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

[Campbell]

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.

Sure, and the way we establish that disposition in scene framed play is the GM decides because they believe that makes for compelling situation that speaks to the premise of the game and the player characters. That's the whole point - between a roll being made and the GM describing what happens next, they are making a creative decision constrained by the test result and there are any number of decisions they could make that follow from what has been established.

 

[JConstantine]

That background noise is established as a part of the fiction now to explain something that happened in the fiction back then.

Not to nit-pick the example, but it seems to me that this would be a violation of both simulationism and narrativism.
For simulationism, the GM acts as the PC's senses (this is also the case outside of simulationism, but not strictly relevant) and so they should have established the ambient noise as part of simulating the world when setting the scene.
For narrativist games, while not strictly related to the agenda of character, it's a violation of the additional emphasis on the fiction-first principle and should have occurred as part of a GM action/move that telegraphs trouble, like "hint at future badness".

 

[AlViking]

We could even say - it's uncertain whether or not an intruder will be sprung by a cook in the kitchen - so we roll dice . . .

If I consider the cook a wandering monster, which I could for a mansion, then sure. It would be a separate wandering monster roll that I would do before the lock picking attempt was made because there's a possibility that a person in the room on the other side of the door could hear it.. It would have nothing to do with the pick locks roll because that has nothing to do with wandering monsters in the game I play, even if it does with yours.

 

[JConstantine]

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.

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.

I think this ties to what I said a ways back regarding how (techniques associated with) simulationism act as an additional layer of illusionism that strengthen the suspension of disbelief for people of a certain mindset.

 

[thefutilist]

But yea. Depending on the specifics even in sim play we can justify a cook. It just has to really flow from the fiction. Not in a oh this is possible kind of way, but in a this is very plausible kind of way.

I don't really buy that for the numerous reasons the 'Nar side' has gone over. I can give you my take on what's probably happening.


Think of a scene as a chunk of stuff with entities in it. The entities can be people or even things, like a cliff face, numerous winding corridors, like discrete bits of fiction.

So we set a scene up. Does the resolution method create new entities or does it just change the status of already established entities? The former is what's often called fail forward. Although it's a naff phrase really because it doesn't always mean that.

I prefer the terms, generative resolution V positioning resolution or something along those lines.

The actual line can be far more blurry than it first appears but I think there is a line.

EDIT: by change status, I mean does entity A do something to entity B that causes the change. Like hit them with a sword or marry them.

 

[AlViking]

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


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


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.

What I don't understand is why people can't just let it go. Different games have different goals, different processes. Different people have different preferences. If I liked BitD or a similar game approach, I'd play that game. I'd accept some lack of in-world cause and effect just like I accept AC and HP in D&D, every game has abstractions and are trying to evoke different play experiences. Just because I don't want a game that focuses on high level goals or focus on moral quandaries, doesn't mean I can't accept other preferences. I really don't get why we've had hundreds of pages on this now and constant never ending variations on "but you could do it my way".

 

[The Firebird]

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.

Yes, agree.

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.

I agree the dice are a good tool. I do not agree that the player's check is a good way to do this. Their Act Under Fire roll is not, in this case, about them making the best call about when to enter--it is determining whether it is a good time to enter. On a success it is a good time; on a failure it is not. The PCs skill is not involved, but the roll involves it.

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"?

That would not count as fixed because it was dependent on roll that evaluated a character's ability to do something.

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.

Yes, great! We are in agreement.

A while back we were discussing the cook showing up on a 7-9. I (and others) said that it felt like the cook was conjured as a result of failure. Some folks said that it wouldn't feel that way to the player because there was no way for the player to know what happened on a success.

But here, it seems the player does know what would happen on a success--no cook. Correct? The player gets to narrate the success, which is them opening the door and not seeing a cook.

 

[The Firebird]

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.

Fine, let's drop it. I don't think it's worth nailing down and will just be a further tangent.

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.

Yes, I get that. The reason I went back to it was just this "you won't know what would have happened on a success" idea. And as a GM, after the player declared their action, I did start thinking *a failure looks like X, a success looks like Y". So that didn't seem right to me. I don't think there needs to be only one result for success or failure for the GM to have thought about it before the roll.

 

[Pedantic]

The simplest example is probably climbing. In 3.5 to climb up a 30ft tall wall will require 4 checks for a fairly standard character. By the laws of iterated probability we've gone through earlier the chance of success drops off dramatically the more checks you are forced to make to get to the top. Alternatively, you can use Flight or Spider Climb to climb much more difficult circumstances, much faster and with zero risk.

Unless you're actively in combat or a dangerous environment, that 3.5 character is presumably taking 10. With any positive Strength score, a creature invested at all in Climb (even just the 4 ranks at level 1) will not be rolling. If they are under pressure, the worst case scenario is they make no progress by failing by 4 or less. A climber's kit, rope, ranks in Use Rope could also apply for a character not invested...and by level 5, a character trying to be good at climbing certainly can't fail, even in combat or similar, and might be climbing at half or full speed.

Spider Climb is better off you can justify the cost, but the range where it's relevant is pretty limited. The real difference is that "climbing a 30ft object" isn't much of a challenge after a certain point. That, and the gameplay loop of 3.5 is about manipulating the situation you're in to favor your abilities and/or resource expenditure. Between take 10 and judicious spell/magic item use, avoiding non-combat rolls for an entire session is very normal and desirable as a player.

 

[AlViking]

I'll not speak for @Hussar here, but I think the point here is that there are many circumstances whereby, in D&D (let's use 3.5 for this, as it's probably where the effect is most pronounced) if you want to succeed at a task, you are better off using a spell rather than a skill.

The simplest example is probably climbing. In 3.5 to climb up a 30ft tall wall will require 4 checks for a fairly standard character. By the laws of iterated probability we've gone through earlier the chance of success drops off dramatically the more checks you are forced to make to get to the top. Alternatively, you can use Flight or Spider Climb to climb much more difficult circumstances, much faster and with zero risk.

This is true (in 3.5 at least) for a large swath of problems, from social to physical, from crafting to investigation. It's why Knock in 5e is much less practical than it is in 3.5, for example.

I don't remember ever making more than 1 climb check in 3.5 and definitely not for a 30 foot tall wall. Most DMs just had players roll once, we could take 10 or the characters would double move to get there in 2 rounds. Most typical climb checks were the person best able to do it climbed to the top and dropped a knotted rope. Climbing kits and similar were also quite common, there were multiple ways of reducing risk.

As far as spider climb or fly, those were limited resource that only have 1 target. Magic should be helpful now and then I just don't see it as the go-to first choice most of the time. For social situations, casting charm person or similar has always had negative consequences, as far as we were concerned the person charmed always knew they had been charmed. It's a good way to get a bad reputation and make enemies.

Of course I also haven't played 3.5 for 15 years or so, I don't really see it as being particularly relevant to the current game.

edit - ninja'd by @Pedantic