Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 6239891" data-attributes="member: 3192">As I understand it, D&D uses 2 methods for players to achieve game objectives. - 1 is maze navigation, which is entirely a test of player skill (though "character skill" or ability affects maze accessibility, at the most basic think: sight and hearing). - 2 is variable chance rolls, the odds of which are determined by the situation as well as character ability. Player ability doesn't come into the second method unless you engage in cheat-rolling, but of course your previous navigation alters your odds too.The combat system uses both actions and dice rolling to enable plenty of player challenge and yet account for character ability ratings. It also defines all the pertinent game area within which the combat occurs. Still more mazes and probabilities. Conversation with game constructs in D&D can do this too. Who your character is usually determines some of how other characters treat him or her. How you as a player navigate a conversation affects your outcomes. Character ability in part affects what is open to you as well as die roll odds. It's similar to combat, but without the need for drawing a grid map (IME anyways). The fine detail of spatial positioning isn't needed, but conversational positioning is definitely in play. You might think, "I don't need a map to talk with others", but you already are using them: mental concepts and the languages used to express them. Without some common understanding with another it is very difficult to communicate with them. This all stretches further than a simple chat of course, but the game begins with common player concepts just as combat does. Your character has arms, legs, hands, a body mostly like yours, and an ease of expressing how you use it. Talking with an NPC presumes a degree of abstracted shared language and set of concepts as well, which work within the symbol set comprising the minds of NPCs in your game. The trick is determining what you want to include to cover for what goes on in those minds. The easy part is a great deal of what NPCs know and are navigating through themselves arises from their understanding (and misunderstanding) of the world and their past actions therein. If you're running a campaign, that map has already been drawn - which saves us a lot of time from redundant copying.</blockquote>

Verification