Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;971756

QuoteThe next thing you know, the Swine will be releasing RPGs in which no one rolls dice. Fucking Swine.

I see what you did there...

Apparently it was still a little too subtle for the guy who designs diceless game and then rants about how imaginary "swine" are trying to take his dice away with no sense of self-awareness whatsoever.

Quote from: cranebump;972701I never said GMs should not be trusted with rolling dice. I said you can't control the dice results, so it doesn't matter who rolls the dice.

I really don't get what Pundit rails against, or why he sees a fundamental, game-philosophical, politics-changing difference.

I am with him in that I, as a GM, prefer rolling my dice. But my reason is not that I don't trust players or that I don't want them to feel "special" or "empowered". I like to be part of the game part of an RPG, I want to be surprised by dice rolls - my own dice rolls, just like any player.
I could see why player-facing rolls are good for some GMs and games. A GM has so much to do and adjudicate behind his screen that it could be a relief to not having to bother which dice to take up and look up the skills for each of his 5-8 NPCs or monsters. But that's why I prefer games with lean stat blocks, so that's not a bother for me to begin with.

QuoteYou STILL only have to say, "I prefer to roll dice," and we're done here. Instead, you've turned this into, "I sense something outside my comfort zone, and I am frightened and angry."

For the record, my foray into "non-regular" gaming over the last 30 yearns is a 20-something session Dungeon World campaign we wrapped up in May.

And this is even more confusing as I remember that years back we had threads discussing whether DW was a proper RPG or a Storygame, and it was Pundit who defended DW (much to my surprise, really) as the black sheep, the almost trad variant of the pbtA family, and yes, a real RPG.
And now "only players roll" is a conspiracy to infiltrate and destroy proper RPGs?

(I have other beefs with DW but the player facing rolls are not among them. Those I don't like for petty reasons of taste, and that's just my problem.)

The question of what happens in PvP situations is way more interesting in discussing the merits of player-facing rolls. And I don't necessarily mean PvP combat but any situation where it's important to decide who goes first, who succeeds first, who notices what.
And physical conflicts on top of that.

Quote from: Dirk RemmeckeThe question of what happens in PvP situations is way more interesting in discussing the merits of player-facing rolls. And I don't necessarily mean PvP combat but any situation where it's important to decide who goes first, who succeeds first, who notices what.
And physical conflicts on top of that.

That may be problem with PbtA family of games. They are great for "soft PvP" (manipulation, intrigue, coertion, threats, heated arguments, etc) but the "hard PvP" (actual fights) may feel awkward if you prefer structured "rounds" of combat.

Quote from: Itachi;972802That may be problem with PbtA family of games. They are great for "soft PvP" (manipulation, intrigue, coertion, threats, heated arguments, etc) but the "hard PvP" (actual fights) may feel awkward if you prefer structured "rounds" of combat.

Concur. We had something of an impending PvP in our DW game, but the players worked in out in part because we weren't sure how to adjudicate it fairly.

Well, to be fair, the games that produced all player-facing rolls didn't come out of a design philosophy dedicated to making GM's lives easier.  That's why YOU like it.  These games came out of the Forge/Indie philosophy, which as we talked about in another thread, was a backlash against the metaplot and GM Story Railroads of the 90s.  The whole point was giving players more power through OOC mechanics, and in many cases actually limiting GM power.

To people who never ran GM Story Railroads, and know how to GM, these mechanical corrections weren't and aren't needed as our players never lacked freedom to control their character AS their character.

At this point I see player-facing rolls as a fad.  Of course games that have narrative aspects to them are jumping on the bandwagon, and I'm sure a couple of them are doing it partly for ideology.  I kind of doubt most are though.

Most systems I play at this point are opposed rolls, so there's no point to player-facing.  Going back to D&D I doubt I'd adopt player-facing, for one thing, you always run into the PvP issue, which never feels quite right, although it would be easier in Black Hack than Xworld.

I would argue that with no GM rolls, the feel of the game is different.  When the GM rolls, the Orc misses.  Sure you can describe it as you dodged or parried, or the Orc slipped or whatever, but what happened was the Orc missed.  When you shift that to player-facing, everything is contingent upon the players rolls.  It plays not as much like a RPG, but more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where the entries were "The Orc attacks, roll to defend.  If you roll a X you succeed."   It puts the GM in the role of storyteller and the players in the role of determining everything that happens.

Mathematically, the Orc rolling a Critical Hit on a 20 and you rolling a Critical Failure on a 1 are the same, but the feel of the cause and effect is different.  There's no sense of anything being out of the player's control, as anything bad that happens to them is by their own roll.  Since that's not how the reality of our world or any simulated world works, then the very nature of it is dissonant.  It's technically not an OOC mechanic, but it kinda feels like it.

It totally speeds up some people's games to great effect though, so more power to them.

Quote from: CRKrueger;973079Well, to be fair, the games that produced all player-facing rolls didn't come out of a design philosophy dedicated to making GM's lives easier.  That's why YOU like it.  These games came out of the Forge/Indie philosophy, which as we talked about in another thread, was a backlash against the metaplot and GM Story Railroads of the 90s.  The whole point was giving players more power through OOC mechanics, and in many cases actually limiting GM power.

  Only for folks who think this idea is somehow new. My first exposure to the idea was in the article "Defend Yourself!" in Dragon #177 (January 1993) by Blake Mobley, who sold it as a way to speed up the game and simplify DM bookkeeping. What really made it attractive to me was the Dragonlance: Fifth Age game, which was one of those "metaplot and GM Story Railroads of the 90s" and promoted it as freeing the Narrator to focus on story and drama rather than rules management.

Quote from: CRKrueger;973079I would argue that with no GM rolls, the feel of the game is different.  When the GM rolls, the Orc misses.  Sure you can describe it as you dodged or parried, or the Orc slipped or whatever, but what happened was the Orc missed.  When you shift that to player-facing, everything is contingent upon the players rolls.  It plays not as much like a RPG, but more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where the entries were "The Orc attacks, roll to defend.  If you roll a X you succeed."   It puts the GM in the role of storyteller and the players in the role of determining everything that happens.

This is no different in GM dice roll systems, as the GM is still adjudicating based on player actions. Further, players determine what's going to happen whether the GM rolls dice or not, unless the GM is railroading them, which has nothing to do with dice. If anything GM dice roll sets the ref in an "adversarial" role, since, by rolling to hit, you're "attacking" the players characters (which is fine, too --lots of folks, including me, play that way).

That said, if the rolls are in the open, it doesn't matter who rolls the dice, which has been my point (and others') all along in this back and forth. Yeah, it. An "feel" like you're not affecting your group by not rolling. But, in determining the world details, plus how monsters attack, when, whom, and so on, you're still directing the flow of the game as you always do. It's just a question of whether you feel like you should be rolling, or, for some GM's (possibly) the sadistic delight of hacking up PCs "yourself."

Beyond that, your comments about "feel" are reason enough to say, "fuck that, I'd rather rolll dice," and I'd be behind that sentiment all day long. But, really, everything else the GM does is the same, whether rolling or not, and I feel like conflating a philosophical argument into that about "empowerment" (as we've seen offered in this thread by others) is just bullshit. The better argument is the one you're making here--"this does not feel like the type of game I want to run." Anybody can understand that.

QuoteMathematically, the Orc rolling a Critical Hit on a 20 and you rolling a Critical Failure on a 1 are the same, but the feel of the cause and effect is different.  There's no sense of anything being out of the player's control, as anything bad that happens to them is by their own roll.  .

I still don't see how "rolling random numbers=control," but the inverse of this is that, if the player fails the roll, they can't bitch about my loaded GM dice.:-) I will agree it feels good to crit, of course. I'm personally not worried whether the players feel in control or not. In fact, if they do feel more in control, they probably feel more invested. I also know that I feel perfectly in control as far as GMing goes whether I have/roll the dice or not, and it is hard for me to understand why anyone else would feel like they had less control. As has been mentioned already, you have the substance of the created universe at your command. What else do you need, really?

I don't know whether I'll run Black Hack or not, or whether I'll roll dice next time or not. But I don't mind players making rolls. Never have. They make the WM rolls all the time, which is a lot of run for me when the players stare down each other for their buddy not only rolling up a WM, but also producing a dragon who happens be flying by.:-)

You're misunderstanding me, it's not about "control" as in power dynamics, ie. WHO has it, me or you.  It's about control as in "do I as a player have control over something my character does not."  It's not a Viking Hat Issue, it's a Character Immersion Issue.

Placing all rolls in the player's hands, having nothing happen to the character that the player doesn't roll for, while the GM just narrates supports the idea that this roleplaying session is a story that I am both roleplaying in as my character and looking at from the OOC story point of view.  Which, of course, is exactly why you see games with a more narrative/story approach increasingly use player-facing rolls.  For some, that's the point of the mechanic.  Not everyone, sure, but you can't claim it isn't there.

Quote from: CRKrueger;973090You're misunderstanding me, it's not about "control" as in power dynamics, ie. WHO has it, me or you.  It's about control as in "do I as a player have control over something my character does not."  It's not a Viking Hat Issue, it's a Character Immersion Issue.

Placing all rolls in the player's hands, having nothing happen to the character that the player doesn't roll for, while the GM just narrates supports the idea that this roleplaying session is a story that I am both roleplaying in as my character and looking at from the OOC story point of view.  Which, of course, is exactly why you see games with a more narrative/story approach increasingly use player-facing rolls.  For some, that's the point of the mechanic.  Not everyone, sure, but you can't claim it isn't there.

Still don't completely buy it, and here's why: In a system like Black Hack, plenty of things can happen that players do not roll for, because the GM is in charge of when rolls are made, not the player. Now, something like DW does have triggers for character rolls (I.e., "when you..., roll..."). But I played it, and ignored triggers plenty of times. I was still in charge of when rolls were made, and many things happen that required no rolling whatsoever. There ARE triggers though, and it could be argued that, in ignoring them, I was missing the point of DW, but I can tell you I was never just a auxiliary piece of the puzzle. Even with the triggers, I was still interpreting dice results, just as any GM would, in any traditional system. And the dice rolls in that system ARE about what characters can do. There aren't any rolls that do not spring from a character feature or action. So, I'm not sure what you're saying a player can do that a character can't, unless you're referring to something I'm not familiar with.

But let's skip all that and say I agree with you that all those aforementioned mechanics are there in some systems, and that those systems are about putting more in the player's hands. Okay, fine. But guess what? Black Hack, the subject at hand, doesn't have them. It isn't narrativist. It's just a roll-under, player-facing, task resolution mechanic. The amount of dice rolls to make and such, have no story triggers. You call for them, just as you would if you were GMing anything else "traditional." There's also nothing in BH that says you can't make summary rulings as a GM. It's firmly traditional, from the GM standpoint, except for its dice resolution mechanic, which is about character skill, more than anything else (which a GM can easily tweak by adopting a system of mods, if so desired).

Anyway, I can concede that some systems use player facing mechanics to more readily prompt story elements (I can see that, sure). But Black Hack isn't one of them. Further, there is just no argument anyone can give me that "rolling dice=empowerment," which is, really, the only real issue I've been going on and on about. As long as I have final say, I'm empowered. This includes something like DW, where I could whip up anything I wanted, just like other systems. I was still running world reactions, all the way. And I was still deciding when to roll and when not to. As far as authority goes, I had it. Anything beyond that is just nuts and bolts, imho.

Quote from: cranebump;973103Still don't completely buy it, and here's why: In a system like Black Hack, plenty of things can happen that players do not roll for, because the GM is in charge of when rolls are made, not the player.

Yeah but the Kobold never actually critically hits you.  You critically fail to dodge.  So it's not "Remember that time that crazy Kobold went Duelist on you?" it's "Remember when you let that Kobold almost take off your hand?"

Now sure, you can narrate any dice result any way you want and as I've said multiple times, the math is the same.  However the strict separation of GM=Narrate, Player=Play the game feels effectively different, even though it isn't really.  I'm not even talking as a GM not being able to roll dice, I'm talking as a player rolling dice for everything.  It doesn't seem like for IC roleplaying I should be the one to always "roll to find out what happens".  Actions of others I do not want to be rolling for, even partially.

I never said Black Hack was a narrative system, I was saying that's where you commonly see the player-facing mechanic these days, so it's not like there wasn't a link back to the days of "brain damage".  That's what sets off Pundit's Swine Detector.

To me, Black Hack just seems like someone New Schooled the Fuck out of OD&D.  I don't have an opinion on the author's design ethos or ideology.

Quote from: CRKrueger;973111Yeah but the Kobold never actually critically hits you.  You critically fail to dodge.  So it's not "Remember that time that crazy Kobold went Duelist on you?" it's "Remember when you let that Kobold almost take off your hand?"

Player's have always made their own saves against spells from NPC magic-users in D&D, and I have never seen this problem.You're just engaging in imaginary theorycrafting.

What Baulderstone says. All times we played PbtA games, the NPCs had as much volition and concreteness as in any other game, and we remember times when NPC A or B did X or Y, again, as in any other game.

Quote from: CRkruegerI'm not even talking as a GM not being able to roll dice, I'm talking as a player rolling dice for everything. It doesn't seem like for IC roleplaying I should be the one to always "roll to find out what happens". Actions of others I do not want to be rolling for, even partially.

Players do not roll for everything. They only roll for actions relating directly to their characters. At least in the games I know that use the concept (PbtA, Numenera).

Quote from: Itachi;973117Players do not roll for everything. They only roll for actions relating directly to their characters. At least in the games I know that use the concept (PbtA, Numenera).

Same with the White Hack. The GM still rolls for things like wandering monsters, etc. The player only rolls for things directly affecting them.

Quote from: Baulderstone;973114Player's have always made their own saves against spells from NPC magic-users in D&D, and I have never seen this problem.Your just engaging in imaginary theorycrafting.

No, actually I'm telling you what it feels like to me having played games where the player rolls for everything.  I'm not assuming you're being a disingenuous dick making a false analogy because I'm saying something you don't like, how about showing the same courtesy and not conflating me with Pundit. Thanks much.  

Generally, in published D&D, the rules mostly work the same for everyone.
When someone casts a spell, whether is it ME or the NPC, the attacker rolls for damage if there is any, the target saves to resist.  That's how magic works, period, for both.
When someone makes an attack, the attacker rolls, the defender's defense is assumed. That's how it works for both.

Depending on version of D&D I may be able to parry like a Cavalier or use some fight defensively Feat, but the GM as the Giant can still roll a 20 and knock me across the room no matter what I do.  Sometimes things are more properly handled in the hands of others besides me and my character.  

"You roll for what your character does" is so natural and intuitive that to disrupt that begs the question: "Why?"  What is the purpose?  I can see the argument for speed.  It's just not worth the tradeoff in how the game feels for me.

Quote from: Itachi;973117What Baulderstone says. All times we played PbtA games, the NPCs had as much volition and concreteness as in any other game, and we remember times when NPC A or B did X or Y, again, as in any other game.


Players do not roll for everything. They only roll for actions relating directly to their characters. At least in the games I know that use the concept (PbtA, Numenera).

Quote from: Baulderstone;973119Same with the White Hack. The GM still rolls for things like wandering monsters, etc. The player only rolls for things directly affecting them.

Directly affecting them, yes, including things over which they really should not have complete mechanical control over because the character does not, which is why PvP kind of falls flat in these systems.  The asymmetric nature of gameplay reinforces the notion of a 4th wall awareness that these are the protagonists, again which is exactly WHY you see this being used more and more in games with a more story/narrative element.

I love it how System Matters, except when someone doesn't like it, then they're fooling themselves and every other sort of wrong that can be dreamed up.