D&D General Why the Great Thief Debate Will Always Be With Us

[payn]

I would never design a game to fix bad DMs. Inexperienced DMs by all means. Teach them the right ways. But a bad DM is just someone who doesn't want the game to be fun. Ditch that DM.

I think thats an oversimplification of the topic. This assumes that gamers and GMs are a monolith, and they are not. You are comfortable with ambiguity, and dealing with it in game. Thats great. It doesnt make you a good player/GM and folks that struggle, or prefer differently, bad ones.

 

[Emerikol]

I think thats an oversimplification of the topic. This assumes that gamers and GMs are a monolith, and they are not. You are comfortable with ambiguity, and dealing with it in game. Thats great. It doesnt make you a good player/GM and folks that struggle, or prefer differently, bad ones.

I don't think I implied that anyone not doing it my way is bad. There is a different between a DM trying in good faith to be good in whatever style of play he likes vs one who is not. Ditch the latter.

 

[payn]

I don't think I implied that anyone not doing it my way is bad. There is a different between a DM trying in good faith to be good in whatever style of play he likes vs one who is not. Ditch the latter.

How is the value of a GMs faith being determined here?

 

[Emerikol]

How is the value of a GMs faith being determined here?

Now you are just being deliberately obtuse.

Unless you are foreign and just moved to MN and don't know English. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. In good faith, has nothing to do with religion. It means making a sincere effort. It's perhaps an English idiom.

 

[payn]

Now you are just being deliberately obtuse.

Unless you are foreign and just moved to MN and don't know English. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. In good faith, has nothing to do with religion. It means making a sincere effort. It's perhaps an English idiom.

Uh... thats exactly what I meant. How are you determining their effort is sincere or not? Good grief.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The Gygaxian vs Arnesonian play space framing is great! It highlights why I was always frustrated with a number of PHB2014 feats that said you could do things (like actor letting you mimic voices) when these felt like things that should have been things anyone should be able to try to do. With slight reframing, actor could let you mimic voices WITHOUT a skill check needed, while others would call under the standard resolution system.

I cut my teeth on 3E and actually like having guidelines for simulationist things, but 5E's resolution system makes it so all you really need is an example DC table. "I do X" "Okay, give me a Y check." "Can I use Z?" "It's not applicable, just raw Y." "Darn rolls." Simple.

This is the thing I dislike the most about PF2E. The skill feats feel like they take away options once they exist. Sorry, you cant intimidate a crowd by waving your pistols at them. Gotta be one at a time unless you have Group Coercion.

If skills got 1/3 the page count of spells, with some guidelines on task/DC, I think we'd be in a better spot.

 

[Xeviat]

This is the thing I dislike the most about PF2E. The skill feats feel like they take away options once they exist. Sorry, you cant intimidate a crowd by waving your pistols at them. Gotta be one at a time unless you have Group Coercion.

If skills got 1/3 the page count of spells, with some guidelines on task/DC, I think we'd be in a better spot.

When I was playing Mutants and Masterminds a lot, I noticed some patterns in the system. There were some generic functions that let you take a -5 penalty on a roll to get a benefit. I reverse engineered that and started letting people mimic feats and other abilities by taking a -5 penalty on the associated skill check. It's really helped me be flexible.

Group coersion? Sure, roll with disadvantage because there's strength in numbers.

As an aside, I'm working on an Expanded skill system for 5E and Level-Up. Hopefully I'll be done soon.

 

[Emerikol]

Uh... thats exactly what I meant. How are you determining their effort is sincere or not? Good grief.

Well you might have said good faith instead of faith and it would have been clearer.

I suppose it is a judgment. Now having said that, I think it's pretty easy to spot bad DMs.

 

[CreamCloud0]

This is the thing I dislike the most about PF2E. The skill feats feel like they take away options once they exist. Sorry, you cant intimidate a crowd by waving your pistols at them. Gotta be one at a time unless you have Group Coercion.

If skills got 1/3 the page count of spells, with some guidelines on task/DC, I think we'd be in a better spot.

i think it would make sense that if these abilities exist you can still attempt them without having the feat, but the attempt will always be made at disadvantage.

 

[Clint_L]

Rules are the foundation for freedom. If you have rules, you know your capabilities and you are free. Without rules you are ignorant of your own skills.

There is no opposition between roleplaying and rules.

This is, in my opinion, the premise behind the martial/caster debate. The reason why casters are good is because they have freedom, and they have freedom because they have rules. Nobody argues that caster players cannot roleplay because they have lots of rules.

Rules are freedom because they provide a baseline of competence. A character who has an ability that says he can jump 50 feet is freer than a character who does not, because the character who does not have it likely cannot jump that distance.

But there is a rule about how far you can jump. Is that not also liberating? I'm not following your argument.

Also, nobody argued that rules mean you cannot role-play. Snarff pointed out that rules limit the extent to which role-play alone can determine success.