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

[AlViking]

That your complaint, as best I can tell, is simply that the player rather than the GM established some fiction.

Nope. Please stop telling me what I really think when I've told you why.

How is it free? And what is your objection to players doing helpful things, by declaring actions for their PCs?_

(Also, the PC didn't leave the dungeon. As I've already posted, the PCs - having got their bearings - descended deeper into the depths of the dungeon, and this particular PC robbed the Dark Elves of their gold.)

Right, where they then "guessed" that the chest contained gold?

You don't get why it matters. All I ask is that you accept that it does.

 

[Maxperson]

You are asserting that you can tell me how your rogue climbed the wall. But you can't! All you can say is that, because the rogue is a good climber, they were able to climb the wall.

I already did. There's no need to come up with the pedantic details you are requiring, so that you can win the internet. The level of detail I gave is much more than sufficient to tell folks how the rogue climbed.

Cunning Expert d8.

That tells me a lot. I've used very specific mechanics related in very specific ways to the climb. Dex bonus, which is defined. Proficiency, which is defined. Expertise, which is defined. Reliable talent, which is defined. A rope and grappling hook, which are defined.

You've given me d8 and the name. You might as well have said V8, at least then I'd know you were using vegetable juice which would tell me something.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What handholds did your rogue use? Which fingers? What sorts of grips? How did they use their legs, vs their arms and shoulders? I've never seen a climb resolved in a RPG which specified any of these things.

Likewise, I've never seen a fight resolved in a RPG which specified the exact position of a combatant's feet, the alignment of their body, the way they used their hips, shoulders and wrist, etc.

Being 8th level rather than 1st level is no different from being a Cunning Expert compared to a Cunning Rookie. They're just game terms. Being 8th level brings extra hit points and attack bonus. Being an Expert rather than a Rookie gives you a d8 rather than a d6.

In the fiction, the Expert sees things and knows things, and makes inferences, that are beyond the Rookie.

I say again: abstraction. Please let the poor "100% sim or it doesn't count" strawman rest.

 

[Maxperson]

Surely this only makes sense as a concern in terms of challenge base play? All play changes the narrative and the current state of the fiction. I hope you'd agree that the runes could possibly be helpful for one of many reasons - creation of fiction that makes them so is not implausible.

If the play isn't challenge based, then it doesn't matter at all whether the runes provide a benefit to the character - it's simply an advancement of the unfolding history of their actions and the world's reactions. Issues of fairness and mechanical benefit don't matter if we are simply interested in following that history - strokes of what appear to be great good luck are not uncommon in genre fiction.

From what @pemerton has described of this, the player is making good faith action declarations that follow the rules of the game they are playing. No cheating is involved, in so far as there is a mechanical challenge, the player is using their characters capabilities, leveraging an aspect of the environment in accordance with the rules for doing so in order to overcome the peril the character faces. I can see how this might appear to be "cheating", but I suspect it's not possible to get this kind of benefit without a check - so we might postulate a situation where a D&D player leverages some aspect of the environment to overcome a challenge without a check purely by negotiation with the DM (in the classic door spikes and 10 foot poles mode) which would in turn appear to be "cheating" (that is, in this case obtaining a mechanical advantage without a check) to players of @pemerton 's game.

Yes, I'm sure his player did make the statement in good faith. Most of the disagreement here is just a matter of playstyle preferences illustrating why we on each side like or dislike something, not statements about the other side's methods being bad.

Personally, I don't see why bad faith should be assumed about @pemerton players when those of us on the more traditional side of these debates get our hackles up when people post about authority being bad because of bad faith DMs.

Bad faith is pretty rare for both players and DMs and shouldn't be assumed. Unless the discussion is explicitly about bad faith, it really doesn't belong in most of these threads.

 

[pemerton]

I've used very specific mechanics related in very specific ways to the climb. Dex bonus, which is defined. Proficiency, which is defined. Expertise, which is defined. Reliable talent, which is defined. A rope and grappling hook, which are defined.

You've given me d8 and the name.

Aren't you a proponent of abstraction?

I say again: abstraction. Please let the poor "100% sim or it doesn't count" strawman rest.

I take it, then, that you don't have @Maxperson's objection to the Cunning Expert PC build element.

 

[Maxperson]

IOW, you don't want simulationist mechanics.

Why is that hard to admit? You want the simulation to come from the DM. Great. No problem. But, what you don't want are mechanics that are simulationist.

Speaking for myself, I want both. I want light sim mechanics. Enough to tell me basically what's happening, like with the D&D climb mechanics. The specific details can be left to the narration.

 

[Gimby]

Bad faith is pretty rare for both players and DMs and shouldn't be assumed. Unless the discussion is explicitly about bad faith, it really doesn't belong in most of these threads.

Right, which is why suggestions of "cheating" or "get-out-of-jail-free cards" is irrelevant to this discussion. Something done following the rules of the game cannot be cheating, by definition.

 

[Maxperson]

Aren't you a proponent of abstraction?

To what level? Hit points(and as a result attacks and damage) are a fairly large abstraction, but the rest of the game is more specific. I don't want huge levels of abstraction all over the place.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, which is why suggestions of "cheating" or "get-out-of-jail-free cards" is irrelevant to this discussion. Something done following the rules of the game cannot be cheating, by definition.

Yep. That's why when discussing D&D I say that the DM literally cannot cheat. The rules allow him to add, subtract or alter rules as he sees fit. That said, there are other ways to abuse authority than cheating that DMs can do, so my position doesn't just let DMs do whatever the hell they feel like. Some things will be acts of bad faith and are abuses of authority. Those should be called out. Cheating is just not one of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Aren't you a proponent of abstraction?

I take it, then, that you don't have @Maxperson's objection to the Cunning Expert PC build element.

I don't object to an abstracted mechanic in principle, but I prefer the abstraction be minimized. My main issue with the runes example is creating the meaning of the runes by the player who would be specifically benefiting from the reading going their way.