Legends and Lore - Player vs. Character Poll Thread

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I voted 1, but I'm OK with 3 as long as I never get back to the days of:

DM: And the descending ceiling crushes you to death.
Players: WTH, Gary?! If you wanted to kill our characters just say so, we can go do something else.
DM: The deactivation button was on the ceiling and plainly obvious.
Players: If it was so obvious then why did you kill us?
DM: You never said you looked up.

 

[Greg K]

When it comes to searching, I am much in favor of 3e's approach

1. If the players search the wrong area, they find nothing (I will still have them roll).

2. If they are very general, I will give them a roll.

3. The more specific they that they are I will give them a bonus of +2 to +20 (DMs best friend).
Depending upon the nature of the action, this may just lead to clues. For example, searching the book shelf might reveal dust in front a book (which needs to be removed to open the secret door). Searching the proper section of wall may reveal the presence of a secret door, but not how to open it.

4. If they do the exact thing necessary to find something, then no roll. Pulling the correct book (even if the player states they are pulling all of the books) off the shelf (or pulling on the the sconce) will open the secret door if that is the trigger mechanism. Searching under the bed will reveal the chest. Unscrewing the cap on the bedpost will reveal the map if one is hidden. This is really no different than the discussion in the DMG about having specific actions required by the characters to move the levers in the correct sequence to open a door.


When it comes to diplomacy, bluff, etc. I prefer the characters to act it out and the roll follow. Then the dice roll represents how effective they were. The player with a low charisma or low diplomacy character may have a good point, but somewhere between his thought, the words leaving his mouth, and the message reaching the listener something went wrong if the roll fails. Maybe, it was the words chosen, used the wrong tone or spoke out of turn and the message was lost. I might even give a bonus to a higher skilled character if they pick up on the actual point "What my friend was trying to say..."

And I have no problem splitting the party. Sometimes, it is necessary. So, the group can't always rely on the best skilled character (or the back up) to always be there.

 

[Agamon]

That would have been a good modification, yes. So would including players taking decisions based on the game situation to garner rolls or automatic revelations, but the OP was simply replicating the original poll on the WotC site...

Fair enough. It's odd Mike would just throw a bombshell like that into the poll without mentioning it at all in the article. That's probably why I assumed what I did.

 

[Mark CMG]

I voted 1, but I'm OK with 3 as long as I never get back to the days of:

DM: And the descending ceiling crushes you to death.
Players: WTH, Gary?! If you wanted to kill our characters just say so, we can go do something else.
DM: The deactivation button was on the ceiling and plainly obvious.
Players: If it was so obvious then why did you kill us?
DM: You never said you looked up.

Those "days" never existed except in the minds of folk who want to present absurd arguments.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Those "days" never existed except in the minds of folk who want to present absurd arguments.

Those days (no quotes) existed not solely in my mind, but at my actual table during the days of 1E AD&D. Please don't tell me an argument I wasn't making is absurd, Mark. The situation, OTOH, I agree is absurd and why I would never want to return to it. I agree that option #3 can work well if the DM does not practice in absurdity, it's just not my method of preference these days.

 

[Mark CMG]

Those days (no quotes) existed not solely in my mind, but at my actual table during the days of 1E AD&D. Please don't tell me an argument I wasn't making is absurd, Mark. The situation, OTOH, I agree is absurd and why I would never want to return to it. I agree that option #3 can work well if the DM does not practice in absurdity, it's just not my method of preference these days.

That's like saying baseball is bad because when you played it you used a bowling ball.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

That's like saying baseball is bad because when you played it you used a bowling ball.

Luckily, I never suggested that either baseball or option #3 are bad. I said I prefer option #1 and that I'm OK with option #3. I'm not OK with it if it is abused with a bowling ball as you put it. And since I actually experienced such abuse I'm free to condition my like for option #3 as I see fit.

In summary:
I now prefer option #1 when I play.
I used to like and would still be OK with option #3 if abused as it was in my personal experience.
I do not like option #2. Mostly because I like dice.

Edit: A more apt analogy is probably: "That's like saying baseball is bad because some people use baseball bats to beat the crap out of others." The trust that your DM will adjudicate fairly is just that, trust. Those who abuse it can make something normally fun quite unfun.

 

[Mark CMG]

"That's like saying baseball is bad because some people use baseball bats to beat the crap out of others." The trust that your DM will adjudicate fairly is just that, trust. Those who abuse it can make something normally fun quite unfun.

Your description "as long as I never get back to the days of" suggests you don't trust that what you experienced was anomalous back then rather than the norm. I've experienced such a DM only a couple of times in hundreds, once back in the Eighties and once with systems where players roll for almost all things related to their character in the last couple of years. It has nothing to do with the game or the days but it sure explains a lot.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Your description "as long as I never get back to the days of" suggests you don't trust that what you experienced was anomalous back then rather than the norm. I've experienced such a DM only a couple of times in hundreds, once back in the Eighties and once with systems where players roll for almost all things related to their character in the last couple of years. It has nothing to do with the game or the days but it sure explains a lot.

I did not mean to suggest that. Although I did experience it more often than you by the sounds of it, maybe because the group of us playing at the time were all kids with newfound power in our hands, I don't consider it the norm. I liked that style of play back then and would still be OK with that style today, but I prefer a different approach. That's it.

 

[Odhanan]

Combination of approaches, strongly leaning towards describing what your character does, and the DM making a judgment call. The DM makes the judgment call yes, but this judgment call might be to roll a die because the outcome of this or that investigation is uncertain. This is why you have randomizers in the game in the first place.

So if say a player tells me as DM "I inspect the statue", I might judge that there's a 2 in 6 chance for him to notice something odd about the pedestal. If he tells me he's inspecting the pedestal specifically, I might judge there's a 4 in 6 chance of finding out there's something odd about it. If he tells me "I'm checking out the pedestal to see if it can slide", and that's actually what it does in my notes, I'd probably judge he automatically finds that out.