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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 7293897" data-attributes="member: 6779196"><p>Yes, that was a typo. It should have said rolls. I post from my phone a lot.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Character creation only happens outside the game, so players can consult the DM, the book, or more experienced players for help in understanding how to mechanically express the character they want to play. Have you never walked a new player through character creation before? It’s pretty easy.</p><p></p><p></p><p>No mechanical knowledge necessary for that. You know you made a character who is physically strong. You probably don’t need the DM’s help to know that a high Strength score and proficiency in the Athletics skill would help express that mechanically, but if you do, they’ll help you. Then in-game, describe your character doing things that strong people would do if you want to take advantage of your character being strong. It’s really not difficult.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That was me.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Ok. You’re welcome to run your games in a way that facilitates that. You and I want different things out of our games, there’s nothing wrong with that.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Lack of knowledge of the specific mechanics required to resolve an action is not the same thing as lack of knowledge of your character’s strengths and weaknesses. You don’t have to know the specifics of the uses for Strength vs. Charisma to know that your beefy fighter is going to have better luck trying to scare someone by flexing his muscles than by staring someone down, or that your ruthless assassin who relies more on theatricality and deception than brute force will have an easier time frightening someone with subtlety than direct physical threats.</p><p></p><p></p><p>My players are not “often” surprised by the outcomes of their actions, because they describe their actions and the world responds in internally consistent ways. They can reliably predict what the outcome of an action will be because the <em>first</em> step in resolving any action is that I consider what effect this might have on the world and how likely that is to bring about the desired outcome. The dice come in when it’s not otherwise obvious what the result will be. By simply imagining themselves, or a person like the one they’ve created to roleplay as, in the situation described and considering what they or that character would do, they can get a pretty good idea what the results of their actions will be.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Neat. In my games, roleplay and game are not separate things. It’s a game that you play by imagining yourself as a different person or in a different situation and making decisions as you think you or that other person would in that situation. You know, roleplaying. The mechanics are the way the game resolves the outcomes of your decisions, which means that assessing how these decisions are likely to affect the scenario you imagine yourself in is an essential part of the mechanics. But as a person playing the game, it is not essential for you to understand exactly how those mechanics work. Just like when you’re playing a roleplaying video game like Elder Scrolls or The Witcher, you don’t need to understand the game’s programming to play the game effectively. I know that if I want to be good at using big swords in Skyrim, I should use big swords a lot. I know that without needing to understand the exact calculations the computer is making to figure out how much damage I do to a mudcrab when I swing my big sword at it.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That’s not how I run social interaction scenes <em>at all</em>. Just like with other actions, I consider what the players say and if those things would have a reasonable chance of swaying the NPC’s opinion, a reasonable chance of failing to sway their opinion, and a chance of making that NPC more hostile. I ask the player to make rolls when the NPC’s reaction is uncertain.</p><p> </p><p></p><p>Sure. Different playstyles for different people.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I have no such expectation about players in my games understanding the mechanics of combat. Have you never run for new players before? It’s pretty easy to resolve a combat even with players who aren’t familiar with the rules. If the player describes what their character is doing, I can easily tell them what they need to roll to resolve that action. Players tend to catch on to the rules of combat pretty quickly, mainly because there’s a lot of uncertainty in combat, so the dice get involved a lot, so players who are interested in learning those mechanics can easily figure them out if they pay attention. And players knowing the rules of combat doesn’t get in the way for me, nor does players knowing any of the rules. It just doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.</p><p></p><p>I have a player who has been in my games for years. Still doesn’t know the rules of D&D. Because he has no interest in learning them. And that’s fine! He tells me what kind of character he wants to play, I help him translate that into a character sheet, and for the rest of the game, he tells me what he wants to do, and I tell him what dice to roll. He’s perfectly happy with that arrangement, he gets to imagine himself as a hero in a fantasy world and make decisions like that hero would, and he doesn’t have to get bogged down with a bunch of math he finds boring. I have another player who loves the rules minutia and we talk shop all the time. She enjoys digging deep into the rule books, understanding all the little interactions, building highly optimized characters, and all that stuff. She’s never had a problem in my games either. She knows what the different skills and abilities do, and how to get the results she wants. Player knowledge of the rules doesn’t positively or negatively impact their experience in my games, unless that player tries to use the rules to circumvent roleplaying.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 7293897, member: 6779196"] Yes, that was a typo. It should have said rolls. I post from my phone a lot. Character creation only happens outside the game, so players can consult the DM, the book, or more experienced players for help in understanding how to mechanically express the character they want to play. Have you never walked a new player through character creation before? It’s pretty easy. No mechanical knowledge necessary for that. You know you made a character who is physically strong. You probably don’t need the DM’s help to know that a high Strength score and proficiency in the Athletics skill would help express that mechanically, but if you do, they’ll help you. Then in-game, describe your character doing things that strong people would do if you want to take advantage of your character being strong. It’s really not difficult. That was me. Ok. You’re welcome to run your games in a way that facilitates that. You and I want different things out of our games, there’s nothing wrong with that. Lack of knowledge of the specific mechanics required to resolve an action is not the same thing as lack of knowledge of your character’s strengths and weaknesses. You don’t have to know the specifics of the uses for Strength vs. Charisma to know that your beefy fighter is going to have better luck trying to scare someone by flexing his muscles than by staring someone down, or that your ruthless assassin who relies more on theatricality and deception than brute force will have an easier time frightening someone with subtlety than direct physical threats. My players are not “often” surprised by the outcomes of their actions, because they describe their actions and the world responds in internally consistent ways. They can reliably predict what the outcome of an action will be because the [i]first[/i] step in resolving any action is that I consider what effect this might have on the world and how likely that is to bring about the desired outcome. The dice come in when it’s not otherwise obvious what the result will be. By simply imagining themselves, or a person like the one they’ve created to roleplay as, in the situation described and considering what they or that character would do, they can get a pretty good idea what the results of their actions will be. Neat. In my games, roleplay and game are not separate things. It’s a game that you play by imagining yourself as a different person or in a different situation and making decisions as you think you or that other person would in that situation. You know, roleplaying. The mechanics are the way the game resolves the outcomes of your decisions, which means that assessing how these decisions are likely to affect the scenario you imagine yourself in is an essential part of the mechanics. But as a person playing the game, it is not essential for you to understand exactly how those mechanics work. Just like when you’re playing a roleplaying video game like Elder Scrolls or The Witcher, you don’t need to understand the game’s programming to play the game effectively. I know that if I want to be good at using big swords in Skyrim, I should use big swords a lot. I know that without needing to understand the exact calculations the computer is making to figure out how much damage I do to a mudcrab when I swing my big sword at it. That’s not how I run social interaction scenes [i]at all[/i]. Just like with other actions, I consider what the players say and if those things would have a reasonable chance of swaying the NPC’s opinion, a reasonable chance of failing to sway their opinion, and a chance of making that NPC more hostile. I ask the player to make rolls when the NPC’s reaction is uncertain. Sure. Different playstyles for different people. I have no such expectation about players in my games understanding the mechanics of combat. Have you never run for new players before? It’s pretty easy to resolve a combat even with players who aren’t familiar with the rules. If the player describes what their character is doing, I can easily tell them what they need to roll to resolve that action. Players tend to catch on to the rules of combat pretty quickly, mainly because there’s a lot of uncertainty in combat, so the dice get involved a lot, so players who are interested in learning those mechanics can easily figure them out if they pay attention. And players knowing the rules of combat doesn’t get in the way for me, nor does players knowing any of the rules. It just doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I have a player who has been in my games for years. Still doesn’t know the rules of D&D. Because he has no interest in learning them. And that’s fine! He tells me what kind of character he wants to play, I help him translate that into a character sheet, and for the rest of the game, he tells me what he wants to do, and I tell him what dice to roll. He’s perfectly happy with that arrangement, he gets to imagine himself as a hero in a fantasy world and make decisions like that hero would, and he doesn’t have to get bogged down with a bunch of math he finds boring. I have another player who loves the rules minutia and we talk shop all the time. She enjoys digging deep into the rule books, understanding all the little interactions, building highly optimized characters, and all that stuff. She’s never had a problem in my games either. She knows what the different skills and abilities do, and how to get the results she wants. Player knowledge of the rules doesn’t positively or negatively impact their experience in my games, unless that player tries to use the rules to circumvent roleplaying. [/QUOTE]
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