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Rules, Rulings, and the Paradox of Choice
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6041333" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>That's true in the same sense that there is nothing preventing a player lying about his/her dice rolls except for doing it badly and getting spotted and told off for cheating.</p><p></p><p>But I'm assuming that the participants in the game are following the rules - which they can't do if there are no rules.</p><p></p><p>These are corner cases that I considered mentioning in my post but decided not to. In AD&D and 4e it's pretty clear that monsters and NPCs don't typically benefit from the "death's door" rules. I assume that 3E goes the other way.</p><p></p><p>But in any event, an NPC feeding its friend a healing potion requires (i) being equipped with the potion, and (ii) spending the requisite actions in the action economy (to move next to the friend, administer the draught, etc).</p><p></p><p>I think it is different, although lines can become a little blurry.</p><p></p><p>As a general rule, I think reinforcements turning up falls under the scene-framing rules, not the action resolution rules. Either the reinforcements were factored into the original encounter build (and so are part of the challenge the PCs had to confront), or they are a new scene framed to follow on from the earlier one.</p><p></p><p>There are admittedly complexities: for example, reinforcements might be a complication introduced as part of action resolution within a challenge (eg the PCs try to knock out the security guard and fail, the guard screams, reinforcements arrive). But I still think this falls within the category of scene-framing: the guard scene was a failure, for example, and now the new scene is dealing with the reinforcements; or the guard scene was still on foot, but the stakes have now changed because the PCs failed - instead of entering the guarded room, the stakes have changed to not being captured by the reinforcing guards.</p><p></p><p>But I think a GM who routinely introduces reinforcements without having regard to the game's scene-framing guidelines (be they the dungeon populating and wandering monster rules from classic D&D, or the XP budget approach of 4e) is disregarding the rules, and asserting an authority over the content of the fiction that the game itself doesn't give him/her.</p><p></p><p>And in practice it makes for a game in which GM force is the preponderent consideration in deciding whether or not the PCs achieve their goals - for example, until the GM decides to stop sending reinforcements the PCs can never win. (Again, I want to stress that this thought is neutral as between "old school" and "new school". In "old school" the GM will have statted out the dungeon already, or be generating it on the fly by rolling on the random tables, and the players have as part of their action resolution repertoire "detect" spells to determine the parameters of an encounter, silence spells to reduce the likelihood of wandering monsters, etc. There are mechanical constraints, not just GM force.)</p><p></p><p>No, but it changes a prior success into a failure; the PCs are no longer safe in the wilderness, or no longer have a clear escape path behind them, or whatever goal the players had been trying to achieve via their action resolution endeavours.</p><p></p><p>Maybe. Also, there can be resolution systems that don't involve dice rolls - but many of them are rather ad hoc "systems", of well-established patterns of give and take between game participants who know one another well (or at least have a shared understanding of what sort of give and take is expected, and what it can achieve).</p><p></p><p>But I personally don't find those sorts of ad hoc approaches robust enough. A concrete example would be the medusa in the Caves of Chaos. If the PCs negotiate with her, what are the success conditions for it being safe for them to let her go on her way? How can the players be confident, for example, that any oath they extract will be adhered to by her?</p><p></p><p>And, as a GM, if in the course of free roleplaying I have the medusa give an oath to the PCs, am I bound to have her keep it?</p><p></p><p>In combat resolution, I can bring in the healing potions, and the fake deaths (some 4e zombies have a rise-from-death ability, and trolls obviously are famous for it), but if I haven't done anything to change the default, then 0 hp means 0 hp.</p><p></p><p>But a system of interaction via free roleplaying is analogous to me, as GM, having to decide every time in combat whether what the players has asserted is a death blow really is one. (Which was part of [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s point in the OP, I believe.)</p><p></p><p>Also, just to be clear: I'm not saying free roleplaying is no good. In circumstances where there is no serious conflict (eg the PCs are trying to get info from a shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper has no reason to keep the info from them - for example, they're friendly people and good customers, or they're scary people whose presence in the shop is keeping the real customers away) then it's a fine method for resolving interaction and exploration.</p><p></p><p>But when the crunch is on it puts everything on the GM's shoulders in a way that, for the reasons I've given, I really don't like.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6041333, member: 42582"] That's true in the same sense that there is nothing preventing a player lying about his/her dice rolls except for doing it badly and getting spotted and told off for cheating. But I'm assuming that the participants in the game are following the rules - which they can't do if there are no rules. These are corner cases that I considered mentioning in my post but decided not to. In AD&D and 4e it's pretty clear that monsters and NPCs don't typically benefit from the "death's door" rules. I assume that 3E goes the other way. But in any event, an NPC feeding its friend a healing potion requires (i) being equipped with the potion, and (ii) spending the requisite actions in the action economy (to move next to the friend, administer the draught, etc). I think it is different, although lines can become a little blurry. As a general rule, I think reinforcements turning up falls under the scene-framing rules, not the action resolution rules. Either the reinforcements were factored into the original encounter build (and so are part of the challenge the PCs had to confront), or they are a new scene framed to follow on from the earlier one. There are admittedly complexities: for example, reinforcements might be a complication introduced as part of action resolution within a challenge (eg the PCs try to knock out the security guard and fail, the guard screams, reinforcements arrive). But I still think this falls within the category of scene-framing: the guard scene was a failure, for example, and now the new scene is dealing with the reinforcements; or the guard scene was still on foot, but the stakes have now changed because the PCs failed - instead of entering the guarded room, the stakes have changed to not being captured by the reinforcing guards. But I think a GM who routinely introduces reinforcements without having regard to the game's scene-framing guidelines (be they the dungeon populating and wandering monster rules from classic D&D, or the XP budget approach of 4e) is disregarding the rules, and asserting an authority over the content of the fiction that the game itself doesn't give him/her. And in practice it makes for a game in which GM force is the preponderent consideration in deciding whether or not the PCs achieve their goals - for example, until the GM decides to stop sending reinforcements the PCs can never win. (Again, I want to stress that this thought is neutral as between "old school" and "new school". In "old school" the GM will have statted out the dungeon already, or be generating it on the fly by rolling on the random tables, and the players have as part of their action resolution repertoire "detect" spells to determine the parameters of an encounter, silence spells to reduce the likelihood of wandering monsters, etc. There are mechanical constraints, not just GM force.) No, but it changes a prior success into a failure; the PCs are no longer safe in the wilderness, or no longer have a clear escape path behind them, or whatever goal the players had been trying to achieve via their action resolution endeavours. Maybe. Also, there can be resolution systems that don't involve dice rolls - but many of them are rather ad hoc "systems", of well-established patterns of give and take between game participants who know one another well (or at least have a shared understanding of what sort of give and take is expected, and what it can achieve). But I personally don't find those sorts of ad hoc approaches robust enough. A concrete example would be the medusa in the Caves of Chaos. If the PCs negotiate with her, what are the success conditions for it being safe for them to let her go on her way? How can the players be confident, for example, that any oath they extract will be adhered to by her? And, as a GM, if in the course of free roleplaying I have the medusa give an oath to the PCs, am I bound to have her keep it? In combat resolution, I can bring in the healing potions, and the fake deaths (some 4e zombies have a rise-from-death ability, and trolls obviously are famous for it), but if I haven't done anything to change the default, then 0 hp means 0 hp. But a system of interaction via free roleplaying is analogous to me, as GM, having to decide every time in combat whether what the players has asserted is a death blow really is one. (Which was part of [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s point in the OP, I believe.) Also, just to be clear: I'm not saying free roleplaying is no good. In circumstances where there is no serious conflict (eg the PCs are trying to get info from a shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper has no reason to keep the info from them - for example, they're friendly people and good customers, or they're scary people whose presence in the shop is keeping the real customers away) then it's a fine method for resolving interaction and exploration. But when the crunch is on it puts everything on the GM's shoulders in a way that, for the reasons I've given, I really don't like. [/QUOTE]
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