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Post by malifer on Feb 11, 2013 11:30:58 GMT -8
I know the fudging discussion is mostly dealing with combat. But the question came up why even hide dice rolls behind a screen?
A good time to hide dice rolls is when the GM is rolling a PC's perception.
Otherwise the GM can't pull off the old "just Lumberjacks" manuever when the PC's perception roll fails.
When a player rolls his own perception he unknowingly metagames the success or failure.
As previously stated in other lengthy threads, I am a big proponent of Tom's stance on fudging. I have fudged For and Against the players when I thought it would be more fun for the players.
However to Stu's question "The Bad Guy critical fails on the first roll of the combat. Do you roll with it or ignore it?"
I roll with it.
It's the first roll and that is epically hilarious. However on the 3rd or 4th round if the dice are still failling then fudging may be in order just to give the PCs a challenge.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2013 17:10:12 GMT -8
My players make me roll behind a screen, they prefer to not know the dice roll because that way they aren't spending half their time doing math in their heads trying break down the mechanics of the mobs. They find it a distraction that pulls them out of the immersion of the game world. Plus it helps combat meta gaming. Of course I also don't tell my players how much damage they are taking in most games and keep track of it myself only telling them when they have gotten to a dangerously low level. Again this prevents metagaming and they can only work from the narrative bits I tell them such as that the fighter took a crippling blow to the leg or the mage is spurting blood from a wound to his shoulder.
I've also found that when the players can see my dice the only way any tension builds is if I have a streak of good rolls. Hearing dice and not knowing what was rolled brings an instant heightens awareness to my players. They get cautious, they take less foolish risks, and they get pulled deeper into the story because they want to know why those dice were rolled, whats happening around, what aren't they seeing.
The fact that I also like to avoid using minis when possible helps as well, but the sound of the dice is an amazing tool that loses half its power when they can glance over and read the numbers.
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Feb 11, 2013 19:26:18 GMT -8
Honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of the dice fudging/non-fudging discussion. It's like arguing politics; each side has valid points and opinions, and it really comes down to a matter or personal taste. Occasionally you'll hear something new that's a really good point and you chew it over for a bit, but by and large people aren't going to change their minds. Let's move on. During the discussion of tension and how death removes tension, I kept thinking about sex, romance, and seduction from a few episodes back. I'm going to be a horrible self-promoter here and mention my Douchey DM article " Why I Like Sex in RPGs", because adding tension to your games is one of the things including sex/seduction does. If the only tension in a game comes from combat and physical harm, there's only so far you can go; death. To keep the tension levels high, the threat has to keep increasing in lethality until you reach the point where a single, tiny misstep means someone eats it. Yes, that's great tension up to and until the character dies, but once they're dead, the tension goes back to zero. And, as discussed in the episode, if death can be mitigated (raise dead, cyberware, ghost PC, whatever) then the tension level drops back to zero. If characters are essentially immortal, death holds no fear for them, and there's no tension. It's like you're playing a game of Dynasty Warriors; you're just mashing buttons to have your guy cleave through entire armies of mooks without ever getting a scratch. Dead boring, meaningless, and not tense at all. Including romance, seduction, and sex allows there to be tension that doesn't result in character death if/when the PCs fail. Stu mentioned the scenario of a superhero who's wife is divorcing him and taking the kids because he's (unknown to his wife) always out fighting crime. That's tense! Failure doesn't result in character death, but an interesting story. Having your PC pursue a romantic relationship (for whatever reason) adds all sorts of tension that are non-lethal in nature. In a superhero game for example, do you keep your secret identity a secret from your love interest? How many lies do you have to stack on top of each other to do that? What would happen if they found out? How does the NPC react when/if you tell them? Do they leave you? Do they start following you around? Do they expect you to become their own, personal savior? Can they handle you being famous and them just being "normal"? All sorts of problems pop up that can't be sovled with rolling for initiative and punching someone into next week. You can apply that to any setting or genre. So for fuck's sake, start adding some drama to your games that's more than just "how big and bad is the Big Bad this time?"
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Post by Stu Venable on Feb 11, 2013 20:01:19 GMT -8
I was a little reluctant to do another dice fudging episode, but the wrinkle of feeling justified to fudge against the players was something I thought worth discussing. But it just drifted back to another generic dice fudging discussion.
But be heartened! After the con, we're going to start talking about story elements again.
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willh
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 220
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Post by willh on Feb 11, 2013 20:46:19 GMT -8
I think we need to combine the classic HJ dead horses, How crunchy is the system when fudge dice in a game where AC makes you harder to hit?
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Post by jazzisblues on Feb 12, 2013 6:08:30 GMT -8
Like so many topics in what we do it's very religious in nature. People believe what they believe and they aren't inclined to be swayed no matter what.
I've been leaning away from fudging die rolls since this discussion began so in the games I've been running I've been very conscious to not fudge anything. I still haven't killed a character, and the games in my opinion have been better for it. I won't say I'll never fudge a die roll again, but my inclination at this point is to not.
I will continue to have the capacity to roll dice where the players can't see them because there are some things that they don't need to know the results of. As previously mentioned a perception check is the sort of thing I'm talking about. As I have mentioned in the past I make a distinction between passive skill checks and active skill checks. Passive skill / knowledge checks are if they are just wandering on their way and something might pop out at them like a trap or a secret door or they might have a thought about something. Active checks are if they tell me they are doing something. I roll passive checks, they roll active checks as a rule.
Cheers,
JiB
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Post by malifer on Feb 12, 2013 6:24:34 GMT -8
My players make me roll behind a screen, they prefer to not know the dice roll because that way they aren't spending half their time doing math in their heads trying break down the mechanics of the mobs. They find it a distraction that pulls them out of the immersion of the game world. Plus it helps combat meta gaming. Of course I also don't tell my players how much damage they are taking in most games and keep track of it myself only telling them when they have gotten to a dangerously low level. Damn that's cool, but seems a like a lot of work to me.
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Post by malifer on Feb 12, 2013 6:46:21 GMT -8
Honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of the dice fudging/non-fudging discussion. It's like arguing politics; each side has valid points and opinions, and it really comes down to a matter or personal taste. Occasionally you'll hear something new that's a really good point and you chew it over for a bit, but by and large people aren't going to change their minds. Let's move on. During the discussion of tension and how death removes tension, I kept thinking about sex, romance, and seduction from a few episodes back. I'm going to be a horrible self-promoter here and mention my Douchey DM article " Why I Like Sex in RPGs", because adding tension to your games is one of the things including sex/seduction does. If the only tension in a game comes from combat and physical harm, there's only so far you can go; death. To keep the tension levels high, the threat has to keep increasing in lethality until you reach the point where a single, tiny misstep means someone eats it. Yes, that's great tension up to and until the character dies, but once they're dead, the tension goes back to zero. And, as discussed in the episode, if death can be mitigated (raise dead, cyberware, ghost PC, whatever) then the tension level drops back to zero. If characters are essentially immortal, death holds no fear for them, and there's no tension. It's like you're playing a game of Dynasty Warriors; you're just mashing buttons to have your guy cleave through entire armies of mooks without ever getting a scratch. Dead boring, meaningless, and not tense at all. Including romance, seduction, and sex allows there to be tension that doesn't result in character death if/when the PCs fail. Stu mentioned the scenario of a superhero who's wife is divorcing him and taking the kids because he's (unknown to his wife) always out fighting crime. That's tense! Failure doesn't result in character death, but an interesting story. Having your PC pursue a romantic relationship (for whatever reason) adds all sorts of tension that are non-lethal in nature. In a superhero game for example, do you keep your secret identity a secret from your love interest? How many lies do you have to stack on top of each other to do that? What would happen if they found out? How does the NPC react when/if you tell them? Do they leave you? Do they start following you around? Do they expect you to become their own, personal savior? Can they handle you being famous and them just being "normal"? All sorts of problems pop up that can't be sovled with rolling for initiative and punching someone into next week. You can apply that to any setting or genre. So for fuck's sake, start adding some drama to your games that's more than just "how big and bad is the Big Bad this time?" I agree the best stories have relationships and in an RPG you should twist those relationships to build drama. However some problems do come into play in an RPG which why I think things primarily end up drifting back to the Big Bad. First problem this is dependent on the length of your "campaign", but do you treat the relationships like a "novel/movie" or a "tv show". The standard formula for a compact work live novel or movie is to - set the stage
- introduce conflict
- resolve conflict
Now this is good storytelling, but if your not running a short campaign you'll need to keep in mind some new relationships you can bring to a player that has been resolved. One of the primary reason I abhor American Television is it goes on too long and the formula is just eliminate resolving conflict. Nearly every long term story that starts with two star-crossed lovers ends with them getting together only to quickly hate each other and break up because "happily married" is not enough conflict to write a story about. Second problem is that typically relationships deal with a minority of the people at the table at a time. Which means some players get to sit and wait for an opportunity to play the game. While it is not great storytelling it is a lot easier engage everyone with a bunch of ninjas dropping from the ceiling.
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Post by ericfromnj on Feb 12, 2013 7:46:55 GMT -8
...I just had my Big Bad crit fail on the first die roll.
OK, it might have been the second.
We had a Savage Worlds supers one shot and the guy with sorcery who already had some armor up tried to zap some players. He had just revealed he was someone they already knew and had been secretly trying to kill him all game.
He ended up getting a backlash and losing his sorcery power (his major power) for 4 rounds.
Being Savage Worlds, there were 15+ other bad guys, so it wasn't like there was nothing to do....
But this poor Big Bad ended up getting the floor collapsed out on him and falling into some water. He wasn't Atlantean and almost drowned. Once he recovered from that they dropped an exposed power line in the water.
My players loved it...
On a side note I think Fallout would be great for GURPS, since originally the first Fallout was supposed to be GURPS for the PC...
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Post by Kainguru on Feb 12, 2013 7:51:13 GMT -8
+1 Hyvemynd on fudging and not fudging +1 Malifer on those rolls that *should* be secret Arseburgers: well really this is more a testament to the cultural pervasiveness of the comic genius of 'South Park'. The use of arseburgers, as opposed to aspergus , in popular vernacular is, I believe, an increasingly delineated term - ie: it has become a 'term' in is own right separate from aspergus in that arseburgers refers to a set of stereotypical social group behaviours where aspergus is a genuine condition. The latter is hugely misunderstood by the general populous with poor/ill-informed reporting of it in the popular media only contributing to this misunderstanding; this includes the huge rise of questionable 'self - diagnosis' tests/websites/etc. But I've bitched about that long enough on 'Autism Test' thread. The arseburgers discussion, or more appropriately the social dsyfunction amongst nerds discussion, touches on another area of contention. Everytime someone behaves outside of the accepted norm for their location people want to leap on the "he must have a psychological disorder bandwagon". This really really fucks me off . . . because of the assumptions and the idea of 'normal' - because 'normal' doesn't really exist. The social malcontents common to gaming don't have 'psychological issues' as commonly understood ie: some identifiable disorder on either Axis I or II of the DSM IV or the ICD X; they are people following the conventions and mores of their group which is the provinceof sociology/anthropology/social psychology (rather than clinical or developmental psychology). Within the larger context of a society distinct social groups have distinct mores - which can be seen a 'conditions for belonging'. These mores, conventions, stereotypes are often bigger than the individuals who inhabit these groups. This is because group identification is usually an exercise in sharply delineated labelling/categorisation whereas individuals tend not to ever be a perfect 'fit': one can belong to many different 'social groups' at either different times or at the same time. we construct our identities in response to our social interactions . . . we can be 'different people' in 'different contexts'. Think about 'who you are at work' compared to'who you are at home' eg: the submissive, shy, retiring guy at work might also be 'he of the mighty dominating cockring, master of whips and chains, master to his slaves' after work at his local BDSM dungeon (I assume they're as common in the US as they appear to be in the UK). But why do nerds have this particular set of mores that most self confessed nerds find unacceptable (like not bathing and treating deodorant like a toxic substance)?. Most probably because the extreme examples of this behaviour are the most publicly identifiable/obvious and therefore contribute to the stereotype which in turn reinforces this behaviour as being one of the conditions of group membership - so many stereotypes are based on a small sample of actual people who are 'true to type'. I've known a load of 'bikers' back in Oz - hell one of my favourite pubs was THE biker pub in Brisbane (cause I really dug the live bands). I'm not a biker and a lot of the 'real bikers' didn't fit the stereotypical expectation of 'real bikers' except in dress and the fact that they ride bikes in 'group' or 'gang'. Most were friendly, erudite and many were very well read and/or educated . . . for many decades now they've done charity rides every year to raise money for the Kid's Hospital and the Orthopaedic Unit (a unit many have spent much time on due to falling off of said bikes). But because of the extreme actions of a small group they get unfairly stereotyped - the public only remembers the actions of these elements because they're the actions that get reported in the press. As to nerddom and socially unacceptable behaviours - it's about power within that small group: the power to decide/determine/dictate who is in and who is out. Why?as I noted in the 'Nerd PSA' thread : sometimes to become a 'big fish' it's easier just to make the pond smaller. Aaron
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Post by Stu Venable on Feb 12, 2013 8:41:29 GMT -8
I think the reason for me that any discussion involving dice turns to combat is that I don't generally roll dice during social situations until a roll is called for (like try to pull one over on someone).
Most of the time, mechanics don't enter in to it. If I have an NPC, he's got some sort of personality (maybe detailed, maybe not depending on prep and importance), and he's got is own motives and desires.
And the few rolls there are, I wouldn't really think about fudging, because whatever the result, the story just goes down a different rabbit hole,
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Post by ayslyn on Feb 12, 2013 10:11:02 GMT -8
As for fudging against the players, I have and will continue to do so when I feel it appropriate. However, I'll never fudge to the ultimate detriment of the players.
If my Big Bad is rolling for shit, I'll fudge and start "hitting" to ramp up the tension some, and to make the fight more epic. But, in the end, I'll also make sure that the players win that fight. It's fine to manipulate things to make them more interesting, but to penalize your players for your streaky rolls is out of line.
As for fudging eliminating the tension and risk, I disagree. That only happens if you promise to never let any harm come to the characters. I don't do that. I only promise that I won't generally kill them if it's boring to do so.
A story... I ran the first of the Freeport adventures. There's a trap in it where the players fall into a rock crusher and have to make Dex checks to get out. Everyone but the ranger handily make it. He, however, can't manage to roll over a 2.... Even when other players try to assist him.... They suddenly can't roll over a 2.... Finally, after about 5-10 minutes of him failing, and me describing as the hopper tilts, and the feed chute opening, and the rocks shifting and sliding under him; he looks at me with a grin and says "that was awesome, I guess I get pulverized." I nod sagely and tell him to get started on a new character.
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Post by jazzisblues on Feb 12, 2013 11:41:48 GMT -8
So, last Saturday we're playing Pathfinder, and we have to go through a warehouse where there are huge vats of acid bubbling away. The guards are fleeing and heading to get the boss. In an effort to stop them I give chase across the catwalks between the tops of the vats. GM says, give me a dc 15 reflex save to navigate the catwalk. What do I roll? You guessed it. 1 ... Into a vat of acid I go in full armor. Now mind you this vat is not just any vat it's 10' deep, and I immediately sink to the bottom.
Totally altered the game on the spot. No longer really worried about the guards getting away the whole party stops to try to get me out. (This is a work in progress that will have to be continued next session). Our barbarian tries to run over to help me and she falls, but not into a vat, just to the floor of the warehouse. They threw me a rope which I managed to grab, but it's being held by the halfling ranger and the oracle and they are not going to be lifting my 250# armored self out of the vat. Nor are they going to anchor the rope by holding it. The warlock with prehensile hair tried to fish me out with his hair but so far no joy.
Two rounds into this escapade and I've taken 32 of my 77 hp in burning damage. By my estimate they have at best 2 rounds to get me out of the acid before I give it up and die and that doesn't even include drowning.
If I die I die, that's the breaks of the game, but I am going to ask the gm to roll these damage rolls in front of us because if I manage to escape this I want it to be honestly and not because the gm took pity on me.
Stay tuned listeners, will Caiden live or will he be liquified?
Cheers,
JiB
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2013 13:03:47 GMT -8
Honestly, I'm getting a bit tired of the dice fudging/non-fudging discussion. It's like arguing politics; each side has valid points and opinions, and it really comes down to a matter or personal taste. Occasionally you'll hear something new that's a really good point and you chew it over for a bit, but by and large people aren't going to change their minds. Let's move on. During the discussion of tension and how death removes tension, I kept thinking about sex, romance, and seduction from a few episodes back. I'm going to be a horrible self-promoter here and mention my Douchey DM article " Why I Like Sex in RPGs", because adding tension to your games is one of the things including sex/seduction does. If the only tension in a game comes from combat and physical harm, there's only so far you can go; death. To keep the tension levels high, the threat has to keep increasing in lethality until you reach the point where a single, tiny misstep means someone eats it. Yes, that's great tension up to and until the character dies, but once they're dead, the tension goes back to zero. And, as discussed in the episode, if death can be mitigated (raise dead, cyberware, ghost PC, whatever) then the tension level drops back to zero. If characters are essentially immortal, death holds no fear for them, and there's no tension. It's like you're playing a game of Dynasty Warriors; you're just mashing buttons to have your guy cleave through entire armies of mooks without ever getting a scratch. Dead boring, meaningless, and not tense at all. Including romance, seduction, and sex allows there to be tension that doesn't result in character death if/when the PCs fail. Stu mentioned the scenario of a superhero who's wife is divorcing him and taking the kids because he's (unknown to his wife) always out fighting crime. That's tense! Failure doesn't result in character death, but an interesting story. Having your PC pursue a romantic relationship (for whatever reason) adds all sorts of tension that are non-lethal in nature. In a superhero game for example, do you keep your secret identity a secret from your love interest? How many lies do you have to stack on top of each other to do that? What would happen if they found out? How does the NPC react when/if you tell them? Do they leave you? Do they start following you around? Do they expect you to become their own, personal savior? Can they handle you being famous and them just being "normal"? All sorts of problems pop up that can't be sovled with rolling for initiative and punching someone into next week. You can apply that to any setting or genre. So for fuck's sake, start adding some drama to your games that's more than just "how big and bad is the Big Bad this time?" The one problem there however is the amount of player buy in you need for a sex/seduction/romance aspect to work. Character death is a constant option from the moment you start a game and thus the tension exists at least in small part from the first time you roll dice. Romance is something that has to be built and is as shaky as a house of cards because the moment the player decides they don't care about that plot thread it ceases to matter one way or the other. You can't force the players to pursue romance, and though you can have NPCs fall for them you again need buy in. I've tried using such an aspect in games before and the result was crash and burn for the entire campaign within two sessions. It wasn't even anything wild, a very simple and tame crush by an NPC on one of the PCs. But the only tensions it generated were out side the game as two players ignored it, a third got very uncomfortable and basically stopped actively playing during the sessions. The forth player was all about it, to the point where I got uncomfortable. All in all it was a complete disaster and not something I'm likely to ever try again with this group. Much of my dice roll based tension has less to do with the Big Bad then it does with other events. How a Lord of the Manner is reacting to their conversation, how the fragile bridge they are crossing is holding their weight. Did the guard hear them sneaking across the room, or did that jury rigged part they just made actually fix the damaged machine. As you said tension doesn't have to mean death, it can mean failure in all kinds of spectacular ways that have nothing to do with death. I don't disagree with your assertions that it can generate great tension within a game, but again only if you have the right group to pull it off. Its jsut as likely to fall completely flat and have zero effect on the game other then being a time sink, or possibly disrupt the players so much the game ends. The player that was uncomfortable in my failed attempt is divorced and had jsut gone through another horrible break up with a long time girlfriend. Bringing up the subject of romance in the game he used as his escape from reality destroyed the whole thing for him and he almost left the gaming group.
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sdJasper
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 30
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, Fudge, PDQ
Currently Running: GURPS Traveller Interstellar Wars
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Post by sdJasper on Feb 12, 2013 13:14:16 GMT -8
Just to add my thoughts on the dice thing: I use to fudge and found out my players didn't like it. They felt that it robbed them of some of the dramatic tension of the game, so now I roll in front of the players (unless it is a passive roll where they wouldn't know if they failed).
I personally feel that fudging dice is a form of railroading. It is the GM determining when the characters' story ends. I only take the dice out when there is a risk/reward situation that the players chose to get into. So, if I fudge the dice I am taking that choice from the players away and imposing what _I_ want the story to do.
That said, what we do before each game is have a discussion and decide how lethal the game is. If we don't want PCs dying then we alter the game rules not the dice. So in my latest GURPS fantasy game, if a PC were to fail a death check, they would simply fall into a coma, till they could be revived (which hasn't happen in the 20+ sessions we've had).
My group prefers setting up the rules for how lethal/cinematic/ect. the game is going to be from the start and then we all play by those rules and let the dice determine the rest.
So, that is how I see it, but to each their own.
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