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

[EzekielRaiden]

This is something I've REALLY struggled with both as a DM and trying to get players on board with this idea. The notion that because Player A failed a check, something bad happens to Player B is very hard for a lot of players to wrap their heads around. Getting them into the habit of spreading the love around the table when failures or successes occur is a really new concept for a lot of players.

Certainly. It's helped that I've mostly worked with new players myself, but my usual approach is to emphasize the impending nature of the consequence, rather than the it's-already-foregone nature. So, if my group's Battlemaster were to get a partial success on Defy Danger to evade a flame-spirit spat forth by a mad shaman (which could happen in the near future!), I might say "You realize as you're about to dive out of the way that <party Cleric> is standing behind you. If you stay and take the hit, you're sure she'll be safe. But if you dive out of the way, she might get hurt. What will you do?" And, generally, the players then discuss it.

Alternatively, as noted, the issue might simply be that by diving out of the way, the bad guy now only has one person close enough to beat on. That's a pretty reasonable situation for one to say "if you get far enough away to be out of range, that will leave only <Cleric> in range" or the like. An ugly choice--take a hit now, knowing your party healer will be safe and can heal you up later, or take the risk that the party healer might get smacked around, on the hope that they'll roll better than you did. (Of course, our Battlemaster has ways to help others' rolls, so this is a slightly-less-ugly choice, but still not a choice he likes having to make!)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And you are wrong. My players succeed far more often than they fail. You still fail to account for things like class abilities, advantage, magic that enhances, but not bypasses(guidance), other PCs helping, what the DCs might be, and more.

Objectively, if you apply the same bonuses--so the only thing that differs is the roll itself--having to pass multiple checks ALWAYS reduces the chance of success. This is a simple mathematical fact.

Even if they have a 95% chance to succeed (failing only on a nat 1), needing to make three consecutive checks on just a regular d20 is still only an 85% chance to succeed. Now, let's consider a more realistic situation, where the character normally has ~60% chance to succeed on a typical check without advantage, and thus ~84% with advantage (fail chance 0.4, both dice must fail so that's 0.4² = 0.16, hence success chance is 1-0.16 = .84 = 84%). Even if you only require three consecutive checks? You've just completely erased the benefit of advantage: 59.27% chance to succeed. Four? They now fail about as often as they succeed (49.79% chance to succeed on all four).

Further...if you're forcing the players to exploit whatever resources they can just to avoid being punished by needing to make multiple checks, how is that not an admission that multiple checks are harder?

 

[Maxperson]

Objectively, if you apply the same bonuses--so the only thing that differs is the roll itself--having to pass multiple checks ALWAYS reduces the chance of success. This is a simple mathematical fact.

Of course. That's not what is being argued, though. What's being argued is that it drops to near 0, which is bupkis.

Even if they have a 95% chance to succeed (failing only on a nat 1), needing to make three consecutive checks on just a regular d20 is still only an 85% chance to succeed. Now, let's consider a more realistic situation, where the character normally has ~60% chance to succeed on a typical check without advantage, and thus ~84% with advantage (fail chance 0.4, both dice must fail so that's 0.4² = 0.16, hence success chance is 1-0.16 = .84 = 84%). Even if you only require three consecutive checks? You've just completely erased the benefit of advantage: 59.27% chance to succeed. Four? They now fail about as often as they succeed (49.79% chance to succeed on all four).

Further...if you're forcing the players to exploit whatever resources they can just to avoid being punished by needing to make multiple checks, how is that not an admission that multiple checks are harder?

There is no punishment. As I explained earlier, there's lots that players can do to reduce the number of checks. Often to 0 if they really try. In the scenario here where there were three checks, that would be the players not even trying. If they just go through the game like a bull in a China shop, they're "punishing" themselves by making decisions that set themselves up for failure.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Of course. That's not what is being argued, though. What's being argued is that it drops to near 0, which is bupkis.

Er...no?

It doesn't take that many iterated rolls. Going back to the 60% chance--what would you consider "near 0"? I would say "less than 5%", since that's functionally the zero point for D&D checks. log(.05)/log(.6) = 5.8645ish. So that means after only six rolls, the character has less than a 5% chance to succeed.

There is no punishment. As I explained earlier, there's lots that players can do to reduce the number of checks.

You're forcing them to expend those resources which could be expended elsewhere, on, y'know, not-repeated rolls. It's still a difficulty spike implemented only to force a difficulty spike. That's a punishment. Whether you intend it as such is irrelevant. "My players can spend a bunch of extra resources to mitigate the problem" doesn't mean there isn't a problem you're imposing upon them!

Even with your three-roll expectation, that 60% chance on any given roll falls to only (and exactly) 21.5% success for three. "Better expend your resources to not fail nearly all of the time!" sounds pretty punitive to me!

 

[Faolyn]

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.

I meant narrative games.

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.

But the same is true of all games--the GM probably shouldn't put stuff in the players don't know about yet, except, perhaps, foreshadowing (or maybe infodumps). But at the same time, the GM, even when writing a trad game adventure ahead of time, is going to know what the adventure's goal is, and thus could possibly be influenced by it when writing the earlier parts of the adventure. They know who the BBEG is, what sort of obstacles lie in wait, and so forth.

That being said it's usually considered a good thing to hint at what's to come in both types of games. In narrative games, that's usually a GM move ("hint at future badness") and in tradgames, so it doesn't feel like an @$$-pull or like all the clues were nothing but red herrings.

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.

But at the same time, the GM, even when writing a trad game adventure ahead of time, is going to know what the adventure's goal is, and thus could possibly be influenced by it when writing the earlier parts of the adventure. They know who the BBEG is, what sort of obstacles lie in wait, and so forth.

This is not a narrative game problem. It's a GM problem. I've had a few occasions where my current D&D DM--great at intricate plots and making NPCs feel real, and who to the best of my knowledge has only run D&D5e and has minimal experience with narrative games--has admitted they'd pulled their punches to keep from a TPK, which yes, highly annoyed me.

(Meanwhile, I was once jokingly berated for not doing the same thing: "You know who else ran traps exactly as they're written in the adventure? The nazis, that's who. ...I'm a cleric, I can Godwin if I want to." Nobody actually died due to the traps, but they took a bunch of damage.)

@The Firebird's problem, I'd wager, was not because he was running a narrative game but because he was inexperienced with running narrative games. A GM that is experienced in a particular game will know how to run it. He wasn't, so he didn't know what to do with those ideas and thoughts.

 

[Maxperson]

Er...no?

It doesn't take that many iterated rolls. Going back to the 60% chance--what would you consider "near 0"? I would say "less than 5%", since that's functionally the zero point for D&D checks. log(.05)/log(.6) = 5.8645ish. So that means after only six rolls, the character has less than a 5% chance to succeed.

I've never had that many consecutive rolls. I can't think of more than three off the top of my head, and that's rare. My players do what they can to get stuff done without needing to roll, which is as it should be.

You're forcing them to expend those resources which could be expended elsewhere, on, y'know, not-repeated rolls. It's still a difficulty spike implemented only to force a difficulty spike.

Not really. Even three rolls is rare enough that this is not a concern. And as for the bolded, I've never in adult life done that.

That's a punishment. Whether you intend it as such is irrelevant. "My players can spend a bunch of extra resources to mitigate the problem" doesn't mean there isn't a problem you're imposing upon them!

You're wrong about that. A punishment must be intended or it isn't a punishment. Negative consequences =/= punishment.

Even with your three-roll expectation, that 60% chance on any given roll falls to only (and exactly) 21.5% success for three. "Better expend your resources to not fail nearly all of the time!" sounds pretty punitive to me!

Your 60% number is arbitrary and really doesn't exist in the way you are using it outside of a white room. It would be extraordinarily rare for that many rolls to all just happen to be 60%. Quite often the numbers are higher. Sometimes lower.

 

[Faolyn]

Is there a reason you've decided this needs to be nitpicked?

Well, is it?

Because if "making it up before" doesn't have a set time period but is somehow better, at least for some people, and making it up mere seconds before is acceptably long enough in advance, then how is that different from how narrative GMs do it? Remember, in most narrative games, the players don't decide when to roll--the GM tells them when (actually, that's true in most trad games as well). So there is literally nothing stopping you from running an improvised or semi-improvised narrative game, realizing that there's going to be a roll (the player wants to do X; X requires a roll), thinking up what will happen on a success or a failure, and then calling for the roll.

 

[Faolyn]

Yes. That's what I had in my example and it was not the reason I didn't like it.

So, is making it up before a good thing or a bad thing?

Because you normally create your adventures in advance, right? Meaning you know what's going to happen on a success and failure. But here, you're thinking it up in advance, meaning you know what's going to happen on a success or failure.

I'm not getting what the problem is. They're the same thing: you know what happens on a success or failure ahead of time. It can't simply be because you have more time to think, because your plans can easily be destroyed by unforeseen player action, unless you're railroading the players, which means you need to improvise anyway.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

Whether or not @pemerton knows the math isn't important. What's important is that, most of the time, ten rolls are tedious (especially where you're all but guaranteed a particular outcome) whereas one roll is less so.

 

[zakael19]

Well, is it?

Because if "making it up before" doesn't have a set time period but is somehow better, at least for some people, and making it up mere seconds before is acceptably long enough in advance, then how is that different from how narrative GMs do it? Remember, in most narrative games, the players don't decide when to roll--the GM tells them when (actually, that's true in most trad games as well). So there is literally nothing stopping you from running an improvised or semi-improvised narrative game, realizing that there's going to be a roll (the player wants to do X; X requires a roll), thinking up what will happen on a success or a failure, and then calling for the roll.

This isn't going to change the conversation at all, but I want to talk a little about BITD using the Deep Cuts Threat Roll again because it's fun for me.

The way I personally play BITD with that bit of design is that once we're in "score-space" and an engagement roll has been made, I'm framing out interesting obstacles in accordance with the Gather Information questions the players asked; what I know of the Target's resources and established fiction; and what I feel fits the moment. Generally this looks like:

• Telegraphing a Threat, and asking "what do you do?" - at this moment I have no idea what's coming next.
• Responding to whatever craziness the player(s) just said with a firm statement of Effect ("ok, you'll get through the wall") and the Threat ("but the Butler might hear the noises and come investigate.").
• I go back with another "what do you do?" here - they're now telling me how they want to either face that threat somehow or just let it happen (rare). Once they tell me how they do that, I say "that sounds like Action?" and they confirm and roll.
• From there, resolving the Threat and asking what they do next.

I get to discover the entirely of play with them right up until that dice roll is made. Somehow establishing the the outcome and worst case never seems to make the delight and surprise any less for me, and has just helped me get really freaking clear on Roll-stakes which has simply helped all the other games I run.

However,I've heard some other long time Blades GMs say that this deliberate out-loud establishing of the Worst Case Badness somehow "reduces creativity" so like, some people just experience this sort of framing in that way.