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

[pemerton]

In the traditional game, no retroactive additions are happening unless the DM doesn't know what he is doing. Retroactive additions are a mistake, not a feature.

This makes Gygax's AD&D non-traditional, then, given that it expressly contemplates retrofitting fiction to explain surprise:

obviously in the fiction there must be some or other reason that the PCs are surprised. Gygax realised this, and addressed it in his DMG (p 62):

When one side or another is surprised, this general term can represent a number of possible circumstances. In the first place it simply represents actual surprise - that is, the opponent was unprepared for the appearance/attack. The reason for this could be eating, sleeping, waste elimination, attention elsewhere, no weapon ready, etc. While each possible cause of surprise could be detailed, with a matrix and factors of time for recovery from the condition calculated to a nicety, the overall result would not materially add to the game - in fact, the undue complication would detract from the smooth flow of play.​

The tone of this passage is very similar to the passages that explain and justify hit points and saving throws. And that's no surprise: what all those passages try and do is to explain and justify departures from purely representational mechanics of the "mechanical simulationist" variety discussed by Eero Tuovinen (two decades earlier Edwards called this purist-for-system simulationism).

 

[AlViking]

This is a very interesting conversation, and let me see if I understood correctly by applying the monster encounter in the wild conversation to the cook behind the locked door situation.

(I didn't read every single post, so I apologize if this is something that already came up.)

I'm trying to describing the process in which a PC would run into a cook after picking the lock.

Trad Approach

• player succeeds a lock picking check.
• GM rolls for a random encounter, which says there should be an NPC behind the door. The GM decides a cook would make sense.

There could be times when the cook (or other adversary) is not random, the GM has already made that decision. I would also put things in a different order

1. Is the room on the other side of the door occupied and by whom (may be predetermined or random).
   1. If there is someone in the room the character attempting to break in might detect them. Perhaps the occupant isn't bothering to be quiet, maybe the character puts their ear to the door or peeks in the keyhole, maybe there's a light at the window with shadows from someone walking back and forth.
2. The character attempts to open the lock
   1. If step 1 established that there was someone in the room, they may hear the lockpick attempt. I might ask for a separate stealth check because the sleight of hand to open the lock and trying to be quiet are separate things.
   2. What does the occupant do if they hear the lockpick attempt?
3. Success or failure of the action
   1. Success - the player can open the door if they want. They may just have wanted it unlocked as an option for a quick escape. I don't assume anything other than what the actions the player has declared.
   2. Failure - nothing changes, the door is still locked. My house rule is that if they didn't jam the lock by failing by a significant amount they can repeat the attempt but it can take up to 20 minutes to open. Do they want to try again?

Narrative Approach

• player gets a mixed success for breaking into a building (which maybe a lock-picking move)
• player and GM discuss what the complication should be. They decide that a cook would make sense.

Does this seem correct?

 

[pemerton]

True to an extent. But then when I give a concrete example of picking the lock and the quantum cook, I get "What the goal and approach?" which is just not a thing in D&D

There are multiple posters on these boards who advocate "goal and approach" as a thing for resolving 5e D&D action declarations. I have seen it come up a lot on the 5e D&D boards.

 

[AlViking]

There are multiple posters on these boards who advocate "goal and approach" as a thing for resolving 5e D&D action declarations. I have seen it come up a lot on the 5e D&D boards.

You can layer many things on top of the game rules that are not in any of the books. Goal and approach is one of them. I have never seen nor have I ever heard of a DM doing it for D&D on any other thread.

 

[pemerton]

What is the basis for that confidence? How do you suppose the manifesto rules out the methods referred to in the play report?

Because the things it says are very similar to some FKR manifestos, and there is also some overlap with "blorb" principles.

To me it seems fairly clear what sort of play the manifesto has in mind. I don't think it does an especially good job of describing it, particularly when it gets to talking about "diegesis", "abstractions" and "rules".

 

[pemerton]

You can layer many things on top of the game rules that are not in any of the books. Goal and approach is one of them. I have never seen nor have I ever heard of a DM doing it for D&D on any other thread.

Well I can assure you that it has been discussed in many 5e threads. The last one I remember was the Gloves are Off thread from a couple of years ago.

 

[pemerton]

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.

The cook is in the house, or perhaps lives in the house and is running an errand, or perhaps works at the house and is running early, or on time, or late, . . .

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.

Yes, everyone reading this thread knows that.

The point that @hawkeyefan and I are making is that the cook is not more or less "fixed" or "quantum" because the roll used to determine their presence and response is the roll to open the lock, rather than some other roll that you or @Maxperson might make.

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.

Yes, everyone reading the thread knows this. The point is that in both cases the narration follows the making of a roll. In neither case is the narration forced by the logic of the fiction without any intermediating process. And a roll is a roll - one roll is not more "quantum" than another roll.

 

[AlViking]

Well I can assure you that it has been discussed in many 5e threads. The last one I remember was the Gloves are Off thread from a couple of years ago.

Okay, so it's been discussed on threads I have never read that I recall. It's still layering stuff on top of the existing rules, there are a lot of house rules people implement that I wouldn't want to use.

 

[AlViking]

The cook is in the house, or perhaps lives in the house and is running an errand, or perhaps works at the house and is running early, or on time, or late, . . .

Yes, everyone reading this thread knows that.

The point that @hawkeyefan and I are making is that the cook is not more or less "fixed" or "quantum" because the roll used to determine their presence and response is the roll to open the lock, rather than some other roll that you or @Maxperson might make.

Yes, everyone reading the thread knows this. The point is that in both cases the narration follows the making of a roll. In neither case is the narration forced by the logic of the fiction without any intermediating process. And a roll is a roll - one roll is not more "quantum" than another roll.

And I just disagree. I can't help it if you don't see that an action of picking a lock being tied to a person being in the other room is problematic for me and others. What I don't understand is that you can't just accept that we do and move on.

 

[pemerton]

I run games with a simulation approach

I thought you play D&D?