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

[BryonD]

Stepping back a second and I realize that this is a debate that has been going on in RPG's forever. The basic argument is, "Mechanics get in the way of role play, therefore, mechanics are not needed."

I missed this before.

I **LOVE** mechanics.

If I didn't want mechanics, I'd write fiction, or, just maybe, play total freeform role playing.

But I enjoy table top RPGs. A big part of that is because I **LOVE** mechanics.

I need mechanics. I want mechanics.

Mechanics get in the way of role play is really a completely different argument.

I can see both sides of the whole role play diplomacy vs. use a diplomacy skill argument. THAT is the debate of "get in the way".

You could remove skill checks from Skill challenges and just have players describe their actions and let the DM judge whether they character should succeed or not. Thus the role play elements would be completely unhindered by the mechanics. However, if you still used the SC check mark counting mechanic for determining ultimate success, the narrative would be obeying the mechanics despite the fact that role play itself would be untouched.

 

[Nagol]

That isn't bad faith, that's statistics.

What is being shown is that if Joe has a +8 modifier to his roll, he will succeed at beating a single DC20 check 45% of the time, and Jean at +6 will succeed 35% of the time.

Using Joe's and Jane's same modifiers against a lower DC of 16, but requiring 2 checks, you actually decrease their odds of success.

And if you need 3 checks, you decrease them further.

But so far, the model may be incomplete. SCs typically follow a format of "X successes before Y failures," at least IME. This may jigger the odds a little...but my last stats course was in 2004. And I'm more of a words & visuals than numbers guy.

Here's the math comparison for 6:3 SC versus a single DC roll

Min roll
to succeed    Single Success	 6:3 Success
2            	95.00%            	98.32%
3            	90.00%               	93.00%
4            	85.00%               	84.39%
5            	80.00%               	73.40%
6            	75.00%               	61.18%
7            	70.00%               	48.82%
8            	65.00%               	37.24%
9            	60.00%               	27.06%
10            	55.00%               	18.65%
11            	50.00%               	12.11%
12            	45.00%               	7.34%
13            	40.00%               	4.10%
14            	35.00%               	2.07%
15            	30.00%               	0.91%
16            	25.00%               	0.34%
17            	20.00%               	0.10%
18            	15.00%               	0.02%
19            	10.00%               	0.00%
20            	  5.00%                0.00%

Requiring a 4 or better for each roll is the sweet spot where the chance is effectively the same.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So...if I'm reading that chart right, compared to a single roll, requiring 3 successes can really screw the players for challenges that are meant to be only moderately challenging.

(Could you post the formula for ENWorld's mathletes?)

 

[Lanefan]

First, I don't use mechanically defined "Level 10 Dungeons". I might have a lair of an Ogre Lord, who happens to be CR10. But the surroundings are not tied to CR10, they are tied to "what would be in this Ogre Lord's lair?".

Ayup.

I am saying that any time the mechanics and narrative are in conflict, the narrative should win and the mechanics should be thrown out the window.

Again ayup, with the exception that a very small % of the time a glance at mechanics might reveal the narrative to be completely inconsistent with what precedent suggests the game world can allow, meaning you'll have to do some fancy skating with the narrative to shoehorn it into line.

Or, even better yet, you could have thrown my own words back at me for a much better example. I've stated that whenever anyone makes a save vs. Medusa, I describe them as having not seen her. So, right there, I have admitted to making up narrative to fit the results. And, worse yet, I have admitted that avoiding the gaze should probably be a will save, and yet I am too lazy to stop just using Fort. So, busted, I am using a mechanic that makes no sense and making up narrative to cover for it. I plead guilty.

But, I know one thing, I just reformed today. Will saves it is from now on.

It could still be a Fort. or a Con.-based save, however, if you start with the idea that sometimes one's body can innately resist becoming a rock. Then you've got two options with the narrative: either you didn't meet her gaze at all, or you did but resisted the effect.

I can't give you experience points again yet, but you deserve some.

Lanefan

 

[Nagol]

So...if I'm reading that chart right, compared to a single roll, requiring 3 successes can really screw the players for challenges that are meant to be only moderately challenging.

(Could you post the formula for ENWorld's mathletes?)

I had an error in my original chart. The corrected data set is below the explanation.


For a particular minimum roll to succeed R, probability of success s = (21 - R) / 20; probability of faillure f = 1 - s.

The probabililty of getting N successes before M failures is the summation of
total successes plus failures k (s^N * f^k * nCR( N + k - 1, k )) where k ranges from 0 to (M-1).

^ represents "to the power of"

nCR represents ordered combinations from the pool N + k - 1 in size choosing k elements. The pool size is the number of total rolls not counting the last position since it must be a success (that's why it's the final roll after all).

For 6 successes before 3 failures, where the player succeeds on a 7 or better, the probability of success is the sum of

(6 successes in a row)
(6 successes + 1 failure where the failure occurs anywhere except the final roll)
(6 successes + 2 failures where the failures occur anywhere except the final roll)


0.7^6 + (0.7^6*0.3*6) + (0.7^6*0.3^2*21) = 55.18%

Corrected results

Min Roll
to succeed		Single Success	6:3 Success
2	                95.00%             	99.42%
3	                90.00%             	96.19%
4	                85.00%             	89.48%
5	                80.00%             	79.69%
6	                75.00%             	67.85%
7	                70.00%             	55.18%
8	                65.00%             	42.78%
9	                60.00%             	31.54%
10	                55.00%             	22.01%
11	                50.00%             	14.45%
12	                45.00%             	8.85%
13	                40.00%             	4.98%
14	                35.00%             	2.53%
15	                30.00%             	1.13%
16	                25.00%             	0.42%
17	                20.00%             	0.12%
18	                15.00%             	0.02%
19	                10.00%             	0.00%
20	                  5.00%             	0.00%

edit -- Here's the breakdown for all possible outcomes

Successes
6:0 11.76%
6:1 21.18%
6:2 22.24%

Failures
5:3 9.53%
4:3 9.72%
3:3 9.26%
2:3 7.94%
1:3 5.67%
0:3 2.70%
100.00%

 

[BryonD]

Again ayup, with the exception that a very small % of the time a glance at mechanics might reveal the narrative to be completely inconsistent with what precedent suggests the game world can allow, meaning you'll have to do some fancy skating with the narrative to shoehorn it into line.

I actually wrote a couple lines about how if I rolled a double zero I'd call that fate and roll with something crazy off the cuff. But I decided to cut down the post a bit.

But, yes, I completely agree.

 

[pemerton]

What I'm still not seeing, though, is how a SC- which to me seems to involve several rolls- is in any way superior to a single roll against a DC with modifiers for "aid another" and RP.

Because it introduces a framework for the paced introduction of complications into the situation.

I think this comes back to my difference in thinking between "How can I exploit the situation?" and "What strength can I bring to bear?"

A situation could be handled in a variety of ways where the different tactics the player can choose from have levels of difficulty attached that are appropriate to that approach.

A player may have a terrrific ability in Intimidate, and a lesser ability in Diplomacy, but perhaps a gentler approach is simpler and more applicable.

<snip>

If the player looks to his sheet for what strengths can be brought to bear, he'll gravitate to to his area of speciality. If the player tries to analyse the situation he'll look to a secondary ability as preferable.

I agree with you about the difference between "strengths" and "situational details". But in the sort of situation you describe, there's no reason why the DCs wouldn't be different.

But SCs say that while some actions may not apply, it doesn't tie to the nature of the bear. It just says 6, and (barring "double credit") no fewer and also no more than 6 actions of any type. The details are completely unknown and by the structure of the SC it does not matter.

BryonD, I don't know why you say "it doesn't tie to the nature of the bear" and "it does not matter". You're right about the need for a certain number of successes - that's the essence of a skill challenge - but I'm genuinely puzzled why you say that the nature of the bear and the details of the situation don't matter. They're crucial to setting DCs, to determining what is a viable action on the part of the PC, and to resolving the conequences of that action as part of reframing the unfolding situation in response to a skill check.

 

[BryonD]

DCs for what?

You don't know because that is the nature of SCs.
Every challenge has a DC, but every skill in every way has the same DC? And this is in some way "the nature of the bear?"

Now obviously, that is a root assumption of 4E. DCs are based not on the nature of the item, but the challenge they are intended to represent. So I guess if you can accept that determining how hard a lock is to pick depends on who is trying to unlock it and that a knight in armor and a bare chested pirate have approximately the same AC just because they are fighting the same level opponents, then having all aspects of a bear be defined by a single resistance number and a preconceived capacity is an easy next step. (Heh, they are little skill capacitors.)

But the way I see the nature of a bear the DC that should be modeled onto them is going to vary wildly from skill to skill and the effectiveness of each skill is going to also vary wildly. And far far FAR moreso for each creative application of each skill.

Saying "Here, X, is the DC for all things. No matter what you do it will take 6 before 3 screw-ups. Presto, I just defined the nature of a bear." is HORRID.

 

[Raven Crowking]

For some folks who are worried about defending skill challenges, perhaps we could look at the attack matrixes of 1e for a while.

Within the framework of combat, once a player has committed to making an attack, the die rolls determine both whether or not the character hits, and how much damage he does. The opponent's hit points determine the theshold of success in order to beat the challenge. In this way, combat is very much like a skill challenge.

Moreover, when one ramps up the complexity of options (and there are many in 1e), one gets something analogous to primary and secondary skills in a skill challenge....different ways to reach the threshold, some of which are better than others, depending upon the exact nature of the challenge.

Within the framework of combat, 1e is "rules-first", in exactly the same way that skill challenges are "rules-first". Or it would be, if there was not attempt at mitigation.

In the case of 1e, there are several attempts to mitigate this (i.e., to make it as mildly rules-first as possible, so that the fictional reality of the milieu, while perforce taking a back seat, doesn't have to sit far to the back):

(1) There is more than one threshold. Hit points represent the most obvious way to defeat the challenge a monster represents; there are other ways to do it. In some cases, there are ways to do it that step outside of the mechanics-first framework entirely.

(2) The values in the mechanics are intended to model the fictional reality of the milieu. The X has Y hit dice because that is what Xs are like. The Z has A armour class because that is what Zs are like. IOW, even when the game is mechanics-first, the mechanics themselves are devised in such a way as to emphasize the fictional reality.

(1) and (2) actually walk hand in hand. The fictional reality requires that things are the level of challenge they are, because that is the level of challenge that they should be for fictional, rather than mechanical, reasons. Because nothing has to reach some exact measure of challenge, there can be easier and harder ways to deal with anything, just as in real life.

(3) Where the mechanics are deficient in modelling the fictional space, the DM is advised to alter the mechanics, rather than to alter the fictional space.

So, in 1e we have a combat system which is firmly rules-first, but which has tried to mitigate itself to be as fiction-first as possible.

The problem with this, of course, comes into play when attempts to manipulate the fiction circumvent problems in ways that strain the fictional reality. An editorial in Dragon comes immediately to mind, where a player convinces his DM to allow him to stab an opponent with a dagger, leave the dagger in the wound, and then enlarge it, with the idea that this would be instantly fatal. As a one-off, such an idea might work, but the rules of a fiction-first setting demand that what is possible, is possible. Not "is possible once".

There are problems with this approach, therefore. And it is experiencing these problems that leads to codifying a greater part of "what is possible" within a ruleset. Which, in turn, has its own problems.

The question is, what set of problems are you least bothered by? And what set of problems are you best equipped to deal with?


EDIT: The Jester's lake skill challenge impresses me because it seems to have this sort of mitigation built into it. I found his swamp skill challenge, while superior to the vast majority I've read, offers less mitigation. It seems to me that the nature of the skill challenge system makes this sort of mitigation difficult to do well. Not impossible. Just difficult.



RC

 

[Hussar]

DCs for what?

You don't know because that is the nature of SCs.
Every challenge has a DC, but every skill in every way has the same DC? And this is in some way "the nature of the bear?"

Now obviously, that is a root assumption of 4E. DCs are based not on the nature of the item, but the challenge they are intended to represent. So I guess if you can accept that determining how hard a lock is to pick depends on who is trying to unlock it and that a knight in armor and a bare chested pirate have approximately the same AC just because they are fighting the same level opponents, then having all aspects of a bear be defined by a single resistance number and a preconceived capacity is an easy next step. (Heh, they are little skill capacitors.)

But the way I see the nature of a bear the DC that should be modeled onto them is going to vary wildly from skill to skill and the effectiveness of each skill is going to also vary wildly. And far far FAR moreso for each creative application of each skill.

Saying "Here, X, is the DC for all things. No matter what you do it will take 6 before 3 screw-ups. Presto, I just defined the nature of a bear." is HORRID.

Hang on a tick though. That's a gross oversimplification. For one, the DC's of actions are not necessarily defined solely by the level of the skill challenge. There's absolutely no reason that some parts of the skill challenge might not have different DC's based on the in game situation.

If nothing else, modifiers based on the situation will change the DC (or give bonuses to the die roll, which is effectively the same thing).

Additionally, right in the skill challenge write-up, and this one is explicit, is the idea that you can tie various skills into the challenge that don't directly resolve the issue, but rather give bonuses to other rolls. So, that intimidate check doesn't really calm the bear down but gives a +2 to Nature checks because it worked.

You've even admitted that you can double up on successes, so, the whole you must get 6 before 3 isn't true even by the explicit rules.

Yes, if you run a SC as a mindless check list, then sure, it's going to be boring as all get out and give wonky results. The solution though, isn't to chuck the framework, it's to not run it like a mindless check list.

In exactly the same way that a DM will ignore mechanics in any other edition that get in the way of a good narrative (Fonzie Bump anyone? Can't do it in 3e unless you ignore the mechanics), why does running 4e suddenly mean that I am locked into a single stream straightjacket?