Critiquing the "Guy At The Gym" Fallacy

[AntiAuthority]

As I see it, any game with a leveling system has one (or more) huge unrealistic element in it. Any armed melee combat system where fights last more than three seconds has a huge unrealistic element in it. My preference is to just bite the bullet and have HP be one ridiculous thing upfront.

It would depend on the skill of the combatants from what little I know about HEMA. But a trained knight against a peasant would probably only last more than three seconds because said peasant is running away from the knight lol.

If you want to be a wise-***, here's what a player could say.

Although I agree with Talakeal that the situation of "DM just doesn't want the door/trap bypassed" needs to be considered; are the casters getting to blow through doors? Although I guess they could maybe say "These doors are no ordinary metal".

Second example:
Player: Well what is my strength score?
DM: Huh? it's on your sheet.
Player:The number on my sheet says I can lift a log, you just said I'm not that strong, so my sheet must be wrong.

However and equally wise-*** DM could respond.
DM:You're right, reduce your total strength to 18.

The linked example:
Player: Is it a plexiglass window?
DM: No, it's just regular glass.
Player:The 50's kind we never use to make windows with anymore because kids would accidentally break them all the time?
DM: whatever they had in the 15th century.
Player: They didn't put glass in windows then. Pre-industrial glass isn't clear and is basically a semi-precious stone in terms of expense.

Yeah, I'll remember those for if it happens again. But I talked to the DM about it, and he was still on the side that my character wasn't leaps and bounds stronger than a normal human, but he has been encouraging me to use my strength more when he realized I wasn't having that much fun being a one trick pony that just hits enemies and can't force open a door. With the trap, he said it was because, "There's no rules for it, so I just ruled you hurt yourself." With the bashing down doors bit, he says the bashing down door bits was because it was to essentially stop us from sequence breaking... And my character's habit of hitting things until it works is kind of annoying... And my tendency to use Great Weapon Master to kill things is annoying... And that time I really messed up a sphinx asking us riddles was annoying... In my defense, that last time was because I got two Nat 20s in a row while using Great Weapon Master, which activated my Savage Attack (though I think I forgot to apply those to the damage) along with a bonus attack (which missed). To be honest, he seems annoyed by my character just hitting stuff and being somewhat overpowered compared to the enemies of our campaign. We ARE fighting a nigh immortal Wizard with a nigh limitless supply of Clone bodies, so I think it's logical to be as powerful as possible...

"As always, magic is limited by your imagination - if you can imagine it happening, it does. And martial powers are limited by your imagination - if you can imagine a reason why it can't happen, it doesn't." - LightWarden



Try the Silmarillion - that's where Tolkien put all the REALLY over-the-top mythical stuff. (Sauron used to be the sidekick of the Silmarillion's main baddie.)

Batman and the Punisher DEFINITELY have superpowers - mostly dodging bullets and surviving beatings that would leave a normal person in an iron lung.

Comic Book regular humans are not normal humans though, Batman can split a tree in half by kicking it

And I've heard about the Silmarillion, something about a guy killing a bunch of Balrogs by himself?

Speak for yourself.

I can imagine a guy punching space to make portals, punching time to travel through it, want to conjure? punch through possibility to grab a thing before it exists and pull it into existence. I can imagine a punchy guy doing anything and I don't care for why they can't. ya'll are shooting yourselves in the foot.

Actually... You're not the first person to imagine something along these lines through sheer strength...

[Lord Raziere]

So what's the "margin" between making a rude gesture and saying a funny word causing a hole in time and space to open up... and punching reality so hard that it causes a hold in space and time to open up?

In both cases an act of dubious causality has caused the seemingly impossible to happen.

The Incantation:
you have range, furthermore, its ritualized and precise, also someone can see doing it and interrupt it from range with a counter spell. in a ways its more complicated, because you need to decide where it manifests, whether you can pull off the strange word and incantation in time, all of which could be harder in combat than you might think

The Punch:
you don't have range, but its far faster and much less likely to be interrupted unless someone can grab your hand in time, and even then you just punch with your other fist. however the person who studied it likely has more fine control that the puncher does not.

the puncher therefore can probably do his hole-punching far more repeatedly and quickly when they need to, and a incanter can probably do more things with it when you need something with more finesse, nuance and flexibility. because the puncher is specialized punching until they break space and time. an incanter is someone who studies space and time and thus specializes in space-time itself and thus can do more things with space time. thats a world of difference.

Actually... You're not the first person to imagine something along these lines through sheer strength...

Awesome. Great minds think alike.

[Cluedrew]

That is, the player does not get to say "my character is a peak human who succeeds on sinew, grit, wit, and steel"... and then describe the character doing things that are blatantly extra-normal for such a character in the setting and situation at hand.

(Please note that I am going to say a bunch of this about the unspoken assumptions in this statement but because they weren't spoken I am guessing at what they are. If I'm wrong consider this to be a representative statement instead of anything Max_Killjoy has said. OK let's get this started.)

But to fix this statement all we have to do is change "peak [real-world] human" to "peak [fantasy] human". In other words if you assume, sinew, grit, wit and steel are not that same in that world as they are in ours than why would what you can achieve with them remain the same? I am writing a story with a superhuman character in it, the main character actually, and they are considered to be merely competent by the standards of that world. Because you can be stronger, faster and braver* than any real world-human being in that world. So the bar is set higher for them.** In fact the whole reason the protagonist is superhuman is A) shenanigans and B) to keep them at a better power-level compared to everyone else.

From a high-level setting/story building view, "magic exists"*** can be considered a setting premise, something that needs no additional justification as it just is. "People can exceed realistic human limits" is also a premise you could use. Both will have world building implications you should deal with and maybe you could offer some explanation for why they are different, but eventually you will have to say "because that's the setting".

In fact they are very similar except for the look and feel difference. And I guess the Guy at the Gym fallacy is treating them like they are not.

"As always, magic is limited by your imagination - if you can imagine it happening, it does. And martial powers are limited by your imagination - if you can imagine a reason why it can't happen, it doesn't." - LightWarden

For balancing games I have my own version: "Magic is limited by your imagination, any limit you can imagine it can have." Which I think is an important reminder if you need to lower the effectiveness of a magic user but is not really the point of this thread.

* OK that one is a joke, but stronger and faster are serious.
** This might be the "character in the setting" bit and one of the reasons I added the disclaimer.
*** Along with any rules about what magic does and how it works to give it flavour and to keep it consistent.

[Max_Killjoy]

The Incantation:
you have range, furthermore, its ritualized and precise, also someone can see doing it and interrupt it from range with a counter spell. in a ways its more complicated, because you need to decide where it manifests, whether you can pull off the strange word and incantation in time, all of which could be harder in combat than you might think

The Punch:
you don't have range, but its far faster and much less likely to be interrupted unless someone can grab your hand in time, and even then you just punch with your other fist. however the person who studied it likely has more fine control that the puncher does not.

the puncher therefore can probably do his hole-punching far more repeatedly and quickly when they need to, and a incanter can probably do more things with it when you need something with more finesse, nuance and flexibility. because the puncher is specialized punching until they break space and time. an incanter is someone who studies space and time and thus specializes in space-time itself and thus can do more things with space time. thats a world of difference.

All of that is just differing implications of the special effects, the basic power remains the same -- putting holes in space and time.

(Please note that I am going to say a bunch of this about the unspoken assumptions in this statement but because they weren't spoken I am guessing at what they are. If I'm wrong consider this to be a representative statement instead of anything Max_Killjoy has said. OK let's get this started.)

But to fix this statement all we have to do is change "peak [real-world] human" to "peak [fantasy] human". In other words if you assume, sinew, grit, wit and steel are not that same in that world as they are in ours than why would what you can achieve with them remain the same? I am writing a story with a superhuman character in it, the main character actually, and they are considered to be merely competent by the standards of that world. Because you can be stronger, faster and braver* than any real world-human being in that world. So the bar is set higher for them.** In fact the whole reason the protagonist is superhuman is A) shenanigans and B) to keep them at a better power-level compared to everyone else.

From a high-level setting/story building view, "magic exists"*** can be considered a setting premise, something that needs no additional justification as it just is. "People can exceed realistic human limits" is also a premise you could use. Both will have world building implications you should deal with and maybe you could offer some explanation for why they are different, but eventually you will have to say "because that's the setting".

In fact they are very similar except for the look and feel difference. And I guess the Guy at the Gym fallacy is treating them like they are not.

For balancing games I have my own version: "Magic is limited by your imagination, any limit you can imagine it can have." Which I think is an important reminder if you need to lower the effectiveness of a magic user but is not really the point of this thread.

* OK that one is a joke, but stronger and faster are serious.
** This might be the "character in the setting" bit and one of the reasons I added the disclaimer.
*** Along with any rules about what magic does and how it works to give it flavour and to keep it consistent.

I wasn't talking about things that are a little outside realistic human capacity, or are unrealistic in combination (see, the "super solider" who combines peak strength, endurance, speed, agility, balance, etc all in one person, rather than the specialized expression of a single peak attribute). You're right in that when someone setting up a "secondary world" shifts things to "peak fantasy human" and that's significantly different from "peak real-world human", that has worldbuilding and storytelling (if you're into that, or actually writing a story) implications / consequences -- the problem is the settings these games take place in rarely, RARELY follow through on those implications / consequences.

Often, those implications / consequences will be directly counter to the sort of setting the players (GM and otherwise) want.

And ironically, the worldbuilders for these settings will sometimes go too far in the other direction, depicting much of the world as weak and sickly "dung ages" serfs, rather than as people who were engaged in daily manual labor, walking everywhere, carrying burdens, etc.

Personally, I have no issue with the idea of a parallel "trained really really hard until they discovered a way past the limits of most people" path for both "spellcasters" and "martials", one just has to realize that in both cases the character really does become "extra-normal" or "superhuman". But then as noted we run into both the original and the inverse of GATG fallacy, with some on both sides being nearly offended that the "martial" character is exceeding human limits and effectively "doing magic" (broad sense).

[Lord Raziere]

All of that is just differing implications of the special effects, the basic power remains the same -- putting holes in space and time.

and your point is?

differing implications make all the difference in the world. you can't just shoo those away, just like if I went up to you and shoo away the implications of the world-building you like so much just because it resembles basic fantasy or whatever.

not being willing to sacrifice something for martials and casters to be equal at high levels to work is not my problem. perfection isn't something that exists and don't care if both warriors and mages having such power inconsistent or whatever other flaws it has. the point is not to figure out how to make all this contradicting stuff work, but to figure out what you want most and thus what you need to prioritize over other things. for the high-power balance and awesome I crave, anything else is simply not a priority. compromise and sacrifices has to happen somewhere and this whole debate being hashed out over and over again, simply has taught me that most people who discuss this simply can't prioritize to make it happen because they are too focused on perfectionistic ideals of an all-encompassing perfect game or something and thus struggle with sacrificing one valuable game aspect for another.

or are like you: your priorities simply aren't fit for making that happen. gotta filter out the noise before you can make a symphony, and you don't like the right notes. nothing wrong with that or having ideals, your just not the right person for the job.

as for the "guy at the gym guys" well- they don't like the concept of martials doing cool things anyways so, why should their opinion matter for fixing this? do we consider the opinion of people who don't like pizza for making pizza? I think not.

[Cluedrew]

To Max_Killjoy: If I understand you correctly I have nothing to say that wouldn't just be a world discussion which I'm going to skip because I don't think it needs to be discussed more in this thread. Fingers crossed.

To Lord Raziere: If I may attempt to summarize your post "A coherent setting is useless if the game set in it isn't fun." Is that what you are saying?

Although I think guy at the gym calibrated heroes work fine for low-powered heroes, if all the heroes are scaled to match.

To AntiAuthority: I had a thought, what would you describe the main purpose of this thread? Did you have a particular point about the guy in the gym fallacy you wanted to make, did you want to describe it detail or something else?

[Max_Killjoy]

To Max_Killjoy: If I understand you correctly I have nothing to say that wouldn't just be a world discussion which I'm going to skip because I don't think it needs to be discussed more in this thread. Fingers crossed.

To Lord Raziere: If I may attempt to summarize your post "A coherent setting is useless if the game set in it isn't fun." Is that what you are saying?

A game/campaign without a coherent setting -- and by extension without coherent characters -- isn't fun.

Although I think guy at the gym calibrated heroes work fine for low-powered heroes, if all the heroes are scaled to match.

As long as the characters are all at a power level that's compatible, or the players are happy with PCs at different power levels, and all the PCs have power/concept coherence, everything works.

It's when players want PCs of incompatible power levels, and/or incoherent concept vs power, that thinks break down.

[AntiAuthority]

To AntiAuthority: I had a thought, what would you describe the main purpose of this thread? Did you have a particular point about the guy in the gym fallacy you wanted to make, did you want to describe it detail or something else?

The main point of the thread was pointing out the flaws of claiming martial characters are bound by the rules of realism at higher levels, and to have people argue for or against it for reasons as to why they are or aren't bound by the limits of people in our world.

If it were to have a secondary objective, it'd be giving such characters level appropriate abilities to help them reflect the level of power at that level. Whether it be someone strongly argue how such characters are bound by realism and giving them abilities on that level, or giving evidence for such characters being far beyond the realms of realism and giving them the abilities to be relevant at high levels.

[Lord Raziere]

To Lord Raziere: If I may attempt to summarize your post "A coherent setting is useless if the game set in it isn't fun." Is that what you are saying?

I would say that is a thing you can take away from it, but I wouldn't say its all I'm saying, even if I can't summarize it myself.

A game/campaign without a coherent setting -- and by extension without coherent characters -- isn't fun.

see, this is what I'm talking about when I say Max here doesn't have the right priorities to fix a problem like high-powered martial/caster disparity. his concern for a coherent setting is just noise to fixing it- an unneeded sound or voice, and an unneeded part to consider. we can talk about whether a balanced martials and casters fit into a setting when the mechanics for doing are actually fixed and balanced. until then, its an entirely different conversation that has no bearing on doing so. talk about integrating it in a believable way when we actually have mechanics that work for playing them in the first place, until then its not the primary concern from my perspective. the primary concern is making sure its balanced and fun mechanically, and while I love fluff, its called fluff for a reason, its mutable and flexible to a degree that crunch is not.

I'm not going to get into whether a coherent setting by itself makes or break the fun value of a setting, thats a third separate conversation altogether.

[Mechalich]

A game/campaign without a coherent setting -- and by extension without coherent characters -- isn't fun.

That's overly broad. You can absolutely have coherent characters in an incoherent setting, and incoherent settings can be great fun. What they cannot do is properly utilize certain kinds of conflict.

Person vs. Nature, Person vs. Society, and Person vs. Technology conflict all require a sufficient baseline level of coherency for those things to even meaningfully exist. This precludes classic plotlines like 'overthrow the evil empire' because a certain level of coherency is necessary for you to define why the evil empire is evil. Likewise you cannot have any of the typical bitter struggles for survival that characterize person vs. nature if the environment is inconstant.

Lack of coherency modifies Person vs. Person conflict as well. Notably it reduces the sphere of potential actors with which a character can engage to those who match up with their current circumstances. In the simplest case of absurd differences in personal power, interactions between one person and the next cease to be person vs. person conflicts and shift into the person vs. supernatural/fate category (Batman v Superman, to use a well known example, isn't actually a conflict between two people its a conflict between a man and a god).

Without coherency story conflict relies on Person vs. Self and Person vs. Supernatural/Fate conflicts. This sort of thing is extremely common in literature. Magical realism, notably, tends to focus on Person vs. Self conflicts. The oeuvre of noted modern folklorist/urban fantasist Charles de Lint resides in this realm. Most of the work of HP Lovecraft represents encounters between people and unknowable and incomprehensible supernatural elements as Person vs. Supernatural often in wholly incoherent spaces like the Dreamlands. These types of stories are, however, poorly suited to use in collaborative gameplay - it can be done, but it's not common and games of this nature tend to prove difficult to maintain as individual players warp the tale to their personal desires and disregard those of others.

As a result, most games placed in incoherent or low-coherency settings rely on simplistic person vs. person conflicts - the kind of storytelling used in superhero comics, shounen manga, and the like - where the dramatic arc amounts to 'For reasons A, B, and C, I hate you so, so much.' This is perfectly workable. The action-anime s.CRY.ed distilled this down to almost its purest form by simply having the two main characters scream each others names as loudly and angrily as possible (Ryuuuuuhouuuuuu! Kazzzzzzuuuuumaaaaaa!) before repeatedly punching each other into paste. It's great fun. It's mindless stupidity. These things can both be true at once.

In terms of game design, it needs to be considered what sort of in-game narratives are intended to unfold, what kinds of experiences are characters intended to have, and what sorts of conflicts and resolutions will occur. If what is happening matters to any of this, then a robust setting with internal coherency matters. However, if but what does it mean? is the only important point of resolution, then it doesn't. Within the context of D&D, Planescape is notable for very clearly caring only about the meaning behind events. The setting is wildly absurd, but that's the point because it provides endless fodder in the search for meaning beyond just that which is real or comprehensible.

To the extent that personal power levels impact setting robustness and verisimilitude - and they do, especially at extremes - sometimes it makes sense to sacrifice coherency for cool if you were just going to tell a straightforward person vs. person conflict anyway. This is particularly reasonable in audio-visual media where the underlying conflict my be entirely subordinate to the impact of the set pieces - the anime studio GAINAX is famous for this approach - and to the extent that tabletop has an audio-visual component in the form of banter with friends and rolling piles of dice, this can be an effective approach in tabletop (many games provide mechanisms for players to revel in some sort of extremely low-probability result drastically changing circumstances for no easily justifiable in-universe reason through critical hits, explosion dice, and other mechanics for precisely this reason).

However, the opposite is true and when the actual in-universe events are important, then setting coherency is extremely important because otherwise the rendition of those events will fail to sustain suspension of disbelief and they fall apart into meaninglessness.

see, this is what I'm talking about when I say Max here doesn't have the right priorities to fix a problem like high-powered martial/caster disparity. his concern for a coherent setting is just noise to fixing it- an unneeded sound or voice, and an unneeded part to consider. we can talk about whether a balanced martials and casters fit into a setting when the mechanics for doing are actually fixed and balanced. until then, its an entirely different conversation that has no bearing on doing so. talk about integrating it in a believable way when we actually have mechanics that work for playing them in the first place, until then its not the primary concern from my perspective. the primary concern is making sure its balanced and fun mechanically, and while I love fluff, its called fluff for a reason, its mutable and flexible to a degree that crunch is not.

Any given system can take two characters, give them abilities that are mechanically exactly the same, fluff them differently, and thereby achieve balance. This is extremely common in video games, which often have 'mirror classes' which do the exact same thing as another class while have different visual effects. If I fluff one such class as a martial and another as a caster, then martials and casters are balanced. The MMO SWTOR does this extensively, such that being healed by mysterious mystical powers or advanced nanoprobes has exactly the same in game effect. If you disregard the fluff and the issues of setting coherency and verisimilitude that follow from it, then not only does balancing casters and martials vanish as a problem, the very differentiation between the two - which is wholly a product of the fluff to begin with - disappears. Balancing little packages of equations moving across a grid map where the backdrop is immutable and the name and appearance of the effect is totally window dressing (which is how most tactical RPGs work) isn't difficult to do.

[AntiAuthority]

What does everyone think a Level 10+ character should have in terms of abilities to reflect them being on that level of power?

Personally, I'd say something like hitting the ground hard enough to split the earth, or possibly striking things beyond the physical and being able to hurt spirits... Or just pulling a Thor and being able to put valleys into mountains.

Hm... Come to think of it, a lot of stuff you'd see in this video would probably be a good place to start for me. Or something like this. I'd put Cloud as a Fighter with a magic (or would it just be high tech since it doesn't have any magical properities of its own?) sword, Kratos as a Barbarian (or a Fighter/Barbarian multi-class because of his Spartan training) with a magic axe and The Stranger (for spoilers) as a Monk (or unarmed fighter). Not sure if any of them would be Level 20 or higher though. All would have some form of DR, really high strength and probably some form of Fast Movement.The Stranger, and to a lesser extent Kratos, also have Fast Healing/Regeneration. All of them, however, have the type of power to consistently treat killing giant monsters as just another day in their adventures as well as tanking blows from them.

[Koo Rehtorb]

A level 10+ character should be able to haunt people, because they should have died by that point and you should have started a new game.

[Arbane]

A level 10+ character should be able to haunt people, because they should have died by that point and you should have started a new game.

<SARCASM>Thank you for your contribution. Be sure to close the lid and flush.</sarcasm.>

What does everyone think a Level 10+ character should have in terms of abilities to reflect them being on that level of power?

As someone said in another thread on this well-beaten horse, "If the Cleric can bring the dead back to life and the Wizard can build their own personal universe, the Rogue ought to be able to sneak into the Underworld and steal the Queen of the Dead's crown jewels."

[Max_Killjoy]

see, this is what I'm talking about when I say Max here doesn't have the right priorities to fix a problem like high-powered martial/caster disparity. his concern for a coherent setting is just noise to fixing it- an unneeded sound or voice, and an unneeded part to consider. we can talk about whether a balanced martials and casters fit into a setting when the mechanics for doing are actually fixed and balanced. until then, its an entirely different conversation that has no bearing on doing so. talk about integrating it in a believable way when we actually have mechanics that work for playing them in the first place, until then its not the primary concern from my perspective. the primary concern is making sure its balanced and fun mechanically, and while I love fluff, its called fluff for a reason, its mutable and flexible to a degree that crunch is not.

And to think I edited my last post multiple times trying to not come across as a jerk. Wasted time, I guess.

If the "characters" are just vapid excuses for a pile of mechanics, then any two piles of mechanics can be balanced. And I guess that works, if you view RPGs as an excuse to smash piles of mechanics into each other repeatedly.

However, if you're actually interested in the characters as characters first, and the mechanics reflect those characters, and how they interact with their world and with each other... then "just throw some fluff on it" doesn't work at all. If the character and their intersection with the setting don't conceptually justify high-powered mechanics, the no amount of saying "screw it, have some more power" and slapping mechanics on that character will make the characters themselves actually balanced beyond the most mechanistic level.

The reason "inverse guy at the gym fallacy" occurs, repeatedly, is because those players insist on a concept that simply cannot justify being balanced with 3.x or 5e spellcasters etc, on the fiction or the mechanical level, with other characters -- and then they demand that the entire fictional universe contort and distort just to allow their concept to fit.

I have a thing for shadow-based characters, but if someone were running an Avatar:TLA/LOK campaign, it wouldn't be fair of me to demand a "shadow bender" character. And likewise, if someone is running a high-level 5e campaign, then a player can't fairly demand to play a character within real world normal physical limits and without any magic of any kind... who can somehow, through the power of determination and massive plot contrivance, defeat any sort of spellcaster or dragon or giant in the campaign.

[Lord Raziere]

I have a thing for shadow-based characters, but if someone were running an Avatar:TLA/LOK campaign, it wouldn't be fair of me to demand a "shadow bender" character. And likewise, if someone is running a high-level 5e campaign, then a player can't fairly demand to play a character within real world normal physical limits and without any magic of any kind... who can somehow, through the power of determination and massive plot contrivance, defeat any sort of spellcaster or dragon or giant in the campaign.

Then come up with a setting specifically for those to exist with everything else you just listed and make them separate from the usual one. its easy. mechanics are hard in comparison to making up an entire shadow-bender nation for an alternate reality Avatar, while 5e is such a non-setting that its more of a mechanical problem getting that example to work than anything else, because what the 5e "setting" actually is so vague and up to interpretation and filling in the blanks that I'm not sure what consistency you feel you have to defend there.

[Max_Killjoy]

Then come up with a setting specifically for those to exist with everything else you just listed and make them separate from the usual one. its easy. mechanics are hard in comparison to making up an entire shadow-bender nation for an alternate reality Avatar, while 5e is such a non-setting that its more of a mechanical problem getting that example to work than anything else, because what the 5e "setting" actually is so vague and up to interpretation and filling in the blanks that I'm not sure what consistency you feel you have to defend there.

I'm not going to ask a GM to pretzel their entire setting just so I can have my special-snowflake character... I'm either going to find a character who fits the setting, or I'm going to gracefully decline participation. Likewise, as a GM, I'm not going to pretzel my entire setting just to accommodate a PC that is inappropriate to the setting... such as "I punch holes in spacetime because I'm so good at punching" guy in most fantasy settings (never mind in ANY science fiction setting).

I'm not defending 5e's implicit setting, it's already a mess -- I'm assuming a hypothetical GM who has created or modified a setting that makes sense.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm not going to ask a GM to pretzel their entire setting just so I can have my special-snowflake character... I'm either going to find a character who fits the setting, or I'm going to gracefully decline participation. Likewise, as a GM, I'm not going to pretzel my entire setting just to accommodate a PC that is inappropriate to the setting... such as "I punch holes in spacetime because I'm so good at punching" guy in most fantasy settings (never mind in ANY science fiction setting).

I'm not defending 5e's implicit setting, it's already a mess -- I'm assuming a hypothetical GM who has created or modified a setting that makes sense.

Well why are you playing with the guy demanding to play shadow-bender if your not accommodate him? you either get that out of that sorted out up front or don't play with him.

and if said hypothetical GM made a setting that made the determination guy make sense without magic?

[Max_Killjoy]

As someone said in another thread on this well-beaten horse, "If the Cleric can bring the dead back to life and the Wizard can build their own personal universe, the Rogue ought to be able to sneak into the Underworld and steal the Queen of the Dead's crown jewels."

What makes that get a bit tricky is that we're looking at Power, Power... and Story Arc. Unless you really want one of the Rogue's Class Abilities to be "Roll DEX against DC25 to see if you stole the Queen of the Dead's crown jewels out of the underworld".

And maybe that's something to stop and think about... something that's an entire story arc for most characters, is roughly equivalent to a couple of things accomplished out of a spell slot each by a Cleric or Wizard.

Well why are you playing with the guy demanding to play shadow-bender if your not accommodate him? you either get that out of that sorted out up front or don't play with him.

In that example I'm the guy who'd want to play a shadow-bender, but would also be grown up enough about it acknowledge that the special-snowflake character doesn't belong in an Avatar:TLA/LOK campaign.

Just like one can't play a shadow-weave mage in Forgotten Realms without the character being Shar's *#%!$.

and if said hypothetical GM made a setting that made the determination guy make sense without magic?

If "determination" crosses the threshhold and allows the character to do things that are otherwise impossible, like open spacetime portals by punching the universe in the junk, then it's broad-meaning magic... it's extranormal, it's superhuman. No way around it. No amount of "but he's just full of grit" cover that sort of thing... the character isn't Stephan Curry hitting 30' foot jumpers with relative ease, the character is tossing the ball blindly over this shoulder and hitting baskets mounted on speeding cars as they zoom by 500 feet away behind him, over and over 100s of times in a row.

If any old elite boxer or martial artist can junk-punch holes in reality, then I'm expecting some very rigorous worldbuilding dealing with that fact.

[Arbane]

And maybe that's something to stop and think about... something that's an entire story arc for most characters, is roughly equivalent to a couple of things accomplished out of a spell slot each by a Cleric or Wizard.

Yep. A few versions of this thread ago, someone made a list of classic plots that are literally epic quests for the snivelling peas-er, non-casters, and one spell slot apiece for the magic types.

If any old elite boxer or martial artist can junk-punch holes in reality, then I'm expecting some very rigorous worldbuilding dealing with that fact.

Very few D&D settings apply that kind of worldbuilding effort to any old wizard being able to do likewise....

[AntiAuthority]

What makes that get a bit tricky is that we're looking at Power, Power... and Story Arc. Unless you really want one of the Rogue's Class Abilities to be "Roll DEX against DC25 to see if you stole the Queen of the Dead's crown jewels out of the underworld".

And maybe that's something to stop and think about... something that's an entire story arc for most characters, is roughly equivalent to a couple of things accomplished out of a spell slot each by a Cleric or Wizard.

Embrace the power... But seriously, you bring up a good point. Then again, it might reflect how something incredibly difficult for low level characters would be something such a character could do in a few moments if they felt like it. I'm not really in favor of nerfing casters myself though.

A D&D Cleric and Wizard would be able to kill the tension in most stories though...

Cleric: Quicksilver died? Let's wait until the fighting's over, I can just revive him. What's this about an Agent Coulson? Yeah I can get him too. What's that? Your uncle died after telling you about great power comes with great responsibility because you weren't responsible? That's so sad... I'll bring him back for you.

Wizard: If things get really bad with this Infinity Stone madness, I could just teleport them to another dimension... Like, I don't think Thanos could reach them there. He needs all of them, and I'm probably the only one here who can reach my personal dimension. You know what? How about I do that, then I possess Thanos and make him kill himself?

... Huh. The Wizard could have prevented Infinity War, while a Cleric could have brought back all the killed people in the movies to remove the tragedy.

Somewhat related (to me anyway), has anyone noticed how in 3.5E, most of the high CR creatures have caster levels (or caster-like abilities), while very few have levels in martial classes? I can't actually think of any high CR creatures with such levels, but... Huh. Really says something about the mechanical power of martial classes when they're not considered worthy for a BBEG to use.

[Max_Killjoy]

Very few D&D settings apply that kind of worldbuilding effort to any old wizard being able to do likewise...

First, that's usually to the detriment of those settings.

Second, I don't consider the wizard "any old boxer", I consider him another example of a character who "crossed a threshold" and is no longer "any old" anything. IMO there are a lot more people who know about magic from years of study, than have figured out how to do magic. I realize this breaks with the idea in D&D's implicit setting that anyone who has a high enough INT and a couple years of backstory can be a wizard...

[Lord Raziere]

Very few D&D settings apply that kind of worldbuilding effort to any old wizard being able to do likewise....

Again, thats Max killjoy's personal preference or inflexibility due to prioritizing setting over everything else. he will never sacrifice what he thinks a setting should be, so he can't actually solve this because any solution that actually does anything to equal the standard set by the wizards, because he is concerned about a completely different problem of wizards also not making sense. he is essentially complaining against two problems at the same time, when you need to solve one before you solve the other, in steps.

honestly, I think of setting before anything else to- I mostly play freeform which is nothing but- its that mechanics need good mechanical base before you start applying any setting to it. mechanics and setting need to work together, and even if the mechanics sometimes need modifying to better fit setting, its generally better to start with good mechanics and modify them a little for a setting than start with a setting and make entirely new mechanics for that setting alone, because while you can make a setting first then mechanics, its something entirely new to learn, it can't be applied anywhere else, and you generally want to make sure players don't have to learn new things because they generally don't like doing that.

[AntiAuthority]

I'm all for mechanics and lore, but can we stay focused on how it relates to the Guy At the Gym Fallacy, the types of powers high level martials would have, etc.?

This seems to be moving more towards world building than that.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm all for mechanics and lore, but can we stay focused on how it relates to the Guy At the Gym Fallacy, the types of powers high level martials would have, etc.?

This seems to be moving more towards world building than that.

Agreed, world-building is a separate discussion that Max Killjoy repeatedly brings up in these discussions and is his own personal issue not the focus of the thread.

as for me, I dunno, how wizards got so powerful is by taking every wizard they can and accumulating them and what they do into a generic archetype, so I guess to emulate that we start by taking every martial and what they do that we want and just lumping them all into a single archetype?

[Arbane]

First, that's usually to the detriment of those settings.

Second, I don't consider the wizard "any old boxer", I consider him another example of a character who "crossed a threshold" and is no longer "any old" anything. IMO there are a lot more people who know about magic from years of study, than have figured out how to do magic. I realize this breaks with the idea in D&D's implicit setting that anyone who has a high enough INT and a couple years of backstory can be a wizard...

...And this doesn't also apply to people with sufficiently good kung-fu because....?

[Mechalich]

What makes that get a bit tricky is that we're looking at Power, Power... and Story Arc. Unless you really want one of the Rogue's Class Abilities to be "Roll DEX against DC25 to see if you stole the Queen of the Dead's crown jewels out of the underworld".

And maybe that's something to stop and think about... something that's an entire story arc for most characters, is roughly equivalent to a couple of things accomplished out of a spell slot each by a Cleric or Wizard.

I think it's that there are certain abilities that are, in and of themselves, story components. Raising someone from the dead is a very good example. I mean, in the classic story centered on this ability - that of Lazarus - it's literally the only action in the entire tale, everything else is people talking about it. And it's these sorts of abilities - ones that interact with the story directly, that are the hardest to balance mechanically.

Very roughly, abilities can be divided into tactical and story (or strategic) abilities, with the latter being much more difficult to manage than the former. Tactical abilities that operate only in the tactical environment - they are used to eliminate/bypass/ameliorate or otherwise push the party past obstacles on the way to achieving the designated objective(s) for that operational environment. Many games have a distinct 'tactical map' into which characters are dumped where they utilize these skills.

Story abilities are those that, entirely on their own, change the story when used, or, if they have become ubiquitous, change the nature of the story entirely. Raising the dead, for example, either changes the story by being able to overwrite a seemingly significant outcome in the death of a character, or renders death itself more like a temporary 'time out' rather than an actual loss (Schlock Mercenary, through its gradual embrace of ever more transhumanist concepts over time, represents a surprisingly good example of exploring this sort of impact at the moment it propagates through a fictional universe). Likewise teleportation is either a way to bypass whole chunks of story and/or significant time barriers, or it drastically changes how logistics, movement, and strategy work in a fictional universe. The Wheel of Time, where all the major factions gradually acquire a sort of teleportation circle capability as the story proceeds, includes good examples of how this drastically changes its fictional world.

Martial type characters, traditionally, get very few if any story level abilities. That's largely because 'hurting people' in all its many forms, is a tactical ability pretty much no matter how you slice it (yes at certain truly extreme (ie. nuclear) levels of damage this breaks down, but most settings with any attempt at being serious will cap damage well below this). You attack something in order to damage, disable, or kill it, all of which are objectives. This is similar for roguish characters, sneaking, hacking, sleight-of-hand, these are all actions that work in service of an objective (your average heist film might include hundreds of uses of specific rogue-type abilities, all in the service of a single theft), but it is highly unusual that they are a story element on their own.

Balancing different character concepts is much easier when you're just talking about tactical abilities. Many tactical RPGs, where all action is confined to the tactical map and everything else is cutscenes, do this quite effectively. Even in D&D, if you confine the characters in the tactical frame the way D&D video games do, class balance improves drastically.

Obviously, it's not a good idea for a tabletop RPG to confine characters solely to the tactical frame (among other things, video games already provide that experience, arguably in a superior fashion), but it's questionable whether they should have story abilities, and it's quite ridiculous to have characters like Tier I casters who have all the story abilities available to be accessed as needed. For the purpose of action heavy epic fantasy in the D&D style, characters in the Tier IIi-IV range like Rangers and Dread Necromancers who each have a couple of highly specific story abilities, make more sense. In the world of comics, most characters who have a story-level ability usually have just one as their entire schtick - like Weather Wizard or the Purple Man.

...And this doesn't also apply to people with sufficiently good kung-fu because....?

I had a long post earlier in the thread about proportionality that goes into this in detail, but I'll try to summarize quickly.

First, unarmed combat is a thing that humans can naturally do, casting spells is not. Second, because unarmed combat is a thing people can already do, it has a pre-established baseline. We can measure what kind of capability a person in average shape with no training can do. Because casting spells is not a natural trait, it has no pre-established baseline. That means, as a designer, I can set the baseline anywhere I want. Specifically, I can set it to zero and have people with no magical training at all have absolutely no ability to do magic. This extends into training. We can measure the capabilities of a person who trains in martial arts over time. We can even divide this training into levels of capacity if you want and while the levels themselves will be arbitrary they can still grade progress effectively. For magic, because there's no pre-existing numbers, as the designer I can set the progression of mastery however I want.

So if you increase the capabilities of humans at something like unarmed combat past pre-existing values, what happens is that you stretch the entire known curve of capability to the right. This has even happened historically. World records in sports are newly set continually, but they don't happen in a vacuum. Even as the point at the furthest edge of the curve extends, the overall curve shifts. Olympic track runners are faster now then they were fifty years ago, but so are high school students due to shared advances that can be traced mostly to technology.

Consequently, if you simply increase the boundaries of human physical achievement, you get a whole batch of follow-up effects. If even one person can just train to become One Punch Man, then tens of thousands of people can train to become Captain America.

Now, critically, this doesn't happen if the explanation behind the same increase in achievement is a supernatural one. If the guy with kung-fu sufficient to punch holes in space-time isn't just 'really strong' but is instead 'channeling ki' then the problem disappears because ki channeling has no natural analogue and you can once again set arbitrary break points like 'you must train under a waterfall for seven years to unlock the true essence of ki manipulation.' Naruto (amazingly) is actually a good example of this - as all Naruto powers, including running really fast and punching really hard, are based on 'chakra manipulation' which is just magic by another name.

When you have the arbitrary ability to set an innate talent level to 0, you can take advantage of the power of multiplying by 0. Infinite Effort X Zero Talent = Zero Development, but as long as you have some inherent talent level you can't do that.

[Kaptin Keen]

Apparently he can turn into a giant version of himself in the comics, wasn't quite sure what to make of that or what level he'd be at that point lol. But yes, Movie!Hellboy's hand is a really effective bludgeon.

Going by what I remember from the movies, they aren't really on the same level of power as the creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos. In Hellboy, they're treated as really big, slimy monsters, but remind me if I'm misremembering that.

In Cthulhu Mythos, you have big, slimy monsters, but they're more than just that. They can drive people mad by simply being looked up, drive people insane through their dreams, shapeshift and a whole host of other things. Even when Cthulhu was "beaten" it was because the ritual wasn't completed and he'd reform at a later date. Then at the upper tier are essentially concepts such as Yog-Sothoth being space-time itself... And then Azathoth, who has to constantly be played music to stay asleep, because if he wakes up, the universe itself will end because it's just a dream he's having.

I think Hellboy could handle the big monsters, as could a mid-level fighter, but I don't see them being able to take on concepts like the Outer Gods or things that could drive them insane if they just looked at them.

I know it won't translate over perfectly, but...

Even a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath is only CR 12 in 3.5E. I'm sure Hellboy could take something like that with a sword and raw strength.

A Star-Spawn of Cthulhu is also a CR 20 enemy, but it would depend on if Hellboy is capable of resisting Insanity.

A Daughter of Shub-Niggurath is a CR 20 creature, and he could get through the DR. But the Daught has access to 8th level Druid spells. Not sure Hellboy could fight gravity being reversed or being unable to hit the Daughter because of Sanctuary. Then are the pheromones...

Cthulhu himself is CR 30, and could likely drive Hellboy insane unless he has mental resistances to things of this nature. Along with not being able to truly kill Cthulhu, as he would just reform, and if slain again would just go back to slumber because he's not entirely on the physical plane. And Cthulhu could just leave if he wanted to through Greater Teleport whenever Hellboy gets close to actually destroying his physical shell. This is assuming Cthulhu didn't decide to just drive him insane while Hellboy's sleeping.

The Outer Gods that are above them would be outside of Hellboy's league, as in the Lovecraftian Lore, they terrified the god of dreams so much that he promised to never sleep again... But eventually gave into sleep and died.

Went on a slight rant, but Hellboy seems to be a mid-level character because he's struggling against beings that are just really big but don't have any of the insanity-inducing, metaphysical shenanigans going on that the Cthulhu Mythos has in it.

If he had ways to resist the mental effects, shut down their ability to just teleport away and permanently kill an immortal being that exists on another plane of exist, maybe. But with everything I've seen of Movie!Hellboy, he probably couldn't take on anything too high from the Cthulhu Mythos, as the Great Old Ones are probably out of his reach, literally as they could just leave... Or in the case of Rhan-Tegoth, Movie!Hellboy would get hit by Imprison and trapped somewhere underground, with possibly no one able to free him.

... Now I'm just thinking about Cosmic Horror and want to play Bloodborne again.

I'm not going to go into the whole 'this universe vs that universe' thing.

What Hellboy fights are other-dimensional, reality altering monsters of godlike power. They are, for what it's worth, entirely equivalent with the Old Gods or Great Old Ones - also, quite obviously, inspired by them to the point of copyright infringement.

The whole 'well Cthulhu could just ...' line of reasoning isn't going anywhere. I see no reason to think the crown prince of madness (Hellboy) could be driven mad by Cthulhu. He is obviously susceptible to all manner of being tossed around, but his large pool of HP doesn't seem impressed. And he can generally smash his way out of any sort of attempts to block his way.

So you can say 'well, Imprisonment' to which I reply 'well, Stone Fist' - and we've gone precisely nowhere. You can say 'well, Insanity then' and I can reply 'he's the actual prince of Hell, he's simply not impressed!'

Hellboy is a fighter who fights the reality altering monsters you claim he cannot fight.

Of course your average 10th level fighter isn't usually the actual prince of Hell - but he may very well have a magic item that let's him defeat ... whatever. That's what the game is all about: The GM needs to provide the tools to win. Otherwise it's not a game, it's just an inane ego-wank for the GM.

[Satinavian]

What Hellboy fights are other-dimensional, reality altering monsters of godlike power. They are, for what it's worth, entirely equivalent with the Old Gods or Great Old Ones - also, quite obviously, inspired by them to the point of copyright infringement.

They may be inspired but they are specifically weakened enough that punching them becomes an option so that Hellboy can fight them.

And that is only done because it is a Hellboy story and thingt Hellboy can do have to be relevant in a Hellboy story.


Would i wish the same treatment for ab RPG ? (A character is a punch gay so the universe must change that punching solves most prblems ). No, i don't. While problems that are punchable should occur often enough if a punch-huy is in the group, they should not be presented as more common In-Universe or more important than one would expect.

If one player does want to play a nonmagic bard, i won't change the universe in a way that singing solves all or most problems either. Why should punching get some special treatment ?

[Lord Raziere]

If one player does want to play a nonmagic bard, i won't change the universe in a way that singing solves all or most problems either. Why should punching get some special treatment ?

Why should reading some books get some special treatment?

[Cazero]

If one player does want to play a nonmagic bard, i won't change the universe in a way that singing solves all or most problems either.

Well, you don't need to. Charisma checks enhanced with Perform skill checks are already covered by the rules, and a nonmagical Rogue is perfectly suited to excel at those.