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

SableWyvern said:

No, Lanefan hasn't said he's infallible. He says the table will play through a mistake because they have a more extreme need for immersion than I do. I find it a bit unusual, but so be it.

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Lanefan said:

It's not so much an extreme need for immersion as it is a matter of preserving the sanctity and integrity of play that has already occurred.

AW (I think it's AW?) has as a hardline core tenet "if you do it, you do it", which at face value I rather like. This is more like "once it's done, it's done", in the same vein.

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Lanefan said:

I've had fail-forward explained (and have seen this repeated even in this thread) that a fail can sometimes (not always!) be turned into what I read as a success-with-complication. For example, instead of failing to climb the wall you succeed in climbing it but now there's a bunch of guards on the other side who are about to shoot you.

Another example I've seen is that on a fail roll when searching for a secret door, you in fact find it anyway because something unexpected and nasty comes out of it from the other side.

Then why do the provided examples never maintain the failure state?

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pemerton said:

When declaring an action for a character, you say what you want and how you do it. That’s the intent and the task. . . . Descriptions of the task are vital. Through them we know which mechanics to apply; acknowledging the intent allows us to properly interpret the results of the test. . . .

A task is a measurable, finite and quantifiable act performed by a character: attacking someone with a sword, studying a scroll or resting in an abbey. A task describes how you accomplish your intent. What does your character do? A task should be easily linked to an ability: the Sword skill, the Research skill or the Health attribute. . . .

what happens after the dice have come to rest and the successes are counted? If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task.

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test. . . .

When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .

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pemerton said:

Aedhros had helped collect the corpse, and also helped with the Taxidermy (using his skill with Heart-seeker), but was unable to help with the Death Art. He was reasonably happy to now leave the workshop; and was no stranger to stealthy kidnappings in the dark. I told my friend (now GMing) that I wanted to use Stealthy, Inconspicuous and Knives to spring upon someone and force them, at knife point, to come with me to the workshop. He called for a linked test first, on Inconspicuous with Stealth FoRKed in. This succeeded, and Aedhros found a suitable place outside a house of ill-repute, ready to kidnap a lady of the night. When a victim appeared, Aedhros tried to force a Steel test (I think - my memory is a bit hazy) but whatever it was, it failed, and the intended victim went screaming into the night. Now there is word on the street of a knife-wielding assailant.

Aedhros's Beliefs are I will avenge the death of my spouse!, Thurandril will admit that I am right! and I will free Alicia and myself from the curse of Thoth!; and his Instincts are Never use Song of Soothing unless compelled to, Always repay hurt with hurt, and When my mind is elsewhere, quietly sing the elven lays. Having failed at the most basic task, and not knowing how to return to Thoth empty-handed, Aedhros wandered away from the docks, up into the wealthier parts of the city, to the home of the Elven Ambassador. As he sang the Elven lays to himself, I asked the GM for a test on Sing, to serve as a linked test to help in my next test to resist Thoth's bullying and depravity. The GM set my Spite of 5 as the obstacle, and I failed - a spend of a fate point only got me to 4 successes on 4 dice.

My singing attracted the attention of a guard, who had heard the word on the street, and didn't like the look of this rag-clothed Dark Elf. Aedhros has Circles 3 and a +1 reputation with the Etharchs, and so I rolled my 4 dice to see if an Etharch (whether Thurandril or one of his underlings or associates) would turn up here and now to tell the guards that I am right and they should not arrest me. But the test failed, and the only person to turn up was another guard to join the first in bundling me off. So I had to resort to the more mundane method of offering them 1D of loot to leave me alone. The GM accepted this, no test required.

Then, repaying hurt with hurt, Aedhros followed one of the guards - George, as we later learned he was called - who also happened to be the one with the loot. Aedhros ambushed him from the darkness, and took him at knife point back to the workshop

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SableWyvern said:

@EzekielRaiden, I can't help thinking that one of the reason you find this conversation frustrating and confusing is you seem to conflate everyone who disagrees with you into one group as if we're a monolith all thinking the same way.

I mentioned a GM speaking up to correct a mistake, but you then asked @Lanefan to defend that point. I see you asking that question, and jump in to say more, since it was actually my point you were questioning, which leads me to coming across as if I'm speaking for @Lanefan.

As it turns out, @Lanefan doesn't necessarily agree with my position. Which is fine, we can all do things differently.

I note that I will frequently say, "I think X" and you will respond with, "But posters A, B and C," said Y, how can this be? It can be, because we do things differently and express ourselves differently. Regularly asking people to defend things other people have said is only going to result in obfuscating what anyone really believes.

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Lanefan said:

AW (I think it's AW?) has as a hardline core tenet "if you do it, you do it", which at face value I rather like. This is more like "once it's done, it's done", in the same vein.

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EzekielRaiden said:

No, it isn't.

It is literally the most important thing.

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EzekielRaiden said:

The same goes for all your arguments about how important it is that characters roleplay with one another even when their lives aren't in danger. Because why you do things is, quite literally, the most important thing. If motive didn't matter, we wouldn't bother with all this fiction nonsense. We'd play the much more efficient Statistics & Spreadsheets. Like, the very reason you want to spend so much time on those things is because they reveal why characters do the things they do!

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Maxperson said:

Okay. That's not how we do it. Any area, including a city, has the potential for CR 20+ stuff. The farther out you go, the more likely you are to encounter powerful things. Look at the wandering monster tables in 1e-3e. Any party could easily run into something waaaaaaay out of their range in any environment.

We don't make our worlds like WoW where there's a starting area and then you go to the next area when you outgrow the starting area and encounter stuff your level. There is no 1-4 area here, and then a 3-5 canyon over there. Thinking that way is a good way to end up with a TPK.

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EzekielRaiden said:

But this then means there is no such thing as "traditional GM" stuff.

There's just what SableWyvern does, what Lanefan does, what Micah does, etc.

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Lanefan said:

In terms of rules-based action resolution, however, the 'why' is irrelevant. You could be climbing that cliff for any of a thousand different reasons but for the purpose of resolving whether you succeed or fail on the climb, none of them matter in the slightest.

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Lanefan said:

In-fiction logic.

If the secret admirer is a common barmaid at the local tavern then she might not hear about the imprisonment until (if ever) the rest of the party return to town and tell their tale; and may very likely be unable to do anything about it in any case.

If the secret admirer is a high-powered wizard or cleric who has been keeping an eye on the PC via scrying or the like then sure, knowledge of the PC's imprisonment might be close to immediate and the admirer could very well have the means to do something about it.

High-powered wizards and clerics are, perhaps unfortunately, considerably less common than barmaids in taverns. As a player, I'm not about to rely on their help should my character somehow become imprisoned.

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