Celebrim
Legend
Not according to page 84 and 85 of my DMG. And that doesn't even get into the various notes about how only the most exceptional individuals can gain levels at all.
Why PCs should be competent, or "I got a lot of past in my past"
Not according to page 84 and 85 of my DMG. And that doesn't even get into the various notes about how only the most exceptional individuals can gain levels at all.
In OSE, and I'm assuming B/X, which it is reorganized from, XP is gained thusly:
"All characters who make it through an adventure alive receive experience points (XP), awarded by the referee. XP is gained from two sources: treasure recovered and monsters defeated."
NPC's, merchants, and farmers don't fit any of those categories, technically. So, yes, one could extrapolate out the 1GP=1XP and apply it to every situation, but no one that I have ever played with has done that. NPC's have levels as necessary for world building or story or from the adventure being used. Only characters gain XP and only when they have returned to "civilization" with that loot. We never played that you go the XP as soon as you found it in the dungeon. For us, it brought up the conundrum of how much we carry with us for XP purposes balanced against being encumbered and thus potentially encountering more random encounters. And our random encounters were never "level adjusted". The plains encounter table had a dragon on it, and it didn't matter what level you were when it came up...
I will echo some of the other posters that the overreliance on making or calling for rolls in games is what causes characters to feel like newbs. The more you roll, the more likely you're going to get a bad result, even on what should be a simple thing to do. We stopped with all rolls except for those with consequences, or those under time pressure. Picking a lock? If you fail, you can try again. But the first attempt took a turn. The next attempt takes a turn. etc. Time wasted. Noise potentially made. More random encounter rolls. Now, we play OSE and adjacent games, so time pressure, random encounters, and managing light sources are a big part of our fun. But we can also go through entire game sessions with few to no rolls being called for, and make amazing progress. YMMV, of course.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
Isn't the 50/50 chance of success the whole point of "bounded accuracy?"
I should say, I hate "bounded accuracy" as a concept precisely because of this 50/50 nonsense.
Player: "GM, I wanna do the thing."
GM: "Flip a coin."
As to the OP, I think what's being described is a type of ludo-narrative dissonance. Simply put, the game mechanics don't fit the narrative. The thing to do is either change the game mechanics to fit the narrative or the narrative to fit the mechanics. Which is just another way of saying what several people have already - play another game. You could try to change DnD, but I think it's safe to say at this point that DnD isn't going to change its fundamental style/methodology/play loop/call it what you will. You need to find other games. I note that you've already said you do play other games, so take that advice as being sent out into the broader universe rather than being directed at you personally.
Thomas Shey
Legend
The problem is that in almost any edition, you could get XP for at best, pretty minor risks.
(And honestly, the idea that no one else can improve at all except by risks is a problem in and of itself.)
65-75% chance for things I'm supposed to be OK at, 90% or more at the stuff that's supposed to be my thing.
I'm OK with lower probabilities if there are metacurrencies I can use to boost my chance to something like this with a moderate expenditure (and even better if I can spend it after the roll). That gives me a feeling of "I know I can do this if I really put some effort into it."
That's not how things work out in most systems or most adventures, though.
And yet many skills include penalties for doing things in what I'd call "normal" adventuring conditions. Or, as is the case with Piloting, explicitly calling for rolls in situations that should be routine.
It definitely is.
I think bounded accuracy is intended more for combat-related things. It is pretty hard to push your AC above 20 in 5e, which means that large numbers of weak foes will be relevant at least into the mid-levels. This is in comparison to 3e and 4e (and later PF2) where escalating attack values and ACs mean that generally only foes in a relatively narrow level band will work well in combat.
The fact that it makes characters incompetent at their skills is, I believe, collateral damage. But then again I've seen people here complain that rogues with expertise pass too many skill checks so clearly some DMs like their PCs to bumble about.
GrimCo
Adventurer
Under normal circumstances or in adventuring setting? From personal experience, i worked as maintenance engineer, had very good team of both engineers and technicians, none with less than 5 years of field experience, couple with 10-20. And i can tell you, there was solid difference between working in Germany and Switzerland or working under armed guards in Afghanistan and Somalia. It's not like we forgot how to do our job, it's just that added stress of working in active war zone or non permissive environment that ticks in your subconscious mind because of real threat of serious danger. People would make mistakes more often, tasks would take longer. And when you add time pressure to it (cause sometimes you have only small window of opportunity to go out and do your job), you are more prone to make mistakes. In contrast, when you work without having to worry about your personal safety, you can focus more, be faster and make less mistakes.
That's mostly on DM and how he handles stuff. As i said, most DMs i know don't make you roll to use skill under normal circumstances. You have knowledge and tools, you make it happen. Describe how and what you wanna do and just do it.
It's a matter of perspective. They seem incompetent in their skill under adverse conditions. Adventuring is similar to working in non permissive environment. There is element of danger. So you don't focus on work completely, you always have at least bit of attention on your surrounding for signs of trouble.
Or it's just bad DM ( in my opinion) that asks for checks when checks aren't needed so characters appear more incompetent than they really are.
Wolfpack48
Adventurer
I'd say that as reasonable in a non-stressful situation and could be simulated by either bumping up the level of success on any skill test, putting it into the "easy" DC, or simply auto success and no roll. Typically, the chance on the character sheet is a "normal" DC under adventuring/stressful conditions. It really does come down to thoughtful refereeing though.
Celebrim
Legend
It is if you assume that for example a cook or a blacksmith can only improve at their craft by killing monsters and taking their stuff. But no edition actually assumed that (even if perhaps some people got the idea that they did). AD&D explicitly explained that no rules were given for gaining XP through realistic means solely because it wouldn't have made a great game, and not because it assumed that no one got better through realistic training. AD&D also assumed training was part of and went alongside risk taking in the life of an adventure that would lead to leveling up. But for NPCs like merchants, cooks, blacksmiths and sages the assumption was that if you really needed to know how good at their job such individuals were, then there was an NPC class like merchant, cook, blacksmith, or sage that corresponded to gaining skill at something other than being heroic. (This first showed up in Dragon but eventually 2e would publish a whole book of such classes. But the inspiration for such classes was probably the Sage in the 1e DMG.) And these NPC classes didn't have a lot of combat skill and often explicitly had the ability to gain XP by doing something other than taking risk. So, the idea here was professions like fighter or ranger or cleric leveled up mainly by taking risk (but that that wasn't the only manner) and NPCs - if they could level up at all (explicitly most couldn't) had classes that reflected what they did on a daily basis and rewarded that.
I don't know that the RAW in 3.X said, but in my own version of 3.0e I followed this 1e pattern by having the NPC classes in my game - commoner, expert, brute, scholar - have a class ability that gave them bonus XP (a concept in my house rules of XP that can only be spent toward leveling up in a particular class) for accomplishing certain ordinary challenges. Explorer, a PC class that began life in my rules as an NPC class, still maintained "Ordinary Challenges" as a class ability - 1 bonus XP (Explorer) for travelling at least 8 miles and visiting somewhere you had never visited before.
Later editions as I understand it are explicitly uninterested in modelling a game setting.
As for XP, 1e AD&D explicitly reduced the XP reward if the risk was minor. The example I remember is that if you're 10th level and still fighting kobolds, you should probably gain like 1/10th the XP that you gained fighting them at lower levels because the risk was minor.
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Celebrim
Legend
I'm beginning to realize that when people complain about D&D in this thread they are mostly complaining about 5e and not D&D as a whole.
Those are what I'd expect under stressful/adventuring situations. In calm situations, a roll shouldn't be needed.
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