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

[JConstantine]

Why? Why did the pick lock roll need to make it so that they could not be saved in time?

I think that comes down to how granular one prefers to be, which in turn often comes down to simulation vs drama.

If 6 seconds is going to be the difference between survival and death, the inferno was already so bad that the rogue would likely have not even made the attempt in the first place.

That probably depends on how much of a heart of gold the rogue has, no? Though I imagine if this hypothetical was to play out at a real table, it's far more likely that the rogue steps aside for the strength-based character to kick/hack the door open. There's a reason firefighters' equipment includes an axe and not lockpicks.

 

[JConstantine]

But again, this is arguing semantics that I simply don't care about. What does it have to do with TTRPGs?

That sums up most of this thread.

 

[FrogReaver]

In D&D and related games the mental mechanic that people have issue with is telling people what they think unless there's external forces at play.

On the other hand mental mechanics are used all the time with various knowledge checks and what we can discern about the world around us. Does your character know anything about the history of an item or do you perceive the ninja sneaking up behind you. Those are your character's capacity to know things external to your character, things you have read, heard or experienced in the past, noticing something in the present.

We like to think we are in control of our our own thoughts, but we all know we don't have perfect memories and occasionally don't notice everything going on around us.

Okay, but telling them what they notice seems similar enough to me?

 

[Maxperson]

I think that comes down to how granular one prefers to be, which in turn often comes down to simulation vs drama.

That's kind of the heart of this debate.

That probably depends on how much of a heart of gold the rogue has, no? Though I imagine if this hypothetical was to play out at a real table, it's far more likely that the rogue steps aside for the strength-based character to kick/hack the door open. There's a reason firefighters' equipment includes an axe and not lockpicks.

That's true, though I still think it unlikely that 6 seconds is going to make that much of a difference in the overwhelming number of times the party encounters this kind of thing.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Connected yes. Connected close enough to be tied to the pick lock roll? Not in my opinion. Suppose they get the door open the first try, but the stairs are on fire so they can't get up to the family? Then the successful roll to get inside got them inside, but wasted precious time.

I know that wouldn't happen in your game, but it does show that the fire and family are too distant from the pick lock roll for the roll to determine or have a direct affect on the outcome.

The point is that if the door doesn’t get opened, there’s no saving the people inside. Again, it was a simple example meant to show how cause and effect work.

What’s interesting to me is that the consequence being “connected” to the die roll seems to be the issue here… yet I would expect that many of those objecting to this, if not most or all, would say that in a traditional RPG paradigm, the GM can simply add something at any time.

So if the GM wants a cook to show up, or thinks it makes sense or what have you, he can just make it so.

Yet no one has an issue with that. No one is connecting this to anything the way they are with the die roll.

It’s strange.

 

[Faolyn]

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?

Because the game isn't about playing on God Mode, which is neither fair nor fun.

And also, because you don't get to declare just anything. You usually (IME) a list of things to choose from a small number of options. A move to rob a place might say that on a success, you choose one (partial success) or three (full success) of the following: you don't trip any alarms, you leave no evidence behind, there are no witnesses, you get what you came in for. So if you had come in for the Desert Rose, you get that--but on a full success, there's still a bit of a problem. It may not be a major problem--maybe you tripped alarms so they know the Rose was stolen sooner than you would have liked--but it's still a problem.

If they would have died anyway had I done nothing, my failing to get into the building didn't change anything.

OK, change of tack.

You are in combat. You're down to your last few hit points--one more blow will kill you--but you know your opponent will die if you hit them one more time as well (maybe you have a trick up your sleeve; maybe you've been counting their hit points and know how many they started with). And your opponent is powerful enough that they will almost certainly hit you, even on a bad roll.

You have the initiative.

You roll to attack. You miss.

Because you missed your attack, you didn't kill your opponent, and therefore, you will almost certainly die when they hit you.

 

[Faolyn]

They absolutely are, but I'm focusing on the sim side because that matters more to me, especially as far as mechanics are concerned.

So, what, you don't narrate them as a harrowing and tense situation?

 

[Faolyn]

So you are saying the group need to engage in basic game design in order to play this game?

No. The group just needs to be on the same page.

 

[Faolyn]

If I were to run a burning house scenario there would be a set number of rounds the character had to achieve a rescue. The number would be high enough that the characters should be able to succeed but it's not going to be guaranteed. If it was guaranteed there would be no reason to play it out, just narrate that they saved some people from a burning building and be done with it.

The number of rounds would count down no matter what the characters attempted, whether their actions succeeded or failed. The only way to stop the number of rounds counting down, or even theoretically reverse the count down, would be to successfully take an action to slow down the flames such as summon a water elemental or create water.

So you would have a clock. Exactly like the type of clocks we've been talking about. Or did you think that clocks only responded to player actions? Because I also posted the LU countdown which is triggered each round, not in response to player action.

 

[Faolyn]

I've not touched any of the Level Up stuff, but I'm assuming it's the same as what's in WOIN, in which case it's a knock-off of the Angry GM's time/tension pool. I imagine the Angry GM would be the first to call their self trad, but the mechanic is designed to add tension.

It's add a bunch of d6s, roll 'em, remove the ones that roll a 6. No complication roll. Same purpose, slightly different mechanic.