Players choose what their PCs do . . .

Sadras · Jul 21, 2019

FrogReaver said:
The mechanics of not having any roleplay mechanics assists with roleplaying. I've went on about the benefits of such a system for most of this thread.

That is true you have and you are right, BUT I also see that as a weakness of the system as without such mechanics in place, that same roleplaying aspect may be forgotten or ignored.

pemerton · Jul 22, 2019

Sadras said:
one of my players has a character with the Bond: Those who fight beside me are those worth dying for.
My intention is to challenge this character concept - to place the character in a position where if he
(a) chooses to save a former ally, this may result in a loss of influence (mechanical) for the party; or
(b) does not choose to save a former ally, which may result in the player having to amend his character's Bond.

<snip>

Of course my intention is for the player to know the stakes of (a) and (b) beforehand and for me to be completely transparent with how it will play out.

<snip>

Out of curiosity, do you consider the above an example of fundamental pressure on the player's concept of the character?

It's a bit hard to express a view on this without more context, but I don't think it is such a thing.

I'm not seeing that there is a situation suggesting to the PC (and his/her player) that, in fact, those who fight beside me are not worth dying for.

But maybe I've missed something or otherwise misunderstood what you are describing.

Campbell · Jul 22, 2019

I'm going to start with some personal background. Before I ever touched any dice I got my start role playing in online free form communities associated with various fandoms. I also am a lifelong theater geek with a deep appreciation for the craft of acting. I have a group of friends who gets together every couple months to do read throughs of some of our favorite plays. Right now I'm currently working through The Warner Loughlin Technique which is a set of acting techniques used to attempt to feel the emotions your character is directly in the moment. I'm not involved in community theater right now, but hope to do so at some point in the future. Right now my career and athletics are my focus.

My primary focus on stage and when I play role playing games (other than B/X D&D which I approach as a tactical exercise) has always been authentically experiencing what my character is with a focus on relationships and emotional driving forces. This is a pretty big ask. Authentically feeling the weight of the moment as someone who has dramatically different life experiences, people they care about, and ways they process emotions is like hard. Add on top of it the real world social dynamics that exist between players playing a game and at times it can feel damn near impossible. I need all the help I can get.

In my experience there are certain issues you run into in completely free form play. The first is that the real world rather than fictional social dynamics can often take over. This is problematic enough on stage, but becomes a much larger problem when we are authoring what our characters actually do. I find it helpful to have mechanics which help us play with more integrity. Sometimes this comes in reward mechanisms. Sometimes in social influence mechanics. Sometimes like in Blades in the Dark or Dogs in the Vineyard the core mechanic helps us think like these characters should think.

Another more pernicious problem is that we grow to care for these characters. From a player side it may come down to developing an idealized image of their character that they do not want to see tarnished. In GM mediated play this might express itself in making sure a given character shines in their specialty or forcing the story down certain roads or not providing meaningful antagonism. We become way to focused on outcomes rather than authentically seeing what happens. This is why I favor a set of GMing techniques which limit mediation and favor playing to find out. I also favor mechanics which have something to say so the GM can focus on providing meaningful antagonism. I also feel like intent based adjudication can cause issues here.

There is a downside here. We are providing a focused lens towards the sorts of characters in play. We also want to preserve player choice as much as possible. I feel the games I play do that by constraining or affecting outcomes, but still leaving players firmly in the driver seat. I'm willing to dive deeper here, but only if we are going to talk about design trade offs and not try to argue why one set of techniques is always strictly superior.

Sadras · Jul 22, 2019

pemerton said:
It's a bit hard to express a view on this without more context, but I don't think it is such a thing.

I'm not seeing that there is a situation suggesting to the PC (and his/her player) that, in fact, those who fight beside me are not worth dying for.

I think I understand, will have to ponder on this more.

The situation I had envisioned is thus (and I haven't as yet ironed out all the details):
A former party member (PC turned NPC) is accused of working for the opposition with strong circumstantial evidence that such accusation is true. The PC will be aware of a mission to have said NPC assassinated. He will have the option to foil such assassination attempt.

FrogReaver · Jul 22, 2019

Sadras said:
That is true you have and you are right, BUT I also see that as a weakness of the system as without such mechanics in place, that same roleplaying aspect may be forgotten or ignored.

Sure. But I think the same can be said of any system - that whatever you want to say is the benefit of the system also can be turned around as a weakness under the right circumstances.

hawkeyefan · Jul 22, 2019

FrogReaver said:
I wouldn't say any of those things help roleplaying (well maybe they help put new players in the right mindset)

I can't think of the last character where I really sit down and mapped those out.

Just to give some context. In my current campaign I've played a number of different characters. I want to hone in on my first and my current.

My first was a super intelligent Fighter whose curiosity led him to becoming a wizard. That curiosity coupled with his lower wisdom was so profound the character played like a mad scientist. He had a thirst for knowledge and experimentation that outweighed his desire for personal safety. This often forced the party into dangerous situations they either would have bypassed or otherwise been better prepared for.

In hindsight I suppose I could have codified this character with bonds and flaws but I doubt it would have led to a character who played and developed as organically. For example, when first seeing something he mistook for an undead, he became fascinated with bringing living creatures back from the dead in the hopes of obtaining immortality and started pursing necromancy. That wasn't the path I had originally planned for him (nor was it one he could have envisioned for himself). It developed seamlessly and organically due to his reactions to the world around him.

Or take my current character. A Barbarian / Rogue with an Int of 6. He is dumb as a brick, but strong and fast and very hardy. He has the personality of a gentle giant for the most part. However, he will fiercely defend his friends. He doesn't care for much in the world except having someone that will provide him a meal everyday. For example, just this last campaign he agreed to have a magical ritual performed on him by a powerful cult member that had the potential to flat out kill him if it failed and would take his soul if it succeeded. He agreed to this because the cult member agreed to feed him and the party didn't overly try to persuade me not to go through with it. The ritual was successful. So I'm still alive and now with no soul. The cult member afterwards even volunteered to help us out of our current predicament. It's uncertain how much his helpfulness was influenced by me volunteering, but I imagine it had some effect.

I'm not sure I would say they pertain to roleplaying. They pertain to your characters identity in the world. I mean there are limitless Dwarf Sailors that can be roleplayed.

Which helps me as strong mechanical implications would be a bigger hindrance than a help to me.

Thank the gods!

Which you speak of almost as if that's a bad thing. For me it's the greatest thing ever!

In my current campaign race and possibly even class isn't guaranteed to stay the same. Background is pretty immutable though - though we often find background details being added by the DM, such as you meet this guy you know from your time as a blacksmith etc.

And the creative freedom that provides me is wonderful! Just because you have a flaw or a general moral compass doesn't mean you always abide by it. My characters behave the same way.

Sure. It can be hard to break out of the cycle of always doing what's most expedient. Especially since you always have that option.

It becomes glorious. What you call incentivizing roleplay, I call shoehorning me into roleplaying something a specific way whether it's the way I envision my character or not - Or more likely, I just wouldn't play a character concept in such a system that said mechanics could invalidate.

I think most experienced players and groups largely do this.

Sure - but I don't think that characterization does my experiences with the system justice.

So all that is fine, really. But all it says is that at best D&D is neutral as far as roleplaying goes. True Neutral.

There’s not a game I can think of where you can’t come up with characters like those you’ve offered.

I do think it’s interesting that the main area of 5E that even approaches the issue...Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws...is one you don’t even bother to detail. Why not? It’s clearly meant to be a part of character creation...and besides class, race, and alignment those elements are the only roleplaying focused items in the whole process. Why skip them?

Lanefan · Jul 22, 2019

pemerton said:
Let's suppose your claim about human physiology was true, which I don't think it is.

In 4e hp are not a model of that physiology. They are part of an action resolution framework.

Thus, a completely 'gamist' (real-world term use, not forge-world) construct rather than an attempt to model anything; which seems silly when the original idea behind hit points was to reflect - and yes, to some extent model - the amount of trauma one could withstand...along with, as you point out below, how much luck one might have going at the time, be it for or against.

The primary mechanical marker of the power of a 4e creature, including the degree of physical trauma it can endure, is its level. By setting the level of a being, the GM is using a mechanical device to signal its toughness in the fiction. Secondarily this is reflected in its defences and any special abilities it might have. Thirdly, this is reflected in its hit points.

So far this is more or less true of all editions of D&D. However, in non-4e editions these things remain constant no matter what situation the creature finds itself in or who/what it finds itself fighting.

A minion's hp are simply a toggle: is it up or is it down? This tells us that, when it engages activities of its levels toughness, it is highly vulnerable. This is related to probabilities of not enduring trauma.

I have bolded the probability markers you have used. In everyday life we call this luck. In 4e D&D hp do not model only physiology. Among other things they model luck.

Quite right; although for my example I was ignoring this aspect for the moment.

Giving a minion 1 hp is indicating that this being has little luck - if it is successfully hit by an opponent of the appropriate degree of toughness, it goes down.

Yet a PC, if faced with an immensely superior foe, doesn't suddenly find itself with only 1 h.p. to its name where a moment ago it had 35; the immensely-superior foe still has to get through all 35 of them, and so it should. But then internal consistency rears its ugly head: what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and so any creature that has X hit points should always have X hit points.

We can see all this in the account of the tiers of play (4e DMG, pp 146-47; very similar text can be found in the PHB, pp 28-29):

Heroic characters navigate dangerous terrain and explore haunted crypts, where they can expect to fight savage orcs, ferocious wolves, giant spiders, evil cultists, bloodthirsty ghouls, and shadar-kai assassins. If they face a dragon, it’s a young one that might still be searching for a lair and has not yet found its place in the world . . .

Paragon-level adventurers explore uncharted regions and delve long-forgotten dungeons, where they confront savage giants, ferocious hydras, fearless golems, evil yuan-ti, bloodthirsty vampires, crafty mind flayers, and drow assassins. They might face a powerful adult dragon that has established a lair and a role in the world. . . .

Epic characters traverse otherworldly realms and explore never-before-seen caverns of wonder, where they fight savage balor demons, abominations such as the ferocious tarrasque, mind flayer masterminds, terrible archdevils, bloodthirsty lich archmages, and even the gods themselves. The dragons they encounter are ancient wyrms of truly earth-shaking power, whose sleep troubles kingdoms and whose waking threatens existence.

When (for instance) paragon tier PCs confront a ghoul - which is of typical toughness for heroic tier PCs - that ghouls is not terribly tough. One well-placed blow (ie in mechanical terms, an attack that hits) will drop it.

None of the indented bits tell me that one hit from a paragon will always drop a ghoul, even though it does tell me that paragons should have a very good expectation of winning a fight with them. Further, even though ghouls might not be all that tough against a paragon-level party even paragons can hit for less hit points than the typical ghoul might have if they roll poorly on the damage die, which gives the ghoul another chance to hit and hurt the paragon. (ghouls are an interesting example, in fact, as at least in earlier editions their paralyzation ability makes every attack they get a serious threat, so leaving one up for an extra round can be problematic)

And no PC is going to give out enough damage in a single blow to kill a non-minion giant or dragon or anything else big, no matter what level said PC might be.

Gygax gives advice in his DMG: "Always give a monster an even break". Taking away all their hit points save one doesn't really accomplish this.

Your apparent lack of appreciation of these facts about 4e is why I have repeatedly asserted that you don't seem to understand how the 4e combat meahcics work.

I well enough understand how they work, but I don't think you understand (or can't accept) my objections to their butchering of internal setting consistency (a.k.a. game-world realism).

Lanefan · Jul 22, 2019

pemerton said:
Your PC's actions have put your family at risk. When you decide to do have your PC do X rather than Y, how do you - as a player - know whether your are jeopardiding your relationship with your family? Who decides whether they stick with you or abandon you? And how?

Er...are you referring here to the specific example I gave* or asking an in-general question?

* - in my example my actions had nothing to do with putting them at risk; the challenge came later when I learned they were at risk and had to choose between family and duty.

Is this is all just GM decides?

Givan as a) my PC's family are in theory all NPCs, and b) NPCs are completely under the control of the GM, then obviously it's going to be up to the GM to determine (in whatever ways and means he might use) how my family reacts to any of this, and-or to me should I ever find and-or rescue them.

This seems to rest on a premise that there is a finite amount of "challenge" which, if the PCs avoid it, means the players win and everyone goes home.

There is a fininte amount of challenge in each individual challenge, if that makes sense; and avoiding one often just means getting to the next that much faster...but yes, at some point in the larger scheme of things avoiding or blowing through enough challenges will mean the players 'win' that mission rather cheaply (e.g. the princess is rescued in half a day without anyone taking a scratch; or (extreme example) the BBEG takes one look at the party and bends the knee before a word is spoken or a sword drawn). What everyone hoped would be a 3-session adventure just got blown away in a real-time hour...now what?

That is not how any system I'm familiar with works. If the PCs are successful in sneaking into the castle and doing whatever they hoped to do, then the game keeps going. The GM makes up more stuff. The players declare more actions.

Exactly...provided that either the GM or the players or both still have ideas left.

When everyone is happy that the story of these particular PCs has come to an end, then they can start a new game.

What about the story of the story? Sure those particular PCs might have run their course (for now) but if there's still some story left what's stopping the players from bringing in new PCs with new characterizations etc. and carrying on - kinda like a sequel.

Lanefan · Jul 22, 2019

pemerton said:
30 years ago I GMed an AD&D game in which one of the PCs, in order to be returned to life, had to be treated by a sage. The result of the sage's herbal treatment was that the PC permanently turned blue. That's a cute enough result, but it's not a challenge to the player's characterisation of the character.

Depending on context, it sure could be: if blue-skinned people are shunned by society in that setting the player now has to figure out how to play this character as an outcast, which may or may not be a huge departure from how it was played before.

FrogReaver said:
In 5e having a soul has no mechanical effect.

I've not yet decided how to portray a character that has no soul. There is going to be some difference for sure. Whatever that difference is, that is what was put at stake.

side note

In my own game I ruled quite some years ago that having no soul has no real mechanical implications while you're alive (other than that certain types of undead are far less likely to bother you) as your body just keeps on chugging along as before, but should you die there's a very serious mechanical consequence: you can't be revived.

EDIT: and then I read on and see [MENTION=6779310]aramis erak[/MENTION] found that the same is true in 5e RAW.

Revival in part consists of reconnecting the spirit to the body in order to reboot it, and that's really hard to do when the spirit doesn't exist.

/side note

pemerton · Jul 22, 2019

Campbell said:
My primary focus on stage and when I play role playing games (other than B/X D&D which I approach as a tactical exercise) has always been authentically experiencing what my character is with a focus on relationships and emotional driving forces.

I GM much more than I play a PC. When I play a PC this is what I am looking for - but more below on my personality weakness in this respect!

As a GM I like to see what drives the PCs. I also enjoy the big moments of conflict, some of which are internal - or intra-group - and some of which are external.

Campbell said:
Authentically feeling the weight of the moment as someone who has dramatically different life experiences, people they care about, and ways they process emotions is like hard.

<snip>

I need all the help I can get.

The first time I really played a character in this way was actually in a freeform Cthulhu game at a convention in the mid-90s. There was a broad character outline as part of the scenario - I was playing a woman whose son had been taken to hell by his father, my estranged husband. The other PCs were friends of my son. To play the character I drew heavily on my knowledge and experiences of the mother of a high school friend who had been left by her husband not too many years earlier. My memories of the experience are a bit faded now, but I have a recollection of kneeling on a floor in the play area reciting The Lord's Prayer with tears on my face.

That play experience also introduced me to a GMing technique that I had not deliberately and self-consciously adopted before: of talking to the players as "the devil on their shoulder", chiding them for weak decisions or encouraging them to push their PCs in some way. Not with a goal towards railroading, but not letting anyone get away with a squib unnoticed!

Campbell said:
Another more pernicious problem is that we grow to care for these characters. From a player side it may come down to developing an idealized image of their character that they do not want to see tarnished.

<snip>

I also feel like intent based adjudication can cause issues here.

I rely fairly heavily on intent-based adjudication in most of my GMing. I'm certainly happy to hear more about what you see as the issues (I can guess a bit, but would rather hear firsthand).

My biggest weakness as a GM, I think - certainly relative to your preferences - is sentimentality. I can find it hard to truly hose the PCs.

And as a player I hang on fairly tight to my PC. So a GM is going to have to push me hard, because I'm not going to easily let go of my own accord!