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

[Maxperson]

Sure, but if swimming came up you could just refuse to have the character try it. Or if it was unavoidable (like if the PC somehow fell into the water) you could request to roll with disadvantage because of the flaw. Something like that.

Even if doing that was in the rules(and I'd allow it anyway if a player did that), it still wouldn't matter much unless the PC fell into rapids or something. If he fell into calm and even slowly moving water, the swim DC is going to be very easy, so a DC 5. Since I already specified he has athletics and is good at climbing, say an 16 strength, he's has +5 to the roll at 1st level. Even with disadvantage he will always succeed easily at that swim since 1's don't auto fail for skill checks.

I'd love to see a skill system in-between 3e and 5e. Less grouping, but not a zillion different skills.

 

[Maxperson]

This honestly doesn’t sound like any kind of random encounter roll I’ve ever heard of. I’ve never seen a breakdown of the timing according to the overall space of the location and determining where else they are.

It’s just are they in the location of the PCs or not.

Y’all are working on some advanced calculus to figure all this stuff out! Just roll some dice, people!

Or else it's basic math.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Even if doing that was in the rules(and I'd allow it anyway if a player did that), it still wouldn't matter much unless the PC fell into rapids or something. If he fell into calm and even slowly moving water, the swim DC is going to be very easy, so a DC 5. Since I already specified he has athletics and is good at climbing, say an 16 strength, he's has +5 to the roll at 1st level. Even with disadvantage he will always succeed easily at that swim since 1's don't auto fail for skill checks.

I'd love to see a skill system in-between 3e and 5e. Less grouping, but not a zillion different skills.

Level Up's skill specializations work well for me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Or else it's basic math.

It’s also unnecessary and more complex than needed, and very different from typical expressions of this sort.

 

[Maxperson]

“Inappropriately”? The player action is rolling dice.

Do players not typically roll dice to affect the fictional world?

Close. The players typically roll to determine how the PC affects the fictional world. The PC is the buffer in-between the two. Players don't often roll to affect the fictional world. The narrative method is skipping that buffer at least some of the time.

 

[Maxperson]

It’s also unnecessary and more complex than needed, and very different from typical expressions of this sort.

I agree it's more complex that needed and not necessary. However, it does meet the requirements of some people who play the game. For you it isn't necessary and is more complex that needed. For @Lanefan it might be simple to do and required in order to meet his personal standards.

My post wasn't saying that people have to do it that way or even should do it that way. I'm saying that it doesn't have to be arbitrary and for folks who want to determine the guard's whereabouts in as neutral a manner as possible, would likely have that method or some other non-arbitrary method of figuring out where the guard is.

 

[Maxperson]

Level Up's skill specializations work well for me.

That doesn't fix the issue I'm talking about. Skill specialization only increases the chances in one narrow aspect, so the PC in question could be even better at climbing because he is specialized, but he still couldn't be bad at swimming because he has athletics proficiency and a 16 strength.

 

[pemerton]

in the rune case, I could have said "hey GM, maybe the runes are a powerful spell my character has been looking for" or "maybe the runes are a riddle and if you answer it right a door opens with great treasure" or something like that. I choose my goal (escape, treasure, magic), then I phrase things in a way that convinces the GM to give me what I want (on a success).

If I want magic, I have to convince the GM my character getting magic in this circumstance is reasonable...etc.

The worry here seems to be about "easy mode" or "breaking the game". That's not a problem in MHRP/Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic: an Asset has a rating, which is the result of the roll made to create it, and then is the measure of the contribution the Asset makes to building a dice pool.

I posted this upthread:

suppose the action declaration is to find some treasure, and that the game being played is 4e D&D: then, the plausibility/permissibility constraint will be established by the treasure parcel rules.

In a fantasy variant of Marvel Heroic RPG (first session set out here), the PCs had travelled to the bottom of a dungeon, the vault of the Drow. While most of the PCs fought Drow, one of them - the trickster - duped one of the Drow into telling him where the gold was cached, and then ran off with the gold. Mechanically, in that system, this was about creating assets.

The PC finding a treasure, or a spell, is just another moment in game play.

It's not analogous to a player in a classic D&D game finding arbitrary amounts of treasure at no risk; or a player in a CoC game just finding the spell that will banish all the cosmic horrors.

 

[pemerton]

Not less player agency. But a changed focus of play. Rather than trying to enact their will on the world via their player character's limited abilities to affect the world via in fiction causality, the players get a direct chanel to the creator to petion their character's case

Huh? No one would describe rolling an attack in D&D as petitioning the creator. It's just applying the action resolution rules.

Creating an Asset in MRHP/Cortex+ Heroic is just applying the rules too.

Notice how, in D&D combat, you don't resolve the action declaration "I attack the NPC" by having the GM look up their notes and tell you what happens to the NPC. (Unless you're playing Dragonlance and the GM's notes tell you that the NPC can't die yet at this point in the story.)

So likewise, in Cortex+ Heroic, you don't resolve the action declaration "I decipher the strange runes to see if they show me the way out of the dungeon" by having the GM look up their notes to see what the runes say.

Describing it as "petitioning the creator" is just silly.

 

[pemerton]

Well, unarmoured Elves and Hobbits are stealthy. Rangers are more observant.

Rangers being more observance reduces their chance of being surprised. It is their greater stealth which increases their chance of surprising.

Never mind Monks, who use an entirely different surprise mechanic bespoke to the class.

Monks don't have an increased chance to surprise others, except via their thief-like ability to move silently. But one of the weaknesses of AD&D's rules is that it doesn't explain how silent movement feeds into the chance to surprise.