D&D General What Is D&D Generally Bad At That You Wish It Was Better At?

[Imaro]

Wow, blocked by the OP for disagreeing....

 

[Scribe]

Because from this, we can conclude that someone with 3 Int can still come up with genius plans (so long as the player can do so), someone with 3 Cha can still speak incredibly persuasively (so long as the player can do so), and someone with 3 Wis can dispense sagacious advice (so long as the player can do so)

Sure, and then the DM says "now roll that check"

 

[GobHag]

I interpret Gobhag as saying that a player who isn't skilled at intrigue and social deduction or manipulation needs rules to support their character being skilled at such things because otherwise the player is denied the ability to play a character who has skills and talents they don't have. In other words, this hypothetical unskilled player would have more fun with a metagame of dice rolling and social combat mechanics than they would acting out in a thespian manner "courtly intrigue" since they'd fail at it and only be frustrated. We can imagine a player who is shy, stutters, is socially awkward, or whatever and as such who doesn't want to role-play by acting and who would rather role-play through some non-social interaction.

And, I agree to some extent with Gobhag's claim that it may well be the case that a hypothetical unskilled player would enjoy more a metagame of dice rolling than they would acting out "courtly intrigue". However, I would protest that:

a) The resulting game would not be a role-playing game of "courtly intrigue" because it would not produce a concrete transcript of play. The dice couldn't in fact create what words were said or precisely what plots were engaged in or allow us to understand why someone rose or loss in popularity and reputation at the court beyond that the dice dictated that they did.
b) To the extent that the metagame of courtly intrigue had very close approximation of real-life courtly intrigue, the hypothetical inept player would also be inept at the metagame because they would just as poorly understand the nuances and strategies of the metagame as they would actually courtly intrigue. In the same fashion that we could provide the player with a skilled warrior, but if he didn't understand concentration of force, use of terrain, economy of force, and so forth that are necessary to succeed on the battlefield, we could provide the player with a charismatic discerning character but if he made uncharismatic and undiscerning choices, chose weak allies who we doomed to sink just because he liked them, took rash actions that offended key persons, and so forth eventually he'd place himself in difficulties his charisma bonuses couldn't compensate for. Indeed, his charisma might realistically make him a target that would line up enemies and alliances against him in ways the player couldn't foresee. The more realistic the metagame, the worse the player would perform in it regardless of the character sheet.
c) To the extent that we could pad the player against his choices so that his character performs well regardless of the situation, we could only do this by taking away the player's agency in subtle ways. Usually this is done by having the GM say in some fashion, "You don't want to do that." or "This is what your character understands." or having the GM actually be the one that creates that character's transcript by putting suitable words in the characters mouth (effectively turning the PC into an NPC). But this doesn't really solve the problem, in as much as we still don't have the player playing a character he's unable to play, we just foist that responsibility off on the GM.

Fundamentally, it's not possible to both have an RPG and have a situation where a player can successfully be anything he wants. There are just somethings you can't put in by mechanics, which is generally not something which players with the aesthetic of Fantasy want to hear, but it's true anyway. The player's mind always exists in the game universe to some extent, and we can't take it out. And that the player's mind is actually the character's mind means that if it is a game then it is also an imperfect simulation. And if it is a perfect simulation, then it isn't a game, since the player would then only be observing rather than participating.

I'm not referring to players, I'm referirng to DMs.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure, and then the DM says "now roll that check"

That was explicitly said to be unacceptable "policing" of roleplay. The DM is the one saying that this response isn't acceptable. This was the specific exchange; I have interleaved the posts to show who overgeeked was quoting for each line and why they said what they said.

you don't have to when you use die rolls to determine the outcome

Having to tell a player to roll to see if their character is smart enough to have an idea is policing their RPing. Not interested in that at all.

Or when the player self-polices in good faith by, for example, rolling under Int on a d20 to see if the character thought of the bright idea the player just thought of. Happens fairly often round here.

In 40+ years of playing D&D with several hundred players, I've never once seen that happen.

I was, very specifically, responding to someone who rejected any notion of forcing a player to roll a stat for this question, because doing so would be "policing [the player's] RPing."

 

[pemerton]

What a strange thing to write, given that both Aragorn and Conan are dealing with the challenges inherent in the mundane elements of their adventures ALL THE TIME.

What passage do you have in mind, in LotR, where we see Aragorn foraging? Or what episode of REH Conan where the focus is on whether or not Conan will survive in the wild or (say) die of thirst?

 

[pemerton]

I would expect Aragorn and Conan to be great at wandering woods and foraging as rangers and barbarians, not to rely upon spells to do so in the way D&D does.

Sure. But this is an oddity of the way that non-4e D&D only permits players to have "auto success" abilities in the form of spells or items, not in the form of non-magical abilities.

An argument that D&D would make more sense if it relaxed that constraint (as 4e did) is a good one.

But this is not the case for an argument that D&D would make more sense if mid-to-high level PCs - who perform the sorts of feats that @Imaro referred to - were nevertheless hostage to mundane survival threats, like running out of food or failing to find water or suffering from exposure. I think that's a bad an argument.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Wow, blocked by the OP for disagreeing....

at least you know what you were blocked for, sometimes when i check who's blocked me it'll be the most unexpected users who i feel i've barely interacted with, makes me deeply curious what terrible thing i said that warranted getting blocked by this near stranger.

 

[GobHag]

Absolutely.

You could quite easily have the strength and prowess to slay a giant yet be helpless aboard a boat in a hurricane. I don't see how it is strange that a character could be unbeatable in a boxing ring, yet subject to being frozen to death or drowned. I don't think the ability to drive a spear through the heart of your foes necessarily makes you skilled at finding and killing a rabbit that is outside of sphere thrust. All the martial skills of a champion might well be useless against malaria. How is this not obvious?

In most DnD fantasy 'surviving being frozen to death or drowned' is actually something I think most combatants should be able to do, since even at levels you're being pelted by firebolts and cone of colds.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To me, it seems you've not quite got @Imaro's point.

I think that Imaro is imagining a character like (say) Aragorn, or King Conan, or Ged of Earthsea, who faces (and in the context of D&D play, typically defeats) dangers that threaten cities and kingdoms (like armies of Orcs, or Smaug-like dragons, or the most cunning of evil viziers, etc). And is saying that it makes no real sense (in fiction/genre terms) for that character to struggle with completely mundane matters like getting lost in the woods and needing to find a rabbit to eat.

This is a point of underlying philosophy. Experienced fictional heroes don't die ignoble deaths because they run out of water whist travelling or from an infected scratch. But real people do, no matter how experienced they are. A game can try and simulate reality, or it can try and simulate a fictional genre, but it can't do both at the same time. They are directly competing objectives.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Sure. But this is an oddity of the way that non-4e D&D only permits players to have "auto success" abilities in the form of spells or items, not in the form of non-magical abilities.

The Outlander background (5e.2014) includes non-magical automatic foraging success.