Search and taking 20: the problem

[danzig138]

Im assuming the people who are running about screaming about game balance and demanding diplomacy checks to convince a fire elemental that going home is better than being kileld never played D&D before 3E.

You know what they say about assuming. . .

Of course why bother ROLEPLAYING, I can just role a diplomacy check.
Why use my brain when I can take 20.
D&D as written is entirely autonomous, you can play the entiregame simply by rolling dice; but by god its boring if you reduce everything to rolling dice.

Kind of snarky there, eh? It certainly is boring if you reduce everything to a die roll. That doesn't mean the die rolls have no place. One of my players likes to roleplay a lot. But he gets stuck when trying to think as his character sometimes. His die rolls, combined with his roleplaying, provide a good guide for responses to him. People need to figure out that roleplaying and die rolling are not mutually exclusive; indeed, I feel a good GM can use them together, to compensate for the weak areas of his players.

 

[Majere]

You know what they say about assuming. . .
Kind of snarky there, eh? It certainly is boring if you reduce everything to a die roll. That doesn't mean the die rolls have no place. One of my players likes to roleplay a lot. But he gets stuck when trying to think as his character sometimes. His die rolls, combined with his roleplaying, provide a good guide for responses to him. People need to figure out that roleplaying and die rolling are not mutually exclusive; indeed, I feel a good GM can use them together, to compensate for the weak areas of his players.

Did I say dice rolls have no place ?
My point is that you cannot say that common sense, intellligence and roleplaying have no place. Which is why there is more to searching than taking 20, and more to negotiations than rolling a diplomacy check.
If you take the time to read my (lengthy) example trap you will find that the die rolls and roleplaying are inextricably linked in that which dice rolls you make and the DC's of the roles are dependant on your actions/idea/roleplaying. What irks me is the huge rant on how we should remove all player intellegence from the game.
Im not advocating the de-evolution of the game so that there are NO dice rolls either.


Majere

 

[Pielorinho]

Pax, I'll make you the same deal I made with Darkmaster: promise to lose the attitude, and I'll be happy to discuss the matter with you. As it is, I'm not going to be baited with insults and leading questions.

Daniel

 

[Pielorinho]

Would you like to qualify the phrase "very easy". To me, "very easy" means "characters without ranks in the skill will usually succeed at this". If you meant "rogues with lots of ranks and boosts to their skill will usually succeed at this", then you and I have a real difference of opinion as to what "very easy" means.

Thus I said "even this trap": this wasn't a trap that required a difficult search check, but even it required one.

Evidence? Is this a trial?

No: it's a debate .

Besides it doesn't really help your case - I'm trying to find traps without the skill, because you've instituted a "trap roleplaying" system that appears to seriously undermine the value of the search skill. As a hypothetical player, the fact that the skill will sometimes work doesn't comfort me when I suspect that the roleplaying solution will ALWAYS work. I've expended a lot of resources on making a character that can find traps, and now I'm finding that 3 ranks and some paranoid character description would do the trick.

I'm really confused now. How doesn't this help my case? A magical trap, findable only by a character using magic or by a character with many ranks in search and the trapfinding ability, certainly is well within what y'all are calling for. An example from my game in which such a trap appeared and the characters were very inconvenienced by not having a rogue in the party is well within the parameters of what y'all are talking about.

I offered it as an example to show that not all traps in my game can be easily solved by non-dice solutions.

You're welcome to suspect whatever you'd like about my game, but you've no evidence at all to support this particular suspicion of yours, and I'm not sure why you're so hasty to suspect the worst about my game, despite evidence to the contrary.

Daniel

 

[swrushing]

[/QUOTE]

Im assuming the people who are running about screaming about game balance and demanding diplomacy checks to convince a fire elemental that going home is better than being kileld never played D&D before 3E.

Probably a poor assumption.

D&D Was played for a great many years without ever being in anyway balanced, Pre 3E Mages always ended up being super dooper uber amazing at high levels and other classess were always underpowered. But somehow we got by, and had fun, even in clearly unbalanced games.

Thats just sooooo cool.

And on that point, how did you ever deal with the situations as with the elementals before the diplomacy skill even existed. I know in MY group that before any such notion of a "diplomacy skill" was written down anywhere we just ROLEPLAYED IT, and then the DM would ROLEPLAY THE NPC. And if the NPC was smart (You will notice elementals actualy have respectable intellegence scores) they would act in a reasonable way.

We did much the same, although your charisma score was frequently taken into account, to judge how convincing your CHARACTER was...

haven't we all seen IRl examples of someone with the right idea, a good idea, who knows what theyvare talking about but who lacks the necessary converstaional skills to get his idea across? i have for sure.

Haven't we all seen IRL the guy who hasn't a clue, is dead wrong and is just buffaloing his way thru but by dint of being a savvy conversationalist and good salesman is able to convince even bright people that his nonsense means something? I know i have.

Older DND pretty much was a combat system. It had detailed resolution mechanics for combat situations and tasks but little else. if YOU the player could talk HIM the GM into something then that pretty much equated to your CHARACTER talking the NPC into something because there were no real mechanics for resolving it.

At least for find traps they did have a process... even in AD&D you did not have to be a PLAYER skilled at trap removal to play a character who was.

I personally am happy than DND finally became a task resolution system, where you can handle "characters who are more skilled than the player" with some mechanical means for things other than combat.

YMMV

Now If I were asked to play those elementals, and was given the situation of an unreachable foe who can easily obliterate me, but who offers me a way home, I think I MIGHT just decide to go home. But maybe thats just me being a little insane.

Indeed, and that should go into assigning the DC for the task. If it is indeed as cut and dried as you say, the dc should be so low as to be nigh on if not automatic. I mean, could anyone fail to be convincing?

Well, of course, some utter bozo could misspeak and perhaps inadvertantly insult the elemental or threaen him in a way that convinces him to stay and try to take him out... or he could without meaning to give the elemental the impression that the threat is a bluff and that the situation is not as bad...

if one were so unskilled at social situations as to completely flub this task. I dont know, maybe a 6 charisma half-orc barbarian?

Of course why bother ROLEPLAYING, I can just role a diplomacy check.
Why use my brain when I can take 20.

Well, if YOUR brain and the CHARACTER's brain are one and the same... you might have a point.

One might consider using the d20 when the character's brain is very different from yours.

D&D as written is entirely autonomous, you can play the entiregame simply by rolling dice; but by god its boring if you reduce everything to rolling dice.

Well, in many games i ran and have played in task resolution was not "everything". task resolution is used once an action is decided and attempted and a whole lot of game takes place in between those times. So even in a mythical construct of a game where all task resolutions were simple dice rolls, there is still a lot of room for non-boring stuff. However, for DND purposes, with circumstantial modifiers and assigned by GM DCs, task resolution does not have to be, is not mandated to be, devoid of player input.

 

[Pax]

Im assuming the people who are running about screaming about game balance and demanding diplomacy checks to convince a fire elemental that going home is better than being kileld never played D&D before 3E.

Nice way to insert your head into certain nether regions, bub. There's better than even odds that I've been playing D&D - and several other systems - for at least as long as you've been breathing.

And on that point, how did you ever deal with the situations as with the elementals before the diplomacy skill even existed. I know in MY group that before any such notion of a "diplomacy skill" was written down anywhere we just ROLEPLAYED IT, and then the DM would ROLEPLAY THE NPC.

... and all advantage to the character whose player could smooth-talk better?

No. As a DM, I simply checked up the character's charisma, and no matter how well or how badly the player tried to sweet-talk the NPC ... I'd base the results on the character's Charisma.

Which basically boils down to "take 10, untrained dimplomacy".

Of course why bother ROLEPLAYING, I can just role a diplomacy check.
Why use my brain when I can take 20.
D&D as written is entirely autonomous, you can play the entiregame simply by rolling dice; but by god its boring if you reduce everything to rolling dice.

Majere

Flipside: why bother SPENDING skill points to get a good skill, if you know that you the player are already good enough to pull one over on teh DM ... ? And at the same time, why bother spending skill points to get ANY modifier - even if you cheat to get an impossibly-high score! - if you know you simply are not good enough out-of-character to ever "succeed" ... ?

 

[DarkMaster]

Im assuming the people who are running about screaming about game balance and demanding diplomacy checks to convince a fire elemental that going home is better than being kileld never played D&D before 3E.

D&D Was played for a great many years without ever being in anyway balanced, Pre 3E Mages always ended up being super dooper uber amazing at high levels and other classess were always underpowered. But somehow we got by, and had fun, even in clearly unbalanced games.

And on that point, how did you ever deal with the situations as with the elementals before the diplomacy skill even existed. I know in MY group that before any such notion of a "diplomacy skill" was written down anywhere we just ROLEPLAYED IT, and then the DM would ROLEPLAY THE NPC. And if the NPC was smart (You will notice elementals actualy have respectable intellegence scores) they would act in a reasonable way.
Now If I were asked to play those elementals, and was given the situation of an unreachable foe who can easily obliterate me, but who offers me a way home, I think I MIGHT just decide to go home. But maybe thats just me being a little insane.

Of course why bother ROLEPLAYING, I can just role a diplomacy check.
Why use my brain when I can take 20.
D&D as written is entirely autonomous, you can play the entiregame simply by rolling dice; but by god its boring if you reduce everything to rolling dice.

Majere

I think you confuse content and the way it's delivered, In the previous edition I was using charisma, to simulate the effectiveness of the player to express his idea. The new skills rule is just the normal development of what a lot of people were doing before. For example the dwarf fighter in my group has no rank in bluff and the rogue got around 10 or 11. Lets say the player come up with an excellent idea to fool the guard to let them in. They have the perfect reason to come in. If the dwarf goes and try to bluff the guard with his story and failed even with a bonus because their story make a lot of sense, I will tell him that he was sweating and missing word, looked very nervous, got a bit confused in the way she (female dwarf fighter) was telling the story, or seem very puzzled by unexpected question from the guards and so on. Even if the story was perfect she didn't pull it off. If the rogue goes then things are different, he will easily convinced the guard with its confident attitude, his very plausible answer to all unexpected question from the guard and so on.

I will not allow the rogue to simply tell me I fool the guard, or I will allow it with a big penalty. In that sense personal skill do not remove anything from the player coming with an excellent idea, it just make them think that if they decided to play an anti-social character then they have to pay the consequences.

In the past that was the only use to charisma so I made sure that if someone wanted to play a high charisma character there was some in game advantage other than gaining followers.

 

[Pax]

Pax, I'll make you the same deal I made with Darkmaster: promise to lose the attitude, and I'll be happy to discuss the matter with you. As it is, I'm not going to be baited with insults and leading questions.

Daniel

Translation: you are unwilling or unable to respond to the points I've made (this isn't the first time - you didn't respond to my other post either). Considering I've not got any "attitude" yet, and have only posted to this thread twice until this morning ... that's the only conclusion I can reach.

 

[DarkMaster]

Nice way to insert your head into certain nether regions, bub. There's better than even odds that I've been playing D&D - and several other systems - for at least as long as you've been breathing.


... and all advantage to the character whose player could smooth-talk better?

No. As a DM, I simply checked up the character's charisma, and no matter how well or how badly the player tried to sweet-talk the NPC ... I'd base the results on the character's Charisma.

Which basically boils down to "take 10, untrained dimplomacy".


Flipside: why bother SPENDING skill points to get a good skill, if you know that you the player are already good enough to pull one over on teh DM ... ? And at the same time, why bother spending skill points to get ANY modifier - even if you cheat to get an impossibly-high score! - if you know you simply are not good enough out-of-character to ever "succeed" ... ?

Perfectly agree with everything. Another example of how a player with 1 level wizard can kill a great wyrm in melee by personnally taking Karate class.
And since the lenght of time we play seems to be important I started to play RPG in 83

 

[DarkMaster]

Translation: you are unwilling or unable to respond to the points I've made (this isn't the first time - you didn't respond to my other post either). Considering I've not got any "attitude" yet, and have only posted to this thread twice until this morning ... that's the only conclusion I can reach.

If you read the entire thread you will notice that even if you bring all the arguement of the world, Pielorinho will not change his mind, he is not here to learn how to play, he is here to teach us how to play.

I personally think that my way of playing respect the idea and concept of the rule and I don't bother anymore trying to explain him the rules.

Good luck