And, please, stop with the ad hominem. It's tiresome. In actual fact, my games probably look exactly like yours at the table - with the player's narrative informing the flow of play. The only difference here is that I'm freely admitting that this is a concious choice on the part of me and my players, not something that has anything to do with what the mechanics say.

 

[NoWayJose]

Well, I couldn't disagree more. I think it's the *intent* behind the mechanics that has changed most drastically between editions.

Between all those checks and balances of finding the right sweet spot between mechanics and narrative, I just feel that 4E is the most gamist for prioritizing metagame rules over roleplaying narrative.

If that is perceived to change the feel of the D&D game, then that would be controversial.

I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by such a controversy, as there must be hundreds of threads about this over the last several years.

Me, I think there's far more difference between groups than between editions.

Between groups of what?

 

[Hussar]

Nowayjose - groups playing the game. There's a larger difference between two groups playing the same edition, quite often, than between two editions.

RC - I would say that 4e actually takes a 3rd approach from the 2 you outlined. Instead of powers being in game constructs, they are entirely meta-game constructs that aid the players in creating the in game narrative. Thus, Come and Get It affects everyone, not because it suddenly invades the mind of a giant slug, but because CaGI is a meta-game construct.

This would likely lead to the perceived difference between editions more than anything. Previously, all those meta-game considerations were handled away from the table - chargen primarily and the leveling mechanics. 3e was already well on the way towards this kind of structure in later supplements though - the Knight from PHB 2, Bo9S is chockablock with this sort of thing. Action points mechanics from Eberron is another example. I can spend an Action Point and gain access to a feat! How's that for mechanics dictating narrative - spend a completely meta-game resource to gain an ability that I previously didn't have for six seconds and I will promptly forget how to do it immedietely afterward.

But, as far as differences between your examples 1 and 2, I honestly think they're far more in the eye of the beholder. I don't narrate the fiction and become better at jumping, at least, I don't have to. I can simply move 10 feet and jump further. How I narrate that doesn't actually matter to the mechanics. The mechanics dictate the narrative, in this case.

 

[billd91]

But all of the modifiers are mechanically determined. How restrictive is the armor? Well, it depends on where the designers pegged the advantages and disadvantages of the armor. Move the slider up on the AC and move the slider down on armor check penalties.

How much your encumberance affects your jumping ability is entirely mechanically determined. How much a running jump effects is entirely mechanically determined. Push the right button and you get the bonus. The player's narrative actually makes very little difference here. I can narrate that I'm doing a ballet leap over the pit or I am cannonballing over, but, I still get a specific modifier for jumping that pit.

In other words, so long as I move a specific distance (10 feet in 3e) I gain access to specific jump mechanics. My in game narrative doesn't change that one whit.

Just how much of an impact are you expecting your narrative to have? Determine it completely? If not, how do you expect it to be operationalized? Give you some kind of enhancement to the mechanics... in which case then the mechanics determine how far you jump or if you succeed?

Frankly, I think you're just trying to block any statement that narrative matters in D&D by refusing to look at the source of the mechanics and what they are intended to model.

 

[pawsplay]

Really? So, that -6 I take to jump checks for having a base 20 movement is narratively determined? That -8 I take for wearing plate mail is narratively determined?

Yes, yes it is. Codified, but narrative: if you are moving slowly, you don't jump as far. I feel this conversation may be sliding into the trap of thinking that, because narration is conducive to seat-of-the-pants rulings, that narration means primarily making stuff up, when in fact, it means relating events that happen in the imaginary world. It doesn't matter if it's specified under the Jump rules or the GM decrees it based on your encumbrance, it comes down to the penalty being a reasonable result of being overburdened/slow.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, we've gone from actually talking about real games to some fictional game that only exists in your mind RC?

I was about to give up, but this gives me some hope:

RC - I would say that 4e actually takes a 3rd approach from the 2 you outlined. Instead of powers being in game constructs, they are entirely meta-game constructs that aid the players in creating the in game narrative. Thus, Come and Get It affects everyone, not because it suddenly invades the mind of a giant slug, but because CaGI is a meta-game construct.

Okay, stop here for just a second.

How would you define "in game constructs"? How would you define "entirely meta-game constructs"?

You seem to be specifying two types of mechanics here. Please define them, as carefully and as accurately as you can. Worlds may yet collide!


RC