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View Full Version : DM Help How do you resolve issues between story and mechanics?



Silus
2017-07-19, 05:02 AM
I'll try to keep this brief.

How do you deal with things that would happen one way in a narrative but the mechanics of it don't lend themselves to that narrative?

For example: Stabbing someone in the back with a knife and leaving them to die. Now in D&D and Pathfinder, a dagger deals a piddly 1d4+Str which, when you think about it, isn't enough to even drop a bog-standard lvl 1 PC Wizard unless the stabber is like the Hulk or something (having around a +5 to Strength or something). But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

Frozen_Feet
2017-07-19, 05:20 AM
I rarely aim for particular narrative during a game, so I don't run into this issue very often. But I could also say that if I really want some particular outcome, I've chosen my ruleset beforehand to support it that so I can reach it within the rules.

Let's examine your own example of a "dagger in the back". In d20, you can perform a feint to render an opponent flatfooted so you can deal Sneak Attack damage. So instead of 1d4 + Str, you get 1d4 + Str + Xd6, which can be enough to drop even a high level character. Now, it's still not guaranteed to leave someone bleeding to death on the ground, but again, I'm not aiming for a particular narrative. For me, it's only important that a strike to the back can leave someone in that state, not that it will.

Majority of conflicts I run into are not between mechanics & story, they're between story & story when mechanics are incomplete or absent. That's when you need research, logic, and some gold rhetoric to convince other players that your vision is most correct for the situation at hand. When all else fails, flip a coin.

Earthwalker
2017-07-19, 05:29 AM
In my games always go with mechanics.

If its not possible mechanic wise for people to be stabbed and killed with a dagger to the back in the rules then that doesn't happen in my games (story).

Weird I know but that's how I do it.

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-19, 05:38 AM
I'll try to keep this brief.

How do you deal with things that would happen one way in a narrative but the mechanics of it don't lend themselves to that narrative?

For example: Stabbing someone in the back with a knife and leaving them to die. Now in D&D and Pathfinder, a dagger deals a piddly 1d4+Str which, when you think about it, isn't enough to even drop a bog-standard PC Wizard unless the stabber is like the Hulk or something (having around a +5 to Strength or something). But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

I'm not sure that you mean narrative in the sense of "story logic," but yes. There are things in the bizaare mechanics of D&D and offspring that produce bizaare results.

What would I do? Two step program:
1. Switch to a system that's less bizaare and allows me to do what makes sense without breaking anything.
2. Proceed to do what makes sense without breaking anything.

I don't know enough about what you need to suggest anything other than a personal favorite system and that's just unhelpful and unrequested.

But the problem is in the system not supporting your desired form of play. Plain and simple. You will either need to homebrew or change systems to fix this problem.

Darth Tom
2017-07-19, 05:41 AM
Probably a bit of an outlier due to the people I've played with, but in our games we would normally go by real-world logic first and make the mechanics fit. So in your situation we would look at that and say, "well that's kind of dumb, what would need to happen here?"

So in the knife in the back example, we might have followed a process like:
- first off we need it to be possible for the dagger to do that much damage, because of where it hits. So, is there some kind of "sneak attack" that maybe bypasses armour (and any dex-type bonuses, since the point is the victim isn't expecting it? If not, let's try to create one.
- second, it's not just that it's a surprise, it's a blow that is immediately crippling. So maybe treat it as similar to a targeted strike at the head (if relevant to the system), and fiddle about with the rules for debilitation such as concussion or unconsciousness.
- finally, make sure that everyone agrees that the new rule fits the game texture and seems reasonable.

As I say, I've played very different games to most people here. They were all with a group that were already real-life friends before playing, with all but one of us having never played a tabletop game anywhere else. That guy owned one copy of an ancient D&D players' (not DM's) handbook, and we ran several games just from that until I offered to make the Fallout pen and paper rules fit different settings. So our games were a kludge, but we didn't care because for us it was all about the fun of a shared story and adventure.

Frozen_Feet
2017-07-19, 05:56 AM
@Earthwalker: It's not any weirder than choosing to ditch the rules because there's some particular outcome you want.

---

Imagine if you tried to apply this "narrative" standard to any other sort of game, like soccer. Team A is winning, but the referee thinks them losing would make a better story, so they rig the game so ensure that happens.

It'd be different if we were talking of an actual rules dysfunction, where the rules don't work as advertized. But these kinds of conflicts aren't that, they're just one player disagreeing with the outcome the rules suggest. For example, in D&D, a high level character being able to survive a simple stab in the back is not a bug, it's a feature. Those characters are meant to be heroic enough that this doesn't happen to them! If you want the backstab to be crippling, either play lower-level characters or have the attacker be a thief or assassin who can achieve the desired effect.

It raises the question, why are you not using rules which would naturally allow for the outcome you want? Why are you not playing a game where you don't have to ignore the rules? It's not the dawn of time for the hobby anymore, you can go play freeform or storygames if the narrative's important to you and avert the conflict entirely

Silus
2017-07-19, 06:13 AM
It raises the question, why are you not using rules which would naturally allow for the outcome you want? Why are you not playing a game where you don't have to ignore the rules? It's not the dawn of time for the hobby anymore, you can go play freeform or storygames if the narrative's important to you and avert the conflict entirely

A very valid point and I agree that a more rules-light system would be better for solving issues like this overall.

I think a better overall question for this thread would be at what point does story trump rules in any given system. When should, if at all, the DM fudge or ignore certain rules for the sake of a better or more memorable plot? And, for the sake of argument, ignoring especially rules-light systems.

Zombimode
2017-07-19, 06:19 AM
Several Steps:

1. Make sure you actually are Aware of and understand all relevant rules for the Situation
This is a very important first step: before thinking about altering the System you should make sure that you fully understand the Options already provided by the System.
Oftentimes, conflicts (that is: a conflict between game-world Events and their rule representations) can be solved at this step.

2. Make sure you have a clear Vision on how to model game-world Action, Events and actors within the rules System.
Questions like: what is a average Joe? What do I mean with surprise attack? What is a master in a given field?
Recalibrate if possible.
A conflict can be solved in this step when the conflict existed only because of a inconsistent Vision or only under a specific Vision you are ok with recallibrating.

3. Make sure your assumptions about the situation do not contradict the facts of the situation.
Prima facie, why this is important is obvious: before thinking about Fixing a preceived Problem, make sure you actually understand the Situation fully.
But this step is a bit more involved: more underlying questions like "Do you think the game rules inform the reality of the game world? If yes, to what extend?" are important in this.

4. If the conflict is still there, make Alteration to the system (modify existing rules or adding new rules).



To take your example:

1. Are you aware of Coup de Grace rules? Maybe would be enough to satisfy your vision.

2. What is a "bog Standard wizard" that should be killed by pretty much anyone with a simple dagger? What is a "tough as nails fighter" that should be "put on the ground pretty handily" and under what circumstances exactly?

3. If a person who got stabbed by a dagger does not drop, maybe:
- the Person is just that tough
- the Person didn't actually got stabbed that seriously

4. Expand the Coup de Grace rules with: "a Coup de Grace receives a damage Bonus based on the size difference between the attacker and the target: 50 + sizeDiff*10, with sizeDiff := size(attacker) - size(target), with size: {Fine,Diminutive,Tiny,Small,Medium,Large,Huge,Garg antuan,Colossal} -> {0..8} and Fine -> 0, Diminutive -> 1, Tiny -> 2, Small -> 3, Medium -> 4, Large -> 5, Huge -> 6, Gargantuan -> 7, Colossal -> 8"

NichG
2017-07-19, 06:21 AM
I tend to design rules for my games, aiming at the story conceits which I want to work (and the ones I want to not work). Sometimes that means a dagger should put someone down, other times it means that it should be shrugged off, but the important thing is correctly determining which one will be true in a given situation.

So if there's a mismatch, I consider that a fixable bug in the rules design.

PhoenixPhyre
2017-07-19, 06:31 AM
There's also the fact that reality is way weirder than we think. Many people have survived way worse than a dagger in the back. Being shot in the head isn't instantly lethal a good percentage of the time. Most of the things we think we (non experts in the particular field) know about the real world, especially in areas like assassination, combat, etc, comes from movies or books and is shaky at best.

Not to mention that the game world is explicitly not our own. In D&D (as that is the system in the OP), high level beings are different by construction. The fictional universe demands that they can survive things normal commoners can't. Importing "real world" sensibilities does the fiction a disservice and creates these disconnects. Accept the universe for what it is and stop trying to make it "our universe, just with magic" and the whole problem goes away.

Mastikator
2017-07-19, 06:33 AM
I don't think table top roleplaying games should be treated like computer games, in a computer game if a rule does not permit an action then you can't do it, even if it would be possible if it were real. If you can do something in real life and the rules do not cover it then it's up to the game master to make something up, something that is better than "no there are no rules for getting stabbed in the kidney".

Frozen_Feet
2017-07-19, 07:06 AM
A very valid point and I agree that a more rules-light system would be better for solving issues like this overall.

This is false. It's not a matter of rules-light versus rules-heavy. It's about whether those rules support the outcomes you want. Rules-light games are not better at solving anything as a general rule, they're simply silent more often and leave things up for player interpretation.


I think a better overall question for this thread would be at what point does story trump rules in any given system. When should, if at all, the DM fudge or ignore certain rules for the sake of a better or more memorable plot? And, for the sake of argument, ignoring especially rules-light systems.

If you ask me, the answer would be "never", but that again comes with the cave-at of using a system from the get-go which can get you the results you want. As a general rule, RPGs suck at telling you an answer to this. More, the established metagame can differ or outright contradict the intent of the rules.

Let's take 3.5 D&D as an example. The rules as written are quite lethal. Severe damage to characters and equipment is quite common. The encounter guidelines establish that while the average encounter should be roughly equal to the party, 5% of encounters should be overwhelming, 15% should be harder than normal, 15% should be easier etc. The default way for acquiring character wealth is random treasure tables. In general, random elements are quite common and central to the game design.

Then we look at how players actually play and what sort of games they expect. Harsh consequences and equipment destruction are frowned upon. Encounters are always expected to be in the challenging "sweet spot", with deviation from this frowned upon. Random treasure has been replaced with Magic Mart and the expectation that characters have access to pretty much whatever equipment the players want. Randomness is frowned upon.

Fudging and breaking the rules, per se, are not encouraged. However, what is encouraged is a very particular reading of the rules which favor player characters and allows players to play "concept characters" with very particular abilities and story lines. At the same time, focus on GM's vision of "plot" is frowned upon, see any thread on railroading.

Compare this to an OSR game, such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess. At the root of it, LotFP uses many of the same rules conventions as d20 D&D, as it's based on OGL. However, the metagame and marketing pins it clearly as a horror game. The notions of fudging, story, railroading etc. GM-centric plot are still frowned upon, but the favoritism towards player characters is nearly absent. This naturally leads to very different outcomes than the player-centric metagame of D&D 3.5.

And here's the joke: you could take LotFP metagame and import it to D&D, or vice versa. It wouldn't break the rules. It wouldn't even be particularly hard. 95% of the difference is in scenario design, that is, how the actual play situation is set up and how the players approach it.

And that should guide you toward the answer to your question: it's a matter of preference, varying based on what is seen as a "better story". The more expansive a system gets, the more different things can be done with it. There are better and worse ways to use various games, but rarely a single best way.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-19, 07:23 AM
At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

Story always trumps the rules in my games. After all, to me, the so called rules are just vague suggestions of how to handle something mechanical should it come up. So if I want character Ebinerzer to die from one dagger hit to the back...it happens.

Though, should I want to at least make it ''look'' like I'm ''following the rules'', for like a group of hostile players, there are Three Options:

1.Well, you just do a very low magic, very nitty gritty game. Everyone is weak, even the PC's. So everyone has like 1-5 hit points. So most commoner type NPCs only have at most two hit points. Then a normal dagger stab can kill them.

2.You can jump through the hoops with wacky extreme optimization to make yourself (or the hostile players) happy. Poison is an easy way to kill a character, as are a couple spells like sleep. Or you can go the route of ''the killer is has a dagger +1, Strength +2, weapon focus, sneak attack and whatever else can make them ''mechanically rules legal'' to do like a minimum of ten points of damage. At any level beyond 1st this should not be a problem, though it can be a bit trickily at 1st level.

3.Is by far what I often do: run and extremely high powered, high magic, ultimate game. So it's a bit effortless to have (anything) pop in, be ''rules legal'' to make the hostile players happy, and do (anything).

NichG
2017-07-19, 08:37 AM
This brings up another point I suppose, which is consistency. If an unresisted dagger to the kidneys kills someone, then the expectation moving forward amongst the players is going to be that that will remain true. That's the difference between altering the mechanics for sake of reducing dissonance between the table's expectations and what actually happens, and altering the mechanics to contrive a specific outcome that you as DM want. You should be willing for the change you make to be called upon from either side of the screen.

goto124
2017-07-19, 09:02 AM
Also, wouldn't a dagger to the heart be more effective?

Anymage
2017-07-19, 09:02 AM
This brings up another point I suppose, which is consistency. If an unresisted dagger to the kidneys kills someone, then the expectation moving forward amongst the players is going to be that that will remain true. That's the difference between altering the mechanics for sake of reducing dissonance between the table's expectations and what actually happens, and altering the mechanics to contrive a specific outcome that you as DM want. You should be willing for the change you make to be called upon from either side of the screen.

This. If a rule change is something that can be used against PCs, odds are they'll try and find a way to use it in their favor soon enough. Dagger-in-the-kidneys being Sneak Attack's whole thing, I'd rather just have the stabber wind up being a rogue than having all PCs search for justification why they should get bonus sneak attack dice.

Tanarii
2017-07-19, 09:04 AM
Usually mechanics win. First of all, because most of the time, it's a player declaring 'I stab him in the kidneys and he bleeds out'. What they actually means 'I try to attack him from behind'. They're presupposing the result of the action. This is a very unsubtle version of that, but players do this ALL the time, then get upset that the result doesn't match their declared result, and it's 'ridiculous'. Sometimes DMs do too.

But more importantly, the point of the mechanics is to stop players and GMs from just deciding what happens in an unfair way. Just deciding what happens for certain things* is often not balanced, and can ends up with resentments. There needs to be a way to fairly adjudicate them. Otherwise for just declaring to work, you need complete buy-in to the concept that whatever is declared happens, no take backs or serious arguing. And that the PCs are the most important thing.

Having recently read Apocalype World, that's why AW stresses those things. Otherwise it would never work. The players must be the most important thing ("be a fan of the player's characters"), NPCs are there to lose/die ("look through crosshairs"), and no take backs ("to do it, do it" and "if you do it, you do it").

That's not to say there aren't times where someone should just be stabbed in the throat and die, even in games like D&D where the combat rules don't do that. The combat rules are for fair fights that matter, so to speak.

*what things varies from game to game. But life and death actions are a common one.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-07-19, 09:07 AM
When should, if at all, the DM fudge or ignore certain rules for the sake of a better or more memorable plot? And, for the sake of argument, ignoring especially rules-light systems.

Never*.

*Except when the game you're playing is broken. You can ignore rules if they're badly worded and the wording allows a clearly unintended exploit.

ngilop
2017-07-19, 09:16 AM
I'll try to keep this brief.

How do you deal with things that would happen one way in a narrative but the mechanics of it don't lend themselves to that narrative?

For example: Stabbing someone in the back with a knife and leaving them to die. Now in D&D and Pathfinder, a dagger deals a piddly 1d4+Str which, when you think about it, isn't enough to even drop a bog-standard lvl 1 PC Wizard unless the stabber is like the Hulk or something (having around a +5 to Strength or something). But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?


This is the single most simple fix I have ever been able to reply to on these forums.

stop playing non real world physics based laws games.

If you see a dragon, that's not the game you want to be playing.

If you see giant bug that are the size of a battleship, that's not the game you want to be playing.

If you see magic or supernatural stuff of any sort, that's not the game you want to be playing.

If you see super powered beings, that's not the game you want to be playing.

For you see, in those games the in-game laws of physics and reality are NOT what is here on earth, so a guy getting stabbed in the kidney with a dagger might as well be just a scratch if he is according to that game world's definition of 'seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter'


This is actually my biggest pet peeve in all or RPGs and their respective players, complainging that the game world does not operate like we expect here in the real world. DUH why you expect a game that has giant fire-breathing flying lizards, creatures literally made out of pure evil, and such things as flying mountians as standard parts of existence to at some point submit to earth reality will never ever make any sense to me and I have never been able to wrap my head around why an alarming (to me) number of RPG players have this conception about gaming.

Earthwalker
2017-07-19, 09:17 AM
A very valid point and I agree that a more rules-light system would be better for solving issues like this overall.

I think a better overall question for this thread would be at what point does story trump rules in any given system. When should, if at all, the DM fudge or ignore certain rules for the sake of a better or more memorable plot? And, for the sake of argument, ignoring especially rules-light systems.

Never *

* - If the rules don't work for the story you are trying to tell, change the rules.

Oddly I didn't always think this but this is where I am now. The rules are there to protect the players so they know what can happen and so they can make informed choices.

Mastikator
2017-07-19, 10:32 AM
Also, wouldn't a dagger to the heart be more effective?

The heart is protected by the rib cage, so you might hit bone which is really really hard to cut through. A stab wound in the kidney is pretty much a death sentence even if you don't die right away. I suppose a heart stab would be faster (and therefore safer). Slitting someone's throat would probably be safer too since they won't be able to scream for help.
Yeah I'd probably go with the "slit throat" approach if I were doing a stealthy killer.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-07-19, 10:36 AM
I'd say it's acceptable as long as it doesn't really affect the players-- if it's a background plot element, or NPC-on-NPC action, if the players are observing from afar, what have you. The rules need to come out when the PCs themselves are part of the action, though. If they have the opportunity to alter the outcome*, you need to stick to the rules that govern that.

On a related note, this is why I often like games with "hero point" mechanics. I find that DM rule-breaking goes over a lot better when it's a formalized part of the game, and the players get compensation for it that they can use to swing things in their favor later. Doubly so if there's an option for the players to spend their own points to veto a proposed compel.


*As in, "they're present and not in chains or something," not "I as DM decided which way this will go."

Boci
2017-07-19, 10:39 AM
Worth noting, even in systems where people quickly become bullet and knife sponges, knifing someone and leaving them to die will rarely be modeled by the rules, and they'd likely skip the "bleeds out over the course of 20 minutes" and just go straight to dead. At least in my limited experience with systems.

kyoryu
2017-07-19, 11:01 AM
Eh, I'd frame it as a scene where the challenge was about getting to the guy. If you stick someone in the ribs with a knife, it's pretty close to foregone. In D&D, maybe a save vs. something to just be badly injured or something.

This falls, to me, under the chunky salsa rule - if something happens that would logically reduce you to the consistency of chunky salsa, you're dead. It doesn't do damage, we don't roll dice, you're just dead. Also known as "guillotines don't have damage dice."

The hit point rules and whatnot work under the presumption that you are dealing with people that are "in combat" and at least have an awareness of some sort of danger and that they may be attacked - even an attacker coming out from the darkness likely won't be totally unnoticed right before they strike. When you remove that assumption, I think it's fair to rule the game differently.

Opinions may vary, of course :)

Thrudd
2017-07-19, 11:14 AM
Never change the rules mid-game. Use rules that support the kind of game you want. That might mean playing with a different system than D&D. The players need to know how the rules will work to make good game decisions. If you want a game that has flexible outcomes based on narrative or cinematic conventions, there are systems for that. If you want a very realistic game there are systems for that.

In D&D, if someone gets attacked and they do not lose all their hit points, then they were not dealt a deadly blow.

So if you try to stab someone in the back and you do 6 damage, but they had 12 hp, then it should be narrated that the kidney stab was not successful- the target got out if the way just in time and maybe only got scratched. Someone with a lot of HP is a person who is not likely to be caught by a single fatal stab until well into the story after being worn down by near misses and tiring fights. When they lose their last HP, that's when their kidney got stabbed.

With this in mind, you can decide how many HP most people in your world ought to have.

goto124
2017-07-19, 11:17 AM
Thank goodness for Coup de Grace.

I found this online while searching about Coup de Grace:


I'm just imagining the assassin who's cleaving away at this guy's neck instead of slitting it while screaming: "I'm sorry! Blame the rules! I can't just assassinate you! I'm so sorry!"

CharonsHelper
2017-07-19, 11:31 AM
A very valid point and I agree that a more rules-light system would be better for solving issues like this overall.

There are plenty of crunchy systems which are plenty lethal.

D&D isn't one of them.

kyoryu
2017-07-19, 11:49 AM
There are plenty of crunchy systems which are plenty lethal.

D&D isn't one of them.

In that respect. In many respects, D&D is quite deadly. You go from "perfectly healthy" directly to dead in most cases, Save or Die is a thing (in most editions), etc. Even in GURPS, if you lose a fight at most tech levels, unconsciousness is the likely result, not death.

It's only not deadly for mid-to-high level characters beating on each other with pointy things, and if you win.

NichG
2017-07-19, 12:12 PM
In that respect. In many respects, D&D is quite deadly. You go from "perfectly healthy" directly to dead in most cases, Save or Die is a thing (in most editions), etc. Even in GURPS, if you lose a fight at most tech levels, unconsciousness is the likely result, not death.

It's only not deadly for mid-to-high level characters beating on each other with pointy things, and if you win.

I'd say D&D (3.5ed and 4ed, at least) is fairly safe compared to many other systems. In general, the standard for 'equal' encounters means that the PCs are pretty much guaranteed a win but have to spend a chunk of resources in the process. D&D is designed more around grinding down characters than sudden death. The high emphasis people place on Save or Die effects in higher optimization play is a recognition that the system is structured this way, making attacking hitpoints a very inefficient prospect, and so finding the few things that break that design - so from that perspective, SoD and SoL are all that matter. But if you were to take a random assortment of Monster Manual foes, even at high level only maybe 20% of encounters would actually feature a SoD with a threatening DC.

So to put it another way, D&D can be run in a consistently lethal fashion, but it takes an active intent to do so on behalf of the DM.

On the other hand, L5R with its death spiral mechanics and 'generally you hit' balance point can have a party of Insight Rank 2 samurai cut down in two rounds by a couple of bandits with bows hiding in the woods 50 meters away with very little chance to do anything about it. If you aren't careful, PCs can die like flies.

Slipperychicken
2017-07-19, 12:18 PM
I try and find a game where the two line up. For attacks and damage I really like ORE (Wild Talents) and Shadowrun. Mainly it's for their non-scaling health and injury.

In ORE, you can give someone +1 for a situation like getting the jump on someone, and that really matters both in terms of how it resolves and how much it can hurt. Using a weapon to called shot someone's head from stealth can easily fill up their head's damage boxes, killing or KOing instantly.

LibraryOgre
2017-07-19, 12:34 PM
So, let's talk Hackmaster.

Dagger damage is 2d4p; in theory, a single dagger thrust can kill a dragon, but that's going to require a lot of penetration rolls to go your way. However, Hackmaster also has something called the Threshhold of Pain; usually, it's around 40% of your maximum HP. If that is done in a single hit, you have to make a Trauma save (half your Constitution or less on a d20) or fall down, helpless, for between 5 seconds and several minutes.

So, the average human mage is going to have 22.5 HP at 1st level (10 for size, 10 for constitution, and 2.5 for their 1d4 HD). Their ToP will be 6.75 (1st level mages are only 31% of their max HP), so 7 or more damage will force a Trauma save, which requires a 5 or less on a d20. 7 damage is a bit outside the usual range of damage on 2d4p (2d4p averages out to 6 damage), but not so bad that you'd cry foul. If the mage rolls a 7 on their Trauma save, they're down for 10 seconds, which is enough time for anyone to do a Coup de Grace and kill them.

If we're dealing with a thief, thief multiclass, rogue, assassin, or a couple types of cleric it gets even easier, since the d4s will penetrate on 3 or 4, instead of just on 4, and the mage who gets a 6+ will be down long enough for a thief, assassin, mage/thief or fighter/thief (or a couple types of cleric) to CdG him.

In general, if there's a conflict between story and mechanics, I look to see if something is remotely feasible by mechanics, even if it's not the usual case. You're not going to be able to leave a troll lying there, bleeding out, because that's not what happens with a troll. You might be able to pull it off with a dwarf, and I might elide a bit of the mechanics to allow it to work, especially if it doesn't actively screw over a player. Did the party arrive to find the keep was sacked two days ago, and the only one left alive is a half-dead dwarf who gets to croak out a few words before he dies? Yeah, the mechanics probably don't allow that (he would have stabilized and started to heal, or died of his unstabilized wounds, BTB), but I might.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-07-19, 01:04 PM
In the knife to the back example I'd generally probably look at the coup the gras rules, or sneak attack as suggested. If you don't qualify for that mechanically then it's something you cannot do. This is something the developers thought about and limited on purpose, because you don't want every combat encounter to be over whenever someone thinks of saying "now I aim like really really well". An example of when I would go with story over rules is if the mechanics don't really matter anymore. You've caught up to the wicked emperor. He's not resisting, he greets you, with his back still turned. "So this is it, isn't it? I deserve what you're getting me." You can kill the emperor, but it's kind of anticlimatic if you need to beat him with your sword for two minutes to get it done. So here, sure, dagger to the back, walk away.

In short: if the story decision is a shortcut around challenges posed by the rules, I'd follow the rules. If the rule don't add challenge in any way, just weirdness or annoyance, screw the rules.

Jay R
2017-07-19, 01:05 PM
This is a question about judgment, and different people have different approaches. Neither this thread or any other will find the solution, since the already-known solution is that we don't agree.

I believe that the extreme approach in either direction is flawed. "Story always trumps rules" and "Never change the rules" are equally over-simplistic.

But just as you shouldn't take the opinion of the people who support these extremes, you shouldn't take mine, either.

Because there are players with both these positions, and thousands of gradations in between, the correct answer is for the group you're playing with to talk it out, and come up with a playstyle that they will enjoy together, and ignore the contrary opinions of every player who is not in the game.

Thrudd
2017-07-19, 03:33 PM
Thank goodness for Coup de Grace.

I found this online while searching about Coup de Grace:

In AD&D 1e, assassins had a class ability to auto-kill someone (a humanoid only) with a back stab(sneak attack), that worked a percentage of the time depending on their level and the level of who they were trying to kill.

Tanarii
2017-07-19, 03:49 PM
In AD&D 1e, assassins had a class ability to auto-kill someone (a humanoid only) with a back stab(sneak attack), that worked a percentage of the time depending on their level and the level of who they were trying to kill.
Technically they had to either choose Assassination OR Sneak Attack. (Or a regular attack.)

There's also great debate on if it required an attack roll or not. Google it and check out some of the dragonsfoot threads on it if you want to see what a rancorous rules debate really looks like. :smallwink:

Darth Ultron
2017-07-19, 04:31 PM
This brings up another point I suppose, which is consistency. If an unresisted dagger to the kidneys kills someone, then the expectation moving forward amongst the players is going to be that that will remain true. That's the difference between altering the mechanics for sake of reducing dissonance between the table's expectations and what actually happens, and altering the mechanics to contrive a specific outcome that you as DM want. You should be willing for the change you make to be called upon from either side of the screen.

Some hostile players do try this ''all is fair'' exploit and say ''if the DM does it, all the players can do it''. In a good game the DM can just say ''nope'', but even in other games it is easy to ''make things'' so the DM can do them but the players can't. Like ''you can get a death attack if you drain the magic from a valuable item you own and care for deeply and doing so puts a cures on the character so that they may never own or use such a magic item again''. And suddenly hostile ''all is fair'' player won't want to give up is portable hole..forever...just to get a one time death attack.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-19, 05:52 PM
I'll try to keep this brief.

How do you deal with things that would happen one way in a narrative but the mechanics of it don't lend themselves to that narrative?

For example: Stabbing someone in the back with a knife and leaving them to die. Now in D&D and Pathfinder, a dagger deals a piddly 1d4+Str which, when you think about it, isn't enough to even drop a bog-standard lvl 1 PC Wizard unless the stabber is like the Hulk or something (having around a +5 to Strength or something). But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

Your question isn't necessarily a "narrative" one.

First, to me, this is more about system not doing a good job of reflecting the fictional world -- it's not about what would make a "better story", it's about what makes sense as the outcome when an ostensibly normal human being is shivved from behind in the kidney.

Second, this is more of a problem in a D&D-like mechanics, than in some other systems. D&D's massively scaling hit point system produces some funky funky results, and you've hit on one here.

kyoryu
2017-07-19, 06:09 PM
Second, this is more of a problem in a D&D-like mechanics, than in some other systems. D&D's massively scaling hit point system produces some funky funky results, and you've hit on one here.

It's also an issue of applying combat mechanics to non-combat situations.

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-19, 06:45 PM
It's also an issue of applying combat mechanics to non-combat situations.

The HP issue stands, though.

Getting stabbed in the kidneys by some guy is 0% less combat-ish than triggering a trap that launches a knife into your kidney. But the second would DEFINITELY use your HP pool.

So... no. HP and its oddnesses are not a combat-only scenario. Poison can do HP damage even if administered through food. Traps go to hitpoints. All injury, not just combat injury, is handled through HP. Which is one of the major problems.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-19, 06:52 PM
It's also an issue of applying combat mechanics to non-combat situations.

It's a case of applying damage mechanics to a character taking damage, and getting wonky results because the mechanics are wonky.

oxybe
2017-07-19, 07:37 PM
In the knife to the back example I'd generally probably look at the coup the gras rules, or sneak attack as suggested. If you don't qualify for that mechanically then it's something you cannot do. This is something the developers thought about and limited on purpose, because you don't want every combat encounter to be over whenever someone thinks of saying "now I aim like really really well". An example of when I would go with story over rules is if the mechanics don't really matter anymore. You've caught up to the wicked emperor. He's not resisting, he greets you, with his back still turned. "So this is it, isn't it? I deserve what you're getting me." You can kill the emperor, but it's kind of anticlimatic if you need to beat him with your sword for two minutes to get it done. So here, sure, dagger to the back, walk away.

In short: if the story decision is a shortcut around challenges posed by the rules, I'd follow the rules. If the rule don't add challenge in any way, just weirdness or annoyance, screw the rules.

The TLDR is is pretty much my take on it too.


It's a case of applying damage mechanics to a character taking damage, and getting wonky results because the mechanics are wonky.

Yes and no. D&D's HP mechanics work fine if you're trying to emulate the protagonists being able to survive stuff a normal man could not though luck, toughness, divine interference and whatnot. It's not trying to emulate reality.

What's going on is we're applying D&D's heroic (or at least non-mundane) character rulesets and trying to force it to conform on how it would affect a normal mundane person.

This is narrative disconnect and, I would say, an extension/corollary/tangential discussion to the "Guy at the Gym fallacy"

TLDR for those not in the know: The Guy at the Gym fallacy posits that because non-casters (like fighters, rogues, barbarians and even partial casters like paladins & rangers can fall into this) generally do things that we can do, they cannot do things we cannot do. It's that simple!

This is at the very least tangential because we're applying that same line of thought: "because these characters are humans/humanoids and do things we IRL humans can do, they cannot do things we cannot do!"

Except the PCs are not IRL humans, they are protagonists in a fantasy world of elves and dragons and magic and tentacle poop monsters. By the book they can go "bat poop & sulfur = magic handgrenade!" or "falling damage caps at 20d6... I have 121 HP, see you all at the bottom! jumps off cliff", to me makes it pretty clear player characters and special NPCs are outside of the norm of "normal folks" and when making decisions a GM should take that into consideration.

If an NPC has a PC bound and gagged helpless, or sleeping well then coup de grace or whatever applicable rules take effect

If an NPC has a PC in a headlock with a knife at their throat? PCs can still move about so they can try to resist getting shanked and their vitals are missed should they try to escape the hold.

If a PC has any munande NPC in a headlock and threatens with a knife, should they go for the shiv, then the NPC is likely dead because they're a normal person and don't follow PC rules. Most of my non-combat NPCs are like this.

If a PC has a "special" NPC in a headlock and threatens with a knife... The NPC may struggle and try to break the hold to escape or might just try to take the hit and play dead.

It all depends on the situation and the characters involved as there is no size fits all answer.

1337 b4k4
2017-07-19, 08:21 PM
My approach is generally as follows:

The rules of the game exist primarily to facilitate playing the Game. So if those rules are interfering with the running or enjoyment of the game, then those rules are subject to temporary or permanent modification. In the case of your character stabbed in the kidney, the first question is why do I want this character bleeding out if the rules don't naturally allow for that? Are they an NPC character, who serves as an emotional trigger or adventure hook for the PCs, the wizened librarian who due to the fact the NPCs are built with PC rules (why 3.x D&D? why?) has a lot of hit point in order to justify his high ranks of knowledge being stabbed by ne'er-do-well henchman number 306? Judicious and liberal interpretation of coup de grace rules (or simple fiat if they were unavailable) means the NPC is bleeding out, because that serves the Game.

Are they a PC character that I want to have killed off because my plot demands it to be so? Then the rules will probably hold because my plot overriding the autonomy of the PCs doesn't serve the Game.

Are they aforementioned ne'er-do-well henchman whom the PCs have spotted and snuck up on unawares in the crowded market place and the Assassin PC wants to get their Assassins Creed on and an actual fight is a foregone conclusion? Then again, there will probably be liberal interpretations of rules or modifications / new rules made up for this exact scenario because it serves the Game.

Is the henchman actually part of a well laid trap by BBEG and an ambush is about to be sprung? Then no, the mechanics rule, because the drama of the coming fight serves the game better.

All of that said, my other general principle is that the rules are for the PCs. They're designed to tell the stories of PCs, and while they can be crafted to work for NPCs and monsters, the more "fantastical" you get with your rules, the more punishment your players are supposed to be able to take, the less deadly any single shot in combat is, the less those rules should be used for NPCs, because NPCs aren't who the Game is about.

FreddyNoNose
2017-07-19, 08:27 PM
This is a question about judgment, and different people have different approaches. Neither this thread or any other will find the solution, since the already-known solution is that we don't agree.

I believe that the extreme approach in either direction is flawed. "Story always trumps rules" and "Never change the rules" are equally over-simplistic.

But just as you shouldn't take the opinion of the people who support these extremes, you shouldn't take mine, either.

Because there are players with both these positions, and thousands of gradations in between, the correct answer is for the group you're playing with to talk it out, and come up with a playstyle that they will enjoy together, and ignore the contrary opinions of every player who is not in the game.

This the real deal. People need to find something they like and people of like minded play. My game is a killer when compared to the narrative style. A narrative player would hate it.

RazorChain
2017-07-19, 08:30 PM
In that respect. In many respects, D&D is quite deadly. You go from "perfectly healthy" directly to dead in most cases, Save or Die is a thing (in most editions), etc. Even in GURPS, if you lose a fight at most tech levels, unconsciousness is the likely result, not death.

It's only not deadly for mid-to-high level characters beating on each other with pointy things, and if you win.

That's because Gurps supposes that you don't die instantly in many cases, even when you fail your death save by less than 3 you are dying not dead and could be saved in a modern day ER or with magic. If you couple Gurps unconsciousness with the bleeding rules then you are pretty much a goner unless there is someone there to give you medical aid.


As for the original post: If the mechanics of a system don't suit your need then either change the rules or change the system. I gravitate towards systems that play to my realistic expectations EVEN when dragons exist because you can have best of both worlds.

AMFV
2017-07-19, 08:51 PM
Well it helps if you think about the rules as abstractions that are being used to represent more complicated things. HP for example, may not only represent physical health, but is a combination of things. And when it's used is when all those things are in play or to represent the character's actions on the setting. Basically the rules are abstractions to give the Players was to interact with the setting in a relatively fair way. Or at least in a way that they can understand.

Take the game of Monopoly, for example, presumably the background setting is a world very similar to ours, but property buying is incredibly simplified. There are no inspectors no renovations, property stays a static cost rather than altering with the market. So even if you imagining that you were a tycoon and all those things were going on in the background the rules don't represent them. But it's easy to assume that they're actually happening and that that the rules abstractions are just that, they're abstractions, they're a simplified set of rules for dealing with the world so that the game isn't a super complicated physics model.

So I would say that I fall more in line with the "Story" side, but not really in any strong way, mostly because I don't think that the rules really exist in world (except for a few exception games where they do) the rules exist to help you and the players tell a story, they're abstractions that are used to model the real world.

I would say that a level 20 Wizard could die from being stabbed, I wouldn't necessarily worry about how the rules dealt with that particular issue, because again they're abstractions. They're designed to produce a fair combat environment for the players, or if not fair, at least a solid one. I do the same kind of thing with setting breaking spells. For example, Rez spells work as written for the players, but often fail for NPCs, often fail for setting characters, and sometimes produce negative results. Now I don't want to have that happen to the players, because they're not dealing with that, but the world does have those aspects, the same way as Monopoly world has inspectors and zoning laws, but they're simplified out in terms of the playing model.

NichG
2017-07-19, 08:54 PM
Some hostile players do try this ''all is fair'' exploit and say ''if the DM does it, all the players can do it''. In a good game the DM can just say ''nope'', but even in other games it is easy to ''make things'' so the DM can do them but the players can't. Like ''you can get a death attack if you drain the magic from a valuable item you own and care for deeply and doing so puts a cures on the character so that they may never own or use such a magic item again''. And suddenly hostile ''all is fair'' player won't want to give up is portable hole..forever...just to get a one time death attack.

It'd come back and bite you. I would absolutely take a deal that permanently draining the magic from an item type is a guaranteed kill to punch above my weight class in plot-significant situations. So much for the demon king threatening the land, the great wyrm manipulating the politics of a continent, or the judgmental god condemning souls to the wall of the Faithless; a pity for them that they met someone with a portable hole and nothing to lose. But mostly it'd be because at that point, we've moved away from playing a game and having fun to some kind of dominance fight.

If I take a Darth Ultron style point of view, then while every player is basically a 'bad player' who wants to use their cool tricks and optimization to win but can't stand when enemies use it against them, every DM is a 'bad DM' who wants to have their cool scenes and clever stories but can't stand when players use the things they invoke for that against them. A DM who says 'okay, you guys should feel threatened because this guy has a crossbow trained on you from point blank range, and in this situation that will instantly kill you' but then says 'no, this NPC isn't threatened by you holding him hostage with a crossbow at point blank range because it can't kill him in one shot' is pulling the same kind of stuff as your usual examples of bad player habits.

oxybe
2017-07-19, 09:14 PM
Don't try using logic on DU, it's been tried in the past and has failed spectacularly.

See, the problem is that you, as a person, hold DMs to certain standards of quality. DMs, in our Darth Ultron Alternate Universe, are held to no standards. DMs can only do good in the DUAU, because regulations &, standards are what you impose on players and not the DM, so the DM can do what they want without having to worry about those bad players (and the players are always bad in the DUAU) disagreeing with their, the DM, particular vision.

AMFV
2017-07-19, 09:19 PM
Don't try using logic on DU, it's been tried in the past and has failed spectacularly.

See, the problem is that you, as a person, hold DMs to certain standards of quality. DMs, in our Darth Ultron Alternate Universe, are held to no standards. DMs can only do good in the DUAU, because regulations &, standards are what you impose on players and not the DM, so the DM can do what they want without having to worry about those bad players (and the players are always bad in the DUAU) disagreeing with their, the DM, particular vision.

Well to be fair, Darth Ultron is coming from a position where the DM IS a position of authority. Like the equivalent of being an Umpire at a game, or Master of Ceremonies, or the Banker in Monopoly. So naturally that's going to skew objections to DMs in their favor. The same way as disputes with legal authorities tend to involve proving that you're in the right more than disputes with people who are not in positions of authority.

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-19, 09:33 PM
Well to be fair, Darth Ultron is coming from a position where the DM IS a position of authority. Like the equivalent of being an Umpire at a game, or Master of Ceremonies, or the Banker in Monopoly. So naturally that's going to skew objections to DMs in their favor. The same way as disputes with legal authorities tend to involve proving that you're in the right more than disputes with people who are not in positions of authority.

This is true inasmuch as the Umpire thinks every player is a conniving little punk trying to ruin the game, the banker views everyone else as a filthy cheater, or a cop percieves every single person besides himself as a criminal waiting to happen. The only exceptions to these are those who cowtow to their authority.

DU doesn't just state that DMs have positions of authority. But that they're pretty much a god among poor misguided idiots. His view of players has consistently been shown to be... not even slightly respectful.

AMFV
2017-07-19, 09:46 PM
This is true inasmuch as the Umpire thinks every player is a conniving little punk trying to ruin the game, the banker views everyone else as a filthy cheater, or a cop percieves every single person besides himself as a criminal waiting to happen. The only exceptions to these are those who cowtow to their authority.

DU doesn't just state that DMs have positions of authority. But that they're pretty much a god among poor misguided idiots. His view of players has consistently been shown to be... not even slightly respectful.

Right, but bringing external baggage about Darth Ultron, doesn't mean that you get to simply discount his discussion. Particularly when people who are far more moderate, historically are voicing fairly similar perceptions...

Here we have a few possibilities:

A.) The People he plays with are conniving punks. And he enjoys that. Gygax certainly enjoyed a lot of direct competition between players and DMs, if you'll read some of his DM advice articles they back that particular opinion.

B.) He's being misrepresented and isn't all bad.

C.) He's a jerk.

In any case. This discussion doesn't really go much to the actual questions being asked here. It is entirely external baggage and really we shouldn't be encouraging that at all. I've been on these forums for a long while, and I've seen when people are treated badly over and over again because they don't have the same ability to present their views as others, we should be better than that.



As far as his original argument goes. The idea that the world works differently for the DM and the Players, that's pretty much what I said, just with less snark about player treachery. I basically stated that in my mind the rules are approximations. Mostly there for the benefit of the players, so that they can interact with the story in an organized framework.

NichG
2017-07-19, 09:59 PM
Well I tend to agree with DU on the point that players are eminently capable of self-sabotaging their own ability to enjoy the game in various ways, though I wouldn't generally put it in as absolute terms as he does. But here's a case where DMs also tend to self-sabotage, and its preventable by recognizing that its the same kind of ego and dominance-proving behavior but just on the other side of the screen.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-19, 10:22 PM
Yes and no. D&D's HP mechanics work fine if you're trying to emulate the protagonists being able to survive stuff a normal man could not though luck, toughness, divine interference and whatnot. It's not trying to emulate reality.


And thus it creates wonky results -- it only "succeeds" in so much as it's trying to emulate the farcical wonkiness of that sort of fiction.




What's going on is we're applying D&D's heroic (or at least non-mundane) character rulesets and trying to force it to conform on how it would affect a normal mundane person.

This is narrative disconnect and, I would say, an extension/corollary/tangential discussion to the "Guy at the Gym fallacy"

TLDR for those not in the know: The Guy at the Gym fallacy posits that because non-casters (like fighters, rogues, barbarians and even partial casters like paladins & rangers can fall into this) generally do things that we can do, they cannot do things we cannot do. It's that simple!


In so much as the "Guy at the Gym Fallacy" is even a real thing, it has more to do with D&D's problems with wild internal incoherence (not the Edwardian meaning, but the actual meaning) than with anything observers are mistakenly doing. D&D itself, though rules and fiction, tends to present a setting in which characters are only surpass "the mundane" in so much as they can cast spells or otherwise work magic... it doesn't present a great deal of superhuman physical capacity, or the like -- no jumping over tall buildings or punching freight trains to a stop... so much so that when it does ("no really, I can step into this shadow and instantly out another one way over there, but it's not magic at all"), many observers will balk.




This is at the very least tangential because we're applying that same line of thought: "because these characters are humans/humanoids and do things we IRL humans can do, they cannot do things we cannot do!"

Except the PCs are not IRL humans, they are protagonists in a fantasy world


Narrative causality is a pox on fiction and gaming.

Tanarii
2017-07-19, 10:28 PM
As I said up thread, the biggest problem here is if someone is presupposing the resulting outcome of an action, instead of declaring an action.

On reflecting it sounds more like the DM is doing it, although my initial assumption was it was a player. Because players often try to declare results instead of intended actions. OTOH DMs actually do it far more often, because a lot of times that's what they're supposed to be doing : using DM-fiat to decide the result of things that happen in game.

The weirdness arises if the DM (or player) is presupposing the result when it should be handled by normal combat rules.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-19, 10:53 PM
As I said up thread, the biggest problem here is if someone is presupposing the resulting outcome of an action, instead of declaring an action.

On reflecting it sounds more like the DM is doing it, although my initial assumption was it was a player. Because players often try to declare results instead of intended actions. OTOH DMs actually do it far more often, because a lot of times that's what they're supposed to be doing : using DM-fiat to decide the result of things that happen in game.

The weirdness arises if the DM (or player) is presupposing the result when it should be handled by normal combat rules.


So does that mean in your approach, a character who can't do enough damage to kill another character in a single hit, can't ever surprise the other character from behind and stab them in a lethal spot?

Or am I misreading you?

Tanarii
2017-07-19, 11:58 PM
You're misreading me. I'm saying it sounds likes someone is declaring "I stab him in the kidneys and he bleeds out" instead of "I try to stab him".

There may be times when stabbing someone results in just stabbing them in the kidneys and they bleed out just. No dice involved. But in many circumstances, there are rules to determines what happens when you try to stab someone, and they should apply.

Generally speaking, and in many games (but not all), as a player you should declare what you attempting to do, and the rules cover what happens. Not declare what happens. That can also apply to the GM. Athough they often expected to directly declare results in many circumstances. The DM is also (depending on the game, and for DnD the edition) supposed to decide if a resolution rule needs to come into play at all.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-20, 12:18 AM
It'd come back and bite you. I would absolutely take a deal that permanently draining the magic from an item type is a guaranteed kill to punch above my weight class in plot-significant situations.

Well, that would be fine with me. I player being smart and clever is great. And I do love the epic drama. The whole point is to make something a huge sacrifice.

Still, the bad problem player would never do it.....amazingly.



If I take a Darth Ultron style point of view, then while every player is basically a 'bad player' who wants to use their cool tricks and optimization to win but can't stand when enemies use it against them, every DM is a 'bad DM' who wants to have their cool scenes and clever stories but can't stand when players use the things they invoke for that against them. A DM who says 'okay, you guys should feel threatened because this guy has a crossbow trained on you from point blank range, and in this situation that will instantly kill you' but then says 'no, this NPC isn't threatened by you holding him hostage with a crossbow at point blank range because it can't kill him in one shot' is pulling the same kind of stuff as your usual examples of bad player habits.

But, obviously it is not every player....just some of them.

And, if you have ever read a post of mine, you'd know I believe in the 'real' type gaming experience, not the more 'gamy' just playing a game. I hate the ''you rolled a 12 player, please act like your character is effected by the fear." My way is to make the player really afraid for their character and then really role play that fear.

And, really, in general, players will feel their characters are threatened most of the time they are involved in doing anything. I do very much keep the game on that 'edge'.

Good players, that stay immersed in the game and pay attention, have no problem figuring out when something might be threatening to their character. Without me telling them.

And, as a general philosophy, I'm not really a fan on the ''one shot, one kill' any way. I really, like the Rocky Fight Drama(that is Bad Guy does trick/attack/action, PC falls down but not out, PC overcomes thing in clever way and does their own trick/attack/action and wins the day...maybe).




DU doesn't just state that DMs have positions of authority. But that they're pretty much a god among poor misguided idiots. His view of players has consistently been shown to be... not even slightly respectful.

Well, a ''god'' in the game anyway. Or did you mean more real life things? Like for example I'm a non smoker, so I demand players not smoke in my house?




B.) He's being misrepresented and isn't all bad.

It's B.

oxybe
2017-07-20, 12:49 AM
And thus it creates wonky results -- it only "succeeds" in so much as it's trying to emulate the farcical wonkiness of that sort of fiction.

Farcical to you. To a lot of others it's a perfectly acceptable justification. If it "succeeds" in it's emulation goal, then it's a successful emulation of that type of fiction.


In so much as the "Guy at the Gym Fallacy" is even a real thing, it has more to do with D&D's problems with wild internal incoherence (not the Edwardian meaning, but the actual meaning) than with anything observers are mistakenly doing. D&D itself, though rules and fiction, tends to present a setting in which characters are only surpass "the mundane" in so much as they can cast spells or otherwise work magic... it doesn't present a great deal of superhuman physical capacity, or the like -- no jumping over tall buildings or punching freight trains to a stop... so much so that when it does ("no really, I can step into this shadow and instantly out another one way over there, but it's not magic at all"), many observers will balk.

D&D posits a setting where characters that are not just capable of harnassing magic, but as they level up they get access to, and surpass, a John McClane-level of willpower and ability to keep moving on despite all that happened to them. That's HP.

D&D can be used to play a game of superheroes in a middle-ages pastiche or it can be a rather gritty game, largely on the amount of optimization and power the table agrees is acceptable. When you go outside that scope, that's where the balking occurs.


Narrative causality is a pox on fiction and gaming.

Narrative causality is the reason the game focuses on the PCs and interesting stuff happens to them. It's the reason why, for some gosh diddly darned reason, it's these four people, who all happen to be at the table, are part of the same party.

If it wasn't for narrative causality, your games would likely be rather boring.

Or not even focusing on the PCs at all.

Why does Final Fantasy 7 focus on Cloud Strife and his colleagues instead of "guy who's living in the sector 7 slums"? Because that's where the story being told is.

Why does Lord of the Rings focus on this group that splits up a few times then comes back together at the end? Because the life of Uruk-Hai #4658765 is not the story being told.

Yes "because story" in a void is bad storytelling, but a certain level of suspension of disbelief and buy-in from the reader is required so you can accept that "this fantastic thing is justifiable because this is the type of story being told and the reality of the characters" and actually enjoy the story being told.

call me easily entertained, but hey... i'm entertained.

RazorChain
2017-07-20, 12:56 AM
And thus it creates wonky results -- it only "succeeds" in so much as it's trying to emulate the farcical wonkiness of that sort of fiction.

In so much as the "Guy at the Gym Fallacy" is even a real thing, it has more to do with D&D's problems with wild internal incoherence (not the Edwardian meaning, but the actual meaning) than with anything observers are mistakenly doing. D&D itself, though rules and fiction, tends to present a setting in which characters are only surpass "the mundane" in so much as they can cast spells or otherwise work magic... it doesn't present a great deal of superhuman physical capacity, or the like -- no jumping over tall buildings or punching freight trains to a stop... so much so that when it does ("no really, I can step into this shadow and instantly out another one way over there, but it's not magic at all"), many observers will balk.


Well Gygax pretty much admitted to D&D being a superhero game, so we can't really call it farcical wonkiness, it's just superhero logic. I've long since dubbed D&D a four color fantasy, where you play fantasy superheroes.

When asked about the 3rd edition in a Gamespy interview 9th of august 2004
"I've looked at them, yes, but I'm not really a fan. The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good. "

source: http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/538/538820p2.html

Knaight
2017-07-20, 12:57 AM
There's a few different roles for the mechanics in the first place, but let's take a fairly traditional one - the mechanics are a model of the setting reality. Given that, the standard rule with models apply, where you use the models when they work and ignore them when they don't. I don't use the ideal gas law for gasses at a hundred bar, and I don't use the quirks of individual systems when determining setting fiction that doesn't even involve the PCs. If the models are just generally terrible, I try to avoid them entirely.

NichG
2017-07-20, 12:58 AM
But, obviously it is not every player....just some of them.

Yes, I was being intentionally hyperbolic :smallsmile:



And, if you have ever read a post of mine, you'd know I believe in the 'real' type gaming experience, not the more 'gamy' just playing a game. I hate the ''you rolled a 12 player, please act like your character is effected by the fear." My way is to make the player really afraid for their character and then really role play that fear.

Good players, that stay immersed in the game and pay attention, have no problem figuring out when something might be threatening to their character. Without me telling them.


The trick to this is shaping the expectations of players - what they think will happen, what they think something means. That way they can be scared or excited or avaricious or whatever by the things that they conjure up within themselves, rather than having to be 'forced' to be scared. That's why arbitrariness often leads to disconnection - e.g. the player basically gives up on trying to follow what's going on because the information they receive isn't very reliable towards the future. The tightrope to walk is to be able to have things that the players don't know which they can be surprised by, while at the same time achieving the impression of 'okay, that makes sense in retrospect so I could have known if I had paid more attention/gotten more information/etc', as opposed to the impression of 'its impossible to know in advance so I just won't bother'.



And, as a general philosophy, I'm not really a fan on the ''one shot, one kill' any way. I really, like the Rocky Fight Drama(that is Bad Guy does trick/attack/action, PC falls down but not out, PC overcomes thing in clever way and does their own trick/attack/action and wins the day...maybe).

Yes, its very tricky to get it right. I think the one shot kill stuff only really works when it's extremely carefully telegraphed, so that its more like 'if you allow X to happen/if you do X, you will immediately die without question' rather than just 'you die'. There needs to be no question about what the outcome will be and no line to think 'the DM wouldn't really kill my character in one shot, it must be a trick'. If you jump into the lava, you make a new character. Even then its very easy for it to get co-opted ('I push the guy into the lava', etc).

TheYell
2017-07-20, 04:11 AM
But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

A critical hit roll. We let that be narrated as you like. Otherwise it's just a hit.

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-20, 05:48 AM
Right, but bringing external baggage about Darth Ultron, doesn't mean that you get to simply discount his discussion. Particularly when people who are far more moderate, historically are voicing fairly similar perceptions...

Here we have a few possibilities:

A.) The People he plays with are conniving punks. And he enjoys that. Gygax certainly enjoyed a lot of direct competition between players and DMs, if you'll read some of his DM advice articles they back that particular opinion.

B.) He's being misrepresented and isn't all bad.

C.) He's a jerk.

In any case. This discussion doesn't really go much to the actual questions being asked here. It is entirely external baggage and really we shouldn't be encouraging that at all. I've been on these forums for a long while, and I've seen when people are treated badly over and over again because they don't have the same ability to present their views as others, we should be better than that.



As far as his original argument goes. The idea that the world works differently for the DM and the Players, that's pretty much what I said, just with less snark about player treachery. I basically stated that in my mind the rules are approximations. Mostly there for the benefit of the players, so that they can interact with the story in an organized framework.

I harbor no ill will, but I will point out specific flaws and weaknesses in a repeatedly demonstrated position. This one being that it is far too extreme in one direction.

It's not about DU as a person but a specific point being made about his presented position and repeated assertions. [Insert shrug here]

Darth Ultron
2017-07-20, 06:43 AM
The trick to this is shaping the expectations of players - what they think will happen, what they think something means. That way they can be scared or excited or avaricious or whatever by the things that they conjure up within themselves, rather than having to be 'forced' to be scared. That's why arbitrariness often leads to disconnection - e.g. the player basically gives up on trying to follow what's going on because the information they receive isn't very reliable towards the future. The tightrope to walk is to be able to have things that the players don't know which they can be surprised by, while at the same time achieving the impression of 'okay, that makes sense in retrospect so I could have known if I had paid more attention/gotten more information/etc', as opposed to the impression of 'its impossible to know in advance so I just won't bother'.).

It is true that not all players like my DMing style, but then that is true of all Dming styles.

I do not agree with, and will never do the ''your character thinks X is scary, please role-play your character as scared." I do want the players to feel emotions for real. I want the players to be really excited when their character say finds a powerful magic item; I don't want the player to be sitting at the table and be like ''wow, my character is so excited'' in a low mono tone voice.

Though I don't agree that the players can ''know all the mysteries of the world''. I'd say a good half of them are just ''unknown'' and no amount of player actions will change that. I often find the ''don't bother'' types are the bad players that really just ''don't want to bother playing''. Example-The characters find the Moon Pool, a magical pool of water created ages ago by a moon goddess, that has legendary healing powers. Bad player Bob has his character drink from the pool and gets all mad when the DM says ''nothing happens, but the water tastes good''. Bad player Bob just sits in the corner in a huff as he does not ''want to bother playing the game''. The other good players play the game for a couple more minutes and figure out how/when/why the magic of the pool works.




Yes, its very tricky to get it right. I think the one shot kill stuff only really works when it's extremely carefully telegraphed, so that its more like 'if you allow X to happen/if you do X, you will immediately die without question' rather than just 'you die'. There needs to be no question about what the outcome will be and no line to think 'the DM wouldn't really kill my character in one shot, it must be a trick'. If you jump into the lava, you make a new character. Even then its very easy for it to get co-opted ('I push the guy into the lava', etc).

I just tend to avoid it. And no player in my game would ever, even for a second, think ''the DM won't really kill my character'' for any reason. This is a big advantage to being a Killer DM.

I harbor no ill will, but I will point out specific flaws and weaknesses in a repeatedly demonstrated position. This one being that it is far too extreme in one direction.

It's not about DU as a person but a specific point being made about his presented position and repeated assertions. [Insert shrug here]

Flaws and weaknesses?


So how about a non-hostage example. I'd really like to know how others, even more so the really, really rule following ones would do something like:

*The idea is to have some sort of wild magic accident hit the princess and turn her into a bird that flies away. So the adventure is find the princess bird and save the kingdom. Well, using the standard 3.5 rules at say for 5th level PC's make this near impossible. There simply is no weak low level permanent plolymoprh effect anywhere in the rules. And no rules for magical accidents. Even more so if you want the effect to happen in public, at the royal court and effect like 20 people. Now in my game I just say ''it happens''. So other then a wacky broken character that uses like lots of metamagic to make mass ploymoprh a zero level spell or something...how would you do it?

Boci
2017-07-20, 06:46 AM
So how about a non-hostage example. I'd really like to know how others, even more so the really, really rule following ones would do something like:

*The idea is to have some sort of wild magic accident hit the princess and turn her into a bird that flies away. So the adventure is find the princess bird and save the kingdom. Well, using the standard 3.5 rules at say for 5th level PC's make this near impossible. There simply is no weak low level permanent plolymoprh effect anywhere in the rules. And no rules for magical accidents. Even more so if you want the effect to happen in public, at the royal court and effect like 20 people. Now in my game I just say ''it happens''. So other then a wacky broken character that uses like lots of metamagic to make mass ploymoprh a zero level spell or something...how would you do it?

Why is the parties level relevant for this? At 5th level they shouldn't be encounter many enemies capable of casting polymorph, but that doesn't mean they cannot have an adventure initiated by a casting of it. The level of the spell slot is pretty irrelevant.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-20, 06:53 AM
You're misreading me. I'm saying it sounds likes someone is declaring "I stab him in the kidneys and he bleeds out" instead of "I try to stab him".

There may be times when stabbing someone results in just stabbing them in the kidneys and they bleed out just. No dice involved. But in many circumstances, there are rules to determines what happens when you try to stab someone, and they should apply.

Generally speaking, and in many games (but not all), as a player you should declare what you attempting to do, and the rules cover what happens. Not declare what happens. That can also apply to the GM. Athough they often expected to directly declare results in many circumstances. The DM is also (depending on the game, and for DnD the edition) supposed to decide if a resolution rule needs to come into play at all.

How do you feel about the player saying "I attempt to stab him in the kidneys, using the element of surprise"?

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-20, 06:56 AM
There's a few different roles for the mechanics in the first place, but let's take a fairly traditional one - the mechanics are a model of the setting reality. Given that, the standard rule with models apply, where you use the models when they work and ignore them when they don't. I don't use the ideal gas law for gasses at a hundred bar, and I don't use the quirks of individual systems when determining setting fiction that doesn't even involve the PCs. If the models are just generally terrible, I try to avoid them entirely.

That's why I avoid rapidly scaling hit points, and most of D&D's other mechanics.

Earthwalker
2017-07-20, 07:32 AM
Can I just ask.

In one of the earlier examples is anyone advocating that you (as GM) should be able to pull off a "back stab" on a PC leaving him to bleed to death on the floor ignoring the rules because it makes a better story ?

It is my understanding we are only talking about forgetting the rules when dealing with a NPC (and leaving them in a broken state about to die).

Darth Ultron
2017-07-20, 07:42 AM
Why is the parties level relevant for this? At 5th level they shouldn't be encounter many enemies capable of casting polymorph, but that doesn't mean they cannot have an adventure initiated by a casting of it. The level of the spell slot is pretty irrelevant.

I guess it does depend how you interpret the rules. Some would say, for example, high level magic does not exist for low level PC's. That the ''whole world'' levels up with the PC's an stays only like two ''levels'' above them.

Or do you do the thing of Evil Wizard is 16th level so he can cast the spell to start the adventure....but he is suddenly only 6th level when the 5th level PC's have to fight him.


Ok, for a another example....lets say the princess goes to teleport and ''something goes wrong'' and she is teleported back in time. Other then Dragonlance, 3x, has no time travel magic...right?(but if some book does have it, lets just say it's a Core Only game) So, no mechanical support at all. So as a DM would you just say ''it happens"?

NichG
2017-07-20, 07:45 AM
Though I don't agree that the players can ''know all the mysteries of the world''. I'd say a good half of them are just ''unknown'' and no amount of player actions will change that.

It's not whether its known or unknown, its establishing the expectation that actually there is a real reason behind things. So when the party encounters something unknown they say 'there's gotta be a reason behind this, lets look deeper' instead of 'its just the DM making stuff up, don't overthink it'.

The same way that a reputation as a killer DM means that players take threats seriously, a reputation as a consistent DM means that players take inconsistencies and clues seriously.

For example, in this case:



So how about a non-hostage example. I'd really like to know how others, even more so the really, really rule following ones would do something like:

*The idea is to have some sort of wild magic accident hit the princess and turn her into a bird that flies away. So the adventure is find the princess bird and save the kingdom. Well, using the standard 3.5 rules at say for 5th level PC's make this near impossible. There simply is no weak low level permanent plolymoprh effect anywhere in the rules. And no rules for magical accidents. Even more so if you want the effect to happen in public, at the royal court and effect like 20 people. Now in my game I just say ''it happens''. So other then a wacky broken character that uses like lots of metamagic to make mass ploymoprh a zero level spell or something...how would you do it?

If I establish a reputation of playing things straight as a DM, then a player could say upon seeing this 'hmm, that doesn't make sense, but this DM doesn't just make stuff up so there's gotta be something to it'. For example, maybe it was an illusion to mask a kidnapping or a runaway attempt. Which could then lead to the player wondering just where the other 'victims' of the event came from, and where did they go?

It's not necessary to be a rules stickler to get that kind of reputation, but some kind of perception of consistency is necessary (be it rules consistency or narrative consistency or internal consistency or committing to following through on established precedents or simply the illusion of consistency or whatever). Rules consistency is just the minimal effort one.

Earthwalker
2017-07-20, 08:31 AM
Ok, for a another example....lets say the princess goes to teleport and ''something goes wrong'' and she is teleported back in time. Other then Dragonlance, 3x, has no time travel magic...right?(but if some book does have it, lets just say it's a Core Only game) So, no mechanical support at all. So as a DM would you just say ''it happens"?

In the scenario what is the GMs plan.
Why does the teleport have to be time travel and not just a teleport.
Then what are the ways in which the players in a DnD game investigate what has happened ?

I am asking because I honestly don't know what the GM or players are thinking in the scenario ?

ngilop
2017-07-20, 09:49 AM
there is no way in anything a DM is going to make ME a player actually fear something from a game, such a notion is ludicrous.


well unless said MD holds a gun to my temple and threatens to kill me, but then I would proably be crying and crapping myself all over than to play the game and what not


Thhis has made me glad that I never have nor ever will play with a DM like Ultron is, what kind of madness happens to force his player to actually feel emotions that 'normally' are roleplayed through is that exactly?

Tanarii
2017-07-20, 10:48 AM
How do you feel about the player saying "I attempt to stab him in the kidneys, using the element of surprise"?
I think that's great. Then the GM can adjudicate if there are rules for that, apply them if needed, make a decision on how to rule it if not (or any decisions required by the rules), and come up with a resolution as to what happens.

Maybe they miss them. Maybe they do hit point damage. Maybe they get sneak attack or auto crit or death dealing abilities. Or maybe the GM decides this guy is a chump and he's dead meat, no checks needed. Maybe the system doesn't have anything resembling D&D resolution methods so something else happens.

Atramentis
2017-07-20, 11:35 AM
I ignore the mechanics. The mechanics for me are only there when there is a question of failure. I don't bother with the details of the rules. Sometimes I forget rules so I just rule at the table and then look it up after the session in case it comes up again.

Tinkerer
2017-07-20, 12:43 PM
For me it's a bit of a mixed bag. First off we have to define what sort of interactions we are talking about here. Is it NPC vs NPC, PC vs NPC, NPC vs PC, or PC vs PC? It sounded like the original question was about NPC vs NPC in which case I'd definitely say that story trumps rules. The king who used to be an adventurer gets stabbed in the back by his best friend while making a speech sounds like a great scene. NPC vs NPC doesn't follow traditional rules anyway a bunch of the time (mass combat, bargaining, etc...) so it would fit in perfectly well there. But definitely best to be used sparingly and ideally you would want a result which either falls within the possibilities of the rules (crit max damage and the king auto failed his saving throw vs poison) or if you're system uses story altering consumables (I'm currently running Savage Worlds so that's handy) use one of those.

The others are a lot more restricted. NPC vs PC? Pretty rarely and it usually has to be run by the affected party first. For instance when one of my players had to leave town for a couple of months I mentioned to them before the session that at the end of it I wanted them to be incapacitated while they were away. They agreed and at the end of the session I had their CPU (robot character) auto infected by a system that they were trying to access reducing them to a vegetative state. Then I told the rest of the party that unless they cured it this beloved character couldn't come back (all lies but it sure motivated them). PC vs NPC? Now it starts to get tricky. While you can restrict how often it happens when it's under your control you don't want to have a party deciding that it's something which can be used in every situation. Usually I get them to follow the same ideas I follow under NPC vs PC, run it by the other party (me) and if they think it's appropriate then you can go ahead with it. PC vs PC? Same thing, if you both agree then come to me and it will most likely go through.

ImNotTrevor
2017-07-20, 02:20 PM
So how about a non-hostage example. I'd really like to know how others, even more so the really, really rule following ones would do something like:

*The idea is to have some sort of wild magic accident hit the princess and turn her into a bird that flies away. So the adventure is find the princess bird and save the kingdom. Well, using the standard 3.5 rules at say for 5th level PC's make this near impossible. There simply is no weak low level permanent plolymoprh effect anywhere in the rules. And no rules for magical accidents. Even more so if you want the effect to happen in public, at the royal court and effect like 20 people. Now in my game I just say ''it happens''. So other then a wacky broken character that uses like lots of metamagic to make mass ploymoprh a zero level spell or something...how would you do it?

I would probably find some other way to frame a similar scenario. I'm not so enamoured with my ideas that I can't change them around.

Not to mention the premise is... flimsy.

The princess doesn't want to, I assume, become lost. The only reason she would fly away is if she lost her human capacity for reason in the polymorphed state. And if she has lost this, there is no method for determining a normal bird from the princess except by close examination or if the bird is utterly unique. If the latter, the finding is fairly trivial.

Also, since you plan to inflict this at the start of a campaign, there is no reason why this action could not be taken by a higher-level entity, who the PCs will encounter later at an appropriate level.

There are many ways to handle this within the rules structure of D&D, which I don't even particularly like or find to be sufficiently flexible.

Airk
2017-07-20, 02:51 PM
I just tend to avoid it. And no player in my game would ever, even for a second, think ''the DM won't really kill my character'' for any reason. This is a big advantage to being a Killer DM.


Actually it's not. You can achieve the same results by being a "clearly fair and bound by the rules" GM, which is superior in pretty much all other ways.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-07-20, 03:01 PM
So how about a non-hostage example. I'd really like to know how others, even more so the really, really rule following ones would do something like:

*The idea is to have some sort of wild magic accident hit the princess and turn her into a bird that flies away. So the adventure is find the princess bird and save the kingdom. Well, using the standard 3.5 rules at say for 5th level PC's make this near impossible. There simply is no weak low level permanent plolymoprh effect anywhere in the rules. And no rules for magical accidents. Even more so if you want the effect to happen in public, at the royal court and effect like 20 people. Now in my game I just say ''it happens''. So other then a wacky broken character that uses like lots of metamagic to make mass ploymoprh a zero level spell or something...how would you do it?

Here I'd try to work with plot magic. Someone executed an ancient local ritual, or used a scroll or wand of unknown origins, or she ate the fruits of the tree of shouldn't have done that. Create a custom effect. (Bird lord of the forest wants to speak to her, the court magicians new student screwed up brewing a healing potion etc etc.) If the players really want they might learn to copy or use the effect for their own purposes later, that's the freedom they should probably have in a campaign where you introduce such an effect, but if they don't pursue it you don't even have to offer that option.

Alternatively, introduce a long term villain who is powerful enough to cast baleful polymorph (9th level druid or wizard) or polymorph (only 7th level) plus confusion (7, or 5 for a bard) or something to make her fly away and get lost. It's also possible that the princess changes herself into a bird, that's spell level 2 thus available to 3rd level wizards and bards, and not outside of the reach of potions, amulets and special princessy spell like abilities. The only thing that needs to happen for her to change and fly off in that scenario is some form of panic, confusion or mind control spell. That could be done by level appropriate means. EDIT: O no, I was thinking of Alter Self here, but that doesn't do humanoids into birds. Never mind.

But if it really has to be an accident, plot magic. It's not cheating if you make the rules. Or at least nobody will mind if you use it to help the players, even if you're only helping them have a cool adventure. Now if they were guarding the princess against attacks, they thought of everything and suddenly you pull a custom thing they had no way to prepare for out of your hat, that's mean.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-20, 06:52 PM
It's not whether its known or unknown, its establishing the expectation that actually there is a real reason behind things. So when the party encounters something unknown they say 'there's gotta be a reason behind this, lets look deeper' instead of 'its just the DM making stuff up, don't overthink it'.

The same way that a reputation as a killer DM means that players take threats seriously, a reputation as a consistent DM means that players take inconsistencies and clues seriously.

Now, see I'd say the player who says ''the DM is just making up stuff'' is a jerk that does not want to play the game. Literally, the biggest thing a DM does is ''make stuff up'' and if a player is going to say ''nothing matters, the DM just made it all up'' what is the point of even having a game?

And consistency is an eye of the beholder type thing.



If I establish a reputation of playing things straight as a DM, then a player could say upon seeing this 'hmm, that doesn't make sense, but this DM doesn't just make stuff up so there's gotta be something to it'. For example, maybe it was an illusion to mask a kidnapping or a runaway attempt. Which could then lead to the player wondering just where the other 'victims' of the event came from, and where did they go?

Your example needs a bit more ''what a straight DM'' is. Are you saying like the DM is very rule book boring so they only use things out of the rule book like ''you encounter trap #6 on page 122''?

Your example DM, um,somehow never makes any thing up right? So that means you just have to use what other people made up and wrote down in the rules, right?

I'm not sure how you jump from ''making stuff up'' to ''anything made up is pointless''. Like if I was to describe a robbery as ''the strong box is open, the back window is broken all over the floor and their are boot prrints in the mud outside leading into the woods......if you were a player your reaction would be ''Aww, the DM just makes stuff up, so I just ignore everything''?


I am asking because I honestly don't know what the GM or players are thinking in the scenario ?

It is an example of an issues between story and mechanics. The DM makes up a story, but it has no backing from the mechanics of the game.


there is no way in anything a DM is going to make ME a player actually fear something from a game, such a notion is ludicrous.

Well, it's not ''you'' the player having fear for ''yourself'' from ''the game.'' It is ''you'' the player having the fear ''for your character'' in the game. See the difference?

scalyfreak
2017-07-20, 07:56 PM
Now, see I'd say the player who says ''the DM is just making up stuff'' is a jerk that does not want to play the game. Literally, the biggest thing a DM does is ''make stuff up'' and if a player is going to say ''nothing matters, the DM just made it all up'' what is the point of even having a game?

Well, everyone made it all up together. And it matters just as much as the plot of a book or movie - not at all, once it has ended.

1337 b4k4
2017-07-20, 07:57 PM
Actually it's not. You can achieve the same results by being a "clearly fair and bound by the rules" GM, which is superior in pretty much all other ways.

You can be a clearly fair and bound by the rules GM while also being a killer GM. Tucker's Kobolds aren't necessarily unfair, and playing enemies the way that PCs play wouldn't be unfair either. But in the encounter sizes that D&D proposes (and especially earlier D&D), it would easily lead to burning through at least one PC a session. Not proposing that one should want to be a killer GM (that's entirely up to your table) but killer and rules bound are not mutually exclusive options.

AMFV
2017-07-20, 09:10 PM
Actually it's not. You can achieve the same results by being a "clearly fair and bound by the rules" GM, which is superior in pretty much all other ways.

No, it's really not, it's entirely a matter of taste. I enjoy games with killer DMs, for different reasons than I enjoy games without killer DMs. As somebody who enjoys both pretty much equally I can state fairly authoritatively that neither is really superior to the other it is ENTIRELY a matter of taste.

NichG
2017-07-20, 10:29 PM
Now, see I'd say the player who says ''the DM is just making up stuff'' is a jerk that does not want to play the game. Literally, the biggest thing a DM does is ''make stuff up'' and if a player is going to say ''nothing matters, the DM just made it all up'' what is the point of even having a game?

And consistency is an eye of the beholder type thing.

If a player tries a couple of times to take what the DM says as having some deeper meaning to it and investigates that, but every time either comes up with nothing, ends up being misled, or even ends up being punished for it by the DM, then its only natural that in the future they're not going to really care very much about the details of what the DM says. It's entirely possible to train players to be 'jerks that do not want to play the game'.

On the other hand, if a player finds that when they take seemingly offhand things said by the DM seriously they're able to predict and anticipate more than the other players, find leads that the others missed, even uncover deeper mysteries, they're more likely to keep up that behavior in the future and become a 'good player' instead.

The biggest thing a DM does is 'make stuff up' - that's why its also the most important thing for a DM to do well. Not just any random thing is as good as any other - what the DM makes up, and how, teaches players the right way to play that game at that table. If that's not the way the DM wants the game to be played, well, then they're just shooting themselves in the foot by teaching players bad habits.



Your example needs a bit more ''what a straight DM'' is. Are you saying like the DM is very rule book boring so they only use things out of the rule book like ''you encounter trap #6 on page 122''?

Your example DM, um,somehow never makes any thing up right? So that means you just have to use what other people made up and wrote down in the rules, right?


In this specific example, I went with that kind of DM to make a point. But as I said, its not the only way to achieve that effect, just the minimal effort way.

Generally, its based on being predictable in some way and then relying on the expectation that your players actually will predict you in order to get them to respond to unseen things. A silly example: lets say that in every single location where the party has a difficult fight, I always put exactly one hidden treasure chest with good stuff somewhere in that location (but maybe its in a different room, different wing of the building, etc). Every single time, I do this, but I start with the treasure chests being fairly obvious so that the players get the hint. Now, later on, I can take advantage of this reputation by creating a dungeon, having the party get into a fight, but then hiding the treasure chest somewhere I want the PCs to search for. Or, alternately, if they find such a chest then the party might conclude that there is going to be a difficult fight in their future and prepare for it. If I create even more patterns, like making it so that the room with the treasure always has an insignia of Hermes displayed prominently, then (if successful) the party will tend to drop what they're doing and thoroughly investigate a room with an insignia of Hermes if they happen upon such a room in a dungeon.

So it doesn't have to specifically be the rules of the game. But when it's not the rules of the game, its a two step process - first the players need to understand the pattern, then they need to be convinced that it's reliable. When you use the rules of the game, the players already know the pattern coming in, so you just need to convince them about reliability. But you can use other things they players already know instead - genre convention is a very common one, where if the players see a troll they'll use fire and if the players see a red dragon they'll expect flame.



I'm not sure how you jump from ''making stuff up'' to ''anything made up is pointless''. Like if I was to describe a robbery as ''the strong box is open, the back window is broken all over the floor and their are boot prrints in the mud outside leading into the woods......if you were a player your reaction would be ''Aww, the DM just makes stuff up, so I just ignore everything''?


It depends on what that DM has done in the past. For example, lets say we follow the prints but find a small village with 10 villagers. If it turns out that the culprit is actually a guy with a peg leg, but there was no sign of that in the 'boot prints in the mud', I'm basically going to assume that the DM just says a lot of stuff as window dressing and then immediately forgets what they said, and I wouldn't bother trying to actually take details seriously in the future (or, I'd really play it to the hilt and try to 'force' the details to matter even when the DM didn't mean them to, in the hopes that the DM would at least be able to follow my lead).

On the other hand, if it turns out that I can reliably take seriously details like whether the glass fell inwards or outwards, the size of the boot print, the fact that the culprit couldn't apparently pick the lock on a door but could break into the strongbox (did they know the combination ahead of time somehow?), etc, then I will be much more motivated to actually listen and think deeply about everything the DM says. If questions generally have answers, I'll try to think about them. But I'll recognize pretty quickly when they don't, and I'll stop trying if its futile.

1337 b4k4
2017-07-20, 10:33 PM
I
It depends on what that DM has done in the past. For example, lets say we follow the prints but find a small village with 10 villagers. If it turns out that the culprit is actually a guy with a peg leg, but there was no sign of that in the 'boot prints in the mud', I'm basically going to assume that the DM just says a lot of stuff as window dressing and then immediately forgets what they said, and I wouldn't bother trying to actually take details seriously in the future (or, I'd really play it to the hilt and try to 'force' the details to matter even when the DM didn't mean them to, in the hopes that the DM would at least be able to follow my lead).

If I were a criminal with a peg leg, one of the first things I would do would be to disguise that fact when committing crimes. Sliding a boot on that peg seems like a no brainer.

goto124
2017-07-20, 10:50 PM
Maybe the characters can tell from the footprints that the person walked with a limp. Maybe the boot is lost or washed at some point when Pegleg hears footsteps and realises someone's round the corner, and thus is forced to run with the pegleg only.

There are many ways to provide some sort of clue. No plan is perfect, people aren't perfect and will make mistakes that leave clues.

Although, I wouldn't outright toss my trust in the DM the moment I saw that there were no pegleg prints. Catching Pegleg without boots may require more progress into the story, when the party is close enough to Pegleg to catch off-guard. To entirely give up on listening to details, it'll have to be a long, continous, consistent string of not having the clues present themselves when appropriate.

NichG
2017-07-20, 11:42 PM
If I were a criminal with a peg leg, one of the first things I would do would be to disguise that fact when committing crimes. Sliding a boot on that peg seems like a no brainer.

If details are usually gotchas, ignoring details is the better strategy than paying attention to them. I'm saying all of this with the presumption that the DM actually wants their players to pay attention.

goto124
2017-07-20, 11:46 PM
If the players play sufficiently close attention to detail, they could also start asking things such as "Why doesn't Pegleg just wear boots to cover up the tracks?"

While mysteries should be possible to solve, they should also take some difficulty. The exact level of difficulty depends on the players, but it's reasonable to not have every clue upfront.

NichG
2017-07-21, 12:30 AM
If the players play sufficiently close attention to detail, they could also start asking things such as "Why doesn't Pegleg just wear boots to cover up the tracks?"

While mysteries should be possible to solve, they should also take some difficulty. The exact level of difficulty depends on the players, but it's reasonable to not have every clue upfront.

I feel like we're talking past each-other here. This isn't 'how to design a fun mystery'. It's about the metagame cues that players who operate in a given table environment will start to pick up on, and how certain player habits will form automatically as a result of things that a DM does.

Or in other words, I'm not saying 'A DM should do X' or 'good DMs do X', I'm saying 'if a DM does X, expect that Y might happen'. If you like Y, great! If you don't like Y, its useful to know that X could be causing it so that you can stop doing it. You can say 'its reasonable to run mysteries with red herrings', but 'reasonable' is kind of a meaningless word - just because it's 'reasonable' doesn't mean that players won't learn from the example and change their behavior. Just because something is 'reasonable' doesn't mean that it achieves the outcome you want at your gaming table.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-21, 06:53 AM
If a player tries a couple of times to take what the DM says as having some deeper meaning to it and investigates that, but every time either comes up with nothing, ends up being misled, or even ends up being punished for it by the DM, then its only natural that in the future they're not going to really care very much about the details of what the DM says. It's entirely possible to train players to be 'jerks that do not want to play the game'.

Well, I can agree that is bad when the DM is a jerk.



On the other hand, if a player finds that when they take seemingly offhand things said by the DM seriously they're able to predict and anticipate more than the other players, find leads that the others missed, even uncover deeper mysteries, they're more likely to keep up that behavior in the future and become a 'good player' instead.

I call this rewarding the players for paying attention. I drop tons of hints and clues and random facts all the time. The smart, clever player pays attention, remembers them and sometimes ever writes them down. Some other players drink a Mt. Dew and ask ''did we get in a fight yet?"



So it doesn't have to specifically be the rules of the game. But when it's not the rules of the game, its a two step process - first the players need to understand the pattern, then they need to be convinced that it's reliable. When you use the rules of the game, the players already know the pattern coming in, so you just need to convince them about reliability. But you can use other things they players already know instead - genre convention is a very common one, where if the players see a troll they'll use fire and if the players see a red dragon they'll expect flame.

So, your saying the players need to know what the DM is like, right? Not really a ''pattern'', but more general knowledge. For example as a DM I like drama, so drama is everywhere, so players that can understand that, and pay attention, will find lots of drama everywhere.

This would come back to: If your a player in my game you should understand that I utterly do not care about the suggestion written down in the books and the game will be more of a fast paced, action filled epic drama based on the spirit of the suggestions. Once a player understands and accepts that, they don't have any problems.

And it also means that player don't have to worry about ''the mechanics'' of how anything happens or is done....it just is: play the game.

NichG
2017-07-21, 07:16 AM
So, your saying the players need to know what the DM is like, right? Not really a ''pattern'', but more general knowledge. For example as a DM I like drama, so drama is everywhere, so players that can understand that, and pay attention, will find lots of drama everywhere.

Yes, basically taking this idea and recognizing what it means from the players' point of view, so you can intentionally align it to the kind of table dynamics you want.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-21, 07:27 AM
Yes, basically taking this idea and recognizing what it means from the players' point of view, so you can intentionally align it to the kind of table dynamics you want.

Aligning the table dynamics sounds like such great Star Trek Technobabble.

"Sir, we have a endothermic cascading player agency reaction building in sector 47!''

"My gosh, that hot headed jerk player might ruin the whole game. Raise the plot shields! Fire a warning shot across the table!"

"The jerk player is continuing his rant, shields down to 66%!"

"Then we have no choice, lock on and fire!"

NichG
2017-07-21, 08:26 AM
Aligning the table dynamics sounds like such great Star Trek Technobabble.

"Sir, we have a endothermic cascading player agency reaction building in sector 47!''

"My gosh, that hot headed jerk player might ruin the whole game. Raise the plot shields! Fire a warning shot across the table!"

"The jerk player is continuing his rant, shields down to 66%!"

"Then we have no choice, lock on and fire!"

If you prefer, I can call it 'controlling player behavior by being predictable in exactly the way you intend to be'.

ngilop
2017-07-21, 08:39 AM
Well, it's not ''you'' the player having fear for ''yourself'' from ''the game.'' It is ''you'' the player having the fear ''for your character'' in the game. See the difference?

You mean like actually roleplaying?

so in effect actually saying
''you rolled a 12 player, please act like your character is effected by the fear." where act in this manner is defined as roleplay. To actually force said player to feel fear would be doing what I posited about in my first reply to this thread.

So basically, you are randomly bringing about hypocritical self arguments for the lulz?

Ashiel
2017-07-21, 10:20 AM
I'll try to keep this brief.

How do you deal with things that would happen one way in a narrative but the mechanics of it don't lend themselves to that narrative?

For example: Stabbing someone in the back with a knife and leaving them to die. Now in D&D and Pathfinder, a dagger deals a piddly 1d4+Str which, when you think about it, isn't enough to even drop a bog-standard lvl 1 PC Wizard unless the stabber is like the Hulk or something (having around a +5 to Strength or something). But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

I think the problem comes with preconceptions of scale. You lament that it won't kill a bog-standard PC wizard at level 1. But such a character, even at level one, is a heroic character. They're expected to at least heroically not keel over and die instantly (even if they'll die anyway).

Meanwhile, normal people are 1st level NPC classed characters, who have 3PB ability scores and average HP per HD. Even using Pathfinder's NPC classes (which have +1 average HP for both Warriors and Adepts), you're looking at a base of 3 HP for an adept, with +1 Hp if their Con is 12-13. That's enough that a good dagger shot from a commoner, without critically hitting, can leave them bleeding out (at 0Hp, they can limp away holding their entrails in, or start dying if they try to fight back as their wound pulls open).

More often than not, when I find people talking about narrative and mechanical disconnect, it seems to me that ninety nine times out of a hundred it's because the GM, or PC, or whatever, is disconnected from what the mechanics mean. They for some reason are imagining high(er) level individuals as somehow being normal, when they're anything but normal. Remember that d20 had the assumption that 1st level NPC classed characters are the norm. That's your normal everyday person. These are individuals who have around 2-3 HP, and getting hit with a weapon at all is dangerous.

To me, if the narrative doesn't fit with the mechanics, I need to revise the narrative because it doesn't fit with the physics of the world. It saves on lots of fridge logic where some dude casually ate fifteen arrows from a band of goblins, or can drink gasoline and laugh about it, but then suddenly dies because the butler stabbed him.

Understand the implications of the mechanics and you'll make plot that fits. However, trying to fit plot that doesn't fit the mechanics just creates cognitive disconnections.

Tanarii
2017-07-21, 10:25 AM
I think the problem comes with preconceptions of scale. You lament that it won't kill a bog-standard PC wizard at level 1. But such a character, even at level one, is a heroic character. They're expected to at least heroically not keel over and die instantly (even if they'll die anyway).Caveat: ... in modern D&D and many other modern games.

The idea that your 1st level character should be able to survive more than one hit, unless you're very lucky, is something not inherent to the original D&D game. Although it certainly was common house-rule Max hit points by the time I started in AD&D 1e / BECMI. (And probably a mentioned variant somewhere in those rules. Can't recall.)

Ashiel
2017-07-21, 10:39 AM
Caveat: ... in modern D&D and many other modern games.

The idea that your 1st level character should be able to survive more than one hit, unless you're very lucky, is something not inherent to the original D&D game. Although it certainly was common house-rule Max hit points by the time I started in AD&D 1e / BECMI. (And probably a mentioned variant somewhere in those rules. Can't recall.)

In which case the mechanics put you on the same tier as the NPC classed characters. It really doesn't matter what edition you're playing. Doesn't matter the point buy you're playing. It doesn't even matter what system you're playing. It's a matter of understanding what the mechanics represent relative to the rest of the world.

Since OP mentioned actual mechanics reminiscent of modern D&D, it made sense to respond to what OP was saying. The problem in this case is a misunderstanding of mechanical scale. Clearly, if the PC was a 1st level NPC class with NPC statistics, then the issue wouldn't have even come up (because you can just kill them with a single stab from a dagger, and are very likely to kill them with anything larger even on an average or poor roll).

Don't concentrate on the finger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDW6vkuqGLg). :smallamused:

Tanarii
2017-07-21, 10:48 AM
Since OP mentioned actual mechanics reminiscent of modern D&D, it made sense to respond to what OP was saying.
Yeah yeah. By page 4 I start focusing narrowly on the content of the specific post I'm reading, free from any relevant context. :smallyuk:

TheYell
2017-07-21, 11:25 AM
Yeah yeah. By page 4 I start focusing narrowly on the content of the specific post I'm reading, free from any relevant context. :smallyuk:

Should be a Bard spell, "Extended Forum Debate"

Ashiel
2017-07-21, 11:38 AM
Yeah yeah. By page 4 I start focusing narrowly on the content of the specific post I'm reading, free from any relevant context. :smallyuk:

Seems legit. Still, it's more about thinking about what you're looking at, rather than expecting what you're looking at to mirror what you're thinking. Which is the only point I'm trying to make. The vast majority of these issues always (from my perspective at least) fall into a misunderstanding of what the mechanics mean, or in rarer cases, a situation where the exact issue has no mechanical model (or a very poor model). It's important to note that the first is commonly - and very erroneously - mistaken for the second.

A very basic way of understanding this is with simple damage. A direct hit with a weapon is pretty much expected to be lethal. If you let someone hit you with a sword, assuming they're not intentionally trying to avoid hurting you, it's likely going to cause horrific damage and probably death. However, D&D heroes can casually be hit by swords by lots of people. Because they're not normal. They don't follow the same rules you and I would, because you and I are are likely at best, warriors, experts, or adepts, but more likely commoners.

One must ask the question why it seems so odd to get struck by a hobgoblin's blade five times and just put a bandaid on it and be fine, but suddenly it's so curious and odd when getting stabbed in the back by a shiv doesn't instantly result in them bleeding out and dying rapidly. When you think of it in context, it would actually make less sense for them to just keel over from the shiv.

So then we get to the real crux of the issue. Problems with story. A story that doesn't fit the narrative is bad. The entire story might not be bad, but that part of it is bad. It's like the game version of a plot hole. It's why games like Final Fantasy get so much flak if someone dies in a cutscene yet you can buy phoenix down at every item shop in the world and it cures "Dead" (incidentally, replacing "dead" with "K.O." instantly fixes the disconnect since that means combat defeat isn't the same as being killed).

So the problem is either you're not running the campaign you think you're running, or you're trying to run two different campaigns at the same time.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-21, 12:15 PM
You mean like actually roleplaying?

Well, no. Even more so your definition of role playing.

Role playing is just acting. A player is told to act a way, and they choose to act that way. There is no real emotion involved, it's all an act.

I'm going for real emotions effecting the player, and then the player expressing the emotions for real, in the game.

Roll Playing: is where the only things that happen are by-the-rules mechanical effects.
Soft Role Playing:The DM tells the player if the character experiences an emotion and the player choose to act it out, or not.
Hard Role Playing:The players feel the real emotions for real, and then paly things out in the game based on them.

Lvl 2 Expert
2017-07-21, 12:17 PM
It's not cheating if you make the rules. Or at least nobody will mind if you use it to help the players, even if you're only helping them have a cool adventure. Now if they were guarding the princess against attacks, they thought of everything and suddenly you pull a custom thing they had no way to prepare for out of your hat, that's mean.

To get back on this, there's a good example that I'd say goes too far in the beginning of The Gamers 2, Dorkness Rising, click to watch (https://youtu.be/tOUksDJCijw?t=2m42s) if you haven't already/recently. The GM, working on a module to publish, has made a villain with the ability to, within his own dungeon, block powers given by gods other than his own (or one specific god, doesn't matter in context). He uses this power to shut down the party cleric completely, so the surprise is "this player can not play today", which isn't fun. This happens at a pivotal moment, in such a way that it was inherently impossible for the players to predict or counteract it. Not even with the best research and the most paranoid preparation could they have known something like this was possible at all. The encounter without the cleric is of such a difficulty that the party pretty much has to wipe. At that point the GM is cheating against the players, making an unfair challenge, one stacked against them, which in itself can still be cool and all, but he does so in a way that isn't fun for anybody. But the problem here is that the surprise is used for destructive play, for blocking off every possibility and watching the party die. Any custom thing that builds towards something, even if it's a challenging and/or rewarding boss battle (which is not the same as a wipefest) can be fun, and thus can be a good thing.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-21, 12:42 PM
An RPG isn't just a set of rules... so cheating in an RPG isn't just about the rules.

ngilop
2017-07-21, 01:30 PM
Well, no. Even more so your definition of role playing.

Role playing is just acting. A player is told to act a way, and they choose to act that way. There is no real emotion involved, it's all an act.

I'm going for real emotions effecting the player, and then the player expressing the emotions for real, in the game.

Roll Playing: is where the only things that happen are by-the-rules mechanical effects.
Soft Role Playing:The DM tells the player if the character experiences an emotion and the player choose to act it out, or not.
Hard Role Playing:The players feel the real emotions for real, and then paly things out in the game based on them.


again, there is now way you can ever make a player honestly feel an emotion toward/from/ or what haver you on a non existent being with literally FORCING the player themselves to have those emotions.

so you have player A, his character gets hit with a fear spell, or some fear-like ability and does not succeed on his save, you have to do something OUT OF GAME to make the player feel honest fear, terrorizing him in some way, that is most assuredly illegal.

it is 100% impossible for me or anybody else to ever really have 100% true and honest emotions for a fiction work of self creation. They can 'act' that they are afraid or that their character is afraid, but unless they are for certain in imminent danger for example, THEY are not going to feel that emtion for fear of said danger because they know that they are sitting in a chair, playing a game and that nothing is actually going to happen to them.


I think you should seek some kind of professional help if you are forcing your player's to legitimately have certain emotions expressed

Lacco
2017-07-21, 01:38 PM
again, there is now way you can ever make a player honestly feel an emotion toward/from/ or what haver you on a non existent being with literally FORCING the player themselves to have those emotions.

so you have player A, his character gets hit with a fear spell, or some fear-like ability and does not succeed on his save, you have to do something OUT OF GAME to make the player feel honest fear, terrorizing him in some way, that is most assuredly illegal.

it is 100% impossible for me or anybody else to ever really have 100% true and honest emotions for a fiction work of self creation. They can 'act' that they are afraid or that their character is afraid, but unless they are for certain in imminent danger for example, THEY are not going to feel that emtion for fear of said danger because they know that they are sitting in a chair, playing a game and that nothing is actually going to happen to them.


I think you should seek some kind of professional help if you are forcing your player's to legitimately have certain emotions expressed

Just a small point: the fact that it's impossible for you to have emotions during roleplaying does not mean other people don't have them.

Also, I don't see anywhere a statement "100% true and honest emotion".

And I understand - there are things like power fantasy and other stuff that will work against you feeling emotions while in-character, but you should give it a try. You can even get some kind of professional help if you are afraid of feeling fear in safe environment.

Or in another point: does watching horror produce fear? How are sad movies working for you? :smallsmile:

If these work, why couldn't an RPG?

ngilop
2017-07-21, 01:52 PM
Just a small point: the fact that it's impossible for you to have emotions during roleplaying does not mean other people don't have them.

Also, I don't see anywhere a statement "100% true and honest emotion".

And I understand - there are things like power fantasy and other stuff that will work against you feeling emotions while in-character, but you should give it a try. You can even get some kind of professional help if you are afraid of feeling fear in safe environment.

Or in another point: does watching horror produce fear? How are sad movies working for you? :smallsmile:

If these work, why couldn't an RPG?

its not about whether or not I feel an emotion which I can I never said that, please actually read what I wrote good sir.

Its that ultron does not want them to act an emotion or roleplay an emotion he wants the player to ACTUALLY have said emotion.

horror movies and sad movies work just fine, I cry every time I was 'Where the Red Ferns Grows' or 'Old yella'.. dang I cried a few nights ago watching some random show where a woman was showing her ultrasound after a very long and arduous process to get pregnant.

I am not afraid, nor am I truly deeply saddened by such, I know that its just a movie and that the crazy dude with a rusty and bloody ice pick is NOT actuall going to get me, but I do like to get spooked now and then, same goes for movies that get a different emotion response.

were any of these even close to what I felt when my grandfather passed away due to leukemia, No, why... because those movies were various degrees of removed from me and I know were NOT actually going to affect me in anyway, shape, or form. My grandfather passing though struck me through the heart and took years, instead of 'oh the scene if over.'

Though it is similar to feeling an emotion when watching a TV show/movie or being told a story by someone. One honestly and truly feeling pure and utter terror because your character failed a saved vs phatansmal killer is not im my opinion a way to say ;'you are roleplay good brah,' it me thinking that 'you have mental issues that need dealt with, it is just a game none of this affects you in real life and is not going to follow you home'

Grod_The_Giant
2017-07-21, 02:20 PM
Well, no. Even more so your definition of role playing.

Role playing is just acting. A player is told to act a way, and they choose to act that way. There is no real emotion involved, it's all an act.

I'm going for real emotions effecting the player, and then the player expressing the emotions for real, in the game.

Roll Playing: is where the only things that happen are by-the-rules mechanical effects.
Soft Role Playing:The DM tells the player if the character experiences an emotion and the player choose to act it out, or not.
Hard Role Playing:The players feel the real emotions for real, and then paly things out in the game based on them.
Your definition of "soft" roleplaying is a kind of railroading-- the DM can and should present the circumstances, but it's always, always, always up to the player to determine how their character reacts to things. That's part of the basic compact of roleplaying games-- the player gets to control their own character.

"Soft" roleplaying, then, would be the player looking at the situation, saying "this is Thog's chieftain dying; we've established they have a close relationship. I'll act out being sad." "Hard" roleplaying, then, would be when the DM and player had enough time and-- almost more importantly-- that certain indefinable spark such that the player has also formed an emotional connection, and personally feels sad because a favorite character is dying.

As a DM, it's worthy to strive for "hard" roleplaying, much as I dislike that term. You'll probably never be able to get 100% the same emotion in the players as their characters, but if you're good and lucky you'll be able to get the same sort of one-step-removed emotions as you feel with a really good movie or book. But when that doesn't happen, there's nothing disgraceful about "soft" roleplaying. (And genuine emotions don't guarantee genuine roleplaying either, for that matter-- I might have a character who's braver than me, for example, or who dislikes an NPC that I personally like)

Knaight
2017-07-21, 02:31 PM
Your definition of "soft" roleplaying is a kind of railroading-- the DM can and should present the circumstances, but it's always, always, always up to the player to determine how their character reacts to things. That's part of the basic compact of roleplaying games-- the player gets to control their own character.

There's some variability in the basic compact, and the player only rarely gets to determine what happens to their character. Getting pushed into an emotional state can easily be characterized as the latter instead of the former.

NichG
2017-07-21, 03:24 PM
Emotion during gameplay is certainly real. It doesn't have to be some kind of 100% match to what the character would experience.

On the other hand, acting that is entirely devoid of underlying emotion is basically a meaningless exercise. If the player is acting afraid because they are being told that they must, I'd actually rather just have the character be fearless in the first place and not bother with the display. If a player doesn't manage to feel the least bit sad about something when interacting with the world through the lens of their character, I think them trying to push the 'I am sad' angle despite not feeling it is just going to make the disconnect bigger. A very good roleplayer might figure out how to become sad and make things more authentic that way, but 'this is what a sad person would do so I do that' is lower on the scale for me than 'y'know what, actually, I'm not that sad about it'.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-07-21, 03:35 PM
Your definition of "soft" roleplaying is a kind of railroading-- the DM can and should present the circumstances, but it's always, always, always up to the player to determine how their character reacts to things. That's part of the basic compact of roleplaying games-- the player gets to control their own character.

No it isn't. It's the case in some RPGs. In many RPGs the player does not always have total control over every action their character takes.

exelsisxax
2017-07-21, 03:58 PM
No it isn't. It's the case in some RPGs. In many RPGs the player does not always have total control over every action their character takes.

Then it isn't roleplaying, it's rollplaying if randomly determined or turning into an NPC otherwise.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-07-21, 04:42 PM
Then it isn't roleplaying, it's rollplaying if randomly determined or turning into an NPC otherwise.

No more so than "If you get stabbed too much you fall over and bleed to death" turns you into an NPC.

Frozen_Feet
2017-07-21, 04:53 PM
Darth Ultron is correct that roleplaying is fundamentally acting. It is not particularly relevant whether the role being played is externally or internally dictated for deciding whether something is or isn't roleplaying, though it does make for different games.

---

@NichG: the ability to "do what what a person in this situation would do" is really, really basic aspect of acting and roleplaying. You may prefer when a player empathizes with their character on top of that, but the idea that acting is lower than not acting is just silly.

---

Re: "forcing emotions".

Fictional things can cause real emotions. Everyone in art knows this. Most perusers of art know this and have experienced this. Roleplaying games are no exception.

So while it is not necessary for a player to share emotions of their character to play the part (again... really basic aspect of the hobby here), they can, they often do, and it is possible for a GM or other players to encourage this.

Whether this counts as "forcing" is a different thing, though. Let's presume that I, as GM, know a player in my group finds puns funny. So I play a character who makes outrageous puns constantly. Predictably, this causes target player to burst out in laughter.

What, in this trivial example, counts as "forcing"?

Second example. A player has made a goody-two-shoes character. This character hates bigotry, injustice etc.. and I, as a GM, know this is because they player, too, hates those things. So I play a villain who throws around racial slurs and acts oppressive towards innocent minorities. Predicrably, this makes both target player and target character hate the villain's guts.

What, in this trivial example, counts as "forcing"? By what metric is the emotion created "not genuine"?

Honest Tiefling
2017-07-21, 05:07 PM
I ignore the mechanics. The mechanics for me are only there when there is a question of failure. I don't bother with the details of the rules. Sometimes I forget rules so I just rule at the table and then look it up after the session in case it comes up again.

This summarizes how I would handle the situation perfectly. If the game is a Sword and Sorcery DnD style affair with mortal Heroes (in the Ancient Greek sense) able to perform extraordinary feats in their drunken stupor, I just don't plain roll for them to perform the task at all unless there is some way to fail at it, even if that failure is simply doing it too nosily. Of course, important NPCs usually share in this plot armor to prevent spotlight hogging or accidental plot derails being unfun and anti-climatic.

I think it helps that any time this happens, I am very upfront with the player. I try not to make it feel like a waste of time, but remind them that their character has defeated an army buck-naked and with only a spoon to defend themselves. One old man in a forest probably isn't going to be a problem anymore. I also feel as if asking the player if they wish to describe the action makes it clear that this is intended as a reminder of their awesomeness, not me trying to railroad or take away a victory. You've earned this.

As for the issue with fear magic, I think Darth Ultron has some really high expectations. If he can make the players feel fear when he wants, we do have to acknowledge that he has some serious skills. However, I am not that capable. (And honestly, the times I did instill fear into players were accidents. Whoops!) I do not believe it is a sensible use of time for me to attempt to create those emotions. It would be exhausting on me in a creative sense, and I think exhausting for the players to feel those emotions constantly. I think it can help a game if these emotions are brought forth, but I don't think it would make the game enjoyable if success was 100% connected to making the PLAYERS feel something, because there would be no lulls to make the climaxes enjoyable.

However, I think the argument that if the DM can do it, the players can too is a reasonable one here. If players want to use Intimidation and Fear Magic, I expect some description of their actions at the very least. But I am not going to make their success hinge on if I am afraid of them or not. Therefore, I think it is reasonable of me to tell the players that they are under the effects of mind control magic and must act in a certain way (within reasonable limits, of course!) or that the guy who is trying to intimidate them does look very sure of her ability to murder the entire party and seems amused by the party's attempts to seem tough. A good roleplayer acts out their character, and some will enjoy the challenge of acting out a character who does or does not know they are under an influence they cannot control. After all, the character is usually presented with challenges they must overcome, and rarely has full control of the situation. Some enjoy it when that challenge and lack of control comes from within.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-21, 05:15 PM
the DM can and should present the circumstances, but it's always, always, always up to the player to determine how their character reacts to things. That's part of the basic compact of roleplaying games-- the player gets to control their own character.



Then it isn't roleplaying, it's rollplaying if randomly determined or turning into an NPC otherwise.


Pretty much agreed... hijacking a PC from the player is low.

Tanarii
2017-07-21, 06:32 PM
Darth Ultron is correct that roleplaying is fundamentally acting.
No it isn't. Method acting is just one way to roleplaying. A subset of roleplaying. The entirety of roleplaying being a player making decisions for the character in the fiction environment.

For example, if someone chooses to just make decisions themself, treating the character and abilities as if it were them, with no personality different from themself, they're not acting. But they are definitely roleplaying.


the DM can and should present the circumstances, but it's always, always, always up to the player to determine how their character reacts to things. That's part of the basic compact of roleplaying games-- the player gets to control their own character. Not even close to true. Many things limit how a player can choose to have a character can react to things in many games. Especially magical effects. Domination, Charm, Memory Erasure/Modification, Supernatural Fear. Also enforced alignment changes in D&D specifically. Lycanthrope or Vampirism is another common one.

Nothing about roleplaying being making decisions means you always get to make all decisions, or (at times) any decisions. Nor that you'll always be in control of your character.

scalyfreak
2017-07-21, 08:06 PM
Nothing about roleplaying being making decisions means you always get to make all decisions, or (at times) any decisions. Nor that you'll always be in control of your character.

I would hope not. IC reactions to unexpected events is a large part of the fun.

FreddyNoNose
2017-07-21, 08:10 PM
Actually it's not. You can achieve the same results by being a "clearly fair and bound by the rules" GM, which is superior in pretty much all other ways.

Playing DND not DNP.

Jay R
2017-07-21, 08:35 PM
The story isn't what you thought would happen. It's what actually happens, when you play. If you wanted to plan the story out in advance, you wouldn't use dice. The mechanics of the game are how you find out what the story really is.

It therefore follows that there cannot be an issue between mechanics and story.

There can only be an issue between mechanics and preconceptions of story.

I resolve them by not having preconceptions of story.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-21, 08:39 PM
The story isn't what you thought would happen. It's what actually happens, when you play. If you wanted to plan the story out in advance, you wouldn't use dice. The mechanics of the game are how you find out what the story really is.

It therefore follows that there cannot be an issue between mechanics and story.

There can only be an issue between mechanics and preconceptions of story.

I resolve them by not having preconceptions of story.

The OP's question comes across as a bit more nuanced than that... terminology aside, it reads more like a setting vs mechanics question, rather than a planned story vs mechanics question.

PhoenixPhyre
2017-07-21, 08:42 PM
I resolve them by not having preconceptions of story.

Since I'm both lazy and unable to predict what my players will do, I rarely plan more than a session or two ahead. I have no clue what the story will be but I'm interested to find out. That's why I play, really. To see what my players do with the setting/scenarios. So far it's been amazing and way better than what I had roughly in mind. I planned more in the beginning, then discovered it wasn't worth it as I'd inevitably have to discard most of it when they decided to do something even more interesting.

Emergent story is the big thing (for me) that TTRPGs can do that CRPGs and other games can't really do. If I wanted to experience a pre-written story (even at the scene level) I'd play a JRPG, CRPG, or read a book/watch a movie.

Yes, this is tangential to the mechanics-story issue a bit, but important none the less.

Edit:
The OP's question comes across as a bit more nuanced than that... terminology aside, it reads more like a setting vs mechanics question, rather than a planned story vs mechanics question.

But the resolution is the same. If you're thinking of the resolution of the action and trying to force it into a particular groove instead of letting the mechanics flow where they will, you'll get dissonance. That can be fixed either by changing the mechanics or by not trying to force it. Preconceptions of what the setting is ("PCs are just as fragile as normal people") are trying to force an outcome. Abandoning those preconceptions makes things work better (for me at least).

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-21, 08:57 PM
Since I'm both lazy and unable to predict what my players will do, I rarely plan more than a session or two ahead. I have no clue what the story will be but I'm interested to find out. That's why I play, really. To see what my players do with the setting/scenarios. So far it's been amazing and way better than what I had roughly in mind. I planned more in the beginning, then discovered it wasn't worth it as I'd inevitably have to discard most of it when they decided to do something even more interesting.

Emergent story is the big thing (for me) that TTRPGs can do that CRPGs and other games can't really do. If I wanted to experience a pre-written story (even at the scene level) I'd play a JRPG, CRPG, or read a book/watch a movie.

Yes, this is tangential to the mechanics-story issue a bit, but important none the less.

Edit:

But the resolution is the same. If you're thinking of the resolution of the action and trying to force it into a particular groove instead of letting the mechanics flow where they will, you'll get dissonance. That can be fixed either by changing the mechanics or by not trying to force it. Preconceptions of what the setting is ("PCs are just as fragile as normal people") are trying to force an outcome. Abandoning those preconceptions makes things work better (for me at least).

I'd rather establish the facts of the setting, and make sure the mechanics are as true as possible to those facts, rather than yank the setting around by mechanical hooks.

For fantasy, this is why the presumption of universality that's mistakenly given to D&D-like systems is so grating for me. D&D-like systems are suitable for a particular sort of setting (and it's a very peculiar sort), not all fantasy settings.

AMFV
2017-07-21, 09:09 PM
I'd rather establish the facts of the setting, and make sure the mechanics are as true as possible to those facts, rather than yank the setting around by mechanical hooks.

Well it depends, sometimes I want a mechanical experience that's not the one that the setting would fit best with.



For fantasy, this is why the presumption of universality that's mistakenly given to D&D-like systems is so grating for me. D&D-like systems are suitable for a particular sort of setting (and it's a very peculiar sort), not all fantasy settings.

You can make D&D work for a lot of settings that the rules don't seem to be geared towards.

Jay R
2017-07-21, 09:57 PM
You can make D&D work for a lot of settings that the rules don't seem to be geared towards.

That's true. But you can't make it work for a classical fantasy setting, which is what it (originally) was geared towards.

NichG
2017-07-21, 10:25 PM
@NichG: the ability to "do what what a person in this situation would do" is really, really basic aspect of acting and roleplaying. You may prefer when a player empathizes with their character on top of that, but the idea that acting is lower than not acting is just silly.


Acting or roleplaying isn't an intrinsically worthwhile or valuable thing just on the basis of doing it 'correctly'. It's valuable on the basis of successfully lending authenticity to the experience. Something that is being faked on the basis of 'I was told this is what I'm feeling' or some-such is along the same lines of a sarcastic delivery - like how a golf-clap compares to honest applause, or the way that a deadpan delivery completely reverses the emotional meaning of the line. In that sense, its worse than nothing because its hollow and the roots of the behavior are so exposed - everyone can see that 'this character was afraid because the player was instructed to do so'. As a result, the character loses some of the illusion of being a real living entity and becomes revealed as being just a shared hypothetical.

In this regard, a character who 'should' feel fear but whose player thinks 'actually this isn't scary' and then plays against expectations by not being fearful can breathe more life into the character than one who does as their told, because the character's emotional response is at the least backed by the authentic emotional response of a real person, even if its not aligned with the character the player has promised to portray.

So yeah, if a player can't get into the role, I'd rather them choose a role that they can more easily get into (even to the point of just playing themselves) rather than try to force their way through the role that makes no sense to them.

Tanarii
2017-07-21, 10:40 PM
So how do you handle a Fear spell? Or Horror Factor, in games that have those? Or loss of Sanity?

Edit: I agree that authentically making the player experience something is probably a better design goal than mechanically imposing it, when possible. Immediately after posting I'm reminded of Angry DMs rant against Sanity systems being terrible compared to making players actually feel like they're experiencing a loss of sanity. I'll see if I can find a link for the rant.

Here it is:
http://theangrygm.com/driving-your-players-crazy/

AMFV
2017-07-21, 11:15 PM
That's true. But you can't make it work for a classical fantasy setting, which is what it (originally) was geared towards.

On the contrary, there are several rules variations that do exactly that. And you can certainly do the same with other systems. I would argue that D&D was more geared towards heists and looting over what might be considered "classical fantasy"

NichG
2017-07-22, 12:56 AM
So how do you handle a Fear spell? Or Horror Factor, in games that have those? Or loss of Sanity?

Edit: I agree that authentically making the player experience something is probably a better design goal than mechanically imposing it, when possible. Immediately after posting I'm reminded of Angry DMs rant against Sanity systems being terrible compared to making players actually feel like they're experiencing a loss of sanity. I'll see if I can find a link for the rant.

Here it is:
http://theangrygm.com/driving-your-players-crazy/

As you're kind of getting at, you have to be pretty clear on what your design goals are. IMO, the purpose of a Fear spell in the game mechanics is not to create a situation where the players have to emote fear, but rather to fill a certain strategic role for temporary action denial. On the other hand, a fear aura (as a dragon has) is there more to create the verisimilitude that such creatures can still be credible threats to nations even in the face of strength in numbers (because they cause armies of non-heroic characters to rout). Neither case is really about the player behavior or reaction very much.

On the other hand, if we take something like horror or sanity systems, those things are explicitly designed to try to change the way that a player approaches a situation before they actually come into play. That is to say, the 'fear' that a sanity system explicitly models becomes the player's fear of having something permanent and irrecoverable happen to their character. So you're substituting one kind of in-character fear or hesitancy for one which is more relatable to the player out-of-character, (in theory) in order to try to make it easier for the player to actually empathize with their character. But if sanity hits are too common and too unavoidable, it loses its impact.

I was in one campaign where the DM introduced a very effective mechanic for getting the players to actually experience trepidation, if not fear. In that campaign, you could gain affinities to various cosmic forces, which would be represented by scores from 1 to 10. Generally these would give you perks with minor downsides as you increased the score, but some were more negative. Then at one point, the DM introduced one that was fairly innocuously named, very rare, had no concrete explanation of what it did, but: NPCs you interacted with also started to get it, and it increased by 10% per game, and there was no way to reduce it or get rid of it.

Almost everyone in the group went to fairly extreme lengths to avoiding getting any of this stuff, or spending any time near PCs that had already been infected. Without being told to explicitly, we changed how we behaved and reacted with respect to this particular thing, especially with respect to threats that had the ability to inflict it. It's because we could easily, without being told, understand that getting even a point of this stuff meant that your character probably had only 100, or 50, or 10 game sessions until something would happen that could not be prevented or guarded against in any real way. So our own imaginations in extrapolating out the mechanic created the ingredients for us to feel something OOC.

If the DM had said 'this stuff makes your character feel afraid', it wouldn't have nearly that kind of effect.

goto124
2017-07-22, 01:03 AM
getting even a point of this stuff meant that your character probably had only 100, or 50, or 10 game sessions until something would happen that could not be prevented or guarded against in any real way.

I'll first have to join a game that lasts 10 sessions.

Jokes aside, you put your point eloquently, about creating mechanics that create player fear by threatening them with stuff they could actually suffer lasting negative effects from.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-22, 05:55 AM
again, there is now way you can ever make a player honestly feel an emotion toward/from/ or what haver you on a non existent being with literally FORCING the player themselves to have those emotions.

so you have player A, his character gets hit with a fear spell, or some fear-like ability and does not succeed on his save, you have to do something OUT OF GAME to make the player feel honest fear, terrorizing him in some way, that is most assuredly illegal.

it is 100% impossible for me or anybody else to ever really have 100% true and honest emotions for a fiction work of self creation. They can 'act' that they are afraid or that their character is afraid, but unless they are for certain in imminent danger for example, THEY are not going to feel that emtion for fear of said danger because they know that they are sitting in a chair, playing a game and that nothing is actually going to happen to them.



Well fear of character loss is a very real emotion. A powerful monster can sure make a player feel this. Fear of loss is another easy one, plenty of players fear losing the special items their character has.

A player feels excitement, joy, greed and desire when tier character spots say a sword +5 vorpal. A player feels happy when they have their character do something smart and clever.

And so on.


I am not afraid, nor am I truly deeply saddened by such, I know that its just a movie and that the crazy dude with a rusty and bloody ice pick is NOT actuall going to get me, but I do like to get spooked now and then, same goes for movies that get a different emotion response.

I can agree that emotions you feel for fiction are different from emotions you feel for events in your life. But they are both still real emotions.


Your definition of "soft" roleplaying is a kind of railroading-- the DM can and should present the circumstances, but it's always, always, always up to the player to determine how their character reacts to things. That's part of the basic compact of roleplaying games-- the player gets to control their own character.

As I said, I dislike this type of role playing and don't do it in my games. The player can still decide how they will have a character react, they will just be feeling a real emotion when they do so.




As a DM, it's worthy to strive for "hard" roleplaying, much as I dislike that term. You'll probably never be able to get 100% the same emotion in the players as their characters, but if you're good and lucky you'll be able to get the same sort of one-step-removed emotions as you feel with a really good movie or book. But when that doesn't happen, there's nothing disgraceful about "soft" roleplaying. (And genuine emotions don't guarantee genuine roleplaying either, for that matter-- I might have a character who's braver than me, for example, or who dislikes an NPC that I personally like)

Well, that is exactly what I do. I want the players to care. And there is never any guarantees with real emotions.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-22, 07:50 AM
So how do you handle a Fear spell? Or Horror Factor, in games that have those? Or loss of Sanity?

Edit: I agree that authentically making the player experience something is probably a better design goal than mechanically imposing it, when possible. Immediately after posting I'm reminded of Angry DMs rant against Sanity systems being terrible compared to making players actually feel like they're experiencing a loss of sanity. I'll see if I can find a link for the rant.

Here it is:
http://theangrygm.com/driving-your-players-crazy/

I pretty much agree with AngryGM -- it's a lot of infringement on player agency for absolutely no real gain.

Tanarii
2017-07-22, 09:18 AM
I pretty much agree with AngryGM -- it's a lot of infringement on player agency for absolutely no real gain.
It's not infringement on player agency. You buy in when you choose to play the game. Just as in D&D you buy in to Fear or Charm or Hold spells, or in older editions of D&D, you buy in to forced Alignment change. Or WFRP you buy in to Terror and Insanity.

Player agency doesn't mean all choices are available all the time, nor that things won't happen to your character that don't prevent action, magically compel them, nor change their personality. It means that you have some meaningful choices. Not constant ones, and a huge variety of them.

The way you're talking about it, a GM cant't kill a character. That'd be an infringement on player agency.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-22, 09:43 AM
It's not infringement on player agency. You buy in when you choose to play the game. Just as in D&D you buy in to Fear or Charm or Hold spells, or in older editions of D&D, you buy in to forced Alignment change. Or WFRP you buy in to Terror and Insanity.

Player agency doesn't mean all choices are available all the time, nor that things won't happen to your character that don't prevent action, magically compel them, nor change their personality. It means that you have some meaningful choices. Not constant ones, and a huge variety of them.

The way you're talking about it, a GM cant't kill a character. That'd be an infringement on player agency.

The GM telling the player how their character feels about something, or imposing a change in personality on the character, is infringement. End.

It's not about what the character can do, including avoid death or not -- it's about what the character WANTS to do.

Actana
2017-07-22, 09:50 AM
The GM telling the player how their character feels about something, or imposing a change in personality on the character, is infringement. End.

It's not about what the character can do, including avoid death or not -- it's about what the character WANTS to do.

In this case it's not necessarily the GM telling the players. It's the system telling the players. And everyone, upon agreeing to play that particular system, has implicitly also agreed to following its rules. So even if it were infringing on the agency of the players, those players have also agreed that it can happen. Can a game infringe upon the players' agency if the players agree the game can do that to their characters?

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-22, 09:57 AM
In this case it's not necessarily the GM telling the players. It's the system telling the players. And everyone, upon agreeing to play that particular system, has implicitly also agreed to following its rules. So even if it were infringing on the agency of the players, those players have also agreed that it can happen. Can a game infringe upon the players' agency if the players agree the game can do that to their characters?

Yes.

And then the system is at fault instead of the GM.

If the individual player agrees that it's OK to have their PC hijacked in that manner, and is fine with it, then whatever's fun for them...

But a competent GM should understand how each of the players looks at that sort of thing, and not repeatedly aim that game element at a player who doesn't care for it, but was willing to compromise and play the system/setting that others wanted to play.

Tanarii
2017-07-22, 12:14 PM
And then the system is at fault instead of the GM.
Wow. I see you're limiting yourself to exactly zero existing RPggames then.

FreddyNoNose
2017-07-22, 12:34 PM
So how do you handle a Fear spell? Or Horror Factor, in games that have those? Or loss of Sanity?

Edit: I agree that authentically making the player experience something is probably a better design goal than mechanically imposing it, when possible. Immediately after posting I'm reminded of Angry DMs rant against Sanity systems being terrible compared to making players actually feel like they're experiencing a loss of sanity. I'll see if I can find a link for the rant.

Here it is:
http://theangrygm.com/driving-your-players-crazy/

How about the player getting hit with a quest or geas? Or is that unfair to the player?

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-22, 01:12 PM
Wow. I see you're limiting yourself to exactly zero existing RPggames then.

So every game has mind control, and/or mechanics that allow the PCs motivation, opinions, or desires to be force-changed against the player's will?

Ashiel
2017-07-22, 01:36 PM
So every game has mind control, and/or mechanics that allow the PCs motivation, opinions, or desires to be force-changed against the player's will?
Pretty much every one I've ever seen. That said, there's a very important distinction.

Magical influence is not the same thing has hijacking someone's character. If a succubus casts charm monster on you and exerts some kooky magic on you and makes you do something you wouldn't normally do, that's okay. It wasn't really you doing it. Contrast to Pathfinder's antagonize feat which actually makes your character do something by their own choice, even if you the player wouldn't have made the decision.

Picture it like this. You're a Paladin. You get mind controlled. You're forced to kill little Timmy the orphan. You weren't in your right mind, you're a victim as much as little Timmy. Now pretend the GM gave little Timmy the Antagonize feat. Little Timmy tells you that you smell like the horse that rode in on your mother. You butcher little Timmy in the streets because you choose to. It was you that just decided to lose your cool and lash out. Nobody forced you. You weren't under some sort of mind control.

There's a reason I'm A-OK with things like dominate person but ban Antagonize and won't play in any group that uses that feat. Similarly, the moment a GM tells me what my character would or would not do is the moment I tear the character sheet up and tell them to try again.

Darth Ultron
2017-07-22, 02:20 PM
So every game has mind control, and/or mechanics that allow the PCs motivation, opinions, or desires to be force-changed against the player's will?

This really sounds like your saying nothing in the game should ever effect the characters at all. After all, anything that effects the characters will often be against the players will.

And how do you split the hair of ''well Hold Person is banned, as character's must absolutely be allowed to move at any time in any direction'' and ''Wall of Fire is ok" except Wall of fire can 'stop' a players movement too.

I wonder how you'd like my ''I don't tell te players what to feel or think, but have them experience it for real and act how they wish.?

Donnadogsoth
2017-07-22, 02:40 PM
I'll try to keep this brief.

How do you deal with things that would happen one way in a narrative but the mechanics of it don't lend themselves to that narrative?

For example: Stabbing someone in the back with a knife and leaving them to die. Now in D&D and Pathfinder, a dagger deals a piddly 1d4+Str which, when you think about it, isn't enough to even drop a bog-standard lvl 1 PC Wizard unless the stabber is like the Hulk or something (having around a +5 to Strength or something). But in a narrative, even against a seasoned and tough-as-nails fighter that's shrugged off sword blows, a dagger to the kidneys would put him on the ground pretty handily, especially if it was a surprise hit (maybe by someone they trusted and let their guard down around).

At what point do you do away with the rules in favor of a better story if the rules don't support said better story?

That's why I don't run D&D or anything else aside from Phoenix Command. I got tired of trying to shoehorn realism into a system that's not designed to simulate...anything. With Phoenix Command I can start with realism (puh, "verisimilitude") and then break the rules as needed to simulate outre things that as needed. The advantage is I'm starting with the best version of the real world that I can find, so I can use my real-world knowledge in a way that works with the system rather than fighting against its absurdities.

More to your question, I break the rules in terms of the rules as needed. The PC walks into the bar with a submachine gun and five henchmen pull pistols and attack. Do I resolve everything per half second and determining every shot's accuracy level and % chance of hitting? Maybe if I'm feeling like it, but may not, just have the PC roll a % and that's how many of the henchmen she mows down before then resolving the duel with the remaining one(s). Or the insane old man in the cabin at night during a blazing thunderstorm attacks with an old rusty hay hook and the PC fires a handgun at him. Do I roll to hit, then roll hit location, then roll the old man's Knockout to see if it advances? Only on a bad day, otherwise he kills the old man outright with one bullet. In both cases the outcomes are plausible and justified by the game mechanics, just segued into something more dramatically apropos.

Frozen_Feet
2017-07-22, 04:26 PM
No it isn't. Method acting is just one way to roleplaying.

Did you see me use the word "method" there?

No, you didn't. So don't waste your time arguing against something that wasn't said.


The entirety of roleplaying being a player making decisions for the character in the fiction environment.

Which neatly fits within the larger category of acting, which as a skill means acting as if you're someone else or as if something that's not happening is happening.


For example, if someone chooses to just make decisions themself, treating the character and abilities as if it were them, with no personality different from themself, they're not acting. But they are definitely roleplaying.

1) It is very much possible to act as one's self. Again, acting as a skill means acting as if you're someone else or as if something that's not happening is happening. For example, if I am playing as myself and I get wounded in a game, I can act as if I am wounded.

2) if I'm not doing even that, then I'm not roleplaying, as I have not assumed the role of the character in the game. I'm just playing. Which is not a great crime or anything, just a missed opportunity. Plenty of game systems around which can be used for interesting tactical-scale wargame even in absence of any roleplaying.

---


Acting or roleplaying isn't an intrinsically worthwhile or valuable thing just on the basis of doing it 'correctly'. It's valuable on the basis of successfully lending authenticity to the experience.

Uh, and what is the criteria for acting 'correctly'? How about: that the act feels authentic.

That's why your argument reads like nonsense. I can definitely agree that unsuccesfull acting can ruin the atmosphere, whether we're talking of a roleplaying game, a stage play, or a movie.

But neither "player does not feel what the character is feeling" nor "character's feelings were not dictated by player" are guarantees of bad acting. On the contrary: it is the mark of a truly skilled actor that you can give them an arbitrary piece of script and they can, on the spot, get into the role and fake it so well that it feels real. You can replace actor with roleplayer and script with pre-generated or random-rolls character and the same holds true.

(That's why it doesn't really matter where the player's role comes from, for deciding whether they are roleplaying. For example, if I can convincingly portray my character as being afraid, it makes no difference whether I decided to act afraid on my own, or whether the GM asked me to act afraid, or whether the system rules obligated me to; I have still succesfully roleplayed.

(To other people: you can still discuss the merits of letting a player choose versus having GM or rules dictate what ought to be roleplayed. That's a worthwhile topic on its own, I'm merely trying to get across that it doesn't really have anything to do with what's roleplaying or not. There's a near-homologous discussion in theater and filming about actor freedom versus director interference.))

In the end, there's nothing wrong with wanting players around you to pick roles they're good enough to play. But before anyone gets good at anything, they first must get past being bad. Hence I'm willing to suffer through a lot of bad roleplaying, and prefer bad roleplaying to no roleplaying at all, if I can use that as a platform to get to good roleplaying.

NichG
2017-07-22, 09:37 PM
Uh, and what is the criteria for acting 'correctly'? How about: that the act feels authentic.

That's why your argument reads like nonsense. I can definitely agree that unsuccesfull acting can ruin the atmosphere, whether we're talking of a roleplaying game, a stage play, or a movie.


The sense of 'correct' meant here was pretty clearly given by the thread context as 'doing what the character would do', with the additional focus on the contrast between situations where the DM or system gives stage direction about what the character should be feeling, versus what the player feels or decides to feel. If you ignore that context and silently redefine it this way, then yes, its going to read as a strange argument, because then its not actually an argument about the thing you're thinking about at all.

As a DM, my goal isn't 'get the players to roleplay', its 'give the players a good time and maybe expand their horizons a bit'. Acting can be a vehicle or part of moving towards those goals, but it isn't an end in itself. Even roleplay is only a means rather than an end. If a player can use the game to explore an idea they're interested in, or seek an emotion or the feel of a particular experience, that's the thing I want to enable.

A method based on faking it but maintaining distance is counterproductive to those goals. To give players the ability to explore something there needs to be a context that permits them to ask - and answer for themselves - introspective questions from the point of view of the character. When the direction is primarily external, it's giving answers rather than the opportunity of questions.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-23, 11:23 AM
This really sounds like your saying nothing in the game should ever effect the characters at all.

Only if you insist on reading it that way.

Max_Killjoy
2017-07-23, 11:26 AM
Trying to claim roleplaying in the context of an RPG as simply "a form of acting" is no more accurate than trying to claim all RPGs as a "form of fiction".

RazorChain
2017-07-23, 02:34 PM
Trying to claim roleplaying in the context of an RPG as simply "a form of acting" is no more accurate than trying to claim all RPGs as a "form of fiction".


Well then it would be an "Acting Game" or "Storytelling Game". Acting or improv acting is a skillset you can use in a RPG and being able to come up with good plots in fiction is something a GM can use to his advantage (or he can just steal from the best)

Acting is almost roleplaying in reverse. You have a character and you know what the character is going to do, now you must find a motive and personality. Roleplaying is where you find a motive and personality to find out what the character will do.

Tanarii
2017-07-24, 08:57 AM
Did you see me use the word "method" there?

No, you didn't. So don't waste your time arguing against something that wasn't said.



Which neatly fits within the larger category of acting, which as a skill means acting as if you're someone else or as if something that's not happening is happening.Ah. I see. You're talking about ur-acting, or 'pretending'. My bad. You're absolutely right, I totally misinterpreted what you meant, and jumped to the wrong conclusion. Effectively I made the same mistake people often make on hearing the word 'roleplaying' nowadays.

People have long tried to redefined both acting and roleplaying to mean 'method' acting, or pretending to have a different personality, and then having interactions with the fictional environment/people in ways that highlight that different personality.