D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants

[Nefermandias]

Interesting. Outside of optimizing party tactics and character build optimization I always found playing through 4e combat to have a rather low skill ceiling - as in high skilled play mattered very little in the outcomes. What tended to matter most was the character builds.

Used to be true in 3.5e.
In 4e, turn by turn decisions, positioning and resource management were way more important than character builds. Heck, I would argue that it's nearly impossible to "funk up" a build in 4e.

Watch the language, please.

 

[Ovinomancer]

What do you include in "system"?

I don't understand this question. A game system is the rules and necessary pieces to play that game. In Monopoly, it's the rules, the money, the property cards, the Chance and Fortune cards, the players (and their tokens), the dice, and the board. If you lack any part of this, you can't play Monopoly. Together, they make a game system.

RPGs usually include the rules of the game, the necessary artifacts of play (character sheets, reference tables, etc.), dice, players, tokens, maps, etc, etc.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I guess denial really isn't just a river in Egypt lol but okay.

I love this totally ridiculous idea that unless a problem is "endemic" to 5E it's "not a 5E problem". Talk about defensive. Plus the number of wildly inaccurate assertions about my table and what I'm thinking and so on are pretty fun.

Oh, I'm the last person you could call defensive about 5e. I'm usually attacked for discussing 5e in less than stellar terms.

And, no, I'm not in denial. The issue you're talking about is a table problem. It's a mismatch in play agendas between the players and the GM (who is also a player). What you're trying to say is a problem with 5e is that it doesn't have tools to paper over this table problem for the GM. That there's no rules or support for forcing the GM's preferred mode of play on the players, because 5e gives too much authority to the players to declare actions in the ruleset that thwarting those actions to the GM's preference would be obvious and damaging. For this to be a 5e problem, you'd have to claim that a goal of 5e is to enable the GM to leverage Force in a clandestine fashion to prevent this specific set of behaviors. I mean, I guess you can say this a problem with 5e, but I wasn't starting from the position that this was a desirable feature set.

So, in shorter form, if you want to force players to play how you want them to without being obvious about it, and want 5e to support this, then this lack is a 5e problem -- it won't do this for you.

But, behind that want is the fact that you, as the GM, have a different play agenda from your players. Expecting game systems to resolve this is, to me, quite silly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But, behind that want is the fact that you, as the GM, have a different play agenda from your players. Expecting game systems to resolve this is, to me, quite silly.

I love how you're making this personal and about me, when this is in fact not typically a problem at my table lol. If anything my players tend to forget they can rest and my love of adventures involving travel is what creates the problem when it does appear. It's also a problem I've seen and that others have complained about, and indeed a lot of people have dedicated a lot of space to addressing, and it's happening because of the 6-8 encounters thing.

 

[Umbran]

I guess denial really isn't just a river in Egypt lol but okay.

I love this totally ridiculous idea that unless a problem is "endemic" to 5E it's "not a 5E problem". Talk about defensive. Plus the number of wildly inaccurate assertions about my table and what I'm thinking and so on are pretty fun.

Folks, don't make it personal, please.

If I may, I think I see the mismatch - you seem to be asserting that it is a problem seen in 5e. He seems to be asserting that this problem can occur in any game, and so is not a problem specific to 5e. This is important, in that the best solution for it is not specific to the 5e rules rules at all, but lies in setting of expectations among the players.

All the rest of this is head-butting that makes neither of you look particularly wise. So, you know, think on that.

 

[Imaro]

I just don't what sort of genre I'm meant to be thinking myself into where a character is tough enough to fight a balrog in melee but drowning is a serious risk.

Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and Gray mouser all can fight off and kill eldritch creatures and yet drowning is a serious risk to them...

 

[Ovinomancer]

I love how you're making this personal and about me, when this is in fact not typically a problem at my table lol. If anything my players tend to forget they can rest and my love of adventures involving travel is what creates the problem when it does appear. It's also a problem I've seen and that others have complained about, and indeed a lot of people have dedicated a lot of space to addressing, and it's happening because of the 6-8 encounters thing.

Generic yous. My bad.

 

[clearstream]

I don't understand this question. A game system is the rules and necessary pieces to play that game. In Monopoly, it's the rules, the money, the property cards, the Chance and Fortune cards, the players (and their tokens), the dice, and the board. If you lack any part of this, you can't play Monopoly. Together, they make a game system.

RPGs usually include the rules of the game, the necessary artifacts of play (character sheets, reference tables, etc.), dice, players, tokens, maps, etc, etc.

It wasn't a trap, I just wanted to check we were referring to the same thing. And I believe we are talking about the whole system, no exclusions. In another thread about "skilled play" I read posts such as the following (forgive lack of more context, these have been long threads) -

I think that an athletics check could be involved in skilled play, sure.

Just rolling an athletics check to kick down a door isn't skilled play.

Rolling an athletics check would surely be using the system and capable of efficiently leading to achievement of goals. The sentiment was mirrored in different ways by other posters. So something is going on there. Some distinction between using an available mechanic efficiently and effectively, and withholding from using those same mechanics because it would not be "skillful" to do so (even - or possibly especially - if they efficiently lead to achievement of goals!).

I'm reminded of Bernard Suits who said that

To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude].

What I felt is that under "skilled play" there are rules in play prohibiting use of more efficient means (available mechanics) in favour of less efficient, to make "skilled play" possible. The rules in question are not in the game system, they are brought to the table by the players.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Rolling an athletics check would surely be using the system and capable of efficiently leading to achievement of goals. The sentiment was mirrored in different ways by other posters. So something is going on there. Some distinction between using an available mechanic efficiently and effectively, and withholding from using those same mechanics because it would not be "skillful" to do so (even - or possibly especially - if they efficiently lead to achievement of goals!).

I'm reminded of Bernard Suits who said that


What I felt is that under "skilled play" there are rules in play prohibiting use of more efficient means (available mechanics) in favour of less efficient, to make "skilled play" possible. The rules in question are not in the game system, they are brought to the table by the players.

I realize you were simply quoting me in response to someone else, but I wanted to chime in and say that the intent is the opposite of your impression.

SP is intended to set the odds in your favor by eliminating the risks inherent to probability (assuming that your odds are less than 100%). This could be as simple as using a safety line while climbing a towering cliff, rather than leaving your character's survival to the vagaries of the dice.

 

[clearstream]

I realize you were simply quoting me in response to someone else, but I wanted to chime in and say that the intent is the opposite of your impression.

SP is intended to set the odds in your favor by eliminating the risks inherent to probability (assuming that your odds are less than 100%). This could be as simple as using a safety line while climbing a towering cliff, rather than leaving your character's survival to the vagaries of the dice.

Ah, maybe not the best post to pull out as we went into this sort of thing. In the case that - literally - kicking the door down is perfectly effective, then is it skillful to just make the ability check? Nothing further needed?

At the time, and now, that is what I was getting at. Do you recall the discussion of passwall? That using it might not be "skilled play" even if it was literally the most efficient way to achieve your goals.