TheRPGSite

[Note: This is the first of two different threads on this subject.]

Greetings to all...

If there's an option, I almost always play a spell-caster of some sort in games. Long ago, I learned that most spells can be used in ways that they were not originally designed to be used. I think it's fun and as a GM, I always give bonus XP to players to use spells in creative new ways.

For example, Levitate as an attack spell: cast this on someone and they are stuck up in the air, an easy target, and unable to engage in hand-to-hand. In most games they would probably have huge minuses to dodge / parry, too.

Or Create Water cast onto powered electronics (or computers) to cause them to short out or fry their circuits. Etc, etc.

I have run across GM's who do not allow this or limit such casting in some way. For example, in a D&D game, a DM allowed me to cast "Wall of Iron" over someone's head so that it fell on them and caused damage. But the same DM would not let me Teleport an enemy off a cliff.

I would've allowed both, myself.

What about you? Do you have limits on how you will allow your players to use spells?

Just curious.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491072What about you? Do you have limits on how you will allow your players to use spells?

Just curious.

The only limits I apply are those specified in the description of the spell and pure common sense.

I like the power stunt system of Marvel Super Heroes which is also used by Icons. Basically you are normally expected to use a power in the spirit of the rules however you can spend a resource to do something different and special.

I think that's the best of both worlds. Going only be the spirit of the law limits the player's creativity but at the same time going only by the letter of the law invites the cynical bending and exploitation of the rules which rewards players knowledge of the rules over their knowledge of the genre and in turn forces game designers to write stricter and more cumbersome or flavourless rules.

Okay, this applies to superpowers but I think it would work with spells too.

Same answer as Ramón and yes, sometimes I reward creative spell use.

Regards,
David R

Same as Ramon, with one caveat.

If it becomes obvious that a player has found a way to seriously abuse a spell, then I point out that the basic spells have existed for a long, long time, that the player's Magic User knows this, and ask the player why, exactly, they've never heard of anyone abusing the spell this way?

If they come up with a good reason, that's the reason. If they don't, I come up with one.

Sure, I normally allow them.

However, I point out that NPCs might also know little tricks like these ...

I'm all about creative spell use in ADnD 1st and 2nd edition. Usually when I'm the only wizard in a party of fighter types, most of my time is spent role-playing or coming up with creative and cunning uses of spells and their description/usage.

I played a wizard in a Dragonlance campaign and had to undertake a wizard's test, and passed with flying colours as I managed to use spells with long durations and reuse certain spells to solve several puzzles over different floors. Tenser's Floating Disc being my favourite long duration spells, that solved

. A moving walkway puzzle
. A molten lava puzzle
. A room that had a lake and an unreachable island
. As a distraction in combat by having it nudge from behind every combatant I faced.

There were others. The spells are there to be exploited, its what Tenser and Bigby would have wanted xxx

Interestingly enough, most of the descriptions of the spells mentioned in this thread have clear text that explicitly disallows a lot of these creative uses.  Perhaps this has been excised in PF/4E, but I distinctly remember official rulings that a wall must be anchored between two existing points capable of supporting it and that a caster can't ride on his own TFD.

The problem I have with "creative" uses of spells is that they almost always involve an anachronistic understanding of physics on the part of the player.  Casting explosive runes on parchment and folding it into a paper airplane to throw at enemies is one of my "favourites", as is using fire spells to evacuate the oxygen from cave/dungeon complexes.

I love creative spell uses. A resourceful wizard can squeeze unseen servant and cantrip for a lot of value.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;491150I love creative spell uses. A resourceful wizard can squeeze unseen servant and cantrip for a lot of value.

I ran a game years ago where two first level characters were up against a mounted knight they couldn't possibly beat. The wizard used unseen servant to grab the bit in the horse's mouth to throw the rider.

Good stuff.

On the other hand, I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to spell descriptions. A levitated enemy would control the spell and refuse to levitate. It isn't exactly antigravity.

I like to see people creating completely new spells, or recombining existing spells or cantrips to make more powerful spells. Sadly in the last decade or so, I have only run across one player that had new non-canon spells on his char sheet.

I follow the strict descriptions of the spells, if a player can think of anything to do with the spell that doesn't in any way break those description guidelines then they can do it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;491356I follow the strict descriptions of the spells, if a player can think of anything to do with the spell that doesn't in any way break those description guidelines then they can do it.

RPGPundit

That is how I do it as well. There is still a lot of out-of-the-box stuff you can do and it is fair to everyone. I think it also adds a consistency and believability that is important to me as a player and GM.

Quote from: Imperator;491074The only limits I apply are those specified in the description of the spell and pure common sense.

Right. From there, it's a definite "yes" on my part as a DM.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491072I have run across GM's who do not allow this or limit such casting in some way. For example, in a D&D game, a DM allowed me to cast "Wall of Iron" over someone's head so that it fell on them and caused damage. But the same DM would not let me Teleport an enemy off a cliff.

I would've allowed both, myself.

I encourage creative spell use, but you have to actually use the spell -- not some spontaneously house-ruled version of the spell.

For example, teleport in D&D explicitly included the caster (and often only the caster) until 3E, at which point it required a willing target. So I'd agree with your DM's ruling: Nope. Spell doesn't work like that.

OTOH, a couple of sessions ago in my Ptolus campaign I had a player who wanted to do aerial surveillance on a docked ship. They didn't have any fly spells handy, but they did have a ring of teleport and a ring of feather fall -- which prompted about five minutes in which the character would teleport 200 feet up, gently float down while making observations, and then teleport back up again. Not massively creative, perhaps, but certain unusual.

Quote from: daniel_ream;491148The problem I have with "creative" uses of spells is that they almost always involve an anachronistic understanding of physics on the part of the player.  Casting explosive runes on parchment and folding it into a paper airplane to throw at enemies is one of my "favourites", as is using fire spells to evacuate the oxygen from cave/dungeon complexes.

Not sure about the latter, but paper airplanes have been dated back with a fair degree of confidence to at least 1000 AD. And in China they probably date back to 400 or 500 BC (although affixing a certain date is difficult). We have actual diagrams from Da Vinci, who rests pretty firmly in the middle of the "pseudo-historical" era that D&D evokes.

(And as for the latter, I wouldn't be too shocked to discover that miners figured out that open flames "ate the air" or some-such pretty quickly.)

Quote from: daniel_ream;491148The problem I have with "creative" uses of spells is that they almost always involve an anachronistic understanding of physics on the part of the player.  Casting explosive runes on parchment and folding it into a paper airplane to throw at enemies is one of my "favourites", as is using fire spells to evacuate the oxygen from cave/dungeon complexes.

My own response to this would be that it's fine. I'm not entirely interested in trying to get so deeply into the mindset of a person living in pseudo-medieval, magical fantasy world, at least not when I'm playing D&D. The game is so full of anachronistic assumptions that trying to escape them seems like tilting at windmills. Hell, many of the component requirements for 1e spells amount to anachronistic gags. I say, go for it. Any high school level physics knowledge is fair game.

EDIT: Not to mention that, as Justin pointed out, it's way too easy to underestimate how much the ancients understood the cause and effect of the world, whether or not they dug the actual underlying physics.

Quote from: two_fishes;491382EDIT: Not to mention that, as Justin pointed out, it's way too easy to underestimate how much the ancients understood the cause and effect of the world, whether or not they dug the actual underlying physics.

Most of us aren't that smart now (;

I just found out about 2 months ago that if I throw a ball straight ahead, it takes the same amount of time to hit the ground as if I dropped it.

Quote from: Cranewings;491388Most of us aren't that smart now (;

I just found out about 2 months ago that if I throw a ball straight ahead, it takes the same amount of time to hit the ground as if I dropped it.

That seems counter-intuitive but when I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Of course, I imagine that the vast majority of throws are actually parabolas, not at all perfectly parallel to the ground.

Quote from: two_fishes;491382EDIT: Not to mention that, as Justin pointed out, it's way too easy to underestimate how much the ancients understood the cause and effect of the world, whether or not they dug the actual underlying physics.

I have a minor in classical studies.  Trust me when I say it's almost impossible to so underestimate.  For every Hero of Alexandria calculating the circumference of the Earth, there's a Pliny declaring that you can't break a diamond with a hammer and anvil.

It gets a lot worse when you have erstwhile engineers who can think big when they're trying to break your fantasy campaign with anachronisms.  For a relatively small amount of money, you can make a lot of Decanters of Endless Water (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Decanter_of_Endless_Water) - which you can use to drive quite large industrial engines.  Or just provide clean drinking water to all your citizens.

There's historical inference that concave polished bronze shields may have been used to set fire to ships with reflected sunlight.  Why stop there?  With a Continual Light spell and some basic optics, you can carry a laser cannon around with you.

I urge everyone who thinks you can make functional paper airplanes from either parchment or papyrus to actually fucking try it as you'll find it doesn't work.  Neither, I'm sad to say, do any of da Vinci's flying machines.  They only ever existed as sketches.  Their wingspan isn't large enough for the weight of the materials available at the time.

Quote from: daniel_ream;491397It gets a lot worse when you have erstwhile engineers who can think big when they're trying to break your fantasy campaign with anachronisms.  For a relatively small amount of money, you can make a lot of Decanters of Endless Water (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Decanter_of_Endless_Water) - which you can use to drive quite large industrial engines.  Or just provide clean drinking water to all your citizens.

There's historical inference that concave polished bronze shields may have been used to set fire to ships with reflected sunlight.  Why stop there?  With a Continual Light spell and some basic optics, you can carry a laser cannon around with you.

These things sound awesome. If your players get kicks out of coming up with these sorts of ideas, why not run with them rather than kibosh them?

I mean, I am sure that if magic (read: free energy) were as plentiful in the ancient world as it is in fantasy D&D campaigns, I'm sure that it would have changed the landscape enormously, and the erstwhile engineers of the day would have come up with all sorts of labour-saving devices. They might not have done it in the same ways as modern engineers, but they surely would have done something.

Here's a classic:

AD&D - I cast a reversed 1st level Enlarge on a crown, a helmet - any object that tightly encircles a vital organ. Instant death, no save, 1st level spell.

The spell description of Enlarge didn't include a proviso that said it didn't work if there was an obstruction. And the object didn't shrink - it just instantly became the new size according to the spell description, so it didn't slip off the head - it crushed it.

Quote from: two_fishes;491422These things sound awesome. If your players get kicks out of coming up with these sorts of ideas, why not run with them rather than kibosh them?

I mean, I am sure that if magic (read: free energy) were as plentiful in the ancient world as it is in fantasy D&D campaigns, I'm sure that it would have changed the landscape enormously, and the erstwhile engineers of the day would have come up with all sorts of labour-saving devices. They might not have done it in the same ways as modern engineers, but they surely would have done something.

Whether D&D-style magic would kickstart the industrial revolution is basically a question of wizard's psychology. If they are more or less normal people with special expertise, then it's inevitable. If they are odd, obsessive weirdos who no longer share the everyday concerns of ordinary people, it probably wouldn't.

I personally tend to hold the prior view, and thus I rarely create D&D settings much earlier in technical and political development than the early modern West or Ming-era China.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491428Whether D&D-style magic would kickstart the industrial revolution is basically a question of wizard's psychology. If they are more or less normal people with special expertise, then it's inevitable. If they are odd, obsessive weirdos who no longer share the everyday concerns of ordinary people, it probably wouldn't.

I personally tend to hold the prior view, and thus I rarely create D&D settings much earlier in technical and political development than the early modern West or Ming-era China.

Sure, and a lot of the books seem to give the impression that the former is practically the case, with wizards available for hire and magic items readily available for purchase, and for a relatively small cost. I don't know if D&D magic would kick off an industrial revolution, but it would sure make things different.

Quote from: two_fishes;491431Sure, and a lot of the books seem to give the impression that the former is practically the case, with wizards available for hire and magic items readily available for purchase, and for a relatively small cost. I don't know if D&D magic would kick off an industrial revolution, but it would sure make things different.

It's reliable, replicable, and should be much cheaper than it actually is, since there is a very minimal cost to users. Most enchanted items never wear down, and are in fact more durable than comparable items.

Quote from: daniel_ream;491397I urge everyone who thinks you can make functional paper airplanes from either parchment or papyrus to actually fucking try it as you'll find it doesn't work.  Neither, I'm sad to say, do any of da Vinci's flying machines.  They only ever existed as sketches.  Their wingspan isn't large enough for the weight of the materials available at the time.

(1) Da Vinci's flying machines may not have worked, but the paper models he described, diagrammed, and tested would have glided around just fine. You can make them yourself and check it out.

(2) While I think it quite likely that "parchment airplanes" would be a spectacular failure, I'm less convinced that papyrus would be inherently incapable of gliding.

(3) Paper was invented in 105 AD. It explicitly exists in D&D. I'm not really sure where you're going with this.

In any case, this is why I find that the battle to fight anachronism in D&D campaigns generally results in hilarious and misguided efforts. For example, you get stuff like "paper airplanes are anachronistic" (when, in fact, they aren't). OTOH, you'll likely find the same people designing houses in D&D which feature dining rooms (totally anachronistic).

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491428Whether D&D-style magic would kickstart the industrial revolution is basically a question of wizard's psychology. If they are more or less normal people with special expertise, then it's inevitable. If they are odd, obsessive weirdos who no longer share the everyday concerns of ordinary people, it probably wouldn't.

Cultural uptake of technology in a pre-scientific, pre-industrial, and pre-capitalistic world was surprisingly fickle: Egyptians take 2,000 years to pick up the wheel from neighboring Mesopotamia while the Americas only use it for children's toys until the Europeans show up. There are those strange Baghdad Batteries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery) and the Antikythera Device.

Even after modern attitudes towards discovery and technology take root, it often takes a proper environment and infrastructure to exist before a good idea will find its time. Electric lights of various kinds and assortments existed for something like a couple hundred years before Thomas Edison got around to "inventing" the light bulb. (He didn't, actually. But he did have the wherewithal to create the infrastructure necessary for anyone to actually be able to use lightbulbs on any sort of meaningful scale, and that was probably the more impressive and important accomplishment.)

So you take a decanter of endless water and you use it to drive a millwheel. The result for most of recorded history? People say, "Great. Now we don't have to build our mills next to rivers." Assuming they don't just shrug their shoulders and forget about it within a generation.

The difference between magic and technology is very much one of infrastructure. One of the reasons, we both agree, that technological progress goes backward or dead-ends at many periods of history is a failure of an infrastructure capable of maintaining or developing technical advances.

By contrast, D&D magic requires very little infrastructure to create or maintain. Some of the higher-end stuff like teleportation circles does require a complicated process to manufacture and maintain, but the stuff that would most change ordinary people's lives by bringing in automation, sanitation, and material abundance doesn't. Unseen Servant needs a bit of wood and some string. Purify Food and Drink requires no material components. Plant Growth doesn't either. Fabricate is mid-level, but is exactly the kind of spell that breaks economies wide open and requires no material components except for the stuff you're transforming.

And of course, this stuff would have a feedback cycle. If less of your population is engaged in brutal manual labour, they have more time to devote to technical innovation, and fewer consequences for failures when their experiments don't pan out. Mass unemployment caused by economic and technical innovation is something we've seen a lot of in the West, and one of the things that it does is drive social change (whether for better or worse).

Plus, most magic items don't wear out. So over the course of a few hundred years from the discovery of arcane magic to the modern day of your D&D setting, you're mostly only accumulating more and more of them.

D&D's suggested explanation for why this is not the case is sensible - it's that there was such a civilisation (or possibly more than one as you prefer), that they were destroyed, and that their detritus is the magical treasure people are pulling out of ruins. But if one doesn't want that post-apocalyptic vibe, the other option IMHO is to set things at the point where that boom is about to take off, but hasn't yet - early modernity (the 16th and 17th century equivalents). Having run so many post-apoc D&D settings of the above type that I can't even keep track of them, I decided to do something different with Emern (though even in that there is a post-apocalyptic angle).

Quote from: two_fishes;491382My own response to this would be that it's fine. I'm not entirely interested in trying to get so deeply into the mindset of a person living in pseudo-medieval, magical fantasy world, at least not when I'm playing D&D. The game is so full of anachronistic assumptions that trying to escape them seems like tilting at windmills. Hell, many of the component requirements for 1e spells amount to anachronistic gags. I say, go for it. Any high school level physics knowledge is fair game.

EDIT: Not to mention that, as Justin pointed out, it's way too easy to underestimate how much the ancients understood the cause and effect of the world, whether or not they dug the actual underlying physics.

I really wish I could "Like" this post. +1.

Quote from: RPGPundit;491356I follow the strict descriptions of the spells, if a player can think of anything to do with the spell that doesn't in any way break those description guidelines then they can do it.

That's how I do it as well. The problem I've seen is mostly with inexperienced GMs who are running the RPG like a chess game:

They put PCs in a situation of which there are only so many obvious possible ways to act. They expect the players to take one of those ways so they can do their next move. When the players come up with a creative solution to the problem, they aren't prepared for it so they say, "You can't use the spell that way...."

Quote from: Cranewings;491160On the other hand, I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to spell descriptions. A levitated enemy would control the spell and refuse to levitate. It isn't exactly antigravity.

Not sure what game system you're using, but that's not the case of AD&D.

"...If cast upon another creature, the magic-user can levitate it at a maximum movement of 10' per round...If the recipient of the spell is unwilling, that creature is entitled to a saving throw to determine if the levitate spell affects it...", PH, 1rst Ed, page 70

In most other games I've seen it's the same, though in Palladium/Rifts, there is no saving throw.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491436By contrast, D&D magic requires very little infrastructure to create or maintain. Some of the higher-end stuff like teleportation circles does require a complicated process to manufacture and maintain, but the stuff that would most change ordinary people's lives by bringing in automation, sanitation, and material abundance doesn't. Unseen Servant needs a bit of wood and some string. Purify Food and Drink requires no material components. Plant Growth doesn't either. Fabricate is mid-level, but is exactly the kind of spell that breaks economies wide open and requires no material components except for the stuff you're transforming.

The expensive and/or naturally rare portion of that infrastructure, however, is the spellcaster themselves. Theoretically they require years of training.

QuotePlus, most magic items don't wear out.

Well, there's no mechanic for them to wear out. But that may be largely because the scale on which they wear out is sufficiently irrelevant to PC adventurers. Several early AD&D modules feature magic which has become faulty due to age, IIRC.

But, yes, if you want to look at where magic is going to have an effect, it'll be any place here you get a permanent duration. Particularly permanent durations you get on the cheap.

The campaign world I've been running since 2000 is not particularly advanced from a technological standpoint, but is remarkably cleaner and more comfortable than the historical Middle Ages and Renaissance. I don't worry too much about the details, but if you peel back the covers you'll find magical sewers; clerical orders that bless the fields (increasing crops as much as modern fertilizers do); other clerical orders that respond quickly to quash disease outbreaks; a proliferation of continual flame spells providing cheap and universal light throughout the night; and so forth.

The infrastructure (and societal structure) just doesn't exist to, for example, mass-produce magical cars (although you'll find noble families with magical airships). But there is enough magic in the world (and in society) to make people significantly more wealthy.

(With that being said, this campaign world also a short history of civilization. And things are definitely on a cusp where things might tumble into a magically-driven industrial revolution if given half the chance.)

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;491436And of course, this stuff would have a feedback cycle. If less of your population is engaged in brutal manual labour, they have more time to devote to technical innovation, and fewer consequences for failures when their experiments don't pan out. Mass unemployment caused by economic and technical innovation is something we've seen a lot of in the West, and one of the things that it does is drive social change (whether for better or worse).

That's an interesting point, but I think in the D&D worlds, the socialization of magic has been it's most limiting factor: the very fact that it's not done by physical labor is what makes it 'scary' to the average person. I mean, if you build a house with your hands, you know it's been done right. If some guy comes along and builds one with magic, the average person would probably not trust it and/or be wary of going inside.

Just because magic is relatively accepted, doesn't mean that it's widespead and available to the common man or that the common man would accept it as a viable means to replace phsyical labor.

To use an modern analogy: martial arts are far superior to untrained brawling as a means of physical attack and defence, and at close range, a trained martial artist can disarm several people rapidly.  So why aren't all gang members / law enforcement officers / criminals / etc trained in martial arts? -- It seems logical that they would be, given the advantages, but they're often not.

I think in the same way, magic in D&D is looked on as something that "those people" use but the common person probably simply wouldn't be interested. Therefore, no magic-based industrial revolution.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;491460The expensive and/or naturally rare portion of that infrastructure, however, is the spellcaster themselves. Theoretically they require years of training.

True, but you need even fewer spellcasters than you do engineers, scientists, lab technicians, machinists, etc. all of whom also take years to train. And a single spellcaster can perform multiple effects a day, and only becomes more and more capable as age and experience kick in.

QuoteWell, there's no mechanic for them to wear out. But that may be largely because the scale on which they wear out is sufficiently irrelevant to PC adventurers. Several early AD&D modules feature magic which has become faulty due to age, IIRC.

But, yes, if you want to look at where magic is going to have an effect, it'll be any place here you get a permanent duration. Particularly permanent durations you get on the cheap.

Yeap. I wrote a setting called Moragne where I attempted to deal with the ramifications of this seriously. It used MRQ2 as a base, but MRQ2's magic doesn't differ that much from classic D&D in the factors we're discussing.

What I decided was that the sorcerers essentially formed a cartel oriented around getting as much money as possible for as little work as possible. They used their power to forbid anyone they could from owning permanent magical items other than themselves, the church and the nobles (the latter two were simple expediency). They made limited use items (and spellcasting services) available at a high price, but just cheap enough that they were reasonable investments to make, and ruthlessly enforced their monopoly. They were not above spreading rumours of scabs being evil necromancers and posting bounties on them for adventurers to take, and you were more likely to suffer a wizard's war for creating a permanently enchanted saltcellar than you were for hiring on with heretics' armies.

Also, they had a somewhat retardant effect on social development because of the entrenched interests of their members in treating but not resolving the problems of pre-industrial society. So they had a guild in the cartel that specialised in putting out fires (a major problem in medieval cities, as I'm sure you know), and so no other wizard was allowed to do something like mass-produce a light source that didn't have a risk of setting things on fire because that would be interfering with the Charred Men's prerogatives & income.

And still, despite that, Moragne was much cleaner and medically safer than the real medieval world.

QuoteThe campaign world I've been running since 2000 is not particularly advanced from a technological standpoint, but is remarkably cleaner and more comfortable than the historical Middle Ages and Renaissance. I don't worry too much about the details, but if you peel back the covers you'll find magical sewers; clerical orders that bless the fields (increasing crops as much as modern fertilizers do); other clerical orders that respond quickly to quash disease outbreaks; a proliferation of continual flame spells providing cheap and universal light throughout the night; and so forth.

The infrastructure (and societal structure) just doesn't exist to, for example, mass-produce magical cars (although you'll find noble families with magical airships). But there is enough magic in the world (and in society) to make people significantly more wealthy.

(With that being said, this campaign world also a short history of civilization. And things are definitely on a cusp where things might tumble into a magically-driven industrial revolution if given half the chance.)

That sounds reasonable. As I said, there's no particular reason that ubiquitous magic would create a society with a similar material culture to Western consumer culture.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491463That's an interesting point, but I think in the D&D worlds, the socialization of magic has been it's most limiting factor: the very fact that it's not done by physical labor is what makes it 'scary' to the average person. I mean, if you build a house with your hands, you know it's been done right. If some guy comes along and builds one with magic, the average person would probably not trust it and/or be wary of going inside.

One can declare this about one's world, but I simply don't buy it personally. I don't know how to build a computer chip IRL, but I don't therefore fear and hate computers. Similarly, in real societies that believe magic does exist, the attitude tends not to be fear, but "How can I use this for my advantage?" or at the very least "What is this and how does it work?" rather than "Get it away from me!" When people go out into say, the highlands of New Guinea and deal with uncontacted tribes IRL, the tribespeople are almost never afraid of the strange technologies the outsiders are bringing. They're surprised, and perhaps puzzled by what kind of life the outsiders must live to make this thing useful or desirable.

Distrust of technology is usually really just distrust of the people using or possessing the technology. And while you might distrust wizards, that would really require you to be unfamiliar with them, their operations, and their magic. If that's the case, you need a better explanation than "It's odd," since the actual list of effects that a wizard can accomplish in these games is codified and consists of maybe a hundred or so effects able to be explained in plain language.

Once again, to use an IRL example, while theoretically God in medieval Catholicism could do anything it is possible to do, people were very quick to develop and transmit a list of standard types of miracles and folk magic, so that the ordinary person knew quite a lot of about how and why God would do things. Superstitiousness is actually something that aids this process, as superstition is essentially just what we call this kind of knowledge in the modern day.

QuoteI think in the same way, magic in D&D is looked on as something that "those people" use but the common person probably simply wouldn't be interested. Therefore, no magic-based industrial revolution.

The common man probably does not want to die at age 32 after a lifetime of backbreaking labour. If magic / technology can promise him a way out of this course of events, then the historical record shows that he will gladly adopt it, no matter how much education and adaptation are involved.

D&D style magic is very powerful and reliable but only accessible to a certain part of the population, who at higher-levels become incredibly powerful.

That's why really, I think most D&D settings would be like Mystara, or more specifically, Alphatia.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491459Not sure what game system you're using, but that's not the case of AD&D.

"...If cast upon another creature, the magic-user can levitate it at a maximum movement of 10' per round...If the recipient of the spell is unwilling, that creature is entitled to a saving throw to determine if the levitate spell affects it...", PH, 1rst Ed, page 70

In most other games I've seen it's the same, though in Palladium/Rifts, there is no saving throw.

I just play pathfinder. I'm guessing the 3.5 version was the same, but I could be wrong:

Levitate allows you to move yourself, another creature, or an object up and down as you wish. A creature must be willing to be levitated, and an object must be unattended or possessed by a willing creature.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491463To use an modern analogy: martial arts are far superior to untrained brawling as a means of physical attack and defence, and at close range, a trained martial artist can disarm several people rapidly.  So why aren't all gang members / law enforcement officers / criminals / etc trained in martial arts?

First of all, martial arts are nowhere near that effective in the real world, and police officers are trained in martial arts. Quite rigorously, in fact.  Criminals don't bother because knife or gun >> martial arts, and they're easier to get a hold of.

Cf. my earlier posts: the reason why "clever" ideas generally aren't widespread is because generally they don't actually work as well as you think.

Per magic improving the general health and longevity of its citizens: paradoxically, this is likely to significantly retard technological and social progress.  One of the drivers of the rise of the middle class and the shift from the manor-based economy to a town-based economy in Middle Ages Europe was massive depopulation due to plague; the labour of a single individual suddenly became worth much, much more.  When you have cheap widespread sanitation, you're going to have lots and lots of peasants.  Why waste the time investing in technological infrastructure?  You've got lots of peasants.

Lots of criminals box or wrestle, and boxing is the most superior single martial art taught in America. Criminals that box find family karate and point sparing laughable. Family Karate people aren't martial artist: the criminal boxers and wrestlers are.

And the knife and gun are modern martial arts. They aren't fucking magic talismans that suddenly win fights. You have to know what you are doing with it or it is hardly an unbeatable advantage. There is a lot to know about a knife and a lot of criminals know it.

Your comments about martial arts not being good applies to all the nonhacker fake shit, but the world is full of fighters and those fighters practice. An untrained guy with a knife will just get punched in the face.

Quote from: Cranewings;491537Your comments about martial arts not being good applies to all the nonhacker fake shit, but the world is full of fighters and those fighters practice. An untrained guy with a knife will just get punched in the face.

My sensei, who is 1) a cop, 2) teaches cops how to defend themselves, and 3) has multiple 4th dan "qualifications", would strenuously disagree with you.

Quote from: daniel_ream;491543My sensei, who is 1) a cop, 2) teaches cops how to defend themselves, and 3) has multiple 4th dan "qualifications", would strenuously disagree with you.

I'm sure he would. He's selling martial arts.

Think about the implications of what you just said for a moment.

Getting back on topic a bit, some of the "profound social changes" proposed for magic would likely not come about.  We live in a world with magical food cooking (microwave oven), food preservation(refrigeration, freeze drying, flash freezing), purified water, continual light, instant communication over great distances, flight, etc.  And yet, many of the social ills that these would supposedly cure in D&D land are still with us.

As for creative spell use, I was DMing one day and had a first level magic user quite effectively kill a large, adult, red dragon with a single first level spell, and no saving throw. The spell was Unseen Servant.  During a prior adventure the MU had used Unseen Servant to pack several glass jars full of green slime.  When he encountered the dragon he cast Unseen Servant again and had the servant empty a couple of the jars onto the sleeping dragon. then he just sat back and waited.

I got my revenge though....the look on his face when I told him that the treasure hoard was now covered in a dragon sized pool of green slime was priceless.

I always allow, and usually reward, clever spell use. If it doesn't violate the rules of the game, why not?  Of course there is always the chance that an NPC Mage has discovered a particularly clever new use for an old spell...

Quote from: daniel_ream;491567Think about the implications of what you just said for a moment.

I've done martial arts for years, and I think most martial arts are totally devoid of what it takes to stand up to street fighters, knives, or even jocks.

Quality strength training
Impact conditioning: taking hits weekly that drop you due to pain
Striking hard surfaces
Sparing boxers and wrestlers
Sparing strangers and changing your technique to learn to deal with them.
Sparing street fighters
All sparing with minimal protection: fingerless gloves at most, no garbage ass head gear or shin guards.
Sparing hard with painful mock weapons
Sparing in groups
Hard painful sparing with weapon against emptyhand.

If you do these things, then you will become someone that can fight. If you do pain compliance techniques on willing friends and kata all day, then strap on shinpads to fight the same turds again, you are not really doing shit.

Quote from: DavetheLost;491569Getting back on topic a bit, some of the "profound social changes" proposed for magic would likely not come about.  We live in a world with magical food cooking (microwave oven), food preservation(refrigeration, freeze drying, flash freezing), purified water, continual light, instant communication over great distances, flight, etc.  And yet, many of the social ills that these would supposedly cure in D&D land are still with us.

I'm curious what social ills you're thinking of.  Clean drinking water and the ability to reliably preserve food and cook it quickly and safely have HUGE impacts on life expectancy and quality of life, which impacts pretty much anything to do with the value of labour and the accumulation of wealth.

I'm not claiming that unrestricted anachronistic magic Cures All Ills, but I am saying it's going to very quickly turn a stock D&D fantasy world into something unrecognizable and probably incomprehensible.

Here's a nice, simple plot hook along these lines.  Druids and clerics can actually Bless the fields, or cast Plant Growth or whatever you want to make the fields incredibly abundant.  Maybe throw in a Protection from Disease or something the keep the crops from suffering blight.  Lots of surplus food means that the population will very quickly adjust to a size that consumes that food, until within ten years or so the entire local population is dependent on the surplus those spells provide.

And now all you dirty peasants can pay me quadruple what I've been charging for spellcasting or watch your children starve to death.

Cinic ;)

I meant that a world with lots of magic might not look all that different in someways to our own. We do with technology what would have seemed a lot like magic to your average Dark Age peasant.

As for the effect of Blessing the fields, talk to a farmer today about seed and fertilizer cost, corporate controlled markets, etc. Not so very different than the extortion scenario you propose.

I do think that flying, spell casting wizards who can cast rock-to-mud on your castle walls would change the world into something we would not recognize pretty quickly.  I certainly would not live in skyscraper if I knew the local wizard could bring the whole thing down with a single spell.

A simple detect lie would forever change the criminal justice system, not to mention speak with dead, speak with plants, speak with animals, just think of the expanded number of potential witnesses.

Oh jesus fuck, just what we need; an online martial-artist pissing match.

RPGPundit

Creative Spell Use and Martial Arts. Yeah, I see the connection.

Quote from: DavetheLost;491728Creative Spell Use and Martial Arts. Yeah, I see the connection.

Akashic Brotherhood from Mage ?

Regards,
David R

To me the creative use of spells is the mark of a good Player. IMO, that's the WHOLE Point of playing a spellcaster, i.e. using Magic to accomplish/solve anything that comes up. Figuring out how to use a spell in a creative way, gets the job done...

Just in practical terms, better methods for growing crops, would mean a smaller percentage of people would need to be peasants and cities would probably be much bigger.  You'd also be able to support a much large artisan and mercantile class, and have to do something with the excess labor (Massive armies?  Tombs for the royal family?  Mass settlement of foreign lands?)

Quote from: RPGPundit;491726Oh jesus fuck, just what we need; an online martial-artist pissing match.

Did you know that katanas are completely superior to Western swords in every way?

'Tis true. Samurai used them to cut through tanks.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;491835Did you know that katanas are completely superior to Western swords in every way?

Yeah, but it doesn't matter whose swords are superior because nobody is gonna beat the Yankees in the World Series.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;491460Well, there's no mechanic for them to wear out. But that may be largely because the scale on which they wear out is sufficiently irrelevant to PC adventurers. Several early AD&D modules feature magic which has become faulty due to age, IIRC.

1st doesn't mention it to my knowledge, but 2nd ed. permanentcy spell description notes that the spell (and consequently, magical items created using the spell) might at GM option become unstable after a period of 1000 years or so.
 

Quote from: DavetheLost;491569As for creative spell use, I was DMing one day and had a first level magic user quite effectively kill a large, adult, red dragon with a single first level spell, and no saving throw. The spell was Unseen Servant. During a prior adventure the MU had used Unseen Servant to pack several glass jars full of green slime. When he encountered the dragon he cast Unseen Servant again and had the servant empty a couple of the jars onto the sleeping dragon. then he just sat back and waited.

Hang on...a red dragon?...couldn't it breathe on itself to destroy the slime??
 
The wackiest thing players ever wanted to do in a game I ran was use a Dimension Door spell as a mass driver, putting the gates above each other and cycling a boulder through at ever-increasing velocity. Fortunately for the Forgotten Realms,they couldn't quite figure out how to make a vacuum so the boulders could break terminal velocity, or get the power to last long enough with the psionicist they had. They weren't too far off destroying small cities by crashing rocks into them at near-lightspeed, though.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;491849The wackiest thing players ever wanted to do in a game I ran was use a Dimension Door spell as a mass driver, putting the gates above each other and cycling a boulder through at ever-increasing velocity.

:huhsign: Wow, that's pretty creative, though I would wonder if the characters would have had the background to concieve the idea...

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491855:huhsign: Wow, that's pretty creative, though I would wonder if the characters would have had the background to concieve the idea...

All the characters would have to know is that the further something falls the harder it hits....

Quote from: Planet Algol;491856All the characters would have to know is that the further something falls the harder it hits....

I don't mean to split-hairs, but how would they come by that knowlege unless they had spent time specifically saying that they were experimenting to determine that "the further something falls, the harder it hits"..?

I mean, missile weapons do more damage the closer to the target they are. For example, at long range, a arrow loses velocity. This is something they may have observed so it would seem counter-intutive for them to have somehow determined that falling distance increases impact.

Ah, endless debate about the social changes that magic "would, in reality" bring about.

Approach A: the rules, and therefore the spells in the rulebook are the physics of the world. Extrapolate from there. Fun may result, but probably only if you're a sperglord.

Approach B: let's emulate a world of magic and mystery, where technology and society is ancient or medieval, but some people can command occult forces. Game on.

I prefer approach B. But then it works much better with my preferred systems of T&T (whimsical on the face of it) or Rolemaster (critical failure will eventually catch up with you, rendering everyday magitech moot) or Dragon Warriors (where clearly the setting takes precedence over the rules).

Most people know that falling further means you hit with more force (hence not to fall off high places). That part I didn't have a problem with. I think the vacuum part of the plan sort of troubled me at the time, but I was still reasonably new to GMing then.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491859I don't mean to split-hairs, but how would they come by that knowlege unless they had spent time specifically saying that they were experimenting to determine that "the further something falls, the harder it hits"..?

Because they're not a bunch of Hellen Kellers?

EDIT: An unfair comparison; I'm sure before Sullivan communicated with her she was aware that the harder something falls the harder it hits.

Because they learned not to fall to their deaths while children?

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491859I mean, missile weapons do more damage the closer to the target they are. For example, at long range, a arrow loses velocity. This is something they may have observed so it would seem counter-intutive for them to have somehow determined that falling distance increases impact.

Trebuchets & Murder Holes.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;491862Most people know that falling further means you hit with more force (hence not to fall off high places). That part I didn't have a problem with. I think the vacuum part of the plan sort of troubled me at the time, but I was still reasonably new to GMing then.

Vacuum is an old idea.

Quote from: Planet Algol;491866Vacuum is an old idea.

Indeed. Aristotle has a fairly sophisticated argument on why it can't exist. ;)

Personally, I am usually pretty fine with wizards possessing a fairly sophisticated understanding of science, usually up to at least Newtonianism in physics and the periodic table in chemistry. I assume they pick this up as part of learning how spells can affect the world and experimenting with magical manipulation of the real world.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491855:huhsign: Wow, that's pretty creative, though I would wonder if the characters would have had the background to concieve the idea...

(1) Take a 5 year old.
(2) Have them play Portal.
(3) Wait to see how long it takes them to set up an ever-falling teleport tunnel.

If anything, a pre-Newtonian understanding of gravity would actually encourage this kind of thinking. Pre-Newton, remember, people thought heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects.

Even in a world where we understand things like "air resistance", people still think pennies dropped from the top of the Empire State Building will kill people below because "bigger drop = more damage".

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492072(1) Take a 5 year old.
(2) Have them play Portal.
(3) Wait to see how long it takes them to set up an ever-falling teleport tunnel.

If anything, a pre-Newtonian understanding of gravity would actually encourage this kind of thinking. Pre-Newton, remember, people thought heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects.

You crack me up sometimes with your assumptions. Honestly, I really don't think that any character in a 12th-15th century setting would figure out how to make a mass driver using dimension door spells. I just don't believe it.

Maybe a sage or MU who had a laboratory and was able to devote many years of study to such a thing would have done experiments that lead to such a discovery. Maybe, and that's a big maybe.

But a bunch of practical thaumaturgists who are out in the field just trying to survive? Not a chance.

To me this is a clear breach of out-of-character knowlege being imparted to characters. I would not allow it in my game. -- Of course, it's not my game and the GM who is running it can do whatever they want.

So, in other words, Creative Spell use, yea, as long as the creativity is acceptably banal.

Quote from: Planet Algol;491865Trebuchets & Murder Holes.

So the characters actually spent time determining the relative velocity of a Trebuchet missile vs. the arc at which it was fired vs. the amount of imact at the target site and then did a comparative study based on the results of other Trebuchet firings, Balista firings, and Catapult firings. They just happened to have access to these siege weapons and the crews to man them and an open space in which to conduct these experiments - without risking an incident with another kingdom or power.

Then, because they are independently wealthy (and thus don't need to waste time adventuring or working a job), they found a mage who was willing to not memorize anything other than multiple Dimension Door spells and let them test their theory.

And, once they did succeed in creating a spell-based mass driver that could destroy small towns, nobody was concerned about this at all and let them be. And the towns that they did destroy were remarkably free of people who had friends and relatives in other places who might upset that by their deaths. And, further, the local and regional political figures were not at all upset about losing an entire town to a the party's actions, nor did it have any effect on the economy.

Yes, that is entirely believable.

And now, if you will liquidate all your assets and mail me a check with that sum, you can be sure that I and my fine Nigerian friends will wisely invest your money so that it will be doubled in less than six months. You can't lose!

So what do you say?

Quote from: two_fishes;492105So, in other words, Creative Spell use, yea, as long as the creativity is acceptably banal.

Not at all. But I personally (ie. Me, Blazing Donkey) do not believe that any characters could come up with such a thing on their own. If they put the work into it to test it out, maybe they could.

It sounds, though, like a classic case of someone out-of-character saying, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to create ___________?" And then figuring out a way to do that.

If some of you want to believe that the characters could do that, more power to you.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;491859I mean, missile weapons do more damage the closer to the target they are. For example, at long range, a arrow loses velocity. This is something they may have observed so it would seem counter-intutive for them to have somehow determined that falling distance increases impact.

Ancient warfare had archers firing from a long way off, far enough to see how deadly arrows can be when fall from high off in the sky. The ancients weren't morons, and could readily see cause and effect in their world. See also Bloody Stupid Johnson's point that the farther you fall the more it hurts. The idea that something hits harder the farther it falls is not rocket science, and relatively easy to see in the world.

GrimTooth's Traps had a Teleport Pit Trap, I'd just spring that on the players and let them figure it out...

Quote from: two_fishes;492112Ancient warfare had archers firing from a long way off, far enough to see how deadly arrows can be when fall from high off in the sky. The ancients weren't morons, and could readily see cause and effect in their world. See also Bloody Stupid Johnson's point that the farther you fall the more it hurts. The idea that something hits harder the farther it falls is not rocket science, and relatively easy to see in the world.

Your point is valid and I want to acknowlege that.

However, I still do not believe that the characters could have come up with this "mass driver" idea. Sorry; I don't buy it.

There's really nothing to argue about. We're just going to have to agree to disagree it seems.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492102You crack me up sometimes with your assumptions.

Whereas your assumptions ("everyone in the 12th century was more stupid than a 5 year old") just make me feel sorry for you.

What I do find hilarious, however, is the idea that anyone could believe that "the farther you fall, the more it hurts" is a principle that no one figured out until the 20th century.

The reality is that -- within the limitations of their understanding of the physical laws of the universe around them -- people have been pretty dang clever for the entirety of human history.

For example, in King Lear Shakespeare has one of his characters convince a blind man that they're standing at the top of a tall cliff (when they're actually just a few feet in the air). The blind characters jumps off to commit suicide, but of course doesn't die. If Shakespeare and his contemporaries actually believed -- as you claim they did -- that falling short distances was equivalent to falling long distances, this scene in King Lear would not exist.

So either Shakespeare is a time traveler, King Lear is a fraudulent text, or you're wrong.

QuoteI still do not believe that the characters could have come up with this "mass driver" idea. Sorry; I don't buy it.

There's really nothing to argue about. We're just going to have to agree to disagree it seems.

Actually, there is. We can't argue that you don't believe it. You obviously don't. That's not the question.

What we can argue is whether such a thing is likely or not, given our presumed baseline. We can give reasons why it is or isn't, and objectively evaluate those reasons.

Hypothetically, if one believed that characters would never build such a thing, when, by soundly reasoning from known factors, other people can show that characters probably would, more likely than not, build such a thing?

Then that is, by definition, irrational disbelief. And you can't use reason to persuade the irrational.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492125Whereas your assumptions ("everyone in the 12th century was more stupid than a 5 year old") just make me feel sorry for you.

Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing or do you really believe that some characters just had a moment of brilliant intuition and created a just-add-water dimension door mass driver (DDMD)?

I'm just curious.

Whether it's feasable or not is beside the point and always has been. Whether it's credible or not is what I'm arguing.

If you do really believe that the characters made the DDMD, then I support you in believing it.

QuoteWhat I do find hilarious, however, is the idea that anyone could believe that "the farther you fall, the more it hurts" is a principle that no one figured out until the 20th century.

Where did I say that? -- Nowhere. Here we go with this bullshit...

QuoteThe reality is that -- within the limitations of their understanding of the physical laws of the universe around them -- people have been pretty dang clever for the entirety of human history.

For example, in King Lear Shakespeare has one of his characters convince a blind man that they're standing at the top of a tall cliff (when they're actually just a few feet in the air). The blind characters jumps off to commit suicide, but of course doesn't die. If Shakespeare and his contemporaries actually believed -- as you claim they did -- that falling short distances was equivalent to falling long distances, this scene in King Lear would not exist.

So either Shakespeare is a time traveler, King Lear is a fraudulent text, or you're wrong.

Nice Strawman you've got there.

I never made any sort of blanket generalization about what people in any time period could or could not know.

What I actually said was that I do not believe that characters in a 12th-15th century setting could have concieved the idea of a "mass driver".

I didn't say it was "absolutely impossible"; I said I didn't believe it.

Next time you feel like exercising your creative writing abilities, try channeling it into your game instead of making up silly strawman arguments.

I don't think they're saying that people in the 12th-15th century could conceive of a mass-driver.

They're saying they could conceive of a "Catelepult" or a "Telecannon".

They have tools, they use those tools to create versions of things they already know work, but work better. Doesn't seem unbelievable.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492129Next time you feel like exercising your creative writing abilities, try channeling it into your game instead of making up silly strawman arguments.

(Emphasis mine) Ok, what's this about ? This is not the first time I have read this when someone is going a couple of rounds with Justin. Is this a blogsphere thing or something ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Kaldric;492126Hypothetically, if one believed that characters would never build such a thing, when, by soundly reasoning from known factors, other people can show that characters probably would, more likely than not, build such a thing?

[Of all the ridiculous debates I've been in online, this one wins hands down.]

Here's what seems more likely to me:

The players & GM, who have no doubt seen a lot of sci-fi movies & read a lot of sci-fi books, came up with the idea out of character to create this weapon.

Somebody thought about it and reasoned that you could use several dimension door spells to create a mass driver.

They did and the GM let them. End of story.

Now, even if every single user on this forum thinks that this is plausible, I do not, nor have I heard a convincing argument that it is.

Is it possible? Yes. Is it plausible? I don't think so.

I think it's far more plausable that a bunch of RPG geeks (which would include me) said, "Hey man, wouldn't it be cool to make one of these?"

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492129Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing or do you really believe that some characters just had a moment of brilliant intuition and created a just-add-water dimension door mass driver (DDMD)?

I'm just curious.

Whether it's feasable or not is beside the point and always has been. Whether it's credible or not is what I'm arguing.

If you do really believe that the characters made the DDMD, then I support you in believing it.

What bothers me about all this is that a DM can declare by fiat that my character is unable to extrapolate cause and effect and apply it to the world in a clever way because the DM simply doesn't like the idea. It doesn't fit with his priors of how the characters "ought" to relate to the world so he takes command of the one thing that is supposed to be sacrosanct to the player in a trad game--the character's internal perspective--and shuts it down. Were I a player in such a game I'd be irritated.  Now if the DM were to come and say the idea doesn't fit with the genre or other trappings of the imagined world, I might be more amenable to coming up with alternate ideas, but it would definitely provoke a discussion of what is suitable to the trappings of the world.

Quote from: David R;492133(Emphasis mine) Ok, what's this about ? This is not the first time I have read this when someone is going a couple of rounds with Justin. Is this a blogsphere thing or something ?

Eh? -- No idea, man.

Perhaps someone else worded it that way?

Quote from: two_fishes;492135What bothers me about all this is that a DM can declare by fiat that my character is unable to extrapolate cause and effect and apply it to the world in a clever way because the DM simply doesn't like the idea. It doesn't fit with his priors of how the characters "ought" to relate to the world so he takes command of the one thing that is supposed to be sacrosanct to the player in a trad game--the character's internal perspective--and shuts it down. Were I a player in such a game I'd be irritated.

I hear you loud and clear; I would be upset too.

At the same time, I personally think that it's important for players to run their characters in such a way that distinguishes between what the character knows and what the player knows. That's how all the GM's I've ever known have run games and that's how I run them too. It works for me.

Let me give you an example:

If a character is a 10-year-old in a very high-tech environment on the level of Star Trek:TNG, I would find it very unlikely that they have intimate and practical knowlege of crop irrigation or how to use a horse-drawn plow. So if the player is on some planet and says, "I'm going to build an irrigation ditch to help out the people in this town" -- I would say, "Um, does your character have a skill for land management (or whatever)? If not, then you don't know how to do that."

Now is it possible that they could concieve of the idea of building an irrigation system? -- Certainly. But without some kind of skill to do so (or a lot of practice)(or someone teaching them) they would fail at it - in the game.

I see this as basically the same thing. Whether you agree or not, do you understand what I'm saying?

QuoteNow if the DM were to come and say the idea doesn't fit with the genre or other trappings of the imagined world, I might be more amenable to coming up with alternate ideas, but it would definitely provoke a discussion of what is suitable to the trappings of the world.

Fair enough.

This isn't using specialized modern knowledge to make black powder. This is using magical knowledge to do something magical.

Teleportation mass drivers don't exist in the modern world. They're not even a science fiction concept. They're a fantasy concept - they require magic (or nonexistent and likely impossible technology).

If a player uses modern chemical knowledge to have his fighter mix up black powder, that's an anachronism.

If a player uses fantasy knowledge about dimension doors to make a telepult, that's D&D.

In other words: You have to be looking at the world from the perspective of a fantasy character (ie, roleplaying), seeing it in terms of dimension doors and teleportation gates, to even come up with the idea. The idea has no application in the modern world - it's not something that works here. In the world of the character - that's just using what you see every day.

To me it's about the type of game we all agreed to play when we started the whole mess.  If we agreed to play an epic high magic high fantasy game, then clever but anachronistic tricks are not part of the package.  It would be no different from me starting a low magic fantasy Renaissance game and revealing mid-campaign that all magic is derived from alien technology from a crashed spacecraft in Sicily.

Also, there's no spell in the d20 SD that acts like a Portal portal anyway, so the discussion's moot.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492159Also, there's no spell in the d20 SD that acts like a Portal portal anyway, so the discussion's moot.

True. But...

I'll just leave this here... and note that it takes 180,000 BBs to make 100 lbs.

Ring Gates (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Ring_Gates)

I think that D&D influenced Portal a bit.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492138If a character is a 10-year-old in a very high-tech environment on the level of Star Trek:TNG, I would find it very unlikely that they have intimate and practical knowlege of crop irrigation or how to use a horse-drawn plow. So if the player is on some planet and says, "I'm going to build an irrigation ditch to help out the people in this town" -- I would say, "Um, does your character have a skill for land management (or whatever)? If not, then you don't know how to do that."

Now is it possible that they could concieve of the idea of building an irrigation system? -- Certainly. But without some kind of skill to do so (or a lot of practice)(or someone teaching them) they would fail at it - in the game.

I see this as basically the same thing. Whether you agree or not, do you understand what I'm saying?

No, I think you have imagined an example that is very different from the original proposition. In your example here you have a player trying to give the character a skill he does not have. In the dimension door example, you have a player thinking of an application for a skill the character does have. The character in question is not an ignorant child, but an adult, and especially as a wizard, presumably intelligent and capable of novel and inventive applications for his skills.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492159It would be no different from me starting a low magic fantasy Renaissance game and revealing mid-campaign that all magic is derived from alien technology from a crashed spacecraft in Sicily.

I did this and the PCs loved it.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492109Not at all. But I personally (ie. Me, Blazing Donkey) do not believe that any characters could come up with such a thing on their own. If they put the work into it to test it out, maybe they could.

It sounds, though, like a classic case of someone out-of-character saying, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to create ___________?" And then figuring out a way to do that.

If some of you want to believe that the characters could do that, more power to you.

I would hesitate to decide that a character cannot have an idea, given that most scientific progress is based on people having that kind of ideas.

Blazing Donkey: Let me see if I can illustrate where I'm coming from.

Player: I'm going to use two sets of ring gates to set up a teleportation catapult!
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's just a mass driver, your character wouldn't know what a mass driver is.

Player: I'm going to cast fly on myself, and then, when I'm up in the air, I'm going to light lanterns and drop them on the monsters.
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's a plane dropping napalm, your character wouldn't know what a bomber plane is.

Player: I'm going to use the Sending ring to ask the mage on the Spelljammer to Teleport me to the ship.
GM: No, that's just like Star Trek. Might as well say "Beam me up, Scotty". Your character has never seen Star Trek, so you can't do it.

At least this is just spells. I had an old player that always wanted to build modern tech in d&d. I'd irritate him pretty bad.

"ok, your character retires as a craftsman from adventuring to start fabricating the parts he needs to build the tools he needs. Roll up a new character. No, ok, I guess the world will have to wait for blimps."

Yar. The time and trouble and money you'd need to actually build the telepult setup is likely to cost you 100,000 gold for the ring gates, the tower system, the remote to actually use it...

Seriously, there are easier ways. I think there's actually magic items that let you carry around a miniature catapult.

Still, if a player actually wanted to build such a thing, I wouldn't bother to stop them.

It depends on the game. In a game like D&D3 where after a few levels, casters do everything everyone else does better than they do, it is not a good idea to let casters do even more things better than everyone else does. If that's not going to happen in this game  (or the D&D3 game is short term, we're house ruling it, etc.) then absolutely I allow/encourage it.

Let me ask this: Which of the creative spell uses people are describing here would you be okay with bad guys using on you?

Quote from: daniel_ream;492159To me it's about the type of game we all agreed to play when we started the whole mess.  If we agreed to play an epic high magic high fantasy game, then clever but anachronistic tricks are not part of the package.  It would be no different from me starting a low magic fantasy Renaissance game and revealing mid-campaign that all magic is derived from alien technology from a crashed spacecraft in Sicily.

That's a great point, the decision has a lot to do with the feel of the world you're trying to create. Players have a big part in this too, it's not entirely the realm of the GM.

Most GMs that allow "creative spell use", I get the feeling they're not that interested in a consistent feel for their campaign world.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492243Most GMs that allow "creative spell use", I get the feeling they're not that interested in a consistent feel for their campaign world.

Or at least not obsessed with consistency to the point of neglecting whatever they think is fun about the game they're playing.

Which is clearly my case, and trust me, you may ask around : I'm not the kind of DM who doesn't "do" consistency. I kind of know what I'm talking about on both sides of the equation here, as I suspect many other people participating to this conversation are themselves.

Part of D&D's fun to me and most people I've played with over the years is however in the way you deal with obstacles, which appeals generally more to the players' skills rather than their characters' (I could go on a long tangent from there to explain how I find that relying more and more on character skill to deal with D&D's themes is actually completely counterproductive to the whole experience, but I'll refrain, since I don't have that much time to go into it).

From there, I find it is much better for the game overall to allow players to deal with said obstacles creatively, on their own merits, rather than just negate stuff or say "no" because of some weird concept of whatever one thinks "consistency" ought to mean for the game's world (not the other way around), especially when drawing parallels between real world medieval times and a fantasy universe that never was. That is ipso facto the kind of reasoning which, to me, is doomed to abject, and oft comical, failure.

Quote from: Imperator;492200I would hesitate to decide that a character cannot have an idea, given that most scientific progress is based on people having that kind of ideas.

I really think some of you are misunderstanding me here. I'm not saying that its impossible for a character to have an idea.

What I am saying is that the very concept of a "mass driver" is not likely something that a character in a medieval fantasy setting would come up with.

I'm sorry if this bothers people, but I simply do not believe that characters in that setting would have conceptualized such a thing. Further, I can't believe this is still be argued.

Look. TO ALL: If you believe that these characters is this guy's campaign could have invented this weapon, good for you. You are welcome to believe whatever you want. I'm not saying that anybody who believes this is "wrong" or "bad" or whatever. I personally don't believe the characters could've come up with it and I wouldn't allow it in my game.

But if did allow it, you can bet that this group would have a substancial bounty on their head (by several groups, both legitimate & criminal) to be be brought in alive so that someone could find out how they managed to accomplish this. Then they would most likely be killed so that nobody else could get the secret. -- In other words, they would be hunted to the ends of the earth and never know a day's peace. It's also very likely that the gods themselves would strike them down.

But I didn't hear any of that in the post of the guy who claimed his players invented it.

I have a real problem with players inventing some super weapon that nobody can top. Sounds like a hack-n-slash campaign. I wouldn't allow it in my campaign, not only because I don't believe they could've invented it, but also because it would dramatically unballance the game.

It's like playing Half-Life or Fallout 3 in God mode. What's the point?

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492256But if did allow it, you can bet that this group would have a substancial bounty on their head (by several groups, both legitimate & criminal) to be be brought in alive so that someone could find out how they managed to accomplish this. Then they would most likely be killed so that nobody else could get the secret. -- In other words, they would be hunted to the ends of the earth and never know a day's peace. It's also very likely that the gods themselves would strike them down.

Yes, yes. You're a narrow-minded, ignorant jerk that no one would ever want to play with. What's your point? How is this supposed to be supporting your thesis that something a 5 year old can figure out when given imaginary teleportation technology wouldn't be figured out by learned men and women in a world where teleportation has been a reality for hundreds or thousands of years?

Quote from: Kaldric;492205Blazing Donkey: Let me see if I can illustrate where I'm coming from.

Fair enough.

QuotePlayer: I'm going to use two sets of ring gates to set up a teleportation catapult!
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's just a mass driver, your character wouldn't know what a mass driver is.

Here's the original post:

The wackiest thing players ever wanted to do in a game I ran was use a Dimension Door spell as a mass driver, putting the gates above each other and cycling a boulder through at ever-increasing velocity. Fortunately for the Forgotten Realms,they couldn't quite figure out how to make a vacuum so the boulders could break terminal velocity, or get the power to last long enough with the psionicist they had. They weren't too far off destroying small cities by crashing rocks into them at near-lightspeed, though.

Key terms: mass driver, vacuum, terminal velocity, light-speed.

I've played in a lot of RPGs and I've never, ever heard these words uttered in a fantasy setting. Never. Not once.

If it was a high-tech setting like Rifts, Robotech, Star Frontiers, Traveler, or even Cthulhu, I wouldn't have a problem. But a fantasy setting? No way.

I'm all for players using spells in innovative way, but I have to draw the line when a player takes their 2011 CE real world knowledge and imparts it to their Iron Age character.

QuotePlayer: I'm going to cast fly on myself, and then, when I'm up in the air, I'm going to light lanterns and drop them on the monsters.
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's a plane dropping napalm, your character wouldn't know what a bomber plane is.

That's a false analogy. Greek fire.

QuotePlayer: I'm going to use the Sending ring to ask the mage on the Spelljammer to Teleport me to the ship.
GM: No, that's just like Star Trek. Might as well say "Beam me up, Scotty". Your character has never seen Star Trek, so you can't do it.

Another false analogy.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492256I have a real problem with players inventing some super weapon that nobody can top. Sounds like a hack-n-slash campaign.

I think that's your real problem right there. Never mind "consistency" and all that jazz. You're concerned about players actually having ideas that will make them "win". A problem which in fact does not exist if you stay cool in your head as a DM and just come up with natural consequences to the players' actions, such as, indeed, groups and factions hearing about this magical victory of theirs and being interested in their discoveries to the point of spying on them and/or hunting them down to discover their "secret". That's just one possibility, amongst many, many others that will take the campaign in some new, completely unplanned directions - which is the bread and butter of tabletop role playing games.

You as a DM are basically getting your panties in a knot and negating the players' creativity because you're afraid of what they're doing. It's bad, mate. Bad for your DMing skills, bad for the campaign, bad for everyone's enjoyment of the game. You should relax, and maybe try to think of contingency plans when unexpected stuff comes up instead of making up excuses about "game world consistency" to say "no" to your players. Just a suggestion.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492261Yes, yes. You're a narrow-minded, ignorant jerk that no one would ever want to play with.

Some day you'll constuct an argument that's not based on a logical fallacy and it will probably wither every tree on earth. Ad Hominem, anyone?

QuoteWhat's your point?

My point is I do not believe that characters in a medieval fantasy setting could have conceptualized a "mass driver". It's an opinion. Perhaps you've heard the term? It has to do with being an freethinking individual. You see, Justin, I get to determine what I personally believe is credible and what I do not believe is credible.

Some people believe in reincarnation. Some believe in ghosts. Some believe in angels. Some believe in karma. -- I don't believe in any of these things, but I don't go out of my way to confront those who do. What I do believe is that we all have the right to believe whatever we want.

But there are some people who can't stand it when someone disagrees with their personal viewpoint. If you're one of these, then perhaps you should ignore or even block my posts. Others here disagree with me, but they've been civilized about it. It would be nice if you could do the same.

QuoteHow is this supposed to be supporting your thesis that something a 5 year old can figure out when given imaginary teleportation technology wouldn't be figured out by learned men and women in a world where teleportation has been a reality for hundreds or thousands of years?

That's not my thesis; I never posted anything like it. Please, please quit making these strawman arguments. If you're incapable of reading my actual posts, I can reccomend several online resources for those who are challenged in basic reading comprehension.

Have a nice day.

Quote from: Benoist;492263I think that's your real problem right there.

Interesting.

QuoteNever mind "consistency" and all that jazz. You're concerned about players actually having ideas that will make them "win".

Not at all. First, I don't conceptualize gaming in terms of "winning" to begin with. Second, I've never had a problem like this in any of my games. My players are very reasonable. I don't think it would occur to any of them to do this in the first place - the players that is. It never has and I've seen people come up with all kinds of clever and innovative spell use.

QuoteA problem which in fact does not exist of you stay cool in your head as a DM and just come up with natural consequences to the players' actions, such as, indeed, groups and factions hearing about this magical victory of theirs and being interested in their discoveries to the point of spying on them and/or hunting them down to discover their "secret".

I agree completely with that.

QuoteThat's just one possibility, amongst many, many others that will take the campaign in some new, completely unplanned directions - which is the bread and butter of tabletop role playing games.

No argument there.

QuoteYou as a DM are basically getting your panties in a knot and negating the players' creativity because you're afraid of what they're doing. It's bad, mate. Bad for your DMing skills, bad for the campaign, bad for everyone's enjoyment of the game. You should relax, and maybe try to think of contingency plans when unexpected stuff comes up instead of making up excuses about "game world consistency" to say "no" to your players. Just a suggestion.

-chuckle- I'm not getting upset about anyting that has actually happened. This whole argument (if that's what is) is completely hypothetical. It has never happened. If it did happen, I'd probably say, "Are you sure your character has the knowlege of that?" -- If the player could argue rationally why they did, I'd allow it.

There are thousands, if not millions, of ways that players can use spells in innovative ways. This is one (01) way that I would not allow in my game.

I hate to put it this way but if you don't like it or don't agree, too bad. Don't play in my game. Simple as that. Right now, I've got a group of four players who I shared this whole thing with and they thought it was hilarious and absurd that anybody was arguing about it. --As if the collective minds on therpgsite dot com had any say whatsoever in someone else's game.

I'm not qualified to psychoanalyse the rest of you, nor are you to do so to me. We disagree on something. So be it.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492271If the player could argue rationally why they did, I'd allow it.

If the player was making the exact same reasoning Justin just did comparing the 5-year-old discovering the principle of portals with his character being a 70-year-old wizard who studied teleport spells and dweomers long enough to figure that one out, would you allow it?

I wouldn't simply because Teleport and Dimension Door spells don't work like that.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492279I wouldn't simply because Teleport and Dimension Door spells don't work like that.

You really think the studies of a wizard are not as much about the way spells work the way they do and why than their actual modus operandi? I don't believe so at all. If that was the case, no other spells would ever be created. There would be no such thing as a magic item, a mythal, Tenser's floating disk, Portable holes, Bags of holding... whatever the case may be. Or these would have all been invented for themselves, from scratch, without any use of logic or reason, deductions from particular theories, principles of magic and so on. Have you done actual studies of subjects, any subject really, which uses your faculty of deduction in your life? Come on, you seem to be at least a university graduate. I refuse to believe you don't know anything about concepts like analogy, lateral thinking, associations and the like.

I mean. Seriously. Give me a break.

I refuse to believe you are that narrow-minded.

Especially when you're dealing with a pseudo-medieval society. IRL medieval society's conceptual thought is most sharply distinguished from modern conceptual thinking by the ubiquitous use of analogical reasoning in the former.

Quote from: Benoist;492275If the player was making the exact same reasoning Justin just did comparing the 5-year-old discovering the principle of portals with his character being a 70-year-old wizard who studied teleport spells and dweomers long enough to figure that one out, would you allow it?

If the character had actually done in-game a study of the subject and declared that they were trying to unlock information about teleport technology (so to speak), then I would think it might be possible for them to indeed figure something like this out.

But not just because they said they could.

But this is all irrelevent anyways, because, as Daniel Ream points out, that's not how the spells work to begin with:

Dimension Door (Alteration)

"By means of a dimension door spell, the magic-user instantly transfers himself or herself up to 3" distance per level of experience.  This special form of teleportation allows for no error, and the magic-user always arrives at exactly the spot desired -- whether by simply visualizing the area (within the spell transfer distance, of course) or by stating direction such as '30 inches straight downwards' or 'upwards to the northwest, 45 degree angle, 42 inches'." -- 1st Ed PH, pg 76

A dimension door is not a 'passageway' or a 'portal', nor does it allow for non-living matter (other than what one carries) to be sent by itself.

So even if we buy the notion that the characters came up with the idea, they couldn't do it anyways because that's not how the spell works.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492279I wouldn't simply because Teleport and Dimension Door spells don't work like that.

I was saving that up, but you let the cat out of the bag. ;)

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492284If the character had actually done in-game a study of the subject and declared that they were trying to unlock information about teleport technology (so to speak), then I would think it might be possible for them to indeed figure something like this out.

But not just because they said they could.

Then anything you possibly do has to have to do with something you actually did "on camera", in the game proper. Are the characters starting at their actual birth in your game? Did the wizard character actually learn about the principles of magic live in the game? If not, I cannot come up with some piece of background in the game that would explain that yes, I, Osthentilius, have actually experimented with my master on teleport spells, bags of holding, portable holes and related topics, and that's even why I still have this mechanical finger on my hand instead of my live one?

If I can't do anything like that, and everything has to happen live for you to be okay with it, I wouldn't enjoy playing with you, no. I think many people would have problems with that over the long haul, actually. That's an imagination killer to me, in any case.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492285I was saving that up, but you let the cat out of the bag. ;)

Which I just answered to, thank you very much. That's not a full-proof argument, far from it.

Quote from: Benoist;492280I refuse to believe you are that narrow-minded.

You really are quite the condescending cockwipe, aren't you?

If a PC wizard wants to research and create the spell Plufinger's Pusillanimous Portal, then more power to him.  Great.  Marvelous. Every version of D&D ever has had rules for that.

But the hypothetical as given was a wizard using "teleport" spells to create a gravity driven mass driver.  Except there are no spells in D&D that work the way required for the mass driver to function.  There's one magic item that requires caster level 17 and the ability to cast Gate[1], by which point you can do worse things than a mass driver anyway and you don't need a magic item for them either.



This whole conversation is like people arguing that the fact that longswords do d30+2 damage against L creatures isn't really unbalanced because Large creatures have more hit points and are thicker so the sword won't just come out the other side and stab air.



[1] And has explicit limitations that would prevent its use as a mass driver regardless.

Calculate the terminal velocity the object could obtain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity), the distance that takes and the resulting force. Chances are it's probably not that bad, certainly not mass driver strike levels.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;492281Especially when you're dealing with a pseudo-medieval society. IRL medieval society's conceptual thought is most sharply distinguished from modern conceptual thinking by the ubiquitous use of analogical reasoning in the former.

For instance, absolutely. Even when talking about conventional sciences, specifically when talking about innovation, analogy, lateral thinking, associations are absolutely primordial to kick-start the discovery of other, possible, ways to do things and the expression of new ideas which then can be experimented with, observed, structured, thought about to give birth to new processes and tools to carry them out.

What I'm hearing here is the equivalent of "No, I wouldn't let the Technomage Steve Jobs come up with the iPod and iPad because in the 2000 setting book computer spells don't work that way."

In the history of D&D there is no shortage of "pass through" teleportation gates.

Quote from: Benoist;492286Then anything you possibly do has to have to do with something you actually did "on camera", in the game proper. Are the characters starting at their actual birth in your game? Did the wizard character actually learn about the principles of magic live in the game?

Is that what I said?

QuoteIf not, I cannot come up with some piece of background in the game that would explain that yes, I, Osthentilius, have actually experimented with my master on teleport spells, bags of holding, portable holes and related topics, and that's even why I still have this mechanical finger on my hand instead of my live one?

You can do whatever you want in your game. It's your game.

QuoteIf I can't do anything like that, and everything has to happen live for you to be okay with it, I wouldn't enjoy playing with you, no.

Ok.

QuoteI think many people would have problems with that over the long haul, actually. That's an imagination killer to me, in any case.

That's up to you. I support you in believing whatever you believe.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492288You really are quite the condescending cockwipe, aren't you?

I would be if I thought you were a moron, which I just pointed out, is not the case. But thanks for asking.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492288This whole conversation is like people arguing that the fact that longswords do d30+2 damage against L creatures isn't really unbalanced because Large creatures have more hit points and are thicker so the sword won't just come out the other side and stab air.

I couldn't agree more. As I said before, this is easily the most ridiculous debate I've ever participated in online in my entire life.

What's next??

"I cast Continual Light through a Tenser's Floating Disk and turned it into a particle-beam cannon!"

Quote from: daniel_ream;492288If a PC wizard wants to research and create the spell Plufinger's Pusillanimous Portal, then more power to him.  Great.  Marvelous. Every version of D&D ever has had rules for that.

... but you can't actually come up with such an idea live in the game (wait a minute...) because as we all know, there is no such thing as a crash test, spontaneous go-lucky discovery. There can't possibly be. It has to be in the rules. If it's not written on there, it can't be done.

I'm more of the old school, see. The one that basically says "if it's not specifically verboten by the rules, then it's okay."

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492297I couldn't agree more. As I said before, this is easily the most ridiculous debate I've ever participated in online in my entire life.

What's next??

"I cast Continual Light through a Tenser's Floating Disk and turned it into a particle-beam cannon!"

You see? You are coming back to this.

Admit it: your problem has NOTHING THE FUCK to do with consistency, logic, or any of those things. It just annoys the hell out of you that a player might be a munchkin. That's the real issue you have.

Quote from: Benoist;492299You see? You are coming back to this.

Go look up the word "satire" when you get a chance.

QuoteAdmit it: your problem has NOTHING THE FUCK to do with consistency, logic, or any of those things. It just annoys the hell out of you that a player might be a munchkin. That's the real issue you have.

You've hoisted me on my own petard. What shall I do now? -weeps-

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492297I couldn't agree more. As I said before, this is easily the most ridiculous debate I've ever participated in online in my entire life.

What's next??

"I cast Continual Light through a Tenser's Floating Disk and turned it into a particle-beam cannon!"

You'd need two different disks with different reflective qualities to make it phase coherent.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492301Go look up the word "satire" when you get a chance.

I suggest you go look up for it. I don't think this word means what you think it means.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;492302You'd need two different disks with different reflective qualities to make it phase coherent.

ROFLMAO!!!

That was classic! LOL!! Hats off to you, Sir. :D

Quote from: Benoist;492304I suggest you go look up for it. I don't think this word means what you think it means.

WHOOSH!!!!

Did you get a glimpse of that before it flew over your head?

I was using the "tenser's particle beam" comment to satirize this debate.

Pseudoephedrine got it. You could too if you understood what the word "satire" meant (as I suggested).

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492311Pseudoephedrine got it. You could too if you understood what the word "satire" meant (as I suggested).

Nah. I suggest you go look up the word "satire" again. It does not mean "I didn't really mean it LOL u dumb" like you seem to be bent on using it. Actually, you agree with the premise of the argument, you just turn it into a LOL argument because that's rhetorically convenient to camouflage your ineptitude at making a cogent response to my earlier points.

Ah. What the hell. That's cool with me.

Not actually seeing what is so game-breakingly powerful about this Portal-based "mass driver" that would require a GM to ban it. You can't aim it, so it's only good against walls, so while you're off researching spells and concocting vacuums, the druid's off turning your target to mud. And suppose you hit a live target, what are you doing, adding a few more d6's?

Who knows, this is the dumbest.

Quote from: Benoist;492312Nah. I suggest you go look up the word "satire" again. It does not mean "I didn't really mean it LOL u dumb" like you seem to be bent on using it.

A video depiction of your above reasoning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckAwT9AkRgE

It's sad when one unintentionally talks outside of someone else's depth and then that person gnashes their teeth in impotent fury at their own lack of understanding.

QuoteActually, you agree with the premise of the argument, you just turn it into a LOL argument because that's rhetorically convenient to camouflage your ineptitude at making a cogent response to my earlier points.

So being neutrual and supporting you in your own personal belief constitutes not making a cogent response? -- I am learning all kinds of new things today.

Thanks for sharing, oh Thoth.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492266Some day you'll constuct an argument that's not based on a logical fallacy and it will probably wither every tree on earth. Ad Hominem, anyone?

No. An ad hominem is when I say "you're wrong because you're an idiot". What I'm actually doing is the opposite of that: I'm saying your self-proclaimed status as an asshole GM of the worst variety ("you did something I didn't like, so the gods kill you") has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

QuoteI don't believe in any of these things, but I don't go out of my way to confront those who do. What I do believe is that we all have the right to believe whatever we want.

You're certainly free to believe that the world is flat, the moon landings were faked, and JFK was assassinated by Martians. I don't recall asking for your address so that I could dispatch the thought gestapo. But the freedom to be stupid doesn't validate the stupidity.

Quote

QuoteHow is this supposed to be supporting your thesis that something a 5 year old can figure out when given imaginary teleportation technology wouldn't be figured out by learned men and women in a world where teleportation has been a reality for hundreds or thousands of years?

That's not my thesis; I never posted anything like it.

And now, of course, you're just blatantly lying (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=492102&postcount=63).

Hint: All of us can hit the "back" button and go read your posts. They didn't magically disappear from the face of the internet just because they're inconvenient for your current sophistry. When you claim you didn't post something that you actually did post it just makes you look like a fool. You're like a 5-year-old with cookie crumbs on his face saying, "What cookies?"

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492316A video depiction of your above reasoning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckAwT9AkRgE

It's sad when one unintentionally talks outside of someone else's depth and then that person gnashes their teeth in impotent fury at their own lack of understanding.

I hope you are following the conversation, Daniel, because that is what a condescending cockwipe's post looks like.

Benoist, if you were playing in my D&D game and I told you a boulder suddenly  killed you - say, I give you a save for half damage and it only does 15,221d6 / 2 damage - would you consider that a fair result even if I explained that an enemy wizard had worked out a really ingenious extrapolation of the spell dimension door?

This question is not a trap, I am genuinely curious if you give NPC wizards the same ability to do this to the PCs as PCs do to them?  Does the edition of D&D you're using affect your answer to this question?

I think there's considerable evidence in the design of early D&D dungeons that NPCs were clearly meant to have insane abilities like this that PCs simply didn't have access to, so it might not be unbalancing in the same way that it might be in (say) a more thoroughly-worked-out game like D&D3.

Edit: Can you give an example of a time when you had an NPC caster do something like this to the PCs, and how it went?

Quote from: JDCorley;492323Benoist, if you were playing in my D&D game and I told you a boulder suddenly  killed you - say, I give you a save for half damage and it only does 15,221d6 / 2 damage - would you consider that a fair result even if I explained that an enemy wizard had worked out a really ingenious extrapolation of the spell dimension door?

This question is not a trap, I am genuinely curious if you give NPC wizards the same ability to do this to the PCs as PCs do to them?  Does the edition of D&D you're using affect your answer to this question?

I think that would heavily depend on the specific circumstances and personality of the NPC concerned. I make a point of using save or die instances along with circumstances where the PCs reasoning matters. In other words, it goes along with choices based upon realizing that say, walking through that corridor with semi-desintegrated remains, blood splattered all over and so on might result in such instant death scenarios. So for instance, that corridor might be the quickest way to get to the door their enemy they are pursuing is trying to reach, but also the deadliest one. There would be alternative paths throughout the dungeon, but none quicker than this one. So if they could manage to find out a way to defeat the trap, or to deflect its effects somehow, they might be able to use it, otherwise they will use valuable time travelling through various other areas while the bad guy prepares for their onslaught. Just a what-if scenario to make you get how I use save-or-die and why I actually think this is part of the tools available to the DM to build a challenging exploration environment for the PCs.

In the case we're talking about, if the PCs know they are going against a particularly inventive, versatile wizard, that they do not take much precautions to approach him, ward themselves against scrying attempts, or any of those things, then yes, it might be logical for the inventive wizard to attempt something like this. Maybe that'll even backlash on the wizard somehow, like with the gate not closing immediately, or the crystalline matter of the boulder itself yielding some information to the PCs as to the location of the wizard.

But then again, the players might be cautious. The wizard might actually be a very conservative, conformist necromancer unwilling or just psychologically unable to come up with these sorts of inventive uses of magic so... it'll depend on particular circumstances and characters involved, in the end.

Quote from: JDCorley;492323I think there's considerable evidence in the design of early D&D dungeons that NPCs were clearly meant to have insane abilities like this that PCs simply didn't have access to, so it might not be unbalancing in the same way that it might be in (say) a more thoroughly-worked-out game like D&D3.

That's true. But then again the very logics underlying the systems are very different themselves. The opposition of Daniel's "the spells don't work that way therefore you can't do it" versus my "if the spells don't specifically forbid it, then it's fair game" is something fairly representative of a shift that occurred gradually in the game's design throughout its various iterations.

So do you feel it would be a requirement to have those warning signposts for PCs before you unleash the new spell/implementation/gizmo, or could you just explain after the TPK that the wizard had done his researches in secret and hidden this capability until just now?

Would it be fair and okay for the PCs to be the first people he victimized with it?

How about if the wizard falsely spread rumors and information that he was neither inventive nor versatile, and the PCs heard these rumors and believed them?

Also, if the players didn't perceive any other way to reasonably reach their objective other than to subject the characters to this risk, would you consider that to be bad play on their part, bad GMing on your part, or neither?

Edit: Also, would you give NPCs defenses against the creative spell use of the PCs, saying, "well, they've researched you and know you're very versatile and creative, so..."?

Thanks for answering.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492320No. An ad hominem is when I say "you're wrong because you're an idiot".

"Abusive ad hominem (also called personal abuse or personal attacks) usually involves insulting or belittling one's opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument, but can also involve pointing out true character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent's argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and negative facts about the opponent's personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent's arguments or assertions." - Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem)

If you'd like to get that egg off your face, I'm sure there's a firehose laying around here somewhere...

QuoteWhat I'm actually doing is the opposite of that: I'm saying your self-proclaimed status as an asshole GM of the worst variety

I never proclaimed that; you did. Hence, yet another Ad Hominem. If you get five more, you win a mountain bike.

Quote("you did something I didn't like, so the gods kill you") has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

-very confused look- What are you talking about? -- I cannot decrypt this random stream of references from multiple posts that you are emiting.

Would it be too much to ask for you to attempt to be halfway coherent in your communications? -- Merely conversing with someone should not require use of a Cray XK6 to decypher their words.

QuoteYou're certainly free to believe that the world is flat, the moon landings were faked, and JFK was assassinated by Martians.

Yes, by all means take my words to the most extreme extrapolation you can think of. Why stop there? Surely that fertile mind of yours can reach to greater heights. Tell me that I think I'm the Messiah and I rule an empire of Eskimo Prostitutes who are all masters of Krav Maga. Go wild, son.

QuoteI don't recall asking for your address so that I could dispatch the thought gestapo. But the freedom to be stupid doesn't validate the stupidity.

That was indeed a masterful humdinger.

QuoteAnd now, of course, you're just blatantly lying (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=492102&postcount=63).

"Wow" is all I can say. You came up with some really odd example of a five-year-old playing a video game as unbeatable evidence that a person living in the 12th century could conceptualize a "mass driver".

That is your argument. Trying to say that it is somehow my argument is completely outside of all reasoning. This is not Non-Euclidian Geometry but that's how your mind seems to work... It's very peculiar and fascinating at the same time.

QuoteHint: All of us can hit the "back" button and go read your posts. They didn't magically disappear from the face of the internet just because they're inconvenient for your current sophistry.

A veritable fountain of knowlege you are. But what's this weird plastic thing with all the buttons with funny characters on them?

QuoteWhen you claim you didn't post something that you actually did post it just makes you look like a fool. You're like a 5-year-old with cookie crumbs on his face saying, "What cookies?"

Again, I stand in awe of your unique ability to not understand not only the writing of others, but that of yourself as well. Here: Read your rebutal in response to my rebutal. Think about it. Take a deep breath. Think about it again. Keep your hands away from your genitals.

Now, see if you can reply in a coherent way without Ad Homineming me into orbit.

Use the force, Luke.

Well I think if you're going to allow the PCs to be "creative" then the same should apply to NPCs.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: JDCorley;492329So do you feel it would be a requirement to have those warning signposts for PCs before you unleash the new spell/implementation/gizmo, or could you just explain after the TPK that the wizard had done his researches in secret and hidden this capability until just now?

No. It's not a requirement for using custom stuff. I actually use a lot of custom shit in my dungeons, and wait for the players to do the same. It's part of the pleasure of the game, to me.

It is however, to me, a sort of unspoken requirement in regards to save-or-die, specifically, in that it is best used when the players have the means to find out there effectively is a dangerous SOD situation ahead (though they might not get it, or miss it, or misinterpret it etc despite the warnings).

If I know that the players are fine with instant TPKs, specifically when they actually make sense from my standpoint, the actual situation in which they might occur, then yes, it might happen. That's the kind of stuff I talk about before starting the game, as a matter of principle, to know and feel where everyone stands on this before we play the game.

Quote from: JDCorley;492329Would it be fair and okay for the PCs to be the first people he victimized with it?

If the previous points I just made are all in order, sure.

Quote from: JDCorley;492329How about if the wizard falsely spread rumors and information that he was neither inventive nor versatile, and the PCs heard these rumors and believed them?

You're getting very close to a very specific scenario in which a whole lot of details would matter immensely. How did the wizard get interested in them enough to attempt this sort of kill strike ? What type of information did the PCs gather about this NPC before hand ? Are the rumors actually role played when they come to their ears ? Do the PCs have means to investigate such rumors and find out this emanates from the wizard himself ? Etc.

Hard to tell without having the specific situation right in front of my face, so to speak.

Quote from: JDCorley;492329Also, if the players didn't perceive any other way to reasonably reach their objective other than to subject the characters to this risk, would you consider that to be bad play on their part, bad GMing on your part, or neither?

Would depend on the particular circumstances again. If they fail to even perceive there are alternates to confronting an SOD situation, it might be that I failed as a GM by making these elements too hard to discern, or that they failed as players by not being curious or cautious enough in the first place, or a mix of the two even.

In the corridor scenario, you might have this corridor with blood splattered and semi-desintegrated bodies right. And two other corridors stretching from the same room where the PCs are. If the PCs don't test the corridor before venturing through, don't even consider exploring the other ones and getting an understanding of the lay out of the place before confronting such an obvious trap, then tactically, from an exploration POV, they failed, for instance.

Quote from: JDCorley;492329Thanks for answering.

Not at all. I don't mind discussing with you when you don't behave like an insane douchebag ranting with irony-filled posts of crap. I actually think you're a pretty smart bloke when you really want to be.

Quote from: JDCorley;492329Edit: Also, would you give NPCs defenses against the creative spell use of the PCs, saying, "well, they've researched you and know you're very versatile and creative, so..."?

If PCs are developing some type of magic (let's say, Chaositech) over the course of the campaign, that they come to the attention of a bad guy who has the time to gather evidence about them and basically come to understand them, their tactics, inclinations, etc. and from there, figure out a way to break their momentum, then yes, that is entirely possible.

Well, most of these examples don't talk about "over the course of the campaign".  These seem to be along the lines of "fuck it, let's try it for the first time right now!"

Quote from: David R;492331Well I think if you're going to allow the PCs to be "creative" then the same should apply to NPCs.

I quite agree; it's about balancing the game.

See, some of these ideas are pretty far out (in an interesting way) but creative spell use in my campaigns have been pretty mundane. I remember years ago, one player created these rings which were really some sort of comm devices (telepathy magic I think) so the characters could keep in touch when they were separated. It's small stuff like this (which has probably been thought up before) which adds a little something to the game. I admit I'm pretty easy going when it comes to stuff like this.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492341I quite agree; it's about balancing the game.

Therefore, it's really about you finding that the use of teleport spells proposed is unbalanced, a munchkin use of spells, instead of anything else having to do with game world consistency and the like. Thank you for admitting it.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492330

Quote("you did something I didn't like, so the gods kill you") has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

-very confused look- What are you talking about?

That's twice now you've claimed to have forgotten what you posted in this thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=492256&postcount=92).

So at this point we're left with a few options:

(1) You have Alzheimer's. (My condolences.)
(2) You're an idiot. (Ditto.)
(3) You're a troll. (Well played.)
(4) There are actually multiple people posting from your account.
(5) You're actually just an instantiated instance of Cleverbot.
(6) You're a time traveler who is posting to this thread out of linear temporal sequence.

QuoteYou came up with some really odd example of a five-year-old playing a video game as unbeatable evidence that a person living in the 12th century could conceptualize a "mass driver".  That is your argument. Trying to say that it is somehow my  argument is completely outside of all reasoning.

Or possibly you're just illiterate. (Hint: I said exactly the opposite of what you're claiming I said. Is it the contractions? Do just not understand that "wouldn't" and "would" aren't the same word?)

Upon reflection, this is most likely the explanation. After all, you claim that it would take a super-computer for you to understand simple English sentences.

Quote from: David R;492342See, some of these ideas are pretty far out (in an interesting way) but creative spell use in my campaigns have been pretty mundane. I remember years ago, one player created these rings which were really some sort of comm devices (telepathy magic I think) so the characters could keep in touch when they were separated. It's small stuff like this (which has probably been thought up before) which adds a little something to the game. I admit I'm pretty easy going when it comes to stuff like this.

That is exactly what I intended the gist of this thread to be about; not a quantum physics of magic discussion with a impromptu showing of knuckle-draggers-on-parade as we've seen here..

I'm going to start another thread on this subject about exactly that: how we have or have seen spells used in a creative way or funny way. Most of the things I've seen are often mundane or even in direct cohesion with the intent of the spell, but done so in a amusing way.

For example, the party had been picked up by pirates, escaped from their cell, and were crawling through a ventilation shaft. They accidentally came up on the bridge, & were seen. A player cast "Summon Locust Swarm" *inside* the bridge..!

Suddenly the room was plunged into chaos as every square-inch of space in the room was filled with jumping locusts. They couldn't pilot the ship, they couldn't work the controls, they couldn't communicate with other ships or call the guards; it was a mess and they didn't have weapons on hand suitable for quickly getting rid of the locusts. -- The players escaped.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492345Upon reflection, this is most likely the explanation. After all, you claim that it would take a super-computer for you to understand simple English sentences.

My own theory is that he and later Daniel had basically a gut reaction to the expression "mass driver", which basically made their brains tilt screaming "muuunchkin!!!!" and from there, the whole "game world consistency" thing was just (bad) rhetoric used to make sense of that reaction. It didn't work, so now we're down to various attempts at derision, humour and insults to camouflage the failure of their arguments. Classic internet conversation.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492345That's twice now you've claimed to have forgotten what you posted in this thread (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=492256&postcount=92).

How does that link relate to what you are talking about? In fact, what does it relate to at all? You're all over the place with this.

Remember when I asked you to be "coherent"? This is what I was talking about. I hate to have to ask this, but are you drunk right now?

QuoteSo at this point we're left with a few options:

(1) You have Alzheimer's. (My condolences.)
(2) You're an idiot. (Ditto.)
(3) You're a troll. (Well played.)
(4) There are actually multiple people posting from your account.
(5) You're actually just an instantiated instance of Cleverbot.
(6) You're a time traveler who is posting to this thread out of linear temporal sequence.

Can it be?? -- Yes, another batch of Ad Hominems! There shall be much merriment.

Oh, BTW, I notice that every time I rebut your silly arguments, you just drop them and come up with new ones. Believe it or not, you're not the first person to come up with this tactic. Many a young chap has employed the same technique since the BBS days. I remember a guy who ran a robocom board who used to pull it all the time back in '89; you remind me of him.

Same fetish for Ad Hominems, same redirection, same silly rebuttals. Of course, he was 16 at the time, but I'm hoping you are older than that. You are, aren't you?

QuoteOr possibly you're just illiterate.

Yes, this discussion is happening telepathically.

Hold on...  Mom! Get off the line! I'll feed the dog when I feel like it!

Ok, back to you.

Quote(Hint: I said exactly the opposite of what you're claiming I said. Is it the contractions? Do just not understand that "wouldn't" and "would" aren't the same word?)

Said about what? Which thread and which response are you refering to this time? -- Your lack of cohesion is really becoming taxing to deal with, and then, on top of it, you keep changing your argument like Martha Stewart trying to pick out just one pair of shoes at DSW.

QuoteUpon reflection, this is most likely the explanation. After all, you claim that it would take a super-computer for you to understand simple English sentences.

Yes, if they're brayed by someone who refuses to stay within the conventions of logic & coherence & rationality. Most people find that a lack of those things makes communication 'difficult'.

Uhm... Reverse Gravity has been a spell in D&D ever since 1st Edition AD&D. I think that is sufficient that a Wizard with that spell could have an excuse to study gravity and its observable effects. Plus EVERY Adventurer knows that the deeper the pit, the more damage you take.

Quote from: greylond;492358Uhm... Reverse Gravity has been a spell in D&D ever since 1st Edition AD&D. I think that is sufficient that a Wizard with that spell could have an excuse to study gravity and its observable effects. Plus EVERY Adventurer knows that the deeper the pit, the more damage you take.

Yeah, but if the skinny guy fell, the fat guy might think he could jump down and catch up to him (;

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492357Oh, BTW, I notice that every time I rebut your silly arguments

Look. I think Justin is making a lot of sense, actually, while I am not seeing you formulating any kind of actual rebuttal. What I see is screaming about "ad hominem attacks", "incoherence", then making silly attempts at derision, making fun of the points people are making, etc. You're tap dancing, mate.  

Making fun at other people's arguments and calling them "incoherent" is NOT, in itself, a rebuttal. That's a deflection. That's camouflage, empty rhetoric, dick waving, in other words. Sure, Justin is quickly losing patience with you, as am I, but do you actually get the difference between these things and an actual rebuttal?

Quote from: Cranewings;492359Yeah, but if the skinny guy fell, the fat guy might think he could jump down and catch up to him (;

Actually, I think that would be a perfect line of research for a Wizard with a Reverse Gravity spell and wanting to learn more about it. I can see a Wizard making a variant "Reverse Gravity" spell that allows it to be cast on an angled surface. Or an area with a combination "Reverse Gravity" and "Push" at the same time that launches an item at an angle.

Quote from: Benoist;492362Look. I think Justin is making a lot of sense, actually, while I am not seeing you formulating any kind of actual rebuttal. What I see is screaming about "ad hominem attacks", "incoherence", then making silly attempts at derision, making fun of the points people are making, etc. You're tap dancing, mate.  

What a completely objective analysis that was. Good work, ace.

QuoteMaking fun at other people's arguments and calling them "incoherent" is NOT, in itself, a rebuttal. That's a deflection. That's camouflage, empty rhetoric, dick waving, in other words.

Whatever, man. You completely ducked the issue when Daniel Ream pointed out that the spell doesn't work the way you want it to. I even quoted the spell right out of the PH and didn't reply to that at all.

Justin's only means of communicating seems to be throwing out insults and ignoring any argument that he can't rebut - which is all of them - and hence, no rebuttals.  Both you and he and have been throwing out logical fallacies since the beginning. But, now, suddenly, I am the one who is using "camoflauge" and "deflection" -- according to you.

You guys are a laugh riot. You guys are like: "Blazing Donkey! You can't debate! All you can do is talk circles around us logically! Big difference!"

Tell me, Benoist: is there a Culiseta longiareolata that you are trying to impress with all this posturing? -- I hope you get lucky.

QuoteSure, Justin is quickly losing patience with you, as am I,

How terrible for you.

Quotebut do you actually get the difference between these things and an actual rebuttal?

LOL!! This coming from the guy got all butt-hurt because he didn't understand a joke that I told (which someone else got).

Yes, Benoist, you are certainly one to chastize others for not properly rebutting people. I bow before your majestic grace in this matter.

Quote from: greylond;492366Actually, I think that would be a perfect line of research for a Wizard with a Reverse Gravity spell and wanting to learn more about it. I can see a Wizard making a variant "Reverse Gravity" spell that allows it to be cast on an angled surface. Or an area with a combination "Reverse Gravity" and "Push" at the same time that launches an item at an angle.

Sounds like a very workable idea.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492367Whatever, man. You completely ducked the issue when Daniel Ream pointed out that the spell doesn't work the way you want it to. I even quoted the spell right out of the PH and didn't reply to that at all.

HOLY FUCK A COGENT REMARK. :eek:

:D

No mate. It's Daniel who completely ignored my point about innovation and analogy, lateral thinking and association, and you who then jumped on the bandwagon because it was convenient for you to get a buddy on the thread to give you ammunition you sorely needed.

Answer my point about analogy. If you can use analogical reasoning, lateral thinking and association to come up with creative uses of spells, then the creation of such an effect is, in theory, actually possible. Nevermind the exact combo of spells required. That is, in fact, neither here nor there.

Blazing: You claimed a couple of the analogies I used were false analogy - I was wondering if you could clarify that for me.

I said:

QuotePlayer: I'm going to cast fly on myself, and then, when I'm up in the air, I'm going to light lanterns and drop them on the monsters.
GM: No, that's a modern notion, it's a plane dropping napalm, your character wouldn't know what a bomber plane is.

And then you said:

QuoteThat's a false analogy. Greek fire.

My analogy was that if you disallow modern concepts to be mimicked by creative spell combinations, etc, then you invalidate many normal D&D tactics.

Flight is a D&D spell. Magic Missile is a D&D spell. Combine them, and you are mimicking a fighter plane with guided missiles.

Teleport is a D&D spell. Spider Climb is a D&D spell. Combine them, and you are mimicking Nightcrawler from the X-Men.

If you don't disallow these creative spell uses, then "You're using magic to mimic something modern" is not a sufficient reason to disallow something. It happens all the time.

If you want to disallow a "light-speed" mass driver? There's all sorts of reasons that wouldn't work. No need to simply tell players they can't try it.

If my players actually tried such a thing in a hypothetical 3E game, it would probably go like this:

Players: Hey, you notice that if you use big rocks, or throw them really hard, the damage goes up without limit? Let's figure out a way to throw rocks at lightspeed!

DM: What do you expect to accomplish by this?

Players: We'll be able to blow up entire cities with a rock!

DM: Okay. Give it a try.

Players: We cast dimension door, and it passes through...

DM: Doesn't work that way.

Players: We get some ring gates...

DM: Only 100 lbs per day. No light speed.

Players: We craft a custom spell to...

DM: You're crafting a spell that will enable city destruction. It's an epic-level spell, it will require special feats, and you'll need to be epic level yourselves, and it will cost a million gold pieces.

Players: But we're only level 5...

DM: D&D magic is difficult based on what it can ultimately accomplish. It's result-based. So, while it may seem easy to create a simple variant of Telekinesis that smashes atoms together instead of big objects, the difficulty of creating a spell that lets you make a nuclear bomb is based on the damage a nuclear bomb does - not how complicated it is to make.

Players: But, vacuum, rocks... city explosion!

DM: I guess you'll have to level up if you want to destroy cities.

I've never heard D&D magic described as effect-based, before.

Quote from: Benoist;492375No mate. It's Daniel who completely ignored my point about innovation and analogy, lateral thinking and association [...] Nevermind the exact combo of spells required. That is, in fact, neither here nor there.

It's entirely the point.  The OP was about the creative use of existing spells.  There are no official spells in any version of D&D[1] that will allow the gravity-driven mass driver effect so beloved by some of you.

If a player wants to invent such a spell, hey, that's great.  It's hard and it takes time, and the payoff is you have a spell that can be used for cool shit that will be unexpected, because you made up a new spell.  But Teleport and Dimension Door and the various other transport magic spells explicitly do not work in the way that would be needed to create a mass driver[2].

This use of Teleport and Dimension Door is, to use Benoist's own words, explicitly forbidden by the spell description.

Here, Ben, I'll address your precious point: players who want to try to gain some kind of temporary quick win by exploiting an anachronistic understanding of grade school physics will have their plan evaluated by my anachronistic understanding of grad school physics.[3]  Or, we can just play the damn pseudo-medieval fantasy game we all agreed to in the first place.



[1] That I could find quickly; fuck me, I do not care enough.
[2] Gate might, it's unclear; but it's also a 9th level spell, at which point just fireballing the town is a more effective option anyway.
[3] No, that's not a typo.

"Temporary quick win".

Yeah. You're right. There's nothing more to discuss. It never was about the use of these particular spells, or portable holes and anti-grav effects, or any of that nonsense. I've said my piece.

By "effect" I mean that spells are organized on the spell-level scale based on their anticipated effect on the game, not on how they achieve the effect.

Creative spell use involves manipulating the "how" of a spell so that it does something to achieve a final effect that wasn't considered by the designers, so as to make the spell far more effective than spells of that level are intended to be.

I personally don't mind a bit of creative spell use - as long as it doesn't make the game less fun.

Edit: As an example: There's nothing in the description of 1st Edition AD&D "Enlarge" that says you can't shrink metal objects around softer objects, and crush the softer object. Now - the intended effect of "Shrink" is probably just to make objects a teensy bit smaller, maybe to shrink doors, or whatever. But, by noting that a crown, or a helmet, encircles the head, and the spell actually says "instantly" - as in, the opposite of "gradually", the shrink spell can be used to kill anything that relies on its brain and wears a helmet.

You manipulate the "how" to get a much more powerful "effect". You note that shrink shrinks "instantly" - that's the "how". You manipulate it so that instead of being a marginally useful object shrinker, it becomes an instant death, no save skull-crusher.

And then, in later versions of the game, the designers have been made aware that people are using it that way, and they intentionally change the spell to prevent this from happening.

If you (general you here, everyone feel free to answer) had a player who decided to use shrink as a skullcrusher, and you were playing an edition of the game that didn't explicitly say it couldn't be used that way, would you allow it?

Would you have an NPC unexpectedly do the same to a player character?

I've actually dealt with this in my game.

I did not allow the 1st level character to insta-kill with the spell. Instead, I ruled that the helmet shrank as far as it could, then did 1d2 damage and 1 hp per round until the helmet was yanked off, at which point it did 1d2 more damage, and tore off the ogre's ear.

I told the player that he was very clever, but that by using the spell in this way, he could feel it trying to backfire on him - the spell had an "intended" use, which he knew of, and he was taking a risk warping it out of its "comfort zone".

And no, NPCs did not then start using it on the PCs, because NPC casters know that it's dangerous - if the object can't shrink without destroying something, there's odds that it will slow the spell, causing gradual shrinking, or cause the spell to rebound on the caster, making all of HIS items shrink, etc, etc. It occasionally works - but it's more likely to backfire.

I came up with the reason this time, but on other occasions, it's been my players coming up with reasons why certain spells just don't work right when you try to abuse them beyond a certain limit, which experimentation generally reveals safely enough.

Creative spell use is best when it's situationally clever, like using an unseen servant to carries the parties lantern 100 feet ahead of the party, so they can ambush monsters trying to sneak up on them, or using mage hand to safely open a door with a possible ambusher behind it so that the monster on the other side swings wildly into empty air as the door opens.

It's less fun when it sets precedence for a game breaking rort that can be applied any place or any time.

The world the game emulates is artificial, and it's conveyed to the players through the medium of language.

Language is not precise or concrete enough to close loopholes that would be closed if the game world were "real".

So, that's what the DM is for, adjudicating those loopholes and omissions and whatever, and that's why I don't adjudicate spells by the letter of their description - because those descriptions are never complete, as long as their goal is to describe a situation as it happens in an emulated world, rather than on a gameboard.

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492357How does that link relate to what you are talking about?

You really can't figure out the connection between "you did something I didn't like, so the gods kill you" and "if I did allow it ... the gods themselves would strike them down"? The re-phrasing has left you so completely baffled that you claim to need a supercomputer to decode the connection?

Guess "Blazing Donkey is illiterate" is the confirmed winner here.

(If you're having problems figuring out what I'm saying there:

(1) "Blazing Donkey" is the handle you post under here.
(2) By '"here" I'm referring to the RPGSite.
(3) "Illiterate", in this context, means "unable to understand English".
(4) "English" is the language that the rest of us are using to communicate.

If any of the words in this explanation are confusing you (and I'm assuming all of the words with one or more syllables fall into that category for you), then I recommend checking out http://www.dictionary.com.)

Ciao.

I am more comfortable with creative insta-kills if they rely on siezing unusual opportunities or involve some tactical set-up. The issue with the shrink example is after the initial clever use it becomes an effortless way to dispatch anyone wearing helmets. I think in that case either limiting shrinks ability to damage someone that way (d2 was a good example) or allowing npcs to use it on the pcs as well is the way to go (if people really want it fine, but it is a double edged sword).

I liked the d2, 1 hp per round it was left on, and then another d2 and some cosmetic damage when it got torn off. I also had the ogre lose a turn pulling the helmet off. Did about what I thought, at the time, a first level spell used creatively should do.

But I could see where it was going to go if I went strictly by the text - the party would be playing insta-kill ring-toss with every monster they met.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492393It's entirely the point. The OP was about the creative use of existing spells. There are no official spells in any version of D&D[1] that will allow the gravity-driven mass driver effect so beloved by some of you.
 

Well..um...sorry to have brought this up I think, but for the record, the situation came up in a 2nd edition game I was running circa 1995. The power in question wasn't technically a spell, it was a psychoportation psionic power which I find after checking was called Dimensional Door (Complete Psionics Handbook, pg. 69). It creates a sustained gateway at a PSP cost of 4, + 2 per additional round (minute).
(This particular power is also famous for "creative use" by letting players teleport monsters 50 yards up, BTW - someone wrote in to Sage Advice and complained about it at one point).
 
The power was actually known to one of the characters in the party, a halfling multiclassed psionicist/thief - though she needed more PSPs to have done anything particularly destructive. One of the other players was a 1st year uni physics student at the time and did some calculations of kinetic energy etc., but it being 15 years ago I forget the details.

Quote from: Benoist;492343Therefore, it's really about you finding that the use of teleport spells proposed is unbalanced, a munchkin use of spells, instead of anything else having to do with game world consistency and the like. Thank you for admitting it.

I can see why your resume was rejected by the LaToya Jackson Psychic Network. You're really not Uri Geller material, are you?

Once again, your attempt to read my mind - instead of reading the real, tangible words on the screen - has led to the formation of another delusion in that ageis of intelligence that you so humbly carry within that nervously ticking brain of yours.

I admitted nothing. This is effectively another strawman argument.

I'll bet the crows stay the hell away from your house.

Quote from: Benoist;492375No mate. It's Daniel who completely ignored my point about innovation and analogy, lateral thinking and association,

Did you really just say that? I thought I was having an acid flashback, but no, you did just say that.

Why is it signficant? -- Here's why: You and Justin have been trumpeting the cause of this silly 12th century mass driver idea (for reasons I have yet to understand) and Daniel comes along and outs both of you for not even understanding how the spell workis.

THEN you say: "It's Daniel who completely ignored my point about innovation and analogy, lateral thinking and association..."

You completely ignored what he said and completely ignored the actual words written by Gary Gygax himself as to how the spell works. But, hell, none of that matters because according to your logic, Daniel is in the wrong for not entertaining your drunken ramblings about why the spell should work the way you want it to.

Since you're the one arguing that a dimension door mass driver is possible, the burden of proof is on your back; not the other way around. This is understood everywhere and is actually incorporated into the legal systems of most countries of the world.

It's not Daniel's responsibility to prove your argument. That is completely absurd (and, ironically, the same trick that Wise Sage Justin tried to pull on me.).

Daniel shot down your argument and, like so many others who have yet to attain emotional puberty, you couldn't admit that you were wrong so here we are with you rolling around and spraying spittle and moaning that everyone else must justify your arguments.

Buck up, little guy. The sun will shine again.

Quoteand you who then jumped on the bandwagon because it was convenient for you to get a buddy on the thread to give you ammunition you sorely needed.

It's really fascinating that you view all of this as some sort of power struggle. You just unintentionally gave us all a panoramic view into the way you think and gain emotional validation & self-worth. To which I will respond with a Cthulhuesque poem:

QuoteAnswer my point about analogy. If you can use analogical reasoning, lateral thinking and association to come up with creative uses of spells, then the creation of such an effect is, in theory, actually possible.

Newsflash! You can't use a spell to do something it doesn't do. To use an analogy, you can't use a wooden spoon to cook food as one would do with a microwave oven. The spoon does not generate microwave radiation and is incapable of cooking food.

A dimension door spell simply does not work the way you want it to, so you're arguing that if you can make some kind of crazy balls-out rationalization, you can make dimension door do something that goes against the very fiber of what the spell actually is.

To use another analogy, this would be like saying "I am going to use Spiritwrack to cure disease."

Be sure to send NASA some telemetry data on your voyage into deep space.

QuoteNevermind the exact combo of spells required. That is, in fact, neither here nor there.

Why? Because you say so? -- LOL!!!

How hilarious to watch you trying to rule as 'irrelevent' the very thing that is being argued about in the first place.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;492442You really can't figure out the connection between "you did something I didn't like, so the gods kill you" and "if I did allow it ... the gods themselves would strike them down"? The re-phrasing has left you so completely baffled that you claim to need a supercomputer to decode the connection?

"What Are You Talking About - The Commercial" - Take 26.

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I don't know what point you are making. I don't know extrapolation you are trying to string togather with this quote you keep bringing up.

Please clarify your point and your argument. Don't assume that I know what you are talking about because I'm telling you that I cannot decipher any of your reasoning. Also, try picking a point and sticking with it, rather than dancing around all over the place like Al Gore waking up in bed with Paris Hilton.

Thanks in advance.

Quote from: Dog Quixote;492435Creative spell use is best when it's situationally clever, like using an unseen servant to carries the parties lantern 100 feet ahead of the party, so they can ambush monsters trying to sneak up on them, or using mage hand to safely open a door with a possible ambusher behind it so that the monster on the other side swings wildly into empty air as the door opens.

It's less fun when it sets precedence for a game breaking rort that can be applied any place or any time.

Well said. That's how I see it, too.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;492465Well..um...sorry to have brought this up I think, but for the record, the situation came up in a 2nd edition game I was running circa 1995. The power in question wasn't technically a spell, it was a psychoportation psionic power which I find after checking was called Dimensional Door (Complete Psionics Handbook, pg. 69). It creates a sustained gateway at a PSP cost of 4, + 2 per additional round (minute).

Thank you for clarifying this.

This should effectively end the debate. We were under the impression that you were talking about AD&D - which as you know - has a very different description of "Dimension Door".

Problem solved - and the egg is on all of our faces because we made an assumption. :D

Quote from: Blazing Donkey;492525I can see why your resume was rejected by the LaToya Jackson Psychic Network. You're really not Uri Geller material, are you?

Of course. "It's about balancing the game" and "it's about considering the approach to be munchkin, 'overpowered'," are two statements that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Either you are mentally crippled, or you believe I am. Either way, there's no future for our "conversation."

In a probably vain attempt to drag this thread back to the topic, given a spell that actually works the way the player says it does, I'd be inclined to use existing mechanics to adjudicate.

Make a touch roll to hit the helm so you can cast Shrink on it (assuming it's a touch range spell).  The other guy gets a Save vs. Spells, or maybe Ray if it's a ranged spell.  If it's 3.5, I'd have the target make a Strength or Con opposed roll vs. Caster Power check, take 1d4 damage if he fails.

Unseen Servant grabbing a horse's bit?  Make an attack roll, 0-level peasant vs. armored horse.  Invisibility bonus and moving horse cancel each other out. (Given the existence of Mage Hand, I'd be inclined to just say "no, the unseen servant is too slow for that" though).

Quote from: Dog Quixote;492435Creative spell use is best when it's situationally clever, like using an unseen servant to carries the parties lantern 100 feet ahead of the party, so they can ambush monsters trying to sneak up on them, or using mage hand to safely open a door with a possible ambusher behind it so that the monster on the other side swings wildly into empty air as the door opens.

It's less fun when it sets precedence for a game breaking rort that can be applied any place or any time.

This s precisely another thing that bothers me, and what really prompted my first objection. This is tantamount to saying it's okay for the PCs to be clever when it's fairly pedestrian and banal, but if they think of something that could seriously impact the imagined world, suddenly it's all, Hands off! No! Stop! You're not allowed!

Fuck that. I mean, if the GM stopped at that point and said, "Hey, this could have serious impact on the world, and would lead to all sorts of consequences, and might change the direction of everything. Is everyone okay with taking the game down this road?" That would be one thing, and I could respect that, and be okay if the table decides against it. But someone just shutting the idea down because, "No! Your character wouldn't do that!" Forget about it.

Quote from: Benoist;492547Either way, there's no future for our "conversation."

You keep saying that, and yet you're still here.

Quote from: Benoist;492547Either you are mentally crippled, or you believe I am. Either way, there's no future for our "conversation."

I agree.

Let's drop it and move on.

Quote from: two_fishes;492552This s precisely another thing that bothers me, and what really prompted my first objection. This is tantamount to saying it's okay for the PCs to be clever when it's fairly pedestrian and banal, but if they think of something that could seriously impact the imagined world, suddenly it's all, Hands off! No! Stop! You're not allowed!

Fuck that. I mean, if the GM stopped at that point and said, "Hey, this could have serious impact on the world, and would lead to all sorts of consequences, and might change the direction of everything. Is everyone okay with taking the game down this road?" That would be one thing, and I could respect that, and be okay if the table decides against it. But someone just shutting the idea down because, "No! Your character wouldn't do that!" Forget about it.

Well, no one asked the writers to write so many stupid spells. Well, maybe someone did, but it wasn't me. All the shitty spells in D&D have lead to things like lead covered castles to deal with them. It would have been better if they just did a better job writing the spells with the game world in mind.

What are you going to do when the funny uses for spells start stacking up. When the party has Floating Disk Bombers, Mass Drivers, Rope Trick Delayed Chemical Bombs, Lightning Bolt Super Magnets, and blah blah blah. It isn't the one thing that gets bad. It is the fact that one group can make tons of this crap, and the fact that they came up with it so easily implies that the crap is everywhere in the game world. This starts turning Greyhawk into Eberon pretty quickly.

I mean, I get it, that's D&D to a lot of people. I just think it is stupid. I want castles and troop formations to mean something, and all that evaporates just with leveling, let alone "creative spell use" which is basically rules lawyering.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492551In a probably vain attempt to drag this thread back to the topic, given a spell that actually works the way the player says it does, I'd be inclined to use existing mechanics to adjudicate.

I try to do the same. If the game doesn't have a specific mechanic I can use, I will create one on the spot. For example, in Rifts, there is inexplicably no mechanic for how high someone can jump based on physical strength.

QuoteMake a touch roll to hit the helm so you can cast Shrink on it (assuming it's a touch range spell).  The other guy gets a Save vs. Spells, or maybe Ray if it's a ranged spell.  If it's 3.5, I'd have the target make a Strength or Con opposed roll vs. Caster Power check, take 1d4 damage if he fails.

Well-reasoned.

QuoteUnseen Servant grabbing a horse's bit?  Make an attack roll, 0-level peasant vs. armored horse.  Invisibility bonus and moving horse cancel each other out. (Given the existence of Mage Hand, I'd be inclined to just say "no, the unseen servant is too slow for that" though).

I agree as well. The original description of the spell (PH pg. 69) says that the Unseen Servant is not strong and also cannot be commanded to fight, though technically it's not fighting; it's manipulating a bit. I'd say it had to roll to hit at -3 (to hit a small target) & -8 to hit a small, moving target, given it's size and strength. If it hit, I'd have a strength test of the horse vs. the unseen servant. If it won, I'd say the action succeeded.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492553You keep saying that, and yet you're still here.

Fuck you, Daniel. I wasn't talking to you.

Quote from: daniel_ream;492551In a probably vain attempt to drag this thread back to the topic, given a spell that actually works the way the player says it does, I'd be inclined to use existing mechanics to adjudicate.

Make a touch roll to hit the helm so you can cast Shrink on it (assuming it's a touch range spell).  The other guy gets a Save vs. Spells, or maybe Ray if it's a ranged spell.

Problem I found with Shrink is that there is no save, and the range isn't touch, and the caster just needs to be able to see the target. I figured if I was going to change anything, it should be in the "how" of the spell - by changing the "instantly" changes size. Or just adding the common sense caveat that the spell doesn't work right if something is in the way.

Cranewings: I think that we expect a little too much of spell-writers. They're not ever, ever going to be able to think of every possible use that a spell might be put to, and as long as they continue to describe how a spell does what it does, there will be creative twistings of that. The intent of the system is that the DM be there to adjudicate, and fill the gaps between Rules as Written and Rules as Intended. This is not a case of "Just because a DM can fix it, doesn't mean it's not bad design." It's a case of "There is no way to design it so that a DM isn't necessary, without destroying what makes an RPG special".

Quote from: two_fishes;492552This s precisely another thing that bothers me, and what really prompted my first objection. This is tantamount to saying it's okay for the PCs to be clever when it's fairly pedestrian and banal, but if they think of something that could seriously impact the imagined world, suddenly it's all, Hands off! No! Stop! You're not allowed!

Fuck that. I mean, if the GM stopped at that point and said, "Hey, this could have serious impact on the world, and would lead to all sorts of consequences, and might change the direction of everything. Is everyone okay with taking the game down this road?" That would be one thing, and I could respect that, and be okay if the table decides against it. But someone just shutting the idea down because, "No! Your character wouldn't do that!" Forget about it.

Exactly. This is what this whole thing is really about from the start. All that stuff about world consistency, your wizard wouldn't know that, game balance, munchkins and all ? It's all bullshit. It's been from the start about one thing : the GM freaking out about a PC being able to build the equivalent of a mass driver and thereby getting a real fucked up weapon in the game. From there, instead of dealing with the natural consequences of such an action, our sample GMs there are choosing to make up a whole lot of brainfart arguments to basically come down to "No, you won't do that in my game." That's *it*.

Quote from: Benoist;492575Exactly. This is what this whole thing is really about from the start. All that stuff about world consistency, your wizard wouldn't know that, game balance, munchkins and all ? It's all bullshit.

It may be "bullshit" to you, but it's not to everyone.

Everyone runs their game their own way.

Demonstrating your brilliant understanding of English one more time, I see. Congratulations, mate.

Benoist: I allow "creative" spell use, to the point that it would end the game. And there is where I stop it.

I figured interpreting a rule in such a way as to functionally allow every 1st level caster an instant-kill no save, no roll, ranged at will death spell was a bad idea.

When that is going to happen, I say "Hey. Why hasn't anyone come up with this idea in the last 3000 years? It's not a like a steam engine, or an invention - it's just a normal application of this spell. Why isn't every wizard doing this? Why isn't it in the basic description of the spell?"

And the answer is always because "The guy who wrote the spell didn't realize players would try this, and assumed the DM would cover any weird convolutions he missed."

And I think, when the written rules fall down, it's the DM's job to step in and adjudicate the situation in a way that allows the game to remain fun.

Quote from: Benoist;492577Demonstrating your brilliant understanding of English one more time, I see. Congratulations, mate.

-sigh- Whatever. If anyone disagrees with you, then they are automatically wrong, apparently.

Sorry I said anything.

Quote from: Kaldric;492584And I think, when the written rules fall down, it's the DM's job to step in and adjudicate the situation in a way that allows the game to remain fun.

Exactly what I think as well.

It's the GM's job to keep the game fun, allowing or not allowing components as the GM thinks is best. After all, they know their players and their game.

If you look at the evolution of spells from 0D&D to 3e, you can see where they implemented DM restrictions on what spells could do, to keep the game playable. 4th Edition finally went overboard, and just listed spells as "it does this, and this only". I think turning spell descriptions into long blocks of legalese, rather than just saying to the DM "Hey, use common sense", is a bad idea.

You either have the DM put a brake on hairsplitting interpretations that destroy the milieu, or the designers do - and I don't really like it when the designers do it, because they end up with fireballs that are square, powers that are just completely disassociated from the world.

I love it when characters come up with a creative use for a spell. Doesn't bother me at all - even one that is more powerful than the level limits say it should be. I'm also perfectly capable of looking at that spell and saying "If you continue to use it this way, the word will end. You will be able to kill cities, the bad guys will be able to kill countries, and since it's so simple, within a week of you using it, the only logical outcome would be the end of the world."

And then, I can look at the campaign world, and ask the logical question: Why hasn't it happened already? Apply the anthropic principle, probably wrongly, but: If the situation were so easy to derail, if it were so easy to destroy the world/civilization as it stands - why hasn't it been done? There are thousands of spellcasters in the world. Many of them hundreds of years old, and much more intelligent than the PCs. Logically, why haven't they been doing this?

And the only reasonable answer that makes sense in the game, that allows the world to exist, is that "The spell doesn't work that way. There's something in the world, that was left out of the description, that makes doing that a bad idea." So, as the DM, I generally ask the players what they think the reason is. If they can't come up with a reason, I, as the referee, do.

The reason must exist, or the world wouldn't.

And I LIKE playing in the world, so I come up with a reason.

As for creative spell use that wouldn't just destroy the milieu if everyone used it - no problem with it whatsoever.

Quote from: Kaldric;492572Problem I found with Shrink is that there is no save, and the range isn't touch, and the caster just needs to be able to see the target. I figured if I was going to change anything, it should be in the "how" of the spell - by changing the "instantly" changes size. Or just adding the common sense caveat that the spell doesn't work right if something is in the way.

Cranewings: I think that we expect a little too much of spell-writers. They're not ever, ever going to be able to think of every possible use that a spell might be put to, and as long as they continue to describe how a spell does what it does, there will be creative twistings of that. The intent of the system is that the DM be there to adjudicate, and fill the gaps between Rules as Written and Rules as Intended. This is not a case of "Just because a DM can fix it, doesn't mean it's not bad design." It's a case of "There is no way to design it so that a DM isn't necessary, without destroying what makes an RPG special".

As far as think shrink thing goes, either the clasp would break and the helmet would come off, maybe granting a -2 penalty to strike / ac for one round, or the spell would simply not work as the item is incapable of shrinking. That would be my answer to it if a player decided to shrink a helmet with a level 1 spell.

As far as the mass driver, I'd probably just have the gods steal the spell from the wizard's mind and let him pick another one instead.

I agree that the GM is there to handle the rules. I just think a lot of the spells are unnecessary. Shrink and enlarge are a couple. Assume large size or assume tiny size would be good spells, but the shifting somethings size 10% is kind of garbage. Dimension door is a monster ability. It shouldn't be a spell either. Suddenly the wizard is a ninja now? What D&D needs is the ham-handed fist of god to delete roughly half the word count in the book.

Quote from: Kaldric;492584Benoist: I allow "creative" spell use, to the point that it would end the game. And there is where I stop it.

I figured interpreting a rule in such a way as to functionally allow every 1st level caster an instant-kill no save, no roll, ranged at will death spell was a bad idea.

When that is going to happen, I say "Hey. Why hasn't anyone come up with this idea in the last 3000 years? It's not a like a steam engine, or an invention - it's just a normal application of this spell. Why isn't every wizard doing this? Why isn't it in the basic description of the spell?"

And the answer is always because "The guy who wrote the spell didn't realize players would try this, and assumed the DM would cover any weird convolutions he missed."

And I think, when the written rules fall down, it's the DM's job to step in and adjudicate the situation in a way that allows the game to remain fun.

I don't disagree with that principle at all, actually. It was you who talked about the reduction spell and the helmet right? I thought that was a pretty clever ruling, in the sense that if reduction allowed instant kills, that could become a huge problem rules-wise, and yet you *allowed it*, ruling that it did in fact do *some* damage, but not an instant kill.

From my position as a player at your table I'd be pretty satisfied with a ruling like that because I can *do stuff*, I can be inventive, and you welcome it, and yet I have the assurance that some combo isn't going to destroy the whole game for good.

What I totally would not appreciate is if the GM basically had the same concern you had with the instant kill reduction issue, but instead told me that "my character wouldn't think of it that way", or whatever other BS that would be used to camouflage the whole issue, thereby taking me for a fucking moron, pardon my French. It's just a way to say "no, because" in so many words.

What I really like in your approach is that you welcome the use. "Hey it's cool! Your experiment with reduction does work, but not as you expected it..." that fleshes out the world, that's consistent with the make believe, and yet, that allows players to try stuff and see where that leads them. That's awesome, dude!

Quote from: two_fishes;492552This s precisely another thing that bothers me, and what really prompted my first objection. This is tantamount to saying it's okay for the PCs to be clever when it's fairly pedestrian and banal, but if they think of something that could seriously impact the imagined world, suddenly it's all, Hands off! No! Stop! You're not allowed!

Fuck that. I mean, if the GM stopped at that point and said, "Hey, this could have serious impact on the world, and would lead to all sorts of consequences, and might change the direction of everything. Is everyone okay with taking the game down this road?" That would be one thing, and I could respect that, and be okay if the table decides against it. But someone just shutting the idea down because, "No! Your character wouldn't do that!" Forget about it.

Good point. I guess this would only be a problem if the PCs (and NPCs) keep coming up with ideas that could seriously change the world. Every other session breaks down into discussions of how spell use based on RL physics coupled with a healthy dose of verisimilitude, is going to change the imagined landscape and oh, yeah, is everyone is ok with this ?

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;492651Good point. I guess this would only be a problem if the PCs (and NPCs) keep coming up with ideas that could seriously change the world. Every other session breaks down into discussions of how spell use based on RL physics coupled with a healthy dose of verisimilitude, is going to change the imagined landscape and oh, yeah, is everyone is ok with this ?

Regards,
David R

A situation like that sounds like it might be symptomatic of larger problems. If the players are repeatedly making an effort to circumvent the spirit of the spells and subvert the tone of the campaign, maybe everyone needs to get on the same page about what kind of game they want to have. This makes me think of the discussion a couple threads over, where Cranewings is doing exactly this.

I hope my reply didn't come off sounding too snarky, Mark, but I think (as this thread shows) it's a little more complicated than the GM stifling the creativity of his or her players. There are certain expectations that are implicit when it comes to the setting and system. If a player chooses to wander off the reservation, not only has she got consider the other players but (yes, I'm going to get flamed for this) the integrity of the setting. This goes for the GM as well.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;492664I hope my reply didn't come off sounding too snarky, Mark, but I think (as this thread shows) it's a little more complicated than the GM stifling the creativity of his or her players. There are certain expectations that are implicit when it comes to the setting and system. If a player chooses to wander off the reservation, not only has she got consider the other players but (yes, I'm going to get flamed for this) the integrity of the setting. This goes for the GM as well.

Regards,
David R

It didn't, and I can understand those expectations. I was responding to a couple of things that got under my skin about the initial objection: co-opting player control of character perspective and keeping a lid on players' ability to have a large effect on the world. The flip side is that i'm not sure that guarding those expectations and integrity are solely the role of the GM. The setting belongs to the whole table, and while there is certainly a responsibility on the part of the players to act within its limits, they also have part ownership in setting them.

Quote from: David R;492664I hope my reply didn't come off sounding too snarky, Mark, but I think (as this thread shows) it's a little more complicated than the GM stifling the creativity of his or her players. There are certain expectations that are implicit when it comes to the setting and system. If a player chooses to wander off the reservation, not only has she got consider the other players but (yes, I'm going to get flamed for this) the integrity of the setting. This goes for the GM as well.

David, thanks for saying that. That's essentially my take on the whole matter, too. This notion that some here have that the players get to dictate to the GM how the game works is completely absurd.

Certainly the players have a say in what kind and style of game they want to play, but they can't tell the GM, "You HAVE to allow me to do this!"

Ug, long thread is long.

Quote from: greylond;491811To me the creative use of spells is the mark of a good Player. IMO, that's the WHOLE Point of playing a spellcaster, i.e. using Magic to accomplish/solve anything that comes up. Figuring out how to use a spell in a creative way, gets the job done...

And let me go one step farther and say that doing this kind of thing in general is the whole point of playing IN THE FIRST PLACE!