Doing science

[MarkB]

Depends. I don't think letting physically strong players have attack bonuses is very fair, or small players having AC bonuses. Similarly, should scientific players get skill bonuses?

I mean, it's exactly the same as making a skill check in any game. It's just 4 checks instead. That question isn't particular to this. Does an outdoorsy D&D player's character have a better chance of tracking an orc than Stephen Hawking's D&D character? Do Penn and Teller's Pathfinder characters have a better chance of pickpocketing than others?

But when you're using it as a mechanic for general problem-solving, what you're basically doing is making the players' ability to come up with creative solutions irrelevant. You've already extended this to engineering and medicine - wouldn't it be equally applicable to tactics, or diplomacy, or exploration?

If you present your players with a poorly-fortified, undermanned village that's going to be attacked by an orc army in two days, would you really be just as happy if they sat there going through random tables and then said "okay, I'm going to <roll> fortify the <roll> south barracks with a <roll> platoon of <roll> light cavalry - that should sort it out" rather than actually engaging with the problem and thinking of ways to improve things?

 

[Morrus]

Sure. Though I've had that same discussion a thousand times over the years about D&D; you're right in that the same issue applies here. I've never seen anyone answer it satisfactorily: tastes differ.

Absolutely, there are more narrative approaches to GMing. I certainly have nothing against such approaches.

It's up to you when and how you apply it.

 

[MarkB]

Fair enough. Sorry for the thread derail.

 

[nomotog]

Seems like you are set then.

I may still mull over my idea for the set-piece style of technical puzzle. I am curious if there is a way to actually model star trek tech problem solving.

I have asked that question myself and it is rather hard. Techobabble is kind of the oil to game water. Games often relay on hard and fast rules for the players to understand and then act on, well techobabble is a ways to actively avoid explaining the rules.

I have a system sitting in my files that kind of worked, but then kind of didn't. It was a system where I made up a list of particles and what affects they had, you could send them out in busts and disbursements that to do different things. Though in the end they were just skill checks with more guidelines. Like you might use a distribution of quantum particles to reveal a cloaked ship, or a burst of graviton particles to trip a monster.

The other system I came up with felt better. It was a simple system where you could modify a piece of equipment to function like another at the cost of scraping a piece of equipment. It's just a skill check again, but you get a interesting choice about what is worth scraping in order to do what you need and you have all your options present and available to you (the equipment chapter) rather then basically making it up.