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

[Crimson Longinus]

I'll take a bit of a stab at this, though I'm actually kind of two minds here.

The new edition of Alternity has a design feature where every character has to have at least one skill in each of six categories of skills. (I want to say its vehicles, tech, social interaction, knowledge, ranged combat, and melee combat). Why is that?

So you can be sure no one is entirely left out when the game moves into a certain kind of situation, a situation that may be time consuming, they have at least some potential ability to participate.

There were serious objections to this. But I think part of it was the same issue of people not looking at it kind of the wrong way (though I think you've mentioned both in the past). The purpose is not to make everyone good at everything; its to make sure no one is really bad at anything.

Now, that can bother you too, on a character representation/simulation grounds. As the Alternity 2e people said, why should a scientist or engineer automatically have combat skills? The answer is, on those grounds, there's no reason they should. You can rationalize it easily enough if you want to, but it isn't a default given.

But, and I know this sort of thing bothers some people a lot, a large number of games really don't care about those grounds. They're making design decisions on gameplay grounds, and on those grounds, most people don't find it fun to feel useless, even if they're the boss in other contexts. They'd rather be able to at least contribute in almost everything.

But you also have games that are kind of not committed to either approach, and that can end up being kind of a problem for everyone.

Edit: And of course Ezo has an important point above; the limitations of class games can produce results that seem, bluntly, irrational in terms of channelling growth in very narrow ways that don't necessarily serve either the fiction nor the game all that well.

I get the Alternity approach, but I don't think the suggestions here are similar, even though they might appear to be trying to solve a similar issue. It seems in Alternity the characters still can be bad at individual skills, they are just not completely useless in any facets of the game. In 5e it would be similar if all characters were always proficient in at least one social skill and one exploration skill (everyone is already "proficient" in combat.)

What I don't see as good idea is the homogenisation, where the difference between being skilled and not being skilled in certain things is erodes. 5e proficiency bonus is already pretty meagre (hence the topic of the thread,) but effectively halving that so that difference between skilled and unskilled is just paltry 1-3 points? At that point I'm not sure there is much point even bothering with assigning skills.

 

[Lanefan]

But in that case, what is the player's job?

To sit there and roll dice, if the dice are handling all this.

If you strip out the Investigation mechanic and leave it to the players (in or out of character) to connect the dots of what their Perception is telling them, then the players have more work to do. This is my own preference, provided the DM is half-decent at describing scenes and situations.

But this packs with it a corollary challenge that for a lot of players* is insurmoutable: to somehow - within reason - think as their characters would think, rather than thinking as themselves-the-players.

* - all too often including me, though I do try to give it my best shot.

 

[tetrasodium]

To sit there and roll dice, if the dice are handling all this.

If you strip out the Investigation mechanic and leave it to the players (in or out of character) to connect the dots of what their Perception is telling them, then the players have more work to do. This is my own preference, provided the DM is half-decent at describing scenes and situations.

But this packs with it a corollary challenge that for a lot of players* is insurmoutable: to somehow - within reason - think as their characters would think, rather than thinking as themselves-the-players.

* - all too often including me, though I do try to give it my best shot.

Agreed, sometimes it seems like wotc went out of their way to design elements like that that bold bit out of the 5e without taking a moment to consider how unbelievably crippling that boat anchor player type is to the table's fun.

Spoiler: you know it's bad when people mock it with parody

Especially when that parody looks like a reenactment.

What we lost is the ability to rightfully tell that player they are being a negative influence on everyone else's fun and in need of improvement.

 

[Thomas Shey]

What we lost is the ability to rightfully tell that player they are being a negative influence on everyone else's fun and in need of improvement.

Perhaps because "git gud" isn't any more attractive here than it is in computer gaming.

 

[tetrasodium]

Perhaps because "git gud" isn't any more attractive here than it is in computer gaming.

I was speaking of something far below the lofty heights of mere "gitgud". Using your computer gaming analogy.... removing friendly fire as a solution to that sort of toxically disconnected player comes with tangible costs to gameplay.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I was speaking of something far below the lofty heights of mere "gitgud". Using your computer gaming analogy.... removing friendly fire as a solution to that sort of toxically disconnected player comes with tangible costs to gameplay.

And of course "toxically disconnected" is an objective measure everyone can recognize...

 

[ezo]

but effectively halving that so that difference between skilled and unskilled is just paltry 1-3 points? At that point I'm not sure there is much point even bothering with assigning skills.

Yep, that is another big issue with things like this also.

However, a great way to take care of that issue is to make non-proficiency = disadvantage. Which, IMO it always should have been.

 

[tetrasodium]

And of course "toxically disconnected" is an objective measure everyone can recognize...

I embedded the two example videos to avoid this very problem where a reply needs to fabricate a scenario before discussion is possible. You take issue with calling out that sort of behavior but have avoided describing it in your own words rather than complaining about talking about it as a negative unreasonable manner of behaving at a table.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I embedded the two example videos to avoid this very problem where a reply needs to fabricate a scenario before discussion is possible. You take issue with calling out that sort of behavior but have avoided describing it in your own words rather than complaining about talking about it as a negative unreasonable manner of behaving at a table.

Edit: You know what, never mind. I suspect this conversation is going to be useful to just no one.

 

[Gammadoodler]

I really don't understand what the problem we are trying to solve even is. Like how is different characters being good at different things a problem? Why homogenising it so that everyone is good at everything a desirable state of affairs?

It is an acknowledgement, that while there are separate classes, they are all professional adventurers.

We can make it so the career means something too. Like, it's kinda weird to imagine these professionals growing, and becoming powerful, influential, some may say legendary, figures in the world, without developing basic competence outside of the narrow skillset they started with at level 1.