D&D 5E A Sense of Wonder in 5E

[howandwhy99]

This relates to spoilers but I think it would also apply to recapturing the wonder of youthful D&D again,


http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/04/27

I know B1: In Search of the Unknown gets a bad rap for being a half finished adventure, but I think this is exactly why it is.

If you go back, you can see it actually included all sorts of monsters, treasures, and other room elements for the DM to place for him or her self. It would have been even better if it left off part of the map space to be drawn in as well IMO. It's a how-to adventure that is the Beginner starter module. Others have as much need for modification, but it's still expected DMs will be doing so every time. (yeah, expected DMs will change every adventure every time)

Spoilers are why the MM was off limits and not just during fights. All the material in the DMG that was very setting defining, like treasure, was also out of bounds for players. If they have an imagination, then they have a memory. They need only read it once to have an advantage during play.

Fresh material can be wondrous (it doesn't have to be), but variety is also needed to spice up the overuse of new material too. If we're going bring investment back in terms of anticipation and suspense, I suggest we start aiding and enabling DMs in their own creations. Start simple and dead easy, then demonstrate more difficult designs. Lastly give some high end stuff only the great DMs out there can pull off, but don't make them "this is how you do it" creeds. Just inspire DMs as to how high they may go once they begin their own designing.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]
Not sure I followed you completely.

Are you saying my "i roll trapfinding" player was being risk adverse because the scene felt too dangerous the way I described it?

So the problem is the DM's "poor" scene framing and not the player's lack of imagination-muscle-flexing?

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't think of them as reframing scenes - which smacks of "taking control of the game from the DM" - but as providing me with information my character should have.

I agree the game would be better if I look at the corridor and say "I proceed cautiously down the corridor, looking for any signs of traps", but ultimately when I roll Find Traps I'm saying to the DM, "My character knows what the signs of traps are, whereas I don't. Please tell me if my trapfinding character sees anything you have not yet described."

I'd love to be able to engage in persuasive, in-character dialogue with the half-ogre blocking my way, but even if I am good enough at making up conversation to do so, it still helps to know "my character is persuasive and well-studied in half-ogre behavior, so please interpret my phrasing in a way most elegant and persuasive to the half-ogre."

Absolutely. This is why we HAVE skills. This is especially important for people who are new to the game, who haven't picked up decades of experience finding out what absurd traps monster lairs might be full of. A player shouldn't feel compelled to actively study fictional scenarios involving poison traps, arcane rune bombs, and the leavings of particular fictional animals in order to get through the adventure.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The interaction versus scene framing comes in with the degree to which you can set the skill versus the difficulty. Imagine a modified d20 system where the DC is always 20 for any reasonable challenge, but that the characters can before the adventure pick up various advantages and weaknesses that serve as "flags" to tell the DM what they want, and these are wide ranging.

You set a skill so that you can't hit 20 at all--a weakness knocks you down to -1 or worse modifier. A generally positive statement from this is that you'd like for this weakness to put you in a really nasty difficulty from which you will need to be bailed out by the other players, or come up with some clever way to circumvent. A generally negative statement from this is that you think the DM won't go there (and thus you'll get away with a weakness that doesn't matter), or that you prefer the DM not go there, because you don't want to mess with this at all.

However, you might also set the skill at 20 before the roll--massive advantages are poured on. Positive view is that you are ultra competent at this--so much that it will take unusual circumstances to fail--and you want a chance to shine. Negative is that you know darn well the DM is going to stick some of this stuff in there to mess with you, but you don't want to mess with it.

Then in the middle you may get very close to -1 or 20, hover around some satisfactory success rate (60% or so), or diverge slightly from the normal rate. Here it gets trickier to read the signs, but positive high values is more about you can handle it, while negative is more about not wanting to fool with it. Low numbers are likewise postively engaged with being pushed, while negatively gaming the system or saying you don't want to be pushed.

Trouble is, without more information, you can never be sure which is which. The numbers alone are seldom that extreme, and can be read multiple ways. This is true even in something like Fantasy Hero, where investing the resources to succeed on a 16 or less on 3d6 is saying that you want about a 97% success rate, absent modifiers. Getting to a 16 is often gross overkill in that system, compared to what else you can get. So it is a signal of some kind, but whether: 1) I'll nearly always succeed, throw it at me, or 2) I hate dealing with this, I'll make you go nuts to engage me--is hard to say.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION] - that's a good breakdown of the possibilities, and I agree that (given the mechanical resources that D&D supplies) it can be hard to read the signs.

Are you saying my "i roll trapfinding" player was being risk adverse because the scene felt too dangerous the way I described it?

So the problem is the DM's "poor" scene framing and not the player's lack of imagination-muscle-flexing?

I can't comment on your particular situation (and didn't at all intend it to come across as a criticism of your GMing). I'm just more trying to think about the general phenomenon.

At least according to my tentative theory, percieved or actual danger is irrelevant. It's the degree to which the player wants to engage with the scene. My thought is that some of these skill mechanics are used by players as "scene-reframers" rather than as "scene-engagers", and the whole idea that letting skills work this way would be a good idea is already a sign that the game is resigned to a recurring mismatch betweens scenes framed (by GMs) and scenes desired (by players). (I want to emphasise "mismatch", which isn't at all the same as "poor".)

Another issue with D&D is there has been a tendency for the gamerules to talk only about the fiction from an in-fiction perspective, and when talking at the meta-perspective to talk only about the mechanics, but not about the fiction. And, therefore, a tendency to not talk at the meta-level about how to engage the fiction. Which might make it harder for players to learn how to flex their imagination muscles.

I don't think of them as reframing scenes - which smacks of "taking control of the game from the DM" - but as providing me with information my character should have.

But if the GM is in control, then the GM has already given you the information your PC should have. Now it's up to you to say what else your PC is doing so as to get more information.

I agree the game would be better if I look at the corridor and say "I proceed cautiously down the corridor, looking for any signs of traps", but ultimately when I roll Find Traps I'm saying to the DM, "My character knows what the signs of traps are, whereas I don't. Please tell me if my trapfinding character sees anything you have not yet described."

There's a big diffrence between "I proceed cautiously down the corridor . . ." and just "I roll Trapfinding." The first tells us where your PC is and what s/he is doing. The second doesn't.

I'd love to be able to engage in persuasive, in-character dialogue with the half-ogre blocking my way, but even if I am good enough at making up conversation to do so, it still helps to know "my character is persuasive and well-studied in half-ogre behavior, so please interpret my phrasing in a way most elegant and persuasive to the half-ogre."

I think there is a difference between acting out what your PC does - which I don't think is crucial to roleplaying - and explaining what your PC does, which I think is pretty central to RPGing. So I don't particularly care whether or not your act out your speech to the half-ogre, but I want you to tell us what it is that you are saying - for example, "I point out that I have slayed every half-ogre I've met to date, and have the notches on my belt to prove it - can I roll Intimidate?" Now we know what is happening in the fiction. Whereas a plain "I roll Intimidate" leaves it unclear what is happening. Are you talking? Glowering? Waving your battle axe?

I think it's up for grabs how detailed we expect the engagement with the fiction to be, but for it to be a RPG involving a shared fictional situation, there has to be some minimum degree of engagement, I think. Of RPG rulebooks I've read, I think that Burning Wheel does the best job of explaining this stuff.

This is why we HAVE skills.

<snip>

A player shouldn't feel compelled to actively study fictional scenarios involving poison traps, arcane rune bombs, and the leavings of particular fictional animals in order to get through the adventure.

I think you are running together here the two options of

(1) "Act out what your PC does", which has never been an essential part of tabletop RPGing (eg combat has never required it) but is one particular mode of adjudication (freeform roleplaying),​

and

(2) Explain how your PC is engaging the fiction, and what s/he is attempting to do,​

which should be the minimum to trigger an attack roll, skill check etc.

 

[Savage Wombat]

OK, let's clarifiy this using Cowboys and Indians.

If I say "There's a Wild Injun in the doorway, and he hits you with his tomahawk!" and Joey says "No there isn't" - that's attempting to change the frame. If he says "I shoot him before he hits me" - that's engaging the frame. Agree?

If I say "I kill the orc with my sword" - that's engaging the frame. Is "I roll a 16 to hit" reframing the scene? It's not descriptive, but he's trying to eliminate the threat within the structure of the scene.

If that's so, then "I scan the corridor carefully for hidden traps before moving" would also be engaging the frame - dealing with the encounter described. But "I roll Trapfinding" is just game shorthand for the same thing, much as the "I roll a 16" is for the attack.

So where, in these examples, do you think the 'minimum degree of engagement' lies? Or is there another clarification you want to make?

 

[Quickleaf]

So you guys ([MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION] and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]) are saying some players might max out their PC's skill in Perception and Thievery, not because they want to engage in the fiction of scouting and trapfinding, but because they want to avoid getting "screwed over" by the DM. Or, to put it another way, to avoid bad stuff happening and to be able to move on to some other aspect of the game (that they enjoy more) with a quick roll of the d20.

Is that an accurate description of the theory?

Oh btw, I didn't take it personally, I actually think it's very interesting

 

[pemerton]

Is that an accurate description of the theory?

Yep.

If I say "I kill the orc with my sword" - that's engaging the frame. Is "I roll a 16 to hit" reframing the scene? It's not descriptive, but he's trying to eliminate the threat within the structure of the scene.

A mere "I roll a 16 to hit" has never been enough, though, in any edition of D&D to resolve a scene. At a minimum you need something like "I attack the Orc with my sword" - although the "with my sword" might be implicit rather than express, if that is the PC's default weapon.

If that's so, then "I scan the corridor carefully for hidden traps before moving" would also be engaging the frame - dealing with the encounter described. But "I roll Trapfinding" is just game shorthand for the same thing, much as the "I roll a 16" is for the attack.[/qupte]Maybe - I want to know more about the conventions at the table, etc.

I also want to emphasise the difference between the skill check and the attack roll - the rules have always required nomination of a target to make an attack roll - what is the analogue of that step for the trapfinding roll? The rules don't specify any canonical formulation, but (on my account of "engaging the fiction") there has to be a minimum like "I peer carefully down the corrridor" or "I run my fingers along the underside of the bench" or whatever. And just as specifying a target for an attack makes a difference - is it the orc or the ogre that will go down first? - so specifying looking vs feeling vs tapping with a 10' pole should make a difference, shouldn't it

 

[Savage Wombat]

Good question. I believe if you carefully read the description of the skill it should give you a general sense of the area that is searched with a single skill check. I remember seeing editions do this. But yes, failure to define this area is a part of the problem.

If a person says "I roll a 16 for trapfinding" in the aforementioned example he is implying "the corridor" as the target of the search. Whether that is a legitimate target is up to the skill description and the GM.

Also, as a tip, this is a good place for the GM to help with the problem by responding "You scan the area around your feet carefully for traps, but see no evidence of anything immediately nearby." Indicating that he hasn't searched the whole hallway yet.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Yeah, it can work without being explicit, but in that case implicit cues are passed between the participants. That is, after you've played with the same people for awhile (or even people on the same wave-length as you), then you might very well say, "I swing my axe. Got a 16," and that be enough--not because it ok to skip the fiction, but because everyone is already so in sync on the fiction at that moment, that the fiction is carried along with such minimal description.

For me, this is where it comes back to the "shared imagined space." If the shared imagined space is inhabited by everyone at the table, someitmes a raised eyebrow or other bit of body language is sufficient to convey a wealth of implied narrative. (With our long running group, we've had several times a fairly lengthy bit in a scene that is nothig but one or two words with inflection, combined with body language. We tend towards understatement and dry humor. )

OTOH, if there is a very florid description that happens to bore half the table, then this tends to take them out of the shared imagined space. And with another group, the same exact description has brought everything to life. So keep in mind when we talk particulars here, the particulars can only be examples.

Of course, some of our most memorable moments were when half the group was in one imagined space and the other half was in a very different one. "You're gonna do what? No way!" And then we sort it out later, and find that amusing. As wacky as that is, it is something else you don't get without at least minimal engagement with the fiction.