D20 'philosophy' cramping my style

[barsoomcore]

I mean, frankly, I think an Imp should have a few bluff points.

Wait. You're back? I thought you'd washed your hands of this.

Oh, and I thought you'd said that the Bluff points issue wasn't ACTUALLY the problem in the first place.

This bit with the bluff skill is a very minor thing. Lets keep it in perspective. I cited it as an example of a much larger problem.

Yeah, you did say that. So why is it suddenly a problem again? You've got, last time I checked, TEN solutions to this problem. Which isn't a problem, but rather the fact that you don't know the rules.

Again, I'm not talking about major arbitrary rules changes here, just being able to push the envelope a little teensy bit at the outer boundaries thereof.

Which you've already received TEN ways of doing that are perfectly within the rules, of varying degrees of complexity (switching skill points or raising the Intelligence both involving almost NO real effort on your part). So why aren't you off writing your massive campaign setting that you're getting 15 cents a word for? Why are you still complaining about all this?

If you had a problem you needed a solution to, you've received that solution ten times over. Now you seem overcome by the urge to say, "Oh yeah?" to people who are calling you on your claims, but without providing any evidence that they're wrong.

Oh, and, want to know who I am? Just so we can be clear on the whole, "I stand by my claims" thing.

Here's me.

Why would anyone make statements they weren't willing to have their name attached to? If you're not willing to stand by your statements, DON'T MAKE THEM. I would be MORE willing to buy your products if you had the courage of your convictions. It's your evasiveness and shifty appearance that makes me suspicious of you, DB. If you just honestly didn't know how to get what you wanted with that Imp, and were looking for some input, that's fine. Nobody knows all the rules, and everybody needs a spot of help now and then. Half of doing a good job is knowing where to get help.

But all this, "I can prove I'm legit -- but I won't," nonsense is just making you look like a phony. So either just drop it and walk away and live with the knowledge that people think you're fake, or put your cards on the table and let's see what you got.

 

[WizarDru]

1) No. He was given a couple of workarounds. A workaround is not a solution. Sometimes a workaround is nearly as good as a solution, but it's not the same thing. This is the dynamic DB is actually talking about.

Perhaps I'm confused about your terminology here. What is a 'workaround' as opposed to a 'solution'? Where I come from, a workaround is a kudge...a clumsy but functional way of getting something done as a temporary fix until a more proper method can be used or until the time exists to do things correctly. All of the proposed answers to DB's question were of varying elegance, but almost all of them were solutions supported under the rules as written. Consider, for example, that WotC themselves have released modules that tinkered with monsters in exactly the same capacity that DB is suggesting, all stemming from that same design philosophy mentioned on page 6 and page 8 of the MM.

2) Design is not the same thing as DMing advice. For example, DMing tells you how to use CR and ECL. Design tells you what those actually represent in terms of the capabilities of the challenge.

This sounds like sophistry, to me. The DMG goes to great lengths to discuss the effects on a game of the use of CR and EL (ECL is effective character level, which I assume you weren't referring to), specifically with regards to resource usage, relation to party strength and so forth. Those ARE design principles, and they apply equally to designers as well as DMs. The former moreso than the latter, in fact.

Then it can go into SRD canon and everyone will agree with it, just as they did when the legions of folks who, for example, defended to death the idea that monks should be crappy with a staff all changed their tune once the 3.5 SRD said otherwise. Such is the flexible spine of a pedant.

Straw man aside, there seems a certain irony in claiming that a person who doesn't agree with you is "a person who pays more attention to formal rules and book learning than they merit", while simultaneously claiming that those people are making suggestions that aren't properly defined within the rules as written.

The SRD is not intended as a design aid to budding authors...it's an enticement for RPG authors to use a tested system that will solve, in WotC's own words: "the problems of system over-proliferation, and for those consumers to apply pressure to publishers to use standardized systems." It needs nor should have no such specific 'design-aid' language. That would stifle the very innovation that has made the d20 system a success, so far. The SRD and the OGL are kick-off points, leading to things like Grim Tales, Mutants and Masterminds and the Star Wars RPG....all of which use very different design principles. Putting such language in the SRD would be pointless, as it only applies to a specific instance of d20, namely D&D...and that language IS in the books already.

 

[Nisarg]

Here's me.

Well sweet Jebus, you wouldn't happen to be the same Corey R who used to live in Edmonton, was friends with a Brendan Nearey, and later moved to Calgary, would you?

If so, you once played in my Star Wars campaign.

Nisarg

 

[billd91]

Ok, define workaround and define solution.

Whenever I've seen it done, a workaround is something that is not a full-blown solution, because it involves some sort of shortcut with ugly side-effects or otherwise onerous task which makes the solution painful to implement.

Something which none of the solutions were.

I have to agree that he was given solutions to the problem of imps not having the bluff ability he wanted to include. Plenty of solutions, in fact, were given.
As to the "problem" that 3E gamers are too pedantic about the rules or the rules aren't flexible enough, whether that's really a problem is up for debate. I don't think it's a problem since we were able, in no time at all, to come up with several solutions that addressed the bluffing imp problem, all well within the rules as written.
I think the problem here is one of attitude. Drifter Bob doesn't want to feel limited by the rules in doing what he wants with his story. In reality, the rules aren't all that limiting. It is, however, a statement that he apparently doesn't like to hear.
Monte Cook's DM's-only article on the rules may say that you shouldn't let the rules get in the way of good design. But there aren't many rules getting in the way of having an imp with a better bluff score. Hell, give him a level of expert and then pick up some skills that will even support his bluffing and what's the difference? An imp vs and imp/expert bluffer who may even have an extra rank or two in sense motive so that he can tell when his bluffing is working or not and 1-6 hp and a slightly better will save. Stuff that can help round out the NPC in general. Problem solved.

 

[iblis]

Ok, a few days or weeks ago we were discussing the issue of how the rules, and the obsession with rules balance and technical canonical rules interpretation, affect the game, by influencing game play toward munchkinism and in favor of rules lawyering, and away from role playing.

I chimed in on this because as a writer I think it does effect the way you approach writing material for d20, and tends to push you toward making it more 'dumbed down' and mechanical. Well, I've run into a fairly classic example. It's a minor thing but it's something of a stumbling block for me.

I'm working on a campaign that I had originally written and run last year, which is now being converted for a game company that shall remain nameless.

Part of this campaign involves an Imp which is using it's alter form ability to appear to be something entirely different (this paritcular imp manifests as a little girl and as a wild boar. At the start of the adventure, it appears to be an innocent little girl, the sole survivor of a massacre that the Imp itself actually perpetrated)

So the adventure hinges on the fact that the players do not necessarily know the "little girl" is an Imp right away. They can of course attempt a sense motive roll, if they get suspcious, but here comes the problem. As listed in the SRD, the Imp has no bluff skill. Seems to be that, being a Devil, and of a type which would interract with mortals a great deal, and with it's suggestion ability, an Imp would be a natural to have a few ranks of bluff. I bet if they thought about it they would have put it in. I would like to give it a few ranks, and in my own campaign, when I ran my players through it last year, I did just that. Seemed natural, no reason why it shouldn't have any number of abilities... who knows what lurks in hell, why shouldn't one Imp have different skills than another? Why shouldn't there be variant Imps?

But this is for an official publication. If I put in a skill which isn't listed in the SRD for that particular monster, I just KNOW I'm going to get somebody raving on and on in a hostile review all about how I didn't even read the rule book and I don't know anything about D&D, and how giving the Imp this skill is unfair and unbalances the game and changes the CR and EL, and the players should be given 4 ranks in a skill of their choice to make it fair, and bla bla bla bla bla.

or the publisher, fearing just such a reaction, might take me to task for it.

So normally, in this situation, rather than rock the boat by annoying my publisher, or risk this kind of problem from certain elements of the D20 audience, I'd probably rewrite the encounter without the drama. Easier to make it a strait up encounter with an Imp, hack and slash, just like in a video game.

This is the sort of thing I mean.

I have two questions.

First, explain to me why I am stupid and this is NOT an example of anything being wrong anywhere except in my head (since I know nobody will agree with me) and second, tell me technically if I can give this thing a few bluff skill ranks (and no, using it as an unranked skill isn't going to cut it)

DB

For what it's worth - not much probably; I'm a player and GM, nothing more of any direct relevance - those are some very strange questions you have there. Firstly to answer I must tell you why you are stupid, and secondly I must tell you how to do your job.

No, I'll pass thanks.

Moving on, my terribly erudite, nay omniscient analysis would be : whatever works.

Seriously. If it suits the module, and makes for a better experience for those going through it, it is better, however it conforms or contravenes.

So let's say you tinker with the Imp. Yeh, and...? OK, worse case scenario, some little greebers jump up and down, pointing at the sacred texts. Same old same old. It's more a perpetual white-noise background thing, than anything remotely influential or progressive. Who really listens to that kind of petty, predictable sniping anyway?

But maybe you want to leave the critter pure to supposedly appease the flock. Well, how about (as others have suggested, I'm fairly certain) using a circumstantial bonus of some kind? Whether it's hardwired, begged, borrowed, stolen, siphoned, transferred, given, conferred from an item (with either a one-use or ongoing effect), or placed upon it as an enchantment / psionic tattoo / whatever, etc...

...or an unexplained (even conventionally inexplicable) one-off for that matter. I've seen stuff like that before in even fairly 'straight' modules/adventures/stuff (but I'd have to dig through memories and/or piles to back this up, sorry) : bizarre, quirky deviations from rules, for the sake of impact / 'believability' - ironically enough, in the case of the latter.

All IMO, and so on.

 

[Incenjucar]

The skill point thing has been mentioned above already, but can I make one suggestion?


Don't make the Imp's alternate form be a little girl - the "innocent 8-10 year old girl is actually evil incarnate" ploy has been so throughly burned into the collective adventurer unconscious that players will automatically be suspiscious of any plot pertinent little girls that show up. Make her a teenage girl (14-16), or a (very) young woman (17-20). Those would set off less alarm bells in the minds of your standard party.

I'm just sayin', is all.

Nah. Should make it a baby. With no ranks in Perform (Dance). Or else your players will kill leave. But, still, a baby.

 

[eyebeams]

Perhaps I'm confused about your terminology here. What is a 'workaround' as opposed to a 'solution'? Where I come from, a workaround is a kudge...a clumsy but functional way of getting something done as a temporary fix until a more proper method can be used or until the time exists to do things correctly. All of the proposed answers to DB's question were of varying elegance, but almost all of them were solutions supported under the rules as written. Consider, for example, that WotC themselves have released modules that tinkered with monsters in exactly the same capacity that DB is suggesting, all stemming from that same design philosophy mentioned on page 6 and page 8 of the MM.

It's not a "design philosophy." It's DM advice. DM advice has no weight at all when it comes to people talking about how D20-legal something is at all. As for WotC, since it's theirs, they can do anything they want with it. Third party D20 designs don't have that kind of freedom from criticism.

Anyway, adding a rogue level is a clumsy workaround. Making it a "name" creature is a bit better, but still weak legalism instead of an actual fix implicit in the game's design. Regardless of the specific, though, the example and the fact that a fair chunk the immediate responses to DB were stupidly insulting, pedantic drivel go a far way to prove his point, mine and, for that matter, Monte Cook's.

This sounds like sophistry, to me. The DMG goes to great lengths to discuss the effects on a game of the use of CR and EL (ECL is effective character level, which I assume you weren't referring to), specifically with regards to resource usage, relation to party strength and so forth. Those ARE design principles, and they apply equally to designers as well as DMs. The former moreso than the latter, in fact.

The fact that you don't seem to understand the distinction kind of proves my point about DMing and design being different things. The DMG gives practically no way to determine the CR of an original challenge. The DMG tells you that when canned challenge has a CR of 8, it will have X effect on Y characters. It doesn't go into what a CR of 8 actually represents.

Straw man aside, there seems a certain irony in claiming that a person who doesn't agree with you is "a person who pays more attention to formal rules and book learning than they merit", while simultaneously claiming that those people are making suggestions that aren't properly defined within the rules as written.

The "name" suggestion is most assuredly not properly defined. The pages you're quoting are never considered to be actual rules on the scale of something like save progression and bonus stacking. The rogue workaround is clumsy.

A couple of people have come on hear to eviscerate someone for daring to suggest that just up and adding 4 ranks of Bluff to a goddamn Imp should be OK just because you feel like it. This is not something on the order of mangintude of the 48 HP Orc in Cook's example. It's 4 ranks of a skill. There is no way 4 ranks can really change a creature's CR. It's stupid to fixate on it -- yet, here we are. That's a problem.

The SRD is not intended as a design aid to budding authors...it's an enticement for RPG authors to use a tested system that will solve, in WotC's own words: "the problems of system over-proliferation, and for those consumers to apply pressure to publishers to use standardized systems." It needs nor should have no such specific 'design-aid' language.

Your statement is self-contradictory and the adjective "buding" is irrelevant to the discussion,

That would stifle the very innovation that has made the d20 system a success, so far. The SRD and the OGL are kick-off points, leading to things like Grim Tales, Mutants and Masterminds and the Star Wars RPG....all of which use very different design principles.

Sure, if your definition of "design principles" is some combination of vague and useless. A system has design principles. If you use that system, you adopt those principles to a varying but significant degree. Saying that this isn't true is crazy, and self-evidently false. A definition of design principles that is divorced from the actual design of a game is a defacto incorrect definition, like a definition of "bird" that excludes winged, feathered creatures.

Putting such language in the SRD would be pointless, as it only applies to a specific instance of d20, namely D&D...and that language IS in the books already.

It applies to a bunch of D20 things, actually. And what's in the books is closed content vague advice, which is utterly irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which has to do with being true to the principles of an open content system and its recognized, set rules. The issue (as, among other people, Monte freakin' Cook recognizes), is that the current design guidelines promote a certain rigidity. The SRD could be improved on by including ways that individual elements can be tweaked without violating larger mechanisms like CR.

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

It's like a car wreck...

...and I can't stop watching!!!

 

[WizarDru]

It's not a "design philosophy." It's DM advice. DM advice has no weight at all when it comes to people talking about how D20-legal something is at all. As for WotC, since it's theirs, they can do anything they want with it. Third party D20 designs don't have that kind of freedom from criticism.

WotC is free from that kind of criticism? You might want to peruse the reviews here before making that assumption. WotC answers to that criticism as much as anyone: a simple review of the modules "Heart of Nightfang Spire" or "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" shows that. From what I gather, you expect an unequivocal statement that says "5.1.2 You can change monsters. It's OK."

Anyway, adding a rogue level is a clumsy workaround. Making it a "name" creature is a bit better, but still weak legalism instead of an actual fix implicit in the game's design. Regardless of the specific, though, the example and the fact that a fair chunk the immediate responses to DB were stupidly insulting, pedantic drivel go a far way to prove his point, mine and, for that matter, Monte Cook's.

You're right, it's clumsy. Moving 4 skill points from one skill to another is not, however. Even a cursory inspection of pg. 6 in the MM shows that for a monster, all skills are class skills, so movement of their skill points is a trivial matter. The inclusion of a circumstance modifier, isn't clumsy either. DB himself admits his post was inflammatory...is it any suprise some people responded poorly? Again, we return to the question you didn't answer: what are your definitions of "workaround" and "solution"? At the moment, I still don't see where you draw the distinction other than "what I don't like" and "what I like". There were quite a few suggestions for the 'imp' problem other than giving him a level of rogue.

The DMG gives practically no way to determine the CR of an original challenge. The DMG tells you that when canned challenge has a CR of 8, it will have X effect on Y characters. It doesn't go into what a CR of 8 actually represents.

Actually it does, you just don't like the information it provides. A CR 8 encounter should deplete a fixed percentage of an 8th level party's resources. (IDHTBIFOM...20%? 25%?) It also makes it clear that CR is not a simple binary equation, due to a horde of mititgating factors (party composition, number of players, distrubtion of levels, 1-3 (i.e. non-standard CR) levels, and so on and so forth. Could there be more detail? Certainly. But there isn't. Can you extract it from what is present? Sure you can. Just ask Upper Krust, creator of the alternate CR system (which many folks feel is more accurate than WotC's). A DM is given advice (in the DMG, not suprisingly enough) on appropriate CR distribution. Examples of CR appropriate challenges are presented throughout the DMG and MM (in the form of traps listed by CR level, pre-made NPCs and monsters). Want to design a new monster? Compare it against existing, simlilar monsters. People have been doing it for four years, now.

It's 4 ranks of a skill. There is no way 4 ranks can really change a creature's CR. It's stupid to fixate on it -- yet, here we are. That's a problem.

No? Apparently you're unfamiliar with some of the combat-related skills. An assassin with 4 more ranks in hide or move silently, a monk with 4 more ranks of tumble, a wizard with 4 more ranks of concentration, any spellcaster with 4 more ranks of spellcraft and a handy counterspell are just a few examples of how skill ranks can make a creature more dangerous.

Your statement is self-contradictory and the adjective "buding" is irrelevant to the discussion,

Those were WotC's words, not mine. Not sure how you see it as self-contradictory, though.

A system has design principles. If you use that system, you adopt those principles to a varying but significant degree. Saying that this isn't true is crazy, and self-evidently false. A definition of design principles that is divorced from the actual design of a game is a defacto incorrect definition, like a definition of "bird" that excludes winged, feathered creatures.

True, if I had actually said that. Since I didn't, I'm really not sure what point you're getting at. The system can be extrapolated. It HAS been done, several times, now. DB seems to think he'll be crucified by the d20 standards board if he does anything outside his self-perceived lines, and revoke his license. I think the last four years worth of products shows that he's wrong.

The issue (as, among other people, Monte freakin' Cook recognizes), is that the current design guidelines promote a certain rigidity. The SRD could be improved on by including ways that individual elements can be tweaked without violating larger mechanisms like CR.

M&M, Grim Tales, CoC d20, Spycraft and Babylon 5 are examples of rigid design? I can't say as I agree.

 

[Berandor]

This thread should not have been resurrected. I started going through the whole thing again, to "build a case", so to speak, but frankly, I stopped at post #126 because I don't think it's worth it.

DrifterBob, I don't care whether you are an industry insider, or not. I would have wished for you to clarify whether you are Jeanry Chandler or not, but still no biggie.

In this thread (and in an only thinly related Meta thread), you have used misrepresentation, overly aggressive language, unproven claims (and not regarding your background, but regarding consumer and reviewer reactions), hyperbole, and you have stated again and again (even literally) that you simply don't care what other people say as long as they disagree with you. You have also fallen trap to self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't even know how you can expect people to take you seriously - and that's not taking into account your hesitation to stand behind your claims (and the people here aren't asking you to disclose something unrelated, but to prove claims you made about yourself). You are simply posting here because you enjoy being a pest, of that I am now convinced.

And for what it's worth: my webiste is linked in my sig, with information galore about me, including my real name, and where I live is right in my profile.

(ad hominem attack, though clever, edited out because I've got a lot more common sense than I should have)

Edited in:

The problem of having to write around overly klunky rules to a fanatic degree unfortunately does not seem to be as widely recognized or understood.

Where is the imp "problem" overly klunky? Show it to me. Where?