D&D General GMing and "Player Skill"

[overgeeked]

To me, skilled play is all about the gaps in the mechanics and player creativity. It's not possible for the mechanics to cover every possibility, despite many designers and players pushing to do so.

Things like instead of having a stand-up fight you ambush the enemy in a ravine and roll big-ass rocks down on top of them. Most games will have rules for ambushes and various ways to move heavy objects, but few if any will have specific rules for that situation. Because why would they? It's likely a one off that will never be repeated so having rules for that would be a waste of space. So much page count in chunky, clunky games reeks of bizarre one-offs like this the were for some reason codified into the books.

Skilled play is about recognizing the gap between the mechanics of the game and the "real world" the fiction is supposed to represent. A "real" person is those "real" circumstances is not limited to only the options on their character sheet or contained within the mechanics of the game. In other words, tactical infinity.

Skilled play is the notion that the rules of the game are only the bare bones start of what's possible in the game, not the sum total of what's possible.

Separately, the phrase Mother-May-I poisons the discussion. All refereeing, GMing, and DMing comes down to, in one form or another, Mother-May-I. All of it. The referee controls the entire world, all monsters, all NPCs, whether rolls can be made, what the DCs of those rolls are, whether you have dis/advantage for those rolls, any and all modifiers to those rolls, etc. Good luck playing the game without the referee okaying things.

 

[Reynard]

It almost needs to be a focus of the adventure/campaign. I know it was always odd in my PF1 days running into random traps. It was always detect/disarm or get whacked rolls. There wasnt much interesting about them. Eat some resources, rinse and repeat. So, yeah if its like the above, I can definitely skip traps.

Now, in the Mummy Mask AP, the first chapter is basically the PCs being allowed to raid a formerly closed off necropolis. It made sense for it to be full of traps. Some of them, even had some beautiful interaction for the entire party to engage. I know it might seem counter intuitive to expect traps, but it seemed to be more fun that way.

Another PF1 goodie was haunts (which were pretty divisive). A haunt was usually some psychotic energy left over from a terrible event. For example, a house may have burned down ages ago with a family inside. If the PCs spidey sense dont go off they fall victim of a choking trap that manifest from the haunt. The PC must survive and then disable the haunt. You can permanently put the a hunt to rest by giving a peacful end to the conditions which are custom to the haunt. In this example taking some left over bones from the family members and running them through a nearby stream and then burying them. You find this out by using a spirit planchette (oujia board). A lot of players didnt want this level of interaction at all. They wanted a perception roll to spot, a will save to not get hit by it, and then a disable roll to end it. Thus making haunts just like traps had become...

Anyways, long story short, I think making traps part of the adventure with interesting interaction is key. A lot of old school skill play was built around this as it was all about encountering dungeon monsters and traps. Thus, its expected all the time.

I love haunts. Condition tracks, too.there is a ton of stuff in the Gamemastery Guide I should revisit in fact.

 

[payn]

I love haunts. Condition tracks, too.there is a ton of stuff in the Gamemastery Guide I should revisit in fact.

I was really hoping Paizo would make a ghost busting AP where the PCs went around putting haunts to rest.

 

[Charlaquin]

i think i'm less inclined to agree with that, at least on the success side, mostly because social challenges are dealing with a (theoretically in principle) independent entity with their own wants, desires and moods, rather than the typically 'static' components of the challenges usually encountered in exploration, when you're dealing with a social interaction there isn't likely to be an 'objectively correct' method of handling it which guarantees to result in success.

Well, that’s the “DM acts” part of the equation, in my view. It is part of the DM’s role to make sense of the results the game rules dictate, in light of the NPC’s wants, desires, and moods, and to narrate it in a believable way. Resolving social actions is, in my view, often a game of “how can this be?” The dice and mods tell you what the NPC will do, it’s up to you as DM to figure out why they do that, and all that roleplaying information provides the constraints that help facilitate the necessary creativity to come up with the answer.

All that said, I do stand by my assertion that success and failure without a role should still be possible. There are some things that you’re just not going to be able to get an NPC to do, no matter how charismatic, persuasive, or intimidating you are, and some things that should be effortless to convince them to do. The NPC’s wants, needs, personalities, etc. inform the DM on when an attempt to influence them should be impossible, or shouldn’t require a roll to resolve. For sure.

 

[Reynard]

All that said, I do stand by my assertion that success and failure without a role should still be possible. There are some things that you’re just not going to be able to get an NPC to do, no matter how charismatic, persuasive, or intimidating you are, and some things that should be effortless to convince them to do. The NPC’s wants, needs, personalities, etc. inform the DM on when an attempt to influence them should be impossible, or shouldn’t require a roll to resolve. For sure.

Sure. That what the dice are for, right? Those times that neither success nor failure are a foregone conclusion.

 

[Charlaquin]

Sure. That what the dice are for, right? Those times that neither success nor failure are a foregone conclusion.

Exactly!

 

[overgeeked]

Well, that’s the “DM acts” part of the equation, in my view. It is part of the DM’s role to make sense of the results the game rules dictate, in light of the NPC’s wants, desires, and moods, and to narrate it in a believable way. Resolving social actions is, in my view, often a game of “how can this be?” The dice and mods tell you what the NPC will do, it’s up to you as DM to figure out why they do that, and all that roleplaying information provides the constraints that help facilitate the necessary creativity to come up with the answer.

I can see the appeal of that approach, but I generally prefer the opposite.

The results have to make sense in the world first, regardless of what the mechanics say. The fiction, the world, etc are more important than the mechanics. If the mechanics spit out a nonsense result, it's ignored. Not in any "the referee's way" sense, rather what makes sense in the world, fiction, etc.

If the mechanics say someone survives swimming in lava, the mechanics are clearly badly written unless you're playing a superhero game.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I'm working on an actual play right now sponsored by Green Ronin that uses their Adventure Game Engine, which has mechanics that pretty much mandate telling the player the DC (in AGE's case "Test Level" but it's the same concept) number for effectively any skill roll they try to make (and such roles are like 95% of the games mechanics). Granted, I tend to be fairly comfortable with play styles that are too game-ist for some, but revealing all the target numbers hurt immersion for this group way less that I maybe expected.

I like Mythras and other BRP/RQ systems specifically because the vast majority of the time the players know the exact percentage chance they have of succeeding at a skill roll. It's written on their character sheet, right beside the name of the skill.

 

[zarionofarabel]

this is what bothers me so much when people try to eliminate using social skills/checks in the game and just determine success/failure through the RP'ing character conversations at the table level.

This means all social situations are decided by GM fiat. Not a good thing IMHO.

 

[Reynard]

I can see the appeal of that approach, but I generally prefer the opposite.

The results have to make sense in the world first, regardless of what the mechanics say. The fiction, the world, etc are more important than the mechanics. If the mechanics spit out a nonsense result, it's ignored. Not in any "the referee's way" sense, rather what makes sense in the world, fiction, etc.

That is what the GM is there for, to interpret unusual mechanical results in a way that enhances the state of play while remaining true to the fiction.