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

[clearstream]

At its most primordial level, playing skillfully is sorting through possible permutations of the move-space (whether its the opening move or a subsequent move) such that the outputs of your decision-point (your "move made") yield a gamestate that places you closer to a Win Condition than the inverse. Further still, you can play more or less skillfully here. To just put numbers to it for illustration, you have a Win Condition at value 30 and you have the following "move values"; -2, 4, 13. It will absolutely be clear upon honest and informed reflection of the play that the move equaling 13 units would have been profoundly better move than the move equaling 4 units and both would have been considerably better than the -2 gaffe (which moved you closer to a Loss Condition).

So, before I go any further, I'd like to ask a question (and get an answer) and make a proposition (and get an answer):

1) Do we at least agree with the above conception of skilled play? If not, can I get some clarification on disagreement?

Sincerely not to evade your question. We started a discussion on Win Conditions up thread (or maybe in another thread). I feel we need to get some resolution on that.

As importantly, do you want here to turn the conversation to skilful play, as opposed to "skilled play"? To be clear, I am on-board with claims that DW play can be skilful. I suggest some moves in DW will not count as "skilled play" however, because they seem orthogonal to "skilled play".

I suppose I am speaking of "skilled play" only in terms of being a label for preferring to see the game played in a certain way. It isn't about achieving a win condition or playing skillfully. Play can be unskilful "skilled play"!

That may answer your underlying concerns - that play can be unskilful "skilled play".

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Thanks for the correction re lacrosse. To what extent does its systematisation reflect parallel developments in other field sports in the nineteenth century?

Well, the original Native American game was basically a sort of 'sacred ball game'. It was a type of religious festivity which included a warlike component. The field was simply a LARGE area (sometimes up to several kilometers in size) where 2 sides engaged, with the teams ranging in size up to 1000 individuals. I'm not sure what other rules there were, but from these descriptions I'd say it only faintly resembled a European-style field sport.

Settlers began to take up and systematize the game from a pretty early point, and it is considered to be the oldest organized sport in North America (at least by some people). Modern rules have existed since the 1800's. The standard rules are for 'field lacrosse', although some other variations exist (indoor for instance, or 'box' lacrosse). As a field sport it has clearly seen heavy influence from other modern European field sports. The field is roughly the size of a soccer (football) field, there are goals near each end with playable space behind them (ala hockey) and each team is 10 people who are divided into goalie and offensive & defensive team members. The field is divided (again very similar to hockey) into 3 basic zones with rules governing who is allowed in each zone depending on position and possession of the ball, as well as rules concerning how long a team can possess the ball without taking offensive action, face offs, etc. As I say, the parallels with field hockey are quite strong.

So this shows how specific games can kind of 'merge' or cross-pollinate each other. Lacrosse actually means "the stick" in French, and was probably taken from the French name for field hockey (which I forget exactly, it is a phrase including the term "la crosse"). Field hockey itself was probably the precurser to ice hockey, and bears a pretty obvious relationship to football. In its primitive form it would presumably have been "football with sticks instead of feet." The salient part being hockey requires the stick to be used against a ball on the ground, and carried low. Lacrosse sticks are carried high, the ball is caught in the net on the stick and thrown. Otherwise they are pretty similar in a lot of ways.

i
On @EzekielRaiden's point more generally, I think he is comparing RPGs at a state similar to the early to mid nineteenth century re modern field sports, with those sports in their present ultra-codified and technicalised state. If you go back to the period when various forms of football were still emerging, with different rules about permissible kicks, handling, passing, etc, and different approaches to goal design and scoring rules, you might see more of the fluidity that still tends to be characteristic of RPGing. I think you see some of that same fluidity in games that haven't been technicalised (ie mostly ones played by children where there is no commercial interest in promoting technicalisation).

Right. If you go far enough back, before the 19th Century when leagues first started in baseball etc. you find that every village and town had its games and rules, maybe they agreed with the ones nearby so they could play each other. Such games were mostly children's games, and the rules were probably pretty fluid, maybe agreed on for each specific game before play. Stick and ball sports were the same, and as they all evolved they got more codified and became specific discrete sports, so nowadays it would be hard to combine baseball and cricket, but if you were to go back to 1820 you'd find that the 'baseball' they played back then was a heck of a lot more cricket-like, often it had 2 bases, etc. Back then it wasn't 2 different games, though 2 teams from different areas would have had to negotiate the exact rules they would use.

I would liken MOST RPGs to 'field sports', they might use different kinds of 'ball', slightly different arrangements of fields, players, handling rules, etc. but you can find some sort of common ground and either merge them, or graft things together. I mean, Gygax gave some fairly usable rules for merging Boot Hill with 1e, and they are QUITE different games, mechanically, yet it is pretty obvious what the issues are and the choices are merely how to translate something like a rule for how ai 6-shooter works into D&D vs trying to fuse together field hockey and baseball (how would you even approach that, their processes of play are COMPLETELY different).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I know DW probably codifies that, which is what makes it such a weird addition, it (if i'm right about it codifying it) basically short circuits it by adding mechanics that center on these bonds and such that they figure into the metagame of "beating the dragon or whatever." Whereas a game that doesnt do that, is more like a strategy game in your approach to your characters actions.

Well, one of the things that DW does is attach XP and certain ways to get bonuses on your die rolls to things like bonds, etc. (there are some playbooks/classes which provide other mechanics too, the paladin seems to have a lot of them). XP leads to leveling, which primarily adds additional moves to your character. So following your bonds and such (roleplay actions) does have mechanical advantages, which offset the possible lack of expediency that might arise from acting on a bond, for example. At least in the long run. This is the tension then, expediency says to do X, my bond would be upheld by doing Y. Is the immediate gain of X better than the long-term gain of Y, remembering that XP in DW is a PC-by-PC thing. You could literally end up being several levels behind everyone else if you simply always ignore your bonds and other similar stuff.

So, what you find is that players react to situations which test their bonds. Sometimes they SEEK THEM OUT, but other times they are just stuck on the horns of a dilemma, and one might say that DW (PbtA generally) is a kind of a 'dilemma creating engine', you are stuck with hard choices. It is about the choices and what your character does about them, and what happens because of that. DW's level/XP thing is just a way of making the horns sharper. I assume AW and other PbtA games have similar mechanisms (I have not really played them). It sounds like BitD is pretty much the same.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Here is a quick thought/offering:

Gygaxian Skilled Play rejects the idea of a necessary Thematic rider (a genre/archetype/premise-coherent credibility test for the introduction of a move/content into the shared imagined space) constraining the Tactical and/or Strategic move-space for PCs and Team PC that creates the paradigm of Skilled Play.

Dungeon World and Blades in the Dark requires a Thematic rider as a necessary precondition to even engage with the Tactical and/or Strategic move-space that creates the paradigm of Skilled Play.

---

Put another way, in only one of these offerings will you see (the actual or the equivalent of) Spec Ops SOPs with levitating PCs with 10 ft poles and bags of marbles (et al) and dungeon denizen drowning plans while everyone else actively doesn't do stuff to maximize effect and minimize exposure.

I'm not sure how DW enforces that. I guess it does to the same extent any game enforces any similar 'table behavior' which is not codified. That is, if the GM asks a player a question, that invites the player to inject some sort of fiction, but the constraints on what that fiction is are not part of the rules. They aren't even spelled out very clearly in the agenda/principles.

So, if you are GMing a DW game and in session zero you ask me "where is your character from?" and I respond, "the Starship Enterprise", what is going on here? Well, perhaps there's an unspoken 'rule' that DW is a fantasy genre game. Certainly that answer won't get me a phaser. It might get me booted from the table, or OTOH it might be a signal that the other players take up to 'go gonzo' with the setting and introduce some kind of cross-genre element to play. It would heavily depend on the table.

DW specifically lacks much in the way of opportunities for players to do this in the midst of 'the action' though. The GM answers all the questions that arise directly from codified moves. Clearly he could introduce Klingons beaming into the tavern as part of setting a scene, but the same considerations apply.

Anyway, in terms of classic D&D type McGuyver type SP stuff... Eh, I could see a DW group maybe going for that, to a degree. They'd have to manage their build choices and relationships so as to foster something like that. They could concoct the "Delver's Society" and give it a history of stories of amazing feats of cleverness in 'The Great Dungeon' or something like that, and the GM would need to arrange how pressure is applied to the PCs to bring about that play. It would probably not be exactly like D&D though, and certainly how it was 'driven', the PLAYERS reasons for why they made specific choices, would be very different. I would not ever call it Gygaxian Skilled Play, but it illustrates that the resulting narrative of play might not be enough to diagnose which type of game is in process.

 

[Voadam]

From what you write I think you get my point though, right? That although you can roleplay your character and engage in "skilled play", "skilled play" doesn't care if you roleplay your character. That is orthogonal to it.

I did not understand that as having been your point, though I agree with it.

I thought your saying that the skilled play move for the truthful bard was to lie was to suggest that skilled play is generally oppositional to roleplaying your character, not orthogonal.

 

[clearstream]

I did not understand that as having been your point, though I agree with it.

I thought your saying that the skilled play move for the truthful bard was to lie was to suggest that skilled play is generally oppositional to roleplaying your character, not orthogonal.

The fault is mine: I often struggle to get my idea across clearly. I did intend the same as you - i.e. orthogonal to.

I don't see "skilled play" as oppositional to roleplaying your character. There may be groups that consistently or by intent do both. That's how I read @Manbearcat's examples. I just believe a group could be doing recognisably "skilled play" without any commitment to roleplaying their characters.

 

[Voadam]

I just believe a group could be doing recognisably "skilled play" without any commitment to roleplaying their characters.

Absolutely. Same thing for mechanical focus play. You can show up and just want to roll some dice and have fun without approaching things from a skilled play or roleplay perspective.

A characterization to be roleplayed is not required.

It is orthogonal, a different aspect of the game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ok, my present course is clearly not moving any units, so I'm going to try a different tack (building upon my most recent post).

In any game you have a conceptual maximum permissible number of moves that are constrained by the ruleset. Taxonomically speaking, this is the "top of the food chain" (this would be Kingdom in Biology). In some games, the opening move and any subsequent move thereafter will encompass a staggering number of possible moves. in other games, the opener and any subsequent move thereafter is winnowed due to opening gamestate conditions and evolving gamestate conditions.

At its most primordial level, playing skillfully is sorting through possible permutations of the move-space (whether its the opening move or a subsequent move) such that the outputs of your decision-point (your "move made") yield a gamestate that places you closer to a Win Condition than the inverse. Further still, you can play more or less skillfully here. To just put numbers to it for illustration, you have a Win Condition at value 30 and you have the following "move values"; -2, 4, 13. It will absolutely be clear upon honest and informed reflection of the play that the move equaling 13 units would have been profoundly better move than the move equaling 4 units and both would have been considerably better than the -2 gaffe (which moved you closer to a Loss Condition).

So, before I go any further, I'd like to ask a question (and get an answer) and make a proposition (and get an answer):

1) Do we at least agree with the above conception of skilled play? If not, can I get some clarification on disagreement?

Yes, with the proviso that many things, possibly including some RPGs, may be 'games' but not 'games of skill' where the above model may be applied. I make this proviso with the idea that we need to be aware of the possibility that this is a point of confusion where some people may not conceive of a given RPG in 'competitive game' terms. I am of the opinion that GSP describes a type of game which can be modeled as 'competitive' however, and that it is one of a class of such games.

2) Further, there is a well-known phenomena in games called "handicapping." Handicapping (for those who don't know) is when you do the "I'll fight you with one arm tied behind my back" phenomena. This is done for one of two purposes (though in the end, both are borne out...I'm merely speaking about why the impetus for handicapping exists):

a) To level the playing field in a situation where one competitor is clearly more capable than another.

b) To allow a competitor to express their extreme competency/capability/skillfulness in an endeavor because (i) artificially contracting a participant's move-space makes play more demanding for them and (ii) ,resultantly, it artificially (or actually depending upon how the handicapping is done) moves them closer to their Loss Con and farther from their Win Con than they would be without the handicapping.

I'm with you so far...

---

So can I get an answer about these two things please?

Agree? If there is disagreement, please clarify.

<anyone else who wants to chime in on this is more than welcome>

Please and thank you!

@clearstream , I'll address your real or hypothetical play excerpt above after you review what I've written above and have responded (there are issues with your understanding of how Dungeon World would resolve such a conflict both as a player and as a GM...but I don't want to do a hypothetical post-mortem until we're on the same page on the above).

Let me observe that it is possible to play the same game (IE engage the same rules and process) either in a 'competitive' mode, or in a 'non-competitive' mode. Furthermore someone can 'practice' at some games, which might involve disengaging parts of the rules or eliding parts of play (IE setting up the chess pieces in a non-starting configuration). These might be permutations which have some meaning in discussing RPGs as well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The fault is mine: I often struggle to get my idea across clearly. I did intend the same as you - i.e. orthogonal to.

I don't see "skilled play" as oppositional to roleplaying your character. There may be groups that consistently or by intent do both. That's how I read @Manbearcat's examples. I just believe a group could be doing recognisably "skilled play" without any commitment to roleplaying their characters.

It seemed clear enough to me

I think one of @Manbearcat's contentions WRT DW (and I guess BitD) is that skilled play and RP/characterization considerations are NOT orthogonal because the game deliberately invests them with mechanical weight bearing on success or failure at tasks in the game.

He furthermore describes 'Win Cons' for these games in terms of successfully expressing certain preferred outcomes in the fiction, and in gaining rewards like XP.

@pemerton It occurs to me, in respect of our discussion about sports, that there are two ways that competitive activities could share characteristics. Most sports have scoring systems. Even in cases where scoring is not an integral play activity there are scores (IE gymnastics, though it partakes less of the character of game than some things, still it is part of the Olympic GAMES). So, I see this as ONE way that you can have concordance, two activities can both involve scoring.

Another form of concordance is in terms of process/rules/structure, like the way field sports have clearly similar elements which can be equated (IE the field, teams, goals, player positions, McGuffin handling rules, etc.).

The second form of concordance facilitates merging of activities, and I would say RPGs pretty generally fall under that umbrella. You can combine Boot Hill with AD&D because they have PCs, players, GMs, combat, some sort of dice-based checks, etc. The first form of concordance doesn't seem to me to particularly facilitate merging, except that its presence or absence might be critical (IE it would be pretty hard to merge 2 games where one is non-competitive and doesn't involve scoring and the other does, though maybe not impossible).

Maybe this helps? I mean, it may help to understand why we have trouble imagining how you would merge the play processes of GSP with story games... While Manbearcat argues that some of them at least have a competitive 'Win Cons' architecture, I'm not so sure myself. I don't think the idea of 'Winning' DW is that compelling to me. Certainly not to the degree that winning classic D&D might be.

 

[Campbell]

@Manbearcat

I think I could be somewhat compelled that Alignment as it originally existed was consistent with a sort of handicapping, but I think while there is a skill in playing a game like Blades in the Dark or Dungeon World well it is fundamentally different in nature. Approaching play from the perspective of what would Ragnar do is something I consider different in character to Jon what are you going to have Ragnar do to defeat this challenge. This often gets lost in many of these discussions. If only we had some other pithy phrase to discuss games where the point of play is to prove you are skilled by overcoming challenge. One might call it something like Step On Up. That would be crazy though.