Critical Role Critical Role Episode #26 - spoilers!

[Psikerlord#]

Based on the reactions I was seeing on the streams, I think having at least one character death is a good thing. There were so many "NNOOOOO!!!" and "Bring Molly back or I quit watching!!" reactions, and even a couple of insults thrown Matt Mercer's way, it actually kind of surprised me. I get having beloved or favorite characters, but PC death is sometimes a part of a D&D encounter, and it's good to show it, and good to show players reacting maturely to its occurrence.

I hope that they get to schedule Talesin a personal camera moment at the start of episode 27, so as to say, "I appreciate everyone's concern, I'm a little sad, too, but I'm fine, and it's all part of playing the game" or similar.

Cr has always been more show than game. If you're watching for the show, you might get upset when you fav char gets killed off. And if you're watching for the gameplay, well, you wouldnt be watching CR. You'd be playing.

 

[Bawylie]

Asking for clarification...

You would have said no to the player asking to apply disadvantage to reflect her fear even though she could have chosen to not attack at all "to reflect her fear" or chosen to just ignore her fear and attack fully? Both extremes would be allowed but not the middle ground?

main reason i ask is not to criticze your table rules but because others seem to have considered a Gm choosing thusly to have been a strawman case, not one represented here in spite of comments leaning that way.

Thanks.

Hmmm... edit for additional query as well... if the player wanted to reflect the fear by choosing "i will only take one attack of my multi-attack" (assuming appropriate ability) would you permit that but deny the "take both at disadvantage" request?

As to your first question, I would have asked the player to clarify what they wanted to do and how they go about making that happen. Until I know both of those things, I don’t know what rules I ought to be applying. I might even need further clarification.

A player might say, “I feebly attack the enemy with my sword because of my deep fear.” Now ok that’s all well and good. But I need to know if the player is more interested in the attack or in portraying the fear, before I know if I want an attack roll, or perhaps a wisdom save, or maybe if I just want to narrate what happens next. But what I would not do is just let the player pick what rule resolves the situation.

I might skip a die roll and give a quick “your half-hearted, terrified assault is effortlessly knocked aside by the enemy as they bear down on you. What do you do?” In which case I’m giving them the portrayal of fear-via-feeble attack as a freebie and then giving them an action they can take “for realsies.”

Which sort of gets to your second question. I would absolutely let the player declare their own actions. That’s their job. And I have no problem with a player making a sub-optimal choice. Happens all the time anyway - faced with a tough situation, players don’t always make good choices. But I don’t tell them “No, you don’t pick that, you pick a better option.” They’ve got free reign to portray their character and decide its actions. This includes the freedom to be right, wrong, different, weird, normal, abnormal, or whatever. But they can’t adjudicate their own actions, they can’t decide to make an ability check. They can take an action that might require one, but they can’t just skip to “I roll a 17 strength check so X happens” just the same as they can’t say “I attack with disadvantage.”

I mean heck, what if, unbeknownst to the player, they have a secret advantage? If I tell the player they can’t roll with disadvantage, or to roll only 1d20 (bc the secret advantage cancels the disadvantage), what then?

Corner case for sure. But to the point of roles. DM sets up a scenario/challenge, Players make decisions to change to scenario/overcome the challenge, DMs adjudicate those decisions.

(It’s perfectly fine by me if a group doesn’t have the same roles I do. But I find I get like zero rules lawyer arguments this way, versus when I let players pick what rules they want to apply. And since that means more play time at the table, that’s how we roll).

 

[SkidAce]

Hmm, but what about the other foot? What would you say if a player said “because of XYZ i’m going to have advantage on attacks and skill checks for the duration?”

If it’s OK in the one case is it OK in the other?

Well if they asked or suggested it, and the DM said "yes" (like what actually happened in the podcast) then its fine in both cases.

 

[SkidAce]

Cr has always been more show than game. If you're watching for the show, you might get upset when you fav char gets killed off. And if you're watching for the gameplay, well, you wouldnt be watching CR. You'd be playing.

Not true.

I enjoy the show.

And I enjoy the game play (while I run or cut grass).

AND I play with my friends once a week.

 

[iserith]

A forum etiquette suggestion:

If you're going to criticize someone's position (or, in this case, what you incorrectly believe is their position due to conflating separate issues as has already been pointed out), it's a good idea to not do that while you have blocked the person who you are obviously criticizing.

All this accomplishes is avoiding dealing with the person you're criticizing directly and, in addition to not being a good look for you, it just needlessly confuses the discussion.

So either block someone and don't criticize him or her at all or unblock them and do it directly to their face (so to speak).

Just my opinion that I know others reading or posting in this thread share, since they're telling me what's going on despite the block.

 

[5ekyu]

Not sure what exceeding limits has to do with advantage or disadvantage. This is about whether the odds are with you or against you. If players sometimes can consider the odds stacked against them it seems reasonable that at other times they can consider the odds in their favor, and thus roll with advantage over and over?

No.

Can a player decide "my character is less accurate than normal due to abcd"?

Answer - yes because that puts his expected results (which includes the odds) within the range of outcomes he can normally produce.

Can a player decide their character is more accurate than normal due to abcd? No - because that puts his expected results (including the odds) outside the range of what he can normally do.

Put another way, if we define getting a hit as success and the character needs an 11 or higher on the die.

He can already choose to:
1 get no success at all (no action)
2 get a 50/50 chance of success ( take one attack)
3 get about 75% chance of success (take two attacks)

So then letting him do one with disad (about 25% chance) or two with disad (about 44% iirc) keeps his chances of success within 0 to 75. He has more options but they are all within that 0 to 75% chance of success he started with.

Same circumstance allowing him to just decide to take advantage gives him a free take advantage on two swings alternative and so his odds of success become about 93%. That gives him odds outside his previous range.

See the difference?

Now that said, the key thing is inspiration awarded for playing his flaw in a detrimental way would allow him to spend that inspiration later to get better odds so, there is a trade off.

But it does not in anyway automatically follow that allowing a player to voluntarily take a deficit means they can voluntarily take an advantage.

The former is giving you more options for how to not spend all 10 dollars you already have on lunch while the latter is you choosing to order a 15 dollar lunch.

 

[5ekyu]

Not true.

I enjoy the show.

And I enjoy the game play (while I run or cut grass).

AND I play with my friends once a week.

I agree. I enjoy both and play and gm.

I dint know how these somehow get portrayed as exclusionary.

 

[5ekyu]

As to your first question, I would have asked the player to clarify what they wanted to do and how they go about making that happen. Until I know both of those things, I don’t know what rules I ought to be applying. I might even need further clarification.

A player might say, “I feebly attack the enemy with my sword because of my deep fear.” Now ok that’s all well and good. But I need to know if the player is more interested in the attack or in portraying the fear, before I know if I want an attack roll, or perhaps a wisdom save, or maybe if I just want to narrate what happens next. But what I would not do is just let the player pick what rule resolves the situation.

I might skip a die roll and give a quick “your half-hearted, terrified assault is effortlessly knocked aside by the enemy as they bear down on you. What do you do?” In which case I’m giving them the portrayal of fear-via-feeble attack as a freebie and then giving them an action they can take “for realsies.”

Which sort of gets to your second question. I would absolutely let the player declare their own actions. That’s their job. And I have no problem with a player making a sub-optimal choice. Happens all the time anyway - faced with a tough situation, players don’t always make good choices. But I don’t tell them “No, you don’t pick that, you pick a better option.” They’ve got free reign to portray their character and decide its actions. This includes the freedom to be right, wrong, different, weird, normal, abnormal, or whatever. But they can’t adjudicate their own actions, they can’t decide to make an ability check. They can take an action that might require one, but they can’t just skip to “I roll a 17 strength check so X happens” just the same as they can’t say “I attack with disadvantage.”

I mean heck, what if, unbeknownst to the player, they have a secret advantage? If I tell the player they can’t roll with disadvantage, or to roll only 1d20 (bc the secret advantage cancels the disadvantage), what then?

Corner case for sure. But to the point of roles. DM sets up a scenario/challenge, Players make decisions to change to scenario/overcome the challenge, DMs adjudicate those decisions.

(It’s perfectly fine by me if a group doesn’t have the same roles I do. But I find I get like zero rules lawyer arguments this way, versus when I let players pick what rules they want to apply. And since that means more play time at the table, that’s how we roll).

Gotcha and thanks for the response.

To me, when the player asks for disadvantage on their own attacks to reflect their flaw, their intent and such was much more clearerly much more succintly reported to me than "feebly attack" or any amount of "rate the fear vs the attack in terms of" back and forth questioning could produce.

I dont feel its necessary or good for me to decide for him what "feebly" translates to or whether there is a will save that maybe he makes that then tells him (you over come it) or whatever you were seeing the will save accomplish.

If i choose to just tell him "describe without rules" then it comes down to me guessing what the level of issue they were shooting for was. Maybe i get it right. Maybe i dont.

But the key is if i were to do that i am drawing a huge honking line for them in how they portray giving into their flaw.

If they choose from set a (run away, take no actions, take normal actions etc) they get control of the exact outcome and resolution barring surprises or interruptions.

If the choose from set b (any mechanical change applied by a rule) the forfeit control and its my ball now and naybe they get the kind of change they sought or maybe they dont.

That division imo discourages them from taking a lot of options as it adds in the chance of an outcome their voluntary choice did not aim for.

I dont need to divorce my good players from the rules to manage rules lawyers at my table. Allowing the players more options does not diminish my control or authority. I find it does the opposite.

But, certainly for some groups at some tables it would be simpler and quicker for a player to just choose between the limited set of options under their control (take no action, run away, only take one swing out of two possible, etc etc etc) instead of trying any of the options which force the GM-player reconciliation of intent phase.

After all, if they just move up and declare "she just attacks once with her axe" that whole "what does feebly, fear vs attack" gets avoided.

Every table is different.

 

[5ekyu]

Bawylie

There is one pice of your response that i will highlight as it shows a key difference

"I might skip a die roll and give a quick “your half-hearted, terrified assault is effortlessly knocked aside by the enemy as they bear down on you. What do you do?” In which case I’m giving them the portrayal of fear-via-feeble attack as a freebie and then giving them an action they can take “for realsies""

This is imo a key place, we part company and which if i were at your table we would have a post-game discusdion over if i had my way.

If in,my games a player expresses an interest in playing out a flaw with specific actual implications (ie they want an actual penalty) its not as a GM in my book my place to just throw that intent out with a fluff bit and put normal resolution as the outcome "for realsies."

If that was what you meant by that passage, then thst seems to me to be a case of GM not trying to resolve the players intent but to put thier own intent over the players choices.

That gets back to driving the players to avoid the GM-stsging as much as posdible with simpler choices.

If that was not what you meant, then thats fine but for me what the player intends their character to do is always "for realsies" and I as GM take that very seriously at my table as i asdume you do as well.

 

[robus]

No.

Can a player decide "my character is less accurate than normal due to abcd"?

Answer - yes because that puts his expected results (which includes the odds) within the range of outcomes he can normally produce.

I'm really confused. How does advantage produce results outside of the range of possible outcomes? It's advantage, it's not a bonus.