D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[pemerton]

But you need the illusion that they are real.
It is not fun to engage with Game Mechanic NPC 721, it is fun to interact with Grodi the Goblin Marauder.
So everything that is done to NPCs by players needs to be supported by the ingame fiction.
Narrative controlling player facing rules that can override ingamr fiction are laying the game mechanics bare.

Taunting does not "override" the ingame fiction, any more than fighting and killing creatures overrides the ingame fiction. In both cases, it adds new content to the ingame fiction.

 

[pemerton]

You misrepresented the core play structure of the game.

Huh? No I didn't!

There are some battlemaster maneuvers that I consider explicitly supernatural which is fine.

You are now houseruling the game, and insisting that that is a standard everyone else must play by.

It's the basic play loop. DM describes the scene, players say what they do, the DM responds. At no point do the player decide what NPCs do.

You posted that some BM manoeuvres are supernatural. I pointed out that that is you houseruling; @Gammadoodler has made the same point upthread.

You then replied that your houserule is the basic play loop. I ignored that part of your post because it's obviously wrong.

It's also not true that "at not point do the players decide what NPCs do". There are manoeuvres, spells and other abilities - in both 5e D&D and other versions of the game - which permit players to make decisions about what NPCs do.

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

I also have an interest in a respectful culture of discussion. To reiterate a point I've made, and that @Campbell has made, the fact that you don't like a particular structure of authority - that is, the player having an ability that permits them to affect the behaviour of NPCs - doesn't mean that it is reasonable to misdescribe the fiction that the author and/or user of that ability is evoking. Which, in this case, is the relatively well-known idea of goading one's foes into attacking.

Agreed. This is very common in martial / spellcasting threads unfortunately.

The reason these narrative abilities often come up is that the traditional mechanics don't do a great job of emulating many martially things in genre that should be possible.

Narrative abilities are one way to create in-fiction reality that matches fictional positioning of characters.

People can say they don't care for this kind of player ability, and can even say that "isn't D&D to them" or whatever.

But saying that this kind of mechanic can't create coherent in-game fiction is just disingenuous.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You don't think telling people they are mistaken about the fictional content of the game they are playing/running is disparaging or disrespectful? You don't think that disregarding the essential thematic elements involved in playing a martial character and instead insisting that because there is a measure of social influence or discrete rules involved that they must be rewriting reality is disparaging? I find it pretty damn disparaging.

From my perspective, they are rewriting reality. From theirs, they aren't. Both perspectives are fine for their own games, but we're not going to come to an accord, because we're playing different games. I don't like that style, and have explained how I feel about it. They've done the same. They're welcome to play their game however they wish.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Agreed. This is very common in martial / spellcasting threads unfortunately.

The reason these narrative abilities often come up is that the traditional mechanics don't do a great job of emulating many martially things in genre that should be possible.

Narrative abilities are one way to create in-fiction reality that matches fictional positioning of characters.

People can say they don't care for this kind of player ability, and can even say that "isn't D&D to them" or whatever.

But saying that this kind of mechanic can't create coherent in-game fiction is just disingenuous.

Sure it does, if it's used by the players as it is intended. But there's zero requirement that it be used that way, so rather than fight the players every time they use an ability just to gain a mechanical advantage because the rules let them do it, I'd rather disallow that specific ability and deal with the situation through other means I find preferable.

 

[Oofta]

Huh? No I didn't!

You posted that some BM manoeuvres are supernatural. I pointed out that that is you houseruling; @Gammadoodler has made the same point upthread.

You then replied that your houserule is the basic play loop. I ignored that part of your post because it's obviously wrong.

It's also not true that "at not point do the players decide what NPCs do". There are manoeuvres, spells and other abilities - in both 5e D&D and other versions of the game - which permit players to make decisions about what NPCs do.

My description and opinion on some of the battlemaster abilities has nothing to do with PCs controlling NPCs. They're unrelated topics. There are of course explicit magic spells that grant that control.

Without an explicit spell or power, a PC can't decide what an NPC does. The player says what they do, the DM describes the result. You questioned that assumption and called it a house rule.

 

[pemerton]

Without an explicit spell or power, a PC can't decide what an NPC does. The player says what they do, the DM describes the result. You questioned that assumption and called it a house rule.

I said nothing about that assumption! Here's the actual post where I referred to houseruling: https://www.enworld.org/threads/why-the-resistance-to-d-d-being-a-game.699547/post-9120925

I reposted it just above, and will do so here also:

There are some battlemaster maneuvers that I consider explicitly supernatural which is fine.

You are now houseruling the game, and insisting that that is a standard everyone else must play by.

As you and everyone else can see, you said nothing about any play loop. You asserted that some battlemaster manoeuvres are supernatural. I pointed out that that is your house rule, which is of little or no relevance to anyone else.

As far as "explicit spells or powers" are concerned, the battle master manoeuvres are explicit - but are not supernatural. The mooted taunting ability would also be explicit - but not supernatural.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
This thread has generated over a dozen reports. Time to close it down.