Skipping over excessive detail about how dice work ...
In D&D, dice exist to resolve any circumstance that might turn out in any number of ways. For example, reaching out in a split-second to catch a falling object might result in our catching it or missing it. More importantly, even though we might have caught an object like it in the past, doesn't mean we'll catch this object in this circumstance. To settle these "maybe" situations, we use dice.
The example I've just given describes a "pass/fail" result; the game is full of them. However, dice can also be used as a selection device, such as determining randomly which kind of animal appears in our line-of-sight, what sort of weapon a combatant is using or how much of something we find. In each case, a single dice gives a plain, linear result, with each number on the die having an equal chance of occurring as any other number.
If we use more than one die, we produce what is called a bell curve. Most people are familiar with rolling 2d6, and recognize that the result of "12" will occur less often than the result of "7." That's because many combinations of two dice thrown will result in a 7, whereas only one possible combination can result in a 12. By rolling various combinations of dice, we can produce all sorts of bell curves, which we can assign to either pass/fail or selection results. Understanding how bell curves work is a deep, profound and interested science, and one that's necessary if attempting to create your own dice charts.
Dice work best when applied to objective circumstances, such as the examples we've given, where no personal biases, emotions or beliefs are part of the determination. Succeeding or failing at catching a cup is a physical determination, as is the physical animal that has stepped out of the trees, or the physical weapon in an enemy's hand or how many physical objects exist in a treasure chest. So long as the subject being described is a question of physical success or tactile presence, the use of dice to determine happenstances during the game works quite well.
The failure of dice as a game tool begins when dice are applied to subjective results — such as how the enemy feels about the player characters, or what individuals, specifically non-player characters, value with regards to their choices, goals, interpretations or motivations. On the surface, it would seem to make sense to determine if a met individual "likes" or "dislikes" the player characters, and roll a die to determine which is so. However, this grossly simplifies the reality of either of those terms, which drastically reducing everything of nuance in the game to a black-or-white context. This is bad, since nuance — with its concommitant opportunities for doubt, confusion, trustworthiness, lying and in general the uncertain impressions the players have of things that leads to hope, charity, tension and triumph — is reduced unspectacularly to a coin-flip. This removes the "guts" of the campaign and ends up sorting important characterisations into toothpicks of varying colour, a quite dull result.
Worse, because subjective rolls are random, they aren't reflective of earlier roles. In a real conversation, my listener's viewpoint of me is a growing complexity, where each thing heard builds in some complex way upon what was heard before. If a die roll is used, however, the toothpicks can like, then dislike, then like, then dislike randomly whatever I might happen to say, without any structure. Someone who was "trustworthy" can, completely randomly, suddenly cease to be trustworthy for no reason except the pips on the dice. This is worse than making every NPC a sociopath; it makes the world utterly unpredictable, ensuring that the players never trust anyone for any reason — or anything else that's subjective, thus radically limiting the possibilities the game world can deliver.
The dungeon master cannot rely upon dice to determine the predilictions of imagined people, nor of reason, truth or any other thing that does not occur randomly! Hammers will always fall, unless there is a reason they do not. It cannot be a die roll! Dice are a wonderful tool; but they are not a wonderful tool for everything.
The way you discuss the problem with using dice for resolving SUBJECTIVE processes suggests a spurning of the use of dice as a rule mechanic for the two systems called “reaction” and “morale;” systems present in the game since its inception (though, for the most part, dropped from post-1999 editions).
ReplyDeleteAnd I’m not quite sure I can bring myself to do the same. Certainly, there are times and places such mechanics become unnecessary: a fanatical guardsman charged with dying at his post before he’ll let an interloper pass (for example) has no need of “reaction” or “morale” rolls...neither does the average mindless automaton or undead servitor. But what of the chance encounter with a bear in the wilderness? How to determine if the creature has just eaten (and thus feels little compunction for approaching a band of loud, unruly humans) versus the one who is ravenously hungry, having had no luck hunting the entire day? What of the mercenaries, unwilling to fight to the death, but certainly willing to fight to a point? Isn’t a morale check useful for determining whether enough of their number has been killed to force capitulation?
I understand your point about how a totally random world of wild unpredictability can erode trust (or, worse, interest!) in one’s players. But for the DM to rule on EVERY subjective issue can...in my estimation...lead to something nearly as bad or (for some folks) even worse: a feeling that the campaign is run in an ARBITRARY manner, hinging on the whims of the DM and his/her fiat. To sum up: we have no need to fear the appearance of the physically appearing monster (because the DM can create a subjective reason to save us) unless the DM is in a grumpy or capricious mood (in which case nothing might save us).
Perhaps, though, my inference is off-target and you’re referring to something else...there are, of course, other “subjective” events that can occur at a table that a DM need not dice for (even though some insist on doing so), and I agree with curbing that activity. Still...reaction and morale...man, don’t negate my charisma bonuses!
; )
"Has the bear just eaten" is objective, not subjective. Though as a DM, your decision to invent a bear is hardly troubled by your just deciding to invent a "hungry bear" or a "satiated bear." Why does this need a roll? Why don't you just make the bear that would make the best game, today?
ReplyDeleteWhy is a die deciding if the mercenaries are willing to fight better than your just deciding the mercenaries are willing or unwilling to fight? What does the die in this situation ADD? Tension? How? For you? The players will have to deal with the die roll one way or the other, and if one roll produces tension and the other doesn't, why would you let that decision be made by a die?
A morale check is objective: given this, this, and this PREDETERMINED game result, a morale check is necessary to determine if the individual goes on fighting. That is objective. A pass/fail is needed. It would only be subjective if the DM decided the NPC ought to make a morale check for "reasons." A morale check is, if you think about it, a saving throw. Objective.
The DM ruling on EVERY subjective situation is only a problem if the DM's motivation is anti-play or anti-player. The game's setting is entirely arbitrary, you can't change that. The dissimilarity between your arbitrariness and the dice's is that the latter is Indifferent. But you are always, BOTH, arbitrary. The game is too important to assign the dice's indifference to subjective matters.
Your paragraph about the physically appearing monster makes no sense to me. I don't know what you're trying to say. The monster only exists because you decide a monster ought to; even if the die determines which monster, or what the monster does, there's no monster at all unless you arbitrarily decide to roll a die, for your own reasons.
It's demonstratively plain that using a dice to adjudicate RATIONALLY the subjective matters of game play with an IRRATIONAL die leads to endless game disasters. Stop doing it.
The dice can be a crutch; and DMs who are used to that crutch will cling to it past all reason, because it MAKES THINGS EASIER for them. They will decide that letting the dice decide if the bear is hungry or not exempts them from responsibility for what the bear does, though obviously the DM is always responsible. Having the dice decide if the mercenaries are willing to fight -- when for fuck's sake, they're MERCENARIES, is a way of letting the dice steal away the player's right to pay for mercenaries who will fight for them. If there is some logical reason why the mercenaries want to stop, then fuck the dice, have the lead mercenary stand up and give a speech to the players WHY they don't want to fight. That moment does not need a die roll! It is role-playing, pure and simple. The DM has in mind the lengths to which mercenaries ought to be willing to go, and when that point is reached, it is something that should be discussed between DM-as-Mercenary captain and Player, not Dice and Player.
ReplyDeleteBut choosing to let the dice decide is a crutch, isn't it? It means "Hey, I'm not responsible, the dice says the Mercenaries won't fight. No, they don't need a reason, except some cheap justification that I don't really have to explain; I've rolled a dice so the Mercenaries not fighting is transformed from a debate into an OBJECTIVE FACT.
See, if the mercenaries have to argue their position, then the players are free to argue THEIRS. And there's a chance the players might invent arguments that would be reasonable to the mercenary captain, making a better RPG ... but if the dice shut that door, then the DM can pretend the DM didn't decide to ARBITRARILY roll the dice, and that the DM isn't responsible. Dodging responsibility is the point.
In any objective situation, where the rules say "If This, Then That," there is no personal, emotional responsibility. But the DM is always responsible when monsters or NPCs decide to do anything ... so ditch the die, live up to the responsibility and stop shirking.
Mmm. Okay, a couple clarifications:
ReplyDelete- "The physically appearing monster" is in reference to your paragraph about dice being best applied to objective circumstances "...as is the physical animal that has stepped out of the trees..." Okay, so a die roll (I'm presuming here a wandering monster roll or a % roll to see if a monster is near the lair the PCs are investigating or whatever) is okay to determine the creature's appearance, but not it's state of mind (because the latter would be subjective). While I understand that it may be arbitrary whether or not one should call for such a roll in the first place, it doesn't HAVE to be (there are rules regarding when to roll for wandering monsters)...but just as, say, the environment determines the types of creatures that might be encountered (a bear in the woods), I'd say the type of creature would determine a range of possible reactions (for the bear: hungry, territorial, wounded, tired, whatever) which could be diced for...and there COULD be tension induced based on that die roll, especially given the state of the party when the encounter takes place.
But if we rely on the DM to make any encounter harder or easier based on what the DM thinks (in the moment) will be the most "interesting," that feels like a big step away from the impartiality we expect from The Referee. I can see how this could actually erode trust with the DM...though I guess I can really only speak for myself there.
- Regarding mercenaries and morale: I wasn't speaking of mercenary hirelings in the players' party, I was thinking of another (example) encounter (i.e. the PCs are fighting mercenaries), because such individuals are professional fighters, but their loyalty to coin (and their 'brothers-in-arms') will only go so far...and how much farther? If the fight is relatively even and there's a chance they could still win, would it be best to press on? What if the fellow the PCs just downed was well-liked by the mercs and they wanted payback for the death of "Ol Blue" (or whoever)? A morale roll to see how much fight is left in the group is yet another point of tension for the players at the table: can we (the PCs) break these dudes morale by inflicting a few casualties so as to mitigate our own? What about small creatures (say, goblins or rats) that have overwhelming numbers (compared to the PCs) but that are basically cowardly and averse to fighting to the death? If I assign a chance to such a group routing, doesn't that take out any complaint from the PCs of being arbitrary? Doesn't it provide another tense, die rolling moment to see how "the mob" is going to react when their first line of fighters are cut down?
With regard to the hirelings in a party's employ: I know you have used some sort of morale system in the past...your Old Wiki has a section on "standard morale" and the section for Charisma assigns an adjustment to a die roll to determine an NPC hireling's "will to fight." If you've since ditched such rules, well, okay, fine. But I don't see such a mechanic as a "crutch," absolving the DM of being responsible for role-playing the NPCs properly. Sometimes a dude is going to panic under pressure...and how will you know until the moment arrives? Give the guy a roll, modified by all the sundries (the employer's CHA, the pay provided, the might of the party) the first time such an individual is in the pressure cooker, and then you have a baseline for the future without needing a "crutch." Such a die roll can be a tool, too, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yeah, I realize a tool can be overused and form bad habits, etc. No one's eyesight ever improved by wearing glasses. So, then, say THAT in the section on dice-rolling rather than just stamping the idea flat. I agree with the sentiment expressed in the first paragraph that dice are best used to resolve "maybe" situations. I agree with the declaration that the game degrades when every last thing is submitted to a coin flip. I ALSO agree that dice rolling is no substitute for role playing when it comes to interactions between sentient beings.
But some things that might be considered "subjective" (like morale and reactions) can be rooted in objective causes (adrenaline, pheromones, etc.) that CAN be resolved with a die roll. I don't think that's shirking too much.
I'm not a "referee," I'm a DM. Please locate the line in any post of this series where it states impartiality is my goal. How can an artist be impartial?
ReplyDeleteI still have a morale system. It is very objective. I can't just "decide" to roll morale. Morale is rolled under specific, predetermined and predictable parameters, resulting from objective die rolls that occur in combat.
It should be the DM who decides if the NPCs wish to "go farther," just as the Players decide if their character will.
It should be the DM who decides if NPCs want payback for "Old Blue," just as the players decide if they want payback.
It should be the DM who decides whether or not a group of NPCs are "cowardly."
The group should only have a chance of routing if specific circumstances arise that are objective in structure; on the other hand, if the DM just wants the creatures to run, a die need not be rolled for that, just as the Players do not roll a die to decide if they run.
I don't think having the die make the decision instead of the DM creates any tension at all, that wouldn't be there if the DM simply made the decision.
I'm not saying a game mechanic is a crutch. I'm saying that to decide to roll a die out of the blue to determine what a monster MIGHT be thinking, just because the DM thinks a die ought to be rolled, instead of just making up one's mind, is a crutch. Sometimes, yes, a dude will panic under pressure. But either the dude should do so because for SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE reasons, or because the DM simply decides the dude panics.
Your modifiers are arbitrary. Why not add in a modifier for how much his wife loves him or the way his father died or the corn in his foot, or sixty other invented so-called modifiers? Or, instead, why not just not roll at all, and decide if he runs or fights?
And finally, once again JB, we come down to an argument that you're making where you finish with, "In my opinion."
You know, I don't remember the Aristotle quote that reads, "You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Quality is not an act, it is a habit. In my opinion."
D&D is an art. Can a DM produce bad art? Of course. Can a DM erode trust with the players? Absolutely. But that doesn't happen because dice are rolled or not, it happens because a DM acts selfishly or obtusely, or fails to understand WHY and WHAT is required to produce a good work of art. Your concerns are based on nothing except the habit of having done something for so long you've decided not only that it needn't be questioned, but that it SHOULDN'T be questioned. And that's ridiculous.
*sigh* Well it is just “my opinion,” after all. Mostly.
DeleteMy concerns are not based on habit. I’ve played with and without the rules for these situations. These days, I default to the mechanics in the rulebooks (whether I’m playing AD&D, OD&D, B/X, whatever) but I admit I dislike the specific AD&D systems. I’ll consider your stance on the issue.
The situation a DM needs to guard against is creating incongruous results which can easily happen through the inappropriate use of dice. That incongruity breaks the verisimilitude the DM strives to achieve. The argument here about what constitutes and objective versus subjective judgment is irrelevant to incongruity and verisimilitude.
ReplyDeleteAlexis, you make an excellent point about not using a random reaction table to determine how NPCs behave for a couple reasons: 1) unless the DM wants NPCs to behave with excessive capriciousness (like petty, inscrutable gods), rolling dice for NPC behavior is apt to produce incongruous results and 2) as DM it is one’s job to know and present one’s setting verisimilitudably (I’m adding that to my dictionary!).
Your argument runs into trouble by tying incongruity with subjectivity. For example, it is perfectly possible to create incongruous results with dice by using them to generate wind direction and speed (objective) with the tables provided on page 54 of the DMG. In the waters I know best, on a summer day the odds of the wind coming from the southwest are far higher than 1 in 8; more like 4 in 8. That evening, the wind might veer northerly, then southerly the next day—I think that could only happen if a cyclonic system passed over me east to west and that would be highly unusual to put it mildly. If I were running in a world where weather at sea was determined this way I’d have a talk with the DM about fixing it, because it is too wrong and jarring even for “a game.”
Using dice to determine subjective results does not necessarily lead to incongruous results even when considering every possibility on the table. The encounter reaction table on page 63 of the DMG, as you have rightly pointed out, is ridiculous. It is intended to determine the reactions of intelligent monsters or NPCs to being spoken to, not for animal reactions. I’ve found Traveller’s attack/flee animal characteristics to produce verisimilitudinous (need to add that one to my spell checker too) results with dice. A brown bear, as a large, omnivorous gatherer, has a fairly low attack threshold, attacking about 58% of the time. If it does not attack, it’s 72% likely to run off and 28% likely to ignore the party. It does not break the suspension of disbelief when the party encounters a second brown bear that attacks them even though the first ran off. As a DM I want the frequency of the brown bear attack to follow this curve and so I determine the result with dice even if the bear’s decision is subjective. I’m equally happy for the tragedy of the bear attacking a weakened party as I am with their relief that it ran away or their apprehension that it remains in the vicinity apparently uninterested in them but a potential threat. I don’t want the bears to mostly hang around creating the tension of potential threat because that’s less bear-like than the other behaviors and my DM fiat, while well-guided toward creating tension, in the end interferes with my players suspension of disbelief. Here I use the dice to create the art the way I want it to look without risking the bear taking on my sense of the dramatic and thereby ruining the work.
Sterling,
ReplyDeleteOnce again, I produce the best verisimilitudinous by getting rid of the dice altogether.
Consider: whatever reaction the dice produce, that's a POSSIBLE reaction. So that if I assign a reaction according to what I think is best for the session, I'm still in the realm of creating a situation the dice might have created. The benefit of the die is that it's indifferent. How does indifference improve the carrying forth of my campaign, which I'm structuring in order to obtain the best series of reactions/effects on my players, based on what I consider to be most rewarding and tension-building?
Your example of weather is interesting; and part of the reason why every attempt I made to create an objective weather generation ended in complete failure. Weather is both logical and capricious at the same time, and simply cannot be managed with a generation system as simple as dice. Therefore, while weather is objective, it behaves subjectively too often from the viewpoint of a single point on the world's surface. Eventually, I had to accept that it wasn't practical to throw dice to determine weather; and for five years now, I haven't.
How does indifference improve the carrying forth of my campaign, which I'm structuring in order to obtain the best series of reactions/effects on my players, based on what I consider to be most rewarding and tension-building?
ReplyDeleteIndifference may not improve your campaign, but it improves mine. My skills do not include the theatrical, I'm afraid. I have a modicum of skill in creating structure however. I seek to maximize the players' agency by presenting an arbitrary, yet logical and consistent setting in which my bias exists only in structure, not function. Once they understand how something works, like the behavior of brown bears and where they are likely and unlikely to be found, the risks they take are entirely their own. I provide no protection from death if they take risks or boredom if they avoid risks. They are in control of manipulating the setting within the parameters that I have set without fear of my interference. At least that's the ideal toward which I'm striving.
Rolling a die to decide "what the bear does" reflects some people's need to flip a coin to decide if they should go to the supermarket or blow it off and go to the driving range. You flip the coin and, not getting the result you want, you flip the coin again. When, in fact, you should just DECIDE. The coin doesn't contribute anything, except an excuse to go to the driving range, and to keep flipping the coin until you get the excuse.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that changing the results of dice, or rolling them until some desired result is achieved, is an incorrect use of the dice in the game. In such an instance either the dice should not have been consulted in the first place or the structure that doesn't fit the game needs to be fixed. Not always easy, as your experience with weather tables, and mine, has shown us!
ReplyDeleteI do not change the results to match my desired outcome. That, in fact, is exactly what I mean to avoid: my preferences do not come in to play with regard to the bear's behavior or anything else that the structure of my game dictates is decided by dice.
Doubling down on that point, my preference is not the basis for whether or not something in the game is decided by the dice, only the facts of the game decide that. It's possible that I know the bear has been injured and will certainly flee without consulting the dice, in which case I won't roll. It is a different circumstance if nothing previously happened in the setting to make me aware of the bear being disposed toward a particular action, and so I must roll.
I do not decide the bear will flee because the party is weakened. The party being weakened is not a logical cause for the effect of the bear fleeing. The integrity of cause and effect in the game is essential to preserve the participants’ “lusory attitude.”
Bernard Suits, in his delightful book, The Grasshopper, defines what playing a game is as:
To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs (prelusory goal), using only means permitted by rules (lusory means), where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means (constitutive rules), and where the rules are accepted because they make possible such activity (lusory attitude). I also offer the following simpler, and so to speak, more portable version of the above: playing a game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.
I assert that deciding the bear doesn’t attack the party because they’re weakened is equivalent to changing the result of the dice for dramatic purposes or to preserve a character. A DM who changes a die roll switches activity from playing a game to telling a story. A player who lies about the result of the dice has cheated and thereby abandoned the game. Such participants are no more playing the game than the chess player who moves a rook diagonally in order to place the opponent’s king in checkmate, a poker player who pulls an ace from a sleeve, or a marathon runner who takes a short cut instead of following the proscribed route.
Sterling, we could belabour this point all day ... and I'm game for that.
ReplyDeleteI think I understand your position pretty closely, and it fits with the argument I often make with regards to taking myself as a DM "out of the loop." This goes towards the argument that Suits makes, one that I firmly support. However, I want to point out one conditional reality to "something in the game" being decided by dice.
The game setting is tens of thousands of things: the kind of terrain, the direction of the river, the location of the town, the town's size, what resources it is next to, who runs it, how it is run, how poor the people are, the number of farms, the ownership of said farms, their proximity to the Lord's manor, the Lord's character class, whether the Lord has a daughter or not, whether the Lord's wife is pretty, or alive, or likes pigs, or prefers not to eat broccoli, or ANYTHING really, that are THINGS IN THE GAME. The presence of the bear is just one more thing. I am not going to roll a die, as per Suits, for everything, because D&D is not the sort of finite game that Suits is writing about; D&D is an infinite game, and if I don't want to roll dice all day and every ten seconds of the running, I am going to have to ad hoc decide many, many things.
This includes deciding that this room will have skeletons in it, because of the overall Wyrm of the dungeon in question, where events happened before the party arrived that meant that the skeletons in this specific room are there not because of the whim of a die, but because of the logical extension of a whim I had earlier to make the dungeon represent a series of events that would culminate in THIS room having THESE monsters, because it's a logical extension of the premise.
The bear, too, is a logical extension of the premise. It is not only that the bear exists, but the circumstance in which the bear appears, and the fact that it is a BEAR, and is therefore subject to act in a bear-like fashion. Meeting a bear in the woods should not, agreed, act depending on the weakness of the party ... but if the party does little or nothing to encourage the bear, and acts rationally towards the bear, and throws food at the bear, then I'm not going to use dice to determine the bear's response to passivity, motionless characters and easy food. I'm going to run the bear like a BEAR, subjectively, recognizing that whatever the players DO will affect the bear's actions, and NOT A DIE.
Therefore, in answer to Suits, I am not calling "die-rolling" as the achievement of the specific state of affairs in the game, but the LOGICAL behaviour of participants that exist in the game world, acting as they OUGHT to depending on their origin, motivation and sequence of events that brought them to this place in this way at this time. I therefore seek to, as you say, "maximize the player's agency" by NOT imposing an indifferent, arbitrary, irrational and inconsistent random die roll when, in fact, there should be clues right there in the moment to tell the DM precisely what everyone would expect to happen.
OK, Alexis, I see you understand my point and I think I yours.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want to be rolling dice for everything either. You and I may have slightly different approaches for taking ourselves "out of the loop," but I think we're generally in the same camp.
Thanks for talking me through that one.
Well JB, I did write that a DM should hold up the rule book as an appeal to authority.
ReplyDelete