D&D General On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game

[jasper]

I don't understand why players in these descriptions don't have a standard process written down and given to the DM.

"What do you do?"

"Door Opening Pattern Alpha, with Mondo on point."

...
"How do you search?

"Search Pattern 2, and..."

"There's a chest in the corner Mary."

"Oh, right. Search Pattern 3, that's the one with the cleric in the hallway in case the object is trapped. Yeah we go with 3."

It's only tedious ONCE.

We did have SOP and they were. Hand written. Then Typed. Then word process and printed on dot matrix. Then Word 97 and printed out. Depending on what year it was. And there were not take backs. So if the Thief on step 5 b Rolled badly and triggered the trap. Then dead thief. But if 5B was not needed the player did not need to roll.

 

[jasper]

Skilled play = system mastery + master of the dm. Oh we playing in oofta dungeon. Fire ball the third room on the second level because it always oil and gasoline trap. Oh Jasper is dming. Every third dragon we meet is going to crazy but nice. Be nice to and let Jasper have fun playing the crazy guy. um Dragon.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

DM mastery is key too. My players know I have a weak spot for stirge swarms, ghouls, and rot grubs.

 

[Voadam]

I think things like the following are fun:

Player "I go up and poke the chest in the otherwise empty room with my spear because its probably a mimic. If its not I will check the chest carefully for traps before opening it."

DM "OK, when you go up you trigger the concealed pit in front of the chest."

Ok, think that through. What are they going to do the time after that?

And when the pressure plate in from of the chest triggers the spear trap in the ceiling, what are they going to do after THAT?

All you are doing in that case is starting an arms race. This will result in one of two things; Paranoid timid pixel-bitching players, or (to borrow the apt term above) the Leroy Jenkins Effect. Where players just assume you are going to GOTCHA! them no matter what you do, so fine, just bring it and lets move on.

Skilled play needs to be meaningful; you need to assume at a certain point that they do all the obvious things, and that doing the obvious things works most of the time, and that non-obvious challenges are where you need to test them. And in order to test them, there has to be some element of the environment that you describe that would allow them to make a smart play (or not) or some circumstance that means they CAN'T do the SOP.

Sure it could be me as DM making up the challenge on the spot to gotcha them.

But I've used a lot of modules that have decoy side routes with traps, or defined traps in the vault. I've had players think of one thing but not the actual predefined thing that was there and so it came into play and hit them. I've had a PC in my game charge into a module's predefined hut to get the evil winged trickster faeries roosting in the eves and fall through the branches covering the pit in the hut.

As a PC I've rushed ahead as a fast monk to engage embedded missile fire enemies in a ruined fortress and fallen straight into an illusion covered pit.

I didn't feel that I was screwing over the PC or being screwed over by the DM as a PC, it is a challenge in D&D that hit and was fun. I didn't feel dumb for not perfectly avoiding every trap even though I was actively working to play my smart tactical character smartly, my monk went "Doh! Nice one." got to use his slow fall and then jump up the other side.

Neither my players, nor I started to pixel bitch the dungeons in response.

For my preferences as a player I found it more fun to fall into an illusion covered pit from me taking the bait to engage those well set up enemies rather than from my character failing a roll.

 

[Krachek]

The OP insist on the tactical aspect of DnD, but what if a player make a bold move with role play motivation. The move may be poor tactically but perfectly in line with personality, bond, flaw of the character. Does this move is skilled play?

 

[ph0rk]

The OP insist on the tactical aspect of DnD, but what if a player make a bold move with role play motivation. The move may be poor tactically but perfectly in line with personality, bond, flaw of the character. Does this move is skilled play?

I've rarely seen such a bold move pan out if the player didn't have the charisma to make it entertaining. So, I'd argue that sort of stuff is much more about the personality characteristics of the player than skilled play.

 

[Campbell]

The OP insist on the tactical aspect of DnD, but what if a player make a bold move with role play motivation. The move may be poor tactically but perfectly in line with personality, bond, flaw of the character. Does this move is skilled play?

If skilled play is our primary priority than you just treat it like any other moment and follow the internal logic of the fiction/world. Poor play means poor results.

 

[pemerton]

The OP insist on the tactical aspect of DnD, but what if a player make a bold move with role play motivation. The move may be poor tactically but perfectly in line with personality, bond, flaw of the character. Does this move is skilled play?

Not in the meaning being used in this thread, no.

For a system where the sort of thing you describe works well, you need a decidedly non-old school system. 4e D&D is one. HeroWars/Quest is another.

 

[Krachek]

I've rarely seen such a bold move pan out if the player didn't have the charisma to make it entertaining. So, I'd argue that sort of stuff is much more about the personality characteristics of the player than skilled play.

As we play 5ed our table seem to improve being less cautious, more able to play in character and with the story building. It makes session less boring, more unpredictable.
Otherwise if you play as a military tactical team, as years go by, you learn more and more every little trick, and you steamroll every encounter and challenge.

 

[Krachek]

Not in the meaning being used in this thread, no.

For a system where the sort of thing you describe works well, you need a decidedly non-old school system. 4e D&D is one. HeroWars/Quest is another.

I understand, but for 4ed it was maybe the edition the more focus on success, team work, math optimization.
Encounters were not meant to be stop in the middle, skill challenge interrupt or change meaning. 4ed was really skilled play like the OP describe.