The Gaming Den

Intent of the dice; heart of the cards; etc.

MGuy wrote:What do you think the intention of the dice are exactly?

The author intention with the dice and rules chosen are multiples, but being a resolutor for physical tasks like in your typical trad RPG its not. And if you're pointing errors based on that premise - like Frank is doing - then you are not grokking the game in the first place.

silva wrote:The author intention with the dice and rules chosen are multiples, but being a resolutor for physical tasks like in your typical trad RPG its not. And if you're pointing errors based on that premise - like Frank is doing - then you are not grokking the game in the first place.

If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that it doesn't matter that adding more (narrative) reasons why you might not succeed at something actually has the effect of making you more likely (statistically) to succeed at that something, because the task-resolution system is not supposed to model success and failure in a simulationist way. That is, it's like a Hong Kong action movie game where you actually increase your chance of blowing someone away by describing the spine-breaking and physically impossible stunt you perform to do so -- even though under a realistic model, trying that stunt would actually make you much less likely to succeed?

That suggests a kind of Clint Eastwood western movie type of RPG, where the Outlaw Josey Wales loses the Civil War, has his family murdered and his unit massacred, gets a bounty put on his head, and is cornered in a ranch house but eventually manages to escape and get revenge.

1) Silva you are (still) an idiot because you think things meet the goals that you don't know exist and are extrapolating from what the game does. For all you know Vineyards was trying to perfectly simulate the 100 years war and they fucked up because they are bad.

But you turn around and criticize Shadowrun (edition unnamed) for failing to live up to your goals of the cyberpunk/heist genre blend, even though you don't know what their goals even are.

2) Silva you are (still) an idiot because you think games are more conscious of their design goals now than in the past, but actually, the internet exists now (and you are alive now) so you are exposed to all the niche games that in the 70s-90s just languished in people's basements, and you can ask them specfically what their goals were, when before you just saw a game and had no idea wtf it came from.

3) Silva you are (still) an idiot because in addition to bad grammer, when Mguy asked what you think the intention of the dice rolls are you didn't answer the fucking question, and instead blathered on about how the governmentrules can't keep you down, mandog, like the dirty hippie wannabe you are.

talozin wrote:

silva wrote:The author intention with the dice and rules chosen are multiples, but being a resolutor for physical tasks like in your typical trad RPG its not. And if you're pointing errors based on that premise - like Frank is doing - then you are not grokking the game in the first place.

If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that it doesn't matter that adding more (narrative) reasons why you might not succeed at something actually has the effect of making you more likely (statistically) to succeed at that something, because the task-resolution system is not supposed to model success and failure in a simulationist way. That is, it's like a Hong Kong action movie game where you actually increase your chance of blowing someone away by describing the spine-breaking and physically impossible stunt you perform to do so -- even though under a realistic model, trying that stunt would actually make you much less likely to succeed?.

Yes, pretty much that.

I'd hardly see the point of all the fantasy races and magic in Shadowrun if it was a "heist simulator".

The more likely case is that it uses the collapse of the major world governments in combination with the return of the fae to the world to create the same sort of anarchic environment that allows for D&D adventurers to exist. "Heists" are just one of the way these adventuring "runners" can exploit the anarchy.

Someone raised that exact point above, Sakuya (Shadowrun = D&D + Cyberpunk). If thats the case (lets suppose so) why not just use your favorite D&D edition for doing Shadowrun ? No, really. Any edition of D&D (excluding that 2e crap) looks better designed than Shadowrun to me. For one, I think a class-based system would benefit Shadowrun better than the original archetype-based one, and making combat faster and more abstract (just like D&D) would too.

Kaelik wrote:But you turn around and criticize Shadowrun (edition unnamed) for failing to live up to your goals of the cyberpunk/heist genre blend, even though you don't know what their goals even are.

The thing is no one knows what Shadowrun goals really are. (not even its very authors ! )

silva wrote:For one, I think a class-based system would benefit Shadowrun better than the original archetype-based one, and making combat faster and more abstract (just like D&D) would too.

You should probably know anything at all about something before you start talking. How you managed to fit so tremendously much ignorance of Shadowrun and D&D into a single sentence is beyond me.

silva wrote:The thing is no one knows what Shadowrun goals really are. (not even its very authors ! )

Actually, the designers know exactly what their goals are, and I could even tell you the goals of different shadowrun editions. (The goals are different, which is why your failure to identify an edition is important.)

But you don't know them, in part because you revel in your ignorance of things you don't like, especially filthy game with rules, and in part because it is difficult to know the design goals of people who are not you.

Which is of course why no one knows what the design goals of DitV are, so instead you just assumed they meant to design the game they made, and therefore perfectly met their goals.

At this point, Kaelik posts are so full of shit its even funny. Please go on, youre killing me man.

silva wrote:

talozin wrote:

silva wrote:The author intention with the dice and rules chosen are multiples, but being a resolutor for physical tasks like in your typical trad RPG its not. And if you're pointing errors based on that premise - like Frank is doing - then you are not grokking the game in the first place.

If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that it doesn't matter that adding more (narrative) reasons why you might not succeed at something actually has the effect of making you more likely (statistically) to succeed at that something, because the task-resolution system is not supposed to model success and failure in a simulationist way. That is, it's like a Hong Kong action movie game where you actually increase your chance of blowing someone away by describing the spine-breaking and physically impossible stunt you perform to do so -- even though under a realistic model, trying that stunt would actually make you much less likely to succeed?.

Yes, pretty much that.

And if the rules did the exact opposite, then they would be doing the exact opposite thing "consciously". Because there's no way to prove otherwise.

CCarter wrote:IMHO the niche games aren't great design so much as lazy design. By limiting the possible play space you obviate any need for rules that cover the forbidden sections, but will players enjoy the reduced play space as much?

I dont see why not. Laser-focused works like Cube or Blair Witch Project can be as fun as mainstream behemoths like Independence Day or The Lord of the Rings.

CCarter wrote:Similarly 0D&D functions in a dungeon framework but it wasn't long before there were rules for firearms, Gamma World crossovers or secondary skills. Because a well-designed niche is all very well and good, but players wanted a larger playspace to work in, and because RPGs have a tendency to accidentally wander off into unexpected directions, so that its advisable to have plotted some of the area beyond what's within the expected playspace to cover e.g. (for DiTV) 'my Dog had to sell his soul to save the town and picked up magic powers from Mormon Satan' or (for 0D&D), what to do with those people who were enticed into the hobby with the promise of 'hey you can be a hero like Elric/Conan/[insert favourite literary hero]' and then given a wargame where you get a nameless disposable probe that goes into a tunnel to be eaten by giant rats.

I totally agree with the impetus to "go out of the dungeon" that drove the hobby to explore new frontiers, and I agree its the right direction to go. I just dont dismiss the joy that the most focused games can provide (Im playing OD&D right now and having tons of fun). I genuinely think this kind of game, if well designed, can provide a lot of fun and even facilitate certain experiences related to their design goals easier than some generalist behemoths could.

CCarter wrote:Anyway, the question of whether D&D is normally used as a 'generic' game rather than as primarily dungeon based was an interesting one, but difficult to get any solid info on... The closest I could get then is to see what edition people are playing and assuming they're using it with the intended playstyle. Here I've used Obsidian portal to get estimates since with 100,000+ gamers involved its going to be a reasonably good sample of gamers as a whole, in absence of anything else.

https://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns

Counts of some of the games (those looking relevant to the question):

Swords & Wizardry (73) (= the 0D&D retro-clone)
Dungeon Crawl Classics (90)
Dungeon World (172)
AD&D 1E (172, +392 under "D&D (1.0)")
AD&D 2E (1,024)
D&D 3.0 (316)
D&D 3.5 (9,698)
Pathfinder (11,471)
D&D 4E (14,688)
Hackmaster various editions (110)
D&D "Next" 640

(oh and BTW also Dogs in the vineyard: 8 Smile )

I've also included any other games that are more heavily dungeon-based as well (like DCC). You can see the majority of people are playing later editions, with peak volumes around combined 3.x + Pathfinder and 4th Edition...draw what conclusions you like.

Thats a very interesting bit of information, though I dont know how it can prove anything in regard to how D&D editions are actually used (as intended by its editions VS in differetly styles). I suspect the same as you: that each group plays in each edition advised playstyle. And thank you for the link. I didnt know that portal, and now I know where to go for online games.


P.S: hey, theres 90 groups of Apocalypse World over there!

silva wrote:At this point, Kaelik posts are so full of shit its even funny. Please go on, youre killing me man.

You need to grow up and stop responding to all criticism by ignoring substance and insulting the person who criticized you/your ideas.

hogarth wrote:

silva wrote:

talozin wrote:
If I understand your argument correctly, you're saying that it doesn't matter that adding more (narrative) reasons why you might not succeed at something actually has the effect of making you more likely (statistically) to succeed at that something, because the task-resolution system is not supposed to model success and failure in a simulationist way. That is, it's like a Hong Kong action movie game where you actually increase your chance of blowing someone away by describing the spine-breaking and physically impossible stunt you perform to do so -- even though under a realistic model, trying that stunt would actually make you much less likely to succeed?.

Yes, pretty much that.

And if the rules did the exact opposite, then they would be doing the exact opposite thing "consciously". Because there's no way to prove otherwise.

Except there is a way to prove it: just look at the author stated goals in creating the game (search for "Dogs in the Vineyard design goals", its all over the net - from Gnome Stew to wikipedia to the author own page). The same cant be said about Shadowrun, though: where are its designs notes and goals ?

*EDIT*

By the way, I just stumbled with this series of mini-articles from The Alexandrian about "game structures" (or the lack of) which looks relevant to the topic, besides being interesting by itself.

silva wrote: For one, I think a class-based system would benefit Shadowrun better than the original archetype-based one,

What the Fuck?!
Thats worse than 5th Edition SR...

silva wrote:and making combat faster and more abstract (just like D&D) would too.

D&D combat is faster and abstracter than SR?
You obviously never played SR or D&D* (or where on drugs while playing).

* Well maybe Lvl. 1-3 D&D.

Chamomile wrote:The most obvious failing in Dogs in the Vineyard, and the one that is worst to hear fanboys try to cover up, is the way that setbacks and penalties (like wounds or antagonistic relationships) are represented as d4s. Now the way Dogs in the Vineyard works, you basically never want to use a die roll that comes up as anything less than a 4, however you are not obligated to use any die rolls so adding dice is always an advantage. Which means that if you get shot in the foot, you get just a little bit better at running. And I've actually heard fanboys try and tell me that if you rolled a bunch of d4s because you've taken multiple horrible injuries just before starting a fistfight, you'll really wish they were d8s instead. Well yeah, of course, but if you didn't have the wounds you wouldn't be getting d8s, you would be getting nothing.

So... a die roll of 1-3 does nothing, or does it become a penalty if you roll below 4? If dice that were intended to be penalties actually only give you more boosts does that mean the person losing the fistfight is more likely to win?

What ARE Dogs in the Vineyard's design intentions? All I found was

“My design goals are: it’s interesting to Mormons, it’s relevant to Mormons, and it treats the concerns of Mormonism with subtlety and respect.”

silva wrote:Someone raised that exact point above, Sakuya (Shadowrun = D&D + Cyberpunk). If thats the case (lets suppose so) why not just use your favorite D&D edition for doing Shadowrun ? No, really. Any edition of D&D (excluding that 2e crap) looks better designed than Shadowrun to me. For one, I think a class-based system would benefit Shadowrun better than the original archetype-based one, and making combat faster and more abstract (just like D&D) would too.

No, it would not:

OGL Cybernet

OgreBattle wrote:
So... a die roll of 1-3 does nothing, or does it become a penalty if you roll below 4? If dice that were intended to be penalties actually only give you more boosts does that mean the person losing the fistfight is more likely to win?

The first one. DitV uses all opposed rolls because the entire resolution mechanic revolves around personal conflict. The stories DitV tells aren't supposed to be about Dogs (the psuedo-Mormon inquisitors, not the actual animal) surviving blizzards or climbing cliff faces. It's about talking people down or, failing that, shooting them in the face. And personally, I think that's fine. It's a really hyper-focused set of stories that can be told, but presumably the designer walked in knowing full well that nobody was going to make his obscure niche indie game their go-to system, so he designed it for the kinds of short novelty campaigns it was going to be used for anyway. So Dogs in the Vineyard is about being handed a gun and a Bible and told to solve problems that should never be solved with a gun and a Bible.

So the point of this is that DitV always uses opposed rolls, and for a game with a focus this narrow I think that part is okay. But the actual resolution mechanic goes totally off the rails: you roll your dice pool of various different-shaped dice, and then you put forward your two best dice to perform an action with. The target of that action has to either give, letting you take whatever you want (i.e. if you're trying to convince someone, they are persuaded, if you're trying to stop someone from entering a house, they give up and run away, if you're trying to kill someone, they roll over and die (odds are most people won't ever give on that last one, which is itself a nice touch)), or else see. If they see, they have to match your two action dice with as many of their own dice as they like, but the more dice they use, the worse the results are (on the other hand, if they use their good dice deflecting your attack, they won't have any left over to make an action of their own). Seeing with one die lets you counterattack, seeing with two means you dodge or block or whatever and are unharmed, seeing with three or more means you're still in the fight but you're taking penalties.

Now there's a long list of penalties you can choose from, and in fact two separate lists depending on how severe a blow you suffered (even if that blow is metaphorical). But both lists allow you to take a new trait with a value of 1d4! And because the very worst that can happen to you with a bad roll is that you just ignore it, this has no actual impact on your performance whatsoever. But after you roll your first dicepool, you don't roll again until someone decides to escalate, to go from shouting to shoving, or from shoving to shooting, and you automatically lose if you run out of dice (unless you escalate and roll a bunch of new ones). Which means that a roll of 1-3 does nothing in normal circumstances, but in circumstances when people are willing to fight down to the wire regardless of how many penalties they accrue in the process, those 1-3s can actually be helpful because neither you nor your enemy has anything better left to fight with. And because both lists have a "penalty" that is benign at worst and situationally helpful, there's no reason for either of you to ever back out of a fight for fear of taking on extra penalties, which means the only reason people won't fight down to the wire where 1-3s are useful is because they get bored!

These penalties don't kick in until the next conflict, so it's actually the case that people who just lost a fistfight (or an argument, or a gunfight, or whatever) are more likely to win the next one. Specifically because of their bruises.

Fortunately this is fairly easily solved by just removing the "new trait" option from each list, thus forcing people to take other options that reduce stats or reduce die size or require you to give up your stuff or other things that are actually penalties, but the fact that such an obvious oversight made it into a game makes it pretty obvious that the writer is not nearly ready to be playing around with such a wonky resolution mechanic.

I do like some things about DitV, though. Mostly the way you can see that a fight just isn't going your way and so you can say "screw this, I punch him" or "screw this, I pull out my revolver." It's also nice that a game so focused on religion takes a moment to point out that there are absolutely no mechanics for penalizing a player for sinful behavior or rewarding righteous behavior or anything else that requires you to morally judge their actions at all and could the person running the game please take the hint.

Chamo, I think you may be missing something with the d4 dice.

1. Yes, they can be helpful and save your ass sometimes, but they can also screw you when you need to add 4 of those to match the opposition´s 10 off two dice. So I would say their purpose is to add complications, hard choices. The Dogs version of "success at a cost".

2. Do not forget the fictional part. Yes, perhaps from a pure mechanical standpoint giving in a verbal conflict may be a good idea to get some more d4s, but hey, are you ready to let that asshole Samuel keep spanking his wife just because you want a d4 ? (Again, hard choices ).

3. D4s are also linked to character progress. You get experienced and change as a result of conflicts.


That said, I agree that the Fallouts lists are poorly balanced. Getting a d4 is still a better choice than anything on the lists. What would you do to change it ? I dont like think your idea of eliminating d4s is the optimal one, otherwise you cut off the 3 points above, which I consider important. Any other idea ?

d4s are strictly better than d0s, which is the alternate choice. If you say otherwise, you're just fucking wrong.

-Username17

Frank wrote:d4s are strictly better than d0s, which is the alternate choice

silva wrote:1. Yes, they can be helpful and save your ass sometimes, but they can also screw you when you need to add 4 of those to match the opposition´s 10 off two dice. So I would say their purpose is to add complications, hard choices. The Dogs version of "success at a cost".

2. Do not forget the fictional part. Yes, perhaps from a pure mechanical standpoint giving in a verbal conflict may be a good idea to get some more d4s, but hey, are you ready to let that asshole Samuel keep spanking his wife just because you want a d4 ? (Again, hard choices ).

3. D4s are also linked to character progress. You get experienced and change as a result of conflicts.

In other words, d4 may help you stay in a fight (Blocks), but they rarely help you decisively win fights (Reverses). So rather than consistently winning the important conflicts, you end up with concessions, and quite possibly more d4 traits. While "d0s" make you play safe and only enter fights you have considerable chances to win. Again, hard choices.

silva wrote:In other words, d4 may help you stay in a fight (Blocks), but they rarely help you decisively win fights (Reverses). So rather than consistently winning the important conflicts, you end up with concessions, and quite possibly more d4 traits. Again, hard choices.

From what is being described, how is this a hard choice? You're not choosing between decisive victory and prolonged conflict, you're choosing between failing and prolonged conflict.

Virgil, in Dogs you can lose by Giving (give up) or Taking the Blow (using more dice to cover an opponent bet). Both result in penalties to you (like getting you killed, or maimed, or heartbroken, etc). The more d4s you rely on, the greater your chances to being forced to Give or Take the Blow. In this way d4s are tempting in that, yes, they can help in conflicts, but they are unreliable, and if you lose because of them.. you will lose badly.

Except of course that in DitV, it is not uncommon for the stakes of a conflict to be 'I kill you.' At which point all the bullshit about choosing to take the blow and small dice being a disadvantage are revealed for the bullshit they are.

Giving doesn't become worse because you have d4s left unused, nor do they harm your chances at getting a Reverse since they at no point substitute good dice. Again, how is this at all a contradiction in what I said? They either do nothing because they're unused, or they give you an alternative when there was none before; at no point am I seeing how they hurt you for existing.

They hurt you because it makes no sense story wise. And then you'll feel bad.