Is Pathfinder 2 Paizo's 4E?

Campbell · Jul 9, 2019

Scene framing isn't really part of play though. The play exists once a scene has been framed. Framing -> Play -> Framing -> Play. What's important is that player decisions are based on solid ground during the moment of play.

pemerton · Jul 9, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Win conditions have to be in advance?

Tony Vargas said:
Scenarios of the kind I'm talking about, in the kind of game pemerton's talking about, might have their 'framing' done in play, rather than in advance (by the DM, between sessions), so the win condition might be defined in play.

I can see how it could read as the win condition going undefined /until met/, which'd make it hard (but not impossible, assuming there's any way to influence what said win condition becomes) to "play to win."

It seems to me that "win condition" here is turning into something like happy with the outcome. Whereas in a scenario like ToH or Ghost Tower of Inverness or The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan or White Plume Mountain or Castle Amber (to fasten on some classics of the genre) when we talk about win conditions we're certainy not talking about (say) being happy with how we reconciled two feuding members of the Amber family.

When I used the scenario The Crimson Bull the players enjoyed it. The one who converted the wise woman by his display of the power of St Sigobert was happy with that outcome; and the knight who was ready to kill all the pagans was happy enough to have convered them instead! But had things unfolded differently, including (say) a different end for the wise woman, they probably would have been happy with that also. (As Ron Edwards rightly notes in his descriptions of it, Prince Valiant isn't a particularly demanding or traumatic game to play: it's not going to push the player far out of his/her romantic fantasy comfort zone.)

Look at the account here of the Demon of the Red Grove (a loose adapation to epic tier 4e of a Robin Laws Hero Wars scenario) for something similar. In that scenario the PCs tried to bind the demon rather than outright defeating it. But the players were happy with how it turned out, even though they didn't get everything they wanted.

Neither scenario had any win condition beyond its evolution in the course of play as the players declared actions for their PCs and those were resolved and the situation re-framed in response. The only way to "lose" in scenarios of this sort is for the whole thing to collapse into poor pacing and no resolution (which my most recent Prince Valiant session flirted with - I had doubt about the scneario, Jeff Grub's The Mare's Lamp, going in, and those doubts were amply justified). The contrast with ToH and its friend is incredibly marked: those have no pacing at all, let alone as a primary consideration, and have no danger of not yielding a resolution (in the sense that either the dungeon's beaten or it's not, with the extreme version of the latter being TPK).

It's close to a chalk-and-cheese comparison.

Tony Vargas said:
So, only substituting a /system/ would count? That seems extreme.

I didn't mean a different system, I meant a different ethose of play. The post-DL ethos is applicable to a variety of systems - not only D&D but (say) Rolemaster, RQ, I would suggest HERO and GURPS - anything where the PC gen provides fairly vivid pictures of the character's capabilities and role in the story, where the resolution system leaves slippage between literal outcome of the resolution process and significant development in the shared fiction (what is sometimes called task as opposed to conflict resolution) and where the GM might be allowed or even encouraged to ignore a die roll from time to time in the interests of "the story".

I'm not going to accept the proposition that a skilled GM can make a prepared story feel like narrativist play until I hear an account of how someone used those post-DL techniques in the context of a system like BW or a PbtA system and pulled it off. To me it just seems obvious that it can't be done. In a system like Cortex+ Heroic, for instance, the notion of ignoring or fudging a die roll or an outcome in the interests of the story doesn't have any purchase unless the GM just outright cheats or ignores the rules - which the players will notice, thus refuting (in that particular case) the conjecture that the illusionism you're positing is being successfully achieved.

I'm not going to try and explain why it would similarly break down in the BW or PbtA case, as that would require a bit more detail. (But am happy to elaborate upon request.) Needless to say I think it would. And hence that the illusionism you conjecture as a possibiity is really not possible.

Tony Vargas said:
Crap, double-negatives. No, it's not supposed to be about that, or no, it's not not supposed to be about that so it actually is about that, or yes, it's not supposed to be about that... ?

I may have missed, or misread, the double negative in "the GNS labels /not/ supposed to be exclusionary us-v-them categoriesWin conditions have to be in advance?" - now that you've signalled your intended reading I can't remember which I did.

What I mean is that GNS laebs are not supposed to be us vs them categories - a person can sit down and enjoy a sim game, and then a gamist game; and even in play there can be shifts in GNS orientation from episode to episode (but not moment to moment).'

But that doesn't mean that everyone has done every one of them, or enjoys them. I can tell you now that I tend to suck at gamist play both as player and GM, and (as a result? am I sore loser? others would have to judge!) don't care for it that much, even though I can enjoy the ide of it.

My experience on these boards is that the number of ENworld posters who have seriously engaged in narrativist play is fairly modest. I don't know if you're in that category or not. At the risk of being too honest, you come across as being an experienced RPGer whose seen quite a bit of variety over the years; but the way you (at least seem to) relate to "roll vs role" and edition wars, and the claims you make about the place of a GM and what a skilled GM can pull off; makes it seem to me as if you've seen a lot of simulationist play (ranging a wide spectrum from CoC-ish full immersion to HEROs-esque system-oriented simulationism to the classic post-DL adventure path) and probably a fair bit of gamist play (eg classic tournament-style "beat the dungeon" play) and probably a fair bit of gamist players trying to "wreck"/break the simulationist experience, and therefore needing the GM to rein them in.

But I don't recall you ever posting about play from the narrativist point of view, nor talking about some typical systems that might support it like (say) DitV or PbtA or even narrativist-oriented Fate play.

Moving from an honest attempt at conveying a summary impression, to honest conjecture: given the sorts of play experiences and play context you describe, I wouldn't be surprised if you've played in groups/at tables where GM duties are rotated fairly regularly, and everyone takes turns playing through everyone else's dungeons and scenarios. And that that is how you've tended to do shared creativity, rather than via playing a game where collective story creation is done by everyone simultaneously (but not all by being GMs simultaneously - a system like DitV or PbtA has very clear GM/player role demarcations, and it's a recurrent irritation for me on these boards that many posters seem to equate narrativist play with shared authorship of the "spend a point to make such-and-such true in the fiction" variety, where as - as The Forge essays noted 15+ years ago - there's no particuar connection between those sorts of mechanics and narrativist play in the sense The Forge is intersted in).

If the attempt at a summary bio and conjecture are way off I apologise. I hope they don't cause offence - they're intended in honest good faith.

TwoSix · Jul 9, 2019

Jer said:
Honestly I'm surprised they kept the big numbers that scale with raw level when they are also keeping in proficiency bonuses. It would seem like you could get by with one or the other.

The Paizo developers stated specifically early in the playtest that they want moderate to high level heroes to be able to take down hundreds of low-level enemies without being threatened; it was the particular flavor of high fantasy they wanted.

You can certainly fault them for the design goal (it's not an aesthetic I particularly favor), but the decision to add +level to all proficient checks is a fully intentional one.

Tony Vargas · Jul 9, 2019

pemerton said:
It seems to me that "win condition" here is turning into something like happy with the outcome.

Success, in any case, you play the game for a while, achieve an objective or fail to.

Is that way off base? Does "win" /also/ have an unintuitive narrow jargon meaning?

I didn't mean a different system, I meant a different ethose of play. ....I'm not going to accept the proposition that a skilled GM can make a prepared story feel like narrativist play until I hear an account of how someone used those post-DL techniques in the context of a system like BW or a PbtA system and pulled it off.

So you /are/ insisting on system.

To me it just seems obvious that it can't be done. In a system like Cortex+ Heroic, for instance, the notion of ignoring or fudging a die roll or an outcome in the interests of the story doesn't have any purchase unless the GM just outright cheats or ignores the rules

"In the interest of the story" has no purchase, yet this is a "narrativist" game that's all about the story?

But that doesn't mean that everyone has done every one of them, or enjoys them.

I think it does mean the former, in that I doubt there could be a 'pure' experience of only one agenda without elements of the others. As far as enjoyment, it's often unexamined - and can even be ruined by examination - and people can identify what aspects of something they believe the enjoy with a lot less accuracy than you might think.

(For an obvious example "I enjoy smoking for the taste.")

My experience on these boards is that the number of ENworld posters who have seriously engaged in narrativist play is fairly modest. I don't know if you're in that category or not. At the risk of being too honest, you come across as being an experienced RPGer whose seen quite a bit of variety over the years; but the way you (at least seem to) relate to "roll vs role" and edition wars, and the claims you make about the place of a GM and what a skilled GM can pull off

I am very down on Role v Roll, CaW v CaS, GNS and warring in general. I don't buy into the drawing of lines in the sand, false dichotomies, and divisiveness in general.

As to the role of the GM and what a skilled one can pull off, well, our hobby is not like chess, it hasn't been codified and polished over generations, a lot of us are among the first generation of hobbyists, and made a lot up as we went along.

makes it seem to me as if you've seen a lot of simulationist play (ranging a wide spectrum from CoC-ish full immersion to HEROs-esque system-oriented simulationism to the classic post-DL adventure path) and probably a fair bit of gamist play (eg classic tournament-style "beat the dungeon" play) and probably a fair bit of gamist players trying to "wreck"/break the simulationist experience, and therefore needing the GM to rein them in.

(Back in the day, I did play in exactly one tournament - it was awful.)
But, yeah, not how /I/ see what I've seen.

What I've seen is a lot of gaming that doesn't fall neatly, or even haphazardly, into the artificial GNS divisions, and that, indeed, trying to pick one of those and pair the aspects of the other two off a gaming experience strikes me as profoundly limiting and likely to wreck said experience. For instance, the idea of 'gamist players' wrecking 'simulationist play' in the implied absence of narrativist play is nonsense. Because every TTRPG session /is a game/, there will be a "win condition" in there, somewhere - achieving victory in combat, or a goal in an encounter, or an overall objective - there /will/ be a setting the PCs inhabit, that the players at least occasionally glimpse from their PoV, there will be a narrative emerging from that which everyone at the table has contributed to in some sense. Nor will the experiences of those playing the game be limited to those three categories.

Though, again, we've lost sight of the claim that GNS is not supposed to be about creating divisions and positing exclusive monolithic modes of play. Yet we seem to be right back there, with you conjecturing that I haven't climbed onto the Narrativist monolith.

But I don't recall you ever posting about play from the narrativist point of view, nor talking about some typical systems that might support it like (say) DitV or PbtA or even narrativist-oriented Fate play.

I have played some FATE and posted about it, but I'm not surprised you missed it.

I don't /get/ to play a lot of indie games, of course, because, as I've often said, the big issue with playing or running a better game isn't finding the ideal system, it's finding a few other people who have found the /same/ better game.

I wouldn't be surprised if you've played in groups/at tables where GM duties are rotated fairly regularly, and everyone takes turns playing through everyone else's dungeons and scenarios.

Doesn't seem relevant. But more of that in Storyteller and 4e than in harder-to run eds, Hero, and the like... also I've very often seen a phenomenon where one system gets consistently run by one GM who is very enthused about it for a while, no rotating there.

rather than via playing a game where collective story creation is done by everyone simultaneously (but not all by being GMs simultaneously

Sounds like "Troup style play." Which is funny, because the definition of Narrativist seems intentionally narrowed to exclude Storyteller.

I half expect to see a capitalized "True" appended to it, at this rate.

it's a recurrent irritation for me on these boards that many posters seem to equate narrativist play with shared authorship of the "spend a point to make such-and-such true in the fiction" variety, where as - as The Forge essays noted 15+ years ago - there's no particuar connection between those sorts of mechanics and narrativist play in the sense The Forge is intersted in).

So, FATE, as well as Storyteller is off the list of narrativist-enough games? Or just that particular mechanic, itself, isn't necessary nor sufficient?

If the attempt at a summary bio and conjecture are way off I apologise. I hope they don't cause offence - they're intended in honest good faith.

You presented it in as un-offensive a way as possible.

But...

What I mean is that GNS laebs are not supposed to be us vs them categories - a person can sit down and enjoy a sim game, and then a gamist game; and even in play there can be shifts in GNS orientation from episode to episode (but not moment to moment).'

That's what I thought. So I don't see how that squares with the assertion that a system can completely block a style of play.

Most of the rest of your post seems to be devoted to insinuating that I can't have ever experienced Narrativist play, even though, we've just established, the very label is not supposed to be a monolithic exclusionary classification, and that, in all likelihood, play I've experienced has "shifted to narrativist" many times.

In fact, I don't even quite by the 'shifting' routine. A single play experience might shade more towards one than another at a given moment or over a session, but I can't see how any one can be entirely absent for an extended period, let alone how a game can be exclusively devoted to one.

Jer · Jul 9, 2019

TwoSix said:
The Paizo developers stated specifically early in the playtest that they want moderate to high level heroes to be able to take down hundreds of low-level enemies without being threatened; it was the particular flavor of high fantasy they wanted.

I get that. In fact I'm a fan of adding +level (or +fraction of level) to things in general for level-based systems - it's not only an easy mechanic to explain, it also makes character level matter and it makes it easy to keep threats scaled appropriately if everyone is adding the same number to things.

What I don't get is combining that with a scale of 5 levels of proficiency - it feels like two mechanics that solve the same kind of problem in two different ways have been combined together. It also seems like it would lose some of the elegance that adding +level to things gets you. Though maybe it plays differently than it reads.

TwoSix · Jul 9, 2019

Jer said:
I get that. In fact I'm a fan of adding +level (or +fraction of level) to things in general for level-based systems - it's not only an easy mechanic to explain, it also makes character level matter and it makes it easy to keep threats scaled appropriately if everyone is adding the same number to things.

What I don't get is combining that with a scale of 5 levels of proficiency - it feels like two mechanics that solve the same kind of problem in two different ways have been combined together. It also seems like it would lose some of the elegance that adding +level to things gets you. Though maybe it plays differently than it reads.

Yea, the initial goal of the proficiency levels was to open up new abilities. A lot of feats and abilities were tied into having expert or master or legendary level of proficiency in a skill. But playtesters in general didn't respond well to increasing proficiency without noticeable increases in the die roll modifier.

zztong · Jul 9, 2019

TwoSix said:
Yea, the initial goal of the proficiency levels was to open up new abilities. A lot of feats and abilities were tied into having expert or master or legendary level of proficiency in a skill. But playtesters in general didn't respond well to increasing proficiency without noticeable increases in the die roll modifier.

Observations at my table during the playtest were that "expert" characters were frequently overshadowed by "amateur" characters. The Ranger was frequently overshadowed by the Cleric in the wilderness, for instance, because of ability scores. Adjusting the proficiency bonus made it more likely the Ranger would equal the Cleric... yeh, didn't fix the problem. Gatekeeping certain "must have in the party" abilities doesn't work either, as those abilities might not be present in any particular party.

I think there are too many levels in the proficiency system to act as a gatekeeper for abilities, leaving pretty much only a mathematical gain to be realized for the various proficiency levels they have created.

I speculate they could get away with Untrained, Trained, and Master. I realize their levels of magic item creation tie as one of the gatekeepers, but during the playtest folks at my table weren't really all that enthusiastic about the playtest magic item creation system, so its easy for me to put it (magic item creation) on the "go back and try again" list along with the skill system.

pemerton · Jul 10, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
GNS is not supposed to be about creating divisions and positing exclusive monolithic modes of play. Yet we seem to be right back there, with you conjecturing that I haven't climbed onto the Narrativist monolith.

<snip>

I can't see how any one can be entirely absent for an extended period, let alone how a game can be exclusively devoted to one.

GNS is an analytic framework. It's not a claim about what anyone has or hasn't done, or should or shouldn't have done.

It's a claim about a certain sort of goal of play, not about system; but there is a recognition that some systems suit some goals better than other systems do, and better than they suit other goals.

There's not reason to think that any given goal must be present in play over time. I've played in sessions and campaigns that were free of narrativism. And I see posts about such sessions and campaigns all the time on these boards.

And convesely, if someone has played a DL-style AP game using DitV I'm happy to hear about it. But I haven't yet, despite making some version of this post many times over the years.

Tony Vargas · Jul 10, 2019

pemerton said:
GNS is an analytic framework. It's not a claim about what anyone has or hasn't done, or should or shouldn't have done.
It's a claim about a certain sort of goal of play, not about system; but there is a recognition that some systems suit some goals better than other systems do, and better than they suit other goals.

So why are you convinced I haven't experienced Narrativist play, and will only accept pulling a little illusionism in /certain systems/ as evidence one could pull some narrtivist wool over the players eyes?

It seems (and, that's just my impression, I know this medium can make such impressions very iffy) like it quickly slides from analytic framework, to classifications, to monolithic divisions, to getting judgmental about not just systems, but people.

Even when we're trying very hard not to go there.

There's not reason to think that any given goal must be present in play over time. I've played in sessions and campaigns that were free of narrativism. And I see posts about such sessions and campaigns all the time on these boards.

… I'm not so sure I'm convinced - I'm not so sure exactly what it is I'm not convinced about, though.

The definition of narrativism seems arbitrarily narrow, as if to exclude games that clearly intend collective storytelling as their thing. For what seem to be presented as exhaustive classifications, that doesn't feel right.

Either narrativism is way off, or the idea that only certain games constitute narrativist play is.

::shrug::

This might help me see the distinction: what about the other-way round? Could you believe an illusionist (npi) GM has run a game that looked/felt to the players like it was a planned adventure in a 'simulationist' (absurd though that label feels to type, given that it simulates /nothing/ that can be checked for accuracy) style, but was actually picking up and running with their ideas to create a narrative that, in the end, surprised him, even as he presented the climax like it had been what he was working towards all along?

FrogReaver · Jul 10, 2019

IMO. Best case scenario is Pathfinder 2 is a smashing success and take most of 5e player base.

Suppose this happens. That simply means 6e D&D comes sooner than expected and takes a lot of the things people are liking about pathfinder 2 and incorporates those things into 6e while still bearing the D&D name.

Will it be able to compete with a D&D branded game that is newer and presumably used most of it's best mechanics while tossing any that people kind of dislike. I for one think that in the best case scenario that Pathfinder 2's success if it has any will be relatively short lived.