D&D 5E A case where the 'can try everything' dogma could be a problem

[FormerlyHemlock]

That makes you sound like a very unreasonable OneTrueWay kind of gamer.

OneTrueWayism is about imposing your preferences on other people. Having strong preferences isn't OneTrueWayism. "De gustibus non disputandum est."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That makes you sound like a very unreasonable OneTrueWay kind of gamer.

There's one way for me to play, and there's one way that I'll run a game at my table. You can have your own game, your way, but keep it away from me.

We each have our own preferences for how to play, and it will be a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved if we play with others who are like-minded. What 5E has attempted with its numerous options and dials, and in no small part thanks to that one side-bar, is in establishing a game that we can each play at our own tables where we won't have to deal with each other.

You acknowledge that it is already part of the RP process to exclude player knowledge from IC decision-making. You're doing it as a matter of course, player-visible resources from hps to turn-based action economies to x/day abilities, even narrative-power resources, don't change that, they just give you tools.

There's some information which the player might regrettably possess, which should be locked away from the character - things like the shape of the map and how much of it remains unrevealed, or the particular vulnerabilities of a given monster. When doing so, there's still enough information remaining for which the characters to make informed decisions.

If you try to extend that in such a way that characters can't see the reality which corresponds to their HP, or spell slots, or how often they can use their abilities; then there's not enough information left in order to make reasonable decisions. At that point, the character is no longer justified in deciding whether to engage or to flee, or in asking for a Cure spell, or making any of the decisions that we are tasked with making on their behalf.

There is no evidence to the contrary, from within the fiction. That's how the system models genre heroism. You & I know are characters are very likely to survive what look like great risks, but they don't, we get to RP them being brave/committed/determined/ambitious/foolhardy/whatever enough to take on those risks, rather than RP them pragmatically analyzing the meta-game.

The evidence is from every prior combat, where the hero could count and survive four or more meaningful impacts before falling. If the player is making the decision on an out-of-character level, and the character is forced to demonstrate bravery or determination to justify that, then you've excluded the possibility of playing a cautious or weak-willed character... in a game where we have a stat that correlates to bravery and determination and strength of will.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's one way for me to play, and there's one way that I'll run a game at my table. You can have your own game, your way, but keep it away from me.

Yet 5e is trying to be a game for a wider audience. At worst, if it puts in something you don't like, you opt out of it.

We each have our own preferences for how to play, and it will be a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved if we play with others who are like-minded.

It'll certainly be a more limited experience if you play exclusively in that sort of echo-chamber. Personally, I don't find such tight & absolute categories necessary nor even valid. Somewhat different styles easily co-exist at the same table, it's only extreme attitudes that get in the way and need to self-segregate. Which is fine, at the table level - at the game-design level, it's dictating to everyone how to play.

If you try to extend that in such a way that characters can't see the reality which corresponds to their HP, or spell slots, or how often they can use their abilities; then there's not enough information left in order to make reasonable decisions.

Thing is, you have the information, and you can decide which of it, how much of it, and with what confidence your character knows the corresponding things in the fiction. So if you have a luck-based re-roll available, you might decide to consider it IC (the character is 'feeling lucky') or you might decide that's out of character (maybe the character believes "there's no such thing as luck").

The evidence is from every prior combat, where the hero could count and survive four or more meaningful impacts before falling.

Maybe if he's a statistician. But, people don't usually think that way, they give greater meaning to some events or possibilities than others. It's easy to think that way about a PC who's just a collection of stats, but we're already assuming we're making IC, not meta-game, decisions.

If the player is making the decision on an out-of-character level, and the character is forced to demonstrate bravery or determination to justify that, then you've excluded the possibility of playing a cautious or weak-willed character

We've been going on the premise that you make decisions on the IC level, so if the character is brave, he acts brave, even when he has no way of knowing he's virtually invulnerable ATM for some meta-game reason, if he's cowardly, he acts cowardly even in the same circumstance.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It'll certainly be a more limited experience if you play exclusively in that sort of echo-chamber. Personally, I don't find such tight & absolute categories necessary nor even valid.

Consensus on what the rules mean is not even part of the game; it's just an agreement about which game you're actually playing, to get everyone on the same page so that we can talk about the game in the same language. The actual game is about what happens after you all meet in a tavern.

We've been going on the premise that you make decisions on the IC level, so if the character is brave, he acts brave, even when he has no way of knowing he's virtually invulnerable ATM for some meta-game reason, if he's cowardly, he acts cowardly even in the same circumstance.

If you treat HP as meta-game information, then it's out of character for a brave character to back away from a fight just because it has few HP remaining. Such characters are extremely prone to death. Likewise, a cowardly character would be disinclined to ever enter combat, because it's unaware of the reality that death is unlikely. Such characters are boring, because they never do anything risky.

The middle ground, where characters can observe the information and make decisions based on it, is a much more interesting way of playing.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you treat HP as meta-game information, then it's out of character for a brave character to back away from a fight just because it has few HP remaining. Such characters are extremely prone to death.

Those would be very extreme ways to play a character, yes.

The middle ground, where characters can observe the information and make decisions based on it, is a much more interesting way of playing.

I don't think that's exactly the middle-ground. PCs aren't using the scientific method to collect data about how many arrows they can be 'hit' by before dropping, they're just living in your DM's fantasy world, with, presumably, a wealth of detailed life history neither he nor you have the time or inclination to come up with in detail.

Hps are necessarily meta-game information, but how you use it is up to you. If you want to draw a stark line in the sand and never use it, you get different results than if you decide to meta-game with it, or decide to integrate it partially somehow. You could decide a brave character at 3 hps is starting to remember the value of 'discretion' while a cowardly one at full hps is maybe willing to take a calculated risk, if there's no other way. Rather than hps being quantitative, as they are for you, they could reflect imagined qualitative or subjective judgements on the part of the character. Even that compromise, though, allows you to make decisions for the character that are /in/-character. You're just also making conscious determinations about what would be in-character - as you must, for instance, any time you play a character who isn't just exactly like you.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

If the GM writes it up in advance, the players are discovering what went on in the GM's head. Either way, the players are discovering something about the GM's creation, and the GM is not discovering anything - s/he is inventing.

Thanks for the conversation--it's helped me figure out what it is that I'm trying to get at.

Let's start with what you said here, because it is a key. The GM cannot both discover/explore something and create/invent it at the same time.

I think that you are correct in that, and I think it can apply equally to players. If you are creating you are not discovering.

I'm not sure why, from the point of view of exploration, it matters to the players when the GM invented the material that the players are discovering.

You haven't explained why timing matters.

I've decided that timing doesn't matter.

What matters is whether the GM is creating material in direct response to player choices. If he does so, the players are creating the world rather than discovering it.

As an example, let's say that there are 6 taverns at a particular waterfront that the characters are wandering around in. The GM knows that there is certain NPC in the area that the players or their characters have some reason to want to interact or not interact with. They walk into the first tavern. The GM chooses one of two methods to determine whether or not the NPC is there.

1) He decides what makes sense from the perspective of the world, regardless of any considerations directly derived from the PCs or their players. He can do this by referencing pre-existing information about the NPC, or he can make it up on the spot. But if he makes it up on the spot it has nothing to do with the PCs or their players. In order to assist him in doing this, he might want to assign a likelihood and randomly determine it with dice. It's a way for him to keep himself from being influenced by those other factors.
2) He can decide that the NPC is there (or not) based on what would be the most desirable, interesting, or plot-advancing to the PCs or their players.

In the latter case the GM is creating the content in reaction to the PCs or players, and therefore they are in effect creating it. You walk into a dark cave. You have an aspect (er...flaw) "Deathly afraid of spiders." Are there going to be giant spiders in that cave? Yep! Take a Fate point (er, I mean Inspiration).

Either situation is fun to play (for me at least), but they are most definitely extremely different experiences. If the GM bases his creative activity on the PCs or players, they are creating the world, and therefore they aren't discovering it.

From the rest of your post (back on page 13), it looks like you were primarily discussing the timing, so we may not have any current disagreement. I thought it was important, though, to share exactly what the relevant elements were for me: which is whether players are creating or discovering the world.

 

[pemerton]

A character doesn't know he has 40 hps. He knows that he's more skillful and lucky than most in a fight, but he never knows when that luck may run out, or when he may face someone with greater skill.

You & I know are characters are very likely to survive what look like great risks, but they don't, we get to RP them being brave/committed/determined/ambitious/foolhardy/whatever enough to take on those risks, rather than RP them pragmatically analyzing the meta-game.

I think approaching the game, and the play of PCs, in the way you describe here makes for a more satisfying experience than treating hit points as a literal, in-fiction, ablative protection.

There's some information which the player might regrettably possess, which should be locked away from the character - things like the shape of the map and how much of it remains unrevealed, or the particular vulnerabilities of a given monster. When doing so, there's still enough information remaining for which the characters to make informed decisions.

If you try to extend that in such a way that characters can't see the reality which corresponds to their HP, or spell slots, or how often they can use their abilities; then there's not enough information left in order to make reasonable decisions. At that point, the character is no longer justified in deciding whether to engage or to flee, or in asking for a Cure spell, or making any of the decisions that we are tasked with making on their behalf.

This isn't really consistent with my experiences. In Rolemaster, for instance, the deadliness of a combat can be very random - there are open-ended attack rolls, choice about how much of one's combat bonus to allocate to defence vs offence, crit rolls, etc. Players can't easily know the outcomes of combat, though they can have a general sense of whether or not their odds are good or poor.

In real life, some people choose to take risks and others choose not to, although they don't have the sort of information that you are saying hit points provide to characters in the gameworld.

Yet 5e is trying to be a game for a wider audience.

<snip>

I don't find such tight & absolute categories necessary nor even valid. Somewhat different styles easily co-exist at the same table, it's only extreme attitudes that get in the way and need to self-segregate. Which is fine, at the table level - at the game-design level, it's dictating to everyone how to play.

Your last sentence is true only if everyone has to play the same game the same way.

Different tables can play different games. That has commercial implications for game publishers, but isn't a problem from the aesthetic point of view.

Different tables playing the same game can also play it differently. From these boards, for instance, there's clearly a wide range of approaches to D&D play. Just look, in this thread, at how different D&D GMs handle the issue of knowledge skills and dispensing backstory to the players.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Your last sentence is true only if everyone has to play the same game the same way.

As in organized play, for instance? True. But, no one /has/ to play the same game, let alone play the same game the same way or with all the same options. The more a game narrows it's focus and the fewer options it presents (the more it depends on GMs self-authoring variants instead of just opting in or out of existing ones), the more likely it is to be played only the certain way it's focusing on, and only by people who just want to play that way.

5e's goal was not to be that kind of game, and it does present a lot of nominal 'modules' as options, and give the DM a great deal of latitude to make ruling and change rules, even building the need for rulings into the core resolution mechanic. Excluding whole categories (real or imagined) of mechanics would be at odds with that.

 

[pemerton]

What matters is whether the GM is creating material in direct response to player choices. If he does so, the players are creating the world rather than discovering it.

<snip>

In the latter case the GM is creating the content in reaction to the PCs or players, and therefore they are in effect creating it.

<snip>

If the GM bases his creative activity on the PCs or players, they are creating the world, and therefore they aren't discovering it.

As I was falling asleep last night, in my head I was drafting a response to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION], and more generally to the GNS strand of this conversation. I don't have time to type it up now, but what you say here touches on part of what I was thinking of.

(1) It seems to me that the more a GM is adapting the fictional content that s/he is authoring to the particular choices of the players (including PC builds, action declarations, etc) then - everything else being equal - the less sim the game, and the more likely it is either gamist or "story now".

As a concrete illustration, on many threads on these boards over the years I've read posters talking about writing up an adventure before the players have brought along their PCs. Whereas I prepare in relation to the PCs the players have built (or, in the case of my 4e campaign, at the beginning of the campaign I instructed the players to build PCs which had a reason to be ready to fight goblins, given that the first adventure I was preparing involved a goblin raid on a homestead).

(2) My experience of GM responsiveness to player cues is different from yours - it's not the player's creating, because their cues are mediated through the GM's own interpretations and determinations. Plus there is the roll of the dice - if the PCs go into the first tavern but fail their Streetwise (or Circles, or whatever) test, then instead of the NPC they're looking for something goes wrong. I think that's a type of discovery, mutual between players and GM.

 

[Tony Vargas]

As I was falling asleep last night, in my head I was drafting a response to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION], and more generally to the GNS strand of this conversation.

I'm so sorry to have put you through that.

(1) It seems to me that the more a GM is adapting the fictional content that s/he is authoring to the particular choices of the players (including PC builds, action declarations, etc) then - everything else being equal - the less sim the game, and the more likely it is either gamist or "story now".

By that standard, I ran 4e as more sim than I did AD&D or do 5e. That doesn't sound right to me, somehow.

Hm.

I find that if you're shifting your story around to deal with things like PC builds, you're just compensating for a game that rewards system mastery maybe a bit too lavishly, but, if you're adapting the story to the players' character concepts and choices I can see that being more collaborative ST (and more style than necessity).

OTOH, I'll often provide pre-gens when I run at cons. If it's for an intro game, that's just to make it easy on the players, but I'll also go the pregen route when the story demands certain PC relationships and interactions, to make sure the right backstories are in place. In both cases it takes choice away from the players, but not for 'sim' purposes.

:shrug: