An example where granular resolution based on setting => situation didn't work

[FrogReaver]

Yeah well part of the problem, I suspect, would analogize to 1e AD&D like how do you avoid a fight by stealth? There's no real rules for this, and because the AD&D rules are all very specific you constantly run into this problem. If a situation is slightly different than the one Gary envisaged, then the system doesn't have an answer. This means it's less game and more endless creative, and GM serving, design. Contrast with Dungeon World where the rules are general instead of particular. We always know moves will be made, the question is only what fiction will attach and what will the dice tell us about the next move? No rules judgment, extrapolation, etc. need ever take place. If there's a disagreement it's about the fiction and direction of play.

Never played 1e AD&D either. Though I thought rolling under stat was the general resolution mechanics for the game?

 

[Imaro]

Never played 1e AD&D either. Though I thought rolling under stat was the general resolution mechanics for the game?

This was the case for RC D&D... though not sure if it applied to AD&D.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I've bolded one key word - might. How is that resolved into does or does not?

My apologies, "fell might" as in "sinister power".

As far as the "narration of push and pull" is concerned, what does that literally mean at the table? GM monologue? The making of rolls, and if so which ones and how many?

That's up to the individual DM I would say.

The OP is an example of how setting => situation doesn't work. And how granular resolution doesn't work.

I understand, however I disagree in that this particular instance you described was unsatisfying and I think that it could have been within the rules set.

If you're saying that we have to adapt the rules away from granular resolution; and that the GM stipulates and manages the situation independent of setting, then aren't you agreeing with the OP?

Perhaps, but I think I am not clearly understanding what you mean by "granular resolution".

I seem to remember Rolemaster having a more finely granular resolution similar to RuneQuest. Dungeon World's big thing seems to be a three fold resolution system; Fail, Close, Success. RuneQuest has Fumble, Fail, Success, Extra, Awesome. Dunegeon World is more coarsely granular than RuneQuest. Classically, D&D is even more coarsely granular; Fail, Success.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Why would you need to draw up a tactical map? The check as described depends upon range, not precise positioning. The only question that needs to be answered before rolling it is "how close do the nomads come to the PCs?" No need for a tactical map to determine that.

How many people are searching, in which areas, etc? I agree, you can make up your own procedures. I think that's the point, the sorts of high granularity 'sim' type rules that a game like RM uses don't work here. Even if you hack them enough to get some kind of results there's no guarantee it's fun, and I would argue that so many of the inputs are decided on the fly by the GM that this process is indistinguishable from just making up the answer. At best I can't see how it is superior to a DW move.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Never played 1e AD&D either. Though I thought rolling under stat was the general resolution mechanics for the game?

No, there's no such rule. OA has NWP, and WSG/DSG/UA have different variants. 2e has a single sentence that suggests roll under, but nothing actually builds on that, not even it's version of NWPs. NWP don't mostly use roll under or even relate to ability scores.

I would agree it was a known technique but rarely used. I have no definite memory of ever employing it in 1000s of hours of play, though we quite possibly did now and then.

 

[Tonguez]

As I've posted upthread (I think multiple times), there are rules for resolving Camouflage vs Locate Hidden. Among other things, they depend on knowing how far the would-be Locator is from the Hidden thing.

They are designed for resolving an attempt by a PC to find a secret door in a dungeon, or similar sorts of things. They are simply not designed to resolve a non-granularly characterised situation of trying to remain hidden in a magically-covered pit while a group of nomads rides about the area on horseback.

The OP doesnt say that the Paynim have come to look for anything so Im confused as to why they are trying to locate hidden at all. What makes them think there is something to find?
Even if theyre just cautious and scanning the area then thats a ‘passive perception’ type thing to notice if something is unusual - if they do notice, then you have your location for a locate hidden spell to scan.

Yeah, I don't understand the whole fascination that some people have with applying rules that are meant to produce narrative and explore fiction when applied by PCs being applied AT ALL by NPCs. I honestly confess, even in my early days as a GM I never did that or thought it would be a good idea. So, I wouldn't consider that kind of thing as a very good option, myself. The game is about the PCs and the players telling me what they do, etc.!

Thats why I like the FATE fractal rule which posits thay everything including the Setting itself can be treated as a character with its own aspects and ways of influencing the scene.
In Fate I can say the Covered Pit has Camouflage 1 which can be overcome by a successful search roll. The PCs can invoke the ‘Paynim are just passing through’+1 and ‘desolate wastelands’+1 to improve the camouflage 1 to camouflage 3.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Hold up.

I GMed RM for nearly 20 years - hundreds of sessions, thousands of hours. The system is not only "a bit less adaptable", it's virtually worthless. It's lack of utility begins with "variable" for spells and "this may be modified due to an unusual circumstance, or if there is a tracker in the pursuing group" and only grows from there.

I remember a discussion on framing for Torchbearer. I believe I asked a question regarding the path and timing you had decided on for the bad guy as the PCs wandered through the tower. I believe that you mentioned that you intended to have the arrival of the bad guy at the tower should a roll indicate a complication. How is that not "vague", since it is something that you decided, by fiat, with the occasion of a marginal roll?

Discern Realities
When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. On a 10+ ask the GM three questions from the list below. On a 7–9 ask only one. Take +1 forward when acting on the answers.
• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• What should I be on the lookout for?
• What here is useful or valuable to me?
• Who’s really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?

Depending on the die roll, you have 0, 1, or 3 questions answered. How is this not "granular"?

They are designed for resolving an attempt by a PC to find a secret door in a dungeon, or similar sorts of things. They are simply not designed to resolve a non-granularly characterised situation of trying to remain hidden in a magically-covered pit while a group of nomads rides about the area on horseback.

Adapting them to this situation is trivial. You just might not have had the skills 30 years ago is all. I'm confident you could manage it today.

 

[pemerton]

The OP doesnt say that the Paynim have come to look for anything so Im confused as to why they are trying to locate hidden at all. What makes them think there is something to find?
Even if theyre just cautious and scanning the area then thats a ‘passive perception’ type thing to notice if something is unusual - if they do notice, then you have your location for a locate hidden spell to scan.

Because it's around 30 years ago that this episode of play occurred, I don't remember the details. Rather than Detect Magic, relevant magic could have been Detect Life or Locate Object (the PCs may have been carrying some sort of Baklun relic) or one of the various Detect Thought-type effects that RM Mentalists get.

If the PCs weren't hidden you'd have to determine the nomads' location, right? Place them down relative to each other and then determine how the nomads move based upon the PCs' actions?

So what's stopping you from placing them down without them knowing where the PCs are? Determining how they move in the absence of PCs' actions? That gets you their location for the Locate Hidden check.

Why would you need to draw up a tactical map? The check as described depends upon range, not precise positioning. The only question that needs to be answered before rolling it is "how close do the nomads come to the PCs?" No need for a tactical map to determine that.

I don't quite follow your contrast between "placing them down" and "tactical map". But in any event, while it's correct that an overt encounter gives rise to some of the same problems, it's much easier in that case to treat each group of characters as a reference point both for character motivation and for character positioning - eg "the nomads surround you on their horses, well within bowshot range". This is a thing the nomads might sensibly do, and also establishes ranges for subsequent resolution.

Now if the PCs try to escape being encircled - eg by running into the foothills - it is once again the case that RM has no very satisfactory means for resolving this (the Move/Manoeuvre table is really intended to be used for single bursts of movement, rather than chase-and-pursuit). I only remember one chase and pursuit episode from mid-ish level RM, and that was resolved predominantly by GM fiat - I could easily have presented it as another example of granular resolution based on setting => situation not working. At the levels where the episode in the OP came up, escape would always have been by way of teleport or perhaps flight and so the issue of pursuit would normally not arise.

Are you suggesting the situation can't be granularly characterized because the PCs are static and the NPCs aren't? That's just not correct. You can make decisions for the NPCs, and it's pretty standard procedure to do so.

Once you've established what they want and what they can do, how is the process of their resolution any different than if they were PCs, outside of who's playing them?

Establishing what they want is already a complex task in a setting => situation approach. Because of "who's playing them", questions of adversarialism, or what it is fair to suppose that a group of dozens or hundreds of nomads might have learned from (eg) Dream spells and Guess spells and whatever else is conceivably going on in the fiction, are highly relevant. The contrast here is with @AbdulAlhazred's examples of Dungeon World resolution, where what they want can be established, in part at least, as a consequence of resolution rather than an input into it.

And even once that is resolved, there is then the question of establishing what they do and where they do it, in a case where I - the player of them - know what they should be doing and where they should be doing it. If I was a player in that context, having learned the location of the treasure by reading ahead in the module, I'd be a cheater!

How many people are searching, in which areas, etc? I agree, you can make up your own procedures. I think that's the point, the sorts of high granularity 'sim' type rules that a game like RM uses don't work here. Even if you hack them enough to get some kind of results there's no guarantee it's fun, and I would argue that so many of the inputs are decided on the fly by the GM that this process is indistinguishable from just making up the answer. At best I can't see how it is superior to a DW move.

All this exactly.

 

[FrogReaver]

So, I'm going to cite D&D 5e as an example of a game with a granular resolution system based on setting -> situation that works.

Any disagreements?

 

[pemerton]

I remember a discussion on framing for Torchbearer. I believe I asked a question regarding the path and timing you had decided on for the bad guy as the PCs wandered through the tower. I believe that you mentioned that you intended to have the arrival of the bad guy at the tower should a roll indicate a complication. How is that not "vague", since it is something that you decided, by fiat, with the occasion of a marginal roll?

I'm not sure what you mean by "vague" here. As per the instructions given to GMs in the Scholar's Guide (p 139), part of preparing an adventure scenario in Torchbearer includes coming up with ideas for twists:

Plan Twists
As you finish planning out your problems and obstacles, try to imagine some of the possible twists that might happen should the characters
blunder around.​

I assume that you are referring to this:

Golin's player asked for a test, based on his instinct to Always look for weak points, to see if there was a trapdoor or similar opening in the floor hidden under the rug. The test failed. And so, as the PCs were about to leave, who should come in the front door but Megloss, demanding to know what they were doing there!

There is nothing vague about this. The instructions to GMs are clear. I had followed them. A player failed a roll. As per the rules of the game, I (as GM) decided whether to allow success with a condition or impose a twist, and I opted for a twist. Which was Megloss showing up.

At no point was it unclear whose job it is to decide what happens next, nor what parameters govern that decision.

Depending on the die roll, you have 0, 1, or 3 questions answered. How is this not "granular"?

I had hoped that it was clear that by "granular" - particularly in the context of the reference to some earlier threads to which this is a sequel - I meant granular detail with respect to the in-fiction space and time, and the causal process that are unfolding within the fiction. I had hoped that my discussions of spell ranges and durations, the importance of distances to Locate Hidden checks, etc would reinforce that intended meaning.