D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[EzekielRaiden]

What matters to you isn't what matters to others, and vice versa. Just because you value those things and you view those as the only way for characters to change, doesn't mean other do or that there aren't other ways to change the character.

No. The player isn't expected to anything except play the game. They decide if they haggle, where and how often. Not the DM.

That isn't what Lanefan very, very explicitly said in this post (bold added for emphasis):

Thing is, a conflict-neutral or low-no stakes event now may - or may not - have all kinds of consequences down the road. And as you don't know what "down the road" is going to consist of until after you've got there and beyond, I say the default should be to play them out unless the players say not to.

Haggling the merchant down such that with your last few g.p. you can get 6 torches for the usual price of 5 might seem trivial at the time.....until later when having that 6th torch makes all the difference between the party surviving or getting wiped out.

He explicitly said "I say the default should be to play them out unless the players say not to." Hence, every single interaction must be played out, every time, unless the players nix it. Every. Single. Time.

Note, however, that this was in contrast to what I had said, where this was the very first sentence of my post:

The way I've generally gone about it is, if the players really want to make an event out of visiting an ordinary shopkeeper for ordinary purchases, they can, but doing so will almost never add much to the experience beyond....acted-out demonstrations that shopkeepers exist?

In other words, I was completely open and specific--and did not bury the lede in any way--that if it's a player's elective choice, awesome, we'll do it. I may not see the point, but perhaps they do, or perhaps they have a cunning plan, or perhaps they just really like shopkeeper scenes, or whatever else. I was, very specifically, taking the position of "if the players want it, we do it, but I won't make them do it unless they say no." And, as you can see above with the full text of Lanefan's post, that was not the standard described. The standard described was "to play them out unless the players say not to." That standard is what I have been responding to.

Now, just recently, he has apparently changed his tune:

Not quite. More that they CAN go through the haggling process if they want to, and that sometimes (not always) doing so can make a surprising difference down the road.

I think we're closer on this than it seems.

Notice the significant difference here. The original statement was "the default should be to play them out unless the players say not to." Now, it is "they CAN go through the haggling process if they want to". In other words...literally the specific thing I was arguing against...is now apparently the policy he's had the entire time?

Do you not see how this might be just a little frustrating? To be arguing against a position only to have that person then turn around and say oh, actually, I never believed that in the first place, I actually believe the thing you've been arguing for! And then to act like this is a situation where I'm agreeing, when my position hasn't changed!

 

[Maxperson]

The problem, Max, is that this is a situation where the repairman has already screwed up, and now you're left with a broken mess rather than something fixed up and humming along.

How does that change anything? If the repair is inadequate, get a new repair man. If there is no new repairman to be found, you can either learn how to do it yourself, pay the repair man to screw up some more, or fire him and go bowling instead.

Personally, I'm not going to pay a repair man who is inadequate. He's fired.

 

[Lanefan]

You said it was it's implausible that something interesting happens every time we roll the dice. I responded with why in Stonetop, we are only rolling the dice when something interesting is at stake. Thus, something interesting should happen regardless.

Except there's three versions of "something interesting happens":

1. Something interesting happens on failure but not on success (i.e. 'success' maintains the status quo)
2. Something interesting happens on success but not on failure (i.e. 'failure' maintains the status quo)
3. Something interesting happens on success and something else interesting happens on failure.

To me all three of these are worth rolling for, not just the last one.

Does that make more sense? Like, the design of the game itself is to get people to say interesting things such that they trigger the mechanics of the game, so that more interesting things happen.

One thing leads to another, in effect. That said, if it's in the characters' best interests that the players say less interesting things for a bit to reduce the danger, it would seem to make sense to do that....wouldn't it?

 

[Maxperson]

That isn't what Lanefan very, very explicitly said in this post (bold added for emphasis):

He explicitly said "I say the default should be to play them out unless the players say not to." Hence, every single interaction must be played out, every time, unless the players nix it. Every. Single. Time.

That doesn't at all mean haggling happens unless the players say otherwise. In fact, it means the exact opposite of that. The merchant gives the price. He is not now going to start haggling himself down or try haggling the players up. If the players decide to pay the price, no haggling ever happened.

The players 100% dictate whether haggling happens when they try to purchase things.

Note, however, that this was in contrast to what I had said, where this was the very first sentence of my post:

In other words, I was completely open and specific--and did not bury the lede in any way--that if it's a player's elective choice, awesome, we'll do it. I may not see the point, but perhaps they do, or perhaps they have a cunning plan, or perhaps they just really like shopkeeper scenes, or whatever else. I was, very specifically, taking the position of "if the players want it, we do it, but I won't make them do it unless they say no." And, as you can see above with the full text of Lanefan's post, that was not the standard described. The standard described was "to play them out unless the players say not to." That standard is what I have been responding to.

Now, just recently, he has apparently changed his tune:

Notice the significant difference here. The original statement was "the default should be to play them out unless the players say not to." Now, it is "they CAN go through the haggling process if they want to". In other words...literally the specific thing I was arguing against...is now apparently the policy he's had the entire time?

Do you not see how this might be just a little frustrating? To be arguing against a position only to have that person then turn around and say oh, actually, I never believed that in the first place, I actually believe the thing you've been arguing for! And then to act like this is a situation where I'm agreeing, when my position hasn't changed!

The point @Lanefan was trying to make is that going to the merchant isn't, "but doing so will almost never add much to the experience beyond....acted-out demonstrations that shopkeepers exist?" In my game it frequently does more.

They often fish for information that the merchant might have about things they are interested in. They cultivate relationships, which have earned discounts, had merchants cover for them in certain situations, earned trust such that the merchant got them into a place that they couldn't get into themselves, and more.

Even if those were rare occurrences, they still matter greatly when they do come up. Not playing it out deprives the players and the game of great moments which will never occur if you skip playing it out.

Unless the players tell me something to the effect of, "We just want to get X items. How much will that cost us?" indicating to me that they don't want to play it out, we will play it out. It's really easy for them to say they want to fast forward through the buying. Nothing is being forced on them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Given that "the world" in this context is authored by the GM, I read this as a description of GM-driven play.

Well, we can't have even a whiff of that, can we?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That doesn't at all mean haggling happens unless the players say otherwise. In fact, it means the exact opposite of that. The merchant gives the price. He is not now going to start haggling himself down or try haggling the players up. If the players decide to pay the price, no haggling ever happened.

The players 100% dictate whether haggling happens when they try to purchase things.

The point @Lanefan was trying to make is that going to the merchant isn't, "but doing so will almost never add much to the experience beyond....acted-out demonstrations that shopkeepers exist?" In my game it frequently does more.

They often fish for information that the merchant might have about things they are interested in. They cultivate relationships, which have earned discounts, had merchants cover for them in certain situations, earned trust such that the merchant got them into a place that they couldn't get into themselves, and more.

Even if those were rare occurrences, they still matter greatly when they do come up. Not playing it out deprives the players and the game of great moments which will never occur if you skip playing it out.

Unless the players tell me something to the effect of, "We just want to get X items. How much will that cost us?" indicating to me that they don't want to play it out, we will play it out. It's really easy for them to say they want to fast forward through the buying. Nothing is being forced on them.

How is there any other interpretation of the statement, "I say the default should be to play them out unless the players say not to", other than we play out all the scenes unless the players say not to?

For goodness' sake, this is literally the actual words that were said. There is no crazy interpretation here. There is no deeper meaning to invoke.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then that's not a game where progression is locked behind a single roll.

We've been told such a game can't happen.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You keep repeating this phrase as if it's a bad thing.

It isn't.

No game is entirely GM or player driven. Teamwork makes the dream work.

 

[FrogReaver]

Now, obviously, that's drifting 5e away from the sort of "resolve a task" core design and isn't to everybody's taste - by far. I just don't see "plausibility" as entering the conversation, so much as "I don't vibe with that."

IMO. Generally people have a reason for why something doesn’t vibe for them. I don’t think reducing the conversation to simply ‘I don’t like that’ and ‘I like that’ is even a conversation worth having.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That’s all fine. My point is not that anyone has to like this approach… it was that your characterization of it was inaccurate. There’s no reason that a fail forward approach must include things that make sense.

Maybe, but I really think it should. I don't want results that don't make sense.