Big Skills

[PhoneLobster]

Hey look DSMatticus just got clearly and succinctly caught out doing the exact same dishonest thing he just accused me of in the very act of that accusation. TIME FOR A GIANT SPAM BOMB DISTRACTION!

Always the classy one that guy.

[DSMatticus]

Dice are not a strictly random inout. I mean, the actual roll of the die (between 1 and 20 on this check) is random, but that is the only part that is random. Choosing to roll is a player input. Investing resources into the relevant ability is a player input.

This is a completely reasonable - and easy to understand - statement in context. Choosing where to allocate your character's advancement resources is an input from the player. Choosing when and how to use your abilities is an input from the player. The actual result of a die roll is random. The process is not strictly random, there are elements involved which hinge on deliberate decisions made by the player.

Snip

I have no idea where deaddmwalking stands on "how much determinism is too much determinism?" It's also completely irrelevant to PL's criticism of deaddmwalking's post, which is that "if you chop off the last half of this paragraph, it looks like deaddmwalking is saying X & ~X. Hahaha, only crazy people think X & ~X. deaddmwalking is a crazy person."

But more specifically:

And that's the point, he has to take the part that has nothing to do with the dice at all, and is actually a player input, and then claim it is part of the dice

You're not criticizing anything deaddmwalking actually said, you're just shaving off important context in order to make a stupidly literalist interpretation that is obviously not fair.

Dice are not a strictly random inout. I mean, the actual roll of the die (between 1 and 20 on this check) is random, but that is the only part that is random. Choosing to roll is a player input. Investing resources into the relevant ability is a player input.

If you read this paragraph and think "the character's +12 search check obviously isn't a part of the actual physical die, because the die contains absolutely none of the information on the character sheet, it's just a fucking die, therefore deaddmwalking is wrong," you're an idiot. That's all there is to it. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you , but someone had to. That or you are being blinded by internet assholery. Or both. The "dice" in "dice are not a strictly random inout" is referring to the process of using dice to resolve tasks in TTRPG's. It's not even remotely fucking ambiguous. The next fucking sentence contains "the actual roll of the die," as though that were a distinct concept from "dice." If you are really trying to make a linguistic debate about of this, then fuck you. I have as much respect for you as someone who'd interpret "die pools" to mean one of these filled with a bunch of these if they thought it would make them so difficult to argue with that everyone would give up and storm off, leaving them triumphant in their stubborn idiocy.

And critically - which of those two things (i.e., the actual physical die, or the process of using dice to resolve tasks) is pertinent to this discussion? Yeah, you guessed it. That last one. There is no argument of any substance to be had here, but if you squint at it just right you can find things to make an annoying ass out of yourself with. So of course PL did that, but you shouldn't. Bitch instead about how deaddmwalking faps to randomness too hard or something, which is tangential to the post in question, but has come up in this thread.

[Kaelik]

But more specifically:

And that's the point, he has to take the part that has nothing to do with the dice at all, and is actually a player input, and then claim it is part of the dice

You're not criticizing anything deaddmwalking actually said, you're just shaving off important context in order to make a stupidly literalist interpretation that is obviously not fair.

Dice are not a strictly random inout. I mean, the actual roll of the die (between 1 and 20 on this check) is random, but that is the only part that is random. Choosing to roll is a player input. Investing resources into the relevant ability is a player input.

If you read this paragraph and think "the character's +12 search check obviously isn't a part of the actual physical die, because the die contains absolutely none of the information on the character sheet, it's just a fucking die, therefore deaddmwalking is wrong," you're an idiot. That's all there is to it. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you , but someone had to. That or you are being blinded by internet assholery. Or both. The "dice" in "dice are not a strictly random inout" is referring to the process of using dice to resolve tasks in TTRPG's. It's not even remotely fucking ambiguous. The next fucking sentence contains "the actual roll of the die," as though that were a distinct concept from "dice." If you are really trying to make a linguistic debate about of this, then fuck you. I have as much respect for you as someone who'd interpret "die pools" to mean one of these filled with a bunch of these if they thought it would make them so difficult to argue with that everyone would give up and storm off, leaving them triumphant in their stubborn idiocy.

Hey complete and utter moron DSM. Please stop being a lying shitbag for no reason. I'm not the one "shaving off important context in order to make a stupidly literalist interpretation that is obviously not [accurate]" you are.

Specifically, the things I just fucking said are the actual context that you are ignoring in my last post. Things like this:

Determinism is bullshit and I reject it outright. As a player I want my success to be based on my inputs and the investment of my character resources.

...

There are lots of ways to potentially change skills, but removing all chance of failure isn't one of them.

You know, that same fucking post that you are complaining about PL cutting relevant parts from? The one where he also makes absolutely clear his position on determinism (that thing you claim you can't possibly figure out, and is totally not relevant to the post he asserted it in) or what he's actually arguing against.

You can in fact know, specifically, that he's arguing against the idea that removing a die roll specifically because doing so makes the result "not about his inputs" because he specifically says that in the post you are defending.

So yeah, when I say that post is actually about how removing die rolls deprives him of agency, and that this position is literally fucking crazy town, it is not because I didn't read the end of the first paragraph, it is because I read the entire fucking post.

So guess what idiot, you are the fucking idiot here.

And critically - which of those two things (i.e., the actual physical die, or the process of using dice to resolve tasks) is pertinent to this discussion? Yeah, you guessed it. That last one. There is no argument of any substance to be had here, but if you squint at it just right you can find things to make an annoying ass out of yourself with. So of course PL did that, but you shouldn't. Bitch instead about how deaddmwalking faps to randomness too hard or something, which is tangential to the post in question, but has come up in this thread.

You are a lying fucking asshole. Deaddm is specifically and exactly defending the argument that you have to have a fucking random roll no matter what, and that a system that allows you to invest character resources and decide to take an action, but doesn't feature a random roll, is A VILE MONSTRONSITY THAT CANNOT BE ALLOWED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is his one and entire argument. For the purposes of that argument, investing character resources and deciding to take the action are present in both cases, and the only change is that he wants to add randomness because player input doesn't count unless there is randomness.

That makes him wrong and crazy, you a lying shitbag, and the main point of this conversation (not a tangential side point) the issue of adding randomness.

[MGuy]

Sooooo you're gonna double down on it eh? Not gonna even going to try to do something clever? DSM... That thing you quoted 3 times. That was the post I asked for clarification over. So yeah... I know it was him responding to me. You know what I did instead of deliberately misunderstanding what he said? I asked for clarification, and got an answer. You know... that answer I posted that has PL straight up telling everyone what his stance is. That thing you are deliberately misunderstanding?

[DSMatticus]

Dice are not a strictly random inout. I mean, the actual roll of the die (between 1 and 20 on this check) is random, but that is the only part that is random. Choosing to roll is a player input. Investing resources into the relevant ability is a player input.

I don't think 3.x style skills are the way to do it. Personally I'm fine with assuming players are always taking 10 on Perception or Search checks to allow 'auto-detect' of certain content. But if there is reason to have a DC high enough that no one succeeds on a 10 or better, there is a non - zero chance that the content is missed. That's okay. Just like missing an attack roll is okay. Determinism is bullshit and I reject it outright. As a player I want my success to be based on my inputs and the investment of my character resources. When I cast a spell I generally want it to work, but I accept that there is a non - zero chance of failure. Achieving the right balance of success and failure is important.

The chance of failure as a justification for providing meaning to success is valid. As a player you want to believe that 'the average party' would fail where you have succeeded. Smart play helps you stack the odds in your favor. The goal is to create a situation where victory seems remote but is actually achievable.

There are lots of ways to potentially change skills, but removing all chance of failure isn't one of them.

There's the full post. In its entirety. Not chopped into tiny pieces. It contains an example of a specific completely deterministic output deaddmwalking is okay with. I bolded it, because hopefully you are less blind than dumb. How much do you want to bet that by reading "determinism is bullshit and I reject it outright" as "any deterministic outputs ever are bullshit and I reject all of them outright" instead of "a game whose outputs are exclusively deterministic is bullshit and I reject it outright" you're fucking wrong? Let's find out. Hey, deaddmwalking, how do you feel about letting wizards choose their spells during character creation instead of rolling on a table for them? Would you rather have the deterministic thing, where players choose, or the non-deterministic thing, where they roll on a table?

What it doesn't contain, anywhere, in the entire goddamn post:
"removing the die roll makes the result not about player inputs."

What it does contain:
"The chance of failure as a justification for providing meaning to success is valid."
"There are lots of ways to potentially change skills, but removing all chance of failure isn't one of them."

Deaddmwalking clearly fucking hates not having failure chances in his skill system. That's really obvious. But he doesn't fucking say that thing you said. "A" and "the" are different fucking articles with different fucking implications, and you cannot leap from "deaddmwalking thinks a chance of failure validates the decision to invest in skills" to "ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN PICK UP THAT STICK ROLL TO SEE IF YOUR CHARACTER HAS THUMBS."

[Kaelik]

The fact that he doesn't apply his completely delusional fetishization consistently is not surprising, no one does. But since he's already on record declaring that character move speeds have to have rolls or the game is literally impossible to comprehend when describing a game with fixed move speeds means that your claim that he is totally fine with deterministic aspects and he just wants some random stuff somewhere in the game but is totally fine with having a search skill without rolls is basically you lying.

Deaddm is fine with take 10 existing, because it means he can always set all the DCs that matter even a little bit to him to require at least an 11 and then tell everyone to roll, and then he can pretend to be reasonably accommodating both. Just like how he said that all move speeds need to have the ability to roll to see if you move faster.

But we don't have to fish around for how he feels about skills that don't requires rolls, you know, the actual fucking topic of the conversation that you keep trying to run as fast as you possibly can from. Because he told us already:

"There are lots of ways to potentially change skills, but removing all chance of failure isn't one of them."

[MGuy]

I was just going to quote that last bit.

[DSMatticus]

The fact that he doesn't apply his completely delusional fetishization consistently is not surprising, no one does.

The fact that he doesn't apply them consistently is the actual fucking proof that your "no determinism, not once, not ever" characteriziation of his position is bullshit. Because there he is saying "determinism, at least once, this time." It's a fucking counterexample. No matter how you phrase it, "okay, I was wrong" is never going to look like "fuck you, I was right."

and he just wants some random stuff somewhere in the game but is totally fine with having a search skill without rolls is basically you lying.

Hey, guess what I didn't say anywhere. "Deaddmwalking is totally fine with having a search skill without rolls." Deaddmwalking very clearly wants rolling to be a part of the search skill. But he is also equally clearly okay with applications of the search skill which do not need rolling. Because he fucking said so, right there, in the post we are talking about.

Oh, I'm sorry, he's actually not, because you're secretly a mind-reader, and you already know he's going to set the DC's for everything important to bonus+11 so everyone has to roll anyway. Fuck off, Mentok. But setting aside how you're totally a telepath and I'm so sorry for doubting your supernaturally-augmented ability to judge someone's character through the internet, you do understand that those are different statements rght? "The skill system needs randomness" and "the skill system cannot have any deterministic outputs" are not the same statement. Deaddmwalking would clearly agree with the first statement, and you are using that to argue that he must agree with the second - even though he's directly contradicted it. That makes no fucking sense. Shut the fuck up and try your reading comprehension check again.

But we don't have to fish around for how he feels about skills that don't requires rolls, you know, the actual fucking topic of the conversation that you keep trying to run as fast as you possibly can from. Because he told us already:

"There are lots of ways to potentially change skills, but removing all chance of failure isn't one of them."

Yeah, I sure am in in full retreat from that thing I fucking quoted in my post.

You realize your entire fucking argument is that because he thinks a skill system without randomness would be garbage (i.e., what he explicitly says in the part you think I'm dodging), he can't tolerate not-randomness in any check ever? So much so that he'll pretend to tolerate it, and then troll his players by setting DC's in the most grognardishly trolltastic way possible? "He's lying and he's an asshole, so clearly when he said X he meant slightly worse than X, even if that would be inconsistent with other things he said." deaddmwalking clearly does not want a skill system based around autosuccesses and autofailures. You are working from that to "deduce" he'd be unhappy with any specific results in any subsystem which don't contain a random element. Except maybe he will, but they don't count because he's a lying grognard or something.

How about no? How about that's not how this shit works? Deaddmwalking clearly puts a high value on randomness, and he's said exactly that, but he has said nothing that lives up to your ridiculous caricature of a crusade to purge deterministic outputs from games.

[DSMatticus]

Sooooo you're gonna double down on it eh? Not gonna even going to try to do something clever? DSM... That thing you quoted 3 times. That was the post I asked for clarification over. So yeah... I know it was him responding to me. You know what I did instead of deliberately misunderstanding what he said? I asked for clarification, and got an answer. You know... that answer I posted that has PL straight up telling everyone what his stance is. That thing you are deliberately misunderstanding?

Yes, I am doubling down on accurately quoting the people I disagree with and pointing out the parts of their arguments I disagree with. You should try it sometime. It works a lot fucking better than this "are you sure you aren't misrepresenting him by reading the exact things he said in the exact way he meant them" waste-of-everyone's-fucking-time bullshit you've got going on right now.

Alright, let's put aside the fact that my assholery makes you so fucking defensive you can't seem to respond to me with anything of substance whatsoever and talk about your core accusation, which I expect you to defend. You are accusing me of misrepresenting PL's post because he "clarifies" what he meant in a later post. Here are the two parts of PL's original post that I took issue with:

But in the end content gate keeping skills have only two choices.
1) The gate keeping skill is actually functionally worthless window dressing that doesn't really do anything. Eventually the content just happens anyway.
2) Fuck you, you guys failed a star trek trivia check, go home THE GAME IS OVER!

In the end you want the vampire letters K outlined to be found. Somehow. At some point. Period.

Here is PL's "clarifying" response:

I have a lot of things to say about a lot of skills in general. But the specific point I have here is about gated content skills.

They are generally bullshit fairy tea party skills of utterly unpredictable worth. They should not be valued on the same scale as Tumble let alone given the pretense of being of equal "choice" value to any other choice in the game, like, say the ability to shoot lightning bolts.

You can argue about what to do with bullshit minor "skills" of unpredictable bullshit fairy tea party value. You can argue about exactly which skills qualify as such. But certainly some of them do, they should probably still be in your game in some form, but if you pretend they are of equal choice value to avoiding attacks of opportunity or shooting fucking lightning bolts then that is the path to some very bad game design.

So my argument is about appropriate identification, segregation and valuation of the bullshit options. Content gating skills like search and knowledge are among the definitive bullshit options and inappropriate valuation of such skills leads to game design disasters like, infamously, the d20 Star Wars Tech Specialist, the poster child of literally pretending the shittiest skills of d20 are actually choices of equal value to the ability to shoot actual lightning. Or, for that matter, a gun.

So here's the challenge to you. I want you to find the part of that post that clarifies how PL feels about his "either it's game over or pointless window dressing" dichotomy. I want you to find the part of that post that clarifies how PL feels about the mandatory nature of the PC's finding the hypothetical vampire letters. Alternatively, I want you to find the part of the original post which substantially changes the meaning of the portions I've quoted, proving that those quotes are not fair representations of PL's position to begin with.

And failing all that, you can admit the obvious - that PL's clarification is a random non-sequitur that has nothing to do with his original post, and you're an idiot for accepting it as a clarification. PL staked out the position that plot points are mandatory and therefore content gating abilities are either meaningless (because the content will happen no matter what) or game over screens (which are really shitty), and when you asked him to clarify he fed you a rant about how minor noncombat skills should not be valued comparably to combat skills (and presumably major noncombat skills) that does nothing to expand upon, contradict, or support his original points.

I criticized him on those original points, and you've suggesting that his clarifying response somehow invalidates my criticism. So how the fuck does it do that? In what way does PL's clarification address my grievances with him?

[PhoneLobster]

Yes, I am doubling down on accurately quoting the people I disagree with

Like the time, and I'm throwing this in your face again, just now, when you selectively misquoted me and accused me of selectively ignoring a piece of DeadDMs text, in a post where I opened with a quote of exactly that text and directly addressed it.

That sort of accurate quoting. That's the high standard you and your high horse are boasting here right?

The high horse on which you have since gish gallop smoked bombed the fuck away from your hilariously hypocritical selective quote accusation failure with alarming speed.

[Miniature Colossus]

It's not really a linguistic thing. PL is just pretending to be stupid in order to fish for responses from deaddmwalking, because the longer deaddmwalking talks the more material PL has to misquote in order to make him look dumb.

Sure, I didn't mean to give the impression that PL had a good argument, the way people use the word random is mostly a personal annoyance of mine. Probably should have quoted deaddmwalking directly.

... click through in MPSIMS if you like reading about Australia's horrifying politics and not-quite-as-horrifying wildlife.

Think I tried that and found nothing of interest.

[MGuy]

Sooooo you're gonna double down on it eh? Not gonna even going to try to do something clever? DSM... That thing you quoted 3 times. That was the post I asked for clarification over. So yeah... I know it was him responding to me. You know what I did instead of deliberately misunderstanding what he said? I asked for clarification, and got an answer. You know... that answer I posted that has PL straight up telling everyone what his stance is. That thing you are deliberately misunderstanding?

Yes, I am doubling down on accurately quoting the people I disagree with and pointing out the parts of their arguments I disagree with.

Clever. Instead of admitting you're doubling down on something that exposed your hypocrisy you're going to instead claim you're doubling down on simply disagreeing with someone. That's cool.

You should try it sometime. It works a lot fucking better than this "are you sure you aren't misrepresenting him by reading the exact things he said in the exact way he meant them" waste-of-everyone's-fucking-time bullshit you've got going on right now.

I'm not asking you "are you sure you're misrepresenting him?". You very clearly, and intentionally, are. I mean he's in this very thread, I've quoted him telling you what his point is, and you are purposefully ignoring it, and now you're wanting 'me' to explain it to you... You know... instead of just asking him since he's posting in this thread as well and you could do like I did and ask. Oh wait, you can't, because you'd just tell him he doesn't mean what he says he means because you are able to dictate what people mean and they are not allowed to speak for themselves.

So here's the challenge to you. I want you to find the part of that post that clarifies how PL feels about his "either it's game over or pointless window dressing" dichotomy.

Fucking shit this is going to be tedious as fuck. I hate doing these fucking quote spam fests. So you're wondering about which part of his clarifying post talks about pointless window dressing? I'd say it's the whole damn thing. He's saying that skills that are made specifically to gate out content (Like Search does) are bullshit of unpredictable worth. Do you not get what he means by that? Take a damn second to think about it. What does search do outside of unlocking content that the GM has to expressly lock away? The only time search will ever be useful is for that. You can never take search and just do something ELSE with it. Tumble allows you to do specific things. As long as there are enemies at all, uneven spaces, or places where you can jump or fall tumble can be used. That makes having Tumble, at least as far as PL is arguing, more valuable and significantly less bullshit.

Going further, clearly Search always always always has to be an optional approach to something. Always. Search will never be fundamental in doing anything ever in the game to keep it moving. It fucking can't be, so it's a skill that gates off content of unpredictable value and whatever you don't get with it that is ever important will HAVE to be replaced. You WILL need access to flight at some point to continue advancing in the game. You WILL need to be able to traverse the planes at some point. You will NEVER need search to have your game and you can't really use it ever unless the GM wants to arbitrarily lock some content behind it AND you roll high enough to access it.

I want you to find the part of that post that clarifies how PL feels about the mandatory nature of the PC's finding the hypothetical vampire letters.

This is just you being stupid. When PL was talking about the letters he is assuming the letters are at all important to the game because if they aren't then they are exactly the "pointless window dressing" he was talking about and the issue with the letters then becomes pointless to discuss at all.

Alternatively, I want you to find the part of the original post which substantially changes the meaning of the portions I've quoted, proving that those quotes are not fair representations of PL's position to begin with.

So you alternatively want me to look through the original post to show how his original post significantly changes the meaning of the portions you quoted from that original post instead of using the insights I gained from reading his clarification which provided me with a more clear idea of what he was getting at? Why even?

And failing all that, you can admit the obvious - that PL's clarification is a random non-sequitur that has nothing to do with his original post, and you're an idiot for accepting it as a clarification.

So what happens if (as I've done) I am able to fucking tell you how one relates to the other? Do I get to demand that you admit you're an idiot or even just a hypocrite?

PL staked out the position that plot points are mandatory and therefore content gating abilities are either meaningless (because the content will happen no matter what) or game over screens (which are really shitty), and when you asked him to clarify he fed you a rant about how minor noncombat skills should not be valued comparably to combat skills (and presumably major noncombat skills) that does nothing to expand upon, contradict, or support his original points

PL assumed anyone discussing this wanted the gated content (the letters) to mean anything at fucking all. He assumed that the letters MUST be good enough to warrant discussion at all so that's how he approached arguing that (if that's the case) the players have to have access to that content in some way. He did so, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, because if it isn't mandatory, if the information is something that the players can just miss and the GM has no reason to push it right in their face, then it is just fluff that players may or may not care about/enjoy. He even went into detail when talking to dead. If the content is just fluff that is so unimportant that the GM who made it is willing to throw it away at the drop of a dice, and very explicitly NOT because the players chose to just ignore it, then it IS NOT IMPORTANT. It MIGHT be important to the players' feelings or it MIGHT not. No one fucking knows but to be able to miss it because of a low roll means that it has to be unimportant enough that missing it does not change the overall game. None of that asserts that players can't enjoy the locked content or enjoy the idea that they might've missed it. It just means that as far as keeping the game going, it doesn't fucking matter.

[deaddmwalking]

PL assumed anyone discussing this wanted the gated content (the letters) to mean anything at fucking all. He assumed that the letters MUST be good enough to warrant discussion at all so that's how he approached arguing that (if that's the case) the players have to have access to that content in some way. He did so, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, because if it isn't mandatory, if the information is something that the players can just miss and the GM has no reason to push it right in their face, then it is just fluff that players may or may not care about/enjoy. He even went into detail when talking to dead. If the content is just fluff that is so unimportant that the GM who made it is willing to throw it away at the drop of a dice, and very explicitly NOT because the players chose to just ignore it, then it IS NOT IMPORTANT. It MIGHT be important to the players' feelings or it MIGHT not. No one fucking knows but to be able to miss it because of a low roll means that it has to be unimportant enough that missing it does not change the overall game. None of that asserts that players can't enjoy the locked content or enjoy the idea that they might've missed it. It just means that as far as keeping the game going, it doesn't fucking matter.

I think you've reached a false conclusion. The content might be significant and the game is altered by finding/not finding that content. It isn't necessarily that the game is strictly better or strictly worse - just different.

Finding a letter indicating that 'the boss' is an infiltrator from an evil organization changes the game. It is not 'just' useless fluff. It's possible (even probable) that they will reveal themselves down the road if the letter is not found, but knowing earlier gives the PCs different options than not knowing. It's possible (even preferable) to have significant content but it is still possible to continue the game with it either found/not found.

This is also true even if it is not hidden by a search check. Some content will be found if the players choose 'adventure x' but will be missed if they choose 'adventure y'. Having different content based on their choices is important; Search is just one way of doing it.

The fact that he doesn't apply his completely delusional fetishization consistently is not surprising, no one does. But since he's already on record declaring that character move speeds have to have rolls or the game is literally impossible to comprehend when describing a game with fixed move speeds means that your claim that he is totally fine with deterministic aspects and he just wants some random stuff somewhere in the game but is totally fine with having a search skill without rolls is basically you lying.

I'm going to have to ask that you quote me on this. When discussing a potential heartbreaker, I did indicate that it might be good to have a better way of doing chase scenes than 3.x. In 3.x every character has a fixed speed so outside of initiative, the results of the chase can be determined before any actions are taken. I do not recall any suggestion that 3.x could not be played with fixed speeds or was incomprehensible as a result.

Personally, I think that having ways to resolve common challenges in the literary tradition is a good thing. Looking at the Decathlon, D&D rules don't do very well. There aren't great rules for running faster than someone of your same race, and there aren't great rules for throwing for distance. There's also the issue that attributes are very small compared to a d20 so the difference between 'strongest man in the world' and 'Joe Peasant' may be significant over a dozen challenges, Joe Peasant wins more often than he probably should.

What I said two years ago still applies:

Rolling doesn't have to be included for everything in the game - but if you want a chance for failure, you should have a roll. For the sake of realism and dramatic tension, there will be times you'll want to include a chance of failure.

I think there's a big difference between a character who has invested significant resources in Search finding everything by taking 10 (no rolling) and revealing every possible thing to the party even if they have not spent any resources.

It's not unusual to consider including an element of your game that is 'difficult to find' - and only those with the proper investment are likely to find it. Despite the limited applicability of a movie (which is more akin to single-author fiction) people will want to include things they saw in a movie. When Indiana Jones is searching the library (the same library his father spent countless days searching) he finds the entrance to the catacombs when others had failed. From a narrative standpoint if you want to include a location that has remained hidden for a long time, it will be important that not everyone who takes 'find everything' can find it - otherwise it won't make sense that it has remained hidden.

There are lots of ways to achieve the same effect, and 3.x skill system is not the best, but being able to distinguish between levels of required effort is usually a good thing. For every task you could undertake there is going to be several categories - things you cannot fail, things you cannot succeed on and then the things in the middle - the things you sometimes will succeed on and will sometimes fail on. Having things in that middle area really is a good thing - having a way to resolve success and failure without regard to fellatio is also good.

[Kaelik]

I'm going to have to ask that you quote me on this. . . . I do not recall any suggestion that 3.x could not be played with fixed speeds or was incomprehensible as a result.

You are right, you didn't say that. I was remembering spongeknights absurd claim that fixed swim speeds couldn't work in D&D.

All you did was talk about how variable swim speeds and run speeds would be better because you love rolling dice so much and it gets you hard. And that people should bunny hop to run faster. Which is in fact totally different from arguing that fixed speeds don't function in a fixed speed game. Still absolutely insane and wrong, don't get me wrong, but completely different.

Also funny, in that thread, there was someone who refused to believe you wanted a roll for everything because it was so insane, but then next time the subject comes up, the accept that lots of deterministic things would be better in part because defending your absurd claims drove them to frustration. I can't wait for the next thread, where DSM admits that many things should be deterministic without rolls and stops trying to falsely claim that you believe that too.

I think there's a big difference between a character who has invested significant resources in Search finding everything by taking 10 (no rolling) and revealing every possible thing to the party even if they have not spent any resources.

Deaddm stop being a lying sack of shit. Literally every single post without fail, you argue that you can't have a system for search in which players invest resources and then find things without rolling based on invested resources because then you have to reveal every possible thing without spending resources.

Every single time you say that, you are a lying shit bag. Please stop.

For every task you could undertake there is going to be several categories - things you cannot fail, things you cannot succeed on and then the things in the middle - the things you sometimes will succeed on and will sometimes fail on. Having things in that middle area really is a good thing - having a way to resolve success and failure without regard to fellatio is also good.

No there isn't you fucking idiot. There are millions of things I could do every day which I would always succeed or always fail on. That's the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT YOU IDIOT. You keep claiming that all actions of all kinds must have a stupid fucking roll, because all things might or might not succeed. That is fucking bullshit, that is fucking wrong, and that is clearly bad fucking design.

[deaddmwalking]

Deaddm stop being a lying sack of shit. Literally every single post without fail, you argue that you can't have a system for search in which players invest resources and then find things without rolling based on invested resources because then you have to reveal every possible thing without spending resources.

Every single time you say that, you are a lying shit bag. Please stop.

I am specifically responding to Phonelobster and Mguy who appear to be saying that if you don't find something, it must be completely unimportant so the solution is to ensure that everything is found. Since you won't know if there is something to find, even an 'auto-find everything' ability has an unknown value, which appears to be an issue for Phonelobster. My reading of his argument is that if you're going to include something hidden, the game is always worse if you don't engineer a way for the PCs to find it regardless of their ability investment.

For every task you could undertake there is going to be several categories - things you cannot fail, things you cannot succeed on and then the things in the middle - the things you sometimes will succeed on and will sometimes fail on. Having things in that middle area really is a good thing - having a way to resolve success and failure without regard to fellatio is also good.

No there isn't you fucking idiot. There are millions of things I could do every day which I would always succeed or always fail on. That's the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT YOU IDIOT. You keep claiming that all actions of all kinds must have a stupid fucking roll, because all things might or might not succeed. That is fucking bullshit, that is fucking wrong, and that is clearly bad fucking design.

In the section you quoted, I indicated that there are things that you always succeed, and things that you always fail. There is no point in rolling for either of those categories. Rolling would be a waste of time.

In the event that something does not fall into either category, meaning you sometimes succeed and you sometimes fail, you will need a resolution mechanic to determine which one happens on this particular attempt. Rolling is a good resolution mechanic. It allows a chance for both success and failure, and if the modifiers to the roll are sensible, the chance of success and failure will be in reasonable proportion.

[MGuy]

I am specifically responding to Phonelobster and Mguy who appear to be saying that if you don't find something, it must be completely unimportant so the solution is to ensure that everything is found. Since you won't know if there is something to find, even an 'auto-find everything' ability has an unknown value, which appears to be an issue for Phonelobster. My reading of his argument is that if you're going to include something hidden, the game is always worse if you don't engineer a way for the PCs to find it regardless of their ability investment.

I'll let PL speak for himself but that is not what I'm saying. I made no value judgment on whether or not the game is worse with missing content. I'm saying that whatever you hide from players cannot be anything major enough to the plot that it would matter significantly if not found. They do this kind of things in games, where different choices make you play through different levels, but the plot always continues after the little sidetrack. You even admit in your response to me that it's just a difference between finding out earlier instead of later. Yea, you'll do different things but the BBEG is still the same, you're still gonna quest to defeat it, whatever. Basically whatever content you lock behind a skill like search, while it may or may not be important to the players, cannot be very important to the game.

Now, dead, let me ask you something. Would you force the players to have to Search for the Love Letters if no one on the team actually invested in Search or would you instead hide it behind another skill like Gather Info?

[deaddmwalking]

I think those are your tags that are off.

Edit - Yes, your first quote is of you and me but only my quote shows up. You need a second end quote tag.

[Kaelik]

In the section you quoted, I indicated that there are things that you always succeed, and things that you always fail. There is no point in rolling for either of those categories. Rolling would be a waste of time.

In the event that something does not fall into either category, meaning you sometimes succeed and you sometimes fail, you will need a resolution mechanic to determine which one happens on this particular attempt. Rolling is a good resolution mechanic. It allows a chance for both success and failure, and if the modifiers to the roll are sensible, the chance of success and failure will be in reasonable proportion.

You are (still) a fucking idiot. Yes I get that you don't want the RNG to compass the whole of creation for all characters such that each individual person is capable of succeeding or failing at all things.

That doesn't change the fact that you are a goddam fucking idiot, and that the entire point is that you keep claiming shit like "For every task you could undertake there is going to be several categories"

There are entire classes of fucking abilities that tasks at which I always succeed at all the things that I can do and always fail at all the things that I can't succeed and that there is no fucking middle ground.

And that is literally the entire fucking point. You keep claiming, over and over and over, that there has to be a roll on all possible things, because all possible things could succeed or could fail at some arbitrary middle ground.

But that's also completely fucking wrong. Your blank assertion that every task must have things you roll on is still wrong, still crazy, and still bad design. I don't need to roll to cast Wall of Stone or Magic Circle Against Evil, I don't need to roll to see how far I jump, since I jump the same distance all the time, I don't need to roll to see how fast I swim, since I swim the same speed every time, and I don't need to roll to run because I run the same speed all the time. There are probably a bunch of other things that I don't need to roll on either, because I either succeed or fail as appropriate every time, but off the top of my head, those are things that are an example.

PS: To head you off, pro football players run multiple 40s when demonstrating their speed, and a given person will pretty much vary by a few tenths of a second at best. If you think rolling is a good idea to see whether someone goes 120 ft in one round, or 120.004 ft in one round, then yes, speed varies. But since that would be monumentally stupid, don't do that, speed is constant.

[deaddmwalking]

I'm saying that whatever you hide from players cannot be anything major enough to the plot that it would matter significantly if not found. They do this kind of things in games, where different choices make you play through different levels, but the plot always continues after the little sidetrack.

I'm saying that what you hide can be major. It can either offer new (different) avenues to advance the plot, or it can change the way the game plays by altering the rate at which options become available. I would argue that even if the plot is generally the same (no major branches with alternative options), I think having earlier access to certain information counts as a major change. Playing an adventure where you know you're being set up from the beginning will be very different from an adventure where you find out you've been set up at the end.

You even admit in your response to me that it's just a difference between finding out earlier instead of later. Yea, you'll do different things but the BBEG is still the same, you're still gonna quest to defeat it, whatever. Basically whatever content you lock behind a skill like search, while it may or may not be important to the players, cannot be very important to the game.

I think finding out earlier versus later counts as a major difference; or at least, it could. And since the content could offer a completely different avenue of advancement, it absolutely could be major. For example, consider an ancient fortress taken over by some evil of the day, but there remain hidden areas of this fortress that are original. Perhaps the fortress contains a portal that would allow players to enter a different time and place. They could potentially go back in time to stop the villain before their current world-altering plot was put in motion. There's nothing obligating the players to do so, but finding it offers a new option. That would certainly qualify as a 'major change'. Continuing the adventure in the current timeline versus having that adventure in a different timeline where your villain was less advanced would certainly offer a different play experience even though you're essentially defeating the same bad guy either way.

To put it simply, additional content can be of major significance regardless of whether it is found or not.

Now, dead, let me ask you something. Would you force the players to have to Search for the Love Letters if no one on the team actually invested in Search or would you instead hide it behind another skill like Gather Info?

If I had decided on putting love letters in the adventure and I decided that there was a reason to limit their availability (whether due to narrative concerns or potential 'short cuts' to encounters), I would have them Search rather than another skill. It's also possible that the same information could be obtained another way, such as speaking to the vampire/ghost or using abilities like speak with dead on the corpse. In general, I don't have a problem with multiple avenues to obtain the same information, but I wouldn't create them simply because the only way that made sense to me wouldn't work.

The love letter example isn't mine, and I don't think it is a good example. If it is by definition only fluff, then I don't see any reason to have it hidden. If it could confer a situational advantage for the party, that might be a reason to have it hidden. The fact that someone is proposing bad adventure design as a reason not to gate any content at all isn't my fault. Even if I accept that the content I didn't create only has fluff value and therefore should never be denied the players, it does not necessarily follow that all gated content is necessarily bad and/or cannot provide major changes to the campaign.

[deaddmwalking]

There are entire classes of fucking abilities that tasks at which I always succeed at all the things that I can do and always fail at all the things that I can't succeed and that there is no fucking middle ground.

....

But that's also completely fucking wrong. Your blank assertion that every task must have things you roll on is still wrong, still crazy, and still bad design. I don't need to roll to cast Wall of Stone or Magic Circle Against Evil, I don't need to roll to see how far I jump, since I jump the same distance all the time, I don't need to roll to see how fast I swim, since I swim the same speed every time, and I don't need to roll to run because I run the same speed all the time. There are probably a bunch of other things that I don't need to roll on either, because I either succeed or fail as appropriate every time, but off the top of my head, those are things that are an example.

I agree that there are abilities you either have or you do not have. I thought we were specifically talking about tasks where it was reasonable that some people could succeed and some people would fail and/or a situation where we might have opposed tests and it matters how well you do a task relative to another person.

For search (as an example) I want some high level characters to find things that low level characters will not usually find. This allows for more interesting stories where something can be hidden for a long time until someone unusually good at finding things...finds it.

[Kaelik]

I agree that there are abilities you either have or you do not have. I thought we were specifically talking about tasks where it was reasonable that some people could succeed and some people would fail and/or a situation where we might have opposed tests and it matters how well you do a task relative to another person.

"I thought when people were talking about how certain things shouldn't have rolls because you always succeed or always fail at them, they were talking about things you have a chance of failing or succeeding"

I wouldn't use the word "thought" to describe what is happening in your brain there. Perhaps, "aneurysm" or "lobotomy" might fit better.

No you fucking idiot. When people talk about how certain things should always succeed or always fail based on character abilities they are not in fact talking about things that sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. You fucking idiot.

For search (as an example) I want some high level characters to find things that low level characters will not usually find. This allows for more interesting stories where something can be hidden for a long time until someone unusually good at finding things...finds it.

Oh Look. Deaddm thinks you can't have a search skill without a roll because if what people find is based on character investment instead of a roll, then all people equally identical of finding all things!

How many times do I have to call you out for saying the same stupid thing over and over before you stop doing it? Is it infinity? It's infinity, isn't it?

HEY IDIOT, YOU CAN FUCKING HAVE DIFFERENT FUCKING CHARACTERS HAVE DIFFERENT FUCKING SEARCH ABILITIES WITHOUT FUCKING ROLLING YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

[deaddmwalking]

And I've agreed to that point. I absolutely think that giving everyone a passive 'take 10' on all search checks to auto-detect things is good. I just don't think that it's as good if you don't allow a chance to find something that is hidden in a more difficult way. I like a gray area in the middle. It means that as a DM I'm not certain what will happen, which tends to mean the game is going to have more options.

[DSMatticus]

I'd say it's the whole damn thing. He's saying that skills that are made specifically to gate out content (Like Search does) are bullshit of unpredictable worth. Do you not get what he means by that? Take a damn second to think about it. What does search do outside of unlocking content that the GM has to expressly lock away? The only time search will ever be useful is for that. You can never take search and just do something ELSE with it. Tumble allows you to do specific things. As long as there are enemies at all, uneven spaces, or places where you can jump or fall tumble can be used. That makes having Tumble, at least as far as PL is arguing, more valuable and significantly less bullshit.

But in the end content gate keeping skills have only two choices.
1) The gate keeping skill is actually functionally worthless window dressing that doesn't really do anything. Eventually the content just happens anyway.
2) Fuck you, you guys failed a star trek trivia check, go home THE GAME IS OVER!

In the end you want the vampire letters K outlined to be found. Somehow. At some point. Period.

I'm sorry, but "search is a skill whose value is unpredictable because of GM arbitrarium, and therefore it's not worth as much as a combat skill like tumble which can be actively used by the PC's, and also it's kinda bullshit" in no way interacts with the argument "content gating skills are either irrelevant, because the game is always a railroad and the content happens regardless, or bad, because they're campaign-ending failstates," nor the argument "you need fixed story points which the players cannot possibly avoid, deliberately or accidentally."

You're not even thinking about this. I don't mean that as some glib insult, I mean you are literally putting zero fucking thought into how the things PL has said relate with one another. When PL says "the players have to find the vampire letters. They just have to," and I say, "no they fucking don't, that's shitty design, you should be able to progress the story whether they find them or not" how in the sweet fuck does "search is an overvalued bullshit skill that only does what MTP says it does" affect the argument I'm having with him? Oh, it fucking doesn't. It obviously fucking doesn't. They're different arguments. They aren't related in anyway.

So swing and a fucking miss.

Going further, clearly Search always always always has to be an optional approach to something. Always. Search will never be fundamental in doing anything ever in the game to keep it moving. It fucking can't be, so it's a skill that gates off content of unpredictable value and whatever you don't get with it that is ever important will HAVE to be replaced. You WILL need access to flight at some point to continue advancing in the game. You WILL need to be able to traverse the planes at some point.

Uhh, first off, no. You can very easily run an entire campaign on the material plane without flight. You will need some decent ranged attacks to deal with enemies who can fly, but you can do an entire 1-20 campaign without growing wings or casting planeshift. It's not even fucking hard, there are a bunch of published 1-20 adventure paths that do exactly that. You can even still have your climactic showdown on the inside of a volcano (nope, doesn't require fly or planeshift) or Atlantis (nope, doesn't require fly or planeshift) or the capital city of The Big Bad Empire (nope, doesn't require fly or planeshift or anything but feet, really). When we talk about characters needing access to abilities like those, it's because we expect the wizard to have them, and that means we need to give other characters access to them so that all of the party members can go on the same adventures. It is potentially a problem if someone in the party can breathe underwater and someone else can't, but if no one can breathe underwater then you just don't do underwater content and the party doesn't have to worry about leaving anyone behind.

But more importantly than that, you have already backed down from PL's original position. Here, let me show you:

But in the end content gate keeping skills have only two choices.
1) The gate keeping skill is actually functionally worthless window dressing that doesn't really do anything. Eventually the content just happens anyway.
2) Fuck you, you guys failed a star trek trivia check, go home THE GAME IS OVER!

In the end you want the vampire letters K outlined to be found. Somehow. At some point. Period.

It fucking can't be, so it's a skill that gates off content of unpredictable value and whatever you don't get with it that is ever important will HAVE to be replaced.

PL isn't arguing that you will have to replace the vampire letters with something else. He is arguing that the vampire letters are an immutable story point that must happen, and therefore content gating the vampire letters is bullshit.

But the entire fucking point is that the vampire letters don't have to happen. You don't have to railroad the players into the vampire letters, and if you think you do, you're a shit GM. Maybe instead of using search to find the vampire letters, the PC's go to a party and use gather information to find someone who saw something useful. Maybe instead of using gather information to find a witness, they use stealth to spy on someone they think is suspicious. Maybe all three of these lead to an encounter with a completely different one of the vampire's intermediaries. Or maybe it leads to a confrontation with the same intermediary, but in a completely different location (and whatever threats/concerns/assistance those locations might entail). Maybe instead of getting any information at all, the story rolls into the second arc (i.e. the vampire's master plan advances a step further) with the PC's lacking information they could have used to prepare, leading to a different set of encounters that catch the PC's somewhat off guard.

I.e., what if instead of the story ending ("Fuck you, you guys failed a star trek trivia check, go home THE GAME IS OVER!") or progressing the same no matter what the players do ("The gate keeping skill is actually functionally worthless window dressing that doesn't really do anything. Eventually the content just happens anyway.") the story fucking changes based on what the PC's do? Notice how there's an entire third category of outcomes ("the PC's make choices, and those choices matter") PL just dismisses out of hand because he's an asshat? Search is "optional" in the sense that the DM is never going to (or should never, at least) declare the campaign over because you failed a search check. But if you have ranks in search you can still fucking use it to unlock story branches you would not have otherwise had access to, and that's important.

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There's more to your post, but as far as I can tell it's the same shit. But to recap, you completely fucking facepalmed on the simple challenge of "connect the dots" laid out for you (which I expected, because unlike you I noticed the dots were in completely different fucking books before I even started talking to you) and you've either embraced PL's false dichotomy of "content gating is either a railroad or a deadend" and/or rejected the notion that progressing the story in different ways is a meaningful impact the players can have on the story.

Fuck every part of that noise. It's terrible.

[Kaelik]

And I've agreed to that point. I absolutely think that giving everyone a passive 'take 10' on all search checks to auto-detect things is good. I just don't think that it's as good if you don't allow a chance to find something that is hidden in a more difficult way. I like a gray area in the middle. It means that as a DM I'm not certain what will happen, which tends to mean the game is going to have more options.

Deaddm, stop lying please.

Look, I get that you personally have a raging erection whenever you think about tumbling dice, and that is fine. I'm not saying you can't jack off to the sound of dice rolling all day every day like you want to.

But for god fucking sakes, every fucking post you make you make the same bullshit lie. You say over and over that you want all things that possibly exist to have rolls, and you say that a search system which does not have fucking rolls is bad. And then you give reasons why you think that. And every single fucking time the reason is because you think a system without rolls can't have people who are good at finding things find things that people who are less good can't find. And every fucking time you say that you are a piece of shit liar.

If indiana jones is better at finding shit than other people, he can still find things even if there is no goddam fucking roll, because he's better at fucking finding things. That's what that fucking means.

I get that your solution is to have all possible things that could ever happen in a game have rolls, and then let people take 10, but then make all the DCs require an 11 or higher so that everyone has to roll and you can still get hard. I get that. But here's the thing. That is fucking terrible, and it doesn't make anyone but you happy.

The reason people think a skill system that takes rolling out of many skills is a good thing is specifically and exactly because they think all those skills are things in which all actions should either succeed or fail based on abilities, with no fucking actions at all having a chance of either. That is literally the only possible reason to support removing rolling.

So when you assert that you are fine with doing that just so long as we still classify a whole bunch of things that have to be rolled for, my only response is:

NO! BAD DEADDM!

It is fine if you personally have a completely unreasonable need to roll for every action. It would even be find if you wanted to make actual arguments that the game would be better designed if every action had a roll associated because every action you might ever take has some edge cases where success or failure are both possible.

But you aren't doing that, instead you repeatedly refuse to admit that this issue exists at all, and pretend you are agreeing with people who want to remove rolls from certain classes of action, while repeatedly asserting that of course all classes of action must have rolls attached.

[MGuy]

DSM you are telling me to think but about what's being said while simultaneously refusing to think about any of this yourself. You keep claiming a false dichotomy between bullshit and important shit. Yet every time you bring up a third option it either assumes that the players found and gave a shit about the extra content or you assure everyone that there WILL be ways to get the content even if the players don't get it with the skill. So you're stuck in the very content box PL pointed out. Try thinking about what happens if the players fail to get the letters. You claim that if the adventure fails because of it that's bad design. PL would agree. So the show goes on. They continue on unaware that they missed anything at all and the campaign or you invent another way to get the content. If you do the latter then it doesn't matter that the skill was ever used ( and failed). If you let the former happen then it doesn't matter that the skill was used and failed because the content never materialized and the game still happened.

The players cannot know how valuable search might be or might not be but for this next bit I'll assume it matters. Let's say that the letters allow the players to catch wind of the bbeg's plan and the details of that plan will have far reaching effects on the game. You WILL want the players to find this info because it'll present a host of choices that will have the player's decisions effect the world at large. If you are a reasonable person you will make sure the players are able to get this information. You may or may not use any number of gating techniques to make them "earn" it but however you do it you will have to make sure that failing one avenue or another is negligible because not getting this info cuts off a multitude of actual player empowering choices. Now it may be a bit of hyperbole to call that game over/dead end but it's pretty shit design to have impact heavy content because the dice landed on a low number instead of a high number. It's especially shitty if it happens despite the players chose to invest in the skill and actually put it to use.

And the rest? Yea 4e exists where you do nothing but dungeon crawl and fight creatures who sit in one place batting at you all day. I'm sure people have played in the numerous railroad adventures that don't expect you to use high level abilities to do anything. So what? You can do that but that's shit. you know it's shit. I really don't know why you'd being up shitty stuff like that unless you are just really desperate to score points.

Edit: also the part where you claim I failed to link the two posts because you refuse to stop willfully misinterpreting them? Very classy.