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

[pemerton]

Right, I get why you're ok with this. But the thing is, Pattycakes isn't guaranteed to be around on a 10, so it really isn't just testing whether the character was sufficiently cautious at avoiding guards. It is also testing whether they got lucky.

You don't think that one way to test if a character gets lucky is by rolling dice?

I don't think the guard is equally fixed if they are fixed prior to vs after an action roll.

But they are fixed if it is subsequent to, rather than prior to, the player saying My PC goes for a night-time walk through the town, thus obliging the GM to decide whether a guard harasses the PC?

I'm not asking about what scene the GM will frame next. I'm asking whether they can think through success and failure. The player declares an action. Is it possible for you, as the GM, to think ok, a success looks like this all.

The rule for Burning Wheel is found on p 30 of the freely downloadable Hub and Spokes:

If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and
completed the task.

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test.​

So the GM has no decision to make in relation to a successful test, other than perhaps to consider some embellishment.

 

[pemerton]

No, I think @Enrahim has it right here. People seem to be getting tripped up on the idea that random rolls are fixed content. Yes, they aren't specified in advance, but the process is, and the process is independent of the players. If we roll to populate a hex the players just entered, then it feels like that hex was always there and we have just discovered it. Likewise we have just discovered whatever guard was out and about.

That feeling doesn't hold if what we create depends on the players rolls. The illusion breaks and it is clear everything is being made up for the PCs.

So for me, there is a major metaphysical difference. You might not feel that way, but you do see there is a difference. So maybe we can all accept that we respond to this real difference in different ways.

In my view, "If we roll to populate a hex the players just entered" then it is obvious that "everything is being made up for the PCs." The player saying "My PC enters this hex" and the player saying "I only rolled 1 success" are both the players doing things, that are then prompting the GM to author something. Neither is independent of the player; though, if what the GM is prompted to do is roll on a table, then the particular table result is independent.

There is a difference of process between disclaiming decision-making (eg by rolling) and not (eg by doing the job that a GM has to do in Burning Wheel). But the fiction has the same metaphysical status.

So I don't see the difference that you assert is there. And if it just a matter of feelings I think that is enough to show that it is not a metaphysical difference.

 

[The Firebird]

You don't think that one way to test if a character gets lucky is by rolling dice?

I don't think the characters skill at lockpicking should determine how lucky they at entering while everyone is asleep.

But they are fixed if it is subsequent to, rather than prior to, the player saying My PC goes for a night-time walk through the town, thus obliging the GM to decide whether a guard harasses the PC?

Yes--we are just discovering it by making a roll.

The rule for Burning Wheel is found on p 30 of the freely downloadable Hub and Spokes:

If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and​

completed the task.​

​

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test.​

So the GM has no decision to make in relation to a successful test, other than perhaps to consider some embellishment.

Ok, so as the GM you do know what happens on a success, yes? And it is in fact so obvious you don't even have to make a decision?

In this case, is it reasonable to say the player knows what happens on a success? Presumably they've read the rules.

 

[JConstantine]

You've never made a group check?

Group checks are simultaneous rolls, not consecutive.

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

To be fair, the assumed 60% success rate was specifically for hits in combat, not ability checks.

 

[The Firebird]

There is a difference of process between disclaiming decision-making (eg by rolling) and not (eg by doing the job that a GM has to do in Burning Wheel). But the fiction has the same metaphysical status.

Disagree, regarding the fiction.

So I don't see the difference that you assert is there. And if it just a matter of feelings I think that is enough to show that it is not a metaphysical difference.

The difference I assert is there is precisely what you posted here:

This process centres the player (via their decision to make the Sing roll, the stakes that establishes both expressly and implicitly, the general rules for consequence-narration and scene (re)framing etc) in a way that differs from the system of encounter rolls and reaction rolls. That's not an accident: it's a key way in which Burning Wheel is deliberately different from more traditional and classic approaches to FRPGing.

I feel there is a metaphysical difference. Your argument boils down to "well I don't feel there is a metaphysical difference and if there can be disagreement then it can't be metaphysical, so therefore I am right". I think it's obvious there is no way to convince you in that case. You feel the way you do and that's fine.

I hope you can accept at least that people who don't like your system 1) understand it and 2) dislike it for the real differences in resolution that you've described.

 

[JConstantine]

If the dispositions are identical than, by definition, they will.

Not really, no. Disposition is an "inclination towards" or "willingness", not "guarantee of". This is as erroneous as the "it's what my character would do" excuse. The typical counter to that comment is that a person could act in a number of ways and the player chose that particular (disruptive) action when they could have chosen another course. The same is true here. Any given individual may not act the same way in the same situation depending on a variety of other factors, let alone 10 different people.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think the characters skill at lockpicking should determine how lucky they at entering while everyone is asleep.

In the AW example, the roll is to Act Under Fire. The modifier is cool, as in "cool under fire, rational, clearthinking, calm, calculating, unfazed." (p 14). I think someone who is cool in this way is pretty good at making their own luck - making the call as to when to enter, based on their estimate of where the patrols outside probably are, and being reasonably confident that there is no one on the other side.

Do they get unlucky - eg someone coming in just as they make their call? The dice seem as good a way as any to determine this.

Yes--we are just discovering it by making a roll.

I'm not sure who the we is, here. In my BW play I discovered, by making a roll, that there was a guard wanting to harass Aedhros. But I don't think that's what you meant? Or that you would count that as "fixed"?

Ok, so as the GM you do know what happens on a success, yes? And it is in fact so obvious you don't even have to make a decision?

In this case, is it reasonable to say the player knows what happens on a success? Presumably they've read the rules.

I'm confused. The player is the one who is determining what happens on a success.

Eg had my roll to Sing succeeded, then Aedhros would have regained some sense of (Elven) sense, granting the linked test advantage on my next test to resist Thoth's bullying and depravity. Then a new scene would have had to be framed - but you said "I'm not asking about what scene the GM will frame next," and so I confined my post to an account of what success involves.

 

[pemerton]

Any given individual may not act the same way in the same situation depending on a variety of other factors

This doesn't change the point that the throwing of the punch is an INUS condition: an insufficient but necessary component of an unnecessary but sufficient condition.

Those other factors are also INUS conditions.

 

[pemerton]

I feel there is a metaphysical difference. Your argument boils down to "well I don't feel there is a metaphysical difference and if there can be disagreement then it can't be metaphysical, so therefore I am right". I think it's obvious there is no way to convince you in that case. You feel the way you do and that's fine.

I don't really know how you're using "metaphysical". I'm talking about things like whether the fiction is established or implicit, authored now or then (which thus establishes the contrasts between in-fiction temporal relations and real-world temporal relations between fictional elements), etc.

You are pointing to properties of the authoring process - eg what prompts and guides it - and attributing those as properties of the fiction. The implication of that is that the metaphysical status of (say) Sherlock Holmes's name would change if we discovered that Conan Doyle gave his character that name because he lost a bet. That doesn't seem right to me.

 

[Campbell]

@The Firebird

Scene framing is another one of those terms that could use some work. The GM is not framing discrete scenes that then run on evaluative logic. The scenes are fluid and constantly being reframed whenever the situation changes due to actions players have their characters take. At every point where the GM is making a decision (in scene framed play) about what happens next it is a creative decision constrained by the principles of the game and established fiction rather than an evaluative one because there is no mental model at play about stuff that has not yet been established.

"At every moment drive play towards conflict." is as crystal clear as possible.

You might have some ideas on possible ways to frame what success or failure should mean, but there's never a single path to take or even a best path because it is ultimately a creative decision about what sorts of conflicts are compelling and speak to the premise of the characters most. including weighing stuff like which characters have been spotlighted most recently.