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Worlds of Design: Always Tell Me the Odds
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<blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 8000415" data-attributes="member: 6993955"><p>Managing things like chandeliers in D&D is a little more complicated than in some other games (notably more fiction-first games) because of the D&D combat system. Well, to be more specific, the way the D&D combat system is usually implemented at the table. The underlying mechanics of D&D don't really differentiate between combat and non-combat as much as people think. Both are based on d20 rolls with bonuses for skill and rising difficulty targets. Combat obviously has a much more robust set of mechanisms for adjudicating the outcome of actions, but the basic principles are the same. The main difference is the initiative roll. Initiative serves to somewhat arbitrarily divide the set of all possible actions and I think this quite often restricts how both players and DMs think about what possible and how to adjudicate the outcome. </p><p></p><p>I'll use a matched pair of examples to illustrate what I'm trying to say, and I'll stick with the chandelier swinging for both. So, example one, the character wants to leap from the balcony, swing from the chandelier over a group of the Duke's party guests, and knock over the burning brazier before the evil chancellor can drop poison into it and kill everyone at the ball with poisoned smoke. Fancy right? There are a ton of ways to adjudicate success and failure here, but the majority of them are going to involve one, or maybe two skill rolls. A swinging roll and a booting roll, or maybe even just a single roll for both. I don't think it's controversial to say this isn't hard for a DM to manage. Sometimes this shizz just writes itself. The action is cool, it moves the story forward, and it provides a wealth of hooks to complicate things in the event of failure - it's a pretty ideal role playing action. If I were adjudicating this, I probably wouldn't even make it all that hard. It's pretty fancy, so obviously there needs to be some chance for failure, but I wouldn't set the bar super high as I don't want to disincline the players from trying this stuff in the first place. Some GMs might opt for more rolls and higher DCs than I would, but I think those DMs are doing both their game and their player a disservice. On to example two.</p><p></p><p>So, in example two we're going to keep most of our moving parts, but change a couple of key things and take a look at how that changes adjudication. In this example, the character is trying to escape the duke's manor after being discovered ransacking the evil chancellor's office (looking for evidence of malfeasance, no doubt). The PC races out onto the same balcony, overlooking the same group of party guests, the burning brazier, and the evil chancellor twirling his villain mustache. The PC has discovered that the Chancellor's secretary is bringing the poison to the ball, and is in fact due to arrive any moment. And lo and behold, the Secretary appears at the top of the stairs leading up from the dungeon. The secretary cannot reach the brazier or chancellor or bad things will happen! Our swashbuckling PC announces that he's going to leap from the balcony, swing from the chandelier, and boot the secretary back down the stairs, preventing him from delivering his vile burden. Sweet! This is some real Dumas stuff, and as a DM I'm still excited, but this is where it start to fall apart in some games. The culprit is the initiative roll.</p><p></p><p>In our second example, the action has reached a decision point for the DM. The most common answer is this: What are we doing here? Well, we're booting the secretary down the stairs, so that's combat, so the answer is roll initiative, right? I'd argue that this is the wrong choice. Moving from narrative play to what I'll call combat play introduces a strict order of operations, and a bunch of mechanics, and that's the first stumbling block here. Now we have to figure out if the secretary is surprised, or not, and then we have to roll to see who goes first. If the secretary goes first the whole plan is in the cacky because he'll obviously move away from the top of the stairs. Here's my question, why ruin a perfectly good plan by adding an additional role that can only serve to add additional chances of failure? There are some additional problems as well, also introduced by the decision to roll initiative. Because we are now in combat mode, most DMs look in a different toolbox to decide how things go. Now we're talking about attack type, armor class, damage, and a much stricter set of rules about applying conditions like knock back. Maybe the secretary should get a Dex save to avoid the boot? Holy crizzap, entities are multiplying like coat hangers in a closet here. Now we're looking at a minimum of three rolls, initiative, one to swing and an attack roll, never mind a possible saving throw. Regardless of difficulties, this whole idea just got a lot more complicated and the chances of success went way down and the number of moving parts the DM has to consider went up. </p><p></p><p>Obviously you can adjudicate the chandelier swing just fine within the combat rules, but you can't escape the extra failure state that comes with the initiative roll. A snazzy DM can probably navigate the additional rules layers without too much holdup or thought, but a new DM could get bogged down a little because the action in question doesn't really fit neatly into the combat rules, so there's also some potential lag while that DM crunches numbers in his head. Hitting the pause button before you call for the initiative roll creates a moment in the narrative, a moment within which you can still work outside the combat rules, and you can keep the narrative flowing. The PCs get a moment to opt in or out of combat, and a moment to act while they are still in charge of what happens next. That moment is a valuable tool, and a lot of DMs regularly miss it because they shout <em>Roll for initiaive!</em> a beat too quickly.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fenris-77, post: 8000415, member: 6993955"] Managing things like chandeliers in D&D is a little more complicated than in some other games (notably more fiction-first games) because of the D&D combat system. Well, to be more specific, the way the D&D combat system is usually implemented at the table. The underlying mechanics of D&D don't really differentiate between combat and non-combat as much as people think. Both are based on d20 rolls with bonuses for skill and rising difficulty targets. Combat obviously has a much more robust set of mechanisms for adjudicating the outcome of actions, but the basic principles are the same. The main difference is the initiative roll. Initiative serves to somewhat arbitrarily divide the set of all possible actions and I think this quite often restricts how both players and DMs think about what possible and how to adjudicate the outcome. I'll use a matched pair of examples to illustrate what I'm trying to say, and I'll stick with the chandelier swinging for both. So, example one, the character wants to leap from the balcony, swing from the chandelier over a group of the Duke's party guests, and knock over the burning brazier before the evil chancellor can drop poison into it and kill everyone at the ball with poisoned smoke. Fancy right? There are a ton of ways to adjudicate success and failure here, but the majority of them are going to involve one, or maybe two skill rolls. A swinging roll and a booting roll, or maybe even just a single roll for both. I don't think it's controversial to say this isn't hard for a DM to manage. Sometimes this shizz just writes itself. The action is cool, it moves the story forward, and it provides a wealth of hooks to complicate things in the event of failure - it's a pretty ideal role playing action. If I were adjudicating this, I probably wouldn't even make it all that hard. It's pretty fancy, so obviously there needs to be some chance for failure, but I wouldn't set the bar super high as I don't want to disincline the players from trying this stuff in the first place. Some GMs might opt for more rolls and higher DCs than I would, but I think those DMs are doing both their game and their player a disservice. On to example two. So, in example two we're going to keep most of our moving parts, but change a couple of key things and take a look at how that changes adjudication. In this example, the character is trying to escape the duke's manor after being discovered ransacking the evil chancellor's office (looking for evidence of malfeasance, no doubt). The PC races out onto the same balcony, overlooking the same group of party guests, the burning brazier, and the evil chancellor twirling his villain mustache. The PC has discovered that the Chancellor's secretary is bringing the poison to the ball, and is in fact due to arrive any moment. And lo and behold, the Secretary appears at the top of the stairs leading up from the dungeon. The secretary cannot reach the brazier or chancellor or bad things will happen! Our swashbuckling PC announces that he's going to leap from the balcony, swing from the chandelier, and boot the secretary back down the stairs, preventing him from delivering his vile burden. Sweet! This is some real Dumas stuff, and as a DM I'm still excited, but this is where it start to fall apart in some games. The culprit is the initiative roll. In our second example, the action has reached a decision point for the DM. The most common answer is this: What are we doing here? Well, we're booting the secretary down the stairs, so that's combat, so the answer is roll initiative, right? I'd argue that this is the wrong choice. Moving from narrative play to what I'll call combat play introduces a strict order of operations, and a bunch of mechanics, and that's the first stumbling block here. Now we have to figure out if the secretary is surprised, or not, and then we have to roll to see who goes first. If the secretary goes first the whole plan is in the cacky because he'll obviously move away from the top of the stairs. Here's my question, why ruin a perfectly good plan by adding an additional role that can only serve to add additional chances of failure? There are some additional problems as well, also introduced by the decision to roll initiative. Because we are now in combat mode, most DMs look in a different toolbox to decide how things go. Now we're talking about attack type, armor class, damage, and a much stricter set of rules about applying conditions like knock back. Maybe the secretary should get a Dex save to avoid the boot? Holy crizzap, entities are multiplying like coat hangers in a closet here. Now we're looking at a minimum of three rolls, initiative, one to swing and an attack roll, never mind a possible saving throw. Regardless of difficulties, this whole idea just got a lot more complicated and the chances of success went way down and the number of moving parts the DM has to consider went up. Obviously you can adjudicate the chandelier swing just fine within the combat rules, but you can't escape the extra failure state that comes with the initiative roll. A snazzy DM can probably navigate the additional rules layers without too much holdup or thought, but a new DM could get bogged down a little because the action in question doesn't really fit neatly into the combat rules, so there's also some potential lag while that DM crunches numbers in his head. Hitting the pause button before you call for the initiative roll creates a moment in the narrative, a moment within which you can still work outside the combat rules, and you can keep the narrative flowing. The PCs get a moment to opt in or out of combat, and a moment to act while they are still in charge of what happens next. That moment is a valuable tool, and a lot of DMs regularly miss it because they shout [I]Roll for initiaive![/I] a beat too quickly. [/QUOTE]
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