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Worlds of Design: Always Tell Me the Odds
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 8000219" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>Now, here I do disagree somewhat.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Maybe. Depends on the penalty. Players are often very, very risk averse and what you might think of as a better payout, still carries the risk of failure and thus the penalty. Unless, of course, we're talking about a better pay out that is SO good that it would be stupid not to take it. Obviously, that's bad too. Generally speaking though, it's very rare that this happens.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>"Fairly" is a very nebulous idea. And, what is "fair" will vary a lot from table to table and game to game. Honestly, for me, so long as it's in this ballpark though, we're probably doing the right thing as a DM.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To me, though, this is just bad game design. It's not rewarding smart play. The smart play would be to not do this since the payout isn't worth the risk. If it does succeed, well, it's just luck, not skill or particularly good play on the part of the player. Yay, you rolled a high number!! And, since the player will almost certainly fail, and failure in this case is probably catastrophic - as in whatever the player was trying to do is no longer possible anymore (the guards are alerted, the bad guy escapes, whatever) it's pretty much a suckers bet. Really, it's the DM forcing outcomes on the table. "I don't want the players to do X, but, if I outright say no, then I'm a railroading DM and that's bad. So, instead, I'll give them a slim chance of success and when that fails, everyone's happy."</p><p></p><p>I really, really don't like this approach.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>However, "Pull that off" doesn't require the odds to be so bad that failure is the most likely result. There's a reason 5e has gone with bounded accuracy. It's a lot more fun to hit things than have multiple rounds of whiffing. Setting the PC up to whiff the attempt typically doesn't lead to interesting stories. It leads to player frustration and then the player never attempting anything that's not rules defined afterward. If outside of rules defined actions fail more often than rules defined actions, then it's perfectly rational NOT to attempt actions outside of rules definitions. </p><p></p><p>Heck, there's a reason you see players who would rather start dropping spells rather than attempt anything with skills. Spells have concrete, defined effects. Skills are timey wimey vague bundles of possibilities. Why bother with a disguise when a Change Self spell is so much better? Why bother trying to sneak when Pass Without a Trace means the entire party sneaks pretty much automatically? That sort of thing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 8000219, member: 22779"] Now, here I do disagree somewhat. Maybe. Depends on the penalty. Players are often very, very risk averse and what you might think of as a better payout, still carries the risk of failure and thus the penalty. Unless, of course, we're talking about a better pay out that is SO good that it would be stupid not to take it. Obviously, that's bad too. Generally speaking though, it's very rare that this happens. "Fairly" is a very nebulous idea. And, what is "fair" will vary a lot from table to table and game to game. Honestly, for me, so long as it's in this ballpark though, we're probably doing the right thing as a DM. To me, though, this is just bad game design. It's not rewarding smart play. The smart play would be to not do this since the payout isn't worth the risk. If it does succeed, well, it's just luck, not skill or particularly good play on the part of the player. Yay, you rolled a high number!! And, since the player will almost certainly fail, and failure in this case is probably catastrophic - as in whatever the player was trying to do is no longer possible anymore (the guards are alerted, the bad guy escapes, whatever) it's pretty much a suckers bet. Really, it's the DM forcing outcomes on the table. "I don't want the players to do X, but, if I outright say no, then I'm a railroading DM and that's bad. So, instead, I'll give them a slim chance of success and when that fails, everyone's happy." I really, really don't like this approach. However, "Pull that off" doesn't require the odds to be so bad that failure is the most likely result. There's a reason 5e has gone with bounded accuracy. It's a lot more fun to hit things than have multiple rounds of whiffing. Setting the PC up to whiff the attempt typically doesn't lead to interesting stories. It leads to player frustration and then the player never attempting anything that's not rules defined afterward. If outside of rules defined actions fail more often than rules defined actions, then it's perfectly rational NOT to attempt actions outside of rules definitions. Heck, there's a reason you see players who would rather start dropping spells rather than attempt anything with skills. Spells have concrete, defined effects. Skills are timey wimey vague bundles of possibilities. Why bother with a disguise when a Change Self spell is so much better? Why bother trying to sneak when Pass Without a Trace means the entire party sneaks pretty much automatically? That sort of thing. [/QUOTE]
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