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

[AlViking]

No, I mean resistance to anything that doesn’t work as traditionally defined.

No, I meant I like the way D&D works. I, and others, have stated a preference. You want something else? Play something else.

I like A, you like B, have fun with B is not "resistance" it's having different preferences.

Not D&D, and not leads… I said that trad play can enable railroading. I think there’sa meaningful difference.

It can. If it does the DM likely won't have players for long. Also, linear is not railroad.

Like it's easier to railroad when target numbers aren’t known, stakes are unclear, GM authority is unchecked or unprincipled, rolls can be hidden, and so on. The presence of these kinds of things in play doesn’t guarantee that play will be a railroad… but they certainly help.

So you prefer a different system. You need new material.

Some DMs do that. See comments from @bloodtide, see the nose-picking posts from @Maxperson .






Well… rolling to see if a character’s attack hits is a means of a player having narrative control. I don’t think your phrasing here is accurate.

No, its a means of resolving the outcome of an uncertain action declared for the character. It's all done by the character as part of the ongoing fiction happening in that instant.

It’s all right, Al. Tras play is gonna make it through this.



So if the GM makes a decision, is he altering the game reality?

Depends on the decision. I prefer as much of the fiction to be defined before actual play, at least for significant lore. We always need to fill in details and color along with deciding reactions to what the characters do. I'm not going to add a wandering ogre just because the characters avoided a combat. I'm not going to add a map because the characters are lost.

 

[Maxperson]

Some DMs do that. See comments from @bloodtide, see the nose-picking posts from @Maxperson .

Why would you direct him to my posts? Nothing there indicates that I use absolute authority for that sort of thing. Sending him to my posts is going to be misleading.

What's more, I've never in my life demanded absolute authority when I DM D&D. You can't demand something that the game rules automatically give every DM who plays the game. When you DM D&D, you have absolute authority. When @EzekielRaiden DMs D&D, he has absolute authority.

 

[Lanefan]

If the GM has other things prepared. What if he says “hey man… I bought all six parts of Kingmaker… I don’t have anything else prepared. Can we please stick to this adventure?”

If it's an inexperienced DM then sure, I'll stick to the track.

If it's an experienced DM, however, I'd expect her to be able to hit that curveball and wing it at least for the rest of the session.

Though it may be there somewhere, I can't recall seeing a DMG giving much advice on how to hit curveballs, yet IMO that advice should be there. Something like:

"Every now and then your players are going to do things or go places you simply didn't expect, foresee, or prepare for. As DM, it's your job to keep the game flowing even if you don't have anything ready, so rather than ending the session early here's some ways and means of maintaining that flow:

--- make something up, even if it's perhaps a little nonsensical or out of place, and you'll often find that one thing will just lead to another. Keep the scale of your inventions small, however - a single ruin, a strange creature, etc. - for right now, then if needed flesh those things out before the next session.
--- have wandering or random monsters interact with the party, either as a hook to an adventure you'll design between sessions or just as a time-sink for tonight.
--- do not try to force them back into the adventure or situation they just turned away from. Most of the time they changed course for what they think is a good reason, it's on you to let that choice stand."
--- etc.

 

[AlViking]

In fairness to @Faolyn though, while the issue did in fact take care of itself the end-result solution wasn't exactly perfect; if nothing else it left her disappointed in that she had a good idea for a character and didn't get to play it.

Sure, it would be great if we never had bad GMs. Text in a book will never be a panacea.

 

[bloodtide]

So if the GM makes a decision, is he altering the game reality?

Of course, this is one of the most basic powers of the DM.

What kind of nonsense is this? If I’m playing in a game, and a GM does something that I think overrides my expected ability as a player to make decisions or for those decisions to matter… then I’m being railroaded.

Feeling or fact, what difference does it make? I’m dissatisfied with the play… should I pause in my dissatisfaction and wonder “would Maxperson consider this railroading”?

Of course not. What matters is how I feel in my game, not proving something to you to win some internet fight.

I guess it is great for you to feel a set way, but why blame Railroading? To say "any time anything happens that I don't like is a Railroad", is just going to have nearly everything be a Railroad to you.

If you don't have a Buddy Sharing DM that immediately tells you every game detail, you will see Railroads everywhere.

 

[Enrahim]

That I was not given a chance to say I wanted to be moving cautiously and stealthily. That I was not given a chance to detect the approaching NPCs; they were coming around the bend of a rounded corridor, and when they came into view, nothing about them was described as trying to be stealthy. That we immediately went to combat without any attempt to even negotiate (which may or may not be an issue, but given later context that we discovered, these guys choosing to fight didn’t make a lot of sense).

It very much seemed like the GM wanted/ planned for/ expected there to be a fight, and so there was a fight.



No, not really. I think allowing players to say how they’re doing something should be standard, I think having rolls for detecting PCs and NPCs to notice each other would then follow. I don’t think that timing can be specific enough in an RPG to be accurate. Time flows differently for the players than it does for the characters.

I see. So it seem to me like yor concern is more about procedural matters like pacing and rules application, than the created content itself?

 

[Aldarc]

It can. If it does the DM likely won't have players for long. Also, linear is not railroad.

I wouldn't say that. It depends on the group. Railroads, linear play, and adventures can be fairly popular forms of play. My partner enjoyed playing a fairly linear adventure path that feels fairly "railroady" in terms of being on the rails. They enjoyed it because it felt like the sort of on-the-rail stories found in video games. However, I would potentially buckle under such an adventure unless I went into the adventure well-aware of what I was getting myself into. But simply describing it as what amounts to degenerative play, IMHO, underestimates the popularity of this form of play where the players are blissfully along for the GM-guided ride.

 

[clearstream]

It's been a long time since I read the 3e rules for climbing and they kind of represent why I don't think they really buy much. When I DMed my homebrew campaign? I decided on a DC and then had to double check the chart to see how I had to describe it. If I just said "This is a DC n" someone would inevitably tell me to hold on while they looked up the specific rule.

It added no value to play for me, it was just extra busy-work and leafing through the rules. It's also incomplete because it can't possibly cover all wall conditions. Ultimately it really doesn't mean anything other than having to look up descriptions to say whether or not the wall is easy to climb, very difficult or something in-between. It's not like there's a real rock wall to assess.

If it works for you, great. I just see no advantage to knowing that the "typical" wall in dungeon or ruins is a DC 20 when the wall could be anything from
View attachment 413279 to View attachment 413280

Calling something an "old wall" doesn't really tell me much of anything. What does "natural rock wall" even mean? Things like pitons aren't always a viable option, you need a harder rock with cracks in it to work, on and on. So I always found these rules both too specific and not specific enough (mostly because they can't be).

But if this works for you, great. Just throwing in my 2 coppers on the reason why I never saw much of an advantage to rules like this. For me they were just extra overhead, if I have someone that's more experienced with rock climbing I'd probably have them provide info on how difficult it was to climb, rules like this don't buy much.

I agree with "too specific and not specific enough" as a general criticism of process-simulation. That's one reason I suggest process-simulation is best tied to a specific game world. The rules can meet the standard of attributing results to written causes only for a microcosm.

The 3.5e climb mechanics have further interesting features

Spoiler: 3.5 climb in play

The exponent is normally 1/15' climbed. A castle wall might be ^2 or ^3, a 100' cliff ^6 or ^7, and upward from there. The way the ranking system works, a 6th-level fighter could +9 ranks where a 6th-level paladin would have +4. A typical dungeon wall is DC 20, but a castle or natural wall is more likely DC 25.​

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Making some modest assumptions about differences between them, the (strength-based) fighter could auto DC 25 (10+4+9+2) where the paladin must roll (having only +2+4+2, say, assuming the only skill they wanted was climb)... but due to the exponent rolling against DC 25 quickly becomes hopeless, so the paladin must use pitons to make the wall DC 15. This will need 10-15 pitons for a castle wall, or 30-40 for that 100' cliff, at 1 minute per piton.​

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A 6th-level sorcerer or wizard will just cast spider climb, a druid can wildshape, Dex-rogues (almost all of them) have enough skill points to pick up Use Rope for the synergy (meaning they climb about as well as that paladin), no one cares if the bard is left at the bottom, so only the cleric both needs to climb and is really bad at it.​

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That paladin or cleric faced with a low castle wall and no time for pitons had better try something else. Likewise the fighter if threatened by pursuers (and thus also unable to doff their plate, which imposes a -6 penalty). In such circumstances all three are overwhelmingly (>90%) likely to fail such a climb.​

The overall effect of the 3.5e climb rules is that characters ought to avoid using them except where they can do so in ideal conditions at their own pace. WHFRP has these climb rules

Spoiler: Scale Sheet Surface

Scale Sheer Surface​

Skill Type: Basic.​

Characteristic: Strength.​

Description: Use this skill to climb walls, fences, and other vertical obstacles. Under normal conditions, a Skill Test is required once each round. Using Scale Sheer Surface is a full action and you can climb a number of yards equal to half your Movement Characteristic (rounded up) with a successful test.​

Related Talents: None.​

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While there are written rules for falling damage, the result of a failed Scale test is lack of progress, not a fall.​

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In terms of equipment, grappling hoods are "intended for climbing" and spikes are "useful for climbing" but there are no written rules for how.​

The main similarity is a roll per move, which I suspect matters to the entrainment. As @Pedantic pointed out (and from my experiences in play) 3.5e climb is quickly overwhelmed by magic so that one could perhaps take the resistance of climb to use in play to supply the necessary context in which magic is better.

That isn't the case in WHFRP, where casting is uncertain and can be dangerous to the caster: why isn't climbing more detailed in WHFRP where that detail would more likely matter? Is it that the more a mechanic is expected to be used in play, the more playable it must be... in tension with process-simulation? Or is it better assessed as fitting with the WHF microcosm... taking that not to require any special focus on climbing rules?

How does one analyze a game text as a whole to see what process-simulation then amounts to?

 

[AlViking]

I wouldn't say that. It depends on the group. Railroads, linear play, and adventures can be fairly popular forms of play. My partner enjoyed playing a fairly linear adventure path that feels fairly "railroady" in terms of being on the rails. They enjoyed it because it felt like the sort of on-the-rail stories found in video games. However, I would potentially buckle under such an adventure unless I went into the adventure well-aware of what I was getting myself into. But simply describing it as what amounts to degenerative play, IMHO, underestimates the popularity of this form of play where the players are blissfully along for the GM-guided ride.

There's a difference between railroad and linear to me. To me a railroad means the GM overrides everything, no choice ever matters and do on. It's linear on steroids.

 

[Aldarc]

There's a difference between railroad and linear to me. To me a railroad means the GM overrides everything, no choice ever matters and do on. It's linear on steroids.

There are adventures that pretty much do so to keep the AP linear. Likewise, there are plenty of players that surrender character choice in these games because they know it's an AP, and it's just part of the social contract of play.