[D&D 3.5] Badger, Goblin, Fight!

[Joel P. Shempert]

Well as a sometime D&D player who has played (for instance) characters with Cleave or Combat Reflexes who never got to fight hordes of little dinky enemies, I can tell ya the value of acknowledging and recognizing, "hey, your character's got this cool set of abilities, we should play to that and make it shine." Do you want to mix it up sometimes? Sure, like "O-Ho, your character's maximized for open-area fighting to use his Charge and Bull Rush, but THIS time you're stuck in a cramped little tunnel, whaddyagonnado?" That's a long way from "Ah, just be patient, I'm sure you'll get to use your cool power ONE of these sessions. . ."

Peace,
-Joel

[Callan S.]

I'll tell you, this is a strong example of how one can approach D&D with amazingly different priorities. A very different approach is that you choose fire spells not because fire spells are kewl, but because your anticipating alot of fire vulnerable enemies. Well, as a secondary priority you also do it cause fire is kewl. But the primary thing is that it's effective.

Okay, and a rant: It really undermines what I dig about gamism, that a player thinks they deserve a situation that suits their kewl power. Sorry, you chose the wrong power, it just never comes up - you failed at power selection! Yes, failed!

Granted, what makes it turn out to be a bad power choice can often be very iffy. That's why I focus on it in terms of design.

Zak, I'd be interested in what you make of my points in contrast to power spotlighting/flagging? Do you think your account shows any particular preferences?

[Narf the Mouse]

True, if the GM says it's going to be an undead-themed adventure, it's generally a bad idea to play a rogue. But if the GM says it's dungeon hack'n'slash, you should be able to expect at least a few opportunities to charge down ten-foot wide corridors.

[Joel P. Shempert]

Okay, and a rant: It really undermines what I dig about gamism, that a player thinks they deserve a situation that suits their kewl power. Sorry, you chose the wrong power, it just never comes up - you failed at power selection! Yes, failed!

Granted, what makes it turn out to be a bad power choice can often be very iffy. That's why I focus on it in terms of design.

Well, yes, this is a key factor in all this: were you, as a player, given sufficient information (for instance, any) to be able to meaningfully "succeed" or "fail"? If the GM says "Oh, it's OK, just make whatever you want" and then "whatever you want" turns out to be marginalized or have no place in the scenarios the GM throws at you, it's basically a game of "guess the number I'm thinking of." In one of the games where my Cleave was marginalized, we were told what to expect: Vampires.This was welcome as I was able to switch to an appropriate character before play. But we got into it and it turned out it was a campaign based on the Castlevania videogames--which should have lots of horde-fights, which Cleave should play into. . .but it didn't. That to me was a basic breach of GM responsibility. I'm convinced there's a certain kind of GM who doesn't even look at the kinds of abilities PCs have. They just don't care. The campaign is gonna have what it's gonna have (as if there wasn't a human choice involved), and if it doesn't mesh well with the players' choices, too bad.

Sorry, that turned out to be kind of a counterant. But anyway, there ya go.

Peace,
-Joel

[Ricky Donato]

I agree with Joel. Power selection is only a useful arena for competition if there is some way to determine what challenges you will face, which is lacking when the GM decides the challenges completely on his own whim.

[Zak Arntson]

Callan: My third actual play post puts forward the results of powers overly-suited for the situation (min-maxed fighter party vs. mostly warrior-type monsters).

In regards to your failed power selection remark: If you're not using flags, you should make sure the players have plenty of queues (either in-game or out-of-game) so they have the chance to pick appropriate powers.

And if you have one player that refuses to join up with the play goals, "I don't care if we're fighting undead, my wizard's still researching a ton of poison and suffocation spells," well, then that's a social issue and outside the realm of our discussion.

My players are telling me up-front what they want, rather than me having to rely on flags. "We want to fight monsters, and have it be pretty tough. Throw some spell-casters in the mix. Those spiders were good, because an immobile fighter is pretty fucked." I like to think it's because I keep a very open dialogue with the group, but I could also be lucky.

My method of hinting at power selection occured during the first session. "You'll be investigating a goblin death cult. Here's a sample fight with goblins and zombies. If you want to rearrange your feat/gear/skill selection in the next couple of sessoins, we can totally do that." So far we've had a little of this, but more because we're unused to the system rather than to adapt our PCs to the situation.

[Narf the Mouse]

Have you considered the 'Raise Dead' spells? Some players consider them cheating. Might want to ask your players how they feel on that.

[Callan S.]

In regards to your failed power selection remark: If you're not using flags, you should make sure the players have plenty of queues (either in-game or out-of-game) so they have the chance to pick appropriate powers.

Well no, power selection simply can be part of the gamist arena and you don't have to go through this 'plenty of queues' or joels complicated 'sufficient information' stuff or even Ricky's dismissive 'whim'.

The key factor is the player 'giving', as I'll term it here. There's a mechanic in DITV called giving (talked about in this thread) - I like to think I'm refering to the same principle, though it could well be a horribly mangled or mutated version. Anyway, it has AP examples of the player being able to use mechanical resources to resist something, but choosing not to, because the avenue of exploration was cool.

Now all four posters (Narf, Joel, Zak and Ricky) I can see a strident attitude about this. My hypothesis is, it's because you either had to 'give' or there was no game. At some time or times, it's been put to you that since your there to game, you have to 'give' and take on this challenge or there is no game. And really there isn't a game if you don't give - as soon as you don't feel like giving into a challenge/taking that challenge and it's right at the start of character generation, game play grinds to a halt. So it comes down to a basic and very strong application of force, IMO.

However, in dogs, if you don't feel like giving in, game play does not stop. You spend your points, you manage your resources, you can even base narrations off these movements and add to the SIS. Your genuinely enabled to choose to 'give', by the fact you can choose not to give.

In terms of my 'failed power selection' remark, yes, it can be a gamist arena. But there needs to be some sort of gameplay to fall back on if the player doesn't feel like giving to the challenge/taking that challenge of choosing the right powers. Otherwise yeah, I can clearly see the truth of all your points --- but see my rants below.

Rant: And I think a lack of a fallback mechanical gameplay tends to shift play over to simulationist agendas.
Extra Ranty: Or if you can mechanically fall back, hell, just the general perception that it's 'the hardcore' is enough social burn to make mechanical fall back verboten. Same shift to sim issue.

I've reached for quite a few concepts at once with this post, so I'll assume I'm communicating poorly and hope for the best. How'd I go?

[Narf the Mouse]

Mine was dry humour - Sorry, it doesn't always work on the internet. As I've said elsewhere, *mousies on the forum are probably not as serious as they appear.

* Pinky and The Brain...Narf!

[Zak Arntson]

Narf: Thanks! We'll have to talk about that one. My plan is that when someone dies they roll up a new character at minimum XP for the average party level and, if it's appropriate, we'll run a short encounter for the other PCs while the new PC is being generated.

Callan: Our game currently only allows the encounter-level give of "surrender or run away". The players have expressed the desire to have encounters thrown at them, so I see no reason (in our game) for a give mechanism separate from "run or fight".

About your first rant, our game shows no sign of moving into a simulationist agenda, yet there is no giving, save the "run or fight". I don't think I get you, here.

[Callan S.]

I've played computer games where you can set up the opposition just as you please. But while it's very nice, it's not a requirement. There was something about your post, Zak, and the supporting posts that said it was vital.

If it's vital that initial chargen cannot be a challenge, and that the players need to be given cues so they can pick appropriate powers...well, couldn't that apply to any challenge? If there's some sort of ticklish issue about chargen being a challenge, then that issue can crop up in any other potential challenge area as well. If it's such a bad issue, then for fear of misstreating players all challenge areas would eventually have to be treated the same - feed the players the right powers to pick. That makes me think sim, as that's the only way I think that'd be enjoyable. I might be dead wrong on the sim part. But till that initial 'chargen really can't be a challenge' issue is addressed, I think I have the general direction right.

I can see some give in 'run away', but consider how much it involves actually playing, compared to stuff like rolling to hit, rolling damage, and other gambling stuff. Also look at the reward cycle - running away is essentially dead in terms of rewards like XP, etc. It's a fairly inactive option and borders on not actually playing at all.

[Zak Arntson]

Callan: I think I get you, now. You're hooked on the term vital, meaing required. I'm using it in terms of very important. I think, yes, you could simply allow for 'blind' chargen in a competitive arena, but the number of parameters that go into D&D chargen is so great, it would be prohibitive to facing down a challenge.

I don't see how feeding players their powers is in any way "sim". You can start a Sorcerer game with pre-generated demons and it doesn't, in any way, push play towards simulationism.

I like your point about a reward cycle. The only reward gained by running away in D&D is that your PC gets to live to fight another encounter. And the baseline D&D rules don't define any solid mechanism for PC death. Do you roll a new character at the same level as everyone else? A level lower than the lowest-level party member? Do your companions get to loot the body? Or do you keep your stuff?

What I mean is this: The punishment for death isn't defined, so the cost/benefit for running away vs. dying in a fight isn't at all defined. Which means D&D leaves this issue up to my own inexperienced DM authority.

[Callan S.]

I don't see how feeding players their powers is in any way "sim". You can start a Sorcerer game with pre-generated demons and it doesn't, in any way, push play towards simulationism.

What I mean is that if a certain technique makes the agenda dull as dishwater, people will likely drift over to an agenda that is exciting (could be sim, could be nar). Your example of pre gen demons doesn't make nar dull.

I like your point about a reward cycle. The only reward gained by running away in D&D is that your PC gets to live to fight another encounter.*snip*
What I mean is this: The punishment for death isn't defined, so the cost/benefit for running away vs. dying in a fight isn't at all defined.

Not refering to no reward for running away. I'm refering to how there is no actual game play involved if you decide to run away. Say for example you were at a friends house and he says 'Do you want to play chess' and if you say no, all you do is sit there and do nothing. There's no offer of another game like checkers or monopoly or basketball (or even non challenge related activities, like a movie). You just sit and do nothing. So if you don't 'give' into playing chess, you don't play at all. It's a very strong application of force.

Here, when the players run away in D&D they by and large sit and do nothing. This forces them to give to any challenge.

When I think about my very early roleplaying history, that was just fine initially, cause everyone always wanted to give so you didn't know about this. So there was no problem. But eventually someone wouldn't want to give - then they'd discover they had to give and...that's where unfun came in.