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

[Lanefan]

Oye! Exactly how many encounters would you manage in an evening? People said 4e combat was too slow!

I wouldn't. In a WotC edition, I'd instead rewrite initiative to run on a much smaller die than a d20 and then make each pip on the die a 'segment'. 1e worked this way - 6 segments to a round, and even though it had 1-minute rounds (too long, IMO, but 6 seconds is way too short) you could still break movement down to segment-by-segment without much trouble or fuss.

The main place I find this to be relevant is when someone might be moving through someone else's spell effect at the wrong moment, i.e. your movement path is going to cross the path of Jocasta's lightning bolt that you don't know she's casting, does it happen to clip you or not?

 

[pemerton]

The complication is introduced after the failure

Yes, it's a consequence of failure. If you succeeded, you wouldn't suffer the complication. Eg if you get to the top of the cliff in time, your friend who is to be sacrificed at the appointed time will still be alive.

the complication only exists because of the failure.

I don't know what this means. The complication is an event, so I'm not sure what you mean by saying that it "exists only because of the failure".

I mean, if I lose a D&D combat, my PC is dead only because of the failure. That was the point of rolling the dice! If someone - the GM? - has already decided what is going to happen next, why are the dice being rolled?

 

[pemerton]

Huh? So what happens when my authorities say yours is wrong?

What error do you think I have made in reading the rules of Burning Wheel and applying them in play?

 

[Lanefan]

I'll just point out that skill challenges were maligned often, but they're a huge boon here! They allow for a mix of more and less intense fiction, and 'pool the stakes' in a helpful way. This can greatly facilitate seamless blending of gamist play and attention to pacing, etc. Super helpful and a major thrust of my own game design work.

What I saw of skill challenges was that they're fine for high-level fairly quick resolution of things but come at a cost of detail and granularity I'm not willing to pay.

 

[Faolyn]

That's precisely the problem though; I want the player to force events to unfold in a desired way. If the game can always continue from some other there, then there was no point in picking a specific here as preferable.

I'm confused. Earlier you were saying that it was OK for a PC to listen at the door, hear there were guards, and then choose another way around. Now you're saying that's wrong somehow? See:

If there are guards on the other side of the door, and hearing them playing dice is contingent on my investment in Perception, or perhaps something like burning a charge on a Ring of X-ray Vision, I might have access to that information and change my action declaration to mitigate the risk, probably bringing in whatever the stealth rules are, or finding another way around, or perhaps I don't successfully employ whatever mechanic governs knowing that, and we're in consequence town.

Or are you thinking that if the PCs are trying to go from A to B, get stuck because of a door, and take another passage, they can't still get to B?

Anyway, for whatever reason, picking here was preferable to the PCs, but they couldn't get through here, so they went over there.

I don't know how you game, but my players don't get an entire map of the location, complete with the location of the inhabitants, traps, and other hazards, before they go there. Even the time they were doing a heist on one of the PC's family estates; the character didn't know all the details. They have to explore and learn those things. If they picked here, it's because here was convenient in some way: it's the front entrance, it's unguarded, it's the only way they found, the path seemed easier, whatever. They are not going to have any idea that here is preferable until they explore.

I get this, but I'm saying it undervalues the player's choices; I want players to have the capability to make both good choices, which necessitates they also have the capability to make bad ones. If the quality of consequences they face exist independently of their choices, then the choices are necessarily less impactful.

The ability to make bad choices is built into fail forward design. In fact, it's a lot of its point, which is, they're not going to get a "nothing happens" result. Instead, something will happen. Whether that thing is good, neutral, or bad is up to the typical combination of player actions and dice rolls.

That is exactly like in tradgaming. The only real difference is that it's more clearly spelled out in many modern narrative games, including when those consequences are supposed to happen, where it was more of an assumption that GMs just knew this in many older tradgames.

I'm saying my ideal state is to be so constrained by my player's decisions that they must get the result they want, because the NPCs and situations I've introduced have been sufficiently manipulated by their decision making that I cannot change the outcome from what they've forced to happen.

That makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

[pemerton]

Useful in what way? Do you expect proponents of traditional games to be so influenced by GG's opinions that informing them of something he said that supports your point of view would suddenly cause the scales to fall from our eyes? You'll notice that the vast majority of the game designer quotations being thrown about in this discussion (no matter if it's Gary Gygax, Ron Edwards, or someone else) are made by the non-traditionalists. Perhaps that is because the opinions of such people simply do not hold the same weight for us that they do for you. If that is the case, I'm not sure what having a new Gygax quote is going to do for you.

What I find weird is that you will post again and again that realism, causality etc are fundamental to your enjoyment of RPGing. But then you like this post from Maxperson:

Yeah. The only place I disagree with you on this is from your former post where you say that you think most people treat D&D combat as simultaneous. I think they just mostly just ignore it, because treating is as virtually simultaneous would quickly reduce combat to slapstick comedy in the fiction in order to explain the myriad of events happening the way they play out with the mechanics.

So you appear to agree that the sequence of resolution in D&D combat does not conform to forwards-only causality and is, in that respect at least, not realistic.

So someone like me gets confused. Because that seems to suggest that (i) you don't enjoy D&D combat, or (ii) you don't regard it as RPGing, or (iii) you can enjoy RPGing that doesn't conform to realism, forward-facing causality, etc.

 

[pemerton]

So now you're claiming that Appeal to Authority isn't a fallacy? Why, because you know better than everyone else?

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy, because it doesn't show the rightness or wrongness of the argument, so appealing to it to show rightness or wrongness is fallacious. This happens regardless of your knowledge level or IQ, or how much you rely on authorities.

Hell, as a lawyer you should be extremely aware of the dueling experts situations that happen routinely in courtrooms, where authorities get paid to contradict each other over the same set of facts.

Appeal to an authority is not a fallacy. For instance, I believe that exposure to radiation in large doses is harmful to human health. Why? Because I was told as much by someone who knows more about it than me (ie an authority). Authorities are the basis for most of my knowledge outside my particular fields of expertise, and for some of my knowledge within it.

And just the other day I was explaining to someone the law that governs assignment of title to chattels. Why did they believe me? Because they trusted that I'm an authority! Were they rational to believe me? Yes, because at the level of detail we were discussing I am an authority, having read some of the major cases and having been teaching it for years.

 

[Faolyn]

The examples here an in the blog post I quoted made it clear that the dead friend and the screaming cook did not exist before the roll failed. It was not presented as a ticking clock scenario, because of a failure something "interesting" is created on the fly by the DM.

If the house is one that is likely to have a cook, why is it shocking or unrealistic for there to be a cook?

In my games the house may or may not be populated. I will know by whom and where before the characters when to break into the building. No protagonists will be added after they attempt to break in because it would be more interesting.

How does that work? Do you pause the game or end the session early so you have time to prepare? Do you rely on random tables? Do you literally populate every single building in every single settlement in your world before the game starts? Are your players allowed to take any actions that you haven't already prepared for?

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Appeal to an authority is not a fallacy. For instance, I believe that exposure to radiation in large doses is harmful to human health. Why? Because I was told as much by someone who knows more about it than me (ie an authority). Authorities are the basis for most of my knowledge outside my particular fields of expertise, and for some of my knowledge within it.

And just the other day I was explaining to someone the law that governs assignment of title to chattels. Why did they believe me? Because they trusted that I'm an authority! Were they rational to believe me? Yes, because at the level of detail we were discussing I am an authority, having read some of the major cases and having been teaching it for years.

That is not what the fallacy is, the fallacy is about a perceived authority, not an actual authority.
What you are describing are actual authorities, not perceived authorities.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Uhm, a D20 is emulating a 50th of a D1000, and the D1000 would only be allowing you to trigger a secondary roll if you wanted to represent the actual failure-by-trauma average for climbers. If you're willing to accept that much higher a chance, then I have to stop taking seriously your claim that you care about representation; you just care about a particularly bloody form of drama being on the table.

How about throwing 3d10 for percentiles instead of 2d10?

It sounds like you just don't like the idea of death in these situations bring a possibility. That's fine, but that's also you.