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

[Pedantic]

The problem is that some of us really do want out chocolate with our peanut butter.

Precisely. I think there is unique value to the TTRPG form that doesn't come solely at the expense of all the other stuff.

 

[clearstream]

Could you elaborate on what you mean here? I don't think I understand the question.

Can anyone cite the text of a written mechanic that meets @Pedantic's ideal?

 

[TwoSix]

The problem is that some of us really do want out chocolate with our peanut butter.

I, too, used to enjoy suffering for my TTRPG art. Now I don't want to anymore.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Can anyone cite the text of a written mechanic that meets @Pedantic's ideal?

Given his expansion in the climbing example above, I can think of research rules in a few games that do. I'm not entirely sure they'd cover the question of research questions where no answer is possible, but they'd cover any one where finding the answer was at least possible, given enough time and skill.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I, too, used to enjoy suffering for my TTRPG art. Now I don't want to anymore.

Honesty, if I couldn't get that out of an RPG, I probably wouldn't bother with RPGs.

 

[clearstream]

I don't understand this. The character has the fictional ability to persuade the cleric to cast the spell. The player has no ability to persuade the cleric of anything, so deciding that the player will persuade the cleric to cast the spell doesn't make sense.

We were discussing the decision space and alignment between player and character intention. The character has the fictional ability to conjecture that they might discern a way out from the runes.

The player decides that the character who has the fictional ability to persuade, will try to persuade the cleric. In that way he is acting though his character to change the fiction.

Exactly: the player decides that the character who has the fictional ability to make informed conjectures about runes, will try to discern a way out from them. Player is acting through their character to change the fiction (it's the character's ability that is being rolled for, not the players!)

Yes. The player decision to author has risk involved, which is why it isn't really abusable the way unfettered authoring would be. If a player runs around trying to get advantage after advantage after advantage, he's going to miss a good number of rolls making the life of his character fairly difficult, perhaps fatally difficult.

Agree.

That doesn't change where the decision spaces are, though. They still remain two different decision spaces. One for the player enacting the mechanic in an attempt to author, and one where the PC isn't doing that at all and is just trying to translate runes he hopes will help.

Agree to disagree!

 

[clearstream]

Given his expansion in the climbing example above, I can think of research rules in a few games that do. I'm not entirely sure they'd cover the question of research questions where no answer is possible, but they'd cover any one where finding the answer was at least possible, given enough time and skill.

Just to be really extra clear, I'm asking for citations so that the actual game text can be analyzed.

Which games' research rules are you thinking of?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

We're close enough to touch here, I'm just coming from the other direction. I'd rather set a stricter norm that fails more regularly in play than risk the design malpractice coming from the other direction encourages.

I just don't want to be telling to the players that their characters cannot try to cut a rope with a frozen herring just because the rules do not cover it!

 

[Pedantic]

I just don't want to be telling to the players that their characters cannot try to cut a rope with a frozen herring just because the rules do not cover it!

This is always my problem, whenever the "crazy example" comes up, it just reads as a clear design prompt to me. Does your game not have improvised weapon and object interaction rules? That feels pretty easy to resolve without particularly complicated systems. See also "swinging from chandeliers."

 

[FrogReaver]

This is always my problem, whenever the "crazy example" comes up, it just reads as a clear design prompt to me. Does your game not have improvised weapon and object interaction rules? That feels pretty easy to resolve without particularly complicated systems. See also "swinging from chandeliers."

I’ve never seen a game handle improvised weapons and objects particularly well. Do you have some specific rules in mind you feel are great for this. Especially ones for swinging from the chandelier (especially ones that can cover more than a single genre convention around the difficulty of swinging from chandeliers.