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What does it mean to "Challenge the Character"?
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7609132" data-attributes="member: 996"><p><em>Sorry if I mostly riff off your post for humor purposes....</em></p><p></p><p> Any stat or skill could conceivably be rendered moot by the DM's style or choice of setting & challenges, I suppose. </p><p></p><p> I don't see why not knowing anything isn't a meaningful consequence. I mean, recalling something useful certainly is. Is the idea that you start off not knowing anything, so you might as well try? </p><p></p><p>Ultimately, isn't the whole knowledge check/INT roll/trying-to-recall-lore-using-INT-with-a-trained-skill-possibly-applying-because-5e-is-rules-lite thing just gating exposition? </p><p>If, as a DM, I want to provide some exposition, I can have a (suspiciously Gandalfy) NPC do it, or I can look at a player and say "your character knows /whah…/" and that's that. I don't really need to call for a check, and if I do, failure, though it might have severe consequences for the party, is awfully blah. </p><p>Even if a player actually wants to play a Gandalf/Prof.Zarchov type who's main purpose is to provide exposition, and take high INT and tons of useless skills to model it mechanically, it's still pretty meh for that player to make his checks, and have /you/ tell the whole table what he knows - and completely inefficient and annoying and no more satisfying to have you tell him privately so he can parrot it.</p><p></p><p>The way I've seen some systems (none of them D&D) both make such a character fun to play, and give meaning the sorts of mechanics in question, is if the player making the successful knowledge check /gets to make stuff up/ to his party's advantage. "It's a Klick-Klick, if we all shout 'November!' it'll drop dead...*" on a failure, the consequence is the DM makes stuff up, or maybe that the made-up stuff is wrong... (depends on exactly how the mechanics are handled - FREX, the Expositionator could make a declaration like the above, make a plan around it, and it's only when the plan is executed that he makes the check to see if he was right about it.) But I couldn't see any ed of D&D playing nice with something like that, (OK, except, as always, 4e, which already has some Schrodinger's Mechanics like that). It'd certainly turn the whole 5e describe-declare-resolve-describe DM-PC-DM-DM cycle on it's ear...</p><p></p><p> "Fail Forward" doesn't sound so bad, now. </p><p></p><p></p><p> Of course, that's true. In general, it seems, in pondering issues like this, drawing an analogy from knowledge/social check to a concrete ability/skill makes it obvious. But acceptance of such analogies is surprising hard to win. </p><p> Hmm... I guess this is another example of how establishing a goal & method can be like peeling an onion. The goal isn't really "buy magic scrolls" it's "defeat some earth elementals..."</p><p></p><p>One DM I know is really sensitive to these kinds of player shenanigans, she's always cutting to "What are you /really/ trying to do?"</p><p></p><p>I think some of the current we may be swimming against, here, flows from the classic game, when it was a tad bit more adversarial, and developing 'player skill' was an objective of play. In the absence of concrete systems, and within the dogma of DM omnipotence, players would learn to couch questions carefully and declare actions piecemeal, in a way that would box the DM into letting some harebrained scheme actually (maybe) work.</p><p></p><p> Something about that sounds familiar. </p><p></p><p> </p><p>One of the fun things about a setting that's /not/ scientific, at all: </p><p>"I build a modern ship out of steel!" </p><p>"It sinks" </p><p>"What, but I'm a naval architect IRL, that design is sound!" </p><p>"Sorry, on the Flat Earth of Nevereilli, the Element of Metal always sinks in the Element of Water - every 7-year-old Alchemist's Apprentice knows that..."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>* I did not make that up, it's a joke from an old Dragon mag.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7609132, member: 996"] [i]Sorry if I mostly riff off your post for humor purposes....[/i] Any stat or skill could conceivably be rendered moot by the DM's style or choice of setting & challenges, I suppose. I don't see why not knowing anything isn't a meaningful consequence. I mean, recalling something useful certainly is. Is the idea that you start off not knowing anything, so you might as well try? Ultimately, isn't the whole knowledge check/INT roll/trying-to-recall-lore-using-INT-with-a-trained-skill-possibly-applying-because-5e-is-rules-lite thing just gating exposition? If, as a DM, I want to provide some exposition, I can have a (suspiciously Gandalfy) NPC do it, or I can look at a player and say "your character knows /whah…/" and that's that. I don't really need to call for a check, and if I do, failure, though it might have severe consequences for the party, is awfully blah. Even if a player actually wants to play a Gandalf/Prof.Zarchov type who's main purpose is to provide exposition, and take high INT and tons of useless skills to model it mechanically, it's still pretty meh for that player to make his checks, and have /you/ tell the whole table what he knows - and completely inefficient and annoying and no more satisfying to have you tell him privately so he can parrot it. The way I've seen some systems (none of them D&D) both make such a character fun to play, and give meaning the sorts of mechanics in question, is if the player making the successful knowledge check /gets to make stuff up/ to his party's advantage. "It's a Klick-Klick, if we all shout 'November!' it'll drop dead...*" on a failure, the consequence is the DM makes stuff up, or maybe that the made-up stuff is wrong... (depends on exactly how the mechanics are handled - FREX, the Expositionator could make a declaration like the above, make a plan around it, and it's only when the plan is executed that he makes the check to see if he was right about it.) But I couldn't see any ed of D&D playing nice with something like that, (OK, except, as always, 4e, which already has some Schrodinger's Mechanics like that). It'd certainly turn the whole 5e describe-declare-resolve-describe DM-PC-DM-DM cycle on it's ear... "Fail Forward" doesn't sound so bad, now. Of course, that's true. In general, it seems, in pondering issues like this, drawing an analogy from knowledge/social check to a concrete ability/skill makes it obvious. But acceptance of such analogies is surprising hard to win. Hmm... I guess this is another example of how establishing a goal & method can be like peeling an onion. The goal isn't really "buy magic scrolls" it's "defeat some earth elementals..." One DM I know is really sensitive to these kinds of player shenanigans, she's always cutting to "What are you /really/ trying to do?" I think some of the current we may be swimming against, here, flows from the classic game, when it was a tad bit more adversarial, and developing 'player skill' was an objective of play. In the absence of concrete systems, and within the dogma of DM omnipotence, players would learn to couch questions carefully and declare actions piecemeal, in a way that would box the DM into letting some harebrained scheme actually (maybe) work. Something about that sounds familiar. One of the fun things about a setting that's /not/ scientific, at all: "I build a modern ship out of steel!" "It sinks" "What, but I'm a naval architect IRL, that design is sound!" "Sorry, on the Flat Earth of Nevereilli, the Element of Metal always sinks in the Element of Water - every 7-year-old Alchemist's Apprentice knows that..." * I did not make that up, it's a joke from an old Dragon mag. [/QUOTE]
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