Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[FrogReaver]

I wasn't talking about established fiction. I'm talking about the prep that goes into an NPC. If I know he was an orphan and has a soft spot for that orphanage and its children, which is something the PCs can find out, then they are not going to be able to convince him to burn it down just by a roll. They would need something like hard proof that the kids were really imps or dopplegangers or something.

I think you may be putting the cart before the horse.

If an NPC is established to the DM's satisfaction whether in notes or the fiction that he would not burn down the orphanage then he would not do so. One of the major questions of this thread is whether the DM should use such predetermined behaviors for their NPC's or whether if on game night it might be more fun to have an NPC react a different way.

Now what your question does a good job of is raising the point that it is often desirable to have NPC's unable to be influenced to do certain things. That's a point I think most everyone here agrees with.

So I don't believe your scenario is gong to highlight any important point that hasn't already been highlighted. I really think the interesting part of this discussion is about when an NPC should be designed such that PC's have no chance of success / a 100% chance of failure when it comes to performing those triggering actions.

I think one factor in that regard that hasn't been mentioned is failure that results in nearly the status quo is alot different than failure that escalates the scenario to threatening the PC's lives. I would say that auto-failure that doesn't drastically escalate the stakes in a scene can be introduced at-will with no downside whatsoever. This covers NPC's like merchants giving away their wares and kings giving away their kingdoms.

But I think the other category is one we really should spend more time exploring.

 

[FrogReaver]

It can lead to issues. I've seen it. Due to time constraints I have to improv a lot when I DM. When you come up with a reason that suddenly dates back to when the PCs first met the NPC and before, it can create a situation where if you had known that reason the first time the PCs encountered that NPC, it would have colored how you portrayed that NPC and how the PCs would have interacted with it.

It's not enough to simply come up with a reason for the success. You have to come up with one that won't have changed anything that came before it, which can be hard in some situations.

Agreed. Those are exactly the kinds of interesting tidbits that everyone does but that don't get explicitly stated. We all tend to pick "good" success states or at least the best ones our methodologies will allow. So I don't anticipate he or anyone else would advocate for picking such a justification. But for the novice it's definitely something to note that they should be watching out for when using that playstyle.

 

[FrogReaver]

A possible example of a non-genre-appropriate behavior could be, in a setting where characters are expected to life by a code of honor (such as Arthurian stuff, Old West) a character who not only declined a duel (or equivalent) but hunted down, ambushed, and killed the person who had challenged him. It might be realistic--especially in the Old West, where there was much less honor than popular fiction would have you believe--but it would violate the expectations of the kind of fiction the TRPG is attempting to emulate.

I can see that if such a game or campaign had that expectation. I guess I'm thinking of the question in terms of 5e D&D and I don't see much you can do as a PC that wouldn't be genre appropriate.

Also what about having actions rooted in the fiction? Is that even possible to happen in any game?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Let me lean in on another bit about genre appropriateness. There's been a few examples in the thread about things like getting a dragon to give up it's hoard on a roll or a king his kingdom. This goes to genre appropriateness. In a genre of game that includes dragons having hoards, the genre expectation is that dragons do not give away their hoards. Similarly, in a genre that has kings, they don't give away their kingdoms on a single ask (or really multiple ones). This is where you can leverage genre logic to evaluate action declarations. It doesn't make genre sense for a dragon, which has motivations to amass and keep hoards of treasure, would ever be amenable to give it away just because someone asked for it. It might make genre sense for it to give away it's hoard, but the reasons for that would have to be extraordinary. Same with a king, or even a shopkeeper. Here, genre is doing the work of a 'is this reasonable in this kind of story' test.

It's not reasonable to try to jump a 50 foot chasm in D&D as a low level character not leveraging any special means. This shouldn't be given a roll because the outcome is pretty clear. It is not a feature of my approach that these kinds of declarations receive rolls to begin with. If I do allow a roll, it's because there's something about the action that is both genre appropriate (I can justify a success and failure within genre expectations) and grounded in the fiction (I can justify a success and failure within the existing fiction), and so narrating that an angel shows up and carries the character across because the player succeeded at the DC I set makes sense in the game as it stands. I don't see that happening outside of something being established in the action declaration or previous fiction ('an angel has pledged to save you' kind of thing) that would lead to this outcome being reasonable in the fiction.

 

[FrogReaver]

Without knowing what the established fiction in your example or what action X is, I can't blanket answer your question. This isn't being coy -- what's grounded in the fiction for a given action is directly related to what's currently going on in the scene and what's already been established.

For instance, if it's been established in the fiction that Bob the NPC is blind, and a PC declares they show Bob a picture, then the outcome is that Bob can't see the picture. No roll is available for that action for which any outcome is possible -- showing a blind man a picture cannot make the blind man see the picture. However, if the PC leverages some means that fits the fiction to cure the blindness so they can show the picture, presumably using magic or medicine, then that action is grounded in the fiction in that it acknowledges the blind NPC as part of it's declaration.

I don't see action anywhere in that example that isn't genre appropriate.

I'm going to carry this last example into genre appropriateness. If we're playing a D&D game, then the action to cure Bob with magic is genre appropriate. An action to cure Bob with medicine is not (it's not in the genre understanding of non-magical medicine to be able to cure blindness). However, if we're playing a sci-fi game, then magic is not genre appropriate, but medicine may be (depending on tech levels and whatnot). If the sci-fi setting includes magic via 'sciency' powers, well, then, magic is back on the table as genre appropriate, couched in the proper terminology (psionics, nanites, whatever).

I don't see one here either.

That said I think I've figured out the issue. In a game where the GM is the final arbiter of what fictionally happens you will not tend to have any action that actually happens be genre inappropriate because the GM will see to it that the outcome of the action maintains genre appropriateness. In systems where players have some control over authoring fiction I can see why that would be an important point. Maybe we can agree it's not very meaningful to someone examining it through the lens of 5e D&D and other such systems?

These aren't things that I would consider terribly difficult to grasp. They're not an attempt to carve out anything special. Grounded in the fiction simply means honors established fiction. Genre appropriate simply means that the action makes sense in the genre of game you're playing. These aren't high bars for most players, who are going to do this normally without prompting. I keep bringing them up in these discussions to forestall people from outlandish examples they think match the adjudication methods I'm discussing.

Given the above I don't think it's terribly difficult to grasp why others struggle to understand those statements.

So I have a question then. For 5e D&D what rule of thumb would you give to ensure your methodology is used to not produce "outlandish" scenarios?

 

[fearsomepirate]

I started to read the last couple pages about orphanages and got extremely bored. I guess I'm kind of a dull DM on this front because unless it's an N1 type situation where finding out who matters and who doesn't is the point, I more or less tell my players if some detail they're obsessing on is irrelevant. If I fill in much information beyond "Well, the orphans live here. Big ol' place," I will definitely try to make it relevant, because players can't help avoid thinking that if I put effort into the description, it's not a total waste of time to look at it.

I had something like the OP happen in Out of the Abyss. The offending player got roasted and eaten by the mighty Themberchaud. The way players learn to be smart is by severe, merciless, and hilariously overdescribed consequences for being dumb.

 

[FrogReaver]

Let me lean in on another bit about genre appropriateness. There's been a few examples in the thread about things like getting a dragon to give up it's hoard on a roll or a king his kingdom. This goes to genre appropriateness. In a genre of game that includes dragons having hoards, the genre expectation is that dragons do not give away their hoards. Similarly, in a genre that has kings, they don't give away their kingdoms on a single ask (or really multiple ones). This is where you can leverage genre logic to evaluate action declarations. It doesn't make genre sense for a dragon, which has motivations to amass and keep hoards of treasure, would ever be amenable to give it away just because someone asked for it. It might make genre sense for it to give away it's hoard, but the reasons for that would have to be extraordinary. Same with a king, or even a shopkeeper. Here, genre is doing the work of a 'is this reasonable in this kind of story' test.

It's not reasonable to try to jump a 50 foot chasm in D&D as a low level character not leveraging any special means. This shouldn't be given a roll because the outcome is pretty clear. It is not a feature of my approach that these kinds of declarations receive rolls to begin with. If I do allow a roll, it's because there's something about the action that is both genre appropriate (I can justify a success and failure within genre expectations) and grounded in the fiction (I can justify a success and failure within the existing fiction), and so narrating that an angel shows up and carries the character across because the player succeeded at the DC I set makes sense in the game as it stands. I don't see that happening outside of something being established in the action declaration or previous fiction ('an angel has pledged to save you' kind of thing) that would lead to this outcome being reasonable in the fiction.

This was very helpful.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can see that if such a game or campaign had that expectation. I guess I'm thinking of the question in terms of 5e D&D and I don't see much you can do as a PC that wouldn't be genre appropriate.

Also what about having actions rooted in the fiction? Is that even possible to happen in any game?

I would hope it's the standard strived for in all games, actually. Almost everyone that's posted in this thread has seemed to want to ground things in the fiction. Even as I disagree with @Lanefan's examples of play as a matter of preference, I don't see what he does as anything other than being grounded in the fiction. @Lanefan doesn't run how I do, nor do I think I'd enjoy his games (again, preference), but he's a very principled and coherent advocate for his style and I don't see anything wrong with it. As a matter of general principles, we agree to more than we disagree, but our disagreements go straight to core preferences for me, and, I think, for him.

 

[prabe]

I can see that if such a game or campaign had that expectation. I guess I'm thinking of the question in terms of 5e D&D and I don't see much you can do as a PC that wouldn't be genre appropriate.

Also what about having actions rooted in the fiction? Is that even possible to happen in any game?

For the first, I think there are a few angles. It might depend on how much you want D&D to emulate fantasy novels (and which ones). It might depend on what you feel is appropriate in your world (such as if a GM decides not to allow gunpowder in his games). It might depend which moral questions if any you want to put the PCs in the position of asking (such as the infamous example of killing the baby orcs).

As for rooted in the fiction ... There's plausibility, but that's not all of it. There's something like Chekhov's Gun (If a gun is on the mantel in the first and second acts, it must be fired in the third act; if a gun is fired in the third act, it must be on the mantel in the first and second acts). There's consistency, both character-consistency and world-consistency. There are probably angles I'm not thinking of here.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't see action anywhere in that example that isn't genre appropriate.

Well, I'm talking about grounded in the fiction here, not genre inappropriateness, so I wasn't presenting examples to illuminate that.

I don't see one here either.

You think it's genre appropriate to declare an action to cure a man of blindness using a magic spell in a hard sci-fi game?

I think that we are either talking past each other in some fundamental way, or the nature of our disagreement on this subject may be intractable.

That said I think I've figured out the issue. In a game where the GM is the final arbiter of what fictionally happens you will not tend to have any action that actually happens be genre inappropriate because the GM will see to it that the outcome of the action maintains genre appropriateness. In systems where players have some control over authoring fiction I can see why that would be an important point. Maybe we can agree it's not very meaningful to someone examining it through the lens of 5e D&D and other such systems?

No. I run 5e primarily. Genre appropriateness is very important to me. I run a high-fantasy game in Planescape, so players declaring actions about building a bomb using modern chemistry would be genre inappropriate for me -- the action would fail because alchemy, not chemistry, is real in this setting.

I don't really see how choice of game invalidates genre expectations in any way.

Given the above I don't think it's terribly difficult to grasp why others struggle to understand those statements.

I'm at a loss, honestly, that they aren't grasped. This seems obvious to me and I really don't understand your objections. Like, really, I honestly don't. I'm baffled.

So I have a question then. For 5e D&D what rule of thumb would you give to ensure your methodology is used to not produce "outlandish" scenarios?

That the scenario be grounded in established fiction and be genre appropriate. I really can't do better because these are such fundamental things to my understanding of play that this should be obvious. I admit to being flummoxed.