Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

ExploderWizard said:

To me, that extreme is just as bad as challenging the player only. Why show up? Just generate a list of attack, damage and skill rolls and have them applied for your character as the situations occur. Same effect.

Click to expand...

Because the character isn't just the stats written on the character sheet. Their personality traits exist in my head, as I imagine them; how the character reacts to situations or acts on their goals is more important in the actual course of the game than how big of a bonus they have to a Hide check.

I guess the thing is this: while I enjoy playing D&D from a mechanical point of view, because it's a fun game of action-adventure, what actually happens in the game is way more interesting to me when it's a story about characters having to make hard choices or struggling to achieve their goals than when it's a story about whether or not the characters get through a dungeon or manage to solve a mystery

The reason it's intensely boring to focus the game around challenging my problem-solving skills is because I consider "solving problems" and "overcoming challenges" to be completely secondary tools that we use in service of a story that is about the, well, character of the player characters.

Likewise, there's no point to the game if it's focused around the way I would react in a given situation, because I don't find that interesting; I don't game to find out how I would deal with someone murdering my brother, I game to play through the story of my character dealing with someone having murdered his brother - if for no other reason than that my character's way of dealing with that situation is way more likely to produce an entertaining narrative! "I leave it to the cops to solve the crime and become very frustrated and depressed if they can't" isn't really a great story, you know?

Cadfan said:

Yes, basically. A great many hazards were incredibly dangerous and the only way not to end up rolling a dice and hoping for a number that meant you didn't die was to convince/force someone/something else to walk down the Completely Innocuous Hallway while you waited behind a lead shield to see where the spinning blades come out of the walls.

Click to expand...

I believe that's a different game than D&D, perhaps D&C (for Dungeons & Cowards). D&D is a game of heroes, in any edition. Heroes face dangers, they don't cajole, coerce, or pay someone else to face it for them. What's the point of playing a game as a hero, if a player is too afraid to let their make believe character face a make believe danger?

justanobody said:

So again I ask why should the DM waste their time and effort if the player can avoid anything and rely solely on the character stats to resolve the challenge?

Click to expand...

"It’s up to you to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face."

This is pretty clear that if you don't think of ways your character's skills can be used in the challenge, then you can't use them. If you can't use a skill, because you didn't think of a way to use it, then you can't just rely on your character's stats to resolve the challenge.

El Mahdi said:

I believe that's a different game than D&D, perhaps D&C (for Dungeons & Cowards). D&D is a game of heroes, in any edition. Heroes face dangers, they don't cajole, coerce, or pay someone else to face it for them. What's the point of playing a game as a hero, if a player is too afraid to let their make believe character face a make believe danger?

Click to expand...

Well, that method of playing was supposedly quite common back in the early days of the game, and there are many posters on these forums that still view it as an acceptable gameplay style (and as long as it makes them happy and have fun, then it is).

While I would argue that buying up henchmen so they can soak up all the traps in a dungeon isn't fun, I wouldn't think of claiming that it's not D&D.

mhacdebhandia said:

Because the character isn't just the stats written on the character sheet. Their personality traits exist in my head, as I imagine them; how the character reacts to situations or acts on their goals is more important in the actual course of the game than how big of a bonus they have to a Hide check. . .

Click to expand...

I agree with this part 100% (and only this part). The character (of a character) is determined by the player. How he/she reacts is determined by the character. The limitations of how well a character can perform tasks and challenges is determined by stats. Neither one is more important than the other, both are necessary.

Freakohollik said:

Are you saying that the game should not use player skill at all? If you don't want your skill to factor in at all, you'll have to have your DM make all decisions for you. In fact, you don't even need to be involved at all.

Click to expand...

I'm saying that the question of whether or not my character could get out of a dungeon deathtrap isn't particularly interesting or relevant to the kind of experience I want from playing D&D.

Having my character survive experiences like that because I was quick-witted enough to figure out how he could escape isn't important to me at all; I am, in fact, perfectly happy to use the rules of the game to determine whether or not my character has the skills to survive, because as far as I am concerned the challenges of the game only matter inasmuch as they provide colour for the story of my character's adventures in the world.

To continue the example from my previous post - dungeon deathtraps spice up the story of my character's pursuit of his brother's killer, but they're not the reason I play the game. In fact, I prefer it when the rules of the game add the element of chance or risk to the question of "does he get out of danger?", because it's a way to add complications to the story that neither I as a player nor the DM can foresee. I don't mind it when my characters fail, because I don't think it ruins the story; some stories end in failure and tragedy, and I find them just as interesting.

(I think it's incumbent upon the DM to make all challenges matter - a random encounter that ends in my character's death is boring, but if the villain lures my PC into a deathtrap and my character can't escape, that's fine! It was an organic part of the story; had I succeeded it would have been part of my character's struggle to catch the villain and make him pay.)

If, instead, the game was "old-school" and turned on my personal ability to think of a way to get my character out of a deathtrap, that completely eliminates that spontaneity, and replaces it with a test of my personal problem-solving skills that I find pretty damn uninteresting. It's not even that I'm bad at solving problems! It's just not exciting - I don't enjoy it even a tenth as much as, for instance, dealing with an unforeseen setback on my character's quest for justice. It's more interesting to me to figure out how my character will come to terms with an ally's betrayal than to figure out how I, the player, should talk my character out of an arrest warrant.

I don't game to have my real-life skills tested. I game to create a fictional character and put them through hell and high water as they try to pursue their goals or deal with their problems. The mechanics of the game are a welcome, sometimes spontaneous facilitator, but the actual challenges around which those mechanics are arranged are only important for providing that spontaneity - they're not at all important in and of themselves.

The Little Raven said:

Well, that method of playing was supposedly quite common back in the early days of the game, and there are many posters on these forums that still view it as an acceptable gameplay style (and as long as it makes them happy and have fun, then it is).

While I would argue that buying up henchmen so they can soak up all the traps in a dungeon isn't fun, I wouldn't think of claiming that it's not D&D.

Click to expand...

Fair enough. You're absolutely right. I did come across that way a bit.

However, I am with you on this. For me, I can't imagine having fun playing this way, unless it was some kind of a Fantasy Sports type game where the players aren't there character, but instead manage characters as proxies. But that still seems incredibly boring and uninspiring to me.

El Mahdi said:

I agree with this part 100% (and only this part). The character (of a character) is determined by the player. How he/she reacts is determined by the character. The limitations of how well a character can perform tasks and challenges is determined by stats. Neither one is more important than the other, both are necessary.

Click to expand...

Yeah, basically. I think it's boring when the game says how strong my character is, and by extension, how much he can lift and how hard he can hit an orc - but not how smart the character is, and by extension how good he is at solving problems and how good he is at using magic learned from books.

I'm happy to let the dice and my character's mechanical attributes determine whether or not I talk my way past a guard, because to me "does he talk his way past the guard?" isn't the interesting question. In fact, the element of risk there is the only interesting part - I wouldn't feel any sense of achievement if I convinced the GM (playing the guard) to let me in, and I wouldn't feel a sense of failure if I didn't; I just honestly don't really care whether I can do that or not - but when it's not up to me, when it's up to the dice and my character's skills, and there's a chance I'll fail and that will throw new complications in my character's path? That's what I enjoy.

Not to mention that it's way more interesting when I play characters who don't have my own real-life persuasive abilities, in either direction - either more or less silver-tongued than I really am.

Hypersmurf said:

The players need only roll the dice to pass it all with no real fun.

Like you say, just rolling the dice to succeed isn't fun.

So why do you assume the players will do it, since they're playing to have fun as well?

-Hyp.

Click to expand...

Why present it if some don't find challenges of a non-combat nature fun? It just seems like an attempt to give everything an option to roll dice to solve when someone can't do it their self as the player.

How it is presented makes it look like that is all that is needed, and in many places it tells you to skip things that would seem less fun and more like work.

I understand the want for some to not do every puzzle to have some way to succeed, but there doesn't need to be those puzzles then, and there is always other players that could do it. It seemed designed as though only a single player would ever be involved in a skill challenge, so that there should be a way for a non-puzzle oriented person to be able to get out easy.

There are other people for that. So you rarely need to challenge the character stats, and that is what combat does. There needs to be some place for challenging the player without the need of dice.

We know it is there, but as written, it could easily be taken the wrong way by someone new.

They see skill checks to resolve a skill challenge, they think that is how it should be done. Surprisingly, some people still follow instructions these days, and those people seeing the PHB as such may get the wrong idea about them.

This is why I say challenge the players, and let them decide how to use their own abilities, and the character stats to overcome the challenge presented. Don't design something aimed towards some in game statistic.

@The Little Raven:

"It’s up to you to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face."

Let us change the wording slightly in conjuction with the rules for skills.

"It’s up to you to pick the correct skill to roll for to meet the challenges you face."

I think a great deal of my play style, described ad nauseam above, is contingent upon the fact that I don't pretend I am my characters when I roleplay. I don't game for escapism and I don't try to immerse myself in my PCs. I participate in the story of their adventures by determining - based on their established personality traits and goals - how they act in the situations that arise at the table. I play them according to the personality I invent for them - I don't want to pretend I am them. Quite often, they're people that I would hate to be, since I don't always play paragons of virtue!

I game to entertain others and to be entertained by what happens to my characters. That doesn't mean they have to succeed - sometimes failure is more interesting! I care about what happens, but that doesn't mean that I want to see my character go from strength to strength, victory to victory - I want the story to be interesting, and that can just as easily mean my character dealing with setback after setback and loss after loss.