Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)

[pemerton]

I followed the link in the OP, and read the text there (but didn't watch the video).

Here is Pulsipher's summary of "wish fulfillment":

Games as wish-fulfillment, as “an experience”​

In D&D terms, this is all about immersion - about "being there, as my character".

In Forge/GNS terms, this is all about simulation - "the right to dream".

Of the various RPG systems I have played over the years, CoC is the best at delivering this - at creating "an experience" of being there, of going mad as mind and spirit are ground down by otherwordly forces.

This reinforces my post above this one, that [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION]'s WF1 through WF4 are't capturing anything that contrasts with "interesting decisions". CoC isn't about respect, or ploughing through enemies, or even handwaving. (It does involve flavour and effect.)

The contrast that Pulsipher is drawing, based on those summaries, is basically the same one that Ron Edwards draws when he contrast simulationism (no overt metagame in play) with gamism and narrativism (both embrace the metagame, though to different ends - "step on up" challenges in the first case, "story now" dramatic resolution in the second case).

 

[Emerikol]

But every single one of these Forge theories are not mutually exclusive. They are priorities. I explained myself earlier and you really didn't address it so I won't repeat.

The player I ran into basically said that he felt my game was too challenging. I kept the group too stressed out fighting for their survival. He enjoys a game that while still having combats and so forth is not one that worries him especially. The fun for him is using cool powers to do cool things.

Whereas, other players want to fight and claw their way to every goal. The fighting and clawing though is the real goal. The artificial reward goal is just symbolic of the completion of the journey.

 

[Emerikol]

As you have stated it, I don't feel the force of the contrast.

Maybe my one sentence response is...
One is about overcoming obstacles and the other is about being something. Again not mutually exclusive but there is a difference. See my other recent post for more thoughts.

Edit:
Another thought. A completely 100% sold out wish fulfillment person would be happy if the DM fudged dice all the time as long as he didn't know. Now that is the extreme end of that position. It's more about roleplaying a role and less about a challenging game.

The interesting choices extreme would be chess.

 

[Hussar]

But every single one of these Forge theories are not mutually exclusive. They are priorities. I explained myself earlier and you really didn't address it so I won't repeat.

The player I ran into basically said that he felt my game was too challenging. I kept the group too stressed out fighting for their survival. He enjoys a game that while still having combats and so forth is not one that worries him especially. The fun for him is using cool powers to do cool things.

Whereas, other players want to fight and claw their way to every goal. The fighting and clawing though is the real goal. The artificial reward goal is just symbolic of the completion of the journey.

But, the problem is Emerikol, your fighting and clawing is largely an illusion. It has to be unless you are constantly whacking pc's.

If a fight is truly "skin of the teeth" then there needs to be a significant chance of PC death. But, if every encounter is like that but PCs aren't dying, the the odds of PC death must actually be much lower.

I would argue that if you scratch beneath the surface, your game is far closer to wish fulfillment than you might think.

To clarify, in the last ten combat encounters in your game, how many pcs died? How many pcs die per level?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Here is the original CaS/CaW post by Daztur. It is entirely respectful and fair to both sides. His examples of play are entirely edition agnostic.

The original post was trying to figure something out out loud. It was interesting, worth reading, and reaching to something useful. The way CaW/CaS has been used since (right down to I think someone having a sig reading "I like Combat as War") has been not particularly well disguised edition warring.

The elephant in the room is that there's almost never such a thing as Combat as War. A dungeon is approximately as artificial an environment as the assault course on Sasuke/American Ninja Warrior. The PCs are well enough armed, and this is a feature, that they resemble big game hunters on a safari - yes you can mess up. But the odds are stacked in your favour. And minimising risk while bringing back the head of a lion is a good thing.

I would have a lot more respect for this viewpoint if you provided us with your alternative preferred terms.

Strategic and tactical focus.

 

[Emerikol]

But, the problem is Emerikol, your fighting and clawing is largely an illusion. It has to be unless you are constantly whacking pc's.

If a fight is truly "skin of the teeth" then there needs to be a significant chance of PC death. But, if every encounter is like that but PCs aren't dying, the the odds of PC death must actually be much lower.

I would argue that if you scratch beneath the surface, your game is far closer to wish fulfillment than you might think.

To clarify, in the last ten combat encounters in your game, how many pcs died? How many pcs die per level?

I disagree with your premise. A hard game does not have to result in a failure.

The game can be hard because of the effort you have to spend even if you are successful.

I think many groups would initially die if I DMd them. Then if they were smart and most gamers are theyd adjust or quit my game. Soke players really don't want to have their wits taxed.

 

[Hussar]

I wonder if the difference isn't more strategic vs logistical. Tactics refer to what you do after you are engaged with an enemy. Tactics are very short term and tend to be reflected in D&D in round by round decisions.

Strategy, on the other hand, is more long term - things like scry/buff/teleport routines are strategic, rather than tactical. Decisions about how to clear a dungeon (using a dungeon crawl as an example) like sending the scout forward to gather information, various skill uses like tracking and whatnot, taking prisoners for questioning/charming are all good examples of strategic play.

Logistical play is much more what I think of when I think of old school style play. Bringing in how much food, wagons for carrying supplies, tracking supplies that sort of thing. Additionally, older versions of D&D supported this much better by making virtually everything other than the most basic of actions, a very limited resource. Healing was extremely limited - not only no wands of cure light wounds, but, no healing spells at 2nd or 3rd level. You had nothing but cure light wounds spells until your cleric hit 7th level. Couple that with fairly slow healing and logistical play becomes extremely important. Add in the length of time it can take to regain spells (IIRC, 15 minutes/spell level/spell after your 8 hours of rest) means that the Magic User is pretty much limited to his or her initial load out of spells, plus whatever scrolls and whatnot you can find along the way.

These two play styles -strategic vs logistical are where the big difference is, IMO. 3e supports strategic play very well since logistics isn't generally much of an issue. 4e actually doesn't support either terribly well, IMO, which I think is a weakness of the system. You don't really have to worry about logistics at all - you aren't even supposed to track ammunition, and strategic play isn't generally as much of an issue since the focus is so strongly on the encounter. Within an encounter, you have a richness of tactical choices that leaves any other edition in the dust, but, because there aren't really any major decision points between encounters, at least as far as combat is concerned, strategic play isn't a major issue. It's all about the tactics.

This is one area where I'm rather glad 5e has focused more on the scenario as a base unit of time, rather than the encounter. 3e's weakness was in tactical play. Once you found a tactic - usually because you spent feats, or chose a certain suite of spells - you spam the heck out of that tactic. You have "trip build" fighters, for example, where every single encounter, virtually every single attack, this fighter is going to try to trip stuff. The rogue is constantly setting up that sneak attack because if he doesn't, he's basically a peasant with a nice sword. That sort of thing. Granted, I believe 3e is quite far ahead of AD&D in tactical play. There's a lot more tactical level choices in 3e than in AD&D. It's all a spectrum.

Hopefully, and at first blush it looks like 5e has, 5e will bridge the three levels to some degree. You get the logistical level of play - tracking ammo, somewhat limited healing (although far more than AD&D) and hit dice allow for logistical level decisions. The focus on the scenario rather than the single encounter makes strategic level play important and the number of powers and variety of tricks and things you can do in a round make the tactical level important as well.

It's a nice balance IMO.

((Heh, since I've now said bad things about every edition, I wonder if that makes me a meta-edition warrior. ))

 

[Neonchameleon]

I disagree with your premise. A hard game does not have to result in a failure.

The game can be hard because of the effort you have to spend even if you are successful.

I think many groups would initially die if I DMd them. Then if they were smart and most gamers are theyd adjust or quit my game. Soke players really don't want to have their wits taxed.

That doesn't sound like a hard game to me. It sounds like a game of "Know the DM". And that has a difficulty threshold but no serious ramp.

Tomb of Horrors was in response to Rob Kunz and Ernie Gygax complaining that Greyhawk was too easy. And guess what? They were right. The first encounter with Tomb of Horrors resulted in all treasure found and no PC deaths. This is because knowing your DM is a skill - and if they throw the same type of opposition you can master it. And when you've mastered it you might need to keep your wits about you, but it's no longer hard.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I wonder if the difference isn't more strategic vs logistical. Tactics refer to what you do after you are engaged with an enemy. Tactics are very short term and tend to be reflected in D&D in round by round decisions.

4e is very tactical. The extended rest being 8 hours weakens it as both a strategic and a logistical game. You have three camps here rather than two.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree with your premise. A hard game does not have to result in a failure.

The game can be hard because of the effort you have to spend even if you are successful.

I think many groups would initially die if I DMd them. Then if they were smart and most gamers are theyd adjust or quit my game. Soke players really don't want to have their wits taxed.

But the math doesn't add up. If you have a truly hard game, then there has to be a significant chance of failure. Combat or non-combat, it doesn't matter. If you have a 50:50 chance of success, then you will fail half the time. If the players are succeeding virtually all the time, then your game isn't actually that hard. It can't be. If it was truly hard, then people would fail. If it's possible to change the odds such that the party constantly (or nearly constantly) succeeds, then it's not really that hard. It might be a challenge to find how to change the odds, but, the fact that the odds can be changed belies the difficulty.

I've DM'd hard games. Last major dungeon crawl I did, I killed a PC every three sessions over the duration of the campaign (about two years). I had one player on his EIGHTH PC by the end of the campaign. One player actually managed to survive for 50 sessions. The longest living PC in that campaign. She died under a mob of Rasts that jumped the party. No one was ever safe.

But, we knew going into that campaign that there was a high chance of failure.

My current adventure has a pretty decent chance of a TPK. This one's just a short one though. Single PC level. But, because of the adventure, they won't be able to rest and regain dailies or HP for the duration of the adventure. I really don't expect them to succeed, but, I'll be pleasantly surprised if they do. Again, I made no bones about it going into the adventure. I was pulling out all the stops and turning the dials to 11.

Funnily enough, there is not a single monster in the entire dungeon higher level than the party. Fun times.

But, if your party is getting to 20th level without permanent death? Yeah, that's not a hard campaign.