D&D Next/5e Playtest Summary & Campaign Journal

[kyoryu]

I think we could even have more detail, actually, and still satisfy the fiat-favoring of this thread. Many games have a game mechanic called something like Complications. When a player fails a task, rather than dying (you push the orc off, he grabs your arm, you can't shake him off, you fall and die), the DM introduces a complication (you can't shake him off, now you're lying facedown in the dirt, hanging off the cliff). Basically, the game should have guidelines for how many complications to attach to an action.

I think this is a reasonable idea (play Burning Wheel much, btw?). A simple chart could give appropriate types of compliations based on degree of failure - a simple failure would result in a minor complication, while an epic failure could result in death.

There's a few scenarios where while the task might not be complex, the consequences of failure are - navigating a tightrope over a net isn't inherently more difficult than doing the same over lava (psychological factors aside). But, this could be combatted with having something like three charts for "consequence severity", leaving the core idea intact. I'm totally not sure this is necessary.

This would leave the DM some room in both assigning the specific complications that occur, as well as in setting the difficulty of the initial test.

It's like, I really like the rule for Jumping in 5e because it's a consistent result of something you'd expect a certain degree of consistency from. You don't have a difference of like, 15 feet from your shortest jump to your longest, you pretty much jump about the same distance MOST of the time.

Perhaps, in a static, prepared environment, under no stress (apart from doing a good jump), and consistent footing.

One of the things that the randomness of dice is supposed to represent is not only variance in your performance, but the variance in the environment that aren't necessarily reflected as discrete game elements.