# The Gaming Den

Welcome to the Gaming Den.

Skip to content

## Big Skills

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply

- Print view

373 posts

- Page 9 of 15
  - Jump to page:
- Previous
- 1
- …
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- …
- 15
- Next

DSMatticus
  King
  Posts: 5271
  Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:32 am

###

- Quote

Post by DSMatticus » Wed May 04, 2016 5:32 am

> Ice9 wrote:Randomness does not, by itself, add agency.
> ...
> So I'm saying that to have agency, you need two things:
> 1) The players' choices (which could include char-gen choices) decide between multiple different outcomes.
> 2) The players are aware that the choice exists, and have some info (not necessarily true and complete) to base their decision on.

The choice between putting skill points in search and putting skill points in gather information is not random and it is not blind. Not any more random or blind than the choice between detect secret doors and hypnotism, anyway. You know abstractly what kinds of situations each ability will be applicable in and what you can use them to do, but using that to figure out how you can use those abilities to solve specific encounters four sessions from now isn't fucking happening.
Again, think about it this way. Here are three hypothetical designs, and I want you to rank them in terms of player agency.
1) There are no information gathering skills. The players know whatever the DM decides to tell them, and then they can make decisions based on that.
2) There are information gathering skills, but they don't do anything. The DM will make sure the players find the exact same information regardless, and then they can make decisions based on that.
3) There are information gathering skills, and the DM puts clues into the campaigns that are each accessible using one or more of these skills. The skills may or may not have a random element to their usage.
Now, I obviously can't tell you in advance that I'm going to be able to use my search skill in session 3 to find the secret drawer that contains the vampire letters, and I'm also not going to be able to predict the contents of those letters and how valuable it'll be to me. If I were that level of clairvoyant I wouldn't need information gathering skills at all unless my friends started bitching at me for my metagaming It's not my fault I can see the future, Bob! Keep bitching and I'm not giving you any more stock investment tips.
But I did make a choice to invest in the skill responsible for finding secret drawers instead of the skill responsible for collecting gossip. The game didn't force me to flip a coin for one or the other, and I did it knowing at least as much as someone choosing between 'detect secret doors' and 'hypnotism.'
Top

Ice9
  Duke
  Posts: 1568
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Ice9 » Wed May 04, 2016 7:13 am

> DSMatticus wrote:The choice between putting skill points in search and putting skill points in gather information is not random and it is not blind.

Yes. So it satisfies criteria 1. Whether it satisfies criteria 2 depends on how it comes up.
If the players know Bob has a secret exit from his office, but they can't find it without ripping the place apart because nobody took Search? That meets criteria 2, the players realized there was a difference as a result of having/not having the skill.
If the players talk to Bob in his office, fail to notice the secret door, and never end up hearing about it in any way ... then from the players' PoV, there was no secret door, and the fact that the GM had extra info inside his head did not increase the amount of agency.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it's not like every aspect of every scene has to be a source of agency. Just be aware that in terms of player agency, a hallway with a ton of hidden passages that nobody ever found out about is the same as a straight hallway with no choices.
Last edited by Ice9 on Wed May 04, 2016 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Top

PhoneLobster
  King
  Posts: 6403
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by PhoneLobster » Wed May 04, 2016 7:37 am

> DSMatticus wrote:The choice between putting skill points in search and putting skill points in gather information is not random and it is not blind.

... and then you admit you would have to be clairvoyant to have any idea of the impact on game play.
But despite your own internal contradictions. It isn't a blind choice? OK. So then... which one is better.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
Phonelobster's Latest RPG Rule Set
The world's most definitive Star Wars Saga Edition Review
That Time I reviewed D20Modern Classes
Stories from Phonelobster's ridiculous life about local gaming stores, board game clubs and brothels
Australia is a horror setting thread
Phonelobster's totally legit history of the island of Malta
The utterly infamous Our Favourite Edition Is 2nd Edition thread
Top

DSMatticus
  King
  Posts: 5271
  Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:32 am

###

- Quote

Post by DSMatticus » Wed May 04, 2016 8:10 am

> DSMatticus wrote:The choice between putting skill points in search and putting skill points in gather information is not random and it is not blind.

> Ice9 wrote:Yes. So it satisfies criteria 1. Whether it satisfies criteria 2 depends on how it comes up.

> Ice9 wrote:1) The players' choices (which could include char-gen choices) decide between multiple different outcomes.
> 2) The players are aware that the choice exists, and have some info (not necessarily true and complete) to base their decision on.

No, criteria 1 is that the outcome isn't random (or fixed, I suppose) - i.e. that there's a choice at all and that the choice changes the outcome. Criteria 2 is that the choice isn't blind. When making criteria 2, you admitted that the information did not have to be true or complete, but in the rest of your argument you keep demanding that the information be complete (or very nearly complete). See the following:

> Ice9 wrote:If the players talk to Bob in his office, fail to notice the secret door, and never end up hearing about it in any way ... then from the players' PoV, there was no secret door, and the fact that the GM had extra info inside his head did not increase the amount of agency.

During character creation (and when characters advance), players have a bunch of resources and get to choose where to spend them. They do not make these decisions with perfect knowledge of when they will be able to use the abilities they're abilities, nor exactly what changes using those abilities will allow them to make to the story. They abso-fucking-lutely don't. When you choose to learn animate dead, you don't know that three sessions from now you're going to fight the BBEG's right-hand's pet manticores and get to turn them into your party's personal flying mounts. You had a spell to choose, you had a mechanical description of each of the options available to you, and you had a campaign description the size of a fucking book blurb.
If you'd known for sure that animate dead was going to turn into flying mounts, it probably would have been an easier choice. If you knew for sure that animate dead was never going to turn into flying mounts ever, you might not have picked animate dead at all. You are asserting that because you didn't know whether or not you'd be getting zombie manticores halfway through the third session from now because you chose animate dead, the decision was blind. And that's absurd. You didn't have "true and complete" information about the exact changes animate dead was going to allow you to make to the story, but you still made a decision based on the rules text in front of you and some very vague expectations about the campaign. It could have ended in a zombie air force or it could have not, and this time it just happened to do so.
Information gathering abilities give you a basic description of what they do. It's not "true and complete" information like you'd have if this were your seventh (or whatever) playthrough of a Bioware game, but it's information. It's enough information to make a more meaningful choice than a blind choice.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Wed May 04, 2016 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
Top

MGuy
  Prince
  Posts: 4665
  Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
  Location: Indiana

###

- Quote

Post by MGuy » Wed May 04, 2016 12:20 pm

Ice the thing DSM is (intentionally?) misunderstanding is that while players do not have perfect knowledge of what's going to happen in a given game they can be sure that no matter what Search/Knowledge (and similar)skills will only be useful when the GM decides they are. Players cannot force themselves into a situation where Search will be the deciding factor of what they are going to do next. Yes, you get a description of what they do but that doesn't matter, because over and beyond a skill like jump or even perception, you can't know that it'll ever be useful when you can know, with certainty, that you will be able to use other skills.
It's funny that DSM mentions Animate Dead because the players can ALWAYS expect to be able to find dead bodies of some sort and get up to all kinds of shenanigans. It may be flying mounts, it may be a distraction, it may be an undead army. Doesn't matter because players can know that they will get mileage out of the ability regardless of the GM's whims AND if it fails (somehow) they will also immediately know that it did and what it means.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.

> MGuy wrote:Finally a thread about fighters!

Top

ishy
  Duke
  Posts: 2404
  Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:59 pm

###

- Quote

Post by ishy » Wed May 04, 2016 2:22 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:The existence of actual abilities that don't have die rolls at all doesn't actually meaningfully argue against the idea that having your abilities interpreted by impartial icosohedrons gives you more agency than having your abilities interpreted by the whims of a fickle MC. It's an incoherent line of argument to attempt. But you failed to even get that far because you set yourself the dadaist goal of naming an action mediated by zero die rolls and the one you named has three and not zero.
> -Username17

Now I know why you sounded so insane. You were strawmanning. Don't do that Frank. The actual argument was using impartial dice vs not using impartial dice.

> Gary Gygax wrote:The player’s path to role-playing mastery begins with a thorough understanding of the rules of the game

> Bigode wrote:I wouldn't normally make that blanket of a suggestion, but you seem to deserve it: scroll through the entire forum, read anything that looks interesting in term of design experience, then come back.

Top

Ice9
  Duke
  Posts: 1568
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Ice9 » Wed May 04, 2016 6:18 pm

> DSMatticus wrote:When you choose to learn animate dead, you don't know that three sessions from now you're going to fight the BBEG's right-hand's pet manticores and get to turn them into your party's personal flying mounts.

Yes, but when you are standing around the dead manticore corpses, you are aware that Animate Dead would make a difference there.
Now imagine if instead, there were no manticore corpses - instead, there was a skull in a crypt that appears to be non-magical, but if someone who knows Animate Dead walks near it then it will start speaking and tell you the location of a secret Necromancers' library.
In that second case, if the PCs didn't have Animate Dead, then as far as their experience, there was never a situation where having it would have mattered. And the GMs protestations that there was so a situation, honest, doesn't really change that.
Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed May 04, 2016 7:07 pm

> ishy wrote:

> > FrankTrollman wrote:The existence of actual abilities that don't have die rolls at all doesn't actually meaningfully argue against the idea that having your abilities interpreted by impartial icosohedrons gives you more agency than having your abilities interpreted by the whims of a fickle MC. It's an incoherent line of argument to attempt. But you failed to even get that far because you set yourself the dadaist goal of naming an action mediated by zero die rolls and the one you named has three and not zero.
> > -Username17

> Now I know why you sounded so insane. You were strawmanning. Don't do that Frank. The actual argument was using impartial dice vs not using impartial dice.

Uh... what the fuck? If you don't use impartial dice, your abilities operate as per the fickle whims of the MC. That's all there fucking is. You use an RNG to resolve edge cases of you have the MC rate your felatio. There is no option three.
Yes, some people on this thread were talking all starry eyed about making a wall of stone to chanel lava around without rolling dice, but that is bullshit and those people are stupid. If you put a bunch of rocks in front of lava it might stop the lava or it might not. Maybe the lava melts the rocks and the lava keeps going. Maybe the lava pours right over it. Or whatever. Lots of shit could happen, and the only way to determine what actually happens is to turn to numbers and dice, or to have the MC pull an answer out of his asshole. There isn't an option 3.
And the people who claim that they have more player agency with the option where they don't use numbers and die rolls are completely wrong. And also stupid.
-Username17
Top

DSMatticus
  King
  Posts: 5271
  Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:32 am

###

- Quote

Post by DSMatticus » Wed May 04, 2016 7:15 pm

> Ice9 wrote:Now imagine if instead, there were no manticore corpses - instead, there was a skull in a crypt that appears to be non-magical, but if someone who knows Animate Dead walks near it then it will start speaking and tell you the location of a secret Necromancers' library.

The spell you're thinking of is called "speak with dead." Unlike animate dead, it has rules text telling you that if you find a non-magical skull you can make it start speaking to you. And that's an important distinction, because what you've described is a situation where the DM just makes something the fuck up that is not at all based on rules text and could not have been a factor in your decisions about which spells to learn. "Abilities don't do what they say on the label" is always disempowering, because the labels are how you make decisions between different abilities. In what way is "I couldn't make an informed decision about which abilities I wanted because the DM makes up half the rules" relevant to whether or not you can make an informed decision without knowing the specific circumstances in which your abilities will be used? It's a shit example.

> Ice9 wrote:In that second case, if the PCs didn't have Animate Dead, then as far as their experience, there was never a situation where having it would have mattered. And the GMs protestations that there was so a situation, honest, doesn't really change that.

Why is this so difficult for you to get?
The decision is between search and gather information, and it's being made during character creation. During character creation, you have full access to the rules text for the abilities you're choosing between. It's not a blind choice. It is objectively not a blind choice. Sure, the players don't know the specific circumstances in which those abilities will come up. Yes, knowing the specific circumstances would have potentially changed their valuation of the skills, but making a decision on incomplete information is not the same as making a blind decision. Yes, if the ability is used passively then PC's won't even know when they've failed, but it doesn't fucking matter, because they still made a nonrandom nonblind decision during character creation to invest in that skill - and the only way to give that decision any meaning whatsoever is to have it change outcomes, even if the players don't know which specific outcomes it's changing.

> MGuy wrote:It's funny that DSM mentions Animate Dead because the players can ALWAYS expect to be able to find dead bodies of some sort and get up to all kinds of shenanigans. It may be flying mounts, it may be a distraction, it may be an undead army. Doesn't matter because players can know that they will get mileage out of the ability regardless of the GM's whims AND if it fails (somehow) they will also immediately know that it did and what it means.

I don't think you've ever actually tried to play a necromancer in more than one campaign. I chose animate dead specifically because the mileage you'll get out of the ability varies wildly based on decisions outside of your control, making it very analogous to search, whose mileage will vary wildly based on decisions outside of your control. If you're playing an undead-centric campaign, then animate dead is almost fucking worthless. Undead don't leave corpses behind when destroyed, so you can't even use that CR 1/2 zombie you killed to make another CR 1/2 zombie. If 99% of your opposition are 1 HD humanoids with class levels, then animate dead is almost fucking worthless within levels of getting it.
If you are bitching about how abilities will only be useful when the GM decides they are, then animate dead is a perfect example, because depending on the encounters the GM gives you it will vary from completely shit to completely broken. And I find your "well, at least you get your consolation prize - a small mob of skeleton squirrels" attitude really fucking unconvincing, because if I'd known upfront that that was the limit of animate dead I never would have picked it. Okay, that's a lie, a small mob of skeleton squirrels sounds hilarious and I'm a necromancer junkie. But it would have been a joke pick, so the general point stands.
Last edited by DSMatticus on Wed May 04, 2016 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Top

Kaelik
  ArchDemon of Rage
  Posts: 14491
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Kaelik » Wed May 04, 2016 7:19 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:

> > ishy wrote:

> > > FrankTrollman wrote:The existence of actual abilities that don't have die rolls at all doesn't actually meaningfully argue against the idea that having your abilities interpreted by impartial icosohedrons gives you more agency than having your abilities interpreted by the whims of a fickle MC. It's an incoherent line of argument to attempt. But you failed to even get that far because you set yourself the dadaist goal of naming an action mediated by zero die rolls and the one you named has three and not zero.
> > > -Username17

> > Now I know why you sounded so insane. You were strawmanning. Don't do that Frank. The actual argument was using impartial dice vs not using impartial dice.

> Uh... what the fuck? If you don't use impartial dice, your abilities operate as per the fickle whims of the MC. That's all there fucking is. You use an RNG to resolve edge cases of you have the MC rate your felatio. There is no option three.
> Yes, some people on this thread were talking all starry eyed about making a wall of stone to chanel lava around without rolling dice, but that is bullshit and those people are stupid. If you put a bunch of rocks in front of lava it might stop the lava or it might not. Maybe the lava melts the rocks and the lava keeps going. Maybe the lava pours right over it. Or whatever. Lots of shit could happen, and the only way to determine what actually happens is to turn to numbers and dice, or to have the MC pull an answer out of his asshole. There isn't an option 3.
> And the people who claim that they have more player agency with the option where they don't use numbers and die rolls are completely wrong. And also stupid.
> -Username17

That's funny, because when I follow the rules in 3e, I get the result: "The lava is stopped by the wall without any rolls."
(Alternative bonus condition. You roll dice that literally don't matter at all, and Frank claims that because you could have rolled dice that don't matter, this magically imparts agency, even though the rules totally just let you do that without rolling dice.)

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Wed May 04, 2016 7:33 pm

Total immersion in lava does 20d6 damage per round. Stone has a hardness of 8 and 15 hit points per inch. Walls take half damage from fire unless they are flammable. A river of lava goes through almost 2 inches of stone per turn and there are twenty dice rolled.
Kaelik, literally every time you've used a 3e rule in this thread you've gotten it totally wrong. Why is that? Each time you claim there are no dice involved, the number of actual dice has been more. Earlier it was you claiming 3 die rolls were zero, and now we are up to you claiming twenty dice per round is zero. That is like Donald Trump levels of wrong.
-Username17
Top

ishy
  Duke
  Posts: 2404
  Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:59 pm

###

- Quote

Post by ishy » Wed May 04, 2016 7:39 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:Uh... what the fuck? If you don't use impartial dice, your abilities operate as per the fickle whims of the MC. That's all there fucking is. You use an RNG to resolve edge cases of you have the MC rate your felatio. There is no option three.
> -Username17

Uhmmm there totally is an option 3. To give a shitty but clear example. You can just have an open lock ability that allows you to open any and all locks in 2 rounds. No need to use dice and no need to felate the DM to gain a +x lockpicking bonus. In fact no need to felate the DM at all.
Now sure, you're still depending on the whims of the DM in encounter design, but that is true no matter what resolution system you use.
Last edited by ishy on Wed May 04, 2016 7:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

> Gary Gygax wrote:The player’s path to role-playing mastery begins with a thorough understanding of the rules of the game

> Bigode wrote:I wouldn't normally make that blanket of a suggestion, but you seem to deserve it: scroll through the entire forum, read anything that looks interesting in term of design experience, then come back.

Top

MGuy
  Prince
  Posts: 4665
  Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
  Location: Indiana

###

- Quote

Post by MGuy » Wed May 04, 2016 7:48 pm

Because you can't go somewhere and make corpses by killing living things. You only get to fight undead all the time and can never choose to go fight something else unless you have the GM's explicit permission.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.

> MGuy wrote:Finally a thread about fighters!

Top

Kaelik
  ArchDemon of Rage
  Posts: 14491
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Kaelik » Wed May 04, 2016 7:52 pm

> FrankTrollman wrote:Total immersion in lava does 20d6 damage per round. Stone has a hardness of 8 and 15 hit points per inch. Walls take half damage from fire unless they are flammable. A river of lava goes through almost 2 inches of stone per turn and there are twenty dice rolled.

Except for that whole thing where the wall of stone isn't totally immersed in lava, because the wall of stone is at least 5ft tall, and you can make it 30ft tall if you want, so unless you regularly encounter 30ft deep rivers of lava that you need to redirect, chances are pretty good your wall is not "totally immersed" in which case, oh wait, there are rules for exposure, and under those rules, your wall lasts for as long as you fucking want.
But before you tell us that exposure applies to anything within seven miles of lava, and that total immersion applies any time that lava touches anything, let's pretend you weren't blatantly lying about lava to create dice rolls, what if the lava rules said something else like "When you are exposed to lava, you take 2d6 fire damage a round" or something like that, in which case Wall of Stone would stop lava without any rolls.
Would this lack of dice roll automatically mean that whether the wall worked was MC fiat? Or would it be because the rules said it worked? Would the rules making it work without a dice roll deprive the players of agency because no dice equals no agency because rules don't create agency, only the almighty dice gods?

> FrankTrollman wrote:Kaelik, literally every time you've used a 3e rule in this thread you've gotten it totally wrong. Why is that? Each time you claim there are no dice involved, the number of actual dice has been more. Earlier it was you claiming 3 die rolls were zero, and now we are up to you claiming twenty dice per round is zero.

Frank, earlier you claimed zero dice rolls for casting roll of stone is actually three because you can conceive of a situation that has three dice rolls even though the one actually described has zero. Now you are blatantly lying about the rules for Lava to create dice rolls where there are none.
And even despite your blatant stupidity, even if we believe your blatant lies about the rules, in both cases, it takes 6 whole seconds to describe a situation in which you there are no dice rolls and the players have the same agency.
Why can't you actually answer my previous example, or any of the millions of times people use rules with no dice to create player agency with anything besides lying about the rules to pretend there are secretly magic dice imparting agency?
Last edited by Kaelik on Wed May 04, 2016 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Top

DSMatticus
  King
  Posts: 5271
  Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:32 am

###

- Quote

Post by DSMatticus » Wed May 04, 2016 8:02 pm

> MGuy wrote:Because you can't go somewhere and make corpses by killing living things. You only get to fight undead all the time and can never choose to go fight something else unless you have the GM's explicit permission.

Uhh, if you go skipping through the woods looking for things to murder, it is totally up to the "GM's explicit permission" whether or not you get squirrels or manticores. Who the fuck else is going to decide what you encounter, exactly? I know! Maybe you could use gather information to collect rumors about the lairs of monsters that would make awesome zombies!
But more seriously, you're not going to derail a campaign because you're not getting cool enough pets. Nine times out of ten that would just be dickish to everyone involved. Realistically you're just going to have to accept that animate dead isn't going to be a powerhouse (because of inputs outside of your control) and use your other abilities. Like command undead, which can be very nice in undead-centric campaigns and yet still be completely useless in tons of other campaigns. And levelled humanoids aren't particularly resistant to fear effects, so your save-or-dies that outright don't work on a ton of creature types work just fine here. Man, it's crazy how hard it is to predict when some of these abilities will end up being useful. What a bullshit game, amirite?
Top

MGuy
  Prince
  Posts: 4665
  Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
  Location: Indiana

###

- Quote

Post by MGuy » Wed May 04, 2016 8:19 pm

Did not say whether you get squirrels or mythical beasts. Didn't say you had to even go to a forest. You claimed animate dead can't raise corpses but you can fuck off and make corpses. As soon as you're forced to admit that you should've decided to shut the fuck up. My point was that there will be ways for you to force the use of the ability. I don't give a shit if you bring up squirrels or worms the player is guaranteed regardless of the GM to be able to use the ability.
Last edited by MGuy on Wed May 04, 2016 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.

> MGuy wrote:Finally a thread about fighters!

Top

Mask_De_H
  Duke
  Posts: 1995
  Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:17 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Mask_De_H » Thu May 05, 2016 1:47 am

> FrankTrollman wrote:

> > ishy wrote:

> > > FrankTrollman wrote:The existence of actual abilities that don't have die rolls at all doesn't actually meaningfully argue against the idea that having your abilities interpreted by impartial icosohedrons gives you more agency than having your abilities interpreted by the whims of a fickle MC. It's an incoherent line of argument to attempt. But you failed to even get that far because you set yourself the dadaist goal of naming an action mediated by zero die rolls and the one you named has three and not zero.
> > > -Username17

> > Now I know why you sounded so insane. You were strawmanning. Don't do that Frank. The actual argument was using impartial dice vs not using impartial dice.

> Uh... what the fuck? If you don't use impartial dice, your abilities operate as per the fickle whims of the MC. That's all there fucking is. You use an RNG to resolve edge cases of you have the MC rate your felatio. There is no option three.
> Yes, some people on this thread were talking all starry eyed about making a wall of stone to chanel lava around without rolling dice, but that is bullshit and those people are stupid. If you put a bunch of rocks in front of lava it might stop the lava or it might not. Maybe the lava melts the rocks and the lava keeps going. Maybe the lava pours right over it. Or whatever. Lots of shit could happen, and the only way to determine what actually happens is to turn to numbers and dice, or to have the MC pull an answer out of his asshole. There isn't an option 3.
> And the people who claim that they have more player agency with the option where they don't use numbers and die rolls are completely wrong. And also stupid.
> -Username17

Fuck's sake this conversation is stupid, but this is stupid even for you. The actual point of the conversation before you had to piss on K names to mark your territory was whether or not one could have abilities that covered multiple tasks, of which shit you got by "having thumbs" was a subset of. It is entirely possible to have a system in which you have these things resolve with numbers and not die rolls by having fungible rules exceptions which gives you discrete abilities. Like how casting Fly gives you a fly speed of X for Y minutes, or how Wall of Stone gives you X feet of stone to shape in Y increments, which may or may not be enough to cover the lava flow depending on the size of said flow in comparison to the Wall that is built. Those things are contingent on numerical inputs that do not require dice (wall height and thickness, hardness of stone, flat fire resistance). The variable that requires dice (lava damage) can be rendered irrelevant by the constants. The same is true even for something that nominally involves lots of dice rolls, i.e. a guy trying to cut down said wall. Yes, you have to roll to hit and roll to damage, but the outputs make the result deterministic: you either can't swing hard enough or you can and it's just a matter of time. The inputs that change that output are also primarily constants (power attack bonus, strength bonus, any special quality that makes something better at stonecutting).
Making insane hyperbolic points is shitting in the well of discourse. If you're just arguing because it's the only way you can achieve orgasm, don't fucking waste our time with your delusions.

> FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.

> K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.

> Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.

> Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.

Top

Aryxbez
  Duke
  Posts: 1036
  Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2010 9:41 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Aryxbez » Thu May 05, 2016 3:02 am

So...I'm getting confused by these conversations, and hoping this might get the conversation on track to something bit more useful.
So, I guess the notions are:
1.) It's bad to have a Binary-roll lock you out of content, as it then wasted time the DM Spend preparing, and doesn't seem to improve the story in some way (arguable circumstance?).
Therefore DM's should give them the content so they're not missing out? Although it sounds more like just use the 3-clue rule, one of which will help further the plot for the PC's. Also near-auto succeed rolls I'm pretty sure D&D just tells you not to do?
2.) Dice are random by nature, which its result is not chosen by the player (excluding abilities that do that), thusly not Player-input.
Therefore because it's not Player input, it's not empowering to players?? Despite the fact your choices made to make those rolls better, those player inputs DO affect the die rolls in your favor enough that your input was involved, and you did make the roll work in your favor (if you succeed). That said, Dice are random is true, and I thinks it true its not exactly player input, but the resources you spend to modify them, are.
Kinda like in SR, your player input (BP/Karma spent on PC) make your Dice Pool big enough to likely succeed on the established TN's of the game.
Finally, Dice are empowering not because they are random, but because they're not fiat, they're numbers that have objective outcomes we can judge what a given result should be by the games rules (duh).
3.)If content can be skipped, then the DM didn't spend time on it. Therefore, if the DM spends time on the content, he should railroad you to the content? Despite a DM moresso has hooks, 3-clue rule, and other PC-motivations to make it Likely the PC's will go on the adventure, or after its content, opposed to forcing it?
What I find wrong w/ 4th edition: "I want to stab dragons the size of a small keep with skin like supple adamantine and command over time and space to death with my longsword in head to head combat, but I want to be totally within realistic capabilities of a real human being!" --Caedrus mocking 4rries
"the thing about being Mister Cavern [DM], you don't blame players for how they play. That's like blaming the weather. Weather just is. You adapt to it. -Ancient History
Top

MGuy
  Prince
  Posts: 4665
  Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
  Location: Indiana

###

- Quote

Post by MGuy » Thu May 05, 2016 3:49 am

1) I am saying this yes but a bit more than that. I've been saying that there are skills that only exist to lock out content (Search/Knowledge/etc) and that they are not important enough to deserve a roll. Instead, if players decide to use the gate unlocking skills that they put resources into having there is no good reason to not give it to them.
2) The roll itself, or whatever method you use to generate the number that you add your bonuses/penalties/etc to, is not itself player input.That's pretty much it. Getting the bonuses, performing the action/making decisions that trigger that roll, and the abilities that modify the results of that roll 'are' player input. The act of rolling, nor the fact that rolling is necessary for some actions, are not player input. Frank has been on some bizarre tangent where he seems to be claiming that rolls are necessary for player empowerment.
3)I can't speak for everyone but this is not what I've been saying. I've not made any attempt to gauge how much time a GM might spend on content. What is important about content is that you have two choices when deciding to gate content behind a content gate. It is either minor, and something that won't heavily impact the game or it is. If it's the former no one cares because it's not worth discussing. If it's the latter then the GM should be attempting to give the player the content. Now if the players decide to skip it then it is whatever. The important part (and let me highlight this) is that the players are able to know the content exists so THEY can make the decision about whether or not to engage with it. I don't really care what method you use to get it to the players, gate locking mechanism or not, if players miss it then they are not being empowered by the choice the GM or even the dice, made to keep it from them.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.

> MGuy wrote:Finally a thread about fighters!

Top

Kaelik
  ArchDemon of Rage
  Posts: 14491
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Kaelik » Thu May 05, 2016 3:59 am

> Aryxbez wrote:2.) Dice are random by nature, which its result is not chosen by the player (excluding abilities that do that), thusly not Player-input.
> Therefore because it's not Player input, it's not empowering to players?? Despite the fact your choices made to make those rolls better, those player inputs DO affect the die rolls in your favor enough that your input was involved, and you did make the roll work in your favor (if you succeed). That said, Dice are random is true, and I thinks it true its not exactly player input, but the resources you spend to modify them, are.
> Kinda like in SR, your player input (BP/Karma spent on PC) make your Dice Pool big enough to likely succeed on the established TN's of the game.
> Finally, Dice are empowering not because they are random, but because they're not fiat, they're numbers that have objective outcomes we can judge what a given result should be by the games rules (duh).

The approximate points are:
a) Obviously dice are not player input, because they are literally designed to not be player or GM input. Calling them player input is obviously super dumb.
b) Player agency is not a magic property of dice rolls that would cease to exist if total immersion in lava did 70 damage instead of 20d6 damage because only dice grant player agency.
Player agency comes from player decisions being applied to a concrete set of rules. Those rules can (and almost certainly will) include dice rolls for some thing, but they can also not include dice rules for other things, and they can just have rules like "anyone with this much search power or this kind of search power can find this thing." Or "Man you can totally just make a wall appear here." And those actions are at least equally as empowering to the player as adding dice rules to those rules, because agency comes from player decisions interacting with rules, and is not a magical property of dice.
c) You can totally design systems that impart player agency which either do or do not use rolls, and whether or not a particular sub-system should have rolls or not is really something that is based on factors that have nothing to do with player agency at all. But before you can analyze the actual factors that determine whether a system should have a random element or not, you have to admit that player agency is not derived entirely through magical transmission from dice.
d) Deaddm and Frank have a hard on for dice and no argument, so they repeatedly assert that if you don't have dice then you have no player agency or that you can't invest resources in anything that isn't a roll, so all characters are the same if something doesn't have a roll (you know, how Catfolk Bararians have a 50ft movement speed and Dwarf Fighters have the same speed, because you can't possibly invest resources in a non random ability!), but they refuse under any circumstances to address the actual argument, which is that you can totally have things with hard rules and no rolls, and that some things should obviously be those things, and what those are is a more interesting conversation than fapping super hard to the claim that dice have magical agency granting powers.
Last edited by Kaelik on Thu May 05, 2016 4:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Top

OgreBattle
  King
  Posts: 6819
  Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:33 am

###

- Quote

Post by OgreBattle » Thu May 05, 2016 4:41 am

So how would a standard "Dungeon crawl with some traps, ancient lore to give clues on things inside, ruined sections that need to be worked around, and monsters" use yer ideal vision of a skill system?
When would dice be rolled, when wouldn't they be rolled.
Top

PhoneLobster
  King
  Posts: 6403
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by PhoneLobster » Thu May 05, 2016 5:18 am

> OgreBattle wrote:When would dice be rolled, when wouldn't they be rolled.

It's important to note that there are multiple ways to deal with the problem of content gating rolls.
1) They just don't happen you use a simple binary system where if a player has search and searches for searchables in a place the GM decides has searchables... they find searchables.
2) The rolls happen. They just don't matter because either the only content gated by them doesn't matter. OR because content they gate that DOES matter just gets delivered anyway by the same or other means within a variation of time frame/methodology that also... doesn't matter. OR because when the content actually matters the content gating roll doesn't happen.
In order to move outside of the ideal mechanics as far as I, and I think some of the others, are concerned is if and only if you include a content gating roll and actually make it matter it has to actually exclude content, no rerolls, no alternative check types, no eventual delivery on a silver platter, no pallet swap to fit it in anyway only now it has a mustache, ACTUAL content gating.
But you might notice that method 2 really is just what most people do. It's certainly what most people seem to recommend in practice, and stupidly, what a lot of people trying to defend the totally awesome importance of existing content gating skills put forward for some stupid reason as a defense of content gating skills mattering.
In the end the hardest part of this argument is that there is a vocal faction of GMs who don't even know what they are doing, they are ALREADY running largely on method 2, they just don't understand what they themselves do and vastly over value rolling a dice and imagine that the search checks in their games that let you, lets remember this prime example "MAYBE avoid a couple of mooks or not no one can tell", are something that matters.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Thu May 05, 2016 5:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
Phonelobster's Self Proclaimed Greatest Hits Collection : (no really, they are awesome)
Phonelobster's Latest RPG Rule Set
The world's most definitive Star Wars Saga Edition Review
That Time I reviewed D20Modern Classes
Stories from Phonelobster's ridiculous life about local gaming stores, board game clubs and brothels
Australia is a horror setting thread
Phonelobster's totally legit history of the island of Malta
The utterly infamous Our Favourite Edition Is 2nd Edition thread
Top

Kaelik
  ArchDemon of Rage
  Posts: 14491
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Kaelik » Thu May 05, 2016 5:44 am

> OgreBattle wrote:So how would a standard "Dungeon crawl with some traps, ancient lore to give clues on things inside, ruined sections that need to be worked around, and monsters" use yer ideal vision of a skill system?
> When would dice be rolled, when wouldn't they be rolled.

To expand upon myself three years ago:
1) Things that should be things everyone should do, and not fucking graduated skills with rolls: Appraise, Gather Information, Heal, Perform, Profession, Use Rope.
I would imagine Gather Information and Appraise have rolls that don't scale with level, and that anything you can do with Heal, Perform, Profession, or Use Rope, you can just use. There would be between 0 and 1 graduations in what you can do. Either you "are trained in heal" or you aren't. Or it is assumed that all adventurers can do all the things that heal allows them to do.
Gather Information falls under the generic MTP social systems are hard no one ever does it right setting, but basically, no one invests character resources, they are better or worse based on things that happened in the campaign. Appraise is either a roll independent of level (if you have a more torchbearer game) or totally something everyone can just do for non magic items (if you are using a D&D style but more dungeon crawly).
2) Things that should be class features, or racial features, or feats, and not fucking graduated skills with rolls: Balance, Decipher Script, Forgery, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Open Lock, Ride, Sleight of Hand.
If you are a good Balancer, you can just balance on things, if you are good at escaping, you can do that, and if there is any roll, it would be for time. If you can Decipher Scripts, Open Locks, or Forge things, you can just do that. For a more dungeon crawly version of D&D, Open Lock would probably have levels, but certainly the other two wouldn't.
If you want to ride a horse you get on a horse and you know how to ride it. If you want to give people specific advantages to riding based on their class, then those are class features and whatever they do, they do.
Sleight of Hand tricks that don't involve literally taking other people's stuff, you can just do. Sleight of Hand that involves pickpocketing people is just not a skill that really makes sense competing with other skills in a Dungeon Crawler focused game.
3) Movement modes, which would have some other method of increasing them that might be a pool of points be level, or might be feats/class features. Jump, Climb, Swim, Fly.
You have some method of improving movement speeds, you pay points. Obviously Fly costs the most, and doesn't work underwater, and this is balanced on the Dungeon Crawling nature of the game.
4) "Knowledge Skills" that you get points that can only be spent in this category, This would be all Knowledges, all Crafts, Speak Language, and maybe Spellcraft, these could be rolls or just abilities, probably better as just abilities honestly, but that would involve reinventing the entire knowledge system.
It really depends what you want Knowledges to use, you say something about ancient lore or some shit, so if it isn't helping you with monsters, and it's just a gateway to hints or content, it could go without rolls. Or if it does tell you about monsters, there should be a roll, see my knowledge houserules.
Spellcraft... Honestly, I don't know, you could have rolls or not, I'm mostly indifferent.
Obviously crafts and languages are just things you do and know.
5) Exploration skills: Disable Device (and everyone would have trapfinding up to their DD skill, so if you can disable it you can find it, and if you can't, then you can't basically, DD would be essential to finding traps, where Search is something everyone has to find doors and gold and shit), Hide/MS, Spot/Listen, Survival.
So no searching, you either all can find secret doors or you can't. If the game is very craw focused, people might buy different kinds of search abilities, like depth sense, stonecunning, elven hearing or whatever.
Traps are a completely different almost certainly reactive roll to notice.
Perception skills are rolls, so are hiding skills.
6) Social Skills (hopefully made less shit in some way, but probably won't happen): Bluff, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Disguise, Intimidate.
Fuck it, just MTP all this shit, still no one has a better system.
7) Things that should be incorporated into the combat system as rolls that have to do with your level and nothing to do with any skill system: Tumble, Concentration.
If you need to cast a spell when you might be interrupted, that is a combat thing, not a skill thing. If you need to get past someone without being hit, that is a combat thing, not a skill thing. As combat things in a combat game, they will have rolls. Not opposed ones, because opposed ones are dumb. (To be clear, I mean where both people roll shit, the DCs will of course be based on the opponents, because that is how combat works.)
8) Things that shouldn't exist: UMD.
Last edited by Kaelik on Thu May 05, 2016 5:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

> DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?

The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.
That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Top

Username17
  Serious Badass
  Posts: 29894
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

###

- Quote

Post by Username17 » Thu May 05, 2016 6:02 am

> ishy wrote:

> > FrankTrollman wrote:Uh... what the fuck? If you don't use impartial dice, your abilities operate as per the fickle whims of the MC. That's all there fucking is. You use an RNG to resolve edge cases of you have the MC rate your felatio. There is no option three.
> > -Username17

> Uhmmm there totally is an option 3. To give a shitty but clear example. You can just have an open lock ability that allows you to open any and all locks in 2 rounds. No need to use dice and no need to felate the DM to gain a +x lockpicking bonus. In fact no need to felate the DM at all.
> Now sure, you're still depending on the whims of the DM in encounter design, but that is true no matter what resolution system you use.

No. There is no option 3. In the case where your lockpicking ability "just works" there will still be edge cases. Maybe you come across a giant door or a magic door. And then we are back to either Mother May I or Rolling Dice because those are still the only two options. Declaring that normal locks aren't an edge case in your system in no way tells you how to resolve things when you do hit an edge case. And there will be edge cases, because unlike computer games or board games a table top RPG is truly open ended and you can and will find the edges however they are defined.
-Username17
Top

Sergarr
  1st Level
  Posts: 31
  Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 10:12 am

###

- Quote

Post by Sergarr » Thu May 05, 2016 6:02 am

Well, my take on the player agency and dice argument is that, while technically you can have a diceless game with players having lots of agency, it wouldn't be a game with a GM at all. A normal diceless table-top game, like chess or checkers, is like that, and they work pretty well.
But a game with GM, and in a system that contains things without rules or rules that contradict each other (and table-top RPGs will always be like that, because of their sheer scope), player agency very much depends on having some kind of buffer that would allow to smooth-out these problems in a way that doesn't invoke direct conflict between people - and dices are good for that.
That being said, content-gating rolls should probably be not a thing, or at least, there should be some warning waaaaay before they happen, about what kind of skill you should train to pass them. And most of them should be, like, an alternative-route type of thing, like being able to unlock some doors to go through a secret passage and suddenly backstab the enemy guards from behind, instead of just rushing at them from the front. Locking explanations for "what the fuck just happened" behind such rolls is bad, for both players and GMs.
Top
Post Reply

- Print view

Display:
Sort by:
Direction:

373 posts

- Page 9 of 15
  - Jump to page:
- Previous
- 1
- …
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- …
- 15
- Next

Return to “In My Humble Opinion...”

Jump to

- Main
- ↳ About the Gaming Den
- ↳ In My Humble Opinion...
- ↳ I Gave the Mouse a Cookie...
- ↳ In The Trenches
- ↳ It's My Own Invention...
- ↳ MPSIMS