RPGing and imagination: a fundamental point

[FrogReaver]

I think the description of 5e gameplay is incomplete to the point of being massively misleading. Granted, 5e does bad job of instructing the GM to how to do things, but still. The gameplay is about manipulating the fictional positioning of predetermined fictional elements in order to to put them in configuration that logically results success. Skill rolls are mainly used if the ability to manipulate a fictional element is uncertain. So it is not the GM arbitrarily deciding how many rolls are needed and when the situation is resolved; all this is informed by the fiction.

Skill challenges provide a fixed structure, which in certain sense is far more arbitrary. It just is certain complexity, and we need that certain number of successes. Whilst one of course should consider the fictional positioning under such structure as well, importance of it becomes weaker. The number of successes is fixed, and does not depend on how the situation evolves. You cannot solve the situation with one cleverly aimed roll or utterly botch it with a carelessly aimed one, regardless of whether that fictionally would make most sense. Or if you do, then you're abandoning the skill challenge structure, and are in the exact same situation than without it: the GM decides based on the fictional position that this was enough for total success/failure.

Right. The skill challenge framework still has the same arbitrary decision point - how many success are going to be required.

 

[pemerton]

Well, I interpret SCs and Clocks as being more BINDERS ON THE GM than anything else. The problem I see with 5e (as an example) is that there's really nothing like that in place. Not only does the GM get to present any sort of situation she desires to the players, but she also gets complete arbitrary say over what the win cons are. Its not even a 'game', it is simply "when I feel like I've made you roll however many dice I feel like, then I'll tell you if you won or lost and what the consequences are."

So, 4e SCs in particular, exist to defeat the above. The GM must declare "this is a level 5 complexity 4 challenge" and from that moment onward the win cons and stakes are set (I'd say the players may, informally in 4e, have ways to up the stakes, but the GM is bound).

The skill challenge framework still has the same arbitrary decision point - how many success are going to be required.

The same as what?

A skill challenge complexity is analogous - very analogous - to an allocation of a certain number of hit points to an opponent in a combat encounter. It sets a mathematical parameter for win or loss.

This is not the same, in any sense that I can see, as the GM being able to decide, based on their conception of the fiction, when a situation has been resolved one way or the other.

 

[AnotherGuy]

@pemerton and @AbdulAlhazred

Out of curiosity do you on occasion or often (it doesn't matter) and for whatever reason, add additional opponents during a combat encounter?

If yes, how does that reconcile with the SC where it acts as a binder on the GM and it sets mathematical parameters for win or loss.

 

[FrogReaver]

The same as what?

A skill challenge complexity is analogous - very analogous - to an allocation of a certain number of hit points to an opponent in a combat encounter. It sets a mathematical parameter for win or loss.

It being analogous to something else doesn’t discount my point.

This is not the same, in any sense that I can see, as the GM being able to decide, based on their conception of the fiction, when a situation has been resolved one way or the other.

I didn’t say that part was the same.

I said the part that was the same was ‘arbitrarily’ deciding how many successes are needed to accomplish a ‘complex’ goal.

You do agree that the number of successes or failures for a skill challenge are arbitrarily decided right?

 

[pemerton]

I said the part that was the same was ‘arbitrarily’ deciding how many successes are needed to accomplish a ‘complex’ goal.

So what are you saying it is the same as?

You do agree that the number of successes or failures for a skill challenge are arbitrarily decided right?

Not really.

It is guided by some combination of pacing concerns, the intended "heft" of the skill challenge in the overall context of play, and the complexity of the fictional situation the skill challenge is resolving.

Eg in a combat, a skill challenge to (say) resolve a magical threat is not going to be more than Complexity 1 or 2, as otherwise it will be out of whack with its role in the broader challenge. And this also means that the fiction of the challenge can't be very complicated.

On the other hand, if you want to use a Complexity 5 skill challenge to resolve a journey, you better have a pretty rich sense of the fiction of that journey, and the possible complications that are going to ensue. Because you are going to have to introduce a good number of them!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Right. The skill challenge framework still has the same arbitrary decision point - how many success are going to be required.

There's nothing arbitrary about it. GMs do have the options to create SCs of complexity 1 through 5, yes, but they do that at (or before) the situation is established. From there on you live with it, and in any case the XP value of each type is different (ranging from equal to one up to five monsters of the same level).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@pemerton and @AbdulAlhazred

Out of curiosity do you on occasion or often (it doesn't matter) and for whatever reason, add additional opponents during a combat encounter?

If yes, how does that reconcile with the SC where it acts as a binder on the GM and it sets mathematical parameters for win or loss.

I don't recall doing that in my 4e GMing, no. When a situation is established (scene framed, 4e encounter declared) I would consider that the players have either already, or at that point, decided to engage with those now-established stakes. I don't see why I would want to then suddenly pull a switcheroo and give them a different situation to resolve. I mean, I can imagine possible scenarios, actually probably HAD a few, where something the players chose to do altered the situation and created more difficulty, but not just me saying "Oh, I think this was too easy, I'm going to add another 3 monsters!" or something like that. I don't think that way about encounters, its not really about winning or losing in that sense.

 

[FrogReaver]

There's nothing arbitrary about it. GMs do have the options to create SCs of complexity 1 through 5, yes, but they do that at (or before) the situation is established. From there on you live with it, and in any case the XP value of each type is different (ranging from equal to one up to five monsters of the same level).

Deciding X before Y doesn’t make X non-arbitrary…

 

[Bagpuss]

Right. The skill challenge framework still has the same arbitrary decision point - how many success are going to be required.

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

The Skill Challenge framework, is a system that determines how many success are going to be needed. By the fact it has a system, means it isn't arbitrary "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system".

Now you might claim the GM is being arbitrary in their decision that defusing an nuclear bomb is complex, rather than a simple task, but I would say it is more likely they used some amount of reason to decide that.

It the DM rolled a dice "1-3 it's complex, 4-6 simple" that would be arbitrary, but most DM's put a bit more thought into it than that.

 

[innerdude]

Deciding X before Y doesn’t make X non-arbitrary…

Kind of like how defining X exists in your campaign world when you first brainstormed the setting 7 years ago is no less arbitrary than deciding that it exists 7 seconds ago, amirite?

Oh wait, sorry, I forgot. Defining something seven years ago, even if it's boring and of no interest to the players, is "adhering to the living world" and is always "good GM-ing," while deciding something seven seconds ago that's of major interest and relevant to the players is "pandering" and being a "pushover" and "bad GM-img."