D&D 5E The Door, Player Expectations, and why 5e can't unify the fanbase.

[Imaro]

Tim, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

EDIT: Nevermind, you said mythology. For some reason I read "fantasy".

Probably because this is a more fair criteria since D&D has never been the "Mythology Roleplaying Game".

 

[Imaro]

The 'reality' of a fantasy setting is simply different from what we modern peoples perceive as reality. Fighter's aren't going to be throwing balls of fire, but they most certainly should be performing superhuman feats, even if they're known to be scientifically 'impossible' today.

...and ths is where I get confused... mid-level to high-level fighters of every edition, are (by the standards of our world) already superhuman. They perform all kinds of superhuman feats, go toe to toe with nightmarish creatures, can survive falls of immense heights, can kill numerous lesser men, and so on.

So with that established... what exactly is it that's being argued for here? Is it versatility? Is it just MORE power? Or is it something else because it's a little confusing on what exactly people want... especially with the "No magic in any form" requirement that also keeps getting expressed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Let's take a metaphoric comparison:
In the real world, there are pilots, and people who are not pilots. Pilots can fly planes. Non-pilots cannot fly planes. Non-pilots, can if they wish, spend years learning to be a pilot. At which point the non-pilot becomes a pilots and can fly planes.

Magic rarely works like that. It's very often an innate gift as well as a matter of secret knowledge, and it's not something you buy and upgrade and keep in a hanger. Magic isn't too consistent at all, in genre, actually. Sometimes powerful magic can be sensed half a world away. Sometimes a wizard's magic rests in an amulet or staff or somesuch, sometimes it's a matter of knowledge, sometimes it's in his blood or soul or even gallbladder (really). Similarly, a warrior in a fantasy story may have tremendous strength or other physical talent, or a legendary bloodline, or divine or fey ancestry, or be chosen by the gods or fate, or simply have greater courage and will and thus try, and do, things lesser men simply can't.

So, no, your metaphor doesn't hold, at all. Besides, if magic were simply a skill, and defeating a flying, firebreathing intelligent dinosaur with little more than a particularly long sharp stick was simply a skill, you wouldn't have mages and heroes, you'd have arcane technicians and dragon exterminators.

The more we thrash out this topic, the more convinced I am that I have no problem with fighters going beyond the mundane, so long as this happens at a sufficiently high level that I can enjoy my non magical fighters in the style of lower level gritty campaigns I prefer. I'm fine with the mythical stuff being in the rules, so long as it doesn't creep in too early.

As long as the casters are on the same track: doing subtle magic and rituals at low levels, and saving the crazy stuff for later.

 

[SKyOdin]

...and ths is where I get confused... mid-level to high-level fighters of every edition, are (by the standards of our world) already superhuman. They perform all kinds of superhuman feats, go toe to toe with nightmarish creatures, can survive falls of immense heights, can kill numerous lesser men, and so on.

So with that established... what exactly is it that's being argued for here? Is it versatility? Is it just MORE power? Or is it something else because it's a little confusing on what exactly people want... especially with the "No magic in any form" requirement that also keeps getting expressed.

The problem is, the limits of what is "realistically possible" are constantly being evoked to place limits on what fighters can do. So, I can't play a D&D fighter who can slice hills in half, or jump across a 40ft wide canyon. These limits also contribute to the long-standing problem that fighters have often been significantly weaker than spell-casters, both in combat and overall non-combat narrative power. Removing the limiters placed on fighters by an illogical and unreasonable desire for realism would help solve both of those problems.

Giving magic to fighters completely misses the point of wanting to play a cool and powerful fighter who solves problems through extraordinary skill and strength alone.

 

[Shadeydm]

Giving magic to fighters completely misses the point of wanting to play a cool and powerful fighter who solves problems through extraordinary skill and strength alone.

Yet giving magic to fighters is exactly what 4E did. They didn't call it magic they called it a martial power source, but make no mistake its fighter magic. So I would put forth the notion that if you want a fighter that solves problems through extrordinary skill and strength alone you don't want the 4E fighter.

 

[Tony Vargas]

...and ths is where I get confused... mid-level to high-level fighters of every edition, are (by the standards of our world) already superhuman. They perform all kinds of superhuman feats, go toe to toe with nightmarish creatures, can survive falls of immense heights, can kill numerous lesser men, and so on.

So with that established... what exactly is it that's being argued for here? Is it versatility?

I think it is mostly versatility and peak power or 'plot power' - things like dailies, encounter powers, martial healing, etc.

And, there are more inherent contradictions in the resistance to fighter being complex or balanced or genre-appropriate than /just/ the 'double standard' I've been going on about.

As you very cogently point out, any character that reaches high level has, by virtue of simple hps alone, a super-human ability to survive deadly dangers. By virtue of basic combat abilities (BAB or THAC0 or 1/2 level), they can out-fight ordinary people quite casually, and can stand up to improbably large and dangerous enemies.

So the idea that PCs must be 'mundane' or 'not superhuman' or 'realistic' in what they can do without resorting to magic is really absurd on a basic level. Yet, that argument is advanced passionately when it comes to the fighter getting any sort of extraordinary genre-appropriate abilities. Conversely, the D&D wizard is given vastly more 'spells' than any of his peers in the broader fantasy genre.

The classic D&D Vancian wizard can eventually learn almost unlimited numbers of spells, and can memorize and cast dozens of them at high levels. The whole memorization thing is not present anywhere in genre beyond the works of Jack Vance or D&D-inspired fiction, and, in the Dying Earth, the very greatest wizards could memorize at most 10 spells, at risk to their sanity, mind you, and in that entire world there were perhaps a hundred or so spells to be uncovered.

The broader fantasy genre, OTOH - from myth and legend, to fairy tales, to S&S or High Fantasy - is full of great warriors slaying terrible monsters single-handed, fighting against whole armies until they stand atop a mountain of the slain, and doing feats of strength and valor far beyond any imaginable human limits. Yet the D&D fighter is held to a bizarre genre-inappropriate standard of 'realism,' a standard that the game, itself, breaks, for every character who accumulates a large number of hps.

 

[Underman]

The problem is, the limits of what is "realistically possible" are constantly being evoked to place limits on what fighters can do.

I'm sure it would be very frustrating and disheartening to perceive that DMs and game designers are actively punishing players by restricting fighters from hill cutting and chasm leaping.

The way I see it is that verisimilitude (not realism per se) already has a baseline or reference point -- real life and/or action movies. Magic has no consistent reference point, so it's not the same uphill battle. For superhuman abilities, I then have to be sold (either through sheer ignorance or suspension of disbelief) on raising to bar for what I want to have as superhuman-possible in an RPG.

Sheer ignorance: in action movies, people fly through windows all the time and get back up. Realistically, hitting and shattering glass can actually be quite crippling. Who knew? But it never bothered me because I've accepted the trope already and was ignorant of the realism and, well, it's not really a big deal. (I have to smile when people write that PCs aren't superhuman until 10th level or so... I think they're already superhuman at 1st level).

Suspension of disbelief: If someone said "it's not fair", well, that may be true mechanically, but it would never change my mind about what I ideally want for fluff. Sell me on the fluff fairly and I'll buy into it. Guy Gavriel Kay, for example, in the Fionavar Tapestry does a tremendous job on selling me a vision of ultra-skilled warriors that I bought into it hook, line and sinker.

Removing the limiters placed on fighters by an illogical and unreasonable desire for realism would help solve both of those problems.

I don't think that the craving for verisimilitude is unreasonable, especially the idea of fighters slicing hills in half. Sell me on it. Hit the fighter with gamma radiation and turn him into a hulking green-skinned brute or something other than "it's not balanced / it's not fair" (I'm not quoting you, I'm just paraphrasing the general argument I think I'm hearing).

 

[SKyOdin]

Yet giving magic to fighters is exactly what 4E did. They didn't call it magic they called it a martial power source, but make no mistake its fighter magic. So I would put forth the notion that if you want a fighter that solves problems through extrordinary skill and strength alone you don't want the 4E fighter.

Only if you think that "complex game mechanics" and magic are synonymous. There was nothing magical about the 4E fighter, or the 3E Warblade. They didn't throw fire around, fly, teleport, or transmute. They don't polymorph into strange creatures, raise the dead, or open portals to strange planes. All they did was use fancy weapon techniques to hit things hard and perform a few cool physical stunts.

I don't see what is so magical about that.

 

[billd91]

Since when were there spellcasters in Middle Earth who used overt magical rituals? Even Gandalf does no such thing, ever. All of the magic he uses is either so subtle that it is near invisible, or a quick and immediate application of his power without much overt casting. Most of all, he simply applies his knowledge and wisdom. Outside of the great wizards, there are no clear "mages" at all in the world of Middle Earth. Lord of the Rings doesn't have spells.

You really need to reread the books then. Gandalf's spell to deal with the wolves in Hollin even has an incantation. But ultimately when playing (or designing) a game inspired by literature, you look at what goes on in the literature and you translate that into things that the players can do. If that means that it works to look at Aragorn's healing as a spell, then as a game designer you treat it as a spell.

Similarly, saying that D&D heroes are not on par with demigods because the Deities and Demigods book says so is fairly circular, insular logic. You say that they are "heroes", but for most of human history, the terms "hero" and "demigod" were practically synonyms. To be honest, the Deities and Demigods' definitions of divinity, along with most traditional D&D definitions of such, are lousy. No construction of religion in D&D is remotely based on real world religion and beliefs, and most are rather stupid, even within the context of D&D itself.

What I'm pointing out is that being a high-powered, high-level, PC who fights demon lords and gods doesn't require a PC to be a demigod or even viewed as a demi-god. Other intermediate levels of classification work just as well - like DDG's heroes. Nor is it silly to view them as anything other than demigods, as you suggest.

 

[billd91]

The idea that everything corresponds to real-world physics except when magic intervenes is completely ludicrous in the context of D&D, though. D&D worlds involve giants, dragons, beholders, undead, divine intervention, and multiple alternate planes of existence which are readily accessible. How can you possibly say that the rules of reality in a D&D world compare to ones in our world? I can't accidentally stumble into an alternate universe in my daily life, yet a D&D character can. I can't jump 30 feet into the air, but who is to say that a D&D character can't?

Who says that everything has to? But you need a starting point and using the real world is the best and easiest model we have that we also have a reasonably common understanding of. Things fall when dropped. Heat rises. Granite is harder than talc and makes for better castle walls. That's what says a D&D character can't jump 30 feet in the air without some form of exception. If you're too ready to ditch our real-world physics model, you have to spend a lot of time redefining it in order for a player's expectations in a game to make sense. Computer games do that, but then they have to in order for the players' avatars to be able to do anything at all. That's not the case in pen and paper RPGs where the assumption is that the the way the real world works forms a baseline reality for the game.

Sure, there are more exceptions that just magic. But in your typical fantasy setting, it's among the most powerful ones as far as creating variation (bound by virtually nothing) and the one that's most supportive of the fantasy genre.