Challenge the Player, not the Stat Block (D&D)
AzaLiN:
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There is a lot of discussion of this "stat block" = "deck building" thing -- where the stat block takes over and nearly no player decisions are required -- and I'm just wondering if anyone has any actual play examples from their own games where this occurred, the circumstances, etc. I've never experienced such a thing or can think of an event I might describe as being similar to it.
I guess our MTG experiences are different. In my experience, our entire group, and several players outside of it, play at a certain basic level of competence that, luckily, allows us to play competitively with strangers as well. We've played for years- We can all hold our own in tournaments, and with a strong enough deck, WIN. See, that's the difference though: how well we do in our higher-level competitions depends entirely on how strong our deck is against that opponent/opponents in general. It's like playing certain card games- your playing skill 'maxes out' somewhat early, and victory or defeat falls on other factors- in MTG, that would be luck and the occasional good guess.
Its not that player decisions are trivial- if you play poorly, even Tooth and Nail will lose- I've beaten it- its just that player decisions play a minor role very quickly because they mostly involve a small set of tactics and not making what you begin to recognize as blunders. Good play takes you only so far- it takes a build/stat block thats strong enough in the first place to win at all.
In Warhammer: Battle March, the computer version, the winner is 95% the person with the most appropriate army to counter the enemy's army; elves with a light mage and a giant will simply squish almost every orc player there is because of gameplay balance issues. Bring the wrong army to the field, and its not even worth fighting- if i have the right troops for it, and i see what the enemy has, all tension just floats away because i've won... or lost, as the case may be, even though i might put up a decent fight. The table top is quite similar to this as well, though i have less experience with it.
Notice that in 4e, a smoke bomb costs thousands of gold pieces (If i'm mistaken, PLEASE TELL ME THE ITEM'S NAME AND WHAT BOOK ITS IN! I WANT IT); that's about as blatant as you get for making stat block the determining factor. Tactics or no tactics, if the minotaur plays even half competently, he's going to split the orc's head open 99 times out of 100. There's even a character builder program that people spend money and hours of their time on- and when my rogue spars with my fighter, its not tactics during the fight that wins, since they both make the basically good choices- its the character build, followed by the dice that does it.
greyorm:
Quote from: LandonSuffered on May 22, 2009, 09:56:45 PM
b]Raven[/b]: congrats on your placement in the EO art challenge, by the way…that was a cool pic!
Thanks, man! I don't know if you've seen the big version yet, but it looks a hundred times better at full size. Can't wait to see it on the cover.
Also, thanks for the AP examples, but I think they added to my confusion.
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To this I say: what the fuck?
OK: Huh?
I think we're completely talking past one another, or using utterly different languages, given you seem to think I'm saying something about using minis and straight-edge rulers and playing WH40K...but then go on to describe exactly what I'm talking about when I say "war-game feel".
I'm also looking at the examples everyone has provided and find myself saying either, "Seems like an issue of bad mechanics (or GMs), not stat blocks" or "Huh? What does that have to do with stat-blocks supposedly running the show?"
So, really, not sure what to say. That's a significant road-block both ways, it seems.
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And one question I have is: does a player think to TRY to dig a pit if they don’t have the requisite digging skill on their character sheet?
Ok, like here: why wouldn't they?
It's ideas/questions like that which make me keep thinking this is a bugaboo, because from my perspective that's just a weird question. Sure, you wouldn't get a bonus to making the pit trap work because you're not trained in creating that sort of thing, but any idiot can dig a pit, throw some sticks and leaves over it, and hope their enemy falls into it.
But then, from my perspective, I would think it silly to assume that Fredrick the wizard who has spent his entire life reading musty books in a tower can set up a trap as well as Artie the thief, who has spent his entire life around traps, or Tom the mercenary "who has done this before". Which makes skills (of some sort, whether concrete lists like in D&D or descriptor-based assumptions like in Sorcerer) important to distinguishing the abilities and competence of a player-chosen character.
Same thing for building a raft (it actually isn't very easy to make a serviceable raft that won't sink, unless you know what the heck you're doing) -- but this is getting into well-traveled territory about tailoring games to the characters chosen by the players, not making assumptions as a GM about what characters "should" be like or just running them through any old thing. Flags, "Say yes or roll the dice", and etc.
And I'm not trying to say that as a counter, I'm trying to...explain why what you're saying sounds weird (to me) or, I suppose, surreal. As, I imagine, what I'm saying sounds to you.
Right now it seems like "freeforming vs. boardgame", which doesn't seem right at all from either side, as clearly you aren't really talking about freeforming it, and I know I'm not talking about just playing things like a boardgame (or bad CCG).
So I'm going to back out and listen a little more and see if I can make sense of your idea.
contracycle:
Well, the bit I think you are missing is the weight issue I mentioned above. It's not that the existence of stats of some kind is problematic, it is that when stats are so bulky and pervasive that they effectively supercede decisionmaking, then they become problematic.
Another problem we encountered from D&D was the issue of surprise. In a surprise attack, you could get a free round of attacks, and then roll for initiative normally. So far so reasonable. However, with the attritional model in place, at moderate to high levels a single round of attacks just wasn't enough to make a difference. If your opposition was decent match for you, they would either be of such a high level that your attacks couldn't drop them that fast, or there would be such a large number of inferior level opponents that dropping a few was of little import. Either way, the surprise attack mattered little, and the issue would be decided by the usual combat grind. So, not unreasonably, the players stopped trying to stage surprise attacks, and made little effort to guard against them - they made so little difference they were barely worth worrying about at all.
At that point stats were not faciliting enjoyable play, they were impeding it; the characters had become the "stats robot" mentrioned up-thread, and very little the players did, very few decisions they made, would have much effect on whether or not they succeeded or failed.
greyorm:
To me, Gareth, that is completely a "mechanics" issue, and has nothing to do with the stat-block. I agree with you that is a problem, I just don't see it as a "stat block weight" problem, because I don't see how that is about stats (except for HPs) and not broken rules.
Except I'm going to think about your last line, because that makes sense. Though...again, I'm not seeing how that maps to skills and feats and ability scores ala a "stat block", things which don't have the level creep problem of hit points and combat (making skill checks doesn't or shouldn't become more difficult as your level rises) and which it seemed the thread was initially talking about.
Callan S.:
Greyorm, I think the 'RP feel' vs 'wargame feel' was polarising things. The activity is roleplay - to say something has a roleplay feel seems to indicate it more about the activity than something that is not described as having a roleplay feel. Perhaps if what you call a 'RP feel' you called a 'Diplomacy feel' then it's be more equal to a 'Wargame feel', rather than one seeming to be more about the activity than the other.
In terms of stat blocks, I had assumed everyone has been talking about mechanics when refering to a stat block - it's a bunch of mechanical stats. Gareths not mistakenly talking about another issue that's to do with mechanics - this stat block issue is mechanics. The issue is about broken rules, or atleast if your design goal is to do gamism now (rather than gamism before) they are broken rules. Were not just talking about the 'feel' of the game, were talking about what it actually, mechanically is. What it feels like because of what it literally is in this world, rather than a feeling which is based on an imaginary world.
Or alternatively, I don't know why your sidelinging this as a "mechanics issue" when it's been one from the start (as far as I can tell), and the above is me trying to grope for some reason for that?
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