casocial

Lol hiya, I recall you from the subreddit as well. Glad to see familiar faces around!

Though fighters were worse compared to casters in 3.5e or PF1e, at least you got to customize them with your crazy number of feats.

Meanwhile 5e makes you choose between improving your stat scores or taking a feat. Hooray?

Hmm, I guess that's where we see things differently. To me those choices aren't part of the "Go" before the "Roll", while you group them together under "Go".

Let me elaborate a bit. I'm also playing a game where the GM encourages us to narrate our own successes/failures, but I still envision that as "Go then Roll". Whether it's the GM or player deciding what the consequences of an action, the PC has already committed to that action before rolling. Action > Roll > Result can all be decided by the player in "Go then Roll".

I can't speak for reactions since I specifically try to avoid games including them in PbP. Having to retcon or pre-declare them always felt clunky to me.

That's interesting. I play TTRPGs via play-by-post too, and the norm for me involves declaring your actions before the roll. I can see why you might encounter friction with failed rolls from your example, but usually the action is framed more as " launches themself off the floor". That leaves space for the GM to narrate the result, succeed or fail.

Perhaps it's my lack of experience with such systems, but I still see those as the same thing except whether you "zoom in" or "zoom out" of the scene. The closest analogy I can think of is Ironsworn, where you can use multiple Clash, Secure an Advantage etc. moves to simulate combat, or settle it in a single Battle roll. In the latter case, I'd still call it "Go then Roll" because deciding to fight at all is the choice being made.

I'm having trouble seeing the distinction. In your "Roll then Go" example, the PC already chose the course of action before engaging the ogre. 'I deal with the ogre offensively' is just more vaguely worded than 'I attack the ogre', isn't it?