Reasons why I like systems that have rules for this sort of thing.
“Sure, you can torture the captive. That’s a rank 8 check against Violence, so go ahead and roll. Oh, you don’t want to risk any mechanical consequences for your horrible actions? Ok then”
I feel like there’s a lot of overlap between powergaming min/maxers and war crime doers. It really keeps players in check without having to resort to hand wave-y deus ex machina like “it turns out the bartender is a level 20 barbarian lol”
“if I die, I die holding vampire smut”
“I guess he’s going to fist fight the helicopter”
Vampire: the requiem 2nd edition
One of the many benefits of living in a walkable area. I’ll get a mile or two of walking in just going about my business. Walk to the grocery, walk to the subway, whatever.
This reminded me of how system really affects player behavior. I was playing a game where doing some things would trigger a check to avoid consequences.
There was a lot of “I’m gonna shoot him” -> “ok but you’ll have to roll for humanity loss” -> “…fine, nevermind, I’ll talk to him instead”
Someone on the Internet put it nicely as “there must be outgroups the law binds but does not protect, and in groups the law protects but does not bind”. That’s all there is it to it. My people good and can do what they want, your people suck.
Stripped down to this basic level, you can see it’s a pretty vile worldview.
I also don’t have any social media unless you count this account. I had a similar thought years ago that it was just going to make me unhappy.
People at work the other day were talking about how they stress about which photos to post. I’m like why. That’s such a self inflicted wound.
I used to have a FB account because people used it for events, but I never posted, and I used adblock to hide the main feed.
Now when I do parties and stuff, I just send out Google calendar invites. (I should de-Google but that’s a long road I haven’t started down)
One of the things I really like about Fate as a rules system, is that is built in. Every character has a Trouble and other aspects. So if your trouble is like “Manners of a goat”, you can be like “Wouldn’t it be fun if I completely insulted the Baron at this dinner??” If everyone agrees, you get a fate point.
The DM can also “compel” you on aspects in a similar way.
One of my players has an outstanding bounty and there’s been a lot of “You know what this scene needs? Razor to show up.” compels.
That’s what I always say. Targeted advertising should be illegal. Contextual advertising is acceptable.
If I’m on the star trek wiki, serve me ads for star trek, sci-fi, and whatever. You don’t need to know anything about me specifically.
We’d still need to do something about like ads that take up too much space, hurt page performance, or introduce malware, but removing the stalking would be an improvement
I’m more of a Himedere, and it’s a lot of fun when the group is into it.
I did a really good dungeon with a puzzle once. Part of how it worked resulted in players unexpectedly getting split up and not being able to find their way back, while also being at risk of freezing to death. One of the players was like “I’ve never been so stressed in my life”, but like in a good way, and I took that as the highest praise. I was so proud of them when they figured out the dungeon
I had fun with my warlock familiar, Vincenzo. He had the “Vincenzo Special” where he’d invisibly fly up to someone in combat and rip one straight from the depths of hell to flavor his Help action. I’m still a little bit a teenage boy I guess.
Adams sucks and it’s embarrassing that people here elected him.
I mean this is kind of true of all people everywhere. The marshmallow test has flaws but I think it’s still revealing. A lot of people are really bad at self control and delayed gratification.
I kind of feel like anyone who spends $20 on a video game skin shouldn’t be allowed to make any financial decisions for themselves. Like, it was a test and you failed.
Fallout 4 is like 4 different games crammed into a trench coat.
All of these are kind of badly done, and mashing them all together didn’t make something greater than the parts.
It’s difficult to compromise with people who want to kill you for what you are.
For your example, I’d probably still ask if the players wanted me to let the dice decide or not before rolling. My players once had a clever idea of setting some poison traps and using earthbind to deal with a wyvern. The thing made all of its saves and nothing worked. I could’ve lied, but we’d already agreed to openly roll and abide by it. Would lying have made it better? Maybe. The game carried on and that arc had a thrilling climax later.
Alternatively, if we’d been playing a game that has a “succeed with a cost” / “fail forward” mechanic it could have been satisfying. D&D and close relatives are especially prone to disappointment because of how random and binary they tend to be.
Anyway. All of this I think it reveals a difference in how RPGs are enjoyed by different people.
On one hand, there’s going for immersion. The player wants to be in the world, be in the character, and feel everything there. It’s very zoomed in.
On the other, where I hang out, it’s more like a writer’s room. I’m interested in telling a cool story, but I’m not really pretending to “be” my character. My character doesn’t want a rival wizard to show up, but I as a player think that’s interesting (and maybe want the fate point, too) so I can suggest that my “Rivals in the Academy” trouble kicks in now. I enjoy when I can invoke an aspect and shift the result in my favor, or when I can propose a clever way I can get what I want at a cost.
Neither’s better or worse than the other, so long as everyone’s on the same page. It can be bad if half the table wants to go full immersion and just talk in character for two hours and the other half doesn’t.
I got down voted for saying this elsewhere, but to my mind there’s a huge difference between the GM unilaterally changing the rules, and the group deciding.
Scenario: the goblin rolls a crit that’ll kill the wizard. This is the first scene of the night.
Option A: GM decides in secret that’s no good and says it’s a regular hit.
Option B: GM says “I think it wouldn’t be fun for the wizard to just die now. How about he’s knocked out instead?”. The players can then decide if they want that or would prefer the death.
Some people might legitimately prefer A, but I don’t really want the GM to just decide stuff like that. I also make decisions based on the rules, and if they just change based on the GM’s whims that’s really frustrating and disorienting.
There’s also option C where this kind of thing is baked into the rules. And/or deciding in session 0 what rules you’re going to change.
Inspiration in raw DND is extremely under baked. Bg3 expanded it a little by letting you hold more than one, and actually using it. Most tables I’ve played at don’t use it, or it’s pretty rare.
Fate by default starts you with 3 fate points per session. It expects you to use them and has clear ways of getting more.
I really tried to get my old DND group to use then more, but it didn’t really click. I wasn’t a good fit for that group really.
That’s from Unknown Armies (2e). A great game with a great rulebook. It really made me think about some assumptions I’d been making about how games work.