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

[Micah Sweet]

That's not the comparison class I'm working with.

But it’s the comparison I've cared about since this thread started.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I agree that there could be far more detail, there are a lot of compromises in order to make the game easy to play. It may not have the granularity or match the level of fidelity to the real world that you desire, that has nothing to do with it being a simulation.

Agreed. I regularly tweak the rules of my version of D&D to make feel like a better simulation to me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes. The fact that D&D is so commonly used for a simulationist agenda (or play with no particular CA agenda that has simulationist trappings) does not mean that the game engine itself is oriented towards sim. There are better games out there that are more oriented towards sim as an explicit agenda.

You take what you can get (and what you can find players for). It's hardly a perfect world.

 

[Gradine]

Guys, I think RPGs are pretty cool

 

[Micah Sweet]

In AD&D, a thief has a chance to pick pockets, that goes up with level but goes down with the level of their target.

Clearly this doesn't just reflect the thief's ability to move their fingers. It also reflects the thief's ability to judge well, to hold back at the moment where acting would be rash, etc. The game doesn't call for the attempt to be broken down in a granular fashion into each footstep, each reach of the hand, each disarming pat on the arm or shoulder, etc.

There's no reason why a roll for a burglar to get through a locked door should be different.

A lockpicking check doesn't necessarily involve any other people. A pickpocket check does.

 

[JConstantine]

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.

In D&D(5e), going undetected by potential observers would be Dex (stealth/sleight of hand) vs Wis (perception). For locked doors, the DMG says

Locked Doors. Characters who don't have the key to a locked door can pick the lock with a successful Dexterity check (doing so requires thieves' tools and proficiency in their use).

As far as 5e is concerned, they're not connected.

 

[TwoSix]

Right.

I mean, I sometimes find that these threads have a bizarre character, where posters like @Micah Sweet accuse me of hating, or not understanding, simulationist priorities, when I GMed Rolemaster for 19 years and 1000s of hours. Even my Burning Wheel games are more simulationist, in respect of character build and some core aspects of resolution, like how injury is handled, than is D&D.

The same is true for 4e D&D combat, which was important to my enjoyment: because most attacks have an effect as well as just cause hp depletion, the resolution of hits in 4e combat actually tells us something about what is happening in the fiction.

I got hit for 15 hp of damage is not part of any sort of simulation. It's the sheer mechanical working out of a somewhat intricate countdown clock.

And thus the exhausting, essential conservatism. There's no looking for a path towards realizing any sort of play goal, there's just reflexive defense of "playing the way I've always played and feels normal to me."

 

[JConstantine]

This go into the core why this particular technique stabs into the heart of the notion of independence i a very real way.

To use this as a springboard, a question for @AlViking @Maxperson and others who care about the independence of the world:
How do you feel about trad/sim systems that use roll-under, like BRP or the Black Hack, where the result is effectively subjective to the character's stat as opposed to an objective external DC?

 

[AlViking]

And thus the exhausting, essential conservatism. There's no looking for a path towards realizing any sort of play goal, there's just reflexive defense of "playing the way I've always played and feels normal to me."

If someone proposed a change I thought would work better for me and my players I would consider it. Things like fail forward don't sound like anything that would make my game more enjoyable. Should I adopt it just because it's different to prove I'm not "conservative"?

 

[AlViking]

To use this as a springboard, a question for @AlViking @Maxperson and others who care about the independence of the world:
How do you feel about trad/sim systems that use roll-under, like BRP or the Black Hack, where the result is effectively subjective to the character's stat as opposed to an objective external DC?

I'm not familiar with those rules, but it sounds similar to what earlier editions of D&D did for some things. The mechanics of success or failure is not the issue, it's how it's tied to the fiction of the world the characters inhabit. Does attempting to open a lock affect anything other than opening the lock.