Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Statistical significance is not the definition I’m using here, it’s just a random third example of a definition of significant, one that is also objective. The one I am using here is”having a particular meaning; indicative of something.” Like I said.
That one is not objective, either. "Particular meaning" is subjective. What has a particular meaning to you, might not have the same meaning to me. Look at the example given for that definition.
2. having a particular meaning; indicative of something.
"in times of stress her dreams seemed to her especially significant"
What do I care what you dream meant to you. It was particularly meaningful in your life, but it means diddly squat in mine.
I will gladly “admit” that the rules are not worthy of attention for everyone. I’ve never claimed otherwise. But it makes no sense to claim that the rules are only indicative of something to some people. They are either indicative or they are not, it is an objective quality.
Let's take initiative. What does it indicate for everyone? As people are so fond of telling me, people interpret rules differently, so even the text very often doesn't have a single, objective meaning. This is especially true in 5e where the game was designed not to have particular meaning. "Rulings over rules" and all that jazz.
“Non-mechanical elements don’t have a particular meaning within the system of game mechanics” is not a positive claim, the burden of proof is not on me. I also don’t think it’s particularly outlandish to claim that things that aren’t mechanics don’t have meaning within systems of mechanics. It may or may not have meaning to you personally, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Again, tell me what word you want me to use instead of “significant” to mean, “means something in terms of the rules system” and I’ll gladly use it instead, because I’m getting pretty sick of this bickering over semantics.
It's not semantics. As noted above, "particular meaning" is very subjective. Alignment has very particular meaning for many people, but doesn't mean much of anything to me. Despite there being no mechanics in 5e for it, alignment does have particular meaning.
I didn’t say without a roll. I said without a formula. If there is a number about be which the guard will accept and below which the guard won’t accept, that’s a formula. A basic formula, but a formula. If that number can be changed by player actions, that’s a more complex formula. If the outcome relies on a randomly generated number (a dice roll), that’s a more complex formula. But the simple if/then statement if gold offered is >=#, then bribe is accepted is a formula all on its own. That’s a game mechanic. Not all game mechanics involve dice and modifiers.
What formula did I use to come up with a yes or no? As noted by [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION], there are too many factors to consider to even be able set down some sort of formula. You can give 10 DMs the same circumstances, and you will have some automatically say yes, some automatically say no, and some give a roll with varying DCs. That's not formulaic in any way.
No individual rule is essential to play D&D, but some individual rules are essential to the function of subsystems of rules, and certain subsystems of rules are essential to the identity of D&D. As evidenced by the overal community reactions to 4e. Some critical mass of different rules made it “not real D&D” to a significant portion of the fans. Likewise, if you changed or removed every individual rule in D&D, you’d have a very hard time trying to make a case that what you’re playing is D&D.
For every "It's not real D&D" that I heard about 4e, I also heard "Yes this is real D&D" from someone else. If that's not indicative that "What D&D is" is subjective, I don't know what is.
The way your are talking about them as two things, one of which you might have a preference for over the other, is where our views of roleplaying and mechanics fundamentally diverges. In my view, one can’t “prefer the mechanics over the roleplay” as there is no distinction.
There absolutely is a distinction. Roll D20 + ability modifier and if you equal or exceed AC, you hit, is not roleplaying. It's a mechanic for attacks. In the game when you tell me that you swing your sword at Brave Sir Robbin's head while calling him a yellow bellied sap sucker, it's roleplaying. Only the other side, when a PC and an NPC simply have a talk about something, that's roleplaying without any mechanics whatsoever.
Oh, my bad. I apologize for misconstruing your argument.
No worries. I THINK it might have been [MENTION=6919838]5ekyu[/MENTION] if it matters. Not positive, though.
*sigh* I was using the general form of the word “you.”
General or specific, I still don't have to do any work to make it matter. It already matters within the rules as provided to me.
It really doesn’t though, for reasons I have already discussed - they are trivially inexpensive (which I know is a problem that can be fixed by distributing less gold, but a. that’s work on my part to adjust and b. It’s only half the problem) and they offer no benefits or consequences with mechanical impact (which I know I could make up, but again, that’s more work on my part.) So, again, we comeback to, “if ONE wants gold to have a use that has relevance within the system of mechanics known as D&D 5e, ONE has to do the work to make it so themselves.” This is not a condemnation of anyone’s playbstyle preferences. If you don’t mind that the uses for gold are purely narrative, that’s absolutely fine. Great, even. Enjoy the game catering to your preferences. Please don’t tell ME I’m wrong for lamenting that I don’t have anything I consider worth spending gold on.
Downtime includes building freaking castles, buying land, building temples in every city of every country, and more. That's not trivially inexpensive.