Quote from: FrankTrollman;388623Sure. It's very flexible. My complaint has never been that Skill Challenges weren't flexible enough. My complaints are twofold:

• Pseudoephedrine doesn't have clue one about what he is talking about.

and

• That the specific guideline of individual actions counting against a group action limit by contributing to the group failure count on individual failure results is a bad part of the framework because it is a tactical incentive for boring play (such as: one player making 4 Arcana tests in a row).

That's it. I'll defend those two points with fire and sword if need be, because I think both have been pretty effectively demonstrated.

-Frank

Well, I guess this probably chalks up to technique. The only rolls that actually affect the skill challenge are determined by the DM. So you can't just "make 4 arcana checks in a row" if the challenge involves a combination of other stuff, and the DM switches to a new scene where something else is called for. Also, I don't assume the burden is going to be spread out amongst players, and there should be room for solo adventures too.

For example, a skill challenge involving casting a particularly dangerous ritual:


The DM might start with a library scene in which one (or more) players try to use History to research the ritual, then once they get the info they need, they discover that they'll have to use a very rare reagent.

So then they use Streetwise (and a whole roleplaying scene associated with it) to track down whatever reagents there are, and hopefully buy them (Diplomacy), steal them (Thievery) or use trickery to procure them (Bluff).  More roleplaying.

Finally you get to actual the ritual, which is long and complicated, and even dangerous, because during the casting, it summons tendrils of elemental sparks, and the ritual caster has to maintain his concentration. You can give the players a choice of using Athletics (for non-casters who happen to be watching the ritual) to pull them away from the caster) or Endurance (for the caster himself to maintain his concentration through the pain..)

And THEN you get to the actual Arcana check, and whether it's failed or successful, you keep adding details of what happens.

That's how skill challenges work. 4 Arcana checks in a row (without a way to make that interesting) is just bad DMing.

Quote from: J Arcane;388604It's the same retarded demographic that gets all hopped up on Steampunk and Zombies and "pirates vs. ninjas" and raptor Jesus and the rest of the inane, mostly in-joke based modern Internet geek culture.

If you can't see this shit around you, well, I envy you, but it's there, and it's getting goddamn obnoxious, especially when it starts undermining genuine expression.

Post-modernist decadence.

Quote from: Werekoala;388613Rifftrax are great, highly recommended, and the movies are far more watchable.

That said, I really miss "Turkey Day" from the Comedy Central days.

Some friends had a tape of one of those, I don't remember which one.  Penn Jillete was hosting, if he didn't do more than one.  Good stuff, but I think they went through and picked out the best episodes for that.  Some of the episodes were just stinkers, mostly because the movies were just so bad as to be virtually unusable.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;388630Well, I guess this probably chalks up to technique. The only rolls that actually affect the skill challenge are determined by the DM. So you can't just "make 4 arcana checks in a row" if the challenge involves a combination of other stuff, and the DM switches to a new scene where something else is called for. Also, I don't assume the burden is going to be spread out amongst players, and there should be room for solo adventures too.

Sure. But the point is that this is a bad rule, and all the work you're doing is working around the reality of a bad rule. If you invert the system so that players are capped by a number of rounds instead of a maximum number of failures amongst all the team members, then the incentives run to every player trying to figure out some way to help.

The rules should get the PCs working with the DM rather than against the DM. Under the framework of Skill Challenges, the incentives are for the PCs to figure out one thing that works and then have one player do that until the DM makes them stop and then figure out something else for someone to do. If you had a limit of like "2 rounds" instead of "4 successes or 3 failures", then the incentives would be for the players to each do something on each round. And then if someone did the same thing two rounds in a row, you wouldn't even care because it would be be broken up by four other players doing stuff.

QuoteThat's how skill challenges work. 4 Arcana checks in a row (without a way to make that interesting) is just bad DMing.

The 4 Arcana Checks in a row challenge isn't some sort of bullshit edge case hater example, it's literally the first example in the latest official writeup of the Skill Challenge concept in the DMG2.

There are optional rules you can invoke to punish players for responding to it like that, but the game shouldn't be encouraging that sort of behavior if you don't like it.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;388610But unlike you, I can see the continuity between 4chan and the past. And I find people grieving over how "over the top" things have gotten with warforged and zombie pirates to be hilarious in the context of the Serious Business that was Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. So when I say that I understand where Raptor Jesus, what I should really be saying is:

I love Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!

I'm not helping, am I?

Quote from: pseudoephedrine

Quote from: Originally Posted by LordVreegJA also mentioned this, you're using/mixing terminology without understanding it.
Look above where I write, "the part I'm talking about is not subjective, since there is an absolute, black-and-white litmus test."
What I am talking about here is the terms "associative" and "dissociative", which are defined 'as mechanics that require the player to think as the player and not the character, mechanics that depend on on metagame logic to operate'.
You can argue, if you wish, that you don't believe that dissociative mechanics don't reduce immersion in every game, or something like that. But what defines that as associative and dissociative is very black and white.

I think the definitions are bad from the get go. I've been explaining that I don't think these are properties that adhere to mechanics at all, which undercuts the definition. Definitions need to be sound, and I don't think those are - for the reason, as I've said a couple of times now, that I don't think mechanics play a particularly important role in whether immersion happens or not.

Ok, so maybe it was me, or a communication issue.
To back up a step...
Would you agree that there are mechanics that require metagaming or that depend on metagame logic?

Quote from: StormBringer;388637I love Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!

I'm not helping, am I?

you're helping me enjoy this.  that's enough.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;388615It is for this very reason that weapon speed and weapon penetration rules and their important impact on combat in earlier editions of D&D must be accounted for in any "real" discussion of how the game plays. Never mind that most people didn't use them, they were RAW!

Similarly, any discussion of mechanics for stabbing a non-helpless hostage in the throat in 3.x is impossible, because the RAW is totally silent.

:rolleyes:

This is simply a double standard.

I think you are talking to the wrong guy about that.  I am quite adamant in my support of weapon vs AC if the Fighter is to be utilized at all properly.  In fact, I had quite a number of rants on a thread Benoist started about using those very rules before complaining that AD&D Fighters have no options besides 'swing, hit, swing miss'.

Quote from: Benoist;388631Post-modernist decadence.

I was getting my morning wake-up from the coffee shop this morning after reading J Arcane's post when it hit me:  the 90s are to blame.

They were playing ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky".  According to Wikipedia:

"Jeff Lynne, who hid himself away to write enough material for a double album, wrote the track in Switzerland. After a two week period of writers block dampened by the inclement weather outside, Lynne was suddenly inspired to write "Mr. Blue Sky" following a break in the weather when the entire area was bathed in sunshine..."

It wasn't ironic.  It wasn't a sarcastic 'thanks for the sunshine, asshole'.  It was an earnest, heartfelt song about a nice day.  And it went to #6 in the UK.

Post modern decadence indeed.

Quote from: LordVreeg;388639you're helping me enjoy this.  that's enough.

Then I have contributed more than my usual.  

Quote from: LordVreeg;388638Ok, so maybe it was me, or a communication issue.
To back up a step...
Would you agree that there are mechanics that require metagaming or that depend on metagame logic?

I'm not sure what "metagame" means in your statement there.

I do think that there are mechanics that are not intended to mimic some feature of the world's physics and that offer incentives to players to react to them without requiring them to think about things from an in-character perspective. i.e. level drain, conflict resolution systems, etc. Is this what you're talking about?

Quote from: StormBringer;388646I was getting my morning wake-up from the coffee shop this morning after reading J Arcane's post when it hit me:  the 90s are to blame.

Actually, yes, but through them, what's really to blame IMO is the end of the 60s onward. Discussed about this yesterday evening on the net, and then extensively with my wife. We were trying to figure out what exactly changed so radically with the 90s, and it's actually my wife who gasped and said "the parents. The age braket. These are the children of people active in the late 60s".

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;388648I'm not sure what "metagame" means in your statement there.

I do think that there are mechanics that are not intended to mimic some feature of the world's physics and that offer incentives to players to react to them without requiring them to think about things from an in-character perspective. i.e. level drain, conflict resolution systems, etc. Is this what you're talking about?

To some degree.  We're not that far off.
At it's most basic and most simple, metagaming is defined as, "In simple terms, using out-of-game information, or resources, to affect one's in-game decisions."

"In role-playing games, a player is metagaming when they use knowledge that is not available to their character in order to change the way they play their character (usually to give them an advantage within the game), such as knowledge of the mathematical nature of character statistics, or the statistics of a creature that the player is familiar with but the character has never encountered. In general, it refers to any gaps between player knowledge and character knowledge which the player acts upon."

Level drain is something a character might now about, and a PC can react honestly enough to it.  Conflict resolutions are the physics of combat in a world, so not necessarily.

An example would be Fate/Action Points, as described before.  They can be a fun and interesting game mechanic, deciding to have something happen, or not happen, or to have another shot at something.  Makes the game more cinematic.
But they force metagaming by their use.  "Should I make time go backward and have that spearthrust not hit me?", is not ever an in-character thought (well, for most games).  The PLayer has to decide to use expend a resource that the Player has, that the character does not have and that is not part of the in-game world.  it's not a character skill or spell or item, So this is an example of a rule that forces out-of character use.

Or so I see it.  Am I onto something, or do you think I am merely on something?

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;388627I love you in all your autistic, RAWBAW glory, Frankie!

Frank autistic?  Autism isn't the first thing which stands out in Frank's posts.

First thing I would have thought is hypergraphia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergraphia

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;388614... as I've said a couple of times now, that I don't think mechanics play a particularly important role in whether immersion happens or not...

I'm curious, then, about cases in which the same group plays two different games, and finds one game to be more 'immersive' (conducive towards immersive experiences, or whatever) than the other.  The only variable seems to be the game mechanics in question, since everything else (players, even the campaign setting in some cases) is constant.

I've had this experience, and a friend of mine in LA noticed this when his group switched systems (in his case to 4e).