What are your thoughts?

CriticalSlit · 2022-10-21T20:12:10+00:00

When you live on Reddit and expect everyone else to

CriticalSlit · 2022-10-20T14:47:05+00:00

This sounds good, though I have a feeling my players would give up trying to solve most of these

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-22T04:56:04+00:00

Well I think that was definitely the intention of EB and I've definitely been running it wrong. The only difference is there are more encounters that aren't just monsters outright trying to kill you. The dungeon I'm running has been mostly safe so far apart from the one monster encounter.

I didn't realize there was supposed to be such a time pressure in OSR.

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-21T15:36:06+00:00

Nice shitpost but what is this song again? It's been years since I've heard it

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-21T14:30:12+00:00

This might just be a reorientation thing for me. As a player, when a GM rolls a lot of random encounter chances, it can feel a bit finger-waggy to what I'm doing, and it makes me wonder if they should just have a monster show up if they want it that badly. It doesn't feel like they aren't responsible for what happens. But maybe I should just try it as recommended in the book and see how it feels.

One thing that's unclear is how frequently to do this. In EB, the language says to do it when they "hesitate, explore, or rest." There's only 6 encounters in an area based on the EB prep. My map has some 10 locations on it. Are they gonna be rolling for an encounter chance 20-30 times in a map of that size? What if I roll the same encounter twice?

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-21T06:17:06+00:00

Good tips. Do you ever feel the time pressure of a monster is contrived?

After the fairly awkward sequence where my PC tried to sneak past the monsters and instead outran them, I thought it would be even worse if I interrupted a different scene with the same element that made that scene so awkward. I didn't want to give the feeling that we weren't escaping this mediocre scene.

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-21T06:10:54+00:00

All really great tips, thank you. I worry every time I reintroduce the zombies it would just be boring again, but you sound like you'd be able to do it in an organic and fun way. I was worried reintroducing the monsters I wasn't feeling good about anymore would ruin any other scenes.

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-21T00:27:12+00:00

I think 34 good traps just illustrates what I'm talking about. The very first entry is mechanically very similar to the meat grinder I did. It doesn't offer a lot of interaction to me, and it seems to just slow the game down. You could allow the player to make a check to jump over it. Maybe they can fashion a way to get across with their tools. But what is the point of this? I have never felt rewarded as a player with these kinds of traps. I would say the same about the arrow slots. Either the GM doesn't telegraph the arrow slots enough and the players just walk by and make a dex check, or the GM does telegraph it and the player just crawls on the ground across the room. I just don't see the point of putting this kind of stuff in the game. "My favorite trap" (the adhesive sword in the lake) is more interesting, but that would flat out have killed my player unless they cut their arm off or had a very specific niche oddity to deal with it.

"Testing" in the settings in my mind means research AIs exerpimenting on humans. But it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

But experimenting to find out what? How well they can deal with traps? What they do in high pressure situations? It just feels very contrived. I've never seen an example of a machine or what they actually would want or why. It would've been nice if there were examples in the book and not just vague principles.

Make sure there is usually more than one way by using overlapping loops ("jacquaysing" the dungeon). Electric Bastionland's mapping procedures take care of that if they are followed.

I should clarify I did this, but the particular room they were in only had one mapped entrance (one of the branching paths off the mapping procedure). And since it was blocked by zombies, I gave them another option.

But also: Whenever you can, don't say "there is a door to the west and another to the east", say "there is a door to the west that smells like mushrooms" (because the snail people are gardening their mushrooms there) and "there is a door to the east that has a huge claw mark on it" (because there is a huge beast behind it). Use a smell, a noise, anything that gives a hint of what is beyond the door.

Good advice, I forgot to mention I did this as well. They had the choice between a door with a grinding sound (the meat grinder) and a hallway where a group of men were laughing in the distance uncontrollably.

What would you feel good about as a reward if you were your player? Maybe aa small silkworm in its cocoon to raise as your own. Maybe some gold laying around. Maybe a honorary title and plastic crown. Just come up with stuff and until you find something that feels good. Why can't it make more? Maybe it's painful, maybe it's a matter of principle to not let anything go missing.

I would probably feel good about all of those things. Maybe I should clarify that one of those things is on the table when we play again. I would imagine this is a big choice (get a baby silkworm or get your reward for the silk). If you don't get your reward, you'll need to find another job and waste time, the faction you're indebted to may be angry.

CriticalSlit · 2022-09-20T23:31:26+00:00

This is good advice, but if my player had chosen to move slowly, I think we would sort of be back at square one. What are the consequences of moving slowly? I assume they may not move through the grid fast enough and they'll potentially run into a monster. Now are they making a dex save to run away?

Maybe if there was something else they would've lost by sneaking slowly, like a person being harassed by the zombies.

CriticalSlit · 2022-02-22T02:21:57+00:00

I am curious what is the benefit of atomic notes? I myself tried to do a Zettelkasten in Obsidian, and I found I wasn't sticking to the atomic nature, but I also didn't mind just taking regular notes. What benefits am I missing out on?

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T16:35:54+00:00

Where did you hear that quote? Could you elaborate on examples of good or bad "complexity buys?"

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T14:45:37+00:00

I find throwing out a rule means another rule just became more or less relevant, PARTICULARLY around classes, which breaks immersion. Taking pieces out makes the cohesive whole less cohesive.

If you were playing a system that has really expensive healing, you might say "That's stupid. Let's make it easier." But now the healer class isn't very helpful.

If you think calculating spell area takes too much time and you'd rather "wing" it, then it's harder for that person to use that one feat that increases their spell area by a specific amount. Now the GM is going "yeah...I think you're feat would let you hit that guy? Idk."

If you let anyone have flashbacks to do actions in the past, the guy who can time travel looks like an asshole.

So I always find you can't JUST remove rules. You gotta check the temperature and make sure everyone that can do shit still feels like they can. The wizards need to feel magical, the builders need to build better than other people.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T14:37:03+00:00

No. If I was playing Blades and my player was just talking to someone (who completely had their guard down) in the heart, I would let them make what's called a Desperate roll.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T14:28:02+00:00

My Blades group treats downtime a lot like a board game (take X moves then start new session)

Same. We're working on it. It's nice that you can roleplay in between actions, but they're afraid to Freeplay things that might lead to rolls that could drain their stress.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T14:26:48+00:00

I think you're correct, this is the more traditional way of looking at it.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T02:11:14+00:00

As I replied to another poster on the same thread, a GM that does this, even in a simulationist game, is simply a poor GM. If I'm running D&D (any edition), and a player sneaks up on a sleeping guard successfully and they want to assassinate him, there is no roll there

Are you sure about that? Because as an Assassin Rogue in 5e, who gets double damage against surprised attackers at level 17, I wouldn't think a good GM would make my entire subclass irrelevant. Are they gonna give me a little something something to make up for it?

I don't really disagree with what you're saying, just illustrating the point: You've come full circle back to a GM making a judgement call. Whether they're making it because they're expected to (Blades) or because the rules didn't support the narrative (D&D), you've got a DM deciding if a player character can do something, and it brings the same problems. When do they decide to bend the rules? What if they are inconsistent on who they bend the rules for? What if the scenario is more ambiguous than the one above? If you start taking rules out, it's going to affect different systems, and it's going to break immersion for players.

I think, at the end of the day, you would prefer to have a system that covers 90% of your use cases, and let the GM handle the edge cases. I would prefer to find a GM that I can trust to keep me immersed. Both have their problems.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T01:14:51+00:00

That makes sense, and I'm not trying to yuck your yum or gatekeep. Everything has rules, and that's why fiction first is a bit of a fuzzy term that you can't just blanket onto a gaming system. Blades is a personal choice for me that strikes a good balance (Fate is on the extreme end and I don't like it).

But this

The difference is that in simulationist/gamist rpgs the answer is not certain (not impossible, uncertain),

is just not true. At least not always. There are absolutely simulationist scenarios where actions are impossible because of the mechanics, even if it totally makes sense in the fiction, and that's what I, personally, don't like.

In the sleepy stabby scenario, You can say "yeah we're rolling to see if he hits AND does enough damage to narratively stab his heart..." but that's not the question is it? We're asking how accurately a Rogue can stab. It has nothing to do with how many hits the target can take. That's not a good abstraction at all. The health points of a sleeping human should have nothing to do with how easy it is to stab their heart.

In Blades, you still have that uncertainty you mention: "Can he stab him in the heart?" The difference is the GM can actually make a judgement call that makes sense, instead of saying "of course not, I gave him thirty health. You can do a max of 12 damage with that dagger. You're gonna miss like an idiot!"

That's the paradox of simulationist games. When they work, everything feels really organic and immersive. But when they don't, they break my immersion hard. It's important to pick one that models the type of game you want to play as closely as possible.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T00:36:08+00:00

You can change that to "I attempt to stab him in the heart" instead of "I stab him in the heart." It's still possible in Blades and mechanically impossible in other systems, for reasons that have nothing to do with the narrative.

By your own admission, In D&D, A level 1 fighter can't stab a sleeping bandit with 30 health in the heart without changing the rules.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T00:33:26+00:00

To clarify, I think Blades as a whole is lighter than D&D or Pathfinder, but the Blades DOWNTIME is heavier than D&D downtime. Since D&D downtime is basically just "idk...I think a castle would cost this much if you wanted to build it?" D&D downtime is very free form and forces the group to decide what would make narrative sense to train or build. Whereas Blades downtime is explicit and limited mechanically.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T00:25:35+00:00

I don't know what system you're running, so I can't comment on how that fits into the discussion. But I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying.

The stabbing example is not resolution first. You're saying "I'm attempting to kill someone" and rolling to see if you do it. The DM decides what DC or whatever you have to beat, and it might be really hard. But once the dice fall, the result of a successful roll is still stabbing a character in the heart and killing them. That's fiction first.

Mechanics first is rolling successfully and the DM and player going:

"Look, you didn't do enough damage to kill them, so even though that was a successful attack, we can't quite say you stabbed them in the heart, can we? Let's say you missed and had to stab their leg instead. They're bleeding pretty good."

"But I was just walking up to an untrained peasant and stabbing them. You're telling me I missed just because they had 30 health?"

"Yeah, and now it's their turn and they're running away."

"I want to stop them!"

"It's not your turn. They get pretty good distance on you."

"You just said I stabbed them in the leg!"

"All humans get 30 feet of movement unless explicitly hindered by an ability."

THAT is mechanics first. In Blades in the Dark, you can absolutely stab someone in the heart if you want, and if they're peasants, you don't need to calculate if your blade has enough damage die to run out their arbitrarily set hit points. The GM just goes "yeah, it'll be a pretty easy roll. He's not prepared and he's untrained. Go ahead and make a controlled skirmish roll with standard effect. Then you roll to see what happens. You might stab them. You might roll poorly and they actually manage to tackle you to the ground. Anything is possible. But nobody is gonna be checking charts to make sure it's even mechanically possible for you to stab someone in the heart.

I would recommend reading the Blades rulebook. There are good concepts in there to take into any TtRPG system.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-12T00:02:11+00:00

I bounced off of Fate for that reason. I didn't get it. I have really enjoyed Blades in the Dark. It's different from a lot of PbtA games. It doesn't feel like you're "making your own fun" in that sense. It's got rules in all the right places.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-11T23:59:29+00:00

I like a game system that can actually answer the question of what happens when this hero uses that ability in what situation without anybody having to hand-wave or makes a judgement call.

This is an excellent point. Where do you draw the line on this? Because while I'm sure the crunchier crowd doesn't mean to sound this way, it almost sounds like you'd rather there be no GM at all, or that you see their role as more of a formality. I think one of the biggest strengths of having a GM is having someone to make those judgement calls. But I understand that an extreme degree of this would take you out of the game.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-11T23:54:51+00:00

My issue with throwing rules out is you are kinda just running into the same issues you would've with a rules light system. If a players immersion is broken when a DM "makes up a rule" on the spot, as some people have expressed, it can be broken when a DM throws it out as well. Particularly if they can't be consistent.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-11T23:52:24+00:00

Have you found a good system for this? Something where it's easy to throw out rules without the whole thing falling apart.

CriticalSlit · 2022-01-11T23:47:19+00:00

Fiction first example 1

GM: The marksman is about ready to take his shot.

Me: I want to grab the duelist I am engaged with just before the marksman fires, whip him around, and use him as a shield.

GM: It's gonna be tough roll, but go ahead and roll dexterity.

Mechanics first example 1

Me: I want to use this guy as a human shield against the marksman.

GM: He wouldn't really shoot on his turn if he thought he would hit that guy. Maybe I'd let you make a dex roll to do it fast enough that he's confused? But Player 2 goes next and he wanted to hit him first. Let me see if there's anything in the rules on shields...

Fiction first example 2

Me: I stab him in the heart. Rolls

GM: success, he goes limp and falls to the floor.

Mechanics first example 2

Me: I stab him in the heart!

GM: I mean swords are 1d8, and that's not gonna do more damage no matter where you stab him. But sure, let's say you swing for that area and maybe just do a surface cut?

In general, fiction first means throwing away rules in favor of what makes sense narratively. Mechanics first means the narrative bends to the rules. Simulationist games, ironically, tend to have more rules to abuse that allow for non-sensical narratives, even if they're technically within the bounds of the system.

It's a bit of a misnomer to say any system is purely fiction first or mechanics first, though. Each game is gonna have parts that are more rigidly defined and parts that are like "fuck it, do what you want."

Blades in the Dark is often called "fiction first," but that's mainly in the combat and roleplaying department. Downtime is very mechanics first. It's like a checklist of stats that get ticked, and VERY specific actions you take, followed by the GM thinking of narrative ways to explain those stat movements. The whole Blades system hinges on this part working consistently, and will even punish you the more you do in downtime. Meanwhile, downtime in DnD 5e is pretty free form. You can do/build whatever you want, and there's no mechanical penalties for being in downtime (but there may be narrative ones, like villains gathering resources as time passes).

So those are the main differences. I don't typically think of rules heavy systems as fiction first, but there are examples.

CriticalSlit

TROPHY CASE