D&D General Styles of Roleplaying and Characters

[Umbran]

Let me see...

Mod Note:
Stop.

The person you are speaking with has indicated that your approach to the discussion seems like harrassment to them, and this is not hte first indication that your approach was causing a problem. You have now badgered someone out of the discussion, which is not acceptable.

You should find some other discussion at this point, in which you aren't tempted to be so dogged in pursuit.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm done. Have a good one.

Toodles!

ETA: I feel your posts are harrassment as well -- they are mean spirited and intentionally insulting and show no attempt to understand. I guess, though, that only one person is privileged here, and that's who throws "harassment" out as a defense against argument first. Lesson learned.

 

[Lanefan]

Actually: the result, as I've posted multiple times, was that Aedhros (my PC) hesitated.

Hesitation is the only result that flows from a failed Steel check. Normally (unless some special rule has been triggered) the character who hesitates can swoon, run screaming, fall to their knees and beg for mercy, or stand without acting. I chose the last of those for Aedhros.

The hesitation gave enough time for the other PC, Alicia, to cast a Persuasion spell to persuade Aedhros to not kill the innkeeper.

Sorry, I'd forgotten that second step.

So, a few questions: does that Persuasion spell's effect last forever, or does it wear off after a while? And, if it wears off after a while, is the PC then free to resume its previous course of action if circumstance allows?

I believe I've already posted the range of triggers for a Steel check in Burning Wheel: pain, ambush/surpise, gore and violence, and the supernatural.

It's nothing like random mood generation. Absolutely nothing like it. By choosing those things as the triggers for a Steel check, the game expresses its (or, I guess, its designer's) conception of what sorts of things require screwing up one's courage to get through. By varying the variety of Steel triggers, or permitted hesitation response, the game is able to foreground other orientations towards threat and opportunity: for instance, Dwarven Greed requires Dwarven characters to make a Steel check when confronted by things of great value; but they have an additional hesitation response, I must have it - ie trying to obtain the desired thing whether by trade or theft, like the Naugrim and the Silmaril, or Thorin and the Arkenstone.

Does the player's character concept give any variance here? For example, if I'm playing a perhaps-slightly-unwise character whose main ideal is damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead and who (outwardly) feels no fear, can the GM adjust the check to suit this? Converesly, if I'm playing a character who isn't very brave, does that free the GM to call for these checks more often?

 

[Lanefan]

Well, in that mass of bad takes overnight, I was quite surprised to see that @Oofta said this:

Because this is the same conceptual thing as all of the mechanics being discussed, and which @Oofta strangely disclaims despite this statement. And here's why -- every one of the mechanics being cited for resolution of character points are invoked by the player. Every one.

Well, not quite. For example the Steel check in pemerton's play report involving the innkeeper wasn't invoked by the player, but the GM; and from what he's written since it seems to be something built into the ruleset. The Persuasion spell came from another character (not sure if PC or NPC).

What gets lost in many of the responses that disclaim these kinds of mechanics is this player engagement with the concept. They treat them as forced upon the player unwanted, that there's just a die roll at random points or whenever the GM chooses, and disclaim this loss of agency. And I agree -- if this were the case it would be weird and I wouldn't like it at all.

Same here. If it's a player using dice - even if informally - as an aid to deciding something about their own character, that's fine. It's also fine IMO if dice are used to randomize many elements of character generation.

It's when the player can and does make such a decision - e.g. how is my character reacting to this in-play event - without dice, the game shouldn't be able to (try to) overturn that decision without use of identifyable compulsion magics or the like.

 

[Bill Zebub]

And, because that's actually a design theme, let me add another example - for a game that's not released yet - Tales of Xadia, the RPG for The Dragon Prince animated series (which is really awesome).

Tales of Xadia is a Cortex Prime based game. They want conflicts to be multi-faceted, in which any character might be effective, so they've chosen a Stress-based approach to conflicts. When a PC fails a die roll, they take some Stress (rated as a die type, from d6 to d12). There are six kinds of stress - Afraid, Angry, Anxious, Corrupted, Exhausted, and Injured. Note that three of these are emotional, one metaphysical, and two physical. Generally, what type of stress you take depends on what is narratively appropriate, and what the opponent wants to achieve.

So, if you are in a swordfight, and you take stress, maybe you'll be Injured by the opponent's blade, or become Exhausted by how many swings you've needed to take. But maybe, with the banter during the fight, you've not taken a scratch, but your complete inability to succeed leads you to become filled with self-doubt and Anxiety about your competence. It is your opponent's choice.

What kind of stress you take does not control your choice of actions. However, your stress can be used against you. If you have to stand before the Duke and explain yourself, that die of anxiety can be added to the Wicked Advisor's roll when trying to discredit you, as you find it hard to express yourself convincingly while Anxious. The Stress is a modifier on rolls, not a determiner of actions.

That all sounds pretty good to me.

 

[Bill Zebub]

How is it just a modifier if you aren't actually stressed? In your example, the advisor is using your anxiety on you, but how can this happen unless you're actually anxious in the fiction?

See, I'm ok with this, in the same way that I'm ok with a character with low Charisma/Wisdom/Intelligence playing it however they choose, as long as they apply the negative modifier where the rules tell them too.

Sure, it makes sense to roleplay a Stress modifier as representing actual stress, but as long as the modifier is applied where appropriate I'm not going to sweat how somebody represents that. Maybe they're one of those people who handles stress by acting like they have everything in control, and they even believe they have everything in control...even if the dice don't work out quite as they hoped.

 

[pemerton]

does that Persuasion spell's effect last forever, or does it wear off after a while? And, if it wears off after a while, is the PC then free to resume its previous course of action if circumstance allows?

Persuasion lasts as long as the caster sustains it. In a context where the caster casts the spell but falls unconscious from the tax, as happened in our game, the effect is only brief.

But I had the strongbox. Alicia had collapsed. The innkeeper was no longer being held up in a chokehold by Alicia, but was also on the floor. Both in character and at the table the moment had passed.

Does the player's character concept give any variance here? For example, if I'm playing a perhaps-slightly-unwise character whose main ideal is damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead and who (outwardly) feels no fear, can the GM adjust the check to suit this? Converesly, if I'm playing a character who isn't very brave, does that free the GM to call for these checks more often?

Character concept, in the sense you describe, is established by character build: what is your Steel, what is your hesitation, what traits do you have that adjust either in what circumstances, etc. You don't get to stipulate your "character concept' independent of these build parameters.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, great sax is quite subjective isn't it? I mean, there's jazz, big band, bebop and of course all sorts of derivatives.

Great sox is also pretty subjective: some like the east coast red variety, others like the white ones from the midwest, and many can't be bothered with either...

 

[Lanefan]

When your endocrine system hijacks your decision-point in real life (you swoon when you hope for poise, you stammer awkwardly when you feel bested by someone's presence or rhetoric, you flee/cower when you wish to make a stand), does it feel artificial to you?

Artificial or not it feels damn annoying to me in real life, and isn't something I want to replicate in the game if I don't have to.

 

[pemerton]

I can easily imagine the tension behind a critical roll (no pun intended) where if I hit with my sword we (probably) live, and I miss we (probably) die.

But if preceding that roll I have to make a roll to see if I can "steel" myself to do it I think I would just see that as yanking me out of the story because it's not really my character after all. Or, at least, I'm not inhabiting that character, I'm just controlling it. And only tenuously at that. So for me the tension would dissolve because I'm no longer 'there' in the story. (In other words, the attempt at performative roleplaying has come at the cost of experiential roleplaying.)

I get the concept, it's just that (for me) there is a difference between rolling dice to see if my sword hits and rolling dice to see if I can make a decision. The latter just...and I hesitate to describe it this way because it's a pejorative, even though I'm only speaking about my own experience...would feel "like a board game" to me. I'm just rolling dice and moving pieces.

My response to this is similar to @Ovinomancer - ie it seems to reverse things.

A game where my PC can do even the most horrific thing - murder in cold blood - as if it were no different from preparing a meal or mending some armour seems to be one in which I am just controlling the character like a piece moved around a board. That character has no inner life. No doubts or hesitations.

There are different ways of responding to the previous paragraph. In some games - like my group's 4e D&D game - the whole setup of the game means that murdering in cold blood hardly ever comes up. There's only one PC who's come close to doing that - on two occasions - and on both occasions it shocked the rest of the table because of the way it contrasted with the norm.

In our Classic Traveller game, in our most recent session one of the PCs murdered a number of people who had taken her prisoner, with a grenade and other explosives. They had taken her prisoner after she tried to break into their vessel, and were holding an impromptu trial. Classic Traveller doesn't really have a framework for driving home the emotional significance of this sort of thing - it is external considerations like Law Level and Social Standing that do that - but (as I posted already upthread) one of the other players, whose PC was not in the scene, did that job.

I find Burning Wheel's Steel mechanics powerful and evocative, but they're not the only approach. Other participants as the voice of conscience or outrage can perform a similar role. But I think I would find it jarring if there was nothing in the process or experience of play which responded to this sort of action declaration, and what makes it different from something more mundane.