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

[Thomas Shey]

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.

I suspect this runs up hard against at least some of the Rulings, Not Rules crowd's views on it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

i would disagree. I have seen enormous overlap in both the skill set, and in the type of player, who engages in the challenge of character optimization and mastery of the system during play. That said, there is some spill. Occasionally skilled play in the OSR sense requires some amount of mastering the system, but it is very much a different focus than you would find among say 3E players who know the system in and out and know how to make it work how they want during play. That system mastery skill set can be applied to skills in the environment. But I do think there is a difference between where that player is engaging their skill and where a player who is doing it in the OSR sense is engaging their skill (and one isn't better or worse than the other, and there is definitely blend----see my posts where I talk about my own games having system masters and players who are focused on skilled play: there is overlap). I think when people talk about system mastery they are talking about mastery of deep crunch, particularly in heavier and mid-crunch systems, where if you don't have it the difference is noticeable (so much so that I found you were effectively playing different games when I ran 3E, if i were playing with a group who had system mastery versus a group who didn't).

All that said, I think the kind of skilled play you have in the OSR, is a bit trickier to do in comprehensive systems like 3E, because those both require a level of system mastery to play the game skillfully, and they more mechanics for handling the character interacting with the environment; where a lot of OSR games tend to emphasis more direct interaction with the environment ideally less mediated by rolls (they are there, you just don't have this suite of skills like in 3E that handles so many of those aspects of play)

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

I think it really depends on the ability in question. Creatively using a spell against the environment? Sure. But using Bluff on a guard? Or a gather information roll to gather information? That isn't OSR skill play in my mind (it is valid play, but just not what people mean when they talk about it in the OSR)

 

[clearstream]

I found something articulated in WWN that for me connected with the discussion at hand.

Worlds Without Number is based on an “Old School Renaissance” rules chassis strongly inspired by the classic gaming books of Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Tom Moldvay, and Zeb Cook.

It’s the custom in many modern RPGs to use a character’s abilities and powers to directly resolve challenges in play. If you face a fight, you look up your fighting scores. If you’ve got a negotiation to manage, you check your sheet for your social skills. If the world throws you an odd situation, you look for the powers your PC has that might resolve the obstacle. Skillful play lies in making good choices in acquiring the right abilities and using them in an efficient way.

A PC Warrior is a good combatant, but there are a lot of foes they can’t reasonably defeat. A PC Expert is superb at their chosen skills, but there’s no guarantee that those skills will be particularly relevant to the adventure’s challenges. Even the multifarious sorceries of the PC Mage are often awkward or unrelated to a problem. Instead, players are encouraged to think of ways around problems instead of going straight through them. If the tools your attributes and powers give you aren’t what the problem asks for, the players need to think of ways to make them what the problem needs. They need to change the terms of the situation to ones they can better handle, pull back to find a different route to their goal, or make a bet that what they’ve got will be enough in the end.

While this style of play can be challenging for many players, with solutions so often reliant on their own creativity and ability to shift the situation, it also has its special rewards. In Worlds Without Number, if your hero wins through to their goal, it wasn’t because you picked the right combination of classes or efficiently optimized your character build. It was because you, the player, made the right choices at the right times. You ran when you needed to run, fought when you had to fight, and trusted to your luck no more than you had to. Your victory is yours, and that’s a pleasure no dice-luck or forum build can grant.

If one is with Kevin Crawford (and it is a style of play I enjoy) then I believe one must include in one's skill-construct non-mechanical DM and player decisions and actions. For how does one "change the terms of the situation" if one is not to "look for the powers your PC has that might resolve the obstacle"? Only through extra-mechanical conversation. If written down game mechanics that the PC may use cannot resolve the obstacle, because the solution must be down to creativity, then we are going to have to step outside what the rules force to happen if they are followed.

No matter how small that step is, it is in character different from rolling a die, seeing 5 and applying 5. If Kevin Crawford is right in seeing this style of play as challenging and skillful, then it must be that making non-mechanical decisions and actions - from small to large - can be skillful. It must be that a DM applies skill when they choose one target over another for Slay Living, and that players can be skillful when they respond to that choice. Or take @Manbearcat's example of play given above. The player character makes a remarkable move that the DM set up by having a wand bounce down a shaft, rather than say melting into useless slag. The result "was (a) extraordinary skillful play".

One way to resist this might be to conflate the result of die rolls and direct implementation of mechanics (e.g. mechanic says X foes of player choice gain stunned condition, player chooses X foes, they gain exactly stunned condition and nothing further) with choices with no firm definition - drawn from the vast library of human imagination - where we can truthfully say that another DM, or even the same DM on a different night, would have decided differently.

This to me is one of the wonderful pillars of RPG, that we may use pre-agreed (we wrote them down beforehand) mechanics to order and inspire creative decisions. To give players sanctuary in their powers of fiat (i.e. using what is written on their character sheet) while also allowing them to try whatever they like (even things we didn't write down beforehand) and to be surprised by their DM (or one another) trying whatever they liked.

 

[Aldarc]

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

Often in the superhero genre, a lot of character development happens through combat. For example, we learn a lot about who Peter Parker is, how he thinks, and his values when we follow his fights from panel to panel.

 

[clearstream]

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 one our players first started playing their Druid, they didn't have a good grasp of damage and hit points. Once, their Druid put themselves recklessly in danger against some bugbears from Grudd Haug who were pillaging an orchid (I was drawing on, but not following closely, SKT), and the dice as they fell would have killed them outright.

A measurable phenomena in play (I have measured it and others have written papers on it) is a specific kind of difficulty that leads to perseverance. In brief, if a game isn't taxing enough, players are less likely to engage with it, but if a game is too taxing they are more likely to switch off it. In this case, I saw that the challenge was too taxing so I reduced the damage. I think changing the number on the die by DM fiat is force.

One of the biggest initial factors in development of skill is what is called practice effect (nearly all players evidence sharp skill increases when they a) understand a game, and b) practice at it a few times). Through perseverance, a player gains understanding and practice. Through dealing less than lethal damage I conveyed that the stakes were high and that either a rapid escape or something remarkable was going to be needed. The player decided to try negotiation instead of flight, grasping that the bugbears needed something and maybe their character could help them get it. The thought their charm person might be effective on the one who seemed to be in charge. IIRC the scenario ended up with the druid escaping in the form of a bird, unfortunately.

Suppose I was right in what I believed about the player experience, and in this case they truly did gain skill from my forcing the damage roll. I think they also had greater opportunity to express skill than if they had been simply dead.

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.

Your case, and the case in my edit, are not the same cases.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think it really depends on the ability in question. Creatively using a spell against the environment? Sure. But using Bluff on a guard? Or a gather information roll to gather information? That isn't OSR skill play in my mind (it is valid play, but just not what people mean when they talk about it in the OSR)

Let's look more closely at the Bluff the guard scenario.

Player wants to get into a city. He weighs his options - scaling the walls, waiting a long time for the city to go off high alert, trying to hide in merchants goods that are making their way into the city, creating a distraction and walking past the guards, bribing the guards, bluff the guards, using magic, etc.

A player from 3e decides to try and bluff the guards as he's playing a charismatic character with the bluff skill (or equivalent) leveled up. He made that choice because he is interacting with the environment. He made that choice because there was no other mode of guaranteed success and he felt this one provided him a good opportunity of success and solid contingencies if things went wrong. 1) he can fall back on the bluff skill if his character responses to the guard fail to grant success on their own (assuming there is an opportunity for that). 2) if even that fails he can attempt to run away as he's at the city gate. This whole decision involved interacting with the environment.

Now let's take a look at how this plays in OSR. It's basically identical. Except perhaps the DM asks for a check instead of a player initiating one (i don't know what the 3e rules actually were regarding who initiates skill checks).

Like, what's the difference?

 

[FrogReaver]

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

One can also roleplay during monopoly, but that doesn't mean a series of monopoly games where you roleplay is an RPG.

 

[FrogReaver]

I suspect this runs up hard against at least some of the Rulings, Not Rules crowd's views on it.

How?

 

[pemerton]

When one our players first started playing their Druid, they didn't have a good grasp of damage and hit points. Once, their Druid put themselves recklessly in danger against some bugbears from Grudd Haug who were pillaging an orchid (I was drawing on, but not following closely, SKT), and the dice as they fell would have killed them outright.

A measurable phenomena in play (I have measured it and others have written papers on it) is a specific kind of difficulty that leads to perseverance. In brief, if a game isn't taxing enough, players are less likely to engage with it, but if a game is too taxing they are more likely to switch off it. In this case, I saw that the challenge was too taxing so I reduced the damage. I think changing the number on the die by DM fiat is force.

One of the biggest initial factors in development of skill is what is called practice effect (nearly all players evidence sharp skill increases when they a) understand a game, and b) practice at it a few times). Through perseverance, a player gains understanding and practice. Through dealing less than lethal damage I conveyed that the stakes were high and that either a rapid escape or something remarkable was going to be needed. The player decided to try negotiation instead of flight, grasping that the bugbears needed something and maybe their character could help them get it. The thought their charm person might be effective on the one who seemed to be in charge. IIRC the scenario ended up with the druid escaping in the form of a bird, unfortunately.

Suppose I was right in what I believed about the player experience, and in this case they truly did gain skill from my forcing the damage roll. I think they also had greater opportunity to express skill than if they had been simply dead.

This looks like a story about teaching. To me it seems to live in the same space as, say, a parent who holds back when teaching a child to play a competitive game.

To use Gygaxian language, did the player earn their success? Also, out of curiosity, did you tell the player you'd changed the die roll?

If one is with Kevin Crawford (and it is a style of play I enjoy) then I believe one must include in one's skill-construct non-mechanical DM and player decisions and actions. For how does one "change the terms of the situation" if one is not to "look for the powers your PC has that might resolve the obstacle"? Only through extra-mechanical conversation. If written down game mechanics that the PC may use cannot resolve the obstacle, because the solution must be down to creativity, then we are going to have to step outside what the rules force to happen if they are followed.

No matter how small that step is, it is in character different from rolling a die, seeing 5 and applying 5. If Kevin Crawford is right in seeing this style of play as challenging and skillful, then it must be that making non-mechanical decisions and actions - from small to large - can be skillful. It must be that a DM applies skill when they choose one target over another for Slay Living, and that players can be skillful when they respond to that choice.

Kevin Crawford is talking about player, not GM, decision-making, in a context which presupposes a strong player/GM divide.

Beyond that, he is articulating the same idea of engaging the fiction that I, @Campbell and others have posted about multiple times in this and related threads.