D&D General GMing and "Player Skill"

[Reynard]

Spinning this out of the 6E thread because, well it isn't about 6E.

Anyway -- much is often made of "player skill" and "OSR" and how modern games are just button mashing. I don't really buy this as a generational divide: I think people in the 70s could rely on their character sheets, and I think people now can get creative.

What I do think is that the degree to which a game (and by game, I mean the thing happening at a particular table, not an edition) can be about "player skill" is entirely a function of the GM's willingness to present his "puzzles" in good faith. unfortunately, in my experience, what you actually get more often than not is a GM-May-I? situation in which the GM wants the players to read his mind and speak the precise words, rather than coming up with a novel solution.

What are your thoughts on "player skill" based games and the GMs that run them? How do you do it well, regardless of whether the rules are OSR or modern? What system tools can actually make it more fun and better? How do you GM this kind of game without falling in to the trap of asking your players to read your mind?

 

[payn]

I hate to say it, but I think the OP poisoned the well by assuming "GM-may-I" is a part of skill play in the title. It can be, and is a valid complaint, but I see that more as a function of how a GM operates as opposed to it being a center piece of skill play.

What are your thoughts on "player skill" based games and the GMs that run them? How do you do it well, regardless of whether the rules are OSR or modern? What system tools can actually make it more fun and better? How do you GM this kind of game without falling in to the trap of asking your players to read your mind?

It was mentioned "good faith" is the assumption of skill play. Which means, if a player finds a way to make a deadly trap/encounter a piece of cake, then you should let them. Better luck next time when you are designing your next adventure. I think its that part that makes it tough for GMs. Some just simply dont want to let players get stuff they dont feel is earned. Thats on the person, not the play style.

The best forms of skill play I encountered was DCC tournaments and funnels. These remind me of the days of nintendo hard. ITs all about exploiting difficult situations the best way possible. Likely, through lots of character death. Its more gamey then role play, but im ok with that for this evening of play. Im in the mindset for it. I wouldnt play this as a campaign becasue it would be too much for me, and I prefer focus off of skill play generally. So, its largely gonna be taste. Also, as mentioned just above, the GM has to engage in good faith, but I as player know too, that traps might be intentionally gamey gotchas as part of the experience. Can I, through skill play out smart them? YMMV.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Spinning this out of the 6E thread because, well it isn't about 6E.

Anyway -- much is often made of "player skill" and "OSR" and how modern games are just button mashing. I don't really buy this as a generational divide: I think people in the 70s could rely on their character sheets, and I think people now can get creative.

What I do think is that the degree to which a game (and by game, I mean the thing happening at a particular table, not an edition) can be about "player skill" is entirely a function of the GM's willingness to present his "puzzles" in good faith. unfortunately, in my experience, what you actually get more often than not is a GM-May-I? situation in which the GM wants the players to read his mind and speak the precise words, rather than coming up with a novel solution.

What are your thoughts on "player skill" based games and the GMs that run them? How do you do it well, regardless of whether the rules are OSR or modern? What system tools can actually make it more fun and better? How do you GM this kind of game without falling in to the trap of asking your players to read your mind?

Based on what was discussed in the previous thread....

I am apparently a diehard new-school fan (4e, 13A, and DW are among my favorite systems)...who demands skilled play. Which I have been repeatedly told, albeit not quite in so many words, should be a logical impossibility.

I am also beginning to understand that there are multiple rather fine lines involved here, which often get overlooked in favor of the bold and probably inaccurate standard narrative of "skilled play". Namely, that early-edition games (and thus old-school-styled games) required it, and modern-edition games prevent it, thus leading to all the various alleged ills (playing the character sheet, for example).

As noted in the previous thread, and in your post sort of indirectly reference, is the issue of good faith--but I generalize it to both sides, player and GM alike. On the GM side, what I personally would call "pixelb!+@#ing" is a GM presenting a puzzle in bad faith. It requires reading their mind, or giving so precisely exact a response that it functionally requires mind-reading, or otherwise having something that is "solved" by magically knowing what is right, not by actually applying reasoning.

But there's a player-side version of bad faith: refusing to actually engage in play, and instead simply engaging in invocation. That is, I cannot conceive of actually playing a roleplaying game as anything other than describing one's actions. In certain limited circumstances, where one would essentially have to describe the exact same kind of action over and over and over again until it became nauseating, we allow some flexibility here--e.g., we don't expect the Fighter to precisely describe every single sword-strike they ever make, because that would be an enormous time-sink for very little added benefit. But in other contexts, especially outside of combat, I literally cannot understand why someone would "play" by simply crying out mechanic titles and then doing a little jig when a die gives a big number. That's...not play, any more than shouting "FIRST DOWN!" or "SECOND AND SIX!" is actually, y'know, playing gridiron.

I demand good-faith play, whatever side of the screen I'm on. I won't tolerate a GM who thinks she's oh-so-clever with unsolvable riddles that require me to read her mind. I won't tolerate a player who thinks she can coast through my game by just saying "I persuade the guard!" (I will, in general, give much more leeway to the latter if they are relatively new, or rusty, because I know players can be shy, or can be taught bad habits by prior GMs; but leeway only goes so far.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I hate to say it, but I think the OP poisoned the well by assuming "GM-may-I" is a part of skill play in the title. It can be, and is a valid complaint, but I see that more as a function of how a GM operates as opposed to it being a center piece of skill play.

Perhaps. I personally think it is a good and healthy recognition that what is often passed off as "skilled play" is actually itself simply another form of deeply flawed play, and that the hyperfocus on solely bad-faith-players, while ignoring bad-faith-GMs, is a common error that leads to mistakes in reasoning.

It was mentioned "good faith" is the assumption of skill play. Which means, if a player finds a way to make a deadly trap/encounter a piece of cake, then you should let them. Better luck next time when you are designing your next adventure. I think its that part that makes it tough for GMs. Some just simply dont want to let players get stuff they dont feel is earned. Thats on the person, not the play style.

I have done precisely this (and spoken of it more than once). My players know, if they legitimately outwit me, I let it stand. I would never take that from them--though there might be complications later on, if there are reasonable, warranted ways that those complications could arise. (In the specific case I'm thinking of, where the party defeated a molten-obsidian golem by drawing it into a water-filled pit trap, no such complications could ever arise, so it ended up being a pure one-off.)

The best forms of skill play I encountered was DCC tournaments and funnels. These remind me of the days of nintendo hard.

Interesting. A goodly amount of "Nintendo hard" just came from system limitations and/or making things brutally difficult in order to stretch out very minimal content into a longer experience. In a sense, one could argue that "Nintendo hard" was often (not always, but often) the 8-bit-era equivalent of "THOUSANDS OF HOURS OF CONTENT" in modern open-world games: sure, you have a zillion places you can visit, but they're padding, not rich and meaningful experiences. And one of the reasons why BG3 did very well, for example, is that it didn't do that, very little of the game is padding.

ITs all about exploiting difficult situations the best way possible. Likely, through lots of character death. Its more gamey then role play, but im ok with that for this evening of play. Im in the mindset for it. I wouldnt play this as a campaign becasue it would be too much for me, and I prefer focus off of skill play generally. So, its largely gonna be taste.

As most game things will (and probably should) be.

That said, I appreciate the up-front admission that this is very game-y. I find a lot of people who speak of "skilled play" seem to think that it is inherently not game-y at all, which is....something I have difficulty understanding.

Also, as mentioned just above, the GM has to engage in good faith, but I as player know too, that traps might be intentionally gamey gotchas as part of the experience. Can I, through skill play out smart them? YMMV.

Hmm. I find this difficult to square. Because if the GM is inherently engaging in bad faith--if they are, in a certain limited sense, "not playing fair"--then the answer to that question would seem to be objectively no. You cannot outsmart an adjudicator who is determined to never be outsmarted. That would seem to fly in the face of the in-principle idea that skilled play should consistently reward real, exercised player skill with better results (up to a certain small amount of randomness because dice got involved).

 

[Reynard]

I hate to say it, but I think the OP poisoned the well by assuming "GM-may-I" is a part of skill play in the title.

Good point. I edited the title.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Based on what was discussed in the previous thread....

I am apparently a diehard new-school fan (4e, 13A, and DW are among my favorite systems)...who demands skilled play. Which I have been repeatedly told, albeit not quite in so many words, should be a logical impossibility.

I am also beginning to understand that there are multiple rather fine lines involved here, which often get overlooked in favor of the bold and probably inaccurate standard narrative of "skilled play". Namely, that early-edition games (and thus old-school-styled games) required it, and modern-edition games prevent it, thus leading to all the various alleged ills (playing the character sheet, for example).

As noted in the previous thread, and in your post sort of indirectly reference, is the issue of good faith--but I generalize it to both sides, player and GM alike. On the GM side, what I personally would call "pixelb!+@#ing" is a GM presenting a puzzle in bad faith. It requires reading their mind, or giving so precisely exact a response that it functionally requires mind-reading, or otherwise having something that is "solved" by magically knowing what is right, not by actually applying reasoning.

But there's a player-side version of bad faith: refusing to actually engage in play, and instead simply engaging in invocation. That is, I cannot conceive of actually playing a roleplaying game as anything other than describing one's actions. In certain limited circumstances, where one would essentially have to describe the exact same kind of action over and over and over again until it became nauseating, we allow some flexibility here--e.g., we don't expect the Fighter to precisely describe every single sword-strike they ever make, because that would be an enormous time-sink for very little added benefit. But in other contexts, especially outside of combat, I literally cannot understand why someone would "play" by simply crying out mechanic titles and then doing a little jig when a die gives a big number. That's...not play, any more than shouting "FIRST DOWN!" or "SECOND AND SIX!" is actually, y'know, playing gridiron.

I demand good-faith play, whatever side of the screen I'm on. I won't tolerate a GM who thinks she's oh-so-clever with unsolvable riddles that require me to read her mind. I won't tolerate a player who thinks she can coast through my game by just saying "I persuade the guard!" (I will, in general, give much more leeway to the latter if they are relatively new, or rusty, because I know players can be shy, or can be taught bad habits by prior GMs; but leeway only goes so far.)

I see your point. I definitely bristle when players attempt to invoke rather than describe their actions, and push back as a GM when I see it. Invoking mechanics in response to player action through their PCs is the GM's job as I see it.

For my part as the GM, I try to look at player descriptions of their actions without too much attention to detail, so they don't end up missing something a general description of their actions should allow them the opportunity to find or to do.

 

[kermit4karate]

...if a player finds a way to make a deadly trap/encounter a piece of cake, then you should let them. Better luck next time when you are designing your next adventure. I think its that part that makes it tough for GMs. Some just simply dont want to let players get stuff they dont feel is earned. Thats on the person, not the play style.

The best forms of skill play I encountered was DCC tournaments and funnels. These remind me of the days of nintendo hard. ITs all about exploiting difficult situations the best way possible.

Love a few of your points here, including the excerpts above. Definitely agree, too, about tournaments and funnels (although in my case they weren't DCC but just TTRPG tournaments in general), but it's been my experience that when the DM/GM doesn't take player agency too personally and sets aside their ego, even when a player "breaks" the game or breaks out of the railroad, that's for the best.

A DM's job is not to defeat the players anyway. It's to facilitate a fun, thrilling adventure. If instead it were to defeat the players, that would take all of 10 seconds to do.

 

[mixmastashizz]

I think all the 'OSR maxims' at this point have been taken and used out of their original context so long that they've become meaningless.

So much so that they've morphed into this idea that old dnd is just mudcore farmers dying in droves which ignores the obviously heroic bent the original game and 1e assumed.

Granted, it feels like this is mostly due to people not actually playing by the rules (ignoring gp = xp, vastly slowing down progression) or due to poor organization forgetting rules that are in the party's favor (fighter attacks vs mooks, adding dexterity to breath saving throws, adding magic armor pluses to saving throws, etc)

I started playing dnd with 4e, and started dming when 5e came out, and am now playing a 1e game so I have no nostalgic glasses for the game and no lived context for how people played back in the day.

 

[payn]

Perhaps. I personally think it is a good and healthy recognition that what is often passed off as "skilled play" is actually itself simply another form of deeply flawed play, and that the hyperfocus on solely bad-faith-players, while ignoring bad-faith-GMs, is a common error that leads to mistakes in reasoning.

Agreed, but I think the topic deserves examination for its merits within good faith as well as its common bad faith pitfalls.

Interesting. A goodly amount of "Nintendo hard" just came from system limitations and/or making things brutally difficult in order to stretch out very minimal content into a longer experience. In a sense, one could argue that "Nintendo hard" was often (not always, but often) the 8-bit-era equivalent of "THOUSANDS OF HOURS OF CONTENT" in modern open-world games: sure, you have a zillion places you can visit, but they're padding, not rich and meaningful experiences. And one of the reasons why BG3 did very well, for example, is that it didn't do that, very little of the game is padding.

I dont mean to disparage skill play, im just stating my nostalgia kick for it in limited but fulfilling packages. I understand for some folks they take it in more consistent and measured doses.

As most game things will (and probably should) be.

That said, I appreciate the up-front admission that this is very game-y. I find a lot of people who speak of "skilled play" seem to think that it is inherently not game-y at all, which is....something I have difficulty understanding.

I think admitting anything is gamey is a challenge in RPG discussions. Folks spend time rationalizing the game because its part of the immersion. Trying to Justify a preference as better or the right way. As I mentioned above, some folks who like skill play might not engage it in such a direct and singular manner. For them, it might be seen more simulation than game.

Hmm. I find this difficult to square. Because if the GM is inherently engaging in bad faith--if they are, in a certain limited sense, "not playing fair"--then the answer to that question would seem to be objectively no. You cannot outsmart an adjudicator who is determined to never be outsmarted. That would seem to fly in the face of the in-principle idea that skilled play should consistently reward real, exercised player skill with better results (up to a certain small amount of randomness because dice got involved).

My intent was more about the actual existence of the trap in general. Like, why would somebody build in a stinking cavern system a marble floor that becomes icy and slants towards twirling blades. Its sort of a long stretch of the imagination why this particular challenge even exists, until you realize the challenge is the game and the nature of its existence doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Not that the GM is changing the answer or negating character abilities to maintain the challenge. The latter is indeed bad faith gaming.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My intent was more about the actual existence of the trap in general. Like, why would somebody build in a stinking cavern system a marble floor that becomes icy and slants towards twirling blades. Its sort of a long stretch of the imagination why this particular challenge even exists, until you realize the challenge is the game and the nature of its existence doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Not that the GM is changing the answer or negating character abilities to maintain the challenge. The latter is indeed bad faith gaming.

Would you say your intent was more "putting certain kinds of traps into a random cave is blatantly unrealistic, and thus not something a novice player would necessarily expect, but an experienced player would know to look for things that are genre-appropriate but unrealistic"?