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

[Remathilis]

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?

Its not ludicrous, and its what D&D has been lacking for 15 years now.

D&D needs to be (at its heart) mundane, and then let the exceptions change the mundanity. D&D goes really wonky when logic gets applied to it. Things like kings and knights and the feudal system get destroyed horribly in a GP economy where adventurers haul out huge sums of gold. Magic utterly destroys medieval warfare. Active pantheistic deities utterly redefine the relationship between mortals and divine. The world of D&D very quickly stops looking like our world and myths made real and starts quickly looking very foreign and very modern. (See: Eberron. D&D tropes taken to logical conclusions).

At a certain point, you have to accept mundane things. Tigers and not Feyshadow Tigers. Magic isn't common enough to turn the medieval infantry into guerrilla warriors with flamethrowers and grenades. Kings have rulership by divine right and nobody asks why. And a fighter is a trained dude in armor with a weapon who might be very deadly with it, but he's not breaking the laws of physics to do so.

Really, D&D has slowly drifted away from "Medieval world + magic" to "Magical world, with medieval tech." It would do well to go back and regain some of that feel.

 

[Neonchameleon]

1. Wizards and Clerics are able to bend the laws of nature and thus superscede the normal limitations of a D&D world person... because they discover, learn and cast spells which in turn allow them to control/shape/whatever magical energy. They have justification, limitations and process... However what I am seeing in this thread is fighter's shouldn't need justification, limitations or process to cleave mountains, redirect rivers, etc.... they should just be able to reshape reality... Huh??? I can see why that feels like cartoon logic (of the Looney Tunes variety) to many.

No. What you are seeing is the suggestion that fighters shouldn't all need the same justification. Because in myth and legend they don't all have the same justification. But the outcomes are fairly similar. It doesn't matter if Fighter A is the child of a God and Fighter B drank the waters of the Juseynko spring while Fighter C is an Avatar of War, and Fighter D has just been around so much magic it clings to his bones. (On second thoughts the spring matters a great deal). What matters, what makes them fighters is their supernatural resilance, fortitude, strength, and skill.

The actual supernatural source of power needs only be mentioned as one line in their background fluff. Because functionally it is equivalent.

And not having supernatural fighters means that they are effectively capped at about level 5 or 6 in effectiveness. (Giant In The Playground held a series of 3.X arena duels - level 20 fighters vs level 13 wizards. It came out about even - but the only reason the fighters were in with a shot at all was they had so much money from the Wealth By Level tables and the wizards weren't allowed to teleport away.)

2. D&D is not and never was billed as a generic fantasy game... so then what does it matter whether wizards are based on anything from myth or literature, and why should fighters be? D&D is it's own genre and was never made to perfectly mimc any of it's sources... so where does this insistence that it should come from?

It doesn't perfectly match the inspiration, granted. But people are going to come into a game of D&D with characters inspired by just about anything they've seen or read. You have a much better game if you can basically match their expectations.

 

[Fifth Element]

Confirmation bias error - mythology is primarily about gods in the first place. Outside of Greek/Roman myth, how many mortals from mythology can you name at all?

Bias of familiarity - most people are most familiar with Classical mythology. I can name loads of mortals from other mythologies.

Sigurd
Angantyr
Arngrim
Hagbard
Hervor
Orvar-Oddr
Ragnar Lodbrok
Starkad
Sigmund
Beowulf
Finn
Egil One-Hand
Breca the Bronding
Hama
Ingeld
Weohstan
All of the Knights of the Round Table
Roland
Olivier
Ogier
Huon
Fierabras
Renaud
Maugris
Ilya Muromets
Dobrynya Nikitich
Alyosha Popovich
Anika the Warrior

That's just Germanic, Norse and Russian plus legends of Charlemagne and King Arthur.

The great majority of heroes from mythology are fighters of some kind or another, it seems.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think the double-standard I'm talking about is being extremely well-illustrated at this point. Casters & items are able to draw from any remotely fantasy source of inspiration, from any mythology of any culture, from high fantasy or S&S fiction, from TV or movies, heck, from extra-genre sources like science-fiction. It's all on the table, and it often greatly exceeds the variety and power of what's out there.

Fighters (and other non-casters), OTOH, have an uphill battle for any abilities whatsoever. It's not enough that some source of inspiration display an ability, it's not enough even if many of them do. Unless an ability meets some arbitrary standard of 'realism,' it's objected to.

Wizards are supposed to be Gandalf or Merlin - and, actually, tend to do a lot more than both of them put together ever did - but fighters aren't supposed to be Heracles or Beowulf or Fergus mac Roith.


That's a double-standard if ever there's been one.


And, it needs to die. It has no place in a game. D&D, as has been pointed out, isn't out to simulate myth or legend or even a specific fantasy setting. It is thus free to put game play and game balance before setting or story or genre. If it is so vital that fighter meet some arbitrarily strict concept of 'verisimilitude,' fine - it'll limit the appeal of the game, but OK, start with that - now, having done that, you'll have to bring casters /down to the same level of power, versatility, and 'realism.'

Given the standards applied to fighters, that'd mean wizards who are little more than charlatans and alchemists, with a few anachronistic tricks (a handful a flash powder here, a hallucinogenic herb there), or it'd mean magic-user using magic that is quite dependable, straightforward and limited in what it can do, and ultimately pretty 'mundane' to those who live their lives around it.


I honestly think 4e did a decent job striking that balance. For the diversity and power of spells/prayers/invocations/disciplines it had, it could have done with more martial exploits along the lines of Come & Ge It and Blinding Barrage, and more varied utility exploits, but it wasn't too far off the mark.

If the level of realism needs to be tightened from there, casters are going to have to be brought down even further.


Then there's 5e's goal of inclusiveness. Surely, it should allow for characters with more remarkable abilities, as well as those that stick to some starker standard of mundanity?

 

[Shadeydm]

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Then there's 5e's goal of inclusiveness. Surely, it should allow for characters with more remarkable abilities, as well as those that stick to some starker standard of mundanity?

I'm sure there will be modules for the 4E playstyle and modules for PCs as demigods if thats how you want to play. I doubt it will be the default assumption nor do I believe it should be.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Here are two disconnects I'm still having with this issue...

1. Wizards and Clerics are able to bend the laws of nature and thus superscede the normal limitations of a D&D world person... because they discover, learn and cast spells which in turn allow them to control/shape/whatever magical energy. They have justification, limitations and process... However what I am seeing in this thread is fighter's shouldn't need justification, limitations or process to cleave mountains, redirect rivers, etc.... they should just be able to reshape reality... Huh??? I can see why that feels like cartoon logic (of the Looney Tunes variety) to many.

My question is... how on earth are wizards and fighters any different here?

In your example alone, you say that wizards are justified in doing anything and everything they want because they study and train to do such things. Yet studying and training is not sufficient as justification for letting a fighter do what ever he wants? This doesn't make any sense. Not only to both classes have an equal amount of justification, they have the exact same justification. Both classes acquire skills through training and study. In fact, because of the way the 3E and 4E experience chart works, it could be said that the two classes both involve the exact same amounts of training and study.

The only justification for wizards is a hollow "they're magic! wooo" <insert wiggling fingers>. D&D has never even justified the idea of magic or put it into a logical metaphysical context. After all, creating such a context would necessarily weaken wizards, and it seems that is unacceptable to fans... Really though, any attempt to actually justify wizards and magic would result in them being weaker than they are now, because they only enjoy their 3E levels of stupidly outrageous power exactly because magic doesn't have any systematization or in-fiction justification.

You could make the argument that magic doesn't need such a justification, but then we're right back to the point of it being a double standard that physical abilities require justification but spellcasting doesn't.

This argument just doesn't hold water.

2. D&D is not and never was billed as a generic fantasy game... so then what does it matter whether wizards are based on anything from myth or literature, and why should fighters be? D&D is it's own genre and was never made to perfectly mimc any of it's sources... so where does this insistence that it should come from?

Because we want it to mimic those sources.

Is that not good enough for you? It's plenty good enough for me.

 

[SKyOdin]

Here are two disconnects I'm still having with this issue...

1. Wizards and Clerics are able to bend the laws of nature and thus superscede the normal limitations of a D&D world person... because they discover, learn and cast spells which in turn allow them to control/shape/whatever magical energy. They have justification, limitations and process... However what I am seeing in this thread is fighter's shouldn't need justification, limitations or process to cleave mountains, redirect rivers, etc.... they should just be able to reshape reality... Huh??? I can see why that feels like cartoon logic (of the Looney Tunes variety) to many.

And how does this magic work? What is it's mechanism? Why can only spell-casters access it?

Those questions don't have answers. Magic in D&D is a stupid thing to lean on as an explanation, since it isn't codified or systematized or structured whatsoever. There is literally no given reason in the history of D&D that explains why a Wizard can turn a lump of bat guano into a fireball. Even attempts like the Weave from Faerun don't get into a detailed technical explanation of how things work.

If you can accept magic that works with no in-universe explanation or structure, why do you need some fancy explanation for why fighters can do cool things?

2. D&D is not and never was billed as a generic fantasy game... so then what does it matter whether wizards are based on anything from myth or literature, and why should fighters be? D&D is it's own genre and was never made to perfectly mimc any of it's sources... so where does this insistence that it should come from?

D&D is the result of Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, and company just tossing every random inspiration and cool idea they liked when they were young and tossing them in a blender.

"Dying Earth is pretty cool!"
"Lets use some of that then."

Why can't modern fans of D&D just do the same thing with the stuff they find cool? That is ultimately the heart of D&D: an awesome hodgepodge of a hundred random influences brought in by generation after generation of fans.

I really like mythic fighters, so why shouldn't they be in? I also happen to be a huge fan of anime and videogames, which further makes me like awesome, powerful fighters.

You do realize Umbran said outside of Greek/Roman myth.

But D&D has never claimed to be the roleplaying game of greek mythology... that is but one small influence upon it's design amongst many.

Of course. I only mention it because it is easy to draw clear parallels between D&D monsters and the greek monsters they were originally inspired by. I wager a quarter of the basic monster manual is based on stuff from Greek mythology and subsequent medieval interpretations thereof.

Greek mythology only comes up because it is easy to draw comparisons between D&D heroes who fight hydras and the original Greek hero who killed the Hydra.

My overall point though is much broader, and is based on material from myth and fiction that is world-wide, and as diverse as ancient myth and modern videogame.

The 3E fighter doesn't fail because it fails to depict what Heracles can do, it fails because it fails to depict much of the most fundamental archetype that is common to all of fantasy, world-wide, of all time; this goes from Greek myth, to classical Chinese novels, to the pulp space operas, to modern videogames and anime.

D&D is simple false advertising if it bills itself as heroic fantasy and then imposes realism on the fighter.

 

[SKyOdin]

Really, D&D has slowly drifted away from "Medieval world + magic" to "Magical world, with medieval tech." It would do well to go back and regain some of that feel.

And I don't see what this has to do with wanting more powerful, more mythic fighters at high levels. All of those things you are complaining about have to do with magic. Most of them could be solved by actually explaining how magic works and putting reasonable limits on it and what wizards could do.

Mythic fighters work just fine in the context of historical and medieval society. Heck, they appear in much of the stories and cultural awareness of real-world medieval societies. A mighty warrior-king who can chop hills in half has less problematic story influence than a wizard who can make magic items.

 

[Ettin]

I'm quite sure his legs or his speed don't dramatically fall off once he passes the 101 meter mark. And i'm quite sure stabbing someone and pushing them 3 squares while moving an extra square my self which my fighter can do every round is more taxing than stading still and stabbing two adjacent foes or stabbing the same guy twice two "encounter" powers.

You are reaching really hard for this "fighters are teh wizards!" thing.

 

[Shadeydm]

You are reaching really hard for this "fighters are teh wizards!" thing.

I did not say fighters = wizards. I said the martial powersource as presented in 4E is basically fighter magic. I'm playing a 4E fighter. There is nothing wrong with it, its not badwrongfun. It is less "magical" than the other defender classes but fighter dalies and encounter powers still feel like fighter magic to me.