Bards describing their arguments should be treated the same as fighters describing their attacks: flavor added to the mechanics in order to facilitate fun.
Wellllll....
The fighter doesn't just describe the move with the sword. The fighter also has to position in the proper place on the battlefield, maybe to attempt to get flanking, worry about an Attack of Opportunity upon moving, choose which weapon to use, etc. It's not just "I attack the orc." The DM will ask -- which orc, with which weapon, are you going to move into flanking position, etc. This is similar to asking the bard who says, "I want to persuade the merchant," What are you trying to persuade, what reasoning are you using for your argument, etc.
Remember, the fighter doesn't just say, "I kill the orc." He has to take specific actions, make a series of rolls (not just one) such as rolling to hit more than once, rolling for damage if he hits, and so on.
So it's not fair to say that the bard, by analogy, should be able to just make one persuade roll, without any other information, and just get the NPC to do what he wants on a success.
I think that just calls out the disparity in mechanical depth. The fight has a tactical map (maybe), rules that are concretely affected by position and range, weapon choices, action choices, and entire economies of replenishable resources...whereas social interaction only has whatever the DM improvises. Left to their own devices, I would always expect the bard to have way less tactical decision-making about how their rolls get applied. "I attack the fiend with my sword" is no better/worse than "I persuade the merchant to give me a lower price." "Flowery description of how you seduce the merchant" is on par with "flowery description of just where and how you stab the monster."
Maybe the DM has something bigger and more crunchy for the social PC to play with. Or maybe they have an optional sourcebook on social engineering to work with. But I'd say it's on them to set expectations about that. By the baseline books, the underlying mechanics of social stuff is drasticly simplistic.
Trying to build a character around a skillset you are explicitly massively deficient in is going to make for frustration. If you can't crack wise at the drop of a hat and talk rings around people, you can't play a rapier-witted silver-tongued Cap'n Jack Sparrow rapscallion. If you're terrible at holding information in your head, extrapolating from it, and making rapid leaps of logic and deduction, you can't play an always-prepared master arcanist-investigator who knows the perfect spell for every occasion. If you're terrible at visualization, focus, and fine attention to detail, you can't play a wise old sage who lives in serene, highly-aware harmony with everything around them. You cannot build a character whose primary defining traits are skills you have absolutely no capacity for and expect that character top simply make you an instant expert in those skills. Yes, you can absolutely try and push your limits, improve with those skills by making a character who's better at it than you are, but if you are badly deficient in a given skill, you don't get to 'push your limits' with a character defined by that skill. You're playing beyond your capabilities and your game will suffer for it.
Everybody has limits. I never get to play a bard because I don't have the performance talent for it. Yes yes, people will say "but that's the whole point of D&D - you can play a bard, you just roll Performance instead of performing!", like they always do every time I use that example. That's not me playing a bard, though. That's me chucking dice at the DM's head and demanding they bard for me. I don't get the satisfaction of having stirred my audience with a delightful performance, I simply push a button on my sheet and hope it does what I want it to. You know that firsthand, Wysp - I just got done pushing the "Play Music" button on Ilyara's control panel in Echolon's game, and the only person entertained was the not-a-sphinx who'd been sitting in sewer water for two years. I chucked dice and hoped it worked - nothing about that interaction involved me embodying the character's performance talent.
That's one of my limitations. Everybody has them. You can stretch them, but you can't break them without suffering.
You have gone too far. You can't "roll to think" but you can definitely "roll to act", as in be an actor. You are not required to crack wise when you cast Vicious Mockery. It might be fun if you do, but the entire game doesn't have to be "in quotes". You can say, "I insult his parents," in your own voice instead of, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries," in an outrageous French accent. You can say, "I lay the flattery on thick," as a way to request a Persuasion check. And the DM doesn't have to be a performer either. They can narrate the NPC's response.
As an aside some may find interesting: this is also why people keep shrieking for "SOCIAL GAMEPLAY RULES!" The people who are down for Roll To Think(TM) and skipping all the roleplaying would like mechanical systems they can lean on that tells them when they've 'won' a social encounter. They are, in effect, looking for combat rules for conversations, which is why many "Social Overhaul" systems people homebrew look a whole gorram lot like the combat engine. They're looking for social HP, social combat maneuvers, ways to reduce their enemies' social HP whilst restoring their own - they want to know the social system as well as they do the combat system, so they can gauge any given Social Battle and win it or not based strictly on their character's numbers rather than their own play.
Other tables don't need 'Social Gameplay Rules' because when it comes time to entreat the king, haggle with the local general-goods merchant, or negotiate with a band of raiders to try and avoid a bloodbath? They sit down and they talk to the DM. They substitute having a conversation with the DM for elaborate social combat rules because that's all any social encounter really is - having a conversation. A good DM will take the characters' background and abilities into account, absolutely - a character born to nobility and who understands the machinations of court will have an easier time entreating the king, a folk hero who's well known as the champion of the people will not find it difficult to get good deals from the general goods merchant, and the party's token Criminal will best know how to convince a bunch of evil reprobates that it's in everyone's best interest to Not Start Shit.
But whether you're having a first-person, in-character conversation with the NPCs directly or whether you're describing the stance you take and the kind of arguments you make, you need to be having a conversation with your GM. Agitating for a roll because you-the-player are uncomfortable in the situation and you're afraid you'll mess it up with your own low IRL numbers goes back to BioWizard's thing about comfort zones - and frankly, I'd argue that some degree of worry over whether you're going to **** up a tense negotiation with powerful figures, whether those are kings, influential local merchants, or 20+ bandit robbers about to **** up your life if you blow it, is a good thing.
And again - I'm not saying nobody can ever take Persuasion proficiency if they've never been a professional speaker. I'm saying that if you-the-player are socially inept, hate talking to people, and despise being in the limelight? Making a character that is, themself, a professional public speaker who delights in attention and could charm the pants off Asmodeus is a recipe for Table Issues. No matter how hard you try and exclude the player from the game, how hard you try and make sure the only thing that ever possibly matters is the character? The character is a piece of paper and/or a digital document. It cannot think. The player thinks for the character, and must be able to back up what's on their sheet. Distasteful as it is for many, that is reality. It cannot be argued with, only worked around. Chucking dice at your GM's head and demanding they play your character for you because you built a character you can't handle is unfair to the GM, it's unfair to the players at your table who brought their own personal player brains and are trying to play D&D, and it's unfair to you.
Bards describing their arguments should be treated the same as fighters describing their attacks: flavor added to the mechanics in order to facilitate fun.
Wellllll....
The fighter doesn't just describe the move with the sword. The fighter also has to position in the proper place on the battlefield, maybe to attempt to get flanking, worry about an Attack of Opportunity upon moving, choose which weapon to use, etc. It's not just "I attack the orc." The DM will ask -- which orc, with which weapon, are you going to move into flanking position, etc. This is similar to asking the bard who says, "I want to persuade the merchant," What are you trying to persuade, what reasoning are you using for your argument, etc.
Remember, the fighter doesn't just say, "I kill the orc." He has to take specific actions, make a series of rolls (not just one) such as rolling to hit more than once, rolling for damage if he hits, and so on.
So it's not fair to say that the bard, by analogy, should be able to just make one persuade roll, without any other information, and just get the NPC to do what he wants on a success.
Never heard positioning your character on a map as being any form of advanced tactics. There are cover rules and the like, sure but rarely in play and not really relevant to any debate. A fighter does not have to specify any given combat style. There is no Inigo vs Wesley style banter expected, explaining every combat move, nor is this an MMO where you have to sequence specific maneuvers in combos for maximum effectiveness.
Maybe your campaigns are different but I would shudder at any campaign where fighters have to describe their actions in the level of detail most arguments require. Sure they make a series of rolls, but what is the alternative for social 'combat?' Some sort of social hit points?
Actually, Fighters should describe their attacks. It makes the game more immersive and vivid. But this is flavor. It doesn't effect their outcome if they describe a grand spinning move attack that would actually be terrible martial arts, telegraphing their attack and leaving their back open. The same should go for Bards. I don't care if you stumble over your words and umm and uh, roll Persuasion and add that +12 modifier.
But whether you're having a first-person, in-character conversation with the NPCs directly or whether you're describing the stance you take and the kind of arguments you make, you need to be having a conversation with your GM. Agitating for a roll because you-the-player are uncomfortable in the situation and you're afraid you'll mess it up with your own low IRL numbers goes back to BioWizard's thing about comfort zones - and frankly, I'd argue that some degree of worry over whether you're going to **** up a tense negotiation with powerful figures, whether those are kings, influential local merchants, or 20+ bandit robbers about to **** up your life if you blow it, is a good thing.
Yes, you need to have a conversation, but if you are not using first-person style, there is literally no way you can "mess it up" by blurting out the wrong thing. You get to take your time, say everything you're trying to say, and even retroactively edit out what you didn't mean to say. It doesn't matter if your presentation is rambling and takes time to get to the point. The DM should take the best of your argument and assume that's what you delivered, provided you get a good roll.
You still have to know what the king wants, and how you can give it to him or what would make him believe you can, but that doesn't require being a charismatic person yourself.
Sure, if you're so introverted that you don't like to talk at the table at all, other than single sentences like, "I attack the orc," then don't play a social character. And if you have so little personal proficiency in Insight that you can't understand other people's motivations, it will be a challenge. But a Charisma 7 player can absolutely play a Charisma 17 character.
I been playing since 1980, players been ROLL playing since before I got into the hobby. There always people wanting a Skill, Abilitu ARRGH a roll of Dice to decide an out come instead of doing that verbal role playing stuff. How acceptable it is depends on the group.
...Players and DMs both who substitute rolls of the dice for any of the steps in the loop are bad and should work on improving...... UM NO. This just saying people who don't game like you are having BADWRONGFUN. Ain't no one alive or dead who can honestly act like 777 year old elf who cast lighting bolts out their eyes.
And again - I'm not saying nobody can ever take Persuasion proficiency if they've never been a professional speaker. I'm saying that if you-the-player are socially inept, hate talking to people, and despise being in the limelight? Making a character that is, themself, a professional public speaker who delights in attention and could charm the pants off Asmodeus is a recipe for Table Issues. No matter how hard you try and exclude the player from the game, how hard you try and make sure the only thing that ever possibly matters is the character? The character is a piece of paper and/or a digital document. It cannot think. The player thinks for the character, and must be able to back up what's on their sheet. Distasteful as it is for many, that is reality. It cannot be argued with, only worked around. Chucking dice at your GM's head and demanding they play your character for you because you built a character you can't handle is unfair to the GM, it's unfair to the players at your table who brought their own personal player brains and are trying to play D&D, and it's unfair to you.
Just don't do it.
I would agree that if a player is not comfortable with a certain character's style, they shouldn't have to play that character, but that would only be in the case where they are given a character they didn't make or something. If a socially inept person wants to try and play a suave charmer and creates such a character that indicates a certain level of buy in. If they want to stretch their creativity and flex their roleplaying muscles they shouldn't be discouraged from doing so. They should work with their DM, but the DM should absolutely allow them to describe their actions OOC and call for a dice roll. Telling them "just don't do it" is kind of another form a gatekeeping the hobby, is it not?
I mean if you're talking about a person who doesn't even want to do even the minimal amount of description and just uses social Skills as if it were a video game mind control button? Okay I see your point, but even then it's not "don't roleplay" it's "stop doing that."
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Maybe your campaigns are different but I would shudder at any campaign where fighters have to describe their actions in the level of detail most arguments require. Sure they make a series of rolls, but what is the alternative for social 'combat?' Some sort of social hit points?
Who said what level of detail I require of someone to make an argument?
There's actually a very cool system for doing this in Savage Worlds called a Dramatic Task. But there is no mechanism for it in D&D, which is possibly part of the problem. The bard's Persuasion check is a single roll with a lot of RP around it, nearly all of which has zero rules or mechanics, whereas the fighter's options are carefully and fully specc'ed out in the rules.
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Maybe your campaigns are different but I would shudder at any campaign where fighters have to describe their actions in the level of detail most arguments require. Sure they make a series of rolls, but what is the alternative for social 'combat?' Some sort of social hit points?
Who said what level of detail I require of someone to make an argument?
There's actually a very cool system for doing this in Savage Worlds called a Dramatic Task. But there is no mechanism for it in D&D, which is possibly part of the problem. The bard's Persuasion check is a single roll with a lot of RP around it, nearly all of which has zero rules or mechanics, whereas the fighter's options are carefully and fully specc'ed out in the rules.
Not familiar with Dramatic Task or Savage World, but I think I get it and I think this is what players and GMs want in terms of "social mechanics" rather than whatever Yurei is arguing against.
(this whole thread, like the last time it came up seems to be more a non problem for many tables and I don't see a fragile brittle Angry DM rant bringing much new to the table but some sort of my way or the highway - which isn't really gatekeeping so much as broadcasting "AngryDM doesn't play well with many forms of others." Again Ginny Di models how playing INT/WIS/CHR outside your natural ability in about a minute per stat, in fashion much more digestible than a rant).
Combat takes a lot of rolls to resolve whereas a trial, probate proceeding, or a treaty negotiation, a courtship (arguably a form of treaty negotiation), trade deal etc. comes down to a much simpler skill check even though there is generally a lot more nuance involved. I'm thinking of Tyranny of Dragons where the characters are supposed to be involved in the politics of the FR factions as well as the metallic dragons. It really reads like there should be a "political game" there that could exist within the rules where different levels of favor are curried (my thinking is currently colored by Delta Green's "resources" rules which sometimes means money but more often involves working connections which get "spent", and they're are even rules for "official review" which may harm a Agent/players ability to work their for their ends in the future) ... basically there's at least two "Council of Elrond" type moment in the adventure but it kinda goes fizzle since the design seems to be basically just "talk it out" (as poor contrast there's a "cut" section of BG:DiA in a DMsGuildProduct where the players are basically required to role play recount all that they've done and be examined by Candlekeeps High Readers or whatever they're called).
There's also the presumption that the DM and players who think of themselves as more intellectually and socially adept than other players when it's simply not the case. The game is the tables imagination and the stuff on the sheets of paper, gamers broadly both use the latter to see what can be done with the former and vice versa.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
When someone comes to me as the DM with a character concept, I don't ask if they have real life experience. I don't ask someone who wants to play a Ranger if they have ever done any camping. I don't expect my Barbarians to be descended from a Barbarian tribe, and I don't ask if the guy who wants to play a Rogue has a rap sheet. I like the idea of playing Bards, but I'm no rock star. I come into the game because I think it's fun to be something that I am not in the real world.
"Just don't do it." isn't a satisfactory answer. By that metric, I shouldn't play D&D at all. In fact, I shouldn't play roleplaying games.
I read the Angry DM's article. He said that basically, the DM has to prepare every single detail the players might want to know ahead of time and then he said that the DM shouldn't let the players make any checks. He said make everything a Passive check, and pass along information based on what the players do. So if there's a really hard to find secret door, normally what you do is set a DC and let the player roll dice, The Angry DM says that if they can't find it to start with, and nobody happens to look in just the right place, too bad. He also said that the DM should discourage teamwork, and make everyone describe what they do and the DM once again, makes passive check. Apparently, the Angry DM doesn't think that the players should roll dice in a dice based roleplaying game.
In my example with the Bard, I must have run into someone who read that article. Normally you are supposed to roleplay and hope that the DM will let you make a check. I did that, but instead of letting me make the check, I was stopped. "What song did you sing?" I had no idea. By the system the Angry DM has, since I didn't come up with a name for the song, I they might just say I failed, they might ask me to try a different way, or they might, if feeling generous, make a passive check for me.
I believe, that when I was asked for a song, I should have been able to roll a check with my Charisma and pick a song out of thin air. My character ought to know a lot of songs that I don't. Or better yet, just use the rules as they are, and let me make a Persuasion Check. That would have been fine with me.
First of all, OODA is not a process used in a fighter jet, it is for Operational Planning. It is a quick process and the key is for your OODA loop to be tighter (faster) than your enemy so you can act before they can react. We're talking battles here not shooting someone.
The fight jet is a constant analogy in training folks on the OODA loop, and I can assure you it has and continues to be used as a way to train mindset in things as diverse as close quarters battle and hand to hand defensive tactics. It's not a universal teaching point, and as I've argued I don't think it's entirely appropriate, but it is used to explain the cognitive psychology of a shooter in a gun fight. And yes, it is also used as a reductive game theory for broader forms of warfare and antagonistic operations (from political campaigning to simple competition). So we are actually talking battles, elections, and shooting someone in the OODA loops proliferation as a training point. I mean just google "OODA loop" and "police shooting" and you'll see it's integration is something a little more intimate space than organizational tactical planning.
EDIT: as favor, here's a simple article (like a frightening guns for dummies one) showing OODA Loop being applied to gunfighter/shoot no shoot thinking. Interesting to note it credits Boyd as the original formulator of the OODA Loop, which is something he developed out of his experience of what he thought he was doing in aerial dogfights ... so you were saying?
For game terms, I suggest a hybrid of what has been discussed. The player can use their own RP to advocate a charisma check and that argument can be used by the DM to grant advantage or disadvantage to a roll made by the player. This allows both aspects to be involved and you can have a great argument, but still fail and vice-versa. Luck matters in everything, just ask any military planner.
I don't think you need to suggest it, as I think the balanced between player generated 'RP' and "what's on paper" is in fact how by far the majority of folks play. the game. Outlier moments happen when a player may want to simply roll for everything because there's lot of plusses on their sheet, and other players want to talk at table their way through everything ignoring the consequences of a dump stat, and in those instances the table brings said player more in line with how the table plays.
A Dramatic Task in Savage Worlds is kind of like a Skill Challenge from 4e. The party has to gain a certain number of "successes" in a certain number of rounds. Players each decide what skill or ability they want to do as part of the task -- one might persuade, one might intimidate, one might deceive, one might punch someone in the face. It allows each PC to play to his/her strengths.
You could do something like this in D&D with a 4e style skill challenge. The party is in a courtroom and has to persuade the judge that they are Not Guilty vs. a prosecutor NPC. Each player has to use some skill or other and get 4 successes before 3 failures. That kind of thing.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I can use a skill I don't have in real life to handle an animal. I can use Persuasion to a degree I am not capable of in the real world. My character may be able to pick open locks, and that is something I was never trained to do. I've never used weapon in battle, but my Fighter sure has.
So yes, I don't think there is anything wrong with Rolling To Think as a last resort.
And just to add to this, I swear, the majority of folks who play rangers are people who like the idea but have never bin in anything resembling wilderness in their lives and think that maps are just pretty pictures....
Most people live in urban areas and/or haven't been hiking. You can't really blame them for having no personal "wilderness" experience. Additionally, the ranger/archer (Strider/Legolas/Robin Hood etc) appeals to a great number of folk. So you get Rangers with experience only from what they have seen in movies or read in books.
A Dramatic Task in Savage Worlds is kind of like a Skill Challenge from 4e. The party has to gain a certain number of "successes" in a certain number of rounds. Players each decide what skill or ability they want to do as part of the task -- one might persuade, one might intimidate, one might deceive, one might punch someone in the face. It allows each PC to play to his/her strengths.
You could do something like this in D&D with a 4e style skill challenge. The party is in a courtroom and has to persuade the judge that they are Not Guilty vs. a prosecutor NPC. Each player has to use some skill or other and get 4 successes before 3 failures. That kind of thing.
Got it, and agree they're cool, though 4e style skill challenges aren't officially a thing in 5e. I mean I know they're quite a number of people (Colville, etc.) with videos on how to improve your game advising incorporating them. But I don't know if your average Tyranny of Dragons DM wanting to run the adventure "out of the box" isn't necessarily going to go down the D&D YouTube rabbit hole to discover porting ideas from other game systems. I guess I'm saying that 5e has had opportunities to push this sort of thinking of bridging playing mechanics and "improv acting" but the rules only go as far as downtime activities in Xanathar's. I play around with the skill challenges as a group thing on everything from social interaction to even chase scenes. But that's "just something we do" as opposed to something 5e explicitly encourages.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I can use a skill I don't have in real life to handle an animal. I can use Persuasion to a degree I am not capable of in the real world. My character may be able to pick open locks, and that is something I was never trained to do. I've never used weapon in battle, but my Fighter sure has.
So yes, I don't think there is anything wrong with Rolling To Think as a last resort.
And just to add to this, I swear, the majority of folks who play rangers are people who like the idea but have never bin in anything resembling wilderness in their lives and think that maps are just pretty pictures....
Most people live in urban areas and/or haven't been hiking. You can't really blame them for having no personal "wilderness" experience. Additionally, the ranger/archer (Strider/Legolas/Robin Hood etc) appeals to a great number of folk. So you get Rangers with experience only from what they have seen in movies or read in books.
You want to be a wizard? Can you even pull a rabbit out of a hat, bro?
Right, but that is actual magic. It is, as you say, something that cannot be done in the real world. Having some clue how real world things work does help playing them though.
It sort of does ... but can also really bog the game. Do you want to track, kill, dress, prepare, eat, and preserve an animal or "do a survival check to see if you all eat tonight". (Passing though, has anyone ever played in a scenario where food was found but not enough for everyone, how'd that play out?). I mean, maybe? Depending on how much I wanted the idea of adequate nutrition to be a potential threat or something for the characters to be mindful of in game.
Let's also remember the game does have a baseline construction as quite literal "childs play" and you can only expect so much from someone who might have done Scout camp vs someone who's been through SERE school (and let's presume the bulk of players have like a "Oregon Trail" grasp of the matter). So the beauty of 5e is it puts a lot on the DM and players to figure out how to accomplish things with the game, but a problem of 5e is that it puts a lot on the DM and players to figure out how to accomplish things with the game. The DM also has limitations no matter who they are.
It's fiction in the end, so what's needed is verisimilitude and the mechanics to support that. Maybe the avalanche rules in RotFM don't really make sense to someone trained in mountain rescue, but they make for good game. The question is how much should the game provide to support that verisimilitude within the system. Prior editions did get pretty deep into ecosystem and cavern construction in the Wilderness and Dungeoneers Survival Guide (apparently the original Manual of the Planes was actually thought of as a the third part of a trilogy that added "realism" to the games though the Planes book clearly is about making fantastic metaphysics matter much the way Wilderness and Dungeoneer wanted to make the outdoors or under dark _mean_ more to the game through rules). As for social/political, other games do this marvelously, I don't feel D&D has every really done it much service beyond window dressing and personalities to witness.
Don't need that level of detail. However if I, as a DM, draw a map (or even present one from a published module), it doesn't help at all if no one among the players can actually read it properly.
I don't know if this is entirely on topic. Are you saying map reading is a prerequisite skill to the game? Maybe ... though going back to the child's play thing, I'd argue map reading is a thing TTRPG can develop competency in, with a DM who is well aware of the limits of their own, and their game aids', fallibility. You realize most folks in whatever pseudo historical period D&D is based on actually didn't use maps so much as received verbal guidance and adherence to landmarks, right? I mean plenty of folks wandered the world with a sense of where they were before mass production of maps was a thing. Maps mattered and arguably still matter as a delineation of power more than a navigation tool. Navigationally, we live largely "post map," for better or worse today where the map is consulted as a background task by whatever navigational equipment we may have (which can make recourse to data not readily rendered on a 2D map) so the fact that some folks have lost the ability to negotiate a two dimensional rendering of geography is more something a DM needs to work with and build on than complain about, unless you want a perpetually frustrated game.
Don't get me wrong, I think maps are cool, at least good maps are. TTRPGs are filled with plenty of frustrating maps though, so this might be a bit more equivocal on the hate the player or hate the game(designer) scale.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Don't need that level of detail. However if I, as a DM, draw a map (or even present one from a published module), it doesn't help at all if no one among the players can actually read it properly.
I don't know if this is entirely on topic. Are you saying map reading is a prerequisite skill to the game? Maybe ... though going back to the child's play thing, I'd argue map reading is a thing TTRPG can develop competency in, with a DM who is well aware of the limits of their own, and their game aids', fallibility. You realize most folks in whatever pseudo historical period D&D is based on actually didn't use maps so much as received verbal guidance and adherence to landmarks, right? I mean plenty of folks wandered the world with a sense of where they were before mass production of maps was a thing. Maps mattered and arguably still matter as a delineation of power more than a navigation tool. Navigationally, we live largely "post map," for better or worse today where the map is consulted as a background task by whatever navigational equipment we may have (which can make recourse to data not readily rendered on a 2D map) so the fact that some folks have lost the ability to negotiate a two dimensional rendering of geography is more something a DM needs to work with and build on than complain about, unless you want a perpetually frustrated game.
Don't get me wrong, I think maps are cool, at least good maps are. TTRPGs are filled with plenty of frustrating maps though, so this might be a bit more equivocal on the hate the player or hate the game(designer) scale.
No, I am not saying that it is a required skill. It is merely an old lament on my part and an observation that those unable to read maps seem those most likely to play characters most expected to be able to read maps.
I dunno if Rangers = map readers. I think the most romantic versions of them have them being able to "read the land" I just don't remember Aragorn holding the fellowship up to consult the map, he knew the land because Strider strode it. I've played "mapless" where I'd work with the "survival" oriented characters to work off landmark reckoning and the like.
But anyway, to circle back to this thread's main thrust, if you have a player who wasn't the most competent at reading a map at the table but wanted to play a Ranger/Explorer character, would you discourage their choice or negotiate a way for the character to play who they want their character to be?
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
But anyway, to circle back to this thread's main thrust, if you have a player who wasn't the most competent at reading a map at the table but wanted to play a Ranger/Explorer character, would you discourage their choice or negotiate a way for the character to play who they want their character to be?
I have never discouraged them from playing a ranger but rather after the fact encouraged them to learn more about the kinds of things their character is trying, especially in any situation they seem particularly confused.
I remember this was one of the benefits for playing in the ol' public library back in the day. It felt more in the spirit of the game than saying "You really need to YouTube some wilderness skills, boss" but yeah, one of the benefits of TTRPG is the tacit encouragement for both players and DMs to learn how stuff works. And now we have mechanics to reward such inspired play, so to speak.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
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I think that just calls out the disparity in mechanical depth. The fight has a tactical map (maybe), rules that are concretely affected by position and range, weapon choices, action choices, and entire economies of replenishable resources...whereas social interaction only has whatever the DM improvises. Left to their own devices, I would always expect the bard to have way less tactical decision-making about how their rolls get applied. "I attack the fiend with my sword" is no better/worse than "I persuade the merchant to give me a lower price." "Flowery description of how you seduce the merchant" is on par with "flowery description of just where and how you stab the monster."
Maybe the DM has something bigger and more crunchy for the social PC to play with. Or maybe they have an optional sourcebook on social engineering to work with. But I'd say it's on them to set expectations about that. By the baseline books, the underlying mechanics of social stuff is drasticly simplistic.
You have gone too far. You can't "roll to think" but you can definitely "roll to act", as in be an actor. You are not required to crack wise when you cast Vicious Mockery. It might be fun if you do, but the entire game doesn't have to be "in quotes". You can say, "I insult his parents," in your own voice instead of, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries," in an outrageous French accent. You can say, "I lay the flattery on thick," as a way to request a Persuasion check. And the DM doesn't have to be a performer either. They can narrate the NPC's response.
As an aside some may find interesting: this is also why people keep shrieking for "SOCIAL GAMEPLAY RULES!" The people who are down for Roll To Think(TM) and skipping all the roleplaying would like mechanical systems they can lean on that tells them when they've 'won' a social encounter. They are, in effect, looking for combat rules for conversations, which is why many "Social Overhaul" systems people homebrew look a whole gorram lot like the combat engine. They're looking for social HP, social combat maneuvers, ways to reduce their enemies' social HP whilst restoring their own - they want to know the social system as well as they do the combat system, so they can gauge any given Social Battle and win it or not based strictly on their character's numbers rather than their own play.
Other tables don't need 'Social Gameplay Rules' because when it comes time to entreat the king, haggle with the local general-goods merchant, or negotiate with a band of raiders to try and avoid a bloodbath? They sit down and they talk to the DM. They substitute having a conversation with the DM for elaborate social combat rules because that's all any social encounter really is - having a conversation. A good DM will take the characters' background and abilities into account, absolutely - a character born to nobility and who understands the machinations of court will have an easier time entreating the king, a folk hero who's well known as the champion of the people will not find it difficult to get good deals from the general goods merchant, and the party's token Criminal will best know how to convince a bunch of evil reprobates that it's in everyone's best interest to Not Start Shit.
But whether you're having a first-person, in-character conversation with the NPCs directly or whether you're describing the stance you take and the kind of arguments you make, you need to be having a conversation with your GM. Agitating for a roll because you-the-player are uncomfortable in the situation and you're afraid you'll mess it up with your own low IRL numbers goes back to BioWizard's thing about comfort zones - and frankly, I'd argue that some degree of worry over whether you're going to **** up a tense negotiation with powerful figures, whether those are kings, influential local merchants, or 20+ bandit robbers about to **** up your life if you blow it, is a good thing.
And again - I'm not saying nobody can ever take Persuasion proficiency if they've never been a professional speaker. I'm saying that if you-the-player are socially inept, hate talking to people, and despise being in the limelight? Making a character that is, themself, a professional public speaker who delights in attention and could charm the pants off Asmodeus is a recipe for Table Issues. No matter how hard you try and exclude the player from the game, how hard you try and make sure the only thing that ever possibly matters is the character? The character is a piece of paper and/or a digital document. It cannot think. The player thinks for the character, and must be able to back up what's on their sheet. Distasteful as it is for many, that is reality. It cannot be argued with, only worked around. Chucking dice at your GM's head and demanding they play your character for you because you built a character you can't handle is unfair to the GM, it's unfair to the players at your table who brought their own personal player brains and are trying to play D&D, and it's unfair to you.
Just don't do it.
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Actually, Fighters should describe their attacks. It makes the game more immersive and vivid. But this is flavor. It doesn't effect their outcome if they describe a grand spinning move attack that would actually be terrible martial arts, telegraphing their attack and leaving their back open. The same should go for Bards. I don't care if you stumble over your words and umm and uh, roll Persuasion and add that +12 modifier.
Yes, you need to have a conversation, but if you are not using first-person style, there is literally no way you can "mess it up" by blurting out the wrong thing. You get to take your time, say everything you're trying to say, and even retroactively edit out what you didn't mean to say. It doesn't matter if your presentation is rambling and takes time to get to the point. The DM should take the best of your argument and assume that's what you delivered, provided you get a good roll.
You still have to know what the king wants, and how you can give it to him or what would make him believe you can, but that doesn't require being a charismatic person yourself.
Sure, if you're so introverted that you don't like to talk at the table at all, other than single sentences like, "I attack the orc," then don't play a social character. And if you have so little personal proficiency in Insight that you can't understand other people's motivations, it will be a challenge. But a Charisma 7 player can absolutely play a Charisma 17 character.
I been playing since 1980, players been ROLL playing since before I got into the hobby. There always people wanting a
Skill, Abilitu ARRGHa roll of Dice to decide an out come instead of doing that verbal role playing stuff. How acceptable it is depends on the group....Players and DMs both who substitute rolls of the dice for any of the steps in the loop are bad and should work on improving...... UM NO. This just saying people who don't game like you are having BADWRONGFUN. Ain't no one alive or dead who can honestly act like 777 year old elf who cast lighting bolts out their eyes.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
I would agree that if a player is not comfortable with a certain character's style, they shouldn't have to play that character, but that would only be in the case where they are given a character they didn't make or something. If a socially inept person wants to try and play a suave charmer and creates such a character that indicates a certain level of buy in. If they want to stretch their creativity and flex their roleplaying muscles they shouldn't be discouraged from doing so. They should work with their DM, but the DM should absolutely allow them to describe their actions OOC and call for a dice roll. Telling them "just don't do it" is kind of another form a gatekeeping the hobby, is it not?
I mean if you're talking about a person who doesn't even want to do even the minimal amount of description and just uses social Skills as if it were a video game mind control button? Okay I see your point, but even then it's not "don't roleplay" it's "stop doing that."
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Who said what level of detail I require of someone to make an argument?
There's actually a very cool system for doing this in Savage Worlds called a Dramatic Task. But there is no mechanism for it in D&D, which is possibly part of the problem. The bard's Persuasion check is a single roll with a lot of RP around it, nearly all of which has zero rules or mechanics, whereas the fighter's options are carefully and fully specc'ed out in the rules.
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Not familiar with Dramatic Task or Savage World, but I think I get it and I think this is what players and GMs want in terms of "social mechanics" rather than whatever Yurei is arguing against.
(this whole thread, like the last time it came up seems to be more a non problem for many tables and I don't see a fragile brittle Angry DM rant bringing much new to the table but some sort of my way or the highway - which isn't really gatekeeping so much as broadcasting "AngryDM doesn't play well with many forms of others." Again Ginny Di models how playing INT/WIS/CHR outside your natural ability in about a minute per stat, in fashion much more digestible than a rant).
Combat takes a lot of rolls to resolve whereas a trial, probate proceeding, or a treaty negotiation, a courtship (arguably a form of treaty negotiation), trade deal etc. comes down to a much simpler skill check even though there is generally a lot more nuance involved. I'm thinking of Tyranny of Dragons where the characters are supposed to be involved in the politics of the FR factions as well as the metallic dragons. It really reads like there should be a "political game" there that could exist within the rules where different levels of favor are curried (my thinking is currently colored by Delta Green's "resources" rules which sometimes means money but more often involves working connections which get "spent", and they're are even rules for "official review" which may harm a Agent/players ability to work their for their ends in the future) ... basically there's at least two "Council of Elrond" type moment in the adventure but it kinda goes fizzle since the design seems to be basically just "talk it out" (as poor contrast there's a "cut" section of BG:DiA in a DMsGuildProduct where the players are basically required to role play recount all that they've done and be examined by Candlekeeps High Readers or whatever they're called).
There's also the presumption that the DM and players who think of themselves as more intellectually and socially adept than other players when it's simply not the case. The game is the tables imagination and the stuff on the sheets of paper, gamers broadly both use the latter to see what can be done with the former and vice versa.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
When someone comes to me as the DM with a character concept, I don't ask if they have real life experience. I don't ask someone who wants to play a Ranger if they have ever done any camping. I don't expect my Barbarians to be descended from a Barbarian tribe, and I don't ask if the guy who wants to play a Rogue has a rap sheet. I like the idea of playing Bards, but I'm no rock star. I come into the game because I think it's fun to be something that I am not in the real world.
"Just don't do it." isn't a satisfactory answer. By that metric, I shouldn't play D&D at all. In fact, I shouldn't play roleplaying games.
I read the Angry DM's article. He said that basically, the DM has to prepare every single detail the players might want to know ahead of time and then he said that the DM shouldn't let the players make any checks. He said make everything a Passive check, and pass along information based on what the players do. So if there's a really hard to find secret door, normally what you do is set a DC and let the player roll dice, The Angry DM says that if they can't find it to start with, and nobody happens to look in just the right place, too bad. He also said that the DM should discourage teamwork, and make everyone describe what they do and the DM once again, makes passive check. Apparently, the Angry DM doesn't think that the players should roll dice in a dice based roleplaying game.
In my example with the Bard, I must have run into someone who read that article. Normally you are supposed to roleplay and hope that the DM will let you make a check. I did that, but instead of letting me make the check, I was stopped. "What song did you sing?" I had no idea. By the system the Angry DM has, since I didn't come up with a name for the song, I they might just say I failed, they might ask me to try a different way, or they might, if feeling generous, make a passive check for me.
I believe, that when I was asked for a song, I should have been able to roll a check with my Charisma and pick a song out of thin air. My character ought to know a lot of songs that I don't. Or better yet, just use the rules as they are, and let me make a Persuasion Check. That would have been fine with me.
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The fight jet is a constant analogy in training folks on the OODA loop, and I can assure you it has and continues to be used as a way to train mindset in things as diverse as close quarters battle and hand to hand defensive tactics. It's not a universal teaching point, and as I've argued I don't think it's entirely appropriate, but it is used to explain the cognitive psychology of a shooter in a gun fight. And yes, it is also used as a reductive game theory for broader forms of warfare and antagonistic operations (from political campaigning to simple competition). So we are actually talking battles, elections, and shooting someone in the OODA loops proliferation as a training point. I mean just google "OODA loop" and "police shooting" and you'll see it's integration is something a little more intimate space than organizational tactical planning.
EDIT: as favor, here's a simple article (like a frightening guns for dummies one) showing OODA Loop being applied to gunfighter/shoot no shoot thinking. Interesting to note it credits Boyd as the original formulator of the OODA Loop, which is something he developed out of his experience of what he thought he was doing in aerial dogfights ... so you were saying?
I don't think you need to suggest it, as I think the balanced between player generated 'RP' and "what's on paper" is in fact how by far the majority of folks play. the game. Outlier moments happen when a player may want to simply roll for everything because there's lot of plusses on their sheet, and other players want to talk at table their way through everything ignoring the consequences of a dump stat, and in those instances the table brings said player more in line with how the table plays.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
A Dramatic Task in Savage Worlds is kind of like a Skill Challenge from 4e. The party has to gain a certain number of "successes" in a certain number of rounds. Players each decide what skill or ability they want to do as part of the task -- one might persuade, one might intimidate, one might deceive, one might punch someone in the face. It allows each PC to play to his/her strengths.
You could do something like this in D&D with a 4e style skill challenge. The party is in a courtroom and has to persuade the judge that they are Not Guilty vs. a prosecutor NPC. Each player has to use some skill or other and get 4 successes before 3 failures. That kind of thing.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Most people live in urban areas and/or haven't been hiking. You can't really blame them for having no personal "wilderness" experience. Additionally, the ranger/archer (Strider/Legolas/Robin Hood etc) appeals to a great number of folk. So you get Rangers with experience only from what they have seen in movies or read in books.
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Got it, and agree they're cool, though 4e style skill challenges aren't officially a thing in 5e. I mean I know they're quite a number of people (Colville, etc.) with videos on how to improve your game advising incorporating them. But I don't know if your average Tyranny of Dragons DM wanting to run the adventure "out of the box" isn't necessarily going to go down the D&D YouTube rabbit hole to discover porting ideas from other game systems. I guess I'm saying that 5e has had opportunities to push this sort of thinking of bridging playing mechanics and "improv acting" but the rules only go as far as downtime activities in Xanathar's. I play around with the skill challenges as a group thing on everything from social interaction to even chase scenes. But that's "just something we do" as opposed to something 5e explicitly encourages.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
You want to be a wizard? Can you even pull a rabbit out of a hat, bro?
It sort of does ... but can also really bog the game. Do you want to track, kill, dress, prepare, eat, and preserve an animal or "do a survival check to see if you all eat tonight". (Passing though, has anyone ever played in a scenario where food was found but not enough for everyone, how'd that play out?). I mean, maybe? Depending on how much I wanted the idea of adequate nutrition to be a potential threat or something for the characters to be mindful of in game.
Let's also remember the game does have a baseline construction as quite literal "childs play" and you can only expect so much from someone who might have done Scout camp vs someone who's been through SERE school (and let's presume the bulk of players have like a "Oregon Trail" grasp of the matter). So the beauty of 5e is it puts a lot on the DM and players to figure out how to accomplish things with the game, but a problem of 5e is that it puts a lot on the DM and players to figure out how to accomplish things with the game. The DM also has limitations no matter who they are.
It's fiction in the end, so what's needed is verisimilitude and the mechanics to support that. Maybe the avalanche rules in RotFM don't really make sense to someone trained in mountain rescue, but they make for good game. The question is how much should the game provide to support that verisimilitude within the system. Prior editions did get pretty deep into ecosystem and cavern construction in the Wilderness and Dungeoneers Survival Guide (apparently the original Manual of the Planes was actually thought of as a the third part of a trilogy that added "realism" to the games though the Planes book clearly is about making fantastic metaphysics matter much the way Wilderness and Dungeoneer wanted to make the outdoors or under dark _mean_ more to the game through rules). As for social/political, other games do this marvelously, I don't feel D&D has every really done it much service beyond window dressing and personalities to witness.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I don't know if this is entirely on topic. Are you saying map reading is a prerequisite skill to the game? Maybe ... though going back to the child's play thing, I'd argue map reading is a thing TTRPG can develop competency in, with a DM who is well aware of the limits of their own, and their game aids', fallibility. You realize most folks in whatever pseudo historical period D&D is based on actually didn't use maps so much as received verbal guidance and adherence to landmarks, right? I mean plenty of folks wandered the world with a sense of where they were before mass production of maps was a thing. Maps mattered and arguably still matter as a delineation of power more than a navigation tool. Navigationally, we live largely "post map," for better or worse today where the map is consulted as a background task by whatever navigational equipment we may have (which can make recourse to data not readily rendered on a 2D map) so the fact that some folks have lost the ability to negotiate a two dimensional rendering of geography is more something a DM needs to work with and build on than complain about, unless you want a perpetually frustrated game.
Don't get me wrong, I think maps are cool, at least good maps are. TTRPGs are filled with plenty of frustrating maps though, so this might be a bit more equivocal on the hate the player or hate the game(designer) scale.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I’m 40, I’ve been playing D&D since the early ‘90s, and I am the most “directionally challenged” person in the world. Who needs maps?
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I dunno if Rangers = map readers. I think the most romantic versions of them have them being able to "read the land" I just don't remember Aragorn holding the fellowship up to consult the map, he knew the land because Strider strode it. I've played "mapless" where I'd work with the "survival" oriented characters to work off landmark reckoning and the like.
But anyway, to circle back to this thread's main thrust, if you have a player who wasn't the most competent at reading a map at the table but wanted to play a Ranger/Explorer character, would you discourage their choice or negotiate a way for the character to play who they want their character to be?
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I remember this was one of the benefits for playing in the ol' public library back in the day. It felt more in the spirit of the game than saying "You really need to YouTube some wilderness skills, boss" but yeah, one of the benefits of TTRPG is the tacit encouragement for both players and DMs to learn how stuff works. And now we have mechanics to reward such inspired play, so to speak.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.