D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[The Crimson Binome]

I think what we may be running into here is a difference of opinion about what “the problem” is. As I understand it, the problem under discussion is broken immersion. It seems like you’re arguing about a problem of inconsistent writing.

The problem is that the writer (or designer) does something to break immersion. In order to fix the problem, they need to not do that.

It's not my job, as the audience, to explain how their world is supposed to work. That's not even remotely what I signed up for. They built the world, and they should know how that world works. If the world they built is stupid, then they need to take ownership of that failure, instead of expecting the audience to bail them out.

One habit of terrible GMs is that they listen to their players speculating about some unknown, and then alter the reality of the unknown based on that speculation. They hear you speculate that the new Big Bad is actually the minion you abandoned six sessions prior, and decide that would make for a better story than whatever they had originally come up with, and retro-actively change reality so that it's the case. It's meta-gaming of the worst variety, and it's exactly the sort of thing you're suggesting.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

The problem is that the writer (or designer) does something to break immersion. In order to fix the problem, they need to not do that.

It's not my job, as the audience, to explain how their world is supposed to work. That's not even remotely what I signed up for. They built the world, and they should know how that world works. If the world they built is stupid, then they need to take ownership of that failure, instead of expecting the audience to bail them out.

One habit of terrible GMs is that they listen to their players speculating about some unknown, and then alter the reality of the unknown based on that speculation. They hear you speculate that the new Big Bad is actually the minion you abandoned six sessions prior, and decide that would make for a better story than whatever they had originally come up with, and retro-actively change reality so that it's the case. It's meta-gaming of the worst variety, and it's exactly the sort of thing you're suggesting.

DM's improvise, boo-****ing-hoo

 

[Oofta]

... why are all the houserule fixes that supposedly help better immersion also turn PCs into glass cannons with slow recovery? Is every combat being probably debilitating rocket tag what you guys want?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I use the longer-rest alternate rules primarily for pacing purposes. Could I cram a half-dozen encounters in one 24 hour period? Sure. But my stories tend to fit a slower pace where the action takes place over days not hours.

So I can either have an imbalance where some classes go nova every fight or one where people have to be a little more cautious on resource expenditure and the classes that don't rely on rests contribute about the same in combat as the other classes when you average it out.

 

[Charlaquin]

The problem is that the writer (or designer) does something to break immersion. In order to fix the problem, they need to not do that.

Sure, fine, but it’s already been done and is in print. Blame the writer all you want, but it’s too late for them to do anything about it. Hopefully they’ll learn from that mistake and improve in the future, but in the meantime, there’s this immersion breaking thing still present in the published material. You can complain about it, or you can find a way to incorporate it into your view of the work that you find acceptable. The choice is yours.

It's not my job, as the audience, to explain how their world is supposed to work. That's not even remotely what I signed up for. They built the world, and they should know how that world works. If the world they built is stupid, then they need to take ownership of that failure, instead of expecting the audience to bail them out.

Ok, but again, what’s done is done. Are you going to let what was done ruin the work for you, or are you going to roll up your sleeves and do what needs to be done to fix it, whether it was supposed to be your job or not?

One habit of terrible GMs is that they listen to their players speculating about some unknown, and then alter the reality of the unknown based on that speculation. They hear you speculate that the new Big Bad is actually the minion you abandoned six sessions prior, and decide that would make for a better story than whatever they had originally come up with, and retro-actively change reality so that it's the case.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of that either.

It's meta-gaming of the worst variety, and it's exactly the sort of thing you're suggesting.

No it’s not. Like, at all. What I’m suggesting is when you see something that “doesn’t make sense,” like 8 hours of rest restoring you to full health (for example), it is within your power to change the way you think about HP to account for the way the rules say it works, rather than just accept that it “doesn’t make sense.”

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What I’m suggesting is when you see something that “doesn’t make sense,” like 8 hours of rest restoring you to full health (for example), it is within your power to change the way you think about HP to account for the way the rules say it works, rather than just accept that it “doesn’t make sense.”

If a solution actually exists, sure. Ideally, the designers would have figured the whole thing out to begin with, and would use the page count to explain their logic in such a way that makes sense. That's what I would expect of anyone writing a book, and anything less than that is a failure on their part.

Going with the example at hand, though, that's not even possible. If we could salvage the game by changing the explanation from their intended one to one that was actually consistent with the rules, then that would still be a failure on their part (since the rules of the game would not reflect the intended reality of the game world that they had envisioned), but it would be better than nothing. We can't even do that, though. They let the rules box them into a corner where there is no viable explanation.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[doctorbadwolf]

*HP as meat with literally any faster than month of recuperation for a fairly small chance of mostly recovering. No. Absolutely not. You got shot in the face. You are permanently maimed. A year of healing isn’t gonna fix that. Period. A hit cannot be a direct hit and still play characters through a dozen fights where they get hit several times each fight. It’s a complete non-starter.

*Treating classes as in-fiction things instead of mechanics the players use to represent their concept. Life isn’t as simple as a class makes it out to be. They’re abstractions to make the game fun and easy to play, that come packaged with inspiration for concepts.

*Almost any attempt at simulating reality in mechanics. Abstraction is easy to immerse in, because it is what I bring to it. Trying for “mechanical realism” highlights how far from actual reality we are.

**Related to the last one, in-fiction based restrictions on mechanics. Things like “you have to train with a wizard to take a level of wizard” or even worse, “you have to train with a wizard before taking third level fighter bc you’re choosing Eldritch Knight. Also when the game treats “elves only” as a real restriction in the Bladesinger, or dwarf only for Battlerager.

All these things are attempts to enforce immersion, but have the exact opposite effect on me. They remind me that I’m playing a game, and make those elements of the game entirely about The Game, for me.

 

[Tallifer]

I play fantasy roleplaying games to immerse myself in wondrous and unfamiliar worlds through unbelievable and heroic adventures.
My immersion in such an heroic story is broken when someone starts trying to contradict the flow of the adventure with miniature lectures in physics, chemistry or evolutionary biology.

 

[cmad1977]

Rules Lawyers:
But they get booted from my games quiiiick.

 

[DammitVictor]

I was not aware that "no one" was a pet name.

In my experience, the argument "no one is saying/doing X" is always a preface to the person speaking saying or doing exactly X, every time.