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On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game
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<blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8296268" data-attributes="member: 6801252"><p>My post earlier in the thread more or less distills to the idea of skilled play existing only in an environment where its parameters are defined, whether by system (as Story Now) or player desires, or the adventure's own structure, GSP is an example of how it was understood (basically, being ruthless, cautious, perceptive, and clever) in Classic and OSR play. </p><p></p><p>Where things get 'cute' is that some kinds of play could be worthy of being Skilled Play in their own right, but the game structures (and player/GM attitudes) that reward them are exclusive with those other styles of play feed off of. If Skilled Play in the context of the game you are currently playing is understood to prioritize that cleverness, ruthlessness, perception, and caution, then the game structures and attitudes that produce that experience are probably exclusive with ones that would reward blindly charging ahead, or always fighting honorably or something-- in this context, having a character concept that does those things at odds with GSP and executing on it, is unskilled play regardless of how skilled it would be in its own concept. </p><p></p><p>But even more interesting is that different styles aren't always incompatible, and players often adapt strategies to combine multiple sets of seemingly exclusive parameters they enjoy. Part of how they might do this is by siloing their differing expectations where necessary into different areas of game play, take more modern incarnations of DND-- perhaps they fight encounters and design character builds to make decisions that only prioritize victory (with a dash of customization, since some games offer so many options and really good doesn't have to be the enemy of 'the best') against the presented challenges, but are happy to read other moments of game play as cutscenes and make seemingly 'bad' decisions to further a character personality or overall story, happily treating the hot water their actions land them in as the next level of the video game after the cutscene finishes. </p><p></p><p>Other times, the games themselves can leverage structures differently to finesse together multiple styles, if we accept that GSP and... MSP? (Modern Skilled Play, in reference to 3.5e and 4e style optimization) are distinct, its still true that Pathfinder 2e creates an environment where character builds are important, but not so much as to invalidate a need for cautious, perceptive, clever play because the encounters remain dangerous to any character, its easy to pit them against something they can't handle if the GM likes (if telegraphed properly, virtually demanding OSR style playing around the monsters.) Its systems and character building are designed in such a way that they've finessed the two playstyles together. Similarly, house rules can often be enough to include or exclude styles entirely. </p><p></p><p>Different groups have different thresholds for mixing them too, some players couldn't care less about the cognitive dissonance of blasting people away left and right in ye olde bog standard DND encounter, but then have no issues agonizing about the immorality of an assassination that seems necessary for the greater good in a story driven scene. Other players can't bridge that gap and need the thematic cohesion of their roleplaying pervading every decision their character makes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The-Magic-Sword, post: 8296268, member: 6801252"] My post earlier in the thread more or less distills to the idea of skilled play existing only in an environment where its parameters are defined, whether by system (as Story Now) or player desires, or the adventure's own structure, GSP is an example of how it was understood (basically, being ruthless, cautious, perceptive, and clever) in Classic and OSR play. Where things get 'cute' is that some kinds of play could be worthy of being Skilled Play in their own right, but the game structures (and player/GM attitudes) that reward them are exclusive with those other styles of play feed off of. If Skilled Play in the context of the game you are currently playing is understood to prioritize that cleverness, ruthlessness, perception, and caution, then the game structures and attitudes that produce that experience are probably exclusive with ones that would reward blindly charging ahead, or always fighting honorably or something-- in this context, having a character concept that does those things at odds with GSP and executing on it, is unskilled play regardless of how skilled it would be in its own concept. But even more interesting is that different styles aren't always incompatible, and players often adapt strategies to combine multiple sets of seemingly exclusive parameters they enjoy. Part of how they might do this is by siloing their differing expectations where necessary into different areas of game play, take more modern incarnations of DND-- perhaps they fight encounters and design character builds to make decisions that only prioritize victory (with a dash of customization, since some games offer so many options and really good doesn't have to be the enemy of 'the best') against the presented challenges, but are happy to read other moments of game play as cutscenes and make seemingly 'bad' decisions to further a character personality or overall story, happily treating the hot water their actions land them in as the next level of the video game after the cutscene finishes. Other times, the games themselves can leverage structures differently to finesse together multiple styles, if we accept that GSP and... MSP? (Modern Skilled Play, in reference to 3.5e and 4e style optimization) are distinct, its still true that Pathfinder 2e creates an environment where character builds are important, but not so much as to invalidate a need for cautious, perceptive, clever play because the encounters remain dangerous to any character, its easy to pit them against something they can't handle if the GM likes (if telegraphed properly, virtually demanding OSR style playing around the monsters.) Its systems and character building are designed in such a way that they've finessed the two playstyles together. Similarly, house rules can often be enough to include or exclude styles entirely. Different groups have different thresholds for mixing them too, some players couldn't care less about the cognitive dissonance of blasting people away left and right in ye olde bog standard DND encounter, but then have no issues agonizing about the immorality of an assassination that seems necessary for the greater good in a story driven scene. Other players can't bridge that gap and need the thematic cohesion of their roleplaying pervading every decision their character makes. [/QUOTE]
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