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

[The Firebird]

Secondly, as as I may have said before, you were, quite frankly, running BitD wrong. You don't have someone roll to pick a lock. You find out what their goal is and they roll to see how well or how poorly they achieve that goal. Here's this example from the book: “You’re punching him in the face, right? Okay... what do want to get out of this? Do you want to take him out, or just rough him up so he’ll do what you want?” The GM is asking what the end results will be: unconsciousness/death or intimidation? Thus, what's actually rolled will change depending on what the goal is. The PCs want to get in cleanly? That's probably Prowl. They cleanly picked the lock and got in. If the lock itself is important--maybe it's the only thing between the PCs and the ruby that they broke in for--then you'd have them roll Tinker to pick it. Unless they don't care about leaving things neat and want to break the safe's door, in which case they'd roll Wreck.

I used lock picking because that was what we were discussing at the time. We could recast it as something else. It wouldn't change the important elements.

Secondly, you don't worry about what will happen on a success or failure until it happens, and there the dice will tell you. Was it a Controlled situation but their highest die was a 4? 4/5: You hesitate. Withdraw and try a different approach, or else do it with a minor consequence: a minor complication occurs, you have reduced effect, you suffer lesser harm, you end up in a risky position.

This is the only part of this post that gets at the core issue. And I don't think the main claim--that you don't consider success or failure until it happens--is true. When we set stakes for the roll by figuring out what the PC is doing, what that looks like in the fiction, what the position is, what the effect is, we are discussing what that looks like.

For example, consider the GM principle: "Tell them the consequences and ask". The book's example:
"Yeah, you can run the whole way but you might be exhausted when you get there. Want to roll for it and take the risk, or go slower?" explicitly sets out what success and failure entail.

Or again, in the GM Bad habits section: "The consequences you inflict on a 1-3 or 4/5 roll will usually be obvious". Maybe you are not considering it actively, but if it is that obvious...we know what would have happened on those results.

 

[Campbell]

Yep. They were brought up and the flaws were pointed out then, too. More noise is made by a successful check than a failed one, and the sharp/crumbly rocks are there regardless of success or failure, unlike the cook.

Now if the cook was inside scrubbing pots on a success and didn't hear you pick the lock and open the door, that would make more sense. The successful lockpicker would see her back to him while she is cleaning and then decide what to do next. But her being there or not being there based on a lockpicking roll is where those of us who don't use fail forward would have an issue.

It's not our game, though. If you guys are having a great time with cooks who hear less noise and fail to hear more noise, you're doing it right for your group. Enjoyment is the number one goal of playing RPGs.

"You're welcome to run a ridiculous game where ridiculous things happen" is not "live and let live"

 

[AlViking]

If a player wants their PC to try something with no chance of success, honestly I say let them. Clearly the attempt is important to them, and there's no in-fiction reason they can't try.

But then they roll a 20, have expertise and a high mod and get over a 30. When I tell them it still doesn't work I get the "Then why did you have me roll?"

 

[Umbran]

Trues that. I was going to say that the best kind is epistolary.

Sure.
And there's courtly love, friendship, etc.
Or maybe the dragon becomes a rabid fanboi of the bard's beat poetry...

Folks are just so limited in how they think about these things...

 

[Thomas Shey]

I know, which is why I wonder why it's still being talked about now.

Because a lot of people in discussions are like a dog with a bone sometimes. I'm not even excluding myself here.

 

[Lanefan]

Only if you treat the context of the game as an interchangeable slot to put the widget in.

Not everyone is running campaigns with 20 year established histories. If for example you are putting together a campaign world for your friends to game in, it would seem to make some sense to me to consider what sort of characters they like to play.

Well, only to a very limited point; as I know full well they'll have the opportunity (and, quite likely, the necessity) of trying out a number of different characters as the campaign goes along.

I also can't predict who the players will be ten years from now, as real life has this annoying habit of pulling people elsewhere and at the same time has this pleasant habit of introducing new people or re-introducing those known before. In other words, player turnover is a known thing.

If after 10 years of developing that world you are looking for a new player and they insist they will only play if they can make a character that doesn't fit the world you and your friends have spent 10 years developing then I think there's little downside for anyone to saying no.

Indeed. Someone coming in to my game insisting on playing a Dragonborn or Tiefling (which here would just be called Part-Demon) is almost certainly* either a) going to be very disappointed or, much less likely, b) find their role is to play the DM's monster for an encounter.

* - there's very tiny odds that on a long strange roll through some "other species" DM tables - themselves gated behind a 00 on d100 on a binding species-abundance table - that you might get something close; but the rolls are binding and if they end up with you getting a half-frog half-Hobbit instead then that's what you're playing.

It wouldn't make much sense (I think) to play a Tieflng in Glorantha but at some point someone thought it was fine to allow someone to play a duck.

Was the duck originally someone's PC that got reincarnated into that form after death? If yes, I could maaaaybe see it. Other than that, wtf?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I've said essentially that probably approaching half a dozen times across this thread now, yet it always circles back to assuming binary terrible GMs or good ones, like no middle cases exist.

True. It's an unfortunate fact of life that so many people are mid.

I was once asked by a friend (we'll call him ... Chad) what game he should run. Well, I knew Chad's level of aptitude. So I knew exactly what he should run.

Hey- nothing wrong with a little Moldvay, amirite?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Was the duck originally someone's PC that got reincarnated into that form after death? If yes, I could maaaaybe see it. Other than that, wtf?

There was a miniature. It ended up spawning a whole racial group.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But then they roll a 20, have expertise and a high mod and get over a 30. When I tell them it still doesn't work I get the "Then why did you have me roll?"

Like @Umbran , I never said roll.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Or maybe the dragon becomes a rabid fanboi of the bard's beat poetry...

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by bards, starving hysterical naked ...