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

[Oofta]

Saying a game is a PbtA game doesn't tell us much more about it than telling us that a game uses percentile resolution.

I made a particular claim, about a particular RPG: Apocalypse World. So when you restate my claim as something else, that I didn't say, I am going to politely correct that.

If you want to tell all those 5e players who insist that the ultimate rule of 5e is not "GM decides" that they are playing the wrong game, or are rejecting a "core concept" of 5e D&D, that can be your crusade! I am simply pointing out that, on previous occasions, I have seen may 5e players get quite irritated by the suggestion that 5e D&D is a game of "GM decides".

I haven't said that D&D doesn't have a resolution system. I have said that there are possible action declarations for which 5e D&D has no clear resolution system, and I've even given an example: I jump the crevasse in circumstances where it is established that the crevasse is wider, in feet, than the jumping PC's STR score, and where the jumping PC is not under a Jump spell or similar magic.

Who does?

I don't pretend I'm using one resolution system when I'm really using another. If I've made a decision, and the rules of the GM I'm GMing invite me or instruct me to reveal my decision, than I reveal my decision.

We're talking general approaches to game philosophy. I don't see why the specific PbtA based game matters. In D&D and related games, the DM makes the final call. No appeal to authority by saying "others agree with me" changes that it is simply a different form of resolution. One I like and you do not. The way PbtA games handle it just don't work for me. The way D&D handles it doesn't work for you. Big deal.

 

[TiQuinn]

Classic D&D uses the following process for resolving wilderness travel: When the PCs travel through the wilderness, calculate <how many hexes they cross> and make N encounter checks <where N is the result of a formula that combines time and terrain>. If the encounter check is positive, then roll the encounter on <the appropriate chart>.

Now, if the GM is in fact not committed to following those rules - eg to re-rolling the TPK-ish encounters when the checks and charts yield them up - then why are they using that resolution system in the first place? It's not as if no one has come up with a different, and at least arguably better, way of resolving wilderness travel in the 50 years since those rules were first published!

People forget that encounters don’t necessarily mean combat. If you roll a dragon for a random encounter, the encounter could consist of the players sighting the dragon in flight moving towards or away from them. Most tables I’ve seen give zero context to the encounter, leaving that completely within the DM’s control.

 

[Oofta]

People forget that encounters don’t necessarily mean combat. If you roll a dragon for a random encounter, the encounter could consist of the players sighting the dragon in flight moving towards or away from them. Most tables I’ve seen give zero context to the encounter, leaving that completely within the DM’s control.

Sure. Spot the dragon, hide in the bushes, leave the horses as bait. Worked for us.

 

[FrogReaver]

Even if it is 1 out of a million times, how can you possibly know? Your "knowledge" of the game is necessarily conditioned, forever, on the assumption the DM didn't interfere. That the rules were cashing out as you know them. But you don't know that--and you never can. The whole point of actual fudging, amongst other things, is that it is concealed from the players, and great pains are taken to preserve that concealment no matter what. Players must never learn that the fudging occurred, no matter what.

1. Your initial claim was that this always made everything set dressing. How does knowing or not knowing impact whether it is set dressing?

Also, let’s take BitD as an example. PC is nearly at the max harm they can take for the scene. PC tries to kill an NPC using the appropriate move but rolls a failure. DM gets to pick the consequence and knowing the PC will be removed if takes another harm decides to tick a clock instead. Is that not of the same spirit as fudging?

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, in classic D&D terms "Friendly" is either a result on an encounter table, or the result of a Charm spell. I don't think either outcome is consistent with betrayal. Gygax, in his DMG, also has a rather intricate loyalty system which builds on the reaction system, and likewise means that a NPC who is loyal will not betray the PC to whom they are loyal.

I see, friendly there has much more concrete rules around it than in 5e. For that game I agree with you.

In 3E D&D, "Friendly" means "Wishes you well" and thus willing to "Chat, advise, offer limited help, advocate". That is not consistent with betrayal.

But here, I don’t see how that is incompatible with coerced betrayal.

I don't know exactly how the 5e DMG defines the various sorts of NPC reaction, but I assume it also draws a contrast between someone being friendly or well-disposed, and someone being willing to secretly betray a PC.

In 5e DMG there is a strictly optional rule for loyalty.

The idea that the players can have their PCs succeed in an attempt to befriend a NPC - whatever exactly that looks like in the system - and yet the GM be at liberty to have that NPC secretly betray them, is an example of the GM's vision of the fiction being determinate.

That’s because befriending the NPC to you entails other rules around what befriending means that need not be present.

Whatever check (or other resolved action) was used to befriend the NPC. In B/X or AD&D this is a reaction/encounter check, or else the successful casting of a Charm spell. In 3E D&D, it would be a Diplomacy check as best I understand that game. In 4e D&D it would be a Diplomacy check. I believe in 5e D&D an attempt to befriend a NPC would normally be resolved (if uncertain) by a CHA (Persuasion) check.

Sounds correct. Charm person could do it as well in 5e as it causes the creature to be friendly but ‘friendly isn’t really defined’. Charm person does prevent them from attacking you in 5e though.

 

[Remathilis]

This can possibly make sense for classic D&D dungeon wandering monsters (and Gygax makes remarks along these lines in the introduction to his DMG). Even in that context it is a bit fraught, though, for how do we really tell the difference between an unlucky group of players, and a group who were just too careless to keep some fuel in the tank for the trip home?

But once we get to wilderness wandering monsters, the tables are so arbitrary that just about anything is possible, and the notion of adjusting or holding off because on this one-off occasion the party has been unlucky doesn't really have purchase.

I gave an example of the DM using dice to determine something and then using his human instinct to decide that the result would be detrimental to the game. The example is itself irrelevant. Because it sets up a sort of paradox: if the DM cannot alter the results for the better of the game, why have a human DM at all? He's as powerless as the players to change the result. Having empathy or human reasoning is meaningless if they cannot use them to alter the game for the better.

Remember we started this discussion on the notion of a DM using the Rule of Cool to break other rules to further the game. Implicit in that statement is the fact that DM does in fact have that power. The notion that the DM cannot bend said rules, even in order to better the game, is baffling to me. There are dozens of MMOs with defined parameters that the system cannot break, even to the detriment of the player. Why not play those? (And even most of them have human moderators who can intervene in case of extreme situations. They are typically called... GMs).

The advantage of a human DM is threefold. They can react to situations that a computer cannot understand because it's not part of its coding. They can read a room and decide if the current path the game is heading down is going to be the most fun for everyone involved, and they can alter results to achieve more enjoyable experiences. To limit these abilities to just the first (making the DM a living computer who can interpret rules but not break them) is to remove the actual humanity from the GM, and once AI gets sufficiently advanced to interpret player intentions correctly, it would be trivially easy to remove the need for a human DM at all.

That would be truly sad.

So put me down on the side of DM Magic if it means creating a better experience. A good director does not reveal all their camera tricks, no magician gives away all their secrets, and no DM should fail to keep an ace up their sleeve and use it when the game stutters. It's all part of the show.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

1. Your initial claim was that this always made everything set dressing. How does knowing or not knowing impact whether it is set dressing?

You cannot learn from what you cannot know. Actual game play, as opposed to puzzles or riddles, involves skill that can be increased through practice and effort. (Even games of chance admit skill, it's just "risk management" is unusually important.) Hence...if you cannot actually know why the results arose from what you did...you can't actually learn to play. Your choices and the rules of the game fall by the wayside; they are a blind for the actual structure, which is, "Because the DM said so."

Also, let’s take BitD as an example. PC is nearly at the max harm they can take for the scene. PC tries to kill an NPC using the appropriate move but rolls a failure. DM gets to pick the consequence and knowing the PC will be removed if takes another harm decides to tick a clock instead. Is that not of the same spirit as fudging?

I don't know the system well enough to answer the question. I've heard of clocks, but I do not know what the procedure is here. Is it like Dungeon World, where the rules explicitly say that you can choose to make a soft move if that would be more interesting than making a hard move? That is, a situation where the DM is permitted to make a hard move does not require them to make one if they don't want to. Is that the case with the above? It sounds like it is. At that point, the rules have explicitly requested a DM judgment call; it is following the rules to decide that maxing out the harm counter isn't the best choice. (And that sort of thing is precisely why I don't think an AI DM with anything less than full sapience would work.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If a player indicates that they believe an NPC may be not telling the truth, generally an insight check is called for. If I know the NPC is being honest, I still call for a roll. If the player suspects they are being followed but they are not, I'll still call for a perception check.

Well, at least from where I'm sitting, the problem is perception/insight checks in the first place. They have bad, inherently metagame-inducing design. To see a bad roll is to know what you aren't supposed to know.

That's why I don't use that approach with the DW equivalent (Discern Realities). You always learn something true from Discern Realities. But if you fail the roll, I will oblige you to ask one of the six questions on the list....and you won't like the answer. (This is an application of the DM move "Reveal an unwelcome truth." Of course, I don't say, "I reveal an unwelcome truth: X!" most of the time. But I do in fact do that thing.)

There is technically no uncertainty as far as the state of the world, I'm maintaining uncertainty in the knowledge of the world from the PC's perspective.

Then I, personally, think you should use different, more effective mechanical approaches to achieving that end.

I don't consider that fudging a roll. I always roll in the open except on contested checks. Those I may, in these cases, roll secretly and ignore the result.

For my part? I usually just don't see the point. If I want them to worry that there's something they don't know, I'll just say, "You're fairly sure you aren't being followed, but it would take time to check to be absolutely sure. Is that what you want to do?" or something of that nature. That way, there's no need to invoke a roll that is actually meaningless, and instead players are put on the spot, needing to make a decision--and that decision may then open up even further story potential depending on exactly what happens.

 

[FrogReaver]

You cannot learn from what you cannot know. Actual game play, as opposed to puzzles or riddles, involves skill that can be increased through practice and effort. (Even games of chance admit skill, it's just "risk management" is unusually important.) Hence...if you cannot actually know why the results arose from what you did...you can't actually learn to play. Your choices and the rules of the game fall by the wayside; they are a blind for the actual structure, which is, "Because the DM said so."

Having an exception 1 out of a million times doesn’t mean you cannot learn. Whatever you learn will work 999,999 out of 1,000,000 times.

I don't know the system well enough to answer the question. I've heard of clocks, but I do not know what the procedure is here. Is it like Dungeon World, where the rules explicitly say that you can choose to make a soft move if that would be more interesting than making a hard move? That is, a situation where the DM is permitted to make a hard move does not require them to make one if they don't want to. Is that the case with the above? It sounds like it is. At that point, the rules have explicitly requested a DM judgment call; it is following the rules to decide that maxing out the harm counter isn't the best choice. (And that sort of thing is precisely why I don't think an AI DM with anything less than full sapience would work.)

It’s apparently only d&d where DM judgement calls are bad?

Doesn’t dm judgement call whether by rule or not mean ‘you cannot know the results and thus not actually learn to play’? That was your whole premise above after all.

 

[Oofta]

Well, at least from where I'm sitting, the problem is perception/insight checks in the first place. They have bad, inherently metagame-inducing design. To see a bad roll is to know what you aren't supposed to know.

That's why I don't use that approach with the DW equivalent (Discern Realities). You always learn something true from Discern Realities. But if you fail the roll, I will oblige you to ask one of the six questions on the list....and you won't like the answer. (This is an application of the DM move "Reveal an unwelcome truth." Of course, I don't say, "I reveal an unwelcome truth: X!" most of the time. But I do in fact do that thing.)


Then I, personally, think you should use different, more effective mechanical approaches to achieving that end.

I'm not going to change my preferred gaming system because you don't like it. You may believe a different system is "more effective", I don't. I don't care for the process used by PbtA and related games. Stating "the game I like does it better" is meaningless.

For my part? I usually just don't see the point. If I want them to worry that there's something they don't know, I'll just say, "You're fairly sure you aren't being followed, but it would take time to check to be absolutely sure. Is that what you want to do?" or something of that nature. That way, there's no need to invoke a roll that is actually meaningless, and instead players are put on the spot, needing to make a decision--and that decision may then open up even further story potential depending on exactly what happens.

If I really cared I'd ask what their bonus to perception was and roll for them. But I have no problem accepting that when I attempt something in real life I know deep down that I didn't give it my best. I see no reason that can't happen in game as well and I find it more enjoyable. Besides even if they roll a 20, it doesn't mean success.

In the case of being followed I'd say something along the lines of "As far as you can tell there's no one following". Even a very high perception check possible may not detect something under certain circumstances. Not because there is nothing there, but because it is so well hidden that it is effectively undetectable either because of distance or other environmental factors. In many cases you aren't going to detect the invisible imp flying in mid air fifty feet away.