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What DM flaw has caused you to actually leave a game?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7496775" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Because plenty of fortune mechanics in all traditional RPGS - including ability checks and including those in 5e - resolve other things about the fictional position other than the PC's actions. For example, they may resolve passive challenges or resolving resisting things that are happening to you happening to you.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Which in my opinion is besides the point. In the basic RPG decision loop I described, I was describing play in all traditional RPGs. What a particular fortune roll is called isn't really important. But even if I concede that ability checks and saving throws are different things, it still doesn't prove an ability check in and of itself forces a PC to take some action.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'd have to see the text of 5e your opinion is inspired by before I'd give that any credence. But more to the point, you seem to have something very particular in mind and I'm completely unable to imagine how you came to your position. Perhaps some real examples of bad DMing which illustrate your point would clarify to me what you are thinking.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've ran dozens of games. All of them use the decision making loop I described. I concede that I know of from the rules of other games at least two other decision making loops, but I've never played those games and in my experience people who normally play D&D also don't play those games and can't even imagine what those decision making loops are like because they are so vastly different from traditional D&D's model. 5e is certainly NOT vastly different from traditional D&D's model and I'm not yet ready to concede it requires - much less specifies clearly in the rules - a process of play radically different from 3e or 1e.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh, well never mind then.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>But if you concede that I can make an ability check behind the screen and it not force an action on the player, surely you then have to concede that there is no link between ability checks and actions? I'm still struggling to understand where the link comes from in your head. How did you get burned by a DM so badly that you are defending yourself with this sort of take on how a game is to be played?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's purely splitting hairs. I don't demand that a player tell me that he is listening in order to hear things. Most peoples hearing works whether they want it to or not. That's just the nature of hearing. If the players collectively take the action of holding still and listening, it might make them better at hearing, but it isn't necessary in order to hear - certainly not if you are playing Iszeka the Keen-Eared Elf (or whatever). </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Railroading is the act of taking away a players agency by forcing them to take actions. It's your contention that every time a DM asks for an ability test that it forces them to take an action. Your whole argument is based around the idea that by asking for an ability check before the player declares an action the DM is imposing an action on the player. That never occurred to me because I've literally never seen it happen, and it seemed to me that while many ability checks occurred as the result of a player action that they could occur for many other reasons. I'm guessing that once you got burned by a DM that tried to handwave something and it involved an ability check and you got a legitimate beef against whatever injustice happened there and have applied a particular rule or guideline to a general case it doesn't in fact cover.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not actually calling into question that preference. I'm well aware most players don't want their DM to fudge or railroad them or anything of the sort. It's one of the reasons I hide it; not because I'm ashamed of the technique, but because artful illusionism is the technique and if you take the curtain off it's like showing how the magic trick is done - no one really wants that, because usually the magic turns out to be a pretty tawdry trick. And I'm well aware some players would prefer I did every single roll in the open and always stayed true to the established fiction and always played completely ruthlessly. It's just if I did that all the time, my kill counts would be much much higher than the already fairly high numbers that they tend to hover in. It is in fact an art. I will say that I completely agree with you that fudging is a crutch and often overused and often abused, and the better I get as a GM the less I do it. </p><p></p><p>So I'm not really calling into question your preferences, but rather informing you that though those might be your preferences, any good DM is going to be able to fudge with you never catching him and never knowing when or why it happened.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7496775, member: 4937"] Because plenty of fortune mechanics in all traditional RPGS - including ability checks and including those in 5e - resolve other things about the fictional position other than the PC's actions. For example, they may resolve passive challenges or resolving resisting things that are happening to you happening to you. Which in my opinion is besides the point. In the basic RPG decision loop I described, I was describing play in all traditional RPGs. What a particular fortune roll is called isn't really important. But even if I concede that ability checks and saving throws are different things, it still doesn't prove an ability check in and of itself forces a PC to take some action. I'd have to see the text of 5e your opinion is inspired by before I'd give that any credence. But more to the point, you seem to have something very particular in mind and I'm completely unable to imagine how you came to your position. Perhaps some real examples of bad DMing which illustrate your point would clarify to me what you are thinking. I've ran dozens of games. All of them use the decision making loop I described. I concede that I know of from the rules of other games at least two other decision making loops, but I've never played those games and in my experience people who normally play D&D also don't play those games and can't even imagine what those decision making loops are like because they are so vastly different from traditional D&D's model. 5e is certainly NOT vastly different from traditional D&D's model and I'm not yet ready to concede it requires - much less specifies clearly in the rules - a process of play radically different from 3e or 1e. Oh, well never mind then. But if you concede that I can make an ability check behind the screen and it not force an action on the player, surely you then have to concede that there is no link between ability checks and actions? I'm still struggling to understand where the link comes from in your head. How did you get burned by a DM so badly that you are defending yourself with this sort of take on how a game is to be played? That's purely splitting hairs. I don't demand that a player tell me that he is listening in order to hear things. Most peoples hearing works whether they want it to or not. That's just the nature of hearing. If the players collectively take the action of holding still and listening, it might make them better at hearing, but it isn't necessary in order to hear - certainly not if you are playing Iszeka the Keen-Eared Elf (or whatever). Railroading is the act of taking away a players agency by forcing them to take actions. It's your contention that every time a DM asks for an ability test that it forces them to take an action. Your whole argument is based around the idea that by asking for an ability check before the player declares an action the DM is imposing an action on the player. That never occurred to me because I've literally never seen it happen, and it seemed to me that while many ability checks occurred as the result of a player action that they could occur for many other reasons. I'm guessing that once you got burned by a DM that tried to handwave something and it involved an ability check and you got a legitimate beef against whatever injustice happened there and have applied a particular rule or guideline to a general case it doesn't in fact cover. I'm not actually calling into question that preference. I'm well aware most players don't want their DM to fudge or railroad them or anything of the sort. It's one of the reasons I hide it; not because I'm ashamed of the technique, but because artful illusionism is the technique and if you take the curtain off it's like showing how the magic trick is done - no one really wants that, because usually the magic turns out to be a pretty tawdry trick. And I'm well aware some players would prefer I did every single roll in the open and always stayed true to the established fiction and always played completely ruthlessly. It's just if I did that all the time, my kill counts would be much much higher than the already fairly high numbers that they tend to hover in. It is in fact an art. I will say that I completely agree with you that fudging is a crutch and often overused and often abused, and the better I get as a GM the less I do it. So I'm not really calling into question your preferences, but rather informing you that though those might be your preferences, any good DM is going to be able to fudge with you never catching him and never knowing when or why it happened. [/QUOTE]
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