A game of chance?

[Kelb_Panthera]

One can't help but notice the proliferation of optimizers in this forum. One of the major points of optimization is to get the greatest effect for the least risk. Doing so is generally regarded as a good thing, but I can't help feeling as though that detracts from the excitement of combat when it reaches the point of no-risk-just-victory. At the highest level of optimization, things basically turn into rocket tag. Whoever wins initiative wins, unless his opponent is immune to his first rocket.

TLDR: Am I the only one that thinks having a chance of failure based in the dice, rather than in combat prep, is more fun than being relatively certain of victory?

[erikun]

Am I the only one that thinks having a chance of failure based in the dice, rather than in combat prep, is more fun than being relatively certain of victory?
No. fullstop

[LordBlades]

One can't help but notice the proliferation of optimizers in this forum. One of the major points of optimization is to get the greatest effect for the least risk. Doing so is generally regarded as a good thing, but I can't help feeling as though that detracts from the excitement of combat when it reaches the point of no-risk-just-victory. At the highest level of optimization, things basically turn into rocket tag. Whoever wins initiative wins, unless his opponent is immune to his first rocket.

Rocket tag is no-risk-just-victory only if your enemies have no rockets.


TLDR: Am I the only one that thinks having a chance of failure based in the dice, rather than in combat prep, is more fun than being relatively certain of victory?

While having an element of chance sounds fun in theory, in practice it's rarely the case, due to how iterative probability works: if you have a very small chance to fail at something, but you do it over and over, it's extremely likely you will fail at least once.

Let's consider a relatively easy encounter, and let's say there is a 10%(arbitrarily chosen number) chance for the opponents to kill a PC before they are defeated. Now let's consider the encounter is level appropriate and you need to get through 13 of them before you level up. The party has roughly 75% (1-0.9^13)chances to have a PC die in the course of that. And all of that is with relatively easy encounters (you have 90% chance to win before the enemy deals any lasting damage).

So unless your group enjoys having one PC die almost every level, the DM will have to fudge either the mechanics (turning that monster crit into a regular hit or miss etc.) or the story (finding reasons why team monster wouldn't kill the party and the like). So instead of having chance of failure based on the dice, you will have a chance of failure based partially on dice and partially on DM's narrative sense.

Also, being relatively certain of victory in most battles is a necessity for most 'slay monsters to advance' games. Otherwise, you realistically can't be expected to make it too far. If all your battles are evenly matched, the guy that makes is through his 3rd battle (that's 1/4 on the way to level 2) would be really really special.

[ThiagoMartell]

I agree with Kelp because I like heroic games.
If there is chance of failure, doing something is not heroic at all.

[vrigar]

Let's consider a relatively easy encounter, and let's say there is a 10%(arbitrarily chosen number) chance for the opponents to kill a PC before they are defeated. Now let's consider the encounter is level appropriate and you need to get through 13 of them before you level up. The party has roughly 75% (1-0.9^13)chances to have a PC die in the course of that. And all of that is with relatively easy encounters (you have 90% chance to win before the enemy deals any lasting damage).

So unless your group enjoys having one PC die almost every level, the DM will have to fudge either the mechanics (turning that monster crit into a regular hit or miss etc.) or the story (finding reasons why team monster wouldn't kill the party and the like). So instead of having chance of failure based on the dice, you will have a chance of failure based partially on dice and partially on DM's narrative sense.

Also, being relatively certain of victory in most battles is a necessity for most 'slay monsters to advance' games. Otherwise, you realistically can't be expected to make it too far. If all your battles are evenly matched, the guy that makes is through his 3rd battle (that's 1/4 on the way to level 2) would be really really special.

Huh? We are using the same rules, but are we playing the same game? You consider an easy encounter one in which there is 10% chance of a PC getting killed? An easy encounter is one with less than 1% chance of a PC getting killed.
Where's the challenge in that you ask? The challenge is for the PCs not to kill the plot viable opponent (or else they would have to go through the beholder instead of around and leave a few statues behind).
If you are just running combat situations the numbers are very important but if you are running a campaign where characters can have impact other than killing opponents they have less of a role. I once played a healer who was totally useless in combat but had a leading role in the group. It's all about the DM and the game style.

[Andezzar]

The problem LordBlades mentioned is not limited to combat. This applies to any action that requires a dice roll. Failure might not be as devastating as death in combat, but failure will happen nonetheless.

Failure to avoid combat may even be likely to kill one or more party members than combat itself.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Rocket tag is no-risk-just-victory only if your enemies have no rockets.



While having an element of chance sounds fun in theory, in practice it's rarely the case, due to how iterative probability works: if you have a very small chance to fail at something, but you do it over and over, it's extremely likely you will fail at least once.

Let's consider a relatively easy encounter, and let's say there is a 10%(arbitrarily chosen number) chance for the opponents to kill a PC before they are defeated. Now let's consider the encounter is level appropriate and you need to get through 13 of them before you level up. The party has roughly 75% (1-0.9^13)chances to have a PC die in the course of that. And all of that is with relatively easy encounters (you have 90% chance to win before the enemy deals any lasting damage).

So unless your group enjoys having one PC die almost every level, the DM will have to fudge either the mechanics (turning that monster crit into a regular hit or miss etc.) or the story (finding reasons why team monster wouldn't kill the party and the like). So instead of having chance of failure based on the dice, you will have a chance of failure based partially on dice and partially on DM's narrative sense.

Also, being relatively certain of victory in most battles is a necessity for most 'slay monsters to advance' games. Otherwise, you realistically can't be expected to make it too far. If all your battles are evenly matched, the guy that makes is through his 3rd battle (that's 1/4 on the way to level 2) would be really really special.

The thing of it is that combat is almost never sheer math & nothing else. If it was then we could just plug the numbers into a computer program and get a winner. Strategy and tactics play as big or bigger a part of combat as the numbers.

What I'm asking about, and I guess maybe I could've phrased it better, is the excitement of using high-risk, high-reward options.

I'm enough of a math nerd to know that increasing random chance will probably lead to an earlier grave, but I'd rather die young and have fun along the way than slog my way up to 20 with victory after victory "by the numbers," and I'd like to get a feel for how many other playgrounders feel the same.

Besides, don't most of us have a small pile (read: prodigous mountain) of character concepts that are already half-way fleshed out anyway? If you die a little more often, you get to use more of those characters.

Edit: Almost forgot, with the various come-back-from-the-dead spells, there's really very little reason to be overmuch concerned about death unless either the DM is being stingy with treasure or there is a high probability of multiple deaths.

[ima donkey]

There is a reason you can resurrect people. Although In my experience a good DM will not bully a downed PC but instead move on to the others who aren't downed at least until they have access to resurrection then killing is fair game.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The problem LordBlades mentioned is not limited to combat. This applies to any action that requires a dice roll. Failure might not be as devastating as death in combat, but failure will happen nonetheless.

Failure to avoid combat may even be likely to kill one or more party members than combat itself.

Outside of combat there is no failure, only set-backs. Any failure of a skill check just means that you need to find another way to do what needs doing. A failed save vs. a trap is just resource drain to make the next fight that much more exciting. You're not completely out of the game until either you're all dead or just your character is dead & too broke to afford a res.

[nedz]

There are several problems with Kemp's argument.

Whoever has the highest Spot/Hide role can displace Initiative, though this is academic.

If the game devolves into Rocket-Tag then you are doing it wrong - IMHO. Its all about measures and counter measures: Fireball v Evasion or Resist Energy or ..., etc.
A good encounter is one which challenges the party by surprising them. Planning is very important but the old adage that No Plan survives the first encounter with an enemy has to be made to hold.

I have played in games where every encounter was an ambush and was resolved in the surprise round or at most one more, this was quite dull. I've also run high level encounters which lasted 30 rounds, these are much more epic.

[ima donkey]

Outside of combat there is no failure, only set-backs. Any failure of a skill check just means that you need to find another way to do what needs doing. A failed save vs. a trap is just resource drain to make the next fight that much more exciting. You're not completely out of the game until either you're all dead or just your character is dead & too broke to afford a res.

In theory couldn't you just make an almost identical PC to your dead one? You cant really lose at d&d but dying is enough of an inconvenience that it makes the game exciting though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Okay, that's twice my name's been misspelled. I know you guys are better than that, even if it is 2am.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In theory couldn't you just make an almost identical PC to your dead one? You cant really lose at d&d but dying is enough of an inconvenience that it makes the game exciting though.

Many groups frown on this, but yes. There is absolutely nothing in the rules saying you're not allowed to just change the character's name & physical description on your character sheet and call it a "new" character. I've got so many ideas in my head that I'd probably never resort to that though.

Unless he was a bard! Cookies for whoever gets the reference. :tongue:

[ima donkey]

I have to agree with kelb on this one if there is no chance of failure or setback them you already know what's going to happen and that's even less fun than dying occasionally .

Long live the d12!

[LordBlades]

Huh? We are using the same rules, but are we playing the same game? You consider an easy encounter one in which there is 10% chance of a PC getting killed? An easy encounter is one with less than 1% chance of a PC getting killed.

I was talking about campaigns where there's an actual risk involved in combat. Less than 1% hance of death probably fails under 'no-risk-just-victory'.




I'm enough of a math nerd to know that increasing random chance will probably lead to an earlier grave, but I'd rather die young and have fun along the way than slog my way up to 20 with victory after victory "by the numbers," and I'd like to get a feel for how many other playgrounders feel the same.

I agree that pulling off something highly unlikely can be very rewarding but IMO that's a trope better left to books and movies. The author can have the heroes pulling off the impossible as often as he feels it's appropriate, but that doesn't work in an RPG.

In a RPG you can't be the hero that always/usually succeeds against the odds, because the odds actually respect the laws of probability. If you frequently go into situations you are unlikely to succeed, then you usually won't succeed. It's quite a sad truth (from a heroic story's POV), but in a RPG in order to play a character who usually succeeds, you need to stack the deck in your favor quite a bit.

Also, at least IMO, the more your character is subject to randomness, the more likely he is to end up killed in a quite anticlimactic way by random monster 253 (assuming non bosses are actual credible threats).


Edit: Almost forgot, with the various come-back-from-the-dead spells, there's really very little reason to be overmuch concerned about death unless either the DM is being stingy with treasure or there is a high probability of multiple deaths.

Most 'standard' raise from the dead spells carry some hefty penalties (1 level loss and significant material costs), so death is quite inconvenient. You can optimize for it by using the likes of Delay Death, Last Breath and Revivify, but that pretty much means eliminating death as a credible threat. It simply becomes a slightly inconvenient temporary condition, like stunned or blinded.

[ThiagoMartell]

I agree that pulling off something highly unlikely can be very rewarding but IMO that's a trope better left to books and movies. The author can have the heroes pulling off the impossible as often as he feels it's appropriate, but that doesn't work in an RPG.

In a RPG you can't be the hero that always/usually succeeds against the odds, because the odds actually respect the laws of probability. If you frequently go into situations you are unlikely to succeed, then you usually won't succeed. It's quite a sad truth (from a heroic story's POV), but in a RPG in order to play a character who usually succeeds, you need to stack the deck in your favor quite a bit.
Heroes fail more often than they succeed. That's what makes their success more interesting. Otherwise, you end up with Boring Invincible Hero.
Any heroic story needs failure as a driving force. What makes you heroic is persevering despite failure, not succeeding.
Well, unless you're in an 80s saturday morning cartoon, but I doubt that's what you think D&D should be.
Mainly, I just don't like you calling low-risk games heroic. I mean, seriously. Check the ten last issues of Spider-Man and/or Daredevil and count how many times they screwed up.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I was talking about campaigns where there's an actual risk involved in combat. Less than 1% hance of death probably fails under 'no-risk-just-victory'.




I agree that pulling off something highly unlikely can be very rewarding but IMO that's a trope better left to books and movies. The author can have the heroes pulling off the impossible as often as he feels it's appropriate, but that doesn't work in an RPG.

In a RPG you can't be the hero that always/usually succeeds against the odds, because the odds actually respect the laws of probability. If you frequently go into situations you are unlikely to succeed, then you usually won't succeed. It's quite a sad truth (from a heroic story's POV), but in a RPG in order to play a character who usually succeeds, you need to stack the deck in your favor quite a bit.

Also, at least IMO, the more your character is subject to randomness, the more likely he is to end up killed in a quite anticlimactic way by random monster 253 (assuming non bosses are actual credible threats).



Most 'standard' raise from the dead spells carry some hefty penalties (1 level loss and significant material costs), so death is quite inconvenient. You can optimize for it by using the likes of Delay Death, Last Breath and Revivify, but that pretty much means eliminating death as a credible threat. It simply becomes a slightly inconvenient temporary condition, like stunned or blinded.

What's acceptable cost is just like what's acceptable risk, a personal decision. You seem to be making a logical leap, namely that there is no middle ground or point of balance between sometimes making high-risk decisions and being unable to perform to expected power levels.

An example of what I mean: I'm playing a martial type character with power attack. Following optimization guidelines to the letter can get me in to the 1000's of damage with no chance of missing because of AC. Where's the fun in that? What I'd actually do, in most campaigns, is spec out a decent attack bonus and power attack myself to a roughly 30% miss chance, unless the target is already providing his own miss chance. In that case I power attack less. That 1/3ish chance of missing makes you think, "will this be the swing that gets him? or is this thing gonna go one more round?" That's exciting, if a little simplified.

In a boss fight I'd fight a little more conservatively at first and start getting wreckless if things get desperate enough that only the high-reward associated with my risky maneuvers can save the day. I'm no fool. I want to win, and I want to win big if I can. Too much optimization just makes it such a foregone conclusion that all the excitement drains out of it though.

[LordBlades]

Heroes fail more often than they succeed. That's what makes their success more interesting. Otherwise, you end up with Boring Invincible Hero.
Any heroic story needs failure as a driving force. What makes you heroic is persevering despite failure, not succeeding.
Well, unless you're in an 80s saturday morning cartoon, but I doubt that's what you think D&D should be.
Mainly, I just don't like you calling low-risk games heroic. I mean, seriously. Check the ten last issues of Spider-Man and/or Daredevil and count how many times they screwed up.

I might have been unclear with what I meant :heroes in stories succeed against the odds when it matters(otherwise villain wins). A RPG gives you no guarantee of that.

[Ravens_cry]

Unless he was a bard! Cookies for whoever gets the reference. :tongue:
To be fair, their deaths did create much needed cover.

[ThiagoMartell]

I might have been unclear with what I meant :heroes in stories succeed against the odds when it matters(otherwise villain wins). A RPG gives you no guarantee of that.

In most good stories, the villains win at times. Still don't see how that is relevant.
The interesting thing about RPG as a media in the uncertain outcome. If you're just going for a 'heroes always win' story, RPG is not suited for that. If you're looking for a game where you always win, then worrying about narrative is simply wrong.
I'm not saying you're 'doing it wrong' if you play low-risk-sure-win games. I'm just saying narrative is not an excuse to do so.

[LordBlades]

An example of what I mean: I'm playing a martial type character with power attack. Following optimization guidelines to the letter can get me in to the 1000's of damage with no chance of missing because of AC. Where's the fun in that?
Technically, you can still miss on a natural one, but yeah, I get your point. When you can hit any AC and one-shot everything with HP, this simply means stuff that relies on AC and HP alone is no longer a challenge for you. The dynamic of the game has changed. The fun with such build IMO comes from 2 things: stomping the guys you can do your shtick against (I think most people would agree winning big is fun) and the challenge of dealing with guys you can't do your shtick against (miss chances, no line of charge, out of reach, Counter Charge, Stand Still etc.). Chargers are a poor example of that since they're quite binary (if you can't charge you're stuck to swinging for 2d6+1.5*Str.), but most builds with a well-defined effective tactic are quite fun&challenging to play when your tactic is not viable/effective.


What I'd actually do, in most campaigns, is spec out a decent attack bonus and power attack myself to a roughly 30% miss chance, unless the target is already providing his own miss chance. In that case I power attack less. That 1/3ish chance of missing makes you think, "will this be the swing that gets him? or is this thing gonna go one more round?" That's exciting, if a little simplified.

It's a matter of personal preference in the end. You derive excitement from the random factor, and it's perfectly fine. I personally derive excitement from knowing that the outcome of the fight is mainly based around the decisions me&my enemy make, with as little randomness as possible


Too much optimization just makes it such a foregone conclusion that all the excitement drains out of it though.

That's only true if the players optimize much more than the DM. God wizard vs. appropriate challenge is as uncertain as sword&board fighter vs. appropriate challenge.

[ManInOrange]

So unless your group enjoys having one PC die almost every level, the DM will have to fudge either the mechanics (turning that monster crit into a regular hit or miss etc.) or the story (finding reasons why team monster wouldn't kill the party and the like). So instead of having chance of failure based on the dice, you will have a chance of failure based partially on dice and partially on DM's narrative sense.


When I DM, I generally keep a few most things hidden so that I can fudge them if things look too grisly for the players. (If it's just one guy who's about to be toasted based on his own tactical error, so be it. TPK, however, I think we can all agree are generally undesirable, even if it is 100% their fault.)
Since I'm not working with veteran players, they usually don't catch me if I suddenly decide that the Retribution feat only works once per day, so that last roll from the Giant Mook didn't actually hit. Maybe I'll forget a flanking bonus here or there... Most of my fudge-ing is purely mechanical.
In the rare event that I need a non-mechanical fudge, (e.g. I just finished explaining the rule that could save me here.) I usually resort to the cleric.
"It appears that you didn't roll a 10 when you were trying to avoid bleeding out. You feel the life ebbing away... and then you hear an intense rebuke of the demons of Dolurrh by //insert Patron deity//..."


The thing of it is that combat is almost never sheer math & nothing else. If it was then we could just plug the numbers into a computer program and get a winner. Strategy and tactics play as big or bigger a part of combat as the numbers.

I don't know if I can even do justice to how true this is...
I had players who decided that the holy relic they had been chasing after for 10 sessions wasn't worth the hassle, so they threw it off a cliff, into a hot spring of boiling water when they were losing a battle over it.
/facepalm


I'm enough of a math nerd to know that increasing random chance will probably lead to an earlier grave, but I'd rather die young and have fun along the way than slog my way up to 20 with victory after victory "by the numbers," and I'd like to get a feel for how many other playgrounders feel the same.

I am so with you here.


Besides, don't most of us have a small pile (read: prodigous mountain) of character concepts that are already half-way fleshed out anyway?

Maybe...
*Glances at 3 open notepad documents detailing 2 different characters which have yet to be given life*
I usually make these characters into NPCs which the players will meet and have a chance to invite on their journey since I usually run campaigns which are short on good players. Should one die, no one has to be troubled to roll a new character (The key word here is "troubled".), and the party is still at enough of a loss to avoid that situation.

[Andezzar]

Outside of combat there is no failure, only set-backs. Any failure of a skill check just means that you need to find another way to do what needs doing. A failed save vs. a trap is just resource drain to make the next fight that much more exciting. You're not completely out of the game until either you're all dead or just your character is dead & too broke to afford a res.I would call failing a jump check to cross a chasm a failure, not a setback. Failing a sense motive check for not buying the BS the villain is feeding you and thus doing his bidding instead of opposing him ia a failure as well in my book. True in both cases you may be able to try something different, but for death in combat there is raise dead/resurrection.

[Slipperychicken]

I think encouraging players to prepare for combat in-character is wonderful.

Someone mentioned this on the D&D: Worst thread. The real problem isn't when success is determined by in-game preparation (that's strategic thinking, and ought to be encouraged because it makes combat more interesting), but when it's determined by a largely-unrelated "character-building" minigame which takes place before the game even starts, is full of traps which cripple characters before they're even named, and requires extensive system knowledge to complete effectively.


Basically, the problem is when success is determined by time spent in real life to make a character stronger, instead of in-game strategy or die-rolls.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I think encouraging players to prepare for combat in-character is wonderful.

Someone mentioned this on the D&D: Worst thread. The real problem isn't when success is determined by in-game preparation (that's strategic thinking, and ought to be encouraged because it makes combat more interesting), but when it's determined by a largely-unrelated "character-building" minigame which takes place before the game even starts, is full of traps which cripple characters before they're even named, and requires extensive system knowledge to complete effectively.


Basically, the problem is when success is determined by time spent in real life to make a character stronger, instead of in-game strategy or die-rolls.
This! So very much this! Thank you for expressing it better than me.

I would call failing a jump check to cross a chasm a failure, not a setback. Failing a sense motive check for not buying the BS the villain is feeding you and thus doing his bidding instead of opposing him ia a failure as well in my book. True in both cases you may be able to try something different, but for death in combat there is raise dead/resurrection.

Falling in the chasm is only a failure if it leaves you dead with an inaccessable corpse. The failed sense motive is actually 4 failed sense motives in most cases, and even then it just means you believe that he means what he says, not that it's necessarily true. Being duped by the villian is just part and parcel to dealing with a clever villian. It's only a failure if you never discover the deception and beat his *** for it.

[ThiagoMartell]

Falling in the chasm is only a failure if it leaves you dead with an inaccessable corpse. The failed sense motive is actually 4 failed sense motives in most cases, and even then it just means you believe that he means what he says, not that it's necessarily true. Being duped by the villian is just part and parcel to dealing with a clever villian. It's only a failure if you never discover the deception and beat his *** for it.
Yes, both are examples of partial failure, which is essential to establishing a hero figure.

[Karoht]

TLDR: Am I the only one that thinks having a chance of failure based in the dice, rather than in combat prep, is more fun than being relatively certain of victory?

Yes and no.

'Yes'
Half the fun of trying to backflip off a stack of crates and ninja kick a bad guy in the back of the head is the healthy dose of fear that you could very well screw it up.
And having that lucky streak of crits and doing all kinds of awesome big damage? Yeah, that feels fun.

'No'
I can be the greatest toughest Barbarian in the world. Dice hate me. It's part of why I fear playing a melee class, because they are pretty dice dependant. So I can optimize the greatest barbarian ever. What's that? Rolled nothing above a 5 for an entire session? Great, now I get to have a speech from the optimizers of the party. Meanwhile the Monk who rolled 10 crits in a row because he got lucky? I'll bet he feels pretty awesome, and all the power to him.


Having an unlucky time of it sucks. Getting lucky or winning it big, or finishing off a boss with a well timed critical hit? Yeah, it's just like any other jackpot, it's awesome to win. Sucks to lose. Some people dislike the fact that the losing comes from luck and not skill. Some people dislike the fact that the party member 'winning' might come from luck and not from skill. Some people dislike the idea that they can lose an encounter largely due to poor/unlucky rolls and having little to do with skill.

It's a mixed bag.