Stunting

[Jay R]

Normally? Perhaps not. For a tester? Give Bob a raise.

Bob is (arguably) doing his job as a tester, showing you areas where your system can be improved. Granted, he is, if we take your reports at face value, doing so in a somewhat suboptimal way. Still, you should remember that Bob isn't just a player, he's a play tester. And that makes a big difference in how you should interpret his feedback in that regard.

Quertus and I disagree about running a game so often that when I think he is right, I need to make a point of saying so.

This is a perfect observation. You are testing rules for eventual publication. If there are holes or misinterpretations, then you should want to fix them, and be grateful when a player discovers one.

This is clearly a problem with your ruleset; two different players have found ways to use the way it's worded to do something it's not supposed to do. Great! You want to find all of those before submitting it for publication. Yes, give Bob a raise -- a real, in-game raise.

I suggest that you give Bob and the new rogue 500 bonus XPs for finding it, thank them for finding a problem in the rules, and announce that every time you find out to have to change a rule, there will be experience point bonuses for the person(s) who found the problem.

I would also ask them for help re-phrasing the rule. Make them your allies and collaborators, not your rivals.

That way, changing the rule they wanted to exploit becomes a positive experience, with praise and bonus XPs and their input.

am saying I am not going to write a giant unwieldy tome that tries to codify the spirit of the rules, and it is annoying that people would expect me to do so, either on the forums or at my table, or think that it is somehow cheating for the GM to ask the players to adhere to the spirit of the rules when the letter in silent.

If you actually intend to publish the rules, or even have them used by a different GM when you aren't present, then you must codify the limits of what you want the players to do. The written rules will (eventually) be the only tool the GM and players have.

I guess the only think that rankles me is Bob acting like the victim and saying I cheated him because I told him that repeating the same description because it is against the spirit of the rules even if it doesn't violate the letter of the rules; and I find an idea that the rule book needs tons of extra text attempting the (imo impossible) task of codifying every possible case where an activity could violate the spirit of the rules without technically violating the letter.

That's right; he feels like a victim who's been cheated. He read the rules in good faith, and all the fluff around the rule, and cannot find any indication of that spirit of the rule. What you don't even mention in the rules will not ever feel like the "spirit" of that rule to readers; it will always feel like a hidden "gotcha" rule.

Give him the praise and thanks and extra XP, and make him feel like he's rewarded for his cleverness, not punished for failing to read your mind.

The idea was that this move was conditional in that you could only use it when there was some acrobatic stunt that you could pull off using the environment. But I guess this is to "fluffy" to work when put up against a min-maxxer.

Let me point out another potential problem with that. I took gymnastics classes at the Y for several years as a kid. I was never very good, but I know a fair amount, and could probably come up with a different, legitimate acrobatic stunt every round it's legal for me to try. If you don't want some players doing that, you need a rule preventing it. Your current approach gives value to my meta-knowledge about acrobatics.

[My proposed rule is that it is a way for a character to move into engagement. You can't do it with somebody you're already engaged with, you have to actually move to another square, and if you disengage from somebody else, you incur an Attack of Opportunity as usual.]

[Telok]

I suggest that you give Bob and the new rogue 500 bonus XPs for finding it, thank them for finding a problem in the rules, and announce that every time you find out to have to change a rule, there will be experience point bonuses for the person(s) who found the problem.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's about two RL years worth of play xp?

More generally:
It's a modest combat move bonus where you can trivially power game it once you notice that the rules lawyering doesn't align with the intent. Its in a typical mid-range fantasy game. Its not like D&D hasn't had those for 30 years, and this isn't even at the level of jankery that is D&D 5e guidance spell & help action spamming. This is a typical "get feedback & adjust" situation, not "verbally abuse the author and advise rewarding passive aggressive dickery".

[Talakeal]

You don't have a stunting system, man. You have a single combat maneuver.

Correct. And upon listening to my player-tester's thoughts on stunting systems, and feedback from this thread, I don't want a stunting system.

I have rewritten the combat maneuver to remove any references to narration, and plan on rewriting it again if it turns out to be as OP as I suspect.

You have a single combat maneuver. I suggested a way you could rewrite it to actually make the rules for that combat maneuver, not just your posts here complaining about your players' use of that combat maneuver, say what you want which would have taken two sentences, not a "giant unwieldy tome."

I can't parse this sentence. Did you leave out some words?

Out of sheer curiosity, is there some number of people who could say "those rules which you wrote don't say, in letter or in spirit, that you can't use this maneuver every round" which would make you consider the possibility that you're wrong here?

The possibility? Just one.

I would strongly consider it if there seemed to be a clear consensus (either among the forum or my play testers) or the forum community, but I am not seeing that either. And, since I am ditching the rule anyway, its not really an issue.

[Crake]

Just make stunting a resource ala action dice. Give players (or the party, or allow players to gift their uses to others if they wish) x uses per session and only award them for good rp descriptions.

You can also take a page out of FATE’s book, and award players extra uses for acting in character when the actions would otherwise produce an unfavourable result, like a paladin turning down a monetary reward from destitute refugees after saving them.

[gatorized]

Seems like an underdeveloped system. Here's an example of things you should be able to do:

Give the target a penalty to all their rolls for a round
Prevent a target from moving
Force a target to drop an item or weapon
Shoving back, tripping, knocking prone
Lure a target to charge at you before dodging out of the way, or making them attack something behind you
Force someone to focus their attention on you, such as by taunts or distractions

All of these involve an opposed roll, just like any other combat action.

[glass]

Some games, for example Exalted, provide bonuses for PCs doing "stunts". Wild and cinematic moves that would look great in a Kung-Fu or Swashbucking movie, even if they aren't terribly realistic like swinging on chandeliers, rolling under the enemy's legs, sliding down bannisters, or jumping from the backs of one enemy to another.

I would draw a distinction between "stunt systems" (as in Exalted) and "improvised action systems" as in D&D 4e. There is some overlap, in that they both try to factor in fictional positioning in a more-concrete way, but stunts as I understand the term are mostly player facing. Whereas improvised actions are for players, but there is also an important element of encouraging the GM not to shut down improvised actions with excessive rolls required and/or penalties. They also lack the "performing seal" aspect of stunt systems. Finally, my impression of stunt systems is that they are about adding bonuses to a defined underlying mechanical attack (or whatever) whereas improvised actions are about giving the GM and players support for those area which the mechanics do not specificallt cover.

I have never actually played Exalted, so my impressions of it are mostly based on online discussions (I have read the 1e and 2re core books, but not recently), so my impression may be flawed. Hopefully Exalted fans are not reaching for pitchforks and torches...

Sometimes, they are, underwhelming, for example I often heard about 4E D&D and how it is almost never better to take an improvised action than use one of your at-will powers.

A first level character can do 3d8+3 damage with an improvised attack. It's been a while so I might be misremembering, but I seriously doubt many first-level PCs are getting that out of an At Will. That said, I don't recall improvised actions getting that much use, but that might have been because experienced players were trained out of them by prior systems (and newer players took their cues from the experienced players) rather than any inherent quality of the 4e version.

I tried to implement this in my Heart of Darkness system fairly simply; you narrate the stunt, you make an agility test, and if you pass, you get +2 on your attack, if you fail you get -2.

This, OTOH, is not a stunt system or an improvised action system, it is simply use of the acrobatics skill with advantages and tradeoffs. IMO, its use should be narrated as much or as little as any other in-combat skill use (which is a matter of table preference).

So is this true? Does anyone have experienced with published games with good stunting rules? Do people generally ignore them, or just take the bonus as an entitlement with no narrative component?

Personally I do not like stunting rules as I understand the term, whereas I do think improvised action rules are useful, which is why I made the distinction I did at the top of the post (and the comment about "performing seals"). And I think D&D 4e is not a bad attempt, although it could definitely be improved. Having just reread it, the example in the DMG is particularly bad!

With regard to your specific system, I do think the majority of people will ignore the specific requirement to narrate this particular skill use, and will treat it like any other skill. So "Bob" is not entirely wrong. I suspect he would be more wrong with an actual stunt system, and he would be definitionally completely wrong with an actual improvised action system (since with no description there is nothing for the GM to adjudicate).

[Talakeal]

Seems like an underdeveloped system. Here's an example of things you should be able to do:

Give the target a penalty to all their rolls for a round
Prevent a target from moving
Force a target to drop an item or weapon
Shoving back, tripping, knocking prone
Lure a target to charge at you before dodging out of the way, or making them attack something behind you
Force someone to focus their attention on you, such as by taunts or distractions

All of these involve an opposed roll, just like any other combat action.

Are you saying that these are things you should be able to do with a stunt (acrobatic or otherwise)? Or be able to do with a mechanical combat maneuver?

Because if it's the latter the system already has options for these*, although the first two are tied to other effects.


*Except the forcing someone to attack someone behind you. That's neat in theory, but I don't know how one would actually manage it on either the fiction or the mechanics layer.

[Crake]

*Except the forcing someone to attack someone behind you. That's neat in theory, but I don't know how one would actually manage it on either the fiction or the mechanics layer.

Presumably, the momentum of the attack carries on past you to the person behind you, hence why it was specified for charging/moving attackers. Ranged attacks are even easier to justify.

[Zuras]

Fundamentally, what are you looking for out of a stunting system? Is it for driving engagement or simply to make sure “I hit it with my sword” isn’t an optimal move every turn.

Is a stunting system significantly different from Mighty Deeds in DCC or Martial Exploits in Low Fantasy Gaming? One of the criticisms I’ve gotten about the OSR systems I’ve been playing from 5e players is that actions besides generic attacks tend to be tactically poor choices.

[Crake]

Fundamentally, what are you looking for out of a stunting system? Is it for driving engagement or simply to make sure “I hit it with my sword” isn’t an optimal move every turn.

Is a stunting system significantly different from Mighty Deeds in DCC or Martial Exploits in Low Fantasy Gaming? One of the criticisms I’ve gotten about the OSR systems I’ve been playing from 5e players is that actions besides generic attacks tend to be tactically poor choices.

I think fate handles “stunts” pretty well, because they contribute toward defeating your opponent. Since “damage” is done based on the difference in your rolls, and stunts contribute to your advantages on rolls, you can chain a bunch of stunts to build a series of advantages, and then exploit it in one big attack to defeat your enemy in one decisive action

[Pauly]

One way of dealing with stunting, kind of sort of inspired by the Coman system.

Player A attempts a stunt, with appropriate RP element.
Roll for success
If successful the party gains one metacurrency coin.
The new metacurrency cannot be spent immediately, it goes into the party’s resource pool.
Player B’s turn starts, the new metacurrency coin is available to spend.

Players can’t both gain and spend metacurrency on the same turn.

Metacurrency carries over from scene to scene, although there is a case for limiting how much can be carried over.

The idea is to incentivize the party to do stunts and to encourage/reward cool RP. So if your rogue says ‘I do a backflip against the wall’ for the seventh time in the encounter, the GM can quite reasonably say ‘the enemies are not impressed, and are waiting for it - if successful you gain no metacurrency, but if you fail the enemy will gain bad guy metacurrency”.

[Dasick]

I think stunting is inappropriate for your system for two reasons.

1) Stunts work best in rules light systems as a means to trick players into making their own combat rules so to speak. You have a rules heavy tactical wargame kind of RPG, and you have players who want to play it as such

2) You have a system where players can set up amazing jaw dropping sequences using the rules of the game as is.

There's quite a few regular (turn based, tactical) computer games which I really like because in them I get to come up with all sorts of cool and clever tactical situations that are quite like what you're describing with the swashbuckler/martial artist thing. They allow me to do these things not because I am good with words (although I am good with words), they allow me to do so through a double whammy of lots of creative codified options and balance that encourages me to do so.

You can get a lot more RP mileage out of Bob by having rules for specific environment objects he can use that will grant him more damage and bonuses that he can just from regular stab in the face action. But that would mean adding whole bunch of other combat maneuvers and rules for them. I know you're trying to cover your bases with the rule for all cool situations, but Bob is kinda-sorta right that if its not codified in the rules, then getting circumstantial bonuses is kind of is a game of entertaining you instead of "playing the game", ie, intereacting with a rule system.

Second, he is convinced that the purpose of the rule is to make a player entertain the rest of the table with the quality of his narration, and thinks that I am somehow judging the quality of said narration against some arbitrary standard to get some bonus. This isn't true of course, the idea is to reward players for clever ideas and reinforce the swashbucler character archetypes.

Honestly, it reminded me a lot of Brian and Dave telling me that they shouldn't have to tell me what they are saying to an NPC, instead they should just "roll diplomacy" and get what they want. They have for years insisted that I am somehow grading them on the eloquence of their speech, and say that isn't fair because they are playing charismatic characters, but if they were charismatic irl they would be out talking to girls instead of playing an RPG. Of course, eloquence never factors into it, I merely need to know what they want, what they are offering, and what approach they are using so that I can said the DC for said diplomacy roll.

...

The way Brian and Dave want to bypass having to think of an argument by "rolling diplomacy" would be like if a wizard player said it was unreasonable to make him choose spell and targets and instead wanted to be able to resolve encounters by shouting "I use magic" and nothing more.

Have you tried telling Brian and Dave that entertaining someone with quality narration is like "talking to girls 101" and they're getting free practice? :D

I do see their point though. The "i do diplomacy vs i do magic" distinction makes sense to me. Because ultimately, pnp RPGs combine two sets of distinct activities. On one hand, you have improv acting theatre aspect, the role playing. On the other hand you have a tactical wargame. Diplomacy is first, magic is second. I wouldnt have much of a problem with a player going "ok i come up with a clever plan - ok, roll intelligence and use whatever skills are appropriate" and then giving the player a run down of the plan their character comes up with.

[gatorized]

Are you saying that these are things you should be able to do with a stunt (acrobatic or otherwise)? Or be able to do with a mechanical combat maneuver?

Because if it's the latter the system already has options for these*, although the first two are tied to other effects.


*Except the forcing someone to attack someone behind you. That's neat in theory, but I don't know how one would actually manage it on either the fiction or the mechanics layer.

For example:

Luring an enemy involves having them attack you and then moving out of the way at the last possible instant so they strike what’s behind you. Whenever an enemy targets you with a physical or energy attack, you can declare you are luring them before they make their attack roll. You must use an active defense when luring. If your defense roll exceeds their attack roll by 3 or more, you can spend 1 Resolve to have the attack strike whatever lies directly behind you. You can lure an opponent into attacking someone else (rather than an inanimate object), but you have to forego you next turn to act to do so, and the new target is allowed to make their own defense roll against the attack.