Storytelling vs Roleplaying

[maddman75]

This key point brings up a question. If the aim of play is to adventure to whatever end fate brings the characters thereby creating thier story then how is needing to fudge not changing this aim to begin with?

It's a circular defense:
With mechanic X we don't have to fudge. With the old rules we had to fudge to get result Z that we knew we wanted. Mechanic X gets us to point Z in a more orderly fashion.

What determines point Z and why is it so important to get there?

Why use mechanics if certain events HAVE to happen and other events CANNOT happen at the wrong time? In any event such devices are for story telling rather than event resolution.

Not everyone has the same point Z. Heck, I don't have the same point Z from game to game.

I'm a firm believer that if you're fudging dice or rules, it indicates a failure of the rule system to give you the kind of play you want. I tend to agree, that if you don't want outcome Y, don't allow the rules to give you that outcome.

Of course sometimes it isn't so simple. Maybe its not that you don't want a PC to get killed, you don't want him to get killed by a skeleton. Or you want him to die after a big fight with the BBEG, not on the first round after losing initiative. It isn't a simple binary choice.

Metagame mechanics are one way to deal with that problem, and they have the benefit of flexibility. But there are other solutions. For example, I've contemplated a rule in Exalted that you can only be killed when Incapacitated as part of a stunt. That is, only at the end of a fight with a powerful enemy who intentionally makes a death blow. Thus, no random PC death, and no metagame mechanics either.

Player skill has been progressively driven from the mechanics in ever increasing steps since the launch of 2E and NWP/skills.

Player skill is vastly overrated. The only skill I want is 'make entertaining characters'.

 

[Ariosto]

Different skills are applied to different means to different ends. A 4e "skill challenge" is very, very different from the "skill challenge" of a classic OD&D or AD&D dungeon. This is not by accident, but by design.

It is just so with the old game's probabilistic production of results that many people find unacceptable and so "fudge". The results are (perhaps with rare exceptions) just what the designer intended! Were the intent otherwise, a deterministic method (or explicitly bounded results) would be obviously preferable.

For all the attention devoted in some more recent designs to loading the odds heavily in favor of "the right way", a set of a million trials still yields some outliers that "go wrong".

This concept of preferred outcomes is set forth repeatedly in the 4e DMG, although the dice-rolls remain for those who wish to use them. A sort of "split personality" may result, a compulsion to hide fudging behind a pretense of applying the rules.

It is quite possible to have an interesting game in which the outcome (in broad strokes) is preordained, the challenge lying in choosing among the paths to that end. How much does victory cost? What was the magnitude of defeat?

Both Bonaparte and Wellington won many of their battles largely in the maneuvers beforehand. To take on a reasonably skilled player in a fairly historical re-fight is pretty much to accept that the Great Captain's side is going to hold the field at day's end. It is possible, though, to compare the players' performances with their historical counterparts -- and thus to win the game despite losing the battle (or vice-versa).

 

[Scribble]

Different skills are applied to different means to different ends. A 4e "skill challenge" is very, very different from the "skill challenge" of a classic OD&D or AD&D dungeon. This is not by accident, but by design.

What skill challenges of classic OD&D dungeons? Skill challenges didn't exist.

It is just so with the old game's probabilistic production of results that many people find unacceptable and so "fudge". The results are (perhaps with rare exceptions) just what the designer intended! Were the intent otherwise, a deterministic method would be obviously preferable.

For all the attention devoted in some more recent designs to loading the odds heavily in favor of "the right way", a set of a million trials still yields some outliers that "go wrong".

This concept of preferred outcomes is set forth repeatedly in the 4e DMG, although the dice-rolls remain for those who wish to use them. A sort of "split personality" may result, a compulsion to hide fudging behind a pretense of applying the rules.

If you say so, but all Ive seen in the 4e DMG is that things should be fun. Which is good advice.

A while back a friend of mine and I were playing pool. Both of us were around the same skill level.

We were playing 8-ball and it was his shot. He miscued and ended up accidentally pocketing the 8 ball, which meant I won.

He wasn't trying anything fancy, or trying something he knew might be hazardous to his game. He just screwed up. It was pretty early in the game, and both of us knew it was more of a glitch then anything. At this point, we knew that we could just sink the rest of the balls, or just do a "do over" and take the 8ball out of the pocket and pretend it never happened.

We chose the later, because we knew we'd have more fun actually testing our skills against each other, then just randomly sinking billiard balls.

Both might be fun, but one was more fun for us then the other.

I find the same thing happens in D&D as in all other games. Sometimes, while for the most part the game rules as they stand promote fun, a combination of dumbluck + the rules promotes unfun.

In those cases I say fudge away and bring on the fun. Thats one of the strengths of TTRPGs. They're open to moderation.

Setting plays just as much importance to the game as set.

 

[Mallus]

Player skill has been progressively driven from the mechanics in ever increasing steps since the launch of 2E and NWP/skills.

The thing about 'player skill' is that it's only good for certain character actions. It's great when the player's describing exactly how their character is searching a room or dealing with a potential trap. That kind of descriptive, player skill-based resolution works for things like physical puzzles.

It's not so good at resolving a PC's attempt at a complicated feat of acrobatics. Or a chase on horseback. Or an attempt to build a big siege engine --unless both the player and the DM have the relevant skills. Which bring up another problem: without help from the mechanics, 'player skill' is only as good as DM skill -- the DM needs to be knowledgeable enough to evaluate the player's descriptions. If not, they'll just dice the outcome. While I'm sure they are still a few polymath DM's out there, most of us are rather more limited in our expertise.

And then, switching genres for a minute, how does 'player skill' fit into trying to fix your starship's warp drive? What player skill can be tested when the in-game problem is one of bullsh*t engineering based on bullsh*t physics?

This is why having a mechanical skill system that describes character aptitudes is nice to have, if only for emergencies.

 

[Ariosto]

What skill challenges of classic OD&D dungeons? Skill challenges didn't exist.

Hah! I can almost imagine someone saying that with a straight face.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The assumption a priori that Ulrica is the heroine of a great saga is a marked departure.

Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

We have already established what kind of character Ulrica is, although we may haggle over the scope of her entitlement to survival and success.

In the old game, Ulrica's story was simply whatever happened in play. That might turn out to be an epic tale, a cautionary anecdote, or a mere footnote in the rolls of the dead ("eaten by owls"; "set on fire and drowned"; "petrified and sold as an objet d'art").

PCs can still die in 4e. In fact it's fairly common, by all accounts. A character's 'story' is not fixed, by RAW.

In every edition of D&D the only way to ensure a PC survives is DM fudging. This was most strongly encouraged in 2e.

4e does make it harder to die, yes, just as did the '-10 hit points' rule in 1e. I believe the prime reason for this is the move, which occurred long ago, away from the old 'wargame' style of play with a vast army of PCs and henchmen, towards parties composed of only one character per player. 2e encouraged this with the idea of giving PCs a detailed backstory and personality but did nothing mechanically. 3e makes PCs more detailed mechanically, they take longer to build, but they die easily, which doesn't fit with the mechanical complexity because it takes a long time to generate a new one. It's only by 4e that the mechanics have finally changed to fit the play style which has been most popular for more than 20 years.

 

[Scribble]

Hah! I can almost imagine someone saying that with a straight face.

Yet seem to have an inability to answer the question.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It is just so with the old game's probabilistic production of results that many people find unacceptable and so "fudge". The results are (perhaps with rare exceptions) just what the designer intended! Were the intent otherwise, a deterministic method (or explicitly bounded results) would be obviously preferable.

Gary advises DMs to fudge die rolls on what is basically the first page of the DMG after the contents and preface - the 5th paragraph of the Introduction.

This concept of preferred outcomes is set forth repeatedly in the 4e DMG,

The concept of a preferred outcome comes across very strongly in the 1e DMG. Players who do everything 'right' ought to win. Players who are 'bad' should be punished. The DM is sort of like Santa Claus.

 

[Mallus]

Gary advises DMs to fudge die rolls on what is basically the first page of the DMG. after the contents and preface - the 5th paragraph of the Introduction.

He also describes D&D as 'swords and sorcery', which I believe is a form of fanciful story, suggests in an appendix players read up on those stories, and claims people will become better 'thespians' through playing the game.

(He really does use the word 'thespians'. I can cite once I get home, if I really have to...).

 

[Doug McCrae]

I used to win in 1e by cheating on my die rolls. Like when my paladin had an 18/99 strength (I figured that would be more plausible than 18/00) and 'rolled up' a giantslayer sword on the tables in Dragon magazine before we played the Against The Giants series.

Ah, the good olde days.