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

[Hussar]

I'd add to this - if the probabilities are adjusted so that the overall outcome is not punishing, then each individual roll becomes pretty anticlimactic, even tedious - for instance, 10 rolls with a 2% chance of failure are simply not as exciting as 1 roll with a 20% chance of failure.

And this is even moreso if the GM is not reframing after each roll, which - on a resolutely "simulationist" approach - they will not be.

Not saying that you don't already know this, but, for the audience, I would point out that 10 rolls at 2% is not equal to 20%. That is the problem in a nutshell. A LOT of DMs do not know the difference.

 

[Hussar]

As GM I want my players to succeed most of the time. They won't succeed 100% of the time at everything they try. As GM I want to challenge my player which sometimes means what they had planned doesn't work and they have to scramble to figure out having to do something else - which to me is half the fun of the game.

And that's fine as far as it goes.

Except that in practice, "won't succeed 100%" actually means "won't succeed ever". Because the DM is very poor at calculating odds and piles on check after check in order to get the "scramble to figure out having to do something else".

IOW, most of the time, the best solution is to assume failure and go in guns blazing. Because failure is virtually guaranteed anyway.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I do expect it, which is why I engage in a regular struggle between the PC success push by the players and the desire for grounded play and using the rules as intended and not just in ways that benefit the PC in question. That's part of the process too, but sometimes you just get tired of fighting PCs who refuse to roll skill checks that don't use their highest stat.

I mentioned this in regard to PbtA games, but it applies to trad ones too: if you've got players who have a different sense of what success means than you do and/or have been bit by GMs who chronically set difficulties too high, they're going to get roll-averse, because they see rolls as things that will most likely make their situation worse, not better.

 

[Hussar]

It really depends on how the players play the game. If they are trying to be quiet when they enter, a single stealth check will cover the lockpicking, opening the door and entering the kitchen. Those are only all separate rolls if the players are reckless and just do it all without trying to be quiet. If it's "punishment," it's the players punishing themselves.

Assuming that they are trying to be quiet, the only other roll would be a perception check at disadvantage for trying to navigate a kitchen in the dark. Even with darkvision visual perception checks are at disadvantage. Stealth won't cover that situation, so it requires a different roll to get through without bumping into something and making noise.

And thank you for so eloquently highlighting my point. Three separate checks to get through a kitchen, multiplied by each PC and any failure = they are heard and bad things happen. The odds of them successfully navigating this are pretty much zero.

 

[pemerton]

I've clarified several times now that what I meant by cheating was the creation of the cook as a response to player failure. It has nothing to do with whether it was decided a week in advance or directly prior to the roll.

In my view, there is not much point in trying to discuss the (actual play) guard, or the (imagined play) cook in the context of Burning Wheel, because the discussion appears to be proceeding in complete disregard of BW's principles for framing scenes, declaring and resolving actions, and narrating consequences. For instance, no one seems to be asking why - in either the actual case or the imagined case - the GM is calling for a roll rather than saying "yes". Nor considering how that is responsive to the player's role in the game.

But what about this example (another imagined one) from Apocalypse World play:

First, let's imagine the player recites their PC's knowledge - it's a bit artificial as an example of play, but provides some context.

"I know that Dremmer has a storeroom at the edge of the compound, with a gate for taking deliveries. There's a fancy electronic lock on it, so it's not well guarded. I reckon I can crack that lock and sneak in."

The GM nods: "OK, so you're at the gate to the storeroom. It's locked like you expected. It's not well guarded, but that doesn't mean no one ever comes by here. You haven't got all night."

"OK, I bust out my tools and work on the lock, as quickly as I can."

"That Acting Under Fire, and the fire is - you'll be spotted before you're in." The player rolls, and succeeds on a 7 to 9. The GM offers an ugly choice: "You get it open, but you can hear someone's coming. And you can't see yet what's on the other side of the gate. Do you go through into whatever's there? Or wait to see who comes?"

The player decides to go in. "There's someone in there with a torch. Looks like Dremmer's cook Pattycakes, come to grab a fresh bag of chowder powder. What do you do?"

At this point the player has a few choices, but let's suppose that, whatever they do, it fails on a 6 or less. And so the GM narrates that Pattycakes spots them and screams.

The 7 to 9 result for Acting Under Fire requires a complication to be narrated, and in this example that is a time-based one. I haven't explained, in the example, how the GM would be drawing on their prep in establishing the time-based complication but - given that Always Say What Your Prep Demands is a key principle for the AW GM - we can assume that they are doing so.

I don't see how this raises any concerns.

On a 10+ result, the character gets in quickly and quietly, in circumstances that they control. On the 7 to 9, their difficulties in getting it done on time mean that they don't get to choose their moment of ingress, but rather have it forced upon them. The idea that a character might do better or worse at integrating (i) speed of the task with (ii) avoidance of guards etc while (iii) only actually opening when they are confident no one is inside, seems pretty "diegetic" to me. If they take too long and/or get too flustered, they lose their control of these various factors, and hence find themselves having to make the ugly choice.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, that's entirely the point of these games.

Its not entirely the point of all trad games, especially those run by the more simulationist minded GMs with similar players in mind. What an enemy does when Character X does Y should only be about that situation, unless they know other things they did earlier (and maybe not even then). This is even more true with the actions of groups or non-sentient forces.

From BitD's GM Prinicples: Let everything flow from the fiction. The game’s starting situations and your opening scene will put things in motion. Ask how the characters react and see what happens next. NPCs react according to their goals and methods. Events snowball. You don’t need to “manage” the game. Action, reaction, and consequences will drive everything.

You're supposed to be influenced by how things have happened.

Note again, however, that they probably shouldn't react to things they don't know about, but the GM is still going to know about them and potentially be influenced. I don't think that's all that controversial.


I mean, for a simple example, a GM who knows the player has had a really bad time earlier in the game or a really good time may well make different decisions. This is a thing that happens, and I'd bet frequently, no matter what kind of stance your GMing comes from, but at least some GMs very much want to minimize it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This claim is refuted by the existence of RM, RQ and even Burning Wheel.

Though one can make the argument that at least RQ still does stop-motion, it just does it in smaller pieces. That said, I think the bigger pieces you do that in the worse the result, so that's not a minor thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And that's fine as far as it goes.

Except that in practice, "won't succeed 100%" actually means "won't succeed ever". Because the DM is very poor at calculating odds and piles on check after check in order to get the "scramble to figure out having to do something else".

IOW, most of the time, the best solution is to assume failure and go in guns blazing. Because failure is virtually guaranteed anyway.

Though part of this is how severe "failure" is assumed to be in a lot of cases; if you can recover from individual failures, and the chances are individually fairly good, you can still get some benefit out of doing in the other way.

But if all failures break the situation (this is very common with how intrusions are played out) then, yeah, you might as well go with what my group has traditionally called "the Irish Plan" from word-one.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Though one can make the argument that at least RQ still does stop-motion, it just does it in smaller pieces. That said, I think the bigger pieces you do that in the worse the result, so that's not a minor thing.

It on the other hand is impossible to make the argument that Daggerheart does stop-motion as opposed to dramatic and chaotic combat. The initiative system is "whoever wants to go goes" with the GM getting a go when the players miss or roll with fear or the GM spends a fear point.

 

[pemerton]

Not saying that you don't already know this, but, for the audience, I would point out that 10 rolls at 2% is not equal to 20%. That is the problem in a nutshell. A LOT of DMs do not know the difference.

I rounded off: 0.98 ^ 10 = (approx) 0.82.

So the chance of succeeding on 10 rolls with 2% failure is actually a bit more than 80%.

The issue I pointed to - ie that 10 rolls at 98% success chance is more boring than 1 roll at 80% success chance - is one that comes up in RQ combat. The player rolls to hit, and fails. Or if they succeed, the GM rolls the opponent's chance to parry/dodge and succeeds too. And so nothing happens in that exchange.

I'm not saying that it's always more exciting to bundle everything into one roll. There can be interest and excitement and suspense in some degree of accumulation, or making decisions along the way to eke out advantage, take risk, etc. But it is often more exciting to reduce the number of rolls that are very unlikely to change the state of play via their result.