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

[Ruin Explorer]

I think the game world needs to acknowledge that high-level anything people can faceplant from the tallest tower in the land and just dust themselves off after. Similarly, that threatening someone with a dagger at their throat / crossbow at their face is actually really ineffective (especially because there is no condition for being helpless) - you need 10 friends with crossbows with you.

This remains the biggest one for me, and it's particularly sad because it's completely an addressable problem, it's just D&D chooses not to address it - particularly not in 5E.

Death by extreme damage or whatever it was called in 3.XE largely solved the "I will just jump off this building and land on marble and be basically fine", but 5E abandoned that. A similar mechanic, even if it was only for falling damage, could solve the problem. Why doesn't D&D have it? I'd honestly like an answer from Crawford and co, because I don't think they have a good answer.

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.

 

[James Gasik]

I would argue it never makes sense from a fictional/narrative or simulative perspective, only ever a game mechanical one. And only then because it's a fairly precious resource the player will think twice about spending and ultimately have to make a hard choice - advance in character level/power as part of the archetype/class they're playing vs gaining a boost in utility/power with an item.

Oh no, I can't argue with that, because "experience points" make no sense from a narrative standpoint. In real life, we don't have progress bars next to our skills that fill up as we use them, lol.

 

[Deset Gled]

Oh no, I can't argue with that, because "experience points" make no sense from a narrative standpoint. In real life, we don't have progress bars next to our skills that fill up as we use them, lol.

Experience points can easily make sense in terms of narrative fiction. Luke Skywalker gained experience points at every battle, and leveled up between movies. The Winchester brothers gained experience points with each monster-of-the-week and leveled up from fighting 1st level ghosts to knifing epic level angels and demons.

Now, experience points can be an abstract and weird form of simulation. But that really wasn't the question in the OP. The question was not "real life" or "when do the mechanics not match reality". It was about the fiction.

 

[Lanefan]

Not really though. To qualify for training, I still have to shoot a bunch of goblins. Training rules had nothing to do with narratives and everything to do with sparkling over the xp for gold rules.

My point is that training reflects in a sped-up way what a stay-at-home type does in a slow way: learn, practice, and eventually get better at what they do.

Bumping in the field and suddenly gaining brand new abilities (and maybe spells) you didn't have five minutes ago is a big fiction-mechanics mismatch for me.

 

[Lanefan]

I think it was Mayfair Games who coined HTK or "Hits to Kill" instead of hit points, and that's probably a better way to look at it; how many solid blows you can take before going down.

Judges Guild used a similar term back in the early days of 1e.

 

[overgeeked]

My point is that training reflects in a sped-up way what a stay-at-home type does in a slow way: learn, practice, and eventually get better at what they do.

Bumping in the field and suddenly gaining brand new abilities (and maybe spells) you didn't have five minutes ago is a big fiction-mechanics mismatch for me.

Exactly. The "ding" or "swoosh" of suddenly having more spell slots or new spells from stabbing an orc or having a good night's sleep is just pure game mechanic.

If the in-fiction world the game mechanics are meant to represent was explicitly a video game however...it would work perfectly.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Well they don't by default, but I've played in adventures (the first one that comes to mind is Fighter's Challenge from 2e) where local economies are altered based on circumstances, making things more/less expensive/available for purchase. Although I think someone already added "D&D economics" to this thread.

Yeah that was me.

 

[Hussar]

Perhaps. You have to wonder why D&D has never described it thus.

Because DnD has never, ever cared about the idea of matching mechanics to fiction.

That’s something a group of fandom has tried to argue for.

 

[billd91]

Because DnD has never, ever cared about the idea of matching mechanics to fiction.

That’s something a group of fandom has tried to argue for.

The fact that there are things that don‘t match the fiction doesn’t mean that D&D has never, ever cared to match mechanics to fiction. That brush is too broad. Rather, it makes abstractions where it needs to to foster smoother game play. The issue of cure wounds spells is simply based on the assumption that while hit points are more than just meat, they always involve some meat. Hence the description of them on page 82 of the 1e DMG and the substantial healing time required without magic to cure the numerous “nicks, scratches, cuts, and bruises” the character has sustained while adventuring. The cure wounds spells are named that because they actually are curing wounds… its just they’re also doing a bit more.

 

[Hussar]

The fact that there are things that don‘t match the fiction doesn’t mean that D&D has never, ever cared to match mechanics to fiction. That brush is too broad. Rather, it makes abstractions where it needs to to foster smoother game play. The issue of cure wounds spells is simply based on the assumption that while hit points are more than just meat, they always involve some meat. Hence the description of them on page 82 of the 1e DMG and the substantial healing time required without magic to cure the numerous “nicks, scratches, cuts, and bruises” the character has sustained while adventuring. The cure wounds spells are named that because they actually are curing wounds… its just they’re also doing a bit more.

Perfect example.

Your character takes 40% of his max hp in damage from a single hit.

Narrate that for me please. And show how the mechanics defined that narrative and how that is the only possible narrative since, if the mechanics are defining the narrative then there must be some narratives which would not fit.

Oh right. You can’t. Because the entire combat system has nothing to do with creating a narrative. It’s no better at generating a narrative than Risk is.