D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[FrogReaver]

Again, on this stuff we are just at an impasse. We need to probably talk specifics rather than debate what support means in this context endlessly

Yea. I think a large part of it is the lack of specifics - especially the ‘of what’ and ‘for who’ questions.

A example: The lack of vehicle transportation supported his health as he was forced to walk most everywhere, keeping him in good physical shape.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then Dread is truly the greatest RPG of all time for everything that it supports through nothingness.

I don't know what Dread is. But yes, if it is very rules light or rules non-existent, it supports freeform.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I don't know how to create a definition that would be broadly accepted, but the comparison between Dread and D&D was made above. Dread supports social structures that D&D does not, D&D supports tactical combat in a way that Dread does not. The claim, therefore was that the lack of tactical combat support in Dread is just like the lack of detailed social support in D&D.

Except I reject that because I know nothing about hand tactical combat with medieval-ish weaponry and spells. It's not something I have experience with. I wouldn't have much of an idea of how to handle that or how to resolve it. It's just not in my area of expertise or knowledge.

On the other hand I know how to talk to people. I know through experience and observation how to successfully persuade, cajole or deceive others. I don't need concrete rules or guidelines to do those things in game, they come naturally as a person who lives in a social world. In fact, rules could easily become restrictions that I would run into on a regular basis.

So I need less support for the latter (and disagree that there is no support). In the same way that I don't need details for how gravity works, I don't need details to know how people interact. Comparing detailed tactical rules and social interaction rules is comparing apples and automobiles. They're just fundamentally different.

I saw that and share your sentiment that these are comparing two very different things (something that I think is always a problem in these 'but D&D has so many rules for combat' arguments). Combat you can't really do 1-1 at the table. And you need some way around around that fact, some resolution system. Talking you can do at the table. All it takes is you saying "I say to the inn keeper 'Are black claw demon's men in town?'". That is a pretty easy conversation to have. I don't need mechanical support. Inserting a roll in there can actually get in the way if not handled very artfully.

 

[Lanefan]

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But let's get to another playstyle. Survival.

We are playing a Survival game and the group wants to forage for food or track an fleeing ambusher.

There's many ways to do it.

1. You can do the classic method of all the players describing what their PCs are doing. Looking around. Recalling knowledge. The Players roleplay their PCs. The DM gives details on the environment based on their actions. And at the end, adjudicate their success.
2. You can do the official method. Which is (1) but at the end, the DM asks for a single check or group check to decide success.
3. You can do the complex method. Which is like (2) but after each player describes something, the DM calls for a check and adjusts the situation afterwards.

You can do a mix of these three as well: some specific PC actions either get adjudicated (1) or get their own rolls (2) and the general group also gets a roll (3) to cover off any minor actions or input not big enough to come under 1 or 2.

1. You can do the skill challenge. The DM describes a few actions the PCs can peform and which skills are related to them. The players describe their actions and suggest which skills or ability scores are related (Survial, Nature, Perception)). The DM calls for these checks and tallies the successes and failures to adjudicate their total success or failure.

(iI auto-changed the 4 to 1 here because I split the list, annoying. Pretend it still says 4.)

If the DM is calling for individual checks like this, shouldn't they be resolved in isolation? So for example yes Jocinda succeeds in finding a sheltered campsite and Corach succeeds in catching a few fish in the stream but Brakk fails to find any useful firewood and Petra utterly blows her attempt to forecast the weather. Tramasine, however, is sure she knows which way the group needs to go once daylight returns tomorrow as she spotted a landmark just before darkness fell.

Rather than batching all this together into one overall success or failure, why not play through the ramifications of each aspect? They've now got a good campsite and some food, and they know where they're going tomorrow, but they've no way to cook that food and no idea what the weather's going to do. So what do they do now?

Each method is a valid option. Each method has strengths and weaknesses.

1 and 2 both require players to fully know how to engage in the activity and allows for one player to dominate the event. Which is great if you only have 1 person excited about it (the ranger player) but bad if other players want to be involved but don't know how.

I've no problem with one player (in character) dominating a scene that the characger is largely designed for. Here, a Ranger or Druid should be the star. That's not to say they're the only contributors, though; as with any situation, it's on the players to find ways to insert their characters into the scene.

2 leans heavily on that 1 d20 roll. Which can be good or disastrous.

Yes, and also lacks the required granlarity IMO.

3 allows for a natural progression of actions and allows character stats to shine. But due to the d20, a bad roll can force an anticlimatic lockout. And it dosn't display a clear number of rolls need for sucess.

There is no clear number of rolls needed for success as each roll is treated in isolation of the others. The end result is most often going to be partial success, as in my by-character example.

As for an anticlimatic lockout, doesn't bother me. Not everything works as planned or intended.

4 allows for every player to be involved and involved in a way befitting of their PC. And itallows for some gamism to weigh down the swingyness of the d20. But it requires a gamist structure and breaks the natural flowof conversation.

To the bolded: so do 1-3 in combination.

I'm not a fan of gamism intruding all that much; and the swinginess of the d20 is largely in the DM's hands in any case, by putting these rolls on a sliding scale of success (e.g. Brakk's roll to find firewood could also bake in what/how much he finds, such that on a high 'success' roll he finds lots, on a narrow 'success' roll he finds enough but it's wet or hard to light, on a narrow 'fail' roll he finds some but not enough to last the night, on a worse 'fail' roll he doesn't even find enough to cook the fish, and only on a very poor roll does he not find any at all).

More broadly, this allows one roll to resolve a number of corollary issues simply by putting it on a sliding scale rather than binary pass-fail. Yes it's a bit GM-fiat-y in that the GM has to come up with this sliding scale pretty much on the fly each time; but that too is a bit realistic in that no two situations are going to be the same anyway.

 

[Pedantic]

I feel like that's a little uncharitable because @Crimson Longinus is likely arguing from the perspective that the best way to role-play through social interactions is in a free form way and I actually agree because you're talking over things when you role-play anyway, not trying to simulate coming to blows.

Of course opinions may vary.

That would be an easier conversation to have if instead of arguing for a nebulous freedom arising from lack of instruction, one is instead advocating for freeform roleplaying as the preferred resolution method and reading silence from a game text as an endorsement of that approach. Then it becomes a lot easier to parse what is meant by "support."

In that sense, I think the argument is that any rule is to be read as an active proscription against freeform. The only way you could more actively support freeform as the resolution mechanic would be to do the opposite and write a specific exhortation to use it.

 

[Lanefan]

What that means is, every infiltration attempt will fail. Because the DM will simply keep throwing checks until one fails, and then the whole thing falls apart because every fail is a catastrophic failure. There are no degrees of failure. Did you fail your deception check? Yes, then the other person automatically sees through your disguise and raises the alarm.

First off, is every fail catastrophic? Sure, on a pathetic roll you've blown it big time, but a marginal fail shouldn't automatically be catastrophic. Yes it's still a fail and the person's on to you, but maybe there's a chance to salvage things, or maybe the person doesn't raise the alarm quite yet for reasons of their own, etc.

Second off, does the person always immediately raise the alarm or does the infiltrator get any chance to prevent this, say by knocking the person out (if they're alone) or by trying a quickly-improvised cover-up ("Shhh - I'm part of the entertainment - it's a surprise for the Baron!")?

Every.... single... time.

You've had some uncreative DMs then, I'd say.

 

[Lanefan]

Except that they don't. They only break those styles if you ignore the spells and try to run those styles as if the spells don't exist. If you embrace the spells, you can do all four styles easily. You just have to account for the magic when you do it.

In fairness, the quickest and easiest way to make those styles valid is to just excise a few spells and abilities from the list.

Embracing the spells while still trying to give a particular play experience (e.g. gritty survival and resource management while the party have access to create food and water spells and-or always-successful foraging and-or safe shelter magic) always IME leads to situations way too contrived to be believable.

 

[Oofta]

First off, is every fail catastrophic? Sure, on a pathetic roll you've blown it big time, but a marginal fail shouldn't automatically be catastrophic. Yes it's still a fail and the person's on to you, but maybe there's a chance to salvage things, or maybe the person doesn't raise the alarm quite yet for reasons of their own, etc.

Second off, does the person always immediately raise the alarm or does the infiltrator get any chance to prevent this, say by knocking the person out (if they're alone) or by trying a quickly-improvised cover-up ("Shhh - I'm part of the entertainment - it's a surprise for the Baron!")?

You've had some uncreative DMs then, I'd say.

In my games, sometimes failure is catastrophic, sometimes it means you just don't succeed, other times things still go forward but at a cost of HP, a resource or perhaps a future penalty. There are all sorts of options and it varies depending on the situation.

 

[Lanefan]

So as long as there is anything in the game to aid a PC in any way in a style of play, the game is not supporting the style? No. The existence of tools to aid the PC in survival not only doesn't go against that style of play, it SUPPORTS it. It's a tool to aid the PC in surviving. That's what the style is all about. Finding ways to survive. When the PC gains the ability to create food(and it's a big if that it will even happen), the scenario which is supposed to evolve over time simply evolves to a new way to challenge the PCs' survival.

It would be boring as hell to spend levels 1-20 just trying to find food to survive. You're supposed to overcome that low level challenge and come up against harder ones.

Create food and water aids the survival playstyle. It does not hinder it or force it to change.

Disagree. Create Food and Water actively hinders survival as a playstyle by rendering a significant aspect of that playstyle (food-water management) forever moot.

CF+W aids succeeding in play in the survival playstyle, but that's in no way the same thing as aiding the playstyle as a thing in itself.

 

[Aldarc]

On the other hand I know how to talk to people. I know through experience and observation how to successfully persuade, cajole or deceive others.

It's incredible how often people overrate their own abilities.

That said, while you may have such incredible talents in that area, not everyone does. Should their high Charisma character with Persuasion be at a disadvantage just because the player lacks your distinguished pedigree in smooth-talking to others? My partner is autistic, and trying to find the right thing to say for roleplaying is the opposite of fun for them. I know that @Lanefan doesn't give a crap about what my partner feels in this situation. They told me before that my partner should just "practice." But what do you think?

I don't know what Dread is. But yes, if it is very rules light or rules non-existent, it supports freeform.

Dread is a roleplaying game played with Jenga.

To be clear, I am fine if you prefer freeform roleplaying. What I dislike is when social mechanics in other roleplaying games are snubbed as "rollplay" in a derogatory way to suggest that they are not true, pure, or proper roleplaying.