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

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nope.

Magic can be supernatural, but not everything supernatural is magic.

This is the problem we keep coming to because people think anything fantastic MUST be magical and it doesn't.

Sorry, we'll just have to disagree about that. The Wikipedia entry for 'Magic' literally has the title 'Magic(supernatural)'. Now, in all fairness the term magic is usually linked to the practice of magic in the form of rituals, etc. but there is no separation between what his magical and what is supernatural, magic is simply a cultural manifestation of the supernatural. Thus in metaphysical terms they are entirely cognate. When I say that magical abilities cannot be described and explained logically, and thus cannot be subject to verisimilitude, this is a principle which applies to ANY supernatural thing, not just spell casting. Supernatural fighting ability, especially when it is marked by such an illogically narrow applicability as @Manbearcat points out, IS MAGIC. The lack of "I wave my hands to make this happen" is irrelevant.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The point is that the guy had plot armor up the wazoo. Just like D&D fighters, especially at higher levels. Meanwhile, while he only interacted with the world around him physically, many of the things he did only had one in a million chance to survive.

Why not..answer the question?

 

[Micah Sweet]

When the rule includes a clause (as suggested) that it only applies to creatures that are capable on understanding your language, anything beyond that IS an edge case. After that, 5e's mantra of ruling not rules covers that. There is only so much that a set of mechanics should try to address else it become too cumbersome for actual play.

So if you qualify as sentient, you're one failed Wisdom check away from charging into melee with someone who insults you, regardless of circumstance? I'll pass.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is wrong.

The taunt ability as I outlined in my initial post is explicitly not supernatural.

Non-magical and non-supernatural features can obviously affect the minds of people

1: The deception skill is a trivial example that influences the mind of a target. You lie to them. They may or may not fall for it.

2: The frightful presence of a dragon is another one, one that compels movement.

3: Menacing Attack: "When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend one superiority die to attempt to frighten the target. You add the superiority die to the attack's damage roll, and the target must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, it is frightened of you until the end of your next turn." Ie the mind of the target has been affected.

4: The Battle Master's ability that grants an ally the ability to take an extra reaction is not about compelled movement, but demonstrates that you can have abilities that are non-magical and which grant movement to other characters.

So I have proven that the system as it is already allows the non-magical characters to influence the minds of opponents. Therefore the taunt is realistic.

In none of those instances are you nonmagically compelling someone to disregard their own survival instincts. Quite the opposite.

 

[Gammadoodler]

So if you qualify as sentient, you're one failed Wisdom check away from charging into melee with someone who insults you, regardless of circumstance? I'll pass.

I mean why not?

Wiser people will be better at avoiding this result than unwise people.

People who are better at delivering insults will have more success goading others than people who aren't as good at delivering insults.

How is this different from plain old nonmagical real life?

 

[Bill Zebub]

So if you qualify as sentient, you're one failed Wisdom check away from charging into melee with someone who insults you, regardless of circumstance? I'll pass.

First of all, there's no "you" here...it's a PC ability to be used on NPCs. And wisdom checks are just an abstract mechanic to implement the idea that sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Do you have another preferred mechanism for implementing that? I don't expect/believe that you are saying it should never work. Just sometimes. And the way D&D and other games represent that is through saving throws or ability checks.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I hardly think its a 4e-ism. Its how the game's always been like this because its genre fiction and not trying to emulate real life, even back in AD&D. Like, I'm not even counting the "Rules as written, your regular fighter dude can easily just recruit the services of an elephant-eating giant bird", per Rocs being on early D&D fighter follower tables. This this sheer strangeness has always been in the game. Its never tried to be realistic. 3E's cats as murderous buzzsaws who exist to slay people is another good example

Also it was a few pages back but that "Fists can only do subdual" damage post? Not only is that unrealistic (You absolutely can just punch someone the wrong way and they will die), but I scoured the entire AD&D players handbook and cannot find any mention of that.

There are actually, though I totally agree with you, 2 subdual systems in core 1e. One is presented in the MM under the Dragon entry, and is intended to apply only to that one monster type, though I see no reason why it couldn't be tweaked to act as a more general system. From this the possibility of 'subdual damage' arises, though it never became a totally general rule. The 1e DMG also presents a set of mechanics for punching and grappling which allow for the possibility of a KO, that is punching someone's lights out without reducing them to 0 hit points, or forcing them to submit. Needless to say this system was pretty much ignored, as its use outside of maybe bar brawls is both tedious and impractical, AND would lead to things like a bunch of low level orcs dogpiling a high level fighter and taking them out (interesting idea but not exactly something the system is designed to allow for).

But the more general point, that D&D is basically its own weird genre of 'kitchen sink fantasy', is IMHO one of the most potent ideas in this kind of discussion. Traditionalists really basically are just enacting a preference which they infer from past play and the associated genre tropes which have grown around it. Of course, presentation is everything, it became OK to mix fantastical magical fightiness and spell casting in 1e IF you were an 'elf', and then 2e invented a (usable) bard class that humans could take to do it. Then 3e introduced optional MCing (though it isn't all that optional really) and various other 'mixin strategies'. 5e now has Eldritch Knight, etc. So, if it gets introduced slowly and incrementally over decades, as only a specific side-option, then explicitly magical fighter is perfectly fine. It is just not allowed to point out that the regular fighter is already 100% supernatural because 'Heresy!!!!!!' (yes you need to use the body snatcher scream with that).

 

[Azzy]

So if you qualify as sentient, you're one failed Wisdom check away from charging into melee with someone who insults you, regardless of circumstance? I'll pass.

As opposed to morale checks in earlier editions where creatures were one failed roll away from running for combat? Gee, I wonder why I find your objection silly.

 

[Oofta]

Why not..answer the question?

Umm ... I thought I did. It's a different genre so it's apples and oranges to a large degree. McClane survived things no normal human could survive. He did things that while theoretically possible were unlikely to succeed. In multiple movies. All without altering reality by something he physically did.

If that doesn't answer the question not sure what will.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Umm ... I thought I did. It's a different genre so it's apples and oranges to a large degree. McClane survived things no normal human could survive. He did things that while theoretically possible were unlikely to succeed. In multiple movies. All without altering reality by something he physically did.

If that doesn't answer the question not sure what will.

I gave you a hypothetical adventure that mirrors the plot of Die Hard and asked you to reply with what PC level you'd expect it to be.

Now, in fairness, I didn't ask you to state why you'd give it that level, but if you would do that as well, I think it'd be nice.