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

[AnotherGuy]

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.

I don't play BitD but I've been experimenting with more player-facing mechanics etc in our D&D and I empathise with both situations.

I treat each situation on a case by case basis. If the specific threat is something they expect OR if it's part of a larger player-facing mechanic I reveal the worst case badness. If it's something their characters would not be aware of then I would not as I think the surprise would be more fun for them not to know until it needs to be revealed.

 

[Enrahim]

The Firebird said that when they ran BitD, they felt like they were "cheating" because:



Except that these are all things that GMs typically think about when they write an adventure ahead of time. Who lives in this place, where will they be, and what are their Perception scores (or other game equivalents)? You know what will happen on a success or failure in a tradgame because there's only one option for both: success or failure. You know who is on the other side of the door or inside the chest because you placed it there ahead of time. Every single pre-written tradgame adventure I have ever read, for multiple systems (but especially (A)D&D), has included these elements.

For some reason, knowing exactly what happens on a success is OK if it was written down ahead of time but not if it was improvised in response to player actions.

To me, that makes no sense whatsoever, because they are entirely the same thing.

Ok, first, your language is a bit confusing, as a trad sandbox adventure is not explicitely expressing what is happening. Rather it is explaining what is there.

The difference between this kind of trad and the BitD described is that in trad "what happens" is deduced from how the world was chosen to be. In BitD "what happens" is chosen and how the world was has to be deduced from that.

In the first the initial world state is an input independent of mechanics. In the later the initial world state is an illusion (partly) determined by the output of the mechanics.

One of these are consistent with the idea of a world that is having a persistent well defined existence that reacts will natural causality to player input.

 

[Hussar]

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've never made a group check? That's 4 or 5 rolls right there? You've never had the group climb something? You've never had any effect that forced everyone to make a check? You've never had something try to sneak up on the party? You've never had the group make perception checks?

Right there, that's five or six consecutive rolls. Like I said, I am absolutely certain that your group fails that more often than you think. The fact that you don't even consider something like the group making a perception check as "consecutive rolls" shows me that you haven't actually paid any attention to this.

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.

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

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.

60% is absolutely not arbitrary. That's the baseline of success presumed by 5e D&D. What did you think bounded accuracy means?

 

[pemerton]

To be a sufficient condition, it must guarantee that what follows WILL happen. Punching someone does not guarantee that you will be tackled. Just because the tackle happens, doesn't mean that it was guaranteed to happen by the punch.

Correct. That's why the punch, as I said, is not a sufficient condition. It is an INUS condition. As I also posted, the sufficient condition, of which it is one necessary but insufficient component, is the fact of the punch together with the disposition of the tackler.

 

[pemerton]

No it isn't. Those do not model reality.

I didn't say they fully model reality. But they avoid D&D-style stop motion. Which, as I posted, refutes your claim (post 13,269) that stop motion is a "necessary evil".

Then why have I never had to retrofit anything when I DM 5e? What is it that you think has to be retrofitted?

To repost:

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.

<snip>

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.

 

[Maxperson]

You've never made a group check? That's 4 or 5 rolls right there? You've never had the group climb something? You've never had any effect that forced everyone to make a check? You've never had something try to sneak up on the party? You've never had the group make perception checks?

Right there, that's five or six consecutive rolls. Like I said, I am absolutely certain that your group fails that more often than you think. The fact that you don't even consider something like the group making a perception check as "consecutive rolls" shows me that you haven't actually paid any attention to this.

You're looking at that really backwards. The vast majority of group checks are not 4 or 5 chances to fail. It's 4 or 5 chances to succeed, since all you need is one of them to succeed at most things and then they all succeed.

One person finds the secret door. That's a success. One person climbs up with a rope. That's a success. One person makes the perception check. That's a success.

60% is absolutely not arbitrary. That's the baseline of success presumed by 5e D&D. What did you think bounded accuracy means?

Bounded accuracy is explicitly that the game takes no PC bonuses into account for game balance. It only looks at class abilities. At least that's what the designers told us that it was.

And regardless of whether it's the baseline or not, in actual play it's not going to be 60% that often. It will be higher or lower the vast majority of the time.

 

[pemerton]

The DM did not drive the PC to go to that location. He did not drive the PC to try and open the lock. The drive was entirely from the player. The DM deciding whether or not someone is there to hear the attempt is the DM REACTING to the player's drive, not driving anything himself.

Here is the approach I was posting about:

My approach?

1. The character goes to the door, attempts to open the lock
2. As DM I think about the scenario and whether or not anyone will notice the lock being picked. If someone would hear I see no reason success or failure of the attempt would make a difference.
3. The player rolls poorly and fails.

At step 2, the GM thinks about the scenario and decides what will happen. That is why I regard it as GM-driven.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Don't worry, I know the maths.

 

[Maxperson]

Here is the approach I was posting about:
At step 2, the GM thinks about the scenario and decides what will happen. That is why I regard it as GM-driven.

Sure, if you take it out of context and ignore all the things the players did to drive it to that point and make the decision to pick the lock. DM reaction to players driving things =/= DM driven.

 

[Maxperson]

I didn't say they fully model reality. But they avoid D&D-style stop motion. Which, as I posted, refutes your claim (post 13,269) that stop motion is a "necessary evil".

To repost:

They're surprised because the other side was trying to be stealthy and surprise them. Nothing gets retrofitted. They snuck up. You failed to see them. Surprise!