Quote from: BedrockBrendan;629864Absolutely. I was assuming that was the case and just giving it from the pc perspective. From the GM point of view I never ask for a roll if they a precise and correct. Though I would also be open to suggestions from the PCs I hadnt thought of if they make sense (for example I may decide the information is definitely found in the Town Chronicle but if they ask for old Lady Milligan's diary, who was alive and the time, I would give it to them without a roll a well (albeit from Mrs. milligan's pov).



This happened in one of my terror network games. I overlooked the phone records issue and a player suprised me by going that route. It made sense that the clues he wanted would be in there, so they tracked down the suspects almost right away. I am fine with that in an investigative adventure, because I think you are challenging the players directly and should honor smart decisions.

we are in concord - and I still owe you a couple of emails... work sorry

Quote from: Exploderwizard;629852Why is having the higher ground advantageous?

I still have no idea.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;629852Not everything the players do is (or needs to be) a CHALLENGE.

No, but since this discussion is about Meaningful Challenges in RPGs, I figured it was a safe bet to focus on that subject.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;629858You would do things like explain what you are researching and how: "okay, I am going to check the town annals for anything going on in the year x", or "I look for books on dragons and try to find any reference to Vomitious the Terrible." Whether you are using an actual research skill or not, these sort of things would impact the likelihood of finding the info.

The challenge here rests in the player's ability to form questions and recognize which questions would be most useful to ask. This is a surprisingly useful and rare skill, and one which is not accounted for in many RPGs.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;629864I am fine with that in an investigative adventure, because I think you are challenging the players directly and should honor smart decisions.

+1

I may have missed it, but isn't there also something to be said for validating/testing the player's choices during character creation?  E.g. rolling against a difficulty may not be a 'challenge' per se, but it would be a lot less likely to succeed if you didn't select the appropriate skill.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;629874I still have no idea.

Someone else had the high ground once in those terrible movies...

Who could it be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgRLAI02Tow

Quote from: mcbobbo;629893I may have missed it, but isn't there also something to be said for validating/testing the player's choices during character creation?  E.g. rolling against a difficulty may not be a 'challenge' per se, but it would be a lot less likely to succeed if you didn't select the appropriate skill.

That is really subjective though right.

A 'good' player might fill their character with skills they know come up in play especially with that GM.

A 'bad' player might fill their character with skills that suit their character that might be of little use in play.

A good player might take their 1920s CoC baseball player and give them occult, library use and spot hidden  for example. Whereas a bad player might choose weapon - Bat, throw, and play saxophone.

So what character generation behaviour will you reward or penalise.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;629874I still have no idea.

Of course everyone knows that movies provide the very best in tactical reality.

When faced with a tactically challenging situation just remember to use the force. Got it. :rolleyes:

A couple of common thoughts in this thread as to what constitutes challenge in an RPG:

1) There ought to be a chance of win/loss.
2) There ought to be a chance to make a decision.
3) There should be some planning/reading involved in decision making (not just guessing).
4) The decision should have an impact on (at least) the odds of winning/losing.

2) and 3) are sort of RPG specific. In general challenge should require skill to overcome, but very few RPGs incorporate non-decision-based skill (such as physical skill).

3) is there because really, rock/paper/scissors or guessing which of a number of possibilities is true occupies a role more like a random number generator. Most responses in this thread don't count rolling as a challenge until decisions can at least weigh odds.

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I'd say that if players can set their own objectives in the context of the game and the GM preps a more or less objective world and lets the players interact with it logically, character building can involve challenge. Because players can sort of plan their character based on the objectives they wish to achieve in game. This is especially true in games where players can build their characters in response to the world, after seeing a bit of it, as in most D&D games (here I'm counting gear and spells as well, which are both things a player could seek in the world in older games).

Whether character building is a satisfying challenge is a separate question from whether it is a challenge at all. I'd say it tends to be overemphasized, as the decision and the win/loss that validates the decision can sometimes be weeks apart. This is somewhat less fun IMO than shorter-term scenario-based challenges.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;629828For example, many were the equivalent of 'doing library research' which is NOT a challenge when it's just a die roll. Which brings up an interesting question, what kind of 'tactics' COULD a player use to increase their chance of success in skills like that?

Tactics are situational. To make it a challenge (were that a goal, and not every library crawl should be), describe the situation and present an obstacle.

Book in a private collection at the university, librarian won't let them in.

Then let the players approach the problem as they will.

Sweet-talk the librarian.
Intimidate the librarian.
Register for classes, so they can access the private collection.
Sneak in.
Bribe a student to sneak it out.
Break in.
Find another copy in another library.
Torrent the book.

Give them a specific situation, described in enough detail that they know what's going on, then allow them to come up with the solution. That's the challenge: thinking their way around the obstacles.

Quote from: jibbajibba;629900A good player might take their 1920s CoC baseball player and give them occult, library use and spot hidden  for example. Whereas a bad player might choose weapon - Bat, throw, and play saxophone.

So what character generation behaviour will you reward or penalise.

Personally, I'd go with guided generation - "Dude, unless you want to make money on the sax, I wouldn't make you spend points in it.  You learned it in highschool and play it - badly - let's move on..."

Barring that, though (and perhaps even with that), I'd try to toss in an NPC who is a jazz musician, and really needs a sax player one night.  'Help me and I will help you, but I go on in five minutes...'

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;629972Tactics are situational. To make it a challenge (were that a goal, and not every library crawl should be), describe the situation and present an obstacle.

Book in a private collection at the university, librarian won't let them in.

Then let the players approach the problem as they will.

Sweet-talk the librarian.
Intimidate the librarian.
Register for classes, so they can access the private collection.
Sneak in.
Bribe a student to sneak it out.
Break in.
Find another copy in another library.
Torrent the book.

Give them a specific situation, described in enough detail that they know what's going on, then allow them to come up with the solution. That's the challenge: thinking their way around the obstacles.

Exactly. And at my table, the resolution of a lot of those actions wouldn't involve rolling dice against character abilities. Whether any given RPG rule set 'supports' those sorts of decisions is irrelevant. Our table, our game, and it works better than any hard-coded, air-tight system ever could.

Quote from: Haffrung;627856This is all stuff that the players think of - stuff that is not represented by values, skills, and abilities on a character sheet. Any player can make these tactical and strategic suggestions - the one who plays the paladin, or the one who plays the wizard.

In my games, a smart, creative player with a weak character is far more effective than an unimaginative, tactically dull player running a powerhouse character. But if your game is simply a series of pre-defined tactical encounters framed by the battle grid, then I could see how character power becomes paramount.

But what if both the Paladin and Wizard have at least a modest intelligence or wisdom? It seems to me that if they had both, the players could reasonably come up with different solutions, so long as those solutions fit with the backgrounds of the characters - the Paladin wouldn't suggest something that would violate his moral code, but his suggestions could still be intelligent.

In my games, so long as the above is true, I let them run with it because they can role play it.

This thread is long on people claiming they and their players rock.

And really short on actual examples.

Quote from: jibbajibba;629870we are in concord - and I still owe you a couple of emails... work sorry

I think we are. And I appreciate the email feedback you have provided so far, it has been very helpful.

Quote from: mcbobbo;629893I may have missed it, but isn't there also something to be said for validating/testing the player's choices during character creation?  E.g. rolling against a difficulty may not be a 'challenge' per se, but it would be a lot less likely to succeed if you didn't select the appropriate skill.

Yes, there is. But what kind of challenge is it?

Drudging through books to spot and select the best combination of abilities for an assumed situation IS a challenge, and a very good one. In fact it's the entire basis of Magic: The Gathering. But it might not be the best kind of challenge for an RPG, and is no challenge at all if the GM ignores the rules the selection of abilities were based on.


That's what I'm getting at. You can't have a challenge if something isn't or can't be challenged. Killing a Dragon can challenge your knowledge of rules, your ability to gather info by asking questions, your ability to read the GM, or nothing if the GM decides the Dragon can't be killed.

Quote from: Piestrio;629894Someone else had the high ground once in those terrible movies...

Who could it be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgRLAI02Tow

:facepalm:

Quote from: Exploderwizard;629905Of course everyone knows that RPGs provide the very best in tactical reality.

Fixed your spelling.

Seriously, one of the most damaging things to ever emerge from this hobby is the belief that there is somehow an 'objective' reality to what takes place in a fictional setting. There isn't. And GMs can be just as inconsistent as George Lucas is.

In what passes for an RPG here, you are playing to a set of shared rules, and/or the GM's expectations. That's it. And neither is a perfect model of ANY reality, even a fictional one.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;630187Fixed your spelling.

Seriously, one of the most damaging things to ever emerge from this hobby is the belief that there is somehow an 'objective' reality to what takes place in a fictional setting. There isn't. And GMs can be just as inconsistent as George Lucas is.

In what passes for an RPG here, you are playing to a set of shared rules, and/or the GM's expectations. That's it. And neither is a perfect model of ANY reality, even a fictional one.

A player cannot approach challenges rationally without consistency in the shared game space. The world doesn't need to model our own world's reality but differences from such that an inhabitant of the world would be aware of should be known by the player.

If the characters in the fictional setting find themselves subject to randomly changing laws of magic, physics, chemistry, etc. on a regular basis then they have no approach to responding to challenges other than asking the GM what to roll against because the world itself makes no sense and there is no discernable rhyme or reason to anything.