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Donnadogsoth
2016-07-29, 02:23 PM
The chaoticness of task resolution dice rolling bothers me. If I roll % climb and climb a wall once, why can I not climb it automatically the next time? Haven't I literally proven I can do it? If I roll % strength and lift a portcullis once, why can I not lift it automatically the next time? And in the latter case, how can a lower-strength person lift something a higher-strength person has failed to?

The factors stopping me from performing my task in subsequent attempts could be extra elements like sore muscles or icy handholds or drunkenness or haste or a forgetting of the specific route last taken in dealing with the obstacle, in which case the ability will lower or the difficulty rise as the case may be.

Or it could be random elements that no amount of ability can compensate for, like running through a field of gopher holes at night—e.g., a 17% chance of sustaining a twisted ankle per 100 yards. Set aside the random elements except insofar as skill can be used to avoid them.

If I succeed despite any extra elements of difficulty, then there again I have proven I can do it and it should be easier to do subsequently—and all the easier if said extra elements are absent.

The dice roll, then, should not merely determine success or failure, it should also determine the nature of the world in question. If the wall is impossible to climb (failed roll), then it is impossible to climb for all of that skill level, all the more for those of lesser skill. If the wall is easy, then it should be easy for all of that skill level.

For example, in Living Steel, task rolls are a difficulty + skill or less on 3d6. If noble Ben (climbing 6) wants to free climb a frosty cobblestone wall (difficulty 8), he needs 14 or less on the dice. Let's say he make it—he or the GM then notes down that the wall is climbable by climbing 6 or higher.

Now say the perfidious Fontaine (climbing 2) attempts to pursue Ben over the wall. He needs a 10 or less. If he makes it, the wall is climbable by climbing 2 or higher. If he fails, the wall is unclimbable by climbing 2 or less, still potentially climbable by climbing 3-5, and climbable automatically by climbing 6 or higher. The same difficulty (8) continues to be used for those with middle-range skill levels, subject to these restrictions.

(Props to Lindybeige for broaching this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF8UU4pqefk).)

Segev
2016-07-29, 03:18 PM
While I could certainly see your proposed system working, I will note that the best way I've seen what you're annoyed by handled is to have failures accrue due to different factors each time.

Perhaps you climb the wall once, and that's great! But next time, a stray gust of wind blows at the wrong moment, or a handhold that was stable before breaks this time. Or it's slick now, because water fell on it or you left sweat on it before. Or your arm cramped up at the wrong moment. Or you got overconfident after your last success and tried to do it too fast.

Or maybe you got lucky last time.



As an example of the real world: just because I bowl a strike once doesn't mean I can do it every time. I can't even make the ball go to the same spot in the pyramid each time.

Your skill, your efforts, and your luck all factor in to these things, and they don't happen identically each time.

Khedrac
2016-07-29, 04:12 PM
Ouch - you just made me think of a good thing about 3.5 D&D's skill system - taking 10 (and taking 20).

Taking 20 - keeping on trying until you do the best you can, can only be used to tasks with no penalty for failure.
Taking 10 - can only be used when not under pressure (expect for certain class features) - and represents somethign pretty close to what you describe.

Part of the logic is that a wall easy to climb on a sunny day is not so easy to climb on a sunny day while someone is shooting at you. (Hence when under pressure no taking 10.)

Now, you might argue that what about harder climbs, once you know them you should be able to do them. Well, part of that could be a circumstance bonus for knowing the climb; but also there is the fact that one does not always succeed when attempting hard tasks (part of the fun of the challenge).

Now if you will excuse me - I just defended 3.5 D&D and need to go and wash my brain.

Segev
2016-07-29, 04:17 PM
*good points about 3.5's skill system*

Now if you will excuse me - I just defended 3.5 D&D and need to go and wash my brain.

There, there. Nothing shameful about pointing out good things. You don't have to like everything else about it.


But, just in case... Let the cheese flow through you. Join the d20 side.

Jay R
2016-07-29, 05:50 PM
The chaoticness of task resolution dice rolling bothers me. If I roll % climb and climb a wall once, why can I not climb it automatically the next time? Haven't I literally proven I can do it? If I roll % strength and lift a portcullis once, why can I not lift it automatically the next time? And in the latter case, how can a lower-strength person lift something a higher-strength person has failed to?

The problem with your theory is that real life doesn't work that way.

I remember a time when I could climb up to the first branch of the tree in our back yard about a third of the time.
I have fallen out of a tree I've climbed successfully countless times.
Golfers who have hit a hole in one can't do it again.
Accidents on sports happen all the tim e to people who have successfully completed that move over and over.
All professional basketball players have made some free throws, and none of them have a 100% record.
World records are held by people who never equaled that feat again.
My students have been known to miss questions on the algebra exam which they got right earlier on the homework.

It's not true that if I've done something once, I can always do it. It just isn't.

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-29, 07:36 PM
The problem with your theory is that real life doesn't work that way.

I remember a time when I could climb up to the first branch of the tree in our back yard about a third of the time.
I have fallen out of a tree I've climbed successfully countless times.
Golfers who have hit a hole in one can't do it again.
Accidents on sports happen all the tim e to people who have successfully completed that move over and over.
All professional basketball players have made some free throws, and none of them have a 100% record.
World records are held by people who never equaled that feat again.
My students have been known to miss questions on the algebra exam which they got right earlier on the homework.

It's not true that if I've done something once, I can always do it. It just isn't.

I hear you, but must maintain that there are such things as reliable competencies. A professional photographer circa 1983 will, barring untoward factors, be able to develop photographs in her darkroom. A professional climber has odds approaching nil of falling in the climbing gym. A sailor knows how to tie knots and might fail only in a storm. An auto mechanic knows how to change tires and has little chance of failing at it. And Aragorn, Duncan Idaho, and Conan all know how to use a sword to defeat amateurs.

Flukes can be allowed for in the fraction of a percentage range, like in the case of the grandmaster tightrope walker who fell to his death walking across a rope spanning between two office towers, a distance he had doubtless done hundreds of times before. And of course I have not dismissed factors of whatever type. But these are either random factors, which no skill can compensate for, or extra factors like strong winds, or a failure of nerve leading to sweaty palms, lack of concentration, or forgetting about certain details of the task. Underneath these are tasks for which professionals can have reliable competencies.

Professionals reaching to the limits of their abilities may not be able to repeat their performance, but any professional athlete can easily best a beginner, with no need to have them roll their skills to see who beats whom. I remember as an eight year old having beginners luck with a Chess master and managing to take his queen, but what of it, he was playing ten games at once and beat me anyway. Is there any chance in the world, aside from some grievous psychological blow or a calculated secret dosing him on an hallucinogenic drug, that I could have beat him? He had reliable competency at Chess.

Which to say: consider something annoying me buried in what I have already said annoys me: the automatic 5% failure rate built into some systems d20 rolls. I remember a DM who mandated this, and I disagreed but was too unimaginative to properly object. Do people fall down their staircases 18 times a year? Do people crash their cars 5% of the their trips taken? How often do people fail to sit down in a chair, or mow their lawn? That is one reason I liked the Living Steel system, that it allowed for automatic successes (which I suppose I can supplement by saying everything has a 1 in 1000 chance of failure even if the skill + difficulty numbers total 18). Let my people do things without big automatic chances of failure!

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-29, 07:59 PM
Part of it is to just not make rolls for anything where failure isn't interesting to the narrative. From Dogs in the Vinyard:


"Drive Play Toward Conflict

Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes. If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs. Sooner or later— sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis— they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes."

Jay R
2016-07-29, 08:42 PM
I hear you, but must maintain that there are such things as reliable competencies. A professional photographer circa 1983 will, barring untoward factors, be able to develop photographs in her darkroom. A professional climber has odds approaching nil of falling in the climbing gym. A sailor knows how to tie knots and might fail only in a storm. An auto mechanic knows how to change tires and has little chance of failing at it. And Aragorn, Duncan Idaho, and Conan all know how to use a sword to defeat amateurs.

Yup. If there is no stress, and it's not hard for you, just take 10. Or if there's plenty of time, take 20.

Stress-free situations in which you cannot fail, should not require a die roll. The die is used only in a high-stress situation, or a truly difficult task, or an opposed roll, in which nobody has a 100% chance of succeeding.

If a skill roll can have a fumble, there should at least be a confirming back up roll, so it's only 5% of all failures.

But walking a tightrope quickly, so guards won't notice you, or climbing to avoid a tiger charge, are not stress-free, and do require rolls.

Khedrac
2016-07-30, 01:51 AM
There, there. Nothing shameful about pointing out good things. You don't have to like everything else about it.
In many ways I do like the system, it's also the one most of my gaming circle knows so it is the one we play, sometimes I just wish to go back to BECMI...


I hear you, but must maintain that there are such things as reliable competencies.
Which is where "take 10" comes in as I said.

Note: you did not specify a D&D version. Probably my least favourite skill system is the optional one for BECMI from the Gazetteers - I think it has all the worst features of what became the D20 skill system with none of the later fixes. To me it defines what you cannot do not what you can. This was why I specified 3.5 in my response.
If you want a skill-based system go for a Basic Roleplaying descendent (or in my case RuneQuest 3 or Call of Cthulhu).
I know there are lots of other ways to do skills (e.g. I like Lost Soul's system) but BRP is a very good place to start looking.


Which to say: consider something annoying me buried in what I have already said annoys me: the automatic 5% failure rate built into some systems d20 rolls.
I think you will most people here totally agree with you - and that is why D&D (3.0/3.5) does not have that rule (which you did not assert). I too completely agree on this point and if using a system with that rule will house-rule away (or at least partially away).

If one wants to acknowledge the chance of the master messing up the easy job (e.g. the old, well-used chisel suddenly snaps) then there are a few variants which make more sense:
a) On a 1/20 subtract/add 10 (or 20) to the total result. A master still won't fail an easy task on a '1', but a competent person might.
b) On a 1/20 re-roll and subtract/add the second die result (repeat on 20s). This one is actually a direct inherit from RoleMaster which did this on rolls of 01-05 and 96-00 for all rolls. RoleMaster then added fumbles (and gaining experience from both fumbles and successes). This also reduces the chance of a master failing to less than 5% (how low depends on difficulty and skill level) and a 1 followed by a 1 is usually still a success being a net 0 on the dice.


Yup. If there is no stress, and it's not hard for you, just take 10. Or if there's plenty of time, take 20.
Remember take 20 is if only if there is a penalty for failure. If the DM will rule that something breaks (like an arm when you fall out of the tree) then take 20 is not for you.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 02:08 AM
A large part of the problem is the concept of binary success/failure. If you instead choose to interpret low rolls as adding negative qualifiers to something technically successful, things get more plausible (for instance, "you climb the thing, but you struggle to find the same handholds as last time and take much longer" or "your limbs give out and you need to take a break halfway up"). That is, a roll could be seen as representing the results of the action on a spectrum from "worst reasonable" to "best reasonable," rather than toggling between "yes" or "no."

Yora
2016-07-30, 08:35 AM
AngryGM wrote a long article (http://theangrygm.com/five-simple-rules-for-dating-my-teenaged-skill-system/) about these things a few years back.

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-30, 04:49 PM
Groovy stuff, everyone. Thanks.

In Living Steel I'd have to change 10/20 to 3/10, since LS is a 3d6 rolling equal-or-under system.

For example, a painter struggles to paint a worthwhile picture. He has skill 14 and the difficulty of painting a masterpiece is -8. His reputation is at stake so he can't take 3, but he can take 10 and become a very skilled hack.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-30, 05:30 PM
I always considered that in, say, lockpicking, the die roll doesn't represent your skill at lockpicking, but instead represents how difficult the lock turned out to be. The tricks you know, the tools you have, and the muscle memory you've practiced stays the same, but until you start picking that lock, you don't know how well it was made.

So if you succeed on the lockpicking roll that first time, you get a free pass any other time on the same lock. This applies to any similar skill roll taken under similar conditions, like climbing a cliff or leaping a chasm, but if new conditions arise that make the challenge more difficult, another skill roll would be called for. For example, if I leap over a chasm successfully, I can keep leaping over that chasm successfully until the GM rules that I'm getting tired, or there is a very fierce storm hindering footing and visibility, etc, then I need to roll again.

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-30, 06:45 PM
I always considered that in, say, lockpicking, the die roll doesn't represent your skill at lockpicking, but instead represents how difficult the lock turned out to be. The tricks you know, the tools you have, and the muscle memory you've practiced stays the same, but until you start picking that lock, you don't know how well it was made.

So if you succeed on the lockpicking roll that first time, you get a free pass any other time on the same lock. This applies to any similar skill roll taken under similar conditions, like climbing a cliff or leaping a chasm, but if new conditions arise that make the challenge more difficult, another skill roll would be called for. For example, if I leap over a chasm successfully, I can keep leaping over that chasm successfully until the GM rules that I'm getting tired, or there is a very fierce storm hindering footing and visibility, etc, then I need to roll again.

Suppose you have proven you can leap chasm X at 75%, but then it starts snowing lightly, making the chasm edges slippery. It's not a huge problem, it might only reduce your chances by 10%, but why should you have to make the full roll against the chasm's difficulty when there's only just this small new problem causing you to roll at all? Shouldn't the odds of leaping the slippery chasm be relatively increased? Instead of fighting the 65% of slippery chasm X, then, you're really only fighting the 10%, because you now have Familiarity: Chasm X. If the 75% becomes 100% with proven expertise, then the effective odds of leaping the slippery chasm should then be 100 - 10 = 90%.

Also, if I have lockpick 45% and roll a 10 when attempting to pick a given lock, then I have succeeded at it by 30. It's a really easy lock. In future I have a 100% chance at picking it, and anyone else should have +30%. If I had rolled a 40, it would be a hard lock and others attempting it would have +5%.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-30, 07:51 PM
There's some GM making a call involved. If it's not that big of a deal or if it's inconvenient to the flow of the game, I'd rule that the chasm could still be leaped with no roll

I'm not familiar with these familiarity rules. I will, say, however, no matter what one character's relationship with the lock is, another character will make a brand new roll. Since I don't know that much about lockpicking, I assume there are different challenges involved in different locks, and someone who's worse at lockpicking in general may have a unique knowledge of a lock that lets him pick a lock that someone who is better in general could not.

Kind of like how you may have read more books than I, but if we need to know about a particular book, I might've read it while you haven't.

Segev
2016-07-30, 08:27 PM
Suppose you have proven you can leap chasm X at 75%, but then it starts snowing lightly, making the chasm edges slippery. It's not a huge problem, it might only reduce your chances by 10%, but why should you have to make the full roll against the chasm's difficulty when there's only just this small new problem causing you to roll at all? Shouldn't the odds of leaping the slippery chasm be relatively increased? Instead of fighting the 65% of slippery chasm X, then, you're really only fighting the 10%, because you now have Familiarity: Chasm X. If the 75% becomes 100% with proven expertise, then the effective odds of leaping the slippery chasm should then be 100 - 10 = 90%.

Also, if I have lockpick 45% and roll a 10 when attempting to pick a given lock, then I have succeeded at it by 30. It's a really easy lock. In future I have a 100% chance at picking it, and anyone else should have +30%. If I had rolled a 40, it would be a hard lock and others attempting it would have +5%.

Er, not at all?

Leaping the chasm is like bowling or golfing or any number of uncertain tasks: you have to do it right every time, and messing up can cause you to fail. The way you go from 75% to 100% chance to leap it is by improving your chasm-jumping skill. Not by doing it successfully once.

Keltest
2016-07-30, 08:28 PM
Suppose you have proven you can leap chasm X at 75%, but then it starts snowing lightly, making the chasm edges slippery. It's not a huge problem, it might only reduce your chances by 10%, but why should you have to make the full roll against the chasm's difficulty when there's only just this small new problem causing you to roll at all? Shouldn't the odds of leaping the slippery chasm be relatively increased? Instead of fighting the 65% of slippery chasm X, then, you're really only fighting the 10%, because you now have Familiarity: Chasm X. If the 75% becomes 100% with proven expertise, then the effective odds of leaping the slippery chasm should then be 100 - 10 = 90%.

Also, if I have lockpick 45% and roll a 10 when attempting to pick a given lock, then I have succeeded at it by 30. It's a really easy lock. In future I have a 100% chance at picking it, and anyone else should have +30%. If I had rolled a 40, it would be a hard lock and others attempting it would have +5%.

Ultimately that depends on the task youre performing, and many systems allow for a circumstance bonus (ie the DM saying "yeah, you jumped this before, you can almost certainly do it again) that can be used to represent this familiarity.

Having said that, with your particular example, I don't think the experience of having jumped once would necessarily aid you in jumping again. For example, you might not find quite as solid a purchase to leap from the second time around, or your shoe isn't tied as tightly, or the wind is different... basically, there are too many variables outside of your skill at leaping this particular chasm for me to bestow automatic success.

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-30, 08:37 PM
Er, not at all?

Leaping the chasm is like bowling or golfing or any number of uncertain tasks: you have to do it right every time, and messing up can cause you to fail. The way you go from 75% to 100% chance to leap it is by improving your chasm-jumping skill. Not by doing it successfully once.

Surely it is possible to become familiar with certain tasks without becoming higher skilled in the field overall?

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-30, 08:43 PM
Ultimately that depends on the task youre performing, and many systems allow for a circumstance bonus (ie the DM saying "yeah, you jumped this before, you can almost certainly do it again) that can be used to represent this familiarity.

Having said that, with your particular example, I don't think the experience of having jumped once would necessarily aid you in jumping again. For example, you might not find quite as solid a purchase to leap from the second time around, or your shoe isn't tied as tightly, or the wind is different... basically, there are too many variables outside of your skill at leaping this particular chasm for me to bestow automatic success.

But the confidence, man, the confidence of having done it once. If it was a close shave the first time it won't be automatic the second, but if you've proven to yourself you can do it, that should offer a bonus to just about anything, no?

Segev
2016-07-30, 09:36 PM
Surely it is possible to become familiar with certain tasks without becoming higher skilled in the field overall?

Yes and no. But jumping that specific chasm isn't that kind of a task, really. MAYBE climbing its walls would be; there's enough specific to familiarize with. But leaping? Nope.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 09:44 PM
But the confidence, man, the confidence of having done it once. If it was a close shave the first time it won't be automatic the second, but if you've proven to yourself you can do it, that should offer a bonus to just about anything, no?

Not necessarily. Sometimes luck is actually luck. The fact that I was able to shoot a 3-pointer once says nothing at all about the probability of me doing it a second time.

The system you're proposing sounds very heavy on the GM, which gets away from the point of rolling dice in the first place (that is, determining the results of action without stopping to think about every single thing impacting it, and abstracting those into a die roll).

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-30, 10:12 PM
Not necessarily. Sometimes luck is actually luck. The fact that I was able to shoot a 3-pointer once says nothing at all about the probability of me doing it a second time.

The system you're proposing sounds very heavy on the GM, which gets away from the point of rolling dice in the first place (that is, determining the results of action without stopping to think about every single thing impacting it, and abstracting those into a die roll).

Yes, I was thinking one can go overboard with the familiarity thing. I'm imagining a +2 to do anything the second time, in a 3d6 system. In other terms, if the odds were 5% the first time, and one did it, it's not blowing believability for the second time's odds to be 10%. A 90% chance of failure is still huge. I'd like to think this represents not just familiarity of object, but familiarity of subject--the character knows himself in this situation better and therefore gets a bonus to tapping into his willpower, hence the 1 + 1.

goto124
2016-07-30, 10:22 PM
Why would a PC leap over the same chasm twice, in the exact same conditions as before? Did she make the leap, then changed her mind and turn around to leap back?

Algeh
2016-07-31, 01:27 AM
It is very much possible to fail at something that you've succeeded at before. For example, if you watch American Ninja Warrior, every time there'll be someone who fails on an obstacle in the city finals that they passed in city qualifying.

Not everyone who manages to ding their car on something involving their garage does it the very first time they put that car into their garage, either.

In some ways, the second and third times can even be worse, because the very first time, you know it's a new thing for you and you're more likely to be cautious. The second time, you know you can do it but don't yet have the muscle memory to do it well consistently and know which ways you accidentally didn't screw up last time.

If I had players who, for whatever reason, wanted to repeatedly practice climbing a certain wall, I'd let them have a bonus on climbing that particular wall after they practiced it for a good long while on a regular basis, but not the very second time. (Assuming they had a reason why they'd need a roll to climb it in the first place, like it having sharp rocks at the bottom if they fell or needing to do it in a hurry. I'm not a big fan of "roll to see if you tied your shoelaces correctly today" situations unless we're specifically doing a humor game that session.)

Pragmatically, keeping track of familiarity with each individual challenge in the game universe and who has succeeded at it at least once would also be a lot of bookkeeping. If it's a very special whatever-it-is that the players have been making a point of specifically practicing, then everyone will probably remember it as long as it's important. On the other hand, if they maybe picked the lock on the mayor's house in a session 2 months ago, but no one remembers off the top of their head, I think it's reasonable to assume their character has probably also forgotten what made that lock so special by now rather than have me dig through my notes to make sure they didn't instead break in by finding an open window last time.

goto124
2016-07-31, 01:42 AM
If I had players who, for whatever reason, wanted to repeatedly practice climbing a certain wall, I'd let them have a bonus on climbing that particular wall after they practiced it for a good long while on a regular basis, but not the very second time.

That... actually makes sense.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-31, 02:11 AM
That... actually makes sense.

And the improbability of such an event means that having such a practice will almost always be the same as not having such a practice.

You don't need to design a whole system just to cater to specific edge cases.

Zombimode
2016-07-31, 02:50 AM
And the improbability of such an event means that having such a practice will almost always be the same as not having such a practice.

You don't need to design a whole system just to cater to specific edge cases.

Exactly. That is what a circumstance modifier to a check means.

Jay R
2016-07-31, 09:59 AM
The real problem is the assumptions of the flat d20 system. It assumes that a circumstance that would change a 5% chance to a 15% chance for an untrained character would also change a 40% chance to a 50% chance for a trained one. This seems unlikely to me. If it will triple the untrained person's probability of success, then it should make a trained person's nearly automatic.

Consider a rope added to the wall climb. It should make a trained climber's climb much easier.

But in order to use the same simplistic mechanic for all actions, we have to make an unjustified assumption of linearity.

Note that if you rolled 3d6, then a +2 circumstance bonus would increase the lowest level roll from 0.5% to 4.6%, a mid-range probability from 37.5% to 62.5%, and a higher probability from 90.7% to 98.1%. That makes more sense.

But the over-simplicity of a single mechanic was a more important goal for 3E than simulation.

JellyPooga
2016-07-31, 10:50 AM
All I'm going to ask is; how many times have you choked while drinking a glass of water, stumbled over the curb when crossing the street, fail at saying or spelling a word you use regularly or any of those other little things you do on a daily basis and still manage to critically fail? Why does the Real Life GM even make us roll for such things?

Now imagine you're doing something a bit more dangerous; climbing a wall, lifting a heavy object or fighting a guy with swords.

I can totally buy into swingy systems or having to make a new roll for things you've done before. It's rare that a day goes by without something going wrong, despite your own competence, so in the exciting lives PCs live, forgiving a little chance goes a long way.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-31, 10:56 AM
The real problem is the assumptions of the flat d20 system. It assumes that a circumstance that would change a 5% chance to a 15% chance for an untrained character would also change a 40% chance to a 50% chance for a trained one. This seems unlikely to me. If it will triple the untrained person's probability of success, then it should make a trained person's nearly automatic.

Consider a rope added to the wall climb. It should make a trained climber's climb much easier.

But in order to use the same simplistic mechanic for all actions, we have to make an unjustified assumption of linearity.

Note that if you rolled 3d6, then a +2 circumstance bonus would increase the lowest level roll from 0.5% to 4.6%, a mid-range probability from 37.5% to 62.5%, and a higher probability from 90.7% to 98.1%. That makes more sense.

But the over-simplicity of a single mechanic was a more important goal for 3E than simulation.


Very true. the 1d20 mechanic is right there on my list of reasons I don't like D&D.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-31, 11:58 AM
Very true. the 1d20 mechanic is right there on my list of reasons I don't like D&D.

You could argue that 1d20 effectively simulates diminishing returns, but it would be easier and far more accurate to say that it isn't trying to simulate anything at all.

Jay R
2016-07-31, 12:04 PM
Very true. the 1d20 mechanic is right there on my list of reasons I don't like D&D.

It's not an aspect of all D&D. It would be more accurate to say that it's why you dislike 3e. (And later editions? I don't know if 4e and 5e kept it.)

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-31, 12:54 PM
All I'm going to ask is; how many times have you choked while drinking a glass of water, stumbled over the curb when crossing the street, fail at saying or spelling a word you use regularly or any of those other little things you do on a daily basis and still manage to critically fail? Why does the Real Life GM even make us roll for such things?

Now imagine you're doing something a bit more dangerous; climbing a wall, lifting a heavy object or fighting a guy with swords.

I can totally buy into swingy systems or having to make a new roll for things you've done before. It's rare that a day goes by without something going wrong, despite your own competence, so in the exciting lives PCs live, forgiving a little chance goes a long way.

Or imagine that you have to drink a glass of water, trod a curb, or speak a word perfectly under pain of serious consequence. One reason I like Living Steel is that it implicitly demands rolls for everything. Walking over slightly uneven terrain (like curbs) might be Balance & Footwork difficulty +15. A toddler (Balance & Footwork skill -4) would find it dangerous. And if distracted (-2) or under attack (-4), even an ordinary adult (skill 1) could well trip up.

Given the 3/10 (or 10/20) rule suggested above, such a feat lacking stress could be performed at a roll of 10. The toddler would have a 15 - 4 (skill) - 2 (woolgathering) = 9 or less chance to negotiate the curb, so he couldn't take 10 without falling down. With a purist GM, even someone who could take 10, or 3, might in these "automatic cases" be subject to a d1000 roll to see if he scores a 1 and trips up.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-31, 07:06 PM
One reason I like Living Steel is that it implicitly demands rolls for everything. Walking over slightly uneven terrain (like curbs) might be Balance & Footwork difficulty +15.

I understand that you like this. I don't understand why this is something likable.

Max_Killjoy
2016-07-31, 07:30 PM
It's not an aspect of all D&D. It would be more accurate to say that it's why you dislike 3e. (And later editions? I don't know if 4e and 5e kept it.)


I could swear the the resolution die in D&D has always been 1d20...

Jay R
2016-07-31, 08:40 PM
I could swear the the resolution die in D&D has always been 1d20...

Until 3e, there wasn't a single "the resolution die in D&D".

In original D&D, reaction rolls were 2d6, modified by Charisma. High-level strength rolls were percentiles.

Thief skills were percentiles, set for level but not modifiable. And saving throws, while d20s, were deliberately scaled by class and level, and not modifiable (and my objections have been to the linearity of the modifications).

Attacks worked pretty much like the d20 system, however.

Donnadogsoth
2016-07-31, 10:24 PM
I understand that you like this. I don't understand why this is something likable.

It's dealing with weakness. I find weakness more interesting than strength. The lower levels of human ability aren't usually modelled by RPGs and having things like rolling to walk over a curb remedies this.

JellyPooga
2016-08-01, 02:14 AM
It's dealing with weakness. I find weakness more interesting than strength. The lower levels of human ability aren't usually modelled by RPGs and having things like rolling to walk over a curb remedies this.

It's something I learned from GURPS, as it happens; a characters advantages might make them fun to play, from a gaming point of view, but it's their weaknesses that make them intetesting characters to roleplay.

goto124
2016-08-01, 06:34 AM
If I had to roll for drinking water and walking on streets, not only is that a lot of rolling, failing a roll is meaningless as I can just pick myself up right away with little consequence. Might as well take 20. And if failing to walk on a road consistently results in big things... come on, this is a game. When I fail I want to fail in an epic fight, not 'I walked on a road, broke my skull, and spent the rest of the game session in hospital'. Weaknesses help roleplay... up to a point. It's not a simple 'weakness = roleplay' equation, especially when the weakness happens so often and in utterly boring situations, with no interesting context to support it.

Now, if I were running away from a raging gang and trying to dodge obstacles, rolling makes sense as failure does something. But without such circumstances? Not really.

Keltest
2016-08-01, 06:50 AM
If I had to roll for drinking water and walking on streets, not only is that a lot of rolling, failing a roll is meaningless as I can just pick myself up right away with little consequence. Might as well take 20. And if failing to walk on a road consistently results in big things... come on, this is a game. When I fail I want to fail in an epic fight, not 'I walked on a road, broke my skull, and spent the rest of the game session in hospital'. Weaknesses help roleplay... up to a point. It's not a simple 'weakness = roleplay' equation, especially when the weakness happens so often and in utterly boring situations, with no interesting context to support it.

Now, if I were running away from a raging gang and trying to dodge obstacles, rolling makes sense as failure does something. But without such circumstances? Not really.

Agreed. Only roll when failure has meaning. Jumping a cliff? You could conceivably die from failing even a little bit depending on the cliff. Walking the street? You would practically have to be trying to hurt yourself doing that.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-01, 07:12 AM
It's something I learned from GURPS, as it happens; a characters advantages might make them fun to play, from a gaming point of view, but it's their weaknesses that make them intetesting characters to roleplay.

Eh.

That whole "weaknesses make the character" thing has been so overblown and overdone, to the point where some people believe any character who can cross the street without tripping over themselves is a bad character.

ImNotTrevor
2016-08-01, 07:14 AM
To quotw Vincent Baker and another previous poster,
Only Roll When Something is at Stake.

If nothing is at stake, nothing interesting will come out of the roll.

So if my player wants to kill an unarmed, unconscious hobo in the middle of a forest with no one around, I won't have them roll diddly because nothing is at stake.

But if they want to kill the same guy discreetly in the middle of a crowded city at noon, then suddenly things are at stake and they need to roll.

If nothing is at stake, no rolls.
The End.

JellyPooga
2016-08-01, 07:29 AM
Agreed. Only roll when failure has meaning. Jumping a cliff? You could conceivably die from failing even a little bit depending on the cliff. Walking the street? You would practically have to be trying to hurt yourself doing that.

How many times have you tripped over your own feet? Is it more than one? Were you trying to do it when it happened? Have you ever hurt yourself doing it? Not like "broken arm" hurt, but grazed hands, slightly dazed, skinned knees perhaps? That sort of thing. The sort of thing, in fact, that doesn't have some massive long-term consequence, but just ruins your day. Having had your day ruined by this unforeseen calamity, how many other things seemed to go wrong that day? Were you irritable, unwilling to go the extra mile, intolerant of others' and your own mistakes, perhaps you'd planned on doing something fun like go down the pub, but with raw elbows you just didn't feel like it. Perhaps you didn't sleep well that night and woke up tired and still irritable, even more so because it was all over something as stupid as stumbling on a curb or walking into a lamp post. Sound familiar at all?
all.

Those little slips have more impact than you might first imagine. How and if this sort of thing can or should be implemented into a roleplaying game depends on the theme and style of the game in question; for a game of high heroics and mighty deeds, not so much. In a game about survival where every bullet counts and finding half a tin of mouldy beans is like discovering a motherlode, on the other hand, such rolls could make the difference between life and death.

The point I was making, however, is not that I think every game should make you roll for drinking water, but that the "critical fail" situation comes up even doing mundane things you've done a thousand times before. How many more times do they come up when you do something dangerous as your job?

Someone brought up the example of a climber never falling from the wall at the gym. Wrong. Climbers, highly skilled and even professional ones fall from gym walls all the time; more so than when they're out on the rock-face. One slip on the face and it's all over, so you take more care over things. Down the gym, you can afford to be a little more reckless, because the floor isn't far away and has a cushy landing. In addition, training at the gym is about pushing the limits of your ability; higher risk, higher reward and all that. How much does this matter? Very little unless someone's trying to kill you at the gym, I guess...removing a padded mat or two and loosening a handhold in a tricky place could lead to an "accidental" death, but I digress; that's a different topic. The point is that even people good at their job or the activity they're performing can get careless, slip up or make mistakes, even (especially, perhaps) when they're not under pressure.

That's why I dislike mechanics like "take 10" from 3.5...there's *always* a chance of screwing something up royally. If it's so easy that there's no chance of failing, let alone critically failing then you don't need to be rolling dice in the first place.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-01, 07:31 AM
How many times have you tripped over your own feet? Is it more than one? Were you trying to do it when it happened? Have you ever hurt yourself doing it? Not like "broken arm" hurt, but grazed hands, slightly dazed, skinned knees perhaps? That sort of thing. The sort of thing, in fact, that doesn't have some massive long-term consequence, but just ruins your day. Having had your day ruined by this unforeseen calamity, how many other things seemed to go wrong that day? Were you irritable, unwilling to go the extra mile, intolerant of others' and your own mistakes, perhaps you'd planned on doing something fun like go down the pub, but with raw elbows you just didn't feel like it. Perhaps you didn't sleep well that night and woke up tired and still irritable, even more so because it was all over something as stupid as stumbling on a curb or walking into a lamp post. Sound familiar at all?
all.

Those little slips have more impact than you might first imagine. How and if this sort of thing can or should be implemented into a roleplaying game depends on the theme and style of the game in question; for a game of high heroics and mighty deeds, not so much. In a game about survival where every bullet counts and finding half a tin of mouldy beans is like discovering a motherlode, on the other hand, such rolls could make the difference between life and death.

The point I was making, however, is not that I think every game should make you roll for drinking water, but that the "critical fail" situation comes up even doing mundane things you've done a thousand times before. How many more times do they come up when you do something dangerous as your job?

Someone brought up the example of a climber never falling from the wall at the gym. Wrong. Climbers, highly skilled and even professional ones fall from gym walls all the time; more so than when they're out on the rock-face. One slip on the face and it's all over, so you take more care over things. Down the gym, you can afford to be a little more reckless, because the floor isn't far away and has a cushy landing. In addition, training at the gym is about pushing the limits of your ability; higher risk, higher reward and all that. How much does this matter? Very little unless someone's trying to kill you at the gym, I guess...removing a padded mat or two and loosening a handhold in a tricky place could lead to an "accidental" death, but I digress; that's a different topic. The point is that even people good at their job or the activity they're performing can get careless, slip up or make mistakes, even (especially, perhaps) when they're not under pressure.

That's why I dislike mechanics like "take 10" from 3.5...there's *always* a chance of screwing something up royally. If it's so easy that there's no chance of failing, let alone critically failing then you don't need to be rolling dice in the first place.


So do you actually think that crossing the street -- literally crossing the street -- or getting out of bed or whatever should involve a roll/check/whatever? Every time? All those little everyday actions?

Or are you just using that example to make a point?

JellyPooga
2016-08-01, 07:44 AM
Eh.

That whole "weaknesses make the character" thing has been so overblown and overdone, to the point where some people believe any character who can cross the street without tripping over themselves is a bad character.

Ever played GURPS? Ever made a character with no Disadvantages? Ever played a "perfect" character; no flaws? No drawbacks? I contend that it can't be done, but even if it could, don't you think it would be boring? It'd be like playing Superman; nothing's a challenge to him. A flawless character has no roleplaying "sticks" to emphasise the "carrot". No stick, no carrot. Just numbers on a sheet. Sounds dull.

I'm not saying you have to roleplay tripping up crossing the street, or that you have a bad character if you don't. I'm saying that it's Tanis Half-Elvens' human-elf dichotomy and his heartbreak over loving two women equally that makes him an intetesting character. It's Aragorns burning desire to become King of Gondor conflicting with the quest to save the world as well as his forbidden love for Arwen that keeps us hooked. It's Solomon Kanes penitence and over-confidence that makes him human and not just an unstoppable force of pure willpower.

So instead of picking up on that one stupid example of tripping over your own feet, how about we take the point as intended and move on?

JellyPooga
2016-08-01, 07:51 AM
So do you actually think that crossing the street -- literally crossing the street -- or getting out of bed or whatever should involve a roll/check/whatever? Every time? All those little everyday actions?

Or are you just using that example to make a point?

No, in most games (probably any game worth playing, I'll add) rolling each and evey time for such things is ludicrous. It's just an example of something small and every day that people still manage to screw up.

If you go back to my first post, my concluding statement was something along the lines of "how much more likely is it that someone screw up doing something dangerous". Quite how this "crossing the street" thing got blown out of proportion, I don't know. It was just to demonstrate a point that people could actually relate to; you know, given that most of us aren't in the adventuring business in real life.

Jay R
2016-08-01, 09:05 AM
Eh.

That whole "weaknesses make the character" thing has been so overblown and overdone, to the point where some people believe any character who can cross the street without tripping over themselves is a bad character.

But since nobody in this thread has suggested anything that absurd, this statement doesn't refute anyone's point.

You need to refute what they actually say here, not some hypothetical absurd statement from "some people".

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-01, 09:23 AM
But since nobody in this thread has suggested anything that absurd, this statement doesn't refute anyone's point.

You need to refute what they actually say here, not some hypothetical absurd statement from "some people".

So unless I plan to issue a direct formal refutation of someone's specific exact claim... I'm not supposed to comment on a subject at all?

Joe the Rat
2016-08-01, 09:28 AM
The real problem is the assumptions of the flat d20 system. It assumes that a circumstance that would change a 5% chance to a 15% chance for an untrained character would also change a 40% chance to a 50% chance for a trained one. This seems unlikely to me. If it will triple the untrained person's probability of success, then it should make a trained person's nearly automatic.

Consider a rope added to the wall climb. It should make a trained climber's climb much easier.

But in order to use the same simplistic mechanic for all actions, we have to make an unjustified assumption of linearity.

Note that if you rolled 3d6, then a +2 circumstance bonus would increase the lowest level roll from 0.5% to 4.6%, a mid-range probability from 37.5% to 62.5%, and a higher probability from 90.7% to 98.1%. That makes more sense.

But the over-simplicity of a single mechanic was a more important goal for 3E than simulation.There are two sides to every probability. A lot of what we are looking at is avoiding failure - what are the odds on that side? That boost turned your rank novice from a 95% chance of failure to an 85% chance of failure. Drop in the bucket. Your 60% to 50% fail - 1/6th as likely! Or moving from 20% to 10% failure rate on an expert??

Perspective aside, the biggest issue with flat randomizers is that your success is modified at a flat rate. Making gains and losses variable by skill (or base success rate) would require a rejiggering of modifiers - having a skill level that acts as a multiplier for the impact of situation. Something that bell randomizers (3d6, dice pools, hell even 2d10 instead of 1d20) have baked in. 5e has an interesting take with Advantage/Disadvantage. Your ability and target does not shift, but the situation alters the probabilities involved, with probability changes (for better or worse) being small at both tails (small gain / diminishing return) and larger impacts to the middle. Low success rate, plus advantage, is still very low. High success rate, even with disadvantage, remains fairly high.

The greatest benefit of the flat randomizer is easy math - you know your chances without having to keep a result distribution in mind. but once you learn your randomizer (or keep a table or calcutation method handy), this is a minor benefit.

Segev
2016-08-01, 10:05 AM
I'm not sure why it would be assumed that an advantage that took a novice from 5% to 15% chance to succeed would do MORE for a middling-experienced character (base chance of success being roughly 45%).

Put a rope next to a wall, and the middling-experienced climber does now have a 55% (notably: greater than 50/50) chance of success, where he was more likely to fail than succeed, before. Why that should be significantly greater when it only made the novice climber go up to 15% is not clear to me.

If you honestly think it should push somebody to 100% chance of success, perhaps that somebody was already at 90% chance before the rope. If not, why do you think the guy with the 45% chance now jumps 55% (or something similar) while the guy with 5% chance only jumps 10%?

In a lot of cases, an aid or advantage will do MORE for a beginner than for an expert. The expert is already so good that the advantage is nearly meaningless to him, but it pushes the novice from "no chance" to "has a real chance."

I mean, if you like bell curves, more power to you, but I don't see a logical reason why it inherently is more "realistic" to see a novice get less out of an advantage than somebody who knows a little bit about what he's doing. Only if the novice is so awful that he doesn't even begin to know how to use his advantage would this be the case. And in that case, we're looking more at the difference between being trained or untrained in a trained-only skill: such an untrained novice would simply not be allowed to make the check.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-01, 10:34 AM
Ever played GURPS? Ever made a character with no Disadvantages? Ever played a "perfect" character; no flaws? No drawbacks? I contend that it can't be done, but even if it could, don't you think it would be boring? It'd be like playing Superman; nothing's a challenge to him. A flawless character has no roleplaying "sticks" to emphasise the "carrot". No stick, no carrot. Just numbers on a sheet. Sounds dull.

I'm not saying you have to roleplay tripping up crossing the street, or that you have a bad character if you don't. I'm saying that it's Tanis Half-Elvens' human-elf dichotomy and his heartbreak over loving two women equally that makes him an intetesting character. It's Aragorns burning desire to become King of Gondor conflicting with the quest to save the world as well as his forbidden love for Arwen that keeps us hooked. It's Solomon Kanes penitence and over-confidence that makes him human and not just an unstoppable force of pure willpower.

So instead of picking up on that one stupid example of tripping over your own feet, how about we take the point as intended and move on?

I've played HERO and various WoD games and so on, all of which fall back on the "get some extra points for taking some flaws for your character". It's only "impossible" in those systems in the sense that the characters starts off somewhat to considerably weaker (in HERO, depending on the setup, you can have literally half the starting character points if you take no Disads).

Somehow, whether those things ever actually come up in play, I've never had a problem roleplaying the actual character, or finding the character interesting.

While all the things you listed are interesting facets of those characters' stories, they don't define who those characters are -- and at least the first two are resolved eventually (but to some degree, they did tend to drag on to the point of seeming interminable).

To say that a character is defined by their weaknesses, is to say that the character cannot be allowed to grow or overcome or find closure on those weaknesses without losing their "defining characteristics" -- and so players, GMs, writers of fiction, and consumers of fiction, all become loath to let the characters grow or find resolution or otherwise actually change.

It just gets old. Things that should be seen simply as background are instead latched onto as "weaknesses" so that a character can be a "good character" by not "being perfect". Everything about the character that makes them more than a blank is turned into "Chekhov's stuff" -- if it's important to the character, it supposedly must be threatened, and the more important, the more dire the threat. It was stunningly refreshing when, in the second Avengers movie...


Hawkeye's family and home are used to reveal something about the character and move the story forward, and that's it, without the seemingly-obligatory "those dear to the character have been shown on screen, so now they must be threatened!" moment.


And quite often, such things just get in the way of the part of gaming that I enjoy the most -- problem solving. Give my characters a murder to solve, an artifact to recover, a spy to catch, a traitor to unmask, an invasion to stop, great. Expect my character to sit around wangsting... forget it.

Jay R
2016-08-01, 11:53 AM
So unless I plan to issue a direct formal refutation of someone's specific exact claim... I'm not supposed to comment on a subject at all?

No, not at all. Write anything you like. You have successfully refuted "some people" you claim say something nobody here believes. Congratulations!

But unless you reply to what we're talking about, you won't convince anyone we're mistaken.


The greatest benefit of the flat randomizer is easy math - you know your chances without having to keep a result distribution in mind. but once you learn your randomizer (or keep a table or calcutation method handy), this is a minor benefit.

Exactly. As I understand it, and as many people defend it, easy math was the primary reason for using a single mechanic for all rolls. And they may be right. But easy math is not an advantage for me. [This fact sometimes makes it hard for me to see what's valuable to others. We all have our blind spots.]


I mean, if you like bell curves, more power to you, but I don't see a logical reason why it inherently is more "realistic" to see a novice get less out of an advantage than somebody who knows a little bit about what he's doing. Only if the novice is so awful that he doesn't even begin to know how to use his advantage would this be the case. And in that case, we're looking more at the difference between being trained or untrained in a trained-only skill: such an untrained novice would simply not be allowed to make the check.

Because

I've seen how much advantage a good pair of climbing boots gives to a new mountain climber, to an experienced mountain climber, and to a great climber.
I've seen how much advantage a buckler gives to a new fencer, to an average fencer, and to a great fencer.
I've seen how much advantage a calculator is on an algebra test for a poor student, and average student, and an excellent student.
I've seen how much a grammar chart for a Latin exam helps a poor student, an average student, and a great student.
I've seen how much a better glove helps a poor baseball player, and average baseball player, and a great baseball player.


I could try to justify it on theoretical grounds. The probability of failure at most things is the combination of a great many independent random variables. Take climbing. How well did you grab each handhold, how did you turn your ankle on each step, how balanced were you moment by moment, etc.? And the sum of a large number of independent random variables has a Normal (bell-shaped) distribution, according to the Central Limit Theorem.

But it wasn't a theoretical result. I based it on experience. In most areas I've seen, a small useful tool is almost useless to somebody who can't do the task very well, is very useful to somebody who has a good chance of failure and a good chance of success, and is not that necessary for somebody who can do the task most of the time without it.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-01, 12:11 PM
No, not at all. Write anything you like. You have successfully refuted "some people" you claim say something nobody here believes. Congratulations!

But unless you reply to what we're talking about, you won't convince anyone we're mistaken.



Sometimes I just want to comment on the subject, without entering into a formal refutation of a specific person.

Why do you assume that every post has to be a refutation of someone else's post?

JellyPooga
2016-08-01, 12:15 PM
And quite often, such things just get in the way of the part of gaming that I enjoy the most -- problem solving.

And herein lies a fundamental difference between yours and my gaming outlook.

For me, the greatest enjoyment I have roleplaying is playing and resolving those weaknesses; that emotional finale where the son of the man you murdered in a blood-rage comes for vengeance, the shock of the betrayal by someone you loved or trusted, the consequences of holding to your oath, even if it means your own death.

Problem solving is an enjoyable part of the game, but I can do that in other types of game, from boardgames to computer games to picking up a puzzle magazine and spending an afternoon doing crosswords and sudoku. RPGs are about the RP, the game comes second (for me).

Weakness comes in all forms; not just physical or mental deficiency, but in things that are often perceived as good traits to have. For example; being generous, having a righteous moral code of conduct or having dependents (a loved one, a child, etc.) is just as much a weakness, if not more so than suffering from bouts of madness, having a gimpy leg or a phobia. They have more impact for being "good" traits because the character doesn't see them as weakness and doesn't want to overcome them, unlike the "bad" traits which he might strive to control.

In games like GURPS or WoD, yeah, you can pick up disadvantages (or whatever the system calls them) for "extra points", but that's not the point; you can roleplay just as easily without them as you say. The important thing is that those weaknesses are being played, whatever form they take, because those weaknesses create interesting plot for both the player and the GM.

Take, for example, a Knight in shining armour. He's taken an oath to protect the innocent, etc etc, and when he finally confronts the bad guy, he's offered power in exchange for his services. The GM expected the Knight to either accept (breaking his oath) or attack (advancing the quest). Instead, the Knight surrenders; he has a half-baked plan to break out and rescue all the prisoners (the innocents he swore to protect), which he couldn't do while fighting the bad guy (perhaps they're suspended over a pool of lava or something else horribly clichéd and would die during the fight).

Whichever option the Knight takes, his oath, his weakness, advances not only the plot, but his own motivations develop. If he sacrifices the prisoners to kill the bad guy, he has to deal with the guilt; did he uphold his oath or not? What of the families of the prisoners? Will they seek justice? If he joins the bad guy, the plot and character alike can take a darker path than before. If his jail-break plan succeeds, he has to get those prisoners safely home, turning what might have been a dull trip home into an adventure in itself.

Without the knights oath, what have you got? A fairly routine boss fight with little incentive to rescue the prisoners and no moral quandry over the offer to join him. Sure, you can have those quandries, but just having that oath enhances, even encourages that style of play. By playing a character with a weakness, you're telling the GM what type of game you want to play with that character and that, with a good GM, can only make your gaming experience (and his; I love GMing for players with characters both they and I can engage with) more enjoyable.

If that ain't your bag, though, I get it. I just think you might be missing out. Happy gaming!

Segev
2016-08-01, 12:29 PM
In most areas I've seen, a small useful tool is almost useless to somebody who can't do the task very well, is very useful to somebody who has a good chance of failure and a good chance of success, and is not that necessary for somebody who can do the task most of the time without it.

Fair enough. In my experience, whether it gives a huge advantage or none to the newbie, a huge advantage or none to a middling-skilled user, and a huge advantage or none to the highly experienced expert varies based on what the advantage is, what the task is, and a number of other factors, such that a flat "curve" is a good approximation overall when you average them all out. Maybe not the best for any one task, but if you want finer grained simulation, you buy it with more complexity in the system.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-01, 01:01 PM
But since nobody in this thread has suggested anything that absurd, this statement doesn't refute anyone's point.

You need to refute what they actually say here, not some hypothetical absurd statement from "some people".


It's dealing with weakness. I find weakness more interesting than strength. The lower levels of human ability aren't usually modelled by RPGs and having things like rolling to walk over a curb remedies this.

Actually, yeah, someone in this thread made that hypothetical absurd statement, or at least implied it strongly enough to make that interpretation of their post ("characters are more interesting when they have to roll to walk over a curb") valid.


For me, the greatest enjoyment I have roleplaying is playing and resolving those weaknesses; that emotional finale where the son of the man you murdered in a blood-rage comes for vengeance, the shock of the betrayal by someone you loved or trusted, the consequences of holding to your oath, even if it means your own death.

...

Weakness comes in all forms; not just physical or mental deficiency, but in things that are often perceived as good traits to have. For example; being generous, having a righteous moral code of conduct or having dependents (a loved one, a child, etc.) is just as much a weakness, if not more so than suffering from bouts of madness, having a gimpy leg or a phobia. They have more impact for being "good" traits because the character doesn't see them as weakness and doesn't want to overcome them, unlike the "bad" traits which he might strive to control.

This is interesting to me, but a very different type of weakness from the one being discussed, which I believe tends to reduce stakes, diminish tension, and occupy player time and attention with things they rightly don't care about.

Jay R
2016-08-01, 09:30 PM
Sometimes I just want to comment on the subject, without entering into a formal refutation of a specific person.

Why do you assume that every post has to be a refutation of someone else's post?

I don't. My exact words were, "Write anything you like."

But I do assume that if you quote somebody, you are intending to reply to what they said and you quoted. When you quoted Jellypooga and then replied to a very different idea attributed to "some people", you left me believing that your intent was to comment on Jellypooga's point, but wound up attributing to him something he never supported. I was trying to point out that your response didn't reply to what you quoted.

When I just want to comment on the subject, without replying to a specific individual, I don't quote anybody.

goto124
2016-08-01, 09:56 PM
This is interesting to me, but a very different type of weakness from the one being discussed, which I believe tends to reduce stakes, diminish tension, and occupy player time and attention with things they rightly don't care about.

Could you elaborate on what type of weaknesses are being discussed, the kinds that diminish tension etc? I hope to learn how to use weaknesses in RP without making the whole game a frustrating mess.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-01, 10:44 PM
Could you elaborate on what type of weaknesses are being discussed, the kinds that diminish tension etc? I hope to learn how to use weaknesses in RP without making the whole game a frustrating mess.

I was referring to the example I quoted in that post, literally walking over a curb.

Actually, you made the same point pretty well yourself:


If I had to roll for drinking water and walking on streets, not only is that a lot of rolling, failing a roll is meaningless as I can just pick myself up right away with little consequence. Might as well take 20. And if failing to walk on a road consistently results in big things... come on, this is a game. When I fail I want to fail in an epic fight, not 'I walked on a road, broke my skull, and spent the rest of the game session in hospital'. Weaknesses help roleplay... up to a point. It's not a simple 'weakness = roleplay' equation, especially when the weakness happens so often and in utterly boring situations, with no interesting context to support it.

EDIT: If you're asking about "good weaknesses," JellyPooga has a post on their opinion (the one with the spoiler). Personally (and I'll keep this short because it's getting off-topic), I'm not interested in characters' weaknesses getting them into trouble as much as I am in their (perceived) strengths getting them into trouble, whether that's by biting off more than they can chew, over-reliance on their "strong suit" at the cost of other methods, or other flaws that emerge from the players, not from the character sheets. As an example, I find a character who's bad at stealth trying to sneak and getting caught less interesting than a character who's good at stealth trying to sneak, succeeding, and getting overextended, or stealing something that comes back to bite them, or abandoning their allies and paying the price later, and so on.