Something about 'height advantage' and it's kin
lumpley:
Callan, I'm with the woman in your example: yeah, someone decides. The DM in your game, with the cleric standing on the table? He decided.
I don't represent the Forge in any strong way, but I can tell you my experience: I've never seen, here or anywhere, any assertion from anyone that your cleric or the table he's standing on are real.
-Vincent
Jim D.:
I confess I'm not entirely sure where the idea came from that on some philosophical level, your cleric and the table are real and what is known about their positions is an unarguable fact. That said, I do agree with the notions discussed here:
* Say you are playing D&D with miniatures. The DM has specified a certain square as a climbable table. Your cleric stands on the table. Height advantage, therefore +2.
* Now say you're playing the same game, without the mat and miniatures, verbally declaring actions in the old RPG standard way.
You: "There are tables in the room, right?"
DM: "Yes."
You: "I'd like to climb on top of one and secure a height advantage."
DM: "Sure, you can get there in a single move action if you want."
You: "Very well, I'll do that. With my newfound height advantage, I'll strike at the orc in front of me."
DM: "Go ahead and roll, and add +2 for the table."
You've mutually agreed upon the presence of the table, its benefit, and so it is now an inarguable part of the fiction until circumstances change. (Say, the table breaks under your weight. :P)
If we're coming at this from the angle of credibility (and forgive me if I'm misusing the term), I don't really see a difference here. In the former case, the DM laid out the room in advance, put the tables down, and it's an implicit part of the rules that you can stand on the table and secure the height advantage unless the DM tells you otherwise for whatever reason. In the latter case, the realization of the table and its use came to fruition as part of a discussion with the DM, but the result is the same. Your agreed-upon framework for the game determined the existence of the table and its benefits. The only "set in stone" portion of this whole thing is the rule in the D&D book that states height advantage => +2. It's then up to the players to determine that existence and who has the credibility to firmly establish that (the GM, narrator, whatever).
The rule can be looked up, its applicability is determined by whoever's in charge, but I think it only becomes real and "look-upable", if you'll pardon the turn of phrase, when the players agree it's there and useful. Until then it's nebulous, a concept.
Christopher Kubasik:
Of the games I've played and loved playing in the last ten years:
Sorcerer has no rules of the kind you are referring to for (with "height advantage" being the example)
In a Wicked Age... has no rules of the kind you are referring to for (with "height advantage" being the example)
Primetime Adventures has no rules of the kind you are referring to for (with "height advantage" being the example)
HeroQuest has no rules of the kind you are referring to for (with "height advantage" being the example)
Pendragon does have rules of the kind you are referring to for (with "height advantage" being the example)
So, sometimes the point you are bringing up might be utterly moot depending on the particular RPG being played.
In the case of Pendragon, I would say that it is the accretion of fictional detail added through moment-by-moment of play that determines if any high ground is available. As a GM, if it seems like there's some high ground available and a Player wants to claim it in some clever way or with some bit of intriguing description, I give the bonus. I'm easy that way. I like it when my players describe things; it makes me happy and is why I play these games. If the Player of a knight in Pendragon says, "My guy runs up the steps of the scaffold for higher ground," I say, "Awesome. Plus 5 bonus for your attack next round on the villains in the courtyard."
Like Vincent I'll assure you, as I've done in the past, that I do not believe anything "real" is happening to make a basis for the bonus. And I've never seen anyone at the Forge make such a claim either.
Caldis:
I think if you are focusing on the real world interaction of a player and GM then you are looking at the least interesting part of rpg's. It's what they imagine together that is interesting and what makes the most solid basis for play to continue. It's not that anything real is going on it's that together we are imagining something and the better we are able share the imagined events the more solid the play feels.
Take your example of the bonus for height advantage, it is ultimately decided on by the gm but how does he decide to give it out? If he's not basing it on what's happening in the SIS then what does he decide it on, who he likes best? What color shirt someone is wearing? It's entirely arbitrary. It's only if we agree in our shared imagination that this character was here and that character was there and that gives this character an advantage do we have anything to base the decision on. There's still a lot to argue there but it is a basis.
Christian said you can turn it into a resource and force the player to pay for it but if all it becomes is an economical transaction it ends up being pretty weak sauce, you need to tie it back to the SIS for it to have any impact. i.e "I pay one opportunity point to climb to the high ground and get the bonus to hit for heigh advantage" is at least a little bit better than just paying points and not giving any imaginary reason for it.
Roger:
Quote from: Callan S. on May 03, 2010, 09:01:16 PM
there is no SIS that physically exists for anything to come out of
Well, yeah -- I know SISs don't physically exist, by definition. Let me try this again.
Here's some pseudo-AP from Spirit of the Century, with player P and GM.
P: I'm totally attacking the ninja pirate. I roll... +3, and my skill with Stabbing Bad Guys is +2, so I have a +5.
GM: Ohhh, so close, but not good enough.
P: Fine; I have the aspect "Always takes the High Ground", so here's my Fate Point, take it away; now I have a +7. Is THAT enough?
GM: Yep, sure is. You run the ninja pirate through.
Is there really that much difference here between the +3 from the dice sitting on the table and the +2 from the High Ground? I'm inclined to describe them as being, well, not exactly alike, but more similar than not.
We can approach it even closer if we explicitly try for it. I can imagine a game in which the character actions are all cards to be played, and one of the cards is "Take the High Ground: Play this card to receive a +2 to your next attack roll." In that sort of situation, anyone walking by can look at the table, see a +3 on the dice and a card with +2 beside them, sitting right there on the real world table, and I don't think there's much difference.
If I were writing up that particular exchange for Actual Play, I'd be inclined to describe it as "Then my guy Took the High Ground and subsequently stabbed the ninja pirate." I don't know if we're losing anything by not writing that as "Then I played the Take the High Ground card, followed by a Stab to the Groin card, at which point the GM removed the Ninja Pirate opponent token from the playing surface." But maybe we are.
Of course, some games don't have rules like that. Which is fine. In another game, under different circumstances, sure, that +2 from High Ground might just come out of GM whim. But without that additional context, I think we have no basis for deciding whether "If your character has the higher position, the result is you get +2 to your attack roll" is like or unlike "If the ball ends up in a slot marked six, the result is six".
As I'm thinking this over, I'm reminded more and more of "Say Yes, or Roll Dice." I don't think there's widespread confusion between what's happening when the gm Says Yes, and what's happening when the gm Rolls Dice.
I think what would help me most, Callan, is a specific example from an Actual Play post of someone labouring under this delusion. At the moment it feels a bit like we're gathering around to complain about the hypothetical behaviours of hypothetical people, which seems a bit counter-productive.
Cheers,
Roger
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