Quote from: Seanchai;363609Because advice is much, much more easily ignored than mechanics.

Seanchai

So instead of leaving the choice to the game's users to read or not read, use or ignore its advice, it is thought best to catter to the lowest common denominator.

Which does not follow, to me.

I shouldn't have to fight the game's design at my own game table because some retard out there ignores the guidelines included with the game while I did not. In the end, it just tells me the game is no longer for me but for this guy who doesn't care/doesn't want to know how to run games in the first place.

Quote from: Seanchai;363609Because advice is much, much more easily ignored than mechanics.

Seanchai

Agreed.  The mechanics you choose are the physics of the setting, and some guys opinion seems less important.

but bad mechanics are much, much more upsetting and frustrating than bad advice.

I'm with the folks who think it's a matter of context.

Personally, I game for entertainment and I know what I like out of my entertainment. Specifically regarding roleplaying games, I want to be able to create an interesting character and to be able to use or leverage said character to make interesting, meaningful choices within the game. Success and failure don't matter to me per se save how they affect said choices.

I think the heart of the matter comes down to GMs believing that they have to "challenge" players. Not engage players. Not come up with interesting, fun things for the characters to do. Not figure out what the player wants out of gaming and try to provide that in appropriate measure. Just "challenge" them.

The problem with "challenging" players is that said challenges often aren't meaningful to the characters or the players. Making a series of tracking rolls is "challenging" because the GM knows if there are enough rolls, there's going to be a failure and, for some unknown reason, failure is good. But as we can see, however, it was nigh meaningless to the player involved.

What would happen if we changed the paradigm so that there was some element of choice in the tracking or so that the tracking became part of a plan concocted by the player? Suddenly, success and failure matter because it's the success or failure of the players' plan.

It's this vital spark that so many GMs miss and why they fill their games with nonsense. They know having the players roll and roll and roll and roll is unfulfilling, but they believe that failure in and of itself is "challenging" or fulfilling, so they keep doing what it takes to bring about failure.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;363620I think the heart of the matter comes down to GMs believing that they have to "challenge" players. Not engage players. Not come up with interesting, fun things for the characters to do. Not figure out what the player wants out of gaming and try to provide that in appropriate measure. Just "challenge" them.

The problem with "challenging" players is that said challenges often aren't meaningful to the characters or the players. Making a series of tracking rolls is "challenging" because the GM knows if there are enough rolls, there's going to be a failure and, for some unknown reason, failure is good. But as we can see, however, it was nigh meaningless to the player involved.

What would happen if we changed the paradigm so that there was some element of choice in the tracking or so that the tracking became part of a plan concocted by the player? Suddenly, success and failure matter because it's the success or failure of the players' plan.

It's this vital spark that so many GMs miss and why they fill their games with nonsense. They know having the players roll and roll and roll and roll is unfulfilling, but they believe that failure in and of itself is "challenging" or fulfilling, so they keep doing what it takes to bring about failure.

Seanchai

I totally agree with this. Excellent point.

Quote from: Benoist;363612So instead of leaving the choice to the game's users to read or not read, use or ignore its advice, it is thought best to catter to the lowest common denominator.

I'm not sure it is the lowest common denominator, however. Not as you mean it. To my mind, it's like giving children sparklers instead of M-80s.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;363622I'm not sure it is the lowest common denominator, however. Not as you mean it. To my mind, it's like giving children sparklers instead of M-80s.

Seanchai

Isn't it another way of saying the same thing, though? Because somebody may hurt himself firing a gun, we'll give everyone sponge balls instead? Nevermind if we're on a shooting range and firing guns is the whole point of the game in the first place. Nevermind if I know how to fire a gun and read the signs at the entrance pointing out I should not aim my firearm at another person and/or stand behind them when they are aiming theirs. Some idiot might actually not know how to read, or not care about basic common sense, or safety procedure. Let's play sponge ball instead! But the problem is, in this instance... that's not why I came to the shooting range in the first place.

If someone wants characters which don't die easily (or at all), there's always the option of playing a video game in "god mode".  No so easy to do that in a tabletop rpg, unless the DM just makes every player roll a success and all enemy rolls a failure.  Short of that, one mind as well just read a D&D novel.

EDIT:  "God mode" would seem pretty boring after awhile, whether in an rpg game or a video game.

In my games of BRP I always followed the book's advice of only rolling the dice when it was a particularly stressful/difficult situation or one where you had no applicable skill...
So a tracker, with sufficient expertise, wouldn't have to roll at all until he hit a patch of difficult terrain... or the person he was tracking tried to obscure the trail.
A person with a lot of points in 'sneak' or whatever wouldn't have to roll unless it was a particularly difficult situation... water/broken glass on the floor... or he was being actively watched for by the guards.
An accomplished surgeon shouldn't have to roll for routine procedures done in optimal settings. But in the back of a plane during a battle/thunderstorm... even routine stuff can get tricky.

Benoist makes good points about 'dumbing down' the rules for sake of folks who can't seem to play sensibly.
That was one of my issues with Trail Of Cthulhu... a nicely done game with lots to recommend it, except that it seems to have been at least partially written to 'fix' something the author thought was broken in COC... namely that people weren't finding vital clues to mysteries because they'd bottleneck on failed Search/Interrogate rolls. Really though, that was never an issue in any game being run by a sensible GMs... and Trail's solution of just handing the clues to the PCs felt like an unnecessary bit of graft.

Character death is a separate issue. ou can equate life/death with success/failure in certain kind of games. So yes, in a dungeon crawl if character can't get killed that is playing in God mode and it does seem pretty pointless. But we don't all exclusively play dungeon crawls.

You can easily run a game in which failure is a real possibility but character death is, by convention, not. Consider what is the point of the adventure, what is at stake? If it is just getting more gold and levels than failure to succeed is not big deal. If the point is to stop the Empire building the Death Star, failure does matter (provided the players have engaged in the world and are not just counting XP points and planning their next Feat).

It comes down to this, whether the players in your game genuinely care about things in the game world beyond their own character. f they don't, then I agree character death is the only real kind of failure that will matter.

Quote from: Cranewings;363525I'm fucking sick of rolling a 1 and tripping over my own feet, breaking my sword, shooting a friend, or making people think I'm a buffoon.

Failure should not be the same as fumbling, and actual fumbles need not be comic-tragic. Losing an action or forfeiting initiative is more than sufficient in most cases.

Then again, one of the theories on how the comte de Soissons died is that he tried to raise his helmet visor with his pistol and shot himself in the face. So there's that.

Quote from: Cranewings;363525It isn't so important that a character succeed all the time. What is important is that the dice not undermine my idea of what my character is about.

One of our differences is that I don't have an idea of what my character is 'about' that is separate from what happens in the game. Who my character is determined by the events played around the table, and that includes failure as well as success.

Quote from: Cranewings;363525This problem is magnified by GMs that make you roll for everything. Foraging for food and roll a 1? Poison. Riding a horse and roll a 1? Trampled.

I agree that this is pretty lame. But again, failure does not automatically mean fumble; for example, d20 Modern does not have critical skill fumbles on a roll of one.

Quote from: Drohem;363584Why did I have to roll a tracking check every fracking hour of game time, especially when the chase would cover several days of game time?

Why does a character require a roll to Move Silently or Climb each time s/he sneaks or ascends? Because that's the way the skill is structured.

A check every hour may be pretty generous, actually. In d20 Modern you move at half-speed while tracking, and you check every mile; that works out to about four checks an hour, assuming the terrain or conditions are such that the tracks are difficult to follow and require regular checks. From my personal experience actually tracking stuff, that's not at all unreasonable.

And again, note that you're tracking at half-speed. If you're tracking you catch your quarry when it stops moving; you don't overtake it as it moves.

Now from other things you noted, I think the referee is indeed a tool, but not because of the skill rolls.

That said, my preference is for systems which make skill use more-or-less automatic beyond a certain ability threshold. Taking ten/twenty in d20 is a good example of this, as is the rank of Master or Master Superior in Flashing Blades - the rules in FB state that a Master or Master Superior need only roll for the most difficult checks and that routine use of a skill is assumed to succeed.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;363604But it's not like the task being discussed is discrete, like "tie a knot" or "hit a dude with a stick." It's an ongoing thing, with presumably varying difficulty over time (whether or not that was taken into account for specific checks, or averaged out, I don't think is really relevant).

Exactly, like combat or sneaking or swimming or climbing or any of a dozen other similar skills.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;363604What if, for instance, you were sneaking through a location full of baddies, trying not to be noticed. Would the presumably constant requests for hide/sneak/move silently rolls irritate you?

Quote from: Drohem;363606Well, that depends on the circumstances.  How many baddies are in the location?  How many rolls are needed in relation the number of baddies in the area?  Blah, blah, etc., etc....

Yes, it would irritate me if excessive rolls where required for the same task- sneaking through a location full of baddies.  Should the player have to roll a hide/sneak/move silently for each individual baddie in the location?  What if there were 20 baddies in the said location?  Would you as a GM require the player trying to sneak through the baddie filled location to roll a hide/sneak/move silently combination 20 times, once for each baddie in the area?  If so, I feel that is excessive and needless and, yes, it would irritate me.

Well, here's how I'd rule it: you make one roll, and the baddies with a chance to hear your characters (which if it's not a situation where sai baddies are lying in wait for you will probably be only a sentry or two) roll an opposed check against that roll.

But let's say for a moment that it takes you several checks to sneak past - after all, your character is moving slowly if s/he plans on being quiet (half-speed again if we're talking bog-standard d20). How may rolls is acceptable to you?

Quote from: Seanchai;363620What would happen if we changed the paradigm so that there was some element of choice in the tracking or so that the tracking became part of a plan concocted by the player? Suddenly, success and failure matter because it's the success or failure of the players' plan.

Conflict-resolution versus task-resolution.

I can see why this appeals to some gamers.

Quote from: Benoist;363624But the problem is, in this instance... that's not why I came to the shooting range in the first place.

But let's assume you're a good or great GM. Let's also assume that most GMs are just average or worse. Statistically speaking, which group do you aim for with your mechanics? Not the smaller one.

Moreover and more importantly, the rules and structures set up by a third, disinterested party aren't as important to good and great GMs as they are to average or below average ones.

There are many GMs for which the quality of the mechanics they're using is really all they have going for them. The best part of their game isn't the ideas, the setting, the premise, the roleplaying, etc., - it's the mechanical bones of the thing. People keep coming back because the system being used is working for them, even if nothing else really is.

Personally, I think good and great GMs transcend mechanics. They don't rely on mechanics to be the bones of their game. They structure them around other things, using mechanics more as muscles - a means to an end. The game isn't about how effect an Eladrin Swordmage is in a dungeon of on level encounters - it's about how the group wants to stop the local goblins from raiding a village and so they enter the dungeon to stop them.

Moreover, I think good to great GMs change and adapt mechanics as needed. It doesn't matter so much what the base mechanics are as they're going to be spindled, mutilated, and folded.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;363620I'm with the folks who think it's a matter of context.

Personally, I game for entertainment and I know what I like out of my entertainment. Specifically regarding roleplaying games, I want to be able to create an interesting character and to be able to use or leverage said character to make interesting, meaningful choices within the game. Success and failure don't matter to me per se save how they affect said choices.

I think the heart of the matter comes down to GMs believing that they have to "challenge" players. Not engage players. Not come up with interesting, fun things for the characters to do. Not figure out what the player wants out of gaming and try to provide that in appropriate measure. Just "challenge" them.

The problem with "challenging" players is that said challenges often aren't meaningful to the characters or the players. Making a series of tracking rolls is "challenging" because the GM knows if there are enough rolls, there's going to be a failure and, for some unknown reason, failure is good. But as we can see, however, it was nigh meaningless to the player involved.

What would happen if we changed the paradigm so that there was some element of choice in the tracking or so that the tracking became part of a plan concocted by the player? Suddenly, success and failure matter because it's the success or failure of the players' plan.

It's this vital spark that so many GMs miss and why they fill their games with nonsense. They know having the players roll and roll and roll and roll is unfulfilling, but they believe that failure in and of itself is "challenging" or fulfilling, so they keep doing what it takes to bring about failure.

Seanchai

Context and Content.

I think I have said this, with very different words and different angles.  I think I normally go through the lens of those games that are combat-centric, but  the effect is the same, in that changes in the game created by player choices are not all based on success or failure, not all good vs bad.

Failures are useful in their affect on player success; useless in nearly any other regard.

Quote from: Seanchai;363633But let's assume you're a good or great GM. Let's also assume that most GMs are just average or worse. Statistically speaking, which group do you aim for with your mechanics? Not the smaller one.
(...)

I believe game mechanics should be tools for gaming groups to get the best games going, while providing guidelines and advice to help the average-to-mediocre DMs rise up and make them happen themselves. This is how over time you get the greatest DMs of them all.

I believe that designing rules with the lowest common denominator in mind just comforts the lazy and/or incompetent among us, and just let's them stagnate at the same level of mediocrity over time. They have far less opportunities to improve without guidelines or advice to help them along the way. What's more, if the designers provide with new rules for each bump along the way, why does it matter to improve your personal DMing? It doesn't. Better to just wait for the next update and let the designers take care of it - they know better, after all, what's best for the game, right? Right.

Quote from: Benoist;363636I believe game mechanics should be tools for gaming groups to get the best games going, while providing guidelines and advice to help the average-to-mediocre DMs rise up and make them happen themselves. This is how over time you get the greatest DMs of them all.

I believe that designing rules with the lowest common denominator in mind just comforts the lazy and/or incompetent among us, and just let's them stagnate at the same level of mediocrity over time. They have far less opportunities to improve without guidelines or advice to help them along the way. What's more, if the designers provide with new rules for each bump along the way, why does it matter to improve your personal DMing? It doesn't. Better to just wait for the next update and let the designers take care of it - they know better, after all, what's best for the game, right? Right.

I agree with much of this.  Much like designing fitness routines for common slobs is very different from designing programs for elite athletes and running classes for high school kids of mediocre aptitude is different from graduate level coursework, I believe a ruleset that is created around the common denominator may be more commercially viable, but would also ensure a limited gaming experience.


I designed my rules for me.
And while that was for me as a GM, I very specifically wrote for the type of players I wanted.

Rules light or heavy, largely depends on the expectations of the players and DMs in question.

I know some DMs who didn't like 3E/4E D&D for all kinds of reasons, such as:

- they felt that it took away too much DM discretion
- didn't like long drawn out combat that was really slow
- didn't like spending hours and hours for game preparation
- didn't like long lists of rules, skills, etc ...
- long arguments with "rules lawyers"

On the player side, some didn't like 3E/4E D&D for all kinds reasons, such as:

- didn't like long lists of rules, skills, etc ...
- easy to forget what skills to use
- combat was too slow
- too many numbers to add up every time a die was rolled
- too many conditions to keep track of

For a more (relatively) rules light game like RC D&D (or the box sets), 1E/2E AD&D, etc ... some players didn't like it for all kinds of reasons, such as:

- too much DM discretion
- too easy to die
- almost next to useless low level characters (ie. magic user, etc ...)
- roll high for some dice rolls, roll low for other dice rolls
- class/race restrictions