Craft/Profession

[Thasmodious]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I find the best plot twists come from the dice.

If I want to tell a story which goes precisely how I want it to go, I'll write a novel. As a DM, I want to be entertained, too, and there's nothing as entertaining as the jaw dropping "You do WHAT?" moments. Random rolls can help bring these on. We still talk about the time, three campaigns ago, when one PC almost killed another (his cousin) by rolling a 1 while shooting at a worm or something which had landed on her, so that he impaled her instead of the worm, when she was already a very low hit points.

In the case of the beer, sure, 9 times out of 10, it will be fine, even great...but roll the dice anyway. Maybe it's a 1, and you seriously screwed up and have to scramble to salvage the mess you made. Maybe it's a 20, and the king likes it so much he appoints you Royal Brewmaster...whether you wanted to be or not, and refusing him could be...difficult. High or low rolls on seemingly mundane tasks can spark sudden inspiration. The fact is, when the campaign is over and the character sheets are retired, things like "remember when you nearly poisoned the dwarf king with that beer?" will be talked about long after "Remember when you killed your seven hundred and second orc?" have been forgotten.

I got no problem with this. A roll won't hurt here. But there is no need to demand that an entry exist on the character sheet for everything you might one day roll for. If a player puts brewing in his dwarfs background it might come up in a lot of different places. He tries the ale at an inn and its tastes foul to him because of his tastes. How he reacts to this affects the game as the bartender/brewer is very sensitive about his beer and his family doesn't have the heart to tell him how bad it is. No dice needed here. The dwarf sets up a small brewery in the PCs home base and brews up some hearty ale that keeps a long time for them to fill skins with for forays out into the wild. Thats good detail.

Then we come to the king example. You can throw in a roll to see how well the dwarf does. Handwave a modifier based on his background and how much he is up on his brew skills (if he spends downtime brewing or studying his craft - ie drinking). Or set it to the level of his trained skills for this situation. Or, depending on the situation (which is what oakheart is talking about, I think), the story might have different needs. If the dwarf king's family is an ancient enemy of the PC dwarfs family, maybe it has something to do with beer. The PC crafts his beer, the taste identifies him as a member of said clan and the king reacts unfavorably. Regardless, the PCs background has had some fun and memorable uses in the game, no stats needed.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I find the best plot twists come from the dice.

I've had bad experiences with those sorts of campaigns. When the campaigns went nowhere fast because the DM was waiting for us to come up with the plot and we were waiting for him to come up with the plot. He wanted us to amuse him, while we waited for something interesting to happen worth reacting to. End resullt: Sitting in a tavern talking to each other for 3 hours of real time. Mostly making out of character jokes cause we couldn't find anything interesting in the game world to do other than drink our beers.

If I want to tell a story which goes precisely how I want it to go, I'll write a novel.

I don't want to know exactly how the story will go. I want to give the players choice to move around within the story somewhat in order to see what happens.

I mean, I want the story to proceed to the next part, but I don't want to know exactly how it will happen. I know the PCs are eventually going to figure out that the Butler did it...but I want them to tell me how they do it. I know eventually the Evil Wizard will be brought to his knees and that the PCs will be the ones to defeat him, but I don't know if they are going to do it by attacking his tower directly or sneaking in through the back while invisible or knocking on the door disguised as girl guides.

It's that sort of thing that keeps me entertained.

As a DM, I want to be entertained, too, and there's nothing as entertaining as the jaw dropping "You do WHAT?" moments. Random rolls can help bring these on. We still talk about the time, three campaigns ago, when one PC almost killed another (his cousin) by rolling a 1 while shooting at a worm or something which had landed on her, so that he impaled her instead of the worm, when she was already a very low hit points.

In the case of the beer, sure, 9 times out of 10, it will be fine, even great...but roll the dice anyway. Maybe it's a 1, and you seriously screwed up and have to scramble to salvage the mess you made. Maybe it's a 20, and the king likes it so much he appoints you Royal Brewmaster...whether you wanted to be or not, and refusing him could be...difficult. High or low rolls on seemingly mundane tasks can spark sudden inspiration.

I really have a distaste for these sort of things. Partially because it annoys me as a player to screw up on something I'm really good at simply because the DM thought it would be a good idea.

I like knowing that I'm a master brewer, best in the land. I've spend years practicing my craft. That's my character. I've had too many DMs who have decided that a d20 roll should decide the fate of almost everything. I may be the best brewer in the land, I make enough beer for 500 tankards a day without screwing it up for 15 years, but as soon as I'm making beer for the king, then anything less than an 11 will be rather bland, and 5% of the time I'll suddenly screw up bad enough to poison him.

Sure, it'll be funny and the other players will laugh. Likely at me for screwing up the roll. I'll have to be reminded of it over and over as that time I poisoned the king. It might even be fun for them. Not for me. I wanted to succeed.

And that's exactly why I don't like them as a DM either. Unexpected things happens can derail what I was planning. When I'm planning to have the Kind assassinated as part of the plotline, because I made up the stats for the assassins, the guards, and the mind flayer who mind controlled the assassin's to do it, I don't want to have a random die roll suddenly cause the King to duck at the right moment and make me throw away all the monsters I rolled up and come up with a new plot on the fly.

I want the players actions to be unpredictable...I don't want the rest of the world to be.

 

[LostSoul]

Cool.

You decide to brew a special beer to impress the Dwarf King when you next visit him. How does it turn out?

Your fighter pal, who has no such background (but, we will say, identical attributes and level to you) wants to make some beer, too. How does his turn out?

You both roll a 10 on a D20.

I would describe it differently for each character.

Failure? Your beer is great, of course, but the dwarf king isn't going to be swayed by your future arguments. "You brew a fine beer, but it takes more than that to sway a king."

He spits out the beer that your fighter pal makes for him. "You call this swill dwarven beer?"

Note - no mechanical difference at all.

 

[GnomeWorks]

If you feel a need to roll dice for basketweaving or brewing, you _may as well_ roll a die for how well somebody shaved prior to the audience with the King and how well they swagger in... and woe to the poor saps who didn't take ranks in Personal Grooming or Careful Walking

As I read this, I asked myself: "Self, is it worth it to point out that this is hyperbole, since the poster is pro-4e on the 4e boards?" And I replied, "Self, probably not. So you should probably not mention it."

The heart of this question is not whether or not its frivolous to roll craft (blacksmithing) or craft (brewing) or even (basketweaving), it's a question of what the focus of the game is. If the game happens to be tending towards a direction that is focusing heavily on the players' ability to turn lumps of metal into more useful shapes, or to turn plants and yeast into alcoholic beverages, would these not be useful skills to have?

4e's issue seems to be that it says to you, "Hey there, DM guy, this game is all combat, all the time. Your PCs don't need anything that isn't somehow relevant to killin' dudes and takin' their stuff." This is a fine approach, and I'm sure is practiced at many a table, but sometimes - sometimes! - there are games in which the PCs do other things.

Gasp! I know, right? Hard to swallow. But perhaps there are games where all these myriad combat abilities could be rolled into one lump sum, one single check. Combat is resolved not through myriad tedious rounds of rolling dice (after all, swinging swords at dudes is much more boring than attempting to make a sword out of mithril), but with single, opposed skill checks. In this hypothetical game, skills like blacksmithing, alchemy, and - hell! - even profession (miner) play a much more central role, and silly things like acrobatics or sneakiness or tracking are silly things that no one would bother to roll dice for. Does your background say you're an Olympic-class athlete? Well, then, go nuts!

I suspect that this will raise much ire amongst you 4e folk. But the example above exemplifies my concerns with 4e: it is a game of combat, and - while it has minimal support for things outside combat - pretty much ends there. 3.5 was superior in the idea that the system supported a wide variety of styles of play. Normally, I'd follow that statement up with an appeasement of sorts, to say that 3.5 wasn't perfect, but screw that. 3.5 was just straight-up better, in this regard, no bones about it.

It's all a question of focus. Surprisingly enough, the game doesn't have to focus so darn tight on the combat aspects of the game. Enjoyable, totally valid approach to the game? Darn tootin'. But a game system can support multiple styles and approaches to the game, and while 3.5 wasn't perfect (drat!), I think that abandoning the approach of letting an individual table determine how it wants to use the rules is unfortunate. The game doesn't need to focus solely on encounters, and - IMO - it should not.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I don't think 4e is abandoning that style of gameplay. Hell, my first game for 4e will have lots of non-combat.

It simply, is, those skills aren't needed. They can be shown perfectly with things like, ability rolls, using other skills, giving circumstantial bonuses, having more chances to fail and needing less success in skill-challenges, etc. to replicate such things.

 

[keterys]

4E supports non-combat 'skills' like brewing and basketweaving better by not requiring resources for them.

Much in the same way that Amber supports roleplaying by _letting you do it_ without the mechanics getting in the way of your attempts to do so.

Having rules for simulating reality or any random thing that might come up just flat out isn't necessary, and it doesn't matter what system we're talking about. If you absolutely must, for some reason, roll then use an ability check with an appropriate 'circumstance' modifier.

But don't make people choose between taking Power Attack and Skill Training: Brewing, because that 'improves roleplaying'. It shackles and inhibits it.

 

[Blackeagle]

4E supports non-combat 'skills' like brewing and basketweaving better by not requiring resources for them.

But don't make people choose between taking Power Attack and Skill Training, because that 'improves roleplaying'. It shackles and inhibits it.

This.

 

[PeterWeller]

As I read this, I asked myself: "Self, is it worth it to point out that this is hyperbole, since the poster is pro-4e on the 4e boards?" And I replied, "Self, probably not. So you should probably not mention it."

The heart of this question is not whether or not its frivolous to roll craft (blacksmithing) or craft (brewing) or even (basketweaving), it's a question of what the focus of the game is. If the game happens to be tending towards a direction that is focusing heavily on the players' ability to turn lumps of metal into more useful shapes, or to turn plants and yeast into alcoholic beverages, would these not be useful skills to have?

That's not really D&D, is it?

4e's issue seems to be that it says to you, "Hey there, DM guy, this game is all combat, all the time. Your PCs don't need anything that isn't somehow relevant to killin' dudes and takin' their stuff." This is a fine approach, and I'm sure is practiced at many a table, but sometimes - sometimes! - there are games in which the PCs do other things.

The books actually devote quite a bit to out of combat activities. Heck, the adventuring rules precede the combat rules in the PHB, and a discussion of character background, personality, and motivation precedes the rules for rolling race and class. What the books actually say is, "you don't need to devote resources that could otherwise be spent on making your character better in a fight towards making your character more flavorful," and, "hey, DM, make sure your characters personalities and backstories are relevant to the game; reward them for developing these things."

Gasp! I know, right? Hard to swallow. But perhaps there are games where all these myriad combat abilities could be rolled into one lump sum, one single check. Combat is resolved not through myriad tedious rounds of rolling dice (after all, swinging swords at dudes is much more boring than attempting to make a sword out of mithril), but with single, opposed skill checks. In this hypothetical game, skills like blacksmithing, alchemy, and - hell! - even profession (miner) play a much more central role, and silly things like acrobatics or sneakiness or tracking are silly things that no one would bother to roll dice for. Does your background say you're an Olympic-class athlete? Well, then, go nuts!

Those games aren't D&D.

I suspect that this will raise much ire amongst you 4e folk. But the example above exemplifies my concerns with 4e: it is a game of combat, and - while it has minimal support for things outside combat - pretty much ends there. 3.5 was superior in the idea that the system supported a wide variety of styles of play. Normally, I'd follow that statement up with an appeasement of sorts, to say that 3.5 wasn't perfect, but screw that. 3.5 was just straight-up better, in this regard, no bones about it.

It's all a question of focus. Surprisingly enough, the game doesn't have to focus so darn tight on the combat aspects of the game. Enjoyable, totally valid approach to the game? Darn tootin'. But a game system can support multiple styles and approaches to the game, and while 3.5 wasn't perfect (drat!), I think that abandoning the approach of letting an individual table determine how it wants to use the rules is unfortunate. The game doesn't need to focus solely on encounters, and - IMO - it should not.

3.5 did not support a wider style of play than 4E does. They promote the same breadth of play that every edition has ever promoted. Combat has always been presented as central to D&D. It has always been devoted the greatest amount of rules. Whether or not combat has been the central portion of your D&D table has always and still is up to your individual table, though I suspect many individual tables feature a good deal of combat. If they don't, they're probably playing a different game.

 

[Spenser]

I don't like this blithe dismissal of crafting skills either. Let's say rather than brewing a single beer to impress the king, what if you need to win a brewing contest, facing off against multiple NPC masters of the craft? Your PC dwarf fighter is a great brewer, because the Player Says So, and that's fine. But the NPCs are great brewers too. Are they worse? Better? How much better?

Of course, you could just declare the PC the winner or loser by fiat. But that doesn't seem very satisfying. There either needs to be some randomness, or some positive actions the PCs can take to win the contest, or some combination of the two.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I don't like this blithe dismissal of crafting skills either. Let's say rather than brewing a single beer to impress the king, what if you need to win a brewing contest, facing off against multiple NPC masters of the craft? Your PC dwarf fighter is a great brewer, because the Player Says So, and that's fine. But the NPCs are great brewers too. Are they worse? Better? How much better?

Of course, you could just declare the PC the winner or loser by fiat. But that doesn't seem very satisfying. There either needs to be some randomness, or some positive actions the PCs can take to win the contest, or some combination of the two.

That is why you make it a Skill Challenge, to make it more interesting actually you could have different Skills (or Ability) Rolls for different people competing.

So, for example:

One person uses History because all he knows is from a passed down recipe.

One uses Nature to pick out the best ingredients and to measure how good it is through natural means.

One uses Arcana, because he is a Wizard and does it magically.

One uses Religion, since well he is a Dwarf

There is still randomness with this, in that there are still rolls, and how well they are in each skill matters, and you the DM would also deem the amount of success/failures in the Skill Challenge by how good each person is, ie: their background in brewing.