Legends and Lore: Out of Bounds

[avin]

I respectfully disagree when people say that the only skill that should be considered to play D&D is to know the system and his own character sheet.

Out of the box ideas are always welcome on my table. Creative parties are always better rewarded on my games.

In fact, we used to play a lot of games using no sheet, no books. The things your character could do were the things "you" could do. Dices were used only when some action was in doubt (has the door broken or not?).

And it was a hell of a fun.

 

[LurkAway]

See: The Success of Reality TV

And a great specimen of irony would be a user on a reality TV forum announcing the banality of rpg debates.

 

[Skyscraper]

[MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION]: I don't agree that there is absence of content here.

I think that the topic discussed by Cook is central to the how the design is at work here: do you want to add heaps of rules to the game until the players search for answers in the rules, or do you wish to move toward freeform improvisation where players try to find solutions in the situation without trying to link it to the rules?

IMO this is a relevant question. 4E went far into the rules realm. Too far for my taste, now that I've been at that table a lot. Combat is super rules-dependent, but now even social events become skill challenges where rules tell you how participants interact. This is high-level design questioning (as opposed to specific rules-making) and it's interesting that they should discuss this openly.

As far as Cook's article is concerned, there are a three different question therein, also raised in this thread:

1) do you have answers to challenges on the PC sheet?

2) do you have answers to challenges in the rules? (this includes #1)

3) do you find pre-set answers to challenges to any given situation? (This may include #1 and #2, but not necessarily). E.g. if a PC comes up before a wall of force that prevents them from reaching what they want to reach and there is no power or rule that allows them to beat the wall of force, has the DM predefined how this challenge can be beat? (e.g. a lever in the next room.)

I've always thought that RPGs are a mix of YES and NO to the answers to all three question above. If you go to one extreme, you either depart from the RPG genre or end up in games that lack one aspect of it. However, looking at the evolution of D&D, I think that 4E is too much into the YES for all three questions.

As concerns #3 specifically, I think that this is why many WotC adventures were so much critisized. The modules take the PCs by the hand and guide them towards the endings. The Slaying Stone departed from this format and offered another type of adventure that, IMO, brings back RPGs closer to a classic, old-style game that I prefer. I don't like everything about older editions, but that's one of them.

 

[thewok]

Out of the box ideas are always welcome on my table. Creative parties are always better rewarded on my games.

I welcome creative players as well. But I will always find some way to resolve their ideas using the character's abilities rather than the player's. The reason is simple: they're playing characters and not themselves.

Player skill comes into play in how the players decide to use their characters' abilities as defined by the character sheet. It's then the DM's job to facilitate the resolution of the action. If the players come up with solutions without consideration to the abilities of the characters they play, then what is the point of the character sheet?

 

[KidSnide]

Player skill comes into play in how the players decide to use their characters' abilities as defined by the character sheet. It's then the DM's job to facilitate the resolution of the action. If the players come up with solutions without consideration to the abilities of the characters they play, then what is the point of the character sheet?

What is the point of the character sheet? Come on... Nobody is suggesting that character abilities should be irrelevant.

I think it's OK to play a game where all NPC interaction is handled with role-playing and no specific rules. (This used to be the only way to handle these scenes.) If your character has a Cha of 6, you just role-play it that way. If your have a Cha of 6 and play as persuasively as possible, then the other people at the table suggest to either alter your style to match your or get another character. Yeah, a game like this has a downside in that you can't play a good Cha 18 character unless you have a little Cha yourself, but it's still a ton of fun. At least for me, it sounds more fun than a zero-player skill game.

It's also OK to play a game where the player skill and the character skill both come into play. IMG, the players have to role-play out most important persuasion scenes. (The PCs are diplomats, so this comes up a lot.) When it's time to decide how the NPC responds, I have them make a Diplomacy check, but I give them a +/- 5 or 10 modifier based on what issue they chose to reference in the persuasion and a +/- 2 or 5 based on how well they did it. It's hardly the only way to play, but I think it lets them play out the scene and bring their personal skills to bear (which is fun) and it also allows the differences in character persuasiveness to be meaningful.

I don't have a problem with a game where the only skill is playing D&D. If your players prefer that, then go ahead. It just seems less fun to me.

-KS

 

[mudlock]

I think this thread has ignored a very important question, namely, what is the story-importance of the obstacle?

If that pile of gold is behind a wall of force simply because I want the PCs to explore the vast dungeon, near the bottom of which they can find the switch, before they are rewarded, then I'd, as a DM, be somewhat resistant to "clever" solutions to the problem that circumvent the purpose of having put that wall of force there.

On the other hand, if the switch is in the next room and a simple fight is all that stands in the way, then I'd be much more-open to clever solutions.

Now, yes, this sort of thing can be taken too far, and then you're railroading the players. But imagine if in, say, the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy's "player" had decided she would beat the crap out of Glinda until she told her the secret "three clicks and wish" trick to get home. Outside-the-box thinking for sure, and very astute of the player to notice that the DM was having the NPC hide the truth. Kind of ruins the story though.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I agree that this is the crux. I think the essential difference is that the people I play with are really persuasive and have pretty decent deductive powers. Allowing them to replace those player abilities with character abilities would totally ruin the fun. Persuading NPCs with role-playing (with a nod to differences in diplomacy) and puzzling out mysteries (with the higher information characters getting more clues) is part of why we play. It's why no-combat sessions outnumber combat sessions by a significant majority.

Sure, showing off areas in which we're skilled is fun. And, as the mantra goes, a good DM (with a good group) can have fun with a bad game.

I, for one, enjoyed the basic approach of "Here's a system. Ignore it if you want." Because systems are difficult to create whole cloth out of nothing, it is very useful to have them. Of course, because not everyone needs them, it shouldn't be required, either.

You don't need a lot of rules to tell your players "You guys figure it out!"

On the other hand, Julie's DM needs some robust rules if he wants her character to figure it out.

Of course, 3e was the high point of this approach, and a lot of people felt that it "made them" roll Diplomacy checks and the like. A less integrated system (where skills, for instance, are an add-on presented in the core rules for those who want them) might make a lot of sense.

But this is why I disagree with the "always" proposition. I'm not saying it's wrong for your game (you know that best), but that kind of design would seriously damage mine.

I think the big issue is that, when designing a PnP RPG, the people who don't need rules only need permission (and system flexibility) to ditch the rules. The people who do need rules, need actual rules. Yet when those rules exist, a lot of people feel pressured to use them, even if they don't have to (clearly, a lot of 3e DMs felt pressured to use rules that they quite obviously didn't have to use).

 

[Will Doyle]

I'm not particularly interested in evaluating Frank's persuasive capacity or Julie's deductive prowess or ADD Roger's ability to pay attention to NPC names. If Frank is shy and Julie is a ditz and Roger zones in and out, I don't want to pass judgement on them or to require them to be different people in order to enjoy my game. I also don't want to limit my game: there should be no reason I can't run an enjoyable mystery adventure despite Julie's ditziness.

Absolutely.

A good many people are simply flummoxed by situations where lateral thinking is demanded. Not to say they're bad players: they may struggle to reach that high lever, but they're great at roleplaying conversations, or cooking up tactics during combat. A good challenge, in my opinion (and as many have echoed above), is one that has a hardwired solution using character powers, but is varied enough that it can also be solved using a bit of imagination. Whether the DM presents those hardwired options up front, or requires the player to think of them themselves, is a matter of taste. But they're there.

It's also the best stance for published adventures to take. If I were just starting to play RPGs, and I came across an encounter where not only were my players flummoxed, but I was too? No thanks - I'm glad those days are gone. When designing my own puzzles for my own group? Sure. As sidebar rules in the DMG? Sure. But not as core, please.

 

[I'm A Banana]

A good challenge, in my opinion (and as many have echoed above), is one that has a hardwired solution using character powers, but is varied enough that it can also be solved using a bit of imagination.

There is this bit in Monte's article that I haven't talked much about, mostly because I can't quite grok how he's using "character powers:" how do you make a challenge?

For me, the old improv standby of "at least three" works pretty well. I might not have a clear answer in mind when I present them with the challenge, but I should be able to think of at least three ways they can solve the problem. Of course, they can always make up their own answer, and I'm inclined to "say yes" and let it work, and then "yes, but" or "yes, and" and complicate the success in some way.

So the dragon is immune to fire. There's at least three things within the scope of the party's arsenal it is not immune to: like cold attacks, like lightning attacks, like swords, like a ballista bolt from the nearby fortress ruins...etc.

So there's an invisible force-field. There's at least three ways the party can get around it: go around, dispel, or speak with the soul of the dead wizard who made it in the first place.

There may be other ways to solve it, too, and I'm inclined to allow the party's plans to work, though if they work, I'll add a complication: Yes, you can bash it down it...BUT, when you do, it shatters violently and shards of invisible force tear through everyone. Yes, you can dump a rock on the dragon's head...AND that rock also was sealing off a cave where a mass of tentacled horrors lurked, so now you have that to deal with, too....and so on.

Any challenge with one and only one solution isn't a very flexible challenge.

 

[pemerton]

A passage is blocked by 10' of ice (non-magical; it's winter, dungeon air is below freezing, so ice doesn't melt). The official solution is to cause x points of damage. In-bounds-thinking: hack with weapons/powers for x minutes until ice is all broken and cleared away. Out-of-bounds-thinking: maybe blunt weapons and axes will break the ice faster than swords and arrows (even if the rules don't differentiate between weapon type vs ice) or blasts of magical fire to clear the ice most quickly (even if the spell targets creatures and not objects* and/or doesn't do double damage to ice and/or you don't even reference the rules 'icewall, meet fireball') or there is NO obvious reason why we must blast through this icewall right now, it's boring hard labor (from a character POV) and we can check it out later.

Is that a good example, perhaps?

A good example of what?

The 4e DMG, p 66, says the following, under the heading "Object Immunities and Vulnerabilities":

Some unusual materials might be particularly resistant to some or all kinds of damage. In addition, you might rule that some kinds of damage are particularly effective against certain objects and grant the object vulnerability to that damage type. For example, a gauzy curtain or a pile of dry papers might have vulnerability 5 to fire because any spark is likely to destroy it.​

So the idea that fire might be particularly useful against ice is pretty much part of the rules of the game. I think most players and most GMs would also assume that hammers and axes are more useful than swords, spears or daggers at breaking through walls or doors.

As far as I can see, there is not much more to "out of bounds" thinking than taking the fiction of the gameworld seriously. And, as the quote from the DMG shows, this is already part of 4e (and other RPGs too).

In my view the real issue, as someone noted upthread, is giving guidance on how to adjudicate these sorts of issues - like the suggestion that paper is vulnerable 5 fire (which implies, for example, that ice probably should not be vulnerable 15, at least against low-level attacks).

Player skills must always be of prime importance; otherwise, what's the point of you playing the game?

The big question is: what kind of skills do you want to use?

A good question.

A related question is this - what parts of the fictional world do you want to make salient via your "out of bounds" thinking? White Plume Mountain - which is what I was reminded of by Monte Cook's column - emphasises players paying attention to the fictional architecture and physical design. Personally I find that can get a bit tedious if overemphasised. I tend to prefer situations that encourage the players to pay attention to fictional relationships, loyalties, histories, personalities etc. "Out of bounds" solutions then become things like negotiating truces or alliances, playing NPCs against one another, analysing situations by reference to the imagined past of the gameworld, etc.

Whether or not the PC's abilities are used to bring those story elements into play, and/or to deploy them, I think is going to depend a lot on the details of the situation at hand, and the action resolution mechanics. Sometimes "saying yes" or free roleplaying makes sense. Sometimes a skill challenge is called for. But I think the issue of "fortune" vs "drama" vs whatever for action resolution is orthogonal to the issue of "out of bounds" thinking.