D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants

[Guest 85555]

I get those complaints, but the answer to those complaints isn't to simply do away with those skills. It's to structure the game such that all NPC's introduced are people that the DM has at least mapped out enough to make many decisions about their behavior. That means fewer NPC's. Fewer big cities - or at least less interactive ones. Think Diablo style towns with 5-10 NPC's or towns where you just fast forward through. Which I think goes back to what @clearstream was saying about that particular mode of play primarily needing to be confined to a dungeon - where the whole adventure is premised on the internal dungeon and every NPC applicable to that adventure is present and defined within that dungeon.

And this goes beyond the scope of what I am trying say: this is exactly the kind of thing you find debated in OSR circles about skilled play, with differently people having different answers. On this front there are different schools of thought and different preferences. I am just trying to describe the school of thought to you

 

[Guest 85555]

And if the answer is no simply because those aren't visible. No is going to be what happens with many of these questions. An impartial GM is going to ultimately conclude that very little information about a guards personality can be determined by watching a guard closely (and heck the very act of watching him closely may come with it's own set of negative consequences). So we are really left with stereotypes being the primary driver for non-named NPC behavior.

I don't agree with this at all. We do it all the time in real life: it is called sizing people up. I think for the purposes of a game, allowing players to interact in that way to size someone up is fair game. True every GM will have slightly different takes on this. In skill play you are to a degree pitting your skills against the particular tendencies of a given GM (which itself takes skill). Again though, if this style falls short for you, that is fair. I have no problem if you don't like this approach. I just think you not liking it, or you thinking it isn't as skillful as it claims to be, doesn't make it not a thing, and it doesn't remove the fact that skilled play is how many people who play this way describe the style.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Please see my above post and the previous posts if you don't understand. Not going there with you again

Sorry, but this looks like an accusation that I'm posting in bad faith. Surely, not, though, and you have a reason you're singling me out even while responding to extremely similar points from other posters. Please, clarify that you are not accusing me of bad faith.

 

[Guest 85555]

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There's only so much information one can glean by looking at someone. The GM would rightfully provide very little worthwhile detail in this situation. A slightly better approach might be, 'is it known if guards of this city are normally fiercely loyal' (can rule out bribery). 'Is it known if they are particularly unwatchful' (can rule in sneaking). If the answers to enough of your questions is 'you don't know' then you are basically at square one again. You will have to interact with the current fiction to try and get more information, but those interactions can lead to bad results since trying to gain information about someone and the ways you try to do it can have their own points of failure.

Of course. But 1) Observation is more than just looking at someone (it can involve a whole day of following someone around, even following them to their home and seeing what their family life is like---and the absolutely has been done in a number of games I've been in). 2) That was just one thing I mentioned as an example, of course there are plenty of other things the players can skillfully do to crack the problem: including asking the GM questions about what they know (what is widely known) and going into the world and seeking out that information. Now maybe you are not comfortable with the freeform way this stuff tends to be handled in a lot of OSR games. That is fine. Play what and how you want. Every style has a downside, and one downside here is it relies heavily on the GMs ability to fairly present a world and place legitimately rewards skillful play (and that is a much less objective approach than one based more on mechanics). But it is still an approach that exists, that people enjoy and that they describe as skilled play. There is a difference between describing the different camps of play and debating the merits of those camps. When I weighed in, even though I certainly am sometimes a proponent of this style, my aim was simply to describe it so that it didn't get lost in skilled play being treated too broadly (especially when this style of skilled play is often sharply in contrast with system mastery and optimization play: styles I also enjoy).

 

[Guest 85555]

Sorry, but this looks like an accusation that I'm posting in bad faith. Surely, not, though, and you have a reason you're singling me out even while responding to extremely similar points from other posters. Please, clarify that you are not accusing me of bad faith.

I explained this in my posts. I don't care to explain it again. But yes, this is based on our previous interactions. If you want me to respond to you like I am to others, than I suggest change the way you interact with me in the future. Otherwise, I don't feel like I need to debate you about this. Sorry I don't have to respond to you if I don't want to

 

[Campbell]

When I talk about skilled play in the context of games it is with inherent conceit that skill at the game is determinative - that the outcome of the game is dependent on playing it skillfully. Basically that whether or not you achieve your objectives is based on a measure of skill.

@clearstream

In your quest to disambiguate I feel you are actually adding more ambiguity into the discussion. Basically making it impossible to discuss real differences between different modes of play because that can be uncomfortable sometimes.

 

[FrogReaver]

And this goes beyond the scope of what I am trying say: this is exactly the kind of thing you find debated in OSR circles about skilled play, with differently people having different answers. On this front there are different schools of thought and different preferences. I am just trying to describe the school of thought to you

To me that debate internal to the OSR community is strong evidence that these things don't belong in the OSR Skilled Play paradigm. It's not about whether I like them or not, it's about how we are going to define them.

 

[Guest 85555]

This circles us right back around to the same problem. If you don't know anything about the guard, then feeling him out in conversation and how you try to do that is just as likely to fail as the 'blind' bluff attempt.

It isn't about the likelihood of failure. It is about where the skill is coming from. A bluff attempt puts the skill on the character creation, leveling upside (it is taking the right amount of ranks in skill and possibly dipping into the right classes, or taking the right feats, to be good at rolling bluff---and about knowing when to use bluff). That is fine it is a valid and good style of play. I enjoy it. But there is another style that places more emphasis on the skill being around what you say to the guard. And even if you know nothing about a person there are more skillful ways to approach a conversation and less skillful ways to approach a conversation. This is a style that rewards you being good at the skill your character is attempting (i.e. if you are good at solving puzzles, you will have an easier time solving puzzles, if you have a way with words, you may be more persuasive to NPCs). Not everyone plays this way. But it is definitely something I've seen and it is definitely an approach to skilled play that exists. Also it isn't a choice between this way and that way. Like I said, I enjoy both. I've played campaigns that do one or the other, and I've played campaigns that blend them. It is just a distinction that can be important to see when it exists.

 

[Guest 85555]

To me that debate internal to the OSR community is strong evidence that these things don't belong in the OSR Skilled Play paradigm. It's not about whether I like them or not, it's about how we are going to define them.

That doesn't seem sound. The OSR debates all kinds of things like this. if something is important and prioritized, obviously there is going to be discussion and debate about how best to approach that thing. The OSR isn't a monolith, and you will find OSR proponents advocating for different answers to the question of skilled play. I would say what I am describing is the norm. But that is a whole other debate, and frankly it isn't like I've taken a survey, it is just my impression. The important thing is this is a paradigm that clearly exists and is part of the OSR.

 

[clearstream]

When I talk about skilled play in the context of games it is with inherent conceit that skill at the game is determinative - that the outcome of the game is dependent on playing it skillfully. Basically that whether or not you achieve your objectives is based on a measure of skill.

Would you agree that the outcome depends on measure of skill relative to the difficulty of tasks confronted?

In your quest to disambiguate I feel you are actually adding more ambiguity into the discussion. Basically making it impossible to discuss real differences between different modes of play because that can be uncomfortable sometimes.

Oh, I had thought we had moved to discussing what skill might be, and not what modes exist. Would you agree that each mode (which I think are the same as what I have been calling contexts) establishes what is skilled within it? So that what might be skilled in one mode might not be thought skilled at all in another mode. If so, what would your list of modes to look at and compare be?