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

[Aldarc]

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.

I would also say that it's pretty noteworthy IMHO that a lot of iconic spells and magic items exist or were created for the purpose of bypassing these game elements. So either it's handwaved into unimportance or the game creates ways to ignore these things.

As a related issue: I'm in several games of B/X (with a sprinkle of AD&D). I wanted to see what "old school gaming" was like by several GMs claiming to run it the way they always have for decades using their original books. It was remarkably tame with little tracking of things like food, water, ammo, or encumberance. Exploration and hex-crawling was fairly carefree with a lot of handwaving. The gamification of old school roleplay that is prevalent with swaths of the OSR scene were fairly absent in these games. I'm fairly certain that there was a lot of fudging to prevent some TPKs. I went into both games creating disposal characters that could be fed to the dungeon meat grinder. Both of my initial characters are still alive after about a year of play, and I would not describe my play as particularly "skilled" at all.

 

[Hussar]

I enjoy worldbuilding. It is valuable to me. It is also fun. I also enjoy reading about other people's worldbuilding. Most of it will likely not end up in a game. Nonetheless, I do not regret buying or reading any of it.

I certainly do.

I'll give you a perfect example. On my shelf, after I recently dug them out, stand Faith's and Avatars (2e) and Powers and Pantheons (2e). Now, these are THE go to resources for all things divine in the Forgotten Realms at the time (granted, they're a bit out of date now, of course). Both weigh in at 194 pages of very small, dense text. So, just shy of 400 pages of material.

Now I bought these in (... goes off to check ...) about 1996 or 1997. Give or take. So, they've been with me for just about 25 years.

In 25 years I've used a grand total of 4 pages out of these books. One page for my 2e priest of Kossuth, and 3 pages recently for my Candlekeep campaign where I used the Cloister of Saint Ramedar.

1% of the material in 25 years. Why in hell did I buy these books? Fun read? I guess so. Looking at it now, it's mostly forgettable. This was a total waste of money.

And these books are hardly alone in that.

I'm so over the idea of buying books just to have them sit on my shelf gathering dust. If I won't use at least 40% of the book, then it's a non-buy for me now. I simply have no interest in buying fantasy encyclopedias anymore. They're largely a waste of time.

 

[overgeeked]

I would also say that it's pretty noteworthy IMHO that a lot of iconic spells and magic items exist or were created for the purpose of bypassing these game elements. So either it's handwaved into unimportance or the game creates ways to ignore these things.

As a related issue: I'm in several games of B/X (with a sprinkle of AD&D). I wanted to see what "old school gaming" was like by several GMs claiming to run it the way they always have for decades using their original books. It was remarkably tame with little tracking of things like food, water, ammo, or encumberance. Exploration and hex-crawling was fairly carefree with a lot of handwaving. The gamification of old school roleplay that is prevalent with swaths of the OSR scene were fairly absent in these games. I'm fairly certain that there was a lot of fudging to prevent some TPKs. I went into both games creating disposal characters that could be fed to the dungeon meat grinder. Both of my initial characters are still alive after about a year of play, and I would not describe my play as particularly "skilled" at all.

Just like now, different referees run their games differently. Back in the '80s we did 4d6 drop the lowest, max HP at 1st level, and a few others to give PCs a fighting chance. We tracked things for the first few levels, then left it alone. By then it was pointless. With all the gold it was just busywork. Bags of holding made bothering with encumbrance pointless. I think we ended up with something like the referee deducting 1-2% from all treasure to account for food, water, ammo, etc to pay for it and assumed we'd just have whatever we needed so we wouldn't have to pointlessly move numbers from one column to another, exchanging our pretend gold for some vendor's pretend arrows. When we started at higher levels (re: 5th or more, or whatever the XP equivalent was...so many 10s of thousands), we'd get three magic items. Offense, defense, and miscellaneous. We took turns with bags of holding and portable holes. This campaign I'd sacrifice my misc slot for the group's hoard, next campaign someone else would. I like occasionally running hard-scrabble mode old-school D&D, but it's not my default. It's just too tedious.

 

[Hussar]

Just like now, different referees run their games differently. Back in the '80s we did 4d6 drop the lowest, max HP at 1st level, and a few others to give PCs a fighting chance. We tracked things for the first few levels, then left it alone. By then it was pointless. With all the gold it was just busywork. Bags of holding made bothering with encumbrance pointless. I think we ended up with something like the referee deducting 1-2% from all treasure to account for food, water, ammo, etc to pay for it and assumed we'd just have whatever we needed so we wouldn't have to pointlessly move numbers from one column to another, exchanging our pretend gold for some vendor's pretend arrows. When we started at higher levels (re: 5th or more, or whatever the XP equivalent was...so many 10s of thousands), we'd get three magic items. Offense, defense, and miscellaneous. We took turns with bags of holding and portable holes. This campaign I'd sacrifice my misc slot for the group's hoard, next campaign someone else would. I like occasionally running hard-scrabble mode old-school D&D, but it's not my default. It's just too tedious.

Heh. Funnily enough, that sounds a lot like how we did it too. Maybe not the 3 magic item thing, but, yeah, just round off the treasure list and that covered expenses. Never really tracked much of anything normally.

 

[pemerton]

because he is on record as personally disliking simulation

Which record? Is there a bigger fan of Champions among the major figures in RPG design and analysis than Edwards?

 

[Aldarc]

Which record? Is there a bigger fan of Champions among the major figures in RPG design and analysis than Edwards?

He has also a series of videos on YouTube where he oozes his praise and love for RuneQuest, which is far more simulation heavy than even D&D.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I enjoy worldbuilding. It is valuable to me. It is also fun. I also enjoy reading about other people's worldbuilding. Most of it will likely not end up in a game. Nonetheless, I do not regret buying or reading any of it.

Certainly! And such things are by analogy what I described above: models, sketches, concept art, drafts, vignettes, indulged flights of fancy. Or, to sum that all up together, practice and preparation.

The activity is enjoyable in and of itself, but as a solo effort. The joy of seeing another's work (which develops "artist's eyes," your sense of taste, design sensibility), or of forging your own (which hones your artistic skill). These things are real and true. Your joy in them is joy for the sake of the thing itself.

But you do not do that world-building with others simply for its own sake. Not even collaborative fiction projects achieve that. The SCP Foundation is the closest thing to world-building for its own sake as a group work, and even that clearly has a narrative to serve (several, in fact.) Purely by submitting something to the project, one of those narratives is necessarily advanced. Some of those narratives even conflict with one another, and that, too, is usually an intentional aspect (e.g. the intentional many faces of SCP-001), in this case furthering the narrative that there are many histories, no history is invalid unless it is senseless or self-contradictory.

For world-building in any way related to social activity, narrative is right there, like a dog demanding all the pets.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Dagger at the throat and out-of-combat stealth-assassin-type attacks are also really badly handled in D&D. Again they don't have to be - games with better mechanics, like Worlds Without Number handle stealth assassin stuff really well - that D&D both doesn't and doesn't care that it doesn't is another reason for caster dominance. Only casters get to do stuff like instantly one-shot or KO someone, especially with a single roll - or in some cases, no roll at all (hello Sleep!).

5E absolutely COULD have mechanics for this sort of thing, could make the fiction match the mechanics, at least in a "good enough for government work" way, but nope. Despite the fact that these are both fairly routine situations in D&D - far more common, I'd suggest, than actually say, sailing a ship or something.

I absolutely love this idea nested in your post for situations like knife at victim's throat or 10 crossbows aimed at PC which tension in scenes like these are undone by the hit point mechanic.
I'm definitely going to incorporate something like this at my table going forward.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I certainly do.

I'll give you a perfect example. On my shelf, after I recently dug them out, stand Faith's and Avatars (2e) and Powers and Pantheons (2e). Now, these are THE go to resources for all things divine in the Forgotten Realms at the time (granted, they're a bit out of date now, of course). Both weigh in at 194 pages of very small, dense text. So, just shy of 400 pages of material.

Now I bought these in (... goes off to check ...) about 1996 or 1997. Give or take. So, they've been with me for just about 25 years.

In 25 years I've used a grand total of 4 pages out of these books. One page for my 2e priest of Kossuth, and 3 pages recently for my Candlekeep campaign where I used the Cloister of Saint Ramedar.

1% of the material in 25 years. Why in hell did I buy these books? Fun read? I guess so. Looking at it now, it's mostly forgettable. This was a total waste of money.

And these books are hardly alone in that.

I'm so over the idea of buying books just to have them sit on my shelf gathering dust. If I won't use at least 40% of the book, then it's a non-buy for me now. I simply have no interest in buying fantasy encyclopedias anymore. They're largely a waste of time.

Those are among my favorite books TSR has ever put out. Books like that sparked a life-long interest in mythology for me. They were hardly a waste of time for me.

Look, I think I understand your position here, and I'm not asking you to feel bad about WotC making more books you like now than books I like. I'm saying it's a problem for me to hear you take joy in people not getting what they want anymore. I have never been happy that other people's wants are being disregarded, and I cannot understand it.

 

[Voadam]

Every single element in a game is serving whatever narrative that game is trying to produce.

I think games try and serve more purposes than narrative and so elements can be designed for other purposes and not to serve the narrative.

For instance I think making combat elements work to make the mini game of combat at the table fun is not to serve the narrative of the game but to focus on game elements and participant fun.

Giving lots of character options for building a character of the same narrative concept multiple ways can be in service of the fun of character building and diversity of character mechanic styles at the table and accommodating different player mechanical preferences instead of serving the narrative.