D&D 5E Consequences of Failure

[Guest 6801328]

There may have been a slight mixup: I didn't post any links to blogs. (Or, if I did, I'm having a much harder time adapting to the new interface than I realized.)

Oops. That was Monayuris.

 

[Lanefan]

While I tend to agree with much of what you said, In all likelihood there game feels just as real as you, they just restrict the fictional situations they play out a little bit, while you do not. If they simply never play fictional situations exactly as the one you described, but telegraph everything, then there's nothing about any given situation that's unrealistic. The collection of the whole might reveal a pattern of the PC's never encountering something stealthy on the other side of a closed door - or maybe they do and a check is called right at the moment they would notice it to see if they notice it in time.

Perhaps, though it severely strains credulity to think that in situations where the PCs are involved the only beings in the game world capable of successfully being stealthy are those very PCs.

 

[FrogReaver]

Okay, this will be a tad snippy.

I do love having someone that disagrees with my playstyle trying to explain to others how my game works and why. It's doubly patronizing -- you both respond as if we can't defend our own play and need you to explain it for us and also it gets described in dismissive terms because, well, you disagree. That the above has glaring errors is just icing on the cake. And, no, I'm not going to explain to you at length how your unsolicited explanation of my play is incorrect. If you actually cared, you'd have asked in the first place.

That may be deserved snippiness. What you are describing isn't my intention.

Anyways, on a personal note. I rarely ever ask first on discussion boards. I typically assume first and expect to have whatever I'm assuming challenged if it's incorrect.

 

[FrogReaver]

Perhaps, though it severely strains credulity to think that in situations where the PCs are involved the only beings in the game world capable of successfully being stealthy are those very PCs.

Sure, but you are looking at the forest right now. In actual play you are instead staring at individual trees.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Consider this, that encounter that you barely survived, but against all odds tried something out of the box and it worked and saved the party. That's FUN. That's memorable.

I agree. Is this a general observation, or are you suggesting that this sort of thing happens more with some approaches than with others?

You can't reproduce that because the more you try the more fake it feels and finally when you are playing and all encounters start being barely won by some heroic feat then it takes the fun out of that event. It's ordinary and mundane now.

Sure. You can't have constant climactic events. (It's one reason I don't like WotC APs...too many of them seem to involve saving the world.)

So while I think you have a noble goal, I don't think making every single check in the game more risk vs reward is necessarily going to increase the overall enjoyment your players get from your game. In great likelihood they will end up missing some of the less fun checks that set them up for the really memorable ones.

Can you say more about why you think "less fun checks" are necessary for that setup?

 

[Lanefan]

Sure, but you are looking at the forest right now. In actual play you are instead staring at individual trees.

And after staring at enough trees that look just a bit too much like each other then yes, I do start wondering if the forest is fake.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Without a strong element of realism backing things up it becomes impossible to make decisions based on what people would do in that scenario. Put another way, without realism as a goal your other goals become unattainable.

And here, by 'realism' I don't necessarily mean things being true to the real world (though that's always a good start for those who don't design their own settings), I mean a setting that has its own built-in realism based on strongly enforced internal consistency and reliable cause-effect loops.

And some of that internal consistency is represented by the PCs not always knowing everything...and sometimes barely knowing anything...about their situation. You set out to sneak down a hallway past 5 doors, all closed. You don't know how many, if any, of those doors might have observers or threats (or treasure!) behind them - hell, for all you know one or more of the doors is an illusion!

...

Your goal is to "create opportunities for the players to imagine themselves as other people, in a fictional scenario". That's cool! But it only works if they players are exposed to the fictional scenario as it would really be, i.e. with info that the PCs don't and can't know kept hidden from the players and not unduly telegraphed or hinted at. And yes, this naturally means that sometimes you're gonna hit 'em with a 'gotcha'; but that too is only realistic.

You make a lot of definitive statements that I think are completely false. Just sayin'.

 

[FrogReaver]

I agree. Is this a general observation, or are you suggesting that this sort of thing happens more with some approaches than with others?

Not really suggesting it happens more, just suggesting that chasing for more fun in specific isolated parts of the game may lead to less fun overall. This was in response to (I believe it was you), asking which method was more fun. I was just observing that while your method is more fun on a specific basis, that having fun with the game as a whole isn't really about the sum of each piece but rather the game as a whole.

Sure. You can't have constant climactic events. (It's one reason I don't like WotC APs...too many of them seem to involve saving the world.)

On that we can agree!

Can you say more about why you think "less fun checks" are necessary for that setup?

Sure, it seems to me like you are trying to have constant climatic events (or at least every time a roll is called for it to be a climatic event). My view is that that will diminish the climaticness of rolls overall since that will now be a familiar and expected feeling for any roll.

 

[FrogReaver]

And after staring at enough trees that look just a bit too much like each other then yes, I do start wondering if the forest is fake.

Sure, but that's still talking like an outsider. If you were actually in the forest you would never be able to make out those patterns because the trees that are similar like that would be to spread out in the forest.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Perhaps, though it severely strains credulity to think that in situations where the PCs are involved the only beings in the game world capable of successfully being stealthy are those very PCs.

Because not correct. In my last session I had sneaky bad guys, some that got the drop on the party and others that did not. One that was never seen by the party.