D&D General When the fiction doesn't match the mechanics

[Lanefan]

Here's the problem I see with what you propose:

You and @cbwjm seem to want more narrative opportunity for easy ways to kill or to die... rather than the strictly game-based balancing of "knock someone's number down to zero before they knock your number down to zero." And I understand that from a conceptual point of view-- yes, it makes all the sense in a fantasy-world-based "reality" why these characters would and could suffer immediate death from falling, or get injected with poisons from which there's no survival, or easily drown, lose limbs, etc.

But the issue is that if you make these changes to the "game" strictly for story or narrative purposes-- because those kinds of massive injury or death should occur with much more frequency in the story of what D&D characters go through-- then we should also accept the massive change to story and narrative that would run parallel to that...

...which is not a single person in any sense of reality (fantasy or otherwise) would EVER put themselves into the trauma of what D&D characters go through on a DAILY basis. Especially not for the nebulous reasons D&D characters decide to "go adventuring".

Why on earth not?

On Earth, thousands of people put themselves into mortal danger just for a crack at finding gold during the 1890's Klondike gold rush. A few got rich. Many died, either by freezing or by mishap.

Now dial that get-rich-or-die-trying paradigm up to eleven or beyond and you've got D&D adventuring - and the rationale behind it - in a nutshell.

They just wouldn't. If we take a look at what a standard D&D character goes through physically, mentally, and spiritually in a 24-hour period based on standard D&D gameplay... the amount of pain, suffering, murder, mind control, burning, freezing, decapitation, poisoning, grave injury, etc. etc. etc... there is ZERO reality in any of that. You get literally burned alive by taking a Burning Hands spell to the face... and we're supposed to think that a simple Cure Wounds spell will remove all of the anguish you went through and five minutes later you just jump up, brush yourself off, and say "Okay! Let's go! Where to next?" And the character does and then experiences the exact same trauma 15 minutes later, and then 15 minutes after that, and after that, and after that... throwing themselves into one giant ball of pain and suffering day after day after day all in the name of "Adventuring!"

Agreed there could be a lot more attention paid to PTSD, breakdowns, and so forth in the game; but many (most?) players don't get much enjoyment out of that.

Once or twice in the past I've roleplayed my characters having breakdowns in mid-dungeon. It didn't go over well.

 

[Lanefan]

I am talking about the problem of simulationists who mistake "simulating an imaginary world" with "simulating notions of realism in our world."

Then I guess you're talking about me, as I tend to directly equate those two things.

 

[Lanefan]

I enjoy worldbuilding. It is valuable to me.

Same here, but while (much of) the world-building process is enjoyable in itself, the true value comes if-when I start doing things with the world I've built.

 

[Aldarc]

Then I guess you're talking about me, as I tend to directly equate those two things.

I was talking more generally without talking about any particular person or having any one person in mind.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Same here, but while (much of) the world-building process is enjoyable in itself, the true value comes if-when I start doing things with the world I've built.

I don't always get to run the worlds I make (as much as I might want to), but I always enjoy making them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was talking more generally without talking about any particular person or having any one person in mind.

You seem to be bouncing off my posts pretty hard. Are you  sure you don't have a particular person in mind?

 

[pemerton]

Simulating a genre and simulating an imaginary world are two very different things, and my biggest problem with the Forge is that Ron Edwards lumped them together and people started just accepting it.

Edwards notes that both approaches have a common process and orientation of play, namely, that the players look to the system to generate the fiction, without "putting their own thumbs on the scale". He also notes that, within that broad paradigm, there are at least two different approaches - the GM also, like the players, looks to the system; or, the GM, unlike the players, is the system.

He has nothing in particular to say about whether the fiction that is generated maps to gonzo genres, or gritty genres, or anything else or in-between.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Edwards notes that both approaches have a common process and orientation of play, namely, that the players look to the system to generate the fiction, without "putting their own thumbs on the scale". He also notes that, within that broad paradigm, there are at least two different approaches - the GM also, like the players, looks to the system; or, the GM, unlike the players, is the system.

He has nothing in particular to say about whether the fiction that is generated maps to gonzo genres, or gritty genres, or anything else or in-between.

You don't have to sell me on them being different. But because he put them under the same one of his big three umbrellas, and because he is on record as personally disliking simulation and raising narrativism on a pedestal, they are commonly misinterpreted as the same kind of game, to the detriment of both.

 

[Aldarc]

Are you  sure you don't have a particular person in mind?

I promise you that I don't have anyone in particular in mind when I wrote that. If I have a beef, it's with any argument that equates "simulating an imaginary world" with "simulating the reality of our world" rather than having beef with any given person. I don't think that these positions are synonymous nor should they be, especially where tabletop roleplaying games are concerned. I assure you that I have experiences and reasons for that position that (believe it or not!) are not about you.

 

[overgeeked]

Agreed there could be a lot more attention paid to PTSD, breakdowns, and so forth in the game; but many (most?) players don't get much enjoyment out of that.

Players don't get much enjoyment out of tracking food, water, ammo, encumbrance, etc...and yet those get a pass when talking about old-school gaming. I'd argue they occasionally get enjoyment out of some of the resultant situations, not the tracking itself. So designing the game to deliver the same (or similar) resultant situations without the tedium of actually tracking all those numbers would be worthwhile, I think.