PDA

View Full Version : Counterfactuals and the perception of game mechanics



NichG
2018-10-31, 10:48 PM
I was thinking about the feel of defense mechanics in video games and tabletop games, and I realized there's a fairly subtle difference in approach that could actually make a huge difference in how the mechanics are perceived even if they're mathematically identical.

Let's consider a defense mechanic which offers some probability of fully negating the damage, while otherwise letting the damage through entirely. In video games where you might be passing through hundreds of damage events per minute of play, mobs of weak enemies cause this mechanic to behave as if it were a fractional damage reduction mechanic, meaning that it may e.g. become unnecessary to bother to dodge. Whereas situations with few, strong enemies cause this mechanic to become unreliable - even if you have a 80% chance of ignoring a strong hit, if that hit would kill you and restart the fight the other 20% of the time you still need to behave as if each threat were going to kill you to make it to the end of the fight (e.g. you need to bother to dodge).

In tabletop games, the signalling is a lot weaker because we don't have the weight of repeating the situation hundreds of times over an hour of play. So what can we do instead? Well, one thing we have is that the players can be more aware of details that surround how the various outcomes are calculated (whereas in a complicated situation in a video game, you wouldn't have time to track all the individual damage and hit and so on calculations even if they were exposed).

So this is a bit of a longwinded preface to the core thought: we can achieve very different perceptual effects by rolling damage first before rolling the negation chances, versus rolling damage only if those chances pass through.

If we roll sources of negation first, then players don't know whether or not their negation chances saved them, or simply marginally reduced the resource drain they will experience over the course of the fight/adventure. If a monster fails to hit my character 4 times in a row and hasn't hit anyone yet in the fight, I might feel that it's not very threatening or dangerous - even if it would one-shot me if it had actually landed that blow. As a result, only monsters able to consistently land blows on the PCs provide feedback about their danger level, meaning that often players might overextend and get hit with seemingly arbitrary consequences (because there has been nothing that has telegraphed the risk).

On the other hand, lets say we roll damage first. Then, even if you're consistently negating most of the blows, you could perceive what the consequence of that 20% that hasn't happened yet would be. Meaning that we could achieve a higher degree of perceived danger without also increasing the consequences which need to actually occur in the line of play.

Taking a step back, one of the big paradoxes of an extended campaign is that if a character has even a small chance of dying in every fight, by the end of the campaign they will have had so many fights that they would almost certainly die. A 2% chance per fight over 100 fights turns into a 87% chance by the end. Meaning that the real chance of failure that can be injected into any battle is a very limited resource for any game designer. On the other hand, if you could communicate that there would be a 50% chance of death each fight if you had behaved a certain way (which you have control over), but which can be reduced to a 1% chance if you behave 'correctly' (by which I mean, altering strategy to take into account the telegraphed threat levels), then that becomes a much wider space in which to design a variety of threats or situations.

Quertus
2018-11-01, 12:06 AM
So... Hmmm... First off, I think I like PCs doing what you call "overextending", as it's what I call "role-playing" - not acting on knowledge that they don't have.

That having been said, you don't have to get hit/damaged by an attack to know how strong it is. Narrating how it feels when the blow hits your armor, how much "damage" it deals when it impacts terrain, etc, are or can be very effective ways to telegraph threat.

That having been said... I recall one time when the party was fighting a creature that they had the option to attempt to dodge, or to take an AoO against. It came down to the last PC, a Fighter, to make his choice. Eventually, he chose the AoO, and killed the creature. Then, OOC, I told them the TPK level of that that the creature had posed, and how, had he chosen differently, and allowed the creature to attack, most of the party probably wouldn't have survived.

So, I vary how and when I telegraph information, based primarily on my higher principle of role-playing.

Psikerlord
2018-11-01, 12:31 AM
A 2% chance per fight over 100 fights turns into a 87% chance by the end.
... this doesnt sound right?

Koo Rehtorb
2018-11-01, 12:37 AM
... this doesnt sound right?

It is.

I disagree that it means you have to make most fights have a less than 2% chance of danger, though. I submit that what that means is that having 100 fights over the course of your campaign is way too many.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-01, 12:45 AM
I don't think displaying the damage before the attack roll would work at all. In D&D, going by-the-book, damage is a huge variable. A huge powerful foe might only do three points of damage...and in the same round a small weaker looking can do 20. Also, there are things worse then just damage.

But more so such mechanics is going along the downward slope of Roll Playing. Where the players are just fighting "Monster Type Seven" that has an AC of X and HP of Y..and then it's just roll until it's dead. Then fight the next monster.



As a Killer DM that uses the ''behave a certain way" you mentioned. Though a lot of my ''way" is ''not act like a foolish idiot". I see a lot of games where the Dm says monster and the players just fall all over the table yelling and screaming about how their character rushed forward to make three full attacks with a charge and 'go nova'...while the DM has the monster just sit there as a target, and maybe like a slight attack for like two points of damage. Now this way is fine...in that game. But it will get your character killed in a couple rounds in my game.

Other then not acting like the above, I greatly encourage a lot of common sense things like: picking and choosing battles, picking battle locations, planning, tactics, and teamwork. Players that do such things...have a good chance of having their character live.

The Random NPC
2018-11-01, 01:21 AM
... this doesnt sound right?

It's a statistics thing. If you have a 2% chance of dying, after 100 fights the odds of you having died at least once is about 87%. You'd expect it to be 2% but it just isn't how that works. Basically, since all we care about is if it happens at all, you have a 98% of not dying in the first fight. You have that same 98% in the second, but you only get there if you survived the first so you multiply the two together, which gives you 96.04% or 3.96% chance of dying. You keep doing this until you reach the end of your sequence. So, the chance you will die in any given fight is 2%, but the chance you will die at least once in the next 100 fights is 87%.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-11-01, 01:55 AM
Actually I'll come right out and say. A fight in which there is no danger is not only boring, but pointless and shouldn't be in the campaign in the first place. I genuinely do not understand the point of fights which you're supposed to win without danger. At that point it seems like you're just wasting a lot of time rolling dice because you like the sound they make. Situations which the result isn't in question in shouldn't be a major part of the game at all, let alone the main focus of it.

Florian
2018-11-01, 02:08 AM
Actually I'll come right out and say. A fight in which there is no danger is not only boring, but pointless and shouldn't be in the campaign in the first place. I genuinely do not understand the point of fights which you're supposed to win without danger. At that point it seems like you're just wasting a lot of time rolling dice because you like the sound they make. Situations which the result isn't in question in shouldn't be a major part of the game at all, let alone the main focus of it.

That depends on whether resource attrition is an important part of the game / metric for success or not.

Rockphed
2018-11-01, 02:18 AM
Actually I'll come right out and say. A fight in which there is no danger is not only boring, but pointless and shouldn't be in the campaign in the first place. I genuinely do not understand the point of fights which you're supposed to win without danger. At that point it seems like you're just wasting a lot of time rolling dice because you like the sound they make. Situations which the result isn't in question in shouldn't be a major part of the game at all, let alone the main focus of it.

Off the top of my head, repeats of previous close (or outright lost) fights that the players are not going to be challenged by can be a good way to show the players that they have become top dogs. Meeting the bandits who ambushed them at the start of their career 5 levels later and wiping the floor with them sounds cathartic, ya know.

Pleh
2018-11-01, 04:47 AM
It is.

I disagree that it means you have to make most fights have a less than 2% chance of danger, though. I submit that what that means is that having 100 fights over the course of your campaign is way too many.

Well, you also have to bear in mind the rather large probability of getting resurrected.

Psikerlord
2018-11-01, 05:01 AM
It's a statistics thing. If you have a 2% chance of dying, after 100 fights the odds of you having died at least once is about 87%. You'd expect it to be 2% but it just isn't how that works. Basically, since all we care about is if it happens at all, you have a 98% of not dying in the first fight. You have that same 98% in the second, but you only get there if you survived the first so you multiply the two together, which gives you 96.04% or 3.96% chance of dying. You keep doing this until you reach the end of your sequence. So, the chance you will die in any given fight is 2%, but the chance you will die at least once in the next 100 fights is 87%.

Yeah I guess it sounds like a lot, but that is over 100 fights, which is a **** load.

Quertus
2018-11-01, 07:15 AM
... this doesnt sound right?


It is.

And this is why CaW players try really, really hard to make that a 0% chance of dieing in any given fight! Especially the ones who are good at math.


Actually I'll come right out and say. A fight in which there is no danger is not only boring, but pointless and shouldn't be in the campaign in the first place. I genuinely do not understand the point of fights which you're supposed to win without danger. At that point it seems like you're just wasting a lot of time rolling dice because you like the sound they make. Situations which the result isn't in question in shouldn't be a major part of the game at all, let alone the main focus of it.

Well, on top of what others have already said (resource attrition, demonstrate growth), fights that don't actually threaten character death can have a lot of value. To a CaW player, that's a sign that you've done your job right! It's a great opportunity to roleplay, and to learn about the world (for the world to roleplay?) - "hey, look, that troll were fought was afraid of our torches". It gives the war gamers something to do. It makes "push the button" tasks a lot more tense when there's a fight going on. It gives you the opportunity to use all those cool new toys you got. Etc etc.


Yeah I guess it sounds like a lot, but that is over 100 fights, which is a **** load.

Or, as we used to call it, back before 3e, "level 2".

LudicSavant
2018-11-01, 09:12 AM
... this doesnt sound right?

It is correct.

You calculate as follows:

P = 1-(chance of success on single trial)^(number of trials)

In this case, your chance of failure is 2%, so your chance of success on a single trial is 98%. 1-(0.98)^100 = ~87% (rounded)

It is important to remember that mathematics is under no obligation to conform to your intuitions. It's the other way around; a mathematician should train their intuitions to conform to mathematics.

NichG
2018-11-01, 09:45 AM
This moved quickly, so rather than respond in detail quote by quote, I'm going to try to collect things into a couple of points.

On roleplay/rollplay considerations:

The point was raised that the characters shouldn't have access to information about what would have happened if they had been hit, or that this sort of feedback would encourage playing the numbers rather than playing the game. I think this comes down to the difference between running someone's established setting, versus actually designing a game. For example, in real life if I see an industrial machine fold steel like butter then I don't need to stick my arm in there to know that I will lose it - because I have a point of reference as to how tough my body is and how tough steel is and things like that. I could decide to make a setting in which superheroes are people who start from that perspective and therefore when their body becomes stronger than steel they don't have a real way of knowing 'how much' stronger. I could also decide to make a setting which is not like that, such that very powerful/tough/talented people do actually have ways of gauging their own limits.

Similarly, I could have a world in which it's possible that between two identical-looking monsters, one has a punch which bruises flesh and the other has a punch that would level a mountain. Or I could have it such that there are underlying indicators which someone in that world would be able to use to tell the difference. Neither is inherently what I must do - but by building tools and concepts for design, I gain the ability as a designer to choose intentionally which I want to do in a given context.

In terms of encouraging 'rollplay', or using narration as an alternative way of doing this, I think that the best game design for roleplay is that a player who decides to straight out 'rollplay' would find that in the end, they're effectively roleplaying a character consistent with the setting (even if it isn't necessarily a character consistent with how they described it initially). That is to say, if the fiction says that
X is nonsense and Y is what you should do, good design will have the meta-game considerations reflect that so that it feels natural rather than incoherent. Narration is a powerful tool to convey things, but the bandwidth is limited, and furthermore players may come in with different expectations about how seriously to take the DM's narration (for example, if they've played with other DMs who have used untrustworthy-narrator tricks, or who have just exaggerated things for dramatic effect). The numbers form a stronger commitment to particular consequences, which removes some of those issues - it's saying 'this is what the things you are perceiving mean' rather than 'this is what you see, it's up to you to interpret'. And that aspect of it is something which you can make use of in design.

On lethality, danger, risk, and consequential conflicts:

First, I want to bring up a trope which you may or may not be familiar with - the Worf effect. The basic idea is, in Star Trek they spent some effort establishing Worf as a badass. So thereafter, if they wanted to make sure that the audience took a given threat seriously, they'd have that threat beat up Worf. In the long run, this makes that initial badass reputation seem like a joke.

For someone to establish themselves as a 'killer DM' or otherwise scare players into taking threats seriously, the issue is that're forced into a situation where, metaphorically, they have to beat up Worf. That is to say, if the players actually do play very well and don't screw up (or just plain get lucky), the DM isn't going to be able to legitimately establish the tenor of their game as being potentially lethal until someone screws up, or until the DM forces the issue by ramping up difficulty. In the end, though, either outcome is basically bad for the game - either there's a persistent misconception at the table which can become a gotcha when the players' luck runs out, or the DM is being unfair and is essentially bullying the players just to bring them into line.

In essence, to communicate the threat this way, it is necessary to make combat not just dangerous, but risky. While a 'dangerous' situation is one in which you could succeed or fail, it isn't necessarily one in which there is some unavoidable probability of failure. For example, you could have a situation in which if you act one way you have a 0% chance of dying, and if you act another way it's an 80% chance, and it's neither easy nor impossible to know for certain which action corresponds to which chance. In retrospect, the campaign might consist of a number of situations that once that decision was made were totally safe, but those situations are all still relevant to play through because it isn't a given that the players will actually correctly discern the best actions. On the other hand, you could have a 'risky' situation in which no matter what you choose, there is some probability that you die despite that.

If the only way to communicate the actual threat levels is to have the consequences occur, you're forced to use 'risk' rather than 'danger' - because anything that doesn't happen will feel as if it couldn't happened. But if you make use of some side-channel information about what could have happened (such as the damage rolls) then you can start to have situations in which the danger is high but the risk is low.

A real-life example of this might be something like suppressing fire, where pretty much anyone in that situation knows what would happen if they went into the suppressed area or stuck their head out (because they have some prior knowledge about how the human body reacts to bullets) but at the same time, may have access to a place which protects them quite effectively from the fire so long as they don't take the obvious bad action (and as a result, they can be herded into a less-obvious bad action or inaction).

On variance and reliability of damage numbers:

This is very system dependent, but it could easily be folded into the same kind of design considerations. If you're rolling big bags of d6's for fireball damage, it's going to be pretty low variance. Similarly, if it's high-level D&D and most of the damage comes from constants added on (weapon +'s, power attack, modifiers from stats) then the variance will be low. Low-level D&D, or crit-heavy situations, will have misleading damage numbers. Whether or not you want the damage numbers to be misleading becomes a factor that can be used for effect.

LudicSavant
2018-11-01, 09:49 AM
*Snip*

I like the idea of rolling damage numbers first, then determining if it hits or misses. It could help give missed swings a more concrete sense of "weight," which I feel is important to dramatic action. I'll add that I also find it entirely reasonable that someone would be able to judge the force behind a missed swing (tons of examples of this sort of thing in both real life and fiction).

It also increases the ability for players to have rational tactical expectations, which helps support tactical depth.

It also seems like it could be used to speed up play, since the attacker doesn't have to break up their resolution with the target's resolution.

So... at least three reasons I like this design idea.

exelsisxax
2018-11-01, 09:58 AM
If your damage roll and attack roll are two separate things, do them both at once. Everything else is badwrong (barring special cases like "roll NdX instead if your attack is 18+")

But seriously, roll it at the same time to speed things up.

DMThac0
2018-11-01, 10:34 AM
I read your initial post last night before going to bed and I rolled it around in my head. I was entertained by the idea so it kept me busy and my wife and I talked about the psychology behind it. In the end, your idea, and what we talked about, sounds like an interesting experiment, I am going to try this at my table.

I've got a group that I've been DMing in a homebrew campaign for about 3 years, I'll be doing this experiment with them. My control is my wife, she knows that I'll be switching to announcing damage first, narrating the scene, and telling them if it hit. The rest of my players, four in total, are of varying ability and understanding of the game. They're used to me rolling to hit and damage but I'll narrate the scene then tell the damage amount after. I think this will be fun and interesting.

Quertus
2018-11-01, 10:34 AM
Roleplaying

Sure, I'll agree that there are bad GMs out there. This is just another reason why demonstrating what kind of GM you are, by narrating correctly, is so important.

Some creatures are exactly as strong as they seem. Some, like Superman, are deceptive. To facilitate Roleplaying, the GM should narrate exactly what the PCs perceive, and not tell them that, when Superman missed the grab, he would have dealt 99999999 damage.

The Worf Effect

I'm decidedly not a fan of the Worf effect. It's Narrative gaming killing Simulationist play. In other words, it goes against my gaming religion, and part of why I'm all about burning Narrative thinking at the stake.

Risk, and Player Knowledge

The TPK Ooze was an example of a 5%/80% fatal encounter, with no easy way of the players knowing what the correct choice was. Not the best encounter from a CaS Gamist perspective (although, by RAW, it was well within their CR range (which isn't something I guarantee, either)). I told them about its damage after the fact, in part because it helped establish that I'm a Simulationist GM who will give you what's there, and not pull my punches. And made them aware of what their characters should have known - that the world is dangerous, and that they needed to be prepared for that. Because there was no kindly GM looking out for them, to make sure that they succeeded, or even lived.

Metagaming

So, it's an interesting idea, that one could set as a design goal to make a system where the metagame answer is the same as the roleplaying answer - where acting with knowledge of the mechanical effects of things is identical to acting on character knowledge. I agree that, most of the time, these should be the same - because if you've lived in the world, are familiar with the world, then you should intuitively understand roughly how the world operates, and a normal human shouldn't assume that getting hit by a cement truck moving at 100mph will total the truck while only mildly inconvenience them. Unless, of course, as in several systems, that's actually exactly what they should assume. :smalleek:

However, I find such worlds where everything is known to be boring.

I, personally, don't like playing in a world that is just a copy of this reality. Also, I don't like playing in a world where everything is Known. My primary source of enjoyment in a game is Exploration - I want the world to be filled with Unknowns, I want the joy of learning that Kryptonians are a whole lot stronger and tougher than they look. Yes, by all means, make sure that the Players and the PCs are on the same page about the 99% of the world that they're familiar with, but don't make ingrained into the system the impossibility for the 1% of Unknowns that exist in the world to actually be treated as unknowns. Make those Unknowns learned reasonably - when bullets bounce off of Superman's eye, and he punches through the side of a tank.

Summary

I agree that a good GM should make sure that the Players have the knowledge that their PCs should have about how threatening the world is. I disagree that the proposed system will correctly accomplish that for any world I'd care to play in.

Pelle
2018-11-01, 10:35 AM
If your damage roll and attack roll are two separate things, do them both at once. Everything else is badwrong (barring special cases like "roll NdX instead if your attack is 18+")

But seriously, roll it at the same time to speed things up.

This. If you want the damage potential more transparent to the players you can change any NdX+Y to MdX. Say a monster with 1d6+11 damage gets 4d6 instead. To reduce the variance you can use smaller dice, but then it gets more fiddly to add all the dice results together, though.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-11-01, 10:55 AM
Well, on top of what others have already said (resource attrition, demonstrate growth), fights that don't actually threaten character death can have a lot of value. To a CaW player, that's a sign that you've done your job right! It's a great opportunity to roleplay, and to learn about the world (for the world to roleplay?) - "hey, look, that troll were fought was afraid of our torches". It gives the war gamers something to do. It makes "push the button" tasks a lot more tense when there's a fight going on. It gives you the opportunity to use all those cool new toys you got. Etc etc.

I didn't say no threat of death, I said no danger. A fight that has a good chance of costing you important resources when you're probably going to get into more fights immediately thereafter before having a chance to replenish them is still dangerous. Or, a fight in which you're not in personal danger but the people you're protecting have a decent chance of being killed. A fight that could have killed you if you approached it stupidly is also dangerous, even if you're canny enough to arrange it so that it becomes easy.

But no, I don't think a fight designed to show how cool and tough you are is worth playing. You can just let the players describe in detail how they wipe the floor with the pathetic downtrodden goblin masses and move on.

NichG
2018-11-01, 11:18 AM
I read your initial post last night before going to bed and I rolled it around in my head. I was entertained by the idea so it kept me busy and my wife and I talked about the psychology behind it. In the end, your idea, and what we talked about, sounds like an interesting experiment, I am going to try this at my table.

I've got a group that I've been DMing in a homebrew campaign for about 3 years, I'll be doing this experiment with them. My control is my wife, she knows that I'll be switching to announcing damage first, narrating the scene, and telling them if it hit. The rest of my players, four in total, are of varying ability and understanding of the game. They're used to me rolling to hit and damage but I'll narrate the scene then tell the damage amount after. I think this will be fun and interesting.

Cool! If you don't mind, I'd be interested in hearing how this goes!

Quertus
2018-11-01, 11:34 AM
I didn't say no threat of death, I said no danger. A fight that has a good chance of costing you important resources when you're probably going to get into more fights immediately thereafter before having a chance to replenish them is still dangerous. Or, a fight in which you're not in personal danger but the people you're protecting have a decent chance of being killed. A fight that could have killed you if you approached it stupidly is also dangerous, even if you're canny enough to arrange it so that it becomes easy.

But no, I don't think a fight designed to show how cool and tough you are is worth playing. You can just let the players describe in detail how they wipe the floor with the pathetic downtrodden goblin masses and move on.

Ah, I... should have responded to what you said, not what I thought you meant to say. :smallredface:

In that case, I mostly agree. There are a few exceptions, though. For one, if the PCs don't know that it's not a threat, they may expend resources that they will need later. Also, roleplaying and learning are still a thing.

But, yes, the Players did once ask about going on a mission, and I told them up front that there would be absolutely no danger in exterminating the Ninja Clan that they disliked. I told them that they could if they wanted, but... I really should have just said, "OK, you do it, have a level, I'll give you the loot sheet next week."

Thinker
2018-11-01, 11:51 AM
I like the idea because it adds tension to the game, which can be lacking. I agree with the issue that you identified where it is difficult to convey the danger of a threat unless either a) the GM describes it well and the players understand that description or b) the characters suffer the damage from the foe. I also think that rolling dice that may be superfluous will slow down the game. Instead of rolling those dice, just let the players know their foes' average damage roll with their highest damage ability (e.g., 2d6+2 -> 9) and their bonus to hitting with their most accurate attack if applicable (e.g., +9 damage).

If the numbers seem too gamey for you, you could try to water it down to a rating system of very high threat, high threat, medium threat, low threat, very low threat, but that runs into a similar issue where players aren't sure what a "very high threat" means compared to a "medium threat".

NichG
2018-11-01, 12:35 PM
I, personally, don't like playing in a world that is just a copy of this reality. Also, I don't like playing in a world where everything is Known. My primary source of enjoyment in a game is Exploration - I want the world to be filled with Unknowns, I want the joy of learning that Kryptonians are a whole lot stronger and tougher than they look. Yes, by all means, make sure that the Players and the PCs are on the same page about the 99% of the world that they're familiar with, but don't make ingrained into the system the impossibility for the 1% of Unknowns that exist in the world to actually be treated as unknowns. Make those Unknowns learned reasonably - when bullets bounce off of Superman's eye, and he punches through the side of a tank.


Not to push the idea too heavily, but if you establish as standard telegraphing the damage, you can use the contrast when you stop to establish strangeness or newness for certain special elements. E.g. everyone you fight for the first 15 sessions of the campaign is telegraphing damage, but then suddenly you encounter a single enemy with some odd visual glitches going on who unexplainedly doesn't provide that feedback, etc.

I like to have access to various methods to communicate or establish things without saying them explicitly, because then those channels become ways to create visceral impressions of distinctions within the game world.


I like the idea because it adds tension to the game, which can be lacking. I agree with the issue that you identified where it is difficult to convey the danger of a threat unless either a) the GM describes it well and the players understand that description or b) the characters suffer the damage from the foe. I also think that rolling dice that may be superfluous will slow down the game. Instead of rolling those dice, just let the players know their foes' average damage roll with their highest damage ability (e.g., 2d6+2 -> 9) and their bonus to hitting with their most accurate attack if applicable (e.g., +9 damage).


In terms of maintaining game speed, I think having the DM not need to go back and perform another verbal interaction after the opening statement saves more time than removing the dice roll, so I wouldn't want the threatened number and the final reported number to differ. 'The orc threatens 9 damage against AC 18', 'hit', 'you take 11' seems clunky to me. I'd rather it be 'The orc threatens 9 damage against AC 18', 'okay, that hit, I'm still up'.

Of course, since we're talking system design here, we can also imagine cases where we actually design the damage ratings to be flat or even explicitly description-based damage tracks (Fudge-like), so rolls wouldn't be an issue.



If the numbers seem too gamey for you, you could try to water it down to a rating system of very high threat, high threat, medium threat, low threat, very low threat, but that runs into a similar issue where players aren't sure what a "very high threat" means compared to a "medium threat".

Yeah, I think the numbers are special in the sense that the players can virtually resolve what happens next in their head on their own. I don't get the 'whew, I almost died!' feeling from avoiding a 'high threat hit', but I do get it if e.g. I discover that I had a +2 AC that I had forgotten about which prevents the hit that would have taken me to -20. Of course, if 'very high threat' means something mechanically specific, that could be different.

Quertus
2018-11-01, 01:17 PM
Not to push the idea too heavily, but if you establish as standard telegraphing the damage, you can use the contrast when you stop to establish strangeness or newness for certain special elements. E.g. everyone you fight for the first 15 sessions of the campaign is telegraphing damage, but then suddenly you encounter a single enemy with some odd visual glitches going on who unexplainedly doesn't provide that feedback, etc.

I like to have access to various methods to communicate or establish things without saying them explicitly, because then those channels become ways to create visceral impressions of distinctions within the game world.

That's... Art, I suppose. Rather than notice his confidence, or the wind from his missed punch, you notice that Superman doesn't return a damage value. It's OOC instead of IC, but it kinda does the same job of making you pay attention, I guess.

martixy
2018-11-01, 01:25 PM
... this doesnt sound right?

It is, and others have explained. I'll just put a name to it: It's called a Binomial Probability.
Interestingly, halving the chance(to 1%) doesn't halve this probability. You go from 87% chance to 63% chance - only a 24/28% decrease, depending on if you look at absolute or relative difference(boy is this confusing in this case).

@Koo
Fights without danger have a place. I'll give an example:
Imagine at Level 2 going against a bunch of kobolds that nearly slaughter your inexperienced asses.
Then at Level 12 you go against a similar encounter and you completely steamroll it.
It gives you a clear sense of progression, lets you roleplay how far you've come, essentially validates your advancement. Plus, it feels awesome(power fantasy and all that jazz).

If all the fights you go up against are dangerous, which is the same as saying threats scale closely to advancement, then there is simply no reason to advance, since there will never be contrast to demonstrate your growth.


It is important to remember that mathematics is under no obligation to conform to your intuitions. It's the other way around; a mathematician should train their intuitions to conform to mathematics.

Well and good, but I'd love to see anyone who has an actual intuition for Bayesian probability.

Onto OP:
IMO this can be achieved through good DMing, but this method might be a good fallback for those who are less inclined to appropriately flowery and evocative descriptions. Though it can be a tool to add tension to the game. If you have a high-damage foe, rolling damage first will definitely make for a more memorable encounter, as the players agonize over those moments of uncertainty.

About that big statistical paradox you mention:
It isn't actually a paradox because your numbers are wrong due to the nature of the game. Most encounters are ablative. They're designed to drain resources, not threaten death.
Contrast this with Save or Die mechanics, which have classically been a pain point in games precisely because they exhibit the binary nature of your proposed paradox.

Thinker
2018-11-01, 01:36 PM
In terms of maintaining game speed, I think having the DM not need to go back and perform another verbal interaction after the opening statement saves more time than removing the dice roll, so I wouldn't want the threatened number and the final reported number to differ. 'The orc threatens 9 damage against AC 18', 'hit', 'you take 11' seems clunky to me. I'd rather it be 'The orc threatens 9 damage against AC 18', 'okay, that hit, I'm still up'.
I was envisioning a statement at the beginning of combat. The orcs do 9 damage on average. Maybe a token on the table that indicates their damage. That lets the players gauge roughly how dangerous their foes are while still leaving open some surprise.



Of course, since we're talking system design here, we can also imagine cases where we actually design the damage ratings to be flat or even explicitly description-based damage tracks (Fudge-like), so rolls wouldn't be an issue.
Yeah. That's probably better.

Thrudd
2018-11-01, 02:03 PM
In the context of D&D, at least, it seems like you could achieve some of this, and also mostly avoid the problem of players acting on information their characters don't have, simply by rolling damage and to-hit simultaneously and openly. Seeing the damage dice that will be rolled will communicate the potential damage, even before the roll. But they don't need to know that there will definitely be ten damage if they don't use their defensive ability on this round - just that the monster uses d10's.
Since knowing the potential damage is already the case with humanoids using particular weapons, just from description, it makes sense that the characters might also see a dragon's claws or a monster's sharp teeth or spikes and know how potentially damaging they can be, and that is something that can be translated for the players into damage dice, just like it is for weapons (because players have a list of weapon damage in the PHB). It also saves the DM from having to describe things as "the teeth look as sharp as longswords" or something similarly silly/obvious to communicate potential damage.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-01, 02:37 PM
For someone to establish themselves as a 'killer DM' or otherwise scare players into taking threats seriously, the issue is that're forced into a situation where, metaphorically, they have to beat up Worf. That is to say, if the players actually do play very well and don't screw up (or just plain get lucky), the DM isn't going to be able to legitimately establish the tenor of their game as being potentially lethal until someone screws up, or until the DM forces the issue by ramping up difficulty. In the end, though, either outcome is basically bad for the game - either there's a persistent misconception at the table which can become a gotcha when the players' luck runs out, or the DM is being unfair and is essentially bullying the players just to bring them into line.

The Worf Effect is not really related to this. The Trope here is more False Advertising. The DM is saying one thing, and then doing another.

To scare players, or people in general, is an art. Not everyone can do it. Scary horror writing and atmosphere and game play is hard. And it's a fine trick to keep the players right on the line of despair...where they will simply leave the game. When it's done right, the players are on the edge of their seats and fully immersed in the game.

And it does not have to be character death. A more classic is just item loss....even more so special item loss. A couple minutes into the game....and Bob's character Spike looses his spiked chain when a foe sunders it. Bob is in tears, his silly one trick pony character is now utterly useless and the rest of the players are in shock. This snaps everyone quickly into ''this is not a DM lets you do silly wish fulfillment/ego boost fantasies here" type game.

Also, big note, just about every game will have one of Those Players. No matter what is said to them....they will still do "stuff".


A real-life example of this might be something like suppressing fire, where pretty much anyone in that situation knows what would happen if they went into the suppressed area or stuck their head out (because they have some prior knowledge about how the human body reacts to bullets) but at the same time, may have access to a place which protects them quite effectively from the fire so long as they don't take the obvious bad action (and as a result, they can be herded into a less-obvious bad action or inaction).


Interestingly 'fire' from missile weapons is often a big killer in my games as many players don't grasp the concept. Missile attacks are common in my world: a lot of foes try to avoid melee. But few players even grasp the idea of cover...until a soft target, often like an animal companion, is hit and killed. Suddenly, after Sir Bearalot dies, the players will flip open the rules and read ''oh, cover stops missile weapons from killing". And then have their characters duck and cover.


The vast majority of most RPGs games, and even more so D&D, is played in a much more Disney Romp style. That is, the game is just fun ''action and adventure", with no real ''bad things" or "consequences" or even a ''slight frown". The players know there characters will just ''survive and do whatever it is they want to do", so the whole ''game" is just ''ok, we know we already did it...now lets play out and see how we already did it". In this game hit points are useless...they might go 'down' sometimes...but it does not mean anything.

So when you have a game were suddenly the players discover that ''wait..if the character looses all their hit points they...are...dead?" it can be a huge shock to the player.

RazorChain
2018-11-01, 03:36 PM
I didn't say no threat of death, I said no danger. A fight that has a good chance of costing you important resources when you're probably going to get into more fights immediately thereafter before having a chance to replenish them is still dangerous. Or, a fight in which you're not in personal danger but the people you're protecting have a decent chance of being killed. A fight that could have killed you if you approached it stupidly is also dangerous, even if you're canny enough to arrange it so that it becomes easy.

But no, I don't think a fight designed to show how cool and tough you are is worth playing. You can just let the players describe in detail how they wipe the floor with the pathetic downtrodden goblin masses and move on.

I agree, a fight where nothing is at stake is not meaningful. Combat should usually pose a dramatic question which includes the survival of the PC's.

Once in a blue moon you can throw in a meaningless combat just to showcase the badassery of the heroes, but that kind is the exception that proves the rule so to speak but this can just as easily be narrated

Of course you don't have to prevent the PC's from starting a fight but epic heroes participating in a bar brawl can just be described by the players themselves

Often when the dramatic tension of the fight is over I just narrate the rest of the fight

awa
2018-11-01, 03:57 PM
yet again darth ultron start off saying something i agree with, you can threaten players with things besides death. Then you going whirling away and say a lot of stuff, stuff I dont agree with.

Other things to threaten are favored npcs and permanent injuries, if you can get them to care about their character you need a lot less actual danger to make them feel threatened. The one thing you do need to do is punish them for being reckless and make their choices matter.

Generally I find not every fight has to be lethal or even a reasonable chance of being lethal, occasionally its fun to have a fight that is just easy a chance for the pcs to show off how far they've come. Alternatively in my game sometimes the pcs might get into a dozen or more fights before being able to completely recover all their resources. The challenge is manage their resources if the wizards burns his best spell one shoting a swarm of weaklings the fighter could have taken with only minor damage well they might be in trouble latter down the line when a more worthy threat approaches.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-01, 04:19 PM
yet again darth ultron start off saying something i agree with, you can threaten players with things besides death. Then you going whirling away and say a lot of stuff, stuff I dont agree with.

I should like put that in my signature :)



Other things to threaten are favored npcs and permanent injuries, if you can get them to care about their character you need a lot less actual danger to make them feel threatened. The one thing you do need to do is punish them for being reckless and make their choices matter.

So by ''threaten", I use you mean ''Disney threaten"? Like Evil NPC Fred says ''I'll kill Npc Bob"..and everyone acts like that might happen?

And permanent injuries? Well, I guess your against special item loss right? So you'd also be against ''permanent injuries" that have big effect too right? So no withered hands so a spellcaster can't cast spells or no missing limbs so say a character can't hold a two handed weapon. So, what is your ''permanent injury"? Like ''ok, you took a point of permanent damage...but it has no other effect on your character."

This comes back to what the OP was talking about: DMs that say ''oh your characters will feel so scared and threatened by things in the game world...and then the DM is like ''oh you see a scary tree and it says 'Boo!'

As opposed too:

Characters encounter a lone red skinned orc with two axes. Players laugh. Player Bob sends his animal companion Sir CareBear over, alone, to kill the funny orc.

Instead...the bear misses will all attacks. And the orc hits with all of it's attacks....and does a lot of damage and hacks the bear in half and bathes in it's blood.

Then the orc gathers up all the bear blood into a whirl...and shoots a spray of blood at the characters...knocking them all back thirty feet and doing some damage.

Now see...throes characters feel threatened...and their players react by saying ''we have our characters run away as quick as we can!"

Psikerlord
2018-11-01, 05:11 PM
It is correct.

You calculate as follows:

P = 1-(chance of success on single trial)^(number of trials)

In this case, your chance of failure is 2%, so your chance of success on a single trial is 98%. 1-(0.98)^100 = ~87% (rounded)

It is important to remember that mathematics is under no obligation to conform to your intuitions. It's the other way around; a mathematician should train their intuitions to conform to mathematics.
Yeah it's a combination or permutation or something isnt it? It's been a while since I did probability at school. In any case, it doesnt really translate at the table. It would be impossible to calculate the odds of death in most battles, given all the variables.

What matters more is the chance of death if you hit zero hp. Which may or may not happen very often, depending on system/game at hand.

awa
2018-11-01, 05:26 PM
I mean yeash talk about straw man

im not going to get into most of that but I will discus one thing, if you threaten npc they generally need to know that A it was their failure that caused the problem and B their has to be real consequences, and C they have to actually care about the npc which means you cant do it to often.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-01, 07:08 PM
I mean yeash talk about straw man

im not going to get into most of that but I will discus one thing, if you threaten npc they generally need to know that A it was their failure that caused the problem and B their has to be real consequences, and C they have to actually care about the npc which means you cant do it to often.

Or you can do it Ever Round of the Game.

Sure the player does not care about NPC Farmer Bob......but they sure care a lot about NPC their animal companion Sir Bearalot.

awa
2018-11-01, 07:42 PM
see there's your problem it only works if they care about the npc. That means the npcs needs to be interesting and they need a relationship with them. If you kill them to often they cant get attached to them. If there not attached to them they wont care about them.

This also works for pcs ive found that if pcs die often the players have significantly less attachment to their replacement and care less if he dies as well.

But if they have had invested a lot in the character and they know that their choices will determine if they live or die they will spend a lot more time thinking about them, even if the odds of death are slim.

Note if they cant make informed decisions or it feels like their choices are arbitrarily shut down it wont work either it will just make them frustrated.

NichG
2018-11-01, 08:20 PM
The Worf Effect is not really related to this.

...

And it does not have to be character death. A more classic is just item loss....even more so special item loss. A couple minutes into the game....and Bob's character Spike looses his spiked chain when a foe sunders it. Bob is in tears, his silly one trick pony character is now utterly useless and the rest of the players are in shock. This snaps everyone quickly into ''this is not a DM lets you do silly wish fulfillment/ego boost fantasies here" type game.

...

Sure the player does not care about NPC Farmer Bob......but they sure care a lot about NPC their animal companion Sir Bearalot.

This is basically the Worf effect though - in order to communicate a point about the world, the writer (you in this case) must compromise some aspect of the integrity of the game, namely that you decide a priori 'I am going to destroy an item in session 1' or 'I am going to focus fire on the animal companion' even when those outcomes or decisions don't make sense in-character for the enemies or for the natural consequences that should be in place in the world.

The thing that is lost is that if a player recognizes why you're doing it, then rather than reading it as 'this guy doesn't pull his punches, I'd better take this game seriously' they can read it as 'this guy is just trying to push us around and it won't actually matter what we do in character, so we might as well not bother to be careful since we're screwed anyways'.

Pleh
2018-11-01, 08:34 PM
Of course, since we're talking system design here, we can also imagine cases where we actually design the damage ratings to be flat or even explicitly description-based damage tracks (Fudge-like), so rolls wouldn't be an issue.

I've been toying with the idea of universal damage dice. Mostly to avoid the old, "I want to use X Weapon, but Y Weapon is just do much more optimal."

I mean, it's fun shopping for that perfect balance of damage dice vs crit range, but ultimately it tends to lead to optimal weapon bias and suboptimal weapon redundancy. If this is the only weapon people want to bother with, just give every weapon those stats and let them flavor it however they want.

RazorChain
2018-11-01, 10:42 PM
On variance and reliability of damage numbers:

This is very system dependent, but it could easily be folded into the same kind of design considerations. If you're rolling big bags of d6's for fireball damage, it's going to be pretty low variance. Similarly, if it's high-level D&D and most of the damage comes from constants added on (weapon +'s, power attack, modifiers from stats) then the variance will be low. Low-level D&D, or crit-heavy situations, will have misleading damage numbers. Whether or not you want the damage numbers to be misleading becomes a factor that can be used for effect.

This has some benefits and drawbacks. If baked into the system from the start it can benefit the system, if not it can be a drawback

Let's say that the PC gets shot and hit by 3 guys with a .44 Magnum Revolvers. They all roll the same amount of dice. One rolls high damage, while the other two roll low. The PC can evade but must make 3 seperate evasion rolls but has an ability to boost one of his rolls. The player will of course chose to boost his evasion against the high damage attack, even though he doesn't know the result of the damage roll beforehand

If two of the gunmen have .44 Magnums Revolvers and the third has TAC-50, a .50 BMG sniper rifle then the player will of course chose to boost his evasion against the .50 BMG because it's clearly telegraphed what is potentially the most damaging attack.

Many systems convey how much damage an attack will potentially do before the roll. The Ogre with a Great Club has much higer damage potential than a small goblin with a spear unless the system is wildly inconsistent

The question is mostly about the metagame, the player isn't going to spend resources to avoid a blow from the Ogre if he gets a crappy damage roll. This is information that the character might not have

I personally like better that the system clearly telegraphs beforehand what kind of damage can be expected.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-02, 01:40 AM
see there's your problem it only works if they care about the npc. That means the npcs needs to be interesting and they need a relationship with them. If you kill them to often they cant get attached to them. If there not attached to them they wont care about them.


Players always care about NPC pets, mounts, animal companions and such.


This is basically the Worf effect though -

The Worf Effect is when we are told a character (or thing) is super tough...and then week after week we not only don't see it, but the exact opposite: that they are a weak wimp.

So for D&D that would be like the DM saying ''oh the dragon in the next cave is super powerful"...and then the PCs kill it in like two rounds of combat. And that is not what your talking about, right?





the writer (you in this case) must compromise some aspect of the integrity of the game, namely that you decide a priori 'I am going to destroy an item in session 1' or 'I am going to focus fire on the animal companion' even when those outcomes or decisions don't make sense in-character for the enemies or for the natural consequences that should be in place in the world.

Well, this is more a Player Complaint though of basically ''I want to feel cool and powerful so set the game on Below Novice Level of Difficulty. "

It is not so much that a DM targets something, it's more that the DM does not avoid or never targets something. A lot of DMs don't think it's ''fair'' or "right" to target something...and will say stuff like ''I can't kill the animal companion as it's a big part of the characters class abilities" or something like that.

For example, a classic of mine for goblins is they attack in groups of three: one tank, one disarmer, one grabber. The idea is simple enough...the goblin tank keeps the characters attention, while the disarmer tries to knock the characters weapon from their hand...and then the grabber gets it and runs off. It's amazingly effective. And it sure fits with my view of goblins being sneaky and not fighting fair.





The thing that is lost is that if a player recognizes why you're doing it, then rather than reading it as 'this guy doesn't pull his punches, I'd better take this game seriously' they can read it as 'this guy is just trying to push us around and it won't actually matter what we do in character, so we might as well not bother to be careful since we're screwed anyways'.

Well, this is more of a player selection thing. If a player really thinks they are ''being singled out and attacked by the DM", they are free to leave the game. To me, that is a bad player. Once a player gets to the point of ''if you do X it's ok, but Y is not " then that makes the game pointless.

NichG
2018-11-02, 02:22 AM
The Worf Effect is when we are told a character (or thing) is super tough...and then week after week we not only don't see it, but the exact opposite: that they are a weak wimp.

So for D&D that would be like the DM saying ''oh the dragon in the next cave is super powerful"...and then the PCs kill it in like two rounds of combat. And that is not what your talking about, right?


In my example, the PCs are Worf, the 'super tough' reputation is the statement from the DM that 'this campaign rewards you for paying attention and playing smart' or similar assertions about how the game will be run, and beating up Worf is 'well, I need one of you to suffer a consequence to believe that this is a serious situation, so this time at least even if you all play smart I'm going to make sure someone loses an item/NPC/character'.

It's the reversal of causality here - Worf gets beaten up because New Guy needs to look strong, not because New Guy should actually be able to beat up Worf. As a result, while the immediate narrative demand is satisfied (New Guy looks strong), it comes at the cost of eroding the premise (beating up Worf means that you're strong).

In the sense of the tabletop game, the immediate response to (arbitrarily) destroying a PC's treasured item in session 1 is that the players become wary and play more cautiously, but it comes at the cost of eroding the premise that this consequence arose from mistakes that the players actually made. Eventually the players realize that suffering a setback doesn't actually mean they screwed up, but rather it just means that the DM decided arbitrarily that they should suffer a setback. As a result, the message ultimately becomes ineffective.

awa
2018-11-02, 07:18 AM
Players always care about NPC pets, mounts, animal companions and such.




Not in my experience half the time they trade up as soon as a better option is available and treat it less like a companion and more like a fancy sword that stabs on its own.

Even if they care about the companion, they dont care about its replacement nearly as much, then you generally see one of two things treating each re-summoning as if it was the same entity or simply not caring at all.

Thinker
2018-11-02, 07:53 AM
I've been toying with the idea of universal damage dice. Mostly to avoid the old, "I want to use X Weapon, but Y Weapon is just do much more optimal."

I mean, it's fun shopping for that perfect balance of damage dice vs crit range, but ultimately it tends to lead to optimal weapon bias and suboptimal weapon redundancy. If this is the only weapon people want to bother with, just give every weapon those stats and let them flavor it however they want.

Some systems tie damage to the character, rather than the weapon, which achieves the same result. Other games where things matter use equipment as another form of progression - saving up for that uber-weapon. Meanwhile, there are games that tie weapons to specific mechanics to maximize their effectiveness. Of course, there are mixes of all three and it all depends on design goals.

LudicSavant
2018-11-02, 09:35 AM
Yeah it's a combination or permutation or something isnt it? It's been a while since I did probability at school. In any case, it doesnt really translate at the table. It would be impossible to calculate the odds of death in most battles, given all the variables.

You seem to be assuming that just because there's an enormous number of complex variables that you can't get exact variables for, the calculation is impossible and doesn't translate at the table. But you don't need to know the exact variables in order to get a very tangible advantage at the table. You just need to be able to estimate them sufficiently well.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-02, 02:14 PM
In my example, the PCs are Worf, the 'super tough' reputation is the statement from the DM that 'this campaign rewards you for paying attention and playing smart' or similar assertions about how the game will be run, and beating up Worf is 'well, I need one of you to suffer a consequence to believe that this is a serious situation, so this time at least even if you all play smart I'm going to make sure someone loses an item/NPC/character'.

But to be the Worf Effect it has to be the person in charge saying it. For the Worf Effect it is the producers/showrunners/writers, the ones in charge of the show. It's not the actor (or the players).

You are saying...the DM says the players are 'super tough', and must play a set way.....but if and when they do the DM will just ''trick" the players and do bad things to the characters and ''prove" they are not so tough?

See, that is nothing like the Worf Effect....that is False Advertising. The DM says "do this and your character will be ok", and the the player does that....and the DM is like "haha! fooled you!" and your character is not ok. Then the Dm dances around and says ''you are a fool to believe me, hehe".

But I guess your trying to make the point that if the DM ''likes" something...they will simply do it, no matter what the players do. Even if the DM tells them to do something. This is more the classic Scorned DM. The DM makes an awesome trap behind door A, and the players pick door B.....so switches the awesome trap to door B.



It's the reversal of causality here - Worf gets beaten up because New Guy needs to look strong, not because New Guy should actually be able to beat up Worf. As a result, while the immediate narrative demand is satisfied (New Guy looks strong), it comes at the cost of eroding the premise (beating up Worf means that you're strong).

See, this does not really fit though. The DM telling the players to act a set way, and then berating and back stabbing them is not the ''Worf Effect". But, would you say that when Producer Guy said to Michael Dorn(aka the actor that plays Worf) "ok, your character is the super tough and powerful guy", and Michael is like ''ok" and takes the job. Then they hand Michael a script with that says Frengi idiot comes on to the bridge with weapon out. Worf turns, pulls out his phaser,, shoots and misses from like five feet away. Then the bad guy shoots back and sends Worf flying across the bridge!



In the sense of the tabletop game, the immediate response to (arbitrarily) destroying a PC's treasured item in session 1 is that the players become wary and play more cautiously, but it comes at the cost of eroding the premise that this consequence arose from mistakes that the players actually made. Eventually the players realize that suffering a setback doesn't actually mean they screwed up, but rather it just means that the DM decided arbitrarily that they should suffer a setback. As a result, the message ultimately becomes ineffective.

Again, though, this is the DM targeting the thing and doing the DM vs. Player type game. And while it does happen, of course, it's to much to say ''anytime anything happens that the player does not like they can just claim it is this".

Sure like some DMs, that want to get rid of the characters spiked chain, will just (not) "randomly" have every single combat be that a foe attacks and tries to destroy the spiked chain. But just because it does happen, it does not mean it's the DM targeting the thing and doing the DM vs. Player type game.

I can say also, that most of the time, the player does do a mistake or take a risk.

The big thing is the game play. In a soft game (''most games") not only is the DM following the interpretation of the Gentlemans rule("don't do anything unfun or that the players won't like") AND interpretation The Rule of Cool("the whole game reality alters so the PCs can be cool"), but a lot of DMs don't like ''doing things" at all to the characters of their ''best friends", and over all just want to run a game where the players ''just feel great like they are on top of the world".

So in the soft game (much like most movies/TV shows) when a character runs out into the open....all the foes ''forget to shoot" or worse ''have Stormtrooper aim". And that is the problem.

Arbane
2018-11-02, 06:38 PM
The big thing is the game play. In a soft game (''most games") not only is the DM following the interpretation of the Gentlemans rule("don't do anything unfun or that the players won't like") AND interpretation The Rule of Cool("the whole game reality alters so the PCs can be cool"), but a lot of DMs don't like ''doing things" at all to the characters of their ''best friends", and over all just want to run a game where the players ''just feel great like they are on top of the world".

This sort of game is a crime against God and Gygax. These snivelling players need to understand that they are not here to 'have "fun"', their characters are IMPRISONED IN A DEADLY CRUCIBLE which they will emerge as heroes or DEAD. Preferrably DEAD, because it is more Realistic.

I understand that you can't be happy unless you are causing pain to your players, but not every game needs to be like that. Sometimes I just want to play a badass who can actually WIN fights without having to devote two sessions to planning an unstoppable ambush down to the last flatuation, y'know?

There's a time for Call of Cthulhu, and there's a time for Champions. Or even Toon.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-02, 06:54 PM
I understand that you can't be happy unless you are causing pain to your players, but not every game needs to be like that. Sometimes I just want to play a badass who can actually WIN fights without having to devote two sessions to planning an unstoppable ambush down to the last flatuation, y'know?


Well, like most things to come after 1990 or so...basically it goes too far.

It sounds good to some to say ''oh my game won't be so Hard Fun".....but in practice it goes way beyond that to the soft ''nerf bouncy house" game.

And if that is your idea of fun, it's fine....no one is saying it's wrong.

I'm just saying a Soft DM, who pretends to be Hard ("ok, for this game the kid gloves are off!") will nine times out of ten fail. They simply can't put the soft behind them.

NichG
2018-11-02, 08:27 PM
But to be the Worf Effect it has to be the person in charge saying it. For the Worf Effect it is the producers/showrunners/writers, the ones in charge of the show. It's not the actor (or the players).

You are saying...the DM says the players are 'super tough', and must play a set way.....but if and when they do the DM will just ''trick" the players and do bad things to the characters and ''prove" they are not so tough?

See, that is nothing like the Worf Effect....that is False Advertising. The DM says "do this and your character will be ok", and the the player does that....and the DM is like "haha! fooled you!" and your character is not ok. Then the Dm dances around and says ''you are a fool to believe me, hehe".

But I guess your trying to make the point that if the DM ''likes" something...they will simply do it, no matter what the players do. Even if the DM tells them to do something. This is more the classic Scorned DM. The DM makes an awesome trap behind door A, and the players pick door B.....so switches the awesome trap to door B.


I'm not trying to assert anything about what a DM will do, but rather I'm trying to make the point that if the DM wants to demonstrate something about the game to the players, there are costs associated with 'forcing' the message. In that sense, I chose the Worf effect as an example where the writers think that they're being clever by making use of established context to communicate something, but in the long run they erode that context and make it a joke.

So a DM who wants to the players to see a game as dangerous or scary or serious or deadly (for whatever reason) has a choice to make - they can 'force' the message by being tough or cruel, which certainly will make the players see the game as dangerous in the short-term, but in the long-term the players will get the message that what they do doesn't matter because they'll be forced to experience those consequences regardless of how well they play. Thus, paradoxically, after 5 or 10 or 20 sessions they will begin play worse than if the DM had simply been lax.

On the other hand, the DM could make the choice to maintain the game integrity and demonstrate consequences fairly, e.g. only when they're actually for real mistakes the players have made that they could have reasonably anticipated and prevented. This will happen quickly if you have players who make mistakes frequently, which I think is what you may be implicitly assuming. However, you frequently speak about having good and bad players, so lets assume that you've done your due dilligence and weeded out bad players and you're working with a crew of seasoned veterans who only very rarely make mistakes. In that case, even though you might want to maintain the pressure in order to create an atmosphere of danger, the skill of the players means that they will actually be getting in the way of your ability to communicate that if you commit to running the game fairly. That is to say, newer (or 'worse') players may very well be able to experience the danger of the situation, but better players end up being left unable to receive that impression.

The idea of telegraphing, here, is so that someone can feel the consequences without experiencing them, meaning that even a player who performs 100% perfect play still would be able to feel as if their character were in danger the entire time, and even without any 'arbitrary' risks that cannot be avoided.



See, this does not really fit though. The DM telling the players to act a set way, and then berating and back stabbing them is not the ''Worf Effect". But, would you say that when Producer Guy said to Michael Dorn(aka the actor that plays Worf) "ok, your character is the super tough and powerful guy", and Michael is like ''ok" and takes the job. Then they hand Michael a script with that says Frengi idiot comes on to the bridge with weapon out. Worf turns, pulls out his phaser,, shoots and misses from like five feet away. Then the bad guy shoots back and sends Worf flying across the bridge!

Again, though, this is the DM targeting the thing and doing the DM vs. Player type game. And while it does happen, of course, it's to much to say ''anytime anything happens that the player does not like they can just claim it is this".

Sure like some DMs, that want to get rid of the characters spiked chain, will just (not) "randomly" have every single combat be that a foe attacks and tries to destroy the spiked chain. But just because it does happen, it does not mean it's the DM targeting the thing and doing the DM vs. Player type game.


I tend not to write in terms of whether one side or other of the table is justified in what they do. I don't really care if a player 'can claim' something. I'm more concerned with 'what are the consequences of doing something a certain way'. Generally speaking, dealing with people, one's own sense of what is reasonable basically doesn't matter, because as much as you can say 'I think the other person is reacting wrong', the reality you have to deal with is that they are reacting that way and that may or may not be what you wanted to happen.

If you want to achieve a particular dynamic, and other people are involved, its more important to anticipate how they could react than how you think they should react. It's all well and good to say 'good players should do A, B, and C' but when you find out that the players you've been working with don't because that's not actually how people work, at minimum you've just wasted a lot of your own time, and worse, you've missed opportunities where you could have made it work.

In my book, a 'bad DM' isn't someone who DMs a particular way that I dislike, it's a DM who consistently fails to achieve the effect that they're going for. A bad DM becomes a good DM by recognizing why they failed when they fail, and adapting to it.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-02, 10:28 PM
However, you frequently speak about having good and bad players, so lets assume that you've done your due dilligence and weeded out bad players and you're working with a crew of seasoned veterans who only very rarely make mistakes. In that case, even though you might want to maintain the pressure in order to create an atmosphere of danger, the skill of the players means that they will actually be getting in the way of your ability to communicate that if you commit to running the game fairly. That is to say, newer (or 'worse') players may very well be able to experience the danger of the situation, but better players end up being left unable to receive that impression.

There is a line. You want the danger to be very real, always. And you want the players to be able to handle it...but only to a point. To not make obvious mistakes and not act foolish is just the tip of the iceberg. It's not like the DM is ''setting a trap" and then ''telling the players how to bypass it". It's more a whole style of game play. The whole game atmosphere is important, so things happen all around, not just to the player characters.

And you want that line right about about 50%, so the players know that even if they do everything ''right" there is still a chance things can go wrong. But you never know.

I don't just 'say a player is bad as I don't like them', a player has to do a lot more then that....and they do. Most players are just average, and many want to be good.



The idea of telegraphing, here, is so that someone can feel the consequences without experiencing them, meaning that even a player who performs 100% perfect play still would be able to feel as if their character were in danger the entire time, and even without any 'arbitrary' risks that cannot be avoided.

This is the atmosphere and storytelling.



If you want to achieve a particular dynamic, and other people are involved, its more important to anticipate how they could react than how you think they should react. It's all well and good to say 'good players should do A, B, and C' but when you find out that the players you've been working with don't because that's not actually how people work, at minimum you've just wasted a lot of your own time, and worse, you've missed opportunities where you could have made it work.

I see it a bit differently. The way I expect players to act is more of a generic baseline, but NOT the way ''I think or want" them to act(after all that way would be much better and awesome).



In my book, a 'bad DM' isn't someone who DMs a particular way that I dislike, it's a DM who consistently fails to achieve the effect that they're going for. A bad DM becomes a good DM by recognizing why they failed when they fail, and adapting to it.

I can agree here.

I game a lot at stores (the few that are left) and places like malls(the few that are left) and libraries. A lot of times I have seen DMs fail. The ones that want to be good take advice...the ones that want to be bad just think they know everything...or worse.

Quertus
2018-11-03, 01:27 AM
@NichG

Pursuant to your conversation with DU re: forcing a message...

You said that there are costs associated with forcing a message, which include aware players perceiving a lack of agency. This got me thinking, and I'd like to poke at some ideas, and get your response.

So, for starters, unlike certain Skyrim mods, GMs don't usually just start their PCs off somewhere random. Even a typical sandbox isn't populated with random toys. No, in general, the scene is set / chosen because the GM believes that this setup will be enjoyable.

Similarly, when I'm on my A-game, I usually, if necessary, set the scene such that it will be ready for me to demonstrate certain characteristics of how I GM. For example, I'll try to have something early on that seems to break the rules, but actually doesn't - and that it's possible for the PCs to investigate how this could be true. If the PCs investigate, great. If they show confusion, but no interest in investigating, I'll explain things OOC, after the fact - both what was going on, and how they could have uncovered that information. If they show no interest whatsoever, well, I suppose I know not to bother surrendering too much effort generating that style of content.

When it comes to lethality, I try to let people know that I'm a "let the dice fall where they may", CaW, "what's 'CR'?" kind of GM. Sure, if I say "for X characters of level Y" (or system equivalent), then one can expect that I believe that such characters could have a good time with the expected content.

I once had a party stumble upon a series of huge tunnels, like a giant prairie dog colony might make, in the distance. The players looked at each other, then, knowing that their civilization sent out scouts, asked what the scouts had reported about whatever made these. With straight face, I told them that there had been no reports of such tunnels. There was a brief pause, followed by the player concluding (correctly) that no Scott had ever survived contact with these tunnels, and the party wisely decided to give the third most dangerous creature in my works a wide berth.

So, maybe I'm too close to it, but I'm not seeing the downside to choosing to start the party somewhere interesting, where I'll have the opportunity to demonstrate various components of my style. Are there Costs that I'm not perceiving? Or have I erroneously generalized your statement of of context?

Thoughts?

Kaptin Keen
2018-11-03, 01:41 AM
It is.

I disagree that it means you have to make most fights have a less than 2% chance of danger, though. I submit that what that means is that having 100 fights over the course of your campaign is way too many.

Not really going to argue, but I feel it's relevant that the great majority of fights have a zero percent chance of death. At full ressources, in an early encounter with the BBEG's first wave minions (or whatever) you really shouldn't ever die. Unless you did something patently retarded.

On the other hand, a Final Bossfight might have a risk of death substantially higher than 2%.

NichG
2018-11-03, 04:45 AM
@NichG

Pursuant to your conversation with DU re: forcing a message...

You said that there are costs associated with forcing a message, which include aware players perceiving a lack of agency. This got me thinking, and I'd like to poke at some ideas, and get your response.

So, for starters, unlike certain Skyrim mods, GMs don't usually just start their PCs off somewhere random. Even a typical sandbox isn't populated with random toys. No, in general, the scene is set / chosen because the GM believes that this setup will be enjoyable.

Similarly, when I'm on my A-game, I usually, if necessary, set the scene such that it will be ready for me to demonstrate certain characteristics of how I GM. For example, I'll try to have something early on that seems to break the rules, but actually doesn't - and that it's possible for the PCs to investigate how this could be true. If the PCs investigate, great. If they show confusion, but no interest in investigating, I'll explain things OOC, after the fact - both what was going on, and how they could have uncovered that information. If they show no interest whatsoever, well, I suppose I know not to bother surrendering too much effort generating that style of content.

When it comes to lethality, I try to let people know that I'm a "let the dice fall where they may", CaW, "what's 'CR'?" kind of GM. Sure, if I say "for X characters of level Y" (or system equivalent), then one can expect that I believe that such characters could have a good time with the expected content.

I once had a party stumble upon a series of huge tunnels, like a giant prairie dog colony might make, in the distance. The players looked at each other, then, knowing that their civilization sent out scouts, asked what the scouts had reported about whatever made these. With straight face, I told them that there had been no reports of such tunnels. There was a brief pause, followed by the player concluding (correctly) that no Scott had ever survived contact with these tunnels, and the party wisely decided to give the third most dangerous creature in my works a wide berth.

So, maybe I'm too close to it, but I'm not seeing the downside to choosing to start the party somewhere interesting, where I'll have the opportunity to demonstrate various components of my style. Are there Costs that I'm not perceiving? Or have I erroneously generalized your statement of of context?

Thoughts?

I think you may be generalizing the statement out of context here. I'd say that in my posts (including the OP), the core idea is that you can make subtle alterations to the way that information flows to the players in order to make communicating certain points less expensive than they would be if you didn't use those methods, so I don't think there's some inherent conserved cost associated with the message being received that can't be reduced by a change in technique.

Rather, the point is that when it comes to danger, most tabletop games (and a number of styles of DMing) demonstrate danger by applying its' consequences. In that sense, you've chosen to pay a fairly steep cost to communicate it (either in the risk that the message fails, the loss of integrity of the game by forcing it, etc). By altering the information channels available to the players, that otherwise expensive message can be transmitted very cheaply.

In your example, I'd say the message you're trying to communicate is 'the world is internally consistent even if it doesn't seem like it, and you should treat it as such'. The equivalent of 'demonstrate danger by killing a PC' for that would be 'demonstrate consistency by arranging for the players to see behind the curtain, or just tell them OOC what was going on'. I'd say that 'just tell them OOC' does come with an integrity cost, in that the players may come to expect or depend on that OOC reveal (or, for example, they may start to ask about it during game rather than afterwards, with the subconscious expectation that you like to explain yourself and so you might let something slip). In that sense, if you can do it without having to do an OOC reveal, it would be strictly better than if you find yourself forced to use that OOC reveal as a mechanism for communication.

I do think that the general question of 'how do you communicate what things are relevant (such that consistency can be expected to apply) versus what things are decoration (such that pushing too hard for consistency may break something)?' is an interesting one, and the various tactics surrounding that make for a number of different DM-ing styles or even types of game mechanics. Narrative systems explicitly tell the players that if they ask a question, it's their responsibility to suggest a plausible answer; etc.

In two of my own campaigns recently what I've found is that the players will actually tend to come up with the right idea or understanding, and then if given a chance will convince each-other in discussion that it was wrong. Part of the problem is that the feedback is pointed the wrong way; namely, lets say they discuss longer (which is an action which they all believe will increase the chance of their decision being right) but actually it causes their decision to be wrong more often. In that case, they tend to believe that if they discussed less, the outcome would be even worse than whatever happens. In order to get the idea across (outside of discussing it OOC, which we've done, but which in a case like this doesn't really help so much) I need them to a) act on first instinct and b) have it succeed. But the longer it goes on, the lower the probability of a) happening. At least I'm in a situation where historically at least, the first instinct actions should have succeeded, so I wouldn't have to compromise the game in 'forcing' the actions to succeed if they did actually act instinctively.

So what I've started to do is to make use of scenarios with a lot of time pressure, so that 'lets discuss longer' becomes associated directly with particular failures due to obvious missed opportunities. In that sense, I am forcing a few things, and it is costing something (generally it tends to make things more confusing, which in turn risks pushing players across a cliff where they give up on trying to make sense of things at all because they assume they just won't be able to follow what's going on) - which in turn makes people trust their instincts even less. So that cliff is my 'Worf effect' that I have to be careful about in this situation.

Knaight
2018-11-03, 05:23 AM
I like the idea, but there are some points of implementation here - namely it's much more interesting if the damage is rolled not just before the defense is resolved, but before the manner of defense is decided. Just getting the counterfactual can provide a mechanical basis to back up a narrative one for harm avoided, which meets the design intention, but doesn't really probe the possibilities of flipping the order much. This also creates a potential new decision point for multiple defenses, and it does so really elegantly. When you use limited defenses is suddenly a more interesting choice, as are more localized allocations of focus between combatants or the like.

There's also a nice narrative resonance there, as this provides impetus for all those scenes where that one really nasty attack is coming and a character has to seriously disadvantage themselves to avoid it or suddenly finds the skill in desperation to do so.


It is, and others have explained. I'll just put a name to it: It's called a Binomial Probability.

There is absolutely no reason to bring binomial probability in here - it's a case of not even happening once, which makes this vastly easier. If we wanted to know the odds of exactly one death we'd need the binomial probability theorem. If we wanted to know the odds of no more than any number other than 0 we'd need the binomial probability theorem. Here we have the special case where we don't, where we can just use 1-0.98^100 and call it a day, nCr left abandoned in our probabilistic toolkit.

NichG
2018-11-03, 06:31 AM
I like the idea, but there are some points of implementation here - namely it's much more interesting if the damage is rolled not just before the defense is resolved, but before the manner of defense is decided. Just getting the counterfactual can provide a mechanical basis to back up a narrative one for harm avoided, which meets the design intention, but doesn't really probe the possibilities of flipping the order much. This also creates a potential new decision point for multiple defenses, and it does so really elegantly. When you use limited defenses is suddenly a more interesting choice, as are more localized allocations of focus between combatants or the like.

There's also a nice narrative resonance there, as this provides impetus for all those scenes where that one really nasty attack is coming and a character has to seriously disadvantage themselves to avoid it or suddenly finds the skill in desperation to do so.

Agreed. I generally like the idea of games designed around bidding systems and the like (Nobilis, for example). I think balancing the time cost of iterated decision making is probably the biggest challenge with going in this direction. It seems to push the design in a direction of making things more abstract and less granular, so that if you're spending 3 iterations deciding the answer to a question, it's a bigger question than 'did I lose some HP?'. But that also tends to make it harder to draw mechanical boundaries or understand knock-on consequences.

One thing I've tried in the past with systems is to make it so that there is the possibility of chaining into a bidding sequence, but such that that possibility is constrained to happen only once or twice in a given scene. The way it worked in that system was that each side of a conflict would accumulate a pool of 'leverage points' as the conflict went on, and anyone could basically take from that pool to add to one of their rolls. However, at the same time, the combat mechanics encouraged single 'big win' moments, so spending points on an attack or defense and then failing anyhow would be a big setback compared to just making a soft 'fail' (basically everything had a major effect and minor effect, and you could guarantee defense against the major effect up to a point if you were willing to let the minor effect hit you).

I'm not sure I have anything conclusive to offer here, but I do think it's an interesting design space to discuss.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-03, 01:11 PM
Not really going to argue, but I feel it's relevant that the great majority of fights have a zero percent chance of death. At full ressources, in an early encounter with the BBEG's first wave minions (or whatever) you really shouldn't ever die. Unless you did something patently retarded.

On the other hand, a Final Bossfight might have a risk of death substantially higher than 2%.

I disagree. I think every fight should have a chance of death.

The idea that the players will just say ''oh a pointless fight" and sit back, put their feet up, drop some dice on the floor and take a nap with a "Oh wake me up when we win." That is exactly what I want to avoid.

Cluedrew
2018-11-03, 01:26 PM
I think every fight should carry a chance of loss, which may or may not include PC death.

In fact I think death is one of the least interesting punishments. You cut out a character, all the relationships and tactics (story and mechanics here) that have built up around them, any plans that you had for them die on the vine. The entire story comes to a screeching halt as the rest of the party morns the loss of their friend and comrade and... What? We just find the character's long lost twin at the next inn? Well that makes things simpler doesn't it?

Darth Ultron
2018-11-03, 03:13 PM
I think every fight should carry a chance of loss, which may or may not include PC death.

In fact I think death is one of the least interesting punishments. You cut out a character, all the relationships and tactics (story and mechanics here) that have built up around them, any plans that you had for them die on the vine. The entire story comes to a screeching halt as the rest of the party morns the loss of their friend and comrade and... What? We just find the character's long lost twin at the next inn? Well that makes things simpler doesn't it?

Except, as you point out, Character Death IS the biggest one. All them hopes and dreams and the ego of the player and the whole self identity of the player....and more. Gone. All gone forever.

Even more so in D&D after 3E, the couple of weak punishments in the rules can be negated in like seconds and the Buddy DM will never inflict role playing punishments on a character unless they are pure reactions to what the character did...and even then they will be soft.

As soon as you take away the character death...the game is little more then a silly cartoon of an action adventure.

Kaptin Keen
2018-11-03, 04:53 PM
I disagree. I think every fight should have a chance of death.

Not saying it should or shouldn't. I'm saying I've never ever seen any early (or random) encounter that would seriously threaten the PC's - if they play their cards right. I'll take that one step further and flat out claim that 99% of all PC death is in boss fights.

And I'll go out on a limp and assume that that's no different in your games, whether as a player or a GM.

And if it is ... your decisionmaking is ... questionable. Not wrong, but definitely debatable. Unless your players are ecstatic about dying to inconsequential fights.

Not trying to provoke you here - I'm well aware that I have zero clue as to what goes on in your games. But I'm going to challenge you on it regardless =)

Thrudd
2018-11-03, 05:35 PM
Not saying it should or shouldn't. I'm saying I've never ever seen any early (or random) encounter that would seriously threaten the PC's - if they play their cards right. I'll take that one step further and flat out claim that 99% of all PC death is in boss fights.

And I'll go out on a limp and assume that that's no different in your games, whether as a player or a GM.

And if it is ... your decisionmaking is ... questionable. Not wrong, but definitely debatable. Unless your players are ecstatic about dying to inconsequential fights.

Not trying to provoke you here - I'm well aware that I have zero clue as to what goes on in your games. But I'm going to challenge you on it regardless =)

You've obviously never played D&D at low levels. For a group of level 1 D&D characters, especially in an edition with critical hits, death can come suddenly from even the weakest sort of creatures. Unless the DM is fudging dice rolls or playing encounters in such a way as to purposefully not threaten the PCs, almost any encounter is potentially a deadly threat. That's a choice of play style, but not what is implied by the game's mechanics.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-03, 05:36 PM
Not saying it should or shouldn't. I'm saying I've never ever seen any early (or random) encounter that would seriously threaten the PC's - if they play their cards right. I'll take that one step further and flat out claim that 99% of all PC death is in boss fights.

And I'll go out on a limp and assume that that's no different in your games, whether as a player or a GM.

Nope, it is very different in my games.

You are describing the classic cinematic game: that character death mostly only happens right at the climax. The rest of the adventure is just a Fun Romp. And it's a fine line between fun romp, and super silly. And this is why all such media has things like dumb bad guys and Stormtrooper Aim. The characters can run through a open area, in full view of bad guys with missile weapons that open fire, and they hit literally everything except the characters(wink wink).

And your right, most games are played that way. Any combat encounter that is not a boss fight is just ''ok, the player characters will automatically do this, so lets just see how they do it." The question is only how will the the players 'win' the combat. The players can just check out...really even leave the room and check back every couple of minutes to see if the characters have won the fight yet.

My game is nothing like that. No matter what or where the player characters are: death can happen at any time.

Kaptin Keen
2018-11-04, 12:32 AM
You've obviously never played D&D at low levels. For a group of level 1 D&D characters, especially in an edition with critical hits, death can come suddenly from even the weakest sort of creatures. Unless the DM is fudging dice rolls or playing encounters in such a way as to purposefully not threaten the PCs, almost any encounter is potentially a deadly threat. That's a choice of play style, but not what is implied by the game's mechanics.

I play little else. And while you're entirely correct that - in principle, low levels are enormously dangerous - it still doesn't happen. That's pretty much my entire point.


Nope, it is very different in my games.

You are describing the classic cinematic game: that character death mostly only happens right at the climax. The rest of the adventure is just a Fun Romp. And it's a fine line between fun romp, and super silly. And this is why all such media has things like dumb bad guys and Stormtrooper Aim. The characters can run through a open area, in full view of bad guys with missile weapons that open fire, and they hit literally everything except the characters(wink wink).

And your right, most games are played that way. Any combat encounter that is not a boss fight is just ''ok, the player characters will automatically do this, so lets just see how they do it." The question is only how will the the players 'win' the combat. The players can just check out...really even leave the room and check back every couple of minutes to see if the characters have won the fight yet.

My game is nothing like that. No matter what or where the player characters are: death can happen at any time.

I don't doubt your games are different. Though I'd be curious to see the actual statistics - whether your intention holds water or not. But never mind that =)

I don't think most games are as close to silly romps as you make out. Sure, it's there. You make some sort of noise in a city with a large armed force, and yet not only do you get away with it, you never encounter any response stronger than what you can reliably handle. But even I wouldn't allow that: If my players get too silly, the full weight of the opposition will eventually fall upon them. And I'm very forgiving =)

Koo Rehtorb
2018-11-04, 01:45 AM
Not saying it should or shouldn't. I'm saying I've never ever seen any early (or random) encounter that would seriously threaten the PC's - if they play their cards right. I'll take that one step further and flat out claim that 99% of all PC death is in boss fights.

And I'll go out on a limp and assume that that's no different in your games, whether as a player or a GM.

You'd certainly be wrong here, and I question your methodology. And furthermore, that sounds like a terribly dull way to play. Every fight should be dangerous, or it's just an exercise in pointless time wasting. If a fight isn't dangerous, skip over it with narration.

Florian
2018-11-04, 03:40 AM
Not saying it should or shouldn't. I'm saying I've never ever seen any early (or random) encounter that would seriously threaten the PC's - if they play their cards right. I'll take that one step further and flat out claim that 99% of all PC death is in boss fights.

You're playing too much D&D, especially the more modern variants, that actually have to use the "boss fight" as a means to ramp up the challenge to sufficient level.

Systems with a more concrete damage model, especially with a Death Spiral and Permanent Effects, are pretty deadly, even with the least formidable opponents. When a "Critical Hit" doesn't mean 19-20/x2 but rather: They cut of your right arm, now you're lying on the floor, screaming in pain and bleeding out in 1d4 rounds....

So, while I agree with you that a typical D&D/PF Goblin encounter is something to sneeze at, because it mostly is designed for exactly that, sneezing at it, the same doesn't hold true for, say, Warhammer.

Kaptin Keen
2018-11-04, 05:12 AM
You're playing too much D&D, especially the more modern variants, that actually have to use the "boss fight" as a means to ramp up the challenge to sufficient level.

Systems with a more concrete damage model, especially with a Death Spiral and Permanent Effects, are pretty deadly, even with the least formidable opponents. When a "Critical Hit" doesn't mean 19-20/x2 but rather: They cut of your right arm, now you're lying on the floor, screaming in pain and bleeding out in 1d4 rounds....

So, while I agree with you that a typical D&D/PF Goblin encounter is something to sneeze at, because it mostly is designed for exactly that, sneezing at it, the same doesn't hold true for, say, Warhammer.

I play plenty of Dark Heresy, and I played a ton of Shadowrun back in the day. Please pack your assumption, and don't tell me what I play. You have precisely zero clue.

Kaptin Keen
2018-11-04, 05:18 AM
You'd certainly be wrong here, and I question your methodology. And furthermore, that sounds like a terribly dull way to play. Every fight should be dangerous, or it's just an exercise in pointless time wasting. If a fight isn't dangerous, skip over it with narration.

Missed this, so double posting. Sorry.

There are two types of players. Those who play for a challenge, and those who play for fun. There's some overlap, obviously, but not excessively so. My games are fun, but not particularly challenging. Question all you like, personally I'd be bored to tears if I had to take it all seriously enough to make it challenging.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that - if you're looking for a challenge, likely you consider that fun. It's not an either/or. More a case of what you consider to be fun.

Zombimode
2018-11-04, 09:06 AM
@ NichG
Interesting idea! Thanks for bringing it up.

I will try this in tomorrows D&D game. With the following modifications and additions:

1) I will extend this to other threatening effects, not just damage rolls for attacks.
Seeing that you could be poisoned for 9 dexterity damage or getting dominated or affected by a powerful debuff has just as much weight as the possibilty of getting hit for a good ammount of damage.

2) Following the line of though of using damage numbers/effects as a tool to inform what is happening in the narrative, I will not tell damage numbers or describe the effect if the attack is particularly deceptive.
Note: this should be the exception. That means players (and the characters) will ususally know the risk of a threat - unless they don't. The unpredictabilty of the risk will become a feature of the threat.

3) I will combine this with some "players roll all the dice" variant.
To me this goes naturally with the "this is what gets thrown at you! Now make your defense!" dynamic that your idea has.


To be mathematically equivalent an "attack DC" in D&D would be the creatures attack bonus + 12, correct?

The SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm) tells me that it should be +11, but this doesnt seem right.

Normally the DC for hitting with an attack is 10 + AC modifier of the target, and the attacker rolls 1d20 + attack bonus.

When switching to a defense roll while keeping how DCs work consistent in that you need only to reach the DC, not to exceed it you need to shift the difference to the DC. But the difference is not 1: in a unmodified contest (+0 attack vs. AC 10) there are 11 positive outcomes and (obviously) 9 negative of the die roll. 11 - 9 is obviously not 1 but 2.

Is my thinking correct?

PhoenixPhyre
2018-11-04, 10:08 AM
Edit: Just wanted to point out that - if you're looking for a challenge, likely you consider that fun. It's not an either/or. More a case of what you consider to be fun.

This is a key thing. For some, challenge is fun. For others, not so much. I'm in the latter boat, myself.

The 4e D&D DMG had some good discussion about this. It split the "sources of fun" into a bunch of different common modes and then talked about how to cater to each one and how to avoid some of the common pitfalls of that mode. It also made clear that most people operate in blends of these modes and that none of them are badwrongfun. I'm AFB, but they included such things as

* Exploration (seeing new things, descriptions of environments and creatures. This is my primary mode)
* Narrative (the flow of the "story")
* Power (big numbers, challenging or not)
* Challenge (taking risks and pushing your builds/tactics/etc)
* Tactical choices (having a bunch of options, playing 5D chess with game pieces)
* Social environment (ie OOC socializing)
* Characterization (might call this "method acting", getting into the head of a particular character)

Koo Rehtorb
2018-11-04, 12:06 PM
Missed this, so double posting. Sorry.

There are two types of players. Those who play for a challenge, and those who play for fun. There's some overlap, obviously, but not excessively so. My games are fun, but not particularly challenging. Question all you like, personally I'd be bored to tears if I had to take it all seriously enough to make it challenging.

What I question is your assertion that 99% of PCs die in boss fights. You can certainly make that claim for your game, don't try to make it for others.

Off the top of my head, the last time I GMed Torchbearer the PC deaths were:

TPK to a random hell hound.
Single death to freezing to death in a blizzard.
Single death to being shot in the back by elves while fiddling with a locked door.
Single death to holding back a group of fire salamanders while the rest of the party escaped.

I can, in fact, say that zero percent of the PC deaths happened to what might have been considered the "boss" of each adventure.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-04, 01:06 PM
I don't think most games are as close to silly romps as you make out. Sure, it's there. You make some sort of noise in a city with a large armed force, and yet not only do you get away with it, you never encounter any response stronger than what you can reliably handle. But even I wouldn't allow that: If my players get too silly, the full weight of the opposition will eventually fall upon them. And I'm very forgiving =)

Note I'm not talking like a silly, goofy game full of laughs and jokes and humor.

When I say ''silly" I'm going more "absurd and foolish". The DM is way on the players side, is not aggressive, is forgiving, and just runs the world so the players can have easyfun and get a huge ego boost in it. Foes are no real threat to the characters...they just get in the way until the characters kill them. There are no serious problems for the characters, only light fluffy ones they can solve with little or no effort.



There are two types of players. Those who play for a challenge, and those who play for fun. There's some overlap, obviously, but not excessively so. My games are fun, but not particularly challenging. Question all you like, personally I'd be bored to tears if I had to take it all seriously enough to make it challenging.


I agree on the two types of players, but maybe Serious and Casual might be better descriptions.

The Serious player wants to have fun by immersing themselves in the game 100% and act and feel and react as if the role playing game play is 100% real during the game. This player cares greasily about the game and thinks of it as much more then ''just a game"

The Casual player just wants to waste some time and have fun. They don't really care about anything or even what they do to have fun...any game is fine with them...as long as it's fun. They don't want to think to much or do anything with any real effort, they just want to have fun. After all it's ''just a game".

Quertus
2018-11-04, 03:38 PM
Re: character deaths in boss fights

So, of my 6 most recent memorable RPG PC character deaths, 2 were to minions / random encounters, 2 were to other PCs, and 2 were to boss fights. If you add in war games, that would add one to minion deaths, and one to boss fight deaths.

So, I'm looking at a rather even mix, IME.

@Darth: "My game is nothing like that. No matter what or where the player characters are: death can happen at any time."

So, if someone were running a literal deity, who was sitting at home, knitting, gardening, etc, would their life really be in danger in your games?


Every fight should be dangerous, or it's just an exercise in pointless time wasting. If a fight isn't dangerous, skip over it with narration.

You keep saying that. I'm a war gamer. Every fight should have a 50/50 chance of TPK, or else it's a boring snoozefest compared to a war game.

Personally, I've found that RPG combat is about more than the challenge.


Question all you like, personally I'd be bored to tears if I had to take it all seriously enough to make it challenging.

Edit: Just wanted to point out that - if you're looking for a challenge, likely you consider that fun. It's not an either/or. More a case of what you consider to be fun.

Not a fan of war games?

PhoenixPhyre
2018-11-04, 04:24 PM
Not a fan of war games?

I can't speak for Kaptin Keen, but as for myself? Not as more than an occasional diversion.

But really, war games (as presently known) and RPGs (even D&D as presently known) have diverged tremendously since their common ancestry. Here I speak of D&D-style games specifically, not all games.

1. Adversarial nature. RPGs are cooperative (yes, even between DM and players, just in a different way). All the players can win simultaneously, because the "win conditions" are non-adversarial. PvP is an exception (and one the systems are not built around) rather than a core element.
2. Narrative structure. RPGs have significant narrative structure and roleplay inherent in the concept. You can add it in ontop of a wargame, but it's decidedly secondary.
3. Scope of responsibilities. RPGs tend to focus on a single character per non-DM player. Wargames have squads (at fewest) per player.
4. Number of players. RPGs have a sweet spot around 5 people (4+DM). 2 (1 + DM) is too few for many styles, and 8 (7+DM) is quite large. Wargames tend to max out at 3-4 total, and most are 1v1 with a wandering referee (or no ref at all).
5. Duration. RPGs tend to run >1 session (often 5+) with the same characters. Most wargames are one-and-done for any particular setup.
6. Deadliness for any particular character. Even early D&D wasn't as lethal as wargames are (at least speaking of player characters).

War games cater to two of the modes of fun I described above: challenge and tactics. For me, those are the least interesting of the modes as well. RPGs can touch on all of them, and can vary from session to session. That, to me, is the beauty of the genre.

So comparing the two really doesn't teach much.

Thrudd
2018-11-04, 04:28 PM
To be mathematically equivalent an "attack DC" in D&D would be the creatures attack bonus + 12, correct?

The SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm) tells me that it should be +11, but this doesnt seem right.

Normally the DC for hitting with an attack is 10 + AC modifier of the target, and the attacker rolls 1d20 + attack bonus.

When switching to a defense roll while keeping how DCs work consistent in that you need only to reach the DC, not to exceed it you need to shift the difference to the DC. But the difference is not 1: in a unmodified contest (+0 attack vs. AC 10) there are 11 positive outcomes and (obviously) 9 negative of the die roll. 11 - 9 is obviously not 1 but 2.

Is my thinking correct?

You are right.

The unmodified chance to hit an unarmored opponent is 55% - that's rolling 10+ on the d20.
That means that the unarmored target successfully defends 45% of the time. If they were rolling, that would be 12+ on a d20.
Rolling 11+ would be a straight 50/50 chance. It may be that they did that on purpose, making it a little easier for PCs to defend themselves with this variant.

To keep the same relative percentages, attack DC would be 12+attack bonus.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-04, 07:48 PM
@Darth: "My game is nothing like that. No matter what or where the player characters are: death can happen at any time."

So, if someone were running a literal deity, who was sitting at home, knitting, gardening, etc, would their life really be in danger in your games?

Yes, sort of.

Though I'd point out in my game deities are not alive (they are the third type after the Living and Undead: they Exist). As a deity is not alive, they can't be killed.

But if your question is more ''a really powerful character sitting at home" have their life in danger? Well, not like if they use a knife to cut an apple they might obliterate themselves...but sure a foe or enemy might attack them at home. It's not like I do the ''metagame safe spot" like saying to the player ''ok I won't attack your character". Though, in general, sitting at home has like a 1% chance of danger, though lucky adventurers have much more exciting lives.



Though I am talking more about things like:

(3.5 D&D) The group wants to sneak into a castle tower. As part of that, they must balance along a narrow ledge along the wall over a moat of acid. It's not too hard, with a DC of 12. Player Ron rolls a 10 for his character Zimfan the wizard. Zimfan falls off the ledge and into the acid, takes 11 points of damage and dies.

Arbane
2018-11-04, 07:59 PM
Though I am talking more about things like:

(3.5 D&D) The group wants to sneak into a castle tower. As part of that, they must balance along a narrow ledge along the wall over a moat of acid. It's not too hard, with a DC of 12. Player Ron rolls a 10 for his character Zimfan the wizard. Zimfan falls off the ledge and into the acid, takes 11 points of damage and dies.

Nothing promotes good roleplaying like unavoidable chances of random instant death.

"Well, they could've gone a different way!"
Would that way have had something that could cause instant death on a bad die-roll, too?

The Random NPC
2018-11-04, 10:19 PM
You'd certainly be wrong here, and I question your methodology. And furthermore, that sounds like a terribly dull way to play. Every fight should be dangerous, or it's just an exercise in pointless time wasting. If a fight isn't dangerous, skip over it with narration.

I've had a GM do this once, everytime we narrated a fight I was left wondering why I bothered to make a character if nothing on the sheet matters. Of course, that's probably because he was a terrible GM and would narrate at pretty much every fight, even the ones we would have a good chance of dying in.

NichG
2018-11-04, 11:51 PM
These days I tend to be a fan of games where the PCs themselves are almost 100% able to guarantee their own safety if they so choose, but the stakes are high with respect to how the world will be going forward. I also tend to strongly deemphasize danger coming from randomness, but instead make success depend on making good decisions in the face of incomplete information as well as irreducible tradeoffs.

Psikerlord
2018-11-05, 12:21 AM
Not really going to argue, but I feel it's relevant that the great majority of fights have a zero percent chance of death. At full ressources, in an early encounter with the BBEG's first wave minions (or whatever) you really shouldn't ever die. Unless you did something patently retarded.

On the other hand, a Final Bossfight might have a risk of death substantially higher than 2%.

Yeah I agree with this and expect this is how most 5e adventures run in practice. It's an attirtion game, and until you hit that tipping point, there is no statistically significant chance of death.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-05, 12:22 AM
"Well, they could've gone a different way!"
Would that way have had something that could cause instant death on a bad die-roll, too?

Of course the players could have done something a different way.


These days I tend to be a fan of games where the PCs themselves are almost 100% able to guarantee their own safety if they so choose, but the stakes are high with respect to how the world will be going forward. I also tend to strongly deemphasize danger coming from randomness, but instead make success depend on making good decisions in the face of incomplete information as well as irreducible tradeoffs.

Sounds good.

To be clear, it's not like I'm just rolling a d20 every minute and if it's a negative number I kill a character.

Pleh
2018-11-05, 06:43 AM
(3.5 D&D) The group wants to sneak into a castle tower. As part of that, they must balance along a narrow ledge along the wall over a moat of acid. It's not too hard, with a DC of 12. Player Ron rolls a 10 for his character Zimfan the wizard. Zimfan falls off the ledge and into the acid, takes 11 points of damage and dies.


Nothing promotes good roleplaying like unavoidable chances of random instant death.

Well, by 3.5 rules, dying instantly here would be cheating the player.

Failing a balance check by 4 or less just means you "make no progress." You fall failing the DC by 5 or more, so getting 10 on a DC 12 should never throw you off.

Even if they rolled a 5, it should be possible to use the climb skill to catch themselves or for their allies nearby to assist. DC for catching yourself is 20+wall's climb DC, but catching another person is only 10+wall DC if you hit them with a touch attack (against which they can voluntarily lower their Dex to Touch AC).

Point being that we have yet more evidence that DU's understanding of the rules produces a disproportionately harsh interpretation.

Thinker
2018-11-05, 09:16 AM
Nothing promotes good roleplaying like unavoidable chances of random instant death.

"Well, they could've gone a different way!"
Would that way have had something that could cause instant death on a bad die-roll, too?

It doesn't sound all that unavoidable. It's a middling skill-check with clear consequences. Parties typically have myriad resources that enable them to take on a challenge in ways other than head-on.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-05, 02:17 PM
Point being that we have yet more evidence that DU's understanding of the rules produces a disproportionately harsh interpretation.

Sure, you can Monday Morning Quaterback something that happen years ago. If it makes you feel better, and make a offering for the Almighty Rules, just say I typed ''1'' and the ''10" is a typo.

Arbane
2018-11-05, 03:28 PM
Sure, you can Monday Morning Quaterback something that happen years ago. If it makes you feel better, and make a offering for the Almighty Rules, just say I typed ''1'' and the ''10" is a typo.

So the chance of Instant Unavoidable Death is 5%, not 50%. I guess that's an improvement, that's like three times as good odds as Russian Roulette gives you.
Note that Russian Roulette is not something most people WANT to play.

There's a reason the Old School D&D was largely an exercise in fast-talking the DM into AVOIDING using the actual rules as much as possible.

weet555
2018-11-05, 04:33 PM
On the tropic of should fights always be dangerous, I would like to bring up an edge case. Every now and then I had run sessions were (by design) the pcs are more powerful then any foe they face.

In such sessions the question of a fights is not 'can the pcs win?' but 'how will they win?'.

Now I know such sessions are for everyone, my group does them infrequently so those sessions are the exception not the rule. So some times its fun to ask how instead of if.

Arbane
2018-11-05, 04:58 PM
On the tropic of should fights always be dangerous, I would like to bring up an edge case. Every now and then I had run sessions were (by design) the pcs are more powerful then any foe they face.

In such sessions the question of a fights is not 'can the pcs win?' but 'how will they win?'.

Now I know such sessions are for everyone, my group does them infrequently so those sessions are the exception not the rule. So some times its fun to ask how instead of if.

Back in rec.games.frp.misc in the 1990s (I'm OOOOOOLD), I remember countless arguments about 'The Conan Problem' - if some stupid teenager with a rusty knife tries to mug Conan The Barbarian in an alleyway, should there be ANY chance of Conan dying?

Cluedrew
2018-11-05, 07:32 PM
Except, as you point out, Character Death IS the biggest one.And an atomic bomb is the biggest one available to modern militaries. Which is not to say it is the most useful.

(And I think campaign over, setting is destroyed would actually be the biggest negative consequence from a fight.)


if some stupid teenager with a rusty knife tries to mug Conan The Barbarian in an alleyway, should there be ANY chance of Conan dying?How drunk is Conan? This effects the answer and I could see Conan being very drunk at times.

I've never read the original stories, but that is just the impression I get. But assuming he isn't the only reach chance of the untrained attacker's (I'm assuming that is meant but stupid teenager, not a 19 year old knight that has been training for over a decade) is surprise attack and again I have an impression that Conan is pretty alert. I think we could (perhaps generously) give a 1/20 chance of success, 20 on a twenty. I think maybe 1/50 might be better but I have no idea how to actually confirm that. The real issue is damage, even removing HP from the equation I don't think a not-quite-sharp-anymore-knife will kill anybody with a quick stab. Except by causing an infection. (I ruled slash to the throat because that might have to come from the front.*) Especially since I think Conan does not actually go around mostly naked, even without armour that might help vs. a rusty knife.

* I don't actually know how stabbing someone in an ally works. I've never tried it.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-05, 07:38 PM
Back in rec.games.frp.misc in the 1990s (I'm OOOOOOLD), I remember countless arguments about 'The Conan Problem' - if some stupid teenager with a rusty knife tries to mug Conan The Barbarian in an alleyway, should there be ANY chance of Conan dying?

Well, I'd say no. That example is just too extreme.

Of course the ''default" Conan is like a 20th level character, at least. But that is the trick of the fiction, if you express it in D&D terms. 20th level Conan fights folks under 5th level most of the time. And that is what makes him great in fiction.

Though, the question should be a bit more like ''if an experienced warrior (in D&D terms, at least half Conan's level) attacks Conan, should there be ANY chance of Conan dying?

And the answer is: Yes.

Arbane
2018-11-05, 08:59 PM
And the answer is: Yes.

Out of morbid curiosity, what's the PC death rate in your games?

Iamyourking
2018-11-05, 10:23 PM
Also, if you tried to model Conan as a 20th level character you'd run into a lot of issues. Like the fact that he can't jump off a mountain, dust himself off, climb back to the top, jump off, and repeat the process a few more times before being at risk of dying. Or cleave through a stone wall in one blow. Or battle giant monsters and come out on top (Indeed, the largest monster I can think of him encountering is what is essentially a T. Rex in Red Nails, and he runs away from it despite being accompanied by Red Sonja.). Or perform superhuman feats of strength or speed. Conan, like most characters that are essentially really tough and really skilled but fundamentally human, would be best represented as being level 5 or 6; with their exceptional innate talent being represented with very high attributes.

Cluedrew
2018-11-05, 10:36 PM
I think character death and loss bring a lot to the game. So they should happen often.From a different thread but I think it is better referred to here. Could you give me an example? Of your last 5 character deaths could do describe how it added to the game?


Also, if you tried to model Conan as a 20th level character you'd run into a lot of issues.I can't speak of Conan but I do know The Lord of the Rings well enough. I think Sauron, you know the invincible foe over the mountains, would be out-done by a level 20 D&D wizard, let alone any members of the fellowship.

NichG
2018-11-05, 10:47 PM
And an atomic bomb is the biggest one available to modern militaries. Which is not to say it is the most useful.

(And I think campaign over, setting is destroyed would actually be the biggest negative consequence from a fight.)

The worst is never an immediate death or loss, because it's over quickly. The worst is having to commit to something one hates moving forward, for an extended period of time. It'd be much worse as a player to lose a fight and have their character inflicted with some brainwashing/torture/forced personality shift which is fundamentally incompatible or against the concept of the character, that now they must make effort to roleplay for as long as the campaign continues. Better for the character (or setting) to just die in those cases. Destruction ends the thing, but corruption steals it's very meaning out from under it.

Use with caution.

Pleh
2018-11-05, 11:38 PM
Sure, you can Monday Morning Quaterback something that happen years ago. If it makes you feel better, and make a offering for the Almighty Rules, just say I typed ''1'' and the ''10" is a typo.

Point really more being that this should have been wrong enough that everyone at the table felt how ridiculous that is.

Even if you're misremembering how it actually happened, the fact that you posted it this way just now means it didn't trigger your, "that doesn't feel right" response, which it should have.

Seemingly because you seem to use a non canonical (and unrealistic) absolute pass/fail in your DMing, which precludes degrees of success and failure.

You scoff about the Almighty Rules, but the rules were chosen because everyone can read a book. No one can (or should have to) read your mind. When the DM ignores the rules, why did you bother using a book to begin with? It's just extra reading that probably won't come into play. For that matter, why'd you buy the books?

Because the same book that told them how to make a character for your game is the same one telling them they only fall on a balance check for missing by 5 or more.

"Rule 0 is in the rules." Yeah, but Rule 0 is really meant for scenarios not already covered by the rules. It's not really meant for literally rewriting the book. That's not Rule 0, that's just homebrewing a spinoff, which is fine, but it's actually dishonest to call that D&D. And it's not under the authority of Rule 0, it's just outside the jurisdiction of the book entirely. They can't stop you making up your own rules.

Rule 0 really means, "feel free to fill in the blanks or iron out the wrinkles when you need to."

And Monday Morning Quarterbacking is basically all that happens on this subforum. The live games are in a seperate area. Theorizing and analysis are what this conversation are for.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-06, 12:28 AM
Out of morbid curiosity, what's the PC death rate in your games?

It depends, mostly at least once a game.

Though when the group is invading a Tannar'ri living fortress on the 600th level of the Abyss it can be much higher.

And when the players are new to my game and are optimizers, roll players and players used to soft casual games it can be much higher.


Also, if you tried to model Conan as a 20th level character you'd run into a lot of issues.

Well...it does depend on what stories you read too...


From a different thread but I think it is better referred to here. Could you give me an example? Of your last 5 character deaths could do describe how it added to the game?


Sure.

So, the players want to get into the top of a castle tower. It will require lots of climbing, balancing and such....mostly over and around the acid moat. Player Edgar has a blaster wizard Zom with none of those skills. A couple of rolls later Zom falls into the acid moat and dies...and the rest of the group retreats.

So the group runs back to town, meets a new wizard Zim (Edgar's new character) and goes back to the castle...where Zim dies again. This happens a couple more times(and Edgar gets to wear the Kenny Hoodie). So, then, Edgar gets the idea to make a better character to fit the game. He makes a more general wizard(but still does plan to be a blaster eventually). Somewhat obviously he takes the spell spider climb.

So after all that character death Edgar learned not to make such 'one trick pony' characters, to have some utility items or magic and learned that being a blaster is no good if you can't even get to the fight. And he even discovered potions. And maybe most of all, Edgar discovered that he lost his character...with all it's built up character and in game actions..could have been prevented easy...and does not want to have that happen again.

The rest of the group learned the whole 'weakest link lesson', and discovered they could do simple teamwork things like have the characters rope themselves together(though they did ultimately not need to do it as Edgar discovered the spell Spider Climb.) Also the basic ideas that each character should help each other out, and that they could have ''pooled" their money together to buy climbing tools and potions. The other players also see the effects of character loss, lots of bad effects, and don't want that to happen to them.

Can all the above be learned with out character death...yes, maybe. But the story of how the players ''read the PH and discover lanterns when the wind blows out their torch is not even close to the impact of the Acid Death Story.

NichG
2018-11-06, 01:03 AM
Point really more being that this should have been wrong enough that everyone at the table felt how ridiculous that is.

Even if you're misremembering how it actually happened, the fact that you posted it this way just now means it didn't trigger your, "that doesn't feel right" response, which it should have.

Seemingly because you seem to use a non canonical (and unrealistic) absolute pass/fail in your DMing, which precludes degrees of success and failure.

You scoff about the Almighty Rules, but the rules were chosen because everyone can read a book. No one can (or should have to) read your mind. When the DM ignores the rules, why did you bother using a book to begin with? It's just extra reading that probably won't come into play. For that matter, why'd you buy the books?

Because the same book that told them how to make a character for your game is the same one telling them they only fall on a balance check for missing by 5 or more.

"Rule 0 is in the rules." Yeah, but Rule 0 is really meant for scenarios not already covered by the rules. It's not really meant for literally rewriting the book. That's not Rule 0, that's just homebrewing a spinoff, which is fine, but it's actually dishonest to call that D&D. And it's not under the authority of Rule 0, it's just outside the jurisdiction of the book entirely. They can't stop you making up your own rules.

Rule 0 really means, "feel free to fill in the blanks or iron out the wrinkles when you need to."

And Monday Morning Quarterbacking is basically all that happens on this subforum. The live games are in a seperate area. Theorizing and analysis are what this conversation are for.

This is a thread about game design, though, so it's absolutely a place where it's okay to throw out the rulebook and write your own - because that's actually what we're discussing how to do. In that sense, I can't consider a criticism on the basis of 'the rules say it should have been X' to really be in line with the spirit of the overall conversation here. Whether something is or isn't called D&D is also irrelevant.

From a game design point of view, you have to address 'why should the rules say it should be X'. Or even better 'what does ruling X vs ruling Y achieve?'.

Arbane
2018-11-06, 02:08 AM
I can't speak of Conan but I do know The Lord of the Rings well enough. I think Sauron, you know the invincible foe over the mountains, would be out-done by a level 20 D&D wizard, let alone any members of the fellowship.

Well, he can't be much higher level than Gandalf, who according to a famous article in Dragon magazine was a level 5 Magic-User. :smallbiggrin:
(I saw an old Dragon where Gygax tried to shoehorn Conan as an AD&D character.... and failed. To make Conan even close to as competent as he is in the stories, Gygax had him a level 20+ multiclassed monstrosity with subconscious psionic powers. It was hilarious.)


It depends, mostly at least once a game.

Is that once a CAMPAIGN, or once a SESSION?



So, the players want to get into the top of a castle tower. It will require lots of climbing, balancing and such....mostly over and around the acid moat. Player Edgar has a blaster wizard Zom with none of those skills. A couple of rolls later Zom falls into the acid moat and dies...and the rest of the group retreats.

So the group runs back to town, meets a new wizard Zim (Edgar's new character) and goes back to the castle...where Zim dies again. This happens a couple more times(and Edgar gets to wear the Kenny Hoodie). So, then, Edgar gets the idea to make a better character to fit the game. He makes a more general wizard(but still does plan to be a blaster eventually). Somewhat obviously he takes the spell spider climb.

So after all that character death Edgar learned not to make such 'one trick pony' characters, to have some utility items or magic and learned that being a blaster is no good if you can't even get to the fight. And he even discovered potions. And maybe most of all, Edgar discovered that he lost his character...with all it's built up character and in game actions..could have been prevented easy...and does not want to have that happen again.

The rest of the group learned the whole 'weakest link lesson', and discovered they could do simple teamwork things like have the characters rope themselves together(though they did ultimately not need to do it as Edgar discovered the spell Spider Climb.) Also the basic ideas that each character should help each other out, and that they could have ''pooled" their money together to buy climbing tools and potions. The other players also see the effects of character loss, lots of bad effects, and don't want that to happen to them.

Can all the above be learned with out character death...yes, maybe. But the story of how the players ''read the PH and discover lanterns when the wind blows out their torch is not even close to the impact of the Acid Death Story.

Such ROLEPLAYING.

This is straight out of grognards.txt - except that the players didn't think to bail out the moat, sell the acid and retire early on the proceeds and you didn't have to come up with some ridiculous excuse to stop them.

Pleh
2018-11-06, 06:16 AM
This is a thread about game design, though, so it's absolutely a place where it's okay to throw out the rulebook and write your own - because that's actually what we're discussing how to do. In that sense, I can't consider a criticism on the basis of 'the rules say it should have been X' to really be in line with the spirit of the overall conversation here. Whether something is or isn't called D&D is also irrelevant.

From a game design point of view, you have to address 'why should the rules say it should be X'. Or even better 'what does ruling X vs ruling Y achieve?'.

Except he backpedaled when I pointed it out instead of explaining his intent by it. It wasn't intended, it was a goof, which should be delineated in talking about intentional rule changes.

There is no "why a rule should be X" when the rule was always supposed to be Y instead. I'm highlighting the problem of bias that potentially damages design expressly because it extends beyond self awareness.

And instead of just owning the mistake and setting a simple disclaimer on his advice ("oh yeah, I tend to run hard railroaded, grognard lethality campaigns, so my design advice will tend to produce that experience in your games"), he felt the need to suggest that I was somehow the one in the wrong (stop monday morning quarterbacking).

This comes down to an argument of, "good game design cites its sources." When someone else can cite a counter example, it's not helpful to deflect blame, as if we should be ashamed of making a mistake.

Cluedrew
2018-11-06, 08:38 AM
Acid Death Story.A couple of things:

I was referring to the times were the players will fondly recount "and then [my character name] died", although I didn't actually say that the first time. You have any of those?

It took 3-5 five deaths for the player to learn that lesson? I can usually get that down to 0 character deaths and trips back to town. Sure it does not scare the lesson into them the same way (although considering they just seem to be remaking the same character, not a lot of emotional investment there) but it takes a lot less time.

What do you mean "don't make one-trick ponies"? As long as you acknowledge that they have one-trick and play appropriately it can work. Some of my best characters have had only one trick. Maybe it is harder to make work, but it is do-able.


Well, he can't be much higher level than Gandalf, who according to a famous article in Dragon magazine was a level 5 Magic-User. :smallbiggrin:
(I saw an old Dragon where Gygax tried to shoehorn Conan as an AD&D character.... and failed. To make Conan even close to as competent as he is in the stories, Gygax had him a level 20+ multiclassed monstrosity with subconscious psionic powers. It was hilarious.)This is the real issue with martial/caster disparity in my mind. There are plenty of awesome martial character concepts that I will never get to play in D&D because the game just can't handle it.

NichG
2018-11-06, 09:03 AM
Except he backpedaled when I pointed it out instead of explaining his intent by it. It wasn't intended, it was a goof, which should be delineated in talking about intentional rule changes.

There is no "why a rule should be X" when the rule was always supposed to be Y instead. I'm highlighting the problem of bias that potentially damages design expressly because it extends beyond self awareness.

The context of talking about 'rule changes' rather than 'rules' suggests that there is a true ruleset we're discussing, and then centering the discussion around deviations from it. There is no such thing however. There is no thing that 'the rule was always supposed to be' - that's something you're importing. DU's response was not backpedalling, but pointing out that the specific numbers behind the probability of failure were, at least to what they were trying to communicate, irrelevant.

You can argue that the numbers are relevant because 5% and 50% lethality are a huge difference, for example, and if you wanted to forward a line of argument based on that I'd say that it was constructive. But the fact that they differ from the way it would be calculated in RAW D&D 3.5 isn't at all meaningful.

Furthermore, the line of argument you're pursuing moves from being a conversation about design principle or rules in the abstract, and is starting to become an ad hominem against a particular poster. Rather than addressing the actual proposed rule or the content of DU's games as described - about which there are plenty of things which could be criticized on the basis of design intent and consequence - you're focusing on DU themselves. That's bad form.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-06, 12:08 PM
I was referring to the times were the players will fondly recount "and then [my character name] died", although I didn't actually say that the first time. You have any of those?

Well, character death is not exactly a ''fond" type memory. It's more like a break up memory, like remember when you broke up with your high school sweetheart?



It took 3-5 five deaths for the player to learn that lesson? I can usually get that down to 0 character deaths and trips back to town. Sure it does not scare the lesson into them the same way (although considering they just seem to be remaking the same character, not a lot of emotional investment there) but it takes a lot less time.

I find everywhere that it often takes people 3-5 or more times to learn something....and some never learn. Sure in Edgars case he remade a wizard each time, but his group was one of the groups that falsely believed they must have one of each 'type' of character in the group.



What do you mean "don't make one-trick ponies"? As long as you acknowledge that they have one-trick and play appropriately it can work. Some of my best characters have had only one trick. Maybe it is harder to make work, but it is do-able.

Well, this is more on game style. My game is half combat and half role playing, and you can expect a lot of non combat encounters. And a lot of encounters that can be either. And I don't do the very special type of limited games where everything fits into a tiny box.

But one trick ponies, even more so, the all and only combat ones...can only fight. As half of the game will not be fighting, this has such a character at a huge disadvantage. And it's far more worse when the character is over specialized to do one thing.

Can a one trick pony character work....yes, but it all falls back on the players gaming.



This is the real issue with martial/caster disparity in my mind. There are plenty of awesome martial character concepts that I will never get to play in D&D because the game just can't handle it.

What do you mean?

Cluedrew
2018-11-06, 07:47 PM
Well, character death is not exactly a ''fond" type memory. It's more like a break up memory, like remember when you broke up with your high school sweetheart?Well that sounds... absolutely not like a game I would want to play in. I'm sorry but "imaging breaking up with your first love over and over again" is not a compelling game pitch to me. Or I would venture, many people.


But one trick ponies, even more so, the all and only combat ones...can only fight. As half of the game will not be fighting, this has such a character at a huge disadvantage. And it's far more worse when the character is over specialized to do one thing.Yeah, I built that character (she could win almost fight but had no other skills of note) and managed to pull it off (in a campaign that was like 1/3-1/4 combat). Still there was 4-5 PCs in that game so not getting the limelight the rest of the time was fine. Didn't even have center stage during all the fights.


What do you mean?The example I had in mind was a pair of god-slayers. A body and mind pair with a wizard and a master of hand to hand combat. Both were capable of single handily killing a god and shattering armies. They are higher powered characters than I am usually interested in playing (they were background mentors in the original story), but let's say I want to play them. I think I could get a good representation of the wizard with a level 10-15 sorcerer*. The hand-to-hand one? Level 60 monk or something? Most varieties of actually awesome physical character are just aren't available.

I think things are improving, but they have a ways to go.

* Just accounting for the setting differences.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-06, 10:22 PM
Well that sounds... absolutely not like a game I would want to play in. I'm sorry but "imaging breaking up with your first love over and over again" is not a compelling game pitch to me. Or I would venture, many people.

Well, it is more for a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain. It's not for everyone. The same way living happily ever after is not for everyone.

Quertus
2018-11-06, 10:58 PM
Well, if we're talking game theory, I'll (mostly) stand on DU's side on this one.

If you telegraph that the game is harsh and easily fatal, then you know not to get too attached to your characters, or to put much work into their personality or backstory until you learn the system, and learn how to create and play characters that survive.

So, first, you play the "I'm a noob, my characters have no personality and die like lemmings" minigame. Since most people don't prefer that, it encourages a "get good noob" attitude that says that once you learn how to play the game, you can play a much broader range of characters / you can play the character you'd like / you can play a character that matters.

Why would I weigh in on the side of "get good noob"? Well, let's take the Warhammer universe as an example.

I'm pretty clueless in such a game. It would strain credulity if someone spouting off the random wrong things I'd say we're actually a competent being. That just doesn't add up. Until I take the time to understand the setting, grok the rules, and otherwise learn enough to be able to make and play good characters who make good choices, the only option available to me is to play a string of incompetent redshirts. If I care enough, and am able to really "get" the setting, then I'll get to - if I choose to - run characters who can impact the setting meaningfully. Until then, my cluelessness is mirrored in my characters.

It's easiest for everyone (not just me) to roleplay their characters if my insane, clueless comments can be treated as just that.

So, if you get strong feedback that you've done the wrong thing, it is, IMO, easier to learn what the correct thing is, and to build the player skills necessary to run competent characters.

NichG
2018-11-06, 11:09 PM
Well, if we're talking game theory, I'll (mostly) stand on DU's side on this one.

If you telegraph that the game is harsh and easily fatal, then you know not to get too attached to your characters, or to put much work into their personality or backstory until you learn the system, and learn how to create and play characters that survive.

So, first, you play the "I'm a noob, my characters have no personality and die like lemmings" minigame. Since most people don't prefer that, it encourages a "get good noob" attitude that says that once you learn how to play the game, you can play a much broader range of characters / you can play the character you'd like / you can play a character that matters.

Why would I weigh in on the side of "get good noob"? Well, let's take the Warhammer universe as an example.

I'm pretty clueless in such a game. It would strain credulity if someone spouting off the random wrong things I'd say we're actually a competent being. That just doesn't add up. Until I take the time to understand the setting, grok the rules, and otherwise learn enough to be able to make and play good characters who make good choices, the only option available to me is to play a string of incompetent redshirts. If I care enough, and am able to really "get" the setting, then I'll get to - if I choose to - run characters who can impact the setting meaningfully. Until then, my cluelessness is mirrored in my characters.

It's easiest for everyone (not just me) to roleplay their characters if my insane, clueless comments can be treated as just that.

So, if you get strong feedback that you've done the wrong thing, it is, IMO, easier to learn what the correct thing is, and to build the player skills necessary to run competent characters.

I guess this brings it back around, in that I like the idea of figuring out ways to get that message across without actually having to have characters die first. That is to say, make it so that a single character trajectory can include the process of learning about e.g. what is dangerous and what is safe, or things like that. In that way, the character growth itself can become part of the fabric of the campaign. It's not for every game or every table, but the idea that it should be possible to do keeps me coming back to experimenting with very weird systems or premises.

For example, a game where you play a soul that gets reincarnated over multiple generations of characters - everyone knows that every 9 sessions their characters will all die of old age no matter what they do, but depending on what they do in their life they can pass advantages or connections on to their next life. Or a game where there is some set of parallel universes and when any of the characters die, that universe collapses and the viewpoint jumps to a different one that may vary in subtle or overt ways, with the overall campaign goal to ensure that at least one universe remains by the end.

What are the set of techniques which can be used to as quickly and cheaply as possible bring players into alignment with how the world works?

Darth Ultron
2018-11-07, 01:08 AM
What are the set of techniques which can be used to as quickly and cheaply as possible bring players into alignment with how the world works?

Good players do come around quite quick. Really I see the problem more of too many easy casual games. Players are too used to the evil lich king targeting them with 'ray of zap' that does 1d4 damage. So they are quite shocked when in my game they are hit with 'necromatic wave of death, doom and destruction' for lots of damage and effects.

A good thing to do is have a new player to the game play with more hold hands of the game. They can show them the ropes during the game play.

Also, a 'Game Zero' is a great idea. More of a pick up type game where the players can learn the game style, but not with their ''Main Characters". I do this one a lot. And often tie it into the main character somehow...like the pick up characters are the ancestors, parents or such of the main characters.

Cluedrew
2018-11-07, 08:34 AM
I'm pretty clueless in such a game. It would strain credulity if someone spouting off the random wrong things I'd say we're actually a competent being. That just doesn't add up. Until I take the time to understand the setting, grok the rules, and otherwise learn enough to be able to make and play good characters who make good choices, the only option available to me is to play a string of incompetent redshirts. If I care enough, and am able to really "get" the setting, then I'll get to - if I choose to - run characters who can impact the setting meaningfully. Until then, my cluelessness is mirrored in my characters.I think I follow you, has character-focus written all over it. I just have one question.

Why a string of incompetent redshirts? If you must play a small fish, play in a small pond for a while and move to larger and larger bodies of water. Tone down the campaign, play at a small scale then crank things up as you know more and more about the setting. Really this is how competent people are formed in real life, slowly gaining experience and taking on bigger and bigger problems. Its not like 10 people are thrown at a problem and one of them knew how to handle it all along.

Plus in an ongoing campaign with other more experienced players, why not have them play more experienced characters who could mentor the less experienced characters as the less experienced players learn themselves?

PhoenixPhyre
2018-11-07, 08:41 AM
Why a string of incompetent redshirts? If you must play a small fish, play in a small pond for a while and move to larger and larger bodies of water. Tone down the campaign, play at a small scale then crank things up as you know more and more about the setting. Really this is how competent people are formed in real life, slowly gaining experience and taking on bigger and bigger problems. Its not like 10 people are thrown at a problem and one of them knew how to handle it all along.


This is exactly how 5e D&D is designed.

T1 (levels 1-4): village heroes.
T2 (levels 5-10): local/small kingdom heroes.
T3 (levels 11-16): continent/word heroes
T4 (levels 17-20): inter-planar heroes

This widening focus goes along with major power boosts at 5, 11, and 17.

NichG
2018-11-07, 09:07 AM
Good players do come around quite quick. Really I see the problem more of too many easy casual games. Players are too used to the evil lich king targeting them with 'ray of zap' that does 1d4 damage. So they are quite shocked when in my game they are hit with 'necromatic wave of death, doom and destruction' for lots of damage and effects.

A good thing to do is have a new player to the game play with more hold hands of the game. They can show them the ropes during the game play.

Also, a 'Game Zero' is a great idea. More of a pick up type game where the players can learn the game style, but not with their ''Main Characters". I do this one a lot. And often tie it into the main character somehow...like the pick up characters are the ancestors, parents or such of the main characters.

Depends a lot on how you get your players. I tend to play with people I've known and played with for years, so at least in that respect we have a lot of background knowledge of eachothers' styles. So the issue is clarity in the specific world or setting case - here's a new set of premises, so it's initially unclear which decisions are critical life-or-death one chance to do it right things and which decisions are a matter of preference. In this game, are villains going to take you captive or are they going to kill you on the spot? If you let someone go, will they become an ally in the future or are they just going to turn around and attack you again? Etc. Those are game elements which get juggled around a lot based on genre, specific details, relationships between the PCs and the antagonists (and the type of antagonist), etc. So communicating setting and game expectations is, in some sense, a never-ending process even with players I've worked with for a long time. We also don't tend to stick to a single system, and new systems tend to try to subvert old expectations or try to re-frame the game in a new way.

So being able to design new systems so that they basically teach people how to play them quickly is a useful tool to have. The game zero thing is basically nearly mandatory in this sort of setup, though generally that'll take the form of everyone having a single 'free rebuild' of their character when we start since none of us (me included) actually know how the things are going to run once they actually hit the table in play.

I realize this probably is a fairly nonstandard way of going about the hobby, of course, so these may not be as pressing considerations for others...

Darth Ultron
2018-11-07, 11:31 AM
In this game, are villains going to take you captive or are they going to kill you on the spot? If you let someone go, will they become an ally in the future or are they just going to turn around and attack you again?

I think this is a bad way to go. To say a thing will or will not be will hurt the game more then it helps. And it's worse when your too specific. To say ''ok this is a back stabbing game" or "you can't trust anyone in the game" . It's like you side before: DM says it's a backstabbing game, the players all take in game precautions, so it turns out the game never has any backstabbing.

I think the far better ''anything can happen" is much better for a healthy game. It's far better for a DM to pick a style, then switch around a lot. A single style should be open enough to fit a wide range of play.

NichG
2018-11-07, 11:45 AM
I think this is a bad way to go. To say a thing will or will not be will hurt the game more then it helps. And it's worse when your too specific. To say ''ok this is a back stabbing game" or "you can't trust anyone in the game" . It's like you side before: DM says it's a backstabbing game, the players all take in game precautions, so it turns out the game never has any backstabbing.

I think the far better ''anything can happen" is much better for a healthy game. It's far better for a DM to pick a style, then switch around a lot. A single style should be open enough to fit a wide range of play.

Saying it is one thing, but ultimately what I want is to have shown, such that the players do not think 'I was told this', but make a confident and correct prediction about how things will go in a given situation, as quickly as possible upon starting to work with the system. The more developed that ability is, the more complex and open-ended the sort of question I can use the game to ask, and the more I can get the game to really allow access to ways of thinking or mental spaces that were otherwise difficult for people to operate in.

One of my favorite moments in a campaign I ran was when one of the players in a civilization builder type of game figured out a way to essentially control the world despite having zero territory and zero actual mechanical resources, simply by recognizing a way to negotiate a collective collaborative treaty that would amplify the power over everyone else, but with them essentially holding the strings. In essence, the player spontaneously and correctly recognized the potential in both the setting and in the system to realize something like the UN and to turn its creation into his sole power base.

In that instance, for that player, the system communicated the way it was meant to be played without me needing to explicitly point out all the places where cooperation would lead to results greater than the sum of the parts, or without me needing to make an explicit mechanic for it.

On the other hand, I ran a different campaign where the underlying mechanic was basically that everyone had amnesia that they could in some sense voluntarily resolve, and that by doing so (by editing their backstory as an in-character, conscious action) they could actually directly influence the present by forcing it to become consistent. By the end of the campaign, the gimmick had been figured out, but it wasn't something that the players were able to really able to use effectively to achieve their goals - or even to relate that ability to their goals. In that case, the gimmick was something potentially very powerful, but I had presented it in a way that basically made it impossible or nearly impossible in character to figure out how it might be controlled, and as such it basically was only used accidentally except in one particular instance.

It's a curious thing that even if you were to tell a group of players that there are literally no limits to the character they are allowed to play, you will still get wildly different power levels, ways of interacting with the world, etc. And furthermore, even upon seeing other people set the limits differently, often it will prove immensely difficult for players to voluntarily move those boundaries once they've decided upon them. I'm not sure this is necessarily the same thing as the setting and system being designed to communicate their nature to a player, but at some level I do feel like it's a connected phenomenon - that there's a difference between the visceral feeling of something being possible or impossible (which is created entirely within the player's mind, regardless of what you say or do as DM) and the stuff that is being presented externally.

Quertus
2018-11-07, 04:47 PM
I think I follow you, has character-focus written all over it. I just have one question.

Why a string of incompetent redshirts? If you must play a small fish, play in a small pond for a while and move to larger and larger bodies of water. Tone down the campaign, play at a small scale then crank things up as you know more and more about the setting. Really this is how competent people are formed in real life, slowly gaining experience and taking on bigger and bigger problems. Its not like 10 people are thrown at a problem and one of them knew how to handle it all along.

Plus in an ongoing campaign with other more experienced players, why not have them play more experienced characters who could mentor the less experienced characters as the less experienced players learn themselves?


This is exactly how 5e D&D is designed.

T1 (levels 1-4): village heroes.
T2 (levels 5-10): local/small kingdom heroes.
T3 (levels 11-16): continent/word heroes
T4 (levels 17-20): inter-planar heroes

This widening focus goes along with major power boosts at 5, 11, and 17.

Planar heroes who can still be taken down by a squad of orcs? I can totally see myself playing a 20th level character hiding in a small village, who cringes whenever he earns the local lord's attention.

But that might not explain it too well. Let me try again.

So, suppose you're playing a campaign, and, 6 months in, a new player joins. What do you do? Well, most likely, you give him a statistically equivalent playing piece*. Let's say that this player is as system savy as the rest of your group, asks questions to get up to speed on the campaign, and this works fine.

Then, 9 months in, another player joins the game. Based on your previous success, you give him a statistically equivalent playing piece*... But, this time, it fails badly.

If it falls because the player is too good at the system, too good at the character creation minigame, or too good at making good choices - relative to the rest of your players - it's usually pretty easy to deal with: most groups declare him a min-maxing munchkin, and kick him out. Or maybe they ask him to tone it down. Or maybe they accept the power disparity, and let the new guy rule the roost. Or maybe they realize that they aren't the top of the food chain, and try to up their game to match. But, no matter which path a given group takes, is an easy one (to find, at least).

But if the player is below the standards of the group?

Sure, you could try to drop back to "small village" level, where maybe** they could survive a session without getting themselves killed. But do you really want to put your campaign on hold while you train the noob - especially when people are going to be graduating soon? I recall asking a question similar to this years ago, and getting a rather strong "no" back from the Playground - that modern gamers don't have time to babysit 1st level characters (let alone 1st level Players) in their high-level parties***.

So, there only two options, as I see it: either the noob plays a series of redshirts until they get the game, or they're handed a totally OP playing piece (Tzeentch, or the god-emperor of man, in Warhammer) to allow them to contribute equally.

-----

As to the last bit, as Max especially liked to point out, in many systems, a statistically equivalent playing piece usually implies having already survived being a small fish, and it stains credulity as it is for their statistically equivalent playing piece to somehow be this incompetent. Why would Zull the mighty warrior, slayer of a dozen dragons, think that he would need to train High Priest Lux, chosen of his god and vanquisher of the archdemon zxcvbnm, that bathing in lava is a bad idea?

There's a limit to even how much even a GM can do to help, before they're completely removing player agency, and just playing the character.

* At most D&D tables, that would look something like, "make an x-level character".
** I wouldn't count on it for me to survive grocery shopping in Warhammer 40k, though.
*** And that was even without the time constraints of "finish the campaign now or never".

Darth Ultron
2018-11-07, 11:30 PM
But if the player is below the standards of the group?

Sure, you could try to drop back to "small village" level, where maybe** they could survive a session without getting themselves killed. But do you really want to put your campaign on hold while you train the noob - especially when people are going to be graduating soon? I recall asking a question similar to this years ago, and getting a rather strong "no" back from the Playground - that modern gamers don't have time to babysit 1st level characters (let alone 1st level Players) in their high-level parties***.

So, there only two options, as I see it: either the noob plays a series of redshirts until they get the game, or they're handed a totally OP playing piece (Tzeentch, or the god-emperor of man, in Warhammer) to allow them to contribute equally.

I can agree with the idea that most groups don't want to slow down and disrupt their game to teach and help a player that is not up to the group standards. I would not want to do that either. And this is really true in a lot of group activities. Still, I'd be fine with helping the player, in say another game, getting up to that level.

I do the 'red shirt' a lot in my games...really, it's unavoidable. Most people are just not prepared for the extreme action and adventure that is typical in my games. After all, most games are somewhat...passive. My games are like after a couple minutes the tavern explodes and the characters are fighting some negoi on the backs of flying plane-hopping turtles. And a lot of people get lost even just at ''what flying turtles?", though people that have gamed before have a much harder time.

Cluedrew
2018-11-08, 08:22 AM
So, there only two options, as I see it: either the noob plays a series of redshirts until they get the game, or they're handed a totally OP playing piece (Tzeentch, or the god-emperor of man, in Warhammer) to allow them to contribute equally.I did have a solution for this, which is have the other players+ mentor the new player, and justify the occasional don't do that moment have the new character be mentored by the more experienced characters.

Getting a character that is a bit weaker but still can contribute meaningfully might be a trick. On the other hand maybe you could have them play someone with similar or above raw power. In a fantasy or superhero games someone with a lot of power they don't know what to do with wouldn't be that hard to justify. As the player learns the character learns.

I don't think they are going to die immediately. We have had purposeful incompetent characters get pretty far. Mostly by just because there are a multitude of ways for characters to fail that don't involve dying.


My games are like after a couple minutes the tavern explodes and the characters are fighting some negoi on the backs of flying plane-hopping turtles. And a lot of people get lost even just at ''what flying turtles?", though people that have gamed before have a much harder time.The tone of the games is "a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain" and you fight on the tops of flying turtles. Well good job reconciling those two flavours. That is a trick.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-08, 01:06 PM
The tone of the games is "a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain" and you fight on the tops of flying turtles. Well good job reconciling those two flavours. That is a trick.

Well, "a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain in an exciting action adventure high fantasy multiverse". The Caravan to Nowhere adventure was just a week ago. The neogi capture and enslave else turtles, large wagon sized turtles that fly and plane shift, for their merchant caravans. The PCs want to both free the turtles and get the loot. The else turtles have an avoid planual effect field on them and anything touching them. And I use the very 2E multiverse where much of it is very hostile to normal life (so the Elemental plane of Fire is 6d10 damage a round, blindness, no gravity, magical alterations and has no air). So the players need to stay on the else turtles, be aware of what plane they are on and be careful 'turtle jumping'. But it also gives clever players the nice openings of if they can knock the bad guys off the turtles or such the plane will effect them (the clever barbarian grappled and lifted them up off the turtle), the fun of a three dimensional fight, and the quirk that you just have to be in 'touch' with a else turtle, but not be on the shell back. No character's died in the encounter...but a couple came close.

Pleh
2018-11-08, 01:52 PM
The tone of the games is "a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain" and you fight on the tops of flying turtles. Well good job reconciling those two flavours. That is a trick.

He means, "gritty realism for the characters, not the setting/npcs."

It's like Who Framed Roger Rabbit where you have to consider the grim consequences of cartoon characters treating real people like they were also cartoon characters.

VincentTakeda
2018-11-08, 07:46 PM
I love how this works in relation to another popular gaming philosophy: 'game balance' and 'challenge rating'

Instead of the idea that fights have a 2% chance of producting a fatality, we design encounters to be tense and dramatic by making sure that every fight is in fact organically probabalistically challenging in its own right... We say that this creature has a challenge rating that make sthe opponent an 'even match' for the party. In this case the fight, in order to seem exciting to the players in the moment, has a fatality producing probability of about 50%...

Now imagine having to win 100 coin tosses in a row... OR DIE! And what are the odds that someone will have needed to roll up a new character at some point during those 100 fights. Thats the math behind making every combat encounter an exciting 'even match'. And they say 2e was deadly.

Florian
2018-11-09, 06:22 AM
The tone of the games is "a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain" and you fight on the tops of flying turtles. Well good job reconciling those two flavours. That is a trick.

Nah, not much of a trick. Basically, itīs just the difference between "setting as the stage" and "setting as the backdrop". For example, when I gm, I use PF as the rules set and Golarion as the backdrop/source for context, the actual game is neither of the two, itīs the scenarios/encounters/adventure I've prepared.

For me, both, the chosen rules system and setting are tools to facilitate what I consider to be the actual game itself. The two related issues, "rules as physics" and "what if?" don't really have a place on this style of gaming.

Ergo, I donīt have qualms to just create stuff that make for fun and interesting encounters.

Cluedrew
2018-11-09, 08:41 AM
Well, "a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain in an exciting action adventure high fantasy multiverse".
He means, "gritty realism for the characters, not the setting/npcs."
Nah, not much of a trick. Basically, itīs just the difference between "setting as the stage" and "setting as the backdrop".It is entirely possible, I just think it is harder to do properly than just sticking to one flavour. And I was going to say more but I am suddenly drawing a blank.

Darth Ultron
2018-11-09, 11:06 AM
Nah, not much of a trick.

It's a pretty big trick. Most DMs for D&D, really it seems just about all of them sometimes, are very much suck in the game settling must be exactly like Earth was in 1000 AD.


It is entirely possible, I just think it is harder to do properly than just sticking to one flavour. And I was going to say more but I am suddenly drawing a blank.

Well, Everything Plus the Kitchen Sink is a Flavor :)

Though I will say a great many players don't like anything weird. A couple minutes into the game and they encounter a Ghost Door, a Mimic Tavern or a Dowhar(penguin people) and they run from the game screaming about how crazy it is.

Devils_Advocate
2018-12-18, 03:39 PM
Well and good, but I'd love to see anyone who has an actual intuition for Bayesian probability.
Well... (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ti3Z7eZtud32LhGZT/my-bayesian-enlightenment)


I agree on the two types of players, but maybe Serious and Casual might be better descriptions.

The Serious player wants to have fun by immersing themselves in the game 100% and act and feel and react as if the role playing game play is 100% real during the game. This player cares greasily about the game and thinks of it as much more then ''just a game"

The Casual player just wants to waste some time and have fun. They don't really care about anything or even what they do to have fun...any game is fine with them...as long as it's fun. They don't want to think to much or do anything with any real effort, they just want to have fun. After all it's ''just a game".
"The Tao's principle is spontaneity." (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0143.html)

Personally, I suspect that people often turn to casual fun in order to relieve stress, and that people often turn to things like particularly challenging games or fiction like horror (https://xkcd.com/2076/) in order to relieve boredom. Meaning that a single individual's preferred forms of entertainment might change based on what's going on in that person's life! That's not to say that we all seek to experience the same mix of emotions; different individuals may each seek to return to different personal emotional "baselines", while others may not work that way at all. But I find it interesting to think that the appeal of various experiences may be as much a product of external circumstances as long-term personality.


It's a curious thing that even if you were to tell a group of players that there are literally no limits to the character they are allowed to play, you will still get wildly different power levels, ways of interacting with the world, etc. And furthermore, even upon seeing other people set the limits differently, often it will prove immensely difficult for players to voluntarily move those boundaries once they've decided upon them.
I'm not sure that I understand what you mean here. If you were to tell a group of players that there are literally no limits to the character they are allowed to play, I'd expect the characters they produce to have wildly different levels of power, interactions with the world, and countless other things. Furthermore, I'd assume that they aren't supposed to be similar to each other in any particular way. Isn't that rather strongly implied by "Make literally any character you want"?

Of course, if you want to run a conventional game that follows a group, there need to be reasons for the characters to stay together. But players are generally accustomed to character creation guidelines helping them to produce characters with reasons to work together. So, without explicitly being told "You need to work together to make characters that do things together", it's not surprising that a lot of players wouldn't immediately conclude that on their own.

But even that doesn't require the characters to be all that similar. It definitely doesn't require that they all be of "roughly equivalent power", and I'd assume that having a powerful character isn't supposed to be a player goal in a game in which the players each decide how powerful their character is at the outset.


Most DMs for D&D, really it seems just about all of them sometimes, are very much suck in the game settling must be exactly like Earth was in 1000 AD.
Life was hard in the Dark Ages, with all the monsters and evil wizards. Not to say that the fall of the Roman Empire was due entirely to invading orcs.


Well, Everything Plus the Kitchen Sink is a Flavor :)

Though I will say a great many players don't like anything weird. A couple minutes into the game and they encounter a Ghost Door, a Mimic Tavern or a Dowhar(penguin people) and they run from the game screaming about how crazy it is.
Sounds like a fun, silly romp.

In your case it may be a highly lethal fun, silly romp, but that doesn't switch the genre from comedy to tragedy, it just makes it a dark comedy. If a game is so loaded with exploding death traps and shape-changing monsters that'll bite your head off that "playing well" is just the difference between your character dying now and your character dying ten sessions from now, it oddly has much the same effect as huge volleys of enemy fire consistently missing the main characters: When players come to see that their decisions don't really make any meaningful difference, there's no longer much point to agonizing over those decisions, and tension is largely killed off.

As others have noted, players tend not to be very invested in the first place in characters that they expect to lose soon. You don't worry about character death in Paranoia (http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/paranoia.html), you just increment your clone number and carry on. Which is basically what you described Edgar as doing. Which rather supports the theory that your games, like Paranoia, are wild and wacky dark comedy rather than serious dramatic tragedy. Which is fine! (Have you ever GMed Paranoia? It seems like something that you might get a kick out of. Doesn't getting the players to kill each other's characters seem like it'd be fun?)

But if you do want to create the tension that comes from the players feeling that their characters' fates hinge on their choices... then you need to get the players to feel that their characters' fates hinge on their choices. But if players really can avoid bad outcomes by playing well, then you can't make sufficiently good players aware of threats by having the very things that they're avoiding happen, because they're avoiding them! And if players can only make bad outcomes less frequent, then you run into the issue that e.g. a 2% chance of death per fight is an 87% chance of dying before your 102nd fight. So if you want players to have hope of their characters living to retirement by avoiding risk, it's helpful to have ways to communicate danger without actually putting the characters at risk.

Hence, this thread.


This is the atmosphere and storytelling.

But more so such mechanics is going along the downward slope of Roll Playing. Where the players are just fighting "Monster Type Seven" that has an AC of X and HP of Y..and then it's just roll until it's dead. Then fight the next monster.
The problem is that in a game like D&D, descriptions are just "fluff". A frail old man could be completely harmless, but he could be a powerful wizard who can and will throw lighting bolts at anyone who annoys him. A relatively ordinary-looking warrior with a sword and armor could be a level 1 fighter with mundane gear, or he could be a 20th level fighter with a +5 sword of killing you dead and +5 armor of not getting hit, who can take a sledgehammer to the face and keep on fighting like nothing happened.

Of course, many would dispute my last claim, and many DMs would prefer to instead describe a hit for loads of damage as a "near miss" if it happens to a creature with loads of hit points. But this serves to illustrate my point that there's essentially no meaningful correspondence between description and mechanics. And provided that the mechanics determine whether their characters live or die, the mechanics are understandably going to be what many players most care about. So they'll do their best to determine whether a monster is really Monster Type Seven or Monster Type Eight, irrespective of the "mere fluff", which is by definition non-functional. You can keep the mechanics vague in order to encourage the perception of everything as a potential threat, but a player who guesses "Okay, this monster seems to have an AC in the 12 to 18 range" is still thinking of things in terms of mechanics as much as a player who knows that the monster has an AC of 15. Heck, at least in the latter case the player isn't spending a lot of mental effort trying to figure out the mechanics at work!

If events actually unfold based on "game stats", and the players know that, then establishing a foe as a credible threat means establishing that it has dangerous stats. If you really want the players to think of things in "in-universe" terms, then why not *gasp* describe creatures in terms of real quantities like height, weight, running speed, lifting capacity, and so on, instead of them having a "Strength stat", "Dexterity stat", "hit points", etc.? Or even *gasp* describe things in non-quantitative terms? It's rather hard to ignore stats and die rolling when a game is played by referencing stats and rolling dice. It's not an insurmountable barrier to immersion, but why put a barrier up at all?


Well, it is more for a gritty realism of heartbreak and pain.
As with "in the grim darkness of the future, there is only war", the main question here is how deliberate the comical pretension is.

Besides which, well....


I think this is a bad way to go. To say a thing will or will not be will hurt the game more then it helps. And it's worse when your too specific. To say ''ok this is a back stabbing game" or "you can't trust anyone in the game" . It's like you side before: DM says it's a backstabbing game, the players all take in game precautions, so it turns out the game never has any backstabbing.

I think the far better ''anything can happen" is much better for a healthy game. It's far better for a DM to pick a style, then switch around a lot. A single style should be open enough to fit a wide range of play.
Deciding that the story is going to feature heartbreak and pain doesn't really go so well with gritty realism, and certainly not with "anything can happen". A simulationist cosmos shouldn't be actively hostile but indifferent to the characters' well-being; and whatever happens happens, man. Also, again, expected character suffering doesn't translate so well into player suffering... but then, that actually seems like a good thing; hopefully maximizing player suffering isn't one of your goals.


In this game hit points are useless...they might go 'down' sometimes...but it does not mean anything.
Incidentally, it is possible for hit points going down to mean something even if they never reach zero. There are degrees of injury in between "perfectly fine" and "dead" to model, and if you really are interested in gritty realism, you might even want to make it a point that getting stabbed is real bad for you dude, like for real, even if it doesn't kill you. That could makes things a bit more interesting, in no small part because severely disabling enemies through injury then becomes something that the PCs can do, too, because it's just part of how combat works that doesn't require a special "character build" or "monster power"!