Challenge the Players, Not the Characters' Stats

[Irda Ranger]

So the best way to survive a 1e Dungeon is to hire a small battalion of mercenaries, send them in to raid the dungeon and die searching for every last c.p., then have the survivors haul the treasure they found back to you so you could get the XP value for it?

Yes. But surviving isn't the goal.

“Every man dies - Not every man really lives.”

Living is the goal.

 

[The Little Raven]

That is for people in the know correct, but those just picking up the book are offered little to go on otherwise.

Uhhh... what? Someone picking up the book and actually reading it will read where it says that you must come up with the way of using your skill to be able to apply it to a skill challenge.

You become a person "in the know" by reading and retaining the information in the book, which any person, new to the game or an RPG veteran, can do.

The only thing that is really required is to pick the correct skill, and roll to see if you fail or succeed.

You are flat out wrong.

"It’s up to you to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face."

How many times do you have to read that before you accept that it says exactly what is written: It's up to you (the player) to think (use your brain) of ways you can use your skills (description of the action you wish to use the skill to perform) to meet the challenges you face.

Your claim that all you have to do is pick a skill and make a roll just ignores the facts.

It isn't fun for me, but that is what comes from challenging the character stats.

Well, of course it isn't fun... and that's exactly why that's NOT what the book says.

 

[Irda Ranger]

DMG page 42.

Not to pick on The Little Raven, but I think the fact that people keep referring to page 42 kind of high-lights the problem. My 4E DMG has 221 pages. Which means that page 42 is outnumbered 220:1.

Now quantity isn't everything. But it ain't nothin' neither. We've got 220 pages of "rules for stuff" and 1 page of "ignore all that crap; do what's fun." Feels like an afterthought to me, not a design principle.

 

[joethelawyer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by joethelawyer
what our group would do in this situation in our weird 1e/3.0 hybrid that we houseruled would be for the dm to tell the player "you cant just use diplomacy and roll. if it is a speech you want to make, you have to stand up, take on you character's voice and physical bearing and mannerisms, and make the speech to rally the troops. the diplomacy skill, as well as the quality of the speech you give will affect its success. i'm not telling you which will weigh more heavily--the speech you give and your ability to act it out in character or the diplomacy skill score--or what the dc is."

Ok, I got to ask....

Why would you make the PLAYER do this for Diplomacy (and I assume for other social skills) but I'm hazarding a guess that you didn't for physical skills such as jumping over a pit?

we do it that way because to us that's fun. and i noticed it gets more fun after a few beers in us. whenever we get to one of those moments where the conversation or speech mattered, we have to "roleplay it out" which is a phrase we use which means we have to stand up and act in character as if we were on a stage in a play and make the speech, or engage in dialogue.

not everyone can life the 500 lb gate or jump a 20 foot pit, and since the basement we play in doesnt have those in stock, it makes it harder to act those things out. but everyone an get up and make a speech to rally the troops or denounce demon princess to her face just before engaging in combat with her. you may make a jackjass of yourself while sayng it, or screw it up, but thats the sort of thing we look forward to so we can bust that guy's balls for the whole week until the next time we play and someone else gets put on the hot seat.

thats just the game we like to play. to us its fun.

 

[justanobody]

You are flat out wrong.

"It’s up to you to think of ways you can use your skills to meet the challenges you face."

Well I must have been doing it wrong for decades and must be crazy for enjoying doing it the wrong way.

Again that little passage tells you nothing but to know which skill to use when, and not how, or how in depth you need to. the bare minimum for a skill challenge is to make a few die rolls for the skill checks.

Are you trying to deny that a skill challenge can be overcome and passed by JUST making the required number of successful skill checks?

When posed with a problem like the door to Moria would you use your Diplomacy to pass it? Would you use your Acrobatics? Would you use Arcana?

The simplest way to use the skills to meet the challenges you face is to use the correct one for the skill check.

 

[tomBitonti]

So... this whole debate is bringing up a problem that I've had with 3E (and which 4E has continued, hence 4E is not the fix that I was looking for.)

Here is a filtering question: Playing 3E or 4E, if a player with a movement of 30' (or 6 squares) asked to stretch that to 35' (or 7 squares), would you allow it, say, with a -2 to actions until the beginning of their next turn, or would you simply disallow it?

I understand that the game is about saying yes, but I hazard that few would allow this modification. The rules simply don't allow it, although, the modification does not seem to be completely unreasonable. (My read of the rules is that you have to run to go at all further than your base movement, which is a big step up from a hustling on a single move.)

Here is another filtering question: You are chasing an airship, and a rope tied to and trailing the ship moves past you. You ask the GM to be allowed to grab the rope, as a kind of AOO, as it moves past you. Would you as GM allow that?

This gets to a modification of the original question: What did 4E leave in that you would prefer had been left out?

To close, allow me to make an observation and ask a third question: As a rules system, 4E attempts to be complete, so that, if this is your group's play-style, that once initiative is rolled, the options are exactly as set by the game rules. There is a part of the game that is designed to enhance the play experience by providing much simplified rules. Now, that leads to a question, which is, are the new simpler rules enabling, in that you can learn them quickly, and move past them to creative play and out-of-the box type thinking, or are the new simpler rules restrictive, leaving no options except those which are allowed by the rules? I'm thinking that a lot of excitement (or lack of excitement) about 4E can be traced to how one answers this question.

 

[FireLance]

But the complaint being made here isn't that 4E has the option of rolling dice for success - you seem to be saying it forces that upon people. Which is simply absurd - you can just as easily run a puzzle or roleplaying encounter without ever involving the dice. The success of the puzzle would come down to how smart and creative the players are, the success of some diplomatic negotiations would come down to how smooth-talking the players are. If that is what your group finds best, it is 100% supported by the 4E rules system.

And if your players instead want to check and see if their characters have ancient knowledge to help them solve a puzzle, or can make diplomacy checks to resolve the situation instead, 4E also supports that.

Exactly. What I like about the 4E skill challenge framework is that after setting the number of successes required to overcome the skill challenge, you can allow some or all of them to be gained through player ability instead of character ability.

A player that is able to partially solve a puzzle might be able to score one or two successes, making it easier the PCs to finish to the job by lowering the number of successful Intelligence checks required.

A player that delivers a compelling speech or reveals a critical piece of information during a negotiation might gain one or more successes without needing to make a check of any kind.

In this way, player skill can help the PCs succeed at challenges without necessarily (although it can if you want) overriding the need for character ability.

 

[Korgoth]

And this is exactly what frustrates me. I can’t figure out how to explain that you can do more, not just describe it differently. That the simple mechanics of the classic D&D system is sufficient to apply tactics.

I think maybe a lot of new schoolers approach games like computer programs, and they're the computer? You have a certain set of instructions and you have to follow them. If something is allowed then it's allowed; if something is not allowed then it's not allowed. If something is not addressed then you just ignore it... you could type the full text of Plato's Politeia into a chess program and chances are nothing would happen because the program is set up to move chess pieces on a virtual board, not consider whether justice is the highest virtue. Likewise they look at OD&D and see that there's no rules for tripping someone, so they assume that means you can't do it.

 

[justanobody]

Now, that leads to a question, which is, are the new simpler rules enabling, in that you can learn them quickly, and move past them to creative play and out-of-the box type thinking, or are the new simpler rules restrictive, leaving no options except those which are allowed by the rules? I'm thinking that a lot of excitement (or lack of excitement) about 4E can be traced to how one answers this question.

software and video games and other electronic devices of hte past have been lacking due to the restrictions the software has in taking in the D&D ruleset. MMOs try the best they can to offer many of the things a PnP RPG can, but like your dangling rope, has nothing really defined as to what it can do.

With the digital push the need for a more easily coded and readily understandable ruleset by all has given birth the 4th edition.

While this may allow for emulation of the ruleset in computer medium, it also tends to prevent the free-form abilities of the past generations of the game.

So what you lose to restrictions, you gain to universal rules with 4th edition.

The question then would be, is that what you want from a game?

 

[Delta]

... there are countless situations where the player can learn something that his PC does not know about.

Since you didn't address my primary concern in post #142 (or the other two questions), I'll assume that our interaction is done here.