To all the other "simulationists" out there...

[DM_Blake]

We had come upon an enemy encampment. There was a guard tower, at the top of which was a guard on watch. He had a bell which he would ring if he saw anything. So the rogue hatched his devious plan. He drank an invisibility potion, scaled the outer wall of the tower, and stealthily sneaked up beside the guard. His goal was to eliminate the guard silently so the others could approach.

The guard stood there, unaware of the rogue, looking out over the surrounding area. But what could the rogue do? His only option was a sneak attack. So he did it, inflicting a nice chunk of damage. But the guard wasn't killed, and on his next action, he rang the bell.

Round 1:
Still silent and invisible, the rogue refocuses. Guaranteed initiative advantage.

Round 2:
Rogue positions himself within reach of the guard and the bell, then he sneak attacks from invisibility. This is a surprise round, so guard does nothing.

Round 3:
Guard rolls initiative, but not very likely he beats the refocused rogue. Rogue full attacks with sneak attack since guard is still flat-footed. If guard survives all that, guard can try to ring bell which provokes an attack of opportunity.

If, after all this, then I begin to question why the DM is so determined to foil the player's well-laid plans. As a DM, I would be saying, "Gosh, seems I made this guard a little to overpowered. The rogue did 60 points of damage, but the guard has 80 HP. Well, I'll just pretend he had 50 and tell the rogue he dropped the guard."

The only way I wouldn't propagate the story and reward the player's creative problem solving by allowing the plan to work is if
A. The rogue rolled horribly, natural 1s on this attacks, incredibly low damage. I would, at this point, say "Great plan, but fate obviously had it in for you. The guard rings the bell."
B. I had carefully scripted this event to fail. I have a definite plan for this encounter, and ringing that bell is part of it. Although, I would still probably reward the player by letting his plan work, but something else fails. Thinking on my feet, I would probably do something like "The guard dies silently, but then falls over the rail and plummets to the ground below where his corpse crashes into a pile of spears and other metal weapons, causing a horrible rucus. From somewhere inside the encampment you hear people shouting an alarm."

But in truth, in the initial scenario, I would have simply ruled that this was a situation where a coup-de-grace would be applicable, and I would inform the player that his character recognizes this opportunity (in case the player doesn't know of the rule, or in case he knows it well enough to know that normally he couldn't do it here).

 

[Arnwyn]

For the "simulationists" who are frustrated with the direction 4e is going, take a step back and re-evaluate what it is you really want. Don't be afraid to look into other game systems that may better suit your tastes. Why tie yourself down to D&D?

Because, right now at this point, it's giving me the exact amount that my players and I prefer.

 

[Derren]

So whats the point in playing when the PCs either always succeed or fail because you want it to? I suggest you stop playing D&D and instead just tell your players a story you made up.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

This is entirely beside the point, but couldn't the rogue have coup de grace'd the guard? It's been about 3 years, so probably I'm misremembering some nuance of the rules. But that's exactly what CdGs were made for, right? One-shotting helpless combatants and mooks.

 

[Celebrim]

My honeymoon phase lasts a little longer. Rifts was this ugly relationship (going with a marriage/relationship methaphor here ) that I stuck with for years because it was my first real relationship and I thought I could ignore the the elephant in the living room. After cheating with table top games for awhile I eventually left.

My relationship with Rifts lasted exactly one session. I believe that is the single worst system I've ever been exposed to.

There are quite a few systems I love (WEG's Star Wars, Chaosism CoC, 2nd edition Chill, etc.) based on campaigns of less than a year. I couldn't point to a major flaw in the core rules of those systems before someone pointed it out to me, but I'm sure that with enough exposure even the little things would grate.

But generally, even when I do get familiar with the game enough to know its flaws, I don't dump the system. I'd much rather tweak a system than throw it out entirely. I have to get really tired of a system and the house rules have to get really burdensome to track before I toss out something that has given me hours and hours of enjoyment. There is a certain amount of system mastery that is just not worth losing. In fact, the only system I've ever abandoned is 1st edition AD&D and that after a largely happy 10+ year relationship. And even then, there are house rules I miss (3rd editions improved weapon proficiency system incidentally broke my 'militia mustering/army training' house rules).

One thing I've learned over the years is that there is no perfect system. There is no such thing as a system without a 'sweet spot'. There is no such thing as a system with perfect math. There is no such thing as both realistic and not mentally taxing. It's all just tradeoffs. The longer you play a system the more you have to put up with. As a simulationist, that tends to be 'rules bloat'. If you aren't, that tends to be either poor versimilitude or high levels of DM fiat (or both).

 

[Lizard]

Ahh... completely configurable rules, eh. And this is very different from having house rules...?

The difference between "Pick one from column a, two from column b" and "Have the chef make me a cheesburger, I don't want Chinese food."

I'm a big fan of options, levers, and dials in games. I was (quite seriously) very excited to hear the 4e DMG is going to mostly be advice on kitbashing the system. I find "If you don't like it, house rule it!" to be execrably lazy design. You may see no difference; I do.

 

[DarkAngel1979]

In real life, knocking someone out is actually much harder than killing them. Or rather, knocking them out without the risk of killing them is almost impossible. Subdual or takedowns are easier.

As for GURPS, my experience is that it's a terrible system.

a) Combat is overly complex for no good reason (i.e. the complexity does not provide any gameplay benefits, just nebulous ideas of 'simulationism'). It's the sort of game that would only be really playable as a PC RPG.

b) It's a generalized point buy system. I consider levels-based systems to be superior from a gameplay standpoint, as they reduce the amount of powergaming allowable. If I go with a point buy system, it better be something in which the ability to min/max is curtailed a lot. Ex: WoD's system of freebies VS points that are dedicated to one particular category of character attributes is a good example of a less-crappy point buy system.

This feeds into the problem that GURPS takes an ungodly time for character generation. The reason for it is that choices in any part of character gen can affect all other choices in character gen, because the same generic points are used to buy stuff at all levels of character generation. This leads to an exponential complexity problem. Systems like WoD at least reduces the impact any decision you make can cause on other parts of your characters: attributes choices only affect other attributes, same thing with skills and ressources. Freebies are limited in numbers and are the only thing affecting the whole of character creation.

c) It's a generic system. Jack of all trades, master of none. Pretty much any system is superior to GURPS in its own genre. The only advantage of GURPS over a specialized/genre system is the possibility of jumping from one genre to another without changing system, and the only situations that would come into play is in time-travelling/dimension jumping games, or in groups where you change games/campaigns often enough that you would want to keep to a single system because otherwise you'd be learning a dozen (whereas in my experience most people play at most 3-4 campaigns at a time, and learning 3-4 systems is manageable).

 

[Gundark]

I'm about to play GURPs for the first time (this Thursday). The guy whose running it really loves the game. I really liked the options that my character had, and could see why a simulationist gamer might really enjoy the ruleset.

My opinion about the game (before playing) that like D&D 3.5 it's a great game to play but running it is a nightmare. Maybe not the running per se, but the prep time appears to be monsterous. Now I've heard people say when I've brought this concern up before (and I heard it a great # of times with 3.5) "oh just insert shortcut A here or houserule B there". I'd respond to that while everyone has a houserule or shortcut they use no matter what the game, if I have to do this too much or with too big of game concept then it's bad game design.

I've actually been surprised at the rule systems (or designers) think that NPCs should be created just like the PCs. An okay idea if character creation is minimal or quick, a horrible idea if chracter creation is involved and takes a while (such as GURPS).

 

[Fifth Element]

Round 1:
Still silent and invisible, the rogue refocuses. Guaranteed initiative advantage.

Just to nitpick, assuming we're talking about 3.5, there's no such thing as refocusing initiative. You can't guarantee initiative advantage.

 

[Just Another User]

Actually, in dnd 4e the guard on top of the tower could be a minion. In other words, very little hp, so one-shot-killable, and at the same time, minions can do quite a lot of damage.

And in 3.5 it could be a 2nd level warrior, why put one of your best fighters on sentry duty?

And in the OP scenario, why the DM didn't allowed a "coup de grace"? if the rogue is invisible and the sentinel didn't hear him he is practically helpless, I'm not sure but it is clearly within the RAW for a DM to use the "coup de grace" rules.

Or else , another possibility, Disable device check on the bell to remove the clapper, or to put something around it to cushion the sound.