Quote from: Exploderwizard;749090The interwebs are like Tahiti - its a magical place.

I lol'ed

Quote from: Sommerjon;749088No I'm a realist.

Not an original response. I feel sorry for you (really).

Quote from: Benoist;749115Not an original response. I feel sorry for you (really).

S'alright.

Quote from: aspiringlich;749060So in last night's game, the party ran into a bunch of giant rats. One player that had two rats on him decided to drop some rations on the floor hoping the rats would go for the food instead of him. I ruled that there was a 65% chance they would. Good ruling? Bad ruling? Who the fuck knows. But it kept things moving along.

Good ruling IMO, especially if you announced the chance before rolling (I'm assuming the guy was retreating, not trying to kill the rats). Better than having them automatically go for the food; much much better than having them automatcally ignore it.

Quote from: S'mon;749159Good ruling IMO, especially if you announced the chance before rolling (I'm assuming the guy was retreating, not trying to kill the rats). Better than having them automatically go for the food; much much better than having them automatcally ignore it.

No way.

There needs to be a table of adjustments to the chance of the rats going for the food based on type of rats, number of rats, the type and freshness of the food, how long it's been since the rats have eaten, the quantity of food thrown, how delectable the PC smells, etc.

How could you be fair otherwise?

Quote from: robiswrong;749160No way.

There needs to be a table of adjustments to the chance of the rats going for the food based on type of rats, number of rats, the type and freshness of the food, how long it's been since the rats have eaten, the quantity of food thrown, how delectable the PC smells, etc.

How could you be fair otherwise?

Yeah much better to get on your knees and lick the hair off your DM's nutsack.
"mufmpgt mai eeyd"  may sound like globby gook, but with the Dm's around here with all of their years of getting their scrotum cleaned, they know Mother May I when it's said.

It is fun to poke at imaginary morons, but what reason do we have to think anyone really does this sort of hyper-over-engineering of modifiers to rare events? Are we really just talking about a group of 12 year olds playing Cyborg Commando in 1987?

Quote from: Sommerjon;749056Last I checked we are human so yes we are dicks, stupid, naive, easily manipulated, and otherwise immature.

All humans, all the time, in all situations, to all people? How very Hobbesian of you.

Quote from: Sommerjon;749088No I'm a realist.

Given your Hobbesian stance, I'd say classical realist. Which is kind of a contradiction, since you don't seem to like DM fiat (the Hobbesian solution of an absolute ruler), but rather think the rule of law will settle the issue. Yet if people are as you say, they will twist and misuse the law to their advantage if there is no authority to overrule them.

You'd be more consistent if your total pessimism about human nature embraced GM fiat as the only way to prevent anarchy.

Quote from: Larsdangly;749172It is fun to poke at imaginary morons, but what reason do we have to think anyone really does this sort of hyper-over-engineering of modifiers to rare events? Are we really just talking about a group of 12 year olds playing Cyborg Commando in 1987?

If modifiers stack, then good play means squeezing every last one you can out of the RAW.

The irony that this usually involves trying to convince the GM to buy your contention that the modifiers you are trying to stack are legitimate in this situation, "mother may I"ing in other words, doesn't seem to register.

Quote from: Sommerjon;749171Yeah much better to get on your knees and lick the hair off your DM's nutsack.
"mufmpgt mai eeyd"  may sound like globby gook, but with the Dm's around here with all of their years of getting their scrotum cleaned, they know Mother May I when it's said.

Crude and disgusting imagery aside ... do you not realize that you do exactly the same thing when you want the rulebook to tell you what you can and can't do? You simply substitute the authority of the game designers for the authority of the DM, but it's no less an appeal to someone else's authority. Give up on your pretense at autonomy as a player: whether's it's Monte Cook, Skip Williams, and Jonathan Tweet, or the DM at your table, you're someone else's bitch.

It took 15 pages to get to the oral sex imagery, and even then it's only SJ doing his piss off the grogs schtick.  Good thing I guess, but sure is a change.

Quote from: Larsdangly;749172It is fun to poke at imaginary morons, but what reason do we have to think anyone really does this sort of hyper-over-engineering of modifiers to rare events? Are we really just talking about a group of 12 year olds playing Cyborg Commando in 1987?

It's a strawman, sure, exaggerated for humorous effect.

Much the same as the idea of "mother may I" where the GM is making totally arbitrary decisions without any guideposts is a strawman.

The issue is what happens the next time that someone throws down food, and the GM decides that it's only got a 30% chance of distracting the rats, because they're defending their nest and are comparatively well-fed?  Does the player accept the GM judgement, or does the GM have to justify the change?

Keep in mind that rats being more likely to ignore food in this case would *make sense*, but there's little way for the PCs to know *why* the rats are less distractable.

We end up with three options:

1) The players accept the GMs judgement and get on with the damn game.
2) Rats always have to have the same chance of being distracted by food, leading to a *lack of depth* in the game
3) GMs have to justify their decision, possibly with preset modifiers.

I'm a big fan of option 1.  So long as I'm playing with a non-dick GM, it's easier for me to just accept that "hey, these rats are behaving differently" and move on with it.

Quote from: robiswrong;749187I'm a big fan of option 1.  So long as I'm playing with a non-dick GM, it's easier for me to just accept that "hey, these rats are behaving differently" and move on with it.

If one simply assumed non-dick referee and non-dick other players, there would be nothing to talk about on internet gaming forums.

Quote from: Old Geezer;749188If one simply assumed non-dick referee and non-dick other players, there would be nothing to talk about on internet gaming forums.

I think that the actual-dick DMs and actual-dick players spoken about on internet gaming forums are mainly hypothetical outside of the odd convention game...

Quote from: robiswrong;749160There needs to be a table of adjustments to the chance of the rats going for the food based on type of rats, number of rats, the type and freshness of the food, how long it's been since the rats have eaten, the quantity of food thrown, how delectable the PC smells, etc.

How could you be fair otherwise?

Yes.

The question - do the rats go for the bait, or continue munching on the PCs - needs to be one that can be answered within the rules.

On its face, it seems to be an odd corner case. But really, it's not: it's a specific instance of the idea of a PC attempting to redirect a creature's attention to something else. That general concept is something a TTRPG could reasonably cover.

All the other aspects of the situation - the fact that they're rats, what kind of rats they are, how many there are, the type of bait, all these other little factoids - should be represented in those mechanics, in some fashion or another. Some of them may be too specific (how much granularity are we looking for in our rat species?), while others simply too computationally-intensive (asking how long ago these specific rats ate may be too much complexity, in terms of work the DM would need to do, especially if the rats were generated as a random encounter), so it's probably safe to assume some level of abstraction: little factors may cancel each other out. I'd probably argue that if you have to make contortions to figure out if a given factor is relevant, if there isn't an immediate "of course it matters," then it probably is insignificant enough to ignore, in terms of the mechanics.

You deride this example as absurd, because you think a DM should simply make up a number and "get on with it." I only think your example is absurd because you are using it as hyperbole and seem more interested in lambasting it than actually understanding the position it represents. The mechanics for this situation could very reasonably be extrapolated from a system that had a generic baseline for this sort of situation, which would not be unreasonable.

Quote from: aspiringlich;749183You simply substitute the authority of the game designers for the authority of the DM, but it's no less an appeal to someone else's authority.

Authority at the system level and authority at the table are two different levels of authority.

The decision of what game to play and who the DM is, while probably related, are different decisions and impact the table on different levels.

Appealing to the game mechanics is an appeal to the agreement by all parties, even the DM, to play by the same set of rules. The rules have no opinion on what anyone at the table does; no matter what you do, if you are playing 3.5 D&D by the book, a fighter always has a BAB of +1.

Take some of the DM's munchies, and he might kill your character in retribution. Bring some munchies for the DM instead, maybe he's more lenient with you that evening.

These are clearly not the same sort of "appeal to authority" you make them out to be.