Negativity bias, trauma-based game design and learned helplessness in metagames

[Vahnavoi]

This is a thing that's come to my mind when reading the recent threads on agency, challenge and flaws. It touches on all of them, but I thought it's big enough subtopic to warrant its own discussion.

Negativity bias (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias) is noted tendency of humans to weigh negative experiences in their decision-making, especially when it comes to social relations. In simple terms, a player is likely to give more weight to the one time another player screwed them over than the nine times that player co-operated without issue.

Learned helplessness (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) is a tendency of people to become passive when negative experiences suggests they have no control over a situation. Notably, due to the above, the amount of positive experiences required to teach a person that what they're doing is helpful can be vastly more than the amount of negative experiences causing them to fall into a funk.

Trauma-based game design is what happens when negativity bias is allowed to write the rules. Basically imagine a metagame following thoughts like: "This rule ruined a game this one time, ergo it's a bad rule and has to be changed!", "This person ruined a game this one time, ergo they are that guy and have to be kicked out!", etc.

Sound familiar? It should, because this is how many tables muck about with game design.

So what is the issue?

Many rules in tabletop games trigger unpredictably or outright randomly, by design. Often, there's a small chance, maybe one in twenty, one in a hundred or one in a thousand, of something "game ruining" happening built into the rules, accepted by the original designer because it leads to a good game experience often enough. But, when the game is distributed across a large enough player population, for some playgroups, that small chance is realized the very first time they trigger the rule. And then they decide it's a stupid rule, change it and never experience how the rules usually work. Furthermore, in a complex game, where rules interact in various way, eliminating chance of failure from one rule may lead to increasing or outright creating a new chance of failure elsewhere. So it's possible for trauma-based design to cascade through the entire ruleset, leading to a playgroup who've upended the entire original game out of honest belief that it sucks, despite never having played it for long as it was made.

So how does this relate to learned helplessness?

In many groups, one person, usually the game master, is given the authority to change the rules, or at least is tasked with doing most of the work. Additionally, that same person is tasked with booting players out if they cause trouble. So if players fall into the paradigm of trauma-based game design, complaining to that person becomes their preferred way of trying to control the game. They no longer try to do things within the game or solve problems within the rules, because they've learned that the rules don't give them control. It can get even worse: if that person does not enjoy full trust of the other players, any refusal to change the rules can be construed as further evidence of betrayal. They become a scapegoat for everything not working in a game: the metagame becomes "if a bad thing happens in a game, first complain of the rules, then complain of other players, then if game master doesn't change things, complain about the game master". The scapegoat at the end of the chain is then left with all the work to make the game work, because they are the only one assumed to have control.

Sound familiar? I hope not, but I think there's at least one frequent poster to which this is very familiar.

You might wonder, so what? Why does it matter if this happens? Well, the thing is, humans often carry metagame assumptions from one game to another. Especially in case of tabletop roleplaying games, there's a wide-spread implicit, sometimes explicit notion that it's all one thing, really. So a player who had bad experience with a game master in one kind of game, will carry that bad experience and their metagame informed by it to different games with unrelated game masters. People also teach their metagames to new players, and new players often go and absorb learned "wisdom" from older players. Especially in the internet era, it is very tempting to skip the step of learning your own way of playing and just copy some other player's. What could go wrong?

This can lead to entire playstyles being killed off, or not even being born.

So. What are the solutions? I have some ideas. But before I get to that, I'd like for you to ask some questions of yourself first:

Do you think the described phenomena are real?
If yes, can you think of good, specific examples of them happening?
If yes, what would you have recommended as a solution?

[NichG]

I'd say this is real, but it's not necessarily irrational depending on how it gets implemented and what the people are ultimately looking for.

If you assume the goal of game-seeking is to maximize the average experience, negativity bias is irrational. But what if one seeks to maximize the minimum experience? Or maximize the maximum experience? Or, say, maximize a complex combination of those things that also correlates with out of game stuff like 'if it's a good day, take the maximum; if it's a bad day, take the minimum'.

There's also things like iterated Prisoners' Dilemma where tit for tat is a strong strategy to avoid bad Nash Equilibrium - punish betrayal more severely than the average cost of experiencing it so as to suppress 'testing the waters' and reduce the equilibrium defector population.

So I don't know that'd I'd always draw the conclusion that good rules are being discarded out of fear of the one time they were bad and would be good rules if only someone gave them a chance, and that those tendencies must be overcome. Those rules may just not be good rules for a person whose perceptions emphasize extremes over means. Or rather, understanding that for some ways of counting individual bad experiences can invalidate lots of good ones is something that it makes sense to be aware of in tuning to individual groups. It can be complicated by role as well - a risk-averse player and risk-averse GM enact very different things at a table. Even a risk-averse GM whose perception of risk is 'failure to make a fun session' versus one whose perception of risk is 'losing control of the game' or 'making mistakes' or 'getting caught off guard' will all produce very different results.

Where I think this does become more limiting is when it leads to inferences about people rather than about rules. For example, if you have a rule that can be used by one player to bully another and someone experiences that, the existence of that rule at a new table can make that person feel that the players of that table will be inclined to bully them - even (or especially) in the absence of any information about those players' behavior. Because the rule raises concerns of 'how will I avoid being bullied?' and frames relationships with the new players that way going on.

[Satinavian]

I think both phenomenons do exist.

I can't recall a clear instance of Negativity bias from my roleplaying experience though. But is hard to recognice negative experiences and their consequences as biased. For that you would have to continue to do something you strongly suspect leads to a bad time to make sure that is really the case. Why would you do that ?

I can recall severall occasions of learned helplessness. But those were all happening only in one adventure/vampaign. And solved by either enduring it to the end, abandoning it midways or completely reworking it after some OG discussion. I have never seen a whole group plagued by it long time.

[Vahnavoi]

I'd say this is real, but it's not necessarily irrational depending on how it gets implemented and what the people are ultimately looking for.

For economic or game-theoretical concept of rationality and for some specific instances, you can go further and say the trauma-based game design is perfectly rational - and still causes an undesireable result. The basic version of Prisoner's dilemma is interesting precisely because it describes a situation where rational actors have incentive to act in an undesireable way. More on the iterated version below.


If you assume the goal of game-seeking is to maximize the average experience, negativity bias is irrational. But what if one seeks to maximize the minimum experience? Or maximize the maximum experience? Or, say, maximize a complex combination of those things that also correlates with out of game stuff like 'if it's a good day, take the maximum; if it's a bad day, take the minimum'.

If real humans knew and were good at articulating their goals, it would make solving the problem much easier. Or, to approach this from a different angle: negativity bias likely exists in humans because it worked in the past, but individual humans don't really choose to employ it because they know it will work in their current situation. They just do it. So, the goal may vary, but the strategy for pursuing it is set.


There's also things like iterated Prisoners' Dilemma where tit for tat is a strong strategy to avoid bad Nash Equilibrium - punish betrayal more severely than the average cost of experiencing it so as to suppress 'testing the waters' and reduce the equilibrium defector population.

This is true. However, it is also well-known that if two agents both following tit-for-tat strategy end up interacting when they have both been primed for defection due to earlier interaction with different agents, there's a potential for unending chain of defection. This is, arguably, the simplified game-theoretic model for the overall issue I'm trying to outline. The question then becomes - how we get the two agents to resume co-operation and break from the chain of defection? In simulations of iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, the simplest solutions revolve around forgiveness - or, randomly unilaterally resuming co-operation anyway. The obvious human equivalent behaviour would be to occasionally start over with original rules and see how they work in the new playthrough.


So I don't know that'd I'd always draw the conclusion that good rules are being discarded out of fear of the one time they were bad and would be good rules if only someone gave them a chance, and that those tendencies must be overcome.

The rules discarded due to trauma-based design can be good or bad - the real issue is that once trauma-based design is embraced, the chosen strategy prevents encountering the evidence that the rule might've been good.

For the social example: if a player who was bullied under the pretense of some rule starts actively avoiding games with that rule, how do they find out it wasn't about the rule? Trust can be broken and turned into distrust, but distrust cannot be broken and turned into trust. This is why basic tit-for-tat in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma always opens with co-operation - if it didn't, it would end up in unending chain of defections when encountering another agent with the same strategy. A more complex situation gets back to the point about forgiveness, above.

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EDIT:



I can recall severall occasions of learned helplessness. But those were all happening only in one adventure/vampaign. And solved by either enduring it to the end, abandoning it midways or completely reworking it after some OG discussion. I have never seen a whole group plagued by it long time.

Do you remember what caused a player to abandon it? Or what arguments were used in the discussion when reworking it?

[NichG]

For economic or game-theoretical concept of rationality and for some specific instances, you can go further and say the trauma-based game design is perfectly rational - and still causes an undesireable result. The basic version of Prisoner's dilemma is interesting precisely because it describes a situation where rational actors have incentive to act in an undesireable way. More on the iterated version below.



If real humans knew and were good at articulating their goals, it would make solving the problem much easier. Or, to approach this from a different angle: negativity bias likely exists in humans because it worked in the past, but individual humans don't really choose to employ it because they know it will work in their current situation. They just do it. So, the goal may vary, but the strategy for pursuing it is set.



This is true. However, it is also well-known that if two agents both following tit-for-tat strategy end up interacting when they have both been primed for defection due to earlier interaction with different agents, there's a potential for unending chain of defection. This is, arguably, the simplified game-theoretic model for the overall issue I'm trying to outline. The question then becomes - how we get the two agents to resume co-operation and break from the chain of defection? In simulations of iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, the simplest solutions revolve around forgiveness - or, randomly unilaterally resuming co-operation anyway. The obvious human equivalent behaviour would be to occasionally start over with original rules and see how they work in the new playthrough.



The rules discarded due to trauma-based design can be good or bad - the real issue is that once trauma-based design is embraced, the chosen strategy prevents encountering the evidence that the rule might've been good.

Well again, this may not be a real issue depending on the utility curve of the players. You're describing an exploration vs exploitation tradeoff here. If you can bound how much of a positive difference in your utility a rule could possibly be, and you know how negative it could be from experience, it makes sense to say at some point 'if I got more information, this might turn out to be a positive, but it's not worth checking'. That might not be an asymptotically zero regret strategy, but if your experience of games isn't Markov (e.g. past events have permanent costs) then it can make sense.

For example, if there's a lottery where the chance to win is unknown, if the cost to measure that chance (avg tickets until the first winner) prevents you from placing money in exponentially growing investments, you can't generally recoup the opportunity cost of checking the win rate if it turns out to have been a bad proposition.

Or in RPG terms, maybe on average including critical fumbles as a GM would give you a 1% increase in utility over 20 years of play. But if the rare but large negative events risk poisoning your relationship with the finite pool of locally available players, you might go bankrupt before you can cash out that margin.

Anyhow, I do think the inferential leap of 'this group plays with a rule that was abused against me, so I suspect they are abusers too' is an issue. I'd suggest a way around that is to give veto control to the affected player - at any time, even as it's being evaluated against them, they can unilaterally remove the rule from the game. In the IPD example, that would be like having a guarantor who subsidizes cooperation by paying off the consequences of defection. Or another way to look at it is like the role of escrow in large transactions where the immediate risk is larger than the long-term opportunity cost of not participating.

[OldTrees1]

This reminds me of 2 common philosophies:
1) If it is not broken, don't fix it.
2) If something is wrong, adjust it in the next iteration.

It also reminded me that RPGs are generally fun. It is generally a good time. Some good times will be better than others, but it is generally a good time. So if something "ruins it" and makes it a bad time, then that will stand out as an outlier (generally speaking). The rational satisficer will focus on removing the negative experiences rather than optimize anything beyond the "good enough" threshold.

So it sounds like initially the trauma-based game design is a naïve version of a good satisficer game design strategy.

[Talakeal]

This is a really, really, insightful and helpful post.

I almost missed it though, I wish you had linked it in my thread to draw attention to it.

Thanks for writing this, I will ponder it deeply and give a more in depth response later.

[Time Troll]

Yes, very real. This is something I have dealt with from my first days of rolling dice.

My default game is hard for most players, and even very hard or impossible for many players. Though it is most often because of past game experiences that they had and the trauma scars run deep. When a player sees an encounter that does not have a simple, easy and direct solution...they will just give up. After all, their old GM used to do that all the time and no matter what the player tried or did the GM would just laugh and say "you fail".

I run a very much Old School style game, no matter what system we use. Simply put: a character can try anything, and anything might have an effect or even work.....and most of all a character is not bound by the metagame rules for actions they can take.

A great example is a character is in a cave and comes to pit in the passageway. The character does not have the offical rules skill jump and does not have the spell fly.....so the player just gives up. "The pit is impassible, my character just goes home." They player has been conditioned that they must use game rules to take any action in the game. Worse is when they think they must expend resources to take any action in the game. I'll ask the player "Well, how about thinking of some way across the pit", but they just look down with loss: their character has no game rule ability to use. Even when I finally say "Um, maybe you can use your 50 feet of rope to help you get across?', then will still just look down with a blank: the game does not have 'rope rules' for that action.

And it does not help at all that they had a GM that ONLY allowed characters to get over the pit by making jump skill checks and NOTHING else and/or had the GM that forced characters to use a resource to take any action in the game....the ONLY way across the pit is to drink your potion of flying.

[Satinavian]

Do you remember what caused a player to abandon it? Or what arguments were used in the discussion when reworking it?Well, usually it leads to the game becoming really slow because no one takes any action that would move anything forward. After some time people realize that this isn't about to change by itself. Then it gets questiones OT.

Then either people explain how they don't see a way forward and and are not that invested anyway and don't really have fun -> it gets abandoned

Or the GM explains gow he thought it would work out, the players explain why that didn't happen or why they don't like the intended direction, people decide they are interested enough to make it work and change things, sometimes via retcon. Then the game restarts under different constraints that allow the players enough things they find reasonable for their characters to do.

[KineticDiplomat]

I suspect a great deal of this comes from the fact that GMs can very easily lose track of the constraints the players work under. A single PC tool set. Limited information. Having to coordinate their actions with the other players. Social expectations between players causing different character actions. All the usual drivers of poor human decision making, spread across three to five people and where any one of them might bring about group consequences.

If we went with raw game theory, this would already be a problem set that made any “fair” game a losing proposition for The Party. But guess what? This is really the realm of behavioral economics, because the players are rarely conducting detailed and quantifiable analysis that might drive rational-self-interest-maximizing decisions.

So now you have a dangerous blind spot where one party - the one with ALL the power - believes he is being fair, and reasonable, and giving the players all the options because he is not only addressing it from his view point, he is running a far more “rational” framework than them, and ultimately the entire rule set of the game is not just his to manage, it’s also his to communicate. On the other side we have a bunch of mostly behaviorally driven people with virtually no power and who are dependent on the GM for virtually all information, who are living in a world where the entire definition of “fair” is set by the same guy who has a very different view point.

Run on the down side of that enough times, and a certain degree of victim hood and the resultant backlash are inevitable.

As an example, once many years ago a friend asked me to guest-NPC a game of rolemaster. Basically the PCs were ambushing another party of roughly equal composition and less raw power. I got to be the other party, starting out riding down the road into the ambush, waiting until the PCs fired first (in this case with magic). It was a slaughter: one unified party acting with a single purpose like a war game, completely aware of how the GM visualized the situation, able to simply declare my intent and have it translated into mechanical ruling by the GM (I had never played role aster) versus four independent minds trying to figure it all out, wonder if this or that would be allowed or how the rules would be interpreted….

It ended with me finding a reason for the remaining three standing NPCs to negotiate the recovery of their one downed member and being paid off in the PCs horses and caravan supplies while most of the PC party lay bleeding. But it wouldn’t have taken much at all to TPK them, and everyone at the table knew it.

And the first thing they said was “well, those enemies were obviously way too powerful”. Even after being shown the NPCs weaker sheets, there was no getting around that at some lizard brain level, they all thought the GM must have been unfair.

And the secret is, he was. He had approached a bunch of variated people with a few minutes to observe, orient, and decide as if they were a single monolithic perfectly rational entity. And they got butchered for it, because his mathematical fairness meant very little in the context.

He got better about that very quickly, but had he played just two or three more “fair” encounters, learned helplessness would have been quickly on the horizon

[KorvinStarmast]

Even when I finally say "Um, maybe you can use your 50 feet of rope to help you get across?', then will still just look down with a blank: the game does not have 'rope rules' for that action.

And it does not help at all that they had a GM that ONLY allowed characters to get over the pit by making jump skill checks and NOTHING else and/or had the GM that forced characters to use a resource to take any action in the game....the ONLY way across the pit is to drink your potion of flying. Must not comment ... but this makes me sick to read. :smallannoyed:

He had approached a bunch of variated people with a few minutes to observe, orient, and decide as if they were a single monolithic perfectly rational entity. And they got butchered for it, because his mathematical fairness meant very little in the context.

He got better about that very quickly, but had he played just two or three more “fair” encounters, learned helplessness would have been quickly on the horizon A dozen soldiers ably led can beat a hundred without a head ... :smallcool:

[Witty Username]

I can't speak to this directly, but I have seen the reverse a bit, especially when it comes to people who were familiar with video games first.
Teaching players to think outside an established framework can be time consuming. Some players need a right answer, or mechanics to visualize the problem, or have paralysis when skills don't apply in concise ways. A thing that has causes some problems in my current play group is the more well defined parts of the game taking priority when thinking of solutions, like combat. But with the exception of one player, this has mostly gone away.
I think the only problem that has come up has been my gratuitous use of 5e's optional rule to mix and match skills and abilities for rolls. Like Cha (investigation) to ask for directions and such. I remember one that threw the player off where he wanted to use acrobatics for climbing, which I allowed but required him to apply his strength instead of dex, (It was a weird day) but that has mostly gone over well.

[KorvinStarmast]

I can't speak to this directly, but I have seen the reverse a bit, especially when it comes to people who were familiar with video games first. I have seen something similar and I often have a hard time articulating just what it is that changes base assupmtions. The video game being a larger cultural influence, rather than books, stories, movies, comic books, pulps, magazines as the "what informs the game system" (as it was in the origin of RPGs) is bound to have an effect. The current generation of RPG players has an added and voluminous point of reference in stories and media that did not exist when RPGs were formed. Thus (by they I mean any RPG player who was born after the September that Never ended) they bring different core assumptions to the table based on what they've been immersed in since childhood _ which is a different bundle of inputs than the previous generations of RPG players was exposed to with some overlap. (There's the whole Arcade game craze of the 80's to include, and Nintendo and such, in the interim, and the recursive effect of D&D - MUDS - to SSI Pools of Radiance - text based adventures and so on that would be a great masters thesis to work on some day).

Teaching players to think outside an established framework can be time consuming. But it's time well spent. Anecdote for you. When I was DMing for pre teens/teenagers in the late 90's, the two most imaginative players were both Boy Scouts. Not sure if there's a correlation there, but that's what I observed.

I remember one that threw the player off where he wanted to use acrobatics for climbing, which I allowed but required him to apply his strength instead of dex, (It was a weird day) but that has mostly gone over well. I love what you did there.

[sktarq]

There are a variety of issues that can lead to negative reaction.

To give the mirror to the idea that players need a specific tool (spell, skill, item) to pass certain things has always been a problem in D&D (I call it the Kings Quest problem personally...please insert disk 6) and it has always been one of the biggest killers of fun tables for and the only thing I can think of that has repeatedly caused the "learned helplessness reaction. Which sorry, mate, I just don't necessarily think just like you do...and i can not tell the difference between flavor and clues because if you have something in the game it implies a ton of other things and I will see those as tools on my menu and usually figured you meant to hint at those solutions.

To an extent those people who started playing in the pre 3.5 rules may have an easier time as many actions were basically outside of the metagrame rules just to do normal stuff. So people became trained to think outside the regions defined by rules of the game.


Some DM's are very bad at dealing with that and it doesn't take much to see a DM trying to create specific solutions as the only path.

And heck railroading in general causes this problem...it leads to the collaborative storytelling becoming the DM story and so why should the players care or really participate?

[KorvinStarmast]

(I call it the Kings Quest problem personally...please insert disk 6)
Laughed, I did, but I also remember some frustrating times.

[Witty Username]

One solution problems are the worst, part of the reason why I always allow attempts to break puzzles in my games (sure, it is not always the most fun solution. But if the player's cutting the knot solution is clever, let them have it).

[Quixotic1]

An old friend of mine had a gaming group they played with growing up. I met those people, and it turned out to be the most toxic, gridlocked group I'd ever met.

A single instance of bad luck was enough to make most of them shut down for the rest of the session. A single instance of someone else's good luck was enough to make them lament how hopelessly overpowered the options they had chosen were.
They deliberately and maliciously ignored every plot hook and--in every single game they told me about or I witnessed--they went to the nearest tavern, started a fight, burnt the building down and were arrested and/or killed by the local law enforcement. And then they would complain to the GM that the game wasn't very good, and that they just ended up doing the same thing they always do.
So then someone else would have an idea for a game. Pirates or rebels in the revolution or a flying city of giants--and they'd set up game, and the other players (often spearheaded by the GM of the previous game) would run that game into the ground as well.
Then there was all the other stuff, like making fun of Player A's stutter or mocking Player B for being slower at math than the others...it was just this tangled, dysfunctional web of insecurity and resentment where they all seemed determined to keep each other down.

I ran a game for them, just to show them something that might be actually fun, and it went pretty well. They didn't really engage with the setting or anything, but I didn't allow then to run it into the ground or hen-peck each other bloody. One of them told me that the 5-session game was the longest any of them had ever played, and how amazed he was that he had a character concept...and I helped him realize it, and even make it cooler. The other players were largely silent, some of them even going as far as outright ignoring my questions about their characters and the game, and when the game concluded they all said it was a very good game thanked me for their time and never asked me to run another. They went back to their one-session-per-campaign sabotaging and I never hung out with them again.

It really made me grateful for the people I'd grown up playing with, and even those I'd found later on. The number of learned behaviors and subconscious fears that seemed to be holding those guys back was both baffling and depressing. I hope they eventually realized that the best thing they could do was never talk to each other again.

[Max_Killjoy]

Negativity bias (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias) is noted tendency of humans to weigh negative experiences in their decision-making, especially when it comes to social relations. In simple terms, a player is likely to give more weight to the one time another player screwed them over than the nine times that player co-operated without issue.


I've always been perplexed by this claim... my experience is that most people tend to filter out or downplay the bad results -- and fixate on when things turned out well or worked or were enjoyable.




Many rules in tabletop games trigger unpredictably or outright randomly, by design. Often, there's a small chance, maybe one in twenty, one in a hundred or one in a thousand, of something "game ruining" happening built into the rules, accepted by the original designer because it leads to a good game experience often enough. But, when the game is distributed across a large enough player population, for some playgroups, that small chance is realized the very first time they trigger the rule. And then they decide it's a stupid rule, change it and never experience how the rules usually work. Furthermore, in a complex game, where rules interact in various way, eliminating chance of failure from one rule may lead to increasing or outright creating a new chance of failure elsewhere. So it's possible for trauma-based design to cascade through the entire ruleset, leading to a playgroup who've upended the entire original game out of honest belief that it sucks, despite never having played it for long as it was made.


There is a game I generally like, made by people I respect whose work I enjoy, but... it includes a "yes, and..." / "yes, but..." mechanism that kicks in on a successful-enough role to create a random often crazy event, bonus, or complication.

Thing is... that doesn't encourage me to roll, that encourages me to contrive character actions and solutions to avoid rolling as much as possible, because the odds of pulling a card that makes things go sideways, though not high, are there. And yes, that means I do tend to emphasize possible negative outcomes in my thinking... but to me, that sets me apart from others, who all too often seem to think either "What could go wrong?" or "Look at all the cool stuff that could happen!"

[Witty Username]

Severity of negative or positive experiences is a factor. As I understand it, negativity bias starts in when the Severity is about the same. Most games with random factors deliberately put overwhelming positive with more weight than overwhelming failure.
D&D is a good example of this, a roll of one is always a failure, but has no additional features, a roll of 20 is an automatic success and a critical hit.

[Pex]

Or . . .

Sometimes a bad rule is just a bad rule and should be removed. It makes game play not function or frustrating.

Sometimes a player is untrustworthy and you should not play with him, or rather, that player's play style is not compatible with yours. That player can play among others who share his playstyle, and they have a grand old time. You get to enjoy your game without that player and enjoy playing with people you can rely upon.

You can call it "negativity bias", but that doesn't justify the rule must exist nor you must play with someone you cannot trust.

[Vahnavoi]

@Max_Killjoy: it is interesting you can spot the behaviour in yourself but not in others. Rest assured you are not special in that regard. A partial explanation to your perceptions is simply: negative experiences are weighed more, but positive experiences can still occur more. Weeding out negative outliers from a generally positive set is rational behaviour.

As for aversion to rolling dice, there was an entire design movement in both wargames and roleplaying games rooted in idea of "randomness bad" and determined to do away with dice. Have you encountered this mindset and what's your opinion on it? Obviously, you don't need dice for a functioning game. I'm more asking about whether you think their motives fall in line with trauma-based design.

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@Pex:

Me: "Here's a specific failure mode of human thinking that causes them to make incorrect decisions."

You: "B-but sometimes, people are correct!"

I hope you see the problem. Nobody's claiming people are always wrong. You aren't making a counterargument to anything.

[Pex]

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@Pex:

Me: "Here's a specific failure mode of human thinking that causes them to make incorrect decisions."

You: "B-but sometimes, people are correct!"

I hope you see the problem. Nobody's claiming people are always wrong. You aren't making a counterargument to anything.

I disagree with the premise of the thread. If you agree with it that's fine, but I still don't have to.

[Vahnavoi]

You haven't explained which premise you disagree with or why.

[Pex]

You haven't explained which premise you disagree with or why.

I did. You just didn't like the answer. Is just is tautology. A rule can be bad because it is a bad rule. A player can be not fun to play with because he isn't. They just are, no psychiatric analysis of bias needed as to why. A person who thinks a rule is bad or he doesn't want to play with another person is not wrong to think that because you think he has a bias of thinking caused by negativity.

Others rules of a game being good doesn't make a bad rule good. A player who does something nice doesn't make his not nice thing irrelevant. Doesn't matter how many positive things there are. The negative still matters. The bad rule can be ignored. As for the player, it is personal whether one can let it go to play with someone despite the bad thing whatever it is, but it's possible the bad thing is serious enough someone won't let it go and not play with that person. He's not wrong to do so no matter how many positive things the player in question has otherwise.

I've chosen not to play with people. Other people have chosen not to play with me. It's not a happy moment either way, but we were all better off.

[KorvinStarmast]

@Max_Killjoy: it is interesting you can spot the behaviour in yourself but not in others. Rest assured you are not special in that regard. A partial explanation to your perceptions is simply: negative experiences are weighed more, but positive experiences can still occur more. Weeding out negative outliers from a generally positive set is rational behaviour. Since the intention of play is to have a positive experience, of courses the negative experiences will stand out more - positive experience is assumed. It's kind of like going to a pizza parlor and biting into a cigarette butt on your third bite of a slice (happened to me about 40 years ago, and you'll note that I still remember it). The expectation of the positive experience, with each bite of pizza, is heavily overwritten by that cigarette butt. (Yes, I kvetched to the manager and our pizza was on the house, but our beer wasn't). None of that stopped me from getting pizza again, at that place or at any other.
Why?
My answer would probably violate forum rules, sorry about that.

As for aversion to rolling dice, there was an entire design movement in both wargames and roleplaying games rooted in idea of "randomness bad" and determined to do away with dice. Have you encountered this mindset and what's your opinion on it? Obviously, you don't need dice for a functioning game. Diplomacy is a great diceless game, but some people have negative experiences with that game since betrayal and deceit is baked into it. My wife won't play it. My sister won't play it.


Negativity bias (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias) is noted tendency of humans to weigh negative experiences in their decision-making, especially when it comes to social relations. In simple terms, a player is likely to give more weight to the one time another player screwed them over than the nine times that player co-operated without issue. Glass half empty attitude. Fix that, and you fix the alleged problem.
Learned helplessness (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness) is a tendency of people to become passive when negative experiences suggests they have no control over a situation. Notably, due to the above, the amount of positive experiences required to teach a person that what they're doing is helpful can be vastly more than the amount of negative experiences causing them to fall into a funk. It is not necessary to fall into a funk when one has a negative experience, but the frustration that comes with a feeling of powerlessness (example, traffic jams) is a part of life. It's nothing special to gaming.

Trauma-based game design is what happens when negativity bias is allowed to write the rules. People write rules, abstractions don't.

Basically imagine a metagame following thoughts like: "This rule ruined a game this one time, ergo it's a bad rule and has to be changed!" That's the reaction of an immature mind; rather than examine for root causes, using a knee jerk response like that is a symptom of a different problem than you assert - and that problem is between the ears of (x) members of your hypothetical game table.
"This person ruined a game this one time, ergo they are that guy and have to be kicked out!", etc.
Bogus. This case, to be resolved, is to be first attempted to be mitigated by active engagement with that player. You skipped some steps before the 'kick out' choice. Some people are oblivious to their own grief play until someone else points it out to them. Some will change, and some won't. It's only the latter who need to be sent packing.

Many rules in tabletop games trigger unpredictably or outright randomly, by design.
A few are the wand of wonder in D&D, which cursed eye you might find in Empire of the Petal Throne when the GM rolls on the table using percentile dice, and some of the extreme critical hit and critical fumble results in various crit and crit fumble tables dreamed up over the years. With you so far.

Often, there's a small chance, maybe one in twenty, one in a hundred or one in a thousand, of something "game ruining" happening built into the rules, accepted by the original designer because it leads to a good game experience often enough. But, when the game is distributed across a large enough player population, for some playgroups, that small chance is realized the very first time they trigger the rule.
Edge cases aren't why you change your design model
And then they decide it's a stupid rule, change it and never experience how the rules usually work. See above: knee jerk responses aren't the sign of a healthy table.

Furthermore, in a complex game, where rules interact in various way, eliminating chance of failure from one rule may lead to increasing or outright creating a new chance of failure elsewhere. So it's possible for trauma-based design to cascade through the entire ruleset, leading to a playgroup who've upended the entire original game out of honest belief that it sucks, despite never having played it for long as it was made. Complex games have a host of problems, and you have identified one of them. The way to fix that in game design is by using optional/additional rules to increase complexity. The layered approach. Avalon Hill did this with some of their war games like D-Day, Battle of the Bulge and Blitzkrieg. The players could, once they got a feel for the game, add complexity to their taste by adding optional rules. That's smart game design, IMO; make the game a little bit customizable for the players where you can. Various editions of D&D have done that - add optional rules and features for the players and DM to use, or not use, at their option.

So how does this relate to learned helplessness?
Learned helplessness, in the case you are presenting, is cultural; I disagree with your assertion that it is an artifact of game design.

They no longer try to do things within the game or solve problems within the rules, because they've learned that the rules don't give them control. Time to go back to computer games. The 'control freak' attitude is toxic at the table, in either a GM or a player, and very much so when present in both.
It can get even worse: if that person does not enjoy full trust of the other players Trust relationships are interpersonal dynamics, and specifically in the case of the TTRPG, small group dynamics. Rules can't fix any of that, but they will amplify any problems that are present if they are ambiguously written.

Sound familiar? I hope not, but I think there's at least one frequent poster to which this is very familiar. They are playing a home brew and using their players as play testers, more or less. The game, as narrated to us, is unstable. Not surprised that there is friction, and frustration on the part of the players.

You might wonder, so what? Why does it matter if this happens? Well, the thing is, humans often carry metagame assumptions from one game to another. Then don't. Problem solved. Treat each game as its own thing.

This can lead to entire playstyles being killed off, or not even being born. There's a dire, sky- is-falling, vague pronouncement of doom that I am not sure is supported by the text above it. Play styles are informed by a hell of a lot, to include 'out of the table' fictions and genres. I disagree that you can kill off or abort a play style by having one game have one narrow case of bad rule interaction that destroys an entire play style. The population of TTRPGs is well over 4,000, and that number is likely way too low (been a few years since I saw that number in an article somewhere). The sky is not falling.

So. What are the solutions? Learn healthy small group dynamics and trust relationships, and no rule can harm your fun to the extent that you assert. And then, find a game that fits your group. It's OK not to like a particular game, but I'd suggest not giving up as a better attitude than the asserted knee jerk reactions that you posit. Trying out a game for multiple sessions is how a bunch of us got into TTRPGs when the hobby was quite new. We tried a lot of them, and some of them broke up due to high school and college aged males getting into arguments and not having the social skills to solve that problem of small group dynamics. (The most cohesive Traveller game I was in died for that very reason - bad small group dynamics).

[Max_Killjoy]

@Max_Killjoy: it is interesting you can spot the behaviour in yourself but not in others. Rest assured you are not special in that regard. A partial explanation to your perceptions is simply: negative experiences are weighed more, but positive experiences can still occur more. Weeding out negative outliers from a generally positive set is rational behaviour.

As for aversion to rolling dice, there was an entire design movement in both wargames and roleplaying games rooted in idea of "randomness bad" and determined to do away with dice. Have you encountered this mindset and what's your opinion on it? Obviously, you don't need dice for a functioning game. I'm more asking about whether you think their motives fall in line with trauma-based design.


On the first, I still view humans as a whole as a species of irrational optimists, who will keep going back and trying things that have repeatedly turned out badly, on the assumption that it has to go right eventually -- and who will look askance at anyone who openly says that things that turned out badly aren't always worth trying again.

On the second, I don't think their motives are about trauma, but about a couple other things.
* Dice violating deterministic expectations -- they expect a certain result given a certain set of circumstances, and don't like it when things don't work out that way.
* Dice violating narrative or "coolness" expectation -- they have some great scene in mind, and don't want the dice "ruining" it.

[OldTrees1]

You haven't explained which premise you disagree with or why.

To be fair your opening post is not written in a way that makes your premises or argumentation logic clear. Starting at paragraph 4 (where you define the topic) you become more casual with your language and start making linguistic shortcuts. Especially when you use an extreme example as your baseline example in contradiction/clarification of the definition you are making. Then in paragraph 7 you continued with the exaggeration/catastrophizing. This lead me to believe you only meant to be talking about these extremes and that I should treat the exaggerations as clarifying your imperfect initial definition.


However let me lay out some premises:
1) The Negativity Bias exists.
2) It is common to find groups where the members remember enjoying most/all of the sessions.
3) Some sessions are not enjoyable.
4) A satisficer would view all enjoyable sessions (above a threshold) as equal. So they would focus on addressing the non enjoyable sessions.
5=1+3+4) A rational satisficer would be focusing on addressing the same sessions that the Negativity Bias is focusing on addressing.

Remember, while a bias is a bias, it does not always mean the conclusion is wrong. Fallacious reasoning negates the argumentation for the conclusion and leaves the conclusion with an unknown truth value. If we can reach the same conclusion with non fallacious logic, then we can discover the unknown truth value of the original conclusion.

In this case if we trust the strategy of "a rational satisficer" to be valid logic for our case, then we would conclude that addressing non enjoyable sessions is the rational response.

Now the least exaggerated form of your topic definition is "X ruined this session, let's change X for future sessions". How would a rational satisficer approach this context?
1) Sessions are more likely to be enjoyable than non enjoyable according to the group's rule selection process.*
2) The element X was accurately identified as having made the session non enjoyable. This might be due to the Negativity Bias, but the fact remains that the session was non enjoyable and it was due to element X.**
3) Rule changes are intentional and biased towards group preferences rather than random.
4=1+3) If a rule change is intentional and biased towards group preferences, it is more likely to increase enjoyment than to decrease enjoyment.
5=2+3+4) If element X is changed, it is more likely to increase enjoyment than to decrease enjoyment.

Sounds like changing element X is generally a good idea to the rational satisficer assuming it did ruin a session, and assuming the group is not an exception to RPGs being generally fun.

* This also establishes a threshold. A mere annoyance would not ruin a session. So we are talking about something that created an extreme negative effect on the enjoyment of that session.
** I would assume that the more accurate the root cause analysis, the stronger the argument to evaluate and possibly change it.

[Mendicant]

It's very difficult to answer your original question because it's phrased so broadly the hypothesis is unfalsifiable. Of course some subset of the player base is reacting irrationally to some generally unobjectionable subset of the rules and/or other players of some system or another because they overestimate their negative experiences. That's guaranteed simply by virtue of the sample size.

I'm not convinced this is a widespread or serious problem. The theorized rule that is "mostly good but very rarely is game ruining" doesn't sound like a good rule on general principles, but without something more concrete to work on this seems like an exercise in frustration. You and Pex can both be right, AFAICT, which doesn't bode well for this going anywhere definitive.

[RandomPeasant]

Others rules of a game being good doesn't make a bad rule good.

This is something I wish more people would appreciate. All too often people will respond to "X rule is bad" with "but I like the game X rule is in", which is so far from the point as to be on another planet. Disliking part of something doesn't mean disliking the whole thing, and liking part of something doesn't mean supporting all of it.

[Mechalich]

I'm not convinced this is a widespread or serious problem. The theorized rule that is "mostly good but very rarely is game ruining" doesn't sound like a good rule on general principles, but without something more concrete to work on this seems like an exercise in frustration. You and Pex can both be right, AFAICT, which doesn't bode well for this going anywhere definitive.

The OP's implied rule sounded like something that increases overall variability - and therefore adds more options to the game overall - while also increasing overall random risk of something catastrophic occurring, like critical fumbles or wild magic.

One thing of consideration here is that not all consequences are weighted equally and the consequences of any specific outcome may be weighted very differently for a player versus a GM. In particular any event that forces a player to generate a new character, even if that player had no emotional attachment to the character whatsoever (very rare), imposes a substantial time cost on the player, one that increases based on factors like system complexity and how long the campaign has proceeded. Time is a zero-sum resource and players tend to react very critically to anything that they perceive as wasting their time.

This is something that can even be seen in video games, where the tolerance for character death increases as the reloading time decreases. This is significant enough that some games cross personal thresholds from unplayable to playable as system capability increases sufficiently that loading time drops to almost nothing.

It is impossible in game design, to treat the game as a fully isolated experience. A rule that objectively makes the game better while making the player(s) more miserable is not a good rule.

[KorvinStarmast]

Time is a zero-sum resource and players tend to react very critically to anything that they perceive as wasting their time.
That's a very good point to raise in any discussion of a leisure activity. Golf comes to mind as a very good case of "if I am not enjoying the experience, why am I doing this?" since it carries with it a substantial time investment.

[King of Nowhere]

In particular any event that forces a player to generate a new character, even if that player had no emotional attachment to the character whatsoever (very rare), imposes a substantial time cost on the player, one that increases based on factors like system complexity and how long the campaign has proceeded. Time is a zero-sum resource and players tend to react very critically to anything that they perceive as wasting their time.


disagreement here. This assumes that building a character is a "waste of time". To many people, building characters is part of the fun. Just like to many people hanging around at the table with their friends is not a waste of time even if they are not using their character or advancing the story.

[OldTrees1]

disagreement here. This assumes that building a character is a "waste of time". To many people, building characters is part of the fun. Just like to many people hanging around at the table with their friends is not a waste of time even if they are not using their character or advancing the story.

While true (myself for example), there are also many players that don't enjoy the "building characters" part of character creation and there are many players that strongly prefer the playing characters over character creation.

If the opportunity cost of "building characters" is not spending that time playing characters, then there is generally a net cost to "building characters". Calling it a "waste of time" might be hyperbole for explaining the more complicated generally applicable cost.

[KorvinStarmast]

disagreement here. This assumes that building a character is a "waste of time". To many people, building characters is part of the fun.
Heck, in original Traveller it was a mini game in and of itself. :smallsmile:

[BardofLore]

I did. You just didn't like the answer. Is just is tautology. A rule can be bad because it is a bad rule. A player can be not fun to play with because he isn't. They just are, no psychiatric analysis of bias needed as to why. A person who thinks a rule is bad or he doesn't want to play with another person is not wrong to think that because you think he has a bias of thinking caused by negativity.

Others rules of a game being good doesn't make a bad rule good. A player who does something nice doesn't make his not nice thing irrelevant. Doesn't matter how many positive things there are. The negative still matters. The bad rule can be ignored. As for the player, it is personal whether one can let it go to play with someone despite the bad thing whatever it is, but it's possible the bad thing is serious enough someone won't let it go and not play with that person. He's not wrong to do so no matter how many positive things the player in question has otherwise.

I've chosen not to play with people. Other people have chosen not to play with me. It's not a happy moment either way, but we were all better off.

I don't understand most of this argument but I really like this post.

[Mechalich]

disagreement here. This assumes that building a character is a "waste of time". To many people, building characters is part of the fun. Just like to many people hanging around at the table with their friends is not a waste of time even if they are not using their character or advancing the story.

Building characters prior to a game or as a theory-crafting exercise may indeed be fun for a lot of people. Building a character while your friends are still playing because your character just died or having to spend time between sessions to get a new character approved because your character died, not so much.


That's a very good point to raise in any discussion of a leisure activity. Golf comes to mind as a very good case of "if I am not enjoying the experience, why am I doing this?" since it carries with it a substantial time investment.

Golf, like TTRPGs is also a hobby where the level of time investment varies massively among even the casual enthusiasts. There are people who play golf who run through 9 holes once a quarter when they can schedule the rare times and then there are people who go golfing practically every day after work often practically until dark (I had this co-worker once). People who play tabletop a lot - including game designers - tend to struggle to retain awareness that the vast majority of people in the hobby only play a little. The metagame needs of those opposite ends of the play investment spectrum are not the same and when rules impact those metagame needs, as they often do, reactions will differ.

[KorvinStarmast]

Golf, like TTRPGs is also a hobby where the level of time investment varies massively among even the casual enthusiasts. There are people who play golf who run through 9 holes once a quarter when they can schedule the rare times and then there are people who go golfing practically every day after work often practically until dark (I had this co-worker once). People who play tabletop a lot - including game designers - tend to struggle to retain awareness that the vast majority of people in the hobby only play a little. The metagame needs of those opposite ends of the play investment spectrum are not the same and when rules impact those metagame needs, as they often do, reactions will differ. Amen to all of that.

[Vahnavoi]

On the first, I still view humans as a whole as a species of irrational optimists, who will keep going back and trying things that have repeatedly turned out badly, on the assumption that it has to go right eventually -- and who will look askance at anyone who openly says that things that turned out badly aren't always worth trying again.

On the second, I don't think their motives are about trauma, but about a couple other things.
* Dice violating deterministic expectations -- they expect a certain result given a certain set of circumstances, and don't like it when things don't work out that way.
* Dice violating narrative or "coolness" expectation -- they have some great scene in mind, and don't want the dice "ruining" it.

On the first, okay, you're a pessimist and think other people have an optimism bias. How does that relate to the topic at hand? Would you, for example, advocate for trauma-based game design?

On the second, those sound like potential sources of trauma to me - specifically, emotional anguish or anxiety caused by loss of control and violation of expectation. A distinction can be made based on whether the motive arises from thinking forward or past experience. Only the latter is what I call trauma-based. ("I do not think a random roll will fit my expectations of how this thing works, therefore I will not use a random roll" versus "a random roll violated my expectations in the last game, therefore random rolls bad!")

---


To be fair your opening post is not written in a way that makes your premises or argumentation logic clear. Starting at paragraph 4 (where you define the topic) you become more casual with your language and start making linguistic shortcuts. Especially when you use an extreme example as your baseline example in contradiction/clarification of the definition you are making. Then in paragraph 7 you continued with the exaggeration/catastrophizing. This lead me to believe you only meant to be talking about these extremes and that I should treat the exaggerations as clarifying your imperfect initial definition.

This is a fair criticism of my writing style, but let's take a step back to look at what is the premise of this thread: I'm outlining two cognitive phenomena (negativity bias, learned helplessness), describing how I think they interact with game rules to produce a third (trauma-based game design), and asking the people reading:


Do you think the described phenomena are real?
If yes, can you think of good, specific examples of them happening?
If yes, what would you have recommended as a solution?

If Pex doesn't think the phenomena described are real, that's not a disagreement with the premise of this thread. It's an answer to the first question.

I'll leave the rest of your and Pex's post unanswered for now because I want clarity on this point first. Disagreeing with me isn't the same as disagreeing with the premise of this thread.

---


It's very difficult to answer your original question because it's phrased so broadly the hypothesis is unfalsifiable. Of course some subset of the player base is reacting irrationally to some generally unobjectionable subset of the rules and/or other players of some system or another because they overestimate their negative experiences. That's guaranteed simply by virtue of the sample size.


If the existence of a phenomenom can only be proven for a very large sample, that implies it can be falsified for smaller samples. I'm willing to let you off the hook for problems of induction: if you can't observe the phenomenom anywhere in your life and can't think of any examples of it happening, "I'm not convinced this is a widespread or serious problem" is sufficient answer to me for purposes of this thread.

[Max_Killjoy]

On the first, okay, you're a pessimist and think other people have an optimism bias. How does that relate to the topic at hand? Would you, for example, advocate for trauma-based game design?

On the second, those sound like potential sources of trauma to me - specifically, emotional anguish or anxiety caused by loss of control and violation of expectation. A distinction can be made based on whether the motive arises from thinking forward or past experience. Only the latter is what I call trauma-based. ("I do not think a random roll will fit my expectations of how this thing works, therefore I will not use a random roll" versus "a random roll violated my expectations in the last game, therefore random rolls bad!")


The more I read of this thread, the more the phrasing seems really overblown -- trauma, anguish, etc. The framing is over-broad... reframing the writing of rules to avoid various broken expectations as caused by "trauma" and "anguish" doesn't really make for a convincing argument, and comes across as arguing from the conclusion.

Plus ascribing other people's gaming decisions to "mental damage"... reminds me of something...
http://whitehall-paraindustries.com/Theory/Threefold/rpg_theory_bad_rep.htm

[OldTrees1]

This is a fair criticism of my writing style, but let's take a step back to look at what is the premise of this thread: I'm outlining two cognitive phenomena (negativity bias, learned helplessness), describing how I think they interact with game rules to produce a third (trauma-based game design), and asking the people reading:

Do you think the described phenomena are real?
If yes, can you think of good, specific examples of them happening?
If yes, what would you have recommended as a solution?

I'll leave the rest of your and Pex's post unanswered for now because I want clarity on this point first. Disagreeing with me isn't the same as disagreeing with the premise of this thread.
(To be fair, it is a fine conversational tone writing style, it is merely not ideal if you want your premises to be clear)

If you intend "Trauma-based game design" to be the product of those 2 cognitive phenomena, then I don't know your definition of "Trauma-based game design". The only definition I have from you defines it only in terms of the Negativity Bias.


Trauma-based game design is what happens when negativity bias is allowed to write the rules. Basically imagine a metagame following thoughts like: "This rule ruined a game this one time, ergo it's a bad rule and has to be changed!", "This person ruined a game this one time, ergo they are that guy and have to be kicked out!", etc.

I can see how the Negativity Bias can cause people to be more inclined to change rule X if it ruined the game once and provided minor value the rest of the time. The Bias causes one to register the negative more readily and dwell on it more. Thus the times when the rule was bad will be noticed more readily, feel worse, and impact the session longer. Mentally accommodating for the Negativity Bias can decrease its impact/frequency, however the outcome post Negativity Bias is a real emotional state. We can still make rational decisions using the "rule W in circumstance X causes negative emotional state Y in player Z". The prima facie rational response, with respect to RPG enjoyment, is to be a satisficer rather than an optimizer. The prima facie rational response of a satisificer to a rule that sometimes ruins the game and generally provides a minor benefit is to remove/change that rule to increase the number of successful sessions even if it lowers the ceiling on those successful sessions.

So the phenomena that I see defined as "reacts to outcome of the Negativity Bias by removing/changing rules that ruined sessions" is real, but it is a rational response and does not mention Learned Helplessness. So I can say this phenomena is real, but I need clarification about which phenomena you were asking about. If you intend "Trauma-based game design" to be the product of those 2 cognitive phenomena rather than the response of the rational satisficer to the outcome of the Negativity Bias, then I would appreciate clarification.

[Telok]

I think the closest to 'learned helplessness' I've experienced at rpg tables is a long running tendency of D&D players to avoid illusions, charms, and stealth* because DMs keep punishing for the use of those abilities by players.

I suppose that means any advice/rules covering those things and trying for a more structured & fair game play could qualify as trauma based? I mean, the ideal solution is training DMs & players not to be *******s about it. But 30 years in I still see it happening, meaning the "people solution" either isn't working or isn't implemented.

*unless the character can be over-built for stealth to the point they can't fail.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think the closest to 'learned helplessness' I've experienced at rpg tables is a long running tendency of D&D players to avoid illusions, charms, and stealth* because DMs keep punishing for the use of those abilities by players. I've not seen this with stealth, but illusions are (IME) a real bugger to do well as a DM. I have only seen two DM's handle Phantasmal Force well in 5e (phoenixphyre is one of those two) and I screwed it up as DM the first two times the wizard used it when I subbed in for my brother as the DM.
Totally on me, and I apologized for it.

[Telok]

I've not seen this with stealth, but illusions are (IME) a real bugger to do well as a DM. I have only seen two DM's handle Phantasmal Force well in 5e (phoenixphyre is one of those two) and I screwed it up as DM the first two times the wizard used it when I subbed in for my brother as the DM.
Totally on me, and I apologized for it.

With stealth its the "roll until you fail" thing because (i think) the writers assume the dms know how iterative probability works. And i fully admit to doing the illusion & charm fails too, back long ago.

Mostly its that the character took the opportunity cost to get & use an illusion/charm rather than just another fireball or other blast spell. Therefore, assuming they aren't supposed to be trap options, they should be roughly as effective as the blasts just in a different way. But to this day (ok, this year, haven't gamed in weeks) i still hear "illusions don't say they cast shadows so auto-disbelieve in light" and "doesn't say npcs can't perceive the spell so they know you cast charm on them, roll initative" from new dms or "casters are op" people. Sometimes i go to the flgs and hang around the organized play tables to remind myself who to avoid.

[Max_Killjoy]

With stealth its the "roll until you fail" thing because (i think) the writers assume the dms know how iterative probability works. And i fully admit to doing the illusion & charm fails too, back long ago.

Mostly its that the character took the opportunity cost to get & use an illusion/charm rather than just another fireball or other blast spell. Therefore, assuming they aren't supposed to be trap options, they should be roughly as effective as the blasts just in a different way. But to this day (ok, this year, haven't gamed in weeks) i still hear "illusions don't say they cast shadows so auto-disbelieve in light" and "doesn't say npcs can't perceive the spell so they know you cast charm on them, roll initative" from new dms or "casters are op" people. Sometimes i go to the flgs and hang around the organized play tables to remind myself who to avoid.

Part of those reactions are excessive backlash against gamers who like to abuse mind control and illusion effects.

And part of it is reading the rules-as-written and not giving them any "charity". When a spell says it has verbal and somatic components, and players just cast right in front of the target, that target might actually notice, yes? (No I don't recall if or which of the spells in question have what components specifically.)

[PhoenixPhyre]

Part of those reactions are excessive backlash against gamers who like to abuse mind control and illusion effects.

And part of it is reading the rules-as-written and not giving them any "charity". When a spell says it has verbal and somatic components, and players just cast right in front of the target, that target might actually notice, yes? (No I don't recall if or which of the spells in question have what components specifically.)

Exactly. I'm not going to stretch spells; they're already powerful enough. I'll give them their full written weight, but nothing else. And I'll do it in a magic aware context. You're not the first people to cast spells.

For charm person, the target (assuming a failed save) won't care that you cast a spell. Other people around, seeing the spell and the change in behavior? They're gonna know something hinky is up, even if not exactly what. May not be initiative (unless they were already on the edge of it anyway), but they're not going to react well, generally.

[KorvinStarmast]

Other people around, seeing the spell and the change in behavior? They're gonna know something hinky is up, even if not exactly what. May not be initiative (unless they were already on the edge of it anyway), but they're not going to react well, generally. MaxWilson did something like that that surfed the edge of sitting well with me, initially. My PC used my CD Abjure Fiend (Arcana Cleric) on a fiend, who ran off on his failed save. Yay, I took one of the strong enemies out of the fight or a few rounds, thinks I. (His fiend partner saved).
Max had a human ally shoot the fiend right away with a heavy cross bow to get him to stop running away. (Damage breaks the effect). On first blush, it looked to me a bit meta gamey, as it's not intuitive to shoot your own ally while in a fight.
So I asked him about it and we had an OOC discussion after the encounter.

There was an entire "Rainbow Six Black Ops" special forces team concept behind the enemy team in that encounter, a core theme on how the enemy team was put together, and how they'd operated before. Once we'd had that discussion (me being a long time DM, and seeing how he'd built that set of antagonists to fit the theme of the campaign) it made perfect sense.

[Mechalich]

There are certain abilities/sub-systems in many games that are, to many tables 'more trouble than they are worth.' Meaning that they are difficult to adjudicate, or time-consuming to roll through due to many iterative components, or create out of game frustration by removing all player control of in-game events for a prolonged period. It's not that these things can't be handled well, it's that handling them is more difficult and often requires a level of engagement - intellectually, emotionally, energetically, etc. - above that which many players are willing to offer.

This is the same reason why 'don't split the party' is such a truism in tabletop. It's not because splitting the party makes for bad stories, it is in fact an essential storytelling device, or that gaming with a split party is impossible, because it's not, but that splitting the party, in the context of a live tabletop environment, is a massive pain in the a** and the advantages rarely outweigh the costs.

In many ways this is like choosing an option in one of those outdoor activities like climbing of whitewater rafting that has difficulty levels. There are enthusiasts who are sufficiently talented that they will only bother with higher difficulty runs, because the easy stuff is boring or unfulfilling. However, they are generally massively outnumbered by beginners who won't even be able to complete higher level courses no matter how hard they try and risk serious injury (which in the context of tabletop means a campaign that crashes and burns).

Most tabletop players are relatively low in experience or effort level (even extremely experienced players may be Belkars, playing primarily to mess around) and many tables are constantly scrambling to fill spots (or include younger siblings, visiting friends, or boyfriends/girlfriends in their hobby in at least a limited fashion), meaning their system needs to be open to beginners. At the same time, because the tabletop market is rather small, and because the lion's share of the expenditures are made by a small portion of hardcore enthusiasts who favor complexity and all sorts of exotic rules and/or fluff, games are constantly incentivized to pile one sub-system on top of another or to produce more options regardless of whether or not new options are necessary or beneficial. D&D, because it wants to be everything to everyone in order to maintain market share, is particularly problematic in this sphere.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Most tabletop players are relatively low in experience or effort level (even extremely experienced players may be Belkars, playing primarily to mess around) and many tables are constantly scrambling to fill spots (or include younger siblings, visiting friends, or boyfriends/girlfriends in their hobby in at least a limited fashion), meaning their system needs to be open to beginners. At the same time, because the tabletop market is rather small, and because the lion's share of the expenditures are made by a small portion of hardcore enthusiasts who favor complexity and all sorts of exotic rules and/or fluff, games are constantly incentivized to pile one sub-system on top of another or to produce more options regardless of whether or not new options are necessary or beneficial. D&D, because it wants to be everything to everyone in order to maintain market share, is particularly problematic in this sphere.

I agree with this and it's something I struggle with. In software, there's the idea that new features start at a value deficit--you should have to prove not just that they're intrinsically valuable (ie >0 benefit), but you should have to show that the benefit is worth the cost of developing them and maintaining them later. TTRPGs (and especially forum discussions, run by people who are very much the geeks/enthusiasts) tend to elide that latter part. New subsystems and mechanics have costs just by existing, and often it's worth taking a step back and wondering "can I get by with what I have if, say, I reframe the fiction slightly?" Or "do I really need that? Can I accept the slightly lower fidelity for the greatly increased ease of use?" Of course, it's possible to go too far, and "too far" and "cost" and "benefit" are all highly subjective terms. So it's not a decision that one person can make for another very well.


MaxWilson did something like that that surfed the edge of sitting well with me, initially. My PC used my CD Abjure Fiend (Arcana Cleric) on a fiend, who ran off on his failed save. Yay, I took one of the strong enemies out of the fight or a few rounds, thinks I. (His fiend partner saved).
Max had a human ally shoot the fiend right away with a heavy cross bow to get him to stop running away. (Damage breaks the effect). On first blush, it looked to me a bit meta gamey, as it's not intuitive to shoot your own ally while in a fight.
So I asked him about it and we had an OOC discussion after the encounter.

There was an entire "Rainbow Six Black Ops" special forces team concept behind the enemy team in that encounter, a core theme on how the enemy team was put together, and how they'd operated before. Once we'd had that discussion (me being a long time DM, and seeing how he'd built that set of antagonists to fit the theme of the campaign) it made perfect sense.

Yeah. In context, this is fine for this case. It'd be less fine if that were the long-standing "everyone knows exactly what to do and knows exactly what everything does (ie has the rulebook in front of them)" policy. At least IMO. People should react based on what they know or could assume.

[Telok]

And part of it is reading the rules-as-written and not giving them any "charity". When a spell says it has verbal and somatic components, and players just cast right in front of the target, that target might actually notice, yes? (No I don't recall if or which of the spells in question have what components specifically.)

See, when I hear that I read a subtext of "I will find any way for your spells to fail because I don't like casters". My examples were "no charity"; caster needed line of sight to the target to cast means target sees the caster cast and caster can't be hiding because you have to break line of sight for that, caster didn't have an ability that let them hide or disguise casting so the target knows its a spell, magic rules didn't say people don't know when they fail saves so target knows they failed a save. Npcs that aren't insanely stupid add it up: he cast a spell + i failed a save + i didn't used to like him and now i do = he's mind controlling me = kill the caster.

Part of it may be because I don't automatically assume the current edition of d&d in these general games threads. I run more games where casters don't get all the spells ever for free/trivial cost. That means the player really did give up something to choose the non-nuke spell. But I still see players avoid all things like illusions & charms because some d&d dm beat it out of them. Or they try to weasel it when an npc uses an illusion or charm because its the only way they know when they dm. So what I see is that a 3rd rank/level (or 30 point buy) "explode stuff" spell is supposed to have the same level of effect as the same cost illusion/charm and people going around saying "i was victimized by a player/dm with a illusion/charm so i must screw over all attempts to use those abilities".

[Max_Killjoy]

See, when I hear that I read a subtext of "I will find any way for your spells to fail because I don't like casters".


Understand that it's your subtext, nothing that's in my statement.

I specifically said that I'd read the rules as written and apply them -- not that I was looking to lawyer the spells into uselessness.

Specific to the spell in question, I made it clear that the players were making no effort to hide casting the spell, and just "whipped the casting out" in plain view.

[Pex]

See, when I hear that I read a subtext of "I will find any way for your spells to fail because I don't like casters". My examples were "no charity"; caster needed line of sight to the target to cast means target sees the caster cast and caster can't be hiding because you have to break line of sight for that, caster didn't have an ability that let them hide or disguise casting so the target knows its a spell, magic rules didn't say people don't know when they fail saves so target knows they failed a save. Npcs that aren't insanely stupid add it up: he cast a spell + i failed a save + i didn't used to like him and now i do = he's mind controlling me = kill the caster.

Part of it may be because I don't automatically assume the current edition of d&d in these general games threads. I run more games where casters don't get all the spells ever for free/trivial cost. That means the player really did give up something to choose the non-nuke spell. But I still see players avoid all things like illusions & charms because some d&d dm beat it out of them. Or they try to weasel it when an npc uses an illusion or charm because its the only way they know when they dm. So what I see is that a 3rd rank/level (or 30 point buy) "explode stuff" spell is supposed to have the same level of effect as the same cost illusion/charm and people going around saying "i was victimized by a player/dm with a illusion/charm so i must screw over all attempts to use those abilities".

Exactly. If I cast Silent Image of a wall of stone in front of me, I want the enemies to think it's a wall of stone. If they're archers they stop firing at me. If they're non-flying moving in my direction I want them to take the extra time and movement needed to walk around if it's an open field or assume I blocked the cavern. I might make it look like I collapsed the ceiling there. It is unfair for them to always assume that maybe it's an illusion. I don't want just the one round benefit of them doing nothing because they investigate. They don't know I didn't cast a real Wall of Stone, not even if the enemy is a spellcaster proficient in Knowledge Arcana. The bad guy didn't make a check when Fireball was cast or Polymorph. Why all of a sudden because I cast an illusion spell that's when the bad guy makes the check to know the wall of stone isn't real? That's the DM metagaming not wanting the player to get away with something. It's worse when the DM is being pedantic asking me if I know what a wall of stone looks like, especially on the opposite side facing the bad guys, i.e. the part I can't see, as an excuse to expose the illusion. However, when the bad guys use illusions? They are absolutely perfect and always real to the party. If by chance a player wants to investigate or Ye Olde "roll to disbelieve", the DM gets offended and demands the player justify himself for doubting.

[Telok]

Understand that it's your subtext, nothing that's in my statement.

I specifically said that I'd read the rules as written and apply them -- not that I was looking to lawyer the spells into uselessness.

Specific to the spell in question, I made it clear that the players were making no effort to hide casting the spell, and just "whipped the casting out" in plain view.

See, part of the issue is when the rules as written don't cover or allow your "hidden casting". I know that no rpg rule set of any reasonable size & complexity can cover everything, thats why we have dms, and there are good dms & bad ones of course. But its your claims about using "rules as written" to reign in casters that matches the "that's what the rules say" that some bad dms have used for thirty years to justify shutting down the players whenever they dare to do anything not in the dms script. The examples I gave were rules as written.

When you use the same language to justify nerfing spells you don't like, as the bad dms use to shut down all player creativity, it really makes those of us who have dealt with this for years doubt you. You may not mean it that way, but you really are telling people that you'll shut down creativity if people dare to play casters in your game as anything but simple blasters.

Bad d&d dms have hidden behind "its the rules" for years. I've seen every d&d charm less powerful that dominate backfire for years. I've seen every d&d illusion except invisibility and mirror image get ruled to crap for years. I've seen stealth attempts get rolled into the ground for years. I've tried for years to deprogram people who got trained by d&d dms that you use "rules as written" to lawyer down anything you don't like.

You say you aren't trying to lawyer spells into crap, but you use the same language as people who are doing that. If you think a spell is too powerful for its level then you, as dm, can just change the level of the spell for your game. But what you're doing is saying to people that you'll use rule lawyering to nerf spells on the fly when you don't like what the spell might do.

[Mechalich]

Adjudicating illusions is a miserable task, always has been, always will be. Illusions are one of the most nebulous, frustrating, and impossible to properly value effects in all of gaming. Likewise Mind Control, in practically every form ever devised, is a crushingly powerful ability and if not tightly constrained tends to rip fictional worlds apart (exhibit A: Code Geass Season 2). Do GMs tend to 'nerf' such powers, yes, they do, in the same way that many GMs nerf or outright ban the 3.5e version of Planar Binding or any number of other wide-ranging abilities that are extremely easy to abuse - many superhero games offer some form of 'time control' ability, and I'm of the opinion that any GM who fails to ban such powers outright is asking for their campaign to implode.

To tie this back to the OP, this sort of thing represents how bias against rules can play both ways. Difficult to adjudicate and constrain powers like illusions, mind control, and summoning - which it should be said are all well-supported capabilities with a long history in the relevant genres - tend to make life miserable for GMs. Designing tactical encounters for Party X is one thing, designing them for Party X + Y, where Y is whatever mind-controlled assets they've squeezed out of previous encounters, is much more challenging.

Of course, there is the risk of simplifying too far. If all outputs must be strictly defined, then you might as well play a board game or video game. This is a core tension of tabletop. Some types of outputs, no matter how carefully the actual printed rules are written, are going to have to be adjudicated by individual GMs, and those GMs will make decisions based on their own comfort level with such powers and also their own goals.

[RandomPeasant]

Illusions aren't really "hard to adjudicate", at least not if the rules are written well. They're just very powerful. Now, it's true that DMs will often nerf things that are very powerful, but unless those things are disproportionately powerful, I tend to consider that bad DMing.


Exactly. If I cast Silent Image of a wall of stone in front of me, I want the enemies to think it's a wall of stone.

And it's not like wall of stone isn't also a spell. If you know you're fighting an Illusion Mage, sure, maybe you default to "that wall is probably a fake wall". But if some guy does some magic and wall appears, it's reasonable to assume that's an actual wall. Especially if you've got no magical training or experience with magic.

[Witty Username]

Illusions are one of my favorite concepts in magic. Fundamentally, it is the weakest form of magic, it is the only one defined by not actually doing anything. But it is about belief, if they act like the illusion is real, it doesn't matter. Also, illusions are free form rather than concrete. I really like this dichotomy of limitless and powerless.
A lot of the time you create awesome effects and manipulate situations to your advantage. Some times you get punched in the throat and beaten to a pulp. Creativity and cunning are they things that keep one from being the other.

As for hard to adjudicate, I feel like that depends on the player and gm. Illusions can be hard to wrap ones head around. A player unaware of how to use an illusion effectively or falls into patterns will be pretty easy. The more creative the player, or with a scarier level of experience can be much more difficult. I would keep in mind that different creatures will react in different ways to the same thing. An illusion of a stone wall will work well against goblins, poorly against an ogre simply because of temperament. Also, most creatures don't have a good idea of what magic is, but a wizard should have a keen eye for your bull****.

[Satinavian]

I have seen many many stupid rule arguments about illusions and agree that they are hard to arbitrate.

- Can I make an illusion about a lightsource to illuminate my sourroundings ?
- Can I make an illusion of a mirror to look around the corner
- Can I make an illusion about a creature that reacts to stuff i don't perceive/pay attention too ?
- If I make something with illusionary touch sense, does it act as a real barrier ?
- Can I make an Illusion of missing air/horrible smell/tremendeous heat to attack my enemies ? Can I make illusions of pain ?

Some systems have answers, other don't, some contratict themself. It is generally a pain to explore the implications of illusionary magic and gets even worse with part real stuff.

[kyoryu]

I have seen many many stupid rule arguments about illusions and agree that they are hard to arbitrate.

- Can I make an illusion about a lightsource to illuminate my sourroundings ?
- Can I make an illusion of a mirror to look around the corner
- Can I make an illusion about a creature that reacts to stuff i don't perceive/pay attention too ?
- If I make something with illusionary touch sense, does it act as a real barrier ?
- Can I make an Illusion of missing air/horrible smell/tremendeous heat to attack my enemies ? Can I make illusions of pain ?

Some systems have answers, other don't, some contratict themself. It is generally a pain to explore the implications of illusionary magic and gets even worse with part real stuff.

The illusion is exactly that. It is not real. Illusions do not grant the caster any information.

An illusion of light can illuminate things, but what is "illuminated" is what the caster decides is there.

Disbelieving is like going through the train entrance at 9 3/4 or whatever it was.

The only interesting question is whether or not the illusionary creature reacts, because that really depends on the spell and how much in the way of "smarts" it is given.

[Talakeal]

An illusion of light can illuminate things, but what is "illuminated" is what the caster decides is there.

That’s incredibly insightful. Kudos!

[Satinavian]

The illusion is exactly that. It is not real. Illusions do not grant the caster any information.

An illusion of light can illuminate things, but what is "illuminated" is what the caster decides is there.

Disbelieving is like going through the train entrance at 9 3/4 or whatever it was.

The only interesting question is whether or not the illusionary creature reacts, because that really depends on the spell and how much in the way of "smarts" it is given.
That is your answer but other people answer differently and many rule systems do their own thing or have several statements about how illusions work that contradict each other or contradict the spell description etc.

Over many years i never have any other field of magic produce as many arguments at the tables as illusions tend to do. Not that i want to rehash those old discussions here.

[Telok]

Over many years i never have any other field of magic produce as many arguments at the tables as illusions tend to do. Not that i want to rehash those old discussions here.

I think part of that issue is that most systems don't explain what "illusions" are supposed to be or do. One place I don't recall seeing these basic level "illusion debates" is the HERO system, where the limits are more explicit and the system tells you that a 60 point illusion power needs to have the same level of game effect as a 60 point fire power. D&D, by not having any sort of power level metrics for magic (ok, 4e did for combat magic), has a tendency to put crap spells an op spells at the same levels which confuses things a bit.

I should try sometime a copy/paste between some D&D illusion/other spells to see what the effect is.

[Max_Killjoy]

I think part of that issue is that most systems don't explain what "illusions" are supposed to be or do. One place I don't recall seeing these basic level "illusion debates" is the HERO system, where the limits are more explicit and the system tells you that a 60 point illusion power needs to have the same level of game effect as a 60 point fire power. D&D, by not having any sort of power level metrics for magic (ok, 4e did for combat magic), has a tendency to put crap spells an op spells at the same levels which confuses things a bit.

I should try sometime a copy/paste between some D&D illusion/other spells to see what the effect is.

D&D and its wider playerbase never seemed able to decide if illusions are psychic, or optical/etc.

[OldTrees1]

D&D and its wider playerbase never seemed able to decide if illusions are psychic, or optical/etc.

This is easiest to see by D&D explicitly making both types of illusion spells. I think Illusion started as optical and then psionics encouraged the addition of psychic illusions too.

[Witty Username]

Well, we have:
Figment,
Glamors,
Patterns,
Phantasms,
And Shadows,

Figments are real in the sense of being a physical effect but cannot effect anything, usually a visual effect and always effect a defined area.
Glamors are similar but attach to a creature or object, acting as a disguise.
Patterns are visuals designed to overwhelm or confuse rather than deceive. They can charm, confuse, blind or any number of related conditions.
Phantasms are psychic effects, they cannot be observed outside the intended target. The are usually made to evoke fear, but any emotion is fair game and can cause similar deceptions as figments.
Shadows are not illusions in the strictest sense, but rather energy from the shadow plane shaped to create a temporary effect. They can be partially disbelieved because of how shadow stuff respons to emotion but will still have physical effects to to being a true effect to some degree.

At least that is how 3.5 did illusions. 5e uses the terms in places, but they have lost cohesion somewhat.

[Kymme]

All of the illusion spells with hard-coded mechanics are supremely easy to adjudicate - but many of them are not. There's no mechanical dial that counts down 'how long until these orcs decide to test if the wall the wizard conjured in front of them is made of rock or pixie-dust,' which can easily lead to standstills or totally one-sided affairs or other various horror stories. It's weird that a system (D&D 3.5 specifically) just leaves all of its simulationist modelling at the door when it comes to these sorts of spells. They function purely by fiat.

[KorvinStarmast]

Illusions are one of my favorite concepts in magic. Fundamentally, it is the weakest form of magic, it is the only one defined by not actually doing anything. But it is about belief, if they act like the illusion is real, it doesn't matter. Also, illusions are free form rather than concrete. I really like this dichotomy of limitless and powerless.
A lot of the time you create awesome effects and manipulate situations to your advantage. Some times you get punched in the throat and beaten to a pulp. Creativity and cunning are they things that keep one from being the other.

As for hard to adjudicate, I feel like that depends on the player and gm. Illusions can be hard to wrap ones head around. A player unaware of how to use an illusion effectively or falls into patterns will be pretty easy. The more creative the player, or with a scarier level of experience can be much more difficult. I would keep in mind that different creatures will react in different ways to the same thing. An illusion of a stone wall will work well against goblins, poorly against an ogre simply because of temperament. Also, most creatures don't have a good idea of what magic is, but a wizard should have a keen eye for your bull****.


D&D and its wider playerbase never seemed able to decide if illusions are psychic, or optical/etc. Both, it seems.
Donde esta nuestra OP, I wonder? :smallconfused:

[OldTrees1]

Donde esta nuestra OP, I wonder? :smallconfused:

No idea. I asked a clarifying question 1 week ago and they fell silent.

[Quertus]

I can see how the Negativity Bias can cause people to be more inclined to change rule X if it ruined the game once and provided minor value the rest of the time. The Bias causes one to register the negative more readily and dwell on it more. Thus the times when the rule was bad will be noticed more readily, feel worse, and impact the session longer. Mentally accommodating for the Negativity Bias can decrease its impact/frequency, however the outcome post Negativity Bias is a real emotional state. We can still make rational decisions using the "rule W in circumstance X causes negative emotional state Y in player Z". The prima facie rational response, with respect to RPG enjoyment, is to be a satisficer rather than an optimizer. The prima facie rational response of a satisificer to a rule that sometimes ruins the game and generally provides a minor benefit is to remove/change that rule to increase the number of successful sessions even if it lowers the ceiling on those successful sessions.

So the phenomena that I see defined as "reacts to outcome of the Negativity Bias by removing/changing rules that ruined sessions" is real, but it is a rational response and does not mention Learned Helplessness. So I can say this phenomena is real, but I need clarification about which phenomena you were asking about. If you intend "Trauma-based game design" to be the product of those 2 cognitive phenomena rather than the response of the rational satisficer to the outcome of the Negativity Bias, then I would appreciate clarification.

So, initially, my line of thought on hearing about the rational satisficer was

Having real swords at the table for D&D, and real guns at the table for ShadowRun, added to the ambiance and immersion. Until one day, when pappy wandered downstairs drunk, and shot Kenny.
But then I thought,

Just role-playing was fine, until that one time My Guy ruined the game.
So I think I'm a fan of the rational satisficer response.


With stealth its the "roll until you fail" thing because (i think) the writers assume the dms know how iterative probability works. And i fully admit to doing the illusion & charm fails too, back long ago.

I'm a fan of this minigame, of the "it's not so much *if*, but *when* you'll be spotted", "how much are you willing to risk / how well can you measure risk vs reward" minigame. There's so much more tension and building of stakes than a simple "one and done" roll.


Exactly. I'm not going to stretch spells; they're already powerful enough. I'll give them their full written weight, but nothing else. And I'll do it in a magic aware context. You're not the first people to cast spells.

For charm person, the target (assuming a failed save) won't care that you cast a spell. Other people around, seeing the spell and the change in behavior? They're gonna know something hinky is up, even if not exactly what. May not be initiative (unless they were already on the edge of it anyway), but they're not going to react well, generally.


Yeah. In context, this is fine for this case. It'd be less fine if that were the long-standing "everyone knows exactly what to do and knows exactly what everything does (ie has the rulebook in front of them)" policy. At least IMO. People should react based on what they know or could assume.

So I invent a new spell, that shows people their heart's desire, or the paradise I'm creating, or some such.

I try to use it on your world.

I cast a spell, the target gets a blissful expression, and is then more friendly towards me.

And everyone else hates me. Because they saw me cast a spell, and someone's behavior changed.

Good to know.


There's no mechanical dial that counts down 'how long until these orcs decide to test if the wall the wizard conjured in front of them is made of rock or pixie-dust,' which can easily lead to standstills or totally one-sided affairs or other various horror stories. It's weird that a system (D&D 3.5 specifically) just leaves all of its simulationist modelling at the door when it comes to these sorts of spells. They function purely by fiat.

There's also no mechanical dial that counts down 'how long until the PCs decide to test if the wall the wizard conjured in front of them is made of rock or pixie-dust. It functions purely by role-playing.

[OldTrees1]

So, initially, my line of thought on hearing about the rational satisficer was

Having real swords at the table for D&D, and real guns at the table for ShadowRun, added to the ambiance and immersion. Until one day, when pappy wandered downstairs drunk, and shot Kenny.
But then I thought,

Just role-playing was fine, until that one time My Guy ruined the game.
So I think I'm a fan of the rational satisficer response.


Another example
Situation: A player frequently brought homemade snacks, and one day someone had an airborne peanut allergic reaction.
Reaction: The player avoids peanuts in their D&D snack recipes and brings an ingredient list.
Outcome: The brownies still taste great. The sessions are still enjoyable. The player chose to do a little extra work and thus slightly decreased their net enjoyment, but they still considered the sessions to be enjoyable. As a result there were fewer bad sessions and more good sessions.

Increase the number/frequency of good sessions and decrease the number/frequency of bad sessions. Accept any session that is "good enough" as a good session for this metric. There is no point in optimizing the perfect session if it converts some good sessions into bad sessions.

[Kymme]

There's also no mechanical dial that counts down 'how long until the PCs decide to test if the wall the wizard conjured in front of them is made of rock or pixie-dust. It functions purely by role-playing.

Right, they're badly designed spells. Saying 'well, they operate on pure fiat for everyone' isn't a refutation of my point about how them operating on pure fiat is bad.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So I invent a new spell, that shows people their heart's desire, or the paradise I'm creating, or some such.

I try to use it on your world.

I cast a spell, the target gets a blissful expression, and is then more friendly towards me.

And everyone else hates me. Because they saw me cast a spell, and someone's behavior changed.

Good to know.


People will react based on their experiences and their take on the situation. And that depends on the situation. Just as an analogous situation would be in the real world.

Yes, you might get the initial "what the heck did you do!" reaction. And the law might (justifiably) treat any non-consensual magic as a hostile action. Just like if you go and inject someone on the street with a (hypothetical) non-addicting[1] "pure bliss" drug without their prior consent. That's assault (at minimum). Doesn't matter if later, they liked it.

So I'd say that in general, casting spells on people without their prior, knowing consent is a no-no and likely to get at least a negative, if not hostile, reaction from onlookers. It's a form of assault, and in a world with real magic, it's a form of assault with a deadly weapon. Casting a spell without notice and consent, in anything like a settled, lawful area, is akin to pulling out a gun and waving it around in the real world. Does that put a crimp in magical street shows? Absolutely. Feature, not bug, as far as the societies are concerned. And the default in any sane society is going to be "suspect bad things, then verify". And I'd suspect that mind altering magic is very high up on the "don't do that without ample warning, signed consent, and verification" list. And yes, people in a magical world will recognize spell casting, even if they don't recognize the spell itself.

Do it in a "bliss parlor", where the whole point is that people come and pay for the experience? No one's going to care. In fact, you'll probably get more business.

Any other option makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would.

[1] which is a contradiction--any such thing is inherently incredibly addicting.

[KorvinStarmast]

Increase the number/frequency of good sessions and decrease the number/frequency of bad sessions. Accept any session that is "good enough" as a good session for this metric. There is no point in optimizing the perfect session if it converts some good sessions into bad sessions. +1 to this.

So I'd say that in general, casting spells on people without their prior, knowing consent is a no-no and likely to get at least a negative, if not hostile, reaction from onlookers. Unless it's a healing spell, I suspect. we had an RP bit more than once in your game, I think, where I got one of our fallen foes up with a healing word right after they dropped to zero ... :smallcool: My most recent recollection was that dragon during the night of the 20's and 1's (feeling gravity's pull)

Interestingly: Revivify does not require consent of the soul. Raise Dead does. (and so does Resurrection)

Funny anecdote: in my brother's game, the rest of the party got into an argument that turned bloody. Three of three non PCs dropped and my Life Cleric immediately used her channel divinity to get them up. But one stayed dead. (DM was a bit surprised that I did that, but he rolled with the idea). (I was pissed at my party mates for not doing the 'knock out' thing, I can tell you that, IC).

What did I do? I talked the rogue and the dwarf party leader into us three going to the widow's house and offering an apology and a weregeld. (We ended up giving her 200 GP). I also took that opportunity to cast continual flame on my mace (I burned a ruby on that, well spent thinks I). I gave that mace to the now fatherless child - told him it was a symbol/memorial of his father's love for them always burning brightly.

The DM really liked that touch.

The three murderhoboes thought I was wasting money but I think they got the message.
(That life cleric ended up retiring from adventuring and living in that town, for an unrelated reason: she got pregnant)

[Talakeal]

All of the illusion spells with hard-coded mechanics are supremely easy to adjudicate - but many of them are not. There's no mechanical dial that counts down 'how long until these orcs decide to test if the wall the wizard conjured in front of them is made of rock or pixie-dust,' which can easily lead to standstills or totally one-sided affairs or other various horror stories. It's weird that a system (D&D 3.5 specifically) just leaves all of its simulationist modelling at the door when it comes to these sorts of spells. They function purely by fiat.

That's not just illusion spells though. For example, I frequently but heads with my players over just how long a monster will stand there ineffectually whacking at something that has a protection spell up on it before moving on to find a squishier target.

[Telok]

That's not just illusion spells though. For example, I frequently but heads with my players over just how long a monster will stand there ineffectually whacking at something that has a protection spell up on it before moving on to find a squishier target.

Well, probably twice for most people and predators. The first ineffective hit could be a fluke, the second hit is confirmation. Creatures that are dumb, unwise, or enraged will strike at least once more. After that I'd make some sort of int/wis/skill/morale/'combat experience' test to see what they do, which test would depend on the creature's archtype and the nature of the defense.

For your players I'd consider mechanizing it into an add on to a morale check system or something.

D&D 5e has a problem with the charm/mind control spells called "sorcerer subtle spell", which I keep seeing used as the reason nobody else can ever get away them. DMs use it to soft ban charms (unless sorcerer & subtle of course) because the target knows a spell was cast and they know they changed their attitude to the caster, therefore they know they're under mind control. That might not be how some people think it should work, but its what I kept seeing happen.

[icefractal]

I can see how making the casting visibility a factor could be seen as shutting down enchantment, but what about when it's just parity between PC and NPC reactions?

GM: The merchant you're questioning mutters something in draconic and makes a strange hand motion. Bob, make a Will save.
Bob: Failed.
GM: You have the strong feeling that this guy is trustworthy and you should stop hassling him.
Bob: Guys, I think we're questioning the wrong person. He's obviously innocent.
Other Players: Ok, well he obviously used a charm spell. We tell him to dispel it and not try anything like that again or else.
GM: No, you have no reason to suspect anything like that.
Players: Bull****! (and they would be right to say this, IMO)

I do personally rule (in 3.x) that if you fail the save against an enchantment it suppresses noticing the casting, but that doesn't prevent other people from noticing what happened, or the target from remembering it once the enchantment wears off. IIRC, the text is ambiguous about this point.

Some ways to avoid this:
* Silent Spell and cast from hiding.
* Silent Spell, get the target alone, and cast when they're not looking at you.
* Sneak into the target's room and cast it on them while they're asleep.
* That feat (I think) which lets you blend components into a performance.
* Make an excuse for casting a different spell, hope nobody is good at Spellcraft.
* Pretend you're casting the spell on a different target who's in on the scam.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I can see how making the casting visibility a factor could be seen as shutting down enchantment, but what about when it's just parity between PC and NPC reactions?

GM: The merchant you're questioning mutters something in draconic and makes a strange hand motion. Bob, make a Will save.
Bob: Failed.
GM: You have the strong feeling that this guy is trustworthy and you should stop hassling him.
Bob: Guys, I think we're questioning the wrong person. He's obviously innocent.
Other Players: Ok, well he obviously used a charm spell. We tell him to dispel it and not try anything like that again or else.
GM: No, you have no reason to suspect anything like that.
Players: Bull****! (and they would be right to say this, IMO)

I do personally rule (in 3.x) that if you fail the save against an enchantment it suppresses noticing the casting, but that doesn't prevent other people from noticing what happened, or the target from remembering it once the enchantment wears off. IIRC, the text is ambiguous about this point.

Some ways to avoid this:
* Silent Spell and cast from hiding.
* Silent Spell, get the target alone, and cast when they're not looking at you.
* Sneak into the target's room and cast it on them while they're asleep.
* That feat (I think) which lets you blend components into a performance.
* Make an excuse for casting a different spell, hope nobody is good at Spellcraft.
* Pretend you're casting the spell on a different target who's in on the scam.

I'm totally ok with the players calling BS on that. Because it is. Open spellcasting is obvious, and unless it's clear what the spell is, it's not friendly by default. The PC, if the save fails, is bound by it, but no one else is.

To say otherwise it's to give magic way more power than it deserves and more than it says it has. Restrictions and limitations are there for a reason and shouldn't be waived unless there's a darn good reason in fiction.

[Quertus]

Clearly, I failed in my description. My so-called "bliss" spell was intended to connect to the "illusion" conversation more directly, and be misidentified as mind control. It was more like "a picture of paradise". Or, more to the point, the "spell" was intended as a… word… as a "substitute", as a "stand-in" for "words" or "ideas" (the way "guardians of the galaxy" is a stand-in for dysfunctional families).

So my subtext was, "give someone an idea that makes them happy / improves their life, get punished for it".

Just as magic can heal or harm, so, too, can words help or hurt. Yet it's not exactly normal culture to assume anyone speaking or writing is performing the equivalent of waving a gun around.

I don't know that it makes an incoherent setting for the populous to assume that all ideas are bad, but it certainly doesn't sound like an optimal one.

Obviously, I view and use magic much more as a tool than a weapon compared to your average adventurer.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Clearly, I failed in my description. My so-called "bliss" spell was intended to connect to the "illusion" conversation more directly, and be misidentified as mind control. It was more like "a picture of paradise". Or, more to the point, the "spell" was intended as a… word… as a "substitute", as a "stand-in" for "words" or "ideas" (the way "guardians of the galaxy" is a stand-in for dysfunctional families).

So my subtext was, "give someone an idea that makes them happy / improves their life, get punished for it".

Just as magic can heal or harm, so, too, can words help or hurt. Yet it's not exactly normal culture to assume anyone speaking or writing is performing the equivalent of waving a gun around.

I don't know that it makes an incoherent setting for the populous to assume that all ideas are bad, but it certainly doesn't sound like an optimal one.

Obviously, I view and use magic much more as a tool than a weapon compared to your average adventurer.

Doesn't matter. Use magic without asking and it's assault. Plain and simple. Doesn't matter what it is. Helpful, harmful, doesn't matter. And mind affecting magic should always be presumed to be harmful.

Yes, magic is a tool. But if you go around applying tools to people without their consent, that's not a good thing. Nor should you expect to get a good reaction. Even if you're intending to help.

And there's a huge difference between words (which are of limited harm unless accepted) and magic, which...well...can destroy your mind. Or kill you. Or make you do things you didn't want to do. Magic is and must be considered to be on the same status as a weapon, because in many cases it is. Starting to cast a spell without consent is isomorphic to pulling a sword. Even if all you're doing is slaying that pesky snake. It's still something you have to ask permission for.

And this goes exponentially more if it's already a tense scenario, which was the presumption of this sub-thread. Cops pull you over and you start shouting at them in words they don't understand, when they know that other people who shout those words summon monsters, create fireballs, dominate minds, etc? That's identical to pulling a weapon and you should expect to get attacked. In a world with magic, especially when not everyone can trivially identify what you're casting until it's too late (and not even then), magic is a threat. Inherently.

Even if injecting someone with drugs would make them feel better, doing it without consent is still assault at best, attempted murder at worst. It's not your right to do that. It's a gross violation of all sorts of human rights. And mind control magic is inherently suspicious, if not downright nefarious. Even if you're doing it for good reasons, it's still very close to evil if not over the line.

I'd say that any setting where this isn't true is an incoherent one, one that cannot be stable by its own standards. Given powerful magic, casting a spell must be a threat. Or else the setting is dominated by morons and will have fallen apart or fallen in thrall to those spell-casters.

Edit: the sub-text only holds if ideas can take over your mind without your consent. Which they can't, not in any normal sense. Ideas need to be accepted and implemented to take effect. Magic...does not. It just happens if you fail your save. Ideas aren't truly viral infections. Being told an idea, in and of itself, cannot change your life. Only accepting it (consciously or not) and acting on it can. Magic, well, can change your life. Mostly for the worse.

[Mechalich]

Edit: the sub-text only holds if ideas can take over your mind without your consent. Which they can't, not in any normal sense. Ideas need to be accepted and implemented to take effect. Magic...does not. It just happens if you fail your save. Ideas aren't truly viral infections. Being told an idea, in and of itself, cannot change your life. Only accepting it (consciously or not) and acting on it can. Magic, well, can change your life. Mostly for the worse.

Technically, this is only so far as we know. It may in fact be possible to use sensory information as a direct mental attack, and this idea appears in certain forms of science fiction, particularly in those wherein characters possess mental architecture optimized for network interfacing, ie. 'cyberbrains.' Ghost in the Shell contains several famous examples, and the idea is basically the entire premise of Snow Crash. This has appeared in gaming in Eclipse Phase as the 'basilisk hack.'

But, yes, when this sort of thing appears in science fiction it tends to be illegal as it gets and also mental security is considered incredibly important. Snow Crash is illustrative in that the coalition to stop the release of the neurolinguistic hacking virus is comprised of basically every significant interest group on the planet

[Satinavian]

Clearly, I failed in my description. My so-called "bliss" spell was intended to connect to the "illusion" conversation more directly, and be misidentified as mind control. It was more like "a picture of paradise". Or, more to the point, the "spell" was intended as a… word… as a "substitute", as a "stand-in" for "words" or "ideas" (the way "guardians of the galaxy" is a stand-in for dysfunctional families).

So my subtext was, "give someone an idea that makes them happy / improves their life, get punished for it".

Just as magic can heal or harm, so, too, can words help or hurt. Yet it's not exactly normal culture to assume anyone speaking or writing is performing the equivalent of waving a gun around.

I don't know that it makes an incoherent setting for the populous to assume that all ideas are bad, but it certainly doesn't sound like an optimal one.

Obviously, I view and use magic much more as a tool than a weapon compared to your average adventurer.
I am with PhoenixPhyre on this one.

It would be different, if
a) dangerous mind control magic is impossible
or
b) It is so trivially easy to identify spells that harmless spells are recognized as harmless by everyone.

If one of those is given, such spellcasting might still be against local ettiquette or law but would not be treated as attack.

[Morgaln]

Doesn't matter. Use magic without asking and it's assault. Plain and simple. Doesn't matter what it is. Helpful, harmful, doesn't matter. And mind affecting magic should always be presumed to be harmful.


I disagree with the general statement. There are situations where the crime is in not using magic. Healing magic used to save someone's life is not assault. If someone goes into anaphylactic shock and I use an Epipen on them, I didn't assault them, even if I didn't ask consent beforehand. Neither do I assault someone by administering CPR. In the same vein, a healing spell on someone who got stabbed, run over by a carriage or fell from a tree is not assault.

There are also borderline cases; what if someone is trying to commit suicide? Is featherfall on someone trying to jump from a building assault? What about reverse gravity instead? How about something like suggestion? In a modern world, there would probably be a whole branch of law dedicated to the lawful and unlawful uses of magic. Hm, this is actually an interesting setting to explore...

Admittedly, I'm from a country where not helping a person in distress is considered a crime, so I might be biased here.

[Glorthindel]

Neither do I assault someone by administering CPR.

I wouldn't be particulary surprised (disappointed though) if people have been charged with assault for doing just that.

However, as far as magic goes, the essence of the arguement is in the "not knowing until its too late". If someone asked me for a drink, and I pulled a gun on them, the arguement of "its a water pistol" is one I would expect to be making from face down on the pavement with several people on top of me.

While I certainly could appreciate the idea of a setting where magic has certain colours or other special effects, such that a healing spell can be obviously differentiated from a Fireball from the first word of the invocation, that's not the base assumption (hence the long discussions on how to handle Counterspell), so any 'friendly' spell cast really needs to be prefaced with "I am about to do x, is that cool with you".

[KorvinStarmast]

There are also borderline cases; what if someone is trying to commit suicide? Is featherfall on someone trying to jump from a building assault? I agree with you about the healing, but, some will argue that casting that featherfall on them violated their right to make a choice ... but that topic is loaded. Maybe we ought to step away from that. (And there are some cultural norms that vary on that score). I had to tread very carefully here when someone asked for 'advice on how to suicide my PC that I don't like anymore such that the DM can't save me from myself (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/101585/22566)' - I had fun writing the answer, but the topic itself is such a minefield that a mod gave me a number of "uh, careful!" comments before they were happy with how I framed the answer.

Admittedly, I'm from a country where not helping a person in distress is considered a crime, so I might be biased here. There's not an absolute standard, yeah, which makes this conversation difficult. :smallsmile:

I wouldn't be particularly surprised (disappointed though) if people have been charged with assault for doing just that. Lawyers gotta lawy - though where I am from Good Samaritan statues usually protect the one offering aid.

However, as far as magic goes, the essence of the argument is in the "not knowing until its too late". If someone asked me for a drink, and I pulled a gun on them, the argument of "its a water pistol" is one I would expect to be making from face down on the pavement with several people on top of me. Yeah.

so any 'friendly' spell cast really needs to be prefaced with "I am about to do x, is that cool with you?" It ought to be, but remember that the sub culture of geek gaming includes incentives for murder hobo behavior. And not just in TTRPG's. If we look at the related game forms like Grand Theft Auto, Halo, etc, and the joy of ganking in games going back to Ultima Online, these all inform a gaming culture of doing unto others without asking as a norm.

I remember when WoW came out; they recognized that styles and tastes differ, so you found co-op servers, pvp servers, and RP servers. Not sure if that's still how it works, I have not WoW'd in a long time.

[Telok]

Honestly the whole "magic; legal or illegal" thing isn't central to the point of this thread.

I have 20 years of people crapping on illusions and charms in & because of D&D*. I can't fix people, but I can write rules. So in my DtD40k7e revision there's a page with one column on mind control magic and one column on illusions, with basic "how to be fair between DMs & players" details and advice**.

Others have a view from recent D&D editions that magic in general, or perhaps just the D&D wizard class, needs to be stomped on and made to fail in any rule-lawyer way possible.

* its from all sides, players & dms, trying for too much & ******* stealth nerfs/cheats.

** basically because its not d&d magic/wizards "energyball = dominate = major illusion = animate dead = ploymorph = dispel = portal gun". A 3rd level spell is a 3rd level spell and should have a 3rd level effect, which isn't happening if you screw over two of the schools.

[Quertus]

Magic is and must be considered to be on the same status as a weapon, because in many cases it is. Starting to cast a spell without consent is isomorphic to pulling a sword. Even if all you're doing is slaying that pesky snake. It's still something you have to ask permission for.

And this goes exponentially more if it's already a tense scenario, which was the presumption of this sub-thread.


If someone asked me for a drink, and I pulled a gun on them, the arguement of "its a water pistol" is one I would expect to be making from face down on the pavement with several people on top of me.

any 'friendly' spell cast really needs to be prefaced with "I am about to do x, is that cool with you".

When someone asks me, "where's the nearest gas station", and I look it up on my phone, I don't ask, "I'm about to check for you - is that OK?". :smallamused:

However, in a tense situation, where the police maybe already have their guns out, if I go to pull out my phone when they ask me a question, I might well get shot. :smalleek:

A spell is a tool. A setting which over-focuses on the "weapon" potential of spells… I won't say it's incoherent, but… more like ignorantly superstitions, burning women with cats as witches.

That… doesn't make it wrong. If I teleported 100 people through time to stand before 100 random dark ages nobles, or 100 peasant groups, and pull out various tools, it might be the case that 100/100 of them would rapidly meet violent ends. But I wouldn't call history "incoherent" if some of them survived their unannounced tool-wielding.

It's actually a really narrow band, where the society knows enough about magic to recognize it, but not enough to recognize it, and believes in it as a weapon, that even could produce an expectation of a violent response without being incoherent. I know that most of my settings emphatically do not live in that band - either by the general public not recognizing magic, by it being so prolific that everyone has heard all the common spells repeatedly like songs on the radio (standard 3e), or by it being a ubiquitous part of everyday life (or a sign of nobility, or only used as "art", or…) rather than a weapon of some sketchy "adventurer" cast.

As to the tenor,



I think the closest to 'learned helplessness' I've experienced at rpg tables is a long running tendency of D&D players to avoid illusions, charms, and stealth* because DMs keep punishing for the use of those abilities by players.

I suppose that means any advice/rules covering those things and trying for a more structured & fair game play could qualify as trauma based? I mean, the ideal solution is training DMs & players not to be *******s about it. But 30 years in I still see it happening, meaning the "people solution" either isn't working or isn't implemented.

*unless the character can be over-built for stealth to the point they can't fail.


With stealth its the "roll until you fail" thing because (i think) the writers assume the dms know how iterative probability works. And i fully admit to doing the illusion & charm fails too, back long ago.

Mostly its that the character took the opportunity cost to get & use an illusion/charm rather than just another fireball or other blast spell. Therefore, assuming they aren't supposed to be trap options, they should be roughly as effective as the blasts just in a different way. But to this day (ok, this year, haven't gamed in weeks) i still hear "illusions don't say they cast shadows so auto-disbelieve in light" and "doesn't say npcs can't perceive the spell so they know you cast charm on them, roll initative" from new dms or "casters are op" people. Sometimes i go to the flgs and hang around the organized play tables to remind myself who to avoid.

The intro to this concept was quite tenor-neutral. So it is certainly not the case that a "tense scenario" is "the presumption of this sub-thread".

Further,



Exactly. I'm not going to stretch spells; they're already powerful enough. I'll give them their full written weight, but nothing else. And I'll do it in a magic aware context. You're not the first people to cast spells.

For charm person, the target (assuming a failed save) won't care that you cast a spell. Other people around, seeing the spell and the change in behavior? They're gonna know something hinky is up, even if not exactly what. May not be initiative (
unless they were already on the edge of it anyway), but they're not going to react well, generally.

(Emphasis added) - looks like at one point you knew that.

[OldTrees1]

When someone asks me, "where's the nearest gas station", and I look it up on my phone, I don't ask, "I'm about to check for you - is that OK?". :smallamused:

However, in a tense situation, where the police maybe already have their guns out, if I go to pull out my phone when they ask me a question, I might well get shot. :smalleek:

A spell is a tool. A setting which over-focuses on the "weapon" potential of spells… I won't say it's incoherent, but… more like ignorantly superstitions, burning women with cats as witches.

There are particular effects that incentivize people to develop caution as a defense or even survival mechanism. That caution can mistake perfectly safe tools that happen to have the same signs that the survival mechanism is using to defense against the dangerous threat.

"Effect can change the mental state of target without clear and verifiable method & limits" is one of the signs that survival mechanisms against mind control look for as warning signs.

I recently encountered some clickbait. The contents were junk but the promise was a story premise of "Dangerous AI in a box tells jokes". That story premise was going to be an interesting read primarily because it triggers a warning sign of "AI in a box communicates".

[Satinavian]

A spell is a tool. A setting which over-focuses on the "weapon" potential of spells… I won't say it's incoherent, but… more like ignorantly superstitions, burning women with cats as witches.
We were not talking about every spell. We were talking about a spell cast on a stranger. And the stranger changing behavior afterwards.

Well, yes, that is in pretty much every not contrieved situation something hostile.


It's actually a really narrow band, where the society knows enough about magic to recognize it, but not enough to recognize itNo, that is not a narrow band, that is supercommon. It is usually some kind of action or skilltest or something to identify a spell which requires expert knowledge while recognizing spellcastingitself is trivial due to very obvious gesture, recitations or even side-effects.
In fact, of all the fantasy games i have played i can't remember a single one that does not life in that "narrow" band (mostly by writing drules making it difficult to identify spells).

[icefractal]

Yeah, I don't find it odd that people would be upset by unexplained spellcasting.
In a science fiction setting, if someone pointed a small device of unknown purpose at you, would you be alarmed? I probably would.
And you'll notice that doctors don't go around suprise-injecting people with things, even if those things are completely harmless.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah, I don't find it odd that people would be upset by unexplained spellcasting.
In a science fiction setting, if someone pointed a small device of unknown purpose at you, would you be alarmed? I probably would.
And you'll notice that doctors don't go around suprise-injecting people with things, even if those things are completely harmless.

This

And you (Quertus)'ll note that none of us have said that the reaction would be unrecoverably hostile. Upset? Demanding explanations? Wary? Surprised and not pleased? Sure. But unless you were already on the brink of hostilities, you can likely talk your way out of further problems. Not a great look, but not "roll initiative", at least not by default.

Charm spells work best if you have the target alone (at least without any of his allies around). They're much less use if the target has a bunch of his friends around. Note that this is something that "mundane" diplomacy/bluffing/intimidation doesn't necessarily suffer from--you can persuade a bunch of people with about the same effort as persuading one person, and as long as you're diplomatic about it, you're much less likely to cause hurt feelings. Spells are a blunt tool, trading higher power and less effort for much higher potential downsides. And that's how it should work.

[Glorthindel]

When someone asks me, "where's the nearest gas station", and I look it up on my phone, I don't ask, "I'm about to check for you - is that OK?". :smallamused:

Go through all your phones functions, how many of them can kill a person within six seconds of activation. Unless you have something really worrying going on with your battery, I would guess its a low number.

Likewise, how many of those functions can seriously harm someones reputation, or cause some form of (non fatal, but still significant mental) trauma in the same number of seconds. Ah, we actually have some here, most notably the camera function and possibly a voice recorder. As a frequent reader of r/aita, I can tell you not a week goes by where there isn't a story of someone getting bent out of shape because someone else was holding a phone near them and they thought they were taking a photo or video when they weren't. Seems phones aren't universally harmless, and can cause adverse reactions due to misunderstanding, and they can't kill people (dodgy battery possibly not withstanding).

Then lets go through the spell list. How many of them can kill within six seconds of activation? Personally, I am not going to bother counting, but I would be surprised if it wasn't in the 40-60% band. Likewise, how many can cause negative effects on the target (I would guess up to 75%). When somethings most common function is to cause harm, the fact it can also be beneficial occasionally is not going to offset a base wariness at its use.

Sure, context matters, and i am sure someone dressed in the robes of the local Priesthood of Healing is going to have a bit more freedom than some random with a staff and robe. Just like someone dressed as a paramedic would have a bit more freedom waving random needles around than a skinny goth with red-rimmed eyes and a twitch. And I certainly get questioned a lot less holding a camera phone on a building site than I did the time i was doing so on the edge of a girls high school sports field (this actually happened - I am an architect and was working on a science building extension - probably didn't help my demeanor that I was very aware of how dodgy I looked!).

[Quertus]

We were not talking about every spell. We were talking about a spell cast on a stranger. And the stranger changing behavior afterwards.

Well, yes, that is in pretty much every not contrieved situation something hostile.

Having done effectively just that in numerous settings, I can say that it was neither contrived, nor did the setting feel incoherent when the onlookers didn't immediately check whether they had "form angry mob" on their character sheets when a character did something obviously magical, and someone's behavior changed.

Heck, just look at Gandalf for… how many examples of that?


Yeah, I don't find it odd that people would be upset by unexplained spellcasting.
In a science fiction setting, if someone pointed a small device of unknown purpose at you, would you be alarmed? I probably would.
And you'll notice that doctors don't go around suprise-injecting people with things, even if those things are completely harmless.

Ah, but you're missing context: someone pointed a device you don't recognize at your friend / at a stranger, and they look happy about this fact.

IME, people don't usually randomly murderhobo doctors just because they don't recognize the drugs they are injecting someone with.

[Xervous]

IME, people don't usually randomly murderhobo doctors just because they don't recognize the drugs they are injecting someone with.

Redacted political commentary

Operating word here is usually.

[Satinavian]

Heck, just look at Gandalf for… how many examples of that?Maybe one. And that one was dicey.

Ah, but you're missing context: someone pointed a device you don't recognize at your friend / at a stranger, and they look happy about this fact.If mind control devices were circulating, that would be taken as some kind of assault, yes. A plausible reaction would be to subdue the person and then have the device analyzed.

[Telok]

Hmmm. Jedi mind trick anyone? Of course there's the Potterverse mind control too.

Makes a difference if you can charm someone with a subtle gesture & suggestion or if you have to wave a wand and say magic words.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hmmm. Jedi mind trick anyone? Of course there's the Potterverse mind control too.

Makes a difference if you can charm someone with a subtle gesture & suggestion or if you have to wave a wand and say magic words.

Basically "how obvious is it that you're messing with them." And the default in D&D is "very", unless you have some way of removing components.

Casting a D&D spell is like openly brandishing a gun-shaped object. Can't always tell who it's pointed at or what it might do, but certainly a cause for concern and alarm.

[KorvinStarmast]

Casting a D&D spell is like openly brandishing a gun-shaped object. Can't always tell who it's pointed at or what it might do, but certainly a cause for concern and alarm. My problem with charm spells being all abra cadabra with waving hands is that in fiction, that power is often embedded in the caster with examples including Saruman's words convincing people of things or the infamous "you are getting sleepy" scene in Love at First Bite or "these are not the droids you are looking for" in Star Wars. A wide variety of movies and stories have a change in attitude (Jafar "desperate time call for desperate measures" in the first Aladdin movie with Robin Williams) happening because this magic using caster is saying something, rather than the 'verbal somatic material' component clunkiness D&D has arrived at.

Any of those could be charm person or suggestion; not at all obvious but still a spell cast.

Put another way, I think that charm and suggestion should not have somatic components.

[Satinavian]

My problem with charm spells being all abra cadabra with waving hands is that in fiction, that power is often embedded in the caster with examples including Saruman's words convincing people of things or the infamous "you are getting sleepy" scene in Love at First Bite or "these are not the droids you are looking for" in Star Wars. A wide variety of movies and stories have a change in attitude (Jafar "desperate time call for desperate measures" in the first Aladdin movie with Robin Williams) happening because this magic using caster is saying something, rather than the 'verbal somatic material' component clunkiness D&D has arrived at.
Most of the more crunchy systems have rules for how subtle those spells actually are. Some even explicitely describe gesture and words. One even demanded that any caster player would say the rhyming spell formula at the table and the spell would not work if a mistake had been made. I have never been in a situation where the degree of subtlety couldn't be extracted directly from the rules though occasionally some looking was required.

[icefractal]

In 3.x, there are ways to remove those components in general (Paizo Psychic magic, Psionics, SoP), but it does mean that a Wizard (Enchanter) isn't the best at enchanting people. On the other hand, a Wizard (Necromancer) isn't the best at having a skeleton army either, so that's not necessarily a problem.

It does seem like maybe Bard should have a way to subtly enchant though. On the other hand, Bard is going to have the Bluff to explain it away if they do need to.

In terms of fitting the fiction, I'd note that while the smooth enchanter who ensnares people without anyone noticing is an archetype, so is the creepy psychic whose mind control is obvious and even painful until it fully takes effect.

[Quertus]

Redacted political commentary

Operating word here is usually.

I'm quite proud of my weasel words :smallbiggrin:

Whereas I'm opposing, "anything else would be incoherent".


If mind control devices were circulating, that would be taken as some kind of assault, yes. A plausible reaction would be to subdue the person and then have the device analyzed.

Congratulations, G. Lockhart was getting his picture taken for the Daily Prophet. But because you didn't recognize the spell, you subdued the photographer.

Again, all you have to go on is, something clearly magical that you don't understand happened, now someone seems really happy about it.


Basically "how obvious is it that you're messing with them." And the default in D&D is "very", unless you have some way of removing components.

3e Sense Motive actually makes your reply to my scenario even more nonsensical: "nobody in our torch-wielding mob felt anything was wrong, but we're out for blood anyway" is the mindset you're projecting.

Now, granted, 3e Sense Motive *does* mean that such a response may be warranted to the *original* scenario. But that's an edge case, not a general rule of "all worlds in all systems must act this way, else they are incoherent".


Casting a D&D spell is like openly brandishing a gun-shaped object. Can't always tell who it's pointed at or what it might do, but certainly a cause for concern and alarm.

Ah, but that's because you know something about the nature of D&D spells. This is why I quoted you talking about just going from what you can see.

Look, I know role-playing is a dieing art, especially among GMs. But you have to ignore what *you* know about D&D spells when evaluating how ignorant citizens will respond.

"He did something magical, that i don't recognize, and Bob seems happy about it."

Can you roleplay a coherent response to that scenario?

[Max_Killjoy]

Problems:

Assuming a world in which magic is common and often used for mundane tasks, yet also a world in which most people - including PCs - have no clue what's going on with magic and no ability to discern hostile or suspicious magic. The classic "magic is very common and also super mysterious" conundrum.

Assuming that the context of magic cast out of the blue on an unwitting person will draw the same reaction as an agreed-upon casting that everyone has openly talked about.

The worldbuilding issue of having magic that can warp minds and swap souls, and that supposedly most people can't identify when cast... and yet people are perfectly willing to have spells cast at/on them for mundane tasks like "taking a photo" or "making a call". I'm sure someone will bring up electricity or something as a "counter", but consider how much effort goes into making electricity safe and not exposing people directly to it... and some of the fear about it in the early years.

Demeaning comments about other people's roleplaying.

[Kardwill]

IME, people don't usually randomly murderhobo doctors just because they don't recognize the drugs they are injecting someone with.

A doctor who injected a willing patient that came to them, or a recognised guy from the local hospital helping an unconscious victim? Yes usually, people won't turn hostile.

But if a random guy I just met in the street just went and injected one of my friends out of the blue, without consent and without explaining what they were about to do? Yup, I'm going to turn hostile, even (or maybe even especially) if my friends behavior suddenly becomes wierd. Maybe not "roll for initiative" hostile, but putting myself between them, angrily asking for an explanation, and calling the police, certainly. And if the guy continues to try and interact with my now-dosed friend, without giving me a satisfactory explanation, then we'll roll init' and use the graple rules.

And I'm mostly a peaceful guy, bordering on cowardly. But there is a big difference between a medic doing their job, and a random dude doing weird **** to someone I care for without asking for their consent.

[OldTrees1]

Ah, but that's because you know something about the nature of D&D spells. This is why I quoted you talking about just going from what you can see.

Look, I know role-playing is a dieing art, especially among GMs. But you have to ignore what *you* know about D&D spells when evaluating how ignorant citizens will respond.

"He did something magical, that i don't recognize, and Bob seems happy about it."

Can you roleplay a coherent response to that scenario?

One coherent response to an unknown magical effect imparting a mental alteration (Bob is now suddenly happy and emotions are part of the mind) without a clear and verifiable benign method (We don't know the spell was benign. We don't know what it did or how it did it.) is to enact anti-mind-control procedures. The exact procedures will vary based on the power dynamics, resources available, etc. However presumption of harm is a rational response.

Without further context about the situation, I will claim my anti-mind-control procedure would be to:
- Prevent repetition of the event.
- Act normal. Don't give away the procedure is active.
- Investigate the event.
- Prevent loss of information (the "caster" leaving for example).
Depending on the context escape and acting normal might be prioritized over preventing it from spreading.

The severity of the anti-mind-control procedures will probably scale up/down with the subject's belief of the most severe possible mind control threat. An NPC in D&D might know of worse threats than we face IRL or they might be blissfully unaware of any nearly as bad as ones we face IRL. So we would need to calibrate that during the roleplay.

[Satinavian]

Congratulations, G. Lockhart was getting his picture taken for the Daily Prophet. But because you didn't recognize the spell, you subdued the photographer.

Again, all you have to go on is, something clearly magical that you don't understand happened, now someone seems really happy about it.
a) Harry Potter is not a good source of exploring the implicatin of magic in your setting
b) Yes, I expect a society with mind control magic to quite paranoid and to act accordingly.



Ah, but that's because you know something about the nature of D&D spells. This is why I quoted you talking about just going from what you can see.

Look, I know role-playing is a dieing art, especially among GMs. But you have to ignore what *you* know about D&D spells when evaluating how ignorant citizens will respond.

"He did something magical, that i don't recognize, and Bob seems happy about it."

Can you roleplay a coherent response to that scenario?That is a clear no. The reaction is character knowledge based. I assume for a standard D&D setting that average Joe knows that mind control magic exist as much as he knows that healing magic exists. If anything, mind-control magic should be the most feared magic for the common citizen. Most other harmful magic would only be deployed in escalated conflict scenarios that the common guy mostly avoids. But mind control is useful whenever someone wants to take advantage of you. That could happen everytime, especcially when interacting with strangers. I really can't see how necromancy has a bad reputation but enchantment has not. Should really be the other way around.


I know there is a school that plays "all NPCs are idiots/don't know a thing about the world they live in so the PCs can seem smart", but i don't see that as an example of good roleplay.

[icefractal]

In terms of how the populace at large reacts to magic, that largely depends on the setting. So for example, let's say that 1st-4th level characters are the most numerous group (probably true in most settings), and therefore 1st-2nd level spells are the most widely known.

What kind of things does that cover? From a quick look through the PHB Sor/Wiz 1-2, let's consider spells cast while talking to someone -
Safe (and makes sense): comprehend languages, silent image, minor image, whispering wind, eagle's splendor, fox's cunning, owl's wisdom
Safe (but still odd to cast without a clear reason): endure elements, protection from [alignment], shield, mage armor, detect undead, floating disc, magic aura, ventriloquism, enlarge person, expeditious retreat, feather fall, jump, reduce person, obscure object, protection from arrows, resist energy, see invisibility, continual flame, blur, magic mouth, misdirection, phantom trap, false life, bear's endurance, bull's strength, cat's grace, darkvision, levitate, spider climb
Suspicious: grease, mount, obscuring mist, unseen servant, detect secret doors, true strike, disguise self, animate rope, erase, magic weapon, arcane lock, fog cloud, locate object, darkness, gust of wind, invisibility, mirror image, spectral hand, alter self, knock, pyrotechnics, rope trick
Dangerous: summon monster 1, charm person, hypnotism, sleep, burning hands, magic missile, shocking grasp, color spray, cause fear, chill touch, ray of enfeeblement, acid arrow, glitterdust, summon monster 2, summon swarm, web, detect thoughts, daze monster, hideous laughter, touch of idiocy, flaming sphere, scorching ray, shatter, hypnotic pattern, blindness / deafness, command undead, ghoul touch, scare

So it's not "all spells are hostile", but the odds aren't great - about 1/3rd that they're casting something directly harmful, more like 1/2 that they're up to no good, and very few that there's a good reason to cast unannounced in the situation. Given how dangerous the "Dangerous" results can be, it's not odd people wouldn't like those chances.

That's for casting with no explanation. If you say something like: "That price sounds reasonable, I'll mentally contact my associate and see if he agrees ..." and then cast a spell, probably most people are fine with that.

[OldTrees1]

In terms of how the populace at large reacts to magic, that largely depends on the setting. So for example, let's say that 1st-4th level characters are the most numerous group (probably true in most settings), and therefore 1st-2nd level spells are the most widely known.

What kind of things does that cover? From a quick look through the PHB Sor/Wiz 1-2, let's consider spells cast while talking to someone -
Safe (and makes sense): comprehend languages
Dangerous: detect thoughts

Two Dwarves are talking in Dwarvish. A nearby Human seems lost. The Dwarves ignore them and continue talking. The Human mumbles something and they replies, in common, to what the Dwarves are talking about.

Obviously the Dwarves might consider the Human to be a bit nosy, but how nosy? Which level of eavesdropping will they assume? Or will they react somewhere between those assumptions?

[icefractal]

Eavesdropping could be considered rude, but magically knowing the language isn't really any worse than happening to have learned it (the human might speak Dwarven anyway). That said, Comprehend Languages would still be somewhat strange to cast unannounced.

As for Detect Thoughts, while it could be used just for communication, consider this conversation at a party -
"Hey, always hard to make small talk, isn't it? I've got an app that fixes that! Just install it and give it full permissions - it'll read all your emails, your web history, everything, then use that to suggest topics of conversation we're both interested in. Don't worry, it's totally safe!"

Would you install that app? I would not. And if someone tried to grab my phone and install it anyway, I'd consider that very much a hostile act and reply in kind.


Incidentally, I did have a character in the past who used extensive divinations on people, without asking, as a routine part of meeting them. That was an intentionally-creepy trait though, and part of the reason he was neutral rather than good-aligned.

[OldTrees1]

Eavesdropping could be considered rude, but magically knowing the language isn't really any worse than happening to have learned it (the human might speak Dwarven anyway). That said, Comprehend Languages would still be somewhat strange to cast unannounced.

As for Detect Thoughts, while it could be used just for communication, consider this conversation at a party -
"Hey, always hard to make small talk, isn't it? I've got an app that fixes that! Just install it and give it full permissions - it'll read all your emails, your web history, everything, then use that to suggest topics of conversation we're both interested in. Don't worry, it's totally safe!"

Would you install that app? I would not. And if someone tried to grab my phone and install it anyway, I'd consider that very much a hostile act and reply in kind.


Incidentally, I did have a character in the past who used extensive divinations on people, without asking, as a routine part of meeting them. That was an intentionally-creepy trait though, and part of the reason he was neutral rather than good-aligned.

I was assuming the Dwarves did not identify what spell the Human cast. Just that the Human suddenly knew what they had been talking about. Was the Human reading their minds? Or did the Human just learn Dwarvish? Obviously the Human is being nosy, but the Dwarves don't know how nosy. Different Dwarves might react differently but I was curious what reaction you would pick as an example response.


I would not install that app. The explanation of what it does is already rather severe and would require greater compensation. Furthermore, with the permissions it requires, I would be leery about maybe it does even more than it claims. I might want to check the source code or further security checks to verify that is the limit of what the app does.

If someone grabbed my phone in that context, I would consider that a malware attack with the presumption that the malware does even more than they claimed it did. I would respond accordingly.


Extensive divinations as a way to RP a creepy character? That is a neat idea.

[Quertus]

"long ago" (darn senility), Cluedrew was… less than thrilled at my insistence that 4e was not an RPG, and was… curious regarding my definition of an RPG. And I explained, "it's complicated". Since then, I've been thinking about that topic.

To my mind, to be an RPG, well, it requires role-playing. And it's not surprising that, as with all things, my stance is that the primary and/or most damaging failures come from the GM's side of the GM screen.

But there was one phrase in this thread that really brought it all home for me:



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

That simple sentence catches a critical part of the central essence of role-playing.



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

So, what do we know?

Let's call the caster "Alice" and the charm target "Bob".

We know Alice did something magical, and Bob is happy about it / Bob is happy with Alice.

Well, technically, we don't even know that: we know Alice said words we don't recognize, maybe spoke animatedly in this unrecognized language, and now Bob is happy about it.

Well, maybe not even that - in some editions, at some tables, Alice could have whispered the verbal components.

But perhaps we should pretend, for the moment, that the casting had been noticed and recognized as something magical? Or will that violate the original complaint, that GMs penalize these spells unfairly?



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

What don't we know?

Even assuming we actually know a spell was cast…

We don't know that Bob was the target of a spell - charm doesn't leave a trail of glittering dust, or otherwise indicated that Bob was targeted.

We don't know what the spell was. Maybe we don't even know that a spell was cast, but let's ignore that for now.

Afaik, outside of (or at least before) 3e, we don't know whether Bob's mind has been affected by this spell.

We don't know what came before - we don't know whether Bob was expecting / asked for this spell to be cast or not.



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

Which brings us to the setting. What do the ignorant peasants know (or believe) about magic?

Why do I say "ignorant peasants"? Because that is, quite literally, what we're talking about here: average Joe Farmer in a likely pseudo-medieval society, who is too ignorant to recognize the spell.

Maybe the ignorant peasants know that only the nobility have noble, magical blood, so when Alice begins casting, they know that she's a noble.

Or maybe they believe that only the gods and their agents can use Magic. Maybe they should drop prone like extras from Stargate, and possibly aggro Bob for not showing proper respect.

Maybe magic is something of a lost art (many worlds before 3e), and they therefore have no concept of what it can do… or they don't even believe in it.

Maybe they know that magic is the tool of those who saved the world.

Maybe magic is commonplace enough that they know several people they can ask to analyze any trace magic / still active spells.

Maybe magic is so commonplace, the commoners can "sing along with" most common spells (even if they don't know which are which).

Maybe magic is a commonplace tool - everybody sees it everyday, and thinks nothing of it.

Maybe mind control magic is a common, known thing.

(Combine those last two, and you've got Harry Potter)



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

To simplify, to roleplay a character, you need to know what the character perceives, and what background they have to filter and process that information with.

To roleplay a character to the extent humanly possible, you shouldn't react based on information or perspectives that the character couldn't reasonably know, deduce, or believe.



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

What else could be going on here, that matches the description of Charm?

Alice could be telling Bob something in a foreign language.

Bob (G. Lockhart) could be getting something he wants (his picture taken).

Alice could be casting a spell with permission.

Alice could be casting a "necessary" spell, like Healing or Remove Curse.

Alice could have cast a useful spell, like Make Whole, on an item she (or Bob) just broke.

Alice could be defending against the invisible poltergeist / the Demon that their Anticipate Teleport delayed / the doppelganger of Cindy.

Or many other possibilities.



People should react based on what they know or could assume.

Since it's really hard to roleplay ignorance, I tried asking my evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitutes what *they* would do. Here's what i got:

"Shoot them - Bob doesn't deserve happiness"

"She just improved their day"

"Yeah, so follow her, and see if she's just making people days better, or if she's using it to get a discount."

"If they're just making everyone's day better, ask them to use it me."

"If they're getting a discount… is that illegal?" "Ask them to be friends."

"Create a horrific distraction (to break concentration?)"

"1) kill all the cops; 2) assault Alice"

Maybe not their best showing, but seems evidence of multiple responses not being incoherent… even with the same setting (ie, IRL) for their background.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Basic assumption -- spellcasting is recognizable as spell casting[0] by default. Second basic assumption -- it is not obvious what spell is being cast[1]. Third basic assumption -- there are lots of harmful spells.

Those three are enough to set a default to be fear, concern, wariness, or otherwise not happy.
1) I know you're casting a spell.
2) I know that I don't know what spell it is.
3) I know that lots of spells do all sorts of nasty things, including take over people's minds and make them feel/believe things they otherwise wouldn't.
4) I know you didn't ask permission, which normal/ethical people do before doing anything that directly affects another person in any substantial way.

Thus, the balance of probabilities is that you were doing something you wouldn't have gotten permission to do if you'd asked (otherwise you'd have asked first). And/or that you're not an ethical person.

Ergo, it's likely that the spell is intended to have a negative effect. Which means the default reaction should be negative.

You don't need anything else.

Edit: and anyway, spellcasting is powerful enough already. We should stop taking away the restrictions that exist in the books and in the fiction.

[0] this is an explicit thing in 5e; not sure about 3e. You have to perform the components in an obvious manner--no hiding them under a cloak, no mumbling the words. They're arcane language spoken in a clear voice at a set cadence that identifies itself as casting a spell. Sorcerers can get away with some of it via subtle spell, but that doesn't take away material components, so you're still manipulating a focus or waving components around.
[1] 5e sets it as a DC 15+spell level Intelligence (Arcana) check. So a 75% chance of failure for a normal person identifying a cantrip. And technically that's an optional rule--the default is that you can't identify spells at all. 3e has a Spellcraft check of the same DC, which can't be done untrained. So a 100% chance that a normal person can't tell what spell you're casting.

[Quertus]

Basic assumption -- spellcasting is recognizable as spell casting[0] by default. Second basic assumption -- it is not obvious what spell is being cast[1]. Third basic assumption -- there are lots of harmful spells.

Those three are enough to set a default to be fear, concern, wariness, or otherwise not happy.
1) I know you're casting a spell.
2) I know that I don't know what spell it is.
3) I know that lots of spells do all sorts of nasty things, including take over people's minds and make them feel/believe things they otherwise wouldn't.
4) I know you didn't ask permission, which normal/ethical people do before doing anything that directly affects another person in any substantial way.

Thus, the balance of probabilities is that you were doing something you wouldn't have gotten permission to do if you'd asked (otherwise you'd have asked first). And/or that you're not an ethical person.

Ergo, it's likely that the spell is intended to have a negative effect. Which means the default reaction should be negative.

You don't need anything else.

Edit: and anyway, spellcasting is powerful enough already. We should stop taking away the restrictions that exist in the books and in the fiction.

[0] this is an explicit thing in 5e; not sure about 3e. You have to perform the components in an obvious manner--no hiding them under a cloak, no mumbling the words. They're arcane language spoken in a clear voice at a set cadence that identifies itself as casting a spell. Sorcerers can get away with some of it via subtle spell, but that doesn't take away material components, so you're still manipulating a focus or waving components around.
[1] 5e sets it as a DC 15+spell level Intelligence (Arcana) check. So a 75% chance of failure for a normal person identifying a cantrip. And technically that's an optional rule--the default is that you can't identify spells at all. 3e has a Spellcraft check of the same DC, which can't be done untrained. So a 100% chance that a normal person can't tell what spell you're casting.

I agree completely that the untrained cannot recognize spells in most vanilla editions of D&D.

And my settings, at least, favor "casting is obvious" (your [0]).

However, loudly proclaiming "ast tassarith simiralan krynawi!" while sprinkling / tossing sand gets you little more than a few strange looks IRL (homebrew LARP? Or overly enthusiastic players?), and quite possibly not much more in elf games - ie, I reject your first premise. It's obvious that you're doing *something*, but not what that something is in a polylingual world.

This fact - or its flip side - is very important to my characters who pretend to cast spells. I've had several characters pull off such tricks in numerous settings, so it is certainly nowhere near universal that untrained peasants can 100% accurately determine whether or not someone is casting a spell. And I don't think that makes such settings incoherent.

I also reject the universal (or required for coherency) nature of your #3 condition. What the untrained, ignorant peasants know about magic is not at all guaranteed to have any basis in fact, and likely to be highly distorted from reality. Heck, just look at politics redacted, and you can see that humans often lack the ability to recognize fact from truly idiotic ideas :smallbiggrin:

And #4 is explicitly not stated in the original post. I'll agree that it's *likely* true, but… just assuming it is proving their point, that GMs like to treat such spells unfairly.

So, of your 4 listed requirements, I'll only grant you #2 - that you don't know what the spell is.

You don't know what conversations Bob and Alice had before you walked in, to know the nature of consent, only that Bob looks happy with Alice.

You may not know that Alice cast a spell - probably only that she said something in an unfamiliar language (like "gesundheit").

And you don't know what spells can actually do. What misinformation - if any - you possess will depend on the setting.

Given that, do you still hold that any setting that doesn't murderhobo G. Lockhart's photographer is incoherent, or can you see some reasonable ideas you missed on your first evaluation?

EDIT: note that your 4 points do *not* follow from your 3 basic assumptions. Although I grant the second and third assumption, I reject ¾ of your points. Even if I granted all 3 assumptions, I'd still reject 2 of your 4 points as unfounded. Just because there *are* dangerous spells doesn't mean that the ignorant peasants are cognizant of the scope of their capabilities. And there is nothing in the original statement or your stated assumptions to indicate that the observer knows whether or not Bob had given consent; in fact, based on his reaction, assuming consent had been given seems the more reasonable conclusion.

[OldTrees1]

I agree completely that the untrained cannot recognize spells in most vanilla editions of D&D.

And my settings, at least, favor "casting is obvious" (your [0]).

However, loudly proclaiming "ast tassarith simiralan krynawi!" while sprinkling / tossing sand gets you little more than a few strange looks IRL (homebrew LARP? Or overly enthusiastic players?), and quite possibly not much more in elf games - ie, I reject your first premise. It's obvious that you're doing *something*, but not what that something is in a polylingual world.

This fact - or its flip side - is very important to my characters who pretend to cast spells. I've had several characters pull off such tricks in numerous settings, so it is certainly nowhere near universal that untrained peasants can 100% accurately determine whether or not someone is casting a spell. And I don't think that makes such settings incoherent.

I also reject the universal (or required for coherency) nature of your #3 condition. What the untrained, ignorant peasants know about magic is not at all guaranteed to have any basis in fact, and likely to be highly distorted from reality. Heck, just look at politics redacted, and you can see that humans often lack the ability to recognize fact from truly idiotic ideas :smallbiggrin:

And #4 is explicitly not stated in the original post. I'll agree that it's *likely* true, but… just assuming it is proving their point, that GMs like to treat such spells unfairly.

So, of your 4 listed requirements, I'll only grant you #2 - that you don't know what the spell is.

You don't know what conversations Bob and Alice had before you walked in, to know the nature of consent, only that Bob looks happy with Alice.

You may not know that Alice cast a spell - probably only that she said something in an unfamiliar language (like "gesundheit").

And you don't know what spells can actually do. What misinformation - if any - you possess will depend on the setting.

Given that, do you still hold that any setting that doesn't murderhobo G. Lockhart's photographer is incoherent, or can you see some reasonable ideas you missed on your first evaluation?

EDIT: note that your 4 points do *not* follow from your 3 basic assumptions. Although I grant the second and third assumption, I reject ¾ of your points. Even if I granted all 3 assumptions, I'd still reject 2 of your 4 points as unfounded. Just because there *are* dangerous spells doesn't mean that the ignorant peasants are cognizant of the scope of their capabilities. And there is nothing in the original statement or your stated assumptions to indicate that the observer knows whether or not Bob had given consent; in fact, based on his reaction, assuming consent had been given seems the more reasonable conclusion.


Quertus, double checking, are you arguing about the murderhobo part or the rational paranoia and skepticism in the face of "Alice did something unrecognizable and immediately Bob had a sudden inexplicable change of mental state"?

I am going to pretend Charlie saw Alice and Bob.
1) Charlie doesn't need to know Alice was spellcasting. Alice did something unrecognizable with unknown limits and effects.
2) It looks like you both agree that Charlie does not know what spell it was.
3) Charlie probably believes that mind control can exist. They might not know anything more about it.
4) Charlie did not witness any consent, but is currently considering the dangers of escalated user privileges (although not in those words). Unless Charlie believes Bob would grant Alice root access, then Charlie is still concerned.
5) Charline perceived Bob's change in mental state as sudden, inexplicable, and correlated with Alice's action.

From those premises alone Charlie can suspect the possibility that Alice used mind control on Bob as one of several scenarios they are evaluating for potential risk (including it some unknown Dave that did this).

If Charlie sees Alice start to do the "something" again, what are the outcomes if Charlie's theory is right/wrong and they do/don't act on it? I added ordinal payouts. 1 is best outcome for Charlie. 4 is worst outcome for Charlie (my judgement). From my estimates acting is the strictly dominant strategy (provided acting in a way that preserves my ordering of 1 and 2).



Right
Right
Wrong
Wrong


Act
Interrupt attempted
mind control
3
Interrupt something benign.
Miscommunication identified.
1


Don't Act
Become mind controlled
4
Status quo
2



Now Charlie could act in many ways. Some of those ways preserve "Acting and clearing up the confusion" being better than "Status Quo". For example preventing Alice from doing the something while asking and investigating what that something was. Other reactions (kill first ask questions later) reverse that payout and make the rational response depend on the severity of the payouts and the probability that Alice did use mind control.

[icefractal]

However, loudly proclaiming "ast tassarith simiralan krynawi!" while sprinkling / tossing sand gets you little more than a few strange looks IRL (homebrew LARP? Or overly enthusiastic players?), and quite possibly not much more in elf games - ie, I reject your first premise. It's obvious that you're doing *something*, but not what that something is in a polylingual world.It doesn't get much of a reaction because most people don't believe that magic exists or that saying words to empty air does anything.

You know what can do something? Saying the right words into a phone. And as a result, people may very well be wary about it.

Consider the likely reaction if you walked up within earshot of someone while describing them in a 'police sounding' way into your phone. Like for example:
"... sighted. White male, about 6 feet, gray sweater, jeans. No visible weapon. Ok, will stand by."

Heck, you don't even have to say anything. Follow someone to their car in the parking lot, making sure to take several pictures of them and their license plate.

Actually don't do either of these, because you could get beat up, and could make someone nervous for no good reason. Technically, you weren't doing anything harmful - but they don't know that.


Now if you had a setting where magic was so rare most people had never even heard about how it works or what it could do, then yes, reactions would be a lot more varied.

However, in such a setting, there would be no shops selling even potions, no temple priests available to cure problems, nobody else you could trade spells with or buy magic supplies from. On the plus side (for casters), 1st-2nd level spells would probably be enough to become the shadow ruler of most towns - or just steal anything you want if leadership isn't your bag.

So, not the typical D&D setting. I'd be down to play it, but it's hardly anti-enchantment to not consider that the default.

[icefractal]

If Charlie sees Alice start to do the "something" again, what are the outcomes if Charlie's theory is right/wrong and they do/don't act on it? I added ordinal payouts. 1 is best outcome for Charlie. 4 is worst outcome for Charlie (my judgement). From my estimates acting is the strictly dominant strategy (provided acting in a way that preserves my ordering of 1 and 2).



Right
Right
Wrong
Wrong


Act
Interrupt attempted
mind control
3
Interrupt something benign.
Miscommunication identified.
1


Don't Act
Become mind controlled
4
Status quo
2



I don't understand the ordering here. "Interrupt attempted mind control" is a better outcome than "Interrupt something benign", but you have it listed vice-versa. And I don't think that "Interrupt something benign" is actually better than the status quo. Sure, you cleared up a misunderstanding, but many people would rather avoid the awkwardness, especially depending on their relative social position.

That said, even with the ordering of:
A) Interrupt attempted mind control
B) Status quo
C) Interrupt something benign
F) Get mind controlled

Interrupting still comes out ahead.

[Satinavian]

To my mind, to be an RPG, well, it requires role-playing. And it's not surprising that, as with all things, my stance is that the primary and/or most damaging failures come from the GM's side of the GM screen.How about stopping to pretend that your way is the roleplaying way.



We don't know what came before - we don't know whether Bob was expecting / asked for this spell to be cast or not.
Nope, the premise was that the spell was cast by a stranger while Bobs associates react. And if they are surprised, they would assume, that none of this is the case. Don't move the goalposts.

Which brings us to the setting. What do the ignorant peasants know (or believe) about magic?Sure true. That is why there have been qulifiers sprinkled during the thread about assumptions made. If you change those assumptions, anything goes.

But let's have a look at common popular D&D settings like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Planespace, where do you think those fall into ? How about the new edition ones like Ravnica, Theros or Stryxhaven ? Or popular/main settings of other fantasy RPGs like Aventuria, Warhammer's Old World or Lorakis ?

I would say at the overwhelming majority of tables the hostile reaction would make the most sense when NPCs were roleplayed properly.


What else could be going on here, that matches the description of Charm?In some of these cases Alice can just ask. In the others, she should not resist the attempt to constrain her and explain afterwards. Hopefully she can prove it.




This fact - or its flip side - is very important to my characters who pretend to cast spells. I've had several characters pull off such tricks in numerous settings, so it is certainly nowhere near universal that untrained peasants can 100% accurately determine whether or not someone is casting a spell. And I don't think that makes such settings incoherent.Yes, pretending to cast spells is a thing and often works. Might still need a bluff check or whatever the system uses and you are kinda limited to spells that don't have obvious results if you don't have a way to fake those.

[OldTrees1]

I don't understand the ordering here. "Interrupt attempted mind control" is a better outcome than "Interrupt something benign", but you have it listed vice-versa. And I don't think that "Interrupt something benign" is actually better than the status quo. Sure, you cleared up a misunderstanding, but many people would rather avoid the awkwardness, especially depending on their relative social position.

That said, even with the ordering of:
A) Interrupt attempted mind control
B) Status quo
C) Interrupt something benign
F) Get mind controlled

Interrupting still comes out ahead.

1) I ranked Interrupting something benign over Interrupting attempted mind control because Charlie values their safety. Despite not being able to control the columns, Charlie prefers knowing they are in the safe column.

2) I ranked Interrupting something benign over Status Quo because Status Quo includes Charline not knowing of Alice is an existential threat or not. I ranked Charlie's preference for knowing they are in the safe column as more than Charlie's aversion to awkwardness. Some may disagree, see #3.

3) If you flip the payouts for Status Quo and Interrupting something benign, then interrupting is no longer a strictly dominating strategy. So we would need more information (switch from ordinal payouts to quantified payouts and provide some information on the probability of each column). However you will likely reach the same conclusion unless another extreme is introduced.

We know being mind control would be a really bad outcome. What if the consequence for interrupting something benign were also really bad (example: death sentence)?
What if the likelihood of mind control was extremely low. IRL the chance of true mind control is so low (maybe 0%) that we don't consider it.

However in Charlie's case, absent additional information, I think we can dismiss 3.2. Additionally 3.1 depends on what action Charlie takes. Interrupting with minimum force rather than maximum violence is likely to avoid 3.1. Considering Interrupting attempted mind control and continuing the Status Quo are rather neutral outcomes, Interrupting something benign is a mildly negative outcome, and becoming mind controlled is a severe negative outcome we can make an example payout. I do not expect anyone (including myself) to agree 100% with the example. I just needed numbers to show the math.



Danger (P)
Benign (1-P)


Act
-1
-2


Don't Act
-10
-1


Act = -1 x (P + 2 - 2P) = -1 x (2 - P).
Don't Act = -1 x (10P + 1 - P) = -1 x (9P +1).
2 - P = 9P +1
1 = 10P
P = 1/10
Using this example quantified payout, an 10% chance that Alice used mind control would be enough to overcome the awkwardness of being mistaken the remaining 90% of the time. Of course that assumes being mind controlled is merely 5x as bad as the awkwardness. If mind control was 50x as bad as the awkwardness, then there would only need to be a 1% chance. Etc.

[Quertus]

Now if you had a setting where magic was so rare most people had never even heard about how it works or what it could do, then yes, reactions would be a lot more varied.

However, in such a setting, there would be no shops selling even potions, no temple priests available to cure problems, nobody else you could trade spells with or buy magic supplies from. On the plus side (for casters), 1st-2nd level spells would probably be enough to become the shadow ruler of most towns - or just steal anything you want if leadership isn't your bag.

So, not the typical D&D setting. I'd be down to play it, but it's hardly anti-enchantment to not consider that the default.

That's pretty much my point, yeah, that there can exist settings that might produce different responses without those settings being inherently incoherent.

Also, *most* of the D&D settings I've played in were of the "no shops" variety you describe. So, to me, that *is* the default.


Nope, the premise was that the spell was cast by a stranger while Bobs associates react. And if they are surprised, they would assume, that none of this is the case. Don't move the goalposts.
Sure true. That is why there have been qulifiers sprinkled during the thread about assumptions made. If you change those assumptions, anything goes.

But let's have a look at common popular D&D settings like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Planespace, where do you think those fall into ? How about the new edition ones like Ravnica, Theros or Stryxhaven ? Or popular/main settings of other fantasy RPGs like Aventuria, Warhammer's Old World or Lorakis ?

I would say at the overwhelming majority of tables the hostile reaction would make the most sense when NPCs were roleplayed properly.

Senility willing, I'll go back and quote the starting posts (again).

Speaking of moving goalposts, I'm only opposing the notion that any setting where the ignorant peasants don't immediately murderhobo (or otherwise interfere with) the caster is incoherent. So appealing to "but in this setting it would make sense" is completely irrelevant - I have never contended that it is impossible for a setting to exist where someone might reasonably (or unreasonably, because human(oid)s aren't always perfectly rational) take such an action.


Quertus, double checking, are you arguing about the murderhobo part or the rational paranoia and skepticism in the face of "Alice did something unrecognizable and immediately Bob had a sudden inexplicable change of mental state"?

Fair question. Senility willing, I'll circle back to this at the end.


I am going to pretend Charlie saw Alice and Bob.
1) Charlie doesn't need to know Alice was spellcasting. Alice did something unrecognizable with unknown limits and effects.
2) It looks like you both agree that Charlie does not know what spell it was.
3) Charlie probably believes that mind control can exist. They might not know anything more about it.
4) Charlie did not witness any consent, but is currently considering the dangers of escalated user privileges (although not in those words). Unless Charlie believes Bob would grant Alice root access, then Charlie is still concerned.
5) Charline perceived Bob's change in mental state as sudden, inexplicable, and correlated with Alice's action.

I… Hmmm… "provisionally"(?) don't object to your 5 points, provided they are general enough that Alice saying "Gesundheit" qualifies (especially for #1 & #5).


From those premises alone Charlie can suspect the possibility that Alice used mind control on Bob as one of several scenarios they are evaluating for potential risk (including it some unknown Dave that did this).

Good call - I should definitely add Dave to my examples.


If Charlie sees Alice start to do the "something" again,

Now, that's an added wrinkle. Senility willing, I'll return to the original quote (and perhaps the responses as well), but I suspect that this is goalpost moving - that there was no mention Alice attempting additional magic as a prerequisite for the murderhobo-fest to commence.

"Ready an action to interfere should Alice attempt something 'like that' again" (in 3e parlance) is… more sane than many responses, but still not "the only possible valid response, else the setting is incoherent", IMO.


what are the outcomes if Charlie's theory is right/wrong and they do/don't act on it? I added ordinal payouts. 1 is best outcome for Charlie. 4 is worst outcome for Charlie (my judgement). From my estimates acting is the strictly dominant strategy (provided acting in a way that preserves my ordering of 1 and 2).



Right
Right
Wrong
Wrong


Act
Interrupt attempted
mind control
3
Interrupt something benign.
Miscommunication identified.
1


Don't Act
Become mind controlled
4
Status quo
2



Now Charlie could act in many ways. Some of those ways preserve "Acting and clearing up the confusion" being better than "Status Quo". For example preventing Alice from doing the something while asking and investigating what that something was. Other reactions (kill first ask questions later) reverse that payout and make the rational response depend on the severity of the payouts and the probability that Alice did use mind control.

OK, we're at the end. Now what?

I imagine that someone screaming, "you fools!" after characters have taken actions in ignorance, and before things go ploin-shaped, is common enough that I don't need to explain the basic concept. So now, a silly example:


Bob thought that the woman before him was, in fact, his long-lost niece, carried off by wolves the night her parents were murdered, and their family home burned down. The family resemblance was strong, her mannerisms wild, and the wolf pelts worn proudly and clearly better cared for than the rest of her makeshift rags all pointed in that direction, but she was quite evasive about her past.

But then she revealed her true colors, casting a spell in the unmistakable family style. Happy days, his lost niece had returned home!

-----

Alice had read the bones, she knew that her past would only bring her pain. And her foes doubtless knew it, too, which was why this should be the last place they looked for her.

Yet this shopkeep just wouldn't let up with the questions. What part of "in a hurry" did he not understand?

Too late! They'd found her. She had missed the "scry" portion of their "scry and die" (probably due to the shopkeep's constant distractions), but her spells had caught and delayed the Teleportation effect that preceded the "die" half. She needed to erect magical defenses quickly, else these innocent bystanders would suffer the same fate as so many others.

Only… why were the innocent bystanders grappling her?

Alice managed to bite out, "You fools! You've doomed us all!" before the hit squad appeared, Delayed Blast Fireball gems in hand. The immediate surroundings turned to flame, and her Contingency went off.

Or, to continue your example, Dave has Bob kill Alice while Charlie is grappling the poor naive heroine.

Point is, there's catastrophic failure cases for Charlie intervening. It's not a no-cost action.

And it's not just act / no act - there are numerous possible actions one could take. If you're an ignorant peasant, living in a world where magic common, I personally would think "getting someone who has a clue" would be a good answer, but apparently that makes IRL incoherent that I could think of that.

Or, closer to home, imagine if you sneezed, and then you saw someone football tackle someone for saying "Gesundheit".

Or, more relevant to my position, imagine a setting where only the PCs - who are famous and beloved, champions of good, and known to have saved the world blah blah blah, but who not everyone has actually laid eyes on before - can cast spells. And Alice just cast a spell.

To answer your initial question explicitly (having, I hope, answered it implicitly and in detail with this post), I am opposed to both halves, to both the murderhobo-fest, and to the belief that any setting where interference isn't the only possible answer is incoherent. But mostly to the second half.

EDIT: don't forget that you're role-playing an ignorant peasant. "Charlie knows mind control exists, but, because Bob's eyes didn't change color, Charlie knows that Alice didn't mind control Bob" is, IMO, a perfectly valid potential thought process, whereas I'm opposing the claim that Charlie believing such & acting accordingly would make the world incoherent.

[Telok]

Perhaps part of the issue is that the lowest common denominator of D&D isn't exactly consistent between its rules, its fluff, its adventures, and its novels.

Its current rules say that all casting is automatically recognized as such and anyone can check to identify spells. The fluff does stuff like bards "weaving spells into songs" while performing, or wizards using spells in social settings like its normal and ok. The adventures have things like npcs emulating sorcerer subtle spell with stealth and of course the novels & such are all over the place. And you know there should be a "find lost car keys" type spell thats vastly more common and popular than Magic Missile, but the PH only really has combat & adventure spells.

I think its understandable how some people can want or assume certain things about magic that violate actual rules in LCD D&D. So what do? Write out rules for stuff? Put in some world building or adventure advice? Make a checklist of rulings DMs are going to have to make? Just let there be play traps for people to hit? Learn for other games that don't have similar problems?

[OldTrees1]

That's pretty much my point, yeah, that there can exist settings that might produce different responses without those settings being inherently incoherent.

I'm only opposing the notion that any setting where the ignorant peasants don't immediately murderhobo (or otherwise interfere with) the caster is incoherent.

Senility willing, I'll go back and quote the starting posts (again).

Wait. Thanks for prompting me to check and giving me enough information to find the root of the argument.

You both agree there can be multiple different responses to the generalized scenario. However PhoenixPhyre is arguing that over time the reactions that defend against extreme hostile magic will dominate over the reactions that leave themselves vulnerable to extreme hostile magic. I don't even think they claim any would strictly dominate. Merely that the general consensus would be that nonconsensual magic should be presumed to be assault.

As expected I fall somewhere between you two. I can see good arguments for the rational response being to act. There are qualifiers on when/how but it appears like defenses against extreme hostile magic are a rational response. People are not entirely rational but selection pressure (societies vulnerable to mental enslavement are mentally enslaved more often) would promote the rational response.



I… Hmmm… "provisionally"(?) don't object to your 5 points, provided they are general enough that Alice saying "Gesundheit" qualifies (especially for #1 & #5).
Yes. If Alice says "Gesundheit" at the same time as Bob has a sudden inexplicable change of mental state, and Charlie is in a world where mind control is a threat, then Charlie should consider the possibilities that Alice or Dave used mind control on Bob.




Good call - I should definitely add Dave to my examples.

Dave might be better left implicit rather than explicit. I don't want to bring Emily into this. Basically I am just using Dave to signify that Charlie should not limit their threat assessment at merely the visible actors.


Now, that's an added wrinkle. Senility willing, I'll return to the original quote (and perhaps the responses as well), but I suspect that this is goalpost moving - that there was no mention Alice attempting additional magic as a prerequisite for the murderhobo-fest to commence.

"Ready an action to interfere should Alice attempt something 'like that' again" (in 3e parlance) is… more sane than many responses, but still not "the only possible valid response, else the setting is incoherent", IMO.

This additional wrinkle was just to simplify the possible anti-mind-control reactions Charlie could choose between and to force Charlie to choose.

Forgive me, but "the only possible valid response, else the setting is incoherent" is an exaggerated version of PhoenixPhyre's original post and I am making a milder initial claim.




OK, we're at the end. Now what?

To answer your initial question explicitly (having, I hope, answered it implicitly and in detail with this post), I am opposed to both halves, to both the murderhobo-fest, and to the belief that any setting where interference isn't the only possible answer is incoherent. But mostly to the second half.

I have avoided implying "murderhobo-fest" because that is not the only type of anti-mind-control protocol.
PhoenixPhyre was arguing that nonconsensual use of magic, in a world with extreme hostile magic <additional qualifiers>, would generally be considered assault. I fail to see where they claim there is only 1 response to perceiving assault.

You asked "Now what?". I believe my logic shows enacting some ant-mind-control procedure is the rational response provided your choice of procedure does not alter the ordinal payouts. My follow up logic (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25178263&postcount=114) says that even in cases where the ordinal payouts in the right column flip, the extreme negative of mind control requires another extreme (extremely low probability or high downside to a false positive) in order to destabilized the rational response.

As a result, the general case would
A) Have Charlie's rational consideration consider the possibility Alice did assault Bob (and similarly the possibility some Dave assaulted Bob)
and B) Have Charlie's rational response be to enact some form of anti-mind-control procedure.

This is still milder than PhoenixPhyre's claim that coherent settings would treat Alice's nonconsentual magic as assult.
Which in turn is much milder than your claim that PhoenixPhyre's is claiming something about murderhoboing being the only coherent response.



Now a couple of your follow up examples include adding an additional actor. I have referenced Charlie would need to also consider a possible unseen Dave assaulting Bob. For simplicity and to be brief, I have not detailed the responses Charlie might have to the possibility of that Dave. Instead I merely referenced it would be rational for Charlie to do so. If Bob starts to act, Charlie might respond.

In your scry-and-die world Charlie would also already have considered and enacted whatever protocol they have to the ongoing omnipresent threat of scry-and-die Emily. Adding a scry-and-die Emily does not change the payouts.

A couple of your examples target the anti-murderhobo perspective and/or invoke intuitions about our world rather than a world with much more probable mind control. Your IRL sneeze example is a false analogy due to the difference in mind control probability. The only reasonable IRL examples I know involve censored topics. Let's stay away from IRL.


EDIT: don't forget that you're role-playing an ignorant peasant. "Charlie knows mind control exists, but, because Bob's eyes didn't change color, Charlie knows that Alice didn't mind control Bob" is, IMO, a perfectly valid potential thought process, whereas I'm opposing the claim that Charlie believing such & acting accordingly would make the world incoherent.
Yes but it is also rational, given the severity of mind control, for Charlie to also consider the case where the "eye color" is not a valid test. Also in a world where mind control is a real threat, some information would be taught. Parents teach children about the dangers they might face.



So Quertus, in a world where mind control threats are worth considering, nonconsensual magic that coincides with a sudden otherwise inexplicable change in mental state, would be a big warning sign that might trigger anti-mind-control procedures. The actual nature of those procedures might vary based on context, but it is a rational response to consider of the nonconsensual magic might be hostile mind control.

[icefractal]

I guess also I wasn't primarily considering using these spells on random peasants - sure, sometimes that'll come up, but often when people are going to the extent of using enchantments, it's on someone in a position of some authority or power.

Does that mean they know anything more about magic? It depends on the world. In a world where casters are common enough for dishonest mages to be a threat (which doesn't need to be that common), then authorities who could easily be subverted by 1st-level spell raise the question: "Why haven't they already been subverted and/or replaced?"

And I'm not opposed to the PCs being significant outliers, in fact I prefer for high-level characters (and defenses against such) to be very rare in the world, and by mid-levels the PCs can easily be A Big Deal™. But "even 1st level PCs are an out-of-context problem that 99% of the world stands no chance against" is a bit too far for my tastes.

[Satinavian]

Speaking of moving goalposts, I'm only opposing the notion that any setting where the ignorant peasants don't immediately murderhobo (or otherwise interfere with) the caster is incoherent. So appealing to "but in this setting it would make sense" is completely irrelevant - I have never contended that it is impossible for a setting to exist where someone might reasonably (or unreasonably, because human(oid)s aren't always perfectly rational) take such an action.
Sure, there can always be setting that work differently. No one ever questioned the setting dependence.

But when i would run any of the official D&D settings i am somewahat familiar with or any of the custom D&D settings i have ever run or any of the other fantasy settings i have played/run (and that have mind control), they all would have a hostile reaction to such potential mind control. That is why i see this as default.

[Xervous]

If anything the biggest flaw I’m seeing here is that 1 in 4 Joe Farmers will know what spellcasting, or a given cantrip is by VSM components alone. Garbage in...

[Quertus]

. Forgive me, but "the only possible valid response, else the setting is incoherent" is an exaggerated version of PhoenixPhyre's original post and I am making a milder initial claim.

Are you sure? Here's the relevant quote:



Any other option makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would.

I know that reading comprehension isn't my strong suit, and that you're one of the sanest people on the Playground, so I have to accept the possibility that I've misinterpreted things here. If I have, care to step me through how that doesn't say what I thought it did?

Also, note the reference to "real world people". This is why my claim that the fact that people IRL don't football tackle you for speaking strange words and wiggling your fingers, demonstrating that it is a matter of *setting*, of culture and beliefs, not simply "humans must act this way, else your setting is incoherent" is relevant.

Speaking of… imagine a being appeared IRL, and claimed omnipotence (and omniscience, and…). After years or decades of the best minds on the planet - or, why not, *everyone* on the planet, because it can handle billions of conversations and demonstrations simultaneously - testing it, its claims remain unfalsifiable.

Obviously, by definition of "omnipotence", this being is capable of mind control.

After all this time, it takes an action, and Bob seems inexplicably happy. Do you enact mind control protocol? Why / why not?

[OldTrees1]

Are you sure? Here's the relevant quote:



People will react based on their experiences and their take on the situation. And that depends on the situation. Just as an analogous situation would be in the real world.

Yes, you might get the initial "what the heck did you do!" reaction. And the law might (justifiably) treat any non-consensual magic as a hostile action. Just like if you go and inject someone on the street with a (hypothetical) non-addicting[1] "pure bliss" drug without their prior consent. That's assault (at minimum). Doesn't matter if later, they liked it.

So I'd say that in general, casting spells on people without their prior, knowing consent is a no-no and likely to get at least a negative, if not hostile, reaction from onlookers. It's a form of assault, and in a world with real magic, it's a form of assault with a deadly weapon. Casting a spell without notice and consent, in anything like a settled, lawful area, is akin to pulling out a gun and waving it around in the real world. -snip-

Any other option makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would.



I know that reading comprehension isn't my strong suit, and that you're one of the sanest people on the Playground, so I have to accept the possibility that I've misinterpreted things here. If I have, care to step me through how that doesn't say what I thought it did?

Also, note the reference to "real world people". This is why my claim that the fact that people IRL don't football tackle you for speaking strange words and wiggling your fingers, demonstrating that it is a matter of *setting*, of culture and beliefs, not simply "humans must act this way, else your setting is incoherent" is relevant.

Speaking of… imagine a being appeared IRL, and claimed omnipotence (and omniscience, and…). After years or decades of the best minds on the planet - or, why not, *everyone* on the planet, because it can handle billions of conversations and demonstrations simultaneously - testing it, its claims remain unfalsifiable.

Obviously, by definition of "omnipotence", this being is capable of mind control.

After all this time, it takes an action, and Bob seems inexplicably happy. Do you enact mind control protocol? Why / why not?

I expanded the relevant part of the quote.

My reading was, PhoenixPhyre was saying something like:
You will get some people reacting with shock.
Generally the nonconsensual magic would be seen as assault. (They compared it to nonconsensual drugging someone IRL)
Generally the nonconsensual magic would be a no-no and the reaction would likely be some kind of negative reaction. (They now compare it to assault with a deadly weapon IRL)
Any setting that ignores the assault aspect without changing the context to remove the assault aspect would be an incoherent setting.
End of reading:

So I don't see them saying there is going to be only 1 reaction or that the reaction will be universal. I do see them saying there are assault like elements that will cause people to generally treat it negatively. Personally I would soften the claim by saying that populations that didn't treat it with caution were less likely to persist than ones that did.


IRL if Charlie seeks Alice drug Bob without Bob's consent, Charlie is likely to view that as a no-no and probably treat it as assault. IRL weird words don't have power, so the football sneeze is a flawed analogy. However, as I said before, I don't think the IRL examples are safe to discuss in depth.


In your "there exists credible evidence of an omnipotent creature that could mind control" example. I have already enacted some degree of anti-mind-control procedures before Bob's inexplicable mental change. If I faced an AI in a box (a lesser threat) then I would enact precautionary anti-mind-control procedures.

[Max_Killjoy]

EDIT: don't forget that you're role-playing an ignorant peasant. "Charlie knows mind control exists, but, because Bob's eyes didn't change color, Charlie knows that Alice didn't mind control Bob" is, IMO, a perfectly valid potential thought process, whereas I'm opposing the claim that Charlie believing such & acting accordingly would make the world incoherent.


As a sidenote, the "ignorant peasant" -- the idea that the average "medieval" person was an utterly illiterate, ignorant, moronic, abject dirt farmer -- is very much a sad trope of fiction and the bad scholarship of a former century.

[kyoryu]

IRL if Charlie seeks Alice drug Bob without Bob's consent, Charlie is likely to view that as a no-no and probably treat it as assault.

This is probably the best analogy. The only place that it's a little missing is that there's a lot of subtle ways to get Alice to not drink the drugged drink, as that is an indirect and not-immediate action, while casting a spell on someone is immediate and direct. But it's likely the closest real-world analogy we have, and the places where it fails should be pretty apparent as performing actions that would be applicable to the drink wouldn't actually stop the casting.

[Max_Killjoy]

Perhaps part of the issue is that the lowest common denominator of D&D isn't exactly consistent between its rules, its fluff, its adventures, and its novels.

Its current rules say that all casting is automatically recognized as such and anyone can check to identify spells. The fluff does stuff like bards "weaving spells into songs" while performing, or wizards using spells in social settings like its normal and ok. The adventures have things like npcs emulating sorcerer subtle spell with stealth and of course the novels & such are all over the place. And you know there should be a "find lost car keys" type spell thats vastly more common and popular than Magic Missile, but the PH only really has combat & adventure spells.

I think its understandable how some people can want or assume certain things about magic that violate actual rules in LCD D&D. So what do? Write out rules for stuff? Put in some world building or adventure advice? Make a checklist of rulings DMs are going to have to make? Just let there be play traps for people to hit? Learn for other games that don't have similar problems?


That might require D&D to have an explicit specific setting, instead of the implicit setting of the rules and fluff, as a base of spelled-out (no pun) facts and assumptions to start from.

[Quertus]

As a sidenote, the "ignorant peasant" -- the idea that the average "medieval" person was an utterly illiterate, ignorant, moronic, abject dirt farmer -- is very much a sad trope of fiction and the bad scholarship of a former century.

Irrelevant. In D&D, the average peasant is illiterate through 2e, and literature in 3e (and after?). The observer - "Charlie" - is definitionally ignorant, by scenario design.

If you prefer, we can go with a more modern example, and have someone who could mistake a CD-ROM drive for a cup holder to give us computer security advice .

Because that's what we're really talking about here: someone so ignorant about something (depending on edition or IRL year) somewhere between arcane and ubiquitous like computers (magic) as to be unable to identify their individual parts (spells) has to make a decision regarding how to react to potential security threats (the casting of a spell).

Which, even granting that the question had been asked / this isn't happening invisibly over wifi (they recognize the spell as a spell (or at least something out of the ordinary) in the first place - which *I* think should be common, but…) may violate the initial premise.


I expanded the relevant part of the quote.

My reading was, PhoenixPhyre was saying something like:
You will get some people reacting with shock.
Generally the nonconsensual magic would be seen as assault. (They compared it to nonconsensual drugging someone IRL)
Generally the nonconsensual magic would be a no-no and the reaction would likely be some kind of negative reaction. (They now compare it to assault with a deadly weapon IRL)
Any setting that ignores the assault aspect without changing the context to remove the assault aspect would be an incoherent setting.
End of reading:

Charlie cannot confirm that the magic was non-consensual, only that he cannot personally confirm consent.

"Good Samaritan" laws (and… "required aid?" laws) really complicate this, and either make "drugging someone" a dodgy example, or help prove my point, depending on your PoV.


So I don't see them saying there is going to be only 1 reaction or that the reaction will be universal. I do see them saying there are assault like elements that will cause people to generally treat it negatively. .

"The setting will treat it like assault, else it is incoherent"? That's slightly different from what I read, but I can see that as a valid interpretation of those words.

So, how would people respond to nobility or a police state or an omnipotent being assaulting someone?


Personally I would soften the claim by saying that populations that didn't treat it with caution were less likely to persist than ones that did.

That claim is, at least, much more easily proved false. Or, at least, not universally true, for all possible settings and all possible ranges of and all possible practitioners of magic.


IRL if Charlie seeks Alice drug Bob without Bob's consent, Charlie is likely to view that as a no-no and probably treat it as assault.

IRL, that scenario? Full of false positives and false negatives, and with people acting when they shouldn't, and not acting when they should. Complicated further by the… uh, "non-uniform" existence of "Good Samaritan" and "mandated aid" laws, plus other cultural… differences.

I can't even begin to evaluate how closely the probability curves through various IRL cultures cleave to responses to general "assault" on this one.

I can only say that *my* response could vary *greatly* between "injection" and "assault" under various circumstances. Similarly, drawing a gun and drawing a needle in my vicinity could produce markedly different responses.

So… I'm not buying it. Even before the possible cultural differences of "how are spells viewed by this culture" are factored in.

(Of course, maybe I'm weird. Or maybe I have *too much* experience with both guns and medicine (my mom & sister are both nurses), and so maybe my opinion should be disqualified as not representative of an ignorant peasant.)


IRL weird words don't have power, so the football sneeze is a flawed analogy. However, as I said before, I don't think the IRL examples are safe to discuss in depth..

In the world of Harry Potter, muggles don't football tackle people for saying strange words and wiggling their fingers. Safer? (It probably *shouldn't* be, but… I'm not sure why it's not safe in the first place to properly evaluate the question)


In your "there exists credible evidence of an omnipotent creature that could mind control" example. I have already enacted some degree of anti-mind-control procedures before Bob's inexplicable mental change. If I faced an AI in a box (a lesser threat) then I would enact precautionary anti-mind-control procedures.

Interesting.

This being had demonstrated no holes in its abilities to know everything, and to resculpt reality at will.

I'm left drawing a blank what anti-mind-control procedures would look like, or what function they would serve, in such a scenario.

(Being what I consider paranoid, I would have implemented such early on, but… if it demonstrated what *I* consider omnipotence + omniscience… I don't really have a… a counter, or even a response, to malign intent)

[icefractal]

In the "omnipotent being" case, I can't think of any anti-mind control measures that would be effective, but that's different than not noticing the possibility of mind control.

I'm not saying that most people's response to "Wait, did he just cast a spell on Bob?" would be to attack - that depends a lot of the situation and how confident they feel confronting the caster; IIRC the original question was just "Would it be noticed and potentially screw up the intended interaction?"

So sometimes it might work out fine for the caster:
A: "Hello, I need a horse, as quickly as possible."
B: (scowling) "In a hurry, eh? Well then ask nicely and maybe I'll sell you one for ... let's say 500 gold."
A: (waves hands) "Laed doog a'em evig, dneirf tseb ruoymi"
B: (suddenly cheerful) "Hah, I was just messing with you, pal. How's 50 gold sound?"
C: (gets really nervous) "Oh, uh, yeah, the horses are out in, uh, in that barn. Why don't you, uh, go have a look and pick which one you want."
As soon as A leaves to the barn, C runs to warn people ...
C: "Oh ****, oh ****, that new traveler's got the evil eye! Better get her what she wants quick so she leaves soon, before anyone else gets cursed!"

Other times it'll be more of a problem. Probably not something to do to anyone you want a longer-term friendly relationship with.

[Mechalich]

The in-universe response of the 'common people' to magic, like any other supernatural element, will depend on both how common that element is, and how accurate the knowledge they possess happens to be (ex. the common person in the modern world has a deeply skewed understanding on how anti-personnel explosives work due to the impact of Hollywood and video games).

The commonality of magic varies immensely in various D&D settings and many other fantasy systems with identifiable 'spellcasters.' In D&D 3.X, magic is so common that almost everyone knows a spellcaster personally, because even a 100-person hamlet has a 1st level Adept, Cleric, or Druid in residence. That's probably the high water mark for magical exposure. In that situation almost everyone will recognize a spell being cast because everyone's seen spells cast on the regular basis. However, this is absolutely not universal. 2e Dragonlance operated under the assumption that the entire setting probably contained maybe 100 arcane casters in total, so most of the population had never seen a wizard, much less seen them cast a spell in public, and there were no divine casters at all in the main timeframe.

All of this illustrates that the reaction of people to magic being cast, a mechanically important aspect of spellcasting, depends on the world-building. As ever, world-building impacts mechanics and vice-versa.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In the "omnipotent being" case, I can't think of any anti-mind control measures that would be effective, but that's different than not noticing the possibility of mind control.

I'm not saying that most people's response to "Wait, did he just cast a spell on Bob?" would be to attack - that depends a lot of the situation and how confident they feel confronting the caster; IIRC the original question was just "Would it be noticed and potentially screw up the intended interaction?"

So sometimes it might work out fine for the caster:
A: "Hello, I need a horse, as quickly as possible."
B: (scowling) "In a hurry, eh? Well then ask nicely and maybe I'll sell you one for ... let's say 500 gold."
A: (waves hands) "Laed doog a'em evig, dneirf tseb ruoymi"
B: (suddenly cheerful) "Hah, I was just messing with you, pal. How's 50 gold sound?"
C: (gets really nervous) "Oh, uh, yeah, the horses are out in, uh, in that barn. Why don't you, uh, go have a look and pick which one you want."
As soon as A leaves to the barn, C runs to warn people ...
C: "Oh ****, oh ****, that new traveler's got the evil eye! Better get her what she wants quick so she leaves soon, before anyone else gets cursed!"

Other times it'll be more of a problem. Probably not something to do to anyone you want a longer-term friendly relationship with.

Note: I explicitly disclaimed the idea that the default response would be to attack (or even become truly hostile). Much more likely are
* Some form of surprised reaction (including, but not limited to, panic)
* muttering or grumbling
* negative attitude change of some variable magnitude.
* suspicion


The in-universe response of the 'common people' to magic, like any other supernatural element, will depend on both how common that element is, and how accurate the knowledge they possess happens to be (ex. the common person in the modern world has a deeply skewed understanding on how anti-personnel explosives work due to the impact of Hollywood and video games).

The commonality of magic varies immensely in various D&D settings and many other fantasy systems with identifiable 'spellcasters.' In D&D 3.X, magic is so common that almost everyone knows a spellcaster personally, because even a 100-person hamlet has a 1st level Adept, Cleric, or Druid in residence. That's probably the high water mark for magical exposure. In that situation almost everyone will recognize a spell being cast because everyone's seen spells cast on the regular basis. However, this is absolutely not universal. 2e Dragonlance operated under the assumption that the entire setting probably contained maybe 100 arcane casters in total, so most of the population had never seen a wizard, much less seen them cast a spell in public, and there were no divine casters at all in the main timeframe.

All of this illustrates that the reaction of people to magic being cast, a mechanically important aspect of spellcasting, depends on the world-building. As ever, world-building impacts mechanics and vice-versa.

I'm going off of 5e, where the default is "everyone recognizes spellcasting as spellcasting" and "no one[1] recognizes what spell it is". My own personal setting has common (but low-powered) magic--a large chunk of everyone can cast cantrip-level magic[2] but very few can cast spells above 5th level, with exponential decline between the two.

In most of the "civilized" nations, one of the capital-level crimes is "use of mind-affecting magic on citizens for personal gain except in clear self-defense". Since imprisoning a caster is hard, your choices are permanent exile (ie kill on sight if you come back) or death. And that's policed; accusations of use of such magic are taken very seriously and detect magic is one of the more commonly-known spells among guards and enforcers. Because the ruling classes want to make it very clear that it's a bad idea to try to influence people (ie them) that way. Even registered adventurers, who stand outside the normal laws in many ways (by international agreement) are subject to that law.

[1] by default recognizing a spell is impossible for everyone; there is an optional rule that puts it at an Intelligence (Arcana) check of DC 15 + spell level. So "rounding error" know what spell it is, even in best-case.
[2] most common "spells" aren't really spells in the normal sense--they're chants that have a small effect (e.g. acting as a mild bug repellant for livestock, making weeds glow slightly to the user's sight, make wheels roll slightly more smoothly, etc) while the user is chanting[3] or rituals enacted by trained (but otherwise non-magical) people that have longer-lasting effects such as "reduce the chance of livestock birthing troubles" or "bind the thatch of this roof together so it's more waterproof and durable".
[3] anyone with the appropriate training (which most people receive as part of their apprenticeship/training in a field, learning the common "secret chants" of the field) can do this, the only restrictions being how long your voice holds out.

[OldTrees1]

In the world of Harry Potter, muggles don't football tackle people for saying strange words and wiggling their fingers. Safer? (It probably *shouldn't* be, but… I'm not sure why it's not safe in the first place to properly evaluate the question)
Forums have rules. That is why I am avoiding digging into the IRL comparisons.

The world of Harry Potter had the government of the country fall because too few people listened to Moody.
The world of Harry Potter also uses extensive mind control to fool the muddles into not realizing direct mind control is a real threat in their world. (Basically magical Britain uses mind control to fool muggle Britain into thinking there are in IRL Britain.)


Charlie cannot confirm that the magic was non-consensual, only that he cannot personally confirm consent.
While Charlie cannot confirm, the scenario as you communicated it to PhoenixPhyre implies Charlies perceives a lack of consent. While that is not enough to confirm it was non-consensual, it is evidence that nudges Charlie towards acting as if it were hostile mind control.


"Good Samaritan" laws (and… "required aid?" laws) really complicate this, and either make "drugging someone" a dodgy example, or help prove my point, depending on your PoV.
I am not digging into this topic on this forum.


"The setting will treat it like assault, else it is incoherent"? That's slightly different from what I read, but I can see that as a valid interpretation of those words.

So, how would people respond to nobility or a police state or an omnipotent being assaulting someone?
Yeah that different reading softens the claim significantly.

People will probably respond in a variety of ways.


That claim is, at least, much more easily proved false. Or, at least, not universally true, for all possible settings and all possible ranges of and all possible practitioners of magic.
I believe it generally holds that societies that face a threat but are relatively less prepared to defend against that threat will have a worse defense against that threat. Assuming it is an existential threat, having a worse defense decreases the chance the society will persist.

This might not be universally true, but I believe it will hold for the vast majority of cases.


IRL, that scenario?
I am not digging into this topic on this forum.



Interesting.

This being had demonstrated no holes in its abilities to know everything, and to resculpt reality at will.

I'm left drawing a blank what anti-mind-control procedures would look like, or what function they would serve, in such a scenario.

(Being what I consider paranoid, I would have implemented such early on, but… if it demonstrated what *I* consider omnipotence + omniscience… I don't really have a… a counter, or even a response, to malign intent)
I do not pretend a fly can avoid being squashed, but it will still try to avoid being squashed. I don't expect to come up with good procedures for this scenario, but I would have enacted the best I could think of.

In that particular example, I suspect the main benefit would be possibly recognizing when you/another were affected and recognizing the scope of what is affected. That might give you a final moment of agency.

There is an alternative. An Omniscient Omnipotent being with an intent has 1 weakness. Their intent is their weakness. As long as they satisfy their intent, you might be able to affect the outcome of details they find irrelevant.

[Max_Killjoy]

Irrelevant. In D&D, the average peasant is illiterate through 2e, and literature in 3e (and after?). The observer - "Charlie" - is definitionally ignorant, by scenario design.


OK, but then you're also stuck with the by-the-book fact that spellcasting is really freaking obvious without special abilities that mitigate that.

[Quertus]

OK, but then you're also stuck with the by-the-book fact that spellcasting is really freaking obvious without special abilities that mitigate that.

A) obvious in some editions / at some tables, not universally (but obvious in most/all *my* settings, so I'm not strongly objecting)

B) obvious, yes, but not obvious *as spellcasting* (in most editions). Thus, "Gesundheit". Or speaking to Bob in his native language. Or saying the gobbledygook password to your secret society. All of which would look the same to the ignorant Charlie

The original complaint was about GMs treating the spell unfairly. Everyone ignoring these details is simply proving that point.

People complain about Rogues having a "roll until you fail" model for stealth, or casters having a "roll to cast + roll to target + roll to resist" model of Iterative chance of failure, but seem to ignore the multiple layers of potential failure inherent in processing information, from inattentive (didn't notice) to self-doubt ("did I really just see that?)) to "CD-ROM cupholder" level misconceptions ("his eyes didn't change color, so it couldn't have been mind control") to straight up irrational logic leaps.

Oldtrees1 claimed that I was making strong claims. To my mind, I haven't been making claims (at least not at that level) yet, mostly just trying to present ideas so others can do their own thinking, form their own opinions. But now I'll make a claim, intentionally at the same level as the previous one:
Humans rarely behave as truly rational actors; ignorant humans even more rarely. Any setting which does not take this into account makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would.

Also, having thought about it more… while I can't (and maybe shouldn't?) analyze how various IRL societies statistically respond to witnessing various forms of "assault", I *can* comment on the *individuals* whom I know how they tend to respond to witnessing various forms of assault. And, like me, they don't respond to different forms the same way.

So I think claims that casting will be treated like assault are meaningless at best, and more likely inaccurate and/or misleading. Even a society that defaults to treating casting as a form of assault will need to evaluate it as is own thing, not simply crib behaviors from an existing thing, to be consistent / coherent / etc.

As for the closest thing to use as a parallel? Best I've got so far is, Charlie (who just broke the cupholder on his PC) sees Alice sitting at Bob's desk

As far as cost/benefit analysis goes… how does one measure the risk of "Alice gets a good deal on a horse" vs the risk of "Charlie alienates the Healer's Guild, and the town dies to the plague" or "Alice gets a good deal on a horse" vs "the world ends"?

Personally, I suspect that the numbers will show that those who treat beings of power (especially PCs) well will generally fare better than those who don't.

[Satinavian]

The original complaint was about GMs treating the spell unfairly. Everyone ignoring these details is simply proving that point.
People just object to the idea that this is unfair treatment. How does that prove that this is indeed unfair ?

That we don't get this discussion about "stealth until fail" seems to suggest that these things are indeed considered to be different regarding fairness.


Humans rarely behave as truly rational actors; ignorant humans even more rarely. Any setting which does not take this into account makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would.I don't play NPCs differently from PCs. I consider what they know/perceive, what their goals and character traits are and decide what the most fitting reaction is. Is this rational ? Who cares.


As for legality of specifically mind control, i tend to judge it less as assault and more as coercion. There might be specific laws about it on top of that.

[OldTrees1]

Oldtrees1 claimed that I was making strong claims.

I don't think I claimed anything of the sort about your claims. Even then, the majority of your argumentation was several counterclaims and example scenarios. I don't think it would make sense to measure the severity of your claims.

I did make claims about the severity of PhoenixPhyre's and my claim. Especially in relation to your initial reading of PhoenixPhyre's claim. For example the claim "The moon is made of cheddar cheese" is a more extreme claim than "The moon is made of cheese".

Part of my goal was to clarify what part was not in disagreement (especially how there are a various responses). For example you now made the claim that "Humans rarely behave as truly rational actors; ignorant humans even more rarely. Any setting which does not take this into account makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would." which is a reasonable claim. I don't disagree with it.

And with that claim as a premise, I would still suspect societies to take some imperfectly rational precautions to existential threats whose potential they are aware of. Part of those precautions might cause false positives if someone casts a benign spell in a way that mimics the warning signs of the threat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I agree that people[1] are often irrational. But people also fear the unknown, the different. And magic is both unknown and different. And fear doesn't make people react better (more favorably) than is rational, it makes them react worse (less favorably) than is rational. So calling out irrationality only makes my point stronger, as far as I can tell.

* Magic happened
* I've heard of magic doing horrible things [even if those things aren't necessarily true; bad rumors spread way faster than good ones]
* <rational response> Well, it doesn't look like this was a horrible thing, wait and see
* <fear/irrational response> Run away/panic/react badly

[1] not just ignorant people--those who believe they're educated are often just as irrational as uneducated people, just in different ways.

[Mechalich]

I agree that people[1] are often irrational. But people also fear the unknown, the different. And magic is both unknown and different. And fear doesn't make people react better (more favorably) than is rational, it makes them react worse (less favorably) than is rational. So calling out irrationality only makes my point stronger, as far as I can tell.

* Magic happened
* I've heard of magic doing horrible things [even if those things aren't necessarily true; bad rumors spread way faster than good ones]
* <rational response> Well, it doesn't look like this was a horrible thing, wait and see
* <fear/irrational response> Run away/panic/react badly

[1] not just ignorant people--those who believe they're educated are often just as irrational as uneducated people, just in different ways.

There is, in fact, a strong argument that, once the existence of magic is postulated, the wizards will either: 1. be constantly on the run from those who wish to purge them as monstrous abominations, 2. hide behind some sort of complex masquerade, or 3. be essentially forced to use their phenomenal powers to take either implicit or explicit control of the world in order to avoid oppression by the masses. Peaceful D&D style coexistence is probably the least likely scenario.

[Satinavian]

There is, in fact, a strong argument that, once the existence of magic is postulated, the wizards will either: 1. be constantly on the run from those who wish to purge them as monstrous abominations, 2. hide behind some sort of complex masquerade, or 3. be essentially forced to use their phenomenal powers to take either implicit or explicit control of the world in order to avoid oppression by the masses. Peaceful D&D style coexistence is probably the least likely scenario.
Depends a lot on what magic can do. People will react quite differently to others manifesting mind control or healing powers.
Then fear is not the only thing to react, there is also greed. Poeple trying to get magic or control magic is pretty much as likely.

Therefore fully embedded and respected magic users doing things society wants from them but also operating under clear limits of what is acceptable magic use with anyone not willing to fill that role being shunned and hunted down seems the most likely outcome. Those official, conform mages would obviously help hunting and punishing those criminals that give their profession a bad reputation.

But the most important thing is that magic should never be "the unknown" if it is used for thousands of years. It might be too complicated for a layperson to understand any details or might require privileged education to master, but it is still just a job. A layperson might not know how a wizard uses a mind control spell, but neither does he know how a blacksmith makes a sword. But that doesn't make either inherently strange or unknown.

[Vahnavoi]

Congratulations, after a really long sidetrack, you've finally come back to a situation where negativity bias and trauma-based behaviours are relevant. :smalltongue:

Shortly, because of the bias, bad magic-users and bad uses of magic are more memorable than good ones. If the good doesn't exist in much greater quantities than the bad in early stages of magical development, it's easy to reach a situation where muggles will try to avoid or eliminate all magic use based on past traumas.

I had a longer post written to answer OldTrees1 and Max_Killjoy, but I gave up on it since it was taking too long to write and this thread got sidetracked by the magic discussion.

[Glorthindel]

This also slightly touches on why the martial/mundane balance discussions will never find a happy medium. Because the magic side of the equation is affected by radically different invisible biases and considerations, while the mundane one is pretty solidly fixed in one place.

It makes a huge difference to magical 'balance' if you play in a game where you can freely cast spells in a busy street without anyone remarking about it, compared to playing in a game where doing so will get you pelted with fruit, or get the guard called on you. These sorts of considerations are largely aside from the rules, so will vary tremendously by table, and it is impossible to completely gauge a Wizard's power level when at one persons table a Wizard can supposedly freely cast Charm spells on Merchants, City Guards, and Kings in front of witnesses, and face no repercussions, where at mine, doing so will have the Wizard face a panic, arrest, and execution respectivly for doing the same action.

[Satinavian]

I don't think this is really about the magic.

If a warrior used his sword on the merchant to get his wares for cheap, the reaction would be pretty much the same.

[Vahnavoi]

You are correct, but due to forum rules you can't examine various bans on mundane weaponry in much detail, no matter how good examples they'd make.

[KorvinStarmast]

[1] not just ignorant people--those who believe they're educated are often just as irrational as uneducated people, just in different ways. Plus a bunch. As for the
If a warrior used his sword on the merchant to get his wares for cheap, the reaction would be pretty much the same that really depends on the cultural context.
The armed and armored horseman of the feudal system had at least the threat of force behind some of his ability to intimidate or threaten any "not armed horseman" during that period to include a merchant. While it likely wasn't that frequent, it was an option.
(Some very good stuff on that in a book by Thomas Asbridge in his study of William Marshall; the book is The Greatest Knight although he was covering the period after the feudal period had transitioned into the Middle Ages (contemporary to Henry II's Angevin Empire/Kingdom) which can be compared and contrasted to the Carolingian era (and the century before Charlemagne, for a more chaotic feudal cultural / social situation). Going a bit later in time I'd suggest something along the lines of how nobles (who had the social right and expectation to bear arms) threw their weight around (The movie Rob Roy with Liam Neesom, Tim Roth, and Jessica Lange comes to mind to illustrate - but it's not a documentary :smallwink: )

Reactions to the supernatural varied, particularly if one weighed as much as a duck .... :smallwink: (Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference there)

I think I posted something here at the playground about my D&D head canons in re arcane magic: in the version of the world of Greyhawk that I am DMing presently, wizards are rare and spell casters in general are treated with suspicion as soon as one gets outside of metropolitain areas like large walled towns and cities. Wizards in particular, and artificers, were the targets of a purge/widespread pogrom a few centuries before the players are active, a purge led by the dragon clans. I'll see if I can find a link.
The provincial sorts, like the people living and farming and fishing around the Saltmarsh area in Keoland, are suspicious of arcane magic wielders. They put up with the local cleric (NPC priest, storm deity) and a local druid (NPC druid) because they provide something to the community and don't interfere with day to day life and commerce.

The PC druid player, when I described the ship's mage from the Sea Ghost being executed publicly (along with two of the smugglers/pirates) after the PCs captured her and turned her over to the Town Council, was taken aback by that and asked me directly: "Wait a sec, what is the attitude of the people toward those who are magic users?"
One of the players started to begin a rant about capital punishment and I cut him off rather quickly, saying something like:

"Salt Marsh is not a 20th century {pick a Western Democracy} major city - the King's justice is meted out by his representative here, or the Lord/Nobleman down in Seaton. Do not drag your anachronism into this setting; it doesn't fit. These smugglers were also slavers, and the flesh trade carries with it a hanging if caught. The King's Justice was administered."
The party is not yet aware that a member of the town council heavily lobbied the King's representative for the hanging since - he's involved in that very trade and needs to keep stool pigeons quiet/dead
The party had run into, already the "you are not from around here" attitude from most Salt Marshers (with a few exceptions), the original cleric had been messily assassinated (the player had to drop out, so I asked him "make your PC an NPC or kill him off?" and the player chose "kill him off", so I set that up) so spell casters being held in less than high repute was already understood. (The PCs have still not solved that mystery...)

[Glorthindel]

I don't think this is really about the magic.

If a warrior used his sword on the merchant to get his wares for cheap, the reaction would be pretty much the same.

Oh, absolutely, but you wouldn't get people claiming that the reaction would be an unfair over-reaction in that case!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Oh, absolutely, but you wouldn't get people claiming that the reaction would be an unfair over-reaction in that case!

Because only magic is special. Magic can do anything, and how dare you put restrictions on it! I won the game by selecting wizard as my class, don't you know?


Really really struggled over whether to make that blue or not... :smallamused:

[Telok]

Because only magic is special. Magic can do anything, and how dare you put restrictions on it! I won the game by selecting wizard as my class, don't you know?


Really really struggled over whether to make that blue or not... :smallamused:


I don't think anyone claimed a mage tossing fireblast around & intimidating a merchant doesn't get grief similar to a warrior waving a sword & intimidating a merchant.

I thought the question was more if some guy across the street mumbles fake Latin & sticks their finger in their ear 3 times, then crosses the street & the mercant gives them a free lunch, does that start a lynch mob?

[Vahnavoi]

I've had actual situations in games where people have argued that a fireblast to the face is but a way to gain someone's attention and no grounds for a hostile reaction.

That argument was based on the foreknowledge that the characters being fireblasted couldn't be injured by it. I did my best to explain that at most, this flies between friends who implicitly trust each other and are willing to assume best of intentions. It does not fly between strangers and especially not between outright enemies. At best, such gesture could be considered a warning shot, most often it would be considered attempted assault.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've had actual situations in games where people have argued that a fireblast to the face is but a way to gain someone's attention and no grounds for a hostile reaction.

That argument was based on the foreknowledge that the characters being fireblasted couldn't be injured by it. I did my best to explain that at most, this flies between friends who implicitly trust each other and are willing to assume best of intentions. It does not fly between strangers and especially not between outright enemies. At best, such gesture could be considered a warning shot, most often it would be considered attempted assault. If he fires one I'll fire on (https://youtu.be/jzjkkAMxkwk)
(Go to about 1:15 on this video (https://youtu.be/eOll3v55Dmo))

[GeoffWatson]

Because only magic is special. Magic can do anything, and how dare you put restrictions on it! I won the game by selecting wizard as my class, don't you know?



You may be sarcastic, but there are plenty of posters in the 3e/pathfinder forums who believe that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You may be sarcastic, but there are plenty of posters in the 3e/pathfinder forums who believe that.

Hence my spoiler about my struggles with deciding whether to be blue or not.

[Glorthindel]

I thought the question was more if some guy across the street mumbles fake Latin & sticks their finger in their ear 3 times, then crosses the street & the mercant gives them a free lunch, does that start a lynch mob?

That's the crux of the issue though, you have granted the Wizard several benefits that he does not have - spellcasting is not subtle, so the somatic component there is dodgy, and mumbling is straight out (and depending on the spell, you have possibly given him a free range bonus and removed the material components too). That Wizard is clearly and visibly spellcasting, and that changes the scenario significantly - in the analogy he as the very least has his sword in his hand (and very possibly a very large cannon).

[Telok]

That's the crux of the issue though, you have granted the Wizard several benefits that he does not have - spellcasting is not subtle, so the somatic component there is dodgy, and mumbling is straight out (and depending on the spell, you have possibly given him a free range bonus and removed the material components too). That Wizard is clearly and visibly spellcasting, and that changes the scenario significantly - in the analogy he as the very least has his sword in his hand (and very possibly a very large cannon).

What game system and which setting? I presume you're talking about D&D 5e, but I've seen threads on this and other boards (and experienced from DMs) different interpretations of the casting rules. Also relevant to the question, if D&D 5e is the system, is which spell you're talking about. Then there's setting question since Ebberon treats casters differently from Forgotten Realms, which is different from Dragonlance, which is different fron Dark Sun.

Personally, much my issue has been DMs using inconsistent readings of the rules to bash PCs when they feel their "story" is threatened. This is most common, in my experience with the charm/mind control magic, illusions, and stealth (although in Starfinder it did happen several times with computer skill checks). Direct damage combat spells? No complaints. Occasional questions about cold spells freezing water, but no real PC bashing for trying to use basic spells as intended. And of course then there's when the NPCs apparently get free reign to ignore the same rules "for the story/adventure".

So ya, I have a bias towards wanting to adjust rule sets towards player-DM fairness and having a system effectively emulate a fiction style or source. If your game says "bards weave spells in their music to charm crowds" I might get snarky if the rules, adventures, fiction, & DM let NPCs do it while the PC trying the same thing gets hammered for it.

[Glorthindel]

So ya, I have a bias towards wanting to adjust rule sets towards player-DM fairness and having a system effectively emulate a fiction style or source. If your game says "bards weave spells in their music to charm crowds" I might get snarky if the rules, adventures, fiction, & DM let NPCs do it while the PC trying the same thing gets hammered for it.

Absolutely there should be parity between NPC's and Players, and I would be besides you in calling out a DM who allowed his villain to do something a player could not (in fact, more strenuously than most around here, I firmly do not subscribe to the "NPC's and Characters are built differently" paradigm that 5e uses these days). In fact, my stance is doing exactly that, to quote icefractal from a couple of pages ago that was never addressed by people claiming such spellcasting should be ignored by bystanders:


...but what about when it's just parity between PC and NPC reactions?

GM: The merchant you're questioning mutters something in draconic and makes a strange hand motion. Bob, make a Will save.
Bob: Failed.
GM: You have the strong feeling that this guy is trustworthy and you should stop hassling him.
Bob: Guys, I think we're questioning the wrong person. He's obviously innocent.
Other Players: Ok, well he obviously used a charm spell. We tell him to dispel it and not try anything like that again or else.
GM: No, you have no reason to suspect anything like that.
Players: Bull****! (and they would be right to say this, IMO)

[Quertus]

I don't think I claimed anything of the sort about your claims. Even then, the majority of your argumentation was several counterclaims and example scenarios. I don't think it would make sense to measure the severity of your claims.

I did make claims about the severity of PhoenixPhyre's and my claim. Especially in relation to your initial reading of PhoenixPhyre's claim. For example the claim "The moon is made of cheddar cheese" is a more extreme claim than "The moon is made of cheese".

Part of my goal was to clarify what part was not in disagreement (especially how there are a various responses). For example you now made the claim that "Humans rarely behave as truly rational actors; ignorant humans even more rarely. Any setting which does not take this into account makes for incoherent settings where people don't act anything like real people would." which is a reasonable claim. I don't disagree with it.

And with that claim as a premise, I would still suspect societies to take some imperfectly rational precautions to existential threats whose potential they are aware of. Part of those precautions might cause false positives if someone casts a benign spell in a way that mimics the warning signs of the threat.

Ah. I even misunderstood your attempt to clarify. :smallredface:

You just meant that my understanding of PhoenixPhyre's position was a stronger claim than you read them to be making - have I got it right this time?


I agree that people[1] are often irrational. But people also fear the unknown, the different.

I've made stronger claims about that, on these boards. So I don't disagree.


And magic is both unknown and different. And fear doesn't make people react better (more favorably) than is rational, it makes them react worse (less favorably) than is rational. So calling out irrationality only makes my point stronger, as far as I can tell.

Despite so many people claiming that there no such thing as Magic in this world, plenty of people have died for it.

If you go down this rabbit hole, in a setting that actually *has* magic? It's either not going to be pretty, or it'll have a high risk of being, as you would say, incoherent, not really matching humans at all.


* Magic happened
* I've heard of magic doing horrible things [even if those things aren't necessarily true; bad rumors spread way faster than good ones]
* <rational response> Well, it doesn't look like this was a horrible thing, wait and see
* <fear/irrational response> Run away/panic/react badly.

Yes, "magic happened", and now my computer needs a new cupholder. Burn the witch!

That's perfectly coherent, but I've gotten the impression it's not the setting you want to run.

My point is simply that there are multiple coherent responses, based on how magic is viewed.

Replace "magic" with "technology" (which is pretty horrific and terrifying in its capabilities and side effects, if you really think about it (cancer, sterility, birth defects, and oh so many more, just for side effects, before cloning, invasion of privacy, and global extinction as a few intended effects)), and even most modern ignoramuses don't panic when someone pulls out an unknown device.

Again, my point is simply that there are multiple possible settings, multiple possible PoV that our hypothetical "Charlie" could have, that would change how they react, without that making the setting incoherent.


[1] not just ignorant people--those who believe they're educated are often just as irrational as uneducated people, just in different ways.

I think that the opposite of "ignorant" here would be "knowledgeable", or even "wise" (being the root word of "Wizard", after all :smallwink:), not "educated".

I've gamed with plenty of college-educated individuals who, after months or years playing the same RPG (and even the same character!) still ask, "what do I roll?" & "Do I want high or low?" :smallannoyed:


There is, in fact, a strong argument that, once the existence of magic is postulated, the wizards will either: 1. be constantly on the run from those who wish to purge them as monstrous abominations, 2. hide behind some sort of complex masquerade, or 3. be essentially forced to use their phenomenal powers to take either implicit or explicit control of the world in order to avoid oppression by the masses. Peaceful D&D style coexistence is probably the least likely scenario.

Most settings where magic is known, but hasn't been… adopted/accepted/integrated (like technology) are probably either horrible places, or incoherent.


That's the crux of the issue though, you have granted the Wizard several benefits that he does not have - spellcasting is not subtle, so the somatic component there is dodgy,

AFB, but 2e actually have somatic components. "Sticking your fingers in your ear" seems par for the course, IMO.


and mumbling is straight out

Depends on the edition and the table; however, given my stance on Knock vs the epic challenge of the locked door, I'm generally on your side on this one.


That Wizard is clearly and visibly spellcasting,

Well, no. They are clearly and visibly doing *something*, and that something is being evaluated by Charlie, the D&D equivalent of the guy calling tech support to fix his cupholder.

So Alice *may* have been saying "Gesundheit", or talking to Bob in their native language, or saying their gobbledygook password for their secret society, and, in most editions of D&D, ignorant Charlie cannot tell the difference, and must behave similarly to each of these scenarios (among many others).


and that changes the scenario significantly -

Yes, understanding the scenario correctly does, indeed, change things significantly.

[Talakeal]

That's the crux of the issue though, you have granted the Wizard several benefits that he does not have - spellcasting is not subtle, so the somatic component there is dodgy, and mumbling is straight out (and depending on the spell, you have possibly given him a free range bonus and removed the material components too). That Wizard is clearly and visibly spellcasting, and that changes the scenario significantly - in the analogy he as the very least has his sword in his hand (and very possibly a very large cannon).

My players insisted that verbal components required no speech at all. They insisted the book said that to use a spell with verbal components the caster "must be able to speak in a strong clear voice" but never actually said that they must actually do so.

I thought it was ridiculous rules lawyering, but my group was unanimous in that reading.

[OldTrees1]

Ah. I even misunderstood your attempt to clarify. :smallredface:

You just meant that my understanding of PhoenixPhyre's position was a stronger claim than you read them to be making - have I got it right this time?

Yes. I believed/believe that your prior understanding of PhoenixPhyre's position was a more extreme claim than what they were actually claiming.



Personally I think there is a lot of agreement. For example my position was/is:
Different Charlies might react differently. However it is likely that generally defense protocols against extreme threats will lead to generally negative reactions against false positives. So if Alice does something that resembles the warning sign for the extreme threat, some Charlies would react negatively (with variation in what that entails).