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

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not going back multiple hundreds of pages to show you that I'm still saying the exact same thing that I've said several times. It's a big thread and I've posted a lot. I can assure you, though, that my position has not changed on this.

And I have seen it very specifically change from information that is not yet determined to rolls that are not (sufficiently) related to the information. That is a massive and completely unjustified change, and I'm not going to say anything further about it to you, regardless of what reply I might get to this post.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure, and those are the minority of complications.

No. They are the vast majority of complications. That's the problem here. You dismiss them as being a minor irrelevancy. But as you have so recently declared to me, you don't get the right to declare them irrelevant.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not making anything irrelevant. It simply is irrelevant.

Except that it's not.

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.

No it doesn't. Control over everything else doesn't force specific timing. It just doesn't. Your math works for math, but not for the overwhelming majority of RPG situations which.............................aren't math.

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.

DM integrity matters. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean that it is being done.

 

[Maxperson]

And I have seen it very specifically change from information that is not yet determined to rolls that are not (sufficiently) related to the information. That is a massive and completely unjustified change, and I'm not going to say anything further about it to you, regardless of what reply I might get to this post.

It started with being unconnected/distantly connected man. That's not a change.

 

[Maxperson]

I think it’s a little different than that.

1. The runes were undefined.
2. The player had his character express a hope for what the runes might be.
3. The player rolled and received a positive result.
4. In light of the roll, and that the suggested purpose of the runes seemed feasible and didn’t contradict anything that was established, the GM decided that the hope was realized.

Would it have been a valid DM decision in light of the hope and positive result, for the DM to decide that the hope was not realized?

 

[Maxperson]

No, I'm defining failure as failure and success as success. They're a binary thing, and can't both happen at once.

What you're not getting - or are intentionally ignoring - is that what you and others call "fail forward" isn't failure if it includes success on the root task being rolled for. The concept of success with complications is fine enough but the actual term being used for it is garbage.

What you (general) seem to want to bundle together under "fail forward" are two completely different concepts and types of outcome:

1 - success with complication(s)
2 - failure with complication(s).

These are not the same thing!

If roll integrity means anything, you can't have '1' on a roll of 'fail' and you can't have '2' on a roll of 'success'. Now if you want to chuck roll integrity out the window that's of course your prerogative, but - just like fudging - it's not the sort of thing I'd expect to see advocated as a suggested mode of play.

No man. It has been said time and time again in this thread that fail forward moves the story forward, but the specific task can be moved sideways or even backwards. It doesn't have to be a success or movement towards that specific goal.

 

[pemerton]

Somebody has to decide, though, right?

No.

In D&D combat, no one decides who lives and who dies. A mechanical process is used, and all the participants are agreed to go along with it. Whoever's hit point tally reaches zero, via that mechanical process, is the one who dies, as per the rules that everyone has agreed to follow.

So if Jocasta (Jane) tries to read the runes hoping they'll show a way out of here, and fails; then Aloysius (Bob) tries to read the runes hoping they'll give the answer to the riddle on the vault door, and fails; then Ellerina (Steve) tries to read the runes hoping for some religious enlightenment, and fails, all that's happened is that three players have each decided what they wanted the runes to say and have each failed to bring that fiction into the game.

Fine. So no one decided what the runes say.

And then Coriander (Brenda) reads the runes hoping they're nothing more than the building's cornerstone dedication (in other words, that they're irrelevant to anything else), and succeeds; meaning Brenda as player just successfully decided what the runes say.

No. Brenda didn't decide. Anymore than, when Coriander kills an Orc by reducing it to zero hit points, Brenda decided that the Orc died.

All this is assuming, of course, someone in the party doesn't have the equivalent of Comprehend Language that would force you-as-GM to just tell them what the runes say.

In MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, magic is not a player-fiat ability.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Except that it's not.

No it doesn't. Control over everything else doesn't force specific timing. It just doesn't. Your math works for math, but not for the overwhelming majority of RPG situations which.............................aren't math.

But it absolutely does! Because the GM can simply write enough world-content to ensure that the timeline changes in the way they want.

The players cannot, even in principle, prevent them from doing this. The GM has absolute and secret power. The absoluteness means they can do whatever the fudge they want. The secrecy means the players cannot possibly restrict them from doing it if the GM decides that that's what they need or want to do.

DM integrity matters. Just because it can be done, doesn't mean that it is being done.

But nothing stops them. No player can possibly know they're doing it--and, as stated, the players would demand that the GM does change the timeline if things in the world make clear that the timeline needs to change, so the GM is expected to be using this power and to do so frequently.

This is the first time anyone's brought up "integrity" in this context, so I have no idea what you mean by this. Unless you are meaning that the GM exerting their absolute and secret power in certain ways is supposed to be somehow kept in check? I'm really not sure how, given that power is both absolute and secret. You and others have made quite clear that the GM can do functionally whatever they want, whenever they want, for things the players don't know at all yet or only know dimly.....which is always going to be the vast majority of the setting. It's simply not possible for the players to know enough to ever restrict the GM--to ever have any basis upon which to evaluate this alleged "DM integrity", whatever that might be.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Which leads directly to the perennial question: when they don't match, which one takes precedence and which one has to change such that they do match?

 

[The Firebird]

I will perhaps get to some other comments tomorrow. But I've got time for just one or two. I want to look at the lottery comparison.

Have you ever described a player, in D&D, who rolls a successful attack as having decided that they hit their oppoinent?

Have you ever described a lottery winner as having decided that they won the lottery?

You are the one who is engaged in ridiculous word-play.

There is a crucial difference between the lottery and the rune case. If I buy a lottery ticket and say "gosh I hope I win the lottery", I am not affecting my odds of winning. Likewise, the nature of the prize (money) is determined beforehand. If I say, "gosh I hope my lost love returns to me", that cannot change the prize. (shades of this)

In the rune case, if the player says "I hope the runes show the way to a lost treasure" or "I hope the runes give me a powerful spell" or whatever, they do change the odds. If I need a 10+ and have a 0, they give me a 1-in-6 chance of getting whatever it is I want (subject to DM approval via the credibility criterion).

So the analogy to the lottery fails.

And I need to address this also...

No. Brenda didn't decide. Anymore than, when Coriander kills an Orc by reducing it to zero hit points, Brenda decided that the Orc died.

Surely the orc would not have died if Coriander (and friends) had not attacked? Surely if the players focus fire on a target, they could say "we decided the caster dies first"?

This entire conversation seems to me semantic quibbling about how 'decide' is used.

If you want to die on that hill, fine...we don't need to use decide. It's clear that the player has a chance to author fiction about the world which is unrelated to their character via declaration of their characters hopes.