Interesting Decisions vs Wish Fulfillment (from Pulsipher)

[ExploderWizard]

I also don't really buy that there are players who totally don't want to be challenged. I do buy that were are groups where the players don't like to see TPKs frequently and are disinterested in scenarios where their PCs have a high chance of dying, but that doesn't align with hard/easy. You can have something that's very simple and straightforward, and even fair, and yet ultra-lethal and thus no fun to them, or you can have something where the chances of death of PCs is absolute zero, but the chances of failure at what they are doing is extremely high unless they play it very smart (trying to thwart someone who probably can't kill them, but does want to achieve something that they oppose, for example).

There are players who do not want to be challenged, they are only interested in their characters being challenged. It is an important distinction. This is connected to a preference for either gameplay or storytelling as a primary purpose of the game. If death is viewed as a nigh-unacceptable outcome in a narrative then the game has taken a secondary role to the storytelling.

Likewise difficulty can be measured in levels for both the players and their characters. Views on chances of character death can vary widely especially when player input has a great deal more impact on those chances than character capabilities. If smart decisions by the players can mitigate shortcomings in character abilities then more dangerous games have greater appeal. This is where system matters the most. Does success or failure depend largely on player decisions or more heavily on how good the character is in a mathematical sense? In the former case a highly lethal game can be overcome by intelligent play, in the latter case not as much.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Except, of course, until you go look at the link in the OP, and you see....



So, Tony, you should probably revise your opinion on the matter.

Let me revise that:

I didn't click through to outside article, but what the OP had to say in his post, sounds like nothing more than a re-hash of CaW vs CaS. Which is to say, nothing more than broadly implying that anyone who doesn't play in the OneTrueWay is a spoiled child.


I mean, it's not hard to see the differences in the connotations of "interesting choices" (just two fairly positive words with no special meaning as a phrase) vs the connotations of "wish fulfillment" (a term used in psychoanalysis, and suggestive, to the layman, of childishness and mental illness).

 

[Agamon]

I don't see how soccer could be described as CaW - since your team doesn't have the option of, say, ambushing the opposing team at Hooters the night before and beating the stuffing out of them. Or hiring fans in the stadium to take potshots at the goalie.

Okay, change association football to Blood Bowl.

 

[Emerikol]

Let me revise that:

I didn't click through to outside article, but what the OP had to say in his post, sounds like nothing more than a re-hash of CaW vs CaS. Which is to say, nothing more than broadly implying that anyone who doesn't play in the OneTrueWay is a spoiled child.


I mean, it's not hard to see the differences in the connotations of "interesting choices" (just two fairly positive words with no special meaning as a phrase) vs the connotations of "wish fulfillment" (a term used in psychoanalysis, and suggestive, to the layman, of childishness and mental illness).

Well let me say given I am the OP that I meant nothing negative at all about either side. I thought the phrase used by Pulsiper captured something that I'd been wrestling with in the past.

I find the analysis of playstyles both interesting and helpful. The best thing in roleplaying that ever happened was when I came on the wotc boards and I started learning about the various divides and came to understand my own. Now instead of stumbling and bumbling around often accidentally using something that in the end was detrimental to my enjoyment of the game I was able to do far better. This enriches everyone's games whichever style you seek. I'm not even saying some people can't enjoy a variety of styles. I'm sure they do. It is still wise for a DM to know what style of game he is running and the players know that too.

I don't recognize those acronyms CaW vs CaS could you elaborate and tell me the full names.

I don't believe in the OneTrueWay. I'm not 100% I even believe in exactly OneTrueWay for me. When I do play though I am true to my own preferences and as a result I have a lot of fun. I really don't care what other groups do. Like everyone else who has a history with D&D, we'd like that game to at least support our playstyle. Just like you I'm guessing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It can be. It's kind of silly to define wish fulfillment as getting what you want. That means all playstyles are wish fulfillment because it's all about getting what we want out of a game right?

Absolutely, so perhaps a different term is warranted?

Well let me say given I am the OP that I meant nothing negative at all about either side. I thought the phrase used by Pulsiper captured something that I'd been wrestling with in the past.

He's a hardcore one-tru-way-ist, though, and very clear about it.

I think there is a really good, interesting discussion here, but phrases like "wish fulfillment" muddy the waters (more in that they are confusing than negative - but that's an issue too). Is there a clearer one? I haven't thought of it yet, but if I do I'll add it in. If you think of one, please say!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well let me say given I am the OP that I meant nothing negative at all about either side. I thought the phrase used by Pulsiper captured something that I'd been wrestling with in the past.

Intentional or not, using a neutral/positive term for one half of the population, and one implying mental illness for the other half suggestive of a degree of bias. It may very well be that said bias is what you've been wrestling with (and it's clearly got you in a wicked submission hold).

I find the analysis of playstyles both interesting and helpful. The best thing in roleplaying that ever happened was when I came on the wotc boards and I started learning about the various divides and came to understand my own. Now instead of stumbling and bumbling around often accidentally using something that in the end was detrimental to my enjoyment of the game I was able to do far better.

I get it. You like identifying with an in-group and feeling included and justified in your preferences. Really, a perfectly normal human impulse, arguably an adaptive trait in an evolutionary sense, and at the back of everything from positives like patriotism and altruism to the worst examples of bigotry and persecution.

But it is really easy to unconsciously slip from the positive manifestations to the negative ones. So be alert for slipping bias into things like this.

Better yet, pick the favored 'style' and talk about it without contrasting it to the disfavored one. If this post had been titled "Interesting Decisions," and not gone into the negatively-labeled contrast, there'd've been no problem, for instance. Well, one fewer problem.

I don't recognize those acronyms CaW vs CaS could you elaborate and tell me the full names.

Just more us/them posturing left over from the edition war. You'd be firmly 'CaW,' and thus label me 'CaS' because I tend not to agree with you much. The last thing you need is yet another neat set of labels for your armed camp and the 'enemies' besieging it, so I'll futilely urge you not to look into it.

Edit: Nevermind, you've already embraced it:
http://community.wizards.com/forum/dd-next-general-discussion/threads/4089436

Like everyone else who has a history with D&D, we'd like that game to at least support our playstyle. Just like you I'm guessing.

Keep guessing, if you like, I'm not going there.

I will go into what's meant by 'support.' I would like a game like D&D to 'support' as many playstyles as possible in the sense of /allowing/ them to be played without penalty. The flip side of that is no one playstyle can be elevated, assumed, or rewarded, either. That last is what many folks seem to mean when they say they want their style 'supported' - they seem to actually want to see it encouraged, rewarded, or even 'forced' by default as the only way to play the game successfully - while other styles are discouraged, disparaged, punished, or even excluded completely.

 

[Manbearcat]

Can you imagine how well that approach would have gone down in a game with Dungeons & Dragons on the cover? Even the very tentative steps in that direction 4e took were too much for some players, so I can't imagine the reception would have been better if it had gone further. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Oh, and covered for xp on Libramarian.

I get that completely. The forum battles over Through Death's Eyes would make Come and Get It seem tame in comparison.

I had similar commentary in another thread not too long ago I believe. Giving martial characters powerful, open-descriptor divinations (is it uncanny intuition or something more?) would definitely take the sunshine right out of some folks' day and turn their NOTD&D dial up to 10.

Its unfortunate because if I could recommend one thing to pure D&D GMs, it would be to diversify your perspective and toolset through GMing other games with various agendas/principles and all that comes with it. It will round out your game such that when you do go back to D&D, your experience and your players' experience will be the better for it. Even if its just to know for certain what you want to stay away from, why, and how to stay away from it. I can state unequivocally that a diverse GMing experience has improved my D&D GMing. How could it not?

 

[Savage Wombat]

There are players who do not want to be challenged, they are only interested in their characters being challenged. It is an important distinction. This is connected to a preference for either gameplay or storytelling as a primary purpose of the game. If death is viewed as a nigh-unacceptable outcome in a narrative then the game has taken a secondary role to the storytelling.

Does anyone else think that, ultimately, a DM should encourage the players to want to be challenged? As a difficulty curve thing? If you're not challenged by the game you play, you might lose interest and stop.

I don't recognize those acronyms CaW vs CaS could you elaborate and tell me the full names.

Ignore Tony. It's a similar debate about game style that some people think of as a criticism of a particular edition. Combat as War vs. Combat as Sport is basically an issue tangentially related to GNS, about whether you expect a combat to be approached using every available resource - including outside-the-rules thinking - to defeat opposition, or whether you expect a combat to be within agreed-upon parameters. It was suggested as being a root cause for why some people find a particular edition dissatisfying for their style of play.

 

[Umbran]

If death is viewed as a nigh-unacceptable outcome in a narrative then the game has taken a secondary role to the storytelling.

That is only true if removal from the game ("death") is the only recognized failure condition.

I played a cooperative (non-RP) game on the July 4th weekend, called "Sentinels of the Multiverse". Each player chooses a superhero from the set, and plays cards and makes choices for that hero. All players are aligned against a non-player antagonist villain, and the environment.

It is possible for a player to run out of hit points. In this case, they are not fully removed from the game - their choices are merely shrunk down to a very short list - but they still get to choose, and have some effect on the game. *Nobody* is fully removed from play until the end of the game - so the game is won or lost not by individuals, but by all players (as is usual for cooperative games). This isn't about gameplay taking a secondary role, this game doesn't have storytelling in the RPG sense - but merely allowing everyone to continue to have amusement until the session of play ends.

Given that RPGs are largely a cooperative endeavor, there is no reason why we could not define our win and loss conditions in a similar manner. Or, as I'm fairly sure you've heard before - death is not the only negative consequence upon which we can measure success in an RPG.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

This seems like a restating of the eternal "roll-play" vs. "role-play" debate, players preferences for which will be highly subjective and, often, will be some mixture of the two (which are not mutually exclusive). Perhaps the best use for such analysis is to help people understand their own preferences and how to communicate them to other players so that everyone in the group is on the same page with what the gaming style will be.

For game designers, Pulsipher's intended audience, the analysis in useful so that they can create mechanics that appeal to one type of play or another. It is easier to create a game with coherent design if you can define what it is you are trying to create. How is the player encouraged to interact with the world? As a tactician carefully weighing every choice in order to extract maximum benefit? As an alternate persona with their own attitudes, strengths and even flaws? As a combination of the two or something else entirely?