Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
New Legends & Lore: Player vs. Character
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Nightson" data-source="post: 5672496" data-attributes="member: 61515"><p>Generally I'd say it comes down to two factors. Ability to model the action and directly conflicting actors. </p><p></p><p>When talking to NPCs we can model the game very closely in real life. Characters say things, NPCs say things, if you had players capable of being 100% in character and a DM 100% in the NPC character then you'd be able to model it perfectly. Obviously those percentages are not at 100% but I haven't found it too hard to get high enough to be believable. </p><p></p><p>What follows is my personal experience and I don't claim it holds for everybody. When you toss skill checks into social situations I find you run into both ridiculous situations and a lack of connection to NPCs. You propose some sort of favorable plan to an NPC, but oh you rolled a 1 on your diplomacy check, so I guess you messed it up somehow, or the NPC is crazy and hates you for no apparent reason. You ask the NPC for every last penny and roll a natural twenty so they hand it over. It lessens the feeling that you're interacting with real people.</p><p></p><p>But when you have something like combat, you can't model it closely enough to have a fair deterministic system, it's a chaotic mess of stuff happening, and further it's a place where people take opposing actions. The orc tries to hit my character with his axe and I try to dodge out of the way. Now, in real life, this would be determined my muscles, speed, angles of attack, reaction times, etc. etc. Instead of trying to model all of that, we use a simplified and abstract system that has things like strength and dexterity. Because most people are far less familiar with dodging orcish axes then they are with talking to people, the flaws of the simplified system compared to a real model are less apparent.</p><p></p><p>Exploring the environment falls in between both things, it's much easier to construct a mental shared model, but it's harder to do so then talking with NPCs and you occasionally run into direct conflict, if one person tries to disguise tracks as best as he can and another person is trying to follow those tracks for instance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nightson, post: 5672496, member: 61515"] Generally I'd say it comes down to two factors. Ability to model the action and directly conflicting actors. When talking to NPCs we can model the game very closely in real life. Characters say things, NPCs say things, if you had players capable of being 100% in character and a DM 100% in the NPC character then you'd be able to model it perfectly. Obviously those percentages are not at 100% but I haven't found it too hard to get high enough to be believable. What follows is my personal experience and I don't claim it holds for everybody. When you toss skill checks into social situations I find you run into both ridiculous situations and a lack of connection to NPCs. You propose some sort of favorable plan to an NPC, but oh you rolled a 1 on your diplomacy check, so I guess you messed it up somehow, or the NPC is crazy and hates you for no apparent reason. You ask the NPC for every last penny and roll a natural twenty so they hand it over. It lessens the feeling that you're interacting with real people. But when you have something like combat, you can't model it closely enough to have a fair deterministic system, it's a chaotic mess of stuff happening, and further it's a place where people take opposing actions. The orc tries to hit my character with his axe and I try to dodge out of the way. Now, in real life, this would be determined my muscles, speed, angles of attack, reaction times, etc. etc. Instead of trying to model all of that, we use a simplified and abstract system that has things like strength and dexterity. Because most people are far less familiar with dodging orcish axes then they are with talking to people, the flaws of the simplified system compared to a real model are less apparent. Exploring the environment falls in between both things, it's much easier to construct a mental shared model, but it's harder to do so then talking with NPCs and you occasionally run into direct conflict, if one person tries to disguise tracks as best as he can and another person is trying to follow those tracks for instance. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
New Legends & Lore: Player vs. Character
Top