D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[Minigiant]

The community's pushback IME stems from seeing it as a binary with simple pass/fail rules. With D&D it is almost entirely freeform vs game mechanic. But once you get into e.g. a PbtA or even Fate game you're getting much more nuanced uses of skills, success-with-consequences outcomes and, with the intentional rhythm of Apocalypse World, getting the advantages of both with minimal disruption to either.

Well that's the point.

PBTA or 4e skill challenges allows for degrees of success that match the d20 system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

In skill challenges what you say doesn't matter according to the rules. No matter what you do, best you can do is maybe get advantage. I wouldn't call combat role playing either, and skill challenges as I saw them used had far fewer options than combat.

If you don't like rollplay, what term do you want people to use? That's why I asked.

This only makes sense if "when trying to solve a problem what you say doesn't matter; it's all down to the dice roll". All you are going to do is roll a dice and that is all that matters. You can do way more than "get advantage". Which skill you use is a question of what you do - and whether it's an easy check or a hard check is often also a question of what you do.

 

[Aldarc]

In skill challenges what you say doesn't matter according to the rules. No matter what you do, best you can do is maybe get advantage. I wouldn't call combat role playing either, and skill challenges as I saw them used had far fewer options than combat.

If you don't like rollplay, what term do you want people to use? That's why I asked.

(1) I don't use "rollplay" at all when discussing roleplaying games due to the aforementioned connotative reasons.

(2) I don't discuss roleplaying games in way that would necessitate the use or creation of a derogatory word like "rollplay."

To my ears, you are asking "what slur would you prefer I use?" when I am saying to stop using such slurs at all or belittling language as part of discussions.

 

[Oofta]

This only makes sense if "when trying to solve a problem what you say doesn't matter; it's all down to the dice roll". All you are going to do is roll a dice and that is all that matters. You can do way more than "get advantage". Which skill you use is a question of what you do - and whether it's an easy check or a hard check is often also a question of what you do.

Which to me is minimal choice. The player is always going to pick whatever skill is most likely to succeed. That's also not roleplaying.

Again, if you don't like rollplay is there any other term? If not, I don't see a reason to continue, I don't want to badger you for something that doesn't have an answer.

 

[Oofta]

(1) I don't use "rollplay" at all when discussing roleplaying games due to the aforementioned connotative reasons.

(2) I don't discuss roleplaying games in way that would necessitate the use or creation of a derogatory word like "rollplay."

To my ears, you are asking "what slur would you prefer I use?" when I am saying to stop using such slurs at all or belittling language as part of discussions.

Then what is an acceptable term? There's nothing derogatory about saying that all resolutions of important things rely on a die roll.

 

[Morrus]

If you aren't capable of expressing the opinions you have that involve insulting others and their roleplaying, then you probably would have been better off not saying any of this drivel in the first place.

The phrase 'physician, heal thyself' springs to mind. Dial it down, please.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well the DM is good at description they don't have to.

But as displayed in this thread, DMs who don't follow the structure and advice themselves end up screwing it up.

Is there a clear structure that must be followed with Skill Challenges or are they open to more liberal interpretation. For example, what I do in a lot of my games is riff with the players as the action is occurring, essentially using skills in a kind of rulings approach (similar to how a lot of people use attribute rolls in OD&D). So I may tell them what is initially going on, then they say what they want to do, so I would call for a relevant skill, maybe two, and we progress along. This could be used for example int he climbing of a mountain, where there is a lot of back and forth and I adapt a lot to the player's declared actions. And I may establish for myself in the middle of the action that a certain number of Muscle Rolls is required to climb out of a problem the player has encountered or shift to a combination of skill rolls.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Which to me is minimal choice. The player is always going to pick whatever skill is most likely to succeed. That's also not roleplaying.

You're assuming a game of complete information and simple pass/fail outcomes with no balancing of risk. And those are pretty bland situations - but this is one of the many reasons why simple pass/fail skill systems are bad and something with more complex outcomes (like skill challenges) is far better.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This only makes sense if "when trying to solve a problem what you say doesn't matter; it's all down to the dice roll". All you are going to do is roll a dice and that is all that matters. You can do way more than "get advantage". Which skill you use is a question of what you do - and whether it's an easy check or a hard check is often also a question of what you do.

The thing is more you let the GM to vary the mechanical parameters based on their understanding of fictional positioning, closer you are the situation you wanted to avoid by using the skill challenge in the first place.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The thing is more you let the GM to vary the mechanical parameters based on their understanding of fictional positioning, closer you are the situation you wanted to avoid by using the skill challenge in the first place.

Which situation do you think I wanted to avoid? Because the skill challenges certainly keep the length and number of parameters advantages. What I wanted to avoid was the "How the &$%@ do I deal with this plan the PCs have just cooked up" situation.