The Gaming Den

deaddmwalking wrote: Kaelik is strawmanning very hard because he's tired of being ignored. His hatred of any type of dice rolling has him insisting that everyone else in this thread believes that every action should require a roll, no matter what or 'no agency'. Since nobody has actually made that claim, I don't know why he's still here.

Here, let me help you.

FrankTrollman wrote: My contention is that without an RNG, an RPG is necessarily as bullshit and ultimately unsatisfying as Amber Diceless.

This is basically the statement that Kaelik has been contending the whole thread.

Jason wrote:how do you evaluate when they found out the weakness?

So you clearly agree that knowledge skills in D&D or anything like it are bullshit skills... but hey there is a mystery monster hunt game of indeterminate rules and structure that maybe they might be important.

First of all. Who cares. But second of all the only mystery monster hunt game that gets to make content gating rolls AND keep them important is one which is rules lite to the point that your combat event resolution is similarly brief.

What you are vaguely and confusedly mumbling about is a game with much the same constraints as a fairly standard action oriented RPG.

And as such you have a severe issue before you even get to the knowledge checks because gimmick monster weakness/invulnerabilities are a major RPG design hazard.

Is knowing the weakness actually vital to defeating the monster? In your referenced source material it absolutely 100% is. That is really kinda bad in an RPG. But regardless, you know what, at that point, YES you DO have to hand it to your players. You have no choice but to do so, and you WILL do so, no matter how many rolls it takes it's all irrelevant in the end the players WILL learn that the monster can only be defeated with a golden teaspoon or whatever bullshit.

In the mean time though lets be clear. A good RPG/Story does NOT do what Steven King's IT did and have the Mary Sue Steven Sue Lead Twat just think about it and suddenly declare that in his heart of hearts he knows the demon spider is immune to guns and vulnerable to silver.

In a good story or RPG the PCs decide they need to look for monster weaknesses (ideally after a non-fatal event/encounter/discovery demonstrating monster strengths/invulnerabilities). They then go to a place or person or whatever that might reasonably hold such information.

In a typical information gathering system that the pro-roll-every-fucking-thing faction would like this means you go to a library, and lets just say this IS the library the GM decided to place the important information in, BUT even though they made the right decisions... they roll low on a Research check and get nothing and go nowhere.

At this point it is either game over because they failed the star trek trivia check, OR... you make the failure not matter by making the information available againg and again until a roll damn well succeeds.

Or you know, alternatively the monster weakness isn't actually anything more than a minor advantage and the party can just win with extra explosives or routine combat antics and none of the research phase particularly mattered anyway.

Nothing about your deep desire in your heart to replicate a god damn buffy sucky mopey the vampire slayer episode changes the constraints on your knowledge type checks. Either they at best create minor unimportant variations within level appropriate challenges OR eventually the information they are hiding MUST somehow be provided.

Every single time we come back to this. Either the results matter, OR the rolls don't.

Yes. And there are things that don't require dice and there are abilities that shouldn't require rolls. Appraise really can be handled like 'speak language'. I don't think anyone actually disagrees with Kaelik's actual point. He just decided to try to make it in conjunction with PhoneLobster's contention that players should be given whatever content the GM creates regardless of their investment of character resources because otherwise the game ends.

Kaelik took a long time to distinguish his position from that of PhoneLobster, so he really did sound like a crazy person. The 'more interesting conversation' he wants to have hasn't happened and really can't until he makes it clear that he rejects the PhoneLobster position of 'I'm on a one-way track or game over'.

PhoneLobster wrote:So you clearly agree that knowledge skills in D&D or anything like it are bullshit skills.

As I said before: I am not going to contest you on this.

PhoneLobster wrote:.. but hey there is a mystery monster hunt game of indeterminate rules and structure that maybe they might be important.

Exactly, and you can't simply ignore that if you are talking about dice rolls and player agency.

PhoneLobster wrote:Is knowing the weakness actually vital to defeating the monster? In your referenced source material it absolutely 100% is.

I never claimed that it was. But just to stay with my excemple, it would put the players at a major disadvantage without knowing it. And as such, there is no absolute need to provide the players with it. It is, however, a perfect opportunity to reward ressource investment.

PhoneLobster wrote:In the mean time though lets be clear. A good RPG/Story does NOT do what Steven King's IT did and have the Mary Sue Steven Sue Lead Twat just think about it and suddenly declare that in his heart of hearts he knows the demon spider is immune to guns and vulnerable to silver.

In a good story or RPG the PCs decide they need to look for monster weaknesses (ideally after a non-fatal event/encounter/discovery demonstrating monster strengths/invulnerabilities). They then go to a place or person or whatever that might reasonably hold such information.

And where do they find such a person or place? And will they succeed and get the information or fail? Maybe a character commits a major gaffe and the hermit trefuses to share his knowledge...

PhoneLobster wrote:Or you know, alternatively the monster weakness isn't actually anything more than a minor advantage and the party can just win with extra explosives or routine combat antics and none of the research phase particularly mattered anyway.

So, the weakness, in your mind, is either irrelevant or insurmountable? You can conceive no possible scenario in which a third option exists?

PhoneLobster wrote:Either they at best create minor unimportant variations within level appropriate challenges OR eventually the information they are hiding MUST somehow be provided.

So, in your mind, anything greater than a minor inconvenience to the player characters needs to be alleviated by GM fiat?

deaddmwalking wrote:Kaelik took a long time to distinguish his position from that of PhoneLobster, so he really did sound like a crazy person. The 'more interesting conversation' he wants to have hasn't happened and really can't until he makes it clear that he rejects the PhoneLobster position of 'I'm on a one-way track or game over'.

I distinguished my point from Phone Lobsters three fucking years ago when I posted the prototype of that post.

I must also point out that you have never once at any point "made it clear that you reject the Frank position of" "MA DICE GIVE AGENCY, NOT RULES, ONLY DICE!" Probably because you actually believe it, but if you don't, notice how I only insist you are a crazy person because of the crazy things you have said, not because of the crazy things Frank has said.

That's because contrary to popular belief when you don't talk to someone, or about someone's ideas, and you never once in the entire fucking thread even reference them, it is probably because you aren't actually them and you are not arguing their position.

(Yes, the analogy is imperfect because you specifically have defended Frank, but that hardly changes the fact that you are fucking idiot for deciding that every post I make must be in agreement with the person I ignored for declaring me a racist sexist rapist years ago.)

Miniature Colossus wrote:Here, let me help you.

FrankTrollman wrote: My contention is that without an RNG, an RPG is necessarily as bullshit and ultimately unsatisfying as Amber Diceless.

This is basically the statement that Kaelik has been contending the whole thread.

No it isn't you lying sack of shit. Here are some of the things I actually said when Frank made really stupid arguments in favor of always using dice for all things:

Kaelik wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:The point is that . . . good and bad rolls made by the player are all player input. They all influence the course or potential course of the story because it's a cooperative storytelling game.

If you actually believe this, you are delusional. The results of dice rolls are not player input, they are random input. Some things need random inputs, some things don't. But it would be a hell of a lot better conversation if we talked about which things needed random inputs than trying to claim that the totally random result of things that are literally designed to ideally completely remove all influence the person rolling could ever have on the result, is "player input"

FrankTrollman wrote:Because you're still going to want your character to try to do things that are in the penumbra of things that they may or may not be able to do.

Which is a great reason to have dice involved sometimes, but a terrible argument for why they need to be involved all the time. . . .

Kaelik wrote:For example, when I want to cast Wall of Ice, I just cast wall of ice, and there it is, and when I want to speak Auran, I just speak Auran, and the words are spoken. Because it is totally acceptable to say "some things the PCs always get to succeed at, without rolling dice."

...

But sure, keep lying about how dice are player input, and not specifically inputs designed for the sole purpose of not coming from anyone at the table.

Kaelik wrote:

virgil wrote:I thought the conclusion for wanting dice (even tangentially through Concentration checks, saves, etc) stems from the established track record of failure from diceless systems is sufficient prior to err on that side of the argument.

Oh goody, the lie everyone says instead of the dumb thing everyone says! Wanting any possible thing to happen without die rolls is exactly like claiming that no dice rolls of any kind should exist anywhere!

Thanks Virgil, you showed me I sure was overestimating the honesty of people who argue that all actions ever must have dice in order to give players agency.

Kaelik wrote: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,

Hmmm.... Almost like the issue is rolls on certain actions not all actions... Weird what happens when you read what people actually say instead only reading Frank lying his ass off.

deaddmwalking wrote:

ishy wrote: I guess you could say previous player investment can matter a tiny bit even though Deaddm didn't mention that and in fact only stated he wanted the RNG to dedice no matter what abilities the player had. So yeah, even if you have a +0 or a +40, you still gotto roll that d20 to see if you succeed and fail, but if if you have a +0 you might need to roll a 13 and if you have a +40 you might need to roll a +7 (since deaddm stated he didn't want auto-success or failure). That is still hugely depowering to the players though. Probably unclear at what point investing in the skill stops mattering too.

????

Just to be clear, I was specifically talking about what you stated in this quote:

deaddmwalking wrote:Part of it comes from a desire to limit bias as the GM. If I know what my players abilities are, if the results are entirely deterministic based on what they have selected, when I am designing a scenario I must constantly confront the question of whether I want the PCs to find some thing or not find some thing. Do I want them to be able to convince the king to help, or not? Do I want them to find the secret entrance, or not? As a GM, I don't really have a preference - I want the players to choose what they'd like to do. But I am subject to bias, whether conscious or unconscious. Choosing a 'reasonable' challenge and knowing that the party might not be able to overcome it actually makes the design process easier. Further, it can be done in a generally party agnostic way - if I write a scenario but don't end up using it, as long as the ranges make sense I can use it for another group with completely different abilities without having to adjust the challenges to ensure they could be beaten by the party.

Since you made it clear you didn't want a deterministic system in this particular case, you can't have auto-success or auto-failure in this specific case.

---

Jason wrote:That's how I explained the existence of the skill to myself for it to make sense and remain somewhat dramatic. If you merely look at the written rules then yes, it looks bland.

Well that is the only thing the dice tell you, if you want to make up a story around that, that can be great but it is not a function of the dice.

Are you sure we are talking about the same thing here? If I set a dc of a challenge in my adventure so high that I know none of my players will be able to suceed, then why add that challenge in the first place? If I want players to reealize that their investment mattters, then at least the person that invested the most among that group should have a chance of success, don't you think? It doesn't need to be high, it just needs to be there. If the best character among the group has a lockpicking skill of +18 and I set the dc for the lock to 40 then I could just as well put a wall there and call it a day.

So there is no point in investing in the lockpicking skill after you hit +18? Having content that players can't interact with / can't interact with just yet, can be an amazing thing. If say your level 1 PCs want to influence the queen, but they can't do that directly through diplomacy yet, they have to find a way around that (or invest in the diplomacy skill). That sounds like a much better scenario than setting the DC so low they can do anything.

Objective resolution mechanics become relvant for player agency, when the outcome is unclear or of meaningfull impact.

Take the wall of stone excemple:

If the player has the spell (an investment) and simply wishes to cast a wall, out in the open, on a field, with no one the wiser, bothering no one, interacting with nothing, then why roll? I am fully on board with you there. But how is that relevant? The moment you use "wall of stone" to overcome a challenge, it does become relevant. Does the wall succeed? And at that point I am not talking about "can he cast wall of stone", either. Let's just assume he can, even though you could argue that combat and threatened life is distracting and makes conentration harder. So, he casts the wall of stone, but does it suceed? Does it stop the flow of lava? Does it block the tunnel entrance? does it work as a makeshift bridge? You can either adjudicate that arbitrarily (and yes, arguing on the basis of real physics in a fantasy game is still arbitrary) or you have an objective resolution mechanic in place to jude for you.
So, for the player agency in wall of stone to matter, you need a non-arbitrary challenge resolution or it will all simply depend on the whims of your GM.

If the wall of stone spell does not mention it stops lava then sure it can be arbitrary, but if the wall of stone spell mentions that it does stop lava, it is no longer arbitrary and just following the rules of the game. The DM can decide to arbitrarily fuck with you though, but he can always do that.

*snip* due to double post

ishy wrote:So there is no point in investing in the lockpicking skill after you hit +18? Having content that players can't interact with / can't interact with just yet, can be an amazing thing. If say your level 1 PCs want to influence the queen, but they can't do that directly through diplomacy yet, they have to find a way around that (or invest in the diplomacy skill). That sounds like a much better scenario than setting the DC so low they can do anything.

That is not at all what I have been saying. I said that most rules have clearly defined difficulties for the most common scenarios. They are to be used as guidelines, not simply ignored and DCs assigned depending on lunar phases and the color of your mother's underwear.

Of course there should be goals to aim for. But setting the difficulty of a masterfully crafted lock at DC 10 on one day and DC 40 on the next is not the way to do it. The difficulties need to be consistent or player agency goes the way of the dodo.

Of course the very special ultra super duper lock of awesomeness, locking the vault of excellent treasure beyond imagining can have a DC 40 and players may work towards one day opening the vault through investment in the respective skillset, but the DC may not be 40 just because it's outside of their current range. It needs to make sense for it to be 40 or it must not be 40 at all.

ishy wrote:If the wall of stone spell does not mention it stops lava then sure it can be arbitrary, but if the wall of stone spell mentions that it does stop lava, it is no longer arbitrary and just following the rules of the game. The DM can decide to arbitrarily fuck with you though, but he can always do that.

And you think it likely that a spell description will cover all eventualities? But it doesn't even matter, because we're back to the point where, without an objective resolution mechanic, player agency depends solely on GM fiat and is, a such illusory.

Now granted, that resolution mechanic does not have to be dice rolls. But it needs to be objective.

EDIT: To clarify my position on this: Allowing the player to cast a wall of stone, to erect a wall of stone for the purpose of blocking a flow of lava, if the rules specifically state that it can do that, is, as far as I am concerned, an objective resolution mechanic and thus allows for player agency. It is, however, fully limited to the defined scenarios within the rules and such a resolution mechanic is unable to properly reflect any amount of uncertainty or circumstantial influence. Dice rolls are far more capable of that.

Jason wrote:

MGuy wrote:You roll dice whenever what the players want to happen and what the GM is having happen differ. That means rolling exists, not to guarantee player agency, but to settle a dispute between GM and player (also player v player but that's not the focus of the discussion). You COULD just have a rule where when you decide to cast Wall of Stone, you get your Wall of Stone. That seems like a pretty solid way of guaranteeing the player agency, no dice involved.

Objective resolution mechanics become relvant for player agency, when the outcome is unclear or of meaningfull impact.

Take the wall of stone excemple:

If the player has the spell (an investment) and simply wishes to cast a wall, out in the open, on a field, with no one the wiser, bothering no one, interacting with nothing, then why roll? I am fully on board with you there. But how is that relevant? The moment you use "wall of stone" to overcome a challenge, it does become relevant. Does the wall succeed? And at that point I am not talking about "can he cast wall of stone", either. Let's just assume he can, even though you could argue that combat and threatened life is distracting and makes conentration harder. So, he casts the wall of stone, but does it suceed? Does it stop the flow of lava? Does it block the tunnel entrance? does it work as a makeshift bridge? You can either adjudicate that arbitrarily (and yes, arguing on the basis of real physics in a fantasy game is still arbitrary) or you have an objective resolution mechanic in place to jude for you.
So, for the player agency in wall of stone to matter, you need a non-arbitrary challenge resolution or it will all simply depend on the whims of your GM.

Jason I really, really need you to use your brain here. You come up with all these situations where 'you' think that creation and use of Wall of Stone maybe shouldn't work but imagine, just for a second, that the rules just say it does. No dice. None. Imagine for a moment that no one and nothing, save for the player deciding not to, can stop Wall of Stone from being cast. Tell me how that is not an objective action resolution that does not require GM fuckery.

MGuy wrote:Tell me how that is not an objective action resolution that does not require GM fuckery.

See the edit to my post. You must have been typing this, while I edited my post.

Despite your claim I 'failed' when I explained that I didn't even know what you meant before clarifying that whether a difference is better or worse is a simple matter of preference, I'll take the bait on this one.

You're creating a wall of stone with the intention of blocking a passage. The ceiling height is effectively 10', but it is irregular (natural cave).

While you can make a wall that is both wide enough and high enough for the 'standard height' the way the spell describes squares imply the wall is perfectly flat - potentially leaving gaps that someone can use to simply bypass the wall. Rough shaping of crenelations and battlements could also imply that.

If the character casts 'wall of stone' and believes that it will do what he wants and it doesn't, that shits on player agency.

See the edit to my post. You must have been typing this, while I edited my post.

Must have. Ok then. I did not even read your reply to ishy, just the one from mine. I was still catching up on this page. I suppose we're in agreement. There should be really clear rules for how things work and what happens when they are contested.

dead wrote:Despite your claim I 'failed' when I explained that I didn't even know what you meant before clarifying that whether a difference is better or worse is a simple matter of preference, I'll take the bait on this one.

You're creating a wall of stone with the intention of blocking a passage. The ceiling height is effectively 10', but it is irregular (natural cave).

While you can make a wall that is both wide enough and high enough for the 'standard height' the way the spell describes squares imply the wall is perfectly flat - potentially leaving gaps that someone can use to simply bypass the wall. Rough shaping of crenelations and battlements could also imply that.

If the character casts 'wall of stone' and believes that it will do what he wants and it doesn't, that shits on player agency.

It's not bait. All you gave was a scenario where players took a longer or shorter time finding a villain but at no point did you tell me why dice should be involved in that.

Even with this Wall of Stone example I 'still' don't see why you would want dice. All you're saying is that there should be rules in wall of stone that try to block GM nit picking. You 'still' wouldn't need to add a dice roll to do exactly that.

Moving forward I've established that I think gate locking skills shouldn't be rolled for but that I'm ok with opposed rolls. To name another instance I'd be ok with rolling is in some kind of risk vs reward scenario where the player can opt to risk something in order seek greater rewards. So for instance, normally I'd say gathering info is just a thing that you can do 'but' let's say for whatever reason you want to gather info such that no one knows 'who' is looking for the information. You want anonymity or whatever, it doesn't matter. I would not necessarily be opposed to rolling in such a case but I don't know all the implications of such a thing so my opinion on that is tentative.

Kaelik wrote:

Miniature Colossus wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote: My contention is that without an RNG, an RPG is necessarily as bullshit and ultimately unsatisfying as Amber Diceless.

This is basically the statement that Kaelik has been contending the whole thread.

No it isn't you lying sack of shit.

So what you say is that you have no problem with the quote from Frank and that you actually only disagree with the statement that 'a game must have dice rolls for everything or else there is no player agency'?

If that is the case then I must apologize and conclude that deaddmwalking is probably right. You are strawmanning, because I sure can't see anyone with that opinion. If it is because you are tired of being ignored I can't say, but I guess we can test that theory.

What happens if you'd replace every die roll in dnd 3.x with a constant 10?

virgil wrote:Ignoring Kaelik for the moment here.

Also not touching the gated content topic, since this thread seems to have migrated a bit.

I'm being simplistic on the sides here, but the "anti-dice" side says wall of stone (and similar examples) is an effect without dice. The "pro-dice" argue that dice do exist in the resolution of that spell. Why can't the protested skill resolutions (like Search or whatever) have that level of interaction with the dice, since it's evidently sufficient for sides' definition of whether or not it has a random factor?

Sure, you could make Search just like Wall of Stone where it normally worked without a dice-roll, but did have a roll in a combat situation where you are being damaged while Searching, trying to Search without provoking AoOs, or when trying a combat application of Search.

That means that in 99% of situations where you use Search, there would be no check, just a player desire to use the ability. At that point, you need to ask yourself if the 50 words in your gaming book to write that mechanic is worth that mechanic since it's providing really very little. I'd argue that you shouldn't.

zugschef wrote:What happens if you'd replace every die roll in dnd 3.x with a constant 10?

Less failure theater? PCs who aren't afraid to climb trees? Less stupidity where the party starts taking 20 on every room because one room had a trap? Less time at the table rolling dice?

zugschef wrote:What happens if you'd replace every die roll in dnd 3.x with a constant 10?

Absolute determinism? Utter lack of dramatic interactions? Frustration (especially in combat)?

Jason wrote:

zugschef wrote:What happens if you'd replace every die roll in dnd 3.x with a constant 10?

Absolute determinism? Utter lack of dramatic interactions? Frustration (especially in combat)?

In opposed skill rolls like Spot vs Hide, there would still be tension because you wouldn't know the outcome until you tried.

Attack and saves would break entirely because the combat engine is designed for players to fail at rolls all the time, but succeed often enough for it to not be deterministic. The Random Number Generator of the d20 makes sure that players can't succeed all the time, but also might suffer a string of improbable failures for comedic effect (spellcasters who cast a series of spells where the monsters keep saving, fighters who go whole combats without hitting, rogues who fail a series of reflesx saves vs traps, etc).

K wrote:In opposed skill rolls like Spot vs Hide, there would still be tension because you wouldn't know the outcome until you tried.

That is true, but it brings its entire own sack of problems with it: players need to be able to judge the likely outcome of an attempted action. Without it, no informed decision can be made. It would be like stumbling around in the dark, not knowing where the exit is.
It would require very streamlined numbers and I doubt you would achieve those by simply taking 10 on the standard 3.x tasks.

Jason wrote:So, in your mind, anything greater than a minor inconvenience to the player characters needs to be alleviated by GM fiat?

Oh for fucks sake. YES. The "major inconvenience" of a monster you cannot defeat is NOT something that should happen because someone failed a star trek trivia check.

That is the whole fucking point. If you NEED that information to fight that monster and win then that means the game NEEDS to give out that information. That means it either needs to be a non-random mechanic that guarantees success OR you use the "just keep throwing out trivial checks until they get it" technique most people, including the idiots who think the rolls actually mean something, actually use in practice.

How are you NOT getting this?

Miniature Colossus wrote:If that is the case then I must apologize and conclude that deaddmwalking is probably right. You are strawmanning, because I sure can't see anyone with that opinion. If it is because you are tired of being ignored I can't say, but I guess we can test that theory.

"You must be strawmanning, because Frank definitely didn't say all the dumb things he said, I just choose not to read them and viola, he didn't say them. Likewise, Deaddm never made a post where he explained that players have less agency in actions that don't revolve around dice because if there are no dice, players can't invest character resources (or 500 posts that say this over and over). Those things definitely don't exist at all! BECAUSE I DON'T WANT THEM TO!"

Jason wrote:

K wrote:In opposed skill rolls like Spot vs Hide, there would still be tension because you wouldn't know the outcome until you tried.

That is true, but it brings its entire own sack of problems with it: players need to be able to judge the likely outcome of an attempted action. Without it, no informed decision can be made. It would be like stumbling around in the dark, not knowing where the exit is.
It would require very streamlined numbers and I doubt you would achieve those by simply taking 10 on the standard 3.x tasks.

This criticism is nonsensical. When you put a lot of points into Hide, and then try to hide, you roll a die. But before you roll that die, you have no idea what the enemies spot check is, or if they have extra sensory abilities. So you don't know if the chance of being spotted is 0-100%.

If you have no roll and just replace it with a 10, then they would still not know what the enemy has, just like before. Exactly like before. So exactly like before that there are characters who take 10 on hide, and characters who take 10 on spot, and this is literally the exact situation they encounter every time, and yet, you would have to be an idiot to whine about how they have less agency than if they rolled dice because "you need to be able to judge the chance of success to have agency." They have the exact same ability to judge success whether they are rolling or taking ten.

Now, the obvious problem is that when facing any given enemy, you either auto kill them with a save or die, or they can never fail a save, and in return, you either automake relevant saves, or die on the first round. That is not a recipe to make a good game. But for sure as fuck Spot and Hide isn't the areas where it breaks down.

Jason wrote:

K wrote:In opposed skill rolls like Spot vs Hide, there would still be tension because you wouldn't know the outcome until you tried.

That is true, but it brings its entire own sack of problems with it: players need to be able to judge the likely outcome of an attempted action. Without it, no informed decision can be made. It would be like stumbling around in the dark, not knowing where the exit is.
It would require very streamlined numbers and I doubt you would achieve those by simply taking 10 on the standard 3.x tasks.

I don't get what you're saying here. When opposing someone else players don't necessarily need to know what their chance of success really is. You don't 'need' to know when casting spells vs a target's save, you don't need to know it when making an attack, and you shouldn't know it when a surprise encounter happens. If you miss an attack you missed 'that' attack. As long as your game allows combat to continue beyond that single miss then it's not a big deal. What you 'can' do is make it so that your attacks are 'more' likely to hit so that you can know that you are better at swinging your sword than say throwing it. You don't know what the enemy's combat numbers are but you can bet that by investing in dodge/AC/etc that you are less likely to be hit when they swing their swords at you. So while you may not be able to spot 'every' ambush you walk into by investing in spot you are able to know that you are more likely to see future ambushes. If you are unable to that's fine, you still fight the ambushing enemies just under different conditions.

PhoneLobster wrote:Oh for fucks sake. YES. The "major inconvenience" of a monster you cannot defeat is NOT something that should happen because someone failed a star trek trivia check.

Except that no one other than you ever claimed that the monster cannot be defeated without a successfull check. I certainly didn't.

PhoneLobster wrote:That is the whole fucking point. If you NEED that information to fight that monster and win then that means the game NEEDS to give out that information.

I completely agree in that particular edge case. I never argued that case, however. You just created a false dichotomy out of my example.

Even if you need information to win, the game doesn't have to give it to you. You could just go in a different direction. Maybe that monster leaves, but it's still out there, waiting...

Regarding monster hunting scenarios, you may want to avoid defining vulnerabilities in advance at all. The process of investigation could be used to generate a specific weakness.

Why are people saying you should roll dice when the player and DM disagree on the desired outcome? I am not your opponent, though I do play them in the game.

Like, in combats, as DM I want the PCs to hit the monsters with their attacks and kill them, so we can get on with the game (where I play the monsters who want to kill the PCs, ironically). But they roll dice for that because it creates tension and interest and forces emergent responses to unexpected outcomes. It's exciting, at least a little.

Also why 5-moves-of-doom kinda sucks the fun out of things. Choices and puzzles are good, but you get more of them when things are uncertain and unpredictable, even in little ways with just which monster drops first, and if their morale holds, or if you even had to fight that monster in the first place, and did you have the right tools for the job.


And the thing is, as a DM, I like that too. Someone in another forum asked me why the hell I was still using secret doors, and it's simply that I don't want to know ahead of time if the players are going to even have the option to go that way. In general. Surprises, and responses to them, it's exciting for me as a DM too, when the players get lucky or unlucky or guess something (right or wrong) and I have to respond to that. Because I'm playing the game too.


It's an RPG, there's no end condition, you can't actually fail. There's even new characters if you get mass disintegrated. If you miss some content through choice or luck or ignorance, you got some other content instead, and maybe I had to make that up on the fly with some dice for inspiration or something. That's the game.

Because the other option seems all a bit how I write a story and then let you walk through it later, with some pick-a-path stuff along the way to let you feel like you've had some input into the alternate endings I already sketched out. Which isn't really what I'm there for.