D&D General Alternate thought - rule of cool is bad for gaming

[Remathilis]

Because a human DM can communicate with, respond to, and understand human players. A computer can't.* A human DM can say to the players, "How should we address this?" A computer can't. A human DM can show both spontaneity and foresight that are well beyond what a computer can do.

*Even the best LLMs and other "AIs" do not understand anything at all. They're just complicated matrix multiplications.


The bold is precisely why it cannot be used.


Nope. A sophisticated nonsapient AI could do clever things. But it could not be kind, enthusiastic, and heartfelt. Only a sapient AI could do those things, and it would be slavery to design such an AI. (Unless, of course, the AI is free to choose...at which point you can't be sure that it will be fair.)

However, if the DM is bound both by the rules and the dice, I fail to see a need. I don't need a DM to apologize to me while he's TPKing the party. I need a DM who can read a room and decide it's probably not in the best interests of the game to use the random encounter result he just rolled.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think I've written that DL-ish/AP-ish module play isn't GM decides: generally, it's a special case of GM decides based on "secret notes".

You are right, my bad.

If the GM can, on the basis of secret notes, have the befriended NPC nevertheless betray the PCs, then the system is 100% GM decides in my view. This comes out in your framing: the players have to declare more actions to detect that something is "off", to gain info about the kidnapped children, etc. As opposed to (just as one example) the successful befriending by the PCs meaning that the NPC shares with them his fears for his children (just as one might with friends).

IMO, Befriending an NPC doesn’t mean spilling their guts to the very people they are being coerced into betraying.

I think you have very unrealistic expectations around what befriending a person means.

What follows from dice rolls? And what rules/constraints govern the GM's decision-making?

If the GM is free to disregard successful checks - as in the NPC betrayal example - then the dice rolls aren't actually moving the procedure away from GM decides. They're just a gloss or twist on it.

I’m sorry, but what check was disregarded in that example?

 

[Remathilis]

If only there were some way to address this without such deception! But alas, you certainly can't just ask your players not to use mounts... that's just unacceptable.

It's bloody weird is what it is.

I had a DM who disliked paladins* for the longest time. He never outright banned them, but be damn sure you were going to lose your paladinhood in a Kobayashi Maru sooner rather than later. Of course, if he could have banned the class altogether, but I suspect he enjoyed making them fall enough to leave them on the table. It didn't take long for us to learn to avoid playing them.

* He actually disliked a lot of things: thieves (he never ran dungeon crawls so he found them useless), druids (nobody played them to test if he would make them fall too), halflings (every NPC ignored or belittled you) and crossbows (the few times someone got one, the bowstring would snap on a bad roll). The game was mostly filled with human and elf fighters and mages and the occasional other class like a ranger or specialty priest).

 

[Lanefan]

Assuming running is possible, which it often isn't because most monsters move faster than most PCs.

Rare indeed is the party - even at low level - in which at least someone doesn't have the means to get away and-or hide.

The only limiting factor can occasionally be that there's nowhere to run to e.g. the party and its foes are stuck on a little tiny demiplane.

 

[Lanefan]

wouldn't that be the player's decision so explicitly the one thing the GM doesn't have control over? or do you expect them to decide a decisively winning side develops an intense bout of cowardice purely to ensure the survival of the party?

No, I expect them to play their characters as having at least a few shreds of survival and self-preservation instinct. That said, if they all choose to stand in and go down together I can't stop them.

 

[Lanefan]

Nope!

My stance is that altering rules IN WAYS THE PLAYERS KNOW OR CAN LEARN is fine. Secretly doing it is deceptive, and takes away the players' ability to actually play the game. If it is done secretly, it is genuinely impossible for them to know what is actually the game and what is DM manipulation.

I kind of agree with this. Once a precedent has been set, in theory it should remain locked in for that campaign.

And if-when the PCs encounter something that doesn't work as it theoretically should, there should always be an in-game explanation for it.

Where we might disagree is that I feel no obligation to reveal that in-game explanation to the PCs/players until and unless events within the game tell me to.

For example, say the PCs run up against a Wizard who casts a heretofore unknown (and self-researched) version of Magic Missile against them where the missiles are completely invisible and arrive as cold damage. If-when the PCs find and decipher this guy's spellbook I'll a) tell them the mechanical details of that spell and b) probably introduce it as a variant in the greater game should the PCs release that knowledge into the wild. But if they don't find that spellbook they'll never learn how or why those MMs didn't work as usual, and nor should they.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Correct. But note that (like with random, permanent, irrevocable death), breaking either of the two critical components of fudging eliminates the problem:

1. Don't hide. Be honest. Let your players know that something isn't right, and (ideally) work with them to fix it. Or, if you prefer to fix it yourself, at least let them know, "hey, this didn't work the way I wanted, but I'm going to make it right."
2. Make it diegetic. You altered a monster's stats? The players can see it. They may not know what is happening, but they do know that something is happening. Changed your mind about how a roll should work? Show that the scene or context is different now. Etc.

I'm currently running 13th Age online through Maptool and Skype. As I recall, you're familiar with 13th Age so you know it tends to be, at least by the standards of the D&D-sphere, relatively transparent about a lot of opponent information, in part because without some of it, making decisions about talent, power and spell use can be basically an almost meaningless decision. So people tend to know things like hit points and some other odds and ends normally.

I'd decided a while back I was going to use dice roll macros for the last couple games I ran. This means that what I'm generating is quite visible to players, and in practice they can at least see the attack bonus of the opponent too.

I have found this surprisingly freeing. I don't even try to do on-the-fly fudging any more; if I mess something up, I tell them and we just fix it. I may conceal some things in set-up, but once the dice are flying, everyone sees about 95% of what's going on, and I don't miss being able to finesse that at all.

 

[Maxperson]

Rare indeed is the party - even at low level - in which at least someone doesn't have the means to get away and-or hide.

The only limiting factor can occasionally be that there's nowhere to run to e.g. the party and its foes are stuck on a little tiny demiplane.

So the party at low level has a move of 12" and are facing monsters with moves of 24." Given that the monster isn't just going to sit there while the party runs, how is the group going to get away?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Rare indeed is the party - even at low level - in which at least someone doesn't have the means to get away and-or hide.

The only limiting factor can occasionally be that there's nowhere to run to e.g. the party and its foes are stuck on a little tiny demiplane.

As I've noted before, if the encounter is on mostly flat plains (a couple random trees or bush doesn't help much) or non-dune desert, and the opponents are either faster than you are or have long range missile weapons, the fact you can technically run isn't liable to mean much.

 

[TwoSix]

However, if the DM is bound both by the rules and the dice, I fail to see a need. I don't need a DM to apologize to me while he's TPKing the party. I need a DM who can read a room and decide it's probably not in the best interests of the game to use the random encounter result he just rolled.

A DM who won’t TPK a party based on their random encounter roll is a DM who lacks the courage of their convictions.