iserith
Magic Wordsmith
I largely agree. I continued discussing the religious icon simply to stick with somebody else's example. I wouldn't likely ask for an ability check here either in actual play.
D&D 5E A case where the 'can try everything' dogma could be a problem
I largely agree. I continued discussing the religious icon simply to stick with somebody else's example. I wouldn't likely ask for an ability check here either in actual play.
delericho
Legend
The story is affected by randomisation all the time - or do you not have combat in your games?
And of course it has something to do with consequences - if the PCs know the relevant information then that takes the story one way; if not it goes another.
Psikerlord#
Explorer
Coming up with plans, co-ordinating, getting adv too
"Affected" being the key word, as opposed to solely determined. Unless the DM is throwing entirely random combat encounters at the PC's without warning or reason, the act of combat itself is not a random choice without impetus. And assuming the encounter isn't completely broken or boring, every round of combat is filled with meaningful choices. Even if a party is ambushed in an incredibly unexpected fashion, the decision to stand and fight instead of fleeing or attempting to parley is a choice.
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Understood; I know that's not your style.
I was only doing the same (sticking with the example).
Delericho's comment provoked a similar response in me as it did in iserith.
The uncertainty that I want the dice to foster is not epistemic uncertainty among the players as to what the GM's backstory is, but rather metaphysical uncertainty among the whole table as to what the outcomes of play will be.
One stark way to draw the contrast is this: Using dice to keep the story secret from the players is consistent with the game being a total railroad. Whereas using dice in the way that iserith describes - to determine what actually occurs in the fiction as a result of the players' action declarations for their PCs - is antithetical to railroading.
I tend to agree here with [MENTION=1207]Ristamar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=184]Agamon[/MENTION] - if it's purely random, and the players haven't actually staked anything, then why roll? The GM can just download whatever backstory s/he thinks is interesting and then the players can declare actions in response.
No doubt, as you say in a post after the one I've quoted, the events that result will be different if the players do or don't know the GM's backstory, but what is the point of the player not knowing that backstory?
Here are a couple of actual play anecdotes that (I think) bear on this.
In the first session of my ongoing Burning Wheel campaign, the action started in the town of Hardby, with the PC wizard Jobe wandering through a market place. Jobe has as one of his Beliefs that he will collect the magical antecedents necessary to enchant an item to defeat his Balrog-possessed brother, and so Jobe's player asked if he could see any antecedents on sale in the market. I described a peddler selling various trinkets and curios, including a golden feather that the peddler claimed to be an angel feather. As Jobe haggled with the peddler over the price of the feather, Jobe's player declared an Aura Reading check to determine whether or not the feather was what the peddler claimed. The check failed - and so Jobe realised that the feather was an angel feather, but also that it had some sort of curse upon it.
The stakes were not expressly set prior to the roll, but I knew what the player wanted for his PC - an angel feather - and the curse was an easily-introduced consequence for failed Aura Reading, and drove much of the fiction for the rest of the session.
In my most recent 4e session, the players were debating whether or not to destroy the Wand of Orcus - the plan of the invoker/wizard was to merge his conjured Eye of the Sun (which prior events had already established was channelling the power of Pelor) with the Sphere of Annihilation that was hovering on the battlefield to create an almighty engine of destruction, and then roll said enging of destruction over the Wand. The paladin of the Raven Queen was questioning this course of action, and the player of that paladin was wanting to make a Religion check to get advice from his god as to what he should do. But it took a lot of effort for me to get the player to actually convey what it was that he wanted as an outcome from the check, even when I made it clear that I wasn't just going to decide, via GM fiat, whether or not this powerful NPC approved of the other player's plan to destroy the Wand.
In the end some desired outcome was established (I can't remember the details, but the bottom line was that the invoker/wizard was wrong in his plan - the broad background is the rivalry between the Raven Queen and all the other gods), but the paladin player's check failed. I narrated the consequence being one of inadvertently activating the Sphere so that it rolled over him rather than the wand, doing its 6d10 damage plus ongoing 40.
I agree with what [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] said in reply to this. If the fiction hasn't yet been established, I don't see what is objectionable about the GM establishing it in such a way as to produce interesting rather than boring outcomes.
If the GM can think of interesting outcomes either way, then that is a reason to call for a roll - as in my example of the angel feather, which turned out to be cursed, mentioned in my post above this one.
There are some approaches to RPGing where a large amount of secret backstory is important. Gygaxian dungeon-crawling is an example of this, because part of player skill in that play style is using detection magic, plus clever action declaration around searching and listening, to acquire that backstory and therefore formulate more effective plans for killing and looting.
What I find puzzling is when adherence to this approach lives on although its rationale has withered. Judging from posts on these boards, from reading contemporary rule books and adventure modules, etc, not much contemporary D&D play is Gygaxian in this way - the players using their PCs to explore a constrained environment written down in advance by the GM, the goal being to acquire information so as to better exploit that environment.
If you're not playing in the Gygaxian way, then the merits of secret backstory are not all that clear to me. In action-adventure style play, for instance, the GM doesn't need to decide whether or not there is a secret door at the end of the corridor until the question actually becomes relevant in play, and s/he can then make a decision that will support the action and pacing actually unfolding at the table at that point in time.
In the Gygaxian approach, there is also an argument for random determination of facts that the GM didn't (due to error, time constraints etc) write up but that get made salient by action declarations. Eg a player declares that his PC uses a wand of secret door detection in the inn which the GM is narrating off the cuff. Does the player get any useful information for having expended a charge? There is an argument that fairness requires the GM to roll rather than decide by fiat one way or another.
But ability/skill checks are not instances of resource expenditure, and the amount of player resources devoted to these sorts of exploratory matters is much less in contemporary versions of the game than in classic D&D.
Insisting on sticking to the Gygaxian dungeon-building practice, or on randomisation rather than GM fiat, when the rationale that underpinned those approaches is no longer relevant to the sort of play actually taking place at the table, looks a bit cargo-cultish to me.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
There is another, completely different, style of play where the secret backstory (not sure I like the term, but I'll go with it) is highly desirable. I call it explorationism, but most would see it as a form of world simulationism.
In this style (I love it for D&D, but wouldn't even attempt it in any other RPG that I know of), the world is an entity in and of itself. One of the "funs" of play is to be able to interact with that world--not the DM's story motivations. Pre-made stories are optional. The players know that if they find something, it is because there was something there to be found (either because the DM previously created it, because a sourcebook or adventure specified that it was there, or because an appropriately called for random roll declared that it was there). It isn't about challenge in this style--it is about discovering a world together, both players and DM.
As I said, I only like this style in D&D, but I absolutely love it in D&D--so much so that I have little interest in any other style for D&D.
Perhaps it's the shared usage of the secret backstory that confuses people, but these are very different styles.
It kind of saddens me that there seem to have been a couple of generations of D&D players who have never been exposed to this style of play.
delericho
Legend
Because there's uncertainty over whether the character would know the thing, and the way that's handled by the game is by rolling?
It forces the players to come up with another solution to the problem. Maybe they need to go spend the money on a Sage, meaning they don't now have it to spend on other things. Maybe they have to call in a favour from one of their contacts, again meaning they've burnt that resource. Or perhaps they need to do a deal with the devil and approach one of their less-that-savoury associates for the help.
Or, indeed, maybe they decide that it's not worth the effort of solving the problem at all, in which case the cult strikes again and now the PCs have to deal with the feeling that they could have stopped it but didn't.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
In the simulation/immersion style of play, the integrity of the story is much more important than its dramatic weight. A good story is the one which reinforces the illusion of the objective reality, rather than the one which would make a good book or movie. The Rule of Cool and the Rule of Drama are especially to be avoided, as these serve primarily to highlight the artificial (story) nature of the world.
Gygaxian skilled play is primarily concerned with the gamist aspect of the activity, and many of the rules were designed with an eye toward fairness to the player. The DM was expected to write down all of the secrets beforehand, to reduce any chance of bias either for or against the player. The story was a secondary concern, if even that, and roleplaying immersion wasn't something that was thought of or addressed in any way. (Simulationism grew out of Gygaxian gamist play by their shared absence of narrative contrivance; narrative games grew in response to that absence.)
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