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

[hawkeyefan]

When the roll says fail and yet you narrate success anyway, what was the point of the roll?

Or was success always guaranteed and the roll merely to determine degree of success? If yes, I get it, but wouldn't that be somehow mentioned to the players up front, as in "Getting up won't be a problem but time is crucial: you'll need to roll to see how long the climb takes"?

Yes, this is what I did. I said “this roll isn’t so much about making it to the top as it is about how fast you can do so because the ritual is happening”.

I don't see it as conservative to not want to undermine the integrity of my own game.

But we were talking about my game.

 

[Maxperson]

The point is, when you have control over all of the other factors, whether or not the timing is GM-independent (if such a thing is even possible in "traditional GM" play) is functionally irrelevant. The GM can simply change the other factors and thus, as a consequence, change the timing.

You don't get to make it irrelevant, though. To a lot of us it's very relevant. You can that you don't find it relevant, but that's really as far as you can go.

Think of it as a math equation. We know the variables {a,b,c,...x,y,z} except the variable t, AND we know the average, let's call it capital Q. Thing is, if you know all of the variables but one, and you know the average....then there isn't any freedom. You can't actually choose t freely. There's only one option, arithmetically speaking. Fixing the average and all of the variables but one also fixes that final variable.

Hence, when the GM can control 100% of the answers to: who, how, why, where, how much, etc., then the answer to "when"/"how often" is functionally also under their control. They just need to select the other variables in such a way that no other options are possible.

No. When and how often can be randomly determined. It doesn't have to be under the DM's control.

 

[Maxperson]

No.

I'm claiming that a potential complication which never actually does any complicating isn't a complication. Merely potential things that never actualize aren't complications. Just as, for example, all the potential debts I could have, if I went on a shopping spree, are not debts because, surprise surprise, I don't do that and instead spend within my means.

Sure, and those are the minority of complications. Skill does play a part in those, but most of the time complications crop up independently. Minor ones are quickly fixed by someone with skill, but they are still complications.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

When the roll says fail and yet you narrate success anyway, what was the point of the roll?

Well, all I can say is, I never do this. On exceedingly rare occasions, I may reflect and realize "y'know what, I never should have asked for a roll there in the first place", and when I realize that, I tell my players so. It's not something I do lightly, but I also don't do it secretly either. I just tell my players what's on my mind and we talk it out.

Or was success always guaranteed and the roll merely to determine degree of success? If yes, I get it, but wouldn't that be somehow mentioned to the players up front, as in "Getting up won't be a problem but time is crucial: you'll need to roll to see how long the climb takes"?

For me, this isn't a matter of a roll regarding guaranteed success but changing the degree thereof. We simply don't roll with regard to whether the climb will succeed or not. That will happen. The player already knows this. Instead, the locus of failure-vs-success is specifically in, as you say, the timing. That's still quite obviously a failure on one side (you were too slow, the enemy got away) and a success on the other (you were fast enough and can do something before the enemy gets away). That's something where both success and failure are interesting. With success, the players push closer to a resolution right now, whatever that resolution may be. Merely finishing the climb does not resolve the conflict (most of the time, I suppose there could be some very strange circumstance where that's not true but outside of highly contrived circumstances I just don't see that happening), but it will push things to a rapid end, whatever that end might be. Conversely, with failure, the players now have to resolve a different kind of problem: their quarry has escaped, they need to find them and track them down. That's a new conflict, and replaces the high-temperature tension with a low-simmer tension.

( @EzekielRaiden recently gave me a bad time for suggesting the reverse, where failure is guaranteed and the roll is to determine what that failure looked like and-or caused).

Yes--because I don't think that there should be a roll for that purpose.

But we certainly can have rolls, which are themselves genuinely about success vs failure, separate from this already-failed thing. "You cannot stop the collision. That will happen no matter what. What do you do, Captain Smith?" can be answered with "I'm desperately thinking about how to minimize the damage. As part of my training for this voyage, I remember specifically studying the plans and layout of the ship." At which point, DW would have a Spout Lore roll; assuming a success, the player learns something interesting and useful, which in this case would probably have been "damage to the side of the ship is actually much more dangerous than damage to the front" and thus Smith decides to steer into a head-on collision at the slowest speed they can manage, unlike our timeline where a devastatingly foolish decision was made instead.

(Ironically, I used "Smith" as just a filler name, but it turns out the actual captain of the Titanic was named Edward Smith.)

I don't see it as conservative to not want to undermine the integrity of my own game.

The problem is your stubborn determination that this approach must always be "undermining the integrity of the game", rather than...y'know, being open to the possibility that you've misunderstood something, and that the technique does not actually do that. "This newfangled technique OBVIOUSLY must ALWAYS undermine the integrity of the game", particularly when numerous people have specifically gone over how your mistaken understanding is mistaken and have reiterated that the alleged fault you see (various versions of "it isn't actually failure"), is very much an example of unnecessary and counterproductive conservatism in the space of game design.

 

[Maxperson]

Here's what you said:


That's a needlessly harsh and judgmental opinion.

You might be reading more into that than is there. I think(and I could be wrong) that he's saying that a DM who changes the fiction on the fly, like narrating a smooth cliff and then changing it to a rough and crumbly cliff if the climb fails, or just hiding the crumbly details from the players and spring it on them during the climb, is bad DMing.

I don't believe that you do those things, so he's not saying your way is bad DMing. And I suspect you would probably put the above acts on the part of the DM somewhere on the bad side of the scale.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm very sure the blacksmith example was from one of the folks on your side things. That said, it was a long time ago and I can't remember the context. It might very well have been someone who was just allowing players to author things.

Oh it may even have been me! I have no doubt that it was brought up. I just don’t know in what context, or who brought it up first and who else took that example and ran with it and so on.

All this to say there is far less direct authorship of setting details going on in narrativist games than the critics tend to think.

On the fly =/= added retroactively, though. If I narrate to the group that the cliff face is rough and made of decaying granite, narrating a failed climb check as part of the cliff face coming loos is not retroactively adding anything. It's a detail being added that is encompassed within the initial narration, because with narration like that, of course there are loose portions of the cliff.

If that happens, sure. I just doubt that’s always done with the kind of consistency implied. I know I personally determine details retroactively in D&D routinely. I’ve played with many GMs who do it that way. Folks here in this thread have said that’s how they do it.

I’m sure that there are folks out there with the time and inclination to get as much detail as possible committed ahead of play, and to never ever ever add details retroactively. I just expect they’re more the exception than the norm. For many reasons.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh it may even have been me! I have no doubt that it was brought up. I just don’t know in what context, or who brought it up first and who else took that example and ran with it and so on.

All this to say there is far less direct authorship of setting details going on in narrativist games than the critics tend to think.

If that happens, sure. I just doubt that’s always done with the kind of consistency implied. I know I personally determine details retroactively in D&D routinely. I’ve played with many GMs who do it that way. Folks here in this thread have said that’s how they do it.

I’m sure that there are folks out there with the time and inclination to get as much detail as possible committed ahead of play, and to never ever ever add details retroactively. I just expect they’re more the exception than the norm. For many reasons.

I try to run my games that way. There may be times where I mess that up, but I try to give as many details as I can about the environment so that the players can figure out if things are safe to climb or not, if it's scary and something might be inside or not.

 

[Maxperson]

I know @hawkeyefan touched on this, but I don't see why it couldn't just be noted as part of the character and the GM factors it into their adjudication. That's the entire point of the GM.

I personally loathe mechanical disconnects. If I note it on my sheet and the DM factors that in, but mechanically my PC is still an expert swimmer, it bugs the crap out of me every time I see it. Mechanics and fluff should match.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I don't like a consequence of an action that has consequences not directly tied to the action taken. In your climb check you decided that the character would succeed on the climb the only thing the check indicated was how much time it would take.

Nothing new here.

I've done similar things. If the outcome isn't in doubt and the PC will succeed without a roll, but time is an issue, rolling to determine how quickly it goes makes a lot of sense. We know the PC will succeed, because the outcome is in doubt, but we do not know how quickly the PC will succeed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You don't get to make it irrelevant, though. To a lot of us it's very relevant. You can that you don't find it relevant, but that's really as far as you can go.

I'm not making anything irrelevant. It simply is irrelevant. The GM's absolute authority and ability to control literally every other variable is what makes it irrelevant. The fact that variable z is not specified when we know x=4, y=5, and (x+y+z)/3 = 7 is irrelevant to whether or not z is determined; it already is determined, and must (in this case) be 12, as (4+5+12)/3 = 21/3 = 7. Whatever I feel or don't feel has no effect whatsoever on whether that single unspecified variable is free or not.

It's not about what I or anyone else thinks or feels or desires or prefers or sees. It's a simple fact. Specify enough variables, and remaining ones no longer have any freedom.

Even if the GM never touches the timetable, they could (VERY much non-exhaustive list):

• Reveal or resolve a conflict within the enemy ranks, to slow down or speed up their efforts
• Have an enemy act in a rash manner which imperils their plans, or learn more from a previous mistake, enhancing those plans
• Establish a distraction or complication for the enemies, or establish a recent breakthrough that overcame an existing one
• Reveal a convenient source or location which is of particular use to one side or the other (or both!)
• Decide that someone useful has been subjected to, or liberated from, mind control
• Replace an ally with a doppelganger, have a spy show up for one side or the other, various other personnel things
• Reveal a sudden windfall, perhaps precipitated by an action on one side or the other

Etc., etc., etc.

The "traditional GM", in having absolute and secret control over 100% of facts in the world, can do any of these things at any time for any reason, and can even delay actually developing a justification until after the PCs have done enough work to learn what the justification might be (though it is, as noted, part of the "gentleperson's agreement" that the GM should not delay that justification-development unless they have no other choice).

By having such control--specifically being both absolute and secret--timeline concerns simply cannot actually limit the GM's behavior. They are, always, capable of simply doing a bit of work to develop a reason why the timetable needs to change because what stuff is in the world has changed. Indeed, it would almost surely be utterly unacceptable to you, and Micah, and Lanefan, and most other "traditional-GM"-preferring, sim-focused players for it to be the case that a previously-known timetable could ever be more important than developments in the world that would contradict that timeline. That would mean that a metagame construct--a timeline--took precedence over information from the fictional world, such as any of the developments in the bullet points above.

No. When and how often can be randomly determined. It doesn't have to be under the DM's control.

Can be. But only are when the GM decides to. Meaning, only when the GM elects to not exercise control in this moment. So they still have full control. Electing to delegate to the dice now and then does not in any way diminish the GM's control.