Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Perhaps I should explain more. The idea isn't that the caller (leader is probably a bad name because of the connotations) makes the decisions, just that they announce the party's decisions to the GM. So if you're a player and you say "I'm doing X", then once everybody's said "I do X", the caller turns to the GM and says "Okay, DeadDM does X, Ogrebattle does Y, and Whipstitch and I do Z." Then the GM resolves as normal. It's kind of pointless if the players don't actually talk to each other. It just puts things in more discrete phases so you don't have the usual shit where people scream "I DO X" and you resolve it and then the next person goes "WAIT I DO Y" and you resolve that, too.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Sounds like having one person bundling up their whole team’s decisions into a single document to forward to the DM might be helpful if people aren’t in the same room at the same time. For instance, that’s how a lot of play by email strategy games work.

I have played forum-based civ games that also benefit from one person tabulating votes for what your nation does with its various available actions.

However, for normal D&D, this sounds like an unnecessary added step.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I'm not totally convinced that it's an "added" step, but merely the shuffling around of actions the players were going to do anyway. But perhaps bundling all those acts together are a new step and I just don't see it. In fact, here's what I do see:

• GM: Okay, you walk into a 10x10 foot room. There is an orc guarding a treasure chest eyeing you warily. What do you do?
  Players look at each other for a few seconds to see who'll talk first.
  Johnny: I rush the orc!
  GM: Okay, give me an attack roll-
  Suzie: While he's doing that, can I try to sneak around them and open the chest?
  GM: You got a 17? How much damage? Sure, Suzie, go for it and give me a Stealth check to open the chest. Bob, what are you doing?
  Bob: I CAST SLEEP! The orc drops!
  GM:

vs

• GM: Okay, you walk into a 10x10 foot room. There is an orc guarding a treasure chest eyeing you warily. What do you do?
  Players mumble at each other for a minute or two
  Bob: I'm going to cast Sleep on the orc while Johnny rushes at it to finish it off for me. In the meantime, Suzie's opening the chest.
  GM: Well, you put the Orc to sleep and Johnny slips his knife into its jugular, ensuring it never wakes up. Since there's nothing holding you up, Suzie can take 20 to open the chest, if you'd like.

Granted, it isn't a HUGE difference, but it seems less chaotic and potentially faster to me. Plus it makes the players, y'know, maybe talk about what they're going to do. It's also vital to note that you don't fucking do this in combat, just when the group as a whole is making decisions about what to do next.

[rampaging-poet]

Related article (that may have prompted this?): https://theangrygm.com/lost-player-skills-calling/

Offhand summary from what I remember - appointing a caller is intended to help build group cohesion (by forcing the players to at least talk about their individual actions before they're resolved) and to fix the "we do that" problem where the GM needs to keep track of what the latest plan is throughout an entire intra-party debate.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Wow, just call me the fuck out, why don't you?

[Avoraciopoctules]

I foresee issues when the caller presents the DM with a plan that one or more of the other players don't like. It might not happen the first time, and some RPG groups are very effective teams. But in my experience, a solid D&D team is pretty good about presenting their ideas in a way the DM can understand without a single designated person in charge of that.

In one of my current groups, we DO have one person who handles most of the politicking, one person who handles the gadgeteer and superweapon stuff, and one person who wants to become Ninja President (and only wants to be involved in those categories when they are ninja adjacent). But a lot of that is just because the other two people don't care about crafting or politics at all.

The game of Telephone is all about messages getting diluted through repetition, and someone using the caller seat to hijack someone else's character can be damaging to group cohesion even if it was accidental.

EDIT: I am a civil servant. I spend a lot of time on committees. This sounds a lot like someone creating a Dungeon Committee that I'm not getting paid to attend. A good committee structure CAN be really helpful for project development, but improperly used they just waste a bunch of time for everyone. There have been enough cases where miscommunication between DM and Players have created damaging assumptions about what's actually going on that I am very reluctant to adopt a model where there are fewer lines of communication between players and DM.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

You raise several good points worth considering. However, I must be an asshole and point out that most D&D parties are totally Dungeon Committees.

I'd especially like to hear from people who used to do this and stop, or the crazy assholes who've just been doing it for decades. It's not something I'm considering doing, but I do find the idea interesting.

[deaddmwalking]

Your original question was about whether the game should dictate 'calling' as the proper way to declare actions.

I don't think so.

Some groups may decide to do that if it works for them, but the default should be each player making decisions for their character. Frequently you'll get into a situation where player 1 is fine saying "I'll do what player 2 decides". And if a couple other players agree, then Player 2 becomes the caller. But 10 minutes later, if Player 1 is saying 'I'm going to do x even if everyone else doesn't follow my lead', that's what happens.

When calling is the default, I think players tend to get more upset about a player choosing an action that violates the consensus. I think that most groups find that behavior annoying if it becomes too common regardless.

[Avoraciopoctules]

For an example of the kind of miscommunication that could be really easy with a caller intermediary, lets say the duskblade goes invisible. However, Vanish, Invisibility, and Greater Invisibility all work differently. It’s pretty easy for Caller or DM to assume that the guy who said “I go invisible.” meant a different spell that the player of that character originally intended.

If you send the caller back to ask what KIND of Invisibility, that’s almost as bad as starting an argument when you declare that their Invisibility drops at an inopportune moment because Greater Invisibility only lasts a minute.

EDIT: In more adversarial settings, the meta incentives may also encourage casters to be vague about the kind of invisibility. If it turns into a combat counter or extended sneaking mission, THEN they decide that they used the appropriate kind of invisibility all along. Of course, this can also be an issue in conventional D&D groups. I just feel that the subcommittee model could exacerbate such issues.

[amethal]

So, I added the hot and cold weather rules to my fantasy heartbreaker, which basically involves a cut and paste from Pathfinder, which I assume was a cut and paste from D&D 3rd edition. To add a tiny amount of value I decided to include the Celsius equivalents alongside the traditional Fahrenheit figures and was surprised to find that cold weather i.e. less than 40 degrees F, is the equivalent of less than 4 degrees C.

I happen to live almost as far south in the British Isles as its possible to get (lots of French people live north of me), but even here the temperature can go below 4 degrees in the winter. Yet I've never felt like I was having to make DC 15 Fortitude saves every hour to avoid taking 1d6 non-lethal damage plus Fatigue.

So, for those people fluent in Fahrenheit, have you always thought the D&D cold weather rules were written by someone used to a very hot climate?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I think the key word here is "unprotected". Do you maniacs walk around in shorts during the winter? I know if I was chilling outside in freezing temperatures like I was going tanning on the beach, I'd probably start to feel bad way before an hour kicks in.

[deaddmwalking]

So, for those people fluent in Fahrenheit, have you always thought the D&D cold weather rules were written by someone used to a very hot climate?

The numbers are based on how long it takes to die of exposure.

Even with a thermometer temperature of 4 degrees Celsius you lose body heat. With some wind or wet conditions, it's possible for your body to cool faster than you can generate heat. Lost hikers die when temperatures are near freezing.

In 3.x wearing any appropriate clothing means you're safe in temperatures above freezing, and only make a check 1/hour at anything above -18 Celsius (0 degrees Fahrenheit).

I think the effects of extreme cold are overstated, but not cold and severe cold.

[Emerald]

Regarding calling, my group tends to fall into the overanalysis trap and discuss bunches of different plans with lots of minor variations when given enough prep time to deal with something, so I've definitely run into the "We do that!" "You do what, exactly?" problem mentioned in the linked article.

They actually stumbled into the solution of using a caller on their own, though--not in those terms, since none of them had played AD&D or read any OSR stuff to be familiar with the concept, but simply by virtue of the fact that we have a "party scribe" who takes detailed notes of every session to refer back to later, and when there was any ambiguity in the party's plans he started asking exactly what everyone's final decision was so he could record everything, and I could then go ahead with descriptions and prompts based on that.

Other than that, I don't really see a need for a caller. I've played AD&D in groups that had callers, and my takeaway was that groups who used the caller well were already sufficiently organized to not really have needed one while those who used it poorly were chaotic enough that no party organizational tool would have really helped.

EDIT: I am a civil servant. I spend a lot of time on committees. This sounds a lot like someone creating a Dungeon Committee that I'm not getting paid to attend. A good committee structure CAN be really helpful for project development, but improperly used they just waste a bunch of time for everyone. There have been enough cases where miscommunication between DM and Players have created damaging assumptions about what's actually going on that I am very reluctant to adopt a model where there are fewer lines of communication between players and DM.

As a manager at a tech company who sits through far too many meetings that should have been one or two Slack messages, agreed on all counts--though a joke campaign centered around being an actual Dungeon Committee sounds like it could be fun.

A Head of Inhuman Resources going around interviewing mind flayers and demons and such to decide which would be the best "culture fit" with the other monsters in the dungeon, a Head of OSHA (the Outrageous Safety Hazards Administration) in charge of designing all sorts of traps while keeping kobold work crew morale up, a Head of Marketing and PR (Party Relations) who lurks in dimly-lit tavern corners in a hooded cloak to send naive adventuring parties to the dungeon...there's a lot of potential there.

Yet I've never felt like I was having to make DC 15 Fortitude saves every hour to avoid taking 1d6 non-lethal damage plus Fatigue.

I think the key word here is "unprotected". Do you maniacs walk around in shorts during the winter? I know if I was chilling outside in freezing temperatures like I was going tanning on the beach, I'd probably start to feel bad way before an hour kicks in.

In college, I was That Guy who walked around in shorts and T-shirts when it was 20°-30° F outside with several inches of snow on the ground. I could hang outside for about half an hour or so before I started to really notice the cold at all and it took a while after that before I felt cold enough to need to head inside.

That said, there were definitely times when people started asking "Are your arms supposed to turn that shade of purple?" when I was out too long and I'd notice my fingers getting stiff after being outside too long even if I didn't feel too cold. So not consciously feeling like you're being harmed by the cold and actually not being harmed by the cold are two very different things, and the D&D cold rules seem fairly reasonable if you assume things like people from colder climates get circumstance bonuses on their Fort saves and such.

[Koumei]

though a joke campaign centered around being an actual Dungeon Committee sounds like it could be fun.

A Head of Inhuman Resources going around interviewing mind flayers and demons and such to decide which would be the best "culture fit" with the other monsters in the dungeon, a Head of OSHA (the Outrageous Safety Hazards Administration) in charge of designing all sorts of traps while keeping kobold work crew morale up, a Head of Marketing and PR (Party Relations) who lurks in dimly-lit tavern corners in a hooded cloak to send naive adventuring parties to the dungeon...there's a lot of potential there.

That's definitely something workable. Borrow liberally from Dungeon Keeper and its various spiritual successors / pretenders, and you're good to go.

[Iduno]

I'm not totally convinced that it's an "added" step, but merely the shuffling around of actions the players were going to do anyway. But perhaps bundling all those acts together are a new step and I just don't see it. In fact, here's what I do see:

• GM: Okay, you walk into a 10x10 foot room. There is an orc guarding a treasure chest eyeing you warily. What do you do?
  Players look at each other for a few seconds to see who'll talk first.
  Johnny: I rush the orc!
  GM: Okay, give me an attack roll-
  Suzie: While he's doing that, can I try to sneak around them and open the chest?
  GM: You got a 17? How much damage? Sure, Suzie, go for it and give me a Stealth check to open the chest. Bob, what are you doing?
  Bob: I CAST SLEEP! The orc drops!
  GM:

vs

• GM: Okay, you walk into a 10x10 foot room. There is an orc guarding a treasure chest eyeing you warily. What do you do?
  Players mumble at each other for a minute or two
  Bob: I'm going to cast Sleep on the orc while Johnny rushes at it to finish it off for me. In the meantime, Suzie's opening the chest.
  GM: Well, you put the Orc to sleep and Johnny slips his knife into its jugular, ensuring it never wakes up. Since there's nothing holding you up, Suzie can take 20 to open the chest, if you'd like.

Granted, it isn't a HUGE difference, but it seems less chaotic and potentially faster to me. Plus it makes the players, y'know, maybe talk about what they're going to do. It's also vital to note that you don't fucking do this in combat, just when the group as a whole is making decisions about what to do next.

The proper solution would be for the GM to give some time to think, then ask each person what they think they should do, then ask as a group what they actually do. Otherwise you either get the loudest person's idea, or whoever's idea took the least thought (first).

[merxa]

If this is combat time there really shouldn't be much chatter, especially out of game strategy chatter. It's the DM failure to not enforce this.

Outside combat, players often enjoy planning as much or more than the actual doing, but again the DM needs to step in and push the action along at some point.

[Kaelik]

Definitely not.

If the players want to spend an entire session or 5 planning an assault let them.

You probably also want them to do "in battle" strategy discussion because they are probably one or more of:

1) Much dumber than their characters.
2) Spend much less time practicing this than their characters.
3) Playing one of an endless string of characters in many different sessions but their character has been adventuring with this party for weeks or months or years and had every reason to talk about tactics extensively during that off screen time.

[merxa]

No you're mostly wrong.

Groups shouldn't spend 5 sessions doing planning, that's a good way for a group to break up. Some players aren't vocal, so letting a couple blowhards waste everyones time is ultimately less fun for everyone.

DMs are part of the group, they aren't non persons, so of course they should be having fun too.

As far as combat time goes, I'm not keeping a stop watch. Of course characters can be more intelligent then the PCs, characters take in more information then PCs, and have spent significantly more time developing group tactics. Players still shouldn't sitting for 5 minutes in a combat arguing how best to take apart the combat puzzle in front of them.

If your group wants to do that that's cool, have fun, maybe consider playing a board game.

[Kaelik]

If you don't enjoy the group playing the game they like playing it there's a simple addition problem about utility that says maybe not to fuck up their fun for yours. But also you are literally the DM, you can just not present them with elaborate fortresses to assault if you hate it when they plant. If you don't enjoy personally enjoy something the players do I guess get over it or find something you all enjoy.

"Hey, maybe actually most people are sitting there resentfully hating what is going on" is not an issue that relates to planning any differently than it does to combat, social talking, in character roleplay, or any other thing that you end up doing at a table. It isn't solved by declaring that you got to prevent that activity from happening, it's solved on an interpersonal level and should only be addressed when it is actually a problem.

Saying "it is a failure of the DM to allow players to plan when they want to because what if they don't want to!" is not a real answer.

[merxa]

Failing to parse simple sentence structures might be your personal failure.

Since you didn't actually respond to anything I said I'll just move on with life.

[Orion]

There are some groups who will spend a whole session making plans because that's what they enjoy, but there are also groups that will spend a whole session making plans despite enjoying it very little. In my experience, groups that spend a lot of time on planning and hate it are more common than groups that spend a lot of time on planning and love it, and so when we talk about excessive planning times as a problem, I assume that's the context for the complaint.

[amethal]

I think the key word here is "unprotected".

Thanks for the reply.

Is "unprotected" defined anywhere? The rules make a lot more sense if you can avoid problems by wearing a hat and coat, but that also makes the rules seem pretty pointless, barring odd cases such as having just broken out from jail or fleeing from someone's angry husband.

I'd assumed a cold weather outfit would say it protects you from cold, but the description just says it gives you a bonus on the save. The cold description then says it reduces the frequency of checks in severe cold weather to that of cold weather (so a stupidly-literal reading would be that it provides *no* benefit unless weather is sever cold). It's also difficult for peasants to afford, at 8 gp.

The numbers are based on how long it takes to die of exposure.

Even with a thermometer temperature of 4 degrees Celsius you lose body heat. With some wind or wet conditions, it's possible for your body to cool faster than you can generate heat. Lost hikers die when temperatures are near freezing.

That's very useful, thanks.

[Stahlseele]

Shadowrun:
5 Days of Legwork.
5 Hours of Planning.
50 Minutes of Chaos.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Is "unprotected" defined anywhere? The rules make a lot more sense if you can avoid problems by wearing a hat and coat, but that also makes the rules seem pretty pointless, barring odd cases such as having just broken out from jail or fleeing from someone's angry husband.

Unfortunately, not on the SRD. It would be nice if they had some minor examples, but I would assume that at least a coat and hat are necessary. Perhaps it goes into more detail in Frostburn. I'm glad I checked before posting, because it totally does:

Cold: Unprotected characters must make a Fortitude save each hour (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage. Characters whose protection against cold is at least level 1 or higher (cold weather outfit, Cold Endurance feat) are safe at this temperature range.
Severe Cold: Unprotected characters must make a Fortitude save every 10 minutes (DC 15, +1 per previous check), taking 1d6 points of nonlethal damage on each failed save. A partially protected character need only check once per hour. For complete protection against severe cold, a character must have a level of protection of 2 or higher (for example, wearing a cold weather outfit and fur clothing). A character whose level of protection is only 1 is considered partially protected.
Extreme Cold: Unprotected characters take 1d6 points of cold damage per 10 minutes (no save). In addition, an unprotected character must make a Fortitude save (DC 15, +1 per previous check) or take 1d4 points of nonlethal damage. Those wearing metal armor or coming into contact with very cold metal are affected as if by a chill metal spell. A partially protected character takes damage and makes saving throws once per hour instead of once per 10 minutes. A character must have a level of protection of 3 or higher to be protected against extreme cold. Level 2 is considered partial protection; level 1 is considered unprotected.
Unearthly Cold: Unprotected characters take 1d6 points of cold damage and 1d4 points of nonlethal damage per minute (no save). Partially protected characters take damage once per 10 minutes instead of once per minute. For complete protection against the effects of unearthly cold, a character must have a level of protection of 4 or higher. Level 2 or 3 is considered partial protection, and level 1 is no protection at all.

Fun book, if pedantic.

Neanderthal Paladins FTW!

[amethal]

Fun book, if pedantic.

Thanks, pedantic is just what I was looking for.

The pathfinder book does a reasonable job of integrating the weather rules with the skill system, but ignore the equipment rules. Nice to see Frostburn not only includes equipment but also remembers feats.