rpg

I don't agree with the overall view there.

The example the blog gives is: "I flash the barkeep my best smile, order a cup of ale and pay with a handsome tip and try to get him talking about the local rumours in a chatty friendly manner." The mistake in the reasoning is assuming the GM must call for a roll.

From my point of view, players don't call for rolls, the GM does. Players just say what they are trying to do. While the GM can call for a roll in a situation, they don't have to. Something might just succeed or not. What if the barkeep likes gossiping with anyone who walks in the door, no matter how persuasive the other person is?

It's also odd that they state in the d20 version of the example "the roleplaying doesn't actually affect the outcome" right after suggesting the GM give a +2 modifier to the roll for the roleplaying.

How the fuck are my players doing all of this roleplaying then ??? Sorcery I tell you !

Nah

As someone who is new to ttrpg this made my head explode but i see where the author is coming from. From my little experience i gotta say the roleplaying experience is really in the hands of the dm and the group of players. Not sure one could make rules to ensure these two "factors" are optimal 😉. I also feel like a dm can gauge himself how many rolls they accept. I had my dm step in when people were overeager to throw d20's. D20 seems like a neat tool for scenarios the dm did not expect at all but is willing to see if luck opens something up. I am willing to be schooled on my newb-thoughts.

It seems the main complaint that the author has is resolved by playing different systems - if you don't want mechanical crunch and gamey die-rolling there are plenty of less die-focused games! Also don't mix roll-high for some rolls and roll-low for others, that's just confusing.

Interesting read though, just because you don't agree with their conclusions doesn't mean there aren't some good takes you can consider when running your own games.

Feels like a post written by someone who's only really played D&D and close relatives.

It is helpful to have a shared understanding of the world and how difficult things are. In real life I can look at a fence and judge if I think I can scale it. In some RPGs, I can't. Typically bad things happen when the DM's imagination diverges from the players'. Having consistent rules can help keep things unified.

Also, as others have said, don't roll for things that aren't interesting.

D&D and most of its relatives are lacking fail-forward and good succeed-at-cost mechanics.

Also 1d20+stuff means every result is equally likely. You're just as likely to roll a 1 as a 10 as a 20. I think that kind of sucks, and that's a bigger gripe I have with the popularity of 1d20 mechanics.

In short - the d20 mechanic enables you to resolve everything. If everything you encounter becomes something you can interact with mechanically and assign a DC to, a widget, then you are no longer actually roleplaying in a fictious world. You are just interacting with the mechanics of a game with a thin veneer of fiction layered on top.

This is true iff you think that having the ability to interact with mechanically means you must interact with it mechanically.

I've played coherent games with flexible, (almost) universally-applicable core mechanisms since the 1980s. This is not a thing that is new to D20. D&D3 didn't invent having coherent, flexible, universally-applicable core mechanisms. Weirdly enough we didn't at any point devolve into just interacting with the mechanics of a game because, well, we understood what the point of the game was and just appreciated having a way to adjudicate things neutrally when we needed it.

So first error: assuming that because you can adjudicate almost everything with dice you must.

Old School: "I flash the barkeep my best smile, order a cup of ale and pay with a handsome tip and try to get him talking about the local rumours in a chatty friendly manner."

DM considers the scene and factors in the fighter's 14 charisma and decides that a good impression is made.

Now let me strip the rose glasses from this and give other alternative outcomes that I have actually seen in those sainted "Aulde Skhoole" days:

• DM considers the scene and factors in that the player took the last slice of pizza and gets churlish. Bad impression is made on NPC.
• New DM freezes as something he didn't prepare for happens and spends a half-hour flipping desperately back and forth between the PH and the DMG to find out what to do next.
• DM makes up a reaction mechanism on the spot without thinking it through, throws 2d6, has them come up snake-eyes and decides the barkeep goes berserk and tries to murder the PC.

And so on. Because, get this, DMs are human too and sometimes have brain farts where ideas belong and stupid things happen. Having rules that offer guidelines, even if you don't actually roll for a situation (more on this later), can lessen those brain farts and increase reasonable outcomes.

D20: "I flash the barkeep my best smile, order a cup of ale and pay with a handsome tip and try to get him talking about the local rumours in a chatty friendly manner. Actually a Persuasion roll. I roll 12, +2 from Charisma and +2 from Proficiency, so 16."

The DM gives another +2 for the handsome tip and decides 18 is good enough to make a good impression.

I have, as I've said, been playing with (non-D&D) systems that have consistent, universal game mechanisms since the 1980s. I have never, not even once had any but the newest, greenest, most inexperienced players of any game do what he says is normal here. (And new, green, inexperienced players do stupid things in any system, OSR or modern!)

Here's a more common outcome in my experience. (YMMV naturally, and if it does, I'm so sorry you have terrible fellow players surrounding you!)

Player: "I flash the barkeep my best smile, order a cup of ale and pay with a handsome tip and try to get him talking about the local rumours in a chatty friendly manner."

GM: ...

OK, let's break down the GM actions by things I have seen once again.

• GM checks the player's stats and skills, realizes that on a Persuasion roll he'll succeed about 80% of the time anyway on a stressful task and, since this isn't a stressful task, and since the barkeep earns money by literally being friends with as many people as possible, decides the barkeep reacts well and is open to talk.
• GM insists on some actual in-character interaction and notes that the PC says something that is taboo in town. Asks for a skill role on local lore and, with its failure, decides that the gaffe happens and the barkeep clams up.
• GM insists on some actual in-character interaction and notes that the PC says something that is taboo in town. Asks for a skill role on local lore and, with its success, sidebars the player and lets him know and gives him a chance to undo the action. As a result the barkeep is friendly and aids.

And, naturally, if it turns out that this situation is critical for some reason, I've also seen:

• GM asks for a Persuasion roll against a target number.

See how in the first case that's almost identical to the so-called "Old School" case, and how in that first case having all the tools to do the roll helped make the decision without, you know, the actual roll? See how in the second and third the ability to do task rolls on anything gets some nuance in the RP, even though the actual persuasion attempt wasn't rolled out?

See how, in a case where it might be needed, the persuasion attempt could actually be rolled out in a way that is understood by everybody around the table instead of some poorly-thought-out ad-hoc thing?

So just to repeat this theme here: the fact that you can roll for almost any situation doesn't mean you should or will.

And I think any sane person who has read to the end would now agree that the d20 mechanic should die in a fire. It was an interesting experiment. Maybe we are all better off for having tried it. But we are not better off for persisting with it.

I guess I'm insane, because having read to the end the only thing that I think needs to die in a fire is OSR grognards who denigrate other styles of play. Who preach BadWrongFun™ because people are having fun with something other than the games they wear such deeply rose-tinted glasses for.

The interesting thing is that this was posted 14 hours now and the user haven't posted any comments but Ukraine and Russia war ones 2 days ago.

@copacetic DnD is not the same as RPGs. The kind of mechanic was there long before DnD3. And only a few years later, we got Forge games that had radically different takes on resolution.

Why am I getting the urge to post the "old man shouts at clouds" thing?