D&D General Should players be aware of their own high and low rolls?

[Bill Zebub]

nope... I said if you are taking the chance of success away and letting target (be it NPC orc or PC fighter) decide you make it against the grain and not worth doing... are there corner cases where it will still come up, sure. Most time players will just take it as an autofail and say not worth trying...

it is disincentivizing doing it so the player wont do it instead of just saying "I don't want this can we not do it"
same end result but with more steps.

Except in the case I described WE HAD PVP. Characters took damage and everything. And they knew the rules beforehand.

How can you possibly claim this is equivalent to banning PvP?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know you said "leave it" but can I engage you on this 'asymmetrical' thing?

Must we? Its going to go down a pretty large rabbit-hole not directly related to this thread, and turns heavily on whether one thinks mechanics should apply to some of these areas at all. Its not something I'm sure I have the energy for at the moment anyway (because I've been down this road before and know at least some of how it goes, and I can pretty much guarantee it won't just be you and I involved by the time its done) but its one I have pretty strong feelings about and thus will probably turn into an exercise in repetition pretty quickly.

If the person who controls a character declares an attempt to manipulate another character, and the person who controls the target character adjudicates the outcome, first by deciding whether or not it succeeds, and then if they aren't sure by setting a DC and asking for a roll, then we do have symmetry. In the case of PC acting on NPC, it's the DM who adjudicates using those steps. In the case of an NPC acting on a PC it's the player who adjudicates. It's perfectly symmetrical.

When it becomes asymmetrical is when it's the DM who adjudicates regardless of whether they are initiating the attempt or on the receiving end of it.

Thoughts?

EDIT: That doesn't mean that somebody's personal preference about how to handle these things couldn't require asymmetrical rules. That's valid. I'm just debating which version is truly symmetrical.

I was using "asymmetry" to specifically talk about it being mechanically engaged in one direction (PC to NPC) and not in the other. Since I consider it inadequate to handle on purely narrative grounds for other reasons, any symmetry there I, frankly, don't much care about (though I've already expressed my opinion in general about GMs deciding what the "appropriate" way for PCs to react is--its hazardous even when used occasionally and unacceptable if done regularly).

 

[Thomas Shey]

telling someone the target gets to decide no roll if you hit them or not is just saying you cna't hit them with more steps.

This assumes they'll automatically say "no". My experience in consent-based MUSHing years ago suggests that while this is a concern, its not a given.

 

[iserith]

he means (and I get this alot myself) people will say pages from now no one said that...

Question is why that quote. I'd be willing to bet that poster doesn't really care for the DM having all the power in the situation under discussion. Neither do I. But in effect that's what happens when the DM has a veto on a player's action declaration and the ability to say they are acting in bad faith and uninvite them from future games if there is disagreement. This sets up a strong incentive to defer to the DM's views on what is "metagaming" and what isn't.

 

[iserith]

nope... I said if you are taking the chance of success away and letting target (be it NPC orc or PC fighter) decide you make it against the grain and not worth doing... are there corner cases where it will still come up, sure. Most time players will just take it as an autofail and say not worth trying...

it is disincentivizing doing it so the player wont do it instead of just saying "I don't want this can we not do it"
same end result but with more steps.

It disincentivizes non-consensual PVP, sure, which is the goal of the table rule.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In fact, this discussion about @iserith's pvp rules shed light on this whole debate. There seems to be this belief that if players are allowed to actually make choices they will always only choose the one that is best for them, and never roleplay suboptimal outcomes. And thus we must determine outcomes with dice and rulings, and force them to abide by those outcomes.

Which is a strange position to take for people who claim to be the superior roleplayers.

Note that at least one poster in this thread is on record as stating he expects every player to use any knowledge he has of a situation to his advantage, no matter what, so he presumably would think in this situation that in a purely narrative attempt it would always be narrated to their benefit.

(I have a number of thoughts here after a long time playing in an almost purely narrative environment some years ago, but they're complicated, and again, probably veering at least somewhat off-topic).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Except in the case I described WE HAD PVP. Characters took damage and everything. And they knew the rules beforehand.

How can you possibly claim this is equivalent to banning PvP?

so what... alll you are showing is your extra step added extra complexity and a chance of failure?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This assumes they'll automatically say "no". My experience in consent-based MUSHing years ago suggests that while this is a concern, its not a given.

I made no such assumtion... I even have given examples in this thread of times my players would do things not advantagus... so do not put words in my mouth

 

[Vaalingrade]

What do you mean?

Whenever I point out seeing people posting about how the DM has UNLIMITED POWER and going way too far with it, they demand I catalog every single instance in triplicate, double spaced, front and back and notarized before they believe me, so I'm collecting receipts.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Note that at least one poster in this thread is on record as stating he expects every player to use any knowledge he has of a situation to his advantage, no matter what, so he presumably would think in this situation that in a purely narrative attempt it would always be narrated to their benefit.

(I have a number of thoughts here after a long time playing in an almost purely narrative environment some years ago, but they're complicated, and again, probably veering at least somewhat off-topic).

correct, but it isn't me (maybe leofan or something?) that person went so far as to not being able to imagine narrating a failure without trying to cheat it into a success