Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Importance of Verisimilitude (or "Why you don't need realism to keep it real")
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 9178770" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>This is super easy to come up for an explanation, though. You could say the AC is partly magical, and that magic begins to fade when the dragon dies. Or the process of creating scale mail armor from dragon scales weakens them and causes some scales to loosen/fall off. Or that the lower AC is because on a Dragon, the scales cover almost the entire body, while humanoid scale mail doesn't. </p><p></p><p>And if you can't come up with an explanation on the fly . . . is that such a big deal? Is the simulation of D&D so fragile that your fun is ruined when the DM tells you that a feature exists for game balance purposes and it would ruin game balance to let PCs get all the features monsters have? Immersion isn't the end all be all of the game. Fun is. Fun can be ruined by unbalanced mechanical features. Is it better to preserve immersion and grant the players a set of +3 Scale Mail that gives you immunity to fire damage for killing a Wyrmling Dragon when they're at level 3, or is it better to preserve game balance and still give them the opportunity to make a nice magic item but not give it the full potential of the Dragon's version? Or if you make the mistake of giving an overpowered magic item, do you maintain immersion and railroad the party into losing it, choose to just deal with it and let them keep the OP magic item, or do you explain that it's causing problems for game balance and nerf it? </p><p></p><p>Does every monster in every bestiary in every 5e book need to provide an explanation for the AC, hit points, damage, ability scores, and other monster features? Or can a Dragon just have 19 AC because they're a dragon and need to be hard to hit. Does every monster need rules for why the PC equivalent of a feature is weaker than the monster's if they choose to make a magic item out of them? Or can the rules leave that up to the DM and not waste space on pages of repetitive and bland lore justifications? Why can't game features be designed around making the game balanced and not be constrained by requiring exhaustive lore justifications for every minute mechanic or perceived discrepancy? </p><p></p><p>The answer for the incessant "why? why? why?" of mechanical features or aspects of the game is almost always "A wizard did it". Why do owlbears exist? A wizard did it. Why do orcs exist? A god created them. Why can't I cast <em>Shield of Faith</em> and <em>Guiding Bolt</em> on the same turn if I have enough spell slots? Magic has rules, and those rules say <em>Guiding Bolt</em> isn't a cantrip. Why does that giant's greatclub deal 3d8 thunder extra damage but lose that when they die? Magic. Why are scales more protective on living dragons than as scale mail? Magic. Why can that Avatar of Vecna cast Meteor Swarm 3 times a day? Even level 20 Wizards can't do that! It's because he's a freaking god and the main villain gets god magic. </p><p></p><p>As a DM, it would just get exhausting to have to give expansive explanations for all minor details when the reason is for game balance and the lore justification will always be some flavor of "A wizard did it". It did get exhausting when I tried to do that when I first started DMing. Eventually I grew out of the notion that every mechanic needed a lore justification and decided game balance was more important. And it seems like WotC has learned that too, given the mechanical changes to recent monster stat blocks.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 9178770, member: 7023887"] This is super easy to come up for an explanation, though. You could say the AC is partly magical, and that magic begins to fade when the dragon dies. Or the process of creating scale mail armor from dragon scales weakens them and causes some scales to loosen/fall off. Or that the lower AC is because on a Dragon, the scales cover almost the entire body, while humanoid scale mail doesn't. And if you can't come up with an explanation on the fly . . . is that such a big deal? Is the simulation of D&D so fragile that your fun is ruined when the DM tells you that a feature exists for game balance purposes and it would ruin game balance to let PCs get all the features monsters have? Immersion isn't the end all be all of the game. Fun is. Fun can be ruined by unbalanced mechanical features. Is it better to preserve immersion and grant the players a set of +3 Scale Mail that gives you immunity to fire damage for killing a Wyrmling Dragon when they're at level 3, or is it better to preserve game balance and still give them the opportunity to make a nice magic item but not give it the full potential of the Dragon's version? Or if you make the mistake of giving an overpowered magic item, do you maintain immersion and railroad the party into losing it, choose to just deal with it and let them keep the OP magic item, or do you explain that it's causing problems for game balance and nerf it? Does every monster in every bestiary in every 5e book need to provide an explanation for the AC, hit points, damage, ability scores, and other monster features? Or can a Dragon just have 19 AC because they're a dragon and need to be hard to hit. Does every monster need rules for why the PC equivalent of a feature is weaker than the monster's if they choose to make a magic item out of them? Or can the rules leave that up to the DM and not waste space on pages of repetitive and bland lore justifications? Why can't game features be designed around making the game balanced and not be constrained by requiring exhaustive lore justifications for every minute mechanic or perceived discrepancy? The answer for the incessant "why? why? why?" of mechanical features or aspects of the game is almost always "A wizard did it". Why do owlbears exist? A wizard did it. Why do orcs exist? A god created them. Why can't I cast [I]Shield of Faith[/I] and [I]Guiding Bolt[/I] on the same turn if I have enough spell slots? Magic has rules, and those rules say [I]Guiding Bolt[/I] isn't a cantrip. Why does that giant's greatclub deal 3d8 thunder extra damage but lose that when they die? Magic. Why are scales more protective on living dragons than as scale mail? Magic. Why can that Avatar of Vecna cast Meteor Swarm 3 times a day? Even level 20 Wizards can't do that! It's because he's a freaking god and the main villain gets god magic. As a DM, it would just get exhausting to have to give expansive explanations for all minor details when the reason is for game balance and the lore justification will always be some flavor of "A wizard did it". It did get exhausting when I tried to do that when I first started DMing. Eventually I grew out of the notion that every mechanic needed a lore justification and decided game balance was more important. And it seems like WotC has learned that too, given the mechanical changes to recent monster stat blocks. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The Importance of Verisimilitude (or "Why you don't need realism to keep it real")
Top