"I'm no good at that" and Inspiration

[Ratskinner]

It just reminds me a lot of FATE, and how players are encouraged to make foolish mistakes because it causally benefits them later. Using your example, I don't want anyone to go out of their way to insult the Duke because it will causally help them fight the cult leader.

Roleplaying is supposed to be its own reward. You should insult the Duke because that's what your character would do, not because you really want advantage against Circle of Death.

But that's just me.

"Encouraged to make foolish mistakes" is a pretty poor description of the compel mechanics of Fate. Particularly since compelling an aspect need not indicate any fictional failure on the part of the player or character (although it certainly can represent something like a character making bad choices.) Its a player using his character's stated traits to engage the fiction and narrative more directly with explicit mechanical support. It means that the "Paladin" character needs to actually engage with its ideals and devotions to earn the juice for its rewards, but extends that to all characters in one way or another. Beyond that, in some very practical ways, its a balancing mechanism.

OTOH, I would agree that D&D's roots of adversarial DMing and Gygaxian dungeoneering don't support or encourage that type of play. In fact, IMO, even tacking things like Ideals and Inspiration onto it doesn't really turn the trick. D&D and Fate have very different design goals at their core. Its why I don't call D&D a story game (or similar language) anymore.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

"Encouraged to make foolish mistakes" is a pretty poor description of the compel mechanics of Fate. Particularly since compelling an aspect need not indicate any fictional failure on the part of the player or character (although it certainly can represent something like a character making bad choices.)

You only get a fate point if accepting the compel causes trouble in some way; i.e. if doing the thing would be a bad idea. You don't get any points for accepting a compel where nothing bad could come from it. The rules are pretty explicit about that.

It means that the "Paladin" character needs to actually engage with its ideals and devotions to earn the juice for its rewards, but extends that to all characters in one way or another.

D&D has traditionally had paladin and cleric powers be contingent upon following the ideals of the religion, because that power was only ever a gift in the first place, so of course they can take it back if you're abusing it. It doesn't make as much sense for the magnitude of the benefit to scale directly with the amount of trouble it causes you, and it stops making any sense at all for other sorts of classes.

What FATE and this proposed house rule both correctly recognize is that there's no reason to play a flawed hero who makes mistakes in most games. (Which seems like an obvious truism to me, but which FATE sees as a problem with those games, which it then goes out of its way to correct as hard as it can.) What this proposed house rule further notes is that, due to things like Bounded Accuracy and the point-buy system for stats, it's impossible to make a character who is actually flawed in any way whatsoever in 5E. (Most games have mechanics where you are forced to have some deficiencies in order to balance against your strengths; 5E characters only have strengths, and areas where they are slightly-less-strong-but-can-still-probably-succeed-if-they-really-need-to.)

 

[Blue]

D&D isn't a novel, movie, or story. D&D is just pretending to be someone else, in a different world, doing different things with different (often much greater) stakes.

How often do you, in the real world, think "I can't let myself fail"? How often do you think "this puts us in an interesting situation" or "this gives me room to grow"? Being a magical elf is a lot like that, except if you fail then your best friend might die.

I beg to differ, I find you base premise flawed and therefore unable to support your argument.

There are plenty of games that embrace flaws. Almost every superheroic game allows them, kryptonite for your Superman. Games like Fate can't work without playing to your flaws, because that's the same currency that allows you to play to your strengths.

It's perfectly fine to say "this isn't the RPG I'm looking for", and you've already said you don't like Fate and find it gamist. But trying to say this is generally true of all gamers doesn't hold water. Many are more interested in an interesting story or playing true to character over just succeeding.

You tell me there are no stories about players who did something they knew was dumb, but did it anyway because their character would do it, and I'll agree with your premise that RPG is about succeeding first and foremost.

 

[Nevvur]

Exactly.

Failure in D&D, unlike in most books, movies and other stories and in some other RPGs, is only seen in the negative light of "I can't let my character fail", not in the positive light of "this puts us in an interesting situation" or "this give my character room to grow".

The goal behind this is to give players an excuse to let failure happen, because it brings an offsetting advantage. Much like the classic paladin move of going in against a superior force to save innocents, there are times when it's most interesting not to go for sure things.

Now, I'm not envisioning this as regularly "We need to convince the duke, let's let the guy who doesn't talk well take lead" -- the characters will quickly learn about each other (as they do now) and try to make sure THAT PC doesn't open his mouth. (But he might anyway, that's up to the player.) But it's other times, such as when the whole group needs to climb the trees to get out of the way of the stampede, or when a guard directly asks something of the poor liar.

I'm sorry I don't have much constructive to offer in terms of analyzing your proposed house rule. FWIW, I think Inspiration is one of the safest mechanics to tinker with. Advantage is already pretty easy to get in most situations, so it would take a rather generous Inspiration system to disrupt other areas of the game. Mechanically speaking, the proposal is fine.

My issues are more from a narrative point of view. The biggest issue is how this house rule sort of forces a narrative on a character. Everyone responds to failure in different ways, and not all of them result in a secret reserve of energy to fuel future endeavors. If I were a D&D 5e character, I would feel pretty 'meh' if I failed at a skill I knew I sucked at, but might redouble my efforts in the future to make up for shame at failing in a skill I'm talented in.

Also, portraying the effects of failure is a reward of its own for a player with a strong interest in storytelling and acting/character development. It doesn't need mechanical incentives.

 

[Arilyn]

You only get a fate point if accepting the compel causes trouble in some way; i.e. if doing the thing would be a bad idea. You don't get any points for accepting a compel where nothing bad could come from it. The rules are pretty explicit about that.
D&D has traditionally had paladin and cleric powers be contingent upon following the ideals of the religion, because that power was only ever a gift in the first place, so of course they can take it back if you're abusing it. It doesn't make as much sense for the magnitude of the benefit to scale directly with the amount of trouble it causes you, and it stops making any sense at all for other sorts of classes.

What FATE and this proposed house rule both correctly recognize is that there's no reason to play a flawed hero who makes mistakes in most games. (Which seems like an obvious truism to me, but which FATE sees as a problem with those games, which it then goes out of its way to correct as hard as it can.) What this proposed house rule further notes is that, due to things like Bounded Accuracy and the point-buy system for stats, it's impossible to make a character who is actually flawed in any way whatsoever in 5E. (Most games have mechanics where you are forced to have some deficiencies in order to balance against your strengths; 5E characters only have strengths, and areas where they are slightly-less-strong-but-can-still-probably-succeed-if-they-really-need-to.)

You missed Ratskinner' s point. Sometimes acting foolish gains you a Fate point, but often it's circumstance. The best aspects in FATE can be both good and bad. Street Rat of Waterdeep is a nice basic example. If the character needs to hide, he can spend a Fate point, declaring that as a Street Rat, he should be able to easily find a hidey hole. The aspect is an obvious advantage. Later, however, the character meets a group of guards, who assume his fat purse of coins is stolen, because they recognize him from his earlier ne'r do well days. Player gains Fate point for the trouble this ensues. The player,in this example, is in no way acting foolish in order to get a reward. What Fate points do is simulate the narrative peaks and valleys of fiction. I find it extremely elegant, story focussed and very immersive.

Flawed heroes are extremely common in a lot of games. DnD is an exception, but even 5e has added flaws. You often claim that rpgs are just seeing through another person's eyes. Well, people are flawed, and that's going to include adventurers. History books are riddled with foolish dead explorers. And yes, gaining a karmic boost is unrealistic, but so too is AC, levels, unbreakable shields, magic, owlbears, etc.

Ratskinner has a point, that due to DnD' s history, it's never going to be a very strong narrative game. Maybe most DnD players do just want to kick down doors and kill monsters. 13th Age, however, has married the two, which is why it's my favourite F20 game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There are plenty of games that embrace flaws. Almost every superheroic game allows them, kryptonite for your Superman.

Lots of games allow you to play a flawed character, but they usually stick those flaws outside of the game itself - in the character generation system. That way, you can have fun playing a character who has some problems, and it's (at least nominally) still balanced against the flawless characters.

There's a difference between Superman's kryptonite allergy and Batman's code against killing, though. At any point, Batman could decide to just kill Joker and prevent countless future deaths. I mean, he wouldn't, but he could. The only thing stopping him is that he's a flawed person who makes bad decisions.

And sure, it's believable and realistic that people are flawed and make bad decisions. The issue is that, by giving Inspiration or a fate point or whatever, whenever the flaw comes up, it's not a flaw anymore; it's just an alternate path to power. In real life, or in any believable fake life, there is no upside to making a bad decision; that's why it's a bad decision. If you could not make the bad decision, then that would be better for everyone involved.

You tell me there are no stories about players who did something they knew was dumb, but did it anyway because their character would do it, and I'll agree with your premise that RPG is about succeeding first and foremost.

I said that the point of an RPG is role-playing, and making a bad decision because it's in-character should be its own reward, which is why you shouldn't need mechanical incentive to play your flaws.

 

[GMMichael]

The issue is that, by giving Inspiration or a fate point or whatever, whenever the flaw comes up, it's not a flaw anymore; it's just an alternate path to power. In real life, or in any believable fake life, there is no upside to making a bad decision; that's why it's a bad decision. If you could not make the bad decision, then that would be better for everyone involved...
I said that the point of an RPG is role-playing, and making a bad decision because it's in-character should be its own reward, which is why you shouldn't need mechanical incentive to play your flaws.

Role-playing flaws should be its own reward, and players shouldn't need an incentive to do so. But it's not always, and they often do.

In the thread about the player who hates Pathfinder because every player he knows optimizes the s#!t out of it, you can safely say that those min-maxers have a Dump Stat that never gets used. And if there's no PC in the party with a high enough attribute to safely resolve a conflict in a few rolls, they probably just fight their way through it. ("Fight" is being generous. "Cause damage" might be more appropriate.)

Some flaw-playing incentives might be in order there.

You have a good point that a real flaw is something that doesn't typically have an upside, but a real flaw is also something that's hard to step around. If an RPG enables PCs to effectively ignore their flaws, then there's an opportunity to create a rule, like the OP, or rule 116 here, that brings flaws back into consideration.

 

[Arilyn]

Role-playing flaws should be its own reward, and players shouldn't need an incentive to do so. But it's not always, and they often do.

In the thread about the player who hates Pathfinder because every player he knows optimizes the s#!t out of it, you can safely say that those min-maxers have a Dump Stat that never gets used. And if there's no PC in the party with a high enough attribute to safely resolve a conflict in a few rolls, they probably just fight their way through it. ("Fight" is being generous. "Cause damage" might be more appropriate.)

Some flaw-playing incentives might be in order there.

You have a good point that a real flaw is something that doesn't typically have an upside, but a real flaw is also something that's hard to step around. If an RPG enables PCs to effectively ignore their flaws, then there's an opportunity to create a rule, like the OP, or rule 116 here, that brings flaws back into consideration.

Years ago, when my then 10 year old daughter played her first 3e character, she made an elf sorcerer who was terrified of spiders. Anytime we ran into spiders, the elf would freeze up or flee. My daughter was roleplaying, and it was so cool. She was, however, the only player at the table who had given herself such a disadvantage. And it meant that we sometimes found ourselves without our sorcerer! It would have been better if my daughter could have been given a compensating perk.

 

[Ratskinner]

You only get a fate point if accepting the compel causes trouble in some way; i.e. if doing the thing would be a bad idea. You don't get any points for accepting a compel where nothing bad could come from it. The rules are pretty explicit about that.

Right, but that's not a "mistake" on the players' part as it is engaging the mechanics of the game. This is the same way that the Temple of Badness can go on rotting into the Earth until some D&D party makes the "mistake" of risking their lives in pursuit of the treasure therein and earns XP for the trouble. In that way, the entire premise of OD&D is a compel on the (apparently common to all characters) aspect of "Greedy Tomb-robbing Murdhobo."

Also, a Fate compel is not necessarily "doing the thing". You can get compelled for something happening to the character that's out of their control. For example: Since you have War buddies everywhere, it makes sense that your old pal Colonel Mustard would show up and recognize you from the door when you're using a Fake Identity at the Duke's ball. Accepting that compel to make the scene more difficult/complicated for the character is no more a mistake for the Fate player than accepting XP for a wandering monster kill is a mistake for the D&D player.

D&D has traditionally had paladin and cleric powers be contingent upon following the ideals of the religion, because that power was only ever a gift in the first place, so of course they can take it back if you're abusing it. It doesn't make as much sense for the magnitude of the benefit to scale directly with the amount of trouble it causes you, and it stops making any sense at all for other sorts of classes.

D&D has traditionally had paladin and cleric powers be contingent upon the whimsy of the DM dependent upon sketchy interpretations of ill-defined fantasy religious strictures on either his part or the players. If your DM doesn't care (the more typical situation, IME, a than the DM stripping them away agressively), then the restrictions simply don't matter.

It makes perfect sense within the context of Fate's design goals, which are different from D&D's, especially WRT the original versions of the game. D&D started out as simply player (through the character-as-pawn) vs. dungeon. As a straight-up contest, there's utterly no reason to "play a flawed character", or indeed "play" a character at all any more than you "play" the queen in chess. Its a DM-mediated puzzle-game with a side order or chance and puns! The fantasy stuff is just set-dressing. This is obvious in the tone, demeanor, and structure of the older rules and particularly adventures. The basic structure of play in D&D has absolutely no interest or truck with the creation of an interesting narrative, characters, or even game experience. That is all up to the DM and players, but mostly the DM.

Its why folks even discuss "fudging" rolls or "railroading". Those behaviors only exist to preserve a storyline in the face of an uncaring ruleset. If you want an interesting or intricate story that revolves around Aragorn, then Aragorn had better not get irretrievably vaporized by a trap set up for characters with names like "Fighter IV" and "Uther Cleric" or "Melf". And when people started realizing that, they started writing new rules. (Well, first they started fudging and railroading.) Eventually that lead to things like Fate, which has the explicitly stated purpose of creating those interesting characters and narratives.

What FATE and this proposed house rule both correctly recognize is that there's no reason to play a flawed hero who makes mistakes in most games. (Which seems like an obvious truism to me, but which FATE sees as a problem with those games, which it then goes out of its way to correct as hard as it can.)

It is a problem (perhaps a limitation would be more accurate) with those games, when you have the goal of creating an interesting narrative and characters. This is perceptually not a problem with D&D, because it (at least in the traditional sense) is predicated on the adversarial dungeon crawl, and many groups have figured out kludges for getting what they want despite the D&D rules. However, it becomes rather obvious in some of those other games which are (mostly loosely) patterned after D&D mechanically, but with the stated goal of having you co-create a good narrative or story.

What this proposed house rule further notes is that, due to things like Bounded Accuracy and the point-buy system for stats, it's impossible to make a character who is actually flawed in any way whatsoever in 5E. (Most games have mechanics where you are forced to have some deficiencies in order to balance against your strengths; 5E characters only have strengths, and areas where they are slightly-less-strong-but-can-still-probably-succeed-if-they-really-need-to.)

No argument, there.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It is a problem (perhaps a limitation would be more accurate) with those games, when you have the goal of creating an interesting narrative and characters.

No argument there. I never said that FATE isn't good at what it does.