# The double standard for magical and mundane abilities



## Branduil (Aug 5, 2014)

This is something that's been bothering me in the discussion about the halfling sniper, and I think it deserves its own discussion. 

I personally feel like the rules for hiding in 5th edition are fairly clear; if the enemy can't see you, you can use the Hide action. Some special abilities, like the halfling's Naturally Stealthy, allow for exceptions to this general rule. So far, so clear, right?

However, because Hide is not a supernatural ability, it becomes subject to the dreaded _unwritten verisimilitude rules_. Rules which seem clear per the RAW are now subject to whatever the group decides is believable for heroic characters in a world full of dragons and wizards to accomplish.

Certainly, it's an understandable tendency. However, it often has the unintentional side effect of neutering martial characters in comparison to spellcasters. No one ever forces the wizard to come up with a new situation where he's allowed to cast his Magic Missile spell he has prepared. No one ever forces the cleric to come up with a believable explanation for why he can cast cure wounds a second time during an encounter.

What can be done to counter the tendency for mundane skills to be overshadowed by always-works magic? Is the only solution to say "all skills are magical so characters trained in them can do them whenever the skill says they can"?


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## tomBitonti (Aug 5, 2014)

Isn't _always reliable_ magic countered by _limited uses_?

A wizard can cast spells a limited number of times.  A character can hide as many times as circumstances allow.

Also, magic generally has very specific limitations built into the spell: For example, 3.5E Magic Missile could only target _creatures_.

Thx!

TomB

Edit: This could be a problem with 3.5E Warlocks, who had unlimited uses of their invocations.  This might be a problem in 5E, with more unlimited use spells (cantrips) of greater effect than previously.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 5, 2014)

This is one of those issues that is so endemic, entrenched, and unquestionable that it's darn near futile to even talk about it.  Yes, D&D has a long, long history of casters being superior to non-casters, and, yes, the fans it hasn't driven away in those decades are not only mostly fine with that, but there's a sub-set of them who are violently opposed to doing anything about it.

...





tomBitonti said:


> Isn't _always reliable_ magic countered by _limited uses_?



 No.  The /power/ of magic is nominally balanced by limited use, when there is more need for that power than there is magic.  

For instance, if a party faces 4 encounters for a total of 12 rounds of combat, and the wizard has 20 combat spells, the limited use is meaningless.  If he has only 2 spells, it's very meaningful.

In practice, the limitation only holds up in a narrow range of play.  You have to top out at fewer 'daily' resources than you have encounters/day for it to remain really meaningful.  For a game expecting 4-5 encounters/day, that'd mean no more than 3-4 slots - at /any/ level.    But,for a game with 8 and more encounters, that'd be /too/ limited.  



> A wizard can cast spells a limited number of times.  A character can hide as many times as circumstances allow.



 Except in the thread that prompted the OP.  The halfling rogue is /supposed/ to be able to hide any time circumstances allow, but when that actually becomes every round (when 'unlimited use' becomes a practical reality), it's somehow unrealistic.


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## Rod Staffwand (Aug 5, 2014)

I hate to reference 3E in a positive light, but I liked their terminology of mundane/exceptional/supernatural abilities. In my opinion, most adventurer abilities should be classified as either exceptional or supernatural. In other words--things that you and your friends can't do at home, no matter how hard you try or lucky you get.

This should be reinforced in the skill DC table and the description of skill uses. They need to be explicit about the difference between "mundane hiding" and "exceptional hiding" just like they are explicit about the effects of magic abilities (spell descriptions).

Unfortunately, most of the 5E text I've seen so far places the priority on magic. This has long been a problem in D&D. The 1e thief had a chance to "climb _sheer _surfaces" which, without additional context, people took to mean "climb stuff that can be reasonably climbed" rather than "climb anything".


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## Minigiant (Aug 5, 2014)

It really comes down to the fact that in D&D the magic is never explained.
Because magic is never explained, there is no frame to reference when magic doesn't work outside of the rules given.

Reality has experience and explanations holding it back.

Knock just unlocks locks, it doesn't summon magic lockpicks. Does invisibility bend light around the target or emit the  or emit the same light the hits the other side of the target. No one knows...cause reasons.

Well the wizard knows but they don't tell.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 5, 2014)

Rod Staffwand said:


> I hate to reference 3E in a positive light, but I liked their terminology of mundane/exceptional/supernatural abilities. In my opinion, most adventurer abilities should be classified as either exceptional or supernatural. In other words--things that you and your friends can't do at home, no matter how hard you try or lucky you get.



  EX/SU was a pretty good idea.  The description of the martial source in 4e was similar to EX, though, and it didn't help.



> This should be reinforced in the skill DC table and the description of skill uses. They need to be explicit about the difference between "mundane hiding" and "exceptional hiding" just like they are explicit about the effects of magic abilities (spell descriptions).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 5, 2014)

Branduil said:


> Rules which seem clear per the RAW are now subject to whatever the group decides is believable for heroic characters in a world full of dragons and wizards to accomplish.



The rules do not only describe heroic characters. They apply equally to everyone in the world, unless they have a specific ability which declares otherwise.


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## Agamon (Aug 5, 2014)

It goes both ways in my games.  Fireball won't start any fires, but a tossed alchemist's fire could.  Lightning bolt won't shock other people standing in water with the target, but a natural bolt of lightning behaves as naturally occurring electricity would.

Magic is magic.  It's not better.  It's not worse.  It's just magic.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 5, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> The rules do not only describe heroic characters. They apply equally to everyone in the world, unless they have a specific ability which declares otherwise.



 PC classes prettymuch applied only to heroic characters (and their foes) in 4e and 3e, for instance.  3e had NPC classes, 4e statted NPCs using the same blocks as monsters.  Even AD&D had classless NPCs and entries for classless PC-races in the Monster Manual.

I guess we'll have to see if 5e makes PC classes pull double-duty, so every soldier is a fighter and every street urchin a rogue - or if it takes the 3e approach and provides NPC classes, or the AD&D classless approach.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 5, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> I guess we'll have to see if 5e makes PC classes pull double-duty, so every soldier is a fighter and every street urchin a rogue - or if it takes the 3e approach and provides NPC classes, or the AD&D classless approach.



It remains to be seen, but is irrelevant to this case, since it doesn't reference class features. Regardless of how it solves the issue of NPC classes, the whole system of skills and ability checks must remain universal.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 5, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> It remains to be seen, but is irrelevant to this case, since it doesn't reference class features.  Regardless of how it solves the issue of NPC classes, the whole system of skills and ability checks must remain universal.



 Fighters and rogues both have class abilities that impact skill checks, IIRC, mabye ability checks, too.  So there's room for those abilities to be exceptional/extraordinary rather than purely mundane.


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## Rod Staffwand (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> It remains to be seen, but is irrelevant to this case, since it doesn't reference class features. Regardless of how it solves the issue of NPC classes, the whole system of skills and ability checks must remain universal.




Because the system would break down if you had to resolve an 80-year old commoner hiding from a goblin?


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## pemerton (Aug 6, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> I guess we'll have to see if 5e makes PC classes pull double-duty, so every soldier is a fighter and every street urchin a rogue - or if it takes the 3e approach and provides NPC classes, or the AD&D classless approach.



Basic D&D answers this to some extent, on p 24:

Questing knights, conquering overlords, royal champions, elite foot soldiers, hardened mercenaries, and bandit kings . . .

Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen’s army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters.​


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 6, 2014)

Rod Staffwand said:


> Because the system would break down if you had to resolve an 80-year old commoner hiding from a goblin?



No, because a universal system is more meaningful than a system that limits itself to expressing how a very small subset of people operate. If modeling a venerable commoner hiding from a goblin requires anything more than a Dexterity (Stealth) check against Wisdom (Perception), then your system is at least twice as complicated as it should be.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> No, because a universal system is more meaningful than a system that limits itself to expressing how a very small subset of people operate. .



 "Meaningful?"

Odd way to phrase the value judgement.  

I mean, I get that some people approach an RPG as artistic expression, but that's an approach.  It's a bit much to expect from the mechanics, themselves.  Unless you're thinking game design as an art?



pemerton said:


> Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen’s army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters.



 So, not PC-only or heroic/villainous-only, like in 3e, but classless/levelless, like 1e men-at-arms and the like, with any higher order competence implying PC class levels.  

Well, maybe the DMG will yet deliver some NPC classes (advancing with just a background, perhaps?) so blacksmiths don't have to have fighter levels just to get their tool proficiency bonus up a bit.


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## Hussar (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> No, because a universal system is more meaningful than a system that limits itself to expressing how a very small subset of people operate. If modeling a venerable commoner hiding from a goblin requires anything more than a Dexterity (Stealth) check against Wisdom (Perception), then your system is at least twice as complicated as it should be.




Since, presumably, neither of these are PC's and no players are involved, why do we need to invoke any rules at all?

I guess my question is, meaningful to whom?  Meaningful to a player whose character is not there and has no way of actually observing the event?  Meaningful to the DM?  Meaningful to some sort of outside observer?


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 6, 2014)

Hussar said:


> Since, presumably, neither of these are PC's and no players are involved, why do we need to invoke any rules at all?



Because there is zero in-game difference between a PC and an NPC (aside from what shows up on their respective character sheets), and because we need the resolution to only follow from things that exist _within_ the game-world (otherwise we violate causality), we need rules to determine the outcome _without_ invoking arbitrary bias.

The whole point of a ruleset is that it provides us with as unbiased-as-possible of a resolution for any situation.


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## Hussar (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Because there is zero in-game difference between a PC and an NPC (aside from what shows up on their respective character sheets), and because we need the resolution to only follow from things that exist _within_ the game-world (otherwise we violate causality), we need rules to determine the outcome _without_ invoking arbitrary bias.
> 
> The whole point of a ruleset is that it provides us with as unbiased-as-possible of a resolution for any situation.




Only in 3e was this even close to true, and, even then, not really since PC's and NPC's follow all sorts of different rules, gaining xp being a prime example (how much xp do your followers and cohort get if you bring them on an adventure?)  In every other edition, this wasn't even close to true.  NPC's and PC's follow different rules many times.

Sorry, but, you're playing a game.  Virtually every single element invokes arbitrary biases.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 6, 2014)

Hussar said:


> Only in 3e was this even close to true, and, even then, not really since PC's and NPC's follow all sorts of different rules, gaining xp being a prime example (how much xp do your followers and cohort get if you bring them on an adventure?)  In every other edition, this wasn't even close to true.  NPC's and PC's follow different rules many times.



In 4E alone, it wasn't even close to true. In every other edition, it was identical mechanics for whether an NPC or PC could hide from someone - be that a thief-specific skill check, ability check, or skill check. 

The _only_ difference between a PC and an NPC in 3.X is that we didn't follow NPCs around to specifically track their XP income, so we had other systems in place to kind of ballpark it with less effort.

In prior editions as well, the difference between a PC and an NPC was only in specifically delineated class features, where NPCs were generally level 0 and had no features of note, and PCs tended to be level 1 or higher.


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## evileeyore (Aug 6, 2014)

Hussar said:


> Since, presumably, neither of these are PC's and no players are involved, why do we need to invoke any rules at all?
> 
> I guess my question is, meaningful to whom?  Meaningful to a player whose character is not there and has no way of actually observing the event?  Meaningful to the DM?  Meaningful to some sort of outside observer?



To be honest I'm with you, however...

The PCs can easily be involved without either the old guy hiding or the goblin peeping being PCs.

The PCs are fighting the Goblin raiders, nearby a Goblin has slipped past them and is stalking his true prey, the Mayor of the town.  Does he find the Mayor before the PCs can finish with the distraction and come to the rescue?  Does a PC peel off to hunt the hunting hunter?  Etc.



Granted in this scenario I (the Marvelous and Wonderfully Talented) DM will have figured out how I'm handling it, how long the PCs have, etc.  Best suited for the mission needs (drama, story development, emotional impact, etc).  But some groups really do seem to want some sort of "outside the DM's direct control" method of dealing with this (and they of course conveniently overlook all the factors the DM will directly be controlling).


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## Der-Rage (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> In 4E alone, it wasn't even close to true. In every other edition, it was identical mechanics for whether an NPC or PC could hide from someone - be that a thief-specific skill check, ability check, or skill check.



Wait what? How is that different in 4E? If there's doubt about the outcome, you roll a skill check in 4E just as you'd do in 3E. If your scenario involves the PCs encountering a [young girl, old man] whatever who hid from the goblins in past tense then you fiat that said check was successful in 4E as you do in 3E. I don't know what difference you think exists here, but it sounds to me like you're just trying to wage another edition war by proxy. Please don't do that. This thread is about, a specific rule in DDN and how the OP percieves a double standard on its interpretation.

Now, on the actual topic, isn't the idea that hobbits are so quick and small that that you can be watching them intently and still have a chance of losing them? Because that's basically the whole point of having Frodo take the ring in the first place. If that's a problem for people then they don't really seem to be understanding why people like to play half-lings.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> The whole point of a ruleset is that it provides us with as unbiased-as-possible of a resolution for any situation.



Well, within the scope of the game, sure.  You don't have to roll to for everything every NPC everywhere is doing, all the time, just the ones that are interacting with or impacting the actual play of the game with their actions.



Saelorn said:


> In 4E alone, it wasn't even close to true. In every other edition, it was identical mechanics for whether an NPC or PC could hide from someone - be that a thief-specific skill check, ability check, or skill check.



 Huh?  In 4e there was a stealth skill and a perception skill.  The character doing the hiding rolled vs a target of the passive perception of anyone who might notice him.  A character actively searching for a stealthed character made a perception with the stealth result as the DC. That's it.  PC or NPC, classed or monster, trained or untrained, regardless of level.  So you picked a /really/ bad example, there.

Apart from having Stealth divided and Perception divided into Hide & Move Silently and Listen, Spot, & Search respectively, and having all checks contested, 3e was pretty similar. (Though, multiple contested checks, any one of which blew the stealth attempt made stealth pretty hard to pull off unless you were just phenomenally better than the guy you were sneaking up on.)  

5e's system is also similar.

In AD&D, OTOH, a character trying to hide from or sneak up on another might make  special ability Hide In Shadows and Move Silently checks (probably failing because he must succeed at both), or a d20 check to roll under their Dex, or a d6 surprise roll.


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## dd.stevenson (Aug 6, 2014)

Branduil said:


> No one ever forces the wizard to come up with a new situation where he's allowed to cast his Magic Missile spell he has prepared. No one ever forces the cleric to come up with a believable explanation for why he can cast cure wounds a second time during an encounter.



Nor do they ask the fighter why he can hit the same enemy twice in the same encounter. I think the magical/mundane double standard is a red herring: it's a stealth/nonstealth issue. Stealth in combat is a particular bugbear, because it's hampered by the fact that D&D combat has no facing rules; thus it's up to the whim of the group whether stealth "sounds good" in that situation.

The proper magical analogue, to my mind, would be to claim that no one ever asks the illusionist why he can fool the same enemy twice in the same encounter with an invisibility spell. And that claim is, of course, not accurate: some groups would allow it, and others would have the enemy ready to throw flour at the spot just as soon as the pesky wizard disappears a second time.

If your group demanded that the rogue, but not the wizard, explain how he fooled the same enemy twice with the same deception, then I would agree that there was a martial/mundane double standard in your group. But that double standard, while it exists, is very, very far from universal--in my experience.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 6, 2014)

Der-Rage said:


> Wait what? How is that different in 4E? If there's doubt about the outcome, you roll a skill check in 4E just as you'd do in 3E.



The main difference is where that number comes from, but you're entirely correct in that _every_ edition treats PCs and NPCs identically for the vast majority of situations. Where NPCs are _ever_​ treated differently, it's usually just to simplify the bookkeeping, rather than denoting them as magically different in any way.


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## Hussar (Aug 6, 2014)

I dunno. When I started DnD bandits were monsters and so were commoners. And the didn't even have a dex score to hide with. That old man hiding from a goblin was resolved completely independently of rules.


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## pemerton (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Because there is zero in-game difference between a PC and an NPC (aside from what shows up on their respective character sheets), and because we need the resolution to only follow from things that exist _within_ the game-world (otherwise we violate causality), we need rules to determine the outcome _without_ invoking arbitrary bias.
> 
> The whole point of a ruleset is that it provides us with as unbiased-as-possible of a resolution for any situation.



Even on its own terms I think this is a non-sequitur. Suppose it's true that there is no ingame difference between a PC and an NPC. And let's grant that resolution can only follow from things that exist within the gameworld. It doesn't follow that the mechanical systems have to be applied in order to avoid "arbitrary biases". For instance, the GM might decide what happens based on a best estimate of how the various ingame causal factors will play out.

When another participant in the game is concerned (eg a player) that person might want to replace GM judgement with a random die roll in order to have a chance of succeeding even if the GM doesn't think it's very plausible. But the NPC has no comparable real-life person with a stake, and so the same concerns about bias against another game participant don't arise.



Saelorn said:


> In prior editions as well, the difference between a PC and an NPC was only in specifically delineated class features, where NPCs were generally level 0 and had no features of note, and PCs tended to be level 1 or higher.





Saelorn said:


> _every_ edition treats PCs and NPCs identically for the vast majority of situations. Where NPCs are _ever_​ treated differently, it's usually just to simplify the bookkeeping, rather than denoting them as magically different in any way.



This isn't true for OD&D: monsters can open doors without a STR check, and doors stay open for them; whereas for PCs a STR check is needed, and doors swing shut unless iron spikes are used.

This is also true in 1st ed AD&D, and from memory in Moldvay Basic as well.

In 1st ed AD&D, half-orc NPCs attack on the monster table appropriate to their HD; they don't use the class tables, even if they have levels in a class.

I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not these are "magical differences".


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## Manbearcat (Aug 6, 2014)

Branduil said:


> No one ever forces the wizard to come up with a new situation where he's allowed to cast his Magic Missile spell he has prepared. No one ever forces the cleric to come up with a believable explanation for why he can cast cure wounds a second time during an encounter.
> 
> What can be done to counter the tendency for mundane skills to be overshadowed by always-works magic? Is the only solution to say "all skills are magical so characters trained in them can do them whenever the skill says they can"?






dd.stevenson said:


> Nor do they ask the fighter why he can hit the same enemy twice in the same encounter. I think the magical/mundane double standard is a red herring: it's a stealth/nonstealth issue. Stealth in combat is a particular bugbear, because it's hampered by the fact that D&D combat has no facing rules; thus it's up to the whim of the group whether stealth "sounds good" in that situation.
> 
> The proper magical analogue, to my mind, would be to claim that no one ever asks the illusionist why he can fool the same enemy twice in the same encounter with an invisibility spell. And that claim is, of course, not accurate: some groups would allow it, and others would have the enemy ready to throw flour at the spot just as soon as the pesky wizard disappears a second time.




I think an even more proper analogue would be to ask why do Fighters have to make very mundane Athletics, Endurance, Intimidation, attack rolls against clearly inferior opponents (what-have-you) when Wizards don't have to make Arcana or Spellcasting checks to harness supernatural forces with (presumably) very mundane mental conceptualization and memorization of complex arcane formulas and administration of complex somatic gestures?  

I can hit free-throws at about a 75 % clip.  Presumably, spellcasting (especially of the more powerful spells) is much more complicated/difficult than developing the muscle memory and coordination intrinsic to shooting a round ball at an elevated, vertical hoop from 15 feet away.  However, there is no attendant "check to memorize" and no "spellcasting check" for Wizards.  Certainly they don't universally fail at their prospects to cast a spell at a 5 % clip (eg roll a 1 on an attack roll).

The fact that such a spellcasting or memorization resolution mechanic does not exist is not a process-simulation interest, that is for sure.


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## dd.stevenson (Aug 6, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> I think an even more proper analogue would be to ask why do Fighters have to make very mundane Athletics, Endurance, Intimidation, attack rolls against clearly inferior opponents (what-have-you) when Wizards don't have to make Arcana or Spellcasting checks to harness supernatural forces with (presumably) very mundane mental conceptualization and memorization of complex arcane formulas and administration of complex somatic gestures?



I'm not clear on your basis for comparison. The original complaint was that the rogue was denied his most basic, goto, rules-as-written attack option because of verisimilitude concerns; whereas the mage and the cleric were not. 

Whether the mage is a great simulation (of whatever mages simulate) seems to be a completely different question altogether.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 6, 2014)

Branduil said:


> What can be done to counter the tendency for mundane skills to be overshadowed by always-works magic? Is the only solution to say "all skills are magical so characters trained in them can do them whenever the skill says they can"?




Limit magic. 5E has already failed miserably in this regard due to at-will spells.

Once the decision has been made that free reliable magic will be plentiful the mundane must either accept it's place as 2nd fiddle or you can play in a world without consistency where the natural laws of the universe only work part time. 

With non-magical occurrences flying in the face of expected normal outcomes, the game world will be as stable as the moon from the classic 1948 cartoon _The Cat that Hated People. _


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## Manbearcat (Aug 6, 2014)

dd.stevenson said:


> I'm not clear on your basis for comparison. The original complaint was that the rogue was denied his most basic, goto, rules-as-written attack option because of verisimilitude concerns; whereas the mage and the cleric were not.
> 
> Whether the mage is a great simulation (of whatever mages simulate) seems to be a completely different question altogether.



The thesis is a simple and familiar one to us all.  See the OP:



> However, because Hide is not a supernatural ability, it becomes subject to the dreaded unwritten verisimilitude rules. Rules which seem clear per the RAW are now subject to whatever the group decides is believable for heroic characters in a world full of dragons and wizards to accomplish.
> Certainly, it's an understandable tendency. However, it often has the unintentional side effect of neutering martial characters in comparison to spellcasters.




The implication is:

1)  Rules construction should attempt (to whatever degree) to model mundane processes or exploits.  

2)  Supernatural abilities are exempt from this inclination "because magic."

3)  Where rules are opaque or absent, there is an "understandable tendency" to have mundane abilities become "subject to the dreaded unwritten versimilitude rules" when GM rulings on mundane action resolution are made.

Hence my curiosity.  

We've had thieves with the most ineffectual basic competency in there speciality possible (such that they are a laughingstock at their profession).  So ineffectual that they were a laughingstock at their primary shtick and basically disposable with a standard life expectancy of a few sessions due to grotesque failure rate.  We've had Fighters without basic competency in things like Athletics and Endurance such that they fail on trivial tasks.

Also, we've had failure within the mundane components of Wizarding.  We've had failure to learn spell percentage.  We've had the outright inability to cast in armor and we've had Arcane Spellcasting Failure % in various armors.  We've had various concentration and OA mechanics.  These add up to meaning that the mundane mental process of spell casting is (and should be if 1 - 3 above are universally applicable) quite difficult and the somatic component in spellcasting is intricate/precise/demanding and burdened by harraassment.

We have people losing their minds over DoaM and CaGI because of their perceptions of 1 and 3 above; OMG FIGHTERS ALWAYS HITTING.  However, simultaneously in the same ruleset legacy we have all of this "stuff" that says the mundane components of spellcasting (concieving and memorizing formulae, speaking in an opaque, eldritch tongue, and performing the intricate somatic gestures) is hard (presumably more difficult than the 25 % failure rate in freethrows for "good" practitioners) but there is no base % chance to fail to cast a spell (or a failure continuum based on spell level).

Its just a little odd.  Its odder still that no one cares about it nor loses their mind with rant after rant decrying OMGHOWCANWIZARDSNEVERFAILSPELLCASTINGWTF!!!?  I would think there should be dusk till dawn keyboard mashing and hand-wringing over such perfection in the mundane components of a very difficult craft.


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## Raith5 (Aug 6, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> We have people losing their minds over DoaM and CaGI because of their perceptions of 1 and 3 above; OMG FIGHTERS ALWAYS HITTING.  However, simultaneously in the same ruleset legacy we have all of this "stuff" that says the mundane components of spellcasting (concieving and memorizing formulae, speaking in an opaque, eldritch tongue, and performing the intricate somatic gestures) is hard (presumably more difficult than the 25 % failure rate in freethrows for "good" practitioners) but there is no base % chance to fail to cast a spell (or a failure continuum based on spell level).
> 
> Its just a little odd.  Its odder still that no one cares about it nor loses their mind with rant after rant decrying OMGHOWCANWIZARDSNEVERFAILSPELLCASTINGWTF!!!?  I would think there should be dusk till dawn keyboard mashing and hand-wringing over such perfection in the mundane components of a very difficult craft.




Because of deeply etched historical path dependencies built into the inflexible and curious myths of our beloved game - or something?

More seriously: I would love the see an iteration of D&D which has a deep intersection of the skill system and the magical system but it would require some explanation as to how magic works. I mean some rituals in 4e required skill checks - but it was not fully fleshed out and did not relate to utility spells. 

But yeah if the Knock spell enabled the caster to swap their arcana for thievery skill for eg - that would work for me in a more realistic and interesting sense.


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## Minigiant (Aug 6, 2014)

You all are going in the wrong direction.


It is because D&D magic is not explained nor has a frame of reference to base limitations on.

Otherwise I could say invisibly doesn't work now because invisibity runs on moonlight and the eclipse blocks it.


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## Hussar (Aug 6, 2014)

Y'know, I never thought of that Manbearcat.  it's a good point.  Memorization and casting is supposed to be difficult.  So difficult that you require extensive training to do it.  But, once you've had that training, you absolutely cannot ever fail to succeed in doing it (unless something outside prevents you) every time you try.  But a rogue trying to hide, despite his extensive training in it, fails fairly often.  

It is a good point.  Why is "extensive training" acceptable in one case for automatic success, but not in others?


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## dd.stevenson (Aug 6, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> We have people losing their minds over DoaM and CaGI because of their perceptions of 1 and 3 above; OMG FIGHTERS ALWAYS HITTING. However, simultaneously in the same ruleset legacy we have all of this "stuff" that says the mundane components of spellcasting (concieving and memorizing formulae, speaking in an opaque, eldritch tongue, and performing the intricate somatic gestures) is hard (presumably more difficult than the 25 % failure rate in freethrows for "good" practitioners) but there is no base % chance to fail to cast a spell (or a failure continuum based on spell level).
> 
> Its just a little odd. Its odder still that no one cares about it nor loses their mind with rant after rant decrying OMGHOWCANWIZARDSNEVERFAILSPELLCASTINGWTF!!!? I would think there should be dusk till dawn keyboard mashing and hand-wringing over such perfection in the mundane components of a very difficult craft..



I agree that it would be more symmetrical if D&D had a roll-based casting system. (I think it would also be cool; I love the way that idea played out in DCC.)

I don't agree that this has much to do with my response to the OP, which had nothing to say about what the rules SHOULD do, nor about situations where the rules were vague or opaque.


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## Emerikol (Aug 6, 2014)

I see the usual suspects are front and center on this subject.

So magic can do magic things and non-magic cannot and that is a problem?  Scratches head.

Even with your pejorative way of viewing it Tony, you are right.  I don't want a game that is "fixed" in the way you want it fixed.  For me that would be a broken game.  Which is why we view 4e differently.   You think it fixed things and I think it broke them.

I do doubt there is any real solution where we all play the exact same game.  Rules flexibility and modularity would be the only possibility for us to use the same rules book.  We still wouldn't be playing the same game.  I'd be playing D&D modded one way and others would be playing D&D modded another.  The bitter battles that rage which neither side is going to give an inch on ultimately get us nowhere.  If I had to play a game you liked Tony, I'd just quit gaming altogether.  So folding me into your philosophical tent is not possible.   I don't do things I don't find fun.

I believe ideally the solution would be two versions of D&D supported side by side.  But right now we are going for the flexibility and modularity edition.  I feel like the wizard in many ways has been hammered and many of you are spouting off that it's still dominating the fighter.  So I throw up my hands.  

Sorry if that sounds rantish.  I'm just tired of this fight.  I wish there was a happy solution for us all.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 6, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> Its just a little odd.  Its odder still that no one cares about it nor loses their mind with rant after rant decrying OMGHOWCANWIZARDSNEVERFAILSPELLCASTINGWTF!!!?  I would think there should be dusk till dawn keyboard mashing and hand-wringing over such perfection in the mundane components of a very difficult craft.




At one time, spells were very easy to interrupt. Casting had to be declared before initiative was determined. The caster couldn't move so much as a step on the round a spell was cast, and a small rock hitting the caster before completion spoiled the spell AND expended it. 

ALL of these things were sacrificed on the altar of un-fun. Now we have unlimited casting, nigh uninterruptable casting and yet people are STILL at a loss as to why magic is so good.


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## Emerikol (Aug 6, 2014)

To me...

Mundane is at-will but not 100% certain in many cases.
Magic is a limited resource but in some cases provides more certainty.


Here are the four big cornerstones of class design
1.  Martial attack, defense, and damage.    -  At will, highly reliable, and typically do the most damage in the game.
2.  Skills, proficiencies, etc... - Typically these are at-will with chance of failure. Not much at high level and a lot at low level.  Do not take away from #1.
3.  Magical attacks, defenses, and damage.  - Limited Resource.  Multi-target.  A rare high damage option.
4.  Magical utility - Limited resource.  Higher reliability.  Take away from #3.

I've always felt that if you do not use magic at all that your #1 and #2 should be the best.


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## TwoSix (Aug 6, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> I believe ideally the solution would be two versions of D&D supported side by side.  But right now we are going for the flexibility and modularity edition.  I feel like the wizard in many ways has been hammered and many of you are spouting off that it's still dominating the fighter.  So I throw up my hands.



Ah yes, the harmonious period of 2008-2011, when 4e and Pathfinder were both being actively supported.  



Emerikol said:


> Sorry if that sounds rantish.  I'm just tired of this fight.  I wish there was a happy solution for us all.



Cynicism aside, I do think a happy medium where some people say "Wizards are a little strong for my liking" and other says "Wizards are a little nerfed for my liking" is achievable for 90% of people.


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## Branduil (Aug 6, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> I see the usual suspects are front and center on this subject.
> 
> *So magic can do magic things and non-magic cannot and that is a problem?*  Scratches head.
> 
> ...




No, the problem is that magic always just works, while mundane skills have a tendency to be nerfed beyond the written rules by "believability" concerns, making them weaker than they already are.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 6, 2014)

Branduil said:


> No, the problem is that magic always just works, while mundane skills have a tendency to be nerfed beyond the written rules by "believability" concerns, making them weaker than they already are.




If the written rules wouldn't try to pass off so much gonzo stuff as mundane in the first place we wouldn't have so many issues. 

Just because you slap a "martial" sticker on something doesn't mean that it's mundane. 

Mundane will be defined by how the regular physics of the game world works. So if your game world has a bit less gravity than Earth then super long leaps and high jumps will be kind of mundane. 

If physics don't generally work in your game world like they do on Earth, then this needs to be communicated and explained so the modified meaning of mundane can be understood.


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## Minigiant (Aug 6, 2014)

Branduil said:


> No, the problem is that magic always just works, while mundane skills have a tendency to be nerfed beyond the written rules by "believability" concerns, making them weaker than they already are.




The problem is not that magic always works.

It is that we don't know when it doesn't work because we dnt know how it works.

We can see the mundane in our world for reference. We have none for magic in D&D.
D&D magic has no explanation. 

So a DM would be challenges if they say:

Your magic does work because you broke taboo.
your magic does not work because you are a fey and I'm wearing cold iron
your necromany fail because he is standing on holy ground
the orc holds his breath and the cold matrix of your ice spell recalls a zero and fails to affect him.

Etc


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 6, 2014)

pemerton said:


> This isn't true for OD&D: monsters can open doors without a STR check, and doors stay open for them; whereas for PCs a STR check is needed, and doors swing shut unless iron spikes are used.
> 
> This is also true in 1st ed AD&D, and from memory in Moldvay Basic as well.
> 
> In 1st ed AD&D, half-orc NPCs attack on the monster table appropriate to their HD; they don't use the class tables, even if they have levels in a class.



That's very interesting! I hadn't really heard this before, so this is pretty new information to me. As I mentioned, I first got started with AD&D 2E, where I'm pretty sure that this was no longer the case.

It's entirely possible that OD&D started as an incredibly gamist system, without even a semblance of universal rules, and then started shedding that in favor of rules-as-physics for the period where I was observing it. If you neglect 4E as an outlier, then that only really leaves three data points (2E, 3.0, 3.5), so it's not entirely unexpected for them to indicate a trend.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 6, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> So magic can do magic things and non-magic cannot and that is a problem?  Scratches head.



 Put that way, yeah, mabye.  If it's magic can do anything and non-magic can't do anything at all, that'd certainly be a problem.  What I think you mean though, is that magic can do things a wider and more wonderous range of ways than non-magic can.  A band of soldiers can burn down a village by riding through it, throwing torches, and cutting down any villagers that try to quench the blaze.  A wizard or dragon can also burn down the same village, just in a different way.

The double-standard goes a lot further than that.  It has magic doing things that, even in genre, it generally can't, and has non-magic unable to do thing that not only in genre, but even, demonstrably, in reality, it can.

For instance, if you're in a medieval battle, you could very easily loose a limb.  You could catch an arrow in the eye and be instantly killed.  In both cases, no matter how skilled and experienced a soldier you might be.

Those things can't happen in D&D - they can be arbitrarily narrated for 1d6 hp NPCs killed by an arrow or axe or whatever, but they can't happen to anyone with a stack of hps.  There have been critical hit variants that let that kind of thing happen, but never an official part of the game.  No, in D&D, you'd need a magical Sword of Sharpness or Arrow of Slaying to accomplish them. 

Conversely, magic-users in legend and literature can do some remarkable things.  Circe could polymorph men into animals.  Gandalf could conjure light or fire.  Merlin could foretell the future.  Maleficent could put a helpless baby in a coma with a 16-year delay.  But, they couldn't all do all of those things and more.  D&D magic-users of high enough level could.


I guess one way of putting it is that if any wizard (or sorcerer, or god) ever did anything magical in any story from anywhere/when, any D&D (and every) wizard with a high enough level spell slot can probably do it.  But, if a fighter is to do something in D&D, it had better be something that absolutely anyone could do, on demand, at any time.





> Even with your pejorative way of viewing it Tony, you are right.  I don't want a game that is "fixed" in the way you want it fixed.  For me that would be a broken game.  Which is why we view 4e differently.   You think it fixed things and I think it broke them.



 We are speaking of two very different things here, so we can't even say that we're at odds, really (except in what we focus on as important).  I'm talking about the qualities that make a good game in a technical sense (measurable, things like clarity, consistency, and balance - things that don't make a game fun, by themselves, but the absence of which can make it unplayable).  You're talking about the subjective criteria that you demand in a game (verisimilitude, immersion, feel - things that are critical to a an individual gaming experience, and may be quite different for each individual).

That 4e happens to be a good game in that technical sense, but not one that you care for, personally, is, to make some polite assumptions, little more than a coincidence.  The difference in opinion is what we care about enough to debate on the internet.  I care enough about the quality of the actual content of the game to debate the finer points of it, I don't care enough about a specific style of play to advocate for it above all others.  That makes me a detail-oriented and obsessive hobbyist, which is not exactly something to be proud of, even in geek culture, but I'll own up it. 




> I do doubt there is any real solution where we all play the exact same game.



 All, maybe not. You and I?  I could envision such a game.  It probably wouldn't be a fantasy-genre game (because of the very topic of this thread), but I suspect there could be a game that was decent enough from me to enjoy playing, and that didn't push any of your hot-buttons.  Also, I'm sure we could sit down and play 1e AD&D together, we'd just get different things out of it - for me it'd be mostly nostalgia, which isn't enough to keep me playing for /long/, but it's not impossible.  



> Rules flexibility and modularity would be the only possibility for us to use the same rules book.  We still wouldn't be playing the same game.  I'd be playing D&D modded one way and others would be playing D&D modded another.  The bitter battles that rage which neither side is going to give an inch on ultimately get us nowhere.



Nod. The 'kit to make your own game' game is something I, personally, like (it's kinda how a lot of us Hero fans used to view that system), but it's not for everyone.  It requires work, up-front, to make the game your own - game-design work for the DM, and negotiation/consensus among the players & DM to make sure everyone's good with the design goals the DM is shooting for.  




> If I had to play a game you liked Tony, I'd just quit gaming altogether.



You've never had to, and, with the d20 OGL and SRD, out there, it's prettymuch inconceivable that you ever would be.  Which does make one wonder about this ceaseless crusade against games you'd never be forced to play.



> I believe ideally the solution would be two versions of D&D supported side by side.



 Well, we had that - 4e and Pathfinder were both supported for a little while there - but, it didn't stop the edition war from raging against 4e the whole time. 



> But right now we are going for the flexibility and modularity edition.  I feel like the wizard in many ways has been hammered and many of you are spouting off that it's still dominating the fighter.



 Really, it seems more like 5e is seeking to balance the wizard and fighter by harkening back to the two editions where each was at it's most broken.  The wizard harkens back to 3e, with high save DCs that can hammer the target's worst save (for all spells, not just his highest level ones), tremendous flexibility (both tactical and strategic, as opposed to mainly strategic in 3e), and virtually no meaningful restrictions on casting.  The fighter harkens back to the 2e cuisinart-of-doom, with a hail of multiple attacks leveraging even small static bonuses into monster-mincing DPR.

Thing is, the double standard still applies:  While the fighter delivers high DPR, there isn't really a huge gulf between it and the Evoker wizard.  OTOH, the gulf in flexibility between the two is immeasurable.  The Evoker can wake up one morning and decide to prep a slate of utility and control spells and completely change his contribution to the party, tailoring it to the expected challenges of the day - while, at the same time, keeping a couple of scalable evocations in his back pocket in case he needs to bust out just a bit less DPR than he can when he's loaded for bear.  





> So I throw up my hands.
> 
> Sorry if that sounds rantish.  I'm just tired of this fight.  I wish there was a happy solution for us all.



 You've  been saying that for years.  

The happy solution would have been for people to live and let live, and never started the edition war.  I'd be happily playing well-supported 4e (and looking forward to a 5e in a another 3 or 4 years), you'd be happily playing 3.5, grognards would happily be playing well-supported retro-clones.

A happy solution to the double-standard would be for those harboring that prejudice to leave it at their tables, and not try to browbeat WotC into making the game force it on everyone else.  It's not like you couldn't still apply the double-standard in an otherwise balanced game, you'd just make casters higher-level or ban non-caster abilities until they were suitably pathetic.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 6, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> It remains to be seen, but is irrelevant to this case, since it doesn't reference class features. Regardless of how it solves the issue of NPC classes, the whole system of skills and ability checks must remain universal.




Man, some _incredibly awesome _RPG systems don't even have rules at all for resolving actions that the PCs aren't involved in!


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 6, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Maleficent could put a helpless baby in a comma with a 16-year delay.




We shall have to add _Mistress of fiendish punctuation _to her list of accolades.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 6, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> We shall have to add _Mistress of fiendish punctuation _to her list of accolades.



 They keep spells in books for a reason, I suppose.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 6, 2014)

ThirdWizard said:


> Man, some _incredibly awesome _RPG systems don't even have rules at all for resolving actions that the PCs aren't involved in!



YMMV. Those same games would be unplayable to me.


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## Ranes (Aug 6, 2014)

Branduil said:


> This is something that's been bothering me in the discussion about the halfling sniper, and I think it deserves its own discussion.
> 
> I personally feel like the rules for hiding in 5th edition are fairly clear; if the enemy can't see you, you can use the Hide action. Some special abilities, like the halfling's Naturally Stealthy, allow for exceptions to this general rule. So far, so clear, right?
> 
> ...




First of all, I have to repeat my usual disclaimer. The acronym 'RAW' is intellectually bankrupt, although I am sympathetic to posts that use it (including yours). The reason why it's bankrupt is because implicit in it is the idea that the rules as written are somehow divorced from the rules as interpreted. This is simply never, ever the case. It's glib, a conceit that puts an enormous strain on any subsequent discussion of a rule. All this is simply to say that any reading of a rule (as written, obviously) requires interpretation of intent.

With that out of the way, here's some sympathy for the concern you express. It is easy for players - new to fantasy games or otherwise - to say, "Yes, I see that this is meant to relate to the real world I recognise, whereas this thing over here is fantastical, so I can excuse the fact that it doesn't relate, but this thing over here isn't explicitly quantified as being something magical and yet it sounds fantastical and therefore I have a problem with it from the point of view of - take a deep breath - verisimilitude."

In fact, the specific example you refer to, that being the halfling sniper discussion, caused me just that discomfiture in the thread to which you refer. And another poster took the trouble to make the point to me that it's one of those things that sounds mundane that really isn't. I'm still not overly happy with the rule in question but I got his point and I get yours.

I don't want to see characters whose skills and talents aren't clearly based on one side of the 'this is magical' line to be neutered or diminished, at the expense of others. But the tendency is, as you say, understandable. I think third edition came close to addressing it with definitions like spell-like and supernatural abilities but fifth has missed out on an opportunity to give these particular phenomena that you're talking about the permission to occupy the space they do. They could have easily been given the label 'fantastical' in the sense of being that class of ideas that sounds larger than life without being attributable to one of the other definitions.

In the meantime, if you find yourself debating the verisimilitudinalization (sorry, couldn't resist) of such phenomena with your players, perhaps such a proposal can help you frame your justification.

The corollary to this, however, is that many players take issue with this or that aspect of the game's assumptions about magic and the supernatural. These things often give rise to complaints about believability (hurrah for synonyms); it's not just the otherwise fantastical that people have issues with. And that's for good reason. Some of the ideas employed in D&D, not to mention other fantasy games, are inevitably at odds with what some players will consider too far-fetched to accommodate. I can only suggest that you appeal to such players to consider that, in such games, what the rules call 'magic' is one thing but that the entire game is based upon the fantastic.

Where any set of rules lets itself down is where it excuses or gives the fantastical this permission in this context but arbitrarily denies it the same in some other marginally different context, without providing an internally consistent rationale. When you find a system doing that, I can't help you and nor can anyone else.


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## Emerikol (Aug 6, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> You've  been saying that for years.
> 
> The happy solution would have been for people to live and let live, and never started the edition war.  I'd be happily playing well-supported 4e (and looking forward to a 5e in a another 3 or 4 years), you'd be happily playing 3.5, grognards would happily be playing well-supported retro-clones.
> 
> A happy solution to the double-standard would be for those harboring that prejudice to leave it at their tables, and not try to browbeat WotC into making the game force it on everyone else.  It's not like you couldn't still apply the double-standard in an otherwise balanced game, you'd just make casters higher-level or ban non-caster abilities until they were suitably pathetic.




4e arrived before Pathfinder and created a lot of animus.  You have to realize that there are people of my preferences who have been playing D&D since the OD&D days.  So they have an emotional attachment.   They don't like the idea of some upstarts coming in and totally changing the game and abandoning everything D&D stood for prior.  

It's like there were two favorite restaurants in town.  Both were nice.  One though has gone to ruin and it's the one where you proposed to your wife twenty years ago.   If you just want to eat sure you can go to the other restaurant.  But there is an emotional and nostalgic attachment to D&D for many people.

And all of the LFQW stuff has been in more editions than not even by your own admissions.  I consider it balderdash so it's just a code word for whatever you think about gaming to me.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Minigiant said:


> It is because D&D magic is not explained nor has a frame of reference to base limitations on.



The point [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] is making is that many parts of D&D magic _are_ explained. For instance, the wizard has to copy spell formulae into his/her spellbook. And then has to read those formulae. And then, at least in AD&D (I'm not as sure about 5e) has to impress the mystic formulae upon his/her mind. Then, when casting, s/he has to speak certain words perfectly, and wiggle his/her fingers in just the right way, and pull the right material component out of his/her pouch at the right time.

If a player wants his/her bard to sing a song perfectly, a Perform check must be made. Why does the player of a wizard character not have to make a Perform check to recite the words of the spell properly?

If a player wants his/her thief to do a card trick without fumbling, a Sleight of Hand check mut be made. Why does the player of a wizard not have to make some sort of DEX check to wiggle his/her fingers properly, or to pull the right component out of the spell component pouch?

To remember facts requires an INT check. So why does forcing a spell formula into the brain of the caster not require an INT check also? Why does transcribing a spell into a spell book not require an INT check to avoid confusion/mistranslation (as a real-life teacher of complicated material, I can say that transcription by students is far from infallible), or a DEX check to get the copying right (I know more than one person who can't read his/her own handwriting)?

And flipping this around: if we are happy with a mechanical system that ignores the chances of a wizard mucking these things up, and that allows auto-success whenever the player makes the action declaration "I'm transcribing a spell", "I'm memorising a spell", "I'm casting a spell", then what is wrong with a system that similarly ignores the chance of a fighter or rogue mucking things up when the player declares "I'm cutting down that goblin" or "I'm hiding behind that tree/ogre/person." (DoaM would be an example of such a system. Some of the 4e powers for rogues that let the turn invisible etc are similar such examples. Others could probably be invented without much trouble.)



Hussar said:


> Memorization and casting is supposed to be difficult.  So difficult that you require extensive training to do it.  But, once you've had that training, you absolutely cannot ever fail to succeed in doing it (unless something outside prevents you) every time you try.  But a rogue trying to hide, despite his extensive training in it, fails fairly often.
> 
> It is a good point.  Why is "extensive training" acceptable in one case for automatic success, but not in others?



This is why I like Rolemaster (which puts the magic-user on the same mchanical footing as the rogue/fighter, needing to roll to cast), and 4e (which puts the rogue/fighter on the same mechanical footing as the magic-user, having a range of auto-success abilities). And why I find 3E not very appealing, because of all the versions of D&D I think it has one of the starkest disparities across the two categories of character.



ExploderWizard said:


> If physics don't generally work in your game world like they do on Earth, then this needs to be communicated and explained so the modified meaning of mundane can be understood.



My own view is that "physics" is not all the helpful as a pathway into the issue. I prefer genre.

When I think of REH's Conan, for example,I don't think of a world governed by different physical laws: REH's Hyobrea is our own Earth. Likewise for Marvel Comics's Punisher: the Marvel Universe is our own world, and so The Punisher is not governed by physical laws any different from ours.

Rather, Conan and The Punisher have capabilities that are to be understood within the context of the pulp/super-hero genre. Part of this is that events which would be near-miraculous or wildly coincidental in the real world - eg falling three stories and walking away, or not being defeated in a solo fight against a dozen enemies - are recurrent events for these genre heroes. If we want the game to model that, we don't need to change the physics; we need to change the odds. That is, PC heroes aren't held to the odds that govern the ordinary processes of the gameworld. They are reliably lucky. This is what a power system (4e) or a Fate Point system (Conan d20, HARP, Burning Wheel, and many other systems) is meant to ensure.


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## Hussar (Aug 7, 2014)

TOny V said:
			
		

> I guess one way of putting it is that if any wizard (or sorcerer, or god) ever did anything magical in any story from anywhere/when, any D&D (and every) wizard with a high enough level spell slot can probably do it. But, if a fighter is to do something in D&D, it had better be something that absolutely anyone could do, on demand, at any time.
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...cal-and-mundane-abilities/page5#ixzz39f4oXyUf




This, right here, is the money quote.  Why is a 15th level fighter being held to the standards of our world?  He's already so far beyond anything in the real world that it's not even funny.  This is a guy who can with just a sword and armour,  stand toe to toe with a giant and reliably win.  He's already, in modern terms, Captain America.

But, outside of poking things with pointy bits, he still has to be held to real world standards?  Why?


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> It's entirely possible that OD&D started as an incredibly gamist system, without even a semblance of universal rules, and then started shedding that in favor of rules-as-physics for the period where I was observing it. If you neglect 4E as an outlier, then that only really leaves three data points (2E, 3.0, 3.5), so it's not entirely unexpected for them to indicate a trend.





Emerikol said:


> 4e arrived before Pathfinder and created a lot of animus.  You have to realize that there are people of my preferences who have been playing D&D since the OD&D days.  So they have an emotional attachment.   They don't like the idea of some upstarts coming in and totally changing the game and abandoning everything D&D stood for prior.



Emerikol, I have been playing D&D since 1982 (Moldvay Basic) and first played AD&D in 1983 (and bought books for it in 1984). It's incredibly insulting for you to describe me as an "upstart". I have a better knowledge than of the history of the game than many of the posters on this board - for instance, not very far upthread, Saelorn indicated a complete unfamiliarity with a range of rules from classic D&D that I have known about for 30 or more years.

The thing is, not everyone agrees the 4e "abandons everything that D&D stood for prior". I think it abandons all the things that never made sense in D&D (the pseudo-simulation) and embraces and perfects the things that D&D always got right (fortune-in-the-middle action resolution as a tool for genre-oriented heroic fantasy). I think that it is the only version of the game to deliver the sort of play that Moldvay outlined in the Foreword to his edition of the game. (Or was Moldvay an upstart too?)

In other words, people who hate 4e don't have a monopoly on loving D&D or on giving voice to the spirit of the game. 4e can't just be treated as an "outlier". For some of us, it captures the essence of what was good about the game from day 1, while shedding needless cruft that 2nd ed AD&D and 3E had increasingly bolted onto the core of the game.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Ranes said:


> It is easy for players - new to fantasy games or otherwise - to say, "Yes, I see that this is meant to relate to the real world I recognise, whereas this thing over here is fantastical, so I can excuse the fact that it doesn't relate, but this thing over here isn't explicitly quantified as being something magical and yet it sounds fantastical and therefore I have a problem with it from the point of view of - take a deep breath - verisimilitude."



Those same new players might wonder why a thief has to make a check to fool onlookers with a simple card check, whereas a magic-user never has to make a check to wiggle his/her fingers perfectly, nor speak the complex words of a spell perfectly, no matter how much battle is raging around him/her, arrows flying, fireballs exploding, etc.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> I guess one way of putting it is that if any wizard (or sorcerer, or god) ever did anything magical in any story from anywhere/when, any D&D (and every) wizard with a high enough level spell slot can probably do it.  But, if a fighter is to do something in D&D, it had better be something that absolutely anyone could do, on demand, at any time.



Nicely put.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> The thing is, not everyone agrees the 4e "abandons everything that D&D stood for prior". I think it abandons all the things that never made sense in D&D (the pseudo-simulation) and embraces and perfects the things that D&D always got right (fortune-in-the-middle action resolution as a tool for genre-oriented heroic fantasy). I think that it is the only version of the game to deliver the sort of play that Moldvay outlined in the Foreword to his edition of the game. (Or was Moldvay an upstart too?).



I'll definitely agree that 4E has done the best job of any edition to deliver on the sort of promises originally laid out. Personally, though, I never saw merit in what it claimed to be, and took great inspiration from what it actually _was_ (at least, for the period where I was observing it).

It makes the compromise of 5E kind of difficult to take, but I _think_ they've done a good enough job that it can be run either way. I'll have to see the final product to be sure, of course.


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## Minigiant (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> The point  @_*Manbearcat*_  is making is that many parts of D&D magic _are_ explained. For instance, the wizard has to copy spell formulae into his/her spellbook. And then has to read those formulae. And then, at least in AD&D (I'm not as sure about 5e) has to impress the mystic formulae upon his/her mind. Then, when casting, s/he has to speak certain words perfectly, and wiggle his/her fingers in just the right way, and pull the right material component out of his/her pouch at the right time.
> 
> If a player wants his/her bard to sing a song perfectly, a Perform check must be made. Why does the player of a wizard character not have to make a Perform check to recite the words of the spell properly?
> 
> ...




But many parts of D&D magic is unexplained. The usually comes with magic but D&D's magic is *very vague* even for magic systems.

D&D explains what is done to prepare a spell and the basic of how it they are cast but many spells don't even go more than the very basics of effect.

When you cast fly, you fly. There is no explanation how you control the flight. Nor how the nine you even go airborne. You don't spout wings because enemies can't attack the wings. Don't that you can even attack body parts.

You just fly.

When a fighter jumps up to a ledge, he rolls a check. In 3e you at least got a take 10 (no pressure) or take 20 (try until you succeed, assume at least 1 fail.). But this is explained by the fighter moving his legs and arms to reach high and leap with enough force to beat gravity and meet a height.

When a mage casts levitate to float up to a ledge, he floats up. But what else happens?


For example, there was a big argument on the WOTC forums a few months ago about what happens if you shoot a fireball at a target who is underwater? 

Does the fireball explode on hitting the surface of the water due to the change in pressure? Does the bead go throught the water and ignore the surface pressure? Does the bead suffer from friction change from being underwater and have the range halved? Does the explosion have normal area or fireor a reduced one due to the water? Does it explode at all? Does it explode as steam or fire?  Do affected targets get bonuses to their saves or penalties? Do they get resistance?

No one knows and there were a million opinions. Because no one knows how fireball the spell actually works or what it actually does.


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## Scorpio616 (Aug 7, 2014)

Branduil said:


> However, because Hide is not a supernatural ability, it becomes subject to the dreaded _unwritten verisimilitude rules_. Rules which seem clear per the RAW are now subject to whatever the group decides is believable for heroic characters in a world full of dragons and wizards to accomplish.



This is a FEATURE, not a bug. That reasonable people can say _hold the phone, that isn't going to happen without magic_ is what separates table top play from a video game where one just hits a Stealth Hotkey and moves the character down a clear hallway past the orc guards.


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## Hussar (Aug 7, 2014)

Scorpio616 said:


> This is a FEATURE, not a bug. That reasonable people can say _hold the phone, that isn't going to happen without magic_ is what separates table top play from a video game where one just hits a Stealth Hotkey and moves the character down a clear hallway past the orc guards.




But that's the thing.  Why don't you have the same issue with the thousand other things that cause reasonable people to say hold the phone, this isn't going to happen without magic?  Why is it people have no problems believing those six impossible things, but, that seventh one, man, that's a doozey!!


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 7, 2014)

Different people have different thresholds for breaking their suspension of disbelief.  It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that there exist gamers who are willing to accept magic and unwilling to accept legendary but non-magical feats.

If you think it's unreasonable of them, sure.  If you think it makes for bad gameplay, fine.  But this "I just can't understand how anyone could possibly think that way" hyperbolic stuff just hinders the argument.


----------



## evileeyore (Aug 7, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> 4e arrived before Pathfinder and created a lot of animus.  You have to realize that there are people of my preferences who have been playing D&D since the OD&D days.  So they have an emotional attachment.   They don't like the idea of some upstarts coming in and totally changing the game and abandoning everything D&D stood for prior.



Yeah, I felt that way about AD&D, so I totally get where you are coming from...

Though to me 4e was a return to the Grand Old Days of The D&D I knew form my youth, so we totally aren't in agreement here.



> It's like there were two favorite restaurants in town.  Both were nice.  One though has gone to ruin and it's the one where you proposed to your wife twenty years ago.   If you just want to eat sure you can go to the other restaurant.  But there is an emotional and nostalgic attachment to D&D for many people.



Except in this case there are 50 or so different restaurants and the one you enjoy still exists, they just haven't changed anything in about 20 years...



> And all of the LFQW stuff has been in more editions than not even by your own admissions.  I consider it balderdash so it's just a code word for whatever you think about gaming to me.



What on earth is "LFQW"?  Is that some new fangled sex thing you youngings have come up with?





pemerton said:


> The thing is, not everyone agrees the 4e "abandons everything that D&D stood for prior". I think it abandons all the things that never made sense in D&D (the pseudo-simulation) and embraces and perfects the things that D&D always got right (fortune-in-the-middle action resolution as a tool for genre-oriented heroic fantasy). I think that it is the only version of the game to deliver the sort of play that Moldvay outlined in the Foreword to his edition of the game. (Or was Moldvay an upstart too?)



PREACH IT FROM THE MOUNTAIN!




Though in my heathen nature I must still say I liked 3e more... but I'm a dirty gritty skills lurving type...  which is why I loves my _GURPS_ (even if she is needless complicated sometimes).


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> Though in my heathen nature I must still say I liked 3e more... but I'm a dirty gritty skills lurving type...  which is why I loves my _GURPS_ (even if she is needless complicated sometimes).



I like gritty skills in Rolemaster and Runequest (and probably would like them in GURPS, too, if I were to play it), but for me they are a poor fit for D&D in the way 3E grafts them on, because I find their grittiness clashes with other non-gritty parts of the system.

I recognise that others (including you!) have different preferences, and find different combinations and contrasts of mechanics to be appealing or unappealing. I don't see the point of trying to show that one of is "truer" to D&D's tradition than is the other. If we ever have to game together I'm pretty sure we'll find some sort of compromise - until then each of us can play what we like, and post about it on messageboards!


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Minigiant said:


> But many parts of D&D magic is unexplained.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> D&D explains what is done to prepare a spell and the basic of how it they are cast but many spells don't even go more than the very basics of effect.





Scorpio616 said:


> That reasonable people can say _hold the phone, that isn't going to happen without magic_ is what separates table top play from a video game where one just hits a Stealth Hotkey and moves the character down a clear hallway past the orc guards.



I think both of these responses to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] don't quite address the point.

It's true that many parts of D&D magic are unexplained. But some bits _are_ explained. For instance, you have to wiggle your fingers a certain way. You have to speak certain words in the right way. At least in some editions, you have to memorise some stuff that's hard to memorise.

Why does this not require stat/skill checks from a spell caster, when exactly the same sort of stuff (a bard singing a song, a thief performing stage magic, any PC trying to remember and recall complicated stuff) _does_ require a check? Or in other words, why does a spell caster get auto-success on the purely mundane, physical parts of casting a spell, when martial PCs don't get auto-success on the comparable mundane, physical activities that they undertake?


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## Sadras (Aug 7, 2014)

I'm going wade in here, albeit a little late and despite that my opinion means nothing really, but from my perspective @_*Manbearcat*_ hit the nail on the head with his post which included the "OMGHOWCANWIZARDSNEVERFAILSPELLCASTINGWTF!!!?" and effectively ended our diatribe a while ago.

I have seen nothing from the opposition since which comes close to countering the points he made. For the record, I am from the opposition. I am one of those that dislike mundanes with mythic/legendary powers. My preference has always been they should be an optional module in the DMG. And I feel the below quote by @_*Savage Wombat*_ explains my 'unreasonable' logic 



Savage Wombat said:


> Different people have different thresholds for breaking their suspension of disbelief.  It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that there exist gamers who are willing to accept magic and unwilling to accept legendary but non-magical feats.
> 
> If you think it's unreasonable of them, sure.  If you think it makes for bad gameplay, fine.  But this "I just can't understand how anyone could possibly think that way" hyperbolic stuff just hinders the argument.




 @_*ExploderWizard*_ reflected upon how we sacrificed learning spells/spell failure and limited cantrips all in the promise of fun (badwrongfun for some). Hopefully the DMG will bring some of that back as modules to add-on. But in the event they don't, I would rather see a thread where we explore house-rules to bring back learning spells/spell failure.

Is it a simple Intelligence roll/Arcana Roll respectively?
How are the DCs determined, in a fair way?
Do we use D20, which can be painful for spellcasters or switch to %d10.
How long does it take to learn a spell?
Can you attempt to learn a spell more than once between levels, if not why not? Is that cheesy?
Spell failure, do we need another table, or use the sorcerers wild magic on 1's?
Do you lose the spell if you fail by 5 or more? Is that making things to complex for 5e?
...etc

I'd much rather focus on that, since that is moving the debate in the right direction after @_*Manbearcat*_'s post, IMO. We cant argue for mundane ("realism") and not expect it with our spellcasters but punish the poor rogue on every skill he has or forcing the fighter to make every attack roll.  It ain't fair. That's not good compromising.


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## Hussar (Aug 7, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> Different people have different thresholds for breaking their suspension of disbelief.  It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that there exist gamers who are willing to accept magic and unwilling to accept legendary but non-magical feats.
> 
> If you think it's unreasonable of them, sure.  If you think it makes for bad gameplay, fine.  But this "I just can't understand how anyone could possibly think that way" hyperbolic stuff just hinders the argument.




But, for me, it's not hyperbolic.  We see absolutely no complaints that a human has sustain more damage than an elephant.  That's perfectly acceptable.  But, a human being able to hide really well?  Bugger that, that's a bridge too far.  We have no problems with someone killing a hundred foot long, several tens of tons lizard with a sword, but being able to jump really high or swim really fast?  Oh, hell no.

I find the "thresholds" to be extremely self serving and frankly thinly disguised edition warring.


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## Minigiant (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> I think both of these responses to  @_*Manbearcat*_  and  @_*Hussar*_  don't quite address the point.
> 
> It's true that many parts of D&D magic are unexplained. But some bits _are_ explained. For instance, you have to wiggle your fingers a certain way. You have to speak certain words in the right way. At least in some editions, you have to memorise some stuff that's hard to memorise.
> 
> Why does this not require stat/skill checks from a spell caster, when exactly the same sort of stuff (a bard singing a song, a thief performing stage magic, any PC trying to remember and recall complicated stuff) _does_ require a check? Or in other words, why does a spell caster get auto-success on the purely mundane, physical parts of casting a spell, when martial PCs don't get auto-success on the comparable mundane, physical activities that they undertake?





Because magic is not explained.
All we have is ""Hand motions" + " Say stuff" = "Magic" 
But what does a wizard actually do?

To cast a fireball you prepared, do you:

Say the Fireball in a mage language and clap your hands?
Say a complicated phrase and do complex hand motions?
Do complex calculations o the spot then say a complicated phrase and do complex hand motions?

Because I could do 1 when intoxicated, delusional from illness, or distracted by pain. with
But 3? I can't do that perfectly everytime. Especially  with a stab wound.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Minigiant said:


> Because magic is not explained.
> All we have is ""Hand motions" + " Say stuff" = "Magic"
> But what does a wizard actually do?
> 
> ...



If it was (1), then why couldn't the fighter cast a fireball by saying the same word and clapping his/her hands together?

Here is the text from p 29 of Basic D&D:

Wizards are supreme magic-users, . . . [d]rawing on the subtle weave of magic that permeates the cosmos . . . Wild and enigmatic, varied in form and function, the power of magic draws students who seek to master its mysteries. . . . Though the casting of a typical spell requires merely the utterance of a few strange words, fleeting gestures, and sometimes a pinch or clump of exotic materials, these surface components barely hint at the expertise attained after years of apprenticeship and countless hours of study.​
If the words, gestures, mental states etc require countless hours of study, I think that implies they're not very straightforward. I mean, it doesn't take "years of apprenticeship and countless hours of study" to learn to pick a simple lock, or to shoot an arrow into a stationary target, but these still require checks to be made.

And why does drawing the right clump of exotic materials out of a bag not require a check? When a thief does it (via Sleight of Hand) it does.


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## Pickles JG (Aug 7, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> It's like there were two favorite restaurants in town. Both were nice. One though has gone to ruin and it's the one where you proposed to your wife twenty years ago. If you just want to eat sure you can go to the other restaurant. But there is an emotional and nostalgic attachment to D&D for many people.




This analogy really nails the problem for me. Going to the rubbish restaurant for nostagic reasons is all very well. Forcing other people to put up with crappy food for what to them is no reason at all really is not.


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## Sadras (Aug 7, 2014)

Hussar said:


> I find the "thresholds" to be extremely self serving and frankly thinly disguised edition warring.




Hussar, that's not fair. Can we not immediately jump to the "edition-warring" conclusion and fire the nuke? Just because someone does not appreciate a certain version or mechanic of the game does not mean its immediate edition warring. 

I'm pretty sure that many of the same people on this forum who dislike mythical/legendary powers for mundanes would have told you the same 15 years ago, before 4e came out, but back then they wouldn't have been called out for it.


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## Minigiant (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> If it was (1), then why couldn't the fighter cast a fireball by saying the same word and clapping his/her hands together?
> 
> Here is the text from p 29 of Basic D&D:
> 
> ...



It is hard to prepare a spell. That is why you need a spellbook and a decade of teaching or a magic grandma.

But in battle you just finish the spell. Which could be just saying "Finish spell 37" in fake Latin and putting up three fingers then seven fingers.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> My own view is that "physics" is not all the helpful as a pathway into the issue. I prefer genre.
> 
> When I think of REH's Conan, for example,I don't think of a world governed by different physical laws: REH's Hyobrea is our own Earth. Likewise for Marvel Comics's Punisher: the Marvel Universe is our own world, and so The Punisher is not governed by physical laws any different from ours.
> 
> Rather, Conan and The Punisher have capabilities that are to be understood within the context of the pulp/super-hero genre. Part of this is that events which would be near-miraculous or wildly coincidental in the real world - eg falling three stories and walking away, or not being defeated in a solo fight against a dozen enemies - are recurrent events for these genre heroes. If we want the game to model that, we don't need to change the physics; we need to change the odds. That is, PC heroes aren't held to the odds that govern the ordinary processes of the gameworld. They are reliably lucky. This is what a power system (4e) or a Fate Point system (Conan d20, HARP, Burning Wheel, and many other systems) is meant to ensure.




This is at the heart of the issue. D&D is its own genre. It is not pure pulp or superheroic. This is why the game world or setting that is used is so important. The setting sets the level of what is mundane vs fantastic. The ability of the game world to set the tone, and thus the greatest genre influences is one of the reasons why D&D is so awesome. 

As a genre, D&D plays a bit with pulp and superheroism but by no means are they the only genre influences. The base genre meme to me is the journey from being nobodies to important personalities in a fantasy setting. There is a bit of horror thrown into the genre mix as well, especially for beginning adventurers. The whole challenge of the game is fairly horrific from a certain point of view. Will you be just another nobody that dies in a dark hole while searching for fame and fortune or will you become powerful and famous? This rather dark genre view was reinforced by the published adventure material. Modules were littered with the grisly remains of previous adventurers who didn't make it, sometimes leaving a bit of treasure behind for luckier adventurers to find. 


Not everyone likes to play D&D in the standard mishmash that is the D&D genre. Some like like it more superheroic, more pulpy, more horrific, or whatever. 

Ravenloft was D&D with more of a horror twist. 4E was a very superheroic flavor of D&D. 

When playing "stock" D&D, I don't play with the assumption that the PCs are heroes. Part of the fun of the game is to see IF they will become heroes or just end up dead in a ditch somewhere. 

IMHO if play begins with the _assumption _of heroic status and the resolution mechanics support that, then the game is actually a supers game as far as genre focus is concerned. The setting may be fantasy, but genre tropes don't lie. I personally don't play D&D for a supers genre fix. I like the base D&D genre which is why I choose D&D in the first place. 

This is where dials & switches come in. I think the baseline for D&D should be the default D&D genre. From there, modules to tweak it in a number of different directions can pull itmore toward supers, pulp, horror, or whatever. 

Thus we come back full circle on the magical & mundane scale. First define what is normal for the setting. That will tell you what needs to fall in the magical or supernatural bucket.


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## Ranes (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Those same new players might wonder why a thief has to make a check to fool onlookers with a simple card check, whereas a magic-user never has to make a check to wiggle his/her fingers perfectly, nor speak the complex words of a spell perfectly, no matter how much battle is raging around him/her, arrows flying, fireballs exploding, etc.




They might. Then again, rules and guidance have appeared that call for wizards to make concentration checks in environmentally extreme conditions and certain combat situations as well, so I'd query your use of the word 'never'.

Will such things appear in the full 5e? Dunno yet but I wouldn't be surprised.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Minigiant said:


> It is hard to prepare a spell. That is why you need a spellbook and a decade of teaching or a magic grandma.



That's fine, but when why does the player of the wizard, who declares the action "I prepare spells X, Y and Z" get an auto-success; but the player of the rogue, who declares the action "I hide behind [whatever]" - which is probably no harder, by whatever metric of difficulty we are using - has to make a d20 roll to see whether or not the declared action actually succeeds?


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Ranes said:


> rules and guidance have appeared that call for wizards to make concentration checks in environmentally extreme conditions and certain combat situations as well, so I'd query your use of the word 'never'.



If the thief only had to make a check for tightrope walking in extreme conditions I think we would have a greater degree of parity.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> This is at the heart of the issue. D&D is its own genre. It is not pure pulp or superheroic.



Well, the influences listed in Appendix N are mostly pulp. But you are right that 1st level classic D&D is pulply only if you view the PCs as analogous to the bearers or spear-carriers in a pulp story.

I'm not sure that I find that pushes D&D into its own genre. For me, it has tended to push the game into a degree of genre incoherence. I find 3E probably is the pinnacle of this, for me; and 4e avoids the incoherence by significantly changing 1st level play.

Of course the previous paragraph is a biographical statement. I've got no reason to think it will generalise to other players in any widespread or systematic way.


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## Pickles JG (Aug 7, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> I guess one way of putting it is that if any wizard (or sorcerer, or god) ever did anything magical in any story from anywhere/when, any D&D (and every) wizard with a high enough level spell slot can probably do it. But, if a fighter is to do something in D&D, it had better be something that absolutely anyone could do, on demand, at any time.






Hussar said:


> But, for me, it's not hyperbolic. We see absolutely no complaints that a human has sustain more damage than an elephant. That's perfectly acceptable. But, a human being able to hide really well? Bugger that, that's a bridge too far. We have no problems with someone killing a hundred foot long, several tens of tons lizard with a sword, but being able to jump really high or swim really fast? Oh, hell no.
> 
> I find the "thresholds" to be extremely self serving and frankly thinly disguised edition warring.




These two quotes summarise the position for me. The game already makes little sense from a real world perspective why keep trying to justify some things rather than others?

The first quote does not even go far enough - pretty much anything you can think of could be turned into a D&D spell, there is no need for precedent. All of the checks & balances* from earlier editions have been removed  & now magic is anything reliably on demand. 

I would not accuse people of edition warring though - it's just ex post facto rationalisation of their point of view. 

*Normally people say the checks & balances (random acquisition, no casting in armour, learning probability, spell failure from damage/casting times, max spells per level &c) were removed as they were "badwrongfun" & now it is no wonder mages are too strong. Noone though has advocated a return to these older rules (except arguably pemerton in this discussion). Now all the powerful mages are the fault of all those "badwrongfunners" & there is nothing we can do about it.


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## Minigiant (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> That's fine, but when why does the player of the wizard, who declares the action "I prepare spells X, Y and Z" get an auto-success; but the player of the rogue, who declares the action "I hide behind [whatever]" - which is probably no harder, by whatever metric of difficulty we are using - has to make a d20 roll to see whether or not the declared action actually succeeds?




Because we dont know what wizards do when they cast a spell.
You can force a Strength check to jump because we know what a jump is and how it works.

But we don't know what the wizard is doing when he casts.
Is it a Dexterity check because he moves his fingers?
Oh a Intelligence check to know how to move his fingers?
Or a Charisma check to say the right words?
Or is the finger waving and word saying so easy that there is no check?
Or does the armor check fail chance of the past handle it?


No one knows.


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## Pickles JG (Aug 7, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> This is at the heart of the issue. D&D is its own genre. It is not pure pulp or superheroic. This is why the game world or setting that is used is so important. The setting sets the level of what is mundane vs fantastic. The ability of the game world to set the tone, and thus the greatest genre influences is one of the reasons why D&D is so awesome.




Nice post not xp spread blah blah. 
I concur with this - when I used to play AD&D my players would call it playing in D&D world as it did not satifactorily represent any other fictional world we wanted it to. (Newhon for myself). I did not like ADD very much & I wonder where my nostalgic affection for it has come from.

The problem issue with what you call stock D&D is that it covers several genres at once from the hick off the farm dieing to goblins at first level to the heroic barbarian defeating TRexes with nothing more than a toothpick in the teens. Nothing about the later reflects my knowledge of what can happen in reality.



ExploderWizard said:


> IMHO if play begins with the _assumption _of heroic status and the resolution mechanics support that, then the game is actually a supers game as far as genre focus is concerned. The setting may be fantasy, but genre tropes don't lie. I personally don't play D&D for a supers genre fix. I like the base D&D genre which is why I choose D&D in the first place.
> 
> This is where dials & switches come in. I think the baseline for D&D should be the default D&D genre. From there, modules to tweak it in a number of different directions can pull itmore toward supers, pulp, horror, or whatever.




I would say 4e goes from Action movie realism to "Mythic" over its 30 levels. We can leave comic book characters out of it! Of course since half the action movies these days seems to be about super heroes the lines blur. I agree your analysis though but I would question whether the default D&D genre is what you say it is for a majority of the player base.



ExploderWizard said:


> Thus we come back full circle on the magical & mundane scale. First define what is normal for the setting. That will tell you what needs to fall in the magical or supernatural bucket.




So is that level 1 wizards being slaughtgered by house cats or high level fighters having more HP than whales & single handedly slaughtering Giants?


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## Hussar (Aug 7, 2014)

Sadras said:


> Hussar, that's not fair. Can we not immediately jump to the "edition-warring" conclusion and fire the nuke? Just because someone does not appreciate a certain version or mechanic of the game does not mean its immediate edition warring.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that many of the same people on this forum who dislike mythical/legendary powers for mundanes would have told you the same 15 years ago, before 4e came out, but back then they wouldn't have been called out for it.




I really don't think so.  The same people who are complaining about the "super heroic" PC's don't seem to have problems with PC's that can take on dragons after all.  They don't worry about killing something the size of a bus with a sword.  That's perfectly acceptable, because the game has always allowed for that.  They don't seem to worry about the bajillion and one things that make little or no sense.  But, 4e is suddenly the "super heroic" version of D&D?  Gimme a break.  A 1e character, by about 9th level, was taking on GODS in AD&D.  

But they aren't superheroes?  Good grief, a 9th level PC party in 1e can stand toe to toe with any non unique creature in the game and win most of the time.  By double digit levels, they can lay waste to multiple dragons.  A 5th level AD&D party was expected to take on an Ancient Huge black dragon, in its lair, and win (DL 1 Dragons of Despair).  

This isn't edition warring?  Really?  To me, this is exactly what edition warring looks like.


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## ST (Aug 7, 2014)

I absolutely think 4e handled this problem the best way I've seen -- every class has their own power source, which largely effects the flavor of _how_ they do things, independent of power level. FATE works much the same way, and I've always been a fan of that system and ended up bringing Aspects, etc. in when I did d20 games pre-4e.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

Pickles JG said:


> The problem issue with what you call stock D&D is that it covers several genres at once from the hick off the farm dieing to goblins at first level to the heroic barbarian defeating TRexes with nothing more than a toothpick in the teens. Nothing about the later reflects my knowledge of what can happen in reality.




The D&D genre is certainly not rooted in reality.  High level characters are certainly superhuman compared to a normal person in the world. An 8th level fighter was called a superhero after all. In the D&D context, superhero doesn't have to mean the four color comics type. The superhero title referred to such a character because he/she could fight with the power of 8 normal men at arms. Viewed in those terms, being able to battle through damage that would have killed seven regular men and still keep on fighting, well that IS certainly superheroic and not at all realistic. 




Pickles JG said:


> I would say 4e goes from Action movie realism to "Mythic" over its 30 levels. We can leave comic book characters out of it! Of course since half the action movies these days seems to be about super heroes the lines blur. I agree your analysis though but I would question whether the default D&D genre is what you say it is for a majority of the player base.




The D&D genre as I described it is based on early TSR versions of the game and how it was originally conceived and played. 

The majority of the player base today may no longer play that way, although there are quite a few that still do as evidenced by the popularity of OSR products. 




Pickles JG said:


> So is that level 1 wizards being slaughtgered by house cats or high level fighters having more HP than whales & single handedly slaughtering Giants?




If that is your wish for the setting yes. Personally I wouldn't give housecats the combat stats they are given in AD&D but very high level fighters defeating giants single-handedly is very appropriate.


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## Manbearcat (Aug 7, 2014)

Raith5 said:


> But yeah if the Knock spell enabled the caster to swap their arcana for thievery skill for eg - that would work for me in a more realistic and interesting sense.




I particularly loved 4e's resolution by way of this:

- Sub Arcana for this skill because you're a Wizard and the associated narrative to the resolution is you Wizarding the problem solved.

but also

- Sub Streetwise for this skill because you're a Rogue and the associated narrative to the resolution is you Roguing the problem solved.



Hussar said:


> Y'know, I never thought of that Manbearcat.  it's a good point.  Memorization and casting is supposed to be difficult.  So difficult that you require extensive training to do it.  But, once you've had that training, you absolutely cannot ever fail to succeed in doing it (unless something outside prevents you) every time you try.  But a rogue trying to hide, despite his extensive training in it, fails fairly often.
> 
> It is a good point.  Why is "extensive training" acceptable in one case for automatic success, but not in others?




Absolutely.  I've brought this precise point up before.  With respect to those who are ok with that double standard, it didn't get much traction from them in terms of an explanation.  



Emerikol said:


> I see the usual suspects are front and center on this subject.
> 
> So magic can do magic things and non-magic cannot and that is a problem?  Scratches head.




We aren't "the usual suspects" decrying that "magic can do magic things and non-magic can't so there is a problem."  The problem is a lot deeper than that.  Give us a little more credit for nuanced positions than that.  They've been explained dozens of times in dozens of directions.



ExploderWizard said:


> At one time, spells were very easy to  interrupt. Casting had to be declared before initiative was determined.  The caster couldn't move so much as a step on the round a spell was  cast, and a small rock hitting the caster before completion spoiled the  spell AND expended it.
> 
> ALL of these things were sacrificed on the altar of un-fun. Now we have  unlimited casting, nigh uninterruptable casting and yet people are STILL  at a loss as to why magic is so good.




This was indeed the case for the combat mechanics of spellcasting but this isn't quite what I was trying to capture.  I was mostly trying to capture the (seemingly to me) inescapable reality that there are several component parts of the art of spellcasting that are mundane (but not unexceptional).  These would be all the stuff I mentioned in my posts (and the stuff pemerton has outlined below) and compared it to a mundane craft with a healthy margin of error (75 % success for a proficient, free-throw-shooting craftsman).  These aren't supernatural and they have real world analogues (the same means that GMs use to apply double standards when adjudicating mundane hero's contests/trials).  Why do we grant Wizards outright mechanical fiat in each and every one of the extremely difficult (presumably so or Wizarding would be extremely pervasive), mundane component parts of spellcraft, but fightercraft and roguecraft (et al) each need to be put through the ringer?



Sadras said:


> I'm going wade in here, albeit a little late and despite that my opinion means nothing really, but from my perspective @_*Manbearcat*_  hit the nail on the head with his post which included the  "OMGHOWCANWIZARDSNEVERFAILSPELLCASTINGWTF!!!?" and effectively ended our  diatribe a while ago.
> 
> I have seen nothing from the opposition since which comes close to  countering the points he made. For the record, I am from the opposition.  I am one of those that dislike mundanes with mythic/legendary powers.  My preference has always been they should be an optional module in the  DMG. And I feel the below quote by @_*Savage Wombat*_ explains my 'unreasonable' logic




It would be nice to have a sufficient answer or a "well crap" by folks who are good with this paradigm.



pemerton said:


> I think both of these responses to  @_*Manbearcat*_  and  @_*Hussar*_  don't quite address the point.
> 
> It's true that many parts of D&D magic are unexplained. But some bits _are_ explained. For instance, you have to wiggle your fingers a certain way. You have to speak certain words in the right way. At least in some editions, you have to memorise some stuff that's hard to memorise.
> 
> Why does this not require stat/skill checks from a spell caster, when exactly the same sort of stuff (a bard singing a song, a thief performing stage magic, any PC trying to remember and recall complicated stuff) _does_ require a check? Or in other words, why does a spell caster get auto-success on the purely mundane, physical parts of casting a spell, when martial PCs don't get auto-success on the comparable mundane, physical activities that they undertake?




This is it.  100 % it.



Minigiant said:


> Because magic is not explained.




No, the supernatural components are not explained, this is true.  But the natural, mundane components of spellcraft and Wizarding:

(a) are both intuitive and easy to extrapolate the difficulty/margin-of-error due to real world analogues.

(b) have various aspects of the craft which have actually had tests for success throughout the editions (there just isn't coherent follow-through..."because game" and "because different designers").

 (c) must require an extraordinarily honed acumen such that the club is exclusive in the extreme.  if it didn't require extensive training to yield that acumen in each mundane component part and/or if it didn't have any real margin-of-error, then wizards would be more common than Starbucks baristas in our present world (imagine that!).


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## Sadras (Aug 7, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> I was mostly trying to capture the (seemingly to me) inescapable reality that there are several component parts of the art of spellcasting that are mundane (but not unexceptional).  These would be all the stuff I mentioned in my posts (and the stuff pemerton has outlined below) and compared it to a mundane craft with a healthy margin of error (75 % success for a proficient, free-throw-shooting craftsman).  These aren't supernatural and they have real world analogues (the same means that GMs use to apply double standards when adjudicating mundane hero's contests/trials).  Why do we grant Wizards outright mechanical fiat in each and every one of the extremely difficult (presumably so or Wizarding would be extremely pervasive), mundane component parts of spellcraft, but fightercraft and roguecraft (et al) each need to be put through the ringer?



When devising a system for failure for the wizard with regard to his mundane actions, one has to be very careful as failure in that system could incorporate: 


inability to learn the spell (hampering progression/gaining of power); and
losing the spell altogether while casting (loss of resources)
Whereas the Rogue can keep on sneaking and the Fighter can keep on swinging with no comparable resource having been lost and no hampering of progression or gaining of power.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for ability/skill checks for the mundane actions of spellcasters, its just the system needs to take those considerations into account and not utilise the same % of skill success or 'to hit' success as the rogue and fighter respectively since their actions don't generally result in resource loss and don't hamper power gain.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Minigiant said:


> Because we dont know what wizards do when they cast a spell.



I was following your lead in your earlier post and moving my focus from casting to preparation.

We know that preparation is hard - because you have to train for years to be able to do it. In AD&D, at least, the flavour is rather Vancian: you have to impress these mystic sigils upon your brain. So why is an INT check not required for success? Why can is the action declaration "I memorise/prepare spell XYZ" an auto-success, whereas the action declaration "I perform stage magic trick XYZ" or "I walk on the tightrope from A to B" or "I hide behind the whatever-it-is" not an auto-success? It's not as if any of those things is harder, within the fiction of the gameworld, then memorising/preparing a spell.

Sorry if you think I'm badgering you - I'm not meaning to. It's just that you're the main poster engaging with my argument/analysis!



Pickles JG said:


> TNoone though has advocated a return to these older rules (except arguably pemerton in this discussion).



My preference, I think, is for a degree of parity. If martial exploits require checks, then so should magical ones. (And all the resources that get brought to bear to help checks - buffs, inspiration, stats, etc - can apply in either domain.) Or, conversely, if magical exploits are auto-successes, then so should martial exploits be auto-successes.

In my discussion with Minigiant the focus has turned to spell memorisation/preparation, but I think there are broader gameplay reasons for making any caster checks happen at casting rather than at the prep stage: if you require checks at the prep stage, and the players fail them, then you just encourage a zero-minute adventuring day as they have another go. So my preference would be for magic checks to happen at the point of casting.

4e actually mixes the two approaches I describe above. All characters get some auto-successes (powers, some rituals also for casters), and all characters get some check-required abilities (skills, including p 42, plus some rituals for casters). For me that's a fine way to do it.

I've also played a lot of RM, which is all checks all the time. That's fine too, although sometimes the rolling can get a bit much.

For me, the bottom line is that the mantra "because it's magic, auto success is OK in a way it's not for martial endeavours" ignores the point that _invoking_ the magic requires mundane performances (of memory, gesticulation, etc) which are just as liable to error/interference as any martial ability, and so could in pricple require checks for just the same reasons. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] says in the post just upthread that when he's raised this in the past he's got little traction. I can say the same thing - I have raised this in the past, most recently I think in discussions of DoaM, and likewise have got little traction. But for me it's exactly parallel. If we're happy with a system which says an action declaration of "I cast this spell by wiggling my fingers and speaking my magic words" can never fail (because the mage is so expert) then I have no problem at all with the system saying that an action declaration of "I cut down this goblin by swinging my sword and chopping its head off" can never fail (because the fighter is so expert).

Conversely, those who think players who like DoaM are cry babies who can't stand seeing their fighters fail should be leaping at the opportunity to prove their hardiness by embracing robust casting check mechanics (RM, RQ and BW all give examples that I'm familiar with, but there will be dozens of other systems out there too).


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> This was indeed the case for the combat mechanics of spellcasting but this isn't quite what I was trying to capture.  I was mostly trying to capture the (seemingly to me) inescapable reality that there are several component parts of the art of spellcasting that are mundane (but not unexceptional).  These would be all the stuff I mentioned in my posts (and the stuff pemerton has outlined below) and compared it to a mundane craft with a healthy margin of error (75 % success for a proficient, free-throw-shooting craftsman).  These aren't supernatural and they have real world analogues (the same means that GMs use to apply double standards when adjudicating mundane hero's contests/trials).  Why do we grant Wizards outright mechanical fiat in each and every one of the extremely difficult (presumably so or Wizarding would be extremely pervasive), mundane component parts of spellcraft, but fightercraft and roguecraft (et al) each need to be put through the ringer?




If magic was not such a limited resource then I would say the same pass/fail attempts would be appropriate. If a wizard could throw as many fireballs per day as he/she wanted to so long as the skill roll was made do you think it would make a better game? 

The bottom line is that magic can accomplish some things that the mundane simply cannot, that is what's so magical about it. As a balancing tool, the magic is bit more reliable (because it is both powerful and limited in quantity).

There are issues when the available quantity rises. Cantrips, more castings per day, regaining spell slots with short rests, the ability to easily create cheap magical goods, etc. Once the quantity of available magic rises to a point that it is as practically as plentiful as needed, the problems begin to arise. 

The only suitable tradeoff for reliable magic is scarcity. The original designers knew that much at least. This means ONE spell per day for a lowly first level wizard. Use it wisely. If you INSIST on more plentiful magic so the wizard "feels more magical" or whatever then LIVE with the consequences of that choice-which will be magic becoming ever more powerful and dominant. If you have spammable/plentiful magic AND it remains powerful enough to remain magical, what other outcome can one expect? 

The other option? Scale back what magic can accomplish to a point that it is hardly magical anymore. Who cares how much of it is floating around if its virtually useless?  This is the route 4E magic items went with and if they seemed awesome and powerful then this may be the option for you.


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Sadras said:


> When devising a system for failure for the wizard with regard to his mundane actions, one has to be very careful as failure in that system could incorporate:
> 
> 
> inability to learn the spell (hampering progression/gaining of power); and
> ...



In Rolemaster, a good proportion of spell casting failure results don't lead to loss of spell points. But more severe ones do. This is, at bottom, an issue of mathematical balance which a good system will factor in in much the same way that climbing and balance rules(presumably) factor in that a failure can cost resources (in the form of hit points lost due to falling).

As for hampering gaining of power - the correct analogue here, in my view, would be crafting rules (which are one of the means whereby martial PCs can gain power - by building better stuff). Burning Wheel is a good example of this, where learnig extra spells involves skill checks and commitments of ingame time and resources that live in the same sort of design space and gameplay space as downtime money-making.

5e, with its downtime mechanics, could probably factor this in very nicely. (And there are a range of options for faiure, depending on taste and other nuances of design: from the classic AD&D "you can never learn this spell" through to BW's "you have to go through the whole process again" through to the much more forgiving "OK, you succeed anyway but it costs you twice as much money or twice as much time, your choice.")


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## Minigiant (Aug 7, 2014)

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION].

D&D is very through on what is done and how difficult it is to prepare a spell. Preparing spells is hard, time consuming, and takes years to learn. 

But actually casting spells and how the spell works is unknown and disputed.

If that part was defined somewhat, you could easier answer the title question.


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## Manbearcat (Aug 7, 2014)

@_*Sadras*_  and   @_*ExploderWizard*_  , I understand both of your posts.  However, they're relevant to interests in game design (resource scheduling/action resolution specifically) to facilitate a functional play experience.  While I am very much sympathetic to that general plea, the framework that this point was being addressed was:



> However, *because Hide is not a supernatural ability, it becomes subject  to the dreaded unwritten verisimilitude rules*. Rules which seem clear  per the RAW are now subject to whatever the group decides is believable  for heroic characters in a world full of dragons and wizards to  accomplish.




Hence, the double standard (because spellcraft doesn't suffer the same) and the problem in action resolution and narrative influence parity it creates.

I'm fine with fiat for the mundane component parts of spellcraft to exemplify awesome wizarding and to facilitate a functional play experience.  But existing simultaneously in the same ruleset must be "say yes" a whole lot to relatively trivial aspects of fightercraft and roguecraft in order to exemplify awesome fightering and roguing.  If we're only "rolling the dice" when (relative to the class's shtick) trivial fightercraft and trivial roguecraft actions are undertaken, then we have the aforementioned double standard (and its fallout on play).


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> If magic was not such a limited resource then I would say the same pass/fail attempts would be appropriate.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Yet another option is to require checks to cast successfully. This is the option that many fantasy RPGs use - practically every one that I can think of that is not a derivative of D&D, plus quite a bit of 4e (which _is_ a derivative of D&D!).


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## Haffrung (Aug 7, 2014)

Branduil said:


> However, because Hide is not a supernatural ability, it becomes subject to the dreaded _unwritten verisimilitude rules_. Rules which seem clear per the RAW are now subject to whatever the group decides is believable for heroic characters in a world full of dragons and wizards to accomplish.




Dreaded? We've always regarded the existence of a judge to adjudicate such situations an essential appeal of D&D. What other game formats can call on the enormous power and flexibility of a human mind to interface with the game rules and setting?



Branduil said:


> Certainly, it's an understandable tendency. However, it often has the unintentional side effect of neutering martial characters in comparison to spellcasters. No one ever forces the wizard to come up with a new situation where he's allowed to cast his Magic Missile spell he has prepared. No one ever forces the cleric to come up with a believable explanation for why he can cast cure wounds a second time during an encounter.




Surely the fact that non-magical skills can be employed at will weighs into the scales here. And there are situational conditions that can make spells ineffective - D&D 5E is bringing back concentration. 



Branduil said:


> What can be done to counter the tendency for mundane skills to be overshadowed by always-works magic? Is the only solution to say "all skills are magical so characters trained in them can do them whenever the skill says they can"?




I've never seen this problem at the table, so I personally don't feel any pressing need for a solution.



Tony Vargas said:


> This is one of those issues that is so endemic, entrenched, and unquestionable that it's darn near futile to even talk about it.  Yes, D&D has a long, long history of casters being superior to non-casters, and, yes, the fans it hasn't driven away in those decades are not only mostly fine with that, but there's a sub-set of them who are violently opposed to doing anything about it.




You really think the alleged superiority of spellcasters has driven people away from D&D? How many? And what do they play now?

D&D is such an enormously popular RPG, you would think that if even 1/4 of its players have been driven away by this issue, then a game that addressed it would have found tremendous traction in the marketplace.


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## Haffrung (Aug 7, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> The only suitable tradeoff for reliable magic is scarcity. The original designers knew that much at least. This means ONE spell per day for a lowly first level wizard. Use it wisely. If you INSIST on more plentiful magic so the wizard "feels more magical" or whatever then LIVE with the consequences of that choice-which will be magic becoming ever more powerful and dominant. If you have spammable/plentiful magic AND it remains powerful enough to remain magical, what other outcome can one expect?




Exactly. The main limit on magic is availability. If your wizards know any spells they want, of course they'll be extremely powerful. But if you're concerned about spellcasters being overpowered, why would you allow them such liberal access to spells in the first place? Players get to choose, what, two spells per level in 5E? The rest they have to discover or buy in-game. So the means to restrict the flexibility of wizards is largely in the hands of the DM.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

Sadras said:


> Whereas the Rogue can keep on sneaking and the Fighter can keep on swinging with no comparable resource having been lost and no hampering of progression or gaining of power.




In fairness, this thread came about because people were discussing removing the "at-will" nature of the rogue's sneak, specifically. If the at-will nature of the power (lightfooted halfling hiding behind an ally) is balanced by the factor of having to roll to perform the action, then removing the at-will nature of the ability is similar to requiring a skill check to properly cast a spell.


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## tomBitonti (Aug 7, 2014)

Hi,

Spells _had better_ have limited uses, to counter the extra reliability.  If the system doesn't practically limit the count of uses, that is a problem, and is a place where the system breaks down.  I've seen this with invocations and breath effects (Summoning invocation, or the Dragon Magic slow breath effect).

Also, _reliable_ needs to be looked at more carefully: The entire chain of tests must be looked at to determine whether a spell (or other effect) is truly reliable.  Say, from 3.5E: Concentration; roll-to-hit or overcome-saving-throw; magic resistance, or augmented saves (Evasion, Mettle), or various resistances.  Magic isn't nearly as reliable as it was presented.

(3.5E does have a problem in that Concentration is badly tuned, becoming a non-limiting feature after only a few levels.)

(There is still the potential issue of whether all of these features balance the outcomes: Unless carefully tuned, the outcomes will be unsatisfying at best, and just plain broken at worst.  A potentially severe problem area, but a different problem area.)

There are rules variants which add failure chances.  However, these are typically unused.  For example, the failure chance for wearing armor.  To reach next door: Overchanneling (from Psionics) seems to add the failure chance.  I do think the armor system is very minimally integrated, with a great loss of interesting options to the game system.  After all, wwhat arcane caster ever accepts the failure chance; and what arcane casters, except for limited specialists, even come close to learning how to wear armor?)

There are lots of variant magical systems (e.g., Chaos Magic) which add failure chances.

I do find it curious that other game systems (Rolemaster, WFRP, maybe Arcana Unearthed) have failure mechanics.  You could add this to D&D, but, the other mechanics would need to be adjusted to balance the outcomes.

Thx!

TomB


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 7, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> > Originally Posted by Tony Vargas
> >
> > The happy solution would have been for people to live and let live, and never started the edition war. I'd be happily playing well-supported 4e (and looking forward to a 5e in a another 3 or 4 years), you'd be happily playing 3.5, grognards would happily be playing well-supported retro-clones.
> >
> ...



 4e did not create anything but a somewhat improved version of D&D, it did not abandon anything but a few sacred cows that had been preventing those improvement.  There are long-time D&Ders who appreciated having a better version of their old favorite game and liked it, and who have just as much emotional attachment to the franchise as those who don't.

The only difference is that those who preferred 3.5 were and are assured of ongoing support via the OGL.  4e took nothing away from them.   Why could they not have shown some respect for their fellow-longtime D&D fans who shared their affection for the game, but didn't begrudge extending that affection to the new edition, and taken the live-and-let-live option?



Haffrung said:


> You really think the alleged superiority of spellcasters has driven people away from D&D? How many? And what do they play now?



 Not really the point.  If you've been playing D&D for any length of time, chances are you have either found some way to enjoy the game in spite of the double-standard the OP is talking about (though it remains a negative), or you actually /like/ caster superiority.  



> D&D is such an enormously popular RPG, you would think that if even 1/4 of its players have been driven away by this issue, then a game that addressed it would have found tremendous traction in the marketplace.



 D&D's relative popularity is due to it being the only RPG with mainstream name recognition, so most folks entering the hobby try D&D first.  Those who find it's peculiarities off-putting might go looking for an alternate game, but they may also just decide that RPGs aren't for them, and never join the broader hobby.  So, no, a game that 'fixes' one or more of D&D perennial issues (of which the 'double standard' in question is only one among many) wouldn't necessarily gain a huge following.  Both because there are many such games competing for disaffected D&Ders, and because potential new gamers who start with D&D and are repelled by it may simply never try an RPG again.  

The hobby has remained very small by mainstream standards for a very long time, in spite of everything the various owners of D&D's IP have tried to bring in new players.


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## Minigiant (Aug 7, 2014)

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I don't mind. I like this discussion.

Essentially I see D&D as a take 20 or take 10 action. A wizard can only prepare magic when not distracted at all. So they do everything very slow and have no fail chance.


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## tomBitonti (Aug 7, 2014)

There are the mechanics for Read Scroll and Use Magic Device to consider: That adds in failure chances.  Although, these are often for non-casters attempting to create a magic effect, not for casters using the mechanics.

A problem of the hide mechanic is the timing of the opposed roll mechanic, which obscures that the hide actually did succeed: Often, you hide earlier than an opponent makes their opposed roll.  But, the hide action, if conditions are appropriate, automatically succeeds, just not with 100% certainty for all eventual observers.  The conditions are similar to spell conditions: If you attempt to magic missile someone who is out of range, the spell fails.  If you attempt to hide in plain side (oops: the opponent has dark vision; the concealment you thought you had is not there; or, you misjudged distance or line-of-sight), the hide attempt fails.  Otherwise, the hide check actually does succeed, but with a chance of not being effective due to a later opposed roll.

Thx!

TomB


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## pemerton (Aug 7, 2014)

Haffrung said:


> The main limit on magic is availability.





Haffrung said:


> Surely the fact that non-magical skills can be employed at will weighs into the scales here.



What started out as a discussion about verisimilitude now seems to have turned into a discussion of balance. But as [MENTION=12037]ThirdWizard[/MENTION] points out, once you bring balance in as the main consideration there's no clear reason to think that the sniping halfling who can hide at will (with a successful roll) is a problem.

From the verisimilitude point of view, though, there is no reason why making spell casting require a check will cause any balance issues. The player can declare "I cast a spell" as an action at-will, provided that the character has at least one spell slot left; it's just that the declared action actually takes effect (and hence the slot is crossed off) if the check succeeds.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> ThirdWizard said:
> 
> 
> > Man, some _incredibly awesome _RPG systems don't even have rules at all for resolving actions that the PCs aren't involved in!
> ...




I've been thinking about this response, and there is a playstyle difference that I find quite interesting here. This might be long winded, but there's a point eventually.

When I sit down to play a role playing game with other people, when the rubber hits the road so to speak, what I really care about is running an enjoyable game for the players, getting to the action (whether that be playacting or murderhoboing), and creating an exciting play experience.

One of those things that is important is player telegraphs, and one way you can read players is by looking at their character sheets. For example, if the ranger took Favored Enemy: Elephants then it's likely he's looking to be a big game hunter. If the rogue has lots of social skills, then he's looking for some intrigue. Likewise, a player who took the Lightfoot Halfling race wants to play a sneaky little guy who can hide really well. I want to give them that! I can use that to my advantage and give them lots of opportunities to sneak and hide, and if he wants to do that in combat, because that's what his race _does_ then I am more than happy to go with it.

Second point is that, for me, the rules as I see them exist so that when a player wants their PC to do something that is risky, we have a common framework to see if that thing is successful. They aren't there to make DMing decisions for me or to constrain events that occur without PC interaction. When a PC isn't involved with something, then its just the DM playing with himself. It isn't until the PCs get involved in the action that the DM is playing with the payers. And, even then, everything outside the scope of the players' own actions are things that they're observing and that need not be influenced by randomness.

If an old man is trying to sneak past a goblin, and neither is a player's character, then I don't see why it would matter to the players or the DM whether the result of that action was resolved randomly or by fiat. I suppose you could try to claim that if the PCs have a vested interest in the survival of the NPC that the DM can use randomness, find that the NPC died, and then claim neutrality. But, then, my assumption is always that the DM and players interact upon the world in good faith. If the DM is operating in good faith, then he has no need to relinquish responsibility for actions that take place in the game. A DM who takes ownership of what is happening, I would think, would be much more even handed, thoughtful, and less capricious in their approach to events outside the PCs' control. In fact, they often lead the DM to involve players in those scenarios more often, leading to even more player agency.

So, then back to my original thought about what is important in the game at the table. I find the desire to pare down PC abilities (re: lightfooted halfling) while simultaneously focusing on the resolution of NPC actions as important to be somewhat the reverse of what is the focus at my table. For me and my games, the player is the important thing, not the NPC or the world or anything like that. Beyond the player everything else is secondary. I want rules that give the players lots of agency, and I think it is important to run a game with an eye toward giving the player abilities lots of spotlight and fun. NPCs are important to me so long as they are important to the players, and rules for them I can take or leave, whatever fits the situation.

This isn't to say that my way is right, of course. My thoughts are cultivated on the games I like best. And those games tend not to be Dungeons and Dragons nowadays. As my tastes have wandered to things like Fiasco, *World, FATE, and Dread I've changed my idea of what makes a good game considerably. I expect them to continue to change. It's discussion like this that help me analyze my thought process and help that process along.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Yet another option is to require checks to cast successfully. This is the option that many fantasy RPGs use - practically every one that I can think of that is not a derivative of D&D, plus quite a bit of 4e (which _is_ a derivative of D&D!).




So require casters to make an arcana check to successfully cast any spell, and base the DC on spell level. Problem solved. I wouldn't object to playing in a game with that as a house rule.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 7, 2014)

Manbearcat said:


> @_*Sadras*_  and   @_*ExploderWizard*_  , I understand both of your posts.  However, they're relevant to interests in game design (resource scheduling/action resolution specifically) to facilitate a functional play experience.  While I am very much sympathetic to that general plea, the framework that this point was being addressed was:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




An issue somewhat related is the dice trigger reflex. The feeling that every little thing requires a roll in order to happen. Ditch that and things are a bit smoother.


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## bert1000 (Aug 7, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> The double-standard goes a lot further than that.  It has magic doing things that, even in genre, it generally can't, and has non-magic unable to do thing that not only in genre, but even, demonstrably, in reality, it can.




The thing that annoys me the most is that the double standard is not presented upfront.  

We'll see in 5e but in past editions when you read the entry for Fighter you got something like:

A Fighter is a master of the battlefield and weapons.   He can stand toe to toe with the most powerful of monsters, even dragons.   He can maintain his composure even when faced with unholy and demonic threats.   At high levels, he is strength incarnate.    

When you read the Rogue entry it's like:

A Rogue is a master of the shadows, as silent as the wind.   Even magical traps and protections can not stop her from gaining access.  She sees and hears everything.   Although not the equal of others in a straight up fight, if she catches someone unawares, instant death.

Of course, the reality of the game mechanics do not support the "vision" at all.


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 7, 2014)

pemerton said:


> What started out as a discussion about verisimilitude now seems to have turned into a discussion of balance. But as [MENTION=12037]ThirdWizard[/MENTION] points out, once you bring balance in as the main consideration there's no clear reason to think that the sniping halfling who can hide at will (with a successful roll) is a problem.




But from a game perspective, verisimilitude and game balance are inherently in tension.  Because reality is rarely balanced.


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## Bluenose (Aug 7, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> But from a game perspective, verisimilitude and game balance are inherently in tension.  Because reality is rarely balanced.




It's not as if there's an objective measurement of what exactly a seventh level character should be capable of. They get whatever the designers choose to give them. Thus, if it turns out through play-testing that the abilities given to a seventh level Fighter put them behind the curve, while the abilities given to a seventh level Wizard put them ahead of it, then you can give the seventh level Fighter some of the abilities they would have got at eight level, and delay the Wizard's acquisition of some of theirs. Verisimilitude retained, balance improved.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 7, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> But from a game perspective, verisimilitude and game balance are inherently in tension.  Because reality is rarely balanced.



 Reality is rarely /fair/ (and games need to be).  But, reality does present us with a lot of difficult choices, which is one of the things balance tries to deliver.  

It's entirely possible to have a game that presents quite realistic choices about your character, for instance, including some choices that are very clearly much better than others - it just needs a mechanism to weight those choices differently.  Hero and GURPS are examples:  you can choose for your character to be a Mage, or you can choose for your character to be a plumber, or you can choose for your character to be blind.  They're not at all 'balanced' choices, but they're weighted differently - the first might cost you 60 build points, the second 3, and the last might give you 20 extra points to spend on something else.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> But from a game perspective, verisimilitude and game balance are inherently in tension.



OK, but that's an argument, then, to have casters make checks to cast their spells.

It wouldn't hurt verisimilitude to make a caster make the same check to speak the words of a spell as a bard has to make to engage in an oration. And that could also restore balance.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

ThirdWizard said:


> When I sit down to play a role playing game with other people, when the rubber hits the road so to speak, what I really care about is running an enjoyable game for the players, getting to the action (whether that be playacting or murderhoboing), and creating an exciting play experience.
> 
> One of those things that is important is player telegraphs, and one way you can read players is by looking at their character sheets.
> 
> ...



This is all true for me as well.

One minor caveat: if a player puts Diplomacy or Perception on his/her PC sheet, maybe s/he wants to play a social/investigative character; or maybe s/he wants to build in insurance that his/her PC won't be thwarted by invisible enemies or by crazy NPCs who don't pay attention to what the PC has to say. So build choices can be flags, like you describe, or can be insurance.


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## Pentegarn (Aug 8, 2014)

Branduil said:


> This is something that's been bothering me in the discussion about the halfling sniper, and I think it deserves its own discussion.
> 
> I personally feel like the rules for hiding in 5th edition are fairly clear; if the enemy can't see you, you can use the Hide action. Some special abilities, like the halfling's Naturally Stealthy, allow for exceptions to this general rule. So far, so clear, right?
> 
> ...




Why is it you felt this subject needed it's own thread?  Why does there need to be an argument over these rules to begin with?  You play it the way you and your group enjoys it, and leave others to do the same.  Simple as that.

Some players might feel hiding behind another player and popping out for advantage and sneak attack is simply too gamey, and flavor their interpretation of the rules based more on the narrative story.  Take the old 3.5 Manyshot feat for example.  A player could use this with every attack.  But think of it from a story point of view, such as the shot Robin Hood made in the old "Prince of Thieves" movie.  He bit off the fletching on one side of an arrow, and fired two arrows, one into two different opponents.  It seemed like a rare and impossible shot to make and drop two opponents, which made it appear special, and Robin Hood, skilled.  But if he went through the movie biting off fletchings and shooting two arrows with every shot, it would have looked just silly and lame.

Some players might simply see that game as a game, where that type of thing is normal.  Either way, it's up to the gaming group.  Your opinion doesn't have to be everyone's opinion.  You don't have to like the opinions of others.  But spending thread after thread, post after post arguing about whose way is better is a pointless waste of time.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

ThirdWizard said:


> For me and my games, the player is the important thing, not the NPC or the world or anything like that. Beyond the player everything else is secondary. I want rules that give the players lots of agency, and I think it is important to run a game with an eye toward giving the player abilities lots of spotlight and fun. NPCs are important to me so long as they are important to the players, and rules for them I can take or leave, whatever fits the situation.



I don't think we're too different in our goals, except in that I _need_ consistent rules for PCs and NPCs in order to establish context.

If my character has Athletics/Climbing +15, then what does that mean? She has an 80% chance to climb a wall that's DC 20. So what does that mean? Where does it come from? Why is the bonus +15, and not +10 or +20? Is +15 even _good_? What's the default chance for some random merchant to climb a wall?

If the answer, anywhere in there, comes down to the fact that my character is a PC rather than an NPC, then that's a problem. The designation of PC or NPC isn't a thing that exists in-game, (unless it's something like Exalted, where it does). Attributing an in-game characteristic to an out-of-game factor would violate causality, and it's literally impossible for me to suspend disbelief that far and still take the game seriously.


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> OK, but that's an argument, then, to have casters make checks to cast their spells.
> 
> It wouldn't hurt verisimilitude to make a caster make the same check to speak the words of a spell as a bard has to make to engage in an oration. And that could also restore balance.




Don't disagree.  I suspect there's either a "cut down on rolls" or "we've never done it that way" involved.

You could say that the assumption is that the wizard takes 20 to prep spells, which is why it takes so long - and then just create a mechanic for if they try to prep in less time.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> If my character has Athletics/Climbing +15, then what does that mean?



 It means your modifiers total +15.  You might be 10 STR, trained, and 20th level in 4e, or 20 STR with 10 ranks (and at least 6th level, but possibly much higher in 3e).  It means you're not playing AD&D, where your character might have an 85% climb walls percentage /and/ a non-weapon proficiency that lets him roll under his 14 STR to climb, or 5e, where you top out at +11, regardless.



> She has an 80% chance to climb a wall that's DC 20. So what does that mean? Where does it come from? Why is the bonus +15, and not +10 or +20? Is +15 even _good_? What's the default chance for some random merchant to climb a wall?



 Since merchants rarely train in Athletics/climg.  In 3e or 5e, his STR mod.  In 4e his STR mod + 1/2 his level.  In AD&D, undefined - unless he has a class, non-weapon proficiency, or arbitrarily-assigned by the DM special ability, since NPCs could sometimes just be a few numbers and equivalancies jumbled together (Uras the Spectacular has 60 hps, attacks as a 4th level fighter, saves as 13th level thief, and can cast Chariot of Sustare 1/year - why?  Because I'm the DM and I said so.)





> If the answer, anywhere in there, comes down to the fact that my character is a PC rather than an NPC, then that's a problem. The designation of PC or NPC isn't a thing that exists in-game, (unless it's something like Exalted, where it does). Attributing an in-game characteristic to an out-of-game factor would violate causality, and it's literally impossible for me to suspend disbelief that far and still take the game seriously.



 Honestly, that's absurd.  You choose your character's race, that's an in-game thing that is determined by an out-of-game factor (you absolutely cannot choose your parents!).  That's just one example.  You're just being selective in what you let freak you out.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> Don't disagree.  I suspect there's either a "cut down on rolls" or "we've never done it that way" involved.
> 
> You could say that the assumption is that the wizard takes 20 to prep spells, which is why it takes so long - and then just create a mechanic for if they try to prep in less time.



Another way to go would be to have a more over prep/training mechanic for martial PCs: practice your move for a few hours before adventuring, and then perform it X times over the course of the adventure as auto-successes.


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## Emerikol (Aug 8, 2014)

As expected, I get nothing but snarky reactions to my attempt to explain why people have an emotional attachment to D&D and that is why they fight for D&D to resemble the game they love.

Tony you have to be blind to think 4e did not massive change the game.  Every single class took on the AEDU structure which alone makes the game MASSIVELY different even if nothing else changed.  You can like those changes and some do but you can't deny they are major differences.

Someone asked why we fought for D&D to not continue going down the path of design that 4e represented.  You can want different and that is fine. We just disagree on what D&D should be.  I could argue that games using your design considerations exist out there.  Massively narrative games are all over the place.  

D&D for many of us was a good game until 4e.  If they misfired on their design considerations then I'm glad they did because for years I enjoyed that game and many others did too.  It was fun.  4e was many things but it was not fun for me.


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## Minigiant (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Another way to go would be to have a more over prep/training mechanic for martial PCs: practice your move for a few hours before adventuring, and then perform it X times over the course of the adventure as auto-successes.




In 3.5, a DM of mine had a class and a PrC that had a feature called Signature Move. The PC could do their Signature Move and skip the attack roll and treat and attack as if they rolled a 15.

The rub was after the attack, the target had to roll a check to see if they get wise to it. If the target failed, the PC could do it again. If the target succeeded, they became immune.

PCs and NPCs could roll to learn to learn SMs and battles went fast as they just compare SMs.
Helped that is was E6 too.


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 8, 2014)

It suddenly occurs to me to mention that I have a game book somewhere that sets out a very sim version of magic rules.  Because it's based on how magic really works in the real world.

... Let that sink in a moment.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> As expected, I get nothing but snarky reactions to my attempt to explain why people have an emotional attachment to D&D and that is why they fight for D&D to resemble the game they love.



No. What generates critical replies is you describing people who love the game, and have been playing it for decades, as "upstarts". And asserting or implying that they don't love the game.



Emerikol said:


> Tony you have to be blind to think 4e did not massive change the game.  Every single class took on the AEDU structure which alone makes the game MASSIVELY different even if nothing else changed.



From my point of view 3E massively changed the game. It replaced non-sim saving throws, based around luck/divine fortune, with sim-style saving throws based around imagined physical and mental skills of the characters. Which hosed mid-to-high level fighters.

There were lots of other changes too. Monsters are completely different (being built on the PC chassis). Hit points above name level are completely diffrent, which completely changes the scaling of the game. A red dragon in AD&D has about the same AC as a heavily armoured man-at-arms. In 3E it has a +30-something "natural AC" bonus. That's a radical change, both to resolution and to fiction.



Emerikol said:


> D&D for many of us was a good game until 4e.



Sure. For many of us D&D becaomse a better game with 4e. What's your point?


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 8, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> It suddenly occurs to me to mention that I have a game book somewhere that sets out a very sim version of magic rules.  Because it's based on how magic really works in the real world.
> 
> ... Let that sink in a moment.




Black Leaf?


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Honestly, that's absurd.  You choose your character's race, that's an in-game thing that is determined by an out-of-game factor (you absolutely cannot choose your parents!).  That's just one example.  You're just being selective in what you let freak you out.



Choosing your race is not something that exists in-game (barring wild magic and Reincarnation). It's an _entirely_ out-of-game decision.

It's like choosing which movie to watch. It doesn't violate any of the internal consistency of Ace Venture: Pet Detective, if you choose to watch Groundhog Day instead.


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## evileeyore (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Hero and GURPS are examples:  you can choose for your character to be a Mage, or you can choose for your character to be a plumber, or you can choose for your character to be blind.  They're not at all 'balanced' choices, but they're weighted differently - the first might cost you 60 build points, the second 3, and the last might give you 20 extra points to spend on something else.



To be fair, in both Hero and GURPS those "unbalanced" choices are completely balanced within the framework of the rules (because the costs assume a boost in character competency elsewhere).

They may not be "balanced" within the the framework of the story your DM want's to run however.

For instance in Star Wars (by FFG) every class has some combat ability.  Some might be worse at it, some might excell, but every class gets some abilities useful in combat (even if it's "late in the carreer path").

That I chose at the outset to build a combat incompetent Mechanic (and have no desire to improve his combat abilities) is an "unbalanced" choice.  FFG allowed for this path in it's rules, but it makes it pretty clear my choices are "dumb" based on the genre they are trying to emulate.




Savage Wombat said:


> It suddenly occurs to me to mention that I have a game book somewhere that sets out a very sim version of magic rules.  Because it's based on how magic really works in the real world.
> 
> ... Let that sink in a moment.



You talking Kult there homey?


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 8, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> You talking Kult there homey?




Authentic Thaumaturgy by Isaac Bonewits


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## evileeyore (Aug 8, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> Authentic Thaumaturgy by Isaac Bonewits



Ah.  HAdn't seen that before.

Kult supposedly also based it's magic system on "real world" magical traditions.  But then their authors don;t have a Bachelors in Magic from Berkley.


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 8, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> Ah.  HAdn't seen that before.
> 
> Kult supposedly also based it's magic system on "real world" magical traditions.  But then their authors don;t have a Bachelors in Magic from Berkley.




Yeah, but this has "real world" magical _physics_.  

Formula 8.9:  To Throw a Lightning Bolt

Magic Point Cost = 25 x (voltage in kilovolts) x (current in amps) x (time in tenths of a second).

Which he claims is 96% energy efficient.​


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## Andor (Aug 8, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> Yeah, but this has "real world" magical _physics_.
> 
> Formula 8.9:  To Throw a Lightning Bolt
> 
> ...




So lessee, if I wanted to jump start my bike it would be 25*.0012kV*6amps*30(3 sec)= 5.4 mp. Seems legit.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Choosing your race is not something that exists in-game (barring wild magic and Reincarnation). It's an _entirely_ out-of-game decision.



 So is deciding to use CaGI to make enemies approach you.  In-game, enemies approached you and you attacked them.  Same logic applies to any sort of objection.  If you can make one decision out of your character's head, that changes the world in a way outside of your character's control, and be OK with it, why not another?


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## evileeyore (Aug 8, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> Yeah, but this has "real world" magical _physics_.
> 
> Formula 8.9:  To Throw a Lightning Bolt
> 
> ...



That is some serious magical thinking right there.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> So is deciding to use CaGI to make enemies approach you.  In-game, enemies approached you and you attacked them.  Same logic applies to any sort of objection.  If you can make one decision out of your character's head, that changes the world in a way outside of your character's control, and be OK with it, why not another?



Okay, I see where you're going with this. I suppose that the world where enemies happen to decide to move in when you feign an opening is not any more or less believable than the world where enemies stand back and act cautiously. That's still the player acting in director-stance rather than actor-stance,_ during_ gameplay, though.

Character creation is not the game. The game is what happens after you all meet in a tavern. During the pre-game, you are not your character. During the game, you _are _your character.

(And that's not even getting into how CaGI is a resource-based mechanic that the character really _should_ be aware of. There's no _narrative_ way to explain how a director-stance power to make this thing happen would be based on when the character in-game takes a long rest.)


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> As expected, I get nothing but snarky reactions to my attempt to explain why people have an emotional attachment to D&D and that is why they fight for D&D to resemble the game they love.



 You asked about a 'happy solution,' and, very honestly, I replied that the happy solution would have been to adopt a live-and-let-live attitude back in 2008. 

Fans of 3.5 have been playing well-supported 3.5 all this time - they could have done so without the edition war.



> Tony you have to be blind to think 4e did not massive change the game.  Every single class took on the AEDU structure which alone makes the game MASSIVELY different even if nothing else changed.



 Of course they're major changes.  3e made major changes, too.  For the most part, both were very much for the better - and long overdue, since D&D had been stagnating for 20 years.



> Someone asked why we fought for D&D to not continue going down the path of design that 4e represented.  You can want different and that is fine. We just disagree on what D&D should be.  I could argue that games using your design considerations exist out there.  Massively narrative games are all over the place.



 That you keep thinking I'm a 'narrativist' because you identify as a 'simulationist' and figure it's the opposite shows just how little you understand the issues, even after /years/ of this back and forth.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Okay, I see where you're going with this. I suppose that the world where enemies happen to decide to move in when you feign an opening is not any more or less believable than the world where enemies stand back and act cautiously. That's still the player acting in director-stance rather than actor-stance,_ during_ gameplay, though.



 You could classify it that way, then again, does that disqualify it from being sim?  Because, honestly, the whole actor-stance thing isn't something I find credible as players staying in 100% of the time.



> Character creation is not the game. The game is what happens after you all meet in a tavern. During the pre-game, you are not your character. During the game, you _are _your character.



 Meh.  It's still part of the game.  If you 'are' your character once the game start, you 'are' still someone who chose your character's race.



> (And that's not even getting into how CaGI is a resource-based mechanic that the character really _should_ be aware of. There's no _narrative_ way to explain how a director-stance power to make this thing happen would be based on when the character in-game takes a long rest.)



 Why should the character be aware of it, anymore (or less) than he is aware that you chose his race for him?  I mean, /you/ are aware of both things, but you are also very much aware that you are /not/ your character, so there's a huge suspension of disbelief, the magnitude of that makes a few moments in directors stance or the knowledge of a past decision pale into insignificance.  

Your character is aware that he's fighting, that enemies closes with him and he put up a good fight.  You're aware of the same thing, and a bit more (that you expended a very abstract, out-of-game-world resource to make that happen), just like he's aware that he's a half-orc, and you're aware that he's a half-orc /because you chose for him to be one/.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> You could classify it that way, then again, does that disqualify it from being sim?  Because, honestly, the whole actor-stance thing isn't something I find credible as players staying in 100% of the time.
> 
> Meh.  It's still part of the game.  If you 'are' your character once the game start, you 'are' still someone who chose your character's race.



That goes back to the whole meta-gaming thing, where you aren't supposed to use information that your character doesn't have. You're supposed to forget everything that your character doesn't know, for the purposes of everything that the character does. In essence, the player is a non-entity - the player is just one more cog in the mechanics, void of independent existence - because every decision is made by the character.

Of course, that doesn't hold in any game where the player is _supposed to_ wield narrative influence. Something like 3.5 Eberron, with action points, doesn't lend itself to entirely maintaining actor-stance. Feng Shui throws actor-stance out the window entirely.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> That goes back to the whole meta-gaming thing, where you aren't supposed to use information that your character doesn't have. You're supposed to forget everything that your character doesn't know, for the purposes of everything that the character does. In essence, the player is a non-entity - the player is just one more cog in the mechanics, void of independent existence - because every decision is made by the character.



 Which, though a valid (if /really/ extreme) ideal, seems quite impossible.  (Seriously, that sounds about on par with achieving Nirvana.)

Of the many, many things that make it impossible, mechanics like hps, race, or CaGI, are among the most trivial.

Rather than get into such a rarefied and philosophical extreme, I prefer to think of AS vs DS as simply the difference between RPing in first person vs 3rd.  

I mean, it is Actor's stance, not Dissociative Personality Disorder Stance.



> Of course, that doesn't hold in any game where the player is _supposed to_ wield narrative influence. Something like 3.5 Eberron, with action points, doesn't lend itself to entirely maintaining actor-stance. Feng Shui throws actor-stance out the window entirely.



 You can always approach a game how you like.  You could be in AS if you wanted even in games like that, some fraction of the time, intent of the game notwithstanding.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> I suppose that the world where enemies happen to decide to move in when you feign an opening is not any more or less believable than the world where enemies stand back and act cautiously.



Correct. This is exactly how you run a game based on fiction and genre first, with the mechanics subordinate to that and used to allow players to choose genre-appropriate narratives that fit within whatever parameters the mechanics might determine.



Saelorn said:


> That's still the player acting in director-stance rather than actor-stance,_ during_ gameplay, though.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> During the game, you _are _your character.





Saelorn said:


> you aren't supposed to use information that your character doesn't have. You're supposed to forget everything that your character doesn't know, for the purposes of everything that the character does. In essence, the player is a non-entity - the player is just one more cog in the mechanics, void of independent existence - because every decision is made by the character.



As you yourself go on to acknowledge in the second of the two quoted posts, there is no "supposed to" here. Some RPGers prefer to avoid metagame. Others don't. As a GM, I use metagame all the time: for instance, if I want to make the players anxious about a pending combat, I will tell them the level of a creature, or the overall encounter level (eg "You guys are still 26th level? This is a level 32 encounter!"). The player character's don't know what's waiting for them, or how tough their enemies are (at least until they recall their knowledge of ancient monster lore). This is about generating a particular response from the _players_, which might then inform their play of their PCs. For instance, they might decide to buff up. In game, that is a moment of "I've got a bad feeling about this . . ."

As you noted in the passage I quoted at the top of this post, the world in which a PC has a bad feeling and buffs up out of an abundance of caution isn't less believable than one in which s/he stumbles in blindly. But (in the right circumstances) it might be more fun!



Saelorn said:


> CaGI is a resource-based mechanic that the character really _should_ be aware of. There's no _narrative_ way to explain how a director-stance power to make this thing happen would be based on when the character in-game takes a long rest.



Why should the character be aware of it? The PC's enemies regularly charge him/her. That's hardly some bizarre event that is going to lead to genre-breaking speculation about "meta entities" dictating NPC behaviour on a 1x/encounter basis.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Why should the character be aware of it? The PC's enemies regularly charge him/her. That's hardly some bizarre event that is going to lead to genre-breaking speculation about "meta entities" dictating NPC behaviour on a 1x/encounter basis.



And yet it won't happen, _ever,_ unless the PC takes a rest of the appropriate length. And it only ever happens to fighters, of a specific measure of skill. But not all fighters who are that skilled.

Trying to make sense of it all from an internal causality standpoint is an exercise in futility. If you're a player who doesn't accept director-stance mechanics, such as myself or E, then it's easier to just skip that edition entirely than try to work out some way for it to make sense.

This is getting off topic, though. We all agree that there are different ways to play the game, and I have yet to see that 5E will exclude either side. 

Unless you want fighters to pull off the kind of mythic stunts they do in legend, of course. Those people are missing out.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> And yet it won't happen, _ever,_ unless the PC takes a rest of the appropriate length. And it only ever happens to fighters



This just isn't true. Characters will be charged by their enemies all the time! And not just fighters.

Of course only fighters of a certain measure of skill are able to cut them down as they charge. But that's more-or-less tautological.



Saelorn said:


> If you're a player who doesn't accept director-stance mechanics, such as myself or E, then it's easier to just skip that edition entirely



Who's ever asserted otherwise? Emerikol is the one, though, who is calling me an upstart and telling me that I don't love D&D as much as he does. And you are the one who, in the other thread, is saying that hit points, and mechanics more generally, _must_ be correlated with ingame causal processes.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> And you are the one who, in the other thread, is saying that hit points, and mechanics more generally, _must_ be correlated with ingame causal processes.



Hit Points and other game mechanics _must_ correlate with in-game causal processes if you are to maintain internal causality, because the game mechanics inform (at least some of) the things that happen in-game. By definition of "correlation".

Not everyone is required to care about maintaining internal causality. Some people prioritize making a fun game, or telling a cool story.


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## pemerton (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Hit Points and other game mechanics _must_ correlate with in-game causal processes if you are to maintain internal causality



Only for a particular, somewhat idiosyncratic notion of "internal causality", which probably already includes the notion of "mechanics correlating with in-game causal processes".

In your post above, you noted that the gameworld is not less believable because the NPCs charge the fighter. In other words, using CaGI it doesn't undermine the consistency of internal causality - there is nothing that we knew about the gameworld that makes it causally improbable, or impossible, that the NPCs would charge the fighter.

To conclude that CaGI it violates internal causality, you need to add some additional interpretive idea, such as that a decision by the player counts as a decision by the character. But that is just a particular application of the general correlation thesis. Of course if you affirm it the more general thesis will follow; but that tautology doesn't show that correlation is the only way to maintain internal causality.

The other way you do it is, as you identified in relation to CaGI, to make sure that no action declarations generate outcomes that causally contradict the already-established state of the fiction. Because, in RPGing, so little of the fiction is ever actually specified in detail at one time, it turns out that this task (of avoiding causal contradictions) isn't that hard.


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## Emerikol (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> You asked about a 'happy solution,' and, very honestly, I replied that the happy solution would have been to adopt a live-and-let-live attitude back in 2008.



So you get to keep the D&D name and the rest of us can go play the off brand.  Even though every edition prior to yours was designed with our own preferences more in mind.  If D&D wants to buy out Pathfinder or start openly supporting 3.5e again then we could agree on this point. 




Tony Vargas said:


> Fans of 3.5 have been playing well-supported 3.5 all this time - they could have done so without the edition war.



The edition war was about a bunch of brand new ways of doing mechanics that people didn't like.  Saying you don't like them and then getting viciously attacked was the edition war.   Sure a few people were perhaps too vociferous in their statements of dislike but people saying the dislike the current edition for X reasons did not start a war.



Tony Vargas said:


> Of course they're major changes.  3e made major changes, too.  For the most part, both were very much for the better - and long overdue, since D&D had been stagnating for 20 years.



While I agree that 3e had some philosophical changes, 4e had a completely new philosophy.  There is a difference.   And to be honest, I dislike most of the philosophical changes in 3e except for the idea that the game should be a system and not a list of rules exceptions.



Tony Vargas said:


> That you keep thinking I'm a 'narrativist' because you identify as a 'simulationist' and figure it's the opposite shows just how little you understand the issues, even after /years/ of this back and forth.




It doesn't matter.  Tony's way or Emerikol's way.  Call it whatever you want.   It's obvious that 4e introduced a bunch of new things that cause half the playerbase to jump ship.  Classify those things however you like.


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## ExploderWizard (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Correct. This is exactly how you run a game based on fiction and genre first, with the mechanics subordinate to that and used to allow players to choose genre-appropriate narratives that fit within whatever parameters the mechanics might determine.




Except for those playing a game instead of telling a story. In that case the mechanics are subordinate to the setting and the situation. The narrative/fiction is a byproduct of actual play not the purpose of it.


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## TwoSix (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Sure. For many of us D&D becaomse a better game with 4e. What's your point?



He has the silent majority of 4e-haters behind him, of course.


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## Emerikol (Aug 8, 2014)

Let's clarify.   

Many of the ideas and methodologies put forth by 4e were upstart ideas in the world of D&D.  4e specifically closed off avenues of play available in every single other edition of D&D.   That was my point and it was an explanation of why people had an emotional reaction to that edition.   

It was an upstart design philosophy.  I am aware and have been that some people even from the earliest days of D&D loved 4e.  I've wondered in _*some*_ cases if they were self hating masochists all those years prior to 4e from the way they talk about those earlier editions.   

The irritation for me is that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to hijack a popular brand primarily to assure a less popular way of playing is available to a subset of people even if that means knocking D&D off it's #1 sales position.

My point about indie games and others is that they've been targeting other playstyles for some time.  They realize that D&D owns the middle of the road player so they target the fringe interests on purpose.   In some cases those fringes are big but still fringe relative to D&D.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> Let's clarify.
> 
> Many of the ideas and methodologies put forth by 4e were upstart ideas in the world of D&D.  4e specifically closed off avenues of play available in every single other edition of D&D.   That was my point and it was an explanation of why people had an emotional reaction to that edition.



 You say 'upstart.'  I say 'innovative.'  Obviously, I think my loaded term is closer to the truth than your loaded term.  

Maybe 'new?'  

Then again, maybe all three terms miss the mark.  It's not like anything 4e did was that innovative for the industry, just new to D&D.



> It was an upstart design philosophy.  I am aware and have been that some people even from the earliest days of D&D loved 4e.  I've wondered in _*some*_ cases if they were self hating masochists all those years prior to 4e from the way they talk about those earlier editions.



 It's true that D&D stagnated for a long time before 2000 when 3.0 finally shook things up and adopted a coherent 'core system' (d20), like Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying, GURPS, Hero, d6, Interlock and so forth had in 80s.  But, if you loved the game, knew it really well, and were always tinkering with it, that stagnation was far from intolerable.  



> The irritation for me is that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to hijack a popular brand primarily to assure a less popular way of playing is available to a subset of people even if that means knocking D&D off it's #1 sales position.



 Interesting conspiracy theory.  Who were these upstart hijackers?  4e was created by WotC (not an 'upstart' unless 3.0 was created by upstarts, as well) developed by Rob Heinsoo (who had been playing D&D since 1974 - one of that cohort of gamers you asserted, upthread, 'own' D&D), James Wyatt (also a gamer since the 70s, starting with D&D and getting into writing for D&D starting in '94), and Andy Collins (also starting his gaming career with 0D&D at an early age, and working for WotC since '96).   Nobody hijacked D&D.  They tried to improve on it, using the feedback provided by the community at the time (the 3.5 era).  It's hardly surprising they focused on balancing the game, reining in casters and finally giving the fighter some nice things - you weren't on the old Gleemax boards paging through "Fighter SUX!" threads, so maybe you don't realize what that feedback must have been like.

Then, as now, they were trying to deliver a game that would, hopefully, be successful.  The bar for success, thanks to certain WotC/Hasbro politics might have been a /lot/ higher, but they were aiming to make the game better and more successful in both cases.

Still, I can see how that change (even if technically for the better in many ways) was not what a lot of folks wanted.  The 'happy solution' to that divergence still could have been to live-and-let live, with 3.5 fans continuing to enjoy ongoing support for their favorite game, and 4e fans able to enjoy the somewhat more modernized version of the same game unmolested.




Emerikol said:


> So you get to keep the D&D name and the rest of us can go play the off brand.  Even though every edition prior to yours was designed with our own preferences more in mind.  If D&D wants to buy out Pathfinder or start openly supporting 3.5e again then we could agree on this point.



No, WotC keeps the D&D name, because they own it.  

D&D 3.5 remains D&D 3.5 - Pathfinder is just among the 3pp product lines offering ongoing support for it.  AD&D is still D&D too.  Playing Pathfinder is no less playing D&D than playing AD&D with lots of house rules.  Even 4e is still D&D, in spite of the edition war and being superseded by 5e  - it's just D&D that can't be legally cloned & supported going forward the Paizo is doing for 3.5 with Pathfinder.



> The edition war was about a bunch of brand new ways of doing mechanics that people didn't like.  Saying you don't like them and then getting viciously attacked was the edition war.   Sure a few people were perhaps too vociferous in their statements of dislike but people saying the dislike the current edition for X reasons did not start a war.



Sure for the sake of hypothetical amity, let's pretend the war really was 'started' by the defenders.  My answer to your 'happy solution' question still stands:  adopt a live-and-let-live attitude in 2008.  So, imagine that the defenders in the edition war weren't impolite in pointing out the hyperbole and inaccuracy in the attacks on 4e, and the attackers, therefor, stated their case and let it lie rather than escalating, and instead went back to enjoying 3.5 and all it's 3pp products.

Wouldn't that have been a solution?  Both sides have what they want:  a game that matches their preferences.  Neither side claims imagined 'ownership' of D&D - it's legally WotC IP, afterall.  How would that not have been a positive outcome?



> While I agree that 3e had some philosophical changes, 4e had a completely new philosophy.



 If you want to talk philosophy, there were not a lot of philosophical changes from 3e to 4e.  Both were fairly player-focused and rule-focused - one reason you had the unlikely alliance of 3.5 fanatics and grognards who hated 3.5 on the same side of the edition war.  The main tweak was abandoning the idea of 'rewarding system mastery' in favor of more consistent balance.



> And to be honest, I dislike most of the philosophical changes in 3e except for the idea that the game should be a system and not a list of rules exceptions.



 Not one I really noticed in 3e, actually.  It consolidated a bunch of rules into the d20 core mechanic, which was a great idea, making the system more approachable, clear & consistent - a trend 4e continued and which even 5e hasn't entirely abandoned (just more sorta started over as if it were 2000 again).



> It doesn't matter.  Tony's way or Emerikol's way.



 Seriously, I don't claim anything as 'my way.'  I don't play in just one style, so I don't feel threatened when one style is no longer 'supported' (over-rewareded) at the expense of another.   I appreciate the things 3e and 4e did well - and the things D&D has always done well in all editions.  I'm not advocating for a style of philosophy, I'm just a hobbyist who's more than a little analytical and pedantic, and who dives into the minutia of the system, including looking critically at it's quality.  That often puts me at odds with people who use other criteria for judgement - even to the point that I find myself arguing against both those criticizing a version of D&D (for unsupportable or invalid or questionable reasons), and those boosting it (using similarly flawed reasoning or just out of unquestioning enthusiasm).  

I do have an affection for that first RPG that brought me into the hobby, so yeah, I spend more of my time on it rather than other, more innovative or more diligently designed systems that might be more deserving.  I'm not immune to a little emotionalism, either.  



> It's obvious that 4e introduced a bunch of new things that cause half the playerbase to jump ship.  Classify those things however you like.



 Jumping ship remained the choice of that faction, nothing 4e did could force anyone to do anything.  5e has reversed a lot of the progress made by D&D in the last 14 years, and has only a few bright spots here and there to give us cause to hope that it'll ever get back on track.  From my PoV, that's a larger and more negative change than anything you could find, or even imagine, between 3e and 4e.  I'm not jumping ship.  Next week we do character generation for the new Encounters season and my table will be 5e, thankyouverymuch, and I hope my running it and trying to create the best first experience for the players I get helps my FLGS sell some PHs and maybe even ushers some new folks into the hobby.   Even though, thanks to the reactionary fallout of the edition war, that system may be making it /harder/ to deliver that experience in some ways -  I've run successful sessions with far worse rulesets.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> I don't think we're too different in our goals, except in that I <em>need</em> consistent rules for PCs and NPCs in order to establish context.
> 
> If my character has Athletics/Climbing +15, then what does that mean? She has an 80% chance to climb a wall that's DC 20. So what does that mean? Where does it come from? Why is the bonus +15, and not +10 or +20? Is +15 even <em>good</em>? What's the default chance for some random merchant to climb a wall?
> 
> If the answer, anywhere in there, comes down to the fact that my character is a PC rather than an NPC, then that's a problem. The designation of PC or NPC isn't a thing that exists in-game, (unless it's something like Exalted, where it does). Attributing an in-game characteristic to an out-of-game factor would violate causality, and it's literally impossible for me to suspend disbelief that far and still take the game seriously.




Oh, I definitely agree that if you're going to have a resolution mechanic for NPCs then it should mirror the resolution mechanic for PCs. That's not really what I was referring to.

Take a game like Dread for example. It's a horror game where the resolution mechanic is if the PC tries to do something that the GM thinks may succeed or fail, then they pull a block from a Jenga tower. If the tower falls then the PC dies. If the tower doesn't fall and they get the block then the PC succeeds. The GM never pulls because there would be no tension there. In fact, the GM pulling would draw away from the player tension, thus going against the goal of creating a frightening game mechanic. The GM simply isn't participating on the same level as the PCs.

In a game like that, where there is only one resolution mechanic and it is either success/death, then NPCs have no resolution mechanic at all. So, the GM has to make decisions on what happens with NPCs. But, he isn't making these decisions in a vacuum. The goal of the game is _genre emulation_, which means the GM is actually constrained by tropes of the genre. The GM tries to match what they think would happen if the group was watching a horror film of the appropriate type, mood, style, etc. that the group is trying to emulate. Thus, you don't need a resolution mechanic for NPCs so not having one doesn't really detract from the experience.



ExploderWizard said:


> Except for those playing a game instead of telling a story. In that case the mechanics are subordinate to the setting and the situation. The narrative/fiction is a byproduct of actual play not the purpose of it.




I'm an avid boardgamer. I _love_ boardgames! I record every play with who was playing, who won, and by how much in a record book.

You know why I play RPGs, though? Because they have fiction associated with them. They have plots and intrigue and characters interacting in amazing and unpredictable ways. They have plot lines that can come up, drop off for a while, then leap back and kick you in the face. They have monsters that are more than just pieces moving around a board, and player characters who can interact with all these story elements that I just described in any way they want. Roleplaying games are awesome _because_ of the story for me.

Because what you end up with at the end of the night isn't just a line in my book. It's a story. That's the entire point for me.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

pemerton said:


> In your post above, you noted that the gameworld is not less believable because the NPCs charge the fighter. In other words, using CaGI it doesn't undermine the consistency of internal causality - there is nothing that we knew about the gameworld that makes it causally improbable, or impossible, that the NPCs would charge the fighter.



The controversy with CaGI isn't necessarily that it violates causality, just in itself. The controversy with CaGI is that it gives player some authorship power, in violation of maintaining actor-stance, which some players care strongly about. You _need_ that authorship power, in order to _maintain_ internal consistency.

And that authorship power is limited by in-game circumstances that the _character_ controls. So, in a very literal sense, the determination of whether or not these chumps will fall for your feint is in a _causal_ relationship with whether or not the player _character_ has completed the requisite rest. If the PC didn't have that rest, then the enemy background motivation will not be such that it will fall for the feint; if the PC did, then the enemy _will_ be the type of person who will fall for it.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> This is getting off topic, though. We all agree that there are different ways to play the game, and I have yet to see that 5E will exclude either side.



 Sadly, in a lot of ways.  

5e fails the sim 'purist for system' approach by being so Rulings-not-rules DM-driven (on which count it also presumably fails 'gamists').  It fails the verisimilitude/meat-hp crowd with Second Wind and HD and overnight healing. 

Prettymuch, as with every edition, it 'fails' anyone not willing to cut it a tiny bit of slack.

(It's also got a tough path to balance and modularity, given the basic structure we've seen so far, but that's less about how you play the game, and more about qualities of the system, itself.)



> Unless you want fighters to pull off the kind of mythic stunts they do in legend, of course. Those people are missing out.



 Well, /of course/ we want fighters to pull off epic stunts from myth, legend, literature and the broader fantasy genre!  CaGI, for instance, neatly models a classic genre bit.  You've got your Inigo Montoya, right there.  It's great stuff.  It's gone from 5e, and there's very little to indicate that much of it may be coming back with the Battlemaster.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

ThirdWizard said:


> Take a game like Dread for example. It's a horror game where the resolution mechanic is if the PC tries to do something that the GM thinks may succeed or fail, then they pull a block from a Jenga tower. If the tower falls then the PC dies. If the tower doesn't fall and they get the block then the PC succeeds. The GM never pulls because there would be no tension there. In fact, the GM pulling would draw away from the player tension, thus going against the goal of creating a frightening game mechanic. The GM simply isn't participating on the same level as the PCs.



I'm familiar with Dread, and it falls squarely into the category of "story games that I can't take seriously". I would hesitate to even call it a role-playing game, since so much of it is governed by you-the-player rather than the character itself. It's not even so much that the ever-increasing chance of failure would bother me, as much as the tangible feeling that _my_ skill at Jenga is what governs the game resolution. It's like if my skill at _dice rolling_ was a factor in how well I did at D&D.

Which isn't to say that it's a bad game, of course. It's just not one that I can take seriously as a role-playing game. Kind of like Feng Shui (although that one is for different reasons entirely).


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> 5e fails the sim 'purist for system' approach by being so Rulings-not-rules DM-driven (on which count it also presumably fails 'gamists').  It fails the verisimilitude/meat-hp crowd with Second Wind and HD and overnight healing.



I'm still holding out hope that the modular healing dials will be able to salvage it from a meat-point perspective.


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## ThirdWizard (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> I'm familiar with Dread, and it falls squarely into the category of "story games that I can't take seriously". I would hesitate to even call it a role-playing game, since so much of it is governed by you-the-player rather than the character itself. It's not even so much that the ever-increasing chance of failure would bother me, as much as the tangible feeling that _my_ skill at Jenga is what governs the game resolution. It's like if my skill at _dice rolling_ was a factor in how well I did at D&D.
> 
> Which isn't to say that it's a bad game, of course. It's just not one that I can take seriously as a role-playing game. Kind of like Feng Shui (although that one is for different reasons entirely).




If you'll be at DragonCon, I invite you to play a game of Dread with me!

But, if Dread is too out there, another example might be Dungeon World. In DW, the resolution mechanic is 2d6+mod with 6 or lower being failure, 7-9 being success at a cost, and 10+ being total success.

Only players make rolls. The GM never picks up dice. If a monster is trying to hit a player with its claws, the PC might fight back, which would indicate a Hack & Slash move (roll+STR). On a very basic level*, you might say that on a 6- the monster hits, on a 7-9 they hit each other, and on a 10+ the PC hits. If a PC tries to climb a dangerous cliff, they might also make a roll+STR. On a 6- they fall, on a 7-9 they can climb but something goes wrong (say - they drop some of their things halfway up), and on a 10+ they reach the summit.

Since the GM never rolls, then if an NPC tries to climb the cliff, there is no resolution mechanic for that. A PC might try to intervene, in which they may roll. But, there is no method for the GM to determine success/failure for an NPC on his own other than using the fiction of the game to decide whether or not it makes sense for the NPC to reach the top. The same would be true of the old man hiding from the goblin.

You may also not like Dungeon World, and even though it is my favorite RPG _ever_ I will not hold that against you. I don't like GURPS but I am thrilled other people do, so that would be pretty hypocritical!

I'm not trying to convince you of anything in particular, by the way. I just find all of this fascinating.

* This is a very simplified system. Dungeon World is far more varied than what I've outlined here.


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## Mort (Aug 8, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Well, /of course/ we want fighters to pull off epic stunts from myth, legend, literature and the broader fantasy genre!  CaGI, for instance, neatly models a classic genre bit.  You've got your Inigo Montoya, right there.  It's great stuff.  It's gone from 5e, and there's very little to indicate that much of it may be coming back with the Battlemaster.




Actually, a battlemaster fighter can start with (an admittedly nerfed) version of CaGi. If they hit a creature and expend a superiority die that creature must make a wisdom save. On a failed save that creature suffers disadvantage when attacking anything other than the fighter until the fighters next turn. Not quite the same - and only a single target, but it's available as early as 3rd level and it is a sign that the designers are willing to go there.


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## evileeyore (Aug 8, 2014)

Emerikol said:


> So you get to keep the D&D name and the rest of us can go play the off brand.



/spittake

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ahah... oh man...  haha... woooo...heh.

Now I get it.




Saelorn said:


> It's not even so much that the ever-increasing chance of failure would bother me, as much as the tangible feeling that _my_ skill at Jenga is what governs the game resolution. *It's like if my skill at dice rolling was a factor in how well I did at D&D.*



It is.  You probably simply fall into the statistical middle, you roll adequately.  Some people almost always roll hot.  I am the opposite.  For some reason when I toss the dice the results tend to be terrible.  I roll below 9 on a d20 almost 75% of the time.

It's why I try to play characters that either never have to rollt he dice (Wizzies) or can bene stack (Rogues) when I play D&D.

The next time you play ask yourself this question every time you roll:  If every my every roll were a failure (or just abysmal for damage), would my character still be "succeeding"?


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> It is.  You probably simply fall into the statistical middle, you roll adequately.  Some people almost always roll hot.  I am the opposite.  For some reason when I toss the dice the results tend to be terrible.  I roll below 9 on a d20 almost 75% of the time.



Every edition of D&D has treated the dice as a purely random  element. If your method of rolling produces a noticeably biased result, over a significant sample size, then you're doing it wrong.


evileeyore said:


> The next time you play ask yourself this question every time you roll:  If every my every roll were a failure (or just abysmal for damage), would my character still be "succeeding"?



It's certainly possible to hedge your bets if you're "feeling unlucky", but I would not be playing such a probability-based game if I truly believed that my chance of success varied significantly from what the math says.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Mort said:


> Actually, a battlemaster fighter can start with (an admittedly nerfed) version of CaGi. If they hit a creature and expend a superiority die that creature must make a wisdom save. On a failed save that creature suffers disadvantage when attacking anything other than the fighter until the fighters next turn. Not quite the same - and only a single target, but it's available as early as 3rd level and it is a sign that the designers are willing to go there.



 That's nothing like CaGi, but it /is/ comparable to the 'mark' that all 4e fighters could apply automatically every time they made an attack roll, at all levels.  (The mark was -2, which is not as big an effect as disadvantage, but, again, automatically applied with every attack, not expend a short-rest-resource and only work on a failed save - /and/ the fighter also had a feature that 'punished' an enemy ignoring the mark with an immediate attack).

Now, that looks like an insane nerf, on the surface, but I can see the game-design necessity behind it... under certain assumptions.

/If/ the designers are still using traditional roles 'behind the curtain,' then the role of the fighter, is indisputably that of high DPR.  And, /if/ there is another class (Paladin, perhaps?) that has the closet role of 'tank,' and is supposed to be better than the fighter at locking enemies into fighting it, then it would make sense to profoundly nerf this vestigial fighter's mark like that.  By the same token, a Striker Fighter has little call for a maneuver like C&GI.  It's a maneuver that can kill a lot of trivial monsters over an area, which is little more of a controller thing (though controllers rarely want enemies next to them), and it's a /very/ potent defender ability, since it draws multiple enemies /to/ you, and, as a defender, you're supposed to be difficult to disengage from. 

Otherwise, yeah, it's just another example of the double-standard being redoubled.  The fighter goes from hundreds of maneuvers to 16, restricted to one sub-class, and those maneuvers are nerfed by comparison even to automatic class features.  The wizard not only goes back to casting lots of Vancian spells, he casts them spontaneously, /and/ keeps his at-will attack spells.  Even if there is a deep, arcane (pi) game-design reason for such a profound disparity, no one could honestly deny how bad it looks on the surface.


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## billd91 (Aug 8, 2014)

Hussar said:


> Y'know, I never thought of that Manbearcat.  it's a good point.  Memorization and casting is supposed to be difficult.  So difficult that you require extensive training to do it.  But, once you've had that training, you absolutely cannot ever fail to succeed in doing it (unless something outside prevents you) every time you try.  But a rogue trying to hide, despite his extensive training in it, fails fairly often.
> 
> It is a good point.  Why is "extensive training" acceptable in one case for automatic success, but not in others?




Different contexts. A character, whether rogue or not, hiding is hiding *in relation to an outside observer*. If not, what's he hiding from?
A spellcaster memorizing his spells is not doing something to be affected by an outside observer - unless one is inserted into the situation, something that's an option occurrence. Same, ultimately, with spellcasting. The spell will be successfully cast - unless he gets interrupted by someone.


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## billd91 (Aug 8, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> So require casters to make an arcana check to successfully cast any spell, and base the DC on spell level. Problem solved. I wouldn't object to playing in a game with that as a house rule.




I think I would. If we had a rule like that, we get into lack of parity in the other direction. Does a fighter need to make a check to even swing his sword? No, he doesn't. He has to make a check to fully affect his target, not start the action. Contrast with a wizard - most spells that affect people have some kind of check involved too - a to hit roll for pinpoint targeted spells, a save for ones that affect an area.


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## billd91 (Aug 8, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> /spittake
> 
> Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... ahah... oh man...  haha... woooo...heh.
> 
> Now I get it.




I doubt it.

It's identity. Identity. Identity.
The edition wars, at their core, are about fighting over the definition of D&D and the identity of being a D&D player.


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## Mort (Aug 8, 2014)

billd91 said:


> I think I would. If we had a rule like that, we get into lack of parity in the other direction. Does a fighter need to make a check to even swing his sword? No, he doesn't. He has to make a check to fully affect his target, not start the action.




A fighter has to make a to-hit roll to affect the target in any way. Miss the roll and the rest is a non-starter, damage on a miss is pretty controversial!



billd91 said:


> Contrast with a wizard - most spells that affect people have some kind of check involved too - a to hit roll for pinpoint targeted spells, a save for ones that affect an area.




Mages have many, many spells that are auto effect (certainly in 3.5 still have to peruse the 5e spell list to see how that hold true in 5), one does not have to work too hard to rarely if ever trigger a to hit roll or a save.

There's just no chance to screw the magic up. Once you know it is simply "always works." That's always sat badly with me considering it's supposed to be both difficult and mysterious.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 8, 2014)

Mort said:


> There's just no chance to screw the magic up. Once you know it is simply "always works." That's always sat badly with me considering it's supposed to be both difficult and mysterious.



 Did you like Wild Magic?  That put some randomness into it.

You could replace attacks and saves with a magic check (d20 + prof + caster stat mod).  You'd have to match a DC based on spell level or the spell fizzles (on a 1 maybe it backfires or the slot is expended or both), the roll is also compared against the target's AC or - wow - 14+save bonus to make it mathematically equal to the 8+Prof+Stat DC! (or, if you want to preserve the saving throw mechanic, the DC could be 8 + the result of the check in excess of the DC to cast the spell - which wouldn't be mathematically identical, no opposed check can be).  The spell has basically the same chance of succeeding, but also a chance of not expending the slot and doing nothing if you fail badly - and a tiny chance of blowing up in your face.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 8, 2014)

Mort said:


> There's just no chance to screw the magic up. Once you know it is simply "always works." That's always sat badly with me considering it's supposed to be both difficult and mysterious.



I've thought about this a lot, for my own games, and the conclusion I reach is that it's simply not worth the effort. With the way that D&D limits spell slots by level, it just doesn't make sense to _also_ impose a base chance of outright failure for each spell, from a game playability standpoint. Adding an extra success roll to every spell would just make the game slightly slower and more complicated, with the only benefit being that sometimes the wizard "does nothing" for the round. It would have to be a pretty small chance to fizzle, too, due to math and the fact that there's still the attack roll (or saving throw) to deal with, and at that point it's just redundant.

The difficulty of magic is represented by the effort required to gain levels of Wizard, and in the older editions, by the minimum Int score required to cast a spell.


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## Mort (Aug 8, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> I've thought about this a lot, for my own games, and the conclusion I reach is that it's simply not worth the effort. With the way that D&D limits spell slots by level, it just doesn't make sense to _also_ impose a base chance of outright failure for each spell, from a game playability standpoint. Adding an extra success roll to every spell would just make the game slightly slower and more complicated, with the only benefit being that sometimes the wizard "does nothing" for the round. It would have to be a pretty small chance to fizzle, too, due to math and the fact that there's still the attack roll (or saving throw) to deal with, and at that point it's just redundant.
> 
> The difficulty of magic is represented by the effort required to gain levels of Wizard, and in the older editions, by the minimum Int score required to cast a spell.




The concentration mechanic and the significantly less spells per day of 5e may work for me on this. Will have to see how it plays out with the group. As you said, I have little desire to inject more complication and delay into the game.

One thing I've noticed (unless I just missed it so far) no item creation feats in the PHB! This also will go a long way for me, as I hated the scroll for every occasion wizard (essentially nullifying the at-will advantage of the rogue or the fighter). The few times I got to play (instead of DM) the DM gave enough down time that scrolls were just too good an option.


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## evileeyore (Aug 8, 2014)

billd91 said:


> I doubt it.
> 
> It's identity. Identity. Identity.
> The edition wars, at their core, are about fighting over the definition of D&D and the identity of being a D&D player.



Oh no, I got it.  I missed the Crisis on Infinite RPGS so I never understood why anyone would want to be an Edition Warrior.

Now I get it.  And it's dumb.


----------



## pemerton (Aug 9, 2014)

ExploderWizard said:


> Except for those playing a game instead of telling a story. In that case the mechanics are subordinate to the setting and the situation. The narrative/fiction is a byproduct of actual play not the purpose of it.



I'm confused.

I referred to "a game based on fiction and genre first, with the mechanics subordinate to that ". And now you're telling me that "a game [in which the] mechanics are subordinate to the setting and the situation" is something radically different? It looks to me like its synomymous.

We both refer to the mechanics being subordinate to something - so no difference there.

I have described the thing to which the mechanics are subordinate as "fiction and genre". You have described it as "setting and situation". I don't see how these are different - what is the fiction, after all, other than "setting and situation"? What do you think is at stake in contrasting "setting and situation" - both imagined things, containing fictional elements - with "fiction and genre" - which denotes an assemblage of imagined things conceived of through a certain genre lense?

Also, I refer you to this PbP thread, of the DungeonWorld game I am currently playing. Can you please explain how this is _not_ playing a game? If you can't, then can you please stop misdescribing the activity of other roleplayers - it's needlessly rude.



Emerikol said:


> Many of the ideas and methodologies put forth by 4e were upstart ideas in the world of D&D.



It just baffles me that you can't see that this is hugely contentious.

When I look at Gygax's AD&D, I see a game full of fortune-in-the-middle mechanics: initiative and action economy in combat; hit points; saving throws. Plus metagame devices to regulate PC building and advancement: classes, levels, XP-for-gold. Except for class and level, I think, Gygax _expressly_ calls these out as mechanics that are not meant to model ingame causal processes, but are imposed on the game from the "outside" so as to make for a fun game.

In a Dragon magazine article (I don't have the cite, but it's been frequenlty posted on this forum) he explained that the rationale for the spell system was game balance: ie it was also about game play, rather than faithfully modelling an ingame "reality".

4e doesn't change any of these features of the game. In the case of hit points, it builds on the FitM character of hp as described by Gygax. In the case of action economy, it introduces more interrupts and reactions to produce a resut that is closer to continuous motion, while preserving a FitM action economy. In the case of PC build, it preserves the use of class and level as devics for facilitating game play, while also further developing unifying tendencies in 3E (eg uniform XP chart).

The biggest changes in class build are: (i) no rolling for hit points (I think 3E already made provision for this, didn't it?); (ii) higher hit points at 1st level (not unlike Hackmaster); (iii) wizards and clerics have much-circumscribed spell lists; (iv) martial characters all have rationed abilities.

AD&D had rationed martial abilities too - eg no more than 1 try ever to BB/LG, no more than 1 try per level to open a lock, etc. But they weren't rationed on a per-time basis. But 3E did have examples of per-time rationing, eg in Sword & Fist there was some feat or prestige class ability that allowed a more powerful charge N times per day; and the Stunning Fist allowed the ability to be used N times per day; and these were both martial, not magical abilities).

None of these was an "upstart idea" except perhaps for the restrictions on caster spell lists.



Emerikol said:


> 4e specifically closed off avenues of play available in every single other edition of D&D.



And it opened up avenues of play that other editions had encouraged in their guidelines but had tended to block with their mechanics.



Emerikol said:


> The irritation for me is that there seems to be a deliberate attempt to hijack a popular brand primarily to assure a less popular way of playing is available to a subset of people even if that means knocking D&D off it's #1 sales position.



Are you serious? WotC is a commercial publisher. It set out to publish books that it hoped to sell. Do you really think that they would have stopped publishing 3E if they hadn't concluded it wasn't making enough money for them?


----------



## pemerton (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> that authorship power is limited by in-game circumstances that the _character_ controls. So, in a very literal sense, the determination of whether or not these chumps will fall for your feint is in a _causal_ relationship with whether or not the player _character_ has completed the requisite rest. If the PC didn't have that rest, then the enemy background motivation will not be such that it will fall for the feint; if the PC did, then the enemy _will_ be the type of person who will fall for it.



The authorship power is limited by a real-world constraint: the GM declaring that a short rest has been completed. In game, the question of whether or not the PC has rested for 5 minutes is determined by a whole host of things, of which the PC's choice to rest is only one.

The idea that an ingame event causes a metagame event (refreshing an authorship power) makes no sense: the metagame event really happens, but the ingame events are purely imaginary and therefore cannot cause real things to happen.



Saelorn said:


> I'm familiar with Dread, and it falls squarely into the category of "story games that I can't take seriously". I would hesitate to even call it a role-playing game, since so much of it is governed by you-the-player rather than the character itself.



This is like me hesitating to call Gygax's Greyhawk game an RPG because it is basically _all_ governed by "you the player" rather than the character.

I don't understand this obsession of some RPGers to label RPGs they personally don't like "not really an RPG"



Saelorn said:


> It's like if my skill at _dice rolling_ was a factor in how well I did at D&D.



Well, in many versions of D&D your skill as a tactician, as a mathematician, etc factor into how well you do.



billd91 said:


> Different contexts. A character, whether rogue or not, hiding is hiding *in relation to an outside observer*. If not, what's he hiding from?
> A spellcaster memorizing his spells is not doing something to be affected by an outside observer - unless one is inserted into the situation, something that's an option occurrence. Same, ultimately, with spellcasting. The spell will be successfully cast - unless he gets interrupted by someone.



So why, then, is a check required to climb or balance (no opponent), to remember stuff (no opponent), to pick a lock or disable a trap (no opponent), etc?



Saelorn said:


> I've thought about this a lot, for my own games, and the conclusion I reach is that it's simply not worth the effort. With the way that D&D limits spell slots by level, it just doesn't make sense to _also_ impose a base chance of outright failure for each spell, from a game playability standpoint.



Why is "game playability" a reason not to require a check for wizards, but not a reason to allow various non-magical PCs to do stuff without checking. After all, the number of locks, narrow ledges etc is also going to be finite.



Saelorn said:


> Adding an extra success roll to every spell would just make the game slightly slower and more complicated, with the only benefit being that sometimes the wizard "does nothing" for the round.



Of course, this is exactly the argument for DoaM.

I don't understand why, when it comes to wizards, considerations of balance and playability trump considerations of verisimilitude and modelling ingame processes, but when it comes to fighters the latter sorts of considerations trump the former. I believe this is what the OP meant by a "double standard".


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## Campbell (Aug 9, 2014)

Here's my thing : I get why some people don't like 4e. I really do, but much of the criticism of the game is not directed at the game itself. Instead its aimed at people who like the features 4e provides. We are constantly being told how 4e split the fan base, and how not encouraging a world building oriented approach has created was done to please radicals (as if liking one pretend elf game over another makes one a dangerous thinker).  Honestly I'm not seeing much effort to bridge the community together. I feel like I'm being told to stop promoting the GMing principles and play techniques that work for me and embrace another set that work less well for me.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

pemerton said:


> Why is "game playability" a reason not to require a check for wizards, but not a reason to allow various non-magical PCs to do stuff without checking. After all, the number of locks, narrow ledges etc is also going to be finite.



I'm not against letting fighters and rogues do some stuff automatically. If it's a simple lock, then your rogue doesn't have to roll. If the ledge isn't _that_ narrow, then maybe your fighter doesn't need to roll to balance.

Of course, 3E handled that all by just taking 10. If you're good at something, and a 10 would let you succeed, then no roll is necessary. Note also that there has never been a version of D&D where a 1 was an automatic failure on a skill check (in any edition where skills have been a thing).

Non-magical PCs do stuff all the time, without requiring a check.

I'm also not opposed, from a playability standpoint, to having spellcaster make a check for things that don't also include opposed rolls - thinks like Knock or Raise Dead. Nor am I opposed to letting a spellcaster clearly _miss_ with a spell, to zero effect, when it can be justified within the narrative.

A major strength of the d20 is that you can resolve almost anything with a single die roll, or two at most (with one roll determining success/failure, and the second determining magnitude/damage). It's not something to be sacrificed lightly.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> The difficulty of magic is represented by the effort required to gain levels of Wizard, and in the older editions, by the minimum Int score required to cast a spell.



 The effort required to gain levels of Wizard is /exactly/ the same as the effort required to gain levels in any other class.  

5e has no INT score requirements.

Looks like magic is officially easy.  



Saelorn said:


> I'm not against letting fighters and rogues do some stuff automatically. If it's a simple lock, then your rogue doesn't have to roll. If the ledge isn't _that_ narrow, then maybe your fighter doesn't need to roll to balance.



  So, casters can automatically cast earth-shaking 9th level spells.  Non-casters can automatically do things that are trivially easy.

But there's no double-standard?

Also, skills aren't a fighter thing, they're a background thing - everyone has backgrounds.  



> Non-magical PCs do stuff all the time, without requiring a check.



 Sure, everyone does. That's how the 5e skill system works.  If the DM decides something is so easy you can't possibly screw it up, he doesn't call for a check.  Nothing to do with class whatsoever.  



> A major strength of the d20 is that you can resolve almost anything with a single die roll, or two at most (with one roll determining success/failure, and the second determining magnitude/damage). It's not something to be sacrificed lightly.



 Right now, most spells are simply automatic.  Adding a chance of failure on the caster side would still be resolving those spells with only one roll.  It could be the same roll as used to attack.  At that point, every spell gets resolved with a single die roll - or, at most, two if a save is called for.

Nothing sacrificed.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> The effort required to gain levels of Wizard is /exactly/ the same as the effort required to gain levels in any other class.



Right, but the Wizard doesn't gain as many Hit Points or Extra Attacks or anything. Gaining a level of Wizard is hard. It's exactly as hard as gaining a level of Fighter.

It's hard to gain levels. That's why there aren't a ton of high-level characters in the world.


Tony Vargas said:


> So, casters can automatically cast earth-shaking 9th level spells.  Non-casters can automatically do things that are trivially easy.
> 
> But there's no double-standard?



Casters _can't_ do the things that non-casters find trivially easy, because they aren't _objectively_ easy - they're only trivial compared to the great skill and talent of the character. High-end rogues have what? +15 to checks, and a minimum roll of 10? With that kind of setup, they can automatically succeed on a check that an untrained character can't even _attempt_​. And rogues get a lot of skills.


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## billd91 (Aug 9, 2014)

pemerton said:


> So why, then, is a check required to climb or balance (no opponent), to remember stuff (no opponent), to pick a lock or disable a trap (no opponent), etc?




You may notice that the wizard is affected by these as well - particularly the ability to remember stuff (with all of his knowledge checks that need rolling). And in cases in which the magic bypasses the failure, they're designed to be limited use (while the skills allow repeated trials) and often usable on the rogue as easily as on the wizard.

As far as whether you consider climb and balance to have opponents - I would think a climber might consider gravity and the hard ground after a plummet to be in opposition...


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Right, but the Wizard doesn't gain as many Hit Points or Extra Attacks or anything. Gaining a level of Wizard is hard. It's exactly as hard as gaining a level of Fighter.



 So it's not hard compared to gaining a level in any or every other class.  I mean, this made sense in AD&D when classes had different exp tables, but not since 3.0.



> Casters _can't_ do the things that non-casters find trivially easy, because they aren't _objectively_ easy - they're only trivial compared to the great skill and talent of the character.



 Skills are a function of backgrounds.  Choose the same background, get the same skills.  If something is so easy the DM doesn't call for a roll, it doesn't matter what your class is, just your skill check.



> I'm also not opposed, from a playability standpoint, to having spellcaster make a check for things that don't also include opposed rolls - thinks like Knock or Raise Dead. Nor am I opposed to letting a spellcaster clearly _miss_ with a spell, to zero effect, when it can be justified within the narrative.



 Since magic can do anything (or face any arbitrary restriction), it could always be justified (or not) in the narrative.  We can narratively justify casters having a chance of failing any spell at any time.  We can narratively justify them casting only rituals that take at least an hour and must be done under the light of the full moon, starting at midnight.  

So playability and balance are the only real considerations when dealing with magic.  Well, and genre emulation, perhaps.


----------



## ExploderWizard (Aug 9, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> It is.  You probably simply fall into the statistical middle, you roll adequately.  Some people almost always roll hot.  I am the opposite.  For some reason when I toss the dice the results tend to be terrible.  I roll below 9 on a d20 almost 75% of the time.
> 
> It's why I try to play characters that either never have to rollt he dice (Wizzies) or can bene stack (Rogues) when I play D&D.
> 
> The next time you play ask yourself this question every time you roll:  If every my every roll were a failure (or just abysmal for damage), would my character still be "succeeding"?




You need to play more OD&D.


----------



## evileeyore (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Every edition of D&D has treated the dice as a purely random  element. If your method of rolling produces a noticeably biased result, over a significant sample size, then you're doing it wrong.



Sigh.

It's that you don't even notice your logically fallacy that makes me weep for the future of the human race.



> It's certainly possible to hedge your bets if you're "feeling unlucky", but I would not be playing such a probability-based game if I truly believed that my chance of success varied significantly from what the math says.



Unlike you I prefer to do the things my friends enjoy, I just find ways to enjoy it as well.  Make a character that can ignore dice rolling (Wizard) or one that can stack bonuses so rolls become "easier' (Rogue).

Or just not play a different system where one can build characters differently.




ExploderWizard said:


> You need to play more OD&D.



I wish I had my original DM.  Two years of gaming and we almost never rolled dice.  It was a magical time.


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## Savage Wombat (Aug 9, 2014)

How many DMs assume, for world-building if not rules purposes, that most people could never actually learn magic, and you have to be born with the "talent" in some fashion?


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## billd91 (Aug 9, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> How many DMs assume, for world-building if not rules purposes, that most people could never actually learn magic, and you have to be born with the "talent" in some fashion?




Not necessarily born with the talent, per se, but it's a profession more rigorous than most and requires more general social development to support that particular specialization. So the numbers are a lot lower than fighters and rogues campaign wide.


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## Rod Staffwand (Aug 9, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Not necessarily born with the talent, per se, but it's a profession more rigorous than most and requires more general social development to support that particular specialization. So the numbers are a lot lower than fighters and rogues campaign wide.




An assumption undercut by the majority of classes/subclasses being casters and magic being the most effective solution to most challenges. The rules assume magic is rare and mysterious and yet do everything they can to turn it into a utilitarian trump card. Even 5E, which should know better has a whole introductory section that says:

1. Magic is rare.
2. Magic is essential.

Is the ability to wear heavy armor and deal lots of damage in combat rare or essential? Nope. Is the ability to climb walls, open locks or hide in shadows rare or essential? Nope. That's your double standard in a nutshell right there in B&W.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> It's that you don't even notice your logically fallacy that makes me weep for the future of the human race.



Please explain. I'm having a hard time understanding a fair die as anything other than a pseudo-random number generator.


----------



## evileeyore (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Please explain. I'm having a hard time understanding a fair die as anything other than a pseudo-random number generator.



That's all it is.

It's your declaration that if the dice are rolling badly for someone, they are doing it wrong that is moronic.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Since magic can do anything (or face any arbitrary restriction), it could always be justified (or not) in the narrative.  We can narratively justify casters having a chance of failing any spell at any time.  We can narratively justify them casting only rituals that take at least an hour and must be done under the light of the full moon, starting at midnight.



We could. We could make you succeed in an Intelligence (Spellcraft) check, with a DC based on the level of the spell, in order to cast any spell. I'm pretty sure that it would be bad for gameplay, though, since it would give most spells two independent chances to fail.

If you're familiar with any of those other systems where the attacker rolls to hit, and the defender can negate that with the roll to dodge, then you're probably familiar with the two ways that usually ends up: 1) the attack roll becomes superfluous as a near-certainty, or 2) there's a whole lot of whiffing going on.

What I was saying is that it's much harder to justify a Fireball, once successfully cast, that fails to have any effect whatsoever on someone in its area. It's been over a decade, and people still use Evasion as a punchline to certain jokes. Even if we wanted to remove damage-on-a-miss as a method to help balance spellcasters, it would be non-trivial from a narrative standpoint.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> It's your declaration that if the dice are rolling badly for someone, they are doing it wrong that is moronic.



No, it's perfectly possible to roll dice and have them come up badly. That's one of the expected outcomes of dice. It's why you're rolling dice in the first place, is because there's a chance that it might go badly.

What I can't understand is how you can attribute the probability of the dice to the person who is rolling them. Of all of the variables involved with how a die roll turns up, the person performing the physical motion is not a meaningful consideration (unless there's something shady going on).

It can't be the case that I roll adequately, and you roll poorly, because the outcome of dice is not a factor which can be attributed to individuals. Regardless of who throws a d20, there's a 50% chance that it will come up 11 or higher, with very little room for error.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> We could. We could make you succeed in an Intelligence (Spellcraft) check, with a DC based on the level of the spell, in order to cast any spell. I'm pretty sure that it would be bad for gameplay, though, since it would give most spells two independent chances to fail.



 There'd be no need for that, though.  The result of the check (which'll be proficiency + caster stat, exactly the same as making an attack roll with a spell in 5e) could simply be used as the attack roll, as well.  The better a job you do casting the spell, the more likely it hits.  Could also work for overcoming a save mathematically inverted to act as a defense, or to set the DC for a save (though, you'd have to be pretty careful with that, as it does become two rolls).



> What I was saying is that it's much harder to justify a Fireball, once successfully cast, that fails to have any effect whatsoever on someone in its area.



 Fireballs /can't/ fail to do damage, and one that's mis-cast isn't really a fireball, it's a failed attempt to create a fireball, so I don't see the objection.

Furthermore, magic can do (or be restricted arbitrarily) from doing anything.  A magical fireball doesn't have to act exactly like ordinary fire.  It could fail to burn someone 'pure of heart' or with 'great courage' (like Sigurd riding through the ring of fire), it all depends on how magic works in that universe (or even for that caster or that spell). 

So there's no issue at all with justifying a fireball that manifests, but does no damage to a particular target, even as it incinerates others and burns the surrounding scenery (or doesn't).

Indeed that goes anytime the 'demands of narrating magic' conflict with balance or playability - just change the narrative of the magic to suit.  That's prettymuch where Vancian came from.  Gygax realized that an artillery-like mage would be broken if it could fire frequently, so, daily slots.  By the time that got adapted to 9 spell levels and 18+ character levels, it was thoroughly broken, of course, but the original /reason/ was not wanting to model the Dying Earth, but wanting to include a payable implementation of magic in a medieval wargame.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Fireballs /can't/ fail to do damage, and one that's mis-cast isn't really a fireball, it's a failed attempt to create a fireball, so I don't see the objection.



I was thinking traditional usage, against massed foes. If you have nine orcs in a traditional Fireball formation, then it's hard to explain when the ones on the edges get burned and the ones near the middle are un-hurt.

I mean, you could do it. You could make up another layer to what's going on, like you suggested, but it might not be very satisfying in terms of gameplay if everything is always more complicated than it seems.


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## Morty (Aug 9, 2014)

The situation the OP describes is why I think non-magical heroic efforts should rely more on discrete abilities than just numbers.


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## Dannager (Aug 9, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> Sigh.
> 
> It's that you don't even notice your logically fallacy that makes me weep for the future of the human race.




In addition to being incredibly insulting, this is *pretty rich* coming from a guy who is convinced that, over years of playing D&D and rolling god-only-knows-how-many dice, he falls into anything but the "statistical middle".


----------



## Ranes (Aug 9, 2014)

pemerton said:


> If the thief only had to make a check for tightrope walking in extreme conditions I think we would have a greater degree of parity.




A fair point but one that others have already taken up in this thread, so I will return to my lurkdom for the time being.

Oh, but before I do, I'll tell you what; even taking into account my sporadic attention to this forum, I don't recall seeing a thread quite like this before, despite it being relevant to any number of editions. Fun, fun, fun!


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> I was thinking traditional usage, against massed foes. If you have nine orcs in a traditional Fireball formation, then it's hard to explain when the ones on the edges get burned and the ones near the middle are un-hurt.
> 
> I mean, you could do it. You could make up another layer to what's going on, like you suggested, but it might not be very satisfying in terms of gameplay if everything is always more complicated than it seems.



 Why would anything be un-hurt by a DoaSS attack like Fireball?


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Aug 9, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Why would anything be un-hurt by a DoaSS attack like Fireball?



That's what I'm saying. Part of the disparity between mundane and magical abilities comes from the narrative. 

Since we've decided that we want the wizard to throw around huge explosions, it's hard to come up with a reason why that _wouldn't_ be unavoidable; but any fighter is limited to mere swords and arrows, where it's hard to justify why it _would_ be unavoidable.

That's why there's a double standard.


----------



## Leatherhead (Aug 10, 2014)

Savage Wombat said:


> It suddenly occurs to me to mention that I have a game book somewhere that sets out a very sim version of magic rules.  Because it's based on how magic really works in the real world.
> 
> ... Let that sink in a moment.




It was probably written by someone with a history in cultural anthropology.


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## Hussar (Aug 10, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Different contexts. A character, whether rogue or not, hiding is hiding *in relation to an outside observer*. If not, what's he hiding from?
> A spellcaster memorizing his spells is not doing something to be affected by an outside observer - unless one is inserted into the situation, something that's an option occurrence. Same, ultimately, with spellcasting. The spell will be successfully cast - unless he gets interrupted by someone.




I would point out that adding in the "outside observer is a 3e and then 4e addition to the game.  The game worked just fine without that beforehand.


----------



## pemerton (Aug 10, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> it's much harder to justify a Fireball, once successfully cast, that fails to have any effect whatsoever on someone in its area.





Saelorn said:


> Since we've decided that we want the wizard to throw around huge explosions, it's hard to come up with a reason why that _wouldn't_ be unavoidable; but any fighter is limited to mere swords and arrows, where it's hard to justify why it _would_ be unavoidable.





Tony Vargas said:


> Furthermore, magic can do (or be restricted arbitrarily) from doing anything.  A magical fireball doesn't have to act exactly like ordinary fire.  It could fail to burn someone 'pure of heart' or with 'great courage' (like Sigurd riding through the ring of fire), it all depends on how magic works in that universe (or even for that caster or that spell).



Not only is Tony correct, but Gygax says just this in his discussion of saving throws in his PHB.

And to be honest, it's utterly trivial to justify a fighter's sword being unavoidable: it's unavoidable because the fighter is skilled.



Ranes said:


> even taking into account my sporadic attention to this forum, I don't recall seeing a thread quite like this before, despite it being relevant to any number of editions. Fun, fun, fun!



I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or sincere - if the former please accept my apologies, if the latter then happy to oblige!


----------



## Umbran (Aug 10, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> It's that you don't even notice your logically fallacy that makes me weep for the future of the human race.




Rude.  Take a few days off for your trouble.



Dannager said:


> In addition to being incredibly insulting, this is *pretty rich* coming from a guy who is convinced that, over years of playing D&D and rolling god-only-knows-how-many dice, he falls into anything but the "statistical middle".




Also rude.  

Folks, even if someone gets in your face -* DON'T MAKE IT PERSONAL*.  'Cause his being a jerk first will not be taken as an excuse by the moderating staff - you are always considered responsible for your own actions.  Do not continue or escalate conflicts - report the post and walk away.


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## Dannager (Aug 10, 2014)

Umbran said:


> Also rude.
> 
> Folks, even if someone gets in your face -* DON'T MAKE IT PERSONAL*.  'Cause his being a jerk first will not be taken as an excuse by the moderating staff - you are always considered responsible for your own actions.  Do not continue or escalate conflicts - report the post and walk away.




Sorry Umbran. Moment of weakness.


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## billd91 (Aug 10, 2014)

Hussar said:


> I would point out that adding in the "outside observer is a 3e and then 4e addition to the game.  The game worked just fine without that beforehand.




Even in 1e/2e, if you had nothing to hide from, what did it matter? Success and failure were meaningless until your actually had someone to successfully hide from or fail. Sure, you could have had a successful hide in shadows check, but it only really mattered if there was someone to hide from.


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## Hussar (Aug 10, 2014)

billd91 said:


> Even in 1e/2e, if you had nothing to hide from, what did it matter? Success and failure were meaningless until your actually had someone to successfully hide from or fail. Sure, you could have had a successful hide in shadows check, but it only really mattered if there was someone to hide from.




Well, of course.  But, your earlier point was that the difficulty of hiding was set by the fact that there is an outside observer.  That's what makes hiding different from, say, casting a spell.  Thing is, the difficulty of hiding is not set by the observer in AD&D, but that was something 3e added into the game.  It's the same difficulty hiding from a half blind orc as it is a sharp eyed Drow.  

The idea that something has to be more or less difficult isn't carved in stone.  After all, Batman never fails his hide check when he disappears after talking to Commissioner Gordon.  Random Mook #25 doesn't spot Batman.  Why?  Is he using magic?  Is his hide ability a super power?  Isn't Batman the archetype for a high level rogue?  Considering that in 3e, it's trivially easy for senses to improve faster than a hide check, you could make the argument that a higher level rogue actually has less of a chance to hide than a lower level one.

To be fair, that won't be quite so true in 5e, because stats are capped.


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## billd91 (Aug 11, 2014)

Hussar said:


> Well, of course.  But, your earlier point was that the difficulty of hiding was set by the fact that there is an outside observer.  That's what makes hiding different from, say, casting a spell.  Thing is, the difficulty of hiding is not set by the observer in AD&D, but that was something 3e added into the game.  It's the same difficulty hiding from a half blind orc as it is a sharp eyed Drow.




You misunderstand. I didn't say the difficulty was set by the outside observer. The difference between a half-blind orc or sharp eyed drow is a matter of specifics, but it wasn't germane to my post. Hiding is only meaningful in a situation in which there is an opposing viewpoint - someone you're hiding from.  

That isn't really there under most circumstances when a wizard is memorizing his spells so it doesn't really matter that the wizard can prep his spells without failure. Some form of opposition could be injected, but it isn't assumed to be there - unlike a character who is hiding where, by assumption, there needs to be some opposition. It doesn't really matter if that opposition is effective or ineffective, the difficultly low or high. The fact that it's there makes the situation not a good comparison with prepping spells - as was mentioned in the post I originally responded to.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 11, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> We could. We could make you succeed in an Intelligence (Spellcraft) check, with a DC based on the level of the spell, in order to cast any spell. I'm pretty sure that it would be bad for gameplay, though, since it would give most spells two independent chances to fail....
> 
> What I was saying is that it's much harder to justify a Fireball, once successfully cast, that fails to have any effect whatsoever on someone in its area.






Saelorn said:


> That's what I'm saying. Part of the disparity between mundane and magical abilities comes from the narrative.
> 
> Since we've decided that we want the wizard to throw around huge explosions, it's hard to come up with a reason why that _wouldn't_ be unavoidable; but any fighter is limited to mere swords and arrows, where it's hard to justify why it _would_ be unavoidable.
> 
> That's why there's a double standard.



I think we're getting some topic drift, here, so I've quoted both the post that started this fireball digression, and your latest reply.

The original issue was whether there was any potential problem with having casters have a chance of failure when they used a spell, instead of the spell working automatically.  We considered the issue of it adding a roll to the resolution process affecting playability - but, between the possibility of using the casting check as the result of any other check called for (like an attack roll), and the fact that spells can already call for many checks (such as saves) anyway, I think we can agree that isn't a major impediment.

Then, you brought up Fireballs and the possibility of it failing to have any effect "once successfully cast" as a possible objection to the idea of such a check.

AFAICT, nothing suggested as a way of implementing such a spell-failure check would result in someone standing, unharmed, in the midst of a successfully cast fireball.  

Now we've lost track of that issue, and circled back around to somehow justifying the OP-double-standard with the narrative of magic, yet again, even though, as magic isn't real, and can be narrated in any way desired, there is no narrative foundation for magic being modeled a certain way.  Thus, that narrative can be subordinated to game balance and playability.  

If, for some reason, we wanted a fireball that had a chance of doing no damage at all, even when successfully cast, it would be trivially easy to narrate it in a consistent way.  Magic, just for one instance, could be a matter of imposing will upon reality, and, while the mage could conjure a fireball without much resistance from reality, getting it to actually burn anyone could require overcoming /their/ will, with a strong-willed/courageous enough individual being able to walk through magical flames with no effect.   Or, it could be unable to affect the 'pure of heart' or 'righteous' or something else.  Or, the flames of a fireball could simply be inconsistent in how concentrated they are in different parts of the affected area, allowing the skillfull to avoid them entirely.  Conversely, the area could be filled with magically-inescapable flames that burn anything (even stone, metal, water, disembodied spirits or other flames) and just do a set amount of damage, regardless, and that, too, could be justified by the narrative.  

So if narrative justifies a double-standard, that double-standard should be that the narrative of magic is entirely subordinate to balance & playability.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 11, 2014)

Hussar said:


> The idea that something has to be more or less difficult isn't carved in stone.  After all, Batman never fails his hide check when he disappears after talking to Commissioner Gordon.  Random Mook #25 doesn't spot Batman.  Why?  Is he using magic?  Is his hide ability a super power?  Isn't Batman the archetype for a high level rogue?



 Batman is hardly /the/ archetypal high-level rogue (that'd be Fritz Lieber's 'Grey Mouser,' IMHO - though people also suggest Cudgel the Clever and the LotR hobbits as possibilities) - not even the same genre.



> Considering that in 3e, it's trivially easy for senses to improve faster than a hide check, you could make the argument that a higher level rogue actually has less of a chance to hide than a lower level one.



 How so?  Both use ranks, both require two skills (hide/sneak and spot/listen).  The need to make two opposed checks to both hide and avoid being heard stacks the deck against the stealth character (since he must win /both/ to remain hidden), of course, but that's regardless of level.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 11, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> So if narrative justifies a double-standard, that double-standard should be that the narrative of magic is entirely subordinate to balance & playability.



I don't really feel strongly on this subject, either way, but I do feel that there's something to be said for keeping the narrative simple as a means of easing buy-in. A big explosion is easier to understand than some sort of contest of imposing wills in order to affect reality. Obviously, it's a matter of preference, as to how important that is relative to balance and playability.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 11, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> I don't really feel strongly on this subject, either way, but I do feel that there's something to be said for keeping the narrative simple as a means of easing buy-in. A big explosion is easier to understand than some sort of contest of imposing wills in order to affect reality.



"Magic spells take too long to cast to be used in combat, at all" is pretty darn simple, too.  

And, while 'explosion' is a simple enough narrative, the explanations for Vancian magic certainly weren't, so I still don't see any impediment to subordinating the narrative of magic to the needs of the system.  Outside of genre conventions, there's nothing much to shape that narrative, so there's a great deal of freedom to limit it as much as needed to achieve a playable, balanced games.

Magic that can fail to produce any effect when botched, for instance, could be magic that works without the bizarre, unintuitive, counter-genre, and mechanically clunky/broken Vancian system, for instance.  

Appealing to 'the narrative of magic' just opens up a tremendous number of ways magic could be done 'better' in the sense of system requirements, balance, and playability - and genre fidelity, for that matter.


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## Morty (Aug 11, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Batman is hardly /the/ archetypal high-level rogue (that'd be Fritz Lieber's 'Grey Mouser,' IMHO - though people also suggest Cudgel the Clever and the LotR hobbits as possibilities) - not even the same genre.




Gray Mouser is certainly a rogue, but high-level? Hardly. He and Fafhrd would stay firmly on low levels in any edition of D&D.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 11, 2014)

Morty said:


> Gray Mouser is certainly a rogue, but high-level? Hardly. He and Fafhrd would stay firmly on low levels in any edition of D&D.



You think?  Levels are harder to draw with non-casters, since 'best swordsman in the world' means a very different thing in a world where everyone else is 2ne level than one with more of a range, for instance.  They did tangle with some serious stuff, though, up to and including nominal deities.

In any case, he's the archetypal rogue (you can point to a lot of the early Thief oddities, like the affinity for languages, minor use of magic (reading scrolls) and preference for the sling, as Mouser-inspired), whatever level you might think is appropriate, while Batman isn't even in the same genre.


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 11, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> "Magic spells take too long to cast to be used in combat, at all" is pretty darn simple, too.



Maybe, but it wouldn't be fun for a lot of players. It sounds more like an excuse to balance magic, rather than anything resembling magic seen in the video games (or even much of the literature) with which players would be familiar.

From what I recall, though, even Vancian magic was done as a concession to gameplay. Back in the day, the designers looked at their alternatives and decided that _this_ was the most balanced and least obnoxious way to go about it (not that the alternatives were terribly well developed at that point).


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 11, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Maybe, but it wouldn't be fun for a lot of players. It sounds more like an excuse to balance magic,



 It's just an example to illustrate how 'narrative of the magic' and 'keep narrative simple' don't have to lead to magic being overpowered, and, indeed, could as easily justify the exact opposite.



> From what I recall, though, even Vancian magic was done as a concession to gameplay.



 My recollection matches yours in this regard.  Gygax said at some point that they settled on Vancian because of it's relatively quick casting time making it combat-practical, and small number of spells/day (among many other restrictions & limitations) keeping it balanced.  Of course, actual Dying Earth Magicians could only memorize a few spells at a time, 1 for quasi-charlatans like Rialto the Marvelous, up to 4-6 (depending on how potent) for the greatest of an age, like Mizirian the Magician.

It didn't work outside the narrow 'sweet spot' of mid-levels, of course, but that was the intent.


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## pemerton (Aug 12, 2014)

Saelorn said:


> Maybe, but it wouldn't be fun for a lot of players. It sounds more like an excuse to balance magic, rather than anything resembling magic seen in the video games (or even much of the literature) with which players would be familiar.



I don't get this at all. At least as characterised by the contemporary OSR, magic in classic D&D is more about solving problems than winning combats. And Gygax in his AD&D emphasises the dificulty of using spells in combat.

If it's OK to have fighters who are largely ineffectual in non-combat situations, what would be objectionable about mages who are largely ineffectual in combat?


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## The Crimson Binome (Aug 12, 2014)

pemerton said:


> If it's OK to have fighters who are largely ineffectual in non-combat situations, what would be objectionable about mages who are largely ineffectual in combat?



Thirty years of video games having programmed people into thinking that wizards are supposed to throw Fireballs.

Although I would disagree with the premise, that it's okay for fighters to be terrible out of combat. I would much prefer for everyone to have their own areas of specialty, outside of combat, and then combat can be the thing where everyone gets to show off at the same time. (In my experience, having a high Strength score does a lot for out-of-combat utility, even moreso than the wizard's meager handful of spells-that-are-totally-not-appropriate-for-this-situation.)


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## Hussar (Aug 12, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Batman is hardly /the/ archetypal high-level rogue (that'd be Fritz Lieber's 'Grey Mouser,' IMHO - though people also suggest Cudgel the Clever and the LotR hobbits as possibilities) - not even the same genre.
> 
> How so?  Both use ranks, both require two skills (hide/sneak and spot/listen).  The need to make two opposed checks to both hide and avoid being heard stacks the deck against the stealth character (since he must win /both/ to remain hidden), of course, but that's regardless of level.




The only problem with Grey Mouser is that so few people have actually read any of the stories.  At least compared to Batman.  Insisting that the archetype for a class should be based on a series of novels that have been out of print for several decades isn't my idea of a good archetype.  Sure, Batman might be a different genre, although not that far off either, but, I'd say he's an easier archetype to wrap people's heads around.

Spot skills with monsters tend to get skyrocketed because of a number of factors.  Number one, stats for monsters in 3e aren't tied to level.  High level monsters tend to have very high stats, which jacks up spot pretty quickly.  Addtiionally, many senses negate Hide - Scent, dark vision, that sort of thing.  The higher level you go with critters, generally the better their senses get.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 12, 2014)

Hussar said:


> The only problem with Grey Mouser is that so few people have actually read any of the stories.  At least compared to Batman.  Insisting that the archetype for a class should be based on a series of novels that have been out of print for several decades isn't my idea of a good archetype.



 OK, you got me.  I'm guilty of grognardism, there.  

Though, really, by that standard, can we even run around saying 'Vancian?' ;P  

Surely someone in LotR is reasonably stealthy?  We can go somewhere other than superheroes for an example.



> Spot skills with monsters tend to get skyrocketed because of a number of factors.  Number one, stats for monsters in 3e aren't tied to level.  High level monsters tend to have very high stats, which jacks up spot pretty quickly.  Addtiionally, many senses negate Hide - Scent, dark vision, that sort of thing.  The higher level you go with critters, generally the better their senses get.



 OK, sure, you're right about senses often too-easily negating stealth.  But does very high WIS (say 28 vs 12) really make a huge difference compared to 20 ranks vs none?  Not really.


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## Morty (Aug 12, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> You think?  Levels are harder to draw with non-casters, since 'best swordsman in the world' means a very different thing in a world where everyone else is 2ne level than one with more of a range, for instance.  They did tangle with some serious stuff, though, up to and including nominal deities.
> 
> In any case, he's the archetypal rogue (you can point to a lot of the early Thief oddities, like the affinity for languages, minor use of magic (reading scrolls) and preference for the sling, as Mouser-inspired), whatever level you might think is appropriate, while Batman isn't even in the same genre.




Having read the first two books of the series, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser have a low-level feeling to me. They're competent swordsmen and thieves, but not larger than life like, say, Conan. Of course it's subjective, and I imagine I might think differently if I'd read the later books. Mind you, the Mouser wouldn't be a single-classed rogue or thief in any existing edition of D&D, anyway. He needs some personal combat expertise, which the class has never really had. Well, I suppose 4th edition could pull it off, since there are feats that can reduce the reliance of a rogue on flanking for gaining combat advantage. 

As far as Batman goes, I don't think it's fair to dismiss an example just because of its genre. D&D has always drawn inspiration from many different sources.


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## evileeyore (Aug 15, 2014)

Morty said:


> Mind you, the Mouser wouldn't be a single-classed rogue or thief in any existing edition of D&D, anyway. He needs some personal combat expertise, which the class has never really had.



Exactly he's an Agility Fighter with good INT and CHA, a miniscule amount of Arcane Lore, decent lockpicking and Pickpocketing.




> Well, I suppose 4th edition could pull it off, since there are feats that can reduce the reliance of a rogue on flanking for gaining combat advantage.



One of the things I liked about 4e is the Grey Mouser could finally be built (in D&D anyway) as a starting character concept and didn't need multiclassing or rules breaking.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 15, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> One of the things I liked about 4e is the Grey Mouser could finally be built (in D&D anyway) as a starting character concept and didn't need multiclassing or rules breaking.



 Eventually (Rogue or even Rogue(Thief) with Wizard's Apprentice Theme).  But, the original thief /was/ modeling him:  sling instead of bow, light armor, thief skills, high DEX, read languages/scroll use, guilds.  That it didn't do so /well/ by modern standards notwithstanding.  The Thief did at least as good a job modeling Grey Mouser as the Fighter did Conan or the Ranger did Aragorn or the Wizard did Merlin.  It's not like other 70s RPGs did any better (OK, maybe RQ did some of those better - but not all of them).


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## evileeyore (Aug 16, 2014)

Tony Vargas said:


> Eventually (Rogue or even Rogue(Thief) with Wizard's Apprentice Theme).  But, the original thief /was/ modeling him:  sling instead of bow, light armor, thief skills, high DEX, read languages/scroll use, guilds.  That it didn't do so /well/ by modern standards notwithstanding.  The Thief did at least as good a job modeling Grey Mouser as the Fighter did Conan or the Ranger did Aragorn or the Wizard did Merlin.  It's not like other 70s RPGs did any better (OK, maybe RQ did some of those better - but not all of them).



I agree that original Thief was about close as D&D has really ever gotten.

To me Mouser does not have "backstab", but then I also never liked the ability.


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## Manbearcat (Aug 16, 2014)

Just a quick note about my post upthread regarding (a) the lack of process-simulation of spellcasters in their actual spellcraft in D&D and (b) folks indifference about it who are simultaneously intent on granular process-simulation of fightercraft and roguecraft (because versimulitude).

I've GMed quite a bit of Dungeon World.  Most of that GMing has had a Fighter character alongside a Wizard character.  In Dungeon World, the basic resolution scheme for actions (moves) is:

Roll 2d6 + (bounded) modifier.

* on a 10 + you do what you set out to do
* on a 7-9 you have success with complications
* on a 6- you mark XP and something not-so-good happens

The math of the system puts intentionally puts most outcomes in 7-9 as it generates the most compelling and dynamic play.  Every time a Wizard casts a spell...guess what?

[h=3]Cast a Spell (Int)[/h] When you *release a spell you’ve prepared*, roll+Int.
*✴* On a 10+, the spell is successfully cast and you do not forget the spell—you may cast it again later.
*✴* On a 7-9, the spell is cast, but choose one:


You draw unwelcome attention or put yourself in a spot. The GM will tell you how. 
The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast—take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells. 
After it is cast, the spell is forgotten. You cannot cast the spell again until you prepare spells. 

In Dungeon World:

1)  The Fighter is extremely powerful and has some extremely awesome fiat/trump card abilities (such as the ability to intuit outcomes, who lives or dies, on the battlefield before its been settled...or divine information from the psychic resonance or spirits of those who have held/died by his signature weapon).

2)  The Fighter has + 2 armor base, d10 + Con HP and d10 damage.  The Wizard has 0 armor base, and d4 in both HP and damage.

3)  The Wizard gets less (significantly so when considering some editions) spells than any Wizard in D&D, sans 4e.

4)  The Wizard's spells are less powerful than in in D&D.

5)  The Wizard must interface with the basic action resolution mechanics every time they cast a spell (test their spellcraft).

All of these things persist in DW.  Regardless of that, Wizards are every part as powerful as Fighters.  What does that say about D&D and the mainstream (?) acceptance of, and sometimes absurd lengths gone in defense of, its paradigm?  

It says the thread topic is on the money.


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## Morty (Aug 16, 2014)

evileeyore said:


> Exactly he's an Agility Fighter with good INT and CHA, a miniscule amount of Arcane Lore, decent lockpicking and Pickpocketing.




Eh, it could go either way. The Fighter/Rogue division is pretty artificial when it comes down to it. But I'd imagine the Mouser more like primarily a thief/rogue/however we call it who also knows how to handle himself in a scrap - Fafhrd would be a fighter who is also a resourceful thief when he needs to be.


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