A Question Of Agency?

[aramis erak]

There's maybe a little daylight between us, but not much. I think that if for whatever reason someone is thinking about climbing down the wall, it's only fair to describe it as sheer ice with no handholds before they commit to the attempt, because the failure state there is falling (whereas the failure state of failing to climb up from the bottom is remaining at the bottom). I suspect that's how you'd run it, too.

The failure states for failing can be fall from halfway, fall from top, break off a bit of the surface and land under it... or stay at the bottom. isde range there.

 

[prabe]

The failure states for failing can be fall from halfway, fall from top, break off a bit of the surface and land under it... or stay at the bottom. isde range there.

True, but if I'm saying "no" (the way I can in 5E) I'm not going to have the PC fall while trying to climb up. If I'm saying "no" for climbing down, the outcome is a fall the complete height--that's why I give the player a chance to back out of the attempt.

 

[pemerton]

I really don't think this position holds a lot of water. There is clearly an idea that you play your character and are not in control of the setting in the way the GM is in the 1E DMG and in OD&D. You've taken a few edge cases, in areas of the game that were quite specialized (like castle building). But to take that and then apply it to the game generally, I think is faulty logic.

In D&D combat, as presented by Gygax and Moldvay, the player is not just in control of his/her PC ("I attack the Orc"). The player is also - via the combat resolution rules - directly able to contribute to the fiction containing a dead/defeated Orc.

Similarly, the player is able to not just declare "I search for secret doors" but also - via the various resolution options presented - is able to bring it about that if a secret door is noted on the map and/or in the key, then the PC is able to find it.

Whether you want to describe this as being "in control of the setting" is up to you. My point is that it is clearly control over more than just the PC - it includes (as mediated by the resolution mechanics) over the Orc, and over the status of the door as discovered or not.

The same thing is true of opening stuck doors, hearing noise beyond doors, etc. For instance, there is nothing in Gygax or Moldvay's presentation that suggests that the GM can just decide that a certain ogre on the other side of a door goes unheard by the PCs regardless of the results of a hear noise check. (Contrast 2nd ed AD&D, which does suggest exactly this possibility.)

Here's what I expect when I play early D&D and what I strive to do when I run it : I expect the DM to play with integrity. I expect that success will be determined by the strength of our fictional positioning and our dice rolls when it comes to it. I expect that anything that impacts our chance of success will be meaningfully knowable. I expect the DM will not be guided by outcomes when they make judgement calls. I expect that clever play will win the day.

The tools available to me come from my character, but I expect to be able to leverage them to change the fiction. I expect that my decisions and skilled use of fictional positioning will have an impact on what I do and do not achieve. I expect that if I made different decisions it would lead to a different result.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, with respect to classic (Gygax/Moldvay-type) D&D.

2nd ed AD&D is obviously different.

4e D&D is also different, but in a different way from 2nd ed AD&D.

 

[aramis erak]

True, but if I'm saying "no" (the way I can in 5E) I'm not going to have the PC fall while trying to climb up. If I'm saying "no" for climbing down, the outcome is a fall the complete height--that's why I give the player a chance to back out of the attempt.

But that's actually the failure state many games suggest.
Probably also the most realistic, too

 

[Bedrockgames]

In D&D combat, as presented by Gygax and Moldvay, the player is not just in control of his/her PC ("I attack the Orc"). The player is also - via the combat resolution rules - directly able to contribute to the fiction containing a dead/defeated Orc.

Similarly, the player is able to not just declare "I search for secret doors" but also - via the various resolution options presented - is able to bring it about that if a secret door is noted on the map and/or in the key, then the PC is able to find it.

Whether you want to describe this as being "in control of the setting" is up to you. My point is that it is clearly control over more than just the PC - it includes (as mediated by the resolution mechanics) over the Orc, and over the status of the door as discovered or not.

This is not a persuasive argument, and it honestly seems like a deeply flawed one as well. These points have all been addressed multiple times, from just about every conceivable angle. There appears to be some kind of equivocation going on in your use of contributing to/creating the fiction. I mean if taking something that already exists in the setting, an orc the GM has introduced, and defeating it in combat, is the player having narrative power, well I guess narrative power is a pretty meaningless concept in that case, because it pretty much always arises, in every game ever. But you are using that to build an argument for something much greater (the players having far more control of the setting than the they normally do).

First, the players didn't introduce a dead orc. An orc was introduced by the GM, then it was killed by the player acting through their character's attacks. That isn't narrating a dead orc, that isn't contributing a dead orc to the fiction. That is successfully attacking and killing the orc through the powers the pc has in the world. Describing this as narrative power, ignores the logical series of steps and succesful actions that have to occur in the setting in order for that to happen. The secret door is the same: it already existed. The player merely discovers it through an abilty that reflects the character's senses of such things. That isn't the character bringing it about. And again, if all you mean by contributing to the fiction is using a character's abilities to achieve things in the setting, no one here would disagree with you. But you are making a much bigger point and this appears to be serving as a point of equivocation or blurring. Because what the other side objecting to, isn't players finding a secret door using their characters abilities. The thing the other side objects to, or considers not an element of what they mean by agency, is the player being able to invoke things into the setting like events, like mountains, like doors that were never really there in the first place, by a means outside their character's actual powers in the setting. There is something seriously wrong and specious about this argument. I may be missing some fine detail here or there, or not fully analyzing the problem but I think it is very clear that dead orc assertion is a hugely flawed one.

 

[aramis erak]

Yep. AFAIK Burning Wheel isn't like that though. And it has super steep DC curve and compared to D&D it is far easier for the tasks to be simply mathematically impossible, so setting the DC matters far more. I'd imagine that situations where a task that is pretty easy for a skilled character is literally impossible for one that is not skilled in the area are pretty common.

As long as the player has artha of the right type (Fate, IIRC), it is possible to hit any TN. Just insanely unlike to hit anything more than 4 over skill.

Is there any real difference in setting an impossibly high DC and just ruling auto failure?

Yes, in many games. A DC higher than max total on an ability check for the character is a "You cannot pass, but someone else might.". If it's within a point or two in 5E, a bardic inspiration puts it reach. Or a suitable tool.

Let's say a 2d20 GM sets a difficulty of 12, and the player has the relevant rnage of 11 & 3 (base and focus), to succeed, needs 5d20 to roll ≤3 each + at least one trait that helps. Each trait after that is one die allowed to be ≤11. Or you can suck up some help, and an additional die each.

 

[pemerton]

That's a fair question, and I was thinking some about how it likely happens at your table (connected to how plausibility checking likely happens at your table). I realize I'm probably wrong in ways subtle and not, but I'm guessing plausibility checking happens around the table, as in anyone is allowed (doesn't feel like the right word) to call out anyone else for attempting something implausible; I'm also guessing it doesn't happen much (it doesn't happen much at my table, either--I suspect we both have good, good-faith players at our tables). I'm guessing the wall would be established as a sheer wall of ice in your games as a result of a player/character failing a climbing-related check and the GM narrating the failure and its reasons?

In my games, the sheer ice wall would be established as part of framing the scene. So, it's the GM's decision, but it's in the GM's role of adventure-writer/designer, not ... a decision made when the PC decides to try to climb the wall. I get ... prickly when my sense of fair-play gets violated, and deciding the wall is sheer ice when a PC decides to try to climb it would ... grate.

At which point I would have to wonder on what basis the original difficulty of the check was assigned as it obviously couldn't have been based on the the suitability of the wall for climbing as that information didn't exist before the check was made...

My understanding is that, in the real world, people sometimes climb up ice walls.

Moreso in adventure fiction.

That there is an ice wall is something that I would typically envisage as a matter of framing. The obstacle would then follow from that, via the rules. Eg in Burning Wheel the Climbing skill says that climbing a 90-degree ice wall without equipment is Ob 7 (which is a pretty high obstacle). If the check is attempted and failed, one possible narration (depending on context, trajectory etc) would be that the wall is sheer and hence has no handholds. Whether the narration of failure would feed through to setting a difficulty for another character's attempt would (again) depend on context.

In Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP the resolution would be completely different. Sheer Ice Wall might be a scene distinction established via the GM as part of framing. Assuming that the players want to establish, as the resolution of the scene, that their PCs are no longer impeded by that wall, then they would have to declare actions to overcome that distinction. Normally those would be resolved against the Doom Pool, including the distinction as a bonus die. Traits like Climbing (a power) or Acrobatics (a skill) might be part of a player's pool. Depending on how the resolution unfolds, we might find that the PCs easily scale the wall; or alternatively that they make it but with frostbitten fingers (ie physical stress) or even that the ice collapses on them, burying them (if the GM wins the opposed checks and establishes a D12 or D12+ scene complication Buried in Ice).

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a circumstance in which it would be important to frame an ice wall as literally unscalable.

 

[pemerton]

Having a constraint on the decision doesn't mean it's not a unilateral decision.

If the constraint flows from choices made by others, then actually it does.

The question is whether it's acceptable for framing to be unilateral.

Acceptable to whom? To you, apparently yes. In fact - from your posts - you seem to think this is the best approach to RPGing.

Personally I tend to find it makes for a poor RPGing experience. There are exceptions to that - I've mentioned CoC oneshots upthread; and the murder mystery that I refereed recently.

But generally I prefer that framing be done having regard to player input or evinced player concerns. The details of that depend on the particular system and techniques being used. In a system like Burning Wheel the framing should be tightly connected to PC Beliefs, Instincts and Traits. In Prince Valiant the initial framing is more likely to have a fairly generic knight-errant flavour, but which enables the players to quickly push things in directions that reflect and express their concerns for their PCs.

I have seen it advocated on these boards (eg by @Lanefan but not only him) that a GM should prepare adventure/scenario material without regard to which PCs it is for. That would be an example of unilateral framing. That is an approach to GMing that I have not used since about 1984.

 

[pemerton]

Yep. AFAIK Burning Wheel isn't like that though. And it has super steep DC curve and compared to D&D it is far easier for the tasks to be simply mathematically impossible, so setting the DC matters far more. I'd imagine that situations where a task that is pretty easy for a skilled character is literally impossible for one that is not skilled in the area are pretty common.

As @aramis erak has said, there are no "mathematically impossible" tasks in Burning Wheel. A single fate point spent after the roll will open-end 6s.

In Cortex+ Heroic there are no mathematically impossible tasks either, because every check is opposed and its always possible for the opposed roll to be low, even zero if all the dice come up 1s and hence have to be set aside.

 

[prabe]

My understanding is that, in the real world, people sometimes climb up ice walls.

Yes. Highly-skilled people, with specialized tools.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a circumstance in which it would be important to frame an ice wall as literally unscalable.

I think I was specific about "without tools or magic." With the right kind of either, it's not unscalable.