RNG Gates and Persuasion

[Alkirin]

While the x-com like rng in many cases is infurating, that is hard to speak on without falling into confirmation bias. I will say that the loading times are a bit much for a game that all-but demands obsessive savescumming.

Long story short is that this is another modern rpg where persuasion is completely overpowered. What is worse is that, beyond the standard-bearer worst cases (ala New Vegas), not only does persuasion allow for avoiding conflicts, it is often the crutch behind dodging pointless conflicts (like not being able to heal a poisoned child despite being a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cleric), and the crutch behind alot of CONTENT. There are rewards and parts of this game that you will simply never see or be able to do.

It's beyond an alternative route through the game, it sort of IS the game.. and while that isn't strictly a *bad* thing, it is rather disappointing that, yet again for one of these games, playing a Cleric is pretty much just cheating.

Locking things behind hard rng gates like this doesn't add to player agency, it robs it. It's no longer about how prepared you are or what choices you make. It becomes strictly about where the dice land, and just hoping that the game gives you permission to play it.

[Brimcon]

Coldhands の投稿を引用：

The way BG3 uses d20 rolls for dialogue skill checks isn’t the way D&D uses them at the table.
This is a video game; you can only make checks when it’s prewitten that you can, only in the way it’s prewitten you can, and success or fail, you’ll only ever get a prewitten result.

That’s why the dialogue skill checks feel bad: They’re aren’t opportunities for players to be part of the game/storytelling, they’re purely a chance to fail at something you don’t have any control over.

I'm not sure what tables you've played at, but I've had a lot of d20 rolls for dialogue/Roleplaying checks at tables, especially knowledge checks. Persuasion checks happen a lot in my games, pass or fail, the game continues.

[TheBlueFox]

Coldhands の投稿を引用：

TheBlueFox の投稿を引用：

My confusion is that you are knowingly buying a product based off the established 5th edition D&D rules and design, and want to remove the core mechanic that the entire framework is based off of, the random chance of the d20 roll

The way BG3 uses d20 rolls for dialogue skill checks isn’t the way D&D uses them at the table.
This is a video game; you can only make checks when it’s prewitten that you can, only in the way it’s prewitten you can, and success or fail, you’ll only ever get a prewitten result.

That’s why the dialogue skill checks feel bad: They’re aren’t opportunities for players to be part of the game/storytelling, they’re purely a chance to fail at something you don’t have any control over.

An excerpt from Storm King's Thunder, an official 5th edition module of D&D

Zephyros means no harm. If the player roleplays well and makes a convincing argument, allow the character to use an action to make a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check, with advantage if the character is a member of the Lords' Alliance, and with disadvantage if one or more members of the strike team are dead. If the check fails, the dwarves say they "can't take any chances" and press forward with their plan

[Dragon Master]

Young Sheldon, genius gamer の投稿を引用：

Thanks for explaining to us how we actually didn't like KOTOR but actually are having fun with BG3 and if we're not, it's just because we're too dumb to understand math.

You're welcome Sheldon.

[Dragon Master]

TheBlueFox の投稿を引用：

I think his issue, mostly, is that he hates having a charisma character with Proficiency in persuasion, boosts to persuasion, bless, and advantage... and still fails.

He wants to NEVER FAIL skill checks if he makes a character that is meant for that purpose.

"I made a trap disarmer, why did I fail to disarm a trap"

Kotor didn't have skill failures, if you had the correct number you succeeded 100% of the time, always, no problem.

Everything else was the d20 system, but this person just can't handle that sometimes, things just don't go your way

KOTOR had the rule called "Take 20"

Take 20 is basically when characters had the time to take whatever time was needed to accomplish a task. In KOTOR that would be things like setting mines, disarming mines or doing security checks because you're not in combat.

It effectively made it so you automatically "take 20" from the 20 sided die and then add the available modifiers.

Since the DC (difficulty class) for disarming a minor mine was 15, so long as you had 1 point in demolitions you would always disarm it because of take 20, but you could easily fail higher DC mines or security doors without putting in the necessary points in the skill, but if you were to try and do so in the middle of combat you'd have to roll that 20 sided dice and add your skill to whatever that was.

[Mosey]

Yeah, it robs a little agency but so does every other die roll you make. As in I can't just choose to outright kill an enemy that's standing in front of me, because I can't choose to automatically hit and automatically do as much damage as they can take.

Whatever it takes to make you feel like a winner, I suppose. Maybe someone will make a mod to remove all possible challenge from the game. In fact, I bet it would be pretty easy. Just load up the game and have it play the final cut scene of your choice. Shouldn't be that hard to implement.

Sounds like YouTube might be the game you're looking for. You do you, mon ami.

And as for 'take 20' rules, those are stupid in my book. In real life, just because you take ten days to pick a lock doesn't mean you'll succeed if you have absolutely no idea how to pick a lock. That's like saying if I spent 10 years trying to build a fusion reactor I would automatically succeed even if I never bothered to learn anything past first semester physics.

It exists because GM's can't be bothered to come up with non-linear plots, or because the GM is a kiddo. If you don't want them to fail, just don't attach a die to roll it dummy.

While the x-com like rng in many cases is infurating

And this is your daily reminder that X-COM shamelessly cheats in the players favor, and people STILL say it's unfair to this day.

[nobleberry]

tabletop games can't have a lot of calculation-heavy complexity, so to be less predictable and less boring, they must introduce some randomness. While randomness can create ridiculous situations, you always have game master, and all members of session can ignore undesired outcomes just to keep the game going.

in computer games explicit RNG should be replaced with complex calculations as much as possible, and the rest of RNG should be moved to AI behavior. Skill checks should be either soft or hard thresholds, to prevent save scumming and frustration.

Fallout New Vegas did a nice job on its skill check approach.

Make the game a chess, that rewards players for smart moves and punishes them for stupid moves. Don't make the game a gambling simulator, when losing just makes players feel they were just not lucky enough.

[Dragon Master]

Mosey の投稿を引用：

And as for 'take 20' rules, those are stupid in my book. In real life, just because you take ten days to pick a lock doesn't mean you'll succeed if you have absolutely no idea how to pick a lock. That's like saying if I spent 10 years trying to build a fusion reactor I would automatically succeed even if I never bothered to learn anything past first semester physics.

That's why take 20 requires skill points invested in the particular skills. If you don't know how to slice a door, you can't make the attempt because your character has not taken the time to learn how to slice a door, and a higher DC would be required for more complicated doors.

Which is how in D&D 3.5 (KOTOR) and Pathfinder you can have skill checks that requires things like in the 30's or 40's for individual skills, whereas in D&D 5E those kind of skill checks have been removed and instead uses a proficiency rating, with some classes like rogues and bards getting expertise.

There's less bloat and number crunching. allowing more room for stories and role playing in the tabletop. But there is also a lot more room for failure in 5E because skills have a different system that you don't put points into every level up.

[Mosey]

Dragon Master の投稿を引用：

That's why take 20 requires skill points invested in the particular skills. If you don't know how to slice a door, you can't make the attempt because your character has not taken the time to learn how to slice a door, and a higher DC would be required for more complicated doors.

The point is, don't include dice check events in situations where the outcome is certain. It's a waste of time in 99 out of 100 cases. GM's that rely on those types of things designed a bad adventure, and this helps mitigate their bad design. If the group fails to slice a door, oh well, guess we're using grenades should be the alternative.

[dulany67]

NO UWU の投稿を引用：

Don't make the game a gambling simulator, when losing just makes players feel they were just not lucky enough.

Why? And I mean that sincerely? I'm curious why gamers have gotten to a point where the idea of bad luck is a no go. There has always been some of that, but never the number of complaints we have now. Because it feels bad, man? I mean the reality is that there is a hell of a lot of luck involved in life along with a healthy amount of work. Bad ♥♥♥♥ happens. Is this a reaction to our crazy world- trying to control the chaos?

But hey, I came from the generation that made the phrase "♥♥♥♥ happens" popular.

[Alealexi]

Young Sheldon, genius gamer の投稿を引用：

dulany67 の投稿を引用：

You bought it from steam, not larian.

dulany67 の投稿を引用：

You bought it from steam, not larian.

So looks like I’m not going anywhere then. You better suck it up.

Unless of course you can explain how it’s a good system but I see you can’t do that.

It is better than static checks since those lead to an auto win in unrealistic situations.

[PocketYoda]

dulany67 の投稿を引用：

DanteYoda の投稿を引用：

https://www.insidescience.org/news/dice-rolls-are-not-completely-random

All that says is that dice are not true random. So what? Modern RNG algorithms are random enough for games, just as dice are random enough for games. In the end, it's still a question of whether you throw your fist in the air and curse the sky when you don't get the result you want, or you find a way to overcome.

No what its saying is virtual game dice are too random.. a person can feel the dice when thrown, and roll the dice on certain surfaces, plus you never roll the die off the same number 100%.. in game it always starts on 20. and we have no input over it so we have no way to see whats going on when its rolled..

Young Sheldon, genius gamer の投稿を引用：

Thanks for explaining to us how we actually didn't like KOTOR but actually are having fun with BG3 and if we're not, it's just because we're too dumb to understand math.

I liked kotor but imo the game in that and BG 1&2 were far less demanding and impacted by the dice.

BG3 dice are jarring and annoying... Why the hell do they need to cover the whole screen..

[dulany67]

DanteYoda の投稿を引用：

dulany67 の投稿を引用：

All that says is that dice are not true random. So what? Modern RNG algorithms are random enough for games, just as dice are random enough for games. In the end, it's still a question of whether you throw your fist in the air and curse the sky when you don't get the result you want, or you find a way to overcome.

No what its saying is virtual game dice are too random.. a person can feel the dice when thrown, and roll the dice on certain surfaces, plus you never roll the die off the same number 100%.. in game it always starts on 20. and we have no input over it so we have no way to see whats going on when its rolled..

Meh, it's known that RNG doesn't necessarily feel like random to human beings, but that is an issue with human beings not the RNG.

In game, it doesn't matter that it always start with the 20 up because it isn't affected by the tactile interaction between dice, surface, and human hand. You're basically arguing that human beings get a "feel" for the dice. I wouldn't really hang my hat on that, and humans have varying abilities anyway.

But either way, RNG is still random enough (and not too random) for games. The issue isn't RNG, but human perception of RNG. That perception can, and should, be overcome by the human mind.

[PocketYoda]

dulany67 の投稿を引用：

DanteYoda の投稿を引用：

No what its saying is virtual game dice are too random.. a person can feel the dice when thrown, and roll the dice on certain surfaces, plus you never roll the die off the same number 100%.. in game it always starts on 20. and we have no input over it so we have no way to see whats going on when its rolled..

Meh, it's known that RNG doesn't necessarily feel like random to human beings, but that is an issue with human beings not the RNG.

In game, it doesn't matter that it always start with the 20 up because it isn't affected by the tactile interaction between dice, surface, and human hand. You're basically arguing that human beings get a "feel" for the dice. I wouldn't really hang my hat on that, and humans have varying abilities anyway.

But either way, RNG is still random enough (and not too random) for games. The issue isn't RNG, but human perception of RNG. That perception can, and should, be overcome by the human mind.

Agree to disagree, as someone who has rolled countless die over the years this games dice are jarring compared.

[Jairoe03]

dulany67 の投稿を引用：

NO UWU の投稿を引用：

Don't make the game a gambling simulator, when losing just makes players feel they were just not lucky enough.

Why? And I mean that sincerely? I'm curious why gamers have gotten to a point where the idea of bad luck is a no go. There has always been some of that, but never the number of complaints we have now. Because it feels bad, man? I mean the reality is that there is a hell of a lot of luck involved in life along with a healthy amount of work. Bad ♥♥♥♥ happens. Is this a reaction to our crazy world- trying to control the chaos?

But hey, I came from the generation that made the phrase "♥♥♥♥ happens" popular.

I wouldn't confuse the voices of a couple misguided "gamers" as representative of the general gamer because most gamers are generally content with most game designs and aren't ever on forums to complain or even discuss the merits of basic things such as creating uncertainty in games.

DanteYoda の投稿を引用：

Agree to disagree, as someone who has rolled countless die over the years this games dice are jarring compared.

LUL at using intuition to explain randomness in video games -_-

[Jairoe03]

Mosey の投稿を引用：

Yeah, it robs a little agency but so does every other die roll you make. As in I can't just choose to outright kill an enemy that's standing in front of me, because I can't choose to automatically hit and automatically do as much damage as they can take.

Whatever it takes to make you feel like a winner, I suppose. Maybe someone will make a mod to remove all possible challenge from the game. In fact, I bet it would be pretty easy. Just load up the game and have it play the final cut scene of your choice. Shouldn't be that hard to implement.

Sounds like YouTube might be the game you're looking for. You do you, mon ami.

And as for 'take 20' rules, those are stupid in my book. In real life, just because you take ten days to pick a lock doesn't mean you'll succeed if you have absolutely no idea how to pick a lock. That's like saying if I spent 10 years trying to build a fusion reactor I would automatically succeed even if I never bothered to learn anything past first semester physics.

It exists because GM's can't be bothered to come up with non-linear plots, or because the GM is a kiddo. If you don't want them to fail, just don't attach a die to roll it dummy.

While the x-com like rng in many cases is infurating

And this is your daily reminder that X-COM shamelessly cheats in the players favor, and people STILL say it's unfair to this day.

The day I played on Legendary and checked googled how much advantage X-COM gave to the enemy over the player was such a rude awakening for me lol. I was like no way that Legendary = normal randomness WITH a little help for the player still. Stopped complaining about RNG since.