When realistic gets too realistic

[Frogreaver]

...
"I scared myself by creating something terrible that could possibly threaten world wide security while creating a villian. It scared me enough that I changed it to something else."

"Oh cool, post the method to an open internet forum that anyone can read. Sure, you might be dooming the world to massive bloodshed, get banned from the forum and probably arrested but I WANNA KNOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW"

I think that about sums up your post right?

If you ask me, I think it should be against forum rules to post: "I've come up with this thing that I can't post any details about without breaking forum rules." But no one asked me

[Calthropstu]

If you ask me, I think it should be against forum rules to post: "I've come up with this thing that I can't post any details about without breaking forum rules." But no one asked me

Not exactly what I wrote. And not the purpose of this thread either. Yes, I made something in my game. Posting (thing) would violate forum rules, but this thread is not about (thing), it's about to what extent do we, as players and gms, have to not to not put stuff such as (thing) into our games.

[OldTrees1]

Not exactly what I wrote. And not the purpose of this thread either. Yes, I made something in my game. Posting (thing) would violate forum rules, but this thread is not about (thing), it's about to what extent do we, as players and gms, have to not to not put stuff such as (thing) into our games.

Are you uncomfortable putting (thing) into your game?
Would one of the players be uncomfortable encountering (thing) in the game?
Is (thing) an information hazard? Does the information hazard outweigh the benefit to the game?


There are many sufficient reasons to not put (thing) into a game.

[Kardwill]

I've sometimes seen "you succeeded too well and now it's a bad thing!" a few times, and I always found it pretty ridiculous. Being skilled at something means knowing the appropriate way to use it.

Yeah, that can be funny in a "let's make fun of Bob's character" way, but it's usually deeply unsatisfying and frustrating. Especially for Bob.
The age old classic :
"OK, I'll bash the helmet of the guard with my walking stick to stun him, so that we can flee the scene without a combat.
- Roll for Bash People
- No problem, I'm a pretty good martial artist with that walking stick. Critical success!
- so max damage X2, ignoring the armor. How much damage for your walking stick?
- Err, 1D6? But I just wanted to subdue him, and...
- So 12 damage. His brains splatter everywhere in the alley. You're a murdrerer, now.
- But..."

Things going horribly wrong (killing someone I wanted to subdue, blowing up the entire neighbourhood with my magic, getting shot by the people I was trying to bluff) should happen when I fail my roll, not when I critically succeed.

[Satinavian]

Yeah, that can be funny in a "let's make fun of Bob's character" way, but it's usually deeply unsatisfying and frustrating. Especially for Bob.
The age old classic :
"OK, I'll bash the helmet of the guard with my walking stick to stun him, so that we can flee the scene without a combat.
- Roll for Bash People
- No problem, I'm a pretty good martial artist with that walking stick. Critical success!
- so max damage X2, ignoring the armor. How much damage for your walking stick?
- Err, 1D6? But I just wanted to subdue him, and...
- So 12 damage. His brains splatter everywhere in the alley. You're a murdrerer, now.
- But..."

Things going horribly wrong (killing someone I wanted to subdue, blowing up the entire neighbourhood with my magic, getting shot by the people I was trying to bluff) should happen when I fail my roll, not when I critically succeed.

I strongly disagree with this example.

Trying to hurt someone enough to hinder them in a desired way but not too much to avoid real damage is hard and mistakes happen. In many systems there are special maneuvers for that one has to learn and which have other drawbacks. If one is forced to use a regular weapon, both doing too little and too much damage are real risks and using the regular combat system and its damage range for that is quite fine. When people attack they know the minimum and maximum damage they can inflict and usually are able to tweak that number by maneuvers or using the right weapon. That is decsision about risks and consequences and fine.

Crits in combat are not meant to simulate superior skill. They are meant to make combat less predictable and more risky.

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah, that can be funny in a "let's make fun of Bob's character" way, but it's usually deeply unsatisfying and frustrating. Especially for Bob.
The age old classic :
"OK, I'll bash the helmet of the guard with my walking stick to stun him, so that we can flee the scene without a combat.
- Roll for Bash People
- No problem, I'm a pretty good martial artist with that walking stick. Critical success!
- so max damage X2, ignoring the armor. How much damage for your walking stick?
- Err, 1D6? But I just wanted to subdue him, and...
- So 12 damage. His brains splatter everywhere in the alley. You're a murdrerer, now.
- But..."

Things going horribly wrong (killing someone I wanted to subdue, blowing up the entire neighbourhood with my magic, getting shot by the people I was trying to bluff) should happen when I fail my roll, not when I critically succeed.

Related to this: Star Wars D6 (2e R&E) had a rule that let you mitigate such successes... a character who causes enough damage to kill an opponent has the option of causing a serious, permanent injury instead. In addition, the target is set at a certain wound level.

[False God]

I've dialed back bad guys who got too "intense", that is this actions would likely push my players buttons(more commonly referred to as trigger) in a way that would be inappropriate for a friendly table game.

But I've never really been worried about people actually trying anything I put forward in game. First off: that's on them. Secondly: I like modern-set games, so the feeling of "This could be done IRL." is sort of necessary. At least up until the thugs transform into werewolves and the driver teleports the car over a broken bridge.

[Silly Name]

I play mostly fantasy or sci-fi games, so the likelihood of something happening in my games also being feasible in real life is pretty low, since it usually hinges on magic or some setting assumption that we just accept but shouldn't be possible.

That said, I've had to call a time-out a couple of times because my villains were getting a bit too intense. Which is funny because I'm the GM so I was the one actively creeping me out by playing too convincing of a bad guy, then processing what I just said/described and felt bad about myself. There are also some things I sometimes come across in a rule book that make me think "ugh, no" and make me take a break (anything explicitly involving children dying for some reason makes me terribly uncomfortable, for example).

[kyoryu]

I strongly disagree with this example.

Trying to hurt someone enough to hinder them in a desired way but not too much to avoid real damage is hard and mistakes happen.

Sure, but a critical success is not "making a mistake".

In this case, that's more appropriate for a critical failure.

[Mastikator]

Sure, but a critical success is not "making a mistake".

In this case, that's more appropriate for a critical failure.

In the scenario Bob implied he wanted to do non-lethal damage and stun the guard. In D&D 5e there are rules for that.

But I don't think we should conflate the mistake of *choosing to bash the guy on the head with the success of rolling really high. The GM should respect the players choices and their roll, in this case by making the damage big enough to make the guard unconscious but non-lethal enough to leave no lasting damage.


*Whether or not bashing a guys head with a stick is a mistake is a matter of opinion. Even if you succeed in the way that you wanted that choice may still have been sub optimal.

[Kardwill]

Sure, but a critical success is not "making a mistake".

In this case, that's more appropriate for a critical failure.

Yeah. There are a few exceptions (like "Ulrik's Fury" in Warhammer), but critical success chances are usually tied to the character's skill, and indicate you succeeded exceptionally well. Translating that into "you succeeded too well and are now screwed" feels like antagonistic GMing.

I would be totally okay if the GM reminded me that in this game, head trauma is serious stuff and told me I'll do normal damage. Or if he reminded me about the subduing rules. Or if he warned me that a big enough failure would result in serious injury to the guy I'm striking. That's a way to ensure that the player and the GM have the same "reading" of the situation, and the same expectation of verisimilitude. And accidental murder would be an excellent interpretation of a critical failure in this situation if the game's mood is right for this kind of story.

But agreeing with my plan and then hitting me hard with the unintended consequences of a critical success? I found that kind of things funny when I was younger, but nowadays that would lead to a Serious Talk (tm) with the GM about game expectations and playing style.

[Vahnavoi]

Sure, but a critical success is not "making a mistake".

In this case, that's more appropriate for a critical failure.

A far more important thing to grok is that a critical hit isn't the same as a critical success, and in a realistic or even a highly detailed non-realist system, you often aren't rolling for success and failure.

Describing roll results as "success", "critical success", "failure" and "critical failure" is typically feature of a highly abstracted system, often of the sort where you have one general type of roll (f.ex. d20 + mods versus a target number) that can cover any otherwise undefined action and to make it easy to remember the results are always interpreted in one form (f.ex. high roll good, low roll bad).

But, in a detailed system, you aren't rolling for success or failure. You are rolling for something specific, like in the example, hitting and damage. There is and should not be any automatic assumption that high hit and high damage are "success" - they are what they are and what actually counts or doesn't count as success is decided by the player. For example, if non-lethal force is desired, the way to model that is to manipulate the damage roll to ensure it doesn't go too high to be lethal - abandoning the notion "high roll good, low roll bad" and choosing your means appropriately, by for example picking a weapon that does less damage.

[Satinavian]

Sure, but a critical success is not "making a mistake".

In this case, that's more appropriate for a critical failure.

The example was a critical hit, not a critical success. As Vahnavoi said, those are usually quite distinct if you are not playing some rules light system.

A agree that a critical success should not have bad outcomes as being more skillfull musually means more control. But depending on the system, for combat and critical hits it us usually the other way around, crit chance and extra damage on crit are meant to make weapons/maneuvers unreliable on top of more dangerous.

That a more skillfull person should be better at taking someone out nonlethally is done via verious maneuvers doing nonlethal damage or knockout maneuvers or grappling maneuvers or whatever the system has. Often those are more difficult or less effective or need to be learned as price for the additional control.


Miscommunication should be avoided anyway of course. But the last few times "accidently killing/endangering someone by overdoing it" became an issue, no player was surprised and all were always aware of the risks.

[Kardwill]

Interesting discussion. I guess it's one of the reasons I don't play or GM detailed simulation RPGs (or, as I like to call them, "prescriptive games") as much as I did a few years ago : For me, ensuring that the stakes and consequences match the player's intent takes precedence over the "simulated reality" part of the game.

[Satinavian]

Those concerns are completely orthogonal.

I would even say detailed simulated RPGs make it easier to have those expectations match when people know the rules and their possible results.

If i play SR (where the rules usually do allow such accidental killing) and players discuss "If we are just tossing in a gas grenade someone might be left standing and sound alarm, but if we use a grenade and then a sniper rifle with rubber bullets on anyone lelft standing that might be too much, better idea anyone ?" then everyone has the same expectations because the rules are detailed enough to say, what happens.

[Mastikator]

Interesting discussion. I guess it's one of the reasons I don't play or GM detailed simulation RPGs (or, as I like to call them, "prescriptive games") as much as I did a few years ago : For me, ensuring that the stakes and consequences match the player's intent takes precedence over the "simulated reality" part of the game.

It's just a matter of communication though. Either asking the player what they're trying to achieve or telling them what it would achieve would both ensure that consequences match player intent.

[Vahnavoi]

That leaves out a fairly common situation:

Where it is not known and isn't meant to be known if a particular player action will result in what they intent.

For example, any situation where a player is mixing unknown or poorly known ingredients to whatever end. In a detailed system, player intent is frequently secondary concern to the player actually knowing and naming the correct ingredients. Not knowing means trial and error and taking notes.

[Telok]

If i play SR (where the rules usually do allow such accidental killing) and players discuss "If we are just tossing in a gas grenade someone might be left standing and sound alarm, but if we use a grenade and then a sniper rifle with rubber bullets on anyone lelft standing that might be too much, better idea anyone ?" then everyone has the same expectations because the rules are detailed enough to say, what happens.

Oh yeah, SR was good. My character handed the phys-ad a shock glove (yes the face-driver-mage-skills guy was the only one with non-lethal weapons, non-combat skills, and non-arms dealer contacts) so we could snag a ganger to interrogate. The phys-ad player went to roll all the dice. Both I and the DM said it might be too many dice. A one-hit-kill from a non-lethal weapon later and we needed to find another ganger to interrogate.

Re: D&D combat. That system doesn't do critical successes. You would expect a more skilled character to produce better results when attempting a task, but D&D doesn't do "quality of result" rolls. It does succeed/fail with high skills producing more successes, not better quality work. And character skill has no effect on "critical success", because it's a 1/20 chance every time for everyone your incompetent noob with an old rusty frying pan has the same "critical success" rate as a master swordsman with magical skill enhancements.

[Corsair14]

Played a Twilight 2000 game years ago, 90s I think, where the party was silently crossing a river on a moonless night with heavy rucksacks and full armor and gear, I don't think we had vehicles available to us at the time. Lead guy fails a fairly simple roll and falls over into deeper water. Weight of his gear holds him down and each time someone else walked over him they rolled to see if they noticed him underfoot and he rolled a con-type save to see if air was knocked out of him. He ended up drowning in the mud. No one knew he was missing until they got to the other side and rallied up. Most realistic rules system ever.