D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Scribe]

Doing a thing well means doing it consistently.

Are we talking MLB batter consistently, or NBA shooting guard free throw consistently or 5e D&D 'I attack a CR appropriate target with my Fighter with the assumed stat distribution' consistently?

 

[Tony Vargas]

That isn’t at all my experience playing and running the game, nor does it fit what I see in actual play shows, or stories about sessions of play on Reddit, TikTok, etc, or the games I’ve supervised at the library or been unable to tune out when at my local game store.

It's not your experience that DMs narrate success for characters who they see as doing that thing well? Or it's not your experience that expertise & a high stat delivers success more consistently than proficiency or a high stat?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because many times only one person rolls.

Not everything is a group check.

Sometimes only one person rolls, often several roll.

Am I the only person at Session 0 who says that no player can copy another player's PCs skill set?

There is some discussion about roles and niches, but having some overlapping skills really isn't an issue. Situations where it is useful or mandatory to have more than one character to roll are common enough that it is not useless. Now having no competence at all in the entire party in some area might be more of an issue.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's not your experience that DMs narrate success for characters who they see as doing that thing well? Or it's not your experience that expertise & a high stat delivers success more consistently than proficiency or/and a high stat?

The entire thing that you said in the post I quoted. Very obviously.

5e does not require expertise to reliably contribute in a type of non-combat situation. The idea that the only ways 5e allows a PC to be useful at a thing are DM narration (which is part of the normal play loop and absolutely something that helps 5e help the DM facilitate spotlight sharing, but isn’t relevant so much right now), and expertise, is false. Proficiency accomplishes the goal. Operating on a “only the best possible success rate should ever try” basis is a choice optimizers make, not actually a part of the game.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Are we talking MLB batter consistently, or NBA shooting guard free throw consistently or 5e D&D 'I attack a CR appropriate target with my Fighter with the assumed stat distribution' consistently?

Any of the above, and “collegiate athletes doing those things”, and “more likely to succeed than to fail at a reasonable DC” as well. If we are being reasonable.

 

[Scribe]

Any of the above, and “collegiate athletes doing those things”, and “more likely to succeed than to fail at a reasonable DC” as well. If we are being reasonable.

Sure, but well it helps to frame a conversation, to gain some glimmer of shared understanding, if we actually define words.

That Guard FT percentage? Close to 80%. Thats pretty consistent!
That Batter hit percentage? 30% is GOOD!
Fighter swinging at an appropriate target? I believe is 70% odds.

So if the claim is 'without expertise/advantage one cannot be consistent' then I would like to see what 'consistent' in this case means.

30%-80% is quite the swing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I just figure you deal with an issue when it comes up for you, or it becomes apparent it will. Otherwise you're just being a busy body at best and pushing your desires on others at worst.

Wheras I figure its better to address something systematically out the gate than have to patch it after the fact.

 

[Thomas Shey]

3.0 caught some flack for being 'grid dependent' from Grognards who had completely missed 2e C&T. But the sheer level of toxicity the edition war managed to impose on the internet footprint of the IP was unprecedented and remains unequaled.

I think you're seriously either underestimating or understating how much hostility 3e caught in some places when it first came out including USENET. There's a reason the OSR got really going at that point.

It was just that 3e also got a combination of returnee/new players that made the rear guard element mostly irrelevant in practical impact on the sales and overall success of the edition, which is not how it worked out with 4e.

 

[cbwjm]

On the flip side, there is at least one person who thinks that tailoring to their preferences would make the game even more popular than it is now. They could be right, of course, but I dont think they are.

I've often thought "thank god these people aren't in charge of 5e game design" when people post on reddit or forums with how they think their changes would make the game better. I'm sure I've posted some things where people have also thought the same about my ideas.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Eh, there is always room to improve things. It makes no sense that the “You’re a druid, Harry” skill is split among 3 skills (Nature, Animal Handling and Survival), while there is a single Wizard skill (Arcana) and single Cleric skill (Religion). Performance doesn’t really make sense in a system that uses tool proficiencies for musical instruments and is likewise a little too niche for an adventuring party.

Performance was an odd-man-out skill even in 3e; other than prop up some bardic functions, it had no objective function at all.