D&D General The Importance of Verisimilitude (or "Why you don't need realism to keep it real")

[Tony Vargas]

Add a Str cap, and 'issue' solved.

That was not presenting an issue to solve.

 

[Scribe]

There is no issue to solve.

I think there is, that of Str being nonsense if it's application is the same across beings of massively different proportion.

I mean we are in a thread regarding verisimilitude, the suspension of disbelief.

That a small child would be a strong man on par with the giants of our own world is a bridge too far, for me.

 

[Cadence]

I think there is, that of Str being nonsense <snip>

I am all over the idea that STR combining melee to hit and carrying capacity is not a great design choice.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think there is, that of Str being nonsense if it's application is the same across beings of massively different proportion.

The premise is they're equally deadly fighters, tho. So if the game stays simple in how it implements that, it's just down how you visualize it to maintain or destroy your v-tude...

Except

I am all over the idea that STR combining melee to hit and carrying capacity is not a great design choice.

there is that

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The premise is they're equally deadly fighters, tho. So if the game stays simple in how it implements that, it's just down how you visualize it to maintain or destroy your v-tude...

But it is just no "fighty ability." The game specifically differentiates fighting with strength from fighting with dexterity. So strength should mean strength. If it doesn't, get rid of it, and just give characters "fight bonus" or something.

 

[Stormonu]

That’s probably one of the biggest problems, and probably at the heart of all this - “Where do you draw the line?”

As @Oofta explained, people are able to handle Indy using a raft as a parachute, but lose it when he survives being nuked in a fridge (I’m one of those). Movies like Die Hard and John Wick stretch human ability and resistance, but most of the time the audience is willing to go along with the heroics for the sake of the story.

How far can you push the boundary when you’ve got a world where dragons fly and breathe fire? Is a warrior who can shoot lightning out of his butt too far? What of the same warrior clearing the room in 6 seconds flat with just their swords, knuckles and a couple of well-placed kicks to the head? How about with a tin cup or the jawbone of a donkey? Is your warrior fierce enough they can kill with a stare, or mere mention of their name fell kingdoms? What is your tipping point where it goes from badass to silly?

I think a lot of the answers to that is often tied up into the fantasy media we grew up with an and accustomed to. Mine was 70’s and 80’s sword & sorcery schlock, and a handful of fantasy books/comics - Conan, Odyssey, King Arthur and the like. Mostly very grounded, with magic very rare and more flash than power. Of course, later I found myself introduced to the likes of Harry Potter, Inayashu and other tales where magic was far more intrusive, common and generally powerful, and it has affected my tolerance for the more fantastical aspects in D&D.

 

[Tony Vargas]

How far can you push the boundary when you’ve got a world where dragons fly and breathe fire? Is a warrior who can shoot lightning out of his butt too far?

"Kills men by the hundreds. ... with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse."

 

[Remathilis]

I think the natural answer would be balanced play. Or at least the notion that PC options have to be roughly balanced against one another. Part of the two biggest debates in D&D (fighter vs wizard in terms of narrative impact and goliath vs halfling in terms of species equality) both have their origins in versimulitude vs balance (a fighter as a mundane character cannot do what a wizard can with magic; a halfling cannot, by virtue of their size, perform the same feats of strength as a goliath. Yet both sets of options demand to be balanced and viable choices for the game to work).

Case in point below:

I think there is, that of Str being nonsense if it's application is the same across beings of massively different proportion.

I mean we are in a thread regarding verisimilitude, the suspension of disbelief.

That a small child would be a strong man on par with the giants of our own world is a bridge too far, for me.

You could make a game with heavy versimulitude that makes halfling an inferior choice, or make magic superior to mundane abilities, but that sacrifices the notion that halfling and goliath or fighter and wizard should be roughly equal choices.

 

[Scribe]

You could make a game with heavy versimulitude that makes halfling an inferior choice, or make magic superior to mundane abilities, but that sacrifices the notion that halfling and goliath or fighter and wizard should be roughly equal choices.

Inferior for a given task, but superior in another, would be how things 'should' work.

Or just hand wave it all like 5e, which is fine, but thats not the point either.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean the strength thing is so annoying as it really wasn't an issue in 5e except for barbarians,* as fighting with dexterity is super viable.
In 5e you can easily be an effective melee combatant without having high strength.

(* And that could have been fixed by slightly tweaking the class.)