D&D General Hot Take: Uncertainty Makes D&D Better

[Reynard]

EXACTLY.

I will never roll a nat 1 while making a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich and accidentally stab myself through the neck with a silicon spreader because I "Missed the peanut butter jar".

But I would have a decent chance of rolling a nat 1 on "Dodging Oncoming Traffic".

You won't be rolling to make a peanut butter sandwich. If it is worth rolling to find out what happens, there should be the potential for an unexpected result.

 

[Reynard]

So picture this:

A situation comes up in game that's not so much something that will result in success or failure as something cool happening. Everyone knows it. Everyone involved rolls their check to make it happen... but the dice decide to be cold at that moment and even the person who built their character sucks and fails at it because the d20 matters more than in-universe skill and the will of every single person at the table.

The disappointment is palpable, hanging over the table like a wet blanket and you've still got an hour left to play while everyone is in a downer mood because of the dice.

But oh wait, I use action points! And the competent character just happens to have an ability that turns a natural 1 into a 20 once an encounter. The dice are slain, the beat comes back and everyone is satisfied.

That works for me. I especially like it is that reroll resource is limited or otherwise has a cost.

 

[Stormonu]

Don't agree with the premise. Over my 40-odd years of DMing I've seen the dice destroy as often as they enhance. I've seen brilliant plans or actions utterly whomped by an unfortunate die roll at the wrong time. Dramatic combats made into speedbumps or unwinnable TPKs by one good or bad roll. Roleplayed interactions destroyed or upsurped with a random die roll. Not in a thrilling or engaging way, but in a way that utterly destroys players (or DMs) desire to interact with the fiction any more.

Dice, cards or any object of chance are tools, and like everything else they should be used with restraint and touch of good sense.

 

[Reynard]

Don't agree with the premise. Over my 40-odd years of DMing I've seen the dice destroy as often as they enhance. I've seen brilliant plans or actions utterly whomped by an unfortunate die roll at the wrong time. Dramatic combats made into speedbumps or unwinnable TPKs by one good or bad roll. Roleplayed interactions destroyed or upsurped with a random die roll. Not in a thrilling or engaging way, but in a way that utterly destroys players (or DMs) desire to interact with the fiction any more.

Dice, cards or any object of chance are tools, and like everything else they should be used with restraint and touch of good sense.

Sounds to me like less of a randomness problem and more of a lack of interesting outcomes for that randomness problem.

 

[Clint_L]

I'm with you up to here.

But you lose me here. IMO there needs to be some (or a lot of?) randomness in character generation to avoid a) all the characters ending up mechanically the same (balance can be taken too far) and-or b) players gaming the system to overpower their characters.

I used to agree with this point. But I've been using the standard array method of character generation for quite awhile now, and there is more than enough ways to vary characters so that none of them end up the same. Whereas rolling creates winners and losers (plus a lot of young players can get kind of "cheat-y" because they see the stakes as too high). I don't think 5e makes it any easier to game the system than any previous version of the game.

For instance, to go with an example you and I were discussing the other night, my first AD&D character had 18/94 strength. When I created him, I had no idea what that even meant, but my buddy who was helping me was freaking out because of how powerful that made my character. And he was right! Getting +2/+5 (hit/damage) from level 1 is a massive advantage over a player who starts with "only" a 17 strength (+1/+1).

The only randomness in character creation now is optional - players can choose to roll for various background and character traits if they want, but they can always supersede that with their own ideas. Rolling up a new character was fun, kind of like gambling, and I thought I would hate doing away with it. But I haven't missed it at all.

 

[DMZ2112]

But now that you mention it, I think you're right... I can't think of a campaign in the past 20 years that I've played where the younger players didn't want to use "standard array, let me build the character I already have in my head" versus the old way of "roll the dice and go on the journey of discovering your character through the die rolls" (when I suggest that the young'uns look at me funny).

To put a little more perspective on this beyond "old vs. young," character survivability has leapt upward in every edition since OD&D, and the curve has gone off the charts since 2000.

When it's unlikely that your character will survive 3rd level, a more experimental attitude toward playing a concept you may not be in love with is more palatable. Players in D&D5 build characters with the expectation that they will see at least 11th level. That's a long time to be stuck playing the barbarian you didn't intend to roll.

But to be fair, we were already doing this back in the '80s. My very first character was a magic-user with a 9 INT because I was bound and determined to play a wizard, ability scores be damned. I still play him when I get the chance! By the time AD&D2 came out in 1989, "throw out your scores if they won't let you be the race and class you want" was SOP. By D&D3, the books had removed all reference to rolling stats before you'd chosen your race and class.

I still like the look of ability score values between 3 and 18 but you're right - since 3rd edition when bonuses were set to go up every even integer and all increases to stats are in increments of +2 (so the bonus increments in +1), everything has been all about the bonus. (Intellectually, I knew this, but it hit me emotionally a couple of weeks ago and I wasn't happy.)

Preaching to the choir, here. One of the recent playtest packets for oneD&D had an ability that scaled on ability score rather than bonus, and while my initial reaction was, "Hey, cool!" the feedback I actually gave was, "Did you crazy bastards playtest this yet? Because this isn't how the game works anymore, nor has it worked this way in a quarter century."

 

[DMZ2112]

Sounds to me like less of a randomness problem and more of a lack of interesting outcomes for that randomness problem.

This just seems to contradict your previous points. If outcomes should be random, why are you narratively mitigating the result of a "fell where it may" open die roll? If you're going to salvage the fiction with "interesting outcomes," why bother rolling in the open? All you're doing is teaching your players the dice don't matter when it counts.

This is less an issue in storygames that focus on "failing forward," but I thought that was the very phenomenon you started the thread to argue against. Random outcomes mean sometimes the worst befalls.

 

[MichaelSomething]

He who lives by the RNG; dies by the RNG.

 

[Clint_L]

I really like the element of chance during the game - so many of the best story beats happen when the players roll a natural 1 and have to rapidly change all their plans. I also roll everything I can in front of the players so they can see their fate truly be determined in the moment. Raises the stakes.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Specifically, uncertainty in potential results. Swinginess. Random happenings because the dice get a mind of their own. That sort of thing.

When used in moderation, this is very useful, yes. A significant chunk of games which feature it make it much too swingy. Particularly because gaming in general has moved away from having a default of the ultra-hardcore "one crit and you're just dead" (and similar "meatgrinder" lethality) gameplay.

I have played and like some "story" games, but one thing many of them lack is uncertainty. Their mechanics tend to favor participants being able to say things that become true in the fiction (even if they don't call it that).

Not sure which games you're referring to. PbtA games certainly still feature uncertainty. Even when you're working with your best bonuses (+3 bonus) and getting some other kind of benefit (+1 forward or ongoing), snake eyes (2.78%) will still give you a legit failure and rolling 3-5 (a further 25% of cases) will get you only partial success, where you must accept a lesser, incomplete, partial, or trade-off result rather than full success. And since there are three possible results (failure, partial success, full success), the uncertainty is actually much more significant because (to make an example of arguably the most common roll, Defy Danger) the exact "worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice" will always be context-specific.

It's even baked into one of the Agendas and several of the Principles, which are the things that defined DW's design and rules. The Agenda in question is, "Play to find out what happens." By definition, all of the rules are meant to serve that purpose, and they do so extremely well if you permit them to. It requires not over-preparing, not taking the reins, not trying to "plot" things, but instead letting the rules do their job and focusing on responding to what the players choose to do. It's tough, and I don't always do it correctly, but that's on me, not on the rules.

As for the Principles, you have things like:
"Draw maps, leave blanks" (read: you should do some prep work, laying out frameworks and spaces and events, but do not prepare down to the smallest details, do not completely fill up the world, do not prepare consequences)
"Make a move that follows" (your GM moves should be in response to what the players do, not adhering to some personal plan; they should also always make sense within the context of the fiction, though the players may easily not always know why)
"Ask questions and use the answers" (take player input and feed that back into the process: player answers to GM questions are a huge source of engaging development that doesn't require dice in order to create unexpected things)
"Think offscreen too" (make use of established past events and yet-to-be-seen dangers, consequences that won't come to light until later, and other forms of belated surprise)

I prefer when participants in D&D (and similar "trad" games) say what they would like to be the case, and then the dice decide how that turns out. That goes for the GM, too, btw -- the GM being subject to the same uncertainty is equally important in creating a truly surprising and novel experience.

Alright. But I assume you also would prefer to avoid things that frequently produce deeply unsatisfying results, yes? That's the problem of totally unconstrained randomness. It's usually unsatisfying. That's why mechanics to manage--rather than eliminate--randomness are significant. For example, and please for the love of God don't make assumptions about what this means for my game, I usually frame situations in such a way that my Dungeon World group is unlikely to face (note all of these words, each of them is extremely important) random, permanent, irrevocable character death.* That is, by definition, reducing some amount of the "swing" of the dice, because I'm taking a particular option off the table.

*Random: An unforeseen result of probability; if the player wishes their character to die, then have at it. Permanent: The character will remain dead and unplayable unless and until something is done to revive them. Irrevocable: Nothing the other players can do will return the character to life (though other forces, outside their control, still might.) Only death that is all three of random, permanent, and irrevocable is off the table. Random and permanent but not irrevocable? Awesome, that opens up a whole "save our friend" story. Random and irrevocable but not permanent? Ooh, how will this person come back to life if the other players aren't involved? I sure as heck don't know!

This isn't to say that no participants should have certain choices. I think players should get to design their characters without having to deal with dice, and GMs should be able to build the initial conditions of play (the "situations") with as much or as little random information as they desire. But once play starts, I say roll those bones in the open and stick by what they say, whether it's a random encounter with an ancient wyrm (don't forget to roll reaction!) or the BBEG gets one shotted by the torch bearer.

Okay. What about ways to manage things, to occasionally take things out of the hands of the dice, but not always do so? Because that's always been one of the issues with D&D--it puts a ton of ability to evade or invalidate the dice only in the hands of some character archetypes, while leaving others utterly at the mercy of dice no matter what, frequently leading to really silly things. E.g., one of the greatest faults of "critical fumble" rules is the sheer idiotic rate at which swordsmen fall on their own swords while fighting, a thing which is only a problem for characters that make attack rolls--spellcasters, who may never need to make an attack roll at all, are thus insulated from this "swinginess," which creates a pretty clear form of rules-derived unfairness.