Quote from: Old Geezer;817119And fucking Crom's crusty bunghole, do I hate Pathfinder.  I told the referee "Oops, my character died from a ruptured bladder because I don't have KNOWLEDGE:  HOW TO PISS".

My only problem with Pathfinder, is I have so many special snowflake superpowers, I tend to forget to use them.

Oh, and stacking bonuses. Mountains and mountains of stacking bonuses.

My basic assumption is "If you can do it in real life, then you can do it in ", where normally is RuneQuest/BRP/Legend/OpenQuest, but really should be any game.

I remember way back in the 80s, a TV series called Tucker's Luck, a spin off from Grange Hill, where the main character, Tucker, played a Fighter in D&D and wanted to "Nut someone", but the horrified DM said that he couldn't do that. It always struck me as odd, because RuneQuest has the Head Butt skill for everyone, as long as they had a head (not a butt).

As long as the action "makes sense" (based on the established fantasy-physics, character background, etc), anyone can try anything that they want. All that I request are one or more ability checks to properly set it up. Also, I don't believe in high difficulty scores, but reasonable consequences of failure.

Example: "i want to run up the dragon's tail and stab it in the eye with my knife!" would require several actions (several rolls) each with a different consequence if they fail. The further that they go, the worse that it gets, obviously. I don't care if they don't have skill X or the "Run up dragon tails" Feat.

And, as others have said, if what they do is remarkably effective and useful, well, NPCs can do it too...

Quote from: Necrozius;817214As long as the action "makes sense" (based on the established fantasy-physics, character background, etc), anyone can try anything that they want. All that I request are one or more ability checks to properly set it up. Also, I don't believe in high difficulty scores, but reasonable consequences of failure.

Example: "i want to run up the dragon's tail and stab it in the eye with my knife!" would require several actions (several rolls) each with a different consequence if they fail. The further that they go, the worse that it gets, obviously. I don't care if they don't have skill X or the "Run up dragon tails" Feat.

And, as others have said, if what they do is remarkably effective and useful, well, NPCs can do it too...

The issue I found with those situations is that once the player finds out the extra hoops they have to jump through to do it, they just fall back on a standard attack or whatever instead since it's more likely to work.

Do you let them know if a certain action will have a real result? Like suppose they want to throw a hot pot of stew in a goblin cave onto a rocky slope to make it slippery when goblins try to chase after them. The player does not know if it is actually slippery enough to warrant a check for the goblins, or if the goblins will slip automatically, or not at all.

On the other hand, they could just attack.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;817215The issue I found with those situations is that once the player finds out the extra hoops they have to jump through to do it, they just fall back on a standard attack or whatever instead since it's more likely to work.

Do you let them know if a certain action will have a real result? Like suppose they want to throw a hot pot of stew in a goblin cave onto a rocky slope to make it slippery when goblins try to chase after them. The player does not know if it is actually slippery enough to warrant a check for the goblins, or if the goblins will slip automatically, or not at all.

On the other hand, they could just attack.

No, no no! Most of the time, it's a single ability check (no more complex than an attack roll).

It's the crazy, complex stuff: "I run into the room, leap onto the table, kick him in the face and grab his weapon!". I've had players who wanted that to be a single action. No way!

The first part (run into the room and leap onto the table) would be a single Dex check. The kick would be an attack: if successful, instead of damage, the target would be disarmed. This actually happened last game, in fact.

Quote from: Necrozius;817218No, no no! Most of the time, it's a single ability check (no more complex than an attack roll).

It's the crazy, complex stuff: "I run into the room, leap onto the table, kick him in the face and grab his weapon!". I've had players who wanted that to be a single action. No way!

The first part (run into the room and leap onto the table) would be a single Dex check. The kick would be an attack: if successful, instead of damage, the target would be disarmed. This actually happened last game, in fact.

Your ruling sounds good to me, but it would depend on the game; if you wanted characters to do more interesting stunts and narrate their combat moves more, just making it a straight attack check would be better. Having to make the dex check makes the stunt less appealing than a straight attack, because it's more likely to fail.

Quote from: Ladybird;817221Your ruling sounds good to me, but it would depend on the game; if you wanted characters to do more interesting stunts and narrate their combat moves more, just making it a straight attack check would be better. Having to make the dex check makes the stunt less appealing than a straight attack, because it's more likely to fail.

Fair enough. While playing Dungeon World, I'd do exactly as you describe. My current D&D players have requested a bit more crunch, though. It's a fine line, to be sure.

To be perfectly clear: I'm really not one of THOSE GMs who try to make things harder for players nor do I discourage stunts and cool improvisation. I do try to keep a balance between fudging it and keeping things within the current game structure. It isn't easy.

Fate is good about this, where you can bundle a bunch of stuff and essentially divvy out successes toward things that matter.

So, in the 'run over, leap on a table, kick in the face and grab his weapon,' in something like Fate or similar, I'd probably break down what _useful_ effects are being asked for:
Repositioning (move action in D&D, whatever)
Leaping on a table (I might consider this part of repositioning, depending on whether it really matters at all -- if 'high ground' has a benefit, then yes, you have to 'pay' for this advantage as part of your result. Otherwise, just shrug and don't worry about it)
Grab a weapon (disarm, handled however)

And then anything left, damage.
Also, if repositioning would normally not require a roll, shouldn't matter in this action, either. Or it just absorbs a move action. Or whatever your system does.


In games that try to simulate a gameworld, you often get stuff like this being discouraged. Because you go down and go 'difficulty of running, difficulty of jumping up on a table, etc.' rather than 'hey, this is fun.'

Quote from: Ladybird;817221Your ruling sounds good to me, but it would depend on the game; if you wanted characters to do more interesting stunts and narrate their combat moves more, just making it a straight attack check would be better. Having to make the dex check makes the stunt less appealing than a straight attack, because it's more likely to fail.

(A) There are players who want to do something that looks cool, but who don't mind if the cool thing isn't more powerful than a normal attack.

(B) There are players who want to do something that looks cool and who are willing to pay for the result being more powerful than a normal attack. (Here payment may be increased risk of failure or payment in some benny game currency.)

(C) There are players who want to do something that is more powerful than a normal attack and who are unwilling to pay for the better result. For them, they either want an all gonzo all the time style of play in which normal attacks just don't occur because why would you hit someone with an axe when you can yank the axe out of his hand, trip him, and then hit him with his own axe all with the same probability of success as just hitting him. or else they want to do that in every campaign and "looks cool" is just the excuse they use to rationalize getting something extra without paying for it.

And to be fair, there are probably GMs who make doing cool things nearly impossible for their players because they think that all players are in group (C) and therefore must be thwarted.

Group C are probably also the guys who will complain if the GM lets some monster get away with a similar 'cool move' and demand that it pay/roll for every conceivable element.

IE:
'If you can cleverly kill opponents by summoning an elephant on top of them, why isn't every combat wizard in the world already doing that?'

Quote from: Bren;817229(A) There are players who want to do something that looks cool, but who don't mind if the cool thing isn't more powerful than a normal attack.

(B) There are players who want to do something that looks cool and who are willing to pay for the result being more powerful than a normal attack. (Here payment may be increased risk of failure or payment in some benny game currency)

Like I said, it depends on the game people want to play. All three sound like fun times to me.

The way I see it, there already is a cost to flashy stuff like disarms - it's the opportunity cost of not doing damage, thus not getting closer to putting your opponent out of the fight.

Quote from: Spinachcat;817090I argue there's a correlation between the increase in RPG page count and the decrease in the popularity of the hobby.

Don't you think the Starter Set is good for that?

Quote from: Simlasa;817231Group C are probably also the guys who will complain if the GM lets some monster get away with a similar 'cool move' and demand that it pay/roll for every conceivable element.

Indeed. If disarm is as easy as hitting someone, then expect that the bad guys are going to roll to disarm the heroes. Be sure you are cool with your guy losing his fine Toledo steel blade (or Sword of Sharpness +3) when the bad guy succeeds in disarming him.

Quote from: Ladybird;817238Like I said, it depends on the game people want to play. All three sound like fun times to me.

The way I see it, there already is a cost to flashy stuff like disarms - it's the opportunity cost of not doing damage, thus not getting closer to putting your opponent out of the fight.

I don't really like the all gonzo all the time, but it's fine with me if you do.

However, simple disarms are clearly not what I was talking about. I meant moves such as "yank the axe out of his hand, trip him, and then hit him with his own axe all with the same probability of success as just hitting him." To my mind, multiple benefits should have a higher cost than just hit him with my axe, otherwise why would anyone ever just hit anyone instead of doing something that both hits them and does one or more other advantageous thing? Now if you want a game where no one ever uses simple attacks, that's fine. Too gonzo for me, but at least you are being consistent.

Quote from: Necrozius;817218No, no no! Most of the time, it's a single ability check (no more complex than an attack roll).

It's the crazy, complex stuff: "I run into the room, leap onto the table, kick him in the face and grab his weapon!". I've had players who wanted that to be a single action. No way!

The first part (run into the room and leap onto the table) would be a single Dex check. The kick would be an attack: if successful, instead of damage, the target would be disarmed. This actually happened last game, in fact.

Would you explain ahead of time what the results of a possible success would be though?

Like in that example I gave, would you say, "OK, if you spill this stuff on the slope to grease it up, you know that ____ will happen when someone runs over it" or do you leave it to their imagination?