D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Actually this deserves a full reply. There is a huge difference between disassociated mechanics and a disassociated character, and this is one thing that most critics of disassociated mechanics miss. (And some people don't care).

You can probably put me down in the "don't care" category when it comes to "difference between dissociated mechanics and dissociated character," since I didn't really grok your FATE example and I wasn't actually criticizing dissociated mechanics in the first place--just pointing out why I think you and BryonD are talking past each other.

(I mean, I don't really like disassociated mechanics, but clearly I can be tempted by them because in 5E I find the Lucky feat very desirable despite the dissociation. Although I should probably consider eliminating Lucky from my games for precisely that reason: it's mechanically tempting but off-putting from a roleplaying perspective.)

 

[pemerton]

What struck me as interesting was this one:
"Gard also warns against the use of 'arbitrary spaces': environmental features that are obviously included for gameplay challenge and serve no purpose in the 'reality' of the setting:

"When a player enters a temple that has no space for worship, or a tomb with no burial chamber nor rhyme nor reason behind its layout, he or she will not be convinced that they are exploring a real place."

Are roles the same as "arbitrary spaces" that "serve no purpose in the 'reality' of the setting" and "he or she will not be convinced that they are exploring a real place"?

Role labels, and the sentences in which they occur, aren't part of the setting - they are statements of guidelines for how PCs might be built and played. They occupy the same functional space as a bit of advice in an older D&D book saying "If you play a magic-user, you will have to work hard to keep out of combat and avoid being killed, due to your poor AC and hit points."

If someone finds the fiction to which PC builds give rise to be arbitrary or genre-breaking, that would be an example of what you quote. That will vary across players. For me, the idea that a gentle word from a charismatic battle captain can revive the spirits of a comrade reinforces (Tokienesque) genre; likewise, the idea that powerful warriors will find themselves at the centre of the action, being swarmed by their enemies (though here the genre is fantasy more generally, with probably REH's Conan as the core example).

Others might have different genre expectations and preferences, and therefore find their immersion broken by some of this fiction to which the mechanics give rise.

I'm not sure I see the connection.

<snip>

I still don't equate daydreaming as a mode of authorship. For me, daydreaming is a passive activity. I don't feel I'm authoring anything. The process is too passive for me to call it authoring, even if it technically is authoring fictional content.

"Passive", here, describes a psychological experience - a feeling.

In the context of RPG design, what sorts of mechanics create what sorts of feelings? In RPG play, players have to describe what their PCs are doing, sometimes using the technical language of action declaration. Whether or not incorporating into those descriptions references to things that are not the PC, or that - in the fiction - are not under the PC's control will disrupt a certain feeling is not something to be answered by logic. It is an empirical question. And I think it is obvious that these experiences vary across players.

Here are two hypothetical action declarations that might be made when a PC, with a roguish background, is trying to find a shady contact in a city:

Player: Do I have any contacts from my past here?

GM: Yes . . . [fills in some details] . . .

Player: Cool. My Streetwise check is 16 - do I make contact?

GM: [Consults resolution rules and determines whether or not contact is successfully made.]

************

Player: I'm trying to hook up with one of my contacts here from my past,who can put me in touch with the guildmaster. My Streetwise check is 16.

GM: Cool. [Consults resolution rules and determines whether or not contact is successfully made.] You meet . . . [fills in details depending on whether or not check succeeded] . . .​

The second example - modelled loosely on Burning Wheel's Circles mechanic - illustrates an instance of player authorship - the player is entitled to author elements of his/her PC's background, including having acquaintances in the city; the resolution mechanics determine whether or not the PC, on this occasion, successfully makes contact with one of those acquaintances.

There is no a priori reason why the second mode of action declaration should spoil immersion in some way that the first is guaranteed not to.

Your case - that you can't find what you call Character Immersion with authoring powers, is based upon the presumption that your mode of experience is universal. Mine, that there are multiple ways and multiple ends is based on the opposite.

<snip>

What I reject isn't your experience, it's where you seek to post hard limits on your experience. When you say you have experience of something you are telling the truth. When you say that something can only work a certain way then one single counter-example (which my experience provides) is sufficient to show you are wrong. You personally can not find flow in an RPG when you have player-authorship powers and responsibilities. This I accept. That because BryonD can not personally find flow when he has player authorship powers means that no human being that is, was, or ever will be is able to do so is something I dismiss as ridiculous.

This. Generalising from one's own psychological experience, to what is possible for other RPGers, is fraught with the risk of error.

To refer to a different medium: I have no trouble becoming immersed in a foreign-language, subtitled film. I know other people who do. All this shows is that the psychological experience of reading the dialogue is different for different film viewers.

 

[Ratskinner]

Player authorship, in that case - namely, authoring that the end of the effect resulted from divine intercession - was a manifestation of immersion in character (where that immersion includes unwavering faith in the Raven Queen).

I'm not sure why, how, or if this was directed at me but there wasn't anything in what you said there that I took as meaningful for what I was talking about. Your player, through the voice of his character made an assertion about the game world. I don't see how that made anything true about the gameworld that wasn't true before. Just because his character believed the Raven Queen did it and expressed his faith in her doesn't mean that she actually did it. (Or maybe it was a snappy comeback) He didn't "author" anything about the gameworld beyond what his character said. If we're going to split that fine of a hair on what player authorship means, then I doubt this will be a very fruitful discussion. (He wrote 90 pages into the thread.)

 

[Rejuvenator]

Role labels, and the sentences in which they occur, aren't part of the setting - they are statements of guidelines for how PCs might be built and played. They occupy the same functional space as a bit of advice in an older D&D book saying "If you play a magic-user, you will have to work hard to keep out of combat and avoid being killed, due to your poor AC and hit points."

That sort of advice doesn't detract from how I would want to roleplay a magic-user, so that sort of guideline doesn't strike me as a good example of an "arbitrary space". I can imagine it being an arbitrary space for a player who emphatically wanted to roleplay Gandalf fighting the Balrog. I, however, just happen to be ok with the fiction of a physically weak wizard.

"Passive", here, describes a psychological experience - a feeling.

Your player, through the voice of his character made an assertion about the game world. I don't see how that made anything true about the gameworld that wasn't true before. Just because his character believed the Raven Queen did it and expressed his faith in her doesn't mean that she actually did it. (Or maybe it was a snappy comeback) He didn't "author" anything about the gameworld beyond what his character said. If we're going to split that fine of a hair on what player authorship means, then I doubt this will be a very fruitful discussion. (He wrote 90 pages into the thread.)

My usage of "passive" complements (I think) Ratskinner's point. It's one thing to fantasize/imagine/daydream/pray/wishful thinking what the Raven Queen did and why. I even applaud that sort of roleplaying, because if I was a fervent priest of the Raven Queen, I'd probably attribute all sorts of events thru my beliefs filter. I'm authoring the fiction of what the character is mentalizing, but beyond that I don't consider that active player authorship of anything manifesting beyond the character's scope. Thus it feels passive to me.

To refer to a different medium: I have no trouble becoming immersed in a foreign-language, subtitled film. I know other people who do. All this shows is that the psychological experience of reading the dialogue is different for different film viewers.

Yep. I felt more immersed playing A Dark Room (a text-based game with ascii art!) than I did watching the realistic special effects of Transformers Dark of the Moon. Go figure.

 

[SirAntoine]

The players might get a little more immersed in the game if they can author little things about the environment their characters enter, but I've seen so much immersion without it, I wouldn't bring it in for that reason.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not sure why, how, or if this was directed at me but there wasn't anything in what you said there that I took as meaningful for what I was talking about. Your player, through the voice of his character made an assertion about the game world. I don't see how that made anything true about the gameworld that wasn't true before. Just because his character believed the Raven Queen did it and expressed his faith in her doesn't mean that she actually did it.

Yes it did. That's the point of the example.

It's one thing to fantasize/imagine/daydream/pray/wishful thinking what the Raven Queen did and why. I even applaud that sort of roleplaying, because if I was a fervent priest of the Raven Queen, I'd probably attribute all sorts of events thru my beliefs filter. I'm authoring the fiction of what the character is mentalizing, but beyond that I don't consider that active player authorship of anything manifesting beyond the character's scope.

The game rules stipulate that, at the end of the NPC's next turn, the Baleful Polymorph ends. The rules do not stipulate why this occurs. (Thus, the mechanic is similar to the War Devil's mechanic that The Alexandrian lambasts in his essay.)

In the fiction, why did the curse on the paladin end? The answer - because the Raven Queen turned him back. And that answer was authored by the player.

EDITED TO ADD:

There is a more general issue for playing religious characters, if you interpret those sorts of player remarks as reflecting nothing more than the conjecture of the PC.

The actual resolution mechanics of D&D generally involve either deterministic rules - "This effect ends after 1 turn" - or dice-rolling rules - "This effect ends if the player rolls a successful save for his/her PC".

If the player is not allowed to narrate in the fiction the role of the divinity in brining about the mechanical effect, then the PC's religious conviction is in fact shown, by the mechanics, to be irrational - because no good outcome is ever, in fact, a result of divine providence but rather is the result of the impersonal mechanics (whether deterministic or random) of the cosmos.

This is suitable for playing a Conan-esque game, in which a belief in providence is either delusional or charlatanry, but is not at all suitable for a romantic or Tolkien-esque game.

 

[pemerton]

The players might get a little more immersed in the game if they can author little things about the environment their characters enter, but I've seen so much immersion without it, I wouldn't bring it in for that reason.

In my own case, it's not so much immediate environment as "emotional" environment - friends, family, divinities, etc - that matter to me in getting into my character.

 

[Sadras]

(I mean, I don't really like disassociated mechanics, but clearly I can be tempted by them because in 5E I find the Lucky feat very desirable despite the dissociation. Although I should probably consider eliminating Lucky from my games for precisely that reason: it's mechanically tempting but off-putting from a roleplaying perspective.)

For the same reason as the one you have posted, Lucky Feat is eliminated from our 5e campaign. I am happy that it is available though for those that do use it given the wide variety of playstyles in our hobby.

 

[Hussar]

For the same reason as the one you have posted, Lucky Feat eliminated from our 5e campaign. I am happy that it is available though for those that do use it given the wide variety of playstyles in our hobby.

It truly is a shame that this attitude is not more prevalent in the hobby. Kudos to you.

 

[SirAntoine]

In my own case, it's not so much immediate environment as "emotional" environment - friends, family, divinities, etc - that matter to me in getting into my character.

You mention the Raven Queen a lot. Did you insist on going against what the canon was or was it never developed for D&D?