Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon 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 Next
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
*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!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
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
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Perception, Passive Perception, and Investigation
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="clearstream" data-source="post: 8205867" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>It's not so much that the technique is inobvious, but I have other motives, and am concerned for relevance.</p><p></p><p>So far as motives go, I am not aiming to fail-forward. I'm happy to fail-think-of-another-approach, or fail-the-BBEG-wins-and-this-is-your-world-now. Fail-forward seems to imply that the characters must progress down the planned path. I'm not aiming for that.</p><p></p><p>Relevance is trickier. Our game system contains declarations of relevance, for example Strength (Athletics) is relevant to perpendicular climbs. What if I characterise a perpendicular obstacle as an ascent? I think we still say Strength (Athletics) is relevant because in language ascent might be a synonym of climb. We recently had a lengthy debate on what a Strength (Athletics) check would be relevant to, so evidently views can differ around the edges. But this is the set up - skill X is declared to be relevant to descriptions Y.</p><p></p><p>What about the consequence of the check? Is Strength (Athletics) relevant to "take 8d6 bludgeoning damage"? Relevance here is threaded through the falling mechanics. Is Strength (Athletics) relevant to "creatures notice you"? Again, around the edges, views are going to differ. One way of assessing relevance could be simply, the count of players who, once in possession of a rule and a description, believe that rule should give them leverage over that description. Leverage here means something like, ability to modify the narrative - to decide stochastically how it turns out. On that grounds, my premise is that many players (myself included) expect Strength (Athletics) to give them leverage in connection with a described perpendicular obstacle, and expect bludgeoning damage as a relevant consequence of failure in a describe ascent.</p><p></p><p>In fact your chain of skill checks might meet relevance quite well, without being justified on grounds of needing to fail forward for groups who aren't concerned to fail forward.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8205867, member: 71699"] It's not so much that the technique is inobvious, but I have other motives, and am concerned for relevance. So far as motives go, I am not aiming to fail-forward. I'm happy to fail-think-of-another-approach, or fail-the-BBEG-wins-and-this-is-your-world-now. Fail-forward seems to imply that the characters must progress down the planned path. I'm not aiming for that. Relevance is trickier. Our game system contains declarations of relevance, for example Strength (Athletics) is relevant to perpendicular climbs. What if I characterise a perpendicular obstacle as an ascent? I think we still say Strength (Athletics) is relevant because in language ascent might be a synonym of climb. We recently had a lengthy debate on what a Strength (Athletics) check would be relevant to, so evidently views can differ around the edges. But this is the set up - skill X is declared to be relevant to descriptions Y. What about the consequence of the check? Is Strength (Athletics) relevant to "take 8d6 bludgeoning damage"? Relevance here is threaded through the falling mechanics. Is Strength (Athletics) relevant to "creatures notice you"? Again, around the edges, views are going to differ. One way of assessing relevance could be simply, the count of players who, once in possession of a rule and a description, believe that rule should give them leverage over that description. Leverage here means something like, ability to modify the narrative - to decide stochastically how it turns out. On that grounds, my premise is that many players (myself included) expect Strength (Athletics) to give them leverage in connection with a described perpendicular obstacle, and expect bludgeoning damage as a relevant consequence of failure in a describe ascent. In fact your chain of skill checks might meet relevance quite well, without being justified on grounds of needing to fail forward for groups who aren't concerned to fail forward. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Perception, Passive Perception, and Investigation
Top