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

[Maxperson]

This makes Gygax's AD&D non-traditional, then, given that it expressly contemplates retrofitting fiction to explain surprise:

Yes. How people(including Gygax and the other D&D designers) ran the game back then was typically different than how he wrote it.

 

[FrogReaver]

But the output of the rule using the modifier is not an evaluation of the character's skill (necessarily, if it's color, it might be)?

That suggests the modifier is poorly labeled. Not labeling it as skill, and suggesting instead that skill is a potential color component of the evaluated outcome is clearer.

Yea, I think you are on to something. Framing narrativist games skills as a characters skill at being lucky in some subset of situations makes everything make so much more sense. It may even be acceptable if framed that way to quite a few sim oriented people.

 

[Maxperson]

There are multiple posters on these boards who advocate "goal and approach" as a thing for resolving 5e D&D action declarations. I have seen it come up a lot on the 5e D&D boards.

Yes, but not as anything that has to do with what happens after a failure. Goal and approach are just to inform the DM of what you are trying and how. That way he can adjudicate auto success, auto failure, or whether it's in doubt and a roll is called for.

 

[Maxperson]

You can layer many things on top of the game rules that are not in any of the books. Goal and approach is one of them. I have never seen nor have I ever heard of a DM doing it for D&D on any other thread.

It's quite common. Rather than,

Player: "Can I roll to make a raft?"

It's goal and approach,

"I'm going to try and make a raft to get across the bay. I'll go into the forest to look for dead trees that I can lash together with my rope. I also have some pitons that I can use with my hammer to peg some of the logs together so they are easier to tie."

That's the goal, and the approach DMs generally talk about with regard to D&D. The DM then uses that information to say "You succeed," "You fail," or "Go ahead and give me a roll." He also assign bonuses, advantage or disadvantage, etc. based on what the player described as their approach to the goal. It's not anything narrative. Just a preference that allows the DM to better adjudicate what is happening.

 

[Maxperson]

The point that @hawkeyefan and I are making is that the cook is not more or less "fixed" or "quantum" because the roll used to determine their presence and response is the roll to open the lock, rather than some other roll that you or @Maxperson might make.

But it is based on PC skill. The more skilled the PC in the fiction, the less likely to encounter the cook behind that door. To the point that it would become apparent to the PCs that bad things happen a lot more often when unskilled members try stuff.

 

[Maxperson]

Not really interested in appeals to authority.

It isn't even an appeal to real authority. Gygax didn't play like the book rules said to, either. He played the game very differently.

 

[Faolyn]

I'll take a few moments to come up with the details before they do the break-in. Before they actually take any action I'll have an outline of what is there. If it's a commercial district in a middle class neighborhood it's probably a shop on the lower level with living quarters above. I may roll to see if they keep a dog and if they do if the dog is going to be an issue.

Why not just decide if they have a dog? How does a roll make it better, more real, more honest, or whatever other term you're going to use? It's not impartial; it's just random.

I can justify Godzilla because the owner of the house has been playing around with a Manual of Monsters that he doesn't really understand; it opens up doors to alternate dimensions where terrible beasts were trapped long ago. One of the closet doors leads into Godzilla's dimension. The owner just started reading it and doesn't realize yet what he's done or what damage it could cause. If this is ad-hoc I'd probably also decide something dumb like the book was just stolen and now it's a whole side-quest that I hadn't at all planned for. It's not logical per se, but magic often isn't logical.

Does it make sense with the fiction? OK then. If not, then don't. Your players will let you know how it feels to them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why not just decide if they have a dog? How does a roll make it better, more real, more honest, or whatever other term you're going to use? It's not impartial; it's just random.


Does it make sense with the fiction? OK then. If not, then don't. Your players will let you know how it feels to them.

If no one is controlling the result, it is impartial.

 

[Maxperson]

Isn’t the wandering monster roll only made once they enter the area? Or once they linger too long or spend time searching an area?

It's generally X number of times per day, varying based on terrain or location(dungeon, temple, etc.). If they linger, there will be more rolls in that area.

But then why would you make a roll?

Going back several hundred pages now, I roll in advance so that I can make the random encounter more fun. Rolling in advance, though, doesn't change the timing or location of the encounter. I do have to assume where they will be, but 19 times out of 20 I am correct, since I know where they are going and how fast they travel. Every once in a while, though, they zig or zag pretty hard and I'm wrong. Then I end up with some wasted prep.

 

[Faolyn]

If no one is controlling the result, it is impartial.

Whoever made the table it controls the result. Especially if it's not just straight numbers--if there's any sort of curve, then the results are stacked by what the creator felt was more or less likely.