What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?

robus · May 1, 2019

lowkey13 said:
Same debate, multiple permutations, lots of threads.

It's almost like a multi-front war being fought.

Who's up for opening the Pacific Theater?

I think Hussar has that covered!

pemerton · May 1, 2019

iserith said:
What is not clear to me is the action declaration the player is making for the character. The player is free to establish what the character thinks which may include something about the character's backstory. But until I see an action declaration, I have nothing to adjudicate as DM.

If framed as an action declaration, presumably it's something like I (Gord) recall when the elders sat around and told such-and-such-a-tale about such-and-such-a-thing.

But I'm not sure that it can be true that the GM has nothing to do until an action is declared. Players can also implicitly or expressly try to establish fiction without actually declaring actions for their PCs - eg Gord's player tells the table, When I was a youngster the tribal elders told us such-and-such-a-tale about such-and-such-a-thing.

An intriguing example of implicitly establishing fiction is Vincent Baker's example of the smelly chamberlain.

To me, this seems to be the sort of thing that can put pressure on boundaries as to who gets to establish what about the fiction.

iserith · May 1, 2019

pemerton said:
If framed as an action declaration, presumably it's something like I (Gord) recall when the elders sat around and told such-and-such-a-tale about such-and-such-a-thing.

I'm still not seeing a goal here. What's the player trying to accomplish through the character?

pemerton said:
But I'm not sure that it can be true that the GM has nothing to do until an action is declared.

No action, no adjudication. The DM's other role is to describe the environment.

pemerton said:
Players can also implicitly or expressly try to establish fiction without actually declaring actions for their PCs - eg Gord's player tells the table, When I was a youngster the tribal elders told us such-and-such-a-tale about such-and-such-a-thing.

They're free to have their characters say what they want. The DM describes the environment and narrates the result of the adventurers' actions, sometimes calling for a roll when the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure. Until I know what the player is trying to achieve here and how, I have nothing to add as DM.

pemerton · May 1, 2019

iserith said:
I'm still not seeing a goal here. What's the player trying to accomplish through the character?

No action, no adjudication. The DM's other role is to describe the environment.

They're free to have their characters say what they want. The DM describes the environment and narrates the result of the adventurers' actions, sometimes calling for a roll when the outcome is uncertain and there's a meaningful consequence for failure. Until I know what the player is trying to achieve here and how, I have nothing to add as DM.

How do players in your game establish backstories for their PCs - things like the clothes they own/wear, the names of their friends and family, place and date of birth, etc?

My impression from reading the Basic PDF is that these sorts of fictional elements are features of 5e D&D as much as of many other RPGs, including past editions of D&D. But they are not generally established by way of action declarations; yet their truth as part of the shared fiction has the potential to be relevant to action declarations.

A player can even attempt to establish fiction as part of an action declaration: eg the GM narrates the PCs arriving at a town gate, and describing the guard at the gate, and player A says, in character and addressing the other PCs "I recognise that guard - she's Frances - the two of us were raised in the same orphan's hospice but I haven't seen her since I left to fight in the Dales Wars. She'll let us in for sure!" and then adds, in the playter's voice, "I approach the gate and call out, Frances, remember me!"

If the player's posited fiction is true, then that has to be relevant to assessing the success of the approach vis-a-vis the goal. But who gets to decide whether or not that fiction is true?

And if the GM stipulates that it's not true, is s/he - in effect - stipulating that player A's character is delusional and suffering from radically false memories of his/her childhood? And if so, how does that fit with the idea that it's the player who gets to decide what the character thinks and feels?

iserith · May 1, 2019

pemerton said:
How do players in your game establish backstories for their PCs - things like the clothes they own/wear, the names of their friends and family, place and date of birth, etc?

My impression from reading the Basic PDF is that these sorts of fictional elements are features of 5e D&D as much as of many other RPGs, including past editions of D&D. But they are not generally established by way of action declarations; yet their truth as part of the shared fiction has the potential to be relevant to action declarations.

A player can even attempt to establish fiction as part of an action declaration: eg the GM narrates the PCs arriving at a town gate, and describing the guard at the gate, and player A says, in character and addressing the other PCs "I recognise that guard - she's Frances - the two of us were raised in the same orphan's hospice but I haven't seen her since I left to fight in the Dales Wars. She'll let us in for sure!" and then adds, in the playter's voice, "I approach the gate and call out, Frances, remember me!"

There is nothing in the rules that suggest to me that this kind of authorial power is granted to the player in D&D 5e. The player can of course have his or her character take the action you suggest, but there is no obligation on the part of the DM to accept that this guard is Frances, someone the PC knows from before.

A character's background is created in Step 4 of the character creation process. I think it's reasonable to expand upon it during play, building on what has already been established with an eye toward avoiding contradicting previously established fiction.

pemerton said:
If the player's posited fiction is true, then that has to be relevant to assessing the success of the approach vis-a-vis the goal. But who gets to decide whether or not that fiction is true?

The DM.

pemerton said:
And if the GM stipulates that it's not true, is s/he - in effect - stipulating that player A's character is delusional and suffering from radically false memories of his/her childhood? And if so, how does that fit with the idea that it's the player who gets to decide what the character thinks and feels?

The DM can narrate the result of the character's greeting to the guard without saying anything in particular about the character.

But notably a player in D&D 5e who is familiar with his or her role in the game is not very likely to make such a statement in my view, effectively making this a non-issue. If the player is approaching D&D 5e as if it is some other game, however, and starts making such statements, then it's not hard to see what the problem is here - assuming this game is like other games in this regard.

5ekyu · May 1, 2019

pemerton said:
But it was meant to be an example that would correspond to someone thinking that the player with the 8 INT PC shouldn't engage in clever play! (ie it was mean to be an anti-vessel example).

For what it's worth, I would haven no problem with the BitD mechanic, although I don't envisage actually playing that game. (I do play Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic, and in that system inventory is a matter of post-hoc checks or resource expenditure, not a matter of in-advance planning. So it's somewhat similar to BitD.)

In 4e D&D I take the same view as you do of the significance of an 8 INT or CHA in the 5e context, although because of my different approach to when to call for checks it perhaps comes into play more often than it would in your 5e game.

But when refereeing Classic Traveller I expect a player whose PC has a low INT to express that in his/her play of the PC.

Which is to say, that I don't think there is a simple dichotomy between PC as separate entity and PC as vessel. I think it's about the details of system. Stats in 4e or 5e mean one thing (they are inputs into the process of adjudication); stats in Traveller mean something else (they are part of a description of who the character is in the fiction). And I would say that AD&D and B/X sit somewhere in between these two ends of the spectrum.

Can you elaborate on Over the Edge? I haven't played it but am thinking I might get to run a session or three some time in the next few months. I would expect PC build to generate much stronger expectations about how a player will play his/her PC than would be the case in (say) 4e or (I think) 5e, even though the mechanical footprint is much lighter. An 8 INT on a D&D 4e or 5e character sheet does not carry much information about the personality/nature/propensities of the character - whereas it seems to me that the descriptors on the OtE sheet carry a lot of weight.

On the question about OtE to me, especially vs the 8 Int 5e case.

I am intrigued by the latest OtE reboot myself. So, it's on my list of hopefulls.

But let me maybe shed a bit of spotlight.

First, I dont give most any weight in 5e to what an 8 int says about the character or how the player will play it. To me, my rough way of thinking (which draws on other games and lessons drawn from that) I see it as indicating a small gap or lack in the charzcter's knowledge compared to moat people. When I tun such, as GM of player, I try to include one minor adjective or aspect in background to show it and the scope of that lack. I would not expect that-1 to show in play frequently or in major way, just here and there, much like the 12 or 13 stat likely shows in play about as much.

When I talk about the linkage between chargen complexity and place thst leads me to on the "you" vs "character" I am speaking of the total complexity of the process as it pertains to mechanical choices. The nature cleric with high Wis and strength and an 8 int with proficiencies in nature and survival and animal handling and the hermit background etc gives a strong difference than say the rogue mastermind with high dex and Int and a sage background. This is even before we add in rsce.
There are a lot of different choices there with very defined impacts on play results

For games like OtE and others, with fewer traits thst are much more "define your own" there are a lot of undefined bits that are much more dependent on ideas drawn from the player and GM, on the fly or in between, than on more defined mechanical aspects.

If we look at 5e, there are options for far more generalized "make your own" play mechanics. The skill/tool proficiencies csn be scrapped entirely if you choose as GM (group) to go with either Ability score proficiencies or background proficiencies - both of which rely on the more OtE define on the fly style.

But the more "define on the fly" as opposed to system defined traits, the more how the play proceeds shifts to "what the player comes up with" as opposed to the player playing the charsacter as they setup the mechanics.

But each group will tend to find their own way. Some will use checks as more fiction defining that fiction revealing, for instance. An outstanding search might result in me as GM pulling from my list of "stuff I can throw in" as opposed to simply saying " great search, found diddly".

But that all said, if we shift off the "build" aspects and into the character aspects, weighing say flaw, bond, I deal, inspiration vs OtE and the way their "gets me involved" style traits, I find that area you tend to get better indicators from the OtE.

That's longer and rambling than I wanted but then I am trying to compress s btoad sense of results across a lot of games over a lot of years - with both different and some old players, so... its what it is.

Ovinomancer · May 1, 2019

pemerton said:
How do players in your game establish backstories for their PCs - things like the clothes they own/wear, the names of their friends and family, place and date of birth, etc?

My impression from reading the Basic PDF is that these sorts of fictional elements are features of 5e D&D as much as of many other RPGs, including past editions of D&D. But they are not generally established by way of action declarations; yet their truth as part of the shared fiction has the potential to be relevant to action declarations.

A player can even attempt to establish fiction as part of an action declaration: eg the GM narrates the PCs arriving at a town gate, and describing the guard at the gate, and player A says, in character and addressing the other PCs "I recognise that guard - she's Frances - the two of us were raised in the same orphan's hospice but I haven't seen her since I left to fight in the Dales Wars. She'll let us in for sure!" and then adds, in the playter's voice, "I approach the gate and call out, Frances, remember me!"

If the player's posited fiction is true, then that has to be relevant to assessing the success of the approach vis-a-vis the goal. But who gets to decide whether or not that fiction is true?

And if the GM stipulates that it's not true, is s/he - in effect - stipulating that player A's character is delusional and suffering from radically false memories of his/her childhood? And if so, how does that fit with the idea that it's the player who gets to decide what the character thinks and feels?

I think this is malformed: you're asking if this action declaration violates a principle of the DM not controlling characters thoughts before establishing that the action declaration violates established norms on who has this authorial control. In other words, we can even reach your last question before resolving the authorial control one.

And, simply, in 5e the GM has this authority, the player does not. So, again, we can't reach your last question without stipulating that the player has already broken the rules. In which case, I think your question is mooted.

Satyrn · May 1, 2019

Monayuris said:
. . . Have your orcs burst tentacles from their chests . . .

So. I had started out with the intention of the tentacles being a part of the orc, but instead the idea, uh, morphed into an alien (of the Far Realm kind):

Aberrant Orcs

These are just like regular orcs, but there's a Tentacle Mass living inside them. When the orc becomes bloodied, there is a 50% chance that the Tentacle Mass bursts forth from its chest (killing the orc host). If the swarm doesn't burst forth then, it does so when the orc is dropped to 0 hit points.

The tentacle mass has an uncountable number of tentacles constantly writhing through the space and time of multiple dimensions. However, each mass has a small number of tentacles that appear permanent. They do not fluctuate between dimensions (or they exist simultaneously in all) and are slightly larger than the rest. These tentacles each control and act independently of the mass like a hydra's heads.

Tentacle Mass
Medium Aberration, chaotic evil

Armor Class: 13 (dimensional phasing)
Hit Points: 39, or 13 (2d8+4) per "head"
Speed: 20 ft.

STR +2
DEX +0
CON +2
INT +4
WIS -2
CHA +4

Damage resistance: psychic
Condition Immunities: prone
Senses: Blindsight 60 ft.
Languages: Orc
Challenge: 2 (450 XP)

Living-ish. The tentacle mass doesn't eat, breathe, sleep or exhibit any sort of normal behaviors.

Multiple Heads. The tentacle mass has 3 (1d4+1) heads . While it has more than one head, the tentacle mass has advantage on saving throws against being blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned, and knocked unconscious.

Whenever the mass takes 13 or more damage in a single turn, one of its heads dies . If all its heads die, the tentacle mass dies, seemingly winking out of existence. At the end of its turn, it grows 1d4-1 new heads for each of its heads that died since its last turn, unless it has taken fire damage since its last turn. The mass gains 10 hit points for each head regrown in this way.

Reactive Heads. For each head the tentacle mass has beyond one, it gets an extra reaction that can be used only for opportunity attacks.

ACTIONS

Multiattack. The tentacle mass makes as many slam attacks as it has heads.

Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 10ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) bludgeoning damage.

Guest 6801328 · May 1, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
I think this is malformed: you're asking if this action declaration violates a principle of the DM not controlling characters thoughts before establishing that the action declaration violates established norms on who has this authorial control. In other words, we can even reach your last question before resolving the authorial control one.

And, simply, in 5e the GM has this authority, the player does not. So, again, we can't reach your last question without stipulating that the player has already broken the rules. In which case, I think your question is mooted.

Yes. And also 'yes' to [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s response.

Now, in my own games I welcome this sort of thing, even though it's technically a violation of the Player/DM division of authority. If for some reason I didn't want the guard to be the Francis the player knows, it would just turn out that he's mistaken, this is not Francis.

IT'S HIS EVIL TWIN!!!!

Or just somebody who looks like Francis.

But, anyway, it's not an action declaration, it's the player assuming some of the DM's role.

Mort · May 1, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
But, anyway, it's not an action declaration, it's the player assuming some of the DM's role.

Yes, a separate question.

This is the player having a form of narrative control.

Some people are all fort this, some are (near violently) against it.

It's a very interesting question (and one that may need to be revived for 5e though I remember it causing quite the ruckus in past threads) but would likely only muddy the waters here.