D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[Hussar]

Nothing except common sense. Just because a PC manages to roll well on a streetwise check doesn't mean he's going to find a bureaucrat willing to give him license to set up a hamburger stand in the 2000 Worlds. It simply is not going to happen. Frankly, I find that line of argument, that a player should be able to get pretty much anything they want simply by rolling a success with a particular skill, the worst sort of crunch beats fluff (or roll beats role) argument that undermines the best differences between role playing games and board games.

For those of you not Traveller-savvy: The 2000 Worlds is the empire of the K'Kree - a highly militant interstellar culture descended from herd animals. They are militantly vegetarian and very prickly. Anybody with hamburger on their breath (much less trying to set up a hamburger stand on a K'Kree world) is destined to be trampled to death by hysterical K'Kree in short order. Envoys to the K'Kree make sure to maintain a vegetarian diet weeks before entering K'Kree space so there is no chance of a lingering odor derived from eating meat.

But this would be reflected in the DC to make the streetwise check. If, somehow, the player managed to beat that check, he beat it and he gets the license. Now, you are setting up a pretty extreme straw man here, but, the principle is the same. If the player succeeds, then he gets what he wants. Whatever he wanted is now available to him in the game world. That success has now changed the game world. A gun might become available or whatever. They do provide guidelines in the Traveler rules that Pemerton quoted that illustrate the outlines of what is reasonable for the skill use.

But, the fact still remains that when you succeed on this skill use, the DM is obligated to change his game world to give you access to whatever it was you were trying to acquire.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If there's no foreshadowing, and it just conveniently happens to come in exactly when it's needed? Yeah, that's Deus Ex Machina. It's one of the most traditional examples of poor writing.

nope... not everything that isn't foreshadowed is a Deus Ex Machina. However once again just having CHaracter A be a Ninja does state someone trained them...

: a character or thing that suddenly enters the story in a novel, play, movie, etc., and solves a problem that had previously seemed impossible to solve

tools that help solve the problem can't be Deus Ex Machina, because they themselves do not solve the issue, the main character still does...

SO if the Ninja master snaps his fingers and has what you want... that is a Deus Ex Machina, if they instead give you a way past the magic wards and an idea how to sneak in... then all it does is give you another shot and you still need to solve the main problem...

If you want there to be a ninja stronghold in this mountain range, then you should work with the DM to make sure that it's established before the game starts. Then, if you need to call upon those ninjas, it is just the world carrying out as it logically should.

BS...
It is in game just as logically if I have it maped out, or if I add it to the map at the last second. In game it is the same thing either way, it is only out of game that it matters. ANd is it any different if the DM put the city on the map after game started?

Why? How does it improve the play of the game to have nothing new introduced once play begins?

It's not a matter of improving anything. It's a matter what the game is. D&D is "The DM describes the environment," and, "The players describe their actions".

1st... what improves the game is all that matters. If it is more fun to throw darts instead of roll d20 then throw darts for gods sake (not that I think that would be more fun, it was just the most crazy example I could think of)

2nd... The DM describes the environment- and it was a city and an item and needing to get into city to get item, so check. The players describe their actions- The player went to his Ninja clan for help... so check

this matches your idea of the game.

You can introduce an element of "The players help to describe the environment," but that doesn't fall into the above-described paradigm.

it fits perfectly in the paradigm...

There may very well be a case that you did grow up in a ninja stronghold that is nearby. When that's honestly the case, then you probably collaborated with the DM on that before the game started, so you can go ahead and recruit them to help you. If it wasn't previously established as a fact, though, then you're probably not honestly in-character thinking that it is true.

except you are making it impossible to think in the game. There are facts that we all know, like I have parents, and someone taught me my skills, and that I grew up somewhere, and I trained somewhere. If we didn't agree ahead of time who when and where, I can't think in game at all about those things... because they exsist but we didn't agree where. When I ask "Can my Ninja clan have agents, or a base around here to go to for help" it HAS to be out of game to the DM...

 

[Mark CMG]

So, a character with Bond Points, where you get to spend Bond Points (or Action Points, or Fate Points, or Bennies or whatever) to say that the boxes exist in the alley is roleplaying, (. . .)

How do you figure that?

 

[Mark CMG]

The mount is a character resource.

But it is not created by the character (contrast 3E, where the "pokemount" is created by the character). It's existence in the game, and it's availability to the character, is dicated by the player. Hence why Hussar has correctly identified this as an instance of a player in AD&D exercising authorial control over the content of the shared fiction which extends beyond the ingame causal capacities of his/her PC.

Nope, and neither are third level spells which a first level wizard can someday pursue authorial control rather than a resource.

The point is that the GM is obliged, at the behest of the player, to make it true that, in the gameworld, there is a warhorse waiting to be obtained by questing. But the paladin didn't make it true that the warhorse exists: the paladin calling for his/her warhorse doesn't create a warhorse and a 4th level evil fighter to guard it. If there is any causal power at work here, it is the power of the paladin's deity - so, in effect, by calling for his/her warhorse the player of the paladin gets to dictate certain actions of his/her PC's deity.

Much like a wizard can craft new spells, the paladin as part of his role in a setting can call and quest for a warhorse. A GM is neither obligated to have it happen, nor to even have paladins in the setting. There is no authorial control on the part of the player only the potential to pursue something as a character.

As for what is within the GM's purview:

This is not what Moldvay says. He says that the GM should create a dungeon which gives the players (via their PCs) a reason to adventure

"via their PCs" It literally says that? That the player interacts with the setting through the PC?

When the Traveller rules (Book 3, p 19) state that "The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so" and also state that "Encounters with non-player characters . . . also serve as a method for players to gain comrades, weapons, vehicles or assistance where necessary," do you think they were ruling out that a referee, in determining what encounters occur, might have regard to the desires of the players?

Which they discover and encounter and interact with through their characters. I know you understand this because you are reading and quoting from sources that explain it.

 

[Hussar]

How do you figure that?

I'm spending a character resource, in exactly the same way as the paladin is. What is the difference?

A GM is neither obligated to have it happen, nor to even have paladins in the setting. There is no authorial control on the part of the player only the potential to pursue something as a character.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...cter-play-vs-Player-play/page31#ixzz3HyxdAVHn

Where in the rules does it say that the DM can say no when the paladin player calls his warhorse? Where is that even hinted? True, he doesn't have to have paladins in the setting, but, since I'm actually playing a paladin, then I think it's safe to assume that the DM in this case has allowed paladins in the setting.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm spending a character resource, in exactly the same way as the paladin is. What is the difference?

The mechanics you listed (Bond Points, Action Points, Fate Points, Bennies) are not character resources, they are player resources of the storytelling game variety that are sometimes added into RPGs that contain storytelling elements.

Where in the rules does it say that the DM can say no when the paladin player calls his warhorse? Where is that even hinted? True, he doesn't have to have paladins in the setting, but, since I'm actually playing a paladin, then I think it's safe to assume that the DM in this case has allowed paladins in the setting.

A GM has full authorial control in an RPG. His setting might not have paladins, might have paladins but not have anything akin to mounts, etc.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

tools that help solve the problem can't be Deus Ex Machina, because they themselves do not solve the issue, the main character still does...

If the problem is to get up a wall, then poof-ing some boxes into existence is a Deus Ex Machina because it conveniently solves the problem out of nowhere. If you need to fight a more powerful enemy, then poof-ing in a ninja army to fight for you is a Deus Ex Machina.

1st... what improves the game is all that matters. If it is more fun to throw darts instead of roll d20 then throw darts for gods sake (not that I think that would be more fun, it was just the most crazy example I could think of)

That may be what you care about at your own table, but for the purposes of this discussion, it's irrelevant. Better and worse are subjective, but any change that you make from D&D makes it not D&D, at least a little bit.

2nd... The DM describes the environment- and it was a city and an item and needing to get into city to get item, so check. The players describe their actions- The player went to his Ninja clan for help... so check

The player went to the ninja clan, which was not part of the environment described by the DM. That goes against point 1 of "The DM describes the environment."

except you are making it impossible to think in the game. There are facts that we all know, like I have parents, and someone taught me my skills, and that I grew up somewhere, and I trained somewhere. If we didn't agree ahead of time who when and where, I can't think in game at all about those things... because they exist but we didn't agree where. When I ask "Can my Ninja clan have agents, or a base around here to go to for help" it HAS to be out of game to the DM...

I'm making it impossible to think meta-game. Your in-game thinking is limited to that which exists within the game. Which is as it should be, according to the PHB (both 2E and 5E, as have been referenced thus far in this thread).

If your parent/mentor/etc were going to be relevant, than it would have been established in advance. More often than not, a character's backstory will say that it's from X region of the world, so we know that we don't need to spend much time detailing their exact whereabouts unless the game takes place in that region. If you failed to establish even that much, then that's the fault of you and your DM.

It should never be "Can my Ninja clan have agents here?" The only question that makes sense is "Does my Ninja clan have agents here?" And it shouldn't even be that, because you should already know the answer.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I'm making it impossible to think meta-game. Your in-game thinking is limited to that which exists within the game. Which is as it should be, according to the PHB (both 2E and 5E, as have been referenced thus far in this thread).

If your parent/mentor/etc were going to be relevant, than it would have been established in advance. More often than not, a character's backstory will say that it's from X region of the world, so we know that we don't need to spend much time detailing their exact whereabouts unless the game takes place in that region. If you failed to establish even that much, then that's the fault of you and your DM.

It should never be "Can my Ninja clan have agents here?" The only question that makes sense is "Does my Ninja clan have agents here?" And it shouldn't even be that, because you should already know the answer.

It seems to me - and maybe I'm wrong - that because of the quite rigid style you follow, what you're playing is not different from a computer RPG, where everything is set up in advance, PC's contributions are forbidden and everything is determined randomly by the DM, only your version of computer RPGs doesn't have pretty graphics and nice music. The new edition of Icewind Dale has just been released: wouldn't it be easier to simply play that instead of going through the hassle of having a human impersonate the computer?

 

[pemerton]

Just because a PC manages to roll well on a streetwise check doesn't mean he's going to find a bureaucrat willing to give him license to set up a hamburger stand in the 2000 Worlds.

<snip>

The 2000 Worlds is the empire of the K'Kree - a highly militant interstellar culture descended from herd animals. They are militantly vegetarian and very prickly.

Given that the skill is expressly about human subcultures and notes that interaction with aliens is at the referee's discretion, I'm not sure this is a sound example.

I find that line of argument, that a player should be able to get pretty much anything they want simply by rolling a success with a particular skill, the worst sort of crunch beats fluff (or roll beats role) argument that undermines the best differences between role playing games and board games.

Well, I find the idea that a GM would ignore the rules text and decide that Streetwise checks also have a prior "GM approval/random roll" clause one of the main "GM railroading over player creativity" things. I've seen it wreck games. I've seen it sour and crush players.

Traveller is a game about, among other things, taking ridiculous quantities of weapons into places where they are illegal and then hoping you don't have to use them. The Streetwise skill is part of that. It sets the tone of the game. And, as written, it allows the player to introduce new content into the shared fiction without it being the case that the player's character is the causal origin of that new content.

If you want to houserule that out in your Traveller games, that's your prerogative. But player authorship, in a limited fashion, was in RPGs back in 1977.

Which they discover and encounter and interact with through their characters. I know you understand this because you are reading and quoting from sources that explain it.

The rules are very clear. A player can roll Streetwise without his/her PC having met a contact, and without his/her PC even knowing - at that point - that a potential contact exists. The Streetwise check resolves, through one roll, both the existence of the contact and the contact's willingness to help the PC.

You also haven't answered my question - when the Traveller book says that the GM has a responsibility to introduce encounters that will further the adventure, do you think it is ruling out having regard to what the players want? I think it is not. Which is to say, I think that back in 1977 it had occurred to RPG authors that the players might have input, via requests and other expressed desires, into the referee's framing of the ingame situation. Much like the beard and box examples.

Nope, and neither are third level spells which a first level wizard can someday pursue authorial control rather than a resource.

The difference is that the paladin's "spell" interacts with at least one NPC - the warhorse - who is therefore deemed to exist even though the paladin didn't create it.

It would be analogous to a Charm Monster spell that also guarantees that a convenient monster wanders along.

Much like a wizard can craft new spells, the paladin as part of his role in a setting can call and quest for a warhorse.

Which therefore must exist. Even though the paladin didn't bring it into being.

A GM is neither obligated to have it happen

So you're seriously saying the GM can unilaterallly override the player's class ability? The paladin, at 4th level, calls for a warhorse and the GM says "No, you can't have one"? That sounds like crappy GMing to me. I don't see any warrant for it in any AD&D material that I'm familiar with (maybe it's in one of the 2nd ed books that I thankfully avoided).

"via their PCs" It literally says that? That the player interacts with the setting through the PC?

No. Moldvay just says that the GM should design a dungeon that gives the player's a reason to adventure. Moldvay is fairly loose on player/PC terminology, and in context I think that my interpolation is a fair reading of what he meant. There is a contrast in this respect with Gygax, who takes it for granted that the PCs will be motivated by nothing more than the desire for fortune.

 

[pemerton]

It seems to me - and maybe I'm wrong - that because of the quite rigid style you follow, what you're playing is not different from a computer RPG, where everything is set up in advance, PC's contributions are forbidden and everything is determined randomly by the DM

I'm certainly not seeing how anyone but the GM is exercising imagination or personal creativity - which is what Gygax, at least, promised to all the participants.