5e D&D is Vaporware

[crasskris]

"your modifier is your attribute -10, so Str15 gives you +5" isn't really that much harder to grasp than how it's currently done with "your modifier is a number listed on a table next to your attribute and it goes up by one for every two points above 10 so str 15 gives you +3"

But once attribute values of 9 or lower come into play, you'd make people subtract - with negative results. Which is less intuitive and fast for many people than simple addition.

And psychologically speaking, "I can auto-beat DC 25!" has a nicer ring to it than "I can auto-beat DC 15!".

[Morzas]

From RPG.net:

The weirdest thing was, I meant to really study the sheets, memorize things, try to see how things ticked just to satisfy my curiosity. But I ended up having so much fun I didn't care so much about all the individual rules. That surprised me, I expected a playtest to be a bit dull and unpolished. Instead, I got swept up and lost track of a few hours in a hobby I enjoy. I can't remember the last time that happened to me!

The character sheets are capable of hypnotic suggestion? We're doomed...

[tussock]

And psychologically speaking, "I can auto-beat DC 25!" has a nicer ring to it than "I can auto-beat DC 15!".

Rubbish. I can auto-beat DC 1000015 by adding a million plus my strength to shit. That's not better. The number you're beating being written right there next to "Strength" is a tidy idea.

And really, in 3e if I have +10 I can beat DC 20 100% of the time out of combat, but my buddy with +9 can only beat it 45% of the time. If I have two minutes I can beat DC 30 100% of the time, and my buddy can never do that at all. It's hard to have a worse skill mechanic than that.

[crasskris]

The number you're beating being written right there next to "Strength" is a tidy idea.

Then I suppose the inherent need for tidiness isn't part of my psychological makeup.

[crasskris]

And psychologically speaking, "I can auto-beat DC 25!" has a nicer ring to it than "I can auto-beat DC 15!".

And really, in 3e if I have +10 I can beat DC 20 100% of the time out of combat, but my buddy with +9 can only beat it 45% of the time. If I have two minutes I can beat DC 30 100% of the time, and my buddy can never do that at all. It's hard to have a worse skill mechanic than that.

I'm aware that there is an argument for or against something somewhere in there, but since

a) I haven't talked about probabilities in my post at all

and

b) the problem may persist in the new, tidy system depending on which of the implementations discussed here is used

I fail to see how this relates to "Bigger numbers usually sound more impressive".


Edith mocks my orthography

[Chamomile]

Crass, a new paragraph is used to signify a topic shift. There is no reason to believe Tussock's second paragraph was addressing your quoted text.

[Mask_De_H]

From RPG.net:

The weirdest thing was, I meant to really study the sheets, memorize things, try to see how things ticked just to satisfy my curiosity. But I ended up having so much fun I didn't care so much about all the individual rules. That surprised me, I expected a playtest to be a bit dull and unpolished. Instead, I got swept up and lost track of a few hours in a hobby I enjoy. I can't remember the last time that happened to me!

The character sheets are capable of hypnotic suggestion? We're doomed...

Just speaking of the system causes paroxysms amongst 4rries in various parts of the Internet so I wouldn't put it past them to have hypno-sheets.

Given the way that playtesters are jizzing over just being able to do stuff and framing it with the newest article that came out, what there is to the system sounds like a FATE-style heartbreaker.

Ability Scores are the Skills you buy in FATE, only you only get six.
Skills sound like those Stunts that give you some minor bullshit bonus to a specific task or in a specific situation.
Making saves ability checks is how it works in FATE and friends.
That "Javelin of Fire" they keep going back to sounds like a power Stunt.
The DM May I playstyle is how those kinds of games keep moving, and the spewing MTP for mechanical gain is how you get Fate Points.

Just need to hear about wound boxes and "Traits and Flaws" (Aspects) coming back.

They're even going to add needless fiddly complexity to it in Modules, just like every FATE 3.0 system past Spirit of the Century! Eye'm a genius.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Page 42 returns here!

Didn't we make a fallacy for that?

[Mask_De_H]

The goal, then, is to support all three of those elements in the design of the game in such a way that the individual gaming group can choose its focus and have a satisfying game experience. This doesn't mean we necessarily need the same amount of game mechanics supporting each

Yes it does. If combat, exploration, and talking are going to have equal say in a game, then they need equal attention and equal mechanical focus.

[koz]

Gotta love how WotC basically think they can explain away anything by throwing enough long words at it.

[Koumei]

Page 42 returns here!

Didn't we make a fallacy for that?

Page 42? Which fallacy?

[koz]

Page 42 returns here!

Didn't we make a fallacy for that?

Page 42? Which fallacy?

It's from the 4rry edition. Basically, it's 'because the rulebook says you can make up rules, having no rules for something, even if it's important, is a-ok!'

[tussock]

@crasskris, see @Chamomile. I'll work on my spacing and quoting for clarity.


@Mask_De_H: "Roleplaying" could be considered to be the antithesis of game mechanics, then you can "improve roleplaying" by having less mechanics for combat and exploration.

They might say you get away from RPing by having mechanics for talking to people (or for finding and disabling traps, or driving your opponents to surrender by flashing your magic swords at them).


To be fair, a monster like a ghost is probably best dealt with by MTP. Unguarded traps too. Maybe even the searching mini-game in general, get players to make the DM describe the scene more thoroughly, tease out clues. Maybe not if there was an abstract mechanic as good as the combat engine for searching or diplomacy, but that's not going to happen for all sorts of good reasons.

[MGuy]

To be fair, a monster like a ghost is probably best dealt with by MTP. Unguarded traps too. Maybe even the searching mini-game in general, get players to make the DM describe the scene more thoroughly, tease out clues. Maybe not if there was an abstract mechanic as good as the combat engine for searching or diplomacy, but that's not going to happen for all sorts of good reasons.

No on all these. There's no reason you can't make mechanics for how ghosts work and I wouldn't want to make a situation where a GM can say "A ghost did it" and let that be the final word. There should be a finite list of stuff a ghost can do just like there is a list of what things magic can do (things like Wish need to be gotten rid of IMO). Searching should be simplified but by no means should it be pure MTP. Playing "Guess what the GM is thinking" has never been a satisfying mechanical feature for a game (and I am saying this as a person who GMs his games 80% of the time).

[Starmaker]

MTP Search leads to shit like standard search protocols. Then:
1) either the MC takes it in stride and you're back to rolling and taking 20, or
2) he gets confrontational and tries to devise new shit that is not in your protocol, e.g. "You forgot to check if there's air in the room - well guess there isn't, so you suffocate while searching!"

Pure MTP monsters are necessarily supernatural (because anything not supernatural can be hacked to pieces 1d8+6 at a time and thus actually has some sort of mechanical interface, however rudimentary) and are thus essentially knowledge checks: "DC 26 - made." "It's a warblegarble and it's vulnerable to tungsten wire." "Oh, I left the wire in my other pants. I guess we die then."

On a side note, my problem with Wish and other open-ended spells is popsci knot-cutters, that is people who mix and match the "comparable effect" clause with real physics and want game-breaking effects (e.g. "I can create 30 lbs of matter, so I create 30 lbs of deuterium inside this thimble FUSION BOMB FTW").

[tussock]

Playing "Guess what the GM is thinking" has never been a satisfying mechanical feature for a game (and I am saying this as a person who GMs his games 80% of the time).

I suspect some of y'all are really bad at Magic Tea Party. It's not a guessing game, it's a "freely interact with the things the DM talks about" game. Preferably without too many red herrings. Repeating back what you just heard to show you're paying attention. So you win by putting down the iPod.

Yes, DMs and monster designers can be massive dicks with MTP, but they can be dicks with DCs and d20 checks just the same. I'm just winding up a "polite discussion" elsewhere with people who think if your character maxes out lockpicking in 3e the DM should obviously start using DC 40 locks at first level just to fuck with you, and invent DC 80 locks at high level to keep fucking with your shitty, unoptimised, locksmith character concept. Like that's their job or something.



That some people are clearly giant whale dongs does not invalidate MTP when it's used without all the dickery. With loud, obvious, repeated clues, alternate paths, and the big rewards sitting out in the open with a reward sign on them and an NPC telling you that's the reward. Maybe a backup reward if you miss it.

MTP Search leads to shit like standard search protocols.

Not IMC. Sensible default behaviour can be mechanised out of the way. Then you interact with the things I mention beyond that, because many of those things do something interesting.

[RadiantPhoenix]

One problem with MTP is that it's harder to tell when you're accidentally being a dick. With dice, you can at least use statistics to figure some of it out.

[Lago PARANOIA]

With loud, obvious, repeated clues, alternate paths, and the big rewards sitting out in the open with a reward sign on them and an NPC telling you that's the reward. Maybe a backup reward if you miss it.

That's why I dislike MTP if the game leans heavily on it. That kind of crap is a kick in the balls to the experience of roleplaying. They're annoying and persistent reminders that your character only accomplishes things by the grace of the DM -- and while that's necessarily true for any TTRPG, no matter how mechanic, I sure as hell don't like being reminded of it.

The DM might think that he's being kind by suggesting that the normally incorrigible and intolerant Black Judge can be swayed to spare your lives by giving players IC or OOC hints about his soft spot for his daughter or that the prime minister knows what's really going on with the slaving ring. But it's annoying if that's the only way to advance the plot. Read the Shadows over Riva Let's Play or better yet the DM of the Rings if you don't believe me.

[Kaelik]

I suspect some of us are much better at MTP than you. It's actually just a combination of reading the DM's mind and being persuasive.

So fucking what? Those are not skills we give a fuck about in an RPG. Those are irrelevant. And any time the Rogue gets killed because Billy isn't persuasive, and is new to the group, that's not a fucking good thing. MTP is not an acceptable resolution mechanic for anything that gets people killed, which is most things.

[Blicero]

Yes, DMs and monster designers can be massive dicks with MTP, but they can be dicks with DCs and d20 checks just the same. I'm just winding up a "polite discussion" elsewhere with people who think if your character maxes out lockpicking in 3e the DM should obviously start using DC 40 locks at first level just to fuck with you, and invent DC 80 locks at high level to keep fucking with your shitty, unoptimised, locksmith character concept. Like that's their job or something.

Yeah, MCs can totally do that. And if they do, you as the player can say, "Yo, look at this book called the DMG. Where does it call for DC 40 locks?" And then they'll either have to bullshit some ass response that proves that they're tools, or they'll be forced to admit that they're playing the game wrong.

If he did that with MTP, no such response would exist. If you say, "My character has trained with the champion lockpickers of Blahrg for years and is a master locksmith," the MTPing MC can say, "Well, Blahrg uses weird and obsolete mechanisms in their lockpicks. Your skills aren't especially efficacious here." And that's totally bullshit. But there's nothing within the mechanics of the game that let's you call him on his bullshit.

Now, I totally dig MTP. A lot of the most enjoyable sessions have been almost entirely rping. But rules and numbers and statistics are a necessary and total vital element for any RPG that wants to have a decent conflict resolution system. Otherwise the MVP will consistently be whichever player has the most ranks in "Fasttalk the MC."

[crasskris]

@crasskris, see @Chamomile. I'll work on my spacing and quoting for clarity.

Then I hearby retract my second response - sorry for the misunderstanding.

It's not a guessing game, it's a "freely interact with the things the DM talks about" game. Preferably without too many red herrings. Repeating back what you just heard to show you're paying attention. So you win by putting down the iPod.

Which are - less formally specified - game mechanics. So MTP would be somewhere on the slider between game mechanics and it's actucal antithesis, no game mechanics.


In support of what Blicero said, MTP is something that happens naturally and usually harmonically at every table, sometimes taking actual skill values into account, sometimes not.
Hard game mechanics take the role of the arbiter, giving MC and players alike a method to call bullshit and demand a trial by dice.
Which makes good, hard mechanics even more important, because at that point they'd better make sense to everyone.

[Murtak]

Or in other words, game mechanics form the skeleton, fluff is the flesh and MTP the skin. You need all of them to make a decent game, you need them in the correct amounts and in the right place. And all of them need to fit together. And while you night get away with putting flavor and then MTP over your skeleton it is much harder to do it the other way around.

[tussock]

@RadiantPhoenix: Good point. Only real DMs totally fuck with the DCs and ignore the dice to get the results they want from mechanics, on the grounds that sometimes the mechanics are stupid. ... Which is true, sometimes the mechanics are like 3e Diplomacy and you are better to ignore them and just make shit up. Real DMs also mess with Tumble because they don't want Rogues to have nice things, and have no idea they're being a dick (they can just say they're helping the Fighters). Game designers, too.

@Blicero: DC 40 locks are in the 3e PHB, Amazing Lock. Real people also suggest to me that when someone buys up +20 to Open Locks at 5th level the DM should totally go higher. Rules do not save you from bad DMs.


@All. Yeh, I can see I've got some firm guidelines in there that are making MTP work in a consistent and useful manner, and other people totally might not know about the three clue rule and such. Hopefully the Next DMG will be full of that sort of thing.

And any time the Rogue gets killed because Billy isn't persuasive, and is new to the group, that's not a fucking good thing.

People do that with mechanics too. Like Billy tries to use his maximised Hide and Move Silently skills past some Orcs, only those don't work in 3e so the Orcs surround him and he dies. If only the DM had used a little MTP on the poor newbie. 8]

[PhoneLobster]

Rules do not save you from bad DMs.

You present this like it is a remotely meaningful claim. Or even true at all.

1) Not true. Rules DO save you from some sub set of bad DMing, some of which is done by "Good" DMs and your "but baaad DMs iz BAAAADZ!!! Whahahaaaaaah!' line is a juvenile black and whiting of the issue.

2) So then if you believe that I guess we just shouldn't have any rules now should we? They don't DO anything after all...

[ModelCitizen]

How well MTP works depends on how predictable the world is to the players. Say you're playing Tomb of Horrors and you need to get the key out of the acid cauldron, so you bend a long piece of wire into a hook and fish it out. That's MTP, but if the DM says it doesn't work without giving a reason he's obviously full of shit. In that case MTP is player-empowering. The player makes an objective case that the thing he wants to do works, and the DM is bound to honor it to the same extent that he's bound to follow the game rules. Cool.

On the other hand say you're trying to solve a puzzle with a bunch of magic runes. You OOC don't know anything about magic runes. If you try something and the DM says it doesn't work you can't appeal to world knowledge or physics or anything. You're just stuck until you guess the solution the DM wanted. In that case MTP disempowers the player.

So sometimes MTP is a good thing, but Mearls & co. don't know the difference. Mearls keeps babbling about more MTP and less rules, and without establishing any shared expectations about how the game world works all that MTP is going to be the disempowering kind. We've seen 4e, we know Mearls will totally write a game like that and pat himself on the back for it, and Monte has been openly dismissive of consistency and verisimilitude. (He calls them "simulation" or "realism," whatever.) I've played a lot of MTP-heavy games that I enjoyed, but I don't think I want to play one written by the 5e team.