D&D General Alternate thought - rule of cool is bad for gaming

[Thomas Shey]

I think the only negative consequence was rolling a Nat 1, with the positive consequence of advantage on a Nat 20. Essentially just rolling/fishing for an exteme result one way or the other.

I may have misunderstood, though.

And if you're correct, I misunderstood and withdraw my statement.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The "failure" is that you don't look awesome in exchange for the chance for benefit (someting like advantage or inspiration). It's just a bit of slapstick fun that has no real mechanical impact. As I said above it's almost always just a chance to show off how cool your PC is in ways you don't normally get.

I don't know why you're so stuck on this, if we didn't have fun with it I wouldn't do it. I don't run a 100% serious game, its something we play for laughs.

I was stuck on it because I misunderstood and it looked like a classic example of a problem I've seen when it came up. But since I did apparently misunderstand, I withdraw my statement.

 

[Remathilis]

Most of the time I use improvised actions it's to get a bit farther, get past an obstacle, jump a little higher than you normally can. In those cases I give people a general idea of the difficulty. If you are trying to do something out of the ordinary, there is a chance you will fail.

But I simply disagree that any minor setback your PC might encounter is a terrible thing. We have a lot of fun in our game, even if that means every once in a while laughing about failure.

D&D combat can be swingy enough without unforced errors just to show off. So when you create a system where showing off has a higher chance of game effecting consequences than it does "looking cool", I'm going to be more incentivized to stand still and just opt for slugging it out rather than recreate the sword fight from the Princess Bride.

I'm not suggesting your system is like that, but DMs who opt for the "save vs slapstick" style of stunting can really turn off some players for doing anything more than the PHB prescribed actions. And that's kinda sad IMHO.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree that the rules can't explicitly cover everything, but that's why we have ability checks. They should (and hopefully will) go into this a little more but the rules allow all sorts of improvised actions and give you general ideas and categories for each ability.
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So are we following the rule of cool, or just following the rules? In my case I'd call it the latter. There are other cases where we simply have house rules of course.

In general, having a generic resolution system that underlays the more specific individual rules can at least minimize the problems here. The devil can be in the details (where malign consequences can come of too hard or too easy rolls to resolve things, or doing things with multiple rolls makes success unlikely).

The big question is how often you have to engage such dropback options; if its frequently, that's only good design if the deliberate intent was for a lightweight and schematic system. Otherwise it likely indicates the system is underbaked.

 

[Remathilis]

When it’s something that’s covered by an ability check, sure. I’m not suggesting that rule of cool means automatic success.

I think it can, depending on the action.

For example, I would have no problem if a PC used a rope to swing 30 ft over to his enemy rather than walk 30 ft. The net effect is the same. Once DMs start adding acrobatics checks or such to the mix, you create more fail points that are unnecessary. If my choice between swinging on the rope and walking are effectively the same, I choose the cool. If the choice is a Dexterity check and if I fail I fall prone and waste my movement getting up and now I can't reach my target and I've made a fool of my character? Uh, I'll just walk over and attack, thank you.

Now, I might be more willing to roll if there is an advantage to using the rope (Dex roll to avoid any opportunity attacks while you move there, fail and you provoke OAs as normal) but far too many DMs I've known have felt "looks cool" is enough of a reward to justify looks cool/mechanical penalty as the pass/fail states.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D combat can be swingy enough without unforced errors just to show off. So when you create a system where showing off has a higher chance of game effecting consequences than it does "looking cool", I'm going to be more incentivized to stand still and just opt for slugging it out rather than recreate the sword fight from the Princess Bride.

I'm not suggesting your system is like that, but DMs who opt for the "save vs slapstick" style of stunting can really turn off some players for doing anything more than the PHB prescribed actions. And that's kinda sad IMHO.

What about when the thing they want to do, in the GM's opinion, actually is high risk vs. low reward? What if drama and flash aren't the priority of the game, just something you can try if you want and are ok with the consequences of failure? So long as you're being fair in-universe, why is this a problem?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think it can, depending on the action.

For example, I would have no problem if a PC used a rope to swing 30 ft over to his enemy rather than walk 30 ft. The net effect is the same. Once DMs start adding acrobatics checks or such to the mix, you create more fail points that are unnecessary. If my choice between swinging on the rope and walking are effectively the same, I choose the cool. If the choice is a Dexterity check and if I fail I fall prone and waste my movement getting up and now I can't reach my target and I've made a fool of my character? Uh, I'll just walk over and attack, thank you.

Now, I might be more willing to roll if there is an advantage to using the rope (Dex roll to avoid any opportunity attacks while you move there, fail and you provoke OAs as normal) but far too many DMs I've known have felt "looks cool" is enough of a reward to justify looks cool/mechanical penalty as the pass/fail states.

I don't think those fail points are unnecessary. Swinging on a rope is harder than walking, generally speaking.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think those fail points are unnecessary. Swinging on a rope is harder than walking, generally speaking.

swinging on the rope has benefits too. You ignore caltrops grease difficult terrain some obstacles & so on before getting into possible scenario specific things like AoOs surprise or whatever. I can probably count on one hand & still have a fist if I were to count how often I've seen a player want to do something like swing 30ft on a rope without having some expectation of mechanical benefit or increased power as a result of the swinging

 

[Remathilis]

What about when the thing they want to do, in the GM's opinion, actually is high risk vs. low reward? What if drama and flash aren't the priority of the game, just something you can try if you want and are ok with the consequences of failure? So long as you're being fair in-universe, why is this a problem?

I don't think those fail points are unnecessary. Swinging on a rope is harder than walking, generally speaking.

Then you disincentivize attempts at stunting. Don't complain when your combats end up static with everyone lining up in a row and taking attack actions until the foes are dead.

It took me a long time to realize why combat in D&D devolves info "I move up, I attack, I hit, I do damage". That's why. If stunting for even simple benefits is hard to do, PC stop looking for things to stunt with. They don't climb the furniture, knock over objects, swing on objects or other cinematic flourishes. They opt for the safe and boring option, especially if their foes aren't making the same kind of blunders. It's taken a lot of retraining for myself and my players to look around the area they are fighting and use what's around them rather than slugging it out in a 5 ft square.

But if that's the kind of game you want, be my guest.

 

[Oofta]

D&D combat can be swingy enough without unforced errors just to show off. So when you create a system where showing off has a higher chance of game effecting consequences than it does "looking cool", I'm going to be more incentivized to stand still and just opt for slugging it out rather than recreate the sword fight from the Princess Bride.

I'm not suggesting your system is like that, but DMs who opt for the "save vs slapstick" style of stunting can really turn off some players for doing anything more than the PHB prescribed actions. And that's kinda sad IMHO.

If someone rolls a one there's still no mechanical impact. So Taz goes to leap over the table rolls a one. They just put their hand in the stew making fly everywhere and they are soaked. That's all, their movement continues even though they are now dripping gumbo everywhere. They also may have a chance to roll again if they want to see if their blunder turns into a bonus and if they roll high enough they grab the bowl, hitting their target in the face and get advantage on the hit.

It's just a mechanism I use now and then to add a bit of fun and spice to combats instead of straight tactical "I move over here and attack". If I thought for a minute it wasn't adding to the fun for everyone I wouldn't do it.