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

[Maxperson]

How do the locations of both the NPCs and the PCs remain the same when and encounter is both indicated and not indicated. They’re both in the same location… no?

You need to rephrase that if you want me to answer it. I'm not sure what you are asking.

 

[AlViking]

Perhaps it does, though. It’s on the GM to have the outcome make sense. So with the cook, the GM has to come up with a sensible explanation… this is why many of us mentioned having her hear the lockpick attempt and so on.

It very much seems to me that you and some other posters have decided it’s “quantum” and so you’re unwilling to find a way to make it work, or to admit some suggestion made by others is reasonable and addresses your concern.

What I would say about the cook is that if a GM is comfortable and capable of narrating the situation in a sensible manner, then the fail forward technique may be a good one for them. If they’re not, then they should go another route.

“Nothing happens” is a perfectly acceptable option in D&D. I don't prefer it myself, and there are other games that specifically say not to do that… but that doesn’t mean it’s in any way wrong. But if you want something different, you have to be willing to make it work.

As we've said repeatedly: the reason the cook is there matters to some of us. Maybe it doesn't matter to you. Either way is fine* but it has nothing to do with coming up with a way to justify it. I could justify Godzilla in a closet if I really wanted to, I just don't want the cook to be there solely because of a failed roll.

*If I had a GM that added complication on a failure on a regular basis I think it would become obvious after a while and it's a style of play I wouldn't personally want.

 

[Faolyn]

Oh, come on. The ONLY reason the grass suddenly becomes long is because of the ambush, not the other way around. The DM wouldn't have even bothered describing the grass until the encounter occurred. Let's not pretend otherwise. Do you seriously describe the length of grass every single minute of travel?

This highly depends on two things:

First off is how much the GM enjoys setting the scene. I'd describe it as tall grass because that provides a different feel for the location than short grass would; I enjoy describing the world and things like the length of grass help to set the scene.

Secondly, of course, is if the encounter was planned or random. If I wanted an encounter where the antagonists were hiding in the grass, then I'd make sure that either the grass was tall or they were otherwise well camouflaged.

I don't do random encounters, but if I did, then yes, I could see having to retroactively claim tall grass.

 

[The Firebird]

So the lockpick roll… I’d use one roll to determine the outcome overall. I wouldn’t require a lockpick and then a stealth roll to pick the lock quietly, and then a stealth roll to open the door, and another to move quietly over to the cook.

I actually ran a 5e oneshot this weekend because I travelled to meet up with some friends for a birthday. I used several alternate techniques than standard 5e ones.

I let the rogue lead a group stealth check. I had the other two players roll for their characters. Success on their roll would give advantage to the rogue. Failure would give disadvantage. If they split, the rogue would roll normally. The rogue’s roll then applied to all members of the group.

I had a situation where they needed to climb a cave wall, and there was some time pressure. The cave wall was 80 feet. I didn’t have them make multiple checks based on climbing movement rate. They just had to make one roll. One of the players failed, so the penalty was not that he failed to climb the wall, but that it took him a long time. This mattered for the next encounter, due to the time pressure.

I used clocks to handle a couple of complex skill challenges, and made them player facing. There was a ritual being performed and when the clock filled, it would be completed. Another was for reinforcements to show up. An argument could be made that both of these things were beyond what the characters would know… but it was trivially easy to tick the clock and then narrate something that the characters observed (first tick was a goblin yelling down a side corridor, obviously calling for help; next was howls and growls echoing down the corridor in response; finally torchlight and shadows of additional enemies seen on the tunnel wall).

It all went well. The game ran fine… arguably smoother in some ways, though I can’t say that for sure. But one of the players… the birthday boy, who is easily the most trad-minded player in my longtime game group, commented about the “rulings” I made and how he thought it really enhanced play. In particular, he really liked the way the clocks helped portray the tension of the mounting threat of reinforcements and the ritual progressing.

Now… having said all that, I realize that not everyone would love these changes I made. To be honest, I was a little nervous to use them in a game with the birthday boy. But that doesn’t mean they can’t work. It doesn’t mean that there was anything more quantum about this game compared to others. It didn’t result in a bunch of “metagaming”.

What it allowed me to do was run a game with no prep, and to challenge the players and their characters in a way that worked and which didn’t need to be done ahead of time.

Cool example. I agree that the narrative mechanics are very useful in running a no prep game, and I've ported them over before in order to get something off the ground on short notice.

 

[clearstream]

I think there exists a confluence of what you've called neotrad and neosim here, where the process of character and setting creation is intentionally muddled. I'm put in mind if the occasional bits we get in the talkback podcasts for Worlds Beyond Number, where the cast discuss putting together a board of setting touchstone media, desired themes, and and specific questions, which were ultimately synthesized by Brennan Lee Mulligan into a final setting. There's some bleed between setting/character primacy in that work, but I think it points out that creating a setting to allow our even serve specific characters does not preclude that setting then having primacy once it is established.

On third read that helps with what I thought might be an unfixable loophole in Sorensen's manifesto, which is that a group could engineer into setting whatever features they wanted to appear in play; and then say that setting has primacy.

And that is mistaken: the manifesto doesn't say that it's okay to bleed between setting/character primacy and then give setting primacy later. It says setting has primacy simpliciter.

It seems right then that you identify what the podcast is doing as a confluence of neotrad and neosim, rather than bare neosim. Assuming that neosim really is something a game can do, and that Sorensen's manifesto identifies and procures it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

As we've said repeatedly: the reason the cook is there matters to some of us. Maybe it doesn't matter to you. Either way is fine* but it has nothing to do with coming up with a way to justify it. I could justify Godzilla in a closet if I really wanted to, I just don't want the cook to be there solely because of a failed roll.

*If I had a GM that added complication on a failure on a regular basis I think it would become obvious after a while and it's a style of play I wouldn't personally want.

Right but some of us are pointing out the inconsistency of attributing the cook’s presence to the roll, and then say that a wandering monster is not determined by the roll. In the case of the cook, you’re focusing on the real world reason for her being there… the die roll.

But with the wandering monster, you’re looking at the fictional reason that the monster is there… that they dwell/live/ are traveling in the area.

We should evaluate both by the same method, no? In which case, both are determined by a die roll in the real world. In the fiction, both would be where we find them no matter what.

 

[Faolyn]

okay but this is part of the core problem you're missing, yes, the dice roll to unlock the door is something that should be influenced by the character's ability rating, however that same dice roll influenced by their stats/skills is also being used to determine their luck in the situation which is something that should not be influenced by their personal capabilities, a better lockpicker is for some reason 'more lucky' and encounters less random complications many of which are entirely tangential to their skill, (edit to add: no matter how skilled whoever it is attempting the lock, if the cook's going to be in the kitchen, then they're going to be in the kitchen, on success or fail, skilled or unskilled.)

Well, yeah. The better you are at something, the fewer complications there are. And very often, the less time something takes.

D&D has you picking a lock in six seconds. Or a minute, in AD&D. In real life, it can take quite a bit of time. The longer you're there trying to pick the lock, the more time there is for a complication to set in, such as a someone wandering into the room. A good lockpicker will be inside by the time the amateur has gotten set up.

If anything's unrealistic in this scenario, it's how long things take in D&D.

 

[AlViking]

This highly depends on two things:

First off is how much the GM enjoys setting the scene. I'd describe it as tall grass because that provides a different feel for the location than short grass would; I enjoy describing the world and things like the length of grass help to set the scene.

Secondly, of course, is if the encounter was planned or random. If I wanted an encounter where the antagonists were hiding in the grass, then I'd make sure that either the grass was tall or they were otherwise well camouflaged.

I don't do random encounters, but if I did, then yes, I could see having to retroactively claim tall grass.

If I used random encounters, I would roll for the encounter and then set the scene for the encounter that's about to happen in. "You come to a small valley that acts as sort of an oasis in this arid lands with tall grass and a few trees. Everybody give me perception checks <continue to the start of combat>." If it was something like gnolls in the desert, they dug shallow holes to lie in and were hiding under camouflage or similar. There is no need to retroactively add anything since there's no expectation that I'm going to give detailed descriptions of every mile of the trip.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You need to rephrase that if you want me to answer it. I'm not sure what you are asking.

That may be because I’m not following your logic at all… but I’ll try and clarify.

Let’s say the NPCs are in location A. You’re saying they are there whether the random encounter roll is a yes or a no… that either way, that’s where they are.

You’ve also said that the roll doesn’t determine the PCs’ location either. So they are also at location A.

How can both the PCs and NPCs be at location A both when an encounter happens and when an encounter doesn’t happen?

 

[The Firebird]

My own view is that part of being a skilled burglar is making your own luck - that is, having a knack (by way of observation, familiarity with how people move through and use buildings, etc) of knowing when there is someone on the other side and when there isn't.

Yes, I agree. But this isn't what the roll is doing. Compare three cases:

1) A master thief with fixed world abilities would get a perception check, see the obstacle, and get a chance to proceed anyway or to try a different route. They could choose to wait 20 minutes and see if the cook cleared out. A poor thief would blunder in.

2) The player tries to pick the lock, succeeds--and because there is no failure, they achieve their intent in the way they wanted. They go in, no cook. Their high lock picking skill directly influences the odds of the cook being there. That's not representing character skill--it's not showing them being a master thief--it's them getting lucky.

3) Or, we bundle the rolls while maintaining a fixed world. The thief rolls to pick the lock and gets a success. The GM says--hey, you succeed, but there is a cook here. Being a master thief, you can tell they'll clear out shortly. You wait 20 minutes until it is clear, then enter.

I'd be fine with cases (1) or (3). But ime narrative games run more like (2)--and that seems more in line with your Pattycakes example. Am I wrong?

On your preferred approach, it seems to me that the supposedly skilled burglar is as likely as the amateur to misjudge their attempt and be caught. Which is to say, they are not skilled at all.

No--see case (1).