The D&D Experience (or, All Roads lead to Rome)

[Raven Crowking]

BtronD, AFAICT and IMHO, your posts in this thread have been both clear and cogent. Nor have your objections been answered.

(Although, again, I believe that the Jester's sc demonstrates that a form of sc can be contrived, where the mechanics are forced to follow the logic of the fictional space, instead of vice versa.)

RC

 

[BryonD]

BtronD, AFAICT and IMHO, your posts in this thread have been both clear and cogent. Nor have your objections been answered.

Thanks

(Although, again, I believe that the Jester's sc demonstrates that a form of sc can be contrived, where the mechanics are forced to follow the logic of the fictional space, instead of vice versa.)

RC

Absolutely. The beauty of narrative driven gaming is that the variations are limitless. There is almost nothing that can not be done. And on those events that a 4E style SC fits the narrative, then awesome.

Of course if you have a narrative for which a SC works, but the only reason you have that particular narrative is because you went out of your way to think of something that fit, then the cart is again ahead of the horse. (and, yeah, I know I don't need to tell you that.... )

 

[pemerton]

It doesn't therefore follow that the narrative is irrelevant. It just follows that it is not solely determinative.

<snip>

Suppose, on the other hand, the first action, as narrated, does appear sufficient to resolve the situation - let's say the first action is to summon a genie from a bottle - then the narrative itself doesn't explain why more skill chekcs are needed. At that point, the GM's role (on my approach) is to inject complication. (Perhaps the genie is grumpy. Perhaps the site the PCs are looking for is magically warded against geneis. Perhaps the genie doesn't want to go there because of something that happened there in the past - and this gives the players a clue to pick up on for their further checks.)

Notice here that the narrative is still very important. The nature of the complication that the GM introduces is itself related to the ongoing narrative - both the fact that the PCs are trying to get somewhere, and that they have summoned a genie to try and get them there.

Second, you proved that the narrative is the slave to the mechanics. Why is the genie grumpy? Why is the site warded? These are details that you are suddenly required to invent (back to "pop quiz role playing") because you are out of compliance with THE MECHANICS if you don't.

<snip>

My slogan means what it says, the mechanics control the narrative. In your example the narrative you provided is clearly controlled by the mechanics. You have demonstrated exactly what I am talking about.

OK, I'm confused by your definition of "control".

Let me put it this way: Why is it a genie that is grumpy? Why is it this particular site that is warded? Because the narrative has established (i) that a genie is involved in the situation, and (ii) that the situation is one of trying to get to that particular site.

This is not control by mechanics alone. The mechanics dictate that a complication is to be introduced. The narrative determines the parameters of that complication. To me that looks like joint sovereignty. I'm not going to try to put a percentage weight on each sovereign's contribution, but experience tells me that neither is minimal.

you proved that by admitting that you are now obliged to find a way to stop it, whether you want to or not.

If I didn't want complications to occur in the PCs getting to the site, I wouldn't frame it as a skill challenge in the first place.

That's the point of the challenge - to distribute responsibility for introducing and resolving complications. (Not that the 4e rulebooks use this sort of language - I'm borrowing it from more complete presentations of comparable mechanics.)

As to the terminology of "pop quiz", I still think that that is needlessly derogatory. Suppose I'm playing Classic Traveller, and the PCs go to a planet that the GM has not developed beyond its place on the star map and a UPP, and then when they land, and the GM rolls an encounter using the rules in Book 3, the encounter entry says "Event". The GM has to come up with an interesting and plausible event. Is this "pop quiz" rolepalying?

Or, suppose I'm playing 1st ed AD&D. The PCs are on the 10th level. I, as GM, roll an encounter - and through an unlikely set of rolls it ends up being an encounter with a single 3rd level monster (I don't have the table memorised anymore, but let's say its an encounter with a single ogre). What is an ogre possibly doing on the 10th dungeon level? I have to come up with a story quick-smart. Is this "pop quiz" roleplaying?

The structure of a skill challenge is different from the structure of random encounters in those classic RPGs. But the fact that, from time to time, it requires the GM to come up with a story fast, the parameters of which are determined by the narrative, but the precise details of which are not, is hardly unique to skill challenges.

Nor have your objections been answered.

What's the objection? Unless I've radically misunderstood him, BryonD is proposing a characterisation of skill challenges via his two slogans ("pop quiz roleplaying" and "mechanics determine narrative") and I'm the one who's objecting.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Nice try at imposing a false meaning that completely ignores the context of the statement.

On re-reading I see what you were trying to say. What you are doing is taking a look at a building and saying it is hideously ugly - your proof that the building is ugly is that it's covered in scaffolding. I'm saying that the building has been made faster and by less experienced workmen because the scaffolding is there. And once you either look past the scaffolding or take it and the other game artefacts away it is almost indistinguishable from a building that was constructed without the use of scaffolding.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

This is a fascinating discussion.


I do think there is a parallel to rolling for random encounters and random treasure in other editions.

I mean, yes, the narrative must follow the mechanics in a skill challenge. However, that has been the case for the above as well.


But here's my question: does the narrative then inform the future mechanics?

E.G.: I roll a random encounter while my players are travelling through a swamp. It's a black dragon. They then decide they want to find its treasure hoard. So then the adventure becomes to find the hoard and I develop an adventure related to that (large or small).

Skill challenge version: The players are attempting to, say, gain entrance to a forbidden city. First roll is to use stealth to sneak in, the roll is botched (first failure). The narrative says the guard catches the player. Now, the player was clearly sneaking in. Is the DC higher for the next roll when a player attempts to use bluff or diplomacy against the already suspicious guard? Might it even be impossible to do this at this point? If so, then the mechanics do follow the narrative. If not, then it seems more like the mechanics are the sole contributor to the situation, and the narrative is more "dressing up" of the mechanics.

 

[BryonD]

OK, I'm confused by your definition of "control".

Let me put it this way: Why is it a genie that is grumpy? Why is it this particular site that is warded? Because the narrative has established (i) that a genie is involved in the situation, and (ii) that the situation is one of trying to get to that particular site.

This is not control by mechanics alone. The mechanics dictate that a complication is to be introduced. The narrative determines the parameters of that complication. To me that looks like joint sovereignty. I'm not going to try to put a percentage weight on each sovereign's contribution, but experience tells me that neither is minimal.

If I didn't want complications to occur in the PCs getting to the site, I wouldn't frame it as a skill challenge in the first place.

That's the point of the challenge - to distribute responsibility for introducing and resolving complications. (Not that the 4e rulebooks use this sort of language - I'm borrowing it from more complete presentations of comparable mechanics.)

And SCs use the mechanics to control the narrative so that the resposibility is distributed.

When you call it "joint sovereignty" I just have to give up and admit that you don't get the point. There is nothing "joint" about it. The mechanics say the narrative must comply with this. The narrative makes no obligation on the mechanics. The mechanics say "your narrative must land between A and C." There is no sovereignty in picking from 1,000 options between A and C. It is an illusion of power. If the mechanics had decreed you must choose something between A and B, then your options would be reduced and you would be required to accept that. If it was joint the story could negotiate back and still pick something outsie of A to B and force the mechanics to change to fit to it. This does not happen. The SC makes the rule and then you choose from what is left. Calling this joint doesn't accurately describe the relationship.

You have actively demonstrated my point, and yet you insist it isn't there. So be it.

As to the terminology of "pop quiz", I still think that that is needlessly derogatory. Suppose I'm playing Classic Traveller, and the PCs go to a planet that the GM has not developed beyond its place on the star map and a UPP, and then when they land, and the GM rolls an encounter using the rules in Book 3, the encounter entry says "Event". The GM has to come up with an interesting and plausible event. Is this "pop quiz" rolepalying?

Or, suppose I'm playing 1st ed AD&D. The PCs are on the 10th level. I, as GM, roll an encounter - and through an unlikely set of rolls it ends up being an encounter with a single 3rd level monster (I don't have the table memorised anymore, but let's say its an encounter with a single ogre). What is an ogre possibly doing on the 10th dungeon level? I have to come up with a story quick-smart. Is this "pop quiz" roleplaying?

In the first case, one could call it "pop quiz" since it is a highly open-ended term. But it doesn't have the same point. The reason is that you have to come up with a new narrative direction based on an unexpected narrative twist. You could call that "pop quiz" and rather than being offended by the term, I'd reply "yeah, isn't it great." Rolling with the STORY and unexpected "pop quiz" parts of the story are fun.

Narrative forced pop quiz: Good (IMO)

Now, your second case may have some differences from SCs, but I think it has the same "pop quiz" core. Arbitrary mechanics are in control and you are forced to change your story to fit the mechanics. That would not happen at any game I'm running because if I did have a mechanical result that contradicted the story, I'd throw out the mechanics. If the setting is such a lone ogre could happen (and even better if it seems out of place) then excellent, lets enjoy this pop quiz and go. But if isn't good, throw it away. Re-roll, pick something, whatever.

And, if I was running a SC and someone came up with a solution in one action, I'm not going to be a slave to the mechanics and start coming up new narrative elements that exist because the mechanics need them. I'm going to throw the SC out and move on with the story. But the very point of SC is to not do that, so obviously I should just not use them.

And, to be clear, I've never used a "10th level dungeon". It ties back to the same root difference. A location is what the narrative suggests the location is. Mechanical expectations on how the location should be can behave themselves in line behind the story or they can get tossed out on their ear.

But, I guess I've been chasing a red herring here. When I say "pop quiz" in this context, I mean changing the story because the mechanics require it. And, yes, my opinion of that is negative.

Mechanical forced pop quiz: Bad (imo)

Saying that you "wanted there to be complications" does not change the fact that the SC mechanics forced the narrative to behave in a compliant manner.
All you are telling me is you WANT the story to obey the mechanics.

Neither of the two reasons you listed in ANY WAY answer "why is the genie grumpy"? The answer to the question is: because the genie could solve the problem and the SC mechanics say that can not happen yet. The players have not collected enough check marks yet so ANY solution is obligated to be incomplete. The narrative control to complete the solution is prohibited by the mechanics. (Again, you could always just throw out the SC, but that doesn't defend SCs.)

What's the objection? Unless I've radically misunderstood him, BryonD is proposing a characterisation of skill challenges via his two slogans ("pop quiz roleplaying" and "mechanics determine narrative") and I'm the one who's objecting.

I object to the claim that games based on SCs lead to the same Rome as games in which the narrative controls the mechanics.

 

[Raven Crowking]

What's the objection? Unless I've radically misunderstood him, BryonD is proposing a characterisation of skill challenges via his two slogans ("pop quiz roleplaying" and "mechanics determine narrative") and I'm the one who's objecting.

I am using the term "objection" in a manner consistent with the debate rule that says, "To make a convincing argument, you must first understand and address the objections".

Which is to say, if you don't understand and address the other point of view, your argument will always lack force to anyone who doesn't already share your point of view.

So, in this case, the "objection" is the gist of your opponent's argument. AFAICT, neither you nor anyone else has addressed/answered it in any meaningful way. ByronD can agree with everything else you say, but if what you say doesn't answer his objection/argument, he's still not going to agree with you. And he will be right not to.

I don't think that I can rewrite ByronD's argument to make it any clearer, or any more forceful, than he has done. That you continue to reinforce his argument without being aware of doing so (by using examples that demonstrate his argument, rather than which counter it), makes me believe that you are misunderstanding his position.

My best rephrasing is (and, please, ByronD, correct me if I am wrong):

When playing the game, both the mechanics and the fictional reality are important, and inform each other. However, either the mechanics come before the fictional reality, or the fictional reality comes before the mechanics.

Where the mechanics come before the fictional reality, the narrative must be made to fit the mechanics. Where the fictional reality comes before the mechanics, the mechanics are dropped when they conflict with that fictional reality.

It is not important how the narrative is modified for this to be true. That you have infinite ways to modify the narrative is not important, and does not disprove this assertion.

In your examples, you show how the mechanics take precedence over the fictional reality in skill challenges.

That a single "right" answer cannot resolve a skill challenge is, in itself, strong evidence that the skill challenge mechanic is one where the mechanics come before the fictional reality.

Regardless of preference, and without claiming that one is better than the other, games where the mechanics take precedence over the fictional reality are not the same as games where the fictional reality takes precedence over the mechanics.​

That isn't as well put, or as detailed, as ByronD's posts, but I think it is accurate.


RC

 

[ExploderWizard]

Again, I just don't really feel the force of this. Are you really telling me that mine is the only group where, when I as GM describe a scene that the players are getting ready to engage with via their PCs, the players then look over their character sheets to see what sorts of resources - skills, spells, items, contacts, knowledge of backstory - that they might bring to bear?

Nope. I don't know enough about your group to make a guess about how you play. Based on the subordinate nature of the gameworld to the mechanics of the system though I can make an educated guess that the solution to the situation will never be decided by anything not on those sheets.

Coming at it in another way - what is the difference between "thinking about what can be done to resolve the issue" and "thining about what applicable skill will be the best to roll against"? After all, the sole measure of applicability here is able to be used to resolve the issue!

The difference is in looking down at your character sheet for an answer, and having it look right back at you and say " Don't look at me pal I just work here, its YOUR move."

The mechanics dictate that a complication is to be introduced.

Simple question: Why?

 

[Neonchameleon]

E.G.: I roll a random encounter while my players are travelling through a swamp. It's a black dragon. They then decide they want to find its treasure hoard. So then the adventure becomes to find the hoard and I develop an adventure related to that (large or small).

Skill challenge version: The players are attempting to, say, gain entrance to a forbidden city. First roll is to use stealth to sneak in, the roll is botched (first failure). The narrative says the guard catches the player.

Wait there. You've hardcoded more than either I would have or most narratives would force. Botching the roll doesn't necessarily mean that the guard catches the character. It means that the stealth goes wrong.

Now, the player was clearly sneaking in. Is the DC higher for the next roll when a player attempts to use bluff or diplomacy against the already suspicious guard?

It depends how the situation plays out - but if you want to add a penalty. There's even a specific option within skill challenges for using a hard DC check to negate a prior failure.

But honestly, if the attempt is now made for the PCs to bluff their way in, stealth having failed, the same DCs make for a harder challenge. The PCs get a total of three failures in a skill challenge. But now they only have two left so just leaving the DCs the same leads to a lower probability of success. So there is no actual need to alter the DCs to take the failure into account - the failure itself means you have less margin of error for subsequent mistakes.

Might it even be impossible to do this at this point?

It might be. DM's call.

If so, then the mechanics do follow the narrative. If not, then it seems more like the mechanics are the sole contributor to the situation, and the narrative is more "dressing up" of the mechanics.

The DM controls the skill challenge and sets what's available and what the DCs are.

 

[Hussar]

Originally Posted by pemerton View Post
The mechanics dictate that a complication is to be introduced.

Simple question: Why?

The simple answer would be, because it would be fun. Introducing complications leads to more game play and makes play more interesting. Isn't that the goal, pretty much all the time? Being able to press the "I win" button might be great the first time, but, it does pale after a while.

Gaming story.

In our current game, the DM ran a SC where we were organizing a group of refugees to fortify a position against an incoming (smallish) army. During this, a number of bits of sabotage occured, which triggered another, nested, skill challenge - find the sabateur.

We realized, after some time, that the sabateur was a doppleganger (the enemy had used them before) and we set about tracking it down. We actually failed and this resulted in some of our defenses being considerably weakened.

My immediete thought, though, was, "Wow, we really aren't playing 3e anymore. We have a group with two full casters and a paladin. In 3e, this would take all of 10 seconds to resolve - casters to the rescue, detect evil, dead doppleganger." Instead, we had an interesting series of events spawned by the complications of our failure.

So, taking away the "Succeed on the first try" thing isn't so bad, IMO.

And, on that line of thought, I really have to question BryonD's assertiion that a SC actually removes the "Succeed on the first try" thing. The whole point of a SC is that you have an event that is complicated enough that there shouldn't be anything you can do to succeed on the first try. If you could, then it wouldn't be a skill challenge. It would be a straight up skill check.

In other words, I think BryonD is complaining about the removal of an element that never actually existed within the framework. Because 4e removes most of the "I win" magic abilities from the characters, it becomes a lot easier to create situations where it will take more than a single action to resolve the issue. No Zone of Truth spells mean that questioning people becomes a lot more problematic.

I see what you're saying. If the DM is on the ball and decides to call the situation a success or failure based on his own feelings and he's good at that, you have a scene that is going to play out better than a SC. OTOH, if the DM isn't on the ball, if the DM doesn't have a really great sense of pacing, then you wind up with an awful lot of very unsatisfactory scenes that either get cut short before they get interesting or drag on FAR too long (IMO, the much more likely scenario).

It's the classic puzzle room scene. The DM makes the group jump through hoop after hoop after hoop trying to answer the riddle of the door and whatnot. Having a mechanical framework that says, "Ok, it's a hard challenge, 6/3" means that pacing is pretty solid.

Again, it gets back to the idea that sure, a great DM doesn't need the framework. Sure, I'll buy that. But, the rest of us mere mortals sure appreciate having one now that I've seen SC's done right a few times. And, hey, after you get used to using the framework, you can start experimenting a bit and growing the framework into new and interesting concepts.

Instead of expecting every DM to reinvent the wheel.