D&D (2024) Influence Action

For a different system, perhaps. Not for D&D. At one time I did want such a thing. I have decided it is too controversial and unlikely to be effective at the goals it would need to meet.

Skill Challenges are a decent start. They aren't quite enough, but they're the foundation of something really quite good if we continue iterating on the design.

Allow me to give a combat specific example of what I mean, since those rules already exist. Imagine you have two classes, Warrior and Dervish. Warriors and Dervishes generally do the same kinds of things (hitting stuff with weapons, surviving hits from enemies, etc.), and they make the same number of attacks per round. In Playtest Q, Warriors get +1d6 bonus damage on each hit, while Dervishes get +4 damage per attack, hit or miss. Prior to Playtest Q, their damage output was essentially equivalent. Clearly, in this context, the calculation indicates Dervish is just better than Warrior. There is no comparison; +4 guaranteed damage on every attack, hit or miss, is clearly superior to +3.5 average damage only when hitting. This is not interesting gameplay. It is a dull, rote mechanical calculation.

We can do similar things with other stuff, even real actual rules. Like 3.X's Full Attack action for "martial" characters. Quantitatively, there is no contest, you should always Full Attack if you're able as a Fighter or Barbarian etc. Nothing else even comes close. But this produces incredibly dull, static fights where people just stand there whaling on each other. The Spheres of Might rules supplement for Pathfinder 1e addresses these issues by creating Special Attack Actions (SAA), which cannot be used in a Full Attack, but which can—note the word "can"!—be good enough that you'd choose not to Full Attack. This was very intentional design; the Spheres of Might rules actually make combats both more dynamic (because people can move around, so they should!), and more tactically engaging, because now you can have two or more different SAAs, alongside the old reliable Full Attack.

Now, as noted, I don't want "social combat," so the specific details here are not relevant, only the overall thrust of having options that must be weighed against one another for what they are and how they work, not their brute numeric size. The nature of "DM says" inherently runs counter to this, because it is DMs approving or disapproving of player proposals, rather than the players trying to solve the metaphorical "puzzle" before them with understood, usable tools. At best, "DM says" is about convincing the DM to let you use your biggest bonus every time (a complaint people really do make even about 5e!)

A system like Skill Challenges, with "utility" actions players have access to that actually interface with those rules a little bit, would do wonders here. E.g. an action that lets you take a risk (increase DC maybe? Or roll with disadvantage?) to potentially get two successes instead of one with certain skills. An action that lets you give up your turn to allow an ally to reroll their failed check under certain circumstances. Of course, these would need limits and testing (you most assuredly know by now how much of a fan I am of testing and statistical analysis of new rules), but you can see how these don't have to be massively complex to still be engaging as a gameplay exercise in a way "DM says" is not and cannot be.


I don't think so? I have very little experience with Fate so I can't really respond to that.


Only if you force every rule to be a discrete, individual rule for every single situation. Abstractions allow us to cover an infinite variety in finite space, and with some of the improvements the community developed (e.g. the "Obsidian" SC system), they truly sing already—assuming a creative DM, of course, but this thread has already told me that that assumption is mandatory anyway, so it is safe to make. Just a little bit more, and it would be golden.

And, note, I'm not saying this should replace literally all possible skill usage ever. Personally, I'm of the opinion that we need a combat equivalent of "just a couple skill checks" (I refer to this as "skirmish" rules) that can still have some sting, but which can be resolved in 5, maybe 10 minutes at absolute most. That way, when all you really need is one single skill check, you have it. But for things like "negotiate with the Queen" or "navigate this dense forest", you also have rules that turn that into an interactive and interesting gameplay experience. And, likewise, you have rules for complex and challenging combat scenarios, "set pieces" where the point is to enjoy the combat for its own sake, AND rules for "literally just fighting four goblins in a room" where the point is to make an obstacle, not a challenge that is engaging in and of itself.

These rules are not some pie in the sky pipe dream. They are not transforming D&D into a radically different game, nor stapling a different game on top of the existing one. They are, at least in my not-so-humble opinion, making the game actually deliver on its promise of being an engaging roleplaying game of exploration, socialization, and discovery, as opposed to a combat game that also involves begging the DM to approve your roleplay proposals.

The One Ring does something very much like this for significant social interactions (Councils), which are their own distinct Scene/game mode with rules laid out not unlike Combat and Expeditions. There’s some specifically social based constructs that make it unique from a 4e SC, although the core is not dissimilar. Lots of guidance for then GM on how to tweak things for difficulty (what the party is asking for), levels of outcome/success, on the fly modifiers for relationships and actions, etc.

So it’s totally possible, if you consider “social encounters” to be a pillar of gameplay. It also draws some distinction of when you just roll a couple skills vs entering the full scene.
 

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I honestly don't think D&D players as a whole are willing/capable of accepting social outcomes/stakes that this would require. It's going to be "nuh uh, my guy would never be tricked/intimidated/whatever". People couldn't even understand how Come and Get it was an abstraction of something done in basically every action movie. The v-tude crowd's brains would melt at "social combat".
I do not have so little faith in the typical gamer. Particularly because of the popularity of things like Critical Role and the overall rise of "character story"-driven play. Yes, power fantasy is 100% part of that. That does not mean that it is not possible for the typical player to get in for, as you say, "action movie" tropes and ideas. Far from it, I'd say.

Instead, it is specifically the traditionalist players who are so emphatically against this. Allowing "action movie" tropes to "corrupt" their specific play-experience, when that was not what D&D did 20-40 years ago, is a problem for those people. I do not, at all, think that that attitude is representative of the typical gamer now. I don't even think it was representative during the D&D Next playtest; I just think WotC intentionally over-represented and catered to the most traditionalist players (which, due to population and time, were mostly late-2e/early-3e adopters, hence why 3e fans love everything but the lack of customization.)

Ironically, I have much more faith both in the desire to play a game AND the desire to roleplay than you seem to. Because the thing you've described isn't gameplay, it's just pushing the win button; and it isn't roleplay, because it refuses to allow any form of complexity or weakness, just absolute domination of all opponents ever, forever.

D&D is the game of power fantasy/monster butt kicking. That's the one thing it does well, and that's why people play it. I feel the other stuff is just a diversion on the way to the fireworks factory (combat) for most people.
Michael Richards Yes GIF
Not really. "Power fantasy" means a lot of things, just to start with, but more importantly, power fantasy is far from the only thing people get out of D&D. As noted above, the rise of "podcast D&D" has enlivened a strong interest in deep, personal storytelling. You can't have deep, personal storytelling unless you're willing to be vulnerable.

The One Ring does something very much like this for significant social interactions (Councils), which are their own distinct Scene/game mode with rules laid out not unlike Combat and Expeditions. There’s some specifically social based constructs that make it unique from a 4e SC, although the core is not dissimilar. Lots of guidance for then GM on how to tweak things for difficulty (what the party is asking for), levels of outcome/success, on the fly modifiers for relationships and actions, etc.
Interesting. I'll have to check that out sometime, at absolute worst it would provide an example to push off against.

So it’s totally possible, if you consider “social encounters” to be a pillar of gameplay. It also draws some distinction of when you just roll a couple skills vs entering the full scene.
I mean...that's literally what 5e tells us. There are three pillars of play: combat, exploration, and socialization.
 

Not really. "Power fantasy" means a lot of things, just to start with, but more importantly, power fantasy is far from the only thing people get out of D&D. As noted above, the rise of "podcast D&D" has enlivened a strong interest in deep, personal storytelling. You can't have deep, personal storytelling unless you're willing to be vulnerable.

Power Fantasy can mean a lot of things, but you dont need risk, to convey vulnerability, especially in story telling.

If you dont think 5e is a Power Fantasy, with a focus on Combat, I dont know what to tell you. The rules speak for themselves.
 

Power Fantasy can mean a lot of things, but you dont need risk, to convey vulnerability, especially in story telling.

If you dont think 5e is a Power Fantasy, with a focus on Combat, I dont know what to tell you. The rules speak for themselves.
Did I say it wasn't? You may wish to check over the post again. I did not say it wasn't. Indeed, I said it was: "power fantasy is far from the only thing people get out of D&D." If it's something people are getting out of D&D, it is by definition there, I should think--you can't get something out of it that isn't there!

And yes, I specifically want to include these rules in part to make it so combat is NOT the dominant hegemon of the game's focus. (Likewise, I want the "skirmish" rules both to provide support for old-school playstyles, where "many small resource-draining combats" is a common challenge, and to add breathing room, where combat can still matter in a session, but be far from the focus of the session.)
 


If you want to split hairs there are a number of folks who love such a thing. I'll pass.
Alright. My "not really" was against the idea that D&D is power fantasy and only power fantasy, or that it is by far the most important part with everything else superfluous fluff (superfluffous?). But if you have no further interest in discussing it, I will respect that.
 

I do not have so little faith in the typical gamer. Particularly because of the popularity of things like Critical Role and the overall rise of "character story"-driven play. Yes, power fantasy is 100% part of that. That does not mean that it is not possible for the typical player to get in for, as you say, "action movie" tropes and ideas. Far from it, I'd say.

Instead, it is specifically the traditionalist players who are so emphatically against this. Allowing "action movie" tropes to "corrupt" their specific play-experience, when that was not what D&D did 20-40 years ago, is a problem for those people. I do not, at all, think that that attitude is representative of the typical gamer now. I don't even think it was representative during the D&D Next playtest; I just think WotC intentionally over-represented and catered to the most traditionalist players (which, due to population and time, were mostly late-2e/early-3e adopters, hence why 3e fans love everything but the lack of customization.)

Ironically, I have much more faith both in the desire to play a game AND the desire to roleplay than you seem to. Because the thing you've described isn't gameplay, it's just pushing the win button; and it isn't roleplay, because it refuses to allow any form of complexity or weakness, just absolute domination of all opponents ever, forever.



Not really. "Power fantasy" means a lot of things, just to start with, but more importantly, power fantasy is far from the only thing people get out of D&D. As noted above, the rise of "podcast D&D" has enlivened a strong interest in deep, personal storytelling. You can't have deep, personal storytelling unless you're willing to be vulnerable.


Interesting. I'll have to check that out sometime, at absolute worst it would provide an example to push off against.


I mean...that's literally what 5e tells us. There are three pillars of play: combat, exploration, and socialization.

Yeah, I was getting a little dig in with that line ;).

I’m not saying TOR’s rules are perfect, but they’re clearly designed to create a game mode focused around a specific sort of social storytelling with clear markers and transparent success/failure metrics (which can be influenced by player actions during the “initiative” phase (Introduction) or other means.
 

DnD players are pedants. The more "human reasoning" you allow for, the more "Well, actually, RAW says...." you get from players who are acting either toxically or in bad faith, see conversation on Stealth and Invisibility.
Not a single person in the stealth thread has actually advocated for playing by badly written RAW. It’s more a ‘RAW says X, can you believe they screwed up this badly’.

But if you are approaching that thread that way your comments make a lot more sense
 

"DC 15" plus "DM says" is not that. It is perfectly fine (nearly always required, I'd say) that the DM exercise discernment and human reasoning, not just brute calculation, for an actually engaging mechanical structure.
I really don’t understand why this is any better to you than simply dm decides the dc. It seems like it’s going to boil down to precisely that.

And if this is all you’ve been wanting to see any time you’ve talked about the skill and DC ‘issue’ then I think there’s been alot of miscommunication for a long time.
 

For a different system, perhaps. Not for D&D. At one time I did want such a thing. I have decided it is too controversial and unlikely to be effective at the goals it would need to meet.

Skill Challenges are a decent start. They aren't quite enough, but they're the foundation of something really quite good if we continue iterating on the design.

Allow me to give a combat specific example of what I mean, since those rules already exist. Imagine you have two classes, Warrior and Dervish. Warriors and Dervishes generally do the same kinds of things (hitting stuff with weapons, surviving hits from enemies, etc.), and they make the same number of attacks per round. In Playtest Q, Warriors get +1d6 bonus damage on each hit, while Dervishes get +4 damage per attack, hit or miss. Prior to Playtest Q, their damage output was essentially equivalent. Clearly, in this context, the calculation indicates Dervish is just better than Warrior. There is no comparison; +4 guaranteed damage on every attack, hit or miss, is clearly superior to +3.5 average damage only when hitting. This is not interesting gameplay. It is a dull, rote mechanical calculation.

We can do similar things with other stuff, even real actual rules. Like 3.X's Full Attack action for "martial" characters. Quantitatively, there is no contest, you should always Full Attack if you're able as a Fighter or Barbarian etc. Nothing else even comes close. But this produces incredibly dull, static fights where people just stand there whaling on each other. The Spheres of Might rules supplement for Pathfinder 1e addresses these issues by creating Special Attack Actions (SAA), which cannot be used in a Full Attack, but which can—note the word "can"!—be good enough that you'd choose not to Full Attack. This was very intentional design; the Spheres of Might rules actually make combats both more dynamic (because people can move around, so they should!), and more tactically engaging, because now you can have two or more different SAAs, alongside the old reliable Full Attack.

Now, as noted, I don't want "social combat," so the specific details here are not relevant, only the overall thrust of having options that must be weighed against one another for what they are and how they work, not their brute numeric size. The nature of "DM says" inherently runs counter to this, because it is DMs approving or disapproving of player proposals, rather than the players trying to solve the metaphorical "puzzle" before them with understood, usable tools. At best, "DM says" is about convincing the DM to let you use your biggest bonus every time (a complaint people really do make even about 5e!)

A system like Skill Challenges, with "utility" actions players have access to that actually interface with those rules a little bit, would do wonders here. E.g. an action that lets you take a risk (increase DC maybe? Or roll with disadvantage?) to potentially get two successes instead of one with certain skills. An action that lets you give up your turn to allow an ally to reroll their failed check under certain circumstances. Of course, these would need limits and testing (you most assuredly know by now how much of a fan I am of testing and statistical analysis of new rules), but you can see how these don't have to be massively complex to still be engaging as a gameplay exercise in a way "DM says" is not and cannot be.


I don't think so? I have very little experience with Fate so I can't really respond to that.


Only if you force every rule to be a discrete, individual rule for every single situation. Abstractions allow us to cover an infinite variety in finite space, and with some of the improvements the community developed (e.g. the "Obsidian" SC system), they truly sing already—assuming a creative DM, of course, but this thread has already told me that that assumption is mandatory anyway, so it is safe to make. Just a little bit more, and it would be golden.

And, note, I'm not saying this should replace literally all possible skill usage ever. Personally, I'm of the opinion that we need a combat equivalent of "just a couple skill checks" (I refer to this as "skirmish" rules) that can still have some sting, but which can be resolved in 5, maybe 10 minutes at absolute most. That way, when all you really need is one single skill check, you have it. But for things like "negotiate with the Queen" or "navigate this dense forest", you also have rules that turn that into an interactive and interesting gameplay experience. And, likewise, you have rules for complex and challenging combat scenarios, "set pieces" where the point is to enjoy the combat for its own sake, AND rules for "literally just fighting four goblins in a room" where the point is to make an obstacle, not a challenge that is engaging in and of itself.

These rules are not some pie in the sky pipe dream. They are not transforming D&D into a radically different game, nor stapling a different game on top of the existing one. They are, at least in my not-so-humble opinion, making the game actually deliver on its promise of being an engaging roleplaying game of exploration, socialization, and discovery, as opposed to a combat game that also involves begging the DM to approve your roleplay proposals.

Sure, we could have a skill challenge system, and maybe a good one. And the idea of taking a bigger risk to get two successes instead of one would be something that could be done in that sort of system.

But, again, the community cannot accept that when you stop hiding, you stop getting the benefits of hiding, because it doesn't say so in the rules. They would demand to know exactly what constitutes a "risk" how risky it is... then immediately start complaining that the "take a risk" action only increases the DC by 3, because what if they think the DC should increase by more, or alternatively, how dare they not tell us how much the DC increases by? Doesn't this just show that Crawford stabs DMs in effigy in secret in his office!!

I mean we literally in the last discussion I saw on skill challenges had people not understand how you could possibly use non-standard skills as part of the challenge without cartoon physics.

Would it be a neat system? Sure, could be, but I just can't imagine DnD having the audience for it. At least not on this site.
 

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