You get equipment list. DM gets rest.

[Truename]

Wow, this topic is being threadcrapped into oblivion.

I've never done this, DocMoriarty, so I can't share any experiences. But best of luck getting some straight answers. It sounds like an interesting idea.

I'll also second the suggestion to look at games that are designed with this sort of roleplay focus in mind. Even if you don't play those systems, they might have some good ideas to steal.

 

[wingsandsword]

It is patently not about "DM control." The whole point of taking the numbers/mechanics out of the game (or rather, out of the players' sight) serves immersion. And calling it a "freeform storygame" is nonsense. The numbers and rules are still there; they're just kept behind the DM screen. When you play a video game, you don't see the CPU crunching the numbers; you just see the graphics and the interface. This style of gameplay has the same effect. It nudges the players' decisions away from metagaming and towards role-playing, which I mean in the sense of "decisions made from the perspective of the character rather than the player." And from my experience, it does work rather well if that's your aim.

I would say it would be a freeform story, and not so much of a game because you are giving the DM way, way more trust than in a normal game. As you don't even know your own stats, or any dice rolls, you have no idea if he's fudging things, or even rolling or using any rules instead of just dictating what happens according to a script. It stops being a game when rules cease to exist as far as the players know, and it just becomes people sitting around collectively telling a story. Might be fun, but it's a little outside the classical definition of RPG in our hobby.

I've seen DM's do things like that before, where they just made up new rules in their head for how NPC's do things compared to PC's. In a World of Darkness game, the ST rolled percentile for everything characters did and just told you if they did it or not, and said the rules were all in her head. Didn't take long to realize it was just pure fiat, and if she wanted them to kick your tail, those werewolves were invincible, and essentially nothing you would do meant anything because if it wasn't what the ST wanted you to do. We had stats on our sheets, but they were just for show and poorly lined up with what our characters actually did when the "game" was "played".

In a video game, you typically get the stats of your characters, even if you don't see the virtual dice. You pull up the menu and see your attack and defense stats, and you know your HP and your level and XP.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Whoa, folks, ease up on the guy. Doc wants to discuss the topic that he started a thread about, and dropping in to thread-crap with comments about how you don't like his idea is just not cool. And yes, some of the negative comments are borderline trolling.

(This sort of thing happens to me consistently at RPG.net and Dragonsfoot, so I have considerable sympathy for an OP who just wants to keep his discussion on topic.)

Now, as one of the few people here who has actually *done* this and *liked* it, I will add the following:

It is patently not about "DM control." The whole point of taking the numbers/mechanics out of the game (or rather, out of the players' sight) serves immersion. And calling it a "freeform storygame" is nonsense. The numbers and rules are still there; they're just kept behind the DM screen. When you play a video game, you don't see the CPU crunching the numbers; you just see the graphics and the interface. This style of gameplay has the same effect. It nudges the players' decisions away from metagaming and towards role-playing, which I mean in the sense of "decisions made from the perspective of the character rather than the player." And from my experience, it does work rather well if that's your aim.

Edit: Just a follow-up question, Doc: do you use minis and a battle-grid or not?

Before 3.0 I was not a fan of minis. Players could use if wanted but no big deal. Since 3.0 the board game focus of the rules makes it hard to operate without them so they get used.

 

[howandwhy99]

I like what Saeviomagy says, but I'm going to agree and disagree with him on a few points.

Don't expect mechanically minded people to stop trying to powergame just because you're denying them information. It won't happen. You will get immersion by making the non-mechanical aspects of your game interesting, engaging and polished, not by trying to ban the mechanical aspects.

I have to agree. Gamers will attempt to identify resources, the powers of those in regards to their current game objective, and then min/max their strategies to accomplish the goal. Just because the mechanics are behind the screen doesn't mean the behavior will stop. So making the mechanics better designed is the goal of a good DM or any game designer. I don't think you, Doc, are talking about dropping or banning the mechanics, just sticking them behind the screen. Exploration immersion may be increased by hiding them, but character immersion not necessarily so. And min/maxing to win the game likely won't stop at all as long as the situation is treated as a game.

Finally: Calling anyone who likes the mechanical aspect of a game a power-gaming munchkin is pretty offensive, and it's likely why you're getting negative responses.

I agree again. Calling out power-gaming is like calling Spassky a bad chess player. Attempting to accomplish an objective in a game is often the point of most games. Playing other systems where all these rules are in front of the screen may have soured you from this behavior, but having no ability to either Rules Lawyer (the rules are hidden) or min/max stats or class progression (these are also unknown) leaves far more time for these mechanically-minded players to focus on the role playing situation at hand.

First up, D&D is not the game for this. D&D classes are straightjackets that limit mechanical character development to a narrow channel and punish diversity. It will become very obvious to your players what numbers are what, to the point where you may as well not bother with obfuscation. The only way you're going to keep everything hidden is if you rewrite the character classes, spells etc etc, which is way more work than is necessary when there are great games out there that can do this for you.

Here I have to disagree. D&D was the first wargame/simulation game to become a cooperative design and then have it's rules hidden behind a screen. If you hide the rules, try and treat them like codes. You will need a scope for the players to play within. Think of the game Mastermind. It includes color and spatial positioning. For D&D you will have those two and many, many more, but you will still need a scope within which to code break. The class (social role) is the original way of doing this. You don't have to do social role role-playing, but it was what D&D was originally designed for. And Saeviomagy is right that having an unknown rules set/code is pretty much the point in such a game. Why play Mastermind when you've already peeked behind the screen?

Incidentally, modeling your game off of oblivion is a terrible idea. Just refer to any of the powergaming guides to oblivion for reasons why. Powergaming in oblivion is simple, and it's a matter of doing very repetitive, boring things over and over. Making your roleplaying game reward tedium isn't a good thing.

I don't know Oblivion, but tabletop RPGs don't work like CRPGs. My nephew plays Runescape for hours every week, but our D&D group creates SOPs, standard operating procedures. We simply say "we do this for the next 4 days" and our PCs do it. Grind is only an issue, if the players continue to beat their heads against the wall for every situation instead of developing plans. And it's not like a change in a similar situation isn't noted. As the Ref narrates back the summary of 4 days of say, logging and campfire building, we can stop him or her at any time to make adjustments, or bring game time back in line with real time and address the situation anew.

Learning how to set goals, make plans, develop routines for the PCs, and debate strategies for potential future moves is a big part of D&D from my POV. I think you're on the right track, if you are looking to push players to engage in those behaviors.

Just make sure you get their okay first that this is how they want to be pushed.

 

[Vaslov]

I did this before, but not with D&D. It was an Amber game which is already diecless and strongy leans toward low rule structure. The game lasted several months, with about 1 game ever week. It worked pretty well and we all were interested to give it a try. This was many years ago so my memory is not that clear on all of the details. It was fun to try out, but those players that really enjoyed the mechanics of gameplay got less out of the game, especially when a game session focused on development of a plot they were less interested in.

It does take a lot of trust and a common vocabulary. By common vocabulary I mean certain phases are indicators of how things are going. Think of the bloodied concept in 4e. It means something that players can directly understand and react to.

I do think it could be done with a more mechanically heavy game if the GM and players were all wanting to try it, but I would not recommend it. If everyone enjoys the mechanics of a 1st ed Rolemaster or other super detailed rule game don't hide it. If you are looking for a rule light game look for a system that support it (Amber, Dread, etc).

Hope that helps.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I would say it would be a freeform story, and not so much of a game because you are giving the DM way, way more trust than in a normal game. As you don't even know your own stats, or any dice rolls, you have no idea if he's fudging things, or even rolling or using any rules instead of just dictating what happens according to a script. It stops being a game when rules cease to exist as far as the players know, and it just becomes people sitting around collectively telling a story. Might be fun, but it's a little outside the classical definition of RPG in our hobby.

Eh... I call non sequitur. It does not follow that "trusting in the DM" leads to "the DM railroading everybody." (And as far as I can tell, that's all that the WoD game that you described seems to be -- a poorly concealed railroad.) If the DM is fairly applying the rules in the background, the players really don't need to be aware of the details. What about new players, who just don't know the rules that well? Are they not playing an RPG? Likewise, even with numbers and feats on the character sheet, there is no guarantee of consistency. Unless the DM is rolling the dice in front of everybody and annoucning the monster's HP totals and Armor Classes as he goes along, he will always be free to fudge whatever he wants -- and the players will never know, because most of the time, there's no such thing as "cheating" or "breaking the rules" for the DM.

Before 3.0 I was not a fan of minis. Players could use if wanted but no big deal. Since 3.0 the board game focus of the rules makes it hard to operate without them so they get used.

I figured as much. It's hard to imagine a 3e game without minis. And I did use them most of the time for my "mechanics hidden" campaign; it didn't detract from anything. But I would offer one more piece of advice: to extend the overall "deep immersion" feel of such a campaign even to tactical minis combat, it's helpful to require that the players fully describe their actions for the round before they are permitted to touch/move their miniature. Even if it's only a simple statement like "I move thirty feet into the melee and attack the orcs," players (at least in my experience) will catch on pretty quickly that declaring combat actions is a great opportunity to get creative with both what they choose to do, and how they describe it.

 

[howandwhy99]

I would say it would be a freeform story, and not so much of a game because you are giving the DM way, way more trust than in a normal game. As you don't even know your own stats, or any dice rolls, you have no idea if he's fudging things, or even rolling or using any rules instead of just dictating what happens according to a script. It stops being a game when rules cease to exist as far as the players know, and it just becomes people sitting around collectively telling a story. Might be fun, but it's a little outside the classical definition of RPG in our hobby.

A pattern finding game is a trust game. As I mentioned before our group does have a good deal of information in the players hands though. Not knowing the DM's dice rolls or our own, our hit points, AC, stats, and everything else defining our PC would be real pain. Expressing this type of math is next to impossible in natural language. I presume Mastermind is a storytelling game for you and one where the person behind the screen is oppressing the other(s)? Because a person cannot know color or spatial positioning objectively rather than subjectively? It's an opinion I have often heard pronounced as fact.

I've seen DM's do things like that before, where they just made up new rules in their head for how NPC's do things compared to PC's. In a World of Darkness game, the ST rolled percentile for everything characters did and just told you if they did it or not, and said the rules were all in her head. Didn't take long to realize it was just pure fiat, and if she wanted them to kick your tail, those werewolves were invincible, and essentially nothing you would do meant anything because if it wasn't what the ST wanted you to do. We had stats on our sheets, but they were just for show and poorly lined up with what our characters actually did when the "game" was "played".

That does sound pretty lousy. I would say this is a good example of why judges in the real world should have their metrics of decision making public. In a D&D game though they would only be revealed after the fact.

In a video game, you typically get the stats of your characters, even if you don't see the virtual dice. You pull up the menu and see your attack and defense stats, and you know your HP and your level and XP.

Definitely a yes to all of this, if you are going to run a game with the rules behind a screen.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First off you differentiate between the two by talking. Either straight telling the DM or by describing the effect you want and letting the DM make the choice. Really up to the player on what they want.

and

First up, D&D is not the game for this. D&D classes are straightjackets that limit mechanical character development to a narrow channel and punish diversity.

I agree with Saeviomagy to a point, but I've never been one to let punishment keep me from achieving my goals, so I do come up with some oddball characters

Which is why I'm going to ask this question of DocMoriartty:

Under your proposed system, how would you and I come to agreement on the design of a 1st level human PC who wears armor, swings a maul and breathes lightning, considering that there has been no opportunity to roleplay? At this point, all you have in this thread is his backstory, summed up as: good looking son of a whore and a half-dragon mercenary, became a bouncer at the brothel, left when he accidentally killed someone powerful's slumming son for getting too rough with his beloved, who was only a seamstress, not a whore.

If you need more, ask. Think of it as a way to prove the efficacy of your system to a skeptic- if you're even close, that bodes well for your ability to sway a potential player.


(For the record: this question is based on a 3.5 PC that I've actually played, using rules from only the PHB and CompArcane.)

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't know Oblivion, but tabletop RPGs don't work like CRPGs. My nephew plays Runescape for hours every week, but our D&D group creates SOPs, standard operating procedures.

That's exactly what makes it a bad idea. The PCs best path to advancement is NOT taking part in adventures any more, it's "running around in circles for a week" or "repeatedly buying and selling small, cheap items to merchants to improve my diplomacy for a week" or "shooting arrows at targets for a month".

Character development, drama and excitement decreases compared with the "you get good at talking because you saved the world...again" game because the system rewards boring repetition.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, this would take a certain type of player for it to work. Someone who is there for the story, the challenge, and surviving/winning. Players who constantly tinker and min/max their character will of course be completely opposed to the system.

And players who actually give a damn about their character sheets matching their vision of their characters will be utterly hosed by this approach. D&D is a very high crunch game with a massive amount of specificity. There is a huge difference in play between clerical healing and Lay On Hands and by hardcoding while not showing the players you seek to undermine player involvement. And then blame the players when you are blindfolding them while giving them weird D&D specific nonsense like Vancian Magic. Or the highly cinematic 4e moves.

The funny thing is that their arguements will generally fall flat. Its one thing to like to tinker with your character. But I would expect that lots of arguments to be that their character is not designed as well as it could be.

No. The argument is that you've just wrecked my attempts at a detailed backstory. I do not currently know what I am capable of. The very denseness of a character sheet gives me ideas and twists to my backstory. And because D&D has specific and detailed powers, I will know about them. I know in character that I have the ability to lay on hands, that I'm a master with the longsword, and that my mount was sent by the Gods. Or I know that I'm a cleric and every damn spell I prayed for - or a wizard and every spell written in my spellbook and how much I can prepare and what levels of spells they are. The only alternative is massive amnesia. Now you can argue that I don't know whether I have a 16 or a 18 dex and whether my climb walls chance is 60% or 70%. But that's what the dice are for. To provide this level of uncertainty about success.

To me this doesnt matter in the least. As the DM its my job to make sure your challenged. To assume every character must be min/maxxed optiminized to survive is just silly.

And control of my character sheet is not about razor-optimisation. I can do that easily, but very seldom bother. By taking away my character sheet I know there's a lot that's specified that I as the player do not know about. You have therefore forcibly given my character massive amnesia as I am going to be worried about trampling over what you have specified my character to be without consulting me.

If the only way you can challenge me is by giving my character brain damage, you should be DMing a different game - or none at all.

All it really does is create inequalities in the group as the min/maxed half orc barbarian deals more death than anyone else in every battle and makes other members of the party feel pointless.

You assume that the only reason to want to actually understand your character is to min max. Empathy fail, and civility fail. (And for the record you just want a relatively balanced game there - 4e works in heroic tier although you start getting some seriously nasty stuf in paragon).

There are two different types of creative people. Those who find it easiest to be creative using a blank sheet of paper and those who really use limits and pre-existing factors for inspiration. You are utterly hosing the creative process of those of us who use the limits by putting in detailed and specific ones (the D&D structure) and then concealing what they are.

Also, to me at least, I think doing things this way would reward the person who creates a character concept that isnt focused around being a combat monkey because the game will be more enjoyable and gripping outside of combat.

If you aren't getting players to roleplay in D&D, have you tried looking at what you are doing as a DM? I have no problem with it in my games.

The problem is that D&D is the wrong game to do things this way. What you need is a rules-light system like Spirit of the Century, Savage Worlds, or Dread (I believe Burning Wheel would also qualify but don't own a copy). If you were to try a Spirit of the Century game where the PCs only knew some of their aspects and soemthing about their skills, I think it would work well - in Dread there aren't even mechanical numbers to worry about.