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

[AnotherGuy]

My initial intuition is that there is little truth to it.
...(snip)...
Just that I don't think "author"/"actor" - or "immersion"/"avatar" - is a very plausible line of demarcation between "trad" and other approaches to RPGing.

I was swaying both ways on this and my thoughts are you are right about this.
If one thinks of Actors and Authors - you can see the late Heath Ledger fully embodying the Joker character in the Dark Knight (pure actor stance), but no one can deny that GRRM is not fully immersed either with his "avatar" characters in his unfinished novel series.

 

[thefutilist]

The commitment to finding ever more absurd reasons to construct a Straw-Fail-Forward and knock it down is remarkable.

For other people, an interesting question somebody else brought to me:

Deep Cut's Threat Roll assumes some degree of success via stated Effect, the roll is now to deal with whatever Threats may arise (unless Failure is explicitly brought to bear).

Is each roll here still conflict resolution? Or is it more abstracted task res a la 5e combat; with the Score Target being the overarching conflict we're resolving?

The definition of conflict resolution has morphed over time. In its original definition, all it means is that you're resolving conflicting priorities between entities. I'm not sure about Deep Cuts but Blades wasn't conflict resolution (look at the resolution trigger), and I'm assuming if Cuts keeps the same trigger then it isn't conflict resolution either.

 

[MrBeens304]

Because you don't have access to it until you open the safe door. Until then unless you can phase your hand through steel, it's not accessible. The only thing that changed with the pick lock roll was that now the lock is open. You have to take another action to gain access to what is inside.

See above. All of those things require additional actions to actually change the scenario. Until then, all that happens is the lock is unlocked. Many times in my game I've seen the players unlock a door or chest, but not open it immediately. They did some other stuff first. In a very few occasions, they never got back to the door and went through it. Other stuff came up. Opening the locks resulted in nothing but an unlocked lock.

It's a real and valid distinction. Tomorrow when you unlock the door to your car, try getting inside without opening the door first. It's not going to work out very well.

So all of this ridiculous back and forth over "consequences" of lock opening is just down to how granular you consider actions need to be.

So in your world, using your car door example, opening a safe would be something like this:

Player: I attempt to pick the lock of the safe
DM: You succeed.
Player:I open the safe door
DM: It opens.
Player: I look inside.
DM: There is an envelope.
Player: I pickup the envelope
DM: It is in your hand
Player: I open the envelope
DM: How do you open the envelope?
Player: OK, I use my dagger like a letter opener
DM: OK, there is now a tear in the top of the envelope
Player: I look in the envelope
DM: There is a piece of paper
Player: I take the paper out....
...... etc

As opposed to:
Player: I attempt to pick the lock of the safe
DM: You succeed. The door swings open, there is an envelope inside
Player: I grab the envelope and look inside
DM: There is a single sheet of paper with a list of names <reads out the names>
....

 

[pemerton]

Yes, well it was a quick example that I thought folks could separate from gameplay and would then easily demonstrate the connections between actions and consequences.

Foolish me! Turns out actions aren’t connected to other things and they happen in isolation!

100% this.

I mean, I've actually missed phone calls because I was fumbling for my keys (or, in more contemporary times, because I'm fumbling for my mobile phone in my backpack). It's a thing. But according to posters in this thread, on those occasions there was no causal connection between (i) my fumbling, which caused the delay in getting to the phone and (ii) the phone ringing out before I could get to it.

The cause of the people dying in the house is the fire. I do not cause someone to die because I failed to prevent their death.

Well, the only reason there would be a causal relationship would be because it is assumed you would have rescued the people who would otherwise burn (if of course saving them is even a possibility). So it seems like the two events are unconnected, or they are connected and you are responsible.

If I had opened the doors, then the people trapped inside could have escaped. That could in English represents a causal relationship.

I regret using the term "causal relationship," as I read it now, but I still think that, in the situation as proposed, the consequence of being unable to pick the lock in the situation is that people inside burn to death and that culpability doesn't line up completely with consequentiality.

As I think you appreciate, this has nothing to do with culpability. I've not said anything about culpability. Nor has @hawkeyefan.

Of course, we can look at laws (like criminal prohibitions on manslaughter/negligent homicide) and see that they depend on causal judgements, in the sense that the negligent act or omission having caused the harm is a necessary condition of criminal liability. Once causation is shown, it is its negligent character (if the negligence is sufficiently outrageous/unreasonable) that is then sufficient to establish liability. (Setting aside further complexities that might arise in unusual cases.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm happy to begin and end with the fiction, but if as a player the game lets me try to establish some of that fiction (that's not yet been established) via action declaration incuding intent, and on a successful roll that fiction becomes established, then why wouldn't I always declare intents that benefit my character and or its goals?

Perhaps you would do that. But that doesn't mean literally any benefit you could phrase in the English language is now open to you!

Why would a player--for example--ever do anything "CvC", as you put it, when doing so is nearly always counterproductive in the long term and at least risking so in the short term? Because it's what would make sense for them.

If your own approach falls prey to the same standard, what does that tell us?

We know the Desert Rose exists because that's been established in the fiction, and we think we know who currently owns/has it.

Sure. That's fine.

What hasn't been established in the fiction is its location.

Correct. Since that has not been established, the player cannot unilaterally will it into existence. It might be the case that the GM frames a scene which reveals its position, generally as the result of a player move of some kind. Or it might be the case that the conversation that is play just naturally results in a slow accumulation of knowledge about where the ruby might be and where it definitely can't be until only one answer makes any sense. That's also a valid path, that doesn't specifically require anyone (GM or player) to declare anything specific. For example, one might overhear a guard saying that their employer doesn't trust the safes anymore, so they hid the ruby elsewhere. That doesn't establish where the ruby is, but it now conclusively establishes that no safe will contain the ruby, no matter where the PC(s) might look. Later, a bribed magician might say they helped furnish various magical means of storage to the possessor, which positively identifies that some kind of magical means were used to secret the ruby way. Finally, the player might hear the possessor curse at being unable to check on the ruby because their basement panic room is warded against planar travel--which, when combined with the other pieces of information, means that it must have been secreted away using Leomund's secret chest or something similar.

Both positive evidence ("it was hidden by magic") and negative evidence ("it was not put in a safe") both help zero in on the final answer. Sometimes, a sufficient mass of positive and negative evidence will leave only one valid answer remaining. Sometimes, an explicit confirmation will do the trick instead, e.g. instead of overhearing that vague comment, they might find a magic laboratory...with luxurious treasure chests and identical matching miniature chests, explicitly calling out Leomund's secret chest as the true answer.

In the total absence of establishing fiction, the player does not get to simply author whatever they like, whenever they like. That's against the rules. What is done must follow from the fiction, not simply invent fiction from whole cloth that happens to be convenient to the player. (At least in PbtA games. I can't speak to other systems, having not played them, but I'm certain they will have analogous requirements.)

It could be in the safe in the wall in the tycoon's house, it could be in the bank down the street, it could be on his yacht in the harbour, it could be in his pocket, or any of a hundred other possible places.

Yep. And as long as that information remains unknown to you, you do not have the ability to just fiat declare "It's here!"

And so if we've managed to break into his house and get to his safe, I can declare "I pick open the safe to find the Desert Rose ruby". Task - pick the safe. Intent - find the ruby.

Nope! That's exactly where you've gone wrong, and where I've repeatedly said you've gone wrong, but you refuse to consider it.

Instead, it is: Task - pick the safe. Intent - steal what is inside. That's a valid and unequivocally well-established intent, and with the paucity of established fiction, as you've explicitly said (the player does not have any particularly good reason to think this specific safe has the ruby), it's just about the only unequivocally well-established intent you can pursue here. But, as always, play is a conversation, so it is possible that the group might agree that other intents are valid, given the situational context (aka "the fiction").

Just as with my other examples: Task - pick the lock. Intent - escape the prison cell I'm in. That's an extremely well-established intent for any situation where you know you're in prison and want to get out! But perhaps you might have other intents, such as "trick the warden into my cell", presumably so you can lock them up like they've locked you up. That might also be warranted, again, if the conversation that is play justifies such an act. (Maybe it's established fiction that this warden is quite cruel and likes to personally torture prisoners--so having the lock picked could let you bum rush the guard.) Or: Task - pick the lock. Intent - begin my heist of this manor-house. As before, an unequivocally well-established intent.

Just because one's intent isn't utterly impossible doesn't mean it's okay. You need more than that. Depending on the exact thing, you might need a lot more than that. With the ruby, you'd need to be pretty much certain that that is, in fact, where the ruby is kept, otherwise you're talking about the player simply willing the world to be whatever it is they'd like it to be at the most convenient time, which is not how these games work. And I know you've been told that, repeatedly, just in this thread alone, not even counting the many previous times.

And if the examples I've seen earlier are correct, a full success (roll of 10+ in some systems) will give me both task AND intent, meaning that by my success I've not only just established the location of the Rose but I've also now got my mucky mitts on it. And if I fail, it's not there. I suppose success-with-complication could mean among other things that I open the safe but the ruby's not there.

Only if the intent is a warranted one--which, usually, means that you are building from established fiction to that intent. As you've--explicitly!--said, the ruby's exact location HAS NOT been established in the fiction. Just fiat declaring that the ruby's location IS IN FACT right here in this specific safe definitely no questions asked isn't kosher, because there isn't establishing fiction for that. Perhaps you could dig up somewhere a system so badly-constructed, so horrendously awful, that such a thing is in fact okay, but I assure you that no such system I've ever used would permit this. Period. It simply isn't okay to make that kind of leap, and the rules tell you so if you read them. Just as the GM has rules that bind them, the players have rules that bind them (and generally, rather a lot more of them!)

What this makes impossible, however, is the result of "I fail but the ruby is in fact in the safe"; because the ruby's location has to remain quantum so if I fully succeed (10+) in searching for it on the yacht or somewhere else it can be there waiting for me. Or so I've been told, anyway, though not in those exact terms.

But the ruby's position isn't quantum. It just isn't actually known right now.

Why would you think it was quantum? Who, among those telling you about these games that you (self-professed) do not play and don't know very well, is saying that the ruby's position is quantum?

A "quantum" thing means it could genuinely be anywhere. An unknown thing simply means...we don't know enough to know where it is. We're going to have to discover where it is first, in order to find it! That's...kind of the point of finding it?

Otherwise, by your logic, every time you don't know where your keys are IRL, they are in fact in each and every possible place they could theoretically be, simply because you don't know where they are yet.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm having a hard time imagining how this situation could ever arise. The GM is responsible for the truth and veracity of the setting and if she's blown it to the point where even she's not enjoying it, something's really come adrift somewhere.

No example I could ever give will ever satisfy. I already know this coming right out of the gate. There will always be some new flaw in it, some imperfection which will be used to ruin it completely.

If you are willing to agree that no example can be absolutely perfect, I'm willing to attempt to create a hypothetical example. Note that I have to create hypothetical examples because I don't play this playstyle, so I have no personal experience with it.

If, hypothetically, it were to get that bad I'd probably just shut the campaign down and start over in a different setting and with different fiction...and different characters.

Which is something I already referenced before in a previous post.

I've done this exact thing, not because of the fiction itself but because the underlying rules system became too wobbly and needed a major overhaul.

Sure, that too can happen, but it isn't my focus here.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Those are really bad examples. Poison killing someone is a DIRECT effect.

Opening a prison door so you can escape said prison is also a direct effect. There is no difference.

This is a pretty good sized Strawman. We aren't saying that.

It's quite rich seeing you accuse others of strawmen, when your own argument here IS A STRAWMAN as people have repeatedly told you.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's a real and valid distinction.

No, it isn't. I'm sorry, it's just not. I have no interest in continuing this conversation if this is the kind of pure-semantics nonsense you're going to engage in.

 

[pemerton]

Here are two different d6 rolls that happen in AD&D:

*The roll to open a stuck dungeon door.

*The roll to determine whether or not a person (or party) is surprised.​

The first roll is made when a player declares that their character is trying to force open a stuck door. At that point, in the fiction, the PC is standing at the door, about to try and force it open. We can imagine the roll of the d6 correlating to the character's attempt to shove or shoulder the door. As the dice comes to rest and we can read the result, so we know what happened in the fiction: either the door yielded to the shove/shoulder, or it did not.

The second roll is made when the GM determines that an encounter has occurred. (And has not decided that the PCs cannot be surprised.) The time of making the roll at the table correlates to that event at the table. But it does not correlate to anything in particular happening in the fiction at that moment. In particular, suppose it turns out that the PCs are surprised. The reason why they are surprised - eg they're looking the wrong way, or are distracted by sorting through their gear, or relieving themselves (Gygax identifies this as a possible cause of surprise in his DMG) - has already come about, in the fiction, at the time the die is rolled.

@clearstream (and others): this is one reason why I think the "New Simulationism Manifesto" sets out impossible principles. For instance,

All rules are abstractions of a larger, more complex fictional reality. They exist to ease complicated processes into something that can be more easily played with—and nothing more. . . .

When the dragon reaches 0 HP and dies, it does not die because it reached 0 HP: it dies because it has suffered so much damage it cannot endure further. Your game’s abstractions are representative, not authoritative.​

The dragon example seems silly to me, given that it posits a model of killing which is closer to sanding down a piece of wood than disrupting a biological system by drastic interference with its components. If I wanted to run a simulationist combat involving dragons, I would use RQ or RM or BW.

But setting that to one side, the dragon example does not involve a breakdown in time-sequence between events of play and events in the fiction.

But the AD&D surprise roll does involve such a breakdown. Therefore it is a mechanic that is ruled out by the manifesto. The reason that the PC is surprised is because the surprise die came up 1 or 2. And then some fiction is retrofitted on to explain that. (Or not - I've played plenty of classic D&D where we did not bother to establish fiction to explain a surprised result. Nothing in the working of the game will suffer from this laziness.)

The traditional reaction roll (found in various versions of classic D&D, in Classic Traveller, and maybe other RPGs as well) is, in these respects, the same as the surprise roll.

The 2014 5e D&D rules for surprise are no different, as best I can tell. From DnD Beyond,

Surprise
A band of adventurers sneaks up on a bandit camp, springing from the trees to attack them. A gelatinous cube glides down a dungeon passage, unnoticed by the adventurers until the cube engulfs one of them. In these situations, one side of the battle gains surprise over the other.

The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.​

Why do the adventurers fail to notice the gelatinous cube? At the table, *because their passive WIS (Perception) score tells us so. And then, if we like, we have to make up some retroactive reason, about what the PCs were doing immediately before this moment, that explains why they didn't notice the cube.

I am not criticising these features of D&D. They're pretty unremarkable RPG mechanics. I'm simply pointing out that they don't conform to a dogmatic insistence that resolution rules must model ingame processes.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Assume that is not established.

Then you cannot simply wish the ruby to be there simply because you know it's a safe and it's in the correct house.

These would certainly strengthen the justification for the desert rose to be there, but why would they be necessary, when you already have "Rose in house, safe in house" as "a good, well-founded reason to believe"? Edit: In particular in light of the examples you gave in my first quoted post.

Because...people don't normally hide things in easily-accessible places? Because context matters?

Play is a conversation. Sometimes that conversation is going to include context that will make some things more reasonable and other things less reasonable. Is that a problem?

I fail to see how these could be a success response on the prompt Lanefan used:

Because the prompt is malformed. It was wrong from the start, and thus cannot be worked with directly. It would be like saying "I perform the calculation, in order to determine the number which is greater than seven and less than three." No such number exists--it doesn't matter how much you might want one, it simply isn't there.

It would indeed as a player seem very much like a bad faith call from the GM to twist the semantics of the stated intention.

Because the stated intention is unacceptable from the outset, in the absence of further established fiction or the conversation-of-play resulting in agreement from the other participants that that direction makes sense in this context.

This example is just trying to highlight how important this problem is, because this is quickly where you arrive if you follow the principle to its logical conclusion. The crux of the matter is what and who determines if there is "a good, well-founded reason to believe".

What: Has it been said? Does it rationally, with reasonable directness, follow from established fiction?

Knowing that the ruby is SOMEWHERE in a given house, and that this safe is in the house, does not seem like enough justification to me. But we are speaking with such high generality, with so little context, that I cannot rule out the possibility that the conversation that is play would have given reasonable context. The example is so decontextualized, it can't meaningfully be addressed. You have, more than once, explicitly said that I should assume that only the bare minimum of fiction has been established, more or less that the ONLY things the player knows are that the ruby is in the house somewhere, and that there is at least one locked safe. If I am to presume that absolutely nothing else has been established, and that the conversation that is play provides absolutely nothing else that would make further extension reasonable, then no, it is not valid. The very fact that it strikes you and others as unreasonable is why it isn't valid.

If "only known safe in a house where the valuable object is known to exist" is a good well founded reason to believe* , then why wouldn't the only known locked drawer in a house where the valuable object is known to exist (safe not discovered yet) be a good well founded reason to believe the object is in there?

I'm not sure where I actually said that that is it? Like I genuinely don't recall ever using the phrase "only known safe in a house where the valuable object is known to exist". In part because that's a pretty weak bit of "knowledge". As you say, it is trivially easy to come up with other locked places the ruby could plausibly be--which is, itself, the very reason why this incredibly thin bit of established fiction simply isn't enough. You DON'T have a "good well-founded reason to believe" it. But, in context, it might still be fine for play to go in that direction for a wide variety of reasons. Maybe the GM knows the session is about five minutes from ending, so going on a wild goose chase to find the ruby would be really annoying, un-fun, and not particularly productive in any way other than to show off that this is a challenge. That would be a contextual (but not within-the-world) reason for why the GM might go along with something that isn't necessarily very well-established, but is still at least somewhat reasonable. Or, maybe the GM knows that this specific player has had a really bad day, and has been rolling poorly all night, and has been showing some admirable stiff-upper-lip tendencies, and could really really just use a break this once. Or, maybe the GM knows that the BBEG who stole the ruby (or whomever happens to possess it right now) is really lazy, and so a basic hiding place makes a lot of sense, even though the PCs don't actually know of this BBEG's laziness yet. Or...

This is why I say the conversation that is play may provide context outside of the establishing fiction, which can shape play in a direction that is 100% fully compatible with known information, and thus enable a path that is only weakly justified through established fiction. If there simply isn't any relevant context from the conversation that is play, and LITERALLY the only two things the PC knows are "the ruby is in this house" and "this is a safe inside this house", then no, this simply is not a good well-founded reason to believe that the ruby ABSOLUTELY IS in this specific place and no other.

The only failure mode for this tactic to find the Rose appear to be if the characters are stupid enough to gather info on the presence of safes or other potential hiding places before starting the heist. See the problem?

No. Because, as said, I don't see this as enough when stripped of anything but the two pieces of information you've agreed are established and when zero further context is permitted. The intent simply isn't acceptable, from the beginning, and thus the whole example is a false start, not actually descriptive of any game I've ever played or even heard of.

*(which I cannot see you have argued against without trying to introduce a new potential in fiction premise that could cause it to not be, which sort of implies you seem to agree that without these it could very well be)

I'm...honestly not sure what you mean by this. Perhaps the above has clarified?