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

[gban007]

I showed exactly how the probabilities and contributions can be the same in my example. The fact you do not want to accept this is, honestly, a personal problem. Mathematically and in terms of contributors and the like they are exactly the same.

GURPS varies in the amount attribute and skill contributes, and the 3D6 roll changes the probability slope, but if that was not every apparently your argument and the one you're making above this literally makes no sense.

If you want to argue the specific numbers you may have an argument, but until you do that your statement here is, again nonsensical.



The two examples I gave absolutely do, and its not my responsibility to deal with whatever it might be Max is presenting. I'm not even seeing it (of my own choice). If you don't think my examples did, you ought to be able to spell out how they don't.

And as mathematically equivalent, we could easily convert. If DC 15 is base, then 6 would be unskilled skill number as such for roll under equivalent to GURPS unskilled stuff ( if equal succeeds, else move up one). A dnd skill of +7 would thus be a skill of 13 in a roll under situation.
And so if Gurps was d20 based, no real difference between having to roll unde lt 13 without any situational modifiers, or rolling 8 or more before situational modifiers.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

There is literally nothing in the rules to back up that claim. Not one thing.

Seriously? You're claiming that the rules do not back up the GM giving whatever reason they feel like for why an attack missed?

So the GM cannot say "your sword bounced off the gnoll's armor" or "the gnoll deflected your attack with its mace" or "you swung wide and high, and the gnoll ducks beneath the blade" or (etc., etc.)? That there's one and only one answer?

Because if so, you literally aren't playing the game the way you're instructed to play it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In D&D strength = skill at climbing. It's literally the natural talent(skill) of the person climbing. The success and failure will always be because of skill. Failures are all because you are not skilled enough. Successes are always because you were skilled enough. Unless the DM goes rogue and steps away from RAW.

"An ability score is not just a measure of innate capabilities, but also encompasses a creature's training and competence in activities related to that ability."

But what does "skilled enough" MEAN?

With climbing, were you too physically weak to pull yourself up, so you fell off? Did you grip something you thought was sturdy, and then it gave way? Did you accidentally pull too hard and yank out the otherwise well-rooted plant that would've held your weight if you hadn't pulled too hard? Did you screw up and get your foot stuck, such that the force you needed to pull it back out of that hole unbalanced you? Did you misjudge how long your muscles could hold you in place? Did you...

Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. There are nigh-infinite reasons why this could apply. The rules indicate absolutely nothing about which of these is correct.

And further: Strength does not equal skill at climbing! If it did, there would be no need for Athletics, yet Athletics proficiency exists. Someone with Expertise in Athletics and 8 Strength is great and climbing despite being physically weak; even at first level, they're as good at climbing as an untrained person qith 16 Strength (2x2-1 = 3). Someone with 18 Strength and no Athletics proficiency is very strong, but only vaguely okay-ish at climbing, barely better than a novice. Strength contributes to skill at climbing, but it cannot, even in principle, be the whole story.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The probabilities might be the same. Heck, I'll take your word for it. But what those things represent is not. A DC 15 represents the difficulty of doing THAT SPECIFIC task. It is completely in isolation. It does not matter who is attempting that task. The task has a difficulty for that task and that task alone.

That doesn't matter, because who's doing it and their skill is represented at the other end.

In GURPS, that is never, ever true. The difficulty of attempting a task is determined by the person attempting the task.

Modified by the task. Again, you want there to be a meaningful mechanical difference that doesn't exist here.

So, sure, in some situations, you might wind up with the same chances of success or failure depending on the task - but, that doesn't really tell you anything.

If it includes the same factors, with the same values, and produces the same probabilities, it tells you everything a resolution mechanic is ever going to tell you.

Again, I offered you an opportunity to show me how my two examples were meaningfully different. As you've declined to do so, I'm going to stand by "they aren't."

Because in D&D, the d20 roll is undefined. If I have zero skill and a 10 strength, was it skill and strength that let me climb that DC 15 climb? How? I have no positive modifiers and no actual skill. Yet, I succeeded. I succeeded exactly the same way that a skilled, strong character would. So, what is the system telling me?

Just what the dice rolls in games always do: that factors too small or obscure to show in setting difficulty made the difference. That's what they always do.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And as mathematically equivalent, we could easily convert. If DC 15 is base, then 6 would be unskilled skill number as such for roll under equivalent to GURPS unskilled stuff ( if equal succeeds, else move up one). A dnd skill of +7 would thus be a skill of 13 in a roll under situation.
And so if Gurps was d20 based, no real difference between having to roll unde lt 13 without any situational modifiers, or rolling 8 or more before situational modifiers.

Though there are some low or high incidence results that a D20 fails out on; chances less than 5% or greater than 95%. Whether those are worth representing is in the eye of the beholder.

(There's also the issue that modifiers have a linear effect with one and nonlinear with the other).

But neither of those changes that it doesn't intrinsically matter whether you modify the skill value or what you're rolling against. Any other view simply shows you don't understand the maths involved.

 

[Maxperson]

But what does "skilled enough" MEAN?

With climbing, were you too physically weak to pull yourself up, so you fell off? Did you grip something you thought was sturdy, and then it gave way? Did you accidentally pull too hard and yank out the otherwise well-rooted plant that would've held your weight if you hadn't pulled too hard? Did you screw up and get your foot stuck, such that the force you needed to pull it back out of that hole unbalanced you? Did you misjudge how long your muscles could hold you in place? Did you...

Yes.

And skilled enough means you were skilled enough to succeed or not skilled enough to succeed.

All you need to know for a simulation is skilled enough to succeed or unskilled enough and failed. The specifics of how you messed up can be narrated and it doesn't matter what the narration is so long as it fits skilled/unskilled.

Etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. There are nigh-infinite reasons why this could apply. The rules indicate absolutely nothing about which of these is correct.

There's no need. We know that anything failing to be about skilled is incorrect.

And further: Strength does not equal skill at climbing! If it did, there would be no need for Athletics, yet Athletics proficiency exists.

You are wrong. RAW explicitly states that the ability SCORE is...

"An ability score is not just a measure of innate capabilities, but also encompasses a creature's training and competence in activities related to that ability."

Athletic exists to be a defined sim category that PCs can engage in as well as a skill for proficiency to attach itself to. Without athletics helping to dictate how ability checks succeed and which strength checks it qualifies for, it would be open to much wider interpretations.

Someone with Expertise in Athletics and 8 Strength is great and climbing despite being physically weak; even at first level, they're as good at climbing as an untrained person qith 16 Strength (2x2-1 = 3). Someone with 18 Strength and no Athletics proficiency is very strong, but only vaguely okay-ish at climbing, barely better than a novice. Strength contributes to skill at climbing, but it cannot, even in principle, be the whole story.

Yes. Ability score = innate capability, training and competence. Proficiency = specializing in that skill. Expertise = expert at that skill. Training and expertise can overcome the deficit that a -1 from strength gives you and allow you to excel. The ability to overcome a low score to still be good is not proof that the low score doesn't still represent innate capability, training and competence.

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Just what the dice rolls in games always do: that factors too small or obscure to show in setting difficulty made the difference. That's what they always do.

That's the point. No they don't. In sim leaning games, the dice generate information about how a task succeeded or failed. Again, I've demonstrated this. If your roll is below your modified skill value, you succeeded. Why did you succeed? Well, if the modifier is positive, then any roll lower than your skill rating succeeded because of your skill because you would have succeeded regardless of the modifier. If it succeeds because of the modifier? Well then that modifier obviously had some impact on why you succeeded. Conversely, if you succeeded despite a penalty, you succeded based on your skill. If you failed, but the reason you failed is due to the penalty, then that penalty has something to do with why you failed. If you outright failed, well then your skill was never sufficient to succeed.

You keep focusing on the result. The results don't matter. It doesn't matter what the final result is. That cannot be what makes something a simulation.

Look, every single RPG, of any stripe, has mechanics for resolving tasks. That's a baseline requirement for all RPG's AFAIK. Maybe there are RPG's out there that don't, but, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that in every RPG out there, the player declares an action, the mechanics are used to determine success or failure of that action. It doesn't matter if we use count up, count down, D20, D100 or DWayne (where you ask someone named Wayne to provide an answer). Doesn't matter. ALL RPG's have some sort of mechanic that will create a result of a task.

So, if we are differentiating simulation from other RPG's, simply providing a resolution to a task isn't enough. It can't be since that means that simulation has no meaning - it encompasses all RPG's. So, what differentiates sim leaning mechanics from other games? My answer is that the sim leaning mechanics must provide some information about how the result occured. The sim leaning mechanics must guide the narrative. "Make stuff up" is part and parcel to all RPG's. The most artsy fartsy, pass the story stick Indie game out there has "make stuff up" as a means of justifying results.

If it's not, "simulationist leaning mechanics must provide some guidance to the narration of how a result was achieved" - note, Sorenson's paper on sim very much agrees with this point - then give me an alternative that isn't, "Make stuff up". How do you differentiate a sim leaning mechanic from any other mechanic? Or are we back to "it's sim because I like this game, and I stake my identity as a gamer as not liking those other games, so, it must be sim"? Because that's generally how sim has been defined in the past.

 

[Hussar]

Though there are some low or high incidence results that a D20 fails out on; chances less than 5% or greater than 95%. Whether those are worth representing is in the eye of the beholder.

(There's also the issue that modifiers have a linear effect with one and nonlinear with the other).

But neither of those changes that it doesn't intrinsically matter whether you modify the skill value or what you're rolling against. Any other view simply shows you don't understand the maths involved.

I agree. For determining the results? Yeah, it really doesn't matter. You have X% chance of success in either system.

But, how those elements come together? What those dice actually mean and how they interact? Yeah, that matters.

 

[Enrahim]

This seems to exclude some fairly common mechanics, like (in D&D) casting a spell be crossing it off your list of memorised spells, or (in D&D) moving X squares where X is a number established (as part of the build process) as the character/creature's movement rate, or (in D&D) pushing over a statute if N points of STR are applied (this one was fairly common in old modules).

Tweet calls these resolution processes "karma" (contrasting with "fortune" which involves a randomiser; and "drama" which is resolution merely by talking without any associated mechanic, say (in D&D, quite often) "I walk down the corridor" or "I open the door).

Aaaaargh! I was trying to figure out how to mark the randomiser as optional, failed to find a good language construct to do so, and went on hoping noone would bring up a misreading like this. I was even worried soneone would push me into some bizzare tangent regarding if a trivial randomiser with only one outcome could be called a "randomiser".

So with that out of my chest. I would say spells and push is (typically) diegetic, while turn based movement is not. (There appear to be situations where the turn based nature of movement produce results that defies causality as the in-fiction entities are assumed to understand it)

 

[Hussar]

Yes. Ability score = innate capability, training and competence. Proficiency = specializing in that skill. Expertise = expert at that skill. Training and expertise can overcome the deficit that a -1 from strength gives you and allow you to excel. The ability to overcome a low score to still be good is not proof that the low score doesn't still represent innate capability, training and competence.

Yes, but, I can have a -1 and still succeed. What skill did I have? How did I succeed when I had no training, no innate capability or competence? You aren't allowed to say that I got lucky. After all, you're insisting that the roll ONLY represents skill. So, someone who is completely unskilled and completely lacks any talent, can still succeed by skill alone?

And, how do you not have the skill to do something then six seconds later, you do have the skill to do it? After all, the roll, according to you, ONLY represents skill. No luck. No outside elements whatsoever. Skill alone. So, how can skill vary so much? What does that mean?

And, @Maxperson, you should be a bit careful here to clarify that you are ONLY speaking of 2014 D&D. No other version of D&D says what you say it says. So, anyone not playing 2014 D&D does not subscribe to your definition. In 2024's case, they literally cannot apply your definition because your definition is runs directly counter to what it says in 2024.