I swing my sword

[Barastrondo]

Do the heroes in fantasy fiction only attempt plans that seem to generate predictable results? 9 times out of 10 when discussing a course of action someone will ask, "do you think this will work?". Oftentimes the answer will be along the lines of, "I have no idea."

While a good point, I think the more accurate comparison would how often fantasy fiction heroes attempt plans that their author has no idea as to whether they'll work or not. Fafhrd doesn't know for sure if using those rockets will help him ski-jump the chasm. Leiber probably did.

Sure, players don't necessarily need to know the exact odds and probabilities of any given plan working. But I do think that informed choices, even when players don't have access to all the information they might like, are more meaningful than uninformed choices. The Shaman's Flashing Blades example above is a good one: the players don't know that something shady will happen, but they have enough information about the surroundings to suspect it and enough confidence in their characters' ability to take measures.

 

[billd91]

Sure, players don't necessarily need to know the exact odds and probabilities of any given plan working. But I do think that informed choices, even when players don't have access to all the information they might like, are more meaningful than uninformed choices.

Indeed. And this is the heart of the main philosophical difference between editions of D&D that don't define a system for resolving most issues a character will take (1e/2e) and the ones that do (3+). There was an interview with Skip Williams that touched on this very subject - giving the players what they need to know to make informed choices about the actions they take rather than rely on DM fiat so often. It's a definite evolution in the philosophy behind the rules.

 

[Janx]

Do the heroes in fantasy fiction only attempt plans that seem to generate predictable results? 9 times out of 10 when discussing a course of action someone will ask, "do you think this will work?". Oftentimes the answer will be along the lines of, "I have no idea."

In that fiction, the PC may not know if it will work, but more times than not, it does work.

In a game players want that certainty. If every time they attempt a wierd action it fails or is less effective than swinging the sword, they'll stop being creative

 

[jmucchiello]

This turned an interesting direction. In college I ran a game with no numbers. The players each created a character history detailing what they knew about themselves up until the start of play. So some were former soldiers who kept an old sword by the door and one was a fire mage on the run after his master was killed. One of them was the strongest man in the village. Etc. So based on the descriptions I wrote up (for my own reference) a list of stats for the group and used them to loosely run a game of d10 Fantasy Hero without telling them what system I was running.

The game fell apart when one of the players complained that he did not know what he could do. And my constant answer to this (Ask me and I'll tell you if you think you can do it) was insufficient. He wanted to know the odds on whether he could just a 10 foot chasm. And my response "With a good running start you're pretty sure you'll make it" grated on him. My question "do you know the real odds of you, not your character, making the same jump?" was not enough to show him the absurdity of knowing the odds. I suppose you could set up a 10 foot span and attempt to jump across it a couple dozen times to get a good number but who does that? And how is that helpful when confronted with a chasm (is it really 10 feet? 9.5? 11?) and you are being chased? Even when I switched to "You think there's a 90% chance you will make it." It didn't help because he didn't want to sit there and have to ask a dozen questions in order to figure out what to do next. Or so he claimed.

This is why some gamers need things like skill sets spelled out and some do not.

(Why d10? Part of the fiction of there being no numbers was there were no dice. So I used a thick book for my randomizer. As long as his skip pages 1-99 and n00 to nxx where n is the highest 100's digit in the book, the middle digit of the page number opened to should be pretty random and you don't have the odd/even problem of the page numbers.)

 

[Barastrondo]

The game fell apart when one of the players complained that he did not know what he could do. And my constant answer to this (Ask me and I'll tell you if you think you can do it) was insufficient. He wanted to know the odds on whether he could just a 10 foot chasm. And my response "With a good running start you're pretty sure you'll make it" grated on him. My question "do you know the real odds of you, not your character, making the same jump?" was not enough to show him the absurdity of knowing the odds.

This is an interesting example, because what you have here is double uncertainty. The player winds up being uncertain (a) what he has to roll, and (b) what he will roll. It's twice as many elements that he can't really account for.

This is why some gamers need things like skill sets spelled out and some do not.

Well, it's also often a matter of wanting to be able to look at your die roll and tell whether or not you succeeded instead of looking down at the "4" and then looking back at the GM to see whether or not that was good enough. It can make a player feel more like the arbiter of his or her own fate: if I failed, it's because I rolled a 4. If you didn't know what you needed to roll, then you lack that certainty; for all you know, you failed because the GM shifted the goal posts in his head. I'm sure you didn't do this yourself, jmucchiello, so don't take this as criticism -- I'm just noting that you can be certain that the GM didn't do this only if you trust him implicitly, or if you knew the odds ahead of time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"do you know the real odds of you, not your character, making the same jump?" was not enough to show him the absurdity of knowing the odds. I suppose you could set up a 10 foot span and attempt to jump across it a couple dozen times to get a good number but who does that? And how is that helpful when confronted with a chasm (is it really 10 feet? 9.5? 11?) and you are being chased?

I know I can make that jump 9 times out of 10 on flat ground. With room to spare.

OTOH, I suspect that if I'm making the attempt from a rooftop to another, though, more often than not, I'll fail. You combine the difficulty of the terrain- rooftops have those raised edges, so your penultimate step before launch is going up to a narrow target- plus my fear of heights? I'm going down hard.

Jumping a chasm that wide? I'm not even going to try 90% of the time.

So, personally, I really do like seeing stats & skills spelled out.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In a game players want that certainty. If every time they attempt a wierd action it fails or is less effective than swinging the sword, they'll stop being creative

Certainly. There are also players who won't try anything beyond generic actions if there is any chance of things going wrong.

 

[Janx]

Danny, EW, and Barrastrondo bring up some good points.

In B's explanation, he points out how the player is concerned about what he needs to roll, and whether he rolls what he needs.

One counter to that, by Danny's example, is in real life, there's the consideration of "do I think I can make it" before the jump, and the "Am I going to make it" during the jump.

EW points out that players may prefer to take actions they are certain of the outcome.

Here's how I tie this all together. People who take risky actions don't wonder "can make this jump?" They know it. Or at least they believe they can.

They don't know the actual odds. But they're extremely confident in their estimation of the odds, regardless of their basis in fact.

Let's also temper this with the generalization that people don't do things they don't think they're good at (or would be successful at). Danny doesn't think he can make the 10' chasm jump, so he would not attempt it. Thus, he doesn't fail at jumping, and instead turns and fights bravely with his back to a chasm.

Now these are all just generalizations, but how many gamblers throw the dice thinking they will NOT win.

And there are plenty of people who do things they've never done before.

But more successes come from people who thought they could do it, before they attempted it.

Assuming my generalizations are mostly accurate (and yes, there are exceptions), to encourage players to try stunts, they have to appear to be achievable and more valuable that the basic attack.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Assuming my generalizations are mostly accurate (and yes, there are exceptions), to encourage players to try stunts, they have to appear to be achievable and more valuable that the basic attack.

Yes indeed, and I will also add that they should be more interesting than extra damage.

 

[Barastrondo]

Yes indeed, and I will also add that they should be more interesting than extra damage.

One of the aspects of 4e that I think is under-praised is the effort to incorporate forced movement all over the place, from the humble bull rush to various powers that push, pull and slide enemies across the field. Enemies and PCs alike, forced movement is potentially the number one way to get players to really pay attention to the terrain and start using it to their advantage. It was something I came to love about Champions a long time ago, with Knockback.

Positioning enemies is grand. Hurling them off balconies is fantastic. And when you see one player shove an enemy under a chandelier just before a teammate cuts the rope: magnificent.