[Hijack] Debate over definition of "grit." Plus: is Midnight gritty?

[howandwhy99]

Yes, flumphs are probably better for flavor (in soup) than in combat.

My point about statistics above was not necessarily that they are irrelevant, but that they need to be balanced for the challenges and players' abilities.

Vs. all Hell with 204 STR no longer seems gritty.

[Edit - I will agree that using what evokes emotion from players out of game will probably always seem important when in game. Visiting the source of evil will always seem like a serious challenge no matter how overpowerful you demi-god PC's are.]

 

[drquestion]

IMO, there are lots of things that can make a campaign "gritty." You can lower the stats, limit the amount of magic, ratchet up the deadliness, etc. Sure, in the right setting (e.g., invasion of the flumphs), even these tricks won't make for a gritty game, but in most cases, they'll help.

As far as stats go, if you're looking for grit, I think that the best way to go is with a low point buy (say 20 or 22). As others have noted, rolling a bunch of 3d6's, especially if you can't arrange them to suit, doesn't give the player much control - you have the dice, rather than the player dictating the character concept. On the other hand, even with a low point-buy I can say, "ok, my guy is pretty smart (int 14) and likable (cha 12), and more or less average in every other way (straight 10's, with maybe an 8 thrown in)."

To return to Cthulu as an example, if you read the Lovecraft stories, in most cases the main characters are at least somewhat above-average in some way (smart, forceful personality, man of action, etc.) and often not noticeably below average in any area. The problem, of course, is that when a Shuggoth comes after you, it doesn't matter how strong, tough, or quick you are; you're still gonna get flattened.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, I agree. But maybe my example wasn't extreme enough since it's been somewhat picked apart. Maybe this will clarify what I'm trying to say.

I'm running a game of d20 Pretty in Pink. Because I want the game to be gritty, I decide that everyone must use Call of Cthulhu character creation rules, and that everyone gets straight 5s for their stats. Because your character, Molly has a 5 Charisma, she can't get a date to the prom, so she goes stag. Because she has a penalty to Intelligence, she didn't have enough skill points to spend on Perform (Dance). This, coupled with your 5 dexterity means you trip trying to dance to "If You Leave" by O.M.D. because it gets your feet tapping. Hitting your head on a table, you roll for damage. Because of your Constitution penalty, you have like 2 hit points, and this puts you into negative numbers. Because nobody likes a charisma 5 character, everyone turns around and ignores you, and you die on the dance floor. Then everyone at the dance loses 1d10 Sanity points when James Spader tries to impersonate a teenager even though he's clearly at least thirty years old.

According to the argument as I've heard it on this thread, this is a gritty game. If you ask me, you've only made d20 Pretty in Pink more stupid than it already was. But I certainly wouldn't call it gritty. That's something inherent in the setting, not something a few stat limitations can provide.

 

[Carnifex]

I don't think that doing the 'roll 3d6 6 times' thing is in any way conducive to grit. Sure, for the character who rolls a crap selection of scores, they're going to have a tough time. But equally likely is the chance that your players (and inevitably at least some will) roll uber scores instead.

Sure is gritty, a character with 16's, 17's an 18 and a single 12 (dumped in Cha, of course ).

 

[drquestion]

Originally posted by Joshua Dyal:
I'm running a game of d20 Pretty in Pink. Because I want the game to be gritty, I decide that everyone must use Call of Cthulhu character creation rules, and that everyone gets straight 5s for their stats. Because your character, Molly has a 5 Charisma, she can't get a date to the prom, so she goes stag. Because she has a penalty to Intelligence, she didn't have enough skill points to spend on Perform (Dance). This, coupled with your 5 dexterity means you trip trying to dance to "If You Leave" by O.M.D. because it gets your feet tapping. Hitting your head on a table, you roll for damage. Because of your Constitution penalty, you have like 2 hit points, and this puts you into negative numbers. Because nobody likes a charisma 5 character, everyone turns around and ignores you, and you die on the dance floor. Then everyone at the dance loses 1d10 Sanity points when James Spader tries to impersonate a teenager even though he's clearly at least thirty years old.

ROTFL!

But seriously, your example shades a little towards the extreme of stats, too - I think that the original post was more along the lines of "why do so many players think that they need characters with multiple scores of 16+ ?" than "every character should be crippled in one or more areas."

I completely agree that having scores that are too low can ruin the fun of the game. But, I can see how having, say, a 22 point buy could give a game a more "average Joes thrust into extraordinary circumstances feel" that can help, but certainly isn't definitive of, a gritty feeling.

To use your example, if I want my d20 Pretty in Pink campaign to have a gritty focus on how Molly overcomes the hurdles of poverty to get a date to the prom and a scholarship to college, it's OK if she has a 14 in int and cha (so she's got a good chance of getting what she wants), but an 8 str and a 10 con.

On the other hand, if Molly also has an 18 str and a 16 dex, so she can serve up a kungfu beatdown on James Spader when he gets all WASPy on her, then I might have trouble maintaining a gritty feel.

 

[PowerWordDumb]

I'm running a game of d20 Pretty in Pink.

LOL! A brain twisted enough to come up with an example like that is the kind of brain I want in *my* DM! Mr. Dyal, you could run my game any time.

 

[Kevin O'Reilly]

Gritty Realms

My campaign is gritty, for other reasons apart from stat rolling, but stat rolling is part of it.

3d6; re-roll 1s; any order.

This flattens the probability of lots of high stats, but stops really low silly stats.

15 or 16 tends to be the max.

Sure spellcasters have to think about higher levels. Usually multiclassing into another spellcasting class (divine vs. arcane) or none spellcasting.

Casting 9th level spells is rare, or requires the posession of magical items that boost intelligence and grant knowledge of the spells.

TB - it's a good idea and does make for a game where the characters are less heroic.

 

[LightPhoenix]

essentially a gritty setting is one that's covered with a coarse granular substance, or one that is courageously persistent or plucky.

SALT WORLD!!! er....

Actually, I think "courageously persistent" is a really good definition for "grit" - despite the fact that the "heroes" are losing and certain to die, they keep going on any way, facing whatever horrors they can and surviving as best they can.

 

[RedShirtNo5]

Many people don't like "roll 3d6 six times" because it there is often a large dispartity in the effectiveness of different PCs. On the other hand, many people don't like point buy on the grounds that the characters come out with a certain "sameness".

If I wanted the PCs to have "average" yet random stats, I would try the following ability generation method:

1. Take a deck of cards. Remove 18 cards - three aces, three 2s, three 3s, three 4s, three 5s and three 6s.

2. Shuffle. Deal out six hands of three cards.

3. Either turn over the hands "in order" or turn over the hands and let the player assign. Total the value of the three cards in each hand - that is the ability score.

You can fiddle with this system, e.g., to adjust the averages. For example, if I wanted to make sure nobody got a 3, the 18 cards might be - two aces, four 2s. three 3s, four 4s, two 5s and three 6s.

-RedShirt

 

[jester47]

Emiricol- I do not require them to come up with a backstory, but I do award expereince to those that do. So I encourage it.

I think stats can go a long way in delivering gritty, but the DM also has to be involved. The definition Josh posted is a good starting point. With the method I described you get characters who have a better array of realism. By this I mean that some might be ineffective for thier class (however I have seen some good players work around this to a stunning degree), others will be born for it, some should die but for some reason don't. So with my 3 declarations and 4d6 in order rolls, you get realistic.

Adding Tough an Uncompromising is fairly easy when your characters are rolled this way. But pretty much this is left up to the DM to implement and make real.

Like I said before, I do not think it is the dice mechanic here, but holding the players to the rolls they make. Doing so breaks the subconscious tendency to try and make a character that is fiarly covered.

The Uncertainty factor-

I believe that to have a truely exciting game there has to be a certain amount of uncertainty of success. I think this is what people are looking for when they look for "grit." Tough and uncompromising reality(in a versimilodic sense) has an excitement to it of a certain kind. Simply put, the more uncertain, the more real.

However there is a line between too much and too little. I try to get the characters as close to that line as possible. Make the characters too weak and its no fun. Make the characters too strong and again it becomes no fun. Let a character be more tailored and you loose uncertainty, let a character be too random and you have too much.

balanced uncertainty = grit, and this is in the hands of the DM. There are a lot of ways to get close with stat rolling schemes, setting flavor, or what not. But it still comes down to the DM giving enough uncertainty that success means somthing. The more uncertainty the prouder the players are of the success. Too uncertain and the game becomes impossible and thus monotonous. To certain and the players don't really appreciate anything in the game because its too easy.

Sidebar-

This is another reason why I play to what Monte called "the status quo." This allows for a certain ammount of uncertainty. Characters can make mistakes and take on somthing too big too soon, or just the opposite. They can never really be to sure what level of a situation they are walking into.

Thats all I have to say about that...

Aaron.