I want my actions to matter

[bloodtide]

The game reality wasn't altered even 1%. The game reality already included Amn. The game reality already included ships. The game already reality included pirates. Tell me, what was altered in the game reality?

I think this might be a word problem. I'll try your words:

You put out a Game Hook that the players did not bite on so you moved the hook into the back ground. Now to you, this is "normal game play". You give the players a Game Hook, they decide if they want to take it or not, and you say "yes, players" to whatever they decide. And this works out fine in your game.

But from my view point: you are changing the game to fit the players whims. If they don't like something or don't want something to happen.....you are right there to say "yes, players whatever you want". And, to you, you are not altering anything....as, to you, the only game reality is what the player wish.

I'm not that sort of DM. If the characters say, rob a mob bank.....they will get bounty hunters sent after them. The players might say "oh we don't like the mob revenge bounty hunter plot" all day long. But I'm not going to alter the game reality to make it whatever the players want. In my game, most things happen weather the players like or want those things to happen.

See, if you don't railroad and you have a world that moves outside of the PCs vision, it adds depth to the game that apparently you can't even imagine.

This has nothing to do with a railroad. And sure, you can write your novel about your game world.

You also effectively have no game. A game is something everyone plays. If you are railroading the players, you are the only one "playing."

Well, many of players would disagree.....and many would agree. I'm very polarizing.

Nothing I said indicated that they needed OOC help or a buddy.

Again, my words.

So far I mostly saw you as an oldschool DM that does challenge the players, but this post is something else

Well, it's all out of context.

Not quite. The players in-character (and, I assume, out-of-character) weren't interested in the demons adventures, so in-character they instead jumped on a ship and sailed far away to do other adventuring instead.

Yes, for this one specific example. I was talking more in generl.

The point is to let the players (and characters) know that the mess they left behind them has had some long-term consequences. This is the exact opposite of the DM allowing the players to wish away the demons: the players had their characters leave the demons but the demons are still there, and someone else in the setting had to deal with them.

I agree.

Now if you're suggesting the DM here should have had the demons chase the PCs down, or that the PCs shouldn't have been allowed to walk away from the demon adventures in the first place, we're just not going to agree further.

I agree the players can walk away....but it will have consequences. If on day two the PCs heard the Dark Lords army is closing in on the town of AppleCrust. And the PCs ignore it. When they come back to Applecrust on the 25th they find the town occupied by the Dark Army. And when the PCs want to buy potions, they find the Dark Lord imprisoned the alchemist and closed the shop.

And yes, at least some hooks will follow the characters. Like bounty hunters or npcs looking for revenge, for example.

Hidden vault inside the vault. Nice.

Thanks. Real banks in real life do this. I watch a lot of the History Channel.

That won't be a popular notion in these parts. A small amount of judicious railroading on rare occasions is fine and can sometimes be necessary, but all railroad all the time does tend to play hell with player agency...and annoy the players.

I avoid using the "R" word online.....no one understands.

In fairness, one would think they'd try to pick the best character for the task at hand anyway. Whether the actual DC number is known in advance or not shouldn't change this.

True. But there is a BIG difference between picking the right character and picking the right math.

Like how some games do this:

The DM tells the DC of 15.
The player rolls and adds their basic stuff and gets a total of 13. Then the player looks through their stuff for something to add the couple more that they need. Then they use whatever, and say 'ok, DM I beat your DC with 16".

 

[hawkeyefan]

Do people in the real world always have that much clarity on the challenges facing them? I'd posit that except under controlled situations*, it's pretty rare.

As I want the characters in the game world to have roughly the same experiences real people would if put in those situations, I'm going to try to give about the same amount of clarity that real people would reasonably have.

* - an example of such being a weightlifter who knows there's 300 lbs on that barbell, and who knows his own capabilities. But if that same weightlifter was put in front of a barbell and not be told its weight, the best he could do to estimate his odds of successfully lifting it would be to look at the physical size of the weights and educated-guess from that, giving far less accurate a reading.

I'd rather leave the numbers and mechanics to the DM as far as possible. Yes it says 4 on the die, now tell me what that means this time.

Unless you never share the DC, in which case there's no difference in behavior for anyone to key on.

But what is the point of communicating anything with description? The wall is purely vertical, 50 feet tall, made of brick and mortar, and slick from a steady drizzle of rain.

Why do you tell the players these details? Or don’t you?

 

[pemerton]

But what is the point of communicating anything with description? The wall is purely vertical, 50 feet tall, made of brick and mortar, and slick from a steady drizzle of rain.

Why do you tell the players these details? Or don’t you?

One of the issues here goes to "no weasels". That is, can the players fish for the DC and then back out? The recommended approach in Burning Wheel is no.

So the overall approach is - the GM describes the scene (the drizzle, the wall, its brick-y verticality, and its rain-c.aused slickness); then the player declares their action; then the obstacles is assessed, using the detailed rules for doing so; then the player brings to bear whatever player-side resources they want to (eg appropriate skill(s), gear, traits, artha, etc).

As per what I quoted upthread, the obstacle communicates to the player, in game play terms, the challenges the character is facing in the fiction: in this imagined scenario, the obstacle would be Ob 4 (base Ob 3 for the wall, +1 Ob for the drizzle), or Ob 7 (ie a double Ob penalty before modifications) without gear. Generally, in Burning Wheel, any obstacle above 3 is considered tough. The player feels the slickness of the wall in that +1 Ob penalty.

Torchbearer 2e takes a similar approach (Scholar's Guide, pp 214-5):

The game master paints the world through their descriptions. Players perceive through what the game master describes. . . .

Describe the atmosphere and characters’ surroundings in an evocative and economical manner. Don’t describe too much. Provide the bare bones of what the characters can discern with a casual glance, listen, sniff, etc.

Neither should the game master tell players, “There’s a problem. It’s Ob 4 to fix it.” Rather, describe the environs, the sounds and the smells. Give hints and goad the players into action, then ask them, “What do you do?” . . .

Let the players describe their characters’ interactions with the surroundings. Once they reach a point where they are in danger or where forward progress is blocked by an obstacle, call on them to test a skill or ability. . . .

Once you call for a test, the players are committed. The player making the test should gather dice for the skill or ability being called for. Players who described their help and who have a skill or wise relevant to the test should add their helping dice. Anyone who described helping is committed. No backsies.​

I think 4e D&D works best approached in a similar fashion: with the player decision-making focused on overcoming this obstacle that the GM has framed and the player has had their PC interact with (and using powers, action points, etc), rather than back-and-forth haggling over DCs and approaches and the game never actually moving.

 

[Lanefan]

But what is the point of communicating anything with description? The wall is purely vertical, 50 feet tall, made of brick and mortar, and slick from a steady drizzle of rain.

Why do you tell the players these details? Or don’t you?

I tell the players these details because their characters are standing there looking at these details.

That still doesn't tell the characters (and thus, nor the players) whether the wall's climb DC happens to be 14 or 15 or 18* or whatever - the wall doesn't come with a great big number painted on it. It tells them that what should normally be a fairly straightforward climb for a trained climber could this time be a bit tricky due to the drizzle, but they might not know just how tricky until-unless someone actually tries to climb it. Flip side, of course, is the fact that it's drizzling also implies it's a dark night and-or that visibility likely isn't great, which lowers the odds of being observed in the climb...

That description IMO is clearly enough for them to make decisions: do we risk climbing it right now, or do we wait until the weather dries out (easier climb but more visible), or do we have any handy means (magical or mundane) of drying off some of the wall to make the climb easier right now, or do we have another option available that bypasses this wall?

* - note that I do NOT subscribe to the 5e idea of having DCs only be divisible by five - nowhere near granular enough. In 1e, climbing is done by roll-under d%; the players know their base chance but here I'd be applying a penalty due to the drizzle making the wall slick, and while they'd be told there's a penalty they wouldn't get any details other than "minor penalty", "big penalty", or whatever description best suits the situation as perceived by the PC(s).

 

[Micah Sweet]

But what is the point of communicating anything with description? The wall is purely vertical, 50 feet tall, made of brick and mortar, and slick from a steady drizzle of rain.

Why do you tell the players these details? Or don’t you?

Because that's what the PCs see, so that's all the players need to know IMO.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I tell the players these details because their characters are standing there looking at these details.

That still doesn't tell the characters (and thus, nor the players) whether the wall's climb DC happens to be 14 or 15 or 18* or whatever - the wall doesn't come with a great big number painted on it. It tells them that what should normally be a fairly straightforward climb for a trained climber could this time be a bit tricky due to the drizzle, but they might not know just how tricky until-unless someone actually tries to climb it. Flip side, of course, is the fact that it's drizzling also implies it's a dark night and-or that visibility likely isn't great, which lowers the odds of being observed in the climb...

That description IMO is clearly enough for them to make decisions: do we risk climbing it right now, or do we wait until the weather dries out (easier climb but more visible), or do we have any handy means (magical or mundane) of drying off some of the wall to make the climb easier right now, or do we have another option available that bypasses this wall?

* - note that I do NOT subscribe to the 5e idea of having DCs only be divisible by five - nowhere near granular enough. In 1e, climbing is done by roll-under d%; the players know their base chance but here I'd be applying a penalty due to the drizzle making the wall slick, and while they'd be told there's a penalty they wouldn't get any details other than "minor penalty", "big penalty", or whatever description best suits the situation as perceived by the PC(s).

You're advocating for vague or incomplete information. To intentionally obfuscate elements of the game to confound players. And for what? To avoid saying a number? To avoid giving the player a clear idea on their odds of success? To maintain some sense of doubt even though there's already such a thing because of the dice?

Of course the wall doesn't have a big number on it. Neither does the character. But the character is, for purposes of playing the game, a collection of numbers. These numbers mean things.

Keeping them from players is just unnecessary and silly. All to preserve a sense of immersion that's so fragile that mention of a number shatters it. But not all the other numbers... just the one the player needs to understand the odds. All the other numbers are fine to talk about.

And you have the gall to say that sharing the DC is bad GMing?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

* - note that I do NOT subscribe to the 5e idea of having DCs only be divisible by five - nowhere near granular enough. In 1e, climbing is done by roll-under d%; the players know their base chance but here I'd be applying a penalty due to the drizzle making the wall slick, and while they'd be told there's a penalty they wouldn't get any details other than "minor penalty", "big penalty", or whatever description best suits the situation as perceived by the PC(s).

The reason why I use the suggested six step scale is that it makes it possible for me to be more consistent. I feel I can mentally model six step scale somewhat consistently, so that what difficulty gets assigned to which fictional situation doesn't seem arbitrary. But I'm not gonna pretend I could do that with a thirty step scale. Perhaps you can.

 

[pointofyou]

One of the issues here goes to "no weasels". That is, can the players fish for the DC and then back out? The recommended approach in Burning Wheel is no.

Seems to me that whether a player is being a "weasel" is going to depend on the context here. Sometimes the player's understanding is not at all consistent with the GM's. In the 5e games I run I have a strong preference for making perceptible DCs clear to the players before they commit because I really really do not like "GM Gotcha" stuff. It seems to me that telling the player the difficulty of a given task is a way to convey to them the information their character has. A game with a more systematic approach to difficulty might not feel so gotcha-ish without that explicit communication.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

You're advocating for vague or incomplete information.

Actually, not what he's saying. He's saying you can give complete and concrete information (which is what you're advocating for) without explicitly giving a player a number.

And you have the gall to say that sharing the DC is bad GMing?

Maybe crossed the line here...

 

[hawkeyefan]

Actually, not what he's saying. He's saying you can give complete and concrete information (which is what you're advocating for) without explicitly giving a player a number.

It’s not complete, though. If the goal is to give complete info, then why not give the number?

Maybe crossed the line here...

Only if one was already crossed when I said I share DCs and then Lanefan pointed out that sharing DCs is bad GMing.

No one pointed out any line stepping at that!