Something that has always irked me and has never let me find comfortable a middle ground arises in combat when dealing with mechanical concepts; for the sake of this thread we will make an example of AC. I like to keep the players immersed to a degree that they should often find themselves forgetting that they are in fact playing a game. The game mechanics should stay wholly under the hood and in my opinion; they should never be brought to the surface. Hitpoints for example are something entirely under control of the GM and can be translated very well through descriptive communication but AC on the other hand is almost forced to be revealed in one way or another and in a way that bothers me.
Whenever the rolls are made and the hit confirmed, this piece of metagame knowledge is now there for the entirety of the encounter. The players roll their attack rolls and then the barrier is broken: did they hit? Where should it go from there? A simple "yes" to then allow them to narrate their attack (which is my preferred method), or something opposite that I abhor doing which would be narrating their own attack for them. Taking player control away strikes and rubs me the wrong way so I'd prefer not to do this but it does end the problem of a player breaking the metaphorical wall to ask "did I hit" when I can simply look at the roll of the dice and then narrate their swing or their shot.
Maybe I'm just a total sperg of a GM and there's something totally obvious I've overlooked. Which method do you lads prefer?
>>44457130
You're sperging too much over this.
>>44457130
i think this kind of thing depends on how much the players trust you. and as far as what your looking for, the only thing i can think of off the top of my head is to roll there attacks for them behind a GM screen and have them narrate how there attacking. from there describe how the creature is hit or avoids the attack. but this of course creates a huge amount of problems. the only simple solution i can think of is maybe vary the AC of creatures depending on what there doing for example (probably not a very good one) if its attacking wildly instead of taking the points away from the hit maybe take them away from AC or both. basically apply the negatives from things like charging and barbarian rage to a wider spectrum of things. again there are probably numerous flaws with this, which is why i remind you this is all off the top of my head.
What the fuck am I reading? The picture with your weird sperg post makes me think it's pasta, but it's not turning up. I guess I'll try to..engage your...weird method acting obsession...sincerely?
Nobody is forgetting that they're playing a board game with you, dude. It's not an elf otherkin sexual aid; nobody is high on peyote while they play D&D. Please don't obsess about having everybody enter some weird John Wick-esque territory where you spiritually channel your character's actions. You're not even half a step away from being that guy who pretended to be a professional GM, wearing a domino mask and blanket cloak.
Become a technomancer and turn your brain into a MUD
>>44457275
Yes I see what you're saying but behind the scenes rolls for active actions such as attacking is too far into the territory of stripping away player control. AC variation is something I've thought about to some length but I feel as though most systems (especially D&D) would need a total rewrite and combat overhaul for situational AC and a more comprehensive breakdown of turns into milliseconds and sub-turns and some sort of reaction/action resolution with aimed strikes thrown into the mix, all of which are fine for a more simulationist approach to TTRPGs but wouldn't fit into my style and would slow the games to a crawl. But there is definite potential in changing AC based on environmental/positional factors, I might implement this into the next session.
>>44457284
>Nobody is forgetting that they're playing a board game with you, dude
There is no board or tiles in my sessions, friend.
>>44457501
If you think that's what I meant you're pretty far down the rabbit hole already, chummo.
>>44457130
Fine young cannibals, there.
>>44457501
>Taking player control away strikes and rubs me the wrong way so I'd prefer not to do this but it does end the problem of a player breaking the metaphorical wall to ask "did I hit" when I can simply look at the roll of the dice and then narrate their swing or their shot.
Then let the players know the AC in advance so THEY know whether it hits or not and can go directly from "I rear back and give a broad overhand swing! - The enemy is struck a grievous blow!
Alternately, how I do it is let them do the attack description, then I do a short description of the effect - the enemy brushes off the attack or is hurt - and the players follow up on that to say how they react or how hard they hit.
have you considered not using the second worse system for this (D&D is almost as bad as GURPS)
and instead focusing on a narrativist system like Dungeon World, FATE, or whatever?
P.S. the narrative 'I hit the orc with my axe' is not super engaging after the 50th time
>>44457768
Because he's a weird sperg, so there's about a 95% chance he's a hard simulationist. Telling him to play a storygame is like telling him to pack his hand-carved oak pipe with gorilla turds.
>>44457834
but D&D isn't very good from a simulationist perspective either?
>>44457853
So it isn't. Funny, eh?
>pic related
>>44457950
Where'd my pic go? Fuck it, whatever.
