Pendragon, dice, and character actions

[Valamir]

But Pendragon goes one further. It requires the players to "participate" in character decisions through the system. That is, when a player's Bravery trait goes off, they are forced to portray the character as Brave, retroactively assigning the reason why (often already provided). As opposed to deciding to be Brave, or cowardly, as the player thinks the character would act. As such, play of Pendragon requires committed Participationism. A player expecting to get his way, or fighting the system, will not have a good time.

As this is one of the most common and most oft repeated misconceptions of the Pendragon Trait system (often cited as a reason why Pendragon is bad by people who don't like die rolls controlling player behavior) I want to point out that the actual game rules do not, in-fact, prioritize dice results over the way "the player thinks the character would act".

To see several excerpts from the actual rules that I used to refute this idea earlier see this  Pendragon thread from RPG.net

Sorry for the tangent...its a personal crusade of mine to correct this perception.  We now return you to the regular thread.

[GB Steve]

As this is one of the most common and most oft repeated misconceptions of the Pendragon Trait system (often cited as a reason why Pendragon is bad by people who don't like die rolls controlling player behavior) I want to point out that the actual game rules do not, in-fact, prioritize dice results over the way "the player thinks the character would act".

It's not quite that clear cut. By consistently ignoring the dice roll you build up such a big score in the opposite trait that criticals become frequent. And you can't ignore a critical.

Also Pendragon, in my experience, is mostly played as if the dice had control. That said, I don't have any problem with that because it works well.

[Valamir]

It's not quite that clear cut. By consistently ignoring the dice roll you build up such a big score in the opposite trait that criticals become frequent. And you can't ignore a critical.

Also Pendragon, in my experience, is mostly played as if the dice had control. That said, I don't have any problem with that because it works well.

Well, if a moderator wishes to strip this off into a new thread it would probably be a good idea, because this is clearly off topic.

But...your fear about building up the opposing Trait isn't really that worrisome.

First, you only get a check in the opposite trait.  Checks don't convert into actual points of the trait until Winter Phase with a die roll.  So say I have a 15 Mercy and a 5 Cruel, and make a roll.  It was determined that I feel I should be merciful, but instead I choose to act cruely, so I get a check in Cruel.  That gives me a 75% chance of increasing my Cruel to 6 (at the end of the game year).  That's assuming I didn't also earn a Merciful check.  If I earned a Merciful Check also, then I'd roll to see if that increased, making the actual chance of gaining a point in Cruelity about 50%.  Further thats 1 check per year...so it isn't likely to rocket my Cruel up very high, no matter how many times I "disobey the dice"  Plus, once Cruel began to be high, (gradually over the course of several game years of this behavior) the chance of it increasing would decline, and the chance of me succeeding on a Merciful check and then choosing to be Cruel would decline...more often I'd fail the Merciful check and then choose to be Cruel, which doesn't automatically earn a check.

Plus, Criticals never become more frequent unless you get scores above 20.  And scores can never go above 20 from rolling for checks.  To gain a point you have to roll 1d20 over your current score...not possible if your current score is 20.  So there is no risk of escalating criticals.

In fact, in my experience, the checks convert to actual points too slowly (quite the opposite of your fear) and as a house rule I permit multiple checks to the same score giving a +1 to the roll for each extra check (but that is not rules as written).

I do agree that alot of Pendragon does get played as if the dice have control. But that's player choice...not from the rules.  This happens because the source books are guilty of using some short hand when describing adventures.  Frequently a Pendragon adventure will read something to the nature of "Player Knight must Roll Chaste to avoid responding to the lady's advances".

This short hand is identical in purpose and effect to the short hand that is often used here at the Forge.  When we say "Narrativist Player" or "Simulationist Game", it is taken as a given (by those familiar with the standard) that this actually means "A player who primarily makes Narrativist decisions" or "a game whose mechanics facilitate Simulationist play".  The short hand is just more succinct and easy to read.

I would argue that the Pendragon adventures (most of which are really just expanded plot hooks with only a column or two of space dedicated to them) do the same thing.  "Player knight must Roll Chaste to avoid responding to the lady's advances" certainly sounds like the dice are determining.  But in actuality this is just a short hand, because to include all of the caveats and specific rules that I quoted in the other thread every time a roll is called for would be prohibitive.  People who are very familiar with the Pendragon rules (as I am) know this means "Player knight makes a Chaste roll:  Success = the knight feels no especial attraction to the lady, Failure = the knight is attracted to the lady and tempted to respond to her...etc"  The table of how to interepret Successes and Failures for Trait checks (and the accompanying text which expands upon the entries) is VERY VERY clear on this...it just isn't repeated every time a roll is called for.

While I can certainly understand how some folks would read this and just act on it as written, at some point (to paraphrase Ron when referring to Sorcerer) one has to expect the players to actually read the rules.  And the rules that I quoted are very clear about that not being how the mechanic works.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Funny you should mention that, Ralph, as just a little while ago, I said, "If that Pendragon topic gets any more input, I'm splitting it off." Apparently feelings run high regarding this issue and this game.

As ever, keep it clean, folks.

Best,
Ron

P.S. For the record, the preceding threads were split from the Participationism? thread.

[Mike Holmes]

I will acceed that I overstated the case. But I agree with Steve that this is a strength of the system.  The back and forth play is what creates the feel for the character. The point being that the player is informed by the mechanic, and as such his consideration of it in making his decisions is Participationism. That's all I was getting at. That and the fact that interestingly, CoC and Pendragon are close relatives. CoC has the sanity mechanics, for instance.

Mike

[Valamir]

Absolutely.  Its a huge strength to the system.  The distinction (which I feel is important enough to make) is that the mechanics do not force the character to act a certain way...they force the player to think about things in an appropriate framework the way his character would think about them, and to highlight the sorts of things that are important.

Its no surprise that CoC and Pendragon share a lot in common.  Pendragon is essentially Basic Roleplaying converted to d20 instead of percentile.

Interestingly, the areas of Pendragon that give me the greatest disatisfaction can be directly traced to this ancestry (I HATE BRP as a system).  Most notable of which is that Pendragon (like CoC) has an unfortuneate level of whiffage.

It forced me early on to come up with creative interpretations for failures...an early effort at handling what we've talked about here as viewing failure as "success with a complication" rather than a whiff.

[GB Steve]

Well, if a moderator wishes to strip this off into a new thread it would probably be a good idea, because this is clearly off topic.

I did wonder what had happened to it. I'm mostly an RPGnetter where this rarely happens. But when in Chicago...

<statistical snippage proving that my use of 'frequent' is not really justified>
<more snippage about what the rules actually mean>
While I can certainly understand how some folks would read this and just act on it as written, at some point (to paraphrase Ron when referring to Sorcerer) one has to expect the players to actually read the rules.  And the rules that I quoted are very clear about that not being how the mechanic works.

There is no doubt you are right, except in expecting players to read, and stick to, the rules. ;-)

I still feel, as Mike posted above, that using enforcing the system is more usual, and what seems to be intended by the writers. I get the feeling that the escape clauses were mainly put in to counter charges of 'but the dice tell me how to play my PC'.

In most games the dice tell you how to play your PC. Just most games don't focus on what's going on inside the character, although they are quite happy to do this for NPCs (to wit reaction rolls -yuk!).

Dying Earth, of course, forgoes any such niceness and forces the player to obey the dice, although in such cases pettifogery and legalese is encouraged.

Sanity in CoC is also enforced but I've found the game more satisfying when players are left to develop their own madness. The roleplaying option brings out so much more than settling it with a jarring mechanic (I refer you to Steve Hatherley's excellent article in OU14/15). I suppose that's what is possibly intended by Pendragon but we gave up playing it a while ago - the setting lacks breadth as knights and we always seemed to have more fun in the winter phase doing things with peasants.

Oops, we're going back to the previous thread. See, now I've no idea what the topic actually is anymore. Except the bit where we say, 'Well done, Valamir, for reading the rules and actually paying attention.'

I see some bad RPGnet habits will have to be trained out of me.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Adding yet ANOTHER angle to the thread drift, but hey, I think it's good to have at least one clarification like this in public:

I see some bad RPGnet habits will have to be trained out of me.

Not bad, just different.

Really.

I could make convincing arguments on either side about why these habits/styles of threads/posting/moderation/etc. are good, and why those are bad.  There's no right answer, only "this is how the Forge does things" and  "this is how RPGnet does things."

There, I said it, and we can see how "the way the Forge does things" reacts to that . . . :-)

Gordon, who LOVES seeing bright preople make insightful posts, everywhere

[Valamir]

I did wonder what had happened to it. I'm mostly an RPGnetter where this rarely happens. But when in Chicago...[/quote

Yeah...I consider that a feature :-)  I'm a huge fan of medium moderation.  I lack the time to deal to with the large amounts of...extraneous bits...that quickly fill up unmoderated sites.

I still feel, as Mike posted above, that using enforcing the system is more usual, and what seems to be intended by the writers. I get the feeling that the escape clauses were mainly put in to counter charges of 'but the dice tell me how to play my PC'.

Possible.  I don't have 1ed Pendragon, but I do have some adventures for 1ed...that do demonstrate to me that 1ed rules are far more different from 2Ed than 2Ed is from 4th; and I have heard people say that 1ed was more deterministic in that regard.  I guess one would have to query Stafford in order to know for sure...but there is a larger volume of text dedicated to subject of player choice than I would expect if it were just meant as a dodge.  

Except the bit where we say, 'Well done, Valamir, for reading the rules and actually paying attention.'

Well, it is my all time favorite RPG, and I am in the middle of dusting it off to start up a brand new campaign...so its all fresh for me.

I see some bad RPGnet habits will have to be trained out of me.

You will be assimiliated, Resistance is Futile. :-)