De canistro textrinum

[Mistborn]

A few points:

Arguing against the use of MTP in RPG's is confusing and makes you look like a dumbass. MTP is anything the rules don't cover, which is around 50% of a typical game. It is impossible to run almost any RPG without it. If you are arguing against the DM fudging rolls or ignoring the rules selectively when it suits him, say that. You will gain a lot more support and people won't think you have never played an RPG in your life.

When I'm DM there is no MTP because when someone wants to do something they have to explain what they are doing entirely in the context of the rules. Guess what nothing of value is lost.

What I am arguing against is where he goes from there, stating directly that if player characters do not meet this standard you kill those characters. You don't allow their bad choices to bite them in the ass, you punish them for their bad choices directly by giving them encounters they can not win.

I thought I was being fairly clear just keeping the difficulty on normal is enough to kill basketweavers you don't have too do anything. It's not about killing them it's about not saving them from their bad choices. nocker has been saying that you should do everything to save the party even up to fudging dice in order to keep your "story" going. I disapprove of such nonsense.

No you sure as hell don't do that.

What you do is still send standard encounters at the party and let them be crushed brutally by the game. Then you set their artfully woven baskets on fire and gind their faces into the ashes. They signed up to play D&D and if you let them play pretend when D&D is too hard for them you enable the kind of person who makes the hobby worse for everyone.

If you want to have a magic tea party why are you spending $ on RPG books. You could have run your campagin just fine without them.

I bolded the important part when people sit down to play D&D they should actually play D&D. If they all want to play D&D themed fairy princess tea party the should say that's what they're doing. So much is wrong with the way people discuss D&D and derivatives online and almost all of it is because people don't understand the difference between these things.

When people go "waaah D&D is too hard let's play pretend instead" you should never let them play pretend. Instead DMs should keep on playing D&D and let dem baskets burn. This has been my position from the start, but apparently everyone has been unable to understand that due to being frozen fast.

[Red_Rob]

When I'm DM there is no MTP because when someone wants to do something they have to explain what they are doing entirely in the context of the rules. Guess what nothing of value is lost.

O RLY? You do know that D&D is basically a combat simulator right? Because the rules for everything else are either nonexistent or so laughable that using them actually makes the game worse. So you, say, use the diplomacy rules as written then because the rules are always right?

Or do you ignore the broken diplomacy rules and judge the reaction of other characters based on the players words and actions like a good little MTP'er?

Or do you disallow talking to people in your games and make it explicitly just the skirmish wargame you actually want to play rather than pretend you're playing an RPG?

Which is it Misty, let's get down to brass tacks. When a player tries to talk an NPC round using pertinent persuasive arguments what do you do?

[Mistborn]

O RLY? You do know that D&D is basically a combat simulator right? Because the rules for everything else are either nonexistent or so laughable that using them actually makes the game worse. So you, say, use the diplomacy rules as written then because the rules are always right?

Or do you ignore the broken diplomacy rules and judge the reaction of other characters based on the players words and actions like a good little MTP'er?

Or do you disallow talking to people in your games and make it explicitly just the skirmish wargame you actually want to play rather than pretend you're playing an RPG?

Which is it Misty, let's get down to brass tacks. When a player tries to talk an NPC round using pertinent persuasive arguments what do you do?

1) I cap diplomacy at improving attitudes 2 steps as a house rule. Solves most of the Diplomacy rules silliness.

2) yep you can talk your head off if you want too but at the end of the day you're going to have to make some kind of diplomacy check.

[Red_Rob]

2) yep you can talk your head off if you want too but at the end of the day you're going to have to make some kind of diplomacy check.

I'm going to blow your mind here:

Just because you roll a dice doesn't mean it isn't MTP.

What can a Diplomacy roll get you? Is there a list somewhere? Is getting better results a higher DC? What is this DC based on? What are the modifiers to this roll based on past events? If diplomacy caps at 2 steps, is this in one action of talking, or ever? Where are these all written down so the player can decide ahead of time his chances of success or failure?

Face it, you listen to the players arguments and demands, eyeball a DC, and add some modifier off the top of your head based on whatever else you think would affect the NPC's decision. That's MTP with trimmings. Noone can sit down ahead of time and work out the feats or bonuses they need to get specific results because the DC's and results change at the moment of the action. That is the opposite of a hard rules system.

And no-one thinks any less of you for doing it. Some people here think you are just trolling. I actually think you have just played with a few bad GMs and have developed a twisted view of RPG's based on that. But the fact is that in any RPG at least half of everything that goes on is just adjudicated by the GM even if he doesn't know he's doing it. Its the reason people often say that a good GM can make a bad game fun, but a good game won't make a bad GM any better.

[Mistborn]

Face it, you listen to the players arguments and demands, eyeball a DC, and add some modifier off the top of your head based on whatever else you think would affect the NPC's decision. That's MTP with trimmings. Noone can sit down ahead of time and work out the feats or bonuses they need to get specific results because the DC's and results change at the moment of the action. That is the opposite of a hard rules system.

Nope If you want to convince someone to do something specific too bad. There are no rules for that so you can't do it.

[Fuchs]

Face it, you listen to the players arguments and demands, eyeball a DC, and add some modifier off the top of your head based on whatever else you think would affect the NPC's decision. That's MTP with trimmings. Noone can sit down ahead of time and work out the feats or bonuses they need to get specific results because the DC's and results change at the moment of the action. That is the opposite of a hard rules system.

Nope If you want to convince someone to do something specific too bad. There are no rules for that so you can't do it.

Are you sure you're playing D&D the roleplaying game, and not the miniature skirmish game?

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I thought I was being fairly clear just keeping the difficulty on normal is enough to kill basketweavers you don't have too do anything.

Nope, turns out you're really bad at communicating. Or a liar. Either way you really shouldn't be a GM. See, thing is words work because they have a commonly understood meaning. You don't get to decide retroactively what you meant. So when you say "Then you set their artfully woven baskets on fire and gind their faces into the ashes." you aren't saying that you are passively allowing their bad mistakes work against them, you are saying that you are actively punishing them. Of course, I am willing to believe that you AREN'T miscommunicating, in which case you're a liar because you said you punish your players for bad choices and I've yet to see actual evidence to suggest you don't.

[Red_Rob]

Nope If you want to convince someone to do something specific too bad. There are no rules for that so you can't do it.

So you don't allow people to roleplay in your roleplaying games because that's not in the rules? Jeez, you really are like the caricature of optimisers that gets rolled out by people that are scared of people knowing the rules. Fuck, I was kidding with the skirmish wargame thing, but really i think you would be happier playing Mordheim or something.

Oh, don't think that gets you off the hook for MTPing though. These "attitude levels" that you increase through Diplomacy rolls, what exactly do they do? Because I've looked in the book and the rules seem awfully vague and full of MTP. Except for the part where you can make a DC30 diplomacy check as a Full round action to change anyone's attitude from Hostile to Indifferent and end the fight right there. That is perfectly clear.

So, is that what Diplomacy looks like in your games?

[Red Archon]

Ahh, it was all sort winding down, but now LM has the opportunity of a lifetime to show just how deep he can dig himself. I think he's more fun to watch than that GC feller, because he's even worse at this.

[nockermensch]

Maybe you make some excuse like "well, the monsters are spreading out their attacks because that's what they normally do," but having a reasonable excuse doesn't change the fact that executing the mage would have been the best tactic for the smart monsters you picked and not doing it made for a better adventure. (Frankly, I'm surprised that more DnD adventures don't end with "and then the monsters geeked the unarmored mage on round 1 and the adventure was basically over for the party.")

This was totally the modus operandi for a friend that curiously was also the basically the only one in our group that cared for theoretical optimization. Every campaign or even module he tried to DM usually lasted one game. The monsters at hand would use tactics like focus firing at the spellcasters first, and the party would basically explode. I think our High-Score with him was taking one adventure (in FR) to the third game, at which point half the party was dead and the survivors too afraid to do anything.

Then we laughed at that silliness, called him "Aurora Engine" and then me or the other usual DM would tell people to make characters for campaigns that would last months to years. I spent years thinking that that was my friend's subtle way to tell us that he didn't like to DM and would rather be a player, but these discussions now are making me think that maybe he only wished to run a higher difficulty game.

So, here's my personal experience with Misty's drivel: You can totally make a point of throwing the game "as she is played" at unoptimized characters and then see them running before you and hear the lamentation of their women. What happens next is that one of the basketweavers offers to run a game, and if he puts "running a long and fun campaign" as a premise that will be enforced and not as a "reward to those who play the tactical minigame well", you'll be stuck with that for months or years.

[hyzmarca]

If people beat your CR 3 Vrocks and then look up Vrock on the SRD they are going to feel lied too and condescended. If people catch on to the fact that they are constantly facing weakened opposition due to the DM lowering the difficulty they're going to be put off. I also find it hard believe that people will actually request "easy mode" when I subjected my players too enhanced difficulty they never asked for "easy mode" even as the bodies hit the floor because to them it would feel like losing.

I find that its extremely easy to tailor threats to the party without breaking verisimilitude if you don't let any of the players look at their own character sheets. Instead just ask for a general concept, build the character yourself, and had them a truncated sheet with general details but no specific numbers. Thus they wouldn't know if they were playing easy mode or not, even if they looked up the Vrock.

[nockermensch]

Face it, you listen to the players arguments and demands, eyeball a DC, and add some modifier off the top of your head based on whatever else you think would affect the NPC's decision. That's MTP with trimmings. Noone can sit down ahead of time and work out the feats or bonuses they need to get specific results because the DC's and results change at the moment of the action. That is the opposite of a hard rules system.

Nope If you want to convince someone to do something specific too bad. There are no rules for that so you can't do it.

Man, part of me is sad because I didn't immediately answer Misty's post about NO MTP EVER. I'd call him on exactly "So does this mean all the social interactions in your games are resolved only by the three social skills?"

That would be yet another "Nockermensch is a psychic" call. I simply cannot exaggerate Misty's position enough in my head.

The other part of me is highly amused by the revelation that Misty creates a dialogue tree for every NPC that the party can interact with. Are those trees on paper, Misty? If yes, I'd be interested on seeing them. If not, how can you be sure that you're being truly "fair"?

[quanta]

Yeah, the "I only use the diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate rules themselves to resolve things with absolutely no MTP" is fucking hilarious.

He really does play D&D as a miniatures wargame where the party usually has a 4 to 1 advantage, and then brags about how awesome he is at D&D compared to basketweavers.

It's like bragging about how you're great at a version of chess where you usually get 4 turns for every 1 turn of the opponent but occasionally you get only 2 for their 1 and extremely rarely you play fairly. Bragging about being good at that just makes you look fucking dumb.

[Aryxbez]

So, what's bad about beefing up under-performing , so that their concept is all the more viable, having better ability to interact with the game, and tell stories with their desired concept again? I would imagine the game would be far more entertaining if everyone has more ability to interact, not less, after all, take away too much, and they may as well play 4th edition (or I guess that Warmachine RPG).

I've also found it odd people were stating what Frank was talking about with fighting off stuff stronger than you isn't awesome and empowering, God of War and Dark Souls as video games exist for this sort of thing.

[K]

I've also found it odd people were stating what Frank was talking about with fighting off stuff stronger than you isn't awesome and empowering, God of War and Dark Souls as video games exist for this sort of thing.

I haven't played those games, but I'd lay odds that they don't force you to make a new character and never get to complete a story every time you died.

As to whether fighting things well above your CR is fun, that's just a misconception. If you can consistently fight things well above your CR, it's because you have a great build and equipment and some help from the DM.... it's not like you are so personally awesome that you beat the odds every time while the DM is trying his best to kill your character. At best, the DM is just giving you the illusion that this is the case.

So while it may be fun to think that you as a player are so awesome that you can fight things that only higher level characters can take on, the truth is that your perception of the challenge is the important part and not actual power levels.

[John Magnum]

Right. God of War in particular has you fight a bunch of stuff that is super visually impressive and mythologically resonant, but which is actually NOT all that severe a challenge for your actual literal dexterity, mastery of move combos, visual acuity, etc. I think the series' inclination toward extensive use of QTEs fits in here somewhere, but I'm not sure how.

There's a difference between "fighting stuff that looks badass and is fuckhuge" and "fighting stuff that has a 90% chance of murdering you".

[quanta]

So, what's bad about beefing up under-performing , so that their concept is all the more viable, having better ability to interact with the game, and tell stories with their desired concept again? I would imagine the game would be far more entertaining if everyone has more ability to interact, not less, after all, take away too much, and they may as well play 4th edition (or I guess that Warmachine RPG).

No one in this thread is saying that this is bad. What we're saying is bad is punishing groups who can't or won't optimize to some level. Punishing them by repeatedly taking away their characters is removing their ability to meaningfully interact with the game.

I've also found it odd people were stating what Frank was talking about with fighting off stuff stronger than you isn't awesome and empowering, God of War and Dark Souls as video games exist for this sort of thing.

Uh.... God of War isn't empowering because it's hard or something. It's empowering because you can pretend that you're able to beat up titans thanks to shiny graphics and sound. There isn't really much of a meaning to dying last time I played anything in the series (compared to being TPK'd in D&D).

And although I haven't played dark souls, I've played demon souls some, and I wouldn't have chosen "empowering" to describe playing it. "Harder than most videogames" would be a good description. "Atmospheric". "Good Combat System". "Enjoyably frustrating in a perverse manner".

And even though the Souls series is less forgiving than most games, it's much more forgiving than being TPK'd in D&D. I died a lot of times in Demon Souls and never really suffered that big of a setback.

[Kaelik]

So, what's bad about beefing up under-performing , so that their concept is all the more viable, having better ability to interact with the game, and tell stories with their desired concept again? I would imagine the game would be far more entertaining if everyone has more ability to interact, not less, after all, take away too much, and they may as well play 4th edition (or I guess that Warmachine RPG).

What is "wrong" with that is that people will literally spit in your face if you ask them to play the Tome Monk instead of the PHB Monk.

[Stubbazubba]

So, what's bad about beefing up under-performing , so that their concept is all the more viable, having better ability to interact with the game, and tell stories with their desired concept again?

Nothing, that's a great idea, but that is not Mistborn's position. He keeps trying to slink away from it now and cozy up to Frank, but it was his initial position.

A page or two ago, Frank said that playing at a higher optimization level opens up the play space, while lower optimization restricts play space. K has pointed out that that's not necessarily true, as far as what kind of monsters people can fight, CR is completely arbitrary anyway. The other side of how he's wrong is that due to the rocket-launcher tag nature of high-op play, the viable builds decrease in number, so the number of choices is limited to those with a substantial number of defenses and counter-measures, encounter-ending abilities, etc., etc. That play space is not really that open, it's fairly narrow. From an RP perspective its certainly more restrictive than low-op play, where many more character concepts can be viable.

[Kaelik]

A page or two ago, Frank said that playing at a higher optimization level opens up the play space, while lower optimization restricts play space. K has pointed out that that's not necessarily true, as far as what kind of monsters people can fight, CR is completely arbitrary anyway. The other side of how he's wrong is that due to the rocket-launcher tag nature of high-op play, the viable builds decrease in number, so the number of choices is limited to those with a substantial number of defenses and counter-measures, encounter-ending abilities, etc., etc. That play space is not really that open, it's fairly narrow. From an RP perspective its certainly more restrictive than low-op play, where many more character concepts can be viable.

That is completely wrong. K described a position where "high CR" enemies are just low CR enemies with different names. That isn't actually a wider play space. That is the same play space.

High level enemies might require you to have counter measures, but counter measures are part of higher op character. And once you have that higher op character you can do more with it, including engage in scry or die, nation building, and battle field manipulation. You can also still kill Ogres and Giants, which are just big Orcs.

The play space is larger at higher optimization.

Maybe you could argue that if you did a whole lot of work re-writing the Monster Manual you might be able to match that play space, but you sure as fucking hell are wrong if you think low op has more play space.

[nockermensch]

So, what's bad about beefing up under-performing , so that their concept is all the more viable, having better ability to interact with the game, and tell stories with their desired concept again? I would imagine the game would be far more entertaining if everyone has more ability to interact, not less, after all, take away too much, and they may as well play 4th edition (or I guess that Warmachine RPG).

What is "wrong" with that is that people will literally spit in your face if you ask them to play the Tome Monk instead of the PHB Monk.

I've seen enough people worshiping at the altar of "official materials" to understand this kind of idiotic thinking.

Then again, I'm curious about what would happen in this scenario if you made a legit PHB monk? Monk 1/Druid X/Twinked PrC Y/etc is a valid monk build after all, being the epitome of those animal-name styles. Give the character about 6 levels and he'll be literally turning into a tiger (well, a panther or something) to pounce on people, without the need of DM-pity items.

Then, after you devastate encounters with your spells and shape-changingkung-fu, see if the DM is more open to a class that's not even that powerful.

[Kaelik]

Then again, I'm curious about what would happen in this scenario if you made a legit PHB monk? Monk 1/Druid X/Twinked PrC Y/etc is a valid monk build after all, being the epitome of those animal-name styles. Give the character about 6 levels and he'll be literally turning into a tiger (well, a panther or something) to pounce on people, without the need of DM-pity items.

Then, after you devastate encounters with your spells and shape-changingkung-fu, see if the DM is more open to a class that's not even that powerful.

You misunderstand. The problem is not that I can't play a character that is up to snuff, the problem is that there are people who want to play a Monk. And they do not want to play a Tome Monk, and they do not want to play a Monk 1/Druid X. They want to play a Monk.

And if you offer them a Monk 1/Druid X they will respond exactly the same way as they did to the Tome Monk.

All you can do is:

1) Murder them.
2) Play down to their actual op level.

[K]

High level enemies might require you to have counter measures, but counter measures are part of higher op character. And once you have that higher op character you can do more with it, including engage in scry or die, nation building, and battle field manipulation.

You do know that none of that stuff is limited to high-level and most is MTP anyway right?

Nation-building is pure MTP. Stuff like scry and die can be replicated by a few magic items or locations. Even things as exotic as "battlefield manipulation," whatever that means, by definition can be duplicated by magic items.

The play space in DnD is completely flat as long as you actually care about stories and not personal power. Low-level plane-hopping is just as accessible to someone with a knowledge of portals in Sigil as it is to a guy who can cast plane shift once a day as a spell-like. Stories about Magguffins that might destroy the world if plucky heroes don't intercede are available at level 1. Nation-building really can just be a series of quests where a nation happens at the end of the successful objectives.

Of course, if you assume that the "play space" is actually "things my character can personally do without any relation to the adventure or the DM," then I could see how low-level is limited for you.

On the flipside, playing past your CR is rarified air where there are only a few viable builds, so personal power narratives are actually more narrow if you do that.

[Kaelik]

Nation-building is pure MTP. Stuff like scry and die can be replicated by a few magic items or locations. Even things as exotic as "battlefield manipulation," whatever that means, by definition can be duplicated by magic items.

The play space in DnD is completely flat as long as you actually care about stories and not personal power. Low-level plane-hopping is just as accessible to someone with a knowledge of portals in Sigil as it is to a guy who can cast plane shift once a day as a spell-like. Stories about Magguffins that might destroy the world if plucky heroes don't intercede are available at level 1. Nation-building really can just be a series of quests where a nation happens at the end of the successful objectives.

1) Being able to cast planeshift is fundamentally different from running around to portals.

2) "Whatever the fuck battlefield control is" is where casters can cast things like Wall of Force/Web/Stinking Cloud that changes the battlefield, and 5 Monks can only move around hitting people within the existing field.

3) If your PCs are five Monks who have items that make them play like five Wizards of their CR, then they are really just five Wizards and you are allowing them to lie to themselves that they are playing Monks.

As I said, it might possibly be the case that if you put a whole lot of work into rewriting the entire MM, you can duplicate the play space of high level play with low level characters somewhat, but that is not naturally there, and it sure as fuck isn't a broader play space were you can fight green orcs and red orcs, but never any slaads/inevitables/demons/devils that have the qualities that make them what they are.

[nockermensch]

Then again, I'm curious about what would happen in this scenario if you made a legit PHB monk? Monk 1/Druid X/Twinked PrC Y/etc is a valid monk build after all, being the epitome of those animal-name styles. Give the character about 6 levels and he'll be literally turning into a tiger (well, a panther or something) to pounce on people, without the need of DM-pity items.

Then, after you devastate encounters with your spells and shape-changingkung-fu, see if the DM is more open to a class that's not even that powerful.

You misunderstand. The problem is not that I can't play a character that is up to snuff, the problem is that there are people who want to play a Monk. And they do not want to play a Tome Monk, and they do not want to play a Monk 1/Druid X. They want to play a Monk.

And if you offer them a Monk 1/Druid X they will respond exactly the same way as they did to the Tome Monk.

All you can do is:

1) Murder them.
2) Play down to their actual op level.

Part of me wants to believe this guy is a strawman, but the more cynical part knows that Misty and GC have their aggressive counterparts on the basketweaver camp.

I think that the big lesson here is that playing a game based on shared expectations will suck if you do it with people unwilling to compromisse towards a group consensus. In this case, fuck those people (choice 1) if they're just a single guy in your group, or fuck you (choice 2) if they're majority. The choice 3 ends being "don't play D&D", which can suck more.

But part of the blame for this is on the D&D books. The people writing D&D never actually understood their own game. That they could in 2000 write the monk class and not realize how it sucked is sad. That in 2003 they still didn't see that is tragic. And then, yeah, people with faith-based thinking see the monk right there besides clerics and wizards and believe that the class is inherently valid. They will then justify their failed thinking with appeals to authority.