Justifying randomness = Roleplaying?

If you were a godlike master, why was your bonus so low that a 2 was still a failure? Guess you weren't so godlike after all.

>>48895639
Not sure if this is a troll thread, but I'll bite.

I've always taken how well a GM handles randomness as a good measurement for how a game will go.

When someone has house rules that a 20 is just an instant kill or a 1 means you instantly hurt yourself for your attack damage, it's a sign that they don't understand balance or the intention of the rules.

>>48895651
This. Maybe your character is just an arrogant asshole instead of a true master.

Virt has this same issue. And he raged about it better. There was more impotence and shit-posting, and it was more entertaining to watch.

>>48895652
Another thing I'll do is justify a surprising failure based on the environment/circumstances.

>the lock is an unusual design you've never seen before
>the creature's bellows distract you momentarily--just long enough to make an opening
>despite your skill as a tracker, rain and wandering creatures have obscured the trail.

To clarify, i don't care about failing or succeeding, I just find it ridiculous that "roleplaying" boils down to coming up with excuses for why something improbable happened in hindsight.

Is that the true spirit of roleplaying? Apologetics for a stupid system fueled by dice?

>>48895651
This.
In a standard D20 system, the roll to overcome a challenge is a D20 + modifiers, if the result is equal to or exceeds the predetermined Difficulty Class (DC), then you succeed. If it is lower then you fail.
So for a "godlike master" I'm going to assume you have at least a +30 in the relevant skill. This means that on a roll of 2, your total score would be 32, which is incredibly high. Realistically you wouldn't be able to fail in that scenario, unless you were trying to pull off something completely impossible, so either your DM doesn't understand the rules of the game and just goes with the result of the roll before modifiers, or your character isn't godlike at all.

>>48896063
If something happens 1/10 of the time, it's not all that improbable.

>>48896063
the dice are to keep it fresh, otherwise everybody would just succeed according to their buffs and we'd be playing Munchkin

>>48895639
>"godlike" human beings (or equivalent races) should never fail on a terrible roll
how are the teenage years going for you, bub?

Forget the example I gave in the first post, it was just a joke. I don't care about what happens with godlike masters and their success rate.

But shouldn't the idea of roleplaying generally be about committing to fiction in a plausible way, not justifying randomness?

I also hate skills like "History" that just apply to everywhere and everything.

>Roll whatever with my History bonus
>DM didn't intend to make a history
>"Uhhhh yeah ... You know all about the history of these swamps that you only found today, even though you spent your whole life on the opposite side of the world. You know EVERY history!"

Is being "light on rules" really worth the pains caused by constant immersion-breaking implausibility?

>>48895652
I think one of the worst is over succeeding to the point of failure.

>Roll a 20
>You knock down the door, but hit too hard and destabilize the structure
>You jump too far and miss the platform
>You strike so hard your weapon breaks
>etc.

>>48896270
Holy shit do people enforce that kind of logic? Like self control isn't even a thing when you roll dice?

>>48896225
>But shouldn't the idea of roleplaying generally be about committing to fiction in a plausible way, not justifying randomness?

You can always play freeform or some diceless game if you feel like that, but part of the point of randomness is to make things MORE plausible. Things don't always go as planned. Even a master archer isn't going to hit the bullseye every time(and that goes double if he's adventuring - that is, he's bothered by insect bites, hasn't slept in a real bed for weeks, is using a bow that's been kept strung for longer than it really should have been in case of ambushes, and is trying to hit a moving target). If you really think about it, the most plausible thing happening every time would be ludicrously implausible.

And most of all, the chance of something strange happening - things going wrong when they shouldn't, someone successfully shooting an arrow through the eye of the cyclops, etc. - often makes for a BETTER game and for a better story. Besides, when there really shouldn't be any randomness - like a masterthief picking a lock - most systems have some way of providing automatic successes based on your skills and if something just plain isn't possible, you shouldn't be rolling for it in the first place - rolling isn't an end in and of itself, so it should only be done when it adds something to the game.

>>48896270
kek what kind of an asshole DM would do that, especially on a good roll

usually if i'm DMing and people roll 1s i just make whatever they did ineffective, sometimes with a bit of silliness involved, eg

>i roll to attack with my longbow
>rolls a 1
>you raise your bow and prepare to draw, but your draw hand misses the string and you fail to nock the arrow, accidentally punching yourself in the face
>youre embarrassed but take no damage

>>48896225
>Can I roll for something I have no chance of succeeding at?
>Yes.
Your DM is shit, not the system.

>>48896340
It's very sad if the choice is between...

Roleplaying = apologetics
and
Roleplaying = freeform story time

I guess I just want a deeper and more accurate simulation. If it's true that my character's bow is worn and fails me, that should be a consistent fact I can do something about, you know? Being effective in my strategy and taking factors into consideration should be WHY my character succeeds and is a master. At the very least it should mitigate randomness.

Come to think of it, I'd like if your skill level was a generally higher number, and then you roll something small like a d6 for the random element.

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>>48896225
either your DM is shit, or you have no idea how DMs are meant to approach stuff like that.

20 in hometown = good description of events including references and the day it happened
20 in homeland = fair knowledge of it, maybe even the year
20 in desolate swamp = it was referenced in a book you read once, and you know it was breeding grounds for X 150 years ago"

fucking adapt your crits to the original DC, it's not that hard. not that crits typically apply to skills for that part.

>>48896405
>I guess I just want a deeper and more accurate simulation. If it's true that my character's bow is worn and fails me, that should be a consistent fact I can do something about, you know? Being effective in my strategy and taking factors into consideration should be WHY my character succeeds and is a master. At the very least it should mitigate randomness.

Generally you CAN take steps to mitigate that randomness. For instance, you can get a better bow(various systems deal with this in different ways: Dark Heresy and it's sister systems have weapon quality that goes from poor to best, D&D has masterwork and various levels of enchantment, etc.). You can always find different ways to boost your attack rolls in general, as well, sometimes to the point that you'll only fail on a natural 1(or equivalent).

>Come to think of it, I'd like if your skill level was a generally higher number, and then you roll something small like a d6 for the random element.

You might want to look into different systems. For instance, in GURPS you can get your skills to the point where you only fail on a natural 18 while rolling 3d6(at least under normal circumstances) - that's one in 216 chance. Obviously it's not easy to get to that point, but it can be done.

typical
>natural 1, le dumb thing happen xD
>natural 20, looooooooool I pwn u

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>tfw you will never have a d&d group of quirky attractive drama maj. girls and a few guys who arent quite as good looking or clever as you

IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK

>>48896270
No GM does that.

The absolute worst shit I'll seen is stuff like rolling max damage and killing an enemy you're trying to just injure, and at least that's plausible.

>>48896618
best way to handle situations like that is to make it brutal as fuck, but don't kill him, just make it a chore to get him to stop screaming, and then have him die some time later unless they make an actual effort to stabilize him.

that way the characters'll think about not getting the barbarian to take down the lanky, smart MBEG next time, and it's a lot more interesting and fun than "well you chop his head off, dungeon cleared."

>>48896405
>It's very sad if the choice is between...
>Roleplaying = apologetics
>and
>Roleplaying = freeform story time
I have great news for you, IT’S NOT THAT CHOICE AT ALL!

The whole idea of roleplaying is abstracting the experience you’re emulating into a form you can actually do.
You can’t attempt to slay a dragon.
You can roll dice to abstractly quantify the random elements involved in attempting to slay a dragon.
Some of those abstraction are not going to be accurate, they just aren’t.

>I guess I just want a deeper and more accurate simulation.
The more granular the simulation, the more tedious bookkeeping is involved.
Which is not as much fun for everyone.

>If it's true that my character's bow is worn and fails me, that should be a consistent fact I can do something about, you know?
Now it just sounds like you want to eliminate all random chance in order to eliminate any chance of failure. In that case, just play Candyland as a team. (When someone gets to the end, the whole team wins!)
But maybe not, I might be judging you unfairly there.

>Being effective in my strategy and taking factors into consideration should be WHY my character succeeds
I agree.
So might Napoleon, who was undone by a little rain (and the fact that his enemy used to live in the area. [citation needed and not bothered to confirm])
Who knew you could critfail on a weather check?
Randomness can and will fuck you up.

>and is a master.
There’s that master thing again. Try starting at level 3-5 instead of 30. It makes for more engaging games.

>At the very least it should mitigate randomness.
Strategy and consideration absolutely should mitigate randomness by lowering DC and if your GM isn’t letting your being careful improve your chances, they suck. See >>48896377 and >>48896408
Unless you’re being a timid mouse of a pansy, in which case the snowman finds you and eats you on general principle.

>>48896590
>attractive people
>playing D&D

When it comes to a natural 1, unless there are some heavy negative modifiers, I more or less make it so that something inconvenient happens to you, examples given:

>Roll to swing your greatsword on your beserker charge against the bandit
>Rolls a 1
>Okay, you overswing and end up running past him instead of at him, I'll say he can get a free swipe as you run by due to your combat gaffe

or

>Roll knowledge to see what the library might have on the topic of the ancient lich you're looking for
>rolls a 1
>You end up getting lost within the library due to misplaced labels within confusing "lich" and "ditch" and the search takes longer than you want, and you don't get much information outside of a name and last location by the time the place closes.

>>48896777
>attractive people
>playing D&D
Statistically, it has to happen sometimes.

>>48896590
>tfw you will never have a d&d group of quirky attractive drama maj. girls and a few guys who arent quite as good looking or clever as you
But if you have a group of drama majors, expect to all meet in a tavern in the first session and still be in that tavern 4 sessions later.

>>48896671
Stuff like 'you rolled a natural 20 so you jumped so well you landed PAST where you wanted' is utter bullshit though.

>>48896405

>Roleplaying = apologetics
>and
>Roleplaying = freeform story time

This is that false dichotomy fallacy thing with I guess a bit of strawman.

Just because that's how you see it doesn't mean that's how it is. You are letting your perspective ruin certain types of roleplaying for you.

At the end of the day there are multiple reasons for a master archer to fuck up a shot aside from a worn bow, but that still doesn't stop them from finding their mark 90% of the time.

>>48896671
>>48896855
I kept that in mind thanks.

Interestingly Legend Of The Five Rings will occasionally disincentives you for wanting to get maximum possible result on a roll, like when fighting in a duel to first blood or casting a blood magic spell that *only* curses it's intended target.

Well John Wick probably intended it to just to be punishment for players for to 'gaming' system it actually does work.

It's Rise and roll and keep system means there is a interesting that meta game of chicken, do you pick your highest dice and risk killing the Noble's son or risk missing entirely?

>>48896672
I think some bookkeeping would be well worth the added fairness and therefore immersion.

When I was a kid I would have been bored by it and wanted to roll dice and have a reaction, but now I want to respect the fictional world and take the factors seriously.

I am designing my own game that would be more granular without doing much math. The bookkeeping is fine for me, but the constant bogus math wears me down

>>48897212
>I am designing my own game that would be more granular without doing much math

Perfect. Make the game you want to play and play it with people.

ITT: People who make up shit rules and then wonder why it stinks.

>>48895639
I can be the greatest player of a guitar in the world, but I can still get a finger cramp, a string can break, I can lose focus or a number of things can go wrong.

>>48897212
I 100% promise you nobody wants to play incredibly rule heavy games, son. You're trodding a path many developers already tried then gave up on because it wasn't fun.

>>48896225
A logical system should have knowledge divided into relavent categories. For example the 40k RPGs have common lore and forbidden lore and shit divided up by relavent field. Just because you are a guard veteran of 30 years and understand the Imperial Guard inside and out doesn't mean you know shit about how the administratum works.

Plus a good GM wings these things so they make sense.
>Can I make a history check on this?
>Fine but since it is so unlikely that you would know anything about it you will have to roll extremely well
>If they roll well they know a bit about the history but nothing in depth
The more close to your "homeland" you are the more in depth history you know, unless of course you mention in your backstory that your knowledge is instead slanted towards a different region.

>>48895652
>balance
Is not always good.

>the intention of the rules
Are often flawed or unexplained.

>>48897212
Your game is garbage.

Dude, Not everything happens as planned in real life either. If you want to take the chance out of everything and have it so you win every single time because you have a high skill bonus why not play freeform? It takes the randomness factor out of it and you can role play to your heart's content.

>>48895639
This is 100% why freeform is Mary Sue power wank.

>>48899762
Then they need to be explained better.

>>48896063
If you never fail, nothing interesting would happen. Stories require conflict to draw you in. If all you want is to win and crush your opponants without a constest without the threat of failure, you really should just burn ants with a magnifying glass, because roleplaying is about experiencing an adventure, not just winning.

>>48897902
>I haven't bothered to read the rulebook but the way my cousin played this one rule 15 years ago was kinda bullshit in retrospect
>why is D&D such a shit system

Just use a less swingy dice system then. 2d20, 3d6, just to start.

Amazing how butthurt people get trying to defend bad systems. I have played D&D 5e a few times and I listened to many podcasts of others playing it, and I just don't like that everything is...

>>48903207
...Swingy is a good word for it, implausible would be another. The fact that people keep saying "LOL DUDE SHIT HAPPENS NOT EVERYTHING ALWAYS SUCCEEDS" are like Stockholm syndrome victims to me. Your roleplaying hinges on gay dice system and instead of roleplaying your character, you've made it your job to roleplay dice.

>>48896063

Then fucking take up freeform or diceless RPGs.

The options are out there, you mong. Stop complaining and start solving your own problems.

>>48895652
The worst I've ever seen was I had a DM who did critfails on damage die and on rolls higher than one. I don't know which made me angrier, damaging myself after rolling 1 on a d4 or after rolling 3 on a d20. Luckily he never DMed again after 3 sessions because he decided he didn't like DnD.

>>48896010
I've done that. It's important to me to quantify the failure in some way. If I failed my lockpick roll, it's nice when the DM/GM tells me why. If you just say "nope, your roll want high enough" I'll sit there until I either break my picks, the lock, or the fighter gets tired of waiting and smashes the door open.

>>48905235
> Your roleplaying hinges on gay dice system

No it doesn't

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>>48905235
>Swingy is a good word for it, implausible would be another.
This is a fair and accurate statement as well as a chief criticism of games like D&D

>The fact that people keep saying "LOL DUDE SHIT HAPPENS NOT EVERYTHING ALWAYS SUCCEEDS" are like Stockholm syndrome victims to me.
This is you projecting like a motherfucking riot.
Shit does indeed happen.
Not everything will succeed.
These are undeniable facts.
Pretending they are not is an exercise in delusion.

Having a 5% be the smallest chance of failure can be dumb. But that is largely mitigated by the GM only making you roll when failure is significant. Which is what the GM is supposed to do.
But if a person feels that it is still unreasonable, that is a valid opinion.

>Your roleplaying hinges on gay dice system and instead of roleplaying your character, you've made it your job to roleplay dice.
This is not a valid opinion.
This is either bait or impotent rage made manifest. See below:

>>48895639
>Justifying randomness = Roleplaying?
Roleplaying games are not just roleplaying, they are also games.
Games often involve chance as well as skill.
Roleplaying games require either an element of randomness or a balanced level of skill of all involved, or the outcome will always be predictable.
Introducing an element of randomness is far easier than ensuring that everyone has the same skill level.
When the element of randomness is introduced into the game, it is incorporated into the roleplay.
A cynical description of that process could be called “justifying randomness.”
Also, many games that rely entirely on skill are competitive and the competition element is often far more detrimental to roleplaying than randomness.

>>48896010
This is literally what you're supposed to do, is it not?

The dice just tell you what happened. It's up to the GM to figure out why it happened that way.

A lot of games suggest "fail forward" instead of a flat refusal, too. "You unlock the door...but awaken a sleeping guard inside! Roll initiative!" That kind of thing.

>>48896270
>>48896618
I actually gave my character a weapon called the Berserker's Axe

On a Nat 20, the Greataxe dealt x4 damage, but broke upon contact with the enemy.

This caused the Barbarian to grab 8 and take Quickdraw as a feat.