Hello
I recently started GMing new Dungeons and Dragons to some friends, and they seem to have a big problem with general d20 mechanics (they are mostly gamers that play stat/skill based white wolf system). They have a real big problem with it, saying that skills aren't really reliable, and that it really disturbs role playing for them, because of so small bonuses and d20 they can't get a feel of what they are really good at, and that bugs them a lot. I on one hand like new dnd mechanics, and don't really have a problem with it, true the d20 system is more random then white wolf system, but i think that is part of the charm. But on the other hand I can understand their point of view, and feel a little bad about it. They got argument like for example,
"Let's say one of character is very good painter, and he, and 10 kobold are painting something, there is a really high chance (using system mechanics) that one or even more kobolds will paint something more outstanding than a very good painter, and that is just silly"
And I don't really have a counterargument for that...
So what should I do? What should I say? What do you guys think about randomness of the system? I mean, sure I can houserule something, but I don't really want to do that... to much houserulling can break the system for me.
I'd say something along the lines of "You did realize it was D&D when you asked to play, right?", as I think "Shut up and just have fun" would be too rude.
It sounds to me more like they're complaint is "this is different from what we're used to and we don't like it." Which is actually an easier issue to deal with than a game being overly or insufficiently random, whatever that means. They may just need to try it out a bit longer before they get into the swing of it. Having GMed various White Wolf games over the decades, I can offer a few suggestions:
Inspiration is your first and best counter to the "too random" contention. Explain to your players what it is, and how they can achieve it. Most likely, this will dovetail very well with WW players used to a lot of roleplay (I know very few players who love WW games for their combat systems).
As far as the kobold example goes: Say for example your painter is a Bard (or Rogue), with Performance (which is what I would use for painting). She is an excellent painter, reflected by her Expertise in that skill, which doubles her proficiency (we'll say she's level 3 right now). With a Charisma of 16, She has a +7 on her roll in this painting competition. Your player tells you "my bard is going to spend the afternoon in the countryside, looking at vistas, doing some sketches, talking with local artists, and making notes on the landscape." Certainly seems worthy of Inspiration to me! Meanwhile, the pack of kobolds has been spending all day bickering, finger-painting each other, gnawing on the paintbrushes, and getting drunk (on the cask of ale mysteriously left where they could find it).
When the time comes for the paint-off, the Bard is composed, inspired, has her Painter's supplies at hand, and is ready to show off. The kobolds are hungover, irritated, have ruined most of their supplies, and are certainly not feeling inspired; if they're drunk enough, they may even be Disadvantaged (which they may very well be, thanks to the DM, who is trying to make a point to the player 
).
So: the Bard has +7 on the skill check (+3 Charisma, +4 proficiency), and Advantage from Inspiration. The kobolds all have -1 on their rolls (-1 Charisma, no proficiency), and Disadvantage. Random.org will help me out with the results:
Bard: First roll 9, second roll 18. We take the 18, +7, gives her a 25 on her Performance (Painting) roll. A superb result, and a remarkable work of art!
Kobolds roll: 2, 4, 1, 13, 4, 15, 11, 9, 8, and 16 (I did roll twice for all of them, these are the lower scores of each pair of rolls). The best any of them can manage is a 15 total, proudly turning in a smeared image that is equal parts paint, mud, and saliva.
Folks, I believe we have a winner!
Players who are invested in their character's success will succeed. Not every time, because there's always an element of chance, especially in combat. But the game definitely has ways to stack the odds in your favour.
Further, you can win them over by playing to what the enjoy, and letting them use what they've learned from other games to benefit them in D&D. Maybe they like political games, intrigue, subterfuge, like the schemings of a vampire coterie, or the complex relationships of a werewolf sept. You can run entire sessions without having to resort to combat, if you want. As long as they players are having fun, AND being rewarded for playing in character, making sensible decisions, and receiving Inspiration for portraying their characters as they've created them, the game is a success.
Another selling point is that combat in 5E definitely runs a LOT faster than in any WW game (especially Exalted). A few triumphant successes over vicious goblins, brutish orcs, or paint-splattered sore loser kobolds will get them feeling heroic, even if the stakes are not super high to start with. High stakes come later, when they're more comfortable with what they're doing.
Is their complaint theoretical, or practical?
If it's theoretical, then it's a non-issue. Can this happen in the system? Yes. But then I'd point out that it's extremely likely that a poor painter will outpaint a good painter in the White Wolf system as well. And actually you can argue that the White Wolf system is *more* random in some ways. A White Wolf character can always roll zero successes on a roll (and indeed it is quite likely since there's only a 30% chance of rolling a success on any given die), whereas a Proficient character in D&D with a halfway decent Ability modifier can't roll below 5.
If it's an issue in practice, think about how you're running skills. Try allowing Proficient characters to succeed automatically at basic tasks, instead of making them roll.
I agree that the inspiration system will help.
Also, advantage can help too. As DM, you could theoretically grant advantage when you feel it is warranted. If the PC is clearly better than another and they have a contest, grant advantage to the better PC. If a the 17 strength tries to arm wrestle an 8 strength npc, give the PC advantage. This isn't in the rules per se, but it would help to insure more likely results.
Also, if you like, you could even let players take "10" instead of rolling if they are unhurried. Again, it's not specifically in the rules, but passive perception works that way, so it isn't a huge stretch.
TrueManiek wrote:
One way to deal with this kind of situation is to rule that, in certain highly skilled applications, being proficient in a skill automatically wins you an opposed roll (barring some kind of extreme disadvantage to the proficient party). So, for instance, a master painter is presumably proficient with his painting tools, and the kobolds are not. Therefore the painter always wins in a painting contest, since this is a particular skill where training and experience could reasonably be held to always trump flinging paint randomly at a cave wall. Even 10 kobolds flinging paint at the wall.
Now, if the 10 kobolds were trained to paint (had proficiency with the tools), it would be a different story. Then you would roll as normal and let the dice fall where they may. That's how I would handle it, anyway.
TrueManiek wrote:
Thanks for all your help guys.
Using the kobold vs painter example, you gave me some good tips . But i have one concern, mainly if using advantage/disatvantage every time that someone is better at something isn't to much? Shouldn't the skill bonuses and proficiency already reflect that?
Direach, your point is very reasonable (advantage for skilled bard, disadvantage for stupid kobolds), but I'm afraid the players will want it every time the use a skill that they should be good at - but this for me breaks the whole concept of it. I thought that advantage/disatvantage is something that is not easy to come by, but when you manage to get it, you really appreciate it.
Noon wrote:
Well, your players aren't wrong -- D&D's d20 die and the bounded accuracy concept mean that random rolls play a huge role in the game compared to your actual ability scores and proficiency bonus.
Here are some possible house rules you could use:
- Roll 2d10 instead of 1d20. You automiss on a 2. Crits become a lot rarer (1% instead of 5%), so you might want to make them correspondingly more interesting.
- Roll 3d6 instead of 1d20. You automiss on a 3. You crit on a triple that isn't all 1s. Crits are about half as frequent. (5 out of 216, or about 2.3%)
- Roll 3d10 instead of 1d20. On a normal roll, take the middle roll. If you have disadvantage, take the lower roll. If you have advantage, take the higher roll. This makes advantage/disadvantage more powerful (maybe +2/-2 extra), but also makes your normal 1d20 roll bell-curved around 10.5.
(Alternately for that third, roll advantage/disadvantage as normal -- 2d20 take lowest/highest, and just roll 3 dice when you aren't rolling with advantage/disadvantage.)
The effect of all these rules is to make your 1-20 results into a bell curve. The second and third options are bell curves centered around 10.5, the same average as 1d20, while the first is centered around 11 but may be easier to use. The third option has the advantage of having the full range of results that you get from 1d20, although note that there is only a 0.725% chance for either a 1 or a 20. You might want to make 1-2 into auto-miss and 19-20 into crits.
But still I don't know what to do... tell them to just deal with it, have hope that maybe with time they will learn it, or house rule the core mechanics so the system will feel more “consistent”…
If anyone wonders how this normally playing last game session worked out I refer you to my previous post ;]
You need to read some of the rules a bit more carefully. See p187 "Downtime Activites - Crafting"
"You can craft nonmagical object, including adventuring equipment and works of art. You must be proficient with the tools related to the object you are trying to create (typically artisan's tools)."
Kobolds are not likely to have any proficient in "Artisan's tools - painters supplies". They can't make any object using their skill. You can roleplay them making a mess, crewing on the paintbrushes, and trying to eat the paints if you want. If the kobolds were provicient in painting tools... then someone trained them to do so and they would be no better or worse that your PCs. Even weeks or months in a competition, you'd likely both make the same general valued painting (5gp per day). Your oil canvas of the princess would be the same has his water color cave painting of the beach. You could role a check to see which one the judges says is best, but it is effectively the same value.
Mundane skill uses either don't require rolls and typically have a similiar affect.
You should read over the section on skill checks, specifically passive value. Most folks will be using passive checks for repeative, long term, or general uses of checks. If you are climbing a 200' cliff, you don't want to roll ten times. You will be taking the passive value. If you are +5 and you need a 20, there is little point rolling for the first 20' if you know you have a 75% chance of failing on the next 20', and the next, and the next. If you can't get up using your passive value... most folks likely won't try... baring desperation.
Finally, D&D is not a ultra-strict simulation system. It is an epic fantasy roleplaying game. Simulation is only 'good enough' and is balanced with time, complexity, and other considerations. Mundane things are meta-gamed. You only typically use dice roling is something is beyond someone's usual abilities or in combat or situations where something has an immediate and substantive risk to the game. DMs have a lot of flexibility when to even ask for rolls.
TrueManiek wrote:
Thanks for the replay, really appreciate it…
Maybe you are right bawyile (I saw your posts on this forum here and there, really like it, you seem very insightful), maybe I need to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective, to be fair I started this thread looking for honest help, not to put a blame on my players or anything , and this could truly be my fault.
But I wasn’t the one that GMed the white wolf session, one of the current player was.
But how would you handle the situation that occure??
My player (alchemist) is involved in the chase, they are chasing a bad guy through crowded street with a lot of people, when an idea pops to her head, that she will take something really smelly from her alchemist kit and disturb it on her, so people will make a room for her stinky butt, and I think “well that’s a nice idea” (I’m really not opposed to creativity, I like it very much when the players do something cool). Next I think, well its crowded, and she is trying to do it fast not to lose the bad guy, so the roll is required, but that’s her profession, and it’s not really that hard… so I set the DC to 10. And, bad luck happens and she rolls 2, then I explain to her that unfortunately it didn’t work, to crowded, it slipped in your hand and stuff (maybe I should explain it better, but I wanted to keep the action going fast in chase scene, and not explain stuff). And the player didn’t handle that very well, I felt like she blamed the system and “by proxy” me for smothering people creativity.
Same situation with acrobat in our team… He wanted to chase the bad guy through the rooftops. Normally I would handle moving through the rooftops for him as automatic successe, I mean he is good at it. But here, he was going fast, paying attention not only to where he jump/stands but also spotting the bad guy + he could hurt himself, and I warned him about it. So I asked for a test. He didn’t make it and he felt. The response was pretty much similar… “I would use skill only when it is absolutely necessary, because it is not worth it otherwise” – he said something like that.
And sure, I get it… I would not allow myself to have a painter roll a d20 to compete with kobolds, I have some common sense ^^. This was just one of far-fetched examples we disscused about core mechanic that I pasted here.
Please help, I’m trying to be a good GM… but it’s not always easy
PS: not a big fan of “falling forward”
There is always the chance the person you go up against is a savant, hell look at shows like America's Got Talent and see how many people there could give a celebrity a run for their money.
I'd definitely say the trained character has advantage over the untrained, but there's still a chance for an upset.
TrueManiek wrote:
TrueManiek wrote:
I would highly encourage using 2d10 and expanding the default critical range by two (18-20 instead of 20). This will make the game far less random and far more weighted towards bonuses.
bawylie wrote:
Hehe, well the acrobat rolled really low 2 or 3, and my gut told me to go with the fall, but your right, sometime I need to expand my perspective on what failure could actually mean, that is a useful tip ^^.
To be fair they got the guy, the alchemist took a shortcut changed into a wolf (oh yeha, she was a druid), and tripped him over, in the middle of his way (he was running for his hideout), and so this dramatic question was answered and the new one begins “Can they get the information from the guy before the “stuff” is going to happen?”. But still, they were not counting this as a victory, cause they failed at what they should relay the most, (for the alchemist it was smelly potion stuff, and for the acrobat it was his nimbleness), and that really bugged them. And, if I went with your suggestions bawyile, that she dropped some acid on passerby, she would be furious and really disappointed, that this worked like that 
.
TrueManiek wrote:
So I guess the real questions that I took from all your comments (again thanks for that :D)is:
How can I make the best transition for hardcore white wolf players into dd system?
Preferably without houserulling ( I mean the 2d10 is a nifty little trick, bell curving it a little, but it seems a kind of like making the game different, and, maybe it seems a little selfish, but I was really looking forward to playing the new dd with the old skull d20 ^^)
TrueManiek wrote:
TrueManiek wrote:
Not magically, no. But you can retrain them to not have biases at all.
There are other elements that make transitioning from Exalted to D&D hard for players. In Exalted, you're walking demigods, often with arsenals of powerful artifact weapons, and magic powerful enough to literally destroy a city. Skill pools can be enormous, and the chance of failure can be reduced greatly; for mundane tasks, there really is no chance for failure. The only match for an Exalt is another Exalt, or something similarly powerful.
D&D isn't like that at all, obviously. A low level D&D character is typically a young, ambitious adventurer with a few years of training and experience. That can be a hard transition to make, if you're used to playing a Solar Exalt who regularly defeats battalions of mortal soldiers by yourself.
If you can't sway them with mechanics, try swaying them with earnestness and honesty. Tell them you would really like to run this game for them, and make it fun for everyone, and if they are willing to be patient and work with you, you can all enjoy a great campaign together. You know you're gonna make mistakes, and it's OK to tell them so up front. If your players are at all sympathetic to you, then hopefully they'll realize they're acting selfishly, and settle down a bit.
You might also consider some tactical cheating, to help them out. I know some GM's frown on "fudging" rolls, but I've always believed that the dice should not get in the way of telling a good story, especially with skill checks. If it's crucial that they catch a runaway NPC in a city, and the person running across the rooftops slips and falls, have him land on a horse (or wagon), which them takes off at breakneck speed in the direction of the NPC they're pursuing. That way, failure turns into fun, and the chase is still on. I'd try to avoid cheating on combat rolls as much as possible, except maybe to prevent someone from getting killed outright. Critically hitting someone with 3 hp left is probably not a great idea. That's up to you, though, and if you go that route, you definitely want a GM screen to hide your Tymora-blessed activities.
Not to adertise for a different game system, but this could be used and the d20 retained, as well as the entire 5e system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talislanta#System
Where all the 'mods' of each party in a conflict are totaled and the acting party adds their value to the d20 roll, and subtracts the opponent's value. If the result is positive, the degree of difference is the indicator of success, if 0, the attempt afails, and if negative, the opponent gains some advantage.
[editied to add]
Coming from WW, the Degree of Success concept would be retained, and the effects could simply be narrative, or have a mechanical effect, such as each 10 over what was needed indicates an additional iteration of success in the same way that a natural 20 indicates double damage.
truemaniek, your group is chiefly WW players you said, right?
the power level in starting WW characters is much higher than it is for D&D characters. a level 1 PC is just starting out. i recall playing vampire when it was first released (1st edition) and creating my PC as an 8th generation toreador. he was stupidly effective in melee and artistic expression and having 5 dots in presence was fun.
...but it's also the D&D5 equivalent of being 10th+ level.
i think it's this mismatch that is creating a problem for your group.
One of my player is hardcore exalted fan, for a couple of years he played/gmed only this, and the other one is his wife, who really only played exalted when he was gming (she played a little scion, but that is also a white wolf system).
So it could be really challenging, changing their mentality of super powered characters, and white wolf success mechanics…
are they comic book readers? if so, point them to batman year 1. that's a whole lot closer to the feel of a level 1 D&D5 PC than what they're used to.
otherwise: you need to explain to them the vast different in capabilities. that's the fundamental disconnect. that's their big pain point, in business speak.
In general, it is a common complaint of a d20 system that the die is too random compared to the modifiers. It's a fair complaint for 5E, but there are some things you can do to mitigate it.
1) Use lower DCs for easy tasks. If it's something that anyone might be able to do, but which an expert should be able to do easily, then that's DC 11. Going along with that, remember that a 1 doesn't automatically fail, either, so an expert with expertise and a decent score will succeed on easy checks 100% of the time.
2) The d20 represents randomness, and sometimes there is no randomness, or other times the variables remain consistent. If your Strength 8 halfling wants to arm-wrestle a Strength 20 half-orc, then the only factor is their relative ability scores - there is no randomness, so don't roll, and the obvious outcome is what happens. If they instead want to try kicking down a door, then the randomness has to do with the structure of the door, so just roll once and apply that to all attempts to open the door - the halfling won't succeed immediately after the half-orc fails.
3) If that fails, you can switch the d20 for 3d6, crit on a 17 or 18.
My guess is that they're just used to the numbers and don't quite get it yet. One way to explain it to them is to note that each roll in World of Darkness represents quite a bit more consequential action. Less so in D&D, so it's more like rolling several small die pools. You can have degrees of success easily enough by incorporating something like "succeed by +3, succeed by +6, etc." Not hard to do at all. Or to require people to cumulate successes, sort of like what skill challenges were in 4E.
That said nWoD is a pretty random system and it has some additional probability weirness that a D20 based system does not have, but they may or may not be persuaded by it.
TrueManiek wrote:
crimfan07 wrote:
Saelorn wrote:
I got a little problem in skill based system like exalted or white wolf in general. My concern is that player are playing their skills not their character (this even happens in dd).
Let me explain:
It’s a syndrome where players do not think how the character would act in certain situation – they are just looking at the character sheet and try to apply their highest skills to the situation, not really thinking it through, just wanting to have a highest chance of succese. You may say that there is nothing wrong, is perfectly justify that character would try to use their best skill to get the job done, but for me that it’s not really immersive way, a lot of times the character end up being one (maybe two or three) trick pony, and sometimes the players try to use their highest skill in most ridiculous situation, example for master painter:
“DM: The Royal Guard will not let you in to see the duke.
Players: I try to paint him something so he will let us in…
DM: De fuq? It will not work.
Player: Let my try and roll, I have it very high so when I roll a lot it should work”
I don’t have a problem with white wolf the system per se, moreover I really like it, and to be fair I realize that this behavior is more dependent on player, but still skill based system is more likely to create such behavior. And I see it from my exalted players, and already try to change that a little...
They are in the woods, and they want to lose a kobold patrol that is fallowing them. Example from session:
“Alchemist player: I try to use nature.
DM: For what?
Alchemist player: To beat kobolds of our track.
DM: OK so you are doing wisdom test, and since you are proficient in nature, you get to add your modifier to the test”
truemaniek, i think your problem is you are insufficiently assertive with your group. keep asking them questions: how do you use [skill]? explain how it relates to what you want to accomplish or the DC will be [too high to permit the illusion of success]. keep making them explain until they reach the logical breaking point and realize what they want to accomplish is stupid/stupidly difficult.
you are the GM. your word is final.
at the risk of sounding like a jerk. you are allowing them to dictate skills and DCs. your players are probably perfectly nice people, but they appear to be accustomed to getting their way with no idea that isn't how things should be. until that changes, it doesn't matter what ruleset or game is set before them: they won't like it.
and that's a problem for any GM, not just you. it's a problem for any ruleset, not just 5e.
Well I tried best I could, but still there is something not right. I’m not doing failing forward so failing for my players is really hurtful, especially on skill they think they should succeed (don’t know why, I tried to explain it to them that failing is part of the game). One of my players even told me that it is maybe because they outgrown d20 mechanics – whatever that means ^^.
If the D20 is really too random for your group, switch all D20 rolls to a D10. Smaller die = less random variation.
Or you could go 2D10 as someone else suggested to produce an approximation to a Normal Distribution. Or you could go all GURPS and use 3D6.
TrueManiek wrote:
I want to back what Saelorn suggested earlier about making DCs easier.
I did a rough analysis of the published WoTC adventures and about 80% of the checks are DC 10, 15% DC 15, and only 5% DC 20. I think that they want pcs to be able to accomplish things, and I agree with that rationale.
If I were you I'd set what you feel as hard at DC 15. Set easy at 5 and moderate at 10. This shift might work better to make PCs feel more capable.
truemaniak, exalted PCs are epic PCs. have you made that specific point to them?
frankly, i think their attitude, at least as it's being described here, is at least half the problem.
It also has to do with what you think should have a bigger effect.
To me the 5th editon skill system feals to random becouse i think training in something should outweigh aptitude (ability score).
it feals strange to me when a untrained person can regurlarly out perform a character that is trained to do a specific task.
Especialy at the lower DC range where certain tasks would have become routine to a person who is trained ( +0 ablility +2 prof)
While the person with the high ability might try such a task for the first time (+3 ability +0 prof) is sligtly better at the task even though he has no experience at performing such tasks.
But we will have to see how the system works out when we have played the game for a longer period of time.
During the playtest I did guggest a alternative skill system.
where for a untrained person the roll would be D20+ ability score modifyer, and for a trained person 8+d12 + ablity score modifyer.
This would result in the trained person being a lot more competent in performing the low DC tasks in a skill where he has training, while the high ability score would still be needed to be able to get extraordenary results ( DC above 20).
Hi again, I would like to thanks again for the help, my last session was very fun for my players.
First of all I let my player successes on a lot of tasks automatically, even more if they had a big number in corresponding stat and skill proficiency (a lot of time when I would previously call them to make a roll, I bite my tongue and immediately described the successes result)
Second, the adventure was simple and not very complicated (still it is investigation adventure so a little mystery goes along the way), with DC for checks between 8 and 12, which couple of tests being higher difficulty (I think the most challenging task was DC 17)
Thirdly, I used the advantage a lot more for my players (disadvantage was not used so much). I discarded the whole inspiration concept, and just gave my player advantage on test most of the time, basically when they were committed to action, and described it that way. And they are very committed, so there were a lot of rolls with advantage.
All that made them successes on 80% (maybe more) test, checks, challenges, and I think that is ok… I mean I can still present challenges in a various way, and more important, if they are immersed in game cause of that and believe in their characters (stat, skills and stuff), player will believe more in choices their characters make.
At least that is my take on it, what do you guys think? Maybe I let them successes to much?
The alchemist/druid player said to me after session, that for her it is better and more fun when character successes, so she really liked it.
TrueManiek wrote:
TrueManiek wrote:
If generally your players think, they're too dependent on a single die (the d20), you might use the proficiency die system (which is almost certainly in the DMG). The idea behind it is to add a die instead of a bonus to d20 rolls you're profiecient with (first introduced as the skill die in the playtest).
Which die? Depending on level, 1st-4th d4, 5th-8th d6, 9th-2th d8, 13th-6th d10, and 17th to 20th d12.
Basically take your normal proficiency bonus x2 and you got the proficiency die. This might help you in a way, since the reliability is a bit better: You can at least soften the impact from one bad roll due a good roll on the other. But natural 20 or 1 on the d20 always counts.