D&D General Renamed Thread: "The Illusion of Agency"

[Bill Zebub]

If there's a locked door in front of you-as-character and you've no idea what's behind it, you've also no idea whether you really need to risk whatever hazards might be present in order to open it or not. That's the feeling I'm trying to preserve.

And how is that feeling necessarily different if the DM grants autosuccess or not?

And if the DM really wants them to put skin in the game to find out, they could up the ante:

• You can pick the lock, but you easily spot the lock is trapped with a poison needle. You can try to work around it, but on a failure you're going to spring the trap. What do you do?
• The lock is badly rusted. You could try to force it, but you risk breaking your lockpicking tools. You'll have disadvantage on all lockpicking until you can get new ones. What do you do?
• You hear snoring behind the door. You can pick the lock, but to do so completely silently will take a skill check. What do you do?

 

[Lanefan]

What is FKR?

I think it stands for Free Kreigspiel Roleplaying, and believe it to be a form of rules-free roleplaying.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think it stands for Free Kreigspiel Roleplaying, and believe it to be a form of rules-free roleplaying.

Who is Kriegspiel Roleplaying, and why did they lock him up!?!?! I should get a bumper sticker.

More seriously...

And do you think I should I take interpret that to mean, "Anything other than a DM who is a purely neutral arbiter of rules is the same as just throwing all rules out the window?"

 

[Lanefan]

And how is that feeling necessarily different if the DM grants autosuccess or not?

Because it's uncertain whether you've the skill - or the skill today if it's an off day (i.e. poor roll) - to open the door. Maybe you need to go and find the key - or (much more often IME!) remember you've already found some keys and just bloody try them!

If the players meta-know that if they try to open the door they're automatically going to succeed then there's no downside at all to opening it and no what-to-do-next choice to be made if they can't.

In broader principle, I suspect the difference is that I'm quite happy to frustrate the players if the situation would in fact be frustrating for the characters. If they're stuck, they're stuck; and it's on them to either come up with a Plan B or to abandon the thing that has them stuck and move on.

Some here (not sure if you specifically or not) seem to want to set it up such that the players are never frustrated or stuck even if the situations suggests they should be.

And if the DM really wants them to put skin in the game to find out, they could up the ante:

• You can pick the lock, but you easily spot the lock is trapped with a poison needle. You can try to work around it, but on a failure you're going to spring the trap. What do you do?
• The lock is badly rusted. You could try to force it, but you risk breaking your lockpicking tools. You'll have disadvantage on all lockpicking until you can get new ones. What do you do?
• You hear snoring behind the door. You can pick the lock, but to do so completely silently will take a skill check. What do you do?

To 1 - if they don't search for traps they won't find any, and they might get nicked if their picking attempt fails; if they do look for and find the trap they can try to disarm it.

To 2 - you're nicer than me in that I have it if they break their lockpicking tools then no more lockpicking for you until-unless you can fashion some improvised tools.

To 3 - if they specifically listen they'll hear the snoring; if they don't, that's where something akin to passive perception comes in: do they hear it anyway despite not trying to? If they hear it they can take precautions such as muffling their lights, being quiet themselves and-or or casting Silence, and so on.

 

[Lanefan]

Who is Kriegspiel Roleplaying, and why did they lock him up!?!?! I should get a bumper sticker.

More seriously...

And do you think I should I take interpret that to mean, "Anything other than a DM who is a purely neutral arbiter of rules is the same as just throwing all rules out the window?"

No idea. I'm not the person who invoked FKR here; I'm just trying to help explain what it is.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Because it's uncertain whether you've the skill - or the skill today if it's an off day (i.e. poor roll) - to open the door. Maybe you need to go and find the key - or (much more often IME!) remember you've already found some keys and just bloody try them!

If the players meta-know that if they try to open the door they're automatically going to succeed then there's no downside at all to opening it and no what-to-do-next choice to be made if they can't.

Wait, what? Sometimes they will succeed. Sometimes they will fail. Same as if they are rolling dice, but it's the DM deciding what's best for the story, not the dice.

And ideally the DM doesn't always make the decision using the same criteria. Sometimes that impossible-to-pick-lock doesn't lead to anything interesting. Sometimes the easy-to-pick lock does.

In broader principle, I suspect the difference is that I'm quite happy to frustrate the players if the situation would in fact be frustrating for the characters. If they're stuck, they're stuck; and it's on them to either come up with a Plan B or to abandon the thing that has them stuck and move on.

Some here (not sure if you specifically or not) seem to want to set it up such that the players are never frustrated or stuck even if the situations suggests they should be.

Yes, I love frustrating players. Where did you get the idea that they always succeed?

To 1 - if they don't search for traps they won't find any, and they might get nicked if their picking attempt fails; if they do look for and find the trap they can try to disarm it.

Yeah I don't play that way. I give away information that sets up a hard decision, instead of requiring that players constantly say "I search for..."

The exception might be if I want this particular trap to be hard to find instead of hard to circumvent, in which case I would have telegraphed it. (Which might mean, for example, that on a previous, similar door they found a skeleton with lockpicking tools. A close inspection would have revealed a sprung trap on that door.)

To 2 - you're nicer than me in that I have it if they break their lockpicking tools then no more lockpicking for you until-unless you can fashion some improvised tools.

That's probably better.

To 3 - if they specifically listen they'll hear the snoring; if they don't, that's where something akin to passive perception comes in: do they hear it anyway despite not trying to? If they hear it they can take precautions such as muffling their lights, being quiet themselves and-or or casting Silence, and so on.

Same thing. I'm giving them the information about the snoring, because it leads to the next difficult decision.

 

[Lanefan]

Wait, what? Sometimes they will succeed. Sometimes they will fail. Same as if they are rolling dice, but it's the DM deciding what's best for the story, not the dice.

And ideally the DM doesn't always make the decision using the same criteria. Sometimes that impossible-to-pick-lock doesn't lead to anything interesting. Sometimes the easy-to-pick lock does.



Yes, I love frustrating players. Where did you get the idea that they always succeed?

Your previous posts gave me the impression that instead of making them roll in a lot of situations (and potentially get stuck or frustrated) you'd just give it to them.

Yeah I don't play that way. I give away information that sets up a hard decision, instead of requiring that players constantly say "I search for..."

The exception might be if I want this particular trap to be hard to find instead of hard to circumvent, in which case I would have telegraphed it. (Which might mean, for example, that on a previous, similar door they found a skeleton with lockpicking tools. A close inspection would have revealed a sprung trap on that door.)

I often want it to be hard to find AND hard to circumvent; sometimes the opposite, easy to find AND easy to bypass. It's not an either-or.

One other thing I'll mention: I'm more than fine with "gotcha" situations. It's part of the game-reality that sometimes you just never know what hit you, and not every hazard is telegraphed or advertised.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I often want it to be hard to find AND hard to circumvent; sometimes the opposite, easy to find AND easy to bypass. It's not an either-or.

Fair enough. I tend to choose one or the other, but both are ok.

But my "hard to find" means you have to notice clues and pick up on them, not that you have to remember to search and then roll well.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

What is FKR?

I brought up FKR because someone else in the thread referenced it earlier. It's an approach to GM-ing where the players have extremely little agency, the system is designed for the players not to know the rules, there being barely any rules in the first place, and for the GM to have the ultimate say in everything.

The thing about FKR is that when you play that it is consistent because the system itself, which barely exists mind you, was designed this way from the beginning. This means that not only do people expect it to function this way, but there is no fundamental way of bypassing this approach either. That is: The system is consistent.

D&D is not consistent, because there are two ways of getting things done:

A: You negotiate with the GM and maybe or maybe not you can do what you want to do

B: You cast a spell and the GM cannot typically object unless he decides to arbitrarily shut down your stuff with antimagic field..

In shorts, spells, encompassing concrete units of rules, are actionable. They provide agency by being rules that can be used no matter what.

And why do you think martial characters would be "incompetent"? To make it concrete for me, could you give me some example scenarios where you would see this happening?

A good idea.

Bob is playing Rarity the Rogue. Rarity has expertise in diplomacy. Alice is playing a wizard.

Bob: I want to try and smooth talk the guard to let us through.

GM: No can do. It's not going to work. (doesn't let Bob roll)

Alice: I want to cast charm person on the guard to have him let us through.

GM: Ok that works.

I guess there is one potential situation where this will not be prominent, and that's if the GM is being very generous with skill related rulings to all non-casters.

You seem to admit that you are deliberately ignoring non-combat rules and if you do that then what is left to interact with the world in except either spells or an unreliable GM?

(I get that there's a faction of D&D players....maybe the "linear warriors, quadratic wizards" gang...who think that martials get totally short changed in D&D and that wizards are too ridiculously powerful and flexible. And maybe that's true in the upper tiers, where I hardly ever play. But I've never seen anybody complain about it in person; only on these forums.)

I have seen it complained about in person. I've had a player change class because he felt incompeten ("Never again will I play a rogue"). I know people who refuse to play D&D because of this thing.

Yes it's mainly a high level problem, but it starts appearing at around the point level 3 spells become available and it just gets worse from there.

 

[TiQuinn]

I brought up FKR because someone else in the thread referenced it earlier. It's an approach to GM-ing where the players have extremely little agency, the system is designed for the players not to know the rules, there being barely any rules in the first place, and for the GM to have the ultimate say in everything.

The thing about FKR is that when you play that it is consistent because the system itself, which barely exists mind you, was designed this way from the beginning. This means that not only do people expect it to function this way, but there is no fundamental way of bypassing this approach either. That is: The system is consistent.

D&D is not consistent, because there are two ways of getting things done:

A: You negotiate with the GM and maybe or maybe not you can do what you want to do

B: You cast a spell and the GM cannot typically object unless he decides to arbitrarily shut down your stuff with antimagic field..

In shorts, spells, encompassing concrete units of rules, are actionable. They provide agency by being rules that can be used no matter what.


A good idea.

Bob is playing Rarity the Rogue. Rarity has expertise in diplomacy. Alice is playing a wizard.

Bob: I want to try and smooth talk the guard to let us through.

GM: No can do. It's not going to work. (doesn't let Bob roll)

Alice: I want to cast charm person on the guard to have him let us through.

GM: Ok that works.

I guess there is one potential situation where this will not be prominent, and that's if the GM is being very generous with skill related rulings to all non-casters.

You seem to admit that you are deliberately ignoring non-combat rules and if you do that then what is left to interact with the world in except either spells or an unreliable GM?


I have seen it complained about in person. I've had a player change class because he felt incompeten ("Never again will I play a rogue"). I know people who refuse to play D&D because of this thing.

Yes it's mainly a high level problem, but it starts appearing at around the point level 3 spells become available and it just gets worse from there.

I don’t think you need to get too high a level to start feeling the Quad Wizard, Linear Fighter problem - our group back in the early 90s during 2e was feeling it by around 8th level. I think the one thing that almost all D&D editions have been guilty of is that it a class has a disadvantage in an area relative to another, at some point there will be a class ability, subclass, spell, feat, or multiclass combo whose entire purpose is minimize that disadvantage, and things tend to spiral downward from there.

I remember back in the Player’s Option system, one could “buy” really powerful abilities by cobbling together points gathered by taking on a number of insignificant disadvantages that were so minor that they never came into play in a meaningful way, but the advantage gained from what was bought was used in every single game. It’s why I personally think wizards should remain squishy (lower HP than any other class including rogues) and their armor options limited within D&D.