What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?

[Celebrim]

[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], I think you're seeing things a little black-and-white.

How so?

Some things (climbing a wall) have little or nothing to do with player capability in my game. It's a straight die roll if the outcome is uncertain. It relies only on your Strength(Athletics) score and the luck of the die. Some things, like figuring out how to disarm a complex trap may be a mix of player skill and PC abilities with the players figuring out what skill to apply where to ensure success. Other things, like resolving a mystery, or deciding whom to support in a political drama are primarily player challenges.

I think if you'd start at the beginning you'd find that that is exactly what I've been saying all along. For example, go back to my first post on the thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...aracter-quot&p=7596904&viewfull=1#post7596904

Or consider my second post:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...aracter-quot&p=7596939&viewfull=1#post7596939

When I wrote "Most challenges can't be neatly separated into challenges to player or to character, because they involve a combination of choices by the player (that don't involve dice rolling) and some amount of dice rolling (such as passive saving throws or damage that attacks a hit point buffer). So I wouldn't be too surprised when you gave more details, that we'd find that the answer to the question was, "A bit of both.""

What about the thesis I've been developing do you find to be too "black and white"?

You could stretch it and say that if your PC has a high athletics score that makes climbing the wall simple that it was the player who ultimately decided where to put ability scores and proficiencies but that's pretty tenuous connection to me.

Yes, I agree. But I think if you go and look at what I actually wrote, I said exactly the same thing. So far as I can tell from your post, you are advancing my position and arguing against the same positions I've held in the whole thread.

 

[Tony Vargas]

1) Some argued that there was no such thing as "challenge to character", and that every challenge was a challenge to player.

2) Some argued that while yes, there was such a thing as "challenge to player", that challenges to the player violated the spirit of the game and that therefore every challenge ought properly be a "challenge to character".

Some seemed to be trying to argue those two points at the exact same time.

I can see that. At some level they're both reasonable assertions.

We always have to circle back to, and not lose sight of, the fact that to RPG, we both Play a Game and Play a Role.

1) approaches the question as pertains to the game: "Challenge the character" is a non-sequiter, the player is the only one who experiences challenges.

2) answers as pertains to the role: Any imaginary challenge in the imaginary world is overcome by the imagined abilities of the imaginary character.


So if you're trying to figure out if it's "better" to challenge the player or challenge the character, you're really just re-hashing the old Role v Roll debate, which was never worthwhile anyway, because it presumes that false dichotomy, that an RPG can some how be playing a game without playing a role, or playing a role without playing a game. It's both by definition.

So, the way I see it "Challenge the Character" is just a way of saying "take into account the abilities of the character when applying mechanics to resolve a challenge that is in doubt," while "Challenge the Player" means to present the player with (meta?) game choices that are meaningful, engaging, and impact how the game plays out. Thus, all challenges should both be challenging the player (in the sense that he's playing a game that's not boring because it's too easy) and challenging the character (in the sense that the game is modeling /that character's/ heroic struggle, not a generic task that would play out the same no matter who was performing it).
That is, both the player and the character should matter.

 

[iserith]

Challenge has to do with the decisions the player makes though. While a character may be facing a fictional challenge, it is the player who is being tasked with making decisions that impact the outcome of the challenge. Thus, it is always the player who is being challenged in any meaningful fashion. The character's abilities are secondary, used only to resolve the outcome as appropriate to the rules of the game.

Even in the simple climbing challenge, the player has to decide what the character is doing to overcome it - climb it with or without a climber's kit or a rope and grappling hook, with or without drinking a potion of climbing, or by casting a guidance spell first, etc. That the player may then roll a die if the DM asks for one to determine an outcome does not mean that the character is making decisions on its own. If a player is making no decisions to impact the outcome, then there is no challenge.

 

[Oofta]

How so?



I think if you'd start at the beginning you'd find that that is exactly what I've been saying all along. For example, go back to my first post on the thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...aracter-quot&p=7596904&viewfull=1#post7596904

Or consider my second post:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...aracter-quot&p=7596939&viewfull=1#post7596939

When I wrote "Most challenges can't be neatly separated into challenges to player or to character, because they involve a combination of choices by the player (that don't involve dice rolling) and some amount of dice rolling (such as passive saving throws or damage that attacks a hit point buffer). So I wouldn't be too surprised when you gave more details, that we'd find that the answer to the question was, "A bit of both.""

What about the thesis I've been developing do you find to be too "black and white"?



Yes, I agree. But I think if you go and look at what I actually wrote, I said exactly the same thing. So far as I can tell from your post, you are advancing my position and arguing against the same positions I've held in the whole thread.

Well then it seems you made two mistakes. First, assuming that I knew what everyone said on every post. Second, assuming I knew what the heck you were trying to get at, which obviously I've missed by a country mile. In other words, huh? I'm not challenging what you're saying, just admitting my complete and utter incompetence at interpreting it.

As far as my opinion I don't have a thesis, I just think there are things that are resolved completely by mechanics of the the character, the rules in the book and (usually) the roll of a die. On the other end of the scale you have things that are resolved entirely by the player with no regard to the capabilities granted to the PC by the game rules. Many things fall into a gray area between the two and personally I try to mix them up and include plenty of out-of-combat obstacles that lean more on the PC as a way of rewarding the trade-offs people made during their build.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I would say that D&D 4e prior to Essentials with its embrace of "Yes, and..." and encouragement of the DM to accept ideas outside the character's control that the player proffers could be such a game. There's a sidebar in the D&D 4e DMG that uses an example from one of the designers wherein the player suggests there is a trap on a statue that is protecting a treasure. The DM rolls with it, they play out the trap challenge, and the player's character gets the treasure.

But even that requires the DM's assent and the limits (the designer above remarks that HE would be the one to decide what treasure it was!) are likely understood formally or informally in the form of a table rule.

I wasn't planning on jumping into this thread, and this post is far back in this thread, but were you [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION], not the one who told me repeatedly in the insight thread that the DM cannot and should not tell a player what they think?

This was your justification for players having knowledge of monsters that they otherwise might not have, because the player got to decide what was reasonable for them to know, and the DM could never tell them that they could not think that.

So, since this "Francis the Guard" example evolved from the "Orc Elder" example of hearing stories which told them the weaknesses of monsters, where does it go to far?

Is the player correct about having been raised in an orphanage?
Is the player correct that they were raised with a boy named Franics at said orphanage?
Is the player correct that Francis and the PC were very close and dear friends?
Is the player correct that this guard looks like Francis?
Is the player correct that this guard is Francis?
Is the player correct in that Francis the Guard still thinks of them as a friend and wants to help them out?

My guess is that you would try and cut this off at the point that the guard actually is Francis, they may look like Francis, but they are not actually Francis. That seems like a nice clean cut point between telling the player what they think, and allowing the player to affect the narrative.

What do we do if the player then insists, "But I know Francis is a guard in this town, we had drinks before I left on my grand adventure."

Is the PC delusional or does Francis the Guard exist? IF we can never tell the player that they cannot know something, because we cannot tell them what to think, how do we resolve this?

Is it not okay to tell them what they think, but it is okay to tell them they are delusional and unable to tell reality from fiction? That seems to be a pretty major thing to force upon a player.

I get what you're aiming at here, I just question why you're doing so, or maybe why you're coming at the issue so obliquely. 5e is not a system that can provide your preferred experience, although some pieces of it do well. Now that I see what you were aiming at with your example I think there's some daylight between being able to "control what the PC thinks and does" and your example. Fundamentally, this is on whether the thoughts and deeds of the PC are able to determine game fiction outside the character. In 5e, this is (baseline) untrue. The player is free to declare they think they know the guard and act accordingly, but the GM has no obligation to agree about the fictional state of the guard.

This last is the important distinction. Being able to determine what your PC does and thinks doesn't extend to establishing new functional avenues to current challenges. Let's contrast your guard example with the troll example. In the troll example, the player establishes the PC's uncle told the PC about trolls' weakness to fire. This is to "justify* doing so within the fiction. But, the ability to use fire on the troll isn't causally tied to this bit of fiction. This fiction does not enable previously unavailable actions.

Your guard example, though, does establish new actions that weren't available before the introduction. The player is now trying to establish fiction in the current gameworld to enable new casual paths to overcome the immediate obstacle. This isn't allowed in 5e -- it's outside the player's narrative authority because the player is now describing elements of the scene alongside their actions.

A 5e GM is free to allow this kind of play, but [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION]'s injuction about smoothness of play comes in. 5e has no mechanical systems or support for this kind of play, so it's entirely on the GM's continued approval and the table conventions. Perhaps this works well, but any such ad hoc system is likely to have more pain points related to it's ad hoc nature. In other words, absent mechanical reinforcement of this play in the system, exercising it is as reliant on GM approval as what you'd replace with it. Still can be an awesome game, though.

That said, I'm pretty loose with player introductions in 5e because I strive to use my GM "no" as rarely as possible. Still, there's a limit in play and an understanding at our table because there are no mechanics available to resolve a conflict. This is different when we play Blades, as there are those systems in play. I clearly notice, though, that my overhead in running 5e is much higher than in Blades because I have to do more heavy lifting on the content side AND be careful to maintain "fairness" with that content. In Blades, I just have to GM within the clear constraints and don't have to worry too much about "fairness" at all.

Now this is fairly reasonable, I'm guessing from the XP this is the way [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] is going to explain the difference between their current and former positions.

I advise the players to keep everything in terms of an action declaration as that is what I'm on the lookout for since that is when I have to adjudicate. I even discourage asking questions of the DM, if those questions can be answered by taking action in the game world. "How many doors are in this room?" is better stated as "I look to see how many doors there are in this room..." in my view. The stop-n-chat with the DM interferes with the flow of the game in my view, plus questions are often a form of out-of-game risk mitigation as the players fish for the best solution.

Wow. That's... definitely different.

 

[iserith]

I wasn't planning on jumping into this thread, and this post is far back in this thread, but were you @iserith, not the one who told me repeatedly in the insight thread that the DM cannot and should not tell a player what they think?

This was your justification for players having knowledge of monsters that they otherwise might not have, because the player got to decide what was reasonable for them to know, and the DM could never tell them that they could not think that.

So, since this "Francis the Guard" example evolved from the "Orc Elder" example of hearing stories which told them the weaknesses of monsters, where does it go to far?

Is the player correct about having been raised in an orphanage?
Is the player correct that they were raised with a boy named Franics at said orphanage?
Is the player correct that Francis and the PC were very close and dear friends?
Is the player correct that this guard looks like Francis?
Is the player correct that this guard is Francis?
Is the player correct in that Francis the Guard still thinks of them as a friend and wants to help them out?

My guess is that you would try and cut this off at the point that the guard actually is Francis, they may look like Francis, but they are not actually Francis. That seems like a nice clean cut point between telling the player what they think, and allowing the player to affect the narrative.

What do we do if the player then insists, "But I know Francis is a guard in this town, we had drinks before I left on my grand adventure."

Is the PC delusional or does Francis the Guard exist? IF we can never tell the player that they cannot know something, because we cannot tell them what to think, how do we resolve this?

Is it not okay to tell them what they think, but it is okay to tell them they are delusional and unable to tell reality from fiction? That seems to be a pretty major thing to force upon a player.

I'm not telling the player how his or her character thinks. As I've said several times, the player is welcome to have the character think and say the guard is his or her old friend. But the DM is under no obligation to make that true nor does the DM need to say that the character is delusional. A DM might narrate the result of the adventurer's action with "The guard doesn't respond to being called Frances and doesn't recognize you as a friend - what do you do?"

Likewise if the DM describes a pile of copper pieces and the player has his or her character think and say it's gold, only to find out that the local merchants do not agree, is that the DM telling the player what his or her character thinks? No. No it is not.

Now this is fairly reasonable, I'm guessing from the XP this is the way @iserith is going to explain the difference between their current and former positions.

My position hasn't changed. I hope I clarified it for you though.

Wow. That's... definitely different.

Yes, it's very common in my experience for games to include a lot of questioning the DM by the players. That is greatly minimized in my games by comparison.

 

[pemerton]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Changing the game state by having your character do something is fine. I was talking about changing the game state from the DM's side of the table. E.g., "Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, a piece of the ceiling collapses, landing on the evil necromancer."

Would you agree that equipment is on the player side of the table? So that a player who declares I look in my backcpack and take out my rope isn't usurping the GM's role, even though that player has narrated the environment.

 

[pemerton]

Whoooooooosh

Is that the sound of my joke going over your head?

Skilled is to good as legal is to lawful or beige is to neutral.

It was a pun.

I saw your joke and raised it. [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] got it.

 

[pemerton]

So, since this "Francis the Guard" example evolved from the "Orc Elder" example of hearing stories which told them the weaknesses of monsters, where does it go to far?

Is the player correct about having been raised in an orphanage?
Is the player correct that they were raised with a boy named Franics at said orphanage?
Is the player correct that Francis and the PC were very close and dear friends?
Is the player correct that this guard looks like Francis?
Is the player correct that this guard is Francis?
Is the player correct in that Francis the Guard still thinks of them as a friend and wants to help them out?

My guess is that you would try and cut this off at the point that the guard actually is Francis, they may look like Francis, but they are not actually Francis. That seems like a nice clean cut point between telling the player what they think, and allowing the player to affect the narrative.

What do we do if the player then insists, "But I know Francis is a guard in this town, we had drinks before I left on my grand adventure."

Is the PC delusional or does Francis the Guard exist? IF we can never tell the player that they cannot know something, because we cannot tell them what to think, how do we resolve this?

Is it not okay to tell them what they think, but it is okay to tell them they are delusional and unable to tell reality from fiction? That seems to be a pretty major thing to force upon a player.

This is more-or-less a repost of what I said: it seems to me quite hard to (i) allow that PCs have friends and family like Frances, and (ii) have those friends and family be part of the ingame situation, and (iii) maintain a strong player/GM divide over narration of the environment, yet (iv) never have the GM tell the players what their PC's think and feel.

In the case of equipment, the exact same problem is resolved by relaxing (iii) - the game permits the players to narrate those bits of the environment. My conclusion, in a post a few days ago based on a close reading of the 5e Basic PDF, is that the game assumes that (ii) is false - ie the game assumes that the action happens in places where the PCs are strangers and hence that friends and family won't be part of the active, ingame situation.

 

[pemerton]

Isn't the issue, regardless of how we're playing, that the player is trying to game the DM?

<snip>

Perhaps folks just don't understand what we're talking about when we don't use goal:approach methodology.

I know that I don't understand where you draw the boundaries of "gaming the GM".

In my 4e game, the sorcerer PC has the Dominant Winds power: as a move action fly one target (self or ally) a certain number of squares: for the sake of the example, let's say that this was 40'. On one occasion the character was at the bottom of a chasm - let's say 200'. The player tells me (as GM) that his PC flies out of the chasm. I ask how, given that the chasm is deeper than his max flight distance. He replies that he is bouncing off the walls of the chasm, and balancing on ledges and the like, as he flies up - a mix of flight and parkour - and points out that his PC has a high bonus in Acrobatics. I say "fair enough" and call for the Acro check at the appropriate DC - Ican't remember now but probably Medium, and given the character's bonus probably auto-success or close to it.

Is that gaming the GM? From my point of view it's just playing the game.