Quote from: deadDMwalking;650737Now, even in a game when the rules are pretty well-established; and despite how well the GM and player might communicate, running through all of these options and figuring out which ones are possible and which ones are impossible; and further, which ones are likely to be successful and which are only remotely possible would take a long, long, time.  

Option Paralysis.  

To be honest with you, never had that problem in almost 35 years of gaming.  Here's why:

Some options off the top of my head

1) Leap to grab the chandelier and swing across the room kicking the bard that insulted the queen's mother in the chest.
* Make a Dex check to grab the chandelier, then an attack roll to kick the bard.

2) Flip the table that the three out-of-town foreigners are standing on brawling.
* Sorry, but your strength doesn't allow you to lift 600+ pounds.

3) Throw the bowl of steaming stew into the face of my nearest antagonist.
*easy to hit roll

4) Wait for the skinny farmer with the broken bottle to get close, then drop to my knees and roll into him, letting him fall over me in the confusion.
*You're much larger, so just make a to hit roll

5) Take two steps foward and slide on the spilled ale across the floor through the clear space between the tables to quickly close the distance without walking into any of the increasingly random melees.
* that seems pretty unusual because the floor is wooden and not really slippery.  Make a Dex check at a -6 penalty

6) Slash the rope suspending the chandelier, sending it crashing on top of several of the most belligerent brawlers.
*OK, done.

7) Draw a weapon and attack someone.
* take a -2 penalty to initiative

Quote from: KenHR;650718I'm a real gamer if I'm playing Squad Leader or OCS or something, but not when I'm playing an RPG, apparently.

What the fuck ever. Anyone who talks about being a "REAL gamer" as if it defines their entire being deserves to be shat on in any and every way possible.

Haha!:)

Quote from: Benoist;650722I wish you good luck against the windmills, though. You're gonna need it.

Yes, this site is full of people who buy into fantasies such as holding self-conflicting views when convenient, thinking that rules are a evil barely even worth reading, hatred of tradition map and mini play, and of course rampant moral relativism.

I've come to accept that.

Quote from: Phillip;650178I have a hard time picturing a game of Champions or D&D 4E (a session involving combat, anyhow) without the players directly addressing the abstraction.

1. It would be a hell of a lot of work for the GM, expect perhaps with really good computer assistance.

2. That's a big part of "where the game is" in those cases, starting with the "character build" system.

3. Although many things in Champions could with some labor translate to/from plain description, a lot of strategy has to do with using more precise information than we get (at least consciously) in real life. With D&D 4E, I -- and I gather many other people -- find that the relationship between the domain of pure game and the domain of imagined reality is a lot harder to discern.

If the gm is comfortable with the Hero system, Champions should not present a problem if a player says "I wait so I can use my matter transmutation touch superpower on any invisible enemy I sniff out with my enhanced nose."

The gm should be able to handle delaying a phase, using a power, and a percetion roll without the player knowing the rules at all.

I do think the gm should explain before play starts what the character can do.



Or am I misinterpreting you?

Quote from: Arkansan;650244Rules should be for the ref, at my table I prefer my players to know just what is needed to get by. This is why I run OD&D, because the rules are so scant that players really don't need to know anything. I have my players tell me what they are trying to do and I work the mechanics out on my end.

I have met with mixed levels of success with this approach. The last few games I ran were for my wife, brother, and a couple of close friends. Only one of them had any prior gaming experience, with no preexisting expectations it worked out fantastically. I walked them through character creation and that was it, after that they told me what they were trying to do and if needed I told them what to roll. The games flowed smoothly, the players consistently thought outside the box and great fun was had by all.

I however have ran a few games for friends that were gamers, mostly 4e and 3.X/Pathfinder players and it was difficult to get them on board. They wanted to know how everything worked and one player bitched constantly that he didn't like that OD&D didn't have a system for adjudicating every little situation. There was a lot of complaining that there was no way to customize their characters, I got a lot of "well I want to play X kind of fighter so how do I make him like a dual wielding death cultist that specializes in katanas?". Part of the problem I am sure was just the group but it is the sort of thinking that makes me prefer playing with non gamers to gamers.

There is some truth to complaints of customization IF the gm does not allow for that in some way.

However, I do not relate at all to the issue some players I know have with needing to know the exact percentage chance of all possible actions in the universe to make a simple decision.

Thats strange to me.  As a player or a gm, I just have my character or an npc do what makes sense at the time.

My barbarian can swing his axe just fine without knowing the ac of an enemy.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;650748To be honest with you, never had that problem in almost 35 years of gaming.  Here's why:

Some options off the top of my head

1) Leap to grab the chandelier and swing across the room kicking the bard that insulted the queen's mother in the chest.
* Make a Dex check to grab the chandelier, then an attack roll to kick the bard.
**I jump up and grab the light fixture in the room yanking from the ceiling, wow this is really hard.

2) Flip the table that the three out-of-town foreigners are standing on brawling.
* Sorry, but your strength doesn't allow you to lift 600+ pounds.
** I didn't say lift I said flip.  Moe, Larry, Joe, climb on the table and start beating on each, let me show this guy how easy it is to flip over a table with people brawling on it.

3) Throw the bowl of steaming stew into the face of my nearest antagonist.
*easy to hit roll
** To hit roll?  wtf for?

4) Wait for the skinny farmer with the broken bottle to get close, then drop to my knees and roll into him, letting him fall over me in the confusion.
*You're much larger, so just make a to hit roll
**If I hit him he falls over?  Or you gonna decree what happens by the roll?

5) Take two steps foward and slide on the spilled ale across the floor through the clear space between the tables to quickly close the distance without walking into any of the increasingly random melees.
* that seems pretty unusual because the floor is wooden and not really slippery.  Make a Dex check at a -6 penalty
**Not slippery?  WTF?  a wet, wooden floor in a tavern with all this beer and spirits spilled on it, not counting all of the food, plus all the dirt from the shoes that has sanded down the surface even more, not counting that the shoes we wear aren't famous for the traction, and your telling me this is unusual?

6) Slash the rope suspending the chandelier, sending it crashing on top of several of the most belligerent brawlers.
*OK, done.
**Oh this works, but I have to roll to hit with throwing stew in someone's face?

7) Draw a weapon and attack someone.
* take a -2 penalty to initiative
** Sure whatever.



This is why people have issues with the "Let the DM adjudicate the action".

Quote from: Bill;650753If the gm is comfortable with the Hero system, Champions should not present a problem if a player says "I wait so I can use my matter transmutation touch superpower on any invisible enemy I sniff out with my enhanced nose."

The gm should be able to handle delaying a phase, using a power, and a percetion roll without the player knowing the rules at all.

Indeed he should.

A point of failure when the player doesn't know the rules is that they are unaware of small details that could matter. In your example above everything will be resolved correctly, but the player didn't know that moving closer a hex might prevent a -2 Range Modifier to the power's attack roll and so didn't move.

Generally these things aren't a killer. And a player may learn through experience perhaps even better than he would by reading the rules (very common actually) and know next time that range matters as the GM states the negative modifier and asks for a roll that when done fails by 1.

Most people learn to play baseball without ever opening a rulebook. The same applies to even the most rigid RAW RPG campaigns.

Quote from: Swiss Toni;650343No one in our group GM's all the time and we play lots of different games that many of us have run at one time or another so most of us are familiar with the rules for quite a few games.

Can't really see the point in players not knowing the rules, it generally makes games run much smoother in our group, though we tend to make rulings on the fly if it means the game isn't interrupted with someone flipping through a rulebook for 10 minutes.

Sometimes the players should not know the rules.

Ravenloft is more fun if as a player, you don't know jack all about the Plane itself.

But in many cases, its advantageous if the players know the rules, especially the ones that their character uses all the time.

But, I can play an rpg without knowing anything about the rules.

Just do whatever the character would do.

Quote from: Bill;650754My barbarian can swing his axe just fine without knowing the ac of an enemy.

That's a feature of D&D, making the swing against a AC you can't hit carries no drawback other than a missed attack and actually gains the knowledge that now you know your foe is hard to hit so other options might be better.

Meanwhile D&D's HP system gives you time and buffer room to lose that attack and take advantage of that knowledge.

Things are not so warm and fuzzy in say Age of Heroes, and attacking a more skilled foe offers dangers of its own.

Thus at least basic knowledge of how the system works is vastly important to how you run your character. One game lets you "swing your axe just fine", the other requires a bit more consideration.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;650392As a side effect, the only things that get attempted are a safe set of stock moves that are on the character sheet leading to a button mashing playstyle.

It is important that a player be aware of general odds for success/failure before attempting something risky but a codified list of moves and rigid resolution mechanics aren't needed to provide this.

If the gm is supportive of players attempting interesting things with characters, it is not a problem.

if the gm is an ass hat that loves to say "You fail!" all the time, its a problem.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;650737The problem with lacking a basic sense of the rules is that in an RPG, anything and everything is a possibility.

Take a classic tavern fight.  

Some options off the top of my head

1) Leap to grab the chandelier and swing across the room kicking the bard that insulted the queen's mother in the chest.

2) Flip the table that the three out-of-town foreigners are standing on brawling.

3) Throw the bowl of steaming stew into the face of my nearest antagonist.

4) Wait for the skinny farmer with the broken bottle to get close, then drop to my knees and roll into him, letting him fall over me in the confusion.

5) Take two steps foward and slide on the spilled ale across the floor through the clear space between the tables to quickly close the distance without walking into any of the increasingly random melees.

6) Slash the rope suspending the chandelier, sending it crashing on top of several of the most belligerent brawlers.

7) Draw a weapon and attack someone.  

Now, even in a game when the rules are pretty well-established; and despite how well the GM and player might communicate, running through all of these options and figuring out which ones are possible and which ones are impossible; and further, which ones are likely to be successful and which are only remotely possible would take a long, long, time.  

Option Paralysis.  

Another thing that you tend to see from new players is trying to do too many things.

Example - I leap to grab the chandelier swinging over to the bard that insulted my mother.  I draw my weapon as I swing, holding on with only a single hand.  I drop down and as the chandelier swings away I slash at the rope, sending it carreening into the crowd behind me and preventing the ugly crowd from following me.  I put my sword against the bard's neck and ask him, "What did you call my mother?"  

That'd be cool if it happened in the game, but that's a lot of action by the rules (even in a 1 minute round!!!) so usually it's going to be impossible.  By the time you break the action down into manageable chunks, the likelihood of wanting to continue the initially stated action as the situation develops is pretty small.  

Most players are going to stick to number 7 because the rules on how to resolve that are very easy and very clear.  Anything else gets increasingly complex - and usually in the process of evaluating the options with the GM, the game gets bogged down.

Now, not every game requires effective action from the PCs.  If nobody minds the game playing more like a Three Stooges short, just trying crazy stunts might work - but for most games I've participated in, players focus on the actions that they understand how the resolution will work.

That list is all about the GM's creativity and experience. Rules are optional to do any of those things.

Quote from: gleichman;650756Indeed he should.

A point of failure when the player doesn't know the rules is that they are unaware of small details that could matter. In your example above everything will be resolved correctly, but the player didn't know that moving closer a hex might prevent a -2 Range Modifier to the power's attack roll and so didn't move.

Generally these things aren't a killer. And a player may learn through experience perhaps even better than he would by reading the rules (very common actually) and know next time that range matters as the GM states the negative modifier and asks for a roll that when done fails by 1.

Most people learn to play baseball without ever opening a rulebook. The same applies to even the most rigid RAW RPG campaigns.

True that a player may make iffy choices if they do not know the rules.
Ideally the gm could inform the player of the range modifier on the spot.

Quote from: Sommerjon;6507551) Leap to grab the chandelier and swing across the room kicking the bard that insulted the queen's mother in the chest.
* Make a Dex check to grab the chandelier, then an attack roll to kick the bard.
**I jump up and grab the light fixture in the room yanking from the ceiling, wow this is really hard.

reread what he said as the scenario.  It wasn't just jumping straight up to grab the chandelier.

Quote2) Flip the table that the three out-of-town foreigners are standing on brawling.
* Sorry, but your strength doesn't allow you to lift 600+ pounds.
** I didn't say lift I said flip.  Moe, Larry, Joe, climb on the table and start beating on each, let me show this guy how easy it is to flip over a table with people brawling on it.

Tell you what hot shot, you put 3 full grown men standing on a typical inn table (usually pretty thick and heavy itself) and try to flip it.  Go ahead you stud you.  Especially with a floor that is supposedly easy to slide all the way across.

Quote3) Throw the bowl of steaming stew into the face of my nearest antagonist.
*easy to hit roll
** To hit roll?  wtf for?

Because it's treated like any other attack roll.  Dagger or stew, doesn't matter.  You're throwing an object as an attack.  Seriously dude.

Quote4) Wait for the skinny farmer with the broken bottle to get close, then drop to my knees and roll into him, letting him fall over me in the confusion.
*You're much larger, so just make a to hit roll
**If I hit him he falls over?  Or you gonna decree what happens by the roll?

Again, you're essentially making an attack.  So just make an attack roll.

Quote5) Take two steps foward and slide on the spilled ale across the floor through the clear space between the tables to quickly close the distance without walking into any of the increasingly random melees.
* that seems pretty unusual because the floor is wooden and not really slippery.  Make a Dex check at a -6 penalty
**Not slippery?  WTF?  a wet, wooden floor in a tavern with all this beer and spirits spilled on it, not counting all of the food, plus all the dirt from the shoes that has sanded down the surface even more, not counting that the shoes we wear aren't famous for the traction, and your telling me this is unusual?

You know, if you actually read the scenario before responding, you'd save yourself a lot of time.  If it were fairly easy to "slide across the bar floor" anytime food or beverage got spilled, you don't think that would be a problem?  People would be falling all over themselves.  There's a big difference in being somewhat slippery and slippery enough to slide a significant distance.

Quote6) Slash the rope suspending the chandelier, sending it crashing on top of several of the most belligerent brawlers.
*OK, done.
**Oh this works, but I have to roll to hit with throwing stew in someone's face?

The chandelier rope isn't moving, thus no attack roll needed.  If anyone is underneath it when it falls, they get affected.  What's so hard about that?

QuoteThis is why people have issues with the "Let the DM adjudicate the action".

And this is why most people here think you're an idiot, because you're not actually thinking before needing to post an antagonizing diatribe of tripe.

*Edit* But more to the point, my post was to illustrate how something like those scenarios in a game does not devolve into paralysis by analysis.  They were all easily and quickly resolved.  Even in your version, they were.

Quote from: Bill;650760If the gm is supportive of players attempting interesting things with characters, it is not a problem.

It could very well be one.

If the campaign's genre and rules say that being in the open against missile fire is a dangerous move, leaping up and hanging from the chandelier when there's a foe nearby with a ready missile weapon is, well dumb no matter the height advantage the player gained on his melee foe.

A GM that failed to take the shot (and thus cause player failure) has broken the rules *and* the genre. He has also reduced the risk of the game.

It's that reduced risk that is a common feature of free-wheeling GM who ignore or override the rules. He will almost always do this in ways to favor the players (as you note, saying 'not doing so is being an asshat').

Often risk is reduced to the point where it's no longer a game, but instead just a more formal make-believe session.

Meanwhile one who takes the shot teaches the player the danger of the genre and rules and this allows them to learn and improve their play in that campaign.

Quote from: Bill;650763True that a player may make iffy choices if they do not know the rules.
Ideally the gm could inform the player of the range modifier on the spot.

I find that feeding players solutions to their problems can be counter-productive, too often we learn best from our mistakes. Besides helping other players make good tactical choices is the role of the players, not the GM.

That said, I do actually provide such advice in practice and only withhold it from players who have played long enough to know better. In short I give them a chance to learn by teaching, and then I let experience teach.

For very new players, I actually show some of the effects on NPCs first. That works nearly as well.