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

[pemerton]

Also, "be a fan of the characters" means, in effect, cheer for them

Why do you say this? I mean, it's not as if the rulebook fails to tell us what is meant! And it's not what you say here.

 

[pemerton]

Thanks. To my reading, those posters had in mind something like an adventure path or preordained story.

Yes. That's why I referred to a bowdlerised version of "fail forward" that involves "the GM narrating failure in such a way as to keep things 'on the rails'".

 

[Faolyn]

The reason I asked a question was because everyone for some reason has now decided that the lockpicking can only happen on a wealthy estate with multiple servants who apparently work 24 hours a day. I was curious if the answers changed if the scenario changed. Or if people would ever clearly state whether the cook would have been in the kitchen even if the lockpicking attempt had been successful.

But I shouldn't bother asking these kind of questions since most people on the fail forward side aren't even playing D&D and are playing games that work on different principles or are unwilling to answer* with actual examples.

*With the exception of @Faolyn. Their examples were a guard dog, breaking lockpicks or somehow hurting themselves. I don't see the guard dog as any different from the cook - either they're an obstacle either way or they're not. Breaking lockpicks or hurting themselves is to me just an extra penalty where I don't see how it's moving the narrative forward. Even so, I did appreciate it even if I was in a hurry before and forgot to say it.

Have you even bothered to google "fail forward D&D" to find out ways to use that method with the game?

 

[Faolyn]

Except that the determination to not run away has nothing to do with playing "in character" but, with whatever is most advantageous to the player. Running away makes a LOT of sense when a beholder just disintegrated your friend. Running away when you are already wounded and baddies are closing in is very much in character. Believing an NPC or not because you Dungeon Master doesn't make what you feel, not your character, what YOU feel, is a compelling argument is 100% not playing "in character".

The dice provide the direction. You provide the script. By never allowing the dice to determine the mental state of your character and insisting that you, and only you, can ever do that, combined with the fact that you just said that players will never accept any outcome that is disadvantageous to themselves, means that no player actually ever plays in character. Players will always do the cost/benefit analysis and choose the best option. That's not "method acting". That's very much not playing a personality.

To me, not allowing for the dice to influence how a character behaves is far more immersive breaking. It means that characters act very implausibly all the time.

Wait, wait, wait. If you let dice determine what your character is doing, that's playing in character. If you decide what your character is doing, that's not playing in character. Uh-huh.

I also think I'm going to need a citation on that "Players will always do the cost/benefit analysis and choose the best option" line. Because I know from my own experience that is very much untrue.

 

[zakael19]

Trauma--long term type trauma, like what you're talking about--should be an opt-in experience for several reasons. If its enforced via a die roll, then as I said before, it prevents you from playing your character because the dice have taken over. Many players don't want their characters to be burdened with this sort of trauma because they want to be playing a heroic game, or a game where everyday issues don't need to be tracked--they signed up for D&D, not Monster: the Angsting. And unless it's really well done, it's going to be insulting and/or triggering to people who actually have traumatic issues. Especially those who play D&D-alikes to escape them.

FWIW, I've kinda come around a bit on how say Blades encodes this whereas at first I really hated the idea of being all "ok you have trauma now." First, the player picks the Trauma (and in Deep Cuts Harper heard/saw the community liked the idea of them also being able to work through it instead of being locked into inherent self-destructive spirals that's kinda the premise of the core game) when they max their stress - showing the toll that sort of life and world takes. Second, it's up to them to show how it affects them. Even in Deep Cuts where there's provision to "invoke the trauma to complicate the situation" the player can always choose to instead "tough it out" via Stress - reflecting that your mental scars press in on you.

Now the game is very up front about this being built in, so if you're not up for that in play, probably best to not play it.

I do really like how the FITD Songs for the Dusk handles it though, which is recasting them to Scars - and letting the player define what they are instead of a pick list of "hardened pulp/noir criminal stereotypes." I've got some wonderful ones from my players in that game, that really illustrate how they've been affected by their actions and the world around them on their journey. And since they pick them and write them down, I've got the permission now to grab that with both hands and yank and Invoke (which has led to some of the best moments of RP I've seen).

 

[zakael19]

Have you even bothered to google "fail forward D&D" to find out ways to use that method with the game?

At this point I think every single poster in this thread that's even a mild proponent of the concept of Fail Forward in any game has exhaustively explained what it is to him, including a massive variety of examples from at least 5 different games to include running 5e.

 

[Hussar]

You keep conflating the dice telling the result of somethin with the dice forcing the character to do something.

The dice don't tell me to attack. I decide that. The dice just decide of I succeed. If someone tried to persuade me to give them my magic item and succeed in the roll so I have to do it, that's mind control and it takes away agency, something that a roll to hit does not do.

Also, I don't know why you would think that missing a hit is the dice saying that I'm not the greatest swordsman. Even the greatest miss. And since I'm likely not 20th level, I already know I'm not the greatest. The same with those other examples. None of those are the dice dictating to me how to act. Knowledge checks do not do that. Athletics checks don't do that. Only social skills and mind control magic/effects do that.

There's a reason the designers didn't design social skills in 5e to be used on PCs. They didn't want to take away player agency like that.

No. It really isn't.

You're mixing successes and failures. The attack roll tells you to succeed. The NPC's persuasion roll tells you whether or not THEY succeed. Same as an NPC's attack roll tells you whether they succeeded. It's not mind control to let the NPC hit you with a sword, so, why is it suddenly mind control to convince you to do something?

Why are you conflating your successes with other character's successes? If an NPC uses Sleight of Hand on you and steals something from you, is that mind control? So, what's the difference?

The dice tell you if an action succeeds or not. Just because you happen not to like that it tells you if it succeeds giving a result you don't care for, doesn't suddenly magically make the die roll any different.

 

[hawkeyefan]

When they unlocked the lock. Not when they open the door and the cook is standing there. And you still haven't explained why a skilled thief trying to be quiet becomes a Keystone Cop and makes a ton of noise on a failure to open the lock. You've claimed it makes sense, but I'm not seeing it.

If the thief succeeds on the roll and opens the lock successfully, then the cook is either not there because she wasn't brought by the sound, or is there but unaware of the thief opening the door.

I haven't explained why the thief becomes a keystone cop because I haven't said that they would. I've said that's a silly way to resolve the matter. If you choose to do so, be my guest, but I wouldn't do that. To me, a thief potentially making noise while picking a lock and attracting attention is a perfectly reasonable thing to happen.

For some reason, you don't think it's reasonable... but at this point I don't know if you'll ever get it, Max. We may just be at that point where we have to shrug and accept that. I don't think that anything I've advocated for to make the scenario with the thief and the cook work has been nonsensical... quite the opposite.

100% false. The character's lives have never been boring in my games. And yet I'm a neutral arbiter. There's never a conflict, because their lives aren't boring no matter what comes up in the game.

Max, it's not about the status of the characters' lives. It's telling the GM what to be thinking about when he makes decisions.

The same way you might get to a point where you need to make a ruling in D&D and you think "how can I handle this as a neutral arbiter" the principle is telling a GM of Apocalypse World to think "how can I use this decision to make the characters' lives interesting".

I mean, here's a principle I live by: "A parent should protect their children."

Seems reasonable right?

Or if someone said this to me, should I respond with "I don't need to keep my kids safe, they're not in danger"?

Your reaction is just off. You're misunderstanding the principle and what it's for. You're reading some kind of value judgment where there isn't one.

Again, not mutually exclusive things. The character's lives aren't boring in my game. Ever. At least if the principle is, "make the characters' lives not boring." Now if the principle is really, "Have the result of a roll be interesting to the player(s)," that might be in conflict sometimes. But you keep saying that's not the principle.

No one is saying that the characters' lives are boring. It's saying to make sure that they don't become so. To always be considering this when you make a decision. It's a principle which is meant to guide your decision making. It's not describing the status quo of the game and telling you to go and change that!

As principles, you may not be able to be a neutral arbiter and also make the characters' lives not boring when making a decision. Look at the cook example. Your neutral arbiter principle leads you to simply have the lock pick attempt fail, and now the character needs to find another way into the house or else give up.

My principle of making the characters' lives not boring leads me to make something happen on the failed attempt... hence the introduction of the cook. That's not me being neutral... that's me making a move that complicates matters for the character. I want to see what they do now.

 

[Hussar]

Wait, wait, wait. If you let dice determine what your character is doing, that's playing in character. If you decide what your character is doing, that's not playing in character. Uh-huh.

I also think I'm going to need a citation on that "Players will always do the cost/benefit analysis and choose the best option" line. Because I know from my own experience that is very much untrue.

You YOURSELF said this. We cannot have mechanics which force any sort of action on the players because you yourself said it won't work. That a player will never actually act in character but will always try to subvert the results to their own advantage. Those are your own words.

But, we're supposed to believe that the players, despite never actually playing according to the spirit of the mechanics, will suddenly behave in a different manner if no mechanics are present?

 

[Maxperson]

No. It really isn't.

You're mixing successes and failures. The attack roll tells you to succeed. The NPC's persuasion roll tells you whether or not THEY succeed. Same as an NPC's attack roll tells you whether they succeeded. It's not mind control to let the NPC hit you with a sword, so, why is it suddenly mind control to convince you to do something?

Why are you conflating your successes with other character's successes? If an NPC uses Sleight of Hand on you and steals something from you, is that mind control? So, what's the difference?

The dice tell you if an action succeeds or not. Just because you happen not to like that it tells you if it succeeds giving a result you don't care for, doesn't suddenly magically make the die roll any different.

No. The "successful" persuasion roll forces me to act out of character for my PC. That's mind control. That's not at all like an attack roll. There's no mind control involved in the roll to hit. Only one of those removes all agency from me, and it's not the attack roll.

That removal of agency is why 5e social skills aren't intended to work on PCs.

Continuing to conflate mind control with not mind control isn't going to change the situation. You're looking at aspects 1 and 2, but failing take aspect 3 into consideration where #3 changes the entire thing.