D&D rules are mostly combat rules. If somebody says they want to play D&D, most people assume they want to play in such a way that the D&D rules are relevant. This isn’t a safe assumption, because the name “Dungeons and Dragons” is famous enough that some people will claim they want to play it without knowing what it involves. DMs should clarify to new players that D&D is heavily combat focused, and point out more suitable systems if the player isn’t interested in that.
I may be an outiler here, but while combat being a minor part of the overall campaign I want to play I’m incredibly annoyed if its broken or simplistic.
Roleplay never struck me as the kind of thing that needed rules as detailed as combat. Say negotiating with someone in game is already complex enough since you can do nearly anything you can in a real conversation including optimizing body language or having other people to suggest the same idea as you have.
Roleplaying is all about playing a character who is different from yourself. In real life, I can’t wield a two-handed battleaxe (or a shotgun, for that matter). Almost no one can. However, many people can do other things I can’t, such as seducing enemy spies, lying convincingly to a room full of people, or piecing together esoteric knowledge gleaned from ancient texts written in seven dead languages. Therefore, I cannot realistically roleplay a character who does these things.
This is where the rules come in. Instead of “optimizing body language”, which I can’t do in real life, I roll a d20 and add my Charisma modifier along with my Bluff rank. If the result is high enough, then everyone in the room is convinced that I am the Grand Vizier and they should do what I say. This includes the NPCs, who are controlled by the GM, as well as the PCs, who are not convinced in real life, but pretend to be for the purposes of the game.
This way, I can play the character I want to play, who is different than my real-world self—and I can do so fairly, because everyone follows the same rules.
Combat works the same way, except that it can be even more fun if done properly. Of course, if you aren’t a fan of turn-based strategy games such as X-Com or even chess, then you might want to stay away from detailed combat rules and stick to something more cinematic.
Of course, some combat (as well as social) systems are simply way too complicated (f.ex., Rifts and Earthdawn, IMO). I shouldn’t need to consult three different tables just to swing my sword or tell a convincing white lie. But that’s a problem with specific dice systems, not with dice systems as a general category.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I want to see a system that explicitly timeskips combat encounters. Like maybe do fights like Risk, with perhaps charts for who got injured and how badly. Ideally, fighting would be generally bad for all involved.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a timescaled combat system, where you spend as much time playing out combat vs simulated battle time as you would playing out “scenes” vs simulated scene time. Most battle systems work on some assumption that e.g. 1 turn = 3 seconds of “world time”. This system would have similar strategic conscious player-control over outcomes to that of a real fight: very little beyond shifts in intent and the rest just game-simulations of instinct, body movement, applications of martial training, etc.
Throw initial conditions (e.g. initial intent of first action, like “hold ground and overpower incoming enemies” vs “charge and slash at any opening in this enemy’s guard”), plug in training and reflexes and trained reactions for the combatants, compute results, wham, five or ten seconds of combat have elapsed and the computer tells you that you just broke your arm while killing two goblins (possibly generating an epic recounting of your spectacular exploits, à la Dwarf Fortress). Ideally a computer would be doing all the heavy lifting, of course, which implies making software on top of designing rules, which implies way more time and effort than I’ve ever been motivated to put into something like this.
I may be an outiler here, but while combat being a minor part of the overall campaign I want to play I’m incredibly annoyed if its broken or simplistic.
Roleplay never struck me as the kind of thing that needed rules as detailed as combat.
Thanks, this matches my impressions of D&D perfectly but I haven’t actually been able to articulate it before.
In general, a system needs rules for resolving disputes about what is going to happen, and that’s mostly combat. The roleplaying part doesn’t need a ‘system’ at all.
In general, a system needs rules for resolving disputes about what is going to happen, and that’s mostly combat. The roleplaying part doesn’t need a ‘system’ at all.
It bloody well does need a system! It’s just that often the “system” doesn’t take pages of rules, it may be “the Dungeon Master has the last say on everything”, or even not be an implicit assumption.
Some roleplaying systems are made to encourage the players to take a major hand in the world building, especially their character’s relationship to it. Not only “what town does my guy come from”, but also things like “is the mayor of that town a villain?”, “Why did the Gods abandon the world?”, etc. Those aspects are important, especially when you have creative players that want to do that kind of stuff—good rules around that can prevent it from getting out of hand. Check out this for more specific examples.
I may not be disagreeing with you! More like, bouncing off your comment to go on a rant!
But I am disagreeing with the notion that game rules should be essentially about determining the success of the players’ actions (combat, picking locks, climbing walls, seducing the guard); they can also be about collaborative world building and storytelling—not only “what happens?”, but also “what kind of world are we living in?”, “what kind of story is this?”, “What are this guy’s dreams and weaknesses?”.
Framing things as “dispute resolution” may carry the implication that the rules are mostly about disputes between characters (playing and non-playing) - for example, “My guy thinks the Sheriff should publicly resign now that his sins have been brought to light; he thinks he’s not taking any bullshit from nosy strangers”—wham, dispute! You’re going to need rules to handle intimidation, wit, maybe fistfights or gunfights, and maybe even escalation. But a dispute can also be “Bob wants the story to be about a band of outcasts going from town to town looking for thrill and adventure; Joe wants the story to be about the guilt and redemption of a pastor who made some mistakes”—often the “game rules” may not even frame that as a dispute and the resolution will be “The Dungeon master says fuck’em, today’s story is about killing dark elves in the forest and if you try to go muckin’ around the fields you’ll be fighting dark elves anyway!”.
(I checked out SpookyBeans, but didn’t see much in terms of rules, I guess you have to buy it :P)
Aha. SpookyBeans used to be a 1-page download. The dispute resolution mechanism is extremely simplistic and flexible, and is more about disputes between players rather than characters, like the kind you mentioned. Basically, anything can happen if anyone says it happens, and then the rules come into play when people disagree about what happens.
I agree that meta-level disputes about “what the story should be about” and such are outside the scope of the D&D rules. But I still haven’t seen anything that addresses those better than “have the players work that out somehow”.
It’s not really about combat, but rather about the GM’s narrative. In any game, the GM usually has some story designed, with pre-determined events, locations, characters, etc. When the players deviate too far from the plot, the GM is in trouble, because he’s got nothing prepared. He can improvise up to a point, but the overall gaming experience will suffer.
A good GM will gracefully handle whatever crazy thing the players want to do, and channel them back toward the prepared plot tree in a way that feels seamless. A bad GM (such as, sadly, myself) will flail around for a while, employing increasingly desperate measures to get the players back on track. A truly terrible GM will flat out tell his players, “no, you can’t do this, for no better reason other than that I told you so”.
Sometimes players like to feel they’ve stymied the DM, for instance by using a loophole to bypass a whole series of obstacles and jump straight to the win. As DM I would sometimes set up situations like that, hoping that they would think of the loophole, and then acting all chagrined when they did. :) But of course the win came with complications of its own, which led to the main plot I was actually trying to get to. (Or if they don’t win, I’d have another way to get them there.) Anyway, the point is that it can be fun for the players to feel like they have a big impact on the plot. And hey, sometimes they actually do—players going off on tangents has led to some really cool plots that I had not planned for. Like when my plan was for them to defeat some druglords, but the swordmage decided to get addicted to the drug instead.
When the players deviate too far from the plot, the GM is in trouble, because he’s got nothing prepared. He can improvise up to a point, but the overall gaming experience will suffer.
There’s a delicate tradeoff on the effect on the experience—on the one hand, the players will feel more involved in a story that goes the direction they want it to go, but on the other hand there will have been less preparation for the content they encounter—so the result can be an improvement in the gaming experience.
Which effect is stronger can depend of whether the rules covert he desired action with an interesting mechanic, whether the DM planned for diversions (through world building, lists of things that can be injected in to get things back on a track), and how good at improvisation the DM is.
I played an excellent game that was all about improvisation and going off tangents, but it was with a pretty good DM who could handle whatever we sent his way. I’m much worse at that (I’m a bad DM and haven’t DMed for a few years now).
Which effect is stronger can depend of whether the rules cover the desired action with an interesting mechanic, whether the DM planned for diversions (through world building, lists of things that can be injected in to get things back on a track), and how good at improvisation the DM is.
Agreed, though again, the rules are a secondary problem at best. Almost every game has catch-all rules that can be applied to any situation, even D&D. For example, if my players wanted to plow the field successfully, I’d have them roll “Knowledge: Nature” or, if they don’t have it, “Knowledge: Local”. If they just want to fix the plow, it’d be a “Craft” check… etc. The problem is not with the rules, but with the plot and the setting. As the GM, I probably have a detailed map of the Drow caves and an org chart of their social structure; but I know squat about growing wheat. I could find out on Wikipedia, of course, but taking the time to do so would break the flow of the game.
D&D rules are mostly combat rules. If somebody says they want to play D&D, most people assume they want to play in such a way that the D&D rules are relevant. This isn’t a safe assumption, because the name “Dungeons and Dragons” is famous enough that some people will claim they want to play it without knowing what it involves. DMs should clarify to new players that D&D is heavily combat focused, and point out more suitable systems if the player isn’t interested in that.
The DM could let the elves attack during plowing. Should be a strong incentive to get into a fight.
I may be an outiler here, but while combat being a minor part of the overall campaign I want to play I’m incredibly annoyed if its broken or simplistic.
Roleplay never struck me as the kind of thing that needed rules as detailed as combat. Say negotiating with someone in game is already complex enough since you can do nearly anything you can in a real conversation including optimizing body language or having other people to suggest the same idea as you have.
I disagree—up to a point.
Roleplaying is all about playing a character who is different from yourself. In real life, I can’t wield a two-handed battleaxe (or a shotgun, for that matter). Almost no one can. However, many people can do other things I can’t, such as seducing enemy spies, lying convincingly to a room full of people, or piecing together esoteric knowledge gleaned from ancient texts written in seven dead languages. Therefore, I cannot realistically roleplay a character who does these things.
This is where the rules come in. Instead of “optimizing body language”, which I can’t do in real life, I roll a d20 and add my Charisma modifier along with my Bluff rank. If the result is high enough, then everyone in the room is convinced that I am the Grand Vizier and they should do what I say. This includes the NPCs, who are controlled by the GM, as well as the PCs, who are not convinced in real life, but pretend to be for the purposes of the game.
This way, I can play the character I want to play, who is different than my real-world self—and I can do so fairly, because everyone follows the same rules.
Combat works the same way, except that it can be even more fun if done properly. Of course, if you aren’t a fan of turn-based strategy games such as X-Com or even chess, then you might want to stay away from detailed combat rules and stick to something more cinematic.
Of course, some combat (as well as social) systems are simply way too complicated (f.ex., Rifts and Earthdawn, IMO). I shouldn’t need to consult three different tables just to swing my sword or tell a convincing white lie. But that’s a problem with specific dice systems, not with dice systems as a general category.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I want to see a system that explicitly timeskips combat encounters. Like maybe do fights like Risk, with perhaps charts for who got injured and how badly. Ideally, fighting would be generally bad for all involved.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a timescaled combat system, where you spend as much time playing out combat vs simulated battle time as you would playing out “scenes” vs simulated scene time. Most battle systems work on some assumption that e.g. 1 turn = 3 seconds of “world time”. This system would have similar strategic conscious player-control over outcomes to that of a real fight: very little beyond shifts in intent and the rest just game-simulations of instinct, body movement, applications of martial training, etc.
Throw initial conditions (e.g. initial intent of first action, like “hold ground and overpower incoming enemies” vs “charge and slash at any opening in this enemy’s guard”), plug in training and reflexes and trained reactions for the combatants, compute results, wham, five or ten seconds of combat have elapsed and the computer tells you that you just broke your arm while killing two goblins (possibly generating an epic recounting of your spectacular exploits, à la Dwarf Fortress). Ideally a computer would be doing all the heavy lifting, of course, which implies making software on top of designing rules, which implies way more time and effort than I’ve ever been motivated to put into something like this.
Thanks, this matches my impressions of D&D perfectly but I haven’t actually been able to articulate it before.
In general, a system needs rules for resolving disputes about what is going to happen, and that’s mostly combat. The roleplaying part doesn’t need a ‘system’ at all.
It bloody well does need a system! It’s just that often the “system” doesn’t take pages of rules, it may be “the Dungeon Master has the last say on everything”, or even not be an implicit assumption.
Some roleplaying systems are made to encourage the players to take a major hand in the world building, especially their character’s relationship to it. Not only “what town does my guy come from”, but also things like “is the mayor of that town a villain?”, “Why did the Gods abandon the world?”, etc. Those aspects are important, especially when you have creative players that want to do that kind of stuff—good rules around that can prevent it from getting out of hand. Check out this for more specific examples.
It doesn’t sound like you’re actually disagreeing with me. I said:
The concept of the Dungeon Master having “last say” doesn’t even come into question until there’s a dispute.
See also SpookyBeans, which nicely refines all dispute resolution into a single mechanism.
I may not be disagreeing with you! More like, bouncing off your comment to go on a rant!
But I am disagreeing with the notion that game rules should be essentially about determining the success of the players’ actions (combat, picking locks, climbing walls, seducing the guard); they can also be about collaborative world building and storytelling—not only “what happens?”, but also “what kind of world are we living in?”, “what kind of story is this?”, “What are this guy’s dreams and weaknesses?”.
Framing things as “dispute resolution” may carry the implication that the rules are mostly about disputes between characters (playing and non-playing) - for example, “My guy thinks the Sheriff should publicly resign now that his sins have been brought to light; he thinks he’s not taking any bullshit from nosy strangers”—wham, dispute! You’re going to need rules to handle intimidation, wit, maybe fistfights or gunfights, and maybe even escalation. But a dispute can also be “Bob wants the story to be about a band of outcasts going from town to town looking for thrill and adventure; Joe wants the story to be about the guilt and redemption of a pastor who made some mistakes”—often the “game rules” may not even frame that as a dispute and the resolution will be “The Dungeon master says fuck’em, today’s story is about killing dark elves in the forest and if you try to go muckin’ around the fields you’ll be fighting dark elves anyway!”.
(I checked out SpookyBeans, but didn’t see much in terms of rules, I guess you have to buy it :P)
Aha. SpookyBeans used to be a 1-page download. The dispute resolution mechanism is extremely simplistic and flexible, and is more about disputes between players rather than characters, like the kind you mentioned. Basically, anything can happen if anyone says it happens, and then the rules come into play when people disagree about what happens.
I agree that meta-level disputes about “what the story should be about” and such are outside the scope of the D&D rules. But I still haven’t seen anything that addresses those better than “have the players work that out somehow”.
THANK you. Role-playing theory is awesome.
It’s not really about combat, but rather about the GM’s narrative. In any game, the GM usually has some story designed, with pre-determined events, locations, characters, etc. When the players deviate too far from the plot, the GM is in trouble, because he’s got nothing prepared. He can improvise up to a point, but the overall gaming experience will suffer.
A good GM will gracefully handle whatever crazy thing the players want to do, and channel them back toward the prepared plot tree in a way that feels seamless. A bad GM (such as, sadly, myself) will flail around for a while, employing increasingly desperate measures to get the players back on track. A truly terrible GM will flat out tell his players, “no, you can’t do this, for no better reason other than that I told you so”.
Sometimes players like to feel they’ve stymied the DM, for instance by using a loophole to bypass a whole series of obstacles and jump straight to the win. As DM I would sometimes set up situations like that, hoping that they would think of the loophole, and then acting all chagrined when they did. :) But of course the win came with complications of its own, which led to the main plot I was actually trying to get to. (Or if they don’t win, I’d have another way to get them there.) Anyway, the point is that it can be fun for the players to feel like they have a big impact on the plot. And hey, sometimes they actually do—players going off on tangents has led to some really cool plots that I had not planned for. Like when my plan was for them to defeat some druglords, but the swordmage decided to get addicted to the drug instead.
There’s a delicate tradeoff on the effect on the experience—on the one hand, the players will feel more involved in a story that goes the direction they want it to go, but on the other hand there will have been less preparation for the content they encounter—so the result can be an improvement in the gaming experience.
Which effect is stronger can depend of whether the rules covert he desired action with an interesting mechanic, whether the DM planned for diversions (through world building, lists of things that can be injected in to get things back on a track), and how good at improvisation the DM is.
I played an excellent game that was all about improvisation and going off tangents, but it was with a pretty good DM who could handle whatever we sent his way. I’m much worse at that (I’m a bad DM and haven’t DMed for a few years now).
Agreed, though again, the rules are a secondary problem at best. Almost every game has catch-all rules that can be applied to any situation, even D&D. For example, if my players wanted to plow the field successfully, I’d have them roll “Knowledge: Nature” or, if they don’t have it, “Knowledge: Local”. If they just want to fix the plow, it’d be a “Craft” check… etc. The problem is not with the rules, but with the plot and the setting. As the GM, I probably have a detailed map of the Drow caves and an org chart of their social structure; but I know squat about growing wheat. I could find out on Wikipedia, of course, but taking the time to do so would break the flow of the game.
Aren’t the rules of enough generality that they can be applied the difficulty in non-combat situations?
“Try to use the fence pikes as a plow.”
--> Checking Wisdom saving throw … fails, any other ideas?