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Players choose what their PCs do . . .
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7634941" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>How do you have a baseline of doing something one way so that you can talk about doing it another way? Take cooking, for instance. If the baseline is using the oven, because that's the most popular, is it worthwhile to have to refer to using an oven every time you want to talk about microwaving? No, you just talk about microwaving and skip referencing everything to the oven because how you do things in the oven is utterly useless when talking about the microwave.</p><p></p><p>Same here. D&D does things one way, with one set of assumptions. If I want to talk about a different way to do things, I'll talk about how that works and what assumptions are in place there. Having to point out every deviation from D&D disrupts this because it's just a long list of what we're not doing to talk about what we are doing.</p><p></p><p>And, frankly, D&D is a lousy baseline. For social challenges, it's literally just "however your DM does it." There's not enough in the rules to do much else, and what's there is endlessly argued over -- just pay attention to the D&D pages here and you'll see argument after argument erupt over how the social mechanics work or even just how the the play loop is adjudicated. D&D is a terrible baseline to use to talk intelligently about how your can do a thing in RPGs. It's the 800-lb gorilla, to be sure, and it's going to be discussed, as it has been, but there's no basis to put it as the baseline except to be comfortable and familiar and not need to engage in how it actually does a pretty bad job at most of what it tries to do.</p><p></p><p>Again, I love D&D, and just finished a great session (almost all social interaction, one 5 minute fight). Now, I used a skill challenge backend to manage the social interactions, and didn't have a predetermined outcome (I surprised myself at one point) for play. I attacked things my players have put up as pressure points for their characters to see how they'd react, but, this being D&D, they had the full freedom to choose their reactions. There were a number of points, though, that I noticed a distinct difference how D&D, that doesn't have a fair way to put characterization at stake, worked vice other games. In one scene, a player that has a backstory as a mind-flayer thrall and has staked his lack of recollection of his past as at risk met with a mind flayer. The mind flayer proposed that what the player thought their memories were are false memories, and that, instead, there's something about the character that caused him to be recruited rather than enslaved. That the character was a dangerous tool that the elder brain thought it could control. Is this true? I don't know, maybe. That really depends on how the player chooses to interact with it. So far, the player has chosen to enter into a temporary agreement for mutual benefit (the mind flayer wishes to disrupt some plans of the player's former masters -- different mind flayer factions at play here), but not to trust the mind flayer. Meanwhile, I've planted seeds of doubt, as what the mind flayer has said may come true. But, again, because D&D, it's the player that will decide if his character is swayed or not.</p><p></p><p>If I were playing a different game, then the stakes of the player's background would have been directly challenged, and, if the player lost, I'd have been able to establish alternate truths that the player would then have to engage with. If the player won, they'd have been able to get their goals, which, in this case, would have been some concessions from the mind flayer for other information, which would have been both useful and beneficial to the player (because you honor successes and don't walk them back with negative outcomes). But, that would have been the player putting things at stake and choosing to risk them on an action declaration, so it would be fair. D&D lacks this ability to use your character itself as a stake to try to win a victory -- in D&D, if it was the baseline, then there'd be no challenge here -- the player couldn't force a concession from the mind flayer by risking their characteriztion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 7634941, member: 16814"] How do you have a baseline of doing something one way so that you can talk about doing it another way? Take cooking, for instance. If the baseline is using the oven, because that's the most popular, is it worthwhile to have to refer to using an oven every time you want to talk about microwaving? No, you just talk about microwaving and skip referencing everything to the oven because how you do things in the oven is utterly useless when talking about the microwave. Same here. D&D does things one way, with one set of assumptions. If I want to talk about a different way to do things, I'll talk about how that works and what assumptions are in place there. Having to point out every deviation from D&D disrupts this because it's just a long list of what we're not doing to talk about what we are doing. And, frankly, D&D is a lousy baseline. For social challenges, it's literally just "however your DM does it." There's not enough in the rules to do much else, and what's there is endlessly argued over -- just pay attention to the D&D pages here and you'll see argument after argument erupt over how the social mechanics work or even just how the the play loop is adjudicated. D&D is a terrible baseline to use to talk intelligently about how your can do a thing in RPGs. It's the 800-lb gorilla, to be sure, and it's going to be discussed, as it has been, but there's no basis to put it as the baseline except to be comfortable and familiar and not need to engage in how it actually does a pretty bad job at most of what it tries to do. Again, I love D&D, and just finished a great session (almost all social interaction, one 5 minute fight). Now, I used a skill challenge backend to manage the social interactions, and didn't have a predetermined outcome (I surprised myself at one point) for play. I attacked things my players have put up as pressure points for their characters to see how they'd react, but, this being D&D, they had the full freedom to choose their reactions. There were a number of points, though, that I noticed a distinct difference how D&D, that doesn't have a fair way to put characterization at stake, worked vice other games. In one scene, a player that has a backstory as a mind-flayer thrall and has staked his lack of recollection of his past as at risk met with a mind flayer. The mind flayer proposed that what the player thought their memories were are false memories, and that, instead, there's something about the character that caused him to be recruited rather than enslaved. That the character was a dangerous tool that the elder brain thought it could control. Is this true? I don't know, maybe. That really depends on how the player chooses to interact with it. So far, the player has chosen to enter into a temporary agreement for mutual benefit (the mind flayer wishes to disrupt some plans of the player's former masters -- different mind flayer factions at play here), but not to trust the mind flayer. Meanwhile, I've planted seeds of doubt, as what the mind flayer has said may come true. But, again, because D&D, it's the player that will decide if his character is swayed or not. If I were playing a different game, then the stakes of the player's background would have been directly challenged, and, if the player lost, I'd have been able to establish alternate truths that the player would then have to engage with. If the player won, they'd have been able to get their goals, which, in this case, would have been some concessions from the mind flayer for other information, which would have been both useful and beneficial to the player (because you honor successes and don't walk them back with negative outcomes). But, that would have been the player putting things at stake and choosing to risk them on an action declaration, so it would be fair. D&D lacks this ability to use your character itself as a stake to try to win a victory -- in D&D, if it was the baseline, then there'd be no challenge here -- the player couldn't force a concession from the mind flayer by risking their characteriztion. [/QUOTE]
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