Legends & Lore: Roleplaying in D&D Next

[Vyvyan Basterd]

But even given the skill challenge you presented, what makes a skill challenge better than simply a series of skill checks with no defined number of successes?

It gives me some structure to my (normally) scattered thoughts. It forces me to prepare for likely courses of action, which frees up creativity when the players think of something else (they always do). It forces me to prepare consequences for failure (and if I find no reasonable consequences I realize the task at hand is not worthy of a skill challenge). And finally, it predefines a challenge, as I would with combat challenges, to reduce the arbitrary nature of spur-of-the-moment decision-making. They are useful tools for me to frame non-combat encounters. They do take alot of work, but the most memorable challenges, combat or not, always do. They are not better, they are a tool that you use to finely craft something, just beware not to let your tool become a crutch.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

My point is that everyone uses a d20 to hit in D&D, that's fine. It takes 2 seconds to pick up your d20 and roll. It took about 2-5 minutes per person

You were definitely watching people who didn't 'get' the system somehow. That is an extremely unreasonable amount of time. I'd have the same negative opinion as you if the was my experience. That's longer than it took brand new players at a Gameday to form their pools.

The experienced players I've run for can resolve a pool faster than some people I've played D&D with can pick up their d20, roll, and add their modifiers (although these D&D players were certainly outliers).

This just seems like "You get whatever power you can explain to me". It's mother may I with fiction. Thus, there's no "rules" that give you the ability to cut through steel. There is instead a agreement between player and DM that "my claws are so sharp, they should be able to cut through steel."

The back of the character datafile informs the player of the character's capabilities. Thus, some who somehow never heard of Wolverine will have something to work from.

Beyond that the open nature of stunts is important, IMO, to the superhero genre. Heroes and villains in the comics are always coming up with new ways to use their powers. If you predefined their abilities it would cut off this important aspect of supers. It works for D&D, not MHRP.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The experienced players I've run for can resolve a pool faster than some people I've played D&D with can pick up their d20, roll, and add their modifiers (although these D&D players were certainly outliers).

I'll let you judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFUARSmKYcs

Combat starts around 25 minutes in.

Beyond that the open nature of stunts is important, IMO, to the superhero genre. Heroes and villains in the comics are always coming up with new ways to use their powers. If you predefined their abilities it would cut off this important aspect of supers. It works for D&D, not MHRP.

To each their own. I really like Hero System/Champions for super hero roleplaying which is the exact opposite of open. Everything is defined in exacting detail. Some of the most fun I've had is in building characters in Champions.

 

[Ratskinner]

I don't know. A couple of them were less experienced for sure, but a couple of them appeared to know what they were doing. It just seemed like their entire description of their turn was justification to use dice.

A couple of times people were like "I punch him. Oh, wait, I swing at him and THEN I punch him, that way I get webs added to the dice pool. Oh, wait, I also do a backflip so I can use my agility as well."

Which is awesome. Did you notice how searching for those points and extra dice made the characters actually perform more like the characters they are supposed to be? Does Spiderman fight by standing there and punching? He can, but he usually fights while bouncing all over the place. So, in MHRP, the mechanics encourage you to engage the fiction while describing your action. I have no problem with that. That's much better, IMO, than the typical way such things happen in my D&D experience, where the traditional mechanics seems discourage people from engaging the fiction. (Note that this is not the same as engaging the game. I would conjecture that MHRP's dice mechanics would make it very difficult for a gamist-oriented player to "grok" what is going on and enjoy it.)

Then a bunch of time was spend considering whether to use the extra points they could use. It took them about an hour and a half to run a combat against a couple of villains. I barely remembered which villains they were fighting by the end of the battle. It didn't seem significant to the actual play since most of the time was spent looking at each category of powers to find the power that gave the biggest dice and then justifying a way to use that power against the enemy.

My point is that everyone uses a d20 to hit in D&D, that's fine. It takes 2 seconds to pick up your d20 and roll. It took about 2-5 minutes per person for them to describe their turn in order to figure out which powers applied just so they could figure out which dice were in their pool, And in the end, it amounted to them using their best powers every round of combat. But they'd spend 5 minutes EXPLAINING how their dice pool came to the same as last round and waiting after each justification for the DM to say ok before continuing their description.

It takes two seconds for those experienced with the D&D system. I've often seen even reasonably experienced players spend time searching for a +1, and don't even get me started on circumstantial bonuses. Even our group's "guru" recently audited his character and found he had some stuff wrong. Especially with old-school D&D, where you're rolling different dice for everything. Its certainly not like "combats take too long" is an uncommon complaint around here (pick an edition). Additionally, there's a guy at our table (veteran player, too) who really does seem to like engaging the fiction. He's always describing things in great detail. However, he is constantly punished for this, because the Old-School system we're running doesn't care at all. That turns his engagement into either "wasting time" or "fishing for a bonus" in the eyes of some of the other players. The response to "I'm going to try and swipe the legs out from under him." is "That's called rolling an attack."

IME, with games like FATE and MHRP, its much harder for D&D players to grasp and get used to than it is for total newbies. Mostly, I think its because D&D "trains" us to view things like this in one particular way. For example, you don't need permission from the MHRP GM to build your dice pool. You describe the intended action, collect dice, then roll. Additionally, the games are much more forgiving for not playing to your highest and brightest numerical abilities, so you don't really need to feel as worried about using a d8 trait instead of a d10 trait as you might for using a less-than-optimal attack or skill in D&D. There's a lot more subtle habits of thought and gameplay that D&D inculcates, but that aren't really necessary in those other games. (Trying to describe them all would make for a very long post.)

Now, having said all that, I will also say that this doesn't make these games inherently better or awesome for all players. There will be those who find this kind of thing maddening or simply unfun.

Earlier, you said:

The mechanics are so disconnected from the story they create that they don't seem to have any relationship at all. It's possible to have a mechanic that's completely exhaustive and handle out of the box situations when the mechanic is "Roll a d6, on a 4-6 you win". All you need is a DM to tell you what "you win" means in any given circumstance.

...and to extent, I can sympathize with this point of view. However, I would say that MHRP is not nearly so close to that extreme as something like Fiasco or Otherkind. (Heck, that almost is the mechanics of Otherkind.) Connecting the mechanics to the fiction in MHRP requires an act of will/intention, just like it does in D&D. However, unlike D&D, MHRP doesn't have the wargame substrate. There is no non-fictional positioning for MHRP. There is not a MHRP physical map to move minis around on (whereas D&D has had actual physical positioning of minis and maps as a common/expected mode for play since the beginning.) In some ways, like I mentioned above with the Spiderman player, this makes games like MHRP more connected to their fiction, because you have to engage the fiction to make sense of them.

 

[Hussar]

/edit

Whoops, should look at the page count before posting. My bad.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Which is awesome. Did you notice how searching for those points and extra dice made the characters actually perform more like the characters they are supposed to be?

I didn't. Mainly because the things I would expect to be unique to Spiderman's style of fighting never happened. No enemies were blinded by webs to the eyes and unable to act. None of them were restrained by webs and had to use their strength to break out. None of them were tied up and hung from street lamps while they struggled to escape. None of them fell over because they attempted to hit Spiderman who was just too agile for them.

Instead, they were attacked with a dice pool and defended with a dice pool. There was some token description of how that dice pool worked, but it had no tangible effect on the game beyond making the dice pool or or two points bigger or smaller.

In the end, if you removed all description from the mechanics the game would literally be this:

I roll 23 to hit.
The enemy rolls 26. You miss.
He rolls 26 to hit.
I roll 24. He hits and does damage.

The fact that one of those is Spiderman is completely impossible to tell from the rules. There might be movement going on but there are no rules for how often or how far you can move or a limit to the number of times you can move so you don't have to engage the mechanics at all for these things.

Contrast that to a system where the mechanics are more connected to the story and you get something like:

I stick him to the ground if he can't get out of the way, DC 23.
He rolls a 21 and is stuck.
He spends his round attempting to get out. He makes a 22 on his strength roll. He manages to break free.
I spend my move action to climb up then swing over to other side of the street.

It's impossible to remove the description from the second example entirely because the mechanics ARE the description.

For example, you don't need permission from the MHRP GM to build your dice pool. You describe the intended action, collect dice, then roll.

That is certainly debatable. Both the way I read the rules and watching the people play on YouTube, the point of having multiple powers in each category(some of which are just plain worse than others) is that sometimes you won't be able to use one based on the current fiction. For instance, Spiderman might have his webshooters taken away or have his hands tied and pointed in the wrong direction so he can't use them. Sometimes there might not be enough room to properly use super agility.

During these circumstances the DM can say "No, you can't use that power right now". I rather got the impression that each time you activated a power you should really check with the DM to determine if it's possible.

Plus, there's some wiggle room in powers that aren't described in a lot of detail where the DM might simply say "No, The Wolverine IS the best at what he does. But what he does is NOT the dishes. You can't use that here."

Additionally, the games are much more forgiving for not playing to your highest and brightest numerical abilities, so you don't really need to feel as worried about using a d8 trait instead of a d10 trait as you might for using a less-than-optimal attack or skill in D&D.

You don't have to feel AS worried. But mathematically, it's still a bad idea to use any power that has a lower die. Sure, it MIGHT not make a difference because of how small the numbers are. However, if your goal is to hit an enemy, choosing a lower die is counter to that goal.

Basically, the only reason to choose the lower die is if you don't care if you lose or not.

In some ways, like I mentioned above with the Spiderman player, this makes games like MHRP more connected to their fiction, because you have to engage the fiction to make sense of them.

No, that doesn't mean they are connected. It just means that the game is a freeform roleplaying game that periodically rolls dice to decide what happens.

To be connected, the mechanics have to describe what is happening and the story has to describe the mechanics.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I didn't. Mainly because the things I would expect to be unique to Spiderman's style of fighting never happened. No enemies were blinded by webs to the eyes and unable to act.

That's because the players never put a "Blinded" Complication on the target.

None of them were restrained by webs and had to use their strength to break out.

That's because the players never put a "Webbed" Complication on the target. And if they had, the target could have tried to remove the complication or, if they had a relevant power like Godlike Strength, automatically ripped off Spidey's webs.

None of them were tied up and hung from street lamps while they struggled to escape.

That's because the players never pushed a "Webbed" Complication high enough (above a D12 strength) to take a target out of the fight.

None of them fell over because they attempted to hit Spiderman who was just too agile for them.

That's because the players never used a PP on a successful defensive roll to use their Effect Die as a counterattack.

The fact that one of those is Spiderman is completely impossible to tell from the rules. There might be movement going on but there are no rules for how often or how far you can move or a limit to the number of times you can move so you don't have to engage the mechanics at all for these things.

There are rules for movement, they are just more general than d20 system rules. The scene is divided into areas. You may move from one area to the next as your turn action. The Watcher can spend dice from the Doom Pool to move you from one area to another. Areas are left vague so the Watcher can tailor them to the heroes involved.

Contrast that to a system where the mechanics are more connected to the story and you get something like:

I stick him to the ground if he can't get out of the way, DC 23.
He rolls a 21 and is stuck.
He spends his round attempting to get out. He makes a 22 on his strength roll. He manages to break free.
I spend my move action to climb up then swing over to other side of the street.

It's impossible to remove the description from the second example entirely because the mechanics ARE the description.

Just because you watched players who didn't use or understand the mechanics does not mean they do not exist in MHRP. You could have the same drab description of punch/block in your preferred system if that's all the players engaged in.

That is certainly debatable. Both the way I read the rules and watching the people play on YouTube, the point of having multiple powers in each category(some of which are just plain worse than others) is that sometimes you won't be able to use one based on the current fiction. For instance, Spiderman might have his webshooters taken away or have his hands tied and pointed in the wrong direction so he can't use them. Sometimes there might not be enough room to properly use super agility.

During these circumstances the DM can say "No, you can't use that power right now". I rather got the impression that each time you activated a power you should really check with the DM to determine if it's possible.

Plus, there's some wiggle room in powers that aren't described in a lot of detail where the DM might simply say "No, The Wolverine IS the best at what he does. But what he does is NOT the dishes. You can't use that here."

The same is true of your preferred game.

You don't have to feel AS worried. But mathematically, it's still a bad idea to use any power that has a lower die. Sure, it MIGHT not make a difference because of how small the numbers are. However, if your goal is to hit an enemy, choosing a lower die is counter to that goal.

Basically, the only reason to choose the lower die is if you don't care if you lose or not.

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Guess what happens when Collosus uses his best dice against Titanium Man? Answer: The Watcher spends a Doom Pool die, activating Titanium Man's Invulnerable SFX and ignores all damage. So, the player of Collosus decided to reason with Titatium Man, using terribly weaker dice, to talk him out of his course of action. Lower dice can be of great use when your usual shtick is ineffective.

No, that doesn't mean they are connected. It just means that the game is a freeform roleplaying game that periodically rolls dice to decide what happens.

To be connected, the mechanics have to describe what is happening and the story has to describe the mechanics.

MHRP does have rules, you just relied on YouTube to learn them. The game has freeform descriptors, but has quite solid rules on how to handle a multitude of situations. Just because your game has a static DC 21 on Spidey's webs does not make it more connected to the fiction than a game where the "Webbed" Complication has a "DC" set by individual use of the power set.

 

[Warbringer]

I agree. It's possible to make a decent skill challenge but it always seems like it takes more effort than it's worth. Sure, "convince the king" makes a lousy skill challenge. So do a lot of other things. But many of them SEEM like skill challenges so DMs try them.

But even given the skill challenge you presented, what makes a skill challenge better than simply a series of skill checks with no defined number of successes? You could run the skill challenge instead as a series of rolls based on the situation at the time. Which means after a couple of failures, they might find themselves in a bad situation and need to make more skill checks to get out of it, but they technically haven't "failed" yet. Even though the skill challenge rules would say "two failures and you're out".

So the big thing for me is that traditionally skill checks are pass/fail and don't add to the tension of the game. It's like going into a combat being told, roll a d20, "You got a 7, you lose combat"

Skill challenges are an attempt to provide a "zoom in" on non-combat challenges, much like combat rules are a "zoom-in" on combat challenges. Does that require more work, yeah it does, in the same way as laying out combat does (map, minis, terrain, monsters..etc).

IMO, the game is "narrate actions", "decide abilities that mimic action", "note outcome actions", "note consequence actions", which can be as simple as

"I charge the Orc and smack him with my axe for 6 points of damage. The Orc does 4 points of damage in return"
"I check the locked door for traps. Finding none I open the door, triggering the trap for 8 points of fire damage."

or the more complex scenario that 4e brings to the table.

(FWIW I don't play 4e. Stole the mechanics I liked for my homebrew and substantially modified the rules)

 

[Ratskinner]

The first paragraph has been adequately responded to.

In the end, if you removed all description from the mechanics the game would literally be this:

I roll 23 to hit.
The enemy rolls 26. You miss.
He rolls 26 to hit.
I roll 24. He hits and does damage.

The fact that one of those is Spiderman is completely impossible to tell from the rules. There might be movement going on but there are no rules for how often or how far you can move or a limit to the number of times you can move so you don't have to engage the mechanics at all for these things.

Contrast that to a system where the mechanics are more connected to the story and you get something like:

I stick him to the ground if he can't get out of the way, DC 23.
He rolls a 21 and is stuck.
He spends his round attempting to get out. He makes a 22 on his strength roll. He manages to break free.
I spend my move action to climb up then swing over to other side of the street.

It's impossible to remove the description from the second example entirely because the mechanics ARE the description.

Your first example with minor changes sounds just like typical D&D combat without mentioning the damage numbers. The second, with minor changes, could be from either system. These example prove nothing because you're choosing to make them unequivalent. Namely, you're choosing to ignore the character sheet descriptors for first, but not for the second (presumably D&D):

I roll 23 to hit.
AC 26. You miss.
He rolls 26 to hit.
AC 24. He hits and does damage.

I'm gonna try to pin him with webbing... 23 with a d10 effect die.
He rolls a 21 and is immobilized.
He spends his round attempting to get out. He makes a 22 with a d12 effect die!
I got a 19, he breaks out. I'm going to use Wall Crawling and a Swingline to put myself "Up a few stories and out of reach"...16 with a d8 effect die.
Doom Pool rolls an 8, so you make it.

And that second example skips how the players would need to build dice pools using their players traits. For example, when pinning the enemy Spiderman's character might say "I'm going to try to pin him with webbing so that's d8 Solo, d8 Weapon for the webs with a bonus d6 and step up the effect die from my webbing's Grapple SFX, and I'm a Combat Expert d8. What the heck, I'll say 'Welcome to my parlor, Mr. Fly.' to get another d8 from my Wisecracker distinction."

Note that he might say that. If you're building your dice pool directly in front the other players at a table, you probably don't need to announce every little thing. You could just collect your dice and roll. If someone challenged "where'd you get a d10 effect die?" you'd explain it "my SFX with webbing" just like in D&D you might answer a "why are you rolling d12 damage" with "my weapon does d12 vs Large creatures."

The real difference here is that MHRP (like FATE and many other modern rpgs) has a universal method for handling complications to the standard attrition of combat points. These rules almost universally rely to some extent on the common sensibilities of the players to adjudicate. D&D still has multitudinous factors and minor rules to handle all of these things individually and explicitly.

That is certainly debatable. Both the way I read the rules and watching the people play on YouTube, the point of having multiple powers in each category(some of which are just plain worse than others) is that sometimes you won't be able to use one based on the current fiction. For instance, Spiderman might have his webshooters taken away or have his hands tied and pointed in the wrong direction so he can't use them. Sometimes there might not be enough room to properly use super agility.

During these circumstances the DM can say "No, you can't use that power right now". I rather got the impression that each time you activated a power you should really check with the DM to determine if it's possible.

Plus, there's some wiggle room in powers that aren't described in a lot of detail where the DM might simply say "No, The Wolverine IS the best at what he does. But what he does is NOT the dishes. You can't use that here."

Most of the Youtube videos I've seen seem to be people learning or trying out the system. Often, it seems to my eyes, that they are confirming how the rules work, rather than getting permission from the GM. Additionally, the medium requires a slowing of play. Of course, I would expect folks, even in person, to check with their fellows and make sure that they aren't being jerks when they are unsure of their thinking. That happens in almost every game I've every played, even some board games! I will say that I haven't been able to play as much MHRP as I'd like, but I'd imagine this speeds up quite a bit when the players are as familiar with each other and the system as they are in the typical D&D group (if there is such a thing.)

The other two points don't make much sense to me. If an enemy disarms your D&D character, does that imply that you need to check with the DM for permission to use your other weapon/ability? Doesn't it just make sense that you'd need to take action to respond to that? Is a rule that states the exact details of what it means to be disarmed actually needed or helpful? The last point just sounds like a player who either doesn't understand the character or is just being contrary. I'm confident that we all are familiar with players who try to weasel things out of their character abilities regardless of system.

To be connected, the mechanics have to describe what is happening and the story has to describe the mechanics.

I don't feel the story itself has any onus to describe the mechanics. The players may need to adjust the narrative to reflect mechanical results...which can be good and bad, heaven knows HP have created their share of narrative nonsense. If the narrative is constantly strained by having to adjust to nonsensical results of the mechanics or narrative sensibilities regularly causes the mechanics to be ignored, then the mechanics are the issue.

RPG Mechanics very rarely actually describe what is happening in a story sense, especially given your requirements of doing so after removing any descriptors attached to the mechanics in question. Take conditions in 4e. They may describe mechanically to how the minis are allowed to move or how the controllers of those minis must adjust future rolls, but they have no explicit connection to the story side and cannot. Such descriptors are left to the players, and are essentially irrelevant to the numbers. Is the figure slowed because you have injured its ankle, hit it with some kind of cold spell, or entangled it in vines...dunno unless you know the player's description of the power that was used when it was used. That connection is no different from getting a complication in MHRP, with the exceptions that the effects of the complication are only meaningful in the context of the narrative (there is no such thing as a "blank" or "undescribed" d10 complication) and a clever player might turn a complication into a bonus for an action for a Plot Point. (I'm "covered in ice" d8? Great! I'm gonna use the ice slide down the slope like an otter and try to hit those goons like ninepins.)

Beyond that, the only substantial difference between the MHRP and D&D mechanics I detect is that the D&D mechanics can also be viewed in a "story-free" way as only modifying abstract numbers and movement of pieces on a game board (with varying success dependent on edition). I do not find that property a sufficient justification to claim that they are therefore better connected to story or narrative than MHRP's mechanics.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

So the big thing for me is that traditionally skill checks are pass/fail and don't add to the tension of the game. It's like going into a combat being told, roll a d20, "You got a 7, you lose combat"

The thing is, that skill checks themselves can still have variable amounts of successes. You can say as a DM "Ok, you failed your Diplomacy check, so that makes the King a little angrier but you made a decent point at the same time so he'll listen to you attempt to make another one."

It doesn't have to be a single pass/fail. You can then use another roll to continue the interaction.

My problem isn't with the idea of using multiple checks to determine success. It's the structure of "I've decided in advance that you must get 10 successes and 2 failures automatically fails." I prefer to play it by ear.

I much prefer a system like "The PCs goal is to convince the king(or find this person or build a bridge, etc)". I will let them suggest ways they are going about accomplishing their goal and when the narrative reaches a place where they've accomplished their goal the "skill challenge" is over. If they fail, things might get harder for them but they might be able to fail 20 times in unimportant skills and still succeed in their overall mission. It might just take longer.

I find that the rigidness of skill challenges either end up in a place where there is no good reason to keep making skill checks, because the goal is already accomplished in less rolls...but the DM makes you keep rolling anyways because you don't have enough successes. Or the reverse, you fail in 2 skills that don't appear to matter to the skill challenge and the DM has you fail.