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

[The Firebird]

The cool thing about these games is they have explicit examples and discussion of what all these GM moves mean, and often how you can use them to do a softer/harder thing depending on the surrounding fiction.

Yes--the fact that things have explicit examples and definitions does not preclude it from being jargon. It's usually a characteristic of jargon. If things meant what they sounded like we wouldn't need the examples.

You cannot call the explicitly defined procedures of a game "jargon" and then go "well reaction rolls and random encounters are just things everybody knows."

I think reaction rolls and random encounters are also jargon. But I think they are better because they are more clearly what they say. Whereas a lot of narrative games use words that have colloquial meanings to mean something else. To take a look at some examples:

But anyway, here's an example of announcing future badness: You see Plover, but he doesn't see you. He's talking to the mechanic aggressively, and you hear him say your name. The mechanic doesn't look like she's inclined to keep her mouth shut. What do you do?

Without the bolded keywords, I could say--hey, this seems like a pretty bad spot the GM put you in.

And here's an example of being put in a spot: Plover is coming at you from one side, and Dremmer from the other. Neither looks happy. What do you do?

Likewise--yikes, you've got two people coming at you, sounds like some badness on the way.

This approach to language turns me off of these games in a way that 'reaction rolls' doesn't.

 

[Faolyn]

Different strokes for different folks. In my games if the characters are breaking into a house I'll know who's there, whether there are guard dogs and so on.

But we're back to the question I has several million posts ago: what do you do if the PCs decided to break into a house as a whim, not as part of a plan? Unless you are a world-class railroader, the PCs are sometimes going to want to do things you didn't plan for--and that sometimes may be a lot of the time. And that requires improvisation.

I may not know specifically where they are at any given moment, that's where I would roll for odds of encountering them in any specific room. It doesn't take a lot of prep other than a few lines in my notes. Those notes may or may not include what closet Godzilla is in and what he's doing there other than waiting for someone to open the closet door so he can jump out and yell "SURPRISE!"

There's no reason for there to be Godzilla in a closet, though, because there's nothing in the fiction that would allow Godzilla to exist there at all (assuming that closet-sized kaiju are not a thing in your world). That's what people keep forgetting--the fiction. Does it make sense, considering the time, location, and other factors, that this thing exists here? Yes or no?

 

[AlViking]

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.

You not accepting the difference does not mean much, sorry. A random encounter does not create monsters. It does not add mountain lions, wolves or bears to a region. The grizzly bear was somewhere in the area all along, the odds of you encountering a bear or any other dangerous creature was uncertain.

As I've said before, if there is a cook in the house and I'm uncertain if they were in the kitchen when the break-in attempt occurs, I'll roll for it just like I would a wandering monster. I would not justify it after the fact based on a failed sleight of hand check to open the lock.

 

[CreamCloud0]

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.

it's not inconsistent, the wandering monster is not being determined by the same roll that the players are using for a check, it is determined by A roll, a neutral independent roll, but not THE (skill) roll, unlike the cook.

it's really not that complicated a distinction.

 

[Enrahim]

Your wandering monsters magically teleport to whatever location the party happens to be at the arbitrarily determined time span. The scene arbitrarily manifests itself to fit whatever the completely arbitrarily determined event has been created. There is no difference.

I am replying this far back, as your back and forth with @Maxperson is a dead end. You are right about that the roll determines the presence of the monster. However the difference is as we have sorted out hundreds of posts ago about the entanglement with player actions. A roll purely to determine the presence of a monster is generally regarded as fine for everyone seemingly (even if not all are using it). A roll entangling the presence of a creature to a player chosen skill roll is not for someone that want a feeling of a genuinely independent world.

The key difference is the feel of independence of the world is tightly related to the independence of statistics. If a seperate roll is made for the presence of the cook, that roll is statistically independent of any characteristics of the character. If the presence of the cook is determined by the skill roll, then the probability of there being a cook depends on the character skill. It is this dependence that breaks the illusion of independence

See the difference now?

EDIT: Sorry! I see now that it was @hawkeyefan that kept this reply chain going.

 

[AlViking]

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.

Which is why I sometimes use partial success. If you miss picking the lock by a small amount you can continue to attempt to open it, it's just going to take a while. If you decide to continue the attempt, yes a wandering guard is possible. But it's still not dependent on the success or failure of the initial lock picking attempt, it's that you couldn't unlock it easily so you've decided to take the risk of taking longer to open it (my house rule is that it can take up to 20 minutes).

As far as how long a turn is, I agree that's an abstraction I don't really agree with but have decided to accept. A game like D&D has to make a lot of abstraction choices, I don't agree 100% with all fo them. Another poster on this thread stated that a locksmith opened their lock in less than 30 seconds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But we're back to the question I has several million posts ago: what do you do if the PCs decided to break into a house as a whim, not as part of a plan? Unless you are a world-class railroader, the PCs are sometimes going to want to do things you didn't plan for--and that sometimes may be a lot of the time. And that requires improvisation.


There's no reason for there to be Godzilla in a closet, though, because there's nothing in the fiction that would allow Godzilla to exist there at all (assuming that closet-sized kaiju are not a thing in your world). That's what people keep forgetting--the fiction. Does it make sense, considering the time, location, and other factors, that this thing exists here? Yes or no?

I have tables I use to determine who's on a random house if it turns out I need to know. Tables for a lot of other things like that too. The tables (and my judgement if I get weird results) take the fiction into account. Pretty sure I mentioned that a while back.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

I’m still failing to see how successful lock picking would go undetected by potential observers. That would absolutely seem to be part of the lock picker’s skill.

it's not inconsistent, the wandering monster is not being determined by the same roll that the players are using for a check, it is determined by A roll, a neutral independent roll, but not THE (skill) roll, unlike the cook.

it's really not that complicated a distinction.

Sure, I see that distinction. It seems a very pointless one to make, though. It’s still a roll of dice that determines the presence of the NPCs. That’s the process.

 

[AlViking]

Yes--the fact that things have explicit examples and definitions does not preclude it from being jargon. It's usually a characteristic of jargon. If things meant what they sounded like we wouldn't need the examples.


I think reaction rolls and random encounters are also jargon. But I think they are better because they are more clearly what they say. Whereas a lot of narrative games use words that have colloquial meanings to mean something else. To take a look at some examples:


Without the bolded keywords, I could say--hey, this seems like a pretty bad spot the GM put you in.

Likewise--yikes, you've got two people coming at you, sounds like some badness on the way.

This approach to language turns me off of these games in a way that 'reaction rolls' doesn't.

One of the oddest jargon phrases we hear now and then is IIRC "In order to do something, do it." Which, without the detailed explanation is completely and totally meaningless. As a player I am not doing anything other than saying what my character does and rolling some dice. Yet we see people toss that phrase out like it means something to someone who has never played that particular game.

Every game has that issue to a certain degree, and while most words in D&D at least have some association to what they're talking about, we do talk a lot in abbreviations. If you don't know what "The orc attacks AC 20 doing 7 HP damage, make a DC 13 con check or be poisoned" it's pretty incomprehensible.

 

[Enrahim]

I’m still failing to see how successful lock picking would go undetected by potential observers. That would absolutely seem to be part of the lock picker’s skill.

It might help them go undetected by potential observers, but it shouldn't affect the presence of potential observers..

Edit: did you see my clarifying post above?