Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Hot Take: Uncertainty Makes D&D Better
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8922366" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>When used in moderation, this is very useful, yes. A significant chunk of games which feature it make it much <em>too</em> swingy. Particularly because gaming in general has moved away from having a default of the ultra-hardcore "one crit and you're just dead" (and similar "meatgrinder" lethality) gameplay.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Not sure which games you're referring to. PbtA games certainly still feature uncertainty. Even when you're working with your best bonuses (+3 bonus) <em>and</em> getting some other kind of benefit (+1 forward or ongoing), snake eyes (2.78%) will still give you a legit failure and rolling 3-5 (a further 25% of cases) will get you only partial success, where you must accept a lesser, incomplete, partial, or trade-off result rather than full success. And since there are three possible results (failure, partial success, full success), the uncertainty is actually much more significant because (to make an example of arguably the most common roll, Defy Danger) the exact "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" will always be context-specific.</p><p></p><p>It's even baked into one of the Agendas and several of the Principles, which are the things that defined DW's design and rules. The Agenda in question is, "Play to find out what happens." By definition, all of the rules are meant to serve that purpose, and they do so extremely well if you permit them to. It requires <em>not</em> over-preparing, <em>not</em> taking the reins, <em>not</em> trying to "plot" things, but instead letting the rules do their job and focusing on responding to what the players choose to do. It's tough, and I don't always do it correctly, but that's on me, not on the rules.</p><p></p><p>As for the Principles, you have things like:</p><p>"Draw maps, leave blanks" (read: you should do <em>some</em> prep work, laying out frameworks and spaces and events, but <em>do not</em> prepare down to the smallest details, <em>do not</em> completely fill up the world, <em>do not</em> prepare consequences)</p><p>"Make a move that follows" (your GM moves should be in response to what the players do, not adhering to some personal plan; they should also always make sense within the context of the fiction, though the players may easily not always know why)</p><p>"Ask questions and use the answers" (take player input and feed that back into the process: player answers to GM questions are a <em>huge</em> source of engaging development that doesn't require dice in order to create unexpected things)</p><p>"Think offscreen too" (make use of established past events and yet-to-be-seen dangers, consequences that won't come to light until later, and other forms of belated surprise)</p><p></p><p></p><p>Alright. But I assume you also would prefer to avoid things that frequently produce deeply unsatisfying results, yes? That's the problem of totally unconstrained randomness. It's usually unsatisfying. That's why mechanics to <em>manage</em>--rather than <em>eliminate</em>--randomness are significant. For example, and <em>please for the love of God don't make assumptions about what this means for my game</em>, I usually frame situations in such a way that my Dungeon World group is unlikely to face (note all of these words, each of them is <em>extremely important</em>) <strong>random, permanent, irrevocable character death.*</strong> That is, by definition, reducing some amount of the "swing" of the dice, because I'm taking a particular option off the table.</p><p></p><p>*Random: An unforeseen result of probability; if the player wishes their character to die, then have at it. Permanent: The character will remain dead and unplayable unless and until something is done to revive them. Irrevocable: Nothing the other players can do will return the character to life (though other forces, outside their control, still might.) <strong>Only</strong> death that is <em>all three</em> of random, permanent, <em>and</em> irrevocable is off the table. Random and permanent but not irrevocable? Awesome, that opens up a whole "save our friend" story. Random and irrevocable but not permanent? Ooh, how will this person come back to life if the other players aren't involved? I sure as heck don't know!</p><p></p><p></p><p>Okay. What about ways to manage things, to <em>occasionally</em> take things out of the hands of the dice, but not <em>always</em> do so? Because that's always been one of the issues with D&D--it puts a ton of ability to evade or invalidate the dice only in the hands of <em>some</em> character archetypes, while leaving others utterly at the mercy of dice no matter what, frequently leading to really silly things. E.g., one of the greatest faults of "critical fumble" rules is the sheer idiotic rate at which swordsmen fall on their own swords while fighting, a thing which is <em>only</em> a problem for characters that make attack rolls--spellcasters, who may never need to make an attack roll at all, are thus insulated from this "swinginess," which creates a pretty clear form of rules-derived unfairness.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8922366, member: 6790260"] When used in moderation, this is very useful, yes. A significant chunk of games which feature it make it much [I]too[/I] swingy. Particularly because gaming in general has moved away from having a default of the ultra-hardcore "one crit and you're just dead" (and similar "meatgrinder" lethality) gameplay. Not sure which games you're referring to. PbtA games certainly still feature uncertainty. Even when you're working with your best bonuses (+3 bonus) [I]and[/I] getting some other kind of benefit (+1 forward or ongoing), snake eyes (2.78%) will still give you a legit failure and rolling 3-5 (a further 25% of cases) will get you only partial success, where you must accept a lesser, incomplete, partial, or trade-off result rather than full success. And since there are three possible results (failure, partial success, full success), the uncertainty is actually much more significant because (to make an example of arguably the most common roll, Defy Danger) the exact "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" will always be context-specific. It's even baked into one of the Agendas and several of the Principles, which are the things that defined DW's design and rules. The Agenda in question is, "Play to find out what happens." By definition, all of the rules are meant to serve that purpose, and they do so extremely well if you permit them to. It requires [I]not[/I] over-preparing, [I]not[/I] taking the reins, [I]not[/I] trying to "plot" things, but instead letting the rules do their job and focusing on responding to what the players choose to do. It's tough, and I don't always do it correctly, but that's on me, not on the rules. As for the Principles, you have things like: "Draw maps, leave blanks" (read: you should do [I]some[/I] prep work, laying out frameworks and spaces and events, but [I]do not[/I] prepare down to the smallest details, [I]do not[/I] completely fill up the world, [I]do not[/I] prepare consequences) "Make a move that follows" (your GM moves should be in response to what the players do, not adhering to some personal plan; they should also always make sense within the context of the fiction, though the players may easily not always know why) "Ask questions and use the answers" (take player input and feed that back into the process: player answers to GM questions are a [I]huge[/I] source of engaging development that doesn't require dice in order to create unexpected things) "Think offscreen too" (make use of established past events and yet-to-be-seen dangers, consequences that won't come to light until later, and other forms of belated surprise) Alright. But I assume you also would prefer to avoid things that frequently produce deeply unsatisfying results, yes? That's the problem of totally unconstrained randomness. It's usually unsatisfying. That's why mechanics to [I]manage[/I]--rather than [I]eliminate[/I]--randomness are significant. For example, and [I]please for the love of God don't make assumptions about what this means for my game[/I], I usually frame situations in such a way that my Dungeon World group is unlikely to face (note all of these words, each of them is [I]extremely important[/I]) [B]random, permanent, irrevocable character death.*[/B] That is, by definition, reducing some amount of the "swing" of the dice, because I'm taking a particular option off the table. *Random: An unforeseen result of probability; if the player wishes their character to die, then have at it. Permanent: The character will remain dead and unplayable unless and until something is done to revive them. Irrevocable: Nothing the other players can do will return the character to life (though other forces, outside their control, still might.) [B]Only[/B] death that is [I]all three[/I] of random, permanent, [I]and[/I] irrevocable is off the table. Random and permanent but not irrevocable? Awesome, that opens up a whole "save our friend" story. Random and irrevocable but not permanent? Ooh, how will this person come back to life if the other players aren't involved? I sure as heck don't know! Okay. What about ways to manage things, to [I]occasionally[/I] take things out of the hands of the dice, but not [I]always[/I] do so? Because that's always been one of the issues with D&D--it puts a ton of ability to evade or invalidate the dice only in the hands of [I]some[/I] character archetypes, while leaving others utterly at the mercy of dice no matter what, frequently leading to really silly things. E.g., one of the greatest faults of "critical fumble" rules is the sheer idiotic rate at which swordsmen fall on their own swords while fighting, a thing which is [I]only[/I] a problem for characters that make attack rolls--spellcasters, who may never need to make an attack roll at all, are thus insulated from this "swinginess," which creates a pretty clear form of rules-derived unfairness. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Hot Take: Uncertainty Makes D&D Better
Top