"Stumbling Around in My Head" - The Feeling of Dissociation as a Player

[Bluenose]

Yes - I think this supports what I said about there being a clash of expectations, and this being the source of annoyance with 4e.

(OT) Your wargamer example is interesting, it brought home to me that traditional wargames seem very much steeped in a Clausewitzian paradigm of what a battle is and how it should work. The Mohammed/Mao three-stage system for insurgency war, or Sun Tsu perhaps, would have no trouble with the idea of defeating the enemy on the moral level before any physical force is used. Our wargames are ultimately derived from Prussian kriegspiel and they embody a force-on-force model where maneuver and supply are important but much is excluded as irrelevant that other theorists would see as critical.

Sun Tzu was writing more about the approach to a war as a whole, rather than about individual battles (So is Clausewitz, mostly). At most, what the Russians call the "Operational Art" of getting an advantage before a particular battle. There are other Chinese military writers who address tactical matters. Playing campaign wargames or recreations of historical battles gives you much more appreciation for this than the equal-points set-piece-battles that are pure tactical tests.

I don't know if I'm "immersion-sensitive" or not, but I know that I find hit points annoying in every version of D&D except 4e, because only 4e takes them to their logical conclusion as luck, divine favour and plot protection.

Or we switched to different systems, like Runequest, Rolemaster, HERO etc that don't have the same problem!.

I think very largely the people who found hit points dissociative, and cared about it, stopped playing D&D and simply don't care how D&D does it and won't even know this sort of discussion is taking place.

 

[S'mon]

I think of it as light narrativism, and as fitting with Ron Edwards actual deployment of the term "narrativism", which is more expansive than his formal defintion. For example, he characterises The Dying Earth as narrativist because it produces cycnical and satirical humour of a Vancian kind - but that is "addressing an engaging issue or problematic feature of human existence " only in a fairly attenuated sense:

The Dying Earth facilitates Narrativist play, because its Situations are loaded with the requirement for satirical, judgmental input on the part of the players.​

My 4e game serves up fantasy-trope-filled situations that are loaded with the requirement for straight-laced, judgemental input on the part of the players. Less witty than The Dying Earth, but not too po-faced!, and hence, I think, best described as narrativist within the Forge vocabulary.

Hmm, interesting, thanks - so this means that Edwards' actual use of the word 'Narrativism' is pretty much just GDS 'Dramatism'*, and GreyICE's definition of Narrativism above is a lot less inaccurate than it would appear to be going by Edwards' formal definition!
This also means that all the people over the years who've posted to say "I reject Edwards' definition of Narrativism, I'm just going to use it to mean Story-creation!" weren't really disagreeing with him after all! (The people who use it to mean play-through-prewritten-story are still wrong, though).

*Rather than a narrow subset of Dramatism.

Edit: Your own game still sounds like it meets the formal definition of Nar, though.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah - my brain sticks with the associated 'meat' version of hp, despite designer efforts. Then I get that sinking feeling in my gut when a 'dying' 4e PC, who's maybe one death save from croaking, is then up and fighting again after an encouraging Martial word from his warlord buddy.

Odd... I'm almost the opposite. In no way do I see hit points in any edition as meat. They just don't work that way (possibly because I played GURPS and MERP before any edition of D&D). They are an abstract narrative resource to me.

In fact I see the damage system of TBZ (a Japanese tabletop RPG that's just finished its Kickstarter) in which your physical wounds add to your rolls* as more meaty and less about abstract resource management than I do D&D.

* You have two damage tracks; a stun and a long term one. And you get to decide which to take damage on. Three levels on the long term one, and you get a +1 bonus to your rolls at each level. The only way you die is to intentionally take the third wound on the physical track (giving you +3 to all rolls), which says "This is something I am prepared to die for". Then you die if you are knocked out.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I think very largely the people who found hit points dissociative, and cared about it, stopped playing D&D and simply don't care how D&D does it and won't even know this sort of discussion is taking place.

This may be largely the case. I know @pmerton has a primarily Rolemaster background. I have one that's heavier on GURPS (and, for that matter, WFRP) than on D&D and in recent years is strongly influenced by indy gaming. And certainly in my case and I think in @pmerton's, the idea that D&D is associated or a process-sim of any sort makes me go cross-eyed.

 

[pemerton]

I know @pmerton has a primarily Rolemaster background.

<snip>

the idea that D&D is associated or a process-sim of any sort makes me go cross-eyed.

Yes to the second sentence.

On the first - I started with B/X, moved to AD&D, really started to learn how to run the sort of game I wanted to run (very non-Gygaxian, non-Pulsepherian) from GMing Oriental Adventures, then in 1990 shifted to Rolemaster within a month of discovering it, and only came back to GMing D&D with 4e.

 

[pemerton]

Hmm, interesting, thanks - so this means that Edwards' actual use of the word 'Narrativism' is pretty much just GDS 'Dramatism'*, and GreyICE's definition of Narrativism above is a lot less inaccurate than it would appear to be going by Edwards' formal definition!
This also means that all the people over the years who've posted to say "I reject Edwards' definition of Narrativism, I'm just going to use it to mean Story-creation!" weren't really disagreeing with him after all!

I think, for Edwards, the key element that shifts "story creation" from high concept sim to narrativism is whether the player inputs are in some sense pre-given ("I'm going to do it this way, because we're playing Star Wars and that's how Star Wars goes") or an expression of sincere, authentic evaluation.

If one were very postmodernist one might reject this contrast - Edwards' own aesthetic theory seems firmly modernist to me! I'm not a full-fledged post-modernist, but I think there can be some blurring at the edges - and The Dying Earth would seem to be an instance.

 

[S'mon]

I think, for Edwards, the key element that shifts "story creation" from high concept sim to narrativism is whether the player inputs are in some sense pre-given ("I'm going to do it this way, because we're playing Star Wars and that's how Star Wars goes") or an expression of sincere, authentic evaluation.

If one were very postmodernist one might reject this contrast - Edwards' own aesthetic theory seems firmly modernist to me! I'm not a full-fledged post-modernist, but I think there can be some blurring at the edges - and The Dying Earth would seem to be an instance.

It seems to me that most people will take this Dying Earth game - The Dying Earth facilitates Narrativist play, because its Situations are loaded with the requirement for satirical, judgmental input on the part of the players - get in a Vancian mindset, and the 'satiricial, judgemental input' they make will be Vancian-perspective satire & judgement, possibly far removed from their own personal value systems. Just as when I play a Vancian characer such as my 4e D&D Thief Larsenio Roguespierre, I play him from a Vancian actor-stance perspective. In the Dying Earth game you're playing from a Vancian author-stance perspective, to create a game & story that models Vancian tropes. That's Dramatism, a very useful term which I wish Edwards & co would use, rather than mush it in with world & process Simulation.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Actually, mechanics can do a lot to encourage or discourage roleplaying, and CERTAINLY can do a lot to inhibit certain storylines.

Storylines? Man I thought we were talking about roleplaying.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I don't know if I'm "immersion-sensitive" or not, but I know that I find hit points annoying in every version of D&D except 4e, because only 4e takes them to their logical conclusion as luck, divine favour and plot protection.

The topic of hit points in these discussions is usually more misleading than enlightening: Prior to 4E, there was an interpretation of hit points (supported by most editions of D&D) which was associated but heavily abstracted. (And that abstraction was possessed of variable flaws depending on which edition we're talking about.)

I admit I'm not familiar with the fine points of difference between each edition's explanation of hit points; largely because hit points have offended my sense of immersion since my 3e years*, so I don't even go by the official company line. But I do know that officially, hit points have always been abstract; stamina, luck, divine favor, etc. So I'm surprised that others see a meaningful difference between hit points in different editions.

*And in retrospect, TSR's explanation of hit points offends my sensibilities just as much as WotC's.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Hmmm... for some time now, I've been considering the possibility of setting up a Martial Daily foundation (not to be confused with the Marshal Daly foundation, if it exists ) to teach young children the concept of non-magical abilities that can only be used once between extended rests so that when they grow up and become potential gamers, they will no longer be bothered by the concept of martial daily abilities. This could take the form of reading primers ("See Soveliss run. See Soveliss use split the tree on a pair of goblins."), fairy tales ("After an extended rest to regain the use of knockout and brisk stride, Jack climed up the beanstalk to the giant's castle again."), and other fiction ("Bomorir rose, Agaron's inspiring words still ringing in his ears. Once again buoyed by the warlord's encouraging speech, he found, deep within himself, the strength to fight on despite his wounds. This cave troll is tough, he thought, it's time to use brute strike.")

I'm planning to start with my own kids. Anybody care to make a donation?

I'm broke at the moment, but I have a creative donation to make: in addition to teaching kids their ABC's, I'd like to teach them their AEDU's.