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

[TwoSix]

As I've said repeatedly, it's because something happens that's completely unrelated to what the action declared was. Add in that there's nothing the players can do do prevent this ahead of time. It's fine if it works for other games but just like I'm not going to ask if I land on Free Parking when playing D&D, I don't see the same process working for D&D. Sometimes there could easily be a negative consequence because you fail a stealth check and get noticed by the guards, fail an athletics check you fall and take damage, fail and animal handling and the dog becomes aggressive. Those things make sense to me but there's also no "success", just a "cost".

I've played D&D like this for over a decade, so....

 

[AlViking]

I've played D&D like this for over a decade, so....

Do you have a point? Other than to say that if I wasn't such a stick-in-the-mud-neanderthal that I'd like it just because you do?

 

[FrogReaver]

Right. There’s major resistance to the idea that a success or failure on a lockpicking check can determine whether the cook is there.

A large part of that is associating the characters lockpicking skill with his ability to pick locks. As opposed to lockpicking skill being ability to pick locks while avoiding unrelated to picking-a-lock complications.

I hate quoting myself, but I posit that while D&D players are generally okay with wandering monster checks made by the DM, that if wandering monsters were introduced solely and directly in response to a failed lockpicking check they wouldn't like that mechanic either.

 

[TwoSix]

Do you have a point? Other than to say that if I wasn't such a stick-in-the-mud-neanderthal that I'd like it just because you do?

You said "I don't see the same process working for D&D".

Since I've used very similar processes in D&D, my experience is different than yours.

My interest in this thread is what it's always been; to try and understand what motivates different preferences such that I have tools to support a greater variety of players at my tables. That and clarifying jargon and term use that seems muddy or inaccurate.

Your personal preferences are only on my radar because you keep raising the point that I appear to be concerned about them. Let me be 100% transparent; your personal aesthetic desires do not matter to me.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hmm. I think it depends on the content of the table. I'll hazard a thesis--the consequences must be defined far enough in advance that the PCs can take action to credibly avoid them. So if you fill in your table, putting a cook there is ok--but the the players have to still be able to decide to go to the second story. Likewise, if they decide to listen at the door or look for light or smell, it forces a roll on the table and you have to check for the cook.

I'm fine with that being a requirement, but I'll note that it usually isn't a requirement for random encounter tables used traditionally. I had assumed you were fine with traditional random encounter tables, but maybe you don't like them unless they function this way as well?

 

[AlViking]

You said "I don't see the same process working for D&D".

Since I've used very similar processes in D&D, my experience is different than yours.

My interest in this thread is what it's always been; to try and understand what motivates different preferences such that I have tools to support a greater variety of players at my tables. That and clarifying jargon and term use that seems muddy or inaccurate.

Your personal preferences are only on my radar because you keep raising the point that I appear to be concerned about them. Let me be 100% transparent; your personal aesthetic desires do not matter to me.

I don't see the same process working for D&D for me.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm fine with that being a requirement, but I'll note that it usually isn't a requirement for random encounter tables used traditionally. I had assumed you were fine with traditional random encounter tables, but maybe you don't like them unless they function this way as well?

I mean, it makes sense since classic/trad play is generally oriented around negating or evading obstacles through specific action declaration.

 

[FrogReaver]

I mean, it makes sense since classic/trad play is generally oriented around negating or evading obstacles through specific action declaration.

IMO. Generally the Random Encounter is treated more as the consequence in traditional play than a situation the players are to avoid after it's been rolled for. They might do things to avoid it being rolled for (but those things usually have their own consequences as well), like exerting themselves to travel through this dangerous place faster. Stuff like that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I hate quoting myself, but I posit that while D&D players are generally okay with wandering monster checks made by the DM that if wandering monsters were introduced solely and directly in response to a failed lockpicking check they wouldn't like that mechanic either.

The problem is that "solely" is doing some heavy lifting there. I know people who play 5e and PF2e regularly who wouldn't find an encounter triggered by a lockpicking failure at all an issue if it was framed properly. That's a place where this sometimes bogs down; it takes a particularly strong simulation focus to have these things operate completely independently; otherwise the easy thing is just go "Okay, we've already decided that this lockpicking attempt is going to matter in some way; the question is, why does the failure matter?" If the answer is "because it wastes time", why does the time expenditure matter? In what way is it a negative outcome? Traditionally one of the things that would have made such things relevant was triggering random encounter rolls.

I don't think cutting out the middle-man and just having the failure serve as the check for that too would automatically bother everyone who primarily plays D&D either. It might bother them if that always happened, but then, it doesn't need to; sometimes maybe the guard shows up, sometimes the ritual you wanted to stop gets farther along, sometimes you partially jam the lock and now its harder to do it at all.

Its an issue of making sure that the failure consequence fits the situation rather than just doing whatever's easy.

(Note, this does not counter my observation about people disliking there being an automatic consequence at all, but those people wouldn't like the old checking-for-random-encounters because of taking the time either).

 

[TwoSix]

IMO. Generally the Random Encounter is treated more as the consequence in traditional play than a situation the players are to avoid.

Going back to OD&D or Basic, a lot of dungeon play is oriented around minimizing time spent in the dungeon, such that wandering encounter checks are minimized (which I would characterize as "avoiding" or "negating".)

For more trad/sim play, I feel like a lot of Random Encounters are there to promote the "living world" feel. There are definitely aspects of "consequence" depending on player actions, but my gut feeling is the major point is to provide setting texture.