D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Faolyn]

Because that's not how the game works. BW rolls happen because a player (not the GM) declares an action with an intent and a task. I don't know what task a player would declare to accomplish the intent of "I fall in love with them" such that I'd have them make a roll to see what happens. In the rules of the game, it's just not analogous to cold-blooded murder. There may be games where this would be, but it's not BW.

That's why I specified in my first post on the topic:

Since we've been talking about Burning Wheel, my question is: does it require a roll upon first seeing someone to see if you fall in love (or lust) with that person? If not, why not? Surely that's just as important for a character?

And it is analogous because in various people's posts about the game, people would "naturally" hesitate before killing someone. Well, some people "naturally" fall in lust at first sight. Etc.

In case you're not getting it, I'm actually talking about the loss of player agency here, not wondering if BW has rules for sexytimes or saying that it should.

 

[Lanefan]

A really unsatisfying moment that's stuck me with me was when I was running Tales of the Valiant for a group last year, and the Paladin of Justice had shrugged and was about to cut the heads off a handful of bandits. Another player started to argue with her about how like, they shouldn't do that and clearly they should take them back to the appropriate authorities, and the paladin was like "nope, no need would take too long, lets kill em!" And the monk pressed for a bit more, but when I was like "hey, do you want to use the Persuade vs PC house rule I added in?" he said "naw, I've said my piece, we're good."

And like. We spent a bunch of time going around in a circle for no outcome, no testing of belief, no reflection, no stakes. I think that was the crystalizing moment where I was like "yeah, I need more."

Unless your table has a CvC-is-fine ethos already built in, I can easily see why the Monk's player might have backed down: you-as-GM were trying to escalate an in-character disagreement into actual CvC mechanics, which might have been a step too far for the Monk's player.

Also, the other problem here is that if the Persuade vs PC roll had been made and succeeded, you've just taken agency away from the Pally's player - were that player me, I'd be pretty hacked off about this both in and out of character had my goal in the moment been to kill the prisoners and move on fast. Now instead of wanting to kill the prisoners, maybe I want to kill the Monk.....

 

[Faolyn]

No one has responded to this yet so please look at the two descriptions below.

(1) A character faces a cliff that he needs to climb. The GM checks his notes and sees that the cliff is not very detailed other than a basic description and a climb DC. He has to make a ruling! He decides that the character could conceivably and plausibly determine how difficult the climb may be, and the GM then shares all the relevant game information with the player.

(2) A character faces a cliff that he needs to climb. The GM checks his notes and sees that the cliff is not very detailed other than a basic description and a climb DC. He has to make a ruling! He decides that the character would not be able to determine the difficulty of the climb just by surveying it from his vantage point. He does not share the relevant game information with the player.

Given that each of these approaches has considered the plausibility of a climber knowing how tough a climb will be, what other reasons might there be for choosing option (2) over option (1)?

There's option 3: if the PC wants to know how difficult the cliff looks, the GM makes them roll something, like Survival or Perception. Possibly with a bonus if the character has a trait or in-game history that's connected to climbing cliffs. On a success, they get the info. On a failure, they don't.

But reasons the GM may choose option 2? Bad lighting (it's night and maybe nobody has darkvision or it's been ruled that darkvision isn't good for fine details so all the PC sees is shapes). The cliff is deceptively treacherous (dry and ready to crumble or covered in an illusion). The GM knows that the character has never climbed a cliff before and thus wouldn't know. The PCs have previously always had ropes, grapples, or other climbing equipment but now they have to free climb. The GM is one of those people who never say the difficulty number and thus would only describe the cliff as an easy climb or a difficult climb.

 

[Lanefan]

They can. But that's a way to narrate a failed check to climb, not a separate secret roll.

I guess I should mention that I usually do all such rolls in secret anyway, in part to disguise if-when there might be an unknown migitating factor one way or the other.

Noticing stuff, as a separate mechanic, shouldn't be in any game.

Completely disagree.

How many hundred times have you failed to notice something in real life even when it's obvious e.g. the keys you've been looking for all morning that were right there on the usual table all along.

Then couple that with the huge number of times we're asking in-game characters to notice things that are not obvious e.g. the shred of paper on the floor half-hidden by a desk, the hard-to-see crumbly nature of some rock, the nervousness of the NPC guard you're talking to, or whatever.

Result: yes, perception or notice-stuff mechanics are vital.

Gating info behind skill checks negates both player exploration of environment (in a classic dungeoncrawl) and simple clarification of setting via dialogue (in a more expansive trad, neotrad, or narrative game) to do what, reward people who invest character resources in Wisdom/Perception? Get the heck out of here with that.

I'm not saying there needs to be resources to invest in such things, more that everyone fails to notice stuff on a fairly regular basis and why should the characters be any different?

 

[zakael19]

Unless your table has a CvC-is-fine ethos already built in, I can easily see why the Monk's player might have backed down: you-as-GM were trying to escalate an in-character disagreement into actual CvC mechanics, which might have been a step too far for the Monk's player.

Also, the other problem here is that if the Persuade vs PC roll had been made and succeeded, you've just taken agency away from the Pally's player - were that player me, I'd be pretty hacked off about this both in and out of character had my goal in the moment been to kill the prisoners and move on fast. Now instead of wanting to kill the prisoners, maybe I want to kill the Monk.....

So a) the Persuade vs PC move/action/whatever has consent built in - you first ask "can I get you to do this, yes or no" in the meta channel. If the answer is no, you drop it - and we move on. We'd spent a while going in circles already, b) on a success, they either go along, or tell you how you can convince them. So it's entirely consent preserving, brings a back and forth to a head, and allows for clarity around the table without verging into argument territory (I've definitely seen the latter happen when somebody is like "I wanna do a stupid thing" and everybody else is like noooo dont.... and then it turns into 10 minutes of that and everybody is pissed at the end regardless).

So no, none of what you said is true. It just nailed down for me that I wasn't interested in people just saying things - if you espouse something in character, make it mean something or why did you waste our time.

 

[zakael19]

I guess I should mention that I usually do all such rolls in secret anyway, in part to disguise if-when there might be an unknown migitating factor one way or the other.

Completely disagree.

How many hundred times have you failed to notice something in real life even when it's obvious e.g. the keys you've been looking for all morning that were right there on the usual table all along.

Then couple that with the huge number of times we're asking in-game characters to notice things that are not obvious e.g. the shred of paper on the floor half-hidden by a desk, the hard-to-see crumbly nature of some rock, the nervousness of the NPC guard you're talking to, or whatever.

Result: yes, perception or notice-stuff mechanics are vital.

I'm not saying there needs to be resources to invest in such things, more that everyone fails to notice stuff on a fairly regular basis and why should the characters be any different?

Have you ever been a person or around people who are trained to notice things, and seen what they can take in that fall within their trained element? I have, when you're trained or have experience with pattern matching in environments your mind can flag a remarkable amount of stuff in a hurry or react before you even process.

Are we expecting our characters to be like trained heroes who can shrug off emotions and doubt without issue, but like fail to notice that a ledge looks hard to climb?

There's a reason classic D&D dungeon procedures has you rest every hour - it's not "oh we're tired of walking" it's "we're all moving at a cautious rate keeping our eyes peeled for everything and working together to map/sniff/explore/etc."

 

[Lanefan]

So a) the Persuade vs PC move/action/whatever has consent built in - you first ask "can I get you to do this, yes or no" in the meta channel. If the answer is no, you drop it - and we move on. We'd spent a while going in circles already, b) on a success, they either go along, or tell you how you can convince them. So it's entirely consent preserving, brings a back and forth to a head, and allows for clarity around the table without verging into argument territory (I've definitely seen the latter happen when somebody is like "I wanna do a stupid thing" and everybody else is like noooo dont.... and then it turns into 10 minutes of that and everybody is pissed at the end regardless).

So no, none of what you said is true. It just nailed down for me that I wasn't interested in people just saying things - if you espouse something in character, make it mean something or why did you waste our time.

IMO in-character roleplay is never wasted time even if nothing comes of it. If they want to argue, let 'em argue; I'm happy to put my feet up and wait (or if I've an NPC in the mix, chuck in my two bits worth now and then as that character).

And this is also why I allow CvC action: if it makes sense that an in-character argument escalates into something more there isn't - and IMO shouldn't be - an arbitrary meta-rule preventing it.

 

[Lanefan]

Have you ever been a person or around people who are trained to notice things, and seen what they can take in that fall within their trained element? I have, when you're trained or have experience with pattern matching in environments your mind can flag a remarkable amount of stuff in a hurry or react before you even process.

Are we expecting our characters to be like trained heroes who can shrug off emotions and doubt without issue, but like fail to notice that a ledge looks hard to climb?

Underneath all the fancy abilities and powers they have I'm expecting our characters to be like real people, including their imperfections and foibles such as not always noticing what's right under their noses. .

 

[thefutilist]

So no, none of what you said is true. It just nailed down for me that I wasn't interested in people just saying things - if you espouse something in character, make it mean something or why did you waste our time.

I get where you're coming from, the mechanics would create a 'put up or shut up' situation. On the other hand it just seems like the group weren't interested in exploring theme stuff. At the very least we should have discovered:

what all the players and you, irl, think of the Paladins actions, how you judge them morally.

How the characters judge the paladin and therefore what the respective characters priorities were

Assuming that's what they were there for. If not then what were the players there for? or was it a situation were the group was a bit wishy-washy full stop and mechanics really were needed to facilitate and push stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

(1) Dammit. Well done.
(2) Only if it's baby cats and baby foxes.

And intelligent bullet proof cars. Comes with David Hasselhoff, too.