D&D 5E Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)

[Manbearcat]

Its interesting. In a grotesquely simplified fashion, much of it comes to this:

The first camp wants more malleable mechanics (primarily DM adjudication; rulings not rules) for orthodox usage/resolution and codified flavor/fluff with prescriptive unorthodox usage/resolution embedded within.

The second camp wants codified mechanics for orthodox usage/resolution and codified flavor/fluff with codified unorthodox usage/resolution embedded within.

The third camp wants codified mechanics for orthodox usage/resolution and mutable flavor/fluff and open-ended unorthodox usage/resolution.

 

[TwoSix]

Actually, fires help with rocket science, too. Just sayin'...

I get the thrust of what you're saying.

 

[Manbearcat]

Actually, fires help with rocket science, too. Just sayin'...

I get the thrust of what you're saying.

I want to thank you both for propelling the thread's discourse to a greater trajectory; we'll surely reach unprecedented heights before we run out of fuel.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I know it's certainly boosted my opinion of this thread considerably.

 

[Manbearcat]

I know it's certainly boosted my opinion of this thread considerably.

Would you say this thread's ongoing mission is to go where no thread has gone before?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, fires help with rocket science, too. Just sayin'...

I'd XP you again, but then apparently I'd have to kill you

 

[Crazy Jerome]

DDN classes DO give out an ability score bonus. While it is small, it does something along the lines of what you're talking about. Obviously you're talking about wanting a more even contribution between these things. I think the counterpoint would be why have every member of a class be stuck with the same skill? Its obvious when it is something like 'Thievery' you play a thief, but not so obvious for many other skills. I guess its certainly possible to find at least one iconic skill per class, though fighter might be an exception. I think the concept with putting it all in background was just to let you build any crazy thing you wanted to.

Right. And stacking skills from different axes is problematic--you need to deal with a good way to handle the overlap when it happens and the disjointed messes when it happens. Plus, you'd like for "ability scores" to be their own axis, mostly. A fighter getting a mild boost to Str is reinforcing D&D concepts, but is not satisfying the issue here all that much.

So let's takes yours and tuxgeo's slant a step further: What we need is not necessarily for classes to give a flat skill or a bonus to an ability score or even call out something that only affects skills (e.g. mild bonus to three skills chosen from a list). Rather, if it comes from the class, then it should be a class feature or option that enhances how skills work in some archetypical manner--ideally with a decision point and/or resource bit to it somehow.

Or in another words, a bunch of bonuses from this and that do not an interesting skill system make. And that's the problem with suggesting examples for such--anything worth doing along this line implies a skill system worthy of the designation.

However, as a crude example of what I mean, consider and expansion to the skill die idea. For free, the single skill die works exactly as Next has it now. You qualify for the skill die, you can use it, no problem. However, there is also provision for gambling to get extra skill dice by risking short-term fatigue or even injury to get extra dice. Make an ability check, -2 per extra die attempted. Succeed, no cost. Fail, you still get the extra dice, but you take hit point damage equal to the extra dice you roll. Then gives classes bonuses and/or extra dice based on the options they have chosen. For example, a fighter has generally chosen a style based on fluid movement. Well, part of the benefit from that style itself is that if he gambles this way or a desperate jump or balance check, he has a better shot at it.

Note the differences in the consequences for failure here. A rogue with a great tumbling/jumping ability has a high check on jumping across the chasm. He does this stuff all the time (routinely), but might fail if he pushes his luck too much. Meanwhile, his buddy the fighter is not quite so skilled at jumping. But the consequences on a desperate jump twist a little. If both jump, and know they have to make it, then both gamble. The rogue needs to gamble less, because he already has a higher skill, but runs more risk at failing for what he does gamble. The fighter gambles a lot of dice, because he knows that straining his back is something he can take. The consequences of failure become, most likely, the amount of damage done, not falling to their respective deaths below. Or occasionally a character will be too timid (gamble too little and not get enough boost) and thus fall for that reason. Which is realistic.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

However, as a crude example of what I mean, consider and expansion to the skill die idea. For free, the single skill die works exactly as Next has it now. You qualify for the skill die, you can use it, no problem. However, there is also provision for gambling to get extra skill dice by risking short-term fatigue or even injury to get extra dice. Make an ability check, -2 per extra die attempted. Succeed, no cost. Fail, you still get the extra dice, but you take hit point damage equal to the extra dice you roll. Then gives classes bonuses and/or extra dice based on the options they have chosen. For example, a fighter has generally chosen a style based on fluid movement. Well, part of the benefit from that style itself is that if he gambles this way or a desperate jump or balance check, he has a better shot at it.

Note the differences in the consequences for failure here. A rogue with a great tumbling/jumping ability has a high check on jumping across the chasm. He does this stuff all the time (routinely), but might fail if he pushes his luck too much. Meanwhile, his buddy the fighter is not quite so skilled at jumping. But the consequences on a desperate jump twist a little. If both jump, and know they have to make it, then both gamble. The rogue needs to gamble less, because he already has a higher skill, but runs more risk at failing for what he does gamble. The fighter gambles a lot of dice, because he knows that straining his back is something he can take. The consequences of failure become, most likely, the amount of damage done, not falling to their respective deaths below. Or occasionally a character will be too timid (gamble too little and not get enough boost) and thus fall for that reason. Which is realistic.

Yeah, it sounds like a potentially interesting system. It is going to be a little more hefty to run, the GM will have to make decisions on what the consequences of all these pushes are. Of course this is something GMs are often doing in different ways now too, it just likely means there aren't a lot of simple skill checks. One issue is how to explain the damage. I mean its one thing when you describe jumping, but what about when doing some research? Can I add skill dice onto Arcana? What happens if I take damage? I'm not likely to need those hit points anyway, so what's the cost for taking the risk? Its a lot like the whole HS cost for Rituals idea, sometimes it works great, and other times it seems less useful.

Perhaps the whole thing really needs to be constructed in a more generalized narrative fashion. You can add ANY number of skill dice to your skill checks (within reason, maybe they're a limited pool). The more you use the greater the stakes. You want to hop across a little ditch you're not going to use any skill dice, and you're not going to fail in any big way either. You want to leap a 30' chasm, you're going to have to take a BIG chance, and you really don't want to fail. OTOH clearly success must be narratively important. Fail forward of course still applies in some fashion. The damage concept could work in many cases (abstracted as expended luck or whatever as needed), but the degree of badness of the misinformation the wizard gets from the library is also a perfectly valid dimension. Want to find out the location of the Lost Temple of Zehir? Well, you can do the usual basic library search, you might get lucky. You could also consult the dread Book of Kell's Doom, which probably has the answer, but is also known to lead people horribly astray. If you are TOTALLY desperate you could invoke the name of a certain unspeakable creature which can CERTAINLY tell you the answer, but might suck your brains out if it feels peckish today. No doubt there's nothing revolutionary about this approach of course. In this kind of form though it feels fairly D&Dish.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Yes, I've always thought that consequences of skill checks in D&D are easier to do than most system--thus being a shame that we've always had to stick to the mundane ones. A character "pushing" his skill in a fantasy world full of powerful magic probably would have interesting consequences of failure. Even "research" could run risks.

And you are also correct that is should be graduated risk. Heck, those "side effect" tables that people are always wanting to use with spells would work great with pushed skills that failed.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I also really dont think that spells like fireball need to say unattended flammable objects are going to catch fire - surely DMs can determine contextual things like this

Yes they can be, no that will not always work at every table.

I'd imagine by a default they probably should be left open-ended and more about the big idea than about the specific rules implementations. Fireball creates a big ball of fire, that does whatever you think a big ball of fire can do in this situation.

Me, I like to use rules as props, so quick, easy-to-run rules for how a fire spreads across terrain and variable flammability of materials and the like comes in real handy. I want to use this as a thing that is independent of my control, to spur on more interesting events that end up even surprising me as a DM, situations that the whole group needs to work with.

But in either situation, the important thing about the fireball spell is that it creates a ball of fire. That ball of fire happens to deal several d6's of damage in the area of the ball of fire, but the point of the spell isn't to do Xd6 fire damage to Y targets. The point of the spell is to create a ball of fire. Whether the rules that flow from that are explicit or in DM control is less important than the fact that a ball of fire is, indeed, created, in the fiction, when you cast fireball.

If WotC's focus on "story" helps ensure that a fireball is defined first, foremost, and occasionally exclusively as a big ball of fire that a wizard makes, and simply uses things like targeting lines, damage lines, and range increments to support that story, then we won't end up with a situation where a DM isn't going to allow you to target objects because "balance." Your fireball might not light the town on fire, but there's gonna be a reason in the story for that, not just a rule nested in the targeting line of the spell's effect description that contradicts common sense.

It's the "knock an ooze prone" situation. If 5e supports the idea that knocking something prone is first, foremost, and sometimes exclusively, "knocking them to the ground," and uses things like "takes a move action to get up" as ways to support that story, then we don't end up with a situation where someone gets to knock an ooze prone -- something that makes perfect sense in the rules, but requires some mental contortions to think about in the story.