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  1. - Top - End - #181
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    How is arranging for the results of the dice to map roughly to real-world probability distribution not very realistic?
    How often do people actually know the real world probability distribution of something that is being handled by a given dice-based game mechanic?

  2. - Top - End - #182
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    How often do people actually know the real world probability distribution of something that is being handled by a given dice-based game mechanic?
    In case of general resolution systems? Almost never. Indeed, the whole point of such systems is to give a simple, quick and easy to remember way to solve arbitrary actions in absence of expert knowledge.

  3. - Top - End - #183
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Relative to the above, I've become far less fond of the d20 as a resolution mechanic. Every number having the exact same chance of appearing as any other has really started to bother me. Yes, modifiers increase the chance of success, but ultimately what the die is saying is that extreme success is weighted just as evenly as extreme failure. I like dice pool mechanics, but they too don't seem to really reflect the fact that an average result is far more likely in any given situation than the extremes. Having more dice may mean more chances of success, but it doesn't really mean more average success.

    I played around with using 2d10 instead of 1d20. I liked being able to call a "nat 1" "snake eyes". It did better with providing average levels of success which on the whole produced a smoother game, but I think my players preferred the "swingyness" of the d20. Being able to reliably do something, especially if you were good at it, seemed, in my testing, less fun than betting extreme success against extreme failure.
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  4. - Top - End - #184
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    How often do people actually know the real world probability distribution of something that is being handled by a given dice-based game mechanic?
    Real world stuff? Mostly the normal distribution. That's why it's called "normal". Nice pretty bell curve too.

  5. - Top - End - #185
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie the Duck View Post
    Particularly for monster rules if the monsters are built using points or to a specific challenge rating or similar, since something can be significantly more or less useful to a PC than to a monster you are likely to meet once.
    Having monster creation rules is pretty much an afterthought. Every edition of D&D that has every existed has approached the problem of "how you do you get new monsters" with "buy more monster books", and that has worked out at least as well as any monster creation system I've seen a game of non-trivial complexity. The real issue is PC-like NPCs, and that's an inherently harder problem because you can't just cheat. A Gargoyle is not supposed to be a PC. It doesn't matter if its Stone Form ability is different from PCs abilities, because it is not presented as being the same. But once you start talking about differences between PC Wizards and NPC Wizards, you're on thin ice very quickly. There's a real chance that what you want is not any kind of mechanical change, but some kind of easy-to-use online character generator. If you could just say "give me an NPC Wizard at X power level" and have a website spit out a useable stat block, that would be fine for 99% of use-cases and require few-to-no sacrifices in terms of transparency.

    If you do want a mechanical alternative, the easy thing to do is not to create some bespoke NPC-generating system, but to identify some adequately PC-feeling chunk of a PC and design it so it can be stapled to some stats on its own. If there's a Wizard sub-class or lifepath or whatever that gives some mechanically simple Wizard-y abilities that you can rapidly turn into an expendable NPC, that solves your problem without needing to try to marry distinct mechanics into a single in-world concept.

    But the idea that you can get adequate results while having NPCs and PCs work fundamentally differently is something I am very suspicious of.

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    For building significant NPCs, I'm more concerned about the first, and not at all about the second.
    Your "what stuff costs" system is (or at least should be) closely tied to your system for assessing power levels. That's something you care a great deal about when creating an NPC, particularly one PCs expect to fight.

    Quote Originally Posted by False God View Post
    Being able to reliably do something, especially if you were good at it, seemed, in my testing, less fun than betting extreme success against extreme failure.
    I don't think that's an accurate assessment of how a d20 RNG works. At the extreme end, a d20 allows more consistent results than dicepools (though equivalent to something like 2d10). If you have a +10 bonus on a d20 roll, you will succeed on a DC 10 check 100% of the time (barring epicycles like nat-1 auto-fails). Conversely, if you roll a dicepool of five six-sided dice that hit on 4+, you will fail at a task requiring one hit a bit under 5% of the time (again, barring some epicycle like allowing people to default). Flat RNGs simply do different things than dicepools, and are suited to different sorts of games. In a game where hard-core badasses can expect to take on armies of normals, a flat RNG is better because you can push people off the RNG without needing any extra mechanical work. In a game where "the cops showed up" is supposed to be a lose condition for even high-power characters, a dicepool is better because it limits how powerful characters can be.

  6. - Top - End - #186
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    How often do people actually know the real world probability distribution of something that is being handled by a given dice-based game mechanic?
    If they honestly don't know, no other kind of resolution will work any better.

    Furthermore, as Telok said, normal distribution is never a bad guess if you don't really know. It is a consequence of the law of large numbers stating that anything that is the sum by lots of tiny (identical) chances always gravitates there. And for the exact same reason dice pools are a good way to handle that.

  7. - Top - End - #187
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by False God View Post
    Relative to the above, I've become far less fond of the d20 as a resolution mechanic. Every number having the exact same chance of appearing as any other has really started to bother me. Yes, modifiers increase the chance of success, but ultimately what the die is saying is that extreme success is weighted just as evenly as extreme failure. I like dice pool mechanics, but they too don't seem to really reflect the fact that an average result is far more likely in any given situation than the extremes. Having more dice may mean more chances of success, but it doesn't really mean more average success.

    I played around with using 2d10 instead of 1d20. I liked being able to call a "nat 1" "snake eyes". It did better with providing average levels of success which on the whole produced a smoother game, but I think my players preferred the "swingyness" of the d20. Being able to reliably do something, especially if you were good at it, seemed, in my testing, less fun than betting extreme success against extreme failure.
    Not liking the d20 and its wonky flatness is why several systems have been 3d6 for a long time (GURPS and HERO having been around for decades now). And yeah, die pool mechanics largely don't address the issue.

    What's funny about this thread for me is that I have to go back decades in some cases to find when things that bother me now related to RPGs... didn't bother me at all or at least not nearly so much.
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  8. - Top - End - #188
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    One advantage d20 (and linear RNGs in general, especially d100) has is that it's dead easy to calculate success probabilities. What's the highest number you fail on? Multiply that by 5 and that's your probability of failure. There's no similarly-easy trick for 2d10 or 3d6, though they're not too bad to do offhand. Dicepools are easy to calculate average successes for, but figuring out the probability of "x or more hits" for non-trivial x is something very few people even know how to do without looking it up. I don't even remember what the formula for expected value on roll-and-keep is.

  9. - Top - End - #189
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
    Having monster creation rules is pretty much an afterthought. Every edition of D&D that has every existed has approached the problem of "how you do you get new monsters" with "buy more monster books", and that has worked out at least as well as any monster creation system I've seen a game of non-trivial complexity. The real issue is PC-like NPCs, and that's an inherently harder problem because you can't just cheat. A Gargoyle is not supposed to be a PC. It doesn't matter if its Stone Form ability is different from PCs abilities, because it is not presented as being the same. But once you start talking about differences between PC Wizards and NPC Wizards, you're on thin ice very quickly. There's a real chance that what you want is not any kind of mechanical change, but some kind of easy-to-use online character generator. If you could just say "give me an NPC Wizard at X power level" and have a website spit out a useable stat block, that would be fine for 99% of use-cases and require few-to-no sacrifices in terms of transparency.
    I mean, if that's what you see as the real issue, more power to you. However, upthread there were at least some people who were comparing if/how a PC could something compared to the monster entries.

  10. - Top - End - #190
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
    One advantage d20 (and linear RNGs in general, especially d100) has is that it's dead easy to calculate success probabilities. What's the highest number you fail on? Multiply that by 5 and that's your probability of failure. There's no similarly-easy trick for 2d10 or 3d6, though they're not too bad to do offhand. Dicepools are easy to calculate average successes for, but figuring out the probability of "x or more hits" for non-trivial x is something very few people even know how to do without looking it up. I don't even remember what the formula for expected value on roll-and-keep is.
    I find the complex probability calculations are potentially a good thing. If people can’t grasp the numbers they can’t fret over minutiae. More dice in a pool is certainly better, but people generally won’t be drilling down and weighing the exact statistical benefit of +2 against some other effect in the middle of play.
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  11. - Top - End - #191
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Xervous View Post
    I find the complex probability calculations are potentially a good thing. If people can’t grasp the numbers they can’t fret over minutiae. More dice in a pool is certainly better, but people generally won’t be drilling down and weighing the exact statistical benefit of +2 against some other effect in the middle of play.
    Sort of yes and no for me. In my rewrite of DtD40k7e I've done and checked lots of probabilities. When DMing it I also check probabilities to make sure that things like epic drinking marathon challenges have the right balance*. That's cool for me, I'm a programmer who enjoys math and I can whip out basic simulations and dice rollers easily. For this system there's also a chart of the 50 possible dice combos for the game that's easy for anyone. So as a player & in game, yes more dice is better and don't worry too much. As a DM easy probabilities, or a simple lookup table, are nice for planning.

    Funny thing is, I don't think the current D&D has a simple set of probabilities. For just the base no-frills d20 roll, sure, that's simple. But then there's disadvantage and advantage that change value between different +mod vs DC, triple advantage, minimum 10, rerolls, and +/-1d4 to xdy. Calculating that for any one specific character alone is OK, almost none get all those modifiers. But trying to account for more than that and maybe the persn playing the bard can't make it that game and... Thats just messy.

    * that was an interesting challenge. It was basically having one drink at each of ~200 bars over the course of a week. It needed to be doable by slightly above average normal people but possible for functionally supers type characters to fail. I crossed rl alcohol poisoning stats with the number of bars and distances between them to make it 30% doable by normals who took the whole 7 days and walked it, but probably kill almost anyone who tried to do a 3 day speed run by teleporting or such.

  12. - Top - End - #192
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    How often do people actually know the real world probability distribution of something that is being handled by a given dice-based game mechanic?
    "We recognize that we have no clue what 'realistic' looks like, therefore we no longer attempt to change games for the purpose of making them more realistic" is a consistent and highly self-aware stance.

    "We recognize that we have no clue what 'realistic' looks like, therefore we now reject anyone's attempts to change games for the purpose of making them more realistic"? That's a bit trickier.

    I guess it depends on what the post I was replying to was attempting to convey.

  13. - Top - End - #193
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    How often do people actually know the real world probability distribution of something that is being handled by a given dice-based game mechanic?
    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    Real world stuff? Mostly the normal distribution. That's why it's called "normal". Nice pretty bell curve too.
    To be clear, what I meant in that post was that I don't think a game of dice and numbers is likely to accurately model the statistical likelihood of something happening, so trying to do that is not a very realistic goal. In the sense that it's probably not going to succeed anyway.
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Xervous View Post
    I find the complex probability calculations are potentially a good thing. If people can’t grasp the numbers they can’t fret over minutiae. More dice in a pool is certainly better, but people generally won’t be drilling down and weighing the exact statistical benefit of +2 against some other effect in the middle of play.
    Writing rules to make it harder for people to make informed decisions is not a good thing. It's bad when it's THAC0, it's bad when it's intentionally using a harder-to-understand RNG. Decisions people make should be meaningful, and the should be able to understand which of the choices they can make is "correct" for which measure of correctness. In fact, if you care about speed of play, you should make the underlying math as easy as possible so that people spend less time thinking about what the +2 will do and more time deciding if it's what they want.

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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
    I don't think that's an accurate assessment of how a d20 RNG works. At the extreme end, a d20 allows more consistent results than dicepools (though equivalent to something like 2d10). If you have a +10 bonus on a d20 roll, you will succeed on a DC 10 check 100% of the time (barring epicycles like nat-1 auto-fails). Conversely, if you roll a dicepool of five six-sided dice that hit on 4+, you will fail at a task requiring one hit a bit under 5% of the time (again, barring some epicycle like allowing people to default). Flat RNGs simply do different things than dicepools, and are suited to different sorts of games. In a game where hard-core badasses can expect to take on armies of normals, a flat RNG is better because you can push people off the RNG without needing any extra mechanical work. In a game where "the cops showed up" is supposed to be a lose condition for even high-power characters, a dicepool is better because it limits how powerful characters can be.
    A "1" on a d20 is a 5% chance.

    But your logic follows my general movement in gaming, as I've grown less fond of games in general where "the cops showing up" don't mean anything. Even in D&D, the "cops" or town guard or whatever, very quickly become meaningless threats, and it shows with how prevalent murderhoboing is in the system. In systems where "the cops" (average joes with average weapons and armor) are a very real and present danger outside of the most insane of characters, I find players behave less like gamblers and more like rational people.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Not liking the d20 and its wonky flatness is why several systems have been 3d6 for a long time (GURPS and HERO having been around for decades now). And yeah, die pool mechanics largely don't address the issue.

    What's funny about this thread for me is that I have to go back decades in some cases to find when things that bother me now related to RPGs... didn't bother me at all or at least not nearly so much.
    I get the feeling that there's a happy medium in dice-pool systems somewhere between 3 and 6 dice. I've generally found that large dice pools don't really produce that much more success. Sure, 5/15 successes can really wallop an enemy, but it's still statistically about the same as 2-3/5 successes. Some kind of reduction in the number you need for every 5 dice you'd have beyond 5, I dunno or something, I dunno. More dice, like higher modifiers, should mean more success, but it really doesn't.

    And I find 7+ dX to be kinda wonky to hold anyway.

    Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
    One advantage d20 (and linear RNGs in general, especially d100) has is that it's dead easy to calculate success probabilities. What's the highest number you fail on? Multiply that by 5 and that's your probability of failure. There's no similarly-easy trick for 2d10 or 3d6, though they're not too bad to do offhand. Dicepools are easy to calculate average successes for, but figuring out the probability of "x or more hits" for non-trivial x is something very few people even know how to do without looking it up. I don't even remember what the formula for expected value on roll-and-keep is.
    As above, for the people who understand this math, and I mean REALLY understand it, unless there is a flat 0% chance of success or failure (depending on the case) it leads to poor decision-making via gambling. When a d20 has a 5% chance to roll a 1 and a 5% chance to roll a 20, even if your only chance of success/failure is on one of those numbers, I find people more likely to gamble at "winning big" rather than take approaches that may lessen the difficulty but consume resrouces.

    As I mentioned before, when I tested out 2d10, it was a much smoother game, with far more successes for the players, but far fewer "OMG A NAT 1 I'M SO DEAD!!!" and far less "OMG A NAT 20 I WIN OMG OMG OMG!!!!" Which is an unhealthy (IMO) gamblers mentality.

    Not to say risks shouldn't be taken, but if you're always gambling on the "big wins", the game itsself becomes background noise to the extremes.
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by False God View Post
    I like dice pool mechanics, but they too don't seem to really reflect the fact that an average result is far more likely in any given situation than the extremes. Having more dice may mean more chances of success, but it doesn't really mean more average success.
    There is a normal distribution of results in a dice pool, but it's only a factor in games where the variable is number of successes as opposed to target number or number of dice.
    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    Real world stuff? Mostly the normal distribution. That's why it's called "normal". Nice pretty bell curve too.
    This is funny, but that's not what normal means.
    Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
    I don't even remember what the formula for expected value on roll-and-keep is.
    I'm pretty sure the EV of xKy on a die of N sides is Sum{ni *x/N} where ni=N, N-1, N-2... and nn=y/(x/N)
    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "We recognize that we have no clue what 'realistic' looks like, therefore we no longer attempt to change games for the purpose of making them more realistic" is a consistent and highly self-aware stance.

    "We recognize that we have no clue what 'realistic' looks like, therefore we now reject anyone's attempts to change games for the purpose of making them more realistic"? That's a bit trickier.

    I guess it depends on what the post I was replying to was attempting to convey.
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  17. - Top - End - #197
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    I find I don't really like dice rolls for resolving things at all now, but I'm also not sure I ever really liked that or if it was just entangled with other things. I'm generally moving away from 'asking to see if you succeed' as a design element entirely, and seeing randomness more in a 'hand of cards' fashion than a pass/fail fashion.

    Dice rolls for inspiration I still like though...

    One thing where my tastes probably have shifted is stuff like the Deck of Many Things but where they don't go away after being used. I guess this is a subtle shift - not a shift away from the existence of things like that, but away from any kind of unbounded number of draws or interactions, because they can take over a session with people just wanting yet another draw.

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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by RandomPeasant View Post
    Writing rules to make it harder for people to make informed decisions is not a good thing. It's bad when it's THAC0, it's bad when it's intentionally using a harder-to-understand RNG. Decisions people make should be meaningful, and the should be able to understand which of the choices they can make is "correct" for which measure of correctness. In fact, if you care about speed of play, you should make the underlying math as easy as possible so that people spend less time thinking about what the +2 will do and more time deciding if it's what they want.
    At what point did I say the probability system was chosen for this purpose? Start with a simple to resolve structure like Xd6>4 for its smooth response to inputs and handling of dicepool sizes at the extremes. Default speed of play is driven by required extra steps and their complexity. Hunting down five or so shifting modifiers for a d20 roll will naturally decrease the default speed of play. Acting on a player opted choice of one modifier or the other for a roll, be it d20 or dicepool or whatever, is a simple task that has no failure states stemming from neglect compared to missing some modifier the game system holds up as mandatory.

    So we are both discussing observed speed of play. I’m not going to sit there and give a player time to estimate how many swings he thinks he can kill an ogre in and how a +2 to hit or +2 to damage will perform there. Pick an action and play. If he’s instead confronted with +2 dice or +2 damage it’s less likely they’ll obsess over minor differences in performance. This is of course assuming we’re running a table at a moderate pace, not heavily structured for war gaming. If we were really all about 0.5 dpr difference mattering more than the flow of gameplay there would be calculators, charts, excel spreadsheets and the like readily accessible.
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    I find I don't really like dice rolls for resolving things at all now, but I'm also not sure I ever really liked that or if it was just entangled with other things. I'm generally moving away from 'asking to see if you succeed' as a design element entirely, and seeing randomness more in a 'hand of cards' fashion than a pass/fail fashion.
    I think the problem is more that some games don't make it clear enough when to roll, or simply ask for too many rolls.

    I usually veer on the side of characters being competent when running a game.

    When I ask for rolls it's usually because the PCs are being clearly stressed and failure would mean losing time/resources/health, or they're attempting something difficult/dangerous without preparation. Otherwise I assume they know what they're doing if they have the relevant tools or skills at hand.

    I've definitely played in campaigns and non-dnd systems that had us rolling for far too much stuff though.

    As for stuff that i've grown to dislike?

    Theater of the Mind combat for anything beyond simplistic fights and "rule-lite" or "narrative" focused systems; these just don't grok me and i can't get into them. I need me some decent crunch.

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    Quote Originally Posted by oxybe View Post
    I think the problem is more that some games don't make it clear enough when to roll, or simply ask for too many rolls.

    I usually veer on the side of characters being competent when running a game.

    When I ask for rolls it's usually because the PCs are being clearly stressed and failure would mean losing time/resources/health, or they're attempting something difficult/dangerous without preparation. Otherwise I assume they know what they're doing if they have the relevant tools or skills at hand.

    I've definitely played in campaigns and non-dnd systems that had us rolling for far too much stuff though.
    This can be part of it, but I think there are two other things as well.

    One has to do with the ability to plan. The more front-loaded chance is, the more possible it is to have more involved plans. So randomness, especially of the success/failure sort rather than the 'reacting to changing situations' sort, has a consequence of shortening the planning horizon and favoring brute force or direct approaches to situations. Which in turn has knock-on effects to the importance of e.g. the character-building minigame versus the importance of decisions made during on-screen play.

    The other has to do with momentum and maintaining the importance of choices and actions. The success/fail kind of resolution has a format of 'I do this', 'no you don't', which just sort of makes things get stuck or makes decisions or ideas feel wasted. Something like a dice system that says 'you succeed, but it costs you X' or 'you succeed, but in the time that takes your antagonist gets X benefit' or whatever would resolve this. But 'check if you can do a thing' seems inferior to me to 'do a thing (and)' now. This kind of goes hand in hand with a distaste for checks which the GM calls for, which strike me as a kind of 'go fish' game - in the character building minigame you're supposed to guess which checks you're likely to be asked to make, and then the GM calls for checks which basically see whether you guessed correctly. So the model I prefer now is 'the player knows well what they can and can't do, and decides from that what to do, then the GM (and GM tools like dice if you want) decide how the world responds to the fact that that happened'. But less focus on calling into question whether in fact the character can do what they think they can.

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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    This can be part of it, but I think there are two other things as well.

    One has to do with the ability to plan. The more front-loaded chance is, the more possible it is to have more involved plans. So randomness, especially of the success/failure sort rather than the 'reacting to changing situations' sort, has a consequence of shortening the planning horizon and favoring brute force or direct approaches to situations. Which in turn has knock-on effects to the importance of e.g. the character-building minigame versus the importance of decisions made during on-screen play.

    The other has to do with momentum and maintaining the importance of choices and actions. The success/fail kind of resolution has a format of 'I do this', 'no you don't', which just sort of makes things get stuck or makes decisions or ideas feel wasted. Something like a dice system that says 'you succeed, but it costs you X' or 'you succeed, but in the time that takes your antagonist gets X benefit' or whatever would resolve this. But 'check if you can do a thing' seems inferior to me to 'do a thing (and)' now. This kind of goes hand in hand with a distaste for checks which the GM calls for, which strike me as a kind of 'go fish' game - in the character building minigame you're supposed to guess which checks you're likely to be asked to make, and then the GM calls for checks which basically see whether you guessed correctly. So the model I prefer now is 'the player knows well what they can and can't do, and decides from that what to do, then the GM (and GM tools like dice if you want) decide how the world responds to the fact that that happened'. But less focus on calling into question whether in fact the character can do what they think they can.
    Understandable.

  22. - Top - End - #202
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by False God View Post
    Relative to the above, I've become far less fond of the d20 as a resolution mechanic. Every number having the exact same chance of appearing as any other has really started to bother me. Yes, modifiers increase the chance of success, but ultimately what the die is saying is that extreme success is weighted just as evenly as extreme failure. I like dice pool mechanics, but they too don't seem to really reflect the fact that an average result is far more likely in any given situation than the extremes. Having more dice may mean more chances of success, but it doesn't really mean more average success.

    I played around with using 2d10 instead of 1d20. I liked being able to call a "nat 1" "snake eyes". It did better with providing average levels of success which on the whole produced a smoother game, but I think my players preferred the "swingyness" of the d20. Being able to reliably do something, especially if you were good at it, seemed, in my testing, less fun than betting extreme success against extreme failure.
    I like the old 2d6 NPC reaction tables from B/X. I have played around with using a 2d10 reaction table for 5e because of the possible +5 charisma bonus. It's worked alright. I like that instead of a straight pass or fail, you can add different levels of success. So a roll of 11 gets the merchant to sell you the magic item, a roll of 19 gets you 20% off the asking price.

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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "We recognize that we have no clue what 'realistic' looks like, therefore we no longer attempt to change games for the purpose of making them more realistic" is a consistent and highly self-aware stance.

    "We recognize that we have no clue what 'realistic' looks like, therefore we now reject anyone's attempts to change games for the purpose of making them more realistic"? That's a bit trickier.

    I guess it depends on what the post I was replying to was attempting to convey.
    I mean fair enough. I was commenting on the likelihood of anyone playing an RPG actually knowing real world probability distributions of tasks they're attempting to determine success/failure for. E,g. Basic resolution mechanic

    But tracking back the comment chain, it's possible that it was more about totally ridiculous outlier results that are sometimes included in games

    e.g. x% chance per attack you fumble and stab yourself, and y% chance on crit table that stabbing yourself nicks a femoral artery and you die

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    Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore
    A very niche answer, confined to D&D.
    The Deck of Many Things.
    Used to like it, both as DM and as player. Now, not so much.

    The result is that the Deck has been removed from the RNG table (when I DM) and replaced with a note:

    "Roll again, or hand select two very rare items"
    Quote Originally Posted by Trafalgar View Post
    I like the old 2d6 NPC reaction tables from B/X.
    I still use it, although my ref table is from Original (Men and Magic, page 12) three brown books.
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Sadly enough, D&D as a system?

    It's not that I dislike D&D. It's the gateway drug, if that makes sense--it got me into tabletop, and it's still the system that people default to when you wanna do some pen-and-paper. But I'm also aware that D&D has some weaknesses, like its simulationist ruleset, its emphasis on GM vs. Player, and how little the rulesets encourage storytelling.

    If you're GMing, you need to be ready, at any time, to set DCs for anything the players do, adjudicate which check it uses, have statblocks/names/voices ready for any and all NPCs the players can interact with. You create the world, the lore, the adventure, because if you don't have a dungeon full of goblins, gnolls, and beholders, you just end up staring at each other for five hours. What's more, because it is largely the GM vs. the party, players often feel the need to fill traditional party rolls, and any opportunity for non-standard parties or interpersonal conflict gets largely stifled.

    Compare that to a system like Apocalypse World or its derivatives Masks, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and Fellowship. To start with, much of the world is player-generated. Each system primes you with player relations, past deeds, stuff like that, which is all fitting to the archetypes of the players. So right from square one, you're set up with plot hooks and threads to chase down and tase out or forget, as appropriate. Wow, the Brainer stole something from the Hardholder? What was it? Why'd they need it? What are they doing with it? Is it still around? And it's totally legit, as a GM, to turn to a player and say, "Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. But Barbecue, you're the hardholder, whatcha got? You know the troublemakers in New Manhattan, alright. What's the nasty on the people harassing your supply caravans?" Players are invested because it's not just your world; it's a shared world that everyone's contributing towards. And what's more, due to the greatly simplified ruleset, you're basically always set for whatever direction the players go towards! And what's more, interesting characters are not only possible, but encouraged!

    Seriously, PBTA games are just a tutorial on how to run fun, interesting games, and I can't recommend them enough.
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    Character classes.
    Rolling for stats.
    Rolling for hit points.
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Balmas View Post
    But I'm also aware that D&D has some weaknesses, like its simulationist ruleset, its emphasis on GM vs. Player, and how little the rulesets encourage storytelling.
    3e tried to be simulationist bit failed. For any other edition, no way, not even close.

    The first rule of D&D Club is if it is DM vs Player you are Doing It Wrong (TM)

    Not encouraging storytelling is a feature, not a bug. (Okay, this one is obviously just a preference )

    Compare that to a system like Apocalypse World or its derivatives Masks, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and Fellowship. To start with, much of the world is player-generated. Each system primes you with player relations, past deeds, stuff like that, which is all fitting to the archetypes of the players. So right from square one, you're set up with plot hooks and threads to chase down and tase out or forget, as appropriate. Wow, the Brainer stole something from the Hardholder? What was it? Why'd they need it? What are they doing with it? Is it still around? And it's totally legit, as a GM, to turn to a player and say, "Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. But Barbecue, you're the hardholder, whatcha got? You know the troublemakers in New Manhattan, alright. What's the nasty on the people harassing your supply caravans?" Players are invested because it's not just your world; it's a shared world that everyone's contributing towards. And what's more, due to the greatly simplified ruleset, you're basically always set for whatever direction the players go towards! And what's more, interesting characters are not only possible, but encouraged!
    This is a pretty good summary of why it's hard to find players that enjoy PtbA, and D&D type games are wildly popular but always short on GMs. Most players want to play, they don't want to do the GMs work for them.

    It's a good game if you've got a table full of GMs though. Or budding improv actors / authors. And there are definitely some
    fish like that in the sea. It's just you usually need to hit a large convention or play online to find them.

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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    3e tried to be simulationist bit failed. For any other edition, no way, not even close.

    The first rule of D&D Club is if it is DM vs Player you are Doing It Wrong (TM)

    Not encouraging storytelling is a feature, not a bug. (Okay, this one is obviously just a preference )
    People really misunderstand the nature of old school D&D - probably because they played it when they were 10 at best, or heard about it from people that played it when they were 10. And 10 year olds are usually pretty bad GMs, especially in a system that gives them a lot of freedom.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    This is a pretty good summary of why it's hard to find players that enjoy PtbA, and D&D type games are wildly popular but always short on GMs. Most players want to play, they don't want to do the GMs work for them.

    It's a good game if you've got a table full of GMs though. Or budding improv actors / authors. And there are definitely some
    fish like that in the sea. It's just you usually need to hit a large convention or play online to find them.
    That nature is often overemphasized, I think. While it's true that in the first session of AW you're supposed to do a bunch of that, that's fairly limited (per the examples, not explicitly) to the first session. The examples from other areas tend to be more traditional in their approach.

    That said, there's a huge culture around AW and other "narrative" games that emphasizes that. However, the games work just fine without it. It's the "what's in the box" question - if you ask the GM what's in the box, how do they answer? It can be predetermined, it can be random, it can be made up, or they can ask you. Or, often, some combination of the above. But each answer will appeal to different people.

    Personally, I prefer avoiding the last one outside of game setup. Most player input beyond that is what I call "implicit" input - if a player is obviously assuming something to be true or real, and it's reasonable, then they're correct in their assumptions. I might also play with letting players not involved in the current scene come up with stuff to keep them involved.

    But the "EVERYTHING MUST BE MADE UP BY THE PLAYERS" (okay, I overemphasize slightly) crowd is real, and they're very vocal, and I frankly push back against them where I can (I do have a bit of a voice in the Fate community overall).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Balmas View Post
    Sadly enough, D&D as a system?

    It's not that I dislike D&D. It's the gateway drug, if that makes sense--it got me into tabletop, and it's still the system that people default to when you wanna do some pen-and-paper. But I'm also aware that D&D has some weaknesses, like its simulationist ruleset, its emphasis on GM vs. Player, and how little the rulesets encourage storytelling.

    If you're GMing, you need to be ready, at any time, to set DCs for anything the players do, adjudicate which check it uses, have statblocks/names/voices ready for any and all NPCs the players can interact with. You create the world, the lore, the adventure, because if you don't have a dungeon full of goblins, gnolls, and beholders, you just end up staring at each other for five hours. What's more, because it is largely the GM vs. the party, players often feel the need to fill traditional party rolls, and any opportunity for non-standard parties or interpersonal conflict gets largely stifled.

    Compare that to a system like Apocalypse World or its derivatives Masks, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and Fellowship. To start with, much of the world is player-generated. Each system primes you with player relations, past deeds, stuff like that, which is all fitting to the archetypes of the players. So right from square one, you're set up with plot hooks and threads to chase down and tase out or forget, as appropriate. Wow, the Brainer stole something from the Hardholder? What was it? Why'd they need it? What are they doing with it? Is it still around? And it's totally legit, as a GM, to turn to a player and say, "Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. But Barbecue, you're the hardholder, whatcha got? You know the troublemakers in New Manhattan, alright. What's the nasty on the people harassing your supply caravans?" Players are invested because it's not just your world; it's a shared world that everyone's contributing towards. And what's more, due to the greatly simplified ruleset, you're basically always set for whatever direction the players go towards! And what's more, interesting characters are not only possible, but encouraged!

    Seriously, PBTA games are just a tutorial on how to run fun, interesting games, and I can't recommend them enough.
    It's interesting how much of this is pure taste.

    I've never seen D&D as simulationist (especially not 5e) nor as GM vs party (if you're doing it that way, you're explicitly going against core system assumptions). And the type of stories it encourages you to tell (which yes, contra @Tanarii, it does encourage creating stories) are the kinds of stories I find interesting. It encourages discovering the story of the characters as they explore a world. Where it "fails" is at providing authored-fiction-style stories with clean story beats, closely-plotted events, beginnings, climaxes, and ends. But I find that to be a feature, not a bug. If I want a clean narrative, I've got tons of fiction to read/watch. I want things that could spiral out of anyone's control at any minute. Where me, as DM, having to improv and react to the players' actions and them having to react to my actions is the story. I don't want players thinking "but the story demands...." or "this is better for the narrative...". I want them thinking like characters. Let me weave it (or not) into a coherent narrative--that's a chunk of my fun in trying to fit these disparate aspects into a retrospective "story"[1].

    And for me, world building is much of the fun. Having people interact with the world in character stance, not in author stance. Where the world reacts and responds to what they do through their characters, not what they do acting as players. I've found that having a living world that reacts to the players and in which the players' actions (filtered through the characters) have lasting effects (including for other groups) provides all of the benefits...without the stance switching and heavy workload on anyone's part.

    I find PbtA to be opinionated and constraining, because it has its model of what is "interesting" and "how to play TTRPGs right". And that model doesn't fit anything but a narrow slice of possibilities. None of which I'm personally interested in. So for me, PbtA is the model of how to do it wrong, how to create preachy, uninteresting, constraining games. But that's a matter of pure taste, not some objective statement.

    [1] I don't plan in advance. But I do look at what's happened and look for pieces I can weave into future sessions so that in retrospect it appears like a linear story despite having been anything but that. Self-laying railroad tracks--you look backward and you see the tracks you've laid behind you. But you can go anywhere.
    Last edited by PhoenixPhyre; 2021-06-29 at 11:45 AM.
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    Default Re: Things in RPGs that you used to like but don’t anymore

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Where it "fails" is at providing authored-fiction-style stories with clean story beats, closely-plotted events, beginnings, climaxes, and ends. But I find that to be a feature, not a bug. If I want a clean narrative, I've got tons of fiction to read/watch. I want things that could spiral out of anyone's control at any minute. Where me, as DM, having to improv and react to the players' actions and them having to react to my actions is the story.
    Strangely, this is exactly why I play Fate/PbtA games.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I don't want players thinking "but the story demands...." or "this is better for the narrative...". I want them thinking like characters. Let me weave it (or not) into a coherent narrative--that's a chunk of my fun in trying to fit these disparate aspects into a retrospective "story"[1].
    I actively tell players in my Fate/PbtA games not to do things "to make a better story". Story comes between the players, their goals, and the opposition to them. And, yes, things spiral in interesting ways.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    And for me, world building is much of the fun. Having people interact with the world in character stance, not in author stance. Where the world reacts and responds to what they do through their characters, not what they do acting as players. I've found that having a living world that reacts to the players and in which the players' actions (filtered through the characters) have lasting effects (including for other groups) provides all of the benefits...without the stance switching and heavy workload on anyone's part.
    While there is definitely a group that plays both games in heavily- or almost exclusively-author stance mode, it's not necessary. There's some mandatory author stance stuff in Fate, but it can be pretty minimized. Most decisions in PbtA games can be framed as player-facing.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    I find PbtA to be opinionated and constraining, because it has its model of what is "interesting" and "how to play TTRPGs right". And that model doesn't fit anything but a narrow slice of possibilities. None of which I'm personally interested in. So for me, PbtA is the model of how to do it wrong, how to create preachy, uninteresting, constraining games. But that's a matter of pure taste, not some objective statement.
    It's interesting, because maybe, in this case, that's a good thing? AW is a tool designed to do a fairly narrow set of things, and do them pretty well. It's up front about that. And if that's not the thing you want to do, cool. I'd rather have a game be honest about what it does and let me decide up front if I want to play it or not.

    As far as narrow vs. broadly scoped? I find that most games are more narrowly scoped than people think... it's just when you're used to the walls being in particular places, you don't go there and don't notice them. But that's me.

    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    [1] I don't plan in advance. But I do look at what's happened and look for pieces I can weave into future sessions so that in retrospect it appears like a linear story despite having been anything but that. Self-laying railroad tracks--you look backward and you see the tracks you've laid behind you. But you can go anywhere.
    Pretty similar to what I do. I've had players amazed that my games weren't prepped or pre-written.

    I'm not saying you're wrong. But I do think it's interesting that we seem to have reasonably similar goals, and you dislike games for not achieving them, while I like the same games for facilitating them greatly. But, as I've said, there's also that very vocal "hyper-narrative" crowd that asserts everything must be cooperative GM, full author stance, blah blah blah stuff even that's very weakly supported by the texts of the games themselves.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2021-06-29 at 12:58 PM.
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