"Narrative Options" mechanical?

[N'raac]

I know this is a contentious point and some people really hate playing D&D like this. But for me, I'll say that the DM gets to frame the scene, the players get to decide the content of it.

The GM framed a scene of a deadly monster. The players decided the content, choosing flight, or Polymorphing it into a turkey (for variety - I've had enough chicken ), or battling it in mortal combat.

The actors then proceed to decide on the actual dialog, the strategy they'll use to convince the Walrus and how the Walrus responds. However, it's against the spirit of improv to just give up on selling the XBox One and have a scene with you sitting in a bar drinking while completely ignoring the other actor on stage.

Similarly, I believe it is against the spirit of D&D to take what the DM gives you as a scene and say "I don't want to do that. I'm doing this instead".

The salesman can, however, choose to persuade the walrus that having both would be even better to look at, rather than that the walrus should ditch the PS and buy an XBox.

Although teleport SHOULDN'T disrupt adventures, it often does. Many DMs do not consider the ability to teleport when designing an adventure. Mainly because they steal ideas from movies, tv, novels, comic books. Many of which don't have teleporting protagonists. Especially if you've been running the game since the PCs were low level. You grow to expect that they can't do that until the level that they can.

Again, poor adventure design. If the GM decides it would be cool for the 3rd level PCs to be blasted by a 10d6 Fireball, and surprisingly, they all die, can the GM claim his lack of knowledge of the PC's capabilities in designing the adventure wasn't his fault, or should he have an idea of what the PC's can and can't do? Is it OK for him to have the L7 party Teleported to a room with no exits because he assumed they would just Teleport back out? Not his fault he was unaware they can't teleport, is it?

It might be. But I really dislike playing games where dumb creatures have an exhaustive knowledge of spells and how to disrupt them. When I play orcs, it's often: "That guy just did some magic stuff that hurt a lot! Let's smash his head in until he stops casting that magic at us."

An average Orc has 8 INT. Is that how an 8 INT PC would react, or would he be closer to:

The idea that most orcs would be "That over there, good man, is what we call a Wizard. When they cast spells they need absolute concentration. So if you wait to hit them just as they open their mouth, it's possible you can distract him enough so he can't finish his spell."

Even if I was to use those tactics, however. We always make sure there is one of our allies in a straight line between the orcs and our wizard to prevent charges.

With or without leaving that easy Touch range?

Or the Wizard is invisible, has mirror image up, or any number of other protections.

None of which make it any easier for that Touch to be established, do they?

Even if he is hit, most concentration checks can be made on a natural 1 for the average damage of enemies.

OK, let me understand this. Hitting the wizard in the midst of his spell is useless because he'll make his concentration check, and grappling him is stupid because damage from a typical hit will take him down. Why do we care if he would make his concentration check if the hit KO's him?

No, there were a lot of variation. But on this point everyone agreed. Disrupting spellcasters was close to useless and a waste of your action.

Yeah, this was a point of some contention amongst DMs. What happens when a silence appears in a point of space(where there's no save), putting a Wizard in silence AS he is casting the spell.

Some people pointed out that a readied action happens before the action that triggered it so maybe the Wizard hadn't started casting his spell yet when the silence goes up, allowing him to cast the spell later in the combat when he wasn't in silence(though we ruled it still used up their standard action).

This was argued for mainly because many people felt that Silence was way too powerful if it was considered to disrupt the spell and make the caster lose it. Mainly because amongst the options of disrupting spellcasters it appeared to be easily the most powerful: Using Dispel Magic required a caster level check to succeed at a counter spell and it was specifically designed to stop magic. Doing damage allowed a concentration check, using the exact same spell to counter required having the same exact spell prepared. All of the options had a chance to fail except casting silence on a point nearby an enemy caster as he was casting.

We jointly agreed that the other options might as well not exist if we were going to allow that. So, everyone agreed that stopping someone from casting the spell but leaving it in their memory was at least reasonable.

OK, so there's no point attempting to disrupt a spell is a useless waste of an action, and a tactic which could more easily disrupt a spell needs to be nerfed for that reason. Is that the logic I am supposed to be following here?

In any case, I'm good with preventing the spell. Especially if everyone clustered in a tight group waiting for it and is now perfectly set up for our area effect abilities! Once that Silence is up, the spellcaster needs to get 15' away from it. And how does he know what point in space it's hanging in? Box in the mage seems a good idea. Especially if he's relying on that Fighter being between him and the enemy...

Still, no one really used it however, because it was better to have the enemy dead than have them silenced.

If one action can either silence or kill him, how is he getting the spell off, again?

I remember one battle in particular where a Wizard thought he was so awesome. He cast a spell which had a huge area of effect which did something like 1d6 points of damage to enemies while in it. Then cast another spell which caused people to trip and fall if they moved more than 10 feet during their turn and had to roll balance checks to get up. But since it had that effect on everyone, he asked none of the other PCs to enter it. We fought a couple of more enemies while we waiting for them to leave the AOE, but eventually, they were the only ones left and he insisted we don't engage them and just let them die.

The DM was getting super frustrated because each round he was accomplishing nothing. He rolled to see which ones got up that turn, most of which failed and marked down 3 points of damage amongst 50 or so hitpoints. The problem is, he couldn't just skip to the end of the encounter because it was obvious that they were going to eventually reach the edge of the AOE with enough health to at least get one or two good hits in before they died. It was just a matter of how fast they got there, which order they arrived in, etc.

So, the wizard gets to shine in one encounter. Doesn't sound like the end of the world. And I fail to see what prevents the GM saying "Well, a few of them creep to the edge of the effect, but they are quickly dispatched by the warriors, so they are defeated". Done - wizard got his moment to shine, and we carry on to the next encounter. There is no rule I am aware of that each encounter must be played out to the very last hp, whether the group wants to or not. Perhaps you can cite the page reference for me.

All I can say is that the average Wizard holds a dagger/staff in one hand and nothing in the other in our games. If they needed a wand, they'd draw one as a minor action. No big deal. You keep the weapon in your hand just in case you need to make AOOs. You may not have the best chance to hit but if you only have a 50% chance of stopping a grapple, it's better than nothing as one grapple pretty much removes your character from the game.

So it's not worth trying to grapple the wizard because a 50% chance of removing him from the game isn't worth the risk, but his spell that has a 50% chance of removing you from the game is worth the effort? I'm betting that Wizard does not have Combat Reflexes, so I'll bring a friend and chance that staff/dagger strike, thanks. Or spend a feat on Improved Grapple.

Sure. Though that's not likely the point. It's likely that one of them either runs faster than one of the PCs or one of them has a bow or casts spells to shoot at the PCs. Then the retreat doesn't last until civilization. It lasts until 200 feet away from the cave entrance when the last of the PCs dies to bow fire.

So once again, virtually none of the enemies have spellcasters until we decide to flee, and none of them can use their bows to fire on the wizard while the fighter keeps maneuvering to prevent him being charged.

Ugh, this is why I stopped playing 3.5e. Because I hate building NPCs. When I build 7th level PCs, I don't even choose half their feats. Or at least I'll just pick the absolute most obvious ones. These are fighters. I likely took Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Combat Reflexes, Dodge for the Orcs.

I don't often pay any attention to what spells and feats my players have. My opinion is that monsters don't change simply because the PCs took a particular feat or spell. I don't build monsters to defeat them. Could I build monsters specifically for defeating Wizards? Sure. Do I want to? No. Do I think it should be necessary to target one class above all others? Nope.

Why not just run an all-fighters game, then? I've never had to target the wizards, but I've also never had them overpower the game. Sounds to me like a case of "I never play spellcasters, so I dn't know how to run them or how to deal with them, and I never use spellcasting enemies when I GM because, again, I don't know how to run them effectively."

I'm not pulling out specific spell examples. The specifics simply don't matter. It's the concept that does. I can tell you that not one wizard in our games at level 7 has less than 23 Int. Starting with 20 Int, putting the point for 4 in and having a +2 int item(or even a +4 int item by that point) is likely. They also likely have spell focus. Anyone who started at only an 18 Int is laughed at for being underpowered.

And I suspect you also don't bother with encumbrance (which causes issues for those low STR wizards on occasion). A 20 starting stat means acccepting weaknesses in other areas, in my experience (did it for a 1/2 orc fighter a while back, though - he didnt have a lot of skill points and wasn't useful for interaction).

Yep, stoneskin cost money. Some of our DMs enforced it. Either way, it was 10 gp or something and in most of our campaigns, that's what we picked up from the chump change of the average encounter.

I recall a higher cost. 3.5 is 250 gp, has a duration of 10 min/level and provides DR 10 that absorbs 150 hp max. Prior editions, IIRC, ignored 1 attack (and the spell was ignored), then went to 1 attack/level (so it got a lot more play).

As for casting times, the casting time of a spell was equal to its level. If I remember correctly, a Longsword had a speed factor of 4 or 5. Basically, every spell that was less than 4th level was faster than the average weapon. And that required that the enemy be close enough to swing their weapon on you during their turn. If I remember correctly, moving added to your initiative.

From dim memory, there was some variance to casting times, but 1/level was a norm. I don't recall any rules about movement interacting with initiative, but I recall adding some.

Yeah. Though pinned characters were not helpless and therefore couldn't be tied up. Pinned only lasted a round. It wasn't really fair to the enemies to allow one pin to defeat them. Though, if their grapple check was bad enough, it's certainly possible they'll never escape.

When an opponent has pinned you, you are held immobile (but not helpless) for 1 round. While you’re pinned, you take a –4 penalty to your AC against opponents other than the one pinning you. At your opponent’s option, you may also be unable to speak. On your turn, you can try to escape the pin by making an opposed grapple check in place of an attack. You can make an Escape Artist check in place of your grapple check if you want, but this requires a standard action. If you win, you escape the pin, but you’re still grappling.

No verbal components, no somatic components (from being grappled) and no material components that weren't in your hand (from being grappled you can retrieve one with a full round action, though). At -4. And if you're pinned, I can attempt to disarm you of your component pouch, although you do get +4 to resist. Yet grappling a wizard is useless...well, at least you can attack with that dagger.
It doesn't. Kill might be the wrong word. "Fight a combat" might be a better one. The point is that it's a battle scene and Polymorph is less a battle spell and more an interesting utility spell. I'd like spells like this to be changed to longer casting times so that the idea of Wizards turning people into other things remains but it being used as the answer to a combat situation goes away.

Diplomacy shouldn't work against people who don't want to talk to you. It isn't magic. No matter what you say, orcs aren't going to stop hurting you because you yell out some words.

Let me parse that through...OK..."Mundane skills, even at extreme levels, should not be able to accomplish things low level magic can accomplish." Why not? Exceptional fast talkers in movies and books seem quite able to defuse combat situations.

I understand the rules explicitly allowed changing attitudes in combat. It was the butt of many a joke because of it. I once played a character explicitly to show how stupid this was. When you can make a DC 40 on a 1 on the die you can make the DC 25 to turn a hostile creature indifferent without rolling. If you roll high enough, you can make them friendly.

Though, that didn't stop nearly EVERY DM I played under with that character from saying "What? Show me where in the rules it says that! Really? It says that...that's stupid. I didn't think you could force creatures who are valiantly trying to kill you to stop simply because you said 'Stop! Please!' Wait, I'm allowed to apply circumstance modifiers to your roll, right? They aren't just hostile, they are extremely hostile. You get -20 to your roll."

If you have +39 to your diplomacy roll, you should be able to accomplish some pretty potent things. What I see from the above is a conscious decision to nerf non-magical abilities. So why is it surprising magic seems overpowering, then? The decision to deny non-magical effects any real impact just might have something to do with that result...

I was in agreement with them really, I shouldn't be able to force an NPC to do what I want, no matter what I roll. I can influence them as long as it's reasonable and in the right setting. But yelling out something in 6 seconds that makes enemies stop attacking you is unlikely at best.

"If you don't kill me, you don't have to go back"
"Spare me and I'll lead you to my pot of gold"
"My brothers are muc plumper and juicier than I"

If someone has a +39 Fast Talk or Diplomacy roll, I'm guessing they can come up with means to get the target's attention a lot quicker and more effectively than I can!

 

[Balesir]

Let's take hit points and falling as the easy example.

If hp are tangible and characters understand them, it raises a whole set of questions about what characters know regarding their levels and the unrealistic-ness of hp. If hp are not tangible and characters don't understand them, it begs the question of why the 20th level fighter is at all afraid of falls, when in fact his survival is a reliable outcome.

Because, if s/he were to deliberately set out to test the "I'm immune to falls" theory s/he would just die. But, if the fall happens in a bona fide adventuring situation, s/he gets lucky (bounces on the way down, falls into a patch of soft turf, rolls just right on landing, whatever). That's just the way the world works as far as dramatically "important" characters are concerned. Jumping to test the "immunity" invokes the "bag of rats" clause in the rules, essentially - so no one does it.

Slightly funny and analogous real-world story: I went a while back to listen to/watch/take a lesson from one of a very few Grand Masters of shurikenjutsu currently alive. He tried to demonstrate a fairly common fault that most of us were making, but, no matter how hard he tried, he could not cast a shuriken (which is a dart/nail-shaped thing, not the semi-mythical star that is actually quite a liability to carry and use) so that it did not fly true and strike with its point. There we all were, commonly failing to make a good cast, whereas he was simply incapable of failing to make a good cast!

Likewise, I see high level characters as folks who find it hard to fall poorly, lose balance or be caught off-guard. Add to that that they are commonly lucky and blessed by the gods, and that explains their "hit points". Can they fall off a roof if they deliberately try? Sure - but if it happens by accident they will always be by the fire escape, over the shrubbery and just where the washing lines are stretched over the way half-way down.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Because, if s/he were to deliberately set out to test the "I'm immune to falls" theory s/he would just die. But, if the fall happens in a bona fide adventuring situation, s/he gets lucky (bounces on the way down, falls into a patch of soft turf, rolls just right on landing, whatever). That's just the way the world works as far as dramatically "important" characters are concerned. Jumping to test the "immunity" invokes the "bag of rats" clause in the rules, essentially - so no one does it.

Well, that's not what the rules say; they're pretty clear about what happens during a fall, regardless of context. I don't see it as a bag of rats situation, because I think this application of hp is balanced and within the RAI (whereas I don't think the bag of rats tactic was). Of course, if you as a DM want to make a ruling that characters who jump off cliffs die, you're hardly being unreasonable.

Personally, one of the reasons I like not using hp is that vp/wp fixes this issue nicely. But that's beside the point

Likewise, I see high level characters as folks who find it hard to fall poorly, lose balance or be caught off-guard. Add to that that they are commonly lucky and blessed by the gods, and that explains their "hit points". Can they fall off a roof if they deliberately try? Sure - but if it happens by accident they will always be by the fire escape, over the shrubbery and just where the washing lines are stretched over the way half-way down.

Definitely not how I would narrate it; I equate luck and player behavior with dice rolls and transient mechanical representations, while I look at permanent mechanics as physical truth. But the books don't say either way, so it's up to the reader to decide.

 

[Sunseeker]

Ok, that out of the way - I am first off a bit disturbed by the language itself - "narrative control/options". IMO nobody, not even DM, has narrative control of a D&D game, and indeed that is, to me, a defining characteristic. The players play, the DM referees and plays with them, but NO ONE is driving the bus. That's the magic.

I will preface everything I say below by disagreeing with your initial premise, and please keep in mind that everything I say henceforth is all IMO. That is not how D&D works. D&D is not a game running on a server where the DM arbitrates and the players play. The DM has direct control over the gameworld, even in published modules, they are at best guidelines for what the DM should be doing for the recommended party size and shape. Outside of a strict railroad all players have narrative control, to a degree. They determine if they go left or right, if they talk to the King or not, etc... Socially and exploratorily most players hold roughly the same degree of narrative control.

I keep hearing that fighters, poor fighters, have nothing to do. We've been hearing that, of course, for decades, and to me it seems that the fighter class "cause" is the rallying cry of munchkinism, of video gamey mechanics that make no sense in RPGing. To me, you have to describe your actions. MMORPG mechanics circumvent all of that. Is truly an endless cycle - the player wants more narrative options, which is not attainable through mechanics.

Fighters have traditionally had few methods of attack. They swing their sword. They swing their sword HARD!(Power attack) or the slash out wildly!(Whirlwind/Cleave) and that's pretty much been the end of it. Okay, they can do all of those things with different weapons, but while there is certainly a laundry list of interesting and cool weapons, the list of useful weapons is short. Basically swords and some variants and hammers and some variants.(unless we get into muchkining)

What makes the problem worse is that traditionally Fighters have had few skill points, while a fighter may have been good at dungeoneering or "ride" outside of combat, that was more often than not, IT. While you were surrounded by other classes simply brimming with skill points(Wizard, Rogue, Bard, Ranger, even the cleric was pretty skill heavy). So yes, your fighter is generally good at...swinging a sword and something else.

Lets put this through the example machine:

Two people walk into a bar. A fighter and a bard. They need to talk to people and search the place for clues. The fighter is generally going to fail at the talking part. With typically high str and low cha, he will often resort to intimidation, which is neither as useful nor as effective as charisma. He might do okay in searching for things if the DM will grant that searching a bar is little different than searching a dungeon. However, the Bard will typically excell at his diplomacy, his spot, his listen, and pretty much every other skill related to dealing with people. As will the rogue, the ranger and the wizard and the cleric is likely going to score better as well, though not quite as well as the "fantastic four".

Here's another:

A lone fighter is wantering through the forest. His low nature skills and poor perception skills will mean he's more likely to get surprised upon. When something does jump out of the bushes, he will have two options: fight, or run away. Now the fighter is pretty good at fighting and could probably handle most packs of wolves and other creatures. However, if the fighter chooses to run away, he is faced with the realization that with his heavy armor, most animals can outrun him. Even if he does manage to evade them, he has terrible hiding skills.

Most of the other classes listed as his superiors will do just fine with most wild animal packs, but certainly have a tougher time fighting bigger brutes. But here's the trick: they don't have to. While the only method of escape a fighter has is "run away", wizards get spells to let them fly, rogues can hide behind a pebble, rangers can do the same and half the time bards can sing things into friendliness.

I will note I find it somewhat ironic that MMORPGs get slammed, since by and large their mechanics are based on D&D-type games.

If spellcasters are totally dominating the game, as a DM, I will... Hurt them...in a good way of course. If theyre scribing reams of scrolls is problematic, make it harder. Make them only scribable on a full moon, or something.

Which many people do. However, as was pointed out in an early response, this goes directly against your initial point of a DM simply existing to arbitrate. What you are doing it NOT arbitration, it is directly altering the game world through making magical supplies more difficult to obtain or use.

But even so, I simply do not equate a characters ability to interact with the gameworld with spells or skills.

Since those are the two founding pillars of a character sheet, I must inquire, what DO you equate those things to? If not their designed purposes of interacting with the game world?

I cant even tell you how many times a fighter altered the game with something they did or said. My feeling is that the fighter class may be the most challenging in the game to play *interestingly*, but a lack of player ability is not a good reason to pile on mechanical options. There is no end to it, and the "its not there" card idea is the crystallization of all that. Its almost anti-imagination.

Yes the "no, the problem is really you're just dumb" is a great conclusion.

Take 4e for example, it gives people exactly the sort of stuff they're asking for in terms of combat narrative control by literally giving them control WITHOUT having to munchkin. Push, pull, buff, debuff, slide, immobilize, etc... These are all very standard effects found within fighter abilities, in at-wills, encounters and dailies. These are not (unless you are playing a very loose version of the rules, and I don't think we should delve too far into "things I do to change the game to overcome these problems, therefore these problems don't exist") common effects of "keep swining your sword" editions, not without very careful feat choices and character optimization. Saying "I thrust forward with my sword in an attempt to push my foe away" is only going to go over if your DM feels willing to grant you the ability to do so. While in 4e, you simply Tide of Iron. No "mother may I", you just DO.

What say you?

I say that your premise is flawed and your arguments sound suspiciously like strawmen. The fact that you dismiss the problems with "well clearly you're not a good enough player" is insulting.

 

[pemerton]

The term "rpg" is applied pretty broadly. However, I think that-regardless of what you call things-there is an important spectrum of narrative control, ranging between some games where a player is very strictly limited to his character's perspective and abilities, and games where the player has far-ranging narrative control and is not tied as tightly to his character (and is less concerned with "playing his role"). There is a difference. Call it what you will.

Well, the 1st RPG was D&D, and it contained mechanical elements that permitted the player to exercise control on elements of the shared fiction outside the strict limits of his/her PC's perspective and abilites.

For instance, the player could (in most D&D campaigns - contrast RQ, which changes this rule in the interests of increasing process simulation) specify the occupation of his/her PC's parents. In many cases, the player could specify his/her PC's ability scores to some degree. The player could earn XP, and was expected in the play of the game to make decisions by reference to XP to be earned, although this bore no connection to his/her PC's motivations.

There were also hit points, saving throws and the action economy, of course.

If hp are not tangible and characters don't understand them, it begs the question of why the 20th level fighter is at all afraid of falls, when in fact his survival is a reliable outcome.

For the same reason that James Bond takes cover from gunfire even though we, the audience, know that he is in no danger of dying. It's a genre conceit.

In my view a good RPG will create mechanical incentives to relieve the pressure on the players to maintain their "genre blindness". In a system which uses wounds rather than "buckets of hit points", but then uses Fate Points to mitigate wounds, you can rule that points can only be spent in pursuit of a declared PC or player goal (HARP is an example of this). So fighters won't hurl themselves over cliffs willy-nilly.

4e, which does use a "bucket of hit points" system, tries to deal with the issue at the level of encounter design instead. That is, it strongly discourages the GM from framing challenges in which nothing is at stake but getting down the cliff. So the player of the fighter has an incentive not to jump over the cliff because there are other stakes in the situation (be they combat-related stakes, or other dimensions of a skill challenge), and losing hit points carelessly will make it harder to gain those stakes. (Conversely, where in the fiction there is nothing but a cliff, the GM is encouraged not to frame it as a challenge at all, but instead to simply "say yes" and free-narrate the PC's successful climb down the cliff.)

Balesir indicates another take on this issue:

if s/he were to deliberately set out to test the "I'm immune to falls" theory s/he would just die. But, if the fall happens in a bona fide adventuring situation, s/he gets lucky (bounces on the way down, falls into a patch of soft turf, rolls just right on landing, whatever).

<snip>

I see high level characters as folks who find it hard to fall poorly, lose balance or be caught off-guard. Add to that that they are commonly lucky and blessed by the gods, and that explains their "hit points". Can they fall off a roof if they deliberately try? Sure - but if it happens by accident they will always be by the fire escape, over the shrubbery and just where the washing lines are stretched over the way half-way down.

Well, that's not what the rules say; they're pretty clear about what happens during a fall, regardless of context. I don't see it as a bag of rats situation, because I think this application of hp is balanced and within the RAI (whereas I don't think the bag of rats tactic was).

When you say "that's not what the rules say" which edition are you talking about? Classic D&D doesn't addresss this issue one way or another, but it certainly does not confine the resolution of falls to 1d6 per 10' fallen - the principal example of GM adjudication in the Molday Basic GM's section, for instance, suggests adjudicating a fall based on a fiated percentage chance of survival.

And the 4e DMG has the folowing bit of text (p 40) under the heading "legitimate targets":

When a power has an effect that occurs upon hitting a target — or reducing a target to 0 hit points — the power functions only when the target in question is a meaningful threat. Characters can gain no benefit from carrying a sack of rats in hopes of healing their allies by hitting the rats.

When a power’s effect involves a character’s allies, use common sense when determining how many allies can be affected. D&D is a game about adventuring parties fighting groups of monsters, not the clash of armies. A warlord’s power might, read strictly, be able to give a hundred “allies” a free basic attack, but that doesn’t mean that warlord characters should assemble armies to march before them into the dungeon. In general, a power’s effect should be limited to a squad-sized group — the size of your player character group plus perhaps one or two friendly NPCs — not hired soldiers or lantern-bearers.​

This is the analgoue of rules on conflict-framing in games like HeroWars/Quest and Marvel Heroic RP: that is, before the action resolution rules are engaged (in this case, the use of a power) everyone at the table (with the GM having the loudest voice) has to be agreed that the framing of the situation makes sense in terms of genre, shared expectations for play, etc. Bags of rats, and extraploations of the skirmish action economy and the warlord's interaction with it to whole armies, fail that test.

I think it's pretty reasonable to say that having your fighter PC jump over a cliff "just because" is likewise failing the minimum threshold on acceptable framing sufficient to engage the action resolution mecahnics.

Hit points, and all similar game mechanical conceits, represent luck, divine favour, heroic capacity and other things that are intangible to the characters in the game world and exist only to regulate the running of the game in the external ("real") world.

Well, that's pretty mind-bending. There are games that I do read that way, but D&D definitely is not one of them.

Well, I've read D&D that way at least since I read Gygax's characterisatin of hit points, saving throws and the combat action economy along these lines.

Gygax didn't generalise the point to the non-combat action economy, but we easily could. Why does it take 1 turn to do this, that and the other with never a minute saved or wasted here or there? Is it because the PCs operate with a degree of mechanical precision that would shame your average robot? Or is it because the real considerations that govern the elapse of time in the game "are intangible to the characters in the game world and exist only to regulate the running of the game in the external ("real") world"? I take it for granted that it's the latter.

And I'm not the only one. You can see it in every designer, from the late 70s on, who wrote a D&D-ish RPG system but purged out all the metagame mechanics in favour of simulationist ones: RQ, RM, Harn and countless others. And what do so many of these games have in common?

• Replace saving throws with simulationinst skill or ability checks (RM is a bit weak on this; 3E was the only version of D&D to turn in this direction);
  
  
• Try to make a fundamentally metagame action economy (the "combat round") behave as much as possible like a process simulation (RQ with its strike ranks; the billion-odd initiative and action systems designed for RM over the years; etc);
  
  
• Replace hit points with wounds (Harn, as per Balesir's post), or try to replace D&D's "bucket of hits points" model with a hit point mechanic that will play like a wound system (RQ); or a bit of both (RM, which uses a "concussion hit" conferring body development skilll to measure fatigue and blood loss, but overlays that with a system of wounds-as-debuffs which are the real threat to most combatants);
  
  
• Adopt a simulationist system of PC advancement (Traveller basically has none, taking the view that people don't change much once they have the bulk of their career behind them; RQ has its famous "roll under after using" mechanic; RM uses XP and levels, but its criteria for XP award are clearly meant to be simulationinst, taking the view that "hard training in-the-field" is how you get better at things like fighting and spell casting).

The people who designed and played these systems - and they're not a small number of RPGers - weren't misreading D&D, or confused about it's mechanics. They wanted less metagame and more "character's perspective and abilities". That makes these games more process-simulationist, and less metagame-y, than any edition of D&D has ever been. (Despite it's reputation for process-sim, 3E is far more metagame-y than RQ or even RM.) It doesn't make them purer examples of RPGs, though. It's not as if D&D was trying to do this thing, but failed because it had too much metagame. D&D wasn't setting out to be a process-sim game. (There's also the point, made upthread by Doug McCrae at post 21, that in Gygaxian D&D the players routinely used out-of-character knowledge. Players were expected to read the MM, for instance, though I think many tables regarded it as bad form to actually consult the book during play!)

Which is to say, RPGing isn't fundamentally about one very narrow conception of what it is to "play a character".

 

[pemerton]

if every encounter must be played out as a combat slog, then why be surprised that players gravitate to abilities that cut those slogs short? It seems like half your comments above gripe about combat taking too long and the rest are complaints about things that shorten them.

I want to turn this around: if your group experiences combat encounters as "slogs", and wants to reframe them as chicken-herding episodes, what is your GM doing framing combats rather than something more interesting to the group? And why is the group using a system (ie D&D) which emphasises combat as the primary site of conflict resolution?

Those questions are partly rhetorical, but only partly. Treated as non-rhetorical, here is my conjectured answer: a group of players - a fairly large group, in my impression - want some minimal approximation to process sim in their rules, such that a BW or HW/Q style "simple resolution" and "complex resolution" system would be dismissed out-of-hand. Therefore, all resolution has to be what would, in those games, be "complex resolution" (ie a potential slog). This same group of players also wants combat, though, because of its importance to fantasy tropes. But then to avoid the "slog" they need to be able to frame away those combats quickly. But they can't have fighters doing that due to the process-sim constraint (heroic fray rules as an exception applicable only to a minority of combats, at least traditionally). Therefore they give wizards the relevant abilities, because polymorph, sleep, transmute rock to mud, etc can all be accomodated within the process sim constraint once they are framed as magic. Therefore we get threads like this one.

The positive flipside of the previous paragraph's critique is this: if you want combat in your game for theme/trope reasons, but don't want to have to resolve it via the "real" action resolution mechanics, then - assuming you want parity of narrative control across players of different archetypes - you need to give players of fighters a "simple resolution" option comparable to the wizard's spells.

You can try and fudge this by burying it inside the complex resolution mechanics - this is what 3E might do in some cases (with the aforementioned charge, cleave, great cleave option), and what D&Dnext is trying to do with bounded accuracy and its low-hp humanoids. But I think it's better design, and less likely to break down under pressure, to tackle the design issue head on and be upfront about what you're trying to achieve.

Diplomacy shouldn't work against people who don't want to talk to you. It isn't magic. No matter what you say, orcs aren't going to stop hurting you because you yell out some words.

<snip>

yelling out something in 6 seconds that makes enemies stop attacking you is unlikely at best.

HeroWars/Quest and Burning Wheel both have rules to the effect of "once violence breaks out words are futile": in BW it takes the form of saying that "I plead with her" does not contradict a declaration of "I lop of his head", and hence both actions take effect without the need for dice rolls (ie he is decapitated as he pleads with her for his life). Marvel Heroic RP, on the other hand, seems quite happy to have words put forward in reaction to violence, and vice versa. And 4e allows that social skills can be used in combat to inflict hit point damage via morale loss. (The early 4e Dungeon adventure Heathen had a less-developed version of this option, but it is better developed in the module Cairn of the Winter King.)

There may be some balance issues here (eg I think some designers are worried that talking is already a pretty versatile skill, and it becomes to good if it can also serve as a parry), but I also think it is to some extent a matter of tone. Burning Wheel is definitely going for a grittier feel than Marvel Heroic RP!

 

[chaochou]

To me, you have to describe your actions. MMORPG mechanics circumvent all of that. Is truly an endless cycle - the player wants more narrative options, which is not attainable through mechanics.

What say you?

Through Death's Eyes (Fighter)
When you go into battle, roll + WIS. On a 10+ name someone who will live and someone who will die. On a 7-9 name someone who will live or someone who will die. Name only NPCs, not player characters. The GM will make it happen if even remotely possible. On a 6- you forsee your own death and take -1 ongoing for the battle.

Wealth and Taste (Thief)
When you make a show of flashing around your most valuable possession, choose someone present. They will do anything they can to obtain your item or one like it.

Two examples which support both the player describing their actions and mechanics which provide narrative options.

 

[Ahnehnois]

In my view a good RPG will create mechanical incentives to relieve the pressure on the players to maintain their "genre blindness".

In my view, a good rpg won't need to do that, because its basic mechanics don't create that pressure in the first place.

For the same reason that James Bond takes cover from gunfire even though we, the audience, know that he is in no danger of dying. It's a genre conceit.

A conceit indeed. Problem is, it's much harder to get away with that stuff in an interactive game than in a movie. In an rpg, if the enemies never seemed to kill you, players would continue to push the threshold of risks, up to the point of standing in front of enemies daring them to hit (or jumping off cliffs or whatever). Simulationist mechanics like hp don't serve that style well; I think you'd agree that a very abstract system that doesn't even allow the character to be shot and die in the first place would work better.

4e, which does use a "bucket of hit points" system, tries to deal with the issue at the level of encounter design instead.

If the rules are such that they only work when encounters are designed to place specific pressures on characters, they don't really work.

This is the analgoue of rules on conflict-framing in games like HeroWars/Quest and Marvel Heroic RP: that is, before the action resolution rules are engaged (in this case, the use of a power) everyone at the table (with the GM having the loudest voice) has to be agreed that the framing of the situation makes sense in terms of genre, shared expectations for play, etc.

So, instead of reading the rules literally, we should just do whatever we can mutually agree makes sense. Hooray! All our rpg problems are solved! All rulesets now work perfectly!

I think it's pretty reasonable to say that having your fighter PC jump over a cliff "just because" is likewise failing the minimum threshold on acceptable framing sufficient to engage the action resolution mecahnics.

Some people would call that "DM fiat" or complain about having to ask "Mother may I [jump off that cliff and use my hp reserves to survive]?".

They wanted less metagame and more "character's perspective and abilities". That makes these games more process-simulationist, and less metagame-y, than any edition of D&D has ever been.

Again, there's a spectrum. Up until 4e, it seems that D&D was gradually moving along in the direction away from metagame elements. And while it was never 100% "in-character", it was never 100% metagame either. It's floating around on that spectrum somewhere.

Which is to say, RPGing isn't fundamentally about one very narrow conception of what it is to "play a character".

It isn't fundamentally about any one thing. It's a diverse hobby.

So here's my point. Start with a hypothetical system where absolutely every mechanic is in-character, nothing metagame (yes, I'm aware D&D is not that far down the continuum). Every metagame element you add brings something new, but it also takes something away. If you give him a rage ability once per day, he's gained a bit of mechanical nova power, but also lost the ability to naturally play the emotional state of his character. If you give him the ability to insert an object into the narrative, the player has gained power, but has lost the sense of urgency in looking for said object and the need to improvise if it isn't there. Every metagame addition gives the player more ability to impact the narrative, but takes him one step away from playing his character.

So I ask, why go the metagame route, when there's clearly a number of 100% non-metagame ways of revising rules elements to accomplish the same goal (i.e. giving a nonmagical character opportunities to do something that changes the flow of the game)?

 

[pemerton]

If the rules are such that they only work when encounters are designed to place specific pressures on characters, they don't really work.

I don't agree with this at all. The rules aren't contextless. They are for something. The test is whether they succeed at that something.

The encounter design guidelines of the game are a key part of that. (For instance, classic D&D rules tend to break down once you leave the dungeoneering environment. Apart from anything else, there's not much non-dungeoneering action resolution.)

So, instead of reading the rules literally, we should just do whatever we can mutually agree makes sense. Hooray! All our rpg problems are solved! All rulesets now work perfectly!

Some people would call that "DM fiat" or complain about having to ask "Mother may I [jump off that cliff and use my hp reserves to survive]?".

Two things. First, I talke about a table consensus on genre (with the GM having the lead). That is not the same as GM fiat.

Second, not all rulesets will work with a "credibility constraint" on scene-framing. For example, that sort of notion has no work to do in Runequest or Traveller. But it is pretty important to a whole range of resolution systems, including the ones I mentioned, plus 4e skill challenges.

For instance - can a high level fighter use an Endurance check to withstand shoving his hand into a super-hot forge in which an artefact is being reforged? In my game, the answer was yes. At other tables, the answer might be no. Deciding what sort of tone you're going for, and what the parameters of that are, are part of playing a game in which narrative control is (i) shared, and (ii) not predetermined by the mechanics. And that's actually a fairly large swathe of RPG play.

Up until 4e, it seems that D&D was gradually moving along in the direction away from metagame elements.

I don't see any evidence of that in the OD&D > AD&D transition. And the only evidence in the Gygax AD&D > 2nd ed AD&D transition that comes to mind is the change in the XP rules. Hit points and saving throws didn't change. Nor did the action economy.

Start with a hypothetical system where absolutely every mechanic is in-character, nothing metagame (yes, I'm aware D&D is not that far down the continuum). Every metagame element you add brings something new, but it also takes something away. If you give him a rage ability once per day, he's gained a bit of mechanical nova power, but also lost the ability to naturally play the emotional state of his character. If you give him the ability to insert an object into the narrative, the player has gained power, but has lost the sense of urgency in looking for said object and the need to improvise if it isn't there. Every metagame addition gives the player more ability to impact the narrative, but takes him one step away from playing his character.

My point is that I don't concede your last sentence. "Playing one's character"can have a range of meanings in an RPG, of which hardcore actor stance with no metagame mechanics is only one version.

Of the systems I know, the only one that really gets close to that ideal at the mechanical level is Basic RP (CoC, RQ etc). Of course, in actual play CoC is chock full of metagaming, such as the players having their PCs undertake madcap investigations that no sane person would; but there is no mechanical expression of this author-stance play.

So I ask, why go the metagame route, when there's clearly a number of 100% non-metagame ways of revising rules elements to accomplish the same goal (i.e. giving a nonmagical character opportunities to do something that changes the flow of the game)?

Because it makes the game better? (For me? For others too?)

As is often the case, I find myself wondering why you don't play one of the dozens (hundreds?) of excellent process sim games out there. Given that (from your posts) you seem to play D&D mostly below double-digit levels, I think Runequest would probably be a pretty reasonable fit. I don't know GURPS so well, but from what I do know it might also be a good fit. Why stick with a game that either has to be interpreted as metagame heavy in its combat mechanics (D&D hp) or else leads to absurd fiction in which the protagonists are nothing like the humans they are superficially depicted as (every person walking around with a bucketful of hit points and an internal hit point meter)?

I know you use VP/WP, but do you use dismemberment rules? If not, do the characters in your gameworld ever wonder to themselves why, in all these many swordfights that have taken place, no one ever had a hand or arm severed? An eye poked out? Some other cause to use the Regeneration spell? (Unless a vorpal sword or sword of sharpness - two of the most powerful magic weapons known to mortals - is in use. And even then no one is ever blinded.)

How many bard PCs have lost fingers in sword fights and therefore found themselves unable to play the lute anymore?

However one handles such oddities - and genre blindness is the default mode, in my experience - those of us who treat hp as predominantly metagame, or who use encounter powers, are doing the same thing. At least in my case, I assume that the combat rules aren't the be all and end all of what can happen in the world - some NPCs somewhere have been blinded by a blade, just not on screen very often - but rather the action resolution rules set the parameters of what will happen to the PCs when their players engage the fiction via those rules. The rules set limits on the fiction to be narrated when the PCs are on stage, not limits on the causal capacities of entities within the gameworld.

As soon as a PC bard can charge into battle without worrying about the risk of losing a finger (let alone more serious, and less class-specific, risks like dying of infections from wounds suffered), the equivalence between player and PC has been lost. But playing one's character needn't be confined to that equivalence. For at least some players, including many of those I've played with, "playing one's character" is as much about authorship as inhabitation. It's about presenting one's PC in a certain light at the table, and then pushing hard with that character and finding out what happens. Metagame mechanics are no special obstacle to that, and good ones can facilitate it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The encounter design guidelines of the game are a key part of that. (For instance, classic D&D rules tend to break down once you leave the dungeoneering environment. Apart from anything else, there's not much non-dungeoneering action resolution.)

Not all rpgs have encounter design guidelines at all. I find the whole concept quite extraneous. I do believe that "classic" D&D falls apart when its used outside of its intended context, which is why newer versions aren't so narrowly focused.

Two things. First, I talke about a table consensus on genre (with the GM having the lead). That is not the same as GM fiat.

Potato, potahto, AFAICT.

You're talking about a situation where the rules of the game should be used only to create the play experience people at the table want. This is exactly the argument I use to justify certain abusable 3e spells and other elements as being reasonable, and "GM fiat" and "Mother May I" are invariably hurled back as part of argument about 4e's "balance" fixing things so that this kind of consensus is no longer needed (because it was apparently a bad thing).

In other words, I say a player can creatively use a polymorph spell to his benefit, but if he starts changing into a giant squid every time for the ten attacks, we might have to have a talk. You say a player can survive brutal challenges due to high hp, but if he starts jumping off cliffs just to see what happens, you'll have to have a talk. This is the exact same thing, whether you call it "GM fiat" or not.

Of the systems I know, the only one that really gets close to that ideal at the mechanical level is Basic RP (CoC, RQ etc).

I'd call that a good example, yes.

Of course, in actual play CoC is chock full of metagaming, such as the players having their PCs undertake madcap investigations that no sane person would; but there is no mechanical expression of this author-stance play.

Don't know why anyone would play CoC that way; for me the absence of that kind of behavior is one of its strengths. I'm currently playing a CoC character, and for me the ability to look at the game strictly from his perspective is a rather enjoyable contrast to my usual DM responsibilities.

Because it makes the game better? (For me? For others too?)

I'd say not better, but different. Better for some purposes, worse for others.

As is often the case, I find myself wondering why you don't play one of the dozens (hundreds?) of excellent process sim games out there.

Because I was introduced to D&D, have a bunch of D&D books, and a very workable set of houserules. Because D&D (at least, in its best iteration) is available for free while any other rpg likely costs me money. Because D&D is easy to work with, especially for those of us who learned on it.

I know you use VP/WP, but do you use dismemberment rules? If not, do the characters in your gameworld ever wonder to themselves why, in all these many swordfights that have taken place, no one ever had a hand or arm severed?

When playing CoC or BSG, I do use an injury ruleset that allows those kinds of possibilities. I imagine D&D characters do wonder why their wounds aren't more tangible. That's a (fixable, if imbedded) flaw in the system, in my view. If I ever successfully implement injuries in D&D, I guarantee you'll read about it on these boards.

The rules set limits on the fiction to be narrated when the PCs are on stage, not limits on the causal capacities of entities within the gameworld.

D&D seems astonishingly ill-suited to that kind of approach. Given your opinions on "indie rpgs" I find myself wondering why you don't just play MHRP or some other game that isn't bogged down with all the sim-elements of D&D.

For at least some players, including many of those I've played with, "playing one's character" is as much about authorship as inhabitation.

That's fine. I'm merely asserting that inhabitation has value, and some people like that as well.

IME, one of the main themes of my gaming experience has been the DM's (usually me) desire to increase the narrative responsibilities of the players and play looser with the meaning of the rules against the players' desire for a more strict in-character stance and more realistic simulation of cause and effect in the rules.