Combating My Own Boredom as a Player

[TiQuinn]

There's a problem you run into with any game wrapped around game or simulation concerns that isn't entirely compatible with some sorts of improvisational approach.

That is, the individual steps are assumed to matter. The various things Retreater had to do are things that may well be significant in their own right in other contexts, so you want to manage their resolution and time consumption. But in this particular case its really only the final result Retreater cared about, and all the steps made it an unattractive choice.

In addition, you sometimes don't want some declarations to be too easy, because the benefits they provide are stronger than the normal resolution.

This is why some more narrative-focused games are really only concerned about the final output--but may also not produce the degree of result a player expects.

So is it better in a game that a strong mechanics/simulation focus to:

A) Not allow improvisational actions on the part of the player
B) Apply what mechanics may be available but make the result sub par in order to bring them back to what the mechanics were designed for
C) Try to find a risk/reward ratio that gives the character the result they want for having to go through a number of mechanical hoops?

For my part, I try to do C, but am increasingly leaning towards just accepting A as the answer when these situations come up.

 

[Retreater]

Everyone in PF2e gets three actions, so its not as bad as it looks at least.

A nice house rule that would make it go down easier would be to allow different types of movement as a part of the same action.
Like, if I moved to the wall and had movement remaining, I could begin climbing it as a part of the first action. If I finished climbing the wall with the third action, I could move to the brazier.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So is it better in a game that a strong mechanics/simulation focus to:

A) Not allow improvisational actions on the part of the player
B) Apply what mechanics may be available but make the result sub par in order to bring them back to what the mechanics were designed for
C) Try to find a risk/reward ratio that gives the character the result they want for having to go through a number of mechanical hoops?

For my part, I try to do C, but am increasingly leaning towards just accepting A as the answer when these situations come up.

Generally I'd say C, but if you can't or don't want to go there (and I think there are reasons to not want to), you at least ought to make it clear to people that the extent mechanics are not liable to make that a particularly effective thing to do.

(A comment I was going to make earlier was that working in a game in the D&D-sphere was going make this particularly questionable as a choice, because improvised damage in those style games is almost always sub-par. In a fixed hit point game it might still not feel worthwhile, but its more likely to be noticeable to the opponents).

 

[Thomas Shey]

A nice house rule that would make it go down easier would be to allow different types of movement as a part of the same action.
Like, if I moved to the wall and had movement remaining, I could begin climbing it as a part of the first action. If I finished climbing the wall with the third action, I could move to the brazier.

There's probably no great harm in doing that as long as you pro-rate the movement, far as that goes. Of course there's some counterincentives to wanting to split up movement in smaller than 5' increments.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

I have never played with a PF2 GM in person, online, at a convention, in this multiverse or any other, who would have ruled it that way.

That’s a pretty strong statement. Perhaps you might want to check out what actual people say, rather than make assumptions.

A basic web search will immediately give you threads, like this one — the first one I read: () where most people — and all the more experienced GMs — say to use the level based table.

All I can conclude is that either you haven’t much experience, or are terrible guessing what other people will do — which is fine, but I would suggest not being so dogmatic in future. Either way, the evidence is strongly against you. Most people use damage appropriate to the scenario level, which, as you know, is effectively the same band as the characters.

Honestly, if you are running a PF2 4-6 level scenario and DIDN’T use a hazard of level 4-6, I’d be very surprised. Why do you think that table even exists if no is supposed ever to use it (in this multiverse or any other)? Or do you think it’s only for the GM to use, and the players only do minimal ad-hoc damage for all their careers?

 

[Gorgon Zee]

There's probably no great harm in doing that as long as you pro-rate the movement, far as that goes. Of course there's some counterincentives to wanting to split up movement in smaller than 5' increments.

I found that a little fiddly to work out — although I like it in theory — so what I tend to do is assume you can take a short move to a wall or away from it; a 5’ step or so for a normal speed character. If you have to move a decent distance, then to me it makes sense to use an action. So hand waving a step by the wall is simple and doesn’t break any feeling of realism to me.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Okay, two checks but also multiple actions including an action per 5’ of climbing?

I’m not familiar with PF literally at all so maybe actions are doled out like they’re nothing special and this is all just moot, but reading it, it just seems like a kind of trap option.

You usually get 3 actions a round, and at medium-high levels haste is common enough to give you four, so three actions is basically a one round action. Also PF2 strongly penalizes you for taking each action to attack, so a very common strategy is 2 swings and a move, so if you spread the wall-climbing out, even 4 actions isn’t a bad plan.

Player has an idea and wants to try something cool, and the DM (or system) puts hurdles in their way that end up making the move onerous compared to just taking a more direct, simpler approach.

Yup. The GMs I play with like combats to fun, and generally set low DCs and hand wave short steps to a wall. But I do play in PF society games regularly, and they can often be more formal. But mosts GMs will want you to do fun things, so they won’t deliberately place braziers away from edges, or make walls glassy smooth without an excellent reason.

The damage in your scenario seems more reasonable for the output.

Although we have a dissenting opinion in this thread, you are in the majority. A PF2 scenario has a level, and that level is close to the players level, so when you look at the table for ad-hoc damage by environment level, you’re effectively scaling it to the players’ level. Because that makes the game fun

 

[Jd Smith1]

I only GM. And I never use systems that lack detailed and varied tactical options.

But being stuck running one PC just isn't interesting. TBH, my PS5 fills my gamer needs completely.

My dream is AI players.

Addressing the core issue, though, besides employing crunchier systems, which is my first choice, is to pair those rules with varied terrain (never get cornered into a single type), and layer it over with outside issues. Keep the PCs low-power, and put them in the setting of larger issues: war, deadly politics, economic or social upheaval. Don't let them glide through a peaceful setting from one scenario to another; force them to deal with food shortages, annoying beggars, troublesome refugees, self-important authorities, politics, bad weather, protest groups (in the appropriate settings), war, plague, liberals, bad food, bad water, fanatics, crimes...literally anything and everything you can think of or read about.

Military service, by which I mean in the Army or Marines, will swiftly teach you that combat is nothing compared to the endless tedium and travail of life in the field.

If your system does not have a mechanic for physical and emotional wear, create one, and enforce it rigorously. Force the players to remain involved in every aspect of the setting.

 

[Joanna Geist]

Now, this was a 5th Edition Adventurer's League game, so there were sometimes a LOT of players, but there were three of us playing Rogues and we each had a different subclass; I was a Thief, and the other two were an Assassin and an Arcane Trickster. We developed strategioes that took advantage of our respective specialties, and often involved another player who had a paladin of some stripe.

Thinking asbout it, I guess that was an example of me still trying to manage the game withiout actually running it. Oops.

What do you mean? This just sounds like playing the game.

 

[Ath'kethin]

What do you mean? This just sounds like playing the game.

In the three-rogue sub-team, I definitely took charge and was kind of configuring what we were going to do.

Now, that's part of any normal game on the player side, of course. But since I normally DM and get to decide what all the monsters and NPCs are going to do, it kind of feels like I was trying to do that from the player side, albeit to a smaller degree.