As long as it is a reasonable assumption, feel free. There's not much rules for marketing vegetables, unless you stretch the business rules from DMG2. Meanwhile there are rules that can be used in my playstyle.
Well, the rules must be bad then, since they do not explicitly state they do not support a Farmer game, and that is a playstyle. Or the rules are not beholden to support every playstyle, or to call out those they do and do not support. Some games do a very good job of indicating the style they aim for, and that's great - D&D could and should do more of that. But that doesn't mean the lack of an explicit statement they support a playstyle different from yours, or mine, means they are required to support every, or any, specific playstyle.
Ah, this rule. I had a derp.
No, the DM can use the rule, it doesn't have to be ignored. Your point? It taking longer does not equal it not working at all
It does equate to needing to keep the Chamberlain engaged longer - what prevents him walking away? [The same thing that keeps me posting, maybe...]
Then what is his job? I don't think it's sitting and doing nothing.
Our Chamberlain clearly is in charge of audiences if he's the one to talk about seeing to the king.
Perhaps it includes ensuring that King's time is not wasted with rop-in visits from people who have no legitimate business with the King.
Kings don't talk only with nobles. And adventurers are the type of people that might as well be considered equal, if not better, than a noble in the eyes of a king.
In your opinion and/or under your playstyle, perhaps.
Then how, pray tell , will balance in the game make it less suited to your playstyle? Because that's your issue, right? That by making us happier your happiness will suffer?
The impact on any playstyle depends on the specific rule changes. I'm not suffering a balance problem now, so a change that redresses your balance concern may well tip my balance out of whack.
You are missing the point. They made it. If people didn't want it, they wouldn't make it. Simple as that. Not my fault they failed at making it balanced AND fun to play. And because they failed, they're making D&D Next so soon.
Many products fail. The same logic would suggest they made Pathfinder a 3e derived product, so people must have wanted that. We also know which one sells better, do we not? I think there is demand for many different models, which is why One Game does not Rule them All. Had D&D, the first and best marketed, met everyone's favoured playstyle, there would be a lot less RPG's out there.
@
pemerton : I don't believe anyone has a Ph.D. in Gamer Philosophy, so I'm not addressing what might qualify someone to have an opinion.
To look at the Chamberlain, for instance: there is a huge difference, in play experience, between a game in which the GM responds to the player's declaratin of a Diplomacy check "The Chamberlain doesn't listen to you, and instead storms off", and in which the GM responds "The Chamberlain has his fingers in his ears, so I don't think he'll be able to hear you. So can you tell me more about what your guy is doing?".
The first approach involves the GM specifying the content of the shared fiction. The second involves the GM helping achieve clarity on exactly what it is that a player is suggesting introducing into the shared fiction. The first suggests closure. The second suggests invitation. For many RPGers, at least, these differences are a big deal.
Sure. In my world, however, neither is a gamebreaker, they simply send the game in differing directions.
I've certainly seen it argued that 3E does support this, through its rules for Craft and Profession skills. I personally don't agree - I think those skills are, except in the most marginal instances of play, mere colour masquerading as elements of PC build - but I think I'm in a minority in this respect.
I think they reflect those skills being of limited relevance to the focus of the game, so I believe we see this similarly. They can be ignored and rendered worthless in game, of the GM can arrange possibilities for them to be useful. They can, if nothing else, earn a few coins, and possibly insinuate one into a locale (he doesn't just sit at the Inn drinking, but gets a job and does something productive).
Well, considering that the game has zero mechanics to govern this, isn't that kinda like saying we should assume Chess supports Snakes and Ladders?
Someone else agrees on the relative importance of profession/craft skills. No, and we should similarly not assume any playstyle not perceived as supported was intended to be supported, absent some explicit statement.
Why did you ignore the next line though. The part you made extra big refers to a standard skill check. No one disagrees with that. But, a perfectly valid reading of the rules says that ANY skill check can be foreshortened to a single action with a -10 penalty. That's how English works. If the limitation applied to all checks, then the limitation would be listed AFTER the exception, not before.
Agreed - if the player is willing to take that -10 penalty. To my mind, making that check covers getting the chamberlain to sit still long enough to hear the request, and to present the request successfully - his attitude is changed. Now we assess whether, with that changed attitude, you can get to see the king (now, later, whatever) under any other constraints relevant to access to the king.
But, again, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Rules are always interpreted in the least advantageous manner for the players and the most advantageous for the DM in a DM Force game.
To exactly the same extent they are always interpreted in the most advantageous manner for the individual player (what is the DM's "advantage"?) in a non-GM Force game. I think both have more balance, but you seem polarized. Sorry about your bad past experiences, but I didn't run them. Assuming bad faith on the part of GM or player will cause any system t fail, IMO.
You guys are stating that like it's even relevant. It doesn't matter how popular 4ed is now. What's important is that *indeed* enough people wanted a balanced game that WoTC listened, but they failed by making the classes way too similar and boring in the process. Maybe some other elements were also responsible, I don't know, I didn't play it.
So clearly it was what you wanted, then? I'm unclear what your actual point is in all of this.
In the sort of play that I (at least) am talking about, and I think @
Hussar also,
these are the same thing. What happened to Luke is simply one option the GM has for negating the failure of a Diplomacy skill check.
Or it is an example of an NPC not prepared to listen to diplomacy. Or it indicates Luke sucked up the -10 penalty to get a fast check, and he failed. Sadly, you can't get closed captioning with the game mechanics typed in.
The dichotomy that you are trying to set up makes as much sense to me as the following: when Luke swung his lightsabre at Darth, and failed to strike him down, was that because his attack roll failed, or simply because Darth was able to parry him?
Or a reskinned Stoneskin spell, or an effect provided by a Lightsaber Parry special ability of a Jedi Knight, or a special feat...
What is this thing you call "the adventure", with which you, as a player, are good? I can't see that it is anything but a sequence of events authored, in advance, by the GM - and what you are good with is the GM using force to ensure that that series of events unfolds in play.
If you have a better term for the series of events that unfold in play, I'm open to it. We'll have to rename "adventurers" as well, I suppose.
In the playstyle that I personally prefer there is no adventure which is something that I (as GM) expect the players to be "good with". If the players want to meet with the King, and if the action resolution mechanics yield that outcome, then that is the adventure.
Oo! - how exciting and challenging - we made a
die roll.
The key question, to my mind, is "How do we learn which approaches cannot resolve this specific challenge?" In my preferred playstyle, we learn that via play. The PCs try an approach, the players make their action declarations, and we find out together what happens.
And the player attempt at diplomacy which fails is, to me, learning via play (rather than learning by someone telling us) that the Chamberlain is not admitting us to see the King.
I don't see the rationale for the GM deciding in advance what will or won't work unless you're trying to run the sort of scenario that @
Hussar calls a "pixel bitch". Despite the pejorative label, this can be fun for a certain sort of tournament play, but I couldn't envisage it as a fulltime approach to play.
Again, I perceive more of a balance here than you do. The fact the players feel a need to speak to the Chamberlain implies it has been decided one must access the King through the Chamberlain, and cannot simply stroll in at his leisure. The game, the adventure, call it what you will, does not take place in a vacuum.
Why has the GM framed the meeting with the Chamberlain if the players, via their PCs, can't actually achieve anything. What is the point? The only point I can see is colour. By saying "you would rather play out the failur of your efforts" - in circumstances in which that failure has been preordained by the GM - you seem to be saying that you simply want to experience the colour. (What else is there here but colour, plus perhaps a bit of backstory narration from the GM?)
Who says the GM framed it? Why cant the players decide their PC's will attend upon the Chamberlain to seek an audience with the King?
It's fundamentally no different from playing out the repartee between PC and shopkeeper as the PC goes about buying iron spikes and rations.
If seeing the King is important and non-trivial, that is the difference to me. Buying spikes and rations is trivial (until, for some reason, it is not). The very fact we play something out indicates "not trivial".
If the real action is not going to start until my PC knows the Chamberlain won't admit visitors, then my very strong preference as a player would be to be told that by the GM - perhaps "Although you've been trying for some time to get an audience with the king, the Chamberlain won't admit you, and indeed gossip around town is that he won't admit anyone." Now I can start playing the game!
So we differ in our preferences - I don't see that as surprising. I'd be surprised if you do.
It puzzles me that you can't see the option that you have exluded here, especially as it is the generic approach to D&D combat. In the typical D&D combat, the GM does not simply tell the players that their PCs cut their way through their foes with no losses.
Actually, I would consider doing just that where the combat itself is trivial.
Nor does the GM simply tell the players that their PCs are repulsed, each lose 20 hp, and will have to find another way of beating their enemies.
No, it's become non-trivial now.
Typically, rather, the action resolution mechanics are engaged and the players actually play their PCs. They might win, or might lose. We don't know in advance!
Actually, with tight math on challenges, I can have a pretty good idea who will win, but typically we observe the game conceit that challenges are within the PC's capabilities, but not pushovers.
In "indie" style play the Chamberlain encounter will unfold the same way. If we go with TwoSix's (a) above, then the players declare actions for their PCs, and we see how that unfolds - maybe they get to see the king, maybe not. If we go with TwoSix's (b) above, then the focus of the action is on the PCs finding out why the Chamberlain won't talk, and the PC's declare actions relevant to that. But either way the players have a goal for their PCs, the GM is providing the antagonism, and the action resolution mechanics resolve the conflict.
You have misunderstood me. I'm not talking about GM prep vs GM improvisation. I am talking about what the players do when actually playing the game. In a game in which the GM has predetermined how a scene will unfold, and the players have to find the "key" (or one of the keys) that will "unlock" the scene so they can get to the next stage (eg meeting the king), then a lot of playtime gets spent on planning, trying to work out which approaches will work and which won't, and so one. The players will tend to avoid committing their PCs to action resolution, because they run the risk of failing - eg having the Chamberlain walk away - and then getting stuck unable to progress.
I interpret this a bit differently, but let's start at the start. You comment regularly about "fail forward". To me, failure to get past the Chamberlain to see the King is not "loss", it is "move forward". If it is loss, then I agree - an uncooperative chamberlain is a bad idea. Must there be a single key? No. Must every possible approach be guaranteed a possibility of success? Also no, at least IMO. You appear to have locked in on "meeting the King" being the only possible next step (or "lose the game", I suppose). I don't see it that way. Perhaps there are ways to access the King without persuading the Chamberlain, other means of persuading the Chamberlain, or means of accomplishing the PC's goals (not defined in our scenario) without achieving the objective of meeting the King. The game's success or failure should not hinge on "getting past the Chamberlain right now". If it does, that should be clear, and the PC's should have the ability to get in to see the King.
OK. So in what way, then, is ingame causal logic being upheld? For instance, how does the GM work out if you arrive in time for whatever it is you're going there for? Whether or not the person you are hoping to visit is out of town for the week visiting her sister? Etc etc.
Why does it always come back to this. Let's shout it out HEY OUT THERE! HAS ANYONE EVER PLAYED A GAME WHERE YOUR TRAVEL TIME DETERMINES WHETHER YOU ARRIVE AT A KEY LOCATION LONG BEFORE, OR WELL AFTER, THE ADVENTURE AT THAT LOCATION? No? Me neither. The game may be structured to present time pressure, but I've never seen a game where, by the time the PC's get to AnyTown, the Evil Cultists have long since finished the ritual, and the Demon Lord rules the earth. Oh, if only they had selected Teleport last level, the campaign would not have ended prematurely. This tends to be set by the GM for ramatic purposes, not determined by whether the layers roll exceptionally well, or poorly, on their "Long Distance Travel" skill.
If the answer to those questions is "By rolling on a chart, or setting appropriate odds and rolling them", then you have a prioritising of ingame causal logic over theme (this is the approach that I think would be most consistent with Gygax's advice in his DMG). If the answer is "The PCs always turn up just at the dramatically apposite time" then you have a prioritising of theme and dramatic logic over ingame causal logic.
I've never seen such a chart used, or proposed, in any game I've ever played. Now, I could see structuring a race against time which is truly challenging which will determine the nature of the next challenge (ie prevent the ritual or deal with its fallout) but not "arrive early and there will be an easy mopup of wimpy cultists" or "show up late and your L2 party must now defeat Orcus and his legions in mortal combat or the world will be destroyed".
My personal preference is for dramatic over causal logic. But there is an approach I like even less - namely, where the PCs will always arrive at the dramatically apposite time, but the GM nevertheless rolls for random encounters en route, and makes us play through them. Because those encounters are mere colour - they have no impact on the dramatically relevant question of whether or not we will make it to the city on time. Even worse again is if they are put there so that we can grind enough XP to be of the right level to do the dramatically apposite thing when we get to the city. (I don't know how big a part this is of Paizo's APs, but it is a noticable part of WotC's modules. It is in my view just about the worst approach to pacing a game that I can envisage.)
While the historical model for the game, I prefer the approach taken in, say, Zeitgeist which suggests "level at the speed of plot". However, that actually works better in that AP where it is keyed to reaching specific stages of the scenario's overall plot than it would in a sandbox where we don't know the plot. And really, a "story award" is just another means of advancing at the speed of plot. If we are going to play by the "XP earned" model, then my definite preference is actual, planned, relevant encounters, not random wandering monsters. But guess who sets those planned, relevant encounters?
Ultimately, "level up" is a D&D artifact itself. Needing to gain xp would not be an issue in most Hero games, for example, but two groups of identical points may have vastly differing combat abilities from the outset in that point-buy system. The whole "zero to hero" model is, itself, a very specific playstyle.
What if the player has ways of accruing further bonuses - bonuses from his/her friends assistance, bonuses from the circumstances (eg the PC reveals that he knows the Chamberlain's deep dark secret; or perhaps reveals that he is the one who can lift the curse from the Chamberlain's daughter), bonuses from drinking a Potion of Eagle's Splendour, bonuses from action or hero points in those 3E variants that use them?
Resourceful players will have all sorts of ways of lowering DCs or gaining bonuses.
One logical next step is to seek out more info on the Chamberlain (and/or the King) to determine strategies which would better dispose them to receive these visitors. Maybe we can actually use the Rogue's skills at Gathering Information to discover that the Chamberlain's daughter is under some foul spell, which the Wizard's Arcane Knowledge makes him aware of a cure, but we need a rare plant. Luckily, the Ranger knows where such a plant might be located due to his Knowledge of Nature and Geography. Now the Bard has something to leverage with his Diplomacy skills.
Now, that model involves all the characters - much better balanced, IMO, than "I make a diplomacy roll while the other guys watch and we win".
You are correct that the player has no authority to reframe the scene in contradiction to how I have framed it. (There are nitpicks here. For instance, if my framing contradicts some earlier established element of the fiction, the players are free to remind me and seek a correction. This has happened from time to time, and not always in trivial matters - for instance, on one occasion the players reminded me that the way I framed a particular interaction with an NPC had to have regard to their earlier success in a skill challenge involving that NPC.)
Definitely, we don't want to contradict the prior fiction.
But this is not dictating an outcome. The player has every authority to try and introduce, into the fiction, the proposition that "the chamberlain looks happy and cheerful" - for instance via a successful Diplomacy or Bluff check (or, in 3E, perhaps a Perform check). Likewise the player has every authority to try to make it true, in the fiction that there is no one else in the room besides the chamberlain - perhaps by making an Intimidate check ("Begone, you fools and sycophants. I must speak to the Chamberlain alone!").
This isn't resetting the scene, it is changing the Chamberlain's attitude. He was still Unfriendly or Hostile when they arrived. In combat, an enemy can flee. To avoid diplomacy, one can walk away.
You are talking here about authority over backstory. What resources are you, as a player, using to try and obtain backstory authority? 4e doesn't have much for this (contrast OGL Conan, which does).
Yes, I am. To me, the layer can define their background typically at character creation, but refined in play) and the GM defines the rest of the world. I think a good GM will work to bring those backgrounds to life in the game, and there may be some back & forth in that regard. If a player's background opened the possibility of a prior connection with the Chamberlain, that would make a huge change to the whole scene, and toss out pretty much everything we've discussed.
I don't need to have decided what has happened to the niece, although I may have an idea about that. (But it's obviously not set in stone until it becomes revealed in play - that's the point of the Czege quote. This is different from Gygaxian play, where part of the skill of play is finding out what things it is that the GM set in stone.)
Again, different playstyles. A GM's skill at ad lib becomes pretty important if a player imposes on the scene that "Only the Elixir of Erithamus can revive the niece from the foul enchantment she is under, and it is rumoured to be held in the horde of the Great Wyrm Dasalok high on Mount Avalakthan, half a world away". We're 45 minutes into tonight's gaming session, and we want to leave immediately to retrieve the Elixir - no pressure on you to run the most epic Dragon Hunt in the history of RPG's, right? Oh, and all the other players each added four other artifacts of great mystic power rumoured to be in the Great Wyrm's horde. May as well make it a profitable quest!
For you there may be no difference. The tone of your posts is that you see no difference. For me there is a very significant difference - framing the scene doesn't in and of itself settle the question of whether or not the PCs can reasonably succeed. (I am not a huge fan of the "initial attitude" rules in 3E - again I think a skill challenge approach is superior - but if the players are told that the Chamberlain is not happy to see them they can attempt something other than Diplomacy, such as Bluff or Intimidate or Perform or some appropriate Profession skill (Profession - Courtier?) - whereas declaring, once the player announces a Diplomacy check, that the Chamberlain walks off before 1 minute has passed is a "gotcha". What was the player expected to do? Guess which way the GM would make the call?
Are they told he
is not happy or that he
does not look happy? In 3e parlance, the first may be a Spot check and the second a Sense Motive check. He may be trying to appear indifferent, making it more difficult to perceive his state of mind, or he may make no bones about it, or he may even try to look more curmudgeonly than he is to deter those who are not serious about their need to see the King. To me, learning about this in play is far more fun than having it read off a cue card as though my PC is omniscient.
I have explained upthread why I dislike this aspect of the 3E Diplomacy mechanic. I've explained in this thread that I don't really like the attitude rules either. There are other ways of handling social conflict which I prefer - complex conflict resolution mechanics along the lines of a 4e skill challenge - because they better suit my style of play.
Regardless of the methodology, the difficulty of success must be set somehow. The attitude of the target seems a valid component in setting that difficulty, so someone must determine that initial attitude. I don't want random NPCs any more than I want random monster checks, and to me the GM would be the one to frame that initial stage, and the difficulty we face. As you say, it is his job to provide the antagonists to the PC's - without, I would stress, himself being antagonistic to the players.
It's not remotely hair-splitting semantics. In a skill challenge, as run by default in 4e, the difficulty of the skill checks is set by the DC-by-level charts. The challenge for the players is to find ways of engaging the fiction so as to achieve their ends. So in the case of the non-receptive Chamberlain, the challenge is to first find a way of getting him to listen.
So if I gain 3 levels, the Chamberlain moves from Unfriendly to Hostile? Funny how everyone was so much happier when we were first level!
Of course it dramatically changes the fictional positioning. Does it change the chance of success? That depends on what the players have their PCs do. Perhaps if they lead with Intimidate it might improve their chances of success!
Perhaps. Perhaps it will reduce them. Perhaps it depends on whether they succeed, which requires we determine how easily intimidated the Chamberlain is, another issue not necessarily obvious by looking at him.
No. They don't show we have a preconcetion about how the scene will play out.
What, none? It will not surprise you if a PC leaps across the room to strangle the chamberlain, attempts to play his bagpipes in the antechamber, removes his clothes to caper about in a loincloth or just decides "I don't want to see the king after all" and walks out? There is a pretty wide continuum between "no preconceived notions" and "I have the script - Gods help you should you deviate from it". I suggest a player stating "I spit on the Chamberlains shoes and demand to be admitted to see the King - Diplomacy roll of 37" should not be cheerfully admitted to see the King.
What you are describing here is sceneframing. I think I have already said, multiple times upthread, that I prefer an approach in which the GM has authority over scene-framing. If not, let me repeat it: I prefer an approach in which the GM has authority over scene-framing.
I think we may differ on even what sceneframing means. It appears to cover including a Chamberlain, but in your view not his attitude or willingness to listen to diplomacy. To me, these are also reasonably elements of sceneframing.
The rules say the group is to decide. In my case the group decided in the way I described: I asked the player which PC to frame into the next scene - the dead one (by implication that is going to require some backstory to bring that PC back to life - in all cases that has been worked out by me and the player whose PC is in question), or a new one? The player answered that question. The other players voiced no objection - the group has already decided that each player has prmiary authority over his/her PC, and to the extent that I remember any emotions being displayed by other players, they ranged from indifference to enthusiasm.
I don't see voicing no objection being the same as making a decision. However, I think this clarifies that the group has abdicated their control to the GM and the individual player. So who then makes the decision - you or the player? That is, should there be a disagreement as to the precise results, whose desires prevail? Does the GM have the right to override the player, or does the player have the final say over the GM?
What more do you want as evidence of group consensus? As I noted above, we don't take votes and keep minutes.
Neither do we - maybe that's why I don't post play reports...
This is basically a red herring - or perhaps a motherhood statement. Trust the GM to do what? Until we specify a set of tasks for the GM, and the extent of authority, trust doesn't have any work to do. Would you be wise to trust me to run a Gygaxian game? I don't think so - I know from experience I'm not very good. Would you be wise to trust me to run a CoC game? Again, I don't think so - a good CoC GM is excellent at evoking colour and brining the players along for the ride, and that's not really my thing either. Would you be wise to trust me to run a 4e game? I think I'm at least capable of giving it a shot.
To start, trust that the GM is not out to screw over the player characters, and will not use any authority granted him to consistently and methodically rule against them at every conceivable opportunity. I believe my "trust" comments would have been directed primarily at @
Hussar , who consistently suggests we assume players will act in bad faith, while posting comments that suggest he perceives the GM will always act in bad faith.
Fictional positioning alone, before you even get to the details of the GM's creative responses to the players' creative action declarations, will tend to ensure a diversity of NPCs. (I also don't see any connection between cardboard cuttouts and probabilities of success in action resolution - are all your CR 7 combat encoutners cardboard cutouts because they pose much the same mechanical obstacle to a given 7th level party?)
Comparing to combat, I would expect the opposition comes predefined with attacks and defenses, and that these are not set by a PC who rolls to impose his will that the Orcs are wearing loincloths rather than chain mail, and wielding daggers rather than greatswords. Just as I would expect the attitude of the Orcs comes pre-defined, and is not set as gentle, friendly explorers by a PC diplomacy check.
The question is not whether the NPC's have personality, but who gives it to them - the GM defining, say, that" unfriendly bordering on hostile to visitors" Chamberlain, or the player rolling to make that crusty exterior hide a heart of gold and a deep respect for adventurers.
