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

EzekielRaiden said:

"I see no reason to compromise" is an unwillingness to compromise...like...that's literally what being unwilling to compromise means. Assuming whatever agent you're looking at is rational, I mean.

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If I my players were not enjoying my game or if I ever had an issue recruiting or retaining players then I would have a reason to change. Why should I change when it works for us?

As a software developer I frequently upgraded my skill set and studied and tested new options to see if there was an improvement. Sometimes there was a reason to upgrade, sometimes there wasn't. Meanwhile some developers are like corvids, attracted by whatever is new and shiny whether or not there's any benefit despite considerable cost. I play the current version of D&D because I thought the changes they made were worth the cost of change for us. I see no reason to incorporate a narrative style of play because I see a negative impact, not a positive one. Why would I do that to my players? Just so I could form a different group? How would that by any definition be the rational choice?

AlViking said:

If I my players were not enjoying my game or if I ever had an issue recruiting or retaining players then I would have a reason to change. Why should I change when it works for us?

As a software developer I frequently upgraded my skill set and studied and tested new options to see if there was an improvement. Sometimes there was a reason to upgrade, sometimes there wasn't. Meanwhile some developers are like corvids, attracted by whatever is new and shiny whether or not there's any benefit despite considerable cost. I play the current version of D&D because I thought the changes they made were worth the cost of change for us. I see no reason to incorporate a narrative style of play because I see a negative impact, not a positive one. Why would I do that to my players? Just so I could form a different group? How would that by any definition be the rational choice?

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So it's not so much that you're not willing to compromise, just that there's no actual push to change at all, and thus compromise is irrelevant?

Makes sense to me! If your entire group like X play style and isn't suggest or asking for change, unless you yourself perceive potential benefits/enjoyment to the group from trying out Y play style, why would you change?

Certainly most times we've tried out something new it's been because I thought we'd enjoy it - after about 2004 I have a very good batting average on that. One other thing I learned is that is that with RPGs, for us, nostalgia kills - every time we've tried an older game we've had less fun, every time we've played something new we've had a ton of fun. Only exception being CoC.

Pedantic said:

I'm a big proponent of Take 10/20, definitely the most maligned mechanic from the era. They cleared up most of the issues of the big D20, while still leaving it open to roll when it was actually tense, and provided a clear way to determine the maximum effect that was possible.

But yes, exactly. Rolling was relatively rare, and generally a failure case, unless you were a maxed Hide monster or whatever. I imagine my experience was similar to the "skilled play" model, just with significantly more spelled out and player facing mechanics. Definitely not a "the answer isn't on your character sheet" environment.

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Take10 definitely dealt with some of the derpiness that could show even with avowedly skilled characters in that era of D&D (especially important with classes that just didn't get a lot of skill points). I personally would call it throwing a bandage on the limitations of the skill system, but I don't think there's any question the play cycle benefited from it being there. Take20 was more of a process tool, since the result would occur without it in its situations for the most part, it just eliminated a lot of time wasting on non-time-critical rolls.

FrozenNorth said:

Well, the discussion was about how poorly designed game mechanics can affect the pacing of a game, so the fact that you can improve pacing of the game by changing or ignoring game mechanics is somewhat irrelevant.

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I was just noting there were functions that doing something like that can be serving, even if that particular execution left something to be desired (as I note, I suspect when originally designed it was assuming more time pressure than ended up being the case in how Paizo executed their adventures; they simply should have noted that when lack of time pressure was present that you could just assume full heal-up).

DinoInDisguise said:

I want to make sure I understand your point clearly; and would appreciate any further clarification.

You’re absolutely right that PbtA games, structurally, push for narrative motion on every roll. That’s baked into the move design, and it’s part of what makes them tick.

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Its not motion; its complication. That's important. I suspect very few people would object to every roll having some effect, if most of the rolls moved things in a positive direction from their point of view, even if it wasn't to the degree they'd prefer. But most PbtA Moves (at least in the two games I know at all well, MotW and Monsterhearts) don't do that with the majority of rolls; they cause further problems, possibly mixed with some beneficial motion. And its abundantly clear the design ethos considers that a virtue.

DinoInDisguise said:

Even in more traditional systems, a GM prioritizing pacing and player engagement can, and should, approach rolls the same way. Given how human attention works, every GM really should aim to prioritize these factors.

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Given the above, I don't think that's true. As I said, I'm not defending stasis; I'm defending that attaching additional problems to most player facing roles is demoralizing to a large number of people and often produces a perverse incentive to not want to make rolls.

I think given my point here the rest of your post was not overly relevant to mine.

Lanefan said:

All of these might be frustrating to the players, and to that my only response is so what. It'd be frustrating to the characters in the fiction as well, most likely, and I'm fine with that. In all these situations it's now on the player(s) to either come up with a plan B or abandon the attempt and go do something else.

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Well, the simple answer there is that to most people its simply a waste of time; it ties up attention and handling for something that could have simply been bypassed.

AnotherGuy said:

I actually really enjoy Fail Forwards, Success with Complications and Degrees of Failure/Success.
As a DM you can allow for an increase in stakes (I'm thinking like poker), take the story in interesting directions and if the players are aware of the mechanics involved beforehand it elevates the sense of a game being played.

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To make it clear, I don't object to any of these in principal either; the problem (as I see it, and it seems to be many players do) is that your Failure with Complication and Success with Complication takes up too much of the probability space in PbtA, compounded by its active avoidance of any simple failure space at all. There are other ways to do Fail Forward; the simple way is to replace Failure with Limited Success and not feel the obligation to take on extra problems in every case that isn't a full success. But as I've noted, at least the general run of PbtA considers additional Complications most of the point, so that's not what it does. The fact it consists of 2D6 rolls with a limited probability space present because of that doesn't help from many people's point of view.

SableWyvern said:

I have a problem with them if I'm running a more grounded game, with the Living World precepts we've talked about in this thread.

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I can see instances where this could clash.
Just from my perception, using the idea of picking a lock
Success with a complication - You pick the lock but someone on the other side of the door calls out.
Perhaps a GM who runs a Living World would have issues with this if they are indeed micro-managing the location of all the NPCs at any given time.

SableWyvern said:

"Even if I fail, the story moves forward" is (to me) at odds with a world that doesn't care about the PCs. "If I fail, I've made no progress, and I might have to consider completely abandoning this whole course of action, for now at least," needs to be a viable option in some cases.

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Hmmm it need not be a binary of Fail Forward and Success you could have other categories in the mix, for instance
Fail
Fail Forward
Success with Complication
Success

SableWyvern said:

Similarly, not everything needs to come with significant risk of complications. If the characters take the right precautions, there are times when they should be able to make an attempt and risk a failure without needing to worry that becoming embroiled in some other complication is a likely result.

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Sure, I do not run skills one way only.
Sometimes it is binary, other times there is more nuance.

SableWyvern said:

They're concepts that are great for a particular sort of game, especially a relentless, high paced, high action one, but I don't see them as being universally applicable.

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I view them as tools as reflected upon in the DMG, I do not view them or use them as universally applicable to any situation.
I prefer having a wide arrange of tools at my disposal as a GM than just simply discarding them because they cannot be universally applied. That is a massive perk as I see it of GMing for D&D.

Micah Sweet said:

What else would you mean by cinematic fiction?

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I would have thought that "cinematic fiction" is supposed to contrast with other forms of fiction.

But fiction where interesting and emotionally resonant things happen frequently to the protagonists is not especially distinctive of cinema. It's pretty common in most sorts of stories.

Thomas Shey said:

I kind of do think of that as "cinematic" when it happens frequently--the word "frequently" is important here. "Cinematic" is relevant because you can have plenty of space in long-form fiction where you're just getting bits of slice-of-life or development that isn't all that dramatic in effect, but sets up more important events, where as in much cinema that's a luxury good you cannot afford (in the exceptions you only really need one or two events and the rest of the work is about characters reacting to it).

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I'm not sure what stories you are reading. Most stories I read, especially genre stories of the sort that RPGs draw from, have interesting and/or emotionally resonant things happening to the protagonists pretty frequently.

Thomas Shey said:

To make it clear, I don't object to any of these in principal either; the problem (as I see it, and it seems to be many players do) is that your Failure with Complication and Success with Complication takes up too much of the probability space in PbtA, compounded by its active avoidance of any simple failure space at all. There are other ways to do Fail Forward; the simple way is to replace Failure with Limited Success and not feel the obligation to take on extra problems in every case that isn't a full success. But as I've noted, at least the general run of PbtA considers additional Complications most of the point, so that's not what it does. The fact it consists of 2D6 rolls with a limited probability space present because of that doesn't help from many people's point of view.

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Ah I see. I generally use these tools in increments of 5 as is common for 5e and actual failure is always on the cards.
I posted upthread an example of how I ran the Persuasion check for one of our scenes at the table. Standard failure was part of it.