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

[clearstream]

There's no principle called 'be stupid'. You're reaching. Bringing the conflict to bear on the characters, challenging them, making them get up buckle their boots and get 'er done. That's what this is about. Now, if all a player wants to do is turtle? Yeah that won't work, but going in prepared? That's fine! But if your game is endless sessions of boring mundane junk, that's not interesting! You can make "concoct the antivenin' exciting, even though it is preparing for the real stuff.

I haven't played Monsterhearts, but it seems to me the designers really do intend characters to do things I as player might call stupid or going in unprepared. I think they're telling players to set aside preconceptions like that. Otherwise, why say it?

 

[Enrahim]

But you're constantly shifting lanes every time you have to roll the dice. Every time you do so, you're reminded that your characters
aren't real and their lives are controlled by little plastic shapes and a set of rules, more so then suddenly switching characters. So how is the world building different from that? And indeed, how "On a 7–9, you still do it, but the GM will offer you two options between suspicion, danger, or cost" worldbuilding?

I learned to drive using manual transmission. It was an essential part of my training to be able to change gears without loosing any attention on the things going on around the car. It needed to be fully automated. I think most players have a similar relationship to rolling dice. It hardly brings them out of the fiction.

I think the world building can become automated the same way. However I think it might be much easier if you phrase the questions slightly differently - at least early on. That is instead of asking "what do the slavers use for bartering?" Ask "What do you think the slavers uses for bartering?". After a while that first part can be removed, as it sort of become implied.

 

[Enrahim]

Doing things that make sense isn't the goal. The goal is to craft an interesting story. It's hard to create an interesting story around a character who always makes the most rational, pragmatic decision possible.

I have absolutely now words for how much I hate this notion. It has poisoned almost all modern fiction. If you look at the great works of literature it is filled with instances of conflict between characters that do exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decissions given their set of values, and limited information. These are the parameters to tweak to create a interesting story for me. I am sic of dramas clearly based on some formulaic and obvious character flaw.

 

[AlViking]

But you're constantly shifting lanes every time you have to roll the dice. Every time you do so, you're reminded that your characters
aren't real and their lives are controlled by little plastic shapes and a set of rules, more so then suddenly switching characters. So how is the world building different from that? And indeed, how "On a 7–9, you still do it, but the GM will offer you two options between suspicion, danger, or cost" worldbuilding?

I have no illusion whatsoever that my character is not real, just like I have no illusions that Batman is real. At this point I don't understand what you don't get. Why can't you just accept that I, and others don't care for it?

Because at this point it feels like your pushing one-true-way, that anyone who doesn't just do what you do is somehow deficient.

 

[Faolyn]

If no lock can be unlocked silently then success or failure doesn't matter. Seems like success would be noisier because you were successful at getting things to move around. But it's still adding to the fiction some result just to justify your decision to add a complication. Just like the example I quoted added the cook. You might as well add that on a failure the character accidentally knocked over a flower pot which crashed to the ground, it's just as logical.

Everything you do adds to the fiction. Narrating that the kitchen is completely empty of people adds to the fiction.

If you succeed on the lockpicking, then you managed to do so without complications. If there is a cook, they didn't hear you. It doesn't necessarily mean that you made no noise--maybe you, accidentally or on purpose, timed your clicks to coincide with the kitchen's regular noises. I would consider that to be a mark of a successful lockpicking.

I just don't see a reason for the GM to force the "excitement". If they can't get the door open they likely had other options and decided the door was the safest. Now they have to consider other options.

If you don't want excitement, why even go through the whole heist to begin with? Why not just elide it like how long periods of travel is often elided? Why not just go "OK. You break into the house and steal the ruby and get out again. What do you want to do next?

I sincerely doubt the character would ever hope to be noticed unless it was part of a scam.

Seriously? You can't imagine that the PCs don't want to be noticed? That they might want to put off discovery as long as possible?

So it's my issue that you won't provide a better example?

Due to long-term medical issues, I have memory problems. I don't/can't record my sessions. And since we have a rota of GMs, it's been a while since I've been in the chair. And I have been running games other than D&D. If you want an example, you're going to have to give me a prompt.

Off the top of my head? Based on a session I had except I added a failure or two

1. There's a special event by invite only. There are guards at the gate and the characters fail to convince the guards to let them in.
2. They get into the event. They're trying to get into a back room which they believe has secret documents. There are rumors that there's a secret servant's passage so they can sneak back to it without attracting attention but they can't find it.
3. They manage to get into the room and there is indeed a secret document but it's encoded and they can't interpret it. They can't take the document with them because the enemy will just change their plan if the document is missing. They only have a few moments before being discovered so they can't copy the entire document.
4. The characters are trying to leave the event without being noticed but failed their stealth or deception checks (players chose which one to try). One of the guests recognizes them and is about to raise the alarm. The characters want to avoid a fight if at all possible but it seems inevitable.

What happens?

Some success-with-consequences possibilities:

For #1: They aroused the guards suspicion, so:
A guard tails them. So when they actually do go into the event, there's someone watching them. The PCs can possibly learn they're being tailed and will have to figure out how to ditch the tail.
Or the guard notifies the person running the event. How they react depends on knowing their personality, which I don't.
Or they see someone whose invitation is sticking out of a pocket or purse, ripe for the picking.

For #2: OK. There's still ways around.

For #3: Wow. You have a problem with the "quantum cook" because it's the GM making stuff up, but here the players have to hope you'll say they managed to copy something useful.

Was there a way they could have had enough time to copy the entire document? If so, but due to failures they only got a few moments, this is a perfect example of fail forward/success with consequences.

If you had planned it so that they could only copy part of it, that no matter what they did they'd only have enough time to copy part of it, that's awful railroady.

For #4: No other way to escape? No windows they can jump from, for instance? Combat is required?

In other cases it's much simpler and the number of examples are as numerous as there are skills. You have knowledge check such as history or religion. Physical checks from athletics or acrobatics to stealth or sleight of hand to open a lock. If any of those things fail I feel no need to do anything other than tell them that it didn't work.

You don't consider giving out partial information on a failed knowledge check? Just nothing at all? I mean, I do research all the time, and on a failed googlemancy check I usually get something, just not as much as I want, or not written in a way that's as useful as it could be.

 

[Hussar]

I have absolutely now words for how much I hate this notion. It has poisoned almost all modern fiction. If you look at the great works of literature it is filled with instances of conflict between characters that do exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decissions given their set of values, and limited information. These are the parameters to tweak to create a interesting story for me. I am sic of dramas clearly based on some formulaic and obvious character flaw.

Hamlet enters the chat
Odysseus enters the chat
nearly every character in a drama enters the chat

 

[AlViking]

Everything you do adds to the fiction. Narrating that the kitchen is completely empty of people adds to the fiction.

If you succeed on the lockpicking, then you managed to do so without complications. If there is a cook, they didn't hear you. It doesn't necessarily mean that you made no noise--maybe you, accidentally or on purpose, timed your clicks to coincide with the kitchen's regular noises. I would consider that to be a mark of a successful lockpicking.

None of that has anything to do with sleight of hand though, nothing in the rules or my understanding of how lockpicking works would indicate that the noise level would change based on success or failure. You are still adding the cook to the kitchen, I'm not and the original example didn't put a cook in the kitchen unless there was a failure. If the cook is always there why would they only scream because of someone is picking the lock but not a second later when the character opens the door after a success?

Take another example. The characters are in an not-so-abandoned crypt but they dealt with all of the undead denizens. The room is slowly filling the room with sand because they didn't completely disable a trap and I'm a fan of The Mummy movie so there's a time limit. There's an iron chest bolted to the floor but they fail the sleight of hand to pick the lock. Because of it's construction they could eventually break the chest open but the room will flood before then. What is the fail forward option? My option would be that they can't get it open in time, nothing happens.

If you don't want excitement, why even go through the whole heist to begin with? Why not just elide it like how long periods of travel is often elided? Why not just go "OK. You break into the house and steal the ruby and get out again. What do you want to do next?


Seriously? You can't imagine that the PCs don't want to be noticed? That they might want to put off discovery as long as possible?

One of us had a typo or I simply misread.

Due to long-term medical issues, I have memory problems. I don't/can't record my sessions. And since we have a rota of GMs, it's been a while since I've been in the chair. And I have been running games other than D&D. If you want an example, you're going to have to give me a prompt.

Sorry to hear that.

Some success-with-consequences possibilities:

For #1: They aroused the guards suspicion, so:
A guard tails them. So when they actually do go into the event, there's someone watching them. The PCs can possibly learn they're being tailed and will have to figure out how to ditch the tail.
Or the guard notifies the person running the event. How they react depends on knowing their personality, which I don't.
Or they see someone whose invitation is sticking out of a pocket or purse, ripe for the picking.

The whole point was that they couldn't get into the event and failed a check to bluff their way past. Picking someone's pocket is fine, but it's a whole other set of actions and an alternative way to get in.

For #2: OK. There's still ways around.

But nothing happened on a failure. Which is fine, I was asking what a fail-forward would look like.

For #3: Wow. You have a problem with the "quantum cook" because it's the GM making stuff up, but here the players have to hope you'll say they managed to copy something useful.

Was there a way they could have had enough time to copy the entire document? If so, but due to failures they only got a few moments, this is a perfect example of fail forward/success with consequences.

If you had planned it so that they could only copy part of it, that no matter what they did they'd only have enough time to copy part of it, that's awful railroady.

They had a chance to decipher the code, probably via an investigation check but failed. If they had figured out the code they could have quickly read it and learned the plans. There may potentially be other options of course depending on the capabilities of the characters.

For #4: No other way to escape? No windows they can jump from, for instance? Combat is required?

I don't know, you tell me. You wanted me to give some examples.

You don't consider giving out partial information on a failed knowledge check? Just nothing at all? I mean, I do research all the time, and on a failed googlemancy check I usually get something, just not as much as I want, or not written in a way that's as useful as it could be.

With knowledge checks? Frequently there are multiple levels of knowledge but roll low enough and you don't get anything other than common knowledge.

 

[AlViking]

I have absolutely now words for how much I hate this notion. It has poisoned almost all modern fiction. If you look at the great works of literature it is filled with instances of conflict between characters that do exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decissions given their set of values, and limited information. These are the parameters to tweak to create a interesting story for me. I am sic of dramas clearly based on some formulaic and obvious character flaw.

If my character does something stupid or unwise it's because their ability score says they're stupid or unwise. Frequently because they're just completely ignorant. But I'm not doing it to create drama, I'm doing it because it makes sense for my character and how I think they would react given their point of view, experiences and capabilities.

I do have a player though who will do stuff just to cause drama. It's annoying, almost to the point where I don't want to include them in the next campaign.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have absolutely now words for how much I hate this notion. It has poisoned almost all modern fiction. If you look at the great works of literature it is filled with instances of conflict between characters that do exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decissions given their set of values, and limited information. These are the parameters to tweak to create a interesting story for me. I am sic of dramas clearly based on some formulaic and obvious character flaw.

And yet I am of 100% precisely the opposite mind, and don't understand where you're coming from with this notion.

People don't act like perfect logic-engines that dispassionately analyze things and then pursue the calculated most logical course. Yes, people do try to act rationally, but "trying to act rationally" simply does not mean "exclusively perfectly rational and pragmatic decisions". Sometimes, it's because they lack critical information (whether through inattention, others' deception, jumping to conclusions, whatever). Sometimes, it's because "their set of values" precludes perfect rationality and pragmatism. Sometimes, even when they know what is rational and their values-system doesn't preclude it, their emotional response is more relevant.

"Rational fiction" is almost always a load of hot garbage because it spends half the word count of a text belaboring the point of how perfectly rational the people in it are behaving. Yes, we should expect people to exhibit some degree of thinking about what they want, and to try to pursue that in ways they believe (rightly or wrongly) will be effective. But that's a FAR cry from people being "perfectly rational and pragmatic". Almost entirely the opposite, actually. People act on intuition. They dismiss information that's actually important but they believe it isn't--not because of their "set of values", but because they're distracted, or prideful, or deceived, or...(etc.)

Note what the person you quoted described: "It's hard to create an interesting story around a character who always makes the most rational, pragmatic decision possible." Meaning, not just within a values-system, not just within the personal quirks and foibles of the character, etc.--THE MOST rational, pragmatic decision possible. Perfect optimization.

Perfectly optimized decision-making machines aren't particularly interesting to follow, outside of rare circumstances. Even Sherlock Holmes, notorious for his logical-pragmatic nature to the point that nowadays the default presentation is "on the autism spectrum" (with a frustratingly common side of "...and an absolute jerk to everyone else", even though that directly contradicts his behavior in several of the stories), isn't like that. He makes foolish decisions. He gets deceived and manipulated. Yes, he's trying to solve his cases. But "trying to solve his cases" doesn't mean he always makes the most rational, pragmatic decision possible. Often, he falls short of maximal rationality and pragmatism.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Doing things that make sense isn't the goal. The goal is to craft an interesting story. It's hard to create an interesting story around a character who always makes the most rational, pragmatic decision possible.

I mean, you tell anecdotes about your characters, or others in your group, making crazy decisions all the time. Why wouldn't you want a system that encourages you to play how you want to play already?

Doing things that make sense isn't your goal.