Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on December 28, 2023, 02:44:23 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there.

To start with, I'm with everyone else here in being very against illusionist gm-ing. I think this forum tends to trend towards the simulationist end of the GSN paradigm. Personally I'm unapologetically much more gamist in my approach, in that I'll generally prioritize a functionally playing game over one that accurately simulates reality. Even then, one of the basics of a functioning game is that the rules apply consistently and evenly, and that no one gets to cheat. To use a videogame analogy, having the DM change the rolls/stats behind the screen is akin to a videogame where the hit-detection malfunctions and it becomes unpredictable whether a weapon model colliding with a character model will cause damage, or a boss monster reads your inputs to attack you at the exact instant you start healing. It's the game itself cheating. I GM by a strict rule that once the "pieces are on the board", i.e., once I've described the scenario or written it down in my adventure notes, I take my hands off. No changing stats, no spawning monsters, etc. The rolls are the rolls.

Most video games DO cheat. When tested against the non-cheating version, players always report worse enjoyment compared to the cheat. Stuff like subtle auto aim to help the player shoot in FPS, or making the AI catch up faster in racing games, or fudging the RNG for item drops.

That's a fair criticism. I generally regard a bit of auto aim as a fair compensation for the awkwardness of aiming with a controller, but the point remains. I was thinking more of action games (in the God of War/Devil May Cry/Dark Souls vein), where consistency is key to making the higher skill floor seem fair. In that context you see a lot of player complaints over stuff like input reading, weapon clipping, move-assist/snapping, overgenerous hotboxes etc.

Maybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of  GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 08:49:26 PMI have had a monster get 4 crits in a row.  It doesn't happen often but it happens.

Probability is a religious belief.  Unless this is your 160,000th monster turn and/or you're doing 160,000 monster turns in a reasonable period of time.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 12:21:02 PMMaybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of  GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.

It was said way up in the thread, but this is really about managing expectations.  If your players expect you behave as the clockwork god, you shouldn't be considering the possible outcomes of the encounters when you plan them.  You should just deduct the natural world the way it is.

On the other hand if you are brand new to GMing, are doing it for people who are brand new to RPGs, and they have an expectation of "this will be more fun than the video games I could play instead" you probably want to help them out.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:17:09 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 08:49:26 PMI have had a monster get 4 crits in a row.  It doesn't happen often but it happens.

Probability is a religious belief.  Unless this is your 160,000th monster turn and/or you're doing 160,000 monster turns in a reasonable period of time.

No, it's a mathematical concept.  Speaking of mathematical concepts, there's a thing called clustering.  I am not talking about a theoretical statistical probability.  This is a thing that happened in a game I was running within the last year.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 28, 2023, 11:55:54 PM

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:17:09 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 08:49:26 PMI have had a monster get 4 crits in a row.  It doesn't happen often but it happens.

Probability is a religious belief.  Unless this is your 160,000th monster turn and/or you're doing 160,000 monster turns in a reasonable period of time.

No, it's a mathematical concept.  Speaking of mathematical concepts, there's a thing called clustering.  I am not talking about a theoretical statistical probability.  This is a thing that happened in a game I was running within the last year.

Yep. Play enough games invovling dice and you will see some bizzare, counterintuitive shit. "Lucky" streaks and "unlucky" streaks happen.
Also also, mass market dice have biases. Biases strong enough to be noticed during an evening's worth of gaming, and can have an effect greater than some rules!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1alv05cXh0WhNaFPoq3LNzxmv6veurf6utV1kMQAYDQw/edit#heading=h.bojve7q9v4yt

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 29, 2023, 02:14:18 AM
Yep. Play enough games invovling dice and you will see some bizzare, counterintuitive shit. "Lucky" streaks and "unlucky" streaks happen.

Last night I saw three NPCs all roll natural 20s on the same saving throw, on VTT no less. 

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:25:10 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 12:21:02 PMMaybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of  GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.

It was said way up in the thread, but this is really about managing expectations.  If your players expect you behave as the clockwork god, you shouldn't be considering the possible outcomes of the encounters when you plan them.  You should just deduct the natural world the way it is.

On the other hand if you are brand new to GMing, are doing it for people who are brand new to RPGs, and they have an expectation of "this will be more fun than the video games I could play instead" you probably want to help them out.

I'm not going to be the guy who says only my way is fun. I've played with plenty of people who prefer the "GM as storyteller" model, but I think the "clockwork god" model has some benefits people don't always realize. In practice, I think almost everyone (including myself) winds up running their games somewhere between the extremes of the two. It's a question of emphasis.

You mentioned new GMs. One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 09:34:38 AM

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:25:10 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 12:21:02 PMMaybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of  GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.

It was said way up in the thread, but this is really about managing expectations.  If your players expect you behave as the clockwork god, you shouldn't be considering the possible outcomes of the encounters when you plan them.  You should just deduct the natural world the way it is.

On the other hand if you are brand new to GMing, are doing it for people who are brand new to RPGs, and they have an expectation of "this will be more fun than the video games I could play instead" you probably want to help them out.

I'm not going to be the guy who says only my way is fun. I've played with plenty of people who prefer the "GM as storyteller" model, but I think the "clockwork god" model has some benefits people don't always realize. In practice, I think almost everyone (including myself) winds up running their games somewhere between the extremes of the two. It's a question of emphasis.

You mentioned new GMs. One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.

It also leads to GM burnt out.

The Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 08:52:57 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 29, 2023, 02:14:18 AM
Yep. Play enough games invovling dice and you will see some bizzare, counterintuitive shit. "Lucky" streaks and "unlucky" streaks happen.

Last night I saw three NPCs all roll natural 20s on the same saving throw, on VTT no less. 

It's because the bell curve is only guaranteed over infinity.  Any sample smaller than that will not perfectly follow the curve.

Belief that it will is faith, ergo religion.

Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 09:34:38 AM
One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.

While this may be true, we don't need to solve for it as this advice appears before a preprinted adventure put out by a company that pretty much exclusively provides those.  Their advice need not worry about building your writing skills, because that's not helpful towards their "under monetized" problem.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.

So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run.  There's no world building task to be done here.  If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.

And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision".  It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.

So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run.  There's no world building task to be done here.  If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.

And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision".  It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.

All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.

Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.

Hell I would be playing HERO if I found that 3 hours for chargen is an acceptable ammount of time to waste.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 01:02:46 PM

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.

So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run.  There's no world building task to be done here.  If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.

And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision".  It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.

All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.

Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.

Hell I would be playing HERO if I found that 3 hours for chargen is an acceptable ammount of time to waste.

Are you suggesting the paragraph should read "go buy something else"?

At the very least, to offer my own unsolicited opinion, paragraphs shouldn't suggest deceiving players or solidly fudging the game without an equally solid degree of open communication prior and letting folks know that this will be a part of their game. Likewise, if you don't feel comfortable with a bad roll, and would want to change it or the circumstances to ignore poor player choice... maybe a good piece of advice would be don't make the roll and/or let folks know you're gonna cut 'em some slack/railroad a bit. Or even just set up the circumstances not to require obvious Deus ex Machina?

Really, I'm just a bit bummed that not only did they push illusionism and quantum play, but they also didn't properly go into how that can be done less terribly, or that there are solid alternatives for good reason. Or why folks might prefer something else depending. I get that it's just a short blurb, but that's also part of my problem with it when the topic touched upon is so potentially important and perhaps even somewhat nuanced. (Though personally I'm very much more simulationist/clockmaker god even in my rather limited and frequently module-centric DMing. Which is how both I and my players tend to like it, especially when I'm the one DMing.)

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 01:11:32 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 01:02:46 PM

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.

So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run.  There's no world building task to be done here.  If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.

And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision".  It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.

All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.

Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.

Hell I would be playing HERO if I found that 3 hours for chargen is an acceptable ammount of time to waste.

Are you suggesting the paragraph should read "go buy something else"?

I thought it already read like that?