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

[Micah Sweet]

Well then, I consider that objection pretty seriously problematic, if retrocausality is totally unacceptable from one participant and completely unobjectionable from another.

Turns out, different participants have different roles.

 

[clearstream]

Player A is changing the reality of runes that were created by long ago, player B is convincing another individual in the fiction to do something for them. How do those things even compare?

There is a bit of switching back and forth among posters between what is happening in the game as such and their forms in the imagined world.

In the game as such player and character are aligned in wanting to overcome a complication. They are aligned in understanding their approach being uncertain... not sure to succeed. In one possible world, the form that takes is that they investigate some runes. In another possible world, the form that takes is that they influence a priest.

 

[clearstream]

You don't see any difference between persuading someone and determining what the runes mean?

Only in form, not in effect on play. That said, I recollect Investigate and Arcana determining things that hadn't yet been settled (or at least that is how it seems reflecting on it now)... so I will see if the stock of examples can be expanded to include them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

In formulating my example upthread, I had in mind a more complex example that I omitted at that time, which was to compare with Charisma (Persuasion). It's worth laying out that example now.

...(snip)...
Across D&D groups I have seen DMs grant anything from healing to sanctuary to information to escape routes as a result of Charisma (Persuasion) rolls. With NPCs, it is often the case that the group do not know what parts they may go on to play. A roll to influence can determine that. For example, the priest above could just as well have been persuaded to heal, provide sanctuary, quench thirst or satiate hunger, illuminate the area, etc.

Great example above by the way.

@AnotherGuy pointed out that the runes through being settled in play could turn out to have a variety of features. Whereas the stone trapdoor had essentially one feature. They used words like "determined" versus "utilized" to get at that. That is why I expanded the stock of examples to include NPCs, switching to Charisma (Persuasion) etc.

The only counter to this (and I'm not even satisfied with my counter tbh so I'm not really expecting a reply) is that the NPC has known functions (their spells and knowledge) which you can call on. Whereas the runes' functions are determined.

Personally I do not object to such a rune particularly if play is loose with the specific setting (i.e. not under strict map-and-key). As a DM I could see myself basing the DC on the type of power desired by the PC and only restricting it given the parameters of the fiction and game. It would also be something I'd have to lead with as my table is not easily used to manipulating fiction in that way, so there would definitely be a prompt such as "What are you hoping these runes provide?"
And natural discussion/negotiation perhaps would follow.

@pemerton out of interest when you use something like this in play, do you discuss upfront what the runes are should the PC fail their roll? Does the PC know that should they fail the roll, the runes will definitely be something negative? or perhaps even accidentally triggered?
For example, as the PC fumbles with the runes, they activate them and a cook appears with a butter knife (roughly speaking)?

 

[FrogReaver]

There is a bit of switching back and forth among posters between what is happening in the game as such and their forms in the imagined world.

In the game as such player and character are aligned in wanting to overcome a complication. They are aligned in understanding their approach being uncertain... not sure to succeed. In one possible world, the form that takes is that they investigate some runes. In another possible world, the form that takes is that they influence a priest.

The paramount question is ‘how are they wanting to overcome said obstacle’. In the runes example the player must decide what he wants to runes to be on a successful roll. The character must never decide that. Not only is that a different decision, it’s a completely different decision space. The things it impacts and that inform it are all different.

 

[clearstream]

I think that's probably the wrong axis for that question. The relevant point is the nature of the action; in case B the relative impact of the action is similar for the character and the player (and easy to parse from common ground; we have all tried to persuade someone to help us at some point) while in the first the impact is disparate; the player's hope has significantly more impact on the world than the character's does.

Can you say how having a curse removed is a lesser impact on the world than finding your way out? What I had in mind was similar impact.

Though now I'm curious to see how coherent you could make a game where hopes unavoidably trigger potential results, and players are obligated to report all of them.

I don't follow your thought here. Do you mean that you don't sometimes hope a roll will go a certain way? That something you try will work out?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem is that mechanics are only going to get you so far there; if you don't go in with a character prone to act in a superheroic way, there's still going to be constantly off-genre things they're liable to do. And with a typical superhero setting that's actually something somewhat different from even something as close as "modern heroics with superhuman powers", so you still gotta engage.

The rules just allow certain, from lack of a better term, physical conventions to work the way they do in the genre (well, most of the genre; there's a notable exception in the otherwise very much traditional superhero setting in Invincible regarding this)>

True, but I find having the genre mechanics helps with feeling the four-color. You're right though, you still have to want to.

 

[clearstream]

The paramount question is ‘how are they wanting to overcome said obstacle’. In the runes example the player must decide what he wants to runes to be on a successful roll. The character must never decide that. Not only is that a different decision, it’s a completely different decision space. The things it impacts and that inform it are all different.

In my persuasion example, the player must decide what they want the priest to do on a successful roll.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Players declare actions to confer benefits on their PCs all the time.

The runes case wasn't mechanically easier than any other candidate action: it had a cost in the action economy the same as any other action declaration would have had; it required the player to roll their dice pool against the Doom Pool, just as would have been the case if (say) they tried to become unlost (mechanically, reduce or eliminate the Lost in the Dungeon complication) by turning into a wolf (the PC was a werewolf) and trying to smell where outside air might be coming from.

Which is the main reason why I don't take the idea of "getting out of jail free" or "cheating" seriously. It wasn't easier or structurally any different from any of numerous other action declarations which no one in this thread would bat an eye at.

The only difference in the runes case is that the resolution of the declared action also generated, on the way through, a bit of previously unspecified backstory. Which is why I have arrived at the conclusion that it is player as opposed to GM authorship that is the source of objections.

I've long said I don't like the player making backstory like that, so...ok?

 

[FrogReaver]

In my persuasion example, the player must decide what they want the priest to do on a successful roll.

No. They do not. They cannot say priest give me all your churches riches, that is the thing i want. Or priest I want you to cast foresight on me for the upcoming battle (making the priest a 9th level caster). The priest and his abilities are established independently of the persuasion roll and if he doesn’t have the capability of performing the action hoped for then at least in 5e there wouldn’t even be a roll.