D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Tony Vargas]

Honestly, the best implementation of stakes I've seen at the table was in the 3PP module Strangers in Ramshorn, which arguably just took the old Gygaxian "You cannot have a meaningful game if strict time records aren't kept," concept and ran with it.

Ouch. Too much like RL.

let's see, tho, if time becomes the premier resource in the game, the one that everyone is managing, all the, er, time, then I guess n/time abilities are going to be balanced, one way or another...

It uses a slightly modified gritty realism resource recovery schedule and all of the modules factions, monster threats, town events and so on are plotted on a timeline. Each time the PCs take a week off to rest, each problem they haven't resolved ticks forward and progresses, causing specific changes to the wilderness surrounding the central town, with different permutations based on the order they've tackled challenges in.

Yipe.
That does seem very prescriptive of pacing, tho. Like it'd solve (2) & (3) above, but at the cost of (1).

I found it thoroughly convincing, and quickly adapted the process for my homebrew. Players felt immediately and intensely that their choices mattered, carefully parceled out their resources and agonized over whether they had done enough to slow down their foes and could afford to rest, or if they had to rest to be able to continue. Building a timeline of faction/monster/enemy plans is now a significant part of my prep, and I keep time records, admittedly somewhat loosely down to whatever scale is appropriate.. Technically this limits the kind of goals I can set out for PCs, in that they have to care about what will happen to places and people in the setting if they don't intervene, and obviously it requires some improvisation as new factions emerge in importance, or an unusual solution to a problem or change to the basic state of affairs emerges, but it's worked quite well.

That does sound like a strong, if not a complete, solution as it locks in a pacing/style.
Still a definite improvement over what D&D typically offers.

 

[overgeeked]

Stakes can always include that, but the ability to conserve or recharge resources to focus on an important challenge is still mechanical.

Not when those resources are not mechanical in nature. Like reputation, titles, favors, allies, etc. Again, if the only thing you focus on is the character sheet you'll miss a whole lot.

I'm not casting the situation as players vs. GMs...Nothing requires the GM to be treating the game as a competition with the players for the players to try and win.

If the players are "trying to win" they've fundamentally misunderstood what an RPG fundamentally is and what playing one is all about. They're treating a cooperative game as if it were a competition, when it's not. We fundamentally disagree about what RPGs even are at this point so there's clearly no use continuing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not when those resources are not mechanical in nature. Like reputation, titles, favors, allies, etc. Again, if the only thing you focus on is the character sheet you'll miss a whole lot.

Resources you pick up in play can certainly be a thing, but, if you depend upon them to resolve any of the three points, above, you're taking them away from being what they originally were - non-mechanical parts of the experience - and making them part of the mechanics.
A good example would be Magic Items in 1e, they were ostensibly items that were just out there to be won by exploring dark dangerous corners of the setting. But, the random tables were weighted to deliver more items usable by the resource-poor fighter than the spellcasting magic-user. Even more overt, in 3e players could make/buy items (which, perversely, made them a resource more available to the already-resource-rich casters), and 4e dropped all pretense and made them a de-facto player resource for all classes.

And that's going to hold for any 'off the sheet' solution - it means the DM needs to force things to deliver extra-curricular resources to the right characters in the right proportions. Same sort of issue as forcing pacing.

 

[Pedantic]

If the players are "trying to win" they've fundamentally misunderstood what an RPG fundamentally is and what playing one is all about. They're treating a cooperative game as if it were a competition, when it's not. We fundamentally disagree about what RPGs even are at this point so there's clearly no use continuing.

I think our disagreement might be more fundamentally about the nature of games as an activity. The cooperative/competitive thing you're talking about feels like a red herring.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think our disagreement might be more fundamentally about the nature of games as an activity. The cooperative/competitive thing you're talking about feels like a red herring.

Cooperative games are a very real thing. You have a group of players and instead of each trying to win, they try, as a team, to beat the game.

Pandemic was a successful boardgame like that, for instance, before the, er, pandemic... (why do I keep doing this to myself...?)

 

[Pedantic]

Cooperative games are a very real thing. You have a group of players and instead of each trying to win, they try, as a team, to beat the game.

Pandemic was a successful boardgame like that, for instance, before the, er, pandemic... (why do I keep doing this to myself...?)

Yes, that was my point. I raised the specific example of Spirit Island. I was asserting that not being engaged in a competition with the GM doesn't mean the players aren't trying to succeed at the game. They still have the same incentives to win.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Sorry, completely misunderstood.

If the players are "trying to win" they've fundamentally misunderstood what an RPG fundamentally is and what playing one is all about. They're treating a cooperative game as if it were a competition, when it's not. We fundamentally disagree about what RPGs even are at this point so there's clearly no use continuing.

Players still need to try to win cooperative games, they're just playing against the game not eachother. Loss can mean a number of things, most catastrophically, TPK.

One of the things about traditional TTRPGs like D&D, is that while it's very easy for a DM to slip into a competitive mode (and all too easy for him to 'win' if he does so in an unprincipled manner), the DM is actually another player, he doesn't win when the players lose.

 

[James Gasik]

Also, if, as a designer, you don't want Clerics to use weapons and shields and cast spells....there's easier ways to enforce this. You could just not give Clerics shield proficiency. If that's not a big enough hurdle, you could say "it is impossible to cast spells whilst using a shield". Instead, we have a rule that says "hey, divine casters! Guess what!? You can use a shield to cast spells, but only if you're not holding a weapon!" as if it's somehow a benefit.

Which really, having a weapon isn't all that amazing for a cleric anyways. What, so on the off chance an enemy flees, you can make an opportunity attack? Pfft. The only reason to carry one is that your attack cantrips are terrible. If this rule is being enforced, you'd be better off taking the Arcana Domain for Firebolt or something.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am arguing for attrition which is a mechanical consequence other than character death.


No, we are just talking past each other. See:


Yes, stuff like this is great. But it is not mechanical consequence built into the system.

Because you do not see what can be done mechanically with these consequences.

For a simple example: something which changes a character's race. BG3 spoilers: If Wyll chooses not to kill Karlach or fails to hunt her down, his Warlock patron punishes him by transforming him into a very obviously fiendish-looking tiefling. This is permanent and nothing you do to or with him can reverse it. This is a tailored consequence with mechanical bite that in fact comes from NOT choosing death.

Doing that is great, but it is not something we can expect hordes of inexperienced GMs to do for each fight in their action adventure dungeon delving game.

Yes, we can: if we give them the teaching they need to do well. This isn't some insanely difficult, rare skill. It ain't that deep, chief. Good guidance goes a long way.

But having attrition allows the story consequence to work on the level of the "adventure" or "mission" without the defeat necessarily meaning death.

I guess. It's still a pretty weak consequence if you ask me. Even weaker than death is, since it's effects are trivially reversed in a wide variety of circumstances, even without the dump truck of anti-attrition magic in D&D. (Ironically, something 4e was actually better about; both healing surges and the OG version of ritual magic are much more compatible with attrition gameplay.)

To be clear, as with death, I am not and have never been saying that this should be excised. Just that relying so heavily on fundamentally punitive measures is ineffective. Same as the problem with most inventory management rules. They're boring, and people will constantly seek to circumvent them rather than embracing the challenge as fun in and of itself, because the negative feelings of doing things "wrong" are not and generally cannot be counterbalanced by positive feelings from doing things "right" if the latter is simply "the status quo remains."

Now, if you can find a structure that DOES do that, that both punishes failure and also truly rewards success, not simply "nothing bad happens," that would be huge.

Think of it the way dice rolling advice goes. Don't roll if there aren't interesting consequences for both success and failure. Suffering complications is an interesting consequence for failure. Preserving the status quo is not an interesting consequence of success. This is the mirror image of the "absolutely required secret door" problem. Progressing the game is an interesting consequence of success. Halting the game completely is not an interesting consequence of failure. Game mechanics that are exclusively interesting in one direction should be used sparingly. Even things that could be interesting only one way, like attack rolls (since misses often do nothing), are usually given extra spice in various ways, beyond the obvious "this contributes to us possibly losing/needing to run away."

 

[Oofta]

I thought it was a living breathing world that the DM merely channels, and all consequences are natural and unfabricated?

I rarely use orcish hordes in my games, or if I do it's because it's an invasion from another realm. So totally realistic of course. Most of the monsters in my game are people.