The Difference Between Realism vs. Believability

[NoWayJose]

However, if you demand rigour from the simulation then all sorts of corner cases arise that cause difficulty like the 1 hit point minion surviving a miss effect that causes more than one hit point of damage. The high level fighter falling off the cliff and walking away. The very concept that a housecat can kill a grown adult in the prime of their life and health.

The fighter surviving an improbable fall is an issue of realism vs believability, and has been well-covered in the first few pages of this thread. It is a "genre law" that is plausible under any system (simulationist or gamist) and I don't see it relating to this discussion.

The housecat killing a PC IS a great example, but it's a poor excuse to give up on RPG simulation. "Corner cases" have been around since 1st edition, and I accept them as a problem inherent, but they can easily be adjucated by the DM and are solvable -- anyway, when is the last time that a DM allowed a PC to be killed by a housecat?

I would strongly distinguish between corner cases (a side-effect of two separate rule mechanics coinciding and ACCIDENTALLY causing implausible situations in-game) vs gamist mechanics (core rules that DIRECTLY cause implausible situations in-game). The former is a simple accident, generally rare, and not a big deal in my experience. The latter is purposeful, systemic to the game, cannot be house-ruled away as easily without repercussions to other facets of gameplay, and is a big deal for many interested in immersion and simulation.

 

[NoWayJose]

If the two of us where somehow transported to downtown Waterdeep tomorrow morning as our player characters I would consider it very dangerous to rely too strongly on our knowledge of the game mechanics as a guide to how 4e Forgotten Realms actually works.

Tweaking your concept, if 3E PCs and 4E PCs were translated sans players into some version of Waterdeep, I think the 3E PCs would fare better. The 3E fighters would simply and efficiently hack anything to death and the 3E spellcasters would hang back and obliterate others. The 4E PCs would try their usual academically clever tactics, but how could they pull it off without their corresponding players to manage an omnipotent bird's eye view of the battlefield? The warlord would shout commands that nobody could hear amidst the noise and cries, and he would be shocked (shocked!!!) that his comrades have lost their perfect hearing and the time and inclination to listen to him every second. All the careful positioning and pushing and shifting and controlling in furious real-time battle would fail spectacularly, everyone moving too quickly, bumping into each other and into opponents, not at all the way they planned it out. The 4E PCs would fall under the chaos of battle, a little bit different from their ivory tower tactical planning.

It's a silly thought experiment, but I like the way it pokes fun at some of 4E's conceits and implausibilities as I see it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

snip .....
and is a big deal for many interested in immersion and simulation.

This is the kernel of the issue and it is due to a simulationist view of the rules which 4e does not support in my view and was poorly supported in other editions of the game (IMHO).
The housecat is not the only issue I could bring up but I have given up on simulation in the context of D&D. I do not have a problem with that.
If I wanted to play a simulationist game I'd try GURPS or RoleMaster. It is not a priority of mine, I accept it is a priority of your and we are now talking across each other.
I do see and understand the point you are making but it is not relevant to my enjoyment of the game.
I see no point in further exchanges, let us agree to differ and move on.

 

[TarionzCousin]

The Difference Between Realism vs. Believability

You can "disbelieve," but you can't "dis-real."

 

[Ariosto]

Sometimes the "believability" factor has to do with baggage of assumptions.

Someone complains that an admittedly fantastic game-world is nonetheless notably "unrealistic" because it looks more like 1410 than like 2010. Said complainer proceeds to propose a pile of things based on assumptions that simply do not hold true. The alleged ease of working a particular magic, for instance, is not in fact in accordance with the rules of the game.

Is the complainer an expert in real spells of illumination, clairvoyance, apportation, or whatever? Whatever the case may be, the real issue at hand is internal consistency.

We want the people in the imagined world to behave in ways that we can believe they believe make sense. "Human nature" is helpfully presumed to be the same, even though circumstances are different. Given situation X, what can we believe people would do?

Just what support one needs to suspend disbelief varies from one individual to another.

 

[Ariosto]

However, if you demand rigour from the simulation then all sorts of corner cases arise that cause difficulty like the 1 hit point minion surviving a miss effect that causes more than one hit point of damage. The high level fighter falling off the cliff and walking away. The very concept that a housecat can kill a grown adult in the prime of their life and health.

I see the problem with it being guaranteed that every minion survives a blast that can take out an arbitrarily tougher target (it not really mattering to the rule whether the latter is a first-level fighter or an arch-devil).

An eighth-level "superhero" is a fantastic figure in the first place, so having a good chance of surviving a 120' fall -- with, perhaps, 2 h.p. left -- does not bother me. That an ordinary man has no chance of surviving that fall, and such a high chance of getting killed by a fall of a mere 10', is startling.

I don't know why the housecat in MM2 gets 1-2 points per pair of paws. I can see it doing just 1 point, but that's still a lot if it's "actual" damage (as opposed to the pummeling sort recovered at 1 point per round). Fractional points, I gather, were considered too much bother. The system was set up to handle deadly clashes among men and monsters -- not trying to give puss a flea-bath!

My guess is that thoughts were more along the lines of a magic-user's familiar getting in some claw-raking action before getting eaten by an owlbear, or the like.

It can thus call for some thought before invoking a rule. Not every hug calls for a wrestling roll! If something is just plain deadly, then it might not be a matter of hit points at all (e.g., "save vs. poison or die").

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I see the problem with it being guaranteed that every minion survives a blast that can take out an arbitrarily tougher target (it not really mattering to the rule whether the latter is a first-level fighter or an arch-devil).

It is not guaranteed, if they are hit they die. The issues is that they do not die on a miss that has a damage effect.

An eighth-level "superhero" is a fantastic figure in the first place, so having a good chance of surviving a 120' fall -- with, perhaps, 2 h.p. left -- does not bother me. That an ordinary man has no chance of surviving that fall, and such a high chance of getting killed by a fall of a mere 10', is startling.

Well it bothered me that I moved away from AD&D at the time because of stuff like that and tried other systems in search for "realism" then I realised that it was a mugs game and instead suspended my disbelief with stronger ropes

 

[Doug McCrae]

Hit points and damage have always been both real and not real.

Real:
Long time to heal (pre-4e), bloodied, walls, elephants, poison delivery, many cure light wounds spells needed to heal a high hp char.

Not real:
The textual explanation of hit points, high level fighters, no penalties for hp loss until you hit zero, fast healing (4e), a sergeant-major can cure you by shouting.

So I don't really see a major new problem with minions not losing hit points from X amount of damage while non-minions do. Hit points and damage don't represent a real measurable thing in the game world anyway. Except, ofc, when they do. But that isn't a new issue.

 

[Doug McCrae]

A couple of aspects of d20 D&D combat feel quite real to me - flanking and opportunity attacks. It's a good tactic, particularly in 4e, to hug the walls or corners, to avoid being surrounded by foes. As I understand it, this is a 100% realistic tactic in a melee. Opportunity attacks are maybe a bit less realistic but they do quite a good job of showing why you can't move rapidly around or in between opponents in a melee. You have to go slowly, defensively ie shift.

This is not believability as the OP defines it, I don't think. It's not internal consistency in a fantastic world, but realism - correspondence to the way things are in our world.

Now, I admit there are huge amounts of nonsense of all kinds in the D&D combat system but there are some touches of realism too that I like.

 

[Ariosto]

So I don't really see a major new problem with minions not losing hit points from X amount of damage while non-minions do.

Minions never lose hit points, because they do not have hit points to lose. They are either quick or "destroyed", and the issue is which they ought to be.

Hit points and damage don't represent a real measurable thing in the game world anyway.

Neither do hits and misses. Neither do many (most?) things in the game, in the sense that the discrete pieces do not directly and individually map to precisely isolated and quantified phenomena.

The game results do in sum represent measurable things in the game world anyway! For example, either the minions are destroyed or they are not.

Now, it is the very essence of game design to have an opinion on the matter and then to make up rules to make it so. The opinion comes first. -- Rules do not write themselves!