D&D 5E The Illusion of Experience Points that Everyone Disbelieves

[TwoSix]

It is a challenge.

I'm merely interested in showing that no matter what the process you go through, some kind of nominal story is always the result.

On that point, I am 100% in agreement. Events with a group of characters with causal linkages is enough for me to say it's a story.

 

[howandwhy99]

You may think I'm about to play a game of semantics, but there's an important point to be made, so bear with me....

Games don't have objectives - we may use that phrasing, but it is actually a bit sloppy. Games are non-sentient, without will, and so cannot seek goals. Goals are for people. Games, in the sense you're discussing, may have win conditions. It is the players who have objectives.

Golf has a clearly set win condition - get the ball into all the holes, using the fewest swings, within some restrictions of how you can move the ball. Now, maybe when some folks play golf, that is their objective. Their entire purpose is to get the lowest score, and that's the only reason for them to play. Me, that's not why I play golf. I play golf to go outside with some friends, have a nice walk, and an activity around which we can frame the afternoon. The win condition of the game is honestly not high on my list of objectives. Some other guy on the course that day may have the objective of getting an his girlfriend's father to accept him as a potential son-in-law. The old guy out there may really have the objective of getting exercise, to keep his arthritis at bay. There's tons of reasonable objectives for folks on the golf course.

And that's the problem here. You seem to be taking a fairly simple interpretation - the player's objectives are merely to hit the win conditions of the game. And that is "the objective". Singular. There's only one.

Let me ease your mind here then, I'm not suggesting players ever need play D&D for a sole purpose. I'm suggesting removing "the illusion of experience points", the scoring of our game, from the mechanics of the game should not be the default mode of play. Scores help players determine if they are actually achieving their objectives and specifically the objectives the game is designed to promote improvement at by the players. D&D XP scores player role playing.

Now, we note that nowhere in the D&D rulebooks do they state what the game's win condition is. In fact, we generally all have a chuckle at the idea of someone saying, "I won D&D". This means that the simple interpretation starts to break down. The players must set their own objectives. And once people are doing that for themselves, all bets are off as to what "the objective" of the game really is.

You can play D&D to achieve higher scores, to outperform yourself or others if you are competitive. Plenty of D&D tournaments were about teams beating out other teams with the points they scored in the time allotted in a single adventure module. There are fairness issues for a multi-refereed event to be sure, but players did and still can play to win at D&D.

Now, I agree with you, that D&D really needs to support the tactical-wargame objective crowd. It has always done so, so this is sacred-cow territory.

But then, we should be honest, and remember that the game became popular not just for it's tactical-wargame objectives, but because it has always supported a rather wide range of objectives. Supporting creation of a story - to think of your character as the protagonist of a series of novels - has always been there, too, and that's just as sacred a cow. It has also always supported the beer-and-pretzels objective of hanging out with friends with the game as a framing activity, akin to how I play golf.

Now, to fit all those objectives in, means that the game is not fine-tuned for any one objective. It has to have some mechanics you don't like, that you may want to house-rule away because you're not interested in the objective it supports. D&D should have XP, because it does serve the tactical-wargame objective. And, honestly, I don't think anyone has to worry that somehow it won't be in the core rules. It is a sacred cow, and a few folks on the internet aren't going to take it away. But, to be fair, that means some of the things the story-folks want, that make story-creation easy, also ought to be in the game, too. And the basic play needs to be fairly simple, for the beer-and-pretzels folks, and so on.

Players seeking to play D&D to create stories and thinking of it only or mainly within the set of concepts available in literary theory has always been possible and not never wholly absent in our hobby (I'm guessing). As a variant game I don't have an issue with storytelling being the sole game objective, but group storytelling never needs to include game playing. You can do it without playing a game. Do you disagree? So using an RPG like D&D, a massive construction of game mechanics hundreds of pages in size, in order to do what rules usually get in the way of doing seems very counter intuitive to me. It's like saying D&D was always about creating a story - allowing the players to make things up - and ignoring the increase of rule after rule being added to it, which I take to be increasing the players' ability to game.

 

[Skyscraper]

Well I gotta go out there and buy myself a lottery ticked, WotC addresses my very concern shortly after I verbalize here. It seems like an XP game will not be the default assumption anymore.

 

[howandwhy99]

But the key decision that had to be made, in the episode I have described, was whether to oppose Vecna or to let him have the souls from the Underdark. And I don't see how this can be understood in the sorts of terms that characterise a decision in the play of chess or backgammon. It's a decision made by reflecting on the content and implications of the fiction - including evaluative implications - and then choosing by reference to them. It reflects the player's conception of his PC, including his conception of his PC's relationship to various gods and to the other PCs. It also reflects the player's conception of the broader fictional situation, including what is at stake in the fiction for the other players.

There is no shared fiction being created in D&D. There is no "cloud" where we collectively create a story in and that's the big difference between what storygames do and what almost every other game does. D&D has a board. It's hidden behind the screen by the referee and abstracted into a series of mechanical algorithms, but it is what the players are addressing. It's part of why there is a DM's map required for play.

"a decision made by reflecting on the content and implications of the EDIT[game board] - including evaluative implications - and then choosing by reference to them."

I'm highlighting this so you can see this is what is happening in Chess and Backgammon. When players evaluate the situational pattern of the game to decide what they want to do, then they are engaged in pattern recognition. They are determining what the probability of certain actions will lead to and choosing a move with the hope that it will lead to certain outcomes. That's D&D and game play, but it isn't some sole act of player improvisation. It's murkier than that.

From your description of what you liked about your recent session it actually sounds like you prefer more of what makes up games than what constitutes story creation.

It seems to me that my game isn't very unique in having players make these sorts of decisions, based on these sorts of considerations. Whether or not "story" is the best way to describe what is involved, I don't think they are about "pattern recognition" or "guessing the code" behind the GM's screen. A D&D that hopes to be remotely mainstream has to have room for this aspect of play.

Any game anywhere that hopes to appeal to gamers needs to include well balanced options for players to evaluate. But there is a significant difference between options and choices. Options actually exist in the world beyond us. Choices are determined by the person choosing them. Most games are finite and can be solved. The number of options available to them are limited. Players usually make choices within these games, while seeking out all the possible options available to them because they themselves haven't solved them. That's engaging in pattern recognition during play, i.e. solving the game. It's too hard for people to remember the solution to Checkers even though it was soft solved in 1997.

In D&D the rules are codified and with the board hidden from the players. As they play they can attempt things not covered by the rules, but they are adding to the code when they do so. Regardless, in every single turn by every single player the state of the game is currently finite and their actions can help or hinder them to achieve whatever their current objectives are in the game. The finesse, the feel of nuances present in the game throughout for players to evaluate from is in the astronomical digits. Actually it grows as the campaign goes along, but point is these types of games are what historically appeal to self avowed gamers. Study the game theory that's actually been around awhile, a branch of mathematics, and I think you may get quite a lot out of it.

And whether it's your intention or not, I don't appreciate attempts to make non-storygames abnormal play or not mainstream.

 

[howandwhy99]

How did I piss the Jester off? That's not my intent here. Presenting an alternate view of what D&D is to the storygaming philosophy isn't denying another philosophy the possibility it may be more accurate. I'm simply trying to pry open some other ways of viewing our game so games like early D&D and other playstyles aren't de-legitimized.

What?
Right.

Talk to Dave Megarry. He and Gary and Dave Arneson began work on Dungeon! in 1972 and a lot of work that went into the boardgame carried over into the D&D and vice versa. I'm not claiming the boardgame is the source of the ideas for our hobby. I'm ony saying people who are looking for insight into why D&D was designed as it was might find some answers there. Dungeon levels, maze navigation, weighting treasures and monsters, evaluating hit probabilities, variable XP requirements, magic items, divination abilities, and so on. Even cooperative play was included as an option in later versions.

A little off-topic, but:

Periodically a thread comes up where you start talking about the difference between story and game, and yet as far as I can tell, you are pretty close to being the only one on ENWorld who holds these positions vis-a-vis D&D and other RPGs. When they've come up on CM, same thing. Which isn't to say you're wrong, exactly, but it looks a lot like spitting into the wind. This line of thinking reminds me of the "video games can't be art because they're video games!" assertion; it's firmly grounded in your opinion and, as far as I can tell, little else.

It is quite clear that, for many, many groups, D&D IS storytelling. You come across- at least to me- sounding like "You guys are doing it wrong!" And let's face it; they aren't. Regardless of the fact that I personally can't stand story-based games (or especially railroads), there are lots of groups who play that style of campaign and are perfectly happy with them. So I guess I just don't get why you think your opinions trump other groups' opinions of what makes a D&D game.

I say this with respect and puzzlement, btw, and I think we probably, when it comes down to it, have fairly similar playstyles- I just don't understand your position on "game" vs. "fiction".

Read my last two responses and I include some of my understanding about games and narratives. My intention is not to stir up dissent, but to dissent to whitewashing RPGs and RPG theory in whole into storygame theory. My disagreements are not that others can play D&D as they want to play it, or even have rules which support their goals, but to recognize the rules of early editions as having a sound design even if most of the long term players have forgotten or never played to those purposes to begin with. And that, by unearthing those principles of design we can include rules which support how D&D was designed for play, if not always played so for most of its early life.

Is there such a thing?? I'm no anthropologist, but I would be very surprised if there were any cultures anywhere- human ones, at least- without stories.

I find when people make something a godhead, a fundamental absolutism that limits people to, say, one aspect of life perhaps in only one discipline of academia, and then demand others accept and never leave it, it's best to flat out deny that godhead - however absurdist it may appear. Other cultures don't necessarily understand their lives as stories and that's okay. I don't think we have to go back more than a hundred years to see that.

We could just as much demand there is no such thing as games as games are always art, a creation by a person. They are always sports as players must always use their physiques no matter how small they matter. They are always politics as every human act as political consequences. And on and on. But are we only ever to use those vocabularies when referring to games? Making one's small island the whole of everything, narrative theory in this case, is the root of what it means to be sophomoric. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Limiting games to storytelling can only hamstring games. Look at what happened when the post-structuralists tried to do it to the arts in the 80s! Everything may seem awesome given the scope of the philosophy currently edging out all other ideas, but it is not a benevolent act. No matter how satisfied its supporters.

Oh- if you're focusing on the story of the game, you're doing it wrong? You aren't actually playing a game if you only pay attention to the xp system and game math when you absolutely have to? I don't buy this at all; it's not just one-true-wayism, it's one-true-wayism based (as far as I can tell) strictly on your own opinions. It's as if I made the argument that you aren't really watching a movie if you aren't focused on the cinematography; if you focus on the story/plot, you're not really watching a movie, you're engaging in story-reading instead. Which, of course, would be nonsense.

WWE is focused on telling a story with wrestling rules, but I don't think they are playing the sporting game of wrestling. It's like seeing chess in a film. Are the actors actually playing chess? No, they are pretending and not following the rules at all needed to play the game. We can focus on enjoying the narrative, aesthetic, group camaraderie of gaming, but games are designed for more than just that. We can do those without playing games. So, making stuff up isn't the whole of playing a game, but not the wrong reason to play one. But if we only and ever take it to be game play, we risk losing games completely what makes games (and puzzles) unique. If my description of what is actually playing a game isn't working for you, then use one of your own.

In your campaigns. In your experience. In your playstyle. But there are equally many for whom telling a story was ALWAYS the objective of D&D- and despite your assertions to the contrary, they weren't not-playing D&D. They were just playing it differently than you.

I suggest they were doing their best. And that's great. But neither am I not playing D&D or misunderstanding what RPGs are all about or why the rules of the game were written as they were when we don't tell stories in our game.

I would dispute that the two can't go together. Sandbox to story game is a spectrum, not a black-and-white either-or.

Plot following adventures are different sandbox modules. You can play either in a storygame, but the latter is generated by a code like one in the DMG appendix for something closer to what I see as the D&D game. Sandbox modules are a spiderweb for players to play with, while in the larger campaign where the game remain a quantity of potential game states to be deciphered and navigated testing player ability. Plot following adventures are largely linear or branching scripts with blank spaces for players to fill in as whatever they want. Not that encounter skirmish combat games aren't played along the way, but the astronomical amount of consequences weighing on every move don't carry over. Usually just the handful the DM improvises on the spot.

Isn't that exactly what you're trying to do?

No, I don't want to close out ideas other than my own. I didn't go and create a website and build a community for that specific agenda. I have no desire to remove the Big Model from existence. Or silence other ideas than my own. I hardly see the ideas I've been playing with as representing the orthodoxy in our community. I do however have every desire for adherents of that orthodoxy to open their hearts and minds to other ways of designing and playing games. And those other ways certainly don't have to be the thoughts I've been playing around with. But I suggest we slay the story-god first, if only to save storytelling.

 

[Janx]

I like XP.

I run games that are 4-6 hours in length.

Some encounters are harder, some are easier. Some are "forced" some are highly optional based on player choice and preference.

Since not all encounters are the same, I need a metric to assign value to their contribution of the advancement of the PC.

XP solves that problem for me.
it defines the milestones on when the PC will advance or not in a less DM-fiat-ful way.


If I assigned credit towards the next level based on 13 "average" encounters, than I'm really saying it takes 13 XP to level up, and average encounters are worth 1 XP.

I'm quite happy with the larger number, as it gives me the mathematical variance that "feels right"

 

[dd.stevenson]

That gets back to the reason that I started this though. Even if you're playing something very sandbox-y, there's still a plot. The plot is simply the stuff that happens as a consequence of the players going to different parts of the setting and messing around, as opposed to stuff that happens to the players. It's simply emergent from the interactions at the table, as opposed to being decided by the DM.

I don't have a better term for what I'm getting at, or I'd have used it.

Story arc-oriented?

Clunky, but works for me.

 

[Cadence]

No, I don't want to close out ideas other than my own. I didn't go and create a website and build a community for that specific agenda. I have no desire to remove the Big Model from existence. Or silence other ideas than my own. I hardly see the ideas I've been playing with as representing the orthodoxy in our community. I do however have every desire for adherents of that orthodoxy to open their hearts and minds to other ways of designing and playing games. And those other ways certainly don't have to be the thoughts I've been playing around with. But I suggest we slay the story-god first, if only to save storytelling.

I wonder how many people on here actually like the Big Model or could even tell you much of what it says, or if you're preaching to the wrong people?

I don't worship the story-god, have been playing for 34 years, couldn't tell you a thing about the Big Model except it has something to do with some site called the Forge that seemed pompous and uninviting the one time I skimmed the beginning an article about the model, haven't been a regular participant in on-line forums since about games (since a few excursions on usenet) until recently, played with people who were in on the ground floor, have advanced degrees in the mathematical sciences, and have always played d&d for both the game and the shared fiction it creates. Your posts on the subject always strike me as trying to repeatedly tell the rest of us that we don't have the slightest clue what we've been doing for 30+ years based on your opinions, choice of jargon, and the fact that you started playing a handful of years earlier and so must know more. It always distracts me from whatever other point you're trying to make and certainly hasn't won me over.

On the other hand I finally think I have time to go back through the thread and respond to your other points :::crosses-fingers:::

I also find the idea of pattern recognition being one of the core areas of game play interesting and would certainly read a thread dedicated to it... as long as it didn't sound like my decades of personal experience playing with scores of others were the aberrant wanderings of the clueless.

 

[howandwhy99]

I wonder how many people on here actually like the Big Model or could even tell you much of what it says, or if you're preaching to the wrong people?

I don't worship the story-god, have been playing for 34 years, couldn't tell you a thing about the Big Model except it has something to do with some site called the Forge that seemed pompous and uninviting the one time I skimmed the beginning an article about the model, haven't been a regular participant in on-line forums since about games (since a few excursions on usenet) until recently, played with people who were in on the ground floor, have advanced degrees in the mathematical sciences, and have always played d&d for both the game and the shared fiction it creates. Your posts on the subject always strike me as trying to repeatedly tell the rest of us that we don't have the slightest clue what we've been doing for 30+ years based on your opinions, choice of jargon, and the fact that you started playing a handful of years earlier and so must know more. It always distracts me from whatever other point you're trying to make and certainly hasn't won me over.

Okay, gotcha. Reading other posters repeating jargon from the Big Model doesn't help whether folks know where the ideas came from or not. I will definitely work on presentation. I'm not trying to spread my ideas as the way things are either. But when I've denied the ideas before I've been pushed to come up with other answers, so...

I appreciate your reading all the same given the heat of the discussion.

On the other hand I finally think I have time to go back through the thread and respond to your other points :::crosses-fingers:::

I also find the idea of pattern recognition being one of the core areas of game play interesting and would certainly read a thread dedicated to it... as long as it didn't sound like my decades of personal experience playing with scores of others were the aberrant wanderings of the clueless.

It would be nice to revisit the ideas. It's been a few days for me too.

I think what happened with D&D is sometime in the early to mid-80s the rules, if not yet the adventures popped out in front of the screen for all players to know and we got rules lawyers and character building and lots of other practices introduced to the hobby. These aren't bad, but I applaud attempts to understand what's going on and why even but I've not been on board with attempts to remove practices when they weren't agreeable those performing the study. I'd have much preferred a survey of roleplaying ten years ago then the prescriptive "solutions" to our hobby. So from that alone I feel I can share your pain. Don't take what I am saying as the better rules. It's an attempt to understand what the game might be and maybe why what rules were originally included were. Which has made aficionados playing early D&D appear like aberrant wanderings of the clueless at times. Being dismissed out of hand is something I'd rather not have for those with experiences like mine. But I'm not going to do that to others either.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Even if you're playing something very sandbox-y, there's still a plot. The plot is simply the stuff that happens as a consequence of the players going to different parts of the setting and messing around, as opposed to stuff that happens to the players. It's simply emergent from the interactions at the table, as opposed to being decided by the DM.

I think "plot driven" is a good term for a railroad game.

When you describe a literary work as "plot driven," it means the author was trying to tell a specific story, then wrote the characters to be participants in that story (rather than coming up with characters/situations and having the story come from their interactions).

I don't think there's any "plot" in a real sandbox game. The word "plot" implies a pre-scripted story. There's still a story in a sandbox game, but it's not a "plot" unless it was written beforehand. Also, the term "plot driven" says that the gameplay is driven by the story, rather than the story coming naturally from gameplay.

This blog post from dndwithpornstars examines the usefulness of this terminology in RPGs (positing "solution driven" as the opposite), but even he just calls railroading railroading.