D&D General On Skilled Play: D&D as a Game

[EzekielRaiden]

Why? Because they are VERY SIMILAR RPGS! They follow extremely similar models and basically have pretty much the same design at a high level! There are 2 participant roles, GM and Player, the functions of those roles are very similar and can shade into each other, etc. It gets a LOT HARDER when you start into very different games.

If this is true, then we have answered the original question without any need for my (apparently faulty) "there are no hybrid sports" argument. That is, the reason people try to combine TTRPGs together is, quite simply, that most TTRPGs are remarkably similar things. Combining them together is both easy and, oftentimes, fairly natural.

How about adding wandering monsters and turn-based exploration to a LARP? That's closer to combining baseball and futbol!

Assuming people agree with this sentiment (and they might not), this implies that TTRPG merging is common for exactly the same reason that hybrid sports are (apparently) a thing: people with divergent-but-not-incompatible interests trying to do a thing together. Which is exactly the situation I've described several times, a GM trying to include their actor (or a simulationist, or whatever) friend in a game because they don't want to leave that person out.

I think there is abstract and there is 'intangible'. Intangible things are not necessarily abstractions. I would not consider 'Love' an abstraction. Nor would I consider 'Shared Fiction' an abstraction, but both are intangible.

I would absolutely consider "love" an abstraction: while it is quite common to discuss specific instances of "love," we very frequently speak of it in terms shorn of context and without specific individual examples. "He'd had a bad breakup, but after a grieving period, he went out to find love again." That's "love" in a clearly abstract sense. Or, despite the definition being EXTREMELY specific and useful, 1st Corinthians 13 is very specifically about "love" in an abstract sense, not tied to any specific relationship between individuals but describing the general character of "love" wherever it appears:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13:4-7, NIV)

We are not given, "In <specific trying situation,> love <does patient act.>" We are given, "Love is patient." That is, clearly and explicitly, an abstracted quality--patience--that reflects the pattern of behavior called "love." (Or Charity, if you want to be old school on this one.)

Abstractions have a character in which they 'abstract away' some of the properties of various specific things such that those things can be lumped together to form the abstraction.

Ironically, we seem to have a clash of definitions here. That is, as a verb, "to abstract" has the idea of "removing" properties from things as its primary sense, and the sense of considering an idea alone without specific implementations or instances is distinctly secondary. But as a noun, "abstraction" primarily refers to "the act of considering something as a general quality or characteristic, apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances" (per Dictionary.com), while the "take away stuff" sense is secondary.

In one sense, TTRPG rules are absolutely abstractions: they literally exist as general qualities and characteristics apart from concrete realities, because you use those rules in order to generate "concrete realities" (for a given definition of "concrete"), aka statblocks, character sheets, items, spells, etc. In the other, they are not abstracted, in that there is nothing being "removed" from them--indeed, they are your foundation, which you them build out from.

I have a really good handle on this, I make my living doing it as a highly accomplished developer. I will build an API, a specification for how code can accomplish certain tasks. It can abstract away the differences between files, a database, some cloud-based storage, etc. and present it all purely in terms of naming things, iterating, finding, storing, and reading, without regard to the vast differences between the abstracted things. RPGs certainly have abstractions as well, maybe of a slightly different character, but pretty similar. 4e or 5e have skill systems where you roll a d20, apply some modifiers, and compare the result to a DC. Every application of skills works the same, that is an abstraction. If I invented a new skill for 5e, it would hook right in, just make a check, even though it might involve your character's ability to carve headstones or something instead of jump long distances reliably.

This is a genuinely interesting comparison, but I feel you are excessively broadening the software development use of "abstraction" to apply everywhere else.

What am I trying to accomplish? What are the principles of play? What is the process? NOW, knowing that, really understanding it, do I have a reason to add 'Wandering Monsters' to my non-classic-D&D game? What are they going to accomplish for me? OK, what is the whole process that needs to exist, how do the pieces of game engine fit together to produce my goal? Wandering Monsters are simply a mechanism, they are agenda-neutral in-and-of-themselves. So, maybe my hypothetical game needs an exploration process, and I have some reasons within that to add these monsters as a mechanic, OK.

Well, part of my thesis is that we have at least one answer to "what am I trying to accomplish?" right off the bat: I am trying to bring all my invited together in a TTRPG experience they can all enjoy. Because of that inherent goal before any previous considerations, THAT is why you would think about adding wandering monsters to a game, or spells, or whatever else--because you think that, by doing so, you might ameliorate the group's overall play-enjoyment without compromising the pre-existing enjoyment of specific players.

LOL, you kinda ninjaed me on this one.

I can--on occasion, with reluctance--get a good idea out quickly.

Right. going back over my DW rules, I don't see that anything really SPELLS OUT a player-facing agenda. Its a game, players are there to have fun. The game allows for PCs to increase in 'level', gain treasure, and presumably they could achieve various fictional accomplishments (become king, whatever). They are clearly adventurers.

IMO, the player-facing agendas are found in the inherent moves of each class, especially the alignment moves, and to a lesser extent the common moves everyone makes use of. The very existence of a move called "Undertake a Perilous Journey" implies that players have an interest in travel--some of it dangerous. Likewise, alignment moves specifically incline the player toward certain behavioral attitudes, rewarding them for fulfilling those behaviors. It's somewhat softer than a direct, explicit "YOU PLAY THIS TO DO X," but these things and their names/phrases communicate something to the player.

Honestly, at some level, as I've said before, classic D&D and DW are not diverging too much here. Both present the PCs and players with dangerous situations which may lead to rewards if challenged, though DW also emphasizes the PC's roles as heroes and the need for them to confront a living world and its dangers. A classic D&D character might theoretically become a shopkeeper, a DW character will never have that chance, some doom will overcome the world if he isn't there to fight against it!

Well, actually, I'm pretty sure there is some kind of shopkeeper Compendium Class out there. It could happen. You just wouldn't be the medieval equivalent of a 9-to-5 office worker. You're more like the player character of Recettear: yes, you run a shop, but you go adventuring off-hours to find the stuff you sell to people.

I can only conclude that 'skill in DW' is just 'being a good player', it doesn't specifically require any particular cleverness or thoughtful play in terms of overcoming the fiction. That might be something you want to do, probably will, but you could play DW beautifully and your character could be a total dolt who makes bad decisions at every turn!

I hesitate to default to "it just means be a good player," as that has some unfortunate implications (e.g., that for other games, "skilled play" is unrelated to being a good player...or worse) and is distinctly uninformative. That said, many of Dungeon World's rules really ARE focused on producing "good play," making "be a good player/DM" a more inherent and natural result of following the rules, so there is some merit to speaking of it this way.

I guess what I'd say is, "Dungeon World skilled play" is play where you live out the character as who they are, where they are. That's why (for example) people are supposed to always use character names, not player names. "Skilled play" involves keeping your head deep in the fiction, and knowing ways to leverage, expand upon, or push forward that fiction, while staying true to the tone and style of your group's game. E.g., my game is high on intrigue and low on grit, full of "learn about the ancient past" and mostly devoid of logistics-heavy stuff, serious in terms of storyline and morals but lighthearted in terms of humor/silliness and non-zero-sum results. Other games will differ, and part of "DW-SP" is learning, internalizing, and applying your table's tone+style effectively.

E.g., in a much more gritty (bordering on World of Dungeons) game, the party bard taking on his great-grandmother's succubus powers would have been a Start of Darkness moment, a terrible deed done for noble reasons. Or the time that the party helped some escaped girallons--the consequences of unleashing dangerous, fairly intelligent wild animals would be significant. But because this is a lighthearted game, the bard was doing a noble thing, allowing his great-grandmother to die as a mortal and eventually reunite with her human husband in the afterlife (presumably; nobody knows for sure how the afterlife works). And helping those girallons escape just meant they would, eventually, make their way back to the northern jungles they came from, avoiding settled areas because settled areas = people who might try to capture them again.

For games where a given character's story is central, being a good player does mean keeping yourself grounded in that--and DW is good at encouraging this. But I would be careful about just calling that "be a good player"...in the abstract. (Boom, tied it all together! hah)

 

[Cadence]

* More skilled/creative players will identify the weak spots in the defense and kick the ball were they ain't (as the adage goes).

* More skilled/creative players will be able to pre-kick pump fake/deke their intended placement of the ball as they're addressing it on the run-up (to lure the defense or a defender in a direction just like a QB in American Football manipulates a back 7 defender/Safety).

* Some players will be faster, more coordinated, have better arm strength/accuracy. All of these will have a decisive impact on both sides of the ball but particularly when playing defense (on the Venn Diagram with Dodgeball, there will be huge overlap in skill).

I had a different version of creative in my head. This helps immensely - thank you!

I'm sure you had a great time, but once you start going completely outside of the rules for your play, at a certain level of departure from the ruleset and the paradigm of play fundamentally means you aren't playing this particular game anymore. A game featuring F-14s (and any sort of decision-points/action resolution around aerial combat resolution of dogfights) simply isn't playing a Moldvay Basic Dungeon Crawl.

You can absolutely still bin it broadly under the D&D umbrella...but you aren't playing Moldvay Basic. So whatever statement being made about system or skillfulness deployed within a particular game ceases to have utility in the discussion of playing the actual game.

So, the F-14 feels more than a bit out of genre, but I think someone in the group had seen Barrier Peaks (it had space ships) and someone by that point had a DMG even if we didn't use it (it said how to use Gamma World, and we did have a copy of that).

But the offical rules were pretty wide open to that group of young teenager and pre-teens. The foreword offers...

"The players and the DM share in creating adventures in fantastic lands where heroes abound and magic really works. In a sense, the D&D game has no rules, only rule suggestions. No rule is inviolate, particularly if a new or altered rule will encourage creativity and imagination. The important thing is to enjoy the adventure."

and backs it up in the second column of B3 and the DM hints on page B60.

Going further, I doubt we remembered the inspirational reading list on B62 at the time, but Wizard of Oz and Narnia (which we knew) and Barsoom, 3H&3L, the Incomplete Enchanter, and Karl Treuherz (which we didn't) are certainly ok with world traveling.

 

[pemerton]

I have virtually no interest in Gygaxian skilled play as it is usually described, often focusing on plodding procedural simulationism as means of exploring a fictional environment. (I acknowledge the other aspects of GSP identified in this thread, but for me the above epitomizes the style.) Such play demands thorough and precise preplanned GM notes to be fair to players, and that is a style of play I have moved further and further from in recent years, enthusiastically.

Dungeon World, by contrast, has SP of another sort. I would say its greatest strength is facilitating skilled play of thematic material important to PCs. Some examples of this are open to any character, completely outside of mechanical build, like the Basic Moves Spout Lore and Discern Realities. These are moves by which a player can choose to emphasize or introduce fiction when they believe it is important (though the roll of dice rather than fiat determines the nature of that fiction, beneficial or otherwise). Other moves are entirely build dependent, in the sense of optimizing characters, like the Paladin's choice of Smite as an advanced move (additional damage inflicted when on a quest). What is so very compelling to me about both these types of moves is their capacity for the player, through their deployment, to exhibit SP by creating the fiction they want now ("Story Now" play), or at least make the attempt to do so, rather than test the player's skill in anticipating/navigating preset GM notes (traps, riddles, and the like). The timing of when to put things to the mechanical test in DW in this way can absolutely be a gauge of SP.

Bracketing for the moment the degree and nature of skill involved in playing Dungeon World, this sets out the reasons why I think it's helpful to have a label for Gygaxian skilled play. For better or worse that sort of play is a real thing in RPGing, which continues to cast a significant shadow over the hobby due to its place in the history of RPGing. And so we need to be able to talk about it, if only to draw the contrast between it and the sort of RPGing we prefer.

SP is evident in resource management in the game as another instance, resource here being broadly defined as the collective rules for encumbrance, Coin, gear and ration management (when both are resources that ablate; sure, you don't need to "purchase 10 pitons" when gearing out, but every time you make use of a piece of equipment, that's one less use of your abstracted Adventuring Gear available to you), and Cohorts/Hirelings.

<snip>

All of this falls within the purview of SP, I would say, in the sense that we, as players, make these decisions in an attempt to steer the fiction towards our desired outcome, by making difficult decisions between an array of appealing but mutually exclusive choices, each of which carries its attendant risk.

To an extent I feel the force of what @AbdulAlhazred has said about this: even if the players "get it wrong", they won't lose the game.

In some ways, therefore, I see it as a bit like daily resource management in 4e. Or making a check in Burning Wheel. If you get it wrong you mightn't get the fiction that you wanted, but you don't lose the game. Which I think is a clear contrast with - say - White Plume Mountain.

Obviously there are a lot of ways to slice and dice SP. I mean, I agree with you and others that there is a lot of player skill in a lot of areas, even in classic D&D. I felt bound by the OP in terms of engaging with HIS definition (though he then kind of held my input up as a model of what he didn't want to see, lol, oh well...). Anyway, there were a lot of areas where you could exercise skill in classic D&D. It could be in terms of what items you had/got, character 'build' in other areas (not a lot of options, but there are some), equipment, spell selection, party composition, selection of henchmen/hirelings, as well as selection of what sorts of objectives to go after when adventuring. I mean, the MOST BASIC skill of all, AFAIK, was knowing when to call it quits and bug out for town! All of these involve an understanding of the 'environment', the GM, the rules, and 'being clever', as well as just basic planning skills.

A lot of this is part of much RPGing - eg Burning Wheel cares about this stuff; so does Rolemaster (though less coherently).

I think the key question is the one you brought up, I think in a later post: how does it bear upon winning or losing?

My PC in BW isn't a total dolt, but I don't play him as I would have to play my character to win at ToH. Because I'm relying on the principles and procedures of play to carry me through. I have more BW than DW experience, but I would expect DW to be closer to BW than to Gygaxian skilled play in this respect.

 

[Manbearcat]

Bracketing for the moment the degree and nature of skill involved in playing Dungeon World, this sets out the reasons why I think it's helpful to have a label for Gygaxian skilled play. For better or worse that sort of play is a real thing in RPGing, which continues to cast a significant shadow over the hobby due to its place in the history of RPGing. And so we need to be able to talk about it, if only to draw the contrast between it and the sort of RPGing we prefer.

I definitely agree with this. I do think we should keep the "Gygaxian" appended to "Skilled Play" for when we talk specifically about that skillset and its impact on play.

To an extent I feel the force of what @AbdulAlhazred has said about this: even if the players "get it wrong", they won't lose the game.

In some ways, therefore, I see it as a bit like daily resource management in 4e. Or making a check in Burning Wheel. If you get it wrong you mightn't get the fiction that you wanted, but you don't lose the game. Which I think is a clear contrast with - say - White Plume Mountain.

This I don't agree with and, quite honestly, @AbdulAlhazred 's commentary on this subject has me completely bewildered as to what is happening at his table to have him push his chips "all in" on this position (a position I can't find the least bit substantive evidence for in the text and certainly not in my running of the game).

I mentioned upthread how sensitive the trajectory of play is to the 7-9 result (by design). Consequently, managing the move-space prior to a move such that you can winnow the potential consequences/costs/fallout before declaring an act is a huge part of playing skillfully. Then managing the decision-points (including answering GM questions) inherent to Costs and Complications is a huge part of playing skillfully. Skill in manipulating/managing this game of Spinning Plates (which includes martialing and managing limited resources to curtail certain fallout and to open up the move-space for your PC or Team PC broadly) is a huge part of play.

How resource management plays into this is no "small potatoes:"

* Do you spend your dwindling Adventuring Gear to open up the move-space (to make a move that otherwise wouldn't be available to you) or amplify a presently available move in a snowballing scenario here...or save it for a future scenario where the stakes are increased (which may not emerge)?

* Do you spend your Bag of Books to augment your Spout Lore move in a snowballing scenario where you need at least something interesting if not something both interesting and useful to change the trajectory of the conflict?

* Spend your lone Healing Potion to get rid of a pressing Debility that is haranguing your "big guns" moves or save it for when you desperately need the 10 HP NOW in a later situation (or vice versa)?

* If you're a Paladin swearing an oath on an Ancient Blue Dragon Slaying quest and you have 2 Boons and one of them is invulnerability to x, do you make that x Dragon Fear, Lightning, or Toothy Maw?

* If you're a Wizard and you have an absolutely crucial Protective Counterspell move you're making to save an allied PC or Cohort...what spell do you stake?...and what about the decisions prior to that in managing 7-9 complications - accepting Danger vs -1 ongoing Spellcasting vs Losing the Spell which will winnow you're already, certainly compared to Classic D&D, small pool of spells available for subsequent moves and for Counterspelling?

* And if you're Defending as a Fighter or a Paladin, managing your Hold is hugely consequential on play.

* And if you're a Druid, managing your Hold for moves is also hugely consequential on play.

* And if I have a Messy Complication that will cost me my Scale Armor or an ongoing Debility in my primary attribute...which do I choose?

* And if I spend Coin on Adventuring Gear and Ammo, or if I spend Coin on this Wizard Ritual to enchant my shield, I now can't hire this Guide or this Porter or this Man-at-Arms.

* And if I'm surrounded by 4 bad guys and I get a 10+ on Hack and Slash, do I take the extra +1d6 damage to eat the counterattack (HPs as a resource here) so I can get 1d10 and +1d6 on a big cleaving attack on each of them to potentially take them all out (is the risk vs the reward)?

* And which question do I ask in my 7-9 Discern Realities (where I get 1 Hold and +1 forward when acting on the answers) to best ensure I open up the movespace for me or my team and then amplify that movespace with the +1 forward.

* How do you spend your Choose 2/1 on Perilous Journey moves/roles (eg, if you're a Scout do you preemptively spend it to get the jump on a Danger that may or may not manifest as a result of the downstream Navigate move?)?


I can go on and on and on with the cognitive overhead management that is extremely consequential in constraining GM Complication/Cost framing, opening up your own or your team's move-space, and managing the array of Complications/Costs that come at you when the "Spinning Plates" aspect of play goes full-throated (which includes martialing resources or managing limited resources with considerations for now, downstream, risk/reward, stakes and sunk cost).

My PC in BW isn't a total dolt, but I don't play him as I would have to play my character to win at ToH. Because I'm relying on the principles and procedures of play to carry me through. I have more BW than DW experience, but I would expect DW to be closer to BW than to Gygaxian skilled play in this respect.

On this I would say that Dungeon World Skilled Play looks like this in terms of breakdown:

BLADES IN THE DARK: 65 %
BW/DOGS: 30 %
GYGAXIAN: 5 %

Why 2/3 Blades?

Because managing Costs/Complications and managing the move-space/stakes (the ability to trigger moves and negotiating Position and Effect basically) and martialing/managing resources within the scope of that process is paramount in both games.

 

[Cadence]

I wasn't at your table. But I am guessing that you used techniques that are not stated by Gygax in his AD&D books - including one you mention in your post, of choosing player goals.

I had forgotten how prescriptive the 1e PhB is by RAW. It feels like it is going to invite the player to do some non-mechanical creation... "and possibly give some family background (and name a next of kin as heir to the possessions of the character if he or she should meet an untimely death) to personify the character." The DMG total power over secondary skills (if used) to the DM and that the age was explicitly random.

Probably also for resolving player actions, unless all the action took place in a classic dungeon.

Does 1e even have ability check suggested like B/X does?

:-/ We were doing a boatload more adding of stuff than we thought!

And B/X and 2e were a lot different by RAW from 1e on the actually running the game parts than I remembered.

 

[Manbearcat]

IMO, the player-facing agendas are found in the inherent moves of each class, especially the alignment moves, and to a lesser extent the common moves everyone makes use of. The very existence of a move called "Undertake a Perilous Journey" implies that players have an interest in travel--some of it dangerous. Likewise, alignment moves specifically incline the player toward certain behavioral attitudes, rewarding them for fulfilling those behaviors. It's somewhat softer than a direct, explicit "YOU PLAY THIS TO DO X," but these things and their names/phrases communicate something to the player.

Yeah. That's right.

• The entirety of How to Play but particularly 15-18 and The Adventurer's Life page 38 - 41.
• Bonds.
• Alignment.
• End of Session Move.
• Playbook thematics and move-space.
• The basic moves + the structured conversation of play being as transparent as can be.
• The fact that its all in one tome (so literally everything is Table-Facing) and the Play Agenda and GMing principles couldn't be more explicit
• How easy it is to connect the dots on how all of these things intersect.

 

[Manbearcat]

I'm going to do a quick (lol?) post that hopefully will demonstrate the constituent parts of Skilled Play of Dungeon World in action.

A single decision-point that should express the various aspects of system:

* We're in the BBEG Wizard's banquet/theatre hall which features a 3rd story landing with an ingress/egress into/out of the room and a pair of stairs leading to the ground floor on either side of the landing. There is a huge light fixture set in the middle of the room. There are a pair of 3rd floor mezzanines on either side (both with ingress/egress). There is the stage.

* Team PC's Fighter is on the landing and is about to be swarmed from all 3 sides by 4 HP mooks.

* Team PC's Wizard is on one of the 3rd floor mezzanines with Team PC Man-At-Arms Cohort. Wizard and Cohort are being besieged by a 30 ft Construct that threatens them both.

* Team PC's Ranger Animal Companion are running interference on the ground level trying to Volley down the minions assaulting the Fighters position and trying to harass the BBEG up on the stage who is in the middle of casting a room-wide AoE Dominate Spell.

* Fighter has a bond with Ranger/Animal Companion about repaying them for prior deliverance of Fighter from a great danger.

* Fighter also has a bond with the Cohort about a vision from Fighter's weapon about a threat to Wizard that Cohort would intercede. This led to the decision to (a) ensure that Cohort sticks to the Wizard like glue (to protect Wizard) and also led to Fighter writing a bond about a noble sacrifice from Cohort.

* Fighter is also sworn (Alignment) to Defend those weaker than them (both the Wizard and the Cohort are weaker).

* Fighter also has 16/26 reduced HP and only 1 Adventuring Gear left.

---

So there are a lot of various incentive structures at play here.

1) If that spell goes off, it has potentially devastating implications for Team PC; tide-turning, TPKing potential depending upon Defy Danger results.

2) Fighter abandoning the chokepoint brings about multiple tactical and thematic issues; (1) Fighter is built to hold-off choke points and deal huge AoE cleaves to multiple enemies with her polearm (Reach + 1d10+2 + 1d8 Bloodthirsty)...she could just annihilate mooks in droves, (2) leaving that chokepoint creates huge battlefield control problems generally and specifically for the ranged DPS Ranger, (3) Fighter has a bond about delivering Ranger from danger.

If Fighter abandons Ranger, that says something about Fighter's lack of instinct to fulfill oaths or protect allies she owes a duty to...or perhaps their orientation toward each other specifically (possibly trust/lack of trust).

3) Fighter only has 1 precious Adventuring Gear left. If Fighter would have spent this earlier (there was ample opportunity), she wouldn't be able to open up the move-space to the move she is considering; spend the final Adventuring Gear to pull a rope and grapnel from her pack to Indiana Jones across to the mezzanine after affixing the grapnel to the hanging light fixture. Her decision to retain that Adventuring Gear for a higher stakes situation later is now showing up as a crucial decision.

4) Fighter has the bond about Cohort's sacrifice. There are a few issues here:

(i) There is no guarantee that Cohort will be able to protect the Wizard so the Wizard can get Protective Counterspell off to potentially shield each ally from the Wizard's AoE Dominate. At only a +1, the odds of getting a 6 aren't terrible, but they aren't formiddable.

(ii) Even if Cohort gets the 7-9 Defend result for 1 Hold, that colossal is going to obliterate them...its straight dirtnap...but fulfilling Fighter's prophecy and bond.

(iii) However, this Cohort is a huge investment emotionally for Team PC. They've been with them forever and they're family. Further, losing them so early in the fight could have huge downstream implications.

(iv) The Fighter will be almost surely be able to get over there (+3 Str, take +1 Adv Gear) with Defy Danger Str for the move here and due to Seeing Red (+1 DR in battle), they've got +1 Forward when acting on the answers about the Construct, so their Defend move will be +2 Con +1 forward for +3...hugely formiddable. A great chance to at least get the 1 hold to redirect the attack but also a very good chance to get 3 Hold to reduce it to half and then deal (lets say this Fighter is 8th level) 8 damage back in return or give the Wizard +1 forward on their counterspell.

(v) Finally, it would say something thematic about the Fighter; the Fighter is a "Destiny Defier" as she is able to undo her weapon's visions of fate and put her own stamp on the future.

(vi) If somehow things go catastrophically wrong on the initial Defy Danger (its an extremely remote chance, but its possible), suddenly the Fighter has "abandoned her post" only to not put into her effect her plan (protecting the Wizard) and has made matters worse with a new complication she has to deal with!

(vii) Or perhaps the Fighter only gets a 7-9 on the Defend move and takes a ton of damage from the Construct because she can't half the attack. Or perhaps she eats some sort of 7-9 complication on the Indiana Jones move over (either her Healing Potion falls out of its sheathe or her polearm is lost, clangs to the ground and hopefully the Ranger can recover it and fling it up to her, forcing her to rely upon her Xiphos/Gladius until she can retrieve the polearm).

---

So that is a lot of cognitive overhead for the Fighter player to consider and manage within a singular decision-point (including the past consideration of saving that Adventuring Gear prior to open up the movespace for this Indiana Jonesesque Defy Danger move to get her in position to Defend the Wizard at all). And that isn't even getting into the Wizard's spell loadout decisions in order to put into effect a Protective Counterspell (or even the decision to take Protective Counterspell) or the Wizard's prior decisions on Cast a Spell move (eg accepting Danger or -1 ongoing to cast vs "Lose the Spell" in order to ensure a robust loadout for just this sort of future situation where you're going to likely need to stake multiple spells for Protective Counterspell efforts.

And what is the Ranger and Animal Companion going to do in the interim.

Etc etc.

 

[clearstream]

I'm going to do a quick (lol?) post that hopefully will demonstrate the constituent parts of Skilled Play of Dungeon World in action.

Great example. I had the thought that perhaps rolls and resources validate that players are skillful.

Let your example stand, but with no rolls and no tracked resources: just DM/player fiat. That could be vulnerable to concerns about second-guessing, mutual back-rubbing, aren't-we-so-very-clever, that-wouldn't-work-at-our-table, etc. i.e. dismissals of skillfulness. Bring in some game mechanics - graded rolls, structured modifiers, tracked resources - and the group then is held to some kind of contract. They can be skillful in a way that others will recognise as skillful. In short, game mechanics validate player skill in a way that fiat cannot.

Were we to accept that validation is worthwhile - satisfying rather than dissatisfying, more reliably shared - then that might give useful context to other questions. Do some mechanics better validate SP than others? Which are necessary? Which are superfluous? Which dimensions of play are most apposite to validate? Are there as yet unfilled gaps, or current weaknesses, in validation?

 

[pemerton]

@Manbearcat

From your post, I'm not seeing the relationship between choices have consequences and skilled play.

First, I think we're agree that there is some RPGing where the former is not true (ie choices don't have consequences). That's probably a sufficient condition for there being no skilled play in that RPGing. (And we can weaken the strength of the generality: there is some RPGing where consequences are fairly feeble, and hence there is not much room for skilled play. A lot of 2nd ed AD&D would resemble this, especially out of combat.)

Second, I think we agree that the former doesn't entail the latter: that is, that the fact that choices have consequences isn't a sufficient condition of the RPGing involving skilled play. The former is true in Prince Valiant - choices certainly have consequences! But I don't think Prince Valiant supports skilled play in any meaningful sense beyond engaging sincerely with the fiction.

Perhaps more controversially, my view is that the fact that a system depends on choices about resources doesn't necessarily make it about skilled play. My poster child for this is 4e daily resources: 4e players have to make choices about these, and those choices ramify through into play and the outcomes of play; but I think the degree of GM control over framing and resulting rest schedule is such that players don't get to manifest much skill in those choices. Rather, by making these resource choices players get to (i) show their gumption, and (ii) exercise a degree of initiative over the fiction (this depends on good faith GM framing, similar to Burning Wheel in some ways).

My understanding of @AbdulAlhazred's point is similar: that if the GM is going to be applying pressure come what may (via framing and/or consequence narration) then players can't use skill to avoid or even really minimise that pressure, which is very different from the notion of "skilled play" at work in the Gygaxian tradition.

I'd be interested in your response to these thoughts, and how you see them bearing (if at all) on your DW example.

 

[Manbearcat]

Great example. I had the thought that perhaps rolls and resources validate that players are skillful.

Let your example stand, but with no rolls and no tracked resources: just DM/player fiat. That could be vulnerable to concerns about second-guessing, mutual back-rubbing, aren't-we-so-very-clever, that-wouldn't-work-at-our-table, etc. i.e. dismissals of skillfulness. Bring in some game mechanics - graded rolls, structured modifiers, tracked resources - and the group then is held to some kind of contract. They can be skillful in a way that others will recognise as skillful. In short, game mechanics validate player skill in a way that fiat cannot.

Were we to accept that validation is worthwhile - satisfying rather than dissatisfying, more reliably shared - then that might give useful context to other questions. Do some mechanics better validate SP than others? Which are necessary? Which are superfluous? Which dimensions of play are most apposite to validate? Are there as yet unfilled gaps, or current weaknesses, in validation?

I think you're not understanding what is happening in the example above because (a) there are several resources involved above, (b) the there is no GM fiat involved and (c) this is the navigation of a singular decision-point before action resolution (so it necessarily won't have action resolution involved) though it does weigh (i) the implications of using a resource to open up the move-space and (ii) the prospective downstream results (odds of success, odds of complication/cost, what kind of complications/costs) of operationalizing those next move(s) that have been newly opened up (which involve action resolution and its potentialities).

The resources involved:

• The Fighters Hit Points.
• The Cohorts HPs (or, much more likely, their life and status as being a present asset to the party in this conflict).
• Spending Hold on a Discern Realities move to open up move-space and get an attendant benefit (take +1 forward when acting upon it).
• Adventuring Gear.
• Hold spent on Defend.
• The loss of an important weapon vs the loss of an important potion.
• The Wizard's Hit Points (and possibly their life and status as being a present asset to the party in this conflict).
• The Wizard's move-space to deploy Protective Counterspell against the BBEG Wizard's AoE.
• The Wizard's individual Spells being staked in Counterspell attempts.
• The Ranger's and Ranger's Companion's Hit Points.
• The Ranger's ability to possess the move-space available to freely deploy their beefy Ranged damage.
• Several areas where relationships (bonds) and ethos (Alignment) would trigger (or not) xp at End of Session.
• The potential cost to relationships and to perception of self if certain moves are deployed (or not).
• Precious positioning and loss of the ability to deploy the apex damage of Team PC (eg the Fighter being in optimal position to melee AoE).
• Action economy and sunk cost (if you make this move and spend this resource, you're closing yourself out to this alternative).

I think I've caught it all (I'm working off memory and don't have time to read the entirety of the post again)?

Does it make sense how all of those things are resources to be weighed?

Where are you seeing GM Fiat (there is none...so what you're seeing is likely missing some system context)?