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

[Micah Sweet]

Wait. What? An earth human could defeat a lion with their bare hands?

What?

If you took Jon Jones in his prime and duplicated him twice over so that three of him were taking on a single, mature lion…they all three would get exsanguinated…mauled. No chance whatsoever. 100 out of 100 times.

I’ve spent 26 years of my life grappling. I can’t even conceive of this happening…and it’s difficult for me to conceive another human being thinking this is plausible. Listen to John Danaher (one of the top, if not the top, BJJ coach in the world and aldo a masters in philosophy and I believe a PHD in epistemology) discuss this very subject sometime. He was asked this question about his star pupil (maybe the greatest BJJ practitioner in history) Gordon Ryan; I hear the guffaw is still echoing to this day.

A low-mid D&D Fighter trivially besting a lion is so far beyond the pale of apex earth human limits…but somehow they simultaneously cannot muster the omnidirectional explosivity indices that would best (or in plenty of build cases even matches) their earthly counterparts. It beggars belief.

Give 10 expert human hunters spears and a killbox and they’ll have some success hunting a saber-toothed tiger, safely from range and a natural rampart. Ask those same 10 to pull off the same trick without those advantages? I hope they have their Paleolithic affairs in order!

I'm fine with humans being more realistic in both directions. All it would take is a little research before you design. It can and has been done by people who aren't WotC.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not making any argument about what someone is or ought to be "OK" with.

I'm simply pointing out that the attack ability, by the standards being put forward in this thread, is a supernatural ability. And hence that all fighters in D&D are already supernatural as per the rules!

And im simply pointing out that the later argument - ‘all fighters in d&d are supernatural’ is a bad one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Actually, we all get to have and share our opinions about whether something is supernatural or not.

Mine is that an in fiction PC ability to taunt any enemy regardless of circumstance
to physically approach and attack you is supernatural.

Now if one wants to grant a player the ability to declare their PC taunts an enemy to physically approach and attack and so long as the enemy fails a wisdom save they do so. That’s a player ability - not a PC ability - and it’s not in fiction supernatural - it’s outside fiction authorial.

There’s a tendency in more narrative games to hide narrative/authorial mechanics on the PC sheet and talk about them as if they are PC abilities, but this kind of analysis reveals the truth - while such abilities are loosely tied to something the PC does - their actual purpose is to grant the player authorial/narrative control and not to simply have the PC try to do something in the fiction.

And that kind of honesty, in a game designed for it, is great.

 

[FrogReaver]

And that kind of honesty, in a game designed for it, is great.

I’m quite partial to Battlemaster maneuvers and they are mostly based on the same premise. They just are really minor effects.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m quite partial to Battlemaster maneuvers and they are mostly based on the same premise. They just are really minor effects.

I'm more fond of Level Up Combat maneuvers, but the principle is basically the same.

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm more fond of Level Up Combat maneuvers, but the principle is basically the same.

Right. For most it’s not the principle of narrative/authorial control abilities, but the desired proliferation of such abilities.

Most are just bad at articulation as they’ve never had a real need to logically dissect their games.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It was a sloppy statement.

It was, but expecting people to generically separate statements of personal preference from statements of general preference is a fool's errand; in a specific argument holding people to a higher standard is justified, but an offhand response to something else someone else says?

Like I said, you do you, but its a pointless exercise.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A problem for me when each of us (I think) has a line somewhere, is that I feel like I'm arguing both sides sometimes because a bunch of you drew your lines in silly* places.

* silly places = not close to where I would

Not a situation I haven't fallen into on occasion.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It was, but expecting people to generically separate statements of personal preference from statements of general preference is a fool's errand; in a specific argument holding people to a higher standard is justified, but an offhand response to something else someone else says?

Like I said, you do you, but its a pointless exercise.

I do my best to state my opinions as just that, and have no problem taking the hit when I forget, or accepting my error when I make one. I see no reason why other people can't do the same.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My character sheet in that game rivals 4e for the number of buttons to push and modifiers to track. And I wasn't even playing a spellcaster!

You're using a VTT? They tend to make sure everything is covered whether needed or not. I have things on my Hero Lab Online sheet I never need to look at.

(Now, over time you can accumulate a lot of feats, which can add up in the teens, but even a lot of those are things that are reactive in some circumstances. It can still be hard to remember sometimes, but its not a steady-state load. I don't need to know I have Evasion unless I'm making a Reflex save, and then three of the four results it doesn't matter with).