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

[Crimson Longinus]

Because I don't know what RPG you have in mind, I don't really know how to respond.

But in MHRP, for instance, if Character A conjectures X and Character B conjectures the conflicting Y then the upshot is an opposed roll. Obviously the experts conjecture is more likely to be true: the epistemic space does not have the character that you describe.

I see. How it is then determined whether the runes are something neither desired? Is it a separate roll and based on what?

Also, how would it work in Burning Wheel?

Regardless, the dissonance between the reality of the rules and reality of the fiction remains. Most unambiguously it is present in "choosing hopes" step.

This is why I say that your posts seem to assume a "overcome the obstacles to make it to the finish line" style of play.

I mean your example is literally the characters trying to overcome (a GM creates?) obstacle in a dungeon.

If scenes are well-framed, they speak to the players in ways that engage their PC Milestones or Distinctions/traits (in MHRP) or that engage their Beliefs and similar build elements (in Burning Wheel or Torchbearer). Neutral, exploratory scenes aren't features of this sort of RPGing.

I don't think it matters. There are goals nevertheless.

But is your assertion that this action declaration can't be resolved in MHRP. Why not?

It is not. It can. Do people in your game often make action declarations like this?

 

[Umbran]

As I asked upthread, are you really incapable of cognitively grasping anyone's approach to RPGing other than your own?

Mod Note:
I don't know who you think you are that you figure this would be an acceptable way to talk to someone.

Allow me to inform you: You ain't all that. You're done in this discussion.

 

[Maxperson]

Suppose you're imagining an Elf, in Middle Earth, fighting an Orc. If we take in Middle Earth seriously, then it follows that if your Elf is killed they will travel, spiritually at least, to the House of Mandos. But if your knowledge of Middle Earth is feeble, you won't know this.

That's a bit harsh. Someone could have more than a feeble amount of Middle Earth knowledge and not know about the Halls(not house) of Mandos.

 

[Maxperson]

What you call a "mental map" some of us just call memory.

But suppose that he had never travelled in Moria, but had read a description (much like the one found in the novel). Then by learning what chamber he was in, he learned a way out.

Furthermore, you seem to contradict yourself: "He didn't work out the way based on the chamber. . . . [he] just needed to find a landmark on that map(such as the Chamber of Marzabul) so that he would be able to use his mental map to get them through." That second sentence is a description of him working out the way based on learning what chamber he was in.

So I'm really not sure what your point is here.

Working out a way is creation. When Henry Ford worked out the assembly line, he wasn't remembering how to do it. He was creating a way to do it by working it out. Gandalf wasn't working out how to get through Moria. He worked it out the first time he went through.

There is no contradiction.

 

[Campbell]

Games are not just collections of mechanics. They also have objectives, agendas and social rewards they are built upon. If you export the social rewards the set of player agendas from D&D into a game like Marvel Heroic, Monsterhearts or even World of Darkness games where you have stuff like fictional triggers to regain Willpower if you approach them the same way you approach D&D you are likely to have a bad time.

If you are playing Apocalypse Keys you get Experience for the following:

• Expressing your monstrous nature / expressing your humanity
• Learning something significant about yourself or your impending ruin
• Learning something significant about a fellow monster.

These are not just the things you do to advance. They are also the things we should be socially rewarded for doing and the agenda we take on as players when we play this particular game. Instead adopting challenge-oriented play models and social rewards is fundamentally not playing game as written. Trying to analyze play from the perspective of not playing the game as laid is fundamentally flawed.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Games are not just collections of mechanics. They also have objectives, agendas and social rewards they are built upon. If you export the social rewards the set of player agendas from D&D into a game like Marvel Heroic, Monsterhearts or even World of Darkness games where you have stuff like fictional triggers to regain Willpower if you approach them the same way you approach D&D you are likely to have a bad time.

If you are playing Apocalypse Keys you get Experience for the following:

• Expressing your monstrous nature / expressing your humanity
• Learning something significant about yourself or your impending ruin
• Learning something significant about a fellow monster.

These are not just the things you do to advance. They are also the things we should be socially rewarded for doing and the agenda we take on as players when we play this particular game. Instead adopting challenge-oriented play models and social rewards is fundamentally not playing game as written. Trying to analyze play from the perspective of not playing the game as laid is fundamentally flawed.

And I think part of play in such game is for player to "engineer" situations where such things can happen. And I think this get pretty solidly into author stance.

 

[Maxperson]

And again, the fact that the mechanical resolution method takes player intent and character modifiers into account INSTEAD OF being a purely neutral encounter roll or GM decision DOES NOT impact actor stance.

The fact that the GM used your Diplomacy roll to decide that a high-level cleric was in the temple, rather than consulting their notes or making an extrapolation based on setting notes, does not matter unless you choose to be bothered by it.

The reverse is also true.

The fact that the GM used your Diplomacy roll to decide that a high-level cleric was in the temple, rather than consulting their notes or making an extrapolation based on setting notes, does matter unless you choose not to be bothered by it.

 

[Maxperson]

I posted the PC sheet upthread. Here it is again:

View attachment 413267

Even for someone not familiar with the details of the MHRP system, I would think that its fairly easy to work out what this PC is about!

Yep. He's not a thief at all. He's a ranger. Just looking at that, if Cunning Expert were not a general thing, I'd think it was specificially about ranger abilities, not thief abilities. Taking 1e D&D tropes and classes into account.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Because he quoted the definition he uses and the rule was posted upthread. If the skill makes sense to apply to a situation, it can be used. That skill makes sense to apply to just about everything. Keen insights and/or deceptions work very, very, very often in just about every circumstance

And yet… no one posting in this thread who is familiar with these kinds of games shares your concern. Why do you think that is?

Are we mistaken? Are we being dishonest?

Or do you think perhaps your understanding of the game in question, which you’ve never played, seem not to have read, have little familiarity with similar games, and for which you’re relying in the snippets shared in this thread by others to base your understanding… might not be complete?

I mean… why are you making assertions here instead of asking questions? It’s kind of amazing.

This isn't D&D. It's a game where if a skill makes sense to use in a situation, you can use it.

I just wanted to quote this because it’s awesome.

Because some of us take the player and the character to be one and the same when engaging with the fiction in situations where the required degree of abstraction is minimal or nonexistent, as it easily could be here. Actor stance.

If the player at the table caused what the runes to say what they did - regardless of how this was done - then so did the character in the fiction.

The player declared what they hoped. What caused the runes to help the PC find their way was the game’s resolution system.

If the player never voiced a hope and the GM simply narrated the result being that the runes help find a way out, either because he had predetermined this or because he decided in the moment, no one would object.

The issue, therefore, is that the player had any kind of say in the outcome at all. Never mind that there needed to be a successful die roll and so on… it’s just the fact that the player can have a say, however passive or secondary, about the outcome.

And yet the same folks who criticize this will balk and blanche at suggestions that their games don’t allow the same level of player agency as a game that allows this. They’ll scramble to make distinctions about types of agency instead of simply looking at what a player can do.

Do you think that makes any kind of difference to the playstyle objection?

I would think that it should, yes, though I don’t expect it would.

The world is created in the imaginations of the people at the table. Before the runes were encountered they literally had no meaning because you as GM had not assigned anything. After the player stated what they hoped the runes would be, the runes went from undefined to defined. The state of the world changed. Had the player failed their roll, you as GM would have changed the runes to something detrimental if I remember your explanation correctly.

In the fictional world, whatever is established in the moment of play has been true all along. Again… true all along in the fiction.

Establishing something is not changing what has been for the characters and their experiences.

Of course it doesn't make your description inaccurate. Your play is your play. But for me it absolutely does become less realistic, less sim, and more meta to play the way you do.

So what? No one is asking you to adopt these games or to try and use their methods in your own game. You can keep doing what you’re doing.

But don’t you think your persistence in pointing out your preference simply in the face of another method being described kind of proves the point of the thread title?

So in short, you gave no real limitation.

Pretty much the AD&D thieves’ skills would be the limit. Climbing walls, picking pockets, reading languages, moving silently, and so on.

It was very clear to me.

That's a railroad. "You can create the fiction, so long as you create the correct fiction that I the DM have set forth." The limitation as @pemerton put forth wasn't a limitation. D&D tropes and cunning INCLUDING the 1e thief doesn't set a limitation on the fiction, because that still applies generally to just about everything.

The player and the GM being in agreement about the character’s capabilities isn’t a railroad. Good grief.

It is what it means, though. If he's using cunning to be D&D tropes and also not just what thieves do, it's not "but actually" nonsense at all. If that's all he told me, I'd truly believe that it would be very broadly applicable to just about everything, because that's what cunning would mean in the context of D&D tropes and not just what thieves do.

It’s absolutely pedantic but acshually nonsense.

Again… no one familiar with this type of game seems confused by it. None of us seem to share your concern.

Why do you think that is?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The issue is that @pemerton cannot accept your reason for not liking it.

Mod Note:

The issue here is you’re mindreading, which we all know isn’t conducive to civil discourse.