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

[FrogReaver]

Anyway, here's an ability that a D&D fighter has: they can roll to hit and then to deal damage, thus potentially killing someone or something.

They can do this even if they are tiny and the something is huge (eg they are going toe-to-toe with a giant, or a dragon). Even if the thing is pounding on them relentlessly (eg a giant with its club, or a dragon with its teeth and claws). Even if they have had to do the same thing 5 times earlier without any rest between bouts.

To me, that means that D&D fighters are supernatural! After all, no one in real life could possibly do such things! It makes no sense at all.

I think this is a bad argument - Even if someone is okay with something supernatural in some way, that doesn’t imply that they need to be okay with anything supernatural in any way.

 

[Gimby]

A lion is no bigger than a adult man, I can still see it. Bigger stuff, yeah, that's what weapons are for, and a game better suited to my preference would take that into account.

A lion is about twice the weight of an adult man and vastly stronger (humans are unusually weak for their body weight compared to other primates, for various reasons).

 

[FrogReaver]

A lion is about twice the weight of an adult man and vastly stronger (humans are unusually weak for their body weight compared to other primates, for various reasons).

99.9% of humans are level 0 commoners with at most 12 str.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A lion is about twice the weight of an adult man and vastly stronger (humans are unusually weak for their body weight compared to other primates, for various reasons).

Ok. I'll take your word for it. In that case, it's just as much a problem as the other creatures referenced.

 

[pemerton]

There are ways within D&D's basic framework to make damage and healing more realistic. 5e just doesn't care about them.

D&D's basic framework is the to hit vs AC, hit point attrition combat system; and the saving throw system for avoiding or throwing off adverse effects. How would one get rid of these while retaining D&D's basic framework?

 

[pemerton]

I think this is a bad argument - Even if someone is okay with something supernatural in some way, that doesn’t imply that they need to be okay with anything supernatural in any way.

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!

 

[Gimby]

D&D's basic framework is the to hit vs AC, hit point attrition combat system; and the saving throw system for avoiding or throwing off adverse effects. How would one get rid of these while retaining D&D's basic framework?

Oh, you know, maybe some limit to the amount of healing someone can receive over time. Maybe a condition track for diseases and similar conditions. It's a real shame D&D has never explored this kind of thing

 

[Manbearcat]

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!

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D's basic framework is the to hit vs AC, hit point attrition combat system; and the saving throw system for avoiding or throwing off adverse effects. How would one get rid of these while retaining D&D's basic framework?

By enhancing the effects of going to 0.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sure. But that doesn't mean that you get to decide that the fiction of my game involves supernatural events, when I'm expressly telling you that they're not. They're just circumstances of this person making these other people really angry.

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.