Back at Post 182, I suggested that the reason some people experience balance problems and that others don't is because of difference in playstyle, including differences in GMing techniques.
Absolutely. But I am going to take this a bit further, in possibly an unpopular direction. Hopefully, this is accepted as being in the interests of furthering the discussion. Even more hopefully, it will be useful to some readers.
For a couple of pages there seemed to be some degree of agreement with this, but then the dynamic took a turn that from my point of view is curious: namely, a number of those who don't have balance issues started posting that those who do have balance issues are playing the game wrong, and in particular are using the wrong GMing techniques.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. Let us assume that the game is designed to be balanced under certain playstyles, and this is intentional, not accidental, design. If I am attempting to run the game under a different playstyle from that for which it was designed, is the fact that the game now fails evidence that the game was wrongly designed (it does not work when you use it for something it was not designed to do) or that I am playing it wrong (I am attempting to use it for something it was not designed for)?
If 4e is a great fit for your playstyle, and not mine, while 3e fits my playstyle perfectly, but fits horribly with yours, the answer is not to change 4e to better match my style and 3e to better match yours. It is for us to play the games that match our playstyle. Changing 4e for me makes it less useful for you. Changing 3e for you makes it less useful for me. Rather, I suggest the designers should assess what they are trying to design, be up front about that (eg. Hero notes it wants to simulate cinematic reality, and as such is unrealistic in many places if you want gritty realism, you might need a different game system).
I don't see why one particular group of posters, whose playstyle I have no reason to think is the majority (nor even necessarily the single most prominent), should get to define what counts as proper D&D play on a board that is one of the biggest D&D boards around. And even if take one particular iteration of the game, I don't see that either.
From my point of view, the position that many posters seems to have arrived at on this thread - namely, that 3E/PF relies for balance upon a high degree of GM oversight of resolution and framing of situations, having regard not just to thematic concerns but to features like relative mechanical capabilities of different characters and the GM's desires as to the sequence in which certain outcomes will occur - as confirming what I said back in post 182. Yet it continues to be presented, by some posters at least, as if those who are not interested in those techniques are just playing wrong.
If we:
- assume that was the model the designers had in mind (either high GM overisght or players deliberately and intentionally playing in the spririt of a good, entertaining game and not game-breaking rules interpretations and out of genre play) – and I agree it is not explicitly stated;
- we then observe that those playing under that model have successful, balanced games, which several posters report to be the case;
- we next observe other posters who, whether knowingly or not, have a different playstyle, and as a result experience poor balance and/or other negative gameplay experiences.
Then I suggest that it is reasonable to assert that, by applying a playstyle, GM techniques, whatever outside those assumed by the game designers – ie different from those the designers created the game around – are, in fact, playing the game “wrong”.
The main flaw, in this case, is a failure to spell out the design parameters in the rules themselves.
It is also asserted, though, by at least some of those posters, that 3E/PF is a very flexible RPG. If it requires such a distinctive approach to GMing to work, I'm not sure where exactly its flexibility is meant to reside.
I would suggest many degrees of flexibility can exist. “Flexible” does not mean “universal”. However, I also question whether the flexibility may be overstated.
While the plurality of the D&D playing base continues to be unrecognised by or an target of hostility for some posters, we will have debate as well as discussion.
The fact that 5e acknowledges a variety of playstyle preferences indicates that the designers have at least reached the point of recognising plurality. Whether their approach to dealing with that plurality will succeed remains to be seen. Can the game, with modular rules, be all things to all gamers?
I think @
ImperatorK 's point is that the sort of game he is looking for from PF/3E is not a farmer game, or anything like a farmer game, but a pretty generic heroic fantasy game of the sort that D&D presents itself as being able to provide. (For instance, look at the Foreword to Moldvay Basic.)
Well and good. But perhaps it is also not designed as an “Indie Game”, despite the designers not recognizing their own design parameters, and that is why it breaks when pressed into service as one. And perhaps changes to make it a better “Indie Game” make it poorer when used to run a game under its original design parameters.
This is true, but I don't think that this sort of player authority over backstory has ever been a widespread approach in D&D play. The only two versions of D&D that really have the mechanics to support it are 4e (with its super-quick monster build rules) and classic D&D (with its random charts). But classic D&D never even hints at this sort of play, putting a strong emphasis on GM authority over backstory and scene-framing; and 4e barely hints at it in the DMG (there is one sidebar by James Wyatt, but even there the example is of the player determining very local backstory, about the trap on a statue and the treasure behind it) and the DMG2 suggests it as possible playstyle but without providing any significant support for how to handle it. (Unlike OGL Conan, for instance, there is no suggestion of rationing via a points system.)
I agree it has not been a widespread approach, but I am more trying to get a handle on what, in your playstyle, is open for the GM to set, and what is open for the players to either set or modify. All I’m really seeing at this point is “anything the players wish to achieve must be within the realm of possibility based on their character resources”. That is, we cannot have a chamberlain so obstinate that the characters cannot talk their way past him. Whether their characters are all 8 CHA clods with no social skills, or include a 28 CHA Bard with 19 ranks in diplomacy, it simply must be possible to both succeed and to fail. So what if the Bard wasn’t there the first time, but shows up the second? The Chamberain has been replaced with someone far less accommodating?
Here is what you said: "Perhaps there is more to the adventure than immediate access to the King. I’m good with that, as a player." That is, the adventure to which you refer encompasses more than just the events which have unfolded in play. It encompasses events which haven't occurred yet, and it rules out certain events occurring (like meeting the king at this particular moment of play). Where does this adventure come from? Who conceived of it? Who is in charge of ensuring that the actual play at the table conforms to it? My sense is that, at your table, the GM has primary responsibility for these things. That is why I regard your playstyle as an instance of "storytelling" play as I characterised that style at post 182. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be corrected, but then if you're not playing in storyteller mode why would it matter whether the PCs meet the king now or later?
Let’s go back there…
182 said:
* What I would call "storyteller" style - MJS and @
Wiseblood in this thread (perhaps also @
Savage Wombat ) seems to be a proponent of this style. In this style the numbers are of secondary importance - they tell us something about the PCs nature and place in the world (we can tell a fighter is tougher than a mage, for instance, because s/he has more hit points) - and thinking of PC build as the generation of metagame resources is probably anathema, or at least a munchkin tendency. The GM is expected to play a big role not just in framing challenges and controlling the fiction external to the PCs more generally, but negotiated understandings about where the fiction is heading - with the GM having the preeminent say, in the event of disagreement - is more important than action resolution via mechanical means ("roleplaying not rollplaying"). On this style, it is taken for granted that a spell like planar binding may require the GM to adjudicate it in play, and the player is expected to simply accept that adjudication and give voice to his/her PC's reaction to what happens. For those who play in this style, there is probably no general truth about whether fighters or wizards are more potent, because at any given table in any given campaign that is much more a consequence of how an individual player roleplays his/her PC and how the GM responds to that - purely mechanical considerations are of less (perhaps much less) significance
You are assuming the GM has decided to make it simply impossible to see the King. Let’s go back to my 8 CHA clods and 28 CHA bard example. Let’s further assume the Chamberlain has appeared before, and the players were barely able to mollify him thanks to a great roll by that Bard (back when he only had +16 diplomacy!). But the Bard is gone. The best Diplomacy roll in the group is -1.
Perhaps in your game the Chamberlain has become so much more cheerful and pleasant that he graciously lets anyone in to see the king. In my game, the Chamberlain has now become backstory. He is not miraculously more accommodating because the PC’s no longer possess the skill set to deal with his former self. He has not become possessed by the Blue Bird of Bliss. So they no longer can get past him.
And if they tell me their first level characters will seek out an ancient red dragon to kill so they may loot its hoard, this will not cause that creature to become a challenging yet winnable fight for their first level characters either.
But it seems to me this really is the crux. There are some RPGers who regard mechanics as a necessary evil, mostly for resolving combat. There are other RPGers who regard mechanics as the key to RPG play - they are what distinguish it from storytelling (whether shared storytelling, or GM-authored storytelling), because they provide a system for distributing narrative authority in a regimented way which nevertheless produces surprising results.
I think it is a RolePlaying Game – two aspects which should balance one against the other. It should not be purely mechanical nor should the mechanics be meaningless. The sweet spot is somewhere on that continuum.
It is not necessary, to me, that each challenge the PC’s face be one which they can immediately solve. Neither, however, should it be essential that they solve them in some mindless linear fashion. I’m quite fine with AP play, adventure hooks and, yes, having a story in the background, but one which I believe the PC’s can influence.
But for me, succesfully goading your nemesis - the king's advisor who is secretly the evil wizard leading the goblin hordes - into showing his hand and turning on you in front of the Baron and all the assembled worthies of the town - is not "Oo - we made a die roll!"
“I ask to see the king – Diplomacy roll of 37” is, however, and that is all that has been suggested in this instance – that it must be possible for the PC’s to make a roll and be allowed immediate access to the King. I do not believe the success or failure of the game hinges on that being possible.
This implies to me that you are happy for the GM to just decide that. Combined with your apparent dislike of dice-based action resolution, it implies that you (sometimes? generally?) prefer that the GM decide this rather than that it be resolved in some fashion via action resolution mechanics.
It seems to me that both examples provide the players leveraging prior events, many set by the GM, where our Chamberlain comes out of the blue. In the first, we have prior relations with both the Baron and the advisor. The second involves the use of character resources (I assume he had to choose to invest in his Hard Religion skill, and that this took away resources he could have invested elsewhere), as well as backstory on the Duergar. And, one again, “
I had already decided” indicates a measure of GM authority over the resolution of the player’s die roll, so I remain firmly in the “matter of degree” mindset.
Well, how has that come about. Perhaps the group is playing a module, and the module begins by specifying that all the PCs are on their way to visit the Chamberlain to seek access to the king?
Is it somehow superior if this is a module instead of the GM’s own design? I’m uncertain whether there is some specific reason you choose the module reference.
Or, perhaps a player used Streetwise or Gather Information or History or Knowledge (Nobility) or some other relevant skill to learn that the Chamberlain handles the king's diary.
Or, perhaps the GM just said to the players "It's common knowledge that if you want to meet the king you have to go through the Chamberlain."
These are different scenarios, involving different play experiences. But none is about a consequence of action resolution.
I’d say the use of Streetwise or Gather Information or History or Knowledge (Nobility) or some other relevant skill is very much about action resolution.
They are all about GM authority over backstory and scene-framing.
And, once again, I don’t consider that authority to end here. That authority also extends to setting the personality and backstory of the Chamberlain, which in turn sets the likeliness that he will be affected by diplomacy and, in the 3e model, the prospects he will listen to the PC’s long enough that they can make a calm Diplomacy check, rather than a rushed attempt at -10.
Another possibility, that would make the Chamberlain's presence a consequence of action resolution, would be if the players were engaged in a skill challenge to meet the king, and a result of a check had them meeting the Chamberlain (given that the Chamberlain is being obstructive rather than helpful, we can assume it was a failed check). But I don't think this is what most posters discussing the Chamberlain have had in mind. Up until now I've been assuming that we are talking about backstory and scene-framing.
I think the Chamberlain has been part of the picture from the outset, not an inclusion after a die roll. Then again, perhaps that Kn: Nobility check was a fail forward – you blew the check, so you’re not getting in to see the King, but you do learn who controls that access, so now you can work on some way of persuading him to get you in to see the King. But I don’t believe that was anyone’s vision of the manner in which the Chamberlain came into play.
Whereas the GM deciding that the Chamberlian won't help, because it's not time yet in the adventure for the PCs to meet the king, is more than scene-framing - it's also narrating scene outcome.
Above, you made a great deal of setting the timing of a bomb exploding for dramatic, rather than mundane time management, reasons. So it seems that the timing of the explosion is very much scene framing, yet the possibility the King will, or will not, be made available is not. I don’t find the differences between the two compelling. You clearly do.
Of course they can, but as a general rule in D&D there is no action resolution mechanic they can deploy to actually make this decision come true. They are dependent upon the GM framing the scene. At many tables the GM might frame another scene instead, of course ("On your way to the balance you bump into a haughty courtesan . . .").
And you have indicated that the GM possesses this scene-setting authority in your game, have you not? There is no guarantee you will get to the Chamberlain but, having arrived, you must now have the opportunity to be ushered in to the presence of the King? Again, not seeing this bright line differentiation.
Action resolution mechanics that bridge time and geography in such a way as to take these sorts of things out of the GM's hands are still reasonably novel and sophisticated, I think.
Sounds less like a game (role playing or otherwise) and more like shared ad-lib storytelling with a resource management aspect (the resource for assuming control over the fiction).
What you are talking about here is backstory - what sort of gear are the orcs wearing? what is the personality of the NPC? I've already made it clear that I run a game in which the GM has default - though far from total - authority over backstory, and in which the players do not have the resources to make the sorts of changes to backstory that you are talking about here.
Yet they apparently have sufficient power that they can make success in a diplomacy check a possibility (although I am unclear how strong a possibility they can make it).
The reason I would not run the Chamberlain encounter, as described, in my game; and would not enjoy it as a player; is because it satisfies (i), and purports to satisfy (ii), but this second thing is in fact an illusion. The players in fact do not have a chance to resolve the conflict by taking steps within the rules of the game. Their only option is, in fact, to have their PCs leave the scene and look for some other way of persuading the Chamberlain or getting to the king.
I question the scope of the scene. Is it “meeting the chamberlain”, or is it “seeking access to the King”? The latter may be much lengthier, and broader, than the former, and may involve much more than simply being granted or denied access through the discussion with the Chamberlain.
I have no idea what you are talking about here. You are using 3E terminology that has no relevance to the 4e skill challenge rules, and then layering something additional - I'm not sure exactly what - on top of that.
I am not discussing 4e. I do not claim any familiarity with the 4e rules. The thread is not about 4e. I am discussing, because you have moved the discussion there, how we might resolve matters in a hypothetical game system, since the system in question must be conducive to various playstyles that I am not convinced any one existing system is, in fact, conducive to.
All you're telling me there is that your game of choice has poor social encounter resolution rules, because they are too boring to be used when the stakes are high and the drama real (and if the stakes are low or there is no drama, then who cares?). Therefore, the GM, in order to deliver an exciting game, has to push matters in another direction. Which raises the question, why frame a social encounter in the first place if the game's resolution mechanics don't support it?
What made for an exciting game in your examples above? I don’t think it was the mechanics and the die rolling. I think it was what the players and GM brought to it. Let’s restate them in mechanical terms.
With one check still needed to resolve the situation, the player made an Intimidate check. Which failed by one. So the skill challenge was over, but a failure. Now we use a houserule (perhaps, in light of DMG2, not so much a houserule as a precisification of a suggestion in that book) that a PC can spend an action point to make a secondary check to give another PC a +2 bonus, or a reroll, to a failed check. The player of the wizard PC spent an action point. I can't remember now whether I asked for an Intimidate check, or decided that this was an automatic +2 bonus for Derrik - but in any event, it turned the failure into a success.
Two things. One, stripped of the actual colour, which could be applied to any number of mechanics, this seems less than exciting. Second, emphasis added, I thought it was the mechanics, not the GM, deciding the outcome. Given that +2 would mean success, and the players knew that, whether they would get guaranteed success or another roll seems pretty important to how much power they have over action resolution.
The invoker-wizard got cut down, and was brought back to consciousness via some sort of healing effect. The player succeeded at a Hard Religion check, and got a potion vial
Again, the drama is really added by the GM and players, not by the mechanics.
None of this is "fail forward" either. Fail forward means, roughly, that you succeed at your task but fail at your intent. So your suggestion upthread, that the PCs persuade the Chamberlain to admit them to the king, but in circumstances in which the king is going to feed them to the royal hyenas (was it?), would be a good example of "fail forward" on a failed Diplomacy check against the Chamberlain. Now the scene keeps going, and the challenge facing the PCs is to persuade the king to spare them (or, perhaps, to deal with the hyenas).
So the players may never fail with their stated intent. This seems just as prone to adversarial play, should that be the desire of the participants, as any other form of Calvinball. We get to keep making up reasons we might make our ultimate success, the GM gets to keep describing things that get us closer to our goal without success until, finally, we get a successful roll and now the GM has to give us what we want.
What is the equivalent, in social encounters, to the OA against the fleeing enemy? Different social resolution systems can have different ways of handling this, but good ones don't just let one party walk away without cost - otherwise the action resolution system isn't actually producing binding changs to the fiction.
Here we find the
real failing of the 3e interaction mechanics – they do not, by RAW, apply against the PC’s, so they get to ignore any check, however successful, even with that -10 penalty, but hey, we should also interpret the rules so the NPC’s can never walk away, I never actually get subjected to that “extra time” rule and ‘friendly” is a synonym for “sock puppet”!
