D&D General Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)

[ezo]

the rest of the cooks throw me out or I food-poison a customer

I'm betting on food-poisoning.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And for me, the games that do care about training are better for it.

That's your choice, but again, a matter of taste and one not shared by many modern players best I can tell.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The way to prevent that toxicity, of course, is to ensure that "the honest truth" and "what we want to hear" are one and the same.

In other words, put the consumer first.

That doesn't help when "the consumer" wants contradictory things, sometimes literally in the same person.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To the bolded: so what?

Still makes the game better IMO.

Only if you find any of those interesting in some fashion. In particular, the list of people who really want more bookkeeping in their game is not large, and that one was true even forty years ago.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Enhh. It depends on what level of learning you're talking about.

A person who knows nothing about golfing can pretty quickly learn things like what the different clubs are meant to do, things to look out for on a hole , some basic swing mechanics, etc.

Same way with most things. You might not be able to make a Michelin star meal, but spend a week or two back of house at a restaurant, and you'll probably have a decent idea of how to season and grill a steak, dress a salad, and make some pasta.

Mastery of some things might take years. Advancing beyond complete incompetence can take days or weeks. This is well within the adventuring timescale.

(And this is not even considering that characters are often traveling with premier experts within these fields. Like, if I was on the road with a couple of PGA players, and occasionally we had to play golf as a team to survive, since they want to survive too, I'd expect that they'd drop some hints here and there for me to pick up)

This is why certain skill based games that actually care about such things have some form of early easy advancement with progressive diminishing returns build in, whether its baked into the core system (BRP) or advancement costs (GURPS).

Edit: Though that said, there's always the problem that only a few games address that some skills come very much naturally to humans, and others require a certain time to get the basics going before natural aptitude means much. That's well beyond anything D&D even vaguely cares about throughout most of its history, though.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Nonsense. The optimal strategy is to be vague so that no single group feels alienated. And to place the DM as the largest and greatest factor in how the game operates. That way people won't perceive it as WOTC telling people how to run their game.

And trust that not too much of your fan based concludes that the last thing the hobby needs is putting even more things in the GM's lap.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

That assumes a basic level of competence going in, though. My cooking skills consist of being able to boil water; were I to spend a week or two in a restaurant kitchen it'd be a race to see which happens first: the rest of the cooks throw me out or I food-poison a customer.

i mean...are you a demigod? because epic tier 4e PCs either practically or literally are demigods. even paragon tier 4e PCs are pretty clearly superhuman, and you could reasonably argue the same for higher level heroic tier PCs (orcus - a 4e retroclone compatible with 4e proper - suggests that PCs double in power every 4 levels, which would mean a 10th level PC is roughly 5 times more powerful then a 1st level PC).

edit: it's also important to note that there are some skill uses that require training. like, you can't even ATTEMPT to detect magic with arcana unless you're trained in the skill.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do think it is fair to say at this point that, if someone were to post similarly phrased critisizms of 4e and/or more narrative-focused games, including how they experienced those games and how they played, I expect you and possibly others fond of such games would be inclined to be defensive.

In short, being respectful of both sides (if it can even be said there are only two sides) is important for everyone.

Perhaps. All I can say is that I did in fact give it a shot, with someone I respected as DM, in a world that was clearly created with care, and a group genuinely seeking to have fun. The rules did not contribute much to the experience that I would have described positively. Given, as I said, the DM had my respect, the world was interesting, and most of the other players were cool (I'm afraid one was...not as cool, but this is not the time to air such grievances), the issues I had were hard to pin on anything else.

Unless, that is, there is something unusual about a group trying several different methods to test if a floor is trapped (tapping it, liquids, ball bearings, throwing objects, etc.) only to eventually just walk across with a little bit of care? Because that happened, and there was at least one other time where we thought there was a trap but I'm pretty sure there wasn't. I just don't derive much enjoyment from that sort of "probe with every tool under the sun, because getting caught by a trap is Instant Death, making ultimate caution the watchword."

One of the players was a Wizard who had several strong spells (appropriate to his level but still strong), including invisiblity, which pretty handily dealt with at least two things that would have otherwise been serious problems, and the rest of us just sort of followed him around for about a third of the game. Hence the balance issues; the Wizard was not any higher level than he should have been, but he was far more powerful than any of us so long as he was cautious, and he was arguably the most cautious player in the group (but still active, of course.) Not a bad guy, seemed like he was just way more familiar and take-charge than anyone else in the group, except the aforementioned ultra-active player.

Speaking of, he was a delight, albeit perhaps a bit too enthusiastic. (The "hemming and hawing" was at least partly his doing, throwing anything at the wall to see what would stick.) Many of the oddball techniques came straight from him, and he was also new to OSR stuff as I was. Sadly, his creativity all too soon got the better of him, which is exactly the kind of lesson I fear gets taught by ultra-lethal gameplay. You survive, and thus participate, much more if you keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, and stay in your lane until you're needed. The player himself was clearly cool with it and having fun, so I don't want to besmirch the DM, he did exactly as he should in this kind of game. I just wasn't really vibing with it.

It wasn't a bad experience, I'm glad I did it, and I met some decent people. But I don't think I will play LL or other OSR games again. The gameplay experience was simply not one I enjoyed very much, despite the DM putting lots of effort into being supportive (for which I am, and was, very grateful).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Perhaps. All I can say is that I did in fact give it a shot, with someone I respected as DM, in a world that was clearly created with care, and a group genuinely seeking to have fun. The rules did not contribute much to the experience that I would have described positively. Given, as I said, the DM had my respect, the world was interesting, and most of the other players were cool (I'm afraid one was...not as cool, but this is not the time to air such grievances), the issues I had were hard to pin on anything else.

Unless, that is, there is something unusual about a group trying several different methods to test if a floor is trapped (tapping it, liquids, ball bearings, throwing objects, etc.) only to eventually just walk across with a little bit of care? Because that happened, and there was at least one other time where we thought there was a trap but I'm pretty sure there wasn't. I just don't derive much enjoyment from that sort of "probe with every tool under the sun, because getting caught by a trap is Instant Death, making ultimate caution the watchword."

One of the players was a Wizard who had several strong spells (appropriate to his level but still strong), including invisiblity, which pretty handily dealt with at least two things that would have otherwise been serious problems, and the rest of us just sort of followed him around for about a third of the game. Hence the balance issues; the Wizard was not any higher level than he should have been, but he was far more powerful than any of us so long as he was cautious, and he was arguably the most cautious player in the group (but still active, of course.) Not a bad guy, seemed like he was just way more familiar and take-charge than anyone else in the group, except the aforementioned ultra-active player.

Speaking of, he was a delight, albeit perhaps a bit too enthusiastic. (The "hemming and hawing" was at least partly his doing, throwing anything at the wall to see what would stick.) Many of the oddball techniques came straight from him, and he was also new to OSR stuff as I was. Sadly, his creativity all too soon got the better of him, which is exactly the kind of lesson I fear gets taught by ultra-lethal gameplay. You survive, and thus participate, much more if you keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, and stay in your lane until you're needed. The player himself was clearly cool with it and having fun, so I don't want to besmirch the DM, he did exactly as he should in this kind of game. I just wasn't really vibing with it.

It wasn't a bad experience, I'm glad I did it, and I met some decent people. But I don't think I will play LL or other OSR games again. The gameplay experience was simply not one I enjoyed very much, despite the DM putting lots of effort into being supportive (for which I am, and was, very grateful).

Fair enough. An honest shot is all anyone can ask, and subjective feelings are subjective. I did something similar with 4e, and several PBtA games. My objection was simply that similar sentiments expressed about games you prefer have induced strong feelings from you and other fans of such games.

 

[pemerton]

it would be a pretty cool game (albeit radically different) if fighter types got hit point and damage upgrades as they leveled, but mage-types just didn't.

Rolemaster tends to work like this, at least in my experience.