D&D 5E "Damage on a miss" poll.

[TwoSix]

I don't know where that whole tangent came from. I was considering rpging as being analogous to video gaming and explaining why some people might want to mod/hack their games to create a desired experience that removes negative outcomes. There's nothing remotely pejorative in it.

I agree. Whenever people used to say, "Oh, 4e is like WoW!", my first thought was always "That's a good thing! WoW is awesome!".

I don't know about inherently good, simply inherently part of the game. In most games it's possible to fail and/or lose in some meaningful way. That doesn't mean that failure is "good" it's simply part of the experience. It creates stakes, and establishes a dynamic between success and failure.

Well, yes, I agree you need failure to create a dynamic between success and failure. Otherwise, it's only between success and [NULL]! I think the part you need to define is "some meaningful way".

It's certainly possible to play D&D in a way that abrogates that sense of goal-directed dynamic task resolution. In fact, there are probably quite a few ways, of which the Monty Haul style where the players just waltz through encounters accumulating cool stuff and never experience any adversity is one, and the narrativist "fail forward" approach is another. However, as I said I don't think it's appropriate for one character ability to so radically change the scope of the game. If the mentality is "fail forward" or otherwise that characters can't fail, that's something the DM and possibly the players choose, and it characterizes the game as a whole.

What's the ultimate measure of success in this "goal-directed dynamic task resolution"? And what defines "adversity"? It feels like you're talking about "Beat the adventure or die", but I can't be sure.

 

[herrozerro]

Perhaps a low magic game is for you?

That being said, as I've noted before if someone created a d20 magic system where everything was a skill and casters rolled for success like everyone else, I wouldn't complain (I even do that myself with psionics). It's only when you go the other way (making the normal characters select discretized abilities and track spell slots) that I start having a problem.

And see, I have no problem with unifying the complete opposite way like 4e did. Rather that drag everyone down, raise everyone up.

 

[TwoSix]

I think that's what all of us are talking about. I don't see any good rationale for an ability that only works when that occurs.

No, that's certainly not what I've been talking about. Maybe we need a poll.

Oddly enough, I think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] 's example a while back of an "aura" that just deals damage in the area actually is much more logical and sensible, albeit still not one I would be jumping out of my seat to implement.

I'm totally cool with a fighter projecting a damage aura, even as a replacement for DoaM. Mearls, let's get on that!

Well, that one's going to be kind of a problem for me.

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!

Trying to imagine a game where one character functions as an abstract reality simulator and another does not literally gives me a headache. Unless you're making the case that none of them do at all.

I'm totally clueless as to who the "abstract reality simulator" is and who isn't in your argument. Or what you mean by "abstract reality simulator."

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Even if I just follow one person and ignore the others, there's been some serious shifting.

I haven't followed the thread closely enough to know, I'm sure it's possible.

 

[Ahnehnois]

No, the simple answer is that GWF represents specialized training, so specialized in fact that taking it eschews all others. Much like any of the other styles, likewise, they are specialized so that they cannot do more than one at once.

Well, there's one set of goalposts. I don't see that it does.

Fighter A has no damage on a miss ability. Every time he attacks, if he rolls below the target's AC, his attack is completely unproductive. No matter what his Str and attack bonus are, no matter what the characteristics of the target, he can make a million such attacks and never do anything.

Conversely, fighter B has GWF. Every time he attacks and rolls below the target's AC, he deals damage. If he exceeds the AC, he deals no extra damage and nothing special happens, only if he fails does anything happen because of this ability. The amount of damage he deals never varies, and has nothing to do with his weapon (unlike most every other example of damage by a melee attack). Even if the target's AC is huge, even if he rolls a 1, he never, ever fails to deal damage. He can make a million such attacks, but can never, ever spend six seconds without damaging the target. He never slips, gets dust in his eye, drops his weapon, has his blow parried or deflected harmlessly. Never.

I cannot see what kind of training could lead to this outcome.

As I said, I can see damage on a miss just fine as part of a paradigm in which that's how misses are defined, but this isn't that.

 

[dmgorgon]

Which is fine in and of itself. But I can't see a game where one fighter who selects damage on a miss lives in a "fail forward" reality, and another that doesn't can stand right next to him and live in a different reality.

Now if instead of a damage on a miss ability built into a PC class, you go into the DMG and put in a "fail forward" module wherein there's a list of outcomes for the whole game wherein failure on a check of any sort by any character is replaced with some sort of qualified success, and a failed attack roll dealing a small amount of damage is part of that, then I say fine. The DMs with players who can't stand nonproductive actions can use that. The DMs who have a narrativist agenda themselves and want the rules to support a fail forward mentalitu can use that. I probably wouldn't (though an experiment wouldn't be out of the question), but then, that's what modularity is about.

I totally agree. In fact, if I wanted the game to work that way I certainly wouldn't be happy with the mechanic being stuffed in GWF and Melf's Acid Arrow. It's an entire concept that needs a much larger generalized module.

 

[urLordy]

Can anyone think of practical ways to toggle a rule between usages? Like how do you toggle hit points or DoaM or evasion or whatever between states such as "mostly physical/sim-lite" and "mostly karma/meta-story"?

I don't mean houseruling or optional rules per se, because that involves a lot of sniffing and picking and choosing. I don't mean abstraction because that leaves the "toggle" in the mind of each beholder. I don't mean choosing RQ or 13th Age because D&D Next clearly is trying to capture a large fan base. I don't mean mechanics like advantage/disadvantage which seem to be playstyle-neutral more or less. It could be mean toggling a mechanic like a wound track on|off, but that's not toggling hit points itself. I mean like saying "We're playing this campaign where hit points is 100% plot protection" or "We're playing D&D where hit points involves some level of physical attrition" and the hit points mechanism (and perhaps a cascade of other mechanics) would toggle accordingly.

If WoTC keeps shying away from this sort of thing as I suggested upthread http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ss-quot-poll&p=6220999&viewfull=1#post6220999 could Enworld hazard a bit of brainstorming on that? Seriously, why should anyone argue about DoaM so much when the designers themselves seem to be on the fence about what DoaM "means".

 

[Ahnehnois]

And see, I have no problem with unifying the complete opposite way like 4e did. Rather that drag everyone down, raise everyone up.

Exactly my point. Rather than drag everyone down into a complex resource management minigame, simply give them the ability to say "I want to do X", roll a d20 with modifier against a DC, and do it. To me, that's the mechanical heart of D&D (it certainly is the heart of the d20 system), and that should be the goal.

 

[TwoSix]

In other words, the mechanics don't dictate the heroic deeds the character can perform. Players tell the DM what they want their character to do first.

Yes, and in our games we make our character pick from a preset list of three options, just like a video game. Oh wait, that's actually totally the opposite of the way we play! Page 42 exists for a reason, after all.

 

[TwoSix]

Exactly my point. Rather than drag everyone down into a complex resource management minigame, simply give them the ability to say "I want to do X", roll a d20 with modifier against a DC, and do it. To me, that's the mechanical heart of D&D (it certainly is the heart of the d20 system), and that should be the goal.

You should really try FATE. That's the system in the nutshell. (Except 4dF instead of a d20).

 

[Ahnehnois]

Well, yes, I agree you need failure to create a dynamic between success and failure. Otherwise, it's only between success and [NULL]! I think the part you need to define is "some meaningful way".

In this context, someone might say that DoaM is still failure because they wanted to deal their full damage and they just got this little bump. I don't think that this distinction is sufficiently meaningful, because as many have stated, even Str mod damage could kill the target.

What's the ultimate measure of success in this "goal-directed dynamic task resolution"? And what defines "adversity"? It feels like you're talking about "Beat the adventure or die", but I can't be sure.

I don't really use the term "adventure", and I was being intentionally vague because this is an abstract discussion.

In one style, there is a certain goal or goals, be they "survive", "retrieve the treasure", "save the world" or what have you, and it is possible that the players might succeed or fail relative to that goal, and that success or failure might be determined by the DM's choices, the player's choices, or by rolls of the dice.

In others, success or failure is not in question. One example is wherein failure is impossible and the PCs are simply raging through the world, doing as they choose. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a different thing.