D&D General Why the Great Thief Debate Will Always Be With Us

[MuhVerisimilitude]

But there is a rule about how far you can jump. Is that not also liberating? I'm not following your argument.

I'm not attacking 5E specifically, but I'm using rules in this case as shorthand for saying that a class has mechanical support.

At some base level every class has some mechanical support, but I'm concerned mostly with what makes one class different from another. The jump thing was only an example to show that a class with that ability is plainly better at jumping. Yes yes opportunity cost and whatever, but if every character is a blank slate and one character is better at jumping because he has explicit rules for it, that character is freer.

The problem in D&D is that some classes have more rules than others, and are thus more "powerful", where here "powerful" means that class has more ways to interact with the world.

Also, nobody argued that rules mean you cannot role-play. Snarff pointed out that rules limit the extent to which role-play alone can determine success.

Point taken. It wasn't directed at Snarff, but I think I saw someone else mention it above so I put it there to show I disagree with it.

 

[GMMichael]

The Great Thief Debate!

Wait is that whether mechanical skills for a class are a good idea in D&D?

Well, I guess a debate can be about multiple points.

Rules are the foundation for freedom. If you have rules, you know your capabilities and you are free. Without rules you are ignorant of your own skills.

This requires a preconceived notion: I can only do what the rules say I can do. It's rather Orwellian. Other notions that one could use when entering an RPG: I can do anything I want until there are consequences, or I can do what seems reasonable.

Rules are freedom because they provide a baseline of competence. A character who has an ability that says he can jump 50 feet is freer than a character who does not, because the character who does not have it likely cannot jump that distance.

"Rules provide focus" might be a better way to put this. When your character, Mario, first encounters a five-foot, ambulatory mushroom, you might not immediately think, "oh, this is an easy encounter because I regularly jump twenty feet into the air. I'll just jump on its head." You might think, "can I jump over this thing? Around it? Maybe I could jump on the gigantic turtle that just passed me, using its plastic properties to vault forty feet into the air and then watch the mushroom pass harmlessly below from a floating brick wall." That's a lot of options that rules can trim down. It's the opposite of freedom, though, because it's saying you can do less, not more.

The above quote, though, doesn't help to solve the Partial Great Thief problem, which is, "why does one character's demarcated jumping ability make it likely that another character cannot do such?"

My design philosophy would be, that everything that a normal human (outside of combat) could do is in the "Arnesonian Space" or at least in a very rules lite approach.

. . . 5e allows for that in the sense, that with an ability check I can adjudicate like everything a human could possibly try. . .Of course there are some feats and options that break that rule in 5e, but in general, 5e works like that.

Well, a typical human can't rage. Can't shield-bash a nearby opponent attacking who's someone else. Punch more than once every 6 seconds. Restore energy by laying on hands. Have favored terrain. Speak a secret language. Know where nearby people are with one's eyes closed. And that doesn't even touch on the feat-exclusive activities. (Or weapon masteries...)

The supernatural realm of 5e in contrast is fully in the "Gygaxian Space". Doing Magic, showing unnatural fighting or hiding or other abilities, us governed by special rules, which is fine by me.

It's probably good to carefully define these powerful abilities. One consequence is that the definitions tend to remove the mystery.

So, an RPG that follows those principles of design would be perfect for me.

What if it also removed class/feat/exclusive skill barriers by doing character creation a la carte*? Here you go!

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

* "Your character can Open Locks? Now mine can too!" Modos 2 (but not the open-source game, Modos RPG) actually has six No-You-Can't-Try-It Skills: Artist, Craftsman, Healer, Knowledge, Magic, and Scientist. The reason is that average Joe, or even highly-adept Jane, still couldn't perform productively with these skills without the initial training investment that each requires.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Some would interpret the existence of a feat that says "If you have this feat, you can impress multiple people at once" as meaning "If you don't have this feat, you can't impress multiple people at once." And that's not an invalid interpretation – for example, you can't Treat Wounds on multiple people at once without the Ward Medic feat. But at the same time it rubs some people the wrong way – you should be able to talk to a crowd and impress them. And that's the tension.

The difference is, however, that Treat Wounds spells out the gatekeeping part of the Ward Medic feat. The Diplomacy one is inference, however, and the problem with it is one of taking the inference as a given when its really not.

(This, by the way, is why I prefer rules to be clear about these things, even if its the clarity of directing the GM to use judgment in some ambiguous situations).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I would never design a game to fix bad DMs. Inexperienced DMs by all means. Teach them the right ways. But a bad DM is just someone who doesn't want the game to be fun. Ditch that DM.

It can take some GMs a long time to shed operational flaws, and its helpful if the rules at hand guide them in that direction rather than turning it into a guessing game about whether they or the people objecting are the problem. That doesn't mean they don't want the game to be fun; it just means that they and their players may not be on quite the same page about what "fun" is, and making that negotiation easier is a virtue.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is the thing I dislike the most about PF2E. The skill feats feel like they take away options once they exist. Sorry, you cant intimidate a crowd by waving your pistols at them. Gotta be one at a time unless you have Group Coercion.

See my comment about over-inference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well you might have said good faith instead of faith and it would have been clearer.

I suppose it is a judgment. Now having said that, I think it's pretty easy to spot bad DMs.

Not my experience. I've seen an awful lot of GMs who clearly thought they were doing the right thing because of tunnelvision or having listened too much to the wrong people. Were they "bad"? Or simply misinformed and not in a situation where they knew that they were?

 

[CreamCloud0]

the thing that really bothers me about characters bypassing making social checks because they the player Talked Good is that they're bypassing build cost by player ability, it's really no different to being able to build an 8 STR 8 DEX fighter and justifying max damage cause i can lift weights and do gymnastics.

 

[Thomas Shey]

the thing that really bothers me about characters bypassing making social checks because they the player Talked Good is that they're bypassing build cost by player ability, it's really no different to being able to build an 8 STR 8 DEX fighter and justifying max damage cause i can lift weights and do gymnastics.

A common alternate example (once you get away from classes that use it directly in some fashion) is dumpstating INT and then getting by because you're clever yourself.

 

[abirdcall]

Rules are the foundation for freedom. If you have rules, you know your capabilities and you are free. Without rules you are ignorant of your own skills.

There is no opposition between roleplaying and rules.

This is, in my opinion, the premise behind the martial/caster debate. The reason why casters are good is because they have freedom, and they have freedom because they have rules. Nobody argues that caster players cannot roleplay because they have lots of rules.

Rules are freedom because they provide a baseline of competence. A character who has an ability that says he can jump 50 feet is freer than a character who does not, because the character who does not have it likely cannot jump that distance.

Each ability that says you can do X is an assertion to that fact. It cannot be taken away. It does not rely on negotiation. It is a concrete thing. Liberating.

Adjectives don't describe an attribute they define what it isn't.

A house can be any colour.

A green house is green.

 

[Voadam]

It just meant that this new class had new abililties BEYOND what we already played with. Thus...the thief could try to move absolutely silently...but if they failed...well...they could still try to move quietly. They basically got double rolls.

OR...another way of doing it was that the Thief would accomplish these things automatically unless they were challenged...or had to do it under pressure...

OR...another way of doing it was that not only would the Thief accomplish normal things automatically (such as moving quietly), they could also try for the supernatural idea of hiding in the Monster's shadow when it wasn't looking...etc.

Unfortunately, the AD&D rulebooks were not that clear on this...and then we got an entire generation that thought differently and hence was born the idea that no one could play hide and seek anymore...or if they did they only could do it by rolling on the lowest tier of the thief ability tables.

OD&D was not clear on this either, it pretty much said they could hide and left it at that. Hear noise used the same mechanic that everyone already could (humans hear noises through a door on 1 out of 1d6, and nonhumans on 1-2 of 1d6) but with better chances (1-2 of a 1d6 at 1st level and improving at higher levels). I would not expect double rolls.

I felt the AD&D books were pretty clear the other way, that hide in shadows was not the ability to mystically step into a monster's shadow to hide but mundane hiding. The move silent ability is explicitly not even silent.

"Moving silently is the ability to move with little sound and disturbance, even across a squeaky wooden floor, for instance. It is an ability which improves with experience."

"Hiding in shadows is the ability to blend into dark areas, to flatten oneself, and by remaining motionless when in sight, to remain unobserved. It is a function of dress and practice."

"Hiding in Shadows cannot be accomplished under direct observation. It can be accomplished with respect to creatures with infravision (q.v.) only if some heat producing light source is near to the creature or to the thief attempting to so hide."

"Hide In Shadows: As is plainly stated in PLAYERS HANDBOOK, this is NEVER possible under direct (or even indirect) observation. If the thief insists on trying, allow the attempt and throw dice, but don’t bother to read them, as the fool is as obvious as a coal pile in a ballroom. Likewise, if a hidden thief attempts movement while under observation, the proverbial jig is up for him or her. Naturally, a creature closely pressed in melee is not likely to bother with looking for some thief not directly in the line of sight, but if vision would normally extend to the thief’s area of activity, then observation rules apply. Unobserved attempts to hide in shadows must likewise stand the hazard of the dice roll. A score greater than the required number shows that the character’s ability is not on a par with his or her intent, and although he or she THINKS hiding has been successful, the creature looking in that direction will note a suspicious outline, form, or whatever. Note also that a thief hiding in shadows is still subject to detection just as if he or she was invisible (see INVISIBILITY, DETECTION OF INVISIBILITY table"