D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

Underman · Aug 15, 2012

Hussar said:
But, why is my choice to grant players more authorial control through the mechanics so bad?

Who is this evil bogeyman who keeps saying that your choice to offer author stance playstyle is "so bad"? I keep hearing about this sinister man of straw. Is it Innerdude? If not Innerdude, are you asking Innerdude as if he's a proxy to some shub-niggurath or are you just crying out dramatically to the callous heavens?

Emerikol · Aug 15, 2012

Hussar said:
It's considerably more than just d20 roll high though. The skill systems are virtually identical. The character stats are identical. Even most of what a character does, day to day, hasn't changed all that much. As far as "not being able to convert", there's equally as many DM's here who are perfectly willing to show you how to convert your concept into 4e. The only time it's really an issue is when people absolutely insist that class is some sort of in game construct and that a fighter MUST BE a fighter or it's not the same.

Pemerton's only real deviation here is in the skill challenges, which can play as large or as small of a role in 4e as you wish. And, it's not really a deviation, simply extrapolating what's already there.

Hey, if you want to complain that 4e presents itself badly? I'm 100% right behind you. Heck, all you have to do is read between the lines and you'll see how much 4e is going to be in 5e, just spun right and everyone will be eating it up.

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Since we're talking about what we don't like, I'll add this. There's a reason I don't like all the rules to have a 1:1 relationship with the game world. It's too limiting. I don't want the mechanics to define my game to that degree. I want more freedom, both as a player and as a DM.

Earlier in this thread (or one of these anyway) someone talked about a character giving a speech and failing. The DM narrates that a rainstorm shows up and rains on the PC, thus spoiling his attempt. To me, this is fantastic. I want this. For some people, it's apparently immersion breaking because a failed skill check had an in game effect that was not related to the check itself.

To those people, my answer would be simple. Don't narrate it that way. Use the dissociated mechanics in an associated way. Only narrate from the basis of what the character could do. There's no problem doing it that way. Avoid a couple of the more problematic powers and you're good to go. AEDU can easily be explained in the in-game fiction most of the time.

But why go back to mechanics that are so limited? Sure, you get what you want, but, I get left in the cold. Broader, more easily applicable mechanics make everyone happy. So, if you want your effects to be deep immersion, go right ahead. That's your choice. But, why is my choice to grant players more authorial control through the mechanics so bad?

Nothing is wrong with any playstyle. And perhaps on this particular aspect of designing a game they can't truly support both styles. It might "allow" my style but it doesn't really "support" it. The key here is power descriptions. I want something that is immersive to the world. I don't mind players coming up with their own stuff ahead of time but when they do X I want X clearly defined in terms of the game world. Prior to 3e this was the norm. Now it's now. So no surprise there has been massive outcry.

Your example is an excellent one. I could never describe a diplomacy skill as - you are able to convince someone of something unless it rains. If it was going to rain in my world I wouldn't even give a roll if by raining that ruined the event. I'd check a weather chart to determine that. I wouldn't use that as an excuse for why the roll failed.

I think D&D has a long tradition of being process simulationist in it's design. So I'm for D&D staying that way for that reason. Because we all don't have to play the same game. I'd be for 4e branching off and becoming another game and I'd be for WOTC supporting it. I just think - why change the most popular rpg in history by orders of magnitude?

pemerton · Aug 15, 2012

Emerikol said:
I don't mind players coming up with their own stuff ahead of time but when they do X I want X clearly defined in terms of the game world. Prior to 3e this was the norm.

<snip>

I think D&D has a long tradition of being process simulationist in it's design.

Here are some exceptions to process simulation in Gygax's AD&D:

* Saving throws: you make the save than narrate what happened (ducking, sucking out the poison, the poison not really entering your bloodstream, subtly manipulating the magic so it doesn't affect you, ducking into a cleft in the rocks the existence of which was not established by rolling on a "random cleft" chart, etc.

* Melee attack rolls: these represent the best chance at a hit in a minute of back-and-froth melee.

* Hit point depletion: this can represent injury, or fatigue, or the ablation of luck and divine favour, depending on how much damage is done, how many hp you have left, and what your total hp are.

* XP gain: as Gygax points out, XP gain based on actual training or class-relevant learning would be "conducive to non-game boredom". XP-for-gold is a metagame device.

* Training time required: players who play their PCs at odds with their "role" (eg deviating from alignment, clerics who don't heal, thieves who engage in straight-up melee, etc) need to have their PCs spend more time in training to level up (as many as 4 weeks, rather than the minimum 1 week).

* Opening locks, bending bars etc: thieves cannot retry if they fail to open a lock until they gain a level. Bending bars and lifting gates is under a similar "no retries" restriction (I can't remember the details).

I'm not saying that there is no process simulation in AD&D - weapon vs armour, the unarmed combat rules, and the movement rules are some examples that come to mind - but in my view words like "tradition" or "too strong" significantly overstate the case.

pemerton · Aug 15, 2012

Hussar said:
Earlier in this thread (or one of these anyway) someone talked about a character giving a speech and failing. The DM narrates that a rainstorm shows up and rains on the PC, thus spoiling his attempt. To me, this is fantastic. I want this.

That was me! I'm always glad to oblige.

EDIT: The reason for that example wasn't just to provide an example of non-process-simulation narration. It's also about resolving checks in such a way that PCs aren't shut down, and players thereby given signals not to have their PCs attempt certain stuff.

My view is that, without that sort of narration, players have a very strong incentive to only engage situations using their biggest numbers: at which point optimisation, dump stats, letting the "face" do all the talking, etc, become central to play, and a game based around the "3 pillars" becomes very hard to run.

On the "What skills will a 5e GM need?" thread I compared 5e, with its "objective DCs" and "bounded accuracy", to Burning Wheel. But Burning Wheel has some techniques for making objective DCs and bounded accuracy work, which 5e currently lacks. A non-process simulation approach to narrating consequences is one of those techniques.

billd91 · Aug 15, 2012

pemerton said:
That was me! I'm always glad to oblige.

EDIT: The reason for that example wasn't just to provide an example of non-process-simulation narration. It's also about resolving checks in such a way that PCs aren't shut down, and players thereby given signals not to have their PCs attempt certain stuff.

My view is that, without that sort of narration, players have a very strong incentive to only engage situations using their biggest numbers: at which point optimisation, dump stats, letting the "face" do all the talking, etc, become central to play, and a game based around the "3 pillars" becomes very hard to run.

I'm really not seeing how this changes the player's behavior. The check failed in any event whether it was because the dwarf didn't give a convincing presentation or rain made the king flee indoors to keep his suede from being ruined. In either event, assuming the player wants his PC to succeed more often in the future, he's going to invest in his numbers because, in a case narrated either way, it's transparent to the player that his number didn't add up high enough.

Imaro · Aug 15, 2012

billd91 said:
I'm really not seeing how this changes the player's behavior. The check failed in any event whether it was because the dwarf didn't give a convincing presentation or rain made the king flee indoors to keep his suede from being ruined. In either event, assuming the player wants his PC to succeed more often in the future, he's going to invest in his numbers because, in a case narrated either way, it's transparent to the player that his number didn't add up high enough.

Couldn't XP you, but this right here. Regardless of how it is narrated... the character still failed because of his roll, and he/she knows that. Furthermore I think continuously narrating failure results that have nothing to do with the character's actual skill level not being up to par can start to feel absurd and even silly.

EDIT: It's not that Bob the Barbarian with his low charisma isn't good at convincing people to do what he wants through words and charm... it's that some strange mishap occurs everytime he tries...

EDIT 2 : [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] : I'm curious do you use a sim-process relationship to approach attributes? What exactly does Bob the Barbarians charisma being low mean? Because in 4e they straight out tell you Charisma is a measure of force of personality, persuasiveness and leadership... How do you relate that to a rain storm causing a low charisma character to fail as opposed to the fact that...well, he has a low charisma?

Patryn of Elvenshae · Aug 15, 2012

billd91 said:
I'm really not seeing how this changes the player's behavior. The check failed in any event whether it was because the dwarf didn't give a convincing presentation

This says to the player, "Your character is bad at talking to people. If you try to give a speech, and roll low, I [the DM] will narrate it as you putting your foot in your mouth and saying something stupid or insulting in order to get to a fail state."

rain made the king flee indoors to keep his suede from being ruined.

This says to the player, "Your character can be unlucky, rather than incompetent. If try to give a speech, and roll low, I [the DM] will narrate it as events outside your control causing things to not work out as you want in order to get to a fail state."

The difference in the fiction - and therefore, hopefully - the player's willingness (and ability!) to try again - is pretty stark. In the first case, the king is pretty pissed off at your dwarf. In the second case, the king isn't necessarily so.

Imaro · Aug 15, 2012

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
This says to the player, "Your character is bad at talking to people. If you try to give a speech, and roll low, I [the DM] will narrate it as you putting your foot in your mouth and saying something stupid or insulting in order to get to a fail state."

First, the character is bad at talking to people if his numbers are low... there's no way getting around that. What you quoted says your words failed to convince him... that's it. Now any individual DM can narrate that however he wants but you are assuming the character must look stupid or foolish and that isn't the case.

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
This says to the player, "Your character can be unlucky, rather than incompetent. If try to give a speech, and roll low, I [the DM] will narrate it as events outside your control causing things to not work out as you want in order to get to a fail state."

Actually, if the character has a low diplomacy (or whatever social skill we are talking about) this says that whenever you try and talk... something out of your control will make you fail. Again, whether this makes the character look stupid or silly rests in the hands of the DM narrating it but nothing inherent in narrating like this forces the DM not to make the character look silly or stupid.

How about you fail to convince the king because a bird flies by and poops on your head as you are speaking to him... now the player looks silly and/or stupid.

Patryn of Elvenshae said:
The difference in the fiction - and therefore, hopefully - the player's willingness (and ability!) to try again - is pretty stark. In the first case, the king is pretty pissed off at your dwarf. In the second case, the king isn't necessarily so.

But you can easily leave the first situation open to re-negotiation as well...

"As you finish spaking the king seems unconvinced by your words. He looks at you from beneath a furrowed brow and says "You've given me much to ponder upon but I remain skeptical of what you speak. Perhaps if you explain the situation in more detail I will be swayed to action."

Not the best example, but off the top of my head and with no reference the player has failed to convince the king through his own skill, but the door for him to try again is still open.

Crazy Jerome · Aug 15, 2012

Concerning failure state, it's true that "looking good in the fiction" will be an incentive to some and totally irrelevant to others. That's why games that really care about this stuff, such as BW, provide other, different kinds of incentives.

In BW, it's:

What you wanted wasn't all that risky or interesting. So you just get it! But no advancement chance for you. Moving on to something else ...
You used your resources to make this happen, or went after it and got lucky without using much resources. Congratulations, you get what you want! You get a single check towards advancement, probably low-powered.
You failed, and now have some nasty consequence in the fiction. Silver lining, you got a sizable check towards advancement, and probably put yourself into a situation to get even more. You might even boost those resources slightly.

That's not the only way to do it, and every player is a bit different on this question. However, generally most players will want some kind of incentive, however modest, to take genre-appropriate risks frequently. The fact that plenty of people have been satisfied by XP or gold or items in the past has somewhat clouded the issue for others.

D'karr · Aug 15, 2012

Imaro said:
First, the character is bad at talking to people if his numbers are low... there's no way getting around that.

If the character has a high score and still blows it, there's no getting around that either. Luck is luck. The fact that you have higher skill doesn't make you luckier, or less lucky. It just makes you more skilled. When you gamble with the dice the more skilled PC is simply given better odds.

I can have great knowledge of putting circuit boards together, but if I sneeze as I'm soldering a particular component in place and botch it, that had nothing to do with skill.

The DM that provides a description for a lucky, or unlucky break as luck is not going off script. He's actually maintaining the "script" and the mechanics in sync. The roll of the die is luck, not skill.

D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

Underman

First Post

Emerikol

Adventurer

pemerton

Legend

pemerton

Legend

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)

Imaro

Legend

Patryn of Elvenshae

First Post

Imaro

Legend

Crazy Jerome

First Post

D'karr

Adventurer

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