Quote from: The_Rooster;678090You just can't let that go, can you. Do you still suck on your mother's teat?

Wow, jumping straight to images of infantilism coupled with a "yo mama" joke; that's some interesting subtext you've got going there, isn't it.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;678110Wow, jumping straight to images of infantilism coupled with a "yo mama" joke; that's some interesting subtext you've got going there, isn't it.

Let them be DD, love blossoms so rarely in this place.

Quote from: The_Rooster;678090You just can't let that go, can you. Do you still suck on your mother's teat?

Heh, someone's got some Freudian issues. Anyways, thanks for proving my point.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678141Heh, someone's got some Freudian issues. Anyways, thanks for proving my point.

Don't bother replying.  He's only here to troll, as is evidenced by his continuing changing stories (I am perma banned from rpg.net.......I'm not banned from there) and his admission that he will probably only last a month.

Just ignore him.  So far his only backer seems to be sommerjon, so that should tell you something.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;678143Don't bother replying.  He's only here to troll, as is evidenced by his continuing changing stories (I am perma banned from rpg.net.......I'm not banned from there) and his admission that he will probably only last a month.

Just ignore him.  So far his only backer seems to be sommerjon, so that should tell you something.

Fair enough, I've had my fun.

IGNORE LIST ACTIVATE!

Quote from: Exploderwizard;677915The lament of those who can't assign odds prior to the success roll.

Without knowing what is needed prior to rolling there are is no objective success or failure, merely a grey area that sloshes around, ebbing and flowing according to what the GM wants to happen, i.e. storygaming.

Personally I don't really care if difficulties for all possible events in the setting are pre defined by the gm or set later, but I can see where some people might not like that.

If a gm wants a patrol of guards to be heard by sneaking pc's to add tension, is that storygaming? and is it bad?

Or should the gm only be allowed to have that event if he creates a table and rolls on it?

What if the probability on the table is 100 percent?

Quote from: Bill;678342Personally I don't really care if difficulties for all possible events in the setting are pre defined by the gm or set later, but I can see where some people might not like that.

If a gm wants a patrol of guards to be heard by sneaking pc's to add tension, is that storygaming? and is it bad?

Or should the gm only be allowed to have that event if he creates a table and rolls on it?

What if the probability on the table is 100 percent?

I'm a believer of the old AD&D/B/X advice of "always a chance*."  Yes, sometimes that means my plans as a DM don't always work the way I want.  That's OK.  I have my big boy pants on and can continue.


*For most things.  If a PC says they want to jump across a 50' ravine, then that's just not possible outside of some magical help.  But for most things, there's always even a small chance of success.

Quote from: Bill;678342Personally I don't really care if difficulties for all possible events in the setting are pre defined by the gm or set later, but I can see where some people might not like that.

That would be an impossible task. Situational modifiers make pre-setting a DC very difficult unless the actions of the player are disregarded. I'm speaking strictly about a specific check difficulty being determined before the roll, not the predetermination of DCs for anything that might happen in some eventuality.

Quote from: Bill;678342If a gm wants a patrol of guards to be heard by sneaking pc's to add tension, is that storygaming? and is it bad?

It is storygaming. Is it bad? Not if drama over gameplay is the group preference and what they all agreed to play.

Quote from: Bill;678342Or should the gm only be allowed to have that event if he creates a table and rolls on it?

What if the probability on the table is 100 percent?

Perhaps you missed the part about dice only needing to be rolled when the outcome has a chance of failure. Why would anyone waste time creating a table of only one result?

A lot of people mistake obeying the dice once rolled for a mandate on rolling randomly for everything. These concepts are far apart.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;678362That would be an impossible task. Situational modifiers make pre-setting a DC very difficult unless the actions of the player are disregarded. I'm speaking strictly about a specific check difficulty being determined before the roll, not the predetermination of DCs for anything that might happen in some eventuality.



It is storygaming. Is it bad? Not if drama over gameplay is the group preference and what they all agreed to play.



Perhaps you missed the part about dice only needing to be rolled when the outcome has a chance of failure. Why would anyone waste time creating a table of only one result?

A lot of people mistake obeying the dice once rolled for a mandate on rolling randomly for everything. These concepts are far apart.

The Drama over gameplay statement does not really make sense to me. Not saying you are wrong, I just have no idea what you mean. In the above example of busting down a door, I don't see any real drama involved, and gameplay wise, it opens, or not, or gets broken, etc...

Drama is not a factor unless Cthulu is chasing the pc's


Ok, so no mandate for rolling everything.
I assume this means you reccomend the gm be constrained 100 percent if a specific rule involving a roll is involved, but the gm can do anything they please otherwise?


Fyi, I am simply facinated by the debates about RAW, not RAW, gm fiat, storygame, etc..., etc... because I never thought about any of that stuff until a few years ago. Before that I played rpg's for 25 years or so without any issues.

So the game theory stuff facinates me.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;678361I'm a believer of the old AD&D/B/X advice of "always a chance*."  Yes, sometimes that means my plans as a DM don't always work the way I want.  That's OK.  I have my big boy pants on and can continue.


*For most things.  If a PC says they want to jump across a 50' ravine, then that's just not possible outside of some magical help.  But for most things, there's always even a small chance of success.

When I GM I don't really make plans, and I really love it when players surprise me.

Quote from: Bill;678455When I GM I don't really make plans, and I really love it when players surprise me.

Really, this is my source of fun when DMing a game.
I learned this during my railroad days (before and during the beginnings of DL). If I have a plan, if I know how a session will play out in advance, I get bored.

My NPCs have plans, and they often get thwarted, but more often than not I have no idea how exactly they can be overcome until the PCs react to them.

Quote from: Bill;678455When I GM I don't really make plans, and I really love it when players surprise me.

I started out GM'ing without a clue about even a quarter of the rules and had great fun. I even inspired a bunch of new players to take up the hobby 'cause of the games I ran. Then slowly, inch-by-inch, I devolved into a "gamer". The desire to be a "better" GM overtook me and I started to get involved in discussions online through BBS and usenet groups.

That's when I took up GURPS (shudder).

It's taken me years to realise that my strength is in improvisation and running games completely on the fly. I just started a new group and am trying a new concept. Instead of using an established setting, I gave everyone some basic information about a setting and asked them to make characters that were sheltered in some way from knowledge of the world. That way, we could build the world together as the PC's adventured through it.

Last week one of the players adlibbed a meeting with an old acquaintance of his mentor's that he'd met once, years ago. I had simply said that they noticed someone in armour and carrying a weapon. He turned the person into a lieutenant in the dying Empire's army. I rolled with it and now that NPC is going to be a major plot element that will unfurl in the next session.

It's the most fun I've had DM'ing in a long while.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;678143Don't bother replying.  He's only here to troll, as is evidenced by his continuing changing stories (I am perma banned from rpg.net.......I'm not banned from there) and his admission that he will probably only last a month.

Quote from: TristramEvans;678146Fair enough, I've had my fun.

IGNORE LIST ACTIVATE!

Says the two biggest trolls here.

Quote from: Bill;678455When I GM I don't really make plans, and I really love it when players surprise me.

I'm not saying planning out every little detail in some non-linear style of game play.  I'm talking about when the PCs finally meet their arch-nemisis and you end up rolling a 1 or 2 on a saving throw to avoid paralyzation on the first round

Quote from: Bill;678454The Drama over gameplay statement does not really make sense to me. Not saying you are wrong, I just have no idea what you mean. In the above example of busting down a door, I don't see any real drama involved, and gameplay wise, it opens, or not, or gets broken, etc...

The drama over gameplay thing is all about subversion of fair resolution to the rule of cool. For example aranging something normally resolved via standard method to taste because it would "create more tension" or "be better for the story".

This is antithetical to emergent gameplay. If what you enjoy is being surprised/ finding out what happens next, then engineering extra tension doesn't make sense.

Nothing is better than a good shot of tension that emerges through natural play without any nudging to get it there. It happens less often but it is far more memorable when it happens.

If the story is more important than organically finding out what happens next and the group desires that, then there isn't any badwrong fun happening.

Even anti-climactic "emergent gameplay" can be fun. I did a random encounter of some bandits on a road about a half a day's journey from the town they were headed towards. Normally I would've pre-planned it to be an 'exciting' encounter that was tailored to their level and party make-up. Instead, I had the party see the bandits from a good thousand feet away. By the time the party had closed the distance to about five-hundred feet, the bandits were already leaving their little caravan raid with some hostages and their loot.

That's when the ranger thought, "May as well take a potshot," and managed to hit and kill one of the bandits in one shot.

Well. Crap. I didn't think of that. Suddenly the bandits, on horseback, turn around and start charging towards the PC's. The PC's get out their bows and because they're first level and even the mage has proficiency (from being an elf), they cop the disadvantage on the rolls and start dropping the bandits. Before the bandits can even get within shouting distance, half their number are gone and they decide a retreat is in order.

Now... that situation was poorly thought out by me, there's no doubt about it. But the players loved it. They killed the rest of the fleeing bandits even and rescued the two hostages (a young girl and her mother) and escorted them back to town. They even got a randomly rolled magic item for their efforts. The point being is that even though it was anti-climactic and an easy bit of loot for them, the fact that I didn't pre-plan it and think it through thoroughly and that the 'drama' emerged from organic gameplay made it fun.