Legends and Lore: Out of Bounds

[am181d]

As a general rule, a DM should have at least one solution prepped for any non-combat challenge, and ideally more than 1. AND the DM should be OK if the players come up with a workable alternate solution.

It's OK to have unsolvable problems, as long as they are (a) few and far between, (b) not game-stoppers, and (c) called out well enough that the PCs can figure out when to give up.

Better than an unsolvable problem is an unsolvable problem that can be solved later, whether it's within a single dungeon (the lever in Room 37 unlocks the force field in Room 4) or a single adventure (can't defeat the dragon till you get the magic sword) or a single campaign (can't free the kingdom until you're 20th level).

But I think what Cook is really getting at is this:

D&D is not a board game. PCs are not restricted to a set list of actions as defined (narrowly) on their character sheets. Last week, I ran a combat on a train. Players had the options to fight between cars, on top of the cars, pull the break, detach cars, etc. Players had tons of options and the freedom to use their ingenuity to their advantage. Multiple solutions in dealing with enemies, including some I hadn't thought of!

 

[Crazy Jerome]

One way to deal with this is to have multiple options for the PCs at any one time; you can let the players control the pacing of the game and decide what they want to do. If they want to spend hours, that's their choice.

That's a good way. Another good one is to make it explicit to everyone that there will be some potentially unsolvable things in the campaign. And by explicit, I mean writing it down in a campaign guide, saying it multiple times, discussing it, etc. That is, there should be no doubt. Then when the players run into something that seems unsolvable, they don't butt their heads against the brick wall for hours. If they are interested, they give it a decent try. If they are really interested, they file it away and come back to it later.

That latter only works for a long campaign where you have the patience as a DM to not give the game away on everything. (You should, however, still have plenty of other readily solvable, vitally important things, to keep the frustration down.) Players can get an immense amount of satisfaction from the thought that they were smart enough to realize that X wasn't solvable at level 3, but X was quirky or interesting enough to go try again at level 7. If the reason it was solvable at level 7 was both because of new character abilities and other things they learned in the meantime, so much the better.

I don't know. To me there is a critical difference between optional but tough mystery, puzzle, problem, etc. versus hardcoded or arbitrary adventure barriers (with or without "pixel bitching"). The former is fine as long as your players enjoy it, and you don't let it turn into the latter.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The problem with "The DM has given us no guarantee that there is an immediate solution (or even long-term solution) to this situation. This situation "could" be unsolvable." is that the player never knows which situation it really is.

So, we spend hours and hours and hours going down the check list of possible solutions, each one failing because there is no solution possible.

I think this is linked to an aspect of adventure design that is well covered and that is the single gateway issue. If the party "has" to get through this door to "get the McGuffin" and is purely focused on this door, then the adventure is reaching a full stop, the players are butting their heads and they're getting frustrated. If the DM has painted themselves into such a corner then it is going to be difficult to get things moving again.

For me though, the trick is to have a wealth of alternative options to keep things moving so that the group does not become so fixated on a possibly unsolvable situation. You want players to go "well we can't do anything about that now but let's go this way instead and keep a lookout on A, B or C happening so we can maybe crack it later. If the players "know" there is a solution, that is when they are going to keep butting their heads against the wall for hours until they crack it. If they are used to playing without this expectation of being able to solve everything when presented, in my experience they will be more inclined to "let it go", think about things more (which as a DM is what I want) and generally derive more enjoyment from genuine achievement when they do solve it rather than being gifted with unmerited success.

To me, this just leads to very frustrating experiences and seriously bad feelings at the table. Now, if you tell me, after a couple of tries, flat out, there is no solution to this, you need to do something else, I guess that would be fine, but, whatever the DM does, don't let the PC's screw around for hours trying to solve something with no solution.

But that's the thing, I shouldn't have to tell the players this and it is best for them in turn if they don't expect such metagame information direct from the DM. It is far better that the players take such action themselves and if they know it could be unsolvable, they will be more inclined to do this. If they are expecting there to always be a solution, that is when you really run into hours of head-bashing.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[KidSnide]

Lastly, and most importantly, one of the primary joys of table-top gaming is seeing a situation where you have no idea what to do and then finding a way to advance the situation, hopefully for the better. If you check out the most popular story hours on this site, they are replete with challenges that require player thinking as much as character abilities. (Imagine all your PCs wake up with no memories as citizens of a city in a bottle.)

I don't understand how that's separate from character ability. It's not the players who overcome the challenges before them to gain the item and slay the beast, it's the characters.

Sure, but the players are thinking about how to use their characters' abilities. If you see a fireproof dragon in front of you, you might use your character's ice abilities to kill it. If you see an impenetrable force field in front of you, you might use your character's exploration abilities to jump over it, burrow under it, or chisel through the walls around it, or their discovery abilities to analyze its magic and dispel it, or their social abilities to contact the wizard who made it and get him to remove it. The solution still lies within character abilities. Players are choosing how to apply those abilities, but the test isn't about the player's abilities any more than combat is a test of my buddy Frank's ability to accurately hit things with a sword.

I'm quoting from KM not to call him out specifically, but as an example of a meme I see in this thread...

Yes, as an initial matter, of course it's the character that is swinging a sword against the dragon. Players don't swing swords against monsters. Players don't pick locks, cast fireball or turn undead either. But everything is a combination of player skill and character ability. Combat is a mixture of character abilities (to see whether you hit) and player skill in tactics and party coordination. Even a lame RAW skill challenge generally involves some marginal player skill in figuring out how to apply your character's best skills to the situation at hand.

If you think player skill isn't a part of every D&D game, then I really don't know what game you're playing. I'm not sure that anyone actually disagrees with this, but I think it's important to point out.

To get back to the Clash of the Titans example, I agree that character abilities could be used. Certainly, you could use a knowledge check to get a list of monsters and magic that can kill a kraken and maybe skill checks would help you find them. But - at some point - any decent game is going to make the players actually think about what's going on in the game world. For example, a player might think "gee, a medusa head seems a lot easier than stealing the Wand of Orcus". I suppose a DM could provide an Int check to help the players figure out that the Head of Medusa is a better strategy than the Wand of Orcus, but that seems like an awful way to play D&D. (There's no badfunwrong here - it just seems awful to me.)

Yes, character skills are useful ways of distributing game relevant information to the players, but there's a point when the players have to consider the situation and decide what to do. 90+% of the time, that's not about character abilities. I can't imagine playing a mystery or a political game by skill challenge alone. The fun of a mystery is the deduction, and the fun of a political game is the role-playing and scheming. I suppose you could run these entirely with character abilities, but why would you want to?

Isn't making interesting decisions in a fantasy world kind of the point of playing D&D? Aren't these decisions more interesting if some of them are outside the bounds of the character sheet?

I'm always up for learning how other people play the game, but for me, this isn't even a question. Challenges outside the character sheet are an essential part of the D&D games I play in. I really don't understand how you could remove it. It would be like watching the Olympics where the athletes only compete on Wii. Maybe you could recognize it, but what would be the point?

-KS

 

[LostSoul]

Player skills must always be of prime importance; otherwise, what's the point of you playing the game?

The big question is: what kind of skills do you want to use?

 

[S'mon]

whatever the DM does, don't let the PC's screw around for hours trying to solve something with no solution.

That's what wandering monster checks are for!

In the traditional big exploratory dungeon, when the PCs came across an obstacle they would IME either solve it pretty quickly, or leave it and go do something else. Standing around wasting time earned no XP and attracted wandering monsters.

The problem is with modern design where obstacles are placed like the Door to Moria - you *have* to get past it to continue the adventure. That design is ok as long as the GM is open to alternate approaches, it is not good IMO if there is a complex puzzle which has to be solved in one particular way, or no more adventure.

I was annoyed when a DM created a complex puzzle-trap chamber, it consisted of various stone objects - wall carvings statues, stone door - which had to be solved with a particular 5-step method while the PCs were being zapped by infinite-spawning energy balls. I was annoyed because my PC was designed as an INT 8 dwarf who was very good at hitting things with his giant hammer, but the DM arbitrarily had all the stone objects be immune to damage (ignoring 4e object damage rules) so that the trap could only be solved in the way he envisaged.

I had a PC ability, my giant hammer, I thought should logically have worked - I was thinking outside the box but by using a character ability rather than by engaging the puzzle. The DM required the players to solve the puzzle with their own brains, by figuring out how it worked.

To me it's not about 'must be solvable by PC abilities' vs 'Mother May I' - the good DM must be open to creative uses of PC abilities he has not envisaged; set reasonable DCs, allow success in ways he did not foresee.

 

[FireLance]

Yish, fine. Since it's provoked so many negative reactions, I'll amend my point 1 to the far less snappy:

1. If the DM sets the players a challenge that he expects them to overcome, it must always, always, always be possible (I would go as far as to say probable - at least even odds) to overcome it using the PCs' powers and abilities.

And yes, this is the sort of thing that would not happen in a good sandbox.

Point 2 (which everyone seems to be ignoring) is also pretty important, by the way.

Even odds are actually pretty darn poor if there are significant penalties for failure (such as death). Assuming a PC needs to overcome 10 challenges to gain a level, player skill is what makes the difference between a 1st-level character actually surviving to reach 2nd level and the PC having a 99.9% chance of dying before that happens.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

I know that was lost in 4e, but that's a feature of the abilities changing from general purpose tools to narrowly defined effects. Like Chris Perkins says, you can't put darkfire on a door, 'cuz it's not a creature, right?

...

Wrong, like so many of his rulings... it got errated:
Target

Page 57: Replace the first paragraph with the following text.
If a power directly affects one or more creatures or
objects, it has a “Target” or “Targets” entry. Some
powers include objects as targets. At the DM’s discretion,
a power that targets a creature can also target an
object, whether or not the power identifies an object
as a potential target.

He just "ruled" that a door cannot be lighted... but the rules say he could have also allowed it.

He also always forgets the save for sliding/pushing creatures on dangerous terrain...

 

[LurkAway]

The big question is: what kind of skills do you want to use?

Trying a generic edition-neutral example:

A passage is blocked by 10' of ice (non-magical; it's winter, dungeon air is below freezing, so ice doesn't melt). The official solution is to cause x points of damage. In-bounds-thinking: hack with weapons/powers for x minutes until ice is all broken and cleared away. Out-of-bounds-thinking: maybe blunt weapons and axes will break the ice faster than swords and arrows (even if the rules don't differentiate between weapon type vs ice) or blasts of magical fire to clear the ice most quickly (even if the spell targets creatures and not objects* and/or doesn't do double damage to ice and/or you don't even reference the rules 'icewall, meet fireball') or there is NO obvious reason why we must blast through this icewall right now, it's boring hard labor (from a character POV) and we can check it out later.

Is that a good example, perhaps?

* Edit: Before the official errata

 

[I'm A Banana]

If you think player skill isn't a part of every D&D game, then I really don't know what game you're playing. I'm not sure that anyone actually disagrees with this, but I think it's important to point out.

Yeah, I don't disagree. I think the crux is where player skill is applied.

I'm not particularly interested in evaluating Frank's persuasive capacity or Julie's deductive prowess or ADD Roger's ability to pay attention to NPC names. If Frank is shy and Julie is a ditz and Roger zones in and out, I don't want to pass judgement on them or to require them to be different people in order to enjoy my game. I also don't want to limit my game: there should be no reason I can't run an enjoyable mystery adventure despite Julie's ditziness.

The way I see it, via the rules, the player has tools for how their character interacts with the world. To accomplish something, they can use the rules. Player skill then comes in with how creatively and resourcefully they can use the tools at their disposal, along with the rest of the party, to overcome the small and large obstacles they face as a group.

So it's player choice which character abilities to use, to gain, and to focus on, but the way they advance their character's goals is through those character abilities -- their own skill matters in how they use the abilities. If the party comes up against a fire dragon with nothing but fire damage, it is up to them to use their tools creatively to -- at least -- get away from the thing long enough to gain some non-fire attacks.

That's why, above, I was talking about 4e's defined effects vs. other e's general tools. Fireball as a defined damage power vs. fireball as a big ball of fire. The latter is more useful as a prop, with properties that may be useful in a variety of circumstances. The former is only really useful for one purpose.

To get back to the Clash of the Titans example, I agree that character abilities could be used. Certainly, you could use a knowledge check to get a list of monsters and magic that can kill a kraken and maybe skill checks would help you find them. But - at some point - any decent game is going to make the players actually think about what's going on in the game world. For example, a player might think "gee, a medusa head seems a lot easier than stealing the Wand of Orcus". I suppose a DM could provide an Int check to help the players figure out that the Head of Medusa is a better strategy than the Wand of Orcus, but that seems like an awful way to play D&D. (There's no badfunwrong here - it just seems awful to me.)

Yeah, it would be more about giving the players knowledge and letting them make the choice. But their knowledge comes via their characters: if the characters had knowledge of the Wand of Orcus or the Medusae, via character skills (such has having fought both cultists of Orcus and Medusae in the past). Then they'd make the decision based on their abilities. If they all have great Stealth-y powers, maybe stealing the Wand of Orcus isn't all that far-fetched? But, anyway, it's a player decision based on information their characters have.

90+% of the time, that's not about character abilities. I can't imagine playing a mystery or a political game by skill challenge alone. The fun of a mystery is the deduction, and the fun of a political game is the role-playing and scheming. I suppose you could run these entirely with character abilities, but why would you want to?

Detect Magic, Zone of Truth, Suggestion, Charm Person, Sending, Scrying, and other discovery and social powers (and their equivalents with non-magical characters, too!) have prominent roles in my games, and I wouldn't want to disregard them. These are tools for finding the truth or swaying opinion, and I prefer them to be useful. Those are character abilities, used for mysteries and politics.

Of course, it's still within player choice when and how to apply these tools. If they're chasing down a red herring, Zone of Truth isn't going to help. If their political rival doesn't value friendship, making them your friend with Charm Person isn't very useful.

But I'm not going to worry about Frank, Julie, and Roger actually being great mystery solvers or great politicians. They just need to be smart D&D players.