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

[FrogReaver]

You claimed that there was a difference between Save for Half and Damage on a Miss based on the fiction. I demonstrated that this wasn't true based on the Fireball example - the only difference was whose hand the die left and a reshuffling of the bonuses and target numbers - the fictional cause and range of results were identical in both cases. We can extend this to any reduced but not zero effect based on the randomiser coming up in a specific range. Who rolls it, which is really the only mechanical difference between saves and defences is irrelevant to both the fictional cause and the fictional result - it exists only in the real world, not in the fiction.

Of course, I'm not saying you can't prefer a separation or that perhaps this particular rules widget is more immersive to you (as others have stated, it helps them to imagine they are the active party) but the point is that the physical action of rolling a die (not interpreting the results, just physically rolling it) is irrelevant to the fictional state and inversely, the fiction does not state who in the real world should be rolling a die.

I think most are coupling the interpretative part into this. There is a difference or at least potentially so there. A miss entails something different than you are in the area so will be hit but can potentially maneuver to take less of the hit.

 

[Maxperson]

Whether or not a burglar opens the door while someone is there to see them has a lot to do with their competence as a burglar. At least it seems like that to me.

Yes, but not in the way you're trying to do it. The burglar would look around the area to make sure he wasn't being watched before starting to pick the lock. That's the sort of competence that would be appropriate to look at there. Not whether or not you successfully picked a lock.

Now if you are telling me that your skill system can't differentiate between a burglar and a locksmith

Why would it need to?

; or must resolve every twist of the lockpicks as a separate roll,

Wow. A ridiculous Strawman argument there.

rather than factoring in the need to stop and play it cool as part of the check

Stopping to play it cool is NOT a part of the check unless you add it in or play a system that includes it. The check is to pick the lock.

 

[Maxperson]

By "we" you might mean "you". There is no such thing as "differently quantum". That just means "quantum that I don't like" as opposed to "quantum that I'm OK with".

No. I mean we. It was several of us. And no, it's not quantum that I don't like vs. quantum that I do. There's a difference in the play experience between quantum for the DM only in his private time, and quantum for the players in real time.

I've played in the sorts of games that you describe. They're pretty conventional, and I know how they work. That's why I call them GM-driven/GM-centred.

Except they are not inherently DM driven. The DM can run the game that way, or like me he can run it as player driven.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

That's not clear at all. How I see it is that the thief gets more skilled with his sleight of hand to pick pockets as he gains levels, and the targets get wiser about guarding their belongings and/or more perceptive as THEY gain levels.

All the stuff about judgment and holding back isn't in there. That's your addition to it.

Edit: The 1e rules spell it out.

"Picking pockets (or folds of a garment or a girdle) also includes such activities as pilfering and filching small items. It is done by light touch and sleight of hand."

None of your additions are involved there.

 

[Gimby]

I'm just saying chasing down the parallels to to-hit are probably not a useful road to go. Your general point isn't unsound, but that specific argument doesn't necessarily end up there.

Like a lot of things in D&Doids, its hard to discuss because what the mechanics are really trying to represent can be pretty opaque in many cases.

Right, which is I think why we did see early attempts to make what the mechanics represented fictionally more transparent (We can disagree about how effective they were, but it's a commonly stated influence for the development of RM and so on)

My general point is that the split we saw on this topic is more a quirk of D&Ds history rather than anything specific to do with the style and objectives of play or relationship (directly) to either the input or output fiction. The original comment was in response to someone suggesting that roll-under had a different relationship to the objectivity of the world than roll-over to their perception, which they admit is illogical. I can certainly see where they are coming from - as I mentioned in another response by rolling the die it might make you feel more immersed as the actor rather than the subject (and I suspect this is where the concept of "players roll all the dice" in the 3e UA comes from rather than the 4e "attackers roll all the dice). You could easily imagine a world where in the early development of D&D all spells and attacks are handled by opposed rolls for example, as they are in some other games.

 

[Maxperson]

Guys, I think RPGs are pretty cool

 

[hawkeyefan]

But it is based on PC skill. The more skilled the PC in the fiction, the less likely to encounter the cook behind that door. To the point that it would become apparent to the PCs that bad things happen a lot more often when unskilled members try stuff.

Bad things happening more often to the unskilled?!?! What kind of insanity is that?!?!

your assertions that they are 'equally quantum' are untrue when for one roll the chances of the location of the cook has modifiers derived from the skill of the person performing the check.

it matters that it is an independent roll.

Sure… because attracting attention is a risk of picking a lock.

I guess noone would mind the player rolling the wandering monster with their hands. The problem come when the player for some reason is applying an unrelated skill modifier of their character to that roll, and/or that roll determines more than just the wandering monster.

What if they were applying a related skill? Something like Wilderness or Survival?

That's because you aren't thinking it through. Whether or not someone is in a room has zero to do with competence of a lock picker. None.

Unless of course the attempt to lock pick attracts unwanted attention. Then, it absolutely may.

This insistence that these things are not… and cannot be… connected is, I think, an unfortunate side effect of trying to treat the world as “independent”.

Why would a lock picker and a person who may hear the lockpicking be independent of one another?

it's not more realistic if complications happen less when competent people are performing the task, the world doesn't care who is performing the task or how skilled they are, be it the three stooges or james bond, if the cook is going to be on the other side of the door then the cook is going to be on the other side of the door regardless of who is opening it.

Failures happen less when someone competent is taking the lead, Complications are entirely independent.

This makes no sense.

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

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

That’s not at all how I read that. I said it’s about the thief’s skill… not specifically about their lockpicking skill. Stealth is just another skill.

I’d personally combine them because I’d view picking a lock quietly more as a test of one’s lockpicking, but that’s just me.

Best I can tell, @pemerton views GM-created as synonymous with GM-driven, where others view a distinction.

I think it has a lot more to do with the common point of play, as stated in the second paragraph from @Enrahim below:

Again there is no serious problem if the lockpicking merely drew attention. The problem arises if there on the success was no cook there for the attention to be drawn at all. This is also not an immediate problem if the success outcome is unknown for the player, but if used extensively it can cause problematic patterns to be recognized.

Also sim play was unpresise. The exact type of play where this is a problem is play where the illusion of an independent world is important - usually because exploring and manipulating this world is central to what the players find interesting in the game.

If the exploration of setting is central to play, that is a game I’d call G-driven. The setting is paramount, and the setting is the purview of the GM. As many have pointed out, the players are expected to be very limited in how they shape the events of play… just look at the cook example.

If a player roll determines the presence of the cook? Outrage.

If the GM rolls for it or even just decides that’s what happens? Total acceptance.

The “independence” of the world must be maintained because that’s the GM’s material.

 

[Maxperson]

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?

If the system is different than d20, I don't mind it at all. It's sufficiently different. For d20 games, it bugs the hell out of me because I've played it the opposite way for decades. The lone exception to that was the 2e psionics rules, which involved rolling under a specific stat.

 

[Faolyn]

Once you start down that road pretty much all the traditional D&D attributes can seem too lumpy.

That is true. But if you need a logical, in-game explanation for why failing to pick a lock alerts a cook, there it is.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's starting to stand out as a fault line. It can seem weird to picture play in which at every moment players have at forefront of mind that the imagined world has no independence. Or to read Sanderson's Stormlight Archive while at every moment consciously refusing to imagine Roshar's independent existence. Refusing to suspend disbelief, in other words.

One thing a game could do is demand players pretend the world independently exists. One thing a manifesto for design could do is demand designers address the world as if it were independent.

For everyone but Sanderson, Roshar really does independently exist in some significant ways, just as furnished with L5R's The Emerald Empire, there are fictional facts about Rokugan that are independent of a given group of players. But I am thinking here as much about the mental models folk might be using to inform their assessments and preferences. While being very aware of the great advances in understanding that came from seeing what players were really doing rather than muddling that up with what they're pretending to do.

What seems also weird is that notions about fiction first shouldn't be reconcilable with notions of setting precedence.

I don't think I am refusing to suspend disbelief just because the setting is being first imagined while we play a zero myth game like Apocalypse World. If the GM asks me "what does Rocker's car look like?" and I answer, then both of us believe that description! It's accepted and becomes fictionally true.

While in trad play this truth acceptance happens at different times for each participant, it's still the same basic process.