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

[Oofta]

There are times when a roll could have a negative penalty. If you're swinging from that rope to avoid an opportunity attack, it may not work. If you're trying to swing further than 30 feet your hands may slip. If you aren't trying to go further or avoid some other penalty it will always work, I may call for a roll to see how good you look doing it.

 

[Remathilis]

There are times when a roll could have a negative penalty. If you're swinging from that rope to avoid an opportunity attack, it may not work. If you're trying to swing further than 30 feet your hands may slip. If you aren't trying to go further or avoid some other penalty it will always work, I may call for a roll to see how good you look doing it.

That's completely fair and reasonable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I want a game where doing difficult things is more difficult than doing easy things, and where that is orthogonal to what benefit those things may or may not give you. Like the actual world we live in, more or less. It's not like I'm saying stunting provides no benefit; it provides whatever benefit it makes sense for it to provide, and is as difficult as it makes sense for it to be. Deciding to not stunt in the face of that is a player decision, not a GM one.

 

[Pedantic]

I want a game where doing difficult things is more difficult than doing easy things, and where that is orthogonal to what benefit those things may or may not give you. Like the actual world we live in, more or less. It's not like I'm saying stunting provides no benefit; it provides whatever benefit it makes sense for it to provide, and is as difficult as it makes sense for it to be. Deciding to not stunt in the face of that is a player decision, not a GM one.

Why would you include options that can't hold up to a cost/benefit analysis as player facing material? If you consistently make say "losing your actions" the risk of using a mechanic, players will not engage with it and you've wasted your time designing it.

I'm all for a transparent, fixed rules set for players to use, but it's silly to design without regard to the actual situations and actions that will come up in game. That's the actual thing people decry as a "trap" option. The question "do I want people to swing on ropes?" belongs in your design process, whether you're designing a generic stunting system or a bespoke action. Designing without regard to the ultimate action's utility wastes everyone's time, from the designer to the GM to the player.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why would you include options that can't hold up to a cost/benefit analysis as player facing material? If you consistently make say "losing your actions" the risk of using a mechanic, players will not engage with it and you've wasted your time designing it.

I'm all for a transparent, fixed rules set for players to use, but it's silly to design without regard to the actual situations and actions that will come up in game. That's the actual thing people decry as a "trap" option. The question "do I want people to swing on ropes?" belongs in your design process, whether you're designing a generic stunting system or a bespoke action. Designing without regard to the ultimate action's utility wastes everyone's time, from the designer to the GM to the player.

It depends on what your game and worldbuilding priorities are IMO. As I've said many times before, in-setting logic and verisimilitude are my priorities, followed by gamist concerns.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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?

Then the player and GM want different things, but the evaluation of what the GM's decision here means in terms of what it discourages is still dead on.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It depends on what your game and worldbuilding priorities are IMO. As I've said many times before, in-setting logic and verisimilitude are my priorities, followed by gamist concerns.

It doesn't change the fact if you run an option such that anyone who cares about their success will never do it, you might as well just tell them "Its going to be more trouble than its worth to you" and save the trouble of coming up with mechanics. Because that's what virtually everyone but the "die for their art" types is going to do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It doesn't change the fact if you run an option such that anyone who cares about their success will never do it, you might as well just tell them "Its going to be more trouble than its worth to you" and save the trouble of coming up with mechanics. Because that's what virtually everyone but the "die for their art" types is going to do.

To each their own then. That's simply not how I see it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To each their own then. That's simply not how I see it.

Since this is about how the player is going to see it, I'm not sure how relevant that is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Since this is about how the player is going to see it, I'm not sure how relevant that is.

Game design and Rule of Cool affect player and GM alike.