In my opinion the main stream players have the assumption that, you can only do what the rules allow. This causes the requirement for more and more rules to allow options.
What happened to the assumption that, you can do anything the rules don't prohibit?
or am I just Hanging With The Wrong Crowd?
=
This question seems very familiar. I wonder why that is?
Oh yeah, this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=817006&postcount=34)is why.
You're definitely hanging with the wrong crowd. It's the player's jobs to do odd things that nobody could have predicted, let alone wrote rules for.
Coming up with a solid set of rules that can be extrapolated from, and some guidelines on how to use them at the table, is the designer's job; but actually doing the extrapolation and making the calls is the GM's job.
And thus is the social contract.
When the best selling RPG books have hundreds of pages, plus dozens of supplements filled with rules, how are we to honestly blame players for not assuming their action choices must be pre-approved?
The crowd is fine. The problem is the games.
Introduce your crew to a free, rules-light RPG from the Internet. There are a gazillion and plenty of threads have jabbered about them. Publishers profit by selling piles of thick books, but they don't actually help at the table.
I argue there's a correlation between the increase in RPG page count and the decrease in the popularity of the hobby.
BTW, here's my favorite free RPG: Mazes & Minotaurs (Greek Fantasy)
http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/
I think its healthy for every new roleplayer to play at least once with no rules at all, just a GM to rbitrate what happens. I think its a necessary eye opener, not only to show how rules are unnecessary, but also to show how rules can be used to make the game fun but not limit creativity.
Also, you could print out copies of the Old School Primer for your game group.
Quote from: Spinachcat;817090When the best selling RPG books have hundreds of pages, plus dozens of supplements filled with rules, how are we to honestly blame players for not assuming their action choices must be pre-approved?
The crowd is fine. The problem is the games.
Introduce your crew to a free, rules-light RPG from the Internet. There are a gazillion and plenty of threads have jabbered about them. Publishers profit by selling piles of thick books, but they don't actually help at the table.
I argue there's a correlation between the increase in RPG page count and the decrease in the popularity of the hobby.
That is an interesting theory. I definitely think its played a large part in creating a barrier of entry for new players. I think the biggest mistake WoTC continues to perpetuate is not supporting a Basic and Advanced version of the game, with a Red Box style (in content, not appearance - God tht 4th edition crippleware thing was frustrating) intro set that keeps the rules to under 30 pages.
QuoteBTW, here's my favorite free RPG: Mazes & Minotaurs (Greek Fantasy)
http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/
Thats a great game.
It sometimes occurs to me how unusual my entry into gaming was. Most of my early games were effectively rules-less (generally there'd be some chargen I made up, and then mostly ignored after that).
Quote from: Spinachcat;817090When the best selling RPG books have hundreds of pages, plus dozens of supplements filled with rules, how are we to honestly blame players for not assuming their action choices must be pre-approved?
The crowd is fine. The problem is the games.
I'd say rather that - as with other cultural things - there's a two-way influence. But how did those books come to be in the first place? From the shifting demographic of the crowd!
Arneson, Gygax, St Andre, et al, pretty explicitly encouraged making it up as you go. That suited much of the original demographic of miniature-wargamers, in which several sets of home-brewed rules per household was a common state of affairs (and where there was no GM and something seemed reasonably possible, players in a friendly game might agree to toss for it).
Simbalist & Backhaus with C&S (1977) - surprisingly low page count due to tiny print - were notably ahead of the curve in complexity, which became rather FGU's hallmark as a publisher. Nonetheless, this was a matter of more detail in select areas, it being again pretty plainly stipulated that it was up to the GM to adjudicate the imponderably vast domain of things no rulebook could be comprehensive enough to treat exhaustively.
Then that original hobby-game crowd got vastly outnumbered by a (generally younger) influx of players not steeped in that tradition.
Various developments asserted the more rules-lawyering type's claim to "the norm." Was it really the majority, or just a bigger attention getter? It certainly had more reason to spend money on Handbook IV and Compleat Subclass X, etc.
Third Edition D&D seems to me a watershed. The dominant player culture outstripped the designers' own estimate of how much 'rules' should be binding. WotC perhaps responded by catering more to that market, shifting its presented attitude to be more sympathetic.
QuoteIntroduce your crew to a free, rules-light RPG from the Internet. There are a gazillion and plenty of threads have jabbered about them. Publishers profit by selling piles of thick books, but they don't actually help at the table.
I argue there's a correlation between the increase in RPG page count and the decrease in the popularity of the hobby.
BTW, here's my favorite free RPG: Mazes & Minotaurs (Greek Fantasy)
http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/
when running RPGs (Typically DnD 5e atm), I make a special point at the start of sessions for new players telling them that they shouldn't feel like just because there's no official ruling for something, you can't do it.
But that I'll make it fit in if it makes sense/could be possible etc.
I go on to say I reward creativity when doing things, whether it's solving an encounter I had in my head would solved by combat and someone thinks of an alternative or even just small things in game whether it's by action or RP.
IMO it makes for much more fun for players to be open in that way and makes my job as a GM much more fun too, as I never know what they'll try next..
Kriegsspiel vs. Frei Kriegsspiel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)
A view that seemed common among 4e D&D enthusiasts was that strict adherence to the written rules helped avoid problems with lack of skill in the art of DMing. From my experience, I reckon there's some truth in that.
However, I think that was a lot more significant to many people because they'd had a lot more bad experience than I'd had. I suspect that's not just luck of the draw, but that there's a sort of "birds of a feather flock together" effect in there.
Then there were people who seemed to parrot the line as received conventional wisdom, which I suppose added to its influence on similarly disposed minds.
From 4e RPGA events, I see another factor in that making the game more cut and dried like a boardgame might help make it more convenient for the sort of casual play to which many boardgames are well suited. I think the 4e system's appeal in that regard was limited by its complexity, but some of the ideas in the design have been implemented in simpler games.
A level of abstraction in which almost everything can be reduced to a few key mechanical effects - detailed simulation not being a concern - can be very simple while allowing great freedom in description. If the description has no significant effect, then there's no need to limit it!
That was in my experience pretty common playing D&D in the 1970s. Whether swinging from a chandelier, hooting a rebel yell, or juggling cats had any effect was up to the taste of the group in question. If we preferred, we could toss attack dice and deduct hit points just the same regardless, leaving narrative interpretation wide open.
If a monster's hp were at zero, it rarely mattered (enough not to leave it up to the player) whether that meant it was dead (per the book) or merely disabled; and if dead, then whether by a thrust to the heart, a flying kick, or mortification from a lampoon!
Quote from: Bren;817016This question seems very familiar. I wonder why that is?
Oh yeah, this (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=817006&postcount=34)is why.
Only one place?
If I had a dollar for every time I bitched about the mindset of RPGS changing from "Everything not forbidden is permitted" to "everything not permitted is forbidden" I would be able to retire.
And 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".
Quote from: robiswrong;817109Kriegsspiel vs. Frei Kriegsspiel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)
* does the Naked Old Geezer Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop Happy Dance *
Exactly.
The games by Gygax and Arneson that preceded D&D, whether temporally or in subject, were all written in the "Free Kriegspiel" mindset. Which, by the by, makes it much easier to introduce new players.
(CHAINMAIL, Don't Give Up the Ship, TRACTICS, and Cavaliers and Roundheads, specifically).
Probably due in part to some DMs demanding more rules to cover more things because they cannot, or do not want to think of a solution on the fly or use whats there allready for whatever reason.
But from accounts way back. More due to players wanting more rules to hammer down this or that so the DM couldnt argue with them that such and such wasnt possible.
Others may have simply had bad run ins with the more obnoxious of the "if the rules dont say I cant do it. Then I can do it."
But according to Gygax and others way back theres allways been an interest in more rules for this or that since right after D&D came out. Even when it wasnt needed or was allready covered.
Theres also the faction that gets frothing at the mouth maddog insane at the mere thought of the DM making anything up or altering the rules.
Quote from: Greentongue;817013In my opinion the main stream players have the assumption that, you can only do what the rules allow. This causes the requirement for more and more rules to allow options.
What happened to the assumption that, you can do anything the rules don't prohibit?
or am I just Hanging With The Wrong Crowd?
=
You are hanging with the wrong crowd.
Next time you're reffing, take away their character sheets. Give them something showing class, HP, weapons/spells, period.
Next time you're playing say "It's silly that we can't do stuff that isn't explicitly spelled out. There are no rules for taking a shit... does that mean our characters die of burst bowels?" Or other opener to lead to a semi reasonable discussion. (In my group, shit jokes are considered reasonable. YMMV.)
And when that fails, kill them and take their stuff.
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?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;817266Would you explain ahead of time what the results of a possible success would be though?
Yeah, or I might wait and see if they succeed (and whether the success is exceptional) before deciding exactly what effect success would have. Slippery surfaces are likely to be so situationally dependant that I'm not too concerned with establishing a replicatable precedent and unless the character is in the habit of greasing surfaces in combat and knows the opponent's foot gear and the surface properties, the character may not have much of a sense of exactly what effect success will actually have.
If I am playing Honor+Intrigue the basic rule for stunts will both me and the player what effect success will have and basically how difficult success is - base difficulty for a stunt vs. 4 Pawns is a 9 on 2d6 (modified for Flair and a Career if they have anything relevant to greasing floors - nothing occurs to me at the moment). If the number of Pawns is N, then the roll is modified by +(4-N) if N is < 4 and -(N-4) if N > 4.
The effect of success is that all N Pawns are taken out of combat in that scene or encounter.
When playing Mekton, in order to keep the emulation of the genre, we had the Cool Move rule. If the Player wanted to do a flashy maneuver and had enough actions to pull it off once it was broken down to its components, the Player would roll for each component, and if the whole chain was successful then they got the maximum possible result.
FREX, a transformable fighter just got four missiles fired at it from two hexes away. The Player wanted to dodge by barrel rolling inside of their flight arc (1), then transform to humanoid (2), and then fire the autocannon at the missiles to detonate them (3). All three skill checks were good, so all missiles were destroyed. Cool Move!
Why in the Hell that kind of improvisation by the Player and the adjucation of it by the GM is difficult just tells me that the people involved need to really start thinking outside of the box. You own the rules, the rules do not own you.
Quote from: Bren;817248However, 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."
Yeah, I'd agree that's a bit much, but... that kinda looks like an extreme example. I can't see that request occurring in actual play much.
OTOH, if the only mechanical effect is "an axe's worth of damage", then how it's narrated is kinda irrelevant.
Quote from: jeff37923;817272When playing Mekton, in order to keep the emulation of the genre, we had the Cool Move rule. If the Player wanted to do a flashy maneuver and had enough actions to pull it off once it was broken down to its components, the Player would roll for each component, and if the whole chain was successful then they got the maximum possible result.
FREX, a transformable fighter just got four missiles fired at it from two hexes away. The Player wanted to dodge by barrel rolling inside of their flight arc (1), then transform to humanoid (2), and then fire the autocannon at the missiles to detonate them (3). All three skill checks were good, so all missiles were destroyed. Cool Move!
Figuring out what happens if all components succeed should be easy and shouldn't require any out of the box thinking. If your rules can't accomodate that sort of action you should get a bigger box.
What is more telling as to whether players will want to try stunts or cool moves is what happens if one or more components
does not succeed and what happens if one component is an exceptional success.
I tend to deal with actions in succession. So a failure at any point usually halts the chain at that point. So in your example, if the barrel roll fails, the chain is broken and they do something else with their remaining actions. If the barrel roll succeeds and the transform fails, now they have an advantageous position due to the barrel roll, but they aren't in humanoid form (with whatever that means from a possible next action standpoint). If they succeed in the barrel roll and the transform, I would think that would give them a bonus on counter fire vs. the missiles.
If the barrel roll is an exceptional success, they should get some benefit, e.g. they have a bonus on successive rolls or maybe they automatically succeed at the next roll.
Unless the system includes some in game benny to improve success chances for cool stunts, the cumulative probabilities make succeeding at a long chain of actions highly unlikely so there needs to be some intermediate success possible or the cool action is often too risky (i.e. too unlikely to work) for players to bother to attempt it in situations where all rolls must succeed or the whole thing is a total failure.
To be fair, I don't think the demand for rules was due to lazy GMs or whiny entitled special snowflakes.
I think it was simply for the rules to match what was happening. In other words, a heavily armed sword and shield fighter, a savage Conan-like axe-wielder and a highly trained fencing master all "roll to hit".
Sure, that's where imagination comes in, roleplaying vs. rollplaying etc...
But, differentiation helps define the implicit or explicit setting. Druid vs. Cleric, Fighter vs. Paladin vs. Ranger, Magic-User vs. Illusionist, Thief vs. Assassin, Monk. That initial spread of classes helped define the quasi-medieval/S&S/pseudo-Tolkienian nature of D&D better than any other edition.
Fast Forward 40 years.
Unfortunately, we're subject to Schrodinger's Game. If we don't define it, it could be anything. Once we say it's A, it cannot be B. "Sure it can! You say.", and you're right, but (and I don't want to get into the million reasons why this is) you're more of an analog thinker, where younger gamers are more digital in thought. Blame whatever you like, or not, but "thinking outside the box" is rewarded less in foundational years then it ever has been.
People don't know what they don't know. You have to show them. I wouldn't suggest older D&D, or an OSR game but one of the hip new rules-light games, like Barbarians of Lemuria or something light without the narrative baggage.
I remember once a game where traveling through an abandoned mine system inhabited by Hobgoblins and Goblins, our group got heavily wounded and was being pursued by the humanoids. We moved into a more rough area and got into natural caves. We dropped down into a cave open to the outside that was a den to a pack of hungry wolves. As we had gone across an underground pool and through a waterfall we were thoroughly drenched and couldn't make enough fire fast enough to keep the wolves at bay. We were being hemmed in, and my character said to the young porter "Rope" as I motioned putting my left hand back. Everyone had that "WTF is he doing" look on their face, as the GM said "Ok" and motioned handing me the rope. I motioned a violent yank and said "I stab the porter in the stomach and throw him to the left side of the cave." Since I took even the GM by surprise he didn't even make me roll just described the action. As the wolves went after the porter, we slid along the wall to the right and escaped. I didn't hear it at the time, but the GM told me when I did that one of the new players we had whispered to one of the other new players (no lie)...
"You can do that?"
I was dumbfounded when I heard that, but the player's mind just wasn't going there. Now this wasn't a young digital native (it was a while ago) but he was in the mindset of "heroic fiction" and an Evil PC fighter who was a mercenary who made his living as a kind of assassin provoking people into duels and getting away with it (18 charisma best stat) wasn't in his frame of reference - until it got put there.
D&D has had 15 years (more if you count 2.5 Player's Options and late kit-era 2nd) of nothing but rules expansions and character menu lists of powers and abilities. Combine that with digital natives raised on computer and console games and you get the "Drop-Down Effect" where every action is dealt with by looking down at the sheet to see what switch to throw.
Get them off the sheet, make them think of the option instead of choosing it. Show them what they don't know.
It's a give and take. I've definitely been in games where I've come up with some wildly inventive idea, the GM saying 'oh, nice!' and then ... ok, here are the fifteen rolls I have to make to get a result that MIGHT be on par with just stabbing the enemy.
Fine, I'll look at my sheet and figure out what switch to pull.
Quote from: CRKrueger;817284"You can do that?"
Of course you can boy. The question is, do ya want to do that? Well do ya, punk?Nice story. And of course your PC is going to have a much harder time hiring porters in the future though. But at least he's alive to have that problem.
Quote from: Will;817286It's a give and take. I've definitely been in games where I've come up with some wildly inventive idea, the GM saying 'oh, nice!' and then ... ok, here are the fifteen rolls I have to make to get a result that MIGHT be on par with just stabbing the enemy.
Fine, I'll look at my sheet and figure out what switch to pull.
Well, yeah, the GM has to kind of want them off the sheet. If the GM wants you to just pull the switch, doing anything else is going to be frustrating. The OP sounds like he's willing, it's the players that are stuck.
It's hard for a player to get a GM to try something else, in the end he can vote via foot if it's really not fun.
It's easy for the GM to change the rules, he just tries something else, or he handles the game differently. He may have to do it a certain way based on table dynamics, but in the end, unless he's chained up in someone's basement, he's running the game and if it needs to be with a different group of players, then that's what needs to happen.
Quote from: Will;817286It's a give and take. I've definitely been in games where I've come up with some wildly inventive idea, the GM saying 'oh, nice!' and then ... ok, here are the fifteen rolls I have to make to get a result that MIGHT be on par with just stabbing the enemy.
Fine, I'll look at my sheet and figure out what switch to pull.
Yes, I've experienced that too.
My examples were poor, because I do try to encourage cool stunts from my players.
While I run things in a loose, "Theatre of the Mind" sort of way, I try to manage a sort of coherence with the rules. If a player wants to do something that blatantly breaks the turn structure (move, action, maneuver etc...) it can be a challenge to make them a fun offer (with a promised outcome for success), a drawback (will take x number of ability checks) and coming up consequences for failure that aren't turn offs.
5e is pretty loose already with the turn structure (even more so in my campaign in which I do "side" initiative). So far my players have been happy (3 sessions in) and there's no shortage of cool action scenes. Even when a player screws up a cool stunt, I often give them a success at cost, with a few choices. Yep, that's a bit metagamey, but so far everyone loves it.
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...
That's why I love the one minute combat round of OD&D. All that stuff is in there, your die roll is merely to give the net effect at the end of a minute of singing and dancing.
Fine, not everybody likes that. If you really want an excellent system for modeling every stroke of the blade, try Fantasy Hero. It works far better for that than D&D.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817293That's why I love the one minute combat round of OD&D. All that stuff is in there, your die roll is merely to give the net effect at the end of a minute of singing and dancing.
Fine, not everybody likes that. If you really want an excellent system for modeling every stroke of the blade, try Fantasy Hero. It works far better for that than D&D.
As much as I'm liking 5e, that OD&D style is very appealing.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817293That's why I love the one minute combat round of OD&D. All that stuff is in there, your die roll is merely to give the net effect at the end of a minute of singing and dancing.
Fine, not everybody likes that. If you really want an excellent system for modeling every stroke of the blade, try Fantasy Hero. It works far better for that than D&D.
I prefer something in between the two. Abstracting a few blows into a single roll makes sense to me. Abstracting 5-10 arrow shots into a single attack roll doesn't make much sense. Games with rounds in the 5-12 second range like Runequest, Star Wars D6, and Honor+Intrigue where you have the ability to fire 1-3 arrows in a round seems a more useful increment of time.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817120* does the Naked Old Geezer Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop Happy Dance *
Not gonna believe it without a video.
Quote from: Lynn;817247Don't you think the Starter Set is good for that?
Do you mean the current 5e Starter Set? Or Starter sets in general?
The current 5e starter box only has replay value based on the free download / free wiki that anyone can access without buying the box. Of course, you could play whole campaigns from those downloads...like most any other free RPG you get online.
But outside of the legendary D&D Red Box, I have not seen a Starter Set which could be played for a long ass time without "graduating" to a stack of college textbooks masquerading as coffee table art books.
The Doctor Who boxset was damn good.
Quote from: Spinachcat;817346Not gonna believe it without a video.
"You can't HANDLE the sight of my fat naked hairy jiggling ass!"
(stares upward)
This isn't a gaming thing. This is a human thing. The "Everything not explicitly allowed is forbidden" / "Everything not explicitly forbidden is allowed" dichotomy's been in play since Ug the Caveman glared at a tribal elder, pointed at the cave wall, and demanded to know where it said he couldn't hunt an antelope instead of a mastodon.
IMHO, it's followed closely in the stupidity continuum by the "What do you mean it's possible to do things other than the way I've always done it?" / "What do you mean you persist in doing things your way instead of in my superior fashion?" split.
Someday I might become reconciled to the sheer bewilderment many people have that the way that their buddies have always gamed isn't the way that every other gamer on Earth has always played, but that might be a lost cause.
As a general rule of thumb, I incentivise the first time a player tries something more than I incentivise repeated attempts at the same thing. Leaping off a cliff to stab someone is nifty the first time, it becomes boring the tenth time. I openly tell players that repeated use of any particular stunt will be made harder to accomplish.
I also tend to prefer certain types of stunts over others. Describing an attack in a fanciful way is meh. Coming up with a plan is what I like.
Climbing on to a giant's back to go stabbity is not something I would give much incentive to try.
An elaborate ruse to trick the giant into lobbing rocks at the giant's allies is something I would give much more incentive to try.
Quote from: Old One Eye;817402Climbing on to a giant's back to go stabbity is not something I would give much incentive to try.
I can see advantages to climbing onto the giant. From the giant's back you can reach the giant's neck which is probably more vulnerable than the giant's feet or knees. Or you might be able to use the giant's hair to swing or climb to where you can stab him in the eyes. Blinding giants is a tactic of long and legendary standing; also it would be pretty effective.
On the other hand, there is going to be a real risk that your character falls before getting to stab or gets thrown off the giant's back and sent flying through the air to hit the ground from a 50'-60' height. (I'm assuming this is an actual giant, not just some ogre with a pituitary disorder.) So both risk and reward.
I agree that using the same stunt over and over is boring and should have the potential for anticipation resulting in an effective defense and a counterstrike by the opponents.
Quote from: Bren;817410I agree that using the same stunt over and over is boring and should have the potential for anticipation resulting in an effective defense and a counterstrike by the opponents.
Unless you're running a campaign all about Giant Killers (à la Attack on Titan, which could be pretty badass).
Quote from: Ravenswing;817399
Someday I might become reconciled to the sheer bewilderment many people have that the way that their buddies have always gamed isn't the way that every other gamer on Earth has always played, but that might be a lost cause.
Trust me. Its a lost cause. Especially when we have people who will deliberately create a split to cause fraction. Just because. Not even because they dont like the thing they are ruining. But for the evulz.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817357"You can't HANDLE the sight of my fat naked hairy jiggling ass!"
Man, do you have that right!
That sounds like something impossible to "un-see"...
Quote from: Ravenswing;817399Someday I might become reconciled to the sheer bewilderment many people have that the way that their buddies have always gamed isn't the way that every other gamer on Earth has always played, but that might be a lost cause.[/COLOR]
I agree with you, but replace 'has' with 'should' and it seems to me that you have the premise of this website.
Quote from: soviet;817454I agree with you, but replace 'has' with 'should' and it seems to me that you have the premise of this website.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm just sharing my experiences and prefered playstyle. I'm not passing judgment on anyone else: just shooting the shit.
If I've come across as lecturing others or whatever, that ain't my intention.
In other words, I give zero fucks how other people play their elf games (edit: unless it's in a shared conversation ABOUT that topic).
Quote from: Old Geezer;817357"You can't HANDLE the sight of my fat naked hairy jiggling ass!"
Bring it! I've get extra SAN to burn!
Quote from: Greentongue;817013In my opinion the main stream players have the assumption that, you can only do what the rules allow. This causes the requirement for more and more rules to allow options.
What happened to the assumption that, you can do anything the rules don't prohibit?
or am I just Hanging With The Wrong Crowd?
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I think folks find it easier to deal with the game versus the roleplaying. Especially when half of the explanations about roleplaying makes it the equivalent of writing a story or making a film.
If you view tabletop roleplaying as presenting an experience, a pen and paper virtual reality if you will. Then the need for rule is greatly reduced. It becomes a personal preference instead of a burning necessity. For example I like the detail of full on GURPS combat but I don't need it to run my Majestic Wilderlands the way I like. I enjoy using OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry and I enjoy using D&D 5e.
The RPGs I don't like are the ones where the rules allow for metagaming. Doing things as a player rather than as a character. I don't like a lot of the current emphasis on story, drama, and scenes. And the people using those rules cheat themselves out of the full potential of tabletop roleplaying to immerse you into another place and time.
Thanks for the viewpoints. I've seen a lot of changes over the years and I guess a lot depends if the people you are playing with think of it in terms of "Game" versus "Roleplaying".
Some want to "Use a Character" and some want to "Be a Character".
=
Quote from: soviet;817454I agree with you, but replace 'has' with 'should' and it seems to me that you have the premise of this website.
A definite corollary, of course.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817119Only one place?
If I had a dollar for every time I bitched about the mindset of RPGS changing from "Everything not forbidden is permitted" to "everything not permitted is forbidden" I would be able to retire.
Yeah, well, you can't retire yet, because I discovered this article on Gnome Stew this morning (http://www.gnomestew.com/gming-advice/you-can-totally-do-that-thing-or-maybe-not/). It was this quote that caught my eye:
"In the opening example, the player hadn't played D&D in quite some time and was coming at his choices from
a very old-school perspective. The last time he had played regularly, if something wasn't explicitly stated in the rules, you simply couldn't do it." (Emphasis added.)
A very OLD-SCHOOL perspective.
Now, the writer is trying to tell everyone hey, it's OK to try something even if there's nothing on your character sheet or in the rule book that says you can. That's a good thing. But if even the fellow travelers believe that the game until recently was based on "Anything not in the rules is forbidden," all of your efforts, and everything the OSR has said for the last several years, has been a complete waste of time. Nobody listened.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817293That's why I love the one minute combat round of OD&D. All that stuff is in there, your die roll is merely to give the net effect at the end of a minute of singing and dancing.
Side note: Have you seen the thread on the OD&D forums where some people I otherwise respect are insisting that the LBBs do not say that the combat round lasts one minute?
Quote from: talysman;817810Side note: Have you seen the thread on the OD&D forums where some people I otherwise respect are insisting that the LBBs do not say that the combat round lasts one minute?
Page 8 of book 3? A movement turn takes 10 minutes.
QuoteThere are 10 rounds of combat per turn.
Quote from: Omega;817812Page 8 of book 3? A movement turn takes 10 minutes.
You'd have to read their convoluted reasoning, but basically they say that doesn't say that a combat turn is 10 minutes, so 10 rounds per turn doesn't necessarily mean 1--minute rounds.
I don't agree, but I stopped arguing in those threads. It's an irreconcilable difference of opinion.
Quote from: talysman;817814You'd have to read their convoluted reasoning, but basically they say that doesn't say that a combat turn is 10 minutes, so 10 rounds per turn doesn't necessarily mean 1--minute rounds.
I don't agree, but I stopped arguing in those threads. It's an irreconcilable difference of opinion.
It says a movement turn is 10 min. Then rolls into explaining a combat round as being 10 in a turn. One leads into the other.
But I can guess where the argument went. "The rules for a combat round says is 10 in a turn. But NEVER says what a turn is!" which ignores the explanation of a turn on the very same page?
"Irreconcilable difference of opinion" my fat old hairy ass. That's "You're an idiot, shut up."
Also, I adopted the handle "Old Geezer" after people on Purple Nurple were talking about "old school games way back in the early 90s."
And some people never got over the trauma of their first referee being a dink because he was 14.
Quote from: Omega;817815It says a movement turn is 10 min. Then rolls into explaining a combat round as being 10 in a turn. One leads into the other.
But I can guess where the argument went. "The rules for a combat round says is 10 in a turn. But NEVER says what a turn is!" which ignores the explanation of a turn on the very same page?
If it's the forum I'm thinking of, there is a subset of posters there that, if a rule has two ways to read it -- one perfectly logical, and the other making no God damned sense at all -- they will argue that we have to assume that either interpretation is equally valid, because there is no definitive text.
"Common sense" or "assume the writer was not an utter fucking moron" carries no weight with them, and it drives me batshit insane sometimes.
My favorite is 'making an object invisible doesn't necessarily mean you can see anything on the other side of the object.'
Which actually reminds me of some of the more full of shit elements of college philosophy classes (in particular, the 1900s debate over the nature of perception, which was solved by a bunch of neurologists saying 'shut the fuck up, here's how it works, you dinks')
I think that one got play on ENWorld.
Quote from: Will;817869My favorite is 'making an object invisible doesn't necessarily mean you can see anything on the other side of the object.'
Which actually reminds me of some of the more full of shit elements of college philosophy classes (in particular, the 1900s debate over the nature of perception, which was solved by a bunch of neurologists saying 'shut the fuck up, here's how it works, you dinks')
I think that one got play on ENWorld.
It wasn't actually solved. They still teach that stuff. I love those debates.
Nothing in philosophy can be solved by science.
Quote from: Omega;817815It says a movement turn is 10 min. Then rolls into explaining a combat round as being 10 in a turn. One leads into the other.
But I can guess where the argument went. "The rules for a combat round says is 10 in a turn. But NEVER says what a turn is!" which ignores the explanation of a turn on the very same page?
No, it's not anything that bad. These are fairly smart people, and I respect them in many ways, but they are fixated on proving that Chainmail was used as the combat system, as opposed to being merely referenced.
That particular passage, they say, is two different sections, one on movement, one on combat, and there was more combat material edited out. They cite some manuscript drafts, Empire of the Petal Throne, and Eldritch Wizardry as proof that short Chainmail combat rounds were the norm until AD&D officially changed it to 1 minute.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;817892Nothing in philosophy can be solved by science.
I would have once vehemently debated this statement. These days I'm much less sure of my convictions.
Quote from: Will;817869My favorite is 'making an object invisible doesn't necessarily mean you can see anything on the other side of the object.'
/facepalm
That's one of the better WTFD&D? statements I've ever heard.
Also, there's the guy in a D&D 3.5 game who argued that he can cast water breathing on a red dragon to make it suffocate, and his GM didn't know what he was talking about when he said it doesn't work that way.
His GM was Jonathan Tweet.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;817892Nothing in philosophy can be solved by science.
Unfortunately philosophers tend to think everything in science can be solved by philosophy.
That is actually worse than I guessed.
Thats like arguing a combat turn in 5e isnt really a 6 sec round because it doesnt say under turns how long a round lasts. So it must be 10 sec long because 5e is like BX and a round in BX is 10 sec.
Perfectly clear now! :banghead:
Quote from: talysman;817896No, it's not anything that bad. These are fairly smart people, and I respect them in many ways, but they are fixated on proving that Chainmail was used as the combat system, as opposed to being merely referenced.
That particular passage, they say, is two different sections, one on movement, one on combat, and there was more combat material edited out. They cite some manuscript drafts, Empire of the Petal Throne, and Eldritch Wizardry as proof that short Chainmail combat rounds were the norm until AD&D officially changed it to 1 minute.
Quote from: talysman;817896No, it's not anything that bad. These are fairly smart people, and I respect them in many ways, but they are fixated on proving that Chainmail was used as the combat system, as opposed to being merely referenced.
That particular passage, they say, is two different sections, one on movement, one on combat, and there was more combat material edited out. They cite some manuscript drafts, Empire of the Petal Throne, and Eldritch Wizardry as proof that short Chainmail combat rounds were the norm until AD&D officially changed it to 1 minute.
Yeah. That. And no amount of "No, that isn't how we played" matters.
I stopped following certain threads there years ago.
And that isn't how Gary played CHAINMAIL either, but never mind...
And when there was a long wail about "if only we knew more about how they played back then," my list of still living players from Dave Arneson's and Gary Gygax's original groups was roundly ignored.
Except for one guy who declared that they wanted to "derive" the information, or some such horseshit.
Quote from: Old Geezer;817958Yeah. That. And no amount of "No, that isn't how we played" matters.
I stopped following certain threads there years ago.
And that isn't how Gary played CHAINMAIL either, but never mind...
And when there was a long wail about "if only we knew more about how they played back then," my list of still living players from Dave Arneson's and Gary Gygax's original groups was roundly ignored.
Except for one guy who declared that they wanted to "derive" the information, or some such horseshit.
I think some people look at the OD&D game as a historical texts of sorts and try to decipher what was meant- kinda a sub-hobby. The fact that are people who can give them the answers, ruins that.
Quote from: RunningLaser;818207I think some people look at the OD&D game as a historical texts of sorts and try to decipher what was meant- kinda a sub-hobby. The fact that are people who can give them the answers, ruins that.
And to a certain extent, there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't have first-hand information, like if Old Geezer doesn't know what table Gary was using for some result,
the best you can do is guess from what's actually in written sources. Or if you want to derive a pattern for your own use, even if that pattern was unintentional, that's fine, too. (I do that a lot, myself.)
But if someone who was there says, "No, that's not how it was played," you have to accept that what you are doing is your *own* D&D, not the original. You're house-ruling it, not figuring out the missing rules that were actually in use.
Quote from: talysman;818238But if someone who was there says, "No, that's not how it was played," you have to accept that what you are doing is your *own* D&D, not the original. You're house-ruling it, not figuring out the missing rules that were actually in use.
And there's nothing wrong with that, just don't pretend you're trying to "discover the original game."
Crom's hairy nutsack, the original game is "make up some shit you think will be fun."
Quote from: Will;817869college philosophy classes
You didn't go to college...who are you kidding?
Quote from: Brad;818387You didn't go to college...who are you kidding?
I think Will left the forum.
Because of
rape culture.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;817892Nothing in philosophy can be solved by science.
Except for, given sufficiently scientific definitions of solved, everything (http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=3657).
Quote from: TristramEvans;818407I think Will left the forum.
Because of rape culture.
That is what college teaches sadly. No seriously the academia, arts, and humanities are in ruins because it got taken over by identity politics. I wouldn't be surprise when the college bubble busts those would be the first classes to go.
Quote from: TristramEvans;818407I think Will left the forum.
Because of rape culture.
Score one for
rape culture then.