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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6199924" data-attributes="member: 6681948">Absolutely.  But I am going to take this a bit further, in possibly an unpopular direction.  Hopefully, this is accepted as being in the interests of furthering the discussion.  Even more hopefully, it will be useful to some readers. Let’s look at this from another perspective.  Let us assume that the game is designed to be balanced under certain playstyles, and this is intentional, not accidental, design.  If I am attempting to run the game under a different playstyle from that for which it was designed, is the fact that the game now fails evidence that the game was wrongly designed (it does not work when you use it for something it was not designed to do) or that I am playing it wrong (I am attempting to use it for something it was not designed for)? If 4e is a great fit for your playstyle, and not mine, while 3e fits my playstyle perfectly, but fits horribly with yours, the answer is not to change 4e to better match my style and 3e to better match yours.  It is for us to play the games that match our playstyle.  Changing 4e for me makes it less useful for you.  Changing 3e for you makes it less useful for me.  Rather, I suggest the designers should assess what they are trying to design, be up front about that (eg.  Hero notes it wants to simulate cinematic reality, and as such is unrealistic in many places  if you want gritty realism, you might need a different game system).  If we: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">assume that was the model the designers had in mind (either high GM overisght or players deliberately and intentionally playing in the spririt of a good, entertaining game and not game-breaking rules interpretations and out of genre play)  – and I agree it is not explicitly stated;</li> </ol><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">we then observe that those playing under that model have successful, balanced games, which several posters report to be the case;</li> </ol><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">we next observe other posters who, whether knowingly or not, have a different playstyle, and as a result experience poor balance and/or other negative gameplay experiences.</li> </ol>Then I suggest that it is reasonable to assert that, by applying a playstyle, GM techniques, whatever outside those assumed by the game designers – ie different from those the designers created the game around – are, in fact, playing the game “wrong”. The main flaw, in this case, is a failure to spell out the design parameters in the rules themselves.  I would suggest many degrees of flexibility can exist.  “Flexible” does not mean “universal”.  However, I also question whether the flexibility may be overstated. The fact that 5e acknowledges a variety of playstyle preferences indicates that the designers have at least reached the point of recognising plurality.  Whether their approach to dealing with that plurality will succeed remains to be seen.  Can the game, with modular rules, be all things to all gamers? Well and good.  But perhaps it is also not designed as an “Indie Game”, despite the designers not recognizing their own design parameters, and that is why it breaks when pressed into service as one.  And perhaps changes to make it a better “Indie Game” make it poorer when used to run a game under its original design parameters. I agree it has not been a widespread approach, but I am more trying to get a handle on what, in your playstyle, is open for the GM to set, and what is open for the players to either set or modify.  All I’m really seeing at this point is “anything the players wish to achieve must be within the realm of possibility based on their character resources”.  That is, we cannot have a chamberlain so obstinate that the characters cannot talk their way past him. Whether their characters are all 8 CHA clods with no social skills, or include a 28 CHA Bard with 19 ranks in diplomacy, it simply must be possible to both succeed and to fail.  So what if the Bard wasn’t there the first time, but shows up the second?  The Chamberain has been replaced with someone far less accommodating? Let’s go back there… You are assuming the GM has decided to make it simply impossible to see the King.  Let’s go back to my 8 CHA clods and 28 CHA bard example.  Let’s further assume the Chamberlain has appeared before, and the players were barely able to mollify him thanks to a great roll by that Bard (back when he only had +16 diplomacy!).  But the Bard is gone.  The best Diplomacy roll in the group is -1.  Perhaps in your game the Chamberlain has become so much more cheerful and pleasant that he graciously lets anyone in to see the king.  In my game, the Chamberlain has now become backstory.  He is not miraculously more accommodating because the PC’s no longer possess the skill set to deal with his former self.  He has not become possessed by the Blue Bird of Bliss.  So they no longer can get past him.And if they tell me their first level characters will seek out an ancient red dragon to kill so they may loot its hoard, this will not cause that creature to become a challenging yet winnable fight for their first level characters either. I think it is a RolePlaying Game – two aspects which should balance one against the other.  It should not be purely mechanical nor should the mechanics  be meaningless.  The sweet spot is somewhere on that continuum. It is not necessary, to me, that each challenge the PC’s face be one which they can immediately solve.  Neither, however, should it be essential that they solve them in some mindless linear fashion.  I’m quite fine with AP play, adventure hooks and, yes, having a story in the background, but one which I believe the PC’s can influence. “I ask to see the king – Diplomacy roll of 37” is, however, and that is all that has been suggested in this instance – that it must be possible for the PC’s to make a roll and be allowed immediate access to the King.  I do not believe the success or failure of the game hinges on that being possible.  It seems to me that both examples provide the players leveraging prior events, many set by the GM, where our Chamberlain comes out of the blue.  In the first, we have prior relations with both the Baron and the advisor.  The second involves the use of character resources (I assume he had to choose to invest in his Hard Religion skill, and that this took away resources he could have invested elsewhere), as well as backstory on the Duergar.  And, one again, “I had already decided” indicates a measure of GM authority over the resolution of the player’s die roll, so I remain firmly in the “matter of degree” mindset. Is it somehow superior if this is a module instead of the GM’s own design?  I’m uncertain whether there is some specific reason you choose the module reference.I’d say the use of Streetwise or Gather Information or History or Knowledge (Nobility) or some other relevant skill is very much about action resolution.  And, once again, I don’t consider that authority to end here.  That authority also extends to setting the personality and backstory of the Chamberlain, which in turn sets the likeliness that he will be affected by diplomacy and, in the 3e model, the prospects he will listen to the PC’s long enough that they can make a calm Diplomacy check, rather than a rushed attempt at -10.  I think the Chamberlain has been part of the picture from the outset, not an inclusion after a die roll.  Then again, perhaps that Kn: Nobility check was a fail forward – you blew the check, so you’re not getting in to see the King, but you do learn who controls that access, so now you can work on some way of persuading him to get you in to see the King.  But I don’t believe that was anyone’s vision of the manner in which the Chamberlain came into play. Above, you made a great deal of setting the timing of a bomb exploding for dramatic, rather than mundane time management, reasons.   So it seems that the timing of the explosion is very much scene framing, yet the possibility the King will, or will not, be made available is not.  I don’t find the differences between the two compelling.  You clearly do.  And you have indicated that the GM possesses this scene-setting authority in your game, have you not?  There is no guarantee you will get to the Chamberlain but, having arrived, you must now have the opportunity to be ushered in to the presence of the King?  Again, not seeing this bright line differentiation. Sounds less like a game (role playing or otherwise) and more like shared ad-lib storytelling with a resource management aspect (the resource for assuming control over the fiction). Yet they apparently have sufficient power that they can make success in a diplomacy check a possibility (although I am unclear how strong a possibility they can make it). I question the scope of the scene.  Is it “meeting the chamberlain”, or is it “seeking access to the King”?  The latter may be much lengthier, and broader, than the former, and may involve much more than simply being granted or denied access through the discussion with the Chamberlain. I am not discussing 4e.  I do not claim any familiarity with the 4e rules.  The thread is not about 4e.  I am discussing, because you have moved the discussion there, how we might resolve matters in a hypothetical game system, since the system in question must be conducive to various playstyles that I am not convinced any one existing system is, in fact, conducive to. What made for an exciting game in your examples above?  I don’t think it was the mechanics and the die rolling.  I think it was what the players and GM brought to it.  Let’s restate them in mechanical terms.  Two things.  One, stripped of the actual colour, which could be applied to any number of mechanics, this seems less than exciting.  Second, emphasis added, I thought it was the mechanics, not the GM, deciding the outcome.  Given that +2 would mean success, and the players knew that, whether they would get guaranteed success or another roll seems pretty important to how much power they have over action resolution. Again, the drama is really added by the GM and players, not by the mechanics.  So the players may never fail with their stated intent.  This seems just as prone to adversarial play, should that be the desire of the participants, as any other form of Calvinball.  We get to keep making up reasons we might make our ultimate success, the GM gets to keep describing things that get us closer to our goal without success until, finally, we get a successful roll and now the GM has to give us what we want. Here we find the real failing of the 3e interaction mechanics – they do not, by RAW, apply against the PC’s, so they get to ignore any check, however successful, even with that -10 penalty, but hey, we should also interpret the rules so the NPC’s can never walk away, I never actually get subjected to that “extra time” rule and ‘friendly” is a synonym for “sock puppet”!</blockquote>

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