D&D 5E The Role of Dice in Next

[Stormonu]

"Dice are only good for one thing - determining success or failure.*"

It's an old thing I told myself when designing another game some time back. I used it to remind me that the game I was building wasn't meant to be a dicefest; the dice didn't tell the story, the Gamemaster and the players did. It was the idea that dice should only be pulled out to resolve a situation that couldn't be talked out between the Gamemaster and players - I guess you could say "if the situation got dicey" (pun intended).

So, for a moment, let's discuss What should be the role of dice in D&D Next? Do you agree with my sentiment above or do you (more likely) feel differently? Should the use of dice be a means to an end, a necessary evil or "the reason we get together"? What do you want to see dice being used for, and how often? What sort of details do you want from dice results - pass/fail, a sliding scale of success or failure or somehow even manipulating the details of the fiction in some way (like with WEG's d6 Wild Die and it's resulting "complications" or "extraordinary successes").

How important do you want them to be to dictating someone's action in the game? Should a player's oral description be able to circumnavigate a die check in some way or should the die roll affect the player's narration of events?

Do you want the DM and player(s) negotiating their way through a situation orally without or with minimal die rolls, whether a foot race across rooftops or trying to coerce the Baron to aid the party or do you want them rolling dice-based checks at each step of the way - or something in-between?

Should things like interactions even be determined by a die roll? And if so, by one roll, or many?

Should dice be the first thing anybody reaches for during play or do you want to see a lot of shop talk, free-form RP and banter before some grabs for the dice and starts rolling?

And I guess lastly, at what level should the designers approach dice vs. narration - should they lean heavily one towards the other or just provide options for both where they can?

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* "And it's usually the result you didn't want."

 

[n00bdragon]

Dice are a means to an end. I wouldn't call them a necessary evil but their usage shouldn't be rampant and should always be meaningful to the game. Furthermore they should be quick and easy to use.

The wargame Nuts is basically everything I don't like about dice congealed into one booklet so I'd have to say "Everything not that".

 

[Minigiant]

The Dice are just a randomization factor.
The Sheet tells you your character's success rate compared to the rest of the world.

 

[Oni]

I suspect they'll be rolled.

 

[GnomeWorks]

The dichotomy at the heart of your distinction, I think, is that of player skill vs. character skill.

In my mind, task resolution is solely in the realm of character skill. Whether you as a player have, say, a Strength of 3 or 18 is irrelevant to me - what is relevant is that the character in question has a 12. This distinction is, in D&D, often only brought up in combat situations, but it should also be brought up in social encounters, as well. The incredibly shy introvert should be able to play the character with a Cha 18 as well as the guy who has no musculature to speak of can play the Str 18 character. This answers your question as to whether or not players should be allowed to "talk it out" with their DM in regards to task resolution: the answer, so far as I am concerned, should be a resounding "no."

The questions you have to ask yourself, in answering something like this, are thus: what does the die-rolling represent? What does the final result represent? What is the advantage in leaving some things to chance?

D&D 3e gave us an incredibly powerful tool, the concept of "taking 10." And I don't mean powerful in the sense that it is useful in-game, I mean that it is powerful from a game design approach. The ability to take 10 essentially means that a character that is X good at a skill or ability will reliably be X good at that skill, which is represented by their take 10 on said skill. It removes the random aspect from skill use, allowing players to say that their character is good at certain things, and that statement is actually true.

The problem I have with standard d20 task resolution is that you are always using that base d20, then adding modifiers. The range of a d20 is ridiculous, given the DCs generally presented (I'm using 3.5 as a baseline here). You are statistically just as likely to "critically succeed" as you are to "critically fail" as you are to get an average result. To me, that doesn't make sense and doesn't cohere with what I see in the real world.

What I see in the real world is that people with X level of skill will generally produce results within a reasonable deviation of X. That is to say, in a d20+X task resolution system, most results in the real world seem to be within a few points of d20+X. Sometimes they do a little better, sometimes they do a little worse, but are generally around that area. It is when they try something drastically new that they don't fall in that area - that's where it becomes rather hit-or-miss.

Resorting to dice should be an active choice made by the player, reflecting the decision of the character to try a new approach to whatever activity is being performed at the moment. The option to "take 10" should, in my opinion, be available basically whenever - not a special thing that can be done when not under pressure, but as a representation of the character relying on tried and tested methods for whatever is relevant, be it a skill check, saving throw, or even attack roll. It is only in deviation from what the character knows to work that dice should be invoked.

The idea of "talking it out" with the DM, of using narration for task resolution, is IMO completely diametrically opposed to the idea of playing a character. You are suddenly relying upon the player's ability to describe what the character is doing, rather than the character's abilities. Then relying upon the DM's ad hoc judgment of whether or not that is good enough to accomplish the goals of the pseudo-check in question. I realize that in D&D this is a common occurrence for social situations, but I doubt that it needs to be that way, and is in stark contrast to how combat and skill resolution is handled (again, at least in 3.5). You are rewarding characters that may or may not have any business accomplishing what is being described because their player happens to be good at description and/or convincing the DM, which utterly breaks immersion.

 

[Szatany]

"Dice are only good for one thing - determining success or failure.*"

If I roll 14 for my Constitution - is it s success or a failure?

 

[Minigiant]

D&D 3e gave us an incredibly powerful tool, the concept of "taking 10." And I don't mean powerful in the sense that it is useful in-game, I mean that it is powerful from a game design approach. The ability to take 10 essentially means that a character that is X good at a skill or ability will reliably be X good at that skill, which is represented by their take 10 on said skill. It removes the random aspect from skill use, allowing players to say that their character is good at certain things, and that statement is actually true.

The problem I have with standard d20 task resolution is that you are always using that base d20, then adding modifiers. The range of a d20 is ridiculous, given the DCs generally presented (I'm using 3.5 as a baseline here). You are statistically just as likely to "critically succeed" as you are to "critically fail" as you are to get an average result. To me, that doesn't make sense and doesn't cohere with what I see in the real world.

What I see in the real world is that people with X level of skill will generally produce results within a reasonable deviation of X. That is to say, in a d20+X task resolution system, most results in the real world seem to be within a few points of d20+X. Sometimes they do a little better, sometimes they do a little worse, but are generally around that area. It is when they try something drastically new that they don't fall in that area - that's where it becomes rather hit-or-miss.

Resorting to dice should be an active choice made by the player, reflecting the decision of the character to try a new approach to whatever activity is being performed at the moment. The option to "take 10" should, in my opinion, be available basically whenever - not a special thing that can be done when not under pressure, but as a representation of the character relying on tried and tested methods for whatever is relevant, be it a skill check, saving throw, or even attack roll. It is only in deviation from what the character knows to work that dice should be invoked.

I agree with most of what you've said. I disagree with the idea of taking 10 anytime.The dice roll represent the random nature of the world. Characters aren't used to everything and not every situation is the same. Take 10 could only be used when the situation is extremely similar to one the character is ussed to.

I know the password to my work computer. I can't fail typing it in if I'm paying attention. My natural +5 bonus added to the take 10 beats the DC 9.

If someone distracts me with last night's game while I am typing, I have to roll a d20. Rolling less than 4 means I pressed one button to many time and failed once.

Now my coworker's lottery numbers, I don't know. Given enough time, I will guess it since I know how he picks them. Now there I take 20. I will get it but he will be annoyed by me asking him a 20 times.

 

[Mattachine]

If the game is going to use statistics for certain aspects of a character, and those aspects relate to actions whose success is beyond the character's control, then dice should be used.

There are game systems which do not stat out every aspect of a character. Some games don't stat out ability scores as much as skills; some focus on what your character knows; some only detail physical abilities. That means that many things rolled for in D&D are talked out in these games.

Relevant Example: In D&D 4e, things like Profession, Craft, and Perform do not have numbers--these actions are "talked out" between the DM and the player.

Once the design designates an ability score, skill rank, or modifier, then die rolling is in. It's D&D, after all.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

If I roll 14 for my Constitution - is it s success or a failure?

Yes.

 

[KidSnide]

What this conversation is missing is that dice also serve the functions of creating tension and managing the frequency of rare, interesting events. Dice can also have the effect of shifting the feeling of ownership over the result.

For an example of tension, a DM could roll a search check behind the screen even if he knows that there is no trap. Success is irrelevant, as the DM is going to say "you find no trap" no matter what. The purpose of rolling the dice is purely to insert uncertainty and excitement to opening an untrapped door Ina dangerous location.

Similarly, critical hits are mostly about giving players a random opportunity to feel awesome because their character was unusually effective. Obviously, rolling critical hits have nothing to do with player skill, but you still feel like you did something when you roll one.

And the whole "to hit" vs "saving throw" debate is about adjusting which character is responsible for the result.

Yes, dice play a role in the tactical, intellectual part of RPGs, but they also play a significant roll in the far more subjective and irrational emotional reaction that good (and some not so good) games provoke. You can look at them from a pure probabilistic approach, but I think you end up missing an important part of what they do.

-KS