D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants

[Bedrockgames]

Okay. This may be a case where I misunderstood what you meant by neutral and distant to the setting.

Just to respond to what you said, if I understand the post, I think you raise a valid point. I haven't done a survey of all OSR GMs so I don't know if the default leans more in the direction of neutrality or not. I definitely think lots of tables value a more neutral GM, but 1) I have seen other approaches even in OSR skilled play games, and 2) one potential downside that you do sometimes see to the type of play, which I myself often advocate, is the GM being invested in the world can lead to problems if they are unaware of their own attachments to things in it (I think this is an impulse all GMs have, but it is one that can be particularly strong in games where there is emphasis on the "GM's world"). That is why I keep saying being fair and impartial is a goal or ideal (not an achievable end state), and something you always have to keep striving for. When I am running these kinds of games for example, I am frequently checking myself in that respect. I can even give a perfect example from my session last night (at least it is almost perfect, since dice were involved and it would have been a bit hard for me to go agains them)

I am running a campaign where the players are all constables and their boss, Constable Bai, is a major, major character in my setting (he started out as a PC back in 2016-17, and became an NPC that I have used regularly in a particular region: he is kind of a roaming Sheriff who ignores lines of jurisdiction and a bit of a moron (the kind of person who is easily persuaded to arrest the obviously wrong man). I always liked this character when the player who ran him played him; and I try to do my best impression of him when I run the character. So I have a bias towards this NPC. In last night's session I was running a randomized murder mystery (I do these when I don't have time to prep much: I make tables determining who the victim of the murders will be, what clues might be at the scene of the crime, where the person was killed, etc). The victim table keyed to my master list of NPCs in this region of the setting (I liked the idea of a poisoner who was using sleeping poison to kill powerful characters). This list has something like 100 entries on it. The players had been investigating the killings (someone was murdering people and taking their body parts to basically make a flesh golem that would be the incarnation of their god: so a group of cultists). Just as they had found the main headquarters and destroyed the flesh golem the group was killing, the leader of the cult was out committing another murder. When I rolled on the table (and I had the players roll in order to keep me 100% honest) the result was Constable Bai. Not only did this feel a little improbably (because they had just been given orders to come to this city by Constable Bai himself and he was presumably still away from the city) but my biases were definitely rising up with that result. My honest impulse was to find a way to save the character (maybe there is still time to save him, maybe he can be resurrected through magic, etc). But when I noticed these impulses, I reminded myself to let the dice fall where they may and embrace the result. Where this became fun for me is it sent the campaign in a direction I wouldn't have gone (I wouldn't have thought to kill Constable Bai, probably wouldn't have wanted to), and now the Assistant Sheriff (who was a sort of slimy corrupt character) replaced Bai as the Sheriff (the 'constable' part of Constable Bai's name is simply retained because it sounds better than Sheriff Bai). Again this involved dice, so it was easier to keep my biases in check (though as GM I could have done any number of things to 'save' him). But I think those same kinds of impulses that I was feeling are things you need to be aware of in this style of game when you are deciding things (for example when players talk to an NPC and try to convince them of something, are you going direction A rather than B because that is where the words the PCs said to that NPC would lead that NPC to go, or is A really just where you want the adventure to go that night; and B would actually be the authentic response of the NPC).

 

[pemerton]

A GM could certainly use force unskillfully which would very likely mean it was dissatisfying to players and limited their opportunities to play skillfully. On the other hand, a GM could use force skillfully to elevate the challenges and open up opportunities for players to play skillfully. I have witnessed both. Remember that I regard any time a DM decides as much on p

That seems like a weakness in your analysis.

In classic D&D, if an evil high priest casts Slay Living, the GM has to decide who is the target of that, because the spell is a single target effect. That is the GM playing the NPC in accordance with the system's action resolution rules.

In classic D&D, if the GM decides to just frame a scene with an evil high priest even though that is not part of the map-and-key, and is not generated by a wandering monster role, that is the GM establishing a situation outside the system parameters. It means that the players' play of their characters up to that point, including their husbanding of resources, becomes negated.

Only the second is "force". And it clearly pushes against the possibility of skilled play.

I am not saying that decisions are undifferentiated, or equal in quality, I am saying that any DM decision is open to being skillful or unskillful, elevating or deflating to player skill. As a thought experiment, I imagine a vast number of DMs faced with the same putatively constrained and obliged decision, and I believe they will make a diversity of decisions... possibly as many as one per DM.

Can you give an example of what you mean by a GM decision that "elevates player skill", by reference to an actual RPG system and approach?

when I think of skill, I don't think of it as simply present or absent. Skill-constructs must include playing unskillfully (or less skillfully, is a better way to put it). So what is happening with the approaches you are thinking of (or when any approach is wielded badly) is that there is absolutely still skill, it is just a worse or more limited skill. As soon as we say that there is some skill, no matter how little, we have let skill in the door. That is different to my mind from excluding the possibility of skill.*

<snip>

*EDIT an exception is where no choice by players or outcome of mechanics is allowed to stick: the DM overwrites them all. I would exclude that from being RPG, seeing as it amounts to a monologue.

Your EDIT is not correct, I don't think. The players can declare actions, outcomes result, but the GM make decisions about the background fiction which mean that the consequences of those outcomes are no more or less than what the GM decides they should be. That would not be a monologue; but would be a very common way of approaching RPGs. I've seen multiple TSR and WotC modules, for instance, that advise the GM to do this.

I still do not really understand what you are trying to establish in your posts. Can you give an actual play example of something that you think manifests skilled play, but that you think other posters are wrongly failing to classify in that way?

 

[Manbearcat]

I am not sure what you mean by "at the population level", but as to more or less pro or anti immersion design. I reflect on Griffin Mountain compared with say Out of the Abyss. The latter takes a situation that could be represented highly immersively and - as written - tramples over immersion with hob-nailed boots. That whole Alice In Wonderland shtick. Griffin Mountain on the other hand presents people, places and facts in a neutral way that allows a group to properly explore the imagined world. It is light touch, primarily presenting history (or archaeology or anthropology) rather than story. We can of course use it to tell stories.

"At the population level" meaning across a robust distribution of players and not someone's autobiographical testimonial.

The approach of the designers in OOTA is very opposite. Very anti-immersive. For example the determination to get the characters to Gauntlgrym. As written it is very against showing what is there and letting things play out as they may. It takes work to overcome its purpose. Of course, it is rich material and a fascinating scenario, just handled anti-immersively. Likely most written D&D modules are in that category.


I admit that immersion is not yet as well understood as one would like. Possibly, in part that is because immersionists are interested in seeing what is there - drinking in rather than shouting out. And possibly also for what you seem to be touching on, which is that people are trained toward or inclined to certain things. Maybe humans just like more to see or impose pattern, story. And yes, the word is used in different ways and one persons "jarring to my immersion" pronouncement might really mean some other kind of jarring. The word most often seems to be ambiguated with inhabiting a character, where in my view the most sincere immersion inhabits the world.

I'm going to relay a quick anecdote about "immersion."

Last evening, the Dungeon World game I'm running for @darkbard and his wife reached its conclusion. Afterward, we reflected upon the play broadly and specific aspects/moments of play.

One moment in particular is salient here (and its also salient in another ongoing aspect of this thread and the other thread). There was a pivotal moment perhaps 7 sessions ago where the 2 PCs (darkbard's Paladin, his wife's Wizard, and their 6, yes SIX, Cohorts) were in a huge conflict at Camp 2 on their way up to a multi-staged perilous journey to the top of a K2 like peak to face one of the two primary antagonists of play. There was an archeological dig site (the Wizard was an archeologist and a team from her academy was there) at Camp 2; a giant dragon ossuary where ancient dragons at the end of their life go to die.

The other antagonist of the game was a horror from the Far Realm. Due to conspiring forces (I don't want to drag this out so I'm not getting into it), the magical fabric of the world was being undone and all sorts of rather bad things were happening as a byproduct. Places of power (like this ossuary) were particularly prone to issues. So they were attacked by an animated Dracolich that obliterated the dig site (archetecture, including a lift to get down into the ossuary and scaffolding etc, and personnel).

The Wizard had a newly crafted wand (infused with primal elemental - lightning - magic). When the dragon burst from the shaft leading down to the ossuary, all hell broke loose. When she attempted to use the wand to Cast a Spell, she got a 6-. The hard move I made against her was to have the wand explode out of her hand in a lightning-charged event...it bounced once, twice, three times and then down into the shaft.

Up top they were in a fight for their life. This could have gone south quick in a TPK (very nearly did...there were two near TPKs in the game and this was the 2nd one). Maraqli (the Wizard) is rash and impetuous (her play and her bonds and her Alignment created a very distinct feedback loop of an extraordinarily impulsive, borderline reckless, character). Her move when this happened was not to help her companions deal with the Dracolich. It was to leap down into the shaft (using a 3rd level Wizard spell that she has that gives her 1 hold to spend to either discharge a Lightning Bolt or Feather Fall - which she did here), get her wand back and close the fraying magical fabric of the world in the ossuary (and confront the denizens that were spilling forward from it or the animated dragon bones if it came to that).

When this happened...both darkbard and I were sitting there slackjawed. Holy crap. That is...quite a...thing. She basically self-inflicted a "Separate the Party" complication on them and left the Paladin and the Cohorts outgunned in trying to deal with the Dracolich.

But the following was going on in her head (these are her words, more or less):

1) "I HAD to get down there. The tear in the tapestry that was making this happen had to be closed...and I needed my new wand for that (play had established that Elemental Magic, particularly Lightning, amplified moves/Clock ticks to close these tears/rifts). Maraqli is impulsive. That was my basic instinct there so I jumped at it."

2) She is someone who is very "habitation/immersion-centric" in her play and this moment in particular was a highlight of habitation/immersion for her. Darkbard is different in orientation (as he's discussed prior...he pivots between a few stances/states, but there is a persistent 3rd Person Omniscient that undergirds his cognitive state...even when he's emotionally swept up in the play).

3) In retrospect, this was (a) extraordinary skillful play (at the moment it seemed crazytown to both darkbard and I...but we were both fundamentally incorrect...in retrospect, this was probably the most skillful play move she could have made), (b) it was immersive, thematically-robust play, and (c) she was inhabiting both (a) and (b) simultaneously in her OODA Loop; she was threading the needle of skilled play meets immersive, thematically-robust play.

I mean, I already know/knew that this can be done. But to hear her testimonial about this last night basically puts it to bed for me entirely that all of (i) (c) is a thing (that the cognitive state that underwrites skilled play and immersion/habitation can be married...that needle can be threaded) and (ii) Dungeon World is absolutely a game that features Skilled Play and (iii) the cognitive state of "immersion/habitation" is not some objective feature embedded into a particular configuration of agenda/principles/reward cycles/feedback loops/action resolution mechanics. System Matters in dozens of ways (ALL the ways)...but immersion/habitation is a personal thing...a product of one's particular cognitive features/nuance.

 

[Campbell]

Most GMs are going to make approximately 1,000,000 judgement calls a session. I expect GM judgement to be a fundamental feature of all play. That is exactly why a consistent basis for those judgment calls is so crucial. If that basis is extrapolation of the fiction a player may use their ability to reason about the fiction with a measure of skill to anticipate the possibilities. They can seek information that is likely to be useful in that endeavor.

For challenge oriented or character focused play if the juice is going to be worth the squeeze I need to be confident that no one (but especially the GM) is making decisions on the basis of particular story aims. I cannot get invested or play confidently in such a scenario. For me it's not a matter of how much it is done. It's a matter of it always being a possibility which means it's never not a possibility. That means I can never be confident that my play is actually impacting the situation.

 

[pemerton]

OSR style skilled play of being challenged by the dungeon and pitting your wits against it, is a different focus from pitting your wits against the system of the game itself

Those aren't the only two alternatives. The Green Knight is about as far frame a dungeoneering game as I can imagine while still being a FRPG. But as per my posts upthread, the main skill is in relation to the fiction (3 of the 4 elements of skill that I identified).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Those aren't the only two alternatives. The Green Knight is about as far frame a dungeoneering game as I can imagine while still being a FRPG. But as per my posts upthread, the main skill is in relation to the fiction (3 of the 4 elements of skill that I identified).

I am not contesting that. I said their are other ways to approach and conceptualize. I am just pointing out there is a distinction people would make between 3E style system mastery (where you are putting player skill against system) and OSR style skilled play against the environment and setting. If there is a ash to engage fiction that is thought of as skilled , fair enough. This isn’t an idea I have encountered before but I don’t think it can’t happen if anything. But all that means is yet another distinction is being lost or folded in with the other two approaches I described.

 

[FrogReaver]

Except, of course, the system on the player side is never simply "tell a story". It is "you may propose a change in the fiction, within some parameters, possibly using some resources and/or having some risk of failing to get what you want" - which is a pretty typical game thing.

Sure. But being a game covers alot of space. A game where players rolled a d20 and then highest d20 narrated everything for the next 2 minutes would be a game. The players would still be telling a story and have a risk of not getting what they want. You could even overlay some resources they could spend to increase their chances of getting the highest d20.

One of the unfortunate things that seems to have come out of a lot of RPG theorizing, is that you can think about role in the internalized/immersion sense ("Inhabiting the mind of my character, what is my next action?") or the tactical sense ("I am the tank in this party, my role in a fight is to soak up hits, so what is the optimal tactical choice for me here?") and folks say you are playing a role-playing game. But, if you think about role in terms of role in the fiction ("I am the Reluctant Hero, what is the best story development for me here?") and choose gameplay accordingly, you are suddenly not playing a role playing game, you are playing a storytelling game.

I think often what your character would do and what the best story development for me here is often the same thing. It's when they aren't and how that situation gets handled where the criticism lies.

I view Combat more as a challenge based mini-game for many RPGs. If a game was setup where all you did was go through a string of combat encounters I wouldn't view that an RPG.

 

[FrogReaver]

I am not contesting that. I said their are other ways to approach and conceptualize. I am just pointing out there is a distinction people would make between 3E style system mastery (where you are putting player skill against system) and OSR style skilled play against the environment and setting. If there is a ash to engage fiction that is thought of as skilled , fair enough. This isn’t an idea I have encountered before but I don’t think it can’t happen if anything. But all that means is yet another distinction is being lost or folded in with the other two approaches I described.

System Mastery covers far too much ground IMO. Character Creation and advancement is definitely a different skill. But System Mastery entails many aspects of actually playing the game and I would say those aspects more closely align with playing against environment and setting.

Ultimately, using character abilities to interact with the environment and setting (no matter how they were obtained) is more OSR style skilled play than System Mastery IMO.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I view Combat more as a challenge based mini-game for many RPGs. If a game was setup where all you did was go through a string of combat encounters I wouldn't view that an RPG.

That seems to imply people can't roleplay during combat. That seems ill-supported in my experience.

 

[Umbran]

My point wasn't about the Reluctant Hero specifically. It was that if it is understood that the character conception is to be preserved or reinforced by the process of play, then I think that speaks against a high degree of conflict.

Ah. It would seem to me that, from a story-focused view, the fictional role of the character is an element to be both used and interrogated by the story as it unfolds. It is not specifically to be preserved - characters change over time, after all.