How To Break Immersion in Role-Playing Games: Reaction Rolls
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 มิ.ย. 2024
- A clickbait title for a non clickbait topic!
This video is a response to @TheBasicExpert's twitter thread about reaction rolls. I find that reaction rolls in TTRPGs are largely immersion breaking as they add an element of randomness to something that is fundamentally not random.
These rolls may make sense for less intelligent creatures, random encounters with groups of people or mobs, but for the individual NPC, this roll adds an element of falsehood to role-play. It is a bug, not a feature. - เกม
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While I still agree with certain arguments I made in this video, my views on reaction rolls have changed considerably since publishing this and I now view RR as the superior social mechanic.
I'll make a follow up video at some point but we have some other content in the pipeline already.
We had a long discussion about it with RPGPundit that connected a few dots for me but that content is no longer available on this channel.
Good video to check out is this one:
th-cam.com/video/e17c-GrnzBo/w-d-xo.html
Reaction Rolls are actually fantastic for GMs that have trouble improvising or get stuck with roleplaying. Gives you an instant guide as to what the NPC is feeling that isn't totally arbitrary.
@@theunderknown I've got OSE but it's not my cup of tea. Just got the backer PDFs for the ACKS II Kickstarter which I *really* like right now. Definitely worth checking out. We did an interview with the game creator a few weeks ago.
Thanks a ton for watching our videos too
14 in under 80 iq based on players action x. The mpc would make a reaction to simulate fight or flight. Essentially morale.
I think I see the disconnect and the break in immersion is there even if you don't physically roll dice. because you as the gm is immersed.
It sounds like you are an experienced, thoughtful DM who doesn't need to or want to leverage Reaction Rolls. There are obviously people who enjoy using them and get value from it. In particular, I can see it helping less experienced DMs gain experience by suggesting other reactions than the default "attack." Or DMs who, as Basic suggests, want to challenge their improvisation skills on the spot. There's value in Reaction Rolls, just not for you. [Edit: I appreciate thoughtful, reasonable discourse].
Thanks for the comment, and I agree about less experienced DMs possibly benefiting from this mechanic. I learned everything as trial by fire and was sort of forced to develop the improvisational skills that I have now so it just seems like reflex.
New BLG channel: "The Thespian Gamer"
Long time player and GM here, like you I have been playing since I was too young to get much beyond a moment of fun from the game. Getting closse on 35 years now.
When you have an NPC, even one that you know fairly well, and you want to create an immersive game world and experience, Reaction rolls are a wonderful tool.
Think of it like a way to determine what kind of day the NPC is having, like an initial Reaction that can be modified by the Characters Roleplaying.
This allows even a well established personality in the game to be a little different, and for Characters to begin to expect less predictable conversations.
Love the channel so far, Immersive worlds and Emergant Story... A motto for the gaming age.
Well done
it's even easier to see this if one player attempts to lie to or persuade another player; if the liar is forced to roll a deception or something or the listener(?) is forced to roll an insight it feels completely and totally fake since the other player has to just accept the outcome regardless of what the player actually thinks (and regardless of how the player thinks his character would actually react)--it really obviously breaks up the flow of any conversation
I don't think NPC/player interactions are different enough from player/player interactions to justify throwing random die rolls into one but not the other
So true king
Yeah, Insight rolls should only pop up in two situations: where there is good reason for the person rolling to mistrust the liar but not completely dismiss him, OR where it is truly dramatically appropriate
Yep. Another wrong turn that 5e doubled down on. Along with perception rolls
@@Phred1994 Well... for the whole insight vs deception thing, definitely. But sometimes an insight roll can be representative of complex systems; then it can be a prompt for the DM to inform the player about insights which their background and resources may have about whatever it is... not as resolution or decision, but as more information available to the player. These kinds of rolls can filter information into the game through the informed player character perspectives about things which the players would have no way of knowing about... and the reaction and usage of that information gets used to have roleplaying connected to the setting and player backgrounds and histories matter ... all helping roleplay.
Of course, way it normally gets used is autodrive spoonfeeding that kills immersion.
Random reaction is something you do if you do not know your NPC. For me, NPC prep is #1 in my games. But there are times where the players roam and for example... meets some random bum on the street corner (put there as a example of a destitute society) and start asking her questions. I'll roll to randomly gauge their attitude... but the interaction may have a reaction roll because they may be unhinged/crazy...
Just rolling for reaction... is a very rare thing for me.
Traveller has skills, Carouse, Persuade, Deception, Diplomat... levels from unskilled, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...
Usually I go with the skill level as my guide and forgo any rolling... except for head to head where the PC and NPCs are lock in debate, highest roll wins.
13:30 you clearly haven't interacted with people that are not capable to read or write in their own language because they didn't go to elementary school do to various reasons. Take that and consider that for the most of human history, most people were illiterate. I can 100% confirm that the way they react is oftentimes as predictable as a reaction roll. Try to think outside of your own experience and our current time frame.
I do agree that sometimes reaction rolls can do more harm than good and hurt the immersion.
I have changed my mind on reaction rolls since uploading this video.
Hey, good video, and I appreciate how you expanded upon your perspective. I have a comparison that may help. Imagine a tall person from a tall family who doesn't know any short people. Consider how they might not understand why anyone would ever need a stop stool.
The reaction roll is just a step stool.
At 17:20 You mention how you will know an NPCs disposition almost all of the time. I would suggest this is a very rare skill.
You mention how you use the dice when dramatically relevant. I agree with that position. I also use dice when I don't have a developed n p c in mind. Using the dice lightens my cognitive load. There are NPCs & there are npcs, if you know what I mean.
For my table, when the party encounters an NPC that has not been previously developed, It is precisely that element of randomness that **creates** the unexpected moment where you can lose yourself in the immersion...
That makes sense to me and I think it sort of falls under the purview of running into a group of bandits in a random encounter like I said at the beginning of the video. Where I don't find the roll appropriate is for an NPC who I have a very good grasp of.
All I could think about while watching this video is how weird Persuasion checks have always felt to me. They feel to me like they singularly dictate a truth about the NPC or the world. I'll give an example:
Your player is attempting to haggle with a shopkeeper. They propose an offer of 100 gold less than the market price, in a very charming way, let's say they're being a little flirty.
You sort of have 2 options as the DM:
Call for a persuasion check; if they roll high enough, the NPC will decide to honor the lowball price, despite their better judgment and probable shrewd business-manny nature. Thus, the PC's skill roll has dictated the NPC's good mood, that he has a weakness for a pretty face, etc - whereas a natural 1 would, what? Decide he's not attracted to Elves?
Or
Decide that there are no circumstances under which the NPC would agree to that price based solely on the content and delivery of what the PC said - possibly because he's not attracted to Elves? But almost certainly because 100 gold under sticker price is obscene.
The second option does feel more realistic and consistent to me, but I worry it might rob the players of feeling like they ever had a chance. Although, just thinking about it now, this might be an excellent use for 5e's Insight skill - the player could preemptively look for signs of what this shopkeeper might want and better manufacture their pitch. (This skill is also very weird, it seems like it gets relegated to being a lie detector.)
I can't really think of another situation where the players rolling dice can dictate the state of things extrinsic to their characters. Keeping in mind that, personally, I take into account what the PCs are actually saying when they try to influence somebody. If they simply said "I'll try to persuade him for a lower price", this would not fly with me, and I would expect more conviction behind the action, even if the player doesn't necessarily want to RP in the first person. I would probably allow "I'll use honeyed words and utilize my alluring beauty" as the bare minimum, just so I can check in my own head "okay, yes, this might actually work on this guy".
I guess you could argue that the roll represents how convincing the character is, but if this is the case, I feel like the Persuasion check should only be used in VERY narrow instances where it really is almost arbitrary anyway whether the NPC goes along. Leaving a big narrative decision up to a single persuasion check feels extremely unsatisfying to me, this is definitely a case where I'd want to adjudicate the results based solely on what the character says, which we all seem to agree is something the DM should not dictate.
Maybe I'm overthinking? I'd love to hear your, or anyone else's thoughts.
I agree that persuasion checks are ridiculous. It's like you are doing mind control on someone.
The way I use reaction rolls for NPCs are to account for influences outside of the NPCs. Take, for example, the generally kind quest-giving mayor who has a bit of a temper. When the PCs go back to report after an adventure, he might be in a bad mood. Now, he almost certainly has a reaction modifier high enough that he will never become hostile, but he might be grumpy and rude. We can use abductive reasoning to generate a reason why this might be true. Maybe he had an argument with his wife, or a town hall meeting went badly right before the players arrived. He isn't behaving randomly, but there are other forces at play besides that character and the NPC. Perhaps if the characters inquire as to what has been putting him in a foul mood, they can address it and positively affect his reaction roll in the future.
Consider another example of a favored henchman or companion who was captured by beastmen and kept in a jail for weeks. Surely the NPCs reaction would be positive upon rescue? What if the reaction roll comes up hostile? In that case, they could be so out of their mind from hunger and isolation that they might mistake the PCs for beastman and attack. Nothing about this means that the NPCs are behaving randomly.
Of course, if the dice come up with something that really can't be justified, or if the Judge really just doesn't want to leave it to chance for whatever reason, the Judge's ruling takes precedence. To me, it's still coherent with the principle of "don't use dice to introduce randomness, use dice to resolve complexity.", in this case, the dice are resolving the impact of the details of the lives of the NPCs that the PCs weren't involved in.
I have changed my position on reaction rolls since making this videos. They are the superior social mechanic.
OK, here is how reaction rolls work in practice :). When you are dealing as a Gm/storyteller/ referee with a number of npcs you have your main( a heavily developed npc Thundar the barbarian chieftain, Joe the lame ass Nosferatu chunky,dealer and hobo) and your secondary/ episodic characters( one of the forty bandits of the "Red claw", one of the 12 policemen coming to investigate anti capitalist practices in the Red cross, 5 crocodiles). When you are uncertain in the reaction of cop number two to the explanation " Why yes, this is my picture on the driving license."
you can roll a simple reaction roll to indicate quickly the general reaction( positive, neutral, negative). If its positive he smiles and lets go the player character, or has a positive conversation about the weather, on a negative he asks him to come down to the station, neutral starts asking him did he saw anyone in 3am.
Simple reaction rolls work best in my opinion, because you want a fast general reaction to incorporate in your collaborative fiction. 👻
I agree with your point about pre-determined NPCs but with random shmoocks I realized it's better to roll to avoid biases.
What do you think about ACKS? It basically uses RRs as go-to for all social situations and provides different bonuses based on character's skills, background, legal authority, etc.
I have come around to reaction rolls being the superior mechanic for social encounters. I still agree with some of my points in this video, but have since changed my mind about some of it.
ACKS is awesome and I'll need to make an updated video about this some time.
I see it now a specific reaction would always be more/less predetermined by a variety of factors. short of the npcs being rabid with drugs or insanity there not gonna randomly attack or ect ect
All my NPCs have a base reaction: usually 0 - neutral, then minuses and plusses based on what is said and advantages players have (GURPS). I have a list of random dice rolls in a list. and then I consult the chart
A reaction roll provides a question. Why does this random NPC have that reaction? It narrows the available categories of what NPCs a DM has in their setting.. a hostile reaction to a soldier probably has connections to an opposing faction, philosophy, and such, and so we have an idea where that character came from, which culture, which goings on maybe having led to that reaction.
It's another sandbox tool. For when the key NPCs that you've fleshed out in your factions and tensions and metaplots aren't in that scenario and the setting's probabilities are available as a prompt. And as such they're made to be adapted and tweaked to represent what's going on in the world that the PCs are exploring. It's to draw the complexity of systems which we don't want to crunch numbers from, and don't want to default to.
I agree about RR being used as engines for success or failure, though. An extension of the idea that less rolls is better.
Really that intersection between your White Wolf-isms and the OSR is a great sweet spot for conversation.
The vagaries of a westmarches splinterzone can have situations flowing into it from a hugely diverse range of causal factors...
Think of how many different nations may be involved in Ukraine right now, for example.
Encountering a person may be a mercenary from.... just about any corrupt Western nation, or agents of just about anyone, not to mention the widely varying opinions Ukrainians and Romanians etc had about Russia in the first place. A Turkish opportunist may actually have favorable business relationships with China, or be bitter rivals... who the fuck could accurately guess? Encounters on the way, or conversations in town, aren't all with media reps or (Z)alinsky's known staff, or military leaders from groups.
A well made set of tables narrow the choices according to probabilities which reflect the situation (spectrum of factors) which you want the players to have to contend with and make choices about. What they do and how the world/greater situation changes should change the probabilities and so the riskiness of decisions.
Yep... that military word comes to mind again: "campaign"
Agreed
As a rule, I've never used RRs. The fringe case that is a distinction w/ a (questionable) difference is, if the PCs are in a situation where they are rapidly meeting many new NPCs when I did not have time to sort them out. In those cases, I do roll for something like, "Is he belligerent? Reasonable? A total asshole?" etc. But such things fall into the 3% margins of play. Daniel
This is the topic of my video that will drop tomorrow.
Looking forward to it
Sometimes you just have to roll the dice and see were they take you, I think OSR can also be about letting go of the game and just seeing what happens.
Its not as random as you are describing; its 2d6 modified by the PCs charisma (as detailed in the paragraphs above the picture 26:02) so in most cases it tilts in the players favour.
The Players don't make Reaction Rolls, they are solely the purview of the DM. The Players make Skill Checks (if it must be reduced to a dice mechanic).
My understanding is they are also not the sort of thing you are rolling constantly for with the same NPC during the same 'encounter'.
An initial roll to set the tone of how the NPC will engage with the PCs, which can change based on the flow of the conversation/interaction (whether PC dice checks are made or not is up to the DM), which now sets a baseline for any future encounters with the same NPC (thus negating or reducing the likely hood of requiring a further Reaction Roll).
Where it may come up in multiple instances during the same encounter is when the PCs do something well outside the realms of what was reasonable given the direction of the conversation:
[When parleying with a local, the Thief tries to pick their pockets but is caught; You MIGHT use a Reaction Roll to see if they take it in good humour and laugh it off as a jest, take it as a slight and nurse a grudge, or outright call for the Thief's arrest.]
Or when the PCs are interacting with creatures more driven by instinct:
[They stumble upon a wild beast (Reaction Roll), it appears guarded, hackles raised but hasn't outright attacked (Negative result). The Players decide to bypass it. The PCs throw it some scraps to divert its attention (possible Reaction Roll), soothe its savagery with music (possible Reaction Roll) or even just decide to just run away (possible Reaction Roll which may involve further chase/evasion mechanics).]
Of course the PCs might also use their different 'Skills' to assess the situation, thus negating the need for further Reaction Rolls as you have returned the 'agency' to the players. The outcomes now determined by how well they do: The beast is wounded clearly its already been in a fight with something else; this type of creature should be hibernating but its awake and ornery; its guarding a litter of critters.
At the end of the day its as the Basic Expert said; "the roll is a prompt", and should be used as such.
I realize this isn't a round by round sort of social combat scenario, so if I gave that impression it is because I mangled my words, not because that is what I think the mechanic describes.
I agree that reaction rolls make a lot of sense for less sentient creatures and beasts. For your example of a social interaction where the PCs behave well outside the bounds of acceptable behavior, I don't think the reaction roll is necessary. Just as they know how to roleplay such a situation when an NPC acts that way toward them, I know how their behavior affects the NPC. For me, the roll for their disposition adds nothing that hasn't already bubbled to the surface organically.
@@blacklodgegames Yeah, and basically I was trying to say what Purple Druid said, but less succinctly. 😅
In that there are NPCs (those you have a good grasp of) and npcs (and those you don't).
And I'll second that knowing "...an NPCs disposition almost all of the time" is "a very rare skill", which is why I agree that the use of the Reaction Roll is just a "prompt", for a muscle that requires training.
Good topic. I’ll make a video on this because I think you are misunderstand the purpose of a reaction roll, at least how I use them.
I've changed my position on reaction rolls since making this video
If its not a simulation of fidelity Why make a roll?
So your reaction roll has a penalty when reaction rolls are added? Sorry I'll see myself out.
I love how he says in the first post that any GM who doesn’t use reaction rolls is an “NPC,” and in the very next post says, “Oh, well, if you actually understand your characters than I guess you don’t need them.” lol
“Where’s your game, bro?” Is always the best response. Mostly because they don’t have one.
A reaction roll isn't a persuasion check. You already get the whole concept wrong in your very introduction.
No I didn't, it's a way of determining the characters initial attitude or disposition. Some systems and games call for additional reaction rolls in extended conversations (example: the invisible college)
I fully agree you don’t need reaction roll for NPCs you know the disposition of. Full stop. However, i cant imagine not using reaction rolls for NPCs that are met and quickly generated. My fun as GM would be taxed by having to fully fuel the possible motivations if every random in the world. If i did no use reaction rolls i would make far less interesting NPCs on the fly. Random tables need care in use, but are the key IMO to setting. I have become fond of a 3d6 hex flower for reactions. This allows for some movement from the base reaction and tends to be less swingy overall. Thanks for the content.