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

[AlViking]

Sick burn, Max. I’m not gonna lie… that stings.



This is my point. @AlViking said that a Burglary skill wouldn’t work for him because it bundles too many skills together, and that such design was more “about the story rather than the adventure” (whatever the hell that means) and he would therefore not like it.

So I pointed out how there are several examples of this in 5e, including the Proficiency with Thieves Tools. As well as Acrobatics, Athletics, Perception, Stealth… and so on.

All of those skills may be useful for burglary but are in no way limited to burglary nor even necessary for burglary.

 

[Enrahim]

So...

It's okay to leave important elements of the world undefined until after a roll is made when doing so is convenient?

But it's not okay to leave important elements of the world undefined until after a roll is made when...you dislike how it sounds when spelled out?

Because that's the difference I'm getting from this and it's not exactly the most compelling argument. Kind of the diametric opposite of compelling.

To your first question: Was it important for informing a decission? In that case no. Is it important enough for someone to want to enquire about it after the roll, but not important enough for it to be enquired about before the roll (in order to inform the imagination of one or more players), then yes.

What example do you have in mind for your second question? Is it covered by my answer to the first question? The appearing cook has the quality that the success roll informed the narrated state of the prior situation, which breaks the requirement I laid out in my previous post (that failure state should be determined the same way as it would have if enquired about before rolling).

 

[AlViking]

Yes. The player affected the content of the fiction. That's what happens in a RPG.

For a start, it's not GM-driven!

The player decided what the runes said, which is fine in a collaborative style game. I just don't happen to want to play that style of game, there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[AlViking]

So am I. I think trying to use aspirations for an experience to describe particular techniques and processes is not that helpful.

Different strokes for different folks. I was discussing why I considered the game I play simulationist, for the long version of what that means to me I'd suggest you read New Simulationism - Sam Sorensen which is pretty close to my stance and better said.

It's not the only way to play, it's not better or worse, it's just what happens to work for me.

 

[AlViking]

And if the players don't ask for more detail then should someone try to climb that cliff and fail the DM is free to narrate whatever she likes as the reason why. Crumbly rocks, unexpectedly slippery moss, poor hand/footholds or spaced too far apart, being startled by a bird flapping out of a hidden nest, or whatever.

If however the players do ask for more detail as to why the climb looks rough, they'll likely learn about the possibility of such hazards before setting out on the climb: "you see a lot of loose rock at the foot of the cliff", "it's hard to see the hand- and footholds because of some patches of thick moss", "part of the cliff looks quite sheer, and might not have any handholds", "looks like there's some bird nests in the cliff", etc.

In my games if the player takes time to examine the cliff and can see enough detail I'll give them a check which would lower the target DC. Issue is of course that until your practically on top of rock there's only so much detail you can see and you can't always see the difference visually.

But this is whole thing just comes back to imagining that there's some kind of "Gotcha!" here. Describing why an action the character took did not work is far different from introducing a new element into the fiction that actually changes the state of the game no matter how much people try to make it sound like exactly the same thing. There is no quantum crumbling rock. If the check was successful you avoided the crumbling rock or were able to hang on despite it breaking away which is pretty common while climbing. The cook? The cook only exists because of a failed a check.

 

[AlViking]

(Emphasis mine.)


I found the part you called attention to very interesting. Setting aside the possibility that the poster didn't capture their intended meaning in what they wrote, it seems to exemplify the notion that the mechanic itself can stand for what happens in the fiction. It would match cases in detailed combat minigames for systems with simple-fail (in that context, at least) where misses receive no further narration.

I wondered whether the ability of game mechanics to stand in for language like this, means that they can supplement language i.e. count as sufficient narration of whatever they represent in the game world? Before excluding that out of hand, it should be obvious that the words "crumbling rocks" are no more the actual crumbling rocks than the mechanic is the struggle and failure to make progress up the wall. @AlViking seems to say that the mechanic says everything necessary to be said, while you seem to desire additional narration in the form of "crumbling rocks".

As I just stated above, the crumbling rock is there on success or failure. If it's a particularly high DC I may narrate the crumbling rock on success or failure (although I may also not narrate it in either case). Climbing often includes grabbing at a rock that breaks away, whether you continue climbing or fall depends on how well you respond to that rock breaking away. Instead of a crumbling rock I could just as easily narrate that your foot slips and your handhold wasn't good enough to stop your fall if you fail your check. It the climb was guaranteed I wouldn't ask for a roll, if there is a roll, the climb will be dangerous in some way the specifics of which rarely matter.

 

[AlViking]

What does "better than some" mean?

Because "some" can mean almost anything. Like, as long as you can find at least one (or, if someone is being a stickler, at least two) games that aren't as good, then that statement is true, but like...being better than the two worst possible examples isn't exactly a high bar to clear. The bar is through the floor for this.

For me some games are going to be better. It's personal opinion and preference. For a more technical definition that I agree with see New Simulationism - Sam Sorensen

 

[Micah Sweet]

What does "win" mean, here?

I mean, I know what winning in AD&D looks like. What does winning look like in Burning Wheel? Or Apocalypse World?

Wouldn't you be the one to answer that question?

 

[Maxperson]

So just to be clear: you map out all the ledges and protuberances, and whether or not they will bear a PC's weight, and ask the player to plot their PC's course?

All I need to do is narrate a cliff face that is made of decaying granite and that automatically means that there are rocks that won't bear weight, and that there are ledges and protuberances.

Now that I've established that they are there, it's not retroactively adding them to narrate them further during a success OR failure.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So...you agree that the (alleged) counterexample doesn't apply in cases where, y'know, actual success genuinely is possible?


Possibly--but I should think the player would know this up-front, rather than the GM saying, "Teehee! See? You actually COULDN'T succeed, this just told me how BADLY you failed!" Being coy about that serves no one, other than the GM's ego.


Only if guaranteed-fail rolls were in the discussion space.

They clearly weren't. You are bringing in a complete non-sequitur, which now has nothing to do at all with what I said. Hence why I am annoyed that you are continuing on this irrelevant tangent, rather than engaging with anything at all that I've said.


I mean...if you want mixtures rather than pure "you just succeed"/"you just fail", that's literally something PbtA does better than D&D ever has....

Wasn't the whole issue that PbtA doesn't have "you just fail" as an option?