Dungeon Mastering as a Fine Art

[Hussar]

[MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION] - I do have one issue with your scenario. That Vader as PC cannot succeed. I strongly disagree with this approach.

To me it smacks too much of railroading. The DM has predetermined outcomes that the player cannot change.

Vader and Luke fight. If Luke wins, Vader likely either dies or is captured. If Vader wins, his goals are still thwarted because he had no chance of success at the outset.

Vader's player would be far better off straight up killing Luke. And players learn this from their DM's very quickly.

After this scene, I'd bet dollars to donuts that the Luke NPC gets killed on sight with no chance of obscure death.

 

[Lanefan]

4e tells you to skip past "boring" non-setpiece-combat encounters. 3e tells you the "best way" to deal with character death. Gygax assumes you're running an open-table sandbox where the dice fall as they may. None of them encourage you to figure out your own style.

Gygax doesn't come right out and tell you to figure out your own style but he pretty much acknowledges that you're probably going to do so anyway, as he did, once you become familiar with how the game works.

It's the later editions (3e and 4e) that seem to be more constraining, in terms of saying and-or strongly implying This Is How It's Done. 2e didn't seem to care very much either way as long as nobody was Evil.

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

Lanefan, I have to say that that is the opposite of how I read things. Gygax makes no bones about how the game should be played and is pretty dismissive, at least in his writings, of anyone who does things differently.

3e, particularly the DMG doesn't actually have all that much to say. The actual dming advice in the 3e DMG is pretty sparse. A few pages in the front and that's about it. There's a reason the 3e DMG is criticized as reading like stereo instructions. It's bloody boring.

Now 4e is a lot like AdnD. The DMG is written with a very strong voice. But once you get into later books like the dmg2 things change a lot and the advice gets a lot broader.

 

[Bawylie]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] Maybe you're right. But I still don't call for rolls when actions will automatically succeed or fail. I just say what happens next. In this scenario, Luke cannot be seduced or manipulated in the fashion Vader attempted. (Later, when he threatens to turn Leia, that's the approach that moves Luke). And again, when the emperor tries to seduce/manipulate Luke with power, that fails. Wrong approach for that NPC.

Is that railroading, or true to character? Should I ask for a roll just to avoid the semblance of railroading? I think no.

DM posits a scenario. PC declares an action. DM determines how that action plays out (sometimes with system mechanics and sometimes not). Then DM describes the changed scenario.

 

[Hussar]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] Maybe you're right. But I still don't call for rolls when actions will automatically succeed or fail. I just say what happens next. In this scenario, Luke cannot be seduced or manipulated in the fashion Vader attempted. (Later, when he threatens to turn Leia, that's the approach that moves Luke). And again, when the emperor tries to seduce/manipulate Luke with power, that fails. Wrong approach for that NPC.

Is that railroading, or true to character? Should I ask for a roll just to avoid the semblance of railroading? I think no.

DM posits a scenario. PC declares an action. DM determines how that action plays out (sometimes with system mechanics and sometimes not). Then DM describes the changed scenario.

Again, this is a playstyle thing, not a right or wrong answer issue. To me, the dice determine how an action plays out.

IOW the dice and mechanics provide the direction, the DM fills in the script. If the dice say that Vader wins, then he wins. I will not strip away player success because of my own wishes for how the story plays out.

To be perfectly frank, I see what you are describing as a failure of imagination on the part of the DM. The DM cannot see how the game will move forward if Vader succeeds so Vader cannot be allowed to succeed.

The mechanics say that Luke is persuaded by Vader. To me, over riding that result is not conducive to a game I want to participate in, on either side of the screen.

 

[Bawylie]

Leave Vader aside. Can a non-magical class cast a spell if the dice come up right? Or is it impossible?

Can a character with +50 in athletics jump a mile or is it impossible? Can he fail to jump a foot? Or is it automatic?

Do you allow for any action to have automatic success or fail conditions - or is that all failure of imagination?

Back to Vader as PC. That specific approach (offering power and order) to me is auto-fail. Had he taken a different approach, there may have been a chance for success. Say Vader says, "Join me, or I'll kill Solo and Leia. I have them both." Even if he's lying, there's a chance that would work.

So it's not that I cannot imagine a scenario in which PC Vader wins. It's that some actions are flat-out not possible and I don't run a game through a mechanics system just to say I did. DM judgment first, mechanics for ambiguous outcomes second.

 

[Agamon]

Again, this is a playstyle thing, not a right or wrong answer issue. To me, the dice determine how an action plays out.

IOW the dice and mechanics provide the direction, the DM fills in the script. If the dice say that Vader wins, then he wins. I will not strip away player success because of my own wishes for how the story plays out.

To be perfectly frank, I see what you are describing as a failure of imagination on the part of the DM. The DM cannot see how the game will move forward if Vader succeeds so Vader cannot be allowed to succeed.

The mechanics say that Luke is persuaded by Vader. To me, over riding that result is not conducive to a game I want to participate in, on either side of the screen.

There are things that shouldn't be rolled for, though, right? If a player wants to steal someone's pants or talk the king into abdicating and letting him rule or create a perpetual motion machine, do you so okay, roll?

For me, rolling happens only after everything is played out and an outcome is uncertain. If, during an exchange, it becomes obvious what the outcome should be, no rolling is necessary. Everyone's mileage on "role vs roll" may vary, of course, but this way, I find it keeps the absurd results to a minimum while still leaving the players with reasonable agency through roleplay.

 

[Hussar]

I look at it this way. Luke just learned that his trusted teachers, Yoda and Obi-Wan have been lying to his face for months or even years. His major motivation- avenging his father was a complete fabrication.

And that's not enough to possibly shift him to the side of the father he's always been looking for who tells him they will be a force of power throughout the galaxy?

I really do see this as a failure of imagination.

Or to put it another way, you rolls the dice, you takes your chances.

 

[JamesonCourage]

These threads just get amusing once the usual suspects get involved. There's a reason I post infrequently in these kinds of threads these days. Sorry, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], but I knew this would happen.

Of course, you probably did, too. And maybe that's the point. But these discussions have gone from thought-provoking to amusingly absurd for the most part. It's nice to see some new, reasonable faces (like [MENTION=6776133]Bawylie[/MENTION]), but I just have no interest in participating in a discussion where everyone talks about how "other people do it wrong" with an optional "(for me)" or "(for my group)" thrown in there.

Yeah, different people and different groups prefer different styles of gameplay. Is that it? Do I win the thread? Or is there more to the thread than this? I'm not sure what pemerton's original post was really trying to spark. I read the questions, but I just can't grasp what he's really trying to get out of this thread.

I know what we're getting now, though. And we'll we'll continue to get. Oh well. Here's to some more laughs, huh?

 

[Hussar]

No one asked you to read the thread JC. For me, the idea that over ruling the mechanics in service to a predetermined story is very bad advice to DM's and players.

But, considering that it's pretty prevalent in some circles I'd say that it really is a playstyle thing.