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

[Fifth Element]

I don't feel I'm getting tied up in the mechanics per se. I feel I'm getting tied up in interpreting how the mechanics ideas that you or others have brought up in the last few pages would force me to imagine (for better or worse) how to roleplay that character. Some of the mechanics ideas seem quite difficult to imagine subjectively on behalf of the PC.

Your suggestion of a "pool" of courage/willpower from which to draw to do mythic things would work for me.

EDIT: Perhaps I'm not being clear enough. The fact that a D&D wizard must memorize his spells form his spellbooks each day is not just a limiter but also shows one aspect of spells in the fiction. What are exploits in the fiction?

The fighter could mentally and physically prepare himself each morning to undertake a particular task. He has "psyched up" to do that thing. Once that thing is done, his adrenalin has gone and he no longer has any nerves and anticipation to help him do that thing. He needs to rest and consider it again, and build up to it again mentally before he can attempt that thing another time.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I hope it isn't a "polite fiction" that unconciously and tragically prevents me from reconciling the plausibility of jumping over mountains due to magic (with its rituals and boundaries and pseudo-logic) vs a prescribed once daily burst of courage and will (just because due to a mythic dream logic that pops into the adventure for just that one instance and then mythic dream logic is conspicuously absent the rest of the time with people behaving in perfectly normal non-mythic ways). If so, I'm perfectly content to be on a different planet than certain other people.

You seem to have missed the point that "polite fictions" are not bad in and of themselves. I specifically stated so in the post where I explained what I meant by them.

Rather it is the unconscious adoption of "polite fictions" in contexts where they do not apply, that is bad. For example, getting down into the nitty gritty of how a game does actually work requires that one ignore some of the smoothing that is done to it in play.

Manners are "polite fictions" to make up for the fact that none of us are infinitely tactful. That doesn't make manners bad--quite the contrary. It does mean that you have to be willing to look past the manners on the surface, if you want to discuss the nature of tact in human relations. When have manners been really abused? When a society has treated them as hard facts rather than "polite fictions."

As to the other specifics quoted above, you aren't required to justify what you find plausible or not, to anyone. If you don't find it plausible, you don't find it plausible. End of that story. That's a powerful argument for wanting a way to not need to deal with it, at least in some subset of the game. OTOH, if you want to say that something other people find plausible should be excluded entirely, on some kind of greater plausibility criteria, then the burden and grounds of reason shift dramatically. You'll find it easier to have that discussion if you are clear about the "polite fictions" involved--and indeed, if your opponents in the discussion are as well.

 

[TwinBahamut]

How are you even speaking to the desires of the fans or the fanbase??? Just looking at the threads about 5e easily shows there is no one desire of the fanbase... I'm also not arguing that older fans are more important than new fans... but I don't see why the opposite, which you seem to be arguing for, is any more valid? As to it's flaws, again that depends on who you ask. 4e was specifically designed to fix many of those so-called flaws and yet we saw a large portion of the fanbase reject it and stick with their "flawed" games.

How do you know your desires will appeal to a greater number of fans? Or that new fans don't enjoy some of those old traditions and tropes? This is just full of unsupported assumptions. Again 4e tried to change and adapt to the tastes of new fans... but something didn't click with alot of people. See I think what you're missing is that most new gamers are introduced by the older gamers you are claiming are irrelevant... and if a game isn't to their liking then they aren't going to play it or introduce it to new people. As to 4e's "progress" well some/many found it not to their liking so I think it's better to analyze why it faioled with alot of people before deciding it's the way to go.

There's so much wrong with this...

First off, I never claimed to speak for the fanbase. I did, however, speak for myself and several other people in this thread who have shared very similar opinions to my own. In fact, that's the point. It's entirely irrelevant whether or not an opinion is the majority or not. D&D should be capable of appealing to a variety of tastes and desires, especially in a "unity edition" like 5E is trying to be.

Also, you are quite clearly placing the preferences of the people who disliked the changes brought by 4E as being more important than those who liked the changes brought by 4E. You can't accuse me of "speaking for the fanbase" one moment and then talk about 4E as if it were a failure the next, because in doing so you yourself are trying to establish a "speaking for the fanbase" position.

Also, I won't agree that appealing to old gamers is at all necessary to bring new players in to the game. I brought myself into the game without ever meeting another D&D player, and there are plenty of newer fans who don't care about tradition at all who can bring in the next generation of players.

Perhaps you should follow the discussion if you wish to comment or take part in it...

This is just plain rude.

If you can't or won't respond to the question of why you brought that little sub-discussion in or what you meant by it, fine. To be honest, I was actually curious about what you meant, but couldn't make sense of it. If you don't want people to understand what you write, go ahead, but you have absolutely no right to tell me that I can't participate in this discussion. I also happen to understand the general discussion just fine.

I haven't addressed what you asked for specifically, but within this thread there are those who want a "mythological" fighter.

The whole "I wasn't really talking to you" claim rings a little hollow when you were quoting me, particularly when the post you quoted was me quoting you, who was quoting me.

OAN: Would you please go back and actually read my posts on this subject. I can tell you have no idea what my stance is and yet have tried to engage me in an argument I'm not supporting. I've agreed early on that fighters should get more power and versatility, the only thing I've been discussing is what the source and fiction around the how and why of that should be. Not sure what you're arguing though.

I don't care what you have been saying to other people. For my last several posts, I've been responding to what you have said to me. Disavow it if you want, but I've been responding entirely to things you have said.

Anyways, I don't think I'll reply to you any more. No need to drag this thread down with any more of this kind of bickering.

EDIT: And to answer your last question... Pretty much my entire point is that the basic question you've been asking, about what the "source" for a Fighter's power is, is a silly question. Fighter's don't need a source, because no one else really needs one. Wizard's don't have one and they work just fine. Wizards study to learn spells, fighters study to learn how to salmon leap or slice through mountains. That's all the game really needs, and it works just fine that way.

 

[SKyOdin]

Because when does it stop?

Do all fighters get magic, or just the PCs? What if every guard in town is a first level fighter: do they all have magic? If the guards do, why not the butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers?

Okay, there are several things wrong with that.

First off, I wouldn't call fighters being able to do cool, superhuman stuff "magic". Magic is stuff like trowing fireballs and flight.

Second, since when did guards in town count as fighters? In 3E, they would have been warriors at best, and more likely commoners. In 4E, they wouldn't possess classes at all, let alone PC classes.

If everyone has magic, its stops being wonderous. Already, the game is overladen with classes which get minor spellcasting for legacy reasons (paladin, ranger, bard, assassin, etc) and magical items have had a long slide toward boring necessity. The answer isn't to give everyone else wahoo, its to tone the wahoo done so that torches are more common than continual lanterns and PCs have reasons to take healing skills and not just mass-produce CLW wands.

Because if everyone is special, nobody is.

That is a very ridiculous point of view. Heck, you aren't even on topic with the side-rant about minor-spellcasting and magic items.

Anyways, the PCs are by their very nature special. They are the PCs! The main protagonists! They are the heroes! By their very nature, they defy the conventional limits of normal people to perform exemplary and incredible feats. Just because the PCs can do something doesn't make that kind of feat ordinary or mundane. On the contrary, it is the fact that superhuman strength and magic powers are extraordinary that they are appropriate for the likes of heroes to possess.

PCs play by different rules than everyone else. This different scale of ability makes them special within the game world.

Of course, it is completely unreasonable and utterly unforgivable to want your particular PC to stand out as better or superior to the other PCs in the long term over a campaign, so that you as an individual can feel special and superior. So the "if everyone is special..." argument is particularly bad when talking about class balance.

 

[Imaro]

The fighter could mentally and physically prepare himself each morning to undertake a particular task. He has "psyched up" to do that thing. Once that thing is done, his adrenalin has gone and he no longer has any nerves and anticipation to help him do that thing. He needs to rest and consider it again, and build up to it again mentally before he can attempt that thing another time.

Why can't other people mentally and physically prepare themselves in order to perform exploits? It seems like something the majority of athletes and combatants would do??

 

[Underman]

You seem to have missed the point that "polite fictions" are not bad in and of themselves. I specifically stated so in the post where I explained what I meant by them.
<snip>
You'll find it easier to have that discussion if you are clear about the "polite fictions" involved--and indeed, if your opponents in the discussion are as well.

OK, then to be clear, I guess the "polite fiction" for me is that I have trouble parsing some of your posts but I pretend to understand Sorry!

 

[Fifth Element]

Why can't other people mentally and physically prepare themselves in order to perform exploits? It seems like something the majority of athletes and combatants would do??

Obviously, it's a combination of preparation and the physical/mental ability to do it.

I might as well ask why other people can't memorize spells. It's just reading a book, right? Fighters have memories, too.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Because if everyone is special, nobody is.

That cliche depends upon the same kind of sleight of hand used to justify the wizard/fighter double standard in the first place. First, let's finish the sentence: "If everyone is special, nobody is special." No one wants to include that last word, because then it might occur to someone that there are two kinds of being special being discussed, and it isn't some kind of fuzzy average, either:

• Everyone is special. Everyone is a human being, with human dignity, "endowed by their creator" or some amazing biological/socialogical entity or however you want to talk about it.
• No one is special. They've got their blind spots and problems, along with their bright spots and triumphs. End of the day, "just folks."

The thought behind it has only ever been true when you narrow it down to something in particular. 100 meter dash? Yeah, we've got everything from "top of the line special" to "nowhere even near the subject matter."

Bringing this back around, the case for the wizard being special as a caster of arcane magic is not the case for the wizard being somehow special compared to other D&D characters as a whole.

 

[SKyOdin]

Why can't other people mentally and physically prepare themselves in order to perform exploits? It seems like something the majority of athletes and combatants would do??

Because they are not fighters! People with the fighter class are not average people. A guy with a sword is not necessarily qualified to be a fighter. The average town guard is not a fighter.

In this context, fighter refers strictly to a PC class that possesses remarkable ability suitable for a hero. They train to acquire incredible skill and power the same way a wizard trains to acquire magic.

This entire construction you have that if a fighter can do it, anyone can do it, is itself the fundamental problem that everyone here is arguing about. The fighter isn't just Joe Shmoe off the street.

My fundamental desire in this discussion is to get across the idea that fighters are not average, mundane people, but heroes with extraordinary ability that cannot be replicated by the average man, or even by other PC classes that are not "fighter".

 

[Crazy Jerome]

OK, then to be clear, I guess the "polite fiction" for me is that I have trouble parsing some of your posts but I pretend to understand Sorry!

No problem. You aren't the first to make that complaint, and won't be the last. I am what I am.