D&D General GMing and "Player Skill"

[overgeeked]

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

Everything but the players' choices is decided by the referee. If the player can roll for something, what skill to roll, what the TN is, what modifiers apply if any, dis/advantage, how the NPCs re/act, etc. The only difference is there's a math rock clattering across the table or not. The roll is just injecting a (sometimes false) sense of possibility into the mix.

 

[Reynard]

Everything but the players' choices is decided by the referee. If the player can roll for something, what skill to roll, what the TN is, what modifiers apply if any, dis/advantage, how the NPCs re/act, etc. The only difference is there's a math rock clattering across the table or not. The roll is just injecting a (sometimes false) sense of possibility into the mix.

Unless the rules call for certain rolls at certain times based on the actions the player chose. That is why in some ways, more prescribed systems like 3.x are better. Knowing the process can increase player agency.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Everything but the players' choices is decided by the referee. If the player can roll for something, what skill to roll, what the TN is, what modifiers apply if any, dis/advantage, how the NPCs re/act, etc. The only difference is there's a math rock clattering across the table or not. The roll is just injecting a (sometimes false) sense of possibility into the mix.

Supposedly, the GM is not supposed to decide the outcome of all things and rely on Math Rock to determine. It's the outcome of a check the Math Rock is for, not the existence of check in the first place. Sure the GM can say "no the guard can't be negotiated with" but that would eliminate the check in the first place. If the GM says "you can negotiate" but then say "sorry you didn't convince ME(the GM), so the guard declines your offer" [which is what is happening when all social outcomes are decided by GM fiat] is different from simply not giving the player a chance to change the outcome in the first place.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

You are absolutely coming straight in with the a very insightful analysis! Yes this is absolutely key to "player skill". I don't think it's entirely that, but it's a big part of it.

Another aspect is the DM being reasonable and willing/able to listen to what the players want to do, and to think about it in an open-minded way, rather than being either skeptical, difficult, or just being slightly thick. Like, if your DM isn't very imaginative, and perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed, and especially if he doesn't realize this, that can pretty harshly limit player skill, because he might not be able to deal with complex or off-the-wall plans. Now, it is rare to find a DM like that, but I have encountered a couple, and it was... an issue. Not even for me really because in both cases I wasn't the plan-having player.

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.

You say it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, and if it's a one-off, or a like, one-in-twenty sessions kind of thing, I agree with you.

However, if you start seeing that kind of thing regularly, I think tends to indicate what I find to be one of the most quietly hard-to-work-with kinds of DM. The kind of DM who just never thinks things through. Who never bothers to consider internal logic and internal consistency within his world. One week sure, it's just a weird trap in a weird place and it's kind of odd because the DM himself doesn't seem to fully understand how the trap works, or maybe doesn't understand really basic physics (like that water is basically incompressible) involved in the trap, that it relies on. But next week it's a major NPC who the PCs are supposed to get on-side, but the DM has decided it'd be cool if the NPC was a massive jerk, and then forgotten to give that NPC any y'know, motivations or goals for the PCs to interact with, forgotten to make that NPC actually a person, and not a just a cardboard cut-out who sneers at and insults PCs for no apparent reason.

And I think this kind of DM is the one who has some of the most difficulty handling any kind of "player skill" in the sense players having good ideas or plans or schemes or whatever. Because his world is just random bollocks that he thinks is cool, and there's no internal consistency, he's likely to just reject player plans unless you accidently happen to do what he thinks would be a good idea (which is often something fairly strange - c.f. the whole "Eat the random food you found in a dungeon in a position that makes it look like an obvious trap and where nothing signposts that it isn't" deal discussed a lot a few weeks ago - to be fair that test was designed with internal consistency in that the DM understood the mechanism, but even then his expectations were unreasonable). And "random bollocks that seems cool" is a particularly big problem when the NPCs are like that too.

(The very worst and most cargo-cult form of this I've seen if the kind of DM who just has literally 95% of NPCs to be unpleasant, rude, hostile and just generally nasty to the PCs for no reason, and with no relationship to the personality, status, etc. of the NPCs, which is beyond just "random bollocks" and into something more obnoxious.)

This is something I've seen in actual games before too - I tend to avoid playing in any game where the DM is "like that" now. I think it's kind of fine when you're 12 or w/e, but when the DM is 35 and being like this? Well, you need the right group of players to go with that! With the right people, people who love random naughty word and don't like to come up with logical or careful plans as much as throw crap at the wall and see what sticks (which, to be clear, can be a lot of fun in the right circumstances), that sort of DM can excel.

It's not bad faith to be clear, either - these sort of DMs often mean well, but they're just not good at dealing with any kind of plan that y'know, makes sense or relies on internal logic/consistency.

 

[Stalker0]

When I think of GMs and Player skill I often divide it in 3 categories:

GMs vs Skilled Players
GMs vs Skilled Players with narrative constraints
GMs vs some skilled players and some not skilled

Ultimately GMs for a skilled group on its own isn't too hard. A DM can always throw more challenge at a problem. Though I still bemoan 5e's high level monsters as not being challenging enough for their CR, I can always throw something (or more of something) to make a scene challenging, and let player skill shine throw.


Now, if you add narrative constraints it gets a lot harder. The notion of "you can always add another dragon" falls apart when your trying to create a living, breathing world where there isn't a dragon around every corner. At a certain point the narrative can struggle when this menagerie of high CR monsters comes out of the woodwork. This often requires GMs to get really creative with their combat designs, doing more with less CR monsters to keep things interesting while remaining narratively intact.


The third category I think is the most difficult. When you have a group where one player is super optimized and knows how to play the game, and others are more new or just role-players that don't want to think too much in combat. That one is tough because a fighter that challenges the optimizers might straight up kill the role-players. And of course you could direct your challenge at the optimizer but that gets old pretty quick when every monsters just happens to focus on the one character. I would argue if the chasm is wide between the optimized and non-optimized players this is by far the hardest one to GM well.

 

[overgeeked]

Supposedly, the GM is not supposed to decide the outcome of all things and rely on Math Rock to determine. It's the outcome of a check the Math Rock is for, not the existence of check in the first place. Sure the GM can say "no the guard can't be negotiated with" but that would eliminate the check in the first place. If the GM says "you can negotiate" but then say "sorry you didn't convince ME(the GM), so the guard declines your offer" [which is what is happening when all social outcomes are decided by GM fiat] is different from simply not giving the player a chance to change the outcome in the first place.

What's the alternative to the referee deciding things? Randomly roll for everything?

Roll to see if the guard can be negotiated with at all. Roll to see what kinds of negotiating tactics the guard is open to. Roll to see what kinds of negotiating tactics the guard is closed to. Roll to see if the PC uses a tactic the guard is open to. Roll to see if the PC uses a tactic the guard is closed to. Roll to see how convincing the PC is.

And if that's the preference, then someone...most likely the referee...will need to make decisions to determine the likelihood of all those factors. Or create random tables to roll on for each and every one of those possible outcomes. Again, not removing the referee from making decisions. Or the game itself is several thousand pages long with rules and charts to cover literally everything that's possible.

At some point in that process, the referee has to decide some things. If not you could program that all into a computer and press a button to get the result. The referee exists in RPGs to make some of those decisions. If for no other reason than to speed up play.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Unless the rules call for certain rolls at certain times based on the actions the player chose. That is why in some ways, more prescribed systems like 3.x are better. Knowing the process can increase player agency.

But the player knowing the process when the PC has no reason to can decrease setting logic.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

Well, this is where success and failure without a roll comes into play. DM discretion is baked into the mechanics, so the mechanics shouldn’t be spitting out nonsense results. If nonsense is a potential result of a roll, don’t call for a roll.

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

I don’t imagine swimming in lava is often involved in social challenges…

 

[overgeeked]

Well, this is where success and failure without a roll comes into play. DM discretion is baked into the mechanics, so the mechanics shouldn’t be spitting out nonsense results. If nonsense is a potential result of a roll, don’t call for a roll.

Exactly. The referee makes a call. Which some people in the thread seem to absolutely hate, despite it being the absolute heart of RPGs.

I don’t imagine swimming in lava is often involved in social challenges…

No. The social equivalent is the murderhobo convincing the king to give up his kingdom.

 

[Charlaquin]

What's the alternative to the referee deciding things? Randomly roll for everything?

The DM decides if a roll is needed/possible, and if so, what the parameters of the roll (difficulty, consequences for failure, etc) are. But, once a roll is determined to be called for, and the parameters laid out, the DM abides by the results of the roll according to those parameters. If the results they got don’t make sense, that’s on the DM for setting the parameters in a way that allowed for those results.