Monte Cook's first Legends and Lore is up

[keterys]

Anyway, there are not that many rounds in a fight. But each player's turn is quit longuish (first assess ongoing effects, three actions along with interruptions, reactions, opportunity actions, and such and then, finally, end of turn sequence with saves).

I know a couple guys who are on opposite ends of the time spectrum - if I gave them both the same character, one guy would be finished in 10-60 seconds, consistently. Another would take 1 to 10 minutes consistently.

Heck, I know a few people where every turn takes a minute longer _because they don't say when they're done_.

At a certain point, that's very fixable without a rules change. Like, don't allow takebacks and revisions. Don't allow a long time. Just play the game, and move on.

Chess is still fun, whether you play it by mail with one turn per week, or on a speed clock. But one way is a hell of a lot more fun to play _at a table_

When a combat is joined, there are some powers that translate easily into narration : "Gurel does that and that, then that occurs." Then the players gives the amount of damage and everything is nice.
But for many powers, it is simply impossible to tell what is happening in a narrative way.
For example, a shaman can bestow some temporary hp, another leader can give some bonuses on AC, etc. Sure the player could come up with a neat description of the effect, but it would require him nonetheless to give the bonus to the other players. It would be a time consuming task and turns are already quite long.
Do you se the problem ?

I understand... I actually don't have that problem, really... but I understand where other people could have it. If that bugs you, just don't use the powers that offend and move on with the game. Otherwise, it's really not that hard to turn everything into story narration. Don't think about mechanics for a bit (including hp, temp or otherwise - they're just an abstraction for luck, dodging, etc) and think about what actually happened... act like you were going to film it, say.

It also helps when you reflavor your powers appropriately. Some people don't do that, for some reason - I don't know if Essentials talks much about it, but the PHB explicitly suggested reflavoring your powers to whatever you want and that helps a lot.

Anyhow:
The shaman's bear hit and roared, making the enemies miss his allies.
The warlord shouted, and his ally dodged aside and struck back.
As the ogre's hammer crashed down towards the wizard's head, the ranger's arrow sliced a line past its eye, letting the wizard slip away.
The warlord beheaded the orc casually, and shouted. "Up and at'em, men! Ale and wenches and beds a'plenty tonight, but off the damn ground now!"
Etc.

The system allows narration just fine, in my experience, but that doesn't mean it's invulnerable to a failure of imagination.

 

[Greg K]

By default the players should find the secret door (with some prodding from the DM to help them along if necessary). That's why rolling dice is so messed up. If they can't find it then it doesn't exist and shouldn't be included. More specifically the players shouldn't be forced to spend skill points a certain way in order to experience content (whether it be a secret room or a knowledge check for background story). That's just lame.

Darkwing,
I would find the above lame for a game. As with Delricho and KarensDad, I, completely, disagree with it. However, I am not going to say that you are wrong for your opinion. It is just not a game that I want to play in.

On the other hand, I thing that there should always be a chance to find the door. I just don't think it should be guaranteed or handed to the players.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think a lot of it has to do with player psychology and finding a sweet spot between two schools of thought.

You have players that like the idea of "skilled play." They enjoy thinking up solutions in real life and having the DM determine if they are good enough to work in game. (These people also tend to hate the idea of skill points and DCs and rolling for skills etc...)


Then you have people who hate the idea of "skilled play" and feel that if a PC can do something there should be rules involved and a target number to beat. (These people tend to feel that not having a skill system just feels like "mother may I.")


So even though the current system COULD accommodate the two styles the fact that it in all ways is geared towards the target number playstyle ends up turning off the former players: The system Monte describes seems to want to split the difference.

It speaks to both crowds- it's an underlying target number driven system, but gives heavy thought about how to work with "skilled play." The idea being a given group can choose the best way to use the system to suit their own style/tastes.

(That's what I'm getting out of it anyway.)

Hmmmm.

I find this an interesting synopsis of the article.

I read the article very differently and my conclusion on what Monte was trying to do differs, but I'm trying to keep in mind what you wrote here.

"That kind of discussion around the table is dynamic. It's interesting. It should be rewarded. It encourages the skill and imagination of players more than characters. And it would be horrible if a poor die roll wrecked it all."

Horrible???

The phrases "it should be rewarded" and "it would be horrible" caught my eye. One aspect of many threads over the last decade have been about rewarding players. It might be the cynical aspect of my grognard nature, but I see an awful lot of "entitlement" out of these two phrases.

To me, the reward of a dynamic and interesting conversation around the table is "the dynamic and interesting conversation around the table". I'm having fun at the table with the discussion because it's a lively discussion.

Being told to then reward the players by making sure that they find something is kind of backwards to me. If nothing is actually in the room (as per the DM setting up the scenario) or if a bad die roll comes along, to me (as an old grognard DM), that's ok. In fact, it might turn out to be more than ok, even desirable.

Creating a rank skill system is pretty much creating passive skill rules for every skill in the game system. I've pretty much thrown passive perception and passive insight out of my games because as DM, I don't need a number to tell me what to tell the players, nor do I want to be handcuffed to the concept of "well, the first level Thief has a +14 to his perception, so you have to let him know every detail that DC 24 or less passive perception shows".

Instead, I try to run a game with only a few skill rolls for when I am on the fence. Sometimes, I don't ask for rolls, I just tell the players what the PCs observe or know. Other times, I ask for rolls by trained PCs only. Or, I sometimes ask for rolls by a single individual PC (or small group of PCs), or a roll by everyone. Other times, a player might ask if s/he can make a roll and I allow it, but I don't necessarily become a slave to the result. The actual results for me on skill rolls do become more important in a skill challenge, but are less important otherwise.

The results of the rolls just work as guidelines for what I then tell the players. I really don't see where Monte's system improves upon this. The rules as written don't prevent groups that like to use skilled play because the DM can always add bonuses to the rolls (or not use them a lot like I do), and they don't prevent groups that like to use the rolls either.

What I got out of Monte's article was that he hates rolling the dice and getting "screwed", so he wants to expand upon the passive skill system and if he can simplify it by having fewer "numbers", all the better.

 

[darkwing]

Then you can never have a secret door. You can never have a riddle. You can never have a mystery.

Sure, you can make it look like you have these things, but you don't really - the DM is just going to give away the answer anyway, so why bother.

That is not a game I want to play. It most certainly is not a game I have any interest in running.

Riddles aren't riddles if you can roll dice to solve them.

 

[keterys]

What if you can roll dice to get a hint?

 

[darkwing]

On the other hand, I thing that there should always be a chance to find the door. I just don't think it should be guaranteed or handed to the players.

This is how I feel too. The main point I was trying to convey was there should always be a chance to find the door (without needing or even benefiting from skill point allocation) and the dm should give hints so the players don't spend 30 minutes in each room checking every little thing. Ideally the players would pick up on the room description clues, but if not then let it go. Either way, dice and, more importantly, skill point allocations aren't needed (and I would argue are actually harmful).

 

[KarinsDad]

Riddles aren't riddles if you can roll dice to solve them.

Players don't have Int scores of 24. PCs might.

There's nothing wrong with rolling dice to solve a problem. Happens every day in D&D.

This is how I feel too. The main point I was trying to convey was there should always be a chance to find the door (without needing or even benefiting from skill point allocation) and the dm should give hints so the players don't spend 30 minutes in each room checking every little thing. Ideally the players would pick up on the room description clues, but if not then let it go. Either way, dice and, more importantly, skill point allocations aren't needed (and I would argue are actually harmful).

The DM handing out hints like candy can be harmful.

The DM should describe what the PCs observe and know (even what they know or observe based on skill rolls), but he shouldn't hand out hints if the players are flailing. Let them flail or move on. Players don't have to solve every little puzzle the DM has for them.

As a player, I always want to solve problems without hints. If I solve it, I feel great. If I don't solve it, at least the DM isn't spoon-feeding me.

Solving a problem after the DM hands out hints is anti-climatic. It feels challenge-less.

 

[tuxgeo]

< geschnippitude >
Seriously, no group ever returns to the site of an adventure in your campaign? You never use the same setting for multiple groups? Nobody ever misses anything in your adventures? You've never had pcs claim a cleared out lair for their own or use a dungeon for holding prisoners or settling that dwarven clan driven out of their homeland?
< geschnippitude, again >

Wandering off-topic for a moment:
Why are Dwarves always being "driven out" of their homelands?
Don't Dwarves ever leave a sodden country voluntarily?

-- "The copper and tin are all mined out of this wretched scrap of land (and sold for vivid, glorious *GOLD*), and the soil is too crumbly here to carve into living halls; therefore, let us hie ourselves off to yonder Mountains that I can see looming above the mists, and carve there a defensible domicile out of the towering, sturdy ROCK!" --

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Wandering off-topic for a moment:
Why are Dwarves always being "driven out" of their homelands?
Don't Dwarves ever leave a sodden country voluntarily?

-- "The copper and tin are all mined out of this wretched scrap of land (and sold for vivid, glorious *GOLD*), and the soil is too crumbly here to carve into living halls; therefore, let us hie ourselves off to yonder Mountains that I can see looming above the mists, and carve there a defensible domicile out of the towering, sturdy ROCK!" --

I thought about this too, when I saw the post.

I think it has something to do with the fact that dwarves in traditional fantasy are supposed to represent the folly of greed, so they are painted as tragic figures. You feel sad for their miseries, but at the same time, they're kind of greedy, so they sort of got what was coming.

It's also just a 'thing' - going back to J.R.R. at least - his dwarves were in perpetual decline and constantly being forced out of their ancestral homes. I think there is some appeal in that from a player angle, too. It's an easy goal to latch onto. It's a noble dream to want to reclaim your former lands from usurpers, and it's one with many possible shades of grey to explore (just look at the real-life examples).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There is a huge assumption in all of your reasoning. Namely, that all choices will and should reduce down into a single number, this will model what we want to model, and doing so will not cause any kind of game play or handling issues.

It has been my contention from the very beginning of the Legend and Lore exploration of skills that a problem with existing D&D systems (3E and on) is that reducing down into a single number introduces all kinds of bad side effects, and the waffling around trying to escape those side effects causes more trouble than addressing them head on.

But even with that, in practical terms, your example leaves too much out. Quick, which is better, an attack that needs a 13+ to hit, does 1d8, and dazes (save ends) or one that hits on 14+, does 1d6, and dazes until the end of the attacker's next turn? You may be able to answer that off the cuff, but a lot of people will not. And that is about as easy as it gets, and doesn't even take into account the circumstances or what the rest of the party is capable of doing.

Now, I'll grant you that in 4E as written in a skill challenge, handled crudely and without regards to the ongoing story, it comes down to finding that higher roll. A success is a success is a success, right? Not in my game. Some successes are nice. Some are meh. Some take the narration where the players want it to go. Some, not so much. And surely, even crudely run, the manner of the successes can have some effect on the end narration (browbeating the mayor for his map, versus talking him out of it, versus stealing it, versus copying it and leaving it, versus doing without it, and so on, ad infinitum.)

If a designer is going to reduce a task down into a single check, then I will freely grant that communicating it through the relevant numbers is almost always the correct answer. (The exceptions are too esoteric to even apply to any version of D&D that would be acceptable to most players.) Even then, it is useful to at least provide a bit of a chart and explanation for what various likely odds mean, in both game and game-world terms. But sure, on the character sheet, put the number.

However, if you have seemingly intractable problem with modeling skills in a game, I suggest that revisiting the base assumption is the first order of business. (And as a related but here unsupported assertion, I'll say that the proposed musings thus far don't go far enough, because they only have two dimension to the check. You need at least three. But I suppose a discussion of that belongs in a forked topic.)

I think skills need to be conceptually 'light weight' and I think it would be a mistake to try to 'add dimensions' to them. They exist, in isolation, to provide a quick binary answer to a simple question, not to simulate the entire range of all possible results of a course of action. In cases where a simple action leads to complex results that is best left to narrative. If the player fails the skill check then something interesting happens, but something disadvantageous to the character. Jorgen the Bold leaps from the rigging of the enemy skyship and attempts to land on the deck of the airboat. He fails! OK, he's hanging from a rope dangling just above the open maw of the Sky Kraken, oh oh! The Bard tries to browbeat the Count, he fails his Intimidate check, the angry warlord crashes his fist down on the table, "By the Gods I will not be threatened by the likes of you! Prove yourself or get out of here!" Likewise success in these cases pretty much falls into the same mold, the narrative moves forward in a logical fashion.

When you want to add more dimensions to the situation, then you ARE talking about skill challenges. That's exactly why they exist, and why the basic skill system doesn't need to take up that slack. Nor should it because critical issues shouldn't rest on a die roll. Notice even my second example really wouldn't happen in a stand-alone skill check.

Skills just aren't meant to be that deep on their own. They work within the supporting context of the narrative and more extended mechanics. I just do not believe they should be made into some kind of more elaborate system that will then inevitably suffer from creating too much cognitive load and work against the basic quick paced flow of play where the check is surely some simple action taken on the spur of the moment, or perhaps comes up in the flow of routine exploration.

I just don't see the 'intractable problem' personally. As soon as the players want to do anything that requires more complexity than a brief interaction with a guard, leaping some obstacle, etc you go immediately to SC land, or maybe a group check. Low complexity SCs are 4e gold. You have degrees of success naturally built in and all the variety required to make all sorts of different things happen. At least that is my experience. I think all this talk of other skill systems really boils down to a lot of people haven't sat down and just thought about how to use what they have enough. There is certainly a lot more explication that could be done on the finer points of using the system, but I'm going to say right now that I don't think a more complicated system will resolve any of the issues I see people come up with because they basically stem from poor/mis use of what they have and the same situations will come up with any skill system.