If an NPC is telling the truth, what's the Insight DC to know they're telling the truth?

[Guest 6801328]

This is interesting.

I don't think there's anything contentious in your description of DW! And I tend to approach most RPGs that way because it's my preferred approach (and I avoid RPGs that probably won't work with it) - at the moment I've got active Classic Traveller, Prince Valiant, BW, Cortex+ Heroic, Dying Earth and 4e campaigns that use some or other variant on this general approach. (And yes, too many active campaigns relative to time available!)

I think that the way you characterise 5e as being similar might be more contentious (not to say it's wrong, but may be not universal), and I'm curious to see what response you might get. For instance, [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s approach seems to require the GM establishing key elements of the fiction (like, to stick with the toy example that's been kicked around a bit, the presence o the door knob of the viscous fluid that's a contact poison). I see his approach as, in many ways, quite close to a classic Gygaxian "skilled play" approach. But if I'm in error here I'll await correction!

(For full disclosure, I'm not a 5e guy but I saw this thread was started by [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], and I'm always interested in S'mon's ideas about RPGing, which is why I dropped into it.)

EDIT: After replying to your (Elfcrusher's) post I saw this post which I think relates to my point. Quoting it isn't meant to be combative or trying to drive any wedges, but rather to try and identify some of these differences in approach which give each table it's own "flavour" of RPGing.

The idea of an action logically having a chance of success, or failure, seems to me to require that the in-fiction context already be established at least to some significant degree.

Whereas in DW, say, the chance of failure is imposed by way of a "metagame" logic: at key moments the system demands a check to find out what happens, and "failure" can be anything from literal un-success to some adverse development that (in ingame causal terms) is unrelated to the action actually performed by the PC, depending on context, details and the GM's imagination and inclinations. And in this sort of way (plus narration forced by successes, too) the fiction is built up out of these chances of success and failure.

And another, further thought: I guess a group could try and play DW so as to avoid making moves as much as possible and try to get the GM to "say 'yes'" instead, but I'm not 100% sure how that would work, and to me it would look like a very atypical and perhaps even degenerate instance of DW play. Whereas I don't think that there's anything degenerate about what [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] describes (and thus, for instance, don't agree with those who say it "devalues" PC build choices).

No, I don't disagree with your analysis, either.

Ok, I just deleted a long post because I thought of a better way to say this: I feel that both DW and 5e assume/require "trust" between GM and players...that is, trust to make choices in the best interest of the story...whereas a previous generation of games tried to (or seemed to try to, imo) minimize the need for trust by emphasizing mechanics over judgment.

 

[Guest 6801328]

The idea of an action logically having a chance of success, or failure, seems to me to require that the in-fiction context already be established at least to some significant degree.

So here's where I differ, and maybe why I find DW and 5e to be more similar than you do. I don't always have all the details worked out, and will (invisibly) alter the game world in reaction to my players' actions and ideas. If a player says, "I look to see if the trap mechanism has a doohickey" I might very well say, "Yes, in fact it DOES have exactly such a doohickey!" even though I hadn't previously considered such a thing. If they have a cool idea for the direction of the story, I want to enable that.

But don't tell my players, ok?

 

[Charlaquin]

So here's where I differ, and maybe why I find DW and 5e to be more similar than you do. I don't always have all the details worked out, and will (invisibly) alter the game world in reaction to my players' actions and ideas. If a player says, "I look to see if the trap mechanism has a doohickey" I might very well say, "Yes, in fact it DOES have exactly such a doohickey!" even though I hadn't previously considered such a thing. If they have a cool idea for the direction of the story, I want to enable that.

But don't tell my players, ok?

Oh, yeah. I do this too.

 

[S'mon]

I think that the way you characterise 5e as being similar might be more contentious (not to say it's wrong, but may be not universal), and I'm curious to see what response you might get. For instance, [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s approach seems to require the GM establishing key elements of the fiction (like, to stick with the toy example that's been kicked around a bit, the presence o the door knob of the viscous fluid that's a contact poison). I see his approach as, in many ways, quite close to a classic Gygaxian "skilled play" approach. But if I'm in error here I'll await correction!

(For full disclosure, I'm not a 5e guy but I saw this thread was started by [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], and I'm always interested in S'mon's ideas about RPGing, which is why I dropped into it.)

I think 5e was deliberately designed to be 'driftable' to all sorts of different play styles, certainly including 1e Gygaxian skilled play, 2e GM-driven plot/railroad, 3e 'deck builder' character optimisation 'lonely fun', 4e combat-centric SKIP TO THE FUN, and even Pemertonian Scene Framing.

Running Primeval Thule adventures currently - they establish an objective environment, some interesting NPCs, and a little bit of sword & sorcery style Dramatic Premise - "How do we deal with this morally ambiguous/fun-but-evil NPC?" or "What is money worth to you?" type stuff. Ran Watchers of Meng recently and it had a ton of this stuff - but ignorable by a GM who didn't notice or care, I guess. Great adventure, highly recommend it.

Before I started Thule in January I was running Stonehell Dungeon in 5e as a Gygaxian skilled-play megadungeon; it worked OK, but I suspect using OD&D or an OD&D-derived clone would ultimately have suited it better.

 

[pemerton]

Before I started Thule in January I was running Stonehell Dungeon in 5e as a Gygaxian skilled-play megadungeon; it worked OK, but I suspect using OD&D or an OD&D-derived clone would ultimately have suited it better.

Can you elaborate a bit? Eg is there stuff in 5e that grated a bit? Or is there stuff missing from 5e that classic D&D would bring to the table? Or some other possibility I've missed?

 

[pemerton]

why exactly are we talking about Dungeon World, now?

I read a post of [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION]s' which it seems I misunderstood, which I took to imply that wanting dice to be central in action resolution is at odds with trusting the GM. And I disagreed and mentioned DW as an example of why I disagreed.

That's then what led me to try to identify two ways of making the fiction of action declaration matter, one which is about (potententially) circumventing checks via skilled play, the other (which I associated, at least in broad terms, with DW) which is about providing material from which downstream fiction (whether success or failure, as determined by the dice rolls) can be extrapolated.

So here's where I differ, and maybe why I find DW and 5e to be more similar than you do. I don't always have all the details worked out, and will (invisibly) alter the game world in reaction to my players' actions and ideas. If a player says, "I look to see if the trap mechanism has a doohickey" I might very well say, "Yes, in fact it DOES have exactly such a doohickey!" even though I hadn't previously considered such a thing. If they have a cool idea for the direction of the story, I want to enable that.

But don't tell my players, ok?

When I do this - and whether it's just "saying 'yes'" or whether it's the result of a roll - I tend to be very overt.

If it's a case of "saying 'yes'", then it will typically happen in a very relaxed way at the table eg a player might explain that "The imperial communication satellite will retain its data until an X-Boat arrives in the system and broadcasts the release/relay signal" and we all just proceed on that premise because it makes sense of what's gone before, and provides a clearer framing for the checks that are coming than existed beforehand. I think everyone at the table can see that it's that player who is establishing that particular bit of fiction.

If it's a case of making the player make a roll to see if it's the case, then likewise that makes it overt because of the framing of the check.

 

[S'mon]

Can you elaborate a bit? Eg is there stuff in 5e that grated a bit? Or is there stuff missing from 5e that classic D&D would bring to the table? Or some other possibility I've missed?

Well 5e by default relies a lot on skill checks rather than description of interaction with the dungeon environment.
5e combat is a lot slower than pre-3e combat, which limited the amount of exploration per session.
5e does not really encourage 'logistical' play with OD&D features such as a bunch of retainers (who provide social roleplaying opportunities as well as resources), side-based initiative (allowing group-based battle tactics), need to consult with Sages (rather than knowledge skill checks), etc. It's a lot closer to 3e & 4e with more of a Superhero Team ethos.
Most of my 5e players pretty well refused to map properly, which then limited their knowledge of available exploration routes.
5e does not do attrition as well as pre-3e.

These were not major problems mind you; nothing like trying to run dungeon exploration campaign in 4e!

 

[pemerton]

a bunch of retainers (who provide social roleplaying opportunities as well as resources)

I ran a Dying Earth session a week or so ago, and following that have been re-reading the rulebook (which is my window into Vance - I've never read the actual stories). I get the impression that recalcitrant retainers are a key aspect of the Vancian feel!

Back in my classic D&D days the PCs had retainers, but we found the DMG loyalty rules made it fairly easy to maintain loyalty at 100+, so the issue of recalcitrance didn't really come up.

 

[5ekyu]

This is interesting.

I don't think there's anything contentious in your description of DW! And I tend to approach most RPGs that way because it's my preferred approach (and I avoid RPGs that probably won't work with it) - at the moment I've got active Classic Traveller, Prince Valiant, BW, Cortex+ Heroic, Dying Earth and 4e campaigns that use some or other variant on this general approach. (And yes, too many active campaigns relative to time available!)

I think that the way you characterise 5e as being similar might be more contentious (not to say it's wrong, but may be not universal), and I'm curious to see what response you might get. For instance, [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s approach seems to require the GM establishing key elements of the fiction (like, to stick with the toy example that's been kicked around a bit, the presence o the door knob of the viscous fluid that's a contact poison). I see his approach as, in many ways, quite close to a classic Gygaxian "skilled play" approach. But if I'm in error here I'll await correction!

(For full disclosure, I'm not a 5e guy but I saw this thread was started by [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], and I'm always interested in S'mon's ideas about RPGing, which is why I dropped into it.)

EDIT: After replying to your (Elfcrusher's) post I saw this post which I think relates to my point. Quoting it isn't meant to be combative or trying to drive any wedges, but rather to try and identify some of these differences in approach which give each table it's own "flavour" of RPGing.

The idea of an action logically having a chance of success, or failure, seems to me to require that the in-fiction context already be established at least to some significant degree.

Whereas in DW, say, the chance of failure is imposed by way of a "metagame" logic: at key moments the system demands a check to find out what happens, and "failure" can be anything from literal un-success to some adverse development that (in ingame causal terms) is unrelated to the action actually performed by the PC, depending on context, details and the GM's imagination and inclinations. And in this sort of way (plus narration forced by successes, too) the fiction is built up out of these chances of success and failure.

And another, further thought: I guess a group could try and play DW so as to avoid making moves as much as possible and try to get the GM to "say 'yes'" instead, but I'm not 100% sure how that would work, and to me it would look like a very atypical and perhaps even degenerate instance of DW play. Whereas I don't think that there's anything degenerate about what [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] describes (and thus, for instance, don't agree with those who say it "devalues" PC build choices).

I am curious, and you are raising some interesting points, so how would the following fit into the differences in what a check means between the two systems - in DW in your viewpoint.

In my games, "search checks" are not handled by 5e "standard" or even by others more word-driven approaches.

If a PC searches a room, I assign a DC based on the situation and circumstances and if they get a success they find stuff that is somehow interesting, adding to the fiction. This approach works a lot like say 5e foraging (success equals you did find stuff) as opposed to its "searching" (success equals that only if there is something hidden or hard to find you find it, but if nothing was noted there, nothing is found. )

Obviously, as in my insight and halfling example, failure can always be some success with setbacks) finding stuff but breaking some of it.

As a result of this approach I have a lot of "interesting stuff of interest" that gets into play solely as consequence of successful checks - not as result of "GM puts this here before we start session - room 2a - in the left desk drawer,"

Old school ways of course are rife with "this room, this corner, blah blah" and cases where if you dont say you search the right spot or look the right way then you dont find blah blah.

I think perhaps some of Ooftas perspectives follows a similar vein of "shroedinger's dungeon" - all the minutiae of a scene is not pre-designated, just enough to illustrate the key parts and the degree of understanding the PCs can get. So, "is freezing an auto-success" is not some pre-determined thing, even pre-determined at the moment... The successful check says " the character found a right way."

But I could be wrong.

 

[5ekyu]

I think 5e was deliberately designed to be 'driftable' to all sorts of different play styles, certainly including 1e Gygaxian skilled play, 2e GM-driven plot/railroad, 3e 'deck builder' character optimisation 'lonely fun', 4e combat-centric SKIP TO THE FUN, and even Pemertonian Scene Framing.

Running Primeval Thule adventures currently - they establish an objective environment, some interesting NPCs, and a little bit of sword & sorcery style Dramatic Premise - "How do we deal with this morally ambiguous/fun-but-evil NPC?" or "What is money worth to you?" type stuff. Ran Watchers of Meng recently and it had a ton of this stuff - but ignorable by a GM who didn't notice or care, I guess. Great adventure, highly recommend it.

Before I started Thule in January I was running Stonehell Dungeon in 5e as a Gygaxian skilled-play megadungeon; it worked OK, but I suspect using OD&D or an OD&D-derived clone would ultimately have suited it better.

"Pemertonian Scene Framing. "

Is this trademarked yet?