A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life

[Maxperson]

Sometimes. Not always. And certaintly not a universal rule or maxim. We are easily swimming in examples where this is not the case. This is also ignoring how some series have preset lengths. E.g., Babylon 5 was planned for five seasons, though the narrative structure had a major hiccup due to TNT. Avatar the Last Airbender was planned for three seasons: Book 1, Water; Book 2, Earth; Book 3, Fire.

I did forget pre-planned shorter series that avoid the issue via planning.

Calling it a False Equivalence doesn't make it so. This is generally how D&D uses monsters for artifically escalating drama -- at least through the common D&D lens of equating dramatic moments to PCs overcoming challenging foes -- to the point where you eventually fight demon princes and gods or become ones yourself. And drama in a number of fantasy/sci-fi series often likewise involves escalating foes. This is even one reason why people wanted something akin to "bounded accuracy" so that lower-tiered monsters of the week would remain dramatically relevant in later gameplay.

And yet it still is a False Equivalence. Monster difficulty isn't about trying to outdo the last monster.

Shows regularly die regardless of their dramatic content for a variety of reasons (production costs, ratings, network marketing and rebranding, actors, writer fatigue, etc.) so that is a red herring. How many episodes does Bold and the Beautiful have?

Yes, your Red Herring here is in fact red. Kind of you to notice and call it out like that. Yes, there are other ways that a show could end before getting to the point where it drowns in its own drama.

How many episodes did the original CSI have? Or how about Law & Order? Or how about Doctor Who?

Crime shows are different and Dr. Who is more of a comedy than it is a drama. But okay, there are some exceptions to the rule. They don't invalidate the rule.

Maxperson: Lanefan is saying uniequivocally that the dramatic-drive play that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and others describe is unsustainable for 100+ sessions. This is demonstrably false. Your defending of this falsehood seems rooted more in a desire to bicker and win points than to ascertain the truth of the proposition. I sometimes think that if I casually said that the earth was round, you would go out of your way to become a flat earther. If you are interested in the truth of things, then why would you defend Lanefan's assertion here if you know this to be false? (Pemerton's chronicled story now sessions are hardly esoteric gnosis. And he is hardly alone in long campaigns in story now games.) Is this really an argument you want to be making with any shred of good faith?

I'm not defending him at all, which is why you find a lack of "I think Lanefan is right" and the like in my post. I think you can do 100+ or more just fine. You just have to find people who enjoy that sort of thing. Me, I find that sort of incessant drama to be ridiculously unrealistic.

 

[Manbearcat]

Which comes right back to the thread topic: realism. Is it realistic to think your PC archer ought to be keeping track of how many arrows she has left? Yes. Can this tracking become tedious? Yes. Is the associated tedium enough reason in itself to forego the tracking and lose the associated realism? No.

All of this depends heavily on the conceits/themes, win conditions, and game mechanics what game you're playing.

Dungeon World, frex, keeps track of the following very important resources:

Hit Points
Rations
Ammo
Adventuring Gear
Bandages
Poultices and Herbs
Bags of Books

(There are others, but these are the primary ones)

Is it tedious? No. Its extremely low overhead and minimal handling time because the numbers are small (eg 5 Ammo is a full quiver)

These also hook into a trivially easy to use Encumbrance (which is again, a small and easy to account number).

Is it realistic? Thresholds differ here, but my guess is you would say no, because the accounting/expenditure (and even type; Adventuring Gear can be anything from a Torch to Flint and Steel to a Rope) is abstract.

But all of this is integrated elegantly and holistically in the game because moves (all of player moves, player choices on costs on a 7-9, and GM moves in response) taxing these resources is a fundamental part of the changing gamestate and the attendant tension and choicepoints for the players as the fiction snowballs down the hill and threat/danger builds (and decision-points become more weighty).

Contrast with standard D&D where the numbers and accounting for gear and encumbrance are extremely tedious and you spend too much table time and mental overhead on these things...and overwhelmingly groups just elide them haphazardly or handwave them altogether. Groups whose play priorities actually connote a need for such accounting as an important facet of play!

And contrast all of this with Torchbearer , which is a grinding, grueling dungeon crawl game (in a Points of Light setting) where logistics and strategic management of resources and exploration turns is more brutal and punishing (but rewarding) than any D&D game...EVER.

Ammo in your Quiver isn't tracked at all! But it can be lost or complicated via a Twist (which can happen as a result of a failed test).

However, Light is preciously tracked for all light sources (as number of Turns) because the game demands it (as managing the "Light Clock" is one of the primary pillars of play).

Don't get me wrong - I don't want to roleplay doing the laundry either. But I completely disagree with Moldvay's "no play between raids" mantra; what happens during downtime can be just as much fun as what happens in the field.

It can be.

Torchbearer and Blades in the Dark are structured almost exactly the same way.

Blades has Free Play, Score, and Downtime with Free Play being the time where you're scoping out potential scores and sorting out strategic moves.

TB has Adventure, Camp, and Town (and Winter as a special phase) whereby Town is basically a combination of Blades Free Play and Downtime where you're scoping out potential Adventure, recovering, and regear-ing.

But I think its probably different than what you're intimating because Free Play and Downtime/Town are all "purposeful", "purposeful" here meaning they are all "gamestate relative." You're not taking baths for hours in real time (like [MENTION=6972053]Numidius[/MENTION] intimated in the game he suffered through). If you're taking a bath its to (a) recover, (b) indulge a vice (also recover), (c) perform reconnaissance, (d) attain some gear/illicit goods from a front operation, (e) deal with a problem in a mostly elided vignette (that has mechanical resolution and significant mechanical implications involved).

You aren't just taking a gamestate irrelevant bath because of bath and funny bath-jokes or make light of pranks/antics/mishaps that occurred on the last journey. Those jokes may, and likely will, take place incidentally in the course of play...but Free Play/Town/Downtime isn't devoting any time (let alone hours) specifically to that as a matter of course/intentional play conversation.

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Games like 4e and Cortex+ ...they don't focus on that minutiae at all. Not because its impossible to make those things low overhead (as DW, TB, and Blades demonstrate...encumbrance/load-out and gear can be relevant and easily handled without a ton of handling time and mental overhead). It doesn't focus on them because the games are entirely about Action Scenes that hook into theme/premise and hard Transitions.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ah, for the wuxia game of yours, I guess, using Savage Worlds, right?

I use my own system for it. It is built around Kung Fu technique abilities

 

[Maxperson]

...or you just happen to finish the arrows if you botch a roll. Same realism

It's not the same realism. Your way you have essentially a full quiver until it's suddenly empty. His way the arrows count down slowly until you are mid way, then low, then on your last arrow and you know you have to make it count. It's much more realistic his way.

 

[Lanefan]

All of this depends heavily on the conceits/themes, win conditions, and game mechanics what game you're playing.

Dungeon World, frex, keeps track of the following very important resources:

Hit Points
Rations
Ammo
Adventuring Gear
Bandages
Poultices and Herbs
Bags of Books

(There are others, but these are the primary ones)

Is it tedious? No. Its extremely low overhead and minimal handling time because the numbers are small (eg 5 Ammo is a full quiver)

Is this Ammo expended one per shot (thus you only get 5 shots before you run out) or is it 1 Ammo per combat/encounter no matter how many actual shots are taken?

Either way, at least it's an attempt.

These also hook into a trivially easy to use Encumbrance (which is again, a small and easy to account number).

Yeah, I'll willingly concede encumbrance is a bloody nuisance to track. Devices of Holding soon become everybody's best friend.

Is it realistic? Thresholds differ here, but my guess is you would say no, because the accounting/expenditure (and even type; Adventuring Gear can be anything from a Torch to Flint and Steel to a Rope) is abstract.

It's a start, but were it me I'd certainly want to break down Adventuring Gear into some component parts. For example, say some mishap causes your Adventuring Gear to get damaged somehow - how do you determine what you still have?

But all of this is integrated elegantly and holistically in the game because moves (all of player moves, player choices on costs on a 7-9, and GM moves in response) taxing these resources is a fundamental part of the changing gamestate and the attendant tension and choicepoints for the players as the fiction snowballs down the hill and threat/danger builds (and decision-points become more weighty).

This puts a lot of onus onto the players to not game the system, I think, with PCs who just always happen to have exactly what they need when they need it when what they need is some otherwise obscure piece of gear that might otherwise never see the light of day. Cool if you can pull it off. It'd never fly here.

Contrast with standard D&D where the numbers and accounting for gear and encumbrance are extremely tedious and you spend too much table time and mental overhead on these things...and overwhelmingly groups just elide them haphazardly or handwave them altogether. Groups whose play priorities actually connote a need for such accounting as an important facet of play!

Agreed. Some things (ammo, food and water, weapons and armour carried/worn) are certainly more important to track than others; and the importance diminishes overall as levels and wealth get higher. For example, at very low levels in D&D light sources need to be carefully tracked be it spell duration, burn time on a torch, amount of oil left for the lantern, whatever. But once the PCs get access to Continual Light or Everburning Candles or whatever this tracking can largely disappear except in unusual circumstances e.g. operating in a no-magic zone.

And contrast all of this with Torchbearer , which is a grinding, grueling dungeon crawl game (in a Points of Light setting) where logistics and strategic management of resources and exploration turns is more brutal and punishing (but rewarding) than any D&D game...EVER.

Ammo in your Quiver isn't tracked at all! But it can be lost or complicated via a Twist (which can happen as a result of a failed test).

However, Light is preciously tracked for all light sources (as number of Turns) because the game demands it (as managing the "Light Clock" is one of the primary pillars of play).

I'll have to give this system a look if it ever crosses my path.

It can be.

Torchbearer and Blades in the Dark are structured almost exactly the same way.

Blades has Free Play, Score, and Downtime with Free Play being the time where you're scoping out potential scores and sorting out strategic moves.

TB has Adventure, Camp, and Town (and Winter as a special phase) whereby Town is basically a combination of Blades Free Play and Downtime where you're scoping out potential Adventure, recovering, and regear-ing.

But I think its probably different than what you're intimating because Free Play and Downtime/Town are all "purposeful", "purposeful" here meaning they are all "gamestate relative."

Yes. I'm referring to small-d unstructured downtime I guess, where you're referring to big-D Downtime as a specific facet of play.

You're not taking baths for hours in real time (like [MENTION=6972053]Numidius[/MENTION] intimated in the game he suffered through). If you're taking a bath its to (a) recover, (b) indulge a vice (also recover), (c) perform reconnaissance, (d) attain some gear/illicit goods from a front operation, (e) deal with a problem in a mostly elided vignette (that has mechanical resolution and significant mechanical implications involved).

You aren't just taking a gamestate irrelevant bath because of bath and funny bath-jokes or make light of pranks/antics/mishaps that occurred on the last journey. Those jokes may, and likely will, take place incidentally in the course of play...but Free Play/Town/Downtime isn't devoting any time (let alone hours) specifically to that as a matter of course/intentional play conversation.

Numidius' tale was over the top for sure, but what would big-D Downtime have to say about the session I played in a few weeks ago (which I think I referenced upthread) where most of it was taken up with story-irrelevant role-play surrounding a castle being painted pink*?

I guess I'm saying that not everything has to tie in to the ongoing story or drama or what-have-you, as long as we're having fun.

* - this was a completely player-driven sequence, by the way - the DM had nothing to do with its planning, execution, or fallout other than (because it was done covertly) neutrally narrating the results.

---

Games like 4e and Cortex+ ...they don't focus on that minutiae at all. Not because its impossible to make those things low overhead (as DW, TB, and Blades demonstrate...encumbrance/load-out and gear can be relevant and easily handled without a ton of handling time and mental overhead). It doesn't focus on them because the games are entirely about Action Scenes that hook into theme/premise and hard Transitions.

Which probably at least in part explains why 4e as a system tended to rub me the wrong way.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's not the same realism. Your way you have essentially a full quiver until it's suddenly empty. His way the arrows count down slowly until you are mid way, then low, then on your last arrow and you know you have to make it count. It's much more realistic his way.

You haven't yet clearly defined realism, Max, so no one knows what you mean, here.

 

[Aldarc]

And yet it still is a False Equivalence. Monster difficulty isn't about trying to outdo the last monster.

I do not believe that false equivalence applies here. But even if it were a false equivalence that does not make it a false or baseless comparison. I do believe that the nature of monsters (and their associated difficulty) is at least partly about outdoing previous encounters through having level-appropriate challenges for the party. Though not a sole authority, even Matt Collville, who I would say represents fairly traditional D&D play, notes how D&D generally follows a level-based sliding scale where players fight less interesting things at lower level but then fight progressively weirder, bigger badder extraplanar things at higher levels. If this was a television show, then each tier (or subtier) of D&D would most definitely be accused by audiences of attempting to outdo the previous seasons with more farfetched creatures for its foes and lower level foes who once posed problems now being portrayed as cannon fodder.

Yes, there are other ways that a show could end before getting to the point where it drowns in its own drama.

The point being that "unsustainable drama" is generally not one of the most commonly listed reasons for most cancellations, so I don't think that we can say with confidence that this is why dramas are routinely cancelled. My own inclination is to approach that particular topic from a perspective critical of its capitalistic context and surrounding market forces, though YMMV.

Crime shows are different and Dr. Who is more of a comedy than it is a drama. But okay, there are some exceptions to the rule. They don't invalidate the rule.

When you are done quibbling with labels of genre, please note that the point is that these are shows driven by dramatic characters who are placed into dramatic situations that typically require they make dramatic choices. Whether we call this a "drama" or not is immaterial to whether this is apt for describing the nature of the dramatic play that we are discussing.

Of course. I used the high-action example as something obvious and easy to grok, that many of us will be familiar with. But all-high-drama-all-the-time can have the same numbing effect. (and maybe that's why I've never made it through watching Casablanca )

Sure, but that may be a bit of a strawman. Again, I would say that most of these drama-conducive games are about story propulsion and their dramatic framing. The idea within many of these games is that the stakes of dramatic choice remain clear for players in the framing of the fiction and that these player choices will propel the narrative into a new set of dramatic frames where the process will (hopefully) repeat itself. And this will be made up of "small" dramatic decisions and larger ones.

For example, a cleric gaining a complicated success in Dungeon World (an adjusted 7-9) when casting a spell will force the player to choose the resulting dramatic complication: (1) your action draws unwanted attention (DM tells you what), (2) your spell distances you from your deity, resulting in a -1 ongoing penalty to spells until you commune, or (3) the spell is revoked by your deity and you can't cast that spell again until you commune. This is not "high drama" but it will have dramatic consequences in the fiction. And the player may believe putting themselves into harm's way (1) may be more important than the risk of adverse effects on their spellcasting. Small stakes informed by and that can build up to bigger stakes of drama.

[MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - I've got a lot of actual play reports on these boards, so they would give a pretty good idea of what I have in mind by drama/excitement/thematic choice.

Of course, but I also don't necessarily regard it as my place to presume speaking for your position here.

What makes me contrast it with a game about going to the library or starting a trade or trying to ingratiate oneself with nobles is that, at more-or-less every moment of play, the players have to make a choice whose consequences - while not entirely forseeable - will clearly matter to how the fiction unfolds, both for their PCs and for the setting that the PCs are embedded in. (Eg the choices have implications for what the players anticipate to be a pending Imperial assault of at least some parts of the world they are currently on.)

Which ties in nicely about how much of this play is fueled by dramatic framing and personal stakes in the fiction.

Which comes right back to the thread topic: realism. Is it realistic to think your PC archer ought to be keeping track of how many arrows she has left? Yes. Can this tracking become tedious? Yes. Is the associated tedium enough reason in itself to forego the tracking and lose the associated realism? No.

Much like [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] says, a lot of this depends on play priorities.

The Black Hack, for example, is one of several OSR games that utilizes a Usage Die mechanic for tracking ammo, rations, torches, etc. A Usage Die is an assigned die value that abstractly represents the amount of a thing you may have (d12, d10, d8, d6, d4). After using an item type, the player rolls their usage die. If they roll a 1-2 on the die, then the die downgrades to a lower die value (e.g., d12 -> d10, d8 -> d6, etc.). When a player finally rolls a 1-2 on a d4 then they are "out." Notably, the Usage Die for ammo is rolled after combat and not per attack action.

This is of course more abstract than concrete numbers, but it can also simulate its own fictional coherence. Maybe not all of your torches you bought are actually good working torches. Maybe a portion of your rations spoiled in the dungeon. Just because you bought 12 days of rations does not mean that all of your rations would naturally keep well in a warm, moist, moldy place. Does each attack action with a bow represent a single arrow or is the fiction more complicated? Or do all of your arrows remain intact through your dungeoneering? Legolas may know that they have enough arrows for fighting the next group of orcs they encounter (a d4 UD), but what about the fight after that? Overall, these are facets that are typically not given much attention even in the standard resource management game. So the resource management game of Black Hack shifts from "the tedium of tracking" to gambling on using your resources. Much like with [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s Dungeon World and Torchbearer examples, Black Hack has a different set of play priorities for its old school dungeoneering sensibilities.

I'll have to give this system a look if it ever crosses my path.

Torchbearer was actually the primary inspiration and influence on the hit indie video game Darkest Dungeon.

 

[Numidius]

It's not the same realism. Your way you have essentially a full quiver until it's suddenly empty. His way the arrows count down slowly until you are mid way, then low, then on your last arrow and you know you have to make it count. It's much more realistic his way.

Sure, I get that, and I've seen the game (Dw or else) tightens when resources are nearly gone, be they arrows or hp.

Now, though, I wonder if you simulate also which of those arrows are still intact after being thrown

 

[Sadras]

The Black Hack, for example, is one of several OSR games that utilizes a Usage Die mechanic for tracking ammo, rations, torches, etc. A Usage Die is an assigned die value that abstractly represents the amount of a thing you may have (d12, d10, d8, d6, d4). After using an item type, the player rolls their usage die. If they roll a 1-2 on the die, then the die downgrades to a lower die value (e.g., d12 -> d10, d8 -> d6, etc.). When a player finally rolls a 1-2 on a d4 then they are "out."

Thank you, I'm stealing this.

 

[Numidius]

Is this Ammo expended one per shot (thus you only get 5 shots before you run out) or is it 1 Ammo per combat/encounter no matter how many actual shots are taken?

Either way, at least it's an attempt.


Yes. I'm referring to small-d unstructured downtime I guess, where you're referring to big-D Downtime as a specific facet of play.

Numidius' tale was over the top for sure, but what would big-D Downtime have to say about the session I played in a few weeks ago (which I think I referenced upthread) where most of it was taken up with story-irrelevant role-play surrounding a castle being painted pink*?

I guess I'm saying that not everything has to tie in to the ongoing story or drama or what-have-you, as long as we're having fun.

* - this was a completely player-driven sequence, by the way - the DM had nothing to do with its planning, execution, or fallout other than (because it was done covertly) neutrally narrating the results.

Ammo in Dw is basically accounted as the number of times a Pc can fail a roll, or suffer a consequence from a failed roll, before it is gone. Clearly anytime is possible in the fiction, one replenishes it.

--

Torchbearer is a strange beast. I found it difficult to grasp, and when I tried to explain it to the table... well, I failed

--

The pattern seems pretty clear: Gm-driven play and pc-driven downtime; heavy regulated combat and (almost) completely deregulated downtime; intense combat oriented play under Gm control and loose free time Pc playground