D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[hawkeyefan]

Which of the 2014 background features even mention a skill check? Oh yea... seem to remember an almost 200 page thread where you yourself were rather outraged that rustic hospitality was even capable of not delivering your group a full night's rest in town while the local Duke's guards were hunting for you..

I’m not saying that the background features call for skill checks. I’m saying that the things they accomplish are typically accomplished by skill checks, not high level magic as you said, with whatever weird homebrew spell that you linked to.

These are not earth-shattering abilities we’re talking about. They’re ways for the PCs to interact with the setting. They’re not ways for people to win the D&D forever.

not quite, but I get where you are coming from with that. I am fine with the PCs being the heroes of the story and obviously they are, but they are not special within the setting, there is nothing that distinguishes the cobbler from the PC in the setting, other than one of the two decided to leave their boring job behind

Well, except the PCs toss around fireballs, shrug off giant club hits from frost giants, and kill dragons.

But other than all that… yeah, same as a cobbler.

no, it is because the player decided to start out as a blacksmith not as a cobbler, other than that there is no in world difference


sure, but just because I am watching an Ironman movie does not mean that Spiderman is not doing anything off screen at the same time

But who cares if it’s not part of the Iron Man film? If it doesn’t matter to the film, the n it doesn’t matter.

 

[mamba]

Well, except the PCs toss around fireballs, shrug off giant club hits from frost giants, and kill dragons.

But other than all that… yeah, same as a cobbler.

if the cobbler had gone out adventuring, he would be doing that now. There is nothing that says only the PCs can do this, everyone else would fail, so yes, just like him…

But who cares if it’s not part of the Iron Man film? If it doesn’t matter to the film, the n it doesn’t matter.

it does not matter to the film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. You treated it as if it doesn’t exist (and still do)

 

[pemerton]

So do the background features, though.

“I want to seek aid from the local nobility.”

“I’d like to get a message to my contact in Waterdeep. I seek out caravans heading to the west.”

“With the sheriff on our tail, we’re gonna need a place to hide. The commoners love me… I’ll see if any will provide us with a place to hide.”

Then we use the mechanics to determine what happens, and then we narrate accordingly.

Except the mechanics for those things are not within the grasp of the PC

But they are: seeking aid, sending messages, seeking out caravans, seeing if any commoners will provide a place to hide - these are all things a person can do.

in the fiction would not be guarenteed, so IMO the mechanic shouldn't be guaranteed either.

Only if you make assumptions about the fiction that contradict the game rules.

I mean, I can imagine that a spell caster might sneeze when trying to speak the words of a spell, but the rules of 5e D&D mean that this never happens. Likewise, I can imagine the commoners refusing to hide someone, but the rules of the Folk Hero background mean that that never happens.

 

[pemerton]

Seems like a lot of hoops, I tend to prefer "it generally works and if it doesn't - something is REALLY wonky..," so the player actually knows the feature failing is not the norm.

seems more realistic

How long does it take a Criminal character to locate someone locally who will carry their message to their contact? I don't think the rules say, do they? So can't all the "jumping through the hoops" be subsumed as part of the use of the feature? Just like when a player of a wizard/MU says "I scribe a scroll, taking N days/weeks", we don't make the player play though each moment of preparing inks, preparing the writing surface, drawing all the sigils, etc. Those details are all subsumed within the action declaration "I scribe a scroll".

Similarly, "I get a message to my contact" can subsume whatever is involved in seeking out the local caravans or underworld figures or whatever, giving the message to them, etc. It seems to me that part of the point of the background feature is that the player doesn't have to actually play through all this minutia.

 

[pemerton]

You can ignore any issue by pretending no one would ever exploit it, doesn’t mean no one will

Not a priority for some players IME, and assuming that it is in a rulebook would be, in my opinion, a mistake.

The rules can't protect you from bad players

What @soviet said.

 

[pemerton]

There are! So why play D&D if that’s your preference?

Huh? @TwoSix is not the poster advocating departure from the 2014 rules for background features.

 

[pemerton]

Except there are combat rules in virtually every traditional RPG (and many others), and ignoring them seems a little silly to me (especially since they represent the bulk of many rulesets).

Why is ignoring the background rules sensible, but ignoring the combat rules silly? I'm missing the logic here.

 

[pemerton]

So if a player says they want to use a feature when it's nonsensical, they're bad players. But with the exact same situation arises and the DM says that it's nonsensical and that it doesn't work, they're bad DMs.

Huh?

Yes, in my view railroading is bad GMing. And players who ignore their PC's fictional positioning are bad players. I don't know where you think the contradiction lies.

 

[pemerton]

I'm starting to see a distinction here. I play with friends. They're good players who care about the game. I'm a permissive GM that trusts them and likes to roll with their ideas. My games are great.

Other people seem to play with people who don't care about the game, who will knowingly declare nonsensical actions just to get a perceived advantage and will do so repeatedly. The GM in such a game might feel like they have to hang on for dear life, keeping control of the game's integrity against the players, and might well conclude that trusting players doesn't work.

Yeah, I don't know why so many people seem to be RPGing with people who aren't very interested in RPGing.

 

[Bae'zel]

How long does it take a Criminal character to locate someone locally who will carry their message to their contact? I don't think the rules say, do they? So can't all the "jumping through the hoops" be subsumed as part of the use of the feature? Just like when a player of a wizard/MU says "I scribe a scroll, taking N days/weeks", we don't make the player play though each moment of preparing inks, preparing the writing surface, drawing all the sigils, etc. Those details are all subsumed within the action declaration "I scribe a scroll".

Similarly, "I get a message to my contact" can subsume whatever is involved in seeking out the local caravans or underworld figures or whatever, giving the message to them, etc. It seems to me that part of the point of the background feature is that the player doesn't have to actually play through all this minutia.

That is an interesting point.

A lot of people seem to assume that magic is basically “easy” mode to accomplish mundane tasks. In many D&D based systems, anyway. Complete any task without spending a spell slot? You gotta explain how it is done.

What’s weird is how effortless magic has become. I remember game systems where spells also took effort and risk. Sure you could save some time and physical / social effort, but the magic had other costs that were not trivial. Some spells in WFRP required ingredients that were rare or blatantly illegal.

Especially weird in games that seem to express the idea that all the PCs, spellcasters and non-spellcasters, have unique, nearly mythical abilities but some DMs only give magic spells a free pass but “mundane” abilities more scrutiny and required fictional buy-in.

I need to think about this some more.