D&D (2024) The Problem with Healing Powercreep

[Vaalingrade]

I don't know if you do. But @TwoSix is asserting that 2) is a subset of a grouping where the players make justifications. Thus if players aren't making the justifications then it's not a subset of that grouping...

They can still make other justifications than the default.

Spell slots aside from the Jack Vance method could be something else. Personally, I never use the 'precasting' explanation the game pushes, and certainly not FR's 'weave'.

 

[FrogReaver]

They can still make other justifications than the default.

I mean we can always agree to change the rules of the game at anytime. Pointing out that we can do so doesn't seem like a strong point in support of anything?

Spell slots aside from the Jack Vance method could be something else. Personally, I never use the 'precasting' explanation the game pushes, and certainly not FR's 'weave'.

Yea. If one adopts different fiction around spells and what casters can know, then you can quickly approach spell slots being a meta resource. No argument there.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean we can always agree to change the rules of the game at anytime. Pointing out that we can do so doesn't seem like a strong point in support of anything?

The justifications aren't rule, they're flavor text... which is the argument at hand, I guess?

Like, can a player just make justifications and be at peace or must the game enforce a justifications and put them on everything, even the stuff that exists in a narrative space that shouldn't be diegetic.

 

[FrogReaver]

The justifications aren't rule, they're flavor text... which is the argument at hand, I guess?

IMO, all the text is very much rules.

Like, can a player just make justifications and be at peace or must the game enforce a justifications and put them on everything, even the stuff that exists in a narrative space that shouldn't be diegetic.

I have no idea what you mean here.

 

[TwoSix]

The justifications aren't rule, they're flavor text... which is the argument at hand, I guess?

Like, can a player just make justifications and be at peace or must the game enforce a justifications and put them on everything, even the stuff that exists in a narrative space that shouldn't be diegetic.

Exactly. The default flavor has no binding power unless the social contract enforces it.

The only thing that actually determines whether a player resource is known “in-character” is the agreed upon narrative concept of the character.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They can still make other justifications than the default.

Spell slots aside from the Jack Vance method could be something else. Personally, I never use the 'precasting' explanation the game pushes, and certainly not FR's 'weave'.

That's true. Hated the Weave's assumption in the 5.0 game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The justifications aren't rule, they're flavor text... which is the argument at hand, I guess?

Like, can a player just make justifications and be at peace or must the game enforce a justifications and put them on everything, even the stuff that exists in a narrative space that shouldn't be diegetic.

What "stuff" exists in a narrative space and shouldn't be diagetic?

 

[FrogReaver]

Exactly. The default flavor has no binding power unless the social contract enforces it.

Neither does the mechanical...

The only thing that actually determines whether a player resource is known “in-character” is the agreed upon narrative concept of the character.

I'd say the fictional world as well. But yes, you need that agreement. But then I look at trying to get agreement that a real world earth 2024 fictional setting would have a luck mechanic that provided an expendable resource to just succeed that was 'in-character' and no one is ever going to agree with that.

Which means that agreement being sought largely depends on genre and so mechanics that might could theoretically be viewed in character with agreement, in practice will never be for certain genre's.

Not sure what to do with that insight just yet but it seems important.

 

[Umbran]

Please stop with the accusatory Bad Faith B.S.

There is an irony telling someone to stop being accusatory while being accusatory themselves. Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle.

Wipe "bad faith" as a thing to accuse people of from your lexicon. Even if you think you are correct, it turns the discussion away from the thread topic, and into ego-based headbutting.

Your ego is not an appropriate tool here. Put it away.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can. But then it becomes something supernatural and prenatural. And that's fine, but then you no longer can use it to represent mundane characters.


But in D&D land they do.

Okay.

So what we actually have here is that they don't fit the type of narratives you want to actually have. Because, in DnD land those could be things that mundane characters have. But you don't think they would be mundane anymore.

You realize of course that is an entirely different complaint than "you can't tell a story like this"

And you also realize that, the solution people come up for for this issue of mundane characters spending resources they don't have conscious knowledge of, is to make it subconscious. Which you've rejected because it is not a choice in story then, while it is a choice out of character. However, we also have reactions, many of which have been flavored as "not a conscious choice" which have that exact same problem