I had touched a few times on the idea of performing a character action in Dnd and how this is handled. I would like to look into this more from both a players perspective and a DM's perspective.
A character action is based on one of two things: a list of predefined actions done by a character or a list of skills that character has. The basic actions are run, attack, move, speak, etc... while character skills are things like: listen, spot (find), jump, swim, reference knowledge, use rope etc...
During the playtime these actions are used in two ways. The most general way is that a character chooses to use a skill as a means of chaning the status of an interaction. This can be everything from asking someone questions and being able to interrogate them, to stealing something from their person, to being able to sense if the person is being truthful or not. There are different skills for all of these and the player rolls a d20 + their skill modifier (on the players character sheet) to determine the total skill and then the DM 'chooses' whether or not they passed. I say chooses because it is seemingly random whether the DM has a value in mind or if the value is simply made up at the time of the roll and based on the person doing it. When this is passed or failed it changes, or doesn't change, the game state.
The other way it is used is as a way to determine how a character would act as part of the story. For instance, the PC's are all in a cave and rocks fall, if they had been careful they might have been able to 'detect trap' and see if it was a setup, either way they all are able to make a 'reflex' save to see if they dodge it, or perhaps, one character may be able to use 'escape artist' or 'jump' to avoid it. Similar situations could be the DM will ask players for a 'listen' check to see if any of them notice that something bad happened and the players are left to decide on their own if they want to inform the party or not.
The most interesting thing about this is that the players are essentially 'instructed' to ignore what they know outside the game (ie: the DM just asked for a listen check so something is going to happen), and play their character as if its in game (so each person determines whether or not they heard something based on their roll). It is an abstraction the player needs to be able to make when playing and though tempting to ignore the rules and use this meta-information it is much more entertaining and adventurous if the player does not.
The interesting thing is the amount of rolling this can add to a situation and even more interesting how actions and skills can divert from the DM's plan greatly. Instead of killing the three guards on the corner the players can possibly 'intimidate' the guards and ignore the combat altogether.
It is really one of the most difficult to accept parts of the game and one of the most complicated to understand for one who has never experienced it. However understanding this and understanding why these rules are in place make the experience much more fun for everyone involved and a group that can greatly commit will find a much more exciting adventure in their game time.
No comments:
Post a Comment