DMs not fudging occurred years before computer RPGs ever came out. Hard Core Baldur's Gate is based on DMs who let the dice fall where they fall, not the other way around.
D&D 5E No ascending bonuses: A mathematical framework for 5e
- Thread starter Dragonblade
- Start date
DMs not fudging occurred years before computer RPGs ever came out. Hard Core Baldur's Gate is based on DMs who let the dice fall where they fall, not the other way around.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Not buying it. You're telling me that you never experienced that instant of KNOWING that the blow was going to come? I can tell you for sure, I have. Superior reflexes, presence of mind, decisiveness, and just the general toughness of mind which presumably is a common attribute of hard-bitten adventurers is exactly what you use to turn that "crap he just wrong-footed me and got through my guard" from the sword taking you in the gut and making a spinning turn or a last second recovery or throwing yourself out of the way. It is not even just a trope, you can see it in real life.
So, I entirely disagree with your whole characterization. It isn't gamist at all and is in fact just as realistic as any other element of the game. Now, ANY mechanics in any game can potentially come across as gamist in some situation or other. It is trivially easy to find those situation with say hit points, yet we don't discard hit points because they are a useful abstraction. If 'fate points' or whatever we would call them are a useful abstraction I don't find anything at all inherently wrong with them at all. The only reason I can see that is left to object really is that you've gotten used to all the other mechanics and stopped noticing when they're gamey.
I don't think that's what he was referring to. You're referring to a reflex action, which seems to be occuring in a moment of slow time. He's referring to a rewind action, from Author stance. Say you got hit from behind by a rogue's sneak attack. If you didn't see it coming, you couldn't negate it. But in Author stance, the player could use the action point or get out of jail card to reverse the damage, even if the character was unaware.
IMO I'd prefer an Actor stance use of fate points, but Author stance use of fate points isn't necessarily gamist unless no effort was made to internalize how the fate points are supporting the story.
Last edited:
AbdulAlhazred,
Even though I am obviously in disagreement with Karinsdad on this point, the point he is making is shared by many others and can't simply be dismissed.
So KDs concern is the idea of a "rewind" on the action, its too gamist for his tastes. Ok, fair enough, since in this new 5e we are talking about dials, can we turn down the dial on fate points to appeal to more of KDs style of game?
Perhaps some of these ideas.
1) You can turn a crit into a regular hit (still a rewind, but not before damage is done so less of one).
2) Defensive Stance: Gain a +X bonus to AC for one round (helps with defense but in a more straightforward manner).
3) His Final Stand: When killed, the hero does not die until the end of combat (doesn't rewind the character's death, but lets him finish the battle and help prevent a tpk).
4) Endurance: Gain 10 temporary hitpoints that last for 1 round.
To me, what makes the fate point system work is you can apply a way for players to gain "magical" bonuses without any magical flavor, and so all characters can have access to them, and it gives the character at least a measure of control over his own fate....outside the raw probabilities of attack and damage rolls.
Now while I prefer the more direct approaches I mentioned earlier, I see no reason such a system could not have differing amounts of "gamism" and "effectiveness" for those who prefer it.
Even though I am obviously in disagreement with Karinsdad on this point, the point he is making is shared by many others and can't simply be dismissed.
So KDs concern is the idea of a "rewind" on the action, its too gamist for his tastes. Ok, fair enough, since in this new 5e we are talking about dials, can we turn down the dial on fate points to appeal to more of KDs style of game?
Perhaps some of these ideas.
1) You can turn a crit into a regular hit (still a rewind, but not before damage is done so less of one).
2) Defensive Stance: Gain a +X bonus to AC for one round (helps with defense but in a more straightforward manner).
3) His Final Stand: When killed, the hero does not die until the end of combat (doesn't rewind the character's death, but lets him finish the battle and help prevent a tpk).
4) Endurance: Gain 10 temporary hitpoints that last for 1 round.
To me, what makes the fate point system work is you can apply a way for players to gain "magical" bonuses without any magical flavor, and so all characters can have access to them, and it gives the character at least a measure of control over his own fate....outside the raw probabilities of attack and damage rolls.
Now while I prefer the more direct approaches I mentioned earlier, I see no reason such a system could not have differing amounts of "gamism" and "effectiveness" for those who prefer it.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I think it is pretty hard to separate the two cases. I can flavor my fate point as luck putting a twig in the way of the rogue's foot, letting me hear him and my presence of mind allowing me to realize what to do in that split moment and do it. I'm not saying you can't possibly come up with an example of a situation that isn't easily thought of as before-the-fact, but there's at least a lot of gray area in there and KD's outright rejection of the concept seems heavy-handed to me, even if we discount fate points as a player resource (Author Stance).
I think it is easier for people to accept these types of mechanics as a character resource, yes. I've played with people who simply couldn't grasp the concept of a player resource or of taking ownership of the narrative. Actually from what I'm reading from a lot of old school D&Ders there seem to be a LOT of those people playing older editions (or at least advocating them).
I agree it's a grey area. Another aspect is that if fate points are used with predictable results, whereas nothing is truly certain through the eyes of the PC. If a rogue sneak attacks your PC and you use a fate point, you could fluff it as your PC hearing a twig snap, but as soon as you pulled out that fate point, you've collapses the probabilities and there is now zero chance that your PC didn't hear the rogue.
Now let's say that fate points are a simulationist mechanic. Say your PC is protected by a deity's boon or a fey charm, and these can kick into effect independant of the PC. And maybe your PC is actively trying to collect these protection magicks throughout an adventure. Now you have a fate point mechanism that works in either Actor or Author stance and doesn't break immersion as long as the fate fluff is compelling enough.
Or can we turn back the dial to 2E where it was never a rule?
Why does each edition always turning the dial forward? Eventually, 9E will be a game system where the players don't even show up. They just send messages to the DM on their iHeadpiece devices that the monster never hits.
Ok, that's over the top, but you get the idea.
An Action Point isn't a character's ability, it's a player's ability. The character doesn't know he has Action Points. For that matter, the character doesn't really know that he has Healing Surges (or at least it's a gray area).
In game, I would prefer the character to use character abilities that the character knows about. Do you really want to play a game where the PC knows about his fate points and knows when to use them? You want the PC to know that he is dead, so he'd better use a fate point to negate it?
Effectively, mine is a style of roleplaying where the PC makes decisions based off the scenario in game a lot more often and there are very few rules where the player makes a decision out of character and outside the knowledge of the PC and outside the abilities of the PC per se.
Action points are not in the hands of the PC. They are Monopoly rules in the hands of the players. There should be ZERO ways for players to affect the outcome of the game outside of the abilities of the PCs. IMO. YMMV and obviously will. There should be no "player abilities", just "PC abilities". No Deus Ex Machina rules, especially ones controlled by the players.
And the other aspect of Fate Points that make them even more egregious in this game space is that they are auto-win (at least from how I have always heard them described). Unlike Immediate Interrupts, they will always occur. Shield doesn't always occur. It won't stop a 20. Even a Teleport immediate interrupt might not always work if the PCs are somewhere where Teleports don't work, or where the monsters can interrupt a teleport or change the location of the teleport.
When abilities are in character, they can be disrupted by the environment or the abilities of the enemies. When abilities are meta-rules out of character controlled by the players, even the DM (typically) cannot disallow them. They just happen. The game has now changed. Erase what just happened off of your character sheet because some game designer thought it was a good idea to spoon feed the players because a string of bad dice rolls might happen.
And yes AA, that's exactly what player instead of character abilities in a game do. Many game systems don't have these artificial crutches and they work just fine. D&D didn't have them for 2.5 decades and worked just fine and sold many millions of copies and even the 8 years of 3E/3.5 for the most part only had its version of Action Points (which in many ways, are not as prone to abuse as 4E action points). It's only in the last 3 years that those non-PC ability game elements crept heavily into 4E. I'd prefer if the dial wasn't turned any further in that direction and was even cranked back a bit. You don't.
I'd prefer this, especially if it were an optional rule and not so much a (basically) hard and fast rule like Action Points (and Healing Surges for that matter).
But I agree, game elements should be in Actor mode, not Author mode. And, they shouldn't always work either.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yes, but in some degree or other every possible element of the game is gamist. It is gamist that we use 6 ability scores, etc etc etc. The problem is as soon as you start excusing the argument that one of two equally gamist and abstract mechanics is 'too gamist' you don't even have a place to draw a line anymore and the line being drawn here is to say the least not evenly drawn. It is gerrymandered all over the place around specific mechanics that one particular poster happens to favor for whatever reasons.
And again, the 'winding back' we're talking about is really utterly trivial and if you examine it in terms of narrative vs procedures of gameplay you'll find that in the VAST majority of cases it isn't retroactive from the perspective of the story at all. Thus the "it's gamist" argument IS ITSELF A TOTALLY GAMIST ARGUMENT. So I'll prefer to stick with my assessment of it is just a terrible argument.
Don't get me wrong though, there's nothing personal about it. I just think that the root of it is that people really don't like any significant variation in mechanics in their D&D. I can see that PoV, but it condemns the game to oblivion in the long run.
This is true. I think you can have both though, the 'magical charm', the 'luck bestowed by the gods', and the 'superhuman prowess' type explanations all in one mechanic without any big issues. Does it matter if I collapse the probabilities to zero? I'm only able to do that now and then, and in any case every situation resolves somehow. You roll to hit, you miss or hit, the probability 'collapses' by reason of the target's AC as well.
Now, I suppose you could argue that I need not watch my back if I have fate on my side mechanically, but presumably these points are a valuable resource. We were contemplating they would constitute a fairly universal mechanic that would add to character's durability a good bit, so you probably would still be wanting to watch out for backstabs. IME I really doubt it will lead to any harm as a mechanic. Nor does it need to be applicable to a vast array of situations (maybe there's a higher cost and you can deflect more weighty woes from your character, but that would have to be up to the DM I would thing, at least in a game that is ostensibly D&D).
The thing that really confuses me is the blurred lines between hit points (already fluffed by many as having a significant amount of luck and fortune) and AC and saves and now fate points.
So if your PC is backstabbed by a rogue and takes 50 hit points but still fighting on, then it's not necessarily being "backstabbed" in a vital organ but something else, like taking 50 points of "destiny" damage and not feeling so lucky after that. But if you use a fate point, you're not saving yourself from certain death but only using fate to save yourself from a loss of fate. It seems a bit weird.
So if your PC is backstabbed by a rogue and takes 50 hit points but still fighting on, then it's not necessarily being "backstabbed" in a vital organ but something else, like taking 50 points of "destiny" damage and not feeling so lucky after that. But if you use a fate point, you're not saving yourself from certain death but only using fate to save yourself from a loss of fate. It seems a bit weird.
Similar Threads
AD6_gamerati_skyscraper
Recent & Upcoming Releases
-
April 16 2024 -
May 31 2024 -
June 3 2024 -
June 4 2024 -
June 18 2024 -
July 16 2024 -
September 17 2024 -
October 1 2024 -
November 12 2024 -
February 18 2025
