D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

pemerton · Aug 12, 2012

Emerikol said:
I prefer a game where the players are much closer to their characters. They are living in the world. They are acting as their characters and making decisions. They think like their characters in that they believe the world is a harsh place and they could die easily. They plan, they prepare, it matters. Thats just my preference.

The particular importance of planning and preparing, or being concerned about dying easily, is system and campaign specific. It's a bit part of low-level classic D&D play. It's a typical part of Burning Wheel play, I think. It's not a big part of high level D&D play in any version of the game except (perhaps?) 3E.

But if we take out that particular play preference, and focus just on players being close to their PCs, and acting as their characters and making decisions, which posters on this thread do you think you're differentiating yourself from?

I GMed a session today where the players, in character, were arguing out what to do about some Death Giants geased by the Raven Queen to guard the warded entrance to an ancient temple of Orcus. The dwarf (who wields Overwhelm, a modified version of Whelm, which is an artefact Dwarven Thrower) wanted to kill the giants. The invoker and the paladin (both servants of the Raven Queen) wanted to leave the giants there burdened by the geas. This disagreement played itself out in the combat itself - it didn' come to blows between the PCs, because the social contract at the table moderates passions in that way, but harsh words were certainly used!

In the course of all this, the player of the dwarf fighter-cleric used one action point to get an extra attack, two daily powers and three encounter powers, as well as multiple uses of at-will powers. This didn't hurt his immersion. The focus of his play isn't the causal question "What exactly is my PC doing now with his weapon, and how is he doing it?" The focus of his play, in combat, is "Who am I attacking, and why, and what is at stake for me and for my allies?" And at all relevant times he was a dwarf fighting giants with a honking great two-handed warhammer. Until it got cut with him when he wouldn't use one of his limited-use powers to finish of a giant, and made him swap it out for his non-artefact +4 halberd. What, in the fiction, was going on when the PC made this choice? He wasn't fighting the giants as hard as he could - he was holding back a bit, keeping some energy in reserve for later - and Overwhelm could tell this and got angry about it.

Emerikol said:
If you are having fun, then you are succeeding. I "think" that in a good game of D&D (good for me) I am having fun on a level I find rarely in any other recreational activity.

I'm sure this is true for you. It is true for me to. I don't see what it tells us about the suitability, in general, of particular mechanics to support RPGing.

Emerikol said:
I find dissociative mechanics very disruptive to my immersion. I also find myself not being willing/able to suspend my disbelief in the whole campaign.

This is an interesting biographical fact about you - there is a certain (in my view, somewhat vaguely defined) category of mechanics that spoils your game.

Hit points use to be like that for me. Then I learned how to interpret them in a metagame ("dissociative"?) fashion and got over my in-principle objection, and I found a game that made more than just hit point attrition the focus of D&D-style combat (ie 4e) and got over my practical objection (that hit point attrition, on its own, is boring).

I have a friend who is a bit of a Rolemaster snob. The last time I played D&D with him was a mnth or two after 3E came out. I was GMing a few sessions to see how it played. This friend was playing a wizard, and he cast a web spell - but miscalculated on range or AoE or something, and caught another PC in the web. The player of that other PC complained, to which my friend repied "It's only D&D!" - meaning, it's not something to be taken that seriously. For him, D&D as such - with its hit points, its AC that makes you harder to hit rather than reducing the damage, its Vancian magic, its somewhat silly spells like Web - was "dissociative". (As far as I know he's never tried 4e.)

That's a biographical fact about my friend. But I wouldn't generalise from it to anything objective about D&D or 3E.

Imaro · Aug 12, 2012

pemerton said:
Agreed. But I think Hussar is correct that it often is - that players of fantasy RPGs often have their PCs do things because they're cool, rather than because they're "in character".

Your experience may differ, of course - all any of us can do here is try to generalise fairly from the experiences we've had.

I'm not sure a theory that relies on the genralization of what the motivations of "players of fantasy RPG's" are when they make choices for their characters, but provides no evidence to support it (and there are posters in this very thread stating they make decisions from the PoV of their characters), really adds anything constructive to the conversation... it's just layering assumption upon assumption... probably based, at least partially, on self-bias.

EDIT: Taking a note from your above post... it could tell us about how you and Hussar make decisions... perhaps even how a few/some/all people in your particular group make decisions... but I don't think it can be assumed for most players of fantasy roleplaying games.

ForeverSlayer · Aug 12, 2012

pemerton said:
Agreed. But I think Hussar is correct that it often is - that players of fantasy RPGs often have their PCs do things because they're cool, rather than because they're "in character".

Your experience may differ, of course - all any of us can do here is try to generalise fairly from the experiences we've had.

Didn't realize there was a difference between being "in character" and doing something cool. I thought the whole idea of being in character was cool.

I'm not really following where this is going.

pemerton · Aug 12, 2012

Hussar said:
And this is what causes people like me to pull out my hair in frustration. Why is it perfectly okay to have some dissociative mechanics but not others? After all, Action Points are about as dissociated as you can get. There's no in game rationale for them. You can rationalize them after the fact, but, that's true of virtually ANY dissociated mechanic.

I have a tentative hypothesis about this.

With Action/Fate/Hero Points it is mechincally transparent that the player is spending a metagame resource - because it modifies a die roll that the player makes.

Whereas with 4e powers, the mechanics leave it ambiguous what is happening - clearly the PC is doing something (attacking, say), and nothing tells us whether the 3W damage for a daily is because it is the PC doing a special attack (and why can s/he do it only once?!) or whether the 3W damage is due to the player spending a metagame resource to triple the damage on a successful hit.

I actually now find it part of the charm of D&D that it interleaves its metagame aspects into its more simulative aspects in this way (hit points are somewhat similar), but it seems to annoy a lot of people.

pemerton · Aug 12, 2012

ForeverSlayer said:
Didn't realize there was a difference between being "in character" and doing something cool. I thought the whole idea of being in character was cool. [/quote [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point was that there is a difference between swinging on the chandelier because your PC thinks it's a good idea, and swinging on the chandelier because you, the player, think it would make for a cool stunt.

Imaro said:

I'm not sure a theory that relies on the genralization of what the motivations of "players of fantasy RPG's" are when they make choices for their characters, but provides no evidence to support it (and there are posters in this very thread stating they make decisions from the PoV of their characters)

Click to expand...

No one said that there is no such thing as actore stance in play. Hussar just said that sometimes, perhaps often, author stance is used - especially when players do things to be cool and cause others at the table to be impressed/have fun. If you've never seen that, mabye I should be inferring something about you, or the people you play with!

TwoSix · Aug 12, 2012

Imaro said:
I'm not sure a theory that relies on the genralization of what the motivations of "players of fantasy RPG's" are when they make choices for their characters, but provides no evidence to support it (and there are posters in this very thread stating they make decisions from the PoV of their characters), really adds anything constructive to the conversation... it's just layering assumption upon assumption... probably based, at least partially, on self-bias.

EDIT: Taking a note from your above post... it could tell us about how you and Hussar make decisions... perhaps even how a few/some/all people in your particular group make decisions... but I don't think it can be assumed for most players of fantasy roleplaying games.

I don't think anyone is arguing that both actor stance and author stance don't exist, or even that they aren't extremely common at D&D tables everywhere.

It's just simply pointing out that what some people think is "from the point of the character" often (certainly not always, or even a majority of times) is not.

billd91 · Aug 12, 2012

pemerton said:
I have a tentative hypothesis about this.

With Action/Fate/Hero Points it is mechincally transparent that the player is spending a metagame resource - because it modifies a die roll that the player makes.

Whereas with 4e powers, the mechanics leave it ambiguous what is happening - clearly the PC is doing something (attacking, say), and nothing tells us whether the 3W damage for a daily is because it is the PC doing a special attack (and why can s/he do it only once?!) or whether the 3W damage is due to the player spending a metagame resource to triple the damage on a successful hit.

I suppose some might argue that because the action point is clearly and obviously a player-spent resource, that it's not truly dissociative since it's not spent from the character's POV. I don't necessarily agree with that because I think they can make some sense from a character POV. But I think you're on a reasonable track with your hypothesis.

There might also be a threshold level that's at work too. A few here and there are acceptable, too many and enjoyment of the game at a certain level crashes down.

Imaro · Aug 12, 2012

pemerton said:
@Hussar 's point was that there is a difference between swinging on the chandelier because your PC thinks it's a good idea, and swinging on the chandelier because you, the player, think it would make for a cool stunt.

In his original post, which is displayed below... Hussar makes no such distinction... He assumes that this action is "ridiculous" (which is one of those assumptions I was speaking to)... when in fact it would depend on PC motivation, characterization and even build choices as to whether it is a ridiculous choice to swing on a chandelier or not. If I'm a Gambit-esque character with an 18 in Dex, trained in acrobatics, with a character trait that adds +2 to acrobatics and skill focus in acrobatics... how is attempting such a maneuver "ridiculously dangerous"??

Hussar said:
Just another point about actor/author stance. Even in earlier edition D&D, it was rarely that cut and dried. Many of the things that a character might try make virtually no sense from the character's point of view, yet, I, the player certainly want to.
Take the often mentioned swinging across the room by the chandelier. Now, this is, from the character's POV, ridiculous. It's very dangerous, doesn't really achieve anything and practically suicidal. No one in their right mind is going to do this. But, from me, the player's POV, it's really, really cool. It makes for a great scene and it's something I'd totally want to try. There's a reason it happens in the movies.

So, here we have a fairly clear case of the player and character motivations being at odds. Yet, everyone at the table would likely applaud me (the player) for trying it, and lots of high fives if I actually succeeded. From the character's perspective, it's totally ludicrous. But, on the Cool Scale, it's a winner!

Players are, in many, many events in the game, stepping outside of their character's POV to take actions that are either more pragmatic (I'll move away from this guy, get stabbed, so I can finish off that guy, because I know he's down lots of HP), more cinematic or just outright batguano crazy, because we're playing a game, and being "cool" makes for a more interesting game.

Or, to put it another way, when faced with the big button that says, "Never, under any circumstances, push this" players will almost aways push that button.

pemerton said:
No one said that there is no such thing as actore stance in play. Hussar just said that sometimes, perhaps often, author stance is used - especially when players do things to be cool and cause others at the table to be impressed/have fun. If you've never seen that, mabye I should be inferring something about you, or the people you play with!

I'm not arguing that anyone claimed actor stance doesn't exist. I am arguing that I don't find this happens often. I'm sorry but I don't see players often attempt things they know their characters suck at because it might be cool, if they pull it off. IME, they tend to build their characters (both mechanically and personality wise) to do well at and gravitate towards the things they find to be cool.

EDIT:*Shrug* I guess you could infer that we build our characters around the "cool" things we want to do in game.

Imaro · Aug 12, 2012

TwoSix said:
I don't think anyone is arguing that both actor stance and author stance don't exist, or even that they aren't extremely common at D&D tables everywhere.

It's just simply pointing out that what some people think is "from the point of the character" often (certainly not always, or even a majority of times) is not.

And I don't agree that it is "often". As I posted in my reply to pemerton... I've tended to see players approach things from the perspective of their character more often than... trying something cool that has nothing to do with how they built their character or his motivations and goals... just because it might be cool, if they could possibly pull it off.

I don't think a character that sucks at acrobatics, doesn't particularly like grandstanding or showing off and has a Dex of 4 is going to regularly try things like swinging on chandelier, because it might be cool if he succeeds. I guess we can chalk it up to different experiences if you want.

Manbearcat · Aug 12, 2012

Imaro said:
I'm not sure a theory that relies on the genralization of what the motivations of "players of fantasy RPG's" are when they make choices for their characters, but provides no evidence to support it (and there are posters in this very thread stating they make decisions from the PoV of their characters), really adds anything constructive to the conversation... it's just layering assumption upon assumption... probably based, at least partially, on self-bias.

ForeverSlayer said:
Didn't realize there was a difference between being "in character" and doing something cool. I thought the whole idea of being in character was cool.

Let me attempt to clarify Hussar and pemerton's statement here. Unfortunately, I think you are inferring a bit of "Zero-Sum" and "Mutually Exclusive" within their statements where they are not intimating as much.

It appears to me that they are merely saying:

- Players sometimes (rarely? less than a majority? who knows?) make decisions for their PCs whereby "cool within genre expectations" trumps "pragmatic within M.O of a living breathing human expectations" for the sake of interesting, dynamic fiction.
- For a real-world, pragmatic person who (by nature) makes immediate, cost/benefit analysis decisions even when faced with fight or flight impulse, "caution-to-the-wind" is anathema.
- Therefore, sometimes the Player to PC relationship is disassociated on this metagame, decision-making level...for the sake of interesting, dynamic fiction.

Nowhere are they saying:

- You cannot have interesting, dynamic fiction without this "Metagame, pragmatism-defying, caution-to-the-wind, Cool Now" approach. Its just that, in some cases, it may be the most expedient means toward "Cool Now." You can have plenty of "Cool Now" by being in character and through process simulation. They're just saying that "sometimes" people do not follow that formula of actor stance and process simulation to achieve it.
- Further (I think...could be wrong here), they are saying that players may not do this willfully (sometimes)...they may be completely unaware that this is their M.O. when it manifests.

Carry on.