Elephant in the room: rogue and fighter dailies.

[Mark CMG]

"I chop his head off!" is a narrative declaration that might fail to account for rolling lousy attack and damage. So we adjust the narrative to account for the mechanics.

Nope. We introduce the narrative to account for the results. The declaration you are introducing prior to the die roll is incorrectly stated, such that "I attempt to chop off his head" is the correct way to approach the situation. Once the roll has been made, the consequences are described by the facilitator of the game based off the combination of the player's planned action, the result of the die roll, and any other information the facilitator might have (like perhaps the opponent wearing an iron collar).

Likewise, we adjust our narrative to explain why Fighter A can't Trip him, Fighter B might Trip him but fails, and Fighter C might Trip him and succeeds.

Once each per day, apparently. Still not buying it in regard to tripping someone.

 

[nnms]

The games that a meta-free are the austere simulationist games like Traveller, Runequest and (slightly less austere) Rolemaster.

I'm beginning to see the strengths of such approaches and save the games with stronger meta mechanics (like In A Wicked Age or Fate) for when I want games that have them.

Note that in RQ, which uses a simulationist rather than a metagame dodge mechanic, the player's response would make perfect sense.

**Touches nose.**

 

[Hypersmurf]

Nope. We introduce the narrative to account for the results.

If you prefer.

Fighter A attempts to Trip the opponent; because he lacks the Daily, his failure is preordained.

Result? He fails to Trip the guy. Narrate accordingly.

-Hyp.

 

[Siberys]

Yeah, basing the narrative on the results has nothing to do with whether you use meta resources or not. Either way, when the mechanics are all resolved, you describe the results narratively.

 

[Mark CMG]

If you prefer.

Fighter A attempts to Trip the opponent; because he lacks the Daily, his failure is preordained.

Result? He fails to Trip the guy. Narrate accordingly.

-Hyp.

See my clarification above. I'm not convinced that tripping someone is something that should be expressed as a daily ability.

 

[nnms]

If you prefer.

Fighter A attempts to Trip the opponent; because he lacks the Daily, his failure is preordained.

Result? He fails to Trip the guy. Narrate accordingly.

-Hyp.

Other games might have sections in their combat rules like 1. Disarm, or 2. Knock back, or 3. Trip. You can choose to do any maneuver you can describe and then the rules are referenced for how to resolve the issue, including perhaps modifiers for the factors of the situation.

You understand the contrast?

 

[Hussar]

Nope. We introduce the narrative to account for the results. /snip

Which is ALWAYS the way it should be. You should never introduce narrative that doesn't take into account the results.

Two fighters attack. The first one rolls just enough to hit, the second one hits with a roll WAY above what's needed.

What do you narrate?

Damage is rolled. The first fighter rolls max damage and the second rolls minimum damage.

What do you narrate?

Or, conversely, both fighters score the same damage, despite very different attack rolls. Maybe the first fighter only hit by spending an action point or another character nudged in a bonus some way.

What do you narrate?

Narration comes AFTER any task is resolved. Otherwise, your narration is quite often wrong. "You barely manage to stab him through the heart and kill him" is not a good narration. Nor is "You directly stab him in the throat and barely nick him."

 

[Rogue Agent]

Why do people keep saying these things when caster dailies are just as dissociated as fighter dailies?

Because a magic-user's spells aren't dissociated: The character knows that he prepared two fireball spells and can, therefore, only cast two fireball spells. The decision to use those fireball spells by the player is directly associated with the wizard's decision to cast them in the game world.

You can try to dismiss that as just saying "it's magic", but it is the key distinction being discussed.

You can also try to belittle and dismiss those who care about having associated mechanics because they aren't important to you, but that tells us a lot about you and not much about the issue at hand.

Ballocks. Complete and utter, 100% ballocks. It might not be a form of roleplaying that you like, but, it IS roleplaying and gamism has absolutely NOTHING to do with it.

Since the decision you're making has absolutely nothing to do with playing a role, I'm afraid you're running up against the definitions of the English language here.

If you want to try to define "roleplaying" to mean something other than "playing a role", be my guest. But I'm probably not going to be convinced.

It's just that the player - not the character - gets to choose the opportunity.

And that is precisely what makes them dissociated mechanics: The player is making a decision which is not associated with the decisions being made by the character.

I happen to like the broad-to-the-point-of-uselessness definition of roleplaying game. So I don't find the "that's not an rpg!" statement to be helpful.

I find it useful specifically because it cuts through the confusion that happens when you try to lump every type of storytelling game together and pretend that they're all doing the same thing.

There are lots of people who are perfectly happy mixing roleplaying mechanics, storytelling mechanics, and a bunch of other stuff together in a big, happy pot. More power to them.

But there is also clearly a very large body of people who play roleplaying games in order to play their role: To make decisions as if they were their character. The proof of that is that these threads and these arguments aren't going away.

Saying "we're doing one thing and you're doing another" isn't an attempt to belittle either party. It's an attempt to cut through the and get people to recognize what they're doing, why they're doing it, and why they enjoy it.

You want to get offended if I say "when you make a decision about something your character doesn't control, you aren't playing your role when you make that decision"? Take a second and really think about that. Why are you getting offended? You clearly enjoy making decisions that your character isn't making. Why do you feel some sort of guilt or shame over that?

You should own it and embrace it and figure out how to make those decisions better and more interesting. Is it that you like having input on the world? Input on the pace of the story? An ability to rewrite the game world to favor your avatar?

Exactly. The answer to "Martial Dailies don't make sense!" is "Sure they do - they represent a meta-resource".

That answer might not be to everyone's taste, but it's better for people to acknowledge "I find meta-resources distasteful in D&D" than to claim "My Fighter forgets how to Trip people, but remembers again if he goes to sleep!"

100% agreed. That is exactly what I'm saying.

 

[Mark CMG]

Narration comes AFTER any task is resolved. Otherwise, your narration is quite often wrong. "You barely manage to stab him through the heart and kill him" is not a good narration. Nor is "You directly stab him in the throat and barely nick him."

This seems contradictory. You agree that the result must be gleaned prior to narrating then make two poorly phrased statements that do not account for posible results.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Other games might have sections in their combat rules like 1. Disarm, or 2. Knock back, or 3. Trip. You can choose to do any maneuver you can describe and then the rules are referenced for how to resolve the issue, including perhaps modifiers for the factors of the situation.

You understand the contrast?

Of course. I'm not arguing for or against narrative-influence, meta-resource mechanics. I'm arguing that in a game where those mechanics exist, it doesn't have to result in a nonsensical scenario of a character temporarily forgetting a learned skill.

The declaration you are introducing prior to the die roll is incorrectly stated, such that "I attempt to chop off his head" is the correct way to approach the situation.

Right.

The character attempts to chop off the opponent's head.

In game A, where decapitation is an action that can be declared at any time, the player rolls the die and consults the mechanics to determine success.

In a game B, where decapitation is an action that requires expenditure of a meta-resource, the player decides whether or not to do so, and - if he chooses to spend the Daily power, for example - rolls the die and consults the mechanics to determine success.

If you're running game A, you need one narrative that accounts for failure to chop off the head (because the die rolled badly), and one that accounts for success (because the die rolled well).

If you're running game B, you need one narrative that accounts for failure to chop off the head (because the die rolled badly, or because the resource was not expended), and one that accounts for success (because the resource was expended, and the die rolled well).

Either way, the stories are the same.

The difference is that in game B, the player might realise in advance that failure to chop off the head is guaranteed (since he cannot or elects not to spend the resource)... so the narrative detail explaining the failure can be introduced prior to the die roll. Or, alternatively, the narrative detail explaining why it's pointless to attempt to chop off the head can be introduced, and he can attempt something else with his action.

If another player on the next turn decides to do some head-chopping of his own, his narrative should incorporate the already-introduced details, and might also explain why it's not automatically futile for him to try what the first player failed at.

-Hyp.