D&D 5E Character play vs Player play

[The Crimson Binome]

I now imagine that all games run by [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] look like the order of the stick... everyone knows spell slots, and hp and no one can ever be creative on the fly...

The major difference is that the characters don't reference the game mechanics; they only reference the things which those game mechanics represent. A character might recognize that a sword is so much more accurate and causes more grievous wounds than most other swords, but they wouldn't refer to it as a sword +x or whatever.

The would know that a high-level character can take a lot more punishment (without dropping) than a low-level one, even if they lack the specific vocabulary to call out the level and the class. I mean, anyone within the game can witness the tougher character getting hit (to little effect) by an attack that would fell a lesser hero; they're not blind.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The major difference is that the characters don't reference the game mechanics; they only reference the things which those game mechanics represent. A character might recognize that a sword is so much more accurate and causes more grievous wounds than most other swords, but they wouldn't refer to it as a sword +x or whatever.

The would know that a high-level character can take a lot more punishment (without dropping) than a low-level one, even if they lack the specific vocabulary to call out the level and the class. I mean, anyone within the game can witness the tougher character getting hit (to little effect) by an attack that would fell a lesser hero; they're not blind.

That is not even close to how I have ever played it... in game 1 lucky blade strike could always kill anyone, out of game the hp is just the excuse why no one gets that lucky shot in...

I also describe a magic +5 longsword and a magic +1 longsword the exact same way "Magic sword"

 

[Lanefan]

@Lanefan , @Mark CMG , @Saelorn , if you would, please take a look at the below and give me your analysis on a - g at the bottom. Specifically I'm looking for if you would describe thinigs in whatever terms you've (or others) used in this thread. Terms such as trad, deviant from RPGing, storygaming, unorthodox metagaming but still RPGing. Whathaveyou. Then make plain your reasoning. Please and thanks.

A bit later than I expected, but here's my go at this:

{scene set, then} 4) For the player/character in 1 above in scene 2 above, procedurally, here are some possibilities on how an asset that wasn't canvassed at the genesis of the scene might be established:

a) Player invokes their "Swashbuckle" cheracter resource/ability that they can use 1/scene. "Chandeliers, banisters, swinging ropes, damsels in distress. Do something awesome!" The player declares there to be a huge tapestry suspended from the rafters via ropes. He expends his 1/scene resource and uses it to "do Swashbuckley stuff," no mechanical resolution necessary.

Not sure what I'd call this other than something that doesn't happen here; I'd instead expect to be asked questions like "is there a tapestry or similar to swing from?" and so forth. And even if this type of option did exist at my table I'd be quickly asking for a more detailed description of what "do Swashbuckley stuff" actually entails. A game system with per-scene player-invoked character options like this would tend more towards co-operative story-gaming in my view, where everyone including the DM) has to go with whatever someone is adding in.

b) Player wants the imbibed spirits to be highly flammable and spilled all over the floor around and on a specific table. He exchanges a token with the GM in order to add a scene element dice to his pool, declares an action, and rolls to resolve the action and discover the outcome.

This is a bit closer to what I'm used to - I suppose it'd be called traditional RPGing by some. The variable not mentioned is how many of these exchangeable tokens are floating around in the game; if they're not often seen in play then fine, but if they're common as dirt and used multiple times per scene then we're into the same as a) above, only with more structure and some dice rolling. And see '***' below.

c) Player has a character resource/move that stiuplates "When you need it, there is usually a chandelier, rope, window, cart, easily-spooked herd of livestock, or similar unusual environmental hazard handy in any situation in which it would be convenient for you and remotely plausible. Roll Dex." Depending on how well the player rolls, they get to choose 1 - 3 options which (i) confirms fictional elements of the scene and their classification as assets and (ii) resolves the player's action. For instance:

* You end up exactly where you want to be.
* Your enemies are stymied by the objects you've used.
* Deal your damage to an enemy.
* Onlookers gasp in awe of your acrobatic bravado! Take +1 forward.

This to me reads like a rewording of a) only with a die roll attached.

d) Player tells the GM that their character knows the monkey and they want to stunt with that monkey. He says he knows the trainer of the monkey and knows a code-word for it to become agitated and commence to ensuing hijinks. The GM says "prove it and roll the dice." The player deploys his character resource skill Streetwise or his character resource "A Lover in Every Port" background, explains his intent and justification as transparently as possible, and rolls the dice. They come up as success. Cool, Swashbuckley stuff happens with the monkey as they distract the villains or otherwise cause them some problems.

Hmmm. Not sure where I'd put this one, though the first 4 words "Player tells the GM..." raise a red flag. Were it "Player asks the GM..." or even "Player suggests to the GM..." we'd be on vaguely traditional soil here; but "Player tells..." says different. The dice rolling saves it.

e) Player asks the GM if there are thick, heavy drapes on tall windows and if some of his enemies' tables are near those windows. The GM, having not iterated every detail of the tavern situation (intentionally), certainly thinks the player proposal is (i) plausible, (ii) within genre, (iii) good faith and not outright gaming the GM for an auto-win that makes a mockery of the play agenda, and (iv) engenders player proactivity. The GM says "sure", as he always does on player proposals concerning details not yet established within a scene and i - iv are met.

Traditional, and just fine as it's not an attempt to game the game, as it were. Probably of all these it's my preferred option.

f) Player has a character resource called Tavern Brawler. When the player deploys this it mandates that there is always "stuff" in a tavern encounter/scene that serves as obstacles/negative terrain for his enemies and assets/positive terrain for him. As an outcome-base-effect, it stipulates that within the fiction, there is now a zone of difficult terrain for everyone but him, in which they give up combat advantage and he has minor cover. The player describes the fictional accompaniment as him flipping over tables and prior unestablished casks breaking and wetting the floor as he swashbuckles in.

Similar to a) in that it allows the player to change the parameters of the scene, only this time specifically to his/her advantage. If this happens all the time we're into co-operative story country. And see '***' below.

g) Player asks the GM if there is a fairly benign scene element that may give the players a modicum of advantage. The GM thinks it would be 50:50 from a plausibility perspective, but doesn't want there to be this scene element. The GM decides to make a show of rolling some irrelevant dice behind a screen and then says "no."

What's not mentioned is why the DM doesn't want the element present, and whether this is standard DM procedure at this table or just happening this time. If the DM has a good reason for not wanting the element I'm cool with it; even if said 'good reason' is simply that introducing the element would make things too easy and-or less interesting.

*** - several of the above options have me wondering: do the enemies ever get such advantages or is it always just the players/characters who get these benefits? Fairness to me would dictate that the enemies should have their own avenues to change the scene in their favour (where it makes sense, of course; I'm not advocating asshat DMing here) similar to what the characters have. An example: where the guy says he knows the monkey etc., can the DM on the moneky's turn decide (or even roll for if) the monkey has some real bad memories of this guy and just wants to bite his fingers off?

Lan-"it's hard to swash much buckle in my usual heavy plate mail and shield"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

This is a point I hadn't considered until you brought it up, but, it does fit nicely. If there is no difference between casting a spell and swinging a sword, why are spells so often nerfed while swords almost never? Spells radically alter the entire nature the game at certain levels. Once you hit certain points in spell casting power, certain challenges become so trivial as to be non-existent. It's impossible to get lost and starve to death if you have 5th+ level casters with you. It's impossible to keep 10th level parties out of locations, ((Or at least next to impossible)) unless you start bringing out the nerf bat.

Difficult, but not impossible. Remember, in 1e teleport has a sometimes-deadly error chance which makes people really reluctant to use it to go somewhere unfamiliar; and while they might always be able to eventually get into anywhere on foot or by flight they're still going to have to deal with whatever hazards may be in their way, which is kind of the point.

Heck, once the party is over 9th level, it's virtually impossible to actually kill anyone. At least permanently kill them.

Again, difficult but not impossible; 1e has the resurrection survival roll to come back, along with built-in Con loss. Also, it takes a 16th-level caster to bang out a Resurrection, for when there's not enough body left for a Raise.

How's that for player authority? The DM kills a PC and another player basically says, "Nuh uh. He's not dead. Poof, back on your feet constant soldier." Given a Rod of Resurrection, that's no longer even limited to clerics in AD&D.

In 3e-4e-5e you're quite right, revival from death is pretty much guaranteed provided someone expends the resources to do it. But in 1e again you've got that wonderful resurrection survival roll, meaning nothing is ironclad guaranteed unless your Con at time of death was 18 or higher.

Lan-"the resurrection survival % roll is one rule that should never have left the game"-efan

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That is not even close to how I have ever played it... in game 1 lucky blade strike could always kill anyone, out of game the hp is just the excuse why no one gets that lucky shot in...

Yeah, I've heard that sort of thing before. I can see why it makes sense to a lot of people, but I could never get around the in-game use of healing spells - if HP was just some meta-game notation for keeping track of plot armor, then that doesn't jive with the cleric knowing which rank of Cure spell to use (and using the wrong rank of Cure spell is likely to get everyone killed).

You kind of have to pick your battles. You can either have a more "realistic" fantasy world, where people mostly avoid getting hit until they suddenly drop (and you kind of hand-wave the in-game meaning of Hit Points and Cure spells), or you can have a more "fantastic" world where heroes are made-of-iron and clerics cause flesh to mend in real-time. Like I said, I can see it both ways, so there's no need to go into the merits of each side here. Let it suffice to say that this approach doesn't work for everyone.

 

[pemerton]

A character is unaware of Fate points and they are a player resource, not a character resource.

A lot of people think that a character is unaware of hit points. (And that is the general tenor of Gygax's writing on the topic in his DMG and PHB.)

It's also very unclear what initiative means in turn-based combat systems (3E, 4e, 5e). It doesn't mean "who is faster", because a person with higher initiative doesn't get more actions than one with lower initiative. It's a metagame device for assisting in the rationing of actions, and for flavour reasons it is linked to DEX to give a general vibe of reaction times. (But it's not really about reaction times, because having better initiative doesn't in itself help dodging, AC etc.)

Gygax tends to write as if AD&D PCs aren't aware of XP. He strongly implies that, in the fiction, killing monsters and looting treasure isn't what is making you a better fighter or cleric or magic-user.

I don't think that any of this makes D&D a storygame. It just shows that D&D has metagame mechanics. Which was already obvious in the history of RPGing - if D&D didn't have metagame mechanics like hit points and XP, there would have been nothing for ultra-simulationist games like RuneQuest to react against. (RQ still has the puzzle of initiative, although it does try to link it more closely to reaction speed via a "phases" system; and initiative in AD&D is actually less blatantly metagame than in the turn-based systems, in part because of the overall greater degree of abstraction in the combat system.)

while the specific action of Fate Points might be hidden from the character, the justifications for them certainly aren't. Take the following old chestnut - the players want to see the king and the chamberlain is having none of it. They try to persuade the chamberlain, but, no go. The chamberlain, for whatever reason, isn't going to let them see the king.

D&D: My caster character casts Suggestion and we get to see the king.

Fate: My character has the aspect of "Student of Magic" and casts a spell to change the mind of the chamberlain and we get to see the king.

What's the difference here? In the first case, we strike off that memorized spell (maybe, since Bards could also do suggestion without using a specific spell) and move on. In the latter case, we spend a Fate point, and move on. In both cases we spend character resources and do the exact same thing.

There are other examples that could be given too.

In the original Oriental Adventures, most classes have a ki ability that is rationed (N per day) and represents a dedicated effort.

When the player declares the ki ability, this represents the character trying really hard.

When, playing Fate, you spend the Fate point to have your PC charm the chamberlain, that represents your character trying really hard/I].

It's true that the character in Fate doesn't know that the more s/he gets into trouble (via you, the player, accepting compels) then the more s/he will be able to cast powerful magic (via you, the player, earning fate points to spend). But the character in Oriental Adventures probably doesn't know that s/he can try really hard, and succeed, only N times per day.

The same thing happens with hit points. Imagine an unarmoured AD&D fighter with 21 hp fighting a creature which deals 1d8+2 damage on a hit. The fighter doesn't know (does s/he?) that in two minutes of fighting s/he has no chance of being killed by that creature (worst possible case is 1 hp left), but that a third minute of combat actually creates a real risk of death (the likelihood of three hits against AC 10 could well be one-half or better if the creature has more than a few HD, and the average damage on 3 hits is 19.5, which means the prospects of doing 21 or more are pretty good). Getting around this contrast in player and character knowledge is one reason why crit-based games, which eliminate the player's certainty to bring it into line with the character's, were invented.

in game 1 lucky blade strike could always kill anyone, out of game the hp is just the excuse why no one gets that lucky shot in

That's my approach to D&D hit points also.

When I'm playing a character, I don't want to make any decisions based on information that the character doesn't have.

The single biggest violator of this principle, in the typical D&D game, is the decision to go and explore this location/problem, with these people, with an expectation that success is a real prospect. In other words, the basically protagonistic orientation of the PCs in most D&D play.

This is based on information that the character doesn't have, but is hugely salient to the player - namely, that I am here, at my friend's house, playing a player character in a FRPG where the GM opposite me has prepared some sort of gameworld or scenario or whatever for the rest of us to engage with via our PCs.

 

[pemerton]

In real life, I'm inhabiting my own mind. Through that presence of mind, I am immediately aware of several layers of sensory information.

<snip>

No questions are asked. There is no sensory proxy that they must correspond with to ensure the details that they should orient themselves toward and feel this way or that way about. There is autonomous experience

<snip>

So with that said, one of the other advantages of having the default be "saying yes" to intuitive, plausible scene elements proposed by players is to ensure a higher likelihood of maintaining PC habitation, rather than a jarring experience of 20 questions (with the answer being very much up in the air)

A related aspect of this is what sort of details matter in this particular game.

The last time I GMed a serious city & politics game, the PCs were all quite powerful wizards (Rolemaster level 15+, which is roughly analogous to AD&D level 12+). So the sorts of details that would be assumed by the players in making plans and declaring actions weren't so much boxes in the alley as a factotum in the imperial palace who would run an errand for them or a purveyor of spell-enhancing drugs who could be contacted with a successful Streetwise check and other stuff that matters in that sort of game.

If you approach that sort of game with the idea that no one can initiate content-introduction but the GM, you get ostsensibly powerful, political-influential wizards who, in the actual reality of play, can't wipe their noses without turning to someone else for permission and affirmation. Which, as you say, is very jarring as a play experience.

it seems that some see the applied principle above ("say yes...or roll the dice") as a gateway for bad faith metagaming as the default mode of players' play.

This does seem to be an issue for some posters, though I'm not sure how generally.

What puzzles me more is the idea coming through from multiple posters that it matters more whether the players' access to information is via a character-cast spell rather than a player-triggered Hey, GM, give me a clue token, than it does whether it is conducive or non-conducive to a fun time at the table that the players have the ability to force the GM to give them information on command.

 

[Lanefan]

A lot of people think that a character is unaware of hit points. (And that is the general tenor of Gygax's writing on the topic in his DMG and PHB.)

Perhaps, but the character is quite aware of having taken a few good wallops in that last fight.

I always assume that behind this conversation:
Cleric's player: "What are you at?"
Fighter's player: "27 out of 51."

In fact lies this conversation:
Aloysius: "How you feeling, buddy? I saw you get hammered a bit out there. Need some patching up?"
Lanefan: "Yeah, I took a bit of a pounding - nothing serious, I guess. But if you've got some of that healin' magic to spare and no-one else needs it, light me up."

It's also very unclear what initiative means in turn-based combat systems (3E, 4e, 5e). It doesn't mean "who is faster", because a person with higher initiative doesn't get more actions than one with lower initiative. It's a metagame device for assisting in the rationing of actions, and for flavour reasons it is linked to DEX to give a general vibe of reaction times. (But it's not really about reaction times, because having better initiative doesn't in itself help dodging, AC etc.)

Rerolled-each-round initiatives are the *only* answer here; every now and then you're going to get a good shot in, but not always right after Joe's just got his good shot in and Jane's cast her latest spell. It's not perfect, but at least it shoves the metagame a bit further into the background.

Gygax tends to write as if AD&D PCs aren't aware of XP. He strongly implies that, in the fiction, killing monsters and looting treasure isn't what is making you a better fighter or cleric or magic-user.

He wrote that, but I'm not sure I agree with him if only because he also had training rules; and how does a character know when she needs to go train up if she's not aware of gaining the potential (i.e. level-bumping) to become better at what she does. It's only hard to rationalize for the martial types, really. Clerics and Wizard-types all have structured training tiers (levels), ditto Thieves and their ilk, ditto Monks and Bards.

I don't think that any of this makes D&D a storygame. It just shows that D&D has metagame mechanics.

It certainly does. That said, when one can find a way to somehow push them into the background, I think one should.

The single biggest violator of this principle, in the typical D&D game, is the decision to go and explore this location/problem, with these people, with an expectation that success is a real prospect. In other words, the basically protagonistic orientation of the PCs in most D&D play.

This is based on information that the character doesn't have, but is hugely salient to the player - namely, that I am here, at my friend's house, playing a player character in a FRPG where the GM opposite me has prepared some sort of gameworld or scenario or whatever for the rest of us to engage with via our PCs.

Perhaps, but there's in-game character-knowledge ways around all this too.

Example: when the party start out they don't coalesce independently, someone puts (or forces) them together and orders them into a mission; and those giving the orders at least sort of know the success chances of the party. Pathfinder, of all games, almost bakes this in with the whole Pathfinder Society thing; and it's one aspect of that setting that really helps explain the existence of adventuring parties.

Lan-"relying on healin' magic since 1984"-efan

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The single biggest violator of this principle, in the typical D&D game, is the decision to go and explore this location/problem, with these people, with an expectation that success is a real prospect. In other words, the basically protagonistic orientation of the PCs in most D&D play.

I've heard of this one before, but I never really bought into it. I mean, they actually did call this one out somewhere in one of the books as pretty much the definition of meta-gaming - you shouldn't assume that every monster is beatable (by you, now), or that every challenge can be overcome, just because you're playing the game. It's fallacious to assume that the world is level-appropriate to you.

Of course, that's definitely going to vary by edition. Starting at least as early as 3E, and even moreso with 4E, they really hammered on the idea that the DM should be building encounters for the party to face.

 

[Mark CMG]

I don't think that any of this makes D&D a storygame. It just shows that D&D has metagame mechanics.

These are two different things (metagaming / player authorial control) and the conflating of them has caused a lot of the confusion in this thread. As I have said before, the OP of this thread is about "Character play vs Player play" (players metagaming) while the side discussion is about (trad) RPGs turned RPGs with storytelling elements turned full-fledged storytelling games. No one (I don't think) is saying RPGs didn't have opportunities to metagame. What is being said, rather, is that opportunities by the rules for player authorial control (a very different thing from metagaming and not to be conflated with it) were added down the line and led to the genesis of storytelling games.

The post from which I am quoting is a textbook example of those two things (metagaming / player authorial control) being linked in a way that some others have taken as conflating them and it has driven the bulk of discussion in this thread for two weeks while I have repeatedly tried to explain they are two different things. Hussar has at this point pretty much said that almost anything the player does using his character affects the story ergo is a storytelling element thus storytelling elements were always in RPGs. Hopefully he will read your separation of those terms.

And, to be clear, a character can have resources of which the character is unaware (HP) and it not lead to player authorial control over the setting, though it might lead to metagaming of the character, but when the player has a resource which is actually above and beyond the character that allows for direct player authorial control over the setting (like "*" points) then one is venturing into the area of storytelling elements.