Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Where Are All the Dungeon Masters?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7757676" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think what makes clear how play should proceed is <em>a clear description of how play should proceed</em>. These are incredibly rare in RPGing books.</p><p></p><p>I'll give one example to show what I mean; it's from the 4e Rules Compendium (published 2010), and is the "example of play" at the end of the discussion of skill challenges (p p 162-63):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em><snippage> The goal of the challenge is to find the spot where the adventurers’ enemy, a wizard named Garan, summoned the demon. Garan has hired some thugs to beat up anyone they spot snooping around. If the adventurers fail the challenge, the thugs find them and attack.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip early stage of skill challenge and first success></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Uldane:</em> Can I look around and see if I can tell which way it came from?</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip resolution of Perception check - it fails></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>DM (marking the first failure):</em> It takes you quite a bit of work to uncover the tracks. It looks like they head to the east side of town.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip some stuff that is irrelevant to my point></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>DM:</em> . . . Three thuggish-looking men sit on a bench by the front door. They glare at you as you approach.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Notice how the failed check didn’t stop the action. The adventurers wasted some time, giving the thugs more time to find them, but eventually found the trail.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Kathra:</em> I’d like to talk to the men to see if any of them saw the demon come by here. How about a Diplomacy check - an 11.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>DM (marking the second failure):</em> The thugs make a show of ignoring you as you approach. Then one of them snarls: "Around here, folks know better than to stick their noses where they’re not wanted." He puts a hand on the hilt of his dagger.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Shara:</em> I put a hand on my greatsword and growl back at them, "I’ll stick my sword where it’s not wanted if you keep up that attitude." I got a 21 on my Intimidate check.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>DM (marking the second success):</em> The thug turns pale in fear as his friends bolt back into the tavern. He points at the building behind you before darting after them.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><snip more stuff involving the building, including another failed check - Streetwise - in an attempt to learn about the building></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>DM (marking the third and final failure):</em> It looks like an old shop that’s been closed and boarded up. You heard something about this place before, but you can’t quite remember it. As you look the place over, the tavern door opens up behind you. A hulk of a half-orc lumbers out, followed by the thugs you talked to earlier. "I heard you thought you could push my crew around. Well, let’s see</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">you talk tough through a set of broken teeth." Roll for initiative!</p><p></p><p>Here are just a few of the things about the procedures of play that this example does not explain, or is misleading about, which - I can testify from experience - are absolutely crucial to running a skill challenge:</p><p></p><p>(1) It is misleading about the first failure - it suggests that the cost for the first failure is <em>the adventurers waste time</em>, whereas that's just colour. The actual cost of the failure is the encounter with the thugs. By being misleading about the cost of the failure, it is even less helpful - utterly opaque - in explaining <em>how</em> the GM came up with that idea as a consequence for failure.</p><p></p><p>(2) The cost of the second failure is a hard failure (no information) plus what in Dungeon World would be a "soft move" from the GM - a threat from the thugs. How did the GM decide to do this? Why is the second failure handled differently, in this fashion, from the first failure?</p><p></p><p>(3) The soft move is (at least temporarily) handled by the players with because Shara's player declares an Intimidate check in response, and succeeds. What happens, though, if the players are cowed by the threats and so don't declare the Intimidate check? Do they just lose the challenge? Is the GM expected to frame a different opportunity for further success (given that, by the rules, only two failures have occurred to this point)? The example is completely useless in giving this sort of guidance to a GM.</p><p></p><p>(4) The success of the Intimidate check not only (temporarily) resolves the GM's soft move, but it also undoes the hard failure, by providng the information. But this isn't called out in the example, and the relevant principles - eg how many retries are allowed? what form can they take? what techniques is the GM meant to use to stop them being boring? - are not canvassed at all.</p><p></p><p>(5) The consequnce for the final failure is that the earlier soft move comes back in hard form! But what would have happened if the last check had been (say) a failed Religion check (in an attempt, say, to get divine revelation about the cultic secrets of the building)? How, in that case, does the GM feed in as a consequence the arrival of the thugs? Does the nature of the final action attempted, when it fails, make any difference to the overall outcome of the skill challenge?</p><p></p><p>There are only two sets of RPG rules that I know that come close to dealing with the procedures of play in the sort of detail necessary to actually teach someone how to referee the game. One is Maelstrom Storytelling, but for all sorts of other reasons I don't think it would be an easy game to begin with, because while it has an interesting setting it doesn't fully explain how that setting is mean to be used (even Ron Edwards, hardly an ingenue in RPGing, <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/reviews/18/" target="_blank">seems to have had some initial trouble working it out</a>). The other is Burning Wheel, but for different reasons - namely, overall system complexity - I don't think it would be an easy game to being with either!</p><p></p><p>The third-best ruleset I know of for explaining its procedures of play is Moldvay Basic, and that's in spite of the criticisms I've made of it earlier in this thread. I think it's something of an indictment on RPG rules writing that the best example we have outside of some fairly low-uptake indie RPGs (I suspect Maelstrom Storytelling is even lower uptake than BW) is now close to 40 years old.</p><p></p><p>Even for prep-oriented games, if we want more GMs it might help to actually write decent procedures and advice that they can work from!</p><p></p><p>EDIT: I realised I'm being unfair in not including any Vincent Baker games or offshoots. In a Wicked Age has pretty clear procedural text. So does DitV. I suspect AW does also, but I haven't read it closely enough. But its fantasy offshoot, Dungeon World, does give good advice in relation to prep and reasonable (in my view not first rate - not as clear as BW or Maelstrom Storytelling) advice on managing the actual play of the game.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7757676, member: 42582"] I think what makes clear how play should proceed is [I]a clear description of how play should proceed[/I]. These are incredibly rare in RPGing books. I'll give one example to show what I mean; it's from the 4e Rules Compendium (published 2010), and is the "example of play" at the end of the discussion of skill challenges (p p 162-63): [indent][i]<snippage> The goal of the challenge is to find the spot where the adventurers’ enemy, a wizard named Garan, summoned the demon. Garan has hired some thugs to beat up anyone they spot snooping around. If the adventurers fail the challenge, the thugs find them and attack.[/i] <snip early stage of skill challenge and first success> [I]Uldane:[/I] Can I look around and see if I can tell which way it came from? <snip resolution of Perception check - it fails> [I]DM (marking the first failure):[/I] It takes you quite a bit of work to uncover the tracks. It looks like they head to the east side of town. <snip some stuff that is irrelevant to my point> [I]DM:[/I] . . . Three thuggish-looking men sit on a bench by the front door. They glare at you as you approach. [I]Notice how the failed check didn’t stop the action. The adventurers wasted some time, giving the thugs more time to find them, but eventually found the trail.[/I] [I]Kathra:[/I] I’d like to talk to the men to see if any of them saw the demon come by here. How about a Diplomacy check - an 11. [I]DM (marking the second failure):[/I] The thugs make a show of ignoring you as you approach. Then one of them snarls: "Around here, folks know better than to stick their noses where they’re not wanted." He puts a hand on the hilt of his dagger. [I]Shara:[/I] I put a hand on my greatsword and growl back at them, "I’ll stick my sword where it’s not wanted if you keep up that attitude." I got a 21 on my Intimidate check. [I]DM (marking the second success):[/I] The thug turns pale in fear as his friends bolt back into the tavern. He points at the building behind you before darting after them. <snip more stuff involving the building, including another failed check - Streetwise - in an attempt to learn about the building> [I]DM (marking the third and final failure):[/I] It looks like an old shop that’s been closed and boarded up. You heard something about this place before, but you can’t quite remember it. As you look the place over, the tavern door opens up behind you. A hulk of a half-orc lumbers out, followed by the thugs you talked to earlier. "I heard you thought you could push my crew around. Well, let’s see you talk tough through a set of broken teeth." Roll for initiative![/indent] Here are just a few of the things about the procedures of play that this example does not explain, or is misleading about, which - I can testify from experience - are absolutely crucial to running a skill challenge: (1) It is misleading about the first failure - it suggests that the cost for the first failure is [I]the adventurers waste time[/I], whereas that's just colour. The actual cost of the failure is the encounter with the thugs. By being misleading about the cost of the failure, it is even less helpful - utterly opaque - in explaining [I]how[/I] the GM came up with that idea as a consequence for failure. (2) The cost of the second failure is a hard failure (no information) plus what in Dungeon World would be a "soft move" from the GM - a threat from the thugs. How did the GM decide to do this? Why is the second failure handled differently, in this fashion, from the first failure? (3) The soft move is (at least temporarily) handled by the players with because Shara's player declares an Intimidate check in response, and succeeds. What happens, though, if the players are cowed by the threats and so don't declare the Intimidate check? Do they just lose the challenge? Is the GM expected to frame a different opportunity for further success (given that, by the rules, only two failures have occurred to this point)? The example is completely useless in giving this sort of guidance to a GM. (4) The success of the Intimidate check not only (temporarily) resolves the GM's soft move, but it also undoes the hard failure, by providng the information. But this isn't called out in the example, and the relevant principles - eg how many retries are allowed? what form can they take? what techniques is the GM meant to use to stop them being boring? - are not canvassed at all. (5) The consequnce for the final failure is that the earlier soft move comes back in hard form! But what would have happened if the last check had been (say) a failed Religion check (in an attempt, say, to get divine revelation about the cultic secrets of the building)? How, in that case, does the GM feed in as a consequence the arrival of the thugs? Does the nature of the final action attempted, when it fails, make any difference to the overall outcome of the skill challenge? There are only two sets of RPG rules that I know that come close to dealing with the procedures of play in the sort of detail necessary to actually teach someone how to referee the game. One is Maelstrom Storytelling, but for all sorts of other reasons I don't think it would be an easy game to begin with, because while it has an interesting setting it doesn't fully explain how that setting is mean to be used (even Ron Edwards, hardly an ingenue in RPGing, [url=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/reviews/18/]seems to have had some initial trouble working it out[/url]). The other is Burning Wheel, but for different reasons - namely, overall system complexity - I don't think it would be an easy game to being with either! The third-best ruleset I know of for explaining its procedures of play is Moldvay Basic, and that's in spite of the criticisms I've made of it earlier in this thread. I think it's something of an indictment on RPG rules writing that the best example we have outside of some fairly low-uptake indie RPGs (I suspect Maelstrom Storytelling is even lower uptake than BW) is now close to 40 years old. Even for prep-oriented games, if we want more GMs it might help to actually write decent procedures and advice that they can work from! EDIT: I realised I'm being unfair in not including any Vincent Baker games or offshoots. In a Wicked Age has pretty clear procedural text. So does DitV. I suspect AW does also, but I haven't read it closely enough. But its fantasy offshoot, Dungeon World, does give good advice in relation to prep and reasonable (in my view not first rate - not as clear as BW or Maelstrom Storytelling) advice on managing the actual play of the game. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Where Are All the Dungeon Masters?
Top